Read the November 5 meeting.

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local history by collecting, preserving, and making available materials of enduring historical value related to the development of the city of Santayana. You can discover your community's rich history, contribute to its preservation, and become part of the history to come.

History is more than just the past. It's alive all around us, just waiting to be discovered.

So come check us out at the Santa Ana Public Library and start your own journey.

Police motorcycles and runners filled the streets of Santa Ana today as members of the Santa Ana Police Department carried the Special Olympics torch through the city. Starting in the south end of the city, a relay of swift individual runners ran to make up for lost time and bring the run back on its schedule. A large group joined the run in the downtown area, and under a huge American flag raised by the Orange County Fire Authority, they ran in front of the Santa Ana Police Department building. We had the opportunity today to show support from all bureaus. We had the traffic division, we had the administrative division, patrol,

and the special investigations were a big part of putting this together and ensuring that it was done properly in true Santa Ana fashion. After stopping for a few pictures with Chief David Valentin, the runners continued through city streets to show their support of the Special Olympics. Law enforcement agencies from a number of communities participate in this annual event, and the Santa Ana Police Department has participated for over 25 years.

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Okay, I'm going to go ahead and call this meeting to order.

And we are going to start with a Pledge of Allegiance.

Ready?

Begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. You can remain standing. We have our invocation by Bob Keller this evening.

Let's pray. Shall we? Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the opportunity to be here this evening. Lord, we know that many decisions are going to be made, and we pray for the wisdom that would be given to our mayor and to the city council members. Lord, that you would just give them insight from on high, and Lord, that they would just make the decisions according to your will and not theirs necessarily. Lord, we thank you for them. We thank you for the city of Santa Anna. It's a great city. We thank you for all the staff, and we thank you especially, Lord,

for the police department, for our chief who's here tonight. We pray, continue to pray for their safety as they protect this city. Keep us safe. Lord, again, we pray that you would just bless this meeting exceedingly, abundantly above all that we can ask or think, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated.

I know we have some representatives here from SCAG. If you could please step forward at this time and give us a presentation. I think you're going to talk about six-cycle regional housing needs assessment.

Please go ahead. Great. Thank you, Mayor Pulido and members of the Santa Ana City Council. I'm Mayon Johnson, Housing and Land Use Planner at Southern California Association of Governments. So I'm here today to talk about determining housing need through the regional housing needs assessment process. Make sure you're right into the mic. Okay. Is this better? Yes. Okay, great. Thank you.

So, all right. So the housing crisis. You've seen it every time you open up a paper, you turn on the news, you talk with your family and friends. The housing crisis is something that didn't happen overnight, especially here in Southern California. Just looking back on housing permits that have been issued in Southern California, you can see that there is a lot of building activity between 1970 and 1980. There is one new housing unit added for every 1.74 persons added to the population. But between 1990 and 2000, this ratio had dropped to one new unit for every four and a half persons added to the population.

So there was a decrease in home building, even though our population continued to increase. And while in the past few years this ratio has improved, one new housing unit for every 3.32 persons added to the population, what that means is we have a lot of catching up to do. that there's an accumulation of housing need that's built up over the decades that we haven't been able to meet throughout Southern California. So when you think of the housing crisis and potential solutions and how to address it, it's not just something that's going to happen overnight, because the housing crisis is something that's happened over decades.

So from the state perspective, housing has finally been on the radar at the state legislative level over the past few years. There's been over 100 housing-related bills alone that we've seen, and they've dealt with different types of ways to address a housing crisis. So it's dealing with local zoning laws, homelessness, veterans housing, and of course regional housing needs assessment. But a lot of these are seen as sticks in the process to try to solve the housing crisis. On the carrot side of things, for funding, there's been actually funding dedicated specifically to providing permanent sources of funding for affordable housing.

and to help our jurisdictions build more housing and plan for more housing at the local level. So there's SB2, the Building Homes and Jobs Act, which was a $75 fee added to certain real estate transactions to create a permanent source of affordable housing funding statewide. There's also the SB3, Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act. That also passed. And then recently there's AB 101, which is a governor's trailer bill, And that provides funding directly to local jurisdictions and also council of governments such as SCAG to help build housing and help implement the six-cycle RENA.

But, of course, sometimes carrots are big enough to become sticks themselves. So that segues into the regional housing needs assessment. RENA, RENA, RONA, RONA, there's many different names for that, but RHNA, it's a state housing law requirement to determine regional housing needs for every city and unincorporated county in the state of California. So SCAG, as the Council of Governments, is responsible for coming up with the RENA need for your city. So it's an eight-year planning period, and it covers for the fifth cycle. That's what your current housing element covers now.

that's October 2013 to October 2021 what we're developing right now is the six cycle that covers October 2021 to October 2029 so we anticipate that the six cycle will be adopted by SCAG and October 2020 so the arena process this summer or a few months ago we received the regional determination from the California Department of Housing and Community Development that's HCD so HCD is responsible for giving us a regional number they get data sets from SCAG and also from the California Department of Finance you may have seen

this number in the news perhaps with your planning staff but for the region for the six cycle arena the SCAG region needs 1.34 million units so this 1.34 million units SCAG is required to develop a methodology that's what we're doing right now the methodology will be applied to 1.34 million units to distribute throughout the region so it's where those units will go for every city and county housing element so once we have the methodology we're working on that right now we'll have that probably adopted by March of next year and then we'll have a draft arena allocation out we'll have an appeals process next

summer and then by October 2020 we'll have the final arena allocation adopted The six-cycle housing elements, which will be the final RENA allocation numbers, those need to be updated and submitted to HCD by October 2021.

So the regional determination process. HCD does this in consultation with every council of governments and also with the Department of Finance. So SCAG is on a different cycle than, let's say, San Diego Association of Governments, SANDAG, or ABAG, which is Bay Area Association of Governments. So we each have different determinations and we're on different time periods. So for the fourth cycle for SCAG, that covers 2006 to 2014, we had about 700,000 units for the region. The fifth cycle, that was 2013 to 2021, was about 412,000 units for the region.

So you can see for the sixth cycle, the allocation for the region, 1.34 million, is very, very high. All arena allocations will be higher this time around. so it is don't compare it to the last time just because for this cycle the determination is much higher for our region so the recommended draft arena methodology I'm not going to go into formulas we have a whole host of resources available online at our website scag.ca.gov slash rhna and we also have a handy tool to estimate your jurisdictions arena allocation based on the current form of the recommended draft methodology but in past cycles we

just looked at household growth how much for your household or how many households do you need or will you have for that eight-year planning period but due to the size and due to policy changes at the state level so last time we had 412,000 this time we have 1.3 million so we need to look at other ways to distribute that regional need so we're looking at not just share of household growth but we're looking at job accessibility transit accessibility and also social equity adjustment based on household income distribution and indicators of resources so poverty levels environment education and economic

factors so these will influence the distribution of RHNA so the draft methodology so far Santa Ana would receive about 3100 units based on the current recommended methodology but this won't be finalized until maybe March of

next year so I wanted to end this presentation just looking at what's been built across the Skag region and in Orange County we're about three-quarters of the way through the current the fifth arena cycle but as a region we've met barely half of our arena need that's four hundred and twelve thousand units so it's something to keep in mind we have 1.3 million this time around for an eight-year period so building activity as you can see from that chart from earlier this has been a cumulative problem decades in the making and so for the next eight years we certainly hope that jurisdictions can try to meet and

plan for their housing need so while Orange County has been doing better than the state as a whole we still have a long way to go and from this chart you can see we've built over 200% of our market rate units but as a county the affordable units have been less than 20% of meeting that need so there will be challenges ahead for this sixth cycle but again SCAD can serve as a resource for our local jurisdictions and we certainly hope that we can all work on this together thank you questions comments from council members council member

Iglesias I just want to thank you for giving us this presentation because I know it's been a concern of ours here in the city especially because of all these new housing projects that have been going up in both market rate and affordable housing but you did mention that as a county we're low in numbers on the affordable housing but do you have something like city by city to see where

we're at with that yes it is available online but I can also send it to you and your staff just to look at county or sorry city by city meeting these permits how much permit has been issued over this past cycle because I know when in

this past cycle I mean this current cycle that we're in we've already exceeded what we were responsible for building. But I just want to thank you because I was afraid, being going to those meetings, that we were going to be having about 8,000 units or something like that. But I guess with the new methodology that was proposed with SCAG Council, it came down to 3,100 units. So it's not as bad as we thought it was going to be because we know the state's not going to give us any extra money to build our highways, our infrastructure, or anything. But yeah, if you could send that to us or send it to the city manager to share with

all of us. I'd appreciate it. I want to thank you for being here. And I know I'll see you on Thursday because we have our meeting on Thursday. Okay, thank you.

Other comments? Councilman Renz Sarmiento. Yeah, thank you for the presentation. And I think that the question is a relevant one to break down of the 34 cities, you know, how we've tried to be as aggressive as we, you know, could to make sure we meet the needs of our community. But that's where I think your chart is a very telling story that, you know, we've met the market rate needs and exceeded them by far, but the affordable unit demand is really low. And I think if you look at the 34 cities and their AMI, we have some of the lowest AMI in the county. So our need for affordable units is even that much more dire.

To the extent that there's an analysis that can be provided to us that shows, for us, the more market rate that we develop, the more folks from outside the city come and move in. That changes our density ratio. That means that we become a much more overcrowded city. To the extent that there are more affordable units developed, that really does keep a net neutral number because we have folks that are already doubling and tripling up in units that can afford these new units that are being constructed. So to the extent that that is something that we talk about, it's a much more profound discussion,

but I think it's something that for us, we're a very unique city in the county of our other 33 cities. Maybe Anaheim has some of the issues that we have, but our challenges are very unique. So if we can dig down a little deeper on that, I'd appreciate it. But thank you for coming and giving the presentation.

Thank you. I think that's it for tonight. Thanks for coming down. Our next presentation is going to be by OCTA. They're going to briefly discuss the streetcar and I think maybe a freeway widening project, but please go ahead.

Good evening. My name is Christina Byrne, and I'm the department manager of public outreach at OCTA. and I'm joined this evening by Jim Beal, our Executive Director of Capital Programs. If there's any questions of a technical nature, he's here to assist this evening. It's my pleasure to update you on our outreach activities for the Streetcar Project, and I will begin my presentation by sharing our new video designed to build excitement about the project, which is scheduled to begin service in 2022.

Question. What moves you? Is it a rhythm?

Is it a connection?

An experience?

What was the spark that set you in motion? Maybe it's something that's always been there. A passion driving you from within.

Whatever it is, we know it when we see it.

Like that.

And that.

We've seen it in the eyes of the millions we serve.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

And as we continue to build the transportation network of the future,

we will move you.

Because we are all made to move. Where will you go?

The future is coming. OC Streetcar, coming 2022.

OCJ strives to be a good neighbor and as considerate as possible during construction. Our contract for the OC Streetcar includes a holiday recess from Thanksgiving to New Year's. During this recess, no work will occur on 4th Street. No construction will also occur on Santa Ana Boulevard from just west of Broadway to just east of Main Street. Full road closures will not be allowed, and there will be minimal lane closures in areas other than 4th Street.

We recently launched our mobile app to add to our list of outreach tools. It can be downloaded in the Apple App Store and Google Play by searching OC Streetcar. The first time the app is downloaded, it prompts the user to select their preferred language and is available in English and Spanish. This app includes a map of work and associated closures, project news, general project information, and our business resource guide. The app is updated daily and is a great resource for timely project information. Our business resource guide is a great resource for all the businesses in the project area.

We work very closely with the business community during construction to minimize inconveniences to the extent possible. Our team provides weekly advance notification via personal visits and flyers prior to any major activities. And our business resource guide includes free banners and signs to businesses adjacent to work. Our project briefings are offered one-on-one or in a group setting. We have business spotlights that feature social media posts and stories about local businesses. And our directory includes a repository of agencies and organizations that provide low and no-cost resources to businesses.

And lastly, our coupons are promotional in nature and encourage residents, visitors, and local employees to visit Santa Ana businesses. Several businesses are already participating, and we plan to encourage participation in the coming weeks by showing what some of these sample spotlights look like and mailing a brochure to all business owners in the project area. OCT partnered with the City of Santa Ana to install banners on downtown parking structures to share project information and encourage the public to visit businesses. These banners will be updated periodically as construction progresses,

and we're looking to place additional signage throughout the project area as our track work commences. Public outreach is one of our many communication methods to meet with stakeholders. In addition to our digital app, we provide updates and translated materials regarding closure and detour information. Our door-to-door notifications, such as door hangers and flyers, are especially useful in multiple languages. And presentations to neighborhood associations will continue throughout construction, and we will launch a school outreach program in 2020.

OCTA Outreach and City of Santa Ana staff will be joining forces to walk door-to-door to businesses throughout the project alignment. No one knows the City of Santa Ana as well as the City Council, and if at any time you have suggestions on how we can enhance our efforts, please let us know. That concludes my presentation. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Are there any questions?

Council Member Solario?

Thank you. First, welcome to City Hall.

Hello. Thank you.

It's nice working with the OCT back in the day. A few questions, because I think different council members receive different levels of information, and our mayor, you know, he's on the OCT board, so he's a little bit more familiar. And maybe it could be provided separately, but on station designs, names, colors, how we're working with folks in that area. Can you speak a little bit to that? Or again, maybe that's something you could send us separately.

Certainly. I'd be happy to send you any materials that we've prepared. But we did have a series of community outreach in the development of the branding for the vehicle. And we've recently selected the final look for the vehicle. and we'd be happy to share that with you and you will see um that vehicle uh decal on the decals that we'll be reinstalling on the streets along the alignment next a lot of the vehicle design

stuff i've seen it's just on the stations but just see what you can absolutely be happy to do so with this uh and then as as the project moves and it starts in every community when it starts you know ridership starts slow and over time it grows and as there are more connections but i do worry about the press that's going to come that's going to document how many riders and cost per person and all those things in one conversation recently with some residents and business owners the idea came up of maybe we could work with OCTA and business in the community on events so that there are you know events that

will also draw attendance and can use this as getting to to and from so I'd I'd like you all to think about it. Maybe we can do some follow up on that.

Certainly.

And then finally, and again, maybe something you send us separately, or maybe our mayor might have some thoughts as well. I know that LA County, particularly South LA County, they've been working in, way back when through Skag, it was a maglev system, and no one took that system seriously. But over time, they now have for South LA County, a light rail system called EcoRapid that could potentially connect with our streetcar down the P right away.

Any updates or developments on how we're working with Equal Rapid or not? I know, too, because the Olympics are coming to L.A., they're going to fast-track a lot of those infrastructure projects, and so that may be a project that comes quicker that could link with ours. So anything you could share now? Or, again, maybe that might be a separate correspondence.

I don't have that information with me this evening, but I'd be happy to find out for you and loop back with you.

That'd be great. Thank you.

Sure.

Councilor Vince Armiento, please. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And so thank you for the presentation. I appreciate you coming down. So we're all excited, right, because this is going to be something that I think we've contemplated and expected for a long time, and it's nice to see the construction beginning. but as we have construction it also creates some challenges for our merchants downtown and I know I've you know I certainly appreciate the work our city manager has done to reach out to you and on their behalf as a lead agency on this and as your partner agency here we do have some

businesses have been impacted as a result of the construction so we know that the benefit to those businesses is going to come as the project is completed but during this time they have suffered some losses, loss of revenue, loss of business traffic, and some of them are as high as 30% and 40%. And I know I've canvassed some of the businesses down there. So I'm sure that you as an agency have experienced these issues. Is there any sort of loss mitigation fund that's available to give some relief to some of these folks? Because I know when we've had those impacts with

some of our street closures in construction we've tried to work with with our merchants who have been disproportionately impacted so you know maybe is that something that you can address or we're currently unfortunately

do not have a program like that I'd be happy to take back the concerns expressed by yourself and other members of the council but at this time as a part of the program we do not have on that type of resource because I know you know

MTA, other transit authorities throughout the country when they do work, whether it's intracity or on the periphery, there's always impacts to whether it's residences, but especially businesses that depend on that vehicle traffic. And unfortunately, we're not getting as many people out of their cars as we'd like, so they do depend on vehicle traffic and parking. So we do see the impact, even though there may not be construction directly in front of a merchant. If it's some place down the block, it does prevent folks from accessing easily. So if you can, take that back to the board.

And I know that our mayor, I'm sure, has mentioned that to you because we have a very heavy merchant downtown that's very active. And we know this is going to take a while, but I know it's also not rocket science. So to the extent that we can try to work with you and try to address that problem. Has anybody thought about maybe doing the work at night? I know that the cost might be a little bit higher, but maybe that's a way to reduce some of the impact. But just thoughts that we would like to share with you.

Whenever possible, we do try to have activities at night when it makes sense and schedule the work accordingly.

Yeah, and just as a reminder, and I see that you have door hangers, you have sort of unconventional ways of reaching merchants because many of them are monolingual Spanish speakers. Right, absolutely. So going through conventional social media outreach is not going to be effective. You're not going to see folks. You have cart vendors. You have folks that rely on some of the, again, some of our immigrant residents. And so that's really helpful just to voice, just to face sometimes is great outreach.

I want to call on Councilor Payne, I'll listen in a moment. But prior to that, I just want to state that I know we're getting a meeting going with the downtown merchants, with Daryl Johnson, director of OCTA, our own city manager, myself, and some of the leadership of the downtown. I also know that we are going to do as much of the work as night as possible, and we've already implemented that into some of the workload with Walsh, the contractor. And I also know, and maybe the city manager wants to talk about this in a moment, but she has some mitigation plans as it relates to parking, for example,

things that are going to be impacted, especially during construction. So, Councilor Pagano-Losa, would you want to speak now, or do you want to hear from the city manager?

