MINUTES
CITY OF DELANO
CITY COUNCIL – REGULAR MEETING
October 2, 2023
CALL TO ORDER
Mayor Alindajao called the meeting to order at 5:30 p.m. in the City Hall Council Chambers, 1015 – 11th Avenue.
INVOCATION
Gabriel Diaz offered an invocation during the Special Meeting.
FLAG SALUTE
Mayor Pro-Tem Solorio-Ruiz led the flag salute during the Special Meeting.
ROLL CALL
Council members present: Mayor Joe Alindajao, Mayor Pro Tem Salvador Solorio-Ruiz, Mario Nunez, Jr.
Council members absent: Liz Morris, Veronica Vasquez
OFFICIALS PRESENT
City Clerk Garcia, Interim City Attorney Hensley, Finance Director Lara Rios, City Engineer Dowling, Commander Velasco, Human Resources Director Zamudio
PRESENTATIONS AND AWARDS
1) Marshall from American Legion received Award of Recognition Presented by Mayor Pro-Tem Solorio-Ruiz, Accepted by Donnie on behalf of American Legion
ITEMS FROM THE PUBLIC
1) Gina Martinez, 1409 10th Avenue – “I’m just wondering because I've never been to a meeting where you do the special meeting before you do the actual meeting. I was just wondering why it was like that.” 2) Maria Martinez, 1215 Lexington St. –“These last two weeks I've been taking care of my grandson, I take him to Robert F. Kennedy School. It takes me about 30 minutes to and 30 minutes from due to all the traffic, I know you can't answer me now it’s very dangerous for the children and we're concerned that something can happen to them. If you guys can put a sign or a stop sign or a light, that'd be great. Thank you.”
3) Lupe Martinez – “Honorable mayor. Council members, I just want to pretty much state the same as Ms.
Gina Martinez right now, however, I wanted to ask since the item I think is also on number 13. Is that correct? Where we can discuss about the interim city attorney if we pull it out? Correct. Thank you.” 4) Diane Chavez, 1322 Princeton St. – “I’m recently retired, moved back to Delano. I'm a graduate, of 1973 I was hoping in my retirement to volunteer and be an animal advocate for the shelter out here. State-of-theart shelter. I was so impressed having been here to visit my sister in previous years and it was not a nice place through Covid. I understand they lost the volunteer program and in asking repeatedly they said I needed to go to the Chamber of Commerce, which I did and then they referred me here tonight. So that's what I would like. I'd like to thank you for turning the water off out there because it was flooded all summer. It would be nice if there was a public bathroom. Thank You.” 5) Anita Lopez, 15th Avenue – “I'm here to talk about the senior center. Rosa has messed with the schedule so bad. We don't know whether we're coming or going and I'd like you guys to address that, please. Okay, thank you.”
6) Herrera – “Honorable Mayor and council members. Hearing that there's a lot of weight when there's a lot of traffic now when Delano is growing in the past I have mentioned that I think in the future you should be thinking of building an overpass because if we have some kind of emergency because of the weather or something else, I could see that we'll be in trouble because right now when you go through Woollomes going towards the Walmart Shopping Center, even though the light is there, sometimes you have to wait actually 25 minutes for the traffic. It goes all the way to the public works offices, traffic are waiting there so people can continue going and that made me remember that even here when there's people getting out from work, there's a lot of traffic because the stop signs or people are way too long to continue going on the steps, but I figured they're playing safe. But I know that we eventually were going to need an overpass in Delano. Thank you.”
Public comments closed.
CONSENT AGENDA
1) Authorization to waive the reading of any ordinance in its entirety and consenting to the reading of such ordinances by title only.
