[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Wow. [Music] [Music] to [Music] heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey, [Music] hey hey. [Music] Hey. [Music] [Music] Hey. Hey. [Music] [Music] Hey. Hey. Hey. [Music] Hey, hey hey. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] The 3:30 p.m. meeting of the Bakersfield City Council is now in session. Good afternoon. It's my pleasure to call to order the 3:30 regular city council meeting of July 9th, 2025. Madam clerk, please call the role. Mayor Go, here. Vice Mayor Core here. Council member Arias. Council member Gonzalez here. Council member Weir here. Council member Smith, I'm here. Council member Kleman here. Council member Basher here. Thank you. In keeping with council's re resolution, public statements are received at different times. Depending on the item, I will call on the city clerk to call for public statements at the appropriate time. If you wish to make a public statement, please fill out a public speaker card and place it in the tray next to the speaker podium. We ask that you mark whether you're here to speak on an item listed on today's agenda or in a matter not on the agenda. Speakers who do not identify a specific agenda item will be presumed speakers for the non-aggenda public statements. If you're here to speak on an item not listed on the meeting agenda, you'll be called first to speak. Statements are given a two-minute time limit per speaker, 20 minutes total for non-aggenda item public statements. If you're here to speak on an item listed on the agenda, I'll call for you at the appropriate time. Public statements become disruptive and I've declared the chambers to regain order of the meeting. You'll be called in one at a time to provide your public statement when your item is called. Everyone in attendance is expected to adhere to the rules for decorum established by resolution of the city council. Failure to abide by the city's rules of decorum, including any disruptive behavior that interferes with our ability to have an orderly and efficient meeting, prevents the city council from conducting the business of the city. Consider this a first warning to everyone in attendance that conduct that disrupts the meeting may result in expulsion and/or the chambers being cleared. Behavior that disrupts the meeting includes repetitive statements, shouting, hate speech, interrupting staff or presenters during the meeting, speaking out of turn, outburst from the audience, and surpassing the two-minute time limit. Madam clerk, do we have any public statements regarding items not listed on the agenda? Mayor Go, we have received two speaker cards for items not on the agenda. Thank you. Would you please call them? Carlos Lopez. Hi, welcome. Please introduce yourself. My name is Carlos Lopez. Uh, and I wanted to uh address the issue of uh police impounds. Uh, my car was recently impounded. Can you hear me? All right. Yes. Um, and uh my situation is such that that uh I requested a hearing, I guess a fair hearing. uh asking that the the impound be shortened. I was stopped for driving on a suspended license on a 16-year-old ticket. Um or I think it was from 2006 2016 I mean um uh 2016 that's correct up in uh Reading, California. And it was difficult for me to get there at the time to go back up there and I became a failure to appear. It's different now in reading. I can I can go ahead and do do this get this handled over the phone. But the problem remains that that it's very I'm retired. Uh I got to Bakersfield years ago as a Reggie Regginal Hebrewsmith poverty law fellow. I've been a member of the KC EOC board, elected member, uh, Irma Carson's counseling board, a lot of public service. Um, it's what I do. And I I had realized in retirement that I hadn't looked into the homeless issue. So, I was, make a long story short, I was going I'm a long distance bicycle rider. So, I camped out one night at the river to test my gear. That's what you do. It's called crazy camping. While I was there, someone stole my bicycle and I gave thought that well I hadn't met any of the homeless and worked with the homeless even really involved myself in recent homeless issues. So I stayed out there looking for my bicycle. I got to meet some of the homeless people and I'm relatively I think familiar with the dayto-day issues of being homeless. And there's there really is difficult very difficult and if any of you have experienced it I I think you'll understand what I'm saying. Mr. Lopez, your two minutes are up. Can you just bring your statements to a close and then I'm just going to ask the city manager to have staff follow up with you? Okay. I It appears to me that there's no appeal process for the decisions made. I was denied a hearing. Uh my car was kept 30 days and uh I don't understand why I was denied a hearing. That's what they do. Thank you, Mr. Lopez. So, we have your contact information and I'll give it to the appropriate person so somebody can follow up with you. Thank you for speaking. Great. Thank you. Right. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Michael Torres. Good afternoon. Welcome. Please introduce yourself. My name is U. Michael Torres. So, the issue that I want to address tonight, council, thank you for allowing me to speak. I live on um 30th Street and it is considered a let me see a a collector street. And the problem is is we have kids that walk that street and they end up walking on the side next to the vehicles that a lot of it is not paved or sidewalks. There's probably about three or four sections just on my side. the street that have sidewalks in front of the property. Um, last year, my neighbor's vehicle got hit right in front of our house. Just a couple weeks ago, a drunk driver took out a fence just further down right past Sand Deis. And I'm talking about the area from Union all the way to um 34th and Q. A lot of activity goes on at night. A lot of people tend to burn out on the corner on the corner of 34th and Q. Wait, 30th and Q in that little intersection. I'm requesting that um if there's any way we could get speed bumps or radar or see um Department of Transportation would actually help out being that we have a lot of commercial vehicles going down there so we could get sidewalks so somebody doesn't get hit. That's my main goal is I don't want to go out there and have a kid hit get hit going to Longfellow Elementary School. That's my biggest concern. And I have a kid and I know about five other people that have kids. And when when we walk out, we have to walk right next to the vehicles, right next to the traffic. It's supposed to 35, but people tend to go a little quicker than that. And that's all I have to say. Thank you, Mr. Chores. Thank you for sharing your concern and we'll have staff follow up with you. Issue on 30th and Q. So, we'll just we'll I'll make sure that uh staff is able to follow up. Council member Gonzalez, Mr. George, thank you so much for speaking today and bringing up this issue. It's a really important issue for many of us on the city council. Um when it comes to pedestrian safety, um we know that this is that this is a major issue facing many of our families in the community. This area actually used to be in my ward. It's now in W three. I know um council member Weir um and I have have kind of passed the baton with regard to some of the work in this area. Mr. Kle, there has been a project pending uh to to actually improve some of the sidewalks since this was in war two. Can you give us an update please on the improvement project in this area? Yeah, thank you council member. I was just thinking about that. Uh this is an area that um historically didn't have curb gutter sidewalk and developed throughout when it was originally developed. It's been you know annexed into the city and so um we've included it in our CDBG um curb gutter sidewalk program. Uh we actually uh set aside additional funds outside of just those CDBG monies um from our general CIP dollars to expedite. So 20 this coming year work will be done around 28th and Q and SP up towards 30th but because there's significant amount of work we're actually having to phase this out in different chunks and so it's probably going to be about a three-year project to to get to multiple segments uh throughout this area. This year's includes again 28th and Q and SB up towards 30th but then along 30th and over to Sand Demus will be in in phased out over the next couple of years. Perfect. Thank you so much. Hopefully that um helps shed some light on some of the work that we're trying to do to address the concerns that you've raised. Also, um before I um pass it back to the mayor, the the council has adopted what's called a neighborhood traffic calming handbook, a toolkit of all these different traffic calming measures for neighborhoods throughout the city. And it's designed for residents uh to take it and to to determine among themselves what might be some of the best interventions for the city to actually uh implement uh in order to reduce traffic uh traffic speeds. And so I'd encourage you to look on uh the city website and perhaps staff can direct you to that resource so you can take a look at what we have available because it goes far beyond speed bumps now. There's a lot a lot of options available to us. Um but it's really important for us um as council members to work with the community and work with city staff so that we can make our streets safer. So I just want to thank you for being proactive and I'm looking forward to working with you in the future. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Next item, please. Mayor Go, that was our final speaker for non-aggenda items, and we have not received any agenda item speaker cards. Thank you. And now, next item, please. Closed session, item 4 A, conference with legal counsel, existing litigation regarding Evangelos Deistas versus City of Bakersfield. In item 4B, conference with legal counsel, initiation of litigation, one matter. Thank you. Motion to adjourn to close session. We're adjourned to close session. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Ah, [Music] feel it. [Music] [Music] Hey, [Music] hey hey. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey, hey hey. [Music] Heat. Hey, Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Oh, [Music] love oh. [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey, [Music] hey, [Music] hey. [Music] [Music] Hey, [Music] hey, [Music] hey. 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[Music] [Music] [Music] Feel [Music] it. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] Heat. Hey, Heat. [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. N. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey hey hey. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] anywhere. [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] Hey, hey hey. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] Hey, [Music] [Music] hey hey. [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Hey, Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey. [Music] Hey. Hey. [Music] I don't know. [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey hey hey. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] That's reconvening the 3:30 meeting at 4:44. Madam City Attorney, thank you, Mayor. There were two items on close session tonight. Uh item 4 A, there is no reportable action and on item 4B, there is no reportable action. Thank you. Thank you. And with that, we stand adjourn at 4:45 and we will start our next meeting in a while. We have one before the 5:15 meeting. We have a real quick routine meeting. Father [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Music] Number [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Hallelujah. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] Good evening. It's my pleasure to call to order the five o'clock public benefit corporation special meeting of June 9th, 2025. Madame clerk, please call the role. Mayor Go here. Vice Mayor Core here. Council member Aras. Council member Gonzalez here. Council member Weir here. Council member Smith, I'm here. Council member Kman here. Council member Basher here. Thank you. Welcome. Is there anyone here who wants to make a public comment specifically related to the public benefit corporation special meeting? This is not our regular meeting. Seeing none, we'll just move on then to our city manager, Mr. Kle, mayor and council. Just by way of a little bit of background, uh this uh public benefit corporation constitutes the the city council. It was formed for distinct purposes of public benefit. Um and so it has a a slightly different role um than the regular business of the city council, but it is constituted the board of that corporation is the city council. um as a matter of oversight. Uh this meeting, this group is supposed to meet every year. We have not met in recent years. We discovered that oversight and so we're reconvening the public um benefit corporation uh for the first time since 2018. And we don't have any business items, any action items uh to bring to that board tonight other than to adopt the minutes uh back from the 2018 meeting. And again, um, uh, we we have a expectation that this group at least meets once a year. This would, uh, meet that expectation and and we'll see if there's other business by next year's meeting. Thank you, Mr. Kle. Vice Mayor, motion to adopt the minutes. You have a motion. Please cast your votes. The item is approved with council member Aras absent. Thank you. And so that is all the business we have for the public benefit corporation meeting. And it's excuse me, mayor. I had a Oh, I'm so sorry. I don't see any signal, but council member Smith. Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to make a couple comments. When we formed this public benefit corporation, the expectation was that we were going to borrow 200 plus million dollars and we did not have to. And that was for the Centennial Corridor and all the trip projects. Uh, Congressman Thomas got the initial money and and we thought that we would have to borrow a sizable amount, but with the continuing work of Congressman Thomas and Kernog and federal and state monies, we were able to complete all those projects without any borrowing. And just last week, we got notified that we received another almost $40 million to complete the final connections of what's called the seventh and eighth movements between 99 and 58. So, a big hurrah for uh $1.4 four billion dollar project that uh city of Bakersville was able to do without any borrowing and most of the money uh coming from Congressman Thomas. So that's my comment. Thank you. Thank you Council Member Smith and thank you for your efforts on Kern Cog and thank you to Council Member Thomas. Uh I don't see any other requests for comments. So we stand adjourn with the public benefit corporation special meeting at 5:10 and we'll start our regular meeting at 5:15. [Music] Hey, [Music] hey hey. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Welcome to the Bakersfield City Council meeting. This television broadcast is brought to you by the local cable companies, the county of Kerna, and the city of Bakersfield. You can watch the rebroadcast of this meeting Saturday at 700 p.m., Sunday at 10:00 a.m., and the following Wednesday at 7 p.m. You can download the agenda for this meeting at www.bakersfieldcity. us. Preciding over this evening's meeting, the honorable mayor Karen K. Go. Good evening. It's my pleasure to call the city to call to order the 5:15 regular city council meeting of July 9th, 2025. Madame clerk, please call the role. Mayor Go, here. Vice Mayor Core here. Council member Arius, Council Member Gonzalez, Council Member Weir here, Council Member Smith, I'm here. Council member Kleman here. Council member Basher here. Thank you and welcome. Glad to have you here. And I know we have a student from Bakersville College. So, thank you for participating in the process. Tonight, we have the pleasure of having Reverend Joe Baka, who is the Bakersville Fire Department chaplain, lead us in the invocation. Thank you so much for your service as chaplain for the last three years and then serving as a firefighter EMT with the Orange County Fire Department. Following the invocation, we'll have John O. who's a senior at Centennial High School to lead us in the pledge. Now, get ready for a very lengthy list of accomplishments. John is the city hall intern for our economic and community development department. He's a youth commissioner for Ward 6, a Ford dimension member, and that's a big deal there. ASB treasurer, board adviser for the Interact Club, and president of the chemistry club. He also is uh with the Science, Spanish, and National Honors Society with a 4.3 GPA. He plays the violin with the Bakersville Youth Symphony. He competes in robotics and in his free time, and I can't believe you have any of that, John. John enjoys learning the drums, playing tennis, and reading. It's our privilege to have both of you here. Please stand. As uh her honor, the mayor stated, my name is Father Joe Baka. I'm a priest of the Dascese of Fresno. It's a little over 23 years. And uh I worked also coming from Orange County, I worked at Disneyland for several years and Orange County Fire Authority for six and a half years as firefighter EMT. But um um very happy, very honored to be here. Uh said, "Oh, you might have left already, but anyways, but he told me to go ahead and give the invocation in Latin, everyone." And I'm just teasing, so I'll go ahead and start. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. We gather here today mindful of God's presence and grace. We thank you for the blessings you have bestowed upon our city and its people. We ask for your divine wisdom and guidance to be upon our city council as they make decisions that will impact our community. May their deliberations be guided by justice, fairness, and a commitment to the common good. Grant them the strength and discernment to serve with integrity and compassion. We all this we all we ask all this in your holy name. Amen. Amen. Uh, please join me in reciting our nation's pledge of allegiance. Salute. Pledge. I pledge allegiance 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. Father, thank you for your service. John, thank you also for your service. And better go and study some more. Um, congratulations and all your accomplishments. Here are a few guidelines to help our meeting run smoothly. We request that you turn off your phones. Please be courteous in the use of cameras and videos. For safety reasons, and as a courtesy to others, no signs are allowed in the council chamber or in the lobby. Applause is allowed during the presentations portion of the meeting, but not during other portions of the meeting. Everyone in attendance is expected to adhere to the rules of decorum established by resolution of the city council. Failure to abide by the city's rules of decorum, including any disruptive behavior that interferes with our ability to have an orderly and efficient meeting prevents the city council from conducting the business of the city. Consider this a first warning to everyone in attendance that conduct that disrupts the meeting may result in expulsion and/or the chambers being cleared. Behavior that disrupts the meeting includes repetitive statements, shouting, hate speech, hate speech, interrupting staff or presenters during the meeting, speaking out of turn, and outbursts from the audience. Madame clerk, next item, please. Public statements. In keeping with the council's resolution, public statements are received at different times. Depending on the item, I will call on the city clerk to call for public statements. If you wish to make a public statement, please fill out a public speaker card and place it in the tray next to the podium. We ask that you mark whether you're here to speak on an item listed on today's agenda or in a matter not on the agenda. Speakers who do not identify a specific agenda item will be presumed speakers for the non-aggenda public statement. If you're here to speak on an item not listed on the meeting agenda, you'll be called first to speak. Statements are given a two-minute time limit per speaker, 20 minutes total for all all non-aggenda item public statements. If you're here to speak on an item listed on the agenda, I will call for you at the appropriate time. If public statements become disruptive and I've declared the chambers to regain order of the meeting, you'll be called in one at a time to provide your public statement when your item is called. Madam clerk, do we have any public speakers regarding items not listed on the agenda? Margo, we have not received any speaker cards regarding regarding items not on the agenda. Nor have we received any speaker cards for items on the agenda. Thank you. So now, madame clerk, next item please. Consent calendar items 7A through 7 I. Staff me, excuse me, staff memorandums were received for item 7E9, transmitting the signed agreement, for 7F3, pulling the item from tonight's agenda, and 7 L4, transmitting the signed change order. Thank you. And I see that Council Member Gonzalez has requested that 7E3 and 7 I3 be pulled. So now uh vice mayor is and is there anyone else who wants to pull anything or to recuse themselves? Seeing none, vice mayor. Motion to approve the consent calendar uh with the exception of the items pulled. You have a motion. Please cast your votes. The item is approved with council member Arias absent. Thank you. And now council member Gonzalez 7E3. Thank you, mayor. Uh 7E3 is an agreement with the Bakersville Senior Center uh for community engagement planning. Um this is part of the transformative climate uh communities grant. Um, actually items 7E3 through 7E8 are all related to the transformative climate communities grant. In 2023, the city of Bakersfield uh was awarded a grant, a major grant from the uh state of California uh in partnership with many community leaders uh and community stakeholders. Uh we were awarded awarded $22.1 million uh to invest in Southeast Bakersfield and started this uh collaborative called Southeast Strong. Uh I'm very proud of the work that the community has done uh and all of the effort throughout the years uh to see us get to this point. So this is a very historic moment for the city of Bakersfield and for Southeast Bakersfield. Um it and it's it's actually fitting uh yesterday I had a moment uh just a few moments to to visit with former councilwoman Irma Carson who represented this area uh for quite some time on the Bakersville city council. Um and she's now 90 years old uh and so had a good sweet moment to share with all of the work that she uh had done and efforts that she led throughout the years to revitalize southeast Bakersfield. And it's just uh wonderful that so many of us in the community are working to continue to push towards that direction. So I I just wanted to ask because there are a number of agreements tonight and I'm sorry uh for for calling out 73. Um but Mr. Dr. Clay, can you just describe to us that you know these agreements come in the context of of of a much larger plan and initiative that's already been established and there'll be much more work uh in the future, many more agreements in the future as well. Can can you just help us on the on the DAS and also in the community understand what what exactly