Read the September 15 meeting.

to be recorded. It's recording. Mayor, the meeting is being recorded.

Why don't you go ahead and do roll call and make sure we have a quorum?

Councilmember Becerra?

Here.

Councilmember Mendoza? Here. Councilmember Peñalosa?

David PenalozaItem —

Present.

Councilmember Sarmiento?

David PenalozaItem —

Here.

Councilmember Solorio?

Here.

Mayor Pro Tempe Vegas? Here. Mayor Pulido.

Here. So we have a quorum.

Yes.

Let me, do you want to announce the rules for speaking this evening, and then we'll go on with our meeting?

Mayor, I'm sorry, I could not hear you. Could you repeat that?

Yes, do you want to let listeners know what the protocol is for calling in?

Yes, thank you.

Callers who, if you would like to make a comment during the meeting on an agenda or non-agenda items, with the exception of public hearing items, and have not already done so, you may take the time now to call. Please do not call to only listen to the meeting. To listen only, you may go to youtube.com slash Santa Anna Library slash videos or Spectrum Channel 3 or AT&T U-verse Channel 99. The public still has time to join the speaker queue once a caller has entered the meeting that will be placed in hold and their microphone will be muted.

In accordance with the council procedures, calls will not be accepted after the public comment session begins. Callers will be prompted to speak in the order received, and I will announce the last three digits of your phone number to inform you that you have been unmuted. Callers will need to dial star six to speak when prompted or tap on the unmute button or the microphone icon on your device and proceed with your comment. Callers will have three minutes to speak. For the record, the callers encourage but not require to provide their name and neighborhood or city if they're not from Santa Ana of residence. Thank you.

Mayor. Thank you for that. I now would like to request that we all stand, please, for the Pledge of Allegiance. So wherever you are, if you can, please stand and repeat after me. Ready? Begin. I pledge 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 for that. Madam Clerk, do we have our chaplain on the line for our invocation?

Yes, we do.

yes dave mitchell is here can you hear me yes yes go ahead please dave all right let me pray our father god as we come to you on this evening we know that we have many issues that surround us father i pray for those that are in the midst of the fire destruction that is ravaging our state as well as others and for those who are on the front lines fighting that fire i pray for safety and skill as they carry out their work. I pray, Father, for those being affected by the COVID-19. Father, for those who are sick and those that need your healing, for those that are in

social isolation. I pray, Father, for parents and students that would love to be back in the classroom to resume the kind of socialization education that they have always desired and need. Pray for those that have lost jobs, those who have lost employment, God, that you would provide for them and lord that you would be with us in the midst of so much divide racial divide and reconciliation that we need god that you would speak into the midst of each of our hearts lord that we would unite together regardless of our background or education our social standing or

ethnic origin father guide us and give us the strength that we would be united and i pray for our first responders for our police and our fire personnel right here in the city of santa anna god that you would unite us and help us to be supportive of these men and women who put their lives on the line each day and have to make split second decisions that father many of us can never fully appreciate but i pray that they would know that we appreciate them you would guide them with skill and wisdom in those decisions and in their carrying out of their law enforcement duties lord

be with them and care for them that they would act appropriately as well father we pray for the healing that is needed for these two deputies that were shot just last night and another federal agent in phoenix this afternoon god we pray that you would bring peace and that those that are prone to that violence god that you would speak into their hearts the change that is needed and that you would guide our leaders lord our city council members our mayor thank you for these men and women and the sacrifice and their efforts to lead our city lord give them great skill give them

wisdom give them unity and when there's disagreement lord may they still rally together for the betterment of our community that we will be a stronger more prosperous and more peaceful community as well and in this election year god guide us in the decisions that we make that we would vote with intelligence and knowledge and understanding of what that vote means so in this meeting tonight may your grace your mercy and your wisdom be evident as the time is spent and invested in the work of our city thank you for all these who lead us in jesus name i pray amen

Thank you for that. Now, first, I would like to announce for folks listening and waiting for item 60D, I just want to announce that at the request of staff, item 60D has been continued for two weeks. And now let me go to the next item, which I think is Council Member Peñaloza. I believe you have a presentation, Council Member.

David PenalozaItem —

yes mr mayor thank you so much uh good evening everybody this is councilmember peña loza with the proclamation to recognize uh hispanic heritage month uh usually uh this proclamations are presented to a certain organization of our choice that are very active in our community in relation to the proclamation, but due to COVID and the inability to meet in person, I'd like to present this to all the residents of our city, the residents of Santa Ana. In 1968, Congress authorized

David PenalozaItem —

the president to issue a proclamation designating National Hispanic Heritage Week. In 1988, the observance was expanded to a 30-day period beginning September 15th and ending on October 15th. September 15th, the first day of observation of Hispanic Heritage Month, is a historically significant day that marks the anniversary of independence of five Latin American countries. Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Mexico and Chile also celebrate their independence during the 30-day period, Mexico's being tomorrow. National Hispanic Heritage

David PenalozaItem —

Month serves as a time to recognize, honor, and celebrate the significant contributions the Hispanic community has made to commercial, cultural, arts, and educational communities in the United States. The Hispanic population constitutes 18.5% of the United States total population and nearly 80% here in Santa Ana, making it the largest ethnic or racial group in not only our city, but also the country. Today, we recognize Hispanic Heritage Month and encourage all residents to honor and acknowledge the cultures and traditions of the Hispanic community.

David PenalozaItem —

And normally, traditionally, as far as I can remember, we'd be celebrating right now out in our streets, in downtown, sometime this weekend, or the last Fiestas Patrias, unfortunately because of the pandemic that all for obvious reasons had to be canceled so it was important for me to bring this proclamation forward to recognize it because we shouldn't forget about it i mean i know that soon we'll be having parades again and celebrating hopefully next year but in the meantime we can't so i wanted to bring this forward and uh you know just remind everybody

David PenalozaItem —

that Santa Ana there is so full of culture and vibrant people and and and brilliant brilliant communities that provide and and give so much to our country to our city and sacrificed a lot you know when when they first came to this country my mom you know was one of them she came here with my dad uh with nothing you know very young from the city of guerrero mexico and were able to establish and work hard and establish roots in this country. And, you know, when I think about it, you know, a young 18-year-old woman left her entire world behind

David PenalozaItem —

to make sure that her, you know, descendants could one day, you know, run for public office. You know, there aren't many countries in the world where that's possible. And my mom was able to do it. And I'm forever grateful for their sacrifice and the sacrifice that many, many residents in our community share and have also gone through the same life challenges. So with that said, I'll turn it over to any of my colleagues if they want to mention anything, and that is it.

Thank you. Comments from council members?

If not, let me thank you, Council Member Peniel Loza, for bringing this item up. It's very, very important, and I thank you. I now would like to take something out of order at the request of staff. I know we have a lot of people waiting for item 65B, I believe it is. It's a feasibility setting on our parts, and I'd like to turn it over to our city manager at this time.

I'm sorry I believe you'd want to take public comments before you start the agenda items

all right if you wanted I thought you wanted the other one early I was wanting to oh thank you I do like anything any public comment on 65B as in boy

we do mayor um there are speakers ready to provide Mr. Mayor

Phil BacerraItem —

i'm sorry mr mayor this is are aren't we going to take public comment uh cumulatively not uh

item by item unless it's something that we were but i had a request from staff to try to go early on 65b so i was trying to speed it up but if staff can wait let's just go through all public comment and then we'll go to 65b after that go ahead madam clerk thank you mayor there are

Before speakers ready to provide their comments and before muting callers in the order received, I will report out following summary of emails provided today. So I have 12A, one Santa Ana resident made a comment, steps need to be taken to prevent gentrification. One Santa Ana business owner was in support and one residency not disclosed in opposition of 12A. 20B, one Santa Ana resident and one not disclosed is in opposition. 20C, one Santa Ana resident in opposition. 25B, one Santa Ana resident in support.

60A, one Santa Ana resident in opposition of the project. 60B, two Santa Ana residents opposing the ordinance, four did not disclose residency. and in opposition of ordinance. 60C, two Santa Ana residents in opposition. 60D, one request for rescinding, two striking the section of the resolution, and three striking the inaccurate and unsupported proposed finding of section one. 65A, two Santa Ana residents support to establish the police oversight commission. and non-agenda comments.

Two Santa Ana residents and one residency not disclosed in support of the Community Choice Energy JPA with City of Irvine. Three residency not disclosed vote no on Prop 16. And one residency not disclosed comment on an article in LA Time regarding toxic lead in Santa Ana soil. And that is all the comments that we received by email.

caller with the last three numbers 435 please dial star six to speak or tap on the unmute button or your microphone icon on your device and proceed with your

comment you have three minutes to speak yeah hi my name is Jonathan mayor I'm the senior general manager for main place malls I appreciate you let me speak tonight um uh if you're not aware i'm also on the chamber of commerce for santa anna's board of directors and i am the co-chair of st anna's economic development council um i wanted to speak tonight um in um in support of agenda item 12a it's the proposed tourism and marketing district i think there's going to be um you know this it's important to note on this one um that there's

there's no expense to the city or to the residents of Santa Ana. However, I think, um, you know, on the economic development council, as a business leader in Santa Ana, I think we all can see the value of, of establishing this district, um, to benefit the image of the city, um, citywide. Um, uh, basically, uh, travel to Santa Ana is going to be able to be dedicated to getting the word out about all the great things the city has to offer. It's going to be able to hire a dedicated team of tourism and marketing professionals that will be hired to really create Santa Ana as a

tourism destination. But in the process, we'll finally be able to have a positive messaging about all the reasons to visit Santa Ana. And we'll be able to celebrate the rich culture and diversity of our city, the arts, we'll be able to highlight where people can shop, dine, and play in Santa Ana, and of course, where to stay in Santa Ana. I believe residents and businesses throughout the city will benefit from these efforts while we highlight why people should come to stay here in Santa Ana and we definitely appreciate your support of this important

initiative. Thank you. Thank you. Caller with the last three numbers 994 please dial star six to speak or select unmute or microphone icon on your device you have three minutes.

Mr. Mayor and members of the council Dave Elliott president CEO of your Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce I appreciate the opportunity to address you tonight I'm here to just to support 12a my colleague Jonathan couldn't have said it better I would agree with all that he had said about the importance of establishing the Santa Ana tourism marketing district for the past two plus years several of us serving as a steering committee out of our economic development council have been worked very very hard to get us to a point today

to bring this resolution before you in consideration of establishing on the Santa Ana tourism marketing district I'm supporting this I've been involved with it like I said for over two years myself I believe our business community supports this this will be a great opportunity for us to expand our business development or economic development programs throughout Santa Ana to not just specifically deal with our hotels that's a big part of it but also that will market and share the different assets that we have here

in Santa Ana with the world per se or at least the region that kind of thing so I just wanted to come on online tonight to just let you know that from the chamber's perspective and my perspective as the president's ceo we support 12a and we hope that you will support it and moving forward this agenda to establish the san anna tourism marketing district thank you

thank you caller with the last three numbers 971 please dial star six to speak when prompted or tap on the unmute button or the microphone icon on your device. You may proceed to speak. You have three minutes.

Good evening, members of the council. We appreciate, I'm speaking on behalf of Ms. Grant. That's my wife, and I'm spilling in for her because you guys tried to pull this shenanigans again and give us no notice. So she's feeding the kids while I'm speaking to you. we would request number one that the rest of the members of the council I mean Mayor Pulido said he said those very important words justice for all that includes Mayor Pulido and his cronies including Joe Wallace there was no report about what happened during the closed session of your

hearing and it would certainly be nice to know whether the city council approved that secret side settlement agreement that we were finally provided today at 445 that would now have the taxpayers of Santa Ana be responsible for indemnifying Russell Fisher, the developer, who defrauded the city into obtaining entitlements in 2018. And now the city is going to include in this so-called proposed rescission findings that those entitlements are still in force and effect when Judge Wilson of the Orange County

Superior Court has called that very issue into question and said that the evidence is overwhelming and looks obvious that when the city adopted the 2019 approvals, it caused the 2018 approvals by their very own terms to be voided. So why you members of the City Council, who are named something other than Pulido, would participate in this scheme to again try to benefit Pulido and his cronies and avoid the discovery about Mr. Pulido and his relationship with Jill

Orlis, who the developer so nonchalantly admitted was hired as a permit expediter at the city of Santa Ana. It's mind-boggling, but I hope that each one of you cannot sleep at night until you decide that you will not tolerate it and insist that an investigation be done. Resisting approvals from 2019 because they're improper. But don't buy the taxpayers more litigation by inserting unnecessary, unsubstantiated, and baseless so-called findings. We'll see you again in two weeks.

Thank you. Next caller with the last three numbers, 489. Please dial star six to speak or tap on the unmute button. Thank you. You may proceed to speak. You have three minutes.

Good evening. This is Carl Benninger. I'm calling to remind everybody that it's coming Thursday. We have a candidates forum, Connect to Council 2, and it will be for the mayor candidates. We had an excellent meeting last week, Thursday, for all the candidates for Wars 1, 3, and 5, and we thank Juan for partaking. I was impressed with how well all the candidates spoke and how articulate and how clear visions they have for what they see things to do in Santa Ana. I think we're going to have the same sort of meeting this Thursday.

Please look at our website, connect to council, and you'll see how we can dial into this meeting. It will start at 6 o'clock. Thank you.

Thank you.

Caller with the last three numbers, 254.

Please dial star 6 or tap on the unmute button.

I don't have extension 254, but I was asked to unmute my phone.

The last three numbers.

This is Dale Helvig.

Yes, you may proceed.

8477.

Is it okay to continue?

Yes, please do.

Okay. Yes, Dale Helvig, Ward 3. on August 18th, the city council made an assessment and voted on the first reading for item 60 alpha on tonight's agenda. And during that process, they were given misleading information at the first reading. And I wonder if the outcome of that reading would have been any different had they been provided the correct information.

The issue at hand was the airport land use commission's approval or disapproval of the project. And one of the things they cited was the commission has a duty to protect the general welfare of the public. And they felt that this project impinged upon that. The project hopefully is of equal concern for protecting the residents and the city should be concerned about the welfare of the residents as well. There will be over 170 flights arriving per day and while the building itself may provide the attenuation needed for people that are inside

once outside they're going to hear these jets and planes flying over constantly throughout the day the other thing is the project is reported to be providing 5.75 acres of open space 40 percent of the lot area of 14 acres if you take a look at an aerial shot of this project there's no way that this is 40% of the lot area. They use balconies, walkways, rooftops, and everything else. It should be looked at because the parkland deficiency is a real problem in the city.

Both the general plan and the updated general plan show that we're grossly under-parked for the area. With these projects and the projects that the updated general plan proposes, we're going to have roughly 400 acres of deficiency in parkland. We need to start now by having projects provide the required park space that is so designated in the general plan. So please take a look at that, and I hope you vote to discuss 60 Alpha tonight.

And also I do support item 12A for the tourist district, and I encourage everybody to register to vote. Thank you.

Thank you. Caller with the last three numbers, 361. Please dial star six or unmute.

I think you may proceed to speak.

