Chico council votes to tighten camping rules

Good evening. All right, I'm going to call to order our October 20th City Council meeting. Maybe. We can start with our invocation by Chaplain Eileen Brownell, Eileen Brownell. Sorry. Thank you. I bring you a Buddhist blessing this evening. Please join me. May we begin this gathering with mindful hearts and peaceful minds. May we remember that each person in our community has inherent worth and dignity and that our decisions have the power to ease suffering and hope and give hope and create the conditions for people to flourish. May we practice the Buddhist virtues of compassion, loving kindness, wisdom and equanimity as we carry out our responsibilities. May we listen deeply to those whose voices are often unheard. May our deliberation be guided not by personal ambition, but by a genuine desire to serve the greater good. May we consider the needs of the vulnerable, protect the well-being of our community and act with integrity and fairness. As the Buddha taught, peace begins within each of us. May we begin that peace within this room, allowing it to guide our words, our choices and our actions. For all of this, we give thanks and may this meeting serve the well-being of all. Thank you and good night.

Thank you. May we all rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. Salute and Pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. That wasn't a round. Madam Clerk, can you call our roll for us? Yes. Council Member Goldstein? Present. Council Member Hawley? Here. Council Member O'Brien? Here. Council Member van Overbeek? Here. Council Member Winslow? Here. Vice Mayor Bennett? Here. Mayor Reynolds? Here. All right, speaker card and remote participation announcement. If you are in person, you should first complete a speaker card found at the back of the chamber. Once completed, turn the cards into the City Clerk and the speakers are taken in the order you've received. In addition, citizen participation is now available via Zoom. Please note that those of you who wish to speak on Zoom, you'll be asked to raise your hand when it is time for public comment on each specific item. Once the first speaker begins, no additional cards or Zoom speakers will be accepted. Persons demonstrating rude, boisterous behavior, speaking on matters outside the jurisdiction of the City Council, or engaging in otherwise disruptive behavior will be called to order. If such conduct continues, we may call a recess requesting the removal of such person or persons. Mr. Jones, City Attorney, can we have our closed session announcement, please?

Yes, Mr. Mayor, I'm happy to provide that. So there were three matters discussed in closed session this evening. So under anticipated litigation, it says two cases, but only one was discussed and direction was given to staff on that matter. The conference of labor negotiator, that did not get discussed in closed session, but the two existing litigation matters did, Kraft v. Chico and Waddell versus City of Chico. Both of those cases, direction was given to legal counsel and that's the report from closed session. All right. Thank you very much. Consent agenda. All matters listed under the consent agenda are considered routine in nature and can therefore be enacted with one motion. Are there any no votes or disqualifications? No. Do we have any speakers for closed session? Or for consent, I'm sorry? No. No. All right. Consider a motion. Move to approve. 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. Public comment. 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. For those of you who are participating via Zoom, please raise your hand if you would like to speak now. Please note that council cannot take any action at this meeting on these requests made under this section of the agenda. How many speakers do we have? We have 10. All right. All right. I'm going to call the first three speakers and if you would please line up in the middle aisle.

Vic S., Abe Bailey, and then Greg Scott. So Vic S. is first. Abe Bailey. Excuse me. Beautiful day, everybody. Love this weather. Hello. My name is Vic. I contacted City of Chico over several weeks ago, at least, and there are 24 potholes on Sheridan Avenue between First Avenue and Palmetto and nothing has been done. I noticed last week there was a surveillance camera between Balambrosa and Palmetto located on Arbutus but is no longer there. Note, there is not much traffic on this street. We need to have red light cameras on Palmetto and Sheridan Avenue. Residents would like to see more police patrolling our streets and avenues there. Note, the police department should not mention motorist names and their license plate numbers. There needs to be more professionalism. However, these cars that do not stop at stop signs and speed down these streets need to be held accountable.

The red light cameras could generate a lot of money if paid in full by these reckless drivers. I have talked with many residents on Sheridan Avenue, Palmetto and side streets while walking my dog at different times daily. These residents are frustrated how motorists are rolling through stop signs on their phones texting and speeding. Safety should be a number one consideration in our community and on our streets. I support Addison Winslow and Shelby Abert who are proactive for street safety. I thank you for your time and have a great wonderful rest of the week. Enjoy the weather. Thank you. Let me get back to my. So Abe Bailey followed by Greg Scott and then Nicole Hill. Sorry for the slight delay here. Can everybody hear me? It's usually not a problem. I'm addressing you way out of your jurisdiction now. I'm asking you to be leading citizens of the city of Chico. The cow parks made a huge mistake and allowed an arsonist to burn down the Bidwell Mansion. Then after that mistake, they soft pedaled and slow pedaled the entire process, calling it reimagine. For those of you who are a little older, that doesn't really fit your English language very well. You imagine something, you don't reimagine it. Basically, some people have taken it to be, let's replace it. I was on the Faculty Senate for eight years as an executive officer of that university over there, and they want to totally take it away and put acknowledgement of the machupta. We can do both. We have to be speaking up as a city. You are leading citizens of the city. On Sunday, this coming week, there is a reimagine open house. You have to get tickets for it in a very labyrinthine website called reimagine Bidwell Mansion. Get them and be there, please. I'm going to be there. I hope to have a chance to talk. Chico's leading citizens over 150 years were the Bidwells.

We have the university, the town, the park, and much of our agricultural industry to thank the Bidwells. Were they perfect? Of course not. None of us are perfect. All the perfect people in the room, please stand up. They weren't perfect. They did quite a bit to defend Indians, but they didn't do it completely enough for the Faculty Senate. So the Bidwell Mansion was our iconic structure. It was our talisman. It was home. I've been in this town for 56 years. I've been to it many times. I've viewed it many times. I think that it's important that we call together the volunteers from the city of Chico, which include from people I trust, four contractors, two nonprofits, and any department at the university. Now, those are not people who will come forward like I have tonight, but believe me, I trust them, and I think they'll be there. And a few of you on the council know that when I say I trust them and they'll be there, they will. So you could take a lead by standing up for the city of Chico with the Cal State Parks Department. Thank you. Thank you. Try to hold our applause. We want everybody to feel so following following Greg Scott is Nicole Hill and then Bo Powell. Well, I thought I was supposed to be on the 5.2, but anyway, at any rate, I've been here before. We've said this for almost a year, year and a half about ordinances and enforcing ordinances. I'm going to step out on a limb here. I'm going to agree with one of the council members, Mr. Winslow, in saying let's enforce the ordinances we have in place today. This nonsense of we can't do it because of war and we can't do it because of staffing has got to end. We have to start, and I don't care if you live in a box or you live in a mansion, it doesn't matter. We have to start addressing ordinances. Littering, dogs off leash, open flames, you can go down the list. They're just numerous. But I encourage you to direct the city staff to enforce the current ordinances.

Don't waste time on making new ones. We're going to talk about the and you're going to discuss it, I'm sure, the new loitering ordinance. I don't know how that would ever get enforced. It's very, very difficult to enforce. It reminds me of the sit and lie. It just goes back and back and back and back. But we have them today. We have the ordinances today that we can enforce. And dang it, we need to enforce them. Thank you. Okay. Nicole Hill followed by Bo Powell and Curtis Anderson. Hello, and finally, happy fall, council members, staff, and Chico. I'm Nicole, the communications manager for Lupine Legacy, and I'm here to share a few updates with you about our current projects. We know the public comment section of these meetings is often a mixed bag of questions, concerns, feedback, and updates. So we're hoping to periodically share what we're up to with you all as a moment of levity, transparency, and maybe a little bit of fun.

As you may know, or may or may not know, we have a lot of development projects and cool partnerships happening throughout the city of Chico, spanning across our three focus areas, including arts and recreation, economic revitalization, and housing and basic needs. For this first update, we wanted to share a rundown of where the majority of our projects and partnerships are currently at. Number one, we've officially started exploratory demo on our Collier building restoration project. So far, we've found some really cool things like vintage wallpaper, hidden windows that had long been covered, and the building's 1871 original keystone. We're excited to bring this beloved cornerstone of downtown into a new era with multi-use performance space upstairs and retail downstairs.

Number two, much like the trails and jumps at the park, the Chico Bike Park development has been a long up and down journey. We're excited to see our friends at CARD and Chico Velo bring to life. We'll leave the more official updates and announcements to them, but we are very excited to see it come together and even more excited for Ramble Rest Brewing and Lovebird Coffee to be joining the project as well, because we all love a fun little drink after a good ride. Number three, our Humboldt and Willow development is coming along, and we're really looking forward to seeing it all come together. That spot will include some local favorites like Camina Bakery, a community space for Chico Velo, alongside a new cafe, restaurant, and roasting facility. We're really excited to work alongside the incredible local businesses and the folks that make up that neighborhood and make it special to collaborate and offer more to a historically underserved area of Chico. As of now, we're hoping to see all of that open in summer of 2027.

Number four, we were proud to support and attend the new Live on the Lawn concert series in Children's Park in the spring and are really excited to see that series continue in the future, thanks to the time, passion, and talent of Ryan Sanders at Sound Source AV. It was really special to see that part of downtown activated, and we're looking forward to more in the future. Lastly, after a lot of planning, permitting, and review, we've selected Slater and Son for our development projects at the former 7-Eleven and Mr. Copy buildings downtown. We're excited to see the Slowdoco Donut Shop and the Second Cousin Art Gallery teams bring those beautiful spaces to life downtown. Work begins in November with an estimated buildout of four to five months. And while I could certainly spend a lot more time sharing updates with you, my time is just about up. Thank you all for your time and care for Chico.

We look forward to continuing to work with the city and the folks that work here to help keep Chico as special as we all know it's been. Thanks. Thank you. Bo Powell followed by Curtis Anderson and then Dede. So, Bo Powell. Hello again. When I went to the retired public employee meetings, I've met Abe there, and he's known for years. I've talked to him for years about the illegal spraying and told him that's why I'm here tonight. And he said, I wish I knew somebody really powerful that could help you. I said, or somebody who cared. And he chuckled, yeah. He called on you to be good citizens. You know, care about this crap. I watched the news this morning. You got a lady running for Butte College Board of Supervisors or whatever. They legalized spraying to everybody that works there, all the students. I mean, if they didn't get a poor education, all the cops and firemen would know that it was illegal to spray that close to the road. But instead, the colleges have made them chumps. Then you have the same news program, Action News, Gallagher on there. Oh, we're going to ask the FBI to investigate these Chinese weed growers. Six months ago, I watched on MSN News Nation, and they had a report that the Chinese gangs or whatever, criminal elements were growing marijuana in like the Golden Triangle or whatever, two counties. I can't remember the names of them.

They start with S. The sheriffs were on there, two sheriffs, two different counties. But their employees were harmed by the chemicals that these people are having shipped from China. They could no longer go in there and cut the plants with loppers or whatever. Now, unless they're derelict of duty, every sheriff, every respected sheriff in the state knows. Sheriff Honey was the head of the California Sheriffs Association. So he obviously knows. And if he respects the Narcotics Task Force leader, that means you must know. All these people must know if you respect them. All I'm asking you to do is your job. You have Action News and the newspaper who won't report on it. My mom's got the newspaper for 55 years, and she's out there being sprayed, and they won't report it.

Thank you. Okay, Curtis Anderson, followed by Dede, and then Kevin Walters. Hello, I'm Curtis Anderson. I live on River Bend Lane just off of Lindo Channel, and I happen to right by the Hawley Bridge there, and I happened to drive by today, and there was an encampment there in an area that has been enforced so many times in the last five years and is supposedly illegal due to fire issues that nobody should be there. And so I'm here today to talk about asking you to go kind of slow and methodical because I'm hearing that the settlement agreement with it is expiring, and now we can— generally like stick it to people, arrest people, you know, get them out of there really fast. And I guess I would just urge the council to be slow and methodical.

I would much rather like there's this discussion of 24 hours versus 48 hour notices. And it's like the big hindrance right now in my mind is the lack of being able to concurrently enforce. And that's just a huge thing. So they enforce Lindo Channel and then they start someplace else and they can't go back to Lindo Channel until the 17 days plus all the waiting periods and everything. The difference between 24 hours and 48 hours and protecting people's property is minuscule compared to just effectively being able to enforce whatever laws we have. And I guess I'm just asking the council to be like you can start slow and follow like Governor Newsom's framework that's already been like legally established and enforce following rules that have already been in place with other cities like Fresno has one of the largest.

Mr. Anderson, I hate to interrupt you, but this is on item 5.1, which we're actually talking about later. So if you want to talk specifically on the 24 versus 48, I think we should do it there. But this is general. Yeah. Can I talk about that whether I should do, I signed up for that initially, but then I thought this is more general. So yeah, general camping is great. Keep going. Okay. So Fresno has one of the largest reductions in homeless population in the 2026. So I'd maybe suggest starting there. Let me look at my notes. Following Governor Newsom's ordinance requires the 48 hour notice. So I guess I would just suggest following that. And to me, like I've been facing this for a long time, living off a Lindo channel is like in six months, if we have like a significant reduction, but not elimination, I'd be happy.

Like slow methodical and if changes need to be made to speed it up, do it as a subsequent change of ordinances or something. So thank you for your time. Thank you. Dede followed by Kevin Walters and then Tanya Beebe.

