Read the July 17 meeting.

Mayor Pro Tem, Ward, Consent, City Council, Mayor Pro Tem, Ward, Consent, City Council, Mayor Pro Tem.

members of the council, honored guests, ladies and gentlemen of the community. Let us pray. Lord, we pause in your holy presence, asking your blessing on this assembly and those representing the city of Santa Ana, the leaders of the community, and those who will be honored with exceptional service certificates for their contribution to the community. We are grateful for their service and thank you for their inspiration, their faithful performance, and unselfish willingness to serve both the city and the citizens of the community.

We pray for them your continued blessing of divine guidance and providential leadership in future endeavors on behalf of the city and for the benefit of the community and all Santa Ana citizens. We would ask you to bless the mayor and the council members as they conduct the business listed on the agenda, guide your thinking and actions that they will be positive, productive, and successful. May this council meeting, which was called to order in unity, be conducted expeditiously with dignity and adjourned in harmony. We pray in the spirit of the serenity prayer, saying,

God, grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. We ask in your holy name, eternal God. And all I got to people said, amen. Thank you. You may be seated.

Mayor Pro Tem Michelle Martinez will not be attending today's meeting. She was with us earlier in closed session, but she's now signed off. I think she's back at the County School of Government in Harvard taking a special course. So with that, Madam City Attorney, is there anything to report out of co-session?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

Mayor, the only reportable action item we have is the matter of a workers comp case as listed on the agenda. The City Council approved by a vote of 6-0 with Councilmember Solario absent to approve settlement of $1.5 million.

Okay, so let me hope to get other council members present. I believe we have a presentation by Councilmember Solario.

Go ahead, Councilor Solario, please.

Thank you Mr. Mayor. I'd like to bring up everybody involved with the People's History of OC Summer Enrichment Program. Come on up. Don't be shy. And then we have a couple of lead organizers and some students that were a part of this. Let's give them all a round of applause. They're coming up. Santa Ana Unified students. An outstanding public teacher and the Executive Director of the Heritage Museum of Orange County I'm honored to bring this group up for many

reasons and mainly the work that these students did in the research they did I had the executive director of the Heritage Museum Kevin Cabrera who said hey we did this awesome program over the summer at the at the museum you need to know about it you need to recognize them and I also had you know personnel from the school district say hey we have this fantastic program that by the way your wife is involved with Lindley and I said well you know she and other teachers got recognized recently but this program

just just happened over the summer and as you know the big believer I am in education I thought I would invite these students to join us because this is the first year we do this. Some information, the People's History of OC Summer Enrichment Program was developed just this year to introduce students to the contributions, legacy, and the struggles of the county's ethnic communities here in Santa Ana and in other cities through interactive programming, including project-based learning, field trips, guest speakers, and panel exhibits. Students are introduced to our rich cultural diversity. The goal of the

program was also to have students learn, understand, and more importantly connect with the history that surrounds them in their everyday lives. The program also believed that if students are able to connect with their community history it activates a sense of cultural pride civic engagement and awareness of the social progress that happens through community engagement also this kind of ethnic studies program by the way is a model for what the state of California is trying to do which is to make ethnic studies a high school requirement and have many programs like this statewide so in many ways this is

a model for other communities to to mirror today I'm very pleased to recognize the two outstanding leaders that made this happen and for enlightening our youth and for having them learn about their history today, the history in the past and how we are all connected. I will let them speak a little bit about the program, at least one of them, and if they could maybe mention two or three of the historical sites they mentioned and the significance, that would be awesome. So again, we're giving recognitions to Kevin Cabrera, the Executive Director of the Heritage Museum of Orange County, and Lynn Lee,

Sanana High School History and Ethnic Studies teacher. So if you can come on up to speak, or maybe both of you can come up, or a student. Kevin, please.

Thank you so much, Councilman Solorio. we want to we want to put display something the final capstone of the project was to developing develop a art piece all the students did some art pieces this is one of the art pieces and it represents all the different cultural communities of our of our of our county just so just so you can see how we are all connected and how each one of our stories is important to the legacy of this county I want to say some of the things that we got the chance to do on

our program as we visited Little Texas has anyone ever heard of Little Texas Little Texas was the African American community of Orange County that was here in Santa Ana it was the highest population of blacks in the county and was here in Orange County and there was a lot of rich history within that community which you know a lot of our students didn't know but we exposed them to that we did some walking tours we met some of the people that were involved in the community another place we went is we went to Little Saigon we got a chance to tour Westminster the Asian Garden Mall and they learned a lot about that

community so understanding and really having that personal connection and walking in the same places where everyone had a chance to live and walk was very important so we're glad that students are placed in this I feel that they've learned so much I'd really like to have one of them talk Cielo you want to say something yes

I really enjoyed being a part of the People's History of Orange County program because I think that it's so important to remember, well, not only to remember, but to acknowledge what minorities do and their role in our society. And I think that a lot of people forget how, well, that minorities really make our society function. And we were able to learn so much about so many different things. we talked about how successful minorities have been and how that hasn't always been represented before. One of the things we brought up at some point was that at some point there was a Black Wall Street

which was burned down. There was a Chinatown in Santa Ana that got burned down as well. And it's clear that these things are burned down because of hate. But I think that it's really important to move forward knowing that if you educate yourself then equality is possible

lena few words this all started because i was at a fair at a table recruiting people for a different academy and kevin comes up to me and says hey i got a great idea and i'm like what Kevin and he says we could do this great history program about the communities in the city and he's a historian he's a fantastic historian with a focus on the black community and he was telling me all the knowledge he knew and I'm I'm fascinated with it because I'm a history teacher but you know historians like to talk right so I was the teacher and I was able to turn all of that into like

lessons and make it exciting for the kids because you can't just sit up there and talk right and the kids would like just listen the whole time so we also got to eat the food of the community which was really exciting so we went to the Little Texas we had barbecue when we went to Little Saigon we had pho and spring rolls and when we went to I'm blanking out you guys will help when we went to the Logan Barrow we had Mexican food of course but it was really exciting so I encourage all of you to enroll all of your students in next year because it's gonna happen again next year okay so on behalf of that the

mayor and city council it's my honor to recognize this this great program by two fantastic organizers and some amazing students Kevin by the way also he knows so much and is so energetic about our community because he used to work for the city of Santa Ana in our library and in the history room in particular so we give them another you know round of applause for that and let's give them all around applause

as you guys are taking your picture you should be very proud of miss Lynn Lee she's one of the best instructors in the Senate identified school district highly respected Cielo Chagoyan who you heard speak is also one of the top 24 speakers in the nation so we should she should be recognized she's humble she's not gonna tell you that she's that good

and they're special the only public presentation tonight so round of applause thank you all

Thank you, Lynn, and thank you, Councilor Solario, and keep up the great work. Thank you.

Okay, Madam Clerk, we're now going to go to consent calendar. Are there any items that council members wish to pull? If not, I will entertain a motion.

We have one speaker on.

Go ahead. Who is it?

Alicia Rojas, if you could please come forward.

Hello, everybody. Mayor Maria Polito, it's been a long time. It's nice to see everybody. I wanted to say two things quickly. One, thank you so much for funding the arts one more time. I know the city's going through strain, and I'm really happy to see that the arts are being funded one more time in the arts grant. One of my questions is, Media Arts Santa Ana was awarded a grant.

I'll wait to get the mayor's attention.

So Media Arts Santa Ana won the grant, but the people who founded the organization is Sandra Pocha Sarmiento and Victor Payan. Sandra is currently the chair of the Arts Commission. I find that to be a conflict of interest. And number two, I sent you guys a little package.

As you know, the Santa Ana Community Artists Coalition got started about five years ago because of a public mural city wall infighting that happened. Our mural was canceled by you guys, citing an RFP process, a public request for proposal, an open call for artists. We had a contract with the city manager. We were volunteers. We had the will. You guys didn't let us do it. Five years later, that wall is still empty. Five years later, we've completed 10 more murals. We're very proud of them.

I just saw a mural come up. Another city wall. Number two. It's the mural in Angel Park. It's a city wall. that got awarded with our RFP process. What happened to five years ago?

So in my documents, I named them one, two, and three. You can go back if you like and take the time to read. I think it's unfair. I think the person who is driving the Arts Council has been divisive, and now she's running for City Council. and hope this doesn't happen. But she was responsible for pushing you guys to cancel our mural because it didn't have an RFP process and now you have another city wall, have another mural without an RFP process or an open call. Five years later, Arts Count Commission, it doesn't matter.

I just wanted to point these things out to you. I'm not trying here to contest against other artists or get their gigs canceled or their murals canceled i'm i'm in support for any artist that gets a gig all right there needs to be an open process and this was fairly unfair thank you so much for your

time so with that uh let me bring it back to council members any items people members want to pull if not i would entertain a motion is there a second second those in favor please say aye aye Aye. Aye. Those opposed motion carries. Item 55A, I would entertain a motion.

And I would consider we pick one of the two. I think 200 words has always been a standard here in the city. It's up to the council members. But there can be either 200 words or 400 words on candidate statements. or may we just give candidates the option but it's kind of goofy

whatever we've done before what's been the 200

200 I think we should be consistent but I would entertain a motion I'll move it with the 200 thank you is there a second second by Solaudio those in favor please say aye aye those opposed motion carries

item 55B

motion approved

we have a motion approved is there a second I'm going to second with comment. Second. Go ahead and comment.

