Read the August 16 meeting.

All right, ma'am, we're starting the meeting. You'll see three more council members in a moment. Do you have any comments? All right, let's go ahead and give you the names. Where's everybody? Where's everybody? They're coming out. I know, I'm getting crazy. Sandra Sandoval followed by Dora Lopez. Susana says Sandra. Well, look at the way you wrote it.

I know Susana. Followed by Chris Schmidt. Followed by Lisa Mills. And then Tim Johnson.

The others are not present. Are they going to be present? No, they're not.

Okay. Are they going to be in the closed session? I don't know. If they get here...

The Santa Ana Healthy Neighborhoods Alliance opposes the proposed 600-700 bed emergency homeless shelter in Santa Ana. Each of you has our opposition document and provides the rationale and analysis why a shelter of this magnitude is not an appropriate or an effective and healthy solution. Absolutely poor fiscal and economic decision making for the city. The extremely short 24-hour notice of the closed city council session scheduled today at 2.30 demonstrates a lack of respect for the community at large.

Most people work at this time and it is virtually impossible for so many to notify employers for time off as well as child care issues for parents who would have liked to participate. Why not a 6 or 7 p.m. meeting with at least three to five day notice? So very sad and disappointing. And by the way, Irma Haudigui would have been here, Jose Rea, and many others, but they could not change their work or their appointments. So very sad and disappointing that the council does not understand the work commitments of the people who elected them.

We remind you that our city amended our ordinances back in 2013 to only allow a maximum of 200 beds at a single emergency homeless shelter, section 41-1201. Alliance only agrees to a memorandum of understanding with the County of Orange for a 200-bed shelter in our city. We want housing, medical, and service solutions for the OC homeless population to be provided across the cities and the county. Abide by the legality and policy standards for a maximum of 200 beds that was approved in 2013. Mayor Pulido and Councilmembers, do the right decision for the community that elected you.

Be champions and advocates for the other OC cities to take responsibility and be partners in solving the countywide crisis.

Thank you, Dora.

Good afternoon. My name is Dora Lopez. I am a resident of Santa Ana for 48 years, member of the Madison Park Neighborhood Association. Mayor Pulido, City Council members, the few that are here. On behalf of the Santa Ana Healthy Neighborhood Alliance, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to speak here today. A proposed 600 to 700-bed emergency shelter? Really? Whose proposal? Common sense alone would dictate what a bad idea this is, not to mention the lack of respect and consideration towards the San Ana residents and business owners.

Four years ago, a group of us came together to fight the injustice of the Normandy Place that was proposed by the county. It was in close proximity to seven schools with 8,500 students. We worked very diligently and hard, as most of you know. For our community and for our students, we proved to everyone with facts and figures what a bad location that was. At the end, the county, the city, and everybody agreed with us. Since then, we advocated for different locations for different models, types of housing, as well as the collaboration from other county cities in carrying their fair share.

How can you possibly be considering this proposal when you know perfectly well what negative effect this will have on our city and its residents, as if the situation is not bad enough? Last we heard, our city officials were determined to vote their opposition for our city to continue to carry the disproportional load of our county homeless. Even Judge Carter agreed that we had done beyond our share. What happened? What changed? When you go into closed session, I ask each one of you, take serious consideration in opposing this proposal. If you care for the people you represent and who voted you into office,

please use common sense. We also request that we be informed where each council member stands in regards to this proposal. Finally, as for the Alliance, with all due respect, I can assure you that we won't lay low if this proposal moves forward. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mayor and City Council members, City Manager Godinez. earlier today I sent you an email as a reminder that in 2013 our city went through a process where we got community and stakeholders input and we for the rezoning for the SB2 ordinance I just hopefully that you will remember that when you go back and close session today and vote on it Mr. City Manager my understanding is it's your signature that goes on the MOU with the county so I please hope that you remember us you were at a city neighborhood association meeting last night where numerous residents raised concerns and spoke about how they feel that our

city is the only one taking on this burden especially in the central spa I think we're kind of sending a mixed message on one hand we're saying we're gonna sue all 34 cities if they don't step up and then we're saying no we'll take all 600 in the central spa so I'm really concerned that we're trying to find this silver bullet one thing fix all and take it all on us I don't understand why the other cities in this essential spa can't step up my understanding is in the northern spa all 13 city managers got together identified some locations agreed to chip in so again if you could please remember 2013 the city made an agreement with us

the residents 200 beds maximum please remember that thank you good afternoon mayor and members of the City Council, Lisa Mills, resident of Santa Ana. I've had the City Clerk give you a handout regarding the MOU. Hopefully you've received it. But I don't know about you, but if we're going to do an MOU with the county, I think it's time to tie up a few loose ends, like when they're going to permanently close the courtyard, which they've been promised it was going to close years ago. They promised it would only be 200 to 300 beds. But I think we need a permanent date for closure tied in to whatever MOU you do.

