Read the July 21 meeting.

Mayor, we are, Mayor, the meeting is recording and we have a quorum as far as I can see.

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.

Madam Clerk, thank you for that. Is James Keller present, our police chaplain?

Yes, and I just want to confirm that if I could do a real quick roll call, I want to make sure that I have everybody in mind.

I thought you told me we had it. Go ahead, do the roll call, then we'll do the pledge. I mean the invocation, go ahead.

Councilmember Becerra?

Councilmember Becerra? Here. Thank you. Councilmember Mendoza? Here. Councilmember Peñalosa?

David PenalozaItem —

Here.

Councilmember Sarmiento?

Here.

Councilmember Solorio?

Here.

Mayor Potem-Viegas?

Here.

And Mayor Pulido?

Here. Thank you. Go ahead. Let's proceed with the invocation, please.

And she's coming up to the podium.

Dear Heavenly Father, we come before you to ask that you bless the city council and the mayor with your wisdom and understanding and discernment in the issues that are before them, that they will do their very best for the citizens of Santa Ana. Please bless the Chief Valentin and all the officers that are on patrol while they're out there protecting our city. We just pray these things now in Jesus' name. Amen.

all righty so um um madam city of clerk i uh or city attorney i'm sure there was nothing to report out right but just correct we had no request yes we had no closed session um items this evening so no report okay um now we have a special presentation regarding november 3rd election um we're going to have somebody here from the orange kind of register of voters

yes we do justin president madam clerk yes he is his name is justin berardino and you've been unmuted justin and we will go ahead and move the slides forward here for you

Great thank you very much. Thank you council for having me today. The first slide that I'd like to speak to is the one titled Ballots Returned by Method. So I'm going to talk about what we learned from the data from the March election and then I will get into the preparations for the November election. So what I'm showing here is how voters voted in March. And as you can see, the number of people who voted by mail far eclipse, the number who voted in person.

This also shows that the drop box with over a hundred thousand voters had a very strong showing considering this was the first election drop boxes were used in Orange County.

So if we can go to the next slide. And this one is titled data from our in-person voting by date. And what we're demonstrating here is in March, there was an 11 day voting period. And this shows the amount of in-person voters by date during that voting period. As you can see, most of the voting in person occurred on the last four days of that voting period, and the highest being on the last day of voting. So this is important to note because this will inform the decision-making process for November

on how many days we will be open for in-person voting. So if we go to the next slide, this one's titled Changes of Voting Habits, And this is one of the more interesting data points that we saw from the March election. So it's a comparison of voting habits between the 2018 general election and the 2020 primary election. And it's broken up by those who traditionally did not vote by mail and those who traditionally vote by mail.

So the first graph shows that those who traditionally did not vote by mail in the 2018 general election, the orange bar represents the percentage that voted in person. So almost 90% voted in person. Now in the 2020 primary, that same subset of voters, the voting habit changed dramatically. and again this was the first election where every voter in the county was sent to vote by mail ballot. You can see more of those voters voted by mail than voted in person and again those are those

who traditionally did not vote by mail. Between those who did traditionally vote by mail you can see there was no real change in voting habits between the 2018 and the 2020 primary but this does demonstrate that those who had had not previously requested vote by mail ballot when they got them they chose to vote using that. So that's some interesting data from March that again will be used for decision-making in November and now I will talk about what we are doing to prepare for November.

The next slide is the voting options. So November will have the same components that we had in March. An in-person voting option with vote centers, returning by Dropbox, and of course, voting by mail. As you go to the next slide, it's just a graphic showing that it's the same services that we offered in March.

But the in-person component may be modified a little bit. And there's a bill in the state Senate right now, SB 423, and that will, depending on the outcome of that bill, that will define how the in-person voting will look, how many sites are required and how many days. If we go to the next slide, changes due to COVID. So to prepare for voting in-person for COVID, we really have to look at the modifications we're gonna be making for vote centers. So we've been doing some rehearsals,

we've been doing some testing to try to figure out what the best way to offer this in-person voting. So some of the things that will change will be the stations, the check-in stations will be farther apart. The voting booths will not be next to each other like they historically have been.

There's gonna be a cleaning protocol after every voter. So obviously that's gonna affect how much we can fit in a vote center, how many people that can fit in a vote center. But that along with promoting the voting at home option, which I'll talk a little bit more about in a second. And then there's also additional options. So for example, historically remote accessible vote by mail, that's a online ballot marking was only available to those with disabilities or overseas voters. Well now that's expanded to those who may have COVID and can't

vote in person or somehow affected by COVID. If we go to the next line, another component for November what is a large media campaign. So if you remember in March, getting pieces of mail, seeing things on buses. There's gonna be a similar campaign, but now instead the focus is gonna be how to vote while staying safe and the options available.

So those are just a couple highlights of the changes to COVID.

If we go to the next slide, again, in-person voting locations in Santa Ana, that is in the works. but we have not secured any yet because we're waiting for that SB 423. And once that passes, if that passes, then we will begin to procure vote centers throughout the county, including Santa Ana. The next slide shows the ballot drop box location.

So the blue locations are the current ballot locations and those will remain the same for November. The red ones are ones that we are removing and the green ones are where we're moving, placing new ballot drop box locations. So we're hoping with those two new sites that'll provide better coverage throughout the city of Santa Ana. And those are both city locations. So we're looking forward to the support from the city administration, the city council to approve the agreements

for those new ballot drop-off locations.

The next slide regarding security considerations. The part that I'd like to focus on for security considerations is voting at home. Make sure people understand the safeguards that are in place for voting by mail and the checks and balances. For example, if you vote by mail, you can track your ballot. You can go online, look up yourself as a voter and see the status of your ballot, see where it is in the mail flow. You can also sign up for proactive updates and you can get texts at each step along your ballot's process

and be notified when your ballot is received by our office. Also, if the ballot comes in and the signature doesn't match or a ballot comes in and there's no signature, you're going to get a letter describing what happened and give you a chance to secure the ballot or take any necessary action. So although there's a lot to talk about security, that one is really one that we...

that's one that we really want to uh focus on communicating for november because that is an important part of security so with that i will um make it available for any questions

Phil BacerraItem —

go ahead council members questions mr mayor yes council member becerra yes go ahead thank you mr mayor uh thank you mr baradino for the presentation i really appreciate you taking the time to present this information to the council and to our community. My one question that I have is in looking at the slide that was titled preparing for November other than the registrar of voters and memorial park there are no ballot drop-off locations south of first street. Is there a reason why there are so many north of first street but not anything south of first street?

well again uh if you go back to that slide we are proposing memorial park which is a city location south of first street um and the reason that we were in that position before is there's a couple factors so one factor is when considering where to put the locations there's 13 criteria that are part of the voter choice act that you have to consider and that includes for example population centers um historical voting habits those sorts of things go into where you should be placing the

drop boxes that on top of availability you know we can in a perfect world you might want to spread them out you know perfectly throughout the county but you have to get locations that agree to allow you to put drop boxes on on their property so that's why we're hopeful that we can uh get this memorial park contract signed and get a drop box um in that southern part of santa anna also too in that area above memorial park kind of the central part that's a very industrial area so

it's not a high targeted area according to the requirement of the voters choice map.

Phil BacerraItem —

Well, Mr. Meridino, north of Memorial Park.

Phil BacerraItem —

I'm sorry, Daisy, did you just unmute me?

No, you're unmuted. Hello? You're still unmuted.

Phil BacerraItem —

Okay, I heard something that said I was muting. Sorry. No, Mr. Meridino, north of Memorial Park is very residential. That is not an industrial area. If you go east of Memorial Park, say past Standard, you start to get into industrial areas such as the areas south of the ROV. But I just I have to express my disappointment that a whole half of the densest city in Orange County, the second densest in California, and there's a huge swap. I mean, almost two thirds of the city that is only going to have two ballot drop off locations. I really hope that Memorial Park isn't the only new one.

Phil BacerraItem —

I hope you'll consider looking at perhaps the Delhi Community Center. There may be some other places south of Warner that might also be available. But I just, too south of First Street, for me, is just unacceptable.

Well, again, I appreciate that input. And again, one of the things that moves the decision-making on this is the availability of properties to allow us to put the drop boxes there.

Phil BacerraItem —

And I hope you're able to find those, but right now you've got a population south of First Street. Many of them are dependent on transit. many of them walk to the store to the parks and to just completely leave this as a desert when it comes to the availability of a ballot drop-off location again i'm going to say it's very

unacceptable again we we do push for that and that's that's why we are looking forward to cooperation with the city to to um to procure these sites and and uh provide that availability

for us. Yeah, Mr. Mayor, this is a council member Sarmiento. Can you hear me? Yes, go ahead, council member. Yeah, thank you. And, and thank you, Justin, for, you know, your presentation. I want to just follow up on council member Becerra's points. And, you know, maybe we stay on the slides a little bit. But before then, I also wanted to say thank you to the clerk, because I know that I had you know requested that she she contact you and and the registrar voters Neil Kelly to come in and and speak to us about this and I think it's good to have this conversation

in mid or late July so we can talk about things that we can cure between now and um and November because we know it is going to be in a regular cycle and it has been for us since um you know since the primary date in March. But, you know, we know that in the past, you know, there have been challenges to just voting. And we see that there's unfortunately, you know, other parts of the country that are dealing with these same challenges, whether it's, you know, in-person voting and machinery not working, equipment not being really as, you know, as efficient and effective as they should be. But for us, I think here in this county,

I think a lot of it has to do with just accessibility and you know I appreciate a lot of what you were saying Justin about you know things that are being done to try to accommodate you know folks with disabilities and being able to online vote and you know making options available and we really don't know how things are going to look but given where we are right now things probably are not going to look all that much different in November or as we approach so we probably need to start bracing for the scenario where we more than likely are going to be doing

almost exclusively voting by mail. Although that isn't, you know, obviously everybody's, you know, preference, but I think we just need to prepare for that. So to the extent that we, you know, we can have this conversation, I think it was good that, you know, Councilman Becerra talked about the distribution of these drop boxes. I think we had some of that same concern in March. I understand that you know you know obviously south of first the only one was the registrar of voters because the memorial park site wasn't even there so you had a very large part

of the city who you know couldn't walk or couldn't you know access their drop boxes easily and as you know we have a very high ridership in the city that you know rides buses and you know walks and and just accesses their services by foot. So, you know, I would say that maybe we can begin this conversation about availability because I don't know if you were saying exclusively the reason why, you know, we have these sites is because, you know, these are voting patterns from the past. You know, the Voter's Choice Act has some criteria that defines where these should be placed.

And I guess I'm not sure if what's determining is the entire county distribution or are you looking at it city by city? And if you're looking at it city by city, if you see, you know, the most dense part of the city is, you know, south of first. And so we're leaving a whole lot of folks just with challenges to being able to easily drop their votes off and their ballots off.

So, you know, I hope that, you know, our clerk and our staff will be working with you and maybe we can revisit this map and see what it looks like after you all have had a chance to speak. But I just think that maybe there's some improvements that could be made. I just certainly want to make it as easily accessible for folks who are going to be voting here in the city. You know, my concern is that there is going to be a lot of confusion.

So to the extent your outreach and your media efforts are done in a multilingual way, because, you know, as you know, we have a lot of bilingual and monolingual speakers, both in Spanish and in Vietnamese. And so that's obviously very important to me that, you know, those folks are contacted and that you speak with us as well about challenges that you see unique to this cycle. not just locations, not just voting by mail, but other things, other ways. And I think we were talking about it. I think one of the last comments you made is how votes get or ballots get disqualified.

I think those are things that are important that we discuss as well because the voter may not know that their vote is not going to be counted if for some reason they fail to provide a signature, they fail to check a certain box or present things in a certain way so i'm glad we're having these conversations now because i think we have some room for improvement and if you and you know uh neil will you know hopefully consider coming back to us as you've made some of these um you know uh some of these changes and and accommodated some of the things that we're

hopefully going to share with you and have shared with you um you know we'd appreciate it but um but thank you for for coming and giving the presentation hopefully you'll take those constructive criticisms receive them well. Mr. Mayor this is a council member

Penalosa. I'm taking over for the mayor for a couple of minutes so he'll be right

David PenalozaItem —

back but go ahead councilmember Penalosa. Thank you sir. Just wanted to also thank Justin for the presentation and kind of just echo both council member Bacerra and Sarmiento's comments and one of the things that I noticed from why you decided to or why the registrar voters has decided to put the ballot drop-off boxes in these locations and I know Councilmember Sarmiento briefly touched on it was a historical voting habits and you know it's decisions like this map here that have caused the suppression of votes and caused these historical

David PenalozaItem —

voting habits because you know 50% of our of our residents don't have access to a car. We have a working class community that work multiple jobs a day and don't have the time to go vote on a voting day and whatnot. So it's going to be very important for this city and the Register of Voters and just for our democracy to really take a look at this map and make those ballot drop-off box is accessible just south of first street there are a lot of public parks

David PenalozaItem —

there are a lot of empty schools that I know that are ADA compliant that we need to make sure that the registered voters is talking to the school district talking to the city and asking if we could install these ballot drop off boxes throughout the city and make sure it's equitable so those are the only things that I wanted to also point out I agree with both my colleagues so thank you for that and it's you know we have a chance here to change this historical voting habits yes central santa ana you know it's probably the lower voter turnout in the city but doesn't mean they're not

David PenalozaItem —

voting because they don't want to it's because it's not as easy for them as they would like it to be so if we have a chance to make it easy for them and change that that's going to go a long ways so thank you Justin for the presentation and those are my comments

thank you mr. mayor pro tem absolutely any other comments

I hear somebody in the background somebody's not muted councilmember

Mendoza I believe that's your phone or councilmember Mendoza I think she just

Before we go on to the next subject, I just wanted to add that this really does matter because unfortunately I was involved in a primary election in March and we were way, way, way below numbers we normally achieve. so I don't know if it was education of the voters if there was too many changes at the same time but if we don't do a better job for November we're going to have also a very low turnout and that'll not only affect local races but certainly as it relates to the city being

represented uh regionally um that that's a double whammy for us um and i think if you look at um uh it turnout we're probably amongst the lowest in the county compared to other uh you know historical turnout levels so you know please pay extra attention to this right now because i think I think these impacts are very significant. Anybody else wish to speak?