So here's where we're looking at something that came before us a number of months ago with regard to allowing the voters in the city an opportunity to select their representative by way of district elections.

and it's unfortunate that a couple months later we're finally having to deal or we're addressing this now a couple months after we had already addressed it before unfortunately members of the community are not going to be able to see the impact the positive impact of district elections by way of them allowing them being able to choose their own candidate this election it looks like we're potentially looking at having district elections take effect two years out.

So it's a delayed benefit to the residents of our city. But in any case, again, I am seconding. I am supportive. I do think that it's a we've done a community to a certain degree of disservice by delaying this. But I just wanted to make sure to make that comment. I know we're still dealing with how to address this because there is a litigation around this. But in any case, hopefully we can get this results soon.

I will be supportive as well, but Councilmember Vince Armiento, please.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and I know that I've had conversations with the city attorney about the pending litigation and to the extent we can voice our thoughts on this. Obviously, there was an attempt made early to try to put this before the voters during the June primary and and that was thwarted by some very questionable actions that were taken by one of our members of the council here. So now we're having to acquiesce and delay what is clearly our election system being in violation of the California Voting Rights Act.

So to the extent that we get this resolved, it's going to be delayed an additional two years, which does harm the community because we are practicing and we are electing another cycle of candidates under a flawed system, under an illegal system. To the extent we can get it resolved as quickly as possible, that's another reason why I am going to be supporting this as well, supporting it sort of by holding my nose because this should have been done earlier, it should have been done cleaner. We would have been able to give the voters the opportunity to make a decision during the primary in June,

and we would have been able to install our new election system. So whether or not the voters wanted it, they would have had an opportunity to apply during the primary. But to the extent that we get this resolved quickly and as effectively as possible, I'll be supportive of the motion as well.

Thank you. Any additional comment? Councilor Solorio?

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I think this has been a fluid process with a lot of twists and turns and changes, and we have some actions today, but there'll continue to be more twists and turns and changes likely. I think in communities that have to deal with these litigation items regarding the California Voting Rights Act, usually they're not simple, usually they are costly, so this is not unusual, even though the twists and turns in every city are different. The important thing is getting it right once we do define some new lines, and once we do find out the best way to be in compliance with the California Voting Rights Act.

So I'm still committed to a process that does right by the California Voting Rights Act and does right by the Asian American community that we have in Santa Ana, particularly on the west side. And we'll continue to work on this until we get it right. Thank you.

All right, with that, Council Member Flinders.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just want to say I don't think it's a flawed system. If it's a flawed system or illegal system, then every one of our seats here is illegal. It's illegal. So, you know, I don't believe in that. It's just a different system. That's my comment.

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

Mayor, if more than four members of the council will be submitting an argument or authoring an argument, I'd like to ask that those names be identified so that we don't have any brown violations.

All right, are Council members interested in submitting arguments?

Why do they just speak to you individually?

Submitting arguments in favor?

In favor or in opposition either.

When is the deadline for that?

The deadline would be July 31st.

Let them just come to you individually in the first four. We don't need to decide that right now, do we? Right. We know it has to be five or do we have to identify the five now?

It's best and more transparent if the more than four numbers are.

If you don't know, you don't want to mislead.

Can we nominate somebody?

But I think we would encourage folks that vote for it to consider doing a statement or signing on to a supportive statement. So can you read who you have as yes votes?

It's unanimous.

It's a unanimous vote. Okay, it's unanimous? Yes.

So just those that are so inclined, please contact the clerk. Sounds good. Because some may not want to.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

So you don't have to, it's just that if more than three of you, if more than three, you would then have to call a meeting just to have a conversation over what you want the ballot language, your argument to look like. So if it's three or fewer, no problem, you can get together and write it, but if it wants, if there are four or more of you that want to, that's when you would need to identify

Let's just say the first three. Can we just say all of us and then a couple of us choose not to? If we choose to. I'll choose not to. Okay, so the balance.

So now it's up to one more. Fair enough. Thank you. So with that, 55C. Okay. Connie Hamilton, followed by Peter Katz, followed by Cecilia Iglesias.

Hello members of council, city attorney.

Maria, Norma. Hello everyone. First I wanted to say thank you to the city council for being supportive of Connect to Council. We did all of the award events last year and this year. Got through them all and every one of the council representatives participated and I appreciate that. But, yeah, I'm here to speak about the tax, the sales tax that you want to inflict upon the residents. And I have some thoughts. First of all, it just seems like everybody is wanting to tap the residents for more money. I stood in front of Santa Ana Unified Board last night.

They're trying to do a bond, a $232 million bond, which will end up costing $425 million. and it's going to all be on the residents. And I don't understand that because enrollment is down at Santa Ana Unified, but yet they want more money, so that doesn't make a lot of sense. Anyway, but everyone's hitting us up for more money. Water rates are going up. Electricity is going up.

We're just being bombarded by increases. I'm sure state taxes are going to go up. We want to repeal the gas tax. I'm advising everyone to vote no on all bonds and all tax increases. There's got to be a way Santa Ana can go another round here with this. Maybe increase the TOT. I don't know about the jail reuse study, but I don't know how that came out, but there's got to be some money there. There's some Airbnbs we could probably get tax money from. We could probably rent out office spaces, City Hall.

there's a lot of different ways that you guys could make money not just hit the residents with all this money that you want so anyway those are my thoughts and i will be voting no if you do put that on the ballot and i will encourage everyone to vote no thank you thank you peter

followed by ceci iglesias followed by davida via grand good evening everyone i'm peter katson

i'm president of the comlink board that oversees all 64 neighborhoods in the city of santa ana this city of all cities in the county can least afford a sales tax increase our people are struggling this is a very poor city and i am in opposition to the sales tax increase we've had a number of years since we sold off our fire department to fix this problem when we continue to go down the same old road pass it on to the consumer and to the property owner and i think they're seeing a backlash in the state and I looked at your survey that you have here of all the cities that have raised 1% or more in sales tax increases

out of 24 cities that have asked for a 1% sales tax increase in the last five years in the state of California only one city is a large city and that was Riverside and it barely got its sales tax increase the other ones are very very small cities that are struggling some of these cities are close to the ten and a quarter max that the state allows you have cities that are now selling off to the police departments to the sheriff's department uh so where does it stop i mean now that irvine is pulling out of the oc fire authority agreement that's going to go up for the city of san and as well our water bills

are going up electric bills are going up property taxes are going up where do we draw the line in this city yet and you wonder why we got so many homeless people on the street they can't afford rent they can't afford to own so i'm going to campaign among all our neighborhoods to oppose this sales tax increase thank you

next speaker cecilia iglesias followed by david via gran

good evening council members my name is cecilia iglesias and i am a board member for the san 85 school district also resident of windsor village neighborhood association and the founder of the parent union for Orange County. I'm here to speak on behalf of the sales tax increase. I'm asking that you guys don't put the sales tax on the ballot.

Santa Ana residents have been burdened a lot with tax increase in the past 10 years and more recently here in Santa Ana with the Santa Ana Unified School District Board of Education voting to put a two hundred and thirty two million dollar bond on the ballot for November costing the residents of within the Santa Ana school district 425 million dollars and that's not even saying if that if the bond is sold at a different interest rate it's almost likely is going to cost us more so what you are going to be doing is contributing the reason why families are leaving from Santa Ana they can't afford to stay here

in Santa Ana. And then so in a way you are also going to be contributing to our declining enrollment in Santa Ana and Fight School District. As you know here in Santa Ana we have about 62 neighborhood associations. I'm a very hard worker. I will canvas every day, mark my words, every day to oppose this tax increase. It is not right and it's not fair. We have to stand together with the residents of Santa Ana. As you know, Senate District 29, they recalled the senator for voting for the gas tax increase. We will do the same here in Santa Ana, and I'll take it as my personal responsibility to go door-to-door for the next four months

to inform the voters, along with the individuals who spoke before me, so we can talk to all the voters in Santa Ana and tell them to vote no on this tax, and definitely on Santa Ana and Fight School District tax increase, too. So I'm hoping that you will vote with the individual constituents that elected you. And you vote no on this. Don't put anything on the ballot. And we will be working together. If not, then we'll see you on the campaign trail. We'll be voting no on the tax increase. Thank you. Next speaker, David Villagran, followed by Magda Gomez.

Good evening, council members. My name is David. I'm a resident of Sarana. I'm asking tonight to impose another tax increase to our community. We already pay high taxes, and what are you guys doing? You guys are driving our families out of the city because families cannot afford the rent. Thank you. Next speaker, Magda Gomez, followed by Mike Tardif.

Good evening, Council Members. My name is Magda Gomez, and I'm a Sanana resident. I'm here to ask you to reconsider the sales tax. You know what? It may seem like adding one penny is not a big deal, but it is, and you guys know that. Most of us Sanana residents, we're already having a hard time paying taxes. It is already hard for a lot of our families to buy even basic needs. I'm not sure about how many families how many Santa Ana families you guys are able to talk to every day but I do talk to some of them every day I'm the new

program coordinator for the parent union and I'm out there doing outreach and talking to families and it is sad to hear their stories it is sad to hear that they share with me that this time of the year it's hard for them because they have to buy school supplies. They have to buy uniforms. Their kids are excited to go back to school and the parents are worried because they have to buy all what their children need to go back to school. Please don't add this new sales tax. Thank you. Mike Tarlef, please.

