03/11/2022 City Manager’s Update

City Manager’s Update (pdf)
March 11, 2022

Greetings, all.

Don’t Miss Out!
❖ The City is looking for pool staff, and on Tuesday, the City Council will consider increasing the starting pay to $18 / hour. Tell your high school and college students to not miss out and apply soon. The lifeguard certification class for new lifeguards will be conducted the week of March 28. Returning lifeguards will earn $19, and more for supervising lifeguard or pool manager. We need more lifeguards to maintain last year’s programming levels so please consider applying!

❖ Reminder: March 18 is the deadline to register for Kindergarten and TK at Waggoner Elementary. Please pick up your packet during school hours.

❖ The Winters Library is promoting BioBlitz for April, May & June to promote native plants and pollinator gardens. Pick up a free seed packet, attend an informational program, or participate in activities for all ages, beginning next week and through the spring at the Winters Teaching Garden. For more information, click here.

Please Note:
❖ The City is looking for two commissioners to serve on the Senior Commission on Aging. More information is available here. This Commission connects with other senior groups to plan events, activities, and services for the senior community and is quite active in the community. If you’re new in town and looking to get involved, serving on the Commission is a wonderful way to meet people and help support others.
❖ We received our fifth applicant for the Climate Action Commission. The applicants will be considered by the City Council at an April meeting to kick off this new commission later in the spring.

Upcoming Council Meeting
The next meeting is Tuesday, March 15, via Zoom. The packet is linked here. Items of interest include: Accepting a strip of land behind the new Carter Ranch homes and adding that to the City’s Rancho Arroyo Pond area; increasing part-time salaries for the staff in our aquatic and after school and summer camp programs; the Spring Festival Main Street closures for March 25-26; new storm drain fees for the northeast area of the City; amendments to the 6th Cycle Housing Element to address HCD comments; and purchase and sale agreements with eleven properties on Roosevelt to purchase residual portions of the adjacent City canal property adjacent to the Meritage development site.
Please note, public meetings are still via Zoom until we can stabilize our A/V equipment with Zoom and the agenda management platform we use for streaming out meetings. We made great progress last week, thanks to an A/V volunteer and will need to buy some new equipment; however, we are making progress!

Woot Woot!
The public safety team has new volunteers – Tom Williams and Dirci Altamirano – who serve as Trauma and Grief Support (TAGS) volunteers for residents who have lost a loved one unexpectedly. Tom and Dirci help respond to unexpected death calls, provide next of kin notifications, and support Police and Fire first responders on trauma calls. It takes a special person to volunteer to assist other people during such emotional losses, so hands over our hearts to thank Tom and Dirci for their service to the community.

The Winters TAGS program was organized by Catherine Bernstein who has an extensive history creating similar programs and responding to trauma incidents. Catherine created the Davis program in 2018. In June of 2021, Chief Miller and Chief Lopez reached out to Catherine to explore the development of a volunteer TAGS team for Winters Public Safety. Without hesitation, Catherine came to our assistance and took lead to establish a Winters Public Safety TAGS program. Catherine was instrumental in establishing an action plan, assisted in drafting and implementing policy, then recruited and trained our first two local TAGS volunteers. She continued to serve not only Davis, but Winters’ needs during this transition period, responding to unexpected or unattended deaths as well as the unenviable task of making death notifications within our city limits on behalf of the Yolo Coroner’s office.

Thank you, Catherine, Tom, and Dirci for your service, and to Chief Miller and Chief Lopez for their efforts to provide psychological support to those impacted by a sudden loss or traumatic incident. It takes a village to make a community.