Read the April 7 meeting.

Hkeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskeskes

Okay, meeting is being recorded, Mayor.

All right, so now I'm able to call the meeting to order, correct? That's correct. All right, I hereby call this meeting to order, and I want the clerk to call the roll, please.

Council Member Becerra? Present. Councilmember Iglesias.

Councilmember Peñalosa.

David PenalozaItem —

Present.

Councilmember Sarmiento.

Vince got off in order to log back on, so he might not be with us yet.

Councilmember Solorio.

Jose here.

Mayor Patel Viegas. Present. And Mayor Pulido. I am here. We have an alarm.

Do you want to check back with Councilor Sarmiento or Vince? Did you come on?

Why don't somebody contact him and see if you can assist him. but we'll go ahead and start the meeting. I want to now request that the clerk instruct the public as to how they can provide public comment, please.

Thank you, Mayor and Council members. This meeting is being live-streamed via YouTube at youtube.com slash cityofsantayanavideos slash live and our website at santa-ana.org. forward slash city hyphen meetings. In addition, Spectrum customers can watch on Channel 3 and AT&T U-verse customers can watch on Channel 99. Comments on any agenda item with the exception of public hearing items will be accepted via email only at e-comment at santa-anna.org.

Comments received before 5 p.m. on Council Meeting Tuesday have been uploaded to the City's website and distributed to the council. Those received after 5 p.m. will be posted on the city's website at the earliest possible opportunity after the meeting. Prior to each action taken, I will report how many are in support or opposition to an item. Comments for public hearing items and non-agenda items may be made by calling 669-900-9128 and entering meeting ID 315-965-149.

pound when prompted or via YouTube lives chat feature at youtube.com forward slash city of Santa Ana videos slash live. If you're calling in and watching on YouTube, please turn the volume down on your YouTube playing device to limit any audio feedback when you speak. Please wait to submit your comments until the item is being heard or your comment may be lost. Those who would like to provide a comment on YouTube, we'll need to have a Google account, which can be created at accounts.google.com. Please submit public comments in the live chat when the item is

being heard, and let us know you want your comments read by writing in all caps public comment prior to your message. There is a 200-character limit. For the record, state your name, as we are not reading usernames into the record. Comments will be read as submitted. Words including profanity, obscenity, or discriminatory language that disturb the decorum

of the meeting will not be read into the record. Thank you for that, Madam Clerk. Now, wherever you are, please stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance, and I'm going to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Ready? Begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the republic, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay, now I want to call on Heather Riley. Are you there? Please give us our invocation.

Heather Riley, are you on the line?

Heather, are you there?

I just did. Are you on, Heather?

I am here on the line. Can you hear me?

Go ahead. Give us the invocation. Yeah, we're waiting for you. Please go ahead.

Holy God, one in grace, one glory, one in love. You call us to love and serve you as one people. I ask God that at this time in the unprecedented history of our nation that you would unite us in heart, mind, spirit, and in strength. Help us to love one another, living in unity and peace, working together in your spirit for the good of all. And I ask especially for protection for our leadership that is needed more than ever in this time of our nation, and also for our officers that are serving so vigilantly and faithfully for the Santa Ana Police Department,

that you would protect them, guide them, lead this council, and let your will be done. In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.

Okay, amen. And let me now go to the city attorney and ask, is there anything to report out of closed session, please?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Mayor, we had several discussions this evening, but there was no reportable action.

Okay, thank you for that. Let me now direct our attention to the consent calendar and ask are there any items that Council Members want to pull, and if you do so, please make sure you identify yourself when you speak. Any Council Member want to volunteer? If not, I'll just go right down the list. Council Member Iglesias?

Council Member Peña Loza.

David PenalozaItem —

Yeah, Mr. Mayor, I'd like to pull item 55A.

Okay. Council Member Sarmiento.

Council Member Solorio.

Mayor Pro Tem Villegas.

Councilor Becerra?

No, I'm good. Thank you.

Okay. So with that,

do we have any items that the public wishes to speak on before I call for the vote on the consent calendar, barring the one item that was pulled, Madam Clerk? None. Okay. So with that, I'll entertain a motion on the balance of the consent calendar and then we'll go to the item that was

David PenalozaItem —

pulled. Is there a motion? Motion to approve, Mr. Mayor.

By Penaloza. Villegas second.

Is it unanimous in approval and if so, can we take a unanimous vote, Madam Clerk? I'm going to do roll call. Council Member Becerra. All right, go ahead.

Aye. Council Member Iglesias.

Councilmember Peñalosa?

David PenalozaItem —

Aye.

Councilmember Sarmiento? Councilmember Solorio?

Aye.

Mayor Pro Temp-Viegas?

Aye.

Mayor Pulido?

Yes. Thank you.

okay now we had one item that was pulled I believe by councilmember

David PenalozaItem —

Pinaloza yes mr. mayor thank you now I'm embarrassed that I was the only one that pulled an item but I just wanted to I had a just wanted for clarification on of the 55 items. It was 55, really, it relates to 55A through D, but I wasn't gonna pull all of them. For 55A is adopting a resolution amending the resolution to expand the South Coast Permit Parking District boundaries, and I basically wanted to pull it because I had a question just for clarification, and one thing that wasn't really clearly stated in the staff report, Madam City Manager,

David PenalozaItem —

is I know I mentioned in the event that future permit requests are asked by the residents, but expanding the boundaries doesn't really mean that, just for the public's sake, that the entire boundary is going to become now permit parking, correct?

This is Christine Rich. Yes, Council Member, you're correct. By expanding the boundaries, it doesn't mean every street in there is going to become permit parking. It would entail a block at a time and having at least 66% of the owners agree to it.

David PenalozaItem —

Awesome. Thank you. And I know you mentioned the, I'm happy you mentioned the 66% because last summer I participated in a permit parking neighborhood meeting in Wilshire Square. and one of the concerns that was brought up and I know some of the traffic team was there I think William was there as well as I think at the time for what but they the concern is that currently we're asking for 66% of owners property owners not necessarily the people that live in the property and the issue that

David PenalozaItem —

I have with that is that, you know, as we know, Santa Ana is largely a renter community. A lot of the people that own these homes aren't living in them, and it's very hard for neighborhoods and communities to get to that 66% in certain neighborhoods because they don't, you know, you have owners of properties that don't check their mail, that don't see their mail that don't you know don't care to look at their mail unless they're just receiving their monthly rent so i know there were some issues brought up about potentially changing that so that

David PenalozaItem —

you could allow renters to also sign the petition not just a property owner of these homes for those neighborhoods that want the permit parking and i know that traffic at the time mentioned that this was being looked at and there was a city-wide parking study but I've never never gotten an update I've never do we know where that's at Madam City Manager if that's going to change anytime soon I don't have the answers

for that but I will ask if our Public Works director is on the line Nabil can you answer that question for councilmember Penaloza

Hello?

Yes, he's now. Yes.

Can you hear me now?

Yes, go ahead, Mr. Saba.

Yes, we are, this fiscal year will be, we are planning on a comprehensive parking study. and to answer the question about the change of voting, we'll have to go and look at the resolution and the ordinance and that will require a change of ordinance to allow for the renters to vote and not be a property owner. So we are planning to revisit that and we will do so in the first portion of next year or so.

David PenalozaItem —

Thank you, Nabil. By next year, do you mean next fiscal year as in this summer or next year 2021?

Fiscal year, coming July after this whole thing goes over and we will commission the study and after the finish of the study, we'll make recommendations about the voting and to see if we could change or revise the ordinance to allow for residents to vote.

David PenalozaItem —

Thank you, Nabil. As you remember, at that Wilshire Square neighborhood meeting that was in, I forget her name, but it was in the backyard. There was, oh, I think it was in Ms. Harwaghi's backyard. There was about well over 100 people there. It was a packed house, and maybe one or two residents were opposed to changing the parking rules, but the residents were mostly in support of making it so that 66% of the people occupying the home could sign this petition.

David PenalozaItem —

So that's something that we definitely need to bring forward soon to not necessarily make that change, but so that we could have that discussion amongst the city council and see if that's something that we could potentially change, or is it worth changing, or is it really a concern? because I have heard from numerous neighborhoods across the city that it's very difficult for them to get to that 66% threshold to allow permit parking. So whenever that could come before us, I'd really appreciate it. And those are my only comments. With that said, I will make a motion to approve this item, Mr. Mayor.

David PenalozaItem —

Is there a second?

Diego, second. Second.

sarah i have a comment all right go ahead call the roll call ma'am hello this is can you hear me

i'm so sorry it's just um just for what uh i was also going to pull it but for some reason i was muted so um one of the things that i i also had a question with this was um

the cost of the permit for the individuals and how many parking permits do they get if they were to pass? I agree with council member Pinalosa that there's been many concerns by individuals who are renters who want us to also want to be able to sign the petition, but they're not because they're not the homeowner. So that would be something that I would also support, but I'm wondering the cost of the permit what is it and then how many permits do they get once they're you know they're qualified to be under the permitted

parking yes councilmember Iglesias the parking permit is $71 for every two years and each house is allowed three permits

okay yeah so that's one one thing that they know they've wondered so this is really good that we're looking at this but um i know that where they want to expand this is where they have a lot of um apartments so are there anything that we're looking at to mitigate that to where you know the apartment dwellers can park i mean based on what we're doing now approving all these different um projects everywhere parking has become an issue so are we looking at ways to help alleviate that problem in these areas too or what are we doing as a

city as mentioned previously the parking study will definitely help to address that and then we have the opportunity as each new project comes before us for approval and that is on the required number of parking spots that we provide for multi-housing multi-family housing units so we can approach it two different methods and i believe the parking study will address that issue and let us know where we are severely parking

deficient in our city okay so one more question so the parking study will also um coordinate i guess the effort with the general plan that we're in the process of um doing is that something that you going to combine?

I'm going to ask our Executive Director of Planning, Mintai, how the parking would play into the general plan.

Mr. Mayor, as that person is preparing to speak, got a couple of things right on point. We didn't think about a year until we received an update

on the parking study from staff.

and I think what it provided was some tools and approaches to how to deal with parts of the city that are heavily overcrowded. I think one of the more promising things is there might be some areas that could be striped or configured differently so that we're adding parking spaces rather than just cramping more people into the view that we have. So I think it's more about reflecting back on the initial pilot study and putting it into implementation form. and again some of the planning aspects may not be as costly it'll be later on where we might need to

do reconfigurations or striping or taking advantage of other tools in the in in the study but i think there were some promising outcomes from it thank you good staff writing yes sir

yes this is mint in terms of the question whether or not parking is going to be incorporated as part of the general plan parking is a zoning standard and it is going to be a part of the comprehensive zoning code update which will be immediately following the update of the general plan okay okay thank you mr. mayor

David PenalozaItem —

I'm sorry just really quick I know that this parking issues is something that that's a huge in our city and we should spend a little bit more time when it comes to this study but just to add to the the conversation madam city manager one of the things that was also brought up to me and I think Councilwoman Iglesias mentioned it was that there's a lot of apartment buildings of residents that have come to me and asked hey I can't get a parking permit in my neighborhood or in my district because the the ordinance or whatnot doesn't allow for apartment building residents to get a parking permit and there was

David PenalozaItem —

there's a large number of them that are saying I want to pay I want to pay for this parking permit and I'm having to park you know four or five blocks away and have to you know get home from work late at night and have to walk through not the best parts of town in the middle of the night to to get to their apartment so when there's and they said that there's parking available on their street right in front of their house but it's parking permit only but because they're in an apartment they can't get that permit so I want to also make sure that we look at that see if that needs a revisit of potentially allowing some

David PenalozaItem —

areas to to allow for for parking permits in those apartments and that's it those are my comments and thank you mr. mayor all right thank you for that I

believe we have a motion a second roll call vote councilmember Becerra Aye.

Councilmember Iglesias?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Councilmember Peñalosa?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Councilmember Sarmiento?

Yes. Councilmember Sarmiento? First of all, I want to make sure, can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

I think you're rich.

Yes.

Good. I know I was muted for, I think, the entire first part of the meeting, but yes, I am in support.

Thank you. Yes, you are now joined as a panelist. Councilmember Solorio?

Aye.

Mayor Proten, Villegas?

Aye.

Mayor Pulido?

Yes.

It's unanimous consent.

Okay, next item, 55F.

55E.

55E. I would entertain a motion.

Viegas, motion to approve.

David PenalozaItem —

Armiento second. Mr. Mayor, I had a couple of questions. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. and this question Madam City Manager was just how did we come about identifying these particular streets I'm okay with them I know that most of them need this resurfacing but my question is more related to Bristol Street and I just don't want to make it seem like we quickly came up with these areas just so that we could fit

David PenalozaItem —

into the the state's timeline in regards to this but you know it's a I know that these streets need it but just driving around the city daily I know that there's a lot of streets out there that that are more of a concern and when it comes to needing repairs and more than these that are listed here so more in particular Bristol Street and the ever ending question of when is Bristol Street going to be completed. Just for reference, the construction on Bristol Street started before I was born. I've said that multiple times and it's still going on. And this particularly,

David PenalozaItem —

particularly the area between Edinger Street and Warner, or up to to Segerstrom, it's just in dire need of repair and, you know, driving down Bristol Street with my mom the other day. she even said it she said it in Spanish she's like it's like I never left the farm in Mexico driving on this street you know I should have stayed so it's a I know at the Main Street meeting that there that the city that we held a couple months ago back in February it was mentioned by city staff that Bristol

David PenalozaItem —

Street was fully funded to finish the project so I want to just clarify for the for the public where we are on bristol street why isn't that part of i know there's there's m2 related uh issues and just just for clarification madam city manager can can you tell us where we're at on bristol street when should we expect bristol street to be completed what's the status on that

and the if it's funded or not certainly sir i'm going to ask executive director of public works Nabil Saba to tell you the formulation of the capital improvement program the status of Bristol and how these particular projects were analyzed and how why they are slated for this item that's before you for your approval so Nabil are you on the line yes I am councilman I have good news for

you actually the octa has recommended just recently a few days ago to continue to fund the widening of two phases the two phases of the bristol street widening and they are called phase four and three a and i believe those two phases will cover that section that you're talking about for year 20 fiscal year 2021 combined cost will be 12 million dollars coming to the city to complete those two projects we just got notice of the funding two days ago like I mentioned and we will

be assessing how much of the of that it will be we will be able to finish the widening so we got funding 12 million dollars coming to us in 2021 fiscal year to complete the widening in those two phases so that's good news for us before that time we did not have the funding so we were saying that we were we were looking for funding and we just got it two days ago so that's good news for us and we'll give you an update soon on the status of when we will be able to commence construction

On this item, particularly the Remra or the road maintenance rehabilitation account money or funding for $6 million or so. The way we come up with these projects is the city has a pavement management system or program. and that system tells our engineers on how to maintain our roads. And so based on that system, we prioritize and that's how we come up with the list.

So we're having the list of streets is a result of that program and its recommendations.

David PenalozaItem —

Thank you.

Does that answer your question, Council Member?

