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Moving on to number three, roll call.
Roll call — called by Unidentified speaker 2
Show transcript
Thank you. And before moving on to number four, I would like to discuss adding an urgency item into the agenda as new item before Item 98, New Business. This proposed new item involves the consideration of a resolution authorizing the City to apply for an Economic Development Grant Government Code Section 54954-2B Two, a portion of the Brown Act allows discussion and action on an item not appearing on the posted agenda where prior to discussing the item. The item is identified in the City Council determines by two-thirds vote of members present that one there is a need to take immediate action and two the need for action came to the attention of the city after the agenda was posted.
Thank you, Mayor. So the agenda for tonight's meeting was posted on June 4th and then on June 8th the city learned of this grant opportunity that requires the city to submit a resolution authorizing the city to apply for the grant no later than June 30th of this month however the June 9th as you're aware is the only regular meeting that we have scheduled and that's why we're requesting you to consider this tonight
Thank you. The agenda for tonight's meeting was posted on to move forward with this item and majority of the city council must first determine if there is a need to take immediate action on this item, and that the need for such action came to light after the agenda for tonight's meeting was posted at this time I will now entertain a motion. If approved this item to the agenda, I will make ask staff to present it as Item 98.
Okay, we got a motion and second?
I'll second.
Okay, we've got a motion and a second all in favor? Aye. Motion passes unanimously thank you.
Agenda Discussionitems moved / continued / pulled — click to expand
So now moving on to number four approval of the agenda as amended. Okay we have a motion and a second?
I'll
second. A motion and a second all in favor? Aye Thank You. Motion passes unanimously thank you Moving on to the number five presentations. 5A, first five Ventura County.
Okay well thank you good evening Mayor and council members and staff and thank you for the opportunity for me to present here tonight. Is my mic okay? Okay, my name is Sharon Elmestarp. I am the Director of Early Childhood Programs with First 5 Ventura County and I'm here to give you a brief overview of First 5 Ventura County and more importantly highlight the services and partnerships that we have here supporting families and young children in Fillmore.
Just make sure I can do this... So just to start off, First 5 Ventura County was created by Proposition 10 which established county commissions throughout the state. So every single county in California has a first up of county commission for more than 25 years we have invested in programs and services that support families and young children in the community making sure that children enter school safe ready to learn And since our inception specifically in Ventura County, we've invested over $223 million on programs to support families all at no cost to those families.
I think this maybe goes without saying, but the reason that we are called First Five is because we know that the first five years are one of the most critical times of development in a child's life. That 90% of brain development happens in the first five years of life and that we have research to show that if we can impact families and children during this part of their lives, they will impact their long-term outcomes both in their schooling as well as their academic readiness as they move into college and into careers as well.
So just as briefly, if you think about First 5 Ventura County there are three main areas that we focus on. So one of those areas is investing in programs and services which is actually what I'm gonna talk to you about today specifically. Those are the programs that I oversee. We also advocate for policies and practices so we have kind of a department that will look at advocating both locally as well as at the state level. And then finally we convene. So we work really close with other partners in the community whenever were them to be the voice for families of young children.
So the focus of tonight is going to be on what we call our Cornerstone Investments. These are our direct service programs and some of you may have heard of them, so the first is our Neighborhoods for Learning. We affectionately call it the NFL not to be confused with the other NFL. We also have Welcome Every Baby or WEB and then we have Help Me Grow. And so I'm going to just talk briefly about first five in Fillmore.
So this slide kind of highlights what is happening here locally. Again, we do a lot of partnerships, so most of our sites are in partnership with like say a school district or with the cities themselves have a space and so here in Fillmore our Neighborhoods for Learning, our NFL Resource Center is at Sespe Elementary. So we are partnering with the Fillmore Unified School District. And at this site, we offer parent and child together classes. We call those PAC classes for families with children zero to five. We also offer developmental screenings, family support services.
referrals to other community resources. Um, and part of the goal for our neighborhoods for learning kind of as the name implies is that we are bringing services to a family in a place that they already feel comfortable like their community, their neighborhood with people that they know We are also another part of the county, so we have 10 locations across Ventura County right now.
At CESB, in addition to those PAC classes, we also do lots of play groups, story time, STEAM activities, parenting support. And again, we're available when families might have challenges that arise. So if they need something that they didn't realize they needed before then we are there to help connect them to other services. Our partnerships are super critical because we recognize that we also can't do the work alone.
Just briefly, if you're familiar with developmental screenings we do provide screenings for our families. It's an important part of our work to identify concerns early so we provide developmental screenings those are called like the ASQ-3 and ASQ SC2 that stands for the ages and stages. We do a social needs questionnaire so it's kind of like the Social Determinants of Health and find support for that and then for our new moms we do a maternal depression screening to see if they need any support in that area as well One of our most popular services are our PAC classes, and these are 14-week long classes that happen twice a week. All of our programming including our PAC classes are bilingual English and Spanish so all of our teachers would make sure that there is an English and Spanish speaker in the room Families participate with their children, so we have learning activities designed to support the early learning and development.
But it's very much focused on child development and teaching parents and educating them about kind of what's happening in that child's developmental stage, supporting them as they transition to other programs. In particular through our partnership with Fillmore Unified, we are looking to help families connect to whether it's preschool or TK or kindergarten And a lot of our programming even for infants mimics those early years. So we'll have a circle time, we transition, we practice moving from one thing to another. We practice sharing all the fun things that kids need to learn in order to be successful in school.
And just briefly, we also make sure that our programs actually have the impact that we want them to have. So these are just some of our outcomes when we ask families they consistently report that they feel more confident in supporting their child's development. They feel more connected to other families so it's kind of like an outcome that we don't necessarily, you know, we're not a social service but families tend to connect with one another and find parents with children similar ages And parents feel also that they have stronger relationships with their children at the end of our programs, and that is exactly what we hope to achieve.
And then specifically we have special events, so this is actually some photos from a recent event we held here at CESB at our Fillmore site. It was in collaboration with First 5 California, a program called Stronger Starts which is looking to impact toxic stress in young children and supporting families in identifying ways to support that and help children be more resilient. So we hauled it, we bloomed together. Kids got to make you'll see in the center there that Cutie Pie is making a flower pot and she got to decorate it and take the sunflower home and grow it.
And we had a lot of resources for parents as well. And then through that actually there was a partner there and then we ended up participating in the Fillmore Health & Wellness Fair so we always find ways to connect in lots of different places if we show up we are connecting with people I'm briefly going to move into Help Me Grow. This is our centralized access point, so our neighborhoods for learning are here. The actual physical site, Help Me Grow, is our telephonic and web-based service for families who may have concerns about their child's development or may have questions about their child's development. So for families, we have a centralized access point where anyone can call and say hey I have some questions about my child. And we'll either answer them give them some tips and resources for parent education or actually do a screening and then make referrals if needed and if appropriate and if the parent is interested or the caregiver We also provide support for providers.
So we do a lot of training with physicians, so pediatricians and family care physicians as well as our early childhood educators since they're the ones that often see our little ones when they're not at home. And so we kind of provide The information and then the resources, and we do what's called a closed loop referral. So we handhold that family through the system until they're ready to kind of move on. So we're really proud of not just handing them a phone number to call because we all know how easy it is to make phone calls and get things connected to services so we make sure that they are fully connected.
And then another priority area, which I'm sure you're already familiar with as Council Member Rodriguez is very much involved in this program is our fatherhood matters and father engagement. We know that involving fathers really improves children's cognitive social emotional development so we create a lot of opportunities throughout the county for families for fathers and father figures to be involved in our programming So this weekend, there's still room. We'll be hosting our third annual Fatherhood Summit and this event will include workshops, resources, childcare, food and opportunities for fathers to build their skills and strengthen their connections to their families. So if you're interested, you can ask Council Member Rodriguez or you can go to this QR code.
We'll all be there, it'll be a lot of fun so please join us. And then just in closing, I just want to thank the City of Fillmore for its ongoing support of families and children. You can help by sharing the resources about First 5, promoting early connections to services and just supporting partnerships that we have with other members of the community. So just thank you for your time and commitment.
Thank you so much for sharing and thank you for providing these wonderful resources for our children and our families here in Fillmore. Absolutely.
I don't know if I should take questions.
Questions? Thank you, Mayor. Thank you so much for your presentation. So I have a question about how First 5 is affiliated with the SESPI school site now in the larger community for those
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young ones who are at home being taken care of either by parents or other caregivers, family members. What's the method for them to connect with First 5?
Great question. So I flashed really quickly our website, as well as it has our contact information but there's multiple ways that families can enter our programs most of the time honestly it's word-of-mouth. Families hear from their neighbors or their friends that they're going to the program and then they ask to get connected that way but You can go to our website. They're listed there as our Neighborhoods for Learning phone number, and you can just call us or there's an enrollment form on our website.
And then we also because we do a lot of outreach and springtime is actually the time for outreach. We're like busy every weekend at different festivals. And so we'll bring a clipboard too. Like literally if a family walks up and is interested will be like, we'll call you to get you connected.
Thank you so much. Any other questions?
Just so this kind of the boring side, I know you guys do such great work. So my question is really more on the financial side of it. So I know that most of this is funded through the tobacco tax, so 50 cent tax but apparently the taxes doing a really good job because I know smoking rates have gone way down. So is that affecting you guys and can you talk a little bit about that?
Absolutely. Yes, no the public health system has done a wonderful job on smoking cessation yay but boo because that means that we have less money coming into our system so yes it's something that all again all counties in California have a first five commission so we also have an association and so we've been actively working on this for a number of years so there's lots of advocacy happening at the state level to see if there's different funding streams that we can advocate for I think us locally, because we're one of the few First Fives that actually run direct service programs where we have employees from First Five that are on the ground doing the work.
Most First Fives contract out and so we are looking at lots of different ways to fund our program including through Proposition $1. I don't know if you're familiar with some of the Medi-Cal benefits that have come out like dyadic services, community health workers, enhanced case management. So we actually are partnering with our managed care plan to see if we can fund services We're partnering with the Children and Family Services to see if we can access dollars through some of their funding streams. So it really is about us being strategic, innovative, and as always just trying to find partners in the work who can support this and recognize the importance of it.
Great thank you. Thank you so much. Okay
thank you.
Moving on to item number 5B, Sesame Creek Events Board Members Appreciation. And at this time I'm going to step down Present the certificates. Cespe Creeks Inc. Events is a local 501c3 charitable organization that is based in the city of Fillmore and operates through the Heritage Valley. Cespe Creek Events, Inc., strives to foster community engagement, enhance local recreation, and promote and preserve classic cars and classic car culture. Cespe Creek Events, Inc. hosts a variety of community events that allows our organization to raise funds which are given back to local students and our community.
Cespe Creek Events Inc. was founded in 2020 with the intent of continuing and growing the beloved and time-honored tradition that is Cespe Creek 4th of July Car Show. The first annual Cespe Creek 4th of July Car Show was held in beautiful downtown Fillmore in 1987, and has since taken place every Fourth of July with the exception of 2020 and 2021 due to the global pandemic.
Cespe Creek Events, Inc. hosts and collaborates on a variety of events throughout the Heritage Valley including but not limited to the Cespe Creek 4th of July Car Show, The City of Fillmore's Veterans Day Celebration & Parade, The Cars for Kids Blood Drive & Car Show, and Fillmore High School's Evening of Excellence. The board of Sesame Creek Events, Inc. is comprised of a group of dedicated individuals from throughout the Heritage Valley with a variety of backgrounds and expertise who volunteer an unquantifiable amount of time and effort that benefit the community. The following are the board members of the Sesame Creek Events, Inc.
