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iHow this transcript is madeUnGovr transcribes the official recording with automated speech-to-text, separates speakers by voice, and matches voices to the seated roster. Names and attributions are AI estimates and may contain errors.Verify any quote yourself: click anywhere in the transcript and the official video jumps to that exact moment, so you can check any quote against the recording.0:00 – 0:156 turns
Moving on to item number three roll call.
Roll call — called by Unidentified speaker 2
Show transcript
Perfect, thank you.
Agenda Discussionitems moved / continued / pulled — click to expand
Moving on to number four, approval of the agenda. May I have a motion please?
So moved.
Second. All in favor?
Aye.
Opposed? Motion passes.
Moving on to item number five, presentations and tonight we have a presentation by the Interface Children and Family Services City.
Hello, thank you so much. Nice to see everybody again. I'm Kelly Brown and I'm from Interface Children and Family Services. Our office is in Camarillo but we serve the entire county. I've been with Interface now this is my 16th year and I oversee several programs one of those being the 2-1-1 information and referral line. Our 2- 1-1 information referral line has about 75,000 contacts per year for Ventura County but overall we take about 300,000 calls per year and text messages.
We are one of the largest two in ones in the country. Ventura County actually serves 36 counties of California So 211 Ventura County, as I said we are a program of Interface Children and Family Services. Interface is a multi-service agency as you know. We have a comprehensive suite of programs including human trafficking services, domestic violence reentry justice services, mental health services and more.
This is actually our 20th year for 2-1-1 in Ventura County. We were the first 2-in-1 in the state of California and we're excited about that still. So 211 information and referral program, what we do is we have all of the listings of the different health and social services programs in the county. People can call us 24 hours a day seven days a week. And they can talk to a navigator who will talk to them about whatever's going on unique situations in their home. They can also text us as well by texting their zip code to 890-211.
And we have listings for all different types of things. And I'm going to go through tonight what the top needs are for Fillmore. So in 2025, we had contact with 395 Fillmore residents 111 of those residents were first-time callers. 51 of those were families that had children under five, 11 of those people were pregnant when we were talking to them, 18 were at risk of homelessness and 30 of them were currently homeless when we were speaking with them Whenever we are talking to somebody who has housing insecurity, which is the top need for Fillmore, we actually are part of the continuum of care and can do HMIS entry over the phone. That's a homeless management information system with the County of Ventura where we can help people to get prioritized for low-income housing and shelter services.
The second biggest need that was coming in, in 2025 was income support and assistance. And then legal consumer and public safety services. We saw a rise in the legal consumer and public safety services across the county. And the reason for that is for immigration related information and services. Individual community family and community support and then disaster services.
And of course whenever disasters are happening here in the county, 211 can help to direct people to understand if they're an evacuation zone. If they need to go to a shelter where that's located and how to apply for services if they have damage or lost their home. This slide I always include so that if you wanted to look at it in more detail later on, you can actually compare your needs with other cities here in the county. You'll see that you're similar to many of the other counties' cities.
We do have other special projects that we do. And one of those is CalAIM. So, we do have a CalAIM team under the 211 program. This is a program from the Medi-Cal program, Gold Coast Health Plan. Whenever a caller calls into 211, we are able to screen them to see if they have Medi-Cal and if they may actually qualify for Enhanced Care Management. Under the Enhanced Care Management We can get them connected to a case manager that will help them actually apply for services, even take them to appointments and to really follow up to make sure they're not just receiving the phone number for a resource but they actually have somebody that is going along with them to make sure that they get actually connected to those services. And the medical kitchen is an example of one of those where We are able to connect callers if they have medical needs that are exacerbated, the medical condition exacerbated by not having access to healthy food.
We're able to help to get free food delivery to their home for seven days a week for six months at a time. We also have a contract with Southern California Edison so during what's called a PSPS public safety power shut off I know that this is something that affects your area. Whenever there's a Santa Ana wind event going on and they proactively turn off the power to prevent wildfires, people can call 211. We can connect them with free hotel rooms if they have medically If they're medically dependent on electricity, we can actually get them connected to free hotel rooms, food delivery, transportation.
Other different types of services that can help them stay safe and healthy until the power is back on in their home. We're also with the Civil Rights Department for the state, part of California vs. Hate, our program Ventura vs. Hate. If somebody encounters a hate crime or a hate incident we can help them to actually file a report for that and to get ongoing services so that they can recover.
That's the end of my presentation but if you have questions I would love to answer them.
I just noticed on the previous slide, I didn't know what the acronym ECM stood for.
Enhanced Care Management. That's the program where you can get a free case manager to help you under the Medi-Cal program so that you can get connected to all different types of health and social services. It's kind of like in-person 211 where you have a case manager that will actually help you to fill out applications, take you to doctor's appointments. If you are not applying for services or programs because you don't have a driver's license taking you to the DMV so that you can fill those paperwork out and things like that getting birth certificates and all that. So absolutely
great. Thank you.
Not a question, but just a comment on the enhanced care management. It's so wonderful that 2-1-1 is doing that and I remember working in this field over a dozen years ago and we just wanted a warm handoff right? Just not a phone number like you know talk to somebody who's but this goes even beyond that to stay with them and it's just critical too I think people actually getting those services and utilizing them so
thank you for that It's really when we follow up with people that call 2-1-1, the number one reason they didn't get connected to services is because they were so overwhelmed they didn't even call. So sometimes somebody really does need someone to go along with them or just to call them and encourage them or go into their home and really just sort of motivate them. These
systems can be complex and intimidating and this is very helpful to them.
Absolutely.
Thank
you. Thank you so much.
I have one question. Going back to your introduction, I don't know if I heard this correctly but I thought I heard you say that Ventura County 211 actually provides services to 36 other counties?
