Read the September 4 meeting.

Can you all please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance? Ready, begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We're going to have our invocation by Jerry Hill, our police chaplain. If you can remain standing.

Let's go ahead and pray together. Heavenly Father, we just thank you, Lord, for the day that you have blessed us with. Just the wonderful weather, Lord. We thank you for that. We thank you for the great city, Lord, that you've blessed us with as well. And tonight, Lord, we ask that you would bless this meeting. And Lord, bless the residents of Santa Ana. Be with them. Watch over them. And Lord, I would ask personally that you would bless our city council, our mayor, and our city manager. They work so hard, Lord. Bless them. Bless their families. We pray this all, Lord, in your holy name. Amen.

Thank you. You may be seated. I'm going to call on Mayor Pro Tem Martinez to make a presentation.

Good evening. If I can please have Kathy Bowman join me.

Kathy, do you have your husband here? Please have him come up if he's not embarrassed.

So if you're probably asking, Who's this exceptional, beautiful woman coming up here joining me today? Today I am going to be recognizing Ms. Bowman with a day after her, and you're probably wondering why. She has decided to retire and was the executive director of Wise Place. After 25 years in the corporate world, Kathy Bowman found her calling as the executive director of Wise Place, formerly the YWCA in Santa Ana in 1996. Recently retired, Kathy Goal was working with Wise Place

as really to transform and save people's lives. I'm not even going to go into all of this because I'm certainly very passionate as she is in the work that she's been doing. And in particular, just not her service to Santa Ana and the Orange County community, but really who she is as an individual of committing herself to the greater good and helping women by providing shelter and resources to uplift them as human beings to be productive people.

And when we've had recently this crisis and we're trying to find the beds necessary

it was by no mistake that she stepped up she did it naturally and provided more needed space in the gymnasium to help many women who were outside on our streets throughout this county and so one i never got to thank you so thank you so very much for stepping up to the play in showing your leadership these past months before you retired. It is greatly appreciated. I want to give you a round of applause.

So during the years Kathy has served as in the community. She has served up to or close to 8,000 women through bridge housing which empowers homeless women to gain control of their lives and reenter society as contributing members. Furthermore, during the recent homeless crisis, as I mentioned, she stepped up and then helped a tremendous amount. And I want to give a personal story because I was out there a couple of weekends and I was walking. and every time I approach one of the ladies, whether they were at the courthouse or at Birch Park

or in the Civic Center, I would ask, do you all have a place to stay? And the first thing they would say, yeah, we already got a spot at Wise Place. We have somewhere to stay. And I have to tell you that I'll be the first to admit

that several months ago,

that was the first time, and I would say that's five months ago exactly today, that I was out there walking and talking to the homeless population and firsthand saw for myself the issues that we were facing as a city, as a county, as a state, and as a nation.

But realize that Santa Ana cannot do it alone. And it has not been doing it alone. It's had partners like Wise Place for many years that have been contributing to the lives, in particular, of women. And I do recall, and I want to give another story, that I was working with the Bicycle Tree. And we were, the Bicycle Tree partnered up with Wise Place. And I've been an avid, you know, supporter of active transportation in this community. And I was invited to take a picture and to showcase the great work Wise Place was doing

in partnership with the Bicycle Tree to provide bicycles to the women to get to and from work or go run errands. and it was very special to see, and I want to say that was three years ago, three years ago, and the amazing work that she continues to do, and I see Mark McLaughlin who's out there. I want to thank Mark. Mark, raise your hand, who actually worked with our city staff and myself to really present this to Kathy, but before I present this proclamation, I would love for you, Kathy, to say a couple of words of your experience here in this community and the tremendous work

that you've done for countless women here in Orange County. Kathy?

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem, Mr. Mayor, and of the other city council members that I've known over the years and worked with over the years. It is very exciting for me to be here and not be asking you for money.

Because every other time I've been here, I've been asking you for money. But I have to say that every time we came before you and we pleaded our case for shelter for unaccompanied homeless women, the city of Santa Ana has been here with us and for us. And so we were able to literally save lives over the 22 years I have been there, and for 31 years because of the partnership with the city. And we absolutely could not have done it without all of the support of the city. I would just say that for those of you who are not aware,

unaccompanied homeless women are the most vulnerable of the homeless population. Almost 90% of the women who are on the streets have been physically and or sexually abused. And so it is so important to have a safe place for women. We have, over the last 31 years, had a transitional shelter where we have transitioned people that had the capacity to self-sufficiency. And we're very proud of that. We're very proud of the women who have gone through the program.

but we recognize that there's a whole other group of women who really don't have the capacity to, within 30 to 90 days, become self-sufficient. So we did open Safe Place, and it was intentional that we named it Safe Place because chronically homeless women need a safe place. and I'm really excited that although it's a very different population than the ones that we have traditionally supported, we're making really good progress. I was there last Wednesday. I stopped by.

I'm retired for a month now, but I kind of still stop by every once in a while. I stopped by, and one of the women who has been chronically homeless for years, and the police officers probably know her, but she stopped me and said, I'm starting school. And she has enrolled in Santa Ana College. That's breathtaking. You know, the people who we've pretty much written off as not being able to change,

if you give them a safe place you give them support you give them a goal they will take advantage of it so and I have to make a plug for the fact that we really do want to provide permanent supportive housing for women here in Santa Ana that that really is something that's very much needed and we definitely want to be part of that solution. You notice I still say we. After 22 years it's hard to kind of disassociate but I'm just so grateful for

this honor and I am so appreciative of all of the support and I'm also very appreciative of the support of my husband who was there every step of the way allowing me to be out however many hours of the day I needed to be out or back in the bad old days when we didn't have the kind of the support system we had now if a pipe broke at two o'clock in the morning he was there helping me shove the water out the door so um so i'm just very grateful i'm very grateful and i thank you for this opportunity

so you just got me emotional kathy and i just want to thank you and your husband and for having an awakening heart. There are so many times that we tend to close up and numb ourselves from what's going on in society. And I tell you that recently I saw the Dateline, you know, in regards to Los Angeles and the homeless population over there. And I tell you that it broke my heart to see single mothers struggling, even working full time.

And I recall my great-grandmother, you know, who struggled, and I ended up living in a car, ended up living in motels and living in shacks, and realizing that my great-grandmother, you know, tried everything in her possible power to help us have a place to live. And so, you know, I take great pride to present this to you here today because I understand the plight personally and knows what it is to be a child and not have a place you can call home.

or seeing so many women throughout society that have been discarded and not given a second chance. And you have transformed people's lives. So thank you for having that awakening heart and not numbing yourself.

So thank you both. And I apologize for getting emotional. know, but I think at times we don't realize or don't give thanks to those that are out there in the trenches and really making major contributions in our community. And Kathy, you've been doing that with your board. And if there are board members in the audience, thank you for hiring this woman, keeping this woman on, for doing the amazing work that she's done here in this community. and for Orange County. So now therefore we the mayor and the City Council of the City of Santa

Ana hereby recognize September 4th 2018 as Kathy Bowman Day and urge the community to join us in acknowledging the hard work and dedication she has shown to the city of Santa Ana.

What's going on? Oh, she said. I think they go. Okay. They walk down and take a photo. We're going to take a few photos.

We're with Irony.

We figured it would be on that. Yeah. Yeah.

Miguel, give him your side. That's my good side.

They're both good.

You're a new graduate. Thank you.

Thank you.

some type of an instant certificate from the clerk or something of that nature mayor pro tem martinez has no items to pull and i think we need to commemorate this so um so not not this moment but after the meeting i'm serious i want something saying congratulations to mayor pro tem she's come a long way she's come a very long way thank you Michelle. Thank you. No, no, but this is historic. In 12 years, this is historic. This is the first time. This is the first time in 12 years. All right, so Madam.

That means the staff has done a great job. Madam City Attorney, anything to report out please.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Mayor, council members and members of the public, we do have a few items to report out this evening. I'd like to report out in the case of Rita Marie Gomez that the City Council has authorized a settlement of $75,000. All members of the council were present with the exception of Councilmember Tina Harrow for that vote. City Council also approved in the Teresa Lee matter a settlement of $265,000 and authorized the city manager to execute a settlement agreement.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Staff was given direction in the Catholic Worker case, which we added to the agenda. And the City Council has authorized the City Attorney's Office to seek a writ in opposition to a sales tax measure argument that was submitted. I would like to note for the record that this argument was submitted to the City Clerk. She is our elections official. She carried out her ministerial duty in accepting that argument. And the City Council is asking us to go forward with the writ to remove inaccurate or irrelevant or offensive language from that argument. And that is all of the reportable action that we have.

Thank you very much. So now let's go on to our consent counter. Maybe this can be done quickly since. Go ahead.

Mr. Mayor, I would just remove 19B because I'm here. So no need for an excused absence.

so but thank you for putting it on the agenda well we're just covering you just in case so let's remove that item any other 28 brief question on that okay we're pulling 28 i'd entertain a motion on the balance second those in favor please say aye aye aye the supposed motion

carries 28 and uh smith so this is a uh a motion to accept a grant from the officer office of traffic safety which allows provides for the funds for the DUI checkpoints. I had a brief conversation with the chief about it. I did have some questions. Every year I've sort of wrestled with this one because there is the impact of making it a point of identifying inebriated drivers. I know that at times our community has also has some expressed sense of angst and

and concern, particularly around the immigrant community and the working relationship with the police department. So I am going to be supporting the item here tonight. I would like to request that staff provide full counsel, additional statistics, background on a number of individuals who have been taken off the streets, who have been under the influence, other data information that would demonstrate that this in fact is an effective program, which police was able to confirm that that in fact is the case.

However, just with the short amount of time that I presented the question with, I wasn't able to get the information I actually was just having a conversation with a few minutes ago. So I didn't provide enough of the time to be able to provide those stats. However, I would like to request the stats for this council, and then for future councils to be able to just weigh that out, the overall benefits of this program. So those are my comments, my requests. Is there a motion? I'm making the motion that we move forward with it.

Is there a second?

Second.

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

Item 50A, Madam Clerk, I believe is the next item. here we have two speakers on 58 Judy Wollin welcome Judy wherever you are followed by Sharon meal from a Verizon Wireless and Judy I may note was for a long time with a gas company and she always did a great job and now you're

with AT&T and welcome. Good evening Mayor, City Council members. I'm here representing AT&T this evening and I just wanted to thank first of all city staff for working with us on getting an ordinance together that's workable for everybody with the exception of a couple of items and I just want to get into the record one item that's of concern to us still and that AT&T is looking forward to working with the city on its design guidelines which will impact AT&T's plans to deploy wireless facilities but we really need to see those guidelines before we can really evaluate

and give comments to the proposed ordinance so that's our only concern right now but we do want to thank staff for moving forward as quickly as they have on the ordinance and we appreciate all the time and attention they've given to it. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Judy. Sharon?

Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Sharon Mile. I'm here on behalf of Verizon Wireless. And Verizon also wants to thank City staff for recognizing the need and the importance of wireless technology in the city of Santa Ana. We very much appreciate the effort. We recognize the work and how long it takes to put something like this together, so we are very appreciative of that effort. I also wanted to acknowledge that Verizon submitted a letter this morning to city council from our outside council, Paul Albritton, and while

I don't want to go into the details of every item on that letter, I would just respectfully request that the City Council take into further consideration some of our recommendations and suggestions. So I thank you very much.

