Read the August 20 meeting.

Can you now please stand for the 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.

If you remain standing, we have our invocation being given to us by Jane Keller this evening. Please go ahead.

All right. Dear Heavenly Father, we just come to you tonight humbly to ask that you bless the mayor, the city council members, and our chief of police in this city. we pray that you would give them wisdom as they go over all the different issues of the city that you would give them understanding of what the people need and Lord we just pray that you would just bless this city above all that you can ask or think in Jesus name Amen

Thank you, you may be seated

As we get going this evening, I want to first of all announce that item 20B will not be considered on tonight's agenda. So if you're here for 20B, you can go home early if you choose to do so. So with that, I'm going to call on some speakers that want to make presentations. First is from the office of Congressman Harley-Ruda, please.

Hi, thank you for having me tonight. I really appreciate it. My name is Kate Allegria, and I'm from Congressman Harley-Ruda's office. I just wanted to let you know that in my portfolio I have housing, homelessness, water in the city of Santa Ana. So if you have any issues that are tied into federal issues or anything you'd like me to bring forward to Congressman Harley-Ruda, I'm the point of contact. And again, my name is Kate Allegria. I can leave my contact information for you if you'd like.

Why don't you leave your contact information with a clerk.

Okay.

And if anybody requests anything, we'll make it available to them.

Perfect. Thank you so much.

Thank you for coming. Next presentation from the Red Star Voters, talking about Orange County Vote Centers beginning in 2020. And make sure you speak into the mic real loud, please. Go ahead.

Got it. Thank you very much for inviting me to speak tonight. My name is Jackie Wu. I'm the Community Outreach Manager for the Orange County Red Star Voters Office. We do have a presentation that I will click on.

All right.

All right, great. So the purpose of tonight's presentation is to talk about the vote center transition that will be taking place in Orange County starting in the March 2020 presidential primary election. And to give some background information, it starts with legislation. So the Voter's Choice Act was passed by the state in 2016. The Voter's Choice Act authorized specific counties, including Orange County, to conduct vote center elections, which is different from what we currently conduct, which is considered polling place model elections. And in the vote center model, every registered voter will receive a vote-by-mail ballot.

Polling places are replaced by vote centers, and we have ballot drop-off boxes located throughout the county. In Orange County, the Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to move Orange County to the vote center model in February 2019, and since then we've been working to prepare for that transition.

All right, just to give a little history on voter trends in Orange County.

Previously, you were only able to request a vote-by-mail ballot if you met certain requirements. However, that changed in the early 2000s, and since then we've seen a 6,507% increase. You can see that in 2002 it was less than 200,000 and as of the November 2018 election we had over 1.1 million voters request a vote by mail ballot. So the trends are there that are suggesting the move to the Vote Center model is a natural progression of where voters behavior and voter trends are moving anyways. All right just to reiterate under the Voters Choice Act or Vote Center

model, every registered voter receives a vote-by-mail ballot, and you can return it either by mail, which now you no longer require postage. It's postage paid on the return envelope. You can drop it off in person at a vote center. You can also drop it off at any ballot drop box. In addition, in the polling place model, polling places were only open for one day, on Election Day. However, in the vote center model, vote centers will be open up to 10 days before Election Day and then Election Day, but that's only at select ones.

All right. To go over a little bit about vote center security, because we know that is top of mind. In the vote center model, paper rosters where voters check in would be replaced with electronic check-in that provide real-time updates. If you've ever visited one of our early vote centers, you've seen this in action. We will have a higher controlled chain of custody. In the polling place model, we recruited volunteers to serve as poll workers. However, under the Vote Center model, we'll have Vote Center employees control that chain of custody. Additionally, we'll have enhanced security

measures for vote-by-mail ballots. On the envelopes, we're adding additional legal language. Also, we'll have barcodes that we'll be able to track from the moment it leaves our office, gets picked up by the U.S. Postal Service, arrives at your door, and when you send it back to us, you can also confirm that it's been received by our office.

All right, so what are vote centers? So they act kind of like polling places where you can vote in person either on a paper ballot or an electronic ballot. In the polling place model, voters were assigned to a specific neighborhood polling place. However, in the vote center model, a voter can vote at any vote center. So for example, if you live in Santa Ana but you happen to be visiting in Anaheim or Dana Point, you can vote at that local vote center instead. And these vote centers, again, will be open for multiple days and hours. Specifically in Orange County, 38 locations are planned to be open for 11 days, including Election Day.

And then in the last four days, three days, including Election Day, there will be 188 locations open.

So what are some services that you can receive at a vote center? You can register, update your address, or change your party. You can vote in person or drop off your ballot. you can get a replacement ballot, receive language assistance, or use an accessible ballot marking device. These are a lot of services that previously voters had to go to our headquarters in Santa Ana at the corner of Grand and McFadden, and usually that required a long line, especially on Election Day. However, now at these vote centers, you can go to any of these and be able to handle all these services instead of being redirected,

which then voters sometimes feel that, you know, it's not worth it. However, now at these vote centers, they can just handle it all there.

Here's a quick table comparison showing the differences between the polling place model and the vote center model. You can see there are a lot of benefits under the vote center model.

For example, while both of them will have electronic voting units, you can drop off your ballot at any site and have accessible voting. But now at the vote center model, you'll have ballot on demand. So in the past, in the polling place model, if you went to a polling place that wasn't the one that you were assigned to, you were provided a provisional ballot. However, under this model, we can give you specifically the ballot that you're supposed to receive, so you can vote on all of the contests that you're eligible to vote on. You'll have secure electronic check-in where we'll have real-time updates.

We can check whether you've already returned your ballot or if you are registered to vote. We'll have most provisional ballots eliminated. This is the case that I was referring to if you went to a polling place that wasn't the one that you were assigned to. We'll have trained employees that will have longer period of training. Instead of just three hours for poll workers, we're looking at something closer to one week of training for employees. Voters can vote at any location. There will be multiple days to vote. And we anticipate in the long term that it will be a reduced cost for the county.

Okay. So we've talked a lot about vote centers. but we also need to talk about ballot drop boxes because that is going to be a big expansion. Currently, if you visited our office in Santa Ana, you've seen the ballot drop box right outside. It's bright, it's colorful, it's large, and we're looking to expand that up to 110 ballot drop boxes throughout Orange County. They'll be secure, accessible, and locked. They'll be conveniently located. We're looking for places throughout the county now, and we're assessing different places. They'll be open for 30 days, including Election Day, and available to the public 24-7.

Let me interrupt you just for a second. I want to mention that items 55A, B, and C will be pulled off the business calendar today by staff. So if there's anybody in the audience that wants to address item 55A, B, or C, it's not going to happen this evening. Please continue. How much longer do you think you have in your... I'll be quick. Okay, please continue.

All right, thank you. So this is an image of what a ballot drop box would look like. It is military grade. We've had, you know, concerns from the public, you know, how would it survive if someone, if a car hit it. We've actually had that happen in the last election. We had a new car or truck hit it and the truck had more damage. So we feel very confident in sending it out. In that slot you can only fit about two ballots at a time. and we're doing our best to find locations that will have camera coverage.

Okay, again, this is just the voting calendar to show that we're expanding the opportunities for voters to cast their ballot. 29 days before Election Day, ballot drop boxes will be open and we start sending out vote-by-mail ballots. 10 days before Election Day, we start opening that 38 vote centers. And then going into the last few days before Election Day, all 188 vote centers are open. And then, of course, Election Day. And then, of course, we're on social media, so we encourage you to follow us. We have a website that's dedicated to the Vote Center transition and rollout, ocvote.com slash votecenter. And thank you.

I have available for questions if there are any. Thank you.

Is there any questions from any council members? Council Member Iglesias?

You mentioned that you're going to have different drop-off boxes. What locations are you considering?

We're looking at everything. We're starting with looking at public facilities. So the City of Santa Ana has been wonderful. We've been working closely with both the City Clerk's Office and the Community Services Office to find locations. We're currently assessing different spots. However, all of these assessments take hours because we're looking at ADA. We're looking at, you know, as a proximity to parking, proximity to public transit routes. So if you have any suggestions, we're more than open. We want to take them and we want to hear them.

Okay. But are still the, I would say, you know, when you go to vote, the voting places, they're still going to be at public places like the schools and stuff?

We are. We're prioritizing looking at public facilities first, but we're also open to private retail centers, so popular shopping centers. In November 2018, we had one in five points shopping plaza in Huntington Beach to see how it would work in a private shopping plaza, and we're open to those too if they are there and they're available and interested in being a vote center.

Okay. And then for the new way of voting, I guess, is it going to be available for this special election?

No. So we are having a special election, as you're mentioning, on November 5th for the City of Santa Ana and Santa Ana Unified, but this wouldn't take effect until March 2020.

The March primary?

Yes.

Oh, okay.

And that's a good reminder for folks that the presidential primary election is being moved up to March 2020 rather than June. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Is there any other questions from council members? Thank you very much. We appreciate your presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone. Tonight we're going to acknowledge the Orange County Fire Authority explorers.

How are you doing? Go ahead and form up right here.

Thank you, everyone. Go ahead and form, I guess, two lines right here would be fine. You can come on in.

Recently I had the honor of attending the Orange County Fire Authority Explorers graduation a few weeks ago. And I've been, I'm on the Fire Authority Board, so I've seen a few of the firefighter graduations. And it's something else. It's a sight to see. It's very, very impressive. Then I go to the Explorer Academy graduation, and wow, same thing. I saw people, the Explorers, rappelling off of the buildings and fighting fires, tearing up cars to get trapped people out.

They were, see I have a few things written here. They were using the chainsaws and climbing the aerial ladders, gearing up. Very rigorous academy they attended. I'm very happy to be part of the Orange County Fire Authority Board. And I just want to recognize all the young men and women here. How many graduated the academy recently? There you go. Can I get an applause for the newest additions?

I'm a big fan of these programs, just like the Police Explorers and the ROTC programs, because these programs teach mainly leadership. They talk about goal setting, teamwork, integrity, all kinds of leadership traits, loyalty, and things of that nature, things that our leaders are made of. And so I'm very, very happy to be here with all of you today. And if we could have Mr. Sarabia come forward and say a few words regarding the program.

Good evening. My name is Rudy Sarabia. I'm a firefighter paramedic at Station 75. So a little bit about the program. It's for any young adult between the ages of 14 and 21. and we have Explorer nights on Tuesday nights from 6 to 9 p.m. where they get the exposure like Mayor Potem-Viegas was talking about. And to get involved in the program, you can go on OCFA.org and get the Explorer application and drop it off at Station 75 where then we can process so they can be fire explorers. So over time, they'll be able to do ride-alongs at any station in the city and get real life experience and working side by side with firefighters

and get to be on the engine or the fire truck and get the real life experience and see the calls firsthand. So thank you again for your guys' support. Appreciate it. Thank you, sir.

I'd also like to ask Chief Jim Henry to come forward. He is the Division Chief for Santa Ana. And we also have Dispatcher Sammy Soto.

You going to take photos? Okay, great. Thank you, Chief, for joining us. I have some certificates here for the explorers. If you could just bear with me for a quick second. Jimenez, Kimberly Jimenez, Catherine Rosso, Eric Sell, Perez, Giovanni, Rodriguez, Jasmine, Jacob Brown, Nathan Martinez, Kyle, Israel Regalto, Regalado,

Yes sir Yes sir

Yes sir Yes sir Yes sir Yes sir

Yes sir

Yes sir Yes sir Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Yes

Thank you everyone. Let's get a photo.

These guys are so humble, I swear to you.

Come on in a little bit.

Chief, do you want to grab the other one?

No, this is their number.

Thank you, everyone.

I can have Council Member Iglesias come forward for the next presentation.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone. Well, for me, it's a great honor and a privilege to recognize this wonderful young lady in front of me. As you all know, I used to serve on the school board. I served for six years, and Dr. Stephanie Phillips was my superintendent. and I am very proud of everything that you've accomplished with the San 95 school district you took it to the next level that in my opinion you know you took it to the next level and also in the opinions of many many parents and staff I know they share the same sentiment so um we call her dr. Phillips

what we could call her Stephanie I'm gonna share a little a little bit about her but then I would want for her to share more about the things that we've done in SAUSD and to elevate it to that next level. So Dr. Stephanie Phillips first became the superintendent for Santa Unified School District in August of 2016. She brought with her 19 years of experience in educational leadership. Dr. Phillips has confidently led the seventh largest district in California and the second largest employer in the city of Santa Ana. In addition to her work here in the city, Dr. Phillips also serves on several advisory committees, which is to inform

state and national platforms, such as the California School Boards Association, the Superintendent Advisory Council, and also the advancement via individual determination, and those are just to name a few, and I know you're going to share more with us. So Dr. Phillips has been a strong leader here in the city of Santa Ana. She has served as a role model to those within our community, And not only is she our superintendent, but I know you're also a resident of Santa Ana. So I want to thank you for that because you're invested in this city and with our kids.

Dr. Phillips' resolve and determination have proven to be a great value to not only the students of Santa Ana Fight School District, but to the community at large. So we, the City Council, and the City of Santa Ana, thank you, Dr. Phillips, for your service to our community and also particularly for the service that you've provided to our youth and our parents. So thank you so much. And I know the reason we're acknowledging her, I don't know if you guys know, but she is retiring and she is leaving us. But I'm hoping you come back. Yeah. So maybe you can follow me here to City Hall.

So Dr. Phillips, this is given to you in recognition of your outstanding contributions to our community. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much, Ms. Iglesias, and City Council and the Mayor. This is really an honor for me. It has been an honor to serve Santa Ana Unified School District and the City of Santa Ana as well. The students here are second to none and deserve the very, very best. And what I hope that we've been able to achieve together has really moved us toward getting to that best. Obviously there are a lot of things that we still wish to accomplish for our children, but the upshot of it is things are being left in good hands and we're moving forward, and that's the important thing. No one leader is irreplaceable.

No program is going to be the magic bullet. It takes us all to move us forward for our kids. Some of the things we've been able to accomplish in Santa Ana Unified with the board and the wonderful staff that we have are, you know, we have world-class schools. We've been nationally recognized with our improvements that we've made throughout our systems. We have all kinds of alphabet soup that I won't bore you with tonight. But just know that our schools are being recognized nationally through U.S. News and World Report, through the California Department of Education, and through the U.S. Department of Education.

We are moving our students forward. They are reading at higher levels than ever before. They are doing mathematics and science, project-based learning, and programs that you and I would have never seen in our schools when we were in elementary and high school. So it has been such a pleasure to live in this community, to work here, to serve here, and I'm just very grateful that this leadership in this city and the parents and all of the community comes together on a regular basis for our kids because that is my mission and my passion. So thank you very much for this acknowledgement.

Next presentation is by Councilmember Peña Loza and Sarmiento.

David PenalozaItem —

Good afternoon, everyone. We wanted to call up the Assistance League of Santa Ana to recognize them for all the good community work they do in our city. I was a first-hand witness last month. It was interesting because I had never been to this location off of First Street, And I was invited out to volunteer as part of their back-to-school community events that they put together. And I was brought to tears at just the amount of work that they do in our city with our local school children. There were, maybe for the hour and a half that I was there, there were about 30 kids that came by with their families.

David PenalozaItem —

They got uniforms, shoes, backpacks, underwear, socks, school supplies. All for the, kind of like what they're holding there for the new school year. And the reason why I got so emotional is because I got home and I told my mom all about it. I was like, Mom, you wouldn't believe what you're doing. You know, they're giving away all these things to kids and it's all volunteer work and charity. And she was like, you know what, this could have been very helpful when I was, you know, single mom raising three kids on her own. So I thought of how far this goes with every family in Santa Ana that you guys help.

David PenalozaItem —

So from the bottom of my heart, thank you. I don't think it's appreciated enough. I was kind of upset. I didn't know more about it. So I'm happy to be here to recognize you guys for all the work you do. Whenever you guys need more volunteers and have free time, please let me know. I'll be there. I was actually happy the day that I was there, Chief Valentin's daughter was actually also there volunteering. So that was also nice to see that, you know, there's a lot of members of our community going out and giving their free time on a Saturday morning to volunteer. So thank you.

Councilmember Sarmiento.

Thank you. And one of the things I think that the council member didn't mention is that when we both arrived, what they did first is put us to work. So we started putting these packets together in the backpacks and serving families, which is what we all take a pleasure in, right? And so we just wanted to applaud you and thank you on behalf of a grateful city. So let's give them all a big round of applause.

You know, this is just a small representation of all the volunteers, because as the councilman said, I know our chief's daughter was there. We had a lot of different people. I see somebody who's been working hard, Richard Santana, who is everywhere in the city, was also there putting things together. But it was just a very nice way to sort of, at least I came in towards the end of summer, and you see that people are getting families ready for school. And so they thought about things like, you know, underwear, socks, hygiene kits, things that you normally wouldn't, you know, think of.

because most efforts are for backpacks or maybe a shirt or something, but you don't think about those really sensitive items that you need. So this was a very thorough, comprehensive effort. So let me tell you a little bit about them. So we have here Susan Dobeck, who's the president, Maggie Hart, who's the past president and outreach committee member, Tao Tran Chang, who's the food pantry chair and outreach committee member, Lisa Solomon, of course, who is the chair of operations, school bell, and principal of Madison Elementary. Go, Madison.

Priscilla Cloud, who's the vice president of membership, and Judy Fine, who's the chair of strategic planning. So, you know, that's just a little bit of what they do, but it's not just children that they serve. They serve families and seniors. It's an incredible, incredible facility. When you go in there, you realize that they have just a spectrum of different goods and items that families need. and at all levels, all age groups, so it's a really amazing site. And the Santa Ana chapter functions and probably has one of the best standards of non-profit governance.

The ALSA has operated charitable programs here in town for the past 81 years, right? So you guys have been here with us for quite a while. And Operation School Bell, as I mentioned, is the signature program, and it provides children with uniforms and, as we mentioned, undergarments, hygiene kits, and school supplies. And you can see all these. So why don't you hold some of those up. Look at that. Even tennis shoes over there. So look, all the things that children are going to need on their first day of school and throughout the school year.

