City Council/Successor Agency/Public Finance Authority

AGENDA ITEM NO. 5. – A. CITY OF AVENAL “Pistachio Capital of the World®” CITY COUNCIL/SUCCESSOR AGENCY/PFA MEETING THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2021; 5:15 P.M. AVENAL THEATER & EVENT CENTER, 233 E. KINGS ST., AVENAL, CA VIA ZOOM VIDEO/WEB CONFERENCING: Web Link: bit.ly/AvenalCouncil or use https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87243440488 Or by calling +1 669 900 6833 and use meeting ID 872 4344 0488 to join MINUTES CALL TO ORDER: at 5:22 p.m. PELAGE OF ALLEGIANCE: by Mayor Preciado. ROLL CALL: Councilman Hernandez, Councilman Verdugo, Mayor Pro Tem Ramirez, Mayor Preciado. ABSENT: Councilman Gravelle. STAFF: Lopez, Ortiz, Bermudez, Davis, Stivers. LEGAL COUNSEL: Moses Diaz. CITY CLERK: Government Code Section 54952.3: The members of the City Council/Successor Agency are entitled to receive a total of $300.00 per month because of being elected to the City Council. They receive no other compensation for sitting as a member of Successor Agency. Mayor Preciado would like City Council consideration to move Closed Session to the end of the meeting and add an item to Closed Session for Potential Litigation. A motion was made by Councilman Verdugo to move Closed Session to the end of the meeting and add an item to Closed Session for Potential Litigation, seconded by Councilman Hernandez and carried. Roll Call Vote: AYES: Verdugo, Hernández, Ramírez, Preciado. NOES: None. ABSENT: Gravelle. ABSTAIN: None. Moses Diaz, City Attorney stated for clarification this item came to Staff after the agenda was posted and it is time sensitive. PUBLIC COMMENT/ANNOUNCEMENTS & UNSCHEDULES APPERANCES: Maria Ortiz City Clerk stated that she received a public comment form Maria Loya concerning her drive approach on San Joaquin Street is sinking and deteriorating and if the City can help. Also, when it rains it gets muddy. Clayton Smith Congress Valadeo representative if you need to get a hold of the Congressman Valadao Office email him at Clay.Smith@co.kings.ca.gov or (559) 460-60703 CONSENT CALENDAR: All items listed under the consent calendar are routine and enacted by one motion: (Action). Approval of City of Avenal/Successor Agency’s Minutes for September 9, 2021. City Warrants and Financial Statement for July. A motion was made by Councilman/Successor Agency Member Verdugo to approve Consent Calendar, seconded by Councilman Hernandez, and carried. Roll Call Vote: AYES: Verdugo, Hernández, Ramírez, Preciado. NOES: None. ABSENT: Gravelle. ABSTAIN: None. MAYOR & COUNCIL MEMBER/ SUCCESSOR AGENCY/ ITEMS FOR CONSIDERATION: A. Discussion Regarding Noise Ordinance & Enforcement: Chief Stivers (Information). Joint Meeting City Council/Successor Agency - September 23, 2021 Page 2 of 5 Chief Stivers reported the following: 1) What are enforcement; 2) City Ordinance 5-18.02; 3) Consequence of Municipal Code Violation: warning for the first police response; second response in 24 hours or 4 responses in a year can be “special security assignment” over and above the normal service provided and allow the city to invoice the responsible party for the cost incurred as a result of the response; 4) Cost of special security assignment- 5-18.05 states the cost of a special security assignment shall include any damage to city property and injuries to city personnel fee charge will not exceed $3,000. Historically residents were invoiced for the real cost for the police response. capture the time spent traveling to the call time on the call (CAD) number of officers present and there is no approved buying attached to the ordinance; 5) Penal Code section 415(2) - any person who maliciously an woefully district another person by loud and undesirable noise misdemeanor fine; 6) Reporting party (caller issues) - for this crime there has to be a victim law enforcement is not the victim reporting party has to be willing to be the victim we can issue a citation with a private person arrest. Mayor Preciado would like clarification on the rights for residents? Moses Diaz, City Attorney hasn’t reviewed the ordinance and there are some options you can incorporate violations as part of the zoning ordinances. This works best for businesses and land uses where you have a conditional use permit because you have some enforcement authority, but where you're doing more with residential. Antony Lopez, City Manager will work with Chief Stivers in educating the community. B. Discussion Regarding Traffic Undulations on City Streets: Public Work Director(Information). Scott Davis, Public Works Supervisor reported regarding Traffic