Alturas City Council
City Hall Council Chambers
November 19, 2024 at 2:00 p.m.
City Council Mayor Paul Minchella called the meeting to order at 2:00 p.m. at the City Council Chambers.
Councilmembers present: Paul Minchella, Brian Cox, Duanna Knighton, Jennifer Engel and Jodie Larranaga. Councilmembers absent: None. Staff present: City Clerk Tacie Wheeler, City Treasurer Dorothy Long, Director of Public Works Warren Farnam, Police Chief Marc Muller, Fire Chief Jimmy Lloyd. Public attending: 14. Craig Flournoy presented the invocation. All present joined together in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Public Forum
Stan Yagi, from Antonio’s introduced himself and had a question for Chief Muller. He stated that there was a bomb threat at the Auditor’s Office last Saturday and wondered why no one in the area had been notified or evacuated. He knows it was not credible and nothing was found, but feels they should have been told.
Chief Muller states he understands where he’s coming from and agrees, and suggests he check with the afterhours dispatch and see about the reverse 911 system.
Approval or Additions/Deletions to Agenda
Mayor Minchella says that he is concerned about items #10, 15 and 16. He says they are all personnel matters and feels they may be retaliatory. He asks the attorney’s opinion.
City Attorney Kenny states they are personnel matters, but if council wants to take them off the agenda, they can.
Councilmember Cox says that on item #10, he had originally had it in closed session. Mr. Kenny said that it should be in open session. Mr. Cox still believes it should be in closed session. He says it is in no way retaliatory, that it simply reflects actions taken by the Council and an employee. He suggests they move it to closed session. He states that these are serious performance issues, that it is not retaliatory, and the Council has a duty to look at them.
City Attorney Kenny questions whether it should be on the agenda at all.
Councilmember Cox says that if Council does not take a look at these personnel matters and performance issues, they would be taking a risk at putting the City at liability.
Mayor Minchella states that the Public Safety Union has requested to have this stricken from the agenda, because it is a personnel matter.
Councilmember Cox states that this is simply asking Council if they would like to submit it to the Chief to investigate, and to move it to closed session.
Mayor Minchella suggests they not, and that it is the Chief’s discretion.
Councilmember Cox states that they (Council) are the victim’s.
He questions Mayor Minchella about being pressured to have these items removed from the agenda.
Mayor Minchella denies being pressured by anyone.
City Attorney Kenny states that it is up to the Council whether it should be closed session or discussed at all.
Councilmember Cox moves that it is discussed in closed session. Further, he says the item is not for the Council to investigate, it is whether Council wants to submit it to the Chief for investigation.
City Attorney Kenny states to keep it simple, let’s ask – Does this City Council want to discuss this item today? says that item #10 has a potential for retaliatory action.
Councilmember Cox moves that we discuss this matter in closed session.
With no second, motion dies.
City Attorney Kenny says that this is the City Council’s agenda. If the City Council wants to discuss it, they can. He says that # 10 has other ramifications with respect to retaliation.
Councilmember Cox states that there is policy about this, and it is something that we should ask our Chief to look into.
Councilmember Knighton feels that the committee who is overseeing this department should have been notified of this before it was brought to Council.
Councilmember Cox says that the reason that didn’t happen is because every councilmember is a victim of this.
Councilmember Engel states that she does not have an issue with items 15 and 16 because they are listed in closed session. Item 10 is not listed in closed session and could potentially get the City into some hot water if discussed in open session and is not comfortable with that.
MOTION by Councilmember Engel, SECONDED by Councilmember Larranaga to remove item #10 and approve the rest of the agenda as written. 4 AYES, 1 NAY.
Consent Agenda
MOTION by Councilmember Engel, SECONDED by Councilmember Knighton to approve Consent Agenda as follows: a.) Approve minutes of October 15, 2024 meeting; b.) Approve City Warrants for October 2024 in the amount of $264,013.42; c.) Approve ACH reconciliation report for October 2024 in the amount of $154,876.87; d.) Approve Resolution #2024-43 removing inactive water and sewer accounts from August 2024 in the amount of $208.50. ALL AYES.
Lorena Torres, from Modoc County Office of Education, introduces herself while colleague Heather Hadwick, hands out flyers to Council as to what the banners will look like. Lorena asks that they can hang these banners on Main Street for the month of October 2025 and asks that the City puts them up and takes them down. They wanted to make sure they had permission before they ordered the banners.
MOTION by Councilmember Engel, SECONDED by Councilmember Larranaga to approve Modoc County Office of Education to hang banners on the light poles on Main Street for the month of October 2025 in honor of Red Ribbon Week. ALL AYES.
