[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] down. Oh hey. [Music] Hey everybody. [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey. [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey hey hey. [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Hey, Heat. Hey hey hey. Hey hey hey. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey hey hey. [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 9th, 2025. Madame Clerk, please call the role. Mayor Go, here. Vice Mayor Core here. Council member Arius, Council Member Gonzalez, Council Member Weir, Council Member Smith, I am here. Council member Kman here. Council member Basher here. Thank you. Welcome to all of you. In keeping with the council's 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. If you wish to make a public statement, please fill out a public speaker card and place it on the tray next to the speaker podium. We ask that you mark whether you're 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 agenda item will be presumed speakers for the non-aggenda portion of the meeting. If you're here to speak on an item not listed on the meeting agenda, you'll be called first to speak. Statements are given a two-minute time limit per speaker, 20 minutes total for all non-aggenda item public statements. If you're here to speak on an item listed on the agenda, I'll call for you at the appropriate time. If public statements become disruptive and I've cleared the chambers to regain order of the meeting, you'll 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 decorum established by the city council. Failure to abide by the city's rules of decorum, including any disruptive behavior that interferes with our ability to have an orderly and efficient meeting prevents the city council from conducting the business of the city. Consider this a first warning to everyone in attendance that conduct that disrupts this meeting may result in expulsion and/or the chambers being cleared. Behavior that disrupts the meeting includes repetitive statements, shouting, hate speech, interrupting staff or presenters during the meeting, speaking out of turn, outburst from the audience, and surpassing the twominut time limit. Madam clerk, do we have any public speakers regarding items not listed on the agenda? Margo, we have received three speaker cards regarding items not on the agenda. The first speaker this evening is Eddie Lane. Thank you. Welcome. Please introduce yourself. I'm I'm Eddie Lane. I'm with the Sierra Club and I have a little handout for you. Um let me begin by indicating that um I wish some of the national people would be here to read the names on this roster here. Aras Gonzalez go and look at the And they're not all here. Oh, there's Mr. Gonzalez. Okay. Uh, you know, we have diversity here. Diversity is healthy in a community and the diversity elected you all and it's a it's it's a benefit. It's a plus. It's not a negative. So, I'm proud that Bakersfield embraces diversity. So, thank you. Now, to my comments. Uh, we've been here many times about tree issues. What I want to uh indicate is that we had a very positive uh tree city dialogue back on March 17th and I sent around the notes from it. I'm pleased that several city staff were there uh in in the plan that you adopted uh the supplement to the tree plan. The one of the key points of that is that we look around at other communities and the the first community we're looking at is Fresno. So we had a dialogue with key staff people from Fresno going into how they did their their tree plan. It's called urban forest plan. It was very very sub substant sub substantive in its discussions. Some of the points are here. Um what we're hoping is that we can to some extent replicate that city model. I'm going to give you just one example. Uh every year they plant 1,000 trees. this year, uh, this is fiscal year, they're up to,300. So, we've got a good model with Fresno. What we're hoping is that we can use that in the tree committee and working with you as an example for what we can do. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Lane. Next speaker, please. The next The next speaker is Sharon Bril. Madam Clerk, for the record, Council Member Gonzalez entered at 3:33. Hello. Nice to see you all again, Sharon Briel. Um, unfortunately, my letter's not coming up, so I'm going to do it on the fly. Um, I'm here to uh give you my concerns regarding some of the things that have been going on with uh the tree situation. First of all, I'd like to um again reiterate how important it is that the tag the tree advisory group, the meetings uh notices and the agenda and the um meeting uh minutes are available to people that are interested like me. Um right now the only way I can find out if this meeting is scheduled is to call the parks and reccks department. So I don't think that it encourages uh citizen involvement and I think that's very important because as you remember the whole reason why the trees became such an important issue for all of us was what we were observing in the field with the trees being trimmed a lot. Um the next issue that was on my list was to share my concerns regarding um conflict of interest. Um I didn't get picked for the tag team. I was disappointed as I wanted to be on the team. I was willing to serve. I'm retired. I have time. Uh I wasn't picked. Um I don't know what the um qualifications were to be picked. Um but what I do know is that there are people on that board that have um an association or a familiarity with the vendor who does the tree trimming, which I feel makes it a little bit um difficult to feel like there isn't a conflict of interest. So, I just wanted to bring that to your attention. And then lastly, um the Fresno uh folks is a great model and we don't need to reinvent the wheel. Um it was really great to see so many city staff at that uh Zoom meeting that we conducted from the Sierra Club and um the main thing that I took from it was that they have a database for their trees. They inventory all the trees. They know exactly the species. they know how how long they've been uh since they've been trimmed and um Oh, time's up. Very important. They trim their trees only every 10 years and ours are trimmed every single year. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. The next speaker is Michael Turnupseed. Good good afternoon, Madame Mayor. I'm Michael Turnup Seed. I represent the Kern County Taxpayers Association. I missed your last meeting and missed one of the better shows that your meeting had. It lasted a long time with a lot of information. And I want to talk about some of today specifically on sewer rates just to go through facts if people weren't there. The current rate is $239 per basically rate payer and those are just residents. There was no mention of commercial or other uh meter fees or other things that are paid in this revenue plan. So I didn't know what that was necessarily. and they want to propose a new rate of $950, which nets out $69 million a year. Over five years, that's $345 million. But your project is going to be $567 million. So, you're going to end up using all this new money for just one project that's not going to address ongoing maintenance problems or anything else unless you add more revenue. It it it seems very shortsighted to us. And so if you take $567 million and put it over 5 years, that would be $113 million. All of this burden is going on current rateayers. I have been dealing with current tax for 20 years now and 18 years with school districts. I've added some materials there for you to look at our work with the school districts. Debt is not bad when it's used wisely, but debt is a tool to accomplish your goals when used wisely. And it's a bad when it's not used wisely. And we've been working with special districts and schools for 20 years now. So everybody was concerned about, well, there's all this interest. Well, it is. You pay a lot of interest over 30 years. 567 million will turn out to be a billion dollars over 30 years. A billion dollars over 30-year payments is 34 million a year. If you're looking at managing your cash flows and annual revenues, it is a tool not to overburden the rate payers which you were so concerned about. There are tools that you do. And besides that, as Bakersville grows, you're not 30 over the next 30 years, you're going to double in size. So you're going to have another 100,000 rateayers helping to pay for facilities that are 30 to 50 years in useful length. It really doesn't make much sense. Thank you. Your time's up. Can you bring your comments to a close and thank you for the materials that you provided? Need to because closing statement. You can do a closing statement if you'd like. All right. Uh next speaker, please. I'm requesting to speak. Mayor, the next speaker is Ken Gillan. Council member Gonzalez. Uh Mr. Trampy, thank you so much for this letter and thank you for your comments today. I um I hear what you're saying and I think at the last council meeting um I I tried to communicate um my position um and just for the record for the benefit of the Bakers of California and I voted against uh the motion uh to increase the rates for option one of those sewer plans. Um, but I I I do want to ask staff if we can look at um some um additional options before we bring this back to the full council. Um perhaps um pushing back the construction date for um uh the sewer treatment plant um to give us more time to raise the capital through a rate increase to reduce the rates over the next five years, giving the option for future councils to increase it if necessary, but then also to look at that borrowing option as well. Um, I think a combination of those three things might help us get to a place where it's actually uh digestible and affordable for uh the constituents that we represent throughout the city and also meet the objectives long term that um are facing uh the city's infrastructure. And so um Mr. Timsey, I I'm sorry that you weren't at last meeting, but I really appreciate all of your effort and appreciate your advice here. So, thank you and your board. Madam clerk, next speaker, please. The next speaker is Carrie Gillan. Hello, city council members. Um, sorry. Go ahead. Yes, go ahead. Um, I was here at the January U meeting back on the 8th and I had proposed uh studio space rentals. I actually have pamphlets that I made for you guys. You can go ahead and just leave them in that tray. Thank you. And I wanted to go over these and kind of give you guys an overview of my idea cuz I think Andre, you had told me um last time that you were interested and I think I had brought up some like buildings that I thought were like vacant, but they had plans. So, I decided to go a different route instead and I decided to just give you guys like a concept idea. So the first page describes the what, the why, the how, and the where. And then of course, ideas are nice, but you need to be practical with ideas. So I decided to include some concept versus reality and of course practicality and the purpose and the benefits of these this idea. There is another set or another pamphlet on the inside that actually has signatures from community members that are like that I've spoken to in town and stuff. Um, I was able to talk to the couple members of the arts council of Kerna and they actually really like the idea. So, I have some of their p uh signatures. I have signatures from professors at BC and couple other people. But, um, one approach that I found unique was actually Zero Empty Spaces. They are an organization in Florida that actually does what my idea is, which is like they take they work with property owners and other people around towns that have spaces that they don't know what to do with, but it's just a vacant like building and they turn that into studio space studio spaces for artists where they can work and they can also show their work off and it's for lowincome people who need a place to work and stuff. Um there's models of success which is zero empty spaces and also another place called trust trust shama and then I included some floor plans that are just a basic idea and not the actual thing but thank you for listening and I hope you guys take the time to look through these pamphlets. I also included contact information in case you guys have any questions. Thank you Miss Gham for providing the material. Madam clerk any other speakers? Margo, there are uh no more speakers for non-aggenda items. And how about for items on the agenda? We have not received any speaker cards regarding items on the agenda. Thank you. Next item please. Reports. Item 3A, Rosedale Ranch Mega Site overview. Thank you, Mr. Click. Thank you, Mayor and Council. I'll just make some brief introduction comments and turn it over to Mr. Allan to introduce uh some of our speakers. Just wanted to set the context for this workshop. Um while we're talking about a very specific site, it's also important to note that, you know, we as um a city have established our economic development strategic plan that this site is consistent with our overarching economic development strategy. uh that we've identified target industry clusters that we want to pursue as uh job generators and uh we um have partnered uh with the property owners at Rosedale Ranch. They've um engaged with Newark as as well as the city engaging with Newark. Um and so some of some of the analysis um you know has been paid for by both parties, but it's good analysis for all of us. And then we also emphasize in our analysis um being you know really aware of how we can create more of these opportunities uh of course at this site but then also you know other sites citywide there's really good analysis for how we can pursue our industry clusters uh and site readiness uh that benefit you know the entirety of the city but specific to Rosedale Ranch just I just wanted to emphasize a very unique property and when we say the word mega site, it actually has a definition and it's a term of art for the federal government and state government. And so, as you'll see through some of this presentation, a unique piece of property that someone also wants to, you know, take the effort to master plan for job generation specifically. And so um there are some other sites you know um around the country but actually not that many and particularly in California sites like this are very hard to come by. And so you know again a very unique opportunity that we have to think about some significant job generation and one of those uh you know projects that I would consider to be you know a gamechanging project as far as e economic stimulus and and job generation. So with that, I'll turn it over to Mr. Howland to make a few more comments and introduce to the team. Great. So, uh, as Christian said, this this is a, uh, a very unique site. Um, you don't often see, 1600 acres contiguous under one ownership. Um, so in an economic development terms, you look for those, as Christian said, unique and compelling. And why is this so compelling is because we do have uh our industry sectors that have traditionally been here that are transitioning and and uh that that's changing. So what do we have in its place and that's what we're trying to create here? We're trying to create a site that can host thousands of jobs. Um we we love the word thousands and especially if it has jobs attached to it. So that's that's the most unique and compelling part about this project is the potential of it generating tens of thousands of jobs at this site. Uh so why do we spend time on things? Because it will ultimately benefit