Sophia, and forgive me if I butcher your name, I'm sorry. Sorry. We have a certificate here for you. Oh, it's like high school graduation. Jose Contreras? I was really late. Jorge Gerardo? I know this guy.
0:18 – 0:2420 turns
Yeah,
it's
for
Joe.
Just
put it on the side. Danny Golson? Hey, Danny!
Thank you. Christopher Medrano?
Thank you guys for all you do. Ray Medrano. Tony Morales. Yeah, smile. John Munoz. Michael Shannon, he's not here. Ernie Villegas?
Thank you.
Dave Wade and John Zimmerman. And thank you gentlemen for all you guys do to make our communities so much better, we truly really appreciate it. Without you guys our community would not be what it is today. Thank you for all you do.
I think the council
members might want to make some comments.
I'd like to speak up and just say thank you guys so much. Having grown up in Fillmore, every 4th of July this was such a tradition and continues to be such a great tradition for the town, for all the cars lining up and down Central Avenue. With people like you it really makes the community what it is today. So thank you so much, I really appreciate it.
I just want to say also, echo those words and congratulations. Did you say 1987 was the initial? Next year it's going to be 40 years. So 40 years of dedication from Cespe Creek events and any other past names that the organization used to be but thank you for your dedication. Thank you for your continuity to be that tradition that people in Fillmore always look forward to. We appreciate it.
Yeah, just real quick. We have some really great organizations here in the community of Fillmore and all the organizations they do so much to enhance our community and just make it a better place. If I had to have a favorite which I don't but if I had a favorite If I had a favorite, it would be all of you guys. I just appreciate this Sesapee Creek Car Club and it brings...it's an opportunity for us my husband and I our family to have people that come from way out of the area to our house we barbecue and walk the car show so thank you so much
I want to echo everything that all the council members have mentioned. That was one of the best, you know, memories of Fourth of July is not only the fireworks that we have and obviously they're legal here too but it's just the fact that we go down and people are coming in families family members are coming in from different parts of town or even you know parts of California just to come and see the show that we have here in Fillmore so thank you for making Fillmore great and I love seeing the new faces I love seeing the diversity within the group so thank you so much for your doing and and I look forward for future years
If I may say a few words. I
know this is maybe out of line, but thank you for recognizing us. We appreciate it.
I'd like to thank the council, Mr. Mayor. I'd like to thank the city administration. I would like to thank our fire department and our sheriff's office for your support. It goes a long way with us so we appreciate that. I would also like to recognize two, well actually three that aren't directly board members but are huge helps on our They're here tonight. That would be the daughter of two daughters and husband of one of them, of the late Art Sanchez.
He was a huge part of this organization and this event for years and years. So I'd like to recognize Paula Sherrill and Paula's husband Joe who is somewhere in the back there but without their father and without them today they wouldn't be here today so I'd like to recognize them. Thank you.
Okay, moving on to item 5C proclaiming June 2026 LGBTQ plus pride month June 2026 and I do have one speaker card on this item Alyssa Rodriguez
0:24 – 0:316 turns
Wow, I guess I'm the only one. It's going to be quick because I have work at seven. Just wanted to come to advocate for all the pride that I would love our community to just support working in the mental health field of Ventura County Behavioral Health as a behavioral health clinician seeing all my clients who are part of the LGBTQ plus community be impacted by the lack of support that is given by the community And also by family. So if we're able to kind of support and allow these events to kinda just happen throughout our county, I'm sure we'll see less suicidal rates, less self-injurious behaviors and all that stuff that encompass acuity behavior.
So just would really like to support our community and keep those type of things going. Thank you.
Thank you. Now I'll read the proclamation. Whereas the City of Fillmore recognizes and celebrates the diversity of its residents and affirms the dignity, worth, and equal rights of all people. And whereas June is recognized throughout the United States as LGBTQ Plus Pride Month, a time to honor the history, achievements, and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other LGBTQ plus individuals And whereas Pride Month commemorates the ongoing pursuit of equality, inclusion and justice while recognizing the courage and resilience of those who have worked to advance civil rights and create more welcoming communities for future generations.
continue to make meaningful contributions to the social, cultural, educational, economic and civic life of communities across California and the nation. And whereas the City of Fillmore values diversity and believes that every resident deserves to live work participate in community life free from discrimination harassment and prejudice And whereas fostering a culture of respect, understanding and inclusion strengthens our community and reflects the values of fairness and opportunity that unite the people of Fillmore. And whereas Pride Month provides an opportunity for residents to celebrate diversity support one another And reaffirm a commitment to creating a community where all people feel welcomed, respected and safe. Now therefore I Albert Mendez the mayor of Fillmore, the city of Fillmore California do hereby proclaim June 2026 as LGBTQ plus Pride Month in the city of Fillmore and I encourage all residents to recognize and celebrate the contributions of LGBTQ plus individuals to promote understanding and acceptance and to continue working together to build community that values equality dignity and respect for all Proclaim this 9th day of June 2026.
Thank you. And
moving on to item 5D.
Sure, I just like to make a quick comment so you know To me, this is a very simple thing that we can do as a city that I believe will impact many people because LGBTQ plus people are friends. They're our neighbors. They're our family members. And it's so important that we have such a history. If you go back even when I was a kid, or even later, LGBTQ plus people were not part of society. They were looked at as something other and all these proclamations are doing is trying to make it so that they can feel like they're part of our society and that they can feel like they're being treated With with equality, and that's all this is doing. And so if we can do this to me, this is the bare minimum that we can do and I'm very proud that we're doing this
Thank you Mayor, thank you for the proclamation. Thank you for continuing for us as Council Member Garnica said to continue to do these proclamations and I appreciate the speaker today to speak about as a mental health professional and the very very high disproportionately high members of the LGBTQ plus community Who struggle with lots of self-harm, mental health, suicidal thoughts, suicidal attempts and more.
And suicides and so it makes a difference to do this and I just wanted to say on a Personal note, you know on social media you see Pride Month come out and one that struck me that kind of took us took me back maybe what is it six years ago when we had a Fillmore pride resource fair here sponsored by the city of Fillmore. And the organizers wanted to have a parent or a mom hug booth Giving away hugs to people who need hugs.
And so I saw this trend and it said, if you are a mom, parent, dad, someone who's willing to give hugs, give hugs. And so I just wanted to say to the community, I'm a mom who gives hugs and so I just want to share that.
Thank you. Moving on to item 5D, proclaiming men's mental health awareness month June 2026. Whereas mental health is an essential component of overall health and well-being affecting individuals, families, workplaces, and communities. And whereas men and boys may experience mental health challenges including depression, anxiety, trauma, substance use disorders, and other conditions Yet often face barriers to seeking help because of stigma, societal expectations and lack of awareness. And whereas promoting awareness and understanding of mental health issues can encourage early intervention and increase access to care and save lives.
And whereas men are disproportionately affected by suicide, making education prevention efforts and supportive community resources critically important. And whereas fostering open dialogue about mental health helps create a stronger healthier and more compassionate community where individuals feel empowered to seek assistance when needed. And whereas the City of Fillmore recognizes the importance of supporting the mental health and well-being of all residents, encourages and encourages efforts that reduce stigma and promote access to mental health resources. Now therefore I Albert Mendez Mayor of the City of Fillmore California do hereby proclaim the month of June 2026 as Men's Mental Health Awareness Month in the city of Fillmore and encourage all residents businesses schools healthcare providers and community organizations to support awareness education prevention And treatment efforts that event mental health and well-being proclaim this ninth day of June, 2026.
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I'd like to make a comment on that one. I'm very happy that we're bringing the men's mental health up to par, up to light because if we look at homeless rates, we look at suicide, we look at substance abuse and a lot of times it's men suffering silence because of culture. We don't, we're not supposed to feel, we're not supposed to cry and in the moment we do we are weak And so the fact that we're bringing this up and all the other things that are going on in the county, or not even in the county but in the world. It's just amazing and we've been seeing a lot of trends in terms of statistics that there has been a decrease on suicide and substance abuse within men because we're bringing it to awareness and we're bringing more services. And creating services not just to tailor for the kids or for them, for the women but also for men and inviting men to say hey you can come in and seek services.
So this is very very good I'm very happy to see this.
Thank you. Anybody else? No, I think this one really hit close to me because I run as part of my mental health and running has always been like my escape in my getaway to, you know, I get out there and run for a couple hours. And I feel free but after my wife had a stroke that wasn't enough. Started having panic attacks really bad, and I had to reach out. And my daughters who sit in the audience and another daughter who's sitting at home, they reached out and told me you need to go to counseling or go talk to somebody.
But me being like okay, I just needed to go for a run but that wasn't enough so I started talking to a therapist And I haven't had a panic attack in about five months. And I feel good, and just being able to talk to... A lot of times, I just go in there and talk about my dog or about my runs. A lot of times you're just like, oh, where did you go run this weekend? Or what'd you do?
Just being able to talk to somebody really helps. So I just want to encourage all our residents, it's okay to feel vulnerable and to talk to other people. Okay? Thank you. Moving on to number six, public comments. This time is reserved for members of the public to speak on items not in the agenda. Anybody out in the audience want to speak on anything? No? Okay so we have no members of the public. So moving onto seven City Council reports, recommendations, comments, committee commission and board reports.
I wasn't here at the last meeting, remember? I've got four weeks to catch up. Yeah, I apologize for not being here at our last meeting. Was it the last meeting or was it the one before? Anyway, so just more recently, I won't go back four weeks but more recently I did attend the subcommittee that I'm on. It's HVPAC which is a subcommittee of the Ventura County Transportation Commission And whenever I have to tell you what HVPAC says, I have to ask Manny what that stands for. I got it. The Heritage Valley Policy Advisory Committee. So what it is, it's a committee...
It's a committee that's made up of just Santa Paula Council One member and myself representing Fillmore, and then Supervisor Kelly Long who represents our district for the county. So it's a three-person committee but we have a lot of staff in this past meeting we met here. And we talk about a lot of the things that are specific to transportation getting up and down the 126 or this is what I really want to share with regard to the HVPAC committee. And that's that this shuttle service that you've seen go from Fillmore to Moorpark.
No one ever says they go from Moorpark to Fillmore, it's always Fillmore going to Moorpark for some reason. It's the busiest route in all of the entire area and they only started two years ago.
So
yeah, for the direct route shuttles like that. Yeah and if you see these shuttles and you might know what they are if you're not paying attention don't read the labels on it but there we call them the safari buses because they're green and orange and yellow they're really brightly colored and they go over Grimes Canyon and back Grimes Canyon and back and they have passed all other direct route transportations for the entire BCTC Which I think is amazing. And it's increasing consistently, so anyway that was the news from HVPAC and then on June 5th I attended a VCTC meeting, the full committee meeting and we meet at the Camarillo City Hall and there was a lot of information going on, the makeup of that committee is somebody from all cities across the county And then all of the Board of Supervisors are members on that as well.
So we did have a presentation by Daryl Kettle, and some of you may remember that he was the previous Executive Director for VCTC. He has moved on. He's now the CEO of Metrolink. So he shared information which I hadn't even thought about with regard to the World Cup which is starting June 12th and runs through July 19th And they are expecting an awful lot of people bombarding Southern California area. So they are adding extra trains, specifically the LOSAN which is Los Angeles San Diego San Luis Obispo Pacific Sunliner. They'll have extra routes for travel. And I know, you know, I think soccer has become such a huge thing. And so I wanted to get this information out there about how they're increasing some of the routes so that people can get back and forth to the World Cup during that what six week period?
