One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Roll call, please, Linda.
Councilman Glazer?
Yes, ma'am.
Councilmember Long?
Here.
Councilmember Lozee?
Here.
Mayor Potem-Zanzee?
Here.
Mayor Stroud?
Here.
There are some seats up front here if you guys would like to sit down.
Okay.
Before we move on, our city attorney has some words of wisdom for us.
Well, I'm not sure they're words of wisdom, but I have some words.
This afternoon we noticed, I guess I'd call it a typographical error on the closed session
agenda portion of tonight's meeting.
The first closed session item concerns labor negotiations, and the agenda references section
54957.8, and it really should be 54957.6.
And the second two items are both real property negotiations, and your printed agenda says
or references sections 54957.6 for both of those, and the correct section is 54957.8
for both of those.
Thank you.
Moving on, and proclamations.
Tonight I have the honor of reading a proclamation to welcome home the veterans, Vietnam veterans.
A lot of times when we do these proclamations when it has something to do with the veterans,
we usually allow Dean to do it because he's one of our more active veterans on the council.
I'm not a veteran, and I feel tonight I should read this because me not being a veteran,
it's the people of the United States that are honoring the Vietnam veterans.
Dean is a veteran of that era, so he's also honored in this.
This is coming from somebody who really wants to thank the men and women who served so that
we could have the country that we have.
This is a City of Fortuna proclamation in recognition of Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans
Day, March 30th, 2011.
Whereas 2011 marks the 36th anniversary of the end of the American combat troops involvement
in Vietnam conflict, and whereas thousands of brave Americans served our country in this
conflict with courage, honor, and valor, and whereas more than 58,000 individuals made
the ultimate sacrifice in Vietnam, and thousands more were wounded in combat, and whereas families
and friends of thousands of American soldiers must continue to endure the uncertainty concerning
the fate of their loved ones who are remained unaccounted from the Vietnam conflict, whereas
we must never forget the debt we owe these men and women who have loyally served our
nation in battle, and we must remember with honor those who so unselfishly put themselves
in harm's way so that we may live in peace.
And now therefore, be it resolved that I, Doug Strel, the Mayor of the City of Fortuna,
along with the members of the City Council, do hereby proclaim March 30th, 2011 as Welcome
Home Vietnam Veterans Day in the City of Fortuna and encourage every resident to take a moment
this day to remember all the brave veterans of the Vietnam War.
It is never too late to recognize the Southeastern's actions that encourage—oh, can't even read
this, sorry about that—the men and women who answered the call of duty and served our
nations, signed this 21st day, March 2011, at the City of Fortuna, State of California,
and you hear witness there for the Fortuna Seal.
And I believe, John, you're here to accept this.
John Rang?
Yeah.
Thank you.
I'd like to thank the City of Fortuna and the City Council for this recognition for
the Vietnam veterans.
I have one thing, well, a couple things to say, but one, let's not forget our men and
women that are overseas now.
They deserve all the support and help they can get.
And do not forget our MIAs and KIAs that gave their all for our country.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Moving along, we have some presentations this evening.
Graduates of the Fortuna Police Department Citizens Academy.
Chief?
You guys want to come up?
Chief?
I want to catch up with you.
We have been very excited about the Citizens Academy, and we've had anywhere between 11
and 15, 16 people come to the class, which entailed one night a week for six weeks.
We covered multiple topics, everything from criminal law to a little bit of first aid,
a field trip to the range, and canine demonstration and demonstration of the different emergency
response services that we have here in Fortuna.
And not everybody could make it tonight, but I would like to recognize the folks that did
come tonight and present them with a little token of our appreciation and a certificate
of completion for that course.
We had some spirited discussions during it, and I think it opened some eyes and it certainly
brought us closer to the folks in the community that we serve.
I'd like to thank you for your attendance in that.
Daniel Coleman, right there.
Tom Harrison.
M. Kasaka.
Mike Pettit.
Shane.
And two more.
Paul Wesley.
John Snowden.
And last but not least, Jessica Garcia.
Thanks again, and if anybody wants to come see us to sign up to want to do some volunteer
work, that's much appreciated.
And if not, we'll see you around the community.
Thank you.
Are you in the next presentation?
Our next presentation is received a phone call from a Lori Arias who wanted to recognize
Officer Charles Elabrick for his assistance with recovery of a grandchild.
And we'd like to have her come up and present the token of appreciation to Officer Elabrick
for his fine work with that.
Thank you, Chief.
I just want to thank Officer Elabrick for the support, all the help in bringing Nevaeh
back home.
She was taken November 13th last year.
Mr. Losey was involved in it, which we thought would take a hundred years.
Blessing she's home.
Without the help of Officer Elabrick, I don't know what we've done.
And I don't know what else I can do, but thank you very much.
You were there night and day, whenever.
I'm just glad we could be there to help you.
Also, one of the acknowledge assistance I got from my office, U.S. Customs, San Francisco,
PD, and the agency all kind of work together.
I'm glad I was involved.
Yeah, but I think you gave 110% in bringing her home.
Thank you very much.
And I appreciate everything.
Thank you.
Next on the agenda is comments from the public.
Members of the public may be heard on any item of interest not on the public meeting
agenda.
Speakers address the council and the board will be limited to three minutes per speaker.
Comments concerning the consent calendar may be heard at this time.
Be advised that by law, the city council and the redevelopment agency board can only deliberate
and take actions on items that are included on the agenda.
So at this time, is anyone that would like to address the council step up to the mic?
My name is Al Dunigan.
I'm here representing the Humboldt Tea Party Patriots.
That's an organization that I'm a member of, currently serve as a member of the board.
During the council meeting in November 15th of last year, our organization presented some
concerns to the city council regarding smart meters.
We had some concerns about the safety and privacy issues and we were sort of disappointed
in the fact that the council elected not to take any kind of action or any kind of stand
against smart meters.
Although a large number of smart meters have been installed already, we think it's still
not too late to take a stand.
Many counties and cities have already taken a stand opposing the installation of smart
meters and the number continues to grow.
The Humboldt Tea Party Patriots has prepared a resolution against the smart meter deployment,
of which I would like to provide a copy to each of you at this time.
Please read it carefully.
Give it your due consideration.
We hope the resolution will help you have a deeper understanding of the privacy and
health concerns that we have for this massive project.
As the new council reconsider the city's position on the smart meter program and delay
the full implementation of the program until the very real public concerns are adequately
addressed.
I'd add that the same resolution was presented to supervisors last Tuesday.
They have elected to take a position on it.
We had an email from Supervisor Jimmy Smith indicating that he was drafting a letter to
the California Public Utilities Commission urging them to hold off until the concerns
are addressed.
Thank you.
Good evening.
I'm here to protest the smart meters.
I'm also a Vietnam veteran, Marine Combat, and tonight we all said the Pledge of Allegiance.
But few people fail to understand that they're pledging allegiance to the Republic, which
is a nation ruled by constitutional law, not a democracy ruled by consensus.
My name is Gene Owens.
I live in Fortuna.
My statement is not entirely aimed at the city council.
It's aimed at the other people in this audience.
When I realized that smart meters are harmful to my health and privacy, I came down here
to Fortuna City Hall to ask my local government for help.
The lady at the front desk said PG&E is an entity unto itself and there's nothing we
can do about it.
Under your police powers in Article 11, Section 9 of the California Constitution, you can
regulate PG&E's activities.
When you remain silent, you give your consent.
When local government interferes with a citizen's right to exercise his unalienable rights,
it is a government tort and a violation of your oath of office to support constitutional
law.
If the city of Fortuna remains silent, they can be sued for civil rights violations.
Article 1, Section 1 of the California Constitution directs that we the people have certain unalienable
rights such as protecting private property or safety and privacy.
Under United States Code, Title 42, Section 1988, Congress has authorized judge to award
attorney's fees to plaintiffs in civil rights cases.
So there's not going to be any problem paying for these cases.
Under the Federal Energy Act Policy Act of 2005, utilities are mandated to offer smart
meters and to install them only upon customer request.
There are citizens in Fortuna who have placed tags on their existing meters telling PG&E
not to install smart meters.
PG&E has taken these tags down, installed smart meters, and placed the tags back.
This is not only outrageous, it's criminal trespass, which is a felony.
People who already have smart meters they do not want can join a class action lawsuit
at kirtlandandpackard.com.
In closing, I would like to say to every city council member, you will receive in the near
future a certified letter from my attorney.
Thank you.
My name is Rebecca Crosby and I'm here to speak out against the smart meters.
I spoke once before.
I understand that you voted to go ahead with the smart meters and some of you said you
didn't even know that much about it, which I think is horrible because this affects our
health, our privacy, and our lives and you should be at least knowledgeable about what
you're voting for.
You were elected by us to represent us and so I would like you to listen to what we're
saying.
I was never concerned about my microwave before, but now it seems I'm going to be in the microwave
because all of these signals are going to be coming from everybody else's houses on
their smart meters, going through my house, picking up my signal, going to the cell site
and I'm going to be in the microwave.
Besides all that, their next step is putting smart meters on your appliances so now we
have more microwave radiation coming from the appliances in our houses, what's going
to be next.
I mean, I just, I can't believe that you wouldn't protect us as was just said, your oath of
office.
This is not partisan.
I have down state senator, majority leader, Democrat, Flory D. Democrat Schaeffer, he
hand delivered to the CPUC to place a moratorium on smart meters, rake heights, until the problem
with technology is resulted.
This was through Texas and San Francisco attorney Dennis Arara calling for a moratorium on San
Francisco and the city of San Francisco requests a statewide moratorium.
There's a moratorium in Scotts Valley, Santa Cruz, Marin County, Fairfax, Rio Del, San
Isomo, San Luis Obispo, Scarborough.
