MINUTES
CITY OF DELANO
CITY COUNCIL – REGULAR MEETING
November 3, 2025
CALL TO ORDER
Mayor Morris called the meeting to order at 5:16 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: Liz Morris, Mario Nunez, Joe Alindajao, Bryan Osorio (arrived at 5:18pm), Salvador Solorio-Ruiz
Council members absent: None
OFFICIALS PRESENT
City Manager Reyna, City Clerk Chavez, City Attorney Hensley, Finance Director Lara Rios, Chief of Police Nicholson, Human Resources Director Zamudio, Interim Community Development Director Dowling (via teleconference), Public Works Director Nunez, City Engineer Rodriguez and IS Coordinator Reyes
PRESENTATIONS AND AWARDS
• Mayor Morris presented the 2025 Outstanding Bikeways and Trails Project plaque presented to City of Delano by American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Los Angeles Section for the ATP5 Bike Lane & Sidewalk Gap Improvement Project to the Engineering Department. • Mayor Morris presented Proclamation for Delano Hometown Heroes Committee Veterans Day Grand Marshall – Jerold Ross Hampton
ITEMS FROM THE PUBLIC
1. Pastor David Vivas – “Good evening City council members, Pastor David Vivas. Just for the benefit of our council members and city staff and our online audience, I'd like to just invite you to our 25th year anniversary service, which is taking place this coming Sunday, November the ninth, 2025. This is a 25 year anniversary for our church World Harvest International Church right here in Delano. So this ministry, I'm the founding pastor of this ministry, and so I know that each and every one of you received an invitation and I think mostly everybody responded, but this is an exciting time. We've come this far by faith, and so this is a ministry that I do not take lightly. It's not a career choice or a career move that I made. And so when people ask what is the calling, what is a calling, what does that even mean? The best way that I can describe it is that there is just a very strong pull inside. And for those who may not know me, and this is just neither here or there, but originally when I was in high school, I wanted to become an attorney and most likely I would've been working alongside with Councilman Alindajao. But instead of working alongside of him, I was one of his best men in his wedding. But anyway, but I got drawn to the ministry at a very young age and so started pastoring here in Delano, which I never thought I would ever pastor. I didn't want to stay here, I didn't want to be here. I wanted to move away and just start off fresh. But again, there was just such a strong pull for this community. I was born and raised here and I continued on with my education and biblical theology. And so I appreciate, love this community very much and I have the best interests at heart for this community. And so myself, along with my congregation, would extend to each and everyone a warm welcome to join us this coming Sunday at 10:00AM I realize that some of you may have your own places of worship to go to already, but if you want to play hooky that day, I'm sure the good Lord would not mind it at all.
Okay. But anyway, and thank you again for each and every one of you for the services and what you do behind the scenes to help make Delano a better place to live. Thank you.”
2. Anthony Cortez– “Good evening City Council, Mayor. Anthony Cortez, 282 Shell Beach Court. I just want to echo what Pastor David said about coming and joining us to celebrate 25 years World Harvest. I also wanted to speak and share a little bit about Ross. We just honored Ross here and if you ask any veteran who has gone on honor flight, I've been on five flights and I'm going on my six here coming soon. If you were to ask Ross if you wanted to go, the answer you would get was would be no. A lot of them say no because a lot of them weren't in combat. They didn't see any action. A lot of 'em were stateside, but it takes everybody, it takes a team to get the job done. And if you would ask Ross, are you glad you went? His answer is absolutely because it's life changing, it's life changing, it never gets old. So I just want to encourage any veterans that are listening right now, or if you know any veterans right now, Kern County on flight is taking the World War ii. We ended up taking 102-year-old veteran World War II veteran on this flash flight, Korean, Cold War and Vietnam vets right now. I was just informed the other day, I don't know if you know this, but a lot of our men are dealing with PTS very bad, especially from Afghanistan and the type of war, and a lot of them are taking their own lives. They're saying that it's 22 a day that are committing suicide. They are working on that, their memorials right now. If you know of anybody in that era that is dealing with PTSD that severe, let me know. We want to get them on that flight because it is life-changing. It a healing flight. It heals individuals and it connects them back with fellow brothers and sisters in arms. Because when you come out of the service like myself, when I came out, I kind of separated myself from people. When I went on my first flight, it ignited a flame inside me, Amber, that was there. And so I got involved with Kern County Honor flight, and so I just wanted to relay that to you. If you know of anybody, reach out to me and we'll get them on the list. Thank you very much.”