I guess it is almost six weeks. And for additional information about that, reach out to BCTC. They'll be providing info on their social media channels. Or you can check metrolinktrains.com or pacificsurfliner.com slash soccer2026. So if you're interested in getting whether you can still get tickets or not I don't know. Maybe you can stand on the sidewalk and wave to soccer players who say goodbye, I don' t know.
But anyway so that's coming up and again the dates for that are June 12th through July 19th. And then another bit of news, which I think is really important to the Fillmore community and us at the Sesapeak Creek Overflow Railroad Bridge had construction start again on May 26th. So we're up and running. We're determined barring any other floods and heavy rains.
We're going to try again. This will be our fourth attempt. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. We've had three floods that have washed that out as we've been trying to repair it. So that's all I have.
Thank you. Don't forget porch talk.
Oh, thank you. I always forget. You're right porch talk didn't have it last the last Wednesday to two Wednesdays back but we're up and running tomorrow so please if you are inclined to you want to come and talk or event or share requests how will you see done in Fillmore coming to my porch? We have great turnouts and snacks And we'll just sit and chat with a whole lot of other Fillmore community members. So, and that's Wednesday beginning at six o'clock. It says 6 to 8 but we never stop at eight.
Carrie, can I ask a question for you? To ask any participants that come. There was a constituent that was saying, hey you know we have a lot of new people in the new developments and that's your area. They said hey what can we do to help the new people come over to Central and participate more in this part of the community? So if you wouldn't mind asking that question just obviously it's not going to be scientific or anything but just to get some opinions I think that would be really helpful.
I'll do that but everything we do is scientific unfortunately.
Especially the wine, the wine.
What wine? You mean the whining? Okay I will do that thank you.
Okay thank you so I've had my Ventura Regional Sanitation District meeting nothing new to really report except for the first time and I think since I've been on that board and I think I was told by a couple other board members four or five years we had subcommittee of personnel and finance, and we're actually going to be having more of those because as I've told you that the life of the landfill is definitely expanding in that we are doing more compaction in the last cell that we currently have. So that means there's more airspace So that's great. Anyway, the life of the landfill has extended and we're continuing to look at the possible expansion of the landfill into a little canyon behind.
This all means... What does it mean for the finances of the district? We're going to be having more of those. As I get more information, I'll be happy to share. And I think that's it for my yeah for my committee meetings. I did want to just say thank you for constituents who've reached out about About issues and concerns infrastructure issues particularly sidewalks I heard from actually a couple of a couple of constituents who went out for a walk You know bumped into and to erase sidewalk, and I appreciate them letting us know and I appreciate Joe Belomo and the Public Works team and crew for putting a ticket together and addressing it. And so that's really what we function as, so just want to encourage everyone still you see something say something reach out to one of the council members and we'll be happy to pass that along and let's do what we can to try to avoid any kind of accidents.
Okay
thank you. I don't have much to report, but I've been running a lot more this last couple weeks. And I was out on my run and It's the Public Works team out refurbishing the office and the train tracks. And that building looks phenomenal, night and day. Thank you so much for doing it. I also want to give a shout-out to our Public Safety fellows over here, Chief Girola and Chief Lalo Malagon. Thank you guys. The RC author is doing a great job. Thank you guys for keeping us safe and alive.
Thank you! do you think? And that's all. Okay,
so I'm next. So for me, I did not attend the last meeting of the Fenway-Piru Groundwater Basin Agency because I was on vacation but there will be one this month so I will be attending that Also, I attended the Los Vets. It's a veterans organization for Fillmore and Piru. They had a luncheon actually today and it was very interesting to talk to a lot of the vets. One of the things that was updated on actually by Ernie Villegas was on what's going on with the Veterans Memorial Building and different stages they're going through so that is coming along, it's slow.
But it is making progress, so I'm sure we'll probably get an update from Ernie or the board at some point. And then I also had a question come up from a constituent about a traffic-related issue. This was, I think it was a week ago or two, we had the traffic signals on Mountain View and Highway 126 were down, they were flashing. And a constituent texted me and said, hey there have been some near misses.
Pedestrians almost getting hit, cars almost running into each other. What can we do about that? And of course that is not within the purview of the city it's a Caltrans issue but fortunately we were still on it. I did let this constituent know, hey, we're in contact with Caltrans and trying to get that fixed. But they brought up, well why can't we do something to better coordinate with them? And I said well let's, we can ask the question but it's really outside of our control. So anyway that did come up. That's it for my report. Mario, it's over to you.
All right, not heavy meetings since the last time around. But I definitely would share that second on Carrie's porch talk, I've been to them, they're great and she has great snacks. Great conversations, I'm planning to be there tomorrow. But on the other side, I attended the bike event that the sheriffs and the firefighters did, that was great. I just saw a lot of young families there with their kids, fixing bikes, adjusting helmets. They had some taco trucks there as well and it was great, it was great just seeing everybody there. Some people were coming in and out but it was a good steady stream of people so it was really nice to see that and the integration between law enforcement firefighters and the community. So thank you so much for doing that.
I also attended the graduation celebration ceremony at the One Steps. It was really nice to see a lot of the members of the One Step graduating and the One Step celebrating, and really acknowledging Their success, and it kind of reminded me when I was a kid. It was back in the day, and I remember I was at the Boys & Girls Club, and Lynn Edmonds had this celebrating the night of success. And that one time they invited teachers to come in and other people from the community to share a couple of things that the kids are doing right within their program.
And I invited my mom and my mom started crying. She said that she never heard anybody say something nice about me, which was good because I'm not who I am now. That was different but anyway the reason why I'm sharing this story is because those events really make a difference. I was at Risk Youth going through the mentoring program Big Brothers Big Sisters and here I am in front of all you and just very blessed to be up here And then also I've been doing a lot of walking around within my district, receiving concerns and just hearing them out. And I want to thank Erica and the city staff for jumping on the things that I mentioned. I was like really impressed so thank you so much Erica and then city staff for really listening to us and being on our side.
Thank you so much.
0:47 – 0:5322 turns
Moving on to item 8, consent calendar. Can I have a motion to approve the consent calendar please? I will
make a motion to approve the consent calendar.
We'll get our motion in a second
please.
Motion and second all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes unanimously thank you. Moving on to number 9 and 9A would be the new item correct?
Correct, Mayor. I'm going to introduce Angel Garcia our Senior Management Analyst who will provide you with additional details.
Good evening council members and Mayor Mendez my name is Angel Garcia for the record senior management analyst for the City of Fillmore so I came across this grant that's from the US Department of Agriculture aka USDA and this specific grant is called the Rural Business Development Grant and we're one of the few cities in California that's actually eligible For this grant and it's based on the criteria of USDA, there is a certain map that you use to see if you're an eligible community for this grant. And we are one of the few in California that are eligible for it so I immediately wanted to apply but one of the requirements requires a resolution from your council authorizing staff to apply. for this grant, hence why we approved this emergency request to place it on the agenda.
So thank you Mayor Mendez and our city attorney Tiffany for assisting us in putting this on the agenda. And pretty much what this grant is for is to improve economic development plans here in the city. I am planning on using this for a feasibility study and also using it to align with the goals aligned by your City Council for economic goals. And I'm happy to answer any questions.
Do you have any ideas of what the amount would be? Is it different for different applications or...
The good thing about this one is where there's no necessarily requirements based on how much Congress allocated to that fund. What makes this grant really good for us is there's no match required, so it makes it really appealing for us.
Thank you. That was a good question, thank you. Anybody
else? Yes so kind of a follow-on question to Carrie's question. So how much did we apply for or what was the amount that we applied for in the grant?
We haven't applied yet Council Member Garnica yeah this resolution is so we can have pretty much an authorization correct yeah so once we approve this I'm gonna get to work and start getting together an application. Okay great thank you. Of course you're welcome.
Anybody else? No okay thank you so much. So when do we have to do the proclamation?
We already have a resolution drafted, so if you could just approve that via motion and I can give you the resolution number. We didn't think about that ahead of time, so I apologize.
Okay, so there's no more discussion. May I have a motion please?
Do we need a number?
Yes, I'm pulling it back in. So the resolution number will be 26-4122, Business Development Grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Okay I make a motion that the City Council approve Resolution 26-4122, a business development grant with the U. S. Department of Agriculture
Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you, staff. Moving on to
item 9B
adoption of City Resolution 26-4117 establishing the GAN appropriation limit for fiscal year 2026-2027
Good evening, Council Members. Mayor Mendez, I'm Debra Cavaletto, Finance Director. Today staff is recommending that City Council adopt resolution number 26-4117 setting the GAN appropriation limit for fiscal year 2026-27. The initiative or proposition 4 approved by voters in 79 has set appropriations limits for state and local governments using 1978-79 as a base year It's subject, the appropriations subject to limitations are proceeds of taxes. Every fiscal year these entities are required to adjust their appropriation limit.
The addition of Proposition 111 revised the base year to Fiscal Year 1987 and adjusting formulas. To establish the city's GAN limits, the calculation process consists of the city's prior-year adopted appropriation limit and a population and inflationary factors. Using the state Department of Finance price factor and population formation. The California per capita personal income percentage of 4.95% was the inflationary factor.
In addition, the county's population loss of a negative 0.681% over prior year was selected versus the county's population loss of a negative 0.781% over prior year. The GAN limit on the staff report is approximately $21.6 million for fiscal year 26-27, and comparing the qualifying appropriations in for the 26-27 adopted budget to the limit, the city is approximately $11.1 million below the limit.
And it's well within the constitutional limits. So that's the end of my presentation. I'm available for questions. Questions?
0:53 – 1:0715 turns
No questions?
Just a comment, I wish we were at that gam limit. Yeah. That'd be great.
But you don't want to go over. But it would be nice.
Seeing no questions may I have a motion please? So moved. We have a motion and can I have second? I'll second. Motion is second all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes unanimously. Thank you Debra
Moving on to item number 9C, adoption of resolution number 26-4097 establishing a virtual participation and public comment pursuant to Senate Bill 707.
Just one second. No, I'm just going to go down there. We have a sub in our AB and I think it'll work better. It's fine. Just make it easier. Let me make sure I upload my presentation. So tonight I'm here to present you resolution number 264097, which will cover the virtual participation and public comment policy. We're going to be covering the background and SB 707 overview, what SB 7 requires, the hybrid meeting participation.
What our public comment procedures are going to look like, language access requirements, technical disruptions in accessibility, the advisory bodies, the fiscal impact that this will have and council goals and staff recommendation. So moving on to number one, the background and SB 707 overview. So the Brown Act as you know it governs public meetings of legislative bodies ensuring the public's right to attend and participate in local government meetings SB 707, which was signed into law in October of 2025 by Governor Newsom. It updates the Brown Act by modernizing teleconferencing rules and expanding the public access requirements, and we're going to talk about that shortly. The effective date goes into effect July of this year, and it remains into effect until January 1st of 2030.
The city's action is we're asking the council to formally adopt this virtual participation and public comment policy so that we can be in compliance with SB 707. So for the hybrid meeting participation under the proposed policy, members of the public may attend City Council meetings in three ways. In person which is how we've been running our meetings historically so you are able to attend and notice the meeting of location and then submit a speaker card if you wish to address the council That's our current process. The remotely via Zoom, which will be the new process you will be able to join through the city's website meeting platform. We're going to be running it via zoom and we're going to be putting out a landing page on our website where constituents will be able to Pick on the meeting that they'll like to participate ahead of time and register.
And then the information will be emailed to them at the time of registration, one day prior to the meeting as a reminder and one hour prior to the meeting starting. One of the things that we are going to be working with the public is just making sure that they do run and just building that conscious within the public, that you know what? We do encourage them to participate in use technology towards their advantage. It is important to note that city staff will not be able to provide technical support during the meeting as it is.