Yes, yes we do. So our 211 is the largest 211 in the nation and we cover the most population as well. We take calls for 36 of the counties in California So we're here 24-7 in person, in Camarillo taking those calls. And we provide support to even other states when they're having emergencies because our team has that kind of experience.
Well so I'm assuming then you have connections for all these different services and all these other counties and states too?
Yes. Our actual resource database has 10,000 records in it that we can connect people to that's across the state. That's incredible. Thank you. All right. Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Moving on to item number six
public comments and this time is for items. Give the opportunity for the public to give feedback on items not on the agenda, and we have several speaker cards. First up is George Ioffre. Welcome George thank you for coming.
Hello by the way I was an employee at City of Oxnard as a network engineer About 24 years, just retired. And anyway I was working city council meetings and doing that. Anyway, I'm the person who supplied you all with the pictures of Fine Street. I was just getting a little concerned because the way the street is in those pictures You can see that it's starting to really deteriorate and I just wanted to make sure that was, you know put the light and maybe.
I don't know anything about any other locations, but there probably is a lot. But I'm just wanting to make sure that this is looked at and maybe repaved. There's another part of Fine Street With all the houses built in the 40s and those, they have a nice street. At least it's still good shape. Then when it gets past 4th Street and going toward a cul-de-sac that street is just horrible so... And I just wanted to make sure that you knew about it and it could take some priority if possible. Just thanks.
Thank you so much. Our next public speaker is Gabe Candelario. Gabe, you have three minutes.
Thank you. Hi everyone my name is Gabe Candelario and I serve as the Juvenile Justice Programs Manager at One Step Palavez and I'm a lifelong resident of Fillmore. One Step Palavez is an evening reporting center which basically means that we're a center that's open in the evening time for youth to come by and participate in positive programming. Our next step program there at One Step Palavez comes through us through Ventura County Provision Agency so youth that are referred over to our program Benefit from all of the services that are provided at One Step a la Vez, including hot meals, mentoring, independent living skills. Workshops and also transportation to and from home and school. Additionally those enrolled in Next Step program are provided with individualized case management to help them navigate through their probation terms.
And our goal is that for every youth who can complete their probation. I also serve as a facilitator at One Step A La Vez for groups. Some of the groups come to us through a program called the National Compadres Network, whose philosophy is that through the cultural teachings we can all heal as a community. I currently am running talking circles at One Step A La Vez with the teens in these circles. We check in and see how we're doing throughout the day but our main goal is to really kind of focus on the positivity that's going on in everyone's life During these groups it's very easy for the teens to be like, oh this sucks, this sucks. But we really try to focus in on what else is going great in your life so that we try to leave a better space than when we came into it.
The circles also allow the youth to open up. And they're open to all of the teens there. Another program that's run through there as well, too, that I help facilitate is our Joven Noble Program or Noble Youth. It comes to us as well through the National Compadres Network and that program is a 12-session curriculum and its goal is to help the character development of teens.
Lastly, I also serve Sorry, I serve as the coordinator for the Youth Advisory Council or YACC for short. This is a program that's designed for teens with lived experience dealing with the justice system. It could be their own personal experience or a loved one like if they grew up in their Parent were in and out of jail, and so that affected their lives. We really just try to make sure that we help develop stronger relationships with law enforcement. And our goals through our YAC are to allow the youth to voice their experiences and advocate for change and like I said build those healthier relationships with law enforcement and first responders Last year, we were actually able to host a number of events not just in Fillmore but also throughout the county where we invited the community and our first responders to participate and come together and just get to know one another.
We're hoping to do that again within the next six months so I'll be sure that...I'm sure I'll be back soon to invite you guys all and I wish I could show you guys videos it's available on our website check it out thank you and I'm done.
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Our next speaker is Hector Magana Welcome Hector.
Thank you, appreciate that. Hello my name is Hector Magana and I currently serve as the teen center manager at One Step a la Vez. I just want to add a little bit more to what Gabriel was talking about and I want to invite you guys to receive a tour of our amazing Teen Center. Our Teen Center is an after school Teen Wellness Center, and we are a safe space for teens in our local town. We serve teens ages 13 to 19, and we are open Monday through Friday from 1 to 7 p.m., so we currently have teens there but I invite you guys to come on over. We'll give you guys a tour, show you the services that we currently have.
Gabe mentioned a few, but we have a lot more going on including in the teen center and our hours of operation. We do have daily hot meals, transportation home, tutoring services, academic and career support, field trips, power hour activities which are three times a week. We also have leadership development, recreational space and independent life skills workshops. So those are some of the things that we do throughout the week. I also wanted to take the time today to highlight an amazing program that we were able to complete thanks to a grant that we received this opportunity. I'm sure it changed the lives of many around our lovely community.
And thanks to the collaboration of One Step a la Vez with the Economic Development Collaborative of Ventura County, we were able to host and instruct basic computer skills for youth and families here in Fillmore. So our initial purpose was to help community members on how to use a computer, navigate it without any difficulty So during this great opportunity of growth for community members, we were able to have 40 participants which reached our initial goal. In fact, we filled the spaces in one day by only promoting it during one of our food pantries. So those spaces were filled quickly. We were able to have eight youth participate and 32 adults, which we divided into two different cohorts. One in Spanish, one in English to help everybody.
Regarding the adults, we had four who ranged from the ages of 18 through 39. We had 20 who ranged from the ages of 40 to 69 and we had 8 surpassing the age of 70. So we were able to help a lot of different age ranges members of our community. This opportunity will help our community members navigate systems as we are merging from paper applications into fully online softwares, so we're able to do that opportunity.
We're also once the 40 members completed that they were able to receive a free laptop or Chromebook that they were able to take home for their needs, so it's something very very amazing. We hope that in the future we are able to receive more grants like this to help out our community. So yeah thank you for your time
Thank you so much. Thank you, Hector. And lastly but not least we have Pedro Chavez.