You can look at StopSmartMeters.com and get a lot of information about this.
Please educate yourself.
Please don't turn us into something in a microwave.
There's also a lot of countries that have had these before us that are now trying to
get rid of them and voting against them.
Some of the countries are England and Spain and a lot of others back there.
You'll see that on the website also.
Thank you.
Good evening.
My name is Al Petrovich.
I'm from Rio Del.
I want to share with you that I was there when PG&E gave the presentation to Rio Del.
Four members of PG&E and I understand why Rio Del put a moratorium on it.
PG&E couldn't answer the questions and they haven't done it to this day.
They were asked to come back.
They've never been back.
A lot of it related to the 1996 Telecommunications Act that basically forbid the cities from
considering environmental issues as to their location.
Then in 1998, now this is at the federal level, so the environmental issues are shoved to
the side.
Then in 1998, there's a rider that was added and that rider did the same thing with all
equipment that was to utilize the towers.
So any equipment that utilizes the towers, they could not consider environmental issues.
Now it goes to the state level.
PUC decided to forget about the environmental review.
So the gates are wide open.
Here we are, city and county levels.
Show us your colors.
Do your homework.
And I think that has a lot to do with why Rio Del created a moratorium because they
could see that the gates were wide open.
It's obvious they are.
Do your homework.
How can you do anything else?
How can you not, at this time, stand up for the citizens until everything is worked out?
What's the rush with the smart meters?
Let's see that they're safe first.
So I urge you, at this time, to create a moratorium for TUNA like Rio Del did because it's obvious.
It's obvious why it should be done.
I thank you.
Is there anyone else that would like to address the council?
My name is Bob Payer.
I live in Carlotta.
I didn't come here to speak, but I have something to say.
We're living in a country now where the government is taking over everything.
And if you're not seeing it, you're not looking.
And recently I watched the televised city council meeting here.
And there were three of you who said in reply to the smart meters, oh, it's going to happen
anyway.
Why are we fighting this?
Why are we bothering with this?
If you don't bother with these things, this is a small community.
You don't have to be ruled by socialist governments.
So you can see I'm a little fired up about this.
But the impression I get is no matter what evidence is brought here, there are several
of you who aren't going to pay any attention to it.
And we're going to remember that.
And I'm going to campaign against you.
Thank you.
Is there anyone else from the public that would like to address this on this issue or
any other issue that's not on the agenda?
Yes.
Since these smart meters have been installed and all, there has been a lot of evidence
showing that it is not very safe, that it has little effects.
Myself, I am suffering from insomnia since my neighbors have all had their smart meters
installed.
And we've been told that, you know, well, we have to accept this because that's just
the way it is.
And when I went to the first meeting down at River Lodge back in December, there was
a gentleman there that explained that PG&E had the option of installing other options
besides this wireless technology, which there hasn't been a whole lot of studies done, long-term
studies done on the health effects.
And PG&E chose to go wireless because of profit motive.
And they saw big dollars.
They said it's a cheap way to do this, and the people are just going to get this because
we're a monopoly, and there's no other choice.
So what else can we do?
And we weren't informed about the installation of these until about a week or so before it
went in.
And we've been told that, well, there are no options, and we don't really care about,
you know, what you have to say about it because we're just going to put this in.
And I feel really strongly against this because we don't know the long-term effects, but there
have been studies in other European nations that have had studies, and it has shown that
it affects your hormone levels and it causes brain tumors, especially in young children
and elderly patients or people.
And the microwaves are saying, well, it's less than that of a cell phone or a microwave
oven.
But I said, well, we don't go around with a cell phone and attach our heads 24 hours
a day and having these pulses through us.
And there are some of us among us right now that are really sensitive to EMFs, electromagnetic
frequencies, and it is having a deleterious effect on our health.
And I would just like to address the council and have them really look at the studies that
have been put out so far about how this is affecting all of us and will affect us and
perhaps kill us off, our children, especially children, because they're going to be really
more susceptible.
Their skulls are thinner than ours, and their developing bodies can't absorb as much microwave
energy that these smart meters are putting out.
Thank you.
Thank you, ma'am.
Thank you for your comments.
Could you identify yourself, please?
Zian, and I live here in Fortuna.
Thank you.
So is there anyone that would like to make a motion to close public comment period?
Second.
It's been moved and seconded to close public comment period.
All in favor signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Opposed?
So closed.
As you know, we can't deliberate or make a decision or anything tonight on this, but
we will, we did hear you.
So we will read the stuff we got and go from there.
Thank you.
Moving on, Duane, do you have a report on disbursements?
Honorable Mayor, members of the council and chair and members of the Fortuna Redevelopment
Agencies, this is an oral report of disbursements in this last action on March 21st, and it's
a oral report.
The city disbursements were $249,404.42, and the redevelopment agency was $662.54.
There is no action required of the council.
It's informational for you.
Thank you.
Moving on to the consent calendar.
There are seven items on the consent calendar.
These are routine in nature and are usually approved in a single vote, but any member
of the council can pull a particular item for further discussion.
Is there any items wished to be pulled?
Mr. Mayor, I'd like to do number two.
Number two, okay.
Number three, please.
Three.
No others.
Mr. Mayor, I make a motion to approve consent calendar items number one, four, five, six,
and seven.
Second.
It's been moved to approve consent calendar items one, four, five, six, and seven.
All in favor signify by saying aye.
Aye.
All opposed?
So approved.
Dean, you pull number two.
Thanks Mr. Mayor.
If you refer to page 21, this is a consolidation of the building permit summary for the council
of February 2011.
There's been criticism of our building department and community development department not having
any justification for having as many employees that we have, and I try when there's something
to be made aware to the public of increases in fees accepted.
I would like to make reference to February 2010, a year ago, roughly a year ago, the
amount of cost for the construction was 138,000, roughly 139,000, and we received $4,000 in
fees for this last month of February 2011.
We just about tripled the construction cost amount and almost five-folded the amount of
fees.
Instead of 4,000 last year, we had 20,000 this year.
So it does show some signs of things occurring in our city.
It's taken some a little while for us to creep back out of the hole that we were in two years
ago and I'm glad to see the construction community out there doing something.
So thank you very much.
Thanks Mr. Mayor.
Thanks Dean.
Any other comments on item two?
Moving on to item three.
Item three, page 25 please.
At the top it's general fund and the second from the top down it's interest loans and
rents and I noticed year to date actual is $52,744, budgeted $737,000.
So we've got three months in the fiscal year.
I think I probably understand the reasoning why it is so low at this point but if we could
have an explanation from either Dwayne or…
Certainly I'm going to jump ahead and if it gets really detailed I'm going to have our
finance director respond.
But essentially as with a lot of general fund revenues, they are not received in a linear
fashion.
In other words, they are not progressive by month to month and we receive a great deal
of revenue in the general fund overall in the latter two quarters, particularly the last
quarter taxes, property taxes being one great example of that.
On the interest loans and rents there are a number of loans that come to the general
fund.
Specifically as an example, the redevelopment agency owes a debt to the general fund and
it's paid annually and it's due on June 30th of each year.
So we don't realize that revenue until the last day of the fiscal year including also
a loan that goes to the drainage fund similar from the redevelopment agencies.
There are others of interest loans that become payable in essentially the last quarter of
the year.
So it's not unusual.
There is a little bit lower but if you noticed over in the percentage from the prior year
it's 21 so it's not an unusual event to see revenues not realized yet at this time.
And since this is a cash report and not an accrual item, we don't realize, we don't
put the number in until indeed the cash arrives and not just necessary when we anticipate
it as you would in an accrual process.
Okay.
Thank you.
So with regard to the projection, are we projecting that that estimated annual budget amount will
be real close to that if not?
At this moment in time I have no concerns of any substantial amount that we will not
realize that full 737,000.
Nothing would indicate to me that that's in jeopardy.
Thank you.
Any other questions on the finance department?
I'll move to approve item number three and might as well do number two as well.
I second the motion.
Moved and seconded to approve item two and three.
All in favor signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Opposed?
So approved.
Moving on to business items.
We have two business items this evening, the first one is to receive the 2009-2010 fiscal
audit reports and financial statement.
I'm delighted to have this report brought to you.
This is as you know is an annual report and it's a, we have two things going on, particularly
in the finance department this year, already three, the ongoing operations.
Ours is we're maintaining accounting records of that.
We have the forward looking aspect which is we're preparing the budget for your approval
here in the next couple of months.
But then we have this rear view mirror aspect where we looked at the performance of last
year's and this is the audit report that was completed and brought to you by our auditor
and you received the bound audits for both the city and the redevelopment agency and
this is an opportunity for our new finance director, Gary Chapman, to present the audit
report to you.
So Gary?
Well, your honor and counsel, I am pleased to present both these reports to you, which
the one with the white is our comprehensive financial annual report or CAFR for short,
slang, and then of course the basic financial statements for our redevelopment agency of
which you are the board members for.
To be fair and not to say anything out of place, these reports as our city manager already
mentioned are historical data from our last fiscal year that ended June 30, 2010 and we've
had our financial activity audited through our current CPA, Terry E. Craig and he completed
this audit for us and has provided a statement and I really like to read this part because
it's the way it's worded.
It says, for the city report, the auditor's unqualified opinion states that the financial
statements present fairly in all material respects the respective financial position
of the governmental activities, the business type activities, each major fund and the aggregate
remaining fund information of the city of Fortuna as of June 30 and the respective changes
in financial position and cash flows were applicable thereof for the year then ended
in conformity with the accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of
America.
In short, it just gives us assurance that these financial statements are free of any
material misstatements.
We were not required to file for the single audit report this year.
