New 15 mph e-bike limit in Bidwell Park

Our regular scheduled City Council Meeting. We will call our invocation Pastor Gabe Rule from Pleasant Valley Baptist Church. Thank you for serving. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for a beautiful day that you gave us today. Thank you for the wonderful city that we have the privilege to live in and to serve in. And I pray that you bless this meeting tonight. I pray that you get all those involved wisdom and discernment. I pray, Lord, that you would give them courage to do that which is right, that which our city needs. I pray, Lord, that you give them unity and the ability to work together. Lord, I pray that we would find the joy in getting to serve what a privilege indeed it is. And I pray that what happens in this meeting tonight would benefit all those that call Chico home.

And we'll thank you and praise you for this in the name of your son, Jesus Christ. Amen. Thank you. Thank you. Will you please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance? Salute and pledge. And pledge. Madam Kirk, can you call our wall, please? Okay. Councilmember Goldstein? Here. Here. Councilmember Hawley? Here. Councilmember O'Brien? Here. Councilmember van Overbeek? Here. Councilmember Winslow? Here. Vice Mayor Bennett? Here. Mayor Reynolds? Here. All right. Anyone wishing to address the Council on any matters listed on the agenda should first complete a speaker card found at the back of the chambers. Once completed, please turn your cards into the City Clerk and speakers will be taken in the order received.

Once the speaker begins on the first item, we will no longer take any more speakers on that item. Persons demonstrating boisterous, rude behavior, speaking on matters outside of the jurisdiction of the City Council, or engaging in otherwise disruptive behavior will be called to order. If such conduct continues, I may recess requesting removal of such persons from the Council Chambers, or adjourn the meeting, or take other appropriate action as necessary. Can we have our closed session announcement from our City Attorney, Mr. Ryan Jones? Yes. Madam Mayor, members of the Council, there were three items discussed in closed session. The first on labor negotiations, where direction was given to Council from our labor negotiator.

There was also discussion about existing litigation, I believe in Chico v. Chico case, and also direction was given to the attorneys on that matter. And lastly, there was conference with real property negotiators on 1150 East First Avenue in Chico, and direction was given to staff to handle that matter as well. That's my report. Thank you very much. Consent agenda. All matters listed under the consent agenda are considered routine in nature and can therefore be enacted with a motion. Are there any no votes or any items that would like to be removed? Council disqualifications? Seeing none. Move to approve. Second. We have 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 van Overbeek? Yes. And I want to commend the City's finance staff for doing such a fabulous job. We have to completely clean on it. Council member Winslow? Yes. Vice Mayor Bennett? Yes. Mayor Reynolds? Aye. Carries 7-0. All right. Members of the public may address the council at this time on any matter not already listed on the agenda and are within the jurisdiction's authority. The council cannot take any action at this meeting on requests made under this section of the agenda. How many speakers do we have? We have three. All right. Three minutes each. Okay. I'll call the first two names and if you could line up in the middle aisle.

Dave Broadburn followed by Margo Cowan. Is that Brad Broadburn? Yes. When does my time start? When you get up, right, as soon as you start talking. I want to address you guys about the roads in this city. I've lived in quite a few places over my 66 years. I've never seen such a disgrace as what we have in this city. Period. And I think it's time that we all start sending bills to the city ASAP. The big pothole over on Salem after I got a hold of McKinsey last week. We got it fixed real quick. It was only about that deep and about three and a half feet wide. The fire trucks here have probably ran over it numerous times. Bent rims, flat tires, tie rods. Basically, you name it. Okay. The other thing is garbage in this town.

I mean, it's everywhere. The damn pandemic. Why don't you guys hire a couple people? Maybe hire a couple homeless people. Give them the picker uppers, some gloves, garbage cans. When we start picking some of that stuff up in this town. Starting with the creeks. The creeks are like the Philippines, for Christ's sake. So, watch my language. I'm sorry. I get a little riled up. I'm passionate about stuff. But mainly it's the roads. And these secondary roads in this town, they're not going to fix themselves. Potholes are like cancer, you know. Ten inch potholes add a little water to it. We're real lucky we haven't had a lot of rain in the last, what, month? Six weeks? Those potholes are going to grow exponentially.

So, you can't just keep patching this stuff. Over there behind the Safeway store. I work for DoorDash part time. So, I'm all over the place. And that road, you got to really bob and weave to get through there. Because it's such a mess. So, hopefully, wherever the money is going to come from. My suggestion would be next year, eliminate the downtown skating rink, number one. That would be my first choice. And also, what I've been finding out lately, is how much money the firemen and the police make in this city. So, you might want to start looking at what they're getting paid. Take a little bit of their money and put it into something that's worthwhile. With that, I think I'm going to shut up.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Margo Cowan, followed by Sharon Fritz. Good evening, council people and mayor. I'm Margo Cowan. Whew. That's a lot to follow. Okay, I'm here to talk about schizophrenia. Schizophrenia does not discriminate. It does not care what your socioeconomic status is, as evidenced by the recent tragedy of the Rob Reiner family. We are not able, as of yet, to predict who might be at risk for developing this disease. Its onset can be sudden and is overwhelming for both the person affected and the families who love and care for them. Currently, the laws in place make it virtually impossible for families to get the help for their loved one, leaving them despondent, overwhelmed, and in grief at seeing their loved ones disappear under the grips of this disease.

One pathway to treatment is involuntary hold, commonly known as a 5150. That can only be issued by a mental health professional or by the police. Sometimes in executing this hold, restraint is required. In Chico, the only professionals trained and allowed to restrain these individuals are the Chico police. Yeah, excuse me. With the recent policy change of the Chico police to no longer intervene with non-crime-related mental health calls due to recent police litigation, the last and most desperate avenue for help is nullified. This does not help the problem. It intensifies it. What we see parked around the City Hall and across the road in businesses downtown is a direct result of what I speak today.

Schizophrenia and other mental health issues are at the base of homelessness. To think otherwise is simply unreal. Excuse me. It's simply denial is what it is. The evidence is right outside these doors. Severe mental health disease is the 21st century version of leprosy. It's ugly. It's uncomfortable. It elicits fear. And we just want it to go away. But it won't. No one likes crazy people. What we need now is a new, innovative collaboration between the city, the police, mental health professionals for the treatment, and not incarceration or homelessness. Thank you for your time. Thank you. And our last speaker is Sharon Fritz. You had a question? Oh, sorry. Good evening. I'd like to talk about the issue I was here about last time.

My friend who I met camping behind S&S Produce is still out there camping. She's been trying to get into the pallet shelter. I don't understand why it is so difficult for a 62-year-old woman to get into the pallet shelter when she's trying to get into the pallet shelter. She was sharing a home with, I think, eight other people. Whoever had the lease or owned it or whatever was foreclosed. Eight people, I'm told, ended up on the street. And they're still on the street. I don't know why she can't go to the pallet shelter and say, hey, I need a place to stay. But the deal is she has to call someone. Well, her phone got stolen. She has to call someone and leave a message and then they will come out and evaluate her.

But they haven't evaluated her. And I don't know why she needs to be evaluated. What is so difficult? And I guess that's about all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you. That is it for public comment. All right. Thank you. Item 5.1. Adoption of resolution of establishing the Belmere sewer lift station. We have a report from Brendan Ottoboni, our director of public works engineering. All right. Take it away. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, Vieg Mayor and City Council members. Item 5.1 is to adopt a area of benefit for the Belmere lift station. So a little bit of background. The Belmere area is originally in a special planning area, as you know. And as part of our sanitary sewer master plan, projects P13 and P14 were originally envisioned to serve this area.

But those came at a cost of about $35 million. So I believe it was in the 2024 timeframe Orchard Creek subdivision came in, requested, and was removed from the special planning area. And submitted plans to use existing lift station there on Henshaw. I want to take a little second to commend our engineering team and our staff for not just processing that application. We looked at it more holistically. And city staff came up with a regional approach to serve that southwest quadrant of that Belmere area. And that was based on the topography, the zoning and the development patterns that happened in the county around that area. Included in this analysis was a long term analysis, because we are essentially looking at changing, going from a new sewer trunk line from the sewer plant through the orchards, and putting it into our East Avenue trunk line that's existing.

And so part of this analysis included a long term build out scenario of when all the development happens. We're not overwhelming the East Avenue sewer line and having sanitary sewer overflows and beyond its design capacity. So by doing this approach, we opened up that area in that southwest quadrant for development to occur. And in the end, this will save hundreds of thousands of dollars for the developers in this area and open it up and make it more easily readily available as sewer is one of the main functions for development to occur. In this scenario, the original developer of Orchard Creek subdivision installed the backbone infrastructure and incurred those costs. So by establishing this benefit area, we will also then be looking at establishing a connection fee and the city will be functioning as a pass through.

