Read the March 22 meeting.

All right, I'm going to call everybody's attention. We're not going to do an invocation today, but we will do the Pledge of Allegiance. If you'd all please stand.

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. Thank you. You may be seated. Madam Clerk, do we have any requests for people that wish to speak under just public comment prior to us beginning?

Seeing no one, I'll just bring it to Council's, I'm Kenny. Yes, Council Member.

Can I just inquire? It appears that most of the public is here to speak and maybe comment and listen on the matter having to do with the vacancy.

We have both of them, so I'm just going to take 25B first.

25B or D? D. Okay. Look, I'm not sure if that's something that the Council would want to entertain, maybe flipping those, just because it's more extensive. And just to be respectful of folks' time, I don't know if there's any appetite for maybe doing the vacancy issue 65C first.

I would prefer just to take them the way they're on the agenda. So let me open up on item 25B.

David PenalozaItem —

Can we have a special on that at all? I mean, I'll second that.

Yeah, if that's a motion to second. That's what the public's here for.

All right. Let's vote on that. Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. those opposed i'm a no so we have three no three ayes so motion fails so let's go on to 25d uh this is uh approval and agreement to appoint christine ridge as city manager and i have uh two speakers on that item uh carl uh bernice please come forward and mike and michelle

Martinez. Mary, you're going to wear my name yet.

I will. One of these years. One of these years. It's Carl Benninger, for those that didn't get that. But your N's don't look like N's. It's kind of standing out there in a cold right here.

It looks like an A. You've got two A's. I totally agree with you. My handwriting's terrible. But thank you for letting me speak. First of all, Vince, I want to express my deep sympathy for the passing of your mother-in-law, and hope you got along with yours as well as I got along with mine. At times, I swear, I got along with her better than my wife did, but we had a great time, so I have my sympathy. But very surely, I just want to say that I very much support Christine being our new city manager. I wish we could keep Steve there, but he's going on to other better things.

But anyway, I just want to say that the big thing that I hear about her from both folks at Anaheim and my friends down in Laguna Niguel where I worked, is that she serves the people. And if it's one thing we were lacking, especially at Cavazas, and I get into the combination, is that he really was looking to be served rather than serving the people. And I heard that Christine is the other way around, and so you have my support in hiring our city manager.

Thank you. Michelle Martinez, please.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. I just wanted to really quickly just articulate, and Councilman Sarmiento, my sympathies to you and your family and, of course, your lovely wife, Eva, for the loss. I just wanted to articulate, as you all know, I paid close attention when I was on this dais on agenda items, And even off this dais, I still continue to pay close attention to every agenda and every report. And as I reviewed the report for the city manager position, and I don't really care what way you all decide. That's a political decision. That's your decision to choose who you want.

But what I will state is that I don't believe that you were being transparent in your process and articulating what her compensation is really going to be in the staff memo. It's disingenuous to not articulate exactly what she will be getting paid if you do decide to move forward. And so I'm disheartened that when you so choose to go with this person, why wouldn't you be transparent and just say what she's going to get paid?

Her entire compensation, not just what she's going to get paid in this fiscal year, but articulate for the public exactly what her total compensation is going to be. Our last previous city manager, we went through that process, Mr. Mayor, and you were certain to put that out there prior to that city manager as well. under Mr. Cavazos, we also were very transparent and articulated the total compensation package. Why didn't we do that here? It's disingenuous, and I just hope that the members here on this council will recognize that and really tell the public what you're exactly going to be paying her. Thank you very much.

Thank you. With that, I will bring it to council.

Mayor Pro Tem.

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to approve the, um, to appoint Christine Ridge as the city manager effective May 1st, 2019, and with comment.

Okay, I'll go ahead and second that motion. Any comments, please go ahead.

I would like to give the opportunity to my colleagues if they wanted to do that before I go.

David PenalozaItem —

Questions or thoughts? Yeah, I have some questions with, uh, I just wasn't, um, is, where is it? Is this the three year that we're going with, right?

David PenalozaItem —

I know we had some issues with, or I had some concerns with the Evergreen Clause, and I just wanted to see if you could explain that to me, Mr. Mayor, just exactly what that means.

Yes, I think it would probably be best coming from the city attorney. She negotiated that, and I know it began in our committee at four years, and then we compromised back at three years. So if you can just talk to that, please, Madam City Attorney.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Yes, I want to thank you, Mayor, Councilmembers, and for the benefit of the public. The Council did use an ad hoc committee, as indicated in the staff report, that gave us negotiating parameters. Initially, the candidate, Ms. Ridge, asked for a four-year evergreen. We negotiated that to a three-year evergreen. The evergreen and the way this functions is in a contract you can have a specific term. So that means the contract's going to last for a year or two or three or four. The way the Evergreen works is that the term of the contract is for an initial term of three years. So you do have a three-year termed contract.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

However, in the 11th month of the contract, if the City Council does not give notice to Ms. Ridge that they're not going to renew it, the contract will automatically renew for another year. So in the 11th month of the contract, one more year will be added on. So you'll have another, like a brand new three-year contract every 11 months.

And if you give notice?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

And if you give notice at that 11th month, then there's only two years and one month remaining on the contract. So you will always have the opportunity to give notice. And when you give notice, there'll be two years and one month remaining. If you don't give notice, then it's evergreen. It's always a three-year contract.

More questions? No, no, right now, the council and our panelists has a floor. Let me just...

David PenalozaItem —

That was the one question I had. All right.

May I go to others?

I think Vance and Juan, and then I want to speak as well.

Yeah, and Ceci also indicated earlier if she wanted to speak. Go ahead, Council Member Sarmiot.

Yeah, and let me begin by saying thank you to my colleagues, and thank you, Mr. Mayor, on Tuesday night's council meeting for moving this matter to today's special meeting, just for the benefit of all of us being together because both of these decisions that we're going to be taking up tonight are very important, so thank you for that direction. To my colleagues who sent their well wishes and kind regards, I really appreciate those as well. And to staff, everybody's been very supportive in a difficult time, and we know that sometimes these decisions that we make here today sometimes pale in the scheme of things

when you're dealing with some real life-threatening and life-changing moments. So thank you all for that. But what I did want to talk about is, and disclose, for full disclosure, I had a good conversation with Ms. Ridge today and spoke with her because I hadn't had the opportunity since early on to speak with her on this, and I hadn't really had a chance to review some of the terms and provisions in the employment agreement.

And what I tried to do is, and she was very cordial, and I think, you know, she's come, we've had the benefit, former Councilwoman Martinez and Councilman Solorio and the mayor have had an opportunity to interview her when she came before us a couple of years ago for an appointment back then. And I think she did well, and I think she's got good experience, although it's kind of limited as a city manager. I think she only has a little over a year experience as a full-time city manager. I know she's been an assistant city manager in the city of Anaheim, but Laguna Niguel is much different than Anaheim.

It's probably smaller than many of our wards. but I think what I was trying to do was get a sense and analyze this really separating her and just looking at the terms and provisions of this and I think it kind of speaks to you know what councilman Peñalosa was talking about I guess my questions more are for staff and I appreciate the work that the ad Evergreen contracts common in the county. I recall them being common for trash haulers, but that's the only time I've ever seen an Evergreen.

And the last Evergreen I saw was when Dave Ream was here, and he was here with us for about 25 years. And I remember we vowed never to have an Evergreen again, at least many of us, because what it does is it really binds you, and it's kind of a shotgun marriage, because it obligates you to a specific relationship and to separate is really tough on these evergreens because I think as you mentioned this madam city attorney they just automatically renew and I think that you know it undermines miss ridges talent and her CV and the help that she can bring in a you know I

think that it really makes it difficult for me because I'm principal I just you have a tough time with evergreens because if you look at the total package

290 000 is probably so i have i have a few questions so i asked the first question on the evergreen the second one is where does 290 fall in the in the um you know for all the city managers in the county and i understand that the city manager in anaheim his salary is 293 um so you know this would be less than that but we're also talking about you know some other benefits that that will accrue here and that's the this is the CalPERS and this is like for classic employees it's an additional 8% in addition to the 2.7 at 55 so we're

talking about salary and benefits when you include you know the vacation allowance when you include other allowances here it looks like really the salary and benefits really are about $420,000, $430,000. Is that correct?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Okay, so do you want me to answer the Evergreen first or go on the money first? You can take them in any order you want. Okay. Let me answer the Evergreen first. Just so that you understand, an Evergreen clause is usually inserted into a contract when you want stability. You want some long-term certainty. Actually, not stability. I should say certainty. And you often find them in service contracts where a contractor is investing a lot, like a trash contract, for example. They buy trucks. Those trucks cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

That's the reason they ask for evergreen provisions, because they amortize the value of the equipment. So it does make sense. They'll have like a 20-year term and they'll do an evergreen. You will see an evergreen provision in service contracts, such as these, professional services, when, again, I use that word stability and certainty is in play. I do want to remind the council that you do have the opportunity to terminate the evergreen in that 11th month or even sooner than the 11th month because if you would terminate the evergreen then the term will run out but you will

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

always no matter when you terminate it at a minimum have a two-year one-month time remaining on the contract is it common I think we did see many of these evergreen provisions and contracts in the 80s and 90s I think just honestly they're a little less common these days because I think some of the managers look more to the severance payments, but they're not uncommon. So you do see them. You see them more based on the situation in the cities when the people are coming to look for the deal. How many in the county? How many city managers in this county have? There would be 34 city managers in this county.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

I did not look at all the city manager contracts before this evening. I did look at several contracts, including this candidate's current contract that does not have an Evergreen in it. I don't believe the city of Anaheim does. As I mentioned, I think they're in places where you've seen managers there for a very, very long time. So where you see cities with more recent turnover. I could do a quick search for you.

So if we, let's, and just kind of walk us through. If we decided to, let's say, you know, we wanted to separate for whatever reason, to buy out that contract. What's the cost and the value for that? Let's say in the first year.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Okay. So assuming because the proposed contract before you does not have a severance provision, you haven't negotiated the way that you might terminate this contract. So what you would have to do is the candidate would be looking at the term that she has remaining on the contract. So it depends on when the termination occurred. So it could be two years, it could be two years.

Give us worst case scenario, because somehow the city always finds itself in the worst case scenario. So give us that look.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

In a worst case scenario, I think you'd probably be looking at maybe two and a half years. I would maybe say, can we get through six months? We'd assume that we'd be working things out for six months. So in a two and a half year scenario, the contract says that there would be termination based on mutual agreement. That means she would come to the table, you would come to the table. You could offer her a year severance. You could offer her no severance. She could ask for something, a package that is worth two and a half years worth of value. What she would not be able to do is take a cash payment.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

So let's say she came to the table and she says, I have two and a half years left on my contract. I want the value of the two and a half years. You would only be able to give her cash in the amount of 18 months because the government code operates as a restriction. and it ties your hands and say you cannot pay her more than 18 months in cash.

So worst case scenario, about 18 months pursuant to the government code.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Correct.

And that's a post-City of Bell government code that was adopted to make sure that nobody gets paid excessively.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Yes.

Does anybody have an 18-month severance package in the county?

I think the prevailing industry standard, if I'm not mistaken, is about 6 to 12 months.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Industry standard is 6 to 12 months. I'm not aware of anyone that has an 18 months listed in the text of the contract. And we don't have 18 months severance, but we do have the disclosure of 18 months in this case.

Right. But if we decided to terminate or separate at that 2 1⁄2 or that 6-month period where there's 2 1⁄2 years on the evergreen left, the package would be fairly well we'd go to the 18 month ceiling or government code limit and that 18 months would be the equivalent of about $600,000 is that correct because we're talking about $420,000 in salary, some ancillary benefits so between about half a million and $600,000

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

is that? I think that would be

correct okay and and so this would certainly be out of the industry standards and probably more than we've ever done on a severance for anybody because i recall and we've gone through about maybe five or six city managers during my time um i don't remember anybody having any more than six to 12 months in the severance package when we've separated and so you know and and see this is this is no reflection on on on miss ridge i think if anything this shows really strong negotiating skills on her part and you know I wouldn't mind having having her here and I don't want to dissuade that I just want to see how we can maybe meet

and have a meeting of the minds where it makes sense to us it makes sense to her but you know one of the things I guess I'm a little troubled with is you know in the past what we've done is we've had candidates come before us so we can compare you know who's a good candidate who isn't who has the best fit and I think here had we done that it would have been you know it would have been helpful but you know the fact that we haven't had that exercise to have people come before us and especially because we have new council members I know I certainly benefited from having people come and

interview and us take a look at their CVs and just have them before us we really haven't had that benefit here so I am you know I just think that I'm all stability but I'm also not for binding you know council members that are going to be here for a while I know my term is going to be ending in 2020 and I certainly want them to have the ability to continue with somebody and I hope that we can get get to some agreement with with with Miss Ridge where she might consider you know maybe being more commensurate with industry standards and and I could certainly get behind that but given where we are right now this is

just a very very difficult you know contract for me to support and I review these for a living and so I thought this was a little a little bit more aggressive than than I wish you know would be before us so in any event those are my initial thoughts and I think that this is a conversation and you know that hopefully there's nothing this is coming from a good place where we want somebody to come here and I'm glad there's interest but at the same time we can't not consider terms and provisions that would be adverse to the city.