the community. And uh we're excited to have Newark be able to share some of their uh their things that they've outlined in their study. Uh like uh city manager Kle talked about, we've had great partnership with Keith Gardner and you're going to hear from him at the end of the presentation. Sometimes we have properties that do do not uh move and why don't they move is because we don't have a good partnership uh with the property owner. This property owner has been uh very helpful to us. We've also had a number of staff that has spent significant time on this because it's going to generate jobs. Um that's the goal. That's all the effort and we can we can use this to help in streamlining in other areas of the city and that's it's going to help us get better in other parts of the city. So I know we're focused very much on this 1600 acres but with that I will introduce uh the consulting team Newark. They're they are a global leader and they are a site selector. So they do this for a number of different jurisdictions but also developers. So, I'll have uh Greg Wasmanorf come up um and he'll introduce his team and then at the end we'll have questions and then also have Keith share some thoughts. Thank you, mayor and city council for this opportunity. Uh let me see that this is working. Okay. All right. Terrific. So, my name is Greg Wasmanorf. I'm a senior managing director in the global strategy consulting group at Newark. I'm going to introduce our team, provide some background and some context to this work that we've been doing over the last 16 months. Uh and then I'm going to turn it over to my colleagues uh Brian Peterson and Carrie Zthmare, subject matter experts in their own right. Uh and then we'll u have some time for conversation once we've finished the presentation. So very very briefly, Newark is by most measures one of the world's largest real estate services firms. Uh we're we're probably known best for being an organization of brokers who help with the sale and leasing of property. But within Newark, uh we have a specialty capability that we call Newark Global Strategy. Uh, and Newark, by the way, headquartered in New York City, but very strong presence throughout California, San Diego, LA, Inland Empire, uh, and, uh, San Francisco, Sacramento, Roseville. So, strong presence across California. And, uh, but the team that's been involved principally with this work at the Rosedale Ranch and for the city of Bakersfield is with what we call Newark Global Strategy. And this is a specialty team of consultants based in Canada, the United States, Mexico, England, Germany, Poland. We work globally and we help companies with the decision where in the world should I put my facility? That's it at the core. So that's location strategy. That is site selection. That includes footprint optimization. So for companies that have facilities all around the world, they're constantly asking the question, which facilities should I close, which ones should I keep open or expand, markets that I should enter, markets that I should uh exit? And so footprint strategy feeds into this consideration of what is the potential for the ranch. Uh and so anyway, lots of things that that we do, but the the the core uh of of what we did here was for both the city and the ranch to take a two-pronged approach. We had a multi-talented, multid-disciplinary team working for both the city and the ranch over the last 16 months. Uh and this team is renowned globally for the work that we do. Um, I would encourage you to check the LinkedIn profiles and Google us and find out a little bit more about who we are and what we do. But we're very proud of the team that we put together and the and the work that we did. But the background, and I'm not expecting you to read this slide uh at the moment, but the background of this was really uh the Rosedale Ranch reaching out to me and saying, "We think we've got a unique asset here in Bakersfield, California. Have you heard of it? Do you know where we are? Do you know what we can do? Because we think we need some help figuring out how we really tap into the potential of the ranch as a property that has industrial zoning and is in central California in the Sanwaqin uh valley. And the city picked up on that and said, you know, at the same time, we think the city can be better with the creation of an economic development strategy that is focused on industrial growth, uh, attraction of industrial investment and the creation of jobs as, uh, Gary was just saying. So the background of this was really the ranch ownership and the city together saying let's bring Newark in and see what is the art of the possible here and let's come up not just with visions but strategies and tactics to make this real. So our work really fell into two main categories of effort and multiple work streams on the city and regional analysis side. We looked at the macroeconomic trends around the city and the region. We looked at the demographic trends including workforce analysis. We engaged with stakeholders here locally. Uh we met with educational and training institutions. We looked at your real estate inventory across the city, the county, and the state. We we examined the industries that are here, but also what are the gaps and what are the target industries maybe that that could land here and have some success here and what is the operating environment that would be conducive to that. Not every industry belongs in Bakersfield. Not every industry can be successful in Bakersfield, but how do we find those opportunities where there's a good fit and there's opportunity to grow. And so SWAT analysis was really part of that underpinning to understand, as I said, the potential for the city to grow in a new industrial direction. understanding that Kern County's economy is changing, traditional industries are shifting and new opportunities are being presented all around the world. So, how do you capture some of that growth here? That was the city and regional economic development side of of the ledger if you think of it that way. With respect to sight specific analysis, again a whole other group of work streams involved in that, looking at the economic development context for mega sites around the country uh and benchmarking the Rosedale Ranch against other locations uh to know how how might you compete if an investment is looking for a place to land. Uh we looked at the industrial market as I said we looked at the site characteristics themselves strengths weaknesses uh and then a key part of that was understanding the utility capabilities to support growth at the ranch and the transportation assets and then putting together an overall assessment. So, uh, I'm going to skip over this slide because it's a it's a quick summary of of all of those work streams and everybody that we tapped into to do the work. So, it's very important that you understand this isn't just Newark coming in from the outside, parachuting in, telling you what we think, and then disappearing. We spent a lot of time here and engaged with a lot of people who are here, employers and workforce agencies and educational institutions and the utilities. uh and the city deeply engaged with the city to look at what is what is the potential for the ranch to grow. And so I I want to make just a few last comments as by way of introduction and then uh I'll I'll change the focus a little bit. We say to economic development groups, not just in Bakersfield or in California, but all around the country and indeed all around the world where we work, the urgency is now. Uh that the competition doesn't wait. And so you can't wait either. There are opportunities out there, new industries, uh legacy and traditional industries that are growing and changing. And with change there comes opportunity. So, you need to find it and you need to go hunt it down and try to attract it to this place and to this site. the the ranch. Uh, as your city manager and as your assistant city manager said, uh, present an opportunity that really could be a a catalytic opportunity, not just to put a project or many projects on the property itself, but to drive uh, through economic multipliers growth throughout the city and throughout the entire region. So that's going to require some work and that's going to require focus. Uh the there is an economic development department here doing everything that it's that it can but there are multiple economic development groups operating in this context within the city within the county within the state. We would say there needs to be better alignment among those and we've shared these opinions already with city staff. They understand it uh and and they agree with it, but we would just continue to emphasize and you'll you'll hear from Brian a little bit more about that and there's an opportunity at the site to do something at scale and that's unusual in California. So, the last thing I'll just say here just to to keep moving through this this slide, it's really the last point. California has uh a lot of reputations plural, but not all of them are good. And when it comes to development and industrial development, industrial growth, many of those assumptions about California are negative. In the site selection world where we help companies decide where to put their facilities, we we we say we joke in the industry, the ABCs of sight selection include anywhere but California. That's harsh and it's not universally true. Uh and we've done projects in California. It is possible and there is success here obviously. But there is an opportunity here for the city of Bakersfield to do something pretty special. And to make that happen, you'll have to do things that counter what are the constraints elsewhere in many places in the state of California where things are considered to be prohibitive, slow, expensive and complex. And if you through economic development, through city planning, through city permitting, through city approvals, in every way, shape and form, if you can make it conducive and facilitative and fast and easier and with greater certainty, if you do those things, your pathway to investment becomes much easier and the likelihood of success expands tremendously. So that's where I want to close in terms of some of those introductory comments. I'd then I'd like to to pivot and just provide a little bit more context around this idea of a megaite and what are some of the trends that are driving that megaes uh I'll I'll give you a definition in a moment but we have to think first in terms of where does investment come from and investment is of course California born grown raised companies local companies that scale here but But as we know, many California's companies when it's time to scale they leave. So from an economic development point of view, there's an opportunity here to create a landing place for California companies that want to scale but stay in California, but they need room to grow. This can be the place. But separate from the homegrown business, you've got opportunities for investment attraction from abroad. And these charts on the left show you the count of projects and the capital investment of projects from foreign direct investment that land in the United States as compared to some other countries. You the United States does very very well and California does very very well and better than most. In fact, the United States does better than all. Notwithstanding, I'm going to make an editorial comment, but notwithstanding what you hear out of the administration, the United States is not a loser nation, the United States actually attracts more foreign direct investment by project count and investment dollars than any other country on the planet. And it's done it for years and years. And that can continue and it's likely to continue. So that's positive. There's an opportunity for Bakersfield and for Kern County to grab more of that investment. And the type of investment, if you look down the right hand side, the industries in which this foreign direct investment comes into the United States is so diverse. Now, as I said earlier, not everything belongs here. Some projects are a better fit. Brian's going to talk more about that in a few minutes, but the projects are diverse. They're coming from a wide range of different company countries. Uh you can see on the map on the on the right, California along with Texas are perennial leaders in the attraction of foreign direct investment. And then that brings us to this question of what is a mega site and why is it important? And I I'm going to say two things about that. One is any very large site has the opportunity to attract a lot of small, medium, and large projects. That makes sense. What begins to boggle the mind is when we start to think about mega projects. Not small, medium, large, not even extra large. Mega. Now, it's difficult for mega projects to come to California for a variety of reasons. But what is a mega project? There are different definitions. This is one definition that we use to describe the size of the property, the size of the workforce that would be needed in a mega project. That is literally millions of square feet, likely billions of dollars of capital investment in a single project. A standard industrial warehouse might be 40 or $50 million, maybe $80 million. We're talking billions. That's what a mega project represents. That's the opportunity. The stress of a mega project though comes with also the size of the workforce and the size of the infrastructure that is needed to support it. Mega projects by themselves will sometimes use as much water as a city of 200,000 people, as much gas as a city of 350,000 people, etc., etc. They are at a scale that is somewhat mind-boggling. But some parts of the country are better than others in attracting them. Some sites are better suited. What we've tried to do is stress test the Rosedale Ranch. And Carrie's going to talk to you more about how we did that, what those results are. But the Rosedale Ranch is big enough and there is enough infrastructure around it currently and potentially to really turn the ranch into something that is if not mega pretty darn close. And coming back to the opportunity, this map is showing you large, extra-large, and mega sites that our Newark team has evaluated for projects in just the last 5 years in the United States. They are all over the place. They are in different states of readiness. Some are what you would call shovel ready. The infrastructure is there, the roads have been built, the utilities are ready to scale, etc. Some are more conceptual, early stage. The Rosedale Ranch is somewhat in between, but it is prime and it is almost there. And you'll notice from that map of California, and this is going to be the last thing I say before I turn over the microphone, if you look at California, there aren't many dots on that map. That's for two reasons. One, there are very few extremely large sites available in the state of California. Almost none. So, the Rosedale Ranch is somewhat unique. Not totally unique, almost unique in California. So, it's a unique opportunity for you to build on the potential. But as I said earlier, there are a few dots on the map because often we're not being asked to go look at sites in California by our clients or invited by property owners like Keith Gardner and the Rosedale Ranch. So there's the the uh the Rosedale Ranch sitting in Bakersfield, that large pink dot, it's just sitting there waiting. And what I'd like to do then is turn over the microphone. uh talk a little I'm going to have Brian talk about the economic