Good evening, Mayor Mendez. First and foremost, congratulations on the opportunity you've been given to serve the people of Fillmore. And I'd like to say congratulations again to Christina Fiasenor for the amazing productive year that you had during your tenure and welcome the newest council member, Mr. Rodriguez, to the dais. My name is Pedro Chavez. I'm the executive director of One Step All of Us. We are a youth development organization here founded in 2007 by a lovely lady that's right over here We serve about 300 teens annually. We have various innovative programs and services that we provide, not only the teens or families but also the community. I wanted to make sure that you received the information that includes the food pantry that we offer twice a month on the second and the fourth of the month.
And our next one is tomorrow. And I've also included a report that gives you data about who we're serving and the value we bring to this community. As you can see, we served over 6600 people in the community and out of 1800 households. And so The Pantry is really an opportunity for us as One Step A La Vez to teach young people about the value of service And I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the partnership that we have with our police department, Captain Lalo and always sending officers to assist. And again it's something that is very important to our community especially in distressed times.
Our first food show, like I said for the year kicks off next month. We have normally around 125-140 families that come and we also provide emergency delivery for those that are not able to come through One Step All of Us. So again, I'd like to invite you all if you haven't had the opportunity to come and get to know us to join us, just come on by again to our food pantry. You can see the caring power of Communities in Action. I'll end by just acknowledging and you know One Step, Olivas is really an anchor in this community. They have done so much and they've created future leaders and one of those leaders I believe is sitting on your dais. There's many other leaders that are sitting in positions across this county And so there's something really magical when you invest and help youth grow, develop and learn by providing the mentoring they need to be a positive space for them.
So again thank you for the time and again we're always available for collaboration in partnership and we hope that the city would promote the food distribution through your social media. Thank you so much
0:21 – 0:285 turns
Mayor, may I ask just one question? Sure. It's a clarifying question and that is about Piru. I know you had mentioned about the youth have an ability to get a ride to and from. Does that include Piru?
Yes not only does it include Piru but it also includes Santa Paula so we try to serve the entire Santa Clara River Valley of Santa Paula, Fillmore, Piru and the areas around Bardstow is included there so yes we are available and accessible for anybody in the area.
That's great thank you
Okay, moving on to item number seven. City Council Reports, Recommendations, Comments, Committee, Commission and Board Reports. And I'll start off last Thursday, I attended as the alternate for the Ventura County Ventura Council of Governments. The agenda was pretty light, but we did have a wonderful presentation by the Chancellor of the Ventura County Community College District and he gave an overall status of what the district is doing and what's to expect in the future. And they did email us... Was it today, Kerry?
email of the presentation, so I can share it with you all if you guys would like. I could send it to Erica and she could send it to us all. There was a air pollution control board meeting but unfortunately my granddaughter's arrival came late so I was unable to attend but I will definitely attend next month okay? That's all for my report. Anybody else?
I have a couple things to report out. Thank you, Mayor. Let's see in terms of committees I'm on my Ventura Regional Sanitation District meeting is this coming Thursday so I'll have more to report at the next meeting. Also a couple of upcoming things. On January 29th this is not an official meeting of the Fillmore City Council or the city of Fillmore but Some of us council members at any point in time are sometimes asked to be a part of different city committees just to hear what's going on.
I'm sorry, community meetings to know what's going on and so on January 29th I've been invited to an informal meeting with the landowner And other stakeholders, this is the landowner at Halic and 126 regarding again the potential future site for a new Santa Paula hospital or a new iteration of what that may be. So I'm looking forward to hearing about that. And again this is not in any official city capacity but just keeping my ear to the ground as you could say.
Along with that, also I've been invited to join a meeting with our newly appointed, our Senate pro tempore of the California Senate Monique Limon who is our representative senator. She is now the leader of the California State Senate and of course there's a lot of folks who now. Even more so, would like Senator Limon's ear. And this group is particularly talking about housing as we heard from our 211 presentation. Housing is still such a critical need in Ventura County and across the state. So this again informal meeting is to talk to Senator Pro Tempore Limon and try to see about Some future action for a statewide housing bond if there's political will there. So I'm curious and I'm hopeful about that.
Again, this is not an official city capacity but just letting you know what is happening here in the city two weeks from tomorrow is our Wednesday, Sorry, let me pull this up here. The 28th, Ventura County and I think nationwide we are doing our homeless point in time count. And that's where we across the county volunteers go out to the local communities to physically see, observe and count our homeless and to do a survey with them. Hopefully not just observational but actually talking to them and filling out information.
Annual count helps to one, keep a census of our homeless population and that in turn this data that's collected again goes to the state and to our federal government. And hopefully we can continue to have resources again to serve our homeless until eventually again the goal is to move our homeless into housing. So that's happening two weeks. There is information about it and I'll share that with fellow council members. I know we have some city staff who are volunteering as well, and I think they can always use more volunteers so I could share that information We'll have it officially through the city if there's any community volunteers who'd like to come. And they always need Spanish speakers, and this is not just in Fillmore but Santa Paula and other areas too.
Let me see here... Just wanted to remind folks I have talked to a few people about They have an issue, maybe it's a code enforcement type issue. And also hearing on social media and online just to remind folks that if there is a particular issue that could be something related or is something related to code enforcement to actually go to our city code enforcement web page we are contracted with the new Code Enforcement Agency Greenleaf?
Forleaf, I'm sorry. Forleaf and our new code enforcers doing a tremendous job of following up. And so again just to remind it to the public that there is a form, there is a method to go about and to file an official complaint. It cannot be anonymous you have to give your information but again we hear a lot about we want things to change or something's a bother.
That's the proper channels to go about it. So it's a reminder about that. And then my last thing is a suggestion, actually. I've been prompted by One Step coming today and sharing their food distribution list I already had on my list and I think I'd mentioned it previously. There's several food distributions in our town. There's One Step, there's our Food Share that's over by St. Francis, there's Sembradores Church, and then I think there's one or two more so it would be really helpful I think to our community Have a matrix and so that we could just know so that our community can know what's happened, what food shares and food pantries are happening on what days and what times.
