City Council — April 28, 2026

Welcome to the regular meetings, Guadalupe City Council. Tuesday April 28th my daughter's birthday, one of them. May we have roll call please?

you.

The next item, Item 3 is a moment of thanks appreciation or condolences. Anyone wish to speak on that?

I'd like to give my our condolences to the family of Mario Cuevas who passed away last week. His family is long-time residents here in Guadalupe along with himself. Our prayers and thoughts are with his family and his fiancee and their children. Thank you for bringing that up.

Okay, same thing? Okay. And we'll go to item four agenda review. Is there a council member that wishes to change the order of business Gotta slow it down. Community participation, let's see. Jose Limon? Welcome.

I'm timing myself. Three minutes. We'll time

you too.

My name is Jose Limon, can you hear me? Yes sir. I gotcha thank you Okay, my name is Jose Limon Jr. and I'm a new resident here in Guadalupe, the city of Guadalupe as of February 15th and this is my first time here. I wanted to come to today's City Council meeting because Went to a administrative hearing. Last Wednesday, I can't remember the date but it was last Wednesday where Jack, Jack Owens, Administrative Officer and I believe it's the Supervisor of the Water.

Jamie Villegas, I think can't remember. And the officer, Enforcement Officer Osweg Mraz were present because I had a violation for tampering with water, the meter at The property, and I was after the recorded a hearing. Jack Owens, the administrative officer found me as liable for tampering with water service and $100 fine Stood, which I paid yesterday on the 27th was yesterday at the police department.

And just wanted to share that with you. I know there's nothing much. That can be done. I know Jack hasn't even sent me the written typed hearing that took place last Wednesday, but they said if I wanted to appeal to the City Council to talk to you as far Maybe some leniency or, or whatever can happen. But I just wanted to know that I know I'm at fault. I am the one that did that but I just wanted to share that information with you and if that stands, it's already paid but I thought i was a little bit in bad taste That was like my introductory.

Welcome to the city of Guadalupe and I love the small town vibe that you have, and I hope that the farmer's market that's coming soon hopefully happens soon because I know that's warrantly needed in this small town. Thank you.

of the National Day of Prayer, this is 75 that our nation has been celebrating and declaring over our nation, and it's kind of cool also that it's our 250th anniversary as a nation so There's a lot of prayer going out this year, very important things and as you said very needed in the world that we live in today. And this scripture is just so pertinent to glorifying God among the nations And seeking him and throughout all generations, you know even praying for our young people.

For our leadership, for our schools, businesses and government and family and church so we will be gathering again this is our third time in Guadalupe. We'll be gathering again at the veterans in the parking lot there at noontime And also the good news clubs of Guadalupe are going to be meeting around the flagpole so if you're up early and want to come to the Guadalupe Early Learning Center, they're going to be gathering at 725 in the morning.

At 745 and Liz Alvarez who oversee she's a school teacher, and also oversees the Good News Club she's gathering parents and the children and so they'll be they'll be doing that also. So that's really pretty. It says a lot about Guadalupe to have our children or teachers. Seeing the importance of gathering together and praying for our city, and for for nation. So thank you.

And if it would be possible, if I could leave. We have the posters here and these are from the National Organization and we put our Information here so it will tell people we got one English and Spanish and, and our noontime presentation will be bilingual also. And I want to thank Councilmember Vegas that she's going to be representing the council in the mayor, the city so I really appreciate that. Thank you very much.

You want to give this to a new phone. Any comments? No more. That's touching, thank you. All right,

Make a motion to approve the balance in the consent calendar. I'll second.

Any discussion? All those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Thank you. On B I think I've talked to David regarding PG&E on page, let's see, 11. No, page 10. There's a cost of $25,679.84 and then on page... Which is the other page? Page... The bottom of 29 is $107,070.60. And I know that not all of it's coming from the charge stations because that was kind of bugging me when people leave their vehicles there for hours and I don't have a CV if there's an automatic shutoff.

The $107,000 and change. That one includes two fees that we had to pay. One was $35,000 or

$39,000.

So that's for the Highway 1 moving light poles that we had to pay so those aren't even included. They're included but they're for project costs that the city is just responsible for. Um, and then the other 1 would just be traditional utilities.