The responsibilities are going to be shared between our person who does the audio-visual, our deputy city clerk and myself here so we're all going to be running multiple things while the meeting is happening and as much as we wish we could just drop everything and have a technical support line that is just not sustainable But we're gonna make sure in every effort to just make it very simple and clear for the public to understand. And I think by now after COVID, most people are used to either logging into a Zoom meeting or a Teams meeting is just has become part of our life.
But I just wanted to make sure that the constituents are also aware of that. And then by phone, it will be a default because Zoom will also have the option that you can just dial in a phone if you don't have a device where you are going to be logging in with the camera. I know one of the questions that came up last meeting by Council Member Villesenor was whether we were able to have the participants be displayed on the screen and I quickly jumped and said, I think this is great, we should be able to do it but then in talking with staff It's going to take a little bit of maneuvering behind the scenes. We're going to try it. The other thing, too, that came to mind after I said yes was the fact that we're also depending on the internet connection of the person who's joining and sometimes that may become a bit glitchy.
And so if that's the case, I think we're going to just test it, see if it works. And if for some reason we're having technical supports, we might just ask the constituent to turn off their video and just participate via voice audio, which should be good for the
public. So one of the other things that I'm sure during COVID we all remember there were some meetings that were held by universities and students and there were let's just say some inappropriate things that were shown on camera so that we also need to be very careful that anyone participating from the public excuse me Now we have someone monitoring to make sure that we can turn off that feed in case something inappropriate is.
A hundred percent, there's a term for that and it's called Zoom bombing.
Yeah.
And we have taken that under consideration hence why there's a registration process prior to you being able to comment and the way how it's going to be run is not going to be just like a regular zoom meeting. It's gonna be on a webinar format where we have to allow the constituent to speak What happens if you don't register? Because I think that might be something that you might be thinking about. That's okay, you can still register during the meeting and we'll be able to look at who the participants are and then grant them permission to speak based on the allowable time that the mayor will at that point decide. But the time allotted is three minutes, and the mayor may adjust that time limits equally both in person or virtual just depending on how the meeting is going.
So going back to the presentation, in-person speakers will continue to be the same. The remote speakers they'll complete that virtual participation registration form on the city's website And they're going to identify the agenda item number or the public comment section. We do encourage everyone to submit the form as early as possible so that we can prepare, but if for some reason you're just watching the meeting and you feel like you need to make a comment then you can still go and register as long as it's within the time that we're speaking on that item.
So the language accessibility requirements, I do want to make a correction for the record. As you know this was enacted into law October of 2025. So we started working last fall on figuring out the mechanism on how this was going to be effectively implemented and when we looked at the census data in January, the City of Fillmore fell below the threshold of the translation requirement or accessibility We were at 18 point something, but we were unaware just thinking that you know it's the census. It just updates every 10 years where it turns out that that table actually updates on a yearly basis but although the data is two years behind so like the table we were looking at was 2023. At the time in January the 2024 table was released And so now we are at 20.6%, which we have to comply with translating the agenda.
We are currently working with our agenda management software to enable the Google Translate option, so that will allow us to translate the agenda and then the agenda should be published in English and Spanish. Okay? So I just wanted to correct that for the record. The accessibility portion of like providing translation, that is not a requirement. And so I also wanted for the public to and you to be aware of that as well.
What happens if we have technical disruptions during our advisory meetings or the accessibility? We're going to have a technical disruption protocol, which is addressing the resolution that you have before you tonight. So if a disruption prevents public observation or remote comment then the mayor shall recess the meeting for up to one hour while staff works to restore service. If not resolved then the meeting The item or the meeting may be continued per the Brown Act.
Our idea is to post information that we will be recessed through our communication channels, which are social media and website. And just so that you know, we did this during COVID. I think personally, I feel pretty confident that this is going to knock on everything and run smoothly because we did a lot of work behind the scenes during COVID to make sure that we were still Having these meetings accessible to the public. This is not mandatory for the advisory bodies and right now we're just recommending the council to adopt this just for City Council, however it is an option that can be explored in the future And if we choose to go that path for like the Planning Commission, the Cultural Arts and Recreation Commission or any future commission that may be established.
The only requirement will be that the council will need to recertify this every six months to make sure that we want to continue moving forward. And the accessibility component will continue to, the city will continue to make reasonable efforts to provide closed captioning during the stream meetings. And residents require accommodations should contact the city at least 72 hours prior so that we can make the proper arrangements. The closed captioning will be happening via Granicus. However, we need to upgrade our equipment And that's going to take some time. And I just made the decision to make sure that we change the equipment during July when we have the downtime and we're just going dark. So for now, we'll be able to meet the accessibility requirement through YouTube and Facebook which we are currently streaming.
And we will provide that information on our website on the landing page that's going to be published soon. For the fiscal impact and the council goals. There is a significant, I think I wrote no significant fiscal impact just because we are already using the Zoom webinar feature. We've already had that since COVID so that's not something that we would have to pay in addition but it does look like we'll have a one-time investment of approximately $14,000 which will cover the encoder and the technician time to replace The equipment that will allow for the closed captioning. So far we've been told that there's not going to be any cost for the translation of the agenda, however it looks like we do have to obtain some sort of licensing with Google which I'm working around with staff behind-the-scenes to figure out how we get there.
My thought is that because our landing page is the one that has all of the Granicus information through the website and Civic already has a Google license, I'm hoping we can just tab into that without having to pay. So it's been estimated for about $14,000 as a one-time investment to continue being able to comply with this requirement and this staff report meets the Organizational Excellence Council goal and also the public communication and engagement So we're recommending tonight Council that you please adopt Resolution 26-4097, adopting the City of Fillmore virtual participation and public comment policy pursuant to Senate Bill 707. That concludes my presentation I'm happy to answer any questions.
Thank you so much. Questions? Comments?
I do have a question. So just to be clear, it sounds like we were going to be moving forward to translating the agenda into Spanish starting July of this year? Yes. Okay, thank you.
Thank you. Do
you have a motion? Quick comment. Just, I think this is great that we're doing this so thank you for all the hard work to you and the staff. That's my own comment.
Thank you.
1:07 – 1:1217 turns
Just a quick comment, and I've raised this issue before. It's very, very minor in the scheme of things here. But one thing that I brought up before is I'm bothered by the fact that the back side of our title page on our reports state For public comment and it's referenced in this report. Public comment is five minutes, and we haven't been doing five minutes in a long time
You're talking about the agenda template that's actually being updated as we speak We submitted a ticket about a week ago because we need to update that to reflect the new policy So that's going to be changed to three minutes which will be what the policy reflects You're
welcome.
Okay, yes I'll make the motion that our council adopt resolution number 26-4097 adopting the City of Fillmore's virtual participation and public comment policy pursuant to Senate Bill 707. We've
got a motion and second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Moving on to 9D, public hearing to consider the adoption of resolution number 26-4116 confirming the annual budget and ordering the annual levy and collection of assessments for the Fillmore Storm Drain Maintenance Districts.
Good evening Council Members, Mayor Mendez, Debra Capilouto, Finance Director. As stated in the staff report, the City has seven storm drain maintenance districts The storm drain annual assessments pay for the maintenance and operating costs related to storm drain facilities, storm water pollution treatment systems utilized or associated with the properties within these districts.
The annual expenditures budget for each district ensure the operation integrity of the storm drain and storm water pollution treatment and represents each district's proportionate costs of a larger integrated storm drain and storm water pollution treatment system. These include retention basins, catch basins and biofilter areas. The annual assessments include the maintenance and servicing of the Santa Clara River levee adjacent to these properties as well.
The assessments calculated include an annual inflationary factor that can maximize assessments without Triggering a Prop 218 notice. This is either a previous year of 3% or an increase higher than that. In this case, the annual CIP or sorry CPI annual percentage difference from this January of this year to last year was 3.02%. Therefore we utilized that 3.0 2% for the maximum rate increase.
This item meets the City Council goals for infrastructure and this will be a public hearing for this adoption.
Thank you. Okay, questions? No? At this time I'd like to open the public hearing then. Seeing nobody, no public here then at this time I'll close the public hearing and take Questions or comments from council members?
Mayor, if I could just real quick remind the council members of the districts that they live in in case they don't still have that. Mario you're in storm drain district number three. Carrie, you're in storm drain district number seven zone C. And Christina, you're in storm drain district number four Riverwalk. Thank you.
I don't get a storm drain
district. Then
entertain
a motion
I'll move that we adopt resolution number 26-4116. And I will abstain from district number four.
Okay, motion and a second? All in favor?
Can I abstain first? Yeah, I'm abstaining from District 7 Zone C.
All right, so now all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? No. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you guys. That was a tricky one. Thank you Debra for your presentation.
Moving on to item number 9E increase to youth basketball registration fees.
1:12 – 1:186 turns
Good evening, Mayor and City Council. My name is Amanda DeZavala. I am the Community Service Specialist for the Parks and Recreation Department. I'm here seeking approval to increase the registration fees for our youth basketball program. So staff recommends that the city approve an increase to the city's youth basketball registration fees by replacing the current flat fee of $100 with the following fees of $110 for early registration, $120 for a regular registration time period and $130 for the late registration.
This would also follow, sorry, forgive me. And then also to direct that future adjustments to these fees be made consistent with the recommendations of the forthcoming Fillmore Fee Study which will index city fees to the Consumer Price Index. So the city currently offers a youth basketball program through our recreation services. So I run that program, and it's been a flat fee of $100 for about the past six years. So we haven't seen an increase in quite some time.
So the current fee is at 100, and that fee is covering the cost of our referees, our equipment, basketball hoops. Just the staff that it takes to also open facilities, close the facilities, clean them. Everything that goes into running the program. So to address these rising costs while also maintaining the program affordability, staff recommends replacing the flat fee with those three new fees based on the date of registration.
So the early registration would be the month of August and that would be $110. Then in September we're looking at 120, and our late fee would be the month of October or not the month of October but about one week so it's October 1st to October 9th that would be $130. We're hoping this encourages earlier registration, because what has happened in the past is we get a flood of last minute registrations. Then I'm scrambling to order jerseys in time because there's constraints when it comes to ordering jerseys. Most cities use the same vendor so when we all put our orders in next thing you know we're back ordered for a couple weeks. So that has been something we've run into. So we're hoping this tiered registration fee helps offset those late registrations, and we're encouraging people to register early because you get the better price.
So hopefully this will assist in the timeline that it takes to get those jerseys ordered and everything organized. So even with the late registration fee of 130, the city's youth basketball program will still remain competitive with the programs within our region and within our county. These fees are collected by the city to help cover the program's direct operating costs, and we recommend the fee increase so that we could better align the program revenue with these rising costs and reduce the program's reliance on a general fund support.
And so with this item would support the City Council's goal of enhancing parks and recreational programs while also still keeping a affordable recreation program for the city. And that concludes my report. If you have any questions,
thank you so much for your presentation. I'm sorry then I should have asked this before but when you say competitive with other cities the price of what are the other cities around?
So Moorpark runs it a little different. They have more programs are seasonal. So they're winter so their cost for a smaller time period What we charge for our 10 game season. I don't have those numbers with me, but because they run such smaller programs their fees are smaller for what you sign up for. So like their winter basketball program is going to be less than what ours is, but we're running a 10 game series and they're running much smarter, much smaller programs by season.
Thank you. And then do you know what costs in general have gone up to necessitate this?
Yeah. So when it comes to our referees, I mean minimum wage has gone up and we haven't increased our fees but we're having to pay them more every year just because of minimum wage and then we have our staff salaries when it comes to the time I have to put in and also the staff having to open the middle school gym which is what we utilize and the boys and girls club. We also have to clean that before and after so it's coming from a lot of the salary increases but also equipment. I mean our basketball hoops are going out so we're gonna have I'd like to provide better quality basketballs, but it's hard when I'm only charging the $100 flat fee. So we're looking to provide better quality equipment.
