MINUTES
CITY OF DELANO
CITY COUNCIL – REGULAR MEETING
April 2, 2024
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
Pastor David Vivas offered the invocation.
FLAG SALUTE
Chief of Police Nicholson led the flag salute.
ROLL CALL
Council members present: Mayor Joe Alindajao, Mayor Pro Tem Morris, Councilmember Nunez, Councilmember Solorio-Ruiz
Council members absent: Vasquez
OFFICIALS PRESENT
City Manager Reyna, City Clerk Garcia, City Attorney Hensley, Finance Director Lara Rios, Chief of Police Nicholson, Human Resources Director Zamudio (Via Zoom), Acting Community Development Director Chavez, City Engineer Dowling, Recreation Manager Batth-Chavez, Fire Chief Crist
PRESENTATIONS AND AWARDS
Relay for Life Proclamation
Presented by Mayor Alindajao
Accepted by Arnold Morrison
Certificate of Recognition to Sebastian Millan
Presented by Mayor Alindajao
Accepted by Sebastian Millan
Mayor Alindajao called a 5-minute recess at 5:48PM.
The meeting was back in session at 5:54PM.
ITEMS FROM THE PUBLIC
1. Alfonso Rivera, Teach Me Technology Founder – “I just want to give a brief introduction. There'll be more information to follow. You'll see what I'm holding up here. Here's the logo. A little bit of background about myself. I'm the founder of Teach Me Technology and an MR Digital Forensics. We have approximately 52 classrooms up and down the state of California, specifically here in Kern County. We have a number of programs from artificial intelligence, crime scene, investigation, aviation, and a host of other technologybased programs and we see those coming to the forefront. You are in a very unique and powerful position in that even though you're the second largest city in Kern County, what we'd like to see is you becoming the first largest city that spearheads innovation, sports and technology. We have been incredibly successful over the years since I founded my company in 2000. We have received numerous accolades from Business of the Year for state of California along with the Bakersfield Beautiful Award and numerous other awards locally during the county as a result of our work with youth and children. I believe you're sitting on an incredible gold mine and you may not even realize it, and that gold mine that you have here in this city is human capital. What am I talking about? You have a population that is gold between 15 and 19 years of age that we can empower through education that is your future tax base because of the global economy.
Just because they're doing their work here geographically doesn't mean that that work is affected outside of Delano, outside of California. Much of the work is now done remote as an example, computer programming, but that income still comes here. So I'll leave you with those thoughts. Let's partner together.
There's more information to follow. I know that I'm very brief and short my comments this evening and make Delano the first largest city in innovation, sports and technology.”
2. Floyd Reading, Sierra Cascade Multisport Productions – “On April 28th of this year, we will be holding our 5th Grapes of Wrath Triathlon at Lake Woollomes. We have two distances which we call a sprint, which is a small swim, 400 yards, which will be take place in the water, which ride our bikes 10 miles, which is one lap around the lake going down to browning to the old Poso highway, back to I believe is Woollomes Road or Pond Road. Then back up to the lake. I do encourage you folks to come join us on April 28th. We will be setting up on April 27th if he would like to come out and volunteer with us. Our prestigious mayor and his family have come out and joined us on I believe two occasions and have raced that race. I do encourage you folks to come out and say hello or just to cheer us on and see what the sport is all about and I thank you for your time.”
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 $2,406,431.49
3) Minutes of Regular Council Meeting of March 18, 2024 4) Minutes of Regular Police Liaison of January 18, 2024 5) Minutes of Regular Planning Commission of January 10, 2024 6) Minutes of Regular Planning Commission of February 14, 2024 7) Resolution of the City Council of the City of Delano amending the City of Delano’s Employee Pension Plan Effective October 8, 2022
8) Approve side letter to Agreement No. 2022-49 of the Miscellaneous Employee Bargaining Unit Memorandum of Understanding adding Section E. Shift Preference to Article 10 9) Second Reading of Ordinance Amending Delano Municipal Code Chapter 1.12 to Adopt a City Logo and Specify Restrictions on the Use of the City Seal and City Logo. 10) Second Reading of Ordinance Amending Delano Municipal Code Chapter 2.04 to Adjust Monthly City Council Member Compensation Pursuant to California Senate Bill 329. 11) Approval of agreement with Provost and Pritchard Consulting Group to provide plans & specifications for the “Project LRSP No. 3 Roadway Segment Spot Improvements in Delano, California, HSIPL-5227(072)” in the amount of $20,000 and authorize the City Manager or her designee to sign the agreement
12) Report on the Status of the Local Emergency Regarding the Collapsed Sewer Line in the Kensington-Lexington Alley Pursuant to Public Contracts Code § 22050(c) Motion was made by: Solorio-Ruiz to approved items 1-12 on consent items; 2nd by: Nunez
Vote: 4-0
Ayes: Alindajao / Morris / Nunez / Solorio - Ruiz
Nays: None
Absent: Vasquez
Abstentions: None
PUBLIC HEARINGS
NONE.
REGULAR AGENDA
13) Staff is requesting direction from the City Council on whether to continue to offer noncompetitive youth sports opposed to competitive youth sports programs Staff report provided by Recreation Manager Batth-Chavez Public Comment Opened
Daniel Dinsing, Owner of Sports Lab Academy– “I am the owner of Sports Lab Academy. I'm really thankful to get this opportunity to be here today. I definitely want to just give you a background before I talk about Sports Lab Academy. I did grow up here in Delano, born and raised, and I was fortunate enough to grow up in a time where the Delano recreation was thriving. When I think back, I remember we had over 10 teams in my age group. It was competitive, it was fun. Myself and all my friends looked forward to competing with each other against each other. It wasn't about the trophies, it was about the opportunities to compete. The privilege is that opportunity to compete.
When I look back, my fondest memories are at Delano Rec. Delano Rec was my second home and there's people in here that can attest to that. If it wasn't for the foundation that the Delano Rec provided for me, for kids like me growing up, having coaches like Mariano Balbuena that laid the foundation, I wouldn't have been prepared for high school the way I was. I have arguably one of the best high school resumes there is and I never did anything outside of Delano. It was everything that was here. During my time at Delano High, we were a division one school, so that's how long ago it's been. During that time I was an MVP three times, I was all league three times, I was an all area mentioned three times. None of that happens without Delano Rec, right? All the discipline that we learned, all the work ethic, the integrity, everything that was instilled in us was a reason why I was able to be successful. I was prepared for it, I was confident for it. The reason I was able to become a California highway patrolman and being public service for the last 17 years or so is because of the people that were involved in the Rec, the people that were, they believe it was private at the time, but like Ruben Hill and Rita and people like that, with Sports Lab Academy.