David PenalozaItem —

It does. Thank you for that. So if we, let's say, we're guaranteed to accept or to receive these funds from OCTA from 2020 for the year, fiscal year 2020 to 2021.

David PenalozaItem —

And let's say everything goes according to plan. When can we expect work to be started for that portion of Bristol and possibly even completed? Is it 2021 or is it, can you give us a timeline?

I will have to consult with my engineers here and give you the timeline. I am not really sure of exactly when will we start and when we will finish, but I know the funding has just made available to us and we will do our best to get it started.

but i would get back to you write a memo write a memo to the council shared through the city manager and we'll communicate it out to the general public and to the entire city council

David PenalozaItem —

as soon as you can determine that please will do thank you nabil all right thank you mr mayor

yeah i have a follow-up question go ahead go ahead counselor iglesias okay so um i

I agree with what our council member was saying, council member Peñalosa about Bristol. But there's others, I noticed that also on Fairview, I know that on Fairview we've had a lot of, a lot of cleaning up which Fairview looks really nice. And I see that again on the list to be resurfaced or improved. but I was wondering for other streets, I know we have like Sullivan on this side of town, we have Sullivan and we have race that forever,

even this is way before council member Penelope was born. And when I was like, just, you know, a little girl, but it's always been very bumpy and those streets have been neglected. So do you have a, I would say like a calendar or some type of list that says, okay, the next, this is the next street that's going to get fixed and the money that we're going to be getting for that? Because a lot of, a lot of the residents are asking is like, it seems like if you look at this list, it seems like only the north side and the south side of Santa Ana are the ones that really get the attention, but the inner city is always neglected.

So when are we going to get those streets upgraded? Do we have that list?

Yes, we do a seven year CIP, capital improvement program, and we'll share that with you. And if you have a particular section of street that you are concerned about, please let me know and we can look at the priority for us to do work on that street. You mentioned rate rate is being considered and the item 20A that you just approved. We are going to do rate from fifth to first and earlier two council meetings ago, we approved rate from I believe civic center to fifth.

And also rate, we have a plan for it from first to McFadden. So Raid Street is going to have a major facelift coming up. But again, if you have a particular concern about a street, please let me know. And we'll look at our capital improvement program for the next seven years or so. And we'll let you know what the priority is. And we can have a discussion about that.

Okay, well, right now, one I can think of is Fifth Street, like from Raid or Pacific all the way down to Fredview. That's really, really bad too. so um if you drive around on the bill you'll see it i mean a lot of you know just driving around

you can totally see it i am familiar with i am familiar with that section of the street i think the street car has the uh and then um there is another development that's being done over there so i'll take a look at it and we'll get back to you okay thank you but but so the calendar then

it is it online how can the public access this because i don't think it's very easy to the find so it would be nice for us to be able to go there these are the streets are coming in and this is

the timeline for them to get click sure we'll make sure it's online i i think the capital of the cip schedule is online and it's approved every year through the budget process and so let me look at and I'll make it available to you and share the link with you. And again, it will be updated every year through the budget process.

Okay, but is it not just me, but it's something that's on the right on the city website?

I believe so it is, but I'll double check.

Okay, thank you.

Council member, we'll make sure that it is and maybe we even do a next little alert or something like that to communicate with the general public. So I believe we have a motion. Mr. Mayor.

uh this is uh jose solorio um no comment uh i know at that meeting uh a month or so back that uh nabia was just referencing uh i think i and others expressed some interest in race and and flower and north north flower street that where their construction projects essentially underway but i think neighborhoods surrounding both those projects wanted a little bit more and i don't know if there are dollars out of this or maybe just a city manager and the public works director could keep looking to see what resources there might be available

and then also at the same meeting or one before we talked about you know a bond or some type of financing mechanism. I know given the coronavirus situation and, you know, and revenue decreases that will likely come, we know that complicates things, but we do have some other revenue sources, revenue streams that maybe we should still consider some kind of bond because we still have a lot of unmet needs and residential streets, you know, throughout the city and industrial streets that never got done. There were also some neighborhoods with concrete streets that

never got done in decades and we've seen them get skipped over time after time and so maybe we can bring this back at some point uh mr mayor and and staff uh because we do see commonly occa likes to find things like macarthur and bristol and 17th street and net engine first because of the traffic that we moved through that so they're always very competitive but you know residential streets and industrial streets are very important as well thank you

i agree um look i i just want to add that uh maybe for edification of council members uh if we could uh go back a little bit in time maybe put a report together a few years back we did about 70 million dollars through a bond uh and most of that money went into central city very little went into you know the southern part or the northern part of town so i think just for the record let's get some numbers and maybe we can do uh you know more facts um i think that'll be helpful but also i i believe we discussed earlier at council meeting the possibility of a

potential bond just so we could finish a lot of streets because there's a lot of streets we never finished because 70 million only went so far um and and as soon as we come out of the virus maybe it'll be a good time to to look at that but now i think there's a time to plan um so with that

i know you and i talked about earlier today it would also be a nice stimulus to the community because construction work is done locally as well as these things would be a benefit to the

community so thank you agree with that if there's no more comment roll call vote

David PenalozaItem —

please just really quick mr. mayor if we do move that direction I'd like to put heavy emphasis on on hiring inspectors that will inspect this work being done thank you

you're welcome Madam Clerk

Councilmember Becerra

yes

Councilmember Iglesias

yes but just clarification are we talking about the item and not moving forward the bond right because I'm a no on the bond

no we snuck it in there Cessie $70 million

yeah you never know you do that a lot

so let me know I'm not that good All right.

Council Member Peñalosa?

Yes.

Council Member Sarmiento?

Yes, and the bond years ago, Miguel, was $60 million, actually.

Council Member Sororio?

Aye. And then Mayor Pro Temp, Villegas?

Yes.

Mayor Pulido?

Yes. Yes.

Unanimous consent. Item passes.

Okay, now I believe we're on 55F. I would entertain a motion.

So moved. This is Councilman Sarmiento.

Cicero, second.

Any discussion? If not, roll call vote, please.

Councilmember Becerra?

Yes.

Councilmember Iglesias? Yes. Councilmember Peñalosa?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Councilmember Sarmiento?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Councilmember Solorio?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tempiegas?

Yes.

Mayor Pulido?

Yes.

Unanimous consent.

Now we're on item number 68, is that correct?

Yes, Mayor.

Approval of fiscal year 2000-2021 emergency solutions grants program for a total of, is that $500,947? Correct. Is there a motion for approval?

David PenalozaItem —

Villegas approved. I'll second. Peñalosa.

Okay, we have a motion by Mayor Fotem, second by Councillor Peñalosa.

Any more questions or concerns on this item? If not, I'll ask for a roll call vote.

Council Member Becerra?

Yes.

Council Member Iglesias?

Yes.

Council Member Peñalosa?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Councilmember Sarmiento? Yes. Councilmember Solorio? Yes. Mayor Potem-Viegas? Yes. Mayor Pulido? Yes. Unanimous consent.

Are we now on item 60B, Madam Clerk?

That is correct. 60B as in boy.

Okay, this is approval of a free commitment of $3.9 million of affordable housing funds. to Committee Development Partners and Mercy House for the development of the Westview House project located at 2530 and 2534 Westminster Avenue. Could I have a motion and a second? Peñalosa, motion to approve. Viegas, second. I love you.

Any comment? If not, I'll call for a roll call.

Yes, I do this. I think my reglet.

Go ahead, Dr. Iglesias. Go ahead.

Okay, for this one, what we're doing is providing them the funding, if I'm understanding it correctly, the $3.9 million for affordable housing funds.

The source of the funds is from multiple buckets of money, but yes, we are making a commitment of a 3.9 financial award. and we are using inclusionary housing funds, home investment partnership program funds, home community housing development funds, and rental rehab program funds.

And are these going to be just rentals or are these for an option to purchase?

I will refer to our housing division manager, Judson, and he can probably talk to you about the total number of units at the affordable levels, and I believe they are for rent.

Thank you, Council Member Iglesias. Yes, 100% of these units are rentals, with 75% of the units affordable to families earning 30% of our area median income.

And how many total units are we talking about in this development?

There will be 84 units in the project, as you'll see on page 3 of the staff report. there will be 23 one-bedroom units, four two-bedroom units, 34 three-bedroom units, and 24 four-bedroom units for a total of 84, I'm sorry, 85 units, including one manager's unit, so 84 affordable units.

84 units. Okay, and how many parking spots are we giving these units?

There's a total of 144 surface parking spaces for the project.

which creates a total parking ratio of 1.7 spaces overall.

Okay, so then the individuals there, how are they going to be managed? Because I know that's going to be right next to a neighborhood. So is that neighborhood going to be impacted by the parking of these individuals? How are we going to control for them?

We don't anticipate the surrounding neighborhood to be impacted by the parking. We actually requested and were quite diligent on behalf of City Council to request a developer to provide more parking spaces than they initially were proposing. If you'll see the parking ratios in the staff report, we have a total parking ratio of 1.7 spaces overall, with one parking space per permanent supportive housing unit, which is higher than the standard ratio in the industry.

But again, we do not anticipate any impacts on the surrounding neighborhood due to the parking for this project.

Okay, but then if it becomes an issue, do we have a plan on how we're going to deal with it? Because just because you didn't anticipate doesn't mean it's going to happen. and just because it's affordable housing doesn't mean that they don't have any cars. So one car is a little too, you know, it's not much. So that's been my concern from the beginning, and with 84 new units in that area, it's going to really impact, significantly impact that neighborhood.

If I may add, Council Member Glazes, this is Christine Ridge. This is just a pre-commitment letter. the project will have to go through the Planning Commission for entitlement and parking issues could be addressed at that time.

Okay, good. So then that's really good to know so hopefully we'll talk to our Planning Commissioners. The other question was, since this is a pre-commitment, you know we're talking about RENA cycles, would these 84 or 87 units be part of this RENA cycle or will it be the next RENA cycle?

Thank you, Councilmember. We do anticipate this project to be a part of this RHNA cycle that would end before October 2021, based on their path forward to secure the remaining financing and break ground on the project.

Is there anything that we could do moving forward? Because I see a lot of projects coming. Is there anything moving forward we can take credit for these for the next cycle? Because it just seems like we're just approving a lot and we're not going to get any credit for it. And then we're still on the hook for the $3,000 for the next one. Is there something that at that level we can do that and feed our case with whoever it is up in Sacramento?

This is Mintai. While we anticipate that this project could start as early as October of 2021. Things that we can discuss with the developer is, and I understand your question, if it comes into this cycle, we've already exceeded our housing production and we would not benefit from that. So what we could do is talk to the developer and consider whether or not to be able to have the permit be pulled

after October of 2021, and that could put it in the next cycle. But based on the current schedule, it could fall right about between the current cycle and the next cycle.

That would be great. If you could delay it, that would be awesome. Okay, thank you. Thank you for responding, Mr. Chairman.

All right, Mayor, for those questions. Councilor, Mr. Chairman.

Go ahead, Councilor Miental.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to thank the applicant and staff for proposing this development. First of all, just a quick question for those of us who don't know where this is located. Min or Jetson, if you can tell us what's to the west and east of this site.

Absolutely. Thank you very much, Council Member Sarmiento. The project is about a block away from the corner of 17th and Fairview.

okay um but i mean immediately adjacent to the site is um are those are those neighborhoods or

are those commercial uh properties uh there's a commercial property that's uh immediately adjacent to the site uh um and to the uh i think it's to the south and then and then to the uh to north of the project there's a single family neighborhood got it well i think that it's it's

on a main arterial on westminster from what i understand and i know that there is a commercial property to the east so the impact um to you know a large neighborhood isn't isn't um real real significant but i think what's more i think important is that uh the unit mix here and the affordability, the profound affordability level for 75% of these units to be extremely low and low for our folks. And the AMI level is very difficult to do because these are units that are

three and four bedroom, and I believe there's 58 of them. So there's very few developments that propose that sort of unit mix. And it's because that's the demand that our families have. Our families have very large families they need they don't need single units as much as they need multiple bedrooms and so you know my thanks to the developer for being thoughtful and trying to create housing for for families that live here in our city and so if we look at this this creates almost a net zero increase on density as we know we're already very desly populated and to the

extent that we have families that are living three and four families to a unit some places in town many of these units that we that are going to be available in this development will be accessible to those families that are living in overcrowded conditions so i want to thank them for doing that because being able to offer 30 percent area median income for folks is just very difficult and um and uh look forward to seeing it come back to us so we can support it thank you

mr mayor mayor yes go ahead councilorio uh yes this is councilmember salario uh through with most of the comments my colleagues have been making uh i think the the the individuals interested to have uh excellent uh experience overall building housing affordable housing and working with our city so i'm comfortable with them and we went through an rfp process to make the selection but i do uh have the strong concerns about parking because as much as people try to say this is the formula for parking and it should be sufficient we found out time and time again

it really isn't uh but i think uh the tool that we've been using the past few times with the parking management plans as long as we keep that very aggressive so that there are some apartments

association responsibilities for them to manage their own folks because at the end of the day every apartment community in santa anna should be self-sufficient with its own parking but obviously that's not the case and moving forward we really gotta fix that and we put that accountability and responsibility through a parking management plan so i look forward to us and working with best to have something aggressive for this area i think any other comments yes mr mayor

councilman bassera here um i just want to say uh in regards to this project i had an opportunity to uh meet uh via zoom of course uh with the applicant and the plans look great i think that the unit mix will be a welcome addition to the area um i did have one question for staff and That question is, I see here that it says that the project would be funded with $386,000 in rental rehabilitation program funds. Since this is going to be brand new, ground up, new construction, what are we rehabilitating?

Yes, thank you very much, Councilmember Becerra, for that question. And in regards to that source of funds, that source of funds has been held by the city for approximately over 10 years. And when we researched into the eligible uses of that source of funds, we did find that we could use those funds for a new construction project. and so we are, even though it is rental rehabilitation program funds, we are able to use that source of funds for new construction. Well, thank you for that. I just want to make sure that as we go forward,

I think there are plenty of units in this city that can use some rehabilitation. I want to make sure that as we have that funding available to do that, let's do that. Let's help the folks that are here in Santa Ana and help improve their quality of life first.

Absolutely. Yes, sir.

Any additional comment?

David PenalozaItem —

Mr. Mayor, I just wanted to quickly echo what Council Member Becerra just said. I am a big supporter of helping the residents that are already living here in Santa Ana, helping their quality of life, improving their way of life and their living conditions before bringing more people into our city. always. Let's focus on the residents that are already here. And thank you staff. Just wanted to thank staff really quick for the very well detailed staff report that answered a lot of the questions I had. I in particular don't have an issue with the parking because you know the

David PenalozaItem —

standard average that they're doing right now is 0.5 parking spots per unit and this is at 1.7 which is above average of what's being done on an average scale. So thank you for that. And with that said, that's it, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. With that, I believe we have a motion and a second. Roll call vote, please.

Council Member Becerra?

Yes.

Council Member Iglesias?

Yes. Council Member Peñalosa?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Councilmember Sarmiento? Yes. Councilmember Solorio? Yes. Mayor Pro Tempe Vegas? Yes. Mayor Pulido?

