welcome to the Bakersfield City council meeting this television broadcast is brought to you by the local cable companies the county of karna and the City of Bakersfield you can watch the rebroadcast of this meeting Saturday at 700 p.m. Sunday at 10:00 a.m. and the following Wednesday at 700 p.m. you can download the agenda for this meeting at www. Bakersfield city. us preci over this evening's meeting the honorable mayor Karen K go good evening it's my pleasure to call to order the 515 regular city council meeting of September 21st 2022 Madame clerk please call the RO mayor go here vice mayor we here council member Aras council member Gonzalez here council member Smith I'm here council member Freeman council member gray here council member Parlier here thank you welcome to everyone it's so good to see uh many people in the chambers tonight uh we had the pleasure tonight of having Pastor ignasio Valdez from New Hope Family Worship Center to offer the invocation it was such a pleasure Pastor to join you with The Rock The Block event I think there were over 200 attendees from the neighborhood and the work that Pastor is doing is in a very challenged neighborhood just reaching out uh there were 50 bicycles given away and children who really never would have gotten a bicycle had that opportunity and so many other positive things following the invocation Natalie Tango who is a junior at Golden Valley High School will lead us in the pledge she's the W one alternate youth commissioner thank you for your service Natalie she's on the swim team interact Club ASB public Rel ation chair and she's also on the Golden Valley High School site Council she plans to pursue a career in business and finance and you get to lead tonight if you promise to come back and serve in Bakersville uh would you all please stand Pastor thank you to our city council thank you mayor for inviting us and I'd like to read one scripture before I pray and that scripture is found in proverb 8 Proverbs 8:14 and 15 it says by wisdom God gives Kings reign and rulers make laws that are just but my wisdom princes govern all Nobles who rule on Earth I love those who love me and those who seek me God is a giver is a generous giver and he loves to give he will give his wisdom to anyone who humbles himself and asks for it so today we will pray for wisdom for for our leaders our elect and for all those in our midst father we thank you Lord for all of our civil servants thank you for their hard work their sacrifice may you continually bless them may you gener generously give them to each of them wisdom and Discerning Hearts skillfully governing the people in our city give the mayor our city council members our staff much wisdom wisdom so that they may solve problem problems distinguish between right and wrong and bring order and stability and prosperity to our community your word says Lord search me oh God and know my hearts try me and know my thoughts and see if there's any Grievous way in me and lead us into the way of everlasting we thank you Lord amen salute pledge I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you and you may be seated thank you Pastor thank you Natalie Pastor not many people choose to work in a gang infested neighborhood and uh reach out with compassion so thank you so much here are a few guidelines to help our meeting run smoothly we request that you turn off your phones please be courteous in the use of cameras and videos and for safety reasons and as a 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 allowed during other portions of the meeting everyone in attendance is expected to adhere to the rulle 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 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 or in the chamber being clear behavior that disrupts the meeting includes repetitive stat ments going off topic shouting outbursts from the audience and surpassing the two-minute time limit Madam clerk next item please presentations item 4A proclamation to Jennifer Henry executive director for links of for Life declaring Paint The Town Pink month in Bakersfield during October 2022 welcome Miss Henry and friends you're going to introduce our other guests here one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer during her lifetime that's pretty scary Mothers Daughters sisters friends are impacted by this invasive disease entire families entire communities are affected what we know is that early detection is very important early detection saves lives regular self-examinations yearly mammograms are key to possible early diagnosis so it's my honor tonight to issue the following Proclamation the mayor of the city of Bakersville California has officially proclaimed October 2022 as Paint The Town Pink month in our city in recognition of the more than 287,000 women in the United States who will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer and more than 43,000 women who will not survive this diagnosis in recognition of the residents of Bakersville who have fearlessly battled this terrible disease and survived and those who have bravely lost the fight in recognition of the unwavering support of family friends offering sanctuary and encouragement to their loved ones in the midst of their treatment in recognition of links for life and other organizations committed to increasing awareness and finding a cure for breast cancer in recognition of the importance of raising public Consciousness and securing funding for research and in recognition of the efforts to unite our community Through awareness and personal experiences by displaying the color pink during the month of October congratulations to links for life for 30 years of dedicated service to our community it's my honor to to be able to present this certificate to Jen Jennifer Henry executive director of links for life thank you so much for your service I know how dedicated you are to this cause good evening thank you all for having us um I think we've probably been here 30 years in a row so and thank you for your pink TI I appreciate that um I'd like to introduce um board members I have Charlotte Brandt and I have Genevie Bronco to join me today thank you for proclaiming October Paint The Town Pink month as she said we were established 30 Years Ago by 10 passionate women who wanted to give back they played golf passionately and they we started as a golf tournament we will host our 30 this year to highlight this past year we provided 195 breast screenings for those who were underinsured or not insured over 200 women we we supplied head coverings and wigs to 330 came into our office for assistance you know we were on lockdown right this was this past year 300 receiv received Services through our support group and we provided over $300 $100 grocery cards to those in active treatment it's a new program that we've supplyed to women who are going through treatment all these services and more are provided to the community at no cost to underwrite this cost we kick off breast cancer awareness month on October 1st with lacing it up at the park at Riverwalk it's a mile walk or a 5K walk run you can walk the whole thing you can just come out and hang out we support you in coming to our event and then there are many activities throughout the month and your mug there's a calendar at activities and also the where you can get free or reduced mammograms then at the end of the month on October 28th we will be at Luigi's and we who doesn't like Luigi's register you can come and join us and it will be a fantastic dinner and silent and live auction thank you again for supporting links for Life breast cancer awareness month and we look forward to seeing you in October thank you e thank you so much thank you next item please there's one more item that is not on your agenda would you go ahead and tell us what we're going to do retirement presentation to Art gianello water resources manager for 20 years of service to the city of Bakersfield 20 years of service this man is conscious I enous kind dedicated caring come on up here don't be too afraid those are a few ways that uh people who know art uh describe him I remember meeting you in March of 2017 and I never IM imagined there could be that many water rights but uh you know the history inside and out you have done so much for our community taking those water rights following through and then making sure that we all have water you are so knowledgeable it is going to be a challenge to miss you but we're happy for the next step and it's my honor today to be able to present the certificate in honor of 20 years of dedicated service to the city of Bakersville in recognition of your many accomplishments as both Wastewater and water resources manager including the expansion of Wastewater treatment plant 3 the TCP mitigation project and as Steward of the river what a title Steward of the river overseeing the diversion of over 7.7 million acre feet of the kar river water in recognition of your outstanding leadership in the infrastructure of our community and in recognition of your Resolute commitment to provide water to our Bakersville residents congratulations art best wishes on your retirement it's my honor to be able to present this to you give that for our 20 years and one more token of appreciation the mayor's medal thank you thank you and before you talk I'm GNA ask uh city manager to come up here and make some comments you can who's going to embarrass him oh it's going to be assistant City man we're going to we're gonna have a little of both mayor thank you for the opportunity of both okay so I just I just wanted to comment before turning some time to Gary Howen arist and city manager to uh recognize art as well you know not only 20 years of service but art Chinelo in the history of our Water Resources Department is the longest serving water resources manager we've ever had I would just reflect in addition to the great accolades that were just shared about art um almost to me more important than the specific projects or accomplishments is how art does his work um art is one of the most sincere public servants I've had the pleasure of working with he really cares about his team he really cares about this community and he brings everything to the table when uh he's working on an issue and I'd have to say he's an all-around really nice guy so thank you art for your many years of service for all that you've done for water resources in the river in particular and sending us in the right direction and I offer Gary hen to U again recognize artwith uh something that he has recently um also been shared at our water board meeting and a few comments from Gary so uh art has been a tremendous friend to me when I've come to the city brand new to the city and uh one of the first things I noticed about art is he he loves to teach in fact he I I call him the professor you know because if you know the waterboard meeting and and council member parley and Smith and and Freeman know that the entire back wall of the waterboard meeting is a whiteboard so that art can get up and and diagram things that are going on so I I enjoyed our our work together and uh at the waterboard meeting he was he was given this Wonder ful uh memory and and gift as The Keeper of the Kern for the last 12 years so Art thank you for being the keeper the current thank you art floor is all yours one more comment Sam blue are you in the house Sam blue described you as funny but he didn't think