What are we looking at in terms of the charging station? Renovations in turn I know that the bus station at the train station that's going to happen when that's finished

right so the train station. And some good news on a train station I'll touch on a little bit later but um so the train station will have paid to charge. We did get a grant to put pay to charge at the Veterans Memorial, right, but we kind of have to play with our funds at the moment. That might be coming later next year, probably because we have like a two-year grant time frame on that. But the ones at the Senior Center will get shut down as soon as 303 is open. So that's within the next couple months.

Okay thank you for that. And we'll go to item B. Did I say that right?

I just had a quick question. If I understood the staff report, Andrew Goodwin Designs, they've been working on an expired contract and if so can you explain what happened there?

Council Member Villegas, other members of the council and public. No I can't really explain what happened in its staff has not been able to determine what happened. It appears that I explained it in the staff report is all the information I had. It was sent to the city manager's office, he doesn't usually get them,

not this one.

No not Mr. Trujillo, it was Mr. Bowdoin and it never left I guess or it didn't find its way to where it needed to go and um I guess after the staff report was submitted I saw something from the city engineer who said that he hadn't I can't remember what it was, but he had not done something correctly too. He didn't catch it soon enough or he had sent it to Todd. I can't remember, but there was a definite mess up on that.

The work needed to be done obviously, but it didn't get processed accordingly so... I mean it's after the fact. So we're asking you to ratify that We don't, staff does not have a good reason. I will say it did not go to Mr. Brandberry. If it had he would have processed it as he has processed all the other ones but he didn't receive that one.

So just quickly, would he, Philip, would Andrew, the design company normally send it to Thomas and then he sends it to the city administrator? No.

He would process it as project manager. He wouldn't send it to the city manager.

Oh I see.

I think it got sent to the city manager by Andrew Goodwin designed by someone that didn't understand where it was supposed to go. I didn't track that down. I mean I didn't contact Mr. Goodwin's office to find out what happened on their end Well, it was the only time that ever happened and I guarantee will not happen again.

Put there in a minute please?

Yeah. I'll see to it personally. So will David.

Any further questions? Is there a motion to approve B&D?

No motion to approve items B&B on the consent calendar. Is there a second?

I'll second. Okay, thank you. Any discussion? All those in favor of the motion say aye.

Aye.

All right, thank you. Next item is management reports to city administrator for information only. David.

Good evening Mr. Mayor, council members, staff and community members. So Friday We received our ballot box, it's out front by the mailbox where it was before. So that's back on track thanks to the hard work from Christina and Council Member Hernandez and Juana pushing on the county to get that back. We received a $2,500 donation from Mechanics Bank for the Royal Theater. Wow. So we're still racking in the dough.

So with the Royal Theater construction, a lot of stuff is still kind of just continuing as it has been. They're still working with the historical architect they have some stuff submitted to National Park Service to verify that we're going to be able to maintain the historical Classifications once we do the front wall remodel. Let's see, there's still some has or it's asbestos essentially in the lobby roof that we're waiting on but we can't demo that until the front wall kind of just waterfalls all together.

They're still doing some structural review on some Some steel to get that going for the roof along the main structure. There's getting ready to pour the south pad, so that would be the one closest to the Alvarez property sometime next week hopefully as long as the footers and rebar and everything pass inspection. So that's the plan on that. There is one more piece of documentation we need to submit for the CalTrans permit.

So, with the Caltrans for a minute. It's almost like everybody was talking to a bunch of different people and then we finally narrowed it down to the right person and that right person said, hey, you need this, this, this and this. And so now they were waiting on 1 piece of documentation today that they expect to have sometime tomorrow. So expecting some middle on Thursday.

Um, and then fingers crossed we get that as fast as possible. And then Las Mujeres is moving along fantastic. Again, concrete areas are starting to get paved a lot of stuff on the west northwest side is closest to being like finished grade and stuff like that. It's a lot of the areas where nothing's going primarily like the main grass area right? They were finishing up some waterline stuff they got some grading for the barbecue pits going They're they've been in contact recently with the skate park construction team.

Once that kicks off, that's going to take about 3 months to complete just dedicated for the skate park itself so but we did get kind of like some bad news. Because of all the rain and stuff, it's pushed it out. So we're still looking at instead of hopefully a mid-summer or late summer open, we're looking like early fall just to make up for lost days. And then we have a maintenance period that we generally want to go through so that we can let shrubbery kind of blossom and see if anything breaks in the meantime while we still kind of have like a warranty.

