Council extends cancer screening to Public Works workers

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Good evening. I'm going to call to order our regular city council meeting, and we are going to start with an invocation by our police. On forward. Let us pray. O almighty God, who for our salvation has granted us life, we gather here this evening giving thanks for the grace of your mercy, which you have bestowed upon us. We thank you for the blessing us tonight in seeking your voice and your direction to complete the business set before us as good stewards for the health, the welfare, and the safety of our community. We pray that you will guide each council member as they ponder and discuss the business at hand, and that you will unite them in oneness of mind and heart to fulfill their duties for the betterment of every citizen of Chico, trusting in their care for us.

We also ask for your blessing upon all the members of our community who are present here tonight and who desire to speak and present their ideas and concerns. We pray that through all your labors, that our city will be fortified and strengthened as a witness of the goodness of your grace and as a witness of the goodness of the people whom we call neighbors. In your name, dear father, we thank you for being present with us tonight to fulfill your divine will in all things. Amen. Right. We can stand for the pledge of allegiance. Salute and pledge. We will be pleased to the United States of America. We are in public. We are in the nation. We do this. We do this. We do this. Roll call. Madam Clerk, can you call our roll, please?

Council Member Goldstein? Here. Council Member Hawley? Here. Council Member O'Brien? Here. Council Member van Overbeek? Here. Council Member Winslow? Here. Vice Mayor Bennett? Here. Mayor Reynolds? Here. Speaker card announcement. Anyone wishing to address the council on any matters listed on the agenda should first fill out a speaker card found at the back of the chambers. Once completed, turn your cards into the city clerk and the speakers are taken in the order received. Once the first speaker begins, no additional cards will be accepted. Persons demonstrating rude, boisterous speaking on matters outside the jurisdiction of the city council or engaging and otherwise disruptive behavior will be called to order.

If such conduct continues, I may call a recess requesting removal of such persons from the council chambers during the meeting or take other appropriate actions if needed. Can we have our city attorney, Mr. Jones, please give our closed session report? Yes, happy to do that, Madam Mayor and members of the council. So in closed session, the city council held a conference with its labor negotiator, Laura Aizon, who provided an update to the city council. Council in turn gave direction to Ms. Aizon relative to several of the employee Organizations that were discussed in that report. Great. Thank you. City clerk announcement regarding our new technology. Thank you, Mayor and Council. So you will notice that you have some little buttons in front of you, request to speak.

And if you wish to speak on an item, just go ahead and push the top. And it will pop up and populate the mayor's restaurant. She has a little screen over there. She will take them in the order received. That's how they come in. When she selects your phone to call you, your mic will automatically go on. And so that will be good. Just as a reminder, if you get passed up and you've already spoken once, the reason is in parliamentary procedure, you're supposed to speak only one time until all members have had an opportunity to speak, or you can speak again. So if you are also in the middle of an item and you've pushed the request to speak button and you've heard your colleagues speaking and have decided that you're not going to, you no longer need to speak, you can press the button on the bottom part and it will remove you from the queue.

So I just want to thank you for your patience tonight. And I think it'll be super easy to use. I also want to let you know that last, at the last meeting, our streaming video did not have sound, although we were able to upload that, but we did have it playing live on channel 11. So we met the criteria of the Brown Act. And so we think that the kinks have been worked out. If by chance you get any text messages that the streaming isn't working, just text me, let me know, and we'll work with our vendor again. They will be monitoring it, both Granicus and our consultant. So thank you. All right. Well, I just want to give a quick thank you. I know you guys worked long and hard while we were off at the end of December and the beginning of January to get this going.

And it's a great upgrade. I think everybody will be able to hear better and we can actually push our buttons now and don't have to like beat on our microphones. So thank you, Madam Clerk, for getting this upgrade to us. Everybody will appreciate it. Consent agenda. All matters listed on the consent agenda are considered routine in nature and then can be enacted with one motion. Are there any vote, no votes, items be removed, or council disqualifications on consent? No? All right. Do we have speakers on the consent? We do not. All right. Consider a motion. Move to approve. Second. Okay. That was a motion and a second. Council Member Goldstein? Aye. Council Member Hawley? Yes. Council Member O'Brien?

Yes. Council Member van Overbeek? Yes. Council Member Winslow? Yes. Vice Mayor Bennett? Yes. Mayor Reynolds? Aye. Carry 7-0. All right. Public comment. Members of the public may address the council at this time on any matter not already elisted on the agenda and are within the jurisdiction's authority. The council cannot take action at this meeting on the request made under this section of the agenda. How many speakers do we have? Sorry. We have five. All right. Three minutes each. Okay. And I will call the first two speakers and if you can go ahead and line up in that middle aisle and be ready to go. Our first two speakers are Catherine Riley followed by Sam Barber. Hi. Catherine here. I'm a type 2 diabetic.

Means a couple times a day I got to take something sharp and jab it into my finger till my finger bleeds. It's so much fun but it's better than death so I'm grateful. Okay. So I go down to my doctor's office with this nice big container of sharps and I say, can I drop these off here? And at this little clinic he branches and says, oh, they charge us so much to pick up the sharps. Could you take them to your pharmacy? I say, sure. So I take them down to CVS and CVS says, we don't take them. Go to the police department. So I go to the police department and they say, we don't take them. Go to CVS. So I explain I'm in a loop and this nice lady behind the desk at the police department, she prints me off a whole big list of places that might take sharps and I spend the next two weeks and about four solid hours calling every single one of them.

One of the things I found that even places who are listed on the webs that are taking sharps do not take sharps. So I called and I called and I called and I found three places in Butte County. Maybe there are more, maybe, but now this information is good as of the 2nd of January, 2026. So it's about as current as I could make it, okay? So I was getting pretty frustrated. I found three places. You can take them out the airport if you have a car, if you can wait, if you can do all that. There's a place called the Harm Reduction Center on South 18th that has a little box for people, but I'm sure they don't anticipate all of Chico dropping their shops. So they're doing their best just to keep needles and things like that off of public byways and parks.