I would be willing to say it but yes evidently uh that's what you add you're going to talk too um well no one thought this day would come but but it's here um on behalf of the Water Resources Department congratulations on your very well-deserved retirement you know I think it's safe to say that you have been one of the most dedicated city employees um dedicated to the well-being of the citizens of Bakersfield and to your staff uh you were more than just a boss you were a great teacher mentor and you will forever be an inspirational leader congratulations [Applause] well thank you everyone that was a very nice words thank you so much um I just like to say hello mayor and members of the council it has been my pleasure to serve the residents of Bakersfield for the last 20 years and to live in this great City with my family I'm very proud of all the dedicated employees that I had an opportunity to work with in public works and the water resources department the city of Bakersfield's current river water rights facilities and domestic water system provides a turnkey solution to providing a high-quality reliable water supply for its residents now and into the future the foresight and direction from the city officials city council and the residents of Bakersfield resulted in obtaining these water assets in 1976 and continued to serve the city well today and into the future I am grateful for the support and guidance from the water board the city council city manager and from all the tremendously qualified and smart co-workers working together as a team for the greater good of Bakersfield has brought tremendous satisfaction both to myself and to my job every day thank you very much thank you art give it up for the keeper of [Applause] thank you [Music] art thanks we have an interpreter present for Spanish language uh interpreter are you here yes okay and would you come forward if there's anybody and just let people know if they need to get the uh headphone I think they've been distributed already thank you uh just a helpful reminder uh for those of you who will be speaking tonight since we are using an interpreter just make sure that you are maintaining a pace that will allow interpretation in keeping with council's resolution the public statements portion is now divided into two periods there's a period for items listed on the meeting agenda and items not on the meeting agenda statements for items listed on tonight's agenda are given a two-minute time limit 20 minutes total per agenda item the consent calendar as a whole constitutes one agenda item statements regarding items not listed on the agenda are given a two-minute time limit 20 minutes total if you have written comments that are longer than your verbal statement give them to the city clerk who will give copies to the council if you're here to make a public statement please fill out a public speaker card and give your completed card to the city clerk we ask that you mark whether you're here to speak on an item listed on tonight's agenda or an item not on the agenda speakers who do not identify a specific agenda item will be presumed speakers for the non-agenda portion of the meeting those speakers will be called during the the non-agenda portion of the meeting if you're here on consent calendar hearing items 8 a through b now is not the time to speak you'll be given an opportunity to speak when those items are called later in the meeting we're very interested and concerned with your issues however due to the public notice requirement of the brown act the council can't take action when an item isn't on the agenda the council can however refer your matter to committee or request that staff contact you Madam clerk do we have any public speakers regarding items listed on tonight's agenda America we've received four speaker cards uh for items listed on tonight's agenda and all of them are regarding items 10A the first public speaker is Mike turnup Seed following Mike turnup Seed it's sherah Thompson welcome Mr turnip Madame mayor members of the board I'm Michael turnip seed I represent the current County taxpayers Association I first of all want to thank you after three years I was able to access finally the annual reports for measure n and I'm going to Breeze through some of the important takeaways here uh there was pretty heavy on narrative and very few on facts but that goes uh interesting thing like goal number two violent crime increased 46% in three years our police response times which were supposed to go down with more policemen went up 16% the prosecutions of arson even though we hired more arson investigators the first year measure n is less than 10% as arson is an important thing of they claim 100% prosecution rate but they're only in Prosecuting less than 10% I think that is a real problem you put 600 new lights in town they say they're new but were they Replacements did they actually go to address the needs of the dark communities that don't have any lights at all that wasn't addressed in your report uh back in 19 you planted a bunch of plants 1,800 trees 38,000 plants how many of them are still alive today if you drive on California Avenue between Oak and a street that was replanted back then and probably 20 to 25% of the bushes are dead the trees haven't been pruned in years and we're having people coming to town at the end of next month and that's one of your major gateways to downtown and that's what was supposed to be addressed by measure end money the probably the most effective thing you did you was addressed your goals and oh your clock's running different this time uh get to the other thing oh it's nice that you got an extra 93 million from the taxpayers because sales tax went up and and that one more thing and I'll be done and not bother you anymore most important thing was we talked to the city back in 18 we asked and were told there would be performance audits Mr we knows what a performance audit is and this this is very far from it thank you thank you Mr turnup seed next speaker please sherah Thompson followed by Sandra Placencia followed by Wendell Wesley Jr Miss Thompson go ahead and call the next speaker Miss Placencia then welcome hi sorry about that I think sh's outside we'll get her um but um I'll go ahead um hi good evening everyone um my name is Sandra Placencia policy Advocate with Leadership Council I'm providing comments on the ARP of spending plan I want to thank the city manager and his staff uh for meeting with Leadership Council earlier this month to discuss how the city intended to spend the arpa funding uh the spending plan is off to a great start giving the allocations for infl ided housing projects and home Rehabilitation although we have we are disappointed to see that the funds have been reduced for home rehab and info projects reducing the total investment for housing to 15 million instead of the 18 million that was originally proposed the vacancy rate in Bakersfield is now below 1% we are in desperate need of Housing and the reduction should not have been made to further straighten the arbor plan and create a comprehensive approach to address the housing crisis we urge the city council to allocate funds for rental assistance and EV eviction protection residents are reporting rental increases above the 10% cap Allowed by the state landlords are not following tenant protection laws leaving residents fighting for their rights without legal defense in fact 59% of landlords have legal representation while only less than 1% of tenants have representation in court investing in eviction protection fund will help ensure folks are receiving the legal aid to stay housed tenants are being pushed out of their homes by landlords who want to sell or rent their homes at the current market rate displacing a multitude of residents with the vacancy rate below 1% tenants are for forced to scour the already competitive rental market in hopes of finding a home that will most likely take up the majority of their monthly income as we experienced throughout the past year and a half rental assistance is a huge need for Bakersfield as rent increases continue throughout the city you must prepare to support residents who are unable to pay their rents a rental assistance program can help meet this need for the reasons above we ask the city to include funds for eviction protection and rental assistance in the final ARA plan the city council can consider reallocating funds from categories that are not DET detrimental to the city's livelihood to be used for rental assistance and eviction protection to ensure that that the city is responding to the immediate needs of many residents in Bakersfield who are struggling with housing all mcia your time is up can you go ahead and bring your comments to a close please um lastly all bakersfi residents deserve the right to a safe affordable and sustainable housing thank you thank you next speaker please welcome mayor go uh city council member city manager and staff my name is uh Wendell Wesley uh Jr um I'm I live in the uh new portion of w two uh I'm a recipient of Arco funding and um I really I really feel very blessed to have been a part of that um or I'd probably be on streets right now homeless been there before and it gets tougher and tougher to recover from such incidents like that um it would have basically been to just having a work injury and then finding out I had valley fever things that are totally out of our control these are very important fundings that come through state and federal that we need to um keep intact so that we can keep our numbers down on homelessness and it also at the same time um it provides an added amount of safety to our communities when we have less homeless people on the streets you know um the mental illness that comes along with homelessness or in a lot of cases before an individual becomes homeless it's devastating to our community and adds a level of crime and is largely responsible for all the arson fires so instead of um taking from or cutting fundings like this I'm asking that the city council find ways to increase even if the city uh puts together uh fundraising opportunities like concerts with um um f famous uh people that are from the area or um like-minded people of Bakersville thank you thank you Mr Wesley and is Miss Thompson here she's no not here uh Madam clerk is there any one else for an item listed on the agenda Miss Thompson was the final speaker thank you and now for those items not listed on the agenda America we've received five uh speaker cards for items not listed on tonight's agenda and in addition we've provided a staff memorandum transmitting correspondence the first public speaker is Cameron Wilson follow followed by Leslie Aldridge followed by Lindsay Bloom good evening and hello bakersfi city council my name is Cameron Wilson and I hold the title of Miss Team Bakersfield 2022 alongside jaelle Duran Miss Bakersfield 2022 and Priscilla verella Mrs bakersfi 2022 we thank you for having us this evening and allowing us to share with you how we serve our community Through the Bakersfield pet the Bakersfield pageant has been serving our community for over 28 years we are independent pageant not affiliated with other pageant franchises we are devoted servants to the community of Bakersville annually we make over 60 plus appearances supporting nonprofits local events veteran activities fundraisers and celebrations many of our past title holders have gone on to