Undulations on City Streets Mr. Davis reported undulations for 20 minutes. Staff will research more regarding undulation and educate the community. C. Discussion Regarding Street Sweeper Schedule: City Manager (Information). Rob Williams, Public Works Director reported the following: 1) schedule of the Street Sweeper; 2) Downtime for the Sweeper; and 3) problem when cleaning streets cars are not moved and research a solution to have residents move vehicles to clean streets. ACTIVITY REPORTS/SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS & COMMITTEE REPORTS: A. Special Presentations/Reports: 1. Avenal Regional Landfill Activity Report: George Anderson, Site Manager. Mr. Lopez reported that George Anderson, Site Manager let us know his under the weather and will not give his report and will move it to the next meeting. The City Council was in consensus to move to the next agenda. B. Activity Reports: 1) Community Activity Department Report: Sheila Verdugo, Supervisor, CommunityActivities Department. Sheila Verdugo, Supervisor, CommunityActivities Department. Reported the following: 1) Veteran’s Hall Program - Community Day Program – 10:00 – 2:00 pm – M/T/W/TH/FRI – 25 participants; Karate – Tues/Thurs – 5-8 yrs. old from 5:45 -6:45 pm and 9+ from 7:00 – 8:00 pm – 16students; Zumba – M/W/Fri - 7:00 – 8:00 pm - $50.00 month and Fit to Succeed – M/W/F – 8:00 – 9:00 pm - $50.00 month – 14 students; 2) Events/Collaborations - 9/11 20-year Anniversary Tribute – Downtown Kings Street (Rotary/City); Vaccine Clinic (Wonderful/RSUSD/Adventist Health Central Valley Network/City); Friday Night Flea Markets – Oct. 8th – 7:00 – 10:00 pm – Sports Complex; Pistachio Festival – October 16th and 17th – Downtown Kings Street (Rotary/City); Day of Family Trunk’ r Treat – Oct 30th – Time TBA – AHS Parking Lot; Day of the Dead – Nov. 2nd – Downtown Kings Street; Thanksgiving Meal Drive Thru – November 24th – Veteran’s Hall and Holiday Magic – Dec 3rd – Christmas Tree; and, 3) Works in Progress - Homeless Resource Collaboration, Facility Deep Cleaning, Bi-annual inventorying, Kings County Health Dept Inspection of Facilities, Food Manager/Food Handlers Certificate and Community Garden. Senior Lunch Distribution, Worked with Kings County Public Health Department for Flea Market, Held Flea Market, Held 911 event, Reached out to all food vendors/ organizations for Vaccination event Made contact with local businesses for Gift Certificates for Vaccine clinic, Reached out to Public Health Department- set date for all buildings kitchens inspectiondate and Kidz Spot. 2) Avenal Police Department Activity Report: Rusty Stivers, Chief of Police. Rusty Stivers, Chief of Police reported the following: 1) Officers investigated assaults; 2) Officer Risk investigated an ongoing Joint Meeting City Council/Successor Agency - September 23, 2021 Page 3 of 5 domestic violence situation; 3) Sergeant Carr and Officer Voyles were in the Lake Tahoe area for eight days as a mutual aid request was made to Region V. Their main responsibilities were to provide security to the area which was either already evacuated or about to be evacuated and Chief thanked them good work; 4) National Night Out was held this month at Rice's Park; 5) Staff conducted numerous compliance checks for probation and parole status this month. Numerous agencies assisted. At one point, there were about 30 officers in town making sure the gang members were compliant. Most were, however, there were 4 arrests for various charges; 5) Administrative Protects- also, been working with the California Department of Justice on the Racial Identity Profiling Act (RIPA) Stop Data program which will be in effect begi1ming January 2022. Most law enforcement agencies in the Valley are in the last wave to meet the mandatory reporting beginning in January 2022 for a January 2023 report. Avenal PD has chosen to utilize the DOJ Portal to upload the information rather than use a third- p a r t y vendor to report to DOJ. Our traffic/surveillance camera project was scheduled for installation on August 23, however, due to COVID, some of the key components are delayed in manufacturing. The new date is for the week for September 27, but that might change due to the microchip issue; and 6) Promotions/New Hires-Senior Officer David Tapia was promoted to Sergeant this month and began working with his new team. Sergeant Dennis (DJ) Vargas is back at the Avenal Police Department after being gone for 6 years. He was hired as a Sergeant and will fit in perfect with our current Sergeant leadership. PUBLIC HEARING(s): A. None. OLD BUSINESS: A. Consider Extending