Febuary 20th, 2007 Meeting of the City Council of Rio Dell California..........................................

Rio Dell City Council Meeting Notes

February 20th, 2007 6:30 pm

The meeting was attended by Council Members Melissa Marks, Mike Dunker and Mayor Bud Leonard with Carla Ralston filling in for city clerk Karen Dunham. City staff included Acting City Manager John Miller, attorney David Martinek, Police Chief Graham Hill and Finance Director Stephanie Beauchaine.

The proclamation in recognition of the Scotia Band was taken off the agenda as there weren't any representatives present to accept. The consent calendar was next with the approval of the minutes from the December 12th study session, the minutes of the January 2nd regular meeting, approval of the check register and extending the water emergency through March 6th.

Ordinances were next with resolution no. 956-2007 authorizing the destruction of specified documents. The finance depart. is wanting to destroy some documents from 1991 through 2004. In the last meeting a local citizen expressed their desire to examine the documents before their destruction. Beuachaine stated that the citizen had been able to look at the documents and that issue was resolved. Marks moved for approval, Dunker seconded and it passed unanimously.

The next ordinance was in regards to amending the CDBG Housing and Rehabilitation Program Guidelines to have the loan committee comprised of city staff rather than the city council. Beauchaine reported that the changes were reviewed and approved by Patrick Talbott from Housing and Community Development. Marks stated her desire to have at least one member of the council on the loan committee to avoid any communication breakdowns. Beuchaine replied that she had understood the concern had been addressed by the agreement to submit quarterly reports to the council. Dunker moved for approval but there was no second. Leonard agreed with Marks that there should be a council member on the committee. Beauchaine pointed out the benefit of using staff which includes immediate response to issues as they would not be subject to the noticing requirements of the council. Leonard stated he had prior experience with a council not knowing there the money was going and did not want that to happen again. Miller asked city attorney Martinek whether or not a single council member on the loan committee would make them subject to the noticing requirements. This same question had come up in the previous council meeting for the same concern. Martinek, who represents multiple municipalities, stated he didn't know if it would apply. The item was pulled off the agenda while more information is gathered.

Next came an ordinance to approve Winzler and Kelly for engineering services related to improvements on 3rd and 4th St. The planned improvements include sewer and street repairs. The area will include Dixie St. to Columbus on 3rd. and Dixie St. to the end on 4th. These areas were selected based on a survey by Redwood Community Action Agency which identified this neighborhood as low income. This made the area eligible for CDBG money. Dunker moved for approval with Marks seconding, the ordinance was approved unanimously.

The last ordinance, amending the Rio Dell administration organization and personnel ordinance, was pulled from the agenda. The material was not yet ready.

The special call item, petition to submit application to amend the Rio Dell general plan land use designation relating to property at Wildwood and Painter, provided the best debate of the evening. The owners of the property at the entrance to the City, in the new gateway project, would like to build a major subdivision. The 8 identical houses recently built at that property are owned by the same people but were approved as individual projects so as not to trigger the infrastructure improvements that would have been required. The strip of land along Wildwood Ave. is currently zoned commercial and the proposal would require changing that to residential. The developer addressed the council in order to gauge response to their proposal, which if the application was accepted would then have to go before the planning commission. When asked, the developer stated that this time there would be infrastructure improvements, including roads, and the houses would not be identical. There was heated debate over changing the zoning. Planning commission member Alice Millington was in the audience and disagreed with the need to change and zoning away from commercial on the only open piece of property in the newly improved Gateway Project. There was good debate back and forth as the developer pointed out the merits of the project. The majority of comments from the audience were opposed to the zoning change. (see the video clip below) The application was taken off the table for now so it was neither accepted or denied. Mayor Leonard had pointed out that the commercial zoning was the idea of the Broussard family and he never thought it was appropriate. He was visibly upset that the matter was taken off the table and asked Miller if this would discourage development in Rio Dell. Miller stated he didn't think it would but might discourage the owners from this particular project. The matter is coming up in the next planning commission meeting on Tuesday Feb. 27th at 6:30pm.

Miller provided an update to the annexation process next. The matter has been put on hold by Pacific Lumber while they try to develop a community services district. Miller provided a power point presentation regarding the city's position on the needed infrastructure repairs and such. Palco will be trying to submit their CSD application to LAFCO in the next 60-90 days. The Rio Dell Fire Department is still working on the consolidation with the Scotia Fire Department. This is a separate issue from the annexation. Fire Chief Shane Wilson was present and told the council that they have not yet received the financial report from Muni-Financial on any needed assessments. *The last update I heard referred to very substantial assessment fee's for the Scotia residents.

There were no public comments.

Staff reports started off with Miller stating that the Brownfields project is moving to the next step of EPA and water board approval. Police Chief Hill stated that the new officer is on board full-time and the dept. is now able to provide 24x7 staffing. Beauchaine reported that the auditor will be in town March 5th and 6th and will be reporting to the council after that.

Closed door items were read with the comment that some of the listed items were already resolved recently, such as Roberts vs. Rio Dell and Mintz vs. Rio Dell.

The meeting adjourned into closed session.

The next day it was realized that the meeting wasn't properly noticed as it wasn't posted anywhere 72 hours prior to the meeting, as required by the Brown Act. The meeting was re-done at special session on Saturday, prior to the already scheduled closed door session to interview City Manager candidates. The video for the "do-over" is available below.

See you at the next meeting!

-Sharon