Read the January 19 meeting.

But they wouldn't take no for an answer. And we think if we were allowed to conduct the discovery, it'll show that their plan was always to propose a retail center they had no intention of building and hire Mayor Polito's friend, Jill Wallace, to as a permit expediter to get the car wash they were not allowed to have. They obtained a general plan amendment and a zone change from the city when they should not have. by misrepresenting what they were going to do. There would have been tremendous public opposition that they asked for the general plan amendment

and zone change in connection with the carwash. In fact, the city told them not to even apply for it. So I think that it's the time has come for the city to do the right thing, to step up, get in front of this thing, get on the right side of history

and take responsibility.

The petitioners want to work with the city, be reasonable to the mutual benefit of the city and the petitioners. Thank you.

Great. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Let's go ahead and start the meeting and I'll go ahead and call this regular meeting to order of the Santa Ana City Council for January 19th, 2021.

Good evening, everybody. I hope everybody is well. Hope everybody is safe. Just a couple of things before we get started. If you all know kind of the rules on these things, if you could please keep yourself muted, unless you're called upon to speak. We are beginning with a new system that we've tried out a couple of times, but I know we're still a little bumpy. It's PrimeGov, but I like the new agenda format, so it looks great. Please bear with us members of the public and colleagues and staff as we go through this and we'll get through this fine. It's a work in progress. So let me turn it over to the clerk

so she can call roll please.

Council member Becerra?

Phil Bacerra

Here.

Council member Hernandez?

Present.

Council member Lopez? Present. Council member Mendoza? Present.

Council member Fan? Here.

Mayor Pro Tempeñalosa?

Present.

Mayor Sarmiento.

Here, thank you. And just as a matter of interest for anybody who is waiting to speak on public hearing item number 27, that matter has been continued to the February 2nd meeting at the request of all parties. So before we proceed with the pledge and the invocation and the rest of our special matters,

Madam Clerk, would you go ahead and give some instructions here as we move forward?

Yes, to all the members of the public who would like to make comments at the beginning of the meeting for all comments on agenda and non-agenda items, except for public hearings, comments for public hearings will take place after the mayor opens the hearing to request to speak dial star nine from your phone or virtually raise your hand from zoom. Please do not call Zoom or call or Zoom to only listen to the meeting. Meetings are broadcast live on Spectrum Channel 3 and AT&T U-verse Channel 99 or at YouTube, excuse me, youtube.com forward slash Santa Anna library. Thank you, Mayor.

Great, thank you for that. Why don't we go ahead and today's kind of a special day and I'm feeling extra patriotic. We just had Martin Luther King weekend, and we celebrated his legacy and his life. And tomorrow is the inaugural day, so we're kind of sandwiched in between two very important momentous occasions. So why don't you all join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. If you're near a flag, please stand and put your right hand over your heart and repeat after me.

I pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. And we're going to have our invocation as well. And what we've been doing is trying to celebrate different faiths in the city. Last week, or excuse me, last meeting, we had an invocation that was done by an imam from the Islamic Center of Orange County. And tonight we're going to be led in an invocation prayer by one of our master abbots from one of our Vietnamese Buddhist temples. So, Kwan Hieu, are you on the line? Can you hear me, sir? Yes.

Please, the floor is yours. Please lead us in the invocation. And thank you so much for joining us.

Hello everyone. Can you hear me?

Yes, we can, sir.

Today I'm very happy to present here to fight for peace in the city. So in this moment, I would like to invite all of you to pay attention to the present moment and join with me with the praying.

Namaste Sakiyamuni Buddha, whose great woes and compassion inspire us. Because of your love for all people, please have compassion for our suffering. Our world has been in pandemic for too long, divided. It is the length of tears. Please help us remember we are just one family. Help us rekindle our compassion and brotherhood, and transform our separate interests into loving acceptance for all.

May your compassion help us overcome our hatred. We are determined to cultivate only thoughts that increase trust and love. to use our hands to perform only this that build community, to speak only words of harmony and death. May your teachings of great compassion and loving kindness be the guide to our major Vincelmento and our council members of the city Santa Ana and bless them with success in their noble self-esteem.

and resolute efforts to build this city of Santa Ana into one of great prosperity and harmony, a welcoming city of love, peace and joy, and equal justice under law for all resident brothers and sisters of this city. May you bless our mayor and council members, all the servo servants of this city and their families and keep them always safe, healthy, and happy. Namo Sakiyamani Buddha.

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you for those beautiful words. I feel, I think you inspired all of us, and I believe that's what this invocation is all about. So we appreciate that. And let's go ahead and move along to the ceremonial presentation section of the meeting. And we'll begin with an oath of office administered to Mark McLaughlin as Ward 4 representative on the Planning Commission.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Great. Great. Thank you for those videos. I know my audio was a little low, so I couldn't really hear much, but I think maybe those masks were on a little too tight, but I know Janelle and Mark McLaughlin will do a great job on planning and on ETAC respectively. So thank you both for your service. Let's move along to the second item, which is honoring the life and legacy of somebody that's very important to the city. Dave Ream was a former city manager here for 25 years and spent actually 33 years serving the city. And he passed away on the 26th of December of last year.

And so we thought we'd, you know, we normally adjourn in people's memory at the tail end of the meeting. But because Dave spent most of his career here in Santa Ana serving our residents, we thought it might be more appropriate to do this here. And I wanna thank Carl Benninger who requested that this happened and a lot of others. And I know Senator Tom Umberg is here and maybe Senator, if you can join us for a couple of words after we see the video and I say a couple of words about Dave. Thank you.

Go ahead, Madam Clerk, go ahead and show the video.

The only thing I've been issued is just a photo so I can share that. I don't see that there's a video or anything to be shown at this time.

Got it. Let's go ahead and just, as you know, we also have been displaying Dave's photograph on the digital reader boards throughout the city. and we've been trying to honor his memory that way. So let me go ahead and just say a few words before I pass it along to Senator Humbert. So Dave Rehm passed away on December 26, 2020 in Laguna Hills at the age of 76. He had been battling Parkinson's disease for several years. He was born on July 1st, 1944 in Long Beach and he was the son of a Long Beach police officer

who was killed in the line of duty. Dave went to Pauley High School in Long Beach and was very proud of his time at Arizona State University where he received his degree, his undergraduate degree, and later a master's degree in business administration from Cal State Long Beach. He worked for the city of Long Beach in Lakewood until he arrived in St. Ann in 1978 where he would serve for 33 years before retiring. But before then, he served in many roles here in the city, including executive director of community development and became the city manager in 1986 at the age of 41.

He was very instrumental in bringing about a lot of development in the city. And one of those was the transformation of what was Fashion Square into Main Place Mall today.

He did a redevelopment partnership with Santa Ana Unified to build a dozen public schools, which he was really proud of because during his tenure, there was such a growth of student and the population had risen so much that there was a scarcity of sites, scarcity of schools for the student body. And Dave, I know worked really closely with the school superintendent here in Santa Ana and the school board to realize a dozen new schools that the city was very helpful in making available. He also created the network of neighborhood associations, which we all enjoy today. He thought it was a really important way for us

to communicate with one another in different areas of the city. And we know how invaluable it is now. He was vital in the construction of the new police headquarters, Bristol street widening, the expansions both at Bowers and at the Santa Ana Zoo. He was also critical to the Ronald Reagan Federal Building and the courthouse in downtown. He also helped with the opening of the Discovery Science Center, and he was also vital in making sure that the downtown developed its artist village and the Fiesta Marketplace. Dave was a real family man. He saw that education was so important

that one of the labels that the city had was education first and Santa Ana 2000. So he was so vested in making sure that local government agencies, businesses, and others work together to prepare Santa Ana students for the modern workforce. He was on the board of the Santa Ana Boys and Girls Club and he just felt that it was so important that we created a strong culture of customer service here at City Hall, that he worked directly with many of the managers and many of the staff to make sure that when people came to Santa Ana, they were treated well, they wanted to come back.

And I think that culture is something that still remains as his legacy here in the city today. Dave is survived by his wife, Diane, and his three adult children and other family members. And, you know, just on a personal note, you know, when the news reached us of his passing and we were talking about, you know, his eulogy and how we honor his memory, you know, it's funny how quickly things change. But I was the only one left on the council and really in the organization, at least, that knew Dave personally.

And Dave was such a fixture in an institution here in the city, let alone City Hall. that, you know, it's funny how things quickly change, but I think Dave left his, you know, fingerprints and his legacy on many of our lives on things that we're enjoying today. So, you know, we were very, very fortunate to have him serve most of his career here, and we thank him for his service. And I know that Senator Umberg is on, and I'm going to go ahead and give him the floor so he can speak a little bit about Dave because I know he knew him personally and it was a big loss to all of us.

So Senator, you want to go ahead and take the floor, sir, and say a few words about Mr. Rehm.

Well, thank you, Mr. Mayor and members of the council. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Oh, good, good, good, good. Let me just digress for just a second. We have this existential threat right now, the COVID virus, and I wanted to commend the city of Santa Ana and the leaders of the city of Santa Ana for stepping up in ways that other cities have not. This is a terrible scourge, and I want to thank you personally for leading the way among cities, particularly in Orange County. But now let me turn to the matter at hand. I did know Dave Rehm.

I first met Dave Rehm in 1989, and he was a mentor of sorts when I was first elected to the Assembly a few years ago, 1990. Dave was a person of great integrity. He could be tough, really tough. And that toughness was exhibited as you drive around the city of Santa Ana because he fought for things. You mentioned, Mr. Mayor, Discovery Science Center, the number of schools, for example, widening of Bristol Street. Really, really a challenging project. And Dave and Diane were part of the fabric of Santa Ana and made a difference in so many lives.

So it is appropriate that we take a moment and recognize the contribution that Dave and Diane made to the city of Santa Ana, that this place is so different and so much of it is attributable to Dave Rehm and his tenacity and his vision. So thank you, Mr. Mayor, for giving me an opportunity to say a few words about a person who deserves to be recognized.

Thank you, Senator. I know that, you know, Dave did, you know, touch the lives of so many. And I always, you know, one of the things I remember about Dave is that, you know, he could be talking to, you know, CEOs of large corporations and judges. And then he could talk to folks who were just, you know, residents and neighbors. And, you know, he never changed his tone. He was always very calm, really patient. And he had this really, you know, gentle demeanor. So, you know, that's what you have to have, I think, in the line of work that they do as city managers, but he will be missed.

And I know, Diane, we send all our, you know, all our heartfelt, sincere condolences to her and the family. So thank you for those words, Senator. And we'll go ahead and get back to the meeting. And thank you for those words about the COVID. We'll be talking about an update soon, and we'll keep your office updated as we move along.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you all.

Thank you. The next item is the certificate of recognition that will be presented by council member Mendoza to Medica testing group for their outstanding contributions to the community. Council member Mendoza, I'll go ahead and turn over the floor to you please.

Thank you, mayor Sarmiento. It's my honor to award this certificate of appreciation and recognition. Medica testing group, which is operated by director Fred Flores successfully provided COVID-19 testing to over 35,000 of our Santa Ana residents in the months of September through December, 2020. The tests in Santa Ana were administered at various locations throughout the city of Santa Ana, including parks, community centers, schools, neighborhoods, and the super site at the Santa Ana College where as many as a thousand individuals

were tested daily during the last two weeks of the testing period. Medica worked directly with the Santa Ana College nursing program to offer the RN students work experience that translated into hours needed to fulfill graduation requirements. Medica generously supported the city's annual toy drive with a donation of $15,000 to purchase toys and other gifts for the youth of Santa Ana. Medica proudly employed many Santa Ana residents to assist in all phases of the service they provided. To date, Medica testing group has administered

COVID-19 testing to over 500,000 residents of Southern California. On behalf of the city of Santa Ana, the city council,

Medica staff, Director Fred Flores, and the late Ray Virchis, who succumbed to an early death earlier this month due to COVID, they are publicly and proudly recognized as fierce frontline essential workers who risked their life daily to protect Santa Ana residents. Their service to the community was critical in helping us get through this difficult time and they deserve our applause, our thanks and our respect. Thank you, Medica testing group.

Thank you for that council woman. We certainly do. They did a lot of heavy lifting here. We certainly appreciate their service to the city and to the residents. Moving along to the next item, which is a update, the COVID-19 update to the community and I'll turn it over to Madam City Manager for that.

Thank you, Honorable Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and Council Members. For tonight's update, I want to provide you information regarding our testing and vaccination efforts, and then I do have some final numbers for the compliments we achieved with the CARES funding, since that funding has now been closed out and all of our reporting requirements have been fulfilled. So on the vaccination front, Santa Ana was very fortunate to be selected as a pilot site to do 500 vaccinations to those senior citizens in our community age 65 and older. We handled the pre-registration and all of the appointments and we are at capacity.

We have all 500 slots that are taken. The vaccinations will be done tomorrow beginning at 9 and should run until about 3 o'clock. There are not walk-ins allowed so if you're not one of those that has secured an appointment unfortunately if you show up we won't be able to assist you. But I do hope that working with the county will be able to maybe proceed and do more of these in the future. The vaccination that they are using is the Moderna vaccination. That is what has been provided to us by the county of Orange.

In regards to testing, I know at the last special meeting, you did authorize up to $750,000 for the purpose of testing and for vaccination. We're certainly using a little bit of those funds to help do the logistics for our vaccination site tomorrow. and with a lot of that we are in the process of finalizing a contract with 360 clinic for testing in our community and we have allotted five hundred thousand dollars to 360 clinic and with the way that we have structured it meaning that 360 clinic will attempt to bill third parties before they

bill us for those testings we believe that we could do upward of 50,000 tests with that five hundred thousand dollars so we're working out just the details on that and hopefully we'll have those started up very very soon we do also have already in the city testing that is happening all the hard work that latino health access is doing they will have testing that's available on this thursday january 21st and that will be from 9 30 a.m to 4 30 at saddleback high school on flower Street. Now moving to some of the Santa Ana Cares final numbers, for the child care program

that you had requested and we rolled out, we were able to fund 221 applications. For the artist grants under your leadership, we also awarded 103 applications for that. For the isolation assistance, this is for those that needed to be isolated from family members with COVID, we had 203 participants, which served 81 households. Business grants, we issued 394 business grants. And for restaurant and bar relief, we issued 89 grants. For a museum stabilization grant, we issued three museum grants.

On the small business incentive micro enterprise grant, we issued 96 grants. And for utility assistance, we helped 1,857 residents. And for landlords, we spent $1.1 million that assisted 323 households remain within their residences without having any worries over back due rent. We also, for tenants, we provided assistance directly to the tenants in addition to the landlord program. and we helped out 887 families. For COVID tests, as mentioned by Council Member Mendoza,

through the contracted efforts of Medica, we did perform 35,455 tests at 201 different testing locations throughout our city. The COVID hotline that we put in place, we received almost 8,000 phone calls where we were able to assist speaking in both Vietnamese, Spanish, and English. and the types of calls that we did get on there, the vast majority of them was for the rental assistance and the utility assistance with the third most popular nature of a call was on COVID testing. So that is my report for tonight. Certainly if you have any questions, I'd be more than happy to answer them. Thank you.

Thank you for that Madam city manager, excellent report. Let me bring it back to the council. If any of the council members have any questions or comments, colleagues?

