Read the April 2 meeting.

If you can all please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, please. 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 can remain standing, we have our police chaplain, Vincent Berenger, giving us our invocation this evening.

Thank you. Would you please bow your head as we pray? In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Dear wise and loving Father, first let me say thank you on behalf of all those who are gathered here today. Thank you for your many and abundant blessings that you have given to each and every one of us. Thank you for life itself, for the health that we have, that we need to fulfill our callings for food and for friendship. Thank you for the ability to be involved in useful work and for the honor of bearing appropriate responsibility.

Thanks as well for the freedom to embrace you or the freedom to reject you. Thank you for loving us, even though we so often do not deserve it, because of your boundless and gracious nature. Your word says that citizens ought to obey the governing authorities, since you have established those very authorities to promote peace and order and justice in our community. Therefore, I pray for our Mayor Miguel and for our Council members, David, Vicente, Juan, Cecilia, as well as Jose, as well as for the various levels of city officials, including David, our police chief, and our city manager, Raul.

I'm asking that you would graciously grant them wisdom to govern amid the conflicting interests and difficult issues of our times, a sense of the welfare and the true needs of our people, a keen thirst for justice and rightness, confidence in what is good and fitting, the ability to work together in harmony even when they disagree with one another, and that you grant them each a double portion of personal peace in their own lives and joy in the work you've entrusted them with. I pray for this agenda that has been set before them today. Please grant them an assurance of what would please you

and what would benefit those who live and work here in our beloved city of Santa Ana. It is in your most blessed name we pray. Amen.

Thank you very much. You may be seated.

I would note as we begin our council meeting today that we're going to have a new city manager here very shortly. And I believe in part that is why this agenda is relatively light so we can start on many items with fresh eyes. And so I want to thank our interim city manager for his help in doing this. because it is a relatively light agenda. So with that, I would ask that we have folks from the Orange County Transportation Authority

come forward and make a presentation on the I-5, the Santa Ana Freeway, as I like to call it, Central County Improvement Project. Please go ahead.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council. My name is Andrea West, and I'm with the Orange County Transportation Authority. And before we jump into the I-5 project update, which is what we're here for this evening, I did want to update you on one other planning study that OCTA has underway, just so it's on your radars. We're going to be getting outreach on that very soon. This is for the Bristol Street Transit Corridor Study, and we started this back in October of last year.

This study will develop options to improve transit service along Bristol Street from 17th Street and Santa Ana down to the South Coast Metro area and will also evaluate connections to John Wayne Airport. Community input will be sought during each study of the phase, including the corridor definition, alternatives development, and evaluation. The study is intended to serve as a very high-level initial planning study to evaluate a range of alternatives and will identify the best-performing ones that have wide community support. As I mentioned, outreach will begin later this month and will be ongoing throughout the study.

And we plan to come back to the City Council at key points throughout the study, so you'll always be kept informed as to what's going on. With that, I'll turn the presentation over to Kalina and to Niall, who will give you an update on the I-5 project.

Good evening Mayor Polito, members of the council. Again, my name is Niall Barrett, program manager at the Orange County Transportation Authority. I'm here tonight to give you an update on the Interstate 5 improvement project. This is between the State Route 55 and the State Route 57.

So the I-5 Central Project, as it's known, or the High Occupancy Vehicle Project, is located within the cities of Santa Ana and Orange. And it's Project A in Measure M-2, or OC-GO, as we know it today. And it is also part of the Next 10 Delivery Plan that has been approved by the OCTA Board in September 2018. so the project seeks to eliminate the current congestion issue in the HOV lanes that we see on the I-5 between the 55 and the 57 essentially today you have

two lanes two high occupancy vehicle lanes that merge into one and there is a lot of congestion in the HOV lanes so the intent is to add the second HOV lane which will relieve congestion in both the northbound and the southbound directions on the I-5. This will improve the access to the HOV lane as well because a lot of the concrete barriers that you see out there today will go away once the project is complete. The total project cost is $41.5 million.

We have various methods to help pay for it. The largest one is congestion mitigation and air quality funds. We also have some surface transportation block grant and local OCGO funds as well. Construction began on February 20th.