And I would just suggest to start with maybe the Santa Paula, I think it's called the social services. Social Services Coalition that means they might already have a matrix at least in Santa Paula and maybe you know we can go off of that. So that's what I've got. Thank you.
0:28 – 0:345 turns
Okay, first thank you to our mayor for filling in for me at the VCOG meeting. I appreciate you doing that and spur of the moment gave him like two hours notice so I appreciated you doing that and then I attended a Ventura County Transportation Commission meeting on Friday and it ran for actually several hours partly because on the agenda was A presentation on the Santa Paula branch line bike trail. And if you haven't been following this, this has been going on since I want to say the late 90's early 2000's I believe is when they first came up with the idea of putting a bike path parallel to the terrain track and they're finally starting to make movement on it and getting input from the community. There have been several community meetings soliciting input from citizens and from our ag community I'm going to go ahead and get started.
So I just bring this out right now to the community's attention, because there will be additional community meetings. And they really want to do this right. We don't want to make it difficult for ag community obviously. And there are different ways of running the bike path, which I think will be such a huge thing. The bike paths will actually run from, and correct me if I'm wrong here Kevin, from Ventura.
All the way out to east of Piru, even. So it'll be a huge bike path and walking path. So again there are issues because of the ag community and going through ag property so they're trying to work out the kinks on that so keep your ears and eyes open for that. And then also I'm scheduled to... Zoom meeting coming up that has piqued my interest on e-bikes, and it's hosted by the League of California Cities. And they're going to talk about all the legislation or pending legislation on how we need rules and regulations for this. And ironically today I did receive a phone call from one Our business owners on Central who almost got hit by a bicyclist, a child.
Young teen preteen on the sidewalk almost knocked him over and so he called me and said we gotta do something about this So the timing was you know like I said we just coming up on this zoom meeting And I'm gonna have more information but it's something that I think as council We need to keep tabs on and I know that We do have some things on the books, but I think we need to really monitor this. I'm hearing complaints from everybody especially about the e-bikes and kids not wearing helmets.
It's enforcement so anyway... And then also I just wanted to mention that my usual porch talk which follows council meetings is normally scheduled tomorrow night it's not going to be tomorrow night I'm gonna post one night next week so I'll have that information out on social media on my porch talk that we have to move to next week so that's it thank you
Yeah, I would like to say a couple of things. So first and foremost, I like that you mentioned Cristina about language in Spanish interpretation and things so after walking around and getting to know my constituents and just people around the city some of the feedback that I mentioned when I invited them to attend our council meeting whether it's in person or YouTube They mentioned that they don't really have much of an interest because they don't understand the language that we're using or even just, you know, that they're Spanish speaking.
And so one of the things I would like to see if we can look into in our future agendas is seeing if we can translate our council meetings in Spanish for all of our registered voters and residents who are Spanish-speaking Also be aware of the decisions that are being made here in the city. And so, that's something I would love to see in the future agendas, hopefully sooner than later.
But with that in mind, I am planning a... So for everyone to know, I'm planning a meet-and-greet little town hall here at District 1 coming soon towards the end of February or early March and this is more like a meet-and-greet for everyone within District 1 to know who I am And a little bit more about the city. So yeah, just stay tuned and once I get more details and get the flyer going, I'm gonna share it with everyone on my social media page and just residents there so they can spread the word.
Thank you. Council Member Guernica?
Yeah, so my report's going to be very short. So the meeting that was for the Fillmore-Piru Groundwater Basin has been canceled for Thursday, so it's going to be delayed until next month. And that's pretty much it other than I guess the Christmas caroling that we all did. That was fun. But other than that not much on my end.
Moving onto item number eight consent calendar. Can I have a motion? So moved. We've got a motion. I'll second. Motion and a second, all in favor? Aye. Motion passes unanimously thank you. And moving on to number nine new business 9A approval of a contract with Clifton Larson Allen LLP certified public accountants to provide auditing and financial statements preparations and services Debra
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So good evening Council Members, Mayor Mendez. I'm Debra Cavaletto, Finance Director. Item 9A has staff recommending that the City Council approve the Audit Services Contract to Clifton Larson Allen or CLA, allocate additional appropriations as outlined in the Staff Report and authorize the city manager to execute the contract in a form approved by the City Attorney's Office.
An annual independent audit is conducted to ensure whether the city's financial position Internal controls and compliance with various laws and regulations are in check. Our last audit award was in 2019 where CLA, which is formerly White, Nielsen, I think DeLay, and Evans was selected. As outlined the staff report California Code requires an audit rotation of public accounting firms providing services if the lead partner coordinating partner Our RFP began in October 2025, resulting in four firms being selected.
After a review of an evaluation of 100 point score on the proposals, we then invited all four to participate in remote interviews. The overall evaluation decides selection was based among things cost experience technical knowledge, working with similar agency dynamics and the ability to serve the city's current project requirements. Currently the city is now just nearing completion of significant internal cleanup efforts and outstanding state reporting requirements.
After a proposal evaluation interviews and reference checks with other cities and agencies we concluded that CLA is the best choice to provide services. CLA, among others, has provided quality work with the city. It has extensive experience and knowledge and its ability to work remotely with already established technology and also have the ability to come on site if required. With this election a new team will be performing the audit Therefore, and we have confirmed that this new team has not worked with the city for the six years as code government code And so therefore where it will be in compliance with the government clothing This item meets the City Council's goal in the area of financial management was the intimate presentation and available for questions
Questions
Yes, Deborah. Can you go into a little bit more depth? I know that they weren't the lowest bid can we go into a little bit about discussing why their Proposal was was deemed the best even though they weren't the lowest bid
With them they had again the expert experience that they had for overall experience of the team as well as They have actually are establishing the technology is very important for the remote technology and And then for looking at our needs, our current needs. Because right now as you know we are still, as mentioned that we're still in the process of getting our internal controls established and also updating and we're getting our requirements for state requirements in what do you call it? In real time now. And therefore they fit the best with our needs at this time.