Good evening, City Council. I'm going to read a short paragraph from a communication that you received from one of the city car dealers, new car dealers. He says, a tax increase on the citizens of this city that can least afford it is wrong.

I'll add that you know that a sales tax is one of the most regressive taxes and it taxes the poor the most, the ones who can least afford it. You're very well aware of that.

businesses will suffer in Santa Ana why would anyone go to say a Home Depot in Santa Ana when there is another one close by like in Tustin and buy the same product cheaper this person is a car dealer in buying a car the sales tax is charged where the individual lives but most people don't know that 33% of his new car customers live in Santa Ana so two-thirds of the car customers live outside Santa Ana why would they come here to buy a vehicle a new vehicle when they think they will pay less at

another dealer in another city I do not support an increase in the sales tax and I hope you vote no I am a business owner in Santa Ana as well and this will affect me in the same way. My prices will be higher to my customers and that will affect my business negatively. Thank you.

Peter at Winningham. Because Peter took too long to get to the microphone, we're going to go to the next speaker.

Go ahead. Mayor Culpa. Thank you Mayor. Peter Winningham, representing the Orange County Auto Dealers Association. I was here two weeks ago, and so I won't waste your time with regurgitating what I shared that evening, but appreciated the amendment at that time to create a buy local program as an incentive rebate program for sales of vehicles from the 10 franchised auto dealers here in Santa Ana, and I would encourage your council to reaffirm that commitment with whatever action you do take tonight if in fact there is a measure that gets moved forward to the ballot in november thanks so much for your your time and support thank you

i believe unless i missed anybody that that was the last speaker is anybody else which addresses on this item see no one then let me uh say we're we're beyond public comment and bring it back to council for thoughts and deliberation

Council Member Benavides?

Sure, I'll go ahead. Okay.

We had some discussion around the last meeting, and it's been something that we've been discussing indirectly for a few months as we've been reviewing the budget and preparing the budget for the next fiscal year. the next fiscal year's budget is we're looking at a deficit, well this current year's fiscal budget now we're looking at a deficit of $10 million or so, $10 million plus that continues projections

increase significantly over the next few years as our

revenue is not keeping up with the

expenses. So we've been wrestling with what to do, how to go about addressing this. I think myself and my colleagues recognize that we need to come up with some type of direct response, a solution. One of those is in line with some of the comments that members of the public have made, in that we need to look at other opportunities for economic economic development for increasing our revenue or sales base within the city,

seeing development, encouraging development, thinking outside the box to be able to bring in some of that sustainable ongoing revenue. At the same time, short of taking this, by not taking an action, by placing something on the ballot, but not giving the residents that opportunity to address and potentially vote to be able to bring in revenue by way of a sales tax increase. Then we would likely be seeing ourselves in a position of potential bankruptcy in a few years out.

At least that's what the projections have been provided to us by the city manager and staff. Is that correct, Mr. City Manager?

That is correct, Council Member Benavious.

So in essence, we either need to take action, and tonight's the option that we have to take action, or we keep pushing this out and then potentially see a significant decrease in city services. There are a number of options that are presented before us tonight.

I don't think any of them have a direct overall sunset, and that's one of the things that I do think is necessary. What has been presented to us is that currently one of the significant issues is the fact that our liability, the PERS liability, has increased significantly and it's put us in this situation. situation. However, those projections are going to, after a period of time, I believe it's about two decades,

will turn around and come back down and provide some relief there. So ultimately, I don't think that it should be something that we should put on the voters in perpetuity long term. There have been two options that have been been presented both the 1% and 1.5%. There is more that we would potentially be able to do and provide as far as increase and improved services and improvements in other capital projects potentially at the rate of 1.5 because it would lend a $60 million projected revenue increase.

So what I would feel comfortable supporting, I think what we as a council should consider, is potentially going out with a 1.5 after 10 years, decreasing back down to the 1, and then sunsetting altogether in 10 years, similar to what OCT has done with their measure M at 20 years out, and then let the voters decide at that point. So present that to my colleagues for consideration and see what other feedback my colleagues have to provide.

Council Member Villegas.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

So people need to understand, just like Council Member Benavides was saying, that we're not receiving enough revenue for the city to sustain the services that we need to provide as a city. This city has 189 vacancies right now, it's 189 people that could be providing services to you. If you're wondering why you need a business license that takes so long, or you need an inspection or code enforcement or clerks or things filed, the list goes on and on. There's a lot of streets that need to be repaired. I didn't know this until I got here, but when you're going to repair a street, there's a schedule.

And, boy, it could take years before they get to your street. It's just incredible. I realize how this thing works. You can't really make significant changes until you have the funds for it. A tax increase would help us be able to make a significant impact on this. Not just providing more services, but to make those repairs to our parks and our streets, so on and so forth. Repairs and replacements of things that ultimately get used and worn out that need to be fixed. But why a tax increase?

people ask you know it's not just the purrs i know every city is facing the purrs but like i said when you i call it the fixed income santa ana is like on a fixed income because you can only receive so much due to prop 13 there's a lot of a large percentage of homes that are under that and i respect that and it's a good thing but ultimately the you know the economy is going up and you know the services cost more labor costs more but we're still receiving only so much revenue and so we can't keep up with it so we have to do something and it's our responsibility to put it out there to the voters to inform you for you folks

to make the decision it's not us to make a decision our job is to bring it to you and the and the folks the residents of Santa Ana they make the decision it's not us we can't we can support something but that's about it we're like everyone else we're a resident too and we get to have a vote and so Santa Ana spends a lot of money. You can't compare us to other cities and the reason we spend a lot of money is because this city is very dense. There's a lot of people that live here. So what does that mean? That means that we have to hire more people. There's more services to provide. We have to contract services also and it's just we

have a lot of people here. So it costs more. It's not like in Irvine where their property tax firm they're receiving a lot more or some other city. Here you know that we're 27.2 square miles and there's 343,000 residents that live here, half a million Monday through Friday because of work. So, of course, this place needs some fixing up. And we're not going to make a change unless we can all pass a tax measure. And so it's not a popular thing to do. It's very difficult to come up here and to ask. But our job is to put the information out there.

And so those are my comments, and I support the 1.5 with a sunset on it at 10 years we're looking at. We can discuss that more.

That's my comment, Mr. Mayor. Thank you.

All right. Additional comments? Council Member, does Sarmento want to speak as well, or just Tina? Go ahead, Sal. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

First and foremost, thank you very much to all the speakers who came out to speak today. It is absolutely well within your right to canvas neighborhoods and campaign against anything that you wish that you don't agree with. That's the beauty about democracy, and that's what we're doing here on this council is we're letting the public make a decision. So I want to put some things into perspective. Number one, when it comes to car sales, I think we've heard, I'm going to make it very clear. When a person comes from another city to buy cars in Santa Ana, they pay the tax from their city.

So that's not going to deter people from buying cars in the city of Santa Ana. When a Santa Ana resident comes and buys a car in Santa Ana, they will pay the tax. However, they're going to get that tax back in a rebate check. So you're going to receive a check in the mail that gives you that tax back. So car sales, you don't have to worry, you're getting that money right back. Groceries, anything you buy in a grocery store will not be taxed. So groceries, food, feeding your family, that will not be taxed. Now, if you go to Del Taco and you get something prepared, then that will have the one and a half of the sales tax.

So I want to make that clear. Car dealerships are going to be able to run just as they always run. We are going to create a shop local program where we're going to educate our public again that if you buy a car in Santa Ana, whatever that increase in tax was, you're getting that back in a check. We're going to let our residents know that you are not paying taxes on groceries. So why is this council bringing this to your attention? Several things have occurred in the last 15 years. The way people shop today is very different from the way people shopped when I first was elected.

Before, you would go to the mall or go to the store and pay your cash and pay your taxes. Today, with the online purchases, we don't receive that revenue. So we've taken a huge hit on that. Yes, our PERS has also gone up. That means the retirements have also gone up. And so we have to pay more into that. What we're trying to do here is provide services. At the end of the day, Santa Ana residents, the people of Santa Ana, we have always worked as a team. You not always agree, we don't always agree on everything, but when we do move forward on something, we work as a team.

We didn't all agree on regulating medical cannabis here in the city of Santa Ana. We didn't all agree. It was a very tough vote. In fact, it was a 4-3 vote. Similar arguments were made during that time. At the end of the day, there were some people that took that leap of faith. And what happened? Number one, we shut down over 95% of the illegal dispensaries that were near schools, near parks, near residences. We segregated them to the industrial zone. And we brought in money to the city. So what happens with that? We're able to provide services.