David PenalozaItem —

Yeah, I'd like to speak just... Go ahead. Mr. Mayor, thank you. Thank you for the presentation, and thank you, Councilmember Sarmiento, for bringing that thought forward because I had shared the same concerns that Councilmember Sarmiento has in regards to the business merchants in our downtown. I've heard from numerous members of our staff and other OCTA personnel that this is going to bring lots of business to our downtown merchants when this is completed in 2022. But the reality is that it's inappropriate to make those comments when we know that a lot of these merchants in our downtown

David PenalozaItem —

do not own these buildings, are paying rent, and they can't survive until 2022. So, yeah, when 2022 comes around and this is completed, it's going to be great, but all those buildings will be empty from all the businesses that shut down, and that's what we don't want to see. So I definitely would like to agree with Councilmember Sarmiento. I would like to see something, have that conversation of possible mitigation fund for these businesses, as well as the outreach done to these businesses along our downtown. and even with social media, and I've harped on city staff about social media, I feel like all year,

David PenalozaItem —

you know, it's not just about posting something. I like the little OCTA streetcar page, and you see your posts, you get one like, you know, two likes maybe, and that's, I mean, what good does that do? So even putting some financial backing to these social media posts to really push that outreach forward would go a long ways. So I just wanted to echo what the thoughts that Council Member Sarmiento mentioned. But thank you.

Thank you. Madam City Manager, might you want to make some comments?

Certainly. Thank you, Mayor. City staff has been working very closely with OCTA to mitigate the impacts to the downtown merchants. Most recently, you probably saw some brand new big, big banners that are hanging off of the sides of our parking structures in the area. Those were printed up by OCTA and then city staff is the one that mounted them to the sides of the building. In addition to that, we did meet with the Downtown Inc. and the Santa Ana Business Council to see what kind of things we could do for them to help mitigate this time frame. And the request that they had was to offer two hours of free parking in the structures.

They believed that with that, it would drive people to the downtown area, knowing that they could park in one of the parking structures, They could frequent one of the merchants, one of the restaurants, and they wouldn't have to pay anything for parking. So actually on the agenda tonight before you is a resolution that would allow me to direct our parking operator to reprogram the arm so that for the first two hours it is free parking in the downtown area.

Thank you. And then more to be done and to be continued. This is an ongoing project. Yes, Councilor Iglesias.

Just for clarification, it's not the downtown area. It's just a parking structure. Because I think what we're voting on is different, which is to increase the meters.

So it's a two-item that's before you tonight. One is increasing the meter rate. The other is authorizing the two-hour free parking in the structures. Okay.

Thank you very much. Now, are you going to stay up there and talk about the 55 freeway? No, sir. We have another member of our staff there. All right. Go ahead, please.

All right, good evening, Mayor and members of the Council members. My name is Jeannie Lee, Senior Project Manager from OCT Highway Programs and also Project Manager for State Route 55 Improvement Project from Interstate 5 to State Route 91. Here with me are Outreach Manager, Kalina North. she'll be covering outreach portion of this presentation and thank you for inviting us to provide an update on this project okay so state route 55 improvement project is part of project F and measure M2 plan which is the half

cent sales tax for transportation improvement project approved by voters in 2006 the current phase of the project is funded with a local and federal dollar and project will add new lane from 5 to 22 and provide operational improvement from 22 to 91. As a result, the project will provide improved mobility and reduce congestion.

Currently, this 7.5 mile-long corridor is experiencing congestion and long traffic delays during morning and evening peak periods. The 55 corridor and speeds average daily traffic to grow over 9% by the design year 2055. As a result of a traffic study analysis and extensive coordinations with Caltrans and corridor cities, the project improvements were developed as highlighted in blue and orange on this slide.

Starting at the southern end of the project between 5 and 22 freeways, there's an operational deficiency that will be addressed by adding one general purpose lane or regular lane in each direction as highlighted in blue. The project also improves ramp capacity by adding right turn lanes at the 4th Street off ramp to improve traffic flows as highlighted in orange on this slide. There are two alternatives being considered for this project. The top cross section shows no build alternative, which means the existing facility will remain the way it is today.

The bottom cross section shows the build alternative, which add one regular lane in each direction at the south end of the project between 5 and 22 freeways. For the one additional general purpose lane in each direction between 4th Street and 17th the project will shift the freeway center line 9 feet to avoid impacts to existing residences along the northbound 55 and keep the widening construction zone on the southbound side only we're also informed by the city of Santa Ana staff that there were some concerns with aesthetics of a retaining wall as we've done since the very beginning of the project we will continue to

involve and coordinate with all the corridor cities during the design and construction phases of this project.

Between 17th Street and 22 Freeway, the freeway will be re-striped to accommodate one additional general purpose lane or regular lane in each direction and without right-of-way impact as shown on the bottom cross-section on this slide. As shown in the top table, the corridor anticipates average daily traffic to grow about 9% by the design year 2055. The proposed improvement will not only accommodate the growth but will also increase capacity up to 6% which equates to 16,000 more vehicles daily. The proposed improvement would also reduce delays along the corridor as shown in

the bottom table. At the 4th Street interchange the project will add off-ramp capacity to reduce the vehicle queues and improve intersection operations. At At the Catella Avenue interchange, the project will add capacity at the southbound off-ramp, and eastbound and westbound Catella will be restriped to provide additional capacity to the turning movement onto the southbound on-ramp.

And between 91 connector and Lincoln off-ramp, there is a short weaving distance resulting in traffic congestion and accident rates that are above state average. These deficiencies will be addressed by relocating the off-ramp to the south of the Lincoln Avenue, next to the existing southbound on-ramp, and the new bridge over the Lincoln Avenue will be built as part of the relocating the off-ramp. And the project will improve safety on the main line and at the off-ramp, improve operations and weaving distance,

and existing park and ride will be relocated to the existing southbound Lincoln off-ramp. The first public meeting for this project was held on June 7, 2018 at Grijalva Park in Orange. Since then we have prepared a draft environment or document which has been circulated for 30 days from September 30th to October 30th and we hosted a public hearing in an open house format on Wednesday October 16th at the Orange Library. The public comments will be incorporated after the review period and the project development team will recommend a preferred alternative for Caltrans approval which is anticipated

to be late this year. We anticipate the completion of project report and environmental document in early 2020 which is a key milestone making the project shelf ready for early advancement. As you know OCT is constantly looking for opportunities to advance construction of M2 freeway projects by taking advantage of state and federal dollars. The projects that compete the best for the external fundings are those that are environmentally clear. So now I would like to turn it over to Kalina, and she's going to cover the outreach portion of this project. Good evening, Council members. As Jeannie

mentioned, on October 16th, OCT and Caltrans held a public hearing in an open house format, where the community members were invited to attend and also learn about the project as well as provide input on the draft environmental document as well as the project. It was also a great opportunity for residents to provide comments at the public hearing with our court reporters. Of approximately 75 people who attended the public hearing, about a dozen residents came from the City of Santa Ana. So the outreach team used several strategies to inform the community about the project as well as a public hearing. Those tactics includes

briefings and presentations to key community leaders and business leaders, as well as presentations to several neighborhood associations. In addition, we increased our presence on social media and distributed thousands of flyers both in English and Spanish. Postcards were mailed to over 13,000 homes and businesses, email notifications to over 400 subscribers, as well as we placed legal ads in the Orange County Register, Excelsior Unidos, as well as several local newspapers.

So there is a number of ways to stay connected about the project. We have a project website. We are also on three social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. But the best way to stay informed about the project is through our email at sr55info at octa.net. And that concludes our presentation. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions from any members of the council? Councilor Solario?

Probably not as much as a question because I probably want more detail than you can answer. but if you want to provide some information, that would be great. There was a back and forth about the aesthetics of the retaining walls, and you made some very general comments about that. And I know you spoke about you coordinate with city staff, and that's great. But I think what we want you to keep in mind, too, is just when you're preparing those plans to give us the best retaining walls and designs out there. So if in South Canada and other areas you have very nice aesthetic walls with nice features,

you should start with that as the minimum of what you should do in Santa Ana as well, and then we can have a discussion from that. So maybe for the 22, the 55, as well as the five of those areas that are going to have retaining walls, you could please share with the City Council any designs for what those retaining walls look like.

Sure. Currently, based on our design that's been proposed, we don't anticipate any retaining walls around the 22 or that area. Only retaining walls that we anticipate is as we are shifting the center line between 4th Street to 17th Street, shifting the freeway to the southbound direction, there will be a new retaining wall being constructed. But as I mentioned, we'll have a little bit more detail in the retaining wall design. The aesthetic design will be part of a design phase that we're currently in the environmental phase as we move forward we'll continue to have a city I want you to think of you know

give us the best as the starting and then we could decide what the depiction should be but I think on on the five freeway there's construction happening through Santa Ana and there are retaining walls going up or that will continue to go up and we're very interested in what that looks like and I I know in some cases, even though it might not have been blended into the original material, sometimes there are add-on features that could be possibly done. And so, again, for both those three freeways, if or if not retaining wall design features are going to be considered, please share that with our city council and our city manager.

Thank you.

Any other comment? If not, let me just thank you both on the streetcar presentation as well as the widening. It's very much badly needed capacity. I know there's going to be some pain during construction, both at the streetcar as well as the freeway widening. But, you know, we've got to just squeeze as many cars and, you know, vehicles and people through the region as possible. I just want to make sure that you're communicating. I know you're communicating with the merchants on Ford Street and all that. But folks along the corridor, I think there's businesses. I'm talking about on the freeway.

In particular, I'm thinking about First American Title that's impacted. I'm thinking about the Yacht-O-Mall that's heavily impacted. Businesses right around McFadden as well as 17th Street, Ford Street, all those areas are going to be impacted. so madam city manager may you can make sure that in your discussions with staff at OCTA that and I'll do the same but that we're getting this presentation and maybe it's a link maybe it's an email you don't have to go knock on every door but this is very germane to those businesses

that are ultimately going to benefit from this and all the all the residents as well but I know but there's a lot of large businesses along the freeway there. Any other thoughts, Council Member?

Yeah, just to the Mayor's point, I think, what we see sometimes is when we have construction along a certain corridor or the absence of a corridor, we tend to have some overflow on some of our major arterials. So those that are used to taking the 55 may defer to using Grand, may defer to using other north-south corridors. So to the extent that we are going to be seeing some impacts, as a result of the construction that's taking place, to the extent you as a sister agency can help us mitigate some of that. We've unfortunately had some recent very unfortunate incidents where we've had pedestrians and bicyclists struck and killed.

And so we see that a lot. We have a lot of pedestrians in town. We have a lot of folks that use their bicycles. So to the extent we can try to mitigate those and work together on just noticing and thinking ahead how we detour folks and how we work with that. And the second thing was, to the councilman's point, on the aesthetics, on the walls, and wherever the construction is going to take place, to the extent we can brand and use it as an opportunity to brand the city and have some consistency and uniformity with respect to what we have.

So it's not, you know, we have, you know, flower plants on one corridor and something else on another. To have some maybe uniformity where when folks drive through town, they'll know they're in St. Anna. And for us, that's a big effort that we do, independent of what we do with our transportation corridors, but just branding the city. So, you know, any help that you all can give us, we're happy to work with you.

Good suggestions, Council Member Sarmiento. Thank you for that. So with that, any other comments? So with that, I'm going to thank you, and we're going to continue with our presentations. Now I would want to invite the Sikh regional founder, Guru Nanak Devji, to come up. and I'm going to make a presentation and that is followed by Mayor Pro Tem Villegas followed by Council Member Sarmiento and then followed by Council Member Solario.

Thank you.

So we got rid of the other microphone. That's a good thing, right? We can't get confused now.

Alright.

This is really a privilege and that is I'm presenting a proclamation to the SICA community here in Santa Ana and in particular I want to note that there's a lot of birthdays going on this year like we had the 150th birthday for the city of Santa Ana. Well, you've been around as an organization, a religion for 550 years. So you started 400 years before we started as a city. But we're all here now, and that's what counts, and we're doing good stuff, good work.

Let me say that in the U.S., apparently there are more than 30 million Sikhs worldwide and half a million here in the U.S. How many in Orange County do you know? Roughly? Roughly 20,000. 20,000. I'll take that estimate. Who's going to say no, right?

And also it says here that you are providing and fostering respect amongst all people of all faiths and all backgrounds. It says that you're educated to assisting the world's religions, bringing value of religious diversity, tolerance. You're grounded in the First Amendment principles, a culture of mutual understanding, and the diminution of violence. And I know that you do a lot of good work here in the city.

So before I present this proclamation on your 550th birthday, would you like to say a few words?

First of all, I would like to say thanks from the Sikh community to all the Honorable Mayor and the Council members of the City of Santana for announcing November as Sikh Appreciation and Awareness Month. And I would like to say our Sikhism is the fifth largest religion. We have been around for almost 550 years. And I would like to say a few words about our teachings of the founder Guru Nanak Dev Ji. Guru Nanak Dev Ji founded Sikhism in the 15th century,

which in modern day India with a simple message that there is only one divine for all creation, a loving, formless creator, recognized by all through meditation and service of humanity. This message of love, divine and equality among all the creation, regardless of race, religion, gender, were carried on by our nine successor gurus and enshrined in the scriptures called our Guru Granth Sahib Ji. His main teachings were, Kird Karna is an honest earning, Naam Japna chanting God's name, and One Chakna sharing with others.

Mainly our teachings rely with our American values. Those are unity, equality, forgiveness, tolerance, acceptance, respectfulness. And he said that everyone is a friend, none is a stranger. Like Martin Luther Jr. said, hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. Thank you.

Recently we had a celebration for the 150th anniversary of the city, and we invited several religious organizations to come and speak, and it was wonderful. We had Catholics, Baptists, Jewish people. We had Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims. It was just a wonderful celebration where everybody is welcome. And here in Santa Ana, we are tolerant and appreciative of all. And this is to present to you the Sikh Awareness and Appreciation Month

for all the good work that you're doing here in the community and around the world. And may peace and love reign and the principles that you expose help all that you come in touch with. Thank you very much for being here with us today. Thank you.

Yeah, come quickly. while the next presentation approaches other folks that are part of the C community that are here. If you want to be in a photo, come on up quickly. And we'll get in a quick photo. And meanwhile, Mayor Potembe-Legas, which is your group? And I'll call them up so that when we're done with a photo, you're ready to continue the presentations here.

Joe Ocampo, if you can come on up, please.

Thank you. Happy birthday.

Thank you.

It is an honor for me to welcome Mr. Joe Ocampo, who is a World War II veteran, a Santa Ana resident.

Santa Ana has a long history of veterans. At the Santa Ana Cemetery, we have over 300 people from the Civil War buried there. In the Logan neighborhood, we have on La Chiquita Market on the wall there, there's 200 portraits of residents of Santa Ana that served in the military throughout the years. And very happy to welcome Mr. Ocampo to the council chambers. It's an honor to have you here, sir. And if I could say just a few words about his background.

Mr. Ocobble was born, and correct me if I slip up here, was born on 5th Street in March 1925.

He was born here in Santa Ana, and you joined the Navy at age 20, correct, 1945? And you were a machinist, made third class, and you were also a founding member of LULAC in 1947. A lot of history here, folks. 1947. You were also part of the campaign to elect the first council member, Hispanic American council member here in the city of Santa Ana.

Ray Villa.

Ray Villa. Ray Villa, that's his name. And you were also the co-chair for the campaign to elect Robert Kennedy. Is that correct, sir?

Sir, if you can, today we want to honor your service for the country and our community, but if you could say a few words, we'd appreciate it.

Please. I'll be happy to. Right here, sir.

These Johnny-come-latelys.

I noticed there was an election to form a little bit emphasis on the wards. Well, about 50 or more years ago, I was always fighting the city manager to form wards here in Santa Ana. That's when you guys never even heard of having a ward. and all city councilmen at that time lived north of 8th Street. They didn't want to mess around with us poor folk down here in the south.

And finally, when they formed wards, one of the wards, even though the councilman lived north of 8th Street, went all the way down to where Delhi is. They just wouldn't give up. But now it's good that we have good representation on the council, and I'm real happy about that. But that doesn't exclude. I think that it should be made up of all types of persons.

and it doesn't seem like that right now but I'm happy with how things happen to be at this time. I remember when streetcars, I used to ride the streetcars here in Santa Ana

and now we're talking about, I've heard this thing about we're going to have a streetcar running. I think I'll be an old man, Old man I am now. But I've been more and more. If I get to be 100, I'll be lucky if there's a street car here. I'm 94. I'm 94 right now.

Well, the city manager way back then said, if you form wards, you're going to have bossisms, ward bossisms. When the first ward was formed, I remember that I ran for the city council in my ward. I ran against the mayor. But everyone in the city could vote for the person in that ward. So what the hell?

I beat the mayor by around 2,000 votes in my ward, but he knocked the hell out of me by the others.

Anyway, we're not old. My dad came from Victorville, and his claim, of course I can't prove it because I wasn't here, But he says he came to Santa Ana when there were only about 13 houses standing. So we're not Johnny-come-lately. We've been here and served in the Navy along with my brother. So we've done what many people would like.

I noticed that the city councilman was talking about the number of burials where veterans were buried.

Well, I'm glad I'm not there.

Not yet.

Well, anyway.

Council member Vince Sarmiento would like to say something. He's a family friend.

So Joe could go on and on. He's got a lot of stories he could tell us, but we just want to say, you know, we love Joe and we love his family. And we've known him for a very long time. He's a neighbor of mine. And first, I just want to say thank you for your service, Joe. Thank you for loving the city and being here as long as you have. You know, many of you don't know, and Joe just shared this with me, he lost his wife just 30 days ago. And so we certainly want to say we're sorry for your loss. I had the honor and privilege of knowing her, and she was a great lady. And so, Joe, I know you're going to keep her in your heart forever,

and I know she's going to be somebody who we're going to value as somebody we miss a lot in the city. But Joe certainly has a very long past here in the city. He's part of a tribe called the Juanenos. And so he not only has lived here, but he's part of an indigenous people who were here before many of us were here. So to the extent that Joe is a treasure and his family is a treasure here in the city that we need to celebrate, he had a business in the downtown for many years. and so look for all of his investment and his family's time here in the city I just want you all to recognize Joe and give him a big round of applause

let him know we missed his wife

so Mr. Ocampo from one veteran to another and on behalf of the mayor and the city council and the residents of Santa Ana and a grateful nation thank you very much for your service and your hard work for the community here of Santa Ana. Thank you, sir.

