CITY OF CALIFORNIA CITY NOVEMBER 3, 2025
AGENDA
CITY COUNCIL/ HOUSING AUTHORITY/ SUCCESSOR AGENCY
SPECIAL MEETING MONDAY NOVEMBER 3, 2025 @ 3:00 PM
COUNCIL CHAMBERS & VIA ZOOM
21000 HACIENDA BLVD., CALIFORNIA CITY, CA 93505
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Marquette Hawkins
MAYOR
Jim Creighton
MAYOR PRO TEM
Della Clark
Ronald Smith
COUNCIL MEMBERS
Christopher Lopez
CITY MANAGER
CITY OF CALIFORNIA CITY NOVEMBER 3, 2025
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**Please take this time to turn off your cell phones ** SPECIAL MEETING 3:00PM
CALL TO ORDER
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE / INVOCATION
ROLL CALL –
Councilmembers: Clark, Smith, Mayor Pro Tem Creighton, Mayor Hawkins
CONTINUED BUSINESS
CB 1. Approve City Check Register dated 10/10/25- 10/23/25 CB 2. Staff Report: Christopher Lopez. City Manager
Subject: Discuss and Provide Direction Regarding the Proposal from Kern County Fire for the Provision of Fire Services for California City
COUNCILMEMBER COMMENTS, AGENDA REQUESTS, AND AB1234 REPORTS This portion of the meeting is reserved for council members to present information, announcements, and items that have come to their attention. The Brown Act precludes Council, staff, or public discussion. Short staff responses are appropriate. The Council will take no formal action. A Council member may request the City Clerk to calendar an item for consideration at a future meeting or refer an item to staff.
ADJOURNMENT
AFFIDAVIT OF POSTING- November 2, 2025
I, Leanndrea Weible, Acting City Clerk for the City of California City, California, DO HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing notice was posted on all official City bulletin boards and the City’s website at least 24 hours prior to the meeting in compliance with the provisions of the Brown Act.
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COUNCIL AGENDA ITEM
TO:
November 3, 2025
Honorable Mayor and City Council
FROM: Christopher Lopez, City Manager
Kenny Cooper, Finance Manager
SUBJECT: Approve City Check Register dated 10/10/2025-10/23/2025 BACKGROUND/ DISCUSSION:
The following checks have been prepared by the Finance Department. The items are provided to the Mayor and City Council for review and approval.
RECOMMENDATION:
Staff recommends the City Council discuss and approve the attached check register.
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COUNCIL AGENDA ITEM
November 3, 2025
TO: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
FROM: Christopher Lopez, City Manager
SUBJECT: Discuss and Provide Direction Regarding the Proposal from Kern County Fire for the Provision of Fire Services for California City BACKGROUND:
The City has historically utilized a special tax to fund various operations for the community. Due to the loss of Measure C in 2024, the City made several reductions in personnel to offset some of the lack of funding, as well as putting forward various items to the voters to increase revenues.
On October 14, 2025, and during discussions related to Strategic Planning for the City, the Mayor and City Council discussed the importance of alternative service delivery options to help alleviate the City’s budget and service solvency issues. The Council unanimously supported this and provided direction to do such.
On October 28, 2025, the Mayor and Council approved a resolution appointing an Interim Fire Chief to oversee Fire Department operations in California City. That same night, the Council directed the City Manager to obtain a formal proposal from Kern County for fire protection services.
Kern County Fire has provided a proposal, and this item is provided as an attachment. The following synopsis provides a backdrop and foundation for this discussion.
BUDGET BACKGROUND
As background to the City’s budget issues, the City adopted its FY 24/25 Budget on March 25, 2025, which utilized fund balance to balance the budget. On July 8, 2025, the Mayor and Council adopted the FY 25/26 Budget with the use of fund balance again to balance the budget. The City has now adopted two budgets in the last six months that utilized fund balance to balance its operating budgets.
Over the last year, the City has asked voters to approve an extension of Measure C, which generated approximately $6M in revenues to fund public safety in the City, which expired on June 30, 2024 to help alleviate the City’s budget situation. Voters have not approved a new parcel tax initiative, resulting in a lack of ongoing revenues to support City operations. In July 2025, the Mayor and City Council received polling results from registered voters that identified the lack of CB 2
public support for a parcel tax measure to fund critical operations in the City including public safety. As a result, the Council did not direct staff to prepare resolutions and various other items for a ballot measure asking voters to approve a special parcel tax to fund critical operations.
