City Council — April 14, 2026

Good evening. Welcome to the regular meeting of Guadalupe City Council, Tuesday April 14th. May we have a roll call please?

And I don't know how many of you noticed on your way into the building tonight, the beautiful pinwheels on your front lawn. That was facilitated by Family Service Agency and we have been doing it in Guadalupe for a number of years We didn't do it last year because we had a death in our own family and it was hard to get it done last year. But Family Service Agency reached out and we made it happen, and we wanted to do it right before the City Council meeting tonight. And I'll say, you know, Lompoc is known for its wind but I think Guadalupe has us beat. But those pinwheels sure are beautiful and representative of The work that we're all trying to do in the communities that we serve. So thank you for that.

Good evening, Mayor Julian and members of the City Council. My name is Anne McCarty and I'm the Executive Director for the North County Rape Crisis and Child Protection Center. I am truly humbled to stand before you again tonight to receive this proclamation. Over the years, one of the things that has become most meaningful to me as an executive director is the power of partnerships.

I'm deeply grateful to the City of Guadalupe for recognizing the value of this work And how you've honored our agency yet again with another proclamation. But it's not just honoring us, it's honoring the women that are in this building with us here tonight. Members of Child Welfare Services, Law Enforcement, the District Attorney's Office and the Victim Witness Division.

We can't do this work in isolation. Collaboration is indeed essential, not only in providing direct services to victims of sexual assault and child abuse but also in prevention and education. Our shared goal is simple yet it is profound a future with no more sexual assault and no more child abuse that's what we all want While I'm proud of the work being done throughout our county, the reality is that there is still a lot of work left to do.

But knowing that the city of Guadalupe stands with us in our mission gives us hope and strengthens our resolve. The numbers are staggering. One child harmed is way too many. We all say no more, and until that becomes a reality we will continue to do what we do. We will continue to support survivors. We will continue to educate the community. Law enforcement will continue to investigate and hold offenders accountable Social workers will continue to protect children.

The district attorney's office will continue to prosecute and our victim witness advocates will continue to walk alongside survivors with compassion and guidance through the legal process. Each of us, we all take our role seriously. And together we strive to ensure that every victim receives the care and support they deserve. We know we are making a difference, and together we strive to ensure that every victim receives the care and support they deserve.

Direct services aren't enough. Our goal is to prevent abuse before it ever happens. And when we cannot, we want every individual to know that help is available and that they're not alone. Recently, our staff along with victim witness advocates supported a young man through the process of reporting abuse that occurred when he was very young. As he prepared his victim impact statement with a rape crisis center advocate, he was asked what led him to come forward?

He shared that it was a presentation in his seventh grade classroom. one of our prevention programs that helped him understand that what had happened to him was abuse. He remembered learning about grooming, online exploitation and how to seek help. That knowledge stayed with him and eventually he found the courage to tell his mother. While it's difficult to fully measure the impact of our work, his story is a powerful reminder for us all that education matters It empowers, it protects and sometimes it changes the course of a life.

No one should ever suffer in silence and no one should ever go without support. We'll continue this fight against sexual violence and child abuse and we're grateful to stand alongside partners like you in the city of Guadalupe who make our work possible so thank you for this powerful statement. Thank you for saying not in our city and thank you again for the honor

Thank you. Just a word, you know, a decade ago our safety net regarding sexual abuse was pretty open. You look at the audience that's out there today, you have a community and a partnership with legal, your counselors, you know We're proud to receive you and to be able to let people know what's going on in the world of sexual abuse. And in the audience, again, you have some very talented people, some really committed individuals that it really makes us proud that you've come to us and want to spread the word about what you're doing. And we appreciate all that you do.

I wish we had more time to basically acknowledge all of you there in the audience that are doing Guadalupe and the community a great service, so thank you all. Well

thank you and our work is not done. We've got a lot of work left to do in Guadalupe I'm excited that my associate director had a conversation with your lieutenant not too long ago about maybe some doing some training with the officers with regards to sexual assault response. So we're looking forward to doing that, you know, we can only go up from here. We're not going to go backwards. We're just gonna go forwards. So thank you so much.

And thank you audience that are that are here for your support. All right, the next item on the ceremonial calendar is National Library Week April 19th to 25th. Ms. Villegas?

Yes we do have somebody here.

Okay.

This is Dawn Jackson she is the library director at the Santa Maria Main Library.

Welcome.

