Thread by @AndyHS

Fresno City Council meeting March 14,2019! Parking Audit shows $200,000 in revenue not collected, 163 unit housing development annexation over a house of worship, and a monument to Fresnans who died in war. Invocation by Reverend Raygan Baker from the First Congregational Church.

Consent Calandar
Approve the appointment of Jasjit Kamboj and the reappointments of Annalisa Perea and William Simon to the Tower District Design Review Committee 
Clarifying Procedures for Retention and Production of Public Records Contained in Electronic Media :public record

defined by their content not by media used or location. such as emails,voicemails, texts, instant messages, social media . Can be personal  or employer’s account.Non-records can be drafts that were superseded.

Accept Real Property Donation from the Fresno-Greater San Joaquin Valley Jr. Golf Foundation - 1604 S. Teilman Ave., Fresno, AKA The Len Ross Golf Center. (Council District 3)

A new way of commenting at Council meetings appeared on their website. You can comment on any item up to 8:55 am and the Councilmembers will see it. Great for those who cannot make it due to work schedule , Transportation etc. May be in beta mode ?

@D7Esparza Proclamation to Fresno Regional Workforce Development Board's 4th Quarter Award Winner Maria Sanchez All Youth One helped prepare her apply to EOC for work experience.

In honor of Pi Day @D7Esparza Councilman Esparza brings in pie for everyone !! Luis Chavez asks if they have humble pie 😝

Proclamation of “Safe Place Week” 
By Councilmember Soria: Fresno EOC’s Sanctuary Youth Shelter is an emergency shelter for runaway, homeless or at-risk youth ages 12-18. The Sanctuary Youth Shelter is the only self-referral emergency shelter within a 15,000 square mile radius

and is open 24 hours-a- day, 7 days a week with emergency assistance to approximately 300 youth annually; and
In California, nearly 300,000 youth up to age 18 experience homelessness. The City of Fresno reports approximately 350 missing persons/runaway cases of youth per month

while the Department of per month while the Department of Justice reports in 2017, 4,030 children were reported as missing in Fresno County. There are approximately 4,848 children homeless or at-risk of homelessness attending school in the County of Fresno;

Councilmember Soria
Proclamation of “Women’s History Month” with Democratic Women in Action!

Proclamation of “Cesar Chavez Day” 
Councilmember Soria and @MiguelArias_D3 Vice President Arias and @District5Chavez :Eddie Valero &Willie Lopez here to receive. Arias says he is a former farm worker and appreciates what Cesar Chavez did. Valero thanks Council for their help

Willie Lopez said he knew Cesar Chavez when Lopez was a kid. Lopez says he was a “knucklehead” and didn’t listen but appreciated him now. Chavez is known around the world but often not locally.

roclamation of “Small Business Development Center Day” 
Councilmember Bredefeld @GarryBredefeld 70% of jobs are created by small businesses. Clovis Community College’s President Bennet says Small Business Development Center on campus is important. No cost Counseling provided. 550

businesses have been serviced by this center. They cover four counties and appreciate being hosted by Clovis Community College

Councilmen Chavez,Esparza and Arias and others present Proclamation to outgoing colleague @stevebrandau Arias jokes “don’t let the door hit you on the way out and he has until 5 pm tomorrow to vacate 😝

@PaulCaprioglio says tour of Granville’s Home of Hope March 16th whose money goes to charities such as Police Chaplaincy. Chavez thanks police Officers for giving him and Arias a tour with Homeless Taskforce. Esparza will take part in UCSF Match Day. @stevebrandau says many of

the Councilmembers enjoy soccer. Make a Difference Day helps provide a day of soccer for children. He took it over form Former Councilman Blong Xiong and Arias and Soria will continue in Brandau’s place. Moving to consent calendar now. Arias pulls 1-A on Electronic Records.