Councilmember Cox states that he put this on the agenda, because he got a call from Paul about the letter that was addressed to him (Paul) and that he wasn’t really happy about this. He called Mr. Allert and asked him about it and asked if he would come to the meeting today to explain to Council and let everyone know what happened.
Edwin Allert stands to explain the letter to the Council about the Veteran’s Day Parade being canceled. He states that in prior years, they had a partial road closure, as they didn’t know they could apply for a full road closure. For the last two years, he has applied for the full road closure as it just works better that way. They have to get approval letters from the Council, Police Department, CHP and County to apply at Caltrans. It was supported by all. Then he got a call that it wasn’t supported for the full road closure. He made a statement that if they weren’t supported, he would cancel it. So he canceled the parade. He feels there was an inappropriate statement made to him about canceling the parade due to lack of support, which led to his letter to the Mayor and City Council.
Councilmember Cox says that he knows that the City Council signed the support letter for the parade and asks DPW Farnam what happened.
Director of Public Works (DPW) Farnam states that he stands by his comment. He explains that he is a veteran himself and when his care and support of veterans was questioned, he was a bit triggered and offended. He says that last year we received the permit the day before the parade. He has a small crew and to do a full road closure it is a lot. It is the responsibility of the parade organizer to get us the extra help needed by reaching out to the Sheriff’s Posse. He reached out to Mr. Allert several times, as well as others to let them know that we are limited and do not have enough bodies to man barriers for a full road closure, which is where the help was needed. He did not say that we would not help and would not do it. He just said that we did not have enough bodies for the full closure without help. He apologizes that it worked out this way and is sorry that it didn’t have enough attendance, but he cannot say that we do not support it.
Councilmember Cox says that we should have known before we signed the support letter that we wouldn’t be able to man a full closure so that we could let them know ahead of time.
DPW Farnam says that he asked Sheriff Dowdy if anyone had reached out to the posse or anyone for help.
No one had. Mr. Farnam reached out to Caltrans, and the permit wasn’t done yet. It could have been changed for a partial closure so we could man it.
Councilmember Cox suggests that we are upfront before we sign next year. He says that in the future we can do better and states that we owe our Veterans an apology.
Councilmember Larranaga states that to her knowledge, this parade would have been canceled anyway due to the low number of entries.
Mr. Allert says that that is the way it ended up. In the past, they did not have to go to the allied agencies themselves to get help for the full closure, it was done for them. To save everyone time in the future, if we don’t have at least 5 entries, we will not move forward with it.
Councilmember Cox says that it is very important to him that we make this happen for our veterans. We have some very distinguished people here that have fought for our freedom. We can do better. He apologizes for the road blocks that have been endured.
Mr. Allert states that he thinks both sides can do better.
Councilmember Knighton explains that there is a SCEDD meeting on December 5, 2024 and she is on that committee, so she is asking for mileage reimbursement to attend that meeting. It is also required that she gets a livescan and background check that they want to be done down there, so she will do that while she is in Redding as well.
MOTION by Councilmember Engel, SECONDED by Councilmember Cox to authorize mileage for Councilmember Knighton to go to SCEDD meeting in Redding on December 5th, 2024. ALL AYES.
Treasurer Long says that this reflects what we have discussed in our budget sessions, and includes a decrease in one vehicle for the police department, a decrease in training budget that will only include essentials and an addition to fund 60 to aid in cost of property acquisition and an increase in the pool fund for the McConnell Grant funds.
Councilmember Cox says that he thought they had agreed to suspend the purchase of both vehicles.
Councilmember Knighton states that it was not agreed. She says that she discussed it after the meeting with Chief Muller and Councilmember Larranaga, who is also on that committee, and said that if it is something that is needed, we shouldn’t be taking both of them away, we should at least provide one.
Councilmember Cox says that he did some research about runout mileage, as we are being informed that at 50,000 these vehicles are done. He states that CHP is running their vehicles twice as long as ours with less problems, and wonders why ours are more problematic. He knows that there is some recall work that needs to be done and suggests that maybe we need to up the maintenance on ours or something.
Councilmember Engel states that she was under the same understanding as Councilmember Cox.
Councilmember Cox says he would prefer we take the low mileage ones in for the recall work and reduce the take home vehicles and it might change the outlook and our need for vehicles He is not averse to an amendment in the future.
Councilmember Knighton says that Chief Muller deserves a say.
Chief Muller says that one vehicle needs recall work, and one needs major work done on it, but it could take up to a year. With a potential new officer coming on, we need another vehicle. He would like to keep one vehicle in the budget.