Thank you, sir.

You know, Joe, you're almost from another era, Joe. All the names we can think of, Hector Godinez, Rudy Montejano, Mike Silva, I mean, you know, Jose Celayos, you know, Jesse, a bunch of folks. And I know that, you know, you're here supporting them. His family is right here. And it's so nice to see the, you know, the family and the unity and the strength. And you gave a lot to the city over many years, Joe. And you're always a good talker, and you still are. You know? You still are. When I saw you coming up there, I said, how is he going to speak?

well he can speak just fine. Just fine. Joe Ocampo is one of a kind. We're blessed by him. He's been around a long time and he has very good energy and that energy is still there. And every day that you're with us is another good day. Joe, thank you very much for coming down and we all appreciate you very much.

Thank you. name for it Fremont A&M all Mexican

Thank you. Thank you.

having the next presentation. So this is going to be kind of an interesting one because we just talked about Joe's service to our country and him defending democracy. We're talking about defending democracy again on this next presentation. So I know many of you know that I'm Bolivian-born but raised here in Santana. So I want to have all my Bolivian friends who are here come up with me. Come on up.

So, as everybody comes up, you know, what we're talking about tonight is many, many different things that are happening all over the world. and we see that in places like Chile, Brazil, Argentina, and now Bolivia, there is a movement that's happening that folks are realizing that there is an assault on democracy. There's an assault on freedom of expression. There's an assault on freedom of the press.

There is just abuses all over, unfortunately, all over countries that have once been free and just. And that's happening in the country of Bolivia. Unfortunately, we've had elections recently that were fraudulent. There's been abuse. There's massive protests that are going on. And I know that the mayor has been in Bolivia, and so he knows it well. And it's been a democratic country for many, many years.

But unfortunately, recently, the abuses have gotten so bad that hundreds of thousands of people are rising up and demonstrating and putting themselves at risk. And people have died. People have lost their lives. And it's mostly young people. It's university-age students that say they can't subject their country to this type of violation of the Constitution. So I wanted to recognize folks here who are from the Bolivian community here in the United States, and they're demonstrating all over the country, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco, New York, Virginia,

and here in Orange County we have a very large population because it's been the port of entry for many of us here. So I'm just very grateful to know that we have patriots here that love their country, that will defend it with everything they can, and also just to send that symbolic message of fraternity to the folks in Bolivia who are really sacrificing everything, because the country right now is completely paralyzed. And they've stalled and they've stopped, and nothing is going on. University classes have been canceled. People can't get to work.

folks can't move because there's that much distress. And so I just want to tell you that any time that a democracy is compromised in one place, it's compromised everywhere. And if we stay silent, we're complicit and we acquiesce to that and we can't do that. So I want to recognize

the Bolivian community here that lives in Southern California for their leadership and their courage and their bravery for standing up. And, you know, we're not very loud sometimes, but we are now because I think that what has happened has unified all of us. And it's made us speak with one voice. And, you know, the one person I can say who's been always very quiet is my mom. And so she's back here and she's very angry and she's upset along with my sister Daisy. But it's gotten people like that to be really vocal about what they see are abuses.

So I just want to say, you know, I'm very proud of what they've done, and I'm very proud of what they've stood up and, you know, done to show that they are not going to stand for this abuse and this assault on our democratic principles in Bolivia. I especially want to thank a few people who have been pivotal and have been the faces of this effort. And that is Ruth Otero, Daniela Bustillos, and our friend Alex Rivero, and everybody else who's had a role in this. And before I forget, I just want to thank our staff who came out here last week or the week before and opened up the doors to City Hall so we could gather.

And that's Daisy and Yesenia, right? So thank you. Let's give them a round of applause for coming here and hanging out and doing that.

Because this group has been demonstrating all over Southern California, all over, you know, in L.A., Hollywood, you know, different parts of the city, letting people know that what's happening is wrong. So, you know, let's, you know, I want to give the microphone and have Ruth speak a little bit and tell us a little bit about this and go ahead and describe it. And I'll go ahead and translate it if it's going to be done in Spanish, which I think it is, right, Ruth? So, welcome. I want to say welcome.

Bienvenidos a su casa. Bienvenidos aquí a la alcaldía de Santana. that we are with you in the fight because when there is an assault like this in the democratic principles, we have to be united as a country, as a colony. And the truth, I feel proud of being bolivian, americano, that here is with you in this fight and that listen to your voice to La Paz, to Santa Cruz, to Cochabamba, to Sucre, El Beni and all the country that resuelves. And we are not alone because this effort is heard in the world.

So, our brothers and sisters are with us from London, from Paris, from New York. In the world they are with us. So, here I am going to give the microphone to Ruth, to give us a few words. Ruth, ahead.

Good afternoon, everyone. Excuse me, I'm a little bit fónica. I want to welcome the Ingeniero Miguel Pulido, Honorable Alcalde Municipal of the City of Santa Ana, and all members of the Municipal Council of this city. Antes quiero llamar por favor a Milton Sánchez, por favor, que es el que está a mi lado siempre batallando con esta lucha que estamos. Quiero pedirles dos minutitos por favor para que me escuchen.

Quiero agradecerles a nombre de la comunidad boliviana, a todos ustedes, dignas autoridades, In especial, Dr. Vincent Sarmiento, who, without any pressure, he always is willing to fight for the bolivianos and latinos.

Asimismo, I want to tell you to all compatriotas, that this distinction that we have today, that we have not only mine, it is of all and every one of you. because we are all fighting for our democracy and our freedom. This distinction is dedicated to our Bolivia, which is crying in the streets for 14 days, because our police...

...disculpte... ...we are facing one of the worst political crises in history in our country, where our democracy and our freedom are being killed by the narco-dictator of Evo Morales Ayma, who, in a way abusive and dictatorial, has committed fraud in the past elections. I want to know that the new election is not only legitimate for millions of bolivians, but it is a human right to have elections that guarantee the free expression of the will of the electors.

Act that has been manoseated in a way fraudulent by the government of the MAS, head of Evo Morales Ayma. The article 23 of San Jose, clearly says that it has demonstrated that the election electoral process carried out in Bolivia on October 20, 2019, deja muchas dudas sobre la transparencia del mismo, por lo cual no garantiza que cumpla con la libre expresión de los electores. ¿Qué más claro tenemos un gobierno corrupto, dictatorial,

un gobierno que está coartando el derecho a la libre expresión y la libre transitabilidad de los bolivianos en nuestro propio territorio? Tal como lo hizo anoche en la ciudad del Alto, enviando a sus serviles seguidores en un acto cobarde, donde reprimieron e impidieron que nuestro líder cívico, Luis Fernando Camacho, que iba solamente con una única arma, la Biblia en su mano derecha, y en la izquierda la carta de renuncia de don Juan Evo Morales Ayma. No le permitieron ingresar a la ciudad de La Paz. One question I want to ask to do Evo Morales. What do you have to do?

A man who goes with the hands clean? Is it a man who is going to do the 400 judges that are in his way, that he is in his back? Is that the fear he has?

Is it a fraud that he has committed? Is it a fraud? Is it a fraud? Is it a fraud? Is it a fraud that international means that it is a corrupt government? un gobierno dictatorial, un gobierno narcoterrorista? ¿A eso le teme? ¿A todos los asesinatos que ha hecho desde la madre tierra? ¿A eso le teme?

Estos actos delictivos y criminales, como el asesinar a nuestros compatriotas, deben ser repudiados y condenados por los organismos internacionales. Por eso pido a ustedes, honorables autoridades, that fight for the democracy and the freedom of our people, and our inhabitants and our people, that help us to denounce against the press and international organizations the acts of criminals, criminal and criminal crimes that are being committed by the government of the MAS. And where our democracy and our bolivianos, the fraudulent, are being killed. What is it? A little bit, please.

where the fraud is being defeated by the government and by that the desperation of them in making the fraud. We have to ask for the Supreme Court, who has done fraud with the general election in Bolivia. Our vote has to be respected. We bolivianos no are going to permit the fraud. And we want to ask for this to say that Bolivia is united more than ever. and that we don't allow our freedom and democracy to be released from our country, and that they should be able to pay attention to international organizations,

which should be idoneous people, not like the ONU, which has sent to the señor Luis Almagro to be a part of all that fraud and all that that is what we are doing in our country. I ask you please, all of you bolivianos, that the United Nations never will be believed and Bolivia is free, today and always. Bolivia is free and free.

Thank you.

That'll take us out a little longer. But just know that what we said at the very beginning, the fight for democracy is here. This is what you see. These are the lives, and this is a time that people devote to make sure that they preserve a democracy that's sometimes very fragile. So I just want to thank them on behalf of everybody here in Santa Ana. Mr. Mayor, do you want to say any words, please?

Just very briefly, I've had the privilege of being in Bolivia over the years. Los Altos, La Paz, Sucre, Cuchabamba, Santa Cruz, I know Bolivia, Los Altos, and also the Baja, near Brazil and all that. I know there's a crisis. It's a difficult time for the country right now. And as Councilor Sarmiento said earlier, whenever a democracy is in a fragile condition, it's very important to be heard and to want to support people that are fighting for justice so with that

les agradezco estén aquí y me voy a despedir y vamos a ir con la junta pero que siga la lucha que siga la lucha Thank you.

Gracias.

yep

Thank you.

CEA. It's my honor to recognize Eric Linder with Autism Behavior Services, which is based here in Santa Ana. A little bit about Autism Behavioral Services. It was established by Dr. Rosa Patterson in order to improve the quality of life of children on the autism spectrum. As we all know, this is very real and present in our community. Oftentimes, too we see things you know in the English language not always in the bilingual language and we have something here in Santa Ana that that works with all communities and anybody that might be on the spectrum this this organization was

first started in 2010 so it's nine years in the making they now have six clinics and they serve from the west coast to the east coast so they serve a lot of children throughout our country. They offer applied behavior analysis and social skills groups in their clinics to a range of children of many ages because I've been there before. I like to, you know, see these organizations in operation. And they serve children with autism or other disability issues in communities. We're very pleased to have Eric Linder here to receive this recognition on behalf of

Autism Behavior Services. He represents them on the government relations side and comes with a lot of experience both at the local level as well as a member of the of the state assembly. We didn't get to work directly at the time but he has you know a great relationship and a great reputation up in Sacramento. Through their diligent work Eric and the team have developed partnerships throughout Orange County they now have incredible relationships with many local cities and many communities throughout various cities here in Orange County it's my honor to on behalf of our mayor and City Council recognize Eric and Autism

Behavior Services for your hard work and the continued commitment that you have to all children in Santa Ana in Orange County congratulations before presenting certificates a few words thank you thank you thank you thank you

Councilmember. It's a pleasure to be here. You know, we didn't get the chance to serve together. I think you termed out the same year that I came in, so I think I missed you. Yeah, he passed the baton. But Councilmember Solorio, he's been such a dedicated servant to Santa Ana. I know that. I've worked in Santa Ana for many, many years. In fact, it's been ever since I graduated high school, I've worked in Santa Ana. And I want to thank the Council and Mayor Miguel Pulido for your dedication and hard work and passion for the city. Santa Ana is a great city because of the work you guys put into it. Speaking of which,

Autism Behavior Services, we're here, we serve a disproportionately high amount of children with autism in Orange County. And so we're always looking for opportunities to reach out to the community and figure out how we can better serve. But the real honor goes to Daniel, Heather, Chloe, Yanel, and Andy and his wife who founded Autism Behavior Services. A real big, if you could, round of applause for them. They're the ones that really work hard out here.

We're an organization that's fairly new to Santa Ana, but we're here for the long haul, and we're here for the kids. So if it's all right with you, I wouldn't mind inviting everybody up, and if we can get a picture with a council member, we'd appreciate it. All right.

And again, just because it is in our community, and they're local and they serve many families and children. Let's also promote the address. You're a little bit north of 17th Street, not too far from Tustin Avenue. If you could give them the address.

Sure.

We're 28th North Tustin Avenue. We're just north of 17th Street on Tustin Avenue. So go visit. Now let's take a photo.

Thank you.

Thank you all again. One more round of applause. Thank you. Thank you.

So we're going to ask for the council members to join us back up here, if we can get our mayor.

We'll give them a minute.

I'm going to go ahead and continue the meeting until the mayor gets back. Is there any items that the council members wish to pull?

Yes.

Go ahead, Councilmember Iglesias. You can let the clerk know.

Okay.

22B, 25B.

Hold on a second. Oh, we have one more?

Close session.

Okay, one second. Okay. All right.

Go ahead, Madam City Attorney, if you can report out. Close session.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Mayor, Councilmembers, members of the public, we only have one matter of reportable action, and the Martha Zapien versus City of Santa Ana case. The City Council voted 4-0, Pulido, Villegas, Penalosa, and Solorio, to authorize us filing a cross-complaint, and that is all the reportable action that we have.

All right, thank you very much for that, and thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

So on items that Council Members want to poll, Council Member Iglesias?

Yes.

22B, 25B, and 25G.

Mr. Mayor, I have items. Yes, Council Member Pena-Logos. I have 25C. You want to pull 25C? All right. I would entertain a motion on the balance. I'll move it.

Second.

Those in favor, please press green.

Motion carries. Let's go on to the next item.

So the next item, would that be 22B? Correct. Go ahead, Councilor Iglesias.

Okay, so my question would be for the city manager or, I guess, the planning commission. For these, it's to amend contract with Enterprise Fleet Management for leased vehicles by an additional amount of $41,000 and an annual 15% contingency of $79,000 for a new total annual amount not to exceed $605,000. Okay, my question for you, Christine, is this is for what type of vehicles are we leasing?

And also, where is this? Is it coming out from the general fund or is it coming from the police department? Where is this money coming from?

I don't know the exact type of the vehicles, but I could probably call up the three department heads that have the request in for the vehicles to give that information to you. There are seven vehicles that are for the police department. There are eight vehicles that are for the planning and building agency for building inspectors and code enforcement officers. And then there's one vehicle for finance for a meter reader. I know that vehicle is replacing a 1998 compact truck, so I'm assuming it would be another truck.

But if I could have the chief and planning director and finance director, do you know the types of vehicles that you're leasing?

well the planning and building agency they'll be actually type vehicles for escapes so they're not trucked I think they're small SUVs for code enforcement officers okay so how many of those do we have the we're hiring for additional code officers so we're looking for vehicles to be able to provide for the

Is there a reason why we're not purchasing them instead of leasing them?

We have looked at the cost benefit between purchasing and leasing of vehicles. For passenger-type vehicles and the use of vehicles, the cost for leasing is actually less. We looked at for purchasing of trucks. That might be something that we would consider. For passenger vehicles, it's cheaper to lease the vehicles.

Okay, so how about for the police department, how many do we have? And is that money coming out of the police department budget?

So in the staff report, under the fiscal impact, it shows you all of the funds where the sources are coming from. So there's a mix. It's primarily general funded, but there is one other source there as well. Okay, thank you.

Okay, would you like to move? All right, would anybody else like to move this item? Second. Okay, those in favor, please press green.

Okay, next item is 20, would it be 25B? Correct.

This is me. Okay, for this one is to approve qualified consultants to provide on-call building safety division services for a total not to exceed $2.4 million. And I just wanted to ask, what's the reason behind doing this and not hiring staff? Or are we also on the hook for the $2.4 million? And is that per year or for how long?

Okay. So this is approval of 14 different on-call service agreements, mainly for planning and building inspections. And the $2.4 is over a three-year period. And what it's for is, unfortunately, your planning and your building customer counter, you don't control your workload. It's based on the private market and the development activity. So if you're really busy, you don't staff up with employees to take care of that added work. The most efficient way to do it is with on-call services. Almost every other large city has on-call services. It's something that we need at this city because we do have lengthy wait times right now

because of the development activity, and that's not providing very good customer service. So we want to streamline our efforts and turn around those applications faster. And by having these on-call companies, we're able to farm out plan check, building inspections, and the fees associated with it are paid for by the developer.

So then this will streamline it and it will bring down the time? It will bring down the turnaround times.

In the staff report, it gives you a couple of examples of that. Let me see if I can find.

So like for inspection, we usually try to keep a 24-hour response time, and right now there's as much as two weeks wait time.

Okay.

Okay, so then this is something that is going to improve customer service.

It will provide better service, absolutely.

And then nothing's coming out of additional from our general fund. This is something that is provided by the developers or whoever it is.

The accelerated plan check fees will be paid for by the applicant. Okay. Okay. Thank you. I'll move it.

All right. We have a motion by Councillor Iglesias. A second. Oh, additional comment.

Councillor Vince Armiento. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and I'll second that as well. I just, the only question I had is I know that $700,000 of the $2.4 million is coming out of general fund money. The balance, obviously, is divided between expedited and accelerated review, which I never understood quite the difference between expedited and accelerated, but we won't get into that detail. My only question was, two questions, on the selection of the 14, was that a competitive process, number one? And number two, and this is more for Madam City Attorney, why don't we have an LDC in the agreement?

So in the event that maybe any of these folks delay beyond what our expectations are, is there sort of anything, any liquidated damages that we might be able to recover as a result of that delay?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

No, but in this situation, because we have so many potential contractors, staff can select from, use who they think will be most responsive.

Right. So I know I've worked with Will Dan and some other cities, and they're a good firm. But I know that other cities have held that when they give a project to, and they outsource the project to a firm, and that firm goes beyond a certain deadline that we set for them, there is an LDC that's attached to that. That's just to motivate them. I'm not sure if that's something we can still add, or maybe these contracts are already defined.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

We can do that. I think what the difference is, sometimes Will Dan will actually contract with the city to actually be the project planner, and so they're in charge of a large project from beginning to end. Sometimes services are just to do review plan checks, which you would just send them the plan checks, and it's kind of a little different. We can add that provision if that's the will of the council. It's not difficult to do that.

Just something to consider. I mean, you know, it's just a way to make sure folks stay on a timeline because the whole objective of this is to provide better customer service. If we bring in firms that are going to be delaying, we may not want to keep them on as a listed provider.

