Thread by @AndyHS

Down at the Fresno City Council meeting November 8,2018 Among the items on the agenda are adding Adding 8 Emergency Dispatchers to Fresno Police Department, Consider a 9000 sq ft FUNERAL HOME with a 190 seat chapel at Nees Ave and Bond St No crematory or body, Approve an up to

$20 million tax-exempt loan to HOTEL FRESNO Apartments via California Municipal Finance Authority (CMFA). Proposed $20 a scooter fee for companies like Lime and Bird. Among Consent items $300,000 land acquisition for relocation of Fire Station 10
Appointment of Ruby Yanez to

to Fresno Housing Authority
Reappointment of Richard Keyes to Fresno Regional Workforce Development Board. PURCHASE of two rear-loading refuse trucks for $612,000
PURCHASE of 7 sideloading refuse trucks for $2.5 million
PURCHASE of one Caterpillar Cold Planer machine $600,000

Meeting starting 9 minutes late. All present but @ClintOlivier @GarryBredefeld asks that 1-M and 3-I be placed after Closed Session regarding Labor issues including bus drivers.He Also pulls 1-E and 1-F from consent.SPCA Pet of the Month: SPCA Pet of the Month Tic Tac the Kitten!

@MayorLeeBrand @PaulCaprioglio Proclamation of Madeline and Clifford Gartin Day from Senior Corp 1273 weddings officiated by Mr. Gartin as a volunteer He heard about the opportunity from ex-County Victor Salazar who is in the audience. Madeline runs info booth at City Hall.

Clifford volunteers at Fresno airport (FYI) as well. @PaulCaprioglio asks for adjournment in memory of those killed at Thousand Oaks last night bar shooting. Also thanks Public Works for work on El Dorado Park. @stevebrandau congratulates @District5Chavez and @Esmeralda_Soria for

Re-election to City Council. Also mentions Measure Q that requires Bakanced Budget. Soria wants to also adjourn in memory of Mary Stanley a long time advocate of Fresno Democratic Committee. Also Historic Fresno High Home Tour with funds going to Fresno High students. Also her

6th annual Toy Drive will begin soon. On to Consent 1-E regarding Master Fee changes. Garry Bredefeld asks about jump in fees bothers him. Thinks we should be reducing business fees. One day CPR training for lifeguard training which is a jump from the usual basic CPR. DARM Asks

about rental inspection fee. Department Head Jennifer Clark says it is a fee that was approved when rental inspection act was approved and this is just merely placing it into the Fee Schedule. Bredefeld won’t be supporting this today. Public Works Scott Mozier says some fees

gave not increased in his 16 years. Example a $20 Fee is not adequate for staff to spend up to two hours and City end las up subsidizing companies like PG&E unless this fee goes up. Not getting a traffic control plan fee will go up to $500 for offending companies.Soria asks PARCS

about $200 CPR fees. Staff replies this will be more extensive training. Soria asks can staff increase fees without Council approval? Staff says currently City is charging $40 for basic CPR and wishes to change that to $200 for this more extensive lifeguard training. Soria asks

about parking fee increases. Staff says increases for safety issues like blocking a sidewalk or parking in front of fire hydrant as a deterrent. Sample: 294 citations issues last year for parking in bike lane. Jane Sumpter says staff is willing to push this to October 15th.

Soria asks about Compliance Re-inspection Fee. Caprioglio suggests we delay this until next week. Bredefeld will not be present next meeting so item will be bumped to December. WORKSHOP: Mobile Apps : in-house development saved City money as well as best practice award

FresGo is now used by 20,000 residents. Eye on Water as well. Information Services Department well deserved award. @District5Chavez jokes who is running IT if the staff is all down in Chambers for this award?? My Fax Bus App which features three language, real time location of

busses. As part of Tiger grant for Fulton Street was to build an app. Will allow 3-d look at all the art in the Fulton Street District. Next app: Rental Housing Inspection. Five new apps being developed including a PARCS app. Drone videography of the Parks will be available too.

Public Utilities App and allow to check on trash pick ups etc. Eye On Water App allows users to see real time water usage. State of the art technology to Fresno. @ClintOlivier is now present at Council meeting.

Approve an up to $20 million tax-exempt loan to HOTEL FRESNO Apartments via California Municipal Finance Authority (CMFA). Will be a 79 Unit Building. City will have no financial liability with this loan and only CMFA. Approved 7-0. Consider a 9000 sq ft FUNERAL HOME with a 190

seat chapel at Nees Ave and Bond St No crematory or body preparations proposed on site. Will need a rezone, Conditional Use Permit (CUP) and Plan Amendment for this 2.5 acres. Applicants from Whitehurst Funeral Home. Have been good neighbors to three schools at current location.

Says current location is now having problems with homelessness and prostitution. New location is on Main Street and near 20 churches. Will blend into rest of offices in area. Three neighborhood outreaches. Third meeting was more harmonious than previous two as neighbors answered.