There's a limit, $500,000 in federal expenditures which we did not obtain nor exceed so we were
exempt from that and then a couple of highlights about our financials written in the agenda
summary that our overall revenues from governmental and business type activities totaled about
$13.8 million last year while our total expenditures were only $12.2 million and then the general
fund reported a fund balance of about $9.6 million, basically the cash, which is about
a decrease of $41,000 from last year.
And then I don't know if you want me to read through the rest of these highlights but I'm
going to pass this on segue into the like to tell you thank you for listening and ask
you to, what's the proper term, receive these reports.
You have any questions?
Just to comment on the city's report, page 2 under local economy.
The second paragraph there indicates that there was an overall general fund deficit
of 16% and a specific general fund sales tax decrease of 18% in 2009-10 and you expect
that to carry forward in this current fiscal year that we're in.
Do I expect this to continue?
I believe that's what it says here is these levels of decrease are expected to carry over
in 2010-11.
Trying to read the specific, but you did say the second paragraph, in other words the second
bullet that during.
I have on page 2, city council, February 20th, 2011, page 2 on the top.
The point is that we're going to experience general fund deficiencies again this year
and they'll carry over about the same level that we experienced last year in the neighborhood
of about 16-18%.
And honestly I don't see where that's written in here, but I believe that that is correct.
There's no question, there's just a statement.
Caught me off guard.
Alright it's the introductory letter, if that makes it any better, three page letter identified
as page 2 at the top of the letter.
And there's a paragraph entitled local economy and those numbers are identified.
So the importance of that is how we treat our general fund dollars in this year, this
fiscal year.
Yes.
Thank you.
Any other questions?
Do we have any other questions?
Now right now we'll open it to the public.
Is there any one from the public that would like to comment on this?
Any of you high school kids?
Any of you who think that was a good composition?
Lessons in civics?
Okay.
Move to close public comment.
Second the motion.
And moved and seconded to close public comment.
I'll favor signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Opposed?
So closed.
Couple items.
So as I said, we're going to be talking about the general fund.
So is this an action item, Aaron?
Yep.
We've got to do a voice vote on the city's receiving the fiscal report and the agency
receiving it.
I'll go ahead and move to receive the 0910 fiscal year audit of the city of Fortuna.
And I guess we better break this into two here.
Yeah, because it's two groups.
Second.
And it's been moved and seconded to receive the 2009-2010 fiscal year audit for the city
of Fortuna.
All in favor signify by saying aye.
Aye.
All opposed?
So received.
And I'll move to receive the 092010 fiscal year audit of the Fortuna Redevelopment Agency.
Second.
And it's been moved and seconded to receive the 2009-2010 fiscal year audit for the Fortuna
Redevelopment Agency.
All in favor signify by saying aye.
Aye.
All opposed?
So received.
Nice report.
Very good.
Moving on, the second item on the agenda is to provide recommendations to the council
regarding a complaint received pertaining to the actions of a city employee.
City Attorney.
Thank you, Mayor, members of the council.
Unfortunately, this item is not quite as far along a process as I thought it would be.
But I would like to tell you more than I was able to tell you at the last meeting.
I did send a letter to the complainant concerning the question of confidentiality and have not
yet had a chance to resolve that with the complainant.
The more I thought about that from the last meeting until this evening, at least from
my perspective, it's virtually impossible to look into the matter and make any serious
effort to sort it out and resolve it without the complainant's identity being known.
The complainant submitted the complaint on a form that was never intended for this purpose.
There's nothing wrong with using that form, but I say it was not intended for this purpose
because the form includes language that says that the identity of the complainant will
be kept confidential.
The form was intended more for a code enforcement, a neighborhood nuisance complaint where one
property owner has a complaint about the neighbor's dogs or the height of the hedge or garbage
accumulating in the backyard.
To avoid a situation where the complaining party feels that they might be retaliated
against by the neighbor, the city makes an effort to keep the identity confidential.
The building official or the community development department would take that complaint and without
revealing the source of the complaint, then city staff would go investigate and try to
resolve the complaint.
That's what this form is for and in that context, it's generally quite easy to keep the identity
of the complainant confidential.
In this case, the complaints that are made are very much more in the political arena.
This is not something that can be looked into without interviewing witnesses or at least
trying to gather facts and the gathering of facts can't help, I think, but identify the
identity of the complainant and the identity of the city employee.
That's still an issue that is going to have to be resolved if the complaint is going to
be brought forward.
The city employee who is the subject of the complaint has indicated that it is his desire
that any discussion of the complaints be done in a public meeting.
Again, I don't know how we will talk about complaints without the identity of the complainant
being known.
It's just an unresolved issue and we can't really move forward until that is resolved.
I did look at the complaint and there are essentially 13 specific complaints and I've
kind of in my mind at least grouped them into categories.
There are some complaints about the election code.
There are some complaints about the municipal code.
Specific complaints about the Brown Act, the Public Records Act, for example.
If we're going to go forward and look into the complaints, it seems to me that we ought
to try to deal with them sort of in those categories because some of those categories
are more susceptible to the city looking into the allegations and doing something about
it.
Other categories of complaints are by and large beyond the purview of the city.
For example, the first couple complaints have to do with specific sections of the California
election code and the city has, in my opinion, virtually no ability at this point in time
to do any meaningful resolution of that charge, if you will.
The complaint has to do with things that happened in the past.
We can't unring the bell.
The election has been held.
Whatever happened in the election happened.
We certainly could say, well, we'll try, if something was wrong, we'll try to be better
in the future.
We'll try to learn from this.
But there's nothing we can do to unring and remedy that allegation if it's found to be
true.
I'm not suggesting that I think it is or isn't true at this point.
There are other categories.
For example, I've just taken the liberty of assigning a number to each one as I go down
the list.
And number six alleges certain violations of the Public Record Act and the Brown Act.
But I would point out that in the California Public Records Act, it provides, and I believe
this is an accurate summary, the provisions of California Government Code Section 6258
and 6259 provide the exclusive procedure for litigating a public agency's obligation to
comply with a public records request.
There really is no mechanism for the city council to weigh in and determine whether
or not a city staff person did or did not violate the Public Records Act.
There is an exclusive remedy built into the state law.
In much the same way, to the extent that some of the complaints allege a violation of the
Brown Act.
The Brown Act provides that if a citizen feels that there have been either past violations
of the Brown Act or future violations about to occur, that the citizen is obligated to
send what's called a cure and demand letter.
That is, a letter putting the agency on notice that they believe there either was or is about
to be a violation.
And then the agency has 30 days to either correct a past mistake or to not hold that
meeting in the future.
The Brown Act provides for a 90-day statute of limitations.
That is, you can go back 90 days and say, 89 days ago or 90 days ago, I think you did
something wrong and you should fix it.
The complaint is vague in respect to the Brown Act violations.
It simply alleges various other violations of the Brown Act.
There's no indication that they're within the last 90 days or beyond.
But when you look at the other provisions of the complaint, there are several specific
allegations that go back to alleged improprieties that occurred in November of 2008.
Failure to follow a council resolution 2006-25, which would have been a resolution adopted
by the city council in 2006.
Violations of impropriety in January of 2009, October of 2010.
And so there are a number of complaints that go back a number of years.
So my suggestion, if we're going to do something and if we resolve the confidentiality, is
to sort of lump things into categories so that we can at least see what remedies, if
any, are available to the city.
I should point out there are some allegations of violations of the municipal code, which
are more clearly within our purview.
So I think we develop some categories.
And then my suggestion would be we define some time limit within which we might be willing
to go back and take a look at things.
I think it would be much less productive and much more complicated to go back, for example,
to 2006 and try to recall through interviews with folks or records searches or developing
information about what somebody did or didn't do five years ago.
Another issue that if we decide to go forward, I offered myself up last time to be the public
appoint person, and I'm still willing to do that if that's the council's desire.
But if so, regardless, whoever might be looking into these complaints, I think should be given
some degree of autonomy.
And we should all agree that person has, at least at some preliminary stage, sort of the
sole authority to conduct the inquiry so that there aren't conversations between different
people on different times and different things are said.
And whether it's me or someone else, we might end up sort of chasing our tail.
Recounting what happened a number of years ago will be difficult enough, but if there's
multiple players participating, I fear it may make it even more complicated.
I told you last time that I could identify three options that you might want to consider
in responding to the complaint.
One is to do nothing.
That is to trust that the Brown Act or the Public Records Act or the election code or
that there is some other mechanism for resolving these complaints and it's beyond your desire
or ability to do so.
That has the advantage of being quick and cheap, but not necessarily, there may not
be any other advantages, there may be disadvantages.
At the other end of the spectrum, I think you might receive this complaint form and
think that it's possible that there are some serious allegations sort of where there's
smoke there's fire.
And you might choose to hire an outside person to conduct an investigation.
Could be an attorney, could be just some respected private person.
I suspect that would cost $10,000 or $20,000.
It would probably take several months.
And I'm not positive that at the end of that process, the complainant or you or staff would
look at it as the definitive answer that would resolve all questions.
The Brown Act does provide and if we go that route, if we choose that option, the Brown
Act does provide that if the City Council is to hear specific charges and complaints
against a city employee, that the employee has the right to ask that that be conducted
in public.
And that if that right were exercised, then again, any hope for anonymity would go out
the window.
The middle ground that I guess I sort of recommended last time and I would recommend this time is
that you direct me as a staff person to try to work with the complainant to first resolve
the request for confidentiality.
And if we get past that point, then I can do as I suggested sort of lump together complaints
that have common threads and do that both by subject matter and time period.
And then we can sort of work our way through this.
It's new for you, it's new for me, so we're going to have to sort of learn as we go.
And we're going to have to do it in a, I shouldn't say we're going to have to do it.
The law requires that it be done in a public meeting.
I don't have the ability to go into closed session and talk with you about this.
So my recommendation, I guess I've rambled on, I would suggest that you direct me to
work with the complainant to try to resolve the confidentiality.