To answer your other questions, in September we released a request for qualification and we received 14 response. Actually, all 14 response were qualifying firms, so we selected all the firms that submitted. So none of the firms that submitted were disqualified. So they get on our list of on-call. Gives us a good variety of deep bench of firms to be able to rely upon. We're looking at a significant amount of development projects in the next several months. So by the approval of these firms on our list, it will help us to expedite the review, inspection, and plan check process.

Great. Thank you for that. I'm supportive of this. I think I seconded that. And before I forget, I just wanted to thank my colleagues for indulging me in that last presentation. I know I went long, so thank you all.

You're welcome. Nobody's complaining. But thank you. So with that, we have a motion, a second. Those in favor, press green.

Motion passes. Next item, I believe, is 25C. Councilor Peña-Loza.

David PenalozaItem —

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. 25C is to approve a 12-month extension of license agreement with Easton Realty Partnership and Worst House Inc. allowing temporary outdoor dining activities to occur within Plaza Calle Cuatro for an amount not to exceed $1,272. Now, I just wanted to point out that I'm supportive of this item, and I briefly had a conversation with Madam City Manager about the Worst House and the beer and the sausages and all the good stuff that the restaurant offers. But, Madam City Manager, I just had a question just for the – Will this include alcohol cells in this outdoor patio?

Not at this time. There will not be alcohol beverages permitted.

David PenalozaItem —

And I personally would like to see, as part of this testing that they're going to be doing with this outdoor patio, to allow them, I know we had a conversation where this was a state thing that they couldn't go through, this obstacle about with selling alcoholic beverages in this outdoor patio but I'm you know if we want to really move our downtown forward and and make this a lively experience for patrons of this restaurant you know people that that frequent where sales don't just go

David PenalozaItem —

to eat the sausage you go to have a beer and whatnot so maybe helping them out to be able to bring alcohol into this outdoor seating area sooner than they had planned. I just worry that they left alcohol off the table just because they know how difficult the city of Santa Ana could be. When it comes to these things, that shouldn't be so difficult, but those were just my thoughts.

We certainly can assist them. It's a state approval that they need to do the beverages outdoors. Of course.

David PenalozaItem —

Okay. And that's what I had figured, but just if there is anything that we can help to help them out, I'd appreciate it. With that said, I'd like to move the item.

Thank you for that motion. Is there a second? I'll second. The only thing I was going to just tack on to that, to the extent that this is made available to the worst house, if you can extend it maybe to others as well, because I think that it's a great look to have patio seating, especially in a downtown. I think a lot of other downtowns do that. So, you know, we have some places in downtown where we have wide aprons and they won't cause an ADA problem and people can still get through them. So if we can, maybe facilitate that through our planning. And then the last thing was, I didn't see an indemnity clause in there.

Is there something that indemnifies us in the event of something? And I might have overlooked it, so if it's in there, I'm sure that it couldn't have been an oversight. But I see you nodding, and that's fine. You don't need to go up and do it. I take your word for it. So with that, I'll just second.

And the attorney could be on.

Councilor Jose Solonio. Thank you. Very good dialogue, and I support all the recommendations being made. I didn't go to Worst House for years because I'm vegetarian as our mayor is, but once, out of curiosity, I did agree to a meeting there, and I was pleasantly surprised. They have vegan sausages that are outstanding. And then craft beer. So, Mr. Mayor, if you haven't been, you have a reason to go. I need to go. I didn't know. They have two or three types of vegan sausages.

And vegan beer as well.

Vegan beer, vegan French fries. And it's outstanding, and I'm glad that they're interested in partnering with the city further. Thank you.

So we have a motion and a second and some excitement. Those in favor, please press green.

Next item I think is 25G.

So 25G is to approve amendment to the Memorandum of Understanding with the Vera Institute of Justice for the Safe Cities Network, an amendment to the agreement with Immigrant Defenders Law Center for Immigration Legal Defense Services.

question for me is I know that okay so it's going to be extended one more year is this something that goes out to the general public for bidding for them to have this type of opportunity to serve

our residents yes so in 2017 you did a competitive process and they were awarded funding for it but with the current year budget you added additional resources for this purpose so we are going to go out for an RFP but we don't want to have any lapse in services so we're asking for you to extend this one that did win originally through a competitive process while we do an RFP process for the remainder of the funds. When is the RFP going to go out to the general public? I'm going to ask Daisy who has all the information on these two items to talk about the timeline. Good evening Mayor and

Council staff will be releasing the RFP in conjunction with the Vera Institute on November 18th.

What do you mean by in conjunction? So they're helping you?

They're actually the lead agency. The same as in 2017, Vera takes the lead, since they're the subject matter expert on this, and we will facilitate and serve on a panel. And then once the top proposal has been finalized, we will bring that back for your approval.

Okay. And then my other question is, I'm reading the staff report and it says that some may be from Orange County, the individuals that we're serving. So my question would be how many are Santa Ana residents that we are serving with the funds that we're giving out from our general fund money?

Our funding is only for Santa Ana residents. the service provider may provide additional services to other residents in the county, but our funding is only for Santa Ana.

Okay, so then they commingle their funds and our funds to serve the entire Orange County community?

As an organization, we cannot prohibit who they serve, but our funding is strictly for Santa Ana residents.

Okay, so how many have they served? From Santa Ana.

Within the staff report, it does talk about since they opened their office in Santa Ana, they have since becoming operational, they've initiated representation of 44 Santa Ana residents in removal proceedings. Eleven cases have been closed, which includes three Santa Ana residents who obtained relief from removal, and the other 33 cases remain pending.

And that's Santa Ana only. And then the 11 that were closed, they just didn't get services? I mean, why were they closed? That's just confusing.

We can provide you with additional details on the individual cases if you'd like, but just on average, it costs them about $4,000 to $5,000 per person to service them.

Okay, thank you.

David PenalozaItem —

I'll make a motion to approve the item. But just with the comment, Madam City Manager, it would be nice to – I know there's a privacy concern, and I completely understand. if nobody wants to really be made public. But it would be nice to hear from some of the residents who are willing to say, hey, I was helped, just to really, for the community's sake, to put a face to the work that we're doing in the city of Santa Ana, because I think it's important. But with that said, I'll make a motion to approve the item. Second by Iglesias.

Those in favor, please press green.

Okay, I believe our next item, would that be 55A? That's correct. Okay, I would entertain a motion on 55A. I'll move the item, but I do have a comment. Okay, we have a motion. Do we have a second?

We have a second. Go ahead and comment. Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. This item relates to a refinancing of some COP bonds that we can refinance and save a lot of resources. And because most of the source money is gas tax, so re-awarding should go towards capital improvement type of programs. And it looks like there will be substantial savings. One of the things I think would be important is that in previous years when we've kind of have done citywide residential street repair programs,

there have been some neighborhoods and some streets that have been left out. And this might be an opportunity with this refinancing to prioritize those residential streets that have been left out and possibly some industrial ones as well. although I think for industrial areas, because many of them are larger trucks, we do have other public-private partnerships where they help maintain as well. But I'd like to follow up with you, and I know Mr. Mayor, because he's on OCTA, he does a lot of work in this street repair area, so I'd like to follow up with you, Madam City Manager and Mr. Mayor, on what that might look like.

Certainly. It will free up more funding for our streets, so that's a good wish to have.

Correct. It's a very good situation. Thank you.

And just to follow up, and then we have Councilor Iglesias. May we could target some of the neighborhoods that we stayed away from in earlier rounds and earlier cycles. With this money, we can come back and pick up some of those other neighborhoods.

And certainly, sir, and I believe you're probably referring to the neighborhoods that have concrete streets because those neighborhoods have not had any repair.

Yeah, just to spread the money around. Right. It's been decades. Thank you. Thank you. Do Councilor Iglesias?

Yeah, the entire West End. We need to go that way. Welcome to my work.

Didn't we already do a lot of streets on the West End?

Not many. If you would like, we certainly can do a presentation for you. We should, because I think we did quite a bit. What's been done, what's planned in the next three years?

I would like to see that.

All right.

But one question that I do have for this, and I'm okay with it. just my concern is if we go I guess it's kind of like refinancing right a mortgage so well the years be extended or is it something that we're just going to stay with same years and the interest rates gonna drop and there's no extension on

the time period the savings are predominantly from expected interest cost being significantly lower okay and are these the only COPs that we have

within the city? Gas tax, I believe this is our only. Outstanding.

Okay, thank you. All right, I believe we have a motion and a second. Mr. Mayor, just a quick comment on this, and I just wanted to thank staff on this because I know that this was the result of, and I see somebody out there nodding. We were at a conference and we bumped into some of the consultants and we spoke about when we went and refinanced, Mr. Mayor, for the $60 million, the original amount for street improvements, and we talked about the favorable rates that continue to exist. So I know that as a result of that conversation, other conversations were had and we were here. The only thing that I want to make sure that

the public understands is that there is going to be a net savings to what we're doing. And so we are capturing dollars that had we done nothing, they wouldn't be realized. So I know we're going to use, the only question I had, we're using some of our reserve funds from an account. And I think that's to the tune of four million and change right but we're gonna realize is

it 18 when this is over the whole time it's over the life 18 million so it results in about eight over 800,000 each year that will be freed up that we can use for street improvements that otherwise we would not have and I see

bond councils shaking their heads so I'm you know I know you're gonna keep us safe and we're gonna do the right thing but I know that this is a very good time to make decisions like this and a lot of agencies don't have the credit rating that we do to be able to do this so we don't carry a lot of debt and there's a reason why when we can take advantage of moments like this so thank you to staff kudos to all you guys all right we have motion in a

second those in favor please press green now we go on a 55 uh beers and boy i'd like to entertain a motion I'll move the item those in favor please press green now item 68 I will turn things over to House Member Pena Loza and we have a couple speakers I'm

to run out for a minute, but I'll turn it over to Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

The first speaker to come forward is Arthur Newton. Any WTC, what's that, Negrete? You got it. What's the name, sir, because it's kind of spelled a little. Newton. Newton. I'm a lawyer,

not a doctor. Great, thank you. Three minutes, sir, go ahead. Okay. Okay. My name is Arthur Newton. I'm the attorney for the applicant, Ms. Sebold. I maintain my office at the corner of 15th and Broadway in the city. I've maintained that office for the last 25 years. I've attended all the prior hearings in this matter, and in all the oppositions, it centers around primarily issues of traffic and any impact that serving distilled spirits would have. These issues have been examined ad nauseum over a two-year period

by the planning staff, the police department, and the state alcoholic beverage and control board, all of whom have indicated there are no negative impacts at this location based on any upgrade of the license to a Type 47.

You'll find that any oppositions or reasons for opposition aren't based on any facts or any evidence. Listening to the prior opposing comments at the prior hearings, you'll find they're all speculations, what ifs, nothing you can look to as being concrete.

The other issue was

this applicant is a partial owner of two other restaurants of similar nature that are within a mile to a mile and a half of this location. She's a 100% owner of the application that's before you tonight.

The Planning Commission specifically indicated in their comments prior to taking their vote that any negative factors involving these other locations should not be superimposed on this applicant. It would be wholly inequitable and unfair and indeed the Planning Commission stressed that that should not happen.

Finally, since I know my time is running up, it's been about 30 years since I was a city councilman and a mayor of another city in the northern part of this county. But one of the first things I learned when I got elected is you have to have total, complete, and absolute trust and confidence in your staff and your appointees. In this instance, your planning staff, your police department, and your planning commissioners, all of whom have worked diligently to bring this about and make their decision, which I believe was an appropriate one.

Ladies and gentlemen, now is not the time to second-guess your planning commission.

Indeed, such an action should only be undertaken under very rare and extreme circumstances which simply do not exist here. Indeed, the City Municipal Code, as I read it, indicates that if any action is to be taken, and there must be factors that are, quote-unquote, of such a magnitude as to be of special interest to the city.

Thank you, sir. Your time is up. Thank you. I appreciate it. Reuben Smith.

Thank you, Vice Mayor and Council members. I appreciate the opportunity to be before you today. As you know, I'm also a resident of Santa Ana, and our firm is also located in Santa Ana. And we are also counsel to Mariscos Hector's. They have been a client of the firm for many, many years, and so when I found out that this event was coming tonight, I volunteered to come here and say some good words on her behalf. This is a restaurant that's been around for 30 years. This is not a new restaurant. This is a restaurant that has a great story. The owner of this restaurant, as I stated earlier, she's the only owner of this specific site,

and she was a waitress when she was 19 years old at this restaurant. And a number of years down the road, the owner thought so much of her that offered to sell her the business. And in 2005, she purchased this business, and this business has been there since 1988. She has been supported by the neighbors, so you'll see you have a list of about 20 letters. Those are all the immediate neighbors around her. She went to all of them, and you'll see that you've got the support of those local neighbors. As was stated earlier, the police commented that there's no concerns, and they're supportive of this application.

Our client needs the Type 47 ABC license to remain competitive. A number of other licenses have been granted to newer restaurants, and this is a woman-owned restaurant that really needs this license in order to be competitive with all those other restaurants in the area that have just been recently started. And so she has approximately over 100 employees, and 80% of them are Santa Ana residents. So in order to keep up with the cost of running a restaurant, this is something that's very essential to her, and it also benefits quite a few residents in the city of Santa Ana.

So we would ask you to support the Planning Commission's decision to approve the Type 47A ABC license and vote. In this case, it's a no. So I want to make sure that that's clear. In this case, a no vote means that the planning decision stays. So thank you for your time. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Mark Goggin, last speaker.

Good evening, City Council, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem. Somewhat related to – my name is Mark Gawne, and I'm here with the applicant, Maria Siebold. Somewhat related to the resolutions that you were having here a little while ago, I wanted to congratulate the city for – and in particular for the work of Councilman Solario, yes, the $1 million grant from the California State Coastal Conservancy to improve Santiago Park improvement. That's one of the many things that you guys are very good at, going after state dollars and other such things. I congratulate you for that effort. As I indicated, my name is Mark Gaughan.

I'm here with Maria, the applicant of this here. We're going to keep our comments extremely short. As has already been stated, there's been a thorough review of everything that has taken place here. The staff has been very thorough. The police department has been very thorough. We've solicited out the police department over time to come on out to our facility, give us recommendations and so forth. And we've taken all of those very seriously. We're, of course, here this evening to be able to respond to any questions. But in simple terms, we just request, as Reuben Smith indicated here a little while ago,

that you allow for the Planning Commission's stance, their decision to stand. And one other thing that was mentioned, in the last few days, Maria has gone to her neighbors. And we're not talking about just neighbors in the general area. We're talking about her neighbors immediately adjacent to the facility at hand here. And I have in my hand, and we've provided these to the city clerk, 20 letters of support from neighbors that are immediately behind the facility, the restaurant, and on either of the two streets, Occidental and Berkeley.

And so to this point in time, she's batting 1,000. She's getting all of her neighbors to be in support of this here. And we ask for you, again, for you guys to allow for the Planning Commission decision to proceed forward.

Thank you, sir.

And again, we're here for any questions if you need to.

Thank you very much. Good to see the owner here. Muchas gracias. We lost the mayor for a little bit, so we're going to continue. Councilmember Peñalosa.

Council Member Peñalosa, your item.

David PenalozaItem —

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. 60A was basically to call for reveal and appeal request by Council Member Peñalosa of the Planning Commission determination regarding conditional use permit number 2019-10 and conditional use permit number 2019-11 for 1801 South Main Street, the Mariscos Hector. I basically, you know, just looking over the Planning Commission minutes and the series of events leading up to this approval of the Planning Commission. There was some turnover in staff on the planning side, and I've heard from the Neighborhood Association

David PenalozaItem —

that that communication wasn't clear with the change in staff. And I know that because of that change in staff, I figured it's important to bring back to the City Council as a public hearing just to really look at the impacts that this could potentially have. Notice that there's hardly any buffer between the restaurant and the residents, and I thank the applicant for bringing in these letters of support from the residences. But I would like to possibly hear from some of these residents. I know Marisco's Hector's is a staple in Santa Ana. We've all been there and know the restaurants.

David PenalozaItem —

So it was just my concern to really have the neighborhood association and the applicant have documented conversations. I know they had a couple meetings with previous planning staff that is no longer with the city and just wanted to make sure that the conversation and communication carried over with the person who took over. So with that said, those were my concerns for bringing this forward. My colleagues have any comments?

Councilmember Iglesias.

At first I had heard from the community with Madison Park Santiago with the concerns that they had from Hector's business on Main Street. yesterday I had a an opportunity to speak to the to the owner and also the the individuals who are supporting her in bringing this forward before the Planning Commission and also to us and I know I asked them you know a few questions a few questions and you know what was the conversation between you and the residents in in that neighborhood and and I want to thank you

for giving us the letters that we have here and also other emails and I know that you're in communication with the president of the neighborhood association Madison neighborhood association one of the things that I would ask the city manager I don't know how this would affect I guess the decision from the Planning Commission is just like a councilmember Pena Losa I I would also like to hear from the neighbors on, I guess, the street that is directly behind the business.

It's one thing that I pride myself in doing is speaking to those residents who are mostly affected, just like we did with 2525. I wanted to go and talk to them, just the ones that are going to be directly affected. So my thing is if it would give me an opportunity to speak to the neighbors, and hopefully they're the same neighbors that have given us a better support, how would it affect it if we were to hold it back two weeks and just bring it back as a hearing the following week? I don't know how that works.

So what's before you tonight is either voting on scheduling the hearing, which would bring it before you where you'd have the opportunity to speak to the residents, or sticking with the Planning Commission's decision. So are you asking if you just delay this item and move it to the next meeting? You continue it to the next meeting to have that same consideration before you're on the 19th? Is that what you're asking? Yeah.

Would that be the timeline? Would it be the next meeting would be where we would be able to decide?

With a majority vote.

David PenalozaItem —

I think that would be a proven... Number one on the...