I believe it is the first time everybody voted yes by saying yes. Yes.

Unanimous consent. We're on 60C.

Okay, next item, Madam Clerk.

60C.

This is a reallocation of basically some block grant dollars. I know we had a discussion earlier about it at a previous meeting. I think this is just follow-up on that. Any questions? If not, I would entertain a motion.

I make a motion to approve. This is Juan Diego.

Second from Sarmiento.

If no questions, again, I know we've already discussed it. this I'd ask for a roll call vote. Councilmember Becerra? Yes. Councilmember Iglesias? Yes. Councilmember

Peñalosa? Yes. Councilmember Sarmiento? Yes. Councilmember Soloria? Yes. Mayor Pro Tempiegas? Yes. Mayor Pulido? Yes.

Yes.

Unanimous consent.

Item 6D, it's a receiving file for Historic Reef Commission Memorandum. Any questions? If not, I entertain a motion.

Mr. Mayor?

Yes.

Council Member Becerra here. I want to just say that I want to thank the HRC for taking the time to formulate these recommendations and for our planning staff who work with them to get these items to us. I did want to say just, you know, as I know this is a receive and file item, but I do want to just ask staff to really kind of look at some of these items, especially in regards to, I believe on their list, issue one in regards to their purview.

I would like to see staff look at what the city of Whittier has been doing for a very long time as far as looking at before we issued demolition permits, possibly having projects seek a certificate of appropriateness, not outside of the entitlement schedule that we currently have, but somewhere where we're able to nestle it in there, maybe right before planning commission where we don't add time. i'd also like to possibly look at the configurations of these of the hrc i know when i was on the planning commission i served as the planning commission's design need to the hrc and while i

enjoyed my time there i think it might be more appropriate to see planning commission not be on hrc because i know right now hrc is seeing this as well if planning commission has a representative on our commission why don't we have one on there and i think it's probably more appropriate for these commissions to focus on their forte so i would like to see that change and i would like to have staff come back to us on items or issues four five and six with regards to the fees obviously i think that's going to be something that you know a lot of fees in the city and a lot

of revenue streams are going to be looked at with scrutiny but i would like us to you know see how we're doing in comparison to other cities and bring back some recommendations again thank you to the hrc for bringing these items to us and i'm looking forward to staff bringing back some

proposals to address some of these issues thank you council member becerra the historic resources commission worked very hard on this and conducted workshops and although it's a receive and file we were looking for some direction as to if there were any items that you did want to proceed with So that does give us direction. So thank you.

Mr. Mayor, this is...

Yeah, it sounds like a Sarmiento. Go ahead.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Along those lines, I know that way back when, the city used to process the Mills Act applications without any fee to those homeowners. So I know that when the recession struck the city and obviously struck the entire country, we revisited that. we had to sort of invoice folks for that. But what we may want to consider looking at is what some other cities do, which is a cost recovery.

As we know, if a property is eligible to be on the Secretary of Interior list, they're eligible for a paydown or a reduced property tax costs so we may want to think about seeing how we can reimburse or get reimbursed by the property owners that may be interested in having their properties filed under the mils act so that's one way to do it and that's one way to kind of make it cost neutral for the city where maybe those costs are advanced and then they're reimbursed by the property owner once they

become eligible and take advantage of the mils act that's one thing but the second point was i think that that that was brought up in this memo and i do want to thank the members of the commission as well i know i served on this commission before i came on the council was that there was a woman on staff her name was um holly sobolewski and she was an associate planner but she also was very vigilant about making sure that there was preservation of properties that may not have been in a historic district or may not have been on um a registry but uh you know

the staff was pretty painstaking when it came to considering properties and as planning was going to occur, they'd make sure that there was, if there was any historical significance or value, they would make sure to be extra sensitive with those. So that's something that I think we should think about as we go through planning and going through applications that may impact existing properties to the extent that they're not on the registry or not eligible for whatever reason. you know we still shouldn't ignore their historic value or their preservation value that they may have.

So I think those two points stuck out to me as very viable. So to the extent that Madam City Manager you will consider those as you go forward with maybe reviewing some of the recommendations that were presented to us. And with that thank you.

Yes thank you sir.

Thank you. I believe we have a motion and a second.

Mr. Mayor, I have a question.

Go ahead, Mayor Prochem.

I'd like to have a question for Mr. Min.

Thank you, sir, for being here this evening. So in regards to this receiving file, there is no, I think there was a request to have somebody from HRC join the planning commission when they have something, a question about historic property or something. Is that correct?

Yes. So this is both a receiving file and staff is requesting for direction, as mentioned by our city manager. I think you're asking about the planning commission process and the request by the HRC to have a member be a part of the planning commission. So that is a recommendation. Currently, the Planning Commission acts on land use matter, and the Commission also has a representative that sits on the HRC as part of their review process.

The HRC wanting to replicate this model is asking that the City Council consider changing the charter to also allow an HRC member to be a part of the Planning Commission. The goal and the idea is that there's cross-pollination of ideas and also allowing for cultural historic issues that may not have gone or could be required to go to the Historic Commission to also have some input at the Planning Commission level.

Thank you. So I don't mind them having input, but having a vote on the Planning Commission, I don't think that's necessary. So I just wanted to state my position on that. I just wanted to make sure that the recommendation for staff didn't have that in there. Is that correct?

So it's not a recommendation we're asking and the Commission is asking for directions. That's what we'd like to see is that whether or not the City Council would like to have the charter be changed based on the request by the Cultural Historic Commission to have a member on the Planning Commission.

Yeah, I don't think it's necessary, but do we need information from them? Yeah, it's valuable, but thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

David PenalozaItem —

Mr. Mayor, I have some questions.

yeah i'm sorry last year's and then solario go ahead okay i'm sorry okay so uh my i have two

questions two follow-up questions so um say if there was to be a a member of the hrc in the planning commission wouldn't that be like an a weird um number of participants on the commission

because we're supposed to have a seven four doesn't work you're right go ahead yeah okay so that was

one of one of my questions and the other one too um it's for the recommendations with uh with the fees how does that work i know this is just a receiving file but um reducing the fees for someone who wants to have the application i think it only makes sense and i believe that's on page four of the um of the staff report so you know going from 200 to 500 dollars i think that's something that could be affordable for individuals that want to register their property as historic. How do we get that conversation going? Is that something that has to come before the council for us to address it again in an agenda item, or how do we do that?

Well, council member, you are providing us the direction, and what staff will do is we'll go back with all of the direction we received, and most of it will result in an ordinance because it would be amending the municipal code for some of these procedures.

Okay, even for the application fee, that's something that has to go back?

The application fee can be changed as part of the annual adoption of a resolution. Right now, the fee that the city has is based on cost recovery of the process. The amount of the reduction that was recommended in the staff report and by the Commission is a significant reduction of the feed that does not account for cost recovery. Essentially, the goal is to reduce the cost and be able to encourage the application for historical designation in Mills Act.

And the idea is that through the preservation of the homes and the buildings, property values go up, the neighborhood values will go up, the quality of life and the quality of the aesthetic and the environment will increase property values, and the city would be able to then get it back in tax property. So it's more of an incentive for residents to apply, and that's the goal of the HRC in asking for this reduction.

Yeah, and that would be something that I would be supportive of. So then it would have to come back in an annual, you said, for a resolution. So when would that be?

It would be in the budget adoption process annually. There is a resolution that's adopted for establishing the fee for the following year. So if we get directions to basically go with the recommendation by the HRC in the memo, then we would address that through the resolution for the upcoming fiscal year.

So then the recommendation has to be done today by us or in a future meeting?

It would be a part of the budget adoption process in two months.

Okay, so then that would be something we could put in as an item to be included in the budget as council members, and then when we discuss it, that's something that we could include?

What I would recommend, council members, let us go back, take all of the direction that we received tonight, do a staff report on all of the planned actions that we will proceed with, and then they will come back at the allotted times, such as this one particular item that Min was mentioning. it would become part of the budget but we can certainly give you a preview in advance of what we believe your direction is and so you will know exactly where we're headed okay okay thank you

David PenalozaItem —

christine and thank you miss all right i believe we have uh peña loza as well thank you sir um i just wanted to the first off thank the historic resource commission for for the recommendations i know that there was a lot of work spent on this and i appreciate the the the hard work that was that they did into looking into this. I do agree with what Council Member Becerra mentioned. There are other options in nearby cities that we could, other ways that they do things that we could adopt and look into. And I would like to not see this as a receiving file,

David PenalozaItem —

but have staff come back to us with a detailed staff report of what these changes are, which ones we could possibly adopt or even add to them if we need to. Those are my comments. Again, just wanted to thank the Historic Resource Commission, and I would like to see this come back to us in a more detailed staff report, because they did spend a lot of time on this, and we should really take a closer look into all of the recommendations.

Thank you. I just want to add one thing, and then we'll go ahead and move forward, and that is that I would not mind having somebody from the Historic Resource Commission observing at the Planning Commission. At OCTA, for example, we have a person there from Caltrans that sits with the board, but I would not be in favor of having them have a vote. Not only would it, I think, upset the ability for the commission to make decisions based on a 4-3, that would lend it potentially to go to 4-4 and now we'd be having a lot of unattended

consequence it's difficult enough to do business as it is so i just strongly want to you know voice opposition to that particular version or that particular option so so with that uh i believe we have a motion and a second roll call vote please

mayor this is a receiving file so this item doesn't require a motion No.

All right.

No motion.

All right. No action. If you look at your council actions, we had, all right, that's fine. So now we're on item 75A. Mr. Mayor, just really quick, Mr. Mayor.

David PenalozaItem —

This is Council Member Penaloza. Just so I understand what's happening. So, Madam City Manager, can you repeat the direction that you took from this council, please?

Certainly. So what staff is going to do is we're going to prepare a report based on your direction of all of the steps that you want implemented based on the Historic Resources Commission's recommendations, and we will identify the vehicle in order to get that done for you.

David PenalozaItem —

Perfect. Thank you. Is there a timeline that we're going off? Is it just whenever this comes?

As soon as possible.

David PenalozaItem —

That works. I just don't want to see this take six months. I mean I don't want to see this six months from now and because that's also that defeats the purpose of under six months three preferably but I'll commit to under three months all right thank you madam City Manager and Mayor and

Councilmembers I just want to make mention that we did receive one correspondence for this item in support thank you okay I now direct our

attention to item 75A. And on this item, I'm going to recuse myself because I've done some work for companies that are involved in parking and this may impact that area. So for that reason, I'm going to turn things over to Mayor Pro Tem. I'll listen and then we're done with the 75A. I'll come back on. Mayor Pro Tem Villegas, please. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

So item 75A, this is the time and place to open a public hearing. Public hearing zoning ordinance amendment number 2020-01 to amend several sections of Chapter 41 zoning of the Senate and Municipal Code. Is the city manager of staff available to make a presentation?

Yes, Mayor Pro Tem. We have a brief presentation on the item. Executive Director Mintai of the Planning Department.

Thank you, City Manager Rich. This request is for the City Council to adopt, approve an ordinance, approving zoning ordinance amendment number 2020-01. The proposal is to amend the zoning code to provide clarification and revise language for standards relating to alcohol establishments. It also will help us to streamline the review process as well as update the permitted use in the professional zoning district to address current development trends.

The first item, relating to establishment of selling of alcoholic beverages, this is really more a correction rather than making any significant changes. Currently, there is a requirement for determination relating to the subsection that addresses public necessity and convenience for determination of off-sale location that is less than 10,000 square feet. When the zoning code was amended, there was a type error that basically cited the condition number two and three.

One is a distance separation, which is condition two, and condition three is an overconcentration, while condition one is also a distance requirement from sensitive land uses. Historically, it's always been addressing historical land uses, and when you have an overconcentration, that's when you need to make a public finding of necessity. So we're just making that corrections, and this is really something that is providing clarification and correcting that is an area in the code the second request is for allowance of interpretation of regulations by the executive director of planning and

building the zoning code is administered by the planning and building department as well as the executive director however within the coats of ordinance it doesn't discuss interpretation and application and implementation but it doesn't identify the the entity that would be able to do the day-to-day administration so we're providing clarity that the executive director will be the entity that would provide the interpretation and application of the

code subject to appeal rights to the Planning Commission another aspect that we'll be updating is the drive-through standards currently the drive-through standard needs clarification so that it could facilitate and clarify as to how the distance is measured for the stacking and queuing of vehicles we're providing clarification that the distance is measured from the point of entry of the of the drive-through to the ordering board and then from the ordering board to the pay window and that would help to accommodate

approximately 160 feet of length for about eight vehicles of Q that is the standard that the city has been using but we want to formalize it and be able to help provide clarification as it relates to parking and parking structure the change here is that staff is recommending that the City Council consider allowing parking as a permitted use in the professional zone whereas currently not today with provisions that you know has a minimum lot size of two acres and that it cannot be located adjacent to residentially zone or used

property this is really intended to help facilitate proposed development that may require additional parking within the professional zone and this would help to accommodate that so basically as I mentioned before this this really is providing for streamline as well as making corrections and clarification to the zoning code and therefore staff is recommending that the City Council considering adopting the zoning code amendment this was also recommended approval by the Planning Commission as well that concludes staff's report

Thank you, sir. I'm going to take it over to the council members now. Do they have any questions for the staff?

Mr. Mayor Pro Tem. Go ahead, Council Member Becerra, followed by Semento.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. I just want to thank staff for moving forward with these cleanup items. I know when I served on the Planning Commission one of the frustrating things is seeing variances come through and by the truckload and variances are symptoms of a code that's outdated and not working with the development and for the betterment of the community so I think that when staff brings these to us I think it's a good thing it just shows the initiative to clean this up and make our zoning code work for everybody a couple of items I wanted to bring up was in in the proposal

so I'm just going to go right into the specific muni code sections on 41-196 subsection F subsection 2 you change or you add the she gender designation there and I'm thinking rather than limit it to he or she if we could just change that all around to just the applicant and then on 41-313.5 this is a question for Mr. Tai and that is so just so people aren't concerned I know that for instance on North Broadway we have a significant stretch of P zone there and based on what I see

here one would not be able to put a parking structure on those properties that would impact the adjacent residential correct because from what I'm reading here it sounds like there are standards in here that would protect that you're correct okay thank you and um on the 41-766 i just want to say this is a good thing i think because you know the way it's currently written now i don't think in my professional experience i've ever seen code language that was that ambiguous when it came to a part in the code where you want clarity as to how something would be determined so um i appreciate staff for bringing that forward

And I think that we can all rest assured that while we have a great executive director and I think he has a good understanding of the code, the good thing is that if there is a concern about the interpretation, there seems to be a process here that would allow for it to go to the planning commission, correct? That's correct. Okay, great. That's all I have, Mr. Prochem. Thank you.

All right, thank you. So I'm going to go down the list here, and that way we don't step all over each other. So, Council Member Sarmiento, you had some questions?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor Pro Temps. There you go. And thank you, Director Tai. I guess when I was reading this, I was trying to figure out the relationship or the nexus between all these different chapters and amendments that you were making. But it appears that this is more of a housekeeping measure that we're cleaning up some irregularities in this. And just a couple of questions that I had. So this, when it comes to Section 41-196, that is revising some language exclusive to off-premises sites. Is that correct? That is correct. Great.