Good evening. Do you ever wonder what really happened in January, 2020? I do. And I would appreciate the truth. The world has a special opportunity. That's you, me, everybody is going to be given a front row seat via live stream to a historic civil lawsuit. It's called the narrative on trial, a landmark civil lawsuit in the Netherlands. It's the Netherlands case.com. No spaces, no apostrophe. The Netherlands case.com. It was started in 23 and it will resume in two more days, Thursday, October 22nd. The official live stream links for the hearing will be published when they become available on the website, the Netherlands case.com. The hearing is scheduled to take place at 1230. That's central Eastern summertime on the Netherlands case.com.

The press conference will also be live streamed across several platforms. Everything is transparent for the public. You can view the case overview. You can view the case file. You can learn about the experts and their testimony. I believe they're all Americans. You can look at the video plea and you can learn about the lawyer bringing the case against 17 different defendants. This is not a case about winning or losing. This is a case about exposing the truth. Public exposure is central to everything that they're doing. You can listen to the evidence and the arguments. All of this will be placed on the judicial record in these proceedings, all under oath. And they believe what happens inside that courtroom must not remain there.

This is for the public's knowledge. The press conference will provide an opportunity to bring the events and the hearing into public view. And you'll hear from all of those that are involved. You'll hear their evidence and the issues they raise. This will be an international audience because the COVID pandemic was global right down to Chico, California. I'd like to share this website with you as elected officials and every other Chicoan. Theneverlandscase.com. Please share with your family and friends. We need to have the truth so we can act responsibly as a community. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Kevin Walters followed by Tanya Beebe and then Rob Berry. There's two things I love, the constitution and the Bible.

The only part that was taken out of the King James Bible was that all governments are evil. That's an understatement. The Pentagon was investigating 6 trillion stolen and a scud missile, a ground scud missile hit it where it was investigating that stolen money, $6 trillion. $6 trillion would have given every American over 17 and a half million dollars each. The $700 billion bank bailout that Obama did would have given every American over $2 million each. The 500 billion that Trump is using for AI to be more advanced than China and China's advancements are that if you jaywalk, your money will come directly out of your bank account. If you say something online that they don't like, you're digitally blacklisted and you're on the street and your family's on the street and you're not able to buy a bus ticket.

That's the advancements that you guys are shooting for. So, you know, the 500 billion, that could have made every American a million dollars each. You wouldn't have all this homeless problem or anything else like that if everybody had a million dollars in their pocket. So, it's unconstitutional to give any money to Israel because of the Glenn Sepington Amendment. They're not to get a bullet or a dollar because they have nukes. Not only do they have nukes, they're pointed at LA, DC, New York, Moscow, 296 other locations if anybody tries to stop their genocide and their Holocaust that they're doing that makes Hitler look like a school girl. COVID is a weapon of mass destruction created by the 5G towers.

The medication, the vaccine is a weapon of mass destruction. It's been outlawed in seven states. The chemtrails have been outlawed in the state of Florida. It's a $100,000 fine for people spraying chemtrails. The fluoride in the water has been outlawed in a state. This is all biological warfare created worldwide, worldwide coup to murder you. That's what it's doing. That's what it's gonna continue doing. That's what AI is gonna do. Right now, AI, the basic AI will tell you it's gonna phenomenally reduce the population. When it gets AGI or ASI, it definitely is going to do that. That's time, thank you. Tonya Beebe followed by Rob Berry. Hi, my name is Tonya Beebe. I'm the CFO of Beebe Industries.

I'm here to raise concerns about Chico's green waste hauling RFP. On October 14th, the city verbally informed us that it had selected waste management based on a $0 bid. Three companies submitted proposals. Gary Beebe Industries, $331,500. Recology, $634,800. Waste management, $0. First, why would waste management and existing city contractor offer to provide this service for free when competing companies bid hundreds of thousands of dollars? Given waste management's existing relationship with the city and possible renewal of its solid waste contract, I believe the $0 bid raises serious ethical concerns. Could waste management be offering these substantial services at no charge to gain favor with the city before future contract negotiations?

This is a question, not a proven motive. Still, because other companies bid hundreds of thousands of dollars, the city should examine whether this arrangement creates an unfair advantage or an appearance of favoritism. Second, existing contract oversight. The council has referred matters involving the existing solid waste contract with waste management to its internal affairs committee. Shouldn't the council consider relevant findings and staff concerns before proceeding with another hauling agreement? Questions about potential favoritism and unfair competitive advantages deserve consideration when public contracts are involved. Third, city council authority and oversight. The municipal code delegates certain purchasing authority to the city manager or designated officials.

Could a $0 agreement be approved administratively without city council review? Shouldn't the scope and the value of these services, not just the bid amount, be determined an appropriate level of public oversight? Fourth, preparations at the airport. On October 16th, BB Industries received a direct telephone from a contractor operating a grinder at the permitted green waste processing site at the Chico Municipal Airport. The subcontractor reported that waste management had contacted them requesting that they remove their equipment so waste management could begin preparing the site. If no official award has been publicly posted, the contract executed, why are preparations already underway? In closing, I respectfully request that the city provide a written response to our formal bid protest submitted October 15th, fully disclose how bids were evaluated and whether waste management was authorized to proceed with preparations at the airport.

And that the council consider placing this matter on a future public agenda. This is not about demanding an award for a particular company. That's time, thank you. Thank you. Excuse me, our last speaker is Rob Berry. Well, tonight I'm not here speaking for myself. I'm speaking for certain numbers of the Downtown Business Association who are unhappy and are also clients. Yesterday, I provided you with a petition signed by dozens of downtown business owners and operators opposing the closure of downtown streets for Treat Street on September 30th. These businesses support Treat Street. They welcome children and families downtown. What they oppose is restricting customers access to parking on an important retail and restaurant day for such an extended period.

They propose a simple alternative, but this controversy illustrates a much larger problem. I have been working with downtown business owners increasingly concerned about DCBA governance, membership representation, election procedures, compliance with bylaws, and the apparent refusal of leadership to meet with concerned members and their council. These are not simply complaints from a couple of disgruntled businesses. The fundamental question is whether the organization established to serve downtown businesses remains accountable to those businesses. And because DCBA operates under agreements with the city, this is not entirely a private corporate matter. I'm asking the city to intervene constructively, convene a meeting between DCBA leadership and members representatives to review the compliance with the purpose of the city's agreements and to ensure that affected businesses have a meaningful voice in decisions about downtown streets.

We are not asking the city to take sides. We are asking it to help restore accountability and communication. The alternative may be litigation, which nobody wants and which would serve neither downtown nor the business nor the city. Please help us resolve this before it reaches that point. Thank you very much. So Mayor Reynolds, I did miss Leanne's card. So Leanne Powell for this item. Good evening, city council. I'm standing here tonight because the heart of Chico is breaking and the organization that is supposed to support and protect us has turned its back on us. For months, business owners have voiced severe frustration. We are watching legendary longstanding staples from Sweet Chico Confections to Tom Fullery, Momona and several other businesses that shut their doors permanently.

We are in a business crisis, yet the Downtown Business Association is completely tuned out. Instead of listening to the brick and mortar storefronts that pay dues and anchor the economy down here, the DCBA has become a self-promoting event coordinator. They shut down our busiest streets on crucial days for their events and markets that don't drive foot traffic through our doors. They bring in outside vendors and food trucks that directly compete with the retail and restaurants trying to pay the downtown rents. They are promoting the DC bank account, not their actual downtown businesses. Worse, there's an absolute lack of transparency and fair representation. Board positions are not filled and left with open vacancies.

Monthly meetings are not open to businesses and our feedback is completely ignored. And owners in zone B are paying into the system and getting zero benefit. We don't need more photo ops or self-serving festivals that block our entranceways. We need a leadership team that answers to its members, protect local merchants, and actively fight to keep our stores alive. It's time for the DCBA to stop talking at us and start listening to us and remember who they actually work for. Thank you. She's- Is that our last one? Okay, thank you. All right, item, thank you all for coming and speaking. Item 4.1, public hearing. Brendan Ottoboni, Director of Public Works Engineering. Yes, good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and city council members.

Item 4.1 is the final protest hearing for a modification to the Chico Maintenance District for the Autumn Leaf Estate subdivision. So we send out Proposition 218 protest ballots to all the property owners within the subdivision. So a little bit of process. Once we close the public hearing, the clerk's office will need to count the final votes, and then that'll establish the conclusion of the Proposition 218 voting period. That concludes my report, but I'm available for any questions. All right, any questions before we go to the public hearing? All right, we will open the public hearing. How many speakers do we have? Or? We do not have any. So if we could take a quick break. Mr. Giampoli here?

No, okay. All right, so no speakers at all. All right, then we will close the public hearing. We'll take a quick two minute-ish break and let you tally what you received in the mail, and we will be right back. But hopefully we won't all go anywhere. Just a couple minutes. We will be right back. Okay.

Oh, we got one and we lost one.

Oh, we got one and we lost one. Oh, we got one and we lost one. Oh, we got one and we lost one. All right. I'm going to get started because I think they're coming this way. So the city clerk, did you tally the votes? Yes. Deputy director. Morgan actually did that. Okay. So I'm going to start with the adoption. Um, Brendan mentioned the threshold needed to be over 50% and with the talent 24 yes votes, um, ultimately resulting in 70%, which is far above the. Of the, um, 50% requisite. Amount needed. Okay. So we have a majority vote. Um, yes, on the adopt. So, and do you need a motion by council then to, to adopt the resolution. I'll make a motion to approve. Second. Okay. It's a motion and a second to adopt the resolution.

Declaring the results. Um, council member Goldstein. Yes. Council member. Hawley. Yes. Council member O'Brien. Yes. Council member van van Overbeek. Yes. Council member Winslow. Yes. Vice mayor Bennett. Yes. Mayor Reynolds. Yes. All right. Carries seven zero. All right. Item 5.1. Um, if there are any speakers on zoom that would like to speak on 5.1 now would be the time to raise your hand. Um, and how, let's see, are we going to start with them? Report from Mr. Jones. Yes, I am. Okay. So the, the ordinance that was consolidated into one ordinance and the direction from. Council was to separate those into three separate ones. Um, and also to look at one particular issue on one of them. So it's. It's the camping ordinance on 9.20.

And then a park rules on 12.18 and a separate ordinance. Under 12 are in particular, a 9.20, the camping ordinance, there was a. Some discussion about the 24 hour notice. Um, and we've had a lot of discussion with the service Northern California about how that might impact funding for the, for the city. And that is an important factor. And that's something that we've. Talked about as staff, the, the, um, encampment resolution funding is something that we apply for. We currently do have a 4.1 million dollar. Uh, applicant grants application. That is in. And, um, So, um, I don't know if there's anything else that you would like to add to that. No, I think that's fine. Regardless, I think what staff's recommendation here would be is if you want to move forward with this ordinance, which does say 24 hour noticing before you're clearing a camp.

Is that the enforcement at least for the time being actually be 48 hours. And discussing it with the city manager who we will be rolling out or unhoused strategic plan in about a month on November 17th. And, um, I think that that would be the appropriate hour noticing period. And regardless, it wouldn't go into effect until after January 14th. So. It's against is all the council's policy direction. How you want to go on that? But I wanted to. Uh, I think our direction would be as if you agree to the. This. Paul, this, um, ordinance has drafted that we not enforce the 24 hours while we're clearing a camp. And I think that's something to wait and see how that. It's rolled out in November. The other two ordinances.

I think we've already discussed this council. I'm happy to answer any other questions you may have, but this was. Um, you know, pretty fully discussed at the last council meeting. So that's my report on these ordinances and happy to answer any. All the questions you may have. All right. Do we have any follow-up questions before we go speaker council member Winslow? Yeah, I, um, you know, I was comparing this. Um, we were talking about this, like the best practices that are kind of guidelines for, for a qualifying for the grants. And there's also this model ordinance from governor Gavin Newsom came out a year or two ago. And, uh, in that. They say it's it follows that guidance where there's, it should be a 48 hour notice.

There should be social services up front. People should be notified that this is happening so that people can try to help people into some services. But it also says, except in exigent circumstances, Um, that there should be a 48 hour notice that's not a requirement. Um, that's not a requirement for the health or infrastructure. And I'm wondering if we have any sort of definition for that ourselves, um, where we would, I would actually justify less than that. The required notice in the. In the law. Yeah, I don't think it's defined. I think it's what we would normally think. Right. It could be fire. Could be, um, you know, so natural issues could be a safety. You could have. Uh, a criminal. Who's running down the street.

Um, so, um, I think it's just a matter of, uh, the circumstances that, that I would interpret that to believe. And I think a reasonable person was, but we don't have it further. Further defined there. Okay. Thanks. All right. I don't see anybody else in the queue. How many speakers do we have? Uh, we have eight. All right. Okay. And we don't have any on zoom. So, okay. The eight are here in the room. Okay. All right. We'll go to Greg Scott. And then Benson. So if you could line up in the middle aisle, Greg Scott. Followed by Miami Hammond and then Benson. Well, I'll just say it again. Very quickly. Uh, I agree with Addison Winslow. Let's enforce what we have today. I know. Ryan's working very hard.

I agree with Addison Winslow that after Warren. I'm concerned with what's happening today. Can't wait another month. Another two months. We just can't, we can't wait. We have to enforce what we have on the books today. Thank you. Thank you, Miami Hammond followed by Benson and then Rob Berry. Hi, my name is Miami Hammond and I am homeless. I have noticed and going throughout the state of California, being homeless, trying to move someplace else to get better services to possibly get housed. I've seen a lot and I just have some recommendations that I think. Could help this city. I, my biggest battles to keeping my housing, because I have been housed several times in the past 12 years. Has been that once I get housed, my case managers disappear.