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Right. I mean, the question for the council tonight is, do you want to allow the Planning Commission decision to stand, or do you want to have a look at the Planning Commission's decision? And if you want it to stand, it's over tonight. You can vote on that tonight. If you want to actually look at the Planning Commission's decision, you would need to vote to do that tonight, and we would schedule it for two weeks from now. There would be a public hearing at which you could examine the Planning Commission's decision, and members of the public, including the neighbors, can speak.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

But your sole decision this evening is whether you want to let the Planning Commission decision stand or whether you want the matter to be brought before you as the City Council.

So I have a quick question. I want to intervene real quick. Your question, Council Members, about the people that live around the homes who just received these letters. Mr. Mark, do you want to, or Ruben, or both of you can come up and address this real quick.

Just as a matter of efficiency, we have five residents in the audience this evening. If you'd like to hear from them, they're willing to speak.

I will allow that if the council members are willing to.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

I must remind the city council, again, your decision tonight is not to have a public hearing. We need to make sure that we're complying and providing the applicant and all the residents with due process. So the decision this evening is not to hear a substantive argument about whether the decision is good or bad. The sole question for the council to decide this evening is do you want the Planning Commission decision to stand, or would you like to entertain the request and have the matter brought before you?

Very good. I will allow that discussion to continue. Councilmember Solorio?

Yes, I was happy to hear that there's some residents in the audience, but tonight doesn't appear to be the forum to hear them. Really, the way to do that is to support option one on this item so that we can have them speak, and then just for a good due process. I'd like to hear both sides. I've been getting calls and emails from folks on both sides and would like to. I think we'd all benefit from a full hearing. Also, the planning commission is vacant, one or two commissioners, and so I know they're making decisions the best we can. but on this item because it's on South Main Street a lot of the businesses are

really close to the residences unlike other commercial corridors so I think it is important to hear a little bit more about it. Councilmember Sarmiento.

Thank you Mr. Mayor Pro Tem so I'm glad that the city attorney reminded us we have a very limited role and scope tonight and it's more to discuss you know whether or not we want to sustain the Planning Commission's decision that they made or whether we want to have a more in-depth conversation about the merits and the substance of the applicant's request. For full disclosure, I did have a chance to speak with the applicant earlier today because I wanted to do my due diligence as well and find out a little bit more because this application has a very long history. I think she's been waiting for three

years or maybe more, and that is almost punitive on the applicant that she's had to wait this long. So without getting into the merits of it, I do think that she has a right to also defend herself, and it seems like she hasn't had that privilege. And unfortunately, the neighborhoods that are opposing haven't really given her the forum to do that. And I almost feel like it's almost a moment of vindication where she can have to explain her story and tell her story, as was done by some very well-represented folks who are speaking on her behalf. But I think her story is even more compelling.

So to the extent that we all can hear that, as well as, you know, the sad thing about it is I don't see any residents here, with the exception of these five. I don't see anybody from the Neighborhood Association, which is a little unfortunate, because I know that they were the ones that contacted. And I want to thank Councilmember Peñalosa because he's just being responsive to the calls he received, and as I did. So we both were contacted, and so for no other reason not to be punitive or harsh on the applicant, but just to be responsive to the neighbors because the applicant has been along with those neighbors for 30 years

and doing business with them and next to them for 30 years. She should have the ability to go ahead and explain why she wants to enhance some of her rights there at the site. So I don't see any harm with having that discussion. I don't, you know, right now I don't see any reason that the Planning Commission's decision should be overturned. And that really is the burden of the neighbors if they want to come in and do that. But I do think that there is enough that, you know, we should have that broader discussion.

I, too, believe that the Planning Commission decision shouldn't be overturned. I did speak with the applicant. She has reached out to the community quite a bit. She's one of those folks that does not advertise when she's out there doing good things. She's out providing food and goodies for a lot of the high schools in the area and the elementary schools and so forth. She just doesn't advertise those kind of things. I did some checking in the last five years if there was any police calls there. There was only two in five years. And both of the times it was because either the facility, the business, was a victim

or there was someone there who had a car broken into or something. So both times they were victims. It doesn't seem to be a problem. I do recognize these letters of support that came in from the neighbors. And I do also believe that the neighbors need to be heard, and they had their opportunity. But the Planning Commission did a very good job looking into this, and I did ask the Neighborhood Association President in that area if he's had a chance to meet with the applicant, and that has not happened. I know that the applicant has tried numerous times in the last year or two to meet with him personally,

and that has not happened. So anyway, those are my comments, and I guess we'll take it to a vote. So who made the motion?

David PenalozaItem —

There was no motion.

I thought we were going to postpone it.

David PenalozaItem —

I'll make a motion to approve item number one, which is basically if the council is satisfied with the action of the Planning Commission, is it opinion of that matter as such of the magnitude as to be special in the interest of the people of the city, and may by majority vote set a public hearing to consider the modification of the Planning Commission action regarding this matter. So with that said, I'll make a motion to approve item one.

clarification clarification so the this is going to be adjourned to the next scheduled meeting i just want to make sure that we have a set date for this not that we're delaying it and delaying

so what you're voting on is bringing it up and having a public hearing which we will get on the

David PenalozaItem —

agenda on the 19th on the 19th okay and with the motion i just want to make sure that that we're not just making a motion to have a public hearing I want to have I want the applicant to meet with the residents again and have a broader discussion because of the change in staff that we had this Hummer over over this this item so with that said I believe we had a second by I think mr. Smith I just

wanted to make it clear you know we have no problem meeting we tried meeting with them, and the associations did not want to meet. Said they didn't have time to meet until next year. And so they're not here tonight. They had the same notice. They knew that this was happening. I made a call, didn't get any response. I think that this is really a penalty to a woman-owned business who's done a great job, who's really been working hard. There's no complaints. You have no police complaints. You've got all the nearby neighbors, adjacent neighbors supporting this application. And so this isn't 20 neighbors who are a mile

away. These are the ones right next to this establishment. Yeah, there's no doubt

David PenalozaItem —

in my mind that the business owner is a great person and does a lot for the community. But I think, you know, in order to do our due diligence with the residents that have reached out to us, as well as the applicant, it's important that we bring this back as a public hearing. That was my motion, and I believe Councilmember Solorio will second it. We'll see if it doesn't pass, and that's it. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Speck. Councilmember Sarmiento.

Yeah, and not to belabor the point, but to the extent that the applicant, if there is no response from the neighborhoods or any of the people that spoke out against this, please bring that back. And for me, that's going to be very dispositive, right? So if that's the case, and I think because she's waited three years, I don't think two weeks is going to be that punitive because nobody's saying that there is any compelling reason to deny the request. it's just simply to go ahead and make sure that we're thorough and we're responsive.

So everyone's clear on the motion. Go ahead and push your button.

Okay, there you have it.

Continue to the next item. Madam Clerk, which is the next item?

75A.

75A. Is that public hearing? Okay, I want to open up a public hearing. Is there any cards that were submitted? No, we have no cards submitted. We have no cards. Okay, is there anyone in the audience who wishes to speak on seeing no one? I'm going to close the public hearing. I'm going to open it up. 75A.

May I?

Council Member Iglesias.

Are we having a presentation on this or a report from you? there's not a formal presentation but it's simply it's adopting a resolution that you are affirming the amounts that we are going to be billing the Union Pacific Railroad for the abatement work that we did at multiple locations that are listed within the staff report okay is there a motion mr.

David PenalozaItem —

robert and I'll make a motion to approve with a comment now second more of a question madam city manager and madam city attorney i just because because of the amount of work that goes into a public hearing and and i just wanted if you could uh detail a little bit the process behind this because i mean i understand you know public hearing to to go after large amounts but i mean 41 000 just the amount that the amount of work that potentially goes into this by staff you know is there a threshold that we have that you have to surpass before you make it a

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

public hearing no so what is happening in this section is under your municipal code the city staff code enforcement can give property owners a notice that their property constitutes a nuisance if the nuisance is not cleaned up the city staff can go to court get an abatement warrant from the from the court and they can go out and clean up things themselves then the process requires for due process that they come back to the City Council and say to you City Council we cleaned up the property and it cost us $41,000 if it had cost the city $5,000 they would still have to come back to you so before the city can actually move forward to

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

actually recover those costs you are the body that is that basically says yes you went out there we saw that you cleaned up the property and this is the opportunity for the for the property owner to come tell you that the $41,000 is not appropriate if they want to fight it. My understanding is the property owner was well aware of tonight's hearing and even indicated that they would not be here.

Very good. Any other council members? If not, we have a first and a second. Go ahead and push the appropriate button.

Motion passes.

Who was the second for clarification?

Second the item.

We're going to continue with item 75B is public hearing. I'm going to open the public hearing at this time. Do we have any speaker cards?

We do not.

We do not have any speaker cards. Anyone in the audience wish to speak on 75B? Seeing no one, I closed the public hearing at this time. And is there a staff on this, 75B?

Certainly, Mayor Pro Tem and Council Members. The item before you is to adopt an ordinance which would amend the regular parking meter rates, taking them from $1.50 per hour to $2 an hour, and then it would also establish the hours of parking meter operations on a Sunday. So it would be Monday through Sunday, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. The structure parking rates, based on a resolution, I have the authority to adjust those without coming back to council, and so I did propose an adjustment to the parking structure rates to go from $1 to $1.50, and we have maintained a 50-cent differential between the parking structure and the meters

because the meters are the more premium spots up front. So we want to encourage people to go to the parking structure if they're going to stay for a while and visit the downtown area. Additionally, there's a resolution that we are recommending you approve, and this is one that we talked to the Downtown Inc. and the Santa Ana Business Council on, and that is providing free parking in the structures for a two-hour period to encourage visiting the merchants in that area. So those are the two items that are before you, and I certainly can answer any questions you may have.

Very good.

Okay, do we have a motion to approve? Move the item. Do you have a second? I'll second. All those in favor, please comment.

Go ahead. Thank you. And I just wanted to, you know, I know this was a lot of, parking is sometimes probably one of the most sensitive things, especially when it's metered parking and adjusting rates. And this is pretty significant. We're going to be moving away from having Sunday as a free day for everybody, and now it's going to be a day that's metered. But both organizations that are in the downtown had a chance to speak with you, from what I understand, right, Madam City Manager? And they are good with the two-hour grace period that's going to be given sort of as a way to reconcile maybe the additional fee.

Yes, sir, they did. And in fact, Ryan Chase, he's in Australia. He would have been present here tonight representing the Downtown Inc. Initially, we offered him one hour of validated free parking, and they said, oh, please make it two. So where you're losing the Sunday hours, you're gaining two free hours of parking any day of the week to visit the downtown area.

And I saw that there's going to be a loss of revenue that's going to result as a function of this. And that amount is?

We estimate that a two-hour free parking could decline the revenues by about $113,000.

So that money that's lost or maybe that we don't generate as a result of this, there is a value to that as well. Because just so I understand the way the mechanics work, somebody comes in and goes into a restaurant or goes into a shop and is parking for an hour and a half, they can get their validation from the merchant. Is that the way it works?

Just to know, some of the improvements that we've done since you did your modernization plan back in, I think, 2015, is we have moved away from manned operator booths, and we have all automated gates. So how we would allow for two hours of free parking, it would be programmed into the arm. So if you go into one of our parking structures and you park, let's say, three hours, and as you're leaving and you insert your ticket, it's not going to charge you for the first two. It's just going to be that third hour. If you were in there under two hours, it's just going to lift the arm up for you to exit the parking structure.

Got it. So they don't need to validate. They can just be in our downtown area for those.

We talked about validation, but the feedback we got on that, it would be too complex to distribute the validation.

No, this makes sense. It's a better system. I'm just trying to see for some of those businesses that are more, you know, they don't really rely on vehicle traffic and they rely on pedestrian traffic because there is a lot of pedestrian traffic. Is there any benefit that they receive from these adjusted rates? I guess probably not at this point, right?

I'm sorry, what's the question?

I'm trying to think, is there some way we can somehow, of these funds that were being lost, if we can roll it into some of the loss mitigation relief that could be discussed?

I wish we could right now, and I can have, if you like, the finance structure come up and talk about the state of the parking fund. But right now it's in the red. So that's one of the reasons we want to offer the two-hour free, because we know the merchants are suffering right now due to the street car. But on the other hand, we need to keep it somewhat balanced, so that's why there's an increase as well that's taking place. But the funds that come in from all of the parking revenues, they are committed to paying certain expenditures,

and there is money that does flow back to the Downtown Business Inc. and the San Ana Business Council from the parking fund.

And the good thing is we're also pushing folks into the structures, which is a good thing as well. All right. Thank you. I'm supportive.

Okay, very good. Council Member Solorio.

Thank you. I do want to compliment staff for the creativity of putting this together. I know the merchants on 4th Street, some suffer more than others. And then you have the issue, too, some are the business owners and some are the property owners. I think the property owners are sophisticated enough to know that once Light Rail comes in, that their property values are going to go up and they'll benefit from it. It's the business owners that may not be the property owners that could suffer. So I think this is helpful. But to the extent that there are issues or problems, we can always bring back and revise, I would think.

So I think we just need to be mindful that if there are some things not working or other improvements, that we'd like staff to keep us abreast of what those issues are.

I'm glad you brought that up, Council Member, because the resolution for offering the two-hour free parking, it's also authorizing me to adjust it if needed in the future.

Thank you so much.

Councilmember Peñalosa.

David PenalozaItem —

Thank you, sir. I just wanted to point out that I came into this role wanting to make parking free across the board in our downtown to mimic the other downtown areas in Orange County. And obviously we're not heading in that direction. but I do like that you have the two-hour validation.

Just two-hour free parking in the structures.

David PenalozaItem —

If it's under the two hours, it'll be free. You didn't mention the Sunday part. I read it afterwards, but I just wanted to point that out. But I do like that we're going to be looking at the two-hour free grace period, which I'm happy with.

David PenalozaItem —

I think that was it.

Okay, we have a first and a second. All those in favor, push the green button.

Okay, motion passes. We are going to move on to item 85A, Council Member Iglesias.

So I just wanted to bring this item up for, I guess, for consideration of the council. So as you may all know, I don't know if you guys may not know, but the deaf and hard of hearing community is very dear and near to my heart. And I believe that for the most part in anything that has to do with civic engagement and stuff, they're left out of the process and communication. So one of the things that I was able to move forward when I was in the school district was having the sign language interpreters at our city council meetings.

Because it's very important for the entire community to be able to see what is happening at our meetings. So my goal with this, the direction and the support of my colleagues, is if we could have some type of interpreter service here. And the way it works, and I don't know if this is something that we would have to go and see how much it would cost. I know with the school district, it was maybe like $40,000 a year to have an interpreter. and at the same time they'll be you know signing here interpreting for us and

then the the the cameras would be able to capture both us up here and also the interpreters at the bottom of the of the screen so I'm hoping if that is something that we would want to consider is very beneficial in here in Orange County actually in Santa Ana we have the Orange County deaf and hard-of-hearing program which is a Taft Elementary School which is a partisan invite school district and it's here in Santa Ana. So I just wanted to thank Councilmember Sarmiento for being able, you know, for supporting, you know, and seconding this item. But I don't know if

there's anything else that you would want to say, but I'm hoping that we're able to bring that service to that, you know, to our deaf and hard of hearing community. Councilmember Sarmiento.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, and thank you, Councilmember Iglesias. I am very supportive of this item and I appreciate the leadership on this because you know we've always considered ourselves you know a very inclusive you know accessible community and I think you know we do have a large population of folks who are hearing impaired and so to the extent that we can provide those services they're entitled to know what we do here and and we certainly want to make those services available and obviously at the school district they've already tackled this issue so

So we certainly don't want to get left behind and make sure that all of our residents understand the business that we do up here. We certainly should try to extend as many efforts as we can. And to the extent that this item is going to provide us some options of how we can address this, I certainly am very, very supportive of this item. And thank you once again for bringing this forward, Councilwoman.

Thank you very much. Councilmember Solorio?

Yes, just because this item is written a little generally, is the idea to come back with the recommendations and options, which I think would be fine because maybe there's a range of ways of doing this, but I would like to know what the costs might be and might we get additional requests for other languages and what we do about that. And I think too, most of our agendas probably have towards the bottom some language about if there are any special accommodations necessary that we can provide translation services or any other accommodations to address any disability.

So if this item does move forward, and if that's the joint, I'm okay. But I don't know that I have one specific way of addressing it because it could open up some other questions and issues as well.

Thank you for the question, Councilmember. So residents actually can request for sign language interpreting services along with any language interpreting services by contacting the city's ADA program coordinator. And you're correct, it is listed at the bottom of the cover of the agenda. and I did contact also the school Santa Ana Unified School District to find out what brought them to that point where they had to prove or where they decided to provide the sign language interpretation services and it turns out it was because they have a deaf and hard of hearing regionalized program and so

the demand came from the community and then I did also find out the pay rate is $95 an hour I'm sorry $85 an hour for scheduled times and then if we were to ask them to come like the day before it'd be a hundred and twenty five a hundred and twenty dollars an hour

go ahead councilmember peña losa thank you councilwoman iglesias for bringing this item

David PenalozaItem —

forward and this is something that you know as moving forward in 2019 we should you know have be accessible to everyone regardless of their disabilities and whatnot I just wanted to see because I know you mentioned the school district and I noticed that at the school district you know they have sign language interpreter at all their events their city events their their school board

David PenalozaItem —

meetings so it would i would like to see what that would look like for us like do we want to have it at just the city council meetings do we want to have it at any official city event do we want to so looking at the cost and the different ways that or or areas where we would have a sign sign language interpreter would be uh great to see definitely something that i want would like to see brought before us for further consideration but thank you comes from me let's us for bringing this item forward okay very good we're gonna move

on to item 85 B is there any up what's the direction so the direction I only

see support from three or four okay so then you'll be bringing it forward to us in a future meeting with all the requests that was made from the dais?

That's the direction that I believe I heard. There were four interested in finding out more information about it and various options, so we will prepare that information for you and bring it at a future date.

Okay.

Very good. 85B, is there any speaking cards? We do. Madam Clerk?

First speaker is going to be Hilda Ortiz and then Maria Enriquez, followed by Hugochi Nicholson.