Also that we would build a 200-bed Kramer's-type shelter and a 200-bed emergency shelter, and that we close the Santa Ana Armory. As most of you know, they promised Fullerton that when they opened the bridges, they'd close the Fullerton Armory. And I talked to Frank Kim, and he agreed. The Fullerton Armory is not going to operate next year, but Santa Ana one will. And then to deal with the mental health facility on South Main. All of you heard Andrew Doe say it was a fake crisis, and I think the Delhi folks would beg to disagree. So if you're going to do an MLU with the county,

it really should be comprehensive to deal with all of these issues because if you just deal with whatever size shelter you want to locate in the south part of town, all these other issues, they're not resolved. And I think it's really important that we resolve them. And in final comments is I don't know why Santa Ana has to take the extra 300 beds. I mean, we already have 400 and so here. We have Wise Place that we got as a result of the judges' hearings. All those are good shelters. I think it's all helpful, but we need to move them. Why can't we go to Fairview? And why don't we talk to Tom Daley

and ask that we open up Fairview State Hospital temporarily for 300 beds? And then the county owns two properties. They own buildings at the Tustin Marine Base, the former Marine Base, two-hanger. They own one hanger. They could modify it like the courtyard. They also own a building at the old El Toro Marine Base called Building 317. Why can't they go modify these buildings instead of putting our city through all this grief and making us do additional work when no one else is helping us share the burden? Thank you.

Hi, good afternoon, everyone. Tim Johnson, resident of Santa Ana here. during this time of the year when myself as a parent and our kids are so excited to go back to school there's a group of folks out there that are dealing with the same issues they've been dealing with for days weeks months and some of the often years and that's where to light their head a safe place at night where to find a facility use a bathroom and where to store their their own possessions this is a problem that's not going away and I urge you to to go ahead and lead courageously through this process.

Even though the city, we can all agree the county has a major issue, they're pushing it aside. The city, we have our own issues also with this problem. We've done a lot, but there's still more to do. Just like when one of my kids complains about their brother not mowing the lawn, and they are, that doesn't mean that we can skirt our responsibilities. Just because one person does a poor job doesn't mean that everyone's going to be doing a poor job. We have an opportunity to lead. We have an opportunity to show the county and other cities locally here as well

as regionally and nationally what can be done. We have some of the smartest minds in land development, in real estate development locally here. We can develop properties that are not standard emergency housing facilities without sleeping six inches away from someone's dirty defeat. As you consider what your next steps should be in battling our homeless crisis, I urge you to consider that over 500 of our residents that were counted at the last point in time were Santa Ana residents, the last identified with Santa Ana as their residency. I know that there's other people

that will disagree with that, but I urge you, we need to find homes for these people. The quality of life of those of us with homes depend upon it. The quality of life of the homeless depend upon it. finding the right facility will be key. There are areas in the city that we can find adequate space for the folks. I ask you to do that. I ask you to also outreach to the community to bring facts and figures and comments to us and allow us to provide feedback to you. We're not a passive group. I ask you to please listen to us. Thank you very much.

Thank you. before we go into closed session I just don't know if any of my colleagues want to say anything as to some of the comments that were made Councillor Villegas

thank you mr. mayor our hands are tied up here regarding negotiations which could be we can be held liable legally and just know that this board is looking out for the best interest of Santa Ana. Believe me, I think the public, from reading all the emails, I think the public has a little bit of confusion with regard to what we're doing about the homeless. But I know my colleagues all up here, we can only say so much, and we can't get in trouble. But I can't comment any further. I spoke to our city attorney about it, spoke to our clerk, and that's about as far as I can go on the issue. Thank you.

Councilman Solario and Mayor Pro Tem Martinez.

Thank you. I WANTED TO THANK THE RESIDENTS FOR COMING OUT. WE DO KNOW THAT MEETING IN QUICK ORDER AND THE TIME OF DAY CAN BE DIFFICULT. BUT WE DO KNOW THAT WE LISTENED AND ALSO WE GOT PLENTY OF E-MAILS AND LETTERS FROM A RIGHTY OF FOLKS IN TOWN. SO VERY SUBSTANTIAL. AND IN GENERAL, AND WE CAN'T GET INTO SOME OF THE DETAILS AS COUNCILMEMBER VIAGA HAS MENTIONED, But I do appreciate some of the comments that former Councilmember Mills mentioned about outstanding issues related in general to homelessness that relate to the county.