And if you look at overall the time and effort that we take, we have to establish with a new audit firm. The amount of money compared to the time and effort and established it would be basically marginal in cost. And I also did the evaluations to other cities, and thanks for the music. Or is that my walk-off music where you go like, thank you? And also too they did have a good evaluation when I did my reference checks.
So just to follow up on that, so what I'm kind of hearing you say is even though we're going to have new auditors within that firm the fact that we have some continuity within the same larger firm is the value add. Is kind of what I'm hearing. Is that pretty accurate?
Yes without having an issue that could affect our audit.
Thank you.
Any other questions? Thank you Council Member Garnica because I was going to ask the same question. Thank you, so no other questions? So seeing none can I have a motion
please? I'd like to move that we do the following three things first allocate additional appropriations of $6,050 from the water fund operating reserves to account number code number 302-4847-0021 12,600 from the Sewer Fund Operating Reserves to account code 301-4838-0021-211 and 13,625 from the General Fund Operating Reserves to account code 1014208-4847-0021-211 to fiscal year 25-26 adjusted budget.
Second that we approve a contract for a three-year period with an option for an additional two years with Clifton Larson Allen LLP, a CPA firm for audit and financial statement preparation services. And number three authorize the city manager to execute the contract in a form approved by the City Attorney's Office
Thank you. We have a motion do we have a second?
I'll second that
Okay, we have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Okay. Nay? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you Debra. Can we have our music
cue?
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Okay moving on to item 9B discussion of whether to increase the City Council salaries recommendation and recommendations.
Thank you mayor I'll be making the presentation on this one and the city manager will help me if there are questions. I can't answer this item is for the council discuss whether to increase their current salary from $600 a month. And that would be effective January 1st, 2027. So this is a periodic item that comes before the Council as the Council's authorized by statute to have for a population this size up to $950 a month for salary and then that can be increased with COLAs of up to 5% per year You're not allowed to build in annual COLAs, you have to every time adopt an ordinance and the ordinance can only take effect after a new council is sworn in. So in Bill Moore's case there's an election this November, the new council will be sworn in December so then this raise could be effective next January.
The council can set its salary anywhere it wants on the spectrum between zero And the 950 with the COLAs. Some cities do keep them lower, some cities every year increase them to the maximum amount. Fillmore historically has been on the low side. They've been at $300 which was the floor of the old statute but that was about 25 years old that statute although it did have COLAs the council chose not to take them.
The legislature was very specific when it enacted a new law in 2023 effective in 2024 that they thought. Minimums should be increased across the board and by population size So again, it went from 300 to 950 for a city the size of Fillmore And it was because as you all know council members spend an awful lot of time Performing services as council members. And so even though this isn't really like a typical salary It is meant to somewhat provide a stipend for Parking, childcare, elder care. Just your time that you're not with your family or doing what you want because it is such a big undertaking. So it's our annual conversation about whether the council wants to have an increase because you're currently at 600 which is less than two thirds of the floor allowed now for a city this size.
So please discuss, let us know if you have any questions and provide direction. Thank
you. I do have a question. Did you say it's less than two thirds of the floor?
Because the minimum what you can set that you're allowed to set it at 950 plus 5% every year. So in theory we could've said it at 950 in 2024 and then already had a couple of colas.
Okay. Discussions?
Well, I don't know if you sent the information. Erica too. So I'd asked a question about like-sized cities and what they currently pay their city councils. And I don't know did that go out to the rest of the City Council?
Sent it to you and then I compiled all the questions I received from everyone and shared it with the entire council.
So I don't know what you guys thought about that, but it seemed to me like we were...it was pretty fair given the size of the other cities that we were in comparison to. I thought there were several cities that were at 600 so again these are all cities that were less than 35,000 population from what I remember on the chart And I think the low was zero. So, I think there was one that had zero and then there were several that were like two or three hundred and then kind of a grouping at around five to seven hundred and I think there was maybe one that was close to the max. Is that your recollection guys?
Well, I just want to say that just in response to what you were saying John about the numbers you received when asked about those stipend amounts. Am I right Tiffany is that those numbers could be outdated and it was prior to the new law passed by the legislature that you were just talking about?
Right because they were 2024 numbers so that's what they're getting paid at the time And if you could only elect to increase it in 2024, it wouldn't have kicked in until the next election would put them in 2026 probably. Unless some cities like saw that legislation was coming and prophylactically tried to increase theirs but probably right now not many, if any of them had reviewed the new law and responded to that.
So it's possible that those have been increased in the last year and a half or so?
Right. OK, so just want to make sure you understood that John those numbers are probably two years old
or a year old
and low because
based on
the old
formula which had the 300 and then the annual increases. So they were generally lower than you'll find. Yeah
but I think my point still stands that we it seemed to me that based on that comparison data we were right in the middle of the pack We weren't like at the top, we weren't at the bottom. We were right in the middle of the similar sized cities and is that kind of how you guys read it?
0:46 – 0:5211 turns
For at that time I think.
At that time for 2024.
So our increase of 600 was part of the data that we had already done that, when we moved from 300 to 600?
It's a report that we as an agency have to report every year. Unfortunately the data is two years old because the state manages that site so it's a government compensation California reporting site If you look at the data I sent you, Fillmore still had the old stipend which was 300 from 24 because that increase did not go into effect until after in 25. But that was the most recent data, and I specifically made sure to take off any other additional compensation pay because some cities do pay into retirement or health benefits. So I took my time to go into every city that, and the comparison cities that I shared with you are the same comparison cities We utilize for salary increases, so I wanted to keep that consistent. Those are the cities that we use for negotiations with our bargaining units and whenever we're looking at salaries for management and mid-management.