And the other place is the Recology, which has a drop box in Oroville. Those were all I could find. Now, as you can see, this is going to get pretty difficult for some people to actually do. So I did a little bit of quick number crunching, and it looks like, conservatively, there's 103,000 people in the city of Chico. One out of nine in California is estimated to be diabetic. That makes 11,444 individuals in Chico who are diabetic. And let's say we just all test twice a day, okay? Okay. So that's 22,888 sharps that need to be disposed of per day. Per month, that's 690,000. And in a year, that's 8,280,000 sharps that need to be disposed of. Now, this is not even counseling those of us who have to inject, people who inject for other reasons, little doctor's offices who cannot afford anymore to send them away.

It's a horrendous number. Now, people are going to start, because I was ready to, but I couldn't let myself, just throwing them away. Okay, we're going to have over 8 million sharps, plus everybody who injects, plus everybody, plus animal rescue. All right, that's your time. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you. Okay, can somebody do something about this? Because it is a public health issue, and that is what I think you are here for. That's your time. Thank you. Okay, Sam Barber, followed by Bill Monroe. Hello. I'm here to express some concerns and disappointment in the council's inability to hold our police force accountable. Michael Williams is an ex-police chief who was a sexual predator.

He was someone who took advantage of his position of power to manipulate and coerce women into having sex with him. He told the woman he suffered from Tama after he shot Desmond Phillips, even though in the official police report he was reported to not have fired any shots. So after we let him go, we gifted him $37,000, three months pay, so he would drop an appeal of his termination. We may have also paid nearly $290,000, that's salary benefits pension, to him for 14 months when he was doing no police work and being investigated for serial sexual misconduct, but the city apparently said it was prohibited by law to confirm this or not. I'm frankly disgusted at the idea that it would be illegal to tell citizens whom pay for the police if their tax dollars were paying for a sexual predator's salary while so many struggle to keep their basic needs met.

Michael Vincent was recently punished for receiving oral sex and uniform on numerous occasions in his SUV in a church parking lot. I want to know if the council, particularly the Republican majority, really think two weeks of unpaid leave is genuinely an appropriate punishment for a police officer conducting themselves in this manner. Representative Van Overbeek just a few meetings ago alluded to firing a property manager for misleading a potential tenant. Our current mayor is a business owner and has employees. And to any of the other council members with employees, if you had an employee who had oral sex on the job numerous times but told you, oops, my bad, and you caught them, would they still have a job or would you just let them take two weeks off and continue employing them?

The city clearly needs independent oversight of the police as they don't seem capable of holding themselves accountable for what seems to be a chronic issue in this department. My representative, Bryce Goldstein, recently made a motion to have some form of independent oversight committee for the police installed and every Republican voted against it. Conveniently enough, every one of you were also endorsed by the PD. The council voted against it. Representative O'Brien, an ex-police chief, stated we already have an oversight committee though they haven't met in years. I'm here to tell you you're doing a bad job in failing us and so is the absent police oversight committee. I think Billy Aldridge should be fired or resign in shame for failing to hold the behavior accountable.

Two weeks of unpaid time is ludicrous. Four weeks isn't enough either. And Michael Vincent also needs to be fired for sexual misconduct on the job. It is insane to me that the so-called peacekeepers of our community who on average make double or more an annual salary compared to an average worker who have a very real power over regular people are allowed to act in such a disgusting way with nothing but a slap on the wrist. The taxpayers should not have to pay to avoid an appeal on a sexual predator's termination. It should come directly from the police pension fund. We cannot trust the police department to investigate themselves and truly hold themselves accountable. All right. Thank you. So it's Bill Monroe followed by Lynn Overholzer.

Thank you. Hello, counsel. I would ditto what he said, but also, and I am a public health nurse retired, the Sharps issue that the woman brought up is very real and I would also kind of encourage something to happen along those lines but I don't really think it's the purview of Chico City Council. It's more of a county public health department issue and so I would encourage her to reach out to Tammy Ritter or any of the other supervisors about that and they have meetings similar to this where they have a public forum that you can present that. It's a real issue. I did HIV prevention and hepatitis prevention and Sharps is something to be aware of. I came up here just to kind of, just kind of in general to express a concern that, that, that stuff that you all know already that salesmen are going to sell and they'll promise you the sky.

Please, when people are coming to sell you hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of product, get expert opinion on those. Thank you. Thank you. So, Lynn Overholzer followed by Sharon Fritz. Well, you, I've been here many times in the last few months so you guys probably know my topic and that's the alternative site but actually tonight I have, I'm here on a little more positive note and it's to say thank you to all of you. You voted unanimously two times in a row and addressed the issue for meetings to try and improve the safety around the, the site there for, and I'm, I can speak for all my neighbors and I think I can speak for all the business owners in the school there because I know some of them have problems too.

There's a noticeable difference with the, you know, it wasn't so much the people inside, of course, that has gotten less. It was more the people that were just all around there and that is much less, the foot traffic is much less. It's safer to drive down that street now. I still probably won't drive down it at night because I thought I was going to hit somebody. They're always crossing the road and there's no streetlights but, um, much less of that. And then, I was really happy to see, I think today, the enforcement that I strongly requested that you do around the site, I think it was done today. About two hours ago, I drove by there, lots of people in bikes all over the corners and I didn't know what was going on and then I noticed some of the big tents were gone and, um, I think that's really, really going to help too and, I just want to say thank you very much for doing what you said you were going to do and for doing your best to make it safer for all of us around there because I know, you know, your hands are tied in some respect.