As new development occurs and connections are made. So if approved tonight at the next meeting, finance will come with a an amendment to our fee schedule to adopt that fee and allow for those connections to occur. Of note, there is a timing impact. The Autumn Leaf subdivision has a few homes that are nearing completion. And so timing is critical to get these items done so that that developer can make those connections, pay the fees and ultimately get their certificates of occupancy. That concludes my report and I'm available for any questions. All right. Questions? Vice Mayor Bennett. I read, there I go. I read it twice because I got confused the first time so I went back through it. There were some complications that seemed like it maybe had a bad start to begin with and there were some things that needed to be done to correct it.

It was over capacity at one point, the pump was too big or something. I'm getting to my question, which is the 4663.75. Is that a normal number per household for a lift station? And I'm sure a lift station is different than other things. They each have their individual benefits and drawbacks, perhaps. Is that number good? Because again, I'm going in the direction of we want to make our housing as affordable as possible. Yeah. I know you work hard to do that. Yeah. That's a great question. And it's hard because each lift station is very different in terms of the area that it serves, the distance of the pipe. And so, yeah, I think you're identifying the process is the developer built it. There were some errors and issues that occurred.

So, yeah, we, we receive the package of costs incurred and then we make sure all those costs are relevant. Through that process, we essentially removed up to over $300,000 in costs that were not attributable to this. So, it was all the costs that were directly attributable only to the lift station and the force main from the lift station to East Avenue and into the trunk line. So, it's hard to say in terms of the $4,600 per unit costs because they vary so greatly on, again, the area it serves, how many units it's going to serve, and the costs associated with the distance it has to go to connect to the existing lines. It's also important to point out that it was built by the developer, it's built, and that was the cost.

So, we don't have any control over what that cost was. Thank you. Any other questions? Just a reminder, wait, just hit your button on the thing if you want to speak. Tom, I see your lights on, but did you want to speak? No? Okay. All right. How many speakers do we have? We don't have any. Nobody wants to talk about poop. Come on. I think that tells us that the people who were involved with the financing of it and the $300,000 that wasn't reimbursed are all satisfied enough with the outcome. So, I'll make a motion to approve it. Second. All right. We got a motion to approve and second. Thank you. All right. 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. Mayor Reynolds? Aye. Carries 7-0. All right. Item 502. Opportunities for Outsourcing of Non-Public Safety Departments. We're going to hear from Director of, they put them backwards on me, Brendan Audubon, Public Works and Engineering, followed by a report from Skylar Lipsky from Public Works Director of Operations. Welcome. Back. Welcome. I get to be up here now. Thank you, Mayor, Vieg Mayor and City Council. So, at the Council direction, we have prepared information at the request of Council to evaluate the cost of City staffing in-house versus using consultants or contracting out services. We are very strategic in how we deploy our services and we're unique in engineering in the sense that we have a lot of variability in the workload from year to year or, you know, every couple of years.

And so, we are very strategic and intentional with how we go about delivering services and having in-house services but also contracting out where needed. And that's what we'll go over this evening. So, first, our kind of core staffing philosophy is obviously at the core is our City staff. And those primary functions include project Management, contract administration, institutional knowledge for processing development applications or technical expertise in the services we provide, such as stormwater Management, sewer applications, traffic engineering, policy and planning elements, and daily operations. A lot of records retention, records Management as well with property rights and stuff like that occur in our department.

Then, we bridge the gap that extends beyond our core functions and we utilize consultant services when necessary. So, those consultant functions are areas of specialty that we don't have in-house. So, those areas include bridge design, geotechnical, survey, right-of-way acquisitions, environmental studies, some traffic engineering. And then again, when the work volume exceeds our in-house capacity, we use consultants to bridge that gap to make up that difference. So, some historical context of why we do this and why does it matter. You can see this chart shows pretty well the volatility of the funding levels that we deal with in our department. And so, if we were to staff in-house for the last couple of years, we would have significant time to hire those folks.

And then, when we have drops below, then we're looking at reducing those staff. And so, it's very volatile. And what we try and do is reduce the need to hire in-house that then would result in layoffs. So, again, that's where we use consultants to bridge that gap when we have a surge in our demand for project delivery. As you know, the last three years, we've had a historic volume of projects and funding, especially in our capital improvement program. And so, we've really leveraged consultants to make up that difference. Now, getting in particular down into the weeds a little bit more in terms of an hourly rate comparison. So, unique for engineering, we have a private sector and a public sector comparison.

So, these consultants that we use, by contract, we receive rate sheets that are a part of that contract. So, what I've prepared here is a comparison of what our city fully burdened hourly rates are compared to a high and a low range of our consultant rate sheets that we have under contract. I say apples to apples because, again, compared to other departments, we can probably best have an apples to apples comparison of what outsourcing would look like. Because what makes up those hourly rates is your salary, your benefits, and then your overhead. We have to go through what's called the indirect cost allocation plan and get approved by Caltrans. So, when we have grant funding projects that are federally or state funded, we have to have that adopted indirect cost allocation rate.

And consultants have to do the same exact thing. So, it's as best as we can have an apples to apples comparison that go through the same analysis. As you can see across the board, our hourly rates are below or at the very low end of those ranges of comparable private sector equivalents. So, what are some of the benefits of the consultant use? Again, specialty. So, we don't do bridge design in-house. We don't have a survey team or a crew. So, we utilize those specialty services. Project specific focus. So, when we have very specific needs, we hire consultants and they work on a project by project basis. Scalability without risk. Again, as we scaled up this last couple of years, we can handle that scalability, still deliver our projects on time and on budget.

And then, when the funding drops off, we're not doing layoffs of city staff. The contracts end and that's the end of that service. It gives us financial flexibility in that, again, we don't have long-term commitments with a lot of the consultant contracts. The challenges of consultant use. Management overhead. So, not only do we have the hourly rates that are comparable apples to apples and a direct comparison, we have indirect costs. When you have consultants, now we have to hire staff to manage those consultant contracts and process the payments, invoices, and, sorry about that, oversee those elements. Consultants have a limited scope. So, when we hire a contractor or a consultant, it's on a project by project basis.

We hire a team, they're on that one project. Whereas, with city staff, a lot of times, that staff member might be working on two, three, or four projects at a time. Operational limitations for the same purposes. Continuity issues. So, with consultants, we don't control who they give us a lot of the times. And so, with in-house staff, we have continuity, we have institutional knowledge that spans time and years and decades that's critical to efficiency and timely processing of projects and backgrounds, whether it's development applications or sewer issues or traffic issues. So, what if we staff differently? What does that look like? So, from a permanent hiring, if we hired full-time equivalents, we'd have at least 30 additional full-time equivalents.

Right now, we have 38 full-time staff, so we'd almost double our team, which would cost about $9 to $10 million per year, and have long-term commitments to full-time staff. The risks of that, obviously, you're looking at layoffs if that funding or when that funding deteriorates. We would have reduced project deliveries due to, you know, growth and layoffs and that constant process and Management of hiring and letting people go. And, ultimately, that results in communities' disruption of our services. In a consultant model that we're currently using, it's, again, scalable to meet our workload needs. We have no permanent long-term commitments on a majority of our work. And, our working and our contracting can mirror and match our funding levels for the projects that we have.

Risks, when the funding drops off, again, contracts end naturally. We don't have to lay off people. And, we keep our core team intact in order to have that continuity of service and institutional knowledge. So, next would be our data supports this approach. You can see the last three fiscal years, the amount of money that we have gotten and spent. The yellow line is our construction contracts. That blue line is our consultant contract expenditures. And, the green line is our city staff costs. So, this past fiscal year, 24-25, obviously, you can see that gap between contract work and city staff work. So, 24-25, we spent about $11.1 million in contract services, compared to just under $6 million in in-house salary and benefit costs.

So, about two-thirds of our costs right now are being expended on contract services in the engineering department. So, key takeaways. One, we have a strategic intent in how we look at, address, and deliver our workload. We take a data-driven approach to validate those services and make sure we're doing it cost-effectively. We look at the risk Management from a personnel standpoint. We acknowledge and recognize that there's trade-offs with various different ways of doing it. But, ultimately, I think, especially these last couple years, we've seen this proven model to be effective in delivering projects with the variability and the scalability of funding for capital projects, especially. So, that concludes my report, and I am available for any questions.

Thank you. All right. I don't see any names in the queue, so I think you're off the hook. Thank you. All right. Skylar. wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna All right, good evening, Mayor, Vieg Mayor, and Council.

I'll just begin by recognizing that I understand Public Works O&M has a certain reputation to uphold for their PowerPoint presentations. So I fully intend to meet or exceed any of those expectations. At the November 4th, Council meeting, Council directed non-public safety departments to look into opportunities to outsource work where it makes the most sense, where it's cost-effective and doesn't compromise service quality. So for a complete picture, I'll discuss what we do, where we outsource and outsource now, and why those decisions are made. If there's one thing I hope that you take away, it's this, that I personally believe this is an important exercise in any business or any agency. And I want you to know that your O&M Management team continuously evaluates whether to insource or outsource work on an ongoing basis.