Thank you. If I may, I just want to ask a question, but then I want to go around because I know folks have more comment. Just on the mutual agreement portion, Madam City Attorney, doesn't that basically say that if we were to terminate, we'd have to both mutually agree? So if we don't agree to 18 months and we get in a tough negotiation we can end up with a lower number if if that becomes our steadfast position correct correct so the 18 months is no guarantee for her by putting mutual agreement we have to mutually agree yes and that's why I

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

wanted to make sure that you understood in the contract when I referenced the 18 months it does not say anything it says disclosure it's actually titled disclosure so everyone understands that 18 months is a government code

disclosure. That's just a California state law that says that's the maximum you could do. It's not compelling us to do that. It simply says that's an upper limit. Yes. So if this council or a future city council were to say we're only going to do 12 months or six months and we stick to that, if she doesn't mutually agree we have no agreement and she has no guarantee above that mutual

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

agreement, correct? Correct. The only thing that she would have, the only thing that the candidate is guaranteed under this contract is if you decided that you wanted to terminate her and she had two years remaining on her term, she could say, I don't even want to mutually agree to leave. And so that's when you would have to get into the negotiations about how much it would take to ask her to leave.

And that just becomes a negotiated settlement. Thank you. All right. I know there's other questions. I just wanted to clear that up because I think that was an important point. Council Member Solorio, do you want to go?

We could just go in the original order. I think it was Councilman Villegas and Councilman. Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Well, then answer that you and then Sassy.

Sounds good. Just wanted to give my opinion on this item. You know, I motion to approve, and I'm going to say why. You know, a year ago, a little over a year ago, we had the interviews of the city managers, and Raul Godinas was chosen at the time by the previous council. I was very impressed with Ms. Ridge at the time, as a few of my colleagues here also were supportive, during that interview process. She made it all the way to the very end and the council decided to go with someone else. That other person had less experience than Miss Ridge. That person, Mr. Godinez, had a year in El Monte as a city manager and that was it. And

then before that it was just public works. So, and he's a friend and he knows this is business. I don't mean to say it, you know, Raul, if you're watching, hey, hello. But But, you know, Ms. Ridge has been at the city of Anaheim for 24 years. She is the former internal audit manager, the former city treasurer, the city finance director, the city human resource director, the deputy city manager, and the assistant city manager. 24 years in one location. A big city similar to ours. That says a lot. She also has a lot of experience dealing with Disneyland, the big contract.

So we've got Disneyland, we've got the Honda Center, we've got the Angels, we have all these other venues, not to mention all the numerous large hotels that they have to deal with and negotiate. We need someone with experience, ladies and gentlemen. We need someone who's been in the trenches, who's been tested. The city of Anaheim deals with the same problems we have here. Crime reduction, the homelessness, the housing crisis, so on and so forth. graffiti, gangs, the whole works. It's unfortunate those bad things, but there's also some good things that she brings to the table, as such as negotiating with

these large companies. And we have that vision here for Santa Ana that we need to bring those ideas and that experience here also so we can make this a greater place. Santa Ana is great, we're making it greater. Do we want someone with, that we're going to look for that, you know, pay less and less experience and try to you want that person negotiating Willowick I don't think so I'm going to support this candidate and I hope my colleagues do also thank you mr. mayor thank you

counselor Jose Solorio please thank you mr. mayor I wasn't on the on the ad-hack committee so just some questions really more about the contract because on the whole I do agree Christine Ridge is a fine person very well trained so but I I have just more questions about the contracts. Definitely, if I had worked on it, I wouldn't have left the remaining like this. But before I get into the contract, I think there is the legitimate question of what the total cost is. So I don't know if the staff can officially confirm whether what's in the staff report

is the total annual compensation or what's missing.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

I can explain to you what is terms of cash in the contract. I think when you look at total costs.

I could read that. My question is, are there other monetary benefits that will be realized as part of an annual compensation package?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

What has not been specified, there is some benefits by reference because the candidate will be eligible for the executive director benefits by reference.

And what are they and what are the cost values to that?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

For example, there is a retirement health benefit. I don't recall off the top of my head what that percentage is, but there's a percentage of salary that is deposited into a retirement health plan.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

I'm not executive eligible for the benefits, so I'm not familiar with what they all entail. I might be jealous.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

And then there are costs for PERS, which is the typical type of costs that are associated with the contract. You did notice, I think, in the summary that there is a contribution to the 457 plan in the amount of $19,000.

So the CalPERS retirement costs, I mean, there are figures here. Is this just not complete, or is there an additional PERS cost in addition?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

My understanding, and I don't know, I'm looking to see a manager because I don't calculate these, but my understanding is that there are different ways of calculating the PERS benefit. In past contracts, when we've provided the staff report, the PERS benefit included some other types of benefits within that calculation. Our current finance director said in her professional opinion, she calculated the way that she is used to calculating it. That's why you see the difference between this number and the number that you saw in Mr. Godinus' staff report.

Well, what else is in the executive compensation package?

Medicare, auto allowance, workers' compensation costs, life insurance, medical, dental.

Well, those are on the same sheet. I'm trying to understand what is not on the sheet because some question whether everything is on the sheet or not. And I'm getting the sense that there are some things missing.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

I think other than retirement health benefit, the auto allowance is in the contract. It's already specified. The 457 is specified in the contract.

So the retirement health, is it for life or is it for how long?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

It's a contribution that's made. It's a percentage of salary, so it varies based on salary.

That's the cost side, but as a beneficiary, they receive pre-health insurance indefinitely?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Pre-health. It isn't that they get the health benefit, but pre-tax, the money, the city pays it into an account.

Right, that's the cost portion. I'm trying to just understand the beneficiary portion. So as an executive department, head, everybody receives?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Yes, it is a benefit available, as I understand, to the executives in the city.

Okay, maybe in the meantime, because I don't know how many more questions we all have here and how long we'll be, But it may be something that's available on the website or somewhere that can be shared with. Because I think for transparency sake, we need to tell ourselves and the public how much this costs.

We should not be voting for something where we do not know what the total cost is, number one. In part two, because an earlier agenda made mention that there wasn't enough money in the city manager's office and the general fund for this.

and I don't know if by accident that fell off the agenda but that's another reason why if there's an appropriation necessary we need to know what what that

new Delta is the the action put that put the city manager's office over its current budget is say that again the action that was taken by the City council that put the city manager's budget over budget this year was the release of raul not the

hiring of this or entering right i'm not i'm not asking about the reasons why i'm i'm asking uh but there's number one is there enough money in the city manager's office budget to pay for any delta of this cost that's number one number two there used to be a second part of this motion that spoke to approving that additional appropriation I think I think I remember it was somewhere in the 30 to 50 thousand dollar range and that no longer is on the agenda why isn't that on the agenda like I was saying the the

nexus between this agreement and the the lack of funds in the city managers budget is not there. The reason the city manager's budget is in the negative is because of the release of Raul, the departure of two other senior level officials, but there is no nexus between this agreement and the budget in

the city manager's budget. Well, isn't the nexus that the money would come from the city manager's office and that's where it should come? It does come from the

city manager's office so then there is a nexus but the reason the city manager

I'm not asking about the next I guess just my point is we've been looking at other items and is there money in that department to pay for it or not yeah and if not we've been going on a series of these items to say then we need a five vote appropriation adjustment by the council to make that happen and I've now I think I've heard you say two or three times that there is a real deficit in the City Manager's Office, so how is this going to be paid for for the remaining part of the year?

I'd like to finish my thoughts regarding the appropriation adjustment, if I may. Please. Thank you. The appropriation adjustment that was originally on here wasn't warranted. To pay the City Manager for May, June, and July was always in the City's budget. We always knew we were going to have a City Manager for 12 months of this year and it was included in the budget which was not what was not included in the budget is the payout to the other three employees when they departed the city that is what has put the budget on the eighth floor upside down so you're saying that that

department is upside down that we do intend to pay a salary to the city manager for May, June, and July, but that we're over budget and we still got to pay it?

And I'll have to adjust expenditures on the 8th floor. And you what? I will have to adjust expenditures on the 8th floor.

But if you don't adjust it, you're going to go over budget?

Yep. Most of the departments will be that way, sir.

So with that knowledge, Madam City Attorney, there isn't money in the department.

wouldn't the appropriation adjustment be necessary from the general fund to pay for the months of May, June and July?

In your professional opinion?

I'm asking for a legal opinion. I did give you an opportunity to fully respond.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

The strict interpretation, the city charter provides that if monies that were not budgeted at the beginning of the year If they are not available to pay obligations of the city, the city charter provides that the city council by five votes shall appropriate monies into the fund. Into the fund that is going to be short or you weren't anticipating a new cost.

So for me, unless if I see a spreadsheet showing what the new changes would be to fund this out of this year's budget, I'm very reluctant to approve this tonight. We similarly with the police MOU contract, we at least did go through some investigations of where there might be some savings and we found a sufficient number so hopefully also during this meeting we can get more information on that. With respect to the three years versus the 18 months, I have a legal question about that.

So I know that there was a discussion with my other colleagues about the three year Evergreen versus 18 months.

And I do understand that the absolute cap per state law is 18 months, but I would think if there's a long period that's more than 18 months, that us having that three year clause is going to give the candidate an upper hand if it ever gets challenged. So we would end up paying closer to the amount of 18 months, or if that was a concern, we could have just said a year max on the severance, or six months. I mean, that's the going clause in all these agreements.

Do you agree that it would give an upper hand leverage-wise on what an ultimate payout would be, given that we have a three-year, even though that the max is 18 per state law?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

I don't know that I would characterize it as an upper hand. I think I would characterize it as the benefit of the bargain. The candidate here is asking for a solid three-year agreement. The candidate here has negotiated a three-year agreement with you. That's all she has. That's all she will ever have. So the question is, if there comes a time when the parties want to part ways, she is going to negotiate hard for the value of her three-year agreement. I don't know. I don't know. I don't I don't want to characterize it as upper hand as much as I want the council.

Well, that's well, that's helpful. Well, one last thing, because I know we have some other colleagues with questions. Can we from the Dyson's, we have the agreement and on the issue of a three year evergreen versus a two year. I mean, it's a fairly simple change. Can we make that change from the dais tonight and kind of as a modified contract that we can vote on?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Well, Council Members, I would say this. When you're negotiating with the highest officer of your city, I believe out of respect that the best way to negotiate is to do that through your ad hoc committee and through a process.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

If you were to make a reach-out agreement tonight on something that's not acceptable to the candidate, I don't know how that works. I don't know how the candidate would receive that. maybe feeling like I have no leverage here, I have nothing to negotiate. I don't see that as a true negotiation when it's imposed on them. Whether you want to do that as a matter of policy is up to all of you. This will be your employee.

Exactly, because I share that concern. I know that some do as well. I don't know if at a certain point if we can't or shouldn't do it ourselves if maybe we can call her or reach out to her to see if she would be open to that, especially since state law limits at 18 months anyway.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Yes, I think that's a question for the ad hoc committee as you were the ones that negotiated how you might want to communicate that to her might be a question for the three members of the ad hoc committee.

Great, thank you.

Mr. Mayor.

All right, ask that and then we'll go. And then Ceci wants to speak as well.

David PenalozaItem —

Okay. Madam City Attorney, as a member of the ad hoc committee, do I violate any Brown Acts if I disclose right now discussions that happen during the...

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

No, you don't, and you're in open session, so you're properly complying with the Brown Act.

David PenalozaItem —

Still trying to get the hang of the rules. So I was a member of the ad hoc committee, and I appreciate that you say that as the ad hoc, we should renegotiate with the candidate. And these were concerns that I had from the very beginning, but I feel like as part of the ad hoc committee, every question and concern I had was kind of just like, no, no, no, no, we don't need that on the staff report, kind of thrown off and I never I don't know if it was because of you know the the newest council member on here or with the least experience but I feel like

David PenalozaItem —

it was kind of just kept getting kind of you know tootled along so there were concerns with I see the numbers here on the on the staff report and I hear the the what the members of the public have said the last thing I wanted and I said this before were headlines that ship has sailed there's headlines all over the place and because I don't I don't want to see you know some some crazy salary you know are these numbers accurate what's on here on the staff report in regards to her pay and her salary yes sir so what are what are these the true

David PenalozaItem —

amounts that people are talking about the the members of the public and and and questions that have brought up today because I'm having a hard time

understanding that the there's been subliminal comments but I'm not sure what the comments actually come up to there's been a lot of there's a there's a theme going through here but I'm not sure what we're talking about is there a number we have wrong is there a category we have wrong I would like to know about

David PenalozaItem —

that. I think it was just more in reference to comments that members of the public made today about reporting true amounts of compensation, which is what brings me to the question. If there is something else that I'm not aware of, I'd like to know.

and um there isn't no but they mentioned that with the executive health benefits all right let's try

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

to get control back let me make a comment control can you I don't want to use the word is this accurate yes I was going to say I don't want to make use that word true because I think that's somehow suggesting that we're hiding something or got something wrong correct and so I think what the question is um does the staff report reflect all of the cost associated with this contract versus the true amount. I think all of and I believe that I'm not the finance director so I'm not going to say something I don't know as I look to the city manager to represent whether that is. I am aware that there is a

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

difference of opinion as to how you calculate the PERS cost and whether the calculation of those PERS costs were included in this staff report. That is

the only issue that I am aware of. And the health benefit you mentioned there was a

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

health benefit. And then there's the two, there's that and I don't know what the percentages we're looking for it of salary and we will find that. So those are the same health benefits. Go ahead Mayor Prokamp but Councilor

Agnes Gillespie is wanting to speak as well. Same health care benefits and everything that Raul had in the previous contract. Same health savings. Yes. So there's no trick pony here or anything going on. That's what I'm trying to say. But it has a cost. This is why we are hidden costs. That's why ladies and gentlemen that's why it's so hard to get somebody here qualified because of this. And we need some stability. We're bleeding on the eighth floor up there. We have five strong positions that are vacant. We need a captain at the ship. I wouldn't, you know, we vetted this candidate a year ago.

And this is why it's so hard to have someone come here. Are we going to attract someone of quality to come here with this bunch of noise? Mr. Mayor.

All right. Council Member Iglesias, please.