Applicant rep Dirk Poeshel says new building is 1/10 intensive use than other possible uses could be at that site. 100 proposed parking spots. The 32 homes on Bond St will generate more traffic than this use will. Bredefeld asks about CUP will ever allow cremation etc? Staff: NO

Signage? Bredefeld would like to have input on this signage. YES. Asks about traffic , trees etc along Nees. Poechel says landscaping will have trees along frontage and around building to make it look any other professional building. Signage will be minimal. 94’ set back near

homes. Bredefeld says First neighborhood outreach was contentious but by third meeting got more neighborhood support. Whitehurst Corporate is now located in Texas. @ClintOlivier says it is true of problems along Blackstone at their current location. Often homeless often have to

be stepped over by mourners wanting to access current location at Saginaw /Blackstone. Olivier would love for them to stay at that location. He has 75 days left to help and knows Councilman elect Nelson Esparza also wants to revitalize Blackstone. ( I asked about traffic gene-

rated by funeral processions from this location to cemeteries in SW Fresno. My question wasn’t answered by staff or applicant 😩). Moving on to exclusive Pepsi contract at Conventuon Center. Bredefeld asks about Save Mart agreement. Staff: Is different due to naming rights at

Save Mart. Bredefeld wonders what a comparable city gets in their contracts. (Only two Councilmembers on the dais during most of this item) Bredefeld hopes to push this over to another date in order to get more data. No quorum at this time.

PURCHASE of two rear-loading refuse trucks for $612,000 and PURCHASE of 7 sideloading refuse trucks for $2.5 million. Both Approved 5-0. Typical lifespan of 7 years. PURCHASE of one Caterpillar Cold Planer machine for $600,000 These last 3 were funded by GAS TAX Approved 6-0.

Unreleased Restoration Flows Contract from Millerton Lake. Allows City to bring into water portfolio. Will find out February how much the City may access. Passes 7-0. Fresno State’s ASI students are present in chambers to be exposed to Council work. Now Kings River Pipeline

Project construction contract for additional $2.8 million to Irrigation District. Had to remove an abandoned culvert as well. Soria says we made commitment to ratepayers to find savings wherever we can so will vote NO. Approved 5-1. Item to appropriate $8.8 million to Public

Works for operating programs and previously approved capital improvement projects. None of this from General Fund but other sources like federal or Measure C. Approved 6-0. Moving on to adding 8 Emergency Dispatchers positions. $1.9 million from Grizzlies Stadium Parking Lot.

Garry Bredefeld and President Soria sponsoring this increase. Dispatchers will take until next Summer to be fully trained once hired in February. This will get us to pre-recession levels with this hire. Council is going to CLOSED SESSION and then break for lunch. They will

after that for the two labor items left in the agenda. Soria will recuse herself from Central Valley Community Sports Foundation’s real estate negotiation during Closed Session.

Council resumes public portion after Closed Session (now 4 pm). Dee Barnes speaking on reclassification that was put on hold due to 2009 recession. Police Clerks do what call centers do and then some. Criminal background checks , responsibilities etc. @barnes827 says talks resume

past November. Next speaker a Senior Administrative Clerk Says this is a longtime coming and is happy City is dealing with this now. We deal with serious issues and lots of public interaction. Quality control is done by these clerks. Another Senior Clerk in PD Records. The

strict background check in conjunction with low pay has left the department short staffed. An increase in wage would help reduce this shortage. Staff: says coming out of recession we wanted to be in a better position to attract and retain clerks. Agree they should be better

compensated in second phase next year. Soria speaks on “limited funds” when there is in fact carryover funds. She feels some of the employees are more than due now for a wage increase. @District5Chavez also agrees with Soria. @OliverBaines asks how parity would be done today?

A: wouldn’t happen today. Soria next couple weeks we can discuss this. Baines makes Motion. @PaulCaprioglio says we are just City employees like the Senior Clerks who spoke today. He makes second. Passes 6-0 with Brandau absent. Moving on to Bus Driver wage increase MOU.

Ken Phillips says increase is on par with other bargaining units. @stevebrandau asks about transit union and wage increase for bus drivers. A: Enterprise dollars would provide this increase and not from General Fund. @gregorybarfield says there is a surplus for drawdowns that

Expected each year to tide FAX over. 8 new drivers have begun this week but more drivers needed. Brandau says lengthy discussion on this topic in Closed Session. 5-6 years ago debate was on the performance of some of these drivers. This new contract and yet performance is still

not up to par. Council has not been willing to raise performance standards. Would love to give raises to those drivers WHO deserve it but this contract would be given to ALL drivers and he can’t go along with that today. He knows drivers have a tough job. 2.86% increase to en-

courage better performance. Giving an across the board raise today and he cannot be part of this. @GarryBredefeld says this was a spirited debate in Closed Session. He doesn’t support employee time off incentive program. Not just ATU (bus drivers union) but in other unions as

well. This program hopes to encourage employees not to take sick leave. If you work 12 months out of 12 months you get the incentive. ATU would be 5th Union to receive it. Will Police and Fire Unions want this in future too? We need to hold employees accountable. Not incentivize

He never got an incentive to show up to work except he gets to keep his job. He won’t support any contract that has this in it. Has no problem with wage increase. When he hears there is no waste at City Hall he will point to this. He will vote NO” @PaulCaprioglio says colleagues

wants to raise performances and it just happens to land on ATU (amgulated transit union) today. Nothing personal. Council needs to work on raising performance standards. We don’t know if incentive program work better than over time. He will Vote YES. @District5Chavez will support

this today. What is total cost of incentive program? A: around $200,000 if everyone used it but $100,000 in reality. If overtime? A: it would be Time and half. Staff says this program pays for itself as it would be much more expensive than incentive. Soria would like to hear

How this is going and then address this issue if needed. All Councilmembers would like better performance from all employees and not just Bus Drivers. Council approved 5-2 with Brandau and Bredefeld opposing. Council adjourning in honor of Mary Stanley as well as Thousand Oaks

Shooting victims last night. Next Council meeting will Be November 15th.

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