Esparza would like to table this. He asks question about the deletion of emails. Currently it is deleted after 30 days unless designated to be saved or in InBox. Arias says with transparency issues of Police Records we need to make this a broader topic. City Manager Quan suggests

City Counsel work up a Workshop on this next month. Soria has trouble with firewall when doing Google searches for public presentations. On to annexation from County. Staff Israel Trejo leading Presentation.

26.92 acres of property located on the northwest corner of West Shaw and North Grantland Avenues to be annexed, with 163 lot single family homes but Pastor Alex Maldonado of God’s Family Church doesn’t want to join City. Despite offers from the City to allow the church to remain

on their own well and from Lennar to bring the necessary connections to the property, Maldonado isn’t budging. Tehipte says there will be no requirement to hook to City water and sewer. Church can remain with their garbage service for another five years. West Area Specific Plan

requests this area be low density housing and this project does do this. Brandau and Soria met with Church members to help solve any issues. Brandau brings up church representative. She says verbiage in supplemental given to Council is not correct regarding well. They won’t agree

until this supplemental is correct. Arias was not given enough time to read the supplemental that was provided 20 minutes before today’s meeting. Assistant DARM Head Mike Sanchez says delaying this another meeting won’t effect project. Brandau suggests continuing this and allow

Church and DARM (Planning Department) to get together and make sure wording is adequate for both groups. Also allows Council a chance to read the information.

General Administration: well improvements to Pump Station 1-A at 4104 N. Fruit Improvements up to $744,000 in cost. Approved 7-0. H. Spees worked with council’s subcommittee on Approving HEAP (Homeless Emergency Aid Program ) of $3.1 million that was awarded. Spees says Triage

Centers are important to getting homeless out of encampments. We wouldn’t spend any money for Triage without these funds. CDBG funds would be tapped instead says Councilman @MiguelArias_D3 Spees says some tiny home villages were hard to run. Portland has a very poor one.

Approved 7-0. Moving on to Approving the installation of the Fresno Veterans Memorial on the south lawn adjacent to the flag poles in front of City Hall. The memorial is dedicated to the veterans of Fresno who sacrificed their lives in service to our country during war.

277 Fresnans have died in wars. @GarryBredefeld Bredefeld thanks @MayorLeeBrand and Esmeralda Soria for helping to sponsor this. Bredefeld says all the freedoms we enjoy are due to these soldiers who have passs away. He himself was in the Navy. SW Parra did the renderings seen

here. It will take $160,000 in private funding to construct this. $70,000 for granite and $60,000 to construct. Bredefeld would like it constructed by Labor Day. @Esmeralda_Soria is proud to be co-sponsoring this. Mayor Brand says this honors military from World I onward.

Legion of Valor is a national fraternal organization and Veteran’s Museum in Fresno has a huge collection unlike any in the Nation. (My Former next door neighbor Chuck Munges started the museum). @PaulCaprioglio would like to see Museum expand to honor all branches. Arias says

Veterans Museum building that houses it is in disrepair. He feels today’s proposal shouldn’t be built before we have a plan to repair and locate the millions needed for the building. Soria says budget hearings coming up and we may be able to find some money for the Museum.

@PaulCaprioglio says it is sad we cannot access some of the $77 million of the TCC funds or other money dedicated for downtown. Public says veterans shouldn’t be ignored. Brandau says Arias’ passion for a Veterans Memorial District is a good one. The partnership with Clovis’s

Veterans District is good. Brandau doesn’t want to wait on this memorial proposed today while trying to set up the funding for Veterans Building. Brandau will take $10,000 from District 2’s Infrastructure Fund and give it to this project. Approved 7-0

4-A on creating Roles and Responsibilities for Citywide Records will Be postponed due to its connection to the public records item that was continued today. City Clerk says she would like responsibility shred and follow correct procedures so records that shouldn’t be destroyed

are not done. Brandau says a flood at one location damaged permanent records. This will be continued to another date. Arias asks no records be destroyed until the Workshop by City Counsel. Going to unscheduled pubic comments. One would like showers provided for homeless.