And so not applicable to legal nonconforming uses. This is something that's on a going forward basis, correct?

That is correct.

Great. And, yeah, to the extent that the other provisions, I think, will help clarify some of these. And, you know, and there are certainly other provisions in our municipal code section. Please bring these back to us because I think there does need to be some review every once in a while. And I know we've spoken of this. And so I just wanted to thank you for bringing these back and cleaning up gradually as we move forward.

and with that i'm supportive of the item thank you we're going to move on with uh councilmember

salodium uh yes thank you uh a couple questions uh first uh i get that it looks like it's mainly just playing up of different issues or policies or regulations or best practices that have come up over time. But if that's the case, I just want to make sure from hearing from staff that this isn't meant to facilitate any particular development proposal that currently relies on any of this for it to, you know, be an allowable use.

Can you repeat the question? I'm sorry.

Aside from just cleaning up and doing best practices in these areas, is this meant to facilitate the development proposal of any one applicant or multiple?

So, as I mentioned, this is partly cleanup. This is also to help address some development trends and requests that we have that could accommodate a development project in the future.

What requests are those? I just want to make sure that we have transparency on what really this is going to be helping or not.

What we're looking at is potential development of office buildings as well as industrial type uses in the potentially in areas adjacent to the P zone. And some of the regulations relating to parking will help to address the parking needs of those projects.

And I appreciate all that. but you know and maybe there is an opportunity to pause this but this may come back uh you know for for second reading anyway but i'd like more information about uh what office or industrial uses next to residential we're trying to uh help by virtue of these uh many changes here um so that's the request that i would make and then secondly i know there's a section related to our restaurants and cafes and drive-throughs and as you well know i have issues with

establishments that city staff is having difficulty enforcing uh queuing onto streets you know there's two maybe three drive-through establishments that uh continuously encroach onto to the public right away and do not allow ADA access on the sidewalk and pose a lot of security and safety issues. Maybe we can look to some of this language to tighten up our case, but also if we are gonna have drive-through regulations for businesses, we need to apply them

across the board equally. We can't let some ignore them and have cars stacked out 5 to 20 onto a street or multiple streets in our city. So I just raise that as a point of concern and hopefully something that this will further incentivize staff to addressing unlawful, unpermitted uses of queuing onto public streets. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Iglesias. Any questions for staff?

no okay thank you thank you councilmember peña losa no questions thank you thank you very much okay i'm going to go ahead and move on to the members of the public to speak madam clerk

as a reminder thank you mayor potem as a reminder comments may be now submitted through the youtube chat feature or by calling 669-900-9128 and entering the meeting ID 315-965-149 followed by pound. Please dial star 9 to request to speak. You will receive a notification that you've been unmuted when it is your turn to speak. If you're calling in and watching on YouTube at youtube.com slash city of Santa Ana video slash live, please turn the volume down on your YouTube. playing device to limit any feedback when you speak. And please state your name and whether or not you're in

supportive or in opposition to the item and why. You will have three minutes to provide your comment.

We do not have anyone listed on our participation for our teleconference, and we do not have anyone

listed in YouTube. Thank you, Madam Clerk. So seeing and hearing there's no comments for this, I'm going to go ahead and close the hearing, the public hearing on this. I'm going to bring it back to the council members. Is there a motion and a second?

Mayor Pro Tem, Council Member Becerra, I'd like to go ahead and make a motion to approve.

Motion to approve by Becerra. Second by?

David PenalozaItem —

Council Member Penaloza, I'll second.

Councilmember Peñalosa. Madam Clerk, can you call the roll?

Councilmember Becerra?

Yes.

Councilmember Iglesias?

Yes.

Councilmember Peñalosa?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Councilmember Sarmiento?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Councilmember Solorio?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tempiegas?

Yes. And with that, we're going to go ahead and have the Mayor Polito join us again.

Thank you, Mayor Prochem. I now would direct our attention to item 75B.

And this is another public hearing. I would like to ask the staff, do you have any brief presentation?

No, sir. There's not a formal presentation. The item before you is just to adopt a resolution that would make an amendment to the fiscal year 19-20 miscellaneous fee schedule. Specifically, it's going to be adding a small sales application fee for the city in the amount of $1,741.79, and that's based on a partial cost recovery for the cost that it takes staff to process the application.

Madam Clerk, do we have any members of the audience that wish to address this on this item?

We have none on YouTube Live, and we have no attendees requesting to speak on our teleconference.

Okay, so given that, let me close the public hearing and bring it back to Council for comments or consideration. Any thoughts, any comments, anybody want to speak?

David PenalozaItem —

Mr. Mayor, Council Member Penaloza here, I'd like to comment. Go ahead, please. Thank you, sir. Madam City Manager, the fiscal impact on the staff report says that this proposed fee will generate approximately $50,000 in revenues, which have been recognized in the public works. That would go to public works, I'm assuming. I would like to take the opportunity that this item is before us, with small cell phone towers from Verizon Wireless and other companies

David PenalozaItem —

to just put it out there that we should look into how we could potentially have public access to wireless. Just kind of as a general idea, just kind of start looking at what kind of agreements we could come up with these different cell phone companies that want to build these cell phone towers on our light pools just driving around the city. I can tell you right now they're hideous. They're ugly. They're an eyesore. They don't look nice. You could spot them a mile away. And if we're going to do this to,

David PenalozaItem —

I mean, I came in here with the dream of eventually putting all of our utility poles and electrical wires underground. And we just keep putting more and more on our light poles, starting to look like my grandma's Christmas tree, just covered in random stuff. God bless her. And I just wanted to put that out there. I'm not sure how my colleagues feel, but I would like to see more conversation on this on what we could possibly do in regards to having public Wi-Fi throughout the city in different areas if that's possible with

David PenalozaItem —

with all these different cell phone towers that are going up on our light poles maybe have a conversation with Verizon Wireless and other companies that want to do this and if it comes at a cost maybe we could use that same revenue. $50,000 is not a lot when it comes to, I know Public Works could use any bit of money, but it wouldn't make a huge dent in Public Works's budget. So just a conversation to have for a future day. Just put it out there. Maybe staff could come back with some information on that. And those are my comments, Mr. Mayor.

thank you mr mayor any other comments uh councilman Albecerra here go ahead

thank you mr mayor um i want to echo uh some of the sentiments of my colleague councilmember Penaloza i think he's spot on when he's talking about the aesthetics uh when i served on the planning commission i mean we would have these you know mono pines that would come in and i mean they weren't really much of a pine tree and with these items obviously they're not meant to completely camouflage but at the same time I think there could be a lot more attention paid to not making them look so you know in your face awful and you know I like the analogy of the Christmas tree I think we've all seen trees where

there's just things thrown up everywhere and I think we can all point to examples in our city where these cell companies have done that so thank you Councilmember Pellosa for bringing that up and I also like what you were saying about a city-wide wi-fi especially right now with what we're um contending with with you know children at home uh due to the pandemic and you know we have a lot of kids that are trying to you know um review coursework online and not everybody has easy access to it so i'm glad that you brought that up and mr mayor those are my comments at this time i really hope my grandma's

listening mr mayor sassy go ahead please councilman iglesias okay so um i also uh you know what the

councilman member penia losa brought up in having these conversations um i just want to know from staff how many um how many providers like cell providers do we have in the city and then also making it a um i guess a contingent and on them doing business in our city for them to provide uh free wi-fi access like at you know across the city maybe they could um they could uh divide the cost so i wanted i want to know if staff has that how many how many providers do we have now doing

business in santa anna councilwoman i will have to defer to nabil on the number of providers we have with cell sites in our city, but in regards to requiring them to provide free, I know a number of the carriers already offer a lot of different programs to low-income families. Some of them are completely free, some of them are like $8 a month, so there are a lot of programs already in existence from the very same providers that do access our polls in our city.

okay because i i heard from a lot of parents who don't have access and i know this is something that the school district should also be asking those questions and giving them the resources but as a city uh since you know we're closed right now but could we uh ask them to provide more than just like especially like now what's going on with this coronavirus virus thing, you know, a lot of them don't have access to it. And $8 may not seem like a lot to you, but for individuals who are barely making it, it's a lot to either pay $8 or, you know, for Wi-Fi or try to make ends meet to pay the bills, other bills.

So if this could be a conversation where we could be having with them, like they could also waive those fees till we get back, you know, back on our feet after this situation that we're all facing is that I would like for us to consider that and having those conversations you know you Christine with with most providers it's in that that's what I would want to know what the feasibility of doing something like that I'm certainly and I did have a

conversation with the superintendent from Santa Ana Unified School District who was based on that that item itself and right now the school district is not doing any online or remote learning for their students of that district because of the fact that about 20% of their families do not have access to Wi-Fi so I did agree to commit to working with facilitating those conversations with the providers that do have facilities within our city so those conversations have started and then with them councilmember Penaloza's comments on a potential use of the revenue for some type of assistance program we certainly

David PenalozaItem —

can look into that madam see manager I I didn't mean all right I didn't mean assistance program you as your meaning related to to a pain for for the any potential why public Wi-Fi costs to our city right yes did I misunderstand use

of the revenues to assisting individuals getting Wi-Fi access right well I just

David PenalozaItem —

worry but by using the word to sit because I just don't want to turn this into all residents have to apply in order to get this free keyword thing and and there's a six-month waiting list, and it just turns into this government red tape mess when it comes to... So I want to make sure that when we're doing this, we make it as easy as possible for Santa Ana residents. I also want to be careful, because I don't want to give the transient community another reason to come to our city. you know with with now you know we get their needles and their free Wi-Fi so

David PenalozaItem —

want to make sure that we're careful and we're really targeting the residents in Santa Ana because it you know it's a lot that you know there's a lot of need for it like my colleagues mentioned then and it's important that we look at this

sooner than later. Okay, I have a better understanding. Thank you. Yes, go ahead.

Councillor Farmento. Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I had a question for the city attorney, Sonia. Can we be talking about what we're, I think, all trying to talk about, which is some help to residents who don't have internet access and trying to compel or work with our providers and carriers to see if willing to provide some support i was going to mention that during my public comments because i didn't think that there was a close enough relationship to this agenda item in this public hearing but is it game for us to go ahead and make those comments well i think you can this

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

is the city attorney sonia carvalho you can have a discussion i think in terms of directing staff to get you more information but this is a public hearing notice you know clearly on one item or topic and the law the overall law is very strict on what we can charge um these entities so um i think you may want to structure that more as what can we do to encourage the activity but you certainly cannot condition approval or require additional fees or payment to address that kind

of need in your community understood and i think um the city manager's comments were well taken And because I know that, you know, I've been approached by several parents and folks, teachers and other faculty from schools that are having difficulty engaging students. And I think that's what everybody's talking about. So I'm really happy, Madam City Manager, that you're speaking with the new superintendent over at SAUSD, because I believe that they should be probably the lead, taking the lead on this. and we should be supportive of trying to structure some sort of arrangement or agreement that at

least during these times that this access should be provided to families and students who aren't physically able to attend classes. You know, I know that there was an offer made by one of the carriers, I believe, to provide 60 days of free access, but if you look at the fine print, as you normally do. It's to families that didn't already have agreements with that carrier, and there was some condition that they had to sign on afterwards. And so that's what concerns me, is that when you have these conditioned agreements for families to access what appears

to be a free service, and then it turns out to be something that binds them to a future

commitment and contract. So I think it's both the districts and the city's responsibility to approach providers that do business in town and have plenty of customers to be able to also step up and make some opportunities available for folks, especially now. So to the extent that that's direction and not specifically on this action item. Those are my comments.

Thank you. Additional comments? Mr. Mayor.

Yes, Mr. Mayor. I have a couple of questions. Thank you, if you don't mind.

I know in the past, historically, with cell sites, we would allow the revenue from those cell sites to be given to the parks, you know where they're at is or closest to and i think that was a good model but now that we have you know this small cell site uh you know industry it's a little bit different so revenues to park still makes sense but to some city-wide programs whether it be city-wide initiatives or mobile hot spots additional ones at the library because i know we have some but we slowly keep

growing and there's a you know clearly a need for more um but i but i know too that when we bought the you know the you know the utility poles for for medicine uh we we installed new poles many that had features for wi-fi so hopefully as we continue to look at uh growing that out any revenue from this small site program maybe can help towards that and then for the benefit of our colleagues that may not know the prior public works director they had a really good

plan that we should revisit that as we are improving city streets and there's interest in doing more that we consider putting in city provided fiber that then we could use for free services also for sale etc there's other cities that have done that and it it is uh you know it's uh you know information opportunity for our residents but i think even from a revenue standpoint at worst it was revenue nutrient i think it may generate some some new revenue so we should also be creative in that way so we can continue to expand our wireless opportunities for students and the public.

Thank you. Any other comment?

Seeing no additional comment, what is the pleasure of the council?

Motion to approve, Viegas.

Second. Soloria. Okay. Roll call vote, Madam Clerk.

Council Member Becerra?

Yep.

Council Member Iglesias?

Yes.

Council Member Peñalosa?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Council Member Sarmiento?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Council Member Solorio?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Temp-Viegas?

Yes.

Mayor Pulido?

Yes.

Unanimous consent.

Okay, I believe our next item is 85A.

uh if so i would call on councilman iglesias to present this item please yes thank you mayor um

let me see here okay so um the reason that i brought this um this is an edify 85a um item for discussion is because uh as you all know what you know we're all facing here in the city you know all across the nation, but mostly focused on what our city is going through. I've had a lot of conversations and a lot of input from a lot of the residents and businesses, small businesses, that the Measure X money,

which is an increase of 1.5% to our sales tax, is also taking a toll on their finances. So what I would like with this is to discuss and consider directing city manager to direct staff to take the necessary steps to facilitate a potential repeal of Measure X and or suspension of the tax while we're going through this financial crisis, I would say. and I know that many of my council members, colleagues, when we were all on the campaign trail in 2018,

Mr. Solorio, you know, was against it. So it was Mr. Peñalosa, Mr. Becerra. They were all against it, campaigning against it. So I want to plead to them that, you know, for them to join me, for them to join me to say, and all of you guys, so we can give this financial relief to not just only our residents, but also our small businesses because they're hurting. And this would be the way to do it, you know, leaving a little extra cash in their pocket so they could help pay for other bills because this is something that is only in Santa Ana. We already get that 1%. That's my understanding.

and we always get that 1% already from the state, you know, coming to us for our general fund. But this 1.5%, it was something that was, yeah, it was voted by the voters, but it's something that right now I believe it would be a good policy move on our part to help our residents with this financial, you know, constraint that we're all facing. So I'm hoping, I know that we received some, you know, some correspondence, you know,

and it's not something that I am, you know, bringing up just because I'm, you know, many of them are saying because, you know, some people are saying because of the recall that has nothing to do with it. I'm here to stand with our taxpayers, with our residents. So I'm hoping that you can help me direct the city manager to see, you know, bring it back maybe the next meeting for her to bring back options on how we could do this to provide the financial relief that our community desperately needs. And especially our businesses, our small businesses, they're hurting.