303 is moving real good. They got one entrance done, they got like a lot of the curbs and gutters up getting ready for asphalt hopefully sooner than later. They're working on what kind of fencing or gate to put in right now having to do some redesigns and stuff so but they're hammering through that And then the good news with Amtrak, we got our encroachment permit today.

So hopefully sooner than later we'll be able to start construction. It's going to be kind of if they want to try to phase it instead of do like a full on because they're still waiting on PG&E and Frontier to get their encroachment permits so you know that's kind of out of our hands but as far as us were finally ready let's see Highway one construction, we've seen it. It's starting to you know, we've seen all the surveyors out there and they're starting construction tomorrow. That one kind of caught me off guard I thought it was a little bit further down the lines.

They're going to start at 166 and 1 and then work their way north. They're gonna start primarily shoulder work curbs gutters not street work But that's all the information I have on that as of right now. But they are going to have traffic control plans and flaggers out there, and all that kind of stuff when they actually do start to protrude into the street. They're going to be starting on the east side so the side with no sidewalk. So that's gonna be their main focus as of their starting point. And then they will be Flip-flopping back and forth east side, making their way north. That is the end of my report.

And what are they doing

there?

What are they doing on Highway

1? They're doing curbs gutters. It's ADA accessible improvements.

Yeah yesterday I saw probably six Caltrans trucks there. They were really at it. Then the bridge It's amazing what they're doing at the bridge side with the big lifts they've got there and the water they have to fight coming from the farmers on the north side. So we're going to be busy here for the next three or four years, which is good. Any questions of Todd? I'm sorry. David, any questions of David?

I have a question. I was riding my bike yesterday on the east side and the surveyors were in my lane, so I was having to merge out of traffic. Is there any way? I know that in the mornings that's where our kids are walking unfortunately where there is no sidewalk but hopefully they just have a plan and be mindful that there is... Just because they had their surveying equipment.

I would say the bike lane being blocked off. That's kind of on them, but as far as children walking on the East side of the street where there's no sidewalk. I don't that might be like a legal question. I think you're only supposed to commute on the side with the sidewalk. So, um, I would encourage parents to make sure their kids stay on the side where there's a sidewalk in general just so that they do have.

That additional safety measure, but I will bring it up to the engineers done the project to. To make sure that

sometimes I have my children and being on that bike right as part of our safest area so they can just be mindful of that. Um, I had a couple questions are we experiencing any internet outages? I know that I'm seeing them a lot at my house, but is that impacting city hall employees here? It

hasn't impacted City Hall. We had some complaints last week, Thursday we are meeting with the local representative to kind of discuss what Charter's plans are to alleviate these Internet issues we've been having lately.

Okay, awesome. If we can get an update on that, that would be great. Every quarterly leadership meeting is held every quarterly month of the year and so it is for leadership team members like city admin, the mayors, and they just shared that they haven't seen a presence from Guadalupe. I'm wondering if that would be something that you'd be interested in? Connecting with other leaders from different cities as we're going to see big impacts in regards to HR challenges and just having that communication open I think it would be very fruitful.

Yeah, I've already been in touch with The county manager last week, as well as. Solving to start going to the monthly. City manager meetings as well as the quarterly. Office of emergency services needs.

Okay, that's great. I know that I kept getting dinged on and they say Guadalupe is missed, Guadalupe is missed so want to make sure that we're on those spaces to elevate any issues and then my second, my third question I guess when are we going to get an update in regards to the transition for the project manager or the Royal Theatre?

Um, so that was kind of slowed because our engineer took a three week vacation. So now that he is back him myself and Tom can kind of get together and come up with the ball plan to make a transition right now our biggest issue is going to be funding. Because the city engineer is $190 an hour. His number two is about $1.55 an hour and Tom $0.75 an hour, so if you're just doing math it doesn't make financial sense to take that responsibility away from Tom But it's something that we definitely need to look into and see if there's a way that we can kind of come up with the plan to increase community information and project completion.

Okay, thank you I know in regards to that Caltrans permit just hearing different things going on it would be great but there's just like one central

person. You know traditionally That permit would have been handled by the contractor that took over the project, not by the project manager. It would have been their project manager whoever that company has so that's kind of a you know he says she says shoulda coulda woulda everybody thought that this person was doing or that person was doing and it just felt through the cracks

I just read an email and it just kind of shared that it seemed like it was a city of Guadalupe and so that is why I share that thank you

Just by the way, you know they have the mayors and city administrators meetings. I meet twice a month with all of them and to add another one unless you want to take one of my alternate take one in my position i'll go to that one Well, that's SBCAG, North County Steering Committee. That meets once a month so does SBCAG and then every other month it's APCD. So I have a life and I'd like to play golf once again and work on the fields and to go to Santa Barbara or to go to other places makes it a little tough.

