Thank you. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. Roll call please. Mazah. Maloney, Wang. Here, on Dr. Rady Stadler. Here, Lee. Here, our only item on the agenda this afternoon is a budget workshop and presentation. The City Manager is there report from staff for this item. Sure, there is. Mayor, members of the City Council, this afternoon we are here to conduct a budget workshop that was requested by the council in your February 24th meeting. This is going to be in addition to your public hearing for the budget that is anticipated to be on June 23rd. This afternoon we would like to discuss the overview of your 2025-26 and 20-26-27 annual budget. The capital improvement plan, this will also include a five year financial forecast. Slide on our long term liabilities. We would expect to have some discussion regarding the reserve policy balances and the policy itself. We will also discuss federal funding impacts, upcoming fiscal challenges, and then we'd like to move into a discussion about the strategic plan. So this strategic plan was attached to your staff report with costs for each of the items in the strategic plan along with a budget worksheet that will give you or give staff more a road map for the council's priorities for this coming year with limited funding availability. So with that in mind, if you will at the end of this meeting we'd like to go through that worksheet. If we are not ready to go through all of the items in detail on the worksheet, then we can discuss it at your next meeting, which would be next Monday. And if there is consensus from the Council next Monday, then we will be able to add those appropriations and the suggested funding amounts for each of the items in the strategic plan in the budget for your hearing on June 23rd. At any point, please feel free to ask questions. You can stop me and stop Pearl. We're going to go back and forth here. Try to keep it as casual as possible. And without further ado, we'll go into the PowerPoint. So next slide, please. I want to give a little bit of the definitions of each of the different funds that we have as revenue. So for the general fund, they are unrestricted funds. And the types of revenue are taxes. They are our primary revenue stream being property tax tax, sales tax, measure AL, utility user tax, franchise tax, TOT, business license tax, charges for services. So business licenses, plan check, paramedic fee, facility rental. Also building permits, overnight parking, fines and forfeitures, being vehicle code fines, parking citations, and then revenue from other agencies and other revenues. So what do we spend, general fund money on? General fund is where we fund the bulk of city services and operations. So police, fire, library, parks and rack, community development, and then general services. Administration, city attorney, finance, IT, HR, and then a very, very small portion, funds, public works and utilities. Next slide, please. Special revenue funds are restricted funds. So what are those? We'll talk a little bit about the sources of the restricted funds. Prop A and Prop C, and if you follow this slide directly across, Prop A and C pay for the Act bus and senior ride programs, measures R and M, we look to that corresponding column, transportation infrastructure improvements, gas tax, RMRA, SB1, road maintenance, road repairs, CDBG and home, affordable housing, and rehab projects. PLHA is a state funding source that is paying for homelessness prevention outreach services at this time for the next five years. Law Enforcement Service Fund, Safety Equipment, 710 Mobility Improvements Fund, that's our measure R money. Those funds will be spent on improving traffic flow and accessibility, safe clean water, storm water capture projects, and ARPA, which ARPA was fantastic. It allowed us to do programs for public health, economic recovery, and infrastructure needs in response to the pandemic. So those are just some examples of our special revenue funds. Next slide, please. Enterprise funds. So sources of the, the charge of services, water fees, sewer fees, sanitation, golf course fees, clubhouse revenue and grants. Uses for these are operations and maintenance. So specifically, as I mentioned, only a portion of public works and utilities are paid for out of the general fund. The bulk of our water and sewer employees are paid for out of water fees and sewer fees. And then also sanitation fees, place for their salaries, benefits, equipment, vehicle maintenance. And then the bigger portion, water infrastructure improvements, which we're talking about, that in your strategic plan today. One of your items is to look at our water infrastructure, sewer infrastructure improvements, and then also bond payments. We do have a sewer bond. And so we do use sewer fees to pay for that. Next slide, please. Internal service funds are internal service funds are charges from the departments to provide overhead such as fleet management, insurance and other administrative functions. So you'll see them in the budget. They're listed as the Equipment Fund, the Health Insurance Fund, Self Insurance and the Workers Conf Fund, and Compensated Absences Fund. The overhead departments are management services, City Clerk, Marketing and Communications, our communications, like radio, fire communications, finance, technology, facilities, maintenance, special events, and city attorney. Next slide please. Any questions with just the intro on the budget and the funds? All right, we'll continue on through. Okay. Staff has prepared a two year budget. For all funds, in front of you, there's basically a spending plan for all funds. The projected revenues is projected at 206, covering the operating expenditure at about $176.7 million. And this project that CIP expenditures from all the funds, totaling about $57.6 million. Total expenditure is $234 million. It's exceeding revenue by approximately $27.5 million. You can look at this chart and you can see that the majority of the reason for the deficit or the reduction in the fund balance is due to prior year deferred CIP that are now under way or commencing soon. In fiscal year 2627, projected revenues is at 184 million, where operating expenditures is at 179 million with CIP expenditure about 16 million. And total expenditures 195, what a reduction of 11.5 million. The first year, you can see that the projected reduction is a lot more in the second year because the first year has the Ahamber community center grant in there. Next slide please. This slides provides an overview of all the funds and in both fiscal years you will see the expenditure is exceeding the review and again it's due to CIPs for all funds. Next slide please. And this slide provides an overview of the unassigned general fund balance. This is where, as Jessica indicated earlier, general fund is unrestricted funds and this is the funds where we can use for anything that council wants to use it for. Projected General Fund Revenue is at 97 million with projected net general fund expenditure at 98.9 million. Courier deficit is approximately 1.9 million. But we have prior year surplus of about $7.6 million we projected. The surplus is coming from a combination of revenues coming in a little stronger such as property taxes came in a little more. Staff was budgeting very conservatively. So property tax came in a little bit more. Measure A.L. came in a there are charges for services like Paramex, Building, and other charges for services that came a little higher, and also due to like the fee increases that we implemented last year. And we have a lot of many CIP projects that were not completed in the prior year, so it has to be carried over this year, and that's where the surplus majority of the surplus is coming. We have, we're ending the current year with a surplus of about $5.7 million and staff is recommending to carry over this surplus $4.4 million of this surplus to the next year in order to balance the budget. So the available balance in year one will be 1.3 million, and we will be discussing the allocating of the 1.3 million later in the presentation. In fiscal year 2627, general fund revenue is at 99 million, with general fund expenditure at 103, with a deficit of 3.5 million, they carry over that we just discussed earlier with 4.4, And then ending the year with a surplus of $3.5 million. They carry over that we just discussed earlier with $4.4, and then ending the year with a surplus of $854,000. Next slide, please. For General Fund Revenue, this is the slides provides basically all the general fund revenues that the city has. The top revenue generating revenue source is the property taxes coming in about $34 million in the first year and $32 million in the second year. Sorry, 32 in the first year and $34 million in the second year. Sales tax and measure AL is slightly behind property taxes. Sales tax is running flat at about $20 million. Measure AAL is producing about $12.9 million to $13 million of measure AAL revenues. Charges for services, we expect a lot of fee increase in July. The expected revenue is coming in about $11 million. And other sources of revenue, such as the UUT, 4.6 license and permits, 4.2, these are all the top revenues that the city has for general fund. Next, please. Next slide. And for sales and use tax industry, this is a pie that to provide basically for council and everyone to see where the sales tax revenue is coming from. Auto and transportation industry is providing about 28% of the sales tax. General consumer goods 23% with state and the county pool about 16% and the restaurants are coming in about 20 percent. So these couple industry, sales tax groups are producing the most sales tax for the city right now. Next item, please. Next slide. So now staff is providing an overview of the general fund expenditure. And in this pie chart, you will see that police department is at $47.3 million, fires at $27.88 million, community development at $7.6, parks at $9.1, library at $4.2. And then you also would find the general fund government at about 5.5 those are all the mad admin staff and the CIP contributions and then public works is at 2.3 so just public works looks like very small size in the pie but then public works expenditure is about 30 million the The majority of the expenditure is coming from other special revenue funds such as gas, hacks, public works, lighting, district, measure, R, M, all the transportation funds. So even though it looks like a small slice of the pie, it's actually a really big part of the city. So next slide please. And for fiscal year 2627 the pie is similar. The distribution is similar with public safety like police and fire about 4929 million parks at 9.8 community development at 7.5. Next slide please. So in the high U.S.C. that a lot of the general fund is going toward salary and expenditure. And salary and salary and benefits makes up a large portion of the expenditure. And this slide over here provides CalPERS rates, basically from 2019 all the way into 2029-30 