Manuel Mijares, Assistant City Manager. One thing I wanted to add to Amanda's great report was during COVID, we had shortened the season to eight games And for the last, I want to say two years we've expanded it back to 10 which historically has been the number of games that the program has offered. And in addition to that given the feedback that we get from the basketball community every year we added an all-star game so that's an additional day that we have additional games and that we have additional salary expenses for a gym manager and our officials. So you know we really have expanded the program over the last couple of years And those are the type of things that are driving cost increases.
1:18 – 1:2524 turns
Thank you, Amanda for your presentation. My question is with that month of August being the early board or the one that's really only a $10 increase right? I know you do a great job and the staff does a great job at social media so hopefully we will see in July Now, a big push to say we really want you to get registered early.
Yeah and we did invest last year, Mandy and I had made the decision to get banners because a lot of youth sports organizations in the city do banners. And I feel like you get a lot of good feedback from seeing banners on fences. So that's another cost we are also seeing is how do we advertise more? Because we're trying to bring more kids higher numbers and it starts at the younger ages so then I can keep them until they get to middle school.
You know, another push so banners and then Manny and I had actually tabled at some of the soccer games. So we kind of were starting to get out there and push more. So I am hoping perfect and soccer is the perfect time because it's you know, I'm football. So we're going to try and reach all those organizations and I'm hoping I can see that that increases.
Great. Thank you. Thank you. No questions. Can I have a motion please? Okay.
I'll move that we approve the increase of the city's youth basketball registration fee by replacing the current flat fee of $100 to $110 for early registration, $120 for regular and $130 for late. And direct future adjustments of these fees be made consistent with the recommendations of the forthcoming Fillmore Fee Study which will index city fees to the consumer price index. I
think I got a motion and second?
I'll
second. Okay, I've got a motion and second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. Thank you, Amanda. Moving on to number 9F consideration of resolution number 26-4119 fixing the compensation benefits and other terms and conditions of employment of nonrepresented management confidential and part time employees of the City of Fillmore.
Good evening Mayor Mendez and Council Members. My name is Jackie Herrera, I'm the HR Supervisor. Staff is recommending that the City Council adopts Resolution No. 26-4119 establishing the compensation benefits and other terms and conditions of employment for city nonrepresented management, midmanagement, confidential and part time employees Effective July 1st, 2026.
The proposed resolution includes a 4% salary increase for management and confidential employees covered under the salary schedule M&C. This adjustment is to be consistent with the salary increases previously approved by the City Council for represented employees This resolution also increases the city monthly cafeteria plan contribution for eligible employees enrolled in City Health Benefits from $1,525 to $1725. This change maintains consistency with the health benefit contributions provided to the represented employees.
The estimated cost of these adjustments approximately Sorry, $112,000. This funding has already been included in this upcoming fiscal year budget of 26-27 that was approved by council and this concludes my report. Any questions?
I do have a question there. Yes, Jackie, thank you. For confidential employees can you define that? I just kind of when I was reading it over what's the definition of that or who is considered a confidential
employee? Well the only confidential employee is right now the Deputy City Clerk so they're not represented and they're not considered management but they have access to a lot of information
that
represented staff.
That's helpful to understand. Thank you.
Can I have a motion
please? I'd like to move the motion to adopt resolution number 26-4119, fixing the composition benefits and other terms and conditions of employment of non-represented management, middle management, confidential and part time employees of the city of Fillmore. Effective July 1st, 2026 and superseding and replacing resolution number 264090. Okay
we got a motion second?
Second.
We've got a motion and a second all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you.
Moving on to item 9G, public hearing pursuant to AB-2561 status of job vacancy. Public hearing pursuant to AB-2561 status of job vacancy
Staff is requesting that City Council conducts a public hearing pursuant to Assembly Bill 2561 regarding the status of vacancies within the city. AB2561, which was effective January 1st 2025 requires public agencies subject to the Mayor's Milas-Brown Act to hold an annual public hearing on full time vacancies and recruitment and retention efforts As of June 9th today the city has one authorized full-time vacancy a facility maintenance worker position That we just had interviews for yesterday In addition, the city's currently has an ongoing recruitment for a maintenance worker one and a planning technician position These recruitments are being conducted proactively and do not represent any current vacancies subject to AB 2561 reporting requirements the law also requires additional reporting for a For a bargaining unit that has a vacancy rate of 20 or greater.
And currently neither of our bargaining units is 20% or greater on vacancies. So this concludes, so this public hearing is being conducted to satisfy that annual reporting requirement by AB2561 and this concludes my report any questions?
Okay thank you. Questions? No? Okay at this time I'll open the public hearing. Seeing that there's nobody here, this time I'll close the public hearing and entertain a motion from Council.
I will make a motion that City Council hold a public hearing to receive the staff report pursuant to Assembly Bill 2561 regarding the status of vacancies in the city's recruitment and retention efforts.
Thank you. We have a motion and second? I'll second. Okay, motion second all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? No? Motion passes unanimously thank you. And
moving on to item 9h public hearing considering an adoption of the City's 2020-25 Urban Water Management Plan and Unwater Shortage Contingency Plan. Welcome.
1:25 – 1:417 turns
I still have it as 9G, but it's been changed to H. Yes? I'd like to thank Angel for his template PowerPoint presentation slides. He did a good job. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of the City Council. Tonight staff is presenting the city's 2025 Urban Water Management Plan. UWMP and the Water Shortage Contingency Plan, or WSCP. These plans are required by the state of California every five years and serves as the city's long-range planning document for water supply reliability, water demand forecasting, and drought preparedness.
Tonight's presentation will provide a brief overview of the regulatory requirements, summarize key findings of the plans and discuss the proposed action before City Council review fiscal impact and conclude with recommendations from staff. This next section provides background on why these plans are required and the purpose they serve. The Urban Water Management Plan evaluates our water system, future demands available supplies in conservation programs while our Water Shortage Contingency Plan establishes how this city would respond during varying levels of water supply shortages and drought conditions.
Why are we doing this? The Urban Water Management Plan Act requires that urban water suppliers to update and submit the Urban Water Management Plan every five years because Fillmore serves more than 3,000 connections or uses more than 3000 acre feet of water annually. The city is subjected to these requirements. The Urban Water Management Plan documents are water supplies, water use demand management measures and long-term reliability.
Recent legislation requires inclusion of the Water Shortage Contingency Plan. Most importantly, maintaining compliance with the city or keeps the city eligible for varying state grants loans and funding opportunities related to water infrastructure and water management. The development process began early This year included coordination with various regulatory agencies, public requirement notifications, preparation of draft plans and public review opportunities.
Following the adoption tonight, the plans will be submitted to the Department of Water Resources by the statutory deadline of July 1, 2026. The city relies entirely on groundwater from the Fillmore Basin for its potable water supply. Currently our water system includes groundwater wells, storage reservoirs totaling approximately 6 million gallons and approximately 42 miles of distribution piping.
In addition to the potable water, the city also produces recycled water which is used for irrigation and beneficial reuse purposes. The analysis include existing infrastructure as well as planned improvements currently under development. Importantly, the city does not rely on state water projects or metropolitan water district supplies which reduces exposure to regional import water shortages.
The Urban Water Management Plan requires the city to project future population growth and corresponding water demands Fillmore's current population is estimated at approximately 17,035 residents. The plan assumes or assumptions uses a 2% annual growth rate from 2030 and 1% annual thereafter until 2050. These projections provide the basin an estimated future water demand and evaluating whether supplies maintain aquifer over planning horizon.
This slide shows how water is currently used throughout the community. Approximately 73% of the total demand is residential, including both single family and multifamily uses. Commercial and industrial uses account for approximately 17% of the demand. And landscape irrigation and system losses make up the difference. Overall total potable water demand for 2025 is approximately 2149 acre feet.
The data confirms that the residential conservation remains the most important and significant for reducing overall water demands during future drought conditions. The city's population growth, water demand is expected to increase gradually over time. The total population demand is projected to increase from approximately 2149 acre feet in 2025 to approximately 2779 acre feet by 2050. The city also continues to expand and utilize recycled water For irrigation and other beneficial uses, the recycled water helps reduce demand on groundwater supplies while supporting parks school district in other landscaped areas.
This slide compares water supplies to anticipated future demand. Groundwater remains the city's primary potable water source and is projected to provide approximately 6,291 acre feet annually. When combined with recycled water supplies, the city's total available supply significantly exceeds Projected future demand throughout the planning period. Based on the analysis completed for the urban water management plan, the city has adequate water supplies available to meet the anticipated customer demand through 2050.
The key takeaway is that projected supplies remain substantially higher than projected demands under normal operating conditions. The state requires agencies to evaluate their ability to meet demand during multiple dry years. The analysis demonstrates that even under extended dry seasons, projected supplies maintain well above projected demand. The city maintains a substantial supply margin throughout the planning horizon.
As a result, the urban water management plan concludes that the city has sufficient supplies to meet the anticipated future demand including during extended drought scenarios. While the city currently has adequate supplies, the state law requires all agencies to establish normal drought response procedures. The Water Shortage Contingency Plan establishes six shortage levels ranging from minor shortages to severe shortages.
Each level corresponds to a percent reduction in available supply and identifies the action the city would implement if those conditions occurred. The city is also required to complete an annual water supply and demand assessment each year, to determine whether any of the shortage levels should be activated. This slide summarizes key examples of demand reduction measures that may be implemented during the water shortage conditions.
These include restrictions on irrigation runoff, requirements to repair leaks, establishing or limitations on decorative water features Requirements for automatic shut off devices on hoses and prohibitions on washing hard surfaces with potable water. The specified actions implemented during or would depend on severity of water shortage level declarations. These measures are consistent with state requirements and intended to reduce water while maintaining essential services.
Staff is requesting the City Council consider adopting both the Water Management Plan and the Water Shortage Contingency Plan. Approval tonight would allow the city to maintain compliance with state law and proceed with the final submission to Department of Water Resources. Following Council's adoption, the City staff will finalize the plan through the Department of Water Resources online portal Should DWR identify any required corrections or comments, staff will work with our consultant to address these comments.
Once accepted by DWR the city's compliance requirements for this five-year cycle will be completed. The preparation of the plans was already included in the consultant's agreement previously approved by City Council. Therefore, there is no additional fiscal impact associated with adoption of these plans tonight. However, maintaining compliance provides an important financial benefit to preserving eligibility from state funding opportunities grants and low-interest financing programs.
Staff recommend that City Council adopt the required, or conduct the required public hearing. Receive any public comments. Adopt Resolution 29, oh sorry 264121 approving the 2025 Urban Water Management Plan and Water Shortage Contingency Plan. Adoption supports regulatory compliance long-term water reliability planning and the city's commitment to environmental stewardship.
That concludes this presentation. Happy to answer any questions you might have regarding the water plan, the urban water management plan, the water shortage contingency plan, projected water supplies, demand forecasts, drought preparedness measures. I'm at your mercy.
Any
questions?
All right, thank you Joe very much for your presentation. I know a lot of work goes into this and it's...I think it's really important for us to make available to the public what our situation is with our water, what our forecasts are with the water in future so thank you. So I do have a question. You mentioned in the beginning giving some stats and one of them was an 8% losses of water through the system, so I was just curious if that percentage has gone down? Do we have more loss earlier? I know with the replacement of the meters does that factor into any of this or is this more loss of water at the system, more at the well level and other areas where we bring the water up?