So this is an ongoing exercise for us. Every task or project gets analyzed for cost, quality, response time, and risk, and conditions change, and so our approach changes with them. For those in the community that may not be familiar with our department, the work our men and women in O&M do touches nearly every aspect of daily life in Chico. Streets, sewer, stormwater, parks, facilities, all these listed here. These systems, they don't operate independently, so they're interconnected, and how we resource them has real consequence for our delivery citywide. What's at stake? Response times matter, as I mentioned. Institutional knowledge is critical. Conditions change, they're unpredictable, and consequences or delay or poor workmanship can be significant.

You'll find some probably similar threads with this presentation and my colleague, Mr. Audubonis. Putting things in perspective here. So, candidly, Public Works O&M staff are a great value. The list on the right is a comparison of the max hourly pay by bargaining unit, showing SEIU coming in at number two. Lower is cheaper. These are relatively low-cost positions, but they deliver an enormous return. They make tangible difference in our community every day. I like to say they put a shovel in the ground and make it better than it was before they got there. They have, you know, we're not just paying for labor here, but consistency, skill, judgment, and integration, you know, across the organization.

So, really, really important there. I bring this up because, you know, it's important for council to have all the information when they intend to make a decision on something, and that the decision should match the intention. So, when they're properly resourced, the result is noticeable. Clean streets, safe infrastructure, functioning sewers, storm drain, maintained parks, all of that. I think because a lot of this work is done out of sight or because a lot of the infrastructure is hidden, it's underground and things like that, it's easy to underestimate how much expertise and effort goes into making everything run smoothly. And here you see we have a rich history in Chico. This is 5th and Salem in front of the new Sequoia Hotel in 1914.

That's the road crew. They're using a horse-drawn wagon to fill earth streets with potholes, or to fill the potholes of the streets with earth from the horse-drawn wagon. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. So, Public Works operates under a hybrid service model already. We contract out work in every division and actively manage a significant number of contracts each year. So, outsourcing is already a core part of how we deliver our service to the community. And of note on this slide is that about 30% of our overall service delivery is outsourced or contracted out. The most common reasons we contract out are the same for the most part that my colleague mentioned. So, cost, bandwidth, specialized expertise. When workloads spike or specialized equipment is needed, contractors make a lot of sense.

Typically, we stretch existing crews first. Then we supplement with contractors. And if it makes sense, eventually we would insource that work again if it's cost-effective in the long run. I'll say that that is dynamic. We're always looking at it, and it could always go the other way as well. We average over 50 contracts each year. So, examples are listed here. Landscaping, janitorial, solid waste. Specialized construction, repairs, professional and technical service. These partnerships are important and valuable, and they allow us to scale when needed. Here's a list of contractors that we have worked with in recent years. We're grateful for our contract partners that help deliver service to the community.

You can see it's a long and diverse list. So, while outsourcing has its place, it's important to talk about the trade-offs and be honest about those. So, contracting is not hands-off. It still requires a significant amount of city oversight, coordination, and follow-up. The biggest trade-off is that we typically give up some control over scheduling, prioritization, cost escalations, and consistency. Public contracting is different than private sector contracting. I think this is an important note because this gets misconstrued pretty often. But we're governed by the public contract code, competitive bidding requirements, and prevailing wage rates. Those exist for a variety of reasons, but they do limit flexibility and reduce the cost advantages that folks might generally would just assume come naturally with contracting.

So, in general, we've learned for certain functions, internal labor is better to control cost and quality. That's especially true for time-sensitive work, safety-related issues, and infrastructure that relies heavily on institutional knowledge. In those cases, outsourcing can actually increase costs or reduce service reliability. We've learned through experience that some functions are better done in-house. We've tried fleet mechanics, street sweeping, USA locating, tree work. We've tried to outsource or attempt to outsource, evaluated it, and city crews delivered better quality at a lower overall cost with greater reliability. So, a real-world benchmark scenario. I have a couple of these. This is the Springfield neighborhood grid prune, which included about 145 trees.

You can see in-house crews are about 13% less than the contracted rates. And another one here is about a 25% savings for an in-house crew to replace a signal cabinet knockdown. And I'll note that in this particular field of traffic signal cabinet signal tech work, and we have a few of these in the organization, but contractors have to travel from out of town. We don't have those types of contractors here locally in Chico. And so, you know, these rates also include drive times or, you know, other overhead like hotels and things like that. If they do have a drive time, there's often an actual reduced work window of actual work getting done because of that. So, at the end of the day, our department, like many in the city, is a service-based operation.

And in any service-heavy industry, labor is traditionally the largest expense. So, the question we constantly ask ourselves is whose labor, under what conditions, delivers the best value to the community? So, my recommendation is to continue our existing hybrid approach and expand contract funding where it makes sense. We've had success in areas like sidewalk work, certain types of tree work, facilities, landscaping, and then all of the specialty, professional, and technical services mentioned before. So, these are areas where contractors supplement our crews well, effectively, and we're able to get that done without compromising service in any way to the community. So, of course, no action is requested of council at this time, as council will have the opportunity to make those decisions during the budget deliberations that are upcoming.

In closing, we'll continue to evaluate each task, balance, cost, quality, service, and adapt as conditions change. That concludes my presentation. I'll be available for questions. Thank you. All right. Any questions for Skylar? I just had one, and that was actually about trees because they're so near and dear to our heart. Are we doing all our own trees now? I know we've got a new tree crew, or do we still have some contracts for, like, emergencies and stuff like that? We do still have contracts for emergencies. We actually were successful recently to get three separate contractors under contract. So, we have a bit of a triage there, if you will. We have a first, second, and a third. If one's unable to respond, another one can.

But, yeah, we do still have quite a bit of contract tree work, and that's one of the ways that we can supplement our workload as the workload spikes. If crews are unable to respond because they're busy with other tasks, then, you know, we can use those contractors. We're grateful for that. Great. Okay. Thank you. Council Member van Overbeek. Skylar, I think you succeeded in meeting the level set by your predecessor in your presentation. But I want to thank both you and Director Auduboni. I think those were very thoughtful and thoroughly considered presentations and where we are with contracting versus in-house labor and what the trade-offs are. And, you know, with the time we really look at it, it's during budget.

But this is, it's great to know that both of you are very thoughtful and open-minded about this, and I appreciate it. Thank you. All right. I don't see any more questions. How many speakers do we have? We have eight. All right. Three minutes each. Okay. And I will call the first two up. And if you could go ahead and line up in the middle aisle. Megan Thomas Petty is our first one, followed by Deborah. Okay. Good evening, Mayor, Vieg Mayor, Council, and City staff and members of the public. Amongst other things, I'm an attorney, and I love the research aspect of being an attorney. Since it was propositioned by Council Member van Overbeek, I've been researching the idea to outsource some of our in-house city services in an attempt to lessen the city's underfunded pension liability, or UL, to its current and future retirees.

There are many problems with this strategy. First, there does not seem to be a settled formula or methodology for comparing overall cost of in-house services versus outsourced services, according to an MIT Center for Transportation study. Cost analysis is art, not science. It seems one of our council members is attempting to use a formula that doesn't exist to justify savings. Also, other cities in California have used creative solutions to reduce their UL instead of privatization. The city of Roseville made additional one-time pension payments, which will result in lower interest rates, less risk, a reduction in net pension liability, and most importantly, more money for critical services. The city of Lodi has several additional payment strategies in place, most notably a pension stabilization policy.

Any budget reserves over and above 16% must be invested in the city's pension obligations. Lodi also maintains a diverse investment portfolio to provide liquidity in the event of an unexpectedly large pension payment. The city of Upland invests in a Section 115 pension trust fund, which serves as a reserve to mitigate risk during economic downturns and as a way to maintain local control. This trust is part of a larger strategy that they use, which includes an accelerated payoff of any unfunded accrued liabilities, fund transfers, a lease investment, and several discretionary payments. Many California cities also, in consultation with their employees, have renegotiated their compensation formulas.

Agencies that pay more in salaries and contribute less towards health care insurance will experience high pension costs. Shifting that balance can result in significant savings. I don't know if any of the aforementioned strategies are currently being utilized by the city of Chico or whether they are a possibility. I'm not privy to that information. My point is there are innovative solutions being utilized. Lastly, the privatization option being considered, if implemented, will cost some Chicoans their jobs. City of Chico employees are not just expenses or pension obligations. They are our friends, neighbors, and family members. They are part of a stable and talented workforce. That's time. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Deborah is next, followed by Scott Matthews. Good evening. This is my first time to ever come to one of these meetings, and so I appreciate being able to address my concerns. I am here because I strongly oppose privatizing our city works, and the biggest reason is because of our employees who are here working. They are our residents. They are our neighbors. They are the people that we live next to. And by getting rid of those jobs, you're also getting rid of whatever funds are needed for raising those families. So especially if they lose their benefits. Benefits aren't just supporting the one person. They're supporting a family. So I feel very strongly about maintaining our benefits for employers.

Thank you. Scott Matthews, followed by Nels. And if you can get a little closer to the microphones, that might help. Thank you. Hopefully this is close enough. Thank you for the opportunity to be here to speak. I am concerned about how cost-effective it is to outsource and about how it affects the quality of service as well. One of the advantages in my mind of doing things in-house is to keep some money in and near Chico so that the salaries that you're paying are turned right around and it's investing back into the community, which always seems like a very cost-effective or at least a very economically sound way of approaching the situation to hire in-house. But more importantly in my mind is the quality of service.

