Newman Council adopts updated health and safety element required by state law

The Newman City Council on Tuesday adopted an update to the city's health and safety element to reflect recent state requirements and local hazard planning.

Planning staff said state law requires cities to maintain a general plan with a health and safety element and that recent legislation (identified in the staff presentation as “s p 10 35” and “s p 3 79”) now requires safety elements to be updated every eight years alongside housing elements. “As part of the health and safety element, we look at different things,” the staff member told the council, listing drought, geological hazards, flood, wildfire and hazardous materials among the topics covered.

The staff presentation said the update incorporates background risk information and adopts goals, policies and actions; it also incorporates by reference the Stanislaus County local hazard mitigation plan, the county multi-jurisdictional hazardous mitigation plan, the emergency operations plan and the county flood protection plan to support evacuation and emergency response planning. Staff reported they had received comments from the California Geological Survey and had added the requested language in the draft.

The council opened a public hearing; with no speakers, councilmember motioned and the council voted to adopt the resolution adopting the health and safety element update with the proposed changes. The motion carried 5-0.

Why it matters: The health and safety element guides local preparedness and risk reduction and must align with state law and regional hazard planning. The adoption also completes a required update that runs alongside the housing element the city adopted last year.

Council members did not ask for further changes at Tuesday’s meeting; staff remains responsible for integrating the element into broader emergency planning and for any subsequent implementation steps.