Read the January 7 meeting.

Mendoza and Hernandez.

Unless I'm.

Sonia R. Carvalho

I'm getting out of just waiting room. Yeah, they just. They're just joining right now.

I'll just wait for you, Daisy, to let me know when we're ready.

Okay, Mayor, looks like we are ready.

Great. Why don't we go ahead and get started? Good afternoon, everybody. First of all, Happy New Year to everyone. Hopefully you guys had some time to rest during the holiday break. I do want to call this special meeting to order and thank you all for joining. I'll go ahead and have the city clerk call roll please.

Council member Becerra?

Here.

Council member Hernandez?

Here.

Council member Lopez?

Council member Lopez.

Jessie Lopez

Sorry, I was unable to mute myself. I'm present. Thank you. Council member Mendoza.

Council member is on. I'm just asking her to unmute her line. Council member Mendoza

Council member Fan here Mayor Potempeñalosa

President Mayor Sarmiento here great thank you everybody and I should mention that we are transitioning to a new application. So for the public and for colleagues and staff on, we're obviously, we may have a few bumps, but we didn't expect to have the special meeting. So please bear with us and bear with the clerk as she and her staff navigate this new system. But I like seeing everybody. So it's nice to not see a still photo and we're able to at least see each other's faces. So thank you staff for doing that.

And I believe we only have one item that's before us on this special meeting. So what I wanted to do, Madam Clerk, is if we could, if you have any members of the public that would wish to address the council, maybe now is a better time to have them address us.

Yes, I do. I have currently five individuals and I will go ahead and unmute them one at a time.

And if I could maybe just remind everybody who's on, I'm going to go ahead and mute myself as we all should when we're not speaking that way we don't have any background noise while we're on. So just a reminder. Thank you.

Caller with the last three numbers 010, if you would please go ahead and unmute your device. If you called in, you can dial star six or you can select the unmute feature on your device your microphone hello can you hear yes yes we could hear you you may proceed thank

you you have three minutes give me a second here i didn't expect to be caught on so quickly ma'am hold on okay

Very good, thank you. Okay, so I'm calling in support of the action today. I think it's an outstanding action and I applaud the leadership of the entire council in trying to help mitigate the virus that is affecting our community, our state and our nation. It's just not for the physical health, I think you should do this, but but also for the mental wellbeing of our community and as well as the financial and economic recovery of both the city and our residents. I'm especially concerned at this time about the effect of our younger children, the ages three to four who are lacking socialization

and needed learning environments at this time. I'm deeply concerned the effect, the long-term effect this might have and I'm simply encouraged the city, our leadership to seek out solutions to this. Is there a solution? can we do something we should not let the thing go unrecognized because the consequences can be quite significant so please put that on your agenda on your radar i just want to speak very briefly about the mental health aspect of this uh for the third time since i moved to santa anna uh my life has been threatened uh i was held at knife point uh a few weeks ago by an individual who wanted my money

He obviously seemed to be rather disturbed and I was able to negotiate with him and get him to put his knife down and walk away and I gave him a few dollars. But again, I think COVID in itself has led to a lot of mental health issues. My situation was rather severe, so please, the issue of COVID goes beyond our physical health. It goes into our mental well-being and the mental well-being of people who are suffering. We don't want to see these situations come up again. And this gentleman who held me at night point, you know, certainly needs help. I'd much rather have a police officer than a mental health worker, but people like this

do need our help. And while the virus vaccinations and testing is great, we need to take a deeper drive into the mental health of our community. And with this $800,000 we're spending on this lawsuit, I hope we can find a way to achieve this sooner rather than later. Lastly, you know, we also have to be cognizant of how we distance ourselves from our community. I think this new technology is a great idea, but it should come at the expense of distancing ourselves from our leaders, our city hall. Even in my own experience in trying to work with this new technology, the PrimeGov, I experienced some difficulties. I found

the instructions also to be a little bit lacking. I felt also the city clerk's office was very responsive but these are the types of things we should watch for and if anything we're going to be rolling out technology to the end user i.e the citizens and we certainly need to test it with the citizens before we roll it out and to work out any bugs or or technical difficulties. You know having done a lot of technology in my in my past this time despite my advanced age of 62 uh things need to be done correctly we need acceptance testing we need in user testing

we need good standards so please keep this in mind as you look at digitize our government but also don't use it as a way to to divide and further separate us victor thank you so much for your

comment your time is up hello your time is up thank you for your comment hello hi thank you for your comment your time is up thank you thank you thank you thank you

Madam Clerk, are there any more members of the public that want to address it?

and yes and i'm waiting to see if whether or not okay i'm admitting them and i'm looking to see if they are able to unmute themselves one's just a video

okay mayor it looks like that's all the callers we have of all the participants, everyone else's staff.

Great, thank you for that. So the only item before us is the consideration of authorizing the city manager to negotiate with vendors to provide additional COVID testing and or vaccination testing upon arrival of those units. So I'm gonna go ahead and turn it over to the city manager and staff to go ahead and give a an oral presentation i know we did this on very short notice so we weren't able to provide anything in writing but to the extent that the city manager can go ahead and give us some sort of verbal presentation i'm sure that will suffice

right thank you honorable mayor mayor pro tem and council members the item before you is based on a request to provide services to our residents it's really two items it's to authorize an appropriation adjustment that would allocate dollars from our general fund reserve and provide me an amount not to exceed of 750 000 500 000 would be coming from cdbg with 250 000 coming from the general fund with those dollars should you decide to i'm seeking authorization for myself working with the city attorney to execute any necessary agreements with contractors sub recipients service

providers in order to provide both testing and vaccinations. You all know our city has been hit extremely hard. I know you know the numbers of the cases and the numbers of deaths in our community and we were very fortunate when we had available CARES dollars to roll out many programs but with those funding with that funding being exhausted we did have to pause many of those programs. So to restart testing with the allocation of a not to exceed of 750,000, I am trustful that we could get something up and running pretty quickly.

I have already been in conversations with a couple of different vendors that do that type of work. Also been in conversations with Santa Ana College and who are more than willing to allow us to use their site. And on the vaccination side, as the distributions of vaccinations start to happen, and the state of California did receive vaccinations starting back on December 16th, there are not substantial quantities that are currently being received. But in the future, I'm hoping those quantities will increase. Right now, since we are under the umbrella of the County of Orange Healthcare Agency,

we look to them for the distribution of those vaccinations. They have indicated that they would like city's assistance and collaboration. So I do believe that in the future, there's an opportunity for the city to help host a site within our city for our residents. That would make it a lot easier for them to get those vaccinations. But as you can imagine, it's an extremely complex and challenging process. not only are the vaccinations limited right now to a pretty small population, the state has put the priority into different tiers and phases.

And currently we are only at phase 1A, which is about 3 million individuals across the state and its health care workers and then those that reside in senior living centers. But as the tiers move through and greater populations are able to get those, I think that we have an opportunity to assist with the vaccinations. Right now, as of this morning, the county did relay to city managers of the county that their priorities and focus are going to be at establishing up to five super sites where they will begin the vaccinations.

But to put the scale in perspective, right now, the county of Orange only has 19,000 vaccinations. So what I am asking for with this staff report is authorization of the not to exceed 750,000, and then the authority to initially start with the testing aspect and as the opportunity arises to get a jump start on potential vaccinations for our residents.