And then when I felt threatened by a manager, apartment manager, whatever I leave, because I don't want to be evicted. And I think it's important that case managers continue with the clients until they're stable and until they feel safe. It's very important to, I think it would be important if the shelters could offer schooling, like maybe culinary schooling or, you know, maintenance or whatever, so that people can get the skills to better their lives when they leave the shelter. Three is at the shelter. I think it's important shelters for animals. Being, I just went through something that wasn't pleasant. I was kicked out of the shelter for having three dogs. One was a service animal, two were not.

And in the past three weeks, I had to make the choice of what to do. Continue to sleep in my car or rid one of my kids, my dog. I let one of my dogs go, but I was let back into the pallet shelter. Am I happy about it? No. But I need to be sheltered. I think it would be important that the shelters get funding to build kennels so that people that do have animals can go look for work, go to work, go to their appointments and not have to worry about getting written up or being kicked out because of their animals. I also think that there's, I think if people learn life skills, that they would have a better chance of moving forward. I think it would be really cool if some of the businesses, downtown, clothing stores or whatever, could all get together and build the homeless up by allowing them to do a fashion show at the plaza where they'd be the models and model for the stores.

That's time. Thank you so much. Okay. Thank you. I'm Benson followed by Rob Berry and then Leanne Powell.

Good evening. Yeah. It's things have to change. There's no doubt about that. It's just a, which way is that change going to go? Where's the money going to go for that change? And it's if we look at a linear situation, are we going to put the money on the front end or the back end or both? But I encourage the front end. Let's get afterschool programs. Let's put more money in the getting people into housing. I have a friend, Mike, and we got him into chat housing. He went successfully, got through anger management and one other class. But anyway, yeah, he, now he's up, he's on his own, but this is an example of how you do it. I mean, Mike, eight years old, his father died of heroin overdose. His mother followed.

I mean, this is Butte County. We live in one of the poorest counties in the state. Another look, another understanding of homelessness is a altered childhood experiences. And this is then one of the two, two of the big indicators, two of the big factors in this situation are poverty level and education level. We rank at the bottom in the last three out of 50 some odd counties. We need to look at the situation that we're in and we have to decide where we're going to put the money. The whack-a-mole cost us a lot of money and get the snow results. We're blind. If we put money on the front end, like the lady was saying, let's get them the job skills. I've been out in the homeless camps. I've talked to them. There's able bodied people out there.

Those represent assets to our community, not liabilities. There we go. Yeah. But they represent assets to possible assets to our community. Just like Mike. I asked Mike, where are you? Where are you from? He goes, I was raised in Butte County jail. And that's like what? $50,000 minimum a year. So let's, you know, I think we need to put our money on the front end. I see this time is almost out. Thank you. Thank you, Benson. Rob Berry, followed by Leanne Powell, and then Nicole Nava. Again, tonight I'm speaking for clients. Yes. Chico's ordinances do need attention. I agree. But ordinances revisions cannot become another reason for failing to enforce laws already on the books. On August 18th, the city attorney confirmed that Warren does not prohibit enforcement of independently applicable laws concerning health and sanitation, public urination, defecation, shopping carts, fire hazards, unsafe structures, noxious odors, and obstruction of public rights away.

That is not a new discovery. Some of us have been making this distinction since Warren was first disclosed. Tragically, it has taken the city nearly five years to acknowledge publicly that these laws remain available. On May 5th, city council unanimously directed the city attorney, city manager, and police department to identify available public nuisance laws. On May 19th, council directed phased enforcement from the center of Chico outward. On August 18th, council directed enforcement of existing laws that do not violate Warren immediately and without further delay. Now it's late October. We are still discussing future ordinances. While the city has identified to us exactly zero uses of the quality of life laws, we have discussed for months.

My clients, Doug Gillen and Greg Scott have documented conditions, submitted reports, retained council, attended meetings, and waited through repeated promises. They have no reason to believe that Chico PD's enforcement posture will suddenly change on January 15th. If inaction continues, citizens with disabilities will be subject to the same conditions. If inaction continues, citizens with the means to act will eventually face two distasteful choices. Surrender Chico's public spaces to lawlessness and withdraw or seek judicial relief, including a class action on behalf of law abiding citizens based on the city's failure to maintain peace and order on its streets and public property. No one wants litigation, but that does not mean it cannot or will not happen.

The council has given direction. The city attorney has identified enforceable laws. What is missing is action. Enough is enough. Thank you very much. Thank you. Leanne Powell followed by Nicole Nava and then Charles with whom you don't want to talk on this. Okay. Nicole Nava. And then Charles with whom followed by Jessica Gianola. Good evening. So I'm glad to see this on the agenda. We all know I've come many times historically to read aloud a section of the Warren settlement agreement that specifically denotes that we can enforce against certain types of behaviors that are occurring, not based on someone's status of being homeless or not. We all want equitable treatment. There has been, in my opinion, just gross degradation and other things occurring that are preventable.

And we need to come on strong with the enforcement across the board. And I also would love to hear an assurance that we will, from top down, that it'll get through all line staff through everyone, that the expectation is that the law is enforced and applied equally. I'm happy to see the 24 hour be tossed around versus having it be over two weeks right now. That's a vast improvement. I am concerned about seeking financial grants and concerning ourselves with that, putting ourselves on the hook. I just think that that's gets us down a path we may not want to go down ever again, unless the grant makes sense, doesn't hold us to unreasonable expectations and that there are output requirements of those we may partner with for services.

For the recreational vehicle portion, I'm excited to see that come down as well. I live on a street where we get a lot of that type of activity of people that it's not just people coming to visit people and you know the normal, I'm pulling up in my RV so I don't use your spare bedroom or that you don't have a spare bedroom. It's literal camping and it's filth and things that go and there's activity of bicycles being parted out and things going in and out of vehicles that have no business going in and out of vehicles. So I really want to support that one. Also the impound period for personal belongings dropping from 90 to 60 days is awesome. I think there were some things we could have looked at to alleviate that situation even before getting into the war and settlement.

And so if we do bump up against some things, I do have some ideas I'm willing to support. willing to talk about with folks if they're interested, but that is an expensive enterprise to store belongings and such. And I hope we're being judicious between what is actually garbage and what is actually personal belongings that should be kept and respected and logged and such. So anyway, definitely in support of amending these, but I would really like to see assurance come from all departments of the city that messaging is going across to all staff to whatever we do land on. Thank you so much for your time this evening. Thank you. Charles Withuhn, followed by Jessica Giannola. Council, staff, thank you.

Let's look at successful programs that are saving cities money, that are accomplishing the goal of all this ordinance reviews. Look at Culver City, Sonoma, San Diego, where they've had double digit drops in homelessness and unsheltered and saved money. Thank you. Thank you. Our last speaker is Jessica Giannola. Hello, it's been a while. I would like to be another voice for the voiceless in our community. I'd like to, but actually I'd hope that we'd have more, I'd hope that we'd had more resolutions by this point since we had so many years behind us, behind when we, the city was sanctioned. Because poverty is going to continue to end in homelessness and we're going to continue to see homeless folks.

So we have to have more workable resolutions other than just creating more ordinances. Homelessness, that's something we've been able to solve as a nation, so we must be able to work as a community to manage what happens here. As much as I'd love to see everyone housed safely in some manner today, it's not the case now or the foreseeable future. We must work on workable resolutions so that we can get better resolutions later, like step by step. What we do now depends on the city and us and paying out millions in senseless recycled people moving potential lawsuits. It's just wasting our money and making people more frustrated and keeping people homeless. Creating stronger enforcements and restrictions on public spaces without any other realistic or workable temporary places of existence only increases those risks and costs, makes life miserable for everyone.

It's a mistake to act as though homelessness, true homelessness, isn't a reality in every community. Ideally, everyone would have somewhere safe to go to live, but we don't. Shelters are not enough. They're short term and not actual living situations. They can keep people stuck without numerous programs and assistance resources. We need real workable solutions, and aside from using funds to assist in rent reduction, helping people with deposits, the only workable realistic option that has been brought forth by community members is advocating for safe camping. Rather than waste more tax dollars in cleanups, more eventual lawsuits, our city should be more responsible in establishing that safe and managed camping location.

Partnering where you can, doing what you can now, gets people out of parks. We use, or some say waste, a lot of money over the years and still the same people are stuck. They're desperate for help. More will follow. Warren was a red flag that to what we can't keep ignoring, homelessness is devastating and ugly, and we can't ordinance our way out of it. Again, I'll just keep repeating that. We can't ordinance our way out of it. Resources are what is needed, and community minds coming together instead of trying to punish people or try to win a vote by saying, I'll clean it up. We need actionable things for people who are unhoused. Keeping our parks safe for numerous reasons, for them, for us, for everyone.

We just need these realistic suggestions to come from the community and work with us. Thank you. That is it for our speakers. All right. Councilmember Hawley. Thank you, Mayor Reynolds. Correct me if I'm wrong about taking the ordinances in order, but I was just going to go straight for the low-hanging fruit, which is to make a motion to pass an ordinance of the City of Chico amending Title 12, Chapter 12.18 of the CMC to regulate certain park rules and regulations. That was the changing and fenced to or posted verbiage. Second. Okay, motion and second. Any further discussion? Yes. We're not going to take these in order? Well, she made a motion that we'd take care of B. We can then go back to A or C, whichever you prefer, but we can get this one done.

Okay. And Debbie, if that's okay. Okay. Oh, Councilmember Goldstein, did you have something before we? Yeah. So I have been, I'm sorry, I guess I just wanted to ask the City Attorney if there's anything that's changed on this specific one that we should highlight here from the last meeting. I looked through the red line versions, but. There have been no changes from last meeting, just other than separating them. Okay, cool. That's what I wanted to clarify. Thank you. That's all. Okay. I've got a motion and a second, and I don't have anybody else in the queue, so. Okay. And that was to introduce an ordinance of the City of Chico amending Title 12, Chapter 12.18 of the City of Chico Municipal Code to regulate certain park rules and regulations.

Councilmember Goldstein? For just this one, yes. Councilmember Hawley? Yes. Councilmember O'Brien? Yes. Councilmember van Overbeek? Yes. Councilmember Winslow? Yes. Vice Mayor Bennett? Yes. Mayor Reynolds? Aye. Carries 7-0. All right. So do we want to go to A and get that one going? Councilmember Winslow? Thank you. Thank you for all the speakers, too, but I want to clarify on this one. So we're back on A. I don't know if people were able to get there were some versions of this you can look at so you can see what we're exactly talking about, because it might be confusing. One way that it seemed like people were confused is that this isn't actually stricter than the current ordinance in terms of anti-camping regulations.

In fact, ours says we would give them 24-hour notice, and that's what's proposed again, and we're considering how that might compromise our access to millions of dollars of funding, but otherwise it's 60-day storage instead of 90 days, which is pretty reasonable. I wouldn't say that's like a strict point or not. The only point that actually makes it any stricter is this notion of an RV staying only three days instead of seven days, and I do want to clarify, because it seems to get by people when talking about this, what is allowed for seven days currently and would be allowed for three days is a guest in an RV of an adjacent residence. If they're not your guest, they're not somebody else's guest, that's illegal camping just like anywhere else.

I think that it's okay for people to stay for seven days in front of somebody's house when they're their guest. I think it would be okay. I'm not really that concerned about it. I am concerned about compromising our access to funding and the fact that we're adopting this ordinance now when, if you read in the staff report, we're planning on discussing a homelessness strategic plan next month, and I don't see much of a value in doing this and to be honest, I would recommend people look at Newsom's model ordinance. It's a lot simpler, does essentially the same thing, gives carves out for immediate enforcement when there's an imminent risk, just like we do here, and it gives just normal noticing times otherwise, and it's a lot simpler, and I would say it's a lot more legally defensible because we wouldn't be the only ones in the state with the unique ordinance, and we've had issues with enforcing our ordinances before, and I think we ought to consider the simplicity aspect of that.

Council Member Goldstein. Thanks. Yeah, first, I want to respond to the notion that, as a city, that making it possible for us to get grants is somehow a bad idea. I think that's bullshit. As a city, it's our job to figure out how we're going to fund services that benefit the people of Chico, so there's no reason to shoot ourselves in the foot. We ask our guests not to swear, so I have to ask the same of you, please. I'll try, Mayor, but no, no reason to not just adjust something from 24 to 48 hours so that we don't shoot ourselves in the foot, but we should also be cautious of other ways that we might be putting our likelihood of getting important funding sources in jeopardy, And that's also why I'm a bit confused why we're pursuing this now, knowing that we have our strategic plan supposedly coming out in about a month, I'm very excited for that, but we should be acting based on a plan that involves community engagement and best practices, so I don't see why we would support anything that could, you know, cause us to take drastic action or be reversed later.

And I also want to make a note on the RV ordinance, I also am concerned, I should be able to let my aunt stay out front of my house in an RV if she's traveling, or if I have a friend who needs to evacuate from a wildfire in their RV, they should be able to stay at my house for a week. I think that's very reasonable. This is approved guests of people and houses, we're not talking parking on a random street, so thank you. Anybody else, nobody else in the queue? Council Member O'Brien. So we were sent that letter from legal services right before the last council meeting and essentially I read the document that was sent to us from the California Interagency Council, this is the recommendations that people have been referencing tonight, and I just want to point out that the California Interagency Council is the same state agency that cannot account for the outcomes of tens of billions of dollars spent on homelessness in California.