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 $3,794,140.36
3) Minutes of regular Council meeting of October 20, 2025 4) Cancellation of regular City Council meeting scheduled for January 5, 2026 5) Approval of reappointments of current members David Vivas, Jr., Guadalupe Martinez and Marisol C. Alcantar to the Citizens Review Committee for three (3) year terms 6) Ratification of $6,000,000.00 Community Project Funding (CPF) Grant from the U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for construction of the Well 42 Equipping Project and authorization for the Public Works Director to sign the grant agreement (Resolution No. 2025-81) (Agreement No. 2025-100)
7) Lease Agreement between the City of Delano and Kurt D. Kruger for Hangars H-3 and H-4 at the Delano Municipal Airport and authorize the City Manager to sign the agreement (Agreement No. 2025-101)
8) Adoption of 2023-2031 Housing Element and Related Actions: General Plan Amendment No. GPA 2025-001 and an ordinance to amend the Delano Municipal Code, including amendments to the Official Zoning Map to rezone properties in the City (Zone Amendment No. ZONE-25-0001), in order to adopt and implement the Delano General Plan 2023-2031 Housing Element (Ordinance No. 2025-1365)
9) Resolution approving the Final Map and Subdivision Agreement for Tract 7404 Phase 2, with Leora LLC, located adjacent to and south of Mathews Avenue, between Melcher Road and Timmons Avenue, and authorizing the City Manager to sign the agreement and the City Clerk to file the Final Map with the County Recorder (Resolution No. 2025-82) (Agreement No. 2025-102)
10) Award of contract for the “2025 Delano Civic Hall Remodel Project” to Fortune-Fatliff General Contractors Inc. in the amount of $3,130,413.00 and authorization for the City Manager or her designee to sign the construction contract and any other documents needed to complete the project (Agreement No. 2025-103)
11) First Reading of an Ordinance of the City of Delano revising Section 10.20 of the Delano Municipal Code related to Traffic Speed Zones on Dover Parkway between 1st Avenue and Woollomes Avenue
Motion was made by: Alindajao to approved items 1–11 on consent items; 2nd by: Nunez
Vote: 5-0
Ayes: Morris/ Nunez/Alindajao/Osorio/Solorio-Ruiz
Nays: None
Absent: None
Abstentions: None
PUBLIC HEARING
No items.
REGULAR AGENDA
12) Discussion and appointment of primary representative and alternate representative to represent the City of Delano at the Kern Council of Governments (KernCOG) Mayor Morris – “Mayor are no public hearings today and we'll move on to a regular agenda discussion on the appointment of a primary representative and alternative representative to represent the city of Delano at the current Council of Governments, which is called we know as Ke Cog, I believe Councilman Osorio is stepping down and so is there anyone.”
Council Member Solorio-Ruiz – “For the record, Mayor, if I could interject, I no longer could fulfill those meetings and so I can no longer attend those meetings. I vocalized to city staff of submitting this item to bring someone else forward to fulfill those roles. Whoever on council is open to being the primary and whoever's open to being the secondary, we can go from there.” Mayor Morris – “Councilman Alindajao? You're the alternate.” Council Member Alindajao – “Right? Yeah, unfortunately, due to my work schedule and my responsibilities with city council, I'm not able to take the primary spot on current cog. I nominate Councilman Osorio if he can, if he's able to take that spot. If you'd like.” Council Member Osorio – “I'll give it a shot as well.”
Council Member Alindajao – “I'll make a motion to appoint council member Osorio to be the city representative on the current COS committee. Okay, we second.” Council Member Solorio-Ruiz – “I could second as well, but of course I was going to also interject and ask if council, I mean Vice Mayor Nunez wanted to serve as an alternate.” Mayor Pro Tem Nunez – “I have too much on my plate.”
Council Member Solorio-Ruiz – “Okay, then Mayor, would you be open to serving as an alternate?” Mayor Morris – “I think I, we need meetings. They meet the third.” Council Member Solorio-Ruiz – “You'll stay as alternate then.” Council Member Alindajao – “Maribel…?”
Mayor Morris – “They meet the third Thursday.”
Council Member Alindajao – “I'm currently the alternate.” Council Member Solorio-Ruiz – “Do you want to stay as alternate?” Council Member Alindajao – “If you want to keep me as the alternate, that works.” Council Member Solorio-Ruiz – “We'll do that. Do you want to amend your motion so we can include that and just do it in one more? I think that already is the state of…” Mayor Morris – “Oh yeah, because you're already there.” Council Member Solorio-Ruiz – “Right? Okay, perfect.”
Mayor Morris – “Okay, that'll work.”
Motion was made by: Alindajao to appoint Osorio as primary representative; 2nd by: Solorio-Ruiz
Vote: 5-0
Ayes: Morris/ Nunez/Alindajao/Osorio/Solorio-Ruiz
Nays: None
Absent: None
Abstentions: None
13) Discussion on downtown parking enforcement (Main Street from 9th Avenue to Cecil Avenue)
Staff report provided by Chief of Police Nicholson.
Chief of Police Nicholson – “Mayor and council. Good evening. This is some information that will assist counsel for discussion. So it's not a traditional departmental report. This is just information that was requested by council member Alindajao on downtown parking enforcement, which is from, although the staff report says 9th, it's actually 8th through 13th. So according to our municipal code, it's properly documented that we can enforce parking enforcement within the downtown area. It follows the vehicle code. The area 800 to 1300 block of Main Street is properly signed with the proper signage for us to be able to enforce the current two-hour parking restriction in that area. The current municipal code is also outlined properly with the ability for offenders to appeal. So everything in the municipal code is proper as far as us having the lawful authority to issue citations for parking violations in that area. As it stands today, the Police Department does not have a dedicated parking enforcement officer. Traditionally, it is responded to if a complaint comes in by a complainant or business owner or a citizen, and then we would respond the way that we would enforce it, which would be at least traditionally with the department, the chalk method, which you would chalk at tire and you would document what time you chalk that particular vehicle. You would come back two hours later and then if the vehicle is still parked there, you would issue a citation. That's the way that we would traditionally do it. If we were called there today, we would have to mark with either the chalk method or take a photograph and then the officer or the community service officer would respond back two hours later to see if the vehicle was in the same position. So right now, the community service officers that we have hired and employed with the police department, we have two of them on patrol. We have seven day a week coverage. They provide relief to the police officers by taking reports that are considered what we call 'em cold calls, which they're either minor suspect information or no suspect information. Maybe let's say somebody has a break into their vehicle, there's no suspect information. A community service officer would respond and take that report, which allows the police officer to stay on the street, maintain visibility, and continue to do police officer things. We have one of the three CSOs in the investigations division. They are an expert in crime scene photography, crime scene management. They collect evidence, they do photographs. They assist the detectives in those things that it allows the detectives to investigate rather than document the crime scene. So those three would be at least traditionally the way that we've done things in the department, somebody that we would dedicate to parking enforcement. The other alternative would be code enforcement officers. Currently we have three, two of them are with the Police Department. One is currently with City Hall.
