The Merced City Council meeting will be held on Tuesday due to the Labor Day holiday. It will be held at 6 p.m. in the Council Chamber on the second floor of the Merced Civic Center, (City Hall), 678 W. 18th St. The Council meets the first and third Mondays of the month, except when there is a holiday, when it meets the following day.
Staff will be giving Council a look at the annexation process, since there hasn’t been an annexation in the City since 2009. Currently there are two active annexation applications in the process and a number of inquiries about annexation.
Staff is looking at an area of approximately 7,000 acres generally east of G Street and north of Yosemite Avenue as a study area. A Request for Proposals has been sent out seeking a consultant that would conduct a series of meetings, poll landowners, conduct community workshops and information meetings to determine support for annexation before reporting back to Council. It’s expected the work would take four to six months.
The Public Works Department plans to establish a Corporation Yard Satellite facility on property it owns at Yosemite Avenue and Highway 59. The site would be used for fleet maintenance, leaf collection and as a disposal transfer site. Two bids received for the project were above what was budgeted for the work, so Council is being asked to reject the bids while staff evaluates how to reduce the scope of work at the site.
Also on the agenda is a public hearing reintroducing an ordinance that would revise some speed limits in the City following a speed zone study. The study measured the speed of drivers on the roads and followed state regulations in modifying the speed limits. Changes were made to the ordinance after it was first introduced requiring to be re-introduced.
There will be a special presentation on a needle exchange program being conducted to reduce the incidence of communicable diseases and the improper disposal of syringes.
The Council will meet in closed session at 5 p.m. to discuss public employment of a city attorney, confer with labor negotiators and discuss anticipated litigation and potential litigation.
City Council meetings are streamed live on the Internet. A link to the live meeting is on the City’s web site at https://cityofmerced.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx. Videos of previous meetings can be found at that link, and are tied to each agenda item. Those services are in addition to the live broadcast of the regular meeting on Comcast’s Government Channel 96.
The Council agenda is posted online at www.cityofmerced.org and is available outside the chambers prior to the meeting. Request to Speak forms are available at the meeting or can be downloaded from the City’s website. Cards must be turned in to the City Clerk in order for a person to be recognized by the Council. Hmong and Spanish translators are available at all Council meetings.