start their own local nonprofits and others have served with existing nonprofits in addition to having an amazing Sisterhood our pageant encourages local women to get involved and be humbly confident in who they are we strive to be women of Integrity modeling the five C's character commitment choices community and compassion our goal is to be a positive example of influence with humble confidence we are currently accepting applications for the 2023 pageant this orientation will be held November 16th at 6 p.m. at the Stockdale Country Club if you would like more information please visit our website at Bakersfield pageant.com we appreciate local support and thank you for having us thank you Miss Wilson and thank you to the Baker H pageant for your service next speaker please welcome good evening thank you for having us to add to what Cameron said we have the honor this evening of celebrating the beautiful and talented Lindsay Bloom who was crowned as Miss USA international exactly 50 years ago this month after becoming missusa International Lindsay's first Hollywood break came when she was hired as the last singling sister on the de Dean Martin TV show later she went on to Star opposite Stacy ke as his sexy and witty secretary Velda in Mickey Spain's Mike Hammer on CBS TV that's when she became a brunette for 5 years some of her television credits include Bonnie Robertson in Dallas Maybel tillingham the switchboard operator in Dukes of Hazard and Rocket in Vegas all reoccurring roles she guest starred on lever and Shirley The Love Boat Starsky and Hutch and Sanford and Son to name a few her favorite movie role was starring as Jean harlo in Hughes and harow angels in hell in 2007 after raising three children with actor singer Ma Nutter she came out of retirement to reunite with Michelle deav a a fellow dingling sister to perform in a new duo called blue-eyed soul for the Vietnam veterans it has been a rewarding Ministry for her she came out of retirement again to co-star as mayor Aurora Cox in a new movie Charlie's Christmas wish by Blue Heron films Jill Frost films and distributed by Lion's gate in 2020 we feel so honored to have such an outstanding individual with so many wonderful achievements in our very own community of bakersfeld congratulations Lindsay on your 50th anniversary of becoming missusa International thank you Miss Aldridge and now miss Bloom well it's wonderful to be here thank you lesie I want to thank you for this opportunity to celebrate my 50-year Milestone as Miss USA in 1972 wow it's hard to believe that 50 years ago this week I was on my way to Tokyo Japan to compete in the Miss International pageant as missusa it was an amazing experience competing with 80 beautiful women from around the world let me tell you it was something else a funny thing happened while we were all backstage waiting to hear who won uh and they were announcing the runners up uh I was just standing there waiting listening and all of a sudden somebody Taps me on the shoulder says hey you just got fourth runner up I said what oh my gosh and then I heard him announce fourth runner up Miss rinsey brooman I went oh I didn't recognize my name okay and I ran out there got my trophy and I got my crown and I was very happy oh my gosh I believe in um competing in all these contest back when I was much younger really helped me to prepare for all the stiff competition I would get in Hollywood as I went forward and auditioned for many acting roles in television and movies so uh thank thank you for the beauty contestant experience I've been married to singer actor songwriter MAF Nutter who's here with me today 43 years in December thank you honey and we have he's well known in Bakersfield he's part of the Bakersfield Sound by the way we have three grown children and five young grandchildren who are a lot of fun and keep us laughing all the time so again my heartfelt thanks for helping me celebrate this milestone in my life God bless you all thank you thank you Miss Bloom happy anniversary thank you for representing congratulations and now next speaker please the next speaker is Eddie Lane followed by Mike Garcia welcome Mr how do you follow that um I'm holding up a front page article from Mundy's paper Californian some Parks get water others dead fish a good article but some details are left out and some comments by government officials are questionable examples claims by County staff that the Kern River golf course is being browned up another example the claimed that the golf course has reparan rights I'm passing out two sets of pictures that thanks to your city clerk you were sent ahead of today's meeting the golf course which is operated by a for-profit firm is as green as it was when the previous pictures were provided to you about a month ago maybe more than a month ago what is new is a posted notice for golfers to expect longer grass on the tea boxes due to upcoming overseed pep prepping yes according to the website yet according to the website over 8,000 gallons of water can be saved for every 1,000 sare ft of grass when Golf Course grass is not overseed cost of overseed seeding is another issue and I raised a Ser qu series of questions I'm passing out and what reparan rights does a golf course have it's not even directly on the river and moreover such rights do not constitute free water from the Kern River or Kern County wouldn't be reimbursing the city City for water pumped into Lake Ming as another picture indicates Lake Ming was closed to the general public last weekend for dragboat racing it'll be closed again this upcoming weekend for speedboat racing while the small lak so greatly enjoyed at the park at riverwalker dry along with the truck and lakes with it with with its buried fish and dying trees dragboat and speedboat racing is being enjoyed at Lake Ming trust in government requires transparency which is lacking with regard to these issues residents of both the city and the county need a Continuum of public recreational opportunities along the Kern River uh and right now that's not happening we need we need to make an equitable use of our our water and our re recreational resources thank you very much thank you Mr Lane next speaker please I forgot something Mike Garcia Mr Garcia no uh next one Julie that was our final speaker card mayor thank you and now next item please appointments item 6A appointment of one alternate Committee Member W five to complete a term to expire December 2024 to the keep Bakersfield Beautiful Committee due to a resignation applications for appointment have been received from Steve esselman Claire mcginness duny and Raphael Molina thank you this appointment is by Ward therefore no ballots are required I'm going to call on the vice mayor uh in that uh council member Freeman is absent for the a five nomination of the alternate Community Committee Member okay in in accordance with council member Freeman's uh request I nominate Steve esselman and that's a motion and that's the motion you have a motion please cast your votes motion is approved with council member Aras Gonzalez and Freeman absent thank you and now next item please consent calendar items 7A through 7ao for approval we've provided a staff memorandum transmitting assigned agreement for item 7n an additional staff memorandum was provided for item 7f pulling the item from tonight's agenda vice mayor thank you um I have no request to pull anything except item M which I requesting being pulled item f is already being pulled so in accordance with that I move the approval of items 7A through 7 a0 uh with the exception of item M and F you have a motion please cat your votes motion is approved with council members Aras and Freeman absent thank you and vice mayor now actually um item m is really a a bit of good news for um the homeless and other issues surrounding that and it came to to us through the ad hoc committee we knew this was coming forward and I would like uh our city manager to make a few comments on this yeah thank you vice mayor mayor and counsel this item indeed came through um an ad hoc homelessness ad hoc committee presentation from current Medical in partnership with the city we continue to look at where are their gaps in the service system for those experiencing homelessness one of the biggest challenges that we face are individuals experiencing mental health challenges or substance abuse challenges we currently uh have some facilities in uh the metro area that can serve individuals who need detox assessments or mental health assessments but it's a very small number of beds and we are Way Beyond capacity what this partnership with Kern Medical will do is create for them uh assistance in uh completing environmental and Design documents to build a new psychiatric emergency room through grant funding from other sources that would add dozens of new beds to help with those holding periods assessments and and um and detox as well as be a triage point for all individuals that are experiencing behavioral health issues to go to that emergency room and not fill up for long periods of time beds in our hospital emergency rooms so this is one of those remaining gaps in our service system that is sorely needed and the city is partnering with Kern Medical to fill that Gap thank you it's a pretty exciting thing to happen with that I would move approval of item M you have a motion please cat your [Music] votes motion is approved with council member Aras and Freeman absent thank you madam clerk next item please consent calendar public hearings item 8A and 8 B for approval it's now time for the consent calendar hearings the purpose of this section is to vote on all the items listed under the consent calendar hearings in one motion without further comment if anyone would like to speak on any of the hearing items listed the item must be removed from this portion of the agenda If an item is removed it will be placed at the end of the regular public hearing portion of the meeting at this time I'll open consent calendar public hearings items 8 a through b is there anyone in the audience who would like to request that the hearing item be removed from the consent calendar if so please come forward this isn't the time to take testimony only to remove the matter from the consent calendar hearing hello ryance with the Carpenters I'd like to remove uh item 8A and and place three speakers uh we've given the cards to Julie does any council member wish to remove an item from the consent calendar hearing seeing none vice mayor okay at this time we will uh I make a motion to approve item 8 B you have a motion please cast your votes motion is approved with council member Arius and council member Freeman absent so at this time consent calendar hearing item 8A will be moved to the regular hearings portion something wrong no mayor but since there's no hearing items on the calendar we can just open it an now you can look to staff for a presentation and then all those in opposition in favor okay Mr CLE thank you mayor and councel we'll ask our development services director Chris Bole to walk through uh some brief slides on this item thank you city manager Cay mayor go vice mayor Weir and councel um item 8A tonight is an item for uh request for a general plan Amendment and zone change the subject property is located near the southwest corner of South Ag and hosking immediately east of the highway 99 uh preway Cor the general plan Amendment requests a change from the