2) Warrant Register in the amount of $1,876,799.80
3) Reapproval of License Agreement for use of the Exhibit Building located at Kern County Memoria Park for a term of eight (8) years (Retroactive to 2019) as a gratuitous service to the City and authorizing the City Manager to execute all required documents 4) Acceptance of the 2022 Various Streets Pavement Resurfacing and Rehabilitation Project STPL5227(066) and authorizing the filing of the Notice of Completion 5) Award of the “2023 Human Resources Work Stations Project” contract to Sierra School Equipment Company for $162,614.88 and authorize the City Manager, or her designee, to sign any documents needed to carry out this project
6) Approval of task order CO-06 for $27,305.00, under professional services agreement 2018-19, with JKA Architecture to provide additional construction administration services for the proposed Eleventh Avenue Aquatic Center and Park Projects and authorize the City Manager, or her designee, to execute the same.
7) Ratification of Change Orders for Urgent Sewer Work done through the 2022 Alley Improvement Project with MAC General Engineering, Inc. in the amount of $329,930.18 and authorization for the City Manager, or her designee, to sign any documents needed to close out the project 8) Ratification of Emergency Repair Work on Well 33 by Bakersfield Well & Pump Co. in the amount of $61,260.00 and authorize the City Manager, or her designee, to sign any documents needed to carry this out
9) Acceptance of the 2022 County Line Road Micro surfacing Project and authorizing the filing of the Notice of Completion with the County Recorder
10) Resolution of the City Council of the City of Delano accepting the Gann Appropriations Limit Report for the fiscal year 2023-2024
11) Authorization of the City Council of the City of Delano to allow the City Manager/designee to enter into a master agreement/hardware and software service agreement with CityBase, Inc. for the use of three utility self-service kiosks
12) Approval of Request from Delano Union School District for City to Sponsor Parade Permit for the Annual Kiddie Parade on October 6, 2023 in the amount of $1,350 13) Approve Retainer Agreement for Interim City Attorney Services Motion was made by: Nunez to approved items 1-5, 7-9, 11,12 on consent items; 2nd by: Solorio- Ruiz
Vote: 3-0
Ayes: Alindajao /Solorio-Ruiz / Nunez
Nays: None
Absent: Morris/Vasquez
Abstentions: None
Item No. 6 pulled by Herrera
Herrera: “Yes. This where it says to provide additional construction administration in a manual, not to pass it or approve it, it this an additional expense for that work that's going on.” City Engineer Dowling: Honorable Mayor, these are additional services. The largest portion is we received a grant through CDBG, part of the COVID grants, that we received for the broadband project. That will happen after the Larry Itliong project is completed. So we ask these folks to design during construction to add the conduit so that when the park is completed, that broadband can just be installed without any damages to the park at that time. That's the largest portion of it. There were other smaller additional things. We needed their assistance. These folks also designed the park, so it's the architect providing construction management services. So we asked them to help us in the selection of the furniture that goes in the park and in the aquatic center so that it matches the things that will be brought in after construction. And that's the gist of it.
Item No. 10 pulled by Yolanda Vega
Yolanda Vega: “Yes. I wanted to get more clarification in regards to the Gann appropriation and I noticed that on the documents provided, it says that the city community has 15 days to respond. So I wanted more clarification regarding these funds and this actual appropriation.” Finance Director Lara Rios: “Good evening, mayor. Yes. This is our annual calculation that gets calculated based on what we've budgeted as far as for revenues that are coming into the city.
If there is a limit that we have for this fiscal year, it is set at $42,985,978. So it far exceeds the proceeds of taxes in the amount of $16,000,567. And the new limit gets recalculated every year adjusting the fiscal year 22-23 appropriations. So this is just letting you know that we were within the limits of spending.”
Item No. 13 pulled by Lupe Martinez
Lupe Martinez: “Mayor. A couple of questions. First of all. Well, they've been aware that we no longer had the other attorney or that other firm, so that kind of surprised me until the other day on the liaison meeting, Pastor Vivas mentioned a couple of things and then I heard him also without realizing that the chief was also gone. So it seems like people are leaving Delano. My question on this is of course on this agreement, well, let me start off first. I wasn't sure why there was a special meeting on this with the attorneys and that should have perhaps been on the agenda for us to look at. And so I wasn't clear why that happened there. The second thing is, on the agreement it states that there's a designation of interim city attorney and then it talks about utilizing other attorneys within the firm. How often would that happen? Is it regularly every other quarter or how often? And then the other one talks about the rates, the billing rates.