If not, let me thank you for coming down and we'll continue with our agenda. Thank you very much, Mr. Veradino.

Yes, thank you again for having me and I appreciate the support and I appreciate the support going forward

that the city will provide in obtaining voting locations for November. Thank you.

Thank you, Justin. With this, Madam Clerk, what I'd like to do right now, I know we have some public comments. Whatever you have, can you tell me right now what it is? And then I'd like to have a cutoff so that going into the comment, we know how many we have. do you have that number right now madam clerk i do we have 11. all right let's start with those 11. i'll turn over to you let's give each one three minutes uh if anybody begins to swear anything

of that nature you have my permission to terminate the testimony um and let's go ahead and open it up Go ahead.

Okay. Caller with the last three numbers, 398. For the record, you're encouraged but not required to clearly state your name. Please limit your comments to an agenda item or limit your comments to matters within the jurisdiction or official business of the city of Santa Ana and identify your neighborhood or city, if not from the city of Santa Ana, of residence. You have three minutes to speak. Caller whose number ends, again, with 398.

please proceed with your comment. Thank you council. Good evening my name is Julian Gutierrez and I wish to speak on the issue of our city budget. We have seen time and time again that our countrymen young and old have been visiting their lives to the police department across the country and despite the violence and protests and subsequent intimidation city officials including this one has voted time and time again to continually raise the budget of our police sending the message that this kind of behavior is not only condoned but also rewarded.

I am not calling for the full abolition of our police whether I feel like it is necessary to limit our police spending in order to divert the funds to other departments such as health care education and social programs to curb the influx of crime in our streets and homes and properly face the national crisis of the COVID-19 resurgence at hand. In doing so we can kill two birds with one stone and ensure that Santa Ana can go on in a stronger position than it was before the pandemic and serve as an example that other cities should follow. If the soul is left in darkness, then will be committed.

The guilty is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness. To curb the rise of COVID-19 cases, we must have a strict mandate of our businesses and employees, I'm sorry, of our businesses for employees and customers to have masks and have PPE and testing sites readily available to ensure the two for usage, ensure their contact tracing and curb our numbers. As for school, as an educator, I want nothing more than see my kids again, but I have a duty not only to educate them, but to ensure that they are being educated in a safe and proper environment. Governor Newsom has kept the funding to our education system,

but in order to properly meet the needs of our low income mentally challenged and at risk students, It is imperative that we have the necessary budget and full of resources in order to ensure our students can learn effectively and have help to tutoring, counseling and therapy readily accessible. I love my country and I know that through these reforms, there can become the pinnacle of freedom and diversity that we have always aspired to be. Although public safety is in mind, it is the condition that people are in that determine the rate of crime. And we have seen little improvement on the standard of living of Santa and the citizens,

despite the continual rise of the police department's budget. Thank you.

Thank you, caller, whose phone number... Oh, this is Nathaniel Greenside. Please proceed with your comment.

Hi. Hello, City Council. My name is Nathaniel Greensides, and I am a resident of Ward 5, meaning that you are my ward representative, Mr. Villegas, yet I never seem to hear from you via email. Nonetheless, I am here to speak upon a non-agenda item. I would like to offer some action that U-Haul can take to reduce the harm of the upcoming wave of eviction and burden on renters as COVID-19 continues to ravage our city at the same time that city protections are coming to an end. The first thing would be to pass a permanent ban on COVID-19 related evictions.

This would mean that any renters or homeowners get a chance to continue to live in Santa Ana while they catch up on late payments related to COVID-19 loss of income. San Francisco did it, so can we. The second would be to create a larger rental assistance fund. Anaheim created a fund of three million dollars and our city fund of five hundred thousand dollars was exhausted in one week's time. The third and most pertinent to many renters here in Santa Ana would be to pass an ordinance granting a private right to action. This means that tenants would have a right to

to unscrupulous landlords and I know there are far too many here in Santa Ana as I am a part of Tenants United Santa Ana and we have been receiving an absurd amount of calls from renters regarding illegal self-help evictions harassment based on perceived immigration status and illegal rent increases which landlords are carrying out not just during the pandemic but also before it separately the fourth item would be to create a separate fund for eviction defense for some of the same reasons previously stated fines upon landlords could start at ten thousand dollars and it would also incentivize

attorney attorney representation of the interest of tenants and keeping our community stable it would also reduce the rate at which the rental assistance fund would be exhausted if tenants have a better shot at recovering lost money due to damages caused by irresponsible and greedy landlords lastly and most importantly would be to place our ballot initiative which tenants united Santa Ana our coalition has been collecting signatures for since February on

Am I still here? Yes, you're still there

Okay Been collecting signatures for since February on to the next general election which would be in November 2022 Unfortunately or you all have the power as City Council to call for special election Which is within your power solely for this ranked control initiative which would keep us all housed and economically able to remain in Santa Ana. Unfortunately, COVID-19 has halted our signature gathering efforts because unfortunately, the democratic process was not deemed to be an essential activity. Putting permanent rent control initiative to all voters in an election is within your power.

And you all applauded the 221-21 North Main Street referendum with the rationale that it was the will of the people. And so we're asking that you put our rent control initiative as it stands onto the ballot so as to ensure that people have a chance to remain in Santa Ana. Thank you.

Thank you.

Caller with the last three numbers, 970. Please proceed with your comment.

This is Josh Mocha. I believe that the agenda item that I want to comment on hasn't been discussed yet. so if you'd like to mute me up I'm just I'm under the test 813 or if you could

that you may speak on all agenda items that's listed on the agenda or non agenda items with the exception of public hearings then this call will open up again okay it's regarding a publisher okay we'll open up again for public carrying the next caller with the last three numbers of 763 you have been unmuted you have three minutes please proceed with your comment good evening

mayor and council my name is Jose Trinidad Castaneda and I am the Orange County organizer with the climate action campaign the region's leading climate watchdog organization and I'm speaking with you tonight to request that you bring Community Choice Energy as a discussion item to your next City Council meeting on August 18th for those of you who may not know Community Choice Energy is a not-for-profit program that co-cures a cleaner and cheaper energy for Santa Ana family right now we have a monopoly SoCal Edison which charges for

that electric generation and as you may have heard they are bringing a rate increase for November and again in January for a total of 14.4% rate increases for the generation rate and so community choice has grown across the state actually 10 million families across the state of California already benefit from having community choice in their region Orange County is one of of those last holdout places where we hope to change that. And so Santa Ana was one of a couple of cities that responded to Irvine invitation

to share information regarding the development of community choice energy in Orange County. And so I'm very happy to share that Irvine city council has unanimously voted to move forward on creating a joint powers authority with a partner city by the end of this year. And they voted on that six times in a row because we've had hundreds and hundreds, actually over 700 Irvine residents continuously submit comments in favor and in support of community choice. Now, over the next couple of months, I'm sure you'll get more interest from Senate and residents

who want to see the benefits of 0.5 to 2% lower electricity rate, millions in citywide cost savings, millions in annual economic input and hundreds of new jobs in the region come to Santa Ana. Community choice is the only way to provide the freedom of choice to Santa Ana families as well as bringing cost savings. It's the only way to achieve a state mandate to get to 100% clean, renewable energy. It's the only way to ensure local control over our energy supply.

And you get to decide where those revenues go and help pay for different programs and services, especially for your disadvantaged communities and using an equity lens to ensure that a Senate and a family get the full benefit of that. But that can only happen if you decide to have the discussion as soon as possible because there is a strict timeline that irvine needs to

thank you your time is up callers with uh with the last three numbers 883 you have been unmuted please proceed with your comment you have three minutes

hello mayor um mayor pro tem and honorable members of the city council my name is janelle walker I'm a resident of Ward 3 in the Park Glen community. I'm here to speak on a few different items. The first item I would like to bring attention to is 65A. It is the Veterans Recognition Program throughout the city. I was very excited to see this on the agenda as my family has a history of veterans serving in our family. My late grandfather was a veteran. My father was a veteran. So I know that in other cities we have things like banners which showcase residents who served in the military.

So I think that's something great that we can really do as a city to thank and publicly recognize all of our veterans. I'm also very interested to hear the item within, well, the subpart of this item, which will discuss the Veterans Museum at the Heroes Hall. So, again, very excited to hear what that discussion will be. The second item I'd also like to discuss is 85A. I was really happy to see this on the council agenda as well. I'm really happy to see that as residents, we have the opportunity to give our public comment in a safe manner, considering the new developments of COVID-19 business closures,

and us unfortunately reverting back to more of what we would like and a more stringent stay at home order. So seeing how this may go forward, I'm very excited to see this opportunity to give public comments like I am right now over the phone. And the third item I'd also like to draw attention to is 85B. It's not exactly the item itself, but it sparks an idea in my mind, and it's something I would like the council to consider. I know that you have the COVID-19 club business incentive program, which currently has a wait list for new businesses.

And that program also has some criteria which only allow certain businesses, let's say micro businesses, five or fewer employees, businesses that just started up in the city within the last three years to receive the grant. I would like to propose using the federal CARES Act funding to provide a business license waiver in the entire city if possible. I know that small businesses are tracked by the business tax staff within the city. So they know which business licenses are active, which ones are inactive. and if any of those business licenses have gone inactive,

let's say during the COVID-19 pandemic, unfortunately businesses may think, well, if the governor is going to shut us down, maybe we should not pay this fee at this time and allow it to lapse. Well, we've seen that he's closed businesses, he's opened businesses. Your time is up.

Thank you. Caller with the last three numbers, 268. You have been unmuted. Please proceed with your comment.

Hi, my name is Yossi and I'm a resident in Ward 2 and also a volunteer as a Tenants Reds Counselor from Tenants United Santana. I'm calling as a concerned resident about the upcoming wave of evictions that will occur after the eviction moratorium on July 28th. At the same time, we are experiencing our highest rate of COVID cases. many people have been unable to pay rent because they have been impacted by the pandemic and we know that these impacts will be long term everyone deserves to be housed and safe and so we hope y'all will enact a permanent ban on COVID-19 related eviction and also enact a private right to action

ordinance that will stop landlords from breaking the law by making them liable for civil penalties is found guilty of violating tenant's rights during the moratorium on evictions and rent increases also governor newson has given cities giving you all power to extend the moratorium to september and so i hope you all take the recommendations and implement them here in santana let's provide safety and well-being for everyone here i've also been a part of a campaign to put rent control on the november ballot we recognize that santana community members need rent control

because it is a rental majority city that is extremely of low income and rent burden. Rent control will provide some economic relief to folks, especially during this precarious socioeconomic time. We have been so successful in getting so much support from the community. Unfortunately, the pandemic halted our signature gathering for the safety of our volunteers, which has affected our campaign goal to put the ordinance on the ballot. And we're hoping to get an extension on the deadline to account for the days we couldn't gather signatures during the shelter in place orders. Our work we did before the pandemic should be recognized,

and we hope that we can count on your support for the extension. Thank you.

Thank you, caller. With the last three numbers, 351, you have been unmuted. Please proceed with your comment.

Hello, good evening. My name is Chloe Rios, and I am the executive director at Alianza Trans Latinx, the very first transgender organization here in Santa Ana being led by trans women of color. And the reason that I wanted to speak to you is because two weeks ago I presented myself and the organization during the last city meeting. I also requested to have support from the city so that we can continue to help this very vulnerable community which continues to be one of the most marginalized communities here in Orange County. I did not receive any, no one ever reached out to

us. We continue to serve the community during these very difficult times of COVID-19. Our community continues to face discrimination in areas such as health care, employment, and other areas that are in great need. So again, our name is Alianza Tronfattinex. We really need your support i hope you consider to make a part of the next agenda to to talk about the transgender community and the needs so that we can better serve this community and i hope to hear from you

i hope that we can work with the city clerk's office so that we can make this we can make this

possible so thank you so much thank you caller with the last three numbers 399 you have been

been unmuted please proceed with your comment good evening I am the applicant representative on item 75a and I would like to hold my comments for that agenda

item it's a public hearing thank you we'll put you on mute caller with the last three numbers 703 please proceed with your comment

Hello, my name is Hector and I'm a resident in Ward 4. I'm here to express my disappointment in the City Council for approving the budget for next fiscal year. Shame on you. You heard hours of public comments from the youth of this city, your constituents, about our disagreement with the budget presented before you. You have once again failed to serve us. You have failed the youth of Santana. I'm a resident of Ward 4, so I'd like to bring attention to something that my council member has continuously brought up, the shared mission of Santana, which reads, to deliver efficient public service in partnership with our community,

which ensures public safety, a prosperous economic environment, opportunities for our youth, and a high quality of life for residents. But tell me, why do the youth of this city have to take the short end of the stick when it comes to that mission? Why aren't we investing as much in our youth as we're investing in our police department? Why does public safety even look, what does it even look like in Santana? Because right now, more than ever, the police are a threat to our community. They are a threat to the youth of the city. They are a threat to black and indigenous colored communities.