And a lot of people are shopping outside of Santa Ana, especially like where I live. I'm borderline Santa Ana and Fountain Valley, and a lot of people just go to Fountain Valley because they don't, they just, you know, like I said, you know, a little bit money, maybe $10 may not sound like a lot to many of you, but $10, you know, and you multiply it, it adds up. So I'm hoping that we could all stand in this together and stand with our taxpayers and our residents to give them that financial support right now so they don't have to be paying this added tax that no other one in Orange County is paying.

All right, thank you. Other comments on this item?

Mr. Mayor, Mayor Prozambiega, see a question for our city attorney.

Go ahead.

Madam City Attorney, so can we legally do anything with this tax measure?

Suspend it, repeal it, put it on hold. Legally, where are we?

Go ahead, Madam. City Attorney.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

So sorry. So the city council presented the general tax to the voters of your city under Proposition 218. What you actually presented to them was an ordinance. And we have carefully reviewed the city's ordinance. And the city council did not reserve unto itself any ability to revise, extend, or suspend the sales tax. Some taxes in their ordinance, they do do that.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

They might say the city council shall have the discretion not to levy the full amount of the approved citizen tax, or the city council shall have the ability to rescind. But in this case, you have a voter-approved initiative. And if you wanted to, under Election Code Section 9222, it would allow the council to propose a distinct and separate ballot measure to the voters. But you cannot yourself repeal the tax at this time.

So if we wanted to do something with this, we have to take it back to the voters. And that means we have to make a decision. and also takes 88 days and we have to have a special election, correct?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Yes, you could do that. You could put it on for a regular or special election at the discretion of the council.

So by then we don't even know. We might be maybe in a lot better shape because of the pandemic by then. That's a possibility, correct?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Yes, and I would leave that financial determination up to the city manager. and finance staff, but there are some facts that you probably would want to look at before you made that determination.

Okay, Mr. Mayor, I have a question for our city manager. Madam city manager, so how are we being affected right now at the moment with what's happening with the pandemic in our city financially?

Certainly, sir. We believe at this time we're probably down about $3 million. That's a very rough preliminary estimate. We think it could grow to 10 quite quickly based on the economic activity. Your sales tax is your largest general fund source of revenue. For the current year, it's adopted to be about $111 million. As you know, $60 million of that is a result of Measure X. Right now, with the essential services closed, there is not retail stores open. There is not a lot of sales tax being generated. and there has been a couple of different items floated that would have significant negative impact to our city.

One of them was deferring of the property tax payment. That would have caused significant cash flow issues for the city of Santa Ana, along with a lot of the other cities in any county that did that. We believe that hasn't got any legs and is going anywhere, but right now there is conversation that sales taxes, businesses wouldn't have to remit them and they'd be allowed to keep them as kind of a bridge loan from the state. If that goes through, we would have a much larger decline in our sales tax revenue.

Thank you very much. So in my opinion, I understand the Councilwoman's intent, and it's a good one that we want to do everything that we can. All of us Councilmembers feel that way. We want to do what's best for our residents. But, you know, the reality is there's a legal issue with this, and then the future of our finances here in the city is also very unknown. And those are my comments, Mr. Mayor.

I have a comment. Thank you. Additional comments from other members?

Ideal, if I may.

You've already spoken. Does anybody else want to speak? Yes. All right, we'll come back to the last year's and then we'll probably move on. Go ahead.

Okay. Go ahead, Cessie. Okay, thank you. so then just going back to what council member um viegas was saying so we could technically put this in the ballot then um before november if there was the will of the council um to do it so that's something that i would want to put on the table because this corona virus situation according to what everyone's saying it's going to take quite a while for us to even recover So as residents, I think it would just be, they don't have to spend any money, we just put it on the general election. How do we go about doing that, Madam City Manager?

I would defer to the City Attorney on questions regarding how you go about placing an item on the ballot.

Okay, go ahead, Madam City Attorney.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

So as I mentioned, under Elections Code Section 9222, it allows the City Council to propose a ballot measure to the citizens and in order to do that you would need to adopt a resolution identifying the question that you want to pose to the voters if you were to do that at a regular election say in November of 2022 everything would have to be packaged and ready to go at least 88 days before that election that is generally the first meeting in August although the county registrar does encourage cities to complete any type of ballot measures no later than the second

or third week in july okay so technically we have until july to decide as a council if we have a political will to do this um to give release to both our residents and to the businesses um we we have until July.

All right. So I would like to-Was that a question? Mr. Mayor, Mayor Pro Tembiega, so for the city manager, how much relief actually is, or would go to the typical average family if the tax measure were to be suspended?

Is there a guesstimation? Maybe we can come back with a guesstimation in the future. I mean.

Yeah, I could. I could do some projections. Yeah, okay, because I know nothing's going to happen tonight.

So, all right. Well, thank you. That's my request.

All right. Mr. Mayor. So with that right now, there's no additional discussion.

David PenalozaItem —

Mr. Mayor, I have a, it's Council Member Penaloza. I have a comment.

Go ahead, Council Member Penaloza.

David PenalozaItem —

I just, I want to make sure we're very careful when we're looking at this any further, because from what I understand, what Councilwoman Iglesias wants to do is she wants to lay off the six park patrol officers that we hired last fall. She wants to stop the bookmobile purchases from public works in the library. She wants to stop the dog park. She wants to lay off the 18 police officers that we hired or that we appropriated for last month. and she wants to lay off the code enforcement officers that we hired this fiscal budget.

David PenalozaItem —

So it would be very responsible to do that now because of all the things that we've appropriated for with Measure X. So those are my comments. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

That is so inappropriate for you to be saying stuff like that, David. That is not what I'm speaking.

All right. Look, anybody who's not spoken?

Yeah. Mr. Mayor, this is Parmiento.

Go ahead, Parmiento.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Look, I can appreciate what the council member is attempting to do. I think that's what all of us have been trying to do within our legal authority, and I know that when we extended a moratorium for our renters and tenants here in town, We followed and even were a little ahead of the direction that the governor made in his executive order, but we were sort of in lockstep. So we're trying to do things that are certainly within our ability to do.

Trying to grant relief by rescinding or somehow circumventing the will of the voters on this Measure X tax measure is something difficult, I think. you know, to bring it back to the voters and to address it once again, I think undermines the fact that, you know, the voters spoke once already, and they addressed this matter. And, you know, again, we put it, we put it to them, and they gave us direction, and now we're following the law. So at this point, I think that, you know, we could run into, you know, Prop 218 problems.

We obviously realize that, you know, our coffers are going to be going very dry. I mean, a lot of people aren't purchasing much gasoline, so our gas tax funds are going to be decreasing. And, you know, it's kind of a moot point. I think, as somebody said, not a lot of people are even purchasing many goods and services in town. so i don't think the relief that we're trying to extend to people is even is even worth going down this path at this point but um but those are my comments i um again i respect the fact that we're trying to find creative ways to help our residents i think we should just keep on looking for creative

ways that are also legal thank you mr mayor let me just add this and then let's mr mayor next sign them if we may mr mayor councilman becerra here all right go ahead councilmember i just

would prefer that you had the opportunity to conclude so i just wanted to chime in and say um i i want to echo councilmember sarmiento's comments that i appreciate any of our colleagues that are trying to find ways to help our residents i mean these are unprecedented times and i'm proud to be with a group that has pushed forward a moratorium on evictions and other ways that we're just you know we're all trying to do our best to help our residents get through help our businesses as well get through this process but i did have one question i want to ask our uh staff our city

manager our city attorney uh did our colleague uh council member iglesias approach you about how to accomplish this and the reason i'm asking is because i think a lot of us just without even asking kind of came to the conclusion that because the voters approved this then the voters would have to be the ones that would amend this tax so i mean to me it seemed like a very cut and dry thing but just at the very least were you at least approached on procedure on how to do this

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

so as far as my responses i did not know about this 85a on the agenda until i saw it on a draft agenda that was being discussed so um i was not consulted in terms of what steps would

be required. Well thank you. Thank you Madam City Attorney and I'm not here to preach to anybody on how to govern but you know we have some great staff and I know there's been plenty of times that even despite my experience in government our staff has been very essential in helping me understand certain things that we can and cannot do and so it's really frustrating that we are discussing this item when it seems very simple that you know unless this is just you know something to try to, you know, score political points here. The reality at the end of the day is this is something that really isn't going to provide

real relief for people because by the time we expend resources on an election, by the time we get this before the voters, and you already have a track record that the voters support this tax. And I was one of many candidates back in 2018 that did not support this tax. But I think what frustrates me is that this was proposed with no clear objective or I'm not judging, just no clear opportunity to succeed in sight. This is just something to throw out for political fodder. It's very frustrating. And with that, I'll turn it over to you, Mr. Mayor.

All right. Let me just wrap it up. I would just add that I would not be in favor of spending more effort exploring this possibility. I think we have more direct ways of helping residents. Right now, frankly, with the rental, you know, the moratorium on the rental properties and now mortgages, I think that's more direct. We also are going to be receiving money from the stimulus bill. I think we ought to be working to make sure that the county passes the money directly

to us and then that we use it on behalf of the city um you know to assist residents that way and and and frankly um the pandemic right now is the enemy and the more we're able to talk about what are we doing you know for for separate you know social uh distancing and what are we doing for quicker testing and what are we doing to really get confidence back in the city and open the city back up it will happen um and if you look at cities there are some around the world that are beginning to go in that direction so i think we ought to be putting a lot of attention on that

because i think that is much more urgent and much more uh you know real and frankly it's something we just absolutely have to succeed at you know we can reveal all the taxes and if we don't solve the a bigger problem right now with the pandemic and what it's doing to our country. We're just going to be talking to each other and nobody else. So with that, let's go on please to item 85B, Mayor Portembliegas, please.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So my item 85B is discussing consider directing the city manager direct staff to prepare an emergency staffing plan for city hall. and my Madam City Manager, I put this item on here because I want to make sure that, okay, so you're the head person in charge of the city, and we don't have, according to our resolution, if you were to get sick or something were to happen to you, then it goes to the Assistant City Manager, and we don't have one right now, correct?

So next in line would be the chief of police, right?

Any one of your executive management.

Any one of the executive management. Okay. So because I was told different, but, you know, I'll take your word for it. I know our chief of police who's been in charge before. He's busy right now with the EOC and dealing with, you know, a lot more important things with the safety and protection of our residents. So I would like if we could get a chart and like a tree, an emergency tree, saying that if you were not around, then who would be next? And who is the backup for that number two person also? Because the reality is people can get sick.

Any one of us here can get sick. The invisible enemy, as they call it. So I'm taking that very serious. And I think that we should know, you know, you've got to teach your job to the next person. And one more after that, Mr. Pham over there, former military, he understands what I'm talking about. And we just need to do that so we can be prepared. So if we have a tree or some kind of plan for the emergency staff in case something were to happen, God forbid, something were to happen to our directors and to you and to our chief. So I would like for that to happen.

And another thing, speaking of our employees, well, I'll get to that in a second. I would also like a report, and I hope my colleagues agree, if we could get a report on all the food banks here in the city. I would like to know what hospitals are serving the community and what is the percentage of their capacity right now. Where are they at? What about also testing sites? and how are we doing on the PPE equipment for our fire department and our police department.

And I'm also hearing that some of the masks and gloves we need for our civilian employees here at City Hall also that are doing various things for us.

Also, what companies are providing us help here in Santa Ana? because we want to recognize them later on and we want to make sure that we can help them in any way we can also because they're taking a step forward. I know at least a couple of companies here in Santa Ana have stepped up. Also, I'd like to know the status of our jail, if there's anyone sick or any of our employees sick or any of the guards, the detention officers I'm referring to. National Guard is here in Santa Ana. I'd like to know what their role is. also so now about our employees I'm getting a lot of

feedback from our employees and they're talking about maybe I can talk to our HR director and he can answer this for us regarding them taking personal time off I guess they're told to take comp time first is that correct? why are we doing that? because I know at my job I have comp time Imsick time, personal time, comp time, how does that get built here in the city?

Certainly, sir. So first of all, the employees that are not at work are not at work because of the governor's order that was issued on March 19th, which shut down all essential services. So we had to identify essential services based on 14 pages of regulations. If we had employees that were providing work that was non-essential, there was no longer any work for them to do. and for the safety of the employees that are still working and the safety of the public, they were directed to stay home. It started back then. They were placed for two weeks on paid leave. That was right out of our own pockets to do that.

It cost about $2.4 million for those two weeks. At the end of the time, met with the unions, told them that I would make a decision at two weeks' time. I was hoping I would be able to bring all the employees back. But the governor's order still stands. We don't have work for those employees, so they can't come to work. So of the group that are staying home now, the part-timers are inactive and are able to get unemployment benefits, which we're self-insured, so we fully fund that as well. For the full-timers, they do have access to a number of different paid leave accounts, and there is an order to which we ask them to utilize.

We have received feedback from one of the larger unions. SEIU has asked us to consider shifting the order a little bit under some personal necessity, and we are looking into that right now.

Yeah, that would be great, and I hope my colleagues agree with me on this, that if they could use their personal necessity time first, and then vacation, and then comm time, that would be a big help. I don't know why they're asking for it. I mean, time is time, but I guess the HR director has reasons why he wants to use that first. But time is time, so if they want to use that, I mean, we're trying to do everything we can. I try to put myself in their place, and I mean, I've never been laid off. I've always worked.

I've always had employment. I think I was off for one month, maybe I think 33 days since I left the military in my entire life. So I don't know that experience. And I feel for them. And I think all of my colleagues on the council, we feel for them. We want to do everything we can for them. And, I mean, if this helps, it'd be great. I know there's a thing that's called under, there's unemployment and then there's underemployment, correct? That's another thing they can apply for. And I know a stimulus check is coming. I want to do what we can for them is what I would like to do.

If there's employees that could go out and help our senior citizens in some way or another or help, because we're in the people business here. We're in the people business, and our residents mean a lot to us, and our employees mean a lot to us. A lot of the employees here at the city of Santa Ana live in Santa Ana, and we need to make sure that we do what we can for them. So, you know, I just encourage the staff and your leadership, you know, if we could continue to look at it because things are changing. This is, I know we've never, you know, experienced this before.

Thank God I know that the chief, myself, and Chief Valentin, Chief Henry from OCFA, and yourself, Madam City Manager, and Mr. Steve Reiner, we all got together from EOC, and we had been working to make sure that we had money and support from Washington, D.C., to make sure that things are going well for us. and um you know thank god we had been working on that but that day came out of nowhere we kept talking about a fire a flood an earthquake nobody ever thought a pandemic and so this is a learning lesson for many of us and um i would just like a little more information and a little more attention

to our uh colleagues a little more attention to our employees to see what we can do i know it's tough. This is very tough. And I know that all of our executive management and the city manager's office, they all care very much about our employees. But in some instances, our hands are tied on this. And it's very difficult. My heart goes out to them, but I believe that I speak for the entire council that we will continue to do what we can for them. And I open it up for my

colleagues for any questions or comments. If I may, sir, Mayor Pro Temp? Yes, Madam City Manager. I know we kind of ventured off the topic on the 85B, but in regards to those other list of items that you have questions on, I have answers readily available for most of those, so if you want to speak with me, always I'm there. If you have questions for me, 24-7, email, phone calls, text messages.