All right, National Library Week April 19th through the 25th 2026. Whereas first sponsored in 1958 with the theme Wake Up and Read, National Library Week is a national observance by the American Library Association and libraries across the country each April. Whereas today's libraries speak creatively, fuel imagination and inspire lifelong learning. Offering a space where individuals of all ages can explore new ideas and be drawn to new possibilities. And whereas libraries serve as vibrant community hubs connecting people with knowledge technology and resources while fostering civic engagement critical thinking and lifelong learning.

And whereas libraries provide free and equitable access to books, digital tools and innovative programming ensuring that all individuals regardless of background have the support they need to learn connect and thrive. And whereas libraries partner with schools businesses and organizations connecting the dots to maximize resources increase efficiency and expand access to essential services strengthening the entire community And whereas, excuse me, libraries nurture young minds through story times, STEAM programs and literacy initiatives fostering curiosity and a love of learning.

And whereas library workers have worked to expand fluency in digital literacy skills needed to navigate the online world where 21st century information exists. And whereas getting a library card is a financially literate action And whereas the Guadalupe Library established in 1911 under the Santa Barbara County Free Library and currently operated by the Santa Maria Public Library System is joining all libraries, librarians and library workers across the country to celebrate National Library Week under the theme Find Your Joy.

Now, therefore be it resolved that by the virtue of the authority vested in the mayor and on behalf of the City Council of the city of Guadalupe we do hereby recognize April 19th through the 25th as National Library Week. And invite all residents and visitors to visit our library explore its resources and celebrate all the ways that the library draws us together as a community.

Thank

you. Take that turn?

I'll take a page from Anne's book and take a picture. I'm probably not as good at selfies as she is. Good morning, everyone. I'm so honored to have City Council recognize National Library Week in Guadalupe this year. It's been a while, I think since I've attended a city council meeting out here. I am Dawn Jackson. I am the library director for the city of Santa Maria and as mentioned in the proclamation we do oversee operations funded by the county Los Alamos, Cuyama are all part of our jurisdiction and in Zone 3.

So National Library Week is an annual celebration of libraries and library professionals and the invaluable contributions that they make to create strong and resilient communities. We know that communities that have libraries Our have lower crime rates, they are more sustainable and particularly in times of economic duress. Most folks will turn to the library even more so during those times because it helps ease economic hardships and provides a safe space for people to come together.

This year's theme is Find Your Joy. I think we could all use a little joy in our lives, so all week long the library will be having special events and opportunities to celebrate. So each day you can join in the celebration Monday April 20th is Write-to-Read Day So we encourage folks to celebrate their right to read by applying for a free library card or checking out a book, or 50. That's our book limit so you can take out up to 50 items Tuesday April 21st is National Library Workers Day so that's a day that you could go into the library and say thank you to our library staff for providing excellent community service they are Excellent at picking just the right item that you need. They're friendly and welcoming, and can provide any resource that you really need for a better quality of life.

Wednesday April 22nd is National Library Outreach Day So we do have a bookmobile that circulates throughout the city of Santa Maria and at county locations. It comes to special events out here in Guadalupe as well, so take time to visit the bookmobile there's 11 stops that are regular stops or you can just write in to tell the library outreach staff what you love about what they do for their community And Thursday is Take Action for Libraries Day. So this is a great opportunity for you to join a friends group like the Friends of the Guadalupe Library that is very supportive of library services, they offer a lot of programming, they help extend our library budget to be able to purchase more items for the community so you could join the Friends of the Library Group Donate to the library or the Friends of the Library, volunteer, or show your support on a larger scale and write to your congresspeople for support of libraries in general throughout the nation.

Libraries are having a little bit of a hard time out there. We just want to keep providing the wonderful services that we provide to our communities and help build a better quality of life for everybody. So thank you again for allowing us to be here Our branch manager, Selena sends her regrets. She had to pick up her daughter from softball tonight but she or I are very happy to come out here anytime and tell council about library services, statistics on what we've done and the difference that we're making in the community so any time you would like to have us we would love to come out.

All right thank you. You know, when my daughters were starting to date, I always asked, does your boyfriend have a library card? As I think everybody should ask. There you go. Okay. Yes it is. All right.

Hello, my name is Daisy Perez. I am the regional club director for Santa Barbara County for the Boising Hills Club. I oversee two sites in Santa Maria which is our railroad location.

Pull that down a little bit there you go.