During my last 20 years, I've been coaching, I have over the last 20 years I developed a lot of relationships. I know what parents are looking for. I know what are money grab and I know what's good. I have relationships with professional athletes. And because of my 20 years of experience, I've been able to get kids from this area recognized and they are some of the top ranked kids in the state. And it's because of stuff like Made Hoops and EYBL and grassroots stuff that probably most people in Delano has never heard of. I think that's why it's kind of important to have people from here that can relate to the community that have done it, that has the experience, that has the passion to do good for the community, for the kids. And with Sports Lab, right? When you have coaches that are involved that are experienced, they know what they're doing, the sport is no longer the product, it's the people and the people are going to stay here. The way you do that is by emphasizing practice over games, right? Having people that know what they're doing in practice.”
Alex Lopez – “Just talking about competitive sports here at Delano. Kind of like Daniel, I went to school with him, so all the stuff he's talking about, he's right. He did all that. I was lucky to be his center when I was a freshman. But competitive sports is something that will I think attract more kids. Like Daniel was saying when we were growing up, the rec center in Delano was huge. I lived in Earlimart, I live here now, but I lived in Earlimart and they have a great youth program and things like that. But everyone was like, man, Delano always has bigger programs. They had tackle football when we didn't even Richgrove got tackle football before we did back in those days, and it was something that we wanted to do and we looked over it. now that I have my kids here and my kids want to join sports, it's kind of hard because I've been taking them out of Delano to go to McFarland or to go to Earlimart to do sports there. They are competitive there and there are also more things offered there than there are here. I know Covid crippled a lot of things and I think we're over the covid hangover. I think it's time to open things back up and start pouring some money into our youth so that we can have more people like Daniel Dinsing and people like me that can come back and coach, come back and help the community, and help kids. Competitive sports man there is nothing like it. If we're going to train our kids to go to the high school level, everything is competitive. So it's not like you're crippling them or anything like that in the lower levels. And like I said, flag football and McFarland. We had a few kids that weren't up to par and that's the fun part about coaching is getting them there and then watching them succeed and maybe win a medal at the end of it or not. It’s always fun. So that's my two cents’ as a parent, I just want my kids to stay in Delano. I want my kids to succeed here, grow here, grow sports here, win championships here. We already have a high school in town that's doing real well. Let's get the other two going up with helping with the rec center I think is a big part. If the rec center can help coach our kids earlier on, I think they'll succeed more in high school. I think competitive sports will bring coaches out to help coach more in my opinion.” James Lopez – “I've been a long time coach here in Delano for the rec program, probably 40 years, 45 years. It has changed a lot. A lot of us blame Covid, but Covid wasn't the beginning of the fall. We started, numbers started going down and I thought it was advertisement because how do you get so many people to go to McFarland, to go to Earlimart, to go to Shafter, to play youth sports and what are they all competitive sports. If you choose to do a competitive sport, you choose to do a competitive sport. Here in town we have only youth to tackle football basically for elementary and middle school kids. I coach at the high school at Caesar Chavez, and we get children that come into high school not knowing anything about a sport that they want to play and feeding off the two gentlemen that spoke, it does hurt our Delano programs from division one. Now as far as we are going, it's not going up. So we need some competitive sports. I know we have something from second grade down, but other than that we have nothing. But after kids played little league in the past for some of you adults, where do they go next? They used to go to the rec and play t-Ball, tiger Ball. Spartan Ball and that was every kid's dream of doing summer ball. The best part of it was friendships that all these kids brought up. I see kids nowadays that are in their forties and their thirties say oh, I remember this when we were playing ball. I remember walking to the park and playing baseball. We don't get that anymore. A lot has to do with phones, internet, but we do need sports back because like you said, we are the second biggest city in Delano and we have nothing. We have to travel. Parents have to take their kids to Bakersfield, to Shafter, to Earlimart, some to Richgrove for football, and it does not look good on our community.” Emily Dinsing – “I just want to piggyback off of what the gentleman said before me about youth sports. I too, am from Delano graduated from Caesar Chavez, the first graduating class. I too, just like Daniel mentioned, look forward to youth sports growing up I remember always seeing Rita, I was always in the gym. I remember looking forward to the all-star games and that's all we knew and that's what we think of when we think about our childhood.
I stand before you as a parent. I have four children and we are a sports family. Number one, everyone who knows us knows that you watch all our videos probably too much. I will tell you one thing, as a parent who understands the value of sports, I'm willing to take my kids to wherever I feel is necessary for them to get the training that they need.
My kids are probably three on three teams right now. We have them playing in Orange County under professional basketball players. That's maybe a little too serious, but because we're looking for the training that isn't offered locally. Piggybacking off of what Daniel said here, we have created a business. He knows basketball, he's passionate about it, he has the accolades. He led that team to win a Division One championship. His name is the only name in the gym three times on a banner. So that says a lot about him understanding the game. When people say that they want competitive sports, everyone might say they want it, but how do we do it? We know how to do it because our kids have been in every program from this county to Orange County. So we know as a parent what works, what doesn't work, what we're looking for, what we're willing to pay for. We've created a structure where there are two practices a week. We focus on fundamentals the first day instructed by someone who has the accolades, whether it be my husband or someone else who's done other stuff in that particular sport. We're making sure that fundamentals are taught. The next day of the week is going to be a team practice with individual coaches.
We've seen this work with our children and then we have weekend games. That's how we can avoid coaches who sometimes just volunteer because their kid needs a coach and they volunteer and they don't know what they're doing.
Well, at least we have that one practice a week that's being led by someone who knows what they're doing. We're keeping it fun and we're keeping it competitive and the kids are learning fundamentals and we're bringing families together because they look forward to games and we're looking to really build the culture in the town that we grew up in. We're trying to bring basketball culture up because kids stick to things that are trendy. When kids think that something's cool, something like sports or basketball, they stay out of trouble. I think that's exactly what Delano needs.”
Frank Hererra II – “I'm being tight, but in all seriousness, I think you had a perfect example of being competitive because you honored one of our students tonight because he was competitive. Not in football, baseball, or basketball, but in spelling. The world is based on being competitive, but there is room for those who don't want to compete. I think it all boils down to what you as city leaders want to do with your program and what you want to commit to it. It was mentioned by staff as a negative that things might be too expensive and what have you, but the more kids you have involved, granted you're going to need more. There will be more expense for equipment for coaches or what have you. It depends on how big you want to get in keeping the kids off the streets and committing to sports in our district, and I'm not going to tell you what you have to do, I've got my own problems at the district.