The Assistance League as well is funded and facilitated through low-cost dental. They have a low-cost dental center, a thrift shop, a holiday toy drive, a food pantry, essential daily living backpack program for victims of human trafficking as well. All of this is only possible through the generosity of the League's volunteers, and today we recognize the Assistance League of Santa Ana for all that they do. And again, this is a representative body of a much, much larger effort. So thank you all, and somebody come up here and say something about what you all do. Lisa, it looks like everybody's pointing to you, or Susan, come on up.

I think for 81 years we are the best-kept secret in Santa Ana. But what the council member was talking about was our Operation School Bell, which we really enjoy a wonderful relationship with Stephanie Phillips and the Santa Ana Unified School District. And we are very proud of Operation School Bell. We actually have 227 member volunteers, and we also do a food pantry, and I have a dental center, and we have a thrift shop, which we invite everyone to come to. And we are very, very proud to be the Assistance League of Santa Ana.

So thank you for this recognition. We appreciate it.

Next presentation is Councilmember Salorio.

Thank you. As many of you know, we have many great nonprofits in our city of Santa Ana. And the really great nonprofits have amazing, outstanding special CEOs. And I'm really honored to today be able to recognize Virginia Isaias. She is the founder of the Fundación de Sobrevivientes de Trafico Humano. To translate that, she's the founder of the Foundation for Survivors of Human Trafficking.

I'm recognizing her because of her new office location on 17th Street in Santa Ana, but really it's also an opportunity to recognize her for the great community work that she is doing. They are a counseling and resource center that has assisted over 3,800 clients, 70% of which reside in Santa Ana. On an annual basis, like last year, she estimates that overall in one year, there were about 3,000 individuals, mainly ladies, that went to her office seeking some sort of assistance and counseling,

neither the real human trafficking or scams where they try to trick women into bad situations. They also offer trauma-inforced counseling, anger management, parenting classes, life skills, legal advocacy, and education workshops. They also help individuals reintegrate back into society after surviving human trafficking and exploitation or domestic violence and assault and child abuse. They also participate in many local health and wellness fairs including with sister agencies, museums, libraries, community

centers, congregations, colleges and universities, etc. And through that outreach she's able to reach you know many individuals, many women and help countless in the process. We are pleased that Virginia herself is able to receive this recognition. I know she has a fame club of board members and staff and family members and friends, so that's fantastic. Before I give her the recognition also, she was just very recently profiled in this great book called Mujeres

a prueba de fuego. Women, you know, under fire, under the test of fire. And she's one of 15, not just from this area, so essentially nationwide. And the first profile in the book is a Virginia story because she is also a survivor. And so on behalf of a grateful city, I recognize and we all recognize Virginia Isaias. Felicidades.

Thank you. Personas que están aquí me ayudan, me acompañan, y me apoyan en todo lo que necesito. Muchas gracias, y es un honor recibir este reconocimiento. Gracias.

Let me do just a brief summary. She does speak English poquito, but I'll give a brief summary. She's thankful for the recognition. She says there are a lot of vulnerable women in this town and the county that get exploited, and she is able to, through the benefit and the help of everybody, to assist those individuals, and she hopes to keep doing it, and she is very honored to be here. Again, on behalf of a grateful city, gracias por todo.

Gracias.

Thank you, everyone. If you bear with me, we're going to take a few things out of order in the agenda. We're going to open up the hearing for item 75A first, and this is the time and place to hold the public hearing on the ordinance amendment to number 2019-01 to amend certain sections of charters 18, 21, and 40 of the Santa Ana Municipal Code, allowing vertical and horizontal integration of cannabis business. And we have some speakers. Is that correct? So I'm going to go ahead and take these speakers first.

Can I have Brandon Sisco come forward?

Go ahead, sir. Go ahead and raise the microphone. Welcome.

Hi, good evening.

Raise it up higher. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Good evening.

Good evening.

Good evening, everyone.

I wanted to speak on the marijuana ordinance amendment this evening in support of it. As of June, Santa Ana expected to take in $7.8 million in cannabis taxes and fees for the fiscal year of 2018-2019, with all that money earmarked for the city's general fund. That's amazing. Taxes generated by cannabis businesses in Santa Ana will help fund police and youth programs in the coming year. That's amazing. These amendments will make Santa Ana a more viable city for current and future cannabis operators in multiple ways.

With California voters passing and legalizing cannabis in 2016, it's nice that Santa Ana has stepped up to assist in making it happen in this area. And with it being one of the few cities in Orange County, it's a big step in the right direction for this county. And with cannabis being legalized, the high taxes in the few cities and the difficulty for the operators,

mainly the taxes and the few cities allowing it, is making it difficult for the consumers to fully transition to the licensed market. There's a significant number of people still going to the black market, and we want to make that as easy as possible for cannabis operators to be legal and for people to go to the legal shops. I think this amendment would help that in multiple ways. So, thank you everyone.

Thank you, sir. Next speaker is Claudio Gallegos.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. I come here on behalf of Congressman Lou Correa. I congratulate the City of Santa Ana for being the first and true green city of Orange County. As Santa Ana looks to create good-paying local jobs, I recommend that you continue to develop and implement policies that encourage development of the cannabis industry at all levels, from cultivation to responsible medication. I fully support the concept of local hire, yet such a policy should not result in the displacement of existing workers.

I suggest minimum local hire requirements to be phased in over time, possibly prospectively. In addition, ownership of local businesses is the cornerstone of the American dream. Ownership is one's own business, is the symbol of the free enterprise system that has made this nation great. Changing the rules on businesses, investors, or changing ownership requirements on those that took a risk on Santa Ana in the early days may be an overreach by local government. Such a policy may also disincentivize future investments in the industry in Santa Ana.

Instead, consider issuing additional business licenses to local aspiring entrepreneurs who may want to join together as a collective to operate a community-owned business. Again, I congratulate you on assuring that Santa Ana continues to generate green jobs, and I commend you on your effort to encourage local hire and local entrepreneurship. Thank you.

Thank you, Claudio. And we have the congressman's letter right here. Thank you, sir. Next speaker is Aria. Last, there we go.

You have to help me out with the last name here, sir.

Welcome. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. I also wanted to talk on the effort to have 50% of employees from Santa Ana. I am a manager at OC3 Dispensary here in Santa Ana, and I've been working there for about three years now. And with that, I've seen at least 200 applicants over the few years, and a majority of them are unfortunately not from Santa Ana. It's difficult to get that 50% mark, I would say.

We make many efforts to hire applicants, qualified applicants from Santa Ana. we offer incentives for people who are not currently living in Santa Ana to move to Santa Ana so we do everything we can to kind of help the Santa Ana economy here but it's kind of difficult to weigh that balance right now out of 25 people I'd say about five percent of them are from Santa and that 50% could kind of disrupt just the flow of things with the amount of people we see every day. And, yeah, that's pretty much it.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Next speaker is Will Emmerich.

Followed by Arturo Sanchez. Next.

Hello, everyone. Thanks for giving me the time to speak. My name is Will Emmerich. I'm representing Malibu Gold. We should be the first licensed cultivation and distribution facility in Santa Ana, which we're very excited about. And let me say that our experience with Santa Ana so far has been great. It's been a long process, nearly a year in the making, or actually a little over a year. And everyone has been great, from Ali at the planning office to Yvette, Kathy from code enforcement. Everyone's been fantastic.

And so far, that's been great for us. So we feel like we've made the right decision to invest quite a bit of money into moving our operation in Santa Ana. After looking at a lot of other cities in the state, so far we feel like our decision is the right one. And I also want to speak specifically about the quota for the operating agreements of the 50%. I feel like this is going to be difficult for us. we're doing everything we can to focus on hiring as many people from Santa Ana as possible.

We're not even operating yet. We've already sourced an agency based in Santa Ana to focus on finding people from Santa Ana to make sure that we're investing in the community and getting as many workers as possible. But I think it puts us in a difficult position if we're required to do that because there's no guarantee that we're going to find the right talent that we need. In our business, it's very specific. We need a certain talented person to be able to execute certain tasks, and you don't always find it in one particular place.

So if it constricts our universe of our most valuable resource for a business, which is talent, I feel like that's a bad thing for businesses, and it's a bad thing for Santa Ana, because you guys want healthy businesses, so there's more tax revenue and more investment from other investors and businesses coming into the area. So what I would recommend is focusing on, if there was a mandate, for example, where we had to interview a certain amount of residents of Santa Ana, I think that could fit the bill because we're happy to do that.

what business doesn't want local talent they're going to be more productive you know with a less less of a commute and it's ultimately good for the business whether you're in cannabis or the restaurant business or any any type of business so thank you very much for your time that's all

thank you sir arturo sanchez followed by the young for uh

Good evening, council members, Madam City Manager. My name is Arturo Sanchez. I'm here representing Bloom in Santa Ana. I'd like to first thank you for your thoughtful and careful delivery of cannabis to the city of Santa Ana over several years. I know it's been a long process, and you have a lot of people who have been committed to the industry and who have given a lot of support to the city. And in general, we are supportive of many of the things that are contained in the ordinances that you're considering and the changes that you're considering today. However, I do want to talk about a couple of things.

I'll start with the simplest, which is the badges for employees. We do think that there are opportunities to ease the restrictions, to create easier pathways for people to be employed, and one of those barriers right now is the bureaucratic process that exists for badges. We like some of the things that have been changed, but we think there's an opportunity to go a little further. The second thing we really would like to talk about is consumption. At some point, cities will begin to pick up this issue.

It is the next evolution of where this industry will go, and we do think that Santa Ana is primed and in a very unique position to lead in the Orange County area with regards to consumption. But I really want to spend the bulk of my time talking about, for lack of a better word, the equity issue, the employment issue, the 50% issue, and how we can find pathways for our communities to participate in a growing industry and to be a part of where the industry is going. And while we support the effort that has been made in this particular iteration, we think and we would recommend that the council take a step back and work with us.

We are a member of the Santa Ana Cannabis Association, and as a member, we think there's an opportunity to work with SACA to develop a careful, well-thought-out, well-meaning process whereby we can work on developing what I always like to call generational wealth. There are opportunities to create pathways to long-term sustainable employment with living wages, good benefits, and a great environment to work in. And this is one of those few industries in which you can grow your tax base and work closely with it to develop it in such a way that you will guarantee jobs for your residents and your community.

And the best way to do that is to work with the stakeholders who have committed themselves to Santa Ana, who have spent a lot of time in Santa Ana, and have a willingness to work with you. And so if the Council were to consider taking a step back on that item and coming back and working with us, I think you will find that many of the SACA members would be more than interested in working with you on developing a careful and well-thought-out process.

Thank you. Thank you, sir. Last up, Furuquia. and next speak followed by Erica Gardea.

Hi there. My name is Jillian Ferrugia. I actually work and live here in Santa Ana. Love the city. So I'm VP of Operations at the Dispensary from the Earth. We're also part of the Santa Ana Cannabis Association and I wanted to first thank you guys for bringing us up tonight and always supporting our industry in any way you can. We've had a few challenges throughout the years, but with all your help, we've been able to kind of address those challenges and move forward. But with our dispensary, one of the biggest issues we've been facing lately is the live scan badge situation. So over the summer, it's our super busy time. We have,

we're significantly understaffed because now that the live scans have gone through the planning department, it takes up to a month for us to get the results back. So because of that, we don't have the staff to be able to support the amount of customers coming in. And that being said, but the wait time has tripled since this time last year. So that concerns us because we're thinking that our customers are now gonna shop in other cities, probably illegal dispensaries, which we're trying to avoid at all costs. It's also really hard to hire people because if someone's waiting a month to get those results back,

typically they find other employment. So it's making it really difficult for us. And then lastly, we're kind of at the mercy of employees who might not be a good fit for us. Like we had someone we caught stealing that we couldn't really afford to get rid of because our wait times were so bad. So if there's anything we can do to help, we're willing to do that. But it's definitely affecting us and all the other legal operators within the city. That's it.

Thank you very much. Erica Gardea, followed by Malahat.

Hello. My name is Erica Gardea. I'm a member of the Santa Ana Cannabis Association. I did want to address the badges as well. We have had, we've actually reached out a lot to like the planning department trying to help in any way we can to try to move forward and help get the badges sooner than we have.

We've, you know, we haven't been able to fire people because we haven't been had issues with not being able to get new employees in. And, you know, so we just really would like, you know, your help in trying to, you know, fix these issues that we're having. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Ms. Malahat, last speaker. And Madam Clerk, we don't have any other cards. All right, thank you.

Thank you so much. My name is Malahat Rafi. I represent the Santa Ana Cannabis Association. I want to thank staff for their tireless effort to bring this forward and the council members that are looking at this and helping us move forward on an issue that's been a little dormant for this industry. It's a cleanup bill. We appreciate it. The language is going to allow us to compete with other cities in the state when it comes to medicinal sales. It's going to help us vertically integrate, which is huge for the city, because we do have a lot of operators in the city that want to do so.

Part of the issues that have come up that are of concern to us is, of course, this local hire requirement and mandate. when these ordinances were written, the association was at the table with council members and with staff, making sure local hire was on the table, because it's really important for us as an association to make sure we're bringing in revenue not just to the city, but also into the pockets of people in the city. We want to make sure, though, that what we set forth is manageable and attainable. And if you're going to hinder the industry that brings so much revenue to the city,

it's going to be something that will ultimately harm the city's pocketbook. And we want to make sure that we're working together for that not to happen. Also the requirement for businesses to allow their employees to invest within their company, I think we want to look at that and figure out a way to bring social equity to Santa Ana that, again, is viable. A lot of these companies are not publicly traded companies. These are mom and pop shops that have started and those are not possibilities for them. But the biggest issue that we have that's been brought up by members of our association

is the badge system. It's taking up to eight weeks to get an employee through the system. We agree that it's important to have background checks for these employees, but we also want to make sure that the owners and operators are not having to hold on to bad employees just because they can't get somebody else to the door. We are hiring folks at a living wage. Most of the shops have either signed or working with project labor groups and the labor unions. So we are providing high paying jobs for for residents of Santa Ana and beyond. And we just want to make sure that we go through that process

faster. We appreciate all the work from staff. I know this is something that is a giant hurdle for all of us, but together we can get through this. We appreciate the support. The industry looks forward to working with the city. Just recently we worked with the school district and collected 4,000 items for their backpack Pack Drive and contributed $4,000 as well. And we want to continue working with all different aspects of the city and the non-profit sector as well, because we are here to stay, we are here to participate, and we are here to make Santa Ana stronger. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. Seeing no other members of the public, we're going to close the public hearing and now move on to the council members. Council Member Sarmiento, I believe you wanted to say a few words.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem. And so I did want to clarify first, because this is the first time I'm going to be participating on this, that Madam City Attorney, you have a copy of a letter from the FPPC allowing me to participate with no conflict that they've identified, correct?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

I do, Council Member. And if I may, for just one second, also just put on the record that Mayor Polito will not be participating in this item this evening. As you know, he has disqualified himself from participating in cannabis items due to some past consultant relationships, and he asked me to convey that to you. And yes, we do have a letter from the FPPC authorizing you to participate in these decisions.

Right. And my conflict was more because I consult and give legal counsel to public agencies. I don't have any clients that are on the operations side. So that's one of the reasons, out of an abundance of caution, I always conflicted myself and recused out of this because I just felt that there was sufficient counsel support, but it looks like that's been waning. So one of the reasons I stepped back in is because I knew that these measures that were supported by the industry just weren't getting done. So I want to make sure that we are able to support the industry and make sure it's successful.

And so I'm kind of re-injecting myself back into the conversation so I can be supportive but also help guide it. So one of the things I wanted to do and one of the things I hear very clearly is that there's some hesitation, patience and reluctance on some of the changes with respect to the social equity element of the recommended items. So Madam City Attorney, I would request that we pull those items out as it refers to the local hire, as it refers to the pathways to management and work, and see if we could revisit those when it comes to second reading.

I spoke with some of the industry representatives that spoke here today, and I think we can probably finesse some of the language, come to some understanding, because from what I understand and what I heard from all the speakers, you want to do the right thing. You don't want to come into the city and create a consumer community out of our residents. You want to make sure that those residents are here that allowed you to enter and bring your industry here and be successful. You want to create pathways to success for them. You want to give them good paying jobs,

good benefits, but not only that, but opportunities to succeed and prosper along with you. That's what I'm hearing. And so I think that's all that is being put forward here tonight. So I think if we all sit down, and I'd like to have all of you at the table, you know, and I'll make myself available to sit down and come up with a creative way to kind of engineer this. And I think we can do this. This isn't rocket science. Other communities, unfortunately, did this at the front end. This one didn't. So we are having to do this sort of from the back end, but I think we can still

accomplish a lot of goals. And some of the things that you were talking about, about outside consumption, I think this community could do it. I think it's something that if it's done intelligently, it can be done well. So that's another second step I think that we could take together is seeing how we can incorporate that and see that as next steps. But if, you know, all it takes is open minds, but sometimes when communications are flawed, boy, it just doesn't work. So, you know, I think everybody who has open minds and, you know, all of you who've invested,

I think, understand that there's a lot to be gained here. So that would be my recommendation, is to go ahead and move the item with everything, with the exception of the social equity elements of that. One other thing, Madam City Attorney, is I know that there's a recommended action on reducing the taxes for testing labs from 5% to 2%. What would the disparity or delta be if we went down to 1%?

Council member, we do have our planning director here. We also, Mayor Pro Tem, we have a short presentation if you would like to see a presentation on all the changes. And I will defer to Min to see if he could do a quick calculation on what the variance would be of dropping it to a 1%.

So the changes would include the removal of the social equity language?

Correct. So it's a separate recommended action and a standalone resolution. So I believe the motion is to just pull number five of the recommended actions and consider one through four.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

And then what I would do is, because you need to have a second reading on the ordinance anyway, I would return next time this appears on your agenda as a second reading so that you can actually, you and the public, can see that those two items were cleaned up. So both the operating agreement and the resolution. And any changes that you might want can be incorporated at that time.

So we have a first and a second on that. Does anyone want to see the presentation?

I think we're okay without the presentation. You guys have seen it before. Seen it before a few times. Okay, very good. Is there any other council member Solorio?