on how much the PERS rate has increased from, you know, this is like a span of 10 years. So for safety, it was about 56.775% in 1920 and the projected percentage for the CalPERS liability is about 83.5%. So CalPERS is the retirement benefits for all the city employees. So you can see the rate almost double. Next slide please. And now staff is presenting the five- financial forecast. So we're ending the year in 2526 with a available balance of $1.3 million and in 2627 with $854,000. But if you take a look at the last three years in 27, 28, 28, 29, and 29, 30, the city is running on a slight deficit about $610,000 to $850,000 a year. And this cash flow is projected without CIP projects and assuming very flat sales tax. So if sales tax goes up and other initiatives that we're putting on the ballot like the TOT sales tax, I mean the TOT fees that we're collecting for short term rent, and other revenue sources from new dealerships or new restaurants, if that goes up, then it will basically cover this small deficit. The deficit is only less than 1%. Any questions? So, do I get to ask questions right now? Or you, you want to wait till later? That's a good one. Okay, well, I just have a question, but the title is on page 8. So the on the sign general fund is basically unrestricted general fund. And what are some of the items expenditure that we could spend out of the unrestricted general fund? Because I'm concerned that we've spent by 2930, according to your forecast, all the surplus carried over from 2526 to 7.6 million will be completely gone. So I wanted to know what kind of expenditure do we are being spent out of this category? It's mostly CIPs. So we spend a lot on CIP projects and that includes a lot of different maintenance that we do and it's in this CIP book. So we have different maintenance, we have a lot of HVAC replacement for City Hall for Fire Station 71 for Police Department And there are other like CIP such as safety equipment that we purchase or fire a fire engine that we're purchasing because it's old and we need to purchase new vehicles. So there's a lot of CIP projects that needs to be funded and we fund them based on basically our financial situation. If we have enough revenue sources, we see the surplus then we would fund them. If we do not have any money or our revenues are not coming in high enough then we will not proceed with the CIP projects or we would defer maintenance like we've always done in the past when that situation does happen. I understand now. So the CIP projects such as defer maintenance and equipment and things like that for police and fire, they're really not, we cannot really budget them. We have to rely on surplus. Is that what you're saying to me? Well, there's certain police, like we have fire fighter equipment that we have to budget, so we put that in. So it's really the HVAC systems. Those are the big items this year. Every year is different. This year is the HVAC system, totaling about almost $3 million that we have to fix. And in prior years, it was like roof replacements that we have to do. So every year is a little different depending on the need of the infrastructure. Okay, I'm beginning to understand how we are budgeting our revenue. But my concern is that what happens in 20, 27, 28 when, based on the forecasters, no surplus. So we're basing this five year forecast on the sales tax that we are seeing now, which is very flat. And we've been seeing very flat sales tax here for the last two years. And so it's unlikely that it will stay this way for the next five, but those are the numbers that we have. In the event that there is not a increase in revenue, we do not have, sorry. And we do not have any new sales tax generators, which we already know that we have several on board. The new Mazda dealership. We have other retail options that are very highly likely. But in the event that none of that happens and the sales tax stays super flat, then we have enough to cover our operations. And that's where we'll have the discussion a little bit later about maybe being a little more reliant on our reserve funds. So in the past, we've had reserve funds for rolling stock and equipment for building maintenance and then our general fund reserve. That is meant for emergency situations and then our self insurance reserve. In the event that we have very, very, very flat year, then we could make the decision whether we were going to fund some of those expenditures with those reserve funds. That's the purpose of having those reserves. So, I know later on, you're gonna go into our strategic plan, expenditure. So then, shall I wait till when you get to the strategic fund portion and ask question because it's all tied in together? Sure, that way. Probably helpful. Okay, because you know what I'm going with is that I'm a little concerned about if these items that you just mentioned are basically based on our surplus, which based on the forecast doesn't look very good, Then what happened to those needs? Are they going to be just set aside? Because I thought that we have regular funds, budgeted for those items already. Other than if you have ruby issues, we offer seeing issues. So I have a big concern right now about us relying on purely surplus to meet the needs of the city. But I'll stop right here. Okay. Next slide please. I have a couple questions. You don't have to hear public comment before. So this is because it's a special meeting. Okay. so I'm hoping that this becomes the taxpayer budget because that's what this is, right? It's all taxpayer dollars. So I think we need to keep that in front of us at all times. What's happening on the street? What is not happening? Where's the safety? Where do we have it? Where do we don't have it? Where do we lack? So this is critical for us, I think, to keep in mind. Is the AL tax imperpetuity? Yes, it is. It is. And is it, does it have, is it only designated for certain items? So, I have in front of me the ballot question that for Measure A.L. and it says as describing the ballot question that for Measure A.L. And it says as describing the ballot question, the proceeds would be used to provide funding for general fund obligations, including but not limited to support for public safety, including recruitment and retention of police officers and firefighters, street and POT-HOL Repairs, Community community service programs for seniors and youth, as well as to maintain other general services. Thank you for making that so proud because it helps. Another question I have, so that's great, that's in perpetuity. The TOT funds that we currently have, that's only for one very small or two small hotels that are in our city, is that right? It's a few motels, we don't have any hotels. Okay. It's a few motels and it's about approximately 700,000 a year, 10% TOT tax. So if we pass this bond, do we have that included in the budget as a potential increase in those TOT funds or not yet? It's not included in anything yet. No. Okay. So basically the TOT that we want to, that staff wants to put on the ballot is for short term rentals. So for short term rentals, they don't pay that right now. All they pay is a business license fee and basically grows receipt. So when the ballot passes, then the city can collect revenue from them. And we had a consultant just take a look at it really quickly. It's a it would generate an additional five to 600,000 in TOT. Thank you so much. I just want to make a comment here and I'm sure I'll make it again. I just see that public works is such a smaller head of the pie and it really does affect the taxpayer considerably. And so I'm going to ask us to maybe take a look at the strategic plan funding to make sure that we're back filling where we're doing the lighting for our families, making sure our areas are safe, they're not dark, the lighting is bright enough for our families to feel safe in their neighborhoods and You know everything else the potholes are of course are important But the lighting to me and the water is incredibly important and all those other things that I think are utilities department are That department in particular is really needs somehow so just a clarification on that. I agree 100% over that councilmember and Dr. Sather saying but public works is pretty significant. It's small part of the general fund but it pretty like all of the capital improvement. So can you put that in context for us? Yes so public works is comprises of many staff. And they do a lot of street work. So they're funded by a lot of the street projects like gas tax, prop A, prop C, sanitation, fun, and like measure R, measure M when they're working on those very specific projects that is eligible for those funds. And the public works lighting and maintenance district assessment funds. So they're funded by all those funds and their CIP is funded by special revenue funds, not by general fund. So the general fund that we were talking about funding CIPs are mostly more for like facilities or like HBAC system, PDE for fire, for city hall. The street CIP projects are funded by special revenue funds. The water infrastructure are funded by water fund. It like Sura is one, but it's a fund by Sura fund. So from that perspective, I hope to clarify that not all CIP are not gonna be funded. The street, the non-general fund are still gonna continue to be funded. Just if we were gonna... 33. Hypothetical, if we had a by chart of the entire city budget including the restricted funds what percentage what portion that I would be public works just right now public works is about three three million dollar so thirty three million dollar of about two hundred and four million. Mayor, can I make a comment and a question as well? Just piggyback off of the discussion right now. I understand that we had this big surplus and because of some of the CIPs were deferred and along with some other reasons. And I fully recognize, you know, we have our critical services as a city that we offer and in any economic uncertainties or there's revenue shortfalls and it probably works as the one that gets deferred and that's just challenges that we face as local government but also recognizing anytime when you have a CIP that's deferredred with the construction cost on the rise and percent per year for the past five years. And so a project that's budgeted say three years ago for $500,000. Now if deferred two years, the cost is not the same anymore. It could be $800,000. So how do we kind of balance, you know, having to defer some of these because of trying to maintain our critical services and coping with some of these budget uncertainties? How do we balance that with the fact that the cost, the CIP, if referrals could also increase overall costs for us. So by the time we need to pay for it, we need to implement those things, it becomes more expensive for us. So can you just share maybe a little bit of the thought and strategies that we use? Sure. And it also just point of clarification that general fund capital improvement projects have in the past