Hiring people who live in Chico or near Chico who have friends and family who live in and near Chico have a strong incentive to make sure that things are done right and that they're able to keep that institutional knowledge in and around the place. And that seems important to me. I know that I'm sure, well, I don't know. I'm assuming some contractors are in and around Chico as well, but in-house seems like a good way of doing that. I really appreciated the slides earlier showing the advantages and the disadvantages of both models. The in-house with the red showing the strengths and weaknesses of that and contracting out with the green. One of the advantages, it seemed, of contracting out is there's no permanent commitment.

But it seems like every time you're building something or fixing something in town, there is a permanent commitment. Those roads, those sewers are going to be here for a long time. And having the people putting it in be the same people who turn around and service it after they're in, that makes sense to me as well. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Nels, followed by Matt Besor.

Howdy. Mike, Tom, Dale, Casey. Congratulations on your avaricious proposal. You must feel extraordinarily proud of yourselves. Your short-sightedness allows for a glimpse into your collective consciousness as it pertains to your value for this community. Firstly, your brazen attempts to funnel taxpayer dollars into your private interest groups is commendable at best. Gallery tests, a shining example of your idiocracy, your inability for discourse, your moral destitution. For how else can one forego the objective requirements of public infrastructure maintenance in order to literally gift the police department a great sum equivalent of equipment, and in this specific case, services? Selling the public infrastructure maintenance division to private interest groups betrays your own written words and has historically failed to save money in many cities across the country, across many timelines.

The fact that you four render and retreat to ancient modes of thought should be examined thoroughly. Allow a hypothetical based upon your desires. What happens when a Chico citizen who is riding their bicycle rides through one of the myriad potholes, not but an actual stone's throw from where you sit, loses control, becomes injured from falling? At this exact point in time, who is responsible? Surely it is not the city council, as you in this hypothetical have sold off the services and relinquished all ties. Surely, too, the private entity will state their non-responsibility with reasonings of their own. Or have you even considered that possibility prior to your proposal? Quote, we build, manage, and protect the city's largest asset, public infrastructure, for the use and enjoyment of our Chico community.

Quote, end quote. If you sell out our public works, those last nine words will change to, for the cost efficiency and profit of private groups. Council Member Hawley, Council Member Winslow, Council Member Goldstein, your continual devotion to this community as a whole brings forth at least some semblance of solace. Thank you. Matt Besore, followed by Brandon Slater. Good evening, Council. I haven't been here in a while. I appreciate those two presentations. Those were really helpful and thorough. I kind of admittedly came in here a little naive to what might be discussed on this particular part of the topic. So I signed up before I knew exactly what I wanted to say. But that being the case, I think some key points just I want to touch upon.

I support a lot of things that have been said before me. I think that supporting our local employees is important. I know there's a number of you up there that are business owners or have been business owners. I know that you understand that a dollar spent locally is spent three to six more times locally. So when you're paying an employee of the city, being the fact that one of our largest sources of revenue in city now is measure H, that money is going to be spent three to six more times, and you're going to collect tax on that three to six more times, which is going to give you additional spending power in the future. I think that that's something you can't necessarily quantify, but it's pretty obvious that that's a source of revenue that the city needs to keep in mind when you're looking at this.

When you have something, public works is, we have a static, if not robust, amount of jobs and work that need to be completed. When you have, I can really appreciate in those presentations how there's a balance of kind of, it almost sounded like, you know, 60, 40, 70, 30, where we have some backup of contractors. And I think that that's a great idea because it allows you to catch those surges when you really need them. But as far as having the stability of knowing that our day-to-day operations and things in times of emergency where we can throw our own resources at it, it's obvious that that's a cheaper, more efficient way to handle things. And I think that our local employees do a better job.

I think that anybody, you know, we're talking about trees, you know, being in the area we're in and with all the fires and just being Chico, I'm sure we all have some sort of experience with the tree companies that have come in. And when you have a local company or a local employee, the way they handle that versus when, I don't want to use the name of any of the PG&E hired folks, but they have a different level of care that they apply to those things. And I think that's important for a town like Chico. We're still a small, small town. I would like to keep it that way as long as possible. I think that we care about this place and we care about each other. And I think that this is a good way to show that.

Thank you. Thank you. Brandon Slater, followed by Eric Nielsen. Hi, I'm Brandon Slater, here to speak on behalf of the Chico Chamber of Commerce. It looks like I might have the one slightly different view than everybody else out here. And it's from my perspective, there's a there's a lot of needs in our community. There's more needs than there is dollars. And I we as a chamber are encouraged that you are looking at this and bringing to light the unfunded pension liabilities. It's it is a very real thing. It's kind of the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about. But our current unfunded pension liability that the Chico owes is one hundred and eighty million dollars. And if you look back over the last ten years and I went through the budgets and it was ninety five million dollars ten years ago.

So if you were to just divide that out over the last ten years, that's eight and a half million dollars a year that needs to be kind of allocated for that. And from my perspective, it's just it's a cost of having employees and then separate from that there. That's that's and then separate from that. There's also a payment of I think this last year it was. Or this current budget is fourteen million dollars, fourteen point one million dollars. So combined, those are like twenty two million dollars. And if you go look at the budget for where it lists salaries and benefits, I'm pretty sure that that sixty one million dollars doesn't include that twenty two million dollars. So when you're looking at these analysis, I guess what I'm trying to say is you really need to just make sure that I think it's important to do the analysis.

It's not a perfect formula like the previous person was saying, but it is an analysis and you do need to consider that cost. That's a that's a thirty six point seven percent cost in addition to what is considered salaries and benefits. And so anyways, just want to make sure that you're asking those questions. And, you know, sometimes. It's you know, it's tough to be the guy that's asking, you know, going against the stream, I will know, like I was side by side with all these SEIU folks out there when we were. I mean, I led Measure H and we were out there, you know, saying, hey, there's not enough funds to support our community. And so anyways, it's a tough decision. Glad I'm not in your seat, but just want to make sure you're all thinking about it.

Thanks. Eric Nielsen, followed by Jason Anderson. Good evening, Council. I urge City Council as a general principle not to outsource functions of city departments for the following reasons. One, privatization contracts require government oversight and monitoring contracts of complex, hard to measure government services can be difficult and expensive. Two, contracting out creates new, often hidden costs for government to include the contract bidding process, contract oversight costs, use of public facilities and equipment, and lack of specialized and local knowledge. Three, cost overruns which lack oversight can compound the problem. Four, greater vulnerability to corruption to include bribes to city officials in exchange for contracts, campaign contributions in exchange for favors, taxpayer dollars spent on company perks, and awarding contracts to friends and colleagues.

Five, government's loss of capacity to perform work and serve by only serving as the middleman and over time at loss of expertise to the city. Six, privatization very often has a negative effect on workers and local community by shifting resources away from the local economy. Workers are often paid less, reducing tax revenue. City Council and staff should consider the following alternatives to outsourcing. Assess and reform the city's systems to more efficiently provide high-quality services. Review systems for possible duplication of services. Invest in skills and training of city staff. Encourage innovation through resources and rewards. Promulgate best practices. We know through a plethora of studies, and this was mentioned before, on the local multiplier effect, that spending on local businesses and resources, Chico citizens being our greatest resource, has the effect of generating more dollars back into the local economy.

Let's continue to value our local expertise and economy by resisting the outsourcing of city services and seeking other ways to ensure fiscal sustainability. Thank you. Thank you. And our last speaker is Jason Anderson. Hello again. I feel like a regular. So appreciate all the support from everybody. As an employee, obviously, our number one goal, just like yours, is to make sure that this city is improving and that the money is spent in an efficient way. Some background in all this, because I've been here. I know that everybody sees the word outsourcing, and I think the intent of this sort of a special conversation that we're having outside of even budget is to make sure that we are, have a good ratio of contractual dollars and in-house.

And obviously, 100% of either is going to end up in an inefficient delivery model and sort of increase liability. One of the things that you definitely get lost in sort of the minutia of what real costs are, like the gentleman from the Chamber of Commerce mentioned, you know, that 36%, maybe an increase. Maybe we're not included in it, maybe we aren't. I can tell you some sort of prevailing wage figures for at least SEIU jobs that come from the Department of Industrial Relations in California for Erdbeau County. So an equipment operator starts out at $66.96 as a base pay, and a total with benefits is $101.65. A senior maintenance worker for the city of Chico fully burdened is about $50, just slightly over that.

I believe you can ask Director Martin. Even with that 36%, that's not 100% more. Electoral techs top out at $97.70 in prevailing wage. That's, again, total pay. Someone raking asphalt for a, according to the Department of Industrial Relations, is topping out at, in the private sector, you know, prevailing wage, anything over $5,000. That's every street job. That's topping out at $7,301. Again, that's total compensation. So it's nice that Director Lipski put us up there, you know, at the top of the list. I believe that's actually the bottom of the list. But, so, you know, to echo the, we run into a lot of people like Mr. Bradburn, very passionate about the roads. Obviously, we want to fix the roads.