Well, just if that question could be answered on the disparity between the 1% and 2%. In other words, we may get to 2%, but maybe that's an incremental increase.

So currently we only have two testing laboratory businesses. in the city, and the revenue from them is from those type of businesses are negligible. So if you go from 2% to 1%, we estimate that's probably about $15,000 difference. But that's just an estimate. Again, testing laboratories are not your revenue generator, but they're there more for ensuring safety, quality of the product, and that there's a third-party review of the products that's sold in the marketplace.

And I appreciated staff in its report, in the staff report, including other cities and what their rates are. Some of their rates are at four, five, and six, but they're outside of Orange County. So we have a neighboring city in Irvine that has zero. So to the extent that we're competing with them, again, I get that we want to make sure that we have at least some assessment, but I want it to be more commensurate with how we are in the county. So, you know, that would be just something I'd like to open up for my colleagues and for some discussion.

All right, thank you. Council Member Salorio. Thank you. First, I want to say thank you. I think we have in Santa Ana an industry that stepped up, worked collaboratively with the city. Because of that, we're really actually a model city that the state of California looks to for having started things on time, having good policies in place. the revenue almost every year doubles. As the speaker said, you know, we received approximately or close to $8 million this last fiscal year. This council also said of that type of revenue, that a third go for youth programs, a third for public safety programs, you know, and law enforcement,

and then, you know, the third just general fund. So that's been excellent, and a lot of jobs have been created. A lot of value has been added to our community. I also want to thank Councilmember Sarmiento. I know he had not been participating in the past and he saw that there was a need, that this is important work that we're trying to do, and so I'm grateful, Councilmember Sarmiento, for that help. When we started this, we did put on the front end some very good policy that has local hire, that has the best in SoCal with Long Beach, a labor peace agreement provision,

There is a benefit preference for Santa Ana residents and Santa Ana businesses. So that is also good. Also, direction to try to be as green is possible. So I think a lot of good work was done, but that doesn't mean that we can't do more. I think it's important in this industry because it's new to allow innovation. And so with respect to doing more in the areas of community reinvestment or social equity, a common thing is just to say for them to develop a plan that may include things like that and then it's up to the company on how they want to achieve it and I think you know maybe that that might be

an approach as well with local hire goals you know at the Rancho College Board we did a workforce agreement we took much of that to Santa Ana you want to do a goal rather than your requirement you know that that would be one approach and then you try to meet that and then the folks exceed that even better but that might be an approach. Equally important is reporting. It's one thing to require all these things or to ask for all these things but if we're not reporting back to folks within the industry, policy makers and others, you're not really managing to excellence

as we could. So I know we now have had some of these local hire and other provisions for a while. It would be nice to have a report back on what's been done. Similarly, on the public work side, I know we have a citywide workforce agreement, and it would be good to receive a report on that as well. Finally, at our last Edibit Committee, or Budget Committee for short, Council Member Peñalosa and I did agendize and discuss the possibility of lounges because other cities have started to implement that, and there are some best practices, including out of Palm Springs.

So I think there are some of us that are very interested in seeing that piece come forward sooner than later. Really, this set of items includes about 100 cleanup things. So there's a lot of good stuff in here. There's been a focus on just a few, but I think we're making very good progress. And I'm hopeful that on this third or fourth try we'll be able to pass this. Thank you.

Council Member Iglesias.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak on behalf of where I feel, this is just my opinion, where we stand as a city. I appreciate the fact that we're trying to see how we're going to generate revenue here for the city. and my opinion is that, yeah, we may be generating, according to what Councilmember Solorio said, $8 million in revenue, but yet we are spending a lot more to undo the harm of having cannabis in our city.

I know you may not agree with me, but cannabis is a gateway drug, and it's something that's affecting our community. And I know that it's, you know, for a lot of you, you can say, you know, it's easy money, let's bring it into the city. Santa Ana, for the most part, has been a city that we pretty much say yes to anything. And I know right now what we need to do is start looking at ways on how we're going to, in a healthy way, bring revenue to our city.

The one thing is we're trying to see, we talk about that we don't have enough funds, yet we're trying to bring down the percentage of what the, you know, for the laboratories testing from 5% to 2%, And now considering 1%, I just think it's not correct. If we're going to do something, I think this is how it was voted on. This is something how it was set. Let's just keep it at least with whatever it was initially intended for. So my vote, you guys know where I stand. I'm a no. But just the one thing that I'm going to agree with what the people were talking about

was that we shouldn't be imposing on businesses how to run their business. I believe they know best what's best for their business, even though it's something that I don't agree with. But it's best for them to do how to run their business. But I know on that note, just the way I feel being on the school board, the thing that really grabbed me was when we were doing suspensions and expulsions, it's because our youth and our students had access to marijuana. and so it's easier for them to have access to it.

So I just hope that the businesses here are more responsible in seeing who their customers are and just being more responsible to our community because I believe our community deserves it and for those of you who are having great oversight, I truly appreciate it. But like I said, my convictions and my thought is I'm a no on this, but I just want to thank you for this opportunity.

Thank you.

David PenalozaItem —

Councilmember Peñalosa. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. I just wanted to say that with that said, you know, one of my best friends is the Santa Ana School Police Officer, and they do oftentimes find students that have marijuana on them or vape pens, which is illegal under state law because they're under the age of 18. And one of the questions that they're asked is, where did you get it? And they point to all the illegal dispensary shops that our code enforcement and law enforcement officers are actively trying to shut down. I've just on January 1st and part of the cleanup

David PenalozaItem —

language with this item is to facilitate the legal cannabis shops that are permitted to work more effectively and open up more effectively and go after these illegal shops that are popping up around the state and our code enforcement has been shutting down. Just on January 1st we went on a press tour we were invited by the by the association to do a press tour for the for the one year anniversary of legal cannabis in our city and it was like getting through TSA just to walk in through the door you know that may took my ID they made me fill out a form and it was it was you know they wanted to

David PenalozaItem —

verify that I was of age and yeah here I am a sitting council member you know pushing mid-30s and and and i wasn't easy to get in so the the kids at school that are getting found with the illegal uh cannabis they're getting at the illegal shops and they will find it regardless whether the shops are legal or not and and this item um it's something that's here to stay it's something that's only gonna progress more in the country across the country and i think that we it's basically just supporting the business aspect of it. And I'm supportive of it and it's only in its early beginning stages and I want to do whatever I can

David PenalozaItem —

to help any business of any kind operate efficiently in our city. And that's all the only comments I have. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem.

Alright, thank you. Is there any other comments? I can make my comment.

One more. Councilman Solodio? Just a couple quick things to correct the record, crime is not up because of these dispensaries. And if anybody thinks they have that type of data, I'd like to see it because

it's not there. And in fact, for the legal dispensaries, which there are about 20, I probably have gotten in the past three years that I've been back on the council, zero complaints about crime there or nearby. We do hear about some of the legal ones or street level stuff. But not from these dispensaries. If anything, this is a little bit more professional. There's education with it, et cetera. And there are also numerous drugs on the streets, not just this one. So we can't blame anything on this legal industry.

And then with respect to this council supporting these policies, yeah, policy-wise we may support them, but it's also because of the will of the voters. The voters in this town have now consistently on local measures, statewide measures, support this industry. And I think we want to regulate it. We want to regulate it, keep it safe, because if not controlled, it could be an issue. Or like other cities, they're overwhelmingly dominated by illegal dispensaries that do sell to kids, that do have bad business practices, that do cheat workers, etc.

So we're following the will of the voters and regulating this correctly and putting some of those resources to good use. Thank you.

Councilmember Sarmiento. Thank you. And I just wanted to, I was about to call for the question, but just one stat that probably none of my colleagues have with respect to historical knowledge is we had a moratorium in town for eight years when I started on the City Council. During that moratorium, none of this was allowed. And I see our code enforcement director nodding his head. We had at that point more than 120 illegal operators. That was a lot in a moratorium. And so we tried that. And what's the definition of insanity? It's just doing the same thing and getting the same result.

Now, from what I understand, if you can correct me if I'm wrong, Madam City Manager, We have close to 20 or less than 20 unpermitted operators.

All right, look, even better. So down from 120-something to two, those are the folks that I think all of us were trying to undermine and prevent. So I think that goal has been achieved. Look, again, this is something that we tried that. We tried to say no, and we tried to say, look, it doesn't make sense. And all that was happening is more and more unpermitted operators were being introduced. And so I think this is a much better path. It certainly created a way for responsible operators to come in, operators that could be regulated for there to be quality. And so now at this point, I think it's a matter of just moving forward.

So I'll just call for the question based on that.

All right. Thank you, Councilmembers. My opinion, well, like I said in the committee, public safety committee, where this item was there for a very long time, I've always been a no on it. I'm not a fan of cannabis or the industry or anything like that, but the voters voted. Everyone knows I worked for the Sheriff's Department 29 years. I taught drug ed for 16 years. I dealt with people that had substance abuse problems for almost three decades now. Many people, my personal experience, many people I interact with, they didn't start because I would ask them,

you know, how did you get started in this problem? And they would say, you know, I started with marijuana. They wouldn't say I started with alcohol. It's weird. That's just personal experience. But anyway, I am a man of the law. You know, the voters voted. I'd rather have local control than be held at the state, and that's why I've been supportive of the ordinance here. Now, today we have this item before us. It's a lot of cleanup language. I also believe, like Council Member Iglesias, I also believe that we should be telling businesses how to run their own shop,

so I'm not a fan of the social equity language on this, so I'm glad we're not having that today. But, you know, we do have to be responsible. If we're going to have this here, we really, really have to have control. The other day we had, you know, I'm on the fire board. You saw me give the presentation to the explorers earlier. I was talking to the fire chief and we had six kids in the city who OD'd on those edibles. They were eating them. They got sick. They ended up in the hospital. It was terrible. You've got to be careful with these things.

That's why when we were in the committee, I think Council Member Solorio and I were talking about But any money that we make off of this, some of it has to go towards our youth, educating them about drugs and doing things that deter them from keeping this away from them. Because, you know, everyone has their own reservations about something. I have mine regarding this. But, okay, so I will call for the question.

May I, Mayor Pro Tem, sorry to interrupt. Can I just get a clarification? So the motion is to approve recommendations one through four and make the change of the five to one percent?

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

That's correct. Okay, I'll call for the question. If you're in favor, go ahead and push the green button. Green for cannabis and the red for no.

Okay, motion passes. Thank you very much. You can have the mayor come back and join us, please.

so madam city clerk we're on the consent calendar um so should did we already report out of closed session So let's report out of closed session, please. We did not.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Mayor and Councilmembers, members of the public, we had one reportable action item this evening. It's number one on your closed session agenda. The City Council approved a settlement for the purchase of property for an additional amount of $157,000.

Okay. Next, we're going to go to the consent calendar then. Do I have any items that members want to pull? Councilman Reglesias.

I do, but...

Put the clock on, please.

but I will um I'm kidding that she just no council member says he has someone here can we do the presentations first before we start those votes of office I mean um all right let's

continue with consent calendar and then we'll come back no I'm kidding go ahead

David PenalozaItem —

who who is uh here to I don't know what items they are but I'd like to to make a motion to approve or pull the item where is it why don't with that be madam clerk the appoints

to the board is 13 something or what I'm 13 other days okay that's a motion is

David PenalozaItem —

there a second second no it's okay those are appointments to the youth

Commission. Okay, so we have a motion and a second by our Mayor Potem. Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Those opposed, motion carries unanimously. Now you can swar them in.

Aye.

If I could have Andrea Anella-Mordones and Miguel Calderon.

If you could please raise your right hand. And just repeat after me. Aye.

Aye.

Please state your name.

Michael Calderon. Andriana Lardones.

To solemnly swear. To solemnly swear. To solemnly swear. That I will support. That I will support. And defend. the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and the Constitution of the State of California that I take this obligation

freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I'm about to enter

Congratulations. Thank you.

They're ready to go to meetings.

Thank you, you two, and congratulations.

And thank you for your help on summer night lights at Madison. That's been amazing. Thank you.

So now let's go to the consent calendar, if we may. Are there any items that council members would like to pull? Council Member Iglesias.

Okay, I want to pull 11A, 25A, 25G, 25H, and 25K.

Any other items by council members? Councilor Peñalosa?

David PenalozaItem —

19C.

19C pulled. Any other items?

20C, Mr. Mayor.

20C, Councilor Sarmiento. Any other items? Councilman Soloria, would you like to move the balance? Move the balance. Is there a second for the balance? Second. Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed, motion carries unanimously. So now we are going to go, I think, who had the first item? I think it's 19C. 19C, I believe. No, it's 11A. Oh, 11A. Go ahead.

So the reason I just wanted to pull this is because the first time for the first reading, I know I voted no on it, and I just wanted to vote yes on the rest of it. So that was the only reason why I pulled it.

All right. Is that clear?

Madam City Manager, this is not that item on First Street that I had questions about.

No, 11A is the second reading of the ordinance. It had to relate to the 7-Eleven. so she wants to register a no so you could move.

All right, so you're changing your vote from the previous council meeting or what?

No, I pulled it because I wanted to, you know, I was voting yes on the rest of the items, so I wanted to pull it so I can vote separately.

All right, so let's take a motion on this item then.

I'll move approval.

I'll second. I'm confused.

Are we voting on this single item?

Just this single item. That's what she wants.

Yes.

So we're all yes, but you're on 0. Can the clerk record that, please? Thank you. Next item, would that be 19C, maybe?

19C.

David PenalozaItem —

Let's go for 19C.

David PenalozaItem —

Madam City Manager, the reason why I wanted to pull this item is I don't have many issues with it. but I just wanted clarification. There's a couple line items in there. Again, I read every single thing in these staff reports. There's some, it's small amounts, they're under $5,000, but it's Knott's Berry Farm tickets and OC Fair tickets. I just wanted, for clarification, who are those tickets for? Is it a fundraiser we're doing, donations?

I certainly will stand corrected by our Parks and Rec director, but I assume what it is, it's for the youth excursions out of the Parks and Rec Department. Lisa, am I correct on that? That's correct. Fair enough.

David PenalozaItem —

I should have asked in our meeting, but I just saw it this morning and was curious about it. Thank you. Could I have a motion? Yeah, I'll move the item. Second.

Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed, the motion carries unanimously.

All right, next item, 20C, I believe.

That was mine, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. And I just wanted to move the item and thank our representative from the Met, Councilman Solorio, and our staff from Water. This has been a collaborative effort. I just wanted to say this. Quagga mussels, is that what they're called?

Yeah.

Quagga mussels. Yeah, that's pretty good. So they're an invasive presence, I guess, species found in Lake Mead, right? So since we needed the MET to be the agency that was eligible for the grant money, this is all coming from them. And we're looking at $122,000 for program study money. Is that correct? So great. Thank you. You don't need to come up here. I just wanted to say thank you for that. And I'm glad for the collaborative effort that we have with the MET, with the Orange County Water District, and with the city agency. I'll move the item.

Is there a second? Second. Okay, we have motion to second. I think those in favor, you want to, why do I never do the buttons at OCTA or at AQMD? Only if we're here, we do the buttons.

We want to capture it correctly. Accuracy is important, so that we're making sure that we're-

If it's unanimous, how accurate can it be? All right, let's just vote. You never know. You never know. I just think it's a lot slower.

Okay, next item, 25A.

okay 25a is it says approved community benefit agreement with not you know with not these house set an extreme and wise place for fiscal year 2019 2020 for a total amount of a hundred and ten thousand dollars and I know it's coming from the Community Development Agency my question to the city manager is where is

this money coming from this would be general fund dollars these were three nonprofits that applied for CDBG funding and didn't receive an allocation so as part of the the budget process it was requested to allocate a hundred and ten thousand dollars to these three nonprofits but it is general fund

dollars okay so they we had a process with CDBG they weren't selected because of the process that didn't score high enough it was just the limited amount

of CDBG money that we had and the other requests there they were prioritized and we ran out of money before we got to them of CDBG dollars. Okay so what I want

to say is although I you know I have good with working relationships with Nauti's house and you know Weiss Place, my thought is when you go in for a proposal for an RFP, you have to have a good RFP in order for you to get selected. I mean, there is a process, right? You have evaluators, you have individuals who are reviewing the RFP. And we only have so much money to go around, so you would hope that, you know, you draft a great proposal so you can get funding.

And what really concerns me is that it's coming from general fund money. And I don't think we should be giving money to anyone from the general fund money that should be going for critical services for our community.

So I had a dilemma. I really like what they're doing. But when you run a nonprofit, it's like you've got to make sure that you're able to pay your bills in order to provide your programs and not just rely on a certain entity for you to be able to operate. So my vote on this is going to be a no, just the fact that it's coming from the general fund money, and I don't think we should be giving that money away.

Thank you. I beg to differ with that. I think these are solid organizations, and it's part of the process to come to council members, and we deliberate, and we can agree or disagree. So with that, I'd like to make a motion that we approve this item. I'll second. Okay, any comments?

Councilor Solodio? Briefly, this was part of the budget process as City Manager Rich said, so I appreciate the follow-up. And we do spend general funding, we allocate it for services. And oftentimes some of the critical services are through nonprofits. So Wise Place is a woman's shelter. They applied, they had a very solid application. And then Nathese House and Neutral Ground do provide excellent services directly to the community.

They, for example, recently with Summer Night Lights, ran an amazing program with hundreds and hundreds of children providing services in a very deserving area and in a more cost-effective way than the city could provide. So I applaud these organizations for stepping up to the plate to help our community. And I'm pleased that we're spending general fund resources for youth programs and for women's shelters.

Thank you. Any other comments? With that, I believe we have a motion to second. Those in favor, please press green.

All right, motion passes. Next item, I believe it was Councilor Iglesias again.

25G.

25G.

This is to approve an agreement with Fiesta de Carnival for Carnival Services rights for the Fiestas Patrias event.

So my question for staff is going to be, how did we decide that Fiesta de Carnival was going to be the provider of, I guess, overseeing the event?

Okay. Director Redloff, would you like to answer the question? Thank you.

