City Council — April 14, 2026

I call the Tuesday, April 14th City Council meeting to

Thank you

So moved

I got a motion can I get a second?

I'll second.

Okay motion second all in favor aye Okay, motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Moving on to number five, presentations. We have item 5A, proclaiming April as National Fair Housing Month, April 2026. Whereas the Fair Housing Act enacted on April 11th, 1968 enshrined into federal law as the goal of eliminating racial segregation and ending housing discrimination in the United States.

Whereas the Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in housing based on race, color, religion, sex, familial status, national origin and disability. And commits recipients of federal funding to affirmatively further fair housing in their communities. And whereas the Ventura County Coastal Association of Realtors and the Real Estate Fraud Advisory Team, REFAT are committed to highlighting The Fair Housing Act by continuing to address discrimination in our community and by supporting programs that will educate the public about the right to equal housing opportunities and continuing partnership efforts with other organizations to help assure Every one of their rights is to fair housing. And whereas the city of Fillmore is committed to the mission and intent of Congress to provide fair and equal housing opportunities, and whereas our social fabric, the economy of health environment are strengthened in diverse inclusive communities, and whereas more than 50 years after the passage of Fair Housing Act discrimination persists and many communities remain segregated, and whereas acts of housing discrimination and barriers to equal housing opportunity Repugnant to a common sense of decency and fairness, and whereas the National Association of Realtors' Code of Ethic commits all realtors to providing equal professional services without discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, familial status, handicap, sexual orientation, gender identity or national origin.

Now therefore, I Albert Mendez, Mayor of the City of Fillmore do hereby resolve that April 2026 being Fair Housing Month begins a long commemoration of the Fair Housing Act in Fillmore and urge all citizens to wholeheartedly recognize this celebration throughout the year.

I'm going to take a quick picture.

Good evening Mayor, members of the Council and staff. My name is Brandi Langning with Homegrown Realty right here in Fillmore. On behalf of the Ventura County Coastal Association of Realtors I want to sincerely thank you for this proclamation recognizing April as Fair Housing Month. Fair housing is not just a legal requirement it's a commitment to ensuring that every member of our community has equal access to housing opportunities It reflects our shared values of fairness, dignity and inclusion.

Realtors take this responsibility seriously through ongoing education advocacy and daily practice we work to uphold the principles of the Fair Housing Act and to promote equal opportunity in every transaction. We appreciate the City of Fillmore's leadership in recognizing the importance of fair housing, and in supporting efforts that help build a more inclusive and equitable community. We would also like to invite each of you, your staff, and the community at large, to our second annual Fair Housing Forum which will be hosted in partnership with the city of Ventura next Wednesday at the Museum of Ventura County.

We'll be discussing current issues, best practices and ways we can continue working together to expand access and opportunity. Lunch will be provided and we'd love to have you be a part of the conversation. Register at vcrealtors.com or cityofventura.gov Thank you again for this honor and for your partnership in advancing fair housing for all

Okay, moving on to item 5B. Proclaiming April as Autism Awareness Month, April 2026. Whereas Autism Spectrum Disorder, ASD is a developmental condition that affects communication, behavior and social interaction impacting individuals and families across our community. And whereas increasing awareness and understanding of autism is essential to promote acceptance inclusion and support for those living with ASD. And whereas individuals without autism contribute unique talents, perspectives and abilities that enrich the fabric of our community. And whereas early diagnosis intervention education and community support services plays critical role in helping individuals with autism achieve their fullest potential. And whereas it is important to foster a community that embraces diversity promotes equity and ensures that all individuals are treated with dignity and respect.