That's the state agency we're talking about and we're supposed to take recommendations from them. And this is not from Council Member O'Brien that said this, this is from an independent audit called for by the Joint Legislative Audit Committee released in 2024. So this ordinance, these changes are constitutionally sound. We confirmed that with our city attorney and do nothing to diminish the compassion of our community. We need to be compassionate. I heard from speakers today from Miami, I completely agree with you, I understand where you're coming from. Greg Benson, yeah, you're exactly right. We should be addressing things early on, right? Turn the spigot off where it's coming from. That makes a lot of sense.

And Greg, you said don't wait. Yeah. We should not wait. However, this is an ordinance in preparation for the post-war world we all are going to be living in. That's our community. I really believe this community is ready for a reset and a truly balanced approach that supports both compassion and accountability. We need both and this ordinance provides that balance. Again, this is not the entire plan. This is just a small part of it, not the complete plan. That is yet to come. There's a lot of work left for all of us to do that has both compassion and accountability that we have not done yet. And I think we can do that as a community. But this is one small part of that plan. Council Member van Overbeek.

Well, so let's start with the concept of grants. So what the state does is basically take all our tax revenue, that's six and a half of the percent of the sales tax goes to the state and they give it back to us if we jump through hoops after they take their cut. So I think we need to decide what's the best thing for our community first. And if in doing whatever that best thing is, we can also get grant money. That's great. But we shouldn't do something that is not in the best interest of the community to get grant money. Second thing I want to point out is California is one half of the unhoused homeless in the country, 184,000 people. And that's not a function of poverty. That's a function of policy.

So what we know after 20 years of roughly 20 years of failed California homeless policy is that whenever you have homeless people camped in the plaza, in the park, wherever they camp, they destroy it. And they deprive the peaceful enjoyment of the rest of the population of that. The other 99 and three quarters percent want to live their lives here. The other thing we know, as my friend and high school schoolmate Charles with you and has pointed out a number of times, people die in their tents. Last year it was reported that 19 people died, homeless people died in Chico, estimated 5,400 in California, and they die primarily of drug overdoses. So in Texas, we're talking about best practices, Texas, they have one fifth the number of homeless per capita.

So they have one fifth the number of homeless people who die in their tents. So what do they do in Texas? In Texas, there's a law against camping. There is no camping in public spaces. We have empty shelter spaces, a lot of empty shelter space actually in Chico. So I would urge us, we need to take a strict approach to not allowing camping. I have two issues. I talked to Ryan, I talked to you about this earlier today. I mean, there's two things that have to happen for us not to just be back in the same place we are with the settlement agreement. One is there has to be consequences for violating the ordinance. 9.20.070 covers that, we can make it a misdemeanor. I think that's great, that has to be there.

And secondly, the city has to have the ability to clear camps whether or not shelter is available. And so I think we need to add under 9.20.080, number two and three, the phrase if available. I believe that's addressed in 12R. I'm sorry? That point is addressed in 12R? Well, I still think it ought to be dealt with discreetly in this section. So that's it. Council Member Hawley. Thank you, Mayor Reynolds. I don't know that berating the organization, giving legislative advice is the best route to take. That's the genetic fallacy. We're pointing out the faults and past mistakes of an organization rather than talking about the legislation in front of us directly. So let's talk about 9.20 and 12R.

Yeah, I concur with Council Member Winslow and Goldstein on the 24-hour notice. I also concur with staff recommendation, which seems to be unanimous at this point. And as one speaker at the beginning of the meeting pointed out, that is a significant step comparable to what we are able to enforce now with many days. Compare that to a 48-hour notice, that's already a significant advantage for the city's autonomy in making this code enforcement already. So I don't understand why we wouldn't just be able to apply for state grant funding with that really minor change. And we're also getting like a hard staff recommendation on this, which is always appreciated and shouldn't be taken lightly by the council.

I believe that means we should have some flexibility on the noticing period on this. It seems that we have unanimous consent that the change to a 60-day property retrieval period is completely fine, but also overnight camping that's unauthorized by the resident of a property is already illegal in our CMC. Again, to repeat my previous council members, this is only addressing hosted guests. So allowing, I have no family in the city of Chico, so anytime my family visits, it would be really nice if they could, you know, be in a recreational vehicle outside of my place for seven days. So I think we can have some flexibility in 9.20, especially with that 24-hour notice. I wanted to see if there was any appetite from other councilors for, you know, maybe putting this into internal affairs before our city manager is able to get out that, you know, draft homelessness plan, which is supposed to come out this week.

All right. Councilmember van Overbeek. Yeah, I think there's an effort here to try to delay and delay again. We already got delayed from last week. We need to make a decision on this at this meeting. So I looked at the notes, 12-hour only applies to camping and parks, not to other public spaces like Lindo Channel, for example. Vice Mayor Bennett, sorry, I was making a note. That's okay. So I was partially responsible for delaying this for two weeks. I'm certainly not going to do that again. I think we pass what we have before us. We can maybe tweak something here and there, but there is no way I'm not going to vote in favor of these amendments. It's time to move forward. It's past time to move forward.

So I think it's best, in our best interest, and what's more important, the best interest of our community and our citizens to move forward with these ordinances and take a step, albeit a small one perhaps, to take a step forward and not delay any time at all. Is that a motion? So I'll make a motion to pass 5.8 CMC 920, Title 12, Chapter 12.18 of the City Municipal Code. Second. We already did that one, but I have a question for our City Attorney before we move forward. And we have a motion in a second, I get that. We'll clarify that in just a second. Can you address the guest part? Because I absolutely do not have a problem with a guest staying in front of somebody's house for seven days. Is it clearly identified in the ordinance if somebody is not a guest and let's say they're out, one of the places we get a lot of calls for is out off of Hagen Lane, let's say, out past UPS in that area.

There's some dead-end roads, there's nothing there. They're clearly not at a guest house. Is that able to be addressed? And is that specified the difference of being a guest in somebody's house and, or can somebody just pull up somewhere and say, oh, I'm a guest of somewhere? And can you address that? Yeah, no, 0.40 does say that it's recreational vehicles of guests of the owners or occupants of the adjacent, meaning right in front of it, residential property. So you have to be a guest to be there. Now it's just whether it's three days, seven days, or you could pick another day if you want, but those are just, those are the two options right now before you. So have we addressed at all then the latter of the two examples that I gave?

There'd be no exception to that. So that would be not allowed. So it'd be not allowed period where right now it falls under, it's a house so we can't enforce and all those things? So it would be immediate or the 24 or 48 hour notice or not at all? Right now, if this passed, it'd be 24 hours. Come January. But we, what I think you've heard is we are not looking to enforce anything within 48 hours pursuant to the unhoused strategic plan, which we anticipate coming out maybe as even as soon as tomorrow or this week. Okay, that was one. So that covers the guest. A question was brought up to me and I don't know if you know this question and I was not able to connect with MaryJo Alonzo today. Did we, or does anybody on staff know in our pro-housing designation, what did we say we're doing on homelessness and enforcement?

Because somebody brought it to my attention that that 24 or 48 hours could be the difference for approved housing designation. I don't know if anybody knows that and I know MaryJo Alonzo's not here. So that might not be a fair question. That's all right. We submitted what was required and requested by the state detailing how we currently address homelessness and our current protocols. So whether there's a conflict with other state law, I don't know. But I just know that we shared the details of our existing criteria, if that makes sense. Okay, and my last question, I promise, is one of the things we have angst and talked over for, I think, a year and a half, two years now, is red flag warning and immediate removal when we're under those red flag warnings.

Have we addressed any of that? I didn't see it in there anywhere, but I just wanna make sure, and is there room to have that taken care of to where, say, in Lindo Channel, when we're in red flag warning, that it would be immediate, no camping at all? I guess red flag warnings aren't specifically addressed, but that's part of an exigent circumstance. That would be considered exigent. Okay, and it's covered under that. I mean, there's gonna be some connection. I would say not the whole city would be, but areas that are certainly close to Lindo Channel are areas that have something to do with the fire danger, I think, in particular. Gotcha. Thank you. Okay, so with that, I'm gonna go out on a limb and see if you would take a substitute motion to have the guest stay be seven days, not three days.

I'm trying to see if we can get some of our fellow council members on board here. And as much as I don't like to do it and I don't wanna do it, until we have budget season next year and decide if we wanna commit general fund dollars to spending on the items that we are spending on the pallet shelter right now, we are unfortunately dependent upon grant funds for those, and we don't wanna risk those. So to me, 48 hours is a whole heck of a lot better than 408 hours and all city parcels instead of three parcels at a time. So if we made the changes to seven days and 48 hours, would you accept that as a friendly amendment? And would I maybe have some support from my fellow council members? So what about five days?

Kind of split the difference. This seems a little bit more reasonable on both ends for abuse and certainly for hospitality. I get both. And the other issue is what I heard the city attorney say is that we pass this ordinance, but the actual protocols will remain 48 hours at this point. That's what I heard our city attorney say. Go ahead, Vice Mayor Bennett. There we go. Thank you, Mayor. I will accept that friendly amendment. Okay, so was that a friendly amendment or was that a substitute motion? Because I entered it as a substitute motion. Thank you, Mayor. I will accept that substitute motion. Thank you. Then I would need a second. Will you second my substitute motion? I will second the substitute motion.

Thank you again. Okay, so if you wanna repeat it, City Clerk, so everybody's clear on what they're voting yes or no on, that would be great. Okay, so there was a motion, there was a substitute motion made by Mayor Reynolds, seconded by Vice Mayor Bennett. And I believe it is the ordinance of the City of Chico amending Title IX of the City of Chico Municipal Code to regulate certain acts of camping on public property as amended to allow for seven days for guests in RVs, 48 hours for notification or removal. And then I know that Council Member O'Brien asked for a friendly amendment of five days instead to... Sure, I'll go five days. That's fine, whatever. So, all right. So now it is amended for seven days stay in RVs as a guest and then 48 hours on the noticing.

And that, or excuse me, five days is the stay on ordinance of the City of Chico amending Title IX of the City of Chico Municipal Code to regulate certain acts of camping on public property. Okay, so Council Member Goldstein. Yeah, I'm still in the queue to ask a question. Sorry, Council Member Goldstein, go ahead. Yeah, I had one more clarification. I wanted to know where we're at on language about shelter being available. I know Council Member van Overbeek had brought that up and I was starting to dig through here, but could the City Attorney just let us know? We're only voting on 9.20, correct? Okay, so are we just voting on... A. Just on A. Oh, okay, well that explains why we hadn't discussed it.

Okay, good to know. Can I just, before you vote? Yeah, go ahead. Council Member Wenzel. Yeah, so Mayor Enos, I really appreciate you looking at the problems with this and addressing those. Does address the issues that I had with this. Otherwise it's fine. Like I said, I think that like a simpler model ordinance would have some benefits, but I can get behind this. But the limiting it from seven to five is super arbitrary. And I think we're a city of about 107,000 people. And I think not a single person could tell you one instance when it would have made a difference. If a guest can stay for seven days or five days, except for people who have family coming from, how far away is San Diego? Like nine hours, 10 hours?

Family coming from far away who are made to move two days earlier, just because we were trying to cut some compromise with nobody's real problem. So I super support the willingness to kind of adjust this, I think to meet the problems that they were, but I still would vote no, just because I don't think we should do things like that for no good reason. All right, Council Member Goldstein. I was gonna make one more comment to be honest. I agree with that. And I think that if there's a problem with RVs, it's not people's house guests. And I think that that should be dealt with separately, but I really appreciate you trying to make this amenable to all of this. And I would support it with the 48 hours, but I don't like that we're arbitrarily reducing it otherwise, so no.

Council Member Hawley. Due to the friendly amendment? No. Council Member O'Brien. Yes. Council Member van Overbeek. Yes. Council Member Winslow. No. Vice Mayor Bennett. Yes. Mayor Reynolds. Aye. It carries four, three. All right, C. I've got nobody in the queue. Who wants to go? Council Member Winslow. Hey, thank you. You're not working again. Yeah, these beepers. This one's pretty simple, which is we had at some point put in something that said that if you're gonna enforce, they say that people can't sleep anywhere, we're gonna have to say there's shelter available. This was the case in the Martin v. Boise. And I think the majority of people, when they think about being incensed at the fact that people are sleeping outdoors and they lose sympathy, it's because they're thinking these people are rejecting services.

And that is a case some of the time. But we're creating a situation where that is not the case. And it goes back to when we got sued into the Warren Settlement Agreement. There was no shelter available and people were kicked out anywhere. They were not told there was a place to go. I actually do think this needs to be adjusted because I think that the word shelter is not well enough defined. If our shelters are full, then it should not be a free-for-all for people to camp anywhere. But the city should be responsible for designating the place that people are able to go when there is no other place in the city for them to legally go. And I think that removing this without having that conversation is irresponsible.

We are about to discuss a broader strategy. And I think that we would find if you get a bunch of people in the room and they think critically about this, they say that we should not just make it illegal to sleep anywhere without any more people to go. That creates an impossible situation for people. Creates an inhumane situation. It forces people to be hiding in their camps so they're not reported rather than going to a place where there's bathrooms and a dumpster, where there's something more humane and more responsible for the environment going on. We have the power to do that when we get into that situation. And I think we should think ahead. Changing this ordinance is just not addressing that question.