LR low density residential to the GC General commercial land use designation the zoning request the zone change request requests a change from the R1 low density residential zoning District to the C2 PCD uh zoning designation um the the entitlement the entitlement includes an action on a mitigated negative declaration which analyzed the development of a commercial development for two with the maximum amount of 241,000 the actual development um will be addressed per a future Planning Commission consideration as it is a planned commercial development Zone District M mitigated negative Declaration was circulated for comment between April 25th and May 25th the item was taken to Planning Commission on the May uh 21st Planning Commission agenda and was not pulled from the the uh consent calendar public hearing item and no testimony was taken at that time um and the Planning Commission approved that item accordingly with that said tonight's action would be to adopt a resolution adopting the mitigated NE negative declaration uh adopting a resolution approving the general plan Amendment and uh introducing or taking a first reading of the ordinance approving the zone change that completes my staff presentation I'd be happy to answer any question questions you might have thank you so we'll go now to the public each side will be allowed 15 minutes it's 15 minutes for all speakers per side it's important that you identify yourself make your statement succinctly So Others May speak we'll hear statements from those that are opposed to the staff's recommendation first and we'll hear from those who'd like to speak in favor of the staff's recommendation if there's testimony on both sides each side will be allowed a 5-minute rebuttal there's a clock on the TV screens behind me which indicates 15 minutes please step to the microphone identify yourself after 14 minutes a yellow light will come on and at the end of 15 minutes a red light will flash indicating that your time is up quickly and your statement you may ask questions during your statement but they won't be addressed until the public hearing is closed if you have written comments that are longer than your verbal statement give them to the clerk she'll provide copies to the councel please be courteous to others who wish to speak Madame clerk please read the public hearing item now well go ahead and read it 8A which is already open public hearing to consider General plan Amendment zone change number 21- 0179 on two 21.4 acres generally located south of hosking Avenue and west of South H Street applicant and property owner Anthony alier thank you is there anyone who would like to speak in opposition this would be the time to speak we have Joe Clark welcome good evening ladies and gentlemen my name is Joseph Clark and I'm a member of local 661 Carpenter uh the massive Amazon facility recently completed in the Northwest had no prevailing wage requirements at all and Amazon decided to use a drywall contractor from Georgia this contractor brought their entire Workforce from Georgia flying them home every single weekend and uh why would Amazon fly people from another state home every weekend well simply minimum wage in Georgia is 725 an hour we've seen that what business does without requirements let's talk about a way to solve that problem failing wage requirements on projects of this scale can level the playing field and allow honest taxpaying contractors to compete in the private Market therefore we ask the city council to continue this item until such a time that the Carpenters have had a chance to meet with the developer and discuss labor potential for this project thank you thank you and now next speaker please Mr Ortega hello my name is Alejandro Ortega and I am a local corpor I live here and I prefer to work in the same town that I live in the applicant has requested that zone change from residential to General commercial when the city council approves a zone change request you add monetary value to a to a project but the question is what value does that zone change bring to our community the developers make a profit to be sure but there is no standard rate of pay for Carpenters on private commercial projects except minimum wage to make matters worse we contend with traveling workers under biding our local Carpenters we need local hire requirements if a significant percentage of the C the the construction Workforce is dispatched from Estates certified Training Center within 75 miles of a job site that is that is local hire there therefore we ask the city council to continue this item until such a time that the cators had the chance to meet with the developer and discuss labor protection for this project thank you thank you Mr Orga and the next speaker is Mr Nance honorable mayor board staff my name is Ryan an and I'm a member of the Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters I live in Bakersfield and I represent over 4,700 Carpenters of local 661 labor should be considered an investment rather than a cost when the city includes labor protections such as local hire or prevailing wage requirements to construction projects it makes an investment in growing diversifying and upskilling the workforce of our community labor protection such as prevailing wage benefit the area economically and certified payroll guarantees that workers actually get paid labor protection such as local hire mitigate effects of greenhouse gas improve air quality and reduce Transportation impacts therefore we ask the city council to continue this item till such a time that the Carpenters have had a chance to meet with the developer and discuss labor protections for this project thank you thank you Mr Nance is there anyone who would like to speak in support or favor this would be the time please identify yourself and go ahead good evening mayor and city council and City staff my name is Kristen pck from qk I represent the applicant for this project uh I would like to thank City staff for working with us and I would like to reiterate what they've already stated this project is a general plan amendment in zone change um I am not aware of the opposition's um statements that they're portraying this evening um in terms of what is actually being presented for this project we're just talking about General plan amendment in zone change um it sounds like their concerns have something to do with outside of the the actual parameters of the project so um I am in support with City staff's recommendation for this and if you have any questions I am happy to answer them thank you thank you Miss pck anyone else who would like to speak in support of staff's recommendation seeing none at this time is there anyone who' like to rebut in opposition seeing none is there anyone who'd like to rebut in support seeing none I'll close the public hearing and return it to council for comment and action council members uh is there anyone who would like did you council member Parlier thank you mayor Ryan I appreciate uh you we had a short conversation before the meeting and all your members showing up here I have a lot of respect for the Carpenters and and I hope there will be an opportunity for you to engage the developer um this project is uh an important project to w 7 and not only w 7 but the city of Bakersfield as the uh gateway to the city at hosking um it's going to offer just a host of amenities to uh Bakersfield as people come into our city and is part of our upgraded uh interchange project that's going to be forthcoming too uh for not only this uh project but the developer and project that hopefully is going to be coming to the north too uh of hosking uh with that I uh I think it's going to be a great project and I move staff recommendation thank you is there anyone else who wants to speak before we take the motion you have a motion uh council member gray Ryan also I appreciate you coming um we have some commonalities and I was sharing with your carpent ERS today because my husband started out in the Union in Virginia this is where though I know I'm going to disappoint you because I have to draw the line this is not a government funded job this is private development and when you get prevailing wage involved in private development and and cities are are trying to bring in those amenities and those developers you're going to discourage a lot of developers that are not going to want to pay prevailing wage so that gets difficult I would charge Oliver with finding local labor instead of going outside of our area or even the state um I totally agree with our Carpenters that shouldn't be happening in our area um unfortunately there is a labor shortage because like we talked about earlier tonight people don't want to work anymore so I but it would charge um the developer to do all that they can to find that local labor to um do this project so with that being that it's a private development I have to support staff recommendation thank you there anyone else on the council who would like to speak seeing none you have a motion please cat your votes motion is approved with council member arus and council member Freeman absent thank you and before we do the next item let's give a chance for the Carpenters to clear and thank you very much Carpenters for your service I see you at a lot of volunteer activities and we really appreciate uh that service Madam clerk next item please reports item 10 a public safety and vital Services measure three-year report thank you Mr Cay uh thank you mayor and councel we're going to provide a brief presentation tonight that highlights what this report is about and pulls out a few highlights from it but I'm not going to try and cover all the detail that's covered in about a 30-page report uh that is a long report but it is three years worth of impact analysis and I believe it is warranted for are the interested public and how have we spent our measure n dollars um there we did create an executive summary to this report that um uh can allow perhaps the less dedicated uh reader to in two pages cover the highlights but there is uh a lot of detail throughout the rest of the report so want to reflect again for Council that uh this is about the first three full fiscal years but we also included the amounts from that partial year in fiscal year 1819 to really communicate to the public where did the measure end dollars go what was it spent on what are the outcomes that we've achieved because of that uh in the report it outlines the numbers these are again just a highlight it has budget tables that show by department where all the funds were spent but it also has summary information about total revenues as well as total expenditures uh one of the the questions we continue to ask ourselves is you know have we spent all the dollars received we've received uh uh $283 million and we have $249 million expended to date there are some funds that have gone into programs like our uh ARP software program or the regional radio program not fully expended to this uh at this time but 87 close to 88% of measure end dollars have gone towards the projects that are listed throughout this impact report um in our executive summary again we note where large dollar amounts have gone for example $69 million has gone to the police department at as the number one priority um enumerated uh in several of the spending priorities of measure n we've also spent quite a bit on economic development that includes uh some of our uh work uh