Lisa Rutloff, Executive Director of Parks Recreation Community Service. I have Juan Lara here, a Recreation Supervisor, and he will explain.

Mayor, Councilmembers, just to clarify, the reason why we proceeded with Fiesta de Carnaval is because they are a current contractor for our park carnivals that take place throughout our park system throughout the year. So they're a proven entity, and we were comfortable in working with them for this particular activity.

But how did you select them? I mean, were there other individuals or other organizations or businesses that wanted to have this opportunity to have this business with the city?

There is a very limited amount of companies. We always go through the RFP process for carnivals at our parks, and given the time constraints that we had, we did not have an opportunity to go through an RFP process specifically for this activity. So again, given that we have a proven record and with this company we felt comfortable in just extending them the opportunity. We do look forward to opening the RFP for all carnival services for 2020, which will also include Fiestas Patrias.

This is like the biggest event that we have in the city, so I don't think it's right that we're just selecting one person, I mean one business, whether to giving it an opportunity for everyone to apply. So another question is, when you do these contracts, are you asking these individuals for their employees to go through background checks?

That is part of the agreement. And again, just to clarify, normally when we do RFPs for carnivals, we usually only get two responses. and Fiesta de Carnaval always tends to be the one that ends up with the agreement. But we'll make sure that we share those results for the next RFP process. But part of the agreement does require that the contractor does their due diligence in making sure that their employees are background checked.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Given that, what is a pleasure to the Council? Go ahead, Council. Last quick question, Councilor Sarmiento.

Yeah, this is a little off-topic, but since we're talking about fiestas, so they've moved, right? As of last year, they're now on flower between Civic Center and 4th Street, somewhere where before they were in the downtown. So, you know, I guess are we sort of in still the pilot programming stage, or is this their permanent home? They were in the downtown for years, and so I know that there are a lot of other events that are in the downtown. so why wouldn't they be on Flower Street as well?

Part of the reason that we tried this new location and not being flowered between Santa Ana Boulevard and Civic Center was because of the development of the light rail project. So as you know, the light rail project will be running through downtown, and that pretty much also would occupy the entire footprint or the majority of the footprint of our festival. So given that we will not be able to work around the light rail once it's fully operational, we do feel that flower between Santa Ana Boulevard and Civic Center is the best location for this event now.

So any other events that would be in the alignment or along the alignment where the streetcar is going to be probably also would be better served to be in that area as well?

Correct. And most of those projects or events are privately produced and that would be the recommendation that we would make once we receive their request.

Okay. Just looking for consistency. So that's good. Thank you, Warren.

Thank you for those questions. Another question, Councillor Peñalosa.

David PenalozaItem —

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And with the promotional company, I know that from what I recall, they were the same ones that were used last year, correct, Lisa? Or, yes?

Just to clarify, you're speaking to the Carnival Company? Yeah. No, it is not the same company. That company actually has gone out of business.

David PenalozaItem —

Ah, okay. And that was kind of the concern that I had because last year I know that that company was making an effort to go around the numerous different, you know, some neighborhood associations, Santa Ana Business Council, Downtown Inc., kind of get, you know, the lay of the land and see what the overall community wanted to see. and I was at one of those meetings and I personally wasn't happy with their marketing because all their marketing was in English. You know, promoting Fiestas Patrias in Santana and you're going to do everything in English. That's why I wasn't sure if it was the same one or not.

David PenalozaItem —

But just moving forward, I would like to see this put out to different contractors, but it is important to maintain consistency, not just in the location, but with the promotional company because when it comes to events and putting events together, you're always going to have hiccups regardless of what you're trying to do. So you're only going to get better over time and learn. But so it's kind of, I don't know, when that time comes for next year, just Madam City Manager, if you could make sure that staff really works with us

David PenalozaItem —

and to see what kind of outreach is done for other carnival companies out there. Okay. Not a problem. Thank you.

Thank you. So given that, do I have a motion?

David PenalozaItem —

I'll make a motion to approve.

Second.

We have a motion to second. Those in favor, please press green.

Okay, next item. I believe I was Council Member Iglesias as well.

For this one, it's 25H, it's an approved agreement with Schroeser Corporation for Landscape Maintenance Services for a three-year period in an amount not to exceed $125,000 annually for a total amount of $625,000. And it's coming from the non-general fund. I just want to know where staff gets $625,000. If you divide it by three, you get $125,000. The math, this doesn't add up, because if it's $125,000 times three is $375,000.

So where's that extra $250,000?

Is there a contingency of what's going on?

No, so it's for a three-year period, but it has a provision for a two-year renewal option. So we're pricing the entire five years, which equates to the $625,000. Got it.

okay okay so then with uh with 125 000 they are going to provide services landscaping services to maintain the water facility in the san anna regional transportation center that's correct

there's 19 water enterprise facilities such as well sites and pump stations that are included in the water sites and then the train station as you mentioned was this agreement did it go out to bid yes it was competitively bid rfps were issued and sawyer was the one that received the highest score to land the the contract that's for your consideration and it's 125 000 just what what

landscape just cutting the lawn i mean what exactly i can ask our deputy director of public

works nabil if he can talk about the scope of services in the agreement good evening mayor

member of the council my name is the bill sabo director of public works we do have 21 groundwater wells and each well has its own site where we need landscape company to come in and clean and maintain the landscape around the wells. We also have seven pump stations. One example of the pump stations that we have is the one right on Memory Lane and Bristol, a huge pump station that we have a contractor come in, maintain the frontage or the front of the pump station and on site. In addition to the pump stations, we have 10 reservoir sites that we need maintenance on

just to keep them clean and and maintained landscape including the cleaning of the facilities themselves on the outside for me I just think it's

hundred twenty five thousand all right for those that want to move forward is

there a motion to approve move the item just with the quick comment I just

David PenalozaItem —

wanted to point out that that all the questions that have been asked are in the first three pages of the staff report and so if we just all of us just make sure that we went over these staff reports ahead of time to avoid these questions being asked. But with that said, I'll move the item.

Okay, we have a motion to second. Those in favor, please press green.

Okay, we have one other item prior to 25K, and that is 20D was requested recently by Council Member Sarmiento. So technically, we've already voted on the balance of the calendar, but he wanted to bring that up specifically. So should we take it out of the vote we just took and reconsider it? What would be appropriate? Did we vote on the balance of the consent? Yeah, we voted on the balance.

Yes, we did.

You know, maybe I'm consistent with my vote. In other words, I supported the balance, which included 20D. I just had some questions for the staff.

Why don't we just answer your questions on 20D, and if it needs to be reconsidered, we will. But if not, let's just have that discussion right now.

Please go ahead. So my only question was is that this looks like it's an appropriation for $574,000 for additional legal help that would be outside of what we could do in-house. What's the period of time for that?

Also important to point out, it's a complete pass-through, so the amounts are collected by developers and then passed through to the attorneys that are contracted for the work.

So at this point, as mentioned by our city manager, it is a pass-through. The cost is when we do have legal issues with development projects. It is borne by the developer. We collect the money with an administrative fee, and it's for defending the project. In this particular instance, we have one project that has been filed for a petition for legal action recently, and the legal firm has worked on the project, and therefore we're requesting that the allocation allows us to have the pass-through contract be executed.

The applicant has already deposited the funding. We need the mechanism to allow us to actually pay for legal fees to the firm.

Did that answer your question? I understand that, but the staff report just didn't say that. Usually, you know, it's a three-year period. It's an annual. So it was silent on that time, so I just wanted to get.

So the first one, the $74,000, was for fees that we have already incurred for 2018-19 fiscal year. the upcoming $500,000 for the upcoming fiscal year, 19-20, for this current fiscal year.

Look, so I'm fine supporting it, just to the extent that we can make sure that the staff report defines a period of time that we're going to be making this appropriation for. And I know that it's for BB&K, and BB&K is a very good firm, and we use them almost as a default. But we want to make sure that we also diversify that list of firms that we're going to be having. And I know Madam City Attorney is very supportive of that. That was one of her initial proposals when she came here to this council. So just so we move forward on that, I won't change my vote. All right, so we'll continue. Just to call that to the attorney.

Thank you for that. Thank you. 25K.

I just wanted to pull it so I can vote separately. So I have, it's just my same questions that I had in the other one. Even though I know Council Member Piniello's side is on the report, but it is my right as an elected official to ask the questions that I want to ask because the public wants to know.

All right. so with that I would entertain a motion I'll move approval is there a second okay we have a second those in favor please press green motion carries 5 to 1 so now our next item I believe we're going to 55 a is it madam clerk 55 C

55D. Oh, yes. Okay.

Oh, I'm sorry. 55D. 55D. That's what I thought. We did A, B, and C. So 55D. I would entertain a motion on 55D. So moved. Second. Those in favor, please. Question. All right. Put the green light on. Go ahead.

Okay, so this one is to adopt a resolution. We've been saying that library department, which I am in support of, and I think it's something that we have been asking for as a community and also as council members. But one concern that I have is prior to the separation of the parks and having the library being its own department, I know for a fact that she was doing an amazing job with the youth council was Cheryl, Cheryl from the library.

And my concern is that the youth council has been stripped away from the library and it's been given to the Parks and Recreation, which I know we have a lot of youth who use those services and we help them and we provide those services. So I was wondering if it's a possibility for us to have both, have oversight of the youth council. So both, I know Mr. Lara is doing a good job in being the one that's coordinating that. But if we could have also Cheryl be part of overseeing the youth council, because she's been doing an amazing job.

I know the youth love her, especially the ones with Team Space. And she's just been doing an amazing job. So she is, I think, the youth supervisor. So I'm hoping that if we could have both of them oversee it, being part of the youth council, because they are deciding on almost $3 million, because this is what the youth council is trying to see, where they're going to go with this. So if we could have her as part of that board or committee, I think it's something good that would provide an extra voice from the kids who have been used to working with her.

Council member, you raise a really good point because the Youth Commission does provide valuable input to both parks and recs program as well as library programs. So I don't believe it will be a problem at all to keeping both departments involved with the Youth Commission. As far as specific staffing, I would need to take a look at the roles and responsibilities before I could make a commitment of a specific staff member. You'll be able to see that both of them stay as an oversight for the Youth Commission? Absolutely. We can keep both departments involved in that particular commission. Okay, thank you.

Okay, with that, I would entertain a motion. Councilor Salaudi.

Yeah, briefly, I know it's atypical when we talk about a specific individual, but I had for a couple years been hearing great things about Cheryl, but never really had an opportunity to talk to her, and I finally did at a youth-oriented event talk to her. She's a very talented staff person. She lives in town. She cares about the kids. that she cares about the program. She's creative, she's intelligent. Definitely a role there or beyond, I think is very, very merited.

Kay?

You move it? Kay, is there a second? Those in favor, please press green.

Kay, what's the next item, Madam Clerk?

55E.

55E, this is adopting a resolution accepting a donation for our canine equipment and supplies from Joanna Shilleri for the Santa Police Department. I entertain a motion.

So moved.

We have a motion and a second. Those in favor, please press green. Our next item is 55F. I would entertain a motion.

I'll move it. Second.

Motion and a second. Those in favor, please press green.

55G is our next item. This is adopting a reimbursement agreement resolution for land use applications and projects. I would entertain a motion.

I'll move the item.

Mayor Pro Temp seconds it. I'll second it. Those in favor, please press green.

Next item is 60A, is approving a density bonus agreement to allow a 552 affordable rental project over on East 1st Street. This is the item I was asking about earlier, Madam City Manager. Okay, before we do anything, I have a list of speakers, so let's hear from the speakers. Kimberly Adams followed by Isula Marcus I believe it might be from Fullerton.

Go ahead Kimberly.

My name is Kimberly Adams. I'm regional organizing director for California YIMBY in the Orange County area. We're a pro-affordable housing nonprofit who supports this project wholeheartedly. It's no secret that California, Orange County, and even Santa Ana is in the midst of a housing crisis, particularly affordable housing. The development proposed by Jamboree Housing and Pacific Companies is a huge step in the right direction, with 552 affordable units that will also include Section 8 vouchers.

There are people suffering, multiple families living in single-family homes or apartments, and folks and families suffering from housing instability, not to mention the people who grew up in Santa Ana, have families here or work here and have no opportunity to actually live here. Commuting for people who cannot live nowhere they work or commutes are crushing, contributing to our climate crisis and severely curbing quality of life. The development will help all of these folks and improve the community.

Healthy communities require a few elements, including access, environmental responsibility, stable housing, and safety. First point meets all of those requirements with a combination of retail space for access to goods and services, access to health care and good schools, access to public transportation, affordable housing, and a safe neighborhood. 91% of residents report feeling safer in their Jamboree developments. Housing instability is a multi-generational issue affecting seniors, adults, and children alike.

We're looking at a future generation right now who are affected by needs as basic as a roof over their heads. As they move from place to place, they have to change schools, leave behind friends, lose stability, and face a disrupted education. With Jamboree Housing, 23% of children attend school more regularly than in their previous living arrangements. Along with our housing crisis, we're facing an environmental crisis. By reducing commutes, we're helping reach California's carbon emission goals.

Close access to public transportation at First Point will go a long way toward contributing to the solution. For this reason, California YIMBY supports this project and asks the council for approval in order to nourish this community. Thank you.

Thank you.

And then Isil, I believe it's Miracles from Fullerton.

I-S-S-U-L and then M-A, I believe it's R-C-L-E-S or U-S.

all right next one Elizabeth Hamburg followed by Akron McCule good evening

council my name is Elizabeth Hansburg I'm the director of people for housing Orange County we're also a pro-housing advocacy group again we're just here to to lend support for the fact that we have an opportunity to put 550 moderately priced homes into the housing mix for the residents of Santa Ana. We do have a housing shortage. This housing – I don't want to say demographic, that's not the right word, but this price point is in short supply. And so this is an opportunity to move that needle and increase the supply in the moderate income bracket.

So I would just urge you to think about your RHNA numbers that will be coming out soon, and that this is one more boxes that we can tick in terms of putting supply forward. Thank you.

Thank you.

Erin and then Ty Phun.

Hello, council members. My name is Erin McCall, and I'm from the Orange County Young Democrats. young people are at high risk of homelessness and on the transition to homelessness there a lot of people are having to live with their parents or with multiple roommates and so this housing project will be able to make it so that that's actually a lot more accessible and as we were talking earlier today where we were saying we want to hire more people in Santa Ana if we make this housing available for people who do work in the community to be able to live in the community and to be able to afford it at the jobs, it actually

helps benefit and accomplish that goal that you guys are trying to do. So I would just implore the council to really take this opportunity to lead the way to address this housing crisis because it's only going to get more compounded as time goes on and developers continue to build housing that's not affordable. Thank you so much for your time and have a great day.

Thank you. Ty followed by Lisa Peterson. Good evening. Thank you Mayor Patem. Good evening City Council members, Mayor Pulido and Mayor Patem Villegas. My name is Ty Phan. I'm a resident here in San Thena. For as long as I can remember I have lived here. I've lived all over the city. My family and I moved a lot. And other than college I call this my home. and my earliest memories of living in Santa Ana is living in a garage. There are no windows and I shared the same bed with my sister and my mom. Our home, it's actually near Westminster

and Euclid, had a lot of aunties and uncles. Had an uncle who lived in the living room, an auntie and her son in another room, my dad at the time who had cancer was in another room, and another auntie in another room. Funny story is, they were not auntie and uncles, but they were other immigrants like myself who could not afford housing here in the city of Santana. So many of our residents and our community members cannot afford housing. Yet we are the city with the highest density. We have the highest number of renters. And this is a project that not only will bring in affordable housing,

it will serve the very community that lives here, the people who've been here a long time, and the community like myself, or myself when I was a kid. As an adult, I recently moved out of my apartment. In a one-bedroom here in Santana, it was almost $2,000 a month. That is an incredible amount to pay for a 790-square-foot apartment. This project does not displace anyone in the community. What it does is that it helps move families, low-income families like myself, into attainable housing, into affordable housing.

So instead of living with eight or nine or ten different people in a single-family home, what they can do is move into a one-bedroom, into a two-bedroom, so that you have space to breathe and room to grow and to be productive members of the community rather than spending $2,000 a month on a one-bedroom that you share with five other people. I know that the parking situation has been a concern for the City Council and I know that here Jamboree housing has gone above and beyond what they needed to do to ensure that we have parking for our residents instead of just one

parking space they provided shuttle service as well as valet something they're not legally required to do because they're great members of our community what we forget is that the vast majority of low-income communities do not have more than one car. So to apply middle class standards with two or three cars per household to low income and very low income communities just doesn't make any sense. So I really hope and I implore that you approve this item because I really hope that you worry about and think about housing for residents and not housing for cars. Thank you.

Lisa Peterson Jose Trinidad

Jesse Lopez

Claudio Gallegos

Hi, good evening. My name is Jessie Lopez. As a resident of Santana, I am here to voice my approval of the First Point Project. We need leadership to help address the issue of affordable housing, and the First Point Project would create 552 affordable homes for families. This is a moral issue, and we cannot be more concerned about parking or whether people have a place to sleep at night or not. Thank you.

Claudio followed by Tim Fum followed by Dan Lee.

Good evening Mayor and Council. I'm back here again on behalf of Congressman Lou Correa.

Dear Mayor and City Council, the housing crisis continues to worsen in Orange County and in Santa Ana specifically. This has created unstable housing situations for our children and their family as well as an increase in homelessness. The City of Santa Ana has continuously acknowledged the need for more affordable housing. According to our City's housing element, 58% of Santa Ana renters pay more than 30% of their income on rent. These conditions lead to a number of hardship for families including not being able to afford other necessities like food and health care.

And while the city has taken great strides in addressing the homelessness crisis, the need for more affordable housing remains. The First Point Project before the council tonight represents a real opportunity to improve the quality of life for low-income Santa Ana residents by providing more than 550 high-quality homes for families. Jamboree Housing has a reputation of quality, affordable housing with services that help transform lives and communities.

They are a trusted member of our community from Cornerstone, an affordable family apartment community in Santa Ana, to the much anticipated Santa Ana Veterans Village that will serve over 75 homeless veterans in our community. First point will be no different. As a representative of this community and as a constituent of this city council, I urge you to approve this affordable housing project that our residents so desperately need. Sincerely, Congressman J. Luis Correa.