In my opinion, I think using code enforcement officers would take away from their current duties, which is the beautification of our city, which they are very, very busy in doing that. So, with the proper signage in the 800 to 1300 block of Main Street being properly signed, our municipal code is lawful for us to enforce parking enforcement with that information. Hopefully that will spur counsel discussion and direction.” Council Member Alindajao – “And chief, what's the municipal code that covers.” Chief of Police Nicholson – “Not I do. So there's several of 'em. There's 10.16.120, 10.16.210, 10.16.220.
And the 10.16.220 is the actual parking more than two hours prohibited. I will add just one more thing.
The signage, it's good from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM Monday through Saturday, it excludes Sundays and holidays, so it's only enforceable during those days in those times.” Council Member Alindajao – “Mind if I read off this conversation? Is that okay? Mayor.” Mayor Morris – “Go ahead.”
Council Member Alindajao – “Okay. Yeah, the reason why I brought it, I think this was a conversation that segued from the, I believe it was the loan program, the microloan program from downtown. We now have a new business in downtown, a new restaurant business. There's also other restaurant businesses that sort of sprang up. I think it's on 11th and I off of Main Street. Anyway, I think I'm safe to say that I think all of us on this council want to see a vibrant and growing downtown Delano, and in order to do that, these kind of microloan programs are, the spirit of them is to spur growth and development in downtown. I know the city's growing a lot in the southwest part of the community and city and it's great, but I think downtown, we don't want to leave it behind in terms of growth and development. So the microloan program was I think at least an initial step forward to try to help spur growth and development in the downtown area, but then also parking, the whole parking situation. I think for years, as long as I've lived here, I don't know if anyone else has that same experience, but parking has always been a major complaint in downtown. I think partially because a lot of the employees park on the main street and therefore not leaving parking for actual customers or patrons that visit those stores. So that's certainly a concern because we want to give downtown businesses every opportunity to succeed, to have patrons make it easy for patrons to visit their stores, to do business with those stores. And so that's the reason why I brought this issue of parking forward. Now I think I get what you're saying, Chief. I think essentially the CSOs that you have here, it was never my intention or thought to use CSOs to enforce parking downtown.
I think they're better suited for the classification or the job titles that they're working in now. So that's not at all what I'm suggesting, but I'm open for ideas as to how to better regulate and control traffic in the downtown area as to help our businesses downtown businesses grow and develop and invite new businesses to the downtown area. In terms of the two-hour parking restriction, you said that is only between the hours of 9:00 AM and 6:00 PM is that daily or on weekdays or how does that work?” Chief of Police Nicholson – “So it's 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM Monday through Saturday. It excludes Sundays and if a holiday falls on Monday through Saturday, it exclude that day as well. If it's a holiday.” Council Member Alindajao – “And I don't know if it's going to take hiring a dedicated parking or code enforcement for parking in the downtown area, but I had for us to discuss and explore that possibility. I know there's not any action items tonight, but this is for the purpose of laying down the groundwork for what might be a future policy change when comes to downtown. Do we have the capability Maribel to do a traffic study in downtown and sort of understand the problem a little bit better interviewing business owners, maybe an actual traffic count?”
City Manager Reyna – “We can certainly do a traffic study, sir, and we have interviewed almost every business within that radius that we were trying to advertise the microloan program, which is how this issue came back up and it's definitely not a new issue, as you mentioned that the city has struggled with.