Um, I was so excited because now I can ride on the bike path out towards Cohasset again which I haven't been able to safely do for a couple of years. I tried it about a year ago when it got a little better there but then there was a tent out there and a scary dog so then I came back down Cohasset and that was scary too so I'm really excited to be able to ride down that bike path again towards the airport and pass there which is where I used to ride, a big loop there. Um, and I don't mean to kind of bring down my, my positive feelings here but I thought, oh, since I'm here anyway, I have 50 seconds left and along this same note, you guys know that back in August the first incident was Mikey was found on our street who had shot someone in the head and when the police came to catch him at four days we found out he was out there on the loose.

Last Sunday on January 11th um, there were two police SUVs in the middle of my road and a couple going down Eaton and one on Burnap and Eaton and none of us know what that was about and I called the non-emergency number to try and find out if someone, you know, on the loose around here again has happened a couple times and we didn't know it. Do I need to feel unsafe? And I was told that I couldn't be told what it was because there wasn't an official call in. And I said, if I go to the police station can someone tell me? And I was told no. So I just wanted to say I don't think that's a very good policy. We should know what's happening on our street. Anyway, thank you. Thank you. Our last speaker is Sharon Fritz.

Good evening. I, um, I work with... If you could pull the microphone down, I work collecting trash with pals and, uh, Thursday before last I met a lady out camping behind S&S Produce who said that she had been trying to get into the pallet shelter. She'd been, uh, the house where she was living in was foreclosed on or whatever. I don't know. They said the owner lost his lease and I don't understand that. But, um, but eight, apparently eight people I wasn't taking notes, um, were put out on the street. Uh, she was 62 years old and she was trying to get into the pallet shelter. But when you call, you get an answering machine. They ask you for your name, your address, and your phone number. Um, she lost her phone.

She has, she's living in a tent. Her address, this address is safe space. she has a friend who is living in a car. She has a phone, but she can't keep it charged. Uh, the car was recently, I, there was a note on it. It's gone. But anyway, these ladies, the one is 70 years old, the one is 62 years old. They've been trying to get into the pallet shelter for weeks and they can't get in. There's always some kind of roadblock. And, and I spent last Friday driving, her name's Teresa, around. Uh, we went to the renewal center. They said, try, you know, she can't have, they've got dogs. But anyway, I just don't understand why it is that it's so hard for a 70 year old woman and a 62 year old woman who have a dog who are trying to get into the pallet shelter to get into the pallet shelter why it takes them so long.

And I was talking with Charles the other day. He was out in front of the card center and there were people camping out there. Some ladies who look to me to be at least in their 40s, if not older. And they said they had been down to the pallet shelter and could not get in. And I just, I don't understand this. I don't know why that is that you can't go to the pallet shelter and say, I'm desperate. I need a place to stay. Why you have to be, what needs to be evaluated? That's all. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. And that's our last speaker, correct? Okay. Thank you. Items 5.1, interviewing an appointment to fill a vacancy on the Arts Commission. Ms. Presson, our city clerk and elections official.

Back to you. Thank you, Mayor Reynolds and Council. We have an unscheduled vacancy on our Arts Commission. That is one of the commissions that I support personally and my staff. And there's three years remaining on that term. So we did the required by state law posting. And then we also conducted a quick recruitment. We got lots of applications and it makes me happy to say that we have eight applicants and for one position. But we will make sure that we keep these applications. Whoever is not selected, they will actually be kept. And then when we get ready to do our recruitment at the end of this year, it's 2026 already, we'll be doing it again in the summer. We'll reach out to them to see if they'd still like to apply and we'll have new open at that time.

I will tell you that I know of the seven applicants that, or the eight, that three of them indicated that they couldn't make it. And again, according to APNP 10-1, the council has said that if you can't make the interview, that's not a reason not to make that appointment. So they do not have to be here in person tonight in order to be appointed. And I do want to let you know that this vacancy occurred and it was Vice Mayor Bennett's nominee. And so after hearing from everybody, if the council would be so gracious, allow Dale, excuse me, Council Vice Mayor Bennett, sorry, to make his nomination and then it would require a confirmation vote. So if it's, if you're okay, I'll go ahead and call the applicants.

Yeah. We have our applicants and then speakers if we have any answers. Okay. Rhiannon Ashford followed by Benjamin Boyer. Valerie Cisneros. Go ahead. Hi, council members. My name is Valeria. I applied for the vacancy. I'm not originally from Chico, but the arts community in Chico has had a huge impact in the last five years that I've been here. It's impacted my life. I'm originally from San Luis Obispo. I'm a young person here, so I have spent the last few years really learning how to find my community and find a sense of belonging here in Chico. and the arts community welcomed me with open arms and I wanted to take this opportunity to kind of just find a more impactful role within the arts community and I have a motivation to connect with people and with others and connect through the things that I really enjoy doing.

I'm a creative person. I graduated from Chico State in graphic design and I've been able to really make my way by just working with people. Lucia Mercado is someone who I've really enjoyed working with. I've worked for the university. Dana Moore, who's had a huge impact in just improving the improv community here in Chico. That's particularly had a huge impact for me and the people I've been able to meet. And I really wanted to do that within this role. I wanted to kind of also bring that sense of belonging within the role and the community for people who look like me and people who don't look like me. So that's really my motivation for wanting to be in this position and to take on the role is to continue to do that work that I find so important and be that bridge.

So thank you so much and thank you. Have a good night. Thank you. Natalie Norton.

Good evening, Council Members, Mayor. My name is Natalie Norton and I'm a Chico resident, a parent, and a cultural programs professional. And I'm here because I believe the arts play a vital role in how communities understand themselves, preserve their history, and create shared spaces for connection. My relationship to the arts began early. As a young person, art classes, music, and time spent in museums helped me not only learn about myself but about the communities around me and the broader human experience. Through the arts, I found confidence and connection, friendships, shared language, and a way to understand perspectives beyond my own. Music, music in particular gave me a powerful form of expression.