As we're working on other things, this is a very appropriate time for us to try to address other things because we may not have another similar opportunity to come to resolution on some key items. So I hope we have a copy of her comments and suggestions because I would like for us to find a way to find resolution with the county on those other items. Thank you. Mayor Pro Town.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And one, two, I do want to thank my colleagues for being here. This was presented to us yesterday from Mayor Polito to do a special meeting. And we all have responsibilities, but four of us are five of us are here today. I canceled. I had a work meeting in Pasadena and canceled it to be here. And I am also 39 today. It's my birthday and I'm here. So I hope that those of you who are in the audience realize that we are committed, that we do read your emails, that we are trying to do everything we possibly can to address this issue. It's not going to death ears.

And so I do sometimes do take offense that, you know, that the city's not doing anything to help combat this issue. I firsthand have been doing all I possibly can and I think many of my colleagues have as well as you all have seen in the media and of course we cannot talk about negotiations and what we're dealing with but I think many have heard that we do have a deadline coming of September 7th and we have to be cognizant of that. We also have to be cognizant about the issues that we are addressing as it pertains to our downtown and I made it clear to our staff,

I made it clear to and I'm not sure I haven't had conversations with my colleagues, but as we look at the future of this city and you look at our downtown and we look at this courtyard, I think something that we all could agree on is that that courtyard has to be removed from this downtown. Our downtown matters. And when you look at the city's real estate assessed value, we are worth $26 billion. $26 billion and climbing. And that has a lot to do with our downtown.

town. And so we need to get rid of that courtyard. It's in the best interest of the residents of this community. It's in the best interest of this city council, and it's in the best interest of the business community and this entire region. And so I just hope that the residents will be patient and really hope that we up here as the policymakers will make the best decision and we can't speak about everything as you all know that when we're in litigation there are certain things we can say and certain things that we cannot and so I just

want to put that out there don't think that what you are emailing or that you don't think that we're paying attention is that certain things we cannot respond to and we can't give you certain answers but we are trying to work diligently to help address this issue and working with our staff And so I just want to thank my colleagues for being here this afternoon at this point in time. And I hope that we're going to have resolution soon. And with that, thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. Councilor Benavides. Thank you. Just it takes a lot of one's time, thought to process and to to communicate with us some of your ideas. Just want to basically echo what my colleagues I've made mention of your as community members both your communication to us via email and person your ideas it's not falling on deaf ears as I've been mentioned we definitely are taking your comments back with regard to SPT zoning Mr. Schmidt Susana Sandoval and the work that you've done over the years former council member Mills you've been sharing with us a number of different

ideas and communicate with both us and the county and appreciate that Mr. Johnson all of your input is

it is being taken by us and and we are it's helping us in in our discussion so I just just do want to reiterate and let you know that that we do appreciate value and we are taking your

feedback as we negotiate thank you let me also say thank you and I'm going to make comments but I'm going to keep them brief because I know this is under litigation. But let me just tell you this. This is not a one-move chess game. And it is a chess game. There's a lot of moving parts that are independent. And timing matters. Moves matter. Which pieces on the chess board you move matter. And so, you know, we're looking at the end game. We're really trying to look at the end game. And the end game is not today and it's not tomorrow. It's going to take a while for things to play out, but that's the way we're trying to behave,

and that's a context under which we're trying to act. We're trying to take care of the overall needs of the city. And, yes, you know, the courtyard's been mentioned. That's about 450 individuals. You know, the armory, say 100, give or take. Sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less. So you add 100 plus 450, that's 550. So before you do anything, you've got 550. If we were to say, let's go open up two shelters at 200, we're going backwards. We're going to have more people in our neighborhoods, in our businesses, and ultimately we need to settle with the county and with the court so that our police department can do their job.

Recently, and Madam Attorney, please let me know what I can share, but I know that we settled a lawsuit involving some homeless that we had arrested some time back. And we had to pay about $100,000, if I recall correctly, per case. And we had about seven of those. So $700,000 because we arrested seven individuals that we thought we were doing the right thing on, and we got into court, and because of these lawsuits and the plaintiffs and what's going on,

we got a really, really hard slap on our wrist and taxpayer dollars being wasted because we were unable to do anything. And you look at our fine police officer, our fine department, they have handcuffs on. They can't do what they need to do. And so we need to break out of all that and put the city on a stronger footing because, yes, Mayor Pro Tem is right. Our valuation is now around $26 billion. It's going to be greater than that. But it's not going to be greater than that if we can't get out of our own way or be able to knock ourselves out of a paper bag. And right now that's where the courts have us.

So with that, we're going to go into closed session.

Thank you.