Local Emergency Declared on March 24, 2020: Mr. Lopez reported that the Local Emergency continues to exist or threat existence of a local emergency: COVID-19 pandemic. The declaration must be reviewed to consider the following action: 1) reaffirm that a local emergency continues to exist; or, 2) make a finding that a local emergency no longer exists. Staff is recommending that the City Council consider the following action by motion: New variants of COVID-19 are posing a threat to public safety and thus staff remains on alert to respond to new developments. Staff is recommending the City Council consider the following action by motion: Approve and support the ongoing local emergency Resolution, and specifically, move to renew the emergency Resolution by thirty (30) days, unless a Councilmember or member of the public request that the Council convene to consider the ongoing emergency Resolution, at which time a special meeting wouldbe scheduled. A motion was made by Councilman Verdugo to approve as recommended, seconded by Councilman Hernandez and carried. Roll Call Vote: AYES: Verdugo, Hernandez, Ramirez, Preciado. NOES: None. ABSENT: Gravelle. ABSTAIN: None. B. Consider Extending Local Emergency Declared on May 27, 2021: Mr. Lopez reported that on May 27, 2021, the Avenal City Council adopted Resolution No. 2021-23 declaring a Local Emergency due to the existence or threatened existence of a local emergency: Severe Water Shortage. The declaration is required to be reviewed to consider the following action: 1) reaffirm that a local emergency continues to exist; or, 2) make a finding that a local emergency no longer exists. Staff is recommending the City Council consider the following action by motion: Approve and support the ongoing local emergency Resolution, and specifically, move to renew the emergency Resolution by thirty (30) days, unless a Councilmember or member of the public request that the Council convene to consider the ongoing emergency Resolution, at which time a special meeting would be scheduled. A motion was made by Councilman Verdugo to approve as recommended, seconded by Councilman Hernandez and carried. Roll Call Vote: AYES: Verdugo, Hernandez, Ramirez, Preciado. NOES: None. ABSENT: Gravelle. ABSTAIN: None. NEW BUSINESS: Joint Meeting City Council/Successor Agency - September 23, 2021 Page 4 of 5 A. Ratify Approval for Purchase of Server Equipment: Humberto Bermudez, IT Manager reported that the In August 2021, the City of Avenal City Council approved $23,000 for use in networking and enhanced remote work operation. In this project, a server was initially parted out for the IT Department to assemble to avoid assembly fees and to tailor said servers exactly to our needs. Chip manufacturers are obligated to fulfil orders to third party vendors before they can provide parts to retail sites such as CDW, Newegg, Amazon, etc. Due to the ongoing silicon shortage, many parts are backorderedfor third party vendors for weeks and in many cases, entirely unavailable for retailers. Staff has worked with three vendors, Dell, HP Enterprise, and Colfax International to part out a server tailored to our needs. All three vendors offer machines that are price comparable but offer different available feature sets. -HP’s configuration tool limits us to smaller hard drives, requiring us to purchase more drives to meet our storage needs. This also limits future expandability by filling in drive slots. -Dell’s configuration is comparable in performance to our initial in-house configuration. They charge a significantpremium for unlabeled drives to meet our storage and expandability requirements. -Colfax was able to configure the server tailored around the initial barebones chassis we recommended in the initial estimate. With this, it meets our hardware configuration of 20TB of overall redundant storage and 10Gb networking for faster transfer speeds. Due to parts unavailability, Colfax was able to provide 32 processing coresvs. the 16 cores we had initially requested. The silicon shortage has led hobbyists to search for server variants ofhigher end consumer processors. After a brief discussion the following action was taken. A motion was made by Councilman Verdugo to approve Ratify Approval for Purchase of Server Equipment as recommended, seconded by Councilman Hernandez and carried. Roll Call Vote: AYES: Verdugo, Hernandez, Ramirez, Preciado. NOES: None. ABSENT: Gravelle. ABSTAIN: None. A. Ratify Approval for Purchase of Gift Cards for use on 09/19/2021 COVIDVaccination Event: Mr. Lopez reported that as Council is aware, on September 19th, 2021, the City partnered