And if you really want to bring up this mission statement, then why can't you stand by it? Why couldn't you listen to the hundreds of comments you received by email and in person? Why are you voting for a budget that your community has clearly told you is not representative of what we need? Your yes vote has once again perpetrated the way the rest of Orange County looks at our youth. Your yes vote said we need more police because our youth are out of line for simply showing up to a city council meeting and giving a public comment.

Your yes vote said we don't care about the national movement for black lives because the police officers association is far too deep in my pockets. for me to care and I need to be re-elected with their dirty money. Shame on you. The youth of Santana are reclaiming the word bullshit because we know BS when we see it and the fact that our language bothers you more than the murder of innocent black lives says a lot about the kind of people that you are. It amazes me to know that you all care more about one bad word than a human life a human life it's actually pretty disgusting to be even saying that the youth will follow your

every move until November and we will continue to fight for what we know our community needs I'd also like to say that the direction to dial star nine is not clearly stated on your agenda you're making it inaccessible for callers to give a public comment by failing to provide clear and transparent instructions for dialing in to give a public comment how many more times do we have to tell the city clerk about these issues why are they not being addressed why is the city council not doing enough to ensure that our public is given the opportunity to give a comment do more do better simply just do something

thank you for your comment um david carvajal you have been unmuted please

please. Hi, my name is David Carvajal and I'm a resident of Ward 2. I want to echo the words of folks that have called previously to let you all know that we've been fighting for rent control in the city of Santana for a few years and unfortunately the pandemic did not allow us to continue gathering signatures and we want to make sure that you all listen to the community. We work day in and day out with tenants that are giving us their lived experiences facing rent burden and not being able to pay the rent.

And I want you all to also remember that you have the power to extend our eviction moratorium until September and then continue providing protections for tenants in Santana. I want to remind you all that it is important that in the middle of a global health crisis, you continue tending to the needs of those most vulnerable in our communities. And I wanted to just encourage you all to do that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. That was the last comment.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Let's now direct our attention to the consent calendar. And I would like to ask my colleagues if there are any items that they'd like to abstain on or pull.

David PenalozaItem —

Mr. Mayor.

Yeah, go ahead.

Well, this is Council Member Sarmiento, and I did want to pull 25B as in void. but before we did that, this is a question for the city attorney because we just left public comments. And I know that you as presiding chair, Mr. Mayor said that you gave the right to the city clerk to go ahead and mute anybody that made any comments that were profane. So I just wanted to get the city attorney's opinion on whether or not we could do that. certain speech is not sometimes well received. I understand that, but this is probably the most protected speech

that we have when it's political and it's addressing a public body. So Madam City Attorney,

look, I don't want us to get in any trouble.

So, you know, please, can you advise us and make sure we understand whether we can control content?

Right. Thank you, Council Member and mayor and council members. Yes, I just would like to provide you with a reminder that in litigation, the courts have held that the use of profanity at public meetings, which are considered public forums is a fundamental right of the speakers and that speakers cannot be banned from speaking. The mayor is authorized under the rules of decorum to remind speakers to follow our rules of decorum. And he, as the chair may consistently do that. the city will also have the right on rebroadcast of these to potentially bleep out inappropriate

comments that are being broadcast but at the meeting itself the city council cannot stop the speaker from using such language so long as it's not disrupting the meeting. So thank you Madam

City Attorney. So the only thing I would recommend to the to the chair and Mr. Mayor is that again And we follow that practice just to go ahead and remind folks, but we can't tell them we're going to mute them because that is cutting off their rights to be able to be heard. And whether or not it's something that is acceptable to any one of us, that's not really the rule. So that's all that I wanted to make sure is clear for the record because, you know, look, cutting off a person's right to be heard is, you know, serious business. So thank you for that. And yeah, the only item I had to be pulled was 25B as in point.

Mr. Mayor. All right. Mr. Mayor. Just one comment on that. Sometimes I think profanity can be disruptive to the council meeting itself. And if that is the case, then I thought we did have the right to insist that the council business and meeting not be unduly interrupted. So that's all I want to give the clerk. I want, since she kind of is running public comments right now, when we go on the phone, I just wanted her to monitor that. And I think we just went and did so without any incident.

So I think it all went fine.

All right. Any other items on the consent calendar by my colleagues?

David PenalozaItem —

Yeah, Mr. Mayor, this is Councilmember Peñalosa. Just wanted a poll. Yes, sir. Pull item 25C.

All right.

Can I have a motion on the balance of the consent calendar? Make a motion to approve.

David PenalozaItem —

Second. By Council Member Pinaloza.

Roll call vote, please, Madam Clerk.

Council Member Becerra?

Yes.

Council Member Mendoza? Yes. Councilmember Peñalosa?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Councilmember Sarmiento?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Councilmember Solorio?

Yes.

Mayor Potem-Viegas?

Yes.

Mayor Pulido?

Yes.

Motion passes 7-0.

Okay, let's go on to the next item. Who pulled that one?

25B, Council Member Sarmiento.

Yes, thank you. I just had a question for staff. I understand that this is a contract with a lab out in San Bernardino to go ahead and sample water quality. Is there a reason why we are working with a lab out in San Bernardino? I believe we have a lab here in Orange County. Did we procure, I guess, different agreements with both of those labs? I know that the one that we have here at the Orange County Water District in Fountain Valley

is one that we're a member agency of, and I just wanted to make sure that we exhausted our search to make sure. And I know I'm looking at the RFP and the consulting labs that we did procure with. Did we even venture out to OCWD and see if their lab was available for this type of testing?

Thank you, Council Member. I'll turn the question over to Public Works Director Nabil.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Patem, and member of the Council. Nabil Sabah, Executive Director of Public Works. Councilman Saramento, the analysis the clinical lab of San Bernardino analyzes is the distribution system sampling that we do. Orange County Water District Lab does and continues to do our source sampling. They don't necessarily contract out to cities. the Orange County Water District Lab provide that service as part of the RA, replenishment assessment cost of the water that we pay every year. So we do have to go out and we did this time

and solicit bids for the labs, the lab services or the analysis. And we have used clinical lab for a long time and that's their name, San Bernardino Incorporated. That's the name of it. It's not necessarily where they're at, but I'll have to double check.

No, and I appreciate that. I just wanted to make sure that, again, if we are paying into the RA for certain services that the Philip Anthony lab here at OCWD provides us with, this isn't one of those services, right, that we had to go out because this service is not provided by them. and looking at the three firms or the three labs that did provide an RFP. Did we do this just based upon the fee? Because it looks like there is a disparity between the second and third lab that submitted an application to be considered of about $30,000, but the first two were kind of close.

But was this done based upon just a straight cost analysis here, or did we take anything else into account?

We base this on the average number of samples that we take every year from the distribution system. The lab does analyze for bacteriological quality, general physical and mineral analysis in the water, drinking water, and we occasionally use them for wastewater, but not normally. This type of sampling is and can be done by Orange County Water District, but typically cities of our size do not directly contract with Orange County Water District. Orange County Water District lab can do the analysis on an emergency basis,

but typically we go out to a contract lab to do the analysis. And the disparity between the pricing is just how much the lab charges for certain analysis that's being asked.

Okay, I got it. So we have a history with this lab as well. So we've contracted with them in the past. And the fact that they came in as the lowest bidder also probably had some influence on it. So that being said, I'll go ahead and move the item. Thank you for that, Nabil.

Is there a second? Second.

Roll call vote, please.

Council Member Becerra?

Phil BacerraItem —

Yes.

Councilmember Mendoza? Yes. Councilmember Peñalosa?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Councilmember Sarmiento?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Councilmember Solorio?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem?

Yes.

Mayor Pulido?

Yes.

Motion carries 7-0.

Our next item, Madam Clerk.

75C, I'm sorry, 25C, excuse me, pulled by Council Member Pinalosa.

David PenalozaItem —

Thank you.

Go ahead, Council Member.

David PenalozaItem —

Thank you, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem. My question was mostly on the fiscal year breakdowns in the chart on page 25C-3 for staff. And regards to this graffiti contract. The question, I had a couple questions. I just wanted to get clarification on why some years throughout, I guess, the 20, why it's split up versus, if you guys see 20, 23, 24, July.

David PenalozaItem —

It's a little confusing, those boxes, where it's November to June, and then the other ones aren't listed like that. and there's like a different amount on the far right.

David PenalozaItem —

Can you guys just, do you know what I'm talking about, Mr. Saba?

Yes, it does reflect the exponential on a partial of a year. As you can see, it's not a full year from 2021.

It's from November to June, so it's not a full year.

So our finance department would like to allocate the exact amount of money for the spending. So we have to break down the spending based on the basically number of months that we plan to spend the funds.

David PenalozaItem —

I guess what I'm asking is why those particular years are broken down like that and not the others.

So, sir, I believe it's because their contract runs through and expires in October. So for fiscal year 2021, it's only reflecting the new contract starting November to the end of that fiscal year, June. Whereas for 21-22, it's an entire fiscal year. 22-23, it's an entire fiscal year. And then 23-24 is just taking it to the end of the contract term for October.

David PenalozaItem —

Okay. That makes sense. Thank you. And the other question was just in regards to the public submitted removal request of graffiti through the MySena and App or our website. I notice it all the time. It comes and goes. It's not consistent in the way that the contractor reports back when submissions have been closed. Sometimes we get the pictures that it's been done. Sometimes we don't. sometimes there's duplicate or sometimes it tells us that it's closed when it's not and and the

David PenalozaItem —

consistency between the I'm not sure if it's our end of the city app or how it's breeding with the graffiti removal contractors and but it's never been consistent it's quick you know most of the time it's been very fast service and removal of graffiti which I'm happy with but just the actual receipts from the company. They're not consistent. Are we working on that, Mr. Saba?

We're monitoring the progress, and we are working on maybe refining the interaction between the submission and the acknowledgement of receiving and then closing the request. I use it quite often, and I want to say it's 90% accurate. They do get quite a bit of requests, and if there is anything that comes that you're not happy with, just let us know and we will follow up. I know that a lot of requests that come in gets taken care of. It's just reporting back and knowing that it's been closed is the issue.

But we will work through these, and they get quite a bit of calls at times, especially during the weekends and on Mondays.

David PenalozaItem —

I KNOW THAT A COUPLE MONTHS WHEN WE HAD THIS GRAFFITI DISCUSSION, THERE WAS A BRIEF CONVERSATION ON THE GRAFFITI REPORTING REWARD THAT WE USED TO DO ACTIVELY YEARS AGO. that I remembered. Are we still doing that? I haven't heard much of it. I don't see a push for it. I don't see any advertisement from PD or Public Works on you know reporting graffiti and a reward for community members. I see it all the time when I'm driving. I'm not asking for a reward but you know I'm you

David PenalozaItem —

know if we should push have a campaign instead of just doing something to to put a band-aid on this problem we should address it in in ways where we could educate the public about you know saying something if you see it and and ways that we could we could um reward the community for for allowing us to to catch someone doing it or whatnot sure

we we do have a graffiti task force but it's been kind of dormant for a while now that we will follow up with PD and see that the task force is more active in the next year or

David PenalozaItem —

so. And why has it been dormant, Madam Secretary-Manager? I know it's been dormant since before you came on, but is there somebody from the police department, maybe the chief can answer that, or yourself, why it's been dormant? Because I get a lot of emails from constituents asking about this this particular program that had been in place and then it just kind of what Mr. Sapok said went dormant. Is there a reason why that happened?

Sorry sir, I can't answer that question. I'm not aware. I think it has been dormant since before I arrived. But we do have DC Gaminski on the line. Ken, is that something you can speak to? A graffiti reward program?

So, W.C. Gaminski with the police department on behalf of Chief Allen Jean today. We do continue to offer the reward program. Part of the problems associated with the reward program are people have to be willing to identify, then testify in court against the individuals that they've seen. That tends to have a problem for some of our members of the community wishing to testify in court. But the program still remains, and I'll take it up with the chief. to see if we can't publicize this more.

David PenalozaItem —

Okay, thank you. DC Gaminski.

Mr. Mayor.

Yes, go ahead. Thank you. Council Member Sarmiento. Just a quick question for staff. I know this is a three-year contract that's going to take us out to October 31st of 2023 with, I guess, five one-year extensions. What was the previous term? I know we've contracted with GPC since 2014. So was that a three-year with three one-year extensions? How did we get to this point? What did the previous agreement look like?

I believe that the last contract was three plus two.

Three years.

Okay, three.

What, six years? Oh, for total of. The question is, it was for five years. Three plus two.

Okay, so now we're going three plus five.

Yes.

Okay, and yeah, I think that, you know, uh you know i want to make sure that we um have the same uh you know good response time we're obviously you know we're obviously giving some con some additional consideration for these services um by going out a little bit further with um the five-year option versus a two-year option um you know is there anything that we garnered in return i mean i see the i see the matrix i see that they're you know the pricing is competitive for us at least the proposed pricing is competitive for us reflect you know in comparison to some of the

other cities but is there is there anything in addition that we were able to garner as a result of maybe extending this for an additional few years of the

option period just give us more flexibility and again you know we can cancel this contract within a 30-day notice and so we just wanted to have the option of renewing the contract after the first three years but that's that's about it really council member they did give us a good pricing so no I see that

I can I see that you negotiated them you know good terms I see that I see that it's competitive given you know some of the other contracts they have with I think the closest city here to our size is about is Long Beach so in any event Thank you for that answer.