been deferred. But public works projects are almost never deferred because they utilize special revenue funds and so those funds continue to be available as we're moving through the measure R, measure M, gas tax, lighting and landscape, maintenance district. Those funds are available and so those projects move through. Now we have the 710 projects which have been deferred. So again, using a different funding source and those are because of situations that are outside of our control and lay wholly with Cal Transit at the state level. But specifically to answer your question about general fund CIP expenses that are deferred. Perfect example fire engine. We're buying a fire engine this year. It's in the CIP when we get to the CIP section. Pearl will run through that. A couple different things. We have fire engines that are old and one of them in particular that give her and the fire chief, incredible heartburn because it's always broken and it's not even our oldest engine but it costs way more in deferred maintenance than it does to, that we have to purchase a new engine. But with purchasing a new engine, as we're looking at very flat revenues, we are financing that engine. And so we're paying payments over five years. But we do have the upfront cost of outfitting that engine, which is several hundred thousand dollars as well. In addition to the cost of the engine itself. And so we continue to evaluate which of those are critical purchases and which of them, and they must go through and which of them can be deferred. And then that's when we start discussing with the department heads which items could wait until future years and which ones we must consider in each annual budget. Thank you. Everybody to move on to the capital? I have a quick question for you. With regards to the special revenue funds, kind of in light of everything that's happening right now, in the country, with some of the federal funds and funding, any concerns with any of those special funding sources potentially drying up for any of these, like for public works as an example since we're on that subject. We have one slide a little bit later in the presentation for federal fiscal uncertainty, but the long and short of that is no. We have very little less than 1% federal revenue. And so from the overall standpoint, it's not something that we're generally concerned about. The bulk of our revenue from the FEDS is for CDBG and home programs. Thank you. Okay. So moving on to the CIP projects. For fiscal year 2526, staff is projecting $57 million in CIP projects. In this chart, you will see the focus would be really on the general fund capital outlay grants. So $31.3 million is out of that $31.3 million, $21.6 is the Ahamber Community Center. And in the chart, you will also see like sewer, water, prop A, prop C, there's still CIPs, budgeted for those infrastructure improvements that are needed. For the other side and the department side, the majority of the CIP is falling under Parks and Rec because of the Community Center. Next slide please. Okay. For Fire CIP, utilizing General Fund, we're staff is requesting for fire firefighting equipment $140,000. Roof repairers about $15,000. First. We're staff is requesting for firefighting equipment $140,000. Roof repair is about $15,000. For police CIP, there's the unmanned aircraft for the drone $242,000. Patrol and man area for about $55,000. Office renovations, phase 1, 75,000, and computer equipment's a total of about 206,000. Public safety, CIP is about 733,000. Then the next slide provides like an overview of the 30 million, the remaining 30.5 million. So for the Hamburg Community Center and other park improvement projects that are funded by grants is totaling about $25.3 million. And for the library, the electronic content management system, this is year two of three of the Laser Fish Project at 100,000. And for finance, Finance, a computer replacement and finance software, again, this is year two of three of the CIP requests. And the next item is the public works bus stop improvement at 1.4 million funded by grants and prop A funds. And city wide deferred facility upgrade about 3.3 million. And this is where the HVAC system falls in that I was speaking of earlier the city hall HVAC the fire 71 HVAC PD HVAC PD alarm monitoring upgrade storm upgrade access control restroom plumbing issues. I'm totaling about about 2.8 million and then there is the other items like the facility upgrade $300,000. The public work city yard restroom about 35,000 and then the public works break room 120. So that total is 3.3 million in this box. Moving on to the next slide. For fiscal year 2627, CIP, it's totaling about $16.8 million of which the majority is coming from this is more like a normal CIP chart where majority of the CIP comes from the water fund, the sewer fund, the safe clean water, the public works maintenance. General fund only makes up about $1.9 million of the CIP. The department that are utilizing the CIP is mostly public works and utilities because of water and sewer water. Next slide please. This provides a more of a breakdown of the 1.9 million of general fund requests for the fire. It's the fire engine lease payments about 185,000, the fire fighting equipment that we need the phone and the thermal imaging about 148,000 the fire fire engine outfit about 275,000, totaling about 588,000. And then we have library the electronic content system of 100,000, year three of three, finance software, year three of three, and then police office renovation, drone, and a lot uniform about 400, 59,000 and again the city-wide deferred maintenance of this 300,000 is for facilities upgrade and the remaining or for like other small items that like office renovations and all. Then we're going to move on to the next slide about position changes. So in this budget you you'll see the difference between, in the staffing model from the last budget and then in the proposed 2526 budget calls for modifications to the following units. We have an increase of a .5, so a part-time library assistant. We're asking for the library assistant to expand the services for the mobile library to reach out to the Jocelyn Center. Some of the other hard to reach elderly residents in the city that are at miscellaneous care facilities. The library staff has identified that it's a big priority for the council to reach out to these hard to reach community members and to meet them in their location. So they've asked in order to expand the mobile library program in this next budget year if they could, if we could augment the staffing model with a part-time library assistant to assist with that modification. Public works and utilities have a modification for an engineering associate. That's an organizational efficiency item. We have many capital projects. We don't have enough project managers. You've heard me say this before in past years. There was so many grants and so many projects and none of project managers. Public works and utilities same thing with their department and engineering associate will help round out their engineering team and will allow us to more effectively implement projects within the public works and utilities department. Additionally, we are requesting to add a cross-connection coordinator that is a position that is required under legislation. All cities must have one, and so we must have one. So that's a total FTE change of two. Community development is proposing a reorganization, an organizational efficiency item, adding a planning manager, and reducing the principal planner. Police Department is seeking to reorganize their records division, increase a record supervisor, and in doing that, they will be decreasing to police clerks. And a part time police clerk adding a part time cadetet and then reducing two dispatchers in order to create two lead dispatcher positions for an overall change of minus one full time equivalent. Parks and recreation were requesting the addition of a park worker to accommodate the additional landscape maintenance of the three parks that we are bringing online in this next fiscal year, the Pocket Park on Freeman and Helman, the Dog Park, and then also Serenity Circle adjacent to the Jocelyn Center. And then we have here for temporary positions in the 2025-2026 budget, an overhigher for police officers of two, and an overfill for dispatchers of one. So those are a total of a three full time equivalent change. Total for year 2526 is an addition of five and a half positions with three of those being temporary. Next slide please. For 2627, we have some changes for this full time staff as well. We will be bringing on our community center staff in the second half of the 2627 fiscal year. So basically in calendar year 27. As we open the new community center, parks and recreation will be reallocating some staff from other park facilities. But then adding a full time program coordinator, a part time program coordinator, and then five part time rec leaders. We also will be deleting the two temporary overfill positions for police officer in 2526 and conducting, and then conducting a reorganization of the finance department, deleting the revenue supervisor, creating a customer service supervisor, and deleting a senior account clerk, adding back in an account clerk, and then changing a classification from an IT specialist one to an IT specialist two, thereby deleting the specialist one, adding the two. So for 2627, we're requesting an increase of four and a half positions of full-time equivalent. Next slide please. The next slide talks about long-term liabilities. For long-term liabilities, the biggest liability is pension liabilities, which is the CalPERS for the retiree. It's approximately 176 million. This number changes every year. So depending on how the investment is for CalPERS, if they're doing well in the long term, then the number doesn't increase. But then if they're not doing well, then they would pass on the cost to the cities, and that would number with increase. For For OPEP liabilities, this is the retiree health, the PEMCA portion, and this is the $24 million liability. The next item is the legal liability, which is driven by general liability and workers' comp claims. This This is about $16 million. And we have three bonds currently, the water bond that will end the first year in 25, 26. We will finish paying that bond. And then we have the parking bond that is estimated to be paid off in 20, 20, 20, 48. And then the sewer bond also at 20, 48 at about 13.5 million. We have several capital ease obligations. Fire engines, subscription software, finance software, water software, body, warm cameras, drones, drones and that's about $2.4 million. And then we have our continued capital differ facility maintenance city wide. And that is about $33.8 million. And that number can go higher depending on when the maintenance or items are purchased. Total long-term liability is estimated at $265 million. Next slide, please. This slide talks about the General Fund Reserve Balance. So