So water loss is a factor. It's something that's unavoidable in the most conservative and water conscientious agency out there, and the purpose, the reason being is that when you flush hydrants, there's going to be water loss. Flushing dead ends, the same thing. There is a lot of room to move, and definitely changing out our water meters is a substantial step in that right direction.
That allows us to more accurately determine what actual demand is before the spinning mechanism inside the old meters would freeze up or turn slower. So we weren't getting an accurate reading of actual consumption, so that loss in that one meter would go towards our 8%.
Okay thank you for that
Sure. So Joe, great job on this. My question has more to do with kind of coordination with the fire department. I know there was a lot of controversy over the Palisades Fire and the water levels that were in the different reservoirs. Is there any aspect in any of these plans that coordinates the amount of water required by for example for fighting fires on that kind of a scale? Is that something that's contemplated?
1:41 – 1:4820 turns
Not necessarily, no. It's factored into the overall demand use year after year so indirectly it's factored in there but there is not a specific carve out for firefighting.
I had one question just curious at any time in the past have we had to activate that shortage level? No
The city has already adopted sections in its municipal code that kind of gets at that shortage level one. So we've been very fortunate, we haven't had to get into those lower tiered or the higher tiered levels. Yeah, I'll just say this that if well seven or eight go down this summer. Those being our only two water wells we would be thinking about activating those next levels for sure.
Thank
you.
Yeah, and this might be outside of the scope of what we're talking about here. But I mean like over the years in dealing with water and I think Fillmore kind of takes, I do take a little bit of pride in the fact that we don't have to you know pipe into other sources and we're not getting water from Colorado River right? You know whatever it's all groundwater and Here's some joking on occasion, I'm assuming it was joking from other cities.
Well, you know Phil, there are cities out here that have underground water and you know with the water shortages going on everywhere is there ever a possibility that other municipalities could say you know we're gonna make this area or whatever areas underground water share?
Well, we do that through the Philmar-Piru Groundwater Basin. That's the GSA, the Groundwater Sustainability Agency. So they're the ones that are kind of striking that delicate balance between all the straws and the cup.
And that's actually where it first came up. I was on the groundwater sustainability way back when it was first initiated and then talking with other agencies, the Groundwater Sustainability Agencies in other counties, I mean other cities over in Camarillo or wherever. You just don't ever see that happening?
I don't. We do have a very healthy groundwater basin So I don't think that there's going to be any, well, you know, I hate to say that. Because then as soon as they say it, it's going to come true.
Groundwater, there are either adjudications or established parameters for who owns what share of a basin. And so if someone were to say, Fillmore you get less because we need to get someone else more they would have to give us something for it and it would have to be like a bargain for exchange. They couldn't just take it from us unless it was the state or the federal government saying that that needed to happen. Yeah, the state's my concern. But then that would be a taking and they would have to compensate us.
I
won't
worry about it.
Thank you. Yep, at night. OK. So seeing no more questions, I'll open the public hearing. And seeing nobody here, I'll close the public hearing and entertain a motion.
I'd like to move that we approve the attached resolution number 26-4121 adopting the 2025 plans.
Do we get a motion second? I'll second. I got a motion and second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes.
Sorry, who's seconded? For the minutes. Council
Member Rodriguez.
Moving on to item number 9I, resolution number 26-4118 approving the fiscal year 2026-2027 project list to be funded by the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017.
Good evening Mayor Mendez and City Council members. I'm Roxanne Hughes, your city engineer. Here we are again this is our annual little visit to, yay! We have RMRA funding to do our street work which is such a blessing for this community and every year we talk about how much we're going to be getting in this year. Filmware's projected received the $479,000 $300 and per Senate Bill one, we are required to adopt a resolution submitted by July 1st that budgetarily commits our city to spending that money on our streets. Which we're more than happy to do right? So that's what this resolution is and I've selected based on our civil AI program that drove all the streets and I showed you that last year kind of moving where we are doing work in It's a smaller segment.
We don't really have TDA funds to couple with it this year or general fund money available That could change. We're waiting on final numbers from TDA. Adopting this resolution tonight in no way commits us to doing specifically these streets or even these streets next year, we are just required to say we're going to give the old college a try and then if other streets rise up as necessary or other conflicts happen, we can change the street list. We can also push it over a year if we need to couple up more money And on carry the project over a year. It's a pretty flexible program, but it does require us to be planning ahead intending to spend it on our streets and so that's what the resolution is about before you tonight On the budget that was just adopted had an estimation of three hundred and something thousand dollars 335 I think it was that's adopted in the budget which are Finance team will be doing one of the regular amendment processes to bring it up to the actual money that we get from RMRA which is now projected at $479,000.
And so we will at a minimum do the final design stage and talk about it more once the designs are in for your consideration And in the meantime, we're moving forward this current fiscal year street works that spends almost because that's the other thing is when we do the street work this year depending on how the bids come in and how much the final contract is and how much of the RMRA plus TDA funds that we spend. If any of that's left over, we can augment this and add streets or do stuff like that so it's kind of a placeholder meets Thank you so much. I do have a question.
1:48 – 1:548 turns
Yeah, where am I out on the list? Where's our part of town? Is it okay that we can share that list or should we share the previous year's list first because I don't know which ones are completed and which ones have not been.
So the list that was in the street work that we approved is going out to bid and those streets are definitely programmed for this summer. This street list is tentative. It can be shared as long as we're clear Planning level and it's tentative and subject to change is all I would say. So we review all of the streets every year. We don't have like a five-year, we're going to do this and that's in this. We review them each year because the street deterioration can change Um, over time and they're very driven by other utility projects that need to happen before we can do a certain street amount of budget that we have. And how far gone the streets are and whether or not like I've mentioned in the past it's a little counterintuitive because you definitely don't want to spend all your money on the worst streets each year because you would never get to the better streets and preserving them.
And you just never catch up. So it's sort of a balancing act where get a couple of the bad streets, but you've still got to spend money on the streets that aren't that bad to keep them from getting bad if that makes sense. So it's a balancing act and it's something that we review every year and that's why it can be subject to change. It's not written in stone.
But these are published documents and we're going on record with the California Transportation Commission saying we're gonna go to pave these streets next year.
Thank you so much. Any other questions? Okay, seeing no other questions can I entertain a motion please?
I'd like to move the motion to adopt the resolution number 264118 approving the fiscal year 2026-27 Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017 Senate Bill 1 or SB1 project list.
Okay we got a motion second? Second. Okay I have a motion and a second all in favor? Aye
Moving on to item 9J. Consideration of the First Amendment to the Contract Service Agreement with PSD Citywide for the Development of a Permit and Cost Tracking Module.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. In December of 2024 the city entered into an agreement with PSD Citywide to develop a comprehensive computerized maintenance management system or CMMS for short for the Public Works Department. The system Which includes service request, work orders and preventative maintenance functions was successfully implemented and became operational earlier this year.
The public facing service request portal launched on December 15th of this year and has improved the department's ability to manage and track maintenance activities. Building on the success of the CMMS, the proposed amendment would add a permitting and cost tracking module that will streamline the management of the permits and inspections from application through final approval.
The module would centralize permit records, digitized plans, payment information, contractor and applicant details And inspection results and historical records into a single platform. Mobility functionality would allow, I'm sorry. Mobile functionality would allow staff to conduct inspections in the field, upload pictures, capture signatures and update records in real time.
Integration with GIS will further enhance access to property and infrastructure information in proven efficiency, transparency and organization across departments operations. The amendment also formalizes years two through five of the annual version protection and maintenance fee, and corrects the agreement's termination date to February 17th, 2030. The proposed $35,000 project cost was not included in the fiscal year 2025-26 adopted budget. Therefore staff is requesting funding from the remaining ARPA funds and future annual maintenance fees to be budgeted accordingly.
Staff is recommending that the City Council approve the $35,000 appropriation from the remaining American Rescue Plan Act ARPA funds and authorize the First Amendment to the Contract Services Agreement with PSD citywide to expand the city's computerized maintenance management system with new permitting and cost tracking modules. That concludes my report. Happy to answer any questions.
Thank you, any questions?
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No questions just a comment saying I'm glad that we're squeezing every last dollar out of those ARPA funds for this. This is excellent so Going to help enhance, but is this also going to be a yearly amount that we're going to come back and renew and be part of the budget?
No. And I apologize, don't have those cost details. But there is an annual fee for the added services. I think it might be $2,000. Thank
you. Okay,
thank you.
All right and with that I'll make a motion that we I recommend both items number one and two.
You got a motion second? I'll second. A motion second all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously thank you
Moving on to item number 9K, approval of replacement grant of easement for the public use of private property located at 342 Central Avenue.
Thank you. The staff has recommended that City Council approve the replacement grants of easements for the public use of the pedestrian breezeway located at 342 Central Avenue which provides access to the public parking lot and downtown central avenue businesses Approval would be contingent upon the Community Development Director subsequently approving a minor modification to amend the existing development conditions governing that easement.
The pedestrian access way was originally established as a condition of approval for the property's development in 1995 and was intended to remain open to the public during specified hours. In 2007, the city received an easement for the public access across the property. However, the easement was never formally recorded. Since that time, the property owner Ron Wayne Stewart has been responsible for opening and closing the access gates in accordance with the easement requirements.
Due to Mr. Stewart's age and physical limitations and modified business hours he has requested relief from those operational responsibilities. To address this issue, the city attorney has prepared a replacement grant of easement that modifies the existing arrangements while preserving the city's ability to maintain public access when necessary. Under the proposed easement, the access way will remain closed to the general public unless the city requires its use.
The city would retain the right to access the easement at all times Including any locking mechanisms and would assume responsibility for securing the gates after the city's use. And for cleaning or removing graffiti associated with such use. Since there will not be a second City Council meeting in June, the property owner is currently struggling to comply with existing requirements.
And therefore staff is recommending the city council consider replacement of the easement before completing the administrative hearing process. If approved, the staff will proceed with the required public hearing to amend the applicable condition of approval and record the replacement easement upon execution. That concludes my report, and I'd be happy to answer any questions you have. And I'd also like to point out that Mr. Stewart is in the audience and happy to answer any questions you have. And also the Community Development Director, Mr. McSweeney is here in case you have any questions regarding the administrative hearing process and modification to condition number 66. OK,
thank you. Any questions for?
Yeah, this is possibly a little off track but on the discussion paragraph one that states at the end the tenants of the residential units are to be provided with a key to the gates which is what the original agreement stated. Is that still a case? Does it mean literally the residential units which are my understanding in the second floor or did the business owners get keys as well?
I believe both The residents and the second floor and the businesses all get a key to the corridor? Oh,
that's okay. There is a secondary exit.
Joe, would you repeat that? Because I don't think the constituents have
a reason to do it. I'm sorry. Yes. That's a good point. So Mr. Stewart has indicated that the residents upstairs do not get a key to the breezeway gates. They have an alternate exit that would be not through the breezeway.
OK. And then I don't know how much of this language is going to make its way into the new agreement, but I think we should change where it says the tenants of the residential units are to be provided.
That's a good point. It's something we haven't
thought about modifying. But that seems odd that either they all have it or at least the business owner should. So okay thank you.
Good yeah thank you so much.
2:00 – 2:109 turns
Mr. Stewart has indicated that he does not want the residents to have keys to the breezeway and they have the ability to exit another way and enter.
Thank you so much. So seeing no more questions or discussions, can I have a motion?
Sure, I'll move that City Council approve an updated grant of easement with Ronald Wayne Stewart for the public use of the breezeway at 342 Central Avenue. That connects a public parking lot to downtown Central Avenue businesses and directs staff to collect the required signatures and record the easement. If the Director of Community Development determines after conducting a public hearing to approve a minor modification for the property and to amend the condition of approval number 66. Can
I have a motion? Can I have a second? I can second. Any motion, second all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Seeing none, motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Mr.