And once that's resolved, to then create a framework within which we can begin to look
at some of these things.
Thank you.
Do any of us have any questions of Dave at this time?
You mentioned 13 specific complaints.
Yes.
If we, for example, the Brown Act has a 90-day statute of limitations.
So if we use that as a measure, how many of those complaints are removed from the list?
Or does that make much of a difference?
It's not exact science, so I can't say one or two or three.
The specific complaint that mentions directly the Brown Act is what I've identified as number
six.
And it simply says various other violations of the California Public Records Act and the
Brown Act.
It does not say at any specific meeting or such a...
So I can't say, well, if we set aside the Brown Act beyond 90 days, it eliminates one
or two or seven or whatever.
So it appears the hurdle that we need to cross is the confidentiality aspect of this.
That's certainly the first hurdle.
Otherwise, we are in no position to hear either side of this case.
Well, if we're going to try to sort out some facts and sort of get a sense of what might
have happened at some point in time about some particular issue, I don't know how we
will do that without talking to people.
And for example, Mike would know better than I, but in conducting an inquiry, you might
have to talk to somebody and say, well, Doug said this.
Do you think that's what happened?
And that person said, well, yeah, I agree that's what happened.
Or no, I remember it differently.
And pretty soon, people's identities and what have you become known.
So if we don't get over the hurdle of confidentiality, does the issue just drop?
And what are the consequences of us saying do nothing?
Well, I think I'm not prepared to say that if we don't get past that, the whole thing
fails and we drop it.
But I suspect we're pretty close to that.
I just, without being able to talk to folks, I don't know how we could get our arms around
what is being alleged.
And certainly, there may be the other side to the story.
So is there an opportunity, if that happens, for a lawsuit brought against the city that
we would have to litigate against?
Or you heard somebody tonight say they're going to sue you if you don't take certain
actions.
There's always an opportunity for people to sue.
What you've been presented with is what I would take as a legitimate complaint by somebody
and they're asking you to look into it and take it seriously.
How you take it seriously, different folks might see it differently.
Somebody might really want to sink their teeth into this, hire an outside person, budget
$10,000, devote three months to it, and come back with a 20-page fact-finding report.
Somebody else might say a lot of these allegations really go to how the city staff person is
performing and that might be the subject of the council's annual review of that employee.
Not to ignore the complaints, but you might decide there's a different forum where you
want to look into those and resolve them.
So you mentioned money.
We just made a statement earlier that our general fund pool is down from previous years
and we expect that to carry on this year.
So a $10,000 to $20,000 outside consultant, are we insured, remit?
Do we have the city have any insurance against this?
So come out of our general fund to hire a consultant and defend?
Yes, you have insurance.
I doubt very much that it covers these kinds of allegations.
The allegations that we've violated the Public Records Act or the Brown Act or the election
code would not be covered.
So yes, it would come out of the general fund.
And my suggesting that it could cost $10,000 or $20,000, I've not shopped around, but I
think to bring somebody in that has some level of training or experience, they're not going
to work cheap.
It's going to cost some money.
Maybe it's only $5,000.
It's still money.
I just wanted to make sure you mentioned elections code, municipal code, Brown Act violations
in California Public Records Act.
Are there any others or were there just the four?
I think those are the four main bodies of law that the 13 complaints surround.
There are other specific, like failure to follow council direction.
That's not really the Brown Act.
It's not really the Public Records Act.
It's not the election code.
I guess it's sort of the inherent relationship between the council and the staff.
When you tell us to do something, we're supposed to do it, and the allegation is that the
council directed the staff person to do something and it wasn't done.
Well I think you've stated as far as the dilemma here, the confidentiality of the complainant
in regard to the other side, the person having the right to have this aired in public and
have a public hearing.
I don't know how those two can be reconciled to move forward.
And I should point out, I don't know if I... I might have made things slightly more
complicated.
Attorneys sometimes do that.
When I communicated with the complainant, I offered the opportunity to resubmit the complaint
anonymously.
Well that, having given that more thought, I don't think that really resolves the issue.
What we might get then is a piece of paper without a name on it, but if it's the same
complaints, we still need to be able to interview witnesses and gather information and facts.
And I think the identity of the complainant would still come out.
And I believe the person who's being accused has the right to be able to confront that
person with specific questions and the ability to ask those questions.
I will offer my opinion.
The worst case scenario is you're exactly right and at the end of some process, you
folks conduct a hearing in which you will act as some sort of arbiter of the facts.
And you hear evidence, you hear testimony, and you try to sort out these 13 complaints.
Did they occur?
And if so, are they serious enough to warrant some discipline or some action?
Do you have any questions?
I don't have any questions.
I think we're just treading water and going nowhere.
We shouldn't do anything at all.
Throw it out and let the person who was referring back to Phil Nyberg's comment about one time,
tirade, ranting and raving, I think it's a handful of accusations when somebody was disappointed
and decided to write them down and pinpoint it towards one of our employees.
My direction is just to ignore it, throw it out, and if they want to refile, refile it
on the correct form, put your name on it.
You're going to accuse one of our employees.
I want to know who you are.
So at this point in time, I'm saying making a motion just to ignore it.
I think that would send a terrible message to our public if we ignored what they tried
to tell us.
I think we would be irresponsible in that regard.
One thing that was said as we were going over the complaints is you were talking about you
can't deal with election issues because it's in the past.
I would say that all of these are in the past, so I don't know that that statement.
You know what I'm saying?
They are.
I guess that's the nature of somebody does something.
You can't complain beforehand.
You can't say, I know you're going to rob the bank tomorrow.
When you said that, that just kind of caught me as not, I don't know what my word is, but
anyway.
As I try to think through these complaints and I looked up some of the different codes
and things, I think there are several where the city employee would have to be identified,
but not necessarily the complainant, and I don't know if that's an option.
I think you're right.
Some of the sections of the municipal code that are cited by the complainant, I think
could be treated as a neighborhood dispute, if you will, where we don't want to resolve
those complaints or those allegations that the name of the complainant does not necessarily
have to be revealed.
I don't know if we want to try to deal with some of that first and see what happens.
Dean says he wants a new form and the name on it.
Well, we all already know the name, so that doesn't change anything.
I don't know what you meant by that, Dean.
Anyway, I don't think we should just drop it.
When a citizen takes the time to file a complaint, I think some of those items are pretty severe
and I think we should try to deal with it.
For me, I think that Mr. Hranberg's recommendation to allow him to work with the complainant
to try to resolve the confidentiality issue and then to work towards some common thread
and some common ground there, I think is a sound advice.
I'll second that.
I like that.
Let's, before we do anything more in there, let's open it to the public.
Is there anyone from the public that would like to speak on this matter?
This would have come to you in a closed session at the annual review had the Brown Act been
followed.
You are right.
It struck me as very odd, the letter that you sent.
I did not see how refiling it anonymously made any difference.
I'm really not prepared to speak because I did not know what Mr. Hranberg was going to
say at all.
I had no idea.
I can't really answer very many of your questions.
I can tell you all know who submitted the complaint.
I guess I can tell you why I submitted it with that little paragraph still on there.
It was to give all of you a chance to look at it and see it before it became public.
I beg to differ with you.
I think this could have been handled, that you could have brought this to the City Council
in a closed session.
I believe that's true because of the nature of the complaint.
Mr. Hranberg is dealing with it as a complaint against the City, like a claims.
It's not that.
It's a complaint against one of your employees.
A lot of the issues that he's brought up don't apply.
I'm asking you to look at a complaint against the actions of the employee.
In order to take it seriously, I felt that I need to show that there was a broad basis
for the complaint, not only over different subject areas, not only in the area that I
was concerned about, this water tank issue, but also over time, that this is not something
that has just sprung up because of one person.
In fact, there's not one complaintant, there's not one person that has been affected by this.
It's just that I happened to be able to do it.
I wasn't an employee.
I didn't have to worry about repercussions because I was an employee.
I wasn't somebody that worked with the City.
I wasn't somebody that did business with the City.
I can tell you that when I was dealing with the tank issue, all those things were told
to me.
People told me that.
I can't help you.
Well, you know, that's a good idea, but I have something coming forward, the Planning
Commission.
I do business with the City.
I work for the City.
I want to leave that.
I just want to explain why I did it.
I did it confidentially.
Also, and actually I go back to that, is because also I thought that the employee had a right
to privacy also, the right to have it heard in closed session.
So if they wanted that, then I thought that I should honor that.
If that was going to happen, I didn't want it to be like the lawsuit, agar versus unknown.
In fact, Mr. Tramberg saying agar against the City again.
I had no part in any of those closed sessions that you had about that.
Nobody came and asked me about it.
Nothing.
I was totally excluded from it.
Whatever anybody would have said in those closed sessions, I've been in closed sessions.
I know what is said about people outside sometimes.
I hope that didn't happen.
That's all I can say.
Anything else?
Oh, the closed session.
This is a complaint against an employee.
So what is the remedy?
The remedy is, as Mr. Tramberg suggested, you do nothing.
You let it go, see what's going to happen.
If you do instead look at it and see something that needs to be done, then you either discipline
or God forbid, do go further than that.
There is a procedure in the Brown Act for dealing with that issue.
This is a complaint that would result in a disciplinary action.
You can, under the Brown Act, meet and to consider disciplinary action.
This is the first step of that.
If you do that, you can meet and all it has to say is discipline.
It doesn't have to name the employee.
It doesn't have to do anything else.
I think there was a possibility of a closed session, but that's gone.
The employee has said that they're willing to do an open session.
I'm perfectly happy with that.
I am perfectly fine with it.
I am an advocate for public, but I didn't want, again, I didn't want it to go in closed
session and I, you know, I don't know.
If it's in closed session, actually that's fine with me too.