We can also gather information if it's council's desire, we can look at pay stations. You guys have all heard of those pay stations, right? Where people pay now you can do it with your credit card, you pay for two hours, four hours, six hours, whatever it is, and you put your little tag on your window. Or we could look at parking meters. I know a long time ago the city looked at potential for parking meters and then again, you can look at dedicating an officer or a CSO for that. Obviously a body does come with medical benefits and pension as opposed to creating a different, selecting different option. But we can explore those, look at them, gather some information for council to consider.” Council Member Alindajao – “I think we ought to start with a traffic study and maybe some surveys on what the actual business owners need and are looking for. And you said that some of those issues came up when you were canvassing for the microloan program, right?” City Manager Reyna – “We certainly did, and the parking is the number one, and as you mentioned, the reason that most businesses state is even though when you drive down downtown, it does look like it's hustling and bustling because you can't find a parking space. It really is just the employees that are utilizing the front parking as opposed to the rear parking, right? Because many businesses do have the rear parking opportunity. It's just that many folks just find it more convenient to park in front of the store that they're working in or the neighboring store and walk in a few steps over to the store that they work in. So that was the number one. The second one I think was the trees, the trimming of the trees so that people could see the signs of the store, which we could look at as well.” Council Member Alindajao – “And there may be also a future discussion about aesthetics to the downtown area, maybe bringing up to a little bit more modern design and aesthetics that help downtown area nicer. I don't know. That'll be another discussion, but…” City Manager Reyna – “Well, and part of the microloan program was that was to try to get them all on board with some uniform signage. So the barbershop and the dress shop and the bakery and the taco place all had a uniform feel so it could designated as the downtown if you will, like the street signs have a particular look because it designates that as the downtown. But again, the response that we got was don't give us the sign, help us with the parking because our customers don't have places to park.” Council Member Alindajao – “So with that, I'll open up to my colleagues and see how they feel about going forward that they should, let's be the council that actually does something about that that has been talked about for decades and I think we should respond.” Mayor Morris – “Anybody else want to add?”
Mayor Morris opened public comment.
No public comment.
Mayor Morris closed public comment.
Mayor Pro Tem Nunez – “I can give you a little history on this. Parking on Main Street, I was part of one of the original officers assigned to do parking enforcement back in 2000. About 99% of the vehicles that were cited were employees. It was in 2000, I believe Chief Nicholson also picked it up sometime either 2008 through 2010 or sometime around. There was also complaints about parking issues on Main Street and the majority of the people who were getting cited were the employees. The business owners were made aware of it. They did not make any changes of it. Part of the problem with going out there and chalking tires and assigning somebody to do it every day, and I found this when I was enforcing it back in 2000, and I believe Chief Nicholson had this encounter when he was in charge of enforcing it back in late two thousands was employees knew we were watching. They would back their car up park in the parking spot right next to it and they just bought themselves two more hours. They would take turns swapping cars between employees. I'll go to the right, you go to the left and nothing ever came out of it. There's also more than our city ordinance. We also have the California vehicle code is 22500 to 22508. That also covers several other items you can cite on Main Street, but again, the majority of the people were the employees and or the business owners. I think the only effective thing to do is to look into either the parking meters or the pay stations and forego all these other studies and put that out there and let them see that themselves, that that's what they want. That's what we're going to put out there.” Mayor Morris – “Anyone else?”
Council Member Osorio – “I think this is the benefit of having diverse perspectives up here to give you that additional context because I was going to say as of this year, I had a couple of businesses reach out anecdotal evidence, of course, who were complaining about a successful business that was attracting a lot of people and taking up too many parking spots and they were wondering what can a city do to make sure that their own clients could have access? When I pitched the idea of a pay station, they were like, well, we also take sometimes a long time with our employees. And so it became a circular problem. I think having analysis, I think circumvent the reliance on anecdotal evidence at the same time. Also to know that there's a pressing issue of resolving it or addressing it in some way or another, a pie in the sky an idea right now just throwing it out is to me to compromise about having potential customers pay versus having others who we know will be there for a long time. I've seen some pay stations or I think private, I haven't seen this at the city level, where you can stay a certain amount of time before you start accumulating a charge per hour or half hour that you're at a place. I think that would be in support of something like that where and if we know that there are clients that are going to be there for less than two hours, they won't be charged, but if you are going to stay longer than that, then you will be, and to address folks trying to cheat the system, we can designate certain streets by certain areas so that they would have to make a longer walk if they were going to move their car from one parking stall to the other. But again, just throwing ideas out there, I recognize that this is an issue. I think having the perspective of this being mostly an employee issue, I think changes my mindset going into this. So yeah, willing to hear from others.”
Council Member Solorio-Ruiz – “Of course. If I can read my chicken handwriting. So do we know the parking lots that are city designated, like city public parking spaces? I think we have one over here and then we have one next to the bank. Are those also time constraints to our limit?” Chief of Police Nicholson – “They're not.”
Council Member Solorio-Ruiz – “They're not. Okay. That's good to know as well. I think if we have those areas designated, unfortunately some folks don't want to walk and I think we need to also encourage folks to walk to downtown, et cetera. I think when thinking about this issue, I feel like we have to have a balance of both the business aspect and the community's perspective in terms of folks going in and trying, and I've dealt with it myself before where I'm, I probably do three or four rounds before I actually find a parking spot and sometimes I go to the bank in the middle of the day or et cetera, or if you go to one of our restaurants downtown, and so a question that arises in my mind is as much as we say it's an employee issue, I think one thing that I want to include in a future study would be what does the infrastructure look like for those businesses as well? How much is there space in the back compared to the employees that they have? The other thing too is thinking about I, of course I don't go to hair salons, but if I don't know how much time a hair salon appointment takes, sometimes some of my sisters are there for three hours, sometimes more because they're getting this and that and this and that. And so, we have to take all of that into consideration because quite frankly, like I said, we need to balance both out because we also don't want to piss people off quite frankly, and so that's the aspect that I'm looking at it. I also wanted to ask, so we currently have a policy in place now per the code, and we're not enforcing it.” Chief of Police Nicholson – “Partially Correct. We do have the municipal code in place. It is enforced when we are called to a specific area. We don't proactively go out and chalk tires and have a program, a parking enforcement program if you will. So we do enforce it when we're called there by a complainant, but we don't have somebody dedicated that goes out and enforces the traffic. I'm sorry, the parking enforcement.”