Hello, good evening, Mayor Pulido and City Council members. My name is Hilda Ortiz and I'm here on behalf of Latino Health Access today. I'm also a resident of Santana, living in Ward 1. I'm here to ask for your support in passing an urgency ordinance to protect tenants in the city from excessive rent increases and evictions without cause. Our goal at Latino Health Access is to work in partnership with residents to make our community more equitable and healthy, which includes having access to the most basic needs. But we're seeing that the basic access to safe and decent housing is not being met

for an increasing number of people in our community. Over the last few months, we have had more and more residents reaching out to us in desperation, asking for resources and support with paying rent or struggling to defend themselves from unjust evictions. We've heard stories of $500 rent increases from one month to another and sudden evictions without cause to long-time tenants. In the last two weeks, we surveyed over 2,600 voters in the city. 55% of those that are tenants told us that they have experienced at least one rent increase within the last year.

And of the total surveyed, many of them feel that their local officials need to identify a solution to this problem. The state law, AB 1482, will provide some of those protections for tenants. However, there are more than three months before the law is implemented, leaving over 180,000 tenants in Santana vulnerable to unjust evictions and excessive rent increases. We urge you to join other tenant-friendly cities in the state that have passed similar ordinances like the City of Los Angeles, Redwood City, Daly City, and City of Milpitas. LAT has been working with the Public Law Center, and we are ready to provide draft language

for an ordinance that includes 2.1, a rent increase limit to the current local CPI of 3.3% from October 9th, from when the law was signed, to December 31st of this year, and 2, protection from evictions without cause as defined in the state law. We ask you to direct staff to bring back an ordinance for approval by the next City Council meeting so that we can address this urgent matter in our city. Thank you.

Thank you. Marien Rikas, followed by Lasta Nicholson, followed by Silvia Arandaño.

as a familyhood. I live in a house of low resources. I have received a notification of the increase of rent of my house and to pay the difference of the deposit. The same increase has been made. I know I'm one of the people in the community that can

be desalojated by not being able to pay the house. I speak for all the de cientos de que represento al mi distrito y también a una red de vecinos que consta que la vivienda ha sido un descontrol y ha ocasionado muchos estragos a nuestra comunidad. Gracias al gobernador Nexon, quien implementó la ley estatal AB 1482. Pido el apoyo a todos ustedes. Aprobar una ordenancia de urgencia para proteger a los inquilinos de las ciudades santanas mientras esperamos el implemento de la ley estatal AB 1482.

¿Quién está de acuerdo a que todos podemos sostener la ordenancia aquí? ¿Pueden pararse de pie los que me apoyan para que haya la ordenancia?

Con motivo de esto, hemos estado pidiendo a ustedes, por estas fechas está mucha la comunidad, está quedando sin poder pagar la vivienda, and the costs have been very high. That's why I ask you in these actions that come from the Christmas Day, the Action of Gracias, and I ask you to support this temporary order for the benefit of all our community in the city of Santa Ana. Thank you.

Good evening, members of the City Council. My name is Maria Enriquez, and I've lived in Santa Ana for 22 years, and my council person is not here. So I ask your support to improve the quality of life for our district. As a tenant, I've lived the last few years with great concern because of the cost of living. I am a proud mother, a widow, a proud mother of two children. I'm the only source of income for my family. I've lived in a low-income family, and I've just received notification regarding the rent increase, and I have to also pay the differential on the deposit as well.

Because of this increase, I might be kicked out of my place if I do not pay the increase for the district that I represent, the place that I have. I'm speaking not only on my behalf but also the hundreds of tenants that are experiencing rent increase and the lack of control that is causing a lot of trouble in our community and thanks to Governor Newsom who implemented state law AB 1482 I'll ask for your support in protecting tenants in the city of Santa Ana while we await the implementation of AB 1482

and now the difficult times are coming. We are a few days from Thanksgiving and Christmas and the holidays. We're families. We want to share time with our loved ones without the concern or fear of being kicked out of our places because we cannot pay the rent. Other cities are also passing urgency ordinances similar to this. So I ask for this temporary ordinance that will benefit many in our community.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Thank you. Good evening. My name is Ugochi Anabara-Nicholson, and I'm an attorney with the Public Law Center. Good evening, Mayor Pro Tempe-Viegas and council members. We stand in solidarity with the tenants that you've heard from and the tenants that are coming to speak regarding the need for an urgency ordinance in advance of AB 1482 coming into effect on January 1, 2020. After the governor signed the law on October 9th, a lot of advocates, including myself and my office, a public law center, we saw that landlords were trying to end run around the protections provided under AB 1482,

specifically the rent cap of 5% plus cost of living and the just cause eviction protections that will exist for housing that is eligible to be covered under the law. We seek the request to protect tenants who have been served with 60-day notices to quit, 30-day notices to quit, and exorbitant rent increases. Those exorbitant rent increases have led to gross gentrification and devastating displacement investment for residents who are unable to meet their rent obligations because the increases

are way more than their wages can sustain and way more than what the housing actually deserves. Many of the housing stock is dilapidated and it's aging and it's old in stock. And so we end up going into court being unable to defend an individual who's been given a 30 day or 60 day notice with no cost stated. And your support for an urgency ordinance would help residents understand and know that this council stands behind them and supports

an even playing field for when they are going into court faced with an eviction. Other cities recognize that landlords have tried to end run around the protections may be 1482 and as a result of that end run immediately enacted emergency ordinances Los Angeles Milpitas San Mateo is actually considering one and has also and has put forth one for no for November 4th I don't know if they've passed it but they put one forth because everybody understands that the need to protect

tenants from these exorbitant rent increases as well as lack of cause for the eviction is necessary to keep people secure and safe in their homes. Thank you very much. Thank you. Silvia Arandaño followed by Fausto Ramirez followed by Teresa Gonzalez. Buenas tardes, alcalde Pulido y concejales de Santana. Mi nombre es Silvia Bendaño y he vivido más de 20 años en Santana. En primer lugar, quiero agradecerle a Vicente Sarmiento, que es el que me representa, por haber contestado personalmente la llamada que le hice.

Y estoy agradecida porque está al tanto de las familias que representan su distrito. Muchas gracias, señor Vicente Sarmiento.

I live 20 years, as I said, in Santana. I lived 17 years in a house that was in La Men, and in which I was desalojated for a year. And I speak in representation of the women, which are called the women of La Men. My neighbors were desalojated only in May of this year. And it's a drama. I would like to hear you. It's a drama. It's a drama. It's a drama. It's a drama that the children of these families, that sum up 15, old and old and old, they're looking for a place for more than a year, a home.

It's something very, very, very, very desperate to lose everything. These families have been more than 20 years, more than I am, and now they're looking for a place. And I ask you to please support the order of emergency protection of the inquilinos of Santana, so that, while implementing the law AB 1482, there is something that will be empowered to these families in these times, which is very difficult. If you have lived a lot of people, I know, but I have seen my children and children

to cry, to lose their mascot, I ask you to please support this emergency that is happening in Santa Ana, for the high cost of rent, for the injustices, I ask you to please touch the heart and support you. Thank you.

Silvia Beldaño, and I've lived in Santa Ana for over 20 years. My representative is Vicente Sarmiento, and I want to thank you because you personally answered my call, and you're always looking after the concerns of families in your district, so thank you for that. And I've lived in here because of the concern from the families. I lived in a house in Maine for 17 years, and I was evicted. a year ago. And since May, the families have been evicted as well from my same street. And it's very difficult. This is a whole drama that happens

when you get evicted. I don't know if it's happened to you, but you have elderly people and their pets are being kicked out. They've been looking for somewhere to live for over a year. And it's a desperate situation. And these people who have been living there for 20 years now they're looking for a place to live. So please, I don't know if you've lived through an eviction, but you have people who are there suffering, the kids are crying, they're losing their pets, you have elderly people, they have people who need help. So please help us pass this emergency ordinance to protect the tenants in Santa Ana.

Fausto Ramirez, followed by Teresa González, followed by Anaceli Robles.

with a great concern for the cost of the housing. I thank the Consej Alpeñalosa for receiving our call and putting in point in the agenda. The rent is always increasing. And it is possible to work more time to pay the rent.

and also working more time, but at the same time we are losing our children, our families, that is short of time.

A few times, gas or water is increased, and at the same time we are increasing. No, we don't know if it's normal or just a pretext.

We are on a few days of action of grace, Christmas and all these festive times, where all the families want to share together with our loved ones, without anguish or fear of being desalojated or not paying rent. Other cities are also passing orders of similar emergency. Les pido que apoyen esta ordenanza temporal que nos beneficiará a muchos en nuestra comunidad. A todos los concejales que nos apoyen en estos meses.

Que piensen en la gente de bajos recursos. Estos meses que no nos preocupe por pasar lo que es noviembre, diciembre.

y quiero también que nos apoyen antes de que empiece la nueva ley de la AB 1482. Gracias.

Good evening, Mayor Polito, members of the City Council. My name is Fauston. I've lived in Santa Ana for 20 years. My council representative is David Peñalosa. So I ask for your support for improving the quality of life for the people in the district that you represent. As a tenant, I've lived for the last few years with great concern because of the cost of living. And Mr. Peñalosa, thank you for receiving our call and for putting this item on the agenda. Rent is always increasing. It's impossible to work more time to be able to afford the rent. If we work more time, we have less time to be with our kids and be with our families.

and then when the rent goes up everything else goes up the gas goes up and water goes up and I don't know if it's normal that that happens or just an excuse to increase increase the costs thank you let me call on Teresa Gonzalez followed by Araceli Robles well you're done you're not almost you're longer than the speaker I'm being thorough yeah the Thanksgiving is coming Christmas is coming and we don't want to spend time away from our families being concerned and being in fear of being evicted. To all the council people, please support us in these coming months, November

and December. Please consider the low-income people. Consider that we don't want to be with these concerns and please support the people while this law comes into effect, 1482.

Teresa Gonzalez.

Thank you.

I have three children, which I don't want to take care of. And I would like to have a house for my children and for me, without sharing with other families. It is a sad to me that my child, who I have here with six years, I would like to say, because we cannot have a house like my friend. And I would like to say, because the costs of the house are very high and I don't have enough money. and that he tells me, I have 100 dollars to give them. I feel sad and impotency at the same time. Thank you.

And I would like to ask you to approve the Urgencia for Protección of Inquilinos in Santana while we wait for the implementation of the Estatal AB 1482. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Pulido, members of the City Council. My name is Teresa Gonzalez. I've lived in Santa Ana for 12 years, and my City Council representative is you, Mr. Juan Villegas. So we ask for your help and support the families that live in the district that you represent. I'm very concerned by the high cost of housing, and I'm part of a neighborhood committee in Santa Ana that have been meeting in the last few months to try to find solutions to the cost of living. And our neighborhoods have had a lot of unjustified evictions, and I live in a house where we used to pay $3,000 per month,

and we share this rent among three families. On December 1st, we have to come up with $500 more per month. I am a single mother, and I work to be able to support my three children, and I don't want to leave them alone so much. And I would like to have my own place for my children so we don't have to share it with other families. It is so sad to see my son, my six-year-old son, who's here with me, asking, why can't we have our own place like my friend does? And I said, because the cost of housing is very high, I don't have the money. He says, I have $100, I can give it to you so we can move somewhere else.

So I'd like to ask for your support for this urgency ordinance to protect tenants in Santa Ana. but with the implementation of AB 1482.

Araceli Robles.

Buenas noches, mi nombre es Araceli Robles. Yo vivo aquí en la ciudad de Santana por 18 años. Les quiero dar las gracias al señor Sarmiento y al señor Peñalosa por poner este punto en la agenda el día de hoy porque realmente se nota la importancia que tiene para las personas que representan. I am not a conceit, but I feel that everyone represents me, not just one. And we are here to tell you that we need to support you. I just have been desalojada, and I am not a lot of money, and I have been a lot of money. And what I have been doing is that my daughter was the one who received the letter.

No one of us, it is not a lot of people who are leaving school. other things that I want to ask for the question, Mr. Villegas, Mr. Solorio, who unfortunately has been out of the room, but I hope that I can hear you. And the Mr. Iglesias, please, please, have a delicacy of answer. Mr. Pulido, when you have a delicacy of at least, when we want to contact them. Not only to the voice of the people who have more money, but also the community. The community has a lot of respect and value.

We are asking them to be really that they have a control of rent, because the obligation of you is to protect your community. And not only when they are in campaign, they are not promised and they are not fulfilled. I have been here with the Council of Villegas, the Council of Solorio, I've never heard that they've been ating us in a way of respect and that they're the first time we call them as a community. I invite you to listen to us. We are not doing a favor. You decided to represent us and represent us in that room to represent the rights and the needs of us.

I said, if I'm going to get to the house of the Mr. Pulido, I'm going to put a camp. I'm not going to be here because I have no family here who can help me to pay $8,000, that I have to pay for a apartment that I'm living right now, and that I have to separate my children from my children because I have no money enough to have them with me. And that nobody will pay me, and that no one will pay me. And that's not what I'm going to pay for, and that's what I'm going to pay for. Thank you.

My name is Tarselio Robles and I've lived in Santa Ana for 18 years and Mr. Sarmiento and Mr. Peñalosa thank you for putting this item on the agenda because you realize how important it is for your community. I do not name my representative because I believe that you all represent me and we're here because we need your support. I was just evicted and I had a rent increase and I was still evicted after they increased my rent. And the sad part and what angers me the most is that my daughter is the one who received the letter

and no daughter, no kid should be receiving letters like that when they come from school informing them that they're being evicted. So Mr. Villegas, Mr. Solorio who stepped out of the room, Ms. Iglesias, we ask you, Mr. Polito, we ask you that you answer when the community comes and asks for your help, and not just answer to the developers and people with money. So we do need rent control. We need to protect your community, because that's why you're in this chair, to represent the community. Mr. Villegas, Mr. Solorio, you are not answering the community when they come to you.

so please we ask you to listen to our please because we want you to represent us and represent our needs. If I'm evicted one more time I'm going to have to move into Polito's place and have a pitch a tent over there because just like one right now I had to pay $8,000 to move into the apartment that I am now. I am separated from my kids because I cannot afford to have them with me. So if I'm evicted I'm moving to your place. Thank you. Joshua Gonzalez followed by Jorge Rivera.

Hi, my name is Joshua, and I'm saying that I'm worried about how much money we're wasting for rent because we can't afford that much for my shoes

and for food for my family.

Thank you.

Hi, good evening. My name is Jorge Rivera. I am the Southern California Regional Coordinator for Tenants Together, and I'm here in support and in solidarity with all of the tenants of Santa Ana. We sent in a letter in support of the passing of an emergency ordinance earlier today or yesterday.

The governor and all of California knew that AB 1482 was going to pass well before it was signed. Even the California Apartment Association was in support of AB 1482. And it was back then in early September that we started across the state because we are a statewide tenants rights organization. We started to see the unjust evictions and the rent increases from way back then.

And it was shortly after in the month of October that landlord attorney Dennis Block started going all around telling the apartment owners that they needed to evict their tenants right away before this law came into place. We understand that very well that the implementation and the enforcement of this bill was not as well thought out when it was being put together, and they left this big old gap that now cities all across the state are struggling to try to remedy.

To date, 10 cities all across the state, including two cities that are listening to an emergency ordinance tonight in Long Beach and also in Alhambra, have already passed an emergency moratorium on unjust evictions and rent increases. And so we're asking you all to do the same tonight, at least to put it on the agenda. So, then, thank you so much for bringing this to the agenda.

And, you know, if without your support, it is left up to the tenants to try to defend themselves. And the only way that they defend themselves is in an eviction court. And I don't know if any of you have ever sat in an eviction court, but it's not favorable to tenants, especially if they don't have any legal representation. And legal representation means that they have to take time off of work. It means that they actually have to pay for legal representation. and not to mention all the stress that comes with having to deal with trying to move out and trying to defend themselves.

So by you passing this ordinance, what you're doing is not necessarily solving their problems, but you're giving them an extra tool so that they can defend themselves when they get to that process. And also keep in mind that these eviction notices and these rent increases are all coming during the holidays when children such as Joshua, the young man that came up here just recently, have to deal with all of this during Christmas and Thanksgiving. So we stand in strong support of the request from the community to pass an emergency ordinance, a moratorium to halt these no-fault and unjust evictions and these exorbitant rent increases.

We urge you to roll back the effective date of the ordinance to no later than September 1st. So if there are any tenants that are currently in possession of their property, whose 60-day notices have already expired, that this passing of an emergency ordinance will actually give them a fighting chance to stay in their homes during the holidays. Thank you so very much. Thank you.

Sari Arpero, followed by Usun Ramos.

I'm sorry.

my name is saraya arparo and i work for latino health taxes and my colleagues and people have said it all. We're here to ask you to implement this emergency ordinance to protect us with AB 1482. This is to protect our kids and our families that are suffering because of this housing issue. We have housing protection. I work with housing protection with the elderly and I see a lot of elderly cases and a lot of these are unjust evictions that are happening And we need the protection now to protect these families, to protect my family. I work here. I live here.

And at least during this emergency protection, at least we'll be protected from unjust rent increases. And at least we won't be evicted for these two months, even if they do increase the rent. We won't be evicted. The elderly are suffering here. And the elderly are suffering, so they could not be here to speak to you. and some families also have to work two and three jobs to pay the rent so they cannot be here as well.

After Ms. Ramos, Airo Cortez.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. My name is Isuri Ramos and I'm here tonight speaking as a lifelong Santana resident and also as a former Community Redevelopment and Housing Commissioner, one that was elected to serve as the commission chair two times. So I mentioned my service on the commission because I saw firsthand the efforts that the city is making to address our housing crisis. I sat on that dais and voted to recommend funding for affordable housing developments, permanent supportive housing, and homeless services, and I commend all of the work that you're doing.

The solution to our housing crisis, however, and the city's approach to homelessness must be comprehensive and must also include tenant protections. Our governor signed AB 1482 last month to provide these protections to tenants beginning January 1, 2020. But as you've heard tonight, tenants need immediate protection from excessive rent increases and no-fault evictions until AB 1482 is implemented. We've seen the city and some of you council members take both stances in the past, and I ask that you do that again tonight. Tonight you have the ability to take action and direct staff to work towards approving an urgency ordinance

to provide these protections to your most vulnerable constituents. Thank you.