Thank you, Dang.

After Tim Pham, Dang Lee.

Hello. Thank you for your time tonight. My name is Deng and I have been living in Santa Ana for about 10 years. I grew up here. I went to school, have a college. I have a good paying job, but I still live with my parents. and because I cannot afford to pay more than 30% of my paycheck out for rent and my student debt. And I'm not alone on this. Many of my friends share the same experience and we are having the same problem. Where do we live now?

So I understand a lot of people have concerns about the parking lot, but nowadays people like me, everything we need is in this phone. We have somebody pick it up from driving to deliver food by our door. So car is not a problem. I would be happy to trade my car to take public transportation. I would pick up a bike, save gas, save money. But I have an affordable unit that rides around the corner of everything.

So let me ask you this question. If you're in my suit about to start a family, where will you start? Will you live in Japan, Karras, or will you live in one of these affordable units? So I do thank you for your support in this project, and thank you for taking the small step in the right direction.

Thank you. Thank you, Roger Richards, followed by Michael Wright.

Thank you. My name is Roger Richards. I'm a local resident and small business owner. it's evident that there's a need for affordable housing in our city as many other speakers have said here support the first point project on the 2000 block of East First Street size ideal it's not going to splice or gentrify any existing residential or businesses and will rehabilitate what to me is kind of an eyesore on one of the gateways to our city I hope the City Council approve the project it will serve the community both directly and indirectly thank you

Thank you. And Michael?

Good evening. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and City Council. My name is Michael Sean Wright, and I'm a resident here in Santa Ana. I'm also from the Human Rights Campaign. campaign. I have the honor of on a regular basis going around our city and doing wound care for the people who don't have a home. As you know, there are 87,000 people with Section 8 vouchers that are waiting for someplace like this. Santa Ana has carried more than its fair share of the burden of the housing crisis here in Orange County.

and has made great strides in working to remedy this crisis that we have. We know this area that's right up on First near the freeway. You know what kind of an eyesore that is, what a pain point that is for the city. What a shining example that we could show the rest of the county that this is the way you do it. You work with responsible partners like Jamboree to create a housing opportunity that so many people are desperate for. I know that as I talk to members and leaders of the Downtown Business Association, they are in favor of more housing that's coming to our community because that attracts business.

It's a healthier community. So I thank you for your support for this.

Thank you. I believe that is it. I would now like to bring it to Council for discussion and consideration. I would like to go first. Councilor Peñaloza.

David PenalozaItem —

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to listen to some of the speakers up here.

David PenalozaItem —

Somebody mentioned that this is a small step in the right direction. The thing is that this isn't a small step because we've been doing giant leaps in the right direction. Santa Ana has. So I don't agree with that statement because people come here as if Santa Ana is just not doing much. We've been doing giant leaps for decades in housing units and affordable housing, and we're actually one of 16 cities in the entire state that has surpassed the regional housing needs assessment. The only one in Orange County.

David PenalozaItem —

So I just wanted to point that out.

David PenalozaItem —

With that said, there is 8,100 units in the pipeline coming to our city. We're addressing affordable housing. We're the only city in Orange County that is. We're one of 16 in the state that have been recognized by the state that are surpassing our housing needs. Yes, there is a need, but we can only do so much with the resources that we have. and the services that we would need to provide to these multiple units that want to come to, that want to be built in our city. I was looking over the design plans and

David PenalozaItem —

I don't know if somebody from planning could answer some questions on the parking, The off-site parking, I remember we had a question whether it was going to be paid for by the tenant or by the units, by the landlord.

Based on the proposal, the site is providing on-site parking free of charge to the tenants. Any off-site parking spaces will be an optional rental space that will have to be paid by the renters. what the applicant is committed to do is to coordinate and negotiate the parking spaces in a bulk rate they will manage the off-site parking spaces so tenants doesn't have to deal with the inconvenience of talking to individual owners they all they have to do if they have they want the option of an off-site parking they would just deal with the management on site but they do have to pay for this part of their lease as an optional payment

Correct. It's going to be an additional cost to the residents if they choose to have an off-site parking space. They are being provided one space on-site included as part of their rent.

David PenalozaItem —

Thank you, man.

More questions? Councilman Solario? No questions, but just some comments. First, as Councilmember Pinalosa alluded to, Santa Ana has been doing a lot in terms of housing of all types, including affordable housing. And in fact, really over a two, three-year window, including this project, we have about 1,500 affordable units in the works. No other community in South California can speak to that. So I'm proud about the city's commitment to that, and I've been able to support each of those projects. For me, on the last meeting, we talked quite a bit about parking,

and there were some new provisions that hadn't been raised before that, for me, raise additional questions. We did do innovative things because I do believe that out 10, 15 years with things like Uber and Lyft and driverless cars, there is going to be less demand for parking spaces at places like this. But in the meantime, we needed something that would help the residents that live there. So the shuttle program, the valet program, were things that the developers early on agreed to in conversations I had with them. And we've only since then improved them.

But the last meeting, there was a big question on the second space that they may be able to have off-site. There was talk about a fee that had never been discussed. There was also talk that to get that spot, the residents would need to find their own lot and have agreements and all this stuff. So the language has been refined to say that the property owner, the landlord, will in bulk essentially buy those off-site units so that if somebody does need an extra space, they can have it.

Another example, too, of an improvement that was made was, you know, if there is a valet or shuttle service and because it's not 24-7 service, what happens in the emergency after hours? And so we added new language in there to protect the tenants that if somebody does have an emergency, they need to go get their car at some random hour, that there would be somebody on the property that would take them there or arrange the transportation. So I think those improvements are all very good. Finally, I think in California and in Santa Ana, folks love their cars.

And I would say that, yeah, some low-income folks may have one car or zero cars, but some do have two, three, four, or five. and there are many neighborhoods in this town that are severely under-parked and there are literally daily fights about that. I know the last time just about three weeks ago I went to go visit the 911 dispatch center and that was one of the calls that came in you know late at night and folks were getting ready to go fisticuffs and they were all calling police officers and so these parking shortages are real and guess what they're in low-income neighborhoods they're not up in

floral park you know they're not up in you know in standpoint we're buying larger or in places like that so we want to manage it smartly and it's because of good management and planning on this project that with everything that's been done I am in support thank you thank you I believe

Councilman Vince Ramiento yes thank you mr. mayor and you know this project is is in my ward and and And I want to thank, first of all, Madam City Manager for bringing this back to us under her authority because I think that we realize there is a discussion that needs to be had that's a little broader than just this development. But I think it's specifically interesting because I think what we're all talking about is just balance as well. I think what we've had in this city, and even if you look at just this corridor, the First Street corridor,

You have a development that's just west of this, which is Lion, the Lion development. 1901, beautiful units, market rate, but very few of our folks can afford that, right? Because one bedroom there is probably about $1,800. If you move a little bit further west from that, we entitled a development for Wormers, which is going to be on the old Elks Lodge property. That's about 600 units of market rate housing. That, as well, is probably going to be at an increment of about $1,800 to $2,000 for a one-bedroom, and more as you go up to two- and three-bedrooms.

Very few of our families, of our young people graduating college who are trying to start their lives, are going to be able to even rent that. So all we're talking about is balance. We entitle those because we know a community needs to have diversity in housing. That's the only way we're going to work our way through this. but the price points for the units that are available here at this site, because there are two, three, and four bedrooms, those really reflect the needs of our families here in town. So that, to me, is something that should be applauded and celebrated, and I certainly appreciate the work that was done

because this is a much different project than what it was when we first started. It's evolved into something that I think all of us can get behind, and I thank the applicant, I thank their staff and Jamboree for working on this. But the broader issue is this, is that I think the young lady who spoke to us, Ty Pham, said it well. And I think she is sort of reflective of what many of the experiences are for folks who live in town. Growing up in garages, renting bedrooms, renting. I know a family that rents a closet, literally a closet.

And so when we talk about parking issues, when we talk about, you know, living in really difficult conditions, The reason why there's parking issues in some of our central city areas in town is because you have two, three, four families in one house. So that's incredibly difficult to raise a family, for kids to do their homework, for people to grow up healthy, and for there not to be secondary impacts. So these small steps, and I do call them small because, again, relative to what else we're doing, we need to do a lot more. And, you know, we shouldn't be guided by RHNA. We shouldn't be guided by other things.

we should be guided by our own community standards and our commitment to the families that we represent. They put us in these seats to make responsible decisions for themselves. So I want to thank our staff for a lot of the heavy work that's been done, and I am fully supportive of this development. Thank you. Councilman Regalas.

Thank you for the opportunity giving me in expressing, I guess, would be my concerns and my point of view with this development. I understand we do need affordable housing here in our city, but we have a 552-unit project that we are not providing enough parking. And I know that the feedback that we've received is that our community doesn't have cars, our communities aren't going to need cars, our youth are not going to need a car.

They could Uber or use transportation. The reality is they're not doing that. And what's going to happen is this is going to impact our neighboring residents that have their homes, their condos, or they have their houses. So we've asked of other developers, why can't they lower down the number of units? And I know I've expressed this concern with this developer, and what they've said is it doesn't make business sense for them to do it and provide more parking.

But, okay, so are we here to make the developer wealthier? Because even though it's affordable, it's not going to be affordable. We're still going to have those issues. Because I've asked the question, what is affordable housing? And I haven't been given a number. How much money is that? They haven't told me. So in reality, affordable is not affordable. And these are the conversations that we're having at Skag and with Rina. Even though you call it affordable, yeah, it may be cheaper than market rate, but it's not affordable. And in having 552 units, you are going to have two to three families living in there,

and you guys are going to impact our community. So when we talk about responsible development, I believe this project is not being responsible to our community. And like I say, you know, Santa Ana history, it's been like, okay, just come to Santa Ana and just do whatever you want. Because, you know, they're just approving anything. So I believe Jamboree has done an amazing job with other projects, and I've seen what they're doing with, you know, in my world of it with the Veterans Village. But with this one, I'm not supported because I don't think it's responsible development, and it's not really going to help our community.

Maybe at first it may, but then after they're going to find out that they can't afford the affordable housing. So with that, I just, you know, I don't feel comfortable, and I know many of our constituents have expressed that, that parking is an issue. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to be supporting the project tonight, but I'm going to have a request of modifications, especially to the exterior of the building. I want it to look like a great building in perpetuity, not something that in 25 or 30 years is going to be tired, old, dated, fading, and becoming problematic. But before I state those conditions, I want to first kind of remind us that we are the fourth densest city in the country.

That's easy to forget sometimes, and much of it's due to overcrowding, but it's all due to the fact that people really want to live here. And I guarantee you, if we build more units, they will come. They'll continue to fill up. Right now we have 8,000 either under construction or in the pipeline.

We have to start being careful with this, I believe, because that trend is just going to continue and eventually will be one big apartment. And a community needs more than just dwelling units. So, again, I'm willing to approve this project, But in general, I think we have to look at the question of what else do we want in the city? How do we balance the city? How do we bring recreational amenities, other attractions, shopping, other businesses, things that will balance out the community?

Because when you talk about density, you've got New York City, followed by San Francisco, followed by Chicago, followed by Santa Ana, and then it's Boston. So 13,000 people per square mile is a lot of people. And we know they're here. All you have to do is go out in the street virtually any time of day. You'll see folks around town because of that very high density. And once these 8,000 units that are in the pipeline are built, again, we have to ask the question, do we want another 8,000 after that? Because they will come.

And eventually, it costs money to render the services. And so somehow we need to work with our economic development department, with our vision of how we can bring more revenue to the city in order to render the services needed so that all these people can have a high quality of life. So having said that, I know that there's public money going into this project. They're getting the density bonus. They're getting the tax breaks from Sacramento. There's a lot going into it.

So I would like to request that as we approve this, we direct staff to work with a developer to make sure that when they come in, that they eliminate stucco and use other finishes such as brick, stone, wood, other materials, other building materials that are of high quality.

Also, I want to make sure that we increase the number of units that have balconies. I think balconies are important. They enhance the experience for those folks living there. I also want to request that we increase the height of the perimeter walls to 8 feet to provide privacy, and that we break up these walls with decorative design and finishes on both sides of the walls. I also want to request that we increase the size, and again, I'm leaving much as up to staff and staff discretion, but increase the size of trees and shrubs.

Sometimes we come with development, and the early stuff is just so tiny that eventually, in 10, 15 years, it starts to look like trees. But initially, they're not what you see when you see those renderings from artists.

Also, look at light colors inside the parking structures. I'm thinking more about security and lighting to make people feel safe and work well. I know right now that's not necessarily in the design. Also I know there's going to be a lot of bicycles here. Let's plan on how we're going to manage the bicycles. I think we ought to have bike storage or something that's proactive and not just tell folks, So I'll put them in the apartment and then use them, you know, bring them out when you can, et cetera, et cetera. So with that, I hope that this will improve the quality of the buildings long term. I know the light's red.

It's probably been red.

We didn't say anything.

And I appreciate that. I rarely go into the red.

You were on a roll.

But with that, I'm ready to push green. So those in favor, any more comments? I agree on all those design comments you mentioned, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. So do we have a motion?

Yeah, I need a motion and a second.

I'll second. Those in favor, please push green.

So motion passes by a wide margin.

All right. With that, let's go on. What's the next item, Madam? City Clerk?

60B.

What was that again?

60B.

60B?

Correct.

Okay, I would entertain a motion.

Same property? Second. Those in favor, please vote green.

Councilmember Sarmanto and Solorio, if you would please vote.

Well, wait a minute. Yeah, that didn't record properly. Wait a minute. Do it again.

We'll reset that.

It's the same project. Right. So if you voted green before, you should vote green again.

I just have different buttons than you all. More complicated.

He's got buttons on the right and buttons on the left.

I do.

Does that mean he gets two votes? All right, motion passes. We already did 75A. And now where are we? 75B. This is time and place for the public hearing and adopting a resolution for a recovery of uncollected costs for abatement of dangerous and abandoned buildings. Let me open up the public hearing. Do we have any speakers? No cards. Okay. Is there anybody that forgot to give us a card but wants to say anything on this? Seeing no one, I will close the public hearing and bring it to Council for consideration. Do I have a motion? Motion approved.

We have a motion and a second. Motion by Mayor Pro Tem, second by Councilman Sarmiento.

David PenalozaItem —

I just have a comment. Go ahead. I'm in support of this item, but I just would like to see it more aggressive. I know, Alvaro, I know you're out there, and I know you're working really hard

David PenalozaItem —

going after these abandoned properties, but there are just so many. And if we could, I mean, I don't know what it's going to take, but just really hammer down on them. They're just an eyesore, broken window theory. They, you know, the homeless take over them.

David PenalozaItem —

And you know what? They're transients because they were offered homes when they were cleared out of the RoboTrax and they refused to take it. So the transients are just, have moved in and it's just causing a lot of problems and just makes everything look worse. So, but those are my comments.

Okay, so we have a motion to second. Those in favor, please press green.

Our next item, that was unanimous, our next item, item 85A. I'll turn it over to Council Member Iglesias.

Okay. So for this item, the reason I brought it up is because we had a speaker at our last meeting in, was it that we met in July? And I've been hearing also concerns about not having representation in Ward 4 and continuing with the commissioners that were appointed by that council member to sit on these commissions and boards.

So my ask when it was Daisy's first meeting was if we could see what the, I would say, what the process is and what our, by law, what is it that we're, or by our charter, what is it that we're required to do when we have a vacancy and then having the boards and commissioners appointed to this. because the speaker brought a very good point up that if we don't have a council member to represent that ward, then we shouldn't be having commissioners either because they're also making important decisions that will affect the...

There's a suggestion. Can I call Mayor Pro Temp for a moment?

Yeah.

Go ahead, Mayor Pro Temp. I was going to say, why don't we just take a vote?

Okay.

and remove people unless there's a committee that's it like to make the

motion I'll make the motion whatever you prefer yeah so I would like to make a

motion to have the word those appointed but is that something that we can vote

on right now I don't believe you can and the attorney has stepped away because it's not agendized for you to take an action on it an 85 item is something where you can just provide direction to me what I can do is return at the next meeting with an agenda item where you could take an action. Okay, then do that.

All right, so you have clear direction on that?

David PenalozaItem —

So what was the direction given to staff? To come back with a recommendation

removing all members of commissioners or boards representing, in this case, Ward 4.

David PenalozaItem —

Okay, so bring in a staff report. And to basically say... I'm clear now.

Thank you.

David PenalozaItem —

So just vacating all of the Ward 4 commissioners? Correct. Across the board? Correct. Okay. I was interested in, there was a commissioner in Ward 4 that I'd like to nominate for Ward 2. She had reached out to me. You can do that separately. Oh, okay.

We're going to get a legal opinion first. Okay.

David PenalozaItem —

You can do that. It's Alberta Christie. She didn't want to have a lapse in her historic resources commission. Nominate her now and have her come at the next council meeting and square in. Let's do that.

Do you have a vacancy?

David PenalozaItem —

Yeah, I have a vacancy. It's expired. He's going to create a vacancy. My Ward 2 vacancy has been expired, so I wanted to make an appointment to it. So who are you kicking off?

I don't even know. Nobody. It's a vacancy. Just starting trouble. That's all.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, thank you. Thank you all.

Okay, so we have basically direction, clear direction, unanimous. Do you need a vote?

Yeah, I do want to say something.

Okay, go ahead, Councilman Salonio.

I personally am not supportive. I mean, I don't mind going back and looking case by case what the commissioners are. But the way that our commissioner appointments work is somebody nominates them, but the council as a whole appoints them. So they're really the council's appointees. and so I voted for them before because I thought they had something to offer. They've been attending. Most of them, to my understanding, are in good standing, so I don't think it's appropriate, at least in my case. I don't plan on supporting that direction.

Like I said, we're going to get a legal opinion, and we'll see it from there.

We'll figure it out when we vote. Next item, who had the next item, 85B? I do. You're on a roll. Go ahead.

I am. And thank you for allowing me to be on a roll. Thank you.