around homelessness uh as well as uh important work in building up our reserves as well as uh our Recreation and Parks many many different Parks projects so um few highlights that I just wanted to take a quick moment to point out for the public compared to pre measure in we have hired 222 additional police officers in the last three years we've seen a net gain of 64 we continue to work at that we know we've got work to do but we have 64 more police on the streets today than we would have had without the measure and we'll keep working until we hit that 100 we've cleared 6,000 encampments through our rapid response teams we've cleared 16 million PBS of trash 9,000 uh uh 900,000 lb of trash through our clean city um pop-up drop off events we've put 1,600 lights throughout the city and as I mentioned those City Park upgrades we provide more details throughout the report but 38 projects completed in a good year we before Public Safety vital Services text you might have done two or three we've done 38 in the last three years to just provide some overview of how this report is laid out it's based on the council goals so we have each of the goals identified and then these are really small images on your screen it's not we're not intended to read all that but it gives a picture at the beginning of each section we have a data dashboard these are the metrics we're going to measure ourselves against year-over-year next year we're going to do the same report again we're going to add a column and show how have we done over this past year and include important metrics that show how we're doing then we list out under each Council goal the projects that have been funded as you can see from the really small print there it's a lot of projects and then we dig in as was noted earlier there is qualitative information but we picked three to five projects within each Council goal area to really dig in to the details to show what the impact was for these dollars again very hard to read this slide it's intended to just give some perspective about all the things that have been done through these dollars we've got a new depart under Economic Development we have a new Department we've got incentive tools built we've uh invested heavily in our venues uh We've also created the urban revitalization fund uh We've created uh several advances in the energy sector through the economic develop excuse me development dollars that were set aside and then we've been in the first three years we invested almost $10 million and affordable housing funding uh to build numerous units of affordable housing and then lastly of course we're supporting Community transformation uh on a uh a small basis initially we hope to grow that over time through these um psvs dollars again just this notes for you again we have a dashboard of many statistics related to safety and crime and homelessness that show that before measur in how many beds did we have available Zero from the city and and throughout the community we had uh about 400 beds and we've added now 500 beds in the last three years through psvs and other Blended funds towards homelessness and a number of other measures that we can show what we're doing today that we couldn't have done prior to the measure again to highlight a few items here uh we've talked about the policing numbers I it's important to also point out that our non-sworn personnel has also increased returning more officers to the streets we have a numerous specialized units that we've been able to either grow or uh reinstitute that weren't in place before we have set aside that funding for our radio system we've been able to update our facilities uh We've in uh implemented a new violence Reduction Program our body warn cameras and shot spotter weren't possible without these funds our fire uh rescue squads uh and facility upgrades uh the affordable housing trust fund Brundage L Lane navigation Center uh and then several technology tools that are helping us become more efficient around safety and resilience again all only possible through the measure for infrastructure uh we have spent less overall compared to the other goals uh but we have been able to focus on some price to areas like lighting infrastructure um our uh Street lighting study lighting poles some Street improvements and then in this uh coming Year's report you'll see an uptick in numerous areas around Street improvements and and infrastructure we've also uh in Prior years been able to spend some seed money around our downtown Corridor um and our our sewer system as well as traffic calming related to quality of life uh the the popup events we've held 48 of those events over the last three years we have been able to at this point have eight clean City teams again next year's report you'll see that's at 11 uh We've um dedicated several teams specifically to work in the Kern River Parkway we've also been able to make enhancements um at our uh some of our facilities on a uh from a security standpoint not just Economic Development our Park master plan and the mini Parks updates already noted and then we've also been able to expand our graffiti services and and see uh incredible numbers of sites restored in that very efficient program lastly in this new goal area again sometimes underappreciated but it is the heart and the backbone of a good organization spending to be a more efficient and Innovative government we've been able to create our help team that's improving our customer service response we've created a legislative program and have a lobbyist today that we have never had before we conducted our first risk assessment our and are beginning down the the um the process of doing performance audits um Citywide uh but uh in an upcoming um Council item that you'll see coming out of the budget and finance committee that talks about how we use measure and funding there is a prioritization of uh projects to do performance audits related to measure end programs but we should do that on other city-wide programs as well and so that's possible through this risk assessment and followup to the risk assessment and really importantly the reserves the city had next to zero reserves just three and a half years ago and today we meet the industry best practice standard which a very small number of cities um throughout the country and and throughout the state meet we have um our rainy day fund set aside and we're continue to build up those reserves so that we have strong fiscal sustainability and fiscal uh good fiscal planning only again possible through uh the measure and dollars we've also built a few important tools we have our long-range Financial tool we've created some new um employee um training and onboarding tools and we're doing a number of um skill and leadership development uh with our senior leaders and employees throughout the organization and customer service training throughout the organization again it wouldn't have been possible without the measure of funding and lastly uh continue to build out technologies that uh make us smarter and faster and deploy our staff resources to uh those programs that have greater effect I went through those highlights fairly quickly I just wanted for the public record for folks to see and feel that there's many many projects funded by measure n but the full report will be uh available on our website we're going to push it out through social media we'll do some other media pieces on this and invite the public to go and see what the impact of measure n truly is we know we have a lot of work still to do uh we know around um homelessness Public Safety continued cleaning up of our city we need to make progress there coming out of the pandemic I would suggest to council and to the community that we are much better suited than most cities to come out strong from the pandemic because we've continued to implement these programs with these new dollars despite the challenges of the pandemic and that we're well poised to continue to make progress in those needed areas but can point to many good programs that have only been possible through the public safety vital Services tax uh just again wanted to note um the image you see there on the right of the screen is uh one side of what our two-pager looks like we'll have a two-pager again that is a much quicker uh and and brief summary um for the broader public um who may not make it through uh the full report with that I'd be happy to answer any questions thank you Mr CLE council member Gonzalez thank you mayor and thank you Mr kle for your presentation just want to reiterate some of the key highlights here 222 additional sworn BPD Personnel NE 64 6,000 encampments cleared 16.8 million pounds of trash picked up 93,000 pounds of trash collected through the Clean City initiative popup drop up uh drop off events um 38 city parks upgraded we also have the breley navigation center with 150 new shelter beds 130 coming online in December over 10 and help me 170 we're we're very close to 180 permanent hous keeps keeps ticking upward 180 people who are permanently housed going through the bondage L navigation Center imagine that o over 320 people human beings in our neighborhoods in our community are now in permanent Shelter tonight will be under a roof who otherwise would be out on the street because of the public safety and vital Services initiative thank God for measurin thank God for the thank God for the people and and the wisdom of our voters in Bakersfield and taxpayers for making this investment it is easy for for any of us to point out issues in this city there no no one's sugar coating it we still have a lot of work to do um and we still discuss very cleare eyed those issues every single meeting and we're committed to drilling down and and finding better solutions for those various issues whether it be property crime or homelessness or um vacant properties and infill development I can go on we are still working on it and we will still continue to address those issues but I want to challenge everyone to think about where would we be had measure and not passed what situation would we would we find ourselves in as a city today and in the future um so two things can be true one is that we are making progress we are seeing gains we are accomplishing a heck of a lot and two we still have challenges that exist and we see every single day those two things are not mutually exclusive both things are true so with that I just wanted to ask you a few questions and again commend staff and everyone who's working hard not only addressing the issues today but also the last few years dealing with the pandemic and also building capacity within the organization so we can better meet needs uh in the future but let me let me drill down on some things that Mr turnup seed had mentioned uh because I respect him and I respect the current taxpayers Association they were actually a partner in the passage of the public safety en vital Services initiative um they they were on Who provided leadership in this community when there were many people who were work actively working against this initiative who uh even though we all knew it was in the best interest of the city but current taxpayers actually provide a lot of leadership and I I appreciate them and so I think it's important that we that we address some of the issues that they raise or at least Mr turnup seed has raised in turn one is the violent crime and the fact that that we are seeing an uptick there