Whatever.
Any questions?
Should I keep, I think I'm finished.
Tramberg, Mr. Tramberg, we do have a lot to work out and one of those unfortunately is
you, is suggesting that you investigate this.
I think if we look at some of those, the complaints, I don't think that, there's a problem there.
Thanks.
Sorry.
Thank you.
That last comment, Janelle, was that, you don't think Mr. Tramberg should look into
it?
Is that what you said?
That would have to be looked at closely.
Let's put it that way.
Okay.
Look into it.
A couple of things.
I guess we resolved the first issue, that threshold issue.
So at least now that's no longer a stumbling block.
Whether or not we could address this topic in closed session, I agree that the Brown
Act allows personnel matters generally to be discussed in closed session.
But what I'm talking about is way before anything is to be discussed in closed session.
I'm talking about when tomorrow morning I, at your direction, start talking to people
about the allegations.
We're not talking about whether I think there's a nice little package that I want to present
that you might want to hear in closed session unless the employee asks for it to be an open
session.
I'm talking about now how we handle this.
When I offered to do this, I didn't rush in.
I realized there are some inherent problems with a city person investigating a city person
in these allegations.
The only alternative, it seems to me, is we hire somebody from outside the organization.
And you're perfectly, I was going to say you're free to do that, but it's not free.
That's the point.
You're going to hire somebody that does this for a living, and you'll be put on their list
and when it's our turn they'll come to town and they'll interview people.
And it'll be a fact-driven, fairly intense thing, I would think, and you'll be billed
accordingly.
That doesn't make it right or wrong.
I just think it's fair that you understand.
That will probably take longer and certainly will be more expensive.
I fully appreciate that there is always the possibility that when a city staff person
looks into a city staff person, there is the belief at the end that it was all just whitewashed
and swept under the rug.
There's a procedure, I guess the chief left, but there's a procedure in state law that
requires police departments to investigate complaints that citizens make about one of
their own officers.
And at the end of that process, I'll hazard a guess that nine out of ten complainants
are not happy with the result.
Well, you just have the sergeant investigate the officer.
We knew he was going to say that the officer did nothing wrong.
So I appreciate that the possibility that not all people will be happy with whatever
I do certainly exists.
All I can say is I work for you folks, I will do the best job I can.
And that's all we can do.
Are we still open for discussion?
Yeah, we're still open in public.
We're still in public if we want, but you can talk during that if you want.
I realize there will be a cost for your services also.
Yes.
We're on the same wavelength.
The good news is my hourly rate is considerably less than somebody coming in from out of the
area.
All right.
That brings the question, are there people in the profession that deal solely with this
kind of issue for an investigator or as an attorney or did we just put an RFP out to
all those attorneys that might be interested in handling this for us?
I wouldn't do that, but I doubt you're going to find, I doubt you're going to easily find
somebody with experience in election law, Fortuna Municipal Code, the Brown Act, the
Public Record Act.
Certainly there are attorneys and others who are quite expert at the election code and
investigations concerning the election code.
And there are some that are very expert at the Public Records Act, but have no idea about
election law.
So I can't say that I've thought of a person or even a trade.
There are human resource people that are frequently brought in when there's an allegation of sexual
harassment or some discrimination because they are more trained and experienced in personnel
matters.
This isn't really that.
I think bringing in a lawyer isn't necessarily necessary and would probably be way more expensive
than someone else.
I mean, I suppose you could think about a respected retired judge or a mediator of some
sort.
Although mediators don't always engage in fact finding it, they have a little different
slant.
But I mean, there are people that are out there that are available for hire that are
in the business of trying to resolve disputes and sort things out.
I wonder if the League of California Cities has a council that could help us on this.
I certainly could inquire of them.
And there are investigators out there that are well versed in administrative investigations
that we could hire to do the investigation and bring those results back to you or to
us.
I don't know that we're at that point though to talk about those kinds of things.
I think it would be important still now that the confidentiality issue has been resolved
for you, Mr. Tranberg, at our direction to sit down with the complainant and find out
exactly what the issues are here.
Because in reading the complainants, it's rather broad.
Some of them are just there's no specifics to them.
If there isn't anything that's going to happen, even if there is an investigation, then why
would we spin our wheels, so to speak, in looking at those kinds of issues?
I don't think that that's necessary.
So I think we need to more focus on specific complaints and what those are.
And the only way I know to do that at this point is for somebody to sit down with her
and find out what those specific issues are.
And I think, at least in my opinion, and I know that that won't make Janelle happy, but
I think that maybe that would be something that would be best done by yourself and she.
And if I do that, I could perhaps come back and sort of have prioritized at least what,
in my opinion, are kind of current issues that we could sink our teeth into, as Councilman
Long indicates, where all of these have some element of the past, but some appear to be
sort of ongoing or have the possibility of being ongoing.
For example, I think the municipal code violations are a little more forward-looking, whereas
the allegation that something was done wrong in 2006.
And there might be some additional information to come from the complainant with regard to
that particular issue.
It might be that the ordinance was passed in 2006, but there's a current issue that
she's actually speaking of.
So that, you know, there's a lot here that I think needs to be focused and some information
that you can obtain and then bring back.
Janelle?
Thank you.
I agree.
We don't need to hire an investigator.
I have no, no, no vision of investigations.
Again, I'm going to tell you that this is a complaint against an employee, that each
of you are perfectly capable.
I am not an attorney.
And I was perfectly capable of looking at all of these issues and saying something's
wrong here.
On the complaint itself, I said, I'll give you more information.
I'll give you supporting information.
And I've been working on that.
And I have some.
I don't have to give it to you all at once.
I have been working very diligently trying to get each one of these things into a one-page
or less statement with a couple supporting documents.
And that's it.
And that's all I'm asking for is for you to look at it.
Again, Mr. Tramberg, some of these items, some of these items, Mr. Tramberg, you could
have been involved in the, you could have been, the complaint could have been against
you also.
So I honestly, I'm sorry that you play a role in some of these.
And if we can separate them out and I can go through and pull those ones out, then maybe
the other ones, if the city wants you to look at them, that would be fine.
But there's a couple that you play a role in.
It's not a matter of at the end of the day because you work for the city.
It's not that at all.
If it was, you know, all of these people have an opinion of me.
All of these people, some of these have great political differences with me.
There's lots of things.
But the system is I have to, you know, they're the ones that have to make the decision.
And that's what I've chosen to do and that's what I accept.
And if you choose, if you ask another employee to do it, then that's fine as long as they
were not involved in the issues themselves, another city employee.
Although your city employees are awfully overworked to deal with this.
So actually my idea is, and I will throw this out, is that if I get you the stuff, you all,
Mr. Tamber can double check this, you can consider it yourself.
You can do it in closed session.
You can go through the stuff and hash it out.
All I ask is if the employee is there, that I'm there also.
Thanks.
Thank you, Gina.
Mr. Mayor, if I might, I'm concerned that we got a complaint about one employee and
when I've offered to assist the council in looking into it, now the assertion is that
I'm in the middle of some of those complaints.
And you know, I can't investigate myself.
I know I'm good, but you know, in all fairness, you wouldn't want a report from me that says
I was perfect.
So now I think we're back to square one.
And all I can suggest is let me make some phone calls, see if I might come up with a
name or two, a budget or two, some ideas.
There really are no other city employees that have the job description receive this kind
of a complaint.
And when you're not doing building inspections, look into these things, for example.
It's going to take somebody with some degree of training and skill.
As far as it being done in the Brown Act, the Brown Act says that employee performance
evaluations and discipline and hiring can be done in closed session unless the employee
requests it to be done in open session.
Having talked to this employee, he has requested and will request that it be done in open session.
So the option of doing it discreetly in the closed session does not exist.
I would also point out that this employee has a contract with the city that allows him
to hire an attorney at the city's expense when certain allegations are made.
A number of years ago when Debbie August was the subject of some investigation, it sort
of became common for city managers and perhaps city attorneys and others to feel a need for
some defense when allegations are made.
And so the farther this goes and the bigger it gets as the ripples go out, the expense
meter is going to keep running.
What I'm suggesting is maybe Ms. Hager can help if we can kind of keep focused.
I can just say for myself, debating what happened last November doesn't hold a lot of promise
or excitement for me.
Whatever happened happened, I can't undo it, right or wrong, it happened.
If we did something wrong, can we be better at the next election cycle?
Sure.
But I just don't know what we could do to remedy that kind of a complaint.
And so to me, that would be quite a bit lower on the process.
I would rather, and I'm only speaking for myself, devote the energy to more ongoing
things where we could have an impact on the relationship.
And to me, those are more the municipal code kinds of complaints than something that occurred
years ago.
So my suggestion now has changed.
You might have noticed I was not rushing in and saying, would you please hire me?
So let me take a step back.
Let me see if I can find a few names of what at least I would consider to be respected
folks, retired judges or fishing game wardens.
Don't trust that.
Maybe I can find a name or two that you might consider.
Well, and if I understand Janelle's offer to bring these items forward to the council,
I'm not sure that that's the best route to go in all fairness to the employee.
I don't think that that should happen.
Well I think you certainly know from the line of work that you're in that there are frequently
two or more sides to a story and not all witnesses have exactly the same recollection or perspective.
And staff is not at all opposed to anybody giving the council anything, but you're all
busy folks and for you to sort through it and try to understand it and then sort out
what's there is something that typically your staff helps you do.
Not something that we would want even to get involved in.
Yeah, the allegations reading through them are vague and they need a lot more meat on
the bone so to speak and it sounds like we have an amended complaint tonight against
another city employee so that pretty much in my mind puts you out of the running for
the chief investigator on this issue.
Thank you.
I don't mean to make fun of you.
The cost is going to cost to do this right for the employee and for Ms. Eggers, but when
it comes time for the budget we'll just have to adjust the figures accordingly.