Hearing none. Madam Clerk, you can alert me if I'm missing anybody, but I don't see any virtual hands raised or any physical hands raised, and I hear none either. But I did have a couple of comments. So very exciting news about, you know, at least this pilot program for the vaccinations that will be done tomorrow. So I'm hoping that that gives us at least some inroads in working with our partners at the County, letting them know that we have the capacity and the ability to do this. So hopefully things go well on that. And that's great that we're able to bring some resources to our,

to our residents on the, on the testing front. because we know one of the things I'm hearing from the federal government and our partners there is that everybody has a scarcity of vaccines. So what everybody expected to receive hasn't been achieved. So there is certainly a shortage and a scarcity of the vaccines and they're slow to roll out. We're hoping as a new administration comes in, that will start flowing quicker, but it's going to take weeks if not more, especially as we get past some of the first phases of,

of high priority folks who need to get vaccinated. So we know that that's going to be something that's coming. I just had a question for you, Madam city manager. Do you have any sense now that we're looking and working with, with the vendor, any idea when something might be physically ready to go ahead and start, start the testing?

I'm sorry sir I do not have an exact start date we are just putting the finalized finalizing the touches on the actual agreement with them and it was just today that we were able to determine the amount that they would need to run through their model to achieve but I certainly at the second that I know any of the the firm logistics I will send counsel an email great and then we can start

talking about outreach and maybe pushing that information out to people because it'll take a while to make sure we message it correctly, whether it's going to be a fixed site or whether it's going to be something that we take to neighborhoods as we did with the CARES Act, or maybe both, right?

Absolutely, we will definitely be ready to go once we have all the details.

Great, last thing was, and I know that the Senator was on here and I had been in contact with his office about some things that, you know, I think I've heard from council members and members of the public where you still have some businesses and, you know, unfortunately some, you know, residents that are still defying a lot of these, you know, executive orders from the governor and gathering and large numbers. So I know that we don't want to be punitive with anybody, with any business. We know that things are very difficult, but nonetheless, these are lives that are being compromised when, you know,

rules are being defied and they're not being followed. So in a way, maybe there's something that we can work with, you know, work with either police or code enforcement, where we have letters that are issued to businesses that are non-compliant. And maybe the letters basically say, look, to the extent that you continue to defy, you know, you may not be eligible for any business grants in the future, you know, and really try to reward those businesses and assist them, assist those businesses that have been good actors, right? That have been trying to be compliant, not stay open, you know, when they,

when they're not supposed to, and maybe, you know, keep things at a limited capacity, but maybe even a step further, you know, as we have a role in, you know, issuing, helping state agencies like ABC renew applications and licenses, they always ask our police department to issue sort of a comment letter,

You know, have there been elevated calls for service? You know, you know, have things been going smoothly? And then the renewal is based upon those comment letters. I think, you know, it's appropriate that if we see businesses that have been, you know, defying consistently, maybe that's like, you know, look, maybe it's a bad mark, maybe it's a bad letter saying, you know, these folks really haven't been doing a good job in being good actors and being responsible business owners in the community. but I think that's maybe what a letter should say to some of these business owners that they could

compromise their licenses and their permits. We just have to make sure people, you know, stop behaving, you know, improperly and, and defying these orders. These are real lives that are at stake today seeing, you know, the number 400, you know, a thousand lives that were lost and, you know, you know, the impact that we've had in our city. I just think we can't stand passively by And I don't blame a lot of our business owners. They're hearing mixed messages from many people at different levels, whether it's the County, whether it's, you know, even, you know, you know, in the white house. So hopefully that messaging will change.

But nonetheless, we have to remind them that they, you know, we want to reward good behavior and, and not punish bad behavior. So that's basically my comment and thank you for that report. Please keep us posted on, on the, on the new site. So let me go ahead and move on to the next item and next section, which is the public comment period. And this is a time and place for the members of the public to address members of the city council on agendized and non-agendized items. You will have three minutes to speak. And I believe that the clerk had the line open for people to get in the queue starting at five.

So I'll go ahead and turn it over to the clerk so she can go ahead and call on anybody who'd like to address this from the public or submit

anything in writing as well. Madam Clerk. Thank you Mayor. Mayor did you want to start with maybe having the city attorney report out anything on closed session before? Sorry about that I skipped

over her. Madam city attorney is there anything to report out from closed session? Mayor there's

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 4

no reportable action from tonight's closed session meeting. Great thank you. Thank you. Go ahead Madam

Thank you. For any member of the public, if you'd like to make a comment during the meeting on agenda and non-agenda items, with the exception of public hearing items, please dial star nine now, or virtually raise your hand through Zoom. Please wait to speak on public hearing items. Those lines will be reopened at the time the item is being heard. Please do not call just to listen to the meeting. To only listen, you may go to youtube.com forward slash Santa Ana library or spectrum channel three or AT&T U-verse channel 99. If callers are watching this meeting on TV or online,

please mute that device of speaker before making your comment in order to prevent audio feedback.

And again, callers, if you're wanting to speak on any non agenda item or agenda item listed with the exception of public hearing item 28, since item 27 will be continued to the next council meeting. Please virtually raise your hand by dialing star nine or selecting the virtual raise hand on the Zoom application.

Zoom ID Maniaskamia, you have been unmuted. Please proceed with your comment.

Sure, hello everyone. Thank you, welcome to 2021. in this democratic experiment at a very historic moment in our nation's history. You know, really wish you all the best of luck in this new year. I just wanted to talk, I guess, about three items, starting off with item number 24. So I really do like the idea of finding out a little bit more about the way our property taxes are structured in this city. I just felt that there was a missing opportunity in this particular item to have more analysis done on potential properties that are either generating a lot of revenue kind of on a per acre or per

square foot basis, as well as potential properties that are underperforming relative to similar properties. So I know a lot of the analysis that's being conducted is going to help with the budget forecasting. But I think that that might be an opportunity to see if that's something that we could work with this particular vendor to figure out ways that we can raise property values and our property tax revenue in a kind of more comprehensive way, especially if we have all of these land use considerations that are coming in with a general plan update so that's for

item 24. item 30 I really do look forward to getting this passed I think you guys are all gonna be in support of this but having all Santa Ana residents available to serve I know that Carlos over on the measure x committee has been doing a wonderful job and I think it just goes to show the quality of all residents in the city of Santa Ana and I'm hoping that you know that language can get passed to allow for a wider range of participation in local government. And then on 31, as a former elk, I definitely appreciate the renaming of the Elk Lane over by

the Wormers site and that was pretty cool. But just wondering if that might be a little overkill to have a go from Elk Lane to Lion to Elk Lane again and just to make sure that that's okay with the neighbors over there because they're going to have to change some signage as well. And It would be pretty cool to add some placemaking and maybe some monument signage leading to Elk Lane without necessarily having to impact everyone's postal information. Because I think the first site by Wormers, it really affected the Santa Ana Zoo and a new project that was going in. So it wasn't really too much of an impact.

But other than that, I think that you guys have a lot to get through. So I'll let you get back to the meeting.

Madam clerk.

Madam clerk.

Thank you. Zoom ID Victor Mendez, if you would please go ahead and yes, you may proceed with your comment.

You can hear me now.

Yes, we could hear you now. Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah, just a really quick comment on PrimeGov. I think Daisy has done a very good job of refining this process. Frankly, I was pretty critical of things when it first came up and I just want to comment her and her team for being responsive to my comments and perhaps those of others. The introduction and the instructions are so much a vast improvement since the beginning. And I'm glad they took our comments to heart and I'm starting to work through it. And I think it's going to be a good thing. It wasn't my first impression, but I think, like I said, it helps to listen to your customer and respond.

And I think they've done a pretty good job, at least in this respect. With respect to the COVID enforcement, as he spoke. Yeah, I do see here in downtown, a lot of bad actors and it breaks my heart because they're good people. I know them and I've patronized them before, but it does make me very concerned about some of these large gatherings, particularly on Sunday afternoon at an unnamed business, which I used to frequent, I still do. So I think your idea of letters and some type of dressing that this could have implications for the business would be helpful. In my apartment, we're now required to wear masks.

So we now have to, you know, we get letters of saying, this will be part of your lease agreement. You'll be in violation of your lease. You don't wear a mask, please do so. But I think the nice letters that have a good tone to them, a firm tone, but not an adversarial tone are important. And don't forget some of these business here have got some permit exclusions to extend their business to the sidewalk. They're gathering in large masses, it's kind of taking advantage of the city's good nature. So yes, you do some upfront letters and things that could indicate that they could lose some

privileges down the road. And again, the city, I think as the city manager has indicated, has done a very good job. I know cities that are still kind of flustered and figuring it out. When I say Santa Ana is trying to get their own vaccine. They're almost kind of astonished at that. So again, please continue on that. We need that and we're grateful for that. So that's kind of the good things. I'm gonna speak in general on three or five items cause they all say the same thing, 11, 13, 15, and 16 and 19. And I have to really, you know, it's this is a stark contrast to the great work in COVID,

but the numbers here are about $4.2 million in contingency funding. This funding is not even estimated. It was just a blank 10% on every contract. And this 4.2 million of money, that's basically a indemnity to the contractor or to the project that you are releasing as authorization. Now I'm sure the staff we found, we do auditing, we do oversight, we used, I understand that, but this is not a very good practice. And I really think it needs to be tailed back considerably. So egregious that I think one of the items, I think item number 15 for these trucks, which are going through a PO, they're asking for another $10,000

to cover themselves through this process. And this is on a competitive bid on a PO through a joint purchasing arrangement. And that doesn't make sense. On that said, on that note, we do have a local vendor that might be able to help. And so if you're saying, well, I need $10,000 for this guy, why don't you see what that local vendor can do? And the name of the vendor is Tom's Trucks. and they say they build the spec. And so it seems like there's a loss, another lost opportunity. So I'm gonna keep talking about this. I'm gonna keep tallying the numbers. Last council tallied up a pretty good sum but no one spoke out about it.

I'm just hoping this council will at least start talking about it, finding a solution, limiting the number of change orders to a certain point council approval and try to restrain some of these dollars that are going out the door, you know, faster than we can think. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your time. Thank you.

Yeah.

Caller, the last three numbers, 303. Please dot star six to unmute your call

or select the microphone unmute feature on your device. Thank you. And a person.

Hi. I'm actually calling about the Westview project That wasn't continued was it? Or is that still on the agenda?

Yes, that's item 28. That's public hearing item 28 and still. Okay, great. It's gonna be heard later this after all the other items.

Do I speak on it now or do I speak on it then?

Later when the mayor opens the public hearing item for item 28 at that time. Okay.

Okay, I will thank you.

Caller with the last three numbers 303.

Caller Bernie Dennis, did you wanna provide a comment on an item on the agenda with the exception of public hearing items?

Zoom ID Bernie Dennis, did you want to provide a comment?

You have successfully unmuted your call. You may proceed to speak.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, member of the city council. My name is Bernie Dennis. I'm chairman to the board of trustees for the Santa Ana Elks Lodge 794. In 1961 commensurate with the construction of the then new Elks Lodge across the street from the Santa Ana Zoo, the city council approved a request from our lodge to change the name of a segment of Burley to Elk Lane. From that point and for the next 60 years, Elk Lane became the destination point of elk and many, many community activities held at the lodge.

With the recent completion of our new lodge on South Lyon Street, we would like to continue the tradition and the precedent and request that the segment of Lyon Street between Edinger and its terminus at St. Andrews be renamed Elk Lane. Yeah, answer any questions in regard to this issue.

Thank you for that comment. It's on the record. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Madam Clerk.

Caller with Zoom ID, Lisa Darmusse.

If you would please select the microphone or unmute feature on your device. Thank you. You may proceed.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we could hear you.

Wonderful, thank you. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of the city council. My name is Lisa Darmousay. I am the exalted ruler of the Santa Ana Elks Lodge, number 794. I'm calling to express my support for the renaming of Lyon Street between Edinger and St. Andrew Place to Elk Lane. This would be a wonderful gesture by the city and acknowledgement of the over 119 year history of the great work that the Elks do here. Our Elks charitable activities in Santa Ana include

our annual backpack and school supply drive, which we've provide over 1,600 backpacks for the children of Santa Ana, as well as the Santa Ana Unified School District. Our fundraising for assisting special needs students in Santa Ana, honoring veterans buried in Fair Haven and the Santa Ana Cemetery in Santa Ana each Memorial Day. Our new lodge is currently located on Lyon between Edinger and St. Andrew Place. Our previous lodge where the Elks were located

for over 57 years was located at 212 Elk Lane near the Santa Ana Zoo. I hope that the city council will support the new lodge also having an Elk Lane address so we can once again be home. In appreciation and acknowledgement of the five properties that would be impacted by the street name change,

The Santa Ana Elks Lodge would like to work with our neighbors and offer the cost of replacing business cards and stationery for their businesses. At this time, I would like to thank the mayor, the city council, and all the members for this consideration and for your time this evening. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Zoom ID Rodella, if you would please select the unmute feature on your device or the microphone.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the city council. and I too am calling to express my support for the remaining of Lyle Street, St. Edinger, and St. Andrew's Place. This would be a great gesture by the city in acknowledging over 119 years of felps charity activities in St. Andrew. Like our previous speaker said, our new lodge located online between Lettinger and St. Andrew's Place. Our previous lodge was on Elk

or 212 Elk Lane for 57 years. I hope the City Council will support the lodge also having an Elk Lane address. Thank you very much. Have a good night. Thank you.

Thank you. Zoom ID Erica Gonzalez, if you would please select the unmute feature on your device. Thank you, you may proceed with your comment.

Yes, hi, good evening. My name is Erica Gonzalez. I'm a small business owner, Chicanos Unidos organizer and lifelong Santanera who has lived in the Delhi neighborhood for 35 years now. I'm also a co-founder of the South Main Street Business Association, which is a group of business owners located along the South Main Street corridor who are committed to ensuring that all renovations, construction and projects along the South Main Street corridor are completed in alignment with current residents, business owners and local employees. We would like to request that the City Council postpone or continue agenda items 11 through 13

until one, the city's general plan is finalized to ensure that this project falls within the shared vision of the Santana community, to the commencement of community benefits agreements between residents, neighborhood associations, business owners, and community organizers and developers, construction companies, city council, and staff. And three, proper and concrete guidelines are implemented regarding notification to impacted residents and business owners prior to the beginning of the project to ensure that sufficient time is given for accommodations to be made.

Given the current situation with the pandemic and its detrimental impact on our residents, I would like to believe that I'm not the only one when I say that our focus should be on how to continue to support our most vulnerable populations rather than rush these construction projects that are not necessary at this time. Like I've said before, I want to live in a beautiful city. I want to raise my kids in a beautiful city, but not at the expense of the existing community. I don't want anyone to be displaced. I wanna ensure that the vision is a vision of the community, which for the most part we have not seen in these projects.

So until we are guaranteed this through community benefits agreements, which we've been asking for, for quite some time now, I would like to, you know, I wanna believe that you guys want to meet us halfway and negotiate with us and organize, you know, and create a vision, a shared vision between all of us. Cause at the end of the day, it's gonna be a, you know, a shared vision and a community project. So I would like to have those postponed or continued until those agreements are met. Thank you.

Thank you for that.

I'm gonna try one caller. Any other callers who would like to speak on any non-agenda or agenda items, please dial star nine at this time. I will try one caller who did not get in earlier and see if this will work now. Caller with the last three numbers, 303.

Please dial star six if you would like to speak on any agenda or non-agenda item.