It was a place where I could both engage deeply and step back and reflect, a space that helped me process the world and grow into myself. That foundation continued during my time as a CSU Chico student. I studied public history and developed a deep respect for history, place, and culture, and the responsibility institutions carry in telling these stories thoughtfully. While at Chico, I volunteered with the Chico History Museum where I worked alongside civic-minded volunteers and community partners. Professionally, I've spent my career designing arts and cultural programming that brings people together around a shared moment and shared stories. I began in public programming at the D. Young Museum working on both large and citywide cultural events and smaller artist-led collaborations as well.

It was my first real exposure to how programming can serve broad audiences, welcoming people whether they arrive intentionally or simply encounter something meaningful by chance. I later worked at the Walt Disney Family Museum where I saw how strong mission, operation, excellence, and public engagement can work together. And at the Pasadena Museum of History, I helped develop community-rooted programs that connected local history to present-day identity. And at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, I saw how institutions in a diverse city can thoughtfully incorporate many voices into exhibitions and programs so people from all walks of life can see themselves reflected in that narrative.

Threaded through all of this is a personal influence, my grandmother, who volunteered with the Fine Arts Museums for San Francisco for more than 40 years. She believed the arts are not a luxury but a public good and that access and stewardship matter just as much as excellence. That belief continues to shape how I approach service and leadership. I care deeply about Chico, our artists, our history, our community, and our shared future. And we'd be honored to help steward the city's cultural life with intention, collaboration, and a deep appreciation for the role the arts play in strengthening community identity and connection. Thank you so much. Thank you. Kevin Traviti. I don't see that he is here.

So those are the applicants that were able to make tonight's meeting. The reason I'm asking for the council consideration of going ahead and not only doing the interviews but the appointment is that I have a very, very active arts commission and they work really, really hard and having that vacancy filled right away, especially when we're getting ready to have a strategic planning meeting would be pivotal to have that person on board. And so I would ask the council or Vice Mayor Bennett to, if you're ready for the nomination or if you had any questions about the process, okay, then I will stop talking. So first of all, I want to thank all eight individuals that applied for the position. Your resumes were very, very compelling as far as your ability to do the job, to be of service to our community, to be of service to the arts commission.

So I want to thank all eight, although some people aren't here, because it takes a lot of courage. It takes a lot of commitment to actually be on a commission in the city of Chico. and I especially want to thank Ms. Cisnero, if I pronounced that correctly, for showing up, and Ms. Norton for showing up. I appreciate that very much. Take time out of your busy schedule to come and make your presentation. my recommendation to the city council this evening is going to be to appoint or actually contact Mr. Benjamin Maitre, he's an architect with the Butte County, to fill the position, the resignation of the individual to fill that position and be appointed to the Arts Commission. Do we have any speakers other than?

No. I just want to make sure just before we... Okay, so is that a motion to appoint Mr. Benjamin? Well, I'll go ahead. Just to say that I think it's good that we have a process set up where we have a nomination for when there's a vacancy there. It wasn't that long ago that it was controversial just to have some nominations approved, and there was one that I actually didn't ever have approved, and even when I had a vacancy just a year ago because my Climate Action Commissioner was elected to the City Council, I didn't just get to nominate, but I think this is a better process. I'm going to make a motion to accept the nomination of Vice Mayor Bennett. Thank you. I'll second that motion. Okay, so that's a motion by Council Member Winslow, seconded by Council Member Goldstein to confirm the appointment of Benjamin Maitre to fill the unfilled or unscheduled vacancy of three years, a three-year term for the Arts Commission.

Thank you. Council Member Goldstein? Yes. Council Member Hawley? Yes. Council Member O'Brien? Yes. Council Member van Overbeek? Yes. Council Member Winslow? Yes. Vice Mayor Bennett? Yes, and I want to thank my fellow council members for supporting my nomination. Okay, and then Mayor Reynolds? Aye. That carries 7-0, and I will keep all the applications on file and contact everyone probably this early fall. All right. Thank you so much. Item 5.2, consideration to give staff direction to include the gallery cancer screening test for Public Works O&M employees through the 26-27 budget season. We have Assistant City Manager Eric Guffison. Thank you, Mayor Reynolds, Vice Mayor Bennett, Council Members.

It's an honor to speak to you tonight. All right. This item is being brought back from the June 3, 2025 meeting where Council moved to include police officers in this program in the annual testing. Council Member Hawley's friendly amendment that was also accepted and passed that we bring it back six months from then to discuss, including Public Works operation and maintenance employees. Public Works O&M employees routinely perform work that exposes them to a variety of known and suspected carcinogens as part of their assigned duties. These are duties such as asphalt maintenance and application, crack sealing, applying thermoplastic materials for street markings, painting, graffiti removal with chemicals, operation of diesel-powered trucks and equipment, and cleanup of homeless encampments.

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, NEOSH, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer recognize that many of these substances and byproducts associated with these activities such as asphalt, imbitamine fumes, diesel exhaust, paints, solvents, and combustion-related particulates are carcinogenic. Homeless encampment cleanup activity has also exposed employees to unknown chemical mixtures, hazardous waste, and contaminated debris, excuse me, further increasing occupational health risk. Cancers associated with occupational exposure often develop after extended latency periods, making early detection a critical component of employee health protection.

The Gallery Early Detection Blood Test screens for signals associated with more than 50 types of cancer. Early identification for any cancer can allow for earlier intervention, improve treatment outcomes, and reduce long-term health and disability benefits. Unfortunately, Public Works O&M has a current young, very young senior maintenance worker that's battling colon cancer now, and well below the age of the recommended colonoscopy, and so an early detection scenario would have hopefully caught that and maybe given him a jump start on his treatment that he's currently going through now. Providing the Gallery Test for Public Works O&M employees is also an equity employee wellness consideration, currently the city offers the test to public safety employees, so it would be great to also include our Public Works folks as well.