And if I'm happy to answer any questions that I didn't cover anything, I'd be more than happy to go into more detail.

great thank you for that uh madam city manager let me go ahead and do this since um you know we're since we're still figuring out this new app um why don't i just go uh one by one uh for all the council members to go ahead and you know ask questions make some comments um you know but that way we can all have an opportunity to kind of share our thoughts with you and um and maybe ask a little bit more so let me go ahead and start with council member Becerra

Phil Bacerra

thank you Mr. Mayor um well first of all I just I want to begin by saying that I am proud that that I serve on a body where all of us have got together on such short notice outside of our normal meeting times to try to address a very important issue and I know that after our CARES Act money ran out uh in 2020 we all shared concerns about what we could do to continue to help our community because as we know we are so impacted more so than any other city here in orange county uh with that being

Phil Bacerra

said i wanted to ask a couple of questions so uh first i wanted to say so our cares act activities that um our city staff by the way carried out exceptionally throughout 2020 were funded by federal and state money so there was no local money involved in that is that correct correct okay and we also as far as right now the fact that we don't have any more cares act funding that's because we were instructed to spend it it's not like we plan to do things going into 2021 and then we just ran out of the money we or we i would say our staff i want to give credit where

Phil Bacerra

credits do our staff laid out a plan that showed how we could spend that money effectively to get these services out to our community but recognizing that we had an expiration date of these funds at

the end of the calendar year 2020 is that correct um yes it is if i can add a little more detail we did not receive any direct allocation of the cares dollars from the federal government We sought and requested it from the county and the state, and it was the state of California that gave us the bulk of those dollars, and it had the restrictions that they must be expended by December 31st. We then had to back up and stop expending a little bit prior to that just so we could do the accounting processing over the holidays. The bill that was just recently passed by Congress did allow for extension of spending

those dollars but we did not want to forfeit any of them so we did all of our programs and were able to exhaust all the funds by the original expiration date thank you for that so what's wonderful i

Phil Bacerra

think with these with what the city has done with our staff has done with this cares act funding is that we rolled it out as we were supposed to and this was money that wasn't commingled with general fund money this is money that came from federal and state sources and that we rolled out to these activities that we were able to uh commence with in 2020 correct yes okay another question i have for for staff is um i know as part of the cares act um one of the items that we offered our residents uh was for those who ended up testing positive we offered

Phil Bacerra

them a place to isolate such as a hotel room has that program expired as well um at the end of

calendar year 2020 to the extent that it was funded by those care dollars yes so

Phil Bacerra

right now if one of our residents tests positive for COVID we as a city do not have any resources to be able to provide that person a room to isolate in 2021 not from care dollars okay I would just to my colleagues I really again I want to echo how much I appreciate what we're doing here and the sentiment that I think is driving this that we really don't want to sit by with idle hands and we want to make sure that we're doing everything that we possibly can to help our community and our residents um well one thing i i do want to point out is that while we the city are not offering tests at this moment

Phil Bacerra

we do have many testing options available to our residents uh whether it's at home testing from the county where uh just this afternoon i double checked on their website to see what they were offering and they're still offering home delivery to folks to to have these tests and they're looking at a turnaround of anywhere between one and two days um and also too on the same county site they're showing six testing locations here in the city and then on top of that of course the two super sites that are immediately adjacent to our city which is uh the anaheim convention center

Phil Bacerra

and then of course in costa mesa the oc fairgrounds so i guess what i would implore my colleagues to consider is that i think testing is important but what we have to realize right now is that we are blessed to have the vaccine on the horizon and when i look at the news and i see that California has only gotten out 35% of the vaccinations that they have on hand. That scares me because it makes me realize that the state is not equipped to deal with this. And I think for us to ignore the lessons or at least ignore what's happening at the state and possibly the county level, I think what I would ask my colleagues to do is to focus more

Phil Bacerra

on making sure that we are able to roll out the vaccinations. because as we all know, we have a unique population compared to our neighbors in the county. And we want to make sure that we adequately, if not effectively, get the vaccine out to everybody. And, you know, whether we use Santa Ana College or another site, I would want to make sure that our site is the gold standard, is the example for what others would look to. And I think if we wait for the county to do it and we don't invest in that effort, I think we're going to be far behind. And right now with testing, if somebody is testing positive

Phil Bacerra

and they're not able to isolate, I think all we're doing is scaring the heck out of people. I think what we really want to look at more, in my humble opinion, would be vaccination. So I would ask us at this point to start looking at any sort of allocations from our general fund.

I think Councilmember Becerra maybe.

Did I cut out? You did for a few minutes or a few seconds actually.

Phil Bacerra

Sorry about that. Well, I just wanted to say is that, you know, I think our, while we do have some additional funding on hand at the moment, I think that our staff is probably more equipped to speak to this, but you know, they deserve the credit for providing us a balanced budget in the this current fiscal year, but I think every penny is going to matter as we go into our next fiscal year. So rather than commit general fund dollars to testing when we have testing options all around us and in Santa Ana, my ask of my colleagues would be for us to focus as many other jurisdictions are and pivot towards the focus of vaccinations

Phil Bacerra

and making sure that our site is able to deliver to our residents as effectively as possible. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Great. Thank you for those comments. Um, council member Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

Thank you, mayor Sarmiento. Um, no, uh, for me, I think this is a step in the right direction. I think that this is exactly what we need to do. Um, I'm happy that we were able to get together on such short notice as council member Becerra echoed, um, for me at this moment, um, I would just want to know about the services. would we continue to operate within the same scope of the care program where we would provide testing sites at parks and different locations like that? Thank you, Council Member for the

question. So it would, we could model it however we'd like to and negotiate with the vendor. One of the efforts that I've been trying to do is because we do have limited resources and we're using CDBG money which is restricted to income eligible recipients only so we have that that factor going into it that's one of the reasons why the coupling of the general fund dollars will give us a flexibility to cover those who are eligible and not eligible it could be a fixed site similar to how it was operated when we had the cares dollars we might even find it beneficial to try

to activate once again a mobile unit that could go out into the neighborhoods that was very well received and greatly appreciated by our community so i look to you for your suggestions and what your preferences would be and then i would do my best to negotiate the means to get it done

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

thank you

great uh thanks for those comments council member council member lopez hi thank you mayor

Jessie Lopez

sermento um city manager i have a question for you i know we just talked about modeling but is the plan to use the same vendor we were using in 2020 we have not entered in any contract

and our contract with the vendor that we did use before has been has expired so the two vendors that I am talking to is the one that we have used in the past and then a new one and I'm trying to get some you know the the best cost for us and in the best manner so no decisions have been made but the vendor that provided it before has submitted a proposal. Okay thank you and are we also

Jessie Lopez

you know when speaking with vendors asking them how many more folks they can provide on sites for testing because one of the observations I made in the past was that there was really long lines of people trying to get tested and so if it's possible at all moving forward with the testing that we can have more people on site. Absolutely and thank you. We did have some

hiccups on the amount of volume and the timing and so we've learned a lot. We've streamlined a little bit up through December and we did get a fix a lot of those glitches so we will certainly take that that knowledge base and apply it in any future testing that we were able to do.

Jessie Lopez

Okay thank you and another comment you know I'm very happy that we're going to be offering tests the city is going to be offering testing I know that there's testing available through other organizations and through the county and in other cities but I do want to echo the sentiments of council member Becerra the concern of having a focus on vaccination my understanding is that the general population will begin to receive that within three to four months and I know you know I read in the staff report that we will be having a presentation within the next two weeks regarding

Jessie Lopez

the county's plan and so just keeping that in mind that you know I am supportive of providing testing, but we should start to move the focus on vaccinations and the rollout of that. Thank you. That's all for me.