Thank you for that. I see no other speakers, so I'll bring it to Council for consideration. Is there a motion?

Mr. Mayor, I have a question for the staff.

Please go ahead.

I don't know who on staff is the most able to address this. It sounds like we've been working with the industry, and on the whole there's a lot of support, but it appears that there's maybe still a couple outstanding issues. Is there an opportunity today or at some point in the near future that their suggestions can be taken into account, or what would you suggest or are there some ideas that just for whatever reason staff can't support?

Fouad Suiz, Director of Public Works. We have been working with the industry specifically AT&T and Verizon and you know mobility since we started working on the revisions of this ordinance back in May. As you may recall that this item came to council two weeks ago and we pulled it in the last minute because we received a couple of letters one from verizon one from et and t and we looked at those comments and concerns and we incorporated whatever we can in this ordinance the comments that we received today were relatively

minor and you know we'll continue to work with them some of the specifically some of the recommendations are already included in the ordinance and we're going to be working with We're working on coming up with design specifications and recommendations, so that will be coming later. I think we strongly encourage that the ordinance,

especially that this is the first reading, that we move forward with it.

As well as I think there are some items that don't need to be in the ordinance, but But if you make a commitment to keep working with the industry on trying to implement or address their suggestions, I would appreciate that. Definitely, we'll do that. With that understanding that we continue to work with the industry, I move the item. Second. Thank you.

Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed, motion carries. Item 65A, I would entertain a motion.

Mr. Mayor, go ahead, Mayor Pro Tem.

Go ahead. Thank you. I do have a question of staff. And this is the jail reuse feasibility study, correct? There were a few options that were presented. And I think one that might be helpful for us. I just wanted to clarify. within the various options, there wasn't, am I correct in understanding that there wasn't an option that allowed for a holding facility,

maintaining a holding facility while also, on the first floor, while also modifying the second and above for an alternative use? Yes, thank you, Council Member, members of the City Council. We did not implement any multi-use scenarios. Unfortunately, that would have required a little too much speculation in terms of what uses. So option one anticipates only going to a holding facility. In that scenario, floors three and four of the facility would be empty and could be utilized for a different purpose. but for the purposes of the study and the evaluation it did not contemplate a

mixed use option so I'll I would say is that it there would be a potential I think that would be a potential option for the city to consider at some point so I just want to go on the record that requesting that we look at figure out the easiest and most cost-effective way to present that option for consideration? I don't know that at this point we want to go back up. We might have enough information. My question, I guess, let me follow up with a question. Based on the information that has been provided, would you say that we have enough information

in this report for there to be, to look at that option? I would say yes. Yes, part of what we did when we created the specifications, developing the RFQ and then ultimately the agreement that the City Council approved and the work product that you have before you provided enough information where we could as staff make some assumptions and have some sense of security as to what those assumptions would look like. the big thing that we did in the utilization in those feasibility options is that we made them general. We didn't want to make them so specific.

So although option, I believe it's option three, the general commercial office space, really that could be used to evaluate a community type use or any other use. We wanted to leave the user groups or the tenants, if you will, out and leave more of these scenarios. So we're fairly confident that we could provide some recommendations and some educated assumptions to the Mayor and City Council. And then ultimately, if that was something that we wanted further analysis on, whether it would be Vanner or ultimately engineering at that point, we could work with our Public Works Department to narrow that focus down.

So my last comment here, we've invested quite a bit in Vanner in this contract. perhaps something even to go back to see if they might be able to analyze their own information data and be able to provide us that. Or if alternatively, not maybe staff can look at that. I think it just would be one of the viable options that Council may want to choose or might want to consider in the future. Thank you. That's it.

Mr. Mayor? Yes. Thank you. I want to thank staff for moving forward with the reuse facility of study. One of the questions that I did have on the fiscal analysis One thing that we didn't take into account and I think you guys probably hear me Sing the same song every council meeting, but currently now You know the jail is on city land. It's not you know generating any any taxes It's off the property tax rolls. That's one number two. You know if we look at the options that have been provided. Some are commercial, some are residential use.

Based on status quo, no revenue, no property tax. A, plan B, potential reuse for, and I went to my favorite, which I recommended, which was the data center, and that's page 124. What that would look like if we didn't move, what revenues we would generate if we entered into a public-private partnership and would we eventually move towards partnering up with the private sector to do a data center, whether we lease or potentially sell that site, what kind of revenue would be generated towards the city is important.

And again, the use and the zoning is very paramount and extremely important moving forward. And again, I continue to bring this up because we only have so much land in our city. We're 27.6 square miles. The majority of our land is consumed of pretty much roads and parking. And so we don't generate revenue back from those. Right. And so as I look at, you know, this facility and deciding moving forward with what the city decides to do, please take into consideration Mr. City Manager and that the fiscal analysis should not just be

based on the type of use or partnership in regards to the reuse for example the data center but looking at the opportunities for the city and what it could actually generate so it's not just the community benefit but also how can we continue to generate obviously if it's a commercial use, we will generate more revenue than it would be residential or a mixed use. And I'll give my comparisons later as it pertains to residential versus commercial versus industrial and the return on investment back to the city. It's very important that we start thinking like that in everything that we do

especially with the fiscal constraints that we currently face here in the city. And with that, Mr. Mayor, thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. So, Councillor Solorio?

Yes, thank you. Just so the audience know that we all have different ideas for what to do with the jail. I'll say some comments as well. I'm supportive of the jail uses as it is. I think the jail has served us well and the community some years ago made a good decision for why to go into that business, if you will. We also know that some of the debt associated with the jail goes away in a few years, and so the operation will become more cost-effective.

Finally, in terms of what the study did look at and that I am supportive of, because there are different modules in the jail, is the idea of community reentry services. You know, the state does have, and the federal government to some extent, but the state has substantial resources to invest in reentry facilities where, you know, inmates at state facilities that are going to go back to their home counties or home cities that maybe the last year or two on their term, they go to a facility closer to their, you know, place of home so that during that time they can be reacquainted with their family, you know, given, you know, driving.

you know, licenses, job training, connections with possible housing, work opportunities, etc. And I think that it would be of tremendous benefit to this community that has its challenges with public safety. So I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues and staff on what we do with the jail in

the near future. Thank you. Thank you. So we have a motion to second. Those in favor please say aye. Aye. Those opposed. Comment? Just a quick question. Go ahead.

Mr. Mayor, and I know I saw what happened there. So, you know, I do agree with some of the comments that were made earlier that maybe there's a blend or some compatibility of uses, whether it's a holding facility and a reentry or, you know, vice versa. But those blended or compatible uses could be looked at as well. What I didn't see here was outsourcing. As an asset, is that something that Vanner looked at? is that something that they were told that they were not to consider or what's what's the thought

there so uh thank you councilmember sarmiento as you'll recall the rfq and the original version of the contract had us evaluating four scenarios uh two jail type uses and two non-jail type uses one of which was a contracting out model when we came and presented an update on the conditions assessment we requested input from the City Council on what options would be evaluated. We presented that as an option and ultimately the City Council provided us feedback on evaluating additional non-jail use options. So that one was taken off of the consideration.

We did have a proposal several years back and we felt that at least having that proposal, although not included in this report, would give us a baseline as to what a contracting out scenario would look like. and ultimately the proposals that are in here that were evaluated would require investments, capital investments, and that's what we wanted to get a gauge as to what type of investments would be made. If that's the direction that the City Council would like us to go in, we can absolutely refresh that information, but that wouldn't require any capital improvements.

Right. So, you know, I mean, not to obligate that, but more to have that as one more consideration as we go through, maybe as a way to contrast, right, what that asset would look like and how it would perform in the private sector versus what it does in the public sector and how effective we're being, right? And to me, it's always like sort of your starting point and to see how we're managing an asset. And so sometimes cities aren't really good at doing certain things and delivering certain services. Others can do it better.

It's just a matter of us having some contrast or some starting point for us to consider. Thank you.

Any other comments? I believe we have a motion to second. Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed, the motion carries unanimously. Next item is a receiving file of a letter from the County of Orange regarding the city's support for the county's legal action against the Orange County Needle Exchange Program. Those comments, Councilor Solario?

I'm in support of this item as well, but I would like the staff to summarize what the proposal would do. 65B.

You can restate that, Councilman? You would like to summarize?

Item 65B, which I'm in support of and I think various of my colleagues. Can we have somebody from staff brief the council and the public on what that item does?

This is regarding the needle exchange program.

Looks like we have our homeless manager.

Hi, good evening. Homeless services manager. Good evening, council members. So basically, this letter essentially states that we do support the fact that we should not be having a needle exchange in the city. As you can see, last year, or actually beginning of February 2016, the needle exchange OCNEP began to operate, and unfortunately there were a lot of public health issues and needles found that created for a public health hazard.

That being said, we went ahead in the summer and also provide documentation that had explained all the issues that the community was facing because of the needles found. The OCNEP decided to operate a, or put in a proposal to operate a mobile needle exchange. The California Department of Public Health recently approved that. And so what this is doing is this is essentially stating that as a county goes into taking judicial intervention, that we essentially support the safety of the city of Santa Ana

and want to ensure that there are no needles that are harmful to the general public.

Thank you. And I know this is also consistent with the letters that the city and the chief of police have sent to the state. Absolutely. Thank you. And please keep us in the loop on outcomes. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. So now I would entertain a motion and a second on this.

Move the item. Second.

I think we have it. All right. We have it. Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed, motion carries.

Item 65C.

Seeing no speakers, I'm going to entertain a motion. No, I'm kidding. I know there are folks out there. Brad Bowman, please. Please. Followed by Wendy Bowman.

Good evening, Mayor Polito and City Council. I just learned about this today, basically. I own a business and a building that's right across the street from the proposed site at 3100 West Central Avenue. And we've been operating that facility for close to half a century.

Forgive me, I had to put this together rather quickly because I just found out about it and I was kind of surprised that they would put something together without consulting anybody in the business community surrounding area.

We have long-standing permits from the government to operate a manufacturing facility that uses resin. We make products out of fiberglass. We make products for the government. We make lifeguard towers, etc. And there's a relatively strong odor that comes off of that resin, and my building is directly across the street from this proposed facility. The facility used to be trail ride boat trailers. This is an industrial area. So my concern is that this should remain an industrial and not a residential area. And I'm just concerned about the survival of my business if this goes through.

We have a relatively significant size workforce that's dependent upon the jobs you provide them. Most of my employees are Santa Ana residents, and many of them have been with me for 40 to 20 years.

The West Central Avenue has no sidewalks. It has no streetlights. There's a very heavy industrial traffic that goes on there, including a shipping company with large tractor trailers that apparently service the the male facility there's never any parking on the streets it's extremely crowded there are also no community centers parks other basic community support facilities stores anything in the area so within walking distance of this proposed shelter aluminum precision products is a facility that operates there the buildings that surround next door to me

across the street next door to this facility behind this facility they run their facility 24 hours a day six days a week they make a lot of noise wrap up yes your light is red okay I'm sorry I'm also concerned about the increase in in crime and vandalism which we've seen a lot there and we use a lot of highly flammable chemicals, some of which the fire department approves us storing in our yard and right out near the street. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir.