MOTION by Councilmember Knighton, SECONDED by Councilmember Larranaga to approve Resolution #2024-44 adopting the proposed 2024/2025 fiscal year budget in the amount of $10,929,496. 3 AYES, 2 OPPOSED. Motion passed.
Mayor Minchella says that this item is primarily directed at Councilmember Cox. There have been 5 or 6 requests from Councilmember Cox towards Treasurer Long. They are disruptive and take a lot of time from our staff. These are about subjects that are no longer in discussion by our City Council and are felt to be vindictive and retaliatory against the Treasurer and Police Chief. It affects the morale of our employees and are demoralizing to all involved.
Councilmember Cox says that there is $17,000 in the budget for Oppenheimer Investigation, in addition to what was already spent. That is roughly $24,000 on an investigation against him. The contents of these FOIA requests are in response to that, as he said he wanted a copy of that investigation in the meeting. The City is doing everything to prevent him from getting a copy of the investigation. He asks why the Council is okay with spending $24,000 on an investigation, but is against a free – just time – FOIA request. He states that Mayor Minchella thinks this is retaliatory against Chief Muller and Treasurer Long and asks the Mayor if it is a family issue for him.
Mayor Minchella says that he does not think this is a family issue.
Treasurer Long injects that she does not want it to appear that the City is withholding any information. She states that on the 7th in our budget work session, she said to Councilmember Cox that she had his personnel file in her office if he would like to take a look at it.
Councilmember Cox asks her to tell them what his response was.
Treasurer Long states that Mr. Cox said that if the City wanted to keep playing games, he will keep costing the City money.
Councilmember Cox says that he asked if the full investigation report was in the file, and she said no. He said it will cost the City money if this continues. He claims that the investigation file belongs to him in his personnel file. He references 1198.5 of the Labor code. Mr. Cox says that he has personally attacked on this deal, over the lamest complaints he’s ever seen.
Councilmember Knighton asks who approved this investigation.
Councilmember Cox replies that it was previous Councilmembers, that he was kicked out of the meeting they had to approve it.
Councilmember Knighton says that this needs to be wrapped up, as we are wasting a lot of time on this.
She agrees that it should have been handled different, but we need to move on from here.
Councilmember Cox says that just yesterday, someone talked to him about this closed session, that he doesn’t know how it got out of closed session, but it’s out there on the street. He says his FOIA request was not responded to. He says he doesn’t even have a copy of the findings that exonerated him.
Mayor Minchella says that the findings did not exonerate him.
City Attorney Kenny says that he does not know how much time we want to spend on this. There was a complaint, there was an investigation, that he’s not sure was necessary, because nothing can come of it, but it’s done now. There was a finding, there was no action taken on it. The report has been confidential. Now you see that there have been employee evaluations put on the agenda that were uncalled for, which could be considered retaliation. One of the things the Council could do is just say this matter is over. Council can do what they want with this.
Councilmember Larranaga states she is tired. She is done. She feels she’s mopping up a war she didn’t fight. She states this is just hate now. The new members just want to learn their jobs and do things right.
She feels they are doing more daycare than anything. She adds that in order to make our City great, we have to be a team and work together. She does not see that happening with this continuing on and on.
Councilmember Cox says then give him his investigation. This will end when he and his attorney decide they want to end it. He will continue to pursue it until they decide to give him the investigation.
Attorney Kenny states that if Council is tired of hearing it, they can take it off the agenda.
Councilmember Cox replies that that is a risky move.
Councilmember Engel asks if it is appropriate for a councilmember, or anyone, to tell someone they cannot submit a FIOA request.
Attorney Kenny says no.
Discussion dies for lack of motion.
Councilmember Cox explains that we have already gone over this. He says councilmembers are not protected. They are employees until it comes to civil rights accusations, which is what he was accused of.
He says that he is doing this for all councilmembers as City Counsel cannot represent both City as a whole and councilmembers individually. He addresses Councilmember Larranaga in that this is a war she feels she’s in. He apologizes and says she is right and there is no clean way to end it.
Attorney Kenny states that we have talked about this several times before. City Council can choose to approve for a councilmember to hire representation, if they deem it necessary and within the scope of their employment.
Councilmember Knighton asks if the City has ever had a councilmember get sued.
Treasurer Long says there has not been in her time here, which is 6 years.
Councilmember Cox says there was a false claim against him and he couldn’t get any advice or response from the City Attorney and was forced to seek his own representation. The Council denied for him to be reimbursed for his expenses for his outside representation.
Councilmember Knighton states that he said he doesn’t know what the complaint was and asks how he knows it was false and what kind of advice he could get when he didn’t know what he did.
Councilmember Cox says he had an idea of what was going to be coming.