Yes. Oh, I know you've been pretty good about getting the information out, and I know it's a lot of work. I'm not putting you on the spot. I'm asking for some things right here for our employees and just some more information. And I appreciate all your work because I know you're working day and night, weekends, because I know because I'm calling you on the weekends and including my colleagues. And I appreciate and I hope I don't come off rotten on this. I'm just saying that people want to help, and I think we should allow them to help when we can.

We don't want to get in trouble with the governor's orders, but at the same time, let's see what we can do. And that's all I want to say. And I still leave it up to you. You're still the boss there. And I respect that, Madam City Manager.

Let me second Mayor Pro Tem and thank you. Thank you, sir. Just say that I think we have to leave a lot of this up to the city manager's discretion and her communication with the community and city council members. The one request I would make, and you gave us quite a list of different things to consider, but one, I just want to find out what is reimbursable by FEMA, and are there any things we ought to be taking a leadership position on, such as maybe testing our first responders, our clinical employees, finding ways to bring more testing into the city.

For example, I'd like to request that she contact Altamed. They are doing testing here in town for residents that don't have insurance, that don't have regular doctors but that you know want to be tested for the virus and i think we need to think out of the box a little bit right now so i would just encourage the entire city council to call the city manager with you know thoughts requests ideas whatever it may be um and let's see um you know how uh how she uh comes back to us uh individually and collectively to try to move good things forward. Yes, Mr. Mayor? Yes, go ahead, Councilor Sarmiento.

Yeah, thank you. And I wanted to thank Mayor Pro Temp for bringing this before us. And I agree with almost everything that was mentioned. I did want to add, as we thank people, let's make sure we thank the good work that the city manager has done with some of the help that she's extended to our city family and city employees i know that as we first learned of this the first thing we wanted to do is give relief to our residents and that was absolutely the right thing to do but we want to make sure that we don't forget about our employees in this and i think to the extent that we can

you know do as much as we can and maybe even engage our lobbyists both federal and state a little bit more because we're in this uncomfortable position that you know the financial threshold for cities to receive direct assistance is to have a population of 500,000 or more and to receive, you know, direct assistance when you have 300 employees or less. And we fit none of those categories. So to the extent we can move some of those thresholds to benefit and help us, that would be something that, you know, right now we need their ability to advocate strongly on our

behalf. I do want to say that, you know, I agree with Mayor Pro Tem when he talks about some of these earned benefits or these earned bank times that folks have. The sequencing, you know, certainly is difficult, but I know that these are monies that were banked by our employees and it's money that they put away. And so to the extent that we sequence them the way, you know, they would appreciate. And I think that is to look at maybe sick leave first and then

vacation and then comp. I know that it may present some logistical problems, but to the extent that we try not to be too paternalistic on this and, you know, dictate what's correct for the employees. I think, again, as was mentioned, you know, these are funds that they put away. So we want to make sure that we facilitate it you know especially under these really really difficult conditions i don't think that anybody saw this coming so um i do think that that's um that that's something that we can do the other one is looking at um you know how we're kind of nimble and how we define

essential versus non-essential i know there's hopefully going to be more grant monies available out there and folks who are able to do some um grant writing to solicit those funds could be essential in these times. I know that our public works director has been very forward thinking and looking at that and I want to thank him for that. But you know we also have some businesses that aren't you know aren't paying attention to these to the governor's orders or ours that they shouldn't be open and some of them are open and so maybe we increase our code and

enforcement staff to be able to go out there and monitor and surveil that. So that's another way. So, you know, there are just a lot of different ways, and I think it falls under this umbrella of emergency staffing and plans for the city. You know, and on a positive note, let's highlight, you know, in addition to some of the lists that I think Mayor Potem was talking about, let's highlight some of the businesses that continue to operate on a takeout basis. Some of these restaurants that are doing very, very difficult work.

You know, they have folks kind of risking themselves and putting themselves and their families at risk by going out to work, and some of them don't have a choice. They need to work. And so to the extent we have folks and encourage folks that when they do want to go out and eat and go purchase something, we should have a list at the ready that we may want to nixel out to people so they know which businesses are open, which businesses, you know, serve takeout, and those that are in the city. we certainly want to encourage that but again i just wanted to thank you madam city manager

because i know that those first two weeks of not knowing what to expect and you extending that help to our employees is something that many of us were just scrambling to try to help our residents but you know we certainly don't want to ignore our you know city family because they are in a very very tough place and i again i'm a little troubled by the stimulus package because it's not as easy to access money for our employees, especially given these thresholds that have been set by them. And, you know, we now have to receive money through the county as a pass-through.

And, you know, they haven't been, you know, very sharp on other things. I don't expect them to be sharp on being able to do right by Santa Ana and our employees. So it concerns me. So those are my comments. And thank you once again, Mayor Perkins.

Thank you for those comments. Other comments? Yes, Mr. Mayor.

Go ahead, Councilorio. Councilorio. First, regarding the core piece of this emergency staffing plan, you know, makes all the sense in the world. I just hope that the initial piece isn't too time-consuming, right, because we have a crisis right now that we're dealing with. but i hear i think council member vegas really more talking about you know succession issue that that he has a question about and that i think hopefully via a memo or something simple hopefully could be done without you know taking up too much time uh i also appreciate how he

mentioned that we you know are trying to be uh you know full compliance of uh the governor's public health orders and here you know the city i think has taken quicker action than other cities on a number of things including the ban on evictions um but it does you know worry me that we're gonna be asked i think to do more code enforcement and do uh you know more uh monitoring on around town on what's open and closed what's essential what's not we have to kind of practice those same things that includes uh taking care of our employees to the extent that

is the best practice with other public agencies but but also you know I for example heard that we still have a gym open in one of our city facilities and I hope that's not the case or I hope that we could close that down early you know we don't need folks cleaning areas that are gonna be more prone to to germs or getting folks sick in town so let's be mindful of if we're gonna lead on this that means leading with with consistency and I also do agree with Mr. Mayor that we ought to think about some testing for our employees that might need quick access and quick results as well as

residents in town that aren't properly documented or don't have a medical plan or a doctor and I think we need to figure out who could benefit from those tests in a way that they aren't benefiting from other opportunities and I think it's worth worthwhile spending money to save those lives. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other thoughts?

David PenalozaItem —

Mr. Mayor, I just wanted to say that I agree with what Councilmember Sarmento was mentioning and that's basically it.

Thank you for that. Now why don't we go on to the next item. I believe that was your item. Yes, Mr. Mayor, thank you. Councilmember Penaloza, go ahead.

David PenalozaItem —

Councilmember Penaloza here with 85C, which was to discuss and consider directing city manager to direct staff to identify alternative methods to promote the 2020 census during the COVID-19 pandemic, including opportunities for the council members to become census ambassadors. And Mr. Mayor, the reason I brought this forward is because, you know, as chairing the Complete Count Committee for the city of Santa Ana and working along with Daisy Perez, I mean, it was a huge collaborative effort between different entities or organizations to really get out the message in Santa Ana for a complete count,

David PenalozaItem —

to have a full response rate. Our goal was 100% to have for Census 2020. We had block parties. I had planned on canvassing door-to-door, knocking on doors to get everybody to fill out the census. We had questionnaire assistance centers that were going to be happening at all our community centers and libraries. I know that the Santa Ana Unified School District had offered their wellness centers as well to have help and access to a computer for residents to fill out the 2020 census.

David PenalozaItem —

And all these things that we had been planning for the last eight months, just as everything else in our surrounding communities just came to a screeching halt and are now forbidden. We can't do this anymore because of the coronavirus pandemic. And it's something that's very important. It's still happening. The 2020 census did not get canceled due to the pandemic. If anything, the U.S. Census Bureau gave us a two-week extension, and that's it. The census is now due on August 14th.

David PenalozaItem —

and it's something that we should, you know, I've been trying to heavily push this on my social media platforms and I know the city is also pushing out on our social media platforms. So to me, the only alternative idea to all of these different events that we had planned and organized is heavy on social media because, you know, the census only takes 10 minutes, less than 10 minutes to fill out and it's going to have a huge detrimental effect over the next 10 years in our city. So it's very important that we really push this out as much as we can.

David PenalozaItem —

I know we've been sending out bill inserts in our water bill, ideas of reaching out to the Southern California Edison and the gas company and have them put inserts in their bills. That's also an idea that I had. And I want to make sure we're having this conversation because it's still happening. It's still going to cause a huge effect for the next 10 years in our community by the response rate. Currently, as of today, we're at 40% response rate, which is, you know, okay. But our goal should be to get to 100. And we have, you know, a little over three months to do it.

David PenalozaItem —

and it's important that you know my goal is to see you know all of us you as a mayor and my colleagues on the council to push this out as much as we can on social media remind the community that no citizenship question is being asked on the census and that it is unconstitutional for the US Census Bureau to use any information and and share it with any other government agency and just wanted to take the opportunity to remind the community again to visit you know www.my2020census.gov to fill out the census it'll take you less than 10

David PenalozaItem —

minutes make that a quarantine challenge and and do it it's gonna have positive effects in your community for the next 10 years and if my colleagues have any other ideas on how we could promote the 2020 census during COVID-19 please share them with us now's the time because it's it's like I said it's something very important that we can't just ignore because of coronavirus it's still happening and I'd like to hear any of your thoughts that you guys had let me

let me jump in if I may council member and let well remind us all that you know for some of us we've seen some of this before this is my third census that I've been a part of. And I'll tell you, the other times have been very different. We've had much, much higher participation. The coronavirus really began earlier this year, and it's just, you know, getting stronger and stronger, taking front row center. I was on the phone two days ago with Senator Kamala Harris, and part of what we were talking about was the fact that California

as a state is going to take a real beating by conducting the census at this time because, you know, the nature of the urban centers in the state and the hard-to-count, you know, residents on a good day becomes impossible on a bad day. What they told me is that the census right now is saying, no, they cannot continue it. they're going to extend it but they can't continue because it's in the constitution but there's an effort of foot um to try to seek a real extension so that we can have a better count because you're

absolutely right council member you know this is for a decade um i believe we already had an incomplete count last time um and if we have a bad count this time our population on paper can actually decrease um it's a double whammy in reality we're increasing but on paper we can decrease and therefore our representation decreases all our our dollars are you know per capita pro rata you know dollars all go down and talk about a lost decade that is absolutely terrible so while i think we should do everything we can encourage people to fill it out the answers i've gotten from

the census frankly are not um not satisfactory i've asked them you know how are you going to come back and double up where you where you miss people well most of it they want to do by sample testing but if your sample is bad uh your extrapolation is going to be bad um and and here in particular i mean you know we've got the problem right now with the school district where they're not nobody's doing any online learning because 20% of the you know of the school district doesn't have access to the internet so therefore nobody's going on

there well let's assume that 20% doesn't have access to what's going on with the census that's devastating and how the census is going to reach out to them yeah if you can't as you pointed out you know you can't go door to door you You can't knock. You can't be present. Nobody's going to want to open the door and welcome anybody. So this is unprecedented. And I think we should be going to our delegation, our state senators, the governor, everybody. Maybe right now is not the moment. Right now all we've got to do is count, count, count.

But I'm telling you, a month from now, 60 days from now, we're going to say, oh, my God, our numbers went way down. and we can't at that point just sit back and accept it. I think we have to find a way. We have to say these are unprecedented times and it requires for unprecedented thinking and approaches to things because this is, again, a huge one. And I want to thank you because you've been very good. You've been very consistent. You've been sharing this effort. You've been reaching out to folks.

But as you all know, the numbers right now are down just compared to last time, not even assuming any growth. And I believe that there's been growth just by virtue of all the different units that we've built over the decade throughout the city that people are living in. All those residents weren't all here before necessarily. So anyways, thank you for that. other comments from uh any other of our colleagues on this item mr mayor councilman becerra here

go ahead i i want to thank uh council member penaloza for bringing this forward and uh mr mayor your comments definitely on point when it comes to we need to reach out to our um you know our delegation out there uh to get the resources that we need to really uh push out the effort to be counted and uh you know it always always strikes me as odd when i i'm driving on the freeway and i see the sign for anaheim and it shows a higher population than we have and we know that we have a very densely packed population here in santa anna i mean we're the

second densest city in california and yet anaheim is spread out as it is is seen as the city with more population i just i don't believe that but i know that's because in the last sentence we were under counted and you know these counts are very important it's resources that we're going to be missing out on and representation if we don't get counted so again i want to thank you council member pillows and i want to thank all my colleagues that are actively promoting the census because we need to get that out there to all of our constituencies and make sure that

folks participate and i like what council member panaloza said as far as like the census challenge you know everybody's got an ice bucket challenge or some other you know challenge that they've come off or come off seeing on social media and i hope that people will take that 10 minutes to be counted because that's going to have an impact on us for 10 years thank you mr mayor thank you other comments

David PenalozaItem —

mr mayor yes go ahead councilmember panel as you go ahead uh and i just and that was uh i i listened to what you were saying and that was uh my whole purpose of putting it on here is that i I know that whether it's at the county, state, or federal level, they're looking at different ways and potential ways of how to address this as it's happening. But today, currently, nothing's been said and they're all just conversations and it's still happening. So it's going to take all of us to really put our resources together and, again, come up with these creative ways to promote that the census is still happening and it's going on today.

David PenalozaItem —

as it stands so and so thank you for those comments though it's important that that you know my idea my wish was to see if I can get a commitment from my council colleagues to use their own platforms on social media to push this as much as we can I know in 2010 we had a 67.8 percent response rate which is it looks like my middle school report card. It was a D.

David PenalozaItem —

So, you know, I got straight A's in high school later on.

But right now you said we're at 40%.

David PenalozaItem —

Right now we're at 40%, and we're, you know, a couple weeks in, and we have until August 14th, which was a two-week extension that the Census Bureau already gave us. So if you guys have any other ideas, please share them with us.

August 14th, correct?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

David PenalozaItem —

It was originally August 1st.

So we have to go on a fourth march.

