Tuesday, June 3, 2025

The council's only new expenditure was a $5,255 budget amendment authorizing a purchase order with Zumar Industries for road signs and supplies from the Measure P Fund, approved 5-0; the initial motion was withdrawn and re-voted after a council member flagged that the resolution incorrectly cited a temporary $75,000 single-vendor spending authority from a July 2024 measure rather than the standing $25,000 threshold, with the $5,255 amount falling well below either figure. The council also passed 5-0 the second reading of the Construction Labor Disclosure Ordinance, which requires contractors on large city construction projects to disclose prior labor violations; one speaker during the public comment period, representing the Western States Regional Council of Carpenters, addressed this item in support before the vote. The city manager presented the proposed FY 2025-26 budget — $262.3 million across all funds, $75.1 million in the general fund — at a required public hearing, but no budget was adopted; approximately nine members of the public spoke, raising concerns about specific streets absent from the capital improvement plan, the destination of cannabis license revenue, sheriff contract overtime accountability, and the absence of visible youth program spending. A separate AB 2561-required public hearing on the city's 21.6% vacancy rate (87 of 402 budgeted positions unfilled) drew two union representatives from AFSCME and SEIU who described labor contracts expired since June 2024, a $100,000-plus classification study contracted in 2023 that the city manager stated the vendor failed to complete as specified, and an average time-to-hire of 116 days, alongside three members of the public.