Hi, this is John Hanna, and I'm representing the Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters, and I'm a resident of Orange. I'm calling tonight to clear up if anybody had any concern about this that the Southwest carpenters do recommend do support the Bowery project and do recommend that on 60A that the council not move to reconsider this and approve the second reading of this project and authorize the city manager to execute

in an edification agreement uh i've i think that this is a a solid project and i with all due respect there's uh there's sufficient uh uh green space in this project and remember what's there now it's not open space that people use it's an industrial site this will be a use that will provide revenue for the city and a lot of the commentators over the years don't seem to care about getting jobs for people who actually live or came out of a school

district of Santa Ana this project will have that so it's getting a it's a it's a win-win for the city unlike other projects which infringe upon Santa Ana neighbors this one does not and finally

I think that every council member needs to understand that the city has a significant revenue problem this will offer revenue for the city and that's an important thing so that we can focus on some of the other concerns in the areas of our community which need more investment. That investment doesn't come out of thin air. We can't tax people to death. Here's an opportunity to provide that funding. Strongly urge support for this project. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Caller with the last three numbers. Zero. I'm sorry.

Zero nine one. Please dial star six to speak or tap on the unmute button.

You may proceed with your comment. Hi, good evening.

This is Corey Davis. I'm with the Harm Reduction Legal Project in L.A. and I'm also a professor at Occidental College in the Department of Urban Environmental Policy where, among other things, I've studied syringe exchange programs. So I wanted to briefly talk about 60B on tonight's agenda. I would ask the council not to move forward with this proposed ordinance that would ban syringe exchange programs in Santa Ana. And, you know, the reason for that is the syringe exchange works.

You know, it reduces risk not only for people who use drugs, but also people who they interact with in the community. Friends, family members, and others. You know, they can also save money by avoiding medical costs, you know, ambulance costs, social service costs, and other expenses. You know, SEPs can reduce the risk of overdose and other drug-related harm. They connect people with drug treatments. They reduce overdose deaths by giving people the overdose reversal drug nolatzone, which is often called Narcan. And, you know, they connect people with health and social services, you know, both helping those people get what they need.

And like I said, avoiding costs, you know, associated with hospital and other expenses down the road. You know, my understanding is that the council wasn't happy with the previous needle exchange that was running in the city. But, you know, the answer isn't banning the needle exchanges in the future. It's working with experts to make them work better, making sure that the resources are available so that the exchange is able to operate in enough locations, enough hours so that it's available. Making sure, for example, that there are collection boxes for people to drop off their used needles if the exchange isn't open at the time.

You know, Syringe Exchange is part of a coordinated public health oriented response to people who use drugs. And, you know, these are people who are in the community. You know, these aren't outsiders. You know, there are lots of people who are using drugs in Santa Ana. And, you know, it's a responsibility of the council to, you know, to look out for everybody in the community. And that includes people who are using drugs and need help. And that's what that's what Syringe Exchange does. Now, I would also just briefly say we think that there may be Americans with Disability Act problem with this ordinance.

There have been ordinances trying to restrict things like drug treatment programs. They've been successfully challenged under the ADA. And it's just, you know, just a legal morass that nobody wants. And, you know, it's really unnecessary and ill-advised. So I would urge the council to work on an ordinance that makes sure the fringe exchange runs well and not try to take this sort of easy way out of just banning it. Thank you. I appreciate the time.

Thank you, caller. Caller, with the last three numbers, 473, please dial star six to speak or tap on the unmute button or the microphone icon on your device.

You have three minutes.

Hi, good evening, council. This is Desi. I live over here in Santa Ana. I'm calling on support of item 6TB. I think it's time that the city puts its feet down and clean up our parts and avoid having all these arrangements around parts, schools. We recently had a medical office open in our neighborhood. and since June 1st, they have been exchanging syringes. It has affected the neighborhood where we have found syringes in the park. There's a school nearby, a block away.

And I'm also calling on behalf of the neighbors. The neighbors are opposed to this exchange that's going on in the neighborhood, as well as in favor of item 60B. So I encourage you, then, Council, to vote in favor of 6-2-B. Thank you.

Thank you, caller. With the last three numbers, 8-3-7, please dial star 6 to speak, or tap on your unmute button or microphone icon on your device.

Hello. Thank you so much for taking my call. My name is Amy Lieberman, and I'm a proud graduate of UC Irvine Law School. that and i feel very connected to the orange county community i'm calling in reference to measure 60b i believe as well as from what i see on your website all of the written correspondence

that banning syringe exchange sites in santa ana is bad for everyone in the community not just people who use drugs besides the humanitarian aspect of the issue study after study has actually shown that syringe exchange sites decrease the amount of syringe litter in a community and that people who obtain syringes from pharmacies are actually more likely to improperly dispose of them than people who obtain their syringes from an SCP. SCPs are also a crucial access point for people who use drugs to receive referrals to treatment, screenings for blood-borne pathogens and vaccinations. Further, just banning

SEPs is not going to make people who use drugs just go away. Instead it will make them more unhealthy and will end up costing taxpayers money when they inevitably end up in the hospital with a blood-borne disease or an infection. Lastly, it's 2020 and we should know better by now. The people who sent Anna are kidding themselves if they think that their lives are separate from the lives with people who use drugs. I guarantee that everyone here on this call knows someone who uses drugs. You might not know that you do because stigma keeps most drug use on the down low,

but trust me, you do. And their health affects your health. The health of people who use drugs affects everyone's health in the community. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Caller with the last

three numbers 614. Please dial star 6 or select the unmute button.

Hello my name is Rafiq Wabi. I am calling in reference to item 60B and strong disapproval of this ordinance. I hold a master's in public health from Boston University and I'm currently a PhD student at the University of California, Los Angeles, and my research focuses on substance use and incarceration. And I just want to kind of reiterate some of the things that have been said by some of the previous callers, but specifically when you think about the overdose crisis that is occurring, and especially during this time of the pandemic, people have become even more and more

isolated, and access to services has become even more difficult. And so this ordinance that seeks to ban syringe exchange programs, like was mentioned before, will have unintended consequences of increased harm to these people who use drugs. That varies from potential increases in overdoses, spread of infectious diseases. And so the idea of wanting to reduce needle litter is a valid one. And the way to do that, though, is to have a well-functioning, supported needle exchange or or syringe exchange program that is supported and works in partnership with the government and with the city council.

And so I'm asking you to take a route that's gonna require some work, but to work with these syringe exchange programs and to make sure that they are functioning properly. And I just kind of want to say that they are more than just the services that they provide. Syringe exchange programs in many ways act as a symbol of the community. And what the symbol says is that those who use drugs are valued in the community and that they will be pursued to be helped and assisted and that the community cares for them.

The last thing I want to say is that, you know, it was mentioned in a previous meeting that the constituents are speaking out against this. And I just want to highlight that those who use drugs who are often also experiencing homelessness do not have accurate and enough representation in government. And so that's why they may not be on this call. And so I'm really calling on behalf of them and to say that they are also your constituents. It's not just those who go to the parks and enjoy the parks there, but it's also those who use drugs. Those are also your constituents. And you have to factor in their health and safety.

and banning syringe exchange programs would do the opposite of that. So the third option is to, again, to build on these programs, to not ban them, to allow them the time and the space they need to function properly. That will improve the health and safety of those who use drugs and decrease the random layer. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next caller, Jason Kure. If you would please select the unmute button.

Hi, you may proceed with your comment.

Good evening council. I appreciate you all taking the time and hearing me out. I'm calling in to, in support of 12A, which is a tourism marketing district. My name is Jason Kier. I'm the general manager here at the Double Tree Hotel in Santa Ana, Orange County airport. and I'm in strong, I would strongly advise the approval for the Tourism Marketing District. I'm a 20 year hospitality veteran. I've worked in various different cities in Orange County, but primarily in Anaheim and in the city of Irvine

in various leadership roles in both cities. I've worked closely with their tourism marketing districts. And, you know, I just can't talk, praise enough the abilities that a tourism marketing district would bring to the great city of Santa Ana. And this isn't just we're talking, you know, revenue. We're also talking about jobs and coming off of the pandemic and COVID-19 is I think there's no better time to help bring more revenue in to create jobs and bring that stability to Santa Ana.

I personally speak about my hotel where I had more than 100 team members employed here. And now I'm down to about 35 that we're hopefully steadily climbing that number. But it'll take some time before we get back to where we were in 2019. but other than that I just I just really wanted to you know again praise kind of the abilities that towards a marking district could bring to Santa Ana

thank you caller with the last three numbers 302 please dial star six to sorry excuse me star six to speak or tap on your unmute button

good evening juan gonzalez santano resident when i was a young santanero one of our family cars was stolen overnight from right in front of our home under proposition 20 vehicle thefts such as this one would be able to be charged as felonies rather than simply misdemeanors prop 20 would also make it more difficult for whoever committed this theft to make parole once in prison and thus the or deny them the ability to once again live a free life. Although the theft of our family car was an immediate shock, we didn't hope for the punitive end that Prop 20 proposes. Ultimately, the thief could have easily been a neighbor,

a classmate, or even a family member. As such, long-term imprisonment and engagement in a carceral system that disproportionately affects the Latino community was not a solution we would have rallied behind. Crime is not a two-dimensional thing. It is committed by human beings, more often than not, for very human reasons, such as financial need. This is not to say that all crimes should be treated lightly, such as the issue of human trafficking, which was brought up at last council meeting. However, Prop 20 will have us choose to support the increased punishment for a handful of truly violent crimes

at the expense of a much larger set of uncalled for and unjust legal revisions. Prop 20 will have California go back to a time when increased and stricter tough-on-crime laws failed to reduce crime at a large scale and triggered mass incarceration that has ruined lives, families, and communities. Even the historically conservative OC Register just recently announced their opposition to Prop 20, stating that there is no sufficient justification for this heavy-handed measure, backed mainly by police unions and the state's prison guard union. Earlier this year, Councilmember Peña Loza posted, and I quote,

I am angry, upset, heartbroken, and nauseous over the murder of George Floyd and the mistreatment of black people in America. Councilmember Baterra similarly posted saying that all lives matter is a lie. We can't say and believe that black lives matter. Considering these words, I demand an explanation for the support of a proposition that will ultimately strengthen the same system that the black lives matter movement advocates against. The same system that profits off of the discipline and punishment of black and brown California.

Black people make up 5.7% of the state's population and yet make up almost 20% of felony defendants in California. Nearly 30% of the state's male prisoners were black in 2017. The data on the racial injustices ingrained into our mass incarceration system are clear. And so continued support for Prop 20 would inherently mean continued support for one of our society's most racist institutions. I would also like to voice my support for a Civilian Police Oversight Commission with the ability to investigate independently, subpoena, and discipline accordingly.

Anything other than this would be in direct opposition to what our community and communities like ours all across the country have been fighting for for years. Police officers cannot and should not investigate themselves. Thank you.

Thank you. Caller with the last three numbers, 523, please dial star six or unmute. Tap on the unmute button.

Hello, Mayor and Council. This is Manny Escamilla just talking about 65B. So I do like the kind of direction that we're going in and looking to see what sort of additional recreational programming we can provide to the community. I just had a few observations that I'm hoping that since this is the draft document, we might be able to address them in a little bit more detail and maybe kind of make some changes.

Number one, it's just that at least the way that the, I believe it's Appendix E, shows kind of the areas and the tiers, essentially kind of how much of a public subsidy we will be giving to the various programs in the Parks and Recreation Department. And I thought it would be really important to kind of move some of the youth programs over into kind of more of a tier one or tier two, essentially giving them a higher subsidy because I do believe in the long run, these types of programs are the ones that are most likely to impact kind of the young adult members of our community that are, because of the

various age and risk factors, are actually kind of the ones that benefit the most from early mentorship and early intervention programs. So I think that that would be money well spent if we can make some adjustments there. I know that we're definitely kind of heavily subsidizing our senior program. So that's great to see. But I would like to see a little bit more of a full subsidy for youth programming because I do believe that the entire community benefits from having youth involved in various recreational activities rather than just going to be looking around at home or on the streets or doing something else.

And I guess the other thing as well, there were two centers that were potentially either going to be, or there were two recommendations to either collaborate or divest potentially from the Santa Anita neighborhood and the Memorial Park Center. So I hope that the city council goes heavily in direction of investing rather than divesting from these two centers. So I know that there are centers that maybe are not up to par with some of the newer ones that we've created, but that's a disparity that we need to address by investing in those centers and making sure that they're more accessible to the community around them.

So with that, just applaud the fact that we're systematically going through our afterschool programming. And I do hope to see ways that we can actually make it easier for folks to enjoy our various parks and rec programming. So thank the staff over there. And thank you for listening. And I guess we'll get back to the rest of the meeting.

Thank you. Caller with the last three numbers, 06A please dial star six to speak or select the unmute button

thank you hi good evening I just want to say that accepting the comments at the very beginning of the meeting and then shutting out everyone else after that is unfair there are many people that are working because they're their essential workers and talking about protecting the community creating sorry I lost my train of thought three minutes is just not enough there's way too much things that

you guys are deciding today, you guys are approving way too much that really isn't thinking about the community and the well-being of the community. Creating businesses or putting businesses above the well-being of the community is not creating community. It's quite the opposite. It is destroying the community, displacing families. And I hope you guys really do think of the things that you guys are approving today, how it can affect your community, not how much money it's gonna bring. If we have an issue with money, then you should cut your expenses.

And I'm not talking about youth funding or senior funding, but other funding that,

like how about the 56% that goes to the police department, they could probably afford to cut. But creating more businesses just to make money and not addressing the issues with the community is not okay. You still have 16 communities that are dealing with land, water, air quality, pollution, and that is still not being talked about as much as creating more business, bringing in development, and that's just very sad because the people that voted you in believe in you, and you're letting them down.

eventually they will get displaced and become second-class citizens compared to the developers that you are supporting thank you please reconsider and opening up the lines so people that were not waiting to get in at 5 45 and your meeting started till 6 30 to still get in and give their comments not just in a lapse of three minutes but for every item that you have in your agenda thank

you thank you last caller Jonathan please dial star six or tap on the unmute button or the microphone icon on your device you may proceed to speak

Okay, the caller dropped the call. So, Mayor, that is all the callers we have at this time for public comment.

And just wanted to remind you that we did not do the closed session report out yet.

All right, let's start, Madam. City Attorney, can you report anything out of closed session, please?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Mayor, we had closed session this evening, but we do not have any reportable action.

Thank you for that. So now I want to go on to item 60B, as in boy, I believe it's a report from the Parks and Recreation Department. Madam City Attorney, I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for letting us move this item up. I'm going to introduce our executive director of Parks and Rec, Lisa Redloff, and she will introduce the consultants and give you a little background on why we conducted the study that we did.

David PenalozaItem —

Mr. Mayor, I think you meant 65B, not 60B.

Yeah, B as in O. Wasn't it B as in Y?

David PenalozaItem —

Yeah, but it's 65B.

Right, right, right. Sorry, 65B.