Providing it to O&M employees acknowledges that they too are faced with these occupational hazards, and this action supports a consistent and preventative approach to employee health and workforce well-being. Therefore, I recommend City Council approve including all Public Works O&M employees in the Gallery Cancer Screening Test. Note that we have 103 employees, so that could be up to $66,000, so I'm recommending maybe a three-year interval. We do it every three years. And for us to include it in the upcoming fiscal year 26-27 budget development, which we're embarking on now. That concludes my presentation. I can answer any questions. All right. Questions? Then, Rime and Darry, just push your thing, and I will go ahead and Mr. Bennett.

Vice Mayor Bennett. Technology. It's fascinating. So, I can say this because I'm an older citizen that there's a saying that you live long enough, you're going to get cancer. And as I age and mature, and there's one other person that probably would agree with me, I think anything we can do to help people discover find out that they have a problem so they can seek treatment early. And the key with cancer is you need to take on treatment as early as possible. So, I'm going to obviously support this. I think it's great that we're recognizing our employees as people that we really value. Thank you. Thank you. I'm probably saved some comments after we hear some from the public because I think some people have read into this and maybe found similar things that I did in doing research that there's a lot of legitimate skepticism about this test.

There's a reason why it's not approved by the FDA or any other public institution to my knowledge for use. But I was wondering because I have seen some stuff about them having a pretty robust marketing team and I'm not sure exactly how this landed in front of the council in the first place. I mean, the fire department employees brought it forward last year and then it was then extended by councilman requests to the police and so now we're on like a third tier or second tier of like a Me Too agreement kind of with it. I'm wondering if anybody in staff has talked to representatives from the company at any point in time? Like, where has anybody contacted or did you contact representatives from the company to ask questions about it?

I have not nor have I been contacted by gallery representatives. Again, this is just kind of benchmarking what we're currently doing for our public safety employees and the thought was, you know, granted there's not a big national push for public works specific employees that have much higher rates than cancer but there's a lot of, you know, agreement that the carcinogens that they're subject to during their normal work activities are, you know, present a much higher risk for cancer. So, you know, our position from staff is it's equitable and I think that if there's anything we could do to help try to identify this early on it would help and keep our folks working versus having to go through something like this.

Well, I want to add that the, you know, the fire department deputy chief Zinko is the one who did have those conversations with gallery. Yeah, we've just kind of piggybacked on what the public safety, our partners in public safety of the research they've already done. Council Member O'Brien. Thank you, Mayor. So, yeah, there is some controversy because this is new and cutting-edge technology. I get that. And, no, we don't have a full body of testing and studies that maybe we would like. But remember, this is minimally invasive and it provides early detection. And I have read a positive study on the merits of this type of testing and you're mentioning older members of council or younger members.

It really doesn't matter. But from the younger perspective, I think they would say if we could turn back the clock to our 20s that we thought we were invincible and we were not going to go through a battery of tests to determine if we were at risk of certain cancers. That's the danger of some of these carcinogens. I think it's up to us as employers to take care of our employees. This is really a very small investment in their health. And if we catch one case of some type of cancer early, whether it's a firefighter, a police officer, a public works employee, you save thousands. If you're just looking at it from a fiscal standpoint. I look at it from a moral standpoint that we owe them this. This is not over the top as far as the cost.

I think it's a good investment and certainly we'll hear from our public because I respect the opposing opinions. But I think the cost of this, the fact it's minimally invasive and no, it's not designed to replace other testing, right? That's not the purpose of this. It's to supplement. And I think it's a good supplement and a good way for us to take care of those employees. It's not working. Council Member van Overbeek. Thank you. So I have a question and a statement. So Mr. Gustafson, my understanding in the staff report said there's no specific research relating to public works people, because what you guys do, there's so many different jobs and that would indicate that there's a higher rate of cancer than the rest of the population.

Is that right? Yeah, I mean, the cancer incident rates for public works have not been quantified through large national cohort studies. I'm just looking at my notes here. The presence of these exposures establishes a credible and recognized occupational cancer risk over the course of long-term employment by these individuals. However, similar studies are coming out showing that public works and construction type workers are often experiencing elevated cancer risks due to their occupational exposures to these and continued exposures to these carcinogens. Okay, so I want to make a comment about the science. So there's a woman whose name is Jennifer Dwaudna who won the Nobel Prize for discovering technology called CRISPR, which enables people or scientists to actually alter genes.

And some of it's the stuff is used for therapeutics and some of it is used for agricultural purposes. And it's a revolutionary thing. So the people who founded Gallery are part of this sort of group of people that have spun out of this whole CRISPR thing. And so the way it works is that every form of cancer has a unique genetic signature. And so they have the ability to detect these things. And it's new, so it's going to get better year over year. Councilman Winslow brought up the point about FDA approval. FDA approvals for this kind of thing takes anywhere from seven to ten years. And the technology isn't that old. So the fact that it doesn't have FDA approval doesn't mean it's not valid. But I mean, I know people personally very well that are in this field of research who believe this is very, very good technology.

technology. And to Councilman O'Brien's point, we can save one life. I mean, it's absolutely worth it. And it financially makes sense because the cost, you know, if somebody gets cancer, the cost can be hundreds of thousands of dollars. So I think, you know, my age, you, as Dale pointed out, thank you, Dale, for pointing out my advancement stage in life. But you see things that can't happen. You've seen them happen. And so if we can keep one person from, you know, catch it early and save one person from that early death, I'm 100% behind it. I appreciate that. And I certainly am sensitive to the costs as well. And that's why we're putting out there maybe it's every three years for public works O&M employees.

The recommendation is for us to build it into the upcoming budget that will be proposed in May and hopefully approved in June. So, you know, at that point, too, maybe there's some updating we could do to this or some requirements long term. Maybe there's some thresholds of you have to be here. You have to work for the city full time for a number of years before you're eligible for the test. Maybe it's every few years, that type of thing. So I think it's, you know, we have the ability to update that as we go along because I am certainly sensitive to the cost. But we just, the recommendation tonight is just to include it in this upcoming budget. At least get initial screening done. I just had a quick clarification.