Wendy Ballman, followed by Janine Stallings, and then Susanna Sandoval.

Hello. I just wanted to urge the city to look at other locations for this uber-large homeless center. for years and years the Santa Ana City has urged business owners to come into this area which they call the enterprise zone and so over the years business owners like myself property owners have been investing in the community here and so for a lot of us over a long period of time we've basically taken a lot of our proceeds in order to renovate and grow our businesses as well as providing more jobs. Over the last couple years, there's been a big increase of people moving into

this area, fixing up the buildings, and we feel like this would be a big deterrent to continue this growth in this particular area. So we understand that the homeless situation is horrible because we have them now living all around us in the riverbed and in the railroad easement, And we've seen a big change in our community since they've come into the area. But we feel that the solution is more a small-based solution, more individualized, like we were talking about earlier with the women in smaller, like, targeted groups being assisted.

This Uber shelter being put into an area where there's lots of jobs and business, I think will ultimately hurt the revenue and hurt the business owners and the job growth, and in turn hurt the city because we're paying taxes into this city. And you're making money off of us, and we just wish that you would take that money and target the homeless situation in better areas that have more community service for them. this area is just businesses, just industrial with no community services for them no parks, nowhere for them to go during the day so I just think it's not a great location and I would urge you to look elsewhere

thank you very much

Jenny Stallings followed by Susanna Sandoval

Mayor, Council Members, thank you my name is Janine Stallings I'm a homeowner in Santa Ana and I'm here to advocate for people experiencing homelessness in our city. I live about three miles away from the proposed location and near MHA, which I assume will remain in its current location. I'm in favor of the shelter and any services that you guys can provide to support people experiencing homelessness. I think many people hear the word homeless and react based on stereotypes. They think of how a person seems during a brief interaction on the street at the lowest point in that person's life when they've spent years being

neglected and victimized, when they've had to make choices that you and I have never been faced with. Some of my neighbors are concerned that people with disabilities and medical conditions, specifically mental illness and addiction, may live in the development. Medical status is a protected disability and as such, excluding someone based on that is tantamount to excluding somebody based on race or religion.

Arguments like, my property values will suffer, they'll cause crime here, I don't want them around my children, have been used for decades in attempts to keep people of certain races or religions out of neighborhoods. And honestly, I'm saddened that my neighbors would put the possibility of reduced home value or decreased profit above the needs of members of our communities who have no homes at all. Promoting stereotypes about homelessness is harmful to our community, and it shows a lack of understanding. People experiencing homelessness are sons and daughters, siblings, spouses, veterans. They are abused women.

There are people who have experienced discrimination and repeated violations against their person and dignity. But most importantly, they are people, just like anyone else, and they belong in our communities. I am in favor of this development and its on-site services as one part of a greater approach to addressing the homelessness crisis in Santa Ana. On an individual basis, this type of sheltering is not a long-term solution. I hope the city is concurrently considering additional innovative evidence-based housing-first solutions to lift people out of homelessness. Thank you, Ms. Dullings. Thank you.

Susanna Sandoval, followed by Lisa Mills. And then Chris Schmidt.

Good evening. The Santa Ana Healthy Neighborhoods Alliance opposes the proposed MOU as it is written and urges you to vote no. Santa Ana now provides 70% of the shelters, beds and OC and 50% of the homeless reported coming from outside Santa Ana. According to the US Census, Santa Ana has a total area of 27.5 square miles. It is the fourth most densely populated place in the United States with a population of 338,247 with density of 12,471 people per square mile.

The proposed magnitude of the shelter that houses 600 beds is not a reasonable, considering the density of our city and the services that we struggle currently to provide. The proposed location at 3100 West Central Avenue or other industrial area is not a solution. The industrial areas are for manufacturing companies and to generate more businesses moving into Santa Ana, not out of Santa Ana. Have there been environmental studies on the proposed locations? Have the city planners drawn up the design on the proposed shelter and how it would work for public knowledge and input?

Is there a 600-bed shelter model currently in the nation that the city manager, staff, and council have researched, its operation and functionality? If one does exist, does it have the density and similar characteristics of Santana? Have public forums been held for business owners, residents, and schools to be engaged and have a voice in the MOU proposed policies? The proposed MOU with the county is contrary to the Sunshine Ordinance that requires transparency and accountability.

We recommend that you work with the county, Costa Mesa, and Governor Brown to consider Fairview Developmental Center as a viable and reasonable solution as one of the OC homeless shelter sites. This facility was designed to provide housing and services to special needs populations. It is a safe and secure space that can provide a green environment. Finally, the relocation of the Mental Health Association Multi-Service Center on Maine needs to be included in a revised MOU with the county.

You have all received email reports and photos of the devastation for the businesses, school children, and parents who experience daily inappropriate behaviors of the homeless with mental illness and drug addiction. We support transitional and permanent housing with services for homeless to be spread across the county and represented in all five districts.

Thank you. Lisa Mills, followed by Chris Schmidt.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council. Thanks for listening to me once again. I really appreciate you taking the time. You know, I understand that this MOU has been negotiated with the City staff, City Attorney, and the Mayor, and it's involved a lot of complicated work and process. But I ask you to think of a couple things about not changing the intent of the MOU, but to strengthen it, again, to help the city's position and protect our financial interest. If you allocate $3.5 million towards this facility or any facility and $1 million a year,

then you should have an absolute guarantee on the operational agreement, the operational plan, a commitment not to increase the beds over $600 and to approve the operator. I think you should also have the flexibility to decide how those 600 beds are distributed. I think 600 beds for Orange County and Santa Ana, no other city, no other city in Orange County would ever, ever allow a 600-bed shelter. Just think about that. No other city, Anaheim, Irvine, anyone would allow a 600-bed emergency shelter.

I think the most important thing is if we're going to have a facility and we need 600 beds, it should be a 200-bed emergency facility and two smaller Bridges Kramer-type facilities. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Lisa, and thank you for all the work. I know you've come out to a lot of hearings over at the court, and you're following very closely. Chris, followed by Micah Tardif.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. I'd like to also follow up with Lisa. I know that this is an issue our city has been trying to address for years. I know a lot of you have been working close with Judge Carter. I appreciate all your help. But we as a city back in 2013 decided that 200 beds was the maximum we would allow in a single facility, and we drafted and passed an ordinance. So I'm sitting here today trying to understand why we're proposing one 600-bed shelter. It seems like we're ignoring the community's concerns and input. So by relocating the courtyard shelter and adding 200 beds, what does that solve?

Oh, well, we'll be able to enforce our no camping ordinance. No. As Michelle knows, the Ninth Circuit Court made a decision today saying you cannot enforce it if you do not have sufficient beds. So even if we open this facility and we know there was 1,000 people counted in our last point in time, there's still 400 people on the street. So this doesn't solve anything. Judge Carter is going to make sure that this is a low-barrier facility. People will be able to come and go just like they can at the courtyard. There's no protection for the business owners who are here today.

Anaheim is proposing several smaller shelters, but none of them have been approved. Will they be open by the end of the year? Probably not. We keep forgetting about all the great things our city has already done. Aqua Project, Orchard, Veterans Village. Salvation Army, Wise Place, when you take those facilities that's 337 beds that are available in our city. Why can't we have just a 200 bed shelter just like we agreed to in 2013? I'd greatly appreciate if you would reconsider the number. We want a homeless shelter but 200 beds should be the max. Thank you. Thank you.

Mike Tardif please okay so therefore how did he fill out two forms he's very good he's not here and he filled out two forms got it all right with that let me bring it back to council for consideration make a motion to approve mayor Potem has made a motion is there a second second comment councilman Senator Vince Armiento.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Look, I want to thank my colleagues. Many of you have spent hours and time and invested efforts in trying to figure out a solution to this. I also want to thank our staff. I know from Deputy Chief Kaminsky, Mr. Cortez, our city manager, and all the other staff people that just invested numerous hours to try to get this resolved. Look, I applaud your efforts and I applaud what we're trying to do here. I just can't support this unless there's some language, Madam City Attorney, we can add to provision number one on the MOU,

which reads, city, comma, in collaboration with the county, comma, to select and acquire a site or sites so long as a subject homeless shelter is outside the city of Santa Ana. So I'm all for us funding a site so long as it's outside the city boundary. I think that there's plenty of other spaces in the Central Spa that we could find that we could certainly help monetize and contribute to. But we've certainly borne that burden for many years.

I think it's only fair that other cities within the Central Spa do their share. So with that additional language, I would support that without that, so I'll go ahead and move the item with that friendly amendment. To the extent that somebody wants to second it, if they don't, I can't support the motion. I think that even though my colleagues have been genuine and our staff has been genuine in their efforts to try to figure this out, the county has been disingenuous. They're the lead agency, they're the vested agency with trying to resolve this.

And so unfortunately, they have changed terms, they've changed provisions, they've made things very difficult. They've called this a fake crisis. To the extent that we are dealing with folks who let this go for years, when they get the funding from HUD to address this problem, Look, I just think we're dealing with folks who are not being genuine with us, and I don't trust folks. There was a man who said, trust but verify.

And I know one of the clerks for Judge Carter found that there's a lot of money that the county has for just this issue that they've been storing away, and they haven't spent. So to the extent that they step up and do something outside of our boundaries, I'm completely supportive. because what's going to compensate us for all the years and all the investment and the burden that we've inflicted on our residents, our businesses, and children? So I simply can't go there without that condition. But again, this is no criticism to my colleagues trying to work in earnest and in good faith,

but unfortunately they've been dealing with an agency and with folks who haven't been dealing with them in good faith.

Thank you. I see no second to the motion but I do see Bob Neal who apparently had turned in a card so if he could please address us at this time sir then I'll come back

to Council thank you mr. mayor and council members my name is Rob Neal and I'm the managing partner of Hager Pacific properties located in Newport Beach we're the owner of the property at 3100 West Central Avenue we purchased the property earlier this year and have already invested about a million dollars in renovating the property. It's about half leased. I was only made aware of the situation affecting this property last Friday, but I feel very strongly about the matter at hand. I wanted to address the council directly. To give you a little bit of background about our firm,

we're the owners of approximately 125 properties throughout California and the United States. We're well experienced in industrial. We're active in the community. My partners and I sit on several nonprofit boards, several of which address homeless problems directly. Because of our business experience and our nonprofit background, we want to register our strong opposition to this property being taken by the city and the county to become a homeless housing facility. In less than a mile radius, there are dozens of businesses employing 100 employees or more

each, including some national companies, Bear Paint, Kelly Paper, Aramac, Honeywell Safety Products, and more. These businesses are a strong source of property tax and employer tax revenue for the city and the county, and taking this property and developing it to house hundreds of homeless people will put all of that in jeopardy. This is a situation we've recently seen enacted in Oakland where we own quite a bit of property.

We understand the city and the county are under tremendous pressure to find a solution to the homeless problem, but our property is not it for the reasons that I've discussed earlier. As an owner of a real estate firm, our job is to make a profit. When I have to tell the City Council we do not want to sell our property at any price, under any condition, because we fear the terrible implications for the surrounding area, you know something must be really wrong. We urge the City Council to remove 3100 and 3120 West Central from consideration for the development of homeless shelter. Thank you very much for your attention.

