City Council — July 15, 2026

Good evening. I'd like to call to order this regular meeting of the Santa Paula City Council, July 15th 2026 here at city council chambers we do have Spanish translation available. And also if you have cell phones if you would either turn them off or lower them put them on airplane mode. If you're able to stand please join us for the invocation by Chaplain Kay Wilson-Bolton

Hello everyone, thank you for this privilege. So join me or listen in. Creator God I bless your name and I thank you for so many things. A unique thank you for the soccer games That has brought so much joy to so many of all ages in all the world. Thank you for the safety of all who traveled to the U.S., so we could see glimpses of life in other parts of the world and the beauty of diversity.

I thank you too for hard things because then we can learn lessons that can make us stronger and wiser. I thank you for our City Council members, for our staff who do the daily work of planning and preparation, and for all the city workers who contribute so much to our city. My prayer tonight is especially for wisdom for City Council as they make decisions that affect our days here and for the plans that need to be made for the future.

We've come to see there are few safe places in the world And God, I ask that you make Santa Paula a safe place. I pray for the well-being of all first responders because they see way too much with their eyes in our streets and our hospitals and our care facilities And God, as school begins soon I pray for teachers who have great opportunities to change lives facing equal amounts of challenges in and out of the classroom.

Help us to love mercy do justice and walk humbly so that you will be seen first. Bless those who labor in hard and hot places grant comfort and all kinds of grace Give us greater appreciation for what they do. Help us to be kinder and look for ways to show the kind of love you showed to us. I pray in Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Thank you. Madam Clerk, would you please conduct a roll call please?

All present.

Thank you. Our Attorney Monica Casilla do you have a closed session report?

Yes, Mr. Mayor and I will be reporting on three closed sessions this evening. Two of them occurred before tonight on a different days. Those two closed sessions were held on June 23rd under closed session item 5A public employee performance evaluation, uh, for the city manager. Uh, a second closed session was held on June 30th, 2026 under the same, uh, closed session item, public performance evaluation of the city manager. Um, I will report that there was no action taken during the meeting on, uh- the city managers' employment and because of that reason, um, His city manager's agreement will sunset on June 30th, 2027.

Because council did not take any action, no motion was required. So I will announce that our city managers term will end in a year. For this evening's closed session we met on numerous topics And those numbered 14. So rather than name each of them, I'm going to refer to them as... Let's see on our special agenda, I'll refer to them as items 4A Through 4 M on our special meeting agenda that we had sent out this for this meeting.

In that during that closed session, there were no reportable actions taken and that will conclude my report.

All right thank you very much. For those of you that have joined us if you picked up a agenda pack not a packet but agenda you'll notice that there's extra pages with several things I'm not going to take your time to read it But some of the highlights are it talks about regular council meetings, how to view from your television computer or mobile device. How to participate in person during the meeting, how to attend and provide remote public comment.

Let me see here, how to participate before the meeting, translated agendas interpretation assistance requests, disclosure campaign contributions and a meeting environment. And one thing that wasn't on here that I think I asked our attorney if she could just touch on it briefly Is interrupted council meetings that's something that's required now, you could just touch a little bit on that.

Thank you Mayor as of July 1st the state legislation SB 707 requires that there is the city provides remote public participation during council meetings when there is an interruption in that connection Through Zoom or other technology, the City Council is required to pause the meeting for one hour and take a recess. And if after one hour they- after good faith efforts were made to restore that connection then the council can reconvene and take a vote whether to proceed or adjourn the meeting.

So that is the requirement going forward.

Thank you very much and Julie Lashaw, our city clerk if I could have you talk a little bit about public comment and if there's going to be any remote access this evening how that would work?

Yes, and also with the same Assembly Bill 707 we are required to provide remote public comments. So we do have that on our agendas now for anyone that would like to be able to do that. It's set up as a webinar. The information is on all of the agendas to be able to log in. That same information is also on our website under the agenda area to be able to give instructions on how to be able to do that. This will give people that are unable to come.