Airo Cortez followed by Ana Ursula.

After Ana Roberto Herrera.

Good evening, Mayor and Councilmembers. Thank you for taking this item on tonight's agenda. I too am here to support this urgency tenant protection ordinance. My name is Ana Ursua. I'm a resident of Santana, and I'm also working with the Santa Ana Building Healthy Communities. It's an initiative representing over 20 nonprofit organizations and community residents in the city. As you have heard, AB 1482 is one of the responses that our state is having for the housing crisis. that we're experiencing, and what has been happening and what it's been met with is that entire buildings are being evicted

in preparation for these tenant protections, especially for the limits on rent gouging. We just heard from several cases tonight. 405 West 10th Street is an apartment building with 20 units. everybody received eviction notices building building and property owners are preparing to be able to remodel and increase those rents in order to get higher paying client power playing paying tenants we need protection for residents that have lived their entire lives here in this city that have lived 20 years that are raising their children in this city there is several

organizations that are supporting tonight's urgency ordinance including the Public Law Center, Chispa, Kennedy Commission, Resilience Orange County, Vecindario Lacey and Acción, Tenants Together, Pico California, Orange County Environmental Justice, Clergy and Lady United for Economic Justice, Grece Orange County, El Centro Cultural de Mexico, Kid Works, Tenants United Santana, Santana active streets and Santana building healthy communities we urge you to take this vote tonight and to bring much-needed protection to our families thank you

after Roberto Luis Armiento hi City Council members my name is Roberto I'm the director of community engagement at Resilience Orange County and for the past year we've been working in the Sullivan community councilmember Juan Villegas you represent part of the Sullivan community so as well as the empty seat that we have on the city dais and a lot of the residents over this year have identified housing conditions as their primary issue to address as a community through a CBI project that Residence Orange County is supporting and so part of that Sullivan community includes mobile homes apartments single

family homes and condominiums and the current state law does not include protections for mobile homes and so your emergency ordinance today which should include those protections for mobile homes to protect the Sullivan community that you know is so graciously looking for your support so I'm here to as an organization lend our support to this emergency ordinance thank you

Luis

for Marisela Castro

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Hope you're all doing well. This evening, I'm also here

to support this urgent protection ordinance. I can think of at least five close friends who have faced evictions or are currently facing evictions. And we're talking about community leaders, people who are examples in their neighborhood of leadership, people that the city should be lifting up. And nevertheless, these are folks that are facing displacement from our city due to the lack of protections. This matter is urgent. We need development in our city without displacement, and that means protecting our residents.

So I want to urge you to support this urgent ordinance tonight. Thank you. Thank you.

Buenas noches. My name is Marisela Castro, I've lived in Santana 18 years and my representative in the council is you, Mr. Conceal David Peña Loza. So today I ask you to help and improve the lives of families that live in the district that represent. I am a member of the group Vela, vecindario Ley Sin Acción. We work to improve the conditions of living in our vecindario. I want to thank my Mr. Peña Loza and Mr. Sarmiento for listening to our petition to support this emergency order that protects the inquilinos of the increase of rent and

the injustices and the council of Solorio Villegas, Iglesias and the Alcalde Pulido, who have not answered our calls and emails and emails, to support this emergency order

Good evening, my name is Maricela Castro and I've lived in San Ana for 18 years. My representative is Council Member David Peñalosa, so I am asking for your help to improve the quality of life for the people who live in your district. I'm a member of Grupo Vela, Lazy Neighborhood in Action, and we work to improve the living conditions in our neighborhood. I'd like to thank my Council Member Peñalosa and Council Member Sarmiento for having listened to our petition and to support us in this emergency ordinance to protect tenants from rent increases and unjustified evictions.

And I ask Council Members Solorio, Villegas, Iglesias, and Mayor Pulido, who have not answered our calls or emails, to support this ordinance that will benefit over 50% of the residents of Santa Ana who are tenants. I ask for your support for the emergency ordinance to protect the tenants in Santa Ana while we await the implementation of AB 1482. Good evening, and thank you for listening.

Thank you, and with that, that was the last speaker. So I'll bring it back to Councilor Benavides and Sarmiento. Peña Losa. I'm looking at his chambers, man.

David PenalozaItem —

Sorry about that. Go ahead, David. That's like the fifth time he's done that this year. I'm about to lose my mind.

David PenalozaItem —

Okay. 85B.

David PenalozaItem —

Discuss and consider directing the city attorney and city manager to prepare an urgency ordinance concerning implementation of Assembly Bill 1482. too.

David PenalozaItem —

dando su voz cuando es posible. So muchas gracias. I just basically thank the residents for coming out tonight, for using their voice as they're supposed to as citizens of Santa Ana, and coming forward and telling us their stories of similar instances that I've seen in families that I know, and things that happened to my family when I was much younger. So thank you for that. But with that said, I wanted to basically bring this forward because of assembly.

David PenalozaItem —

There has been chatter and concerns in the community about abrupt eviction notices given to residents of the city. And because of the assembly bill that's going to take place, the Tenant Protections Act on the 1st of January 2020. And it was troubling to see. And I wanted to hear if those things were actually happening, if those eviction notices were happening. Why? I mean, I know why, but it's not right. And especially leading up to the end of the year, these last two months, holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's,

David PenalozaItem —

it is troubling to me to hear of people getting eviction notices and whatnot. I don't know if, I haven't heard directly from residents, aside from the ones that spoke tonight, about this potentially, or them receiving eviction notices. But if they are happening, I want to be aware of them. Thank you for those that spoke about it. And it's important that us as a council, we look at our residents and really see where these issues are and what's happening.

David PenalozaItem —

Those are my comments. I would like to see if Madam City Attorney and Madam City Manager, what we could exactly do, or what the key points of the Assembly Bill are. I know what they are, but I wanted, for the record, to hear legal, and what would be our available options to put into place. And I know some of my colleagues might have something to say, so I'd like to hear from them.

Why don't we take more comment, and then when you hear more comment, may you can respond.

Council Member Sarmiento, please. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I think, you know, the Council Member said it well, and I want to thank him for addressing this first and putting this on the agenda and allowing me to join as a co-sponsor on this.

I simply want to thank y agradecer a todos que vinieron a hablar. Gracias por su testimonio. Estamos igual con el mismo temor que ustedes tienen porque lo que está pasando, lo que puede pasar si no se pasa esta ordenanza es la verdad hacer decaer nuestros vecindarios, nuestras viviendas, nuestros hogares, y eso es lo peor que uno puede vivir.

So I think the direction that I thought was for us to bring back for consideration an ordinance that would prevent unjust evictions and any rent spiking. The problem is I'm a little troubled by the bill. I'm a little concerned that there was this gap left when it was drafted, and local communities are left to kind of address these. and I wish the legislature would have been a little bit more thorough and anticipated that some of these abuses were going to take place. And so I think that this is going to be the law.

It's effective January 1st, so we really should try to make sure that we may not agree with it. And I know some of my colleagues have their very good reasons that they believe, and I respect that. But to the extent that this is going to be the law of the state, we should take steps to make sure that there isn't any abuse between now and the time of implementation. So that's simply put. I think a lot of us follow the law. We sometimes don't agree with certain laws. But once it's adopted by our legislature, it really is the law in California.

So to the extent that we don't want to see families displaced, abused because there was a gap left, that just doesn't seem right. And I think that's where we all have to sort of think about is this the right thing to do to allow folks to take advantage of maybe a loophole or something that was missed by this legislation. So that would be my reason for supporting it, and I certainly appreciate the council member for putting it on. And that would be my direction to staff to simply bring it back to us at the next meeting so we could consider it and address it then.

Additional comment?

David PenalozaItem —

I just wanted to, again, echo what Council Member Sarmiento said. Obviously, the legal background, he could say it so much better. But that's basically what I wanted to see as well. Just coming from a personal perspective, and I mentioned this earlier to a friend that back in 2007, my ex-girlfriend and her family lived at the apartment specifically on Broadway and First, right across the street, right above, that's it above the furniture store. and I remember her dad painted the apartment really nice. He did it without letting the landlord know

David PenalozaItem —

because it was just, they needed to be painted. They needed a fresh coat of paint. So he painted it really nice and added crown molding and whatnot. A couple days later, she says, oh, we're moving. I was like, wait, why? Your dad just painted the apartment. It looks really nice. And she said, well, everyone's moving. Everyone in the apartment building is moving. We got notices from the landlord, the owner, that we need to leave because we're going to remodel the whole place. Long story short, we are all familiar with the apartments at Broadway and First, known as the Artist Village now or the Artist Village Apartments.

David PenalozaItem —

They couldn't afford to move back in. They were able to relocate in the central part of Santa Ana, a little further south. so they were fortunate but you know those are instances where other families do not have that that ability to find another place quickly and that they could afford so uh I want to concur with what councilmember Sarmiento said I would like this to come back to council as a with the just cause of fiction notice or it for that would go through the December 31st of this year

Thank you for that. Let me allow others to speak. Mayor Pro Tem, Villegas, please. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Anna Ursua mentioned something about 20 people, 20 apartments being evicted. I'd like to look into that.

When I first heard about this or read about that the council members put this on the agenda, it really made me curious because I know the sheriff's department evicts people and serves eviction notices. That's part of their job. They have a civil division that does that, and they go out and they give the notices. I'm just wondering how many people receive those notices under these circumstances in the city of Santa Ana. And everyone here that knows me knows I'll take a meeting with you. If you call me, I always take a meeting. I know some of the folks who send a letter. It takes time for me. I get a lot of emails.

My calendar is open. And, you know, my calendar is free to see that people know that I take a lot of meetings. I think last year I took 400 and something meetings last year. Okay. And that's a lot of meetings. But also the people here that know me, and I know Isudi and all the other folks that are involved in this. No, I'm not a fan of rent control. And I'm not a fan of the just cause evictions and all that stuff. because I also believe that there needs to be a balance because people that own property, people that own businesses, they also take a risk. They take a risk when they take people onto their property. They could be sued.

They could be a number of things. So both sides. It's very unfortunate what's happening or what I hear is happening, but I like to see the evidence first. I mean, I'm curious to see actually how many people are actually falling under this, if this is really going on. Because then, you know, then I don't like that. And everyone knows that I'm not a fan of the slumlords. If you are, we've been through this before. If you're an apartment owner and you do not take care of your residents, if you don't take care of the property, then you're going to have a problem with me. And I don't appreciate that.

We'll be sending code enforcement all the time then to make sure that the living conditions. Problem is that when these people have to fix these up, you know they want to raise their rent. And look, I rent, and I've had my rent raised three times in the last couple of years. And that's just the way it is. I could choose to go somewhere else, or I could choose to, you know, stay. It's just life. I hate to say it, but that's for me personally. Everyone else has a story. I'd like to hear it but I also want to you know I have to try to weigh things out from both sides you know people they want they want you know you get all

these groups throughout the state of California pushing to have this issue you know the rent control thing go forward but then you know the governor signed something that you know had maybe wasn't well thought out I heard a gentleman say there was some loopholes or some things maybe he had to clean it up. Maybe the governor ought to clean it up. Why are we doing this?

That's just it. I mean, it's putting it on our lap. And I hate to say that, and I say it with all due respect to the governor, but it's true. So those are my comments, Mr. Mayor, and I'd like some information. If you have it, I'm free to receive it. Thank you.

All right. Councilman Cési Iglesias and then José Solorio.

So, I want to thank those who came here for their testimony, what was happening with their situation.

But what I would like to know, as the Vice President of the Vice President, is that I would like to see the evidence first of the people who gave the notification to get them. Thank you.

So, I'm just going to say it in English. I just want to thank everyone that was here and giving us their testimony on what's going on with the situation. But I would like to see first evidence, like Council Member Villegas said, of the individuals who have received the eviction notice. And I also shared that a lot of this happens, rent increases, everything goes up, property increases. Why? Because there's groups out there that are always trying to get push for minimum wage increase. When the minimum wage goes up, everything else goes up.

And that's just the reality. And I'm very concerned because you have individuals pushing for minimum wage, pushing for more gas increase, and then you'll see this is what happens. And it's sad that it's happening here in our city, but I'm with Council Member Villegas. I'm not a fan of the landlords who don't take care of their property, so I would also like to have more increase of our code enforcement out there. And also with just cause, I believe there's a process in place right now that is with the Sheriff's Department that helps us with that.

And then also, I think we're just with, what, 60, not even within 60 days of what the new law is going to take into effect, which is January 1st, right? So I would like to see, I mean by the time we put this into place, the law is already going to be there. So I just feel that it's something that we're a little bit too late into the game, into discussing this. So I would, before we have anything, I would like to see brought up to us other information. But right now I'm not comfortable with this. Thank you.

All right. Council Member Jose.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have some questions and then some comments as well. So I do think for the authors of this and the advocates, I think everyone's intentions are pure. We're trying to help. But I think the timing and this policy, just timing-wise, it's off.

And just to kind of walk through some timeline scenarios, whether through our city attorney or city manager, they can speak to it. We don't have really an ordinance to vote on today. I know there was references on vote on something today, but we have nothing to vote on. Today would be when we give direction to staff to do that. So likely needs to come, needs to be written, brought back, and then a second hearing. And I think there's some time between the first and the second hearing. So can you speak a little bit to the usual scenarios that legally were binded to on the timeline?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Okay, so I just want to make sure I understand your question. You're talking about the timing of the ordinance, if you're doing an urgency ordinance. Under the city's charter, the city council can dispense with the normal first reading, second reading, 30-day requirement. In order to take advantage of Section 301 of your charter, you would need to make findings that this is an issue that is directly addressing a health, safety, or welfare issue, which I believe you could potentially make those findings. You would also need five votes of the city council to pass such an urgency ordinance.

So maybe in two weeks, let's say, you could come back with an ordinance, and with that vote requirement, it could come in. But then to speak to, I know there was interest in us putting stronger eviction language that would be mandated onto property owners. Do we have that authority, especially in mobile home parks? I think that's the jurisdiction of the state, and that was the area that was brought up.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

So the current law would allow landlords to serve what we call 30 or 60 day eviction notices on tenants who don't have leases. 30 days if you have lived in a property less than 12 months. 60 days is required if it's more than 12 months. The new law that's going to take effect on January 1st, 2020, basically says you cannot just simply provide those 30 or 60 day notices just because. Right now you can do that just because.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

So the issue that you would be addressing, or at least like what I should say more correctly, is what some cities have done is they have adopted these urgency ordinances that are identical to the state ordinance, but simply saying that you would prohibit evictions where those notices were already given, but people have not yet vacated their tenancy. They're still living there. So anyone who received an eviction notice prior to the 60 days, October 30th to December 30th,

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

if they received an eviction notice before that date and might otherwise be evicted in the holiday period, these urgency ordinances would protect them, even though those notices might have already been given.

That's in those cities. In those cities. We're here a little bit later.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Yes, and I will tell you that the law is not...

Talk about mobile home parks. Can we dictate policy on mobile home parks, or is that the state's?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

So they're going to be separate. So if you do an urgency ordinance that's identical to the state law, then it's not going to apply to hotels, certain nonprofits, dorms, rental of rooms, single-family residences that are owned by individuals and not corporations or investment trusts, REITs, or like an owner-occupied duplex. Those are going to be exempted from this law. That's one thing that you could do. And I can give you some examples of cities that have done that, including recently the city of Los Angeles, Redwood City, Daly City, Bell Garden, Santa Cruz, and the city of Pomona. They've done that.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Separate and apart from that, there are other rent control laws that you could apply to mobile homes and other things. Adopting an ordinance of that nature when I call those other things, my opinion, requires a little more time, and you need to make sure that the findings are solid to support them. So if the City Council asked me to prepare an urgency ordinance that was identical to the state ordinance, I would say to you that's pretty easy and doable, and we can get that done very quickly. If you were to ask me, oh, can we then look into an urgency ordinance that would otherwise have these other protections,

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

there is some preparation I would need to do. I'd need to work with staff. Don't quite know whether we could get the economic analysis and findings together to do that in two weeks. But certainly an urgency ordinance that fills the loophole in the state law, speaking to Councilmember Sarmiento, that is doable and what other cities have done.

You still haven't answered the piece about mobile home parks.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Mobile home specifically, as I read AB 1482, I don't think it applies to mobile home parks. I'd have to look deeper into the legislation. I could do that if you asked me to do that. But it looks like at this point I don't believe it does.

But can we regulate mobile home parks?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

or is that this yes so a city a charter city can regulate rents at mobile home

parks the law yes you may okay but that's probably not in the it may be separate and apart from this right yeah yes you may okay and then there was also interest in making some of these provisions retroactive saying that landlords have to essentially undo eviction notices that maybe they have already given can we do ordinances that have a retroactive requirement under the

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

way that this curtain law is drafted yes because you could actually prohibit the eviction from occurring even if someone is given that notice you could say in order to have the eviction actually take place you would have to show cause as defined in the state law you would adopt that in your urgency ordinance I just

I think, timing-wise, it's a challenge. And we continue to see, like with the state policy, that sometimes there are unintended consequences. And so this rent control law, what it has created is rental increases, evictions. I think there are better alternatives, some of which we've done in the city and we need to do more of. For example, in the past, for Firmini Street and Townsend, and we've done public-private partnerships where we've made those units affordable and rehabilitated them so that folks can live in decent apartments. I think that's important. We also just launched a Safely Home in Santa Ana program

where if there are families in good standing that there's some catastrophic financial issue that the city via some nonprofits would give them direct financial assistance so that they won't be evicted. I think that that's very positive. We talked about rental inspection programs and code enforcement. That's something that we can definitely do more of. And then on the economic side, economic development, local hires, we need to do other things that really help. Some of these policies, even what Sacramento just did, may sound good in theory, but in practice, because we're in a marketplace, they don't always work out.

Many of you also probably know that there's a separate movement already to put a separate rental control initiative on the November 2020 ballot. And so there's really already kind of a weathering away of support for the state law that many here supported. So I just don't think that this is the best approach. We have nothing in writing to vote on today. Just a little bit in Spanish because I know many folks here speak in Spanish. I think the intentions are positive, what they want to do, but this time, there is no enough time to do this correctly.