Council Member Solorio-Ruiz – “Yeah, absolutely. And I think that the study I think I would be in favor of as well, or the serving or the opinion polls or whatever you want to call it, perhaps maybe seeing how much that'll cost. Of course, if someone in the city is going to do it or if we're going to do it at third party, I don't know, but to see if there is a cost to that, especially tomorrow what's happening with the measure and finding, I think we're going to know where we're at, so I think that's important to figure out before we spend a certain amount of funds. I also would be in favor of that because I think there was of course evidence that was produced or verbiage of it's an issue or no offense, 99% said since 2000, and so I think it's important to see exactly what it looks like or what concerns are from the businesses and the actual data. If of course we do move it forward, just some thoughts, I would be in favor of maybe doing a Monday through Friday enforcement and maybe on the weekends not doing it because of course the weekends are more busier of folks not having work and they have to get this or get that or do their hair or whatever you name it. Also perhaps including grace period. I think that would also, that's something that I would like to see maybe whether it's a 15 minute or a 10 minute, whatever it may be. Like I mentioned, taking into consideration the employees, how do we designate if they say, Hey, you know what, I have more employees than the space that I have in the back. Then do we do permits for them? Do they give their staff permits or that? What do we do in those type of situations? If those questions arise? Is our signage that we have right now, is it bilingual? Is it multilingual?” Chief of Police Nicholson – “It's in English.”
Council Member Solorio-Ruiz – “In English only. I would like to see it potentially be at least bilingual. I think that would be appropriate. Again, going back, do we have the infrastructure downtown to enforce this? I think also with the positions in the future, if we designate maybe or we create a completely new position, then I think of course I would be in favor of maybe waiting on that until after the measure and hopefully everything works out. And then I was looking at the city of Bakersfield, and if this is correct, it says that they do a $35 fine and then they also have a fine for disabled place cards, which is 2 75 and et cetera. What is our current rate at the moment?”
Chief of Police Nicholson – “The fine amount council member? I'll have to look off the top of my head. I don't know.”
Mayor Pro Tem Nunez – “I know the fine amounts. The city of Delano for parking in a handicap is 2 85 and for a regular, any parking violation, their fine is only like 20 something dollars, but there's a service fee that goes up and that's been in effect probably 40 years, 30, 40 years. So our rates are within where anybody else has 'em statewide.”
Council Member Solorio-Ruiz – “I would be in favor of also looking into that in terms of we don't want to make a hardship for folks. We don't want, of course, I wouldn't want someone to get a $200 or a hundred dollars fine. I think we need to meet in the middle of, it's still going to be a drag for folks to go in and pay a $30 or $40, and I appreciate also hearing that there's an appeal process. That's one thing that I was going to include as well. I appreciate that. That's important, but I would like to see how does that work? Do they go to the PD or how does that work? But we can talk about that later on. Let me see, what else do I have on here? Hardship, inability to pay. I think that is, it may be of course also in the future looking to whether and I think maybe in the study whether a two hour or even a three hour might work best, but we could play it by the ear to see upon if we do a study or not. Those are some of my comments that I had for this item. Thank you.”
Mayor Morris – “Okay, thank you. Well, I know this has been a problem in our city for a long, long, long time, but I was thinking even if you put meters in, doesn't somebody have to go through town and we'd have to still assign someone to go downtown.”
Chief of Police Nicholson – “That's Correct. You would still need a staff member to ensure that they're actually paying.”
Mayor Morris – “Right? So does it cost more to hire an ordinance guy to do that or would it be beneficial is what I'm saying to be metered?”
City Manager Reyna – “I think it just depends again on if an officer or a CSO is going to be going down there, like the vice mayor mentioned, just playing games with folks as they move their cars or it's really, it's just going to be an end of the day or the end of the week collecting on the meters. And should council wish to look at metering? It could be designed however, council wants, I mean you guys can have a grace period. You guys can collect the funds, you can put them back into the downtown, you can get the chamber on board to educate the businesses as well as promote the metering as this is a fund that's going to go to improve your own area. So it just depends on how you guys want to structure it. It can be a validating thing. If there's a customer who's at a business for three hours, the business could validate and maybe they don't have to pay on the meter because they're a legitimate user of a business downtown as opposed to somebody who may just be dropping something off or picking something up and it's a five minute visit. So it just depends. Again, if council's desire is to look at metering, it can be structured however you wish. Doesn't have to. I mean you create your own. So that's the nice thing about it. And if you decide that again, you're just trading one problem for another, then it has been a problem. It just continues to be a problem. And people have obviously, again, the businesses themselves don't want to necessarily rock the boat too much either. They don't want to tick off their clientele. I mean, we want people to shop downtown. We don't want to move them over to more online shopping downtown brings us sales tax, online shopping not so much. So, we want to be cognizant of that too. But if you guys would like to proceed with a study, we could take a look and see what factors or what items you want information on and we can do that.”