Capability of being able to speak from afar on different items As we move forward through this and of course tonight's our first night. We'll be Doing a step-by-step that kind of is back in the olden days when we had to use webinars for our kovat So, um, we will start going ahead and having them raise their hand When the item comes we'll call for that ask for raise of hands And one by one we would bring them in for their three minute speaking If they still need translation, we will bring the translator out as well and they can go back and forth to do some translating. That might take a little bit of time to get a little more organized on that but I'm sure with time we will have that down pat because we know our people here do want to be able to have access to translation as well.

So anyway, that is starting. Tonight is the first meeting for that and if anyone has more questions they can always reach out to me or also check on our website for more instructions.

Thank you very much. We do have three public speaker cards. Do we have anybody in the webinar waiting room?

No currently we have no one on any items but as each item comes up if you could check back with me in case anyone logs in.

Very good. Okay, so we have three public speakers. This is general public comment. First will be Bob Orlando followed by David Romney and you have three minutes Mr. Orlando

Greetings Mayor, Council, Department Heads and including Mr. Singer. My name is Bob Orlando 524 Glade Drive. My wife Becky and I have called Santa Paula our home for over 29 years and we retired a few years back people asked us where are we going to retire? We looked puzzled at them we proudly said here or else would be better Our city has continued to progress and be better. Not solely, but I attribute much of this to two individuals who gave us their all. One was John Marquez, the former Executive Director of the Chamber of Commerce that as he established the Chairman's Circle that helps keep the chamber financially supported, kept Cruise Night our signature event and has a stancing in the streets. He got us recognition and respect. from our county.

The other is City Manager Dan Singer, for six years he guided us through many issues and successful projects got two difficult and necessary tax measures passed and the funds generated from those measures actually were doing what they were supposed to. Peggy Kelly's article July 8th in the mighty Santa Paula Times stated that council decided not to extend Dan's contract. Included in this article is his extensive accomplishments during his tenure But also noted was the Travis Walker hiring.

I'm confident Dan's honestly believe the hiring was of the best interest of our city. Well, that hire was not what is expected and Dan admitted his mistakes and we moved on. People see what they want to see. I know at least one of you during your 2022 run for council did not support Dan as City Manager and wanted him replaced. The undertone was at that time, the Walker hiring. Carrying that conventional bias in others may have prevented you from recognizing Dan's accomplishments Psychology notes that those who focus on one's mistakes, not accomplishments, are ill-informed, ill-advised and in some cases prejudiced. I hear the Council wants to go a different direction. Have you discussed that direction with Dan? What is that direction? We are progressing and moving forward here.

Why do you want to change our effective and positive course? Of course stands he will graciously make this proposed transition happen. What else would you expect from a man of good character, person of good character commitment and responsibility? I don't propose a grassroots movement but an oak tree roots movement to encourage the present and future councils to extend Dan's contract for three years, assuming he wants to do that because this action is in concert with where the city is going and beneficial to all concerned. I realize there are other issues but do they warrant your decision?

Please don't focus on your agendas and prejudice and don't make this your mistake. Thank you for listening.

Thank You Mr. Orlando now we have David Romney who will be followed by Chris Bartleson

Well, good to see you here. I came here because I read the paper today and I was encouraged that the council intended to be transparent about its vote on everything and although I'm not a resident of the City of Santa Paula, I was born here, I spent all my formative schooling here through high school And I spend most of my waking hours here at my law practice every day during the work week.

And I still view this as my home, so I care and I am here because I want to point out the obvious that the release that the city council gave about not to renew the contract of the city manager has unanswered, major answered questions that the city should address for the benefit of the city manager and for the electorate. Everybody should know. And the first thing that comes to mind is I've... The recent history has shown that selecting a new city manager is a very difficult thing It was probably 10 years ago or so, Bob Gonzalez. Everybody knows Bob Gonzalez. He died as you know but a wonderful man. He went to Nogales brought home Jaime Fonseca and Jaime was an empty suit as it turned out. He had all the credentials everything else he was for about seven years.

He fired everybody. Cliff Finley, and he ended up failing up. He ended up going to Camarillo and then Thousand Oaks and retired there quite well off and quite happy. Meanwhile we were left in the lurch and had to remake the team that had been put together. Putting together a team is very difficult and you listed some of of the city manager's achievements, and they're quite remarkable. If you look at what you did with Harvard, what you did with Main Street, what's happened with The Harvest, what is happening over near Hallock Road... What's going to go down there? I forget what that shopping center name is called, but you're going to be building on that soon.