Thank you all for your questions. And this is the reason why back in December, January, I opposed us letting go of Mr. Godinas, because I knew we were going to be faced with this situation. And it's unfortunate that we're here, trying to, at the last minute, trying to get all these questions answered. And my understanding of the entire process is that when Ms. Christine was interviewed about a year and a half ago, there was three, I think it was Mr. Solorio,

the mayor and mayor pro tem, who had agreed to support her. Is that correct? And then so when in closed session, when we're asked to see who wanted to be in the ad hoc committee, I know that Mr. Pinalosa, you graciously accepted. And so I knew that we would be able to get this all squared away. And one thing that I am not comfortable with, it was with the process, is that I wish we could have had more interviews from the public. I wish we could have had more input. But unfortunately we don't.

We're here and it's very frustrating that we're here and we're asking these questions at the last minute. And one thing that I had asked the Madam City Attorney was if you could give me a copy of all the contracts. similar contracts that have been approved in the past two, three years within the county. And also to have Mrs. Ridge's current contract from the Green and Gale. And also Mr. Godina's contract. And it pretty much, comparing it to Mr. Godina's, when it comes to the amount of money, it's the same thing. I mean, that's what I'm looking at.

It was the value of it, even though it's written differently.

it's close to the same amount of money that we, as a city, were still liable to based on the recommendation of approving Mr. Gordinas to be the city manager for this city.

One thing that I wanted to ask, and I think it's already been asked by many of my colleagues, is about the evergreen, that clause. And just to understand what that means is, okay, she's requested a three year contract.

But after three years, say in the first two years is all, everyone's getting along, everything. So within the three years, I mean, the first three years, we're on the hook, just to help me understand it. Or we're on the hook for three years every time and never goes away from three years.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

If you don't give notice, you will always have a three-year contract.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Technically, you will always have a two-year, 11-month contract because it's that notice provision. So you're always going to have the three years running on that. So you're going to go through, if you entered into it now, you'd have two years and one month remaining. Then if you don't give notice, that year adds on. So you're always going to have somewhere between two years and one month and three years at any given time. I want to add something because I think this is what may be causing confusion. Other cities have evergreen provisions in the contract.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

And the reason they have them is because they need it to cover the one year of severance. So these other cities have these contracts that are for three years. They are three years. It's at the end, as you get towards the end of the third year period, that they add on a year. The reason they do that is because if a city manager is into the contract two and a half years, and they have a one-year severance, they need to add on those six months because the government code says you can't pay more than what's left in the remaining term of the contract. So that's where you see evergreen provisions.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

But the purpose of that evergreen is to protect their severance payment. In this case, we are not trying to protect a severance payment, right, because we don't have one. What we're trying to do, as I understand the candidate, when she negotiated, she wanted the stability of knowing that if the City Council gives her notice that they want to terminate, that she's not automatically sent on her way. She has two options. She can either negotiate a mutually acceptable departure, and that's in the contract, or she can say, thank you for giving me notice. I'm going to stay my remaining two years.

As a City Manager, she would stay. Yes.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Yes, and I would say in reality and speaking from practice, once you're not getting along with the city manager, you usually will reach a mutually agreeable separation.

And then that comes into the clause with the 18 months. Correct, and then that would say that in terms of cash, the most you could pay her is 18 months. The most, but we could negotiate something that is lower than the 18 months. Correct, if she was agreeable to that, you could do that. Okay, so and then my other question would be, what was the amount that we paid out for Mr. Godinas?

I want to say $3.80. Let me find it.

Okay, so why are you looking for that? So right here, I know we're, and for me, we're caught between a rock and a hard place because it's very, I think it would be very embarrassing to have a city manager that could have come here, but then she didn't, he or she didn't because we're not getting along. But then again, this is my hope is that I hope she knows what she's getting herself into. Because obviously on this dais here and this council, there's yet a majority.

It's usually four. It's usually, you saw the first vote, it went 3-3. So the motion died. So what I've noticed my four months that I've been here, there's a power struggle here on this council. And I am just so disappointed that this is where we're at.

And, you know, I just don't want it to drag on any longer. And I'm hoping that, you know, by today's vote that we put this to rest. And I'm hoping that what we do is the best for the residents here in Santa Ana because it's long overdue. and I know that we need stability and we need someone who is going to be making those tough decisions right now because I know in the past month or so just the votes that we've been taking on some of the projects I don't think they've been, and this is no disrespect to you Stephen, no disrespect to you, but you have a lot on your hands

and you're running your department yet you're trying to keep us all on the same page. But we need someone who's going to keep us on that same page and someone who is going to be working for the residents of Santa Ana. And I'm hoping it's not for a single member of this city council. Because whoever comes here to this city council, I am, mark my words, I'm holding them accountable. I am going to call them out when it warrants, and I'm hoping that they do the best for this city. because that's what we need. We need someone who's not self-interest.

And unfortunately, I've seen a lot of votes on this council that had been very self-interest. And I'm just, I'm tired of that. And I'm hoping that we move forward and that we make the best decisions for the city and for the residents of this city because that's what we were elected for, is to serve the residents of this city. So the payout amount, it would have been the same. Yeah, you have it?

It's $394,000.

Which is something that we didn't have to let go if we would have kept Mr. Godinus, right? So we would have had enough money in the city manager's department to pay for it. So I think it was more on a, I would say the responsibility lies on the other members that voted for that, for letting Mr. Godinus go. So I'm just hoping that what today's, because you guys pretty much, my colleagues have asked a lot of the questions that I was going to ask. So I don't want to beat a dead horse.

But my concern is it was the 18 months and now knowing that we do have negotiation and hoping, you know, and I know she'll do the right thing for, you know, she'll do the right thing if, you know, we do vote for her. And I think it's just, oh, and one thing I'm going to ask and I'm hoping she's watching is what I would want for her in the first hundred days for her to do is to get to know the community. It's for her to have town halls. It's for her to get to know each neighborhood association. Because that's something that's very important.

And I'm hoping that on the council here you guys would be able to support me because that's something that people want to know who is their top. You know, the top leaders of this community definitely are the residents. We must never forget that. But the one who is helping us move the city forward is the city manager. just like it was with the school district. It was the superintendent. So I'm hoping that within the first 100 days, she's able to meet with every neighborhood association and make herself visible in the community, because that's what we need. We need someone who is

reachable, someone who has an open door policy, and someone who works for the entire interest of all the residents here, not just for one member or two members of this council. And I hope she never says something about that i work for the council majority because i've heard that before in many of the in many of the appointments like i work for the majority no you work for the residents here so i'm hoping um you know that we do move forward and and just holding her accountable is my number one

concern thank you if i may i'd like to make some comment and and uh hopefully at that point maybe call for the question. Look, a lot of things are going on here in the city that we don't really know about until there's a problem. Right now we're talking about money and how much and what do we do, etc., etc. Today I got a call from the Orange County Transportation Authority. In our Public Works Department for Bristol Street, we've not been keeping the type of records that

Measure M2 requires. As a consequence of that, we're probably going to have to return $700,000 because it wasn't properly documented. Not because we didn't spend the money, because we didn't properly document it per the requirements of Measure M2. And so, look, that money is going to come from somewhere. At the end of the day, we'll pay it back. Nobody's really going to notice or see or say or have a big debate about it but what I'm telling you is there's a lot of things like that right now at the city that are not being taken care of

properly Sonya and Steven are you okay that are not being taken care of properly and I believe that with a well-trained professional city manager that that's worked in all these different departments yes she's been at anaheim not here in san anna but there's a lot of similarities between our cities that we're not going to have these type of surprises i i don't need to go through a litany but there is a litany of things that we have to discuss on a regular basis in closed session of stuff that didn't go

right now we're having to pay the piper over and over and over again i'm not saying she's going to come here and overnight everything's going to be taken care of but i am saying eventually it will let her come let her start working i i believe she'll have a handle on all that is relevant i also want to take a moment and thank members of the committee in particular councilor peña losa and mayor pro tembe yegas because this is not an easy thing you know this whole process is not an easy thing to go through and i believe that at the end of the day we've got

a good package here. It's a good compromise. Is it perfect? No. Things are never perfect. But you can't let the perfect get in the way of the good. If you're always seeking perfection, you never do anything. And that's even worse, because meantime, time is passing. Things that go wrong are costing the city money. And that really hurts us and hurts our bottom line. When I look at major contracts that we have coming up, like the trash contract. We need a strong leader and a strong city manager to handle that. Otherwise, we're just throwing an RFP out to the wolves. I mean, everybody's going to have ideas.

They're going to do this, do that. And we don't have a solid city manager at the helm guiding us through these processes. Folks mentioned Willowick. A couple of folks mentioned Willowick. That's a huge train coming down the track, literally. You know, we've got Garden Grove that wants to work with us, and maybe they'll end up selling the land, and then it all comes to Santa Ana, or maybe it's a joint effort. But we need somebody that's going to be able to negotiate, because that's a multi-billion dollar deal, ultimately. If it's done well, that's a very, very large deal.

We have, you know, currently the streetcar. That's already under construction. All you have to do is drive up and down the route and they're building stuff. It's coming. Are we going to be able to rise to the occasion and take advantage of it and bring jobs and nice centers to the train stations or not? I mean, the streetcar stations or not? Again, we need somebody at the helm. You know, issues like homeless. You know, they've got homeless in Anaheim. Pretty similar to what we've got. We've built a shelter here. They're building shelters there. We're all working hard to try to keep on top of it.

But I'll tell you one thing. If we don't really handle it well, it's going to become a revolving door. We're going to shelter some homeless, and we'll get new homeless in. We'll shelter homeless, we'll get new homeless in. The only way to get ahead of it is to be very aggressive and to try to manage it as best you can. And for that, you need a captain at the head of the ship. Otherwise, you know, we're going to be like other cities that can never really get out of their way or get ahead of things. So when it comes to crime or gangs or things of that nature, they've got them all in Anaheim.

And when I look at the money, because I know that, you know, there's allegations that we don't know how much we're paying. I think, you know, Councilman Peñalosa asked an excellent question. Are these numbers accurate? And I think our city manager said, yes, these numbers are accurate. Yeah, maybe there's a different calculation, but we're not hiding an extra $200,000 somewhere that we're not aware of. It's all here. And at the end of the day, the headlines that were garnered a few years ago when we had Mr. Kavazos come in from Phoenix, they're not going to happen here.

because already you know this is lower than the city of anaheim look at the headlines that they got they didn't they didn't not as it relates uh to pay and and so i think we're going to be in good shape as it comes to that and i think the right decision is to move forward today and start addressing all these issues will she be able to handle this appropriation adjustment issue

I think absolutely. You know, first of all, we're going to have a new budget in a matter of a few days, not a year or anything like that. It'll be a few days. And that'll be the first test. And if she's willing to come here and say, I'll take that risk, I'll take that challenge, I think that speaks more to her true value and her true desire to come here and make a difference. So with that, what I'd like to do is ask for the vote. Final questions, Council Member Vince Sarmiento?

Well, I think because, thank you, Mr. Mayor, and I appreciate the opportunity to maybe have a little additional comment because, you know, this is a big decision. And so I think somebody said it earlier, we should have been doing this months back. And normally what you do when you hire a leader, a captain, whatever acronym you want to put on somebody who's going to lead this organization, you do a full-blown, robust search. And you ask these questions of every candidate. And if you look at the candidate, I mean, there's one thing that we did. We did go out and we asked people to submit applications.

And that's what nobody's talking about. And I remember seeing a list of candidates. one in particular who was a former city manager in Garden Grove extremely experienced wanted very little relative to what's being asked today and I wish we would have had a chance to interview him and others on that list because it gives you context and I'm not and this is nothing critical of Miss Ridge if anything she rises to the top if she's being compared and you feel better about that decision but I guess what I'm having a problem with now is you know

number one not having had that full-blown ability to interview others that were on that list of people who wanted to come to the city and I think that's one thing you know I was real happy to see at least a dozen people that wanted to come to the city and and fill that position and it was a really small search that we did we just sent it out to to local folks you know I'm a little a little troubled because I think what we're doing here is let me put on sort of my fiscal conservative hat because some people think it's just theirs and I think all of us want to be you know careful with public funds and

not give monies away that don't belong to us and we want to spend it intelligently and invest it intelligently we have a fiduciary responsibility to make sure that in the event that something doesn't work out and chemistry doesn't work out here and we're not happy she's not happy and we have to separate i think there was some points made and i think it was by councilman salario that talked about just leverage and so if we do have to separate you know yeah the the salary is kind of commensurate with what uh mr godina's had our former city manager but we vetted mr godinas he went through a whole litany of

questions being competing against other candidates for that position Here we didn't do that. And so now, you know, with somebody who has a three-year Evergreen, and I think you put it correctly, Madam City Attorney, it's like a two-year, 11-month thing. That's their starting point. Let's say we start at zero. They start at two years and 11 months. We're going to meet somewhere in the middle because that's how negotiations happen, and we're going to get to that government code amount, which is an 18-month threshold. We've never done that.

I don't think anybody has a contract with a severance or a package that's 18 months here in the county. I mean, again, the standard, the industry standard is six months to 12 months. So I would be willing, you know, and just so in good faith, I would be willing to even say, you know, to Councilman Solorio's point, we don't even know if we have the money to pay this. And maybe this is a little premature to be talking about spending money that we don't have. or we're not certain that we have, is to say maybe this gives us an opportunity to have somebody get back to Ms. Ridge and say,

would you be willing to reduce that or maybe insert an open clause for a severance that would cap it at 12 months? I'd be willing to even go there. But I'm really concerned about exposing us to something in excess of that because it sets precedent. And once we set precedent, the next city manager, because we will have one at some point, they're going to say, you just gave my predecessor 18 months. And do we want to go down that slippery slope? And I think it's probably not prudent. I'd like to see her come here. I don't want to dissuade her.