David PenalozaItem —

And I know that my desire is to also see a heavy paid push on social media, on our accounts, City of Santa Ana Facebook page, City of Santa Ana Instagram page, YouTube advertisements. we're gonna need to see that that money that was going to be used for all these events repurposed to to funding these sponsored content to to promote the census in our city if there's support for that I'd like to see that move

David PenalozaItem —

forward because it is online now it's the first time it's online and it's a

easy way to to get it out there mr mayor and i would ask you to come back with a plan that would do that but our real challenge is how do we get to those people that you know that 20 that is not online you know i know it's hard for people to imagine they exist but they do exist and that's the real challenge i mean they'll just never appear anywhere um so let's try to get creative but thank you for that council member um mr mayor now are you ready for our attention

of the housing authority or more thought mr mr mayor just uh just uh if we can go ahead please thank you and and look to the to the extent that um you know we give support to the council member i think that um you and i have lived to live through a previous census i didn't realize you

lived through three i've only lived through one this is my third one this is the third one

so so we know how difficult it is to count our community because our community as we um just mentioned you know earlier went on another agenda item you know not all of them have access to um online uh media so just to put something out on the nixle or try to reach them that way that's a pretty simple way to do it, but it's not really the best way to do it because a lot of our folks, you know, just from our experience in 2010, this is a very hard to reach, hard to count community. And I think what everybody said about, you know, Anaheim and St. Anna, I think our numbers

are much, much closer. That disparity between the two cities is very, I think, overstated. I think a lot of folks, you know, as you will remember, the census questionnaire had a citizenship question on it that was first proposed. People still think that's on there. And those are our folks who are monolingual Spanish speakers, folks who haven't been informed, and folks who are undocumented. And they all count. And so, you know, and even our unhoused population, all of them count.

So those are very hard to reach to get them to fill something out to sign on because they're all so fearful of sharing their confidential information that could be shared with other agencies that could put them at risk. So there needs to be a real trust factor. And one of the things I was going to mention as we're messaging on COVID, maybe it's a lesson that we learned for the census that, you know, sending out Nixles are great. and you know the mayor you know the mayor's videos and i appreciate him sending those don't reach everybody and i think we have to use some very unconventional ways of of messaging to our

community and that is you know folks who don't have you know a computer terminal at their house or a laptop or an uh you know any sort of device with the exception of a phone i know the school district messages effectively through text messaging so maybe that's something that we incorporate in our arsenal of messages and communications. But even things as basic as print press, as basic as radio, a lot of our community still uses those methods of media just to get their information. So those are things that we need to continue not ignoring because folks still use them. And I don't want us to get too comfortable with, you know,

just simply pushing out an email because that doesn't reach everybody here. Ours is a very complex demographic that we're trying to reach. And so we have to think a little bit sometimes more basic and make sure that we have a diversity of tools at our availability. So those are the comments. And thank you, Council Member Peñalosa. Whatever I can do on my end of pushing information out, I certainly will.

I appreciate that. Thank you for that. Thank you for that. Go ahead, Council Member. Go ahead.

I just want to just give a little input on where we can be reaching out. We could be reaching out to the churches. That's something that I've always shared with you all, that we have that great resource that we, you know, that might, as a council, we don't take a lot of, you know, into consideration. But they are the ones, they're like our small businesses. You know, there are backbones, too, in our community. They have the congregation. They have the individuals that live in our community. And I know right now they're not congregating, but many of them are doing, by social media, they're conducting their services.

So if we can coordinate as a city on how we can, you know, maybe put, like, a message when they're going live on their day of their service, that would be something that would be good on their page. If we can coordinate that with them, that would be a great place to start. And so, you know, English, Spanish, Vietnamese, and I know a lot of us are, you know, who are faith-based and, you know, we're believers. We are still connected that way, so that would be a good mechanism for us to look into.

Thank you for that. In the past, we have had, you know, the whole faith community as part of the Complete Count committee um you know all faiths i know when we had our celebration recently of you know 150 year anniversary we had a lot of different faiths i i think that's point well taken council member we should you know through our collective efforts reach out to everybody within uh the faith community because ultimately this is about counting everybody you're only your numbers only get good when they're accurate. As long as you're missing gaps, you're in a terrible, terrible, terrible

place because the people are going to be here to be serviced, but the money's not going to be here to service them. So you're going to have a diminishing amount of money to spread out to a greater need. And that's a very, very bad combination. So thank you for that again.

David PenalozaItem —

Mr. Mayor, if I could just add to that, to Councilwoman Iglesias' comment, thank you for bringing up the church idea. in the complete count committee. We actually had some representatives that, I believe it was the Templo Calvario were there and the Diocese of Orange and the Catholic Diocese of Orange and some other, one of the Vietnamese church groups were there as well. They sat in all the meetings and that was the idea

David PenalozaItem —

to have comments at every service, mass, whatever it was, before or after. so it was definitely a direction we were heading in but I personally hadn't thought of that of having them do it on their their live feed now that they're going that direction which which is great so thank you for that and Daisy is is sure taking notes to make sure that we reach out to those church groups so thank you

David PenalozaItem —

That's it, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you for that. Let's go on to the Housing Authority then. I would call the Housing Authority into order.

And Madam Clerk, let's go ahead and conduct a roll call vote.

Okay, so we have two consent calendar items, the minutes, and also excused absences. If I can get someone to motion and second.

Yeah, but don't you, according to your note here, we have to call the meeting to order first.

Oh, excuse me. By doing a roll call. Yes, excuse me. Authority Member Becerra?

Here.

Authority Member Iglesias? Present. Authority Member Peñalosa?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Authority Member Sarmiento?

David PenalozaItem —

Here.

Authority Member Soloria?

Here.

Vice Chair Villegas?

Here.

Chair Pulido?

Here. Now I'll go ahead and entertain a motion on the regular item. And I don't believe we have any accused abstinences, so just the regular meeting minutes from the March 3rd, 2020 meeting, I'd entertain a motion. So moved. So moved. Okay. Roll call vote, please.

Authority Member Becerra? Yeah. Authority Member Iglesias?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Yeah.

Authority Member Peñalosa?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Authority Member Sarmiento?

David PenalozaItem —

Yeah.

Authority Member Solorio?

Yeah.

Vice Chair Villegas?

Yes.

Chair Pulido?

Yeah. So I believe that's the end of the consent calendar. Do we need a public hearing on item number three?

We have a public hearing item number three.

And we do not have any public comments on YouTube, but we do have two participants or two attendees that called in. And I don't know if it's for this item or not, so I'm going to go ahead and allow them to speak.

okay go ahead yes this is uh carl veninger i wasn't on this as i was not agenda items but if i can go ahead go ahead carl you're here okay thank you uh first of all you know these are president's time and uh as you all know i'm a member of etac as well as vice president of uh comlink and i really want to thank the city manager and and the uh clerk of the council because i know you guys are working day and night and the way we've come together with suddenly everything online has taken a lot of work and we're able to conduct a comlink meeting a planning

session and council meetings and this just this just didn't happen so i appreciate all the work that they did as well as their staff staff to make make this happen i'm also amazed with how much work is being done right now because again these are on president doesn't shine and i want to thank for their effort i do want to mention that we are going to have an online candidate forum in line with the election on may 19th which my understanding is going to proceed and this is going to be on april 22nd we're working out the details right now but we'll have

the person talk for and against the recall which is the first part of the election and then second part the three uh three three candidates that would would run or buy for the position if they recall successful so please stay alert and know that on april 22nd we will have an online video conference with that candidate forum on it and uh just uh i'd just like to add i appreciate these last three items have been talked about they're very good issues i definitely support church involvement in my church, St. Simon Jude, we actually have a group there calling our

parishioners to keep them in touch so that when this is over they'll come back to church. But what a great opportunity that if there are other groups in Santa Ana doing that, to getting the word out about the census. Because I've been around too, and I know how we struggled last time there, and I know you did every effort you could to get to number where it was, and it does have a definite uh of effect so i definitely support you on uh on that so thank you and i also agree with yes go ahead i also agree with uh with with the uh uh with mr vegas the fact that the

succession plans uh very important to me when i worked in the chemical industry that we had backup people that could move in at any given notice and it also helped us that when we had to move people quickly we knew who our replacements were so I definitely support that so with that thank you

thank you who's the other speaker madam clerk the next speaker please state your name and

state whether or not well you have three minutes to provide your comment

you're unmuted if you would like to speak at this time

Maybe they're not there. Maybe they'll come back. Why don't we move on for the moment?

Okay. And then we'll go on to our last person who is now being unmuted. Can you hear me? Yes. Please state your name.

Go ahead. All right. My name is Nathaniel Greenside. Sorry. I guess the phone system is working weird. In any case, my name is Nathaniel Greenside. Thank you for taking my comment. So tonight I've heard city council attempt to find some solutions during this pandemic. And all of us here who have been tuned in, I've also heard city council members call upon the importance of the census and the importance of it because it determines resources here in Santa Ana. And I just want to share with you all some on the ground reality from the city you're all supposed to serve and represent.

The Willard neighborhood has seen more U-Hauls this past month alone because landlords are scaring tenants with evictions, which we all know are not enforceable due to what you all enacted most recently during this pandemic. However, you know, residents are still being bullied with rent increases while they're unemployed. I'm certain that all of you are sitting pretty comfortable right now with your solid employment, and I don't expect that any of you are currently being bullied by any landlords. On North Ross Street, there's a new apartment building with studios which were recently reduced in price to a cheap 1800 bucks a month

when they started at 2000 initially and i don't think any of you all would be comfortable with being forced in such a setting yourselves yes yes that's what santa ana residents are having to face right now so regarding the importance of the census your census numbers will stay low if everyone gets evicted the day that the shelter in place order is listed so what i'm asking is that you all do the right thing. Freeze rents here in Santa Ana, like Los Angeles and Oakland have done, and doing so will ensure that your census numbers remain accurate. Send a clear message that you care about Santa Ana residents and tenants.

Freeze the rent. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other speakers, Madam?

That's all. That is all we have.

All right. So then I guess this is item three.

approve of the Housing Authority five-year plan and annual plan. Do I have a motion?

So moved.

Be a second.

Okay. Roll call vote, Madam Clerk.

Authority Member Becerra?

Yep.

Authority Member Iglesias? Yes. Authority Member Peñalosa? Yes. Authority member Sarmiento?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Authority member Solorio?

David PenalozaItem —

Yes.

Vice Chair Villegas?

Thank you. I was trying to get a lot of stuff out there.

Vice Chair Villegas?

Yes. Yes.

Chair Pulido?

Yes.

Unanimous consent.

Okay, so our next item then.

Public comments.

Are we to, do we have any public comments?

We have several public comments through YouTube chat, and we have one through the teleconference.

Let's do the teleconference first, and then let's stand up with the video chat.

Hi, you're now able to speak. You've been unmuted. You have three minutes.

Mike Tardif. This is Mike Tardif. It seems to be going in and out between muted and unmuted. So I'm assuming that you can hear me now. My concern is...

We can hear you. Go ahead, Mike. We can hear you.

Thank you, Mayor. My concern is concerning the election coming up in May and the possibility that there would be door-to-door ballot harvesting. I don't think that's a good idea, considering the virus situation. It would be very unhealthy for the residents and also for the ballot harvesters.

I think that the city could possibly come out with a resolution of some sort, or the mayor could make a proclamation that this should not be allowed at this time due to the virus situation. and that I think this is an emergency type situation that would fall under the Brown Act as being permissible to be counsel to take action on this evening. I think it's that important that ballot harvesting not be allowed for the safety and health of

send in a residence. And that is my comment. Thank you.

Thank you, Mike. Let's go to the other comments. Madam Clerk.

Yes, we have two that need to be translated, and I will ask for Cesar to come down. And meanwhile, I'll go ahead and read the ones provided to me in English. Gisela Contreras, can we ask City Council to vote on recalling Measure X or what do we need to do to get to a admit on November ballot to recall Measure X? The voter should have the right to recall any measure of the City Council. Is not willing to do it then, what do we do residents need to do? Submit signatures to get in the ballot. Regarding census, give people toilet paper or other essential as incentive to

do census they can provide proof that they've completed it what about using the same system as amber alert to send a mass message to remind everyone about the census we get those on phone for emergency alerts etc max motel I'm a resident and business owner here my water bill doubled this month when our usage remained the same how does the City Council justify the increase at such an already detrimental time to Santa Ana businesses and residents. Mexley Lopez, how will the City Council protect tenants who are struggling from income loss

due to COVID-19 from confronting rent increases when they are already struggling to pay rents as they are? Danny Vega, are our Measure X dollars being used to fix these streets? That's why we are paying top dollar, right? Sid, for public record. Does the city recommend we report businesses like nail salons that are still open or soccer games being played at the park? If so, what number should we call? Maria Ceja. Will there be a specific COVID-19 rental assistance program that includes all Santa Ana residents? How will you further protections for tenants facing job income security? Valeria Esqueda.

My name is Valeria Esqueda. As a sanctuary city, when can we expect the city to start an emergency assistance fund for undocumented folks that are affected by COVID-19?

Silvia Avendaño. Okay, now I have those. They're ready to be translated.

Go ahead.

Silvia Avedano, is there a plan for a moratorium on rent increase and the creation of a fund to help the people affected by the pandemic regardless of immigration status?

It looks like that was a repeated comment. So that was, yeah, it was just one comment that needed to be translated thank you and that is all we have mayor okay at that

point why don't we continue with the agenda I think now is it city manager

comment thank you sir just a few comments I echo what everybody has said tonight we definitely are in unprecedented times and it's evolving very rapidly and just in three a little over three weeks under your leadership we have declared a local emergency, we have activated our EOC, we have closed down community centers, the library, the zoo, park amenities and public counters and other non-essential services. Currently there are 458 employees that have no work to perform and are at home, and that consists of 114 full-time employees and 344 part-time employees.

We are keeping slightly over 1,000 employees still working while we provide the necessary protection for their health and safety as they do so. We have gone to virtual meetings. This one actually turned out very well, so kudos to the city clerk on that. We have assisted residents with citations, late fees, penalties, senior meals, loading area for restaurant takeouts. We have provided local businesses with resources outside of our city from SBA to the Paycheck Protection Act and then our very own business incentive grant. We continue to actively look for funds that local government will receive.

And that is, we're looking at FEMA reimbursement. We're tracking all of our expenses, hoping to get dollar for dollar reimbursement, but not sure that we will with everything that we submit. We do know that unemployment benefits for local government. There is a plan to reimburse us at least for 50% of those that we have to pay. We are working very closely to try to access the COVID relief fund, and we have been quite successful in receiving a lot of dollars dedicated to homeless. And just one recent action that did take place, and also to mention, of course, you know the moratorium on evictions.

You were one of the first cities to do that. And just today on my desk, I did receive, drafted from the city attorney's office, another executive order, which I signed just a few hours ago. And that order allows for extending of deadlines for various expiring land use and planning approvals. but it also does implement a rent freeze for increasing rentals for occupied residential units in an effort to maintain stability for our residential housing and encourage the residents to adhere to the governor's stay-at-home orders. So that's all I have. I appreciate your continued patience,

as you do recognize that we are working under restricted resources and staffing.

And on behalf of the council, Madam Manager, I just want to tell you, I know we all are very appreciative of the job all employees are doing. I know our first responders are out there, but you guys are right in the line of fire in many ways as well. I know you're working hard to keep building and planning open, for example, public work, construction around town as we try to maneuver these difficult times. So just on behalf of the council, I want to say thank you to you and to your staff for your fine work and efforts.

With that, why don't we go to council comment. Let's start with council member Solorio, please.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good meeting for one being virtual here, so thank you for all the staff and my colleagues. just one general comment I would make at our last big City Council meeting when we took some of these emergency actions we also had included in that staff looking at the rental assistance program that we had created last year and identifying resources that we might put in there to help with the individuals

here that you know need help particularly if they have no help but through other means so you know maybe staff you know through a memo or future me could give us an update on any thoughts or ideas with respect to that and just wish everybody good health stay at home unless you really need to go out

thank you mr. mayor and everybody thank you and thank you for that reminder we We can't remind ourselves enough of that. Councilmember Peñalosa, please.