development work we did because the site can't be successful unless there's an economic development framework supporting it and then we'll turn to Carrie and talk more about the site specifically and then we'll uh review some of the recommendations from our report. Thank you. Uh, thank you, Greg, for that introduction. Um, just want to say again, thank you um to the council and to the mayor for allowing us a chance to speak today. My name is Brian Peterson. I'm a managing director with New Mark's economic development uh consulting team. So, as Greg mentioned, you know, there's really kind of two tacks in this project that we've taken. Uh we've talked a little bit about mega sites and what is a mega site. uh we've talked about the scale of it and there's a lot of challenges that come along with developing a mega site. Some of those uh are related to the actual site, its infrastructure, its power, its water, it's sewer. Um but when we talk about mega sites and when we're working with clients that are looking for a location to locate into um they want to see a healthy economic development environment. So, of equal importance, uh, setting kind of the ranch aside, um, if we come in with a client and we come into a community, we're going to want to see what does the economic development environment look like, what does the business climate look like, what are those challenges and opportunities. So as part of this engagement uh with the city and with the ranch, we spent some time uh stress testing or kind of going through some of the data that we would look at if we were actually in tow with a client that was looking at your community uh and providing some feedback and identifying some opportunities uh that this community can work on to undertake so that you know next time when newark or when some other site selector comes in with a client that's looking at either the Rosale Ranch or another large mega site in the community, you guys are ready. You're able to, you know, um to put on the show to show them around the community. You've understand what assets you have. You understand what challenges need to be mitigated and that you can show to that company or to that site selector that you're working on a on a way forward and you're working for development readiness. So, um with that being said, um we're going to talk about some of those things that a site selector might look at uh when they're looking for um a community to locate a future project in. Um, so as Greg mentioned, you know, this process is really one of of 16 months. Um, when a site selector comes into a community, they're going to want to speak with major employers. They're going to want to talk to your higher education institutions. They're going to want to talk to your utility providers to understand whether or not it's even feasible to develop a mega site. So, we spent a lot of time uh talking with folks throughout the community. For this particular project, we spoke with 80 different stakeholders throughout the community, higher education, uh, city planning, city government, elected officials, uh, spent some time talking with county and state, economic development officials as well. Um, and we wanted to provide some of the feedback that we had from the comments that they gave to us, uh, when we hear about your community. So, from a site selector's perspective, um, there's both good and bad that we heard. Um, we already talked about some of the concern about shifting uh economic priorities in the state of California, how that might affect Kern County, and how that might affect Bakersfield in particular. Um, we heard a lot about challenges with regional economic development alignment. Um, so that's alignment between the city, between the county, and between the state. And if we were coming in here with a project, we would want to see all three of those organizations as well as uh your higher education institutions aligned and singing the same song about why Kern County, about why Bakersfield, and what you can do for do for a future site selection project. Um you know, we also heard a lot about talent pipeline. Uh so not everything was a challenge. Uh, one of the things that we were really uh, happy to hear about in Kern County, you have a really strong talent pipeline for education uh, entry level talent, um, you know, we work in a lot of communities that have an unemployment rate that is below 2%. And they're looking at at developing a site that needs 1,500 2,000 jobs, it's just not going to happen. Uh, what we found in Kern County when speaking with a lot of your employers is that you actually have a really good entry- level talent ethic. uh talent pipeline. Uh really strong work ethic. Uh folks are showing up, coming to work, folks are interested in employment, and they're sticking around. So um that is a unique asset. And as we start to think about what are some of the value propositions for this community, that is a really strong value proposition, especially to some of the communities that you'll be competing with when a site selector comes into town. Um, we also heard about your higher education institutions being eager to partner uh with businesses and understand their labor needs. Again, I don't want this to be undersold because this is probably some stuff that you already know, but we work in a lot of communities where there is a a brick wall between your higher education and site selection or businesses. So, one of the things that we picked up on in in speaking with your higher education institutions, speaking with uh CTAC and speaking with the Rock is we understand that there's that's a really strong connection. And so, again, thinking about that site selector that comes into town, that is part of your value proposition, your marketing messaging. Um, you know, we also understand that there are some quality of life concerns in this community. Um, I'm not saying that all of those need to be addressed before a site lecture comes into your community, but as you think about your value proposition and selling that to someone that's coming in that's asking about public safety, there needs to be issues. There needs to be messaging developed around, you know, what are we doing to mitigate public safety issues? You know, how are we ensuring that um folks are having a good time in the community? How are we making sure that we're marketing uh some of those amazing assets that the community has? First and foremost, um, we spent a lot of time, I guess, again, speaking with all all the folks across community. Um, there's a lot of great quotes in in this presentation. We won't go through them now, but things that just really hit us. Um, again, certain things around community alignment. Uh, when it comes to economic development, um, you know, the ease of getting entry- level talent. At the same time, mid and senior talent is going to be a challenge for attracting future investment into this community. And again, this will all go into some of those target industries that we'll talk about as we think about what makes sense for the Rosedale Ranch site and what makes sense for future industrial development in Kern County. As part of this work, we also spend some time uh pulling the typical data that a site selector would look at if they were looking at a community. Um, you're not only going to get the data for Bakersfield and for Kern County, uh, but we also spend some time benchmarking uh, Kern County and Bakersfield against a set of other communities that we think you could be competing with in the future for projects. So again, not just looking at some of this data from a site selection perspective in a vacuum, but really helping your community understand how you're stacking up against some of your peers and competitors. Um, so we talked a little bit about value proposition. Um, we know that Bakersfield is a young community. Uh, we know it's a growing community. That's not the case uh in many parts of California. So, when you think about building that value proposition, that's, you know, that's sale point number one, two, and three. We're growing. We have the labor force. We have the talent. Right? some of the challenges that we would see from a site selection perspective, lack of economic diversity, maybe a lack of educational attainment. Uh you're not stacking up as well and you're not going to stack up, you know, perfectly and beat all of these communities, but again, thinking about developing that messaging that says to the site selector, we're aware that we don't do as well here and here's what we're doing to address it. Uh so, as Greg mentioned, we also spent some time thinking about the Rosedale Ranch as a site. uh and Bakersfield as a community and thinking about what potential industries would make sense uh for the Rosedale Ranch. So part of that uh is kind of comes out of the discussions that we've had with the community, understanding what the community wants, understanding what the business community is looking for when it comes to development. Uh we also spend a lot of time crunching data and running numbers. We have some of our own proprietary tools that we use to help communities understand what types of industries they should be targeting. We also spend some time again uh talking with folks and we're doing this type of work basically across the country and across the world every single day. So we have our hands on the pulse of what's going on when it when businesses are making site location decisions whether that's in California, whether that's somewhere else. So, um, based on that analysis and kind of taking the the art and the science and the qualitative and quantitative components together, we identified, I think, three industries that would make a lot of sense for future industrial development at the Rosedale Ranch. Um, and when we think about target industries, some of these target industries are things that you would think about in terms of foreign investment. So maybe that company is not here right now, but in the next 2, three, five years, there's a potential that they could locate here. That's the case for some of these target industries. We also think about, as Greg mentioned, um, keeping and growing your own, keeping what you have here now, right? So when we look at these target industries, some of these are here in smaller concentrations in Kern County or in Bakersfield. Other of these industries would be more of a a traction effort. So looking outside of your community boundaries, outside of California, and thinking about how can you go out and make sure that everyone in those industries has heard of Kern County, everyone has heard of Bakersfield, and everyone has heard of the Rosedale Ranch. So um the first one, alternative energy component manufacturing. This is an industry that's been uh just, you know, seen massive investments as we think about the transition to alternative energy to things like battery storage, massive demand for things like battery components. Uh some of the equipment that manages how electricity is transferred from renewable energy projects into our electric grid. Uh you know, we've heard time and time again when we were here that Kern is number one in renewable energy in California, right? How much of that is being made in Kern County? Um not a lot. not a lot. So, thinking about those opportunities to how do you attract investment in those industries to the Rosedale Ranch or to uh or to your or to Baker Bakersfield in general. Food processing uh again, you know, we understand and and know a lot about the agricultural industry uh in your community. Um food processing is a it's a growing industry that requires large-scale development. Um that would require a largecale site like the Rosedale Ranch. Uh there's a lot of opportunities in this industry, especially as you think about your proximity to some of the major consumption markets in the United States like the Bay Area as well as Los Angeles. Uh third and final one here, steel fabrication and metals manufacturing. Uh again, when we think about some of these renewable energy components and the renewable energy industries, they're oftentimes utilizing steel and other rolled metals uh to build uh out their projects or to build components. Um, we think that there's opportunity here. This is an industry that Kern County has recently had a win in. So, when we talk about going out and winning these projects, Kern County already has a blueprint to do this, right? Um, and it's just a matter of taking that blueprint, taking the things that you learned and having that win and starting to again project it outwards and start to think about attracting more of those businesses in that industry. uh in addition to kind of looking at you know some of the qualitative components of this we spent a lot of time looking at incentives um you know I have to be blunt incentives are an important component of helping largecale firms relocate or open up a new location so as part of this work we started to look at what incentive programs are available both in California as well as in Kern County and then all the way down to the city level. Um, we looked at some of those peer communities and looked at how those incentive programs compare here in Bakersfield to that set of pure communities. Um, and to be frank, and this is probably not a surprise, but uh, the incentive programs here are more challenged than what we saw in in your peer communities. Uh, and so there's some more information uh, kind of in the body of the report that talks about some of those challenges and from a site selection perspective, what are those challenges that we see with these local incentive programs? uh in addition to looking at uh you know industry focused incentive programs, we spend some time looking at placebased incentive programs as well. So um you can either incentivize an industry to come here or you can incentivize a place uh within the community to help grow that industry. So uh spend some time looking at that again relative to that set of peers that we we talked about. Um, and so I'm just going to hand it off to Carrie to talk about um, you know, how we position the Roso Ranch site and our assessment of the Roso Ranch as a site. Thank you, Mr. Peterson. And city clerk, just for the record, we now have a full council here with council member Weir and Council Member Arias entering at 411. Thank you and welcome. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Uh, my name is Carrie Zthmier. I'm a managing director with Newark. I'm based out of Northern Illinois and have uh had a uh it's been my pleasure to work with our team over the past uh year plus on understanding the Rosedale Ranch, Bakersfield, and getting to know your competitive attributes. So, the seven slides that I'm going to review uh set a stage for the industrial context that we're looking at here in Kern County, some trends um to pay attention to. Um and then looking at the very specific attributes of the Rosedale Ranch from a competitiveness perspective. So when an actual end user is looking to develop a site, they want to understand um the the detailed information about its utilities, its capacities, um and what it's going to take to actually turn dirt to start going vertical on a site. So um and then we look at that compared to trying to answer how competitive is it, right? Um you know, we talk a lot about this being a unique opportunity, but when you compare it to other opportunities uh throughout the United States, how does it how does it look? how does it stack? Um, and then lay out a very specific roadmap. So, how do you enhance its competitiveness? Right? So, now that we understand it, what's the path forward to make sure that it's as competitive as as it can be? So, looking at the industrial market of Kern County, um, just wanting to, um, kind of flag a couple trends here, specifically when we look at industrial activity. Um, so this chart at the left, what that's really kind of showing is that in recent years, you've tipped towards the negative in terms of net absorption of new industrial leases. So what we're seeing is a bit of a decline in activity, new leases that aren't being renewed. Um, and with that, you're also seeing a decline in new construction. So there, um, so what I challenge city council to do is to keep that in the back of your minds, look for trends, try to understand what might be underlying that. Um, and just also to emphasize the urgency of countering that to grow jobs and grow investment here in the community. Also highlighting the Rosedale Ranch is a very large site. Um, it's going to take time to develop. What we're talking about in terms of timeline is not a near-term short-term goal. Um, it's 1600 acres. That's an incredibly large site. what we're aiming, what we'd love to see is a mega project, but keep in mind that this is a long-term strategy that's going to take many years, uh, many administrations, and you can lay the groundwork now for a lot of future development with this project. So, the actual site that we're talking about, right, what are the site boundaries? What's the acreage? We're talking about 1,600 acres in northwest Kern County um south of um uh 7th Standard east of Santa Fe Way um by the off the BNSF. So what what I like about this site is how flexible it is. There are not many encumbrances on the site. You could create a whole lot of different flexible site plans there. So, while you do have some minor minor encumbrances, a few flood planes, a couple wetlands, it's incredibly small um in terms of the total acreage of the site, uh you have the cross of palms in the middle, a historic uh landmark for Bakersfield, which which can be a selling attribute. Uh it's I think it's a point of pride for the city. It's a point of pride for the land owner. And because of the large nature of the site, you have a lot of flexible site plans that you could put to put together without having to kind of disturb those encumbrances. Um, with that, we have done some due diligence to say, well, what would it take, you know, if we had to move the gas line that was uh bicting the site to the north south. Um, there is still mapped out pathways forward should you need additional flexibility. um initial geotechnical analysis is um is also shows is very favorable for development. So um there's it's a very flat site um easy to move dirt uh kind of flagging on potentially some initial environmental studies would need to be done based on the chemicals that had been used in agriculture but overall a very clean site. So we went in depth on four major categories of information site characteristics. I've already kind of talked about the advantages of that. You can see how we we ranked these different uh categories of attributes on a ranking system from one to nine. Nine being excellent. So again very favorable on the the site characteristics. Everything's really mitigable um from a development standpoint. Really easy um just in terms of its inherent characteristics. Uh development readiness is another major category that we were looking at. So that comes down to um the how quickly could we turn dirt on the site. Um it's zoned M1 which is excellent. Um it's uh it's it's ready from that perspective. There's um minimal constraints um and really wanting to highlight the competitiveness of um how the city has what the city's put behind this development effort. uh aligned efforts between the city planning between the city council to uh remove any types of incumbrances. So some of the things that we flagged that up three means it's a mitigable challenge right so some mitigable challenges processes that are already in place to or are in progress I should say to overcome are the requirements uh the requirement to amend the circulation element of the general plan so that the site does not become biseected by a freeway so that's something that is underway I know internally in terms of trying to to address that mitigable issue. Um so um there another issue that just wanting to flag is that it's in a nonattainment area and that's something that's designated at a federal level with the EPA. So, uh, just when you're looking at different potential end users that may or may not locate at the site, if there's a certain industry or an end user that has certain levels of emissions, um, they are going to have to go through an extra permitting uh, process in order to be able to develop at the site. So, that's just one other medical challenge that we identified. Um, but just wanting to commend the city on all the efforts and just through the pro this the process of working on this project, we've seen so much progress in terms of just mapping out and defining what it's going to take in order for a client to be able to actually uh turn dirt on the site. So, really commendable progress on that. On the utility side, you have some um really strong points um with your wastewater capacity with it. It's within the north of River Sanitary District's service area. The the wastewater utility is adjacent to the site. Uh so it would be relatively easy to extend infrastructure onto the site for the wastewater. It has very good capacity with 3 million gallons a day today with another 2 and a half million gallons a day plant to increase wastewater capacity. That's the type of capacity that a a pretty a goodsized uh end user would need. So it it's a lot. Um power is pretty good. We have had multiple conversations with PG&E. Uh they were able to map out a pathway to 100 megawatts. That's very com that's that's a lot of power. Um so they were able to put together kind of a plan of hypothetically how they would uh improve the transmission infrastructure to be able to deliver 100 megawatts to the site. What we're missing from them is the time and the cost to do that. So like hypothetically, you know, everything's possible, right, in terms of power, but when you the requirement to map out the time and the cost to achieve different thresholds of power, that's where the rubber meets the road um in order to really be able to be competitive on that. So I want to commend PG for putting um uh pencil to paper and being able to say how they would do it. Now the next step is just the time and the cost on the um the the water side. That's where we have found um the most work to be done and that for two that's for two reasons. So it's uh would be served likely by Cal Water as the water purveyor to the site and what we have to do now is to be able to that's that's new because right now it's being served by a water and it's in order to be served by at a industrial level that's going to require a new wells served letter from Cal Water. Um so we cannot assume that necessarily the a levels of water that's currently serving the site which are robust would necessarily also be available from the water distributor. And so there's additional studies that are going to be needed by Cal Water and they need kind of a specific site plan in order to react to. So there's some additional steps that are going to have to be taken with Cal Water to confirm that there's industrial scale water that can come to the site. Another concern with water is just the anticipated uh probationary hearing for SGMA uh compliance. That's that is approximately 5 to 6 months from now. That just leaves kind of a an unknown uh cloud over the site in terms of its water capacity. What's going to happen at that probationary hearing? So until those specific items are necessarily further mapped out and mitigated and we know how SGMA is going to land at the next hearing until we know what Cal Water can serve um there's just a a bit of a a concern for the site mitigable issue mitigable challenge um until we have some more certainty in that area. Another real strength the site has from utilities is the natural gas. There's a very high pressure natural gas pipeline that's bisecting the site. Uh SoCal gas is the utility that provides that natural gas and it's incredibly competitive in terms of the high volume of gas. Um I think gas is going to become more important as our electrical grid becomes increasingly constrained throughout the United States. So there are some regulatory challenges in the state of California which could be limiting in terms of exactly how you leverage that natural gas but it being there is very unique and special and could be a gamecher when um electric grids become constrained. It's just remains to be seen how um what could happen in the context of the California regulatory environment to really leverage that natural gas. But if if a if somebody needed natural gas for something you there's there's a lot there. Um, so transportation assets, you've got the QDC transportation center on the northwest side of the site. Um, that offers transload intermoal services uh, right there on site. Uh, has the BNSF line. BNSF has been very supportive of the development of the site. Um, we've had multiple conversations. They vested their own time and effort in putting together some concept some con conceptual plans of how to bring rail spurs onto the site. So BNSF has been a very strong partner and has an interest in seeing this success come to this site. That'll also be critical in terms of meeting the uh needs of the target industries that Brian just outlined. For example, metal and steel fabrication, metal recycling that could really benefit from having that rail on site. So there's a very unique circumstance with just that um kind of coming together of assets right there on the site. So again, now in terms of transportation assets, one challenge I'll highlight um just is um the location is relatively distant to the I-5 necessarily compared to other uh competing properties. Um it's about 15 miles to the east. So within Kern County, there might be some competition closer to the I5. Um as well, uh Bakersfield Airport, just the the need for for two flights relative to other markets. um depending on what company you're talking to, they could see that as being being an additional challenge. Uh so we did some megaite benchmarking um compare. So how does the the Rosale ranch compare to other sites? Some of these are in the pair communities that we studied in our economic development analysis. Um, so I think something that's really beneficial to highlight is even the most competitive sites throughout the United States all have things that they're working on, right? Um, so much of site readiness from my perspective is just continuing to define what you have and what the exact deficiencies are and the time and cost to overcome those deficiencies. So, you'll notice that even in some of these very competitive sites like um like the uh trick site in in out just outside of Reno, they don't know the answer to some of the questions that I was asking. You know, what's your water capacity? You know, they they didn't know, right? And so, but they're they're out there trying to promote the fact that they have a 500 plus megawatt generation station, right? So, they're leaning on certain assets, but haven't quite put pen to paper on others. So, it's it's normal and typical that there is additional work required for a site to um fully study itself and be able to communicate all of its assets. And the Rosale Ranch has made incredible headway in that regard. This is also to say, yes, I mean, in a world of opportunities, there are some incredibly competitive sites throughout the United States. Um, and so the Rosale Ranch, um, while it may in California be a very unique asset in the United States, there's a world of opportunity out there that the Rosale Ranch is going to have to compete against. So, commending uh, city planning on I think a big uh, breakthrough that we've had while working together has been able being putting together this Gant Gant chart. So, uh, yeah, credit to Phil Burns and, uh, his team and really mapping out what processes are going to have to happen from a permitting perspective, city processes in order to be able to turn dirt on the site. Um, and so we have two different scenarios and I, um, want to emphasize that the faster scenario that we have outlined in blue is the most likely um, because uh, in order for a site plan to be approved, certain studies will have to happen around a biological survey. And we think it's unlikely uh given the man the maintenance of the site that a take permit would be required. But just for the sake of being comprehensive in scenario planning, we did map out what a longer term permitting process might look like. But we do feel very strongly based on the maintenance of the site, based on what the city has put in place that that fastest faster scenario would be um the likely scenario. But honestly, this is huge. Just the fact that you guys have this Gant chart um as a talking point to talk through with a developer of here's the step. Then this happens and this happens. Here's what our our timeline is and and continuing to refine this Gant chart, adding costs to it, uh being able to speak to each step. Um that is that is just a very um important part of site readiness. Um so just at a high level you know strengths you've got a large flexible site incredible transportation assets some of the uh industrial scale utilities on the site are are really amazing uh certain opportunities that you have uh I would say um revolve around the increased implementation of micro grids and that may be something that is a little bit still future looking but um there's are increasing use of micro grids by industrial properties instead of relying and just grid power. And so there's more diversity in terms of solutions that are kind of coming to the table. So you wouldn't necessarily have to rely solely on PG& uh water reuse. North um north of River Sanitary District was really awesome to talk to, not just from a wastewater perspective, but they're also very creative in how they could potentially use um provide water solutions through use of scalping water off of their wastewater line is what they called it. So, it's not gray water, it's not recycled water, but it's scalped water for so it's an opportunity to use waste water for an industrial use. And so it would have to be a custom engineered solution on a case-by- case basis. But that creativity that North of River Sanitary District showed was really commendable. Marketing differentiation um is another opportunity just to make sure that you're focused on um Bakersfield as its own kind of um marketing and brand outside of the state of California. um a couple threats on the market. Just north of um the Rosedale Ranch, you have the wonderful industrial park. So, what they're doing and how they're connecting with the BNSF could be a more direct competitor to the Rosedale Ranch. So, just highlighting that as a competitive threat to the city of Bakersfield and the Rosedale Ranch. Um there's a lot of other uh regional industrial parks in Kern County. Uh there's in Button Willow there's a project that's uh coming online close to the I5 that um I I haven't seen the most recent updates but it it looks like there's just another project that could compete with the ranch to Hone Ranch in South Kern. Um there there's other sites on the market that compete with the ranch. So we