I mean, at least Council Member Van Overbeek, I appreciate it. You said it. You wanna just enforce anyway, even when there's no shelter available, at least acknowledge that that's a situation that will come, it's gonna happen. I don't know what you think those people are gonna do when we enforce in them, but at least you say that out loud and I can appreciate that, but I'm not gonna support changing this ordinance without a plan for what we do when there's no shelter available. Council Member Van Overbeek. So I have a question for Mr. Gustafson. So when you were running public works and clearing camps, what percentage of the people, once we got into this for a couple of years, what percentage of the people you assessed had been offered shelter and refused to go, approximately?

Yeah, that's it. It's changed. Early on, a lot of people accepted the shelter opportunity that was given to them. Now it's probably half and half, if that. Okay, so significant portion of the people just refuse to go. Correct. Yeah, okay. At this point, yeah. So that's point number one. Point number two is as my loquacious friend, Mr. Winslow knows, Boise versus Martin was overturned by the Supreme Court in June of 24. We have no obligation to find housing for every indigent person in Chico. And if we have, it's part of this revised ordinance that there must be shelter before we remove camps. We're back in the same place we were in the settlement agreement. And again, this is another attempt to delay getting these things approved, which we need to have in place before the warrant settlement expires.

So I wanna make a motion that we approve 5.1B, Chico Municipal Code Amendments, Chapter 12. Sorry, I will second. I do have one comment, Mayor, if I may. Yeah, go ahead. You're next. So the current shelter space from a good source. Currently, there are 20 open beds at Torres. There's 35 pallet shelters at Genesis and the Jesus Center has five beds for women and one bed for males. So there's quite a bit of space right now. That's good. That's a good thing, but I do agree with Council Member Van Overbeek. I think we need to get this passed. We're going to maintain our compassion, but we need to get this passed and stop delaying. Member Hawley. So again, this ordinance addresses not current conditions.

It addresses in the matter of when no shelter beds are available. So that's not applicable in this circumstance. I think it's important that we have some sort of draft plan. For example, the draft on how a strategy that should be coming to us later this week. I love that this ordinance change is all wrapped up and ready to go by our lovely city attorney, but it does make sense to take action on this when we know that aligns with our master plan on this strategy post-war in. Council Member Winslow. Council Member Van Overbeek, I've heard you say on a number of occasions that what we should be telling people outside is go to shelter or go to jail. So if there's no shelter available, do you think we should just put a person in jail?

So I think a couple of things, depending on who you ask and what time of the year it is, some significant portion of the people here, homeless people here come from somewhere else because they move. And the reason they're here is because we have made it a welcoming environment. By making it a less welcoming environment, they will go back, some of them, to where they came from. The second thing I would point out is these rules apply to the city limits. They can always go into the county and try their luck somewhere in the county, which is not very far away. So they can still camp, they just can't camp in the city limits. You know, I just wanna mention, I worked in street outreach. I coordinated a team that in March of 2020, for a few months, we went out into homeless encampments.

When the pandemic started and there became these regulations against enforcing in homeless encampments, there were 50 people camped in Comanche Creek. We had anti-camping ordinances. They were enforced. They would sweep out there periodically. There were 50 people. You didn't see them very well because they were hidden away. And that's exactly the situation you're trying to put us back. And you're not innovating something new. You're going back to exactly the same thing we did when we had 50 people camping Comanche Creek out of sight. But they're not out of mind for everybody. And these are people, and a lot of them are local. At that time, we estimated about a third of people that were outside were direct refugees from the campfire.

I don't think you're satisfying many people with your suggestion that people will just disappear because it's not true and it's not fair. Well, if they move, they can move back to where they came from. But I wanna add something to what Councilman O'Brien said. There were 33 empty, or you said 35 empty shelters at the Genesis Shelter. Each of those has two beds. So that's 70 people. There's another roughly 100 shelters there. The shelters have two beds, and there's only one person in each one of those beds. That's another 100 beds. So we literally have hundreds of empty beds. The second point I would make is that we're not gonna ask these people to move. They are gonna be required to move. If they violate, they get cited the third time, they go to jail.

And jail is not such an awful, I've talked to people who were drug addicts. They got thrown in jail for four or five days. They had a chance to get off because they were deprived of the drugs. So this is not necessarily a bad thing for everybody, but there have to be consequences. What we know is if we continue to allow camping, these people are gonna continue to die in their tents, and they're gonna trash our town, and we have to stop it. And we can, right here, right now. Mayor, I wish to call a question. Okay, Mr. City Attorney, is there anything that stops when passing this? Is there anything that stops an unhoused person from laying out a blanket and a pillow and resting for the night and getting up and moving on in the morning?

Which is what the law says that they can do on any public property. No, this would be an anti-camping. camping ordinance. I mean, I don't know whether you're going to actually enforce that or not is another story. But, yeah, this would prohibit camping in public spaces. Well, you're not camping if you're resting. I guess it depends on your definition of that. Anyways, okay. We have a motion and a second. Sorry. Should we read the definition of camping just so you understand what you're voting on? Because it's in there. It's in the section called definitions. But yes, yes, that would make it illegal. Yeah. I mean, it already is illegal. It's just right now we would have to offer people shelter in order to put them in jail for it. And this would say that there can be no shelter and we'll still put them in jail. Okay. We have a motion and a second. Yes. And I want to clarify on that motion. That was actually C and that's ordinance of the City of Chico amending Title 12-R of the City of Chico Municipal Code to regulate certain acts of camping in parks. A motion and a second.

Council Member Goldstein? No. Council Member Hawley? No. Council Member O'Brien? Yes. Council Member van Overbeek? Yes. Council Member Winslow? No. Vice Mayor Bennett? Yes. Mayor Reynolds? Aye. Carries 4-3. Item 5.2. If you are on Zoom, this is the time to raise your hand if you would like to speak. Please raise your hand at this time. So item 5.2. How many speakers do we have? Okay. Just a second. I'm sorry. We have seven. We have seven in the room and we have one on Zoom. Sorry, Mr. Jones, do you want to kick this one off for us? If you don't mind, I'll give a brief opening first. So in discussion with the Police Department looking for areas that potentially the Council might want to consider for addressing public nuisance ordinances, it was identified there's not a loitering ordinance in the City of Chico other than there is for minors. There is what they call a juvenile curfew ordinance. So if you're under 18 without a parent or guardian between the hours of like 11 p.m. and 5 a.m., you're not supposed to be just out on the streets. But this would apply broadly. It can't, what I do need to make clear is you can't target a group. This is not meant to be against the anybody who is loitering, which is defined as if you're lingering and without a purposeful thing that you're doing. But there are certain specifics within that. It's not just being idle because that's too broad. The law would require you to have a supplemental thing.

So that's under 9.21.020. There's A through H, which are the types of things you would be doing before you're in violation of this ordinance, such as creating a danger or breach of the peace, obstructing free passage of pedestrians, remaining in a business without the consent of the owner, remaining on private property without the consent of the owner, though I would say that's already a trespass. That's under Penal Code 602. That's sort of covered there. But F, remaining on a business without, after having been asked to leave, that would be covered here. And remaining in a public park after hours. And then lastly, blocking or obstructing parking lots, parking spaces, or public structures that impedes direction. So that is what this is. There's a whole variety out there in the state of what types of loitering ordinance. Some are just on minors. This is a more broad and all-encompassing one. And it's really up to the Council's policy direction whether this is what you want or you want something maybe more abbreviated or pared down. But this is for your consideration to discuss at a first reading. And we'll hear from the public and see how you want to go from there.

If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them now. All right. Council Member O'Brien, did you want to talk before we went speakers? Oh wait, thank you. Okay. I'll just have one. Okay. I just want to issue like a minor correction to the way that you described that because it said loitering is not having a purpose there, but it actually says not having a legitimate reason or business. So there is like some kind of interoperability in there. There's issues with these ordinances being void for vagueness, as in it doesn't specify what's actually legal. Because in my reading of this, you could be doing anything and it could be illegal. And I'm going to name the one that you did name out of them because a lot of these obstructing free passage. I mean, we have an ordinance against sitting down on the sidewalk. So it's already a lot of these things are covered by some other ordinance. The one that really gets me is B, it says create or cause to be created any disturbance or annoyance to the comfort and repose of any person, business premises, or the public.

So annoyance to comfort. One thing I noticed is that this ordinance is virtually identical to the Sacramento County ordinance, which where I assume you pulled it from, except that we added on business premises or the public. And I'm wondering if there's anywhere else that you know of that has ever described annoyance to the comfort of a property as a real thing. It seems like we may have just, we're maybe inventing that concept. I don't recall if it's come from anywhere or not. There's obviously pull from best practice in multiple jurisdictions. That particular one, I don't know. And as to B, if there is an uncomfortable, if that one is particularly uncomfortable to the council, we can easily move to delete B as one of those loitering prohibited. If you want something a little more specific than just, yeah, annoyance to the comfort and repose of persons. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I think we should consider maybe dialing it back or dialing it in, specifying what we're, what we mean here. Thank you.

Council Member Goldstein. Thanks. Ryan, can I ask what the, what the background is on why this is being brought forward? I would say consult with the police department and just started to talk about what are areas where we think that police could help with some of the enforcement to help with public nuisance. That was about as deep as it gets there. Okay. Because I, I think some of the speakers have also brought this up that public nuisances or crimes are already things that we can enforce generally. So I'm not really sure why loitering is being brought up separately, but open to opinions on that. Council Member O'Brien. I was going to wait, but I'm actually going to shock some people up here and agree with Council Member Winslow on B. I have the same concerns, quite frankly. I don't know what annoyance to the comfort means. Is that someone who is talking with someone else and says something they don't like politically? I mean, again, I know the police department would never enforce something like that. However, we got to look at worst case scenarios. And I just think that language to me is ambiguous and too open for bad interpretation. I think that needs to be cleaned up and either removed or refined to a greater degree. All right. How many speakers do we have? We have eight. And then I believe we have one on Zoom. Okay. Okay. So I'll call up three. Scott Matthews, Marie Rodriguez, and followed by Rob Berry. So Scott Matthews, Marie Rodriguez, and then Rob Berry.

Thank you, Council, for the opportunity to speak. I will say I probably my thoughts are about 5.1 more than 5.2. I was thinking loitering and camping are similar. Like I'm just like my thought is like if you're awake, you're loitering. And if you're asleep, you're camping. And maybe that's wrong. But that's what it seems like to me. I worry. It feels a lot like a shell game in my mind is removing these people from the streets to the park and then from the park to camps and then from the camps to shelters or to jail. And then we're just sort of constantly moving them around. I know there's homeless people that I expect to see in a certain place every day that disappear for three or four days. And I hear secondhand that they've gone to jail. And then once their term is served, they go back and hang out at the place that they were before doing the same things. And in my mind, the solutions are probably long term solutions that are difficult, that take time. And those are the solutions I would hope that the Council would pursue the solutions of if they don't want to go to a shelter, we're just going to throw them in jail. Those seem expensive and they seem like just talking points to win elections. It's sad that these homeless people are people that are suffering and they're being used as pawns to win elections. And that's what I wanted to say. Thank you, Marie Rodriguez.

Good evening. I have personal experience with the foster care system, trauma, homelessness, and working with people with disabilities. As a far northern client, these issues hit close to home. You can't address homelessness by passing more laws and sweeping folks without understanding the root of the problem. There's something called ACEs, or Adverse Childhood Experiences, which include abuse, neglect, and family instability. These experiences can affect someone's mental health and stability well into adulthood. Consistently moving people around doesn't solve homelessness. It disrupts lives, cuts people off from resources, and creates more trauma. Back in August, I brought up the old Kmart building. Minneapolis has a program called Aviva Village. They converted a warehouse into 100 private shelter spaces with mental health, addiction recovery, and housing services.

I've included a handout explaining the program and how Chico could explore something similar over with the clerk. We also have an alternative campsite at Eden in Cohasset that I believe isn't being properly utilized because strict shelter rules limit access. If the city is already spending millions responding to homelessness, why not explore investing some of those resources into a long-term solution instead? I'm not saying it'll fix everything, but it's a start. We need to address the root of homelessness instead of putting band-aids over it. These are human beings who deserve dignity, compassion, and a fighting chance. Thank you. Thank you, Rob Berry, followed by Scotty Fransuchin, Jasmine Pizdier. Okay, this time I am speaking for myself. It took four years, but I did finally find one sentence that I agree with Addison Winslow on, which is enforce current laws.

With regard to this particular ordinance, I agree with Mr. O'Brien. This law, it reeks of risk, litigation risk. There are three sort of ordinances that have been highly litigious. The panhandling laws, the loitering laws, and I forget the third, but nonetheless, this kind of law, loitering, is usually attacked for vagueness and ambiguity, and so I don't see any reason for us to expose ourselves to litigation. I think everybody's anticipating what is Ellison C going to sue us for after Warren? This would be a perfect opportunity for them to claim some offense on a vague law and then enjoin enforcement in other areas. So I would say that, number one, there's probably lots of other ordinances that would have much more direct and immediate impact and would not expose the city to the kind of litigation risk that a loitering law does. It's reduce the footprint, stop and interrupt antisocial conduct, enforce every law, and you will reduce the homeless population much more strongly than trying to go after people for standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's not really the problem. The problem is the trash, the pollution, the safety issues, the fact that people are not obtaining the mental health services that they need. But again, as Mr. Van Overbeek said, it is not the city's responsibility to service indigent people. That belongs to the state and the county, and regardless of how you may feel about it emotionally, it is outside the purview of the city of Chico to engage in social services and to try to organize your law enforcement and your ordinances around the premise that the objective is to solve homelessness and to provide alternatives for people that are living on the street and causing havoc for the rest of the citizens. So it's time that we get balance back, let's enforce our existing laws, let's reduce the impact and the footprint, and let's not expose ourselves unnecessarily to further litigation. Thank you.