We have kids who don't want to compete, so we have classes in our afterschool program that they can get involved in. Those that want to compete, there's that too. If you want to formulate a compromise, that is up to you. What I'm saying though is that we need to keep our kids in town. I know of a lot of kids that have to go outside of Delano to compete for club basketball, club baseball and all that. Why not keep our talent here? When you honored Cesar Chavez High School in their band, I was sitting next to Mrs. G and she said, you know what, we could absolutely be off the charts if at the elementary level you started the kids with percussions earlier. I never thought of that. You can be in a band and not be in a band competition. There are ways to formulate a compromise if you want. All I'm saying is that it's going to require commitment from the council because you're going to have to spend more money, more resources. We do have a good working relationship and I'm not committing to anything, but of course, we can discuss anything with you because the goal is to keep our kids off the streets, keep them involved, and keep them well-educated.”
Suzanne Villaruz – “I know that the real problem is twofold. Money and people. We need people who can coach. We need people who want to coach, get paid to coach and coach well, and Frankie, I have asked about Drumlines many times, but we can't find coaches. We literally cannot find coaches to start junior high. Our three championship high schools do not have feeder drum lines from their junior or their middle schools because we can't find coaches for them. I think that's a real problem with Parks and Rec is finding decent coaches. I know the kids want to play, I know they stare at their phones a lot. I'm guilty of doing it here in the audience, but I know the kids want to do stuff.
They love winning. Our kids love to win. They love performing well. The younger kids love watching the older kids play, whether it be an instrument or a sport. The younger kids watch that they want to be part of that, but they do need leadership. They need coaches and they need the equipment and the facility and the place to do that. For instance, hopefully I won't get timed. Delano High had a junior girl teaching strokes to the other kids on her team for swim team because we don't have a swim program. My brother learned to swim and he swam for a swim club competitively in McFarland. My brother's 56 years old. That's how long this goes back. When you think about it, when I was in high school, we had a swim team, we had a dive team that competed with diving into the pool. I know our kids can compete and they want to be competitive. They want to enjoy using their bodies healthily and enjoying the thrill of winning and the lessons of losing. I think those are lessons we need to encourage and teach and provide them and give the Parks and Rec department what they need so they can do what the community obviously wants them to do.”
Public Comment Closed
Nunez – “I'm the reason we brought this up probably for the past six to eight months, I've gotten emails, text, phone calls, approached either at my practices, somebody else's practice or games or anything else. The question is, when are we going to get back on track with our local recreation and get more sports going here? The biggest complaint wasn’t what we have to pay or how long we have to be involved or even wanting to coach. The biggest complaint is we're not doing it. Parents are coming to me saying we're driving to Bakersfield, we're driving to Earlimart, we're driving to McFarland, we don't care. We're going four or five times a week. We go take our kids to go play over there because we're not offering that stuff here. I can read article after article about the benefits of competitive sports. It's from teamwork improves academic physical development, social skills, confidence, mental health, discipline, leadership, social interaction, competition, teaches commitment, life skills, psychological benefits, resilience, socialization, sportsmanship, problem solving and other things that go on and on and why it's positive. I can also find articles on why and at what point should you start teaching competitive sports. They recommend some of the recommendations that come out is competitive sports should not be taught to anybody older than between seven and eight years old. Nothing older than that should be in competitive sports. Underneath that you teach us what's called a non-fundamental or teaching them how to get involved and just kind of hanging out and teaching them. Then after that, to get into the competitive portion of it, there are studies by the University of San Diego, the YMCA, the National Parks and Recreation Association of what the benefits are behind it. I brought it forward because I heard it a lot. I teach competitive sports here in Delano. Been coaching it for over 25 years, both at the recreation and privately. Parents don't care about how much they have to pay as long as their kids get out there and do something, they want their kids to do something, they don't want them hanging out at home. Like I said, they're already driving. Mr. Dinsing here is already driving to Orange County. We have families that drive from Fresno to Bakersfield twice a week for competitive sports. I think it's time that we bring it back and we get involved and start doing competitive sports and if it costs us money, that's what we are city for.” Solorio-Ruiz – “Can you share with me, I know you mentioned it earlier, but kind of the history of competitive sports within the city of Delano. Have we done it before? Has it worked? The pros and cons.” Batth-Chavez – “When I started with recreation about 11 years ago, we did offer competitive, and it was always only basketball. 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, we went to completely non-competitive In 2020, that's when we started changing our basketball over from competitive to non-competitive. It's not that we're against competitive sports, it's just what was happening. It's when we were running competitive sports. We usually run them boys and girls. And I can tell you in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, the girls basketball leagues were not running. We were not getting the girls signing up enough to run leagues. Maybe you would get 10-11. We said, how do we get the girls to play? How do we get them integrated? And we said, let's try something different. Let's try co-ed and make it non-competitive because if we go to the competitive portion, usually it's separated as they get older. You could do the co-ed for the little kids fundamentals. But as they got older, we were not getting those numbers and we ran them years ago. We tried it because in between we had contracted out to basketball Universe Academy and they're running our program for us and they started co-ed. What happened was with 2020 we tried third and fourth co-ed, both genders got to play and then covid hit. I do admit we as a city got a later start than all these other agencies after Covid. I wanted to explain some of the reasons why. Number one, we fingerprint our coaches, and I can say I'm not going to name agencies, but I've talked to coaches from other agencies and ssistants. I ask them, were you fingerprinted? They tell me no. I mean if I had ability to get grab coaches that I couldn't fingerprint, then yes, we could have got it. We could have had those leagues up sooner. Ms Villaruz is very correct, coaches are the thing. Even when we had competitive, we were still struggling with coaches always, I just had a parent email me and says, Hey, I have four daughters, I really want this and this is absolutely great. And I said, would you like to coach? Crickets didn't hear back. We understand that parents are busy, they're working. So that's why we are trying as recreation to get into the youth trying to get the 16, 17 and teaching them how to coach. I understand it's not that we're anti-competitive. Competitive in recreational leagues. Typically any recreational activity, we usually offer basketball once and then we offer baseball and then soccer. I value those traveling teams. Hey, they want to play basketball year-round. We're not going to have that. We're going to offer it for a season and then be done with it. I just wanted to kind of clarify on that sense. It's not that we're opposed to competition, but we just, we're not in that kind of business. We're here to teach and so forth.”