Mr Cay do you want to provide us a response thank you council member mayor and Council uh violent crime numbers are up that is if you look at 201819 through 21 uh it's a fact those numbers are up I think what's important context to look at those factors is that violent crime numbers are up Across the Nation they're up across the state um uh throughout the pandemic um you know all all Urban cities saw these types of challenges and what isn't reflected in this report which again was through June of uh this last um of of this current calendar year it was the end of our fiscal year is that programs like our violence Intervention Program have been getting stood up and put in place and the numbers towards the tail end of the fiscal year started looking a lot better and if you look year to date we have seen a significant reduction in homicides year to date and we've seen about a from uh January through the end of August year-to-date numbers were our our homicide numbers were down about 30% this particular calendar year so you didn't see some of those numbers um two years ago and and a full year ago uh because we're working on getting some of those programs in place and some of the benefits that we're going to see uh from measure in uh our our are uh beginning to be seen whereas others like our Park improvements you know those are already readily apparent but but many more impacts are to come I appreciate that thank you the second issue that was brought up was with regard to response times and the fact that the the response times when our citizens are calling for service are are going up yeah thank you Council mayor mayor and Council again that is a fact our response times have increased our the number of officers on control has increased as we see some of our officers complete their field training programs the academy programs many of the benefits of the increased number of officers are also still coming and I would say that's an area where I would acknowledge we have work to do absolutely we need to get better on our response times as we reach that full Staffing complement uh I anticipate we'll see Improvement there I would reflect that again the the nature of policing and the crimes that we're facing is Shifting and changing the number of calls that we receive related to homelessness and organized retail crime has gone up in an alarming way we're concerned about that and we're trying to Pivot and find new ways to get at those particular issues uh and we just need to get better on the response times it hasn't happened yet okay similarly um Mr Chu pointed out the number of Fire investigations I'm assuming he's referring to fiscal year 2122 with a bit of a decline if I can read it it's a bit small here on my presentation but uh yeah related to arson I would actually um reflect that if you do a benchmark comparison to peer cities the the number of arson that are uh investigated um arrest are made and prosecuted ours are some of the highest in the state actually we do very good at ours and it is a question of comparisons and uh so uh um I would actually point to that one within context those are very good numbers related to arson right and arson investigations are a function of the number of fires that are actually started and so we may have seen a dip in that last fiscal year um the the number of uh arson actually increased in the last fiscal year in In fairness uh but again um I think within context uh if you look at other fire departments and their um their investigation and prosecution rates uh you know this this is along the lines of you know where we would um look for it to be and and above average okay there there was another concern related to new lights that were in installed and um from from what I understood the the concern was that you know perhaps we were simply replacing existing light fixtures where those existed in uh neighborhoods and not adding additional Street uh lights uh where we have seen for example in many parts of War II in urban Bakersfield we have many streets that are far too dark and need additional lighting we need enhanced Street lighting um and so we need a net gain and and so the concern is perhaps we're you know we may just be replacing existing fixtures not adding on can you respond to that yeah thank you Council M mayor and councel uh the number that's represented of the 1600 it's a mix um many of those are LED replacements that was the low hanging fruit that we could go in and do really quickly some of them aren't new light fixtures the the $1 million per year allocation that Council has made towards street lights is principally for um new lights and so in year one of the public safet vital Services tax we did a number of LED replacements and and those benefit um the the city and cost savings and and those are good projects but we know we need to continue to light up the city in increasing ways we've had the the phase one of the lighting study had 56 intersections that um is creating new light and new light fixtures uh a second phase is actually um you know just um uh before Council that uh will do additional intersections Beyond those 56 and we do I would acknowledge though we do need to put many more light fixtures throughout the city where there are areas that are dark and that's we have um from the second and third year allocations of psvs funding for street lights we still need to spend those dollars from last year and the current year uh towards those type of projects we do have a supply chain challenge currently that's making that difficult and um our Public Works director has been creative we're trying to work with pg& on using uh their existing poles to add light fixtures to move faster but we do have a lot of work to do to uh fully implement the lighting study there's a lot of areas that we we're going to add street lights to but we're going to keep chipping away at that each year with that million dollar allocation great and and then the final item that I picked up on was with regard to uh medians and additional uh trees and our parks and medians and and additional plant material that was placed and and how well we are doing uh to um maintain those trees and plants and what what is our is our strategy for that yeah thank you Council mayor mayor and councel I don't have a number to tell you to today of how many of the 38,000 trees and shrubs that we planted um are still in place we we have experienced some areas where we've seen um trees that were recently planted that haven't made it it is typical particularly in our climate to see about a 20% rate of new plantings to see some struggles and it is actually part of our strategy and plans we go and do those assessments we find the ones did didn't make them address you assess and address if there were any irrigation issues sometimes it's just the plant itself and then we replant um so we we'll continue to do replanting uh again we do everything we can you know especially with these dollars we're trying to uh do plantings where we have irrigation doing smart plantings that are drought tolerant still look good uh that don't require as much maintenance and irrigation so that they do well uh I think uh historically there's been a mix of uh type types of plantings we've created a new pallet that is um more um Native and more drought uh tolerant and uh we'll continue um to you know do our plantings according to those pallets um and those uh again we we have had some that haven't made it but we're we continue to go out remove those replace them and and make sure there's not some kind of systemic issue that's causing them to repeatedly die okay all right thank you so much for answering my questions that's all mayor thank you council member Gonzalez council member Smith thank you mayor uh I don't see here and and maybe it's all spread out I know we we've spent substantial money trying to address the homeless problem with the Brun Lane navigation Center first purchasing the property improving it uh Staffing it and then also rapid response teams and a lot of different ways is that mostly in the economic and Community Development Department correct it is mostly there because the homelessness unit is housed there the rapid response teams are a little bit separate from that uh on an ongoing basis we spend $1 million a year ongoing towards home homelessness between our operational contracts and our rapid response teams and other staff onetime monies we've spent um you close to $10 million on INF structure projects to create additional beds and then I would reflect from the affordable housing standpoint again almost $10 million in investment towards affordable housing units from 30 $40 million over the last three years great correct um appreciate it I just there's there's no question that that the quality of life in Bakersville was on a a long term downhill slide prior to measure in and it takes a long time to turn that around and go in the right direction and and I think we are getting there but there's plenty of work to do thank you thank you council member Smith motion to receive and file motion please cat your votes motion is approved with council member Arias and council member Freeman absent thank you and now next item please reports item 10B American Rescue plan Act of updated framework including Appropriations in applicable Department operating and capital budgets thank you Mr Cay thank you mayor and Council the item before you tonight as you as Council knows the arpa monies were received in two separate tranches or two separate batches we appropriated the funds from the first batch last fall we've received our second batch this summer and this action would appropriate those additional funds but also at this time we're bringing forward a slightly revised framework and if the clerk's office could help bring that table up oh this is hard to see on the screen I apologize what's in your packets um what's represented in this framework the categories are the same as we reviewed last October but we have shifted some funds around because we've learned a few things over this past year and it's become more apparent where where the funds can be spent down and some some areas where it's a challenge to spend down uh but again the the spirit and intent of the framework that we built remains intact we've just shifted some funds one principal area and it's actually towards the bottom of this uh table is what's called Revenue loss or uh revenue recovery uh for many cities throughout the nation they Ed this arpa funding to plug holes in their budgets because of huge Revenue declines we're fortunate in Bakersfield partly because we tightened our belts but partly because um our economy recovered quickly and we were careful and judicious in our budgeting we did not see the revenue reductions that required us to use arpa funding to plug any budget holes that means we get to use all of that that arpa money is on proactive productive um topics but later the federal government govern came out and said any any city of a certain size and and this includes Bakersville could take a $10 million allocation towards lost Revenue um out of the arpa funds without having to demonstrate through our our um fiscal formula that we had seen revenue losses we are recommending tonight that Council appropriate a $10 million Revenue loss amount from these arpa funds my recommendation is those funds there's a a handful of projects that we think are again uh in the spirit of arpa we