Now therefore, I Albert Mendez the mayor of the City of Fillmore do hereby proclaim that the month of April as Autism Awareness Month in the city of Fillmore encourage all residents to participate in activities and initiatives that raise awareness promote understanding and support individuals and families affected by autism. I'd like to welcome Nancy Rodriguez to the podium please

Good evening everyone. There is a big group that came out to represent today, right? So I just have a little something that I would like to read and it just says thank you Mayor Mendez and members of the City Council this proclamation means so much to the families present here today those watching from home and those who could not be with us this evening In the United States, one in 31 children is diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. According to the Mayo Clinic, autism is a lifelong neurological and developmental condition that affects how individuals interact, communicate, learn and behave. Because it is a spectrum no two individuals are the same and the well-known quote reminds us if you've met one person with autism you've met one person with autism Tonight on behalf of the autism community, I would like to express our deepest gratitude to everyone who has helped us build adaptive programs that foster a more inclusive community for our children and families here in Fillmore.

This includes ASO Region 242 Estrella Market, Fillmore City Fire Department, Fillmore Town Theater, Fillmore Unified School District, City of Fillmore Life I would like to recognize the members of the Point Church, One Step a la Vez, Pierce's Kempo Karate and the countless sponsors and volunteers who continue to support our efforts. Your commitment, compassion and partnership have made a meaningful difference in the lives of our families. Together we are creating a community where every child is seen, supported and celebrated. Thank you.

Moving on to item number six, public comments.

and it was pulled so that we can add it to the future, the next month's VCTC meeting having to do with the bike trail. And I don't know how many people have been following this but the Southern Pacific and VCTC are...and it's been in the works for literally years now but they're going through the review process to see how feasible this is. Using putting the bike path walking paths along the railroad tracks from Ventura or from Santa Coy all the way to Piru So as you can imagine that would be just a tremendous bike ride but I wanted specifically to raise this issue here in the city of Fillmore because there's been some Concerns by a lot of our ag people that live in the area and I wanted to make sure that anybody who It's hearing this now or here in the room or watching from TV that if you have, you want more information or if you're opposed to this and there are some issues that the ag community has been bringing up then please attend the next VCTC meeting which is on the I'm going to say the third Thursday.

I'm sorry third Friday of the month And so that'll be coming up at our next, at the end of March. I'm sorry, the end of April? Where are we now? Yeah, the end of April. So anyway, keep that in mind. And then lastly I just wanted to share that I do have my porch talk scheduled for tomorrow evening and again this is just open to all community members who want to come and discuss anything Fillmore related.

It's always the second and fourth Wednesday of the month and it's held at my home so reach out to me if you need information on where I live we'd love to have you join us thank you

Thank you for that. Council Member Villaseñor?

Yes, thank you. Just a couple of quick updates. I did attend the Ventura Regional Sanitation District meeting and we had excellent news from our new General Manager Eric Zetz regarding toll and landfill. There has been... We have a new superintendent and so there has been quite a bit of work done to to really analyze how to make the best use of basically the airspace that we have over Tull Landfill, to be able to compact and to ensure that we're getting as much life out of the landfill as we can. So at this last meeting was the first time that the Board of Directors heard And we can share publicly that that number, I think I've given to you before though. That year of when we see it filling up this last cell was in the 2030s, high 2030s. It's now at 2040 given if we're able and I believe we will be able to implement a lot of different tools to make the most use out of that space.

And so I think it's really great and we'll get We'll be able to hear from someone much more knowledgeable. Mr. Zetz is actually going to be coming to our city council, I believe April 28th so with the next meeting and doing a really great presentation about the landfill. So I encourage everyone to listen in and learn about what's happening at the landfill and how we're really utilizing the space that we have, how we're looking at potential expansion. So Mr. Zetz is gonna do a really great presentation.

So that's my update, sorry, on Ventura Regional Sanitation District. My other update is I was able to attend a meeting here at the Human Services Building for the county last week. It's called Circle of Care. It's actually a meeting that's sponsored and organized by One Step A La Vez, our local youth nonprofit And it is a bringing together of social service providers serving Fillmore and Piru, and really over the Santa Clara Valley. But we had a special guest at this meeting. It was Dr. Finkhauser. Dr. Finkauser is the new director of the whole Ventura County Healthcare Agency. So he oversees... He was previously overseeing Ventura County Medical Center, the hospital system along with the Satellite Santa Paula Hospital now.