want to pivot into very specific recommendations now and map out what it is you can do to enhance the competitiveness. I think there's just three more slides. So bear with us here. So for the Rosale Ranch, some of these are things that the private land owner is going to have to undertake and some of these are recommendations for the city of Bakersfield. So a key uh next step for the city of Bakersfield is amending the circulation element of the general plan to make it clear to a developer or somebody that's going to invest in the site that that site is not going to be biseected by a freeway. because just having that kind of hang over the site, the fact that this, you know, until it's official that it's not going to biseect the site, it's a threat, right? And so that just has to be codified. Uh validating the water capacity, uh we need to be able to show give Cal Water a conceptual plan that they can react to so that they can provide a will serve letter to provide certainty around the water capacity. Validation of the power scalability that goes back to PG&E. How was the time and cost to achieve different power thresholds? Then from a marketing perspective and this goes more to the uh private land owner building a data room marketing and we've we've he's undertaken steps to start putting this together. So there this isn't um I just want to say like all of these recommendations are are underway and and we've seen progress just in the past few months. Um, but building a data room to market the site, making it easy for people to access information if they want to um if they want to purchase it. Monitoring for environmental changes, that's ongoing. That's making sure you don't have to have a take permit or do any kind of wetland mitigation. That's done very well already. So, uh, and then continuing to advance the transportation hub marketing strategy. That's continuing conversations with the BNSF so that there's more certainty around the rail infrastructure and how that marketing plan comes together. Um and then uh continuing there's opportunities to achieve uh certified site certifications through the BNSF and other entities. So that's all uh ranch specific. And then wanted to uh go to recommendations for the city from an economic development perspective. Great. Thanks Carrie. So as Carrie mentioned, you know, some of these recommendations are specific to making sure the Rosedale Ranch site is ready when a site selection project comes in. Another component of this project is again making sure that there's uh homework for the community. So it's not just homework for the property owner, it's homework for the community to understand what you can do to make the community more attractive when a site selector comes in and looks at the Roso Ranch site. So as part of that process, uh we actually laid out 40 recommendations. Um we're not going to go through all 40 right here. Uh we've talked with all 40 um with the city staff and we've actually set out um timeline to implement. Is this going to be an easy thing to implement? Is it going to be challenging? Is it going to be hard? Is it going to be costly? Is it going to be moderate cost? Is it going to be low cost? Who should be involved in implementing those recommendations? So when I talk about economic development recommendations, I'm not just talking about city of Bakersfield economic development. I'm talking about having the state, the county, Kern Community College, Bakersfield College, everybody is ready. Everybody understands what the Rosedale Ranch is. Everybody understands what the community value proposition is. And everyone is willing to come and talk to a site selector about why Bakersfield should be the next community to have one of those target industries come here and locate and grow. Um, So just in in terms of some of the most critical recommendations we think about um when it comes to industrial development readiness, uh Carrie showed a Gant chart that showed what is the realistic timeline from day one site selector comes in to you know 18 months down the road or or two years down the road when that building is in the ground. Um that needs to to be a living document as Krie mentioned. Uh it's something that needs to have not only economic development staff involved but city planning staff as well as workforce development staff involved. So everyone's talking about what is the new prospect, what are they looking for, how can we make sure that we're communicating that we have those assets and resources to a site selector when they come into your community. Um we also spend a lot of time thinking about again how Bakersfield markets itself as a community. Um, when you think about some of those target industries that we talked about, we're aware that you've had wins in some of those industries. And it's super important from a site selection perspective that you're going out and engaging with those businesses that have won in Kern County or one in Bakersfield or have expanded in Bakersfield and have a positive message to tell and you're developing a relationship with those folks so that when a site selector comes into the community, you can say, "Hey, why don't you talk to XYZ company or ABC Manufacturing? They've had a really positive experience in the community. they can tell you why Bakersfield is a great place to do business. Um, also just, you know, provided some more fundamental recommendations. So, uh, when a site selector comes into your community, you know, you're going to need a typical tour schedule. Um, we identified a lot of assets that the community has. Um, you know, uh, we were in a a meeting just a couple hours ago talking about your CEKC program and, uh, I can tell you as someone that does economic development consulting all across country, I have never gone into a into a facility like CEK and seen so many kids doing skilled trade and training. And I was told that there is a line of is it it's either 2 or 5,000 kids that want to be part of those programs. And so when you think about developing a project like the Rosedale Ranch, that is a really great selling opportunity. A site selector comes in and says, "I want to see your skilled trade training programs." Well, guess what? These kids are using a Boston Dynamics robot and teaching it to do arc welding or, you know, whatever else they're doing. And guess what? We also have 2,000 kids that also want to be a part of this, right? That's a major selling point for your community. Um, you know, there are some opportunities too when it comes to things like workforce development. Um, you know, you have over 60 programs at CEK and Rock. Um, just make sure that those programs are actually aligned with some of the target industries that we think make sense for the ranch site. There is a challenge sometimes when it comes to spreading the butter too thin. So, um you might have a really great transportation logistics program. Um but if it's only graduating 15 to 30 students per year, um that's not going to help when we think about a mega site development that's going to need thousands of jobs. So, you know, the assets here are in place, but there's opportunities to refine them. And, uh it's our hope that, you know, by providing some of these recommendations, uh the community, uh as well as the city can start thinking about some of those opportunities. And last but not least, organizational. As I mentioned, uh, you know, the report contains 40 different recommendations. Um, you're going to have to start to think about what it is when it comes to economic development that you want to do. Um, you know, we think you should implement all 40 of those recommendations. Um, that's why they're in the report. That's why we think they're critical. Um, but that's going to require thoughts about staffing, thoughts about strategy, and thoughts about who should be undertaking those recommendations. So our last kind of um to wrap it up is thinking about you know does the community and does the city have the appropriate economic development staff to undertake some of those recommendations that we've made in the report. So um I know that that was a lot of information and uh it's it's a challenge to get 18 16 to 18 months of a work product in. There's a lot more information uh in the body of the report that we didn't have a chance to get to go through today. Um, but I think I want to turn it over to Gary provide some closing thoughts um on on this engagement. So, thank you, Mr. Peterson. So, I'll I'll just quickly sum up and then uh I'll tee up uh Keith to come up and give his his closing thoughts. I I think what you heard was a lot. Uh this this was a mouthful. Uh but what what it was is exactly what uh Greg had talked about. This was a stress test to see can we if an ind if a largecale industrial developer wants to do something on these 1600 acres is our city staff ready to step up to the challenge. I think the answer to that question is yes we are ready but we could get better at doing that and some of these recommendations are areas that we can get better. All developers want their reduced their risk reduced, their timeline confirmed, and can we can can we get some money from the city to to do this project? Every developer asked me that question when I talk to them. And the answer to those questions are yes, we will help. Uh, you know, I'm not I'm not ever going to overcommit or or undercommit, but I'm always going to be ready, willing, and able to help uh developers that come in. And I think that's the the message that we want to send to the council is is we're ready to do something big at the mega site. With that, Mr. Gardner. Welcome, Mr. Gardner. Mayor Go, members of the council, city manager Kle, assistant manager Gary Howland. Um, I guess I'd like to say with gratitude, thank you for joining me in a partnership to be able to hire the Global Strategies team, Greg's team. Um, we've come a long way in 16 months. Uh, we've learned a lot. We've learned where we're strong. We've learned where we're weak. Um, we know the challenges that we still have um, in front of us. But it was emphasized a lot today that this is a unique site. I've always thought that I grew up on this site as a 5-year-old kid. My job was to clean up the palm frrons of the historical palms that are out there. So, uh, my love for this ranch is is beyond what anybody could even imagine. But, uh, this project started out 25 years ago as a residential project. If you'll remember, we had a great master plan community that the council at the time helped me develop. We waited 25 years, went through an '08 06 08 recession, uh 15 to 20 years for housing market to come back in Bakersfield. And during that time, the wonderful project to the north escalated in industrial use. I had consultation with city staff. They said, "Hey, Keith, there's a lot of housing going on uh in the south of Bakersfield, which we're a part of also. Let's look at reszoning this as an industrial project." And our vision, we our family's been here for over 100 years, maybe about 150 years. And the vision going forward as we've been a major part in in agriculture. Uh our county, our city is a major oil and a that's where the jobs have come from all this time. And we see the vision going forward is that's going to decline. So we need another source of tax revenue. We need to change our tax base. We need um other jobs for our citizens, our youth to uh take part in. And so we went about the process of changing this to a different look. Um it's still a great site. Like everybody said, it's flat. It's ready to go. There's different definitions of shovel ready that we're trying to define. So, uh, in trying to get there, but we're almost there. And I want to thank the city for partnering with me for being a this has been a great project. This report we just summarized in 45 minutes is nothing like the report that you would see if you had it in front of you. It's not nothing like it. It's it's a summary of it. But this report is 330 pages deep and took a lot of effort and a lot of meetings. We met every week, every two weeks with staff, with Greg's team, uh, to try to get there. It had some lulls, it had some high points, uh, but it finally came together with this presentation today. And I want to thank you guys and your team for for that. Gary, all the work that you've done, thank you very much for that. Um, also want to emphasize, um, I took the liberty of asking one and not knowing where this was going to go and I still don't know, I took the liberty of asking one of the major developers in the world to sit in the audience today. And I also took the liberty of asking one of the largest real estate industrial real estate teams in the state to come and sit in the audience today to listen. Also took them around the ranch and toured the toured the ranch. They got to look at the community a little bit today. Had lunch with them. spent some time with them and I wanted them to see the relationship that we had together and the things that we could do together to make this city better. And that was the whole purpose of that invitation. We're dancing. We haven't we're still circling around the dance floor. I don't know where this thing's going with them, but we have big hopes and hopes and dreams that I go hope you guys can share with me. So, with that, thank you. Hope we meet again, continue to talk. Bill and I talk all the time. I call, in fact, I call him at home, Gary. I call him at home. So, uh, anyway, a lot of work to do, but a lot of work has been done. And thank you guys for sharing. Thank you, Mr. Gardner. Thank you, Newark team. Madam Clerk, do we have any requests for public speakers regarding this item? Mayo, we have not received any speaker cards regard regarding item 3A. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. And um thank you to the New Mark team for the presentation. Uh thank you to our city staff for being creative and um innovative. And thank you Keith for uh seeing a greater vision for our city. I was just listening to you speak and thinking about how lovely Rosedell Ranch sounds and uh you know I've just been watching way too much Yellowstone so I think that's also why. But um you know you your you and your family tell the current story. You grew up here. You grew up on the property that you are now looking uh to transform into an economic ecosystem within Bakersfield, within the city and within Kern County. And um I think that's remarkable in some of the findings today. you know, affirming a lot of what we feel um is how we are thinking through what the economy of Kerna looks like moving forward. And um you know, I think about this on a personal level a lot because my dad worked in the oil fields, but he also worked in trucking and transportation. So the way in which I saw his own as an individual um his career transform and change um just gives me pause and how you know so many families in Kern County are thinking about the same thing. So I just have a few questions um given I know my colleagues probably have a ton of questions as well but uh I was most curious about the and this is a question for our new mark team but the communities engaged and of course you know we have a brief summary of the larger uh document and report that exists um which industries specifically were targeted I think I was looking for that as well and I'm um most curious probably about trucking and logistics if you're able to answer some of the questions that I may have. Uh thanks for the question. Um so as I mentioned uh in our presentation there was about 80 different stakeholders engaged. Some of them were within the city of Bakersfield, others were um within Kern County. Um it it really ranged from private sector employers to higher education. Um also spent again time talking with city staff. Um when we developed the list of target industries, we were trying to spend some time thinking outside of the box. Um so when we think about target industries for the ranch site, uh transportation and logistics is to us an an obvious target. Um that's something that Kerna is doing really well right now. um something that Kerna is very strong in. But if we were to think about you know what's maybe two or three steps down the road um those were the target industries that that we identified. Okay. I was most curious of so no transportation or logistics companies were um I guess talked to sorry um yes we did speak with uh transportation logistics companies and there is we will be providing a full list of all the stakeholders that we engaged. I don't want to say the wrong ones. Um, but you that's definitely something that's in the body of the report and it did include transportation logistics. Okay, great. While I know it feels obvious, you know, the trucking industry within California is experiencing major changes and uh I consider it one of the um industries that is pivotal and essential to Kern County. And um we have a lot of companies here that are mom and pop. You know, they started with one truck and trailer and they've now expanded to 300, a fleet of 300 and they function right out of Kern County. So I think their feedback is vital and I uh look forward to seeing the list of stakeholders. Um you shared Yes. Yeah. Uh, one of the slides in the report will show you the location quotient of industries that are active in Bakersfield and in Kern County. Location quotient being a sign of how much concentration of activity there is in a particular sector. And oil and gas very very high but declining. warehousing very very large and we had two things in mind uh as we thought about warehousing and logistics. One was it's going to happen even if you don't try because the push factors for the logistics industry out of some of the more congested areas of Southern California will push more activity into the Sanwaqin Valley into into Kern County. So we we expect that to be a growth segment but we weren't focused on it as part of our study. The second reason being we wanted to focus on opportunities that are perhaps a little bit beyond the horizon at the moment and in particular would create more capital investment and therefore more tax base and higher skill higher paying job opportunities. So that's where we tended to put more of our focus when we thought about new discrete target industry opportunities. Thank you. Um in short, you shared that there was also like a demographic analysis done of Bakersfield. I'm sure that forecast it. What were just in summary some of the results of that demographic analysis that was conducted? I'm most curious about um current education rates, ages of the workforce, what that looks like into the future and what Sure. Um so again, I think that um the the way that we approach this is a little bit different than a a typical economic development study in which we're looking uh at a particular community or all facets. Um the demographic analysis is really just limited to pulling the information and data that we would pull if we were working with a company that was looking to relocate to the community. Um so we didn't necessarily look at population projections. Um within the study there is some information about where people um in the community are coming from that are not from here. Is it international? Is it domestic? Uh there's some information about migratory rates into and out of the community and into and out of California. Uh, and then just some of some fundamental demographic information that we talk through um in in the presentation slides. But again, I think that something for us that when we're looking at your community really sets you apart is that you're young and you're growing. Um, and I I can tell you that that is not most of the United States. Um, and in fact, you're significantly younger in terms of average age uh than the rest of California. And again, so as we think about some of those competitive pushpull factors and formulating that value proposition, those are kind of some of the data points that we think about kind of building on as we think about marketing the community. That's interesting. The migratory rates that you mentioned in and out of California, what what were those? What did you find? Where are people coming from? Uh I can't I can't uh speak to that off the top of my head, unfortunately. Um that was some analysis that that we had done previously. I I do know that uh there's quite a significant route migration um out of California. Um and so as you look at some of the communities that you're competing with that we've looked at uh in comparison um you know what's happening in Kern County, we're seeing uh out migration which is leading to population loss. I believe we're also seeing an increase in births over deaths. So that's called natural population gain as well as an increase in international population gain. Um and when you combine all three of those factors, obviously you're you're a growing community. Okay. I would be curious just to see who's coming into Bakersfield, who's moving into Kern and what that what the report reflects. That's um interesting information. My last question is with um you mentioned the city, county, state alignment. Of course, that's the dream. How have you all seen this achieved elsewhere in your professional opinion? How do we achieve that here? Uh yeah. So there are some best-in-class examples from around the country and we can point to places like uh one, you know, Columbus, Ohio. Uh, one Columbus is an outstanding regional economic development group uh that represents a multi-county, multi-city metropolitan area and the cities and the region and jobs Ohio representing the state do a fantastic job. They stay in their lanes. They know what their responsibilities are. And when project opportunities come, the division of labor, let's say, between who manages the lead, who handles the project management of that opportunity, it's it's all very very clear. It's very well managed. That's just one example. There are other examples around the country. Uh in Atlanta, you can go to De Moine, Iowa. The the examples are are diverse. Uh what I would say with respect to to California uh is that couple things. One, I think there's a a bit of alignment work that needs to be done between the city and Kern County and there are couple of different or several different organizations working at the Kern County level. So that creates a little bit of a confusing organizational model. But then there's also the city. So that's that's a local regional play. Uh but then there's the question of how do you work with the state? And on that front, I would say uh when we brought this assignment to the GOBiz team uh and I made the first outreach to go biz to their executive director, not DD Meyers, but the person doing the dayto-day. And I said, "We want to come in, meet with your team, tell you about a mega site in Bakersfield, and show you something that might be transformational for Bakersfield and for Kern County. And here's a list of 16 people we want to meet with with the GoBiz team that are responsible for everything from marketing, business strategy, talent development, uh global investment attraction, uh utilities, mobility, EV strategy. I mean the list was long. 13 out of 16 people that we requested to meet with joined us for that first meeting. And then we did it again about 6 months later. They're interested in Kern County. They were interested in Bakersfield and the Rosedale Ranch. As we made progress and we reported that back to them, they seemed excited that this could be an opportunity because they sit with this business development pipeline from companies that they are approached by from Korea, from Japan, from the Netherlands, from all around the world. So they've got this pipeline of opportunity and they have to figure out is this something that we can actually win in the state of California and where would that project potentially land? We've got to educate that potential client where the opportunities. It's not just San Francisco. It's not just Los Angeles. California is a complex place. The GoBiz team seemed very interested in what the potential was here. So, I think you need to lean into that and we can help you do that. Good to hear. Thank you. Um, I'd like to share just a tactical recommendation um that is highlighted within our economic development recommendations on regional collaboration and it's to establish a regular meeting schedule with all of your regional players that are that touch economic development and that could include competitors. So that could be a representative from the city of Bakersfield and as from the city of Shater in the same meet in the same meeting with a set schedule bi-weekly once a month to talk about economic development issues and it can be a challenge. Um, I used to work in regional economic development and we had a schedule like this and there were times where you would have, you know, two cities that could be competing for a project or two cities that um, at whatever given point in time had, you know, an issue with each other, but there was a commitment to keep showing up to that table regardless of what was going on. It was a commitment to relationships and the people in the room and we're going to keep showing up to this table and figure out how to collaborate. Um and that meeting had a set agenda. It was to talk about project pipeline. Um which you know sometimes you know projects are highly confidential but the question was always how do we collaborate for the better betterment of our region. Um you've seen regional compacts developed kind of non-competes like we're not going to actively poach companies from your territory and when a project is looking at the region coming up with best practices for how you're going to collaborate. Um, so, so there's definitely very tactical things that you could do, but I would say my first recommendation is to set a table and then commit to keep showing up at that table regardless of what the environment holds at that given point in time. That's great. That I think that's a great idea. In closing, I'll just say and to our city folks, I think this example, this project is just another reminder that we really need to figure out our habitat conservation plan because we will not have gamecher projects and be able to sustain them. And I think that should be a high priority on our list, making sure we see projects like this come to life. Um, or we list I think there is a significant risk in losing gamecher projects because of that habitat conservation plan. So, I do think we must figure that out sooner than later. Um, and I just want to thank everyone involved in this process. This was uh truly very informative. So, thank you for your time. Thank you, members of the public. For those of you who are here for the 5:15 meeting, it looks like we're going to run a little bit late. So, you're not late for that meeting, but uh we're finishing up our 3:30 meeting. Council member Smith, it's in your word. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, thank you Keith Gardenarder and uh the Gardener family. Appreciate the work and and everything you've done in Bakersville over the I actually worked with your dad and and that property some time ago. Um, thank you new Mark and staff for working with them. It seems I'm first met with you I don't a year plus ago it seems like and uh I look forward to actually digging into the report and but I I do appreciate the overview. Um nice to hear we're young and growing. I'm not sure I'm in that group but it uh it's exciting for these uh for the future of Bakersfield to see something different. And I and I really do appreciate you not looking at logistics. That deal's done. And so, yeah, what's next? Where do we move to? So, thank you. And with that, I I'll move to I think it's uh receive and file. Thank you, Council Member Smith. Council member Arus. Thank you, Mayor. Um, just a few thoughts. Um, and I echo uh Vice Mayor Kor's comments. Uh the need for an MBHCP plan in the city of Bakersfield is of the utmost priority uh from an economic development standpoint. Um I can't remember which of the team members from Newark mentioned that whether or not we do anything different than we're doing today, this type of development and these investments are going to naturally come to Kern County. um and they're already happening and the MBHCP is one of those very not simple u but one of those lowhanging fruit items that we could do to streamline development and ensure that we are protecting species uh but also making sure that we are uh easing up development as quickly as possible um just this week uh was navigating uh with the developer um a very large project coming to Ward one um and had this very discussion um and the need for that document to come back to this body for discussion and and hopeful I'm very hopeful that we will approve uh something here soon um just couldn't be more important in my mind. Um the second thing I'll say is that um the state and national averages for unemployment rates is about 12%. Uh the city of Bakersfield is at roughly about 16% on average. uh wards like Southeast Bakersfield that I represent are roughly around 24 25 26%. Um there is a large uh population that is ready and willing uh to be able to work these jobs. The the challenge is getting those jobs to the city of Bakersfield. Um, and so I think that in in the grand scheme of all things that we do as council members, as representatives, as a city, uh, you know, finding those unique ways to reinvest our taxpayer dollars, uh, to bring good jobs, good quality jobs, high-paying jobs is at the very top of that list. Um and I think that as measure end funds um continue to get encumbered by ongoing uh expenses uh we are really at a crossroads uh where we are challenged to really make uh some really challenging deci decisions as it relates to the economic markets uh today. Uh but we are slowly getting to fully committing all of our measure end funds um in ongoing commitments. And while we still have a a opportunity and a window to make significant investments, this to me rises at the top of that list. And so tonight, I want to make a referral uh for staff uh to uh develop a rubric um for us to evaluate all the different types of developments that are coming uh to the city of Bakersfield. Uh it's been my observation over the past couple of years that um we have addressed the needs of each individual project on a case-byase basis. Uh, and I think it's really important for the developer and for the community and for the public to know what exactly it is that we are willing to uh work with and what it exactly we want to see. Um, and so um I've started to work on the rubric. Um, and I think this is a non-exhaustive list. Um, but first and foremost, how many jobs are going to be created uh by this incoming development? And what is the quality, what is the pay um potential for those jobs? um what is the workforce look like? Are we ready uh to handle this type of development? Um also, is the developer, whoever it is that's interested in coming in, who are they going to hire? Are they going to bring folks from Arizona? Are they going to bring folks uh from out of town? Or are