With the vaccinations, if I may, one of the challenges that we have is we are under the umbrella of the health care agency at the county. So currently, as all of the distribution plans stand, we would not be a direct recipient of vaccinations from the state. Our distribution would be through the county. So I know we're anxious to assist our residents in that process, but a lot of it is not completely within our control. The county has indicated that, you know, down the road they would be favorable should we staff our own site to do those vaccinations.

So there are a lot of hurdles on working this out right now. I know that the county has established a task force. You can search through the website at the Orange County Vaccination Task Force and find out information. But a lot of moving parts, the super sites seems to be their priority at this time. But I can certainly stay involved and see how best fit we can receive vaccinations. But that is going to be one of the hurdles. Another hurdle we have is with the state's guidelines and the limited number that can receive them right now. until that is opened up, it would be very difficult to have our own site.

And then the biggest hurdle is just the, you know, the numbers of the vaccinations and getting them rolled out is going to be a challenge. But we are working with lobbyists. I know the mayor, I don't want to speak out of turn for you. You know, he's working with the governor's office on trying to expedite all of that.

Jessie Lopez

Thank you.

It's really great to hear that.

Jessie Lopez

Thank you.

Great. Thank you. councilmember Lopez councilmember Mendoza thank you I think my unmute button

is working correct everyone can hear me we can hear you all right yes I am I'm pleased to see that the city of Santa Ana is offering extended services for for COVID testing and some of the questions I had have been answered as far as the provider and the vaccinations and the other services. I'd like to know in addition are we going

to be including some of the the self test kits where the residents can can obtain the results at home is this part of the package part of this new package that we're proposing

council member it certainly can be as if if i'm authorized to negotiate those agreements there are three different types of tests out there right now the the gold standard obviously is the PCR test which is one of the more expensive tests but the other type is the take-home kits and that is one that can be done at a less expensive means and so both of the vendors that I have been talking to have access to both types of tests. And what's going to determine which vendor do we select?

Have you received proposals from both vendors and what kind of services are they going to be offering?

So the ask was if they could staff a site within Santa Ana and provide testing to our residents with more than likely and not to exceed amounts. We did ask for them to exhaust all third-party billing options that they could to reduce the cost to the city and we looked to them to provide estimates cost estimates on which type of test. So the two vendors there's one vendor that's clinic 360 that is in the process of providing us a term sheet and then as mentioned before our vendor that we used when we had the cares dollar they have submitted a proposal as of last night

i think we might oh no there you are council member does that answer your question

I didn't quite hear all of it but as a further question is we were using Medica Latino Health Access previously and so now you you mentioned there's a third one 360.

So we did not contract with Latino Health Access they were under contract with the county So the city's contract was with Medica and then 360 is a clinic that is the provider that's currently operating the two super sites that are up at the Anaheim Convention Center and at the fairgrounds under county.

Okay. So we are considering then just 360 and Medica, not Latino health access?

I have not received any proposal from them. I know they are still under contract with the county and working very hard at doing the testing on behalf of the county.

Okay, so are we going to go with just one or both? What would be more beneficial for our residents?

What I would recommend is the priority to determining who to give a contract to, should you authorize me to do that it would be basically do they have the right type of test do they have the staff to be able to equip the site and most importantly can they build third parties and is the cost and i don't want to overpay for the product so it certainly i think

cost needs to be a determining factor all right so i see that maybe the vendor such as america and 360 they will be negotiating with their vendors right to see who could provide them

the same services for the least amount of profit in turn they could offer a discount

to our residents is that right um i'm not privy to what those two providers would need to do to procure the equipment they would need to fulfill our contract because our contractual arrangement would be solely with them to the extent they rely on other parties. I wouldn't have knowledge of that.

Okay, is that coming back to us to select one of them or is this what you are going to be getting authorization for to select either Medica or 360? So the the way that the staff

record is written right now it would be seeking authorization for me to negotiate and execute those you certainly have the ability to change that recommendation but as it's worded right now it's to authorize me so that i can do those negotiations and execute an agreement

all right thank you christine you're welcome thank you council member mendoza council member fan

Thai Viet Phan

Thank you for answering all these questions, City Manager. I think most of my colleagues addressed a lot of them. I would like to see options for the take home kits or the at home kits. I had done, I stood in line, drove in line, done the take home kit, I've done all of it. And I do have to say, standing in line is scary because you are willingly exposing yourself to other people who are known to have been exposed to people who tested positive COVID, right? That's really the end point.

Thai Viet Phan

And being able to do that at-home kit really gave us a lot more comfort with what would happen, especially if I have asthma, so that's scary. but if I were with someone who was elderly and immunocompromised, an at-home kit would just really give my family a lot more comfort. So I'd really like for us to see something like that. And the other thing with whoever we decide to go to, and you know, you are the expert, you'll talk to them. It felt like a lot of it, as you said, it's going to be streamlined, but I'd like to see early check-ins because there are a lot of cases, even when I was at one of the

Thai Viet Phan

events where the person gets to the front of the line after two hours and then finds out they're not eligible. And that's, you know, user error in some ways too, but I think we can do a better job with whoever we get with to make sure that they communicate throughout the day with new patients or residents looking to get services. And I do echo everyone's concerns regarding the vaccines but again I think the testing is really the first step and I do really like councilmember Becerra's thoughts on options to help residents quarantine and really because so many like my mom

Thai Viet Phan

lives in a house with a lot of people and so there it's really difficult to quarantine and so if there's some way for us to of the funds that we're looking at to help residents who are income unqualified but also maybe can show that they really do need support in helping to quarantine I think that would be a good idea too. Okay. That's all I didn't I guess I didn't have any questions.

Thank you council member. Mayor Pro Tempena Loza.

David Penaloza

Thank you Mr. Mayor Sarmiento. I definitely believe that we are moving in the right direction us as being the epicenter in Orange County, we should definitely be able to provide some kind of testing for our community. What that exactly looks like, I am not 100% sure. I don't, I'm not, at this point, I'm not too much concerned of who the contractor is, but who's gonna be more cost-effective to our, you know, city and who is gonna be more efficient in carrying out the testing sites, similar to what Councilwoman Pham said

David Penaloza

about those long lines. And, you know, me personally, my test was lost not once, but twice over the summer or since we started testing by the contractor we were using. So, you know, it's who's gonna be really be responsible about doing these tests and what's gonna be more cost-effective to us as a city. I know that the, the, I love the idea of at home kits, um, whether we could even look into, to having these at home kits, not necessarily, um, or have pickup areas, you know, right

David Penaloza

now I know that the County has these at home kits that you, you know, I actually just got one, have it right here. I took two days to arrive to my house, it's a little saliva kit, but, um, whether I know there's two types that they offer the nasal swab the at-home nasal swab and the saliva kit that if we were able to maybe look into purchasing some of those kits and having areas in our city like little pop-up events where we provide the kits for our residents and instructions on how to do them at home i think that would be a lot more cost effective than having an actual clinic

David Penaloza

pop-up like we've done in the past. I know there's many options available creatively that we can do.

David Penaloza

I'm fully aware that not everyone has modes of transportation in our city and fully aware that not everybody has medical insurance. I am supportive of the idea of where we do have the option to do third-party building, we should definitely do it. I know that I spoke to the city manager previously, my health, I know, and I'm also aware that not everybody has health insurance and, or a social security number in our city, which those are the residents that we should definitely be able to provide a test for. But I know that my insurance company went out of their way and sent me an email

David Penaloza

and said hey we're willing to cover every copay at zero cost to you for any COVID testing any COVID related treatment so I know that these health insurance companies are also stepping up so if there's a contractor out there city madam city manager that is willing to work in doing that third-party building so that it limits the cost for us and where we are able to provide it at zero cost to the residents that truly don't have means to pay for it or health insurance that would be beneficial for all of us in our community. I do believe that we should

David Penaloza

be creative about this and find ways where we could have our community tested but not just offer these tests but also make sure that we're educating our community about the CDC guidelines And what, you know, I know that just here in Santa Ana over the last two weeks, I've been very open about it. I tested positive for COVID mid-December. So I was out for most of the holidays.