currently we have a general fund emergency reserve at $20.6 million. We reach our 20.8% goal. And in the last meeting, the last two meeting, we increased the reserve policy to 30%. And that target goal is about 29.7 million. The purpose of the emergency reserve is to cover fiscal emergency and natural disasters. Then we have our building facility maintenance reserve. And the purpose is to fund reserves, repairs maintenance of city buildings. The target goal is 20 million. Currently we're at reaching our 15% at 3. Currently we're at $3 million and that's about 15%. And for our legal liability, the purpose is to cover liability costs from the claims, not reimbursed by insurance. We have $3 million right now at 100%. And then the last is the Rolling Stock Equipment Reserve. The purpose is to replace City Vehicles and Equipment. We have $3 million and we're at 100%. Any questions on this slide? Next slide. Okay. Next slide we will provide basically a history of our general fund reserve. We started out with in pre-2018 only one reserve category, which is the emergency reserve at $8.7 million. And at that time, it was about 14.9% of operating expenditure. Then we go on and move on to 1920. We established the three categories that I just talked about, the legal liability building reserve, as well as the rolling stock, $3 million each. And at this point, we were able to increase the reserve, emergency reserve to $10.7 million at 14.1. Then we go and move on to like fiscal year 2021-22. We had at this point a time, it was a three-interpen dynamic. We had to draw down the legal liability reserve. And it was drawn down for about two years then at about 24 23 24 or reserve have we've been increasing the emergency reserve from 10.7 million to 17.4 million dollar and replenish our legal liability. Then we move on to last fiscal year, 24 or 25. We were able to increase the emergency reserve further to 20.6% to reach our 20% goal. And all the other reserve categories are at $3 million. And that's where we are today. We're at about 20.8% reserve or to emergency. Any questions? Okay. Seeing none, we'll move on. Next slide please. Federal grants. So here are a list of our federal revenue sources, community development block grant, home investment partnership as previously discussed discussed, also you also see your urban area security initiative at just over $111,000. Supportive Services Program, which provides senior services at 45,000. The Edward Bern Memorial Justice Assistance Grant, Jag Grant, a little over 11,000, and then a grant that we received through the city or in conjunction with the city of Palmdale for EV Chargers. It was federally funded and we have received notification that that grant has been frozen. So as we stand now, only one of the items on this list has in fact been frozen and deferred or deferred, we're not really sure. And that's the 33,000 for the EV Chargers. Otherwise, our total of federal grants are just under $2 million and at 0.83% of our total expenditures. Next slide, please. So as we move forward, we do have some upcoming fiscal challenges and these are things that we're working with the department directors as we're compiling the budget to take into consideration as we're preparing these documents first and foremost. This won't surprise anybody in this room tariffs. So we do expect to see some increases in costs. pretty much across the board of all of the departments associated with tariffs. We have already been experiencing for several years now, inflationary prices, fuel fleet supplies, and then the givens as well increases in mineral wage, increases in CPI. We've shown you that we have continued to have CalPERS liability increases. And then we continue to have increases in our liability and our workers' workers' comp insurance. This year, the city's insurance went up 6.2%. And then we have continued liability and workers' comp claims that we are monitoring. particular challenge of aging infrastructure, whether it's water, sewer, streets, parks, as you've heard, buildings, deferred maintenance, and then also aging equipment. Another particular challenge unfunded mandates. So as we talked about the cross-connection coordinator that we are required to add, thank you to the state of California. That full time position we continue to watch. We are able to absorb that in this budget, but as we move along, if they continue to do that with a lot of positions, then it would be a particular challenge. And then last but not least, the talk of recession is all over the place. It is uncertain, but it is certainly possible. So this concludes the presentation on the budget, the capital improvement plan, the reserve policy, and our upcoming fiscal challenges. We're happy to answer any questions on this portion of the presentation. As we move into the next portion, we'll be talking about the strategic plan and then the funding for the strategic plans. Happy to answer any questions from the council at this point. I have one question, Mayor. On the cross-connection coordinator, what are they doing? I mean, what is their description? Could I ask Dennis to come up and tell us about the cross-connection coordinator. Thank you. Get even heard after you. Sorry. A cross-connection is a connection to the part of a water system, such as landscape being fire systems, something like that. It needs a device on it in order for the keep the water if there is a negative pressure on one side or our side of the system to keep the water from coming back into our system. So that device needs to be tested once a year and the reason that we've added this is the state has come in and said if you have more than 3,000 services you need to have somebody that has dedicated to a cross control board kit. So as I am for like the chief operator for the system as me, this person just does cross connection. That's what they do. And so there is also with fire services before, they just needed to check valve. Now they're requiring within the next 10 years, it have a reduced pressure of device and or check valve device in the next 10. I have a question. Are we going to cover the strategic plan? Funding recommendation? Sure, that's the next portion of our presentation if there are no questions about the budget from the council. I do, Mary, if I'm my jumping. Well, first of all, I just want to say a big thank you to staff for putting this all together. It's a very detailed and transparent presentation on the budget and also setting up this workshop for us to have an opportunity to engage in these conversations. So I really appreciate that. I know this was put off in a very short period of time and you guys all did a wonderful job. So thank you so much for that. I think we're all recognizing that we're in a slowing economy, both at the federal and the state level. So I guess my question is kind of big picture as a city recognizing that. And then the last point, as you mentioned, Jessica recession is uncertain, but certainly possible. How are we preparing ourselves in the event that happens, and in particular, you know, recognize our top revenue is property tax, which is a more stable type of revenue compared to sales tax. And we've made assumption of having flat sales tax, but it's also possible that we may see a dip with the economic downturn. So just recognizing that all these things could be a possibility, how are we preparing ourselves? And I also see, you know, federal grants impact for us is kind of minimal that we have some grants, but it's only 0.8%. We do get a lot of revenue from the state and and state budgets coming up in May, and we probably will get a clear picture when we hear about the state budget. And in the past, when the state faces revenue shortfalls and other things that impact their budget, I think it really impacts local government could potentially lose portions of funding such as SB1 or SB383 implementation grants and just all these things could leave the city to absorb the cost of continuing to provide the services. So I guess that my question is, have we started, if not, can we start to kind of think about recession contingency plan and think about, you know, we provide so many critical services to our community, but how can we as a city to come up with some plans and strategies in the event that recession really hits us and we have to cope and maybe face services, maybe how we approach hiring. And I know we talked about some full-time staff positions, and I recognize the need to fund those positions, but also recognizing where we are right now in this stage and facing potential recession. How can we evaluate utilization of staff positions first and move forward with what's really necessary? So just want to throw the thought out there and encourage all of us to kind of think about recession contingency plans so that we're prepared. Sure and that's a great point and we've been looking at this for multiple years. We haven't really known whether we were going to go into recession. If you look at the economic cycles we were due years ago and prior to COVID through the COVID years. We've continued to keep a baseline budget and a hold the line budget is really important and making sure that any additions to the budget are based on necessity. Not oh, we would like it's we really need whatever the item is. And so we continue to practice conservative budget practices and particularly we've continued to be very, very insistent that we utilize grants whenever possible, as Jeff would say, other people's money. We've really made a concerted effort over the years to make sure that we're alleviating the burden on the general fund. And every time we can charging costs off to other revenues. And what that has allowed us to do is to increase our general fund reserve, as you saw on the slide for the history of our general fund reserve. We've continued to be able to add money to our general fund in years that we never would have maybe thought ahead of time that we were going to be building our general fund reserve. What that means is that moving into a recession, we've tried to best position ourselves for financial uncertainty and whether that's the state budget, federal budget. If we have grant funds that are for a specific purpose and we're not able to, we don't realize those grant funds or we think that there is the opportunity that those funds may go away, then we will not undertake those projects. But for the operating budget and just the regular expenses that we have, we feel that we are properly positioned to make it through very flat years in the foreseeable future. hiring of staff, as I mentioned, we're hiring the necessary staff. We have one park worker for three new parks that we're bringing online. We feel that that's necessary. That's a little over $111,000 for the one year, for that one position. The only other position that I would say would maybe be optional is the part-time library assistant. That one is something that we have monitored, the councils, priorities and found an unmet