So the data, yes it's from 24 but it does not include any other pay such as statutory benefits of health benefits or retirement which some cities do pay into that. Oh, and one last thing too. There's a couple of cities that have a differentiation between the salary of the mayor and the salary of the council. So some cities pay a bit more to whoever is the mayor. If you're directly elected
mayor? Mm-hmm. A directly elected
mayor.
Okay.
Just wanted to bring that up so that you're aware if you have to go back and look at that.
Erica, I hate to ask this but how difficult would it be to go back and put a column in for example other benefits that Would affect the overall compensation? For example medical benefits or retirement benefits into into that same matrix
I did a little bit of research on that topic because we're going to have the conversation. So, I'll just read to you here from the internet but I think it's pretty truthful. Let me see here. Okay.
Santa Paula City Council, along with just their salary stipend, they have a monthly of around $1,700 as of 2021 for health, dental and vision. In addition, with additional funds for premiums allowing participation in the city offer programs like CalPERS or opting out for cash. Moorpark City Council members receive a monthly stipend reported at 600 a month this is back in 2017 So it may have gone up, along with benefits like health insurance and pension contributions through CalPERS.
Let me see here. Okay, it looked like about $7,200 compensation that was sometime in 2022. Ojai City Council members monthly stipend increased from 760 to 988. That was effective November 2024 election approved by July 2024 city council ordinance. Aligning with the state laws. Okay, so this is interesting. In Port Hueneme they have an hourly rate of $114 per hour for meetings. I just did some little calculation. I figured 20 meetings a year like us more or less three-hour meetings 60 hours about a compensation of about 6840 a year and then if we want to talk about Camarillo Camarillo City Council members. I just went local, I didn't go per size city but I thought let's look at our colleagues that we work with and go to meetings with and have committees with.
They receive a salary, I'm not saying anything about film, I was letting you know what Camarillo is 17,790 as of 2020 with approved 2.5 raises in 2023 to 18,235 plus benefits like health insurance and also I think they have CalPERS. When I just did some Google work, that was just what came up. And so my input to that is saying, you know, speaking as a council member who has seen a raise, I think that the point of the raise from again the state allowing to have these floors and then have additions is And they do it again for every, or it's allowable when new council members come on. I think that's purposeful in that it's helpful to not only us as council members but it's helpful to potential future council members of diverse backgrounds to see that there's some incentive there to get involved in the community and it is a lot of time.
So my input is that was something that we consider To do in Fillmore, and just on the mindset of again not so much as us being more compensated for what we're doing. But on the idea of we want people to feel that they are being part of the community and giving all that time that they're able to get a little something back that helps them and helps their families.
0:52 – 0:5831 turns
I just want to say thank you, Christina for looking into that and really diving into what's current. And thank you so much City Mayor. Just to kind of look at what's been on the 24 to what's going on now and just really exploring everything and really taking some deep thought into it because I do agree with John we also want to be fair and we don't want to overcompensate but at the same time let's think about what their neighbors are doing and so on and so forth. So thank you
everyone. Yeah, and I think that was very interesting because I thought I remembered that the chart had Ojai like at $300 or something. What did the chart have?
I can pull it up
right
now. I think you're right. Hold on just a second.
Because that stuck out. I thought, wow, Ojai's only paying $300? Yeah, $310. Yeah, and what
did you say? It was like
900-and-something? Wow. Per the internet.
Let me see, let me pull up my, where I took this data.
And population in Ohio is 7000. Right.
This is our 17,000 approximately.
Yeah, Ojai, yeah again this is from the internet, Ojai City Council members monthly stipend increased from 760 so you know we can, we could delve, we could see what what the number is but it really is but that's 760 to 988
And I think the other thing that's interesting too is how many of them also offer health benefits, you know, other fringe benefits. I mean, I would be open to that. I know when I was on the school board there was no compensation it was only medical benefits but not that I didn't need them but I thought it was a good way to compensate people if they did need So I would certainly be open to doing something like that, to seeing what it would cost to offer health benefits to the council.
Correct me if I'm wrong on this. Manny, you would remember. But when I was back in 2014 or that era before we were elevated to $300 stipends, we were receiving
$75 75 dollars
and it had not been increased since 1964.
And I looked at the resolution. So prior, I think that was around 2010 when it went to the voters and it was through measure H and so it went to the voter so that the voters could decide whether the council could then move forward If it passed, which it did to set the salary to the minimum of what the state had said at that time. Which was what Tiffany was referring to in her presentation previously. But yes you're correct, it was $75. I just
remember thinking oh this is an extra $75 on my pocket.
Well and that was required because there had been a ballot measure in the 60's freezing it at $75 Well
there were other cities that had it a lot higher at that point in
time Oh sure? Yeah But most cities don't have ballot measures on it, and they just follow what the state law is. But for some reason in Fillmore they decided to cap it at 75, and that's why it was there for so long.
I was happy!
Yeah you can do a ballot measure to increase it which some cities do, and that might be why some of those cities or they could be charter cities where they have the really high numbers that Christina mentioned but most just follow the state
law.
I'm happy with our stipend that we got. We got a stipend last year, and so- A raise, yeah. Yeah, so my opinion, I wouldn't be in favor of this but- Of increasing it? Of increasing the stipend. That's just my opinion.
And my question, if we were to look at benefits with that and would that be a higher maybe possibly a much higher cost city than just giving a couple hundred dollar increase? Yes. All right. Yeah.
Approximately how much do you know?
It's about I mean the premium that we We're talking about close to $3,000 per person roughly. It's just a very rough estimate.
3,000.