David Penaloza

And I could hear in my quarantine that there were parties going on all around our neighborhood where I live in. I could hear the live bands every night. There was no parking. So people in our city are still out living their lives, having parties, having huge get togethers with a lot of people. And, you know, it defeats the purpose of having these tests available for our community. They get tested on a Friday, but on a Saturday they host a super spreader at their home. And the next day they receive a negative result on a Sunday and they just go about their lives. But that's not the point.

David Penaloza

You know, the point is to test and you quarantine for 14, 10 to 14 days, the day that you test. And so it's, there's a lot of things that we can do aside from testing is educating our public, offering that isolation for those residents that need it and looking into creative ways where we can build, do third party billing for those residents that have the means to provide a health insurance policy or a social security number. And like I said, I'm very aware that a lot of our residents don't have that.

David Penaloza

So that's provided for them at zero cost. But definitely like everything that's been said and supportive of having something out there and looking into pivoting towards vaccinating our community and having that accessible to our community as soon as it is accessible. I'm not sure what tier we're in right now, But when that time comes, we're ready to roll something out and get our community vaccinated. With that said, Madam City Manager, with the vaccinations, who would exactly handle that?

David Penaloza

Would it be the city, us in charge of making sure that the city acquire these vaccinations and then vaccinate our community? or would we rely on the county to set up a model within our cities, within our city to carry out

the vaccinations? Mayor Prochem, that's an awesome question, one that I don't know if I can fully answer, but my understanding is right now the rollout of the vaccinations are being controlled at the state level, and they are selecting who they are administering them to. They're doing that also based on what phase we're in and in the state we're in phase 1a which is only about 3 million people health care workers and those living in senior living assisted centers the federal government has actually contracted with a couple different drugstore companies to handle

the vaccination of those in senior living centers the rest of the money the vast might not money the the vast majority of the vaccinations have been distributed to health care agencies. So for our region, that would be the county of Orange and then also to the Pasadena has their own health care officer, Long Beach has there. So they would have received vaccinations as well. But a lot of those vaccinations with the first couple of distributions went directly to hospitals because of the phase that we're in. And unfortunately, the experience hasn't been going extremely well.

There have been anywhere from 20 to 40% of eligible people for vaccination that are refusing to receive it. And as well as just the overwhelming conditions at the hospitals right now, they're having a hard time taking the time to do the vaccination. So if I had a crystal ball, I would tell you our link to getting vaccinations should be set up a site. it would be via the county of Orange. I know the county's focused on their super sites right now, but they did promise city managers for those cities that have councils that want to set up something in their city that they were gonna create a model plan

of all the things that we would need. So I hope I answered the question.

David Penaloza

Yeah, I mean, I know that we had discussed about it briefly in the past and it's, you know, not, we're not, none of us are 100% sure what the county is doing. I know that if there is a way where we could start looking at not necessarily relying on the county, but maybe looking at private groups for vaccinations. I know that like the flu shot, for example, you walk by any Target pharmacy, CVS, Walgreens, and it's you know get your flu shot here and and i'm not sure where we are in in having these

David Penaloza

private companies offer vaccinations if that is even going to happen but look making sure that we're on top of uh of the the data that i know information is changing by the hour um so just as long as we're we're keeping an eye out and and and listening for everything that's happening and and what kind of rollout is happening as we move forward. I know that the incoming administration at the federal level has also talked about something where they wanna really push in expediting those vaccination rollouts because from what I've heard, they're behind and whatnot.

David Penaloza

So long as we say on top of it, Madam City Manager, to start looking at ways where we could get our community vaccinated, that be uh very much i'd be very much supportive of that thank you mayor pro tem the um if we could

definitely set up the site and do absolutely everything the only thing that we would be relying upon is the distribution of the actual vaccine itself one of the things that like you mentioned is changing on the hour is the state is the one that determines who is eligible to actually jab the arm so to speak or actually give the vaccination and it's a pretty limited population and the governor has been easing that a little bit that's really where i believe that there's there's a big speed bump on getting the vaccinations out is having enough individuals

that the state considers eligible to do the vaccination apart from that element i think we would be able to successfully overcome the other issues okay good that's good to know madam

David Penaloza

city manager thank you for that um and just for transparency i've thankfully uh tested negative twice i know i already mentioned that that i i did end up testing positive so i'm i'm i feel great uh thankfully the symptoms for me were very minor but you know it it's you know it it's I've definitely seen in my own family how it affects people very differently depending on your age and your past health issues going on with anybody. But thankfully, I'm all good now. So I know it's been hard for our community, but we're doing our best we can. And hopefully we have something soon.

David Penaloza

That's it, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you for those comments. And I'm glad you're feeling better, Mayor Pro Tem. I think I saw Councilmember Lopez's virtual hand raised. Was that intended from you, Councilmember?

Jessie Lopez

Yeah, I have a question for City Manager. Christine, can you let us know if the county is still offering their own isolation program?

No, I don't know the answer to that. I can certainly find out and inform all of you of what the answer is. My apologies. That's okay.

Jessie Lopez

Thank you.

Great. I see council member Becerra's hand up as well, his virtual hand, but if you don't mind, if I could make a couple of comments in between here, just so we can keep the conversation going. I had a couple of comments and questions as well. So thank you all for staff and members of the council for participating. And we certainly do have a lot to be proud of for what we did in the latter part of 2020 and providing testing, but also a lot of the ancillary resources that were so important that were provided by the CARES Act funding. The real unfortunate part about it was that that money

went away at the worst possible time, right? So we, you know, we ran out at the end of the year when things were spiking and when things were getting very bad. And so, you know, right now, we're entering a very, very bleak season, probably the worst month of the entire pandemic period, January is expected to be the worst month of this entire pandemic. So what's unfortunate is that we expected there to be a federal package that was just going to create a pause for us so we could continue doing what we've been doing.

And that didn't happen. And Congress funded a lot of things, but they didn't fund any direct monies for cities and local governments to provide additional testing and vaccines. So that means it's incumbent upon us to make a decision. Do we decide to wait until vaccines arrive and do nothing and allow others in a city that is the most impacted city in the county? So just as an example, or just to kind of make the numbers graphic, we make up 10% of the population in Orange County, but yet we have 20% of the cases and 20% of the deaths.