Good evening, Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem and members of the City Council. Tonight, I am pleased to present a new business plan for the Parks, Recreation, and Community Services Agency. At its core, this plan represents a shift in the way we think about delivery of Parks and Recreation services. Last May, my department engaged the services of Green Play, a nationally recognized Parks and Recreation Management consulting firm, to facilitate the project. This study is important to our city and the department because the outcomes serve to guide us in evaluating service provision strategies

to ensure they are running at optimal levels and the system is sustainable in the long run. All of the components of the process, including a thorough review and assessment of services, programs, and facilities, directly influence recommendations for the development of tax investment allocation and cost recovery goals that inform future pricing strategies. This transformation process also included a market study and consideration of alternative providers, service provision strategies, and programming methodologies. Exhibit 1 in your packet documents the concepts,

processes, and outcomes that will serve the departments as the department's roadmap now and in the future. In addition, the plan outlines a recommendation or recommended policy statement with over 43 goals and objectives that will be implemented by staff over the next several years. And this will set a direction for the department on the principles and the best practices and business tools contained within this report. Although this project took a little longer than expected due to the pandemic, we finished it, and I would like to thank the project team for the work they have done and for the work that they will

continue to do to implement the plan and their names are acknowledged on exhibit 1 page 3 of your report before I turn the presentation over to our consultant tonight through the action of receiving and approving the plan and a strategy for implementing the plan recommendations the City Council would be accepting the use of the tools methods and strategies the department requires sustaining itself for the long term. So at this time, I'd like to turn it over to Chris Stropinski from Greenplay.

Thank you.

Go ahead and speak. Chris?

Chris, we can't hear you, so if you would please...

It looks like Chris dropped the call. Art, it looks like you're there.

Okay, yes. Sorry, good evening. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity to assist the city of Santa Ana working with your dedicated staff on this service and financial sustainability study has been a real pleasure of ours. As you will soon be embarking on Parks and Recreation Master Plan, I wanted to point out that the distinction between the two efforts, the Master Plan will be looking at the entire physical system of Parks and Recreation service levels within your community to help assure that you're providing appropriate amenities

and appropriate places to achieve service quality. And so that is really a kind of capital focus. And this sustainability project is a detailed look at the operations of the department to evaluate what services are offered, how those services are delivered, as well as a look at which services should be supported through taxes and which do or should have fees associated with them and how those fees should be determined in order to maximize the services.

So, and a green play has brought the pyramid methodology to Santa Ana that is used to facilitate the financial analysis for this very important conversation. It provides a framework for determining how best to use your resources and set targets for the future. The pyramid has five tiers with a bottom fundamental tier representing the highest level of benefit to the community as a whole. And then the top tier representing the highest level of benefit to the individual who partakes of the services. The next slide.

Can you, can you, there you go. So the methodology uses a 10-step process that is steeped in Santa Ana's values and community priorities and walks through a process of unpacking your current programs and services and rebuilding them so that the targets can be set that are aligned to use the tax dollars with the greatest community benefit and use the fees and charges with the greatest level of individual benefit. So the infographic, this infographic shows how we approach that the effort

which was anchored by a workshop series. We kicked off the project in May of 2019 and are now pleased to be presenting the final results which is a bit of a misnomer because this is really the start of a new way of carrying out your business through the business of the department and the staff will be continuing to work through this as it started. It is a very staff intensive process which highly engaged both the staff and the public. Next slide please.

Next slide, please. There you go. Our first task was to identify Santa Ana's categories of service offered.

Similar types of services were grouped into a total of 25 categories. Then with the help of the public, we were able to sort those categories onto the five tiers of the pyramid. This slide shows tier one services that have the highest level of benefit to the community as a whole and includes your basic parks and facilities used that occurred without registration, direct supervision or instruction, city produced special events, senior activities, and volunteer in intern opportunities.

We were thrilled to have nearly 75 residents, each volunteering an hour and a half of their time for some very thoughtful discussion and deliberation. This gives us a good indication that the community values and how residents perceive the benefits of various services. Next slide.

Ultimately, the pyramid was populated with all the categories of service based on the community and individual benefits filters. We looked at the bottom tier in the previous slide. You can see here at the top tier, services are highly individual, private lessons and filming permits. It can be argued that tier two, three, and four all have some degree of community benefit, but represent increasingly higher individual levels of individual benefit received as you move higher on the pyramid.

For example, tier two includes youth classes in sports, tier three includes parks and facility rentals, and tier four includes adult classes in sports. The bottom of the pyramid is supported more heavily by taxes and the top by fees and charges.

Next slide. The second major portion of this effort was an assessment of services. Together with staff, we looked at how well each service fit the agency's mission, the financial capacity of the services to attract revenue outside of taxes, how well the agency was positioned to provide the service, considering things such as the demand for service, resources of the agency, awareness of the service. And lastly, we also considered who else might be out there providing a very similar service

and whether that was an indication of an unnecessary duplication. So the services assessment matrix, the next slide, the services assessment matrix we use allows us to take these considerations and work from left to right and top to bottom, following a path to the service provision strategies that are identified in purple. So this next slide shows the possible service provision strategies.

So if it is a core service, that means that it is expected to be provided by local government. No others are willing to provide it because it is not financially attractive and the agency is in a good position to provide it. Affirming the market position is an indication that everything is as it should be and the program should be continued.

Advancing your market position means there's a high demand and an interest and an ability to charge fees so that the services should be more heavily pursued. And then complementary development means you may be one of several service providers, but all are needed in the community.

and then investing means that you may need to provide more resources such as training facilities equipment etc collaborating means you may be better off partnering with another organization to provide the service and divesting means that it's time to consider withdrawing the service, it may have run its course, it's time to replace it with a more desirable service, or perhaps you can facilitate a transition to another provider. So as you can see in the slide,

as the evaluation of each of the four filters of fit, financial capacity, market position, and alternative coverage, the model indicates the appropriate service provision strategy. This is just a sample of one of your services. So I'm going to wrap up by sharing some of the key findings with all of this work.

So next slide.

often missing in agencies is a formal policy regarding the the balance of how tax dollars and fees go back one how taxes and fees are are used and therefore how services price this is the case in Santa Ana and staff will be bringing a recommend a recommended policy based on the outcomes of this work to the council in October for your consideration. Due to the lack of data on expenses for each program offered, current cost recovery could not be measured.

This is a calculation of program fee revenues divided by the total cost to provide the service. Using your current financial software, cost accounting at the program or activity level is possible and should be pursued through the use of program codes.

Excuse me. The philosophy behind setting the fees and charges in alignment with the community values is needed, and this work has provided for that, along with specific recommendations for implementation. A comprehensive program review process is also needed to allow data-driven decision-making that allows you to use limited resources in the best way and respond to your local market conditions.

So next, a greater understanding by the staff of the city's budget process will allow more attention to be paid to the agency's goals for generating revenue to support its services.

Next is more attention to how programs and services are provided. An overall benefit to the community can be made with a formalization with a formalized process in place so objectives objectives can be stated and measured. And then donations, sponsorships, partnerships, in addition to fees are all viable sources of revenue to recover costs. Developing a policy for each to guide the efforts of the agency will help assure credibility and a sense of fairness in how these strategies are used.

And so finally, since we look at this kind of in the full report, we've made a series of recommendations to address these key issues. It should be implemented over the coming years. They are themed in six categories.

So A, those specific to setting and achieving cost recovery targets. B, those specific to programs and services offered and how they are offered. C, that policies and administrative strategies to assure a strong foundation for tackling, achieving, and measuring goals. That cost-saving strategies, strategies to enhance revenue generations by the agency. and then finally the six of setting and evaluating performance measures that will drive the effort of the agency.

So that concludes our presentation. Thank you for your time. We'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you for that. I don't have any questions. Questions from council members. Go ahead, please.

Mr. Mayor, this is Council Member Jose Soloray. I'll start. Go ahead, please. Comments, then questions, just one question. First, I want to thank staff for bringing this presentation forward. I know it's always a little hard to bring proposals that get at, you know, should we increase fees or not. But a key thing that I saw in the write-up is right now we kind of have a hodgepodge of different programs and rates. and even just us understanding what we're doing and how to refine it and make it better. I think that is positive. The only reason why I have a little concern of focusing too much on words like cost recovery,

as we've talked about before, is we started some of these things right after Measure X had passed, and we said we were going to fund all these things. Now we have COVID and other challenges. But nonetheless, I now see that a good value of doing all this work. past tense and moving forward is a better understanding of our services and costs so that we can be fair in how we rate things right now. And also, to a certain extent, this is very similar to what is done on the utility side. I know I see some of our water and public works folks here.

They do constant rating cost studies every five, ten years so that we know what things cost, what inflation is, and how to project it all better. So I see this as a start of better planning across the board on on parks and recs and was happy to see that You're also looking at senior services

Again on the issue of cost I would just be a little bit careful of too quickly try to increase fees on any of things during the pandemic But I see kind of this year is just planning getting a better handle of things And if there are some things that have high value that you know only affecting a few individuals and they're willing to pay There may be that opportunity and need and rather than canceling it outright it's an opportunity to just change the service model one last point and then my question i also like to the mention of dashboards

i think as we get a better handle of programs and services and fees we can do all the dashboard stuff better and i love the way our city manager on all the new programs going forward we're doing these very nice dashboards and so that's awesome and i want to continue seeing that across the board my my main and only question is uh i know we're in covet and so because of that our youth commission and our parks and rec commission haven't been able to meet as much i do know that tonight it would be important for us to continue moving this forward and i'm supportive but i would

request that sooner than later we get things like this on the agenda of parks and rec and youth so they can understand it and give recommendations etc so when how do you see interacting with parks and the youth commission and maybe other commissions on uh on this work moving forward

right yeah the the parks and recreation i'm sorry the board of recreation and parks was involved in this process at the very beginning and then we did not meet for a while and so um yeah we will continue to have an implementation plan um any time that a fee is proposed to be increased it would come through our regular budget process and our process through the council so we're going to take our time this just gives us a road map and a process you know to really figure out what programs and activities and costs for programming and engage the community and things of that nature

fantastic thank you so much Lisa

David PenalozaItem —

Mr. Mayor this is a council member Peñalosa go ahead please council member Peñalosa go ahead thank you sir I just wanted to thank the parks and recs department Lisa and the city manager and the, I forget the name, Greenplay, for bringing this forward to us. I think it's, I would have to disagree a little bit with my colleague. I think it's important that we focus on cost recovery, just looking at the entire picture of our parks and recs facilities and seeing, you know, taking a very close look at these fees and how these different facilities are rented out and reserved.

David PenalozaItem —

and I mean all of the above, we need to look at everything because there is a cost to managing and upkeeping the entire system, but I think that there's a lot of areas where we could work on increasing that revenue that we get from this whole system.

David PenalozaItem —

Again, a lot of the things that we've talked about in the past is is also the idea of and of branding branding when it comes to to any of our of our fields and parks and and and aquatics centers i mean there's a lot of potential for increasing revenue not just in in in looking taking a close look at fees but the the branding and the the um i'm not sure what the correct word is like not go ahead policy so sponsorship there we go i could i was like

David PenalozaItem —

um yes but getting sponsorships on on our on our um on our different facilities so it's always another avenue where we could uh consider and um but yeah thank you thank you for this i just expect that there's more to come from this and not just uh uh you know receiving file and it sits on the shelf collecting dust i want to see this come back forward to us multiple times with additional ideas additional steps additional uh possible changes to any of our of our fees uh and just

potentials to bring revenue absolutely the the implementation plan um is to we will be back periodically to the council to let you know where we are with that plan and what has transpired and and I want to make sure we're keeping the council and the community updated. So absolutely we will do that.

Hi, Mr. Mayor.

Go ahead, please. Council member Sarmiento. Thank you, Lisa, for the presentation. I think as was said earlier, I certainly think it's important that we start doing the analytics on this and making this a priority for us to consider. So it's an important first step. And I think we do want to look at, you know, sort of a point in time almost of, you know, where we are, where we, I think, could go. And we, and what it finally appears is that we're prioritizing this as an issue, right, for us. And

we've heard so many times how important, you know, youth are in our community. So this is an important important first step but what's equally important is that we also prioritize our you know our services that we that we extend so I don't want it to get lost just in the metrics of how we can recover costs and you know how we monetize you know youth services because I think it's it's an important enough of a standalone priority that we also realize how we can find other ways to invest in this independent of cost recovery. We know that there are obviously

services that we provide, rentals of our park space, how limited they are. So we want to also see how we can find other ways, I think was mentioned, other revenue generating ways to, you know, make this a little bit more robust. And I think that's what we had been talking about with respect to maybe some of the cannabis funding that we see in one of our previous items. You know, I saw that we carved that up a third, a third, a third, one of the thirds being specifically going to youth programs. And I know one of the other thirds was going to

enforcement. Well, maybe there's an opportunity for us to review that and see how we can maybe use some of that enforcement money since we've done such an excellent job at reducing the number of unpermitted operators to maybe put in this analysis. And, you know, I think the consultants have done a good job. I think they're looking at this really methodically, but I think we have to humanize it a little bit more and understand what are the ways that we can enhance the experience of a young person growing up in the city. And I know that a lot of times we can't recover those costs.

and simply using a park or an open space or a ball field or a basketball court, you can't monetize that. You can't recover the cost of maybe somebody just simply picking up a Frisbee or picking up a basketball and wanting to go and play. And that's the experience I want to make sure we have in our city, just like other cities have. So to the extent that we see how we can augment these services and these programs from other sources and enhance the experience, not just through cost recovery, but in addition to maybe some of the fees that we charge and how we use those fees wisely, I think is important.

The other thing is I really like the idea of internships, but I don't want them to be done at the expense of our employees. Right. So one of the, I think, really valuable things that we have in our community is that we have so many dedicated long term employees, whether they're full-time or part-time, that staff our parks, that staff our community centers, that build relationships with our neighbors and our residents. And many of those employees are residents and neighbors of ours. So there is this really beautiful relationship and synergy between

our staff and our youth and our seniors that we provide these services for that I just don't want to have gone at the expense, especially of contracting out any of these services. So to the extent that we look at, you know, creating opportunities for internships and apprenticeships maybe for the youth, but we certainly don't want to do that at the cost of contracting out any of these jobs that we've lost as a result of this pandemic to many of our part-time staff. So, So, you know, I think what was said, you know, a few meetings back,

they're always going to make sure that we do a right of first refusal for our employees that we've had to separate with. So when we do create any new opportunities, it obviously gets extended to them first. That is a policy I want to make sure that we abide by, especially in the field of parks and recs and youth programming. So with that, I think it's a, you know, it's a great beginning to this conversation. I'm glad that it is going to be as high priority as you've made it. So, you know, I look forward to continuing to extend, you know, my opinions and additional questions. So thank you. Those are my comments.

Thank you. Any other comments? Mr. Mayor, I've got a quick comment. Mayor.

Yes, go ahead. Whoever wants to go first, go ahead.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And real quick, I just wanted to clarify that 19D is the cannabis benefit fund for the youth, and that has a policy against it. And then what we're talking about here, is that correct, Lisa? Yes. That this is a different item?

Yeah, 65B.

Okay, thank you very much. Just want to clarify. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

No, and I understood that, and just I think that was, you know, referenced to me, Mayor Pro Tem. So what I was doing is referencing that they both sort of cross pollinate almost because we're talking about parks and recs. We're talking about you. But we also you know, those blend and are there is a nexus between funding for you through the cannabis fund, because we have a policy that a third of that goes towards us. And the fact that, you know, as we look at how we can enhance the programming and the services, you know, it's important that we look at all sources of funding for that.