Thank you. Mr. Neal, before you leave, can you please leave your car or something with our city manager? Because it's my understanding we've been trying to contact yourself and or the representatives for how long, Ms. City Manager? Quite some time, yes?

That is correct, and I understand that Mr. Neal has been in contact with my staff, I guess, earlier today, and I know recently.

That's correct, Mr. City Manager. Only today. I was contacted, our broker was contacted about two months ago, and at that time we registered our opposition to being interested to selling the property, and I thought the matter was ended until I got a call Friday morning, and it didn't even come to me. It came to my assistant property manager. So we really only became aware of the situation the day before a long holiday weekend, right before the council meeting when you're going to consider this MOU.

Well, please give them your card so that we can have direct contact. All right. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for coming down.

So with that, we have an original motion. Do we have more comment? Councilman Benavides and Solario, please. Thank you, Mayor.

One of the things I wanted to state to members of the public, I know we have a number of residents who have been following this, who have provided some sound comments tonight and via email and phone calls over the last few weeks.

and as referenced by one of my colleagues, we've been trying to work with the county to bring some type of tangible resolution and address the very serious concern, very real concern that a lot of our residents and businesses have relative to the homeless issue and challenge in our community. This MOU tonight is as close as we've gotten to be able to have something that is binding and that will make it so that the city and the county can proactively work together. the courts have been calling on us to get somewhere. And tonight the action is, in essence, a step towards proactively binding the two entities

to be able to work together to come to some conclusions and some solutions. Part of the MOU also allows for a scenario in which the property in question does not materialize to ensure that we look at other opportunities, other possibilities. Frankly, likely that might end up being the situation, the case, but we need to have a starting place, a starting point in conversation. So that, in essence, is what we're seeing tonight. The council taking action to engage the county or vice versa so that we can proactively work towards something that is binding.

perhaps what we might end up with is the multi-site smaller shelters. In any case, this is again our attempts to be able to bring some resolution and some proactive solutions. So we are hearing again once again, Council is hearing the comments of the public. and as a follow-up to this MOU, if this passes tonight, we will continue to bring those comments and those thoughts, ideas into the discussion with the county so that we can bring something that will be amenable to most of the members of the community. That's my comment. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for that.

Councillor Solorio. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. You know, I, on the whole, don't support this. There are many elements that are not workable, including the featured site and having the potential of use of that site out a year or two isn't helpful for the crisis we have today but having said that, the status quo also isn't acceptable. We do need to continue to be creative and work with our county and city partners and so I have some suggestions for staff and my colleagues but if nothing else

There will be ideas I will be submitting in a letter to the county and others. I would suggest, for example, that number one, this is also an MOU. So there are general terms that can be worked on and will be refined later. But having said that, operational control is critical. We've seen here in our town some facilities that don't work really well, including the courtyard because of the operational standards. whereas for example bridges at Kramer and Anaheim much better operational standards and control so that's good so we need to add in more details in the

future dealing with who the provider is and having a little bit of a say should be somebody from Orange County rather than somebody from Los Angeles for example operational standards security transportation in and out those things are very critical also we've seen with some county facilities or even with some of our partners like Weisplace sometimes because we don't have good MOUs with the county they have data on who is staying at these facilities but they have been unwilling to share that data with us so although we have some data some information and the MOU about how many are going to be from Santa Ana or the

spa we don't have local folks reviewing that data it's really hard to hold the county or other agencies accountable. Also I think this 600 to 700 facility idea comes from the fact that to fully enforce our anti-camping ordinances and and remove the courtyard which none of us support being in the downtown to move it out the 600 to 700 size has been mentioned by the court but I believe and And I'm hopeful that as other cities in the central spa area, whether it be Costa Mesa, Tustin, Huntington Beach, Garden Grove, Westminster, or Newport Beach, that as they add on beds,

that really then should reduce the number that need to be in Santa Ana. Because I agree with Council Member Ben Sarmiento that why can't some of these central spa facilities be outside of our city boundaries but in partnership. Finally, I think we all know, including I know Krish mentioned the policy that we set regarding what is an ideal size for these facilities. And we know from national best practices, 600 to 700 bed facility is not ideal. I think many of you know, too, that I was raised in Kern County, went to Wasco High School. And, you know, that's about the size of many high schools.

That's a humongous size and we ought to look at facility sizes that are smaller than that.

Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Villegas.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'll be brief. Council Member Benavides wanted me to mention, and it's true, we all know that this facility that we're trying to put together is to replace the courtyard, able to move the people across the street over here, move them down to another location. just because the number of beds says 600 doesn't mean it's actually going to be 600. You've got to remember that. Listen, folks, this is a very, very tough decision to make. No one can tell me exactly where we're going to put this shelter and everyone's going to be happy. No one. So, you know, you've got to make a tough call.

And, you know, that's what we get paid for. That's why we're elected here, to make a tough call. There's a lot of conversations that go on in that back room that we cannot share. And I'm not hearing it here. I'm hearing a little dancing here, but that's about it. So believe me, we are trying very hard to do the best that we can for the city of Santa Ana. Some people are looking for political cover. Some people are looking for who knows what. I just like to call it the way it is. And this is very, very tough. We are definitely trying to, you know, we are affected by the homeless crisis here also.

There is nothing better than we would like than to come up with a good solution. Some folks up here don't have a solution. They just, you know, do some of this. But here, we're presenting a solution. And it might not be permanent, it'll be for a while, and I hope my colleagues are there for it. But, you know, this is what we're here for, right, sir? To make these tough calls. And that's what I have to say. Thank you to my colleagues and supporters.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem Martínez.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. made the motion for discussion purposes and I just wanted to just articulate very quickly sometimes we have to get off the dance floor and get to the balcony and for far too long you know we have only penalized the homeless that have resulted in tremendous amount of lawsuits for the city of Santa Ana and millions and millions of dollars today we heard from the business community and want to thank you for coming out. We've heard from our residents. And guess what? The business community doesn't want them in their backyard. The residents don't want them in their backyard.

We have to figure out something, folks. When you look at our downtown and what is happening, one fire, and I continue to talk about this, one fire and we will become North Hollywood. And if you all know what happened to North Hollywood in the late 80s, all we need, and And Santa Ana is a golden city, the city of opportunity, and we see the greatness of this community. We cannot turn a blind eye. Doing nothing is no longer an option. We have to come together to solve this problem. And yes, the county has a responsibility.

Unfortunately, they have not done the job that they're supposed to do. but we cannot manage them. We are not the board of supervisors, number one. Number two, we have put pressure on other cities to do its job. We have a great police department that cannot enforce the laws here. They're handcuffed. And so when we get the phone calls and we get the emails from our residents and from the business community that why isn't the police doing anything to address the issues in regards to homelessness. Well, guess what? We don't

have the beds, so they cannot enforce the law. We need to try something, and this is the attempt that we're trying to do, and I think as we move forward, but I heard it very loud and clear from some of you in this audience today that you all don't want this in your backyard and so we're gonna have to come together and realize that if we go a big site or smaller sites it's going to have to be near residential it's going to have to be near commercial and industrial because guess what we're built out we don't have where are we going to put them you

want them back in the civic center here i think we all heard for how many years for 20 30 years that we wanted them out of the Civic Center. They are now out. We now have a responsibility and obligation to act and that's what this council is trying to do. I do respect my colleague Councilman Sarmiento and Councilman Solorio and their positions but ultimately today is one step forward to holding the county accountable and that's our responsibility. And lastly I just want to thank our staff for the tremendous work that they have been doing to helping us move this far.

Thank you all so very much. Thank you. Councilor Ortiz, a head of please. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

First and foremost, staff, thank you very much for your hard work. A lot of people don't know that you've been coming in on Saturdays and trying to get as much done as you possibly could on holidays. They were here yesterday working on this issue. It's not an easy issue to work out. I do want to say one thing, though. One of our speakers came up, and she made a very, very strong point. And she said that she doesn't believe that we have followed the Sunshine Ordinance on this. And she discussed about how many times have we met with school districts, have we met with the colleges, have we met with surrounding areas, and so forth.

I know for a fact that the conversations with the school district have been minimal, and it does affect the children. So board members have been asking me, hey, when are you guys going to engage in a conversation with us about this homeless issue? Because we want to be partners, and if we're really partners, we work on this together. So on the flip side, I do want to say this as well.

It's not easy, and I didn't appreciate last week, and I have to be critical of one of my colleagues. I did not appreciate two weeks ago when the mayor said that we should send our police officers to harass the homeless people. Because it may be if we harass them enough, then they're going to leave our city. That's red meat. That comes straight out of the Trump playbook. The reality is, if that did happen, we have a federal judge who would say, Oh, really, Santa Ana? You're going to harass homeless people? You're going to violate their rights? Good. Here's what we're going to do. We're not going to let you enforce.

and then homeless individuals would have free reign over the city. That's why you have to be careful on what you say because what you say does matter. Here there are some people working diligently to create solutions and that is what we're trying to do. And then you have another leader who decides that he's going to throw some red meat out there. Hopefully it can help stir up his base. So we have to make sure that we're working for the city of Santa Ana. You can't come up here and act like you are doing everything you can to help homelessness, but in another breath say that you want them to be harassed.

So I do want to make sure that we do communicate with the other partners that we have, Mr. City Manager, and that is going to make it easier for me to support this, but Mayor Pro Tem Martinez is 100% correct. At what point we've bent, stretched, done everything we possibly could to meet the needs of people. There was another one that was being proposed over up in the industrial zone, over by the zoo in that area. And what happened there was that all of a sudden individuals came up and started to explain why we shouldn't do it there. There is a way where you can create these shelters. Anaheim did a great job of this.

You get referred in. No one walks in. There's no signage. You get referred in. There's a gate. Someone checks who's referring you. You get driven in by an agency. They go in. They never come out until they're going to a medical facility or if they're being placed in another residential place. Councilman, I'll wrap. The Mercy House does a great job of this. There are people that do good work. All we have to do is get educated about the great service that they put in. In Anaheim, all of the different people in that area, in that industrial zone, opposed it.

But then they saw it work, and then they went, oh, there's a responsible way to do this.

And that's what we're advocating for. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Look, details matter here. And I know that we're talking about basically an open shelter, not a bridges. And bridges, it's one where you please start the light. Bridges is one where you do have to be referred in. We're not talking about that. And so there's a difference. But we're going to have to have very, very strong police presence. And that's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about that right now our police are in essence handicapped and so the city is under siege We have you know homeless throughout the city that we can't do anything about

they're there and And and and the police come and unless they're doing something really egregious They can't even really engage in a conversation and and that's not right You know we have to be able to protect our residents. We have to protect the businesses We have to protect the schools. We have to protect a lot of folks that are being negatively impacted. And we can't just pretend the problem is going to go away. It's not. That's why I support we move with the county on the shelter so that at some point in the near future we have the ability to say,

look, if you're on the street and you want to go somewhere, we'll take you somewhere. And if you don't, then we're going to have a problem because you just can't live in our parks. You can't just take over our civic center. You can't go into our residences and say this is now my new home. I'm going to sit on somebody's front lawn and just sit there. And you can't do anything about it. That's just not right. And so I know our Deputy Chief Kaminsky knows what I'm talking about when he says, I want to be released. I want to be able to help out this community.