So one of the key components, and in fact, the key challenges of this project, is the closure of the existing I-5 HOV drop ramp of Main Street. And you'll see that in approximately the center of the graphic here at the moment. This underutilized facility will free up the right-of-way that's needed to construct the additional carpool lane in each direction on the I-5. And so what this allows us to do is to construct the project entirely within the existing state's right-of-way. So in order, before we can demolish the HOV ramp,

we need to close the HOV ramp, and in fact that work is scheduled to begin currently to begin next week we've been in constant contact with of course the city of Santa Ana as well as the local residents and of course the businesses in the area Rancho Santiago Community College as well as the Discovery Cube so demolition of the The actual HOV ramp itself is currently scheduled for early July, and the primary detour route,

which will be for the northbound direction traffic, will be to continue traffic north on the State Route 55 and then divert traffic over onto the State Route 22 to rejoin northbound on the I-5. the demolition work will happen at night so that impacts to traffic both local and on a larger scale will be minimized the project construction schedule then you can see that technically we began construction in 2018 when the

construction contract was approved again we began construction and earnest in February of this year construction will continue until early 2021 and as you can see a lot of the the major work happens in the first six months of this project what you will see in the next couple of weeks is a lot more lane re-striping K rail being placed on the I-5 as well as up on Main Street before we can close that HOV ramp down onto the I-5. So once we get that ramp demolished, there will be a lot of drainage, pavement, retaining walls,

lighting, electrical, and various other construction work required to install those additional two HOV lanes. With that, at this time, I would like to hand it over to OCTA's Community Relations Officer, Kalina North. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the City Council. As Niall mentioned, my name is Colleen North. I'm the Public Outreach Manager for this project. Tonight, I am here to provide you an overview of some of OCTA's outreach strategies over the past year and a half to share information with the community about this project. So the OCTA Public Outreach Team uses several strategies to engage the public. We began our latest efforts in the design phase at the end of 2017, making presentations to neighborhood associations in Santa Ana, including Park Santiago and Floral Park.

We also briefed civic organizations such as Kiwanis Club of Santa Ana and the Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce, as well as key stakeholders as Discovery Cube, Main Place Mall, Vero's Credit, and the Rancho Santiago Community College District. Our team also participated in numerous community events here in Santa Ana, such as the 4th of July celebration, the Santa Ana Art Walk, and Dia de los Muertos. On March 23rd, we held our first neighborhood meeting in the Park Santiago community to share information about the upcoming I-5 Main Street carpool ramp closure and demolition.

Tomorrow morning, Wednesday, April 3rd at 10 o'clock in the morning, OCTA is hosting a stakeholder working group meeting with key community leaders, business owners, and emergency responders to provide them with a project update. So OCTA prides itself in a comprehensive community outreach program and our efforts go beyond briefings and presentations. We have a wide range of collateral with the majority translated in Spanish. These include fact sheets, FAQs, and most recently a map showing carpool lane users how to get to Main Street once the ramp is eliminated.

We also began weekly construction alerts last month, which are sent out every Friday on a weekly basis. In addition, we recently launched a text message service to notify those who signed up about major construction activities, lane closures, and detours. We are in the process of developing an interactive map that provides users with an easy way to understand and find out about the latest lane closures and detour information. And of course, there's social media that we leverage to promote project awareness.

So we will continue our efforts using a variety of tactics to reach different segments of the population through the end of construction. So with that said, that concludes our presentation, and Niall and myself are available to answer any questions the council may have.

Any questions from the council members?

Welcome. Thank you for coming. I love learning about transportation and everything OCTA. Can you talk, I know there's a slide showing the HOV ramp. Can you talk about the changes there, I think?

I'm going to hand that over to Niall.

Yeah, so changes to the HOV ramps, if any, and then I think there was a bullet point talking about increased HOV capacity, and so I'm curious on how you're going to accomplish that.

Sure. So today, as you're probably sorely aware, when you're traveling north or south on the I-5 in the carpool lane, there's a merge coming from the 55 northbound and from the 57 southbound, and typically you find out all too late that you've been bottlenecked, let's say. So by adding an additional carpool lane in each direction, so we'll have two carpool lanes in each direction, and then they'll split off if you're northbound up the 57. If you're southbound, it'll connect seamlessly into the carpool connector to the 55 southbound.

so what this does by eliminating this existing HOV drop ramp out here and you can even see there's a little green area on the south side of this graphic here this free this frees up a lot of space that's out there today that's been taken up by this HOV drop ramp so it is underutilized as far as the traffic numbers that we get from Caltrans and so you'll see a lot more traffic being able to use those HOV lanes once we install a second carpool lane.

Are you only talking about removing the carpool lanes that are southbound 5 that access Main Street directly? Is that what you're referring to? Almost like right in the middle of the photo to the west of the cube, that little elbow? Exactly.

That little elbow will go away.

It will disappear. And that's the only set of on-ramps, off-ramps that are disappearing? Exactly. Okay. And I think you're right. That's not used very often in that area all the time.

Right. Not compared to the rest of the carpools on the I-5.

And then I think it's also very tight, and so you also see a lot of black marks on that turn there. So thank you so much. Thank you. Related but unrelated, I know there's increased outreach from OCT regarding the OCT streetcar, and it's coming to Santa Ana, obviously. We, I think, have some new council members that haven't heard proper presentation with what it is and timing and your roles after it's constructed, our roles, their operational costs, our operational costs, and I think if you could take that back, it would be nice to bring that back. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks.

Thank you very much. And I see that the ramp closures are for early April, so are we talking this week or next week?