And that's just what the city would pay? So in addition to that if you're trying to insure our family then you might have to pay premium in addition add on to the pay of the premium of what the city offsets and this is just a very rough number that I'm giving you just based on what I recall
Yeah, that being said I hear what you were saying John but I would be more in favor. I wouldn't be in favor of going down that road with the city of that higher cost of covering health insurance or dental or even public employees retirement but Again, I gave my reasons why I think an increase especially again as we come into a an election year and again we.
As a city value their time and their commitment to be a part of again, not just the means we're here but all the things that we're reporting on. And again, the things that I think all of us even beyond our committee assignments are doing you know whether it's researching legislation having meetings with the public doing videos takes a lot of time to do these things and sometimes a lot of preparation so that that's how I feel about I think a good increase on a stipend.
0:58 – 1:0341 turns
Right, because a year if
you're looking at the increase
300 so $300 per month is what it would be an increase of $21,000. If you were to 3 600 per month.
Are you talking about the end? You're not talking about the benefits. You're talking about just the stipend itself.
Yeah, so what I was trying to do is in my mind get a good idea of comparison. So
if you were to just set it
to
the max today of the nine. What is it 900 and
it's roughly 300
bucks. Yeah, it's $21,000 because we're offsetting which are already receiving minus the increase that's 21,000
Oh, OK. But I was just doing a one per person comparison. So per person 300 times 12, 3,600 bucks. So per person the cost you said the rough number per person would be about $3,000? For insurance
that would be monthly.
Monthly? Yes. OK. That's good. I'm glad I clarified that. Thank you. That makes a big difference. Yeah, huge difference. Wow. Times five.
Does anybody want to make a motion? Or do you want to discuss further?
Yeah, we could just get direction unless it's controversial and we need a motion.
I'm good with where we are.
Well, sounds like I'll make a motion that may not go anywhere. I'll make a motion to research into an increase of $300. That's my motion.
This is the
second. Just a question, why not a motion to increase it by 300 rather than doing research from 300?
Oh, is that where we want to go? So you're sort of looking for direction to keep looking into it. Is that what you're looking for, Tiffany, potentially?
Or an ordinance.
OK.
The motion could be to prepare an ordinance for $900 a month to bring back and we could try to get updated information for the cities that we gave you the 2024 information to support that. Or if you just want to talk about it more, we can get that information and talk about it more.
Okay, I think I might have support to get some more information to talk about it more and bring it back to council what that would look like. Just really crunching the numbers for an increase. That's my motion.
Do we have consensus?
I just want a clarification on what that more information meant, because I don't want to come back with not all the information. Do you want rates? Do you want benefits? Do you want us to look into pensions? What exactly do you want us to come back with?
Well, my motion wasn't including any of that. It was just looking at a stipend increase.
Just stipend increase?
Yeah. But do
you want the information on what other people are getting to see how much cities are really spending? Yeah,
that would be great to have some new numbers. OK. So
maybe just the fields that you admitted and maybe just add those back into the report, yeah?
So just to clarify, we're talking total compensation? Right. That's what we'll give you.
We'll try to get current... Current
total compensation.
Right and we'll see if they're contemplating increases that would take effect next year.
And are you okay with the comparison cities that we sent you or do you want us to look at those and then in addition the county? The reason why I chose those are because those are our comparison for wages and there are similar sizes to Fillmore
I'm good with that, Erica. I think those cities are sufficient.
Okay. Thank
you. Moving on to item number 10 then City Manager verbal report.
Thank you, Mayor. Tonight I will hand it over to our department heads who will be providing updates so I'm going to start with Assistant City Manager Manuel Menjarez he's gonna be providing an update on our homeless encampment grant resolution and also provide you on what has been happening with turning point case management and some bits that we have been collecting for Clean up down in the river bottom. So Manny passing it on to you
1:03 – 1:106 turns
I can just go off memory here. So there's been a lot that transpired over the last, let's say two months since the last time we brought an item before the board back in November when we signed the agreement with Turning Point to provide the case management services. So during that time they've onboarded both of the case managers And so they've hired one male, one female.
Both are bilingual and both will work out of the Fillmore Medical Clinic that's located off of Highway 126. As we mentioned before, the healthcare agency with the county has been nice enough to provide us with two offices for our case managers and they started the case management services there on January 5th. That was just last Monday So that was really exciting. And that same week we had a meeting here at City Hall with the new case management team, their program manager and actually another one of their staff members that provides case management for folks that have been incarcerated.
And a lot of these individuals are homeless, so that really lines up with the homeless folks that we have down in the encampment. It was also an introductory meeting with the Homeless Liaison Unit. So they got to meet almost the entire HLU unit. I want to thank Chief Lalo for attending and for helping to bring the HLUs together for that meeting. So it was a really good meeting.
We got to talk about preferred methods of communication, the need to have the HLU unit go down with the case management team every time they go down and the HLUTeam was very open to be available just about any time that they're in need of going down and visiting the site So that was really great. In addition to that, you know we've also arranged for two small encampment cleanups in the month of December.
We had two roll-off containers taken down to the site and filled up completely so we got that done and during that time we've also obtained three bids for a larger encampment cleanup And right now we're currently working with the property owner where we have the majority of the encampments located on to get a right-of-entry agreement, to make sure we do it the right way. And hopefully we can get that done within the next 30 days and do a larger cleanup down there.
And meanwhile having the case managers introduce themselves getting to know the clients and I'd say it would be good maybe to provide a quarterly update if that's what the council is okay with? To let you know kind of the progress and to see, give you an update on just how many if we're able to move any out during that time period. And get you some figures on what that's looking like in our progress out there.
Any questions?
One of the things I'd like to see is, I know we have a grant for approximately $1.5 million. I'd like to see when we can progress on the pay down of that or what How that looks going forward. Because I know obviously you may not be spending it all at once, you know? I'd just like to see the financial side of that as well but that's great. I really appreciate the report you gave. Thank you.