The entire system of health care of our public agency. So he gave a great presentation, really excellent about where the Santa Paula Hospital stands different statistics going on and also As we as I would continue to keep you updated on what will be the eventual closure of Santa Paula Hospital, very likely in the early years of 2030 to 2033. What's happening now to look for additional space, look for what will be here in our Santa Clara Valley once that hospital up on the hill closes.

There is potential as I've talked about in the past about the space of building either a new hospital or a new emergency room, urgent care, surgery center. The ideas are still out there so One update is that the Ventura County Health Care Agency, so Dr. Finkhauser's agency will be presenting back to our county board of supervisors I believe in the next month or two. I want to say May. I'm sorry I don't have that date on me and the board asked about four months ago asked of the agency To really do a good health care needs assessment of the Santa Clara Valley.

And be able for the board then to synthesize this data and see what steps do we start making now, really start making now to ensure that we still have critical healthcare system and really critical emergency department here in the Santa Clara Valley? And what will that look like? He did give one I did a statistic about the emergency room at Santa Paula Hospital that there are 50 visits a day, more or less.

I calculated that to be about 350 a week, 1400 a month and upwards of maybe 16-17 thousand visits to Santa Paula ER a year. You know, that's just an estimate given on that number. So we use the emergency room and I think what the feedback was from the circle of care participants these are social service providers who have a lot of clients who might be pretty frequent users of the public hospital system is that we need to keep our community engaged, our whole community engaged about what is happening. And I provided feedback to the group saying the ideal situation would be when the closure of Santa Paula Hospital happens that there's a ceremony, there's people there, we acknowledge how great it was but it is such a smooth transition because For a while already there has been other systems in place and the community has known to access whatever these replacement systems are, right?

So that's the ideal. That it's something that happens but already ahead of time people are utilizing other health care So that really means that the clock is ticking. So I'm going to continue to keep everyone updated on this because, again, this is critical to our community that we have these services. That's my update on that meeting.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Moving onto item number eight, consent calendar. Can we have a motion on the consent calendar please? I got a motion. I'll second. Motion is second, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes thank you moving on to number nine new business 9A public hearing ordinance number 26-994 granting a non-exclusive franchise to Crimson California Pipeline LP

Mayor and Council, I'm giving the very brief presentation on this. Once again this item is not completely finished although I think after today we just have one item left that we'll be talking about tomorrow so it should be ready by the next meeting. So if you could please take any public comments open the public hearing and then entertain a vote to continue it to the next City Council meeting that would be great thank you

Then we'll open the public hearing on item number 98. And if there's anybody in the audience or that would like to speak on this item, please do so now.

We need a vote of the council, please. Yeah. The motion and a

vote.

I'd like to make a motion to continue This item until the next public until the next meeting.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of the Council.

So we are recommending that the City Council authorize the city manager to execute an agreement with Locality Media, DBA First Due and the City of Fillmore in the approved format by the city attorney. So this started out about a year and a half ago. I was working with Jackie, and I created an electronic time card system for the reserve firefighters to alleviate some stress on the fire chief and on her because that's 50 time cards that they do once a month because the reserves get paid monthly. So it was just a lot of work for both of them.

So I did that through Cognito And then Jackie was like, well can we do this or find a system to do that for the whole city? I started looking. We found a system, and First U is an all-inclusive system. It's open AI so it interfaces with a lot of other systems that we currently use. And in addition to the whole city being provided electronic time card system, I'm going to kind of highlight the main components. It is mainly designed for fire department use but they did give us pricing To incorporate it so the whole city would be digitized and we'd get away from the paper time cards and have to worry about reading people's handwriting and stuff like that.

So again, starting off. So the main things it does like I said is scheduling and personnel management with the digital timecard system. It also for the fire side will provide us with a fire inspection documentation that we can do in person on an iPad and generate a report right then and there And then email it to the business owner or a resident, whatever it is.

