MINUTES
JOINT GONZALES CITY COUNCIL AND
GONZALES SUCCESSOR AGENCY
BUDGET MEETING
MONDAY, JUNE 16, 2025
5:00 P.M.
CALL TO ORDER
The meeting was called to order at 5:00 PM by Mayor Jose L. Rios.
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
1. ROLL CALL
Attendee Name Title Status
Jose L. Rios Mayor/Chair Present
Liz Silva Mayor Pro Tem/Vice Chair Present
Scott Funk Council/Agency Member Present
Lorraine Worthy Council/Agency Member Present
Maria Orozco Council/Agency Member Present
STAFF PRESENT
City Manager Carmen Gil, City Attorney Michael F. Rodriquez, Community Development Director Taven Kinison Brown, Finance Director Mike Howard, Executive Assistant to the City Manager/Deputy City Clerk Mary Villegas, Administrative Assistant II Marisol Gomez, Public Works Director/City Engineer Patrick Dobbins, Fire Chief Jason Muscio, and Police Chief Keith Wise. * Successor Agency Item
PUBLIC NOTICE
This meeting is being conducted consistent with State of California Executive Order N-29-20 dated March 17, 2020, regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. The public may participate in person or online via zoom at https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84613663008 or call 1 (669) 900-6833 and use Meeting ID: 846 1366 3008. If you wish to make either a general public comment or to comment on a specific agenda item, please use the Raise Hand function. You will be allowed two minutes for your comments.
If you choose not to attend the City Council meeting but wish to make a comment on a specific agenda item, please submit your comment limited to 250 words or less by 12:00p.m. on the day of the meeting to the City Clerk at [email protected]
BUSINESS FROM THE PUBLIC
2. Business from the Public not on the Agenda; any member of the Public may address the Council for a period not to exceed two (2) minutes on any subject not on the Agenda. The Council will listen to all communications, but may take no action.
There was none.
CONSENT AGENDA
3. Consider Approval of Resolution No. 2025-45, A Resolution of the City Council of the City of Gonzales Certifying Compliance with State Law with Respect to the Levying of General and Special Taxes, Assessments, and Property Related Fees and Charges
4. Consider Approval of Resolution No. 2025-46, A Resolution of the City Council of the City of Gonzales Establishing the Appropriations Subject to Limit for the City of Gonzales for the 2025- 2026 Fiscal Year
RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Maria Orozco, Council Member
SECONDER: Liz Silva, Mayor Pro Tem
AYES: Jose L. Rios, Liz Silva, Scott Funk, Lorraine Worthy, Maria Orozco
REGULAR AGENDA
5. Public Hearing Regarding Vacancies and Recruitment and Retention Efforts Staff Report: City Manager Gil presented the staff report.
Mayor Rios opened the public hearing at 5:15pm.
Public Hearing: No comments came forward.
Mayor Rios closed the public hearing at 5:15pm.
Council Discussion: They discussed which vacancies were going to be filled and the ones that were going to be on hold.
The Council receive the report. No action required.
6. Consider Approval of 1) Resolution No. 2025-47, A Resolution of the City Council of the City of Gonzales Adopting an Operating Budget for the City for the Fiscal Year July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026 and providing for the Appropriations and Expenditures of All Sums Set Forth Therein, and 2) Resolution No. SA-2025-02, A Resolution of the City Council of the City of Gonzales Acting as Successor Agency for the Gonzales Redevelopment Agency Approving and Adopting a Successor Agency Budget for the Period Between July 1, 2025 and June 30, 2026
Staff Report: City Manager Gil and Finance Director Howard presented the staff report via powerpoint presentation explaining the balanced budget; Community Center and Industrial Wastewawter Treatment Plant operating budget; general fund operating budget; revenues and expenses; capital costs; budget focusing on the Community Center, Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant, Housing and exploring new revenue sources; future budget opportunities; ongoing challenges; general fund revenues and expenditures; debt service loans; Measure K allocations; Measure X; future items on the horizon; and general fund revenue strategies.
Public Comment: Henry Martinez Jr. commented about the Council overspending last year on a drone for the Police Department, no court cases paying for that, and said it was a waste of money.
He also agreed with the City raising taxes on the properties because they, as landlords, were going to raise the rents.
Henry Martinez Sr. said he was the reporter for Gonzales Real News and he commented about not hearing next year’s plans from the City on payroll freezes; not to fill the Captain’s position; and stop buying military equipment. He also said Council Member Funk was bragging about owning one of the electric vehicles and wanted to put a charging station so he could charge his car.
Council Member Funk said he normally waited at the end of the meeting to comment but since it was a large group here, he wanted to go on record that he does not own an electric vehicle, nor was he in the market for one.
Henry Martinez III, commented he wanted to have a safe Fourth of July this year and he was helping the football team and his family and didn’t want anyone to get hurt.
City Attorney Rodriquez intervened and said we were discussing the agenda for the budget and there was another section for public comment under general public comments where he could address his comments.