Next week to close the ramp. As I say, demolition won't happen until either late June or early July. As you can imagine, there's a lot of preparation that needs to happen to demolish. There's a lost deck within the bridge. There's a lot of electrical out there, a lot of K-rail that needs to go up. It's a major event to close the I-5 and demolish this type of bridge.

I see. I was wondering why there's a large gap of time between April and then in the summer, but thank you for answering that, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. If we have no other issues, let me say thank you for the great job that you do at OCTA. I kind of like to call it OCTA sometimes because I figure every time we say the acronym, we waste a few seconds. But and in Spanish they do call it a lot that well, not only that people from outside they say it's like an octopus or something It's octa, you know, but but anyways go back to Daryl and company and say that we much appreciate The presentation here today. Thanks. Thank you. Now. I think we have another presentation on the US Census Bureau And they're going to tell us how they're going to

how they are going to amend the questionnaire so that it's inclusive of the community. No, I'm kidding. But this is a great gentleman. We're stepping up here towards the microphone, and happy to see you in this capacity. And let me turn it over at this time. How have you been?

Honorable Mayor and City Council, good evening. It's a pleasure to be in the city of Santa Ana tonight. I'm Val Wynn, Partnership Specialist with the U.S. Census Bureau, and I'm out at the Los Angeles Regional Census Center with the Community Partnership and Engagement Program.

Former Mayor of Garden Grove, by the way, and also a guy that does a lot of things well, so if you're on board, I think we're going to have a better census count.

Actually, it's going to depend on all of you if we'll have a better census count. That's what you're supposed to say. Thank you. We do have a model, and that's to count everyone once, only once, and in the right place. So why do we do a census? it's actually required by the Constitution. It's right up front before it talks about the different branches of government in Article 1, Section 2, and it's been conducted every 10 years since 1790, and it is a count of everyone. And everyone means everyone. It's also about fair representation. Every 10 years, the head count, the population numbers, determine how many seats

each state receives in the U.S. House of Representatives. After the 2010 census, California remained at 53 out of 435. And just for comparison, Texas gained four, New York and Ohio each lost two. It also means about $675 billion awarded annually to vital programs and community resources. And this is a number from George Washington University. I read in Reuters recently that the number is actually about $800 billion annually.

So it's also about redistricting for our state legislative districts, our Senate and Assembly districts, our school board by trustee area districts, and certainly the by ward elections as well. So in California, that comes out to be approximately $76 billion each year. and that's about $2,000 per person counted, underlined counted. So I want to assure Mayor, you and the council and members of the public that the data is confidential which is required by law.

The Census Act is enshrined in U.S. Code Title 13 and there has never been a violation of that code

since it's been enacted in 1954.

The information that comes out of the Census Bureau is only reported in a statistical format. There is no personally identifiable information. The Census Bureau does not share any information that is not in a statistical format with other federal agencies. So other federal agencies such as Immigration, Homeland Security, IRS may share information with the Census Bureau, but that's a one-way street. nothing personally identifiable goes out to other federal agencies including the US president all census employees including those who work with the census

bureau on the city end has taken a lifetime oath to protect that information and there are strict penalties for that so those in the city who have worked with the census on updating your GIS system with its Census Bureau. You've also taken that oath and no information that is personally identifiable can be shared with code enforcement or the police.

2020 will be the easiest census since we'll have folks be able to respond online and by phone in 12 languages in addition to English. The paper form will also be available and that'll be available in English and bilingual Spanish English. That'll start March 23rd of next year. So in addition to our partnership program where we're partnering with cities to form complete count committees there will be mail going home to people who have addresses and they may receive a pre-assigned ID which pre-populates the form field when

they do respond either online or by phone but they don't need that pre-signed ID. So if there are folks who are living in not-to-code dwellings or who are not receiving mail, we still would like to partner with those serving the hard-to-count populations to assure their safety in their response and encourage them to participate and get counted. So the languages that will be available online and by phone, in addition to English, include Spanish, Chinese simplified, Vietnamese, Korean, Russian, Arabic, Tagalog, Polish, French, Haitian,

Creole, Portuguese, and Japanese. And there will also be 59 non-English languages available by glossary and language ID card for those communities, those community nonprofits who are serving those linguistic communities. We're focusing on the hard-to-count population, which includes veterans, the homeless, children under five, oftentimes children who share custody with their parents may not be reported. So we encourage everybody, if the child is born during a time where you have not yet responded to the census,

or if the child is still in the hospital, it's the newborn, please do count the children. It's really important since a lot of programs like WIC and Head Start depend on the census count. Certainly senior citizens, people with disabilities, renters, the foreign-born immigrant population, migrant workers and farm workers, Native Americans, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders, refugees, those who fear the government from where they've come from, or those who don't trust our government. and certainly those who do not speak English well and also the LGBTQ community.