Great. Thank you. I also thank you. Thank you, Council Member Sarmiento. And I, too, support and I think the city manager understands that every opportunity that we have where we can use our employees, I'm in favor of. and then when it came down to this cannabis issue that has a policy against it, I do not want to see any funds being diverted from the enforcement area because, you know, that's very necessary. And I just wanted to clarify my position on that because, you know, it was actually I who brought it up in the council committee to make sure that we break it up in thirds, you know, also for youth education against drugs.

Here we are having cannabis here, and we're not using any money towards education to make sure that the youth understand the implications of what happens when you use a substance like that. So that's my position. And thank you, Lisa. I appreciate it for clarifying that, too.

Councilman Mendoza, did you have a comment earlier?

Yes, thank you, Mayor Pulido. So, and thank you to staff and Lisa and the consultants for the comprehensive report. I agree that we need to enhance and update our facilities and use them fully. And also to keep up with the cost of maintaining those with the appropriate fees. And the concern I also have is with the internships as my colleague, Council Member Fermento mentioned that we should have that internship opportunities for our youth. However, that it should not be done at the expense of our employees.

We need to bring back anyone who had been laid off prior to establishing this internship or if it's not going to interfere with hiring back those employees. And also we need to specify here, it says internships for the youth, but is it junior high school or high school or college youth so we just need to specify what age group and I think it's a long timing long time in coming and this is one of the benefits that is definitely going to be used specifically

for our youth and it won't be deviated to any other program so we will make sure of that so thank you to staff and thank you mayor polizo you're welcome any other comment council

David PenalozaItem —

members uh mr mayor this is councilman penaloza i'm a little confused as to what item we're on

we're still on 65b correct yeah we haven't moved okay we're all talking commenting okay all right Thank you.

Any more comments?

Seeing no other comments, Madam City Manager, what would you like us to do on this?

For this one, there is no action being requested from you, and it's really just an update, and we will keep you posted. The, you know, to summarize it, you know, the reason that we're doing this is we want to have a rational basis for the way that we set our fees for our parks and rec program. Other cities have it down to policy levels as to what programs they want to heavily subsidize, what programs they want to have full cost recovery. So this is just the start of the process so we can get there as well and implement what your policy decisions are, whether it's a heavy subsidization for youth programs, senior citizens programs,

and potentially a full cost for adults. Those are all the parameters that we need to explore in order to build a rational basis for our charges and our parks and rec fees. So thank you so much for letting us perform the study, and we will keep you posted as we move forward.

All right. The recommended action does say approved, but I think it's more of a receive and file kind of report. so I don't know if you want an action or not.

David PenalozaItem —

Point of clarification, Mr. Mayor, like my colleague, Councilman Solero, said, it says approve the plan titled Parks, Recreation, Community Services, Agency, Service, and Financial Sustainability Study.

That's why I asked the question.

Yeah, I think you're right, Mr. Mayor. So I'll go ahead and move to approve the plan, and it's really more of a status update, but good work and more to come.

All right. Roll call vote, please, Madam Clerk.

Council Member Becerra?

Phil BacerraItem —

Yes.

Council Member Mendoza?

Yes. Yes. Council Member Peñalosa?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Council Member Sarmiento?

Yes.

Council Member Solorio?

Solorio, yes.

Mayor Pro Tempe-Viegas?

Yes.

Mayor Pulido?

Yeah.

Okay, motion carries 7-0.

Okay, now we go to our consent calendar. Any items council members want to pull?

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to pull item 20C.

Okay, other items? Mr. Mayor, I'd like to pull item 19D just for a supporting comment.

Okay. Council Member Becerra, go ahead.

Phil BacerraItem —

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'd like to pull items 12A and 19C.

Okay. If there's no other items, I'd entertain a motion on the balance.

Motion to approve. So moved.

Roll call vote, please, Madam Clerk.

Council Member Becerra?

Yes.

Council Member Mendoza?

Yes.

Council Member Peñalosa?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Council Member Sarmiento?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Council Member Solorio?

Yes.

Mayor Potembegas? Yes. Mayor Pulido?

Yes. First item pulled, Madam Clerk.

12A by Council Member Becerra.

Please go ahead, Council Member.

Phil BacerraItem —

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank Dave Elliott and the board of the Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce, as well as all the different business stakeholders like our hotels, Main Place Mall, and all the other attractions in our city that have been collaborating and working towards the creation of this tourism marketing district.

Phil BacerraItem —

You know, the capital of Orange County and with all the attractions located right here in our city and our proximity to all these places around us, it just makes sense for us to have something in place that promotes us as a place to, you know, stay while on vacation, to shop, dine, even live. It's just been long overdue. But before I move the item, I wanted to ask one question of staff, and that is, what will be the ongoing cost to the city of Santa Ana to operate this tourism marketing district?

Council member, executive director Mendoza and acting assistant city manager will answer that question.

Thank you, Mr. Councilmember. We are going to be taking 2% of their assessment for our administrative costs to collect the assessment and then turn around and provide the assessment to the nonprofit that will be running it. And our finance director has looked at that 2% and did a quick analysis of the amount of time her staff would spend and whether it would reimburse the city. and she agrees that the 2% would reimburse the city enough to provide the service.

Phil BacerraItem —

So fantastic. So that essentially is we're not going to be having to pay out of pocket for this district. Rather, this is just a wonderful example of our business stakeholders getting together and putting something forward to us that actually is able to self-fund essentially.

Correct, sir.

Phil BacerraItem —

Great. Well, I don't want to take any more time on this item, so I'd like to move that we adopt the resolution of intention of establishing the Tourism Marketing District as recommended.

David PenalozaItem —

I'll second. Council Member Penalosa.

All right. I think this is a great program, and I look forward to supporting it. Roll call vote, please, Madam Clerk.

Council Member Becerra?

Yes.

Council Member Mendoza? Yes. Councilmember Peñalosa?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Councilmember Sarmiento? Yes.

Councilmember Solorio?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Vegas? Yes. Mayor Pulido?

Yes.

Motion carries 7-0.

Our next item, Madam Clerk.

19C, pulled by Councilmember Becerra.

Phil BacerraItem —

Thank you. Yeah, I wanted to get my items pulled out early. So 19C, I think that a lot of the items in here in regards to recognizing those who've served in the military from here in Santa Ana are fantastic. so i wanted to thank staff for providing that report uh one thing that stuck out at me that i think is something that is very easy to implement with the right um i guess uh work put behind it would be um recognizing some of our servicemen and women on our street light polls and so what i wanted to understand from staff uh if you could kind of um highlight how other cities

Phil BacerraItem —

fund their banner program? Do the other cities pay for all the banners? Are the banners possibly sponsored by businesses or other stakeholders? And then who typically would coordinate those efforts? Because in your staff report, again, which is a great report, I see in here that probably about an estimate would be about 275 per banner. And while I think there are folks here in our community that might pony up that money because they're very proud of their family members that are serving. It may not be something that's available to all, but I just wanted to get an understanding if this is something where there might be variations

Phil BacerraItem —

in how this program is administered in other cities.

Certainly, sir. Daniel Soto from the City Manager's Office has information on other cities' banners program for you.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. In reviewing five nearby cities who have implemented military banner programs, we find that the different cities use any of the following funding sources for their programs. The city's general fund, their enterprise funds, fee revenue for applicants who are requesting the military banners, and one-time and ongoing donations from nonprofit organizations in their cities.

Phil BacerraItem —

Fantastic. And as far as how the programs are administered, is it something typically that the city staff oversee or is it farmed out? I just want to get an idea of how, if we were to really focus on this, how that might possibly look here in Santa Ana, given some of our surrounding cities.

Thank you, Councilmember. In comparing these five different cities, we see that the military banner programs are all coordinated internally by city staff, ranging from staff in the community services or Parks and Recreation Department, as well as the city manager's office staff.

Phil BacerraItem —

Great, Daniel. I appreciate your work on finding out this information and providing that to us. I don't have any other further questions on this item. I hope that we do follow through on some of the items that are in the report that were recognized as feasible and something we can move forward with. But what's before us today is to receive and file. So I'll go ahead and make the motion to receive and file this update. I'll second.

All right. We have two seconds. You pick, Madam Clerk. Roll call vote.

David PenalozaItem —

Mr. Mayor, this is Councilman Peñalosa. I have just a quick comment.

Yes, go ahead.

David PenalozaItem —

Side note. Thank you. Go ahead. Again, I wanted to thank staff.

David PenalozaItem —

There's a lot of different ideas that we could do. I like a lot of the ones that were listed. Just last night, I was walking Jax. I can't go a meeting without mentioning him. In Memorial Park. I stopped and looked at the flagpole. There is a plaque right below the flagpole that I believe was from 1958. that is in memory of those who served in the military and gave the ultimate sacrifice. So, given that we have a park that's named Memorial Park for that reason, there's a lot of areas in our city.

David PenalozaItem —

I know that we're actively pursuing funds and grants for a potential new community center at Memorial Park. I think it's important that we collaborate with our Parks and Rec, with our public works, because there's areas throughout the city of upcoming future projects where we could incorporate a lot of the recognitions for our veterans, those still living, and those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. So with that said, I'm very happy with this, that this is before us, and thank you, Seth. Yes.

Any other comments?

If not, roll call vote, please.

Council Member Becerra?

Yes.

Council Member Mendoza? Yes. Council Member Peñalosa?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Council Member Sarmiento?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Council Member Solorio?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tempegas?

Yes.

Mayor Pulido?

Yes.

Motion carries 7-0.

Next item, Madam Clerk.

19D, pulled by Council Member Solorio.

Thank you. Thank you, Daisy and Mr. Mayor. 19D is received a file on the Cannabis Public Benefit Youth Fund. I want to thank Lisa and Parks for itemizing the type of ideas of things that we could fund with the youth fund and things don't happen overnight and being a public employee myself in government i know it's challenging particularly during covet to even know what's going to be open in two weeks let alone in three months so i appreciate that the diligent planning as well as the commitment to follow up with the youth commission on getting their ideas and possibly having some type of rfp for other

institutions non-profits school districts including garden grove and orange and others on how we might that benefit youth and others in those communities. So I appreciate the update and I look forward to supporting all those great efforts. Thank you.

Any other comment?

Yes, Mr. Mayor, this is a council member Sermiento.

Please go ahead.

Yeah, I think I kind of straddled both this item and the previous presentation, I think on 65B when we were discussing, because they both involve of obviously parks and recs and youth and how we can better support these services. So I think this matrix that you have listed here for the 2019, 2020 carry forward, along with the proposed 2021 investment is solid. And I think what I was, I guess what I was trying to explain earlier is that, as we know, these cannabis funds were discussed to make sure that a part of them,

and I believe it's a third, go directly towards youth services. And I think that's certainly a wise way to expend that one third. And I believe the other third was for enforcement and the final third went into the general fund. So I don't think, again, I think it's an opportunity for us to revisit that allocation because I know that when we made that separation and expenses, I know that the enforcement for the cannabis was really robust because we had, I believe, more than 120 illegal operators. Now I know we're down to less than 20 or 15 or something. The number is much, much smaller. So

I think it's an opportunity for us to reassess, not completely abandon, but see if that proportionality still makes sense to invest a third of these cannabis funds into enforcement when we have a much smaller number of unpermitted operators and maybe other enforcement efforts. So So to the extent that maybe staff can look at that and see if we can maybe reduce that amount, that amount can go towards additional funding of programs and youth services. I know I don't, what I don't see is I know we have a shared space over at Roosevelt Walker, where I recall there was going to be sort of a,

you know, a library that wasn't a brick and mortar. but more that would have terminals, sort of an e-library, I believe is what we called it, where teens could come in or youth could come in and use terminals and access information. And many of them may not have those services at their home, but replicating that in different parts of the city, whether it's at our other community centers, whether it's at the Delhi center, whether it's on some of the campuses across the city. So those are things that I think we can develop and enhance and just consider. and that's something that hopefully staff can kind of revisit

because this is now after that funding allocation that was made to go to a third, a third and a third model, maybe something can be brought back to us just for us to assess what the demands are for enforcement and obviously what the continuing demands are for youth services. So that's something, you know, just a suggestion for staff to consider bringing back to us so we can revisit. And those are my comments. Thanks.

Thank you. Other comments, council members?

I have a question for the city manager.

This is Member Tomiegas. Go ahead, please.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam City Manager. So the third of the money that we use for enforcement is not just in officers, but it's in code enforcement, correct?

And the city attorney's office.

And the city attorney's office also. So, I mean, what is your opinion on reducing that section of this policy? I mean, you know, yes, I understand that, like the council member was saying, that we've had a lot less illegal cannabis shops popping up. But, you know, that fight continues that we have to continue to monitor and go after this. And we also have to fund code enforcement. We have the city attorney's office. We fund the officers.

Where are we with that? What is your opinion?

Mayor Protem, I would like the opportunity to go back in and I can reassess it and then report back to you as to the spending of the one-third dedicated to enforcement and let you know that if it's still needed to continue with the enforcement efforts despite the reduction in the numbers of illegal shops operating. But I don't want to make any guesses off the top of my head.

Yeah, because you never know. Thank you very much. I appreciate that because you never know what new shop is going to pop up. And then here we are, we took the money, and we don't have it on hand for us to address that issue. And, you know, they seem to pop up here and there, and we just never know. So that's my concern, and I'm not into defunding any of this stuff. I just want to make sure that we are able to address this issue because it's important for our city. Thank you for the time, Mr. Mayor.

Yeah. So council member, just to, just to respond again. So nobody's talking about abandoning the effort. I think what I was suggesting just to be crystal clear was just to revisit. And I don't think there's any harm in reevaluating. I don't see that, you know, no decisions are being made. We're going to come back and look at what the, you know, landscape is. It's much different than what it was a few years ago when we made this decision and i think for us to reevaluate how we expend our money and how we allocate them isn't a bad thing we're not making any any judgments at this point if anything we're

looking for data and we're looking for information that's simply all that i was requesting and that's

why i asked the city manager because i'm looking for information too we will gather that data and

David PenalozaItem —

report back to the full council mr mayor this is councilman penialosa just wanted to say that i

that i agree with hold on council member with mayor pro tem uh if you take over i i don't uh participate in cannabis related votes and out of abundance of caution i'm going to choose to do that right now so why don't you just uh i'm not voice any opinion but i'd like for you to take uh this item uh over and then i'll come back in right as soon as uh there's a vote by council uh please go ahead okay thank you mr mayor i sure will uh councilmember uh peña noza

David PenalozaItem —

Thank you, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem. I just wanted to say that I agree with my colleague, Councilmember Sarmiento. All of these things, we should always be constantly looking at them. I think that's why in government everything's always so slow is because laws are approved, ordinances are approved, whatnot, and we don't change them with the times as often as we should throughout history. So I'm supportive of those comments. Thank you. That's it.

Thank you. Is there any other council members with comments?

Okay, hearing that, can we have a, is there a, we have a motion from Council Member Solorio with a second by myself. I'll second it. Roll call vote, please.

Council Member Becerra?