Mayor Morris – “Yeah, I was just thinking is it going to cost us more to meter and then hire somebody because obviously the meter room is going to cost us to put that in along with…” Council Member Alindajao – “I think either way you're going to have to have someone to enforce it.” Mayor Morris – “And right now with what we've got, we can't afford another officer out metering. Well, something else is going on or they should be doing their job something.” Council Member Solorio-Ruiz – “And that's going to potentially take, I would assume an all-day thing.” Chief of Police Nicholson – “To properly enforce it. You would need to have somebody fully dedicated because if you start in the 700 block and you start chalking tires, by the time you get to 13th, you cross the street, you start chalking tires by the time you get where you started, it's about two hours. And so you have to continually do that in a circular pattern to ensure that the vehicles are still parked there and if you have to write a citation, that's going to delay you on continuing going down the roadway to check further vehicles. So it's not something where you can have a collateral duty for somebody because if you chalk a tire and then you get caught up on a call, a crime scene, a traffic collision where you're doing traffic control, if you come back four hours later, I mean you would have to be effective. You would need somebody fully dedicated.”
Council Member Solorio-Ruiz – “Absolutely. Yeah. And I'd be in favor of looking into seeing what you all would want to come up with in terms of the study, how would it look, what will you do? And then also in addition, seeing an investigating to see what the meter system would look like, how much it would cost the city, at least that info. Of course, not going into the study now, but at least seeing what that process looks based on the comments that we heard on council tonight. I'm just going from there. Seeing that basic stuff.”
Mayor Morris – “Yeah. I think also too, maybe we should start out with a plea to the business owners downtown sending out a letter and saying, okay, would you be considerate of parking? I know that's Mal may not, but I'm thinking you were saying we could go through the chamber stuff, but then again, not everybody downtown belongs to the chamber. So, I'm thinking sending some kind of plea letter from the city and just says, there's been many complaints they've been issued by, just make them aware of what's really happening downtown and refer them to public parking or where the public parking is, if they can park. Otherwise, we can threaten meters when it comes to that. I don't know. We're trying to find some kind of solution here to get somebody, get people on board with what, but right now while we're thinking about what to do, I think that would be a first start or send that out to business owners downtown to park in the back their store.”
City Manager Reyna – “We can do that Honorable Mayor and many have parking in the back, but not all. So that too, sometimes I think the businesses will do, they'll do this where they're like, well, my employees park in the back of my store, but their employees do not. But that's because those stores may not have the ample back parking, and again, it was the biggest complaint that they had, but nobody wanted to rat out. They're just like, yeah, it's a problem. But they too know that their own employees do the same thing, so they're in a very difficult spot as well. The businesses.” Council Member Osorio – “Ms. Reyna, if I may ask a question, so since you've been with the city for so long and to address a theme that others have shared, if it's been presented before, what were some of the obstacles? Are they the same ones that we're talking about today?” City Manager Reyna – “Exactly, sir. It's the same ones. And even though the businesses, some of them changed, some of them stay, it's always been that. I remember when the city was enforcing it and we had a business right in front of Chase Bank, an employee that was parking right there in front of Chase Bank and Chase Bank called PD and they cited them and boy they came down to City Hall and just were super upset because again, their business didn't have a back area to park for their employees. And so, it is something that we have struggled with as a city and the downtown. Again, we like to drive down and think that it's so busy everybody's out shopping, but it's not and it's an issue for the business, but they too, again, like I mentioned there, they're the violators as well.” Council Member Alindajao – “Sure. I think the first step is to understand the problem, at least the scope of it and how different methods of addressing the situation start with. So I have a couple of factors. I want the city, if we're going to engage in the study to consider or to at least quantify that is how much employee parking is available, how much of it exists? What are the number of parking spaces in the downtown for patrons? What is the traffic amount in terms of vehicles that visit the downtown area between those streets 8th and 13th on average, the number of businesses that are in the downtown area, how many businesses actually are there? I have no clue. What would be the cost of a traffic coding enforcer. We can probably calculate that. Pretty simple. I think comparing contrast, what other cities, how other cities in same or same or similarly situated to Delano, how do they handle traffic in downtown? Are they doing meters? Are they doing a dedicated code enforcer? I'd like to know. There's no sense in us reinventing the wheel. It's working in other cities. We can probably implemented here. Also.
I'd like to know what, it doesn't have to be anything elaborate, but crime statistics in the downtown area over a given period of time. Certainly, the presence of a code enforcer or police presence in a downtown area in the form of a code enforcer, code parking enforcement might mitigate some of that as well if it's an issue. So I'd like to note those things in a study or review.” Council Member Solorio-Ruiz – “Oh, I would also maybe like to add, which I'm not sure how we could maybe asking the businesses whether the amount of estimated customers that they receive. I think that we need to look at the reality that we have now a gym in that area and it is a big gym and I would assume it gets a good amount of folks who go and so just to see exactly an estimate of, oh, we get 30 in three hours.