The reason I brought this up is because this has been coming up a lot. And then you mentioned, Mayor, about how we're having a lot of housing units being required of the city of Santa Ana. So I requested this to be on the agenda. Just to make the colleagues and also the public aware of the changes being proposed that could place an unfair and undue burden on our city for the production of affordable housing units. Santa Ana is one of only a handful of cities, and like Council Member Penalosa mentioned, it's 16.

One of 16.

One of 16. That meets its current housing needs.

Out of 500 in the state. Correct.

So relative to other cities, our city has a disproportionate number of existing affordable housing units with the highest concentration of poverty in Orange County. So since its inception, the Regional Housing Needs Assessment, which is RENA, allocation has been based on principles of equity, but recently state legislation has increased greater pressure to facilitate the development of affordable housing while taking away local control. So while the Southern California Association of Governments, which is Skag, and that's where I'm a representative of this body, in Skag, proposes regional determination of housing

needs I encourage anyone who's interested in voicing their concerns to attend the two upcoming public hearings and the public hearings we're having one this Thursday and it's going to be in at City Hall in Irvine and the other one I don't know where it is but I was wondering if this is something that we can put on our website madam city manager so the public can know where the next one's at so we could provide input and we have until the 13th of September as a community to provide input to RENA. So what I was going to ask if Stephen, since he's our

Community Development Director, I always wanted to refer to you as City Manager, to talk about the potential impacts of our city of greater numbers and other pending legislation.

Certainly. One of the big red flags that the RENA is creating for the City of Santa Anna is the methodology that they're sending down to the cities HCD housing and the housing group up at the state will plug in a number for the SCAG region to meet in the SCAG region is from Ventura on south once the SCAG region gets that number and then the three methodologies will occur if if HCD sends down a number of a million for SCAG we could be on the hook for as

many as 14,000 units if they choose 750 it's anywhere from 8200 to 5300 and if they choose about 500,000 for the Skag region it's anywhere from 2100 to 5000 so the three methodologies will be will be those three different calculations will be used depending on the number HCD sends down to Skag and they haven't determined that yet we run the numbers our staff men's staff and my staff both have the spreadsheets we're running them every time we hear a comment to see what kind of impacts it may have to our community we will also be there on

Thursday to testify at 1 o'clock OCOG meets at 10 and then the actual SCAG hearing is at 1 o'clock at Irvine City Hall you're welcome thank you for that

presentation so with this I you know I just want to see where you guys are at because I know I'm gonna be testifying along with Stephen so we could have the best numbers that's going to serve our community so that that's all I wanted to share with all of you just to be aware of this is happening and we need to provide input or else the state's going to be mandating what we are going to be doing as a as a city so thank you very much all right thank you now our next

item 85 C Councillor Pena Losa thank you mayor I brought this item forward

David PenalozaItem —

because one of the things that I noticed while running for office, I really dove into the city charter and the operations of everything, and I realized that there was a lot of – I know we've updated it before. From what I heard from our city attorney and staff is that the last city charter was amended back in 2007 by the then mayor and city – well, it's the same mayor, but the then city council and uh there's just there's a lot of language in there that i wanted to kind of look at and to bring back to the voters of santa ana at a future date to eventually see if

David PenalozaItem —

those amendments are possible um so i just wanted to see if we could you know bring back some kind of review committee to look at these um some are minor some are probably more controversial uh with certain people but yeah just something like like pronouns in the Charter there's a you know our city manager our city clerk and our city attorney are referred to as he throughout the entire thing and I mean all three of them are women which I am proud of and that should be more inclusive and when it comes to that regard the other ones that are a little more I'm sure I'm gonna be

David PenalozaItem —

more sensitive are just the qualifications of members for city council and election

David PenalozaItem —

chapter in our charter. Everything from residency to cooling off period, I think this should just be termed out entirely. Those are just my opinions, so I'm probably going to get heat for it, but But I think that there's a lot of things that we could dive in and change for the better good of our city. And just wanted to bring that forward to put a committee review together with staff, council, members of the public, see what changes we could make that would benefit everybody.

Mr. Mayor? Yes, go ahead. You know, maybe what we could do as an adjunct or as part of your request, I know there was a Charter Review Commission that was put together years back, and I know that they addressed a lot of these questions, so maybe if we could not revive it but bring back those findings in addition to maybe some other updated findings that we may want to have looked into. But just to see, because there was so much work that was done by that committee, I remember, and it was a pretty large binder of information, so just something to include.

David PenalozaItem —

Thank you, Councilmember Salmento. Yeah, the big review was done in 2007 and 2008. And a couple years back, there was an ad hoc put together to look at those same recommendations. But I feel like we should do both. Look at the recommendations made then. And, you know, it would be, I think, in the best interest of the city to really look at the recommendations made then and possibly look at other possible areas where we could revise it. It's up to you.

We can certainly return with an item with suggestions and recommendations for you. We can also do a little more research on the last charter committee that did, it was in 2006-2007, and see how many recommendations did not make it past the voters or was not put out to the voters to provide all that information for you.

David PenalozaItem —

Okay. Yeah, I don't know if anybody else has any comment on it.

Good idea. And even if it's not right now, they could comment in the weeks and days to come.

David PenalozaItem —

Okay.

David PenalozaItem —

So it wouldn't be a motion or anything if I wanted to make that request. Just direct.

Information will come back. You want to lead this effort, the rest of us will communicate with you on it. Okay. And when you're ready to recommend something, bring it back.

David PenalozaItem —

And just for the record, this does not reset anybody's clocks.

David PenalozaItem —

I want to make sure that that's put out there. Yeah.

And Mayor, we have someone who wants to speak on this item.

You want to speak? Go ahead. Come on down.

Hello, Mayor, Council Member, staff, Chris Schmidt. I'm also part of an organization of residents called Connect Council. We put on several community forums regarding topics in the city. Two years ago when district elections was a big hot topic, we put on a forum for the community at Delhi Center. The clerk of the council at that time, Maria Huazar, came out and gave a great presentation explaining it all to it. There were a lot of leftover questions, a lot of people asking questions, well, why is it only required 30 days as residency requirements to run?

Where if you're appointed, you need to be here for a year, you need to show residency. There were some discussions about other things. if people have terminal limits how come eight years later they can run again terminal limit means you can't run anymore when you're the president you get two four-year terms you don't get to run again eight years later so I fully support this item I hope we do get a commission or ad hoc together look at modernizing the city charter and updating our election code I don't I believe the state election code applies to general law cities but the city of

Santa Ana is a charter I think we can create our own code regarding a residency requirement, but I'm sure our city attorney is more familiar with this than I, so I hope we look at that. So thank you all very much.

Okay, so with that next item, I believe 85D, Councilman Rosarmiento, please.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And just briefly, this has to do with the MHA, the Mental Health Association of Orange County Operations on Maine, and specifically South Maine, which is a little south of Warner. I am the ward representative there, and I want to thank Thank Councilmember Solorio for also fielding many of the complaints that we've received from not only residents in the Delahy Neighborhood Association, but also the businesses along South Main. And I can't recall how many businesses have called to say that they've had a huge, huge impact from the MHA facility. This goes back to probably the early 2000s.

I see some language, and thank you staff for providing me with some context and background on this, where there was a good neighbor policy that was agreed to back in 2001, where there were some good faith efforts that were supposed to be made on helping reduce the impacts and mitigate some of those uses. This by no means is to attack the noble effort that this center and facility is trying to do, which is to address a mental health issue. The problem is that I know that we've had, you know, it's the only mental health facility in Orange County, I think,

so we've had it here in our city alone, and we've sort of shouldered that responsibility. And, you know, Mayor Pro Tem was reminding me that he actually worked there. So it's been a challenge to make sure that good, you know, support has been provided to folks who do have mental health issues. But I know I receive photographs often from Chris Schmidt and others who sent me saying, these are the impacts that are going on. And it's affecting not just, again, the residents but the businesses.

And my direction is simply and the intent and purpose of my putting this on is just to get some options from staff as to what next steps we could take. I know that in May of last year, the county renewed this use for the next three years. So we're in the first year of three. But to the extent that they haven't followed some of the policies that we've set forth, do we have any remedies? Do we have any ways to address this? And so if you could simply just come back to us with a staff report and have us consider what we can do,

maybe some findings of what the logs say as far as responses and calls for service and complaints, but I'm sure that there's a pretty large volume of complaints that we've received as a result of this. And again, I think it's a noble use. I think it's a noble purpose, but is it in the right place? That's another question we need to ask. This, coupled with the armory when it opens up, creates a very difficult dynamic for folks who live in the Delahy neighborhood and the park there. So, please, that's my only request of staff, and I'd appreciate some options.

David PenalozaItem —

Comments on this, Council Member Pinalosa? Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to thank Council Member Sarmiento for bringing this item forward because it's definitely a nuisance surrounding the mental health facility down on Main Street. I've heard it from the CVS pharmacy that's there, the McDonald's, the Walt's Fargo across the street. All those businesses and neighborhoods are being heavily, heavily impacted by the nuisance that comes with the facility and the poor operations of it.

David PenalozaItem —

I would even like to take this item a step further and look at the numerous county properties that are causing a lot of the same nuisances and problems associated with their facilities. Just getting here, driving down Santa Ana Boulevard, driving past the courtyard, there's obvious problems that are spilling out into the streets and causing a lot of this. and I just feel like the county has been very negligent in addressing and having a well-run operation when it comes to these facilities. So I wanted to add to that, and thank you, Councilmember Samantha.

Okay, Councilman Solorio. Yes, I just want to say I also completely agree, and I think we've given the property owner and leadership years to try to improve the situation. It has not gotten any better, and I'm sure there's plenty of documentation, emails, photos, et cetera, showing what a problem it is. And we've also seen with a problematic motel on South Bristol, as well as the property on Hazard and Harbor,

where through the fantastic staff in the city attorney's office, we've been successful in addressing these types of nuisances. So this is one area where we've got to make a new effort this round. And the related but unrelated thing is the armory.

And it's right next to some preschools, elementary schools, a lot of issues. And I know the county, again, is trying to open it up early. And I'm sure then they'll try to keep it open later. And we can't keep saying yes. it creates just nothing but negative impacts for our community. And there's kind of a shared responsibility between the county, the state, but also us a little bit because we either pay one of the service providers their Mercy House or have an influence there. So we really need to address that. I know if and when there is another county replacement shelter,

part of the deal was for the armory to permanently shut down. But that doesn't mean that we should keep allowing it to be extended so many additional days and months that create more problems for our community.

Mayor Pro Tem, no comment? I think that's the input on that item. So let's go on to the next.

We have a speaker, Mayor, for that item as well.

Oh, yeah, go ahead. Chris Schmidt again.

Thank you all. I'd first like to thank Council Member Sarmanto for agendizing this item. Vince, it's been several years. There's been multiple meetings at Delhi Center with MHA, the county, neighboring businesses, residents from the Delhi community. We talk about the same thing over and over, and nothing changes. I think MHA is a worthy nonprofit. They provide services that are much needed to people in our city. Unfortunately, it's not what happens inside the building. It happens outside once they close the door and everybody has to leave. They go to the surrounding businesses and set up camp.

So anything we can do to try and address this issue, I think it would be a great impact, help out the Delhi community, one of the three communities in the city of Santa Ana where people of color were allowed to buy housing early in the 40s and 50s. So anything we could do to help the people of that community would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Yes, Council Member Iglesias.

I just want to thank Councilmember Sarmento for bringing this up, because I know the community there has been very concerned about what's going on with the, I would say, with the effects of that business being in there. because even though it's a county-operated business, but they really don't enforce a lot of the things, and it's an overflow into our community. And we also have a school there that's really close to SQEDA, and I don't know if you mentioned this, but those parents, too, they feel it because you have the McDonald's there, you have the CVS,

and you have individuals just walking around, and some of them are under the influence. And so I'm hoping that we could have serious conversations with the county of Orange and to see how we're going to address this. Because also what happens is these individuals, and I don't know if you mentioned this, but they go also into the railroad tracks. And they're the ones that are causing that new incense there too. And also the kids that walk there, they're the ones that are walking to Saddleback High School. And they're afraid too. So even though, you know, on one side we do have the bike trail, which is part of Parks and Recs,

but on the other side we have the railroad. And it's just one thing that adds to another, but I believe it all stems from this location. So I want to thank you again for bringing it up.

Thank you. So with that, I think we move on to the next item.

And is that city? Oh, we have a special Housing Authority meeting? That's correct. So I will convene that meeting and entertain a motion on the regular meeting minutes. Any excused abstinence? Quarterly report, items 1 through 3. Can we have a motion? So moved. I'll second it. Those in favor, please press green.

Motion passes. Now we're going to go to our...

No Housing Authority member comments. None. Let's go to the city manager comments then.

Seeing no city manager comments.

Mayor, item number four. There's a business item.

All right, do we have members of the public to speak?

We do not have any. We do not have, but you have an item number four business calendar. All right.

So let's entertain a motion on item number four, part of the business calendar on the housing authority, was it?

That's correct.

I would entertain a motion. I'll move it. Second. Those in favor, please press green.

Motion carries. Seeing no Housing Authority member comments. City Manager report. Now she's ready.

But I don't know, Mayor, was that a hint that you don't want me to have any comments? Just a couple of items. We are having a mariachi festival on Saturday, September 7th from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. in downtown Santa Ana, Sycamore Street, and 4th Street. We also have a tree care event at Centennial Park, and everyone is invited to come and volunteer and administer tree care in Centennial Park this Saturday from 3 to 5. And another thing that's very important is we are seeking volunteers to be part of a census outreach video.

The purpose of this video is to inform the community about how important this once-in-a-decade count is for our city and for the amount of funding that we receive. So we're going to be filming a brief video on Saturday, August 24th, and are looking for both English and Spanish-speaking volunteers to star in the video. So stop by any time between 8 to 4, and it will be at City Hall. And if you have any questions, you can contact Daisy Perez. Her email is dperez at santa-anna.org. And I only have one more item. And I just wanted to let you all know that we have been working diligently, our IT department, to enhance the city's website.

So we have a new website. It has a robust database-driven content management system. So it includes expanded sections for open government, and there are several data sets that have been added, and GIS mapping data has also been made available to the public. It also includes a dashboard page that has data about businesses, permits, police incidents, homeless data, and the vehicle incentive rebate information with a direct link to neighborhood initiatives and to submit certain types of requests. This is already out there, and we continue to work on improving our app, which we hope to roll out in October. And that's all.

I asked the clerk earlier, do I have any public comments? She said no.

Not for housing. We're going back now to the council.

Well, public comment to us means public comment. Anyway, she's new. She has about 40 of them. So we're now going to call on them Paul Barry. but go down to two minutes please because these are a lot of speakers. No, no, just tell your comments. Paul Berry followed by Peter Katz.

Or if not, then Jorge Rodriguez. Come on down, Peter.

Tonight I just want to especially thank Councilmember Vince Somriento for his diligent pursuit of depending the immigrant community in the city.

You as a council are responsible for representing all the residents of this city. That includes legal, illegal, homeless, and recently incarcerated that have been released. There's 328 million Americans. 43 million are foreign-born. That's 14% of our population. and they start up 40% of America's small businesses in this country. With the recent rise of white supremacy, neo-Nazi movements in this country,

I think we need to do more to stand up for our immigrant community and protect them where they live and reside. So we need to speak out more and defend the people that live in our city. As a soldier, I fought throughout the world to defend the freedoms of the people that come to this country. I would swim the deepest ocean, climb the highest mountain to come to this country. And you know, we as a people are proud to take in people to live and work in this country. They contribute so much to American society. And I, as a soldier and as American born here,

welcome everyone that comes to this country looking for a new life. So thank you so much, Vince.

Jorge Rodríguez.

our community civic center. That it is a more safe and beautiful city.

We hope that our council, David Peña Loza, will join us in the day of the inauguration. We want to put the glorietas in the banquet, the names of people who represent unity, respect and justice. I hope you can approve that detail. Thank you very much.

Good evening. My name is Jorge Rodriguez, and I'm a leader at the San Jose Church with the OCO organization. I thank God for you, the council, and especially Engineer Galvez for his work in thinking about our community. Lacey, to be safer, to be more beautiful with the four roundabouts that are there. And we hope that our councilman, David Peñalosa, can be there for the ribbon cutting on that date, the inauguration.

We also like to have on the side of the roundabouts, on the sidewalks, the names of people who represent unity, respect, and justice in the city. I hope that you can approve this detail. Thank you very much and God bless you.

Thank you, sir. Irene Bautista. Irene Bautista is next, followed by Fatima Paquet.

Thank you.

Que la comunidad ha decidido honorar a personas que se han preocupado por nuestro vecindario. Y también recordar a quienes han dado la vida para que la comunidad tenga más dignidad y justicia. Es por eso que queremos pedirle la aprobación de unas pequeñas placas al lado de la banqueta. Muchas gracias. Que Dios los bendiga.

Gracias, Fátima.

My name is Cidene Bautista. I'm a leader at the Episcopal Church in the City of Santa Ana and OCO organization. The reason I'm here is to thank you for the approval of the four roundabouts at Civic Center and the Lacey community. Thanks to the City Council and Engineer Galvez for their work in thinking of us and having a better, a safer neighborhood and a more beautiful neighborhood.

I'd like to take advantage of this time to let you know that the community has decided to honor people who have been concerned for our neighborhood and also to remember the people who have given their lives for the community for it to be more dignified and just. This is why we'd like to have the approval of small plaques near the sidewalk. Thank you very much and God bless you.

Thank you very much. we're going to have up next is Fatima, and then we're going to have, followed by Guarnari Morales.

the community. Necesita que estén más aprobados todos estos que son mejoras para la comunidad. Yo les quiero pedir también a nombre de todas las personas que vimos en el en el neighbor de la Lacey y la Washington que nos oigan el honor de estar por ejemplo usted David Peñalosa que es el concejal de nosotros y también que nos dejen poner algunos nombres en las glorietas que se van a poner por gente que ha muerto ahí en la civic center, y por gente que ha trabajado en alguna de las iglesias por muchos años, más de 40, 50 años, y eso es algo nada más que les quiero pedir, gracias. Y mi hija va a hablar.