Yes.

Council Member Mendoza? Yes. Council Member Peñalosa?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Council Member Sarmiento?

Yes.

Council Member Solorio?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Vegas?

Yes.

Motion carries 6-0 with the mayor.

Motion carries, Mr. Mayor. We're clear.

All right, thank you. Next item, Madam City Clerk.

20C, pulled by Mayor Pro Tem Vegas.

Thank you very much. Please go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'd like to move this item with comment. I just want to thank Director Phil Keith of the Department of Justice, the Community Oriented Policing Division of the DOJ in Washington, D.C. I want to thank him and his staff for working with us on this grant. This grant is going to help us hire more officers, I believe about 10 officers, because we are having officers retire soon and we want to make sure that we keep our numbers up so

we can continue to give the best service we can for the residents of Santa Ana. And I just wanted to take a moment to thank that office for their hard work and for working with us here at the City of Santa Ana. And I have a motion to approve. I consider a second. Second.

Any other comments?

Well, I just had a quick comment, Mr. Mayor. Please go ahead. Council Member Sotomayor. So I know that these funds, and I think you may recall, we used to do a lot of these, I think when you were around during the Clinton administration, they were called Clinton cops. And the idea was to try to instill a different philosophy and the types of officers that were hired and the way they were trained. And really they were meant to be more neighborhood law enforcement officers that got to know their environment and got to establish relationships and build trust with the community. So given that philosophy,

I think that's where a lot of law enforcement has started to move to, to try to make sure that officers engage with the public that they serve and protect and they do it in a very respectful, in a very dignified way. And I think that this is one good step because the officers that will be retained for this will be brought in under this philosophy, and hopefully that permeates the entire department. So that being said, in that context, I'm supportive of the item as well.

Thank you for those comments. Other comments?

Mr. Mayor, this is Councilman Solorio. So I'm very supportive. Anything that we can do to keep our police department properly staffed and growing is appreciated. And I know we've done a lot to reduce violent crimes in town and on some of the smaller crimes like property crimes and homelessness and other things. We've got continued work to do there, but this would be helpful with that. This does say $1.25 million in 2020 COPS hiring grants. So I want to confirm that we are hiring new officers with this, really more just through filling new vacancies as they come to be based on attrition.

But I want to confirm that this is to add the hiring of new officers.

You're correct, Council Member. It will hire authorized but unfunded at this point in time.

Fantastic. Thank you. I'm very supportive.

Additional comments, Council Members?

I am very supportive as well. We've done these before, and they really, really have assisted the city over the years. So with that, roll call vote, please, Madam Clerk.

Council Member Becerra?

Yes.

Council Member Mendoza? Yes. Council Member Peñalosa?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Council Member Sarmiento?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Council Member Solorio?

Yes.

Mayor Potembegas?

Yes.

Mayor Pulido?

Yes.

Motion carries 7-0.

Next item, Madam Clerk.

60-A.

So we're on item 60-A. Let me call on, I believe it is Council Member Phil Becerra,

Phil BacerraItem —

please. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I initially at the previous meeting on this item, I asked for reconsideration. And before I ask my colleagues to indulge me, I think we may be able to not have to go through a vote on that consideration if I can just get a little a couple of my questions answered from staff. So, Madam City Attorney, I wanted to ask you specifically on a previous question that I had at a prior meeting. One of my concerns was the indemnification. And the answer given to me was that we had it

Phil BacerraItem —

and that my understanding was that staff needed to, I guess, further enhance it or somehow incorporate it into the approvals. One thing that I wanna make sure of though in this indemnification is that, you know, in the development world, there are folks that apply for a project and they are the ones that are going to build it. In some cases, the applicant may at some point make a financial decision to sell the project. Nonetheless, I do not want to see this indemnification disappear because the applicant goes away

Phil BacerraItem —

and a new project manager or project, someone that's gonna build the project comes in and then they, for some reason, are able to escape the indemnification. So what I wanted to ask you, Madam City Attorney, does the language in place before us tonight indemnify not just the applicant for these entitlements, but also any successor or anybody down the road that should own the property, build the property, whatever their role will they also be subject to this indemnification

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

council member yes and i want to mention two things um currently what you have is two levels of indemnification in reference to your previous question you would ask what type of indemnification the city would have and i think the response you got from staff was that we had indemnification in fact in the approving documents there's a condition of approval which requires the developer to sign and record an navigation easement providing for indemnification so the correct answer to your question should have been we have a condition of approval and before building permits are

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

pulled we'll make sure that indemnification is in place but given that we went ahead and went a step further so in this item that you have tonight along with the second reading we have proposed an indemnification agreement in that indemnification agreement with Aramis capital it is a document that will be recorded against the property and that also provides further that it applies to any to the current developer as well as to anyone who purchases the property

Phil BacerraItem —

thank you madam city attorney so at this point the the indemnity will run with the land so no matter whether it's aramis capital or a subsequent property owner that indemnity will

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

continue to run with the land it will but i would also just like to clarify that you have to remember that indemnification is the obligation to make the city whole and normally you also want to make sure that with indemnification the individuals have insurance or security or the wherewithal to do that so while we do have the indemnification provided for here that indemnification will work for those developers in the future and will cover us as long as they have the resources to pay for any potential liability.

Phil BacerraItem —

Okay, thank you. You know, that was really a major sticking point for me because of the fact that we were voting to overrule the Airport Land Use Commission's determination. And in order to do that, we needed a supermajority. And I think that shows and demonstrates how important it was to really, we're going to overrule their determination that we really had our ducks in a row. So Madam city attorney, thank you for that clarification. I personally feel a lot more comfortable with the path that we were on prior to my request for reconsideration. So at this point I would be happy to move forward

Phil BacerraItem —

with the discussion on the second reading. And I would like to rescind my request for reconsideration of the airport land use commission they're overruling the airport land use commission's determination does that require a second

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

madam city attorney the motion to reconsider is on the agenda regardless of whether the council member rescinds it you can either take action on it or accept his request simply not to to take action on the motion that's before you on the agenda.

He's the maker of that motion, Madam City Attorney, so he can withdraw it. And I don't even think it's subject to any council action.

Correct. And I would accept that it's there. I would accept his request to move on. So with that, we have just a second reading before us. We probably do need a vote on that, right?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Yes. So if there's no action on the motion to reconsider, then the staff recommendation is to move forward on the second reading of the ordinance.

Roll call vote, please, Madam.

David PenalozaItem —

I'll make a motion to approve the second reading of the ordinance. Second.

David PenalozaItem —

Second.

Okay, roll call vote, Madam Clerk.

Council Member Becerra.

David PenalozaItem —

Madam City Clerk, can you repeat the motion so we're all clear, please?

So my understanding is that we're, Council is approving the second reading of the ordinance.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

We'd also like the staff recommendation number four is to have that second reading and approve the proposed indemnification agreement with Aramis Capital, as indicated as item number four, recommendation on the agenda item.

David PenalozaItem —

As the maker of the motion, I'll accept that into the motion. As will the second.

Council Member Becerra?

Phil BacerraItem —

With those changes, yes.

Councilmember Mendoza?

Yes. Councilmember Peñalosa? Yes. Councilmember Sarmiento?

Yes.

Councilmember Solorio?

Yes.

Mayor Potem-Viegas?

No.

Mayor Pulido?

No.

Motion carries 5-2.

So now we go on to the next item, Madam Clerk.

60B.

Is there a... I know we've already spoken about this.

It's the syringe exchange program.

Move the item.

Yeah, I think we already talked about it. We have a motion to approve.

Phil BacerraItem —

Mr. Mayor, I'll second with comment. go ahead actually if i may ask the maker of the motion one of the things that um you know we heard from mr reyes from saddleback view who uh called in in opposition because he was finding these needles throughout his community and we saw the same impact over at the um civic center in the past and both of those programs aren't necessarily exchange programs they're not one for one or five for fives their distribution programs and so what i'd ask the maker of the motion is if you would be willing to accept that we also add language in there that not only are we prohibiting uh syringe

Phil BacerraItem —

exchange programs that we also identify syringe distribution programs uh i'm in support i just

would like uh legal to let us know if we need additional uh work on the language uh to feel comfortable with it or if there's a clean and simple fix to this. What I would recommend is

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

since you have this ordinance before you and we've clearly found legal authority for you to adopt this ordinance, we also have a safety net in this ordinance should we be preempted by state or federal law. My recommendation is that you take action on this and you can give us direction to look into the city's authority to regulate the other needle, not exchange, but needle

medical services. Right, as well as research because there may be other things that we're not capturing yet so I do like the way that we're going councilmember but Sarah I just don't know that we could really loop them all in correctly today but I think we could approve this and I think Steph has heard us that we want them to research other similar problems and come back with fixes to those well I and I'll

Phil BacerraItem —

accept that and I'd rather us be on strong legal ground when we move forward on this item, but I would ask staff to proceed immediately and report back to us on the inclusion of distribution programs

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

as well. Yeah, so just one last comment I'd like to make is that this really becomes a land use issue. In those areas in the city where you have zoning that would permit pharmacies or medical offices where those pharmacies or medical offices are providing needles, you may not have the legal authority to stop them from providing that service. And it may just become a land use issue. So we'll look at it from both angles, from regulating those that are providing it, making sure they do have the proper licenses, and then looking at the ongoing, if there is a pharmacy or something that's more formal.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

My feeling is that if you have some operations that are not legal pharmacies or legal medical offices, that we may be able to take other enforcement action against them. But so long as they're protected, we can do that. I appreciate that.

Phil BacerraItem —

Thank you, Madam City Attorney. So with that, I'll second the motion.

David PenalozaItem —

Just for clarification, Mr. Mayor, So this is something that you guys will look at and come back with information for the second reading or

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

As part of the second reading or I think actually it may require if it's a code enforcement type of issue May require an entirely new ordinance So we'll look at it and not interfere because you're already taking good action on this one Okay, take action on this and then if we come back and we can regulate we can propose a new ordinance Okay

Phil BacerraItem —

regulate in that area councilman pillows i don't want to have this um slowed down so i i would prefer that staff come back with that um my request for the additional information but proceed with the ordinance as is and it sounds like councilmember solorio is on the same track

David PenalozaItem —

right yeah i i don't either so i just with that said i just want to also thank uh the 30 plus residents two weeks ago that that that called in in support of this i know i heard from many on social media and via email and public comment about how important this is to them you know as we all know this is a we're the highest tax city in the county unfortunately and for our residents not be able to enjoy our libraries and our public parks and our bike trails without the fear of running into or stepping on on a syringe like they have been have in the past it is it's important for us to to try to address that issue and clean up the city.

David PenalozaItem —

We've tried this. It doesn't work. So I'm very happy and supportive of this.

Thank you for that. I also think it's important we move forward on this. It's become really a public safety issue. It has unintended consequences that have gone out of control. So I intend to support this. Any other comments?

Yes, Mr. Mayor, this is Council Member Sarmiento.

Please go ahead. Yes, I want to thank Desi Reyes,

who is the president of our Neighborhood Association here in Saddleback View. And I guess my question I should begin with is to the city attorney. I know that one of the SEP programs is run no longer out of the Civic Center, but it has a property here very close to where I live and it's in our neighborhood. So do I have to recuse myself? Because my understanding is we're taking action on the practice of the SCP rather than the site.

Yes, I think that's correct.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

We're prohibiting the distribution. We are tonight not on a land use issue. We're on the actual operation. And so I believe that you could participate in making this decision.

This is a citywide policy.

Thank you. Yeah, so, you know, so given that, I just wanted to, you know, explain and thank again, as I think Council Member Peñalosa did, both those that spoke in support of continuing this program and obviously, you know, neighbors of mine that participated in a lot of the discussions with the SEP program here in our neighborhood. You know, I think back in 2016, all of us wanted to believe that this is a good concept and this is a humanitarian effort to make sure that we reduce our own, you know, sort of proliferation of these syringes and needles. And all of us had the highest of hopes.

And I think conceptually and in theory, it sounds really good, but I remember the discussion that was had at that point was that two things had to be complied with. And one of them was that the secondary impacts or the effects of this should be, you know, the most important thing. In other words, we said specifically we didn't want, you know, the syringes or needles or any sort of other footprint or even the traffic to be visible or increased because we were trying to do this in a way to be compassionate, to be helpful.

And unfortunately, this is one of those things that, you know, I think there's a separation and there's a gap between what you think will work in theory and what actually happens in practice. And so, you know, that was one. The other one was that I remember also recalling that we wanted to see other cities step up and do the same. Because, you know, as we've always done, whether it's with providing shelter for the for the unhoused or providing other services that we do in the city, we always see that we we seem to be the only city of the 34 cities in the county to help address these problems.

And we know that this isn't the only place where these problems occur. So we had hoped in the time that we were allowing this, that other cities would also join. And it would sort of prevent a concentration of people coming and needing these services and respecting our city. And those things, unfortunately, didn't happen. I'm not completely lost of hope. I'm hoping that other communities will step forward and maybe we'll try to do this. And those that are advocating, those public health experts that are advocating for these programs, because I think in theory they are possible and could be successful.

But go to some of the other 33 cities and work with them. And then maybe as you see their successes and good practices and best practices, bring those back to us and maybe we can consider those. But until that's done, then I think it really is unfair that we shoulder the responsibility of being the experiment in the county for things that just don't seem to work. They're good ideas in theory and in concept, but they just don't result well. And we've seen it. You know, for me, it's as visible as stepping out into our park and stepping out into a neighbor's yard. So it is very visible.

And I was one that was very supportive and very hopeful. And so my hope is not gone, but again, I'd like to see some of what I think is being proposed by others to be done in other communities. I think Santa Ana has tried. Unfortunately, the premise was strong. Unfortunately, in practice, it didn't work. And again, I want to thank Mr. Reyes and all the other neighbors that have tried to work really responsibly. And to the extent that the program will be successful someplace else, I'll certainly be hopeful in looking out for that as well. Thank you.

Mr. Mayor. Yes, go ahead, Council Member Becerra.

Phil BacerraItem —

I just want to add one thing. I just, I want to thank Council Member Sarmiento for his comments, what he was saying there about the 33 other cities here in Orange County. It was like, he was reading my mind. I would hope that those that took the time to come to our council this evening and request for us to shoulder this program will, you know, hit the trail and hit the other 33 city councils and make the same passionate pleas to them because for so many programs that have such negative impacts, folks come to our council and they expect us to do it. They expect us to adopt these programs.

Phil BacerraItem —

So I really hope that they will take the show on the road and I hope that they will actually go to these other cities and make the same request. That's all, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you for that. I agree with that, by the way. Other comments?

If not, I believe we have a motion on this.

Yes.

Council Member Solorio and I have Council Member Becerra's second.

Okay, roll call vote.

Council Member Becerra?

Yes.

Council Member Mendoza? Yes. Council Member Peñalosa?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Council Member Sarmiento?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Councilmember Solorio? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Vegas? Yes. Mayor Pulido? Yes. Motion carries 7-0.

Next item Madam Clerk? 60C.

Do we have this from the city manager's office? Do folks want a presentation? Are we ready to move forward?

Actually, sir, this was a request from the council meeting of September 1st, and the item before you is to adopt a resolution supporting the Reducing Crime and Keeping California Safe Act, that's known as Prop 20.