I oversee six sites at our, I mean in total for Santa Barbara County. Two sites in Santa Maria one's for railroad and the other one is Evans Park over by the projects. And then I oversee four sites here in Guadalupe Mackenzie, the junior high Mary Burren and then the run. Okay. All right, so I'll be reporting from December to March what we have done at our Ron Estabillo Clubhouse.

Go ahead and switch, okay? Some programs and highlights that our kiddos have been doing was Jewelry Kids Fine Arts Triple Play. Triple play is three sports basketball, baseball, and I think it was soccer that they do. So we just scatter it throughout the semester. Cooking class, they love cooking. Junk journaling is usually when they come in and say if they have something on their mind, sit down right for a few minutes. If they want to shout out loud, they shout aloud. If they don't that's fine.

Torch Club is usually for kiddos that are between the tweens so 10 11 12. Community help, they do fundraising because they want to do a trip out to college sightseeing type of thing for college. Then we have the teen room. The teen room is where our teenagers get to hang out with the rest of the teens. They also program in there as well. Smart Girls is a program where a female staff member has female members.

And depending on the age group, so the class is taught how much we can say about their female development, how their body's going to change. We often have, tell the parents if it's okay for us to be talking about that since we do permission slips. Some parents say go ahead and talk to them I'm not going to talk to them so they leave the job for us to explain to the kiddos on what's gonna happen throughout the years. Positive relationships pretty much communicating with other peers from other sites. That way they're engaged is not just their own little bubble where they feel comfortable.

Go ahead and

switch.

These are a few pictures of our kiddos when they do the art program we use nature so if you see a few trees that are missing some leaves, that was us sorry but we do incorporate it in our arts so we have a few pictures of our kiddos participating in that. Then switch our average daily attendance at Ron, it varies from month to month. For right now the schools what we have is we have 58 kiddos for Mary bear in the attend that are registered sorry and then a few kids from McKenzie from the junior high and from Regetti Promegeti is a really low number because once they reach high school, they're too cool for the club.

But we try to keep them to come in. We do have a club called Keystone that was is for the teens. I was a Keystone member. That's how I got into the Boys and Girls Club. I started when I was 17 as a member and I stayed as a staff member and I've been with the club for 23 years now.

Congratulations.

Thank you. So our total number registered is 141 within all those age groups. Community partnerships, we have the Guadalupe Bulldogs, Rotary, Hancock, the Boys and Girls Club Basketball League, GUSD, Santa Maria Police Department, Hancock and Trilogy Club. Trilogy is from Napomo. There are a couple of How do you say, not veterans but they're retired already and they are there. There used to be teachers or were pretty much yeah tutors or whatnot involved in the education field and they come out to the club and they tutor our kiddos four times a week and they dedicate their time one hour a day in the library kiddos that need help with homework reading or whatnot right For winter break, we had 60 kiddos in total. This winter break was sponsored by the Guadalupe Union School District.

So we have breakfast lunch and snack provided and busing from pickup to the club site as well. So the kiddos participated in various things such as STEM, art, sports. We also had field trips. We did one particular field trip which was Zoo to you. So instead of us going to the zoo, the zoo came to us and it was pretty cool. The kids had a blast. We also took them to the Moxie Museum in Santa Barbara.

The kids have a blast there too because it's hands-on. It's not like here come and see this. It s more like oh I can touch. So yeah so there's a few pictures of the animal that they brought over to our club site And then we also did a mural, we had a person from Santa Barbara that came over in San Diego and she did a mural with her kiddos at the C train that we have there at the clip site.

All our kiddos got to paint it. They were very happy they even said thank you for letting us paint on your painting. We're like technically it's your painting but okay. So the kiddos had a blast. They had aprons on, they did their whole brushing and everything so the kiddos had an amazing time out there.

And Daisy I just have to point out that the one in the middle is my daughter so

everybody look at my little one she's very

tall

she's an awesome kiddo by the way Go ahead and change it. And that's the outcome of our. Yeah, so we try to incorporate a few things from Guadalupe like you see the old water tower, the tower here from City Hall, the sports, the school on the other side of the C train. We have the Bobcat of the school district. So we tried to incorporate everything good. All right, next one. We did shop with the cop. We had 30 kiddos being escorted all the way to Walmart.

