City Council discusses future of hybrid meeting format

By Jacob Hoffman Express staff writer

During its Feb. 21 meeting, the Winters City Council mulled over the continuation of its virtual meeting system.

Briefly, City Manager Kathleen Salguero Trepa reminded the council that virtual meetings were a product of the pandemic, allowing councilmembers to video call into meetings and the public to participate remotely. Trepa noted that “public participation has gone up significantly in the pandemic with remote access.”

“The state legislature has passed a bill and the governor has signed it that’s referred to as AB 2449,” which is similar to the law that first allowed public meetings to be held remotely, as it allows “a hybrid platform and rules for people to participate…in a meeting remotely, but it has different rules than (the previous law),” Trepa said.

Firstly, councilmembers and commissioners are allotted two conditional absences from their in-person meetings, as well as emergency absences. In addition, the city can decide whether to continue with a true hybrid system that makes virtual broadcasting necessary for the continuation

See HYBRID, Page 3 financial burden. To Ogando, The Winters Collective is a way to simultaneously ease that burden on small business owners while giving them prime, Main Street real estate to operate on.

“I can’t imagine if I had a regular setup with employees and opened a new business during that time (that) we would have made it. Our setup is different where my vendors all work the store as part of the business model,” said Ogando. “I just really believed in the concept

See BUSINESS, Page 3

At a previous meeting, City Manager Kathleen Salguero Trepa informed the council that the city closed out a grant with the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) for $100,000 for the Paseo Park construction process and that the city has sent a second grant request of the same size to SACOG which the city expects to hear about in April.

Trepa told the council that city staff is “looking for some guidance and direction on where the council would like us to prioritize spending this next $100,000” because this grant is “clearly not going to do everything that people would like to see in the park, so we do need to focus our efforts on an area that can be accomplished with the $100,000.”

For possible uses of the funding, Trepa said the grant parameters are “pretty broad” regarding what the money could go towards, and provided a number of ways the money could be spent, including decorative screening for the park’s transformer, a structure to hold rotating art, and landscaping different areas of the park.

On Tuesday, the particular issue council discussed was whether the City Council wished to form an ad hoc committee to help determine the priorities of how the grant funding could be used for the Paseo Park project. Under the Brown Act, a California law that regulates the actions governing bodies can make beyond public record, an ad hoc committee can be formed of no more than two City Councilmembers tasked with addressing a specific issue for a short period of time, typically less than a year. The ad hoc committee is also an opportunity for the public and community members

See PASEO, Page 3

Kenney is 2022 Officer of the Year

By Aaron Geerts Express staff writer

The Winters Police Department (WPD) is the shield between the community and all manners of crime and public safety incidents. While the men and women of WPD operate under the motto, “Service with Integrity,” Officer Brandon Kenney was recognized as exemplifying it most in 2022 -- earning him the notoriety of being named the 2022 Officer of the Year.

Originally from

Vallejo, Kenney now lives in Fairfield with his wife and newborn child. Although he’s not local, Kenney has made an indelible impact within the community and WPD since he joined the ranks in February 2021. Given his quality of work, the community has made an impact on Kenney as well.

“It feels awesome to be named Officer of the Year. We have a lot of hardworking officers and community service officers in the department and it means a lot to have earned Officer of the Year,” said Kenney. “Working in a smaller town like Winters allows me, as a police officer, to really engage with the community. In my two short years here, I feel like I can say I’ve had an impact on people in the community. Whereas in a bigger city, you don’t always get that connection. I enjoy being able to stop and talk to members of the community where I can help.”

According to

See OFFICER, Page 3