When you said, so this amount for three years or to do it annually for three years? No, I'm asking for us to include it, this initial test, 20% in the upcoming 26, 27 budget. And if all 103 public works O&M employees participate, it could be an upwards of $66,000. I don't think all will participate. I think we've experienced maybe a 75% participation rate. That will likely be the case with our O&M employees too, so it's going to be less than that. I'm recommending we do it now and plug it into this upcoming budget, but then from there after every three years. And that was the other clarification just for public sake. We're making this available to them. It's not a mandated test. They don't have to do it.

It's just an option that they have available to them. Okay, thank you. Do we have any? I see anybody else wanting to speak. So do we have any speakers? We do. We have two. Okay, three minutes each. All right. I'll call you both up. I'm Lori Monroe followed by Jason Anderson. Hi, Council. Thank you for letting me speak. First of all, I want to refer you to Dr. Zener's email that he sent to you with an article about this test. The next thing I want to say, I think it's great that the city of Columbia, city of Chico, has a preventive health program. I'd be interested in hearing more about the other things in that program that you have in place. And I don't have any problem. I think it's wonderful that you're showing interest in employees.

I do, however, have a problem with this particular test as part of your preventive health program. Precisely because it's not FDA approved, it may be standard of care in a decade, and that's fine. Then the insurance that the city of Chico purchases for its employees would cover the test. test. As it is, all full-time city employees get insurance or have access to that insurance, and they can access the preventive health measures and cancer detection measures that everybody in the community gets, and that seems like, at this point, that's adequate for us and for them. And I'm not singling out police or firemen or public works. I think it's fine to do it for, for, to do preventive health measures for any of those and all of your city employees, but I don't like this test.

And the reason I don't like it is that it's not approved and it's not well tested. And studies have shown that it actually identifies concern for cancer causing thousands of dollars of testing, painful future testing for people that wouldn't have had it otherwise. So that's the downside of this kind of thing. Also, I would like to remind you that you often talk about how happy you are to defer to experts on certain things. But as far as I can tell, no experts have been consulted on this particular test. There are pathologist physicians. There are cancer specialist physicians. There are preventive health physicians. I'm sure that Chico has those specialists who are citizens of this town and would be happy to give you their opinion.

And I ask that you seek that information. Thank you. Thank you. Our last speaker is Jason Anderson. Thank you. As a representative of the employees of Operation Maintenance, I definitely speak on behalf of everybody when I express the appreciation for the sentiment behind this. Thank you very much. And obviously we're not, the expense behind it is large. We're going through negotiations now and we know that fiscal responsibility is a massive, massive burden placed upon this council and its leadership. when you look at hot asphalt, you would look at it and smell it and you would think that that was the definition of a carcinogen. It's the exposure to that day in and day out, heated at 450 degrees, standing next to it, breathing it in.

I would suspect most people here wouldn't enjoy a single day of that much less decades of a career. Thermoplastic's no better. You can smell it and it remains on you for days and days. Again, I didn't take what Councilmember Winslow said as necessarily a problem with the cost, as necessarily a problem with potentially the test. On behalf of all the employees, we would like to be included in any sort of future test, should it change, if this test is continued on. We're honored that we can be included in something that is so often reserved for public safety. The fire department, rightly so, has a sort of a workers' comp blanket approval of all cancers as work-related. speaking with our employee who has been diagnosed with cancer, unfortunately, as a young guy, young kids, we seem to have the opposite problem.

We have almost blanket deniability, and I think it has to do with a lot with we do have a broad range of jobs, and so there's never been sort of an organized class action lawsuit like the fire department put through. Not our fire department, but IAFF, and it's an international organization. Should that ever happen, the research would come to light, and you would see that this is a dangerous job. Not only is cancer sneaking up on you, but obviously we're concerned every single day with dodging cars and needles and whatnot. I asked everybody on my side, we didn't want to get anybody orange fatigue, but they do care very much about this. I asked them to stay home, watch from home, but for the over 100 members, and they do care deeply about this, and the sentiment is much appreciated.

So thank you very much. Thank you. He was our last speaker. All right. Future or further discussion by council? Councilmember Winslow? Yeah. So I was a couple hours into reading recent medical research articles on this GRAIL test, and I began to ask myself a couple questions. Councilmember van Overbeek, you mentioned that some medical professionals have been supportive of this. I wish they would have written in because I haven't seen any, nobody local that has said anything that suggests that this is well tested or is more as promising as it looks, I suppose. So one of the questions I ask myself, is this a test that's overhyped in a sales campaign by a multi-billion dollar Silicon Valley biotech company?

I haven't seen any studies that are really supported that weren't funded by GRAIL, and this is prior to their acquisition by the original parent company Illumina. And, you know, so I was going through some articles, and I'll just give you a couple names of the recent ones. The unholy GRAIL of cancer screening, or is it just about the Benjamins? The most recent I found, February 2025, is called the implosion of GRAIL's Galleri cancer screening test. And this one mentions there was a large-scale study done in partnership with the UK National Health Service, and it was going to scale up. They had a random sample on one side, people not getting it and trying to see how valid these results were. They discontinued it after the initial results, did not continue to the scale they had initially anticipated, just this is a research testing they were doing on a large amount of the population.

GRAIL hasn't published those results, but they say they will by the end of the year. And I also found there's a class section, lawsuit by stockholders in the company who they allege that the company made a series of materially false and misleading statements and omissions concerning the acquisition of GRAIL. This is Lumina and GRAIL's gallery test, and they also say that the real-world experience has shown that gallery has caused substantial harm to patients. So I was reading all this, and another question I asked myself is, why am I, as a simple city council member, reviewing medical research articles for a decision in a public meeting? At this point, I was thinking more where I come from as public policy, and I thought how we do labor negotiations in closed session.