they going to hire our local folks right here in the city of Bakersfield? Um are they a match for the types of industry that we are looking to bring into this community? Uh California Jobs First has done a tremendous job working with B3K to identify uh what those jobs and clusters that we should be looking at. Um and as we have alluded to, we are uh you know losing jobs in the oil and energy sector uh on a on a weekly basis. And so uh some of the conversation around industrial warehousing manufacturing u there there are studies that show that that is actually one of the most likely pathways for someone to relocate uh who's displaced from their current job in the oil fields. And so I think it's a worthwhile investment um to make sure that we're looking at those industry clusters um whether or not uh we are placing this in a disadvantaged community. Um, also what what is the tax revenue potential for a project, right? Um, I think Mr. Gardner hit the nail on the head. Um, we need to be looking 10, 20 years down the road to figure out how we are going to continue to increase our tax base. And then also, um, what is what is the benefit to the community, right? beyond just the jobs, are are there other factors at play um that help make this uh a good project for the community? And lastly, what is the likelihood of the project actually working? Um and I think that um this could be used as a starting point for us to develop um a plan so that we can start to filter out which projects on a tiered basis we should be uh moving and to what extent we should be able to uh help support them all the way from you know maybe making a couple of um uh reduced rates for impact fees um all the way to uh the white glove treatment where we're meeting with them on a weekly ly basis. We have a standing meeting. We have an individual or team dedicated solely to making sure that this project uh comes forward. And and I say all of that and I did not realize that I was going to make this referral tonight. Um just came up in conversation I think late last week with Mr. Howland. Um but I think it's it's a timely one and I think um creating that predictability for developers who are going to come in is going to be a gamecher. The last thing I'll say is that as we talk about the different tiers, this is this this project uh Rosedale Ranch is at the tier one, right? A unique opportunity with thousands of jobs um that could be brought in uh for our local workforce. Um can significantly significantly improve our tax revenue and our tax base. Um and so it meets a lot of the metrics in my mind u that would make it a worthwhile project. Um, and so with that, I want to make that referral. Um, and just say that Mr. Gardner, thank you so much for waiting and not building housing and and instead creating an opportunity for us to really improve the overall economics of our local community. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Gonzalez. Uh, thank you, Mr. Gardner and the Gardenner family for your contributions, for your leadership in this process. Thank you, Newark, for the presentation. I joined Council Member Smith in that. I'd love to read the full uh recommendations and full report and look forward to digesting that. Um it's already 5:15 so I'm I'm I'm talking quickly. Um M Greg actually brought up um at the beginning of his remarks that the competition does not wait. And I think that needs to be a banner uh that we place somewhere at city hall. The competition does not wait. That's true for other mega sites. That's true for industry. is true for cities, other cities who are we are competing against uh to bring in new jobs uh for the futures of their communities, futures of our community. And we we need to recognize that the competition is not waiting around and we got to get to it. And it really, you know, against that backdrop, it really is compelling to look at one of the stakeholder engagement key findings is that local permitting is a major challenge that slows down business development. That is something we've heard time and time and time and time and time again. But uh the competition does not wait. So we have to make sure that we ease that uh process processes the permitting processes. Um and that has to be that has to be number one. Um and as we look at I'm looking forward to looking at the 40 action items and those those recommendations. uh we ought to just develop a checklist and just go through it and regularly either through committee or the full council just continuously work at how are we how are we chipping away each and every action item because the competition is not waiting. Um, and then the other point that really sticks out and bothers me is that this region suffers from poor outsider perception. And we got to do more whether it means uh a Super Bowl ad uh promoting Bakersfield or or what, but we got to do a better job telling the Bakersfield story. And I think we need I think, you know, it's the message and the messenger. And we need to get the messengers right. make sure we have the right messengers who are telling the Bakersville story in an authentic way, in an exciting way, in a compelling way, uh on a national stage, on a global stage, uh so that we can we can fight for this region and we can fight for the future economy and the growth of our economy because this is a fight. It is a competition and uh others aren't aren't messing around. So, I don't want to mess around. I want to get started. So, I appreciate the referral from council member Aries. I'm going to add on to it that we just take that 40 item list and just get to it post haste. Thank you. Thank you. You have a motion. Please cast your votes. Uh, we seem to have a problem with the voting not working. Uh, just in the interest of time, would you do a roll call vote, please? Just Council Member Core. Yes. Council member Arus, I. Council member Gonzalez, hi. Council member Weir yes. Council member Smith, yes. Council member Kleman, yes. Council member Basher, yes. Thank you. Motion uh passes unanimously. And with that, we stand adjourn at 5:19. We're going to give the city council a 10-minute break. We'll come back at 5:30. I don't anticipate this is going to be a very long meeting for the next one unless we have a lot of public comments. So, uh, for those of you who were prepared to be here at 5:15, thank you so much for being here. We're just going to take a little break and we'll start at 5:30. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Think about [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Media media. [Music] [Music] Welcome to the Bakersfield City Council meeting. This television broadcast is brought to you by the local cable companies, the county of Kerna, 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 p.m. You can download the agenda for this meeting at www.bakersfield city. us. Preciding over this evening's meeting, the Honorable Mayor Karen K. Go. Good evening and welcome to the 5:15 regular city council meeting of April 9th, 2025. Madame clerk, please call the role. Mayor Go here. Vice Mayor Core here. Council member Arus here. Council member Gonzalez. Council member Weir here. Council member Smith, I am here. Council member Kman here. Council member Basher here. Well, welcome to all of you and it's good uh to have people here and those online. We're uh grateful that uh we have students from CSUB and students from CSU Channel Islands. Welcome to all of you. And also we have our sorority represented here, Alpha Kappa Alpha. I was just at a scholarship uh graduation where they gave away 42 $42,000 in scholarships. So, thank you so much to them. And tonight, uh, we have the pleasure of having Pastor Bonnie Turner, who's one of the co-pastors of Greater Lighthouse Church and the Blessing Corner Outreach, along with Pastor John Turner, who will offer the invocation. For nearly 30 years, they've served our homeless populations and those who have been challenged by all kinds of uh, negativity, especially along that Union corridor. food giveaways, back to school, holiday feedings. They're there on Easter and Christmas when everybody else is having a good time. Then they go later on and have their family gatherings. But pastor, both of you, it's just so wonderful to see the work that you have invested. And I see some of their team back there in the back row who go out there on a regular basis. A lot of kids from BCHS volunteering. Thank you for your counseling and education classes and disaster training and health and wellness. Following the invocation, we have the pleasure of having Jaden Oliver, who's a senior at Del Oro to lead us in the pledge. And so Jaden is a 4.0 GPA student. He's on the honor role on the principal list project best newspaper art club BSU. He plans to attend either CSUB or CSU Sacramento, majoring in computer science or graphic design and minoring in psychology. He aims to be a video game designer, an animator, video editor, or a computer science teacher, or maybe all of those. And here's why Jaden is here tonight. I was at the Alpha Kappa Alpha graduation scholarship and there were 48 seniors who were on stage who were the scholarship recipients. Jaden was among them. So each of them was called maybe once or twice and then there were more than 350 eighth graders who were on the honor roll and each of them were called. Now imagine seniors just sitting there on the stage. Well, what I noticed about Jaden, I watched this the whole time. You're watching 350 senior uh eighth graders go across stage. Jaden clapped for everyone. Mom Mo'Nique, you should be so proud of him. I watched as the other kids were maybe doing other things, but Jaden, I just watched you the whole time. You were attentive and you were clapping. People in the audience were moving around and leaving, but you were very focused on celebrating others. So, thank you so much for that. And Mom Monique, you should be just so proud of him. Let's stand for the invocation. Father God, I come to you in the name of Jesus and I invite your divine presence here now in our midst. I bind every unfruitful work of darkness here present in the name of Jesus. Thank you for the opportunity to stand Lord to pray over the leaders of this great city. And I thank you for my husband, Pastor John, that you have called here to this beautiful city along with our family. My father, I pray over the minds and hearts of every council member here today who you know each by name. Lord, as they have gathered here today to participate in various discussions that will offer affect our city, I pray that you grant each and every one of them your godly wisdom, your godly knowledge, and your divine understanding that their ultimate decision will result. I pray for your humble servant, Mayor Go, now and always that as she leads this awesome group of city- elected officials in tonight's meeting, we would get tremendous result. I pray that you would give each member a one accord spirit here tonight. and continuously as they serve among themselves. I pray that you would give them all the presence of mind to make quality decisions, Lord, that they would find best as they serve all of the residents regardless of their race, creed, or color. Lord, heal any and all divisions that may have occurred in the past and that have our leaders. help our leaders to truly examine themselves according prior according to prior prayers or I'm sorry according to prior decisions that may have been submitted and as they submit their decisions in tonight's voting we pray that you would bless each of them. Father, I ask that you would bless each and every one of them. And I pray God that you would help them as they go in their representative communities as they listen to those whom they have been elected to serve. I pray that you will empower them to do the very best and to do that which is right by all those whom they are serving and will be representing. Lord, I can only imagine all of the city officials great sacrifices as they serve daily in these very important jobs. So, Father, I pray a special blessing upon each and every one of them and their families that they too may walk in your divine favor and that you will watch over them as they go in and out among your people in their daily service. So God, thank you for your grace and your mercy and that you have bestowed upon each of them and for hearing all of our prayer requests herein. Because you have told us in your word that if my people that are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways. Lord, you said you would hear from heaven. You said that you will forgive our sins and that you will heal our land. And this we believe in your word. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you, pastor. Okay. Salute. I salute. Pride. I pledge of allegiance to the United States of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. May be seated, Jaden. Thank you so much, Pastor Bonnie and Pastor John. Thank you very much. You are free to go at this time. You're welcome to stay, but if you want to go and uh study a little bit more so you can keep up that 4.0 Oh, uh, GPA, you're welcome to do that. And I know Pastor Bonnie and Pastor John, thank you so much. Here are a few guidelines to help our meeting run smoothly. We request that you turn off your phones. Be please be courteous in the use of cameras and videos. For safety reasons, and as courtesy to others, no signs are allowed in the council chambers or in the lobby. Applause is allowed during the presentations portion of the meeting, but not during other portions of the meeting. Everyone in attendance is expected to adhere to the rules of decorum established by resolution of the city council. Failure to abide by the city's rules of decorum, including any disruptive behavior that interferes with our ability to have an orderly and efficient meeting prevents the city council from conducting the business of the city. Consider this a first warning to everyone in attendance that conduct that disrupts this meeting may result in expulsion and/or the chambers being cleared. Behavior that disrupts the meeting includes repetitive statements, shouting, hate speech, interrupting staff or presenters during the meeting, speaking out of turn, outburst from the audience, and surpassing the twominut time limit. Madame clerk, next item, please. Presentation item 4A, proclamation to Hector Vasquez, executive director of the American Red Cross Kern County and Eastern Sierra Board of Directors, recognizing the Burell Fire Volunteers and March 2025 as American Red Cross month in Bakersville. July 2024th, a massive fire made its way through the Kern River Canyon, surrounding areas of Lake Isabella and our historic Havla community. By September, although under 100% containment, nearly 60,000 acres had burned. Volunteers, including those from the American Red Cross throughout Bakersfield, Kern County, and the Eastern Sierra regions, readily responded to the needs of the impacted communities. Volunteers set up safe, clean shelters in nearby Ridgerest and to Hatchipee and welcomed all families and neighbors displaced from their homes by the wildfires. We're so grateful to organizations like the American Red Cross for their continued efforts to provide to prevent and alleviate human suffering in the face of emergencies. Thank you so much. It's my honor to issue this proclamation. Whereas during American Red Cross month in March, we celebrated the humanitarian spirit of the city of Bakersville and Kern County and reaffirmed the city's commitment to helping ensure no one faces a crisis alone. And whereas caring for