I want to draw your attention to the national low response areas, which you can find at census.gov slash roam. So here is a picture, a snapshot of Santa Ana. It's in dark blue. This particular census tract has a low response score of 31%. That means that 31% of the folks in this particular census tract did not respond to the last census. And when you go to census.gov slash room, you can find more information as to the demographics, and that is collected from the American Community Survey, also conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau.

I'm encouraging your city to help in the effort of forming a complete count committee. This is a committee that is made up of diverse leaders and influencers in your city. It may include folks of the heads of the school system. Right now, you know, your wonderful staff, Daisy Perez, has already put the pieces together, and we're currently working with Teresa Mercado Cota from Santa Ana College, the Rancho Santiago Community College District. also with Santa Ana Unified School District Dr. Susie Lopez Guerra and

you know mayor if you would consider yourself or designating perhaps councilmember David Peña Losa who represents about 53% of your city in the hard-to-count and with the low response score areas so in addition in addition to having a council member chair and represent on this Complete Count Committee. We certainly want to encourage you to help us reach out to those leaders in other sectors in the community, including our faith-based community and our business community.

I know that the president and CEO of the Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce has already indicated his willingness to serve on this Complete Count Committee.

Let me just stop you for a minute on that and say that I'd be happy to serve. I just heard Councilor Spanielosa saying count me in. No pun intended, but count them.

Count them in this. And look, this is a very important thing for the city. It's tens of millions of dollars, and over the decade, it gets into the hundreds. So the better the count, the better off we all are.

That's right, and that count only happens every 10 years. So as you know, your community development block grant funds are determined from the census count. But it also is a count that other institutions like nonprofits and those who are planning hospitals and schools can look at to plan for building new hospitals and schools in the community.

And businesses can do it for economic development and, you know, everybody can have access to that data for whatever purpose they need.

That's right, Mayor. And of course, the Census Bureau also has some resources for the business community as well to plan for your new business. You can go on to census.gov and look at that information and access that data for yourself. We're in the middle of the education and awareness phase, and the motivation phase will begin March 2020 when folks are able to self-respond to the census. and if they don't, we'd like to remind them starting in May through the end of July when they're able to respond. So the responses close at the end of July 2020. And after that, we'd like to thank all of you who are partnering with us

and everyone who is partnering with the Census Bureau for this massive national undertaking. In addition to our strategy of forming complete count committees, we are also partnering with those who are community non-profits and social service organizations. Primarily those who are serving the hard-to-count faith-based communities, those who serve the foreign-born immigrant communities, bringing stats into our schools. If you go to census.gov slash schools, there's curricula available for all subjects at all grade levels. So please check that out. Also partnering with the media to get the word out.

And if you're having any events in the city of Santa Ana, we'd like to have a mobile response table there when it's time for folks to respond to the census. And certainly partnering with trusted voices as yourselves, as elected officials, and those in our community, and certainly thanking everybody. I'd like to draw your attention to this year we're opening up two field offices. One will be in your city, the city of Santa Ana, and the other will be in the city of Fullerton, in addition to forming these complete count committees. And there will be lots of advertising happening in 2020.

Certainly we are competing with the information that's out there in general, but it's also an election year as well, so it's good to get started as soon as possible. Folks will be able to respond in March 2020. Census day is officially April 1st, 2020, so we're one year out minus one day. and folks will be out in the field starting this summer to update on what housing units are out there. So you may see folks in the field as early as this summer. The numbers go to the U.S. president on December 31st, 2020, and the numbers come back to the states on March 31st, 2021 for redistricting.

So we're hiring 1,620 positions to staff these two field offices in Orange County, Santa Ana and Fullerton. So please encourage folks to go online to apply. They can go to census.gov slash fieldjobs. The application portal is at usajobs.gov, and they can also go to 2020census.gov slash jobs. The field jobs pay about $20 an hour, and the office jobs pay about $15 an hour. And there are management positions available as well for those who have that experience. You have to be a U.S. citizen, and there's certainly preference for U.S. veterans, those who have served our country,

and they also have to pass a background check.

Okay. Thank you very much for your time. Let me see if we have any questions from council members.

David PenalozaItem —

Sure. I have a question. Thank you, Mr. Nguyen, first of all, for this presentation. You're welcome. It's informative. There was, just because I personally received it at home, so I wanted to see if you could just inform the public and us as well, So about three months ago, I personally received at home a long envelope from the Census Bureau. There's multiple forms to fill out. So that wasn't the, I know it was a survey, but that wasn't, you know, what is the, is that sent to everybody that the Census is sent to? What was the purpose of that?

That is a survey that's conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. so that sounds like an American community survey which is also required by law for you to complete. It is not the decennial census which happens every 10 years. The decennial census which is what we call 2020 census is what's happening next year and that's a headcount of America's population. So that

David PenalozaItem —

one the survey is sent to every household as well right? No. No. Next year folks will

be able to self-respond online and by telephone. So the survey that you've received recently. It sounds like what we call the American Community Survey, which is a more in-depth survey. Please complete it. Thank you very much.

