Alturas City Council
City Hall Council Chambers
March 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, Brian Cox 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. Public attending: 2.
Lynn Culp presented the invocation. All present joined together in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Public Forum
None.
Approval or Additions/Deletions to Agenda
Mayor Minchella would like to remove item #10 as it has been resolved.
MOTION by Councilmember Engel, SECONDED by Councilmember Larranaga to remove item #10 and approve the rest of the agenda as written. ALL AYES.
Consent Agenda
MOTION by Councilmember Engel, SECONDED by Councilmember Knighton to approve Consent Agenda as follows: a.) Approve minutes of February 18, 2025 meeting b.) Approve minutes of March 11, 2025 special meeting; c) Approve City Warrants for February 2025 in the amount of $589,385.31; d.) Approve ACH reconciliation report for February 2025 in the amount of $167,614.23; e.) Adopt Resolution #2025-9 removing inactive water & sewer accounts from February from the amount of $411.72. ALL AYES.
Public Forum
None.
Treasurer Long explains that this support letter aids in allowing them to continue their intercity bus program to places like Reno, Redding and Klamath.
MOTION by Councilmember Larranaga, SECONDED by Councilmember Engel to authorize the City Mayor to sign a letter of support for Modoc Transportation Agency’s FTA 5311(f) Intercity Bus Program.
ALL AYES.
Director of Public Works Farnam explains that the trailers he is looking for can range anywhere between $17,000 and $42,000. It will streamline the street patching and make it much more efficient than the process that we have now. He says it is within the street budget.
MOTION by Councilmember Engel, SECONDED by Councilmember Larranaga to grant permission to purchase a used asphalt hot box trailer, not to exceed $35,000. ALL AYES.
Director of Public Works Farnam states that this is one of Rotary’s projects and is on their own dime. Mr.
Farnam’s only requests were that it got approved by Council and that Assistant Director of Public Works Budmark were able to oversee the project.
MOTION by Councilmember Larranaga, SECONDED by Councilmember Engel to approve the project to expand the batting cages at the Rotary Ball Fields, to be fully funded by Rotary and overseen by the Department of Public Works. ALL AYES.
Director of Public Works Farnam is requesting to solicit for pool employees for the upcoming pool season.
He may have two, or potentially all, of the supervisors returning. He would like to have it set by May 1st to start training the lifeguards. They are looking to open the pool June 7th, the first Saturday after school gets out. He would like to advertise in the paper as well as at the high school as they have done in years past.
MOTION by Councilmember Larranaga, SECONDED by Councilmember Engel to grant permission to advertise for and hire part time employees for the 2025 pool season. ALL AYES.
Director of Public Works Farnam explains that we went through the Red Cross last year to get our lifeguards trained. We no longer have our employee that was certified to train the lifeguards, so he reached out to the pool in Lakeview. The person in Lakeview has agreed to come here to train for us, but they go through a different company. So we need to sign up with that company so that he can come here to train our lifeguards this year.
Councilmember Cox states that the American Red Cross is very well known and asks if this company is as well-known as Red Cross.
DPW Farnam says that this company is national and also well known.
MOTION by Councilmember Cox, SECONDED by Councilmember Larranaga to grant permission for Public Works Director to sign the application and agreement with Star Guard Elite to become a training center for lifeguard training. ALL AYES.
COMMITTEE REPORTS
Councilmember Knighton says she had the SCED meeting in which she took the approval letter from the City. They are waiting to hear back on the feasibility study.
Councilmember Engel says she had a meeting with the Clerk for a Clerk committee meeting, the Clerk training went well.
Mayor Minchella is going to be attending the CALAFCO meeting in Sacramento this week. Also has a FEMA meeting on the risks and perils of Modoc County where they are doing a statistical analysis to better prepare.
Councilmember Larranaga also met with the Clerk for the Clerk committee meeting.
COUNCIL/STAFF REPORTS
Chief of Police Muller reports that the Police Department had 46 new cases with 14 arrests – 7 felonies, and 7 misdemeanors. They are sending two officers to a terrorist liaison class, and the new officer getting trained in CPR. They have one car in the shop right now that was estimated to cost between $2500 - $4200 in repairs. There is another vehicle that will be going in for the same recall notices.
Treasurer Long reports that the 2023-2024 audit is in full swing. She has an office staff member that will be going on maternity leave here soon. She discussed the STIP reimbursement and says they are looking at grant options. USDA has 0 grant dollars, just loan dollars. Chief Muller sent her a grant today to look into, but she does not have all of the details on that yet.
Director of Public Works Farnam says that he has one person in public works out now getting his knee fixed. The mill site is still looking in to a fire sprinkler system. For roads, the STIP projects for West C and Nagle are currently out for bid. Our dollars are not going very far on the STIP projects right now and they are looking to work with the County to stretch our dollars a bit more. They are working on a new roof for the pound. During the flooding, the City’s OT and equipment damages were not near as bad as how the County fared, but they are calculating that to get reimbursed some. At the wastewater treatment plant, the fines are coming in. He’s pushing back on the State with that. They are getting ready for mosquito season.
The airport is going fine. The new arena arrived for the livestock showgrounds. They are working with Masten Ramsey to get that up and going. They met with rotary today and are hopeful to drop the red a bit on the pool this year. There was no planning meeting this month. They are behind on the housing element.
They had a workshop on the fee schedule for the rental housing program and hope to bring that to Council next month. And last, the new fire maps are out.
MOTION by Councilmember Engel, SECONDED by Councilmember Larranaga to go into closed session at 2:41 pm. ALL AYES.
Mayor Minchella recuses himself and leaves the room.
Reconvened back to open session at 3:30 pm.
No action taken on items in closed session.
With no further business to come before City Council, MOTION by Councilmember Cox, SECONDED by Councilmember Larranaga to adjourn the meeting and to return in regular session on Tuesday, April 15, 2025 at 2:00 pm, City Hall. ALL AYES
Respectfully,
Tacie Wheeler
Tacie Wheeler
City Clerk