Stewart.
Moving on to item number 9L traffic studies updates and recommendations.
Good evening long time no see here I have a presentation for this one And I would also like to say thank you, Angel. It's beautiful. I love the new template. Very professional. So we're here to talk about some traffic studies. Over the last couple years, we've actually done a number of traffic studies and we've aggregated them into one presentation. I'm not going to go through the 98 Pages of the staff report, all three studies are before you in their totality as attachments to the staff report and for the public's enjoyment. I'm going to go over on this agenda background and purpose, a summary of the three studies, key findings for each one of the studies, recommendations and requested council action. And then if you guys have any questions, I'll kind of stop in between each study with questions too.
So the background and purpose of this report is for you to receive and file these three traffic studies that we've prepared. And approve recommended traffic safety and speed management improvements that are recommended by the studies, and this supports infrastructure enhancement and public safety goals. The three studies include an all-way stop warrant analysis at Mountain View Street and 3rd Street which was a citizen request And a traffic calming report for Santa Clara Street from a street to Mountain View Street, it started off as a smaller scope and this then was expanded by city management. And so we kind of took a look at that whole corridor between a mountain view, and we also performed a speed study on For traffic calming purposes also on River Street and Heritage Valley Parkway, which was one of the first ones that was actually commissioned in 2023.
And in that one we've implemented some of the things but we're still working on some of the things and so we wanted to bring it before you and let you know what's going on there. So the first ones Mountain View and Third Street. Somebody requested that we put an always stop. And it's important with stop signs that we meet warrants, that we do the analysis, that we make sure that it is needful because if you put in always stop where it's not needful, Unintended consequences, right? And so the warrant study identified that there was only one reported collision in the previous 36 months. The traffic volumes at that intersection do not satisfy the MUTCD which is the California Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, Multi-Way Stop Warrants, which is sort of the law of the land.
METCD is federal and there's a California version that we follow. There aren't any significant sight distance deficiencies We have a cause for concern where you might want to stop all four ways, even if the volume doesn't support it. Unexpected consequences, because people expect you to stop and that person's just been running the stop sign every day. And bad things can happen so we're recommending it stays as a two-way stop.
So at that, that's my only slide on this one. It's pretty straightforward were there any questions before I
move on to the next study? So Santa Clara Street traffic calming findings. We looked at volume data, here I have a slide let me it's better if I stick to my script. You can see here that the well I don't say it I'm going to say here Between A Street and Central on Santa Clara Street, there's lower volume. That's the 1839. And the 85th percentile speed is at 28 miles per hour on that segment while the central to Mountain View segment has a higher average daily traffic volume at 3305. And it's 85% of the cars in that segment are traveling at or below 31 miles per hour.
Based on the data and the field observations, it's apparent the vehicles are not significantly speeding on Santa Clara Street in this whole corridor. And most speeding vehicles are traveling less than 10 miles per hour over the Prima Fossey speed limit of 25 miles per hour. And Prima Fossey is per the California Vehicle Code if there's meets a certain amount of criteria, you know, fronting residences and there's either commercial or residential 25 or 30. And so this is a Prima Fossey 25 mile-per-hour corridor right? A review of reported accident history from the California State statewide integrated traffic record system which is also known as SWTRS Not sweaters, but switters.
For the three year period between January 23 and December 25 indicate that there is only one reported mid block which is defined as more than 150 feet from the intersections. And that was in Santa Clara on that segment between A Street and Mountain View. That was in March of 2025, and it was property damage only so we don't have a collisions and accidents or injury problem.
The Warren analysis was also conducted using the City of Fillmore's speed hump policy That concluded that the traffic calming measure of speed humps is not applicable for these study locations. Between A Street and Central, the warrant's not met because that 85th percentile speed is within five miles per hour of the posted speed or the prima facie speed limit.
And on Central to Mountain View, not all required criteria is satisfied including the roadway classification so it wouldn't qualify for speed humps. So there's a lot more data and information. The study really drills down into this. I'm going to jump to the recommendations because that's really the important part. The study recommends that, to improve safety and address traffic calming on Santa Clara, that we conduct some additional engineering traffic surveys that would support posting speed limits that may be 25 or less where they're not prima facie When you do an ENT survey, you have to set the speed limit within five miles per hour over the 85th percentile. So if we do an ENT and the speeds are lower than we could lower the speed limit is the idea there?
We expect that the ENT survey will establish 25 and then we would post speed limit signs based on that ENT survey. They're also recommending that we do upgrades to improve the visibility, do high visibility at the intersection of Fillmore Street and Santa Clara Street which I totally agree with. And then Do those things post this speed limit, improve the crosswalk, monitor it. If we're still seeing problematic behavior, we could consider doing a radar speed feedback sign kind of like the one pictured on the slide there and then of course always continue selective enforcement in the corridor. And so those were the recommendations of the study. This is the exhibit from the study that kind of identifies those different things. I know it's kind of hard to read but it is in your packet as well I think again, some of these we've already acted on.
Others were planning and programming. And this is just to be sure that you guys are in support of moving forward. Did you have any questions on the Santa Clara Street study? to access the sonic, yeah. And that's why continuing monitoring enforcement is important and it won't take us long to get the ENT studies done and the speed limit signs posted which only support our law enforcement on helping them to actually enforce the speed limits and get the crosswalk markings down, yeah, which we'll be working with our public works department on so sounds like it's a go.
So I'm looking at the first bullet point under the traffic calming report for Santa Clara. It says moderate traffic volumes ranging from approximately 1,839 to 3,305 vehicles per day? Yeah, bidirectional in both directions combined.
2:10 – 2:2021 turns
Per day, average daily traffic. In traffic worlds that's a pretty low traffic volume but in Fillmore it's one of our busier streets yeah for Fillmore it's busy.
People use it though as a bypass of the highway
they do
right they get off on Mountain View and come down this way or they get off over on by the 7-eleven on B Street and come this way
if the traffic lights are backed up they use Santa Clara which is one of the reasons we did this study
Yeah
and river, which is the next study. Good segue, Carrie. Actually if
I may Mayor, I have a question still on the Santa Clara. Actually I think it's more of a comment and I believe the intersection meeting, the pedestrian intersections at A Street and Santa Clara weren't part of this analysis I know that we looked at those recommendations for Fillmore Street and Santa Clara, but it's not part of the study. But just a comment of, I would really like to see a future study of what we can do for the pedestrian crossing at A and Central both going north on A street and crossing east-west on Santa Clara.
Yeah, all four pedestrians. Because it's such a busy and because the cars... I always feel that people come off the highway especially on their way home and they're like, I'm on my way home! I made it to A Street and they're just ready to go up A you know or in the morning they're ready to come down and start their day along with that what we just talked about the Santa Clara Street traffic so
And the lanes are not really marked very good.
The lanes aren't marked good, they have the block wall on the north side of that one residence right in the northwestern corner and then there's AT&T big brick building a lot of shrubbery there anyway when it's dark it's really dark.
Okay. Thank you. We will take that into account and I know that striping is something that we've been addressing and we'll put that on the list as well for sure. I noticed that myself at A Street and Santa Clara. We talked about it today too. Yeah, so we'll get that striping done quick like a bunny because it definitely needs to be revisited. The stop legends are missing right now. So I did notice that but I can look at the intersection visibility, the site distance and have that reviewed absolutely.
And then just one more question, I'm sorry while we're on that topic. Because A Street, Highway 23 becomes A Street, is A Street in our town still considered any still part of the State Highway 23 as it goes in North Fillmore? Not above Ventura Street or Route
126.
Okay great.
The Caltrans right-of-way goes from Highway 126 and then turns south and goes down so Highway 23 starts at Route 126 for
all us. Yeah, the reason I ask that is that Ojai Road which is highway 150 in Santa Paula. There's a few intersections there that I know the city has struggled because it's Caltrans as a state highway so I'm glad that we can move on that and the north part.
That like A at River would be that but above 126 it's all city. Got it okay thank you. Any other questions on this one? Thank you for the feedback that was very good Okay, so the third study is River Street and Heritage Valley Parkway which reviewed five different roadway segments. And including river from B to A. And then from A to Central, and then from Central to Mountain View. And they also looked at Heritage Valley Parkway from Central to Mountain View, and Mountain View to Pole Creek. And so we noted River Street's classified as a major collector with the state CRS system, and Heritage Valley is classified as local roadway.
This whole study was focused on speed management and enforceable speed limits. And so this is the upshot of this study. The recommendations will kind of go starting over there at the west, on that pink. So we've got five segments that were studied. The pink segment there is a portion of Segment 1 and the study identifies that that portion of River Street should be eligible for posting as a senior zone, which would once we put up the signs on that indicate that it's a senior zone. That's what they literally say Senior Zone then it would allow for enforcement of a 25 mile per hour speed limit regardless of the 85th percentile speed because there are seniors present and that's because of the nearby senior home In addition, the study recommended for segment two that yellow segment that we do in ENT study.
That's one of the things that we've already completed and it was the 85th percentile recommends the speed be posted at 25 miles per hour. And so getting that speed limit sign up and then it's enforceable at 25 miles per hour. I know we were doing that. I'm not sure if it's done as of today but that's in the works. The two Cayenne colored segments, which is the rest of that portion of segment one as well as that segment three along River Street. There were two choices identified in the study. One was that these...River Street is classified as a minor thoroughfare General plan circulation element, which thank you Director McSweeny for helping me with that. And as a minor thoroughfare it's that's what leads to its classification in the state CRS mapping as a major collector.
That's the language and when you are a major collector then you don't qualify for prima facie residential but everything else about these streets You know, they meet all the prima facie residential requirements with the houses on the fronting and the width of the street and the driveways and everything except for the classification. So the study says you can reclassify the street as a local residential and then it would be prima facie 25 and we could enforce it however Director McSweeny helped me realize oh that also means that we'd have to do the general plan update You know update the circulation element to call it a local residential which is a much bigger undertaking However, the general plan is due for being updated and I know in coming years So that's already on the docket and we're talking about doing that It will take some time And so option number two Which I was already leaning towards just becomes more solid of an option which is just do the ENT survey document the 85th That first portion down by the seniors is where all the traffic circles are right.
And so we get a engineering traffic survey done and it documents 25 85th. We can post it and enforce it at 25. So that is the recommendation moving forward on those segments, and then you have segment 4 which is the green which is already prima facie residential and being enforced as such and then segment 5 actually qualifies as a school zone because of the Rio Vista Elementary right there And so just getting up those 25 mile per hour when children present signs Which will also be in the works? And so on those are the All of the things that were identified, that we've been working towards or on or completing over the last couple years regarding River Street and Heritage Valley Parkway. Are there any questions on this study?
Fairly straightforward all about getting it enforceable for speed right? Okay, so the fiscal impact, the signing striping traffic studies are generally have been funded through our street maintenance and traffic safety budgets that are already included in the adopted budgets. They're implemented incrementally or as funding becomes available which for the most part has not been difficult because these are low cost items However, if something rises to we want to do more or it's not in the budget and we need more money at that time. We would come back to you with budget amendments in support of getting these things done but as it stands these recommendations we can continue to just implement with adopted budget so not a big fiscal impact other than the cost of doing the studies So this is the requested action.
Receive and file these studies, authorize staff to proceed with the recommended improvements, and then we'll just continue monitoring traffic safety conditions on a citywide basis like they do. Any questions?
No,
it was very, very well put together presentation and very thorough. And thank you for all your hard work and staff. Thank you. Any other question from the council? May I have a motion, please?
Okay. I'll move the recommendation for both 1A, A, B and C and 2A through E.