With that we can also do fire investigation tracking. We're going to transition our fire training to this system. So right now like on the fireside, we have like seven different systems. This will combine all of those into this one system. So then again, like I said, our asset management, it'll allow us to be DEA compliant with our narcotics and then for the whole city At the end, I have a snippet on what Community Connect is and that is for the community. So that allows the fire department to be involved with the community and I'll kind of get into that here.

So like I said, the scheduling it'll digitize everything. So it'll make everybody have digital time cards they can access from an app on their phone. They can put in vacation and sick time requests that then get directly routed to their supervisors so it's no more paper forms that you have to turn into your supervisor and then they have to sign it and then hopefully doesn't get lost and stuff like that.

Again, we have the employee hub, the time clock, the time cards and then it's just one window for each supervisor. They can approve all the time cards right then and there. The personnel management, like I said it will also track vacation hours so it won't allow anybody to put in a vacation request if they don't have the time. And then it separates... They're going to build it so that it'll be separate for each department. So like the supervisors for the fire department, like Fire Chief won't be able to see every other department only the department heads will be able to see that and then with the fire side we could still do our scheduling of our reserves and all that stuff within the system And then the trades is more so for the fire side.

We can do a trade board and then it would track our trades, or rather again than the paper trade tracker where it's like wait did you trade me and that kind of thing right? So shift management again this is all fire related stuff but we have our different rigs on there. Again it's mainly designed for fire department use but they were more than happy to give us a price to build it for the whole city With the fire prevention, like I said we have inspection records pre-plans. There's also a way to do invoicing and permitting within the system so like I said it's an all just like quick while you're walking through anybody in the fire department would have their app they'd be able to walk through business or resident and select what kind of inspection it is.

It would have the fire code built into it so if If there is an issue that failed, it would actually reference the fire code section and provide that in a PDF for the owner or the resident. With the pre-plan module on the fire side, on our computers and the rigs we have the ability to create a pre-plan. So like our target hazards so like schools we can put information for all fire departments to use in the county and then it'll just help us get to know our city better in an emergency. We can have business owner contact information all stuff like that and that kind of transitions to community connect which I'll get to in a minute Um, The arson fire investigation for the arson investigators like myself, this is compliant with legal forms and being compliant to go to court.

They haven't had any issues but it's all built in kind of a police type thing where we have a secure way to document rather than currently we have a word process that we use as secure OneDrive folder that's only shared internally But this would, again, just kind of streamline and incorporate everything. And these are the different tabs within the fire investigation module. You can add different people that were there. You can draw a scene diagram, stuff like that, evidence tags, stuff like that. Like I said, it's compliant with the tracking that we're required to do for State and for NFPA. With the training module, so they have an online training platform we currently use APS which we had some minor issues that we worked out but again it would just incorporate everything into one system and it would allow us to create digital taskbooks Instead of, we're still using paper task books to track engineer promotions and our new recruit firefighters.

It would also allow us to track expiring certifications like paramedic license, EMT license, stuff like that. People forget to renew their CPR card or something like that. So it'd be all-inclusive. It will send them a reminder, hey your cert is expiring in 90 days or whatever we set it up to. And then an online library of courses we're required to do continuing education. So they have a pre-built course library and then we can also create our own courses that are department specific, and then we can also track that training data reported to the state and yeah stuff like that with the asset tracking And medications, like I said we have to be DEA compliant. We carry controlled substances but then with that we currently use Cognito for apparatus tracking this would kind of streamline our vehicle checks and then it would create like a readily available like these are what the issues that have been reported are so when we take our vehicles to fleet to get repaired There's just a list already ready for him.

It's not going back into Cognito and having to print out a list of, and then worrying about missing things We can also track work orders and invoicing within that as well And then the rig checks also Like I said with the DEA compliance, it'll allow us to track expiration dates and then It's compatible with DEA. So we have to report to DEA With our medical directors medic DEA license for the controlled substances So this is compliant with that, and then only the paramedics that would need access would have access.

