City Council Update 11.21.23
Katie
I'm Katie.
Steve
And I'm Steve. And this is the City of Redding podcast. Welcome to a Redding City Council update for Tuesday, November 21st, 2023. First, there were several presentations to start off the meeting. Mayor Dacquisto gave an appreciation clock to Kelsi Halvarson for her service on the Community Development Advisory Committee, honoring her work on this committee for the last seven years. Mayor Dacquisto also recognized and honored Public Works Director Chuck Aukland for 19 years of service with the City of Redding. Director Aukland announced his retirement earlier this year and has overseen many important public works projects for the city, including the South Bonnyview Road widening downtown redevelopment, Redding Regional Airport Air Service enhancements, rebuilding after the Carr Fire and recent snowstorms, and was instrumental in securing millions of dollars in grant funding for the City of Redding. The council members and City manager Barry Tippin thanked Chuck for his service and wished him well in his next retirement chapter.
Katie
Next, Mayor Dacquisto recognized and honored Community Services Director Kim Niemer for 27 years of service to the City of Redding. Director Niemer also announced her retirement earlier this year and officially left the city on October 27th. Director Niemer was instrumental in several large community projects, including Martin Luther King Junior Center, Nur Pon Open Space, Sundial Bridge opening and ten Year Celebration, Kids Kingdom and Kids Kingdom 2, Redding Skatepark, Fantasy Fountain, Salt Creek Heights Park, and many, many more. Again, City Council members and City manager Tippin made remarks about her exemplary service and wished her well in her next chapter of retirement. Now for a few notable items from the Consent Calendar. REU will bring back a few contract tree clearing crews to help wildfire mitigation efforts in Redding. They've identified more need in our area than their crews alone can handle, so some contract work will help stay on top of the mitigation efforts. Bike and pedestrian improvements will also be coming to downtown to connect downtown with turtle Bay using grant funding, so the city will appropriate a small portion of budget funds to complete this work.
Steve
Next, there were a few appointments and reappointments to the CDAC or the Community Development Advisory Committee. There are four appointments approved in total. John Carelli, Nicole Dues, Blake Fisher, and Roxanne Burke. All were approved unanimously. Finally, there was only one item on the regular agenda regarding appropriating encampment resolution funding in a few different ways to help address the homeless population in Redding. Nicole Smith, housing manager for the City of Redding, presented the resolution to approve and use $8 Million of Encampment Resolution Grant funding in a few different ways in our community. The goal of the funds from the state of California is to address encampments and city jurisdictions, and address specific items, such as sanitation and housing needs, in an accelerated timeline. The city has developed several ways to spend the money, which City Manager Barry Tippin broke down individually for the city council members to review and discuss.
Katie
First, the grant would provide funding for additional CERT officers. This would be three years worth of funding for $1.6 million. The council approved this one unanimously. City Manager Tippin noted that a line item indicating the need to fund additional case managers will be placed on hold until the city can identify whether the community has enough case managers already. He would like city staff to investigate more and report back with the recommended needs. Council approved the hold on this item to wait for more information. Next, the grant would fund sanitation support like dumpsters and bathrooms, along with food and other supplies to help the CIRT team and perhaps the case managers listed above if they are approved to reach out and connect with the homeless population. This was approved after a brief discussion on the length of these amenities being available.
Steve
Next, the city recommended a pause on renting hotel rooms in order to instead buy the hotel rooms. This would make it possible for some people to stay permanently in their shelter, rather than for only a short period of time. The city recommends getting more information on the effectiveness of buying hotel rooms, rather than renting them for the short period of time, and will bring this back to the city council with a recommended direction at a later date. The council agreed to pause on this spend until more information was gathered.
Katie
Next, City Manager Tippin recommended the city move forward on a day resource center for the homeless population immediately. This would provide help and services for those in our community who need it. He asked for direction on whether the council would prefer to own the day resource property and hire the operator to run the program, or if they wanted to hire an operator to own the property and run the program. The difference is that if the city owned the property, it would be riskier from a liability standpoint, but would allow the city more control if the operator wasn't performing well. If the city were to grant the money to an operator for them to purchase the property and run the program, the city would have less control, but also less liability and risk. There was much discussion on this item as a day resource center is something The Good News Rescue Mission is already working on. Much of the discussion centered around whether the city should offer to buy the property for the Good News Rescue Mission and hire them as the operator, or whether they should go out for a request for proposal or RFP to select a new property and potentially a new operator. After much discussion, the only consensus made was that the council would first like to go to the Good News Rescue mission and find out what they are already working on for a day resource center Before they move forward in any direction. That past and staff will come back with additional information at a later meeting.
Steve
Next, the funding for a director and staff for a day resource center would be on hold until more information about the day resource center is available. This passed unanimously. The city also asked to fund maintenance and improvements of the Good News Rescue Mission in the amount of $500,000, and this also passed unanimously. Lastly, there's an allocation of fund additional city staff to oversee and manage the programs listed above. This also passed unanimously. After the Council discussed and agreed upon each item, they unanimously decided to move forward with staff recommendations as outlined by City Manager Tippin, along with the suggestions made by council members on each individual item spend. That was it. It was a relatively short meeting, but packed with lots of great discussion and good info. And watch the full meeting. Go to Cityofredding.gov and have a great weekend!
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