Or select the microphone unmute feature on your device.

Okay, Mayor, that is all the callers we have. Oh, I'm sorry, I got another person. Zoom ID, Leti Rodella, if you would please go ahead and select the microphone. Thank you, you've successfully unmuted yourself. You may please speak.

Good evening. Good evening members of the city council.

Please lower the mic for listening to the meeting.

I'm ex scholarship chair for the 794 Elks Lodge. I'm calling to support, to express my support for the renaming of the lion street between Edinger and Andrew place to Eklene. This would be a wonderful gesture for the city in acknowledgement of over the, for the over 119 years of Elks charitable activities in Santa Ana, specifically the scholarships that are available to the high school seniors in the city of Santa Ana. These high schools, these students come from the public, the private and the parochial schools within the city limits of Santa Ana.

The scholarships are funded through the Santa Ana Elks scholarship funds. The Santa Ana students are also eligible for the many, many scholarships under the National Foundation and the California and Hawaii Elks Association.

It is my hope that the city council will support the new lodge with a new Elk Lane address. Thank you.

Great. Madam clerk, was that the last caller?

Yes, mayor. That was the last caller we had. Thank you.

Thank you for those calls. Let me go ahead and bring it back to the council. Are there any, well, first of all, I believe council member fan will be abstaining from item number 17, is that correct, council member?

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

Yes. So I'd like to say before any vote is taken that I am recusing myself from item 17, which is the approve of cooperative agreement with the city of Irvine. My, I work at the law firm, Rattan and Tucker, and we are the city attorney's office for the city of Irvine. However, because this is a consent calendar item, I do not have to leave the room. if that is discussed, but I just wanna make sure that's on the record. Thank you.

Thank you for that. And I'll bring it back to others if they wanna pull any items from the calendar. I see Council Member Lopez's hand up. Council Member.

Jessie LopezItem 5

Yes, thank you, Mayor Sagmiento. I would like to abstain from items six and seven. I was in present at those meetings. Thank you.

Great, thank you for that, Council Member.

Council Member Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 5

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I too would like to abstain from items six and seven. I too was not present at those meetings.

Great, thank you for that. Any others, any other items that anybody would like to pull off the consent calendar?

Council Member Lopez.

Jessie LopezItem 5

Yeah, I'd like to pull item 11, 12 and 24.

Great. Thank you. Any others?

Seeing none, I'll go ahead and entertain a motion for the balance.

David PenalozaItem 5

I'll make a motion to approve Mr. Mayor. This is Mayor Pro Tempeñalosa.

I'll second, Councilor Mazzara.

Great. So Madam Clerk, I think we have a motion by Mayor Pro Tem and a second by either Councilmember Becerra or Mendoza. Your pick.

Thank you, Mayor. You want to proceed with the vote?

Yes. Please call roll.

Councilmember Becerra? Yes. Councilmember Hernandez? Yes. Council member Lopez. Yes. Council member Mendoza.

Yes.

Council member Fan. Yes. Mayor Potem-Piñalosa.

Yes.

Mayor Sarmiento.

Yes. Thank you. Moving along to the first item that was polled, item number 11, I believe by Councilwoman Lopez.

Jessie LopezItem 11

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. And I just want to start off by saying that I'm not opposed to this public project. But in response to our community's feedback, I would like for us to go the extra mile here a little bit. And instead of doing a two-week notice for the businesses located on Main Street, if we can do a three-weeks notice for them, that way they're prepared in advance. And not just to the businesses, but to the neighbors there as well.

Jessie LopezItem 11

and so that way they know what to expect and also I don't know if maybe we would want to do or like notices on a weekly basis prior to the construction happening and then the second point that I wanted to highlight was that you know we often hear these topics about or the concerns about gentrification being brought up and the impacts of that has on the city. And I understand that this is not a development project, but the improvements can have a potential

Jessie LopezItem 11

of making Santa Ana more desirable. And that is totally okay, that's fine. But in order to address these concerns that we often hear, And is it possible for us to collect rental data and to collect occupancy data to help us really understand the impacts of these types of infrastructure investments that we are doing? Because at the moment we don't have anything that we can point to, to help guide our residents. And so I think that right now we're just working off of the assumption that there is no impact, but I think it would be smart for us to collect data.

Jessie LopezItem 11

And if we're gonna be say or say that we're gonna create policy from a data perspective, I think it would be smart for us to have that in place. And the third point that I wanted to highlight

Jessie LopezItem 11

and city manager, I have a question on this point. And can you let me know what kinds of small acts of place making are going are being considered. And then I have a fourth question so I don't know if we want to do the first question first.

I'm Council Member Lopez. Thank you for the questions. We certainly can accommodate additional noticing for the individuals that reside around that areas along with the businesses. And in regards to your collection, we don't have access, nor are we privy to individual landlord and their tenants lease agreements. However, we certainly could analyze through our business license to the extent that new businesses come in and change over. We could certainly track that information. For the details on all of the incredible things that are planned in this corridor improvement, I'm going to ask our executive director of public works,

and he can walk you through some of the features that are a part of this public works project.

Yes, good evening, Mayor, Council members, Mayor Pro Tem. This is Nabil Sabah, Executive Director of Public Works Agency. The South Main Street Corridor project includes many improvements, which includes the new pavement, improvement on the sidewalks, improvements on intersections and new lights throughout the entire two and a half mile of improvements in addition to new bus shelters that we're having installed removing the old ones

and replacing a new style bus shelters and also a an improved light system and we have two focus areas in the project, which includes improvements on the medians, trees, and so many improvements. And in addition to what we're doing for the above improvement, above ground improvements, we're also improving on the water and the sewer system serving that area. So there is quite a

bit of improvement. The project is a great price or a cost. It's one of our biggest projects that we are having in a public works agency here, and we're really excited about going forward with the project. It does touch only on the public right of ways. We are improving again on the sidewalk, curb, gutter, drainage, and again, across streets, all throughout.

Jessie LopezItem 11

Thank you, Nabil. Specifically for the small, the small acts of place making, like, are we going to be stamping the cement, the new, the new sidewalks? Are we going to be doing that? Are we going to be, are we taking into consideration maybe allowing for tiled art to go in or historic markers? That's more of my question. I do understand the, the big improvements that we're doing in, and I.

I believe that in the focus areas where we have intersections on South Main, we are using concrete type cross intersection itself, which would be stamped concrete, colored concrete. and that's what we're doing right now in terms of other features we if we would entertain any anything that you would like to see in terms of tiles and such throughout the the corridor there but we need to kind of told what you like to see there as a concept so yeah I think something

Jessie LopezItem 11

something because I personally like the Santa Ana with the year seeing that walking around downtown and other parts of the area and so if we can do something similar for Main Street I think people would really enjoy that and it's a small it's a small place making act and then my last question is going to be are we installing extra conduits for flexible future leasing use opportunities

Like you mean like fiber or?

Jessie LopezItem 11

Yeah.

Yes. Okay. That, well, that question came up during the neighborhood association meeting and we are notifying all of our fiber and communication companies to let them know that there is an opportunity now for them to put the fiber conduits in that stretch of South Main. and there is an opportunity right now in the same time the city has is working on an rfp request for

proposal to um to develop a private public partnership with communication providers to explore the options of providing network for the city and we the city would partner with the private

providers to establish those kind of communication initiatives in the city.

Jessie LopezItem 11

Okay, thank you. And Nabil, since I have you, I'm really sorry. I recognize that this could have just been a simple email sent to you, but there was a lot of staff reports to get through, but the reading through them, I noticed that the headers on some of them were inconsistent or or that date was wrong at the top. And so I'm sure that you and your team are aware of this. And I just, again, I'm sorry, I should have sent this to you via email, but I'm just, I was going through them rapidly today.

No problem.

Jessie LopezItem 11

So thank you.

Sure. Thank you, council member. I think I see council member Hernandez and council member Becerra. So council member Hernandez, go ahead.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 11

Thank you, Mayor Sardamiento. My recommendation, Ms. City Manager, is I would like to see more community input in designing the Main Street Corridor. I would like to see more youth integration, more youth involvement in the planning process. We have an opportunity, a very rare opportunity to create an environment that prioritizes community. And it's not often that we have these rare opportunities. We're the youngest city in Orange County. There's a lot of children in that area. And early childhood experiences matter for all children.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 11

The first five years have so much to do with how the next 80 turn out. So I would like to integrate more youth and children and families in the process of developing this corridor so that we can create a foundation for future learning, behavior, and development. And we can simply integrate more art. we can integrate early childhood development at our bus stops so that families while they're waiting for transportation there's things that children can interact with on the floor things of that sort I think that would be really innovative and and great for us to do

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 11

and it certainly caters to the families that are in that area I want them to feel at home and I think that that would be something that that all of us can agree upon is that that we we should certainly have a family friendly main street.

Thank you council member. And certainly we can go back and as we work at different place making as requested by council member Lopez, come up with some different ideas of how we can engage the youth to help craft some of the features that we'll be able to add and we can return to council.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 11

Thank you. My recommendation is perhaps we should start with our local school district and maybe working with some of the schools that are in that vicinity, elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools. So that way every age group is catered to, and that way they each have their messages relayed in some form of art, whether it's at bus stops, on the ground, or electricity boxes. I think that there's certainly a lot of opportunity for positive community development.

Thank you. We'll follow up on that. And to Nabil's credit, he has done a lot of work on and electrical boxes that I know you're familiar with throughout the city, incredible art. So thank you.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 11

Thank you.

Thank you, council member, council member Becerra and then council member Mendoza.

Phil BacerraItem 11

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wanted to express my appreciation to Nabil and his team for proceeding with the dig once philosophy that they've laid out in the staff report. So rather than dig up the street multiple times, I appreciate that his team is trying to be efficient and minimize the impacts to the businesses and the community I do have a couple of questions though for Nabil On page two of the staff report it indicates that the city notified a total of a 809 regional vendors It says many of which are Santa Ana based Could you clarify how many of those?

Phil BacerraItem 11

809 vendors are actually Santa Ana based Nabil?

Good question. You know, we, the way we notify vendors is through our planet bid and contractors that are interested in bidding on city contracts to subscribe to the planet bid and by choosing a certain category, they automatically get notified of our bids and the potential for for them to bid. I am not sure how many, I have to look at my staff report and find out how many were Santa Ana based, but it is difficult and this is a large project. It's kind of difficult to find bidders

that stationed in Santa Ana to bid on this. It's over $12 million and typically we don't get contractors of that size coming from Santa Ana. but we do take um very carefully steps to make sure that everyone is notified through planet bid

Phil BacerraItem 11

okay thank you for that nabeel i i just uh christine and nabeel you know if we want to really help our community when it comes to coveted relief what better way to do that than to employ folks in our community to help build the city that they live in and I would ask that we really make a proactive effort I know there you know again Nabil you you are to be uh thanked for for your attempts to to try to streamline and be efficient but I think in certain cases like this you know you hit a very important point Nabil in that you know this is a big project and there may

Phil BacerraItem 11

be a lot of opportunities if not for the larger overall management or execution of certain larger parts of this project there are plenty of small businesses here in town that my hope would be that you know we do take a little extra time to pick up the phone and call and just try to directly encourage these folks to bid and if they're not interested to try to find out why and i you know many of you have heard me say this before and i'm going to keep saying it over and over and over until we do it i really think that this is one of those low-hanging fruits easy ways

Phil BacerraItem 11

to really invest back in our community just to employ local businesses um I also just want to touch on some of the comments that I heard from my colleagues I appreciate the the enthusiasm and excitement of the design of what the aesthetics could be on this project you know whether it's what what's at the bus stops you know what kind of information I think uh council member Hernandez talked about making the community feel at home and I think that's very important um one thing though I want to add or at least just emphasize is that what we're talking about here unless

Phil BacerraItem 11

Christine or Nabil tell me otherwise this is a public works project this is basic infrastructure this is not a developer coming in and we're trying to excise some sort of benefits from them you know the community benefits that we're providing or that's being provided running water the ability to flush your toilet those are the benefits that we're all going to receive and as a city council we're the policy body for a municipal entity that's our very bare basic responsibility is to make sure that these basic services are being provided so when i saw this agenda tonight and

Phil BacerraItem 11

i saw the items that as um our city manager had said to me this is the public work show and it was or it is this is the meat and potatoes of what a city council is supposed to do these are the kinds of items on the agenda that the community no matter where you live whether you live in delhi flow park or Sandpoint. This is the stuff you wanna see. You wanna see your tax dollars invested in improving your infrastructure. So I wanna thank staff for putting these items on the agenda. They are big ticket items, but they're gonna make a big improvement. And these improvements are something that will benefit everybody in that area.

Phil BacerraItem 11

So with that, I just like to say, thank you.

Thank you, council member. I believe it was council member Mendoza and then mayor pro tem, and then council member fan.

Thank you mayor Sarmiento. This is a wonderful project. I think it's long overdue. That part of our city has been neglected somewhat. It is an entryway gateway from Newport beach from Costa Mesa. So we, it should be more welcoming. And with this project that director Saba is under undertaken, I think it's going to bring just that. and it's going to make that area of our city much more attractive. And it'll probably bring in more businesses to our local vendors in that area. Because I have heard from those businesses in that area

that they want to create a council of small businesses in that area to have something like this done. And so it's great that the city is one step ahead of that. And my concern is that we're gonna have all this upgrades and beautification. Now we're gonna need to take a look at the signage in that area because the businesses are outdated. They're very old. They need to have a facelift. So are there any kind of funds or grants that we can offer the businesses

so that they can start thinking about upgrading their signage and to make it flow nicely with this project.

That's a great question, council member. I'm not aware of any off the top of my head, like rehab grants available, but it's something we can certainly research.

Thank you, much appreciated.

Thank you, council member, mayor pro tem and then council member fan.

David PenalozaItem 11

Thank you for that, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to thank Director Nabil Saba for bringing this item forward. It's a public works project and I'm very excited for it. I always like to talk about when you're, you know, running for office and knocking on these doors. I know that the ward I was elected to represent has a lot of this, a huge stretch of this main street on there and the new ward that I'm now in also, you know, the borders of the huge stretch of Main Street. So I feel, you know, as a rep for this, for a big part of this area, it's what I've heard for years from our neighborhoods,

David PenalozaItem 11

from our neighbors, whether it's Henninger Park or Wilshire Square or Madison Park, Memorial Park, all these neighborhoods that abut this Main Street, this stretch of Main Street, they talk about the neglect that they've seen our city go through. I mean, our city is not young, Our city is over 150 years old. And a lot of these areas have not seen any investment into the infrastructure that makes the city. You talk about all these public, what you see in LA, another old city, water mains breaking every other day, causing massive holes and sink holes in the community,

David PenalozaItem 11

lawsuits and a costlier situation when these things do not get addressed. and this investment isn't made. I've heard from hundreds of residents at our neighborhood association meetings and canvassing the neighborhoods is that, why can't we have these stretches of road invested? Why can't we see our tax dollars invested in? Why does Bristol Street take 30 years to complete? We don't wanna see it that way. We wanna see these roads completed, our tax dollars invested in there and put to good use. to beautify the area.

David PenalozaItem 11

I think it's more, we need to see more projects like this. I know for the last couple of years, public works projects were in a, it feels like they weren't moving forward, previous leadership and whatnot, but I'm happy to see these come to fruition now under your leadership, Mr. Saba, and the leadership of our city manager, very supportive of this item and seeing more of this type of investment into our city for years to come, because it is an old city. It's an aging and crumbling infrastructure that we need to take care of because this will lead to bigger and costier problems on the road.