we're doing? Yeah, thank you council member Mayor and councel. The there are several items on tonight's agenda. Your next meeting will have additional items that are very similar. But taking a step back to look at the big picture and the history of this project, the very nature of the TCC uh project is to be one of collaboration and one of community uh ownership and community engagement. And so, uh, not only did we, um, also have those same values that we wanted to go into this project as a city, but it's one of the requirements of the grant itself that you have a very robust community engagement plan. And so we've developed a community engagement plan that uh will uh offer funding and again these are part of the grant requirements to establish multiple entities that can really represent community interests as well as serve the community in a variety of ways. And uh so there's this broader community engagement plan that was established as part of the grant. And we have more than a dozen different entities that will be providing services or doing engagement with the community. And again, the intent is to have much broader community ownership, have the the solutions and the projects be things the community has asked for, but then also ask the community to roll up their sleeves and pitch in and do good work. We have so many great partners that that really not only uh improved our grant application um but also uh really uh I think improved our um coordinated approach that I think led to the success in a in a second round. We were unsuccessful our first application. We were successful in the se second application because it was much more communitydriven and much more communityowned. And so this community engagement plan reflects the many stakeholders and folks who have been doing the work and who are going to continue doing the work. Wonderful. I just want to recognize also Miss Empress who was one of our um strongest community leaders uh Dr. Evelyn Young Spa who's also here this evening. Uh thank you both for your leadership and your all the hours that you've contributed to all of this effort. Uh this is uh certainly monumental. Um, I do want to touch on one other issue. We received in addition to that an award from the federal government for $20 million called the community change grant. And these uh this was for specific improvements that were really important to me, particularly um improvements related to Peace Street, uh enhanced street lighting and walkability. And I have to have to share the story. When I first uh took over this particular area after redistricting, I walked down Q Street, all the way Q, crossed California, then walked all the way down P with me and my little dog. Uh walked all the way down to Brundage, went down Brundage and walked up Chester at night. Q wonderfully lit, beautiful. Because of redevelopment, uh the city made all these investments to improve this street. Once you cross California, pitch dark. I saw so many families come home at night as I was walking through getting into their homes pitch dark. Uh I saw a woman holding her groceries trying to walk to her to her home in the dark. Uh saw a person in a wheelchair crossing the street in the dark. Way too dark. We have to we have to improve the street lighting in that area. This grant um would help us do that. I understand that there's some issues with the current grant. Can you give the council an update on that, please, Mr. Cl? Yeah, thank you, Council Member, Mayor and Council. Uh, this was a federal grant that came from the EPA that did include um multiple uh road improvements, multiple um street light, and other infrastructure improvements. And it also included funding that would supplement uh some of the same projects that were in the TCC program, including uh weatherization of homes and providing um uh energy uh assistance uh to homes. This grant um earlier in this calendar year, we received notice from the federal government that they were considering, of course, impacting and changing a multitude of grants. This was one of those that are on the list. And then a little over a month ago, I would say maybe two months ago, we received a notice that they had unilaterally changed some of the language in the grant and had given us notice that the grant would um you know was up for termination. There's a process by which we could protest that which we have. We have protested that the grant conditions uh shouldn't or can't be changed u without mutual consent of all of the parties. We'd already had a signed agreement with the federal government. Um and then we're going through that protest process to um uh challenge the fact that you know we we are prepared to move forward and deliver on the deliverables of that grant and benefit the community through that grant. So we had a contract that was signed agreement with with the federal government and and the dollars have then or the contract has been cancelled. That's correct. Okay. And so we're continually we're currently in a process of challenging. That's correct. Okay. Council member, when uh Steph and I were in DC, we met with our congressional and Senate representatives on this issue and we've also received some further advice as to how to appeal. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Mayor. Uh uh then, uh there's no other comments or questions. Um, for me, I'll make a motion to approve 7E3. You have a motion. Please cast your votes. The motion is approved with council member Aras absent. Thank you. And now 7 I three. Council member Gonzalez. Thank you, Mayor. Uh 7i3 tonight is uh related to BLNC and of funding uh to extend um uh the expanded operations um that we've approved in the past. Uh we expanded uh the shelter space from the original number of beds of 150. Uh we we actually expanded it twice. now sits at a total of 318 beds, which um I have supported and advocated for in order for us to address the homelessness crisis. And I will say, you know, the the point in time count has indicated that the number of unsheltered people has actually been uh reduced by 10 and a half% year-over-year. And I think it has to do in large part uh uh to the number of beds that we have created over the last few years. Uh so I want to commend all of our service providers uh certainly Mercy House, BLNC, Flood Ministries and so many folks at at city hall who are working very very hard. My question here is this. Um, as we look at uh future extensions, when is it appropriate for us to begin analyzing the same service level? Uh, you know, to continue the same service level or perhaps consider a reduction in the number of beds over time. If we are, you know, seeing some progress out there in in actually addressing homelessness, it would seem prudent for us to have an honest conversation about when do we start scaling down the number of beds and the capacity uh at Balenci um so that we can then in turn save some dollars and reallocate to other pressing priorities. Yeah, thank you council member Mayor and councel. for the first few years that BLNC was in operations, I think there was a a general recognition um across, you know, many of our partners that there was a a significant gap in our ability to provide emergency sheltering as well as transitional housing and permanent housing. I think the an appropriate time is when we're able to start bringing online more of our affordable housing units, permanent supportive housing units. And as this council knows well, you started almost 5 years ago with the affordable housing trust fund putting aside large amounts of funding to help leverage other funding sources to build affordable housing. And so, you know, as of four, you know, and three and four years ago, we started putting hundreds of units into the pipeline, but it takes many years to build those units. The good news is last year to some degree, and this year to an increasing degree, those units are coming online. And so, we're we're starting to see not just, you know, uh a couple dozen units, but we're starting to see 50, 100, 150 units come online. And we still have more of those in the pipeline. And so I do think in this coming year is an appropriate time to start evaluating how many um turnaways do we have to our shelter, how many um um housing units have opened up and starting to look at, you know, when is the time that we can focus more on the long-term strategies as opposed to this more emergency strategy. I think it's in the next year or two. Great. And you know, I'd like to reiterate what I've uh brought up at the homelessness uh committee, and that uh what I'd like to us to see is uh um us establish a sort of five-year um forecast and plan uh as it relates to, you know, the number of affordable housing units that we know will come online. um and we know what the you know what the what the inflow is, what what the trends are suggesting so that we can better prepare for the future and also signal to um you know Mercy House and to the service providers at BLNC uh our plans in the future to uh either reduce the number of beds or or to remain to remain stable. But but I think we have to do this um responsibly and we have to have a have a multi-year plan of how we kind of reduce the number of uh of beds and the services that we're providing there. Thank you so much. Uh with that, I'll make a motion to adopt. You have a motion. Please cast your votes. Did you go? The motion is approved with council member Weir voting no and council member Arius absent. Thank you. And just for clarification for the media in case you're writing down that number of reduced of the unsheltered homelessness the point in time count compared from 20 24 to 25 was 10.2% 2% just a it's close but we're celebrating that it did go down. It's really a good thing. Thank you, mayor. I apologize. No, no, no. We just want to make sure in case Pete writes it down. Got it. Thank you so much for for that. Next item, please. Council and Mayor statements. Council member Smith. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to comment. It occurs to me as as we talk about this BLNC and also the the freeway wrapping up how the the city's addressed different problems over the years that come up and and historically the city was not involved in and got involved in in order to solve constituent desires. Uh, I think way back in the 1970s, the city was proactive in in the water rights and purchasing the rights to the Kern River in order to have uh a water source for the city. And, you know, we'd never been in the water business before, but but we got in the water business and uh with that purchase, we also got into the domestic water business that came with it and and operating the river. And then we'd never been in building the freeway business before and and we got in the building the freeway and and we actually was the lead agency on that and it was big project over a lot of years and very successful to the city and and we just talked about the BLNC and definitely we were never in the housing homeless business before but it was definitely a concern of the constituents and and we got in there and did and we seem to be making progress and and hopefully we can continue to make progress and change lives and also reduce the amount in the future. So uh I just think that we got some real wins and and uh appreciate the work. Thank you Council Member Smith. I don't see any other requests to speak. So, the meeting stands adjourn at 5:39. And to our young man from uh Bakersville College, our renegade, this is going to be a very, very short meeting for your report. It's typically not nearly this short, so you might want to come back for uh Professor Holmes. 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