I saw like I mentioned on the rec meeting, I saw a few posts on Facebook. Oh my gosh! Something's happening with the Boys and Girls Club. The police is escorting them. Something went wrong check on your kids. They were like somebody should post something and say it's shop with the cop we're okay. So we had a couple of kiddos participate. They got picked up on rented vans or vehicles from collaboration with Santa Maria PD and Guadalupe PD as well, so thank you very much I appreciate it and hope to do it again And we participate in the Guadalupe Christmas Parade. Usually, we get to walk but this time we had a bed so we were able to have kiddos on the bed and someone wanted to walk. So these are a few pictures of the kiddos participating at the Guadelupe Parade and then we also had donations from Marion Medical Center each kiddo got a gift um so that day whoever was there got a gift to take home of photography class during our club hours.

And these are a few winning photography pictures that we're taking to the next level, which is nationals. Cool. And that's it.

That's a big turtle. Is that here at the Guadalupe Lake?

It was in

El Soflaco. Yeah.

It's a

good size turtle.

Any questions? What is your, what is

your maximum capacity there?

Maximum that we've not sure what the maximum capacity is but what we've had is 120 and that's a lot. It's, you can hear the echo and kids running into each other. I mean we do split them up by grade group so usually we keep that TKK first and second third and fourth fifth and sixth seventh and eighth and then if we get high schoolers will plug them in there too but they usually don't like the rotations.

Any questions?

Quick question.

Sure.

You talked about those individuals from Trilogy who are there at the library and whatever, do they have specific times where they read to the kids?

Yes, they're usually there from three to four.

Is that every day?

Four days a week.

I had a quick question today, I attended the school they had like cafecito with the principal and there are some parents here that were sharing some concerns in regards to membership. What are the fees for?

Since we are not in collaboration with the school district for summer, so their fees are not covered. So this time there will be a fee and there are scholarships available. So direct them to us, we'll hook them up. We're not going to turn a kiddo down even if they can't pay anything.

Okay, okay

perfect

I think that was a worry that they

were- Yeah I know and it's the first time in summer that we've done that because usually we collaborate with the school district so the school district pays for their membership but summer it's not gonna happen since they are gonna have fun in the sun here at the school site um so yeah

Would families have to pay just for the summer or is it like that?

Correct. For the summer, we'll have a certain fee for the summer and then for the school year will have a $60 for the whole school year fee. And

you don't have the amount for this summer?

No, I don't. Yeah, it's yeah. But I mean, like I said, it's scholarships are available and they're not going to get turned out. OK, thank you.

Some of us received a note about your Diamonds Are Forever, May 9th.

Yes.

They're at the Veterans Memorial Building in Santa Maria and that's an auction and basically a fundraiser.

Correct yeah uh-huh

So I think all of us got emails for that so it's a great event

yes and we also have Back At Youth Night coming up which is May 28th So if any of you guys want to participate in that, that event is usually we close down the site and we have our kiddos. We choose 50 kiddos to come in and 50 sponsors to come in as well. You pair up with a kiddo and pretty much you walk two hours or do two hours of what they do during club time. So we have a few STEM stuff for you guys, you'll get fed, you'll get a T-shirt and then we're also raffle some stuff for prizes at the

end. Any further questions? Thanks for the update. All right, our next item is a consent calendar. The following items are presented to the City Council for approval without discussion as a single agenda item. Is there a council person who wishes to pull an item for discussion?

I don't know if we need to pull it but did we want to talk about AE with this public comment or not?

Normally we just include that in our record so thank you for bringing that up Anybody wants to pull it? How about a motion to approve the consent calendar.

I'll make a motion to approve the

consent calendar. All those in favor of the motions, say aye. Aye. Okay now we're going to management reports interim city administrators Mr. Trujillo

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and council members, city staff and public. I will be starting with the Public Works Report. So this last month we closed out the project with DUDEC doing their Urban Forestry Management Program. And then our ET continues to work with Waste Management and CalRecycle for the implementation process for the CalRecycle requirements We started prep on the field for the baseball field with irrigation and then dirt work over the last couple weeks, getting that kind of squared away.

I'm sure the mayor will speak more on that later. There's been some storm drain cleaning and weed abatement. We've been replacing street signs as well. We're still pending Caltrans permits for the transit station Renovation as well as the Royal theater. And I'll talk a little bit about that on the next report, um, as you've seen. In the consent calendar, the SCADA emergency is finally closed. That one actually came in under cost we saved about 13 grand on that primarily from the decommissioning of the water tower not using that one for water anymore so that allowed us to save money not having to replace anything on the mechanical side or electrical side for the sensors and everything Everything else at the water plant's running pretty good.