Councilor Ariello. Thank you, sir. Okay, final thought and question. What did Councilor Penielosa just sign up for? What does it mean? Yes, please inform me.

Well, it means that you are taking responsibility for your entire city, of course representing the City Council and and mayor you've indicated your willingness to serve as well I will thank you very much to you both for

David PenalozaItem —

serving on the complete count committee and just to let the mayor knowing yourself I've had some conversations with Daisy who's been great we went over the map of Santa Ana and and the the least response areas in your area is in Ward 2 North Central Santa Ana is where we we have very bad response rates so I You know, I mean, if you want to take... We'll go door to door. We could go door to door together. I'm up for it.

All right, we'll do a little bit of work and contact the churches, the schools, everybody we can. Throughout the city, but in particular in that area. So you know exactly what you'll be doing.

Look forward to working with you all.

Look, thank you and thank you for the job that you're doing. I've got to tell you a little story. I'll never forget that AQMD vote. You kept your word, and that matters. and I much appreciate that. That's when he was mayor of Garden Grove. He voted to support me for AQMD and I appreciate that and I appreciate the job that you're doing here today. Thank you, Val. Thank you.

With that, I think we can move on to do we have anything to report out to the Attorney, I think the answer is no.

If you did, I'd be surprised. But, you know, you could. No, I'm kidding. Any items to be pulled?

I'd like to pull 11A.

11A, any other items on the consent calendar? I'd like to pull 19A through the... I'm kidding. Joking.

Council Member Iglesias is not here today. All right. Do we have any speakers on any consent counter items? No, we do not. All right. So I'd entertain a motion on the balance.

I move.

Second. Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed, motion carries unanimously. Now we had an item that was pulled correct. Was that 11A? 11A, sir. Go ahead.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to thank again the Public Safety Committee for their work. on the loud noise ordinance. I want to thank Chief Valentin and Deputy Chief Kaminsky, Assistant City Attorney Bogosian, wonderful work, and all of the staff. There's many that participated, and it was a lot of discussion, a lot of research. And also, I want to thank, once again, Esther Fonseca from Artesia Pilar Neighborhood Association, who helped move this item along. And with that, I make a motion to approve, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. We have a second by Councillor Solario. Those in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. The opposed motion carries. Does that take us to our business calendar, Madam Clerk? Dale Helwig, 65A, you request to speak. It's not a public hearing, but we got to make sure you stay in good speaking shape. So we'll go ahead and recognize and acknowledge you. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor and Council members. I hope you had a chance to read the letter that I sent to you on Senate Bill 50 that's going up in front of the state right now.

It's a bill that could really hurt Santa Ana, I think. One of our guiding principles of the 65A document that you had was to preserve local control. Senate Bill 50 gets rid of that local control. It will essentially allow developers to come in and not use the density bonus agreement of three exemptions, but it moves it up to six exemptions.

So they can come in and purchase single family homes that are within these zones and essentially develop it and ignore density, height, landscaping, parking, you name it. you six six things that they can bypass the current zoning and essentially bypasses the general plan and land use that's set out by the city and so what it would turn into is a hodgepodge of high-rise developments throughout Santa

Anna wherever they essentially purchase property so we're hoping that that gets defeated but I think it ought to be included on this particular 65A report is something that the city should be watching out for so just wanted to bring

that to your attention thank you thank you Dale with that may I have a motion or a second on this item second by Solario he nodded yes madam clerk those in favor please say aye aye aye those opposed motion carries now I'm going to direct our attention to the housing authority I would entertain a motion on the consent calendar items one and two mayor yes like to excuse the absence of

Sarmiento Iglesias I don't know that we did that we did do for the consent

calendar for the right all right we'll be nice because they did not always approved me I'll tell you that no they didn't on purpose so that so with that so we'll include that so we have a motion a second those in favor please say aye aye aye those opposed motion carries item number three housing authority authority comments seeing none I will adjourn the housing authority bring it back to the city council meeting and note that it's before seven o'clock and we have

10 speakers james kendricks come on down kind of bounced up there when i called his name sophie breckman followed by liar pierce and then chris schmidt go ahead jim hi mayor and council i'm

here on kind of a fun note tonight 45 years ago I moved to Orange County and 30 well about 40 years ago I made our stand out of my home you know 50 years ago 1969 Woodstock happens anybody remember that 50 years ago 1969 something else happened Stonewall New York City 150 years ago Santa was founded by William Spurgeon and here we are April there's not a banner

celebrating our city yet I hear something's gonna happen nothing celebrated what is going on with our city we said we you guys are sitting up here you're always proud of our city and you miss the biggest opportunity in the world new year's day the 80s we had rose but rose parade floats going down colorado boulevard celebrating the diversity and cultural accessibility of the city we still haven't reached out yet the biggest marketing tool you could have had was new year's day and you let it slip through your

fingers celebrating 150 years and you haven't and you're still nothing our city entry markers look like they're from the civil war our parks look terrible think about it come on and you're fighting over a city manager's salary police fight and here is 150 years and here we are and we still aren't reaching out there 150 years and we're still where are we what yeah what have the marketing thing you guys gave last council the rainbow flag anaheim's got it flying

by their city council and we're the city of diversity and where are we 150 years and we're

still not there yet. Sophie followed by Lair Pierce followed by Chris Schmidt.