Solorio-Ruiz – “I don't mean to put you on the spot, but Ms. Lugo is here as well. I know she works with you as well. And so, have both of you, have you heard any comments from people who are from parents or legal guardians who are in the sports already? Have you heard them state, hey I want competitive. Hey, I don't like how they're just running around. I don't know. What comments and feedback have you received?” Batth-Chavez – “Besides recently? We have not heard about competitive and there's another side to that respectfully. We can definitely say there's benefits to non-competitive. There's articles pointing, which either way we've also had parents thank us say, you know what, thank you so much. This is great. I had a parent, we had basketball deadline last Friday. She's all, see it's not competitive. You can play. It's good.
So we have sometimes those folks that may not be athletic, we get them and it's not that pressure. It's a stressful environment and if we need to keep score, we'll keep score. That's not the problem. That's not the issue. It's about where does the line is drawn, do bring in officials, do bring in scorekeepers. At the end of the day, the parents are keeping score. I mean we're teaching them how to put the basketball in the hoop.
But the one thing that we emphasize is not winning, it's the fundamentals and the fun of the sport. So, we get the other side as well.”
Solorio-Ruiz – “I know you mentioned it in your staff report, which by the way, great job on the staff report. It was very detailed, I read it. Can you explain to us a little bit more about what the master plan entails? Why was it a recommendation on the agenda?”
Batth-Chavez – “Maybe like 9-10 years ago, we had a council member, previous council member who was very passionate. He was like, let's get a master plan going. What we did is as a city, we hired a consultant, and this is very common in other agencies as well. We hired a consultant to go out and see, okay, what are the needs of the community in terms of recreation and even parks because parks and rec, they're separated for the city. To really go out to the public and gather what was needed, what are the trends? Our trends are changing. Our trends are very much changing. I keep hearing the good old days. I one hundred percent get it. But we also have different requirements for coaching. Back in the day, I know they're all like coaches gave us a ride. No, we don't do that. Like I said, things have changed. For the good or bad, not going to take a stance on it. But either way, that document usually is our guide, our map, what we look at in terms of how we do programming and how we move forward with recreation facilities, special events. And like I said, one thing that we looked for, it didn't give us any guidance whether to go competitive or noncompetitive. We do have it budgeted in our budget and we can add that as criteria and then truly have those, have that expanded to the city and hear what the folks are saying. I do hear the other side, we do hear the flip side of it. We do hear parents are like “Hey, my child is on the spectrum. We're so thankful because he's nonverbal.” We'll talk to the coach, so everyone gets to play. And our rules are a little different. We usually have equal time per plane. It's not like we might lose that. I would love to see, can we do both? We would love to see that and we would love to go forward with that. But right now the capacity is not there. Once we get the capacity, then we can look at both.” Solorio-Ruiz – “You mentioned capacity, which was part of another question that I stated but I didn't get to, which was what's currently the numbers in recreation? Do we have a lack of folks who want to join the sports? Do we have a high amount? Are we good?”
Batth-Chavez – “No, we're good. Actually, we're in soccer season right now and we ran all our soccer and we're like 140 for soccer. We just ended two age groups on Friday. We ended the junior basketball co-ed, eight- to nine-year-olds and youth 10 to 12. And we have 111 students signed up now. My fear would be if we decided to go competitive and maybe separate the genders, only 13 girls signed up in junior and only 11 in youth. But because we try to restructure it, every child plays, we've not had to push back any leaks we make do with our coaches. We are getting the numbers to answer your question. It's not like we're not getting them anymore.”
Solorio-Ruiz – “My other question that I have is for council member Nunez, can you kind of explain the kind of ultimate goal you have and the vision you have doing competitive sports? What's the end goal here? Is it for us to just simply be competitive? What's your goal? Nunez – “So if you want hear my recommendations for this would be for our city to go to both. Based on the studies I read and stuff that I've learned, Kinder through second grade would be a learning division and then you go back to your divisions third, fourth, fifth and sixth, seventh and eighth and high school divisions for competitive. That is the goal.”
Solorio-Ruiz - “Okay, good to know. Thank you. I actually remember my question, which was how long, if this passes tonight and we do competitive, how long would you and your department need to get this going and get this up to speed?”
Batth-Chavez – “I would say definitely a few months because right now we advertise for basketball, which is non-competitive. We don't want to change the trajectory and go to midcourse. If council allows, we can finish up the year and then just plan, because our calendar year is pretty much planned out for the rest of the year. We have all our curriculum and we actually coaches train. We're pretty much set to go. We would need some time. My only fear would be if we change that then we may have to push back some of our programming dates time. It would just kind of throw a little monkey wrench but doesn't mean that we wouldn't do it or couldn't do it. Rosa Lugo, our recreation supervisor, I know she actually started up with REC as a scorekeeper and then she worked her way to a part-time and then full-time coordinator and actually now is a recreation full-time supervisor and we see it all.” Lugo – “I just wanted to touch real quick on the question you asked about if we hear from the other side, the non-competitive and with the basketball registration we did have just recently that ended. We had tons of parents come and sign up. We were nonstop. I had parents that said, we appreciate you, we appreciate the Rec. My son is on the spectrum and he wouldn't have this opportunity anywhere else. Or I had one parent that was like, she turned around and said, see, you're not going to get hurt. They don't keep score.
So we do have that side. Yes, yes, absolutely. I agree. We do have parents that travel outside for outside leagues and travel leagues, but those parents are going to it whether we offer competitive or noncompetitive because that's what they love, that's what they're into. I'll speak to you also as a parent of children that aren't so sporty and aren't so competitive. As a mother, I am able to bring my children, they're older now, but I'd be able to bring them to the rec for non-competitive because guess what? When my son tried out back in junior high middle school, he didn't make the team competitive, it broke his heart. So as the rec to be able to offer that opportunity to kids like him, I'm thankful for that. We can do both if that is what you guys us.”
Solorio-Ruiz – “I appreciate the comments and those are all the questions that I have now more so for my opinion on this, I think competitive sports are definitely important. They teach you the importance of failing, which is also winning in my opinion, right? Because we have some adults who still cannot fathom a loss, right? It's like, oh, it's the end of the world and it's not. It's so important to teach our young kids that it's not about you, it's about the sport. It's about making sure that you build a comradery. So competitive sports are important. On the other hand, what we do here in the city of Delano is also important by teaching the fundamentals with the comments that we heard from city staff of folks having a daughter or a son who cannot speak or is beginning to speak or is on the spectrum. That is important to say here, at least in our department, in the city, we have inclusivity. There are competitive sports as we speak. As many of you mentioned, folks go to here and go to there and go to Earlimart, you name it, which is their right. It’s also important to note that there's also little league. There are also the stallions, the Bengals. I think, and I'm just going to say this, okay, it might be a little bit embarrassing, but I think I tried out when I was younger for the stallions or for the Bengals, one of those, and I didn't make it either. I was not athletic. I say that because it's important. I didn't know the fundamentals. I did not grow up in a sports environment.