others is the heart of our community, exemplified by the people of Bakersfield and Kern County, whose simple acts of kindness through the Red Cross provide help and hope in people's most difficult moments. Whereas volunteers generous contributions shine a beacon of hope in people's darkest hours. Whether it's delivering shelter, food, comfort during disasters, providing critical blood donations for hospital patients, supporting service members, veterans and their families, saving lives with first aid, CPR, AED, and other skills, or delivering international aid, and reconnecting loved ones separated by global crisis. And due to the scheduling, we weren't able to present the proclamation to the Red Cross during the month of March along with recognizing the many volunteers of the Braille fires. I want to highlight American Red Cross Month tonight in our city and thank Hector and his team for all of their work. It's my honor to give them this proclamation, which they've already received, but here we go. Coming up here, thank you so much for your efforts and feel free to introduce your team and offer remarks. Thank you so much. Thank you so much and thanks everyone. Good afternoon. I am joined by Isabelle Bravo. She's our board of directors chair and uh Carolyn Forser. She's our vice chair for the board of directors and mayor. Thank you so much for this. This uh proclamation represents the hard work that our volunteers do. We wouldn't do anything without the hard work and time and dedication from all of our volunteers. Uh we're constantly looking for new volunteers. And when everyone here is the Red Cross, obviously we think of the big Red Cross, the big national disaster. just recently in January with the LA wildfires and I'm very happy to uh mention the dedication from all of our uh volunteers in Kern County and eastern eastern Sierra. Uh they're ready to uh deploy at any moment. But I also want to highlight the importance of what we're doing here in the city. Uh as you guys know, the Red Cross, we have disaster action teams who respond to all single family home fires. The fire department usually tells the uh residents that were just devastated by their fire that they need to call the Red Cross. They'll come out and help. And our volunteer team usually responds within a couple hours. They'll go out there, meet them at their home, give them resources, financial assistance, and just give them a little bit of hope. And sometimes all you need is a hug. That's how it was for me when I first became uh in uh when I first became affected by a flood in San Diego. uh a Red Cross team showed up to my home two hours after my home flooded and this Red Crosser just gave me a big big hug that I needed and that was very influential which is why I'm so proud to be part of the Red Cross. So I want to continue to invite all of you guys to be part of our uh Red Cross team. Uh as a matter of fact, I just drove from Sacramento. We were for legislative days the last two days and I met with Jasmine, Dr. Jasmine Baines. She's a proud Red Crosser. He was with me deployed down in LA wildfires and I just really love um the participation of our elected officials so we could continue to lead from the front. So any of you guys are willing to want to join us in our in our mission, I welcome all of you guys and I want to let Isabelle really quick speak on uh behalf of the Red Cross and the chapter. Thank you so much to all of you for giving us this recognition. We accept it on behalf of our volunteers. Like I said, like Hector said, without our volunteers, we couldn't do the work that we do. And speaking in about Kern County, we have a large Hispanic population. And I'm really trying and as a board, we're trying to get more Spanish-sp speakaking volunteers. So when these um home fires or other disasters happened, you know, they can be comforted by people who speak their same language. So again, we want to represent those in our community and we want to make sure that we serve each and every one of them. So help us spread the word. Anybody who wants to become a volunteer, go to redcross.org volunteers. We we take them in every color, every race. Just about anyone can become a volunteer. Thank you so much. And California, help spread the word. You always know what Thank you so much. Give it up for the Red Cross. Thank you very [Applause] In keeping with the council's resolution, public statements are received at different times depending on the item. I will call on the city clerk to call for public statements. If you wish to make a public statement, please fill out a public speaker card and place it in the tray next to the speaker's podium. We ask that you mark whether you're here to speak on an item listed on today's agenda or in a matter not on the agenda. Speakers who do not identify specific agenda item will be presumed speakers for the non-aggenda public statement. If you're here to speak on an item not listed on the meeting agenda, you will be called first to speak. Statements are given a two-minute time limit per speaker, 20 minutes total for all non-aggenda item public statements. If you're here to speak in an item listed on the agenda, I will call for you at the appropriate time. If public statements become disruptive and I've declared the chambers to regain order the meeting, you will be called in one at a time to provide your public statement when your item is called. Madame clerk, do we have any public speakers regarding items not listed on the agenda? Margo, we have not received any speaker cards regard regarding items not on the agenda, nor have we received any for items on the agenda. Thank you. So, we have nothing at all for the appointments or the consent calendar. I'm confirming. Correct. Thank you. And so now, next item, appointments. Item 6A, one appointment at large to the Miscellaneous Civil Service Board to a term to expire on December 31st, 2026 due to the resignation of Ronald Wolf. Applications have been received from Frankie Sutton, Ronald Wolf, and John Stoval. Thank you. I'd like to clarify the uh voting process for you. The council will vote electronically and the city clerk will then announce the results. Based on these results, the council will then make the appropriate motion regarding the appointment. You have a motion. Please cast your votes. The apparent uh winner is John Stovall with a unanimous vote. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh motion to approve John Stovall to the miscellaneous civil service board. You have a motion. Please cast your votes. It's not working. Oh, there we go. The item is approved unanimously. Thank you. Next item, please. Item 6B, four appointments to the Keep Bakersfield Beautiful Committee as follows. Ward two, alternate member, term expired December 2024. Ward three, regular member, resigned September 16th, 2024. Ward six, alternate member, term expired December 2024. Mayor's appointment, alternate member, term expired January 2025. Applications have been received from Jamie Little, Frankie Sutton, David Baker, and Naelli Franco. Thank you. These appointments are by Ward. Therefore, I'll call on the council members. Council member Gonzalez for the nomination of W 2 alternate KBB member. I'd like to nominate Frankie Sutton as an alternate member representing W 2. Thank you. Council member Weir for the nomination of W three regular KBB member. Who? Ward three. Would you give me the names again, please? Oh, Frankie Sutton has already been nominated. Jamie Little, David Baker, and Nielli Franco. I'll move uh Jamie. Is that Is that already done? Yep. Uh, council member Basher Tash for the nomination of ward six alternate. I would like to nominate David Baker. And at this time, I'm not appointing an alternate member. I'll do that at a future council meeting. Vice Mayor, motion to approve the nominations to forward ws um 2, three, and six to the keepers beautiful committee. You have a motion. Please cast your votes. The item is approved unanimously. Thank you and thank you to Mr. Sutton, Miss Little, and Mr. Baker for your willingness to serve. Next item, please. Item 6 C, two appointments to the Bakersfield Public Safety and Vital City Services Measure Citizens Oversight Committee due to the term expirations of Connie Perez Ward 2 and Mary Madlin at large. Applications have been received from Mary Madlin and Frankie Sutton. Thank you. Council member Gonzalez, do you wish to present nomination for the W 2? I do not. I'm declining tonight. Okay. and council. I see council member Basher Tash. I would like to nominate Mary Madland uh to the to reappoint her to the atlarge position. She's a great business owner. She's been on uh the uh board already and knows the ins and outs. Um I I have great confidence in her ability to to do right by uh the taxpayers and and making good decisions. I I know Mary and I highly recommend uh her appointment. Vice Mayor motion to approve the appointment to the PSVS committee. You have a motion. Please cast your votes. The item is approved unanimously. Thank you. And thank you, Miss Meline, for your willingness to serve again. Madam clerk, next item, please. Item 6D, one appointment at large to the Historic Preservation Commission due to the term expiration of Eileen Diaz on March 31st, 2025. Applications have been received from Elizabeth Lisa Harris and Heather Roso. Thank you. Uh, councel, anyone wish to make a motion for the atlarge nomination? Oh, it's sorry. It's a vote, isn't it? Um, it's a vote. So, The apparent winner is Elizabeth Lisa Harris. The voting as follows. Vice Mayor Core, Heather Roso, Council Member Aras, Elizabeth Lisa Harris, Council Member Gonzalez, Elizabeth Lisa Harris, Council Member Weir, abstain. Council member Smith, Elizabeth Lisa Harris, Council Member Kleman, abstain. Council member Basher abstain. A motion to approve the appointment to the Historic Preservation Committee. You have a motion. Please cast your votes. The item me is approved with council members Kleman and Basher abstaining. Thank you. Next item, please. Consent calendar. Consent calendar items 7A through 7 I for approval. A staff memorandum has been provided regarding item 7D1 revising the resolution. And a staff memorandum was provided regarding item 7E1 removing the item from the agenda. Thank you. I haven't received any requests from council members for either recusal or for separate consideration. Is there anyone who wants to do either of those at this point? Seeing none, vice mayor. Motion to approve the consent calendar. You have a motion. Please cast your votes. The item is approved unanimously. Thank you. Next item, please. Council and Mayor statements. Council member Gonzalez. Um, colleagues, I wanted to make a few comments tonight because it it um occurred to me over the last week or so uh what an honor it is to serve as a council member, but also what a sacrifice it takes to serve. And it's no it should be no surprise to any of you on the dis but perhaps folks in the community um that the city council job is actually a volunteer position. Uh and with that volunteer position, uh we are um required to not only attend city council meetings, but also s serve on various different uh council committees. Uh serve on various commissions representing the city of Bakersfield. Um and so it is a a considerable amount of commitment and I'm honored to do so. Um but it does come at some sacrifice. um particularly if you take a look at the growth of the city of Bersfield over the last 40 50 years. In fact, I was looking at it today's Bersville's population is around 415,000 people, maybe 420,000. In 1982, the year I was born, the population was 130,000 residents. That is a 220% increase in number of residents. Since the year 2000, we've grown 70%. The population in the year 2000 um when I actually left Bersville for school was 247,000 people. We've grown by 70%. We are a growing city and with that the demands on this city council both constituent requests and the number of issues and the number and the complexity of issues uh continues to increase. And so it is important as we look at the future uh budget and if we look at the future composition of this council, if we look at uh as we look at the you know city charter and review, we have to address the reality that the ability to actually serve a a and give the level of service as elected representatives to our constituents. Um, in order for us to do that, we need the support and we need the support from uh by way of by way of staff. Um, I get anywhere from six to a dozen constituent requests every workday. On the weekends, nights and weekends, I get calls and texts. On Christmas day, I was getting texts related to constituent issues. Um, I've been here at the city council. Today is my mother's birthday and I'm here tonight. Uh I was here on the on my 40th birthday. Uh there there's a lot of sacrifice that we all all of us every council member can tell stories about the sacrifice that they've put in to to help serve on behalf of the city and to make Bakersfield a better place. Um but when I take a look at my workload and the number of requests I have to request, humbly request uh that we are provided additional support by way of staff and specifically when it comes to those constituent requests that aren't one-offs, you know, fill in a pothole, you know, lost garbage can. Those are things that we can easily solve uh by a quick email. But there are many other requests that are far more complicated. You know, a property owner who's unsure of what they should do with their property in the future, how they should develop that site. Uh a business owner who's wants to understand the um economic opportunity programs or other um you know other opportunities that might be available through the city. those conversations, those issues take a lot more time and um I want to be able to serve my constituents at the same level that I've served for the last eight years, but I do need help. And so um my hope was that our city fellows would be able to be um provided to the council um and I'm hoping that we can work out a way where we can provide additional support for uh for the council members. But when I have made that request, um unfortunately the request was uh limited to 2 hours a month uh for a fellow to provide support uh as I meet with uh constituents and unfortunately that's just untenable for me uh and to meet the the demands that W is facing that war has the number of constituents that call me on my cell phone uh every day in order for me to meet that need and to perform at the level that they deserve. Um, I'm going to need additional support. So, I'm making a referral tonight to the city manager that um you analyze the uh city fellows program, how we're allocating time and to provide additional support uh for uh city council members uh because um the the current current level uh just isn't isn't working. And that all that to say staff is wonderful. There's a lot of wonderful people who are working very very hard. Um the help team is great again for specific issues. Um wonderful support there. Um but but when it comes to some of these um larger issues, some more where more research is required. Um I I do need additional help. I want to be an effective council member. I don't want to be just a seat warmer. I want to make an impact in my ward and in the city as I know many of my colleagues do. Um, and so in order for me to do that, I'm respectfully uh asking for additional support. Thank you. We stand adjourned at 603. Thank you. [Music] Behind [Music] me down. 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