Moving to Parking Audit
View.ashx (link)
$98,025 revenue lost that Club One wasn’t charged for
Fresno County eventually paid the City $185,325 for parking in Convention Center Lot January 2018 for the 17-month period, but only after the new agreement was finalized.

$65,025 in revenue County should’ve paid for $60 a stall rather than the $45 actually charged. Esparza says this came out of a subcommittee discussion. Proper accounting procedures were not always followed. Audit covered 21 months. SPCA and Housing Authority also could have

paid more in revenues. Also the dismissal of parking tickets lacked oversight. $1.7 million collected from parking meters but how it was counted lacked proper procedures. Parking Department wasn’t notified of some the findings until recently.

Audio of Finance subcommittee Meeting can be heard online says Esparza. Arias has questions for auditor. @stevebrandau Brandau says some of the findings have already been implemented since audit. He says it would have been helpful to know about audit while sale of Spiral Garage

was also occurring even if it was done in Closed Session. Bredefeld says audit showed lots of problems in parking division. This came about due to change of Parking Department Head. Club One issue was especially troublesome for him. Audits are a wise use of taxpayer dollars.

@PaulCaprioglio says City Manager made good comments. She says she is proud of this audit to see what was working and not. She was surprised of some of the findings. Arias said most of Council hasn’t heard about audit. Lima presents findings.

Dismissal of parking tickets didn’t need Department Head and is an issue that needs to be addressed. Arias asks what part of City Charter covers audits? A: Internal Policy says how a Department is audited. City Manager can direct which parts an auditor can look at based on info

Risk Assessment also determines where an auditor should emphasize. Internal Auditor is housed in Finance. Two types: Principal Auditor and Internal Auditor. Arias: do they Report to City Manager? Not directly.

When draft audit is completed it is sent to Department Director and in this case Parkijg Manager and given 2-3 weeks to respond and then finalized. Arias: Assistant Managers or Mayor’s Office? A: They get findings but not actual audit. Arias: who makes say that draft moves to

final audit. January 3,2019 is when Final Audit was finished. City Manager said that is quick. Arias cuts her off as he has the floor. Arias: when does this go to City Attorney? City Manager Quan suggests this is too broad for the agenda item. City Attorney Sloan says it is fine

What other audits are happening right now? A: Public Works (Granite Park) and Police. Police Audit has been worked on last four months. Staff says not all info was given so parking revenue loss could be more. Internal controls means proper procedures set by management.

Sufficient time is given for Departments to rectify problems. Arias: was Public Utility Department Head change trigger an audit? Quan: No. Arias: with Chief Dyer retiring will that audit expand. Staff says not at this time other than time sheets . Risk Management triggers audit

and not necessarily just a change of Department like Police Chief. Arias says risk management is high for a Department like Police. Staff says it may happen just hasn’t been decided yet. Council can influence when audit occurs as well. Arias wants to know procedures, standards.

Finance and Audit Subcommittee should have its role defined. They should see drafts of audits as well while also allowing auditor to have independence. Chavez wants to know policy for subcommittee. Council should send their requests to City Attorney. City Manager wants to make

sure auditor has independence and not influenced by City Attorney and Council. Esparza thanks Principal Auditor for answering the questions of Arias and himself. Arias also thanks them and just wants to know policies. Doesn’t want City Manger and Council to influence auditor.

No action today but Councilmembers can direct requests to City Attorney. Brandau points out City Manager Quan noticed irregularities in Parking and notified auditor. Also wants Auditor to do their work first and then Council can ask all the questions they want. Soria asks about

Lost revenues from Club One and Fresno County. Staff Thomas says County has made up back collection. Superintendent of Schools, Housing Authority, Radisson and Club One are up to date. Club One can have 100 vehicles. Is that at one time or one day? Parking is working on that.

These revenues go to General Fund. Council will go to Closed Session at 1:30 pm.

@threadreaderapp unroll