And we're not talking about beating up homeless or harassing or doing bad things to anybody. but we need a level playing field somebody has to be standing up for the city and that's why this entire council voted to sue other cities to make sure they do their fair share and I'll tell you this is a long-term process you know we can't do one thing and everything's resolved and everything's over we have to take this in steps and as long as we're going in the right direction I believe we're going to end up in a good place and that's why I believe the right thing to do today is to enforce you know to adopt this ordinance I know we don't

want it next to you know Kennedy Elementary we tried that that didn't work and doesn't work next to any school I know we don't want it in residences or other areas I think industrial is the least harm and really the only option and also to get other cities to do the same so with that I think we've all had a chance to speak. Who hasn't spoken?

Mr. Mayor? All right, quick question. This is going to be an ongoing thing as well, and there are some issues that I think we've raised up here, the public has raised. Can you, to the extent possible, try to help us address some of these other issues?

Absolutely, and this is going to be an ongoing process. Thank you. Judge Carter has already indicated he's going to stay on the bench for at least another two years and and it's going to take a lot of tweaking a lot of work to make it happen so with that those in favor please say aye aye no those opposed we have one one no

and i believe that's it all right with that i think the council uh there's a big issue let's move forward to our next item item 75 a and this is in councilmember Vince Sarmiento's district are we were the Mimu so let me call on councilmember if I may please I'll go ahead and up ask the councilmember Benavides I believe had a

question on this. Okay, go ahead, Council Member. I just wanted to get clarity from staff, and I do appreciate it. I've had an opportunity to meet with a couple of folks recently. I brought some questions for last meeting, and Councilman Sarmento was not able to be in attendance on that one, some following up on some of the questions that I asked, but one in particular,

what's being proposed and making some slight modifications to the existing zone and then adding and extending into another zone.

for the options with regard to adopting either adopting the two separately or being obligated to adopt together. Can staff address that? Last week, I think there was a mention that we might need to have it together, but I'm still not clear, basically. So the question is, is it possible to bifurcate so that we can have a little bit of more days?

Just for clarity of purpose, when you say bifurcate, meaning that you want to make the policy changes that are affecting the existing MIMU, but not consider the expansion area? Right. So if we were to look at – there are still some additional questions. Questions, and based on we had conversation earlier, there are some pending questions there that I have that I think others might have as well.

That a bit more time, even a few more days, just to be able to extend and have some more of that conversation might be helpful. However, the existing that's been in place for a number of years, that one is the recommendations from staff are not that significant. It's not a completely new overlay zone there. It's modifying what already exists. So my question is, is it possible to move forward with the modifications on the existing site tonight and then come back perhaps as soon as next meeting?

There's a council committee, a land use council committee in a few days who potentially will be able to address some of the questions there and bring it back, bring the expansion back out of a subsequent meeting. I think certainly that could be an option. because the environmental impact in the project did analyze the entire proposed expansion as well as the policy changes. However, I think if we're able to really turn this around in a fairly short time frame, one of the options is that let's just review the entire project as a whole and any policy recommendation

and the expansion could be all done at the same time, I think it's something that can be done fairly quickly because the policy changes will affect the existing and then also the proposed MIMU. And one of the things that we want to ensure is that the CEQA documentation that was completed for the project evaluate the entire area. So, yes, it could be done, but I think if we were to provide direction to come back fairly quickly, we can also come back with some proposed changes that could have addressed the entire project area.

Yes, Councillor Rince Armiento. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you, Min. So, yeah, just to follow up on that, first I wanted to thank my colleagues for putting this over. this is in Ward 1 and it's a site that's been you know a question for many of us for many years not only is it the old Elks property that had the Elk site on there it has the Elk site on there but it was the old site that had the saddle back in as well that burned down you know years ago so it's a really important site for the city because it really is on on an arterial that leads into the central part of the city on first right off of the five freeway and

right off of the 55, so it's in a critical area right next to the zoo as well. So I think, yeah, the question, I guess, that the Councilman was asking was something I also had a question about. I certainly don't have a problem with putting it over because I do think there's some issues that we need to talk about, not just the expanded boundary area and how that was arrived at, but what are maybe some of the changes in the existing area that may not be applicable to the expanded area.

So I know we've had that existing area for a few years, and I understand that the cap is going to remain the same for residential, so it's at 5,500, and it's going to remain that way even with a larger expanded footprint for the overlay zone. Isn't that diluting the whole idea and the premise of trying to intensify the use along forth? and so it was counterintuitive to me when it when I first read it and I saw that not only was there one environmental impact study done but a subsequent one was done because there was a finding that the elk site was you know could qualify as a historic property correct and so to scrape that

and to lose that even though it wasn't it's not on the list it's still one one less historical site that we have in the city and it's a significant loss so do we want to trade that for a bunch of residential my concern has always been do we have the right balance of commercial and residential and again i think to one of the council members i think it was mayor pro tem who mentioned the economic impact when i read the letter from aecom that was retained to opine on this correct they were very very um unclear about what the impact was and so i don't think it's it was compelling one way or the other i know the lights red so again

And I think additional time will help. But again, those questions specifically are ones that I think-

If there is a motion for a continuance, I would so-I'd make a motion to continue in two weeks.

Mr. Mayor, you still have comment. All right. Is there a second?

I'll second. Thank you. Go ahead, Mayor Prokamp.

I'm glad that our Executive Director is here. And as I mentioned, you know, and I asked this question, is this our best work? And obviously, I just want to highlight some things. You know, when we approved this overlay zone about 12 years ago, and we did it during a time where there was a recession. And obviously for about six years, you know, we didn't see much development. But these past six years, we have seen some development. And I asked a question to my colleagues, is this the right development? Is this the kind of development we actually wanted to see in that zone? And you know what? To be honest, no.

And again, we always just say yes because we have this sense that we're not the golden city. That we don't deserve the best developers. That we don't deserve to make sure that we generate enough revenue to pay for the services that the business community and the residents continue to want. Police and fire and public works and planning and parking. And all these other services. It costs money. It costs resources. 90% of the city's revenue goes to salaries and benefits. And then people will say, well, we want to make government smaller. Well, guess what?

We have 154,000 jobs. Well, guess who's the majority of the biggest employer here? Government. The federal, state, local. 105,000 jobs. 105,000 people coming in here. 78% of the residents that live in this community commute outside for employment. Only 21% live and work in this community. And you can get all this data. I can send it all to you. I'm a nerd. I'm all about numbers because math matters. It matters. And so when I look at this, we can do better. This is not our best work.

When we look at residential versus commercial and industrial, We need to make sure that we have mixed use and the developments that we've had do not have mixed use. We can no longer do standalone housing. We need mandatory commercial in that zone. And so I'm going to encourage my colleagues to look at the numbers. I am putting a presentation to show my colleagues what I'm talking about with all the figures to articulate what this means and the decisions that you all are making. Thank you.

Thank you. We have a motion and a second. Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. The opposed motion carries. Our next item is item 75B. This is to continue a public hearing to September 18th. I would entertain that motion as well. Motion approved. Second. Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. I have the opposed motion carried. 75C, this is a public hearing to establish hearing dates and hold first of four public hearings to modify the ward boundaries. We have speakers.

We do have two speakers. We actually have a presentation. I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce this item for the members of the public and the City Council. Tonight is the first of four scheduled public hearings to consider the Ward Reboundaries. The next hearings will be September 18th, October 16th, October 30th, and finally on November 30th, all of which will be held here in the council chamber. There will also be four community meetings held throughout the community. We held our first one last Thursday. We have one scheduled for the coming Thursday at 6 p.m. at the

Southwest Community Center, one on Monday at 6 p.m. at Delhi Center, and finally on Saturday, September 15th at Salgado Center, and we encourage the public to be part of this process. I would like to now turn it over to Paul Mitchell who is our consultant and will be presenting tonight's presentation. Thank you for having me here tonight.

If I bring the presentation up here. Thank you. Thank you for having me here again tonight. What we have been doing, we've been conducting a series of hearings and the information on those hearings is available on the website. I have a presentation that is essentially the same presentation that the council members have seen before and many members of the audience who have attended either the council meetings or public hearing have also seen this presentation. But essentially going to go through the basics of redistricting and then also

give some details about the preliminary drafts of lines that I've created in order to further the discussion. To start off, the California Voting Rights Act is a law passed in California that's essentially built on the Federal Voting Rights Act, but it is specific only to at-large elections, and it deals with converting at-large areas to districted elections and in areas where there is racially polarized voting.

A couple things that the state law does to go further than federal law is it reduces the threshold by which you would have to go to districted elections. Under federal law, if you have the ability to create majority-minority districts, you might be subject to a forced situation where you're going to have to draw districts. Under state law, it reduces that from majority-minority to the ability to influence an election. It also changes the calculus for people who might want to sue. Under the federal law, you'd have to go to federal court. It could take years, and there's no real guarantee that a plaintiff is going to get any damages.

Under state law, it sets out the damages that you would obtain. It makes it much easier, and there have been some rather excessive damages paid in California under the CVRA.

In order to draw districts, what we do for CVRA compliance is we follow a lot of the same standard redistricting practices that have been used in California and around the country. Some of these are based on statutes. Some of these are based simply on case law. The first one is that when you draw districts, districts need to be of equal size. And that means equal size not based on geography or voters, but it means equal size based on total population from the most recent decennial census.

In the city of Santa Ana, we're looking at a 2010 population of around 325,000 people. And when we draw districts that are relatively equal size, we're looking at something around 52,000 to 55,000 people per district.

When we talk about the population that is the eligible voter population, we'll talk about something called the citizen voting age population under the American Community Survey. When we look at that population, we're down to 140,000 citizen voting age population and a current voter registration of under 100,000 people.

A second criteria that we're going to use in drawing districts is that they're contiguous. And this is rather simple. It just means that they're whole parts. We're not going to have districts that are going to hop and jump around.

We're going to also look at maintaining communities of interest. Now, communities of interest can mean a few different things. First off, it does mean those ethnic, religious, minority populations that are covered by the Voting Rights Act. These are protected classes. In this district, in this city, we particularly look at Latinos, Asians, African Americans, religious communities, and others.

When we look at this population, we're not going to say how many Asian voters are in a district. We're not going to say how many Latino people are in a district. We're going to be looking at that citizen voting age population. That's what the courts have said is really the number to look at for the purposes of drawing districts. When we look at the city as a whole, it's 17% Asian and 60% Latino.

But if we map this population, we look at where the census says these populations are found, we actually see concentrations of both populations. Looking at the Latino population, we see some areas with extremely high, 88, 87, over 90% Latino.

When we look at the Asian population, we can actually see that more on the eastern side of the San Ano River, and we see populations of Asians at 50, 60% Asian. And so we see distinct concentrations.

But these aren't the only criteria that we're going to be using in drawing district lines. We're also going to be looking at communities of interest based on other ways in which the public interacts with the city, the issues that different areas might have. One of the issues in an earlier agenda item had to do with the homelessness. And you could look at where homelessness is a bigger issue as one of the criteria to look at for creating a community of interest under redistricting.

