Documented by Jackie Schuster
Here’s what you need to know
- The Visalia City Council unanimously approved all consent calendar items, which included authorizing the city manager to give a $349,868 emergency contract to Aspen Rentals to rent a belt filter press dewatering unit for two years.
Follow-up questions
- Why has the public comment format changed?
Visalia City Council members
Liz Wynn, District One
Vice Mayor Brett Taylor, District Two
Mayor Brian Poochigian, District Three
Emmanuel Hernandez Soto, District Four
Steve Nelsen, District Five, absent
The scene
The Visalia City Council meeting started at 7:01 p.m.. Council Member Steve Nelsen was absent.
Actions/discussions/public comment
- Jason Huckleberry, John Lollis and Michelle Speer were sworn in for the respective positions of engineering and building department director, assistant city manager and administrative services director.
- Public comment
- Poochigian noted that there is a new format for the public comment portion of the meeting. Consent calendar items will now have their own public comment portion, and people can only speak once during a meeting. He also said that residents are no longer allowed to pull consent calendar items; only council members can pull them.
- Frequent commenter Barry Kaplan, a Visalia resident, said the Measure N and Measure T items discussed during the work session require audits and those items did not have audits, just attestations. He requested that the council ask the city attorney to explain what the difference is between an audit and attestation, and why the attestation is allowed if the wording of one of the measures says it requires audits.
- In the past Kaplan has complained about the wording of agenda items, saying they should be shorter and less complicated to make them easier for the public to understand. He also said that by not doing so, at times the city was violating the Brown Act, the state public law. City Attorney Ken Richardson has told the council that the allegation is not true.
- No council members pulled any consent calendar items.
- Kaplan said some items still have technical jargon that doesn’t help the public understand the items but the brevity in the item wording is getting better. He requested that the council pull item 4, which would authorize the city manager to award a contract for the design of a traffic signal modification and intersection improvements, and said he hopes that staff will tell the public what the objective is regarding the effects on the adjacent intersection. The intersection in question was Walnut Avenue and Lovers Lane.
- Council members once again did not pull any items. Taylor moved to approve all consent calendar items. The motion was approved 4-0.
With no closed session report, the meeting adjourned at 7:19 p.m. The next Visalia City Council meeting will be held on Feb. 20.
If you believe anything in these notes is inaccurate, please email us at fresnodocs@fresnoland.org with “Correction Request” in the subject line.