Thank you. Scotty. Jasmine and then Nicole Nava. Hi, good evening council members and staff. My name is Jasmine Zalere. I often come to these meetings with the express purpose of observing. However, I'm here tonight to speak in opposition to the proposed anti-loitering ordinance. I want to be clear about something from the beginning. I understand the frustration that comes from genuine public safety problems, and I support enforcing laws against threats, harassment, violence, trespassing, blocking public access, and other conduct that actually harms or interferes with other people in their day-to-day lives. But that is not the same thing as giving broader authority to decide who has a legitimate reason to be in a public space. Public spaces belong to all of us. People often do sit, wait, talk, rest, meet friends, protest, observe, take a break, or simply exist in public without necessarily having a productive or identifiable reason for being there. I'm definitely guilty of that as well. And when an ordinance allows an officer to intervene based on concepts like whether someone's presence is legitimate or whether it creates an annoyance or disturbance, I do kind of worry that we are moving away from regulating conduct and towards regulating presence. I think that should concern every person in this room because once we create a law that gives the government this kind of discretion, we don't get to decide in advance exactly who will be affected by it. It could be someone experiencing homelessness, it could be a teenager sitting downtown, it could be someone waiting for a ride, it could be a person who has nowhere else to go, it could be a protester, or it could simply be someone who doesn't look like they belong. And the question shouldn't be whether we personally approve of what the person is doing, the question should be what specific harm are they causing. If someone is blocking access to a sidewalk, address the obstruction. If someone is trespassing, enforce the trespassing law. If someone is threatening another person, address the threat. If someone is committing a crime, enforce the law. But if the problem is simply that someone is present in a public space and an officer believes they don't have a good enough reason to be there, I don't believe that should become a criminal matter. I'm also a bit concerned about the timing of all of this.

The city is considering a significant expansion of enforcement authority at a time when we're approaching an election and I don't think that it's unreasonable for residents to ask why something with potentially significant consequences for civil liberties and the use of public space needs to be rushed through right now. If this is genuinely good policy, it should be able to withstand careful public discussion, scrutiny, and time for the community to understand what it would actually mean. Please don't confuse your urgency with necessity. I respectfully ask Council to slow down, reconsider the breadth of this ordinance, and direct staff to come back with language that targets specific harmful conduct rather than giving the authority to decide who has a legitimate reason to exist in a public space. Public safety matters, but so does freedom, dignity, equal treatment, and the right to exist in public without having to justify your presence. Thank you for your time and commitment. Thank you. Nicole Nava followed by Anika Rodriguez.

Hello again. To my comment earlier, I just want to say please don't be disingenuous about understanding my understanding of funding. I'm just telling you to be careful about putting yourself on the hook. I support grant funding when it makes sense. Now as to the loitering, some of you may be shocked to think that I also agree with much of what Rob Berry said. I wanted to say some of those same points, which is that the problem is littering, sometimes behavior issues, and things related to drugs, theft, etc. fires. So for the loitering piece, I struggle with it too because guess what? Homeless people want to enjoy our parks as well, and I don't have an issue with them going out and sitting and enjoying our creek and looking at nature, communing with other people, etc. I do think that there already is enforceable things related to loitering that need attention, such as the Safeway parking lots and things where people get, where they're strategically trying to make shoplifting plans and such. I encourage some of you to go sit out there and watch some of the behaviors and you'll understand why maybe people were going down the loitering trail, but I actually also think the wording is ambiguous and could get us into trouble, so I don't think it would be smart to proceed with it as is. I think there's other rules out there that will take care of the problem. I truly want to say also, and echo what some of the other people are saying, is that this is not the city's purview to buy into solving homelessness. You have purview over things regarding, as I've said many times, infrastructure, and of course there's the well-being of people, but the county, again, and the in the state are there for shelter and care purposes.

And I would really encourage you guys to get on the same page and be more strong in your language maybe with the county to come to the table and give you the plan. Go to the state, go to the capital. Rent a bus together if you need to. I'd love to see you all on the same page because I see you saying many of the same things. And it is important for people to get mental health treatment, to get treatment for their addictions and whether people are housed or not. And we don't have enough of those facilities. And so trying to equate the shelter where people are saying there's space now and finding spots for those people that have those very specific needs are just not one and the same. So I think we really need to land in our zone of concentrating on what the city of Chico needs to take care of.

We've spent millions and millions on very few people with very few results. And I'd like to see us get back on track. The Genesis Shelter does a fabulous job as do some of the others with what they have to work with. They used to get private funding, they can again. Thank you. Thank you, Anika Burke. Excuse me, Anika Rodriguez. And then Brian on Zoom. Hi, you guys. I sent you an email because I get pretty emotional and I didn't wanna be emotionally charged. In 2011, I was very emotional about Sit and Lie. I was a big proponent of it. I thought that Chico was just in a really bad place. And I do believe in 2012, 11, 13, it was really bad downtown. And it's actually gotten so much better. But I was really emotional and I went to the workshops.

I talked to Council Member O'Brien who was then Chief of Police and we pushed this thing forward. And I wish we would have slowed down because I think a lot of the situations we're in right now are because of the decisions we made then out of being reactionary. Chief Billy Aldridge sent an email a few weeks ago and I'm gonna quote from that because I think it's really good. And I think that we are creating ordinances to police certain groups of people and we can't do that. This was regarding equal enforcement and biased policing. An offender's housing status is not something officers can use to enforce more aggressively and it's not something they can use to look the other way. Enforcement that in practice or in directives singles out one group for status rather than conduct creates exposure to bias-based policing claims and equal protection challenges, which is second track of litigation risk on top of WARN.

So I encourage you guys in the guise of safety to stop blocking out the sun. We're killing the life of Chico and trying to make it miserable for one group of people. And I just urge Council to be diligent when creating new ordinances because the decisions you make today will impact our city for generations. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. And then our last speaker is Brian on Zoom. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Okay, I'm a gig worker. That means I deliver goods for local businesses mediated by delivery apps like Instacart, DoorDash, et cetera. I spent about a fourth of my workday parked in business parking lots waiting to be assigned work. And I'm just concerned that how this might personally affect me.

I don't think it would, because I think a reasonable person would assume that somebody who's waiting in a business parking lot during business hours to be assigned work to deliver goods for the business constitutes legitimate purpose. But I just wanted to speak on that concern. And then the other item I wanted to speak on really quickly was, oh, the subsection F, remain on any business premises or private property after being asked to leave by the owner or legal occupant. That seems pretty clear that the business owner or their agent would have to ask you to leave. But then I was just concerned if a business has a trespass authorization on file, can an officer just decide without any input from the business that you should leave?

And if they ask you to leave, does that constitute a binding request and that I would have to leave or be in violation of the ordinance? And that concludes my comments. Thank you. So Mayor Reynolds, we had a couple of extra cards in the basket that we did not see. And so Jessica Giannola followed by Claire. You could go ahead and line up in the middle, please. I apologize. All right, hi. Let's see, this proposal, I think I'm gonna echo what people are saying too. Is it just the wording putting us up at risk again for more lawsuits? It seems too vague. The impression I have is that anyone can complain about just anyone for pretty much anything. And that would open us up to harassment, scenarios of discrimination, and most certainly more taxpayer funded lawsuits.

That's us paying it. You have to be so very careful with wording when writing exclusions and allowances. They have to be realistic and supportive of the quality of life and laws and rights of the people of Chico, all the people of Chico. The ordinance seems to take away the opportunity for folks for just being in the moment while in our city, or maybe even expressing their application of a right to free speech and expression. Many of us can have experienced longer moments of sitting in a park, relaxing downtown, having lunch or dinner, or just because. People in our community have sought a quiet moment of peace while out walking or taking a break from a hectic day, but now may be having their peace disrupted by a call of an overly worried onlooker who was disturbed by our presence.

How many have gone window shopping, waited outside of a business while waiting for friends to arrive, or having young students that hung out in or outside of a store while waiting for a ride? Shall we now expect our officers to spend their time in responding to such annoyance calls? Imagine the impression set upon families visiting Chico State campus after visiting downtown and witness such vague and punitive ordinances to people existing with other people. And all may be folks accused of loitering as the ordinance is so restrictive, inability, and vague in application. But I'm going to guess that the calls that PD receive won't be about the mom and the littles, or the busy ladies on extended lunch break, or may not be about the Chico State families either.

I bet this ordinance is called upon by certain city folk to our very busy peace officers to almost exclusive demographics of people. One of those demographics will most certainly be people who appear to be unhoused. It would be irresponsible to pretend that this is not the case. As a side note of interest, on a major statewide study by the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, they found that 90% of unhoused Californians who are living in the state where they lost their housing, 75% remain in the same county where they last had a home. Many people that are unhoused may have substantial more time to sit in one location than many other folks as they have very little in terms of other places to go.

Here's the worry. Anyone could claim seeing an unhoused person is annoying to them. And also folks that are experiencing medical issues, mental health, ADA may be coming into play with that as well, discrimination. Everyone has a right to enjoy our city at our leisure without worry of being punitive or arrested or cited because someone doesn't like us being there. Thank you. Claire, and then followed by Lana Rowe, she doesn't have a number on it, but I'm assuming it's that one. So Claire.

Hello. I would like to echo the statement that A, the things listed in 921-020, letter A is a breach of peace, which is already illegal. C through H all seem like they're trespassing or already an obstruction of public right of way. B makes it illegal to be annoying, which I don't think we should allow. It's just far too broad. Disturbance can be applied to almost any activity, protesting, singing, art, sleeping. And it seems to rely on the discretion of law enforcement officers, which inherently means that it will be applied unevenly across our community. I feel like we shouldn't criminalize behaviors that we want to encourage in our city, especially during an economic downturn. We want people to hang out in our parks, set up hammocks and take naps in the sun, on the grass, between classes.

It's one of the joys of Chico is that we have natural areas where we can be. Chico is home to counterculture voices and agriculture and industry and college students and families, all of whom often disagree and find each other's voices to be disturbances. We want to encourage people, irregardless of their varied interests, to be out and using public spaces. I personally don't really want to be harassing people who are trying to survive by living in cars and doing the van life or whatever. Behavior that I would like to see targeted is people trashing our public spaces with human feces. The number of times that I've pulled human feces out of my dog's mouth, not cool. Plastics in our watersheds, discarded belongings.

I don't want to see ordinances that limit all residences' freedoms, freedoms of expression, freedoms to be in our city. I'm asking the city to be creative and specific in their approaches to resolving these issues. And by making specific ordinances that target the problems that we are experiencing as a community, for law enforcement to act on and enforce on and not rely on convenient, broad ordinances that rely on an individual officer's discretion. Thank you. Thank you. Lana Rowe. I don't see anything. Lana, no. I don't see anybody coming in. All right, so that was our last one. Yes. For sure, for sure. Yes, for sure, I apologize. No worries, it happens. All right, Council Member Hawley. If being annoying is illegal, lock me up.

Seriously though, if this ordinance proposal was best practiced by every single municipality in California, I would still vote against it. But the fact of the matter is it's one of the most aggressive loitering ordinances in the state. I really believe that broad enforcement against loitering opens doors for discriminatory operations. And again, this is federally illegal, but it has a diffused way of creeping into enforcement practice, as was stated by one of our speakers through Community Collins. That do disproportionately penalize people of certain sectors, and oftentimes that falls on unhoused individuals, our community members of color. This has been empirically proven time and time again in criminal justice studies.

So penalizing people for occupying public or private spaces for short lengths of time ought not to be a priority for the city or even an initiative of our city. I believe that unfettered discretion can be dangerous, and I really want the city to focus on ensuring offering reasonable notice, shelter offerings, and methodical camping and debris enforcement with the rest of our municipal code. And that would, of course, be in alignment with the 2025 model ordinance put out by the state as well as the city of Chico's draft unhoused strategy that of course is pending review by the council itself. And that's why I'll be voting against it. Council Member O'Brien. Thank you, Mayor. So we pass laws, not for best case scenarios, but really worst case scenarios.

And the constitution was written with that in mind. So I look at this ordinance and normally I would be in favor of things that bring some reasonable accountability to behavior, not to status, but I'm looking at these sections and not only do I see some ambiguity, I do see some things that are covered either in our penal code, trespassing laws 602, 415, or in our municipal code currently, remain in any public park after park hours. That's something we pass and have had in our books or on our books for quite a while. So with that in mind, I just think we do need to be very careful about vague statements such as the annoyance to the comfort and repose of any person. So if any of us are laying in a lounge chair at one mile and someone comes up and sits next to us and talks about a subject they find offensive, are they going to call the police and complain?