Good evening Mr. Mayor, council members and staff. I'm Sophie Beckerman, Community Relations Manager at BIRD. I'm here today to express to you our sincere gratitude for the opportunity to work with the City of Santa Ana on a dockless scooter pilot program. Thank you for being an early leader on transportation innovation in affording your community important access to equitable alternatives to driving. We see a bright future in working with the city on our mutual goals of reducing car use and improving connectivity in Santa Ana. According to our recent rider survey, 34% of riders

used a scooter instead of a car and helped prevent harmful carbon emissions from entering the air. As we've done community outreach to educate on safe scooter use, I've enjoyed hearing from Santa Ana residents and visitors firsthand, like the students at Santa Ana College who said that Bird has provided in an environmentally friendly way for them to get to class on time. We gathered over 100 personalized postcards from community members indicating why they love having Bird in Santa Ana. I will submit these tonight for your review.

As the creator of eScooter Sharing, BERT has seen firsthand how important it is for our transportation solution to be integrated thoughtfully into the community. We take the importance of protecting the safety and welfare of our riders and communities very seriously, and so we commend Santa Ana on its efforts to develop clear and impactful regulations. Thank you again for being the first in Orange County to welcome this innovation and offering your constituents this affordable, sustainable transit option. Congratulations on a successful pilot, and we look forward to being back in Santa Ana soon. Thank you.

Sophie, real quick before you leave, you realize that part of the reason we didn't extend right now the temporary trial period is for insurance purposes, right? Yes. So you guys are working on that with a city attorney?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

I can just give you a really brief update. I did talk with someone from their legal counsel office and both from Lyme and Byrd. Lyme, honestly, was responsive, less enthusiastic, but the Byrd official said that they would consider defending the city in the ADA lawsuit and they would consider entering into an indemnification agreement. So I was very optimistic, but I have not heard back from them.

Please, just get back to your folks. Tell them we need to be indemnified. somebody gets in an accident we don't want city liability so if you can you know cover that to the satisfaction of the city attorney i think you know this council is pretty innovative and open-minded and i know some of us even rode those right councilman panielloza yeah i rode one awesome

all the time great yeah i'll definitely communicate that back he's over 18 so anyways

please just make sure they get back to our city attorney it's very important i will definitely

Thank you so much.

Lair Pierce followed by Chris Schmidt.

Thank you, Mayor Polito, members of the council. I am Lair Pierce. I'm here to speak about something a little different tonight. It's a legislative issue that concerns my client, the Cadiz Water Project. But the bill that's in Sacramento about this project has much bigger ramifications. It threatens the whole CEQA approval process in the state of California. so I wanted to bring that to your attention. The Cadiz Project, real simply, there's a great big aquifer out in the Mojave Desert, and currently all the water from that aquifer, a billion gallons of water a year, evaporates into the air and is gone,

and we want to bring that water into Southern California. We'll have enough water to serve 400,000 Southern Californians. Santa Ana isn't planning on using that water. you are blessed with being over the Orange County aquifer and you don't need the extra reliability that a project like this would bring. But my water district, Santa Margarita Water District, doesn't have a local groundwater source and they do want to bring this water in. Cadiz has been involved for 10 years in getting regulatory approval for our project. And we have a certified EIR. We were challenged in court. We won all 12 court cases.

the courts and the EIR both said that we will have no significant environmental impact. Despite that, opponents are trying to stop our project through legislation, and this year, the third year they've tried, it's SB 307. And I wouldn't normally bring this to your attention, but SB307 is a slippery slope for any city or any private entity that has to deal with getting approvals under the California Environmental Quality Act. That's because it takes our project, which is fully certified, full EIR that's been upheld in court,

and creates a whole new level of review over and above CEQA that we would be exposed to. If they can do that to us, they can do that to anyone. let's say a project in Santa Ana like the Main Place Mall transformation project or your recent Metro East mixed use overlay district expansion. If you had a dedicated opposition to that that had lost at every turn like our opposition has and they're out of options, if SB 307 passes they have a new option. They can go to the legislature and create a story and get a new level of review imposed on them just like they would like to impose on

us. So I don't really think that California should jeopardize the certainty that comes with a certified EIR. I don't think that cities are really very much in the mood for more usurpation of local control from Sacramento. So I have a copy of a letter that I'll just leave with your

clerk. Thank you. Appreciate your time. Chris, come on up. Good evening, Mayor, City Council

I'm here today to make a public comment regarding some statements I heard earlier today in Judge Carter's courtroom regarding saying that there was no opposition to the proposed shelter locations. So I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you. In September of last year, the City of Santa Ana entered into a memorandum of understanding with the County of Orange where they identified a location. on that September 4th city council meeting there were 14 letters submitted to the city of Santa Ana. All 14 opposed the shelter location. Again, all 14 correspondence letters opposed the shelter location.