I agree I think at this point if you could bring those names back to us, several options.
I hate to spend taxpayer money, but I also think we have an obligation to the public
to investigate when they make a complaint.
So if we can't do it as a council in closed session on our own then I guess we have to
hire somebody.
Is that a possibility of having more information presented and going through some of the points
in closed session before we hire somebody?
Meaning which ones we could maybe deal with, which ones we want more information on?
The employee has indicated that he chooses to exercise his right under the Brown Act
to have any discussion of specific charges heard in public.
So it is not an option.
So can we do the same thing in public and if we get more information and go through
it and figure out which ones we want investigated and which ones we want to maybe say well we
can't, don't feel we can do anything about this one but let's hire somebody to investigate
ABC whatever so that we're not spending money on the ones that we think should just, that
are vague, that we can't, that we don't feel like we can find anything?
If Ms. Eger is able to submit a page or two on each of the 13 complaints then that might
be of great assistance in at least getting a sense of what you could or couldn't do
about the 13 complaints.
Some of the complaints we can handle ourselves.
That's how I feel.
I don't think we need to hire somebody to investigate every single one so maybe we should
narrow them down to what we want someone to, hire someone to investigate.
And I'm not in any position to offer an opinion to any of those.
I have the same two pages that you have and not much more.
As long as those pages are, the information is very direct, succinct.
Well, if we can't do it, we say we can't do it and we hope to hire somebody.
But we can try that first.
If we're going to do that just so I'm clear, do I play any role as an intermediary or assistant
in some way or is Ms. Eger going to give each of you a packet with information that?
Well, if it's going to be open session, wouldn't she just submit it as part of the agenda?
Well, not if I don't get it.
I'm not clear exactly how this is going to work.
Who puts the agenda together?
Because I don't know that.
Linda.
So can she bring it all to Linda and she puts it in the agenda packet or what?
If she's willing to do that, sure.
We invited Ms. Eger to submit stuff to you and that's fine.
I just want to clarify, do you want me to also get that and be able to help you going
through it or because I might be part of the complaint, you want me to stay out of it?
Well, yeah.
You are part of the complaint and it would take any outcome or recommendation that you
would make.
So we need a separated party here.
Cheryl.
As the city's personnel director, we go through similar processes like this on a pretty regular
basis and what we would do is have, in this case, the person wants an open meeting.
It doesn't have to be a council meeting.
It can be a special meeting with just this as a topic and in this case, the complainant
would present their information and the employee would present their information.
Just to you, either one can have an attorney present or a representative present and you
would get that information and then decide what you wanted to do from there.
Would that information be given to us ahead of time like our agendas are or would it just
be at that actual meeting?
When we do it in personnel, it's given to you at the meeting and then you don't necessarily
have to make a decision on it right at that time but you would, that way the people are
facing each other.
They can say what they have to say, ask questions of each other.
You can ask questions of either of them or get clarification.
Just a suggestion of how we do it on a routine basis.
What might be better to have a special meeting than to take up a whole night of agenda, you
know, times our agenda takes a while and if we don't get started on that until 8 o'clock,
we could be here for a long time which I can do that if that's what we want to do but maybe
a special meeting would be better.
Yeah, a special meeting would be good.
It was one time when I was on the council, we had one of the, we ended up having to make
a decision on an employee and as a council, we should have some sort of representation
to keep us informed on the legalities of personnel issues because we don't want to step up and
step over any boundaries when we're dealing on personnel because there are some state
laws and stuff, what we can say, what we can't say.
So I like the idea of getting the information, having a meeting together and us making the
decision without having to hire everybody but if David is no longer our attorney, we
probably should look for somebody that could give us the advice that we need before we
sit in judgment on this thing too.
See if there's going to be other attorneys in the room.
Now we've taken another unexpected turn.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't mean to make light of it but it's getting worse and worse by the minute
because now the assertion is that I'm in the middle of some of these complaints.
Really I can't represent you folks.
So first, we need to find a lawyer that will represent the city council.
I suppose we've been very discreet in not naming the city employee but I guess, well,
let me just say the contract with that employee says, in addition to that required under state
and local law, employer shall defend, save harmless, indemnify employee against any tort
professional liability claim or demand or other civil legal action, whether groundless
or otherwise, arising out of an alleged act or a mission occurring in the performance
of the employee's duties.
I believe you will get a demand from the employee to pay for his lawyer.
So now you're going to have two new lawyers come in.
I don't know if the complainant will want a lawyer, perhaps feeling a need to have equal
footing or what have you.
She will want to hire a lawyer and the lawyer or somebody that I've been talking about up
to this point was not so much a lawyer as a fact finder.
So I mean, we're talking about hiring a bunch of people at considerable expense to the city
and I can say this because I'm a lawyer.
Nobody ever hires a lawyer because they want problems resolved quickly and cheaply.
I mean, I would just hazard a guess you're talking about three or four months and multiples
of my earlier opinion as to what it would cost.
Do you know?
Mr. Tranberg, did you read that part of the contract again?
It talked about lawsuits and torts and all kinds of really scary things, but I'm wondering
if we're talking about any of the things that you...
Could you read it again slowly?
In addition to that required under state and local law, employer shall defend, save harmless,
indemnify employee against any tort, professional liability claim or demand or other civil legal
action whether groundless or otherwise arising out of an alleged act or a mission occurring
in the performance of employees duties.
I haven't filed any action.
There's no tort, there's no civil action, there's nothing at this point.
At this point?
Exactly.
I appreciate there is no lawsuit filed now.
We're setting in motion certain things over which we are quickly going to lose all control.
And sometimes that's okay.
I'm simply pointing out that if the employee feels that there is this kind of exposure
in his mind, not my mind, not Ms. Ager's mind, not in your minds, if he believes in his mind
that there is this kind of exposure, he would probably be well advised to get a lawyer right
now and start getting organized and prepared because what is going to come in the future
is unknown.
This is, like we say, it keeps growing.
If we were to take this complaint in the form of somebody getting up in public comment period
and giving us information, if we were to get all this information clearer to us, could
we handle it as a counsel under evaluation or because it was a written complaint it has
to be handled as a complaint or could we just take it under advisement when we decide on
how we evaluate the person?
I think the Brown Act is clear, you are certainly entitled to evaluate your employees in closed
session.
You can evaluate my performance and say I'm doing a good job or I'm doing a crummy job
and you want me to improve here or there or what have you.
That does not involve specific charges or allegations.
In this case, you do have specific allegations and charges and I don't know how you could
meet in closed session and say we are simply evaluating the employee's performance but
we are not hearing or evaluating specific charges.
That's the whole nature of what you have been presented with is specific charges.
Even though they remain to be vague in nature.
Some of them are very specific.
Some are quite vague.
Some are very specific.
For example, failure to follow counsel direction in resolution 2006-25 regarding sending notices.
That was the resolution that this counsel adopted five years ago setting the public
well, some of you adopted five years ago noticing the public hearing to set water and sewer rates
and that resolution among other things directed the city manager to send out notices.
That one is I'm not sure exactly what the allegation is but that's somewhat compact
and we would think we could quickly and easily develop information whether notices were sent
out or not.
Under Prop 218, if the notices were improper, the time for doing anything about it has long
since come and gone.
I think it's maybe a three year statute.
So again, I mean we could throw ourselves on the sword and say we did it wrong and we'll
do it better but in terms of what happened then, we can't really unring the bell.
Let me just say so we don't go on forever.
I still think the most promising thing at the moment is for Ms. Ager to try to as concisely
as possible put her thoughts together.
Who it gets presented to, we'll kind of figure out later but somebody is going to have to
know what the substance of those things are and let me come back with a couple names.
Dennis, do you have something you want to say?
Dennis went 1660 Newburgh and one of them was just what you said.
Have Janelle come in with an amended complaint that are specific and I don't know whether
we, I mean we don't need to be, I don't think we need to be hiring attorneys right now.
I think that it sounds to me like she's willing to work with the city, try to get these things
resolved and so maybe a suggestion would be that she sits down with the police chief or
one of the sergeants or somebody like that that isn't a part of this but is still a city
employee, get these things to them and then how they get to the council.
Like I say, as Mr. Cranberg says, you may have to have somebody to give you advice on
how to handle this thing but I don't think you need to hire a couple of attorneys to
spend thousands of dollars on this thing at this point.
I think there's a way to get to a solution without doing all that.
Just a suggestion.
I just think that before we get this thing blown out of proportion that she would get
the complaints specific and like I say have somebody that works for the city such as like
say a sergeant or the chief to look at this thing.
Maybe there's somebody else that you can think of.
I don't know but I just think there's probably a better way to start out on this thing right
now without throwing a bunch of money down the drain.
Thank you.
Thank you, Dennis.
I kind of like the idea of Janelle can get her information together and maybe the chief
of police would be the one to receive it.
We do have some investigators, we have a detective or sergeant that might be able to.
I don't know if that's a good idea or whether we should get the packets and we decide after
we read it.
That's where we got looking at.
We have an assistant city manager that's in the business of doing human relations type
human resources type investigation, maybe Cheryl would be the conduit between Janelle
and us so we don't have to involve Mr. Tranberg until it's necessary to get an attorney.
That's satisfactory to you, Janelle.
You put your specifics on each of the 13 complaints in a concise statement trying to be as detailed
as possible in a few words, more than you have here and then deliver those to our assistant
city manager that can put those in a special meeting agenda packet for the council to review.
Does that seem like a feasible to me?
Sounds like a good starting point to me.
If that's the case, let's do some procedural things.
Let's close public comment.
I make a most close public comment.
Second.
We move and seconded to close public comment.
All in favor signify by saying aye.
Aye.
And then now do you want to make a motion with that direction, Ken?