David PenalozaItem —

I'll make a motion to approve.

Phil BacerraItem —

All right. I'll second that, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor, Council Member Becerra to second. I'd like to comment.

Go ahead, please.

Phil BacerraItem —

I just wanted to thank my colleagues for supporting bringing this resolution forward. I think this is gonna be a proposition that will deter the early release of these violent criminals. And it'll empower our judges to be able to impose the court ordered drug rehabilitation programs. I think this proposition is gonna go a long way to making Santa Ana safer than it is today. And so with that, I'll be supporting this resolution.

Thank you. Other comments?

Yes, Mr. Mayor, this is a council member Sarmiento.

Please go ahead, councilor Sarmiento.

Thank you. So I will not be supporting this resolution and I know it's simply a resolution for a proposition that will be coming before all the voters in California in November. And I think that again, speaking about premises that I think that are well-intended and maybe consequences that are, you know, unexpected and unfortunate. I certainly think that, you know, the council members that brought this, and I think there is some good language in this proposition, but I think there's also enough language that could bring some unintended consequences to us will prevent me from being supportive.

And I think one of the reasons why this is also important to us is that when we see that there are releases, whether they're early releases or whether they're releases of inmates at a normal time, they're released into our community. And that's the unfortunate part of what is happening here in Orange County is that unfortunately they get released at a men's central jail here in Santa Ana and not from the communities of origin or where a person was detained or arrested. And that is the real, I think, nut that we have to crack.

Proposition 20, I think there are some salvaging provisions in it where there were some offenses that were not considered to be felonies and considered when a person was being considered for parole. Those being violent domestic violence, dangerous domestic violence cases and some dangerous sex offenses as well. I understand those and I understand why there is this interest in making sure that those get added to the list of violent felonies that are considered when a person is being considered for parole.

The problem is, is that this casts, in my opinion, and, you know, look, we're all entitled to these. I completely get it and I don't disrespect anybody who's supportive of this. I just believe it casts a very wide net to the very demographic that we represent here in Santa Ana. And I know that some folks can be held and detained under felonies, you know, for a theft crime. And, you know, not a violent crime, but a theft crime.

And unfortunately, what it does is it also, you know, is in violation or could violate a 2011 Supreme Court case that ordered our state to make sure that we reduce our prison population. And if you look at the prison population that we presently have, it is mostly people of color and low income people. And that is the very demographic that we have in Santa Ana. So I think that, again, I think the premise of this, you know, I understand it. I disagree with some of the provisions of the proposition. It'll prevent me from supporting it.

Obviously, the voters are going to have an opportunity to go ahead and comment and apply in November. And it'll be something that whatever happens there is something that we'll make sure that we have to abide by. So I just wanted to give a recitation as to why I will not be supporting the resolution tonight.

Thank you for that. Any additional comments, council members?

Yes, Mr. Mayor, this is Council Member Solorio. I want to thank my colleagues for helping bring this forward, starting with that last meeting. I am part of the statewide group supporting this effort, including here in Orange County and Santa Ana. The two main reasons why I think it's important is it fixes a flaw under the 2014 Prop 47 that removed the felony status of rape of an unconscious person, trafficking of child for sex, assault of a peace officer, felony domestic violence, and other similar crimes.

That prior proposition said those were not violent felonies. I strongly disagree, and this is an effort statewide being made to fix that. Additionally, it would re-allow the collection of DNA evidence for certain crimes, and DNA evidence has been very successful in bringing folks to justice on both sides, helping convict those that convicted crimes, but also in some cases proving that a certain person wasn't involved in a certain element of a crime. So for those reasons, I support this. I don't know to what extent the city can support this beyond this action.

This is a question for our city attorney. I know here we have a resolution in support of Prop 20. Can you speak a little bit to the limits of how we can share our position with the public?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Okay. Council Member, as you may know, there are various penal code provisions and government code provisions that prohibit the city from taking actions that would advocate for the passage or failure of a ballot measure or passage or failure of measures like that. The city can take positions on legislation, as you've done in the past. I would have to let staff speak to how you develop your legislative platform and then how staff moves forward with that.

Yeah, maybe separately I'll follow up with our city manager on if there is an affirmative vote in support of Prop 20, what we might be able to do to share the council's position with the public. Thank you so much.

Additional comments, council members.

Yes, Mayor Pulido, this is Council Member Mendoza.

Go ahead, please.

Yes, I just want to reiterate that Santa Ana is committed to keeping our residents and the public safe. Thus, I am in support of this ordinance. And so I will be voting in favor. Thank you.

Thank you for that. Any other comments? If not, I believe we have a motion in a second.

Go ahead. No more comments?

Madam Clerk, a roll call vote, please.

Council Member Becerra?

Yes.

Council Member Mendoza?

Yes.

Council Member Peñalosa? Council Member Sarmiento?

No.

Councilmember Solorio?

Yes.

Councilmember Peñalosa?

We're voting on item 60C.

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tempegas?

Yes.

And Mayor Pulido?

yes motion carries item 60D we continued so let's go on to item 65A

thank you mayor

go ahead

thank you mayor and council members I do have a brief presentation for you the item before you is to accept an informational report relating to police oversight and then to seek further direction from you for staff to follow up. So on June 12th, the City Council directed us to prepare an informational report that did a number of things, mainly to identify and share examples of police oversight models, provide an overview of best practices for police oversight, and evaluate the various frameworks. In addition, this report also provides a very brief overview of our own police department's approach

to police related complaints. So starting with our own police department, the mission of our department is to provide effective police services with integrity, respect, and compassion while fostering strong partnerships with the community we serve. The department strives to provide fair, courteous, responsive, and effective service equally to all individuals while observing each individual's dignity and worth. So our complaint process that we currently have in place with the police department and we have a policy to accept and thoroughly investigate all

complaints of alleged misconduct by any member of the police department and we have this process in place to really do two things to correct if in fact there is improper employee conduct but also to conduct the investigations as to protect employees from unwarranted criticisms if their actions were justified the next slide talks about the complaint procedure I won't read through everything it is a very easy process you can go to our website santa-anna.org you can type in a search police complaint and the information will come up and it will guide anybody through the process that wants to make a complaint

alleging misconduct of any staff member the complaint is reviewed it's assigned by for investigation it is typically investigated by our internal affairs a unit that they're very familiar with all of the procedures and processes in conducting those investigations and there usually is four types of determinations that are made one would be sustained if misconduct is sustained the department would take the required disciplinary action if it's not sustained there's no action taken unfounded was there was not enough information to determine whether it was valid or not and exonerated was the

investigation resulted in the officer being cleared of any misconduct the The complainant will get notified within 30 days after the investigation is completed of the finalization of the determination. So this is, oh, in addition to this, obviously if there is misconduct that's alleged that does border with criminal conduct, there may be an investigation performed by the district attorney's office.

So now moving into overview of police oversight commissions. First of all, what is police oversight? While the definition varies by source, a police oversight board or commission is a form of oversight mainly over law enforcement officers' conduct. This type of oversight has been discussed and debated since the 1960s. It usually comes to the forefront as a result of a high-profile incident that occurred in the community. The purpose of oversight is to improve law enforcement's performance and accountability. So when we looked at what the best practices are out there, we did find a leading scholar,

Samuel Walker, and he distilled the best practices into a very concise and practical list that should facilitate police reform. And it dealt with four areas. The use of force and other critical incident reporting, open and accessible citizen complaint procedures, early intervention systems, and external citizen oversight. More of the best practices talked about any successful police oversight model must address the rules, policies, the norms, and the cultures of the individual police department. And research does suggest that police misconduct is often driven by the ethos of the police organization.

It's important to point out that in 2019, Santa Ana Police Department leadership, working with members of the community and co-facilitated by the Orange County Human Relations Commission, revised our department's community-oriented policing philosophy, which emphasized accountability, integrity, and transparency, and that has been established and documented in the 2019-2024 for Police Strategic Plan, which does incorporate some of the scholars' best practices for police reform. The different police oversight models, what we found is there really is two types that are the ones that are the most debated,

and they're both on two separate ends of the spectrum. And those oversight models are police oversight, where the Oversight Board or Commission does have investigatory powers, and police oversight where the board and commissioner does not have investigatory powers and then there are a number of variations in between which I'll talk about a little bit but starting when you have police oversight with investigatory powers it usually consists of assigned members who have the additional authority to investigate complaints separately and externally from the police department it's generally seen in organizations who have

a history of serious patterns and practices of misconduct. This board or commission may make findings and specific recommendations to the administrators regarding discipline and or policy. Advantages of this type, it can provide increased public confidence in misconduct investigations and give the community a greater sense of inclusion. It provides additional oversight as investigations and findings come from one agency other than the police department. Disadvantages, the members must be highly trained and willing to spend a considerable amount of time to conduct fair, unbiased and consistent investigations.

Substandard investigations can create significant problems for the community and police department as well as liability for the city. The board or commission must have the ability to compel evidence, that would be subpoena power, and the ability to hear testimony from officers. We did find that this model does require a significant amount of funding in order to function appropriately. Police oversight without investigatory powers. This consists of members who review police misconduct investigations to determine whether they were conducted appropriately and adequately.

The members agree or disagree with the findings of the internal affairs investigations and may make recommendations. This type of oversight also typically provides proposals and recommendations regarding departmental operating procedures. So for example, a chief advisory board could be created to act as a community resource for the police chief, informing strategies, developing community policing priorities, increasing public awareness and transparency. This type of a board is intended to provide a forum for discussions concerning the community concerns and its goal is to have a broad spectrum of viewpoints represented.

The advantages include the boards or commissions without investigatory powers can produce findings more quickly than an investigatory model. The model also provides an opportunity for residents to be directly involved and have input on policy issues. The disadvantages of large amount of labor and time is required for those that serve on the board. The members ideally must have some knowledge and training to identify problems in complex investigations and without the investigatory powers they're limited to the evidence and investigate and the investigation conducted by internal

affairs members may feel obligated to pursue specific agendas or policies in this type of a oversight in addition to those two types which anchor both ends of it their National Association of civilian oversight of law enforcement also came up with three classifications of police oversight models. And there's a lot more detailed information from the National Association of Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement. It's attached to your staff report. But basically, it identifies three classifications of oversight models. An investigation-focused model, a review-focused model, and an auditor-monitor model.

In the investigation focus model, this involves routine independent investigations of complaints against police officers, which may replace or duplicate police internal affairs process, and it would be staffed by non-police civilian investigators. A review focus model, which tends to be the most common type based on a survey that was conducted in 2016, concentrates on commenting on completed investigations after reviewing the quality of police internal affairs investigations, recommendations may be made to police executives regarding findings or there might be a request for further investigations.

The review board is usually composed of citizen volunteers that commonly head this model and they may also hold public meetings to collect community input and facilitate police community communication. The last form is the auditor-monitor model. This is a more rare model that's in use in the United States, and it focuses on examining broad patterns in complaint, investigations, patterns in the quality, findings, and discipline. Most of the time, this model entails a paid professional that would come in and perform those responsibilities.

So as far as a framework, we do know that since the 1970s, 1970s more than 200 police oversight commissions or boards have been established through the night throughout the United States The types that have been established vary significantly from one city to the next and even within the general categories that I just Described they're deployed a little bit differently some communities deploy oversight commissions that incorporate a number of characteristics from each of the models. So in order to give you a better understanding of how police oversight plays a role in law enforcement in the

state of California, you have a second attachment to your staff report that has a summary of select cities and the type of police oversight models that they are currently deploying. In addition to the flexibility of the makeup of each police oversight commission, variability also exists among the cost associated with each. We did research on just a handful of cities and it does indicate that the models with the full investigatory power require the greatest amount of annual funding, where non-investigatory power models that serve to monitor require the least, and then of course there's everything in between. The best approach

continues to be a subject of debate among scholars and practitioners. In part, it's because so many different factors influence what particular agencies and communities need and can sustain so I know that's a very brief presentation you have a lot more information contained in the exhibits to the staff report and it is a very complex issue so at this point we are seeking further direction if you want us to dig deeper and research any one of those models if you want us to research all of the models or any other direction you might provide us is what we're looking for tonight thank you

mr mayor this is consumer peñalosa yes go ahead if you have a comment go ahead

David PenalozaItem —

yeah i just uh i definitely want to see uh more information on on all of these uh specifically the the police oversight without investigatory powers and then the police oversight with investigatory powers.

David PenalozaItem —

What I want to make sure that we're very clear is the cost associated to both of those. And from what I believe back in June, it was the similar direction. So if we could kind of narrow it down to both of these, because it's something that's important for an agency that takes close to 50% or over of our budget, it's important that we have some kind of oversight. So if we could come back with additional information, I'm very supportive of doing that. I don't know if that's a motion or if it's just kind of general.

David PenalozaItem —

It was a receiving file, correct?

Yes, just accepting information.

David PenalozaItem —

except information report i'm supportive of looking deeper into both of these uh to see what you know what what the actual cost would be because that would be a deal breaker for me is the cost associated to any of these so with that said those are my comments mr mayor

thank you mr mayor comments council members go ahead this council member becerra

Phil BacerraItem —

I wanted to thank our staff for all the work that they put into this. A lot of information in their research in this report. You know, I supported bringing this item forward, you know, before, not because we have a police department that's full of officers, you know, like those that we've seen in Minneapolis or what was once rampant through the Rampart Division in L.A., but rather than opine tonight on the specifics, I mean, there's a lot of information before us.

Phil BacerraItem —

So rather than getting down into the weeds as far as what our commission should look like, I think that, you know, it would be important for us to provide our community more time to review this information. You know, I would like to see our staff, you know, proactively seek input from throughout the city. You know, our city is so fortunate that we have over 60 neighborhood associations throughout the entire city. And I just think that they would be an excellent source of input. I mean, I hear from neighborhood association leaders all the time that our city doesn't engage them as much on certain issues as we have in years past.

Phil BacerraItem —

So, you know, while that's a shame, I think it'd be this would be the great opportunity to take advantage and utilize this, you know, this infrastructure that we have in our communities. I'd also like our staff to reach out to our chamber and other stakeholders that are key here in our city because, you know, while we want our police to be, you know, just better serve our residents, I think it's important that, you know, they take in the input of our businesses because I can tell you they are definitely not short on opinions or suggestions on how the police can better serve the entire city.

Phil BacerraItem —

So, you know, ultimately, I'd like to see our oversight commission, you know, provide this way for our residents and our businesses to give input and how our PD can better serve our entire community. And very importantly, I think it's important that our chief and his command staff have this opportunity to receive this input directly from our residents and businesses. I know our PD does a great job on social media and they're very interactive, but I think these sorts of things that have been implemented in other cities really help our PD understand the focus. We talk about community-oriented policing.

Phil BacerraItem —

This tool could be an excellent way to do it. I, too, agree with Council Member Penelosa in the sense that cost is an important factor. And I think that's something that we really need to take into account. I know you take a model like LAPD and the powers that they have, that's a very expensive model, one that I don't know if our city could sustain. But I don't want to pass judgment tonight on what is perfect for our community tonight. I'd like to have this input sought from the community.