We're actually doing that right now, as we typically are. And I got to wonder, why did somebody come up with the rule that labor negotiations is done in closed session? And I think this agenda item could be used in a political science class to answer that question, because the employees in our fire department made a really strong case that they're exposed to carcinogens, and it's worth investing in some experimental technology to try to prevent some of that. But now we're in round two of the city council member sponsored Me Too case, because the firefighters get it, it's like, well, the police want it, this is somewhat similar with the blanket, the presumption of the cancer is related to work stuff, that probably happened in, you mentioned a lawsuit, I actually don't know the history of that, but I assume it was legislation that was done in open session with lobbying by employee groups, and it's hard to say no to these sort of things, because we do want to protect our employees, like we do care, we don't want to give something, especially when it's related to health, to one group of employees not give it to another, especially when they're exposed to, and in this case, arguably more than another employee group that's getting the same coverage.

So that's why we insist on providing adequate health coverage. We try to, you know, through the insurance companies, we could form like a subcommittee of ourselves, and we could review every kind of new experimental health technology that's brought forward and decide whether we want to cover it or not. At that point, we would be an insurance company, but we're not. We hire an insurance company. And so it's complicated. Like a lot of decisions we make, it's about health and safety, and these are concerns that are so deeply legitimate, like it should be a priority. I mean, how could anything be more important than health and safety? But I think when we think about it, we start to act from like the irrational part of our brain.

But we're managing a government that's supposed to serve everybody in the city and every department is running thin, and all over the community we have these persistently unsatisfied needs, so I really think that on these sort of things we should act out of the rational part of our brains. So the idea that I had, because I don't feel like a proper judge of whether this technology should be our investment, is that we have an HR department who I think is more in touch, is better in touch to do the research than I am sitting at my desk reviewing medical research articles, and I think that we should punt this topic to HR for their assessment on all the cancer screenings, the experimental gallery cancer screenings, and we should have it come back to us in labor negotiations in closed session where we typically talk about employee compensation issues.

That is the motion I'd like to make, is that we talk about the cancer screenings as part of labor negotiations, and we ask for more of a recommendation from HR in consultation with some experts. I'll second that motion. I'll make a substitute motion. I'm going to take the motions, but we do still have a few speakers that want to go, but we'll go ahead and get the motion. Go ahead. Council Member O'Brien. So my motion will be to include the gallery cancer screening test for Public Works O&M employees through the fiscal 2627 budget development process. I brought this up for the addition of our police officers. I support and supported that. And I support it for our Public Works employees as well.

It's about exposure and risk. That's where the risk is in these three groups. That's why I support this. I second that motion. Council Member Hawley. As I was the council member to make the friendly amendment in our summer meeting, I'd like to explain publicly why my opinion on this has evolved significantly since that time. I originally had looked at it through a lens of seeing a pattern of certain departments have favoritism when it came to funding among other benefits, and I thought it was important to see equity among all departments. And I still hold that as a value. But I do have to say, originally, having that benefit for our fire staff has a lot more context to do with legal liability when California's state mandate of cancer presumption for certain staff members creates that legal liability.

So, although I'm not so compelled by questions of the validity of certain health tests, that's not in my purview to consider. I really, really resonate with Council Member Winslow's argument of these are decisions best made by HR. They're best made for closed session labor negotiations. That's the more appropriate place for it to be held. So, I just want to say that's why my opinion on this item has evolved a little bit, because I believe that I was looking through it from the incorrect lens in our summer meeting. Member Van Obrek? Yeah, we have a motion and a substitute motion. And shouldn't we be voting instead of making our opinions known? Yeah, the motion's came while people had already pushed their buttons to speak, and that's why I said I'll go ahead and take the motions, but we're going to let everybody speak once.

Okay, so in response to Council Member Winslow's comments, so the only, this is a blood test, so they take blood. The only harm that can come from these is false positives. And so one of the issues with this is there are quite a few false positives. so you'll get an indication that says, hey, maybe you have CLL, which is form of leukemia. And all it does is raise a flag and say to your oncologist, hey, check for this. And so it's not designed to be a definitive diagnosis. So the main argument against this is it causes people anxiety because they're told they have some serious disease, when in fact they don't. well, every other diagnostic test for cancer has a similar problem, not to this extent.

As far as lawsuits by investors, I spent 30 years in Silicon Valley, and I can tell you that there are very few companies that don't have multiple outstanding lawsuits from disgruntled investors, and it's just a fact of life. That doesn't mean, it doesn't mean there's a problem with the technology. Council Member Goldstein? Thank you, Mayor Reynolds. Yeah, I think in general, we need to support our employees and support their health, and I want equity between employee groups, and that makes this hard. I really think we should have discussed all of these with HR in closed session like we do every other employee benefit, it, because discussing something on the dais like this opens up the opportunity for politicization of just wanting to keep our employees safe, and I'm bummed to be in a position like that, because we have to really prioritize things, like, are we going to spend money on something that's perhaps less proven to be helpful than other benefits that we could be providing?

And I think I would really like to be better informed. somebody brought up the need for health professionals. I'm not a health professional. I don't believe that I have, that it should be my purview to decide something like this without all of the information. So I'm having trouble with this one, and I think that I would like to have more information and have it brought back to us in closed session like we would other employee benefits. Thank you. So I'm just going to make one quick comment before we go back to Council Member Winslow. I would assume, well, it's not in the motion, but could this be stated to the gallery or other cancer test if some other reputable company that HR finds comes along?

Can we choose at any time to change? Or maybe we offer two. If they're the same price, you can go to this company or you can go to this company? Or is there any reason that couldn't be added to the motion if there's another agency that allows this? I don't know if that's an accountant's question. I can help you with it. I mean, this is patentable technology, so there isn't anybody else to my knowledge that does anything like this at this time. There are some who are selling that they are, just will say. Okay. But that was a question for maybe Brian or staff. Okay. Yes. I mean, I think you can't, it is dynamic, right? You're making a decision now, but I think as it, if council's direction changes, it can, it can evolve with that.