While various adjustments have been made to the budget, with the most notable one resulting in the elimination of 19 positions and saving $1.3M, there remains significant budget and service delivery issues in the community. Numerous residents have noticed these impacts, and the City is doing the best it can with its current limitations. Additionally, the City has gone without general liability insurance for over three years, which is not the best governance practice.
General Fund Overview
The general fund is the primary operating fund for the City. The general fund pays for many of the services offered to the City’s residents including personnel for Planning, Public Works Administration, Clerk’s Office, a portion of Police and Fire Department costs, and Recreation programming. While many cities fund public safety primarily through the general fund, California City has funded the bulk of its public safety departments through a special tax for public safety.
Relying on a special tax measure with an expiration date for such a critical function has the effect of funding a primary function of local government with a temporary funding stream. Funding a core element of local government with a temporary funding stream is not a best practice as it locks the City into a guaranteed crises every few years if there is no funding mechanism to take over the finite revenue stream. With the expiration of Measure C, this created a significant hole in the City’s budget since it relied on a temporary measure to fund public safety. While the City is current fully funding its public safety operations with the use of fund balance, this finite source of revenue will eventually go away.
The pattern of temporarily funding such core functions of government has locked the City into a pattern of instability and resulted in many issues for the California City community.
Historical Review of Special Tax Revenues and Expenditures: Budget Problem While Measure C covered a significant portion of the City’s public safety costs, the City ran deficits in these operations for many years. This means that even with the allocation of Measure C, or other special tax revenues, the City was unable to contain its expenditures within the revenues generated for public safety. The table below lists the total revenues, and the respective expenditures over the last ten years. The numbers included below are taken from the City’s audited financial statements, which can be viewed on the Finance Department website.
Fiscal Year
Ended
Public Safety
Revenues
Expenditures Excess (deficiency) of
revenues over (under)
expenditures
2015 $ 6,753,885 $ 7,307,711 $ (553,826)
2016 $ 6,794,075 $ 8,153,345 $ (1,359,270)
2017 $ 6,658,706 $ 8,632,413 $ (1,973,707)
2018 $ 6,934,156 $ 6,884,488 $ 49,668
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2019 $ 7,787,816 $ 8,043,685 $ (255,869)
2020 $ 7,283,017 $ 8,857,956 $ (1,574,939)
2021 $ 7,704,425 $ 7,330,376 $ 374,049
2022 $ 7,583,090 $ 8,414,445 $ (831,355)
2023 $ 7,229,442 $ 7,593,986 $ (364,544)
2024 $ 6,621,949 $ 8,588,388 $ (1,966,439)
In the last ten years, and based on the City’s audited financial statements, the City exceeded its public safety expenditures in eight of the last ten years. This means that the City’s special tax for public safety was only covering a portion of the City’s public safety costs. The additional funding necessary to cover this expense was covered through the general fund.
Use of Fund Balance to Balance the Budget
The use of fund balance to cover ongoing expenditures is not a recommended practice. Given the City’s accrual of fund balance in the general fund, the City can utilize this funding in order to balance the City’s budget. This deficit spending should be remedied, and a long-term solution is necessary to remove the City’s reliance on one time funding.
Utilizing fund balance is not a viable long-term strategy and will eventually lead to fiscal insolvency.
Additionally, the elimination of personnel in 2024 had the effect of lessening total general fund expenditures and thereby lessening the deficit for the fiscal year. Those reductions in personnel did come at a service cost since there is currently no maintenance staff to perform duties at the parks, city hall, senior center, and other functions of the City. Reductions in maintenance and operations expenditures have also provided significant savings to the community, but the City is grappling with conditions related to service insolvency, as its unable to meet basic demands for service.
Financial Health Indicators
When reviewing various items that provide an indication to the City’s financial health, the following items should raise concern as it relates to the City’s financial health, which are currently being utilized by the City:
1. Use of fund balance to balance the budget
2. Net operating deficits in the general fund
3. City is unable to keep pace with aging of capital assets
4. General fund subsidies occur in enterprise funds including the Airport Fund and the Golf Course Fund
5. Nonrecurring revenues from development have been utilized to fund operating costs (use of one-time revenue from development projects)
6. Public service levels do not need the standards and needs in the community These practices are indicative of the broader issues related to the City’s ability to remain solvent into the future.