with Reef-Sunset Unified School District (RSUSD), United Farm Works (UFW), the Wonderful Family Resource Center, Rotary Club, Adventist Health, and numerous other affiliates to host a large scale COVID -19 Vaccination event. As a draw to convince individuals on the fence about becoming vaccinated, theCity followed suit with many other jurisdictions by using the ARPA funds to provide an incentive to the community to get vaccinated. The incentives included 50 gift cards worth $100 in the form of a debit card, and 100 gift cards worth $50 in the form of certificates to local businesses. The debit cards worth $100 were procured by UFW on the City’s behalf, with a cost of $ 5,091.00(processing fee of .99 each x 50 = 49.50; and an additional 41.50 to overnight the cards). The local gift cards were broken up between various local stores: TNT Market; Chevron; Shell;State Foods; Amigos Market; Super Burger; Taqueria La Piedad; Taqueria El Vecino; Sweet Moments; Gallery Café; Family Dollar; Circle K; and Chalios. Staff recommends by motion, authorize the request for the City Manager to pay UFW for the purchase of gift cards for the September 19th vaccination event in the amount not to exceed $5,091.00. After a brief discussion the following action was taken. A motion was made by Councilman Verdugo to authorize the request for the City Manager to pay UFW for the purchase of gift cardsfor the September 19th vaccination event in the amount not to exceed $5,091.00, seconded by Councilman Hernandez and carried. Roll Call Vote: AYES: Verdugo, Hernandez, Ramirez, Preciado. NOES: None. ABSENT: Gravelle. ABSTAIN: None. Joint Meeting City Council/Successor Agency - September 23, 2021 Page 5 of 5 CORRESPONDENCE/ANNOUNCEMENTS/CLOSING COMMENTS: Antony Lopez, City Manager reported the following: 1) thanked the Council for a fast meeting; 2) working with West Hills ESL Classes start- October 11th at 5:30 PM at the Tech Center working on MOU with WHC and future classes. Also, working with Rotary provide an MOU for Pistachio Festival; 3) OCT 2nd, free pet vaccination clinic by the Visalia Valley Oak SPCA. and 5) Redistricting presentation by Kings County for City Council meeting October 14th. Also, Ruth Lopez, Valley Voices non-profit organization would like to present on a different date and update us on their collaboration on redistricting show maps. This meeting can take place October 7, 2021 at 6:00 p.m. as a Special City Council meeting with Council consensus. The Council approved by consensus. Councilman Verdugo reported the following: 1) abundant vehicles with expired tags and trailers with trash. We need to take care of this problem. Mayor Preciado reported the following: 1) attended County meetings; 2) 9-11 event well planned and thanked staff that put it together. 3) Avenal Vaccination Clinic held Sundays was well attended and 86-residents were vaccinated and had fun with raffles. As a community we all need to take care of our self’s, and families Covid is real and need to be careful and stay safe. City Council went to Closed Session at 10:30 p.m. CLOSED SESSION: (City/Successor Agency): It is the intent of this governing body to meet in closed session to review its position and to instruct its designated representatives: Any person may directly address the Council/Agency at this time on items of interest regarding Closed Session. A. Pending Litigation (Government Code § 54956.9). Conference with legal counsel – ANTICIPATED LITIGATION (Government Code §54956.9(d)). Significant exposure to litigation (Government Code § 54956.9(d)(2)).Number of potential cases is: 1. B. Conference with Real Property Negotiator(s) (Government Code § 54956.8). It is the intent of this governing body to meet in Closed Session to confer with its real property negotiator(s)concerning the purchase, sale, exchange, or lease of real property by or for this agency as follows: Property Description: APN: 040-301-017; 040-301-026; & 040-301- 028Negotiator(s): City Manager / City Attorney. Party with whom negotiating: Dollar General. Instructions to negotiator concerning: Terms C. Conference with Labor Negotiator(s) (Government Code § 54957.6). It is the intent of this governing body to meet in Closed Session to review its position and to instruct its designated representatives: Designated representatives: City Employees Bargaining Units 1-5 / APOA ADJOURNMENT: Mayor Preciado re-opened meeting at 11:35 p.m. nothing to report out of Closed Session. There being no further business the City Council meeting was adjourned at 11:35 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Maria Ortiz, City Clerk