need where there are individuals that are confined to their facility and they're not able to visit the library and hence the expanding the mobile library. But in the event that the council wanted to hold that position, we absolutely could do that. That's about $55,000 for the year. I think I got through your concerns. Thank you. One last comment, if I can just point out slide 24 for the General Fund Reserve history. I just want to say a big kudos to staff for building up the reserves. And I can see how we start very low from 2018. And then slowly we'll building up the emergency reserves and even add more categories. So that's just very, very good to see. And I just wanna say a big thank you to that. And also aligning our reserves with the long term liabilities that we should continue to do that. But I recognize the good work done here. So thank you very much. I think Councilmember Wong made a good point about recession. all remembering the past 23 years, those been working, there have been several recessions. I think it's certainly important to make sure that we are prepared for any future recession, but making sure that we are not, our priority is to make sure that everyone keep their jobs and our health benefits for the employees have to be there. So what it comes down to, if the revenue decreases or expenditure increases due to various reasons, especially during recession, that we must make sure that people keep their jobs, people keep their benefits. But at the same time, we will have to look at making sure our expenditure are only on the absolutely essential items. If the room caves in, we have to fix it. Right? But we could cut back on things that are not essential. So these are some of the things I would suggest based on my past experiences with the school district budget, that we make sure that all FTEs have their jobs. And I don't want to create any panic to anyone at this point. I know there are a lot of talks out there about the terrors and stock market and all that. But as a city, we want to make sure our employees feel that you have a job here. We're not going to cut back on jobs just because of recessions here. The priority is making sure everyone has their jobs, have their jobs so you can pay your bills and your medical coverage is still there. And we certainly can make sacrifices somewhere else, but the essential has to be there. Sorry, I didn't raise my hand quick enough. I just, nothing substantive, but I do appreciate the presentation. I think it was very clear and helpful. And it's nice to have this special session so we can kind of take time, lay it out, spend more time discussing it. I do think that sometimes when the budget is presented in the context of regular meeting, we have all these other issues to get to. And then I was just squeezed down and we get through it too quick. And we, you know, I think that Council has an opportunity to talk to staff about what's in the budget offline as well. But sometimes the public may not benefit from seeing it addressed in such a short period time. So this is really good. I think it lays out the budgets and just emphasize the fact that we're pretty good. I mean, we have good budget. We're balanced. We have surpluses. We plan for the future. Maybe it's not always going to be so rosy, but the fact that we are in this position as a testament to, I think, staff and council and everyone else involved in the process. So thank you for that. And I do think it's very helpful. I always read these horror stories and they just be prepared. Some cities or other public agencies that are not as transparent with their budgeting process and it gets them in the big trouble almost every time. So I'm glad that we're in this position to be open and transparent about our process. And everyone can take a look at this and watch this video on YouTube afterwards if they have any questions about it. So I'll make sure to save that link for folks that have questions. Thank you. All right. If we're ready to move on, Mayor, we can move to the Strategic Planning Document. So before you this afternoon, your Strategic Plan document looks slightly different than the last time you've seen it. Each of the objectives have a funding estimate. So I wanna emphasize these are estimates, but we've done our best to go through each of the goals and I'll just dive in really quick for the police and fire departments. Council asks us to increase our public education and specifically, in addition to the different events that we have listed in the strategic plan to provide goodies, whether it's coffee, water, cookies, in expansion of the neighborhood watch program. You may have already seen that that is very much in full swing. We have added $2,500 to the budget from the general fund to accommodate the additional request. Goal 1.2 provide a street light master plan, and here we are, the first item that has a circle dollar amount. What does the circle dollar amount mean? All of the circled items are going to be an item on your worksheet, which is the last page of your staff report. So we will be asking you to look at all of the unfunded general fund items on the strategic plan with circles with the exception that there is one that I will when we get there, we have been able to find a special revenue source to cover. What was originally and in past years a general fund expense. So create a street light master plan for citywide LED conversion, the estimated study cost for that is $300,000. We don't know what the implementation cost would be, we would anticipate a consultant would be able to tell us that also to provide some funding options for us. And so that is the first item that you'll see that's on your worksheet. And then let's see. And then under goal two, improve infrastructure and mobility, expand the ActBus. We have already budgeted with Prop A funds for the Rout and Ridership study. That is nearing completion and we expect to have a presentation back to you possibly in June or July. We'll see how it fits into your budget calendar. And I think more than likely it'll be in June and any changes obviously in the route would change the allocation that we would need but currently the Act act bus is funded through Prop A and C. The next item on your strategic plan are to continue our efforts with the 710 projects. Those are fully funded through Measure R and the planning through Measure R and Measure M. Complete a citywide bus shelter study. The study itself is complete and we are working on the implementation of offering bus shade covers at every possible location in the city where it can fit. And that project is out to bid and we expect that the cost to implement will be about $5.9 million. We have Props A, C, and then some additional grant funds from Judy Choose Office and the COG to help facilitate that project. Next item, the securing funding for the Bike Pedestrian Plan recommendations. Right now, the cost estimate for the Bike Plan is in the range of nine to $32 million. And the pedestrian improvements at $15 million. We funded 14.4 million of the pedestrian improvements with measure R money. Formally, one of the 710 projects, the Metro Board approved that and we are moving forward on the funding documents for that. We hope to get that rolling out here in the very near future. Then secure funds to improve the nine city bridges over the Union Pacific right of way for seismic reinforcement. At this time we are still participating with the county. We don't have any costs available, but we think it's a lot. So and then under the county program there'd be 11.5% match for the city. If and when we are selected to have our bridges seismically retrofitted, we would be able to look at other funding sources to be able to make up that 11.5%. I expand green space throughout the community. As previously discussed in the budget portion, we are bringing on three parks this year. The Story Park playground is being refurbished and and then also Serenity Circle at the Jocelyn Center at the location of the old pool site. Burke Park is getting $800,000 in grant improvements. Poppy Park is utilizing $900,000 of grants in order to convert from the old library building to the pocket park itself. And so all of those are very much underway with other funding sources. Item 2.7, explore the acquisition of the International Extrusion Site, or the portion adjacent to Emory Park. This one was a little more complicated to figure out, but we did our best to ballpark it. The developer purchased, we looked at the cost of the developer purchased the entire parcel. And then the section that specifically we were looking for to expand the park and then divided the cost and then multiplied it by the square feet of the portion. And it seems like their price was about $4.5 million for the parcel that is adjacent to Emory Park. It's unknown what our portion would be, but we would be seeking grants to fund that purchase if we're able to facilitate that. The creation of place making centers, this item is in the budget. It's a general fund item and the Alhambra signs are being placed at the parks here in the next couple weeks, and there is zero remaining in that budget item. Adjust traffic concerns and look into a traffic calming policy. Here we are in other circle implementation costs. If the council were to want to implement traffic calming at $100,000 per district would require an initial appropriation of about $500,000. Clearly you could put much more money into traffic calming, but it's staff's recommendation today that you at least place a half million dollars into that item. The next item on your strategic plan, Explore Funding for the Full Builder of the Community Center. We currently have a grant for $25 million and we are actively soliciting other grants and earmarks from our legislators to expand that to the full build-out for the community center from the 17,000 all the way up to 21 and then also the 25,000 square feet. Development of a city branding, including new way finding signage and the neighborhood signs. We've talked about this. We think that we would be about $50,000 for a consultant to come in and identify what it is that should be or options of what we could utilize for city branding. And then it's unknown until the branding study is complete, how far ranging that would be, but we would expect that that consultant would be able to give us options of how we might implement any of those things that could be from neighborhood signs, wayfinding signage in the downtown, to also, could be street signage, could have a insignia or some logo on it that is relevant to Elambra in addition to anything else they may come up with. So they're brilliant minds come up with that. If that's a priority for the council, also explore the expansion of cleaning services of the downtown parking structures and the elevators. So, we have here another circled item want to just briefly go through that currently. The parking structures are cleaned. We currently pay $4,100 a month to clean the elevators two