My question is, is the city going to pay a flat rate to his firm or is it going to be based on itemized items that the city uses? So I wasn't sure. And if it is on a flat rate, what do we get? What are we going to be getting? And then the other thing is also, I wasn't too clear on the hourly rates because it seems like not only attorneys, but also using paralegals for the work in itself.” Interim City Attorney Hensley: “Mayor and council, the contract provides for a $250 an hour hourly rate for attorneys and a hundred dollars an hour for paralegals. There will be a detailed invoice provided to the city at the end of each month. That details all of the services provided down to every six minutes, if you will. That's the lowest increment. It will be very detailed about the time spent on what matter and by which attorney. I do have five other attorneys at the firm and it will depend on the work that needs to be done and how quickly different things need to be accomplished. At this point in time, I've only been given a brief overview of some of the issues, but council meetings will be handled by myself. Then it just depends again on what projects we’re working on. But I do have other people at the firm that will provide assistance. One of the reasons I don't have scaled rates is I saw with Burke Williams Sorenson is I don't have any attorneys at the firm that have less than a dozen years experience. In fact, most of them have a couple of dozen years of experience and they're all partner level type work. So I don't have any associates, if you will. So that's why it's all at $250 per hour. That's as I saw the agreement had with Burke Williams on the transactional side, I think the high was $237. They had reduced it during the pandemic. I don't know if they brought it back up to the previous rate of $250 and then on litigation it was $265 a partner. And so I just kind of picked the middle if you will. So that's my explanation. Any other questions I'd be happy to answer.”
Councilmember Nunez: “What I understand it was pretty much we're getting the same services and for pretty much the same amount we had at our previous attorney. We're just continuing on with you as an interim. Correct.”
Interim City Attorney Hensley: “My goal is to provide the services efficiently as possible. I'd be looking at talking to your department heads and your city manager about what needs to be done while you're doing the RFP process and determine what projects need to be done before that's completed. I would like to avoid starting working on a project that may get handed off to another law firm in two or three months, depending on how long that process takes. All that will need to be discussed and I am very interested in making sure that just could billed fairly and for the services you need during the interim period.”
Mayor Pro-Tem Solorio-Ruiz: “Yeah, so I would say that this is merely just, and I think I tried to allude of this while thinking about this item. It's merely logistical in terms of the process that we have. As we reported, we no longer need the services of the former city attorney's firm. And so this is just an interim city attorney and Mr. Hensley is qualified to take on that role. And like council member Nunez mentioned, we're pretty much getting the same thing as before. And so this a forever type of thing that we're going to stick to. So I would just ask the public to just trust the process. This is very transactional. It is not based off very specific things. It's very transactional.
And at the end of the day, we're going to eventually get a city attorney, whether it's an individual or firm who's going to be here forever with the city of Delano.” Mayor Alindajao: “So let me explain a little bit to the public in case the public doesn't understand or has a misunderstanding about it. The city attorney and the city manager serve at the pleasure of the city council. At any point in time during the relationship between the city attorney and or city manager, the city council can agree by a majority vote to terminate that position and hire a different person well within the authority and the powers of the city council. So that's exactly what happened here in this particular case. Now, in terms of the dynamics of the work of the city attorney, it's hard to ask questions of the city attorney like what are you going to do for us? How are you going to do it? I mean, attorney work is very dynamic. It depends on the project, the scope of the project. It could be dependent on a lot of things. So I want the public to understand that in terms of, there was a question about whether this would be a special meeting or a regular meeting, but I'm going to ask Mr. Hensley, that's just a matter of preference.” Interim City Attorney Hensley: “I mean, it could have been a standalone special meeting. It could be part of a regular meeting. It's at the discretion of the council. It could have been done a couple of different ways.”