And then we can transfer and sign and record the narcotics and everything within the system. Lastly, my favorite part, Community Connect. So it's a community outreach tool that allows the community to be a part of requesting and providing information to make our lives easier in case of emergency. It's a website that's created specifically for our city. We can specify what we would like information wise to be provided, but some examples this is like everything's provided but the resident could provide their information like contact information how many people live there if anybody has disabilities Any like utility information if they have like solar panels, if they have a sprinkler system. They can also request like smoke detectors or fire inspection.

Like I said, if there's any members with disabilities and then this would like I had mentioned at the beginning it would directly populate into our Pre plan and mapping system. So if somebody did this like in the middle of the night It would be available if we got a call to that address within the morning, so it's a really cool system This also is available for business owners as well So they could put how many employees work there. They can put after hour contact information, stuff like that. Like I said the fire systems if they have any hazardous material we can also use it as an automated notification system so if there is a emergency or something we need to send out a mass notification Anybody who is enrolled in Community Connect, we then be able to do like a reverse notification and we can send out hey there's an automatic fire alarm either at the address of The person like so that maybe they don't know they're not home And then they also there's a system in here.

We could do like alive video fire inspection So that's cool the future right? I This is kind of like I said, so they'd make us a website directly for our city. They provide media we could use on social media and stuff like that. That's kind of a snippet of the system. There's a lot of features. Like I said it's mainly for the fire department Like I said, it will directly interface with our MDC in the rigs. But the big part is that it really is inclusive for the whole city and allow everybody to have the digital timecard system.

So the fiscal impact... The first year because of the fiscal years July they did a prorated initial contract of 16 months Which was $45,299 how that's divided. There's a one-time implementation fee which they would charge upon signing the contract and that would be due Now and the remainder Would be delayed until the fiscal year the next fiscal year in July so Within that, the Fillmore Fire Foundation is going to absorb the cost in perpetuity every year of the online training module. So for the 16-month first contract, that's $4,588.50. And then once it goes to a 12-month annual, it would be $34.50 and the fire foundation will pay for that every year.

After the first contract, the 12-month annual fee they do have in there. There's a potential increase but just based off what they had provided initially is $30,300 annually after the first 16 month contract. The goals this aligns with is to improve public infrastructure Enhanced public community outreach and communication. Again, my favorite part is Community Connect. That would be a great asset to our city.

And then future goals, emergency preparedness, public safety. So thank you!

And I just want to thank Austin for the time that he spent. He actually looked at other softwares, and so he did present to management a detailed comparison, and then we landed with first two. So just wanted you to be aware of that. The other softwares were looked at as well.

Thank you, Austin.

And I'm here for any questions if you

have them. Questions? Discussion? Council Member Villasenor?

No questions, but just a comment. Thank you for your research. Thank you for finding this. I love that it has a benefit beyond the fire department to help out with our human resources and the Community Connect, especially folks with disabilities, folks who live alone would have hard time Vacating their homes in the need during evacuation. I know I was talking to Chief a few years ago when we did a whole meeting around with disability advocates and that was an issue that came up, how do we know? And I know the county OES has lists but just to have something local is great so great work thank you.

Council Member Rodriguez.

More of a comment, amazing presentation I'm happy to hear that you took the initiative to look into various platforms so we can streamline a lot of different things and the community connection it's amazing. It sounds like it's all in one as you were going through the whole presentation so great work on presenting it and thank you.

Thank you.

Great presentation. My first question is what software program was that? That wasn't that you did the program on. Yeah, what did you use for your presentation?

PowerPoint.

Wow. It's changed anyway. Yeah. With regard to the information that we're hoping to get the community to provide as council member I was saying earlier about those with handicaps and whatnot. What's the process on obtaining that information and getting people to sign up and provide their information?