times a week. The trash three times a week. We pressure wash the stairs one time a month. And we and so that's $18,000 a year for a. Oh, I'm sorry. And then it's $18,000 a year for buy annual pressure washing and street sweeping of the parking structures. So as you'll see on your funding recommendation worksheet, we could increase the buy weekly pressure washing of this to buy weekly pressure washing of the stairs. It would cost us roughly $24,000 for this next year and then if the council is desire to quarterly pressure wash and streets sweep the structures at $18,000 this year. Next item. 2.13, evaluate the senior ride use and demand. your ride use is being evaluated in part with the Act route and ridership study and as previously noted, any changes to those routes or into the senior ride service would require an additional budget allocation. Item 2.14, seismic retrofitting of critical city facilities, the estimated costs are anywhere from a total of $8 million to $23 million. Breakdown of the miscellaneous facilities and those that we looked at is attached in the strategic plan document. Water infrastructure master plan, it's estimated that the study would cost $500,000. The water fund can, we can utilize the water fund to absorb that cost, implementation costs of that study are expected to be in excess of $100 million. And so with that, when the study comes back, we will also bring funding options to consider. Item 2.16 continued to support open streets event. This has an implementation cost of $35,000 per event. This particular item I'd like to ask you to scratch off of and delete from your funding recommendation worksheet. It was determined that we can use measure R and measure M, so either or, either one of those funds to actually cover the city's cost for our open streets events. So as funding sources have changed over the years, then we want to make sure that we're keeping current on that. And so we ask that we move that one. Out of your general funding and into measure our measure M and that will be reflected in your budget at your meeting of June 23rd. Goal number three, create or develop an economic development action plan that item was in the budget for $75,000 with general funds and there is zero remaining. That project is almost complete. Item 3.2, attract more jobs with liable wages. That is in the budget and that only requires staff time. 3.3, strategize to reduce the city's pension liability. As you heard, as we talked about our long term liabilities, we owe CalPERS about $176 million. We continue to pay as we go, so we make monthly payments to CalPERS. If somebody has a money tree and could find us $176 million, I'd love that. But absent that, we just continue to pay our obligation monthly. It also related to city reserves, increased reserves to 30%. As we've discussed, in order to make it to the 30%, we just hit 20. It would require an additional $8.845 million. Item 3.5 address vacant commercial properties and explore a vacancy tax for the 2026 ballot. There's an estimated implementation cost of a ballot consultant for $100,000. And then the cost of the county to be able to put this on the ballot in 2026 is approximately $150,000. The potential revenue for a measure like this is unknown. Many cities have talked about it as we have, and nobody has been able to successfully implement it. So we'll bring this back to you at some point, not really sure that this is something that we would want to spend $250,000 if we're not sure how much money we would be able to recoup. Item 3.6 conduct a focus study to develop incentives for attracting commercial businesses on Main Street between Garfield and Almanza. It's estimated at this point that a consultant for this study would be $250,000 and then the implementation amount is unknown. 3.7, more emphasis on economic development on valley. Implementation costs are in the budget. We are printing and sending out mailers about the zoning code changes for property owners on Valley Boulevard and that has all been anticipated in the budget. Promote ADU opportunities and create a flow chart infographic for the process, including all costs in multiple languages. that is something that we were able to implement as part of this coming budget. We'll be staff time, translation and some printing. That will be included in Nod's General Fund Cost. Item 3.9 conduct a Council Study Session to explore the Downtown Business Association Boundaries, the DABBA Increased Fe Assessment a potential shop local program, a microgram program, a business recognition program, incentives for brick and mortar businesses, and then also explore the idea of having a council subcommittee for economic development. It was anticipated that we would further discuss those items today and that there would be that we could possibly include any of those items in the budget for June 23rd. We've listed them out. But just for the Downtown Business Association in order to contact a study around the boundaries and then also increasing the fee in the downtown business association that would require a consultant of $250,000. And then come back with any funding opportunities of what that would look like for those businesses. Goal number four, focus outreach efforts to the senior community and those who do not use technology. We currently have about $2,000 budgeted in the general fund to provide outreach at the Jocelyn Center and share city information with different departments. The library for instance is doing a lot of outreach in the schools and they're providing flyers on all kinds of other topics that are not library-related because they have a captive audience and they're trying to reach out on a variety of programs to allow the residents to have more information. So that is been accommodated in the current budget. Create better connections with Cal State LA. That's in budget and that's just staff time. 4.3 research options for indoor and outdoor digital and traditional bulletin board signage for city buildings and share city related information and announcements. We're anticipating that if we are able to fund this project, indoor and outdoor digital signage at the City Parks, Alhambra, Grenada Story and Emory, it would be about $50,000 each for a total cost of about $300,000. Develop an application and app for residents to submit service requests and share city events and information. That's a $25,000 year. We already have budgeted for this year. We contracted with GoGov and they will be assisting us. They are working with our IT team and public works very intently right now. So it's in the budget already for 2025. That amount we will be continuing to include in future years if we do like their service. We think we're going to love it, but we're very excited for that. Item 5.1, complete a comprehensive environmental sustainability plan that supports the long term needs of Alhambra. This study was undertaken utilizing grant funds from Judy Choose Office in the amount of $680,000. Should be complete at the end of this calendar year. You all are having your outreach meetings in these next two weeks with the communities town halls that are a combination of neighborhood watch. I'm sorry, sorry, you just finished sustainability plan. I'm sorry, I'm already on hazard mitigation plan with lots of plans. But yes, grant funds from Judy Chuse that will be complete in December of this year. Implementation costs of the sustainability plan as we've been discussing specifically with the vice mayor very troubling. We're not sure lots of grants, but we don't have any money specifically for sustainability at this time. So at the conclusion of that plan in December, we would be potentially looking at what those projects and early projects would be, what the costs associated with those projects are, and how we might go about implementing them down the road. Some of them may be very, very simple. They may be policy decisions and then other items may be very robust and require big, you know require bigger grant funding opportunities. Item 5.2, add EV charging stations to the parks. We are implementing EV chargers with money that we received from Assembly Member Mike Fong in the amount of $250,000. That money is still good. the other EV chargers that were going in other location citywide are frozen with a federal grant money. Item 6.1, encourage and facilitate the building of affordable housing. That is in budget. That's simply staff time. Item 6.2, create design guidelines for multi-family dwellings and commercial buildings. That was funded with ARPA and the General Fund, and we are currently under contract for $417,450. The support permanent supportive housing with the Cesar Travas Foundation at second and main. That's the Mariposa project. The implementation, we currently are under a development agreement to provide $4 million from the housing successor agency. And in order to support that item, we're limited staff time and assistance to the developer at this point. Item 6.4 addressed the effects of short term rentals and explore the opportunity to collect transient occupancy tax on the 2026 ballot. this is estimated to bring in $500 to $600,000 per year of ongoing revenue. But we would ask for an election consultant to guide us on outreach materials and polling, and then to put it on the 2026 ballot is approximately $150,000. And then last but not least, item 6.5, promote citywide mixed use housing developments with an emphasis on main street between chapel and man's or this hasn't estimated study costs of a consultant for $100,000. So no, that's a lot. But that rounds out your strategic plan. What we have for you is now a funding recommendation worksheet. If you look at your worksheet, it has items on the front. The front items are just strategic plan. The items that we have identified costs. Again, want to make sure that as you're totaling out that last column with the items that you have a priority for, that they not exceed $1.3 million. And then if you turn to the back page, this is the economic development conversation that we were hoping to address today as well. And any of these programs that you would like to implement with that, if there is a cost associated, again, you put that number in that FARC column and pages one and two together, not to exceed $1.3 million. So at this point, we can answer any questions from the council or and we can work through this worksheet. If the council is not ready to work through the worksheet and in the interest of time we have about 30 minutes left in our workshop for today, I would maybe ask that the council take a look at the worksheet, think about it, bring it back on Monday. I can agenda as an item that we discuss in depth. The funding allocation portion, which would give you time to talk about the economic development portion today. We could talk about the funding if on Monday we're still not ready to put numbers to these individual items. That's okay. Then it won't be ready. These items, the $1.3 million will not be included in your