Motion was made by: Nunez to approved items 6, 10, 13 on consent items; 2nd by: Solorio- Ruiz
Vote: 3-0
Ayes: Alindajao /Solorio-Ruiz/ Nunez
Nays: None
Absent: Morris/Vasquez
Abstentions: None
PUBLIC HEARINGS
No items.
REGULAR AGENDA
3) Preliminary Selection of Artwork Desing for the Caltrans Benches on Fremont and Ellington from Urbanist Collective, as part of the Clean CA project, for further review by Caltrans.
Patricia Pratt and Roman Dowling provided staff report.
Public comment opens.
Anthony Cortez, 282 Shelby Beach Court: “My question is right now there's a fence that separates the highway and city of Delano, correct? So are we using the Delano side or are they extending that area? Caltrans extending the area on either side of that fence. Are they widening that? How's that working?” City Engineer Dowling: “It is widening and it is all Caltrans, even though obviously we have access to the outside of the fence, but it is all Caltrans jurisdiction, so they're going to widen it enough to make a walking path feasible. And then all these items, landscape and the benches.” Anthony Cortez: “So that's my question. Is it going to be a chain link fence? And not only that, but So Caltrans will take care of all the maintenance on this. Nothing from the cities on our part, correct? So I'm just trying to visualize that. So those are my questions.” Maria Martinez: “Hello again. That's very nice. Looks nice. And the other side of pretty much, but I wish they could put another one this side because I walk a lot. That's very dangerous over there to walk in the night, so that's nice. But if they could put another one over here, especially in the Placea there, but you guys making a place right there, that'd be nice too. Thank you.” Lucas, 1523 North Park Dr. (Zoom) – “I'm wondering if the art that's going to be put on these for this idea, will it be approved by the residents or how will it be approved so that Delano is represented through somebody else's artwork?. What's the cost out of the city pocket? Will there be a cost?” Lupe Martinez: “Mayor, I had pretty much the same question as on the art. And it's great that we're a farm worker community and of course we have the grapes, we have the citrus, we have all those things. But who gets to decide what's really going to go on there? And if we wanted to change that art, how do we go about it and think about other things? The second question that I have is in that area and that was my stomping grounds growing up right there on Fremont Street. So this is benches for people to wait for the buses, I take it. That's what it's because for walking and the pathway through there, as Ms. Martinez just mentioned right now, not too many people walk around that area right now. Thank you.” Public Comment closes.
Mayor Alindajao: “Mr. Dowling or Ms. Pratt, you can answer them, but Pastor Cortez was asking about the chain link fence. So is that going to remain there, that dividing line or is that going to change? City Engineer Dowling: “Correct me if I'm wrong Ms. Pratt, but the understanding I've had is, and we don't have the final plans yet, that it will be moved back some to provide enough of an area for a path Back, meaning towards the freeway or towards the city, Towards the freeway. And there will be a maintenance cost for the city after this.” Mayor Alindajao: “So maintenance would be on the city's?” City Engineer Dowling: “Yes.”
Mayor Pro-Tem Solorio-Ruiz: “When you say maintenance, what does that mean? What does that look like?”
City Engineer Dowling: “So that was talked about when this first came up, that the city, if we wanted this, the city would have to eventually have an agreement with Caltrans to maintenance this kind of stuff. The cleanup and the benches will be pretty stout.” Patricia Pratt: “So the benches themselves are concrete and then the top would be top. So they'll be really, they're not going to be able to kick 'em over or send them or kick them or anything.” City Engineer Dowling: “So it’ll be up to city staff to maintain these. Graffiti and stuff like that.
And Rod iron is what we had asked when we met with Caltrans months and months back. But we haven't seen the final plan.”