I was one of them. Then a month later in October, the city manager, Raul Godinez, sent Frank Kim, the county CEO, a letter saying, instead of that location choose this location by this location instead and when we asked the city why are you guys choosing they said we have no jurisdiction the county can choose wherever they want yeah Andrew Doe came to a February neighborhood meeting and told us the city told us to buy the Yale Street location this is exactly why several Santa Ana community members requested last year that there be a sunshine

ordinance meeting regarding this shelter location because we're supposed to have input so we don't fall into this normandy place location situation again where the county is telling us it's the city and the city is telling us the county meanwhile us the residents and the businesses are stuck in the middle again i think it's highly inappropriate for elected officials to stand in a federal courtroom and say there's been absolutely no opposition when in fact there is and the same court hearing today both the city of costa mesa and the city of tustin had identified a location

but the community said that's not a good location so those cities worked with the community and found an alternative location same thing with huntington beach there was just an article today they said the location they've identified was too close to a school so they're working with the community I respectfully request that we hold a community forum regarding this and let the community have some input. Thank you very much.

Let me just for the record tell you that the city did choose that site. Andrew Doe is right. He did not. We did. Just for the record. Let me go to city manager comments real quick.

Yes, Mr. Mayor. The city is hosting a job fair this Saturday, April 6th at El Salvador Center at 1825 West Civic Center Drive in Santa Ana. And it will be at 10 a.m.

Thank you. Now council comments. Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I was at federal court this morning with Mayor Pulido and our staff. and Mary you had left at that point when I was called up to go and speak because there was a question about the Yale Street project and for clarification there Mr. Schmidt I was standing next to Andrew and he said that he received opposition from the council it wasn't that there was no opposition period it said he was talking about council members and I told him and the judge that I to my knowledge there has been no opposition from the council members at the time then we were said we were don't don't are you had your time to talk so I

was there I was there I was there so yeah I couldn't I can't hear what you're saying because you're not on a microphone sorry I'm sorry so okay we're talking We're talking about right now.

We're talking about, yeah, I haven't received anything from her. Oh, well, you know, I didn't think about that.

Yeah, the last council meeting she had made.

Okay, well, you know what, let's move forward. Okay, so anyway, so I told them, to my knowledge, I didn't hear anything. I didn't know of such a thing. But anyway, so we are in a legal contract with them. We have an MOU. and you know that was that came from the previous council and you know i'm intending to go through with it because it's a legal binding contract what are we supposed to do tell them no then we're going to get into a big mess you know our our homeless shelter the link has had zero complaints this has went up from the neighbors zero i have deputy chief kaminsky in the other room if he

wants to come out and talk about it but yeah he testified today that there was zero complaints and so there was um there was that you know a lot of people talk about oh well we don't want to hear everybody who's look nobody wants it in their backyard there is no perfect solution you just have to toughen up and make a decision and put it somewhere and this is the location that we picked and uh you know the people that talk on the sidelines they're not getting sued they're not paying out they're they don't have all the information they're not going through all the

legal challenges. There's a lot of things that we can't talk about because they're legal matters. So, you know, I know it's tough on the public when they read something in the paper and that's all they know is what they read in the paper. And they don't know all the background that led to that. And then again, also, when you read the paper, when you read the media, it's like a police report. It depends on how you write it. How are you going to go what do you want to actually convey you can take the same thing and just the way you write it will make it look like it's something different than

what it really is so anyway that is my comment and that's what we were at today and we're gonna push forward thank you mr. mayor thank you

councilman Jose Solorio please thank you mr. mayor a few things first many of us including about 800 high school students at Cesar Chavez High School. We're able to enjoy a very nice talk by Juana Chavez, who is the daughter of Dolores Huerta and Richard Chavez. I did receive some support from Sylvia and the City Manager's Office, who's on loan, and she was fantastic. So thank you for her. I do appreciate the representatives from Lyman Bird that were here.

And I'm hopeful that we could figure out how to do an evaluation of the scooter program that we could share with the council and the public. Staff did an outstanding job, public works and parks on the 6th and Lacey. Groundbreaking, it was very well done, the community enjoyed it. And it's one of those little pocket parks that's right there, right next to the heart of a community with a lot of residents and children. And even though it's a tight little park, there's even going to be room for a little skate park area. So that's very awesome, it was very well received.