David PenalozaItem 11

So I'm happy, I'm supportive, good work on the staff report. And those are my comments, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

Council member Fan.

Thai Viet PhanItem 11

Hi, so this project was really interesting to me. It's actually something I think I've spoken to the mayor about before I was elected because it holds a sweet spot in my heart. My first car, I took it to get fixed on Main Street. There was a hole in the muffler and there's not much they could have done there. But you know, I attended the community meeting that happened last Tuesday right before our special council meeting and there were a lot of community members who were able to attend. Of course with COVID it's very difficult because we can't have in-person

Thai Viet PhanItem 11

meetings and a lot of people don't have access but I despite that I think we had over 50 people attend at any given time so I thought that was really good participation. I agree with everything that my colleagues have said especially because I all of us have seen the fact that you know dollars are going to invest in areas like downtown and South Bristol and all of these things and that's great but you know we know that historic South Main has been neglected it's dilapidated and this work will fix it will help it for the community living there you know there's no no

Thai Viet PhanItem 11

for-profit developer coming in this is the city this is when you say we want the community to get back what we're putting in this is exactly what we're doing and I'm really excited to see that the community that feels neglected is actually going to get the investment they need to beautify their streets, make it safer, make it more pedestrian friendly, make it so that we have more customers coming to the businesses that are already there. We're not displacing anyone. We're not getting rid of any businesses. We're not condemning any properties. This is exactly the kind of work that I want to see for our community.

Thai Viet PhanItem 11

And so I'm excited that public work is going to continue having community meetings to talk about the vision of South Maine. I know we had some really great comments about how the signs should look or what other infrastructure improvements we want to have there and how to accommodate the various types of businesses. And I know that Nabil and his team will do a great job. So I'm very supportive of this item. Thank you for bringing it.

Thank you, council member. So I think everybody's had a chance to speak on this and look, great comments from everybody, great comments from the public as well.

Similar to council member Fan, I have a special place in my heart for South Maine as well for many reasons, as a child, my uncle used to work at this one repair shop, they used to repair Volkswagens, it was called Nysco Motors. And I think it's still there, but more importantly, when I was on the council, when I first came on, I represented that area. So, uh, councilwoman, former councilwoman Martinez, and I used to share that area. And we always used to say, you know, when are we going to do something for South Maine? Because other parts of the city were getting a lot

of investment and attention. And unfortunately it was very, you know, ignored. Um, and so, um, you know, I get the, the, the concern about changing, uh, areas and maybe, you know, displacement and gentrifying and moving things in and moving things out. I think this is really a core function that we are trying to solve. It's basically trying to address really a fundamental problem that exists in any aging city, which is, you know, old pipes. Sometimes our diameters are just too small. And we see that in, you know, in downtown a lot where you, when we get rains, you know, you start flooding and damaging people's property.

you know, you flood the streets and it just makes it very dysfunctional. And I think all that's being done in public works projects is we're trying to make it more operational for the existing businesses because they, you know, are dealing with these challenges all the time. And a lot of times they have to pay for some of these improvements out of their own pocket. So to the extent we can solve some of those basic infrastructure problems for them, I think it's really critical, uh, delivering water safely, you know, in clean pipes versus pipes that, you know, are aged and who knows what is corroded

within them. I think that is a basic fundamental, you know, need that we're addressing. So this, yeah, this really, I think council member fan said it well, this really isn't a private development. This is a public development that is an investment in a neighborhood, in a community that hasn't had this for many years. And I don't think, you know, to me, the benefit goes to those that are there to the extent that others want to come in and invest and move in. That's great. But really, this project is really intended to improve the lives of the residents, the lives of the merchants that have invested there.

And years ago, there used to be a merchant association called the South Main Merchants Association that really was very active. And, you know, they had been working on this years before. Unfortunately, they disbanded and they no longer, you know, the organization is no longer active. But to the extent that, you know, their hope was not really changing things, just basically improving, you know, basic things like sidewalks and, you know, and sewer systems and water delivery. And those are the things I think that, you know, people wanted to see.

There was another thing that I know they talked about as well, traffic calming, because there were a lot of accidents along South Main and, you know, just safety. So these are just basic things that I think any community needs. The one last thing I would mention is to Council Member Hernandez's point. I think, you know, Nabil, if you can maybe sit with some of the merchants and maybe some of the families in the area to talk about aesthetics. And, you know, I know one of the things I've shared with you is whatever it is, let's make it uniform.

Because that area is so, it's so unique because the area from First Street South to Warner, it really is an art deco, you know, architecture style. And not many cities have that. So to the extent that we preserve and protect that, that really makes that area, you know, better for those that are there, better for people who come and visit and, you know, spend their money and do commerce there because they're going to identify that is a true iconic, you know, Main Street. So if you can, you know, talk about the bus stops, you know, the lighting, you know, even the trash receptacles, whatever it is that, you know,

are things that are gonna stay there, you know, make them as uniform as you can and as consistent with the theme and whatever the community sees. And I think, you know, the point that council member Hernandez said was really important, you know, let the youth put their stamp on it as well. You know, the artists, those that are creative, those that want to see that space activated for their generation. And it makes it, you know, makes it livable, makes it place making, all these things that we can make improvements on. So I think all of us have had a chance to speak.

I'll go ahead and bring it back to the council or a motion on this item. So I'll go ahead and open the floor.

Phil BacerraItem 11

Mayor Sarmento, I'll move to approve.

David PenalozaItem 11

I'll second Mr. Mayor. This is a mayor pro tem Peñalosa. Great. Thank you. So we have a, go ahead. Sorry, Mr. Mayor. I just had one final little comment in regards to the, what you brought up the safety concern in this, these neighborhoods. I think it's also a great opportunity that as we, we see the investment in this area, we, I mean, we see it now because of how old and narrow this street is, and I'm not saying that I want to widen it because we want to protect our historical buildings. But if there's areas where we could improve that flow of traffic, where we won't have the, we have a lot of cut through traffic

David PenalozaItem 11

going down Orange Avenue, down Washington, down McFadden, finding areas along Main Street where these cars, Broadway, cut through, and we see accidents happen all the time. pedestrians getting hit, bicyclists getting hit. On Orange Avenue, I know there's accidents every other week because these are heavily trafficked areas because of the backup we see on Main Street. So I know that that's part of the goal here is to improve that flow of traffic on Main Street. I'm very excited for this, but let's make sure we keep that safety concern of the surrounding streets in mind as we move forward.

That's it, Mr. Chair. Great, thank you for those comments. So we have a motion and a second. Madam Clerk, will you please call roll?

Council member Becerra?

Yes.

Council member Hernandez?

Yes.

Council member Lopez? Yes. Council member Mendoza? Yes. Council member Fan? Yes. Mayor Pro Tempeñalosa?

Yes.

Mayor Sarmiento?

Yes.

Motion carries seven zero.

Great, thank you for that. I think the next item is item 12 also from council member Lopez.

Jessie LopezItem 12

Yeah.

Jessie LopezItem 12

And so I just wanted, I had a comment. It's not necessarily a question. Annabelle, thank you for your work. I, you know, just because I'm pulling these doesn't mean that I'm not supportive. I understand what they are. But I was going through the stock report and I noticed that the chart listing the consulting firms didn't list the cities and so on my end I think it would be easier and more consistent if we if we would list the cities for the consulting firms because I noticed that in a different staff report actually on the item that we just discussed

Jessie LopezItem 12

prior it had a similar chart and it did list the cities and so it's just I think for for for me personally speaking it would be helpful that way I'm not googling them that's it thank you

we do great thank you council member any other comments or questions on this item

I just think that was an excellent point one one last thing to be all I know when we do and this is maybe for the city manager I know when we go out to bid and rfps or rfqs what we I think there's a policy that we have that also goes through some of the background on some of of these, you know, some of these bidders, whether or not they have any litigation, bad, you know, labor practices, I think all those things are really helpful. These are huge contracts. So to the extent that we work with good actors and we go through and we vet them and maybe a little bit of comment on the RFCA when we're being presented to see maybe

what differentiates one or the other. It's not always the lowest bidder. Sometimes it's the lowest responsible bidder, right? And I think that makes a difference when we're spending this much money. So point well taken by the council members. So I'll go ahead and entertain a motion. Council member Lopez, do you wanna make that motion?

Jessie LopezItem 12

Yeah, thank you. I'd like to move to approve.

Is there a second? Second. Great, we have a motion and a second. Madam Clerk, will you please call roll?

Council member Becerra? Yes. Council member Hernandez?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 12

Yes.

Council member Lopez. Yes. Council member Mendoza.

Council member Mendoza.

That was a yes for me.

Okay, thank you.

Council member Fan. Yes.

Mayor Patan Pinalosa.

Yes.

Mayor Sarmiento.

Yes, thank you. Moving along to the next item, item number 24, council member Lopez.

Jessie LopezItem 24

Thank you mayor Sarmiento. I actually think that this is really great for our finances. And I do think that this can help us build a roadmap into looking at various parcels in the city and their potential for tax revenue, similar to what Manny had commented earlier. and so city manager I had two questions. The first one being, do we currently track properties that are underperforming in the city?

In terms of property taxes, no, I would say not. The property tax assessment is done at the county level and the city receives just a basic levy as a component of that property tax rate. So in terms of underperforming or overperforming, it would be more of looking at your uses of property, because certainly certain uses, if there's a higher assessed value, it would generate more. But on the assessment itself, on the tax rate itself, that's something that is all done at the county level.

Jessie LopezItem 24

Okay and so would the county or does the city would we have a list of what parcels have the biggest gaps between you know potential tax revenue?

We certainly have access on what the assessed values of all of the properties are but if I want to make sure I understand your question. you're saying if we have a commercial property that's 2.5 acres and another commercial property that's 2.5 acres you know comparing them it would have to do with um with the time that they weren't started because the assessments can only increase a certain amount each year and then they're reassessed fully if a property turns over so if you're comparing a commercial building that started 30 years ago with a commercial building that just started five years ago there would be a significant

it difference but it's not it's not so much because one is underperforming okay does that make sense

Jessie LopezItem 24

yeah thank you for that clarification um and so maybe um so i don't know if these things are something that we can ask this vendor to do do you know if that's possible to ask him to look for

over or underperforming property yeah or underperforming properties we certainly can explore We could ask for things like of a city of our size and with this number of businesses and you know, how do we compare with maybe other cities that have similar makeup? That's off the top of my head, but we can explore that for you. Okay, I would really appreciate that. Thank you.

Great. Any other comments from the council? Questions?

Seeing none, I'll go ahead and entertain a motion.

I'll make a motion to go ahead, Councilwoman.

Jessie LopezItem 24

Thank you, I move to approve.

I'll second that, Mr. Mayor. Great, thank you. We have a motion by Council Member Lopez, a second by Mayor Pro Tempeñalosa. Madam Clerk, will you please take roll?

Council Member Becerra?

Yes.

Council Member Hernandez?

Yes.

Council Member Lopez? Yes. Council Member Mendoza? Yes. Council member Fan? Yes. Mayor Pro Tempeñalosa?

Yes.

Mayor Sarmiento?

Yes.

Motion carries 7-0.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. That brings us to the end of the consent calendar and to the business calendar items. You know, before I begin, council members, I just want to, something I wanted to mention at the front end of the meeting, but as was stated, we're on a new program,

is it Prime Gov? So we're going through a new agenda formats, as you can tell. So we have three different agencies that we're gonna be dealing with tonight, the city council, the successor agency and the housing authority. So it's a little clumsy right now. We have to actually adjourn the city council meeting then we have to reconvene as the successor agency and then adjourn that. And then we're going to reconvene as the housing authority, but we actually have to physically come offline and then reconvene by dialing back. So just so you all know,

that's probably what we're going to do at the end of the meeting. Normally what we would do is it would be an easy flow. We would adjourn one meeting and reconvene while we're all online. but we, from what I'm told from our clerk, and I think Madam city attorney, you'll probably concur that we actually have to do it this way. Now, is that correct, Madam city attorney?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 24

Yes.

So just heads up that that's what we'll do. But what I understand from what I understand at the following meeting, these glitches should be fixed and it should be a much more fluid, you know, process that we're used to. So in any event, just a heads up for everybody. Beginning with our first public hearing on the business calendar item number 27, I believe that was continued by the applicant and all the parties involved to February 2nd. So moving along to the next public hearing item, which is item number 28, it's the environmental review and general plan amendment for the Westview housing residential community

at 2530 and 2534 Westminster Avenue. Madam city manager, is there a presentation on this on this item?

Yes, sir. We do have a presentation. I'll turn it over to our executive director of planning and building.

Min are you available? You are on mute.

Thank you. I'm unable to share my video at this point. Let me just start here. Good evening, Mayor Mayer Plutem and member of the city council. Thank you for your patience as I experienced some technical difficulties. The item before you tonight is a proposal for-

Sorry for interrupting men, but I went ahead and made you co-host so you should be able to share your screen.

Thank you.

Thank you. The item before you tonight is request for approval of a development project located 25302534 Westminster Avenue. The project is proposed 85 unit development project entirely of making up of entirely affordable residential units ranging from two, three, four and one bedrooms. The project is proposed for 58 extreme low income units as well as 26 permanent supportive housing unit with one manager units. The development will be providing 136 parking spaces

which includes some tandem stalls as well as providing 1.6 spaces per unit. Other amenities on the site include community room, meeting rooms, laundry rooms, and other offices for service providers. That will be considered supportive services for residents living on the project site, as well as playground, picnic areas, and private balconies and patios. The staff recommendation as with the planning commissioners recommendation on this project is for the city council to approve and adopt, mitigate a negative declaration, adopt a resolution, approving the general plan amendment and approving the amendment application to

change the general plan and zoning designation for the site to accommodate this affordable housing project. The project is located near the intersection of Fairview and Westminster. Current zoning is C2 and the general plan is general commercial. It is surrounded by single family residence development and to the south as well as other commercial type properties to the north, east and west. This is a photo of the site looking from different perspective on Westminster as well as Huron Street.

On July 2nd of 2019, there was a request proposal issued by this community development agency for an affordable housing development project. This was using funding from both federal and local dollars. There were four proposals received and rated by a panel who reviewed the projects. CDA, or I'm sorry, community development partners, CDP, was the top rated proposal. So on April 7th of 2020, the city council approved a $3.9 million to fund the project

subject to committing a 100% affordable project, 75% being low income, which is 30% AMI and 25% permanent supportive housing.

In terms of outreach, a significant amount of outreach was done with this project since its beginning in July with the virtual SunSign meeting. Unfortunately, as with many projects that are being proposed during this process, in-person meetings was not feasible. However, the applicant work with staff to complete a extensive amount of outreach using the virtual meeting format, including reaching out to the neighborhood association, reaching out to residents in the area, and then talking to individual neighbors in the surrounding properties. And that was done throughout 2020

with recent outreach completed as recent as January 12 to address some of the additional question during the planning commission process on making sure that reaching out to the neighborhood to discuss the project.

