Perusing the Visalia City Council agenda can be tedious, at times. Monotonous, filled with, frankly, less than enlightening information. Generally, there’s not much to grab your attention, as it’s the nuts and bolts of running a city. I often refer to it as “the sausage making” of city government. Sometimes, though…
Last November, I noticed consent calendar entries for new police cars (SUVs, actually. Seems nobody is producing sedans for police work anymore). Included in the agenda packet information was approval requests for:
“Award a Contract for 14 New Police Patrol Vehicles – Request authorization to award a purchase contract for fourteen (14) fully marked Police patrol units with National Auto Fleet Group located in Watsonville, CA, in the amount of $1,281,193 for 2026 Dodge Durango’s, appropriate $14,130 from General Fund, $106,395 from Measure T, and $122,674 from the Replacement Fund for total appropriations of $243,200.”
Each Durango had a purchase price of $57,193.47, with an equipment “upfit” of $33,895.03 each.
Now, we can ponder about a $1.3 million purchase being included in a “consent calendar” item, relegating it to the shadows and holding no public discussion on the expense. (You should see some of the “consent calendar” items and the associated dollar amounts that float through the Tulare County Board of Supervisors meetings. Yikes. And some retro-active, at that! – but that’s maybe for a different discussion.)
I’m a bit torn between the idea of not bogging down meetings with endless procedure, and I also firmly believe in hiring good people, setting their parameters and goals, and then getting out of their way and let them do their jobs, but… that’s a lot of money for important city assets.
Here’s my public records request to the City of Visalia (sent late on a Friday, so no action until next week at the earliest):
To: City of Visalia City Clerk cityclerk@visalia.city 01/09/2026
Dear City Clerk,
This is a request under the California Public Records Act (Government Code § 6250 et seq.).
I request that the following records be made available for public inspection and/or that copies be provided:
On 11/17/2025, the Visalia City Council passed consent item #8, “Award a Contract for 14 New Police Patrol Vehicles”. The agenda packet includes quotes from National Auto Fleet Group for 14 new Dodge Durango Pursuit AWD vehicles, at $57,193.47 per vehicle. Also included in the quote are twelve “upfit” specifications, at $33,895.03 per vehicle. These vehicles are listed as available under Sourcewell Contract 091521-NAF.
I would like documentation on the “stock” equipment level of the vehicles being purchased. This would be satisfied by the information included in the “Monroney” sticker attached to new vehicles. I would also like a detailed listing of the equipment to be installed in the “upfit” of the vehicle prior to delivery to the City of Visalia.
If any portion of these records is deemed exempt from disclosure, I request that you redact only those portions and provide the remainder of the records, citing the specific legal justification for each redaction as required by the CPRA.
Please inform me in advance of any fees associated with compiling or copying these records. If the estimated costs exceed $20, please contact me for approval before proceeding.
As provided by the CPRA, I look forward to your response within 10 calendar days regarding the availability of these records.
The Visalia Unified School District responded to my request for information. There were two parts to that response.
Part One:
So, if I’m reading this correctly, there is no policy that says ‘special meetings’ will not be video recorded. That seems odd. If it’s routine to record Board meetings when held in the Boardroom, why aren’t ‘special meetings’ video recorded? Does this mean some manager told staff to not record the meetings? On what basis was that order, if it happened, made? If no such order was made, is the staff member making the decisions themselves? I rather doubt that.
Part Two:
They want the name or title of the District personnel that I’m requestion information about in order to search email or other records. Unfortunately, the District does not list employee positions online. I am unable to determine who might be the person(s) whose records would be appropriate to check for information with an online search.
They also want a date range to search, but how do I determine what time frame would be appropriate, since they do not include all of the past agendas and minutes on their web pages.
I’m currently researching online documents from the District to see if I can figure out just why they don’t record ‘special meetings’, but if I can’t find anything I may have to start making phone calls.
Seems like a lot of work for such a simple request.
On November 9, 2025, I posted about my attempts to obtain a video recording of the joint Visalia City Council / Visalia Unified School District meeting of October 23, 2025. In that post, I included the school district’s response, which was “After conducting a reasonable search, the District determines that it has no public records that are subject to disclosure under the PRA and responsive to the request. Accordingly, no records will be produced.”
I thought that was a strange way to put it.
I’ve decided to pursue the matter further, since it’s not clear to me if the District means there is no recording at all, or that there is but is not “subject to disclosure”.
I sent an email on November 4, 2025, to the Board Chairman and the trustee covering my area regarding clarification. The Chairman sent me a response on November 5, 2025, indicating she would forward it to the appropriate person in the District administration, but I’ve not heard back from anyone about it.
I’ve sent the following request as of December 6, 2025:
Sara Sanchez,
This confirms receipt of your email dated November 4, 2025, regarding my request for a copy of any recording of the October 23, 2025 special meeting between the Visalia Unified School District Board of Trustees and the Visalia City Council.
