The Gustine City Council and Planning Commission held a special joint meeting on Oct. 23 to discuss two critical elements of the City's General Plan: the Draft Safety Element and the Draft Environmental Justice Element. These workshops aimed to review and refine the elements in compliance with state laws while addressing the needs of Gustine's community.

In attendance were Council Members Blake Giles, Jim Bonta, Rich Ford, and Mayor Pat Nagy, along with Planning Commission Members Darrell Lackey, Renee Duprel, and Phaidra Medeiros. The presentations were led by Economic and Community Economic-Development Director Jami Westervelt and Kelsey George, the City's contract planner with Four Creeks, Inc.

George began by explaining the purpose of the Safety Element, which is a part of the city's General Plan and must be updated every eight years under Senate Bill 379.

 "The Safety Element is a plan to minimize the hazards to public health and safety in and around the City of Gustine," George said, while highlighting that it identifies natural and human-caused hazards that may affect current and future developments. The Safety Element is also linked to other documents, including the Merced County Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan and Gustine's Emergency Operations Plan.

The updated Safety Element outlines nine specific goals:

·         Minimize the risk of injuries, property damage, and economic loss resulting from urban and wildland fires.

·         Minimize the risk of injuries, loss of life, property damage, and economic disruption from seismic and geologic hazards.

·         Minimize injury, loss of life, and property damage from flooding and inundation hazards.

·         Reduce the likelihood of hazardous materials release, exposure, and contamination.

·         Protect the life and property of residents, businesses, and visitors from natural and human-made hazards.

·         Coordinate emergency and disaster preparedness, response, mitigation, and recovery.

·         Ensure emergency services capabilities and response times meet state and community needs.

·          Improve public safety and reduce crime levels.

·          Build community resiliency to climate change hazards like drought and extreme heat.

"A lot of these things, it seems like we do already," Nagy said. “They're just calling them by a different name, the things we've always done, but we have. They're not fires anymore; they're wildfires."

Kelsey George agreed, "They are. It's not anything new." She emphasized that the updates were in response to state law, but the city was already implementing many of these policies.

City Manager Sokniron Than added context to the conversation, noting that the Safety Element is part of a larger framework. "The more detailed implementation action plan is actually going to come in another form... this is your framework," he said, highlighting the connection between the Safety Element and the ongoing multi-jurisdictional hazard mitigation plan with Merced County.

Ford expressed support for the efficiency of the process, saying, "I agree... they're all great, good goals, but I don't think we need to go over each one and hash them all out."

Council Member Blake Giles raised concerns about how seismic assessments might affect older buildings, asking, "The only thing on the very back of my mind... is there anything to do with seismic that is going to restrict people from using these old buildings or anything like that without spending a bunch of money and reinforcing?"

Than reassured him that seismic upgrades only apply to new construction or major renovations, saying, "Nothing in these goals requires anything additional. You're not required to go through major upgrades unless you do expansions or significant renovations, at which point, you'll be required to meet the current California Building Code."

The discussion then shifted to the Environmental Justice (EJ) Element, a new addition to the City’s General Plan, required under Senate Bill 1000.

"The EJ Element outlines and addresses community needs to improve conditions relating to reducing air pollution, promoting healthy food access, promoting safe and sanitary homes, promoting physical activity, reducing unique health risks, promoting civic engagement, prioritizing improvements and programs that address the needs of EJ communities,” George said.

The eight key goals of the Environmental Justice Element are:

·         A healthy community where exposure to pollution is minimized.

·         Public facilities and services are distributed equitably throughout the community.

·         Improving access to healthy food.

·         Promoting healthy living conditions for people of all backgrounds and incomes.

·         Ensuring residents of all ages have access to safe and accessible opportunities for recreation and physical activities.

·         Reducing the causes of compound health risks.

·         Encouraging meaningful civic engagement.

·         Public investments that meet the needs of Environmental Justice communities (Slide 4).

There was no public comment on the matter, and the commission also did not have any further comments during this portion of the meeting.

"The goals are excellent,” Ford said. “Sounds like a community I love to live in. I don't know why they call it environmental justice, but yeah, we should strive for most of them."

Nagy raised a specific concern about the EV parking and charging stations mentioned in the plan, saying, "I don't think that's something we can afford." He also questioned the inclusion of outdated information regarding the police department's fleet, stating, "It says we have five vehicles. And I know we have more than five vehicles."

George acknowledged the points and reassured the Council, "We'll take a look at that and remove anything that could have implications we may not want."

Bonta expressed concerns about how the city would manage the implementation of so many new policies, noting, "The city is going to be awful busy... there's a lot of the 'city shall' in there." He added, "Is there going to be kind of a scorecard or something that says, You say you're going to do it, what'd you do?'"

George responded by explaining that the city would provide annual reports, and while there is a lot of work involved, most of it builds on existing efforts.

The meeting concluded with George providing a timeline for the next steps. The Safety and EJ Elements will be revised based on feedback from the workshop, with final drafts expected by December 2024. Public hearings are scheduled for February 2025, and the City Council is expected to adopt the elements by March 2025.

All of the information discussed can be found on the City's website under Community Development Department - Community Planning.