Yeah, that's why I asked David if he would be able to join in and make sure that we're included in those conversations.

Yeah, I think we have two different ones going. We have one on the agenda that's an appointed one by you guys, and then we have the one- Yes, okay.

Just add that to your repertoire. Any further questions of David? Okay, Chief

Director Public Safety. Thank you Mr Mayor Council staff and our citizens here as far as police right now we're still working within our contractor on the public safety web page redesign they've met with Garrett and It is a really nice some of the stuff that is going on there. A lot of stuff will be linked in with so that way we can also do social media and get information out faster, and people will be able to kind of do like a one stop shop even looking at the aspect of sorry for the gentleman but paying fines on that website so we're working that and we'll be working with finance and everybody else but that project's going ahead pretty good.

We did receive some negative news concerning the city hall and police generator, we were always told that it was purchased and they're ready to go and put them in and we had a time frame which I sent out tried calling Location twice. They've been closed down all the markings on the door have been taken off so right now we feel a person has absconded Dave and I, David and I kind of talked about it.

It's one of those things too that we looked at is We were to get a grant from the state and federal for Generator out in front, but that money never came. That was supposed to be for reimbursement so. There's nothing to pay back there. And then the other one, we had a grant from 1805 that paid a partial and so we'll be working with our city administrator on how we rectify some of those things and also possibly hopefully with the city attorney, we can go after this company.

So I just wanna give you an update that

those are coming.

Like dollar amount for the generators? So I think one was 60-ish and one was 40-ish.

We had a grant of $48,000 that paid for that and then we also had $50,000 from the COVID

Okay,

funds are both ARPA ARPA funds that was in 2022. That was expended. So that's where those funds are as far as what we spent. Oh, we have some nice cement pads. Yes sir, we do. And then on the flip side too is that I'm glad we have our finance director and our city administrator. We're finally moving forward. I think I've CC'd you on the FEMA reimbursements.

That's a nice chunk of changes. Can you go elaborate

more?

For those who are not here, we had the flooding in 2023 in Pioneer Street. And we had flooding issues at Leroy Park and then also at the city wastewater treatment plant. Then we also had to house over 50 individuals here in our gym area Something that really impacted the city and it really showed how we came together in the South County kind of came up and really saw how.

A city who didn't have the financial resources as part of the South County. We got a lot of donations, people came together, citizens came out outstanding. So we worked, we had to clean up at Leroy Park that was flooded. There was a lot of grating and trash and water cleanup but we did our documentation there And then we had documentation as far as for the wastewater treatment plant and some of our other drainage that we had to clean out, and also for the housing of the individuals that were displaced.

So as a city, we made sure all our paperwork was done. We turned everything in. It's just a matter there are some signatures that were not taken care of And some receipts that FEMA did not get, but they have been working with us. And I think right now Eli reached out from finance from the email I saw they're going to be communicating with the state so that we can really find out exactly what they're missing in our package and I think our total was close to six, eight hundred something thousand dollars. It's up there that it is there and we have all our paperwork just a matter of signing and getting everything done and putting everything back so that's a nice ray of sunshine that that's just around the corner and getting that completed unfortunately since 2023 but federal government works slow

well it was good that Mr. Martinez just said call me let's talk on the phone instead of Yes, the email that just goes all over the place and somebody takes a vacation and gone so they thank you chief for that.

We, the California Office of Emergency Services contacted me and they're calling throughout the state but they specifically they're trying to get all commitments for the summer Olympics and the soccer. So they just trying to pin down as far as personnel for best case and worst case scenario that we're prepared If we have to roll so I'm, I'm designating equipment and personnel for worst case scenario so everyone's packing their go bags.

If they have to go but but they also understand our first priority is here. So, we will make sure that we have a plan to take care of home. If we can, we'll respond to mutual aid only if we can. And we'll make sure that we make all the proper notifications here in the city with council and city administrators and HR and finance. Everyone has to be included to kind of do a check off so we make sure that not only our equipment is accounted for but so are our people I had the pleasure to attend a police chiefs and sheriffs wellness workshop, training on PTSD and wellness for chiefs officers.