Now I heard someone say, you know what, we just need to stop wasteful spending. I want to share this with you. I was elected in 2006. When I came here, the second floor of City Hall was jam-packed with workers. It's a ghost town in there. There's not one desk. We have cut and cut and cut during the Great Recession. And we still haven't filled those positions. We have some issues, ladies and gentlemen, that have emerged. we have a homeless issue we have a response time issue because we're it's very difficult for us to compete and bring in more more officers to help

mitigate that at the same time we also have to provide after-school programs we have to fix our parks we have to fix our infrastructure it's about service it's about quality of life we as Santa Ana residents are going to decide what type of quality of life we want and deserve and that is what you're going to do in November you're going to make that decision our job is to put it out there for you to make that decision based on the decision you make we as council members then have to address it and and try to find creative ways to fix it if it doesn't go through but in the meantime it's not like we're

sitting on our hands and saying this is the only thing we're doing I can't tell you how many different items and you've heard them here during the budget report where we talked about what we can do to generate revenue we're taking we're checking all options our governor did something years ago and i and i bring it i said it at the last council meeting i'll say it again he was at the mayor's house and the mayor invited us over and you know he's he's he's in his in his retirement years and I said to him, Mr. Brown, why do you want to run? You should be retiring,

laying out at the beach. And he said, because I think I can fix this. This was during the Great Recession when the state of California was going bankrupt. And what he did was masterful. Instead of saying, we're going to raise taxes, he says, residents, here's our needs. Here's what it's going to cost you make the decision if you want these services or not and he was very transparent about that that's what we're doing here today it's just being very transparent i live here i'm not going anywhere my kids grew up here they've played in those baseball parks

they played at the football fields i want my grandkids to have the same opportunities if not better than my kids did. I applaud Council Member Benavides because he's saying let's put a sunset on this. Why? Because some of our PERS obligation is going to drop. We're not going to need that 0.5. And then down the road, we're not going to need that 1%. So what he's doing is looking ahead into the future and adjusting, readjusting us back to where we need to be. This is a temporary action, but it's up to the voters what you want to do. What kind of Santa Ana do we want to be? I think we could be a great Santa Ana.

And we, as we are asking folks, and we ourselves are going to vote to impose that one and a half cent sales tax. We also have a responsibility as a council to assure that we spend it in the right places. that we take a look at what is the most important items that we have to fix in our city. And I think that we should do community meetings with that, Mr. City Manager. We should prioritize because at the end of the day, this is not the city council. This is the residents of the city of Santa Ana saying these are the things that are important to us. We need to get a hold of our homeless issue. We need to create programs for that.

We need to have officers that can respond when issues arise. and we need to make sure that we have programs for our youth so that we can bolster what's happening at the Santa Ana Unified School District so I thank you for giving me the time mr. mr. mayor but it is not easy but it's important so I hope that we can pass this tonight and let the residents decide

thank you thank you Councillor Vince Saramante do you have comment well I think we have comment over here council

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. As you all know, I have voted no on similar measures these past few weeks and will do so again tonight for a few important reasons, I believe. Number one, many communities have sought revenue enhancements and every community will do different amounts of outreach. which I know the school district was mentioned. They did some surveys, some surveys back also to the community saying what the voters and the parents wanted and that's the way they went about their process. Here I think it's largely been a staff driven process and

they didn't look at the entire range of tax and fee options. As we all know or should know, sales taxes are the most regressive, meaning that it impacts poor folk the most, whereas there are other options that other communities have done or could do, and we could consider that here. And I know we're now talking about doing outreach, and we should, regardless of what happens over these next months, including with our business community. I know the auto dealers were here and brought up some ideas, But that program, for example, hasn't been finalized and

a lot of this outreach work should have been done before. Also, I know we're looking at different articulations in the measure on how these things might read. And there's really a lot of ambiguity. I mean, it speaks to enhancing public safety, if you will, and addressing the homelessness issues. But I don't know how much is going to go to what? and i know uh you know we've talked about vacancies at this meeting and before many of the vacancies we have at city hall are budgeted vacancies uh you know the current budget that we that we

approved and that we're working with has 48 vacant budgeted positions in the police department we have to fill them and we particularly have to film before we you know ask for more dollars or if we're gonna uh push this measure saying this for public safety then we need to have an honest conversation about how that money might be used or might not be used. Again, too, because homelessness is a big issue. The measure says money's going to go towards homeless housing and services. Well, how much? Where? By ourselves, with the county? Very unclear.

Also, we do have not just staffing needs, but we do have infrastructure needs. But infrastructure needs typically, we fund with other capital dollars, not necessarily revenue like the sales tax. And so this measure is very unclear of how much of any of this may go to capital expenditures for things like parks and streets, whether new or refurbishments, all very unclear. And maybe there is time to clarify some of these things between now and November. but ideally those things are spelled out before they're communicated with the

audience we communicate and work with residents and businesses to to have a package you know somebody on my Facebook said you know do it like you know measure M at OCTA and you know what before they put things on the measure they do two to three years of outreach and work you know how much what's it going to be used towards what what kind of oversight is there going to be etc and And we didn't do that in this case. That's not to say we're not service deficient because we are. Clearly, I think we all see that and believe that. But how we govern and do things I think is very important.

It sets the tone not just for the here and now, but for the future. And so I'm hopeful that staff and my colleagues in the community have learned that, yeah, maybe we can muscle this through and maybe it gets on the ballot, maybe it passes or doesn't. but it really is not the best way to involve our community or the council in decision making. Thank you so much.

Thank you. I believe we have a motion to second, but do we have additional thought or comment?

Vince, if you do, I'll let you speak and then I'll make comment. All right. Thank you.

Boy, to me this is a tough one because I see certain savings that I think we can

implement, you know, such as about $8 million. If you look at the Marshall's contract that right now is part of the budget for the jail, if you go on a go-forward basis, staff is basically zeroing it out. And assuming $8 million becomes zero, therefore we have an $8 million gap additional. One option might be right now aggressively seek another contract for the Marshall's and assume that it's not going to run out, work very, very hard between now and 2018, and maybe recover that $8 million.

And now, out of the gap, it's $8 million less than what current assumptions assume it would be. Also, I see, I don't know what year it is, and maybe staff knows,

but when does the jail bond get paid off? Because I know we have 2024.

2024.

All right. So 2024, it's within the same 20-year period we're talking about. That tax, fortunately, does not sunset. When we passed it many years ago, we said no sunset, that knowing and understanding that the city would be a bigger city with more needs, and then when that year would come and go, we would have a windfall because we no longer have to service the debt on the jail facility, yet the utility user's tax is still coming to the city coffers. So that's going to be of benefit to us.

Also, I want to ask, I know that we have different labor unions, and different employees pay different amounts towards their retirement. But I believe the peak is somewhere around, is it 12% or 13%? I'm talking about PERS. Where are we, Ms. City Manager? Do you know roughly, and if we were at the max with all our labor units, how much money would that potentially impact the city budget if every employee were paying the maximum allowable?

The 12% is for public safety. The employee contribution, that's the minimum employee contribution, if you will, is 9%. And through negotiations in the past, they've gotten up to 12% as part of some of the...

What about non-public safety?

Non-public safety, their employee contribution is 8%. And I believe everybody is contributing their fair share.

And that's the max?

anything would be more than that. I mean, if the bargaining units agreed to pay more than the 8%, certainly then they could do that. But right now they're paying 8%.

All right. I just understand that other cities non-sworn are higher than 8%, that some are as high as 12, and I'm just saying if we were to be able to get there, that also would would save some money. And having gone through all this, I think there's still a need for a tax increase if we want the city to operate at a higher, more effective, more efficient, stronger level. I will also submit to you that if we put something on the ballot today,

meaning 2018 I believe all you need is a majority vote I know there's been some discussion of a measure that would limit that and make it a two-thirds in 2020 or beyond but I think that failed because we as the Big Eleven mayors did a very strong campaign we got coca-cola and Pepsi and others to pull back on that but that could come back in the future because a lot of cities are doing these tax increases and their special interests that vote against them.

And so I think there's still a need for additional taxes. I just think that the nature of what cities do tend to be permanent. And even though we're talking about this PERS surge, where a lot of employee benefits are going to come for a period of time, and they're going to drop down because of the new contracts that we're doing that are lower levels on retirement. You know, we won't use the money just for one-time projects. I guarantee you if we do this tax increase and should it pass, some of those dollars are going to go to ongoing expenditures.

At OCTA, something we did was we targeted those monies basically for, you know, by and large, for capital projects. there are very few dollars out of Measure M1 or Measure M2 that go to ongoing operational costs, such as employee wages, for example. So as a consequence of that, when Measure M1 ended, we had certain freeways widened. We had the Santa Ana Freeway. Then the tax went away, but we were pretty much with a balanced budget. I know in cities, when you tend to do this, because some of our costs are also labor-intensive,

it's very hard to do, say, we're going to do a tax increase. I know in El Monte, Mr. City Manager, you said when you were there, they had a tax increase. It had a sunset, and I think it was five years or something like that, and it was probably a flash in the pan. Before you know it, the five years were done. Can you just speak to that briefly, please? Please. Yes, Mr. Mayor.

When I became city manager in 2013 in El Monte, they had a measure that was going to expire that November, Measure GG as a matter of fact. And when it was first implemented five years earlier, which would have been 2008, the goal of that measure was to actually build up their reserves. But what happened is the recession occurred and all of it went into operations. And even with that additional measure, the city went from 425 or whatever it was down to 290. They lost 25% of the workforce, even with the tax measure. So five years later, it was going to expire, and they really had not built up their reserves,

so they wanted to reauthorize, and they did go for a reauthorization. But it went by faster than they expected.