Phil BacerraItem —

And with that, I'd like to ask our city manager if, say, I don't know, 60 days, would that be an adequate amount of time for our staff to conduct that type of community outreach that I think is necessary for our residents and our businesses from all over the entire city to be heard and provide enough input to help us make a sound decision on how this Police Oversight Commission functions, how it's made up, and how we proceed?

I'm sorry, sir. Did you say 60 days?

Phil BacerraItem —

60, correct.

I would respectfully request.

Phil BacerraItem —

Would that be enough time, do you think, to do that kind of outreach?

I would request 90 days just because of the complications due to the pandemic.

Phil BacerraItem —

I would entertain that. I think this is something that is too important to rush into. I mean, we've already begun the course to put something together. So I would, I think that it's important that we take the time to do it right and really deliberately take the necessary steps. And I think the community outreach on something like this, that is such a passionate topic for many. I think it's important that we do this. So I would like to ask you, our city manager, just to make sure that as we're doing this outreach, that we utilize the neighborhood associations and we really make sure that

Phil BacerraItem —

we get input from all aspects of our community.

This is council member Mendoza. In addition to-Go ahead council member. Thank you mayor. In addition to what council member Becerra has indicated in largely in obtaining community input so that they can buy into the program. It's a very good idea. I would also like to request a component of maybe having two or three cities where these types of programs have been enacted and have a history of being successful or maybe unsuccessful, what worked, what didn't,

so that we can look to see what kind of protocol we would like to follow for our city, something that won't be too expensive. However, something that our city residents can be part of and something that will continue to create a community relationship with our police officers. and also something along the lines of to show our residents the training that our police officers go through

to ensure that they have that sensitivity training and that there is that brutal force that they may see out there in some cities is not something that's prevalent here in our city. that we can include that in there so that they have an overall view of the whole process and we can wrap it up nicely and then proceed with something that's going to be adequate to meet the needs of our Santa Ana and its residents. Thank you.

Thank you for that. Let me make a comment and we'll continue to take comments. Some of us are not going to be here in 90 days, and that's fine. That's not a problem. But I just want to warn everybody about unintended consequences. In other cities, Long Beach, L.A. in particular, they have commissions, committees, powers, and they have a real, real mess. It just serves to cause its own chaos and issues.

They have three times as many officers per capita as we do, and yet they have a higher crime rate. So I believe we have a very strong police department. I think we have good communications with the community. And so as the future council looks at this, just make sure you guard against unintended consequences because the intentions may be good, but the results might be going backwards and causing more issues than we had before. So additional comments, council members?

I have a quick comment, Mr. Mayor.

Go ahead. All right.

So with the amount of complaints, with being point, a quarter, point, what is that chief? Is it a quarter of 1%, less than a quarter of 1%? Thank you. Of all the calls that they go on and then the officers receive that minimal amount of complaints, I don't see the need for an oversight committee. I was always open, and I believe the chief is open to a chief's advisory board where he can have members of the community address their concerns.

He could have direct feedback and input from the community abroad here in Santa Ana. But what I am in favor of reviewing are records and the procedures on how the police department does look at their investigations, conduct of the officers, because I do believe in accountability. I do believe in having a good system in place. But an oversight committee composed of people that are going to try to have investigatory

powers and such, it's going to be very costly. And I believe a while back when we looked at this, this was about $800,000 a year to have a board. And I think that was the estimate on the price to have something like that for our city. And it was just an awful lot of money. And we have 300 officers in our department. It's not like other agencies where at the Sheriff's Department, they got 1,200 deputies and 1,600 employees that they have in their department. It's very, very different. And I just don't see the need for it.

But for reviews of how the procedures are done and And without jeopardizing the Peace Officer Bill of Rights for the officers and all the HR laws that they also have as government employees, I still say we should be careful with that. And I'm only supportive of a Chief's Advisory Board, not for anything else, because I just don't see the evidence for a whole oversight committee. So those are my comments, Mr. Mayor.

Mr. Mayor?

Thank you. Additional comments. Yes, go ahead.

Yeah, this is Council Member Sotomayor. So, you know, I'm just glad we're having this conversation. So that, for starters, is a good thing. I think that, you know, what we should begin with is that, you know, this shouldn't be considered something punitive. In other words, nobody is trying to be critical of any practice. I think what we're trying to do is we're trying to improve on something that is a vital core municipal function, which is to police and protect and serve our residents. So that is something that we must do.

You know, there are some things that cities, you know, shouldn't be in the business of. But one of the businesses that we have to be in is to make sure that we provide a safe environment. and not just for our residents. And I think as somebody spoke, but to our businesses as well and to our very officers that, you know, that we employ and that staff our department. And, you know, let me begin by just saying some of the very good things that we have in, you know, in our department. And I think one of them is that we've done a very good job. And I think it's been under this chief's leadership to improve our de-escalation.

That's been a very, very proactive step. I think that has prevented a lot of, you know, harm that could have been inflicted upon, you know, innocent residents. So that has been a very good thing. I think the fact that we have, and we go out of our way to make sure that we select officers that are gonna staff our department that are bilingual and can speak the many languages that we have here in the city. In addition, many of our residents were raised in the city. So that adds another layer, I think, of sensitivity that's intangible, right? Knowing that somebody grew up here and has roots here, has relationships here,

that's extremely valuable to instill the trust that we need to have in our department and our public. What we did tonight, believing in community-oriented policing, it's not just increasing staffing levels. That's not the goal of community-oriented policing. It's a change in philosophy in how you protect and serve. It's making sure that you establish relationships with the very people that you're hired and retained to protect and being able to protect those folks with dignity and with respect. And one other thing I think that sometimes goes unsaid is that we are a sanctuary city.

So our officers have been extremely sensitive to the fact that they have to protect voters and residents, regardless of whether they're legal residents, whether they're undocumented. And I think that is something that they should be applauded for. But one thing I think that we have to continue striving for is making sure that there is accountability and not just accountability by one's peers, but accountability by the public that pays those salaries, that pays for those services, and those are our residents. And I think if we compare that to other commissions that we fund, I mean, we have commissions for arts and culture.

We have commissions for historic resources. We have commissions for recreation and parks. Those are important principles and those are important areas and subject matter that we believe in and that are important. But I think public safety, that consumes close to 60% of our unrestricted general fund. and for us not to have a commission to address that subject matter area, I think is a big void and a gap that we have in our review. And again, it doesn't have to be punitive. If anything, these could be discussions that could be had to make sure that there is a safe environment for our officers to work in as well.

But one thing I think that we must not compromise on is that for there to be accountability, for there to be some monitoring, oversight, advisory, whatever you want to call it, it has to be independent. It has to be autonomous. It can't have one, you know, it would be like, you know, folks policing themselves. And that done internally just doesn't seem to work. That's not a good model to follow because it is very hard to oversee and to improve and to hold accountable one's peers.

And I think because we have residents that feel strongly about this, it's important that that oversight, that monitoring, that advisory body be as objective and unbiased as possible. So, you know, I hope that we can strive for that autonomy. Again, autonomy and oversight doesn't need to be punitive. It could be very instructive. It could be very educational. It could be very deliberate in creating a better environment. I agree. I think we have some of the best sensitive officers in any city. The only thing I would say is that they're also policing some very law-abiding residents.

We have people that live in this town that just a very small margin of them violate crime. But for the most part, we have residents here that are respectful of law enforcement. I think that to some degree are fearful of law enforcement. And that's not a good thing because that deters and prevents people from being witnesses and victims in certain crimes. And that's not a good thing for our community. So to the extent that we have good elements and a good environment that we can always improve on, I think that's something that's worthy of doing. The only thing I would give as direction to staff

is I see cities here that probably aren't similarly situated to Santa Ana. I would say to the extent that we can dig in deeper. And I think council member Mendoza said it to look at what cities that are similar in demographics and size to us, what were things that they were successful at? What were the practices that demonstrated good results? I know that we're fairly similar to Long Beach, we're fairly similar to Oakland in size and in demographic. I think with Anaheim, I know they have a public safety board. I've gone out of my way to speak to some of their staff and some of their council members.

They're not all that thrilled with that because, you know, if you're going to have a public safety board or commission, it should fulfill its mission. And I think that one hasn't. It's been sort of a two plus exercise from what I've heard. So to the extent that we can do something that makes a difference and improves people's lives, residents who pay, you know, a premium for public safety and make sure that we keep our officers safe. I think that's a worthy investment. So those are my comments and I look forward to seeing more information on this. Thank you.

Any other comments?

Yes, Mr. Mayor, this is Council Member Solorio.

Go ahead, Council Member Solorio.

Thank you. I'll just walk through some issues real quick because I know we've had already quite a bit of dialogue. I do think there is a need for police oversight and it is important and that oversight should start with the City Council. Maybe we need to do more in terms of public reports and discussions on many of these issues. I know we do get periodic performance measures and reports by our police department. I'm very thankful for all that, but if we want to really do more on oversight, the buck stops with us, and us doing a little bit more would be helpful.

We also do have a personnel board that does oversee personnel issues related to all of our employees, including it in police maybe we need to figure out what their role is in this or not but that's an existing board with existing staffing we also used to have a City Council Public Safety Committee but I know some of my colleagues didn't want to have that level of oversight and so that was canceled but maybe in the future we could return to that and then I mentioned the council as a whole should do more on this when I look at police oversight boards across the country

because I've looked at many of them, not a lot of success stories out there. So just because others say that these police oversight boards are the things to do, if you look up at any of these cities, whether it be Long Beach, L.A., Oakland, or other cities, their crime isn't a good thing, and the relationship between the police and the public isn't necessarily good, and they still have their good share of officer-involved shootings. so for me I look at the evidence are there really models that work or not because aside from the money they cost I have concerns about that as well as if

there are solutions on making our community safer and reducing the use of force let's do those and implement those and I think when councilmember Villegas and I got on the council that a few years ago we noticed that one emerging best practices if working best practices was body-worn cameras and so guess what we led the effort to require them and we went from 9 to 10 officer involved shootings per year down to two to three per year that's something to be really proud about I was mentioned also as continuing to hire top-rate recruits and bilingual people has also been very helpful I would also just encourage

moving forward in terms of the outreach, let's survey our residents. Do our residents want additional service? We know every day there are hundreds of people that call 911. We know there are countless people that feel that although our response time has improved, that they would like more staff, so let's see what they want. And for example, do they want more attention on violent crimes? Do they want more attention on misdemeanor crimes and quality of life issues like homelessness, what level of service and level of staffing. I'd be interested in citywide surveys on that.

And again, if there are shortcomings on any of our use of force policies, we want to hear about them. I know our police chief, as he hears of other proposals and best practices, he's quick to do his own policies for the department, so I'm grateful for that. Finally, in terms of a big reform, one that I've suggested and it was alluded to as well, the Office of Internal Affairs, no reason why that needs to be in the police department. I would be perfectly fine putting that in the city attorney's office or in the city manager's office so there is a little bit of separation between those that evaluate

issues of possible misconduct in the police department so that there's not direct oversight by their own supervisors in chief. But I think there's been a lot of good work done. Santa Ana has been leading by example in many areas. And I know sometimes they'll point to Santa Ana's bad stats on officer-involved shootings, but that was, you know, 10 and 15 years ago. The new rates under this leadership team has been positive, and I'm really proud of the success that the body-worn cameras by themselves are leading to. So thank you all so much.

One more quick question. Any other comments, council members? It's council member Mendoza with one last...

Please, go ahead.

Thank you. Maybe to the city manager, as a form of direction, we could probably look right here in our very own backyard. I am a member of the sheriff's advisory council currently, and so it doesn't cost the county any money. It's just a group of citizens that are comprised of attorneys, me as city council, teachers, other business people.

And it's an advisory council on issues that are related to the criminal matters where the sheriff's department is involved. So perhaps maybe the city manager can also, in that summary that is coming up, contact and coordinate with our sheriff and see how it's working out here for our very own county. And as a personal experience, I can tell you that there's been a lot of resolution without any cost or any conflict to the county.

So these are issues that are of importance to our community that have been resolved there at the Sheriff's Advisory Council. So it does work. I'm not in favor of something that will be more aware of the group has powers that are already taken up by other agencies, such as the Internal Affairs. So this is strictly just an advisory council, which is working out just fine with the sheriff's department. So that's my direction. And I hope we can proceed with something that on that level. Thank you, Mayor Bolido.

You're welcome. Any other comments, council members?

If not, I think in 90 days, it'll be interesting to see what staff has, but again I warn against unintended consequences and I don't think the

system's broken and trying to fix it could make it worse but we'll wait to

see what happens in 90 days so with that next item madam clerk 75 a public hearing item okay this is public and item 75a do you have any speakers for

this item madam clerk I have only one caller attending I can go ahead and unmute them and see if they want to speak on this item yes go ahead I'll

open up the public hearing let's see what the caller has to say caller with

the last three numbers three six one please dial star six or select the unmute button if you would like to speak

okay caller and disconnected mayor did not want to speak all right with that

let me ask is there any staff presentation or anything you want to

say before I close the public hearing mayor this is mintide this is a follow-up to the ordinance that was adopted for the vacancy property ordinance on August 18th the resolution will allow staff to have full cost recovery based on the increased cost so staff does recommend that the City Council approve the

resolution thank you for that any questions I'll close the public hearing and bring it to council for questions and consideration. Any comments?

Phil BacerraItem —

Mr. Mayor? Mr. Mayor, Council Member Becerra here. I just want to thank staff for bringing this forward, and I'd like to go ahead and make the motion to approve.

Thank you for that. Is there a second? Second.

Thank you for that, Councilor Lario. Any other comments? If not, I'll call for the vote.

Roll call vote.

Council Member Becerra?

Yes.

Council Member Mendoza?

Yes.

Council Member Peñalosa?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Council Member Sarmiento?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Council Member Solorio?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Vegas?

Yes.

Mayor Pulido?

Yes.

Motion carries 7-0.

Does that take us to city manager comments?

Yes.

Thank you, mayor. comment thank you just a few brief ones i wanted to talk a little bit about the cares outreach and then also covet as a whole so we do have the dashboard that i announced at the last city council meeting so you continue to look at that it does get updated daily monday through friday a couple of revisions we're making in order to get more testing done we have added two evenings for testing sites at our parks and we are getting a really good response to that we also are contemplating potentially doing some testing in conjunction with some of the existing food drives

in order to test more individuals within our community. And one of the interesting stats is we have now handed out face masks to over 20% of our population. The Child Care Assistance Program, it will go live this week, and residents that are affected by COVID can apply for up to $1,000 in assistance for child care needs. It's only one grant per household, irrespective of the number of children and another thing that we are working on with the Santa Ana Unified School District is to help them get some testing done of their youth athletes that are coming back on campus to engage in sports activities as a whole

I know that you probably are familiar that we are the governor revised how he classifies the counties and that dictates as to what we can open have open in our city and right now OC remains at the substantial risk tier and and we have to remain at that tier for about three weeks before we would get reverted back or move forward to a less restrictive tier. It is all dependent upon our case and our testing rates for up to two straight weeks. So given our stats on those two data points, we didn't have an improvement for today,

So the next available date that we could move to a less restrictive tier would be on Tuesday, October 6th. Another really important item is since our contractor that is doing the testing for the city is using the PCR swab as the test component, and their lab is registered with the state, our test results are fed into the dashboard that the Orange County Health Care Agency has, and it is used in the stats that the state looks at to determine which tier we will remain in. And that's all I have. Thank you.