So that is a very very startling number where some zip codes are testing in the 25 percentile meaning one in four one in five people are infected and that is very stunning and that is very unsettling as well. So had we not been in this moment the worst month of the pandemic no resources provided from the federal government the number is just going through the roof and you know you know it being as difficult as having one of our own colleagues who, you know, who, uh, who tested positive as well. And I know many members of my family and friends as well. We don't need to go

too far. I think the degrees of separation are no longer three and four degrees. I think it's immediate. That circle is closing in on us very quickly. So I like what I heard from everybody. Um, I think that, um, if vaccines were here, I'd say, why are we going to test? Let's just start getting people you know vaccinated and let's get going but what um what my conversations with um with both the federal uh folks at the federal level folks at the local level and state level um you know and most recently my conversation with the supervisor for district one

uh they are not pivoting themselves they're going to continue testing because the demand is so high for that and because the need is so high they don't know when they'll be able to start vaccinating on a very broad scope to the general population. They're doing, you know, front line workers, law enforcement folks like, you know, police officers and fire and healthcare workers. But I think when I went on the website, when I was speaking to Supervisor Doe, you know, they're at least three or four weeks out from even considering going to the public

and non-essential workers. So that means that, you know, we're at least a month away in the worst month of this pandemic and you know uh i know providers like latino health access they've done a great job but i know they've had to make decisions as well they're testing three days in anaheim and only two days in santa anna so i know that i've been bombarded as probably many of you have have been asking where do we get tested where do we go you know where do i take my family you know i'm worried um and the questions about isolation are really valid i think that you know

once a person is tested and they test positive, going home and, you know, basically trans, you know, the transmission rate to the rest of their, you know, household is very high. And that's a danger. And that's something that we need to consider as well. But I do think that, you know, we're at a moment where we have to make a decision because if we wait for federal monies to come in and we, you know, wait for some assistance either by from the state or federal government, we're going to be into February, March, and, you know, there are going to be a lot of people whose

health care and whose concerns about, you know, testing positive are going to be delayed. And I think on this one, you know, health care delayed is health care denied right now. So, you know, I think that if Santa Ana weren't the epicenter of the county, then I'd say, yeah, there's no urgency right you know we can go ahead and wait this out but we are the epicenter and we are you know where um unfortunately where all the most of the essential workers are in the county and we just you know it just keeps spreading amongst us and it's a very very vicious cycle so my hope is that

i mean the good on the good news and we do have a partner in san jesus college that would provide logistically a venue for us to do a mini super site right we don't have anything as large as the Honda Center or the fairgrounds but we do have something like the college where they were doing about a thousand units of testing a day towards the end. I see that the super sites are still very busy. I don't think anybody is shying away from testing and saying I'd rather not test and let me go to vaccines. I think if anything what we're hoping to do and what I've heard is let's

test our folks and as vaccines start rolling in to the city well actually to the county because yeah they won't roll into roll into us directly unfortunately they're going to go to um you know the health care agency which is which is administered by the county so we won't get ours until they release them to us um you know i know a lot of people have called and say why can't you do what long beach is doing or why not why can't you do what pasadena is doing well they have their own health care directors and departments and you know we we don't so we have to

rely on the county which is tough for us because i think you know we've had this conversation i think we do have a city that's uniquely different than the rest of the 33 cities that we may warrant our own public health director or department that's a discussion for another day but i think that you know that's something for us to consider i just think we have to do something soon because if we don't then we're looking at the end of january and the numbers from christmas and new years haven't even started hitting and we're already at capacity at our hospitals so look

I'm just really concerned because this is what we were vested to do the feds just didn't come back and help us as we all expected we thought this was just going to be a temporary pause and we were going to continue doing the massive scale testing and ancillary services that we were providing and it just didn't come through so but what I did hear from all of you is that we want to do something and that's really heartening so um let's uh let me go back and just take a few last questions and comments from others i see uh council member viscera i'm not sure if anybody

else would like to address this but go ahead uh councilman thank you mr mayor and thank you for

Phil Bacerra

your comments um well i had a couple of follow-up questions i i think uh the comments from all my colleagues just sparked some more thoughts um that i wanted to uh further ask staff a couple things so So staff, how many residents took advantage of the quarantining option when we offered it in 2020?

I will have my assistant city manager answer the question on how many individuals took us up on our isolation assistance. And if you don't know it off the top of your head, I'll try to also pull it up, Stephen. Yeah, I don't know it off the top of my head. It was a couple of hundred. I know that, but if you remember, isolation assistance was for the healthy folks.

Phil Bacerra

Okay. So the folks that were ill stayed at home. So we were not offering quarantining to anybody

that tested positive? No, we weren't. We were offering quarantine to their family members to protect them to ensure it didn't spread within the household. It was my understanding that if

Phil Bacerra

somebody tested positive we were offering them the ability to isolate from the rest of the family

which we achieved by letting them be in the house alone and protecting their family members

Phil Bacerra

okay and so how much of the cares act funding did we spend on that effort in 2020

Stephen if you have it readily available if not I can pull it up no I'll work on it

if you want to move to a next question council member I will get you that the answer to that

Phil Bacerra

that previous question this one hopefully might be a little easier so so whatever quarantine Quarantining efforts that we could possibly pursue in 2021, would those efforts potentially be reimbursable by FEMA?

You know, I don't know if that would be an eligible expenditure to be reimbursed by FEMA, and FEMA does only reimburse at a 75% rate.

Phil Bacerra

Well, 75% is still better than zero. So I like those numbers. And then a couple more questions. So who would the county have operate the vaccination distribution sites in Santa Ana? Would it be the county themselves? In other words, to use the example Santa Ana College, would it be county staff and infrastructure operating the site at Santa Ana? Or would they insist that the city somehow help with the operation of the site?

So currently the county has deployed what they call Operation Independence, and it's a goal to have everyone that's willing to take the vaccination be vaccinated by July 4th. Their first effort is five super sites that they would be taking the lead on. Unfortunately, I'm not aware that there's one of those sites planned in our city. However, they would be taking the lead on those. They have asked for cities to step up and assist with those super sites. But as an alternative, they have discussed that if there are cities out there that want to open up their own,

they would give us a model as to everything that you would need to do and provide the vaccinations to the extent they have the vaccinations. And so it could be city run. And obviously we would have to procure the appropriate staffing levels of those that are authorized by the state to provide the vaccination. But the city certainly is capable of logistics, such as, you know, traffic control and the site and different supplies that are needed. But right now, as of this morning, the county did indicate they're sticking their efforts into the five super sites.

But in addition to that, you do have health care providers that are receiving their own distribution as well. So I don't know what's on the horizon for potential partnerships or contracts with pharmacies. I know the federal government went that route with senior living centers directly. The county is working on an agreement with Albertsons to possibly use them as a distribution site, which I believe we only have one Albertsons in our city. So that's why I do think if we're able to do it, we should explore trying to get a local vaccination site.

Phil Bacerra

Okay, no, I appreciate that. And, you know, one thing that I've been reading out there is that OCFA would be very instrumental in any county efforts when it comes to distributing the vaccine. And given that we utilize OCFA as our fire services agency, would that put us at an advantage then by virtue of the fact that we are utilizing the entity that would be mostly responsible for helping to coordinate that distribution effort?

OCFA right now is collaborating with the county and they're the ones that are helping develop the model vaccination site. I do know that with the people that are authorized to do the vaccination, it's doctors, it's nurses, it's pharmacists, and it's paramedics. Unfortunately, as you can imagine, those types of technical people are extremely busy doing other things. So the governor had, I believe he has included EMTs and potentially dentists. So I'm not sure if we pulled resources from our fire stations that are staffed through OCFA to pull EMTs off.