Any other comments?

David PenalozaItem —

I'll just move the item. Mr. Mayor, make a motion to approve.

And I will second.

Phil BacerraItem —

Second, Council Member Becerra. Second, Council Member Becerra. Are there more comments or should we vote?

Vote, please. Roll call vote.

Council Member Becerra.

Yes.

Councilmember Mendoza?

Yes.

Councilmember Peñalosa? Yes. Councilmember Sarmiento?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Councilmember Solorio?

Yes.

Mayor Potembegas?

Yes.

Mayor Pulido?

Yes.

Motion carries 7-0.

next item madam city clerk item 60a

does anybody have any comments on this item i guess we're gonna designate a voting delegate and up to two alternatives for the General League of Cities Assembly. Any candidates, any volunteers?

David PenalozaItem —

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to nominate, and I don't know if you'll accept or not, but I'd like to nominate Council Member Becerra.

Phil BacerraItem —

Thank you, Council Member Penelope. I would accept that.

this is council member mendoza i would like to nominate myself

okay um so we have a voting delegate and up to two um alternates

I would like to-

Phil BacerraItem —

Mr. Mayor, I'd be willing to go ahead and defer to council member Mendoza so she can get her feet wet on a regional body like this. And I would be happy to accept an alternate spot with the promise that council member Mendoza won't make me have to come in.

Phil BacerraItem —

All right.

If that's a motion, I'll accept it as a motion. Is there a second to that motion?

Phil BacerraItem —

Mr. Mayor, I think we need to designate one more alternate. Do we have to have, it says up to two.

Yes, that's correct. You don't have to have two.

I think we're good with this. But doing the two, you'll figure it out. I'll second that.

David PenalozaItem —

But I'm more than happy to have my name as an alternate too, so why not?

and i would like to thank council member sarah for conceding his position on that board thank you very much

so given that um council member um pena loza did you also want to be a another a second alternate

David PenalozaItem —

sure if there has to be two yeah i'll i'll add my name that's fine there doesn't have to be two

but if you want to add it, I don't think anybody's going to deny you.

David PenalozaItem —

Sure, why not? So I'll make that substitute motion to Councilmember Becerra's.

I'll second that. All right, roll call vote, please, Madam Clerk.

Councilmember Becerra?

Yes.

Councilmember Mendoza?

Yes.

Councilmember Peñalosa? Yes. Councilmember Sarmiento?

Yes.

Council Member Solorio?

Yes.

Mayor Potem-Viegas?

Yes.

Mayor Pulido?

Yes.

Motion carries 7-0.

Is our next item 65A, Madam Clerk?

That's correct, 65A.

Any comments on this? Mr. Mayor, I'd like to speak.

Go ahead, Mayor Pro Tem.

All right, thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I think Council Member Mendoza would like to comment also my fellow veteran. So I remember when we had this discussion a while back about recognizing our veterans. And I believe that if we had a, when the time is right, we can have maybe a plaque in the Civic Center and a fountain or some kind of statue. That would be something that we could do in the future when we make sure that we have enough money and we get past the COVID crisis.

But I also believe that we can start on a registry. If we could go to the public and ask for all veterans to register. And at the same time, I think Council Member Mendoza had a great idea about recognizing those veterans who have acts of gallantry or they're recognized for some heroic deed that they did while serving and protecting our country. But I will let her continue on that.

So those are two things that I think that I would like to see something in the Civic Center and a registry be informed so we can have everyone who lives in our city, you know, join that registry and be recognized for serving our country. And that's all I have at the moment. If Council Member Mendoza would like to speak. Council Member Mendoza, please, you have the floor.

Thank you, I appreciate that. Yes, as an army veteran and a very proud resident of Santa Ana, I am fully supportive of this program. It's long overdue in recognizing our military heroes, specifically those who were born or raised here in Santa Ana. and we could trace back that military life and civic duty back to probably the 1800s, to the early wars in our history.

And so I would like to, along with my colleagues, recognize such service and bravery for the men and women who gave up their lives to support and defend our country. And that is one of the deepest honor that we could give anyone who has sacrificed their own in their own life. I truly believe that in recognition of these,

and some of these brothers and sisters in arms who have given their life in protecting our country. It's a great tribute so that their families can see the legacy that they've left behind. And as a military, I am deeply honored to have served in our military.

And that is the one place where I was instilled with great pride and civic duty for my country. And that is one of the reasons that I'm sitting here today as council member is because I want to bring that kind of pride and honor to our city and to instill that sense of pride of living here in a city that honors its veterans.

So I am thrilled that we're going to be having these type of recognitions in the future. And it's going to keep going because we have young people from our local high schools in the ROTC program joining the military. and we want to one day maybe have our very own local Santa Ana Museum of Military Service. So I'm glad that we will have the that we're exploring and

that we are looking to allocate funds and to make this a permanent part of santa anna's history so i am i'm looking forward to participating and in in the registration process and and everything else that comes along with creating this uh wonderful uh and long-lasting

part of our history thank you very much council member is there anything that you would like to see an idea or some kind of project other than the two that you and I discussed briefly that maybe we could do for our veterans here in our city?

Yes, I would like to see the banners along our main streets in recognition of the veterans who have, Santa Ana resident veterans who have lost their lives or who are currently deployed overseas. as many banners as our streets can hold and that is that we can reasonably reasonably maintain

and it's not in a a a financial burden but but rather something of pride where we can maybe even attract tourism in the future such as the World War II Museum that was just created in New Orleans not too long ago. Washington DC has a wing that is dedicated specifically for Latino veterans and so we could have our very own museum dedicated specifically to Santa Ana a veteran.

Mr. Mayor, if I may. Madam

City Manager, I know you've been working with a council member of some. Do you have a presentation or a format you think we ought to follow?

I just kind of want this to be somewhat managed so that at the end of the day we can get some traction and and understand from a financial perspective what it all means. Because I know Mayor Pro Temp said, we understand we have tight budgets right now, but you've given this some thought. What do you suggest?

Thank you, Mayor. Yes, this was based on a request from the majority of council to bring back different concepts and ideas to recognize the veterans that reside in our community. There's a very robust staff report and we also do have a presentation that presents multiple ideas that we can achieve this. So what we were looking for tonight is to have you accept the informational report and then let us know the items that most interested you. We would then turn around and return to council after we vetted the ideas that you were interested in and we could present what the costing would be and how we could go about implementing it.

So right now we're just seeking input on the items that you feel you're most interested in. If you'd like, sir, we certainly can give the presentation, but it does sound like that you've already fully engaged in the conversation and identified at least four items that I understand you're interested in.

I believe Councilmember-

Mayor Pro Tem and Councilmember DeSantis, the two veterans. What would you like to suggest we do to proceed?

We would like to, one second, Mr. Mayor. I think Councilmember Solorio has a comment.

Yes, thank you Mr. Mayor. I like many of the ideas in the staff report and the suggestions by Mayor Patema Villegas and Council Member Mendoza. I would just ask that along the way, we try to loop in some of our veterans oriented nonprofits like Mexican American veterans, but there's also other civic organizations that have direct links. So they may have photos or ideas or suggestions. And I think just because of COVID and cost and everything, things that we could do digitally, via social media, via our website, our TV channel,

the digital space that we are increasingly having along the freeways, I think those things that can be sustainable and that we can consider this ongoing. So quality over other items, but the sustainability is important. I appreciate that this item was brought forward. I think the staff had a great report. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you. Mr. Mayor.

Phil BacerraItem —

Councilor Becerra, go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wanted to thank my colleagues who championed bringing this forward and to staff for bringing forth this presentation and extensive staff report. You know, one thing that's mentioned in here is the fact that we do have the heroes hall down at the fairgrounds. And while I appreciate having such a venue to honor our veterans and those who served our country in the military, what frustrates me is we have what is one of their biggest pieces of memorabilia located in our civic center. and it was allowed to leave our Civic Center.

Phil BacerraItem —

And that was something that, who is now deceased, former Santa Ana PD Captain D.I. McCoy brought, which was a Vietnam-era Skyhawk plane that sat right there at Broadway and Civic Center Drive. And so my hope as we go forward is that we don't repeat the mistakes of the past, that we figure out a way to make sure that when we honor our veterans, that those monuments remain here in Santa Ana. And I think the Civic Center is a wonderful location, as is our regional train station.

Phil BacerraItem —

In regards to the banners, I would like to see us try to reach out to, you know, have staff reach out to local businesses and residents to see if we can get support in sponsoring them. We've all seen these banners in different cities, and I think it's a wonderful way to honor those who are, who have or who are serving in our armed forces. I like the idea of including the recognition during our city's annual 4th of July celebration when we have it over at Centennial Park. So I know we didn't have it this year, but when we are able to gather again and celebrate

Phil BacerraItem —

our nation's independence, I think that would be a wonderful place to do that. And I agree with, I believe it was Council Member Soloria that mentioned some of our nonprofit partners out there who have been supporting our veterans. You know, I'm proud to say that my wife had volunteered with the Veterans Legal Institute quite a few years ago. And they do wonderful work to help our veterans who do come across legal challenges. And they are an exceptional organization. I think folks in organizations like that, we should really look to and consider supporting. And, of course, anything we can do during Veterans Day would be wonderful.

Phil BacerraItem —

but I do want to reiterate my appreciation to my colleagues who brought this forward and I'm looking forward to seeing Santa Ana truly honor our veterans. Thank you. Mr. Mayor.

Yes, go ahead. So, yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I think something that we can do right now that really doesn't cost much is the electronic registry that we can put together a list and of our veterans, have them register. We have a lot of unfortunately we have a lot of Gold Star families here where we had many veterans that are on the wall over at La Chiquita

neighborhood and you know many of them lost their lives serving our country but we need to recognize those members and also the members of folks that who are serving now and who have lost their lives in the last few years because of the fight on terrorism and such. Also about that plane that left the county, well, that did go down to Costa Mesa to complement the Hall of Fame down there. If we would have moved it over here to our side of the Civic Center, we are in the process of trying to redo this side of the Civic Center, and there was really no place to put it.

And I'm sorry to say that, but we want to redo our side of the Civic Center to complement the county side, and maybe we can bring it back, or maybe we do something even more special than that. But it would be nice to see the plane back. And so those are my thoughts, the registry electronically, and also some plans to have some kind of memorial here where Gold Star families and veterans can come and honor our fallen heroes.

Why don't you make a motion for that, and then over the weeks and months to come, staff can return with more options and more input, but at least let's get started with what you're suggesting. I think it's a good starting point.

Is there a second for that? I'm being told that there is no motion to make at the moment.

Well, there's no motion, there's direction. Direction, yes, that is the direction. The primary direction we're giving staff for now.

So, yes, that is my direction, and I hope for the council to support.

All right, and we'll, do I hear anybody opposing that? I think there's concurrence on this.

All right, thank you, Mayor Pro Tem and Council Member Mendoza. Let's go on to the next item then, please.

It's public hearing 75A. Yes, and if I can announce to the public who would like to make a comment on public hearing items that are not already on the conference call, to take this time to do that, calling 669-900-9128, entering the meeting ID 315-965-149 pound when prompted. Once a caller has entered the meeting, they will be placed on a holding queue until it's their turn to speak. The queue will close when the mayor announces the time to speak when opening the public comment period. And calls will be reopened at the beginning of each public hearing item.

Callers will be prominent to speak in the order received. And I will announce the last three numbers of their phone number to inform the caller that they've been unmuted. For the record, the caller is encouraged but not required to provide their name, neighborhood, or city if they're not from Santa Ana residence.

All right. Right now, let me go ahead and before we take any input or comment, let me just ask briefly, is there a staff presentation and recommendation on this? I will go ahead and open up the public hearing and we'll have staff's input be a part of that hearing. I'll turn it over to our city manager.

Thank you, Mayor. We do have a presentation, Min Tai, from our planning and building agency.

Thank you, Mayor. May I attend the city council? This is a request for approval of conditional use permit 2019-21 for the property located 813 North Euclid. As you may recall, this item was continued from the meeting of March 17, 2020, by the city council. Also, as part of that continuance, the City Council approved a zone change and adopted the mitigated negative declaration for the project and allowed for the construction of a 7-Eleven. The continuance was on the conditional use permit application, which would allow the

business to operate after hours for 24-hour operations. The site is located at the southeast corner of Euclid and Hazard, and to the north is residential. To the east is a religious temple. Residential is also to the south and west. The site is accessed off of Euclid and Hazard Avenue.

The project, as I mentioned, is a 7-Eleven with a service station. the square footage is going to be approximately 3,000 square feet with an 800 square foot canopy consisting of eight pumps located on about a point about a half acre site and the proposed operation is 24 hours again the 7-eleven approval project has been approved with the zone change the request here tonight as continued by the council is for the 24 hours operations of the business here's a site plan showing the project this is looking obviously from

from you know bird's-eyed view the fueling canopy is located course towards the corner on the northwest corner of the site and the store is located towards the back southeast corner of the site with the parking in front as well as a vehicle access both on euclid and hazard avenue the public outreach background on this initiated beginning back in march of 2018 with the sunshine ordinance meeting subsequent to

that the project received planning commission recommendation on february 10th of 2020 the city council as i mentioned heard it on march 17th 2020 approved the zone change in the environmental review for the project but continued the cup for the 24 hours operation advising for the applicant providing direction to continue the outreach to the community subsequent to the march 17th meeting the applicant conducted two additional outreach one on the first was done on april 17th reaching

out to approximately 98 residences within a 300 foot radius subsequent to that staff asked the applicant to conduct additional outreach extending that perimeter out to 500 feet for an additional 118 residential property for a total of about 208 residents that they reach out to within a 500 foot radius again that was done in april and also june of this year this summarizes the the activity that they went out in terms of the distance and the locations as i mentioned flyers were provided in

detail both in english and spanish they have a petition that was submitted with support for the project consistent with 68 signatures support letters from proximity to the project as well as the adjacent properties we have asked the project to establish good neighbor policies to minimize impact to the communities there's also additional condition for good neighbor conditions uh policy good neighbor conditions actually in addition to the policies and the conditions really for the 24 office operation addresses noise lighting circulation operations it also has an ongoing

and maintenance requirement that allows the city to really look at how we can address any type of nuisance complaint immediately through an agreement instead of having to go through your traditional code enforcement process and with those changes we believe that the project applicant has done their work to address the council's concern from the continuance meeting of March 17th. The applicant is available for any questions as well as staff from planning, and that concludes staff's report. Thank you.