And all of that has gone swimmingly. It's been amazing that it has been accomplished by such a small city with a small staff and the other thing that I've noticed since Dan has come here We actually have a team. We have people who give a damn, and I mean that in a very real sense. They get up, they care, when you ask questions they get answers for you and if they don't know it, they'll come back and tell you.

And it's clear they have a real respect for Dan Singer, your city manager. Now, if you're going to change and say okay there's some urgency here and I'm going to go in a different direction. City councils do that all the time and that's part of life. I actually used to be a city attorney I was a Deputy City Attorney in Ventura and a city attorney of Woodland for about 10 years, which is the county seat of Yolo County. And I was also the president of the Government Attorneys Association up in Sacramento for three years.

Mr. Romney your three minutes are up could you wind it up real quick?

Well, I can't wind it up and I can't say what needs to be said in three minutes. And so that's that but I would ask this the council well there is one thing I can wrap up City Council has no business making a decision now because it's not even the city councils decision and your city attorney will you advise view that? Because your successor council is going to be elected in November 5th and And at that point in time, that council can do what it wants to do. You can't bind them and if you want to convince the new future city council that you're right, you certainly ought to take the time as a whole city council to give some shape to whether it is you're telling the city manager at this point in time that he's not doing that he should do Because hope and change can be fool's gold, and if you don't spend time and you don't understand what it is you want and make it clear, the likelihood is you're not going to get it.

So please tell the city what it is you want and tell the City Manager what you want. It's past time.

Thanks. Thank you Mr. Romney. We have Chris Bartels next, and if there's anybody else please turn in a speaker card?

Okay, I'm pleased to be here and thank you for the opportunity. I've been a resident of Santa Paula since 1969 and I like to say when I got out of the Navy this is the place I came and I like to say that this is the only place I've ever chosen to live And it's made me proud all these years. And I've raised my children here and so on, and it's been good. And obviously from the date of Paul Watts back in those days till today, I've seen a lot of city managers come and go as well as city councilmen come and go.

And I'm not going to reiterate everything that's been said. I feel the same way that they do but I'm just gonna say I'm really disappointed that the council has elected not to make a decision on continuing Dan's employment and his renewing his contract. And I just, you know, I've talked to a lot of people where most people are in shock and I can understand how you have decisions about which way you want to go here or there but as Dave said, It's important, first of all, to express the direction you want to go to the person who is supposed to execute that. And then if he doesn't, then you can certainly have grounds.

But I feel really disappointed. By not doing it, you don't have to say that there was three against four or whatever it was in making a decision You just basically turn your backs, and I feel like that is not right. And I feel like the public, your constituents, we put you here. We should have the right to know what's really going on. So I really hope that you'll take it into consideration and consider renewing his contract. Thank you.

Thank you Mr. Bartleton. Madam Clerk, is there anybody in the webinar waiting room?

No mayor, we have no other public comments.

Very good. We'll now go on to item number seven, presentations. We're honored to have a Turk County Fair Post presentation by Junior Fair Board, our council member Leslie Cornejo.

Thank you, Mayor. I was not intended to be the person doing a bit of this presentation. I actually do have a role of being a director appointed by the governor on the Fair Board but there is also another Santa Paula, someone who's well known in Santa Paula, Betsy Chess and she was going to be here presentation this evening. The last minute she was not able to, but we always have our Junior Fair Board who are just a wonderful group of young people that do great things at the fair.

They are a powerhouse of fun and responsibility and they're here to present the poster and tell us all about this year's fair.

Um, hello everyone and thank you for having us here today. My name is Rocky Manzano and I am a 12th grader from Santa Paula.

And my name is Cole Whitehead and I'm also a 12th grader from here in Santa Paula.

We are both members of the Ventura County Junior Fair Board. The JFB is an organization for high school students throughout Ventura County focused on youth leadership development and community engagement. During the fair we put on classic games like the watermelon eating contest and karaoke We are here on behalf of the Ventura County Fair to present the official 2026 fair poster.