It would more than likely have to be on overtime to do that. I'm hopeful that they will loosen the restrictions on who's able to administer it. You know, we do have an excellent college in our city. I believe they have over 200 nursing students that, personally, I would take a jab in my arm from a nurse, probably more than a dentist, but my daughter is a nurse, so I might be showing preferential treatment. that that's what I know as of today councilman and so so did we ever find

Phil Bacerra

out how much of the cares act funding we spent on quarantining

no I'm sorry I was talking give me one more minute do you have any other questions

Steve Mendoza did you Christine I have the answer on that go ahead 207 people that were among 81 families

Phil Bacerra

and 120,000 dollars 120,000 okay thank you so so I think what I'm what I would like to see is I I really believe that with the testing that you know we need to do something more than just testing because sometimes I think we're confusing testing with actually helping a family or helping a person as far as get through it and I think if we really want to be pragmatic and proactive you we already have testing options available within our city so i just because we have such scarce resources especially going in because of the pandemics impact to our local economy i am being

Phil Bacerra

a little more scrutinizing i mean not that i wouldn't anyways but i want to really just bring about the attention that we don't want to duplicate efforts and if we do have partners at the county and other places that are providing testing i would ask us that if we're looking to um give direction to our city manager and staff to um have any allocation towards this effort i hope that the effort would also include resources for quarantining as well i think that's something that we need to really look at because if a person who lives in a place with five other people comes home that's

Phil Bacerra

tested positive that that doesn't do anything to the situation i mean they're still going to spread it but at least if they get tested in time and they're able to know in time before they spread it to the others then the quarantining really makes a difference and i think that's where we're going to actually help people not spread it just letting people know that they have covid doesn't do anything especially given some of the the residential situations that we have in our city So I just really strongly advocate that we don't duplicate the efforts and that we coordinate.

Phil Bacerra

And I would support an allocation that really looked at how we can coordinate with existing providers, such as who's providing it for the county and coordinating with the six existing sites that are in Santa Ana today that are offering testing, and that we have some sort of provision for quarantining. and if city staff would follow up on whether that could qualify as reimbursable under FEMA even if

it's at the three-quarter threshold great thanks for that comment I think I see council member Hernandez's hand raised before I give the floor to council member Hernandez madam city manager do you know on these other sites these other clinics I guess that offer or these non-profits that are offering testing are they considered large super sites to the scale or not super sites but to the scale that we were providing testing um you know when we were up and running uh mayor

i i don't believe so i think probably the the closest one which was similar to ours would be latino health access where they were going to different locations and they had a higher number of processed a day. Those other locations are community clinics. Okay, got it. And so, you know,

and that's what I recall as well, and I know Latino Health Access, our conversations with them is they've reduced the number of days that they are spending in Santa Ana to two. So they're only here two days out of the week. And that's, you know, from the number of requests that we had, we had towards the end, about a thousand people testing a day. That's a lot to condense in the two days even with the other small clinics and other small community non-profits so let me go ahead and give the Florida council member Hernandez

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

thank you mayor Sarmiento miss city manager I wanted to ask a question around the bidding process I know that we would potentially be entering negotiations with different providers I received an email as we're in this meeting from St. Jude Laboratory, which is a molecular diagnostic laboratory. And I know that this organization had offered to provide some services at no charge. I'm going to go ahead and share this information with you. I think that

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

if we can maximize service providers, I know that there's some very generous laboratories that be willing to do that i think that's also something that we should integrate into that plan is maximizing those relationships and having that community-based support i i think it's certainly something that we should explore and and also a second question is what is the process going to look like for is there an rfp process that we're going to have what What does the application process consist of?

So I envisioned it, unless you guys direct me otherwise, similar to how we did the CARES money. When we initially received the CARES money, you blessed the different buckets for the different areas of focus, whether it was assistance programs, rental assistance, personal protective equipment. And then I did have the authority to go and procure what I needed to do to satisfy those. This isn't really a formal invitation to forbid. It's more of a request for proposal since it is, quality is of importance as well along with cost. How we've done it in the past is we called around

because quite frankly there aren't a lot of organizations that can come in and do testing at the volume that we were doing. But to the extent anybody reaches out to you, please, I will definitely research them. It sounds like that they might be offering just laboratory services. I don't know if they actually do the testing component itself, but any information you want to send my way, we definitely will vet it. We did this when we received the CARES dollars through our EOC to try to vet what individuals and entities out there are capable of doing this

work. So it's not formal. I'm not advertising in a newspaper or anything like that, unless you you do direct me to do that but it's it's more been an informal process because it is a pretty

small pool thank you miss city manager great thank you for that question council members so i think we've i don't see any other virtual hands raised but i guess what staff recommendation is to go ahead and authorize you madam city manager to negotiate on our behalf because this is also an urgency item you know there is there is obviously some time set time sensitivity to this if not we would procure it in a normal way and we'd go out and spend a few months and circulate it and come back but we

realize that there are real lives at risk so you know I know that the way you've broken it up for us is that 500 000 of that comes from community development block grant money that we already have so it's not general fund money um but the 250 000 in addition is reserve policy policy money so uh that is obviously you know those reserves were intended and i remember when we you know way back in councils before when we set those fund funds aside were for um fiscal emergencies but really any emergency right and that's kind of where we are right now um in in

that moment uh so i think that 250 000 um of uh reserve money and correct me if i'm wrong but i think we have in our reserve policy somewhere near 40 million is that what what the amount is or

what's the amount in our reserve uh fund balance so what with the closure of fiscal year 1920 we did close the year with more money going into the reserve than we had anticipated. So the $250,000 would be taken from unrestricted reserves. So it would wholly preserve your reserves that you require to have on hand. Just as a reminder, the city requires 16.67% of annual recurring revenue to be untouched. and we do have that fully intact. And then more recently under the leadership of the council,

you established an economic uncertainty reserve at 1%. That would still remain fully intact. So it would be based on our projections and you'll learn a lot more as we bring forward the mid-year budget update and the results of last year's financial results. We would not be dipping into any of those restricted reserves for the 250.

Great. And what I recall is in the past, I know we spent this much money on vehicles, right? So, I certainly think that this is a good allocation of funds because, you know, it is so, it is so, you know, urgent, immediate, and necessary. And it really is taking care of, you know, the health, the lives of our residents. And I like the idea of having a blend of different approaches here. if take-home tests are available maybe at the site. I like the idea of a central site, maybe a mini super site for Santa Ana, because what's been really difficult is when people ask,

why does Costa Mesa and Anaheim have large super sites and Santa Ana doesn't when you guys have the highest rates, when one in four of your folks are testing positive? And so it's a tough question for us to, I think, answer. And, you know, it's a long answer, right? Because you have to say, well, we don't have logistically those large venues. But nonetheless, I think what the question calls for is that we have to have some response, even if it is a proportionately less response, but something that's going to be responsive to our residents.

And so I like the idea of maybe this being a not to exceed as well, because if let's say by some miracle, which I don't think that is going to happen, that we're going to have vaccines drop in our lap, you know, in the next few weeks. I just see this as a bridge out of January, which is going to be a horrendous month. That's all I see this as is really just something to get us through this really difficult moment. And then I think we transition seriously to vaccines. I know that the vaccines are going to go through the county. That's just the way the state has it structured right now.

But I've been in discussions with the other mayors from the 13 large cities. And one of our primary advocacy points is going to be to have direct vaccines coming to the 13 largest cities in the state. So we can administer those directly. That is a big ask. I don't know if it'll be, you know, if it'll be received well. But nonetheless, it's something that I think all of us on that call that I was on last night said that we were going to be pushing for. So I'll go ahead and, you know, I think all the comments that were made were really, really good in that we're blending, you know, a site that we have, you know, at Santa Ana College.