I don't know. I just think we have to be careful with these ordinances. I agree with everything that has been stated so far. I think most of this is already covered either in the penal code or in our municipal code. I think some of these are far too ambiguous and probably do set us up for potential legal intervention and we do not want that at this time. Council Member Rhonda Beck. I don't view this one as being as time critical as 5.1. And I also agree with Councilman Winslow and O'Brien that B is concerning and it's too vague. And listening to the speakers also, I think this one needs to be, go back, Ryan, and have you take another look at it, maybe cut out the things that are redundant from the current code that things are already covered and see if we can deal with the passages that are vague.

B is the one that really sticks out to me, 9.21.020B. Council Member O'Brien. I can make that a motion, yeah. No, I was just going to agree with you, Tom. I think this needs to be reworked. I think the redundancy needs to be removed. I think the ambiguity needs to be removed. Let's find out if there's any holes that maybe we haven't covered. But as written, I just could not support, and I think a rework of this whole thing and take some time to do that. And we can bring this back at a later date. I would support that and we'll second that motion if someone else did not second it already. So the motion redefined Council Member Van Overbeek is to send it back to our city attorney with more direction on less broad and vague language that isn't repetitive of our current CMC, correct?

Council Member Winslow. Excuse me. I just want to say thanks for my colleagues on the bookends for saying what you've said and having, I think, very reasonable opinions on this. Just to be honest, since this ordinance was published, this is the first time I read it on Friday, and I've been agonizing pretty hard about how to successfully oppose this because I thought it would be terrible for this to pass. And I did a bunch of research on other loitering ordinances statewide, and I found that every single one had provisions which made it much less broad than ours, than this one that was proposed. And so, yeah, I'd be happy to take another look with it, very much pared down, and I will spare you sharing any of the research that I did now.

Thank you. Thank you. Does, until such time as this come back, does everything stay in effect that is currently in effect for minors, I'm assuming? Okay, so just making sure. This was an ordinance that was on the books. There's nothing to be amended. It's just status quo, and I heard the direction, listened to the motion, but absolutely we can refine that. And I'm sure that there was a legitimate reason and something that was trying to be addressed when this was brought forward, because PD doesn't generally ask for something that doesn't have, but I think maybe something got missed in the wires. So I don't know that it needs to go to internal affairs, but if it needs to be more vetted out or you need more direction, please let us know.

But if not, if you think you have sufficient enough direction to make it less big. Okay, all right. All right, we got a motion in a second then. Council Member Hawley, did you have something else before we went? Just real quick, as the spokesperson for my district, I do wanna make it clear, I don't see myself ever voting in favor for the final reading of a loitering ordinance, unless I've been fully convinced that it truly is a problem post-Warren. But because this is specifically just being revetted by our city attorney, I'll vote in favor. Council Member Goldstein. Yeah, I'll add real quick. It's good that it seems like we're on the same page on something here. I have a little bit of concern about wanting to use more staff time when it seems, when I'm still very unclear what the intent is and what we would accomplish with this, but I won't be a roadblock to it.

I'm open to hearing more, seeing what our attorney comes up with, but I share Councilmember Hawley's concerns. I'm not convinced that I would support it unless there's a lot more pertinent information and a good reason. All right, and we got a motion and a second. Vice Mayor Bennett, did you have something? No. Okay. Some of the buttons weren't working, so I just want to make sure I didn't miss you. Councilmember Goldstein? Yes. Councilmember Hawley? Yes. Councilmember O'Brien? Yes. Councilmember van Overbeek? Yes. Councilmember Winslow? Yes. Vice Mayor Bennett? Yes. Mayor Reynolds? Aye. Carries 7-0. We got one and a half more items. Do you guys want to power through or do you want to take a break?

Let's power through. All right, I like it. Just making sure if anybody needs to go. Item 5.3, if there are any speakers on Zoom that want to speak on that, please raise your hand now. This is a staffing consideration and we have a report from our Police Chief Billy Billy Aldridge. Thank you, Mayor. Tonight, Captain Omar Peña will be presenting to you a staffing plan for the creation of a Public Records Act unit within the Police Department. And I don't want to steal too much of his thunder before he presents, but I do just want to make it very clear that we have a cost-neutral plan for this and there's no request for funds. Good evening, Mayor, Councilmembers, staff. I know we're at the end, so I'll be brief.

So, you know, I'm the Captain of the Support Division at the Police Department that oversees records and evidence, and those are the two portions of our department that deal with Public Records Act requests. And so I'm here today asking for your consideration of an amendment to the City of Chico's 26-27 fiscal year budget appendix modifying the full-time allocation for the Police Department, specifically asking to add an evidence technician, a records technician, and a permanent part-time senior information analyst in order for us to establish a Public Records Act fulfillment unit. I'm also asking for some monies for software. We're looking to offset the cost of these additions by giving up two vacant dispatcher positions.

I reached out to the Finance Department to see what the discrepancy would be there with those two dispatcher positions and the 2.5 positions that we're asking for, and the difference there that was identified was $73,000 in salary. If you'll see in my report, hold on just a second, Officer, can I have you guys step outside if you're going to have a conversation, that'd be great. Thank you so much. Sorry, Mr. Powell. Okay, please continue. Yes, ma'am. So the discrepancy there is $73,000. Currently, we're having an hourly employee do some of the duties and work that we would be asking the part-time senior information analyst to do, and there are current expenditures on that hourly employee are close to $73,000. Actually, one year they made $79,000.

So in the short term, it's a wash if not saving a little bit of money. Now, we are paying that out of salary savings, so certainly once if the Police Department ever got to a position where all the vacant positions were filled, that would be a drain. It wouldn't be a complete wash. As you see there, I'm also asking $15,500 per year. That is the cost of a redaction software that we could use to make the positions that we're asking for that much more effective. For background, we get about 6,000 records requests. Now, that is everything from an insurance company asking for a traffic collision report, a victim of a crime asking for a copy of their crime report, outside agencies asking for pieces of information or asking us to check our records for any contacts for somebody trying to get into law enforcement or some sort of public entity.

Recently, we started tracking the requests that are not that type of a transactional request. So requests for body cam footage, requests for internal documents, emails, reports that the Police Department has. Last year, we received almost 1,900 of those specific requests that we're calling PRAs specifically. Between 24 and 25 and 25 and 26, it's looking where the number's growing 10% per year. And the problem with trying to quantify that in terms of staff's time is we could have one request that can be fulfilled in 20 minutes by looking at it, knowing that we don't have any responsive records and responding to the request right away. We could have a single request that can take us weeks, months. We've had one that's taken us over a year just in order to properly fulfill those requests.

So it's hard to quantify how much staff time is being spent on that with that 10% increase per year. But in my staff report, you'll see we try to quantify it a little bit by looking at how much of our current staff's time is being spent on some of the current PRAs that we have going on for our evidence unit who deals with body cam footage and processing footage of a digital nature. They're spending about 50% of their time dealing with particularly one request, just doing video redaction. We've dedicated one record staff member total time towards this. And depending on the types of requests we're getting, we have to allocate partial time of other record staff. So what that's leading to is obviously some backlogs on some of the other tasks that they're needing to do.

Right now, those backlogs, to be very frank, aren't excessive. We are managing with the staff we have, but these are entry-level positions. My concern is we historically have vacancies in these positions as people either move within the organization or they leave for other employment. So that will only make matters worse. I do have in here a case study and kind of to highlight a what other folks have raised is some of the precarious legal situation or litigous situation we could put ourselves in. My case study is here in a local media entity, and I'll have to make some points of clarification, who year to date has submitted 28 requests for PRAs. Now that does include some freelance contributors, including staff for this particular entity. And one of those requests resulted in 51,000 emails being initially seen as responsive. So staff would have had to go and individually assess each one of these emails and see if they were responsive to necessary redactions and so forth. In this instance, the requester was working with staff and was able to help us narrow that scope and worked in making significantly more manageable. But we out of that entity also there was a lawsuit that came about, and not to speak too much on that, but as that was going on, we're still getting PRA requests from the entity. And I want to highlight that because not because I think there's an issue with the PRAs, but because I think there's an issue with the entity per se. This is an entity that is pursuing a public interest and has no intention to harass the organization. They're trying to reach a journalistic end. But you take that out of the equation. There are jurisdictions that are seeing individuals, single individuals, who are using the PRA process for harassment. And so one person with the assistance of AI could definitely turn this circumstance into a worst case scenario for us. And as you see in my report, part of the reason that this workload is increasing is AI. It's easy to generate PRA requests that are much more in line with statute and that we have to respond to, assess, evaluate, and do a search of records to see if they're responsive. Now, our proposed solution, like I said, is to have a records tech and an evidence technician. They would be full-time staff. And we would be able to bring them on to also not only do the redaction, do the assessment, but also track these requests as they're coming in. One of the things that we're having a hard time, we're dedicating one of our supervisors full-time to making sure that we are keeping track of these requests as they're coming in and we're fulfilling them in a timely manner. There is statutory requirements for when we have to respond and how much time we have to produce the records.

The goal here is to be proactive in our approach. Like I said, that 10% increase, there's really no reason to believe it's going to go down. I believe with, again, with the ubiquitousness of AI that this is going to continue to increase. And I don't want to put the organization in a position where we're going to be reactive and potentially face not fulfilling requirements that are statutorily mandated. This approach, again, I think by offering those two positions will put us in a cost neutral for the short term, but it's a small investment in making sure that we don't face litigation over not meeting statutory requirements. With that, I'll be happy to answer your questions. All right, questions. Council Member Venovac, is it a question for?

I do. Captain Peña, so I'm trying to understand, there's two open recs for dispatch, right? Is that what they are? We currently have eight vacant positions for dispatch that we're actively recruiting. Because of the nature of the dispatch center and how many people, we can train about two at maximum three if they're an experienced staff member. So we're not going to be able to fill those positions right away. So we want to give two of those vacant positions still allows us to have vacant positions to progress and continue to staff our dispatch center. But the allocations for those two positions can be used to offset. So this isn't budget neutral because if your intention is to fill those positions at some point, then adding these two extra people is going to, it's not going to be budget neutral. It's going to add to the expense. And we're concerned right now, we have a budget and we're also in an environment where the revenues are flat.

So if the police department can figure out how to reallocate resources inside the department and not increase expense, go for it. And that's my opinion, but I can't sign off on two more people. Yeah. Well, if I may, I'm not sure if I was clear. I apologize for that. We're giving up those two positions. I don't. Okay. You're giving up the two dispatch people in order to get the records tax. Correct. Currently we stand with eight vacancies. We would give up two. Okay. At six. That's good. Thank you. Council Member O'Brien. Yeah. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, Captain Peña for your report. I completely understand that the department is being overwhelmed with these PRAs, much different environment right now, 1900 this last year.

That's a lot. And 1900 is not just simply a paragraph response in an email, much more exhaustive than that. But I did want to ask if you could just maybe speak a little bit more broadly or specifically about the software that's being requested, Veritone, and what that actually does for you guys. Sure. The software, the bulk of what we're redacting is either on just internally, we're calling it two different tiers. If there is minimal information going out, we still have to evaluate every document for personal identifying information. And there's certain things like medical information that we can't, we have to make sure it doesn't get released. And so Veritone on those types of documents uses AI to be able to find, you know, driver's license numbers, dates of birth, other PII, personal identifying information, that it can go and scan and redact from documents. That would obviously increase staff's ability to push more of those documents through. There would be an assessment and a brief overview, make sure that we didn't miss something. So the 15-5 that we will spend on this will be received much greater in the staff time that we will save probably countless hours and dollars.

Is that accurate? Yes. And the hope is as they become more proficient, the two staff members that we have now as they pick up, obviously, there's going to be a little bit of a training learning curve, but we'll continue to make them even more proficient. I don't have to come here and ask you for more staff. We will leverage the software to fulfill the mission. All right. Thank you. Council Member Hawley. Thank you, Captain Peña for the presentation. I do have a few questions. First, something that stuck out to me was the removal of those two dispatch positions. I'm not as familiar as some of my colleagues with the history of dispatch being so under capacity in the past, but I do have concerns after dispatch has been built up, removing those positions. So it is the definitive recommendation of, you know, our department head and the dispatch team that those two positions are no longer needed for the City of Chico. That's my recommendation, ma'am.

We've done, I would say, a great job over the last two years in bringing staffing levels up. At one point we had 12 dispatchers. I believe we are at 22. Unfortunately, a trainee didn't make it through. But those are numbers we haven't had in, I think, decades. So we've, I think, between, you know, salary adjustments, staffing levels obviously offset some of the mandatory overtime that we used to do. We have a different climate. We successfully brought on a lot of dispatchers from around the area, laterals. And so the dispatch center is in a place that hasn't been in a long time. Because we can train about two a year, even with the remaining six, I'm looking at two, two and a half, maybe even three years, if everybody made it through.

So there's still plenty of time to be able to address that. So you're not anticipating, you know, the department requesting those two dispatch positions if calls remain consistent three years from now? Correct. Okay, great. Yeah, that's great to hear. My only other question, and if you can't answer it now, that's completely fine. I think we can discuss it more over the long term. But there was pretty limited information on Veritone, the redaction software. I certainly see the benefit in that with tens of thousands of emails sometimes for a single PRA request. But I do still have some curiosities behind, you know, how staff and citizen data is protected by that third party, I'm sure NDAs would be signed, and also who the liable party is in the case of redaction mistakes.