Over 300 young artists submitted their artwork for consideration at this year's youth poster contest. We have seen a remarkable increase in submissions over the last few years, and we can attribute that to the elimination of any fee to enter the competition. The incredible artwork created by Ventura County youth never ceases to amaze us. Submissions were judged by a panel of community partners and team fair members, and the winners were announced as in third place Simon Shapiro, a sixth grader from Simi Valley. In second place Mika Sanchez, a 10th grader from Ventura. And this year's winning poster was drawn by Annalise Cohen, a ninth grader from Camarillo.

Can you show it to the audience?

We are excited to share that the grandstand concert lineup for this year's fair is July 29th, Bush. July 30th, Marshmello. July 31st, Iration. August 1st, Jake Owen. August 2nd, Herencia de Patrones featuring Banda Magui and Banda Toro. August 3rd, Ashanti and Bow Wow. August 4th, Switchfoot and Hoop Stank. August 5th, Nate Smith. And there's also three days of rodeo, August 7th through August 9th.

We will have special admission days on Wednesday, July 29th which is $5 before 5 p.m., Friday July 30th Youth Day, Tuesday August 4th Seniors and Persons with Disabilities Day, Wednesday August 5th VCCU Member Day, Thursday August 6th Community Heroes Day, Friday August 7th Food Share Day We would also love to see you at the Junior Livestock Auction on Friday, August 7th where both of us will be auctioning off our market steers along with a bunch of other Ventura County youth exhibitors which will have a number of other species.

And we hope to see you all at the fair this year and that's all we have. And this poster is actually for you guys so would you like us to leave it anywhere specific?

Actually, I think we got a spot right there where it's going to replace last year's.

But we would like to also take a picture with you with the mayor as part of the evenings or maybe even with the whole council up to your... I would also mention something new this year is that the fairgrounds for security reasons is going to have required plastic Bags as you come into the fairgrounds and that should speed up security getting through but it is a new thing So people should come prepared bringing their things in a in a plastic bag. There are sizes and restraint and Advisories on the website and you can find out about that If someone forgets we do have some people that are sponsoring and will be providing some at the gate But we want everyone else to come prepared because we won't have enough for everybody so I

We're going to come down there and take a photo with you. And thank you very much for your presentation.

Mayor, if I could mention that they have left flyers in reference to the fair and I'm going to place them on the table back here for any public that would like to obtain one.

Very good. Thank you

Okay.

Please stand by.

Thank you. All right. Good luck in the auction. Good luck in the auction, OK? Thank you guys so much.

Appreciate it. It's either a sponsor or

the special. There isn't one except

for last Thursday

Next we'll move on to item 7b parks and recreation month proclamation. And with us this evening, we have Vanessa Olmos Parks and Recreation Commission chair So Would you like me to read this first or would you like to make some comments first?

All

right, let me read the simple Proclamation, designation of July as Park and Recreation Month. Whereas parks and recreation programs are an integral part of communities throughout this country including the city of Santa Paula and whereas our parks and recreation are vitally important to establishing and maintaining the quality of life in our communities ensuring the health of all citizens and contributing to the economic and environmental well-being of a community and region and whereas parks and recreation programs build healthy active communities that aid In the prevention of chronic disease, provide therapeutic recreation services for those who are mentally or physically disabled.

And also improve the mental and emotional health of all citizens and whereas parks and recreation programs increase a community's economic prosperity through increased property values, expansion of the local tax base, increased tourism, the attraction and retention of businesses and crime reduction and Whereas parks and recreation areas are fundamental to the environmental well-being of our community. And whereas parks and natural recreation areas improve water quality, Protect groundwater, prevent flooding, improve the quality of the air we breathe. Provide vegetative buffers to development and provide habitat for wildlife. And whereas our parks and natural recreation areas ensure the ecological beauty of our community and provide a place for children and adults to connect with nature and recreate outdoors.

And whereas the US House of Representatives has designated July as Parks and Recreation Month. Whereas the City of Santa Paula recognizes the benefits derived from parks and recreation resources. Now, therefore I, Carlos Juarez, Mayor of the City of Santa Paula and on behalf of the city council recognize the importance of access to local parks, trails, open space facilities for the health, wellness, development inspiration and safety of all Californians and do hereby proclaim the month of July as Parks and Recreation Month in the City of Santa Paula dated this 15th of July 2026. We'll come down in a moment take photos with you.