My family did not know football to a tee. I think at that time I would have benefited from a city of Delano recreation program. I personally as a council member, as an elected official of the city, now going on to my fourth year, I have not heard family members saying, Hey, this is what we want or chanting that they want this. Those who are here in support, not that that's wrong. It is 100% valid and it is important. I actually back it up. I think we do need to teach our kids the importance of roughen up and toughen up, especially in this new generation. I think, and as an elected official, as a council member, and I say this with no disrespect to any of my colleagues, is I believe that this issue is far over the city council. I believe that we shouldn't be dictating this. Policy is policy and we should be dictating that, but I think we should leave it to our departments. We should trust our city staff and say, this is yours to do. One of the recommendations on here is to do what's called a master plan, which opens it up to input, to gather input from community about it and then go from there. I don't think that us as council members should dictate, look, we've had conversations range from which are valid conversations. I don't mean to diminish them, but from our seniors, to the activities that they play, to the food that they eat, and to now this, I'm like, where's the pendulum going to swing as far as elected officials in the roles we play? That's my opinion. My council colleagues could have a totally different opinion. I respect that because it's important to understand diverse opinions, but that is my opinion. So I think that that is, and of course if this moves forward, of course I would want more recommendation to staff as far as the timeframe, giving them time to build that up and the age groups and et cetera in more details. But that's just my comment. I think that this is far over the city council. I think we need to go back to the basic issues of potholes and housing and et cetera.” Morris – “I grew up with competitive sports and I think there's an excitement about competitive sports. Even in grade school as little as I am, I always back in the day it was a man-to-man guard. You guard this person or you guard that person. I always ended up with the tallest person and I was the shortest person. Needless to say, basketball was never one of my favorite sports to play. I usually ended up refereeing or being the timekeeper or whatever. In any case, I think there's something to be learned in both winning and losing and it's called, that's where we learn that I think as we go in life, we're not always going to win. We have to have to know how to lose graciously and win graciously also and think and work as a team. I agree with Mario. I think that we should teach fundamentals when the kids are little be non-competitive and then move on to competitive sports. I think there's no need for our kids and our youth to go to some other community to go play, whether they're playing in Earlimart or whether they're playing in McFarland, and I hear this all the time, my kid plays in McFarland because they have a league over there or my kid plays in Earlimart and I go, why are we doing that when we have the facilities here in our own community to do that? I think for me, I would really love to see the program expand. I know it's going to be an additional cost for the city and for parks and rec, but I think we need to invest in our youth and we need to invest in our community to make that happen. We can build those programs up. Because growing up here in Delano, those programs were huge. They were very big and it's sad to see that we don't have that many kids involved and eventually maybe it'll make a turn, you know what I mean? Once the word gets around, that we have competitive sports or we have fundamentals, teaching fundamentals, the parents will buy into that and we'll have more people that step forward to commit themselves to help the program out. So that's where I stand at this point and I am all for competitive sports.”
Nunez – “I just want to talk about a little bit what the city currently has as far as competitive sports. I'll talk about my youth football program alone. It's not my program, it's a private program that I help run. We currently have 27 football coaches. Every single one of those football coaches is background checked, live scanned and approved. We have 14 cheer coaches. Each one of those coaches is live scanned and approved in week one. We pick them up as a coach. They have 30 days to accomplish everything. Not only that, we mandate them to go to the first aid C-P-R-AE-D, and we also have to go through AB1 training through the State of California. All those coaches get that completed within 30 days of them being appointed to our programs. Currently in Delano alone, there's over 600 boys and girls playing competitive football. There's over 300 girls that are playing competitive cheer. Over 1500 boys and girls playing soccer. There's over 600 kids currently in Little League or Babe Ruth. All these teams, Little League, Delano Bengals, Soccer or even the Parks and Rec, we do not cut kids. We make more teams. There are kids in these programs that are part of the spectrum that are developmentally disabled. We have a kid who can barely walk and we took him to a passing tournament and we made him a quarterback to where he stood there, he didn't have to move and he was able to successfully throw a football. That kid came back and he coaches for us now because we gave him that chance. He wanted competition because he was tired of just sitting there and everybody feeling sorry for him.”
Alindajao – “Sumeet, you described the non-competitive program as more inclusive. Is that just a subjective opinion or do you have data on concluding that competitive sports are less inclusive and non-competitive sports are more inclusive?”
Batth-Chavez – “It's not that what we may lose is inclusivity as in general, if we go to competitive, not that necessarily we're going to, because there's going to be a competitive component and do ranking and rating.
Some of those kids that are playing may not be able to make the cut is what we're saying. We’ve seen that in the past. I also wanted to, sorry, piggyback on Council Member Morris, please any council come to one of our games? There is still excitement without keeping score. There's still sportsmanship. We're still doing that. That hasn't changed. So I just kind of wanted to share that with you.” Alindajao – “You said the, I don't know if you were just maybe using just a different adjective, but you describe, you called it the business of competitive sports. Is there, did you mean something by that? Is competitive sports going to become something more than we envisioned?” Batth-Chavez – “Like Rosa had mentioned, I don't have an issue. We don't have an issue with competition.
People want to go play for the Bengals, they want to go play basketball. That's always going to be there. I don't think that's going to go away. What I was trying to state is that in recreation, when we offer the programs, we offer a season, it's not year-round. We're not going to keep the egg moving. So the ones who do want it to be more challenging are going to be going to other places. One of the things that we are implementing now, we're actually offering our sports off-season. So right now, soccer and then we're going to go into basketball so the kids can go play in McFarland, Earlimart and Delano. I don't see an issue with that. Like I said, we got a late start, but I don't understand why is I guess bad. I mean we have them going to Orange County, which is great, and we're having our spelling person going to DC. That's great. So I don't understand why that's a negative thing. I think the conception is, and we can show that later, is that if we go competitive, our numbers are going to increase and I truly hope so. I think the challenge is the coaches, I really do think the challenges are coaches because I've seen here people here and they're great.