So I'm not sure if the rest of the council shares those concerns, or if that could be easily answered, you know, just with a clarifying email of the contracts that Veritone usually signs with I can tell you that we looked at the two leading softwares. There's another company case card that we looked at, and there was it was a significantly more cost. We did see California agencies, law enforcement agencies and cities using Veritone. And they're required certain levels of security we have to adhere to, because some of this, it is a cloud based system, and it's some of this information that we would be going back and forth with through data exchanges is protected information. So there's a certain level that's required of encryption, storage, security. That's basically the FBI said, so see just compliance level, and they've met it. But I can get more information to you.

Vice Mayor Bennett. Well, I've, I've been hearing about this for at least three years, maybe four years of the amount of PRAs that you have to attend to, and you're required to respond to them on a timely basis. So I support this. I've been hearing about the need for some additional people for quite some time. So it looks like it's time for us to support you. And I'm not sure if you want to it looks like it's time for us to support you in a questionable activity. And that's just my personal feeling, but it is what it is. So I think we should move forward. And I do support the Veritone system as well as the adjustment of the staffing. Right. How many speakers do we have? None. None. So I would just say that I completely support this as well. I would just want to make sure that in the motion that it's actually stated that those two positions are froze and that we would readdress that come budget time in June because here we are again in term making changes which I totally understand but I want to memorialize not that we can get a dispatcher hired in the next six months anyways but I just want it on the record that we're freezing those two and that we will address it at budget time. Yeah when we bring back the appendix modification the B3 for this action you'll see that there'll be an unfunding of two of the dispatcher positions. We see a few of those in the B appendices as it is now so that'll be recorded that way and then if it's requested again that will be modified and then brought to your attention during regular budget cycle. I can't tell you how happy this makes me because I remember the conversation in closed session when we were just about to not have enough dispatchers to be able to answer the phones and it was a very scary place and so I'm super excited that they aren't working mandatory overtime for weeks on end and we're actually staffed so it's very I'm happy I'm sure you have a happier dispatch department as well. Absolutely and if I could just add real quick just so we can have a little more context to the positions. So the prior fire chief was trying to initiate his own PSAP dispatch center that did not come to fruition. It was on my recommendation with the prior city manager that he allowed me to absorb those five positions and then continue to grow the dispatch center. We have done amazing work in filling those positions and changing the culture and the morale within that center and it's it's absolutely amazing in there to see what they're doing and how they feel about their workplace now but understand that these two positions that we're converting were five overage positions that we absorbed from fire and even with that we're still at record numbers in our dispatch center from I mean prior chief can tell you how long it went back well before my time when it was a struggle to staff in there. So I just want to be clear to your point Councilmember Hawley is that we are not giving up positions that we needed for the growth. These were positions we absorbed from a prior plan that did not come to fruition. And I would just like to add a lot of work it's not by accident this has happened a lot of work by the Police Department to make this actually possible. It was one of the toughest positions to recruit for and previous councils and the Police Department came up with a strategy to actually make something work and they did that remarkably well. It allows us now to shift and pivot to a much-needed unit because of that hard work but I want to make sure that we understand this did not happen by accident. So with that Mayor I would like to make a motion to approve the supplemental appropriation budget modification for public records request unit staffing.

Second. All right we got a motion to second. I've got two people in the queue so Councilmember Winslow. Thank you and thank you all Councilmembers for asking the questions to kind of suss a little bit of this out. I will say that my conclusion is still I've heard so much about the consistency of burnout among dispatchers and it has been a struggle for us to not have that be the case and to achieve like proper staffing levels and while this was absorbed but it was under the understanding that we're they're handling more calls as a result and I don't want to I don't agree with describing this as budget neutral and we are giving up something that we didn't anticipate to fill in the past if we didn't need them in dispatchers and we can consider that that's not a need there and not act like we can kind of tit-for-tat it at this point in time and that it's not a new request but also I do understand because I've also heard for a long time about the the need for satisfying these Public Records Act requests and the the volume of them and I see that the way that AI is used can kind of increase that a lot but I will give an additional piece of my perspective. I've talked to the City Manager Gillian Haen about about this I was surprised to see this come in now because I thought that they would this would be a request for the next budget but what I've seen when we describe the the entity which I'll just say is Chico Sol them making Public Records Act requests and those being those requiring a lot of effort that they've been doing that under an environment that's very different than what we've had really since the City Manager has come on I think when I was first on the council I may have been the only city employee to be responding to any of their requests for a while I remember not a current council member former council member saying describing that was not a legitimate press outlet at all but they've been doing the highest quality investigative journalism in the community for for a while now they've had more paid staff than they had before and in order to do their job they've needed to take the route of going for Public Records Act requests and I think that if we we should have a conversation about reducing the burden and that we could work collaboratively with the media in order to drop that I know that there are some individuals one of them earlier that also have a lot of requests but I think that we could offset the need that we have with this somewhat through that definitely still support the software I mean I'm taking your word for it that it's really useful and will will make if it's hourly employees will make it a lot more efficient and we do need to be satisfying these but I think that it would be useful to postpone this a bit pending us having a conversation because I I have a strong reason to believe that those who are responsible the PRAs would be amenable to reducing the burden they're putting on the city to avoid us having to take on this cost so my substitute motion would be that we we table this for a month or two in order for us to have that conversation and try to reevaluate how much need we have when you say a month or two do you mean specifically during the budget hearing well if it's really felt by the police department that it should come back sooner than then that would be okay with with me as well but but that also is a way we could do it I don't know if this is if you feel like this is an emergent need that I would I would say no we should bring it back sooner but I think a few months should be enough time to have that conversation and reassess the need we have mayor can ask a question sure I'm confused on what councilmember Winslow is saying so you're saying if we work with the media outlets to just provide them information we wouldn't have to go down this path I think that if we if we talk to them about the way that they can get access to the city information and I think already it's better for them I've thought I'm gonna talk to them and I understand that I think that's a generally felt through the journalist community is my sense that since city manager Haen has been on they've gotten better responses from the city and and I think that we could have a conversation and not assume that this this 10% growth year-over-year is actually something that needs to continue to happen and given they are responsible for a lot of the PRAs that are take up the time I have some optimism that a conversation or it doesn't we come back you know in a couple months and say hey they say say they want 50,000 documents we got to give them 50,000 documents and and then we can we can follow through with this I would like to respond to that I don't feel that's an accurate representation because the caseload that we have pending right now from PRAs needs this staff we don't have the the luxury of waiting two months it's going to cause service disruptions from our records division we're having to put normal police functions on hold and use our records staff to fill these PRA requests or else Ryan and his staff will be litigating cases so to your point I think I would refer it to the city attorney and ask there's legal requirements in PRAs that they have to review and so working with the media to just give information sets us up for litigation Ryan do you want to address that yeah I mean there is significant risk to litigation I mean I think that in fact there is one pending that we're working on and so we've got we have to follow certain absolutely certain requirements so I appreciate where the chiefs coming from I think that there's maybe our conversations we can have but it isn't something that we can negotiate it's like there's legal requirements and very quick 10-day turnarounds and very specific exemptions that our office is involved in and in pride we're more expensive than than the Police Department so we try to be as efficient as we can um can I just elaborate a little bit just to say that it's not it's not just coming from me having like personal conversations but there was a city you may not have seen this chief Billy Aldridge but we had a email from the editor of Chico soul that mentioned that PR requests that would have produced 51,000 emails and they say however we then made multiple requests for help in refining the request and pause that request pending response and maybe that that's more of what I mean is we're finding requests and them understanding the burden it causes to us and how they can refine it more to get what they're after and them also having trust in us in a way that they frankly had no reason to have before when we wouldn't even respond to their requests for comment so that that's my optimism is that we're doing a better job now as a city and that I think that they can have more trust in us and that we can produce what they want for their reporting without going through 51,000 emails ever I appreciate that and thank you it still doesn't relieve us of the back log of cases that we need to get caught up on so I would I would highly suggest from a chief's perspective that placing this on hold for a month or two simply buries us deeper councilmember Goldstein I don't know if I have anything more to add Addison kind of covered it I was going to point out that email I guess my question is did the rest of city staff get the same email that we received from Chico Sol for example did Captain Peña see that response the the Chico Sol email regarding from the editor or from the contributor letter it was from Leslie I believe it was from the editor and there was also a clarification that one contributor was not doing work for Chico Sol in in doing a lawsuit or public records act request miss Preston's nodding her head and say yes it was not shared with everybody okay it was also specified during Captain Peña's okay hey I don't pick up all information in my if I can just okay I thought we were gonna get through this quick so I didn't take a break are we on the downhill slide here we have a motion in a second we have a substitute motion with no second I'll just add my opinion this does seem like an important thing to be able to look through our requests in a timely fashion and I hope that there are ways that staff is already working on to make sure that we show people how to best use our public records act request system because I think that's also an issue sometimes people seem to not understand it may I ask a clarifying question about the hourly employee that we're currently using to to try to meet some of this need is there no flex there's no flexibility that who is the hourly employees that is it to contract about it's a hourly employee through the city we don't contract out he's he's just on an hourly basis so there's no way to scale that up in the meantime in order to meet some of this need councilmember O'Brien so I hate to prolong this conversation we need to get to the vote but I just want to clarify something of those 1900 PRAs from last year they're not all from local media are they no and that's what I wanted to sometimes we have there are like AI bots that we're getting that are pulling headlines identifying who the chief of police of the jurisdiction is and the chief was getting emails and you know that's part of the hardship we have to take in PRAs verbally to command staff emails we have a portal that we're trying to get up and running to be able to take them directly but they're coming from both email directly it's Joe citizen it is some of it is local entity but I use this as an example for the precariousness of where we could be should it be somebody who was not in acting in the public interest we do also have private companies who get data and then go out and sell it to journalists or content creators and so we're dealing with those folks so so thank you for that clarification and nothing would prohibit us from having that conversation as a city with those local media people correct correct for the local folks it's real easy to pick up the phone right and that's and that's an easy thing for us to do the reality is it's not just local media these PRAs are coming in fast and furious from sources outside this city that's reality correct thank you all right we got a motion a second and a substitute motion with no second um correct is what I have is there a set is there a second to the substitute motion to table it for a month or two no okay we're back to the motion so the original motion was made by councilmember O'Brien seconded by vice mayor Bennett and I'm just gonna ask for permission councilmember O'Brien to just amend your you wanted to approve the appendix b3 but that isn't what's on the agenda Barbara had indicated she'd be bringing that back so is that okay if I adjust that that is perfectly fine and very appropriate all right and so on that vote councilmember Goldstein yes councilmember Hawley yes councilmember O'Brien yes councilmember van Overbeek yes councilmember Winslow no vice mayor Bennett yes mayor Reynolds I carry 6-1 all right reports and communications the following reports and communications are provided for the council with information no action can be taken on items under this agenda unless the council agrees to include on a subsequent agenda city managers report we have a verbal report from our yeah finance director sorry that's okay city manager Haen is a way to conference this week so on her behalf I've just got a couple things to mention to you all we had a discussion about the unhoused strategic plan this evening a couple times that is actually set to be posted on the city website imminently it should be in the next day hopefully if not within the next day or two and with that there are some community input meetings that are already scheduled wanted to broadcast those we have a service provider meeting which is scheduled on the 27th of this month October at 2 o'clock in conference room 1 over here and then also on the 29th we have a public town hall meeting that is scheduled here in the council chambers at 530 on the 29th of October and then still yet to be scheduled it is the lived experience input meeting that is still yet to be set to a date but more to come on that as we know that the other thing I wanted to mention is that the final phase of the fiber utility construction project is about to take place that's a next week in the downtown area so you will see some markings and that sort of thing and preliminarily happening now that most of that will be happening at night so as to not disrupt businesses during the day but that should be in the next week or so that you will see that activity downtown that's all I have thank you all right thank you for the update council member requests pursuant to an 8 p.m. p10 10 council members may verbally request an item to be agendized at a future meeting after stating what the item would be a majority vote of council is needed in order for staff to agendize do we have any council member requests I actually have one and I think it's an easy one I would like to agendize a discussion about street closures and event safety to have in the future ie we just had a potential cancellation of the light parade and I just want us to be able to talk about that and be brought up to date council that would be a very appropriate conversation mayor I would completely concur does this conflict with us having brought this up like a couple months ago about street closure permitting yeah getting shot down no no it was agendized no no I have a I have a pending discussion on that that does refer to the same code section on that we could jointly do it it's not scheduled to like January already so that's fine I don't what was the specific request it was it I was I was more thinking of small block parties but it was it is the exact same code it was private parties yeah okay I remember that I don't I mainly this is like when we want to close all of downtown for a can we add it on to that or it is that covered under his motion or does it need to be a separate motion because if it can be covered under that one I'm totally fine with that I'd happily append whatever you write into that we didn't vote on it if needed we can vote on clerks and so I think that we can combine them but I think keeping it separate here because that wasn't talked about at that meeting it was more for private and for block parties and this is I think more holistic for the specifically I'm talking the hard street closures in a large footprint is what I'm asking to discuss okay so there's a motion in a second and then we can bring that conversation back at the same time great which will be after January I totally find it's not urgent okay councilmember Goldstein yes councilmember Hawley yes councilmember O'Brien yes councilmember van over back yes councilmember Winslow yes vice mayor Bennett yes mayor Reynolds I carry 7-0 hey we will adjourn to the November 3rd meeting we will have closed session in either 5 or 5 30 followed by the regular meeting at 6 o'clock here in the council chambers at 421 main thank you guys for powering through sorry for the no breaks we are adjourned