Council Discussion: City Manager Gil addressed Council Member Worthy’s question about the Community Engagement Department on the organizational chart, and clarified she was the Director before and she was now the one overseeing that department as a whole, and that position was not currently filled.
Council Member Worthy brought up the issue of $30,000 for the Community Action Grants. She felt it was a want versus need and we needed to consider cutting that although it’s tough, but the community needed to understand that our budget was really tight. She said the City Manager already cut quite a few of the programs and we had to put in the fire truck because that was a necessity for safety. She also shared the afterschool/kid power programs and the day camps were addressed by the City Manager in another area. She asked if the $30,000 could be allocated back into the general fund.
City Manager Gil responded the way to do it was to use them to offset some of the costs that were currently eating up the general fund to pay for recreation programing.
Council Member Silva shared her thoughts which she discussed with the City Manager, about possibly reducing the amount budgeted for the After School/Kid Power Program and maybe the day camps and getting the school district to come to the table and help provide funding for that or increase the cost. She said we had taken money away from our aquatics program, which she thought was necessary for us to have a great aquatics program for our youth and our community in general to learn water safety. She wanted to look at the possibility of reallocating some of the
monies from those two programs and maybe including it into the aquatics programming. She also discussed without having any new revenue sources and the increases in expenditures, they could do potential deferment of the City Council stipends and or merit increases that could be due in the next fiscal year. She said they were hard things to consider but if we continued bleeding out the way we were and knowing now that our reserves were going to go down to half a million dollars, it was going to be a challenge.
City Manager Gil indicated in terms of aquatics, when staff made cuts and redefining the budget for this fiscal year, we looked at the year to day activity in our current year to project, and expenses were $90,743. She mentioned that we reduced everything we could such as the number of staff and recreational aides, and had been working on making sure that everyone at the pool was absolutely needed, but there were no extra staff this year. She said for this year, staff allocated $99,885. She added that some of the Measure K dollars helped supplement some of the staff time or programming, in addition to potential grants for all of our programming.
Council Member Funk thanked staff for a great presentation and report.
Council Member Orozco mentioned the school had an after school program but she didn’t know what they offered. In regards to the Community Action Grants, she felt it was hard to reduce those since some of the projects that come from those grants were things that we wouldn't be able to do without the grants, but there were some groups that had formed their 501 C3 and it would enable them to apply for some additional funding.
City Manager Gil clarified that the funding for the After School and Camp programming were kept there, but it was significantly reduced in the budget. She said the intent and reason for keeping some of it was because we also must figure out how to program the Community Center.
Mayor Rios concurred with Council Member Silva’s comment regarding the stipend, if it made a difference, he would be happy to give it up so that staff realized we were feeling the pain as well and the budget was tight, and there was no way around it.
After public comment, City Attorney asked the Council if there was going to be any further Council discussion about any of the items that were raised by the individual Council Members.
He said there were some suggestions made for possible modifications to the budget such as the issue of the stipends and the Council needed to provide staff with direction since it had to be undertaken by a resolution that had to be brought back.
Mayor Rios asked Council Member Silva since she was the one that brought it up.
Council Member Silva felt that in order for her to feel good about asking people to consider not taking a merit increase for the coming year, although the Council’s stipend was minimal, it could be the first step in helping to preserve our budget. She hoped the rest of the Council felt the same way.
Finance Director Howard indicated that if they adopted the budget with the change, staff would make those changes since it would go on the record, but if they rather bring it back, they could do that also.
Council Member Silva asked what about the merit increases.
Finance Director Howard responded that would be a further discussion and suggested brining it back to the Council.
City Manager Gil concurred that would have to be brought back later because staff had to see what that meant and what the numbers would be.
City Attorney Rodriquez pointed out that there have been some issues about possible modifications to the Measure K Budget and the Council would be considering it under the regular meeting following this budget meeting that they can pull so they could discuss it then and mention any changes, and then staff can make those adjustments to the budget after adoption.
Council Member Worthy mentioned to the public that the idea of the Council eliminating their stipend was to show they were willing to do that for our community because we had such a tight budget. She just wanted the community to understand that and even if it didn’t seem like it was a lot of money, there were five members in the Council and everyone was willing to do it because they cared about what was going on. She said we also need the community to help out when we have tax measures come up. And that was part of the reason why we were in such a tight situation when one of those tax measures didn’t pass last year.
RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS] Resolution No. 2025-47, Resolution No.
SA-2025-02 to include reducing the budget by the Council’s stipend amounts
MOVER: Liz Silva, Mayor Pro Tem
SECONDER: Lorraine Worthy, Council Member
AYES: Jose L. Rios, Liz Silva, Scott Funk, Lorraine Worthy, Maria Orozco
ADJOURNMENT
The meeting was adjourned at 6:20 PM.
ATTEST:
Mary Villegas, Deputy City Clerk