My name is Fatima, and I'm also a member of OCO, and the Church of the Messiah, and I live at this Dacey neighborhood by Washington and French, and it's an honor to have these roundabouts there installed. They will prevent many accidents. People have been injured there. And the community needs these improvements. And I'm asking on behalf of the Lacey and Washington neighborhoods, if when this gets inaugurated, if our council member, Mr. Peñalosa, can be there. These are needed. These roundabouts are needed. And we'd like to have them in honor of people

who have given their lives, people who have helped in the church for 40 or 50 years. And now I'll have my daughter speak.

I just wanted to say thank you for having my neighborhood safe and my school a better place.

Great. What was your name again?

Quanari.

Quanari?

Quanari.

Quanari. Thank you very much. Next speaker is Vincent Navarrete.

Followed by Milton Linares.

Hello, my name is Vincent Aurete. I'm local leader and leader of the Episcopal Church. The community is very afraid of family separations and violence around the city. and that tells me that we need to be closer than ever, not to absorb more budget to enforce the law, but more budget to build our families and neighborhoods to be safer than ever. We want to thank City Council Engineer William Galvis for the hard work in the LASIK community.

Thank you for the next coming four roundabouts on City Center. Civic Center. We hope that our neighborhood will be safer and more beautiful. The community has decided that the runabouts have a symbolic name at the corner of the street near the sidewalk. That is why we want to ask the council for approval. We also want to request the presence of Council Member David Peñalosa on the Inauguration Day. We want to remember the unity and more dignity. Thank you so much.

Thank you, sir. Next speaker is Pedro Salgado.

Oh, Milton? Oh, sorry.

Good evening, Mayors and the Councils. This is a great city. My name is Milton Linares, member of the board of the French Park Plaza and the Civic Center, Droid. I haven't been 27 years living in the beauty city. But let me tell you something that I need to translate because I need to explain better in English because my English is not perfect.

Mi nombre es Milton Linares, miembro del board, represento 52 familias de condominios aquí en la ciudad de Santa Ana. Tal vez se enteraron que en días pasado, debido a la delincuencia que está sufriendo nuestra comunidad, tuvimos que llamar al Canal 52 Telemundo para que nos ayudara a hacer público

el incremento alarmante de robos en la propiedad y vandalismo que está sucediendo alrededor del vecindario.

Antes que nada, queremos darles las gracias al oficial López, Alex López, de la Policía de la Ciudad de Santa Ana, que a causa de las noticias del reportaje que se hizo en nuestro edificio, él ha tomado cartas en el asunto y está prestando un buen servicio. De verdad, agradecemos lo que está haciendo la Policía en nuestro vecindario. And, however, it is not enough because the same police has told us that it is very little what they can do because of the new policies of justice that have been implemented in local and state.

And if that is, we add that we are very little officials compared to the population of Santa Ana. Please listen to this part with attention, because it is the part that you have to do as representatives of our city. First, remember that in your campaign campaign to increase the rent in the city, you promised more security. They are now cobrando this increase, however, it is not known that there is more police. So, that should be our priority. Second, in our vicinity...

Yes, please, I'll conclude.

Okay, rapid. Second, in our vicinity, a lot of the delitos are committed by the disamparability. So, the police arrest the police and the police arrest the police and the police arrest the police. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

families that make up our neighborhood. You may have noticed that in the past few days, due to the crime that's been happening in our community, we had to call Channel 52 Telemundo so they can help us to make this public, the great things that are happening with theft, property theft and vandalism that's happening in our neighborhood. First of all, we'd like to thank Officer Alex Lopez, who's helping us in this, and due to this news report, he's come to us to ask us how he can help and there's been an increase in patrolling in our neighborhood we'd like to thank the police for what they're doing in our neighborhood, however this

is not enough because the police, even the police has told us that there's little they can do due to the new justice policies that have implemented at the local and state level so there's too few officers compared to the population in Santa Ana and we call the police, we have to wait a long

time. So please listen to this part because pay attention to this part because this is what you can do as representatives of our city. Please first of all remember that in your campaign proposal to increase taxes, the sales tax in our city, you promise better higher security and you are charging us for this tax increase and we have not seen an increase in police so this should be a priority. our neighborhood, a lot of the crime is committed by people who are homeless. So the police arrest them and instead of putting them in jail, they release them again. So this is what happens with crime.

Pedro Salgado is the next speaker. And then followed by Ben Anasio.

Yes, good evening. Thank you for the time. My name is Pedro Salgado and also I am a member of the Mesa Directiva of the person anterior, Milton Linares. And yes, we have come to this public forum, not only for the delitos that we have been suffering in our community, but we have seen that we have seen that we live in a city that is too dangerous and it is a very bad area, but not only in the city, but also in the city, even in the country, you can see it on the social media, it is true.

My question is for you as alcaldes and consejales, What are they doing to do with our own image?

We have been victims of vandalism and robes in our own vicinity. However, there are other crimes that have increased in our community, which are alcoholics, drugs and drugs, and sex in the streets, and in the stations of our own vicinity. and that much of the people who come from the bars and cantines that are close to the center, that as we know, on the weekends we have a lot of bottles, beer, vinos, agujas, drugs, even things that are used to do sex in the streets and streets.

You as representatives of the city, they will have to order the same patrullas that they take care of those bars and cantines that patrol our vicinity And I get on the end, yeah, it was a lot of, I don't know, yeah, but it's on the pass. I told you so that's what's your, just that was a pass on the. Gracias.

Yes.

My name is Pedro Salgado. I'm also a member of the board from Mr. Milton, the French park association. And we've come to this public forum, not only for the crime that we've been suffering, as he mentioned in our community, but also because we've seen the internet, You can see it on the internet and all the pages that we're living in one of the most dangerous areas, not only in the city but perhaps the county and even the country. If you don't believe me, you can check for yourselves. You can check on the websites because this is true of this alarming situation.

My question to you is this, what you as a mayor and council members are doing about this, what are you going to do to erase the image that our neighborhood has? As Mr. Milton mentioned, we've been victims of vandalism and theft in our neighborhood. However, there are other crimes that have been increasing in our community, like drinking in public, doing drugs, and having sex on the streets, in the parking lots in our neighborhood. And many times this happened during the weekend after 11 p.m. because that's when people come out of the bars in the downtown. And how do we know this?

because on the weekends we find empty beer and wine containers, the needles that they use to inject drugs, and the other things for sex in the parking lots and the streets of our neighborhood. U.S. city representatives should order that these same police officers that are patrolling the bars, they also patrol our neighborhoods after these bars close and so they can avoid, prevent these crimes from happening and order your officers to find the people as the lay stipulates when these people break the law.

Thank you. Is it Chavez or Chaber?

Yes.

Venancio Chavez. Venancio Chavez.

Mi nombre es Venancio Chavez. Y quise hablar después de estos dos señores porque yo fui víctima varias veces. Primero me robaron el remolque para carros. I had the most saddest, I was a victim of a car that I was a victim of a car. Please, I will explain why I was a victim of a car and I could report one to the police. The first one in my car, I was a delincuente and the police. I had to go to the police.

In reality, I didn't have much. The only one who destroyed me, I robbed some things, and I destroyed the rear seat of my car. My loss was more than $150. The second one was more serious. It was committed by someone who gave me license to rob. I refer to the company of the grueless I was arrested and I can't even say it was a problem because it's the truth. For a few hours, the company took my car in his yard, I was able to pay the amount of 597 dollars.

For a few hours, 597 dollars. And if not, if not because I was a threat to the court, I would pay 500 dollars. and the intervention of the official that was investigating the case, they were re-reliated to 400 dollars and it was still being a robbery. In the past, there have been some arbitrariness of these companies that operate in the city and even even have been arrested by the carers for illegal levantings. These are not only happened to me, I'm not a part of the community.

Please conclude.

I'll wait for three hours. You can wait for three minutes.

Just, just, just. Yes, sir.

Thank you.

The President. The President.

Peñalosa. This company is in jurisdiction. No, I'm going to finish my discussion, but if you want to pass. Please, investigate. Investigue en estas compañías.

Let me make something clear for the public that anything like this, I haven't received any emails. I don't know if my council member, my colleagues here have received any emails, but we would be glad to look into these problems if you would write us. So go ahead, Cesar. Yes.

My name is Venancio Chavez, and we've been living these problems in our neighborhood. I wanted to speak after these two gentlemen because I was a victim of theft by towing of cars and the theft of the battery of my truck. And the saddest thing is that I was a victim of theft of the same car twice. And I'm going to explain to you why I was a victim of the theft of the same car twice and I could only report one of them to the police. The first theft of my car was committed by a common criminal, and the police brought it back or found it. And I didn't lose much.

This criminal only destroyed a switch, stole some things that are less important, and destroyed some of the back seat. My losses were less than $150. The second theft was much a graver, and it was done by somebody that the city gave a license to steal. And I'm talking about the towing company that towed my car, and if I say this is a theft, it's because this is the truth. For the few hours that the company had my car in their yard, they were charging me the amount of $597 for just a few hours there.

and if it wasn't because I threatened to take them to court they lowered the amount to 500 and because of the officer involved they lowered it to 400 and that's still too much in the past there's been some outrageous practice by this company that operate in the city and I want to give the rest of this information to Peñalosa who is my council person. Thank you very much. Marco Villo

is the next speaker followed by last name

palomino first initial hello my name is marco vello i'm a resident of 408 civic center and we have the same problems and what i've been seeing i've been happy i've been living in sarana for more than 35 years i've been living happy in the area but what i've been seeing right now is getting worse and worse and worse when i came to the meeting i've been here for three hours i've been listening how you defend defend the business the uh the cannabis the cannabis business and that's I'm impressed. That when you talk, it looks like you work for them. And I won't be surprised that you are part of the association,

the marijuana association, because that when you talk. And it's so sad to see you guys talking about Mecha, the place for the mental people. Try to look for solutions. You try to penalize them because they're not getting along with the people who live around there. I live in downtown Santa Ana. and we've been having a lot of problems and you should be aware we don't have to grab you down because if you read the statistics you can check what is the rate on crime and we've been having a lot of crime in my area this is not the first time you can hear it how many times this gentleman was he was having trouble with the Brickinins

but no one even when you call the police they come to you and what happened they don't want to even make a report Or what they say, oh, if we take the report, you've got to go to court.

And then you say, okay, what can I do? You know, leave it alone because nothing is going to happen. This is what this says. And you're talking about we don't have any problem with those marijuana dispensers. I remind you, we were having one in Maine and Washington, and we were having a lot of crime around.

That's an illegal one. That was not a legal one.

Well, but you can see a people who goes there. I got one right now in Poynus Street. That's a legal one.

Thank you very much for your comment, sir.

Thank you very much. You don't have time for this, but it's ridiculous to carry you because you don't.

No, sir. We have 343,000 people that live here, and we don't have a crystal ball to check on everyone. That's why you are free.

You should be more close to the people. Let me finish. Because your job is to go to the people.

We are here for the people. I don't think so.

And we're listening to you.

You know what? I haven't received an email from you. And I'd be more than happy to help you.

I'm not going to make emails to you because you can check on the rates.

Thank you very much.

Next speaker is Palomino. Last of Palomino. Followed by Pustillos Azucena.

Excuse me. Thank you. We came here together as a group.

You came together with the next speaker?

Yes, but we asked specifically, but in a specific order, and it seems that the speaker order is not in the order we asked for. So I'm asking if I, as part of this group, can go first before this gentleman. Sure, absolutely. Okay, thank you very much. My name is Byron Lopez. I am a member of the Orange County Democratic Socialist of America and also a member of the Rise Up Willowick Coalition. The Rise Up Willowick Coalition is a group of residents, community members, and organizations that have created a collective vision for Willowick to ensure that this community asset,

the Willowick golf course, that this community asset of 102 acres of publicly owned space addresses the needs of current residents. We are unified, organized, and ready to continue to build a powerful vision for future generations in our communities. We are here today to invite the Santa Ana City Council elected officials to work with us to ensure that our community's voice and vision is truly honored and leads to the development of our public land. Our communities, we reject the proposals of private stadiums, luxury market-rate housing, and a tech hub. We reject proposals that are not community-led and informed.

We have the right to be authors of our own development and growth. Willowook's future development should be decided by the people living and working in this community, not by private developers. Our communities need affordable housing, not market rate housing or luxury apartments. These development projects hurt our neighborhoods, leading to an increase in rents, cost of living, homelessness and displacement. We demand the city to invest in the future of current residents. I have been a resident of Santa Ana since 2006 when we were forced out of our home in Garnet Grove.

Luckily I was very, we ended up moving to a mobile home park where it's pretty much a scam where they not only had to pay land rents, you also had to pay mortgage rents. So I am very much been affected. I live right next to this, to the Willowook, of course, that your city along with Garden Grove is planning to develop and I do not want to lose my home and I will do anything in my power to make sure that we stay there.

Thank you. Lucerna Bastillo.

Followed by Byron Lopez.

Maria Sanchez.

Robert Estadon, come on up.

Si, buenas noches. Señores concejales, mi nombre es Nabor Palomino. Si, eh... Vengo a hablarles de la tierra pública. Nuestras tierras públicas, presentan una oportunidad para mitigar las desigualdades ambientales y económicas que enfrentan los residentes a largo plazo en Willowick.

Estas tierras, pensamos que están protegidas por la Ley de Terrenos, de Tierras Excedentes, de la Ley de California, Yes Yes Yes Yes

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes I believe that this project is announced, has been a hard impact for the community. We are being threatened by this project.

We hope that we help to save and make more accessible living.

My name is Naor Palomino and I'm here to talk about the public lands. Our public lands represent a big opportunity to help the environmental disparities and economic that are facing our residents, long-term residents in the Willowick area. And these lands are very useful and I believe that they are protected by the California Surplus Lands Act. Act and these provide, these should be a priority to provide accessible housing, open spaces and parks, which is very much needed in Santa Ana. And we see that this project has been

placed here, it's going to have a hard impact to our community and therefore this is a big project that will give us more accessible housing because this is a huge problem, the rents are too high.

Vincent Navarrete, come on down if we already called you. Come on down.

Hi, my name is Marla Sanchez, and I live on Gunther Street near Willowick, and my grandfather, when he came home from the Korean War, he bought that house with my grandmother, and he always was concerned about the encroaching

high-rise and luxury apartments coming from the Disney area and from behind from what would happen into Willowick, you know, that it wasn't going to be taken into consideration what the residents that live there now, or even back then when he was still alive, what was going to happen to us. He was always afraid we were going to lose our house. And now I see that happening. I live there with my grandmother now. I'm her caretaker, and I also have my kids at home with me. I'm a single mom, low income, and I don't know what would happen to us if we would lose our house. I would really like

to see whatever development happens there be something that is actually going to benefit the community that lives there. I'm asking you to work with the community, to respect the existing community, so that whatever happens there is uplifting and empowering us, instead of making it harder for us to have a good quality of life in the city. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello. My name is Sean Drexler. I'm a member of the Rise Up Willowick Coalition. I'm here because of the threat posed to residents in the Willowick area by private developers. As a coalition, we believe that open space is an incredibly valuable community asset that should benefit the residents, families, and youth living in the Willowick area. As of now, Willowick Golf Course is zoned as open space. We therefore urge the City of Santa Ana to not upzone the use of this public land and not to give it away to the development process. In Irvine, 30% of land is dedicated to parks. Santa Ana has four, so this really isn't a big ask.

In Costa Mesa, my home, I've seen the devastating effects unchecked development can have on families. I've seen residents, some of my own family, displaced and forced to move outside of the city. But I've also seen success. In my city, we were able to save a childhood favorite of mine, Fairview Park, from private development. So I hope we can do the same here for Willowick. It's not a big ask. It's pretty easy. The land is already public. Let's keep it that way.

Hi, I'm Nina. I'm also here with the Rise Up Willowick Coalition. And I've been knocking doors and canvassing the area surrounding Willowick. And what I'm finding is nobody knows that this development is even happening. This is right in their backyards. They don't even know about it. And so this is moving along really quickly. I don't think anyone realizes, at least the neighbors, don't have any idea how quickly this is going along. But the current timeline of the city, Garden Grove in Santa Ana, by the fall of 2019, that's this fall, this coming year, 102 acres of our public land will be sold off to developers.

This is not years away, as some council members have argued. The aggressive development process is harming our communities now and we demand that the City of Santa Ana work with us to ensure that community voices lead on what is created on our public land. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Robert Escandol. I am here as a member of the Rise Up Willowick coalition. I was born and raised in Santa Anita neighborhood and I've lived there for 56 years. I began getting involved in my community when I was 20 years old. I coached a youth softball team at Satanita Park every summer for 40 years as a volunteer. I saw how important it was for kids in this neighborhood to be involved in community sports, youth sports programs,

have open space to play and have available important resources provided by the Santa Anita Recreation Center. It created safe space for kids and families to enjoy open space in our community. When the city of Santa Ana decided to disinvest in our community by limiting our access to our park, taking youth sports and activities away and leasing our public land for private profits, they neglected and deeply hurt our community.

As a result, our kids and their families didn't have many other spaces available to enjoy. Willowick is 102 acres of possibility for open space and parks that will benefit our families. our youth and all residents in Santa Ana and in Garden Grove. We envision open space with activities for residents of our community, a space that can provide peace and tranquility in a heavy populated neighborhood.