There's nothing more to us that, that means more to us than that. We want to make everybody happy. We're pulling a lot of directions. I didn't even see on Director Lipski's sort of job list is a homeless encampment cleanup. I don't know if you saw the news. We're going to clean up 75 homeless encampments. I mean, if we're going to contract something out, that might be a good candidate and let us get back to our skilled labor jobs. You know, fixing traffic signals and roads. Sorry. And to point out, you know, budget. I know I'm running out of time here. We, Reading spends over $21 million on their salaries and benefits for their operations, maintenance. And Folsom spends over $16 million. I know.

Jason, can I ask you to go ahead and continue your thought there? Because you are representing a group you actually get. Yeah, I appreciate it. I'd like you to continue. I appreciate it very much. I embarrassed myself previously. So, also, you know, Roseville spending significantly more per capita per employee than we are. So, you know, thank you for making sure that citizens' money is spent. None of us want to go back to the way things were in 2000, you know, previous before 2013. None of us want to lose our jobs. You know, we also want to just make sure that we are able to provide an excellent service model to citizens of Chico. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. All right. Council Member, comments?

Council Member Hawley. Thank you, Mayor Reynolds. When this item was first introduced in Finance Committee and then later escalated in a two-to-one vote, myself opposed, of course, the staff who were present immediately responded by saying this is the UAL is something they're very much aware of and considerations towards in-house and outsourcing services are already considered every single budget cycle, where they weigh fiscal soundness or what our city's capacity fit is, and that's already presented. So, one, we essentially made a motion to direct staff to do something that they already do every single budget cycle, but take it a step further. And then the decision, as the 4-3 majority council made, was to preclude safety staff from that conversation.

And it sounds like there was a really productive informational presentation and conversation that's been held thus far, but I just want us all to keep in mind that every single time we continue this hurtful pattern of department favoritism, staff notices and the community notices. And I just want us to be cognizant that plenty of other cities also outsource police and fire department operations in different areas. So, it was incorrect in the assumption that's not something that was possible to do. It's not something I'm speaking in favor of at all, but I just want to ensure that when we have this conversation, we're having equitable conversations across the departments every single time. And this item did not do that.

I don't think I need to say too much on this, but I think I can speak maybe just to the Chamber of Commerce or those folks to say that the unfunded actuarial liability is about as scary as it sounds. It's worth noting that as we discussed this last time and it's shown to us that we project that unfunded liability to decrease in the future because of reforms that have taken effect in the state of California since 2013. And that's good. It is something for us to pay attention to all the time. I think we should be paying attention to it in budget season. And I think we should continue to look when we consider new hires and pay increases, what that like long-term impact is going to be. We've had some, you would describe a significant impacts to our unfunded liability due to hires that have taken place in the last few years, but the vast majority of those hires are not in the employee groups that we're talking about outsourcing today.

So, you know, there was no defensive community development, I noticed. The seat is empty. So I guess that one's up for grabs if somebody wants to talk about it. But I think that we're in good hands with our city staff currently and their recommendations. Councilmember Goldstein. Thank you, Mayor. This has been a really informative item. So thank you to our public works department heads for their presentations. Well done. I learned a lot about our contracting. And also thank you to all of our speakers. It is really important that we recognize that we have the unfunded liability. So this has been an informative conversation regardless of the outcome. And we need to keep this in mind with every staffing decision that we make.

I was critical of a rather rushed decision to increase some fire staffing during our budget hearing last year. And I just want to bring that up because we need to be really cautious of our unfunded liability with all decisions. And unless there is a strong need, I don't see any reason why we should go beyond our normal trusting staff and city manager to determine what can be outsourced and what benefits our city to keep in-house. I'm in strong support of keeping as many jobs as possible within the city of Chico. Because I support keeping our dollars within the city, supporting our union jobs, and making sure that we retain institutional knowledge and get the best quality of service we can. So the city has a contract with SEIU.

We have a commitment to you and the fire people and police and the other city employees so that when you come to retirement, when you get to retirement time, you've got a pension, right? And in order for us to be able to honor that obligation, we need to be very careful not to overcommit. And in 2012, and some of you guys with a little gray hair back there can remember this, the city overcommitted itself. And approximately a third, correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. City Manager, but approximately a third of the city, total in city employees, were laid off in 2012. I don't know that it was a third, but I see your point. Look, it was a significant number. It was more than 10%. We'll call it a quarter.

And the city was one payroll away from going bankrupt, in which case the state would have come in and taken over. So it's very important. We value the work that you do very much and the other city employees. We have great city staff, but we need to be careful. This $180 million is a real obligation that the city has. And the SEIU's returns are very much linked to the stock market, which is at a record high. It won't always be at a record high. It's going to decline. Inevitably, it goes in cycles. So in order for us to honor our obligation to you, we need to be careful about how we balance in-house versus contract. And again, I want to commend Director Lipsky and Auduboni for very thoughtful, excellent presentations of why we do things the way we do.

Thank you. Council Member O'Brien? So thank you, Mayor. This is a tough conversation, a tough topic. I get that. I think all of us, certainly I do value each and every one of our employees. I never, ever want to be in a position to lay any one of our employees off. I value that commitment that Council Member van Overbeek said we make with each of you. And I want to hold true to that. But I did live through that 2012 Great Recession impact where it gutted our city, gutted our police department in particular. And it was painful. It was painful for this community. It was painful for the city. And we just have to be able to have real conversations about these difficult topics. It's okay. It doesn't mean that we're going to go and make a difficult or rash decision.

And I think our directors pointed out, I think it was important for us to hear, that we do deploy a hybrid model. We do that probably in every department throughout our city. In fact, we have it here tonight. If you looked around, as far as how we handle security, it's a hybrid model. That's healthy. But we can't be afraid of at least having a conversation, particularly when that unfunded liability is $180 million. It does not mean we want to get rid of any of our staff, but we least have to have an honest conversation and be real about that and be adults about it and come to an understanding that we do have to address that at some point. I think that's a valued conversation. I appreciate the Finance Committee bringing that to our attention.

We need to continue to have those conversations. It does not mean that we don't value our employees or want to let go of any of you. We certainly don't. We value what you do. I appreciate you guys, but I think having these conversations are always healthy. Vice Mayor Bennett. We go through this process every year. This was a little earlier than usual, but with the preparation of the next fiscal year budget, we ask all of our department heads to take a good look at what they're doing, how they're doing, and see if they can find any way for us to save money. It has nothing to do with laying people off. We just want to take a good look every budget cycle. We look at what we're doing, and we try and make perhaps a better decision.

Perhaps there is no decision. So I'm going to echo what Mr. O'Brien said, as well as Mr. van Overbeek, that we value you. This had nothing to do with outsourcing. I wish a different term had been used. It had to do with the budget cycle, and that's – I talked to Ms. Martin today about the budget cycle. I wanted to make sure I was correct. We do this regularly. This is just a little earlier than usual, but it would have happened anyhow. So I appreciate you all coming down here. I appreciate all of you, your dedication to the city of Chico, the citizens of Chico, and you are important to us. You are part of our family. And I'm going to say that again. You're part of our family. So thank you very much for everything you do.

All right. I don't have a whole lot to add to that. I just want to add that I appreciate Jason's comment that 100% either way would never work. And you're absolutely right. We could never be 100%. And I'm glad that we're at about what sounds like to be about a 70-30 right now, and that seems to be a fair balance. I was amicable to having this conversation now because, quite frankly, none of you are here during budget season for the most part because it's long, boring meetings that mostly happen during the day where citizens don't always have the time to come. I mean, some of those meetings are four and five hours, and they're not super fun to go through. So I think this was great because everybody learned something tonight that they didn't know before, and we got to give information out.

And a lot of times when we're putting things on the agenda and going through these, it is that exercise of learning. I'm super excited, as I said in the state of the city the other day, that our fire department is finally back to 2008 levels. And I'm super excited that you guys are past 2008 levels. I'm sorry we haven't gotten to our first speaker's potholes, but I'm sure we'll get there as quick as we can because I know you guys want nothing more than to have the best roads to ride on. You guys are driving on them every day, too, and sending your kids to school and everything else on them when safe roads are on all that. So thank you all for everything you do. Thank you for comments. Thank you for being here.

And this was just a receive and file and get some information. And I'm sure thank you, staff, for always taking the opportunity to evaluate those opportunities every time one comes up. And I don't think the public necessarily knows and understands that you are, you know, doing that every time. We could never hire 30 more people and take on that burden right now. That would just be crazy. So thank you. So that's I don't see anybody else in the queue. So we will go to 5.3, consideration of electric bike e-bike regulations. And we have a report from Billy Aldridge, our chief. Good evening, Mayor, Vieg Mayor, and members of council. Forgive me. I've got a little bit of a sickness going. I know fire chief didn't realize that.