Thank you.

Madam Clerk, are there any speakers that wish to address this item?

Yes. Mayor, we have three individuals that are ready to speak.

Go ahead. Let's take their testimony.

Okay, and then before I do open up and unmute the callers, I want to just announce that we did receive emails in addition. We had two Santa Ana residents in support, and then we had two non-Santa Ana residents that opposed, and then three that did not disclose were also in opposition. Caller with 477. You have been unmuted. You have three minutes. Please proceed with your comment.

Yes, my name is Dale Helwig, Ward 3. I just wanted to let you guys know that I appreciate all the work you're doing down there and remind everybody in the city to register to vote and also to ensure that they complete their 2020 census. All that will help the city a lot. So appreciate it. Thank you very much, and you guys have a good night.

Thank you. Caller, with the last three numbers, 970, you've been unmuted. Please proceed with your comment.

Hello, dear members of the city council. My name is Josh Bolcher and I'm the property owner of the subject property at 813 North Equis. I bought this property as a development opportunity, which is what my company specializes in as a niche of taking underserved properties and fully developing them to their maximum capacity. We are pleased to announce that this is indeed a project that the community does support, which has been shown via the signature of the support from the immediate residents. Our intended project is one that will bring beauty to this corner. Our specific development will not only,

it will not only consist of onsite improvements. However, it will also consist of public improvements to include a new sidewalk panel, rebuilding the curb, removing a utility pool, new lighting and new manscaping. Our onsite development will consist of providing new building with high levels of detail for its aesthetic intricacy and design this this project will provide financial benefits to the city as well being that this will be a convenience store and a gas station it will allow for high tax dollars to the city it will also be a new source of jobs

both during construction and once construction is finished and finally with a significant increase in the property value this will dramatically increase the property taxes while we work As we continue from our last meeting, we humbly are hoping to obtain approval for our project tonight. It appears that the main item that was on this topic was the hours of operation. The proposed fee store and gas is a use that is permitted by right between the hours of 5 a.m. and midnight. And as much as we can currently proceed accordingly, granting us the 24 hour operation would allow the city to impose guidelines and restrictions

to accommodate the local constituents desire. the site has been vacant for three figures i've been working on the site for three years i'm the constituent of the city and support with my property taxes which has increased as a result

may i request 10 more seconds go ahead 10 seconds go ahead we have been as flexible as possible to allow for the city to deliver a project that they can stand behind and be proud of a testament to that would be the unanimous vote of approval from the planning commission as well as the staff level recommendation of approval. We want to bring a developer, we want to be a developer that the city can be proud of. We look forward to enhancing the current blight looking property to a brand new nice development in which our local neighbors can enjoy. Thank you very much and have a great evening.

Thank you. Caller with the last three numbers 883. You are unmuted. Please proceed with your comment.

okay caller um adan madrid i believe you're the applicant

you may proceed with your comment you have been unmuted

um yes thank you good evening mayor polito members of the council and staff my name is adan madrid i'm with asi development i am the applicant representative thank you for your time and the opportunity to speak um i had a a long list of of items that i wanted to address with the council however after hearing the comprehensive report provided by staff and hearing the testimony from from the property owner i would i will spare the council regurgitating some of these comments and will remain available to answer any questions

that the council might have.

You're a wise man. Thank you for your comments. Madam Clerk, please continue.

Mayor, we have no other callers.

Okay. So let me bring it back to my colleagues for consideration. Any comments on this item?

Phil BacerraItem —

Mr. Mayor, Council Member Becerra here.

Yes, sir. Go ahead.

Phil BacerraItem —

Thank you. Mr. Tai, I had just a couple of questions for you.

Phil BacerraItem —

So first thing I wanted to ask is in looking at the site plan, I see that we have light poles located about probably two to three that are located along the perimeter, the eastern and southern sides of the property. Will those lights have some sort of shielding so that the light doesn't drift off onto the adjacent properties like the Buddhist temple to the east and the residential to the south?

Yes, all lights on the property will have shields that will direct light on the site and not to the adjacent properties.

Phil BacerraItem —

Okay, thank you. And my only other question or concern, well, one, I want to thank you, Mr. Tai, for hearing our comments from the last meeting. I had concerns about the space in the southeast corner being open and this area where potentially we can see folks gathering and conducting illicit activities without being seen. So I think that a wrought iron fence that is depicted on the site plan will help us avoid that situation. But what I did want to ask you about is with the trash enclosure on the southern property line, it seems like it's in an awkward location.

Phil BacerraItem —

I just want to ask you, is it possible without us having to take any action here tonight to try to lock it in? Because I hate the idea of us trying to plan from the dais or remotely and virtually at this point. but is there a way for you to work with the applicant on the location of the trash enclosure that's currently situated on the southern property line we definitely can councilman

that is a condition we had similar concern and it's been incorporated as condition number seven of the resolution for the applicant to work with staff on relocation of the trash enclosure

Phil BacerraItem —

sure. And I have one last question, Mr. Ty, and that is as far as the walls on the southern and eastern walls, one thing I think that really helps in deterring graffiti, it's not perfect, but it's a it goes a long way, and that is vines adorning the walls so that you have a nice green wall. It's environmentally helpful, and it's also, again, a good deterrent. Is that something that will be conditioned on this project should it go forward that absolutely can be done okay and and i what i want to ask you mr ty is that you know what i've seen on some of these

Phil BacerraItem —

projects is you get what looks like one single vine and i know maybe there's hopes and prayers that the thing's going to one day blossom and cover an entire wall but six months a year later it's just that single vine so if we're going to incorporate that on this project i would like to see a true genuine green wall that covers the wall so we don't have any canvas for folks that want to

graffiti it i will work with staff to increase the density of the planting so that it's closer and higher density than either initial planting

perfect that's all i have mr mayor thank you mr tai thank you uh other comments by council members

If not, I would entertain a motion.

Motion to approve. Second. Councilmember Peñalosa.

Thanks for that. If no comments, roll call vote.

Councilmember Becerra.

Yes.

Councilmember Mendoza. Yes. Councilmember Peñalosa.

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Councilmember Sarmiento.

Yes.

Councilmember Solorio?

Yes.

Mayor Potem-Viegas?

Yes.

Mayor Fulido?

Yes.

Motion carries 7-0.

We are now on item 75B.

That's correct. And if members of the public would like to make a comment. Go ahead. Yes, so members of the public who'd like to make a comment, the line is still open until the mayor opens the public hearing item.

All right, so let me go ahead and bring our attention to this item. I think this is just a weed abatement.

$5,761.32. Is there a staff presentation? If not, I'll just go open up the public hearing for the public.

Mayor, we do have a very brief staff presentation as it is fairly self-explanatory.

Go ahead. I'll open up the public hearing. Go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor. This is an annual notice hearing process that we are required to take in order for us to recover costs through our dangerous abatement program of dangerous building and abandoned buildings. It's the resolution affirming for this fiscal year on cost that we expended. And as part of this process, we will be able to file the auditor controller for the County of Orange to recover the costs. This program provides us with the ability to step in and address properties that have dangerous conditions

where property owners are either not acting in terms of the appropriate measure to abate the situation or do not take any action at all. We're able to come in, abate the action, and then also through this process, we'll be able to recover our costs for those actions.

and we do that through us providing the county with information on the cost and that will be placed as a lien on the property and through that process we'll be able to cover the cost i just want to share with the council that while the total cost is approximately 7 5700 this year through this notice noticing process one of the property owner has already started making payments so this process not only allows us to recover the cost but it also acts as an incentive for property owner to repay the cost so this property at one two three four saint anne has already started the process of repayment however we'll continue with this

process so that we still have the authorization and once we receive full payment we would not send this property to the the county the second property is 2639 west first street again this is a situation where we have to step in board up the properties and as you can see the property was left in quite a condition that is both dangerous and a nuisance. With that, concludes staff's report. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer.

All right, council members, any thought or comment? Mr. Mayor? Members of the public that want to speak on this, Madam Clerk?

We do not have any members of the public.

All right, with that, I will close the public hearing and bring it to Council for consideration.

Make a motion to approve, Council Member Villegas.

Second.

Second.

Council Member Mendoza.

Thank you for that. Roll call vote, please.

Council Member Becerra.

Yes.

Council Member Mendoza. Yes. Councilmember Peñalosa?

Yes.

Councilmember Sarmiento?

Yes.

Councilmember Solorio?

Yes.

Mayor Potem-Viegas?

Yes.

Mayor Pulido?

Yes.

Motion carries 7-0.

Thank you. I believe that brings us to item 85A.

First of all, Madam City Manager, do you have any comments on this before we engage?

No, sir, this is the opportunity for you to discuss among your colleagues and I stand ready for direction.

All right, I think this was requested by Council members Peñalosa and Sarmiento.

David PenalozaItem —

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. This is Council Member Peñalosa. I requested 85A along with Councilmember Sarmiento to discuss and consider directing the clerk of the council to allow for public comments on agenda items via telephone as well as in person in an effort to encourage civic engagement while the local state of emergency due to COVID-19 is in place. So I had initially put this on the agenda before we had gone back to virtual meetings again, because it was important for me to, you know, protect the public health of our constituents and had been the hotbed of the county and in COVID cases I want.

David PenalozaItem —

And, you know, I thought it was irresponsible of us to ever, you know, make constituents come into the city hot up, make public comments in person. I know we went back to virtual meeting, but given that we jumped back and forth so frequently, I wanted to have this discussion here with all of us in public to come up with a firm way to have public comments and allow them. I personally feel that we should, in the meantime, while the state of emergency is in place by the governor, my

David PenalozaItem —

personal opinion would be to allow you know public comments via phone and you know for those that wish to do it in person as we allowed two weeks ago uh with the setup outside you know to allow that too you know it's to each their own but to give the public options that is where where i want to make sure that we're transparent and and allow for for the public to make those comments uh in any way that they feel comfortable in. With that said, those are my comments. I want to make sure that we keep phone comments in place as long as the state

David PenalozaItem —

of emergency from the governor is in place. I don't, you know, just as soon, the last time that the governor started scaling back, that's when we decided that in-person comments was okay, and I don't think that's right because of the high number of cases. So with that said, this is merely you know to allow for civic engagement and to protect the public health. Those are my comments. Not sure what my colleagues feel, but I would like to and also to help the city clerk out because she also needs clear direction on what our preferences are and that is

it. I'll defer to Councilmember Sarmiento. Thank you Councilmember. No I think I I think you said it well, and this was done, you know, in advance of the clerk of the council's decision to go virtual and allow for a phone in option as well. And I think, you know, in all fairness, I think the in-person option that we employed at the prior meeting was done to try to improve the public's ability to address the council.

Unfortunately, right after that, the governor issued his more strict orders to not gather. And that's when we started seeing the numbers in Santa Ana and all over the county and throughout Southern California, despite. And what's unfortunate is that we continue to be living through a very difficult surge, especially here in Santa Ana, where we have about 5,500 cases. and that is a you know we are unfortunately leading the county in the number of positive covid cases i don't see this going away anytime soon so we did want to leave this on as a discussion

item so we can give the clerk of the council as well as the city manager but also that our director of i.t to be able to access support to make sure that the uh count the public's opportunity to be heard be protected because we're dealing with two issues that we have to balance intelligently one One is the public health and not endangering anybody who wants to come and address the city council while at the same time making sure that we protect the public's right to be heard. And I think by having a well-managed system, and I think tonight's has been really well done.

So I think we have to give compliments when they're due. And I want to thank the clerk. I think the public was able to address this. I think they came in clearly. I don't think there was much of a delay, but I also wanted to, you know, I know that in our CARES Act money as well, maybe there's some funding for support, technical support, whether it's to the clerk or whether it's to the IT director, because those are all recoverable costs, in my opinion, because they are the result of this pandemic. So that is a criteria for us to be able to get cost recovery on those. But we know that the public does want to address this.

There are some very sensitive issues. We are in a very, very, you know, dangerous area right now in the city. Just because, you know, folks have, you know, exposure and have some, you know, immune system deficiencies. and we have to be sensitive to those. So to the extent that we can provide options, as was said by the council member, I think it's a good thing, but I just wanted to make sure that the city manager, or excuse me, the city manager, the city clerk, and the IT director understand that they should be able to employ some additional support if they need to make sure that we do this.

And one last thing is I know that there are cities that don't even allow for public comment. So you have cities like Anaheim that are as large as ours. and I think they do all their public comments by email. So we do have to, I think, you know, also be proud of the fact that we're trying to make sure that as challenging as it is, we're trying to do what we can to make sure we protect that the public's right to be heard. And those are my comments. Thank you.