Councilmember Larranaga states that the theory is that we cannot pass something like this because it’s too open-ended.
MOTION by Councilmember Minchella, SECONDED by Councilmember Engel to deny that in the event that an employee or other entity files a complaint against any City Council Member, the City of Alturas shall provide any current or past City Council members with legal representation, and extend those same rights given to employees in similar matters to the City Council Member in the notification and review of the complaint made by the employee or entity. This applies strictly to matters that are related to the City Council Member’s interaction and duties related to the governance of the City of Alturas and oversight of City Staff. 4 AYES. 1 OPPOSED.
Councilmember Cox explains that the attorney says we are employees, but some sections of the government code say that we are not employees. He says that since he was exonerated, he just wanted a copy of the findings that should be in his personnel file. He was denied this. He states that the only thing that they found was that he could have been found offensive, but it’s bound by employee ethics, as if he’s an employee. He has not been provided an employee ethics handbook. But he is denied access to his personnel file as if he is not an employee.
Councilmember Knighton agrees that he should have been told before the investigation, but that was past Council that went about it that way. She asks if he as a right to receive the findings that he’s requesting.
Councilmember Cox claims that he has been falsely accused and put through the ringer by the City. This is his response to that. He wants a full copy of the findings and says that the Council can give that to him.
He still does not have a copy of it and says that it’s not over. It ends when he gets the full copy and he’s not dropping it until then. It’ll be more money on the City, or you can give him a copy of the file.
Director of Public Works Farnam says that it is the Council’s report and they can decide what to do with it.
Attorney Kenny explains that if disciplinary action was taken, it would go in his personnel file. As a councilmember, no action could be taken, so there is nothing to put in a personnel file.
COMMITTEE REPORTS
Councilmember Knighton says that she will be attending the SCEDD meeting in Redding on December 5th, and will also be completing a live scan and completing the background check there for the committee.
Councilmember Engel says that she went with Public Works and toured the Wastewater Treatment Plant.
She was very impressed with Jonathan, who is the chief operator out there. She also toured the dog pound and the new fenced yard that they have and said it looks very nice.
No other committee reports at this time.
COUNCIL/STAFF REPORTS
Fire Chief Lloyd says they had 3 fire and 17 medical calls. There was a fire behind Park St, that was undetermined. Also had a car fire, and found that a rat had built quite the nest in the car. There was also a flue fire that was a bit of a false alarm. The City will be lifting the burn restrictions Thursday, November 21st.
Director of Public Works Farnam says at the mill site they are looking into maybe extending our water system out to them – it looks promising. Still working on the design applications for the new wastewater treatment plant. No update on the right of way situation with fish and wildlife. We are preparing for winter in the road department. The grader was vandalized, so we are getting that repaired, as well as some of the trash cans along Main St. The new HVAC system is up and working well. We are still working on hangar solutions at the airport. At the pool, our guys got the roof repaired and working on the geothermal upgrades.
We got the RFP out for arena materials for the livestock grounds. For planning, there should be a rental inspection ordinance coming to Council soon.
Councilmember Engel asks for a checklist/timeline for road closures for parades.
DPW Farnam says he will come up with something.
Councilmember Engel suggests maybe a timeline on when we need things and let them know ahead of time.
DPW Farnam says he also wanted to invite Council to the Christmas party at 7 pm on December 6th at the Brass Rail – it is an ugly sweater party.
Treasurer Long says that there is a vacancy on the Planning commission as Marlene Hamilton submitted her resignation letter. The position is actively being flown and we hope to bring letters of interest to Council at the next meeting. She also talked to the newspaper about a consistent schedule and a spot for the City newsletter so we will get a more generalized place in the paper for the newsletter.
Police Chief Muller says they had 52 new cases, with 23 arrests, 10 of which were felonies. They have the new patrol truck. They’ve started fundraising for this year’s Shop with a Cop event. Also, the potential new hire is in background checks. Also wanted to inform Council of the annual Shop with a Cop that will be December 7th this year at noon.
City Clerk Wheeler notifies Council that we are in the beginning stages of the new website design and will keep Council updated on that.
MOTION by Councilmember Cox, SECONDED by Councilmember Engel to take a quick break before going into closed session. ALL AYES. Council goes into closed session at 3:39 pm.
Reconvened back to open session at 3:54 pm.
No action taken on items 15 and 16 in closed session.
With no further business to come before City Council, MOTION by Councilmember Engel, SECONDED by Councilmember Cox to adjourn the meeting and to return in regular session on Tuesday, December 17, 2024 at 2:00 pm, City Hall. ALL AYES
Respectfully,
Tacie Wheeler
Tacie Wheeler
City Clerk