You want to do that first or do you want me to?

Let's have you speak.

So good evening everyone, thank you Mayor Juarez for acknowledging July as Parks and Recreation Month. We're all very lucky to have a director and staff who love what they do and work year-round so that Santa Paula has the best parks facilities and activities that we can offer. I'd like to recognize Ulysses Valenzuela and his parks team for keeping the parks in great shape I don't know that people realize how much work goes into maintaining all of those parks.

Any sprinkler head goes out or a light needs replacing, and those are the guys that are there before the sun rises or after the sun sets to make sure that they're replaced. Their efforts don't go unnoticed. I also want to recognize the recreation staff They're constantly coming up with new events or ideas that keep the community engaged. And once one event ends, or a season ends, it's time to start planning the next. I know we just had the 4th of July event a couple weeks ago and that was a huge success. That was no small task so thank you to Greg, Catherine and the entire department for their great work.

I'd also just like to remind everyone about a few of the upcoming events the department has. Monday nights for the summer, there's volleyball drop-ins at Teague Park from 5 to 630. It's open for 12 to 17 year olds and from 630 to 8 it's open for adults. Adult softball will be starting in August. Contact the Recreation Department for more information on registration.

There's going to be a women's self-defense class on July 31st at the Community Center in the Cultural Arts Building. Movies in the park, there is one more movie in August on the 14th. I believe that's going to be Zootopia 2 at Teague Park and then this Friday we have a concert in the park at the Santa Paula Creek Sports Park from 6 to 9 so thank you everyone.

You're very welcome. Alright let's go take a picture with Vanessa

I'm always.

Yeah, there you go.

All

right, Mr. Barnes

We're going now to item 7C, which is our Parks and Recreation Department activity report by Director Greg Barnes. Welcome sir. Thank you.

Before we start, I'll note that we had a few of our maintenance team that wanted to be here to join us this night as well. But they're actually coaching T-ball as we speak and needed to be out at the T-ball field so our maintenance team not only cares for our parks but actually jump in and volunteer and coach and get involved as well. So thank you. Mayor, Council thank you. Thank you for that nice proclamation we will hang it up proudly in the community center this evening I'm going to report on activities February through June and for 2026 in your packet you have a detailed written report as well so this PowerPoint will kind of highlight some of those items.

I'll start off with our Classes and under recreation community services continue to have good numbers with gymnastics in Taekwondo and archery. We're looking soon to also offer a dance class, and we're looking for an adult should be offering soon an adult like Tai Chi class in the park so coming soon In addition we also Under our youth sports During this time offered our 5v5 micro soccer program and our track and field. As you know that's a continued partnership with the school district and continuing to see large numbers 355 young people participating in our micro soccer. So we have if you go out there on Saturday there's multiple fields running at the same time out of the sports park. There's a couple photos of them participating on the right.

And then our drop-in volleyball 78 different individuals or youth participants during that time participating in the drop-in volleyball Adult recreation programs. We continue to see high numbers in our pickleball. I think I've mentioned before we started indoor pickleball as kind of a solution because we didn't have pickleball courts in the city yet and it just continues to grow so you can see 327 participants drop in volleyball is well over at Teague Park adult kickball and our adult archery program but I want to point out our adult dodgeball program which is new everyone seemed to have a wonderful time was the first time we ran it It's a recreation dodgeball league, but you wouldn't know it if you showed up. I think they all show up like their professional dodgeball and your own Mr.

Mason participates as well. So they did conclude their first season we will do it again. It was seemed to be very enjoyable and it's a very loud experience if you ever come in want to watch. City Corps continues to flourish and participate and work on City beautification projects and what we call town keeping. We are currently recruiting more city court members so if you know anyone between, because of your action we actually can hire 16 and over now. So if nobody interested please have them apply but we're looking to add a few more positions to our city court team.

But projects completed over this time 239 projects that computes to a little over 2,000 hours of time that they've put in. You see a couple pictures there on the slide Of them powerwashing the downtown area, the PBIT area. I'll mention that it's in your report that PBIT has continued also to support our city core program. Monetarily they put money towards some hours so that we can have more hours available to employ our young people and they also even contributed to assisting us to buy a power washer because the power washer we were using continued to burn up as we were doing it. So they also put a little bit of money in or not a little but a lot of money in and we contributed as well So that the team has an active power washer and then there they are also painting all the downtown poles.