But at the same time, she has to respect the fact that we have a fiduciary obligation to ask these questions of anybody.

All right. Thank you. Final comments and we'll vote. Councilorio.

Yes, I know there was still a question on what benefits or compensation items may not be here.

And I don't know if we found what the entirety of the executive compensation package is.

Yeah, there is a 1.75% Vantage Care Medical Retirement Subsidy Plan that amounts to $5,075 a year.

So that's what's not in here?

Correct.

Okay. What about, is there a retirement health care benefit that continues after retirement?

That's the retirement subsidy plan I just read off.

So that's five?

The amount per year based on a $290,000 annual contract would be $5,075.

Per year or total? Per year.

That's the cost to the city.

So it's, okay, so it's, okay, that's helpful. What about, I know sometimes, and I looked up at the city's compensation package just to refresh my memory on what else might be in here. I know we often speak about the employer paid PMC, I think we call it. I forget what the M and the C is for. And I think it's also another PERS-related benefit. Are we aware if executive, agency, directors or people on the executive team get paid that?

EPMC. I'm asking about EPMC specifically.

Yeah, another common term for that is PERS-on-PERS.

Okay.

And all of the executives, and most of the staff have that.

And what's the value of that benefit?

For her contract?

In her case, yeah, for the remainder of this fiscal year and the full next year.

It's already reflective.

So you think that's included in the $20,000?

Yeah.

We're sure?

In the $20,000. No, in the $20,000. In the table at the end of the staff report.

Yeah, the CalPERS there, it says $20,000. Yeah. So you know that the EPMC is included in that?

Nearly certain, but if you'd like me to get back to you, I'd be glad to.

Yeah, I don't see our budget director here, though, unless if she's next door. But I would like a confirmation on that. Purse can be very expensive. And is there a retirement health care benefit? I guess that's the amount you just mentioned. Okay, what about, depending upon how vacation pay, sick pay, and holiday pay works, those have a monetary value as well. I know some of it kind of accrues over time, but based off how the contract is negotiated, there's a value there, especially with sick leave. I think there are mandates on what we need to do for the number of paid items.

So neither vacation pay, nor sick leave, nor holiday benefits are in this table either. So what's the value of those items?

Maybe this chart isn't complete.

Let me check with the finance director. That would be fantastic.

And again, for me, I don't really have an issue with the candidate. I think she's stellar. But I do have an issue with the contract and things missing and incomplete information. And honestly, in some cases, misinformation. And again, I don't understand why the appropriation pieces on the agenda haven't gotten a good explanation on that. So I have many concerns. And this is just really a summary of the concerns that I have.

Thank you. A couple additional comments, I believe, Council Member Iglesias and Mayor Pro Tem.

It's just very interesting how some of my colleagues talk about fiduciary duties and nickel and diamond, a contract where they vote on a police MOU that costs $25 million that are definitely going to put us in a hole. And then you have to try to go get some money out of Measure X to fulfill this. And you're worried about this contract? Give me a break.

We'll find the money for this is all I'm saying, brother.

Councilmember Cesar Iglesias, please.

Mayor Patem, you stole my thunder. I was about to say that.

Because it's $25 million that we are put this city into a liability, and then right now for appropriations for the police department contract is what, over $4 million? How much is it, Madam Attorney? the appropriations that we need to be for the police department?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

I don't recall the specific appropriation. I think just for this year it was close to $5 million, right? Yeah, $4.2 million. I think it was the ultimate number that they came to.

And this is what I wish we could have done with that contract because we should have looked into it more and to see where we're putting this city into a liability.

I understand where Councilman Soloria is talking about, you know, talking about all these different benefits, which would be the holiday pay, which would be the vacation pay and all that. All the employees that work for the city get the same thing, right?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

They all get according to their MOUs. So in this case, the executives have a vacation in sick according to the executive director's resolution.

And I believe in this one, I don't know if I saw it, but I think it was like 80 hours, I think, of vacation pay.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

The proposal here is that she get a bank of 80 hours, which is not unusual, because when someone starts and they're coming from another job, they would have no vacation accrued. So she negotiated at least a small bank and then accrual rates. I think it comes up to about four weeks a year.

So if she's doing her job, this is where I'm at. I think as a manager, if you do your job, you get your job done, it's pretty much you're on a salary. What a salary means is sometimes you'll work eight hours, sometimes you'll work 24 hours. It doesn't matter as long as the job gets done. Correct?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Right, especially in her case. She won't get overtime, and she'll be required to attend all the city council meetings, the committee meetings that go along with that, any of your community meetings, and she's not paid extra for that. I believe that the executive resolution has some administrative time to make up for that. But she will make her own schedule. she'll come in as a professional and get the job done when she needs to get it done.

So we're going to hold her accountable to getting the job done, moving the city forward, and ensuring that she's helping to get this city out of a financial mess that we're already in.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

And one of the things that I would really strongly recommend that this council do is you're coming up on your budget and that you have a meeting with her. I recommended this the last time and I recommended it the time before so the third time's a charm. I would strongly recommend that the council establish a work plan for the city manager in a public session so that you, the community, and the manager all understand what your collective goals are and hold her accountable to those goals.

So is Steven going to come back with some information or where did he go? He's trying to get it.

If he needs more time I'd be okay with the research. Yes, Council Member Pinalosa.

David PenalozaItem —

And no one's questioning her, the holiday pay or the vacation pay. I think that's standard. You know, she deserves it. Whoever the candidate is deserves holiday and vacation, and no one's questioning that. I think the question here is why weren't the leave benefits, sick and vacation pay, and the PERS on PERS, which I had brought up to Director Pham in numerous meetings that I had, and why aren't those calculated into the chart here? The PERS on PERS and the vacation and because that would be a payout in the event that she would leave We would have to pay out the amount of vacation hours and and that she has but that's not on here

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Yeah, and I believe that's what he's trying to do right now I wasn't involved in any of that part So I think he's trying to talk to the finance director right now and get some information

If I may why don't we take like a five or ten minute break? Let him calculate that because that's an important question

David PenalozaItem —

Good because I need to use a restroom. I do too

You are my love, you are my heart, you are my heart, you are my heart, I want you to love you, you are my heart. My love is my love

It's the soul that tells me That tells me that I'm going to follow It's the soul that tells me Come here's a second. I can see.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

Mr. City Manager, if you have the number, I think we're ready to move forward. Almost? All right.

Thank you.

You guys can keep walking around and talking because they requested another few minutes. So keep talking.

Oh, I thought it was safe.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, everybody. I want to reconvene our meeting, and I just want to thank staff. I know you've been working trying to verify numbers, and an excellent question that I think was asked by Councilman David Peñalosa when you want to know what is the PERS on PERS, i.e. a check that the city is going to have to write on an annual basis to PERS in order to cover this employee. And what is that number? Where is it shown? So I'd like to turn it over to staff to answer that question, please.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The PERS, it's the third line down in the table called CalPERS Retirement Costs. In speaking with our finance director, we just confirmed it's almost 10%, 9.87, which comes out to be, 10% would be $29,000, and she's represented it as the 28043. So her number is indeed accurate.

So it is shown, it's there, and you confirm that it's accurate?

We have, through a conversation.

Okay, final questions, because... Well, to clarification on that, and there's... Go ahead. Other I'm not missing. So I know with Raul Godinez, comparable salaries, when we did the cost out for them some years ago in the staff report, that equivalent of the PERS and the EPMC or the PERS on PERS was like 96,000 or something. That's a pretty huge difference on what his estimate was for that versus 20,000. I mean, this is three times less at least.

Why do you think the difference if there were, I don't think the contract provision was any different because it's the same benefit of all executive directors. All right, let's let him answer, please. Yeah, please.

Yeah, there are two parts of CalPERS contributions, normal costs and a contribution to reduce the city's unfunded liability. More than five years ago, CalPERS started expressing unfunded liability contribution at a flat dollar amount. They made changes. It took us a while to make that change. The change in that was reflected in this contract, but wasn't reflected in Raul's contract.

So she has a lower PERS benefit?

No, it's just the different ways that we calculate it. And CalPERS started expressing separately as unfunded liability versus normal cost.

But I'm not talking about the unfunded liability of hers, I'm talking about the EPMC benefit.

We already covered that part of it.

Now you're asking about hers calculation. No, no, I'm just trying to figure out why hers is $28,000 and his was $96,000, even though that benefit is identical in the executive agency director package. Mm-hm. What's the reason for a difference? I mean, it's like $50,000 less or $60,000 less, $70,000 less per year. Almost $70,000 less per year. We could get back to it. I'm just, I guess, relying on my hip, feeling comfortable that that really is accurate. And then you were going to check on the cost out for the other provisions, like vacation, sick leave, holiday, and what the amount is.

I mean, if we're approving a contract and we're trying to be transparent on what the annual cost is, those are pretty basic benefits. Yeah, those are. That we should know about and should be costed out in the total table. So what is it so that we can add that to the 384?

There's an explanation for sick time, holiday time, and vacation time. Those are things that should be calculated as separation. So if we separated, we would have to pay those things out to her, correct. You're right. The rest of these. This isn't a separation calculation you have in front of you.

But they would do this as a separation calculation too.

But to your point, at $128 an hour, the bank of 40 hours of sick leave would be $5,120. And the bank of 160 vacation hours would be $20,480. But she hasn't taken those hours. She hasn't cashed those hours out.

But there's a value with Rolls contract that costed it out on the front end.

If she separates, there's a cost to it.

Okay. And if she cashes it out.

What's the third one? If I could, if she cashes it out, there's a cost to it. Okay. If she takes the vacation, it's a regular salary.

Okay, so that's two of the three items that I asked about.

And I don't know too many city managers that take that kind of vacation in their first year.

No, I understand, but I asked for vacation, sick leave, and holiday. These are two of the three cost figures. What's the third cost figure?

Vacation pay, sick leave.

If the sick leave accrual is 80 hours, she's able to take eight hours of sick leave per month.

Okay, and what is that total?

Eight times 120.

Well, they took time to calculate this all out, folks. So I'm just trying to get it back, so I don't need to do it myself.

Would it make any difference that Raul Godinas was a Santa Ana City employee years before this, and that gets calculated in the total sum, or no?

It does in the unfunded liability part of it, yes.

Thank you.

Eight hours of sick leave would amount to $1,024.

$1,024 for the whole year per month, probably, right? Per month. So times 12, let's say that's 12,000. So that's at least another $37,000. So really the total compensation isn't three, four. It said at a minimum, that plus 27,000, so it's way in excess of 400,000, total really unknown and unclear whether EPMC benefit is in there or not. So that's why I'm comfortable voting for it, because I don't know how much this really costs. Whether the money's in the city manager's office or the strategy to pay for,

given that we typically put the appropriation on the same agenda as an agreement. and obviously that was removed from this agenda.

Thank you. Councilor Pane-Losa, you asked some of the initial questions. Are you satisfied? Do you have more questions? No, Mr. Mayor, I don't have any more questions.

David PenalozaItem —

Thank you. Go ahead.

David PenalozaItem —

I just wanted to say that I interviewed her personally and spent some time with her on the phone and in person. She's a very qualified person. There's no doubt about that. She could, and I told her department heads this, she could run circles around all of them. HR, finance, you know, there's no doubt about that. I dug and dug and dug, tried to find something. Why not to hire her? And I couldn't find anything.

David PenalozaItem —

I did ask her some questions, and her answers did kind of, one of the things I asked her about were how she would pretty much just come in and take control of the ship, and her answers were not bad. But I do, and I don't have an issue with any of these benefits and vacation pay and purrs on purrs, but I just wanted to make sure that we are providing accurate information with everything that the contract would entail.

David PenalozaItem —

And the purrs on purrs with what Mayor Pro Tembilegas said, and I'm just trying to, I wish Catherine was here because I'm trying to just understand that part of it. And you're saying that she wasn't available by phone at least, Mr. City Manager?

Yes, sir, she was. She answered her phone.

So these numbers are coming from her?

Correct. She's walking me through how to calculate.

Thank you. Thank you. That's it, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much for that. I'm trying to wrap this up. I know some people have spoken several times. Councilman Iglesias, you've only spoken once.

So just to understand the entire package, Madam City Attorney and Mr. City Manager.

The vacation pay, the sick pay, and it's something that every employee gets, correct?

Correct. In some amount, yes.

Yes. Okay. But if she's taking vacation time during the year without cashing it out, is that a separate amount from her salary?

No.

No, so it's part of that salary?

It's part of the salary.

Okay. Is it part or is it not part of the salary?

She didn't know. She said if she doesn't take vacation.

But it doesn't go away.

Yeah, it accrues from year to year to year.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

For example, let me just give you an example. When Raul Godinus cashed out when he left the employment of the city, not only did we pay him the one-year severance, but if he had time on the books of vacation, we paid him that time at his hourly rate, which was probably like about $128 an hour. So it's hard to put a value on it, but there's a value to it if they leave. And in our MOUs, many of our employees are allowed to cash out their vacation if they don't work. So they receive their salary. If they don't take the vacation, then they might get a check for $20,000 or $40,000, whatever the value of their vacation is.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

It's hard to put a number on it for you because we don't know. But every employee gets that opportunity, so it's not anything that is different than our...

No, and I just think the question is how much is it? You know, it could give you a worst-case scenario or a... No, so I get it, because when I used to work for the county of Orange, that's how it was. Managers, we were there, regardless if we were there four hours, we were there 20 hours, but we had to get the job done.

