Special City Council Meeting Minutes
Tuesday, February 18, 2025 at 3:00 PM
33 Church Street, Sutter Creek, CA 95685
The Agenda can be found on the City’s Website: www.cityofsuttercreek.org The City of Sutter Creek City Council Meeting was available via Zoom and in person.
IN ATTENDANCE: Riordan, Gunselman, Feist, Swift
ABSENT: Sierck
STAFF: DuBois, LaFontaine, Peters, O’Connell, Cole
1. Call to Order and Establish a Quorum for Special Meeting Meeting called to order by Mayor Gunselman
2. Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag
Led by Mayor Gunselman
3. Public Forum
None
4. Administrative Agenda
A. City Manager Introduction to Priority Setting Session City Manager DuBois reviewed the agenda
B. Council Self Evaluation Discussion
Mayor Gunselman led a discussion on Council self evaluation.
CM Gunselman
Getting items a week in advance which helps. Spreads out asking questions Open to new ideas - thinks we’re pretty good, can be tricky sometimes.
Do well listening to each other.
Try not to introduce new complex items
CM Riordan
Trying to avoid adding new items each week
Packet a week ahead of time is a plus
CM Swift
Agrees with comments on behavior, appreciates it
CM Feist
Working with county, most of the property tax goes to them CM Sierk joined via zoom at 3:17 PM
C. City Challenges and Priorities Discussion
Review existing priorities and discuss changing/editing/adding for 2025 Streets - good progress. Well on the way to being complete. ACTC opportunities, grants will be part of it.
Two years before we can apply for the benefits of sales tax. CIP is good.
LaFontaine - Big roads or more little roads?
Budget - major steps, new tax here as well, ERP
Dan - cost cutting, Jim - PD options, Claire - feels like we made the most progress, Wastewater plant - Off the list in a couple of years, getting it done in 5-7 years, lots of things that could go wrong, unknowns can kill a project.
Claire - trigger points, fixing things we don’t need, other entities. Water board involved.
Dan - Sewer rate increase, all worked together.
Economic development - County tourism, partner with them. Tourism Susan - wine industry risk, tasting rooms - can we support them more? Younger audience, 20-40 yr olds Wine on 49. Have some mixed use? Some apartments
Julia - important priority to keep going. work with BPA and County - how do we increase housing to keep people working here, not just commuters. Local employment opportunities working with the county.
Jim - advocating with state reps, ranked low as business friendly. Try to change that. Be responsive and the process is streamlined.
Dan - stick with 4. Round out, add some performance metrics.
Susan - wants to add as subtext economic developments - trails, things for people to do.
Julia - Keep them, sensible growth in staged progress. Roads - bike / ped safety. Recreational opportunities for economic development.
Workforce development - sustainable budget, more on cost cutting and innovation Add bike / ped to street
Trails - recreation.
Add some subtext. Leave as is
PUBLIC -
Craig Baracco - Econ dev is a priority, Housing is needed, population growth, working on a small tax base, customer base, employer base.
Wastewater - Wicklow way specific plan, adjacent to Martell service district, part of ARSA, quite large, hundreds homes, more commercial, coming back to the county in the second half of this year.
Tourism - design guidelines for development, design review committee, wants the county to have design review standards, not going there yet. Considering it in the next few months. Sutter Creek has a stake in urging the county to adopt design standards to make it more attractive. County agreed to consider it as part of a legal settlement with the Conservancy.
D. Operations and Performance Management Discussion
Legal
Like to be more proactive on Code enforcement
Planning
Costs to develop - is it excessive?
Quantify number of handouts, when produced, how distributed Reduction in processing time.
FInance
Front desk, metrics taking some things off of finance.
Public Works
Maintenance vs New Projects - Parks - does it look good. Breakdown between maintenance and capital. 25% to do overall improvements.
Do people contribute to the overall? Siloed vs incentivized to do things out of there lane.
Can we limit time spent on ARSA
Calendar list - annual checklist. Keep quantifying when things are done. Checklist, Dan Lafontaine commented that they deal with a lot of emergencies, more communication because things are fluid. Team puts out fires
Susan - Do we have a checklist? Haver list of team activities, background list.
Julia - Some monthly metrics? more seasonal list in Dan’s head. Useful for evaluations.
Susan - checklist, just note what didn’t get done if there is an emergency.
Dan - Some opportunity for reporting using MMS stats
Claire - If people are hit by trucks, are things documented? Figuring some things out, documenting things is important.
Jim - work more with the fire district on weed abatement.
POLICE
Chief O’Connell requested that Council do a ride along to see activity at night.
Presented daily activities, discussed mutual aid. Directed enforcement as needed. 20 places where they go, checklist? Have a daily log. Not a lot of free time, I want them on the streets.
Low collisions - safe drivers, and car stops
Dispatch costs - smaller amount is for car computers. linked to county services.
Complaints - calls to the PD office are going unanswered for days. Have 6 volunteers - trying to get them to answer the phones.
Julia - What is the difference in total incidents vs officer initiated? Difference is calls for service.
Susan - app to connect the phone to turn into a text. don’t want to use their personal phone for work. Have one patrol phone. Route voicemail to the one phone. Also goes to sergeant and Chief via email.
Response times - single officer, depending on situation do not wait for backup Goals
Like to increase staffing - wants +1 officer and 3 reserves.
Track wellness - walk and weights.
Improve service to community - maintain response time
Julia - like a substitute teacher? Reserves not compensated. If they take a shift, then they are paid.
Dan - Already 4 x better than county, not sure response time needs to be improved. Legally have to be 24 x 7? Jim answered that is up to Derek. Things don’t stop at 6PM.
Claire - Wants to respond more quickly to non-emergency issues. Paying for community police.
Want to call our department for help.
Susan - has to be a way to get calls to people in the field. Call back with blocked numbers Claire - Traffic can't have a great effect on traffic control. Should we consider alternative staffing - more staff during the day and less at night?
Chief - Other agency won’t be cheaper
Dan - IS our budget percentage of police costs of the general fund normal for cities our size? Like answer later.
Julia - look at the trend of PD costs, close to 60-65% of GF. Up from 45% in 2021. Concerned about trends.
Want to be more visible during the day.
IF we grow and have a need, then increase staff.
Dan - Many small cities seem to be working with the County.
Susan - Data stops in monthly reports - concern about racial profiling. Gets reported to the state.
E. Council Advocacy Discussion
Council discussed helping with fundraising efforts, meeting with state officials, county, etc.
5. Adjournment
Adjourned at 5:25 PM
The next regularly scheduled meeting is at 6 PM today.
Approved: March 3, 2025