David PenalozaItem —

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted, since we're not having meetings, well, I guess public open meetings with people here, we won't get a chance to do this, but I just wanted to recognize that April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month and just keeping in mind that during COVID-19 and stay-at-home orders, a lot of people are stuck at home, and their safe place was usually work, school, and now they're forced to the confinement of their own home. So I wanted to remind the public that there are resources out there.

David PenalozaItem —

there's a hotline 1-800-656-4673 that's available 24 7 that's the national sexual assault awareness or hotline I'm sorry and also our own family justice center here in Santa Ana is also available at Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 714-222-3207. These are all important resources to remind the public that are available in times of crisis, and there are people out there to help. With that said, I also want to

David PenalozaItem —

again remind everybody about the 2020 Census. Again, visit www.my2020census.gov. And just wanted to thank staff for wrapping our heads around this virtual reality thing that we got going on here. I don't know how long it's going to last, but I'm hoping it's over soon. And remind everybody to please stay home, stay safe, and hopefully we're all in this together and we can get over this soon. So thank you and good night.

Thank you for those words. Councilmember Iglesias, please.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just want to thank staff for all of their diligent work that they've provided this meeting. It went pretty smoothly. I want to, you know, give props to them. Also, I want to ask the city manager if you could meet with the individuals who have stated their concerns about the rent freeze. I know that there's a lot of them that want to rent freeze, but I just still don't understand the concept behind it, the rent freeze, what they're really asking for. I think they said they stated some things have happened like in L.A. and in Oakland.

So if that's something that you could speak to them and get more information, just for my purposes, I would really appreciate it.

Another thing I would like to just remind everyone, I know that one thing, I appreciate what the mayor is doing with his videos, but if there's a way for the city manager to do daily updates on what's going on, I think that's something that the community has been asking for. They feel that, you know, we don't communicate with them as much as we should. I know we put a lot of things on our website in Nixle, but I've stated before, not everyone has it. but through social media I believe Christine, I think you would be very effective if you could be the one that could be

my council colleagues would have to agree but I think it's something that the one managing our city and you have more contact because you're there every day with the CEO from the county if that's something that you could do more on a daily basis because our community wants updates and it seems that we just get our updates from you know other from other individuals instead of getting it from from you know you directly but so I think I believe that the city residents would really appreciate it so that's something that could be done I would really encourage it and another

thing I would just like to say you know everyone I know that there were like a lot of concerns with the parks being closed and everything I mean not not being closed but now that they're closed down for you know residents we have to be more proactive as a city we know how we're gonna deal with the transients the transients are taking over our city so there has to be a plan in place on how we're gonna address that I believe that's something that should be coming from them from the from the chief of police is there a you know a plan that you guys have, you know, deploying more officers.

So that would be something that would be benefit to our city because when I drive around the city, I see a lot of transients everywhere. They're taking over and then our law-abiding residents are, you know, we're stuck inside our house because we're abiding by the law and we want to shelter in place to, you know, to consider others. But it's not right for us to be inside while, you know, our city is being taken over by, you know, sometimes criminal behavior by some of these transients. So I would ask that if the chief can give us a plan on, you know, how they're addressing that, that would be greatly appreciated.

But with all this said, I just want to wish everyone a happy, happy Easter. You know, I've always been a woman of faith, and I always remember the things that, you know, when it comes to remembering what we have to be thankful for. And I know I'm thankful that we're here and we're dealing with this situation the way we are. But, you know, Easter's coming, so I wish everyone a happy Easter. And just remember there's a reason why we're all here and God has everything under control. So I just want to remind everyone to have a good time on Easter Sunday with your family as much as you can.

and be kind to everyone and may god continue blessing everyone and um just have a wonderful weekend weekend and we'll be seeing each other again hopefully soon i hope but in the meantime i just want to thank everyone for your continued support on everything that we're doing with the city and let us know how we can continue supporting our residents thank you thank you councilwoman now

let's go on to the other side even though we're not sitting there i'm going to start with uh Council member Becerra please.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of our city workers who are continuing to serve our community during these unprecedented times. I also wanted to thank our city manager for announcing those emergency executive orders this evening. You know, our city is such a wonderful place and with residents helping residents and businesses helping out where they can. One business that I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight is the Blinking Out Distillery for converting their distillery's production of distilled spirits into hand sanitizer and on top

of that providing a large order to our city which really helps our folks out and with that i just like to say please stay safe san jana so that we can flatten that curve and enjoy our amenities

soon thank you thank you very much uh council member sarmiento please yes thank you mr mayor

And I just wanted to, you know, thank and appreciate what the city manager has done and obviously all of her staff, but especially under her leadership, because she was called to do some very, very complex things in a short period of time. I don't think she ever signed up for having to deal with the pandemic in her first year of service here with us. But we certainly know that anybody can govern and lead in easy times. It takes a special person to lead and govern during these challenging times. So thank you, Madam City Manager. And I wanted to just elaborate and touch upon the rent freeze that you spoke about.

So what the rent freeze actually does is that there is a rent control state mandated law that allows for rents to be increased at a no more than 5% clip every 12 months. So you're also allowed 3% CPI on top of that. So conceivably, if one of our landlords hadn't increased that rent in the past 12 months, they could have done it during this time. And I really don't think that, you know, and I hope that our landlords wouldn't do that. But there are some that unfortunately don't have much compassion. But this will prevent that. So it is a big deal.

And it's something that, you know, we're doing and we're leading and other cities follow. Because when we passed our moratorium on not only residential evictions, but commercial evictions, other cities also did the same. So it's good to lead and know that others are listening and others are watching. I wanted to just give a shout out to our staff who put together the FAQ page for folks who wanted to learn more detail because it makes it very simple for our residents to access information.

There's a template sample letter that they could pull down, fill out, and provide notice to their landlords and also the executive orders that were issued by the city and also by the governor. And for those who are kind of concerned about our landlords and our property owners, well, there's also protections against foreclosures, and there's a moratorium for them as well. And I know many, many banks just came out today and joined the first big six banks that came out to say that they're going to be extending time and suspending foreclosures for the next 90 days.

So, you know, obviously contact your bank for more information, but that's a good thing. um you know as as as we see our residents nervous we see them buying and you know purchasing a lot of unnecessary goods let's remind them um that our the water from our tap is not only high quality safe but very affordable it's about a penny a gallon so um no need to buy a bunch of bottled water or hoard them or you know go go run to the market for that just you know go ahead and you know use your tap water it's safe and it's good for you um i you know wanted to just end by saying

that, you know, as we thank people who are on the front line, you know, our health care workers, like doctors and nurses and medical staff, let's think about those people who are risking their lives and, you know, their families' lives, who are kind of our unsung heroes and those that clean the hospitals, those that clean buildings that essential services providers use. You know, our janitors, our grocery clerks, our grocery folks that are staffing these stores that allow us to go and shop safely, those that are at pharmacies, our farm workers who are picking

a lot of the produce that we're able to go and purchase safely, our restaurant employees who are doing a very, very tough job and again sacrificing their own health and their family's health by providing an essential service. Sometimes we look at folks in uniform who we continue to obviously respect and to thank. But let's think about these folks who are unsung heroes in a moment of real, real, real difficult, challenging times. And let's thank them as well, because they're doing a very difficult job for us as well. And with that, I just want to wish everybody well, stay home, stay safe, and stay strong.

Thank you. Thank you for that.

Mayor Potem?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want to start off by thanking our city manager again for her sound leadership. And, you know, I really appreciate it. These are very, very difficult times. It is her first year. She has a lot of experience. She knows I fought for her to be here, and I'm happy that she is our city manager. Really appreciate the hard work. And, you know, I apologize if I maybe stepped out of line at any time.

I value you very, very much. Thank you for being our leader here at Santa Ana. And I also want to thank the men and women of the Santa Ana Police Department for the great work that they're doing and OCFA out there on the front lines. I know Council Member Sarmiento and possibly a few of the other council members were mentioning that. And I really, really appreciate it. It's tough. They're out there. They also have families they have to go to. We don't want them to get sick or injured, and we really appreciate their work.

Also, a reminder that the police department is having a zero-tolerance cruising this weekend here in Santa Ana. Zero tolerance, no cruising. We have to remind everyone of that. because we want to make sure that everyone is safe and sound and we don't want anyone to be sick. And it's the governor's orders for everyone to stay at home. Only leave your home if you need to make some essential purchases. And I want to thank the staff here at City Hall. You know, they're running thin and we appreciate what you're doing.

and all of our other employees. We're not forgetting about you. These are very, very tough times, and I appreciate and value everyone, and we will get through this, and stay strong, Santa Ana. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. Let me take a moment just to fill in folks that are listening and also my council members a little bit of some of the things that I've been working on in my role as mayor. I've been representing the city with what we now call the Big 13, the 13 largest cities in the state. And I can tell you that we're sharing a lot of information back and forth in real time. I come back, talk to the city manager, give her ideas on things that I think we ought to be implementing.

and I'll tell you that on many of these actions we've we've been leaders in the state that we've done some things really prior to every or many other cities doing it and sometimes prior to the governor's orders and directives and and I think it is you know helping our our city stay safe my fear and I've stated at many of you is that because of our density, right now we're still early. You know, we're lagging New York, we're lagging other countries in terms of the phase of this whole pandemic.

And because of our density, you know, it could really be different in Santa Ana than it can be potentially in other cities or other regions. Remember, we're the fourth densest city, and that's where the bad census count and we're still the fourth densest city uh the folks that we have per square mile is absolutely uh extremely high and at times like this that that is also the formula for a pandemic really to take hold so i know we talked about it earlier but i want the city manager to come back to the council with some ideas on things that we can do to work with

organizations like Altamed that are out there right now testing the untested, testing those that don't have the ability to really have an insurance policy or go to a Quest Labs or pay $1,000 for a test. That's how much some of these tests cost. And so, again, I believe working with nonprofits and others, we can lower the cost, make it accessible to the public and we need more testing right now the the numbers here in san anna

have been relatively low i think in large part because we haven't been doing much testing as a county in the first 90 days they only had about 8 000 tests 8 000 tests for 8 million people is absurdly low now they're they're beginning to pick it up but the county is moving very very slowly so i'm trying to figure out what are other cities what's in la doing what's san diego doing you know what what are they doing to open up more options for the community and control

um you know what's going on in their communities so um you know to that effect i've contacted every mayor in the county. We had one call last Thursday. We're going to have another call this Thursday. I'm going to try to get them all to communicate once a week and figure out what we can do with the United Voice. One thing that I'm asking them to do right now is to make sure that this money that comes from the stimulus package, you know, Councilman Sarmiento mentioned it earlier specifically, and he's right on point. Money is going to come to Orange County,

but it's going to stay at the board of supervisor level and they can sit on it for a long long time and then they can take a 15 administrative fee and eventually dole it out um i'm i'm writing a letter trying to get every mayor in the county to sign it i'm very certain we're going to be successful demanding that the money that arrives immediately gets passed through uh you know without any any deduction to all the cities on a per capita basis um uh you know there's good uh support from that already and i think that uh uh you know that the county will have to uh respond and and and and

respect that um i'm also um you know trying to uh you know you know work actively with um the business community. I've had, you know, calls already, and we have more calls coming with restaurant associations, with groups like the Chamber of Commerce, with business groups, trying to communicate with them about, you know, how to stop the pandemic from spreading. In particular, you know, we've come out with requests that are now becoming orders from the governor, but we went there first to tell, you know, anybody involved in the food business

to wear a mask, to wear gloves, to have the sanitizer, to be very conscious of how, you know, the virus can travel and be transmitted. So, I mean, I was on the phone recently with a large company here in Santa Ana that makes, you know, millions of cookies. And I was asking him, you know, can you be more careful as you process the food? And I remember the CEO telling me, well, you know, we follow all the guidelines, and we're not contaminating anything, and don't make us wear masks or do anything, because it'll just be a hindrance to us. And then I asked him one question. I said, how many of your employees have you tested?

And the answer was zero. How do you know one of your employees is not sick and passing the virus onto all these cookies that you're putting in your packages? And of course, they don't. They don't know that that's not occurring. So we all have to be creative. We have to be aggressive. We have to figure out how to stop this transmission of the virus from occurring. and I think by doing that hopefully we're going to be a shining star as we compare the west coast to the east coast already we know that at least right now our numbers are lower but we also know that we're earlier on the curve by the time

people start going to hospitals and they start getting sick and then you don't have enough ventilators and then you start having more deaths occur eventually a turnaround, but at a very, very great cost. So I'm trying to figure out how do we get ahead of this on the front end and do everything we possibly can to slow it down.

So, you know, we, again, please, you know, let's talk. I know Sonia told us that right now we can talk more to each other, you know, especially about the pandemic than we can in regular times. without violating the brown act so i just want to tell you anybody have any ideas anything you want to talk about you know let's help each other get this done uh because um i think together we can do a whole lot more and our city needs us right now more than ever you know many of the things we talk about are important but they pale in comparison with what could happen if this

pandemic really were to take hold here in Santa Ana. I spoke to a mayor in Italy that where their problem became the great number of deaths. I spoke to a friend, you know, that comes from Spain and the ice rink where he skated on as a child is now a place where they're putting all the bodies because they have so many. Already in New York, they don't have enough places to bury people. And they used to give the bodies back to the families. Now the bodies are just being incinerated

immediately so the virus doesn't spread. So, you know, again, please give your ideas to Christine. Let's share them with each other. I believe we can make a difference. I think now is the time to be aggressive uh if you're ever gonna you know go too aggressive now is the time because if we're able to dodge this and it doesn't take too many of uh of our you know loved ones and our in our community um that is the best possible thing we can do and the sooner we we we tackle this virus and get it under control and i believe it's possible to do so the sooner you know the

economy opens up and the jobs start up again and and all these other problems that are going to come our way don't come our way because we turn the corner early so let me just tell you that i appreciate everything everybody is doing every single member of the city council um every single member of our city family and staff um and and and especially all the residents which are you know just staying at home uh trying to really limit that contact making sacrifices tremendous sacrifices so that we collectively can look out for each other and have a better

and a safer future so with that again thank you again thank you everybody and uh let's uh be kind to each other and and let's be safe and let's keep working on behalf of this beautiful beautiful city

Mayor, this is Daisy Gomez, Clerk of the Council. I just want to let you know that there were several other comments that came in related to the rent freeze item. I don't know if you wanted me to read those out.

No, no, what I want you to do is just write a memo and send it out to the entire City Council, please.

Okay, will do. Thank you.

Okay, and add it to the record.

Thank you.

So with that, let's call it a day. We've been on here, I don't know, I guess for three hours and 28 minutes and 45 seconds. So I consider it a success. And again, thank you, everybody. Thank you very much. Take care.

Anybody there?

Staff.

All right. Goodbye.

Bye-bye. Good night.