So just to wrap it up, and I promise I will, is we're doing this, if we were to wait, say, two more months, how much money, I mean, and also go through the full on recruitment. How much money did it cost you guys last time to do a recruitment?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

The last recruiter, I think, charged the city about $20,000 or $30,000. You had an item on your agenda a few weeks ago. The cost for the recruiter to redo the recruitment is $4,000, because if the candidate did not stay with you for more than a year, then that's their discount. So they didn't stay for two years. So since the manager did not stay here for two years, the recruitment company would do that recruitment for $4,000.

And then how long does the recruitment last usually? Or take. Or take.

Four months. It was solid by the time you were – but we are – we're in the middle of a – flyers have been an accepted application. I would say two months to five months.

So it would take us almost to the end of the fiscal year.

And then for them to start would be another period of time in that calculation. City managers don't leave their current position for two weeks. Correct. They usually need to get a special consideration.

Okay, so with that, I just wanted to make sure that that was out in public. And the CalPERS retirement cost is included in the $28,000, and the following is $31,000, right?

Yes.

Okay. And the reason it's going up to $31,000 is because that's how, unfortunately, throughout the state that's what's happening. Even with our police association, with their contract, it's the same thing. That's one thing that we were concerned about, right?

Yes. Every contract that we enter for our employee groups creates additional costs for the community, and PERS on an annual basis is increasing for all public agencies around the state. Unfortunately.

Okay. Thank you very much.

All right, with that, I'm going to call the clerk and ask her to please call a roll call vote.

Council Member Starmiento?

No with comment. So my brief comment is I just want us to make sure that one of the things that we were talking about is compensation. The other one is separation. And so to the extent that we're clear that if something doesn't work out here and Ms. Ridge comes on, and I'm almost agnostic to the candidate as well, I'm just specifically looking at these terms. To the extent that we come to some understanding or we negotiate a separation sheet and go up to 18 months, which is what's legally allowed, that amount would be close to half a million dollars or in excess of half a million dollars. Is that correct?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Yes, if you're paying her salary, it would be $290 plus $145.

right so and also that's something that we've never paid to anybody here our severance packages have maxed out at one year is that correct since I've been

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

with the city for the last six years yes you've had one year severance provisions

all right and today do we know what the amount is that we have available on on hand and funds from the city managers account to be able to to accurately say that the funds are there to cover this?

Currently, there is about 61.

The budget's about $275,000 in the hole on the 8th floor right now. And that's due to three major payouts.

So look, for those reasons, I just can't support the contract. That doesn't mean the candidate is flawed, but I just think this contract is much, much too excessive for me to support.

All right, thank you. Please continue.

Mayor Portem Villegas?

I'm a yes.

Mayor Polido? Yes. Councilmember Iglesias?

With everything that I've said, I would have to say yes, because it's the right thing to do in order for us to get on track and have somebody here that is going to lead this shift. Councilmember Pinalosa?

David PenalozaItem —

I agree with what Councilwoman Iglesias said. You know, it's unfortunate that I came into this, and we need somebody. You know, there's nobody upstairs. I walk the eighth floor, and there's literally nobody up there. It's embarrassing. So, yes.

Council Member Solorio.

I'm fine with the candidate, but I do oppose the contract and the lack of transparency. So that's no.

All right, thank you. So that's 4-2. Thank you. Now I want to...

I have a question about the appropriation amount that hasn't been... It's not on the floor right now. But we can't have an item if it's not funded. I think there's provisions in our charter that says we can't fund things that don't have an appropriation.

Bring that up at the next pass to me. Right now I'm going to go to 65C.

Is that correct, City Attorney? Is there any requirements? Sam Romero wants to start coming up, please.

City Attorney? I'm going to keep asking. Jose, please, it's not on the agenda. Can I be recognized by the Chair?

It's not in the agenda. 65C, go ahead, Sam. Good evening, folks. I'm here in the fairness of appointing or going to the second person that got the votes on the award for. And I think to be fair, as you well know, Logan is fair and everything including helping the mayor's family when the city want to destroy their building correct I remember that Sam I'll remind you every so often every five years anyway I think it's only fair this man that came in second did all the work that was necessary to run through that office so

I think you you have to get him on the council how come you don't say his name pardon Phil Becerra all right is that good enough yeah you understand I do but

you're talking about him in the third not Becerra is Becerra not Becerra okay thank you Becerra thank you Sam and I'm glad you're back I know you've been ill it's nice to see you back Peter Katz followed by followed by Father Michael

mind yes good evening mayor council i support phil because he was a runner-up but i would like i talked to the city attorney a couple weeks ago i think before this happens again we amend the charter to include a succession clause in the charter that either the runner-up automatically succeeds this post or a provision of how that person is selected so that we don't go through to this possible expense and long drawn out process again. And also tomorrow one of you could, God forbid, die or have a heart attack or get in a traffic accident and be incapacitated for six months or more.

There should be a provision for filling that in case the council member is incapacitated. So these are some things you might want to look at before this happens again to save some money. You know, the United States Constitution was amended when we found out we had no succession clause for the President of the United States. And so the Constitution was amended. However, the language is so poor that if the President is incapacitated, there's no definition there. And that will be a long, drawn-out battle before the Supreme Court and the Constitution will have to be amended again.

So I think you have plenty of time to possibly address this and amend the charter to create a succession clause for a vacancy or for somebody that's incapacitated. Thank you.

Thank you. Michael, Father Michael, hi. And then followed by Carl Benninger with two N's. And then a third N after the I's. So really three N's, Carl.

good evening mayor and council members I am a Reverend Michael my former director of the Vietnamese Catholic Center in Santa Ana and recently I am member of the Vietnamese Interfaith Council in America. I'm here tonight on behalf of the Professor Joe

Thanh Nguyên, the chairman of the Vietnamese Interfaith Council, would like to read his letter to the Honorable Mayor Bolido and council members of the city of Santa Ana.

Dear Mayor and council members, the Vietnamese Interface Council in America consists of Vietnamese spiritual leaders of Buddhist, Kaodai, Catholic, Christian, Hwa Hau, and Orthodox religions in the United States. Our mission are to promote cooperation and respect among people of various religions, to encourage people of all faiths, to work together for mutual

understanding, to help protect religious freedom, to celebrate faith traditions, and to be advocates for justice. The Vietnamese Interpret Council in America is proud to support Mr. Ken Nguyen for appointment to the Santa Ana City Council representing Waterfall.

Mr. Ken Nguyen has continually been a high regarded and respected leader in the Vietnamese American community for over 40 years. Mr. Ken Gwynn is a compassionate and caring individual who has given an enormous amount of time and effort in volunteer services.

It is credited to his selfless service and positive role in community that he was services, that he was appointed as an external affairs officer on the Vietnamese Interpret Council in America in 2014.

I hate telling father Zane, but it's rad, so he can start to respectfully wrap up.

Okay, I'm very sorry. He is the only layperson who serves on the council and has been an integral partner for community events and outreach. Mr. Ken Nguyen effectively bridges the gap between different organizations, advocates for people in the community and would be an asset to any organization he serves. It is therefore with great confidence that we strongly support the voters of approval

to appoint Mr. Ken Nguyen to serve the residents of Santa Ana by representing World Four on the City Council. Sincerely, Professor Joe Teng Nguyen, Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you.

Andrew. Well, thank you again, counsel. You have an opportunity tonight to really correct an error that happened in the fall, because had that unfortunate incident not occurred, Phil would be on this podium right now with you folks on the dais. But also, more importantly, when you look at all the candidates, who has the most experience in the city? Who sat on more of the city councils? Who knows the city? Talk with Phil. I know I have due to various functions in the city, and I've always been impressed how much he knows of the city. And he's also an independent voter.

Those of you who thought that he'd be influenced because he had to get a little sport money, doesn't know Phil. That's why he was taken off the Planning Commission, because he wouldn't follow a developer's wish. You have an opportunity tonight to put Phil on this council. If you don't, then let it go to the election. And you can leave my ward and me, unrepresentative, for another eight months. Plus you'll have a lot of three to three votes. And things will not get resolved. So for the sake of the city, the sake of people in my wards, and it is the right decision to put Phil on this council. Thank you.

Thank you, James Kendrick. Followed by Connie Hamilton.

Good evening, Mayor and Councilmembers. Again, Phil is the right choice for this ward. No disrespect to the other people that are here tonight asking for this seat. Phil did come in second for this position, and I think he deserves the seat, and I think you really should appoint him tonight. Again, it's no disrespect, but these people could have stepped up and ran for this ward in the election back in November. Save the city the money. Here you were arguing tonight over what you're going to pay a city manager. So now you want to spend money in November to run a special election.

Here again, save your pennies. You're arguing over pennies. I understand. But Phil deserves a seat. I think you owe it to him he did come in second place thank you thank you Connie Hamilton followed by Michelle Martinez hello again long time no see yeah I just wanted to say a couple things in addition to what I said Tuesday evening I just want to let you know that on the petition I had forwarded to all of you

were up to 138 signatures on the online petition plus the hard copy signatures. But all I have to say is that there's a lot of people that support Phil. Of course, as I mentioned, 44% of the voters voted for Phil in the last election. And not only that, but everyone seems to like him. The Democrats, the Republicans, the Independents. I mean, he just has a huge following. a lot of a big fan base, as you would say. So he just he's the logical choice. And I hope you guys

do that. And I also I wanted to say something that was just mentioned, reiterate on it, on these other candidates. I'm sure they're good candidates. But why didn't they run in November if they wanted it? It just doesn't make sense. Phil's the one that got in, rolled up his sleeves and did all the dirty work on the election and it just makes sense that he gets appointed to this position and that's it thank you Thank You Michelle followed by David DeLeon Thank You mr. mayor and city council pleasure to be here this evening you know what I wanted to share and regardless of the

candidates that came before you what's important is to understand the history in the context. And with this past election, I have to tell you, it was despicable. A lot of dark money, dirty politics, and both candidates that ran for Ward 4 took dark money, or the interest groups that supported them. So those folks are both tainted. What I'm going to ask of you today is to go back out to the voters and more importantly have campaign finance reform and make this mayor a full-time mayor and city council

when you have outside influences continuing to share money between developers police officers association other big interest groups what you end up having is those folks are running the city here today because they intimidate you they have bullying tactics and they put you all in a bad position but if you were full time and you had campaign finance reform those interest groups would not have anything to do with your decisions here today so I am urging you to go to a special election as

the Santa Ana Phi school district could not come up to have someone as well to serve in that appointment seat and that is the best decision for this city thank you

thank you David DeLeon or David DeLeon followed by Alberta Christie

buenas tardes or buenas noches thank you for this opportunity mayor city attorney everybody here I want to first I want to say thank you mr. Sarmiento for being here your being that your suegra you know condolences we all like our say you You know, it's a hard time, especially if we like our suegras, you know. It's a very tough time. So thank you for taking your time out of being here. We're here in this predicament because in November 2018, you only had one legitimate candidate for Ward 4. Just one. One broke the law. And that's why he had to resign. The only legit candidate for Ward 4 is sitting back there.

He submitted his paperwork to, yet again, be your city council member. After what happened, everybody here knows what happened in that election cycle. It was absolutely disgusting. But I've gone to know Phil for years now, and he would be an immediate asset to this dais. I want to thank everybody that's applied for this vacancy. But nobody else but Phil ran in 2018. Not one person that applied for this knows what it's like to run a campaign like you have. All of you have been in the crosshairs. He's seasoned. He's wounded. He's had to lick his wounds.

He's had to grow up and mature as a man and as a candidate. And he would be a tremendous asset for this dais. So I urge you to gather those votes. He is the true representative for four. not like another candidate that in just 18 months is gonna be living in Ward 6 because of redistricting. So let's do the right thing and let's appoint Phil Becerra. Thank you.

Okay, now we have Alberta followed by Tim Rush.

Mayor, Council, Vince, my heart goes out to you and your family and your wife. She may have been your mother-in-law, but she still was a mother to you. Absolutely. And I, number one, you know, was supporting Phil. He did it the right way. We're still under the cloud of what happened in this election. We're not my sources in the DA's office. We are still going to have other things come out that is really going to leave the cloud. Do the right thing.

a legitimate candidate that ran, got the support, and even now have the support. We're going into 2020 when you're going into ward election. He has all the support in his ward because he's been there as a neighborhood leader when he first started out commission. I worked with him as the planning commission to the historic resource commission. he was a valuable asset to that commission knowledgeable about the historic factor of Santa Ana. Do what's right folks

do what's right. Let's do something right and let's not have this cloud still be over us by prolonging this. He deserves it. He worked for it and he's the right person for that award. Thank you for listening.

Thank you. Tim Rush followed by Debbie McEwen.

I'm kidding Tim, just keep walking.

She left, she's in Texas.

Yeah, I talked to her this morning in Texas so that was a quick trip. Yeah.

You know, tonight is a historic evening because on many levels I think this may be the first time that Sam Romero and I ever agreed on the same thing so Sam I take my hat off to you so absolutely I like Sam said we need to we need to appoint Phil if it wasn't for the illegal campaign that was conducted by his opponent he'd be sitting up here we wouldn't be having all this, having this dialogue. He'd be seated up here. 26,000 voters in Santa

Ana cast their ballot for Phil. 44% of the voters. And that was after he was a victim of a vicious smear campaign with a bunch of lies spread about him. And you all know about that. Included in the fact that it was part of a negotiation between he and his opponent. that if he would let him stay in office, he would get the two ladies who made these ridiculous claims to not only recant them, but to apologize and recant them.

So that proves how specious and utterly false they were. But also, as others have said here tonight, the citizens of Santa Ana deserve to have representation representation for the next eight or nine months and not have that seat go vacant Which it will with a special election election so here we're arguing tonight over a thousand dollars for this and three thousand dollars for that for Christine Ridge But we're going to cavalierly spend four hundred thousand dollars, and even if it's half that amount Because we get to share the cost with the school district. It's still a heck of a lot of money

So I encourage you to do the right thing, appoint Phil to the position that he rightfully would have had had it not been for an illegal campaign. Thank you very much.