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Insolvency:
California City has experienced significant stress due to ongoing deficits that have resulted in several service delivery challenges. Without additional painful cuts to critical and vital services, and in the absence of new revenue sources, the City is headed towards fiscal insolvency.
Opportunity still exists for the City of California City to address its financial condition, but it will require significant, difficult, and challenging conversations related to how to move the City towards financial sustainability.
It should be noted that according to John Knox and Marc Levinson, who wrote the document titled, Avoiding and Using Chapter 9 in Times of Fiscal Stress, they state that “filing for bankruptcy protection under chapter 9 should be considered a last resort, to be effected only after every effort has been made to avoid it.”
They also state that, “In these circumstances, painful cuts in service levels, employee compensation and other expenses may be required, as well as increased revenues through higher taxes or fees.”
Fire Department Discussions
On August 14 2025, the City Manager’s Office met with all the line personnel of the Fire Department. The purpose of this meeting was to allow the free flow of information, ask questions, and determine the needs of the men and women of the California City Fire Department. During this discussion, the following themes emerged:
1. Service demand levels are increasing
2. The CoreCivic facility will require additional calls for service, and there are concerns with the additional workload it will place on staff
3. Long term financial stability is necessary, and the City should plan for enough funding in reserves
4. The City can improve its communications with the community
5. The Fire Department needs its own Fire Chief
a. The concept of a “Public Safety Director” was only intended to be short term, and it was not intended to be this way into the future.
6. Kern County is a great and valuable resources and they do an incredible job assisting with operations when they have the capacity to do so
7. The Department needs assistance with its budget, personnel management, and other administrative functions that are ordinarily handled by a Chief Executive Officer On October 28, 2025, the Mayor and Council approved an agreement with Kern County Fire to provide interim Fire Chief services.
Notable Investments in Public Safety
It should be noted that there have been several recent investments made in the public safety. These investments, which were made possible from a development project, was made possible from one time funding and is not evergreen, nor is this funding stream replenishable, making it unsuitable for long term sustainability.
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Kern County Fire Proposal
On October 28, 2025, the Mayor and City Council directed staff to obtain a proposal from Kern County Fire for the provision of fire protection services. Kern County has provided the attached proposal for the Council’s review. The following items are included within their proposal:
• Fire prevention and suppression
• Emergency medical response
• Rescues
• Hazardous Materials response
• Fire inspections
• Plan review
• Fire cause and Arson investigation
• All support services including supervision, dispatching, training, maintenance, procurement, and supplies.
After preliminary discussions with Kern County Fire, they have informed the City Manager’s Office that this may be structured in such a way where City contributions for the provision of fire services is minimal for the first couple of years, which would thereby help lessen the financial impacts of utilizing fund balance to cover day to day operations, and may be an opportunity for the City to guarantee service delivery to residents of California City.
The County has provided four service level options, which are summarized below:
Option A
• 3 – Person Staffing (1 Captain, 1 Engineer, and 1 Firefighter) Option B
• 3 – Person Staffing with Advanced Life Support (ALS) service (1 Captain, 1 Engineer, 1 Firefighter Paramedic) –
Option C
• 4 – Person Staffing (1 Captain, 1 Engineer, 2 Firefighters) – Option D
• 4 – Person Staffing with ALS (1 Captain, 1 Engineer, 1 Firefighter, 1 Firefighter Paramedic)
The potential costs are listed below based on the various options:
FY 25-26 FY 26-27 FY 27-28
3- person Staffing (1 Captain, 1 Engineer, 1 FF) $388,606 $1,585,512 $2,426,075 Annual Cost w/ equipment credit $30,284 $192,039 $196,519 $3.98M equipment phase-in 9% 35% 56%
3- person Staffing with ALS (1 Captain, 1
Engineer, 1 FF PM)
$402,887 $1,643,781 $2,515,236
Annual Cost w/ equipment credit $44,566 $250,308 $285,680 CB 2
$3.98M equipment phase-in 9% 35% 56%
4- person staffing (1 Captain, 1 Engineer, 2 FF) $495,445 $2,021,457 $3,093,139 Annual Cost w/ equipment credit $137,134 $627,985 $863,583 $3.98M equipment phase-in 9% 35% 56%
4- person staffing with ALS (1 Captain, 1
Engineer, 1 FF, 1 FF PM)
$509,737 $2,079,726 $3,182,300
Annual Cost w/ equipment credit $151,415 $686,254 $952,744 $3.98M equipment phase-in 9% 35% 56%
RECOMMENDATION:
It is recommended that the Council discuss the proposal and provide direction on the proposal from Kern County Fire.