would have included in the arpa framework um but um there's actually uh the ability to uh streamline and move quicker on those projects that we fund those out of some of that Revenue loss and then that the remainder of that Revenue loss portion be held in contingency for economic development M or other significant projects that are consistent again with the framework that we initially established for the arpa monies and uh that gives us the opportunity that if a game changer project related Economic Development comes up we have the funds set aside to pursue that and again that's one of the key areas that we reduced uh funding in the arpa framework that's in front of you um with the intent of holding that as uh again contingency for those types of projects that's the biggest change you'll see but let me just walk through a couple of other changes we have reduced uh uh somewhat um the areas of uh homelessness we were we set aside $2 million to do um co-response teams with Behavioral Health they've been able to fund their portion of that program we've funded our portion out of our existing resources through law enforcement we don't need to do that program from these funds it's already funded between the two agencies so we've shifted those funds instead to support the brage lane navigation Center expansion um because that was a large project there as I already noted Economic Development was originally a $9 million allocation we're recommending it's a $4 million allocation because we've shifted those funds into that contingency with lost Revenue I would also reflect that on uh business District um revitalization we bumped that up a little bit because under the food bank food assistance we were able to identify unspent cdbg cares monies that could fund that capk food bank expansion that's an action your council's already taken at a previous meeting and so those that $1.2 million could go towards some of these other uh Community Development um Economic Development type projects instead of that project also when it comes to park improvements uh we had set aside $3 million anticipating significant needs related to the MLK Park reimagining uh coming out of the master planning process we've bumped up some of those dollars in that because uh we do anticipate that that will be a significant cost and a significant project and this gives us a little more ability to cover that uh uh when uh the planning process is completed as um reflected in a council action we had reduced some of the dollars related to City Wellness initiative but do recommend some um uh additional dollars uh for future potential phases and tonight your Council moved forward on the first phase of that project um in in the consent calendar um we had two other areas under direct City expenditures we had a million dollars set aside for program evaluation and administration and for testing and other prevention measures we found that we we are doing some testing we have had to spend additional dollars sometimes when there's um been a need but it's been much lower than anticipated and so we were able to shift those out of administrative costs and into good projects same with the program Administration and evaluation it's a much lower amount than expected we've been able to work pretty lean and save those Administration costs to fund into other areas the last section that I would uh on utilities we um have been able to make progress on the Broadband issue and so we don't feel that there's a need to spend those Broadband dollars the same way we expected to actually build infrastructure put fiber in the ground because we think we can um um work with private sector Partners to get that fiber in the ground and not spend those monies here so we've shifted monies into a Wastewater Utility Fund like the storm Water Utility Fund help us do projects in our disadvantaged neighborhoods that need the funding to make them work and to help with the community transformation in those areas so again those are the key changes but um the overall framework again is consistent with uh what we had approved prior and in uh each of these areas this is just the appropriation framework as projects specifically come forward we'll come back to the city council highlight what those projects are and Council will have the opportunity to votee on them independently and distinctly just as you did tonight on the current medical um uh item as we did on the hospitals and the blue zones items um on tonight's agenda we'll bring other items back to the city council with the the specifics of the program implementation and and city council approval with that I'd be happy to take any questions thank you council member gray well first of all um m Mr CLE knows I went over this with him in detail uh over the phone because you know so often you see Government funding coming in and it just goes in a big dark hole and you never know how it gets spent and there's no accountability for it so I really appreciated it we went through it and the number one thing that um I'm happy about is that the city has s has shown some restraint and not take grabbed a hold of these funds and treated them as cand in a candy shop and we've we've got some left over to where there if we do have some projects coming up they're there so I appreciate that again knowing the what is happening in our country today with inflation and interest rates and so forth I think we have to be very conservative about what the decisions that we're making and careful about our spending um but I did want to bring that it brings uh joy to my heart being a small businesswoman um that there is $2 million allocated for entrepreneurship and technical assistance for small businesses in this town and so I wanted to bring attention to that to Small Business I know what it costs to get into small business just the marketing cost alone to get started or a lease that you have to sign um is very expensive and so I just wanted to bring that to the attention of people that are wanting to start a small business there is opportunity here in Bakersfield so with that I appreciate your presentation thank you thank you council member Greg council member Gonzalez thank you mayor um thank you Mr clug for the presentation and for all the work um and thought that has been put into all of this I appreciate it um I did have a question one one of the um public comments was regarding an eviction protection fund and I wondered if there was capacity Within These arpa dollars to um provide some sort of fund that is similar to you know rental assistance that we've seen in in previous iterations of these Federal recovery dollars um in order to protect people from becoming displaced I mean it is it is interesting you know one end we are investing so much in affordable housing and trying to build new units uh it seems wise and prudent for us to try to prevent people from from becoming unhoused and on the streets and so just wonder if you'd comment and council member we do not have a specific line item and project that was anticipated for that use uh we relied heavily on the treasury and and other dollars that have gone towards rental assistance in over the last couple of years we do recognize that they that those are um ending those funds and that you know there may be individuals who continue to experience challenges we've continued to rely on the the housing authority and some of our cdbg funds to help with rapid rehousing and and homelessness uh prevention we also see some of our hap dollars that are separate Bucket from the state we've targeted some of those for some potential homelessness prevention meaning you know keep folks in their housing and so we hadn't anticipated using arpa dollars in that way I think your question was is their capacity and that's that's a policy Choice uh from the city council we'd probably need to pull from another source um to to look at that if that was you direction from Council I would probably try and you know look at some of the funding sources that are you know in related buckets um you know we we have dollars set aside for infill the housing Support Services line that you see there it's a $500,000 appropriation that's actually to expand our home rehab program so individuals who need assistance repairing their front door their their a rail or their um HVAC or uh potentially their roofs we're creating an expanded program to serve more people to help keep them in their homes in that sense but it's not a rental assistance program uh we could look at you know some of those areas but we we'd need to make a trade off there because it hasn't been built into this framework yeah and you know and I apologize for bringing this up the night of the um you know this decision I it just it just struck me that that might be an an appropriate use of these dollars and I like to kind of explore that option um walk me through the item related to Workforce Development and job training programs if you will yeah there's there's two different aspects to that uh one is that um we're we would like to create a job training and apprenticeship program that's focused on both Advanced manufacturing as well as trades those are two opportunities identified in our Economic Development strategic plan and the b3k plans that we need to create the the skills of the workforce to fill jobs in those two areas and that likely we would look to partner with um the workforce investment board and and educational institutions to create this apprenticeship um and training program uh that would give people those skills and then match them into jobs where they could have these apprenticeships so it's job creation and specifically to some of our goals um the other aspect that we've looked at is uh using uh some of these dollars to um create jobs around uh uh technology that would then actually also be a support to that uh business uh expansion and Entrepreneurship element where these technical uh advisers that were creating these jobs that's for the other Target cluster of our business uh services or second office as one of our Economic Development strategic plan areas create some um skills and job training in those areas and then they could serve as actually support technical support to some of those entrepreneur programs that we're creating and they can do um uh actually they're designed to uh do Outreach into the community and particularly our disadvantaged community so they're creating jobs and creating training um those are frankly uh large dollar amounts for programs that haven't been fully designed yet yeah and and that's what I was getting at is where are we in terms of the the design and how much of this is an estimate and how much of this is actually real it's all an estimate okay all right um let me ask you a few more questions um number of these items are quite ambitious high dollar amounts a lot of them in ecd um important programs for us to get online how how confident are you in our capacity to actually deliver on these objectives um P you know by timelines established by the federal government thank you council member uh my confidence level is higher in this revised framework and part of why we revised it is that we you know the 9 million we were seeing in Economic Development we weren't going to spend that all by 2024 and 2026 so we revised down in the categories where we felt like we weren't making um enough progress fast enough um I would say under the the housing bucket we'll spend all