Thank you Tim. By the way, just for folks at home or in the audience, Devin McEwen just texted saying she's watching this from Texas and that she's here in spirit and that she's for Phil no no she didn't say that part but anyways let me bring it back to Council see if there are any suggestions one thing I know some candidates have asked is they'd like to speak again I don't know if we want to hear people give people that opportunity if the council is so inclined I'll let all candidates come up and speak again.

Not all the candidates are here, though, sir.

Those that are here. Those that are here.

I just want to make a note, since we did spring this on them at the last second, not everyone's available because of prior commitments. I just want to make that clear.

And it won't be any negative reflection, but if any candidate was able to make it on the short-term notice, I'd say, you know, this is an important subject. Why don't you all just line up and whatever you can, state your name. And, yeah, like, make it short, because we already had five minutes from me, like two minutes. So get to your point. And then if council members have questions, we can bring candidates back. Please go ahead.

Good evening, Mayor, Councilwoman, and council men. And by the way, we've been praying for you, amen, since we found out what happened. We got you in prayer. And my name is Gail Lee Oliver, Jr., bishop slash pastor at the Greater Light Family Church located here in Santa Ana. Been born and raised. I've only been here for 54 years. I am 54 years old. Graduated from Monta Vista, car intermediate, and Santa Ana Valley in 1983. Did attend Grambling State University for couple years have my AAN theology and also a degree from USC thank God for

California Endowment who has targeted Santa Ana as one of the cities that they wanted to invest in to make it better and so I am here to represent Santa Ana and Ward for I've only been there for 54 years as well moms and pops are still there as well and so I also want to thank you mayor amen for making a difference in my younger brother's life years ago when they were only children you showed them some card tricks and so that's still a memory in our family glory to god but it's time for sananna

put its best uh feet forward best foot forward amen and so um i am a pastor i think it'd be a great idea to have a pastor as one of your team players. I do, I am committed, loyal. I do know if I'm not going to make an impact, I wouldn't be here, but I want to do God's will. My philosophy is people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care, and so I'm already, like I said, I'm already doing the work out in Santa Ana, so I've been able to help gangbangers come out of gangbanging, prostitutes come off the streets. We're in the elementary schools teaching teaching them the word of God.

Santa Ana Jail, teaching them the word of God. I've been able to be out there with Cece out there. I call her Cece, excuse me, Cece out there in the city. So I know she's a team player as far as loving Santa Ana. And once again, I'm a part of love Santa Ana. And that's what we're doing. Two commandments God gave us. Love the Lord our God with all our heart, love the Lord our God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. Love our neighbors as ourself. And so that's what I'm for, loving neighbors. I don't have to be Asian or Hispanic or white to love Asians or to serve Asians, Hispanic or white.

I see everybody as human beings, and I'm here to do what God wants me to do. God's will. I think my name will look great up there, by the way. God bless you.

Thank you.

By the way, I don't recall whatever card tricks I showed your kids, but I'm glad they do. It's a lot of fun. Please go ahead. State your name and please start.

Good evening Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council, City staff and visitors of the Council Chambers. My name is Phillip Ortiz and it's a pleasure to address the Council as a potential replacement for the vacant Board 4 City Council seat. Unfortunately I was unable to attend this Tuesday's meeting due to work so I do appreciate the opportunity to come in and present myself for your consideration. A little information about myself. I've been a resident of Santa Ana for the past 13 years. I worked in Santa Ana for about 19 years at a small business, manufacturing business, handling all their IT needs.

Three of those years, I took a second job working at AT&T, traveling all around our city, installing and repairing phone and data services for the community and businesses.

Currently, and for the past three and a half years, I've worked at Frontier Communications, doing the same type of work that I've done at AT&T. Last and most important, I represent my union brothers and sisters as a union steward for the Communication Workers of America, CWA, Local 9586. When it comes to Santa Ana, I just want to say I truly love this city. When I moved here, I fell in love with this city. So much so that I'm here now to requesting to be part of the bigger picture that keeps our city moving forward. Presently, there are a lot of issues facing our city, from parking issues to the city

budget to the homeless crisis and our understaffed police force. We as a city have some challenges ahead of us. These challenges are going to require our full attention. And when it comes to who is appointed to this vacant seat, we need a person with no outside distractions. someone who has a fresh perspective and a person who can listen to all sides and only then make an educated and informed decision. I believe that I'm that person for this seat. I want to thank you all for your time and consideration. Thank you. Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, members of the council, my name is Jennifer Oliva, and I am a lifelong resident of the city of Santa Ana. I'm a product of the Santa Ana Unified School District. I went to Jefferson Elementary, McFadden Intermediate, and I graduated from Segerstrom High School, the inaugural class. And I love this city. I was able to give back. I worked as a assistant instructional provider for the San Antonio Fite School District and I worked at the high school level and at the elementary level.

I have my master's degree in communication studies where I focused on instructional communication, strategic communication, as well as gender and race studies. One of the reasons why I feel like I would be a great appointment for this council is because I have lived in Ward 4 all of my life. I'm 28 years old, and that's the only home I know and attended schools from the ward. So I feel like I know what the residents of that specific area would like. I also would like to be part of the city council just because as a young person of the city and a person of the median age of the residents of the city,

I feel like I can provide perspective for what is needed. I also feel as if I can provide perspective from the lens of being a woman, the lens of being a young person, and the lens of being just a resident of the city. And that's all I want to share. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Phil BacerraItem —

Good evening, Mayor, members of the Council. First, I'd like to offer my condolences to Councilman Sarmanto for your loss. Thank you for being here. that's tough so I appreciate you coming thank you I'm very humbled to be here just after having to come up here after all the folks spoke in support of me and you know as we're watching tonight there's definitely some big issues before this council there's definitely some difference of opinions I would like to believe that I could be someone that can really build consensus if you don't believe me I mean let's go back to the tape and watch Tim Rush and Sam Romero

Phil BacerraItem —

come back up here I mean I was very impressed and for all of us that have been in the city a long time we know that's very impressive so I'm truly humbled with that as many of the speakers have mentioned I can hit the ground running it's not just my time on the Planning Commission but I've worked for cities I work with cities so I understand the operations and how they work and ways that we can move this city forward I love the city I'm not up here because I'm hoping to bounce into something bigger I'm here because as As many of the folks that came and spoke before you said, you know, I've been out there in

Phil BacerraItem —

the community, I've been helping them, and I've never expected anything in return. Now during my last campaign, I was very blessed to have some very big supporters, but that doesn't in any way, shape, or form put me in a position where I'm beholden to anybody other than the residents. And the residents that came up here that spoke on my behalf obviously are testifying to that fact. So I look forward to answering your questions later this evening and I thank you again for your time

Good evening man councilmember first we would like to offer our condolences to councilman Vincent Manto for your loss My just the last last my father a few months ago. I feel no you know how evil feel right now again our condolences the city of Santa Ana was the very first place the settlement in praise and welcome Vietnamese refugees 44 years ago the city of Santa Ana was the very first city in Orange County that accepted the settlement of Vietnamese refugees that's the reason why I devote most of my time for the last 40 years to giving back to the community and to show how appreciative we are

to the government, the city, and the people of the United States to embrace Vietnamese refugees. The only reason why I submit my application for the considerable appointment because I love my city, I love the city, and most important I would like to give back to the city, and the most important to me is to save the city from the expense of spending money on the special action. Cities need the money. We don't have the luxury of revenue to be able to spend on, I believe, $600,000 to $700,000 for a special election. Regardless what the outcome and how the city will do the nomination process and the appointment process,

I will continue, indeed, to continue to serve the best of my ability the city and the residents of Santa Ana. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you.

And with that, let me bring it back to the City Council for questions or thoughts or considerations. Who would like to go first?

Ladies first? Councillor Iglesias, please. I just want to thank everyone who spoke on behalf of a candidate and also for the candidates themselves to put yourself out here to be able to be part of the team that's going to lead the city. I do have, I know I've asked the Madam City Attorney to provide us some questions, so I don't know if that's where we're going at. I have the questions here, so I would like to know the process of doing that.

Go ahead.

So just ask the questions?

I just want to make sure the city manager provided the questions to all of you and also the candidates. Okay, so then we could just take from this questions and...

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Well, it's an option. So at this point the city council doesn't have to do that. It's really up to the council. It's up to the council as a whole how you want to proceed. I would like to ask a question.

Go ahead. Go ahead. Ask a question.

But then are they going to come up here? I mean, I don't know.

They come up here and then I want to, whatever I offer you, I want to offer every other member of the City Council. So if they want to ask questions, you can have a candidate come up and you can ask an individual candidate, whatever you want to do this in open process.

I want to ask every candidate.

All right, then, candidates, why don't you just, like, sit in the front row and then you can maybe answer in the order that you spoke earlier. And, because I think she's going to go through a few questions. Please go ahead.

Okay, so my question is, what would your approach as a council member be in recommending policy, working with other council members, working with staff, and working with the community?

Ladies first. We have the courage.

Thank you for your question, council members. So my approach would be a pedagogical approach, and that's something that I would do as an educator, where everyone in the room and everyone involved is a co-creator in creating this knowledge or creating this policy that we'd want.

I strongly believe that everybody's opinion should be taken into consideration, especially in a city council that is a nonpartisan body of government. So I really feel that coming together, making these decisions together, and really compromising and leaving your biases to the side, I really believe that that's a way of creating policy. As for engaging and interacting with staff, I strongly believe that, you know, treat others the way you want to be treated. So if you want your life to be easier, make your staff's life easier so that everything just works together. Thank you. Thank you.

Are we going to put a time limit?

Yeah, let's one minute or less please. Just keep the answer, only answer her question and if you're brief, council members will like you better.

I will work very closely with all the members of the council and with the staff for the benefit of the resident.

Boy, that was not even a green light, Ken. Wow.

Phil BacerraItem —

you took you seriously my experience with policy is something that I believe that bringing to the council would be important but we have a great professional staff and I think it's important to work with them and especially I know that each council member has that benefit of meeting with staff and really discussing a lot of the you know the the nitty-gritty details and I think it's important to utilize our staff and when I served on the Planning Commission there was definitely a lot of opportunities that even though my professional backgrounds in planning, it was great to work with staff and be able to

Phil BacerraItem —

come up with solutions that worked and that we were able to work on the Planning Commission to get 7-0 votes in consensus with policy ideas, issues with projects where we had to mitigate certain impacts. So I believe that not only do I have that experience, but at the same time, I think that we have a great staff to work with, and I feel that I already have that experience of working with them and being able to do that. Thank you.

Alright, I already love staff, I love people, I'm a people person so that's out of the way. And then also when it comes to different policies and things of that sort, I would definitely first of all look unto God for wisdom inside understanding and knowledge and do a whole lot of studying. And I learned a long time ago in year 2000 to disagree,

but make sure you respectfully disagree. Walk in love and walk out of love. God bless you.

So I approach everything with an open mind. I listen to everybody's perspective and make my decisions based on both how I feel and what the knowledge is that people have. So I always listen to the professionals. That's my take. But I always approach with an open mind. Always. Thank you.

I believe that's all the candidates. You want to ask your next question? He answered already. He was so fast, the city clerk missed him. No, he did. He came up before you did the green light. He was already sitting down.

Are we going to go around?

Well, what I'd maybe like to suggest, if other people have questions, let's take turns, and then if you don't, that's okay. We'll go. So let's go to Councilman Vince Sarmiento, please.

You know, I'm not prepared to ask questions yet. I'll go ahead and defer. The only question I had for the city attorney was, I think I was the last person appointed to the city council in 2007. I think it even preceded your time. But I remember the mayor, and I think the mayor was probably the only one here, there was a process that was set up for everybody to submit something in writing, which everybody did. And then we interviewed each of the candidates, and I think there were seven or eight candidates.

And we wanted to ask them the same questions, and we wanted to give them the benefit of confidentiality and privacy and have the others set aside. So did we agree on anything on Tuesday night on process, and maybe can you go through that? Because this appears kind of random, and that's fine, but is that what we agreed to have an arbitrary random process?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Well, yeah, you kind of agreed not to have a set process. the council directed the city manager to prepare a set of questions which they did and to distribute the questions at 430 this afternoon to council members and the candidates so no one had any you know upper hand everyone had the questions at the same time and then the idea was that you would arrive here today and decide how you want to proceed whether you wanted to ask only one of those questions to all the candidates whether you wanted to have an open forum like it sounds like you're having now it was left up to you okay because there

there could be other questions about weighted voting you know you have a first selection a second selection I mean was that he was that discussed at

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

all no although the city clerk's office did make reference to the process that was used during your appointment and that information was provided but this was the process that they asked after that's fine I mean the only caveat I

would say is that I think the same thing that councilmember mayor pro tem Villegas mentioned you know because this was the straddle to meetings you know there is a disadvantage to the person who isn't here so that's my only bit of

information so I'll go ahead and all right folks that want to ask questions

councilor Solorio or Peña Loza councillor Peña Loza please one of the

David PenalozaItem —

questions thank you mr. mayor candidates thank you for for for your time and for coming out here and for your dedication to wanting to serve our city well the question I wanted to ask is list three goals you would like to achieve during your appointed term and I don't know Mr. Nguyen and sorry I just first person I

saw no problem I always prepare thank you the three goal we'd like to achieve was the physical physical discipline accountability I cannot continue economic development and public safety that's my three up go

Phil BacerraItem —

thank you thank you councilmember Penelosa for that question my top three I mean there's plenty of things I'd like to accomplish but the top three I would like to accomplish in my appointed term would be hire more police officers we desperately need to increase the number of police officers that the city has I would like to really pour into the budget and really try to structurally figure out how we can get on more stable footing because right now we have a lot of big budget questions that we really need to stabilize. And third is the general plan update. You know, this council embarked on it. It's kind of petered out a little bit.