Thank you. Let me jump in for a moment, if I may. I know Councillor Sarmiento, and I've heard the way you've run some meetings there at the water district. I know this is a little bit different in terms of the volume and maybe the passion of some of the speakers but I think it is important to be accessible. In our reality right now I don't think we really should encourage people to come in person.

So I think it would be a mistake to offer that option because we're going against the governor's order and we're also implicitly, I believe, leading them to believe that it's safe to do so. so I think for the foreseeable future and I would venture to guess that this is for the rest of the year that we're going to have to stay virtual and going to have to kind of do business the way we did it tonight if somebody can make a different case please make it but if not I think

this is going to have to become the new normal until we're out of the pandemic and again I I just don't see a big change anytime soon. Any other thoughts or comments by council members?

Well, just to answer you, Mr. Mayor, I don't disagree. I think that what the council members comment, what council member Penalosa, I believe was saying is that when it's safe, I think we do wanna make that opportunity available because my hope is that we're going to be much better at protecting our public health. And we bring these numbers down and we make that option available. But until that's not safe, certainly that's why there is, I guess, more an encouragement that we improve our phone-in virtual access by the public to have them address us. Just as the governor has relaxed the Brown Act

for some of us not to come to meetings, we need to make sure that the public has that same opportunity to address us and be home safely or wherever they are to be able to access the council meeting so yeah by no means are we saying that we should encourage nor um you know try to give a false sense of hope or a false sense of security that you know it is safe to come to a council meeting that's why we want a really well strong sophisticated way uh for folks to be able to access the uh the meeting remotely thank you mr mayor yeah that

David PenalozaItem —

is that is correct and i'm sorry the way i worded that was a little confusing but i councilmember sarmiento is correct i'm not encouraging you know us to allow for in-person comment right now when cases are so high and and the governor keeps um putting different restrictions on on on the state but um you know moving forward for as long as this is in place we should allow for that public over the phone option even when the governor starts lifting restrictions because like I mentioned Santa Ana is the hotbed of the county and our cases are extremely high and they were

David PenalozaItem —

two weeks ago and we were allowing people to come in in person and taking that phone option away and a lot of people there's a lot of people out there that are not you know that don't feel safe doing things just yet that are still you know playing it safe and being cautious and and giving them that opportunity to comment by phone would go a long ways. I personally do not care for the profanity. I don't agree with it, but, you know, I will fight for their right to say it because at the end of the day, it is their First Amendment right. And again, I don't care if people

David PenalozaItem —

are calling in. Again, I don't care if people are calling in from Australia. I mean, as a councilwoman mentioned two weeks ago because again wherever they're calling in that is a right to call and we are public entity and we are public servants so I just the only change moving forward that I would like to suggest is that we allow for the phone comments and I know it's it's something that we're working it's a work in progress to open it at every agenda item like we had previously done as if we were operating normally because currently I'm getting text

David PenalozaItem —

messages from constituents that they want to comment on 85a and they want to comment on 85b I mean we've done it for decades where public comment is at the end and everybody gets to comment so if we allow a period where at least we could you know not just notify the public that we're gonna just do public comment in the beginning for every agenda item and that's it you know it It doesn't give, people are used to doing it one way and we're changing them on them frequently. And I don't think that's appropriate. But yeah, I didn't wanna encourage people to come in, to speak in public in person,

David PenalozaItem —

but as long as we make those options available for them.

Phil BacerraItem —

Mr. Mayor, Council Member Becerra here.

Yes, Council Member Becerra.

Phil BacerraItem —

I wanna thank my colleagues, Council Member Sarmiento and Council Member Penaloza for bringing this item forward. You know, my first action when I became a planning commissioner was to try to ensure that the public knew where we were meeting. We were meeting in two different locations, depending on the meeting. We had one point we were in the council chambers. Another point we were in another part of City Hall. And it just it felt like it was deliberately confusing. So I agree with the idea of anything that we can do to be a leader in Orange County and beyond in transparency, I think is a wonderful thing.

Phil BacerraItem —

and I appreciate my colleagues bringing it forward. What I do want to clarify, though, is that, you know, when we or when our clerk had set up for folks to come in and comment in person, this was right before, you know, the spike that we're experiencing now was taking place. So I wanted to say that I think that our clerk was trying to address the situation. She had a system that was not working and thankfully it is working now. And I thought it went very well tonight. So I wanna thank our city clerk for helping run this meeting in a very efficient way while still providing an opportunity

Phil BacerraItem —

for our residents to voice their concerns regarding our agenda items. But one thing that I just wanna share with council member Paloza, while you're hearing a lot of constituents express their concerns about where the public comment portion of the agenda is located. You know, it's funny, a lot of folks are appreciative that we're now having the public comments at the beginning of the meetings because for a long time they were at the end and you're right, a lot of people got used to that, but it wasn't something that they welcomed and it wasn't something that they really enjoyed, at least a lot of folks that I'm speaking to.

Phil BacerraItem —

So I really appreciate how this meeting has been running tonight and having the comments at the beginning on all the items except for the public hearing items, I think is a way that balances efficiency, but still provides that opportunity for folks to call in and express what they feel about these agenda items. I think obviously, I think it goes without saying that we don't want to have people coming in to make comments at City Hall during the spike in the pandemic at this time. When it is safe, of course, we want to open our chambers. I think Council Member Sarmiento

Phil BacerraItem —

So we'll always affectionately refer to our chambers as the people's hall. And I agree. I think it's somewhere where we want to, at some point, have folks coming in and addressing us face to face. But right now, obviously, it's important for them to do it via the phone. And I think that, you know, well, I would say I appreciate our clerk and our IT staff for fixing the equipment and making sure that our residents do have the ability to safely call in on the agenda items. so again I want to express my appreciation and thank our two colleagues for bringing this item

Phil BacerraItem —

before us I do support the idea of continuing the telephone comments I like the way it's being done now at the beginning of the meeting on all the items except for the agenda items that's my

comments thank you Mr. Mayor all right again I think we don't have much of a choice right now

It's the only way that we can do it safely.

But if there's no more comments, let's go on to item 85B as in boy. Who had that item?

David PenalozaItem —

Really quick, Mr. Mayor. This is Councilman Penalosa. Can we have the city clerk kind of maybe state what, because I don't think there was a majority direction on what's going to happen with the public comment. So I want her to state what is going to happen in the next couple of months until the state of emergency is in place.

So what I have is we're going to continue on the virtual comments only. We're not going to look into the in-person until it does appear where it is safe. And I think that is a long way from now. And I think having it at the beginning of the meeting, with the exception of public hearing items, will continue on. If we keep changing it on the residents, as you said, it is confusing. And I am in communication with a lot of community organizers, a lot of residents, a lot of numbers that I got tonight. I'm calling them back. I'm being proactive about making sure

that we can address any issues that they're experiencing so that way they don't continue to be confused about what they're doing. I have been getting a lot of residents telling me that They prefer to have it at the very beginning of the meeting, and it's much easier because you don't know when the cutoff is, and you don't know when they're wanting to speak for what item. So having them speak at the very beginning of the agenda has been working successfully, with the exception of public hearing items.

David PenalozaItem —

And then they have until a certain hour to call in, right?

Yeah, so we opened up the line today at 5 p.m. And I had about a dozen people call in today. A couple of them called in just to practice to make sure that they felt comfortable with the process. They had no comment to provide tonight. And then they went ahead and hung up. But all of the other ones waited online since 5 p.m. I spoke to them, made sure that they understood that we're not virtually raising our hands. We provided communication not only through our subscriber email list for agenda subscribers, but we also submitted several, I think maybe two or three different social media platforms

where we went ahead and continuously provided information since Thursday, the day of publication for the agenda. We updated our website, and I will follow back with any of the residents who had any issues at all, and I have every one of their numbers, so that way I can get that communication.

David PenalozaItem —

And last question. What is the last time, the cutoff time, where callers could call in and if they want to speak on any of the items?

So that varies because, as you know, there is no way to predict an exact time of when we're going to land on a certain item, and this particular item is the public comment period. And because we don't know when that's going to happen, the best practice is for people to start calling in before the meeting starts, making sure that they're in the log and in the speaker queue. And again, it's open right at 5 p.m. And then it closes right when the first speaker starts speaking during the public comment period, which is the same practice that happens during a regular council meeting when we were having in-person meetings.

So as soon as the meeting started, the last speaker card, that's when we provided that information to the mayor so that he can, as a presiding chair, he can go ahead and call the speakers. and it ended right then and there right at the beginning of the meeting.

David PenalozaItem —

Okay. All right. Thank you, Madam City Clerk.

All right. 85B. Mayor ProTendiega, please. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So 85B is discussing consider directing the city manager to include the CARES Act spending plan, a program to assist working families with child care needs as a result of the governor's closure of the in-class instruction for schools in our region. And the reason I bring this up is just for discussion to see if there's a way that maybe we can help parents. You know, this COVID situation is, we're not sure when it's going to end. I know they're working on a vaccine.

Every week there's a new, there's something new in the news, progress, setbacks, you know, et cetera. But what hasn't changed is that there's parents, families that are struggling. You know, work is low. They have to make a decision whether to stay home with their kids because they're not in school or, you know, got to work. And the thing is, you might ask yourself, well, during the summer times, you know, they send the kids to grandma or grandma comes over and watches the children or the aunt or the cousin. somebody responsible comes over.

But right now everybody's staying put, especially our senior citizens, because everybody's trying to protect themselves and rightfully so. But parents find themselves in a tough position when, hey, I got bills to pay. I have the rent to pay. I have all kinds of things. I need to get back to work because life doesn't just stop and the bills are moving along. So one of the things that I, you know, I was thinking that maybe we could help with some child care for those that want to use it because they need to go to work.

Because they don't have anyone to watch their children or, you know, they can't call on that one relative because, you know, everybody's a little bit afraid. And so I was thinking, well, maybe if there was some child care or a pilot program or something, we can do a facility where we can even hire some of our own employees back to help out. You know, there are child care facilities that are operating, and maybe we can help out these parents that want to get back to work because a lot of people are struggling with having to stay home and watch their children and children are not in school.

I know it's a little tough, but it's every individual family's decision on how they're going to go about it. Not everybody would buy into it, and that's okay. But there's some families who don't really have many folks to help them. So that is something I wanted to discuss with my colleagues today and gather their thoughts and see what they're thinking. So that is what I'm proposing is we can have the staff, the city manager, maybe start a pilot program with some child care facilities and to see if we can help out some of our residents that want to get back to work.

And that is my comment, Mr. Mayor. I welcome any comments from our colleagues.

Let me ask a couple questions, if I may. Sure. Are you thinking this would come out of some of the short term money that we have to spend in the next few weeks?

Absolutely, because it would be from the-

It potentially is going on into the future.

Yes, I had a conversation with the city manager, and she believes we can use some of the CARES money on this.

Madam city manager, would you like to comment?

Certainly, sir. Thank you. so i would look to the state they have provided subsidized child care early on because of covid to first responders so that those first responders could still show up at work and have their children taken care of so i would i would first look to that to see if there's a way that we could duplicate it and provide those services for the residents that are impacted by covid in our community i do believe we will have dollars available to do that

so does anybody have uh comments and opposition to that concept mr mayor this is uh councilman

David PenalozaItem —

peña losa yes go ahead thank you and i just wanted to ask the city manager uh in regards to what the state uh funds available um because i noticed that even if you have it uh plastered in our elevators here at City Hall, that the governor and the state is offering funds to essential workers, regardless of income, whether they, it doesn't matter how much they make. I wasn't sure, it wasn't too clear, but I know there's a lot of resources available. I'm not too comfortable with offering any kind of pilot program or facilities within the city that would provide child care,

David PenalozaItem —

because that brings me back to this is why our community centers are unfortunately closed and schools are closed because we can't have areas where a group of kids are hanging out with an adult because of the pandemic. And I want to thank the Mayor Pro Temp for bringing this forward because it is a good thing and it is a much-needed thing in our community, but I'm just trying to understand the logistics of it or how, you know, because I know there are state funds available for this particular purpose, not just for first responders, if I'm not mistaken. Can you touch on that?

I don't know the specifics of the program, Council Member, but I do know that it first started for first responders and then it more for essential workers. So at this time, I don't know the parameters. I could find out that information and report back to the City Council.

David PenalozaItem —

Yeah, maybe if we could find out what the money and direct resources available from the state are currently, because from what I read on those flyers is that it was available to anybody regardless of income, you know, child care service or resources available. So if we could look into that, that'd be great.

Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Yeah, go ahead.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This is Council Member Jose Solorio. Yeah, yeah. Go ahead. Thank you. I wanted to thank Mayor Patent Villegas for bringing this forward. I think in addition to seeing if there are any kind of COVID compliant highlight programs in other parts of the state, I think it would be worth evaluating and see if it works for us. I know there's kind of been, you know, on and off on many of these programs, so I don't know if they're active or not, but when and if they're available, where we should look at it for our community. But there also may be partnerships with other nonprofits.

I know the Boys and Girls Club were early on, seeking those kinds of opportunities in our city and others for healthcare workers and other essential workers. So maybe there might be some kind of partnership with them. Because the reality is sometimes even though we ourselves may want to offer these services, there are other nonprofits that maybe we can do it quicker and faster. and then I think there's also an overlay with parents' needs of, again, you know, tech access and Wi-Fi and just any kind of, you know, programming or help. Also, a lot of really day caring occurs, you know, in the homes.