of those dollars you know and I think in Fairly short order um and the homeless the same we've already you spent most of those on already on the brage lane navigation Center uh where it comes to the eoas and facade Improvement loans that's an estimate frankly and we think we can spend that down because there's pretty high demand um and we don't want to cut it short but it is very much an ambitious goal that one um the entrepreneurship program uh actually we'll we'll spend that down I think fairly quickly because those grants um you know you know we're right now thinking about they could range anywhere from 10,000 to $100,000 and you know those will go pretty quick based on community demand for those dollar Grant dollars um and and I won't go through each one of these but again the park improvements um and safe routes those are big dollars but they're big projects and so those will those will go pretty quickly um same for tourism uh we've got some uh notable investments in our own Arena as well as some tourism uh enhancement programs for those that are recovering from that and then the utility projects as well um you if you look at those dollars that's probably just one or two projects under those utilities and we've already got that many lined up and so um I think if we're looking at areas that might be a little soft um to just be candid and transparent I think those are our uh work Force development they are our uh business district revitalization and our eoa and facade Improvement loans those are all you know fairly estimated programs that we're still designing what they will really look like okay um and I appreciate that a lot I I don't know too much about um what the speaker had in mind in terms of an eviction protection fund I like to you know kind of better understand that i' like staff to um explore that and research that a little more along with u similarly uh you know homelessness uh prevention uh item and I do apologize that I'm you know proposing this at the at the Das here but I I will like to make a motion that we adopt the arpa framework with um an adjustment uh with from the Workforce Development Fund of $500,000 and allocate that to contingency so that it gives us a little more flexibility for us to pursue this particular program should we wish to in the future if we don't we can um allocate it back to that Workforce Development that'll be my motion thank you council member Gonzalez any other comments seeing none you have a motion please cast your votes motion passes with council member Eric Aras absent and council member Freeman absent and council member gray voting no thank you next item please council member G you voted yeah oh change if I I'll defer to the City attorney if I get this wrong but the motion was to approve as amended that $500,000 difference um and if you wanted if you still felt like you wanted to vote no on the motion that was on the floor you can but just provide some clarifying language well I want to vote for the arpa funds as you presented them tonight I do not want to move that funding out of the Workforce Development so how do I do that I think you did it council member graay by voting now thank you okay right thank you next item [Music] please Council and mayor statements thank you vice mayor thank you mayor um we are in an inviable situation here in the city of Bakersfield we do have a robust budget uh we have opportunities to fill items that we never could have filled in the past we're able to fund many projects and improvements that have grown beards sitting on a shelf somewhere and I'm I'm happy that we're there but I don't think the city of Bakersfield is there because when I'm out campaigning and talking to people I can tell you that by far the main comment I hear is I don't feel safe anymore and it's really discouraging and those people they're what's in and those feelings cannot continue when I look at funding for things it's fine and it's and it's allocated certain ways and we all approve that but I'm not sure it's allocated to serve what should be are number one number one they're probably tied and that's crime and homelessness and if this continues the city's going to be lost we're losing this battle and it cannot continue you know my background tells me and what I was taught was you should be able to pick up any budget and know exactly what the highest priorities were and no more than three three priorities put your money where your mouth is and you think we do that and I'm not criticizing our budget or how it's formed or how it's developed but I don't think there is an adequate published statement about our three main priorities our three highest goals and if you get past three or four to five you're getting to where you're not going to be able to do that so I can tell you what my priority ities are and what my commitment is should I be reelected and what my commitment is now that I am elected it is crime and homelessness I'm sure that shared with everyone at the Des and I'm sure that's shared with every Community member in the city of Bakersfield there are those that will continue to blame the state and once they blame the state well there's nothing I could do and that's the end of it and while I agree with the statement that there's nothing we can do it's all a state I do not agree and I'm not satisfied by that statement yes we are caught in the laws rules and attitudes of those that are themselves distant from reality and the realities that they have created in other communities up and down the state it's is a it is absolutely shameful the way the state is treating the cities with the problems that they've created and I will no longer accept the excuse It's all the state's fault this is Bak Phil this is where I live and I res I refuse to accept these conditions continue as they are going I expect changes in our living conditions and I expect them now and not later I'm am not willing to concede what the people of this city are forced to contend with we must focus on those highest priorities we have spent many millions of dollars in trying to combat this and we not we cannot continue the insanity of doing the same thing over and over again it's not going to change we need a new dramatic shift in what we do and how we do it we need to think outside the normal confines of what we're limited to and we need to develop new strategies specific strategies that will help alleviate the situation we need a new structure for dealing with the problems at hand and we need it now I've had a number of conversations with city manager CLE and I hope he will add his thoughts to this but tonight I am referring this to staff with an open-ended box tell us what we need to do to fix this problem no constraints on finances no constraints on laws what is it that we need to do and from there we'll delve down into the intricacies of what we're trying to do and I'm referring this to staff tonight with a request to come back in the last meeting in October with at least preliminary results of what we can do how we can change and what we can do so I don't have to hear here I'm afraid to live here anymore and Christian I would love it if you would say a few words thank you vice mayor I agree with your sentiments we hear day in and day out why isn't the city doing something about homelessness why isn't the city doing something about crime I'm frustrated too um to to answer a portion of the question uh I've had some folks say why don't we enforce it's not a question of enforcement we have police Staffing sufficient to do enforcement there's a lack of accountability there's no accountability and we will take the referral we'll we'll go back and look hard we'll come back ready to discuss on the 19th but I would suggest that we have to look at ways to create accountability some of that is related to uh programs and U beds for those that need to go into those programs some of it likely is related to accountability in the criminal justice system and I agree that uh there are things the city can do it'll be hard it may require some big shifts it will still require Partnerships with others uh but uh we can pursue what what if if there isn't accountability at the state level either in a criminal justice system or mental health system how do we create accountability to the local level I think that's the Crux of the issue okay thank you very much I look 40 report and uh this is only the start it's just the beginning but we need to move on this because we are losing this battle and the citizens are feeling that thank you thank you vice mayor council member Smith thank you mayor I have uh three different referrals the first one's a referral to the development services department to prepare a comprehensive update to the city's residential zoning standards necessary to be in compliance with state law in conjunction with the completion of the city's s sixth cycle housing element and the second one regards a a memorandum we've been talking about vacant structures for sometime in the Planning Development Committee and we were going to have a report on the opportunities for imminent domain and that was sent out after the last Planning Development Committee so um I've read that memo and it looks like there is opportunity so I just wanted to reinforce that that is something I want to continue to explore in the in the Planning Development Committee and that um it looks to me and and you know we can talk about this more but vacant properties Citywide are a public health and safety problem and they prevent serious repeated criminal activity which is a couple of the things and and so uh you know I don't know why we can't have an imminent domain ordinance or or policy in order to take care of that number three there's a local Stak holder group uh applying for a grant for the uh work on the on the Kern River to it's a state Grant uh planning grant for three years uh to facilitate environmental restoration and fostering reconnection of people with nature over roughly 40 miles of the river Channel and flood Plains extending from the mouth of the Kern River Canyon to the rivers in at point of Vista Recreation Area and most of that to me is in the city so I think the city should be a partner uh I know that Rick Anthony has met with them but they're it seems to be held up because of language in the agreement but it's due October 1st so I would hope that staff can work through an agreement and and be a partner on that important collaborative effort with the city thank you thank you council member Smith council member Gonzalez thank you mayor um we had another vacant structure fire over the last since we last met this was a residential property at 5098 Street I passed by today and visited the site and it is uh pretty pretty it's a disaster um and so asking staff to please respond to better secure the site and um and more broadly um I I will continue to Advocate and push for City Hall to look for more robust ways for us to accelerate uh the demolition of these structures that have caught fire and also to address those issues related to abandoned Residential Properties we're we're working on the commercial property piece and I appreciate that and my referral stands from last council meeting but we must work on also these Residential Properties um so I appreciate appreciate that thank you thank you council member Gonzalez anyone else seeing none We Stand adjourned at 7:20 [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]