Phil BacerraItem —

And I think that for some of the controversial developments that we have in town and to really make Santa Ana more attractive for quality development, not just out of context development, I think it's important that we have a blueprint that the city can follow, that the council can follow, and that the community and leadership have all bought into and have agreed that that's the path forward. Thank you.

One of the things I'll agree with Phil is increasing the police force here. That's a major thing. Also to reduce the burden that this homeless population that we have, this homeless crisis that we have on hand, that's affecting our city. it's greatly affecting our city. Fiscal responsibility also, that would be the last thing. And yeah, that's pretty much it, thank you.

Thank you for your question. My three goals would be improvement of our city infrastructure, economic development, and beautification and preservation of our city.

David PenalozaItem —

Was that purification?

David PenalozaItem —

Preservation.

David PenalozaItem —

That was like purification.

Good thing you clarified that.

Alright, to be appointed, to be able to be a part of the team to help make Santa Ana a safe place to walk the streets, we have a lot of different areas that we have to be concerned about. We have to make sure that we identify the problems and come up with the solutions that's going to make Santa Ana a safer place, important to the youth, and make sure that Santa Ana is a place where it's safe and we love our youth, and make sure that we make education vitally important, important to this generation. God bless you. Remember, people don't care how much you know to you. They know how much you care.

Thank you, sir.

Okay, maybe now I go to Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I received a number of text messages and emails to support and appoint Phil Becerra.

You know, I walked for three days for Phil during the campaign, passing out flyers for multiple candidates. In there, he was included.

I remember being out there in the heat. I remember the man was getting hit left and right with a lot of dark money. To this day, we still don't know exactly where that dark money came from. I don't want to make any decisions until I know exactly where it came from. I know they're still looking into it. But in all transparency, that's what happened.

And, you know, it did affect some people. And I'm looking at the numbers right here. I know a gentleman earlier said there was 26,000 people that voted for him. It's actually 23,613. That's 44%. Then there was the other people who voted for Mr. Reyna, and that was $29,800.

So if we were to appoint someone tonight, if we were to appoint Phil, and I believe he's qualified, but what about the other 30,000 people who voted?

You know, this whole dark money thing wasn't cleared up until after. So it kind of needs to be cleared up a little bit. And, you know, in my way of thinking, if you want something, you go out and get it. I had to go through it. I know he went out there and was in the campaign, out there walking every day. And believe me, it's tough because people ask you questions. People mock you. People say things to you. You get chased by dogs. I mean, all kinds of things when you're out there knocking on doors. Because that's the way you do it. You got to get out there and knock on doors. You got to walk.

I remember I lost like 13 pounds without even trying out there walking. And I walked seven days a week even in the rain. So my question to the candidates are, you don't have to answer them, but my question is this. If we go to a special election, are you willing to run? That's where it's at. That's where you earn it. Because I don't believe in handing it out. I'm sorry. That's my thinking. I believe it's got to be fair for all the voters. So if you want it bad enough, you'll get out there, you'll register, and you run. And I know this man has been through it.

I know people that have been in the police academy a few times, two or three times. I know people have been in SEAL team training two or three times, going through hell and buds and all that. Hey, if you want it bad enough, you'll go out there and you'll do the work. You'll do whatever it takes. You'll fill out the paperwork. You know, because a lot of people do this. no offense a lot of people do this on a lot of things oh I could have written that book or I could have done this kind of work or if I was on that council you know what you have no idea you got to go out there and earn it and then when

you're up here it's tough even then so I support a special election no offense to anyone but that's my thinking and you know that's just the way I look at this

do you want him to answer your question or does it make a difference if somebody

wants to come up and say I'll run, then let's hear it.

Phil BacerraItem —

Mayor Pro Tempe Vegas, I will be running. Thank you.

I'm here to do God's will. If you want me to run, I'm running. I've already been door knocking. I tell people about the love of God. Amen. Thank you. By the way,

thank you for the prayers for the city of Santa Ana. Appreciate it.

I will run as well. Thank you. You would run? Yes.

I will run by different word.

And a different word. Thank you, Ken, and my condolences to your family.

Thank you for your question. If it did come to a special election, I would run.

Thank you very much. And that's what I wanted to hear, because you have to want it. You really do. And Madam City Attorney, a quick question for you. So if someone, let's say somebody did get appointed, it's just not my choice, But if someone were to be appointed, do they have to run again in 2020?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Yes, so the charter provides that if you make an appointment tonight, the appointee only serves until the next general municipal election, which will be in November of 2020.

So they have to run. You have to do this twice then. And if we don't go to special election, you'll run in November, and then you'll have to run again, right?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

You would run, but if there's special election, you would carry out the rest, the balance of the term. So if you appoint, you have to run in 2020. Anyone who is elected through a special election or who is elected in 2020 will serve until 2022.

Okay. Thank you very much. So I think about these 30,000 people that were, I think, were misled.

They were misled with all the dark money and the awful campaign. It's terrible. That smear stuff is just awful. And I can't wait. I hope the authorities really do something on that. So that is my only question, Mr. Mayor. Thank you.

All right. Let me go to the right, Councilman Vince Armiento. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

And so, yeah, so I think, you know, I have more questions of the process and maybe questions of the candidate or of the candidates. But let's just start with those as you're answering some of these. And so I'm going to go off script because these are suggested questions. I don't think there's anything that binds us to them. This is a fairly informal process. And so, you know, there are some issues that have faced our city for the past few years, five years, ten years, and actions that were taken by previous councils that are issues that are going to be facing us again. So I'd like to get your thoughts on some of those.

The issues I'm talking about are, number one, district elections, which the city is going to be moving to in 2020. We're going from an at-large voting system, election system, to a district election system. And that's one issue. The second one is this city made the decision to become a sanctuary city a few years back. I want to have your opinion on that and whether or not that's something that we should continue. And number three, the city has faced questions of gentrification not only in our downtown but throughout the city.

And I want to get your thoughts and your opinions on what you think of those three issues.

Go ahead, Don. I'll jump at once.

Phil BacerraItem —

First off, Councilman Sarmiento, in regards to the district elections, your question is whether we supported it or what is your question?

What's your opinion of Santa Ana moving from at-large, from an at-large election system to a district election system?

Phil BacerraItem —

I think for the longest time we were kind of, you know, one foot in the water, one foot out of the water. We had a ward, but we didn't run by ward. It was a from ward system. I think there was pros and cons to going to a by ward system. Having said that, I think it will work in Santa Ana. I think it'll just like anything we've done here it'll work I had some initial reservations I'm not going to lie because I think physically as a city we aren't large enough to where I think certain members may be prone to look out for the interests of their constituency at the behest of

Phil BacerraItem —

the others but having said that I think that because also too with Santa Ana not being a large city it's hard to make decisions that are singularly to your ward your second question was regards to sanctuary cities I think that with California already being a sanctuary state it's really a moot point for the city of Santa Ana and then in regards to gentrification I'll say that you know my uncle opened a pops cafe in the early 90s and he was here along with the same clientele that was here back then and as this as the downtown has evolved over time I think for a capital

Phil BacerraItem —

city we need to be inclusive and I think that it's important you know I'd love seeing when new restaurants come in and they're Asian, they're Filipino, I mean there are all kinds of stuff that's coming in and that's what a capital city should be. It should be about addition, not about singling out and trying to maintain some sort of status quo. I think all good cities, all big worldly cities, they evolve and they're very about very much about addition not subtraction.

So just real quickly, I didn't understand your second response to the question on sanctuary city policy. I get that the state, that's the state policy. Correct. I'm asking you what your position is on that. My position is the

Phil BacerraItem —

state's already decided that question. I'm asking to be a city council member. I'm not here to discuss federal policy. That's a state policy. But I'm saying that as far as immigration, immigration is a federal policy. I'm here to talk about city policy. I'm running for city council, not Congress. If I really want to talk about immigration, I'll consult with Congressman Lou Correa. Right, but each

city can dictate whether or not they they want to be recognized as a sanctuary city or not

Phil BacerraItem —

and correct and as i've stated the city of santa ana is a city not a federal jurisdiction we're not dfa we are a city and so having i don't think you're answering or you understand the question

but in any event i want to be respectful to other people thank you

I am personally support the election by word because majority of the residents in Santa Ana are Latino and very difficult for non Latino able to participate and then get involved in the City Council and also because there will be less money for the candidate to a to have to campaign and also to truly truly for the council member to represent a particular ward, we're truly responsible and represented the constituent in that ward in the city council. The second question of the sanctuary city, I totally support the sanctuary city policy the city had made last year because the

sea of Santa Ana is a melting pot of various different culture and different nationality and we need to be able to protect a resident who are the victim of the brutality and also various attacks for the government. Again, I am supportive of that. Thank you.

One more question.

There was one more question on gentrification. I'm sorry, what the third question is? On gentrification.

I have no opinion on that, Councilman. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you for your question. As for, oh my god, what was the first? District elections. District elections. I believe that that would be a lot easier for candidates who are running. And also, it would make it easier for the residents because they know who to look for. Because a lot of residents in the city don't know what ward they live in. They don't know who their representative is. So I think it would provide that aspect of education for our residents. As for sanctuary cities, we have a hushed population of immigrants here, so I strongly believe that we should be a sanctuary city.

And as for gentrification, the economic development side of it is the positive of it, but there's also that displacement. So there needs to be some sort of balance by how many new developments are coming in, but how are they helping our residents as well? Thank you.

Okay.

Sanctuary, becoming or being a sanctuary city. When I was in Washington, D.C., the congressmen, some of the congressmen and the assembly people were sharing with us that it's a possibility that the feds will take away money if you're a sanctuary city. So if it's going to help Santa Ana reach its goals, that's one thing. If it's going to hurt Santa Ana, then that's another thing. So with that, I'd have to do more homework on that topic. And then district elections. District elections. Whoo, that's a good one.

I'd have to meditate on that one a little bit more, too.

and it's okay to say you don't know I mean right you don't have to give I

haven't really had much time to really think about that but and the gentrification what is your exact question as far as gentrification is

concerned so there's been an ongoing debate about again new business come new businesses coming in and sort of displacing existing businesses so there's it's not just a discussion in Santa Ana it's a discussion in most large cities where you have family-owned businesses that have been here for decades and they get displaced by new businesses that come in, rents get raised and folks get displaced after years and years of investment. So again, it's a discussion of the evolution of a community, families and small businesses that get displaced. Okay, I would definitely have to meditate on that

too but I would also say yeah yeah and I would also have to say we can't control everything you know so but what's right is right and what's wrong is wrong thank

you sir and again there isn't a right answer to any of these these are just questions that we grapple with here at the council so I want to make sure and

these are excellent questions to meditate on

Thank you, Mr. Sarmiento. Regarding district elections, I think it's important to have a local contact for that district. If we open it up to an at-large election, we have people looking for their representative, trying to figure out who it is, traveling across town. I think it's better to have somebody like a local contact. It's a similar structure, being a union steward. and we have our board members, or we have our local contact at our job site. So we have people that can reach out to us, and then we can reach out and move things, advance any issues that may occur.

Regarding the Sanctuary City, this is a really hot topic. You know, we have to protect the most vulnerable people. And a lot of the people that come here illegally are coming here to work. They're coming here to work to provide for their families, And it's important that we protect them. You know, we can't just, you know, fold, you know, when the government comes and says, oh, we're going to take away your money because, you know, you're helping these people out that actually need help. You know, there's good and bad on both sides of the issue.

But I believe we need to protect the most vulnerable people. regarding gentrification there's development is good for the most part you know we we make our city look a lot nicer but I think we need to also help the the businesses and the families that are in these areas you know that have been in these areas that have lived in these areas for many years stay in these areas. So I think we need to kind of watch and monitor the, you know, what businesses and what developers come into the area, you know, to be more

cautious and like I said protect the people that have been there for all this time. Thank you. Thank you all. That was it.

Councilor Solorio.

Yes, we received some good questions and I appreciated the second round of input from the candidates. And I do also want to give special recognition to Maricela Vallejo. Even though she's not here, she did review the questions and submitted the answers back to the council. So I think that's very admirable and shows due diligence. My view is that they all have strong points, all the candidates. I do think that our current commissioners, which are Mari Vallejo and Ken Nguyen and Jennifer Oliva, all would bring something different to the council.

In particular, Jennifer and Ken, I'm very impressed with and would love to serve with you. I know Ken has the additional complexity that where he lives, given there's a lot of Asian Americans in his part of town in 2020, that's also when not only might there be an election for this position, but also the new Ward 1 that Commissioner Nguyen lives in would be up then, which is why it's a little bit of a complexity for him and for me, because I'd love to join the board.

showing you up here, but that is a complexity. Either of those three I think would be strong candidates, particularly those latter two that I mentioned. I'm hopeful that we can all agree on somebody and if not we should just take it to the ballot just because there is something to be said about the public's vote and they should have a right to have a say in this, especially if this counts especially since the council is so divided you know if there were you know strong consensus around one candidate I think you know that would be kind of a stamp of approval that you know that candidate is

solid but when there's so much variety and opinion up here from the dais I just don't see it so I am leaning just for supporting a special election and would be prepared to make that motion or second tonight.