So we could allow this for tonight and if HR comes to us and brings us something that is a different option, better, different later down the road, we can change. You'd probably want the motion to reflect that, but yes, you could. You could even do it as a one time. Do this as the one time and then bring it again back in a year. Or two. Or two or three or two, which is what I think the recommendation was anyways to do it for three years. Well, actually, the substitute motion I made was through the fiscal year 26-27 budget development process. That was the substitute motion. All right. That was the staff direction, right? That's funding it for three years. That was a suggested interval. I think in fire we do it every two years.

So the thought was go to a three-year interval. Yeah. Okay. But again, you could, and it sounds like the motion is, you're approving once. But I will also say I think the benefit of this is to establish baseline so then you can continue on to review that baseline for any abnormality that may need further analysis. So I want to be careful how we navigate that. It doesn't mean that we can't come back and redo the whole thing, but maybe my suggestion is let's keep the motion as is that I made for 26-27 and then we can look beyond that later. Okay. Council Member Winslow? Yes. I have just two quick responses to some things. One of them is political. If it was just about the exposure to carcinogens, we would have given this to the public works employers in the first place.

We wouldn't have waited for this to come back around and have some new recommendation on it. The other is medical. Not only are there false positives, but even the studies that Grail funded themselves, they show a high rate of false negatives, which they've also shown in the long run, people tend to get less of the more serious and more documented cancer tests as a result of that. And so the concern that's brought up in the medical community is that this actually leads to people not realizing that they have cancer for a longer period of time. So I just... Council Member Hawley? This is just procedural. I... I misheard Council Member O'Brien make a substitute motion as a friendly amendment. So it would just be helpful for the clerk to maybe repeat both motions before we take a vote on the substitute motion.

All right. Madam Clerk. Okay. So the substitute... Well, let me go back to the first motion, which was to actually move the... It was Council Member Winslow seconded by Goldstein to move the cancer testing discussion into negotiations and have HR be there to participate in that. And then there was a substitute motion by Council Member O'Brien seconded by Council Member van Overbeek to include in the 20... 2026-27 budget the... The allocated amount to begin the testing and... And what staff had recommended was a three-year interval. And we would take the substitute motion first. Is that... Is everyone ready to vote on that one? Okay. Yes. All right. Council Member Goldstein? No. Council Member Hawley?

No. Council Member O'Brien? Yes. Council Member van Overbeek? Yes. Council Member Winslow? No. Vice Mayor Bennett? Yes. Mayor Reynolds? Aye. Carries 4-3. And so there's no need to go back to the first one. All right. 5.3. Confirmation of the Public Works Director Operations and Maintenance. Mark Sorensen, City Manager. Thank you, Mayor and Council. Section 605 of the City Charter states that the appointment of department heads is subject to confirmation by the City Council. In order to meet this requirement, Council is being presented with the Employment Agreement for the Public Works Director of Operations and Maintenance. And as required by the Government Code, I will state for the record that I am proposing to enter into an employment agreement with Skylar Lipsky as Public Works Director Operations and Maintenance with an annual salary of $169,000.

And with that, recommend Council confirmation of the appointment. All right. Thank you for a wonderful report. How many speakers do we have? We don't have any. Oh, Skylar, nobody loves you. Or everybody loves you, so they don't want to come up. All right. I'll make a motion. Make a motion to approve. I'll second that. All right. Hey. I've always found Skylar super good to work with. Since being in the Director role and the Deputy Director role and all of my interactions has been helpful in anything that I brought up. So I'll say I'm happy to support the motion. Okay. Council Member Goldstein. Yes. Council Member Hawley. Congratulations. And yes. Council Member O'Brien. Very proud. Yes. Council Member van Overbeek.

I spent some time with Skylar today and I'm very impressed and so I'm enthusiastically, yes. Council Member Winslow. I was actually happy to have been sitting in the office with Skylar whenever there was an announcement that he got the job. And then so they came, Melissa came and switched out the name on the door. That was cool. So yes. Vice Mayor Bennett. Congratulations. Yes. Mayor Reynolds. Aye. Thank you. And I'm so honored. Glad that we get to do a 7-0 vote. And I get to announce that so it passes. All right. We have nothing posted after the agenda. Reports and communications. The following reports and communications are for Council's information. No action can be taken under this section unless the Council agrees to bring it in on a future agenda.

City manager's report. All right. City. City. Code enforcement. If we have questions for her, we can take it. I would love to hear a presentation. All right. Not to put you on the spot. Code enforcement. Penalties. Update. It was for information only, but we have our wonderful and amazing Miss Durkin here. Getting full information update. Mayor, Council members. Last year, Council requested we revisit our nuisance abatement process. So I'm here to kind of reiterate that we have had success with this process. And there are going to be some minor changes coming up that Civica has worked out. Just some language cleanup and also moving the violation amount to $500 a day after 40 days in violation.

But again, pretty minor changes. Other than that, we've seen success with this and I don't have any further recommendations. I'm happy to answer any questions. Council have questions for Mr. Good. Yeah. What are the how much fines have gone out as a result of this? You gave me some kind of number. I forgot. I was speaking about a different matter, but this probably around 9000. Not to one person. No. Yeah. Thank you. Those specifically those two that I listed down there. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you for giving. Council Member Goldstein. No, I just had encouraged you to present on this. So I said, thanks. I appreciate it. Thank you for letting us know that something that we made an advancement on is working well.

So happy to give you the tools that you need to do for your job. Very well. Thank you. For information, Council Member requests pursuant to APMP 1010. Council members may verbally request an item to be advised at a future meeting after stating what the item would be and a majority vote of Council is needed in order for staff to adjourn. Do we have any Council member requests? No? All right. We will adjourn to closed session on Tuesday, February 3rd at 5 p.m. or 5.30, followed by our regular Council meeting at 6 right here at 421 Main. Good night. All right. That was quick. We'll do that. We'll do that. We'll do that. We'll do that. We'll do that. We'll do that. We'll do that. We'll do that. We'll do that.

We'll do that. We'll do that.