Comments we'll receive at the planning commission meeting to refine the elevation design on the Westminster Elevation to provide a parking management plan, as well as looking at a traffic analysis to evaluate whether or not a stop sign is required at 16th and Huron. also to incorporate green elements. The applicant and the city staff have follow up on all of these recommendations by the planning commission and a parking management plan has been incorporated into the project. Traffic impact analysis were completed and additional green element is being proposed

as part of the project to help screen the project from the adjacent developments. This is a site plan of the project. As you can see, the site plan has been designed to push the building towards the front near Westminster. And the development is providing adequate buffer to the adjacent residential property development to the south, as well as along the west property lines. And that is a field of parking spaces, which will be separated with a perimeter wall, as well as landscape to screen the project from the adjacent residents. This is a high profile.

As you can see, the development is proposing three to four story high buildings with only a very small portion of the building along the front, along Westminster being four story. And this was designed purposely to ensure that the building steps back and respect the integration with the residential development to the rear. As you can see at its shortest distance, there is a 50-foot buffer between the building and the nearest residence. This is a long here, and it's only three-story, as you can see.

And then there is also, at the longest length, there's 185 feet of separation to this nearest residence. This helps to ensure adequate privacy as well as buffering from the project to the adjacent development. Here's a rendering of the project. This is looking from Westminster Avenue, looking at the project directly fronting on Westminster. It is a track leave design with contemporary architectural as well as a vibrant use of color with different material being proposed for the development. And it will be a significant improvement to this vacant lot. Here's another view looking from here.

as you can see here the articulation of the building as well as the lowering of the height of the building to be compatible and consistent with the single family development to the south as well as a playground that will be open to the community for use while it's going to be maintained by the development. I went over the parking but essentially state law allows for or half a space per unit. And for this project in terms of affordable housing, that would indicate to 44 spaces. However, the development is proposing 136 spaces, which is 92 spaces in excess of what's minimum required

for this project site. In addition to that, as I mentioned, there is a parking management plan for this project and it will be required for permit, I'm sorry, it will be required for a program to manage parking on site for residents, as well as a sticker program. In addition to that, parking along here is by permit only. And the neighborhoods in the area will be protected from intrusion of parking from this development project based on the Mark Parking Management Plan to ensure that all of the vehicles stays on the property and is parked on the property.

The project will require the adoption of the mitigated and decorative decoration, which include technical studies and ask different criteria for a CEQA review, including air quality, cultural resources, environmental sites assessment. All of the impacts were found to not have any significant impact to the adjacent properties as neighborhood with mitigations and a a negative declaration is being recommended by the planning commission for this project. The general plan amendment, as I mentioned earlier, is going from general commercial to UN, which is urban neighborhood,

which will allow for a mixed use development to occur, residential as well as support, onsite supportive uses for this property.

An amendment application is to ensure that there is consistent between the development proposal and the proposed general plan. It is proposed to be a specific development number 97, which allow for project development standard to be provided for the opportunity to develop this affordable housing project on this site.

This, again, is staff's recommendation, is to approve and adopt the mitigated negative declaration, adopt a resolution proving the general plan amendment, and then also approving the amendment application. That concludes staff's report.

Great. Thank you for that, Min. Let me go ahead and open the public hearing. And are there any members of the public, Madam Clerk, that would like to address us on this public hearing?

Thank you, Mayor. If there are any members of the public who would like to make a comment on item 28, public hearing item 28, please virtually raise your hand by dialing star nine or selecting raise your hand from the Zoom application.

Mayor, we do have public comments.

Sure, go ahead.

Public speaker with the last three numbers, 303, please dial star six. If you're dialing from your phone. Thank you. You've successfully unmuted yourself. You may proceed with your comment.

Good evening. My name is Kimberly Adams. I am the Housing Advocacy Program Manager for United to End Homelessness, empowered by Orange County United Way. I'm speaking before you tonight in support of the Westview House development for many reasons, including the fact that the vulnerable in our population are being priced out of their communities with even some headed to the street. United End Homelessness has commissioned studies which reflect that a large number of the homeless are students, families, and seniors and we cannot allow this to continue. In my work I

encountered Ann, a senior who lives in a senior community with no affordable housing. Her money is running out and she has nowhere to go having to choose sometimes between healthy fruits and vegetables and her rent. I recently called adult protective services to provide support for her because she lapsed into a bout of severe depression and panic attacks. I see the distress in her eyes and I think of my own grandmother or mother being in that position because it's not real. This development will also include permanent supportive housing which has been proven to be

successful model for housing our homeless neighbors. Studies show that affordable housing beautifies neighborhoods with no increase in crime rates or risk to the community. In fact, the expense of housing the homeless is far less than that of keeping them on the street. Further, studies show that a majority of citizens approve of affordable housing solutions. For these reasons, United End Homelessness and Orange County United Way wholeheartedly I would like to ask you to please support this development and ask you to approve it. I thank you for your thoughtful consideration of this matter and for allowing me to speak tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you. Any other callers who would like to speak? Please virtually raise your hand.

Thank you. Zoom ID Koh-Ali.

Yes, that's me.

Thank you. If you would please proceed.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to council. I would just like to say I wholeheartedly agree with Ms. Adams regarding this project and I urge you to approve it. Beyond just this project is not only going to help our city solve our housing crisis, but it's also an incredible plan in order to combat climate change. As you already know, climate change is the urging issue of our lifetime. And this project has proven to, as I have seen so far, this project will prove to stand to a testament of time as it promotes walkability and bikeability in our city.

As we make retail center and residential area closer together, this will this will mitigate the the needs for driving which will drive carbon footprint down down in our city and I would love to see our city becoming more more green and thank you so much for for allowing me allowing me to to participate and that's all thank you so much

Any other public comment, any public speaker who would like to provide a comment on public hearing item 28, please dial star nine to unmute your call. I'm sorry, so that I may unmute your call or select raise hand from the Zoom application.

Okay, Mayor, it looks like that was all the calls we had.

Great, thank you for that. So I have a technical question for the city attorney just on the way the public hearings are formatted. Madam city attorney, I always close the public hearings after, open them so the public can and address the council and staff and then close them after the members of the council have had a chance to comment and ask questions and then we close it. But I see that this is done differently. So what's your preference? What do you think is more technically correct?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 28

Personally, I like to close a public hearing after all the public testimony and the council questions have been asked. and then I close a public hearing while you deliberate. That's the part of the administrative record that we preserve in the event of a challenge. So I think it's up to you as to what your preference is. If and when we ever get a writ type of challenge, we prepare the full record, all the documentation goes forward to court. So there really isn't a point in time which we say this public hearing is over. But the purpose of the public hearing is to give the evidence and the testimony and the facts.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 28

and that's when it should technically be closed.

Right, so that's the way I see it as well, that we close it just in advance of the actual vote because all the deliberative process has already taken place and it's part of the record. All right, let's do it that way. Let's keep it open as we have comments from members of the council. So I'll bring it back to the council. Any questions or comments?

Mayor, before you proceed, I did forget to mention that we did receive three emails, two in support and one in opposition to this particular item.

Great, we'll incorporate those into the record.

I see a hand raised, Council Member Becerra.

Phil BacerraItem 28

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Min, thank you for that presentation. And I wanted to thank the applicant for their work on this project. I had the opportunity to speak with them and they have a great team and it looked like they put a lot of thought into what's before us this evening. Just a couple of things and I mentioned this in my last discussion with the applicant and that is the renderings are beautiful just personal preference I'm hoping that the orange will be something that if it's gonna be incorporated onto the site that hopefully it will not be one of the

Phil BacerraItem 28

front buildings maybe towards the back because I understand they have a color palette but I'm hoping they can shift that around and speaking of color really more about art on the site I'm hoping that as they look at things to incorporate on the site you know the area that they're in historically is known as Berrydale and I'm hoping that kind of as a homage to the historical background the area that they may try to incorporate that into some of their on-site artwork and finally with the utility boxes that you know we see throughout town as we get these new projects

Phil BacerraItem 28

I want to be more emphatic that we do what we can to minimize any above ground utility boxes on the sidewalks it's just you know it throughout our city I think that's just something over time that we've just allowed to proliferate and it's just it's an eyesore it really doesn't promote mobility and my hope is that as we go forward we minimize those now I spoke again recently with the applicant and it sounds like there may not have to be any utility boxes in the right of way but I just wanted to express that for the record other than that this looks like a great project and I'll be supporting it going forward thank you

Thank you for that, Council Member Hernandez and then Council Member Fan.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 28

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. Yes, I commend the developers. I think this is a fantastic project. This really excited me to see a developer really be community oriented in developing a project that works for people and meets the needs of residents. So I applaud them for that. I had the honor of meeting with them and learning all about the project and hopefully when it's up and ready, I'll be touring this project. It's gonna be in my district here in Ward 5. And I had recommended to them for them to build a community library to encourage families in that area,

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 28

to be able to build a community around literacy and education. I think that there's a lot of opportunities for us to do that, especially amidst COVID and our library being closed. I know for some families to present some challenges and if there's a way that we can socially distance and make sure that we're following COVID guidelines and have a community library, I know that we can do some good things there. And I also learned that they will have a playground at this unit. And my recommendation to them was to have some sort of an ADA accessible feature in that playground, whether it be sensory for kids that are on the spectrum

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 28

or a swing or some sort of a jungle gym for kids that struggle with disabilities. I think that would be great to build community around that as well.

Excellent comments. Thank you, council member.

Council member, was it Pham? I lost track, go ahead.

Thai Viet PhanItem 28

Yeah, no worries. Yes, thank you so much to council member Hernandez for mentioning the ADA accessible playground equipment. I think that's, I didn't even think about that. I think that's what makes our council so great because we have people from all different backgrounds who grew up in the city and that was really cool.

Thai Viet PhanItem 28

So Min, I just had a couple questions for you because I know some concerns were brought up by neighbors. So the first thing is, you know, I do know there's three to four stories. I don't think that's very high. I am in support of the project, but I just wanna make sure that we address some of the issues one of the neighbors wrote in and was concerned with the fact that i guess you know with three to four stories uh this neighbor lives across the street and they were just worried about privacy i imagine the sight line is would be quite difficult for someone if even if you're in

Thai Viet PhanItem 28

a third or fourth story but across the street to really um have any sight into your home right

In response to that, certainly people living up in the higher floors will be able to view what's publicly viewable from their line of sight. In terms of being able to see into a residence, I doubt that would be able to occur as well as the backyard as the line of sight will not likely be visible through windows and the rear yard will likely be off to the distance.

Thai Viet PhanItem 28

Right. And the other thing was, so I understand that there were some concerns with traffic in the area, just given that there's an increase in cars. So, sorry if I missed it, but were we looking at a stop sign or something like that, or was that just on the table for discussion?

So that was a discussion of the Planning Commission. As I mentioned, there was a warrant study that was completed and I'll let our traffic engineer Zed Kalula who is on the line to speak in further about that however the preliminary data indicates that stop sign is not warranted meaning that you know if the amount of traffic going through the neighborhood even with the project does not warrant the installation of the stop sign and not meeting a warrant means that we as a city not install a stop sign just because it's something that's perceived to be it has to

Thai Viet PhanItem 28

be actual traffic data that supports the need for the stop sign. Got it. The last thing maybe not a stop sign but at that corner on Westminster and Huron I guess you know depending on the traffic studies one of the concerns is you know we are having a playground it's intended for families And if you have a lot of cars pulling in that way and they go past the playground before they get into the parking lot. So is there a crosswalk or a push, you know, push to go or some type of blinking lights. I just want to make sure that when we have kids crossing the street a lot, that there's

Thai Viet PhanItem 28

also adults who might need assistance, right? That there is something or that we address that concern.

Yes. And I'll let our traffic team discuss that in terms of the playground itself. It is proposed to be fenced so that children can't just running in and out of the playground area. But it is, as I mentioned, accessible to the community. And as such, access will be coming across either from the south on this side of the sidewalk and coming across on the west side of the sidewalk. You don't have to cross here on at 17. So Zed, can you please share with us if there's anything, any type of signalization or any type of traffic control for pedestrian at Huron and Westminster?

Mr. Daisy, I believe Mr. Kalula is on your list in the public list.

Yes, I'm looking for him on the list here. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Hi, this is Zed, could you hear me now?

Yes.

All right. Good evening, Mayor and Council. This is Zed Kula with the city's traffic engineering. In terms of any kind of traffic control to provide some safety there for the park area, we'll have to actually take a look and see if there's anything that we can accommodate. Generally, the type of street they're here on is a lower speed type of street. it's the traffic bomb there even with the proposed development is on the really light side compared it to other streets but we'll have to take a look at that there might be a possibility for a crosswalk over at huron to at least provide enhanced crossing but that location

there wouldn't warrant or require any kind of flashing lights or anything like that but we'll

Thai Viet PhanItem 28

have to take a look at that okay that's fine i just wanted to make sure that you know we check it out because I know people do cross a lot or it might not even warrant it because folks might jaywalk frankly from one side of the Huron to the other.

Thai Viet PhanItem 28

Yeah, and I guess with that, that's all the questions I have for, oh, one other thing. So were these paid, I imagine some of the grants that the city provided was from the Who fees, the Who fund?

I don't know if there's actual funding from WHO, but we do have CDA director Mendoza. We know if there is funding from the WHO or is this all federal funding. Yes, council member, in a sister item to this on the housing authority, you'll see that the city has already committed 1.5 million dollars in inclusionary funds. Those are the WHO funds. and then the money is other types of vouchers. And you'll see that later on the housing authority agenda.

Thai Viet PhanItem 28

Got, okay. So they just go together and that's why they're separated from here.

Yeah.

Thai Viet PhanItem 28

Great. Thank you. That was all.

Thank you, council member. Council member Mendoza.

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. I like the project. It's a adequate size for the amount of money. land it's created a significant amount of units 85 units and in the two acres it's it's really great the way the developer accommodated these buildings and i really like that there is a security all around there there's gates and then the gates and staff is is there my understanding is that staff will be at the facilities and nine to five

and then thereafter the gates are closed so that only residents are in the playground area and in the common area. So like the safety feature. In addition, I like that there are vendors and businesses in a market across the street that is easy and is accessible to the residents so that there will be more pedestrian traffic and it's near schools, near the college. So it's a great project overall. The only concern I have is that this is low income housing.

And what occurs with that is that the majority of the people that get into this type of housing are actually not Santa Ana residents. So I'd like to see about having some kind of priority given to our residents so that they can get in there on the first, before any other residents from other surrounding cities and counties. So is that a possibility that we can take a look at that?

Thank you, Councilman, Councilwoman Mendoza and asking that question. Serving our residents is a priority for us and we understand that very clearly as this has been direction of the city council. We work very closely with CDA and CDA staff, working very closely with the development community whenever we do the project. That is one of the highest priority is to make sure that residents from Santa Ana are prioritized for eligibility to be a part of this development project. While we can't guarantee 100% will be from Santa Ana as this would violate the

Fair Housing Act. Through that process, my understanding is that we have a very high high ratio of residents in Santa achieving residents at these development projects.

Thank you for that information, Director Tai.

Thank you for those comments, Council Member. I think everybody's had an opportunity to speak. I'm very supportive of this as well. I really liked the 30% AMI on 58 of those units. That was, you know, that's exactly where we need to be.

The only other question I had was, you know, something that Council Member Mendoza mentioned. I think it's an excellent point. And I know we've had this discussion in the past where we have these units that are, you know, that are these developments that are affordable and they go to people from outside the city. And we know fair housing law prohibits us from, you know, setting those aside exclusively for Santa Ana residents, but I've seen other cities and other communities set up the criteria so narrowly that they comply with federal law at the same time, really giving a benefit to their residents and Santa Barbara is one of them.