But I put together a staff report for you to take a look at. It was more of a discussion that was needed tonight, provided you with some statistics in there. One of the biggest things to support the need for this proposed change was the fact that we've had in the nation over a 300 percent increase in accidents involving e-bikes. So definitely it's a national trend. It's not a local trend. I'm a region, the region two representative for the California Police Chiefs Association. And inevitably, this topic comes up during every one of our region rep meetings on how cities are handling this issue. So it's definitely a problem. During the analysis phase of putting together this staff report for you, I looked at the different speed limits across the parks, which streets really, or trails, walkways, things of that nature, have the higher use by pedestrians.

And we found that the one mile and five mile loop that include Peterson Memorial and South Park Drive are your main areas that the pedestrians utilize. Not typically up in the middle trail or the north rim trails where the mountain bikers are going well over 15 or 20 miles an hour. Those trails were designed for that. So we would focus more on that Peterson Memorial, South Park Drive area, the lower park where most of our pedestrians go on their walks daily. So my recommendation after looking at everything was that, number one, we have a consistent speed limit throughout our park system because it does fluctuate from 15 to 25 miles an hour. So I'd recommend we have a discussion on reducing that speed to be 15 miles per hour within the park in the lower park areas so that it's consistent.

We've already scheduled our park rangers for certification in radar and LIDAR units. We did a test theory to see if you could actually catch these e-bikes and alternative forms of transportation with those devices. And that was confirmed that you can. So we have them scheduled for training to get the certification they'll need to run those radar and LIDAR units in the park. And then the training to properly, they haven't been trained on writing a speed violation and how we have to testify to that in court. So there'll be training that goes with that in preparation for these changes that would potentially come from council's direction. The other things we talked about, I spoke with Director Auduboni and Lipsky concerning the need for signage and marking within the park system.

And they gave me their feedback, which was, you know, definitely consistent speed limit signs can be posted in the park. It can be challenging for us to do roadway markings, you know, to delineate a pedestrian side versus bicyclists or e-bike scooters, things of that nature side. Because some of our park trails aren't paved that some of the folks utilize. So in the areas where they're paved, definitely, I think, within the required transportation standards, we can take a look at that. I'll let more Director Auduboni or Lipsky talk about that and answer those questions for you. But so my recommendation to you is that we look at changing the municipal code, add a section in there on the enforcement of speed, a consistent speed of 50 miles an hour in that lower park area.

Like I said, we'll get the rangers to the training, talk about the installation of the signage, definitely metal signage that's consistent throughout those park areas. And then a likely change to our process will be that now there's legislation that came down as of January 1st that allows us to tow e-bikes that are outside of the parameters from the manufacturer. So a lot of these people are taking these apps and they're able to change the computers on the bikes and make the speeds go much higher than 28 miles an hour. So we can test for that. We can check that during the inspection of the e-bike during a traffic stop. And if we tow it to get it back, they would have to attend the California Highway Patrol's e-bike safety course and provide proof of that.

So that would be a piece to our enforcement mechanism for this. And then the last thing was just a consideration for a grace period moving forward if we do adopt these rules so that we can do an education campaign in the community. We always want to do education campaigns when we change rules like this, take a progressive posture and discipline in terms of education, verbal warning, then a citation, then an arrest potentially if it's multiple times over and over. So we always take that approach. But I think providing a grace period for us to be able to get the education campaign done in a timely manner would be appropriate. So with that, if there's any questions that I can answer from a police perspective, I'm happy to do so.

But anything from the transportation requirements perspective, I'll defer to the engineering and operations and maintenance folks. Councilmember Fano-Opry. Thank you, Chief. So a couple questions. So there's already a 15 mile an hour speed limit in the lower park. So what you're talking about is changing the speed limit in the upper park. But the problems we have that I've heard about are primarily on the loops, you know, South Park and Peterson. They're between five mile and one mile. I guess in the staff report it said you mentioned separating pedestrian and bicycle traffic. I think that's really an important element. And on Peterson, maybe this is a question, Mr. Audubonny, there are sections that are striped in the middle and then there are gaps.

And then there's why are there some sections striped and some sections not? The stripes go right down the middle. This is on Peterson. I'm not familiar offhand. Okay. With the segment specifically. They're not a solid line. It's a dotted, you know, it's a stripe. Gotcha. I'd have to look into that a little bit. Okay. Yeah, there's only a midline stripe where there are signs. For bi-directional traffic. Anyway, I think separating the traffic is an important element. And I did want to clarify, currently it's posted 20 miles an hour. In the lower park? Yeah. For cars and bikes? It fluctuates. Okay. Well, that's, so if we're going to lower it to 15, that's great. That's better. That's my recommendation is consistent speed and then area.

I should read the signs more, I guess. Anyway, but the biggest element, I think, is just enforcement. It's just having the rangers out there and police officers. But also the automated radar systems. You know, you drive into a town and it says you're going 32 and you're supposed to go 25. Can we do that? Like on South Park and Peterson? Where's the lower end of it? Because that's where people really... I'll defer that question to engineering or operational maintenance. Okay. So the automated radar systems that say, hey, the speed limit is 25 and you're going... The speed feedback signs. Yeah. Yeah. That's something we can look into. That obviously comes at a cost and I don't know offhand what the cost per unit is, but we can look into that.

Obviously, this coming summer, we anticipate on doing the South Park Drive reconstruction. So now would be a good time to incorporate some of those aspects into the project. I guess we would have to find out if an e-bike even shows... If they could even detect the speed of an e-bike. True. Oh, it does. It does. Councilmember Hawley. Oh. I understand the grace period's fairly standard as we're doing that for the new median ordinance, that kind of educational period. How long do you anticipate that grace period to be for this code change? I think it's appropriate to at least do a two-week grace period so that we can get some thorough campaigns going with either... Well, with our social media and also with the local media.

We can do some stories. You know, like we've done some stories on e-bikes. We were doing Traffic Tuesday with the media or the news where we're educating people on the different types of e-bikes and the rules surrounding them. But I think we can kind of culminate that into one education campaign and put together something that goes out to the community so that... Number one, it educates them. But number two, lets them know what our posture is going to be and what to expect if they violate these new rules in the park. Sounds great. Thank you. Councilmember Goldstein. Thanks. Thanks. Yeah, so first question had to do with just some language in the report. I think it said in the recommendation or the recommended language that we could adopt proposed amendment.

Bicycles, e-bikes, and all other alternative modes of travel within Bidwell Park, et cetera. I would just like to make sure that when we discuss this later that we'll, you know, include scooters and cars within our speed limits. And I'm wondering if that was your intent in that paragraph already. Yes, exactly. It would be, you know, vehicles, e-bikes, scooters, any of that alternative form of travel, even bicycles. So just a standard bicycle would also have that same speed limit. Okay, maybe the word alternative threw me off because it sounds like we're trying to include everybody. Yeah, alternative just means there's so many different forms of battery-operated devices. There's even the things that you stand on.

I believe prior Councilmember Stone used to ride one, the one wheel or whatever it was. And then the folks that ride the little thing you stand on, it has two wheels and you balance yourself on it. So those, when I say alternative means or modes of transportation, would be any of those battery-operated devices like that. What about a non-battery-powered unicycle? Just kidding. Sure. Anyway. If you can get a unicycle up to 15, watch that. I can't, but, you know, some people probably can. And stay balanced. Okay. Councilmember van Overbeek already asked about this, but I don't think I caught it all in my notes. So we're looking at a standard 15 miles per hour throughout the one mile and up to five mile areas, correct?

Does that include, like, all of the dirt trails in that area or just paved roads? Well, I think that the intent for the trails in the upper park area is for mountain bikers. The paved trails around the, you know, from the five mile south to one mile where it's all paved and paths like that is more intended for pedestrian traffic. Although we do have folks who, you know, park right there in upper park and then make that walk up to Easter Cross or maybe they walk up to North Rim and just want to do some hiking. I don't think that it would be appropriate for us to look at reducing or having a rule in terms of speeds up there in those trail areas. Because the intent of creating those, at least in my perspective, is for those mountain bikers that are up there doing their downhill competition training and things of that nature.

And then trying to, you know, have some sort of enforcement in that area for that would be very difficult because you definitely aren't taking one of our vehicles up on North Rim. But, again, I look at where the high pedestrian use trails are. And for me, that's, you know, the identified loops that we have where we're seeing folks riding these e-bikes and other items at very high rates of speed where it's heavily, you know, trafficked by pedestrians. So, no, I would not say we go after the trail system in upper park. Thanks for the clarification. Yeah, I just wanted to note the dirt trails because I could see that being a potential future issue where there's a lot of blind corners and you could have somebody capable of going 28 miles per hour zoomed towards you and that would be really bad.

You're thinking like the horse and exercise trail between Vallon-Brosha and Peterson Memorial Drive. That's for the most part of my opinion. Yeah, not like the mountain biking area, but there's a trail and people will whiz around there for sure. Yeah, so just at least something to keep in mind. And if we start with the major trails and we find that there continues to be issues, maybe e-bikers are passing the areas that are enforced and taking those shortcuts and putting people at risk, we can keep an eye out for that. I had one other question pondering. So, we had talked about looking into a scooter share or bike share program as a city, at least allowing that and what standards we would put in place for it.