budget. The draft budget on June 23rd, but we can do a budget amendment at a later date. Just know that if we don't move forward with a funding allocation, we're not able to start working on your strategic plan. So at this point, I will stop talking and we're happy to answer any questions. Go ahead, Joe. Yeah, and then just remind the council, I think you do have some cards for members of the public who wish to speak. Go ahead and ask for the speakers. Okay. All right, let's do that. We have one speaker, John, Mr. John Query, for this item. Would you still want to ask the question or you want? I will give you more time to think. So that's only speaker car we have. Are there any speakers on Zoom? Which is speak? Madam Mayor, I am not seeing any raised hands on zoom at this time. All right, open to the council. Mayor, thank you. Do we just a quick clarification question? So 2.16 should be removed, is that right? Correct. We're going to go ahead and fund that with either measure R or measure M funds. Okay, thank you. I'm going to take my time. Okay, and then oh, I'm sorry, I do have one other correction on your worksheet. Item 6. Hold on. Sorry. Where did it go? There's one more item. Put it in my notes. Oh, 3.6, there is no ballot cost for that. Aren't my apologies. You have an updated worksheet on the dius that has the ballot cost that got moved from one of the other line items. So 3.6 does not have a ballot component. It was meant to be with 3.5. I see. Okay. Okay. I'm just going to, and then you said, if we turn 3.9, that could actually be moved through today. Turned? Okay. So, we've been sort of waiting for this thing to happen. I know a couple of us have chatted about this and I think we should definitely explore the Elhamber Business Association boundaries and we should definitely increase the fee assessment and maybe shop local like that idea, like the micro grant program idea. Thanks again, RESTAT. This is helpful to kind of put everything in black and white in front of us. We can kind of see what we're looking at. Nice, nice exercise to figure out how to spend our surplus money. It's fun. I wanted to make a couple comments in the interest of looking elsewhere to fund some of these things. So starting at one point, too, with the LED conversion, it's a big ticket item. I know there are grants available externally for some of these types of programs. Specifically, Clean Power Alliance has I think two programs that might apply. There is the energized communities, which is improving electrification of city facilities. And there's another one called Pathways to Electrification, which specifically would be on point for the LED conversion. So, I think maybe at least a conversation with clean power alliance staff to see if any of these things fit in. Maybe not this budget year, because I know that CPA as I serve on that board also is kind of going through the process. But they're doing really well and there's more and more money for projects like this. So, and this is specifically what we're trying to do is to provide affordable electricity to the customers but also create funds to help further electrify and reduce emissions from what we're doing here. So this would be a good way to do that. The traffic calming policy I think is super important. And I'd like to fund that as fully as possible. I did want to look at the expansion of the services, you know, the cleaning of the parking lot facilities. I think there's a couple items I hear that I think might be a good idea to sort of discuss within the context of the Downtown Business Association, expanding the assessment, expanding the funding for the Business Association, and frankly, expanding the boundaries. I think that we've been, you know, we have chamber commerce and down time business association folks here today. So I don't want to create any panic if I say something that isn't along the lines of what you're thinking. But I do think that we have an opportunity here to to re-evaluate what we're doing in that down to an area. And my district does include part of valuable of our two. So I think this is a model for what we could do on Valley as that area becomes more developed under the new zoning code in future years. So with that said, I think that we do have an opportunity now to kind of create that model along Main Street, the downtown business business area. One would be to, previously I think the DBA had been alternating with the city on cleaning the parking structures. But with a fixed amount of funding every year, it's been very difficult to keep up with the increasing costs and labor. And I think that it would be a good idea for us the city and the down-to-business association to figure out how many times we should be cleaning those structures, what the costs are and bake that into whatever new assessment we do. We're not pointing to finger at each other. So the city isn't saying, well, we did our part and the business association saying we did our part. Let's bake it into this so that it is part of the process. And if that falls in the city to actually execute the contract, that's fine, but we're putting it as part of this because it's direct benefit to those businesses in the downtown area. And it is one of the top complaints that I hear about parking the structures is that the elevators don't work. It's dirty, people are graffeding and worse in there. So if we can provide a good visitor experience there, I think it'll be extremely helpful to that area. So I think that's one thing. Again, to free up maybe costs that otherwise might hit the general fund or the surplus. Let's put it into an assessment that directly benefits the entities that we're trying to serve there. I just had a little note for seismic retrofitting that I hope that there's it's a big ticket, $24 million that's not going to come out of this surplus or our general funding time soon. So the fact that if we could partner with outside entities, look for grants, look for state funding, that would be fantastic there. I'm not going to hit everything because I know we're going to have more time to discuss some things. But again, circling back to the assessment for the downtown area on 3.6. You know, I was one of the ones that spoke to this in the strategic planning session. I wasn't necessarily thinking that we hire an outside consultant and pay them a quarter million dollars to come up with a plan. I think we have, maybe that's in the cards for the future, but I think for the moment, maybe we should refocus our efforts on talking directly to our business community and I'll hammer about what they could, what they would benefit from locally. We'd save ourselves some money and maybe it turns out that we need something like that. But if we're going to be re-invisioning the assessment for the business association, the downtown area, we should be directly engaging with those assessment payers about what they'd like to see there. So I personally, I don't know if anyone else feels differently, but I'd like to see it start with there. Maybe that calls out the need for a subcommittee to engage with the business community, with the Chamber and the association in the short term. And if it turns out that we need expert services beyond what we have locally, then maybe we consider that at a later time, I don't know. But to the fact that this talks about between Garfield and L. Manzer, up to L. Manzer is where we have the big healthcare, the HMO building there. There's the gem, which I think is still gonna be re-fidelized as a gym still. There's a bunch of eateries, there's a giant shopping center with 99 ranch market there. That looks more like a business district than it does east of Almanza on Main Street, which we're trying to keep more accessible to the neighborhood. Those properties don't back up to R1 neighborhoods as far as I can tell. I think there's big apartment buildings in between the Linda Rocks Park area and the area. So it seems to me like if we're going to look at an assessment for the downtown business area, those properties should be included. Not only does it benefit them, but it increases the base of the assessment by maybe a significant amount that could help us quite a bit in accomplishing some of these goals. When we talked about this earlier too, there was the other issue that I think we sort of determined that they were not really exactly compatible, but I don't know that I've gotten my head around that where we talk about facilitating multi-use and residential. And I guess in my head, I'm looking at this like if we focus on kind of the fundamentals in that area, what's there now, other things will, that'll facilitate better uses in the future or improving uses in the future. So I don't know that we need to do both of those things. I'm open to discussion, and I just haven't gotten my head around that completely. But it seems to me like there's a very strong reason to go and include that as part of any future assessment area, maybe expand the boundaries of the downtown business area zone to include those properties up to El Mancer. As it would sort of recognize the current land uses while respecting the properties on farther east of El Mancer on Main Street and adjacent. Could I stop you? Would it be helpful to have Andrew explain staff's understanding of each of those items and what the work product would be expected from each of those consultants? Sure. You got me. I was on a roll. So good. Yes. Please. Good afternoon. So, 3.6 conducting a focused study, I've interpreted that as the deliverable as some sort of a study from a market expert. And so as part of that study, the cost for that would be a land use analysis. They would survey all of the parcels, look at the zoning, capacity, development capacity, and all that stuff. And then a part of that land use analysis would come with an economic feasibility analysis. And so they would look at development capacity, taxable capacity, opportunities for creating jobs at those locations. And then we milled that together. And then that document will provide information to the council in terms of, okay, this is what this area looks like. And this is what it could become. Council, what do you want to do? Currently, the zoning for this portion is EMC East Main Porto. If the data shows that it's more conducive to be a CBD Central Business District Zone, City Council, do you want to change the zone from EMC to CBD at that point? And so that's my takeaway from the strategic plan of the conversation that the council had in terms of developing this focus study to inform you on whether or not to do that or not. For 6.5, I view promoting citywide mixed use as a whole bunch of different things that I would try to figure out with the council over the next year, whether it's pop-up events, mailers taking it to a roachow and meeting with brokers and developers and stuff, or could even include a contract with a dedicated commercial broker that would be solely focused on chapel and almancer in trying to figure out what to