Whether it's competitive, not competitive. I'm telling you, we just started in 2019. So in 2014 to 2018, I hadn't seen it. So that I think is what is steering this. So I just wanted to kind of throw that out there.” Alindajao – “So you were saying that from 2014 to 2018 it was competitive?” Batth-Chavez – “Basketball? Yes. Third and up, yes. Just basketball. Like I stated, unfortunately the girls didn't get to, we didn't have enough numbers with the females, so we didn't run the girls. We ran the boys basketball, but never the girls until 2020 when we combined them.” Alindajao – “Whose decision was it to turn from competitive to non-competitive sports?” Batth-Chavez – “Staff, all our staff. Yeah, we were brainstorming how do we change this? What's going on? We had contracted out with an academy that was going to come teach and we're like, Hey, they're doing it co-ed, something to it, so let's try it. So that was the catalyst. So as staff were like, what do we do? Let's try it. If it doesn't work, we can always go back. And it seemed to have worked at that time.” Alindajao – “It sounds as though some of the argument for non-competitive sports, the representation almost feels like there's a large pool or community of people that are in say, on the spectrum or is that a fair representation?”
Batth-Chavez – “Not a lot. But what we hear from the other side of it from parents is that they tell us we feel more comfortable having the kids come to rec for whatever reason, I'm not really privy with all of the other agencies, competitive, not competitive. They enjoy the non-competitive portion. They enjoy the stressfree. I've heard that. Sometimes coaches not here, sometimes they curse, sometimes they get a little bit on the kids and some we do have parents that do enjoy that stress-free environment. So yes, we do have some on the Spectrum but not all, it's just from what we're here, we don't actually do an input or intake of who is coming. We don't allow them to disclose it. It's what they share with us as parents. They feel because they want their child to play. We're like, okay, we'll let the coach know. But it's never disclosed among the league, among the students.”
Alindajao – “I'll go down memory lane a little bit too. I mean I grew up in playing the league at a young age and loved it. Sports as far as I knew were competitive. Now that's not to say that there are some kids that maybe take a little longer to learn a sport or not. I think that's why I think non-competitive sports at the younger ages makes a lot of sense. I had some great memories and times and relationships that we learned. I mean there's nothing that brings kids together than losing together or winning together. And it's a great experience. I like what Susan said that, I don't want to misquote her, but she said that our kids love to win and they do. I think kids do love to win. They like to go out there and compete and it gives them a sense of value and confidence. I think that's one of the benefits of competitive sports. I think Council Member Nunez referred to the YMCA of Kern county, their argument for competitive sports are some of the reasons why Council Member Nunez mentioned it teaches, teaches the leadership and communication and confidence. Not to say that non-competitive sports don't do that as well. It very may well do that. But I think competitive sports have that flavor of, I think what it is that you practice, you practice hard, you work hard and I think at some point we all, I think kids desire to be tested in their character and their skills and their hard work. They want to be able to showcase those skills in a competition show that they can play on a team rather than sort of dressing up and never really going to the dance, so to speak. I think one of the benefits of competitive sports is that it allows them to showcase their skills. I think it brings relationships together. They learn how to work on a team and it's a goal. It's like running or any other sport where there's an end-game end goal and that is really to win, to score a touchdown, to make a basket, score a goal in soccer. I think those are some of the benefits of competitive sports. Competition also brings a lot of comraderies. I think I remember growing up, one of my favorite things was flag football and the travel all-star team being able to be on the all-star team was super important and prestigious. I guess when I was growing up, if you went to all-stars and you were the best of the teams that were out there, I think all of that really is so good for the kids. I imagine that non-competitive sports, although probably satisfying and kids have a lot of fun, don't have some of these more important components that I think are going to be valuable for them when they grow up. Of course, they're playing some of these sports that we offer or hope to offer in parks and rec at the high school level, and the junior high level. So being able to be sort of a feeder program into junior high and high school I think is another benefit of competitive sports. I think it's going to take a little bit of effort on our part. I hope that competitive sports becomes a reality in the city. I hope that it attracts coaches and participants and I hope that the competitive part of our program is going to be a success. But as far as I'm concerned, I support the idea of introducing competitive sports to the parks and rec program.” Motion was made by: Nunez to go to competitive sports and start late fall of 2024, do not cancel or change anything we're currently doing. Just supplement it with what we were going to add. And with looking at the non-competitive portion of K through second grades, non-competitive. Third, fourth, fifth, and sixth, seventh and eighth and high school divisions to be competitive and to advertise, start soliciting, looking for coaches now
2nd by: Morris
Vote: 3-1
Ayes: Alindajao / Morris / Nunez
Nays: Solorio-Ruiz
Absent: Vasquez
Abstentions: None
The mayor was excused due to a conflict of interest at 7:03 PM. A recess was called. 14) Authorize Entering into Professional Services Agreements Regarding the Rent Control/Stabilization and Tenant Protections Initiative Petition to (1) Assist Staff in Analyzing the Potential Staffing Requirements and Budgetary Impacts, Including a Fee Study, Regarding Implementing the Requirements of the Petition; and, (2) Assist Staff in Comparing the Requirements and Impacts of the Petition’s Proposed Regulatory Scheme Relative to Cities that have Rent Control/Stabilization and Tenant Protection Regulations.
Staff report provided by City Attorney Hensley
Nunez – “Will this study also show what the difference is? What is currently being proposed and what is currently already on the books with the state of California or just Delano only?” City Attorney Hensley – “Some of this can be done by staff in my office as far as comparing the state's rent control regulations that it adopted two or three, I guess it's been more like three or four years ago now. They're pretty simple. There was, I think it was 4% or plus the CPI. There are tenant protections in that as far as evictions and whatnot already. We will show those side-by-side comparisons of what's being proposed here and what's proposed to the state. We also want to look at what some of the other cities that have initiatives or have rent controls that are similar to what's being proposed in Delano, and how those are comparing statewide. We have some of that data already. You'll see multiple comparisons so you can see how that might play out. And it's from what we can tell based upon the list we currently have, I believe Delano is the only city in the Central Valley that has this proposed so, which is interesting. Mainly we see these in the Bay Area. They're in southern California, a lot of them in Southern California, a lot of them in the Bay Area and there's some in the Ventura County area, but there's been none, or at least according to the documents we have so far, there aren't any in the Central Valley.” Morris – “Mark before I open it up to the council also to what we're voting on today is just to run the study or not run the study. Is that it?”
City Attorney Hensley – “To hire these consultants to run a fee study, which I think is absolutely necessary because otherwise you won't be able to impose any fee at all. The other is to help on some issues that are more complex in nature and helping us study those.”