Two options are included below for reference.
1. Direct staff to formally begin contract negotiations with Kern County Fire for the provision of fire services in California City, and direct staff to meet and confer, pursuant to the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act, with all impacted bargaining groups as well to take any and all steps as legally required associated with finalizing an agreement with Kern County Fire to be brought back to the City Council for its consideration at a future date.
2. Take no action.
ATTACHMENTS:
1. Kern County Proposal
10/30/2025 - California City Fire Service:
The Kern County Fire Department proposes to provide fire protection services to the City of California City. The proposed service would mirror the high-quality fire protection services the department currently offers to nine other incorporated contract cities.
As an all-hazards department, Kern County Fire would provide:
• Fire prevention and suppression,
• Emergency medical response,
• Rescues,
• Hazardous Materials response,
• Fire inspections,
• Plan review,
• Fire cause and Arson investigation, and
• All support services including supervision, dispatching, training, maintenance, procurement, and supplies.
Proposed Service Level and Cost:
Costs are in accordance with Kern County Fire’s established methodology for providing fire protection services to incorporated cities and includes a 15% strategic location discount in recognition of the value California City’s location plays in the Fire Department’s countywide mutual aid system.
The County offers four different staffing options for the City’s consideration. Cost comparison is provided on the next page.
- 3 – Person Staffing (1 Captain, 1 Engineer, and 1 Firefighter) - 3 – Person Staffing with ALS service (1 Captain, 1 Engineer, 1 Firefighter Paramedic) - 4 – Person Staffing (1 Captain, 1 Engineer, 2 Firefighters) - 4 – Person Staffing with ALS (1 Captain, 1 Engineer, 1 Firefighter, 1 Firefighter Paramedic) In all options, costs will be phased in over 2.5 years, beginning January 1, 2026. o All existing facilities and equipment will be transferred to County, and the City will be credited $3.98 million over the initial contract term. o Upon expiration of initial term, costs will be recalculated using then-current costs.
County system provides 24/7 constant staffing and includes appropriate responses from other county fire resources as necessary.
Facilities and Equipment:
• County will be responsible for all upkeep, maintenance, utilities, and future capital improvements.
• City shall complete all existing obligations to order new equipment using mitigation measure funds and/or grants funds. New equipment shall be transferred to County upon receipt. Future equipment needs will be the responsibility of the County.
Proposed Staffing options and costs:
FY 25-26 FY 26-27 FY 27-28
3- person Staffing (1 Captain, 1 Engineer, 1 FF) $388,606 $1,585,512 $2,426,075 Annual Cost w/ equipment credit $30,284 $192,039 $196,519 $3.98M equipment phase-in 9% 35% 56%
3- person Staffing with ALS (1 Captain, 1 Engineer,
1 FF PM)
$402,887 $1,643,781 $2,515,236
Annual Cost w/ equipment credit $44,566 $250,308 $285,680 $3.98M equipment phase-in 9% 35% 56%
4- person staffing (1 Captain, 1 Engineer, 2 FF) $495,445 $2,021,457 $3,093,139 Annual Cost w/ equipment credit $137,134 $627,985 $863,583 $3.98M equipment phase-in 9% 35% 56%
4- person staffing with ALS (1 Captain, 1 Engineer, 1
FF, 1 FF PM)
$509,737 $2,079,726 $3,182,300
Annual Cost w/ equipment credit $151,415 $686,254 $952,744 $3.98M equipment phase-in 9% 35% 56%
Breakdown of $3,981,350 equipment credit
Station: $1.8M – Includes all furniture, fixtures, and equipment.
Existing Apparatus: $700,000 - All current frontline and reserve apparatus, vehicles, and their equipment.
New Apparatus: $1,481,350 – 65% of Type 1 apparatus on order. - MSRP $2,396,922
o Minus Prepay discount approx. 10%
o Minus multivehicle discount approx. 1.5%
o Plus tax 7.25%
- Order Price: $2,279,000
- New Apparatus Credit: $1,481,350
o 65% of order price