Got it. Thank you. So anyways, look, I think I'm going to call for the vote in a moment, but let me just state for the record that I can support like a 1% in perpetuity. I respect my fellow council members, and I understand your arguments for one and a half, and for the concept of the sunset. So even though I'm not in favor of that, I'm not violently opposed, because I believe and I know that the city needs it. But should this motion fail, should there be a motion for a lower level, um at one percent i think that that's something that's more acceptable so right now we have a

motion by counselor benavides i think there's a second by uh villegas i believe it's for one and a half for a 10-year period and then going down to a one uh uh percent from the following 10-year period and then zeroing out at the end of 20 years is that correct that is correct and i hadn't made

motion but i'll go ahead and make it now just additional comment that it is definitely uh it's something that i've wrestled with i didn't actually support the matter uh last meeting because one is because it was in perpetuity uh i've been wrestling with this uh because i i agree with a lot of the comments of the speakers that that uh cost of living is going up and and i really uh don't like the idea of the city adding uh potentially although we wouldn't be the ones adding but presenting that the question before the voters for potential addition of additional expense just to buy everyday products. However if we didn't

find ourselves in a situation in such a challenging fiscal situation and the reality is that we were there years ago. I sat in this seat a number of years back when we were very close to having a file bankruptcy and I don't ever want to see our city in that situation see that that the city has an organization council and city but ultimately i don't want to have the the residents uh see uh significant decreases in in services that they that they deserve that they uh pay taxes to to uh to to receive uh so this is in essence uh out of uh

obligation to ensure that we are able to maintain some of the essential city services address some of the needs that have significantly come up, such as homelessness, although I do hear some of the comments that some of my colleagues have made in that we do need to be much more clear between now and election time and even one on what we're going to prioritize, how we're going to be responsible with the oversight of these dollars.

And then, again, including an oversight citizens review council or committee or task force to ensure that the city is being very responsible going forward. Frankly, part of my concern is that we would see this as new funds. And I won't be here. Some of us won't be here. and that then decisions are made where raises are extended, and we see it as an opportunity to go out and spend the residents' tax dollars in a not very fiscally prudent way. And so I know that one of the things that would I want to, with that comment,

what I want to reiterate is that there would be, part of the motion, is that there would be a citizens' review oversight board on this to ensure that we're monitoring this well and that we're keeping only fiscally prudent decisions as part of how the funds are expended. So with that, yes, that is my motion, one and a half.

Yeah, let me go to the same Andrew, and then Councilman Vince Armiento, and I want to speak. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

In response to Councilman Benavides' concerns and also your comments, Mr. Mayor, about the OCTA capital program, If the council was to go with the penny and a half version, what I would recommend is that you direct staff to come back to this body with the CIP program. Because I think in the initial years, we will be able to afford such a program. And I think there's a great need out there. I'll just give you one example. Our new interim Parks and Rec director, his first day on the job was July 3rd. so in preparation for the 4th of July in preparation for the 4th of July fireworks display at Centennial

he went to get familiar with that park on his first day he came back and reported to me that he had observed a lot of dead trees in fact probably in the neighborhood of 90 trees I had no idea and just to give you an idea of our medians when I was last here as your public works director our medians looked very nice we were before the drought, everything was green and all of that our trees are diseased. We're going to see a lot of tree failures. I'm just going on to give you examples of some of the issues that aren't surfacing as immediate right now, but they're there. They're there already. One of the other things

that this new interim director, Fresh Prayer of Eyes, told me is that a lot of our pools are only open twice a week for an hour and a half each. I mean, we've already cut back to the comment of Council Member Tina Harrell that the second floor is pretty much a ghost town. Well, that goes for a lot of our services. We're already at minimum level of service. With the heat wave the other day or the other week, I was really, really torn to hear, really troubled to hear that some of our pools are only open twice a week for an hour and a half each.

I mean, so I'm just touching on a few of our needs, the fact that we're operating at bare minimum. And so, but back to the issue of concern about how we spend the money, I would strongly recommend at least come up with a capital program that we could present to you on how some of these can be used for one-time monies because there's a great need out there.

I would include that as part of the motion there.

Thank you. Councilor Vince Armiento, please. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And so it sounds like and it appears that there is majority support for this to be placed on the ballot. And from what I understand, Mr. City Manager and Madam City Attorney, this is not imposing some sort of tax or assessment. This is just simply asking the question, correct? So with that, let me just wordsmith what I'm seeing in front of me since this does look like it will go forward. what i would uh recommend or maybe make a friendly amendment to the maker of the motion of the maker of

the second is to uh interlineate some language because we know that homelessness is such a large problem in our community that i would start the uh consideration for the ballot title to read santa anna neighborhood safety comma and homeless prevention comma and essential city services enhancement measure and for there to be a to eliminate the one and a half percent in

instead or excuse me to to put one and a half cents instead of one and a half percent because one and a half percent of what that's misleading that's that's that's vague I think you know if this is capped and this is defined specifically by one and a half cents is something that we can work with and is clear for the voters when they go to the ballot and decide on whether or not they want to support this finally I think it was mentioned but just for clarity I would also make want to make sure that the buy local program is part of this is part of this motion as well so we could show consideration for our friends

and the car dealers thank you if i may council member yes go ahead um as a result of the last direction at the previous meeting uh staff is already working on a buy a local program and we hope to bring that to the council second meeting in august or so so we're already very good we've

already been given direction and we're already working on that thank you well look i i think there's been some good discussion here I think we all see the the need you know for different levels should I think there's gonna pass and if so I say let's move forward but again I personally be more comfortable at one percent or one one one cent to council and revenge Sarmiento's point versus one and a half cents so with that additional comment if not go ahead a quick question there for

staff. There's a comment with regard to a little bit of wordsmithing. Is there, can we, are we locked to the description exactly the way it's worded? Here what was presented to us tonight or is there any option to do a few just grammatical changes? Can that be part of the motion to allow for some, and maybe this is for the city

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

attorney. Because you're adopting the resolution establishing tax this evening you have to have the precise language you're going to use. You do have a deadline which you could continue this to a date specific or have a special meeting but tonight if you adopt this tonight you need to have language in the resolution tonight that will appear on the ballot. But he's not talking about

the major resolution he's talking about sword smithing potential. Well the

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

question is contained within the resolution and the reason I ask is that

that point with regard to right now the wording that we have sent in a neighborhood safety addressing homelessness and essential city services that the suggestion was homelessness prevention and and I think there was some in a previous conversation with that city manager the even that wording the addressing homelessness was one of the recommended. The question is whether we're going to actually be able to, one of the questions on the mind, whether we're going to actually be able to prevent homelessness by way of this dollars coming in

or whether it's more along the lines of addressing the homelessness issue. So that was one of the questions that I have. And then if we're going to the issue of homelessness is a priority issue, so I would recommend if we're going to again look at doing some changes, potentially in the description adding bringing that up to the priority item. So that was why I was, you know, there's a few minor things of that sort. The other is the dates.

I'm assuming that the dates are going to be changed here on the 1.5 cents until 2028 and then one cent and then providing you know then the reduced to to one cent in 2029 basically do we need to correct that right now that's not reflected the changes are not or is that

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

whatever it is that you are voting on tonight needs to be articulated for placement in the draft

resolution i think you did that earlier and the clerk got it right she got it okay uh okay all

right i'm just there was a change on the uh wording up in the title and that's fine i don't

want to get into any more specific and we'll accept the uh family amendment correct okay

so cal so the friendly amendment by councilman vince sarmiento and miss city manager by the uh

the dates so 10 years uh this remedy measure would start in april of 2019 so we would go to uh 10 years from that point okay 10 years from that point so we go through uh 2029 for the 1.5 and then through 2039 for the for the penny all right is that uh acceptable all right all right

so madam clerk let's do a roll call vote please council member sarah miento aye council member

Bertina Harrell?

Aye.

Mayor Polito?

No, but yes on a 1%.

Okay.

Council Member Benavidez?

Aye.

Council Member Villegas? Aye. Council Member Solorio?

No.

Okay.

Motion passes. Motion passes.

Okay, let's go on to the next item.

I believe that's 55D.

Mr. Mayor, change the clock.

Let's backtrack to that vote again. And so. I voted no. So was that a 4-2? It passes.

4-2 vote passes.

No, I understand, but I think there was some misleading comments made during the discussion. The presumption was that the mayor was supportive of the motion.

So if now we're. I don't believe so. I said that if the motion failed, I'd vote for a 1%. But it didn't fail. But it didn't fail. It didn't fail. So I voted no for the one and a half. I would have voted yes for a one percent or a one cent tax. If that was confusing, I apologize. It was very confusing because it was very misleading.

Because the only reason these edits were made, because you were supportive on the record for the motion that was being discussed.

I don't believe so.

The clerk and the whole audience heard. As somebody who was supportive of the motion, I'd move to reconsider that vote.

Well, and you know, the fact is, Mr. Mayor, is that you know you're going to be challenged this November, and you're protecting yourself instead of protecting this city, and that's what's frustrating. I'm putting my neck on the line to make sure that we're solvent, and you've made a decision to go the other way.

I'm happy to vote yes if we can go to one cent tax.

The maker of the motion would have to accept the reconsideration.

I'll accept the reconsideration.

All right, is there a motion for a one-cent tax?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

No, we're actually procedurally needing a vote on whether you want to reconsider that discussion since the vote had been taken. There's a motion and a second, so you would vote on whether you want to open up this conversation.

Those that want to reopen up the conversation, vote aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. No.

So the motion passes.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

So we basically renew conversation on that on the item that you had previously voted on and the action is rescinded and now you're having a new conversation on that item.