do with the vacant property that the Laquan family owns at the southeast corner of chapel and main, or dealing with the Rihoni family and what to do with building. But a dedicated real estate broker that would be on retainer to really dedicate themselves to figuring out how to fill some of those vacancies or to bring developers to the table. Yeah, thank you. That is helpful. You know, we've heard a lot from the community about East Maine and I think the message that the council has got is that they kind of, they want to leave it alone, right? They don't want to see a lot of changes there and that's fine. I think we're all on the same page about that. So it seems sort of incongruous to me that that area up to a man's or is even part of East Maine quarter because it's so fundamentally different than what's east of there on Maine to St. Gabriel City limit there. And you have very tall buildings, much taller than the height limit in the rest of East Maine. There's giant lots there, big properties, big buildings. I I don't know how, in my head, it seemed like it kind of an easy fix to just include it as part of the CBD. And I actually had a question too on that. Are we, is the area that is considered East Main corridor along that stretch? Is it just chapel to El Mancer or is it Garfield to El Mancer? Chapel to El Mancer, right okay, so here it does say Garfield demands But that's what you said is what I recall to because I think up to Chapel it is CBD, right and then it's just that one block that it's like highly developed But it's called East Main Court over some reason. I think that, I feel like that was, we've discussed that over the years, it might have been oversight of some sort. I do think it's more like the commercial, central commercial district than it is, East Main Court or, and it would recognize what's there now and not artificially sort of try to force it into a zone that it's not. So I don't know, I still kind of, I have reservations about $250,000 consultant to tell us that just to make it part of the central business history. I think I'm much more open to a consultant to help us sort of pinpoint certain things, especially if we're looking city-wide or maybe focused on those problem properties that we've been dealing with a lot, especially if there is less incentive to go for a vacant commercial property tax too. So I mean, I know there's a lot of these things are kind of tied to each other, but I guess that's my thinking that 100,000 for a targeted study on a couple of these properties that are really important properties, key locations, the Woolworth building, and then this one corner where it's just been sort of falling down for the last eight years or so, it'd be great to get some attention focused on that. I don't know, those are some thoughts. I'm happy to hear others as well. Thank you, Andrew. Mary, if I can jump. Oh, we want to go ahead, Council Member Masa, please. Yeah, no, go ahead. Yeah, I mean, I think time is short to try to address some of these things. So I'll just make a quick point. In terms of myself, I mean, I think I'm extremely supportive of anything having to do with PD and fire, public education, safety outreach. I mean, there's so much correlation between, I think, successful economic development and a safe al-Hambra lighting, the clean park and structure sidewalks, so support all of that. Again, it all ties back into successful economic development and the quality of life for our residents with regards to city services. There's just way too much for me to try to address in such a short time right now. I'll save my comments and any questions, but just wanted to make a quick comment on that. Thank you. Thank you Mayor. Well first of all I just really like this format that staff put together. It's like a worksheet to do some math problem here. So we have to add it all up and then see if we can reach the $1.3 million at the end. And if it's too much, then we have to take something off. So I think I'll have fun doing this. I will not be able to do this today. So I think Monday would be the time I'll come back with some of my thoughts, but I'll share some of the things that just popped up as I hear my colleagues talk about these things. I think, so number one, Street Live Master Plan. I appreciate Vice Mayor Maloney's comment that this is a green initiative. There's sustainability component in there. So definitely try to find brands and outside money if we can. The street light that concerns me in the city are the ones that have frequent issues. And I think this ties into public safety. This is what I think Councilmember on Dr. D. Sauer was mentioning. There are things that's in the the city the basic needs that's public works That's public infrastructure that really affect our quality of life and safety Frankly because when streetlights go out Activities happen and then it just really threatened the safety of our community. I like to see if we can maybe address some of the problematic areas of the street light, maybe aside from this. So for the master plan, if we pursue, look for funding opportunities, look for outside money. But then for the street lights that we already know have issues in the city, if we can some funding and resources to prioritize those and make sure we improve the reliability of the street lights and the brightness is appropriate to make sure that the safety is insured. That would be my concern if we can figure out a way to prioritize that and I don't know what's the price tag for that one. But I think just recognizing the concern here and also whenever we can find outside money for this, we should, then that's the area I'd like to see. So all have staff maybe take a look at that and come back with some options. And then seismic retrofitting critical city facilities are do recognize these are big dollar amounts and I also want to say you know as we look at retrofits it even though these are in the millions a two twenty three millions of to recognize that when we don't do it and the big one hits then then we are looking at 10 times this, 20 times this cost for potential repairs. So these are big dollar amounts, but doing it proactively actually saves us money because we have to continue to function as a city and we have to bounce back quickly. We have to recover. I just want wanted to put the context out there. However, I do recognize this is beyond our ability to fund and I think it's a really good thing we have our hazard mitigation plan and our consultant laid out, you know, the plans and options. I think this is where we're looking to FEMA and some of the federal grants for implementing some of these seismic retrofitting of the city facilities. So it's good that we're taking one step towards that and having developed a hazard mitigation plan that would allow us to pursue the federal grants and funding opportunities so that we don't have to use our general fund money. And then, I think, 3.6 so economic development along Main Street and no valuable of our, I think I agree with Vice Mayor Maloney's comment. I think we start with talking to the businesses. this is where our partnership with the chamber comes into the place that we reach out to the business is really understanding Whether issues are what their concerns are and what the challenges are I appreciate the perspective of an East side that director whole shared with us And I think that might come handy later on But the first step should be reaching out to the businesses and really understanding how we can better help them. So I do support that approach. And then for the other economic developments, I think that, you know, shop local micro grants, these are all great programs that we should look into and looking forward to more in-depth conversation on some of these things. I think that would really help us on our business corridors and enhance our tax revenues as well. Thank you, City Council. I just want to share my last comment as well. The staff very cleverly making sure that the council is facing reality. We ask for the move and we know we have a budget that we have to consider. I like that. It's kind of like running a household budget, right? And I just have a few comments. Actually, the first question is, so none of these items in the worksheet are included in your financial forecast budget? They're not budget in the forecast. No, they are not. Okay. Thank you. So I don't like, nothing personal about consultant, but I think they're very costly. $233,000 is that for one consultant only or as a group? For which item were you referring to? The focus, $3.6, $250,000 is that for one consultant or as a group? 3.6 that was as a director home engine that was anticipated to be one consultant not a group. I don't know it's feasible but I sometimes feel maybe is more cost effective. We do an in-house but you know provide overtime for those who are wanting to do this. I just don't feel over the years I keep seeing the bills for consultants. I'm not attacking them. I think they are doing a good job getting job done, but I'm not sure we always have to hire a consultant for everything a study. Because I would like to allocate more for the street washing, which is one of the problems issues that our resin keep on complaining. It showed up on our survey. And quarterly washing, to me, is actually not enough. I would rather have monthly, at least, especially the downtown area, especially we have a lot of events on Main Street in downtown area. And quarterly is not enough. I mean, I have complaints that people even on Facebook said that, you know, they're seeing trash can overflow after a big event. And so that's where my thinking is right now. I'm going to allocate more for the street, street cleaning, but I'm going to take, take it out of the consultant because I feel like it's not-spent. We could do the study in some other way. It's less expensive. But I certainly need to take time over the weekend or this weekend, over the weekend just to see where my priority is for the residents, for the city. There's so many items and each one costs money. Is there one that's free? I don't think so. I think there might be one that's free. Can I volunteer? But anyway, you may not want me. But that's what it is. I mean, 1.3 million is a number that's staring at me, and I do want everything to be done. But I do think that this exercise, mental exercise has to be done for us to be realistic. Every time we spend money, every time we send off on anything, we gotta make sure that we come back to say there are other things that are not being done and their costs associate with them. So I like the exercise. I will have to wait till Monday or later on this week to turn it into you. Are there any other questions or comments from the council? Oh, it's not my script. Can I adjourn the meeting? Okay, meeting adjourned. I'm going to make a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of the dough. I'm going to make a little bit of the dough. 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