Because here it says to direct the attorney.
Well, Mr. Mayor, I'll move that we don't have direction over city staff other than the two
employees that we have here.
We direct.
Perhaps without a motion, what I think I heard the council say is when Ms. Eger has her information
together, she will present it to the assistant city manager who will make sufficient copies
and distribute one copy to each of you.
Where it goes from there I think is not as clear.
But at least for starters, that will be the way the information travels to the five of
you.
And by our next meeting you'll have maybe some other legal people that you can use names
if we do decide we need somebody.
I was thinking maybe as an alternative to that suggestion that I made was Mr. Wentz,
that Janelle provide information to the council at which time you might decide you do or don't
need help.
Go from that point.
That sounds good.
There's no motion.
That's just an understanding.
It's a consensus.
Consensus of the council.
I'll have the minutes reflect that the council asked Ms. Eger to provide clarification for
complaints to the assistant city manager.
Thank you.
There you go.
Thank you.
That way we're not.
And what I heard was that she was going to put them together into an agenda packet for
a special council meeting.
Did I hear incorrectly?
That's the words I said, yes.
Okay.
Sorry.
I didn't know if they all agree to it.
To my right here.
Okay.
Well, I didn't hear you say it.
So I wanted to, I just heard the agenda, which what Linda said had only went as far as me
getting you the information.
So I just wanted to make sure that it was all in and out.
Okay.
I can see all kinds of pitfalls in this entire situation.
So if this is going to be presented to the council in a meeting for you to consider,
does staff have an opportunity to present information?
And if you have questions about the information that you receive from wherever you receive
it, might you want some advisor to help you sort through it and determine the significance
of what you've received?
Is there any downfall to receiving it all, going over it individually and then just having
that as an agenda item to decide what we want to do, how to proceed?
Well, I suppose the downside is you're going to apparently receive information as to why
Ms. Ager believes there was a violation of the election code.
And apparently you're not going to receive any input from city staff, why perhaps city
staff does not think there was a violation.
However, it's more providing additional information on the complaint that's already been filed.
So it's just giving us some, you know, providing us with additional information.
It's not that we're making up our minds or making a decision at that point as to exactly
even what direction to go, whether we want to hire somebody.
It's difficult though to make up our mind if we don't know the substance of the complaints,
if there is substance.
If there isn't, we might look at the complaint and say, forget it, we're not going to look
at it.
So I think what we're saying is we want to get the information, we want to read through
it, we want to have it on the agenda to decide at that point, like Mike just said, whether
there's sufficient information that we want to go forward, if we want to pick eight of
the 13 things to go forward on or what we want to do at that point and then decide if
we want to hire somebody or how we want to deal with it.
Once we take a look at it, then I think we'll have a better idea whether we want to hire
an attorney to represent us and give us direction at that point or exactly what to do.
And you guys have to know we're not going to do anything without having two sides of
the story.
I mean, that's just, I mean, I think that's just an unspoken responsibility that we have.
I'm not going to be able to participate.
And the employee is entitled, I believe, to his own advocate, not necessarily a neutral
city staff person trying to present information, but he's entitled or may be entitled to an
advocate, which is different than, let me help you sort this stuff out.
A special meeting might not be anything over and above acknowledging acceptance or receipt
of the material from the Zagar and then giving direction as to we do need representation
and let's see if this particular person would represent us.
A special meeting wouldn't make any decisions on the information we received that night
because that would have to be both sides giving us the full, so it would be just them.
Well, you will be making some decision if you look at...
Whether to proceed or not.
Well, if you look at 13 packets of information and you decide you think there's some merit
to five of them, then to some extent you have made a decision, not the ultimate decision,
but you've evaluated the materials that you've received and come to some at least preliminary
opinion as to the significance of what you've been presented.
If you have somebody that represents you, that person might say, oh, I think there was
sufficient evidence presented on all 13.
Or maybe that person would say, I only see serious allegations and some facts to support
one of the 13.
I don't think we're going to do anything different at that special meeting than we were asked
to do tonight is just to give direction on how we want to proceed.
That's what we were asked to do tonight.
I don't see how it's any different.
Am I missing something or is...
I mean, adding another step for some clarification.
The part that we're missing is we're only hearing one side of the issue.
But we were asked to give direction tonight based on one side of the issue.
Yeah, to investigate.
But now in public testimony tonight, an additional allegation came up against our source of representation.
So we now have two employees that are indicted in this complaint.
We still have to give direction at some point and we still need more of...
We don't have anybody...
We don't direct staff below our two employees.
So who do we give direction to when our employees are the focus of the complaint?
So by getting the additional information, we don't give direction.
We're just going to decide how we want to go forward.
Right?
Apparently.
We're asking for clarification on those particular accusations.
That's what we're asking for.
So is the stumbling block that the employee does not have representation and that there
is concern that the employee should have representation at this meeting?
Is that the stumbling block, Mr. Tramberg?
That's one of the stumbling blocks.
Okay.
The complaint does not involve Mr. Tramberg directly.
What I said is that he is a key player in a couple of the items.
So if for the purposes of this meeting that we could proceed, let Mr. Tramberg come and
advise the employee.
And then at that point you can decide what to go next.
That won't work?
No, he can't advise the employee.
He's our advisor.
He's nobody's advisor.
Right now he's nobody's.
The employee is entitled to choose his own attorney.
That's right.
Not me.
No.
So he's entitled to do that if he wants to.
Because I have been mentioned as having some involvement in some of the complaints.
I have no idea which.
But I think it would be best that I not do the fact finding investigation.
And I think it's required that I not advise you on the sufficiency of whatever it is you're
going to receive from Ms. Ager.
Because certainly the allegation then can be made that I told you that there was no
validity to charges 1, 3, and 5 because I can read between the lines and those are the
ones that somehow I'm involved in.
So at this point, other than helping you find people to do these things, I've pretty much.
I think what we should do then is we should have Janelle go ahead and give us a clearer
picture of what she wants.
And at the next meeting you can come back with a list of people and we could decide
on who to get to advise us.
And then that would be the next step.
I don't know which direction to go at the next meeting then maybe.
So basically we'll read the information.
We'll get the information just because it will be a completed complaint.
But we need to have advice on.
And we won't discuss the information at all.
We'll just ask.
Just like we did tonight.
Okay.
Basically.
So we'll have, because we have the complaint, but it isn't complete.
So the next meeting will just basically, it's complete but it's not detailed.
And with a more detailed complaint, we're one step closer to being able to start investigating
these things.
But we need some advice on how to do that.
Right?
How to do it or whether to do it.
Whether to do it.
Yep.
Okay.
All right.
I don't think it's any clearer than when we came tonight.
At least we've gone a little bit further.
We've got to resolve this.
There are complaints that need to be taken care of.
That's one thing we did notice that there really isn't a clear procedure for this type
of a complaint.
So in some of our workshops we might have to have this type of a, we have all kinds
of procedures for other complaints through.
But for when it comes to this level of staff, we don't have a procedure.
So that's part of the problem we have right now too.
And I think it would be okay to leave it up to the mayor whether we have a special election
to address those issues with regard to the clarification that we're provided or if it's
done in the next regular meeting.
You mean a special meeting?
Call a special meeting.
We'll see.
Okay.
I need to find out though, are we still, the record's still going to reflect Ms. Zager
clarifying her complaints and giving them to the assistant city manager?
Is that where we're still going with this?
Yes.
Okay.
I want to go on record.
I said do nothing.
I'm not positive that I can get you names by your next meeting.
I mean I would certainly do my best.
But, you know, I don't know what people, first I have to kind of get creative and then call
people and see who's perhaps available or interested.
So we'll do it as quickly as we can.
Okay.
Thank you.
All right.
Okay.
Let's move on to city manager's reports.
Oh, here we go.
You have received my written report this evening.
And it deals with the schedule of regular council meetings as well as two special council
meetings that we have planned.
One is Monday the 19th, the special meeting is Monday the 19th of April.
And that was agreed upon in the council, wait a minute, Monday, it isn't Monday, is it?
It's Tuesday.
I apologize.
I got used to saying Monday after another.
That was the agreed upon date when the city council held its last workshop session on
various goals and policies.
And we agreed to be back together and have a similar session, follow up on a number of
those items on Tuesday, April 19th, that's at 6 o'clock.
You'll be here in the council chambers.
And unless I hear otherwise, we will set it up as the same format around a circular table.
I thought that, from my perspective, I thought that worked well.
So the other special meeting is the water and sewer rates.
And that would be proposed for Monday, May 9th.
As we've been digging through more data and trying to get additional clarification of
our customer database and to accurately project the future, we have found a couple of little
anomalies that we think is important to deal with, long story short is we want to make
sure it's right.
And so May 9th is the earliest time that staff is going to be able to present those to you.
And that would be in a workshop session here in the council chambers.
Dwayne, I'm out of town on that day and I don't really want to miss that.
You are out of town.
That's one of the reasons why we're doing this discussion.
So May 9th is a, we wouldn't want to do it without your presence.
I mean, we all, I need all five of you to participate in those deals.
I guess what we could do is I could send out a circular and select a couple of others because
I didn't give you other alternatives tonight and I don't like to just shoot from a calendar
I don't have seen other congestions with.
Because in May we start getting really busy with presenting budgets and items.
So it's better to do it on a night.
So let me circulate by either phone calls or what have you and find your availability
as council members and then we'll set that date.
I'm out of town from May 4th to May 10th.
And I'd need some time to read whatever is in it.
So we couldn't do it on the 11th.
I wouldn't have time to get the information unless I got it before I left.
I understand.
Thank you.
Does anyone else have conflicts around that time?
Good.
I think we can organize something that would still occur in May.
Thank you.
I don't have any other items to share with you this evening.