So I'll just start if I can make comment, Mayor. I also heard you indicate that you were okay with the one and a half with basically the motion. However, then you were clear that you'd prefer the one percent. but there is this one of the members of the council has indicated from the beginning that they were not going to be supportive it's unfortunate because I think it is something that none of us want to do

but we recognize that

there's a need as you articulated and I do agree that it is a

misleading and personally protecting protecting oneself. I don't want to go on the record for raising taxes or in fact we're not but for presenting the question but it's a very sly way of being able to ensure that the city could potentially could have the question out to the voters but not being the one to to vote in favor of putting the question out there. So it's something that I think if we really genuinely see this

has a need then we should stand by that and and and i articulate earlier that i believe there are ways we can save some money keep the jail open that's about you know eight million dollars in 2024 we're going to have the money coming back from the utility users tax and i believe we can have our non-public safety employees pay more than the nine percent so i'm in favor and i stated so clearly earlier of a one-cent tax increase and also I think we should do it in perpetuity I think I think when you peel it back and you sunset it it sets

you up for a very difficult situation so there's a motion for that I'm I'm in favor of putting that before the voters I'll make an emotion is there a second

it dies for lack of a second well I think it's fine we have it on record so now let's go back to the official the original motion so I will go back with my original motion base at this as articulated I think it was necessary to have this additional discussion and frankly I was reconsidering my position for the same reason. Basically, I don't want to stick my neck out there, but I recognize that it's in the best interest of our residents. As much as I don't want to, and I hate the idea of potentially adding an additional, even though it's a penny and a half tax on every dollar, however,

services to our community will significantly be impacted, reduced, and our citizens and our community deserve better than to be that to have already their their the services that need to actually be enhanced be reduced anymore so in the interest of our community I'm going to be again making the motion back as it was originally stated if I can

madam city attorney go ahead can you tell us what motion is before us yes the one councilor Benavides just made okay so the mayor's I just want the mayor to be on record and i want to support i want to support his motion not because i believe in in it because i just want him to commit to something um i made the motion record

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

so the mayor had made a motion which was his position that died for lack of a second so his position is articulated is not on the floor and it's been replaced now by councilmember benavides's motion i don't know if you want to renew that motion or not but that's where we are now as council member benavides motion is on unless there's a substitute motion made then you

would look for a second or is there a second for councilman benavides motion either that or if you want to re-articulate your motion i'll second your motion you already heard it all right i'll second

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

your motion mr mayor i'm fine with that that's true benavides motion would have died for a lack

of a second so my motion just for the record is that it's a one cent in perpetuity sales tax that we put before the voters so long as you support it I support it all right roll call vote councilmember Sarmiento aye council

member Tina Harrow yes one cent vote in perpetuity all right

Make a friendly amendment as to the time. You want to say one cent for 20 years? I'll go for that.

I'm happy to accept a friendly amendment if that's going to make a difference.

I'm going to get a recess. A recess.

All right, let's take a five-minute recess.

Thank you.

so my motion is uh you know the one percent for 20 years is there a second to that

did it go away all second all right we have second roll call vote please now it's time for discussion right motion there there is so so i do have a question of staff uh there's a recommendation

it was your motion perpetuity or no no i i amended it to 20 years so now question to staff uh there's a reason why we're looking at south recommending a 1.5 versus a one percent can you explain a bit to us as to what that additional, essentially represents $20 million, correct, annually? That is correct.

So basically, present your argument right now, because this is the chance, and then we're going to make a decision.

Thank you, Council Member Benavides. The reason staff was recommending the 1.5 is because, based on the projections in terms of the shortfalls, It would take the full 1.5 to bridge across the projected high watermark with PERS costs before they plateau. With the one cent, of course, let me just preface that any increase in revenue is sorely needed. So we're not going to say no to anything. But what we wanted to say is the 1.5 actually covered the bulk of that deficit five years out before it stabilized, if you will.

In the interim, as costs are rising, there would be an opportunity in the first three years in particular, maybe four, to really, with that extra money that would not be fully spoken by the cost increases, to do very much needed capital improvements in our parks, our sidewalks, our streets, etc. And with the one-cent proposal, it'll keep us solvent for a few years there. and all these other things that the mayor mentioned are real possibilities. Labor is never a sure thing to get employees to contribute more. It needs to be bargained, and it's not easy to get.

The marshals, I really hope that they continue to need our jail, but right now all we have is a two-year contract, so we have to be conservative and assume that they could walk away. The scene at the federal level seems to be very volatile, but we hope that that will continue past the two years that we're forecasting. And the jail is the sure thing. The debt on the jail does expire 2024, so that is a true thing here. We're looking at a forecast of without these variables that we can't control,

if we went with the one-cent sales tax, we would have an increase of 9.7 in 19-20, fiscal year 1920, in fiscal year 2020,

and in fiscal year 2021 we would be with a surplus of 1.6 and then possibly as soon as 2021 without any of these things that we can't really control, we could be back in the negative situation of 7.2 and so forth. So it's really hard to tell the 1.5 would provide greater stability for the known increases that we have. Now remember, none of these projections include a downturn in the economy, which everybody says is within the next two years a very real possibility. But not mentioning that, just focusing on the positive aspects of this,

the 1.5 in short would allow us to do positive improvements in our infrastructure,

and the other one would not. The other one would allow us to sort of maintain status quo at best.

To clarify, Mayor, you mentioned OCTA and measure M. And how they were able to articulate a number of capital improvement projects because of those funds. You also then picked up on that, Mr. City Manager, and actually suggested that we request from staff a clear capital improvement calendar on practical items needs, infrastructure needs capital needs out in the community that we would be able to address if that 1.5 were to pass if that 1.5 were to be reduced back to one down to one would there be still opportunity for some of those capital

projects or is that part of what you're saying that it would be less certain it

would be a lot less with the penny it would be a lot less you'd have basically one year where you could actually do some of some cap improvements as opposed to three or four years solid improvements with the one and a half cent. And what I was proposing is if this measure was passed by the voters in November, then we would come. The revenue doesn't start to come in until April, so it's part of the following fiscal year's budget. We would prepare a capital program for your approval at that point. That would be a multi-year plan for the infrastructure. And Mayor, your

your thoughts rationale behind my rationale is that look one and a half cent is undoubtedly more money it's a it's a third more money it's 60 million dollars a year versus 40 million dollars a year so you know no argument there what I'm saying is that it's it's for me tougher to put that before the voters knowing that there's eight million dollars that we ought to be working really hard to to to continue to keep the jail fall and by the way it's not a hundred percent full but if we work with the

marshals there's an eight million dollar windfall there if you will that right now staff is saying it's zero because our contract only goes for two years well let's go work on another contract jail still going to be there three years from now and ten years from now let's fill it up and bring in that eight million dollars times you know times ten years we can do that i'm also saying that there's other dollars if we go back to our our unions and say we want you to pay more on your portion of the retirement much of this problem is calpers and and i believe we can ask our employees

to to pay more it's not a popular thing to do but i think we need to we need to do that i also believe that in 2024 we're going to have a windfall that that's going to come from the you know the half cent sales tax that we did years ago actually it was a cell one cent uh sales tax on utility users tax that's going to come back to the budget and and and look you know there's cannabis revenue. I think that that's going to continue to grow. And it should come in and help the budget. So I am personally more

comfortable, even though I know there's need, I'm more comfortable with $40 million a year. I think that's still a lot of money to ask of this community. I think a sales tax, unfortunately it's maybe the easiest thing to do, but it's a regressive tax. It'll go after everybody that's you know you know buying goods and services here in the city and so that's why I believe that that one percent is the right number I also think it's going to be easier to get it passed I mean we can sit here and say one and a half cents and it's 60 million we could say

two cents and that's 80 million every time you go up people are going to think about it more and And they're going to say, do I want to vote for it or do I not want to vote for it? I think at one cent, you have a greater chance of getting it passed. You know, at OCTA, we even went with a half cent sales tax. And that pulled better. And it passed twice. And because it was countywide, we raised billions of dollars. And we were able to do, you know, the freeway widening. We're now doing Measure M2, which is going to be the $400 million streetcar project. it's enabled us to do a lot of things.

And we in Santa Ana are going to be the main beneficiaries of much of those dollars because of the way we've been able to get them to come here to Santa Ana.

So anyways, I think we've had some discussion, and if folks are good with the vote, I say let's go ahead and vote. So roll call vote, please.

This is the 1%? 1%, yes.

1 cent, not 1%. 1 cent. one penny can you start over there madam clerk for 20 years council member Solorio start with me let me vote first mayor Pulido yes council member

Solorio no council member Villegas no council member Benavidez council member Tina Harrell no council member Sarmiento motion fails all right

So let's go on to the next item for now.

No, we go back to the original motion. Go back to my original motion. All right. Yeah.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem —

You'll have to make that motion. That's the new motion.

So my motion is for 1.5 or 1.5 cents for 10 years, followed by the 1 cent for 10 years with a sunset.

roll call vote second okay council member solorio solorio now council member viegas viegas yes council member benavides aye mayor polito no council member tina harrow yes council

member sarmiento motion passes okay on a four to two okay thank you i think good discussion Let's go on to the next item. I believe that is 55D as in David.

I would entertain a motion on item 55D.

Councilor Yegas? So moved.

Second.

Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed? 55D. Oh, aye. The annual. Aye. Okay. Passes unanimously. 55E is in Edward. I entertain a motion. We'll be aided. Second. Those in favor, please say aye. I have one comment,

Mr. Mayor. Go ahead. You know what, this at some point interacts with our Santa Ana Work Center and has another idea of a missed opportunity in the short term, but a better opportunity in the future. We have moved our Santa Ana Work Center from the depot to a place here closer to City Hall. It's largely staff employees that support that center, although we do have partners from the county and the feds and others. And as was mentioned before, we have the second floor of City Hall empty.

One of my recent questions when I found out about this is, why didn't we try to get the Center of Work Center to move into the second floor? of city hall or make some adjustments to have them here and then that we have a true one-stop shop. I think at the time that this decision was being made, we still had a big homeless population outside and some of the employees did not want to work under those circumstances. That is understandable and respectable, but obviously that situation has changed. It's my understanding that we've entered into a five-year lease.

Maybe we have, maybe we haven't, but if nothing else, there's the opportunity that maybe in five years we could consider moving that operation into City Hall. I know too that some of the employees have had an idea that hey, we do have quite a bit of available real estate, if you will, here inside City Hall. We ought to consider leasing some of that towards others, whether they be government agencies or profit agencies. So that's an opportunity for us to look for in the future as we continue to work on agreements such as this one.

Let's try to keep that in mind and see if there isn't a better resolution to that situation. Thank you.

Any other comments?

With that, we already took a vote. Yeah, so that's it?

Yeah.

I think you held up the vote, right? I made comments as we should discuss them before the vote. So call for those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye, those opposed. Motion carries unanimously. Mayor, two things.

I need four members that supported the measure on the sales tax item. If those four members are okay to author an argument, I'd like to put that in the record.

Sure. Yes.

Yes. Yes. You have three yeses.

Okay.

Okay, with that, item 75A.

And then also if I can ask for an oath of office, we have a youth commissioner that's been sitting patiently and listening into our meeting.

I was not aware.

Okay.

Let's go ahead. Great.

Joseph Acevedo has been appointed to the youth commissioner.

All right, go ahead.

They, by the way, have new social media channels, a new logo. This youth commission is on fire. They're doing a lot of great work, so welcome.

Do you solemnly swear to support our NIFA? the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic,

that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties which I'm about to answer.

I just asked him how old are you and he smiled and he said 16 so it's a great age and I'm glad he's joined our youth commission so with that I would now like to open up a Pelican amendment application 20805 to reason on the property located at 1440 1450 East 17th Street for relocation of Ednavate Charter High School and I I believe I have four speakers.

Okay. Actually five. Adam, a sultan, please, or sultan.

And maybe it's a sultan.

Followed by Alvaro Ramirez.

Followed by Ceci Iglesias.

Go ahead, please. Mr. Mayor, council members, good evening. I live on the street adjacent to the proposed location, along with about 20 people here. If you would just stand up to represent. We also have 65 other members of the community that have signed a petition against this. I want to start by saying that the residents of our community want nothing more than for businesses to occupy the dilapidated and vacant buildings on 17th street the homeless problem there is out of control however we will not compromise the safety of our families in that pursuit i want to be clear that our objection

to the school site is based on a grave public safety concern that emergency vehicles may not have clear passage to our street multiple times a day allow me to reference uh the zoning requirements for C5 zoning under section 45.428 part B, which reads, the design of vehicle accessways, driveways, parking areas shall be safe and practical. I direct you to page one of the exhibit that I have given to each of you. The first page, if you want to hold this up, Michael.

Innovate has determined that the best possible pickup and drop-off zone is a one-way driveway with entrance on Wright Street and an exit on 17th Street. They have also stated that they will have 500 students. Even if every single student carpools, every single one of them, that is roughly 250 cars. Even if you shave off 25% of those who may walk or take the bus, that's still upwards of 200 cars that will need to enter and exit through this loading zone multiple times a day. Now, even if they stagger the start and end times for the students, we're still talking about over

a hundred cars all at once entering on Wright Street and exiting this zone multiple times a day. We measured the distances at each point of their site plan. You will see that the current plan that they have proposed is limited to 25 cars along the arrows. As you can see, the 25th car lining up in queue to enter will be blocking any cars from exiting their drop-off zone. Now you have a complete blockage of 17th Street going this way. You want to switch the next one? What happens next? Well, cars begin, once this is jammed, cars begin to reroute down Linwood which is a

residential street, excuse me, a residential street and swoop up to a more convenient, in fact a much more efficient drop-off and loading zone that happens to be right in front of about five or six house driveways. Those driveways will be blocked at those times for who knows how long, multiple times a day, every single day. You tell me, how does a city official in good conscience knowingly create a traffic condition that will encourage parents to either drop off here or somewhere on the other side of 17th Street from where children will jaywalk, or drop off

over here where our homes will be blocked by the traffic and the drop-off zone that I circled here in the yellow. This is a much more efficient plan than what they have proposed. We are not opposed to the school. We are opposed to the location and the planning of their drop-off zone. This facility is clearly inadequate and it will create a grave public safety concern for this neighborhood, especially Eastside Avenue. I still can't believe how someone came up with this loading scheme. I I mean, either this was a mistake that they missed completely, or we, the public...

You're out of time, but you've got a lot of folks, so I'll let you continue speaking. Do you have a proposed solution?

Well, I'm just urging you to reconsider and consider the safety implications of this plan and vote no and do the right thing for the community. We support the school, but not this location. It's bad for the students, bad for the parents, and they will suffer just as much as the residents of our city.

Thank you for your comments.

Thank you. Now we have Alvaro Ramirez. Dear Councilman and Mr. Mayor, my name is Alvaro Ramirez and I'm actually going to reread an email that I sent out to Benavidez. I actually live on the east side. I would like to kindly bring your attention or opposition to the construction of the end of a charter high school on 17th and right. As a valued member of the community for over 27 years, the traffic flow and noise generated by the school is unacceptable. The more I have dialogue with fellow members of the community who will be affected by the bill, the opposition increases.

Therefore, I don't only speak for my household, but for other members of the community who have not been able to attend the meetings or face communication issues, such as the inability to utilize electronic mail or speak English. I trust you as leaders in serving our community who strive to cater to all realms of our neighborhood and taxpaying residents. Furthermore, I'd like to indicate that while the traffic has been analyzed by the planning members, the information has not been presented to the community members. The claim is made that it will not affect the neighborhood.

However, there's a possibility of human error in the analytics. Many proposals look great on paper, but I strongly believe the building of this institution will be catastrophic to our immediate community. This neighborhood was our desired location to grow as a family due to the low traffic flow and quiet environment. This is all at risk. I'd like to end my statement with my love for it, passion and passion for education. Simply because we disagree with the establishment of an education institution in our neighborhood does not mean we oppose the benefits education promotes and creates in our society.

I serve as a mentor and leader for the California State University and donate endless hours by facilitating future opportunities to marginalized students. Please assist us in stopping the bill on Edna May Charter High School and 17th and Wright Street. Thank you.

Thank you. Cecilia, followed by Mike Tardif.

Good evening, Council Members. I just want to be short and fast. What I wanted to say is I'm here to support the recommendation that the Planning Commission has brought before you guys. So thank you very much.

Thank you. Mike.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. My name is Mike Tardiff. I live on 19th Street, just a couple of short blocks away from the proposed site of EdnaVate Public Charter School. The main concern of the neighborhood seems to be traffic that the school could possibly bring to the area. There was a traffic study done for this and it seems to be very well laid out. First, the school has a no-drive policy for students and half of those students are not of driving age. And the total amount of students is 460, it's not 500. There will be staggered start times.

There will be traffic monitors on site to enforce the school's drop-off and pick-up rules. As you can see on the traffic flow map, there's ample provision for drop-off and pick-up queues on the school property. The school is very aware of the traffic concerns of the neighborhood and will continue to work with the neighborhood for the best traffic safety practices. I am excited to have such a fine college prep school in our neighborhood. Ednovate is partnered with USC and is supported by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,

Eli and Edith Broad Foundation, Riordan Foundation, USC Rozier School of Education. I believe that Ednovate Public Charter School will be an asset to Santa Ana and our neighborhood. Please support the Planning Commission recommendation to approve Ednovate Charter School at this location. Thank you.

We have another speaker, Darren Berberian.

Good evening. Darren Barbarian, president of Golden West Communities. I represent the developer of Pacific West Communities. I just wanted to get in front of you today to let you know we worked extensively a very long time on this project. We took very, very close consideration to traffic. Obviously, that is one of the biggest impacts of any new development. We had a traffic engineer complete a report. It was submitted to city staff. it went back and forth and we were approved with conditions so our site plan that you see for right in front of you there was carefully considered to be

the most efficient and the most the reduction of any type of traffic on 17th Street that was the goal from day one was we didn't want to have any queuing on 17th Street and as you see it was the most efficient we can produce and that was approved by staff or supported by staff and approved at Planning Commission I'm here to answer any questions we appreciate your consideration on the zoning change we have two parcels on this project and both parcels have this split zoning it's kind of around the parking lot of butting up to the single-family residents so we asked your consideration

to change that zoning so it coincides with the general plan and let our project move forward did you talk to the residents about the impact we've had We had a Sunshine meeting, and in that meeting we had 20-somewhat residents. I believe some of the speakers were there. We've always been available to communicate with the community. I've given my cards after Planning Commission. I actually met with them right afterwards and said, let's talk. What issues do you have? How can I be of service? I've given them all my cards. They have all my information. We have also attended two other association community meetings afterwards.