That was at the request of PBID. PBID funded the materials, and the kids went out and did the project. Oops I went too far. Special events, we had our annual Easter egg hunt, our Arbor Day celebration. There's a picture there of the Arbor Day. As you know, we do it a little different each year. This year we celebrated with Glynn City School and had students out there so quite a success, planted five trees.

The poem contest winners were before you a month or so ago being recognized so it was a great event. We hosted one summer movie nights during that period. We have another one coming up. We hosted one in July and will have one in August And then we had our first concert for the series on June 19th. And then our volunteer program, we continue. We've really tried to hone in our youth services coordinator. Karina Alvarez is also our volunteer coordinator and so we've really tried to make sure we're gathering our data and honing in on our volunteer opportunities. So over this last period, we had 66 volunteers contribute 519 hours That comes out to roughly about $20,000 of service to the community.

And they've done things like delivering meals. They are coaching or helping us with different beautification projects so we're thankful to all our volunteers and you should see something coming soon about another Santa Paula Beautiful Day as well coming up. And then senior services continued to serve our seniors over 286 seniors currently participating in programs. You can see a list there of our Different classes, enhanced fitness, chair yoga or knitting club, bone builders.

We continue to host our meal program and our luncheons if I know all of you have been to a luncheon before there's very well attended over 100 seniors attend and we will have our new coordinator come before you soon maybe at the next council meeting to introduce you but last Monday we had a new Recreation coordinators start for senior services. That position had been vacant for a couple months now and she started, her name is Neva Lee, she started Monday in that position so we're excited to have her and she's excited to serve our seniors.

Senior nutrition program continued to put meals out to our seniors over that period we served little over 4200 home-delivered meals 2,807 congregate meals and then 520 city funded Friday meals. That's the funding that you all approved to allow us to offer extra meals and we use that. We call it Fun Friday in some things and have different meals from restaurants generally in the community for a total of a little over 7500 meals served to our seniors during that time.

Then our parks and facilities continue to do a great job. They're small but mighty team get a lot of things done as you can see just the number of work orders that are issued little over 4600 work orders issued during that time 4572 two of them have been completed 219 of them were graffiti related Work orders, which kind of graffiti ebbs and flows a little bit. That number is down a little bit from previous but we kind of anticipate it to probably spike up a little bit too. It typically does over the summer months so we'll see when I report out to you again what that number looks like in our next report.

So facility improvements very busy doing a lot of different projects did some here at City Hall renovating the city clerk's office and various administrative offices You can see we finished a portion of the landscaping in front of City Hall. We'll be starting to work on the second half of that soon. The community center, if you've driven by the community center lately did a whole renovation of kind of the front corner there on Steckle and Main Street and freshened that area up will also Hopefully soon doing a new sign installation. We did the senior side and we want to match that on the community center site as well Union oil building went through as we're you know have new tenants there And we're kind of getting things up and running for them and prep for them replaced all or didn't replace all of them, but replaced some of the Plumbing fixtures and restroom fixtures and deep clean them and kind of got them up and running for our tenants at the oil building.

Community development building, we've been having some chronic sewer issues off of that building so we coordinated the design proposals in replacement a portion of the sewer line to help solve that issue. So that work was done here in the last couple months. Antique Park, you probably noticed the area was fenced off for quite some time. Did a lot of field renovations including aeration thatching grading topsoil and seeding and working on our timer and installation of our irrigation timer What's unique about this is a few years ago, we would have contracted all that work out. And now our staff is doing a lot of that work. We rent some of the equipment that we need but our staff is doing the actual work on the fields and they do a really good job on it.

Sports Park completed drainage improvements adjacent to the softball fields by pouring some concrete gutters and things to help with runoff Upgraded various irrigation systems to put them online. So now our staff can actually control our irrigation remotely so if we Get a call that sprinklers have come on or we can detect leaks We can actually we can actually see that remotely we don't always have to come in to take care of the issues Or we can actually or we can respond to them faster than 30 minute drive-in when you get a call that a sprinkler came on inadvertently The staff can handle it, you know within minutes Downtown beautification, in partnership with the downtown PBID, the department's continued enhancing the appearance of downtown corridor through ongoing maintenance and infrastructure improvements.

