Alturas City Council
City Hall Council Chambers
February 18, 2025 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, Duanna Knighton, Jennifer Engel and Jodie Larranaga.
Councilmembers absent: Brian Cox. Staff present: City Clerk Tacie Wheeler, City Treasurer Dorothy Long, Director of Public Works Warren Farnam, Police Chief Marc Muller, Assistant Public Works Director Dominic Budmark, Fire Marshal Eric Hunter. Public attending: 15. Craig Flournoy presented the invocation. All present joined together in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Public Forum
Jake Luba stands to speak of some California cities moving away from California reporting regarding illegal immigrants and asks Council to look into that. He also brings up the daylight law and painting the curbs red. Director of Public Works Farnam responds that they are working on that but cannot paint in the winter.
Matthew Digrazia introduces himself and tells Council about an incident in which he and his dog were attacked by four pit bulls. He states that Alturas does not have a leash law, only an at large law. He suggests an area in the city where it would be safe for people and their dogs. He explains that the police did come, but the woman left. He says that the police report did not accurately reflect what happened and there was no formal investigation done. He believes the dogs were held for 20 days, but he does not know what happened with the dogs after that. He feels the Council needs to look into the effectiveness of our animal control and potentially have a formal audit done. He states that the woman was not charged with anything and there was no follow up with him on this situation.
Mayor Minchella states that he would like to look into this situation further and will be in touch with Mr.
Digrazia.
Approval or Additions/Deletions to Agenda
MOTION by Councilmember Knighton, SECONDED by Councilmember Engel to move item #14 to item #6, after the JLS item, and approve the rest of the agenda as written. ALL AYES.
Consent Agenda
MOTION by Councilmember Engel, SECONDED by Councilmember Larranaga to approve Consent Agenda as follows: a.) Approve minutes of January 21, 2025 meeting b.) Approve City Warrants for January 2025 in the amount of $241,862.28; c.) Approve ACH reconciliation report for January 2025 in the amount of $101,486.64; d.) Adopt Resolution #2025-4 amending the dollar amount of Resolution #2025-1 removing inactive water & sewer accounts from December from the amount of $556.08 to $507.48; e.) Adopt Resolution #2025-5 removing inactive water and sewer accounts from January 2024 in the amount of $555.70.
ALL AYES.
Molly Teuscher, President of the Junior Livestock Show (JLS) Board, as well as Atty Williams, Abby DePaul, Jozie Hannah and Miles Murray who are all a part of the JLS board, hand out a form to Council showing the cost comparisons for the livestock showground fees for the last five years. Due to the increase in cost for RV spaces, they were forced to charge $315 per space last year, whereas in previous years they only charged $90. Because of this cost increase, they were unable to rent all of the spaces. This hurt the amount of money the JLS received, as well as the support for the show. They are asking if there is something that could be worked out to reduce the cost of the RV spaces or overall showground fees.
Director of Public Works Farnam states that the fees have been across the board for everyone. The City is covering the water, sewer, power and garbage costs for those who rent the RV spaces, which is why the fee is where it’s at now.
Councilmember Engel says she would like to look into this further, and potentially talk about a way to offset some of the cost, as this is a kids organization and that is essentially what the grounds are for.
DPW Farnam explains that when the fees came around originally, they tried to come up with some sort of middle ground between the City’s costs and the organizations’ costs. He states that he is up for a discussion to see if they can come up with something. The fees are at the Council’s discretion.
Councilmember Engel states they could try to come up with something as a group that would cover the City’s costs as well as ease some of the costs to the JLS.
DPW Farnam says he is happy to work with them to come up with a compromise of some sort. He suggests the JLS board get in contact with him to schedule a meeting to go over things.
No action necessary.
Director of Public Works Farnam states that this is the 3rd time this Ordinance has come before the Council, and they have done the first and second reading in previous meetings where it was decided that Council wanted a little more time to research it before making a vote on it.
Councilmember Knighton states that she did not hear any other complaints on this as far as the Ordinance goes, and we are not voting on the fees right now.
Councilmember Larranaga says that she reached out to many people and the feedback that she received was all pretty positive and in support of this Ordinance. Anything to try to clean up our little town. She states that no one that she spoke to was against it.
Onalea Sweeney believes that this should be on an individual basis, not just rental properties. All homeowners should be held responsible for the condition of their homes. She also feels that having chipping paint in the fee schedule is a bit over the top, but the rest of it is reasonable.
Rollie Gilliam says he drove around town to look at the condition of properties around town, and there are some that have overgrown weeds and other things that need to be taken care of. He inquires about the weed abatement program.
Sandra Stevenson says that businesses need to be able to survive here. She states that rental properties are a business. She would be fine with rental property owners having to get a business license each year. She says that she would like to be part of the discussion for the fee schedule when it comes to that, and verifies that that would also be open to the public. She believes that Air BnB rentals should have to be included in this ordinance as well, but says the Ordinance itself is fine.
Jake Luba states that he has made complaints about some homes around here previously, but has always got a response that there is nothing they can do about private properties.
DPW Farnam says there will be a workshop about the fee schedule before it is brought to Council to vote on, that will be open to the public.
MOTION by Councilmember Engel, SECONDED by Councilmember Larranaga to approve the second reading of Ordinance #531 amending the municipal code by adding to Chapter 5, Article VIII – Rental Housing Inspection Program. ALL AYES.
MOTION by Councilmember Knighton, SECONDED by Councilmember Engel to approve the letter of support for USDA grant for hospitality feasibility study. ALL AYES.
