Friday Update on June 28 2019

All,

A crazy busy week with lots going on!

First, a review of the City Council Agenda for Tuesday, July 2. Pretty short being a holiday week. The entire agenda and packet (with all the details and reports) can be located HERE.

• TEFRA Public Hearing for the Blue Mountain Terrace Senior Affordable Apartments. This will be a mandatory hearing for the conduit financing for the project.
• Memorandums of Understandings and Salary Schedules for most of the City’s employee organizations.
• General Plan Element Review. The fifth of the nine (9) part series. This month we will focus on the Public Facilities and Services Element.
• Contract with Switzer Enterprises for the City’s Information Technology Services.

Some of the items hot and going this week.

• Good news, Burger King is ready to be opened. Final inspections and testing was completed today and they can open at any time!
• The street and frontage improvements for the Downtown Winters Hotel were paved and concrete installed which is a major milestone for the project. Mattresses and furniture are starting to be loaded into the hotel which is very exciting!
• OLS Hotels, the parent company of the Hotel Winters held employee orientations and training at City Hall. A very exciting day as we watched first hand the local jobs and opportunity being realized from the project. It looks like a first class organization and the new employees seemed to be just beaming!
• The First Street Parking Lot and Alley Improvements are well under way. Grading for the project is almost completed, so additional geotechnical work is under way in the alley and they are setting up for the concrete work. Vintage Paving of Winters is the general contractor and we could never wish for better. Former City lifeguard, lifelong resident and recent Chico State Grad Kevin Hyde is the foreman on the job and doing an amazing job of managing the operations. Look for the project to come to completion over the next couple weeks!
• The Planning Commission reviewed and is advancing a recommendation for the adoption of an ordinance to cover short term rentals such as Air B&B, Vacation Rentals by Owners, Etc. The review and work took almost a year and was very thorough, with multiple hearings, workshops and outreach. Look for it to be on the City Council Agenda in August.
• Housing is becoming the State’s #1 priority with the Governor and Legislature announcing sweeping legislation, funding and penalties for achieving their goals on the expansion of housing. Look for much of this to come to the forefront by September with the release of the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) from the Sacramento Area Council of Governments. For more information on RHNA, go HERE.
• For an overview of key housing issues in Winters go HERE for a report delivered to the City Council and Planning Commission in May.
• Staff attended multiple County meetings on the growing issue of The problem is growing significantly throughout the State and Region with Sacramento seeing an almost 25% rise. The most significant takeaway is that there are many people literally one lost job or rent increase away from being on the streets. The number of people living in their cars is increasing. The cycle seems to be from housing to eviction to couch surfing to living in a car to living on the street. Each of the Yolo cities (with the exception of Winters) have dedicated “homeless coordinators” extending services and providing a social aspect to city operations. The issue is serious and growing!
• The City held its “2X2” with the WJUSD on Wednesday. The District is moving forward on their facility plans and many other projects. Lots of really good stuff for students in the coming years.
• Saturday will be one year since the “County Fire” which burned almost 120,000 acres along the Blue/Berryessa Ridge. Let’s root for NO FIRES in 2019!
• We had technical issues on this month’s edition of “Ask the City Manager”. We have a few folks in attendance in the Council Chamber and it was a good afternoon. We will fix the camera issue and be back next month.

Finally, the murders of Sacramento Officer Tara O’Sullivan and Davis Officer Natalie Corona were brought to reality for me over the past week with the amazing funeral for Officer O’Sullivan on Thursday and a chance for me to meet the parents of Officer Corona last week in Davis. The shattering of such bright futures and potential which would have undoubtedly have made incredible contributions to the law enforcement community is just heart breaking and hits to the core on the violence which exists in our society and is faced by law enforcement daily.

On Friday of last week (the day following the murder of Officer Tara O’Sullivan), I participated in the Special Olympics Torch Run from the Davis Police Station to the ARC Arena at UC Davis. Leading the procession and the first torch bearers were Merced and Lupe Corona, the parents of slain Davis Officer Natalie Corona. They were the nicest, most affable people, joking with the officers and laughing about Natalie’s affinity for running. They brought strength and resolve to all the officers present. They were absolutely wonderful!

One thing I noticed were the many females participating in the run and how young they all looked. I asked who they were (thinking they were relatives of some of the officers) and I learned that they were either new officers or cadets! First, I felt really old (everyone seems to look really young these days), but mostly I was encouraged to see the motivation of these young female officers coming into law enforcement. As we did the run, they had a number of chants and you could hear these young officers yelling loud and exuding pride and enthusiasm for their chosen profession. It was inspiring!

The tragedies of both Tara and Natalie are simply unconscionable,  but there is no question that they will be the heroic symbols to motivate the growing next generation of female officers who will choose to lead from the front in our public safety future. Law enforcement has yearned to recruit women into the ranks for many years and we are now seeing it grow even in the shadows of the recent tragedies.

From tragedy springs eternal hope and without question, the legacies of Tara and Natalie will be our law enforcement future.

No Friday update next week!

John