And I think that, you know, people recognize as a trusted site. We have a partner there that's willing to go ahead and allow us to use that. while at the same time I think clinic 360 if I'm not mistaken Madam City Manager said they could even do mobile sites in addition to that so maybe go into those zip codes and those neighborhoods that are really really hard hit and maybe do something on site but have you know take-home tests available and and you know to the extent that there are you know funds available for isolating you know that would be great as well. I just know that we're dealing with a limit. I mean, we had $28 million

to work with. We're now working with $750,000. So, you know, that is a very, very small amount. But again, the way, you know, we're looking at this, or at least I'm looking at this, and I've heard from others, is just get us through January, because it's just going to be such a horrendous moment for us. And, you know, we just don't want to be, you know, without any large enough proportionate um resource for our residents to access and asking them to go to anaheim or costa mesa for some of them is just very very difficult and challenging so um in any event i'll go ahead

and if there's a uh a motion to uh you know support the staff recommendation i'll go ahead

Phil Bacerra

and entertain entertain that at this moment mr mayor um i i would be open to supporting the staff recommendation with one modification and that would be to allocate a set amount. So since I think what we heard on the call was a little over 100,000 for calendar year 2020 was spent on quarantine efforts, I would like to ask that my colleagues support us allocating 50,000 through let's call it June, assuming that we will have the vaccine being distributed by that point but we can revisit it at that point but not to exceed amount of 50 000

Phil Bacerra

through june uh dedicated to uh quarantine efforts and if that was supported that'd be my motion

along with the rest of staff's recommendation and just for clarity i like that motion for clarity for staff and and you know your question and i think mayor pro tem's question kind of got me thinking I always thought that the isolation at the hotel was for those that were tested positive right because it made more sense to me that you you know you sort of segregate the you know the family member that's positive but maybe that's something you can research for us Madam City Manager maybe that's an easier thing than moving an entire family to a you know to a hotel to isolate

maybe moving the individual that did test positive might be logistically easier yeah certainly I know

from just a couple of the stories of individuals we assisted some of the hotel partners were concerned with having positive individuals in their hotel and then some of the the individuals that were tested positive they wanted to be in the comfort of their home so there's there's asking once on both sides but we can certainly explore that with the the modification i do want to point out that because we have a blend of cdbg and general funds um to the extent i'll maximize the use of cdbg but it must meet the criteria for use of the dollars and then the rest will

definitely have to be expended from the general fund portion christine i would ask that if you

Phil Bacerra

could also come back to the council maybe just even just a an email to us to let us know from your research if the quarantine efforts are fema eligible and if it does then that makes everybody's

life a lot easier good point so there's a motion by council member becerra and i think um madam city attorney you probably wrote that down or the clerk um is there i see a hand raised by mayor pro

David Penaloza

tem mayor pro tem thank you mr mayor um i i what council member becerra said got me thinking about the isolation and even if it's um because i know that cdbg monies that we're using uh madam city manager are restricted to income based um residents i assuming that the residents that would seek isolation are those residents that are living you know five six to a one bedroom apartment or more or two families to a single family home, which to me, you know, that it shows that they're

David Penaloza

low income. I mean, if you have cramped, if you're living in cramped conditions with multiple family members, you know, it's because you got to make ends meet and they can't afford something else. So I feel like there could probably be some loophole in that restriction of CDBG where we could say well we used it to house um low-income families uh that that tested positive or whatnot so i think there's there's room there where we could work on something like that towards that um maybe it's something that could come back to us at the 19th city council meeting

David Penaloza

um i'm not sure logistically just see if we we could find something else um just a thought but

but I am supportive of something like that. Okay, I believe I understand the request. I first have to confirm that we have CDBG money that can be used for that nature since the amount that we are dipping into is earmarked for testing and vaccinations. So I will first check that. I will confirm the FEMA eligibility and then certainly report back to you. Okay, thank you, Madam City

David Penaloza

manager then as you were speaking i started thinking would we be able to use any uh housing dollars that we might have any uh in new fees that were paid i mean i know that's for affordable housing but any housing monies under i guess that would be cda uh under stephen mendoza's department that we could use towards finding rooms for isolation certainly if we find out that the cdbg

dollars are not eligible for that activity um we will start to look at those other buckets um before

we would shift again to the general fund okay thank you great so uh mayor pro tem was that a second or was that just adding to the motion oh yeah i'll second the the motion so it's to go with

David Penaloza

staff's recommendation but also try to find um fifty thousand dollars give or take from here to june right uh councilmember becerra for additional isolation rooms uh for families right right right

and then the uh you know finding out if fema if it's eligible for the uh right yeah right okay great thank you for those clarifications those were good i see uh councilmember fan has her real

Thai Viet Phan

hand up yeah i actually couldn't find the button so anyway so just for clarification for myself i heard it as council member sarah asking that of the 750 total out of the 250 if we cannot get fema reimbursement or cdbg cannot be used for quarantining assistance that 50 000 of the general fund dollars of the 250 000 are earmarked for quarantining services be made available for quarantine because there's a possibility to expand it yes so it's not an additional to uh 50 000.

Phil Bacerra

no it's not an additional this would be of what we're allocating per staff's recommendation okay

David Penaloza

that was all thank you okay that that that's i was under the the first impression uh councilwoman Pam, so thank you for that.

Thai Viet Phan

Yeah, I was like, wait, I think we're talking about different things.

David Penaloza

My second still stands.

All right, which means that we're going to have to look for a vendor that's very cost effective. So, in any event, any other questions or comments from the council?

Okay, seeing none, Madam Clerk, if you don't mind calling roll.

yes council member Becerra yes council member Hernandez yes council member Lopez yes council member Mendoza yes council member fan yes mayor pro temp and Elosa yes and mayor Sarmiento yes

Yes, thank you for that everybody. I think as somebody said, this was important. This is important and it's also for me a real privilege to serve with others who care so deeply about our residents because we could have ignored this as some have and we didn't. And we know it's difficult, we know it's not easy, we know that we have to be disciplined with our expenses but this is one that I think is very important again it's not this you know massive amount but it is something that will give some comfort hopefully to many of our residents and

about that we should all feel good about so I know it's not on the on the agenda on this special meetings agenda but do we madam city manager do you have any closing remarks or any

just just a reminder sir we do have a hold on your calendars for a council planning retreat that i'm looking forward to and more than likely we will have an outside facilitator that will help guide your discussions as we try to coalesce our priorities for the upcoming year

great thank you and one last thing i remember just so as your as your negotiations with the vendor go just go ahead and you know obviously you know advise the council or inform the council once that's done and hopefully the sooner the better um you know obviously like i think all of us said to to a person the immediacy of this is so important it's so critical but the good thing is that i think you have a couple of leads already and a couple of options that you're already pursuing so i'll go ahead and just um if anybody has any other you know closing remarks to make

rather than going round robin just you know raise your hand uh mayor pro tem

Mayor Pro Tempena Losa is your hand raised.

Any, any other takers anybody else want to make a council member fan.

Thai Viet Phan

Yes, for anyone else who's watching out there I just wanted to share that and I asked for permission but the mayor release of viejo Tiffany Ackley shared a very personal story about her family being affected by COVID. And I just wanted to share this with the public so that we all remember to stay safe. Her mother, who's 77, was taken to the hospital via EMT. But they went to three different hospitals. They had to call three different hospitals because there were no hospital beds for her. COVID is so real. It's running rampant in our community. And we need to avoid family gatherings.

Thai Viet Phan

That means birthdays, lunches, wedding anniversaries, whatever it is, we have to avoid it because that is how COVID is being spread in our communities and there are not enough resources to go around. We are doing the best that we can, but until Congress does something to give local agencies and individuals more resources, we're doing the best that we can. so we need everyone to help. I don't want any of our residents to be the one on the stretcher, on the sidewalk, waiting for hours to get an ICU bed, but it's already happening.