We've continued to have been working on the tree lighting. We had some that weren't even working about a row four or five trees weren't working so worked on that. Replacing photo cells and different electrical components. Purchased as I mentioned earlier new commercial pressure washer Through our partnership with PBID, and we've provided them at least through this year a schedule of when that power washing will happen.

Historically the PBID was Getting the power washing downtown quarterly, maybe three times a year, maybe quarterly. With our new schedule and the city corps involvement, the businesses are getting power wash in front of their business every other month. So we've been really able to increase the amount of services that are being offered to that area. Urban forestry, we did complete the first half of grid 3 tree pruning The second half of grid three, although it's technically into this fiscal year we had bid it and provided the purchase order in last fiscal year but that work will be starting soon.

What's nice about that or at least from a parks and rec director perspective is I did not anticipate us being on schedule with our tree maintenance didn't believe the budget would Support that. So even though we have a four-year plan, you build a plan on what you should do not necessarily on the budget and then you just take away as best you can. But we are on track. We're through three year of our grid in three years, bless you.

And now we'll be starting on year four in year four. So thank you for the continued support of our tree healths. Our staff has done a really good job. We bid them each time separately so that we can try to get the best bang for our buck and get competitive bidding. And we're on track to for our tree pruning projects. At the administrative, we had a staff member attend the financial sustainability conference. The second part of that through the California Park and Recreation Society We continue to coordinate ongoing capital improvement facility enhancement projects.

Last, when I looked at our ticker we have 14 ongoing maintenance projects or CIP level projects happening so it's quite a list that we are constantly working on. Continue to contract administrative and project coordination for maintenance and infrastructure improvements Supported recreation programming and special events as you can see the things we talked about earlier park permits film permits and banner requests And with the help of our human resources department, as I mentioned earlier. We filled our senior center program coordinator vacancy Excuse me And with the support of the city manager's office, we've launched a campaign for the farm workers monument brick program That's been something that the community has been asking for for some time.

We are Working to restore the monument if you will it's it's a little bit under disrepair and so we are working and going to help raise Some funds to do some repairs to that we just The first campaign for brick sales just closed and I think we sold over 60 bricks, and they will be in before Labor Day. So it's an ongoing sale but our goal is to have all the new bricks in every year right before Labor Day.

And then a few numbers as you can see, I won't go through all of them but you can see Harding Park has been very well used over this past season. A lot of that is because of the little league and girls softball programs running during that time. We have been busy and you can see the barbecue pavilions as well. They get used on a pretty regular basis. So with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions. The report you do have in your package is very extensive but I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you Director Barnes. I

just have one quick question. The price of the bricks?

They were, so we did an introductory $100 brick. Okay. They're now $150. And

where can people go to purchase one? Do they have to wait?

They can go to our website and you just order them

online.

Anything ordered now though won't be installed until next Labor Day, so we'll install them once a year. Got it. Anything that was ordered up to July 10th will be installed before this Labor Day.

Okay,

thank you.

Other questions? Council Member Cornell.

Thank you Mayor. I did find it in the city newsletter online, the link to purchase a brick. So I did buy a brick under the wire just barely with the deadline in order to get it at the lower price. I love couponing and discounts. Anyway so mine will be in soon. I just would like to say how much I appreciate that your department because you touch so many people in our community in such a positive way and especially the youth, the seniors appreciate the attention that Parks and Rec gives them I did want to ask, because I know it's an ongoing project, that a pet project or complaint of mine for years has been the restrooms at Teeny Park and I believe that that's under construction. Do we have an approximate time when that will be ready?

Yes so the demo is complete they're currently doing grading in utilities and we expect delivery of a restroom by the end of this month or first part of August so pretty soon

Wonderful. It's been long and coming, and I know it's been budget issues, a supplier who passed away. Everything that could happen seemed to happen in order to get this to happen. But it really means an awful lot of people that use Teague Park. So I'm just going to, it's a wonderful thing and I really appreciate the follow through to do it.