You know, the abuelita is there or, you know, or somebody is watching, you know, the children maybe while people are working there remotely. So I think we can do more support there. And then finally, we just, I think, just need to have a sense of urgency and get these programs and dollars out. You know, whether it be this COVID funding, 28 million, the youth fund, you know, 7 million. And I know, let's do it smartly, but let's start rolling some stuff out because there's a lot of need out there. Thank you.

Other comments, council members?

Yeah, Mr. Mayor, this is Council Member Sotomayor.

Please go ahead.

Thank you. um so i think um you know the this 85b even though it is kind of narrow on um something that could be uh could be funded by the cares act money i think it it you know begs the question for a larger um discussion having to do with just you know the cares act funding and i think that that's important for us to consider because they're again providing relief uh there's so much need at all levels right now. So I think that the proposal that was presented to us at the last meeting by staff was a really good start, by the way, there were some line items in there that obviously had to do with, you know,

funding for testing, serology, rental assistance, small business grants. And I think what it does is it really does beg the question for us to sit down and talk about what are the priorities and what's the most urgent we needed, right? And I don't want us to think that this is, you know, some sort of um you know um fun that we can go all go out and start promising people uh certain things i think that this is a discussion that we need to have with the city manager and amongst us as a body to make sure we prioritize and we um also dedicate some of these as quickly as possible

there are things that um you know keep hearing about um you know uh the moratorium that is set to expire at the end of this month, you know, my suggestion would be for us to consider having the city manager extend that moratorium to run concurrently with the governor's order, which would expire at the end of September. The line item that was proposed by the staff on rental assistance is a very, very robust, strong start because it's a $3 million line item that could be augmented with cdbt money of 800 000 making it close to 4 million which is more commensurate

with i think what we need to have um i think you know there's a line item that was proposed for um uh ppe having you know hand sanitizers and it you know what was interesting is i know i walked some of the bus lines with somebody here who provides services to the unsheltered and having some hand sanitizer stations, you know, in certain places where there is high volume would do a big, would be a big help because we know that these folks don't have a place to

maintain proper hygiene. And what happens if that goes unaddressed as it just continues to spread. Our numbers, as I mentioned, are so high. Us, you know, we're at about 5,500. Anaheim is about 5,000 there's almost 30,000 cases in the county so we represent more than 30 percent just between the two cities and the eight zip codes so again I would you know ask us you know if this is something that we need to have a recurring discussion on and I think it is one that we get an update at every meeting or even as necessary as I believe it is because it is a public health

crisis that is has its epicenter in our city we should be meeting even in between our regular meetings just to get updates just to be able to move more quickly because what i hear consistently from all of us is that this money when it comes because i know it's not going to come in a lump sum i believe it'll arrive in increments how do we deploy it as quickly as possible for those problems that we have that are immediately necessary so whether it's you know um uh you know you know, the testing, the serology, whatever. And one of the line items I think that is missing

here is the eviction defense fund for those bad actors that are trying to evict people during this time. So that is something that I know we have a good template for because we've done it with the deportation defense fund. This wouldn't be a long, a high price cost, but it would prevent those that are being harassed and, you know, by landlords who are using self-help to be able to go ahead and defend themselves and have an opportunity for a strong due process in court so when that when that comes about but you know I just think it begs for a

larger discussion I think it has to be something that we consider maybe mayor pro tem's idea other ideas that we know are bubbling up and we we hear that there's just so much need and we need to provide good intelligent responses those are my comments thank you let let me uh jump in if i may

um councilman sarmiento because i i agree with you that um you know we need to be discussing this on a on a regular basis what i would suggest is maybe the city manager we just put it on is an ongoing agenda item. And she can give us an update. And if we have suggestions or items that we think ought to be discussed, let's bring them up. If it becomes too much, may we have to have special meetings? That, I'd be happy to call those if it's warranted.

I'll tell you that what I've found is these problems are so difficult um when you think you have a solution to something um sometimes you really don't because the the dollars just are nowhere near enough to really tackle the problem so i tend to spend a lot of time i look at them over and over and over again you know the dollars and and where staff is recommending they be spent and then what you know I kind of test the outcome to be in, and then I go back and I rethink it because there's new problems. Let me give you one that I ran into here recently.

I'm running into a lot of people that said, look, you wanted to do testing. Now we're starting to get testing, but we're testing positive, and we're losing our jobs because at work, nobody wants to have you working if you're positive. So now what do we do? And of course, people are told, well, you know, go home and quarantine. You don't have any symptoms. You'll probably get over it. Go home and quarantine. They go home, they quarantine. Now the whole family has it. And a lot of our spread, and look, we all need to not do the meetings and wear masks and social distance,

but a lot of the spread right now is occurring inside residences, inside apartments. it's occurring you know within families and very close friends and I don't know you know what we do there I mean I've been on the phone trying to figure out can we get potentially additional beds down at the Orange County Fairgrounds so that if I identify people that want to quarantine you know maybe we have access to that but I'll give you another problem I've found some people who have quarantined and they can't take it. They don't want to be away from everybody for a long time if they don't have to.

And they immediately want to come back, start seeing their loved ones. They, they, it just becomes a real burden. So it's like every time you try to solve something, this pandemic is really, really, really tough. And, and we just need to do all of the above.

as strong as we can

and really trying to make our numbers come down. Remember, last time we met, I predicted we'd be at 5,000.

Right now, I'm telling you, we're on our way to 10,000. And I don't know how to stop it. We're talking to the health director at UC Irvine, director of public health. I'll tell you the County of Orange, they don't have a plan. They do have enough money. Back in March, they received $554 million. You know, if you just did a pro retta, which is why I formed that mayor's group and tried to get money from the county, we would have received over $60 million back then. And believe me, we'd be doing something with it by now.

They still are going at a snail's pace. And meanwhile, you know, we have 100 over 130, I think 138 deaths now as of today in Santa Ana. We're going to be at 6,000 cases by tomorrow. And in the county, they are doing very, very, very little. so um i suggest maybe the city manager can put out a more detailed uh update you know for the

city council and the community but just some covenant updates and then let's maybe um you know we consider either a special meeting or adding this to our agenda in two weeks but uh right now it might be a good time but I but I'd like to see not only ideas but let's do as much homework as we can on our ideas and ask the question where does it lead you know what next does it really solve a problem or does it cause another problem

that we also have to have a solution for and I'll tell you we're not the only city suffering from this um i'm telling you california is gonna surpass new york very quickly in terms of the total number of cases and of course you can say well we're bigger um but look we we were doing a lot better we've always been bigger um i believe new york got it earlier because it came from europe and they weren't they had their guard down and and we put our guard up at the beginning our problem has been as a state we put our guard up and we thought we were doing well

and then we put our guard down um and now it's hitting us very hard and we always have known that santa anna is you know you know very susceptible to this you know we've always been a tumbleweed as our portions of Anaheim and it's not all of Shantyana by the way when you look at its accounts within the zip codes and and then more information within it's not the entire city

at the same level but but we're not going to be well and healthy and safe until we help get our residents through this, especially our lower income residents that, you know, can't quarantine, that need the job just, you know, to live, to eat. And so, you know, maybe let's thank Mayor Pro Temp for putting this on, but, you know, this is a much, much, much, much bigger issue.

I think our $28 million are not nearly enough, but that's all we've got. And we need to deploy them quickly so that it can make a difference, and we need to deploy them as effectively as we possibly can. And that's a very, very, very tall order. but why don't um let me uh reach out to several of you um and let's see if uh either a special meeting is in order or if you all have ideas that you want to add let's run them by the city manager

i know she's working every day in one form or another on this and right now i don't think it's the issue of the day i think it's the only issue um you know this issue uh you know will have ramifications potentially you know for many many years to come um so uh additional comments or

thoughts my colleagues mayor of tulido this is council member mendoza yes please council member yes i know that the governor directed the schools to look into child care as well so if the city and and the school district work together. I know that we can come up with solution to this childcare issue. And currently the board is waiting for an update from the superintendent. So I think this is a very good program where the city and the school district can work to find a solution to this problem.

And it'll be beneficial to our residents and our children.

Thank you, Council Member Mendoza. Thank you for that suggestion. If I could say something.

Additional comments.

Yeah, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Mendoza. You know, I was thinking that maybe if we did do something, that the school district could help us with their meal program. And, you know, just to see how this goes. You know, as a parent, and some of the council members, you know, do not have children, but if you're at home and you have kids and they're not going to school and they're at home and you have to go to work, I mean, it's a tough one. There's no clear answer to it. Every family has their story, and every family has their challenges, and they have to make the decisions.

And I think this is something that could help because not everyone gets financial assistance. Not everyone's receiving money from the government. And so, you know, there's folks that, you know, they're really in a tough spot. do I go out and go to work and see what I do with my kids or do I just stay here and and you know and hang on to you know whatever I can so this is just something I want to look into and I think it's worth exploring more and I want to thank my colleagues for their comments those that were for it and against it as well both are you know very valuable for us to continue the

discussion thank you thank you and thank you council members let me go on to a

city manager comments please thank you mayor just three items tonight and actually the first one is an update on our planning efforts I know this is one of our highest or the highest priority unfortunately our city does remain the hardest hit in the county and our county is the second hardest hit in the state just behind LA County. So I wanted to give you an update of our planning activity that is happening behind the scenes and I think the robust dialogue on 85B and I know several of you have individually reached out to me and referred different vendors and ideas please keep them coming. I really like

the idea of having a routine you receive and file so that I can keep you updated and I do think there probably is a need for a special meeting since you are dark for their first meeting in August. But just to let you know what we've been working on, we have an interdepartmental team that's working diligently to help with the critical steps of the spending plan, which includes setting parameters, getting proposals, executing contracts, identifying and designing a dashboard to track our performance. Prioritization has been given to the tasks that require the most lead time as our window four expenditures is very, very limited.

And once again, thank you to all of you that have referred resources. and I just want to let you know when you refer a resource, whether it's for PPE, whether it's for testing, we take it under consideration and we thoroughly vet it. We're using our EOC procurement process to do all of that. Some of our notable planning efforts to report include informally seeking proposals for mobile testing with priority given to FDA-approved test kits and lab processing turnaround times. We are finalizing contract terms with UCI and Waterline Chemical Company.

We're researching the availability of a trilingual nurses hotline for all of our residents, and we also are busy lining up isolation units. We have procurement teams that are assigned to accumulate all needed supplies, such as supplies for household COVID-19 kits, including not only mask and hand sanitizers, but also household cleaning products. We're developing the protocol to deploy all three types of assistance, and that is the rental, business, and bill assistance. Discussions are already in place with over 40 different landlords to more expeditiously deploy the rental assistance.

We also are in the process of assembling the compliance ambassadors that we talked about and a mobile resource unit to directly visit the hard-hit areas to provide education and the resources. We're also establishing protocol to make sure that our expenditures do meet the U.S. Department of Treasury guidelines, and we don't get in trouble in that. So that is a very brief update of all the things that we're working on behind the scenes. We did finally get confirmation from the state just today, about an hour before our meeting started, that we will expect to receive our first allocation of money by the end of this month.

And the amount will be roughly $4.8 million. They are giving us a sixth at a time of the $28.6 million. dollars so other two items really briefly is i am presenting this week thursday at seven to the comlink virtual community meeting and they have requested an update on covet 19 and cares act spending plan and any participant that wants to listen in you do need to register ahead at go to webinar the very last item on friday july 17th staff had a virtual Sensoteria, a twist on the Mexican bingo game.

It was done part of the educational campaign to inform Santa Ana residents about the importance of completing the 2020 census. The virtual game was broadcast live on various media channels and on our YouTube channel, and it had overwhelming response. We had hundreds of Santa Ana households that signed up and participated in the virtual game from all throughout the city. staff has notified the 10 winners and they have a hundred dollar visa gift cards that will be delivered to the winners later this week this was a fun game and it was COVID-19 friendly it was so successful that the staff will be

conducting another one next Friday July 31st at 4 p.m. and for more details you can visit our website santa-anna.org backslash 2020 census and I want to do a big thank you of this effort was led by daisy perez of the city manager's office and that's all sir

thank you um look i'm going to go down the uh council member comments and i'll just go down here by alphabetical order council member sarah please

Phil BacerraItem —

uh thank you mr mayor um i just want to uh emphasize what i said earlier at the beginning of this meeting when we had the uh gentlemen from the registrar voters here i want to make sure that staff works with the rov to increase the amount of ballot uh drop off locations south of first street in our city i really hope that there's a way to uh double triple the locations that we have now i mean that's not really a tall feat given that we have one that's there at the rov itself and one that's hopefully going to happen at Memorial Park. So I really want to ask our clerk and our Parks and Rec Director to work with ROV

Phil BacerraItem —

to hopefully increase the number of those locations. One thing that actually information that came to us as our meeting began tonight was there's a gentleman that has been released from confinement after 20 years in a mental hospital. I want to thank our district attorney for notifying the community of the state's desire to have this person released. I mean, this is a person who has testified to having sexual and homicidal fantasies with young boys. Now, currently, he's not on probation or parole, and his requirement to register as a sex offender for life was for some reason removed by the state in 2005.

Phil BacerraItem —

So just earlier today, again, right before the meeting began, our police department informed our community through social media that he is currently located here in Santa Ana. Again, he is not on any form of supervised release. He's not required to register as a sex offender. And he, for what I understand right now, what we're reading out there, he's able to move around freely. So I want to ask, well, one thing I want to say to our community is please do not contact, confront, or attempt to apprehend this gentleman. Please call the police if you see anything suspicious happening, as you should with any crime.