I don't know, but if we can ask, maybe include that in there, their customer drive of how many customers go in for the gym, but I don't want to call anyone out. But maybe just in general.” Council Member Osorio – “I think an additional question to all that I'm in supportive knowing all that information as well, is how many businesses have exemptions to the parking that they are allotted. In terms of, again, I think just referencing the example that Council Member Solorio mentioned, if there are certain businesses that are taking a lot more spaces than others, what type of solutions are there in other cities? And if there aren't, is it due to exemptions possibly within their conditional use permits?” Council Member Solorio-Ruiz – “I think, I don't know if it'll be included, but is there certain areas, and I would assume yes, assuming is there certain areas downtown on Main Street that are more prone to more traffic compared to other areas that doesn't get a lot of traffic? I'm even thinking of my barbershop, Navarro's barbershop. It's always hardly ever packed in that little corner compared to where they were before. I could never get parking there. I would always have to park in the city public parking and that was a little tiny walk, but but those are good questions. Thank you. Do we need a motion for that or is just direction? I think just direction. Okay. Thank you.”
Mayor Morris – “Personally, I'd call 'em out.”
Council Member Solorio-Ruiz – “You know what, mayor, we will send you with a letter to every business.”
Mayor Morris – “I can tell you what now do you have a problem? Just make them aware that we are looking at it. You know what I mean? Trying to solve a problem. You can say, yeah, the store down here parks their car right here in front. I'd say, okay, let's go over there and find out what's going on. He's parking there. Why are you parking? But we don't have to rat him out or say, oh, that one reported you or whatever. That's what I would do.”
Mayor Pro Tem Nunez – “I can tell you the last two times we enforced this that we really went hard on it, including the time I did it, and I believe with Chief Nicholson's time that it came back to council, and council gave direction to go ahead and slow down and let up on Main Street again. Or either we're going to enforce it and go with it, or is it going to come back to us in a year or two years and tell us to slow down. We need to choose now.”
Council Member Solorio-Ruiz – “I think we can move forward with that, with what we've talked about.
And then I think if we want to send a letter, if the Mayor wants the city to send a letter educating on the current policy at hand, then I'm okay with that as well. However, is that something you want.” Mayor Morris – “Yeah, I think that's a good start for us. Maybe we're not going to figure a solution out in a matter of a week or two because we're going to run all kinds of surveys and that's going to take time.” City Manager Reyna – “Well, and maybe we could move forward on that letter Mayor and see how many businesses actually respond, call, complain about it. Then you'll get an idea of how they may be down here at a council meeting.”
Council Member Solorio-Ruiz – “That’s right. That's right. And then who knows, maybe they'll post it on social media. It'll get bigger and then more community discourse comes and it's a good thing.” City Manager Reyna – “And you'll get more people either in favor or against and you'll know really how they feel.”
Council Member Solorio-Ruiz – “Okay.”
Mayor Morris – “You. Okay. Anything else?”
Council Member Alindajao – “One other quick issue that if we can include in the survey study, however you want to call it, any studies that talk about parking impact on businesses. I like to try to quantify the problem also what actual impact based on these studies and we can borrow a study, I'm sure they're out there already. What kind of impact does parking or lack thereof traffic conditions of what it have on businesses in a particular area? I'd like to know that too.” Council Member Solorio-Ruiz – “I'm sorry. We're all just punching in at. Okay, so I also put in here in my notes, perhaps, I think I wrote this down for the city of Bakersfield, they do the two-hour limit and then the fine, but then after 72 hours they tow. So can we also look at that to see what exactly would fit best or I don't know what currently is in that.”
Chief of Police Nicholson – “The vehicle code already has a 72-hour requirement where if it's left standing upon a roadway, we're allowed to tow it with certain requirements being done before we actually do. The vehicle has to be noticed that it's been here for 72 hours or it's believed by the officer that has been here for that long. We come back in 72 hours and then we can tow it. There's other ways that we can tow if the registration's expired over six months, stuff like that.” Council Member Solorio-Ruiz – “Okay, thank you. Also, I also don't want to limit the questions or the info that we're going to try to seek solely to council's perspective. If yourself, if city staff, if the chief have your own perspective of questions that you think are beneficial, by all means include that in there and I'd be appreciative of that as well. Yeah. Thank you.”
Mayor Morris – “Well, I think we've asked enough questions here. You can move forward now. Well, thank you.”
14) Discussion on the unhoused within the downtown area Mayor Morris tabled item to January 20, 2026 Council Meeting.
DEPARTMENTAL REPORTS
City Manager Reyna provided an update on the skating rink.
COUNCIL STATEMENTS AND REPORTS
Council Member Bryan Osorio – “Yeah, just echoing what councilor Melinda Hill mentioned we attended the parade. Just huge kudos to those who may be listening to those here to the Veterans Day parade committee for organizing it. As I was waiting for the parade to start, I was hearing other folks really excited about it and how it's been growing. So again, kudos and congratulations.” Council Member Alindajao – “I did attend the Veterans Day parade along with Council member SolorioRuiz and Bryan, and we had, it was a great event, so congratulations. I know David's still here.
Congratulations to the Delano Hometown Heroes Parade Committee. It was a great Veterans Day breakfast early in the morning, 6:30 on Saturday of the parade. It was a great parade. It was well attended.
It was nice to see all the entries and all the veterans out there. I know it's like back to back parades we had for a while there, or it's probably going to be that way every year now with the Filipino weekend, moving to October, but had a great time. It's always a great event. Hopefully next year we'll have more and more entries and we'll just keep growing. I know that the Banner program also has a lot of popularity. A lot of people ask me about the banner program. The banner program, in case anyone wants to know it's open for a season, and correct me if I'm wrong, David, it's sometime in the springtime because now by city decree.