Thai Viet Phan

Chalk Fullerton has military style tents out because they don't have enough space. So once again, I just hope that anybody who can, please stay home unless you absolutely have to go anywhere, and please stay safe and take care of yourself and your families thanks thank you for those words

councilmember fan i think that all of us are just stunned by some of what we're seeing and some of what we're you know hearing from our neighbors and friends and you know our city and

David Penaloza

others mayor pro temp thank you mr mayor and sorry about that i'm trying to multitask at work and a phone call came in right as I was trying to speak.

David Penaloza

But I wanted to take this opportunity

David Penaloza

to briefly discuss the events that happened yesterday. From, I'm sure we're all aware there was a domestic terrorist attack at our United States Capitol. And I, you know, it's just, it was the most heartbreaking and distraughtful thing to see. that I had ever seen personally in my life to see our elected officials across the country under attack at our United States Capitol. And it was very frustrating to see and heartbreaking and shame on the United States president, shame on the United States Capitol Police,

David Penaloza

shame on the perpetrators that led this. And it was disgusting. And I wanted, I know I briefly spoke with the city attorney yesterday and the mayor earlier today about possibly bringing forward a resolution condemning the events that happened yesterday in our capital and condemning the president, you know, for enabling it and not condoning it. and wanted to see if it was possible and if my colleagues would entertain the idea of having a

David Penaloza

additional special city council meeting given that our next city council meeting is until January 19th which is the day before the inauguration where I would thought about bringing an 85 item forward but that would put us out to the first meeting in February so I figured if my colleagues would entertained the idea of having a special, another special meeting where we could bring forward a resolution condemning the events that happened yesterday for either tomorrow or possibly Monday. And that's basically it is having a additional special meeting where we would bring forward a resolution that

David Penaloza

would show a united effort on behalf of our city that was constantly, you know, cities like ours were constantly under attack by the administration over the last four years and we should you know send the strong message that we're against and condemn what happened yesterday so not sure

Mayor Proulx, I think you glitched there for a little bit, but we caught the majority of you. Okay. Very good.

David Penaloza

So, well, no, I was just basically saying if, if not sure if my colleagues wanted to chime in or you, Mr. Mayor or the city attorney on, on what we can and cannot do today, or at a special city council meeting, if my colleagues would be interested for one tomorrow or Monday, where we could address this and vote on the resolution, Mr. Mayor or Madam city attorney.

Oh, I was just going to make a suggestion. Mayor Pro Tem, if he's like, as staff can work at preparing a resolution denouncing the activities at the Capitol and have it for you at your meeting on the 19th. I don't know if if it's time sensitive, but we could certainly proceed with preparing that and bringing it forward for your consideration on the 19th.

David Penaloza

Thank you for that Madam city manager. I would, I would think that it is time sensitive. I know that there's conversations about, about both houses invoking the 25th amendment, which I feel that should be done. And I'm personally supportive of that. And I feel like that's something that could be included in the, again, I'm still want to hear from of my colleagues what they would think. But I think the sooner we could get something out there for the public to see that the city of Santa Ana, you know, is strongly against this,

David Penaloza

what would be better? If my colleagues would like to see it on the 19th, then that's fine. But those are my thoughts.

Great, thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. And I was very, I still am sort of, I'm not in shock because it didn't surprise me, But it was just really stunning to see and have it play out. So yeah, I think whatever we can do to condemn behavior like that is always important. But I see Madam City Attorney's hand up and I know she wants to make a couple comments.

Sonia R. Carvalho

Yeah, Mayor, if I may, and it's mostly just because I want to make sure that we stay within the confines of the Brown Act. When our Mayor Pro Tem asked me about this, the 19th was something we discussed. He had some concerns about it, you know, being, needing immediate attention. The Brown Act says that you can add emergency items to an agenda, but you cannot do that for a special meeting. So, you know, because this is a special meeting, we couldn't add it today. So, you know, if the 19th is not satisfactory, the only option is to call a special meeting, but we can't take a vote on it today.

Sonia R. Carvalho

It would either have to be that he's raised the issue. you all have generally heard of his request and either you as the mayor under the Brown Act can call another special meeting or four of you would have to notify the city clerk that you would like a special meeting. I just want to make sure that we're not going to take any vote this afternoon

since it's not an item that's on the agenda. Understood. Thank you for that. I know that rule with the special meetings where you can't do an emergency item there, you know, we could have had done it had it been a regular meeting, unfortunately, no, we can't do it at this one, but let me get, I mean, I know that I am very supportive of us being vocal on issues like this, but let me hear from others. I see council member Mendoza's hand raised.

David Penaloza

Mr. Mayor, really quick, I'm sorry, councilwoman Mendoza, but just before we get more people speaking, Madam city attorney, I just want to make sure that we're,

David Penaloza

because I don't want this to turn into a discussion now that you you brought up the

Sonia R. Carvalho

brown neck so please interject if yeah yeah I would say that rather than get into the issues maybe if people do you want to want to have a comment what they can just say to the mayor is yes mayor we'd be willing to participate in a special meeting or not but yeah we we need not have a conversation about the issues themselves because it's not on the agenda very good understood

council member mendoza yes uh first thought yes uh i would support council member um mayor pro tem's um request for the proclamation and then um secondly i i wanted to ask our city manager since the stay at home order has been extended is the the moratorium for the street sweeping tickets also extended just so that i have that for my own personal knowledge and for my

constituents to know um yes we did do an extension to the street sweeping citations okay very good

Thank you. Those are my only two comments. Thank you.

Thank you, councilman. Councilmember Becerra.

Phil Bacerra

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just, again, want to thank all my colleagues for today and our efforts to really help our community. In regards to our colleagues' request for a special meeting, I would be open to it, but I would just offer that. I think the best statement that we gave the current president was on election day. And I think that statement was not close. It was very resounding. It actually made the impact that I think we all wanted to see. So with that, I think that's where, you know, when it comes to resolutions like this,

Phil Bacerra

I think it's important as the county seat, as the capital of this county, that we should be focal, especially when it pertains to things that directly impact us. I think that unfortunately the current occupant of the office is ready to listen to the great city of Santa Ana in making his decisions. But having said that, I would be open if my colleagues insisted. But I do believe that if we don't, I feel very comfortable that we have given the statement as a collective city. with that again thank you everybody and let's have a good evening thank you councilman any other

Thai Viet Phan

comments from members of the council i just wanted to say i'm definitely open to having a special

meeting on this matter thank you great so i i you know i think all of us you know most of us said that you know we're willing to do a special meeting not to get into the substance or merits of the discussion obviously because it's not before us but we're looking at more scheduling um and whether you know folks would be open so maybe what we could do at this point um is contact the clerk and um you know let let the clerk know your availability i know city hall is closed tomorrow and maybe what can happen is um you know we we just figure out a good time

you know to do it if what it makes yeah if that makes sense so mayor pro tem I

David Penaloza

think your hand is raised again yes thank you mr. mayor before we end the meeting I just wanted to since we did discuss it or mention it multiple times about the counties at home kits testing kits for our community I wanted to to remind the public, whoever's listening of the website and hopefully staff could put something out again. I know we have, but if we could frequently remind our residents of where they could get these county at home kits, that'd be great.

David Penaloza

But the website is occovid19.ochealthinfo.com. And that's the site where you could get either the at-home saliva collection kit or the nasal swab kit so whoever can whoever can do that please do so um request one keep it for a rainy day uh it's important that we we stay on top of

this as a community but thank you great thank you everybody um thank you for the time this afternoon i think there was there was good work done and uh we'll we're adjourned till the next special meeting or the next regular meeting we'll figure that one out but uh thank you everybody have a

great afternoon we're adjourned all right thank you