Willowick is an opportunity to provide necessary green space that will address our physical and mental health well-being. As a Rise Up Willowick member and resident of this community, we believe that our public land should be prioritized to address our needs and wants. We deserve and want open space in parks that we can play, learn, and be together as one. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Cynthia Guerra, and I'm here with the Rise of Willowick Coalition, and I'm also a resident of Santana. I'm here today because this city council right here has the ability to ensure that the 102 acres that currently make up the Willowick course are used in a way and developed in a way that actually benefits the residents that are living in the area. Currently, this community and Santana as a whole is in dire need of well maintained parks, of well-researched parks, and they're also facing an acute housing affordability crisis, which I think it was brought up many times throughout this meeting and has been

brought up many times during previous meetings at the City Council. So it does not need luxury apartments or market-rate housing. It does not need private stadiums. It does not need any type of development that's going to prioritize profit over the actual needs of the residents currently living in the area. and it does not need any type of development that is going to result in the displacement of all the folks currently living there. The Willowick site is currently sown as open space and the city council has the ability to continue to sown this space

in a way that will prioritize the needs and the wishes of the community that are living there. Anything as the city council works with the city of Garden Grove to figure out what type of development is going to go there or how they're going to use this land, it has to prioritize the needs and wishes of the residents. Any development that will result in the displacement of folks will be a council that is acting in direct opposition of the residents that are living there and of the residents of Santana that it's supposed to be representing. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Jessie Lopez. I am a member of the Rise Up Uluwe Coalition and I am here tonight because I am concerned about the lack of transparency regarding the 102 acres of publicly owned space known as the Willowick Golf Course here in Santana in the Santanita neighborhood. I urge this council to not exclude community participation and to collaborate with local residents, many who had no idea about the plans to develop the area. As a Santana resident, I ask this council to adhere by the Surplus Land Act, which can only benefit our community across racial and economic lines. We fully expect elected officials to

include us in the decision-making process especially when those decisions have repercussions that extend far beyond revenue for the city. We demand a community-driven process for the development of our public land. The changes made to the 102 acres of the Willowwick site can potentially change the place a lot of people have called home for most if not all of their lives. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Karen Rodriguez. I am a resident of Santana and a member of Rise Up Willowick. Today, members of the community have come together to ask Santana City Council to prioritize residents and their families by working alongside us in the development of the Willowick site. As of now, 102 acres of open land are zoned as open space by the city of Santana.

The communities surrounding the Willowick site are classified as park poor, as well as Santana as a whole. Parks make up only 4% of the total land in Santa Ana. That's approximately an investment of $47 per resident, as you said, over a city with over 340,000 residents. As opposed to the city of Irvine, where 30% of land is dedicated to open space, which is approximately $250 of an investment per resident. Along with open space being scarce, housing and lack of affordable housing affect everyday residents and their families.

102 acres of public land should be used to address the needs of residents, not prioritize profits. Our communities should be authors of our own development. please work with Rise Up Willowick, a coalition of residents and community organizations to address community residents' needs. Thank you.

Any other speakers? I believe I've gone through the whole list.

Dale, come on down. You come right after Dale.

Dale Helwig, Santa Ana resident for 29 years.

I got to say that I agree with you, Councilman Penaloza, on the RENA numbers. I think one out of 16 cities is pretty amazing for California. And if you break it down further, I haven't seen the list of the 16, but I do know Santa Ana's number. and it's 1,237% above the goals that they set for 2021. And we've met that in 2018 numbers. So it's only going to go up. And I would like to talk to you, Councilman Iglesias, about the Thursday meeting

because I think the fact that we exceed the goals by so much so early on ought to have some kind of rollover effect because if you take a look at the other 400 cities that did not make their goals and they continue to not make their goals, then there's no real incentive for them to even try. And so we ought to be able to somehow incorporate the good work that we've done and the other 15 cities have done in that process.

And along that lines, I'd also like to thank you for showing up and talking to residents of our community over the last weekend. We really appreciate it, and we look forward to continuing that process. And the common feedback that I got has been, where's been Mr. Solario in this process?

I don't have an answer for that because I don't know where he's been. So we'll see. Thank you.

Last speaker. Come on down.

Mayor, council members, I missed the vote on our east side first street project, but it looks like Irvine Company is coming closer to Santa Ana more and more. Twenty years ago, we were against building all these high-rise apartments because the city can't handle overpopulation. But you guys will probably have to deal with that in the future. Some city council members will be gone. I'm sure there's going to be future lawsuits. Number two, I would like to see some of you guys walk down the bike trail or the railroad tracks early in the morning where Saddleback is and where the kids have to walk down to MacArthur Junior High School

and see how bad it is. And then walk down MacArthur Boulevard towards Fairview and see how bad the kids have to go towards Segerstrom with the traffic. Somebody developing those areas wasn't thinking. Sorry to say that. There is going to be a kid that's going to get hit, and the city will pay for it. Putting those homes in that direction right there was a terrible mistake. I hate to say that. But go down the railroad tracks. It's getting worse and worse. And then some other friend told me that East First Street, going towards Tustin, there's more and more people coming from L.A. over there.

So, and then with the new rent freeze that's going on in Sacramento, all this new development, I don't see how it's going to help out the poor people. I really do not see how it's going to help out. It's just, to me, it seems like the Irvine Company's paying off some people here in the city of Santa Ana to take care of it. I thought that bill was dead. You guys voted against it, but no, it hasn't come back because everybody's afraid of Sacramento and all the stupid politicians up there in Sacramento. They don't do nothing in Sacramento. That's all they do is promise their communities, we're going to do things for California,

and it never happens. Never. But I'll tell you one thing that's good. Since you guys have closed down that place over on Harbor Boulevard by Santa Anita, that little casino over there, all that area's crime has dropped down amazingly. But the one on East 1st Street is still going strong right next to that hotel right there. And it's going to keep on going strong. You know, Walters back in the old days had it right. Have the patrol units go through there, turn their lights on, flash their lights around, like they used to do at Mr. J's, and I remember those days. And I know all the officers who did it.

Have a great week. We'll see you in two weeks. Thank you.

We've already done the city manager report. because we did it earlier. One more speaker. Okay, go ahead.

One more on Chris again, I believe. Thank you, Mayor and Council. My name is Mania Skimian. I'm a lifelong resident of the city. I'm here to ask that Willowick remained a zoned open space. I'm really hoping that this current Council work with the colleagues over in Garden Grove and with the County of Orange to create a regional park. I think it's going to be our last opportunity to hit the goal that we need for two parks, two acres of park space per thousand residents as our city's stated goal. I think if done right it really can be a regional attraction so the city's been looking for some kind of regional draw

and I think if we do it with the right sort of gardens, art exhibits, things that actually make people want to come down there. Willowick is strategically located along that rail line and it can provide public access to open space for the entire central core of the city. And I also just want to say that a lot of people think about Birch Park as being the city's oldest park. But what we forget is that William Spurgeon, 150 years ago, set aside park space at the current courthouse with the imagination that they were going to be the county seat. So this was not something that was easy to do, was not something that was in the

cards, but he believed in a vision. And I think as Americans, we have to do things that are hard, not that are easy. And I just want to say that the park space there is highly needed. And I just encourage people to really think about that space as a regional park. Thank you.

Chris, come on down.

Good afternoon, or good evening, everyone. The five gentlemen that spoke earlier about all the crime that's happening, it's happening. We see it every day. and I see it on the apps, like the Ring app, Neighbors. I'm going to go down, stranger at my door,

somebody stealing packages from my porch, garage break-in, attempted break-in, lady going through my mailbox, stranger at my door, druggie at the front of my house at Harbor and Kent. We're always told if you see something, say something. And we're saying things all the time, but nothing's changing. I don't know why I have to go down Harbor and McFadden and see all the people in the Riverview shopping center when the police substation is there. Why do I have to send multiple emails about things? There is still graffiti on my tennis courts in my park, three years going on.

Juan, you and I have had that discussion numerous times. Connie Hamilton used the city app to report a pile of trash off of Ettinger. She got an error, so I reported it. The city came back to me and said, we're not going to take care of it. Contact somebody else. So multiple emails went out today. We see stuff every day and we're reporting it and somebody is not doing their job because it's not being cleaned up and this needs to stop.

I'm going to give you an example. There's a family in my neighborhood. The mother in November suffered a serious health issue. For the last six months, she's been in the hospital getting care. But in January, her brother applied for a handicapped parking spot in front of her house because she's in a wheelchair now. And somehow her application disappeared. And I had to make several phone calls and emails today. Somebody simply wants a handicapped parking spot in front of their house for their mother who is now in a wheelchair. And somebody at City Hall lied and said it was never turned in.

This needs to stop, and it needs to stop now.

Thank you.

So now we've already had City Manager report, so I believe we now go to Council comments.

Councilor Salorio.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. A few things. First on the Willowick thing, I do want to thank all the residents that spoke on it. And I know there are various processes underway to work on that. I would ask staff to reach out to the group, also reach out to the Sanctanita Neighborhood Association and figure out how to involve them a little bit more closely in the process. Even though there was some outreach done last year, really wasn't deep or rich enough and pretty far away from this point in time, so we need renewed efforts there.

I want to commend the staff here that work with the two Summer Night Lights programs that went on over the summer through Neutral Ground that operated the one in Salvador Park and then the Madison Park Neighborhood Association that worked on the other one in their part of town. that were well executed, well done, fantastic turnout, and folks really stepped up. And I see Daisy, who's out there, often with a census booth, so I really appreciate that. And then Parks and Rec and PD and everybody that supported that. And then finally, a request to our city manager.

I know one thing that we have done to try to improve the situation down the road, at least in our parks, is the expansion of the contract that we have with Allied Universal. And I know as soon as sometime in early September, that may come online. And I know there were several on the council, including Council Member Pagnelos as well, that talked about maybe we could co-brand them so that there could be a city emblem on their uniform and car. And I think they've been willing to do that. So it would be good to do a little write-up so we can know what that's going to be like,

their scope, when they're going to start, what can the community expect so we can share that with others because I think that is one bright spot on what we're doing. But finally, I agree with the residents. Crime really, and a lot of it homeless-related, is out of control. A lot of stuff doesn't get reported. There's a lot of theft, a lot of issues going on, and it's unbearable. And I think we got a little bit of a flare-up today or two, but we really need to step up to the plate and finish up the homeless plan that I know staff is working on and I know we're talking about you know more

of a zero tolerance approach and and enforcing anti camping ordinances but we've had that shelter up for a while now we're paying good money for that so we can force the law and we expect it and the community expected and you know we're running out of excuses you know before as well we don't have a city or we don't have resources or the judge won't let us. No more excuses. We've got to get to work and make a difference. Thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Peñalosa, please.

David PenalozaItem —

Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to thank the Lacey Neighborhood residents that came out tonight to speak. Very nice to see them. I was able to have a conversation with them a couple weeks ago. we had a traffic meeting over in the French Park neighborhood. It included the Logan neighborhood, the Lacey neighborhood, downtown French Park. And we just discussed about the numerous traffic and crime concerns in their neighborhoods. And, you know, they're legit concerns. And I'm happy that they were here tonight to advocate for their neighborhood.

David PenalozaItem —

But I want to, Madam City Manager, if you could work with staff in having maybe set up a meeting to go over the roundabout plaque that they're requesting. I think that's something simple and we might be able to see what we could do in regards to that in memoriam of people involved in that project, neighborhood leaders.

David PenalozaItem —

I also wanted to invite everybody out. It's one of helping to celebrate our 150th anniversary. We are having a pool party at Memorial Park, my neighborhood.

David PenalozaItem —

And it's Saturday, August 31st from 3 p.m. to 4.30 p.m. It's going to be really fun and exciting. and it's going to be free to anybody that wants to come and hang out and go for a swim. We're going to have free ice cream and churros. This is thanks to the Santa Ana Police Department that donated their winnings. They were able to put together the most. They won the contest in gathering school supplies for our back-to-school bash that the Santa Ana Unified School District put together.

David PenalozaItem —

so they donated their prize of an ice cream party to the kids of Santa Ana for our community. So that's going to be really cool. And the best part of it is that I'm going to be there. So come, splash me with water, yell at me, whatever you guys want to do, I'll be there hanging out. So excited to see all of you guys. And apparently there's going to be a DJ too, so it should be a really fun pool party to celebrate our 150th anniversary. With that said, have a good week and thank you. Do we get to dunk you? Are you going to be like in a dunking machine or something?

David PenalozaItem —

Sure. No, you can just push me in the pool. I'll wear a suit too just to make it, you know, fun.

Keep the suit on.

That'll be a swimsuit.

All right. Council Member Iglesias, please.

Well, I just want to report on the meetings that I've attended in the past month, which was on July 17th I attended the Orange County Sanitation Administration Committee meeting. Wednesday, July 24th, it was the Orange County Sanitation Board meeting. Thursday, July 25th, I attended the special meeting for OCOG meeting, so we can talk about the RENA numbers. And on Thursday, August 5th, I attended the SCAG meeting in L.A. And I just want to thank all of you guys, especially the public that's come here and provided us their input and their concerns on what's going on in their

neighborhoods and as you can see the common theme is a lot of times is the the homeless issue and I know we're trying to make a lot of beautifications and a lot of nice additions to our city we're investing so much money in our parks and in our in our community but we failed to we're addressing it but we failed to find the solution to addressing the homelessness issue and And it's not even the homelessness issue, it's the issue of how we're going to deal with these individuals that don't want help. Because I know the ones who want help, they've already been helped.

We provide them an opportunity to have shelter at the link, a 200-bed shelter that we already have, which in my understanding, we're not even at capacity yet. They still have some empty beds. And it blows my mind that we can't enforce our loss. and this individual, when they go around and the Colt team goes around and sees individuals in our neighborhoods and in our businesses, they ask them if they need help, and if they say no, then they just let them go, unless they have prior warrants or some type of criminal activity or something, then they'll cite them, but then they get released right back into our community.

So it's kind of like we're just playing this tag kind of game with them, and we're not really addressing this issue. where we're spending over six I believe it's like 16 million dollars in in addressing the homelessness issue but I think we could do so much more and why are we spending money before I mean trying to fix our parks if the homeless especially the ones who are drug addicts the ones who have mental issues you know they're in our in our parks and in our community and in in our community doesn't feel safe as you heard from the neighbors here and from the Logan

neighborhood they're very concerned and they're they're very biggest concern is about these individuals are going to their private residents that are you know doing this they're committing crimes so I'm hoping that one day soon rather than later that we are able to address this and we come into an agreement with the County of Orange because I know the County of Orange supervisor Joe is doing the best that he can but I'm looking for the day that we are going to sue the other cities you know file that lawsuit against them because they need to be doing their fair share because of santa ana we've done our fair share so um i just want to

thank everyone that's here and hoping that we we um that we all have a good weekend i'll see you guys in about another two weeks so thank you very much thank you comes from vincento please thank

you mr mayor and i um you know i want to begin by by thanking staff and um you know i think in between our break that we had, this meeting just seems a lot longer than it is just because we had such a long layoff. So even though this is a relatively short meeting or not as late as we've gone, but I did want to thank them for putting together the blessing of the city. And I thought that that was probably one of the most inspiring moments that I've had on the council where we had people that were multi-denominational, coming and speaking in very inspiring words to say how much they cared about the city.

And they were from different faiths, different walks of life, different languages, but they all had the same theme and the same message, which is that we love our city and that they were proud to be here and that they were happy to be supporting our efforts. So good work to staff on doing that. I think that was one of the moments I think I'll recall most from these celebrations. I also wanted to say that I know I attended Senator Umberg's grand opening for his district office that he opened up at the train station. So it was an amazing piece of work that was done.

I know public works staff did that in, I think, less than 28 days. So good work to them and staff. But the station is looking great. It looks really, really like an amazing site and an asset that we haven't used for a while. So that's certainly a hidden gem that we'd like to make sure people get to visit. Peter, thank you for your words. Thank you for your service. Thank you for always being here and helping us and, again, inspiring us to make sure we do the right thing. right next to Senator Rumberg's office this Thursday at the train station on the 22nd of August

at 5.30 we're going to be holding a forum on just talking with people in our city about their rights and many of them are immigrants many of them are legal residents many of them are undocumented and so there's going to and I want to thank Madam City Attorney who's going to donate her time to come speak with other experts from the Mexican consulate, other service providers, to just talk about what our city ordinances are. And I think it's helpful more than anything just to have a conversation and to talk about what the legal rights that we have as folks here in town. So

thank you to all of you for that. And on Thursday that morning at 11 a.m., we're going to be hosting at the Orange County Water District a briefing on a contaminant that's raised its ugly head in our water system, PFAS. And we're inviting the entire Orange County congressional delegation led by Congressman Ruta. And so it's going to be a very informative discussion because as we move forward, again, informing the public about the safety and the well-being of one of our most important resources, water, is going to be an important discussion to have.

But with that, I just wanted to bid everybody a good night and thank you for all your help.

Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem, please. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This past Saturday at El Salvador Park, Artesia Pilar had their movie night at the park. It was a very nice turnout. We saw the movie Selena. I'm very thankful for them, for their leadership on having these community events. So I want to thank Ruby Wu and Lucy Sororzano for putting this together and the rest of the neighborhood association. It's a very, very nice turnout.

I also want to make a quick comment on some of the gentlemen or the constituents that were here, you know, making comments regarding their safety and what's going on in their neighborhood. And I just want the public to know that this council member here, that if I receive an email from you regarding any kind of complaints, especially about your safety, I always write back. I write back, I'll make a phone call, I follow up after there's an initial contact, and then I follow up on the follow-up.

And people here that work here at the city and the people that have dealt or that have worked with me in the past know that that's how I work. So, you know, to come here and to make some accusations that we don't do anything. All of the council members up here are very, very good at what they do. I believe they all follow up as well. I can't speak for them, but I'll speak for myself. And we're here to help. That is our job. So if you have a problem, feel free to write, feel free to call, and we will address the issues.

There is a lot of people in this city. It is very dense, but I want to assure you that we are here to help. And some of the situations are very, very tough because regarding jurisdictions, some of them are the state, some of them is federal. But understand that we will do our best to address any issues that you may have. That's all I have, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. And with that, this meeting is going to be adjourned until our next regularly scheduled meeting.

Bruce Dunham's memory, if we can please do that, Madam Clerk.

Thank you. One of our former stellar code enforcement managers. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

So a former city employee, Bruce Dunham, a veteran of the Vietnam War, worked for the city of Santa Ana for 32 years, also serving as a mentor and instructor to staff and the California Association of Code Enforcement Officers. His focal instruction dealt with a strong belief in a customer-driven approach. Bruce was also a professional drummer with a passion for creating and playing music. He was a significant component of the jazz festivals held in the Santa Ana Zoo. He passed on July 31, 2019 and is survived by his wife, Debbie, his son, three daughters, and his grandchildren.

He will be missed and remembered. Rest in peace.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.