So, you know, I spoke with their, you know, city manager and their city attorney over there and you can get creative. And I think the points of, you know, not just that were made now, but that have made in the, been made in the past about our affordable units and the fact that we have our in lieu fees and other, you know, federal fees that we use, you know, obviously the federal monies that we use, the home monies and others that were, that triggers the federal compliance, right? So we know that that has that. So we can completely, we could keep it to Santa Ana residents if we decided not to use

those monies, but to not use those monies, make it cost prohibitive. So very difficult, but we can and be creative in our drafting, and maybe you work with our city attorney to do some research on how we can do that and be compliant, but at the same time, be really effective in the way that we deliver these units for our residents. So I think all those things are, you know, are excellent points. I see one more hand that's raised. Mayor Pro Tem, did you have a question on this?

David PenalozaItem 28

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to state that I didn't initially get a chance to comment on this project. Just wanted to also state that I'm supportive of this. It's important that us as a city, I mean, leave it to Santa Ana to continue, you know, doing it as we should, you know, it's always a little bit of both, you know, it's important that we have a diverse housing stock in our city so that we attract people of all income levels and support those individuals that live in our city that could, you know, that would be beneficial to this, beneficial of this affordable housing project,

David PenalozaItem 28

high quality project, much needed in that area of these vacant lots that have been sitting there for a while. And it would have been nice to see a larger community support for this project. I know that we're constantly seeing a lot of good good affordable housing projects approved in our city. And we hear crickets from all the affordable housing advocates out there in our community. And we only hear from them when we have other types of projects in there. And it's important that we have this diverse housing stock. I'm excited to see this come forward. Thank you, Min and your staff for working very closely

David PenalozaItem 28

with the applicant to make sure that we have a good quality project here and happy with the parking and whatnot. And I just wanna also just, I believe it was also mentioned by one of my colleagues is that we rope in that neighborhood directly behind it. I know we heard from some residents that live there about the impacts that they could potentially be seen. And it's a very quiet neighborhood, single family homes. So whatever we could do to keep them in the loop as this project moves forward, would be very appreciative of those efforts. But that is it, Mr. Mayor. Mayor.

Great. Thank you for those comments. Seeing no further comments or questions, I'll go ahead and close the public hearing and I'll bring it back to entertain a motion to move the staff's recommendation. I'll make a motion to approve, Mr. Mayor.

Thai Viet PhanItem 28

I'll second.

Great. We have a motion from Mayor Pro Tempeñalosa and a second from Council Member Pham. Madam Clerk, will you please call roll?

Council Member Becerra?

Yes.

Council Member Hernandez?

Yes. Council Member Lopez? Yes. Council Member Mendoza? Yes. Council Member Fan? Yes. Mayor Pro Tempeñolosa?

Yes.

Mayor Sarmiento?

Yes.

Motion carries 7-0.

Great. Thank you everybody. So that finishes up our business calendar and boy, we don't have 85 A's anymore. So I guess, does that mean they go away? Is that, is that what happened here? Did you just decide to number them in sequence? So we have no more, no more opportunities. So we're going to call them council member requested items. That's not as fun as 85 A's and 85 B's and C's and these, but, but we'll, we'll go with the flow. So I, but I liked the numbering, the sequential numbering the, you know, the 55 C's and 55 B's and 65 A's was kind of confusing. So this is, this is a lot more linear.

This is kind of the way my mind thinks. So maybe easier, right? I should say more basic. So let me go ahead and go to item 29, which is an item raised by Mayor Pro Tempe and Yalosa to discuss and consider directing the city manager to explore opportunities through neighborhood initiatives to better recognize and communicate with the duly appointed representatives of our neighborhood associations. Mayor Pro Tem, the floor is yours.

David PenalozaItem 29

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And this item I wanted to put forward, it's pretty basic and simple. I know that there are currently changes at the leadership level from our neighborhood initiatives program. I know, unfortunately, we know Scott Cutner, great asset and institutional knowledge to our neighborhoods in the history here in Sanana has retired as of last month. I don't believe he came back this new year. So I wish him happy retirement and thank him for everything that he did for our Neighborhood Initiative program. But I think that with his retirement, we still have Margarita,

David PenalozaItem 29

who's fantastic with her neighborhoods as well. But it opens up the opportunity to reimagine and look at ways that we can improve our neighborhood initiatives program and just make them stronger, give them a larger voice. This was prompted,

David PenalozaItem 29

I was prompted to put this forward because I know that recently we've had decisions made in various neighborhoods that sometimes feel that are driven by just the neighborhood association board or a couple of handful of individuals. And I've heard from numerous residents throughout the neighborhoods that they don't know about these neighborhood meetings going on, or they don't know who their neighborhood association president is or who the board is, or if there's an opportunity for them to run and be president of the neighborhood association neighborhood in any part of the city.

David PenalozaItem 29

So, I was thinking this is a great opportunity to direct the city manager to work closely with the Neighborhood Initiatives Program under planning and building. I know it's in a executive mint ties area, but ways where we could make this better and make it more inclusive and make it invitable so that the residents aren't, I've been to dozens of neighborhood association meetings over the last two years. and it's unfortunately always the same two, three people at these neighborhood meetings,

David PenalozaItem 29

given that we're a city of nearly half a million people and you go to these neighborhood meetings in one of the densest parts of the city and you see three people there and one of them's me or one of them's the Neighborhood Initiatives staff member, that's problematic and it could, by investing in this department, in this area, in this program throughout our city, making it so that it's more accessible to every resident in the city and put that information out there, that's gonna be beneficial to all of us so that decisions aren't being made by one or two people in the neighborhoods,

David PenalozaItem 29

in the various neighborhoods, and it's more inclusive of the entire neighborhood. I feel like I'm rambling now, but that's basically it, is just wanted to open it up so that we could have an opportunity to look at it, look at our program and see how we can just make it better. And I'm open to suggestions and input from my colleagues. Mr. Mayor, that's it.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Let me bring it back to the council. I see council member fans, virtual hand raise, please, council member.

Thai Viet PhanItem 29

Oh, thank you, Mayor Pro Tem for bringing this item. I definitely echo a lot of what you've said. I've attended a number of neighborhood association meetings throughout the city, not just Ruby U.S. But I know, you know, not every neighborhood is Floral Park, right? And they have their monthly newsletter and it's amazing. But a lot of our neighborhoods are just, you know, the regular folks trying to come together and trying to make it work. And I know some neighborhood associations need assistance with kind of structuring their meetings or needing resources to help run the meetings and things like that.

Thai Viet PhanItem 29

So I think that's areas where we can, the city itself can provide resources, whether it's Robert's rules or how to address some of these issues. I would definitely like to see that because it would be great to have, just like us, right, on the council, you get turnover. We want term limits. I think it would be great to have something reflected in a neighborhood association to really force all of our neighborhood leaders to go out and help either mentor or encourage or engage a new generation of leaders so they can get involved in the neighborhood associations. That would be fantastic.

Thank you for those comments, council member. Council member Becerra.

Phil BacerraItem 29

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mayor Pro Temp for bringing this item forward. It's kind of really opportune and well-timed because as the mayor was talking about, former city manager Reem and his time and investment into the neighborhood associations, You know, one thing that I was always excited about with Santa Ana's Neighborhood Associations was, as I was graduating college, the city of Los Angeles was embarking on a whole revamp of their charter. And when they came back with the draft, the main, I guess, a feature, the new feature was neighborhood councils. But the difference between LA's versus ours was,

Phil BacerraItem 29

LA sunk a lot of money in, which sounds great, but LA really had to hold their hand and kind of be referee. Whereas with Santa Ana, I always loved what we did here because city staff really kind of sowed the seeds and found local leaders and nurtured them. I'm not sure if we still have the neighborhood leader program where folks from the community initiatives or neighborhood initiatives staff identifies folks and tries to help nurture them so that they can become you know future leaders within these neighborhood associations uh so i

Phil BacerraItem 29

really appreciate mayor brosan bringing this forward because i think we really do need to you know take stock of our neighborhood associations and invest in them and i know with uh scott cuttner's recent retirement we lost a wealth of uh institutional knowledge right there and i know margarita is picking up the slack and doing a fantastic job but But I think that what we really need to keep in mind, and I hope that we continue to do this is that the city continues to aid these associations and we let them flourish naturally. Because I think that that's just one of the things that Santa Ana really can be proud of regionally

Phil BacerraItem 29

in how we nurture. I mean, right now we're up to 64 associations. I think that's fantastic. My only recommendation, one more recommendation, I mean to staff would be our website when it comes to finding information on our neighborhood associations is not well organized it just isn't and I was thinking that Mayor Pro Tem with his positions on trying to improve technology might have said more about that because I know that that's always been an issue him and I've talked about as far as trying to improve our online presence so that we're more transparent and available to the community but I think that

Phil BacerraItem 29

But I would ask staff to really look at how we can better organize that portion of our city's website so that a lot of people probably don't even know that they live within the boundaries of a neighborhood association that exists today. The whole city is not covered by an actual established neighborhood association. And so maybe someone can go online and be able to identify that they're not in an area that has one today. And then they can take that initiative working with staff to try to grow a new association. With that, I would ask that we try to see how we can improve access to neighborhood association information on our site.

Phil BacerraItem 29

And I'll just conclude with, again, thank you, Mayor Pro Tem, and for all my colleagues' comments on this item.

Any other comments or questions?

David PenalozaItem 29

Mayor Pro Tem, I think, go ahead. Yeah, Mr. Mayor, really quick. I just wanted to,

David PenalozaItem 29

Council Member Becerra reminded me, You are 100% right. I should have mentioned that with our website, but the only reason, I'm gonna toot my own horn a little bit. The only reason why the Neighborhood Initiatives button is on our homepage was because about a year ago, it took me about 15 minutes to find the Neighborhood Initiatives page on our website. So I called a meeting or an email, I forget what it was. And so for anybody that goes to our city's main webpage, the neighborhood initiatives button is on the front and it'll take you directly to where you need to go, but it still needs work, I admit. So that is it, Mr. Mayor.

David PenalozaItem 29

But thank you for that, Council Member Becerra.

So we have you to blame for that, all right. Now we know. I'm just kidding. Council Member Mendoza.

Thank you. Several years ago, we used to have a very active neighborhood initiatives and our neighborhoods were meeting regularly. And it was great to have, there was always a police officer there, code enforcement or other special guest speaker on issues relating to that particular neighborhood. And so that was pre-COVID and understandably we cannot meet in person. And many of our residents are really not savvy on technology.

So if we could have, once we identify the neighborhood leaders, if we could have some kind of training and maybe perhaps have a computer loaner program where that person can have the ability to set up the meetings through Zoom or have our staff set them up and then have a location where the residents can come and do a social distancing viewing of either through the computer or on screen or smart TV or some way where they, where

we can continue meeting and us as the designated representatives, we could also show up for at those meetings and address their concern. So I'm thinking some kind of a technology support for these neighborhoods. Thank you.

Great. Thank you for that council member. I think staff has a long list of things to pursue. So thank you, Mayor Pro Tem for bringing that up. The only thing I was gonna say is that I love technology. Technology is great, but we have a community that is, you know, has trouble and is challenged when it comes to navigating technology. We have people who are elderly. We have people who are monolingual Spanish speakers. We have people who are not connected to the internet. So those are the basic challenges that I see. It's easy to put up a bunch of technology and say, you know, go ahead and go out there. But as we saw during, you know,

as we see as, you know, our elderly community trying to register for vaccines, one of the things that I've gotten is, you know, look, they just can't, they don't know how to navigate that space. I mean, for most of us, I mean, we know it well, present company excluded, but, you know, most everybody that's young knows that, but we have not only, you know, a community that has a lot of seniors, but we have a community that has, you know, you know, language barriers. And so those are things that I think old school methods, flyers doing things that are basic to get people's information and to inform them,

that's something that we should not abandon. I hope that we continue with that because when what we saw during the whole cares act thing was we went to go door knock and that does seem old school, that doesn't seem as the most efficient way to do things, but it got people help. And so I think as we engage them with other services, that's something that we never want to forget. So thank you for all those comments. Let's move along to item number 30, which is a council member Lopez's item. and that's to discuss and consider directing the city manager to direct staff to amend ordinance number NS-2992,

removing qualified elector requirement to serve on boards and commissions from the Santa Ana Municipal Code and to be in compliance with SB-225. Council Member Lopez.

Jessie LopezItem 30

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. So this came about because like most of the newly elected council members, I'm going through the process of interviewing folks for the commissions. And through that, I realized that our undocumented residents didn't have the opportunity to utilize their talent in our local democracy. And so AB 225, for those of you that don't know, was signed into law in October of 2019 by Governor Newsom. And AB 225 changed the language to be more inclusive of people, of all people, regardless of their immigration status.

Jessie LopezItem 30

And really offer, really give local governments the opportunity to have a full range of making sure that we provide our residents, not just the learning opportunities that they desire, but the service opportunities that they are looking for as well. And right now, our own language and our ordinance really procures us from doing that. And so in 2018, the city, the city charger was amended, was updated to allow the council the ability to change the commission requirements via the adoption of an ordinance.

Jessie LopezItem 30

And so right now, we have ordinance NS 2992, which was adopted in September of 2020, if I'm not mistaken. And it includes this qualified electoral language that prohibits ultimately folks, regardless of their status to serve on any commission.

Jessie LopezItem 30

And so I would like us to remove this qualified elector language from our ordinance. I think it's very, not just symbolic, but because we are such a predominantly, you know, migrant community, it's nice for folks to feel represented and to see themselves in these roles. And so I don't really want there to be anything that prohibits our Santa Ana residents from being engaged and offering their services to the city.

Great. Thank you for that council member Lopez. I see council member Hernandez's name or hand raised. I'm sorry, council member Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 30

Yes, thank you. I want to thank council member Lopez for, for bringing this item to the dais. I think it's, it's important thing that it's, it's important that we acknowledge the value of our residents and that we look beyond the barriers that, that I know a lot of, a lot of the times government puts on, on residents in our community. And I believe that people should have the, the ability to not only champion public policies that are rooted in liberation, but they should be part of that democratic process as well. And as a city, I think that this is a step in the right direction.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 30

It's beautiful that this is happening a day after MLK Day. I hope that this is something that all my colleagues are on board for. I think it certainly helps liberate a lot of those voices that have been left out of the conversation. I support it wholeheartedly.

Thank you, council member. I see council member Becerra's hand raised as well, but quick question for you, Madam city attorney. I thought this was something that we had already tackled previously. Cause I think I was one of the first council members or to appoint somebody who was undocumented. And was it exclusively to measure X? I thought it was just basically a policy that we said, that look, we as a city that has 50% of our residents who are foreign born and a high number of undocumented, I just thought that we had already, this was sort of an ask and answer question.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 30

So thank you, Mayor. You know, back in November of 2018, when the charter amendment was made, the intent was to pull all of the charter language into the municipal code so that we would have more flexibility and making changes to the ordinances. And in that effort, what happened is the charter language had the qualified elector language in it. And so we literally cut and pasted it into the new ordinance. So that qualified elector language did not apply to every commission and only applied to the commissions that were listed in the charter itself. And that explains why in your instance, that was not an issue.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 30

And then what happened is that ordinance, we kept saving it to be part of a much larger cleanup. And in the meantime, SB 225 was passed. So that's kind of how we ended up where we are. So I've already in anticipation of this item, located the language that needs to be revised to be consistent with this law, that that's the direction from the council we'll prepare that for your next meeting.