So it's really going to be like I said, they'll provide us media that we can mail out. We can put on social media. They have all kinds of stuff we could do like PSAs. It's really just going to be kind of a word-of-mouth thing because once they create the system that website is live and anybody can go in and enter their address and it will tell them whether or not they actually live in the city limits. If somebody in Bardsdale wants to sign up It won't let them unfortunately because they're not within the city limits, but it's really going to be a word of mouth and like social media kind of campaign for that.

Okay, great. If we can help out in any way on that campaign then I'm more than willing to knock on doors or pass out flyers or something because I think it's really important. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Councilmember?

Yes, Austin again like everyone else has said a great job finding the software. I have a question regarding the privacy so if our constituents put information into the system Are there safeguards for the privacy of that information? Because obviously, for a lot of people if their medical conditions are floating out there, you know, that's going to be a concern for people.

Can you talk a little bit about any safeguards that might be up for the software?

So, like I said we can put what we would like but no they don't have to put anything that they don't want to put in the community connect system so it's completely voluntary. It's not going to ask medical conditions or anything like that. And then their software is all encrypted and internally with the system, like the whole city would be users for like our City of Fillmore First You account. But only people that we designate would have access to like the community connect system and then it would be available like on our computers In like the event of emergency, but their stuff is very encrypted as far as like the specifics. I'd be more than happy to reach out to our first two team they've been great to work with and I can get you more specifics on like the security of the first year system.

But yeah, as far as the demo we got for community connect They don't have to put any information they don't want. So if they don't want to provide an email or phone number, they just want to put their name there. They're more than welcome to just provide that. Or if they have any pets there stuff like

that. No, that would be great. Thank you Austin.

Awesome and great presentation. I think it's a great tool for our city and especially our first responders. And I also had that same question as Council Member Garnica, but a little bit further I was like in case of say couple years down the road we depart from this system who owns the data? I asked that question, but it wasn't answered.

The contract is always written in a way where the city will own the data and so most softwares nowadays have a way of us importing and also exporting the data. So we would export the data and then do a data dump wherever we would at that point.

Thank you. Then I also had another question about hitting cost training support upgrades stuff like

So the that's all included. The training for like the staff, for like myself and Jackie for the scheduling modules, that's all in the one time implementation fee if you would like I'd be more than happy to provide you with a contract it has all the breakdown of all the individual fees. That's just like a combined total but like each module has its own cost so I'd be more than happy The training costs and all that's included in the one-time implementation.

Great, thank you so much. Okay any other questions? Seeing none can I entertain a motion please?

Okay, I'll move that the City Council authorize the city manager to execute an agreement with Locality Media LLC DBA First Due and the City of Fillmore to approve the format by the city attorney.

I'll second the motion. All in favor?

Aye. Any opposed?

Okay, motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you, Austin.

Good evening Councilmembers, Mayor Mendez. I'm Debra Cavaletto, Finance Director. Item 9C has staff recommend the City Council adopt resolution number 26-4106 declaring its intention to levy the annual assessment, approve the preliminary annual report for fiscal year 2026-27 and set a public hearing date for May 12th, 2026 To receive public comments on the proposed assessments.

As stated in the staff report, the city has seven storm drain maintenance districts. The annual assessment pays for the maintenance and operation costs related to the storm drain facilities and storm water pollution treatment systems available, utilized or associated with the properties within the district The annual expenditures budget for East District ensures the operation integrity of the storm drain system, a stormwater pollution treatment system and other related facilities.

And represents each district's proportional cost on a larger integrated storm drain and storm water pollution treatment system such as retention basins Biofilter areas and catch basins. The annual assessments include the maintenance and servicing of the Santa Clara River levee adjacent to the district properties. The assessment calculation includes an annual inflationary adjustment formula that the maximum assessment may increase over the previous year by 3% or the annual percentage increase, that is in the consumer price index whichever's greater without being considered an increase in the assessment. The CPI annual percentage for January of the current versus prior year is 3.02%, and therefore, the prior year's maximum rate will then be adjusted by that percentage.