And one thing that's possible with those programs is geofencing the electric micromobility vehicles so that they can only go up to a certain speed in certain areas. And I'm sure we would include whatever the speed limit is and whatever that service looks like. Is there any way to do that with vehicles that are not owned by a certain service, like, you know, private e-bikes? Is there any way to prevent them from exceeding certain speeds in certain areas? I don't know. I do know that, you know, there's technology out there that would probably do that. Just like drones, there's, like, the, you know, the Iron Dome in certain areas around the city where you can't fly a drone into it. Your drone just stops.

It won't go to it. Certain air spaces. So, I would imagine there is. I don't know for sure. That would probably be more of an engineering question than for me as a cop. Plus, the problem is those systems can be overcome. Yeah, I imagine that. You know, if you can jailbreak your bike so that it goes over 28 miles per hour in general, you can probably get around those requirements. But I was just curious if you had any thoughts on it. All right. Thank you. Council Member O'Brien. Thank you, Mayor. I want to thank the chief and the directors for thoughtful recommendations. I think they are just that, very thoughtful. Again, our objective is safety in Midwell Park, safety for pedestrians, really safety for everyone in our park.

And I think you do that when it relates to traffic, pedestrian safety with the three E's. I mentioned this before. Education, engineering, and enforcement. I think this plan has an element to each. And I am confident that our staff will put that to use in the proper balance to accomplish this task. Traffic calming measures, all those things are all very effective. And like I said, I just appreciate the thoughtful approach to this. I think we will bring some order to this issue. I want to thank Council Member Ben Overbeck for bringing it to our attention. I think it was long overdue. So thank you for that. And I look forward to further discussion. Council Member Ben. Thank you, Chief, for all the information.

I now know more about e-bikes than I ever intended to learn about e-bikes, since I never get on one. But I fully support the 15 miles an hour, the Peterson Memorial, as well as the Southside. Let's get that done, get that underway before something happens. So thank you for the thorough report. Thank you, Councilor Overbeck, for bringing this forward, as well as Councilor O'Brien comments about this. I think it's time to take a little bit of action. We'll start with Lower Park and then see how it goes. We can revisit this in six months, see how it's going if we need to, and then make another decision. So again, thank you. All right, speakers. How many speakers? We have four. All right, three minutes each.

We'll call the first two. Priya Tuvel, followed by Megan Thomas-Petty. Hello, thank you all for having me. My name is Priya Tuvel, and I'm one of the co-managers for Chico Velo. We're a bicycle nonprofit education advocacy group here in Chico since the 1980s. And we want to thank everyone that helped put this together. A 15 mile per hour speed limit for Lower Parks. We think it's a great start. We think that it's going to help prevent collisions and make all users feel safer. It's also clear and easy to understand to have a uniform speed limit for all users of the park. So we really appreciate that recommendation. We also wanted to say thank you for all the work that's happening in the city regarding e-bike safety.

This has been a big concern that various groups have brought to our attention, and we're glad that it's being taken care of at a city level. So thank you for that. We also want to say that we are ready and available to help with any kind of educational campaign regarding this topic as well throughout our social media and newsletter avenues. One thing that I did want to point out for Upper Bidwell Park, and I definitely understand that, you know, our mountain bikers are going a lot faster in these areas. However, something that we've noticed and received complaints about from the community has been the presence of e-motos in Upper Park. And e-motos are not electric bikes. They're electric motorcycles that can go 40 to 60 miles per hour.

And these do create a safety concern for our other users. So that is something that we wanted to bring up to light, that while it's not an e-bike, it is an electric device that's being used in our Upper Parks and creating some unsafe conditions. So just wanted to bring that up as well. But thank you all for your help, and please let us know if there's anything that we can do to help bring awareness to the community about these changes. Thank you. Thank you. Megan Thomas-Petty, followed by Jesse Horgan. Hello again, council, city staff, and members of the public. And thanks to council for consolidating the two issues I needed to speak on in one meeting. I appreciate it. And I just wanted to point out, I am on the Bidwell Park and Playground Commission.

I have been. This is year seven. We already voted on the 15-mile-an-hour speed limit in Lower Park. I sent it to council on November 1, 2022. I just did a quick Google. That speed limit is in place. The signs just turned up. The signs have not been changed. So that is not something you need to vote on. You don't have to trust me on this. And I am speaking not as a Bidwell Park and Playground Commissioner, but just as a private citizen right now. Another thing, I think that the city of Chico and our park system are woefully behind on e-bike regulations. The speed limit is a good start, but we need to have policies in place in Bidwell Park, on our dirt trails. We need to decide if we're allowing e-bikes at all in Lower Park dirt, the dirt trails, and in Upper Park.

And if we are, e-bikes are typically classed into three classes, and we need to decide which classes we're going to allow in our park and where. Also, let's see. I think that's it. But I also believe that this was an issue that should have been sent to the Bidwell Park and Playground Commission. City Council is not wasting your time on it, but this is a specialized issue. Our park system is woefully behind in this regard. We first visited it four years ago. So thank you for addressing it. It also needs to be addressed citywide. And thank you for Chief Eldridge and his presentation. But we need to have e-bike regulations as far as the city of Chico goes in our streets, too. Are they allowed in bike lanes?

If they are, which class is allowed in a bike lane? So there's a lot to discuss here. The speed limit's a good start, but you don't have to start with the Lower Park speed limit because it's already 15 miles an hour. So, again, thank you for your service, and thanks for bringing this issue to light. Thank you. Jesse Horgan, followed by Dave Bradburn. Good evening. I'm Jesse Horgan. I work for Chico State in transportation and parking, and I also live on East 8th Street, so I use the park every day. There's pros and cons with scooters, as with everything. You've got to be really careful when considering scooters that the pros don't go out of the picture. Scooters reduce car dependence, especially for lower-income people.

The cost to own a car is always going up. I'm sure everyone's seen their car insurance bill go up this year. So lower-income people can get back and forth to work and school on a scooter and avoid a large part of those costs. They reduce traffic and reduce pollution. But we do have to worry about conflicts with pedestrians. So speed limits have a limited impact due to difficulties of enforcement. It's wonderful to have a speed limit. The university has the speed limit and asks people to walk their wheels in pedestrian areas. I recently attended a conference of universities to discuss solutions to this problem. The best outcomes came from the built environment. So this is adding things like converted rumble strips so that you don't notice the strips when you're walking or driving slowly.

But if you're on a scooter and you hit the strips at a certain speed, you feel it. You really can tell that you're going over something that you want to slow down. Traffic calming measures. I was here for all of the consideration of what to do in the park, how to configure the park. I think traffic calming doesn't have to be expensive. It can be things painted. It can be rumble strips every 25 feet or 50 feet. So that you don't have time to get up to a high speed before you are forced to slow down. I think that if we can build into the environment, you can avoid larger costs of renting equipment, paying for more enforcement, etc. And then it functions even when the police aren't there. In the evening when I am going home from work, often I don't see very many people.

And so the scooters feel free to really speed up at that time. And so these things that are sort of passive and function all the time produce the best results. Thank you. Thank you. And our last speaker is Dave Bradburn. Hello again. What I've come up with here, I was curious about, I've driven by it quite a bit, the old homeless camp out there on Eaton Road and what's going to be happening with that. It's quite the eyesore. And I believe a lot of stuff is blowing out of there. It's ended up, like I talked about before. Mr. Bradburn, the only thing that can be talked about here under this item is actually electric bikes. What was that now? The only thing that can be talked about under this item is electric bikes.

Only electric bikes? Yeah, and scooters or electric mobiles or any feedback on the item 5.3 that we're on is consideration of. Oh, I thought she told me that I couldn't talk about what I talked about before. Yeah, so you can come back for the next one under business from the floor if there's something that's not on, then we can talk about that then. So the other couple items here, I can't say anything about those. If it's about motorcycles and bicycles and stuff. They're not about electric bikes. Then, yeah, then we'd have to wait until next time. It's just Robert's rules of Orzer and how we have to run our meeting. I'm sorry. I thought I had three minutes to still talk about a couple other items here in the city.

If you want to talk about bikes, you can. Excuse me? If you want to talk about electric modes of transportation, you can do that. I have no desire to talk about those. Okay, I'm sorry. We'll get you on the next one then. So that's it? Yep. All right, thank you. Thanks for coming. That's it. All right. That's our last speaker. Council member Goldstein. All right. Thanks again. Mostly had a couple of little follow-up questions. Thanks to our speakers. So my first one for Chief Aldridge. Let's see. So somebody mentioned, Priya mentioned, the e-motos being a presence in Upper Park. Do we currently have a policy on that type of electric mobility, or is that included in the recommendations? Like on perhaps not allowing the e-motos in the park or anything that can go above a certain miles per hour?