In that response, you said “…the District determines that it has no public records that are subject to disclosure under the PRA and responsive to the request. Accordingly, no records will be produced.”
Please consider this email another request for information under the California Public Records Act.
Does this mean that there are no video recordings of this meeting created by VUSD, or that video recordings of this meeting made by VUSD do exist, but will not be released?
Looking at the “recent meetings” list on the District’s website, it appears that “special meetings” are not recorded. However, the meeting between the District and the Visalia City Council was held in the Boardroom of the District and utilized the same video equipment as regular Board meetings. Did staff not record this meeting, even though the same video systems were, apparently, used?
If there is a policy of not recording “special meetings”, I would like to receive a copy of that policy, or be directed to its location if online access is available. If there is no specific policy in place, I would like copies of any internal memos, emails, or other directives of any sort that direct staff not to record “special meetings” that occur in the Boardroom.
Thank you for your attention in this matter.
Jim Reeves
I’ve sent this email so that it should be in the district’s possession start of business, Monday, December 8, 2025. We’ll see what happens.
Random thoughts, occasional rants, illuminating commentary, and an odd story now and then from the world of 9-1-1 dispatching. All this and more from a gay liberal atheist living in California’s Bible belt. I recently married, so MAGA beware! I’m your worst nightmare! Some names have been omitted to protect the innocent, but the guilty will be hung out to dry!
JimmieJoe / KC6YRU 
Public Records request: City of Visalia
January 9, 2026
Jim Reeves commentary, News, Personal budget, business, News, Public records act, visalia, Visalia City Clerk, Visalia City Council, visalia police department, VPD Leave a comment
Perusing the Visalia City Council agenda can be tedious, at times. Monotonous, filled with, frankly, less than enlightening information. Generally, there’s not much to grab your attention, as it’s the nuts and bolts of running a city. I often refer to it as “the sausage making” of city government. Sometimes, though…
Last November, I noticed consent calendar entries for new police cars (SUVs, actually. Seems nobody is producing sedans for police work anymore). Included in the agenda packet information was approval requests for:
“Award a Contract for 14 New Police Patrol Vehicles – Request authorization to award a purchase contract for fourteen (14) fully marked Police patrol units with National Auto Fleet Group located in Watsonville, CA, in the amount of $1,281,193 for 2026 Dodge Durango’s, appropriate $14,130 from General Fund, $106,395 from Measure T, and $122,674 from the Replacement Fund for total appropriations of $243,200.”
Each Durango had a purchase price of $57,193.47, with an equipment “upfit” of $33,895.03 each.
Now, we can ponder about a $1.3 million purchase being included in a “consent calendar” item, relegating it to the shadows and holding no public discussion on the expense. (You should see some of the “consent calendar” items and the associated dollar amounts that float through the Tulare County Board of Supervisors meetings. Yikes. And some retro-active, at that! – but that’s maybe for a different discussion.)
I’m a bit torn between the idea of not bogging down meetings with endless procedure, and I also firmly believe in hiring good people, setting their parameters and goals, and then getting out of their way and let them do their jobs, but… that’s a lot of money for important city assets.
Here’s my public records request to the City of Visalia (sent late on a Friday, so no action until next week at the earliest):
To: City of Visalia City Clerk cityclerk@visalia.city
01/09/2026
Dear City Clerk,
This is a request under the California Public Records Act (Government Code § 6250 et seq.).
I request that the following records be made available for public inspection and/or that copies be provided:
On 11/17/2025, the Visalia City Council passed consent item #8, “Award a Contract for 14 New Police Patrol Vehicles”.
The agenda packet includes quotes from National Auto Fleet Group for 14 new Dodge Durango Pursuit AWD vehicles, at $57,193.47 per vehicle.
Also included in the quote are twelve “upfit” specifications, at $33,895.03 per vehicle.
These vehicles are listed as available under Sourcewell Contract 091521-NAF.
I would like documentation on the “stock” equipment level of the vehicles being purchased. This would be satisfied by the information included in the “Monroney” sticker attached to new vehicles.
I would also like a detailed listing of the equipment to be installed in the “upfit” of the vehicle prior to delivery to the City of Visalia.
If any portion of these records is deemed exempt from disclosure, I request that you redact only those portions and provide the remainder of the records, citing the specific legal justification for each redaction as required by the CPRA.
Please inform me in advance of any fees associated with compiling or copying these records. If the estimated costs exceed $20, please contact me for approval before proceeding.
As provided by the CPRA, I look forward to your response within 10 calendar days regarding the availability of these records.
Thank you for your assistance.
Sincerely,
Jim J. Reeves, Jr.
jim.visalia@gmail.com
Visalia, CA 93277
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