Mayor Alindajao: “Alright, let get through these questions first and then I'll open it up to my colleagues here. Okay. So the chaining fence question that Pastor Cortez had. I hope that answered your question. I think Rod iron would make a lot more sense. I think it was Mr. Martinez asked the question is are the benches going to be used for buses or just for leisure?” Patricia Pratt: “I believe that this is to create a new public space for residents. So like you're saying, oh, it's an unsafe area. I think this is to combat that it's unsafe. So this would encourage people to walk in that area more to visit. You could take your dogs there, I'm sure kids will want to hang out there. Teenagers need another place to be that's safe and maintained by the city.” Mayor Alindajao: “And I believe also the question that Mr. Martinez has is you talked about community input. How's the community going to know that they can give input and how do they get that input to the right people?”
Patricia Pratt: “Well we can, that's why we're here tonight. Our timelines are very strict.
Everything has to be completed by December, by the end of December. So as far as community input, we're here tonight to receive it. If anybody wants to email us afterwards, I can provide the email address as well.”
Mayor Alindajao: “And do you want to go ahead and just put your email address on the record so folks either on Zoom or the public can have it?”
Patricia Pratt: “Let me get the correct spell. Okay. It's [email protected].
Councilmember Nunez: “I don't have any questions for either. I just think this is a good project. Many, many years ago we did a similar project like this with Cesar Chavez Park. Cesar Chavez Park got really bad out of hand and nobody could go to this park. And the city partnered with Halos or something like that. I think it's wonderful now and took over that park, took it back, improved it, and people start using it now. So this is a good project. It's a start one block now. Maybe in the future we get two and three blocks and we keep growing.” Patricia Pratt: “I also wanted to note that when we were here visiting last time at City Council, there was some public feedback on our previous mural design. And so we've taken notes from that as well because members of the community did note things that they would like to see in murals. So we are going to use that as content as well.”
Mayor Pro-Tem Solorio-Ruiz: “Yes. Ms. Pratt, I just want to thank you and urbanist for the many meetings that took place, possibly about a year worth of meetings that yourself urbanists the city has had with Caltrans as well. Finding out the dynamics, the details and the logistics. I think that this is a project, I think we should always want more art, not less in the community. I think it opens up the minds of our young folks to see more colors and as folks mentioned, it might not be safe, but that's the goal is to make it more appealing so folks can go there and to be able to hopefully produce more of a safer community and to engage community to come out of their homes and be part of community. So as far as some of the requests that you have had or some of the to-do lists that you have for us today? I want to go through that because I jotted some down. So to choose between A, B and C. I think the blue is warm. I think that blue signifies trust in community as well. So for C though, with the red and the blue together, similar, but like you said, best of both worlds”
Patricia Pratt: “One would be on one side of the freeway and the other” Mayor Pro-Tem Solorio-Ruiz: “Okay. I like that. I'll go with C. I like C. I'll circle that over my paper. And then as far as the mosaic circles look, I think like you mentioned, the time is of the essence. Maybe perhaps we just trust the work that you do. I know Urbanists did the vote one before you showed these today. So if you wanted, in my opinion, I would say just as long as it's similar, as far as the other designs that you have with the same coloring and making it look appealing, I trust the work that you all do. And then overall, just again thank you for the meetings like we mentioned, this cost the city $0 only maintenance of course. So which hopefully it's little.