Yes, thank you Manny for the report. And maybe Chief Girola could speak to this too but it was about the Arundo. Could you give us an update? I know sort of that area where we have our homeless encampment on that property there's also the tall Arundo and there was earlier efforts to maybe see about removal of that or cutting back of that just as wondering if that's anywhere in there.
Chief Girola why don't you just give us an update
Since this isn't on the agenda it can just be like a brief update if we think there might be any council action.
Sure, so we did receive a grant through CAL FIRE that's being managed by the local Fire Safe Council. That grant is divvied up into three different areas of the city The first part of the city that was identified by CAL FIRE as the highest priority is to the north. That work took place this last spring, we cleaned approximately 20 acres of a 55 acre footprint The next area identified is the area there along the Santa Clara River.
The Arundo is part of that area that you're talking about, kind of the area known as Sunken Village. Heavy concentrations of Arundo. The majority of that property is within the county of Ventura and not in the Fillmore City limits but it's a joint grant so the work that will be done in that area no boundaries will impact the work to be done It'll take place in both city and county area.
The area was hoped to have been cleared before October of this year, but there was an issue with the Army Corps of Engineers not being able to identify soon enough what high flood level was. So all the work to be done is above flood stage where we don't have to worry about getting permits for all endangered species, animals that are down there and so forth. So the area that's identified for the work has already been identified. We just are trying to coordinate with Army Corps of Engineers to identify the exact boundaries but pretty much everything that's around Sunken Village has been identified Are there any other questions?
1:10 – 1:176 turns
Thank you, Manny.
Thank you.
Then I would like to bring forward Joe Belomo, our Public Works Director. He has some updates regarding our park closures, well 10 and also potholes.
Good evening. So potholes, the trailer was delivered last month. We kind of got backed up by various items storms being the major item several leaks water leaks that took up staff time and then staff vacations so it wasn't a good month in December to get going on potholes not to mention the actual storms themselves would have made it difficult We're cleared now some of the assignments and we're going to be dedicating two to three staffs to go out with a pothole trailer starting next week.
To start filling those about 100 potholes, priority potholes that were tracking. We're aware the storms had created new potholes and caused some to get worse. So we're gonna, the plan is to run the crew in the trailer until it feels like we were on top of the priority potholes and then we'll go into a maintenance mode where we going out maybe once a month and looking for some new ones Park closures started last week. We're focused on Shields and Dolores Stay Park. It may have felt like we were, we closed the parks longer than just last week that was primarily because of the storms. The parks especially shields is still very saturated you know it's been kind of cool temps but we coming up in temp so we expect those to be drying out pretty soon And as part of the work that we had planned, that's now going to be pushed back since the fields are still too wet is having the trees trimmed at both parks.
We need to because of the trucks and the weight it's gonna put on that grass, we need to firm them up a little bit. So we're waiting for this warm weather to kind of give us a little bit of solid ground just to cut on. At both parks, Shields and Dolores Day Park, we are removing and replacing the rubber and wood chip mix that's made its way in there. And replacing that with playground-approved wood chips. At Shields, we're beginning our restroom renovations. We're pressure washing the old paint off the flooring.
Currently, we're looking at options on resurfacing but it may just end up being bare concrete, cleaned bare concrete until we do our major renovation several years away. In addition to that, we're treating and sealing the rust around the sill line and ordering new partitions. The new partitions will unfortunately not be installed until probably March. We did our seasonal walkthrough with the softball youth organization and identified a few fixes that we'll be doing prior to the start of their season.
Both parks are anticipated to be reopened February 1st. Well, today I'm happy to report that we received two of our key permits from Ventura County. So the contractor and contract management staff was very excited to see those permits coming in. In anticipation of the permits and the progress that they've made on several of the submittals that they're required to submit, We are, we had authorized the contractor to mobilize starting today.
Today they installed temporary fence and tomorrow we'll start seeing some of the heavy load mats being installed. This is me going over protecting some of the assets we there have at the park such as the walkway and some water lines and whatnot. And then some of the remaining or some of the heavy equipment will be falling in the remainder of the week. We I anticipate issuing a notice proceed to start on Tuesday, June 20th.
The contractor hopes to install the conductor pipe and prepare the site for
the sound wall panel
installation. The first 24 hours per day drilling will occur on, is currently scheduled for January 27th through the 30th followed by a zone depth sampling and pumping. The second and final 24-hour per day drilling is scheduled for March 4th and 7th. I don't know if you recall, but we were anticipating a week long to one week long drilling Over the weekends, including Sundays. If everything goes well we will not be doing that. We're gonna be staying within the week likely Tuesday through Friday and then they'll be packing it up for the weekend If issues are found or if the borehole looks like the integrity is not going to maintain itself, then that may change. But we're all very hopeful that we can stick to this schedule.
So the second scheduled 24-7 Drilling is going to be March 4th through 7th. The contractor is scheduled to be done with the installation of well 10 and the deconstruction of well 5 by the end of April. This puts the schedule, the overall schedule about two months behind. I'm working with the design team and the construction management team to make up this delay through the implementation of phase B and C so I'm very hopeful that will occur.
That concludes my updates on these three items. I'd be happy to answer any questions All right you're welcome
1:17 – 1:184 turns
Those were all the updates we have, so thank you.
Council will now move to closed session. We have several items on the closed session agenda.
Let's see, we have four items in closed session. Two are for the city to consider whether to initiate litigation. One relates to ongoing litigation and the City of Fillmore versus Cooper. And the final item is a personnel performance evaluation for the position of city manager. Thank you.
Thank you. Councilman, I'll move into closed session.
2:48 – 2:482 turns
I'm just putting it on.
Council is resuming session and council met in closed session on four items. Council asked questions, no reportable action. And we will adjourn this meeting until our next regular scheduled meeting on January 27th 2026.