All right, let me go ahead and go back to the council. Council Member Becerra then Mayor Pro Tempe Nalosa.

Phil BacerraItem 30

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I too support the item and I appreciate it being brought forward. Mr. Mayor, you kind of stole the question I was going to ask, which was, you know, I thought that this had been addressed already. And then obviously with the subsequent state legislation that obviously has helped pave the way and make it easier for us. But, you know, part of my conversation this afternoon with the city attorney I realized something as she was trying to explain where we would be impacting our municipal code in regards to this because I couldn't find the term qualified elector as it related to commissioners but then

Phil BacerraItem 30

as the city attorney and I were talking more I realized that as I was looking at the municode online some of the sections that we as a council had modified or or brought forward into the muni code in 2020 hadn't made it to the online version. So I'm going to ask our city clerk, and I hate to ask it this way, but I will, how outdated is our online municipal code? Because what really, you know, frightens me, frankly, is that, you know, there are folks that utilize online municipal codes like myself, and I'm sure some of my colleagues when it comes to work that they do during their day jobs.

Phil BacerraItem 30

And so I know that, you know, nowadays we rely on what we see online for municipal code and that could make or break a decision on whether to push forward with a certain effort or a project or something. So I would just like to ask our city clerk, how outdated is our online municipal code?

So our municipal code that's available online through Municode is updated by supplements every six months. And what we have been doing is updating the ordinances through Laserfiche. So anytime anybody wants to see any ordinance that has been adopted by council, they would have to go through our Laserfiche public portal in order for them to access any ordinances that will eventually be codified and embedded into that municode website which is where everybody looks for everything that's

already been done and it is done every six months so it'll be done in January and in July.

Phil BacerraItem 30

Lizzie I have to ask it's every six months in this day and age I mean it might as well be six years is there a way that we could do it just a little bit quicker? I can definitely reach out to the

vendor and find out I think that contract was probably drawn out long before I was even here and has just been proceeding that way and I know in other jurisdictions my previous jurisdiction it was done immediately after I think they do it within a month. There is always a fee associated to those things but I could definitely reach out to the vendor and find out what that

Phil BacerraItem 30

would look like. I mean just because we've been doing it very slow for the past however many years is not acceptable, especially when folks are trying to understand what our rules are, including the city council who actually is helping to make the laws here. So I would really appreciate if you could report back to us on how we can expedite the process of updating our online municipal code. Really, it's unacceptable for folks to look at that site and not be able to see it. And today, I mean, Sonia and I sounded like Abbott and Costello trying to talk about, where the section was and what was actually put down

Phil BacerraItem 30

because I kept thinking to myself, well, why would I come up there? It's not mentioned anywhere. And lo and behold, it is mentioned somewhere, but nobody could find it online. So I would appreciate seeing that updated. And again, I'm supportive of the item before tonight. Thank you.

And just for clarification, council member Becerra, it is updated on the website. It's just listed under ordinances. It's not codified, which means that it's not found in the section that it was adopted in so but you can't find it it is available online and maybe it's just providing instructions on how to get it but getting them to update it and codify it is another conversation i could have with them well daisy i mean since you brought up i'll just say

Phil BacerraItem 30

i don't find that acceptable i think that when we adopt it let's get it codified let's get it in the code i don't want folks to have to play scavenger hunt through our municipal code i mean municipal code language isn't fun to look through as it is. And then to make it more onerous to look through is again, it's not acceptable. So I'm looking forward to you bringing back something that'll be an update that shows us how you're going to get the language codified much quicker than six months.

Great, thanks for that comment. And I like the Abbott and Costello reference. So Mayor Pro Tem, Peña Losa.

David PenalozaItem 30

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just wanted to thank council member Lopez for bringing the item forward. Very supportive of something like this, given the fact that our demographics and community should and need to be reflected in our local at all local level of various levels of government. And I'm happy to support this. Kind of almost question along the same lines as you, Mr. Mayor is I thought this was something that was already allowed because of what we have seen on the measure X committee and whatnot, but that was a separate ordinance, I believe that was brought forward. And this is, as we move forward,

David PenalozaItem 30

this is a conversation that we should bring back in regards to how outdated the language is is in our municipal code, our charter. It's not reflective of the community that we are. I know that one of the changes that I was trying to make along with I believe you, Mr. Mayor and Councilor Bacera earlier this year to our city charter was just the simple pronouns used in our city charter. It refers to the city manager and the city attorney as he, and I believe the clerk is referred to as she. I mean, that is just embarrassing that we have that language in our charter

David PenalozaItem 30

when our three direct employees are all women and they're doing a fantastic job. So, you know, whether it's a charter, whether it's a municipal code, there's a lot of areas that are not reflective of our community and the way that our city is should be represented. So thank you for that council member Lopez for bringing this forward, a very supportive of moving in this direction and over the item. So thank you. And that is it, Mr. Mayor. Thanks for that council member Pham.

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

Thank you, Mayor. Just really briefly council member Lopez, thank you for bringing this forward. I know when we had the resolution regarding the insurrection, we all agreed that it was about people, not just citizens. I would like to see that, you know, as we move forward with this removing the qualified elector language, that whenever we have any type of documents, programs, appointments, or anything like that that involves bringing in residents of the city, that we stay consistent and that we make sure it's open to all under SB 225. But other than that, I also want to say that I have no idea who Abbott and Costello is,

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

and I think I'm not the only one. And that's all. Thank you.

That's why I mentioned it, man. He was dating himself. So there was only a few of us that caught that. So in any event, I think everybody commented on this. I think Madam City Manager Madam city attorney, you guys, you know, probably got most of those council member Lopez. All I was going to say is, you know, I know your hand is raised. I'm going to call on you right now. Thank you for bringing this up. And I know, and I would have joined with you. I just got by me, but, but go ahead. You have some closing comments.

Jessie LopezItem 30

I do thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. And I want to thank all of my colleagues for their support. And I also want to thank the city clerk and the city attorney for answering all of my questions at all random hours of the day.

Jessie LopezItem 30

And I just quickly wanted to ask what is gonna be the turnaround time for this?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 30

From the city attorney's perspective, we can prepare for the next meeting. It's a minor amendment. It will require first reading at your next meeting and then a second reading, and then it will go into effect 30 days later.

Excellent. Thank you all. Let's move along to the next item. Item number 31, which is an item brought by council members Becerra, Mendoza and Mayor Pro Tem. Mr. Mayor, go ahead.

David PenalozaItem 30

Really quick, I just wanted to let council member Lopez know and staff's probably going to hate me, but council member Lopez, you're in charge here. So if you want this in seven days, we could direct the staff. I know that staff's already gonna hate me for this, but I'm kidding.

David PenalozaItem 30

Whenever you guys could have this forward, Madam City Attorney, I would say since we didn't really give a direction, I would, because of the craziness going on, I would personally say, if we could, 30 days, maybe the second meeting in February, have something forward or the first, I know that there's probably appointees that council member Lopez wanted to make.

David PenalozaItem 30

So I think I would say the sooner, the better.

All right, hearing no objection from the city manager or the city attorney.

If I may, Mayor, just make one comment. Council member Lopez does not have to wait for this change to be made to nominate the individual she once appointed due to the state law.

Great point. Got it. Okay. So seeing no other comments, let's move along to the last item, which is to discuss and consider directing the city manager to begin the process to change the name of Lyon street between Edinger and St. Andrews place to Elk Lane. And I believe that's yours council member Becerra along with council member Mendoza and mayor pro tem.

Phil BacerraItem 31

Yes, thank you. Thank you. Mr. Mayor. I just real quickly one last comment on the last item. I was a I was a little nervous that the mayor pro temp was going to call another special meeting. So I think staff and his colleagues breathe a sigh of relief that we can still have council member Lopez nominate her commissioners. As far as the item in front of us, I wanted to to first begin by thanking all the folks that called in earlier this evening in support of this item. And I want to acknowledge and thank Mayor Pro Tem, Penaloza and Council Member Mendoza for joining me on this item. You know, the Elks here in Santa Ana

Phil BacerraItem 31

taken part in numerous charitable activities throughout our community since 1902. It's ranged from annual school supply drives, awarding scholarships, fundraising for those special needs here in Santa Ana and honoring our veterans each Memorial Day for those that are buried here in cemeteries in Santa Ana. And as some of the folks who called in earlier this evening mentioned about you know almost 60 years of their 119 year history they were located over on Elk Lane right across from the Santa Ana Zoo and in

Phil BacerraItem 31

2019 they sold their property and they moved over to South Lyon and to a beautiful new lodge that has been celebrated throughout the organization so tonight what I'm hoping is as this new lodge is located on South Lyon over there between Edinger and St. Andrew's place I'm hoping that my colleagues will um support the idea in front of us to proceed with the renaming of that particular portion of lion street uh and as i think it was pointed out earlier the the impact would be very minimal

Phil BacerraItem 31

there's probably less than a handful of businesses that would be impacted and i wanted to uh express my gratitude to the elks who i believe had mentioned that they'd be willing to assist some of those businesses in the transition, whether it's through their updating their business cards or their letterhead to accommodate the new Elk Lane. So I think this would just be a fantastic way to honor an organization that has such a long legacy of charitable activity here in the community. And it would be nice for the Elks Lodge to continue their tradition of being located in the city of Santa Ana on Elk Lane.

Great, thank you council member. Council member Mendoza.

I did all my colleagues remarks. I am also an ELCS member and I feel it is appropriate for us to proceed with this name change because it's a small token of appreciation for an organization that has been part of Santa Ana's long-standing history in benefiting our constituents. So everything that Phil said, I totally agree and I don't think we'll have any opposition from the vendors because

it's also a, it has enhanced and increased the value of in that area and the businesses can become members and they have incredible food and events, of course, at a social distance and more pre-COVID. So that's why I joined in this item to make that small contribution in honoring this very a very significant organization. Thank you.

Thank you, council member. Mayor Pro Tem.

David PenalozaItem 31

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I personally didn't become an ELKS member for the events. I became an ELK for the $3 beer. Great investment, everybody, whoever's listening out there. But I wanted to, you know, I'm supportive of this item. It'd be nice to see that same change that we saw over on Elk Lane and First Street, way back when, to see it on this side of town, online, between, I want to say, Edinger and St. Anne, is it Anna Hearst?

David PenalozaItem 31

St. Andrew. And I do, what one of the speakers, one of the public commenters said that did stick with me is, is because of how we know how tough, you know, the last year has been on our local businesses. And knowing that with this, I know it's only like six or seven businesses on that little stretch, but they're gonna have to pay money to change their letterhead, their business cards, their website, their minor changes, it's not, but it is at a cost. And if there's a way where we could find some funds

David PenalozaItem 31

somewhere available that we could use as a grant to make it available to those that really need it for those small costs that might come out of this, I'd be interested in looking at something like that, Madam City Manager. And just because of the circumstances we've been in the last year and knowing that these businesses, a lot of them have struggled, whether those particular businesses have struggled this last year or not, I don't know. I know a lot of businesses, depending on the sector you're in, but it'd be nice to look to see if that is going to be a burden on some of them.

David PenalozaItem 31

The stationary stuff isn't cheap. It's expensive. And wherever we could do to help in those areas where we can, it'd be nice. to do.

Phil BacerraItem 31

Mr. Mayor, if I could just real quickly address what Mayor Pro Temp said. One of the speakers who's a member of the lodge had offered that the lodge would assist those businesses with the transition in their stationary and their business cards and other related items. So you're on the exact same page that they are and with everything going on, they're definitely, I think they value this enough to commit to helping their neighbors out on this particular exercise.

That's what I heard too. So that's awesome. That'd be good. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Council Member Fan.

Thai Viet PhanItem 31

Yes. So I appreciate that. We all heard that because, um, you know, I'm an elk myself sponsored by my colleague, uh, councilman Becerra, and, um, it's a great space. Lots of folks have events, quinceañeras and things there so that's really great especially once we are able to open up again I would like to see city staff working with the lodge to assist the neighboring businesses frankly it's just really tight right now especially since we've allocated 750 000 for COVID relief dipping into our reserve so I just want to make sure that you know this is a nice

Thai Viet PhanItem 31

to have I fully understand why we want to do this but it doesn't have to be right now and if it's going to be right now I'd like to see that the lodge step up and really facilitate any of those costs and so you know city manager please work with them on that before we finalize anything with the name change I don't want our city to be the one bearing the cost of that right now the other thing I wanted to mention was if someone can find out for me who lion street is named after I know that clearly someone named the street after a lion, a person.

Thai Viet PhanItem 31

And now that we're renaming, I would just like to know who it is and like the history that comes along with it. That would be really great so that we can also honor whoever came before us.

Great. Thanks for that. I see no other hands raised and I think everybody had a chance that wanted to speak. I think staff, you have enough comments and for direction. So great. So I think that was the last item that we had for the evening, at least business items. Let me bring it back now to the city manager for her comments, but maybe before we do that, let me call on council member fan. Cause she had a clarification to make on a prior item that she recused herself on. Go ahead, council member fan.

Thai Viet PhanItem 31

Yes, thank you. I didn't make it to the very opening of the meeting, but I was recused from closed session item A, that is the 2525 main LLC versus City of Santa Ana. Again, I work at the law firm, Rattan and Tucker, and prior to me becoming a council member, the firm had been retained by the developer and the city in that litigation matter. So I was not participating in that matter whatsoever.

Great. Thank you for that clarification. Let me bring it back to the city manager for her closing comments.

Certainly, sir. Just two items tonight. Emergency rental assistance was made available as part of the 2021 consolidated appropriation act. And as such, staff did review the parameters. And I just want to report to you that we have applied for a direct allocation of $10 million for those funds, keeping our fingers crossed that we will receive them. And last item is communities across the nation are honoring those that have lost their lives to COVID by using lighting on various hallmarks. And this was brought to my attention by a couple of colleagues that sit on city council.

So you will notice if you drive by or take a look over at the water tower, it is lit up and we too are honoring those victims of COVID-19.

Excellent comments, both of them. Thank you, Madam City Manager. Let me go ahead and bring it back for council member comments and let me start with council member Becerra.