The city has other programs that have done in the past and that can be done in the future. Program to give direct assistance to residents. También programas donde apartamentos que son privados, que la ciudad ayude para comprar parte de esos apartamentos, hacerlos con rentas más estables y menos. Porque muchas veces cosas se oyen bonitas, pero pasa otra cosa diferente. Por ejemplo, pasó esta ley de renta y lo que están mirando son incrementos de la renta y más evicciones.

So, you know, we saw that that law, well-intentioned, and it really, rather than reducing rent or keeping it stable, it led to increases in rents and evictions. And we have nothing to vote on today, so I can't support this concept. Thank you.

I'm going to, let me say my two cents here.

Please, keep your comments to yourself. Nobody interrupted you when you came forward. That's okay, Juan. We're okay.

Thank you. I have great respect for Council Member Sarmiento and Peña Losa. And I know that what you're bringing before us is with good intention. But I respectfully disagree. And so I would fall on the vote of, let's say, what Juan and Ceci and, to some extent, Jose said. So with that, I think you have two yeses and four noes. So with that, let's move on to the next item.

70... 85B. Thank you, please. That was 85B.

so it's housing authority.

All right, so let's go to the housing authority.

Peter Katz, followed by Kim McPeck.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Mayor, did you already address the housing authority agenda?

No, we want a moment.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. As you know, this weekend is Veterans Day on Monday. And what can you do to remember all of those that have served? You can tell a veteran thank you for their service. And you can attend one of the veterans events that we have throughout the county here, beginning with Saturday, November 9th, from 10 to 1 at the Heritage Museum, where we will be honoring our Mexican-American soldiers of World War II.

Also at the fairgrounds on Saturday from 10 to 3, the Orange County Fairgrounds will be a commemorative service to unveil the restoration of the fighter jet that sat out here in front of the Orange County Board of Supervisors office will be restored at the Heritage Museum at the fairgrounds and will be unveiled. It's been completely restored and that will take place at 11 o'clock on Saturday. Monday, November 11th, Fairhaven and other cemeteries will be honoring veterans because the day actually falls on Monday. And then Thursday, November 21st, at the Comlink tribute to our veterans of Santa Ana,

we have a special presentation by one of our honorable veterans in the city. Chief Valentin will tell us his military experience. And we will also have the Mexican consulate present the presentation of the Lost Eagles documentary of the Mexican Air Force, the only time Mexico fought outside its country, helped MacArthur liberate the Philippines in World War II. and we'll also have a tribute to the Tuskegee Airmen at that event. And we'll also have Jamboree Housing will be there to unveil the honor bricks that will be laid at the Veteran Housing Project on First Street, which is nearing completion.

And so they will be selling bricks to raise money for veterans organizations and they will lay those bricks at the entranceway of that project.

and so I just wanted to say in closing that veterans deal with demons every day whether they're past whether they're present whether they're tomorrow whether you're homeless whether you sit on this council whether you're out here or at home so don't be quick to judge don't be quick to blame don't be quick to ridicule try to understand what it takes to serve this country and protect the freedoms and democracy that we all cherish. So take the time to thank people like Juan, like myself, that gave so much to serve this country. So I want to thank all veterans out there. Thank you.

Let me do the Housing Authority meeting really quick because I missed it earlier. I'd like to convene the Housing Authority and just take motion on the regular minutes of the meeting and also the excused absences, and I'd like to excuse council members that are not here. Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Those opposed, motion carries. It was all green, Madam Clerk. So with that, I'll turn things over to our Mayor Pro Tem.

Kim McPeck.

Followed by Leopoldo. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Council. I am Kim McPeck. My wife and I and my family have lived in a house down on South Ross Street since 1988. Last month, my wife and I celebrated our 36th wedding anniversary, and last month I also celebrated the completion of my 31st year working for the City of Santa Ana in the Public Works Agency Street Maintenance Division.

I have some good memories here with the city of Santa Ana. The Christmas parade, for those of you that remember that. Going to the kids' school for career day. I also have some sad memories. I spent two days and two nights at the Santa Ana Auto Mall, cleaning up after the In-N-Out plane crash. Memories I'll carry with me the rest of my life. you know throughout history we know people that stood up like Rosa Parks stood up on the bus refused to get in the back Cesar Chavez didn't just stand up for himself but he stood up for

a lot of people think what we'd be like today if some of those people didn't stand up but here in the city of Santa Ana where I work, when you stand up for yourself, you get blacklisted. And I don't dare want to compare myself to a sad time in American history when people were allowed to own other people. And when you own somebody that acted out, sometimes you tie them to a post and you whip them with a whip and sometimes you left them there for a few days so everybody walking by knew not to cross the boss.

I need your help. You see, I got this form here. It's called an Inappropriate Conduct Complaint Form.

I should give it to human resources, but it's hard to give the fox the keys to the hen house.

the previous HR director and my manager lied to the previous city manager about violating my employee rights bold face lied our current city manager sent me a reply to unfortunately I had to file a grievance and then the third step of the grievance the written response was this issue has already been heard through the grievance process 100% malarkey. Maybe somebody got confused and told her a mistake, or maybe somebody just lied. I don't know which one it was, but I know it was.

When I had a third step of grievance before, because I got a written reprimand because I came into work too early one day. And in that written reprimand, I asked the former senior city manager to look into my concerns about being harassed, bullied, told to park outside the city property and not to enter until my starting time,

and retaliated against. And now I'm on a blacklist where my role as a street maintenance supervisor is completely diminished. So I'm turning this in. I hate to give to HR because they provided direction to my manager the entire process that I'm complaining about. I wish we had a third party that we could give this to, somebody that could fairly look at it and give an honest opinion on what I believe is a no-brainer.

Thank you, sir. Thank you for your 31 years also. Appreciate it. We'll speak with the city manager about it.

Thank you very much. I'll wait for results.

Next speaker, Leopoldo Arguilla.

Arguello. Arguello. Muchas gracias.

Hi, City Council.

I want to read the protest object about the raise of the water again for another five years. When the city raised the water rates in 2014, the city claimed it was only for five years. I attended a council hearing and protested increase. I asked where the water funds were being sent. Now, the city is again trying to increase water and sewer rates, and again promises it's only for five years, and has asked residents to just send their protests if they object.

I am here today to object to the rate increase. Notices were sent to property owners, but no ballots were sent to allow property owners to vote yes or not to the proposed rate increase.

A former council member say water funds were being transferred to the general fund, which would be illegal on the Proposition 218. the city has three ace 316 million budget yet we see our parks neglected and poorly maintained it I have complained several times about partner my home and nothing has been done the streets are in need or repair city departments are closer and alternate Fridays city managers are hired for

short periods they fired and given a large severance bonus over 300,000 then mismanaged city has gone from bad to worse where are all the water funds being sent the city cannot just say I'm sure notice or proposed rate increase and ask residents to send written protests if they object for the rate increase the city must comply with proposition 218 if the city attorney would not buy the consult that they must comply with proposition 218 procedures

then maybe we need city new city attorney no no no neighborhood meeting were made to allow the residences to ask questions on how the rate increases will affect property owners and tenants now how the water revenue revenue were spent around the last five years the city council must reject the proposed water and sewer rate increase and I expect that the city council can really

support us and you the city council reject this new proposal thank you sir we're going to close

the public comments we're going to move on to the city manager comments put a card in dale hi i only got three here so come uh come on up

Last speaker of the night.

She found a couple more.

Two more? Okay. Very good.

Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem and Councilmembers. First off, I want to echo what Peter said about Veterans Day. It's the 65th anniversary of Veterans Day and the 101st anniversary of Armistice Day. And as a veteran, I appreciate what he said. What I came here to talk about tonight is the RENA numbers, the presentation that was given earlier tonight. I hope you guys take a real critical look at how they're actually calculating these numbers, because if we look at the past reporting period, what they call the fifth cycle,

we have 204 as our numbers, and that goes from affordable housing to above market rate housing. So it covers the whole gamut of housing needs and everything. But there's a big disparity in how they calculate this stuff. Case in point, Rancho Santa Margarita was required two. Long Beach, two. Costa Mesa, two. Newport Beach, five. Seal Beach, two. And Irvine, 12,000. So I don't know how they go about doing it.

They've got these weird calculations that they run. They don't base it truly on density, or density doesn't really factor into it as heavily as it should. But you can see that just based upon the coastal communities, they have very little requirement to build these affordable housing units, or in fact any housing units. They say, well, it's based upon vacancy rates and everything else. And so before the calculation formulas are finalized, I hope you guys take a look at it and see really what's going on with this.

Because there's a, you know, 12,000 for Irvine. I know they're big, but my gosh, you know, two for Newport Beach. Let's give it a break. So thank you.

Thank you, sir, and thank you for your service. Next speaker is Diane Franken.

Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem and Councilmembers. I just wanted to speak about an upcoming agenda item. That will be before you probably in the next two weeks or so. And I'd like to urge you to listen to your planning commissioners on this particular item. This will be the third time that they've denied the proposed project at 2525 North Main Street. and there's been a lot of discussion a lot of testimony taken they've had the time to look at this for over a year year and a half and the project that's

going to be before you is still a high density project and it's not appropriate adjacent to single-family residential and it's going to create a public safety issue. So when you see that, make sure you take a look at the new redesign, because it does have an offset intersection, a new curb cut, and there's just going to be a lot going on on that section of Main Street there. So again, I urge you to listen to your planning commissioners. They've done a lot of the boots on the ground work for you, and I thank you for your consideration.

Thank you very much. We're going to close the public comments, and we're going to move on with the city manager comments.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Just a couple of items. I wanted to mention that on Sunday, October 27th, we celebrated our 150th anniversary, and it did take a lot of work from city employees at all levels working for months planning and preparing for that event. We had an estimated 4,000 people in attendance, and we've received many compliments regarding the event. And we have a very, very brief video just highlighting the event that we want to share with you.

The temperatures may have been cool and the sky overcast, but the party spirit was alive and well at the city of Santa Ana's 150th anniversary celebration in Centennial Park.

Thousands of people attended this event, which featured entertainment.

Information booths. The VIP lounge is right in this corner.

Food.

And activities for the entire family.

One more minute.

which I know you already know. Great, thank you. So the other two items is the 7th Annual Plaza Navi Denier event will be held next Saturday on November 16th at Plaza Calle Quatro in downtown San Anam from 5 to 8. It's a free event, and it features an annual tree lighting ceremony, live entertainment, a mariachi, and pinatas, and a visit from Santa Claus. And then finally, a farmer's market. Beginning on Monday, November 18th, Native Harvest will hold a weekly farmer's market in the Plaza of the Sun every Monday from 8 to 4. And that's all, sir.

Thank you very much. We're going to move on to Councilmember Comments. Councilmember Peñalosa.

David PenalozaItem —

Thank you, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you for that video. Again, I wanted to actually add on my notes here to thank staff for everything from the 5K to the 150th celebration to any help that went into Noche de Altares with the planning and the street closures. Great events across the board. Very great turnout at all of them, so I'm very happy to see them. The only complaint I had is there weren't enough balloons at the Celebration Daisy.

David PenalozaItem —

But I want to report that yesterday I had the opportunity to fly out to Sacramento for the day. I'm actually surprised I haven't been fired from work because of the time I'm taking off. but I went out to participate in a homeless policy workshop that League of Cities had and definitely had a lot of neat conversations from other counties in the state.

David PenalozaItem —

And I was actually surprised at the lack of funding that other counties in the state are providing. I thought our county wasn't doing the greatest job, but other counties were shocked that the County of Orange were doing anything at all, which to me was mind-boggling. But we discussed a lot of permanent supportive housing and talked a lot about the motel conversions and the cost, which was beneficial because I sit on the Orange County Housing Finance Trust, which I also had a meeting for last week, and there's a lot of work to be done.

David PenalozaItem —

Today, I had a great conversation with Congressman Ruda, who visited our office, and the city manager was in attendance of how we could help. People forget that that whole West End, the majority of it, is in Congressman Ruda's district. Very important part of the city, and much needed assistance there with numerous items that we discussed. with that said I just wanted again thank staff for all the excellent work you guys do and and this the residents that are still out here today thank you good

night thank you councilmember Solorio thank you a few things first I do want

to also thank staff for the fantastic event at Centennial I think it was a big hit a lot of a lot of great attendance I think what really helped on the attendance side was the insert in the water bill, the mailing, and then the individual separate direct mail. And I think community-wide events like that are important, and next year is not a big anniversary, but I think we ought to think about something maybe not as big, but comparable in terms of outreach and mailings and family-oriented events, because I think

I think a lot of folks enjoyed it, and there were a lot of people there that typically haven't attended in the past. I do also want to thank some of my colleagues, in particular the mayor, on the issue of streets and the COP refinancing that's going to save a lot of dollars, that we invest that back into streets, particularly those neighborhoods or streets that were not done in the previous decade. so we'll follow up separately on that but i do want to thank the staff and the mayor for willing to have that conversation i also want to thank staff for the continuous improvement

in technology you know the my san anna app is upgraded it's looking great we're getting a lot of good comments already i know i've gotten some engagement and some folks thought it wasn't working i'll refresh it or re-download it because it's new and improved and they found it they're excited and it's all good similarly with the dashboard that addresses how we're doing on the homeless front I think we keep adding features there and with that it might be time to do a little bit more social media on that or one of these press releases that we do through our email system so that folks can know

what's there because it really is impressive how much work we've done and how comprehensive approach it is from services housing enforcement the quality of Life team as well as now also the Park Security team that we're starting to get very good compliments on. And then finally, I know as part of earlier budget and related deliberations, we talked about the Youth Cannabis Fund and really letting the Youth Commission kind of take the initial, you know, the initial first start on recommendations. But the amount is pretty sizable. I think it's four to five million dollars and, you know, it could take some time and their

students and they only meet monthly I think it may be worth our wealth to have them focus let's see on half and maybe parks and rec commission maybe they also are given a similar assignment because a lot of youth oriented things are also parks and library related and I think that would be helpful on a few fronts including just more people being involved in and being helpful so those are my comments and again thank you all for for staying and I know it's been a

I think. Councilmember Sarmiento. Thank you, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, and I also want to thank staff for all the hard work that they've done, and I also want to welcome back somebody to staff that left us and came back. So, Daniel, welcome. Man, you are a glutton for punishment, man. I don't know, but it's glad to have you back. It's good to see you came into us as an intern, and it's great to have you back as a full-time employee. We look forward to working with you, so welcome to you.

I did have a good conversation with Vicki Talley with the MHET, and thank you, Vicki, for taking my call and reaching out to me on the rental assistance for some of our folks at the mobile home parks. And I know you're going to be having a conversation with city staff on that. I know the city, this council, pledged $25,000 on rental assistance, and I know that probably implementation is going to be discussed and how we go about this. So I look forward to you all having a robust conversation on that. And thank you for your willingness to help on that.

I also just wanted to remind staff on an email I received on the MHA, on the mental health site. And, you know, we still are having some issues there, and I know we brought that to the attention of staff. And so if maybe we can have an update on that, Madam City Manager. I know it's just a recurring problem, it's a chronic problem, but to the extent we keep our foot on that accelerator there. I did want to thank you all for something that kind of went unnoticed but but not really I think the mayor pro tem and councilmember Peña Losa were there at the employee appreciation luncheon that you had it was very well attended

man I saw some costumes I would not have believed in I you know I I saw Ron Ohno in a run DMC outfit so that was worth all the tacos in the world so you know he's not here but I kept that photograph of him because he looked great and so and and and men had a great Bruce Lee going on so look I think they all I think it speaks to your good leadership madam city manager that you encourage so many folks from staff including the city attorney look everybody was you know dressed up and look great so that just speaks the change in culture I think that all those are starting to see where we're starting

to it you know not only work and you know address challenges but also just have fun with one another, which is what we should be doing. That's life. Finally, I just wanted to invite members of the public and my colleagues and anybody else who's available for this Friday, November 8th, at the Orange County Water District, we are going to be breaking ground on the final phase of the groundwater replenishment system, which is an internationally recognized system, the largest reuse facility in the world. And we deliver about 100 million gallons a day

through that recycling process, and we are going to be increasing it to 130 million gallons a day that we provide for the groundwater basin, which we then provide to those in the county and within our service area. But it is something that many folks don't know about. But because of that, our water rates are relatively low. We import less than 25% of our water, and we draw from that groundwater, which is very fortunate because folks in South County have to import a hundred percent and their rates are Commensurately much much higher as a result

So if you get a chance go out there and take a look it's a it's a great visit I know we're going to be setting something up for comlink and some of the neighborhood associations to go out there and visit because People come as far as Singapore Australia all over the world just to visit that site So it's impressive and unfortunately it's a well-hidden secret, which we're trying to change here in the county so more folks know about that asset that they have. So with that, I bid everybody a good night.

Thank you, Councilmember Sarmiento. I had a great time at the employee appreciation luncheon. It was just outstanding. I had a great, great time. Very happy. I want to thank all the employees for their hard work and the staff that put it all together and everyone who participated in the costume. Part of it was very, very difficult to make a decision on the best costume and difficult on the pumpkin contest also, which was great. On a more serious note, I have a message for Don Wagner.

Don Wagner, not too long ago at the last Board of Supervisors meeting, made some comments that were very disappointing to me. I read this email. He was making some comments about our police department ticketing some of the high school folks that come to the chamber over there on that side of Ross. And, you know, Mr. Wagner, if you've got a problem with the way our police department is doing its work, you can call the chief. You can call me. You can call any member on this council and we'll take the call.

But don't sit there in your council chamber or your board chamber and start making accusations and saying a bunch of things, especially about our streetcar, that some of your people are probably going to use from Irvine or the area that you use. Now, Don, I have a lot of respect for you. I'm on the OCFA board with you, but I don't appreciate your comments. You can call me anytime if you have a problem with any of our staff here. You come to Santa Ana, your office is in Santa Ana, you ought to respect Santa Ana. With that, thank you very much. Have a good night, everyone.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.