We can also look at areas that maybe be more residential, more of a downtown area, more businesses, access to certain amenities, environmental issues, or the type of housing, whether it's apartment complexes, single family homes, and so on.

another criteria we're going to follow is using existing city county governmental lines and that could include looking at the existing council districts where we can to utilize some of the existing geography and then finally on this list keeping districts compact and compact doesn't mean small compact means in shape rather more square or spherical less serpentine and strange looking. When we look at the existing council district lines, we can see that the district

is broken into six areas, and they are roughly equal in size. In one of my future slides, I think here, I have a little breakdown of the population. But we can also see that that area that we identified as having the heavily Asian population was broken into three different districts. Now there could have been some idea that at the time this meant that three council members really had to listen to the Asian population. Three council members or half of the council would be representing a large Asian population. However, under traditional redistricting

principles, the guiding idea is allowing this population to be able to be strong enough in one area to effectively have an impact on the outcome of an election in selecting a candidate of choice.

in looking at other geographies one of the things we obtained from the city very early on was the existing neighborhoods these neighborhoods are not something that just fell out of the sky these are something that were probably argued a lot about people really have passion about what neighborhood they're from they identify as being from a neighborhood and so these lines while they are not, in a sense, going to drive every decision we make in redistricting. They can provide a nice little template for us to build upon. When we look at these populations in these neighborhoods,

we can also see that there are big neighborhoods and small neighborhoods in terms of population. We can see the voting age population in each. We can see some that are very heavily Latino and some less so. And the same thing true with the Asian population. We see some that are very heavily Asian and some less so. Other geographies that can be laid upon the city in order to help guide us are other governmental agencies. And this is meaningful too as a community of interest. As anybody who went to a school knows, you identify with the school you went to. You identify with your

school district. And that might mean something. And in fact, again, drawing our eyes towards that Asian portion of the city, we see the Garden Grove Unified School District, and when we look at the district and plans, we'll come back to that as potentially something that we could utilize as a geography, a political boundary that we can use as a way to help us draw our district lines.

We also have state legislative districts, and I don't know what conversation might have happened in local, the state redistricting process here when these lines were adopted, but potentially there was community of interest discussion at the time of drawing these lines. This is the state legislative and congressional district boundaries. As you can see, the congressional district boundaries did take from the Asian population, put down the 48th congressional district, while leaving the remainder, the bulk of the population, the most Latino portion, in fact, in the 46th congressional district.

We also finally have precincts. These precincts can serve us in two ways. One, we can make the county and county registrars, their jobs a little bit easier by trying to respect precinct boundaries as much as possible. But also, precincts mean something because the county and the registrar have put actual energy into making sure that if people are living together in a precinct, that they can physically get to the same precinct location, the same voting location. These are not drawn willy-nilly. These are drawn based on communities and areas that can be working together, living together, and voting in the same precinct.

So there is some rational basis for utilizing these lines if possible. When we look at the current city council districts, and we added this portion to the presentation for this meeting because of some community input the last meeting. When we look at that, we do see this, I think the most striking thing about it is the way the Asian district is drawn. And you can see in here, as we're going to see in a lot of these slides, we've broken out for each council district, the population. Each of the populations in this plan are around 50,000, 55,000.

And they all are within a small deviation, 1% greater or 2% less in terms of its total deviation. That means that in terms of deviation, this plan is ideal. We have stayed within a very respectable 3% range between the largest district and the smallest district. We also see one striking thing in the citizen voting age population of this plan. And we see that in the largest citizen voting age population, we have Council District 3 with 30,000 people. In the smallest, we have Council District 2 with only 16,000 people.

That's a striking difference, but it speaks to not just the number of citizens in each of the council districts, but also how many people are older, or conversely, how many young people and children we have in that council district. And we can see that vary to a great deal, council district to district. We also see, and I'm going through this in a kind of belabored process because it's the first slide, but we see Latino citizen voting age population, and we see a district with 80% Latino, And we see another district with the smallest percent at 45. We have a calculation of white citizen voting age population as well.

African American citizen voting population. And then finally Asian citizen voting age population. And notably the highest citizen voting age population that's Asian is 32%. So let's put a bookmark in that as kind of a benchmark or a way for us to note how the districts were drawn for the Asian population.

As I developed plans for this council and the public to discuss, essentially what I'm trying to do is utilize different concepts, either using the existing city plans that are in place now, using plans to follow school district boundaries, using plans to maximize the number of neighborhoods that can be kept whole, and so on. This first plan draws from the existing city council lines to a certain extent, and if you were to put them side by side with the council lines, you might see some shared boundaries. But at the same time, it sought to create, draw your attention down to District A at the very bottom,

the Asian citizen voting age population of 43%. That's significantly greater than the existing citizen voting age population of the most Asian district in the existing lines. When we look at it as a whole map, and you can see much, much better detail on the physical printed copies, you'll see that we did as much as we could to keep neighborhoods together. And the best kind of input we can get going forward as we look at these different plans is input from the public to say, this one neighborhood and this other neighborhood are related, they should stay together.

Or these two neighbors are not communities that work with each other and share amenities, go to the same churches, go to the same schools, and so they're not necessarily as important to stay together.

Plan B is a second version of this, where I tried to essentially follow some of the same principles of maintaining neighborhoods together, but I didn't follow much of any of the existing council district plans. And in this version, I was able to maintain certain districts that were heavily Latino, one district being 81% Latino, that district F, and then an Asian citizen voting age population of 45%. Note, by the way, somebody asked this, why am I using letters? the council districts are numbers but I'm using letters because I don't want to

predispose the council as to how they're going to ultimately number these plans because numbering of the plans and choosing of the election dates for each district is going to be the council's decision not mine and so to keep this an open discussion I'm using letters and the council can cross that bridge when we come to adopting a final plan.

Plan C, again, uses some of the existing architecture and then also follows some of the existing major streets in the district in order to create the six seats in a way that, again, seeks to keep neighborhoods together, seeks to draw the lines in a way that represents the way the community lives, and also exploring different ways to, in particular, draw this Asian seat on the eastern side, and again, achieving a population of 44% Asian.

And the final draft plan, one that I believe the plaintiffs asked us to spend a little bit more time on, is Plan D. In Plan D, several slides ago I showed the Garden Grove Unified School District and I put a note there and I said we're going to come back to that. The Garden Grove Unified School District is essentially used as a guideline for drawing this District A. And then after drawing that District A, looking at the same principles that we had followed before, following some of the main corridors like 17th Street and Flower Street in order to draw these district lines.

and doing so in order to try to create a plan that's balanced. And in this plan, again, we have a district that's 44% Asian. We have several districts that are very heavily Latino with the most Latino district being District C at 78%.

Now, these are all out and before the public and the council in order to elicit discussion. The idea was that as we first started this conversation, we wanted to hear from the communities about communities of interest in the abstract sense. And now we want to hear both about communities of interest in that abstract sense and also hear from the public about exact, you know, specific changes they would like to see, plans that they prefer, and ways in which they would take what's drawn here to make it better, make it more representative of the city that they know. So with that, finish my presentation.

I will be here to answer questions or listen to public comment. Thank you.

All right. I think we have some speakers, Madam Clerk. I need Spanish translation for one, I believe. First, let's start with Leonel Velazquez and then Elizabeth Martinez. And Elizabeth will need a translation, I understand.

Thank you.

I am a volunteer in my community and organizer, Conoco. I am here to recommend the new election map for district. I am just for everyone. That includes Vietnamese, Latinos, Blacks, Afro, rich and poor people. So that the voice of all voters is listening to the same. Thank you.

Good evening, members of the council. My name is Elizabeth Martinez. I'm a resident of Santa Ana for 12 years. I'm a volunteer in my community and an organizer for OCO. And I'm here to recommend that the new election maps per district, by district, be fair for all, meaning that includes Vietnamese, Latinos, whites, African Americans, rich, poor, everyone, so that the voice of all voters is heard equally. Thank you.

Leonel Velazquez?

Not here? Okay. So with that, I'll bring it back to Council. What's the Council's pleasure on this item?

I have a question for the City Manager.

Please go ahead.

Actually, I have a question for a significantly changed City Manager there. Actually, a question for, it might be for the-Is he around? Is Raul here? Actually, I don't have a question for him. I was just bringing attention to the court. But I do have a question for either the clerk or a consultant.

On the plan D, proposed plan D. I was trying to identify what the boundaries, and I don't know whether you have that there where I can find information on the boundaries between the proposed...

Districts F and D, I guess A, F, and D, there's that, on the furthest, what is it, southwest corner of D, there is a north-south boundary there that is a little bit of a, I'm not sure if that follows a street or what that boundary might be. be a plan D if you hold on a second and then also it looks like another follow

up like some of the the neighborhood associations in that and perhaps in all of them there might be some neighborhoods that have been that that kind of straddle two districts. I don't know if that's just inevitable or if there's a way to address some of that. I imagine that some of that may have been factored in, the neighborhood boundaries. Yeah, there are neighborhoods that, like you say, straddle a council district, or the council district straddle a neighborhood. That is, to some extent, inevitable that that's going to happen.

there isn't an ability as far as I've drawn it to perfectly maintain all council all neighborhoods as being whole while still meeting that equal population criteria and are you checking to see if you could pull up I'm just looking at plan D to make sure that I don't guess and get it I just on that same one there and and this might be again the case with a few that the district with the most in population district D's at 56,000 that the

district with the least district B is at 52,000 so about little less than 4,000 between the two and I'm just curious if if if there is if that's something that's recommendable or recommended or if there's a way to further balance the population. Basically, is that... What we would like to see in a final plan would be that the largest district and the smallest district wouldn't have a total variance of more than 5%. So that is outside of the bounds of what would be a final plan. So the idea would be that this can be used as

building blocks to move forward and that we can fine-tune things as we see fit. And fine-tuning these things could mean making one of the neighborhoods whole or moving something over a street or two or so on. We can have, you know, from community input, some ideas about how to make those fine-tuned adjustments.

While that boundary's pulled up, Madam Clerk, I'm curious if there's been any feedback yet from the members of the community?

I have not received much feedback. At the first public hearings held in May, we did get two community of interest, and we can go back to that, but it did not include, I think one of them just said to consider the candidates running for council, you know, this election cycle, and one was to keep the neighborhoods intact as much as possible, and we will make every effort to do that.

That boundary looks like 1st Street on the south portion of D where it intersects with F and E.

And then on the left side of the neighborhood is Fairview. That's Fairview Street. Okay.

All right, any other questions? If not, I'll bring it to Council for consideration.

This is the first public hearing. So that's it? Is there a motion to receive and file?

It's more than receive and file. I think there's some specific recommendations, but it's establishing the public hearing dates and opening and closing this first public hearing.

And that's what is required, right? So I'd entertain a motion. So we have a motion. Is there a motion and a second? Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. The supposed motion carries. So now item 75D, this is a public hearing. Do we have any speakers at which to address on this item?

I have not received any cards.