Phil BacerraItem 31

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wanted to begin my comments this evening with a pitch for downloading and using the My Santa Ana app. I would like to ask staff to really promote this wonderful tool. I mean, it's just something that is very helpful and you know it always amazes me for as much as I know I I boast about it and I know my colleagues do as well but I think we could really do a better job of trying to promote it whether it's on our city's social media platforms or on the freeway adjacent digital billboards it's just something that we really need to

Phil BacerraItem 31

get I've got a couple of requests this week from folks on some real significant public works issues and I would ask them if they knew about the my Santa Ana app And I was always shocked and disappointed that they didn't. So I would just ask that we try to do more on that. On January 8th, on behalf of the city, I attended the UCLA land use conference. And I know that sounds strange for me to attend anything UCLA related, but it actually is a great annual event. It provides attendees with a good update on the land use litigation and legislation that has come through. that is really helpful for not just planners,

Phil BacerraItem 31

but folks on the council to understand. And what I'll do is I'll have the materials that I received, I'll have those distributed to all my colleagues. And also as our city's rep to SCAG, the Southern California Association of Governments, I had the opportunity to cast a vote at our regional council meeting on January 7th in support of the regional council's resolution affirming the climate change crisis here in Southern California. Obviously it's stating the obvious. We know that climate change is real and that it is a very important issue for us to address. But what that resolution does for us

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is it allows us opportunities coming down the pipeline to be provided technical assistance and additional support for when Santa Ana takes on more climate action related initiatives. And speaking of SCAC last Friday, the Skagrina appeals board voted to deny the appeals to our regional housing allocation that were filed by four other Orange County cities now those cities attempted to dump their obligation their housing obligations on to Santa Ana and unfortunately the Skagrina appeals board denied their attempts I wanted to thank our city manager Min Thai and Melanie McCann for their outstanding work in

Phil BacerraItem 31

defending our city from those appeals they did a fantastic job i sat in on the um meeting and i know mayor sarmiento did as well and i just wanted to applaud them you know santa anna doesn't need you know regional allocations to continue to do what we've always done we are one of the densest cities second in california fourth in the nation and we're going to continue to do our work as we we did tonight as we approve housing that helps address the crisis. But I know that many of my colleagues agree that we're not gonna stand by and let other cities skirt their obligations and dump it onto our backs.

Phil BacerraItem 31

So I'm really happy about what happened there. And just to kind of reiterate some of the numbers, San Ana has built 1100% times or 11 times really more affordable housing units, than what was asked of us. And just to show you what two other cities who appealed our numbers have been doing in the same cycle, Garden Grove has only built 21% of their lower income housing allocation requirement and Irvine has only built 24%. So while we're at 1100%, 11 times, they're barely in the low 20s in their fulfilling of their responsibilities. And speaking of Irvine,

Phil BacerraItem 31

you know, I gotta tell you, when I was on the Skag Appeal hearing just recently, I saw Bill Erke, and I was really excited to see Bill Erke. Now, for those that don't know Bill, Bill's a member of the Santa Ana Chamber. He's a board member. And I thought to myself, well, this is great. You know, Mayor Sarmiento's on the phone. I see staff, and here's Bill Erke. He must be monitoring for the chamber. Well, unfortunately, that was not what was happening. So here's this gentleman who lives here in Santa Ana, who is a member of our board of the Santa Ana Chamber, and he was there at the hearing to represent the city of Irvine

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in their attempt to dump their city's portions of their regional housing allocation onto Santa Ana. I could not believe, I just couldn't believe that a member of the board of the Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce and a resident of our city would so blatantly work against our city's interests. You know, Mr. Herky works for a large law firm, and he could have handed that work off to another attorney, but he chose not to. I raise this issue because I hope that the Santa Ana Chamber will not turn a blind eye to Mr. Erky's actions, and I hope that they will take the appropriate actions in regards to

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his actions that Friday. I just don't believe that our chamber would really condone board members, not just members, board members, going against the chamber's mission, which is to broker community solutions that create economic growth for Santa Ana. What Mr. Erky did that day for Irvine was not doing that and not living up to the chamber. In conclusion, I wanted to express my condolences to the friends and family of the four people that we are adjourning tonight's meeting in memory of. And with that, that's the conclusion of my comments. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, council member. did you want to read the the bios on on on i think on on mr serrato and pat henderson or

Phil BacerraItem 31

hernandez i'm sorry sure i'd be happy to um so you know um in regards to al serrato al i was a former council member here in santa he actually is a predecessor of mine in ward four He served from 1979 to 1983. He also sat on the board of the Bowers Museum for many years, worked as a museum consultant and traveled throughout Asia, helping to secure exhibitions. During his time here in Santa Ana, he would have been here when former city manager Dave Ring was cutting his teeth in the

Phil BacerraItem 31

redevelopment agency here in the city. so he would have seen some of the renaissance that started to grow by the time city manager

Phil BacerraItem 31

another aspect that I wanted to point out with former council member Serato is that he was very involved in our military and veterans community he was a decorated officer but he was also selected as a national commander of the highly prestigious combat infantry association and he He was also finance officer of the American Legion in Santa Ana, which is where actually I met council member Serrato. So while I might've made reference to Abbott and Costello, I'm definitely not old enough to have known Mr. Serrato back when he served on the council. And then with that, Mr. Mayor, I'll also,

Phil BacerraItem 31

as you suggested, I'll read the bio for Mr. Pat Hernandez. So Pat grew up here in Santa Ana, he was born and raised here in town. he went to St. Joseph's and Mater Dei High School and Santa Ana College. Pat played football at Mater Dei and Sac and he's a son, father, husband and a grandfather and him and his brother established Civic Center Lock and Safe back in 1971. It was him brother Carl that started the business in his dad's auto garage over on Civic Center and Flower. Many of their customers were lawyers, jurors,

Phil BacerraItem 31

San Diego's police officers, our city employees, county workers, all went through that shop over the last 50 years. And Pat did a fantastic job in keeping up with the technology in regards to his trade. And Pat is survived by his wife and kids. And, you know, he just, he was a great man. And I wanted to thank former council member Brett Franklin for informing me of Pat's passing. And thank you, Mr. Mayor for allowing me to read those bios.

No, thank you for doing that. Appreciate it. Council member Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 31

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yes, I wanted to also adjourn in honor of Miriam Lopez. She was a community organizer here in the city of Santa Ana. She was known as a fierce community advocate who over the past 10 years was organizing in this community to transform the conditions for youth. She was connected through the Santa Ana community, which is part of many different spaces, such as KidWorks, Santa Ana Active Streets, Orange County Dream Team, Orange County Immigrant Youth United, Santa Ana Building Healthies Community, Building Healthy Communities,

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 31

these jóvenes cultivando cambio, el centro cultural de Mexico, Noche del Tares, Corazon de Mariposas, YPOC, Zenana Public Library, teen space, in La Keshe Fund and any other spaces. She passed away a couple of days ago and I just wanted to pay my respects to her family and thank her for the service that she provided here to the people of Zenana.

Thank you council member. Council member Lopez.

Jessie LopezItem 31

Thank you mayor Sarmiento. And I just wanna thank my colleague, council member Becerra for reminding me about the RHNA appeals that just took place. I read the appeal from the city of Garner Grove and Newport and Norbalinda and city manager, I have a question for you.

Jessie LopezItem 31

Sanayana submitted their own appeal in return, correct?

No council member, we did not submit an appeal. We were merely provided the opportunity to comment on the other four cities appeals because they specifically named our city.

Jessie LopezItem 31

Okay, thank you for that clarification. And in the process of any of that, that the entire process, did we accept more affordable housing units?

I'm not sure what you mean by accept more affordable housing units in our response and our letter to the SCAG, we did indicate that we would take on more, but the staff chose not to incorporate that in their deliberations.

Jessie LopezItem 31

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I just need a clarification on that.

Great. Thank you for those comments. Council member Mendoza.

No, I don't have any comments. Thank you.

Thank you, council member.

Council member Fan.

Thai Viet PhanItem 31

Sorry, it's been a lot of comments for today. And I really appreciate staff's work on everything. I think that there's a lot going on And I am really looking forward to tomorrow morning and welcoming a new start, a fresh start to our country, to all of us celebrating the first woman vice president. Black, she's Asian, specifically South Asian, and really to a new leader who will lead our country with compassion, with science, with thoughtfulness, and with consideration.

Thai Viet PhanItem 31

So I really hope that no matter who you supported in the presidential race, in light of everything going on, in light of the pandemic, that we all, you know, stand together, talk about about our issues, but also agree that we need to come together to deal with the COVID crisis and to really get our country back on track and to really fix the things and work toward the promises of our founding fathers. So with that, thank you everyone. And I will see you at the housing authority.

Thank you, council member. Mayor Pro Tem.

David PenalozaItem 31

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to make an announcement in regards to the transportation quarter agency and remind the public that the city of Santa Ana does sit on the board of directors for the transportation quarter agency. And this last past week that we celebrated the grand opening of the Oso Parkway Bridge, which offers six lanes of travel through in each direction and provides a direct connection between the 241 toll roads and Los Patrones Parkway. The project, the new improvements offer mobility and connectivity in South Orange County, diverting traffic from congestive surfaces streets

David PenalozaItem 31

and providing improved access to businesses and restaurants in those areas. But it was a huge virtual grand opening. I know that people might think, what does that have to do with Santa Ana? But over close to 100,000 toll road transponders, on their subscribers live in the city of Santa Ana. So it's a huge number of our residents that do have access to those roads and use them frequently to get to and from work. So just wanted to make that short announcement. And in regards to the, I wanted to touch a little bit on what my colleague, Councilmember Becerra said

David PenalozaItem 31

in regards to the Skag-Rena appeal. And unfortunately how there was a board member of the Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce advocating against us. That was very upsetting and disappointing to see because we wanna think of the Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce as a entity that advocates for our city and for economic development in our city. And to have one of the board members try to work against the city and the city where he lives was very unfortunate and disappointing to say the least. So I wanna make sure that the Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce knows that we're not happy about it

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because that is one of their board members and he should be held accountable. With that said, Madam City Manager, I wanna see that within the next month maybe if we could gather information on what contractual litigation we have with the law firm that this person works at that was advocating against us at the Skag-Rena hearing.

David PenalozaItem 31

I wanna look into that, see and get a report of what different litigations we have pending and what kind of work we contract out to that law firm when that's possible, Madam City Manager.

David PenalozaItem 31

Is that something that you could bring forward to us via email or a memo in the next couple of weeks? Or Madam City Attorney actually?

I was just going to say council member that under the umbrella of your city attorney, she would have a listing of all of the services.

David PenalozaItem 31

Yes, thank you for that.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 31

I'd be happy to get the city council, distribute a list to the entire city council.

David PenalozaItem 31

Yeah, that would be good to know as we move forward with this. And also that is up for that area. I also wanted to add to the unfortunately long list of people that we want to adjourn this meeting in, in memory of, you know, and it's Mr. Carlos Contreras, Spanish teacher at Saddleback High School, which is not only in the ward I represent, but my alma mater. You know, I graduated from Saddleback High School in 2006 and it's a huge loss for our community.

David PenalozaItem 31

Roadrunner Nation mourns the loss of a beloved colleague, teacher, friend, mentor, musician, role model, and inspiration to all who knew him. Mr. Juan Carlos Contreras was a beloved member of the Saddleback family since the year 2000. And he was more than an amazing Spanish teacher to his students. His passion for music and performing and teaching guitar and music to students was what made anyone who knew him see what a unique and beautiful soul he had. Whether he was playing and singing for his students during class at our assemblies, back to school nights, open houses, or staff meetings,

David PenalozaItem 31

Mr. Contreras' voice and energy reverberated to all that were lucky enough to hear him. Mr. Contreras, the Saddleback family will miss you, and we send our deep condolences to his family. I, as a graduate of Saddleback High School, I never had Mr. Contreras as a teacher, but for anyone who went to high school with me and knew me, I was never where I was supposed to be in high school. and I was frequently in Mr. Contreras' classroom in between periods while I went to the restroom during classes where I was supposed to be. I was always going in there to visit friends and he was always so welcoming and inspiring to me

David PenalozaItem 31

and to anyone that would walk through his classroom. So I wanted to add him to the list and closing his memory. He lost his life last week to COVID, unfortunately, like many in our community. And it's a huge loss for our city and our school district and Saddleback High School.

David PenalozaItem 31

And now on a little brighter note, I just wanna wish our executive director of library, Brian Sternberg, a happy birthday, which I believe is tomorrow. And Daniel Soto in our city manager's office who also has a birthday next week. Very happy birthday to him. two great assets to our Santa Ana community and happy to celebrate them in the next coming days. So with that, Mr. Mayor, those are my comments and thank you for the opportunity to speak.

Great, thank you for those comments. So just real briefly, I wanna just thank everybody who spoke, thank the staff for all the hard work and especially for their good work over at SCAG during the appeal. I heard the arguments, you know, to the extent that we all can, you know, debate the idea of housing needs and, you know, what categories we should be building. We're the ones who should be deciding for our city, not others. And so that was, I think, a really well, they were well-placed arguments. You know, city manager, you did a very good job in presenting our position.

And I did speak with the director in advance. And so, you know, I think he also was was pulling for us as well, obviously, because his methodology was being challenged from what I understand. But the other issue I wanted to just raise before I make a few comments on Miriam Lopez, whose memory we're adjourning in, was, you know, I attended the Martin Luther King breakfast yesterday and our police chief, David Valentin, spoke. and he did a very good job representing the city and talking about issues that were important, talking about inclusivity, talking about accountability,

talking about how important it is for there to be respect in the community, especially in memory of MLK Day. So you saw that he put out another notice talking about tomorrow because I received a lot of emails, maybe you have as well, about people just feeling unsettled and kind of traumatized by what they saw last week, what could happen here. We're the county seat. We host the federal, state, you know, county office buildings, and we are a target often. And because we are also a very outspoken council, you know, we have neighbors to the south of us and really neighbors all around us

that may not feel real, real happy about some of the positions we take. So I think what his comments that he made and his message that he put out there, I think settled a lot of feelings. and I appreciate him for being much more outspoken, much more making an effort to connect with our community. So thank you for doing that chief. I think that's important when people hear that reassurance coming from all of us and you that really does set a calm in our community. So that was, that was very important. I received a lot of good comments about that. I think people really appreciate that connection.

You know, finally, I just want to say, you know, look, we're having way, way too many people passing away, right? And we're having to adjourn. And, you know, before we would adjourn in a person's memory and it'd be two or three months later that we'd adjourn in somebody else's. Now we seem to be adjourning almost every meeting on multiple people's, you know, multiple people's memory. So let me just say a little bit more about Miss Miriam Lopez because she has a real tragic story, I think, a tragic and a story we can celebrate because she was so young. She was 24 years old, but in those 24 years, she lived multiple lifetimes.

And Miriam was born on May 17, 1996 in Mexico City. She came to the U.S. when she was eight years old in August of 2004, and she grew up here in Santa Ana, went to Fremont Elementary, Mendes Intermediate, Segerstrom High School. And in 2019, she received her bachelor's in public administration from Cal State Fullerton. And I think you heard Council Member Hernandez speak about all of her activity in the city. And, you know, the list just goes on and on.

But what I did want to at least recite is some words that her parents wrote. And they wrote this in Spanish. And if you'll all indulge me, I just want to put this into the record and make sure that we recognize this in her memory. This is from her parents. Nosotros como padres estamos muy orgullosos. Miriam no está muerta. Ella sigue viva en nuestros corazones. this is something Miriam wrote on her university graduation cap.

And she goes on.

And those were precious words from parents that lost their daughter, that had such a, you know, such a, you know, bright future ahead of her and somebody who was raised here in San Anne and did so much for our community. So let's adjourn in her memory, as well as in former city manager, Dave Reams memory, Mr. Alcerado, former council member, and Pat Hernandez and Carlos Contreras as well. So colleagues, I just want to remind you that we have to sign off. Is that correct, Madam clerk? the only question I had how do we sign back on is it on the same zoom link or do you send us in

nope that is correct it's the same exact zoom that you use we just need to stop this meeting and then just give us one minute and then we'll start it up again it's the exact same link that you have in your calendar for the city council meeting for members of the public who want to participate as well or want to continue to listen they also use the same exact zoom link

Perfect. Okay. So we'll go ahead and adjourn and log off and then we'll log right back on.