All right more questions? Council Member David Peñalosa? Yeah I have some

David PenalozaItem —

comments Mr. Mayor. I just wanted again to thank the candidates for your for applying and you know specifically Phil Becerra I know that that I mean he's the only one like the mayor mentioned at the last meeting he's the only one that that ran and and ran a good campaign and and you know was the second vote-getter and but I just I don't I have just some questions with with them because I'm so with what happened with with the councilmember that resigned I'm paranoid with all this residency stuff I want to make sure that that those things are I'm

David PenalozaItem —

not sure if we're gonna make a vote for an applicant tonight or not but um madam city clerk and city attorney I had a just a couple questions because I have I downloaded the roster for the current members and boards of commissions off of our website early last week and I noticed that miss Vallejo and Mr. Nguyen both there's two columns on these residency sheets and under representing Ward they both represented Ward I think I believe Miss

David PenalozaItem —

Vallejo represented Ward 6 but it says that her residence was in Ward 6 and And Mr. Nguyen shows as representing for the Planning Commission Ward 4, but his residence is in Ward 6. When I brought this question up to our staff, they said that they'd look into it and get me an answer of why the residence was showing Ward 6. Then when I went today to look at the same roster, it was changed from Ward 6 to Ward 4.

David PenalozaItem —

So I don't know what kind of residency, I don't know if it was an error on our City Clerk's side of inputting data into their Boards and Commission application.

David PenalozaItem —

But according to the roster that I printed last week, it said Ward 6 as their residence. Can you explain that, Madam Clerk?

Yes, thank you, Councilmember Pinalosa. So before the January 12, 2017 adoption of the map, Mr. Kenneth Nguyen resided in Ward 6. The only application on file that we have was as of 2005. After the adoption of the 2017 Ward map, he now resides in Ward 4. Beginning with the terms starting after 2006 general election at least 50% of those persons nominated from time to time should be the ward representative at the

request of council member this rule may be weighed by two-thirds vote and the and the resident can represent a different ward that he does not reside and that's based on the Charter Section 901. Right, that's not what I was asking.

David PenalozaItem —

So if you want to see here the Personnel Board, Ms. Vallejo shows representing Ward 6 but her residence is in Ward 4. I mean Ward 6. And for the Planning Commission it shows that Mr. Nguyen is printed. Give me a second here.

David PenalozaItem —

Here it is. Mr. Nguyen, it says representing Ward 3, but his residence is in Ward 6. This was printed early last week. When I went on today on the city's website, it was changed to residence Ward 4. And this was, according to their applications, they lived in Ward 4 for 30 plus years. So why does this show as a residence Ward 6?

So it looks like that's a clerical error. When it was updated, he was nominated to the current boards and commission. It looks like the residency ward was not updated from Ward 6 to Ward 4. And when it was brought to our attention, it looks like it was corrected by staff.

I would add, I think to some of the history here is about who the council nominator is. So for example, Commissioner Nguyen used to be Vince's commissioner. And when I was elected to the council more recently, I nominated him to be appointed by the council. And so he's a Ward 3 appointee, but he happens to live in the ward that we're discussing. So I think that's what the relationship should be.

David PenalozaItem —

There's two columns representing Ward, three, and the residents, and it says Ward 6.

And I think the Ward 6 is just when they changed the map. He used to be in that ward, and Mr. Nguyen has been a commissioner for a number of years. So when he initially was there as I think the clerk's office mentioned, he used to be in the prior council I mean the prior ward and then when they redrew the lines he was The lines were adjusted so that he then

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

lived in Ward 4. Yeah, my understanding I had a conversation with the clerk's office on a different matter But it might shed some light on this. My understanding is that when someone submits an application to serve on a commission those applications are not necessarily renewed as as we spoke, you may recall, apparently there was an application more recently identified where when they filled out the application, believe it or not, they were in Ward 6. That application was never updated. I did speak with the clerk's office about how we should not be doing that. If we have people who are going to be appointed by the council

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

we should be requiring them to complete a new application and not just rely on the information that was submitted 10 or 12 years ago.

David PenalozaItem —

This is before the current ward boundaries were adopted, right, I'm assuming?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Yes. Can you make reference to that? We just spoke about that the other day.

Yes, that is correct. So the prior practice was to use the application on hand if the address was still the same. As of January 12, 2017, Mr. Nguyen's address resided in Ward 4. Prior to that, prior to January 17, 2017, it was in Ward 4. Unfortunately, what happened is that our staff inadvertently did not update the ward from address to correctly reflect Ward 4 rather than Ward 6, which is why you now have the updated information.

David PenalozaItem —

Right. Okay. So it was a clerical error on behalf of that.

of the clerk's office. Correct, that is a true statement. Okay, and that those were

David PenalozaItem —

the concerns I had looking at the two applicants just I mean they're qualified there there but I just with this whole residency issue I didn't want any you know it was it was questionable that once I brought it up it was changed to Ward 4 so I wasn't I just wanted to make sure that that was wasn't done with any other intentions besides accurate information?

Correct. We were just updating it to reflect correctly to Ward 4.

Okay. Thank you. Okay. Additional comment or thought? Council Member Celia Iglesias.

So my, I guess my concern is we're having questions of the candidates who are here, yet we're missing one. And so if we were to take a vote today, it would really not be fair if we would appoint somebody now, because she didn't have the opportunity to be here because we called it, you know, she already had prior commitments. So my question would be for the mayor and also for our city attorney is, it seems like we don't have a set process.

And I concur with what you said, Mayor Protem, about having an opportunity for the almost 30,000 voters, for them to have an opportunity to select that person. Because there's a lot of issues that are being talked about, and some may be true, some may not be true, and I don't want it to fall back. personally on me, saying that you've selected someone that you really didn't vet. Because we were talking about vetting, remember, we were talking with the city attorney to the same thing, like the thing that you, we didn't vet. And I just, for me, is, and then when we talk about dark money, we talk about, you know, special interest,

you know, on my part, I'm going to say this bluntly, there's no sympathy. Because there was about over $100,000 that the police association and spent against my candidacy when I ran for this seat. So I just, you know, there's dark money everywhere, and I just feel that, you know, it would be back to the voters would be the best thing for us to do, because they're the ones that are going to be saying, okay, yeah, you know what, and if we choose someone, you know, it's on them. They chose that person to be on this daisle. With me, I would concur with what you mentioned.

I feel like since we don't have everyone here to be present, the best

David PenalozaItem —

thing would be to take it back to the voters. Thank you. Okay. Councillor, yes, David Danieloza. The idea of not having everyone here present, it's not valid. This was sprung on me too. I had dinner plans today and I'm here. So if you really want it, you would be here. And regardless of what plans you had or what prior commitments you had. So I don't think that's a valid statement. And with the cost of a special election, it's not really the cost that concerns me. It's the fact that we're going to be six, seven months, eight months without a council member.

David PenalozaItem —

And that is, I think, something that we should consider. Not so much if this special election was a month from now, I'd be all in. But do we really want to just drag this out for eight months without having a needed person up there?

Mr. Mayor?

David PenalozaItem —

Well, I don't know if he's done. Let's see if he's done.

Let's make sure he's done first.

David PenalozaItem —

I mean, those are the only comments that I wanted to...

And they're very, very good comments. Mayor Pro Temp?

Yes, I totally agree. We could use, David, you know we could use another vote up here. And I agree. But I think that the interest of the public to have a say, just like we're all asked you know you know how many people voted on the 25 25 main thing and so many people were very happy that we listened to the public well I'm hearing a lot of a lot from the public right now saying hey you should take it to the voters because it's a big decision the voters should have a say there's 30,000 people here who were cheated out of something and you know they should have a say and I think the we should listen to that in my personal opinion

I respect you very much. Yeah, but it's really, really difficult to have a council where you've got three, you've got six people, everything dies at 3-3. But I think that the voice of the people need to be heard, and that is my take on it.

Councilman Rins Armiento. Thank you. And the only thing I would remind everybody is that even though you're appointed, you're still going to have to go out and have to have people vote for you very quickly. 2020 is right around the corner, and I know when I was appointed, it was a matter of months before you start realizing you're in an election. So whoever does prevail, if in fact we do appoint, you're going to be subject to that same vetting and hard work and raising money and speaking to people in the city. So that doesn't go away. just because you're appointed doesn't mean you're appointed for your entire three terms.

You have to go almost immediately back to the voters. And to me, if we were to spend all $400,000 or $500,000, whatever that cost estimate is, for a special election unilaterally and not join the school district special election, we would get somebody very soon, but at a very high cost. If we wait, we're talking about November, almost the end of the year, almost going the entire year without somebody. And I think, as somebody said, we're a pretty fractious council. We tend not to be able to agree on much, so we could stagnate. And that's where I think we don't want to be.

That's why I think we rushed through a decision to make an appointment. That was one of the compelling reasons to appoint a city manager, because we didn't want to wait, and things were dormant up on the eighth floor, well, this council could completely freeze and paralyze. So, you know, I think that there is a compelling reason to appoint somebody just as compelling as to waiting and letting the voters have an opinion. The voters will have an opinion on that appointment very soon if we do make one.

No additional thoughts, Councilman Jose Solorio?

Okay. Well, I believe that we should just be doing our best to make sure we get along and step it up a little bit and make good, sound decisions instead of personal interests or anything. Let's just get along. It's not going to hurt us. And we will split the cost with the school district.

Well, I think maybe we've got to get to the bottom line. And I don't know if people are comfortable or not, but maybe we could state if we're supportive of anybody who that is, if there's four votes for anybody, we have something, not we go home. And if we go home, there's a special election. I don't mind starting off, and I'll tell you the person that would be my preference, I'll say this publicly, would be Phil Becerra. I don't know that there's any other votes for that. There may not be. And I know I've spoken of folks, and we all have different opinions. So if there are none, we go from there. Councilor Solorio.

Mr. Mayor, the staff was kind enough to put together some additional process steps. And by the way, we at the last meeting didn't go into too much detail because Council Member Sarmiento was there and Mr. Mayor, you weren't there. So we at least got enough on the agenda so that we can have this conversation, but didn't want to get too in depth other than ask staff to please consider doing so. So they suggest that each council member identify two candidates so that we each kind of have two votes and then we see who the top two might be. And maybe we then interview those two or do a second round of voting at that point.

That's a little bit related to what you said. So I, that the candidates spent some time putting applications together and being here. And I think we kind of also owe it to them as well.

Again, it's up to the council. Are council members willing to do two votes or not?

No.

No. Absolutely not. So we got folks that are not. Again, I would go a single vote for Phil. So if it's not Phil, I go towards the special. That's fine.

And I would cast my votes for Commissioner Jennifer Levi and Commissioner Ken Nguyen. Okay. Over 22?

Well, I did one, he did two. Go ahead. The process here.

Oh, okay.

We have a degree to a process, we're just voicing. And you can say no when it's your turn. There is no process, from what I understand. Go ahead, that's what happens when we don't have a process.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Are you pulling the council members right now to see if they have two or no?

I am, but I'm saying that I myself am not willing to do two. And if others aren't, then we won't have four and we go home. Councilor David Peñalosa?

David PenalozaItem —

My top two would have to be, it's top two, right?

If you want to, you don't have to.

David PenalozaItem —

It'd be Phil Becerra and Commissioner Jennifer Oliva. Okay. Councilor Iglesias.

Believe it or not, I only have one. And what I've always wanted, according to my last name, is Iglesias. So I really would go for Pastor Gail Oliver.

His last name is Iglesias?

No, it's Churches.

You're close. It's Churches. She doesn't do car tricks, though. It's church-related, yeah. It's church-related. I already stated mine, Council Member.

Special election.

So no vote. No candidate at all.

Councilman Vince Armiento? Yeah, I'm real disappointed with this process, or lack of a process. It's really unfortunate. It's unfair to those people that spent the time filling out this application, coming here on Tuesday, coming here on a Friday night, and with that expectation of us making a decision. It's just, I just think we weren't real deliberate, we weren't real fair. This is not the way we should be conducting an appointment this serious. But given that I've heard everybody and I think that everybody comes with good intentions, I would say I could support both commissioners, Commissioner Winn and Commissioner Ochoa.

Or Oliva, I'm sorry, Oliva.

All right, so Madam Clerk, you kind of heard all that. I don't count four for anybody, is that your tally?

That is correct, I have three for Oliva and two for Becerra, and two for Nguyen, but no four.

Does anybody wish to reconsider?

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to call a special election and for direct staff to coordinate with the school district. Is there a second?

Second.

Yes.

David PenalozaItem —

Can I ask for a question just on the special election? If for any reason one of us up here wanted to put something else on the ballot aside from a Ward 4 vacancy for a special election, is that possible? Is there an extra cost? Is it the same?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

It may not be substantially more. It could be $10,000 to $20,000, depending on what you're going to do with the ballot. We'd have to verify that with the county. Yes, you could put additional items on. The only restrictions might be the type of things you're trying to do. For example, a charter amendment can only go at a, I think they call it a state election, which would be November. And you would have to do that at least 90 days before the election. So your deadline to do that would be early August.

David PenalozaItem —

Not this November, but the next.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

If you're having a special election, it's going to be November of this year, November of 2019.

David PenalozaItem —

Okay, but that's considered a state election?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

I don't recall if it actually meets the definition. I do not believe it does, but I will verify that. That's a good question, and we'll verify. But yes, you can place other measures on that ballot.

And you would need four votes to do that?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

You would need four votes to do that. that you could not place tax measures on that ballot as that would require a unanimous vote of the council. A general tax you could not place on that ballot.

David PenalozaItem —

And just so people understand what I had in mind, it has to do with the residency because I think the current residency in the charter is silly. 30 days for election and one year for appointment, it should be minimum one year for anything. because we see at every election you have multiple candidates just revolving around kind of playing musical chairs with the ward and it's embarrassing for our city. And that's something that I'd love to eventually consider.

I would support you on that.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

We will research whether a charter amendment can be placed on November 2019 if you do call a special election.

Thank you. So we have a motion and a second. Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed, motion carries. Thank you everybody for coming out. Democracy in action and now we get to go home.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.