MOTION by Councilmember Engel, SECONDED by Councilmember Larranaga to approve mileage for SCED meeting February 20, 2025 in Redding, CA. ALL AYES.
Treasurer Long says this amendment includes things that have come up since the last meeting that Council has been made aware of.
Councilmember Engel states that her request was just to be aware and conservative with what we are spending.
MOTION by Councilmember Engel, SECONDED by Councilmember Larranaga to adopt Resolution #2025-6 approving the second amended budget for the 2024/2025 Fiscal Year Budget in the amount of $10,903,330.00. ALL AYES.
Director of Public Works Farnam states that this is a contract we bring every year, and there are no changes or rate increases this year. We usually approve this in conjunction with the County who has just approved theirs.
MOTION by Councilmember Larranaga, SECONDED by Councilmember Engel to adopt Resolution #2025-7 approving the Eleventh Amendment to the Garbage Service Contract. ALL AYES.
Director of Public Works Farnam explains that this resolution will help us efficiently put things out to bid for this airport project, since we only meet once per month.
MOTION by Councilmember Engel, SECONDED by Councilmember Knighton to adopt Resolution #2025-8 authorizing the Director of Public Works Farnam to execute any and all documents pertaining to the Alturas Municipal Airport PAPI and Displaced Threshold Project. ALL AYES.
Director of Public Works Farnam says this is for the same airport project. Basically paying ahead so they can drawdown from it. The City should be reimbursed for some of it.
MOTION by Councilmember Engel, SECONDED by Councilmember Larranaga to grant permission for the director of Public Works to sign a Non-Federal Reimbursable Agreement between the Department of Transportation Federal Aviation Administration and the City of Alturas Municipal Airport for the PAPI RWY 31 Threshold Project. ALL AYES.
MOTION by Councilmember Larranaga, SECONDED by Councilmember Engel for the City Mayor to sign US Department of Transportation DBE Program-49 CFR Part 26 Policy Statement for upcoming Airport projects. ALL AYES.
Director of Public Works Farnam explains that this is a more efficient way for them to work on our manholes and such when they get to City limits on their project, rather than us doing it. This gives them permission to do that.
MOTION by Councilmember Engel, SECONDED by Councilmember Knighton to grant permission for the Director of Public Works to sign the agreement with Caltrans on the CAPM Repaving Project in 2026 pertaining to the adjustment of manhole covers and water valve covers on Main St. ALL AYES.
COMMITTEE REPORTS
Councilmember Knighton says she just has the SCED meeting on Thursday.
Councilmember Engel says she went to the LAFCO meeting, where they are extending the Canby CSD timeframe and Surprise Valley Healthcare District is being very cooperative in providing their information.
Mayor Minchella says he attended the LAFCO meeting as well, and he is now part of the LAFCO Board, where they have voted in a new executive director. There are some issues in the structure of CALAFCO right now that they are trying to work to resolve. He also attended the MTA/MCTC meeting, but has nothing new to report from that.
COUNCIL/STAFF REPORTS
Chief of Police Muller says in January they had 25 new cases and 12 arrests in which 7 were felonies and 5 misdemeanors.
Councilmember Knighton asks him about the incident with the dog bite that spoke in public forum.
Chief Muller states that there was a report taken that was sent to the DA. The DA did not file on the report and Muller says he directed the victim to call the DA on that matter.
Treasurer Long introduces her high school intern Elliot, who is a senior this year and plans to attend the Army when he graduates.
Director of Public Works Farnam says they are still working on a fire suppression system at the mill, but they are behind on it. They are making way with the Fish and Wildlife on the right-of way issue, but it is a complicated process. They are trying to catch up on potholes around town, but due to the weather it’s a mess. They were supposed to have a meeting with GHD on the W. 8th Street project, but it was postponed due to the weather. He says the public works guys did a great job on the weather disaster, having to go out to the wastewater treatment plant every two hours to check on things and having to put in a lot of over time.
They’ve about got it back to normal now. They are working with the schools on the ballfields, hoping to order DG, but it is not available at the moment. There is a Disaster Council meeting Thursday the 20th to discuss all of the costs that came from it. It’s looking like the City’s costs due to the disaster are about $16,000 for damage and $17-18,000 for labor costs.
Fire Marshal Hunter says they had a busy January with 6 fire calls (normally average 2-3) and 29 medical calls. There was a furnace fire in which they were able to get to in time to save the building. He also brought up the Fire Hazard Severity Zones. Because of the fires happening in California, they want us to create an Ordinance so that we can give them the severity of the fire hazard we face. The severity we give them cannot be less than what they’ve already assigned us, only more. He is going to look into all of this, as he doesn’t know when they have come up here to do their survey and update their severity maps, but there has been work done to some of the properties that are included on it. He’s also unsure if an Ordinance is a requirement or a suggestion. A lot of insurance companies are dropping people, but he has been told that insurance companies cannot use the severity maps when it comes to insurance costs/coverage. As far as abatement for weeds and fire hazards, he plans on starting sometime in March this year, instead of June, so that most of these properties can be taken care of before summer hits, and so that it doesn’t keep getting out of control.
MOTION by Councilmember Engel, SECONDED by Councilmember Larranaga to go into closed session at 3:24 pm. ALL AYES.
Mayor Minchella recuses himself and leaves the room.
Reconvened back to open session at 4:11 pm.
No action taken on items in closed session.
With no further business to come before City Council, MOTION by Councilmember Engel, SECONDED by Councilmember Larranaga to adjourn the meeting and to return in regular session on Tuesday, March 18, 2025 at 2:00 pm, City Hall. ALL AYES
Respectfully,
Tacie Wheeler
Tacie Wheeler
City Clerk