Other than I can say you probably heard the state legislature has been trying to take
some action about the future of redevelopment agencies and I'm confused even though I know
the details in great nausea almost.
It is an unusual process, particularly with the budget this year.
My point is we as a small redevelopment agency really have no voice that can be heard even
when we have local advocates strongly lobbying West Chesbro and even when he knows the details
of the items, he still will vote no against, well, essentially abolishing redevelopment
agencies.
It's a frustrating matter for everyone.
So I don't know where the state is going to come out on the end of this, where it's going
to come out through the assembly and the senate and ultimately what the governor will sign.
It's a tough thing watching him deal with this, but this is a culmination of multiple
years of physical irresponsibility on the state and this problem has been coming for
six to eight years and now there's everything has to be paid for it and it's unfortunate
because who's really suffering is our local people who respect and I would hope to respect
and also depend on local services provided by local government and the local governments
including schools are the ones that are suffering.
So thank you.
Thank you.
Any questions?
If not, moving into council reports and comments.
Thanks, Mr. Mayor.
The Humboldt Transit Authority for five months was going through a process of trying to hire
a new general manager and it did turn in to be something very contentious.
We tried to get it accomplished before the new officers and supervisors were going to
be sworn in.
It didn't happen.
The final result was and I voted against it, but the final result was to go out and rehire,
resubmit applications for hiring at a higher pay scale.
So that will take place the next couple of months and I'll keep you updated.
When we did the presentation for Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans, I wanted to say a couple
of things, but at that time it wasn't really appropriate.
At this time I would like to acknowledge for the public to see what that ribbon looks like,
the colors.
That's your combat ribbon that Vietnam veterans in combat, in other words they set foot on
Vietnam soil.
They received that and there are members of the community that wear hats that show that
ribbon along with the rest of the ribbons they received and there are members of the
community that have that on their bumper or on their back window of their car and they're
very proud of that.
There are a lot of people that did serve during that time that still suffer from post-traumatic
stress syndrome from combat that still haven't found resolve with that difficulty and no
matter how hard they try and no matter which services they go through, it still comes and
haunts them.
We're finding that out with the members that come back from our armed services with the
current combats and engagements.
My heart goes out to those members that are carrying those issues with them and I also
have to compliment the ones that have actually found resolve and made peace with themselves
and can live with that.
My hat goes off to you guys.
God bless America.
God bless our troops.
You may be safe and always be away from harms, effects upon you.
Thanks Mr. Mayor.
Thanks Dean.
Sue?
I attended the Redwood Coast Energy Authority meeting today and it's kind of nice to go
to it right before the council meeting because I can actually kind of remember what we talked
about and their resources go far beyond what I thought they did.
I was actually amazed because today they gave a presentation on the purpose of the energy
authority, how they get their funding and all those kinds of things and it was really
interesting.
I was really surprised.
People have asked me for years, Sue, who do I go to to get PG&E credits and how do I get
energy information?
I mean these guys have everything.
I didn't even know it.
So now I have a resource to use and to pass on to others and I think it's going to be
really good.
They really do a lot of things that I had no idea.
So I felt I got a lot more educated today from their presentation, which they did of
course because there's so many new people and it was really good.
At the last council meeting several people spoke up in favor of a BMX dirt bike track
and staff followed through with that.
We had a quick little informal meeting on March 15th and we talked about it.
Some of the kids came, some of the parents came, Lenore Bergenski and we just kind of
had an informal here's what we need to research, here's what we need to look into and Cheryl
had some insurance things she's going to check out.
The kids had some assignments that they're going to do and they're going to bring back
information.
So I would just like to thank staff for listening and actually scheduling some meetings and
we're going to have another one on March 29th I believe it is.
So you know we're trying to take some steps forward and at least educate the kids on how
the process works and what they can do when they want to see something happen in their
community.
And I was in Spokane visiting my son and I tell you what I got hooked on the frisbee
golfing, the frolfing calling it and John Crotty had mentioned that at one of our meetings
that there's some interest in that and I tell you what it's pretty fun even for old people
so I might be going on a campaign to get one of those.
So anyway thank you.
Thank you.
Mike.
Thank you Mayor.
I'll be attending the FBID meeting which will be April 6th I believe is the next one, the
redact meeting on the 28th of this month and I wanted to just give you an update on an
issue that I talked about in the February meeting which is the Main Street on ramp to
Highway 101.
I had requested Caltrans Ralph Martinelli who's an engineer there to look into the possibility
of widening of actually having an on a lane from Main Street to Palmer Boulevard so he
is out of the area and I believe he'll be back tomorrow and I'll give you an update
when probably the next regular meeting.
Thank you.
Mayor Pro Tem.
A little update on what's happening with the Coastal Commission nominations.
Tomorrow the Board of Supervisors will be receiving nominations and there are four of
us that the board will be deliberating.
It's Mark Lovelace, Virginia Bass, Kendall Smith from Mendocino County and myself and
the cities have far as I know recommended three city council members to HCOG Mayor City
Select Committee and that be Mayor Farley from Burndale, Alex Stillman from Arcata and
myself from Fortuna.
So it looks like the same mix of candidates except for Virginia Bass and Alex Stillman
that went before the two bodies last go around.
That appointment has to be made before the 10th of April by the governor.
See Wednesday there will be three of us on the council here participating in the Mayor's
Challenge for Meals program with the Mayor Stroud, myself and Sue Long will be pairing
up with Fortuna nutrition program members to deliver meals to homebound citizens and
we'll be doing that two or three hours on Wednesday morning.
LAFCO was the last meeting I attended and there were no real serious action items that
had to be taken care of but we did elect officers and Marty McClellan was re-elected as the
chair and Virginia Bass was elected as the vice chair of Humboldt-LAFCO for the following
year.
There was budget discussions regarding LAFCO's operations and even though staff recommended
a 10% increase in the budget for next year, the chair put together a subcommittee to look
at ways of reducing LAFCO's budget.
The town of Scotia, as you probably read in the newspaper, the LAFCO held a protest hearing
and there were insufficient votes to protest the formation of the Scotia CSD so that's
moving forward with the county setting up an election process to first approve the CSD
and then elect board of directors for that organization.
The Samoa Peninsula Fire District is asking to be reorganized from a single purpose organization
to a multi-function organization because they are suffering from financial distress right
now so they're going to apply to provide water, wastewater and recreational services for the
community out in Samoa.
The Eureka Sphere of Influence update, it was a topic of conversation.
They're asking to eliminate portions of Humboldt Hill and the freshwater area because Humboldt
CSD provides services that the city would not, would want to eliminate themselves from
but they are asking for an extension of their sphere of influence in the Inola area for
water service because groundwater contamination in that area is causing problems for residents.
The Oric Community Services District has been reorganized.
Former supervisor Jill Duffy has taken on the position of wastewater project manager
for the Oric Community Services District.
And then the last item we talked about was an interesting recommendation.
You also may have seen in the newspaper that there's a group in southern Humboldt that
wants to incorporate and take advantage of the medical marijuana and possibly the soon
to be legalized recreational marijuana industry.
And they're working with LAFCO staff to define a boundary for what would be a new city in
southern Humboldt and they're looking at the name of Emerald City.
And it would stretch from Bembo, Garbaville, Redway area and possibly down into as far
south as the Mendocino County line.
So there were a couple of gentlemen there advocating, not advocating but inquiring about
what is entailed in developing a new city in southern Humboldt County.
Our next LAFCO meeting will be, I think it's not until May 18th.
So if we can do this May meeting somewhere around the 16th or 17th, that would be good
for me.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Thank you.
I don't have a lot to report on tonight because my meetings aren't until later in the week.
I have the HCOG meeting coming up on Thursday and right after that meeting is the Mayor's
Selects meeting where we get to select the candidates for Coastal Commission.
And then I was going to report on the fact that we get to deliver meals on Wednesday
but Ken covered that really well.
There's more information I think.
I don't know on the list, I see you guys with your drivers and then they got me with a driver
and then I got the photographer.
And the...
Yeah, okay.
You got the photographer and you got the talking point so you can be...
Yeah.
All right.
Thank you guys for that.
Next on the agenda, we're going to be going into closed session and oral comments from
the public may be heard on any item in closed session.
Members addressing the council or the board will be limited to three minutes per speaker.
Be advised that by law, neither the city council nor the board is able to deliberate or take
action on issues presented during oral comments.
And the closed items, there's three of them.
The first one is a conference of labor negotiations with the city negotiator, city manager, Duane
Rigi, employees organizations, the Fortuna Employees Association, the Fortuna Police
Employees Association and the Fortuna Office Employees Association in accordance with section
54957.6 of the government code.
The second is a conference on real property negotiation in accordance with section 54957.8
of the government code property 1410 Garden Lane negotiating parties, city manager, Duane
Rigi of the city and James and Virginia Moore, a property owners under negotiations, price
and terms.
The third is a conference of real property negotiation in accordance with section 54957.8
of the government code property is 1350 Garden Lane negotiating parties as the city manager,
Duane Rigi of the city and Norma Bennett as property owner under negotiation, price and
terms.
Is there any comments from the public?
This is in regards to items 2 and 3.
And it's based on the report and the public works report was talking about easements for
the Garden Lane.
So I'm wondering if this is related to that.
If it is, I just wanted to alert you to the fact that this is a part of the Stewart Street
replacement project and that easements were not, when the discussion was looking at the
different possibilities of where to put the tank.
In talking about Stewart Street, one of the things that was good about that choice is
that you didn't need any easements.
But it is, so I guess I'm telling you that was not included in the budget before and
so this is another budget item, another cost.
Thank you.
I make a motion to close public comment period.
Second.
We move and second to close public comment period.
All in favor signify by saying aye.
Aye.
All opposed?
So closed.
Now we will adjourn to closed session.
Thank you.