Okay, you had a motion and second? Second. Yeah, I have a motion and second all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Moving on to 9M approval of proposed year-end budget adjustments for fiscal year 2025-2026.
2:20 – 2:357 turns
Good evening Councilmembers, Mayor Mendez and Debra Capilouto, Finance Director. So today staff is recommending City Council approve the proposed year-end budget adjustments for fiscal year 2526. These adjustments in the staff report address items that have been unforeseen in the prior year budget process or come up throughout the fiscal year. Fund 101, general fund. We're requesting $130,000 for appropriations to cover higher than anticipated costs or unforeseen costs in the areas of litigation fire overtime cost. These areas are projected to be higher than their budget and the amount requested is actually a net of all general fund departments therefore we were able to use some funding from another department to be able to cover some other costs.
In addition, we're projecting an unanticipated revenue of $270,000 for higher than budgeted sales tax and vehicle license fee revenue. And workers' compensation insurance reimbursements and miscellaneous revenue. The workers' compensation if you do have somebody on workman's comp we do get some funding from our JPIA policy. Workers' compensation is not usually included in the budget as it's outside our normal day-to-day course of business for budgetary purposes.
So for fund 212 is solid waste, we're requesting increases 7270 to address higher than anticipated household hazardous waste expenses associated with that program. Fund 305 is our community pool and we request an additional increase of $30,000 for higher than I'm going to This item is for the following goal of fiscal management. And that's the end of my presentation, and I'm available for any questions.
Thank you. Any questions? Comments? No? Oh, thank you Debra. So may I have a motion please to
I'd like to move a motion to approve the year-end budget adjustment for fiscal year end 2025 26 described below including authorize the city manager to adjust the funding and funding 101 as described below if needed.
Okay, you have a motion second? I have a motion and second all in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed no thank you motion passes unanimously thank you And the moment we've all been waiting for, 9N. Approve funding for medical cardiac monitors. Chief, you're up.
It's tough going last. So good evening. Good to see you though. Yeah, yeah that's a good thing. Absolutely, good thing. Mr. Mayor, council members staff and residents of Fillmore I'm here to ask for approval from the Council of funding for medical cardiac heart monitors So we have four recommendations. One is to approve the use of the general fund for the funding of three cardiac monitors over a three-year period in an amount not to exceed $210,000.
Two is to approve appropriating $70,000 The general fund reserves from Fund 101 for the fiscal year 2026-27 through that budget and staff will include the required amounts in future budgets. And then three, authorize establishment of necessary accounting budgetary transactions per GASB requirements. And number four, authorize a city manager to execute purchase documents in a form approved by the City Attorney's Office.
So let's talk a little bit about the automatic defibrillators heart monitors that we're requesting. So as in previous requests, matter of fact we had a request for one back in December that was approved. Every time we go on a heart-related type incident, we're required to have a heart monitor with us Again, in 2025 we were the recipient of a new Life Pack 35 which is what we're asking again for here from a FEMA grant. That FEMA grant was part of a regional request through all the fire agencies in the county that would include Ventura County Fire, Oxnard Fire and Ventura City Fire including us the fourth.
All of these FEMA grants, they're not unlimited. They come with a total request is capped. In the case of the grant we received in December that total request was like $2,100,000. That among the four agencies seems like a lot, but when you consider that there's probably close to 50 some fire engines and then another 20 to 25 squads, rescues, ladder trucks so forth. Then we're up around 80 pieces of equipment.
The $2,100,000 would only supply basically 38 defibrillators. So that's why Fillmore was only eligible to receive one. As a matter of fact we were pretty lucky considering how small we are and so forth. I am going to sidetrack at different times to kind of give you the background. Even though we're small, our fire station this last year, we cracked the top 10 of busiest fire stations in the county. So 50 some fire stations were in the top ten.
So we are very busy here. We average five or six calls a day, sometimes two or three, sometimes 14-15 depending obviously on how busy most of those are medical calls in that. Okay, so moving on. So we're required to have the cardiac monitors. We're asking sole source purchase from a company called Stryker for the last 15-20 years that I've kind of been involved with EMS.
They have been the sole source provider. They bought out a company called PhysioControl Who provided our heart monitors to us previously. So Stryker is, they provide all the heart monitors to all the fire agencies and ambulances in the county. There's quite a bit of difference between the older version of the heart monitors, the LifePak 15s which currently we still have three.
Yeah, three and then the LifePak 35s there's quite a bit of difference. It's not in your notes but the Lifepak 15 is 17 year old technology. Even though we received a grant five years ago or so for three of those, their current three. It is old technology and they first came out in 2009. There's quite a bit of improvement, obviously in 17 years. So one of the first and foremost in your notes there you have that children are more easily cared for.
That is for sure. So the pediatric version of the LifePak 35 is so much superior over the 15 for cardiac care of children. Now we're fortunate we don't have that many but when we do Obviously you want the best for the children. The other item you have there in your notes is external lighting is increased for use and lower chances of mistakes. Mistakes unfortunately are fairly common in the EMS realm. For us here in Fillmore, we're lucky. I think since I've been here we've only had two or three documented in the last ten years but it does happen so the equipment that you work with is vital In this case, we're referring to the lighting and the screen and so forth that you have a good field of being able to make decisions on the fly when the indicators of the patient.
Demand that you are able to make quick decisions. The screen is just one aspect of this. Again, being 17 year old technology, Bluetooth cellular, that wasn't even an option. Now it is with the LifePak 35. They had a USB port in 2009, that technology is still around but obviously it's not state of the art. So being able to be Bluetooth ready, Wi-Fi capable and cellular capable is immense. It allows our firefighters to communicate directly to the hospital in real life time.
One of the other improvements is on reading the rhythm of the cardiac patient. Our LifePak 15s, you have to wait for a strip to be printed out. You can read it and then you could adjust your care. With the LifePak 35, it's just like being in a hospital room where they have the screen and you can see the heartbeat, the rhythms all that. Matter of fact, it monitors 11 functions at one time.
Obviously the rate, the rhythm, the blood pressure, oxygen and everything else that you could think of in a cardiac, it is there in the Lifepak 35. Again, the technology has improved so much in the 17 years. The One Plus comes with a longer lasting battery, up to nine hours. Hopefully we would never need it for nine hours but it's not uncommon for us to run back-to-back calls and even back-to back-to back calls Just kind of a funny story. Years ago, Chief Askren, Chief Herrera and myself were responding on the cardiac call because it was the fourth call in a row. And we already had Fillmore-Piru and the Fillmore Fire Station or the county fire station all on other calls so it's not uncommon for well, it is uncommon but realistically it could happen.
That leads me into the actual number We're requesting three to bring up with the one we received in December, a total of four. Again, we're fortunate that we have a pretty healthy reserve firefighter program where we can staff additional equipment. Our staffing has been really well maintained over the last couple years We keep our full time guys obviously on duty, but we're able to augment that with two, three sometimes even four reserve firefighters a day. So we're able to staff our engine and our rescue almost daily.
So the reserve program is vital to our daily staffing. Not only because the number of calls we have, but again because we have just the three full-time captains, the two full time engineers and two full time firefighters. So it is helpful to have the augmented staffing. Now, segwaying into why do we need all three of these at one time? It's tough with 40 reserves that we kind of average over the years. A little bit lower, a little bit higher at times but to keep the training up on those 40 reserves especially on critical EMS medical equipment is tough if you have two different styles of heart monitors To be able to keep, again, the reserves skills up. They're used to training on one and then the next day they might be on a different one.
So based upon that it behooves us to ensure that all of our equipment especially the state-of-art medical equipment is one piece that they all can get their initial training on and maintain that training on that. I can go on and on the benefits of the 35 over the 15. But again, I've hit the main points here. It's got a shockable rhythm that could be read prior to the strip being printed out or getting away from the strips so the paramedics When we do have them, and luckily we have them, the paramedics can intervene. We got a shockable rhythm now and they can go ahead and proceed with the shocks.
There's a built-in timer. One of the aspects of providing heart care is not just delivering the shocks or the CPR, but also being able to deliver the medications and with the timer as soon as they get on scene they'll set the timer and at so much time during the period of the event we're taking care of the patient then we can introduce the drugs at the appropriate time.
I think that's most of the discussion why for the fire service, and for the care of our citizens is like to see us run with a life pack 35 over the 15. I'll have Deborah do the financials.
2:35 – 2:4111 turns
Good evening. So as you can see, the overall cost with a loan will be $210,000 and it's this loan actually as we have to have all the paperwork in by June 30th of this month and then we will be able to get the 0% financing Which will be, of course, over three years. Unfortunately I tried to get to it defer the first year for 2027 to move on but unfortunately for this program it does not so that we will have a $70,000 requesting in order to be able to pay for that payment and then in the appropriate preceding fiscal years we will then have a 70,000 included in the budget as well
This is a no brainer for me on my part and in my opinion. I think you can't put a price on something that's going to keep our residents safe, and you guys do a tremendous job working with equipment I just wanted to say that. Anybody else? Go ahead. Yeah, you know, I think we spend so much time up here talking about spending money from the budget on things that are important but like sidewalks or
Signals or stop signs or what have you, and that's all important. But this is where the rubber meets the road, this is it. And so I think from my perspective that's a top of the list of things we have to spend our money on. So great presentation, I'm glad that you're moving forward or you're pushing us forward and it's a great idea.
I'll just ditto the Mayor and Council Member Rogge's comments. Absolutely, this is a really important investment. Thank you Chief for going into detail about the difference between the earlier one and now this current one. And we need to invest absolutely in the lives of our residents.
Echoing what Mayor Mendez mentioned, it's a no-brainer. If it's going to be saving lives not only here but also in Peru, definitely just go ahead and spend that money. But I want to give kudos to you and your team. You're having 17 year old technology and you're just squeezing every life out of it. And so that just speaks volumes on how dedicated you and your team are, and this also speaks on your leadership as well. So thank you so much, Chief.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir. And our team appreciates the support very much. Thank
you. I would like to make a motion to read all of these. Okay
so moved. Okay I got a motion, a second? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes unanimously thank you
moving on to item 10 city manager verbal report
Thank you, Mayor. It's been a while since I provided you with the street maintenance report so for the end of April to the end of May there were a total of four tons of asphalt utilized, a total pothole repair of 52, total water line service trench repairs were seven It is important to note that we did have a couple of holidays, Public Works Week and also staff has been focusing on repairing hydrants. But we're still continuing to move forward with that.
As an operational update the public aquatic center had to be closed today due to water quality issue that we had caused by incident. And so staff followed all of the required protocols and to make sure that we keep everyone safe The goal is to reopen tomorrow. We have to close it for 24 hours and we'll continue to keep the public informed via our social media channels and website too.
Remind all of our nonprofit booth who applied for a fireworks booth permit that we do have a mandatory safety meeting on June 11th at 630 here in the council chamber and just encourage our constituents to support our nonprofits by purchasing fireworks. They are legal in Fillmore I know that sometimes we do get a little bit of backlash county-wide, but there are safe and sane fireworks. There are locations where you can actually burn those safely and just provide a thank you to Anna Sendejas and Juana Garcia for coordinating the process of helping Chief Garola with the applications and answering questions to all the nonprofits and making sure that we were getting all the documentation needed.
We do currently have two open positions as Jackie mentioned earlier, and I just want to encourage the constituents to take a look at it. It's a planning technician that one is open until June 30th, and then we currently have a public works maintenance worker one which is Thank you so much. Any questions for her report?
2:41 – 2:411 turns
So then, let's move on to adjournment. I adjourn this meeting to our next scheduling regular meeting at 630 on Tuesday July 14th here at City Hall.