The Ceres City Council spent nearly three hours Monday evening deciding on ways to spend the remaining $3.3 million of the leftover funds from rounds one and two of the federal ARPA funds.

ARPA stands for American Rescue Plan Act approved by Congress in 2021.

Strings attached to the funds require that dollars must be committed by Dec. 31, 2024 and spent by Dec. 31, 2026.

Interim City Manager Doug Dunford went over the list of potential projects and by the time the night was over the council committed the use of $1 million for each hour of discussion.

The council approved $40,000 to conduct regulatory and user fee study. Such a study is normally done every five years to make sure the city is charging enough to cover the cost of staff time.

The council also approved undertaking a development impact fee study at a cost of $65,000. Last time one was done was over 10 years ago, said Dunford. The study would update fees charged on developers to ensure the city is charging enough to offset the impacts on city infrastructure.

The council spent considerable time talking about replacing the Whitmore Park gazebo. Public Works Director Sam Royal said the current gazebo is failing with dry rotting.

“It’s getting to the point where it’s almost unrepairable,” said Royal.

He said the new gazebo would be the same shape but wider at 24-feet wide and is in need of an upgrade to the power service.

Ceres resident Gene Yeakley questioned the cost, saying “I think $350,000 is quite extreme.” Alvaro Franco dialed in and said the cost seemed quite high, comparing it to the cost of a home in Ceres.

Resident John Warren set the record straight, saying the council was adding $350,000 to a $200,000 “per capita” grant for a total cost of $550,000.

Royal said the cost includes engineering, a new concrete slab, a metal structure and new power supply that would last years into the future.

Vice Mayor Bret Silveira, however, balked at the cost as being too low, saying the basic steel structure is not going to work and that he wanted to allocate $500,000 in addition to the per capita grant of $200,000 to “build it right.” Silveira said the new gazebo needs to be designed so that it looks like it belongs in Ceres and insisted that $550,000 wasn’t enough to do it.

“We need to go back to the drawing board,” said Silveira. “It’s not going to be adequate for what we need it for multiple times in the year.”

He called for allocating the $500,000 in ARPA funds but was adamant that the design be changed to a clamshell design without poles.

Silveira suggested removing an outdoor gym project and removing $250,000 for street tree pruning costs and add it to the gazebo project.

Mayor Javier Lopez thought the gazebo design as presented was “great” and captures the look of the current gazebo.

Royal stressed the importance of the council approving the $250,000 allocation for another year of street tree pruning program done on a basis of rotating through five zones. Royal said the last pruning effort was successful with fewer tree failures.

“This is really a critical item that we need to vote on and accept,” said Royal.

He noted that the city’s contract tree service, West Coast Arborists derived the number over a five-year span per zone.

The council left the item in.

Members also supported allocating $892,624 as a city match to the grant received for Smyrna Park improvements. City Engineer Kevin Waugh said the amount would be added to the grant to revamp Ceres’ oldest and largest park. New pedestrian walkways and new playground equipment will be among the improvements which must be completed by July 2024.

The council supported $620,574 being spent on License Plate Recognition cameras at key intersections in Ceres.

Silveira suggested scaling back the project by $100,000 with fewer cameras and using the “saved” money to fund code enforcement officers.

Police Chief Rick Collins said the city of Ceres is behind what other cities have as it only has one such camera. He suggested the cameras would be advantageous in recovering stolen vehicles, investigate crimes and missing person cases. He sounds appreciative of any cameras, saying strategic location is the key to effectiveness.

After council discussion, the consensus was to scale down the camera project to be added to code enforcement.

Before the night was over, the council allocated $357,375 to fund two code enforcement officers into the immediate future.

Franco suggested allocating only half of that amount from ARPA and making up the difference by taking from the city’s share of Animal Control, suggesting animal control officers aren’t doing their job.

Silveira said code enforcement remains a high priority among virtually everyone and talked about the improvements being made. He said the staff has done an “amazing job” in comparison to the one-man operation of years before.

The council tabled the idea of committing to a compensation and classification study pegged at a cost of $142,265. Vice Mayor Bret Silveira was opposed the idea based on the high cost but said he would be open to find a cheaper way to accomplish a study.

Ceres resident Albert Avila opined that a study would be nice but the city may not be able to implement salaries to keep up with the study’s recommendations.

The council nixed the idea of giving the Ceres Chamber of Commerce $10,000 of ARPA funds to assist in economic development and business programs as well as put on events such as the Bands, Brews & BBQ event coming up in August. Silveira suggested the money come not from ARPA but paid through the hotel tax, commonly known as the Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT).

The council approved spending $29,095 to make improvements to the city-owned American Legion Memorial Building. The improvements include a new stove, refrigerator, and a cleaning of the building’s exterior. Recreation Manager Joey Chavez suggested that the upgrades should help increase rentals of the facility.

Warren suggested adding Wi-Fi to the building for business uses.

The council also mulled replacing all the six-foot tables and round tables at the Ceres Community Center at a cost of$81,773 for tables and their storage racks. The tables are breaking from use, said Chavez.

The council voted to use $200,000 to upgrade Costa Fields in Smyrna Park. Mayor Javier Lopez said upgrading the park is “very important.” Councilman Daniel Martinez said the bathrooms, lighting and fields could use improvement.

Silveira protested committing any funds saying the city should first require a list of improvements from Ceres Youth Baseball organization. “It’s not the way we do business,” Silveira stated more than once. However, Mayor Lopez insisted the city would have control over what improvements will be made.

The council approved funding a full-time employee assigned to overseeing Ceres River Bluff Regional Park at a cost of $100,000.

Also approved was the use of $125,000 for an uninterrupted power source (UPS) for the Ceres Police Department building. Royal said the UPS system failed two years ago. The city has a generator but it takes about 10 seconds to kick in so the UPS would provide uninterrupted power for up to an hour and a half.

Lastly, the council was okay with spending $19,019 for Ceres Police to acquire a cell phone forensic product Cellbrite to assist detectives in unlocking and retrieving information on cell phones in solving crimes.

The council rejected allocating $180,000 to augment a $30,000 grant snagged for a Fitness Life outdoor gym in a city park. National Fitness Committee would have helped fund part of this project.

Martinez said he didn’t think an outdoor gym concept would be used, especially in inclement weather. Silveira also didn’t feel ARPA funds should be used on this.

Economic Development Manager Tamra Spade said the city would likely lose the $30,000 grant without a city match.

The city now has $10,180 left unallocated.

The entire list forged over the three-hour period was approved 4-1 with Councilwoman Rosalinda Vierra voting no.