On the Yale site thing, because I received a number of comments and concerns today. We obviously voted on MOU and MOU is not binding. We've got to go revisit different elements of it. I do feel like obviously on the issue of whether there's opposition or not. From the Dice we've heard some, from the public we've heard some. I think the school district also sent us a letter of opposition within the last couple of weeks. So that's some of the things that I'm aware about. A community member also shared with me a concern about the Sunshine Act and

And the MOU that we did pass, the Sunshine Act for things that are city subsidized seem to require a meeting. And I don't think that meeting has occurred yet. So if we do want to stand by a Sunshine Act, I think it probably is a meeting that needs to occur. Because whether public, nonprofit or others, we hold everybody to the Sunshine Act. So again, it's not that I'm saying I'm not supportive of many of the elements in the MOU. But there were some that we were going to revisit like cost. Right now at the courtyard, we have various residents that are there, we get charged nothing.

Whereas at this new place, there are going to be costs and other cities, if they send their homeless here, there's not going to be a cost to them. So we just kind of got to look at the fairness thing. And then we really finalized a lot of the MOU work, not taking into account the beds at the link. Because we kind of were working on the link for separate purposes. And although the link is quote unquote temporary, I think we do need to take that into account. And we just kind of got to revisit the whole thing. We also have some new council members that haven't been briefed on the MOU.

And then finally, the MOU also says that the city has to select the site. And the legal question not for now or for later, what does that mean? Does that mean we have to vote on the site at some point? Because I don't think we've necessarily have done that. So I just want us to at some point in public session or if it needs to be in closed session, that we revisit the various points in the MOU to see what's still relevant, what's not. Should we try to renegotiate any of it? Cost issues, equity issues. We now know what some of the other cities are doing.

And so it is also a moving situation here, and we ought to take an overall look at it. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilmember David Pena Loza, please.

David PenalozaItem —

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Again, like Councilmember Soloria, I'd like to thank our Parks and Rec Director, Lisa, and staff for that great, and the community, all the community that was involved in making the 6th and Lacey Park possible. Saturday was a very nice groundbreaking ceremony, good turnout, so it was very successful, and I'm happy to see the community involved in that regard. Friday, I went on another ride-along, and I'm happy to say that it was very boring, very quiet. Friday night, nothing was happening.

David PenalozaItem —

There was like two noise complaint calls and cars blocking a driveway, which was surprising, But then I got dropped off and it felt like the city just went into chaos. There was helicopters over my house. So I just wanted to point that out. And in regards to the MOU for the Yale site, I wasn't here when that was approved. I mean, when I look at the facts and as somebody directly impacted by the homeless situation in the industrial part of town, I would be opposed to it.

David PenalozaItem —

And I'm still not comfortable with it just because, you know, I work half a mile down from the link. And in the last seven, six months, I think the homeless problem has intensified and gotten worse than it's ever been. and I'm half a mile down from the link. And I don't think enough outreach was done with the businesses around the Yelp site or the community involved. And it's things where it's like I've seen the building I work at be caught on fire because of things like this. So I do have concerns with it, but there is an MOU now,

David PenalozaItem —

but I'm sure there's possible conversations that we could have to bring that number of beds down. That's all I have to say.

Thank you.

Fortunately, we're working with the county and they go very slowly, so we're going to have time to talk. If it were Santa Ana and if Deputy Chief Kaminsky were there and if we had our public works director, if we were out in control, the thing would probably be up and running by now. Or at least we'd have bodies going in there. So the county says that they're 10% done with the design, and they won't be ready for a year. We're trying to speed them up until September. So there's going to be time to talk about this. However, I've got to remind us, the link is only temporary. That's going to go down.

And all of a sudden, the relief that we see right now citywide, because we are able to put people in on a regular basis. and today the deputy chief gave a report in the court and basically said that it's, you know, pretty much full. Certainly the families that are in there are full, the children. There's something like 30 children at any one time, and that's full. And then, you know, we have a few spaces sometimes in the men or the women's areas, but in either case it's being utilized. When that goes away, and it will go away, we need a backup.

Also remember the old bus depot, where we now house about 450 homeless, which is destroying the downtown because they're all over the place and it's not made for that and there's no parking and there's no order to it. and it's just very very difficult that has to be replaced and at some point you know the armory is going to permanently close because they're going to close it in florida and we'll want to close it

so we need we need a you know to be thinking about all these other factors that are you know part of the equation it's not a zero sum game so with that um i think we're going to have a very short councilman at 7 15. i i don't know if the council members all know what to do with uh with this free time and the staff are going to get home and their spouses are going to say what happened did you get fired is everything okay so you can say no no we're in good shape and city's in good shape and we're going to be in better shape soon so with that this meeting is adjourned

Thank you.

Thank you.