The wastewater, they added a biological treatment station at the Pasadena lift station. We kind of get to hook up on that. The company BioAlchemy that we use at the treatment plant currently is like an additive biology to kind of speed up the process. We're trying it out with grease, because Pasadena's got a lot of grease that goes through their systems over there.

I think it's primarily because there's a lot of home businesses out there. So we're trying to find a way to kind of eliminate the need to have a company come out and pump the lift stations and clear all the grease off the top of that one. Because that one is more common Um, we did have to make a repair at the highway 1 lift station. Which is kind of a. Something we didn't really want to do because it's so close to being finished and coming into operation but. Uh, we had to keep it going um.

And that is pretty much it for. The public works. And then for the admin report, we're still waiting to be contacted by the county for the election box. We still haven't heard anything on that. I know Council Member Hernandez is chasing that down but I don't know if you've heard anything?

They said they were. Maybe if we just want to reach out back to them because they did confirm along with Steve Lovenino's office Is there a location that could go? I know that there's something in its place.

Yeah, we kind of found spot right there by PD, kind of on the ADA ramp. It's kind of got like an alcove built into it and it looks like it'll fit the same size box that was out there previously.

Perfect! I think ballots drop boxes by the end of this month Okay. I think ballots get mailed out, I believe.

We did receive that $50,000 check from the Santa Barbara Foundation that Tom had mentioned during the capital campaign presentation. Right. So we got that and then we're trying to work out something Maybe like the appropriate way to send some kind of thank you response, whether it should come from GCAC or Capital Campaign. We're all going to get together and see what the proper way to thank them is.

The theater's moving along still. It's still keeping up steam. I was gone last week but it didn't seem like any weather that came through slowed them down at all. They're still able to do a lot of stuff on the inside Where they're at right now, the mechanical electrical plumbing all that is kind of going to be on an as needed basis. As we move forward. They've kind of got everything that they can do right now so it's just gonna be kind of piecework as they kind of lay out stuff finish stuff. So they're able to come back in They did a test on the front fascia that is facing the street, not the fascia of the stucco.

So they had to verify that there was no asbestos in that and before they start any kind of renovations and that's still all pending historic review also but they wanted to get that kind of be more proactive on that Um, they're still waiting on some structural review. They're starting to lay out footers and rebar for the pads. It's looking like next week they're going to start pouring the southern most path. So I think that's the 1 that would border like loop based property.

Um, so they're starting to work that. They're waiting uh they submitted the Caltrans permit today um a couple weeks ago at the end of March I guess everybody all kind of met with Caltrans in here and we just kind of discussed how we can kind of streamline some of these permits and it sounds like they made good headway so they might be able to kind of push this one through a little bit quicker but we're still going to be waiting A&E and then historical review to determine what's going on with that front wall facing the street.

They're getting ready to connect the fire lines and To the facility, and then all the underground works been signed off by the inspector so All that stuff is looking pretty good now it's all just You know, it's mostly like historical review before they really get cooking on stuff. There's still some steel structural review that they got to go through but that's mostly an A&E kind of thing more on the engineering side.

Los Mojeres is moving very good I don't know if people have seen it and if you drive by the tracks, you can see they've got the wall up. They got the wall up around the ADUs that are over there. They got the drains and all this stuff coming from that property squared away. Sewer system all dialed in. They're just waiting until everything's complete before they cover that up and remove those plates. 303 is still moving good, you can see they got the entrance way on the southern most side pretty much done.

And then some sidewalk right there by the bus stop so it's working out pretty good. And then Amtrak we're still waiting For permits so we can start construction, which is. You know, I noticed in my calendar today, I had a next week. I think it was supposed to be. Construction complete so, um, so you know where 4 months behind or whatever? So. Uh, that's kind of a kick in the bottom but.

We're moving forward and then we're still waiting on any further meetings for the highway 166 process. And that is all I have. Does anybody have any questions?

I just have a quick question. What's the anticipated finish date for Los Mujeres?

It should be June.

Okay, got it. Thank you.

Move

the

sign further closer to the stop sign Is the southern part or the eastern part of 11th 55? Or something like that. No, on the east side going to Simas is it faster? Is that why they have a 45 sign to reduce the

speed?

It's 40. That's not me. That's maybe him and a Caltrans conversation.

Yeah, it's been posted on Facebook and stuff that well you got a 30 mile an hour speed limit here and then you gotta sign this as 45. But basically it's regarding the construction zone beyond that stop sign.