Let me just ask you questions, and council members join if you like, please. How many people have we tested? Do you have an idea thus far?

About 2,200.

And we want to do about 30,000, or how many is our target?

30,000. I believe it's 32,000, actually.

Thanks. All right. So we have a ways to go, but we're trying really hard. And I know it's not easy. It's really tough. But I know you're working very, very, very hard on that. Let me also ask you, the positivity rate for the city, is it pretty much what the county claims it is in their overall stats that they give us? Are we finding that it's beginning a change? Is it any better than what it's been in the past?

So we are just slightly above what the rate is for the county. The county as of today was 4.2, and we are at about 4.3 with the tests that we've performed so far.

So maybe we're doing well. Maybe we're starting to get a hold of things. Do you have any feel for that?

I believe we'll have a better picture when we do increase the number of testing. One of the things that the state is doing, which makes it difficult for us to track, is on the new cases per 100,000 people, they don't take exactly what our county stats are. They have an adjustment that they do. The state as a whole is testing on average about 217 people per 100,000 population, and the county of Orange is down in the 170 people per 100,000 population. so the state does an adjustment factor. So as long as you're testing less than what the state is as a whole,

they will increase that metric and adjust it accordingly. So that's something that's a little hard to follow when you're looking at those stats to determine if we're going to be in trouble of reverting back or being able to move less restrictive.

But overall, we're part of the county, so if we're doing well and the county numbers improve, we could be in a different category.

Correct, ma'am.

All right. Thank you for that, and thank you for the great job. I know everybody's really working hard and thinking out of the box. I know several council members have gone out and witnessed what you're doing, and you're out there really doing the work. Staff's doing a great job. Thank you for that.

You're welcome, and it is definitely the efforts of staff led by Dacey of my office. They're working really hard, and if you haven't taken advantage, I would invite you to visit our hotline room, which is in the Ross Annex, and take a look at all the people that are taking all of the calls and assisting individuals with getting assistance. We also have one room dedicated to packaging all the CARES bags, so if you haven't seen it in action, I encourage you to stop by.

I have, but I would encourage everybody to spend as much time as they can there. Also, I would like to say that with the Orange County Mayor's Group, we filmed a video on Mask Up Orange County. I hope that we are done with the editing soon so we can get it out there. but um uh daisy did a a great job um you know helping facilitate that and um uh and i think it's going to be a very positive uh project uh you know for sent in in particular because we

led the charge on the whole thing uh but for the county at large as well because we've gotten folks that probably would not have been as interested in promoting a strong mask it up campaign you know they've become part of the group and and we had very strong participation from throughout the county on that so again kudos again to Daisy for for those efforts with that let's go to council a comment to councilor Becerra, please.

Phil BacerraItem —

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just want to express my appreciation to my colleagues tonight. I think we got a lot of work done for the people and we're actually doing it within the same night we began the meeting. So I just want to say thank you for that. And I just also want to express my appreciation that we're adjourning tonight's meeting in memory of Gerald Carr. I have to believe CNN is only astronaut. So with that, I hope that everybody will complete the census before the end of the month. And with that, I'd like to wish everybody a good night.

Thank you for that. Now council member Mendoza, please.

Yes, thank you, mayor Pulido. I just want to mention that our, I sit on the board of the orange County sanitation district And they were recently mentioned in the New York Times newspaper article regarding the rolling blackouts that we've had in the last couple of weeks due to the extreme temperatures we've been having here in Southern California.

And so our Orange County Sanitation District is to be commended as they are a leading organization in providing what's called the battery backup energy. And so when the plants have to shut down or they can't provide enough energy due to the extensive use of air conditioning and electricity, and there's not enough electricity to go around the county, that's when the rolling blackouts occur.

However, with this new program of having these huge batteries ready for such occurrences, hopefully this kind of thing, the rolling blackout, will not occur in the future. and so we are just very lucky and blessed to have a sanitation district that is at the forefront of

such a such a great program and and happy birthday to our city manager thank you for all you do and you may take the weekend off

thank you councilmember happy happy 49th birthday again madam city manager

David PenalozaItem —

councilman peña loza please thank you mr. mayor um i just wanted to report out that on monday i had the opportunity to um as a member of the board of directors for iccoc attend the conference on municipal issues virtual summit on Monday in Lake Forest. And two very informative and important panels was public safety and economic development during and post-COVID-19, which is very important that we address that and have that conversation.

David PenalozaItem —

Had heard dialogue from Sheriff Don Barnes, Chief Cisneros from Anaheim and Chief Sinas from Buena Park as well as some economic development panelists that was Monday so very excited to bring those ideas and thoughts to our city to see what other neighboring agencies are doing throughout the county and I also am fortunate enough to sit on the board of the transportation corridor agency and last week the board appointed a new CEO Samuel Johnson to lead the agency forward he's been the interim CEO the

David PenalozaItem —

last five months and has done an excellent job and also moving the agency forward during COVID-19 and another interesting and fun highlight from the transportation corridor agency is that we entered into an agreement with a local rancher to utilize cattle for conservation grazing aimed at increasing the biodiversity of parcel of land called Live Oak Plaza. Live Oak mitigation site is approximately 23 acre site nestled in the Trabuco Canyon area and is one of 17 mitigation areas set aside as permanent open space by TCA,

David PenalozaItem —

which is located directly across the street from Cook's Corner. So any bikers out there if you're familiar with that, this practice helps to restore native vegetation and acts as a fire mitigation strategy which is important given the wildfires that we have today in California additionally grazing is not only more natural it is actually cheaper than using harsh chemicals for mowing the three-year pilot program will begin next year and passerbys and any tourists going up to hike or going to check out Cook's Corner may notice 50 to 60 heads of cattle cows grazing on the fence property several times a year the

David PenalozaItem —

effort will be monitored and documented to determine effectiveness so I wanted to highlight that that because I thought it was kind of interesting and just as a reminder my monthly reminder is to make sure everyone fills out the census if you haven't already done so by going to www.my2020census.gov the city of Santa is currently at 69.1% response rate. We're up 0.3% from two weeks ago, which is still terrible. So if we could get to 70% by the end of the month, that would be, I mean, phenomenal. Of course, the goal is 100,

David PenalozaItem —

but given that we have two weeks left, it's important that we try to fill it out. Tomorrow night at Dale High Park, from 4 p.m. to 7, We will have our CARES event out there providing free testing, utility and rental assistance applications. And we're going to have a taquero out there. If, for those who choose to come and fill out the census there, you will get free tacos for everybody in your family. Dinner from 4 to 7 p.m. So make sure to bring your neighbors. and, you know, if you guys haven't already filled out the census, if you do so tomorrow, you'll get tacos.

David PenalozaItem —

So that's, you know, and it's Mexican Independence Day, so it's a nice little celebratory tacos and census. You know, nothing better than that. So with that said, those are my comments, Mr. Mayor, and good night, everybody.

Council Member, let me just take a moment to thank you because you've been, you know, very consistent on this message about the census. And I think it's, you know, for those that listen, it's making a difference. So on behalf of the council and the city, thank you again for your efforts and your consistency on that.

David PenalozaItem —

I appreciate that, Mr. Mayor. Thank you.

You're welcome. Council Member Sarmiento, please.

Yes, thank you. You know, I want to begin by thanking the city attorney and her staff. I know I've been referring some matters having to do with some of our residents that have been evicted during this pandemic in violation of both our executive order and the state's executive order. And I believe her and her staff are working very hard to provide relief to many of those people and families who are going through a difficult time made worse by landlords that are very not only insensitive, but are violating the law.

So thank you for working with our partners at both the Public Law Center and the other agencies that are helping us out. The other thing I wanted to remind the city manager and all of us is that I know we have an executive order that will soon be set to expire on the moratorium on the residential evictions. And I know the state and the governor extended theirs to the end of the year. So something for us to consider because, you know, as well as we're doing on the mobile testing, as strong as the effort's been, you know, mission not accomplished.

This is still a very real presence that we have, and especially here in St. Anne and our four impacted zip codes. I think what we're doing to embed our resources in our neighborhoods that are most impacted are making a difference. I like the new model of going to parks and telling people what the schedules are because they can plan out their time to go in. I know sometimes when we go during the day, people are working and they're not able to make it to even some of those testing sites that are in their neighborhood because they're not home.

So these will allow people to kind of schedule around their work. And also, I want to thank the city manager and her staff for coordinating with Latino Health Access that is doing their similar model of taking the resources and the mobile testing to neighborhoods and making sure that we're not duplicating services and not being present in one neighborhood at the same time. So those are all good things. And I really do believe that we stumbled onto something with this model of going into neighborhoods, providing resources and services and and doing outreach that's been really effective.

I want to think that we can maybe replicate that in some other ways when it comes to some of our meetings that we need to have when it impacts a neighborhood or a part of town, maybe looking at this model. But maybe even extending this model again, I'll repeat to the registrar voters that we've had visit our city council meeting on how we can effectively allow people, permit people and make voting much more accessible.

Maybe we can help them with doing some mobile voting and maybe they have a vehicle or maybe they can share a vehicle with us or maybe we can do something to increase voter participation that is going to be critical this November. you know as we talk about the census coming to an end in a couple of weeks I'm you know it's sort of a mixed bag we've done a great job but you know now the state is moving some of its resources outside of the Santa Ana and taking them elsewhere so it's a critical time to you know sort of divest their their efforts here and take them elsewhere but but to the extent that

we look at this model that we stumbled onto and has been very effective and I think our staff is and a very good job, we should look at replicating it for other efforts. And finally, I just want to wish everybody Feliz 16 de September. We would be celebrating with parades and with festivals on the weekends and with music and food and culture. And, you know, it's just not to be this year. But hopefully next year we'll come back stronger and better and have a lot more to celebrate. So with that, I'll say goodnight to everybody. Thank you.

Thank you. And thank you for your effort, council member, especially as it's related to pushing some of the efforts on this COVID. I know I've spent way more hours than I care to admit, but I think it's been the, you know, the collective voice of the council that, that's also been very helpful. And then of course, staff has responded in a big way. And I know you helped push for that extra meeting that we had. And I think that in part resulted in some of the, you know, some of the projects and the benefits that we're now seeing. So with that, Senator Solario, please.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Three things. First, likewise, I want to ask everyone to enjoy the 16 de Sepiembre, Mexican Independence Day. No big festivities this year, but online I know our Mexican consulate office and others have some very nice tapes and ceremonies. so something there for folks to watch. On the CARES program, city manager, excellent report. I did go out to visit one of the mobile resource teams in action, and it was impressive to watch, starting with a street sweeper that came by, and there was a bunch of leaves, and it actually was very efficient.

The leaves got picked up, and a little water, and much cleaner afterwards for everybody, and given all the activity on the street, I was pleased we did that. Too many reports. I was pleased to see, City Manager, that you figured out a way to do a child care program, and I know we discussed this on the dais, and I know Governor Newsom also was encouraging it, so I think that's a fantastic proposal. Maybe we can figure out ways to promote that more. I recently also learned that in Anaheim, they did like a little map study of broadband access citywide.

And I don't know that I've seen a map version of kind of how we do, but I'd like for our staff to look at the city of Anaheim staff report to see how they put that together and some recommendations and some use of COVID dollars for helping. and it's a way at least of focusing some dollars and some efforts. And for us, in addition to CARES dollars, there's youth fund dollars maybe as well, so something to look at. In terms of homelessness activities, I know in addition to what our police department does, CHP is also very helpful, and I don't know who our liaison is to CHP,

But I'm starting to see a growth of homelessness encampments on Caltrans properties. I think in part now just because we continue to do better in parks and elsewhere that if you're going eastbound on Buffalo, southbound onto the 5 Freeway, literally right as you immediately turn there are two encampments there now on you know that steep incline that's landscaped by by Caltrans and there's even a big waste management container out there that's one of the storage and living places apparently and you know we

don't want people living in those areas obviously that's one area to their going northbound on the 5 exiting onto 17th Street by guarantee Chevrolet there are a few areas there of Caltrans managed properties where there's activity throughout the day and then finally at MacArthur and the 55 area there on what would be like the southeast quadrant of the landscape areas managed by Caltrans there are two

three tents in there they're a little bit obscure but if you're on the freeway traveling and you know where to look you could see some of that and so if we could reach out to Caltrans to see if they can go out there and offer those folks services and shelters including our shelter I would appreciate that and I They've been helpful in other things, so thank you so much.

Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem Villegas, please.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Everybody, all of my colleagues, they spoke about September 16th, census, all the issues here within the city, homelessness, September 16th, all that good stuff. I'll just say that on behalf of the City of Santa Ana, our hearts and our thoughts and prayers are with the two deputies in L.A. County who were ambushed and shot over the weekend. And we hope that justice is brought to them and their families.

I'm concerned about our officers, all law enforcement for that matter. but our officers here in particular here in this city because it's so active and we've been very fortunate that that has not happened to us and knock on wood but um you know it's a it's a very difficult job and so our prayers go out for all the officers here of the first responders also So it's a tough job that they have, and we need to unite behind them, especially at this time, for the way things are with all these different movements that are taking place. And those are my comments, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you.

I just want to state that, look, we all are thinking about different things. There's the campaigns right now for all the elections going on in the city. You know, we've got the budget constantly, constant issues, but we just can't take our eye off of that pandemic. Within a few days, we will be at 10,000 cases, and we're still accelerating, meaning we used to lead Anaheim, but now that gap between us and Anaheim is growing.

we're going to be at 10,000 cases before they get to 9,000 and so I know we're distributing a lot of masks but and and and I think we are one of the most masked up cities but we just need to continue to push very hard I know everybody's getting tired of it it's just so fatiguing you know but but the virus is still with us. And, you know, with colder weather coming, flu season coming, we could have a resurgence.

And so, you know, these efforts by staff and especially the passing out of the masks, I know if we can find a way, there are more masks available up in Sacramento. I was speaking to the governor's staff recently and we can get more. So let's just get more and more masks to every single resident in the city and tell them to mask up and hopefully we'll reduce our rate. Because I'm telling you, even though we believe our positivity rate is 4.3 or whatever,

if you look at the hot areas, the hot spots, there's still plenty of them and that's why we're going up and and again keep looking at the numbers but within a few days we will be at 10 000 and that should be a warning to us all that if we don't handle it somehow it'll be only the first 10 000 and a year from now you know this this curse will still be with us and that gets in the way of everything that we need to do so you know So kudos, thank you to the council. Thank you to staff. Let's keep digging deep and finding ways to make things happen.

Also, I know there was a request. Somebody wanted to adjourn in memory of somebody. Who was that? Can you bring up the name, please?

Mr. Mayor, that was Council Member Becerra. His request, and I thank him for bringing this up. I wanted to adjourn the meeting of our NASA astronaut, Gerald P. Carr.

do you have let's uh adjourn in uh in the astronaut card's name please record at madam clerk and with that this meeting is now adjourned have a good night everybody

thank you mayor polito and staff good night everyone