It was kind of nice there was only six, and they only do it twice a year, and they knew that I ditched him the first time and they called me out on it. And I'm going to throw it out there. I appreciate our Councilperson Villegas, she understood what we had to go through last time and to help an officer and then we found out sometimes we do forget about department heads and they get all the information but they don't get help themselves And so this was very, very helpful and I appreciate HR who kept checking on me. And Mr. Mayor for making sure that that was okay. Those things really meant a lot.

We updated our crime statistics report. We got direction from council and so now we'll also show not only what happened Last month, but the previous months so there's a nice comparison. And so I we're going to go forward with that and I think it does show a better picture, not only for our community but but for us so that we can do with staffing and where we need to place personnel.

I'm working with the planning department. I think we just received three food truck business licenses, and they're working on getting us a copy of the license and the permit so that when the officers do contact, we know what we're looking for when we ask, you know, Do you have a license? And so forth. So we're doing some internal training so we understand where These things can operate, and especially if they're in our parks and we don't know and you know they're holding tournaments and kind of making money.

We want to make sure we have the proper procedures so that we're just not telling people you know leave if we're going to seize equipment monies and so forth want to make sure that we're doing it properly. For the fire department. Again, we're also doing that commitments with the state to make sure we know what our personal equipment for if we have to do any kind of assistance with the Olympics.

We've been requested which is kind of interesting to complete an RFP at the Santa Maria airport. Right now we do have the contract for law enforcement services, but then they asked they would like to combine with fire services. We talked about as a management group and one thing brought to our attention from HR and finance want to make sure that even though there's administrative fees that come back approximately between 27-30%, we want to make sure that all costs are covered And so, I'm looking at this and I got to complete it within a couple weeks and so everyone will try to take a look at it and we'll go through the numbers and Eli is a numbers person. I'm finding that out and I appreciate that.

And rightfully so making sure that we're doing it right and the monies are correct. I was present at the all the, the county fire chiefs. We had a discussion with Santa Barbara CEO concerning the ambulance contract. We were looking at our budget and we are not receiving revenue that we used to because that was kind of pushed out of the contract that amr has So all the fire chiefs we met and were discussing with the county, they're gonna do another RFP supposedly to kind of open it up. And so that cities each city will have a voice over the contracts and as far as revenue and funding coming back. So we're hoping to work so that we do get some funding as our citizens are utilizing the ambulance service.

And then the official letter from ISO was sent out with the city rating correction again, from 10 to five so still working with the insurance companies. But letting them know that I got that email from ISO rep everything has been changed. And they're just sending out the official letter and like I said before and I appreciate Council Member for NASA's We do have everything online, which was a basic thing that we did not even look at. And so for the future all the documents are there online so predecessors will be able to look and make sure that we do not get caught again and everything gets taken care of.

The tobacco grant information was provided to me from Councilman Hernandez. I've looked at this and we have applied four times in the past for, to get the grant and we've been denied And I'm looking at the grant, the pros and cons. The only thing as a difference is they've taken out having we try to go at least the sheriffs and everybody else they want the school resource office and doing in-school type of enforcements that has now been prohibited but i see a workaround by looking at this grant that will be able to work with and I just got information from our city administrator Barbara, another grant individual. So I'll be reaching out soon because this grant is going to be closing in a couple months.

We'll still use the same formats but we'll be looking at a different angle to try to do tobacco awareness. They want to stay away from the enforcement word so it's tobacco awareness. And then two is with this web design, most people did not know how to file a complaint or a form, a report of concern concerning code compliance. And with the web design we have it on the web but it's kind of hard to find right now and so it'll be easier being able to find in police and fire that you can now just do it right online And with the system, the system that's available on there.

You don't even have to ask where it goes or guess you just put your complaint in and automatically will send it to police fire or to code compliance and also if No one from one of those departments does any action within five to six days. A tickler comes to my email saying that it has not been addressed, and I can look at every code compliance on one sheet to see exactly what status it is so that way if any citizens call in or wants to make inquiries concerning it we have the exact information. If it's been closed, it's been open, and that's part of the loop that we've really lost. People would call in and complain, we'd kind of go out and do it but no one got back to the citizen who made the actual complaint so they never knew did you guys do anything with it or not or what happened?