Public comment opens.
Lupe Martinez – “As you are all aware of the fair rents, Delano campaign is well on its way and we're collecting the signatures that we need to qualify for the November ballot. Delano voters are sending a very strong message as they're all signing and having, they want that right to vote on this issue on the November ballot. Respectfully, we ask that the council respect the clear will of the voters to place a citizen's initiative on the ballot as a democratic process by allowing our measure to appear on the November ballot. We are well ahead of the deadline, and we'll turn in our signatures in a matter of weeks. We look forward to the findings of this impact study being proposed on item number 14, and it should not impact our timeline. Please respect the democratic process and ensure that any study done does not impact our measures placement on the ballot. Please also be responsive to our inquiries to the clerk to affirm a secure turn in date. We thank you for your time.” Art Rodriguez – “Thank you to our colleague there, Lupe Martinez for sharing his pure points. As he mentioned, we're really close to getting all the signatures that we need so everybody's just putting in, this is a volunteer ran and I think the will of the people are speaking loud and clear. I'm sure the staff is doing their due diligence and putting this together as we've been at this for years now, we've been approaching and I know that the city has had some changes in staff and some changes and things, but just want to recognize that there is a sense of urgency for us as we see single mothers, as we see families being displaced, as people who lived a long time in Delano no longer being able to live there. When we put together this ballot initiative, this proposal, we did so with the most forethought consulting with a bunch of cities and attorneys that have, we've done our due diligence and we've done our studies. Just to place this on the record, the committee is not requesting a city to commission the study as we have completed our own and are already paid for and did a lot of it. And we don't feel that we need to place such a big burden on the citizens of Delano and possibly spend $100,000 or $150,000 to study that will not affect this ballot measure at all. It is not a new tax on people. We need to be clear on that. It's not going to bring a new tax on people. Instead, this large amount of money can be placed into the recreation budget for kids, the youth, the coaches, the equipment players because so many of our families live below the poverty line and for many participating, the thing that's keeping them is being able to cover some of the small fees, the equipment, the cleats, and nothing is better about keeping young people home. We really appreciate what you're doing. I know that there's some legalities and that we have to do that. I just caution the council on how much money you're going to spend on that and that it's timely. Also like to note that just yeah, it's not going to cast any new taxes. Hopefully greedy landlords won't spread more and more lies about this costing new taxes on the community of Delano.” Geraldine – “I've been living here all my life, born and raised. I live in this apartment complex and they raised my rent over $200 more than what the rent is for the two-bedroom. I don't understand that. I don't understand how they could do that. I'm on a fixed income. I am a widow and I don't understand how they could raise the rent. Well, actually the rent is the two bedroom is like a thousand and something dollars. They charging me $1,257 for that two bedroom. I've been there 17 years, but I don't understand how they could do that when the rent, it's not even that. I tried, I called legal aid here in town. She said, oh, we don't do that. You got to go to Bakersfield. They sent me to Bakersfield to the Superior Court. It's got something to do with housing. It's on the second floor. They couldn't help me. This lady gave me another number and I called. They couldn't help me. I called LA to a housing development.
They couldn't help me. Nobody can help me and I don't understand how they can raise the rent to $200 and that's not even the rent for the two bedrooms. I don't understand that. I'm a senior citizen. I'm 70 years old. I can't just go out and get another job. I dig into trash for cans to try to help income from me. I know once I get to the can place, they're going to give me money. I'm just saying I have to come and say that I needed to say that. I don't know how they could get away with that when that's not even the rent over there where I live. I don't understand that. I really don't. I said maybe they mixed up the numbers and I called the place in Fresno where they met me, the apartment building. Nope, that's what's what it was. I think somebody need to do something because this is ridiculous.” Suzanne Villaruz – “I have mixed feelings about this whole rent control thing. I am glad that they've decided to put it to the citizens to vote. I think that's very fair. I am glad that you're commissioning a study because I don't think one study done by one side is ever fair. We need to listen to both sides. If we don't or another opinion, but one opinion paid for by the group that's putting on the petition should not be the only voice we hear. I think it's important that you commission the study to hear another voice, another point of view because that's how democracy works in this country listening to all points of view. I do feel though, as rent control becomes a reality, and I think it will in this town, in our little bitty town, I think everyone is going to experience a lot of increased rents because after the bill goes into place and rent control becomes real, the landlords will not be able to improve the properties, correct properties, do anything with cost of living on how to maintain the buildings. I believe they will raise those rents ahead of time because that's the easiest thing for them to do to get money to pay for improvements or repairs or what have you. It's a double-edged sword and we're going to face the bleeding from that. But again, commissioned a study for the city's voice. They've commissioned a study for the people who want rent control. I think rent control is probably going to pass in this community, but they have to remember it's also apartments built before 1995 and I think it'll affect people who have one apartment in the back of their house that they converted their garage into or something. Those people are probably going to stop renting because they're not going to be able to increase rent and make those improvements. I think we will see a drop in privately owned small apartments available for rent.”
Hensley – “To be clear, the consultants that we're recommending that be hired, they're not for or against rent control. They just help cities, put rent control in place. They've helped cities do that and just determine what the costs are going to be. So these are factual based studies that determine again, cost report how much would it cost the city to run this program as it's set forth in the initiative petition. That's a big part of it because without that study, this city can't charge for the program. So that's a big part of what one of the studies is.” Rudy Flores - “I was here about a year ago when we started these whole proceedings and I'm actually one of the circulators of the signature gathering. And one thing that I hear from elders families, young people, the same thing.
They want to vote on this, they want to have their democratic process valued and they want to take it to the ballot in November. We hear this from landlords, from renters, and this will actually not affect single family homes because of Costa Hawkings. I just urge you to respect the democratic process like we said.” Public comment closes.
Solorio Ruiz – “I just want to address your remarks. Thank you for sharing that. It's important to make sure that all folks are heard, especially in those situations. I myself don't have the tools or even knowledge of the laws in place through the state, but I hope that whether this organization who's also assisting can jump on that if it is illegal to help you in that. I did want to mention as well that I am of course in support of the democratic process. I think we all are. We ran for city council through the democratic process and we're here for that reason. And it's a beautiful thing. Whichever way it goes, we respect it. City manager or our attorney, I heard that there was a study that was conducted by this group. Have we received this study? I was just curious about that. I want to, of course, before my remark, I just want to make sure that I address this narrative that's going around, which is that the city council or the city of Delano failed on rent control and that's not accurate. Quite frankly, and I'm going to be honest here.