Seeing no one, I will formally open. And seeing no one, I will close the public hearing and bring it to council for consideration. Is there a motion? Motion to approve. Is there a second? Second. those in favor please say aye aye aye those opposed motion carries thank you council members now we have a a joint session of the city council and the successor agency i would adopt a resolution on item 80a is there a motion motion approved second those in favor please say aye aye those opposed

motion carries unanimously now we're going to adjourn the successor agency that is correct right madam clerk the housing authority right so we adjourn the successor agency I open up the housing authority and I would entertain a motion on items one two and and they're seeing no housing member comments Just item one and two, I'd entertain a motion. Second. Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed, motion carries. Now, Madam City Clerk, do we go back to the...

Can we support the successor agency to approve the minutes, please?

So I would entertain a motion on the successor agency. Second. Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed, motion carries unanimously. Now we're going to come back to our work study session. And I'll turn things over to our city manager.

This should be quick, right? Just an update? Just an update, yes.

All right. Thank you.

Thank you, members of the council and Mr. Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem. Over the past year, we've obtained a great deal of knowledge regarding how to protect some of the small businesses from what we're calling the silver tsunami. What you have is a proposed small business ordinance that has been talked to you before about worker cooperatives, and we're continuing to work on this. It's been before the edit in past times, and it's now before you. one of the reasons we'd like some clarity from the council though is we think staff thinks this should be a policy not an ordinance an ordinance

traditionally is used as an enforceable law to protect and find and provide guidance for somebody not to violate an ordinance we would like to counsel support of going towards a policy and bring that to you formally in the next couple of months

Is that short of note?

Yes, it was.

It is. I would.

Mr. Mayor. Yes. Obviously, this has gone to my committee. It was supported. It was supported up here. We wanted to make some brief changes as Councilman Salorio wanted to make it small business at the time in Maine. And so I think we're all on board. We're wanting to move forward tonight. So I would ask our director, what are those next steps? We've been waiting for this. I know we've prolonged the situation here. We didn't have you on board. What are our next steps? So what are our next steps?

Our next step is to bring back to you, if you tell me you want a policy, we're bringing back a policy within a month. If you want an ordinance, we're going to have to go through the process of getting an ordinance. Again, staff is urging you to go towards a policy that allows some flexibility in the future for changes and not going towards legal ordinance.

So, you know, no, I'm willing to move forward with the policy, with the condition, making sure that this comes before the city council on an annual basis to review and making sure that it goes to committee because there will be some changes as we're updating our general plan and our economic component, wanting to make sure that there's language also in our general plan that relates to these us of supporting our small business worker cooperatives we

can do that all right so with that we move on is that good all right thank you

very much yes council member Solari add on and for the mayor pro tem raised the issue a little bit what's big these days and growing is the gig economy and just to the extent that as you keep working on this initiative we look at how we can because the thing is a lot of people they don't know how to what kind of business license to get all the requirements type of location they need to be at or not and you know the worker cooperative even though it's a little bit distinct to kind of fall under the same category of startups emerging innovative business models etc yeah we'll

be watching all of that and we'll bring that forward to you in the future. We're watching the news. We're watching what other cities are doing with this same topic. There was even an editorial in the LA Times this past Sunday. So we're on it. We're going to bring to you something that you will like and something you can be able to move forward. Thank you.

So with that, let's go on to the next item.

we have comments I think general public comments madam clerk see no one Raul no lasco looks like Velasco but I think it's an N and then Peter Katz we're all nut here Peter come on down and then followed by John Sharp just be ready and come on down and as soon as Peters done you're up and then Chris Schmidt go ahead

Peter just good evening mr. mayor and council you know yesterday was Labor Day and it was established in 1882 and on Labor Day I like to go out and visit with people that are working on that day because most of us have that day off. And I went to breakfast at a restaurant here in Santa Ana. I talked to Juan, an Hispanic short order cook. 28 years, he's a short order cook in the city of Santa Ana, working for seven different restaurants in this city, and this is how he makes his living. Well, what the sales tax increase is going to do is going to affect pay raises that he may get next year,

and he's concerned over this because his boss is going to have to find a way to accommodate the loss in revenue from people going out to eat dinner with this increase in tax. The largest sales tax would make it the largest sales tax in the county. And what concerns me is in 1986, Proposition 62 was passed. This was the Taxpayers Voting Rights Act. was passed by 58% of California residents, and in Santa Ana was passed by 69%. That says that it takes a two-thirds vote to raise sales taxes or any type of tax.

Now, there are 10 cities, charter cities in Orange County, that are charter cities that say 51% of the sales tax increase is a good vote, but four of those cities have all amended their charter knowing that they are in violation of this state ordinance. And I think we're going down that road. And just like with the Voter Rights Act, we're going to get sued over this issue. And this is going to be a big mess. So I'm really concerned about that. It's going to cost the city a lot of money. So thank you for your time. Thank you.

John? And then followed by Chris.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and Council Members. My name is John Sharp, and I'm here to just briefly talk with you about peace education. The purpose that I'm here is to cordially invite all of you to the LA Peace Summit, which will be held next week on the 12th. And the purpose of this summit is to talk about peace education. And I know it's a very broad issue, but I felt compelled to come before you tonight to invite you like this because it's next week, but also because it has a lot to do with constituents in your various wards. The organization that I'm with is called HWPL.

It's an international nonprofit peace organization. We have about 170 offices, 70 countries. And we have a lot of people in Santa Ana and Anaheim who are a part of HWPL and have been specifically asking for your participation in the summit. And essentially what we're really trying to improve in advance is a peace curriculum that can be implemented in schools throughout the community. And so just recently, the city of Anaheim, other cities like Carson, Los Angeles, have been working with charter schools to implement peace education to their kids.

And there are a lot of schools in Santa Ana that could really benefit from this type of education. And so we would love to invite you to this event to have you serve as a part of a roundtable discussion with other political leaders and religious leaders across Los Angeles and Orange County to help input or give your input on these types of programs. programs. There will be over a thousand people there and probably hundreds from the city of Santa Ana who will be there in support and it would be an absolutely wonderful way for you to help galvanize a lot of your constituents and people in your city to help further volunteer

and put a lot of effort in developing these types of programs. It's been my honor to really be a part of it and so again I just wanted to appear in person before you and really urge you to carve out some time. It will be from 5 to 9 p.m. I did deliver the formal invitations to your desk earlier so you have them. And if you have any further questions, of course I will always be available and there should be information there as well. Thank you and thank you for your work. Thank you. Chris?

Good evening again. I'm here to talk about the permit parking approval process. Back in November, three streets in my neighborhood applied for parking permits. We have not heard anything back from the city yet. I know last year several residents attended the public safety neighborhood improvement meetings asking why don't we have staff to do this. I believe Councilmember Solorio advocated for a position in Public Works. My understanding is a position was opened but I believe Mr. Godinez I'm told you put a hiring

freeze on it. I hope that's not true because it's been 10 months and we haven't heard anything back from Public Works. So my understanding is the position was open, candidates applied, they were going through a round of interviews, and it stopped. Parking on residential streets is probably one of the top three priorities in our city, and if it takes 10 months just to get the permit process going that's unacceptable I'd appreciate it if somebody could look into it and find out why the three streets of my neighborhood have not been addressed yet from my understanding the revenue

generated from the permit parking stays in public works so there's revenue identified to hire staff so once again our city has failed to meet the needs and desires of the Santa Ana residents and I hope it's not true that the hiring freeze was done in February of this year. Thank you very much. Thank you. Dale, followed by Christine.

Good evening, Mayor and Council Members.

Sometime later this year, maybe early part of next year, you guys will be looking at the 25-25 project and evaluating that. Most likely, you guys aren't going to be reading the 350-page EIR or the 3,100 pages of supporting appendixes with it. I've been going through it, and unfortunately, what you're not going to get without reading it is the flavor of that EIR and the underlying tone, essentially. It's filled with unsubstantiated opinions, narratives, evidence, which clearly is erroneous and inaccurate.

And it's just amazing that this document has gone this far, as far as I'm concerned.

It's just sad to see that so much work is going into this project, but yet the quality of work that is being produced is less than marginal. it really makes a mockery of the general plan in all the elements I think it has one comment in there that I'd like to share one is that we know that it's they're looking for an 84 dwelling unit per acre site it's inside the boundaries of Park Santiago so really it's part of Park Santiago yet they're going to be

asking for it to be a district center. Park Santiago is lated for low residential seven dwelling units per acre and they go on to say that although the project would result in a greater number of units per acre the units at the project site would accommodate fewer residents per household than the adjacent single-family residents. It's kind of insulting that they put this comment in there you know they're building a building that has 370 units which will be one bedroom or studio of course it's going to be less but those

are the types of comments that this EIR is filled with it's so biased towards the developer it's kind of sad so just thought I'd let you know thanks

Thank you. Christine?

I believe you guys have seen this before. All right, so this is with regard to the 25-25 development. Allowing 25-25 to go through as submitted by the developer would be a tragedy visited upon the very fabric, history, and quality of life of the citizens of Santa Ana. Park Santiago and other NSEPA neighborhoods are not anti-development. I think you will see that every time we say we're fine with developing according to the zoning that exists.

What we're against is the insanity and irresponsibility of this particular development. 2525 Maine must be considered in conjunction with the rest of the proposed development projects on the books within one-half mile of the impacted North Santa Ana neighborhoods, because it is the combined impact of these projects, with a total of 4,532 new units on traffic, air pollution, and quality of life that is critical to our understanding of the situation. So what I'm talking about is all of these developments all over the place.

This one here, the new one at Main Place.

You can't just take a look at 2525 on its own. It's impossible given the situation today.

We're talking about the impact of this traffic seven days a week, not five days a week if you went according to the zoning, which would be a business application. If we consider just the 2525 project with its 496 units, given the mix of unit types, we can project a population of anywhere from 640 to 1290 drivers dumping out directly onto Main Street every day.

Okay. Assuming just one person per unit for the other developments, all these other developments, which is unrealistically low, the city will be looking at adding roughly 4,600 to 5,300 vehicles to an area already suffering from high traffic congestion. Thank you.

If you could please conclude.

Ms. Martinez, you brought up the concept of 78% of people are commuting outside of the city to go to work. We have a plot of land that is designed to support working in Santa Ana. And I would suggest that we focus on continuing to have people work in Santa Ana, rather than increasing housing at a very expensive rate.

Thank you. We're going to go to Council comment. Councilor Tinajero. Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Before you start my minute, I have to give my update on my oral report before I start my comment.

All right, don't start her minute yet. Go ahead.

Yes, so we had agenda items of resident vehicle incentive program review, the YMCA RFP proposals. I want to thank the various folks that came by to provide those proposals thanking our staff. Staff provided a conceptual overview of the resident vehicle incentive program called VIP and took into consideration the comments and feedback that eventually will come here to this council. The YMCA, we had 10 minute presentations. We had Howard CDM, OCSA, and Studio 111, Caribou Industries, Community Development Partners, and the Sound Visionary Studio.