Phil BacerraItem —

But I want to ask our police chief at this point in time, other than just simply relying on you to address any potential situations that may happen, is there anything that we can do as a community regarding this situation?

Phil BacerraItem —

Thanks, Council Member Becerra.

I can tell you that we are consistently monitoring this situation. The person is being held at this point for a different type of reason. We are monitoring that. We're working with several different agencies to determine what the next step for this individual will be. but I can guarantee you that we are on this situation monitoring it 24 hours a day as a

Phil BacerraItem —

matter of fact. Thank you for that Deputy Chief Gaminski. So at this point in time then our police is monitoring the situation he's you said he's being held for another reason at this time is this more for a violation of the law or something else? So the man is currently not in custody

and he's currently not out in the general public.

Phil BacerraItem —

So he is not roaming our community at this time then, correct?

No, sir, he is not. Okay, okay.

Phil BacerraItem —

And I believe you would do this, but I just would ask that as there's any updates with this individual, if you could please make sure that our community knows because, you know, we as a city, we face a lot of things where people want to push their problems onto our shoulders. And, you know, we have, as a community, we're compassionate and we have worked to try to be good neighbors. But on this particular instance, this is not somebody that needs a hand up. This is somebody that wants to commit malicious harm. And I'm not saying that to assert anything other than the fact that thanks to our district attorney's office,

Phil BacerraItem —

who has informed us that he has testified to having these sorts of sick thoughts and dangerous thoughts, frankly. So I wanna thank our police department for keeping our community aware of what's going on and please continue to do that. On a much lighter note, I just wanna say, I think my colleagues and I, we've had a couple of long meetings, so I don't wanna make this meeting any longer. So I just wanna say, let's hopefully have a very well-deserved summer break. As council member Sarmiento said, let's definitely be ready to work on anything we can do

Phil BacerraItem —

to help with helping our community in regards to the cares act but with that i just like to say

uh good night everybody good night uh council member um i believe our next council member is mendoza yes thank you no no it wouldn't be but sarah alphabetical order

yes thank you first of all i would like to thank um the public because um as you mentioned earlier and my colleagues mentioned that the public comments portion of our meeting went very smoothly. We didn't have any technical issues other than just one drop call, and the public was cognizant of being professionals, and their comments were received with much more enthusiasm when there isn't any profanity,

and I appreciate their professionalism in bringing their concerns to us. So thank you to the public and also thank you for Daisy because she did an amazing job in monitoring and having our comments go run in a smooth manner. The second comment that I have is I would like to encourage our city to join forces in the Community Choice Energy Program and to be part of the joint powers with the city of Irvine.

I believe this is an energy saving and clean green energy that our city needs very much. And it is my understanding that the city of Irvine is willing to foot the bills for the startup costs, which is incredibly generous because it will bring much benefit to our city and our city residents. And in addition to this, people will still have a choice to remain with Edison

or switch over to this new service. So I encourage our staff to explore that and maybe to bring that at our next council meeting or in the near future. the third comment i have is that i agree that the with our governor in extending the moratorium on our eviction so that we may have our tenants protected at the same the same date i believe it september 30th so if our city can work in conjunction with our in extending that eviction

the moratorium that would be a great for our tenants and lastly um i want to thank uh daisy perez for the idea of the census loteria it's a great idea and we it's a method a productive and effective way to get our our residents to participate in the census and i actually wanted to participate but I read on there that city staff or employees cannot participate so I was bummed I will not get a chance to win that $100 visa but that's okay I get rewarded in other

ways and those are my comments thank you mayor and thank you to staff and everyone who has been

jumping in to get our city running as smoothly and to keep our residents safe and to working and finding solutions to the COVID restrictions and getting our residents tested as soon as possible. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Councilor Peñaloza, please.

David PenalozaItem —

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. and I won't go too much into detail with what Councilmember Becerra brought up but I did want to encourage our community to just like Garden Grove did just like Corona did just like San Diego did let's rally up and chase them out because nobody should like that should be allowed anywhere in any city I mean they should be locked up forever that is just my honest opinion with that With that said, I just wanted to also thank staff again for all the amazing work they've been doing the last couple of months throughout COVID.

David PenalozaItem —

And of course, I want to remind everybody to not forget, if you haven't already done so, to fill out the census by visiting www.my2020census.gov. It's going to take you no more than 10 minutes, and you're going to have a positive impact on the next 10 years of our community. I know that the president, unfortunately, is using the census as a scare tactic to harm and scare our community.

David PenalozaItem —

Communities just like Santa Ana, and it is hateful and it is hurtful, and it does a huge disservice to a city like ours. so don't listen to that mess fill out the census no one can use it against you it's only going to help all of us in the long run so again www.my2020census.gov

that is it Mr. Mayor good night thank you for that message thank you for that message Councilor Fianno-Loza it's so important and right now with the pandemic it makes the census

is doubly difficult but thank you council member Vince Sarmiento please yes thank you Mr. Mayor and I want to thank you for being flexible and understanding that this is a moment where we do have to do some irregular things like maybe meet more frequently and and and as to the city manager's comment maybe have a you know a recurring agenda item as a receiving file that will allow us to have these updates on what is happening with um with the covid numbers here in the city

and you know yeah when you hear it that way we're we're the second highest county just after um la county in the state and we are the city with the highest number that really does um uh you know kind of make you step back a little bit and realize we are not in a good place So I know things are daunting as you were saying, Mr. Mayor, they are changing, but we can't subject ourselves to paralysis and not do anything because there are things that we can do immediately, even with that first increment of funding that we receive. I think the scenario that you spoke about, about one essential worker going out

because they have to go to work because they have to feed their families. And that's mostly Latinos, essential workers that are going out there that have no reserves that have no safety net. So they're forced to go to work and they come back and they unfortunately are contagious and they get other members of their family sick. And then the whole household is sick. I appreciated what the city manager said

and restating the line item that she had for isolation and looking at hotel beds and hotel rooms or other ways that we can isolate these folks. And yeah, people may not like it, but at least they're given the option to not infect their children, their spouses, their parents. And that is something that we can do. Other things that we can do are things like ambassadors because there are still people out there that are unwilling to use face masks. As silly as that may seem, given the numbers that we have here, people still think that it's a partisan issue. It's somehow detracting from their civil liberties,

but they don't realize that this is a public health interest that has to overcome these unfortunate issues issues that have been, I think, kind of started at the national level by the lack of leadership and making this a partisan issue instead of a public health issue, which is what it is. So I think that we could start working with our businesses, working with our residents, having ambassadors immediately trained.

And this one is that...

Nellie, I think your speaker's on.

I went ahead and muted her. Go ahead, Council Member Sarmiento.

And so, you know, I think, you know, we can really get a lot of use from ambassadors. And another, you know, use is to, you know, bring back some of our part-timers who we had to separate with and talk about people who don't have options. You know, maybe bringing them back and using them and training them and putting them out there to help and, you know, support our businesses that don't have information on what we're doing. So that there are things like that. and then you know getting wi-fi for kids who are going to be you know remotely learning they're not

going to be going to school so we need to make sure that we work with the school district to ensure that there are no obstacles to kids learning so finally the only thing i was going to maybe leave a little homework for the city attorney on is i know that there have been efforts in two cycles to try to get an initiative before us on the ballot and one of them was one the earlier cycle I think it was short by about, you know, a few hundred signatures and I think more than 10,000 were gathered. A second cycle was started this time around.

And I think, you know, as signatures were being gathered, you know, the pandemic hit and you can't go door to door anymore. And that had to stop. Well, I do want to see what is the relief that we can make available. I know there's been other counties or other cities that have been dealing with the same problem. you know whether or not we want to even think about the the merits of it which i think is what is is a worthy one but that aside when people gather more than 10 000 signatures for anything and because you know they were short by some and you know again a pandemic gets in the way

i think we at least have the obligation to research what sort of relief we can we can afford so if you don't mind madam city attorney maybe bringing something back to us or maybe circulating a memo to the council on advising us what what the options for relief are on that and with that i will say uh good night to everybody hopefully everybody has a good night thank you okay thank you council

member yes i've taken that down we'll make sure to get that information circulates to the council

thank you so with that uh let's uh continue we'll go on to council member jose salario please

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Three things. First, on all the cares programming, I want to thank the staff, excellent presentation by our city manager. And I know, I can all the elements in place so we can roll out some good programs. So thank you so much. And I too agree that there may be new opportunities for some of the FTIU workers that currently don't have a parks and rec center to go work at and whether that be you know sanitation whether that be things like you know maybe even daycare or or you know brand ambassadors clients ambassadors things of that sort i think

that would be something that we need to be looking at and i know that there's some out there thinking that we cut money out of the budget uh that was for seiu but the dollars i i believe are still there and you know we're just hopeful that in the future we might be able to uh bringing them back in a place where they can work. Finally, similar to what council member Mendoza said, I too am interested in some type of follow-up on the community choice aggregation, very nice comments that were made during public comments. And you know, not long ago, I had also reviewed the initial letter by mayor Shea

that was sent to Mr. Mayor Pulido. And so my request would be that maybe city manager, if you can look at that letter and work with Mr. Mayor to see what might make sense. I think it was just indicating interest, so a letter of interest, so that might be an easy first step for us to consider. That is all. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just briefly, I want to thank Artesia Pilar. They had their first virtual meeting last Thursday, and it was very successful. I want to thank Lucy Sorlozano from Artesia Pilar for hosting, and Scott Kuttner and all the staff who made that possible. And we were briefed on the Tiny Tim Plaza project, and I was able to give a brief update on what's going on within the ward. and thank everyone for joining us this evening and good night.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor Potem. I just want to end here with a few items. One is that on community aggregation, definitely something we should look at. I just don't know if the timing is right. the reason i say that is i think uh irvine is being driven a little bit uh artificially by a council member that's very interested and so they've kind of set their own uh internal deadline but they need others to come in on it so we should go in but only if the uh you know city manager

suggests and agrees that you know fiscally it's a responsible time for us to potentially take on the burden because even though there's a lot of long-term upside there are some short-term expenses that we would have to front and it might just be difficult timing but look ultimately our goal should be that we want to be a non-profit and our own utility ultimately and really ultimately emulates what other cities have done. Look at all the municipal systems,

and with the exception of L.A., where I just think they've lost control, but most of the other cities, like Riverside or Sacramento or Anaheim, they typically have lower rates, greener power, better infrastructure. and better service. And so definitely, now that Edison more and more is getting out of the business, we have to start looking at options like community aggregation. And if the timing's right, let's move now. If it's not, let's just leave it in the city manager's hands as to when, you know, physically,

you know, she would recommend such consideration. but definitely something that we ought to be thinking about secondly I just want to tell you all that I'll be reaching out to you I maybe there is a good time and a good reason for a special meeting I don't think we need to do them constantly but just you know the nature of this is it's not that we freeze. It's just that you want to act judiciously, and that takes a lot of thought because this

pandemic is so complicated and in many ways we're alone. Other countries that I think have dealt with it successfully have had just a whole different set of metrics and parameters and approaches and strike strong partnership with their federal government and i think the reason as a country we have so many cases and so many deaths is because we haven't had a large uh scale effort and nobody's an island here we're an island in the sense that we have to fight to do whatever

we can but we're an integral part of orange county orange county is a part of you know california and so on and so forth then you know nobody you know stops at city limits you know city limits are really only in our minds and on maps they're not in people's lives anywhere near any of our city limit areas you can see people constantly crossing into every other city as they should and there goes the virus you're crossing constantly as well so I'll be reaching

out to you I'm thinking about between now and our next regularly scheduled meeting I'll talk to the city manager I'll talk to y'all may we we put a an agenda together and may there's you know good reason to come together and to go deep into just a single purpose meeting which would you know obviously what can we do and what are we doing uh as it relates to the pandemic um so with that um let me go ahead and uh you know it's nice and shorter meeting not that that's our goal

our meeting is our goal is not short meeting I believe it's to get the people's work done in an efficient manner and and um and so I thank my colleagues uh for working on everything that you're all doing and we'll be in touch soon so with that uh well one final thing one final thing and that is um you know uh Daisy Press she was mentioned earlier I know part of what she's wanting to do is with this effort as it relates to the census we can put a little bit of a

different approach to it and use it to educate people as it relates to the pandemic because a lot of this is going to be trying to get people to wear masks indoors at their home which is a terrible thing to do to people it's like oh my god now i have to wear it at home are you kidding But if somebody's infected and they can't quarantine, we really have to convey that message. And I think we can do it through several different efforts.

And I think that's the single most important thing we can do that will really, really bring down our spread and our death and everything else. Right now, I had just logged on very quickly, and I was looking at our numbers, and, you know, we're, again, I think we'll be at 6,000 cases tomorrow. We're at 5823 right now as I speak. And that's really yesterday, because you're always at least a day back, sometimes two days back. I tend to get their numbers in. They compile them. They report them. They put them out.

you're always looking in the rearview mirror and the number I don't have or

none of us have that we should ask is how many have been tested in Santa Ana because I you know we don't know we know by city how many cases we have but we need to know how many tests have been conducted on Santa Ana residents because it could be that that we're lower um in terms of a testing rate than other cities um and therefore our numbers potentially are more uh inaccurate than others and obviously and even then we're already leading but but i think a reason we're leading is also i believe we're the largest

city in the county because of our undercount now i know that's what down front penalosa and all of us are trying to do to get the census count up but i'm telling you we're a much bigger city than the census gives it credit for and and the undercount has been with us for decades we've done a lot to correct it but we're not there yet so with that let me just thank uh council members let me thank staff as well and let's keep moving forward have a good evening

this meeting is adjourned