When we voted last time when council member Nunez was not here, he potentially had a conflict of interest. Of course the mayor wasn't here and it was myself, Councilwoman Morris and Councilwoman Vasquez. We all voted in favor of moving it forward to doing a study, to doing actually this because we didn't know we were working with the skeleton. We didn't know what exactly this is and what are the repercussions and what are the pros and cons. So I'm thankful and thank you to our attorney's office for providing a detailed analysis of what we're going to get. I'm in favor of this. It's important to do this. Quite frankly, it's a standard procedure in my opinion, but I just wanted to address that because I hear narratives that we voted no on rent control or that there was an ordinance on the table.
There was no ordinance on the table. We were first developing it and started having conversations respectfully as council members. I just wanted to address that. But of course I'm in favor. It sounds like standard procedure and yeah, let's move forward.”
Nunez – No comment.
Morris – “I am also in of running the study. I think it's important for us to be informed of the pros and cons of rent control and stability and all that information. So I'm really looking forward to the rate study.” Motion was made by: Solorio-Ruiz to approve item 19 on regular items; 2nd by: Nunez
Vote: 3-0
Ayes: Morris / Nunez / Solorio-Ruiz
Nays: None
Absent: Vasquez / Alindajao
Abstentions: None
DEPARTMENTAL REPORTS
No Items.
COUNCIL STATEMENTS AND REPORTS
Salvador Solorio-Ruiz – “I know I haven't been here for a while. I had a work thing. We took up young people to Sacramento to advocate against tobacco, et cetera, but so I wasn't able to give some remarks from last meeting. Of course, I wanted to congratulate our new chief. We attended his swearing. of course he's comfortable and knows the job and so I have no doubt that he's going to do a great job. I just wanted to say that I also attended in the beginning of March, what's called the National League of Cities, which I actually didn't know that the local League of Cities has a National League of Cities. It was actually in Washington DC and it was a great opportunity to network, and meet other council members and mayors who are doing the work that we're doing. I had an opportunity to learn a lot and of course, I'm going to bring some of that back in future council meetings. We also met with Congresswoman Nanette Barragan through the Latino caucus. We met with her office to talk to her about some priorities, that the Latino caucus of Cal Cities wishes to prioritize because she is the chair of the Hispanic Congressional Caucus. We also got the opportunity to have a keynote by President Biden. That was awesome. So fired up as well, he thanked us for also having the trust in us to complete and to make sure that the funds are appropriately spent for the infrastructure act that they passed. I also stopped by Congressman Valadao’s office and I thanked him for the potentially 6 million that we received. I stopped by to his office as well and made sure that we thank him for his work. But most importantly, the message of the National League of Cities, when the president of the National League of Cities spoke, he mentioned that we need to get back to the basics of the potholes and the interacts between the cities because potholes aren't left and right. They're not Democrat or Republican. Potholes just need to get done and need to get fixed. I think that that's important. I left there feeling like, okay, it's time to get to work. And so that was awesome. And there is another conference coming up for the National League of Cities. I believe it's in November and it's in Tampa, Florida. It's a city summit. So that's also just to invite the council to that. And then to finish off the meeting, I did want to finish off in someone's honor. I believe some of us are aware, Mr. Johnny Munoz passed away at the beginning of this month. I'm just going to read something that I saw on Facebook about him.
John had been a passionate member of the community serving as a city council member for the city of Delano, Kern County Grand juror, member of the American Legion, the Elks, the Lions Club, a board member of North Kern Cemetery District, as well as Delano College Foundation Board. He was very involved with the city, of course, with businesses and all that stuff. I think that it's the least we can do to end tonight's meeting. A former council member that he was, and also a resident of the city of Delano, and I send my condolences to his family.” Veronica Vasquez – ABSENT
Councilmember Nunez – “I do. This morning I attended the Community Alliance meeting. It went fairly well.
Thank you, Liz, for reminding me. It went well. This past week, Ricardo and I attended a conference in Monterey. It wasn't a traditional conference. It was out there putting our city out there and telling people, come to Delano. This is why you want to come do business in Delano. And we went with one intention and we came back with so many positive things from this. So I don't want to jinx this yet, but a lot of great stuff came out of this conference and I think it is going to help us for when we go to the big one in May. It was so good that a developer just followed us pretty much the three days we were down there. I want to do this. It's me, it's me. it was positive.” Mayor Pro-Tem Morris – “I too send my condolences to Mr. Munoz. Some of the things you don't know Mr.
Munoz, because I happen to be around then. When McDonald's first opened up here in Delano, and Johnny Munoz was the one who brought the franchise to Delano. Aside from being a big city advocate, he was always involved doing things in the community. Also just wanted to mention this past Saturday we had the Easter egg hunt, or Kiwanis-sponsored Easter egg hunt. We weren't sure whether we were going to do a drive-by or actually do a field search out there. They actually had real eggs too. They don't do plastic eggs out there, but they went all the way from preschool to little ones all the way up to eighth grade. The kids had a great time out there. they also had bounce houses. They had popups up there, they had egg toss competitions, they had raffles. So it was a lot of fun for the kids. I just want to remind everyone also too, that the public school's luncheon is going to be next week or next Wednesday. So we need to come out and we support our schools. They do a terrific job. And again, relay life is going to be on the 13th a week from the Saturday.”
Mayor Alindajao – ABSENT
Motion was made by: Solorio-Ruiz enter closed session at 7:37PM; 2nd by: Nunez
Vote: 3-0
Ayes: Morris / Nunez / Solorio-Ruiz
Nays: None
Absent: Vasquez / Alindajao
Abstentions: None
City Clerk Garcia was dismissed. City Manager Reyna clerked the Closed Session portion.
CLOSED SESSION
15) CONFERENCE WITH LEGAL COUNSEL- ANTICIPATED LITIGATION (Gov. Code, § 54956.9, subd. (d)(2) & (e)(3)): One potential case
Alindajao joined the meeting via telephone conference.
Motion was made by: Nunez to return to General Session at 7:54PM; 2nd by: Solorio-Ruiz
Vote: 4-0
Ayes: Alindajao / Morris / Nunez / Solorio-Ruiz
Nays: None
Absent: Vasquez
Abstentions: None
RETURN TO GENERAL SESSION
No reportable action.
ADJOURNMENT
Moved by Nunez seconded by Solorio-Ruiz and unanimously carried 4-0 to adjourn the meeting at 7:54 PM. _____________________________________________
Nancy Garcia, City Clerk