And so at the end of the day, this is, I think when we voted on the vote one, we all talked about wanting more art in the community. I think that's still there. I think we still want that. And this is one of many, right? Caltrans had this opportunity. There's going to be many more to come hopefully I also want to point out that there're always open to contact their elected officials, whether it be via email or phone or whatever it may be, and be like, I want to see this, I want to see this type of artwork. I want to see more of the United Farm Workers movement, whatever it may be. But they have the ability to contact their elected officials and then we can relay that information to you or the potential future artists. But thank you and I'm excited to see the work.” Mayor Alindajao: “Thank you. Vice mayor. Yeah, I agree with my colleagues here. I mean, who doesn't want to add some fazz to their home or the places they live and visit? And I think especially in the area where the freeway's at, it's not generally kept very nice. So it's going to be nice to see some art, some spaces there for folks to congregate and walk. I hope that in the future we can run that project all the way down to Cecil Avenue and maybe beyond. So I think that'd be a great idea. I think I agree with the vice mayor. I think option C, because we get all three of the colors or designs. Do you mind putting up option C back up on the screen? Study it very, you said option C is sort of all the designs, right?” Patricia Pratt: “Yeah, option C includes both A and B.” Mayor Alindajao: “Excellent. Okay. Other than that, you gave out your email address. Folks can come up to you after the meeting and talk to you about that and give their input. And if there's any other ways that we can promote it and get the word out for the community to hear about the project and give input into it, please feel free to let us know and we can help out as much as we can with that.” Mayor Pro-Tem Solorio-Ruiz: “Real quick, mayor, I believe, I'm sorry, there's one more on the to-do list that you had, which was the electrical pump. Would it be reasonable to say maybe the electrical pump, you maybe come back and give us some examples of what we did today and we vote?” Patricia Pratt: “I think that's probably the one that would take the most public input because it's the largest surface. It's going to be hand painted by a local person who is very familiar with the area and we can take longer.”
Motion to approve Option C was made by: Nunez
2nd by: Solorio-Ruiz
Vote: 3-0
Ayes: Alindajao / Solorio-Ruiz / Nunez
Nays: None
Absent: Morris/Vasquez
Abstentions: None
DEPARTMENTAL REPORTS
No departmental reports.
COUNCIL STATEMENTS AND REPORTS
Vasquez: Absent
Morris: Absent
Nunez: No comment.
Mayor Pro-Tem Solorio Ruiz: “Yes, I wanted to report back to the community that myself and also, sorry, Councilwoman Vasquez because I saw her there. We both attended the California League of Cities conference a couple weeks ago, a week ago. And it was an opportunity for council members from all over California to come together, learn about different topics and issues and solutions that we can implement in our community. And so it's very engaging conversations and I learned a lot and hopefully we can utilize those here in the city of Delano. That's one. The second thing that I wanted to bring up was Harvest Holiday. They were having the kiddie parade this Friday and also the Harvest Parade on Saturday. I don't know if there's any other ones this week. And then the third thing is I just kind of want to give the community and my colleagues a heads up. I am coordinating with city staff with HR Noemi. Shout out to Noemi. We're doing a career in resource fair. So I know we had one a couple months ago, and so this is going to be our second one this year. Currently 10 will be scheduled for the 8th of November, And we'll put up a flyer on social media. So if you know folks who want a table, whether it be the sheriffs, the firefighters, whatever it may be to let us know so we can get them on the list. But other than that, that is all on my end.”
Mayor Alindajao: “Thank You Vice mayor. My colleagues and I attended the state of the city function last Friday.
It was a great event at a great time. Got to talk a little bit and brag a little bit about the city and all the good work that our city staff is doing. Police department. So I wish y'all were there to hear it, but you guys are doing a great job. And now the rest of the community knows about it if they didn't, but we had a good time. Got to see a lot of friends, old friends, new friends and yeah, it was a fun time. Community events are always fun, so if you ever get a chance to attend one, do so. It's a lot of fun. I also want to end on one final issue that my heart goes out to and prayers go out to the 16-year-old who lost his life in a collision. I believe it was last weekend. I think it was a motorized scooter or an ATV right Commander. This is an issue that I'm going to start to discuss with the police department and the city. I know that that appears to be an issue that happens in our city a lot. In fact, in my own neighborhood I see 10 year olds driving motorized scooters pretty fast on the sidewalk and it's extremely dangerous.
So we're going to have to address that. I thought it was just a matter of time before something like that happens. We have often have ATV drivers driving through the city, city streets, and it's really hard for our officers to contact those individuals because they can move in all different types of terrain as opposed to the police cars. But I will be making that an issue and see how the city and my colleagues can address that issue.”
CLOSED SESSION
No items.
ADJOURNMENT
Moved by Nunez seconded by Solorio-Ruiz and unanimously carried 3-0 to adjourn the meeting at 6:45p.m. _____________________________________________
Nancy Garcia, City Clerk