I think the banners are posted from July to November, if I'm not mistaken. I think it's July to November.
Right. They're relatively inexpensive. They're $135 currently. That's what they were priced this year, and they just have to have all the proper military paperwork in order to have a banner. And they'll go up every year. We'll take care of the banners. The committee takes care of the banners, and it's a nice little touch too, especially the downtown area and basically the city where we can get the cs. A lot of those, in fact, the chiefs up there, I think somewhere. What street are you on Chief? Yeah. That's no comment, man. But anyway, it was a great time and come on next year if you missed it this year.” Council Member Solorio-Ruiz – “Yes, I participated in the trunk retreat. I was out there in a Superman costume. It was really hot, but I was like, you know what? We're going to do it for the kids, so why not? So we were out there and it was a great event. A lot of folks thank you to the Chief and Delano Police Department for hosting and coordinating that event. The kids are ecstatic about it. And afterwards as well, during the regular trick or treating on Halloween, I would still get some comments about it, about how great it was. I also attended the Veterans Day parade. Thank you to Council Member Alindajao, how I know he's part of that organization as well as the pastors and their work as well in it. It was absolutely beautiful. It was America. That's what I'll say about it. And it was absolutely beautiful to be part of that. Of course, we don't have a huge crowd in here, but just worth noting of the current SNAP benefit cuts that are taking place and folks not receiving their benefits. There is services of course available for folks. Of course there's the 211 number that folks can call to get services and food as well as the current county fairgrounds.
They're open from nine to 7:00 PM Monday through Friday. If folks need a food box. They also, I think I saw our neighborhood reporter Ruby Rivera today. She posted that it was up total, I think four miles. And so that goes to show really the food insecurity that we have. I know when Lifehouse does theirs, the line is humongous. And I would assume same council member when Vice Mayor Nunez coordinates his efforts as well. And I just want to thank him for those efforts as well when he does that. But yes, if we can vocalize that to folks in the community. I also want to say that last week I had the honor and the privilege of meeting our former Vice President Kamala Harris, and it was absolutely magical and amazing to, we talked about Delano and we talked about the important role that local government plays. I think that I wanted to mention that, as you know, myself and others, we always try to mention Delano everywhere we go and we always represent Delano. It was absolute honor and I wanted to mention that. Of course, the last but not least tomorrow is election day. Let folks know to vote. It is so important of what's on the ballot, of course, for the future of our city. And let's hope that we did good work to hopefully get that vote out and hopefully folks practice their American right. There is four voting places, polling places. There's the Terrace Elementary Civic Center, pioneer Middle School, Ellington Center. So please vocalize that to folks. I'm going to try to, when I get home to try to make a quick flyer to let folks know about that. But hopefully folks turn out to vote. I checked on Saturday and I believe a total of over 2000 voted so on an off-election year. I think that's pretty decent. But of course, we want more. So hopefully, and hopefully votes turn in certain measures favor. So I'll just put it at that. So other than that, that's all. Thank you.” Mayor Pro-Tem Nunez – “Just remind everybody. The DPOA police association is starting up their fundraising for their annual shop with a COP challenge. Everyone up here to get involved in, either be a shopper or monetary donations. Also, the police department is doing their yearly Turkey giveaway. If you know of a family that needs a Turkey, refer them to the, don't refer them to police department. You refer that name to the police department and they make, the police department will make contact that way we don't flood them with all these phone calls on people wanting a Turkey. But if you know a family that needs it, you be the referral for that family and send it over to the police department. That's all I have.” Mayor Morris - “Thank you. Did I catch everybody? Okay. I just wanted to say that I missed the trunk or treat and the Veteran's Day parade. I was out of town at a wedding on Friday, Halloween day. It was in Santa Barbara, so it was a destination wedding. So I missed on Thursday. I was on my way up there and missed the Saturday morning thing because we were just barely on our way back. But in any case, I'm glad to hear that it was a success. And so through events that have been good for our community. So I hope we continue and grows bigger as it goes along. Also, last week is just getting the word out on our tax measure, measure B. And to be honest with you, it was quite fun. I got 25,000 steps in, okay, taking out those flyers.
But I had an opportunity to meet with a lot of people on the way and people I knew, and people just say, Hey, my sidewalk needs repairing and my so needs this. So, I'm taking note, right? But I got an opportunity to talk with him and say how important this measure is to our community. So, I'm grateful for the opportunity that I have really to go out and meet and talk about measure and how important that is to our community. So for the best, and if you have friends, encourage them to come out and vote tomorrow. And grateful for Mario, you put a team together that went out also to pass out flyers also too. So, thank you Mario for organizing that and getting us out there. And other than that, I think that's all I have. We have community alliance tomorrow, so we'll pass the word along there also to those. And luckily, we meet at seven in the morning, so we still have time for those that haven't got out. So, we'll get the word out there for those that live here in town. Other than that, I don't have anything else.”
CLOSED SESSION
No items.
RETURN TO GENERAL SESSION
ADJOURNMENT
Moved by Nunez seconded by Solorio-Ruiz and unanimously carried 5-0 to adjourn the closed session meeting at 6:37 pm.
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Ricardo G. Chavez, City Clerk