I don't know if that's part of the policy or not. I think the policy might predate e-bikes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And in the staff report, sorry if I'm missing, it might be. I think you had mentioned the higher speed e-bikes or e-motos and what we could do about those. But I'm wondering if you've seen opportunities for, you know, not allowing the Class 3 ones or something to that effect. In Upper Park and the trails, you're saying? Yeah. Either in general or in Upper Park. It would probably be like on unpaved trails, for example. I think the will of council would come and play then. Okay. Just wondering if you had any feedback on that. And as for the recommendation that the speaker, Jesse Horgan, brought up about rumble strips or similar infrastructure, I remember that in the discussion on what to do with the park road, we mentioned the potential for speed bumps or other types of infrastructure that could come about in the final design.

So I'm wondering if Director Adobani, sorry to put you on the spot, if you have any sense of if some kind of infrastructure for traffic calming could be part of that final design. Yeah. And we're in the final design phases. Right now, we currently have speed tables planned to be placed at strategic locations on South Park Drive, especially for the westernmost portion. So that is part of the project currently. Speed tables, you said? Speed tables. Yeah. Okay. So it's like a flatter speed bump. Yeah. Okay. Cool. All right. Well, thank you. I guess my main comment is that I would support having pretty much all of the policies that it sounds like we are in support of, like the 15 miles per hour signage.

And I'd like us to also consider what to do about the class three e-bikes or e-motos, and if we can expand to perhaps, I'm not dying on this hill of not allowing them on unpaved trails, but I think we could discuss that. I'm throwing it out there. I think that the chief has a good understanding of what needs to get done. And so, unless anybody else wants to speak, I make a motion that we let the chief implement his recommendations. And as you go along, there'll be new things that you want to do. But I have every confidence that you know exactly what we need to do. I'd second that. I just had one quick question for the city attorney before we – I'm bored of everything. I just had one. Have you dealt with this?

I know you represent a lot of cities, and you probably have a lot of experience of this. Have you dealt with this in other communities, and are you seeing any places that we missed? And do you recommend us taking care of the park and citywide? It feels like we should do the whole thing all at once instead of piecemealing it. Yeah, it is definitely getting attention around the state. I would say in the number of jurisdictions that we represent, they're all trying to figure it out. But they're all doing it in very, very different ways. So let me think about if you've missed anything. Nothing is coming to mind. Obviously, speed is probably the most important. But whether it's citywide, I think most jurisdictions are doing it more strategic in the areas where they're a problem.

But, yeah, I'll certainly connect with the police chief and give him my thoughts and the council's thoughts. But I think where we are so far seems to be about consistent with other jurisdictions in the state. Assistant City Manager, Eric. Thank you, Mayor Reynolds. I just want to clarify that previous question from Council Member Goldstein, too, that Upper Park – no – Chapter 12 of the Muni Code doesn't allow any motorized apparatus on the trails in Upper Park. I just want to make sure that's clear for the public. So whether it's, you know, motorized – electrical motorized or gas-powered. Granted, it is hard to distinguish if a Class 1 through 3, whether it's pedal assist or not, is motorized.

So that's difficult. And this policy would address that. But definitely the e-motos are not allowed in Upper Park on the trails. Just want to make sure that's clear for the public. So it sounds like we're going to need to do a good amount of outreach. I was actually down in Newport recently, and everybody is on an e-bike down there. And I was absolutely shocked how many of them did not wear helmets. I always wear mine. It scares me to death. So I think addressing an education on that, because you go down going 25, 20 miles an hour, 15 miles an hour even, you're going to get hurt for sure. So super supportive of this. Glad we're taking care of it. But I think we start with the park, but I think we definitely need to address it through town, too, because there's some people out there scooting and going fast.

And I saw a couple kids on their little e-motos that Mr. Lefkowitz was having a conversation with, leaving Chico Jr. the other day, like literally right on the sidewalk in the middle of the day. So I know it's an issue that we're going to need to address and make sure we have clear guidance so parents know when they're buying their kids these beautiful little pieces of machinery that can get them hurt and in trouble. And I agree with all that, Mayor. I think we have to start somewhere. And I think starting the park is the most logical place. We need to expand that. Certainly we can do that a later day, but we need to start somewhere. And I think the park is the correct place to do that. Council Member Goldstein, did you have something before we vote?

I wanted to bring up again what you already just brought up, that we do need to look at this on a citywide level. And I would be interested in, because that was part of the original motion per my friendly amendment, potentially bringing back another discussion on e-bike policy citywide. And I meant to ask if that's something we would need to make a motion on to bring that back next time, or if that should be a new Council Member request. I'll leave that out to Ryan. It was already in the original request, so we can just bring that back later as another item, correct? Or do you want to? Yes. And I'm comfortable with waiting a while on that until we fully solve this issue in the park first as kind of our trial period.

I'm not feeling antsy about it, but I don't want us to forget about it either. I think it is important that we discuss e-bike safety and policy, especially as we're building more bikeways throughout our city. I'll make sure the city clerk keeps it on our calendar and agenda for a future. Awesome. Get it back on there. All right. We have a motion. Oh, did you? Okay. Just one. Council Member Winslow. Just on that, as a guy who routinely rides a bike over 15 miles an hour on bike paths, I know that because I pass those signs when they tell me. And this is just a regular bike. I think that this makes sense to apply to bike paths, too. Currently, they'll say something like no motorized vehicles, and it's like that category is no longer valid because of how many electric motors we have out there.

And so I think it makes sense for us to update it. And because we're talking about it now, I think we should, even if it's punting off to the future. Otherwise, I think we're going to hear some issue. There's going to be some kind of accident on a bike path or something, and we're going to say, why don't we have e-bike regulations on the bike paths? You know? It makes sense. It's the same as the park, basically. Actually, the bike paths are narrower, so I think there's more risk as two-way bike paths are going to have more issues than maybe in the park. Are you only talking about separated bike paths, not bike paths along roadways themselves? Yeah, I'm not really talking about bike lanes. In fact, I think bike lanes, if you're going closer to the speed of traffic, you're probably safer.

But on the bike paths that are separated, yeah, they're class. They always class one or class four, depending on who you ask. I am concerned about bike lanes, too, just to be clear. But you're right, bike paths, too. A future discussion is warranted, you know, I think. Yeah, we'll get it back on there. Great. 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. Mayor Reynolds? Aye. Carries 7-0. All right. Reports and communications. The following reports and communication item are added for the Council's information. No action can be taken on items under this section unless the Council agrees to include it on a subsequent agenda.

City Manager's report? Nothing further. All right. Monthly financial report is there for information only. Council Member requests pursuant to AP&P 1010. Council Members may verbally request an item to be agendized at a future meeting. After stating what the item would be, the majority of Council would need to vote in order for staff to agendize. Do we have any Council Member requests? Council Member van Overbeek? In the last few years, actually, many citizens have expressed concerns about the Chico Police Department's policies and procedures. And I think if citizens really understood what a well-managed professional police department we have, those concerns would be diminished. And so my request that we agendize is to ask Chief Aldridge or his designee to give us a setup.

And I've come up with four, but if you want to make it three or six, you do that. 10 or 15-minute presentations at consecutive Council meetings that deal with hiring criteria and procedures, training processes, disciplinary process, and an org chart so we know who does what. So this would be informational for the public and, frankly, for us. I've discussed it with the Chief, and he was – I'll let you speak to it, Chief. Yes, thank you. We did discuss this, and I have no problem with that. I think it's fairly straightforward, but it is very educational. Specifically, you know, everything that goes into the hiring process that's not – that is mandated by the state. Things that we just can't say we don't do that.

We have – we're mandated to do very certain things by post, and the training requirements come from post and how we do that. Our field training program. The disciplinary piece definitely is something that, you know, is very unique. I'm going to – I'm sorry. Everything that you're telling me is amazing and wonderful, but we need to save it for the conversation, right? We're just asking to agendize it for another meeting, right? That is correct. So I'm going to second the motion. I think it will be a very informative conversation. I'll leave it at that, and I'll make my second. And was that motion to have the police chief present a 10- or 15-minute presentation at four or more consecutive meetings on hiring practices and training items?

Two? Two consecutive meetings? I think – What would you – I'm sorry, Debbie, would you say – How many meetings, Tom? How many presentations did you want? I'm going to let the chief make that decision. So I said I had thought of four, but if he wants to do six or three, you make the call. Let's start with voting on one. But minimally, I'd like to cover those four topics. I think I can do that in one, depending on the time you give me. That's fine, too. Okay, so we'll just have the discussion as to whether or not you want those presentations. We'll have the discussion, and we can decide that at the time. Okay. Council Member Goldstein. I love information, yes. Council Member Hawley. Sure. All right.

Council Member O'Brien. Yes. Council Member van Overbeek. Yes. Council Member Winslow. Yes. Vice Mayor Bennett. Yes. Mayor Reynolds. Aye. Carry 7-0. And I'm sorry, Chief, to cut you off. I'm just – we have rules that we're not supposed to talk about what we're talking about before we talk about it, so just trying to – I'm sorry. I was trying to get loquacious. Yes. No, it's all good. All right. Anybody else? No, I don't see anything on the thing. Okay, we are adjourned to Tuesday, February 17th here at either 5 or 5.30 for closed session and 6 for regular session. Have a good two weeks. Have a good two weeks. Thank you. Thank you.