We provided comment as well to our staff before this RFP and recommendation comes before the council. And so I know we have an upcoming meeting again this coming Monday. and we'll have more items and hopefully my colleague councilman Sarmiento who's the vice chair will be moving forward with let's start the clock thank you Mr. Mayor and so I wanted to start off and talk about and I sent an email to the city staff in regards to the Olympics that's coming in 2028 Irvine is securing for water polo I've talked about this earlier that we are a golden

city and we should we have opportunity and if you look at our infrastructure and the need in regards to skateboarding it is the first time in the olympics that skateboarding will be in the olympics we have an opportunity in santa ana let's stop missing opportunity and be forward thinking and innovative and how can we be a part of the Olympics in 2028 to get folks to come down here. I want to urge our staff to look into that. I want to go back in regards to our form-based code and our general plan.

How do we embed community benefits into these codes so that when we leave, that we make sure we get community benefits for our community. We continue just to give up our land and continuing not to get the best amount of revenue coming back to the city. We can't be nice all the time. And I think we have done our fair share in giving back to many. And it's time for us to move forward. I wanted to very quickly wanting to give an update in regards to our utility audit as we continue to wanting to make savings. I know a presentation was given to our city manager.

we have a savings of $750,000 and over the next decade we will save over $3 million. And so I want to thank our staff and prior council as we continue to wanting to be leaders. And we're showing that here with our city and we're getting those savings back, which I believe is very important. And lastly, at the next meeting, as we continue to move forward with the MIMU, I will be providing a presentation to my colleagues and the reasons and to the public as we move forward, you know, and the financial constraints that this city has and the more and

more services that we want, not understanding that we're not generating enough revenue. We don't have local control when the state of California has full control over our purse streams. They control the money. We do not from sales tax to property tax. And so we need to understand that when we don't have control over our tax policy and revenue coming to this city, we really don't have local control. Thank you, thank you, Council Member.

Councilor Salodio, please. Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. A few things. First, just an update to the community regarding 17th Street because the pavement between Flower and Bristol is pretty bad. They did finish a water replacement program and we've asked the contractor to accelerate finishing off nicely the street with new pavement and hopefully by the end of this week that should be complete. So please look out for that. Also we've talked before about the major and ongoing prostitution problems on harbor and

want to thank the PD for their great effort with the Vice Unit. They've been doing a lot of extra enforcement in the area, particularly around harbor and hazard and it's been very helpful. We also have now involved the city attorney's office in terms of getting the property owner there on the northwest corner of Harbor and Hazard to be more involved with security, loitering, and other issues because there are obviously major issues there being ignored. We also, over the weekend, had the gang unit do some fantastic work.

They had in particular one situation where there was a former felon with many guns and I think like 10,000 rounds of ammo that the gang unit was able to go to that place, investigate it. They also had a canine, Aslan. It was their first major seizure and so kudos to the puppy. He's still not that old. I met him not long ago and so proud for that. And then finally, I too care about the parking permit program and believe it is woefully inefficient, communication with residents lacking, and also actually a revenue generator.

It generates, I looked at a couple years ago, it generates about $600,000. So it's actually a program that can generate revenue if it's staffed well. And I continuously have residents that are waiting six months, a year, year and a half, just to get a program status update. I had one today and it was months later and when you're having to organize with this very strict process it's tough so we do need a continuing to streamline that and thank you we'll work with staff thank you as well thank you briefly

councilman Salatina Heddle please thank you Mr. Mayor first and foremost there's a little buzz out in the community right now our sports programs have started for the fall sports so everybody's up and running doing off to a great start so our students are engaged out there also we are promoting several different educational opportunities for kids through our through our city and our after-school programs at our parks I want to encourage parents to please take a look at those things have become very specialized in sports students are there's some that are attempting to perform at the highest level and that's

great but then we also have other students or other kids in our city that just want to play and so coming to our parks and utilizing that is a good opportunity for them aside from all the different projects that they have out there for them so I really want to encourage people to go ahead and take a look at that and with that and my comments thank you very much

Councillor Villegas Councillor Benavides, you're on Thank you Mayor

Just a couple of things that I do I want to make a mention to the community About one is tonight we had You all know the public hearing For the ward redistricting There's going to be a follow up community meeting Taking place this Thursday At 6pm at the Southwest Senior Center Over at Jerome Park I want to encourage folks to be engaged in that process Provide their feedback and input It will be helpful for council as we make a final decision in a couple of months on the districts. Also, the OC streetcar is moving forward.

There is going to be a community meeting taking place this Saturday at the city's corporate yard at 215 South Center Street to get input on the design of the streetcar. So that's exciting. Plan to be underway by 2021. In a short, about 24 months. and lastly the following next weekend is Fiestas Patrias Friday through Saturday want to encourage community to come out in a new location over next to the Santana Stadium along Flower Street between Civic Center and Santana Boulevard

so new location should be just as fun and festive come out enjoy a good time and we'll also have the parade on Sunday. And as you come out and spend a few dollars supporting local businesses, I want to encourage folks to shop in Santana, support jobs and the economy here in Santana. With that, have a great night.

Thank you, Mike Tardif. I called you twice earlier. Somehow you had two forms filled out, but go ahead and speak.

Thank you. Mayor and City Council I'd like to let you know that the Clerk of the Council has allowed a racist rant to become the official matter argument against Measure X the measure to raise sales tax in Santa Ana I'll share some excerpts from this bigoted argument which will be presented to Santa Ana voters and will be available for all Orange County voters to see Some of the things in this so-called argument The problems of the 21st century has its roots in the 19th. 12 million illegals. General Santa Ana versus Alamo. Santa Ana versus American refugee camps.

The city is defined by illegals. Now these are not my words. These are the words that were put in as official matter as an argument against Measure X. Money is spent for sanctuary and illegals. Ice, no. Values Americans reject. Mexican born Miguel Pulido most most dangerous Mexican anti-americans American cultural neighborhoods have been replaced by gang culture again these are not my words these are the words that had been put in there by the clerk of the council and you've allowed to go in there and

lastly I'll say what this argument says Santa Ana is the capital of illegals I asked this Santa Ana clerk of the council and you all as the city council to use discretion as allowed by the California Election Code section 9286 paragraph b to allow additional legitimate arguments to replace this vile racist screed which offends Santa Ana residents. You should be embarrassed and ashamed to have had this go forward to represent Santa Ana residents. Now I understand that you discuss this in this argument in closed session and that you're going to have a writ to

take out some of these some of these things and it was unanimous vote by the way to challenge it okay well that's good I think besides challenging some of the things that are said in here you should just you should allow additional legitimate arguments by extending the deadline would you have the discretion to do according to the California election code that I cited? Thank you.

Thank you. With that, let me just say that earlier the streetcar was mentioned, and yes, we're getting down to the point where we're selecting the colors and the drawing, basically the way it's going to look, the design and all that. And so now it's really getting real, and that's very exciting. I believe before the year's out, we're going to have a construction contract out, and construction's going to begin, and we'll have the first electric streetcar coming into the city.

And I'm just hopeful that on a go-forward basis, we can potentially open up that PE right away all the way into Los Angeles. and as a matter of fact today and I want to give this to the city manager and see if we can blow it up possibly maybe frame it I want to give it to council members members of the committee OCTA board members but somebody sent me basically a Pacific Electric timetables of the original Pacific Electric it used to be a dollar to write it and it's got all the different stops and it's

got the times for the san anna station and then getting down to union station and all the way you could you know basically move around southern california and that's part of what we're now beginning to see again except this one's going to be sleeker quicker nicer you know air conditioned and and uh and bigger so uh so i want to give this officially the city manager to the clerk let's figure out how we blow it up maybe we frame it and we'll give copies to

folks and it's a little bit of history I gave one a mayor pro-tem Martinez because she loves these kind of things and she spends a lot of time throughout Southern California and now she'll have something to show folks that they'll find very interesting so with that I think a productive council meeting and this meeting is a quick report go ahead city manager we almost lost you there better be quick

Thank You mr. mayor has we as all of us come to grips with the you know the effects of climate change and all the droughts and all of that water conservation and water supply are becoming even more important today than they were a few years ago. So our water division in public works is being proactive. They are starting to educate with the younger generation so they come up with this coloring book. It's a kids water activity pack and they'll provide crayons as well. They're gonna have these at all events and try to provide them to the different schools and whatnot. I said I'd highlight this a really good

outreach effort. No no no please don't interrupt we're all being courteous here.

So anyhow, we wanted to highlight that. We're also going to show you a great little video, a few minutes long only, that's on our website that really recently was produced in partnership with the Water Division and our communications staff, city manager's office, and the consultant.

Went to the school district board meeting, and they have a lot of videos as part of the superintendent. I thought I'd pick up a thing or two.

In Santa Ana, we are dedicated to fostering healthy lives for our families and neighbors. And a huge part of that is providing quality drinking water. It's why we're thrilled that, once again, Santa Ana tap water has been named the best tasting in the United States. It's a contest that's held every year. In West Virginia, there's a town called Berkeley Springs. And the contest is titled an International Water Tasting Contest. So the city of Santa Ana, we've entered, I believe, for seven years now. We've won a place in medals three times. We've won the bronze, silver, the gold in 2014.

and we're proud to say that we won the gold medal for 2018 this year. But for us, it's about more than just taste. From the water you drink to the water your family uses to brush their teeth, you can be sure that Santa Ana water is as clean as it is tasty. The city of Santa Ana is mostly located in one of the best local forests in the nation. Based on that, we pop directly from the ground, and the only source of water quality that we do is disinfection. We are required by the state to maintain a quality residual in our system.

What that does is it ensures that bacteria is not able to spread throughout the system, causing health-related issues. And the quality is equally important for both our human and animal residents. For our animals, it's incredibly important. We want to make sure that we're providing our animals the best care that we possibly can. And having great water quality lets us be assured that we're providing safe drinking water, safe bathing water, and when we're cleaning their exhibits, we're only using the highest quality water. If we didn't have City of Santa Ana water, we would have to outsource,

which would of course be much more expensive for us here as a city entity. Budget is always a concern. And we would probably have to use a truck or bottles or something other really wasteful method to get that water here. So it's very convenient for us to be able to tie into our own city's water supply. With standards that exceed both state and federal health regulations and state-of-the-art equipment, the water in your home, at local restaurants, and at city parks is safe to drink as is. Not to mention, at just about $3 for more than 700 gallons, it's an incredible value.

Drinking water coming from a tap is so inexpensive to the consumer. One gallon of water from the convenience store costs about $2.80 or so. However, the water that comes from the tap, 750 gallons of that cost the consumer in Santa Ana $2.85. So the comparison of the cost of water doesn't exist. Award-winning water, just another reason to love Santa Ana and why you should fill it from the tap.

Thank you, Ms. City Manager. Thank you, Mr. Marion. I just wanted to highlight that we posted it about four days ago. It's gotten over 100,000 hits. Our previous record was 30,000 hits. So it's a huge success. We're really proud of it. And we're really proud of the water department in our first class drinking water. Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, can I make a comment? Should we let Michelle make a comment? Very quickly. And because I rarely give thanks, but our former city manager, David Cavazos, I didn't get along with that man a whole lot. but one thing that he did do that I will give him credit that I worked with him Markers down Sal was to fill it from your tap and was a community engagement and he's the one that took water bottles out of the city of Santa Ana no soda and contributed to what we have here today so I want to thank him and the leadership of our staff and how we continue this momentum thank you mr.

All right, make sure we give her that proclamation. All right, with that, this meeting is adjourned.

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Thank you.