So we have had several community meetings on this subject alone. So we've been available the entire process. Why don't you be available? I think we might have questions from Council. Sure. Let me, before we continue, I know we did a lot of traffic studies. Director Ming, could you please address the traffic issue?

yes a planning staff elect to invite our planning manager candida to expand on the traffic of mission that was studied but in terms of the information regarding what the planning commission recommended is for the city council to consider the zone change the concern from the residents regarding the queuing of the vehicles. I did take a look at that, and potentially there could be some revision to the site plan to allow all of the queuing to be on site and potentially not even impact the street and only be ingressed and egressing from the primary street.

So that's something we can also work with the applicant as well if that is the concern, because there's some opportunity for us to look at some site plan modification to help with the circulation on the property.

Let me just ask a couple questions, then. Please, council members, please join in. This school, I think, goes in no matter what we vote tonight, right? This is just a technicality on a zoning issue.

You're correct, Mayor. The question here is for the zoning to be consistent with the general plan.

So even if we vote no, they can still go in? It's just inconsistent.

They can still go in. some of their addition would be reduced but yes they can still go in as a school correct okay i

just want to make sure i was not wrong on that fact the other question is this school is already in the city this usc prep school is already here it's on 17th street i believe just a little bit west of Broadway on the south side of 17th Street you're correct they were

located here in the city they recently closed based on I think just a week and

a half ago they closed because it was the end of the year correct but I guess my point is they didn't cause a lot of problems there because I drive by there often most of the kids don't drive these are young kids so they don't have a lot of cars and the parents drop them off and some of the kids walk to school so we have some experience with what we're dealing with here would you agree with that and can you speak to that candida yes we have not had any complaints in their current location and it's a similar they have similar amount of driveways

and similar amount of students, they're not planning on changing that, correct?

They have less students at the existing location or the previous location. And, again, the entrance is off of 17th Street and circles around through the parking lot and out.

So it's a very similar situation. Coincidentally, it's the same street, same single ingress, egress than what they have right now.

With a divided median, yeah.

Got it. More thoughts or questions? I have some questions. Please go ahead.

To our staff, is there, there's obviously, anytime I see one member have a lot of background on an item, I'm sure there's meetings and so forth, and we all have the right to do that. Did you meet with anyone, any consultants for this organization? Did I personally? No, sir. Was there anyone else besides the gentleman that's here before us that spoke to you about this? I have not met with the applicant myself. As you know, I recently joined the city, so this project precedes me. So who meets with the applicant? Generally, our staff do. Planning staff. Who in staff has met with the applicant's representatives or the applicant?

Do we know?

the project planner and the project planner on this project was

a Scarlett Marr okay and so the project planner was Scarlett Marr a Scarlett Marr okay so one of One of the things that the mayor is saying is that this school exists and that there hasn't been any issues. I will not dispute that. I'll give him that argument. I think what the residents are saying is they're concerned about the expansion. So the fact that the school will continue to exist, that is a non-issue for me at this point. The issue is the quality of life that our residents are going to experience with an expansion.

The applicant came in and he said he went through the Sunshine Ordinance and so forth, and that there was communication involved. I did see residents who have been reaching out via email. They've been pretty tenacious about protecting a quiet neighborhood that has been quiet for quite some time. and they speak about their neighborhood as a very close-knit neighborhood where everyone knows each other. And now they're concerned about that being changed because of an expansion. So is the need for expansion, we have to weigh out the need for expansion versus quality of life. I think that's what I'm looking at.

The way that the zoning is set up, the majority of the site is currently zone C5. and that portion of the site is existing non-conforming so there is no no request school is allowed there by right there is a single strip if I can pull up the PowerPoint presentation you can take a look at there is a portion of the site which is totally zoned R1 it's a separate lot it is not existing non-conforming. It was added to, I mean, it is existing, excuse me, it is existing non-conforming.

Could you put that up just so we understand what we're voting on?

Okay.

Next, do next.

The site on the right that is red is currently zone C5.

It has an overlay zone of R1B, which allows, we put that over on our zoning ordinance to allow parking only, no structures for commercially zoned uses. It's an old designation that we've had for many, many years, and we're phasing out right now. that piece of property is one lot and the and the building there exists right now and in that building by right they can have the school there they're

talking about adding a four to four plus hundred square foot addition on the rear of the building and I can show you the site plan for that as well and that rear addition would only be allowed to be 5% because it's an existing non-conforming building. So we could do that 5%, they would only be able to do half of that use by right. They did receive, the planning commission considered and received a conditional use permit so that they would be able

to build their entire structure that they wanted to build, which was the 400 plus addition, but that 200 or so foot addition would be allowed under our non-conforming use section.

So the question is really expansion. Do we want to allow expansion? I still don't feel comfortable that there has been enough communication with the residents of that area. I would recommend that we table this until there is communication with the residents that you have behind you and see if there's anything that can be done to... Do you want a certain continuance and bring it back? I would say it continues. Right now, I would vote against it. I think that's probably the best protocol at this point.

Any other thoughts?

Councillor Villegas. Thank you Mr. Mayor. So quick question. So you have this building and you want to expand or the question more is for the gentleman here. This is an office building right? Correct. So you're going to make it into classrooms. Correct. And there is no classroom type offices or anything like that on the first floor. What's the plan you want to build up?

No, we're utilizing the existing building as it sits there today. We are obviously repurposing it for a school. The only addition to that building is going to be a 4,900 square foot additional building that's attached to it. That's the only difference to what we're doing there today. That building is sitting as it is. We're not going up. We're just adding an additional 4,900 square feet. I see.

I just don't see how this.

Are you adding students?

I'm not clear on that. their existing school yes they're going to be they're they're rating it for for more students than they currently how many more uh mallory do you want to come up here for a second

how many do you have right now and the current i'm sorry yeah current the current number right now

what's the current enrollment right now

220 220 and at the current location you were just at you're actually sharing that with another school So all the traffic and everything everyone's hearing, how many students in that school right now that you guys were sharing it with? So what was the total number for that existing building with both schools? Do you know? I believe it was between 600 and 700. Why don't you speak into the mic? Excuse me, I'm sorry. I believe it was between 600 and 700 in total at that campus. Between the two schools? Right. Currently where their location is today, they are sharing it with two schools.

So actually, she's been talking about the traffic of 600 to 700 students currently. So they're moving to this new location where enrollment will increase. That was the plan. This project was developed and designed to withstand up to 500 students. However, next year we will have less than 400. We'll eventually grow to 460, but for this upcoming 19, for the first year, 1920, it will not be 460. It will be less than 400.

And your traffic studies were done to what level?

To the maximum extent. And that's been the process from the beginning, is that the traffic report has to be created based on their total enrollment, the total amount of students that this project will be approved for.

Councilor Green Sarmiento? Yeah, if I could have either Director Min or Candy to maybe just be available. So right now it's 220 students that are at the campus that are attending, which will grow to 350, I guess, by the year 2019-2020. But ultimately it could grow to or reach a capacity of about 460 students, right? So we're talking about twice the number of students that you have at the 2020 level right now, or 220 level, I'm sorry. so there will be an intensification of the original use that was at that site

is that correct the the use at the site was an office building so the school is not there now in terms of whether or not the school is with permitted use it is a permitted use by the zoning code as it stands today so the school can actually move in we would have to determine the capacity based on the current square footage but the school can move in today the proposed expansion will allow them to increase capacity um to their desired level without the addition they could still increase from their current enrollment today but it won't be to the number that they're estimating excuse me how big

is the existing building i have no idea 20 20 26 about 26 000 square feet 26 000 and the little

building you want to build is how big 4900 square feet roughly 2900 uh 4900 it's almost 5000 got it

thank you sorry vince so i guess you know i'm trying to analogize this to some to a discussion that we had a few meetings back when we were talking about reconfiguring a school on grand avenue and i think they were talking about the the mix of students but yet the number of students was going to remain the same I think the campus was Cedar Grove so the concern here is that this is distinct from that because this is increasing the enrollment this is you know I'll be it by right but that doesn't mean that the residents are going to be unimpacted because even though that you can move in

by right and a campus is allowed there there's still going to be a tangible effect on traffic there and studies differ so you can have a study that supports the fact that this could be absorbed by the footprint of the campus but there is going to be also an impact to the to the neighborhood that they haven't experienced right so I think that's why they're all here I think that's why they're concerned how many meetings have there been where the neighbors have been invited sunshine meeting to sunshine meeting in the Planning Commission meeting? Okay well I guess Planning Commission meeting

that's a hearing here at City Hall. It's in these chambers but there's only been one meeting in the neighborhood so the neighbors could have a chance to. So we attended two other

community meetings as well from the association. So and that's another thing I'd like to mention. So we had our Sunshine meeting and we didn't have any opposition. We didn't have any serious concern. Our entire school was there, our entire school was there, we had our traffic engineer there, I was there, and anyone who had issues had our information. Please come talk to us at every meeting we've been in. When Planning Commission was the first time I've ever heard of any opposition. As soon as Planning Commission was approved and we walked out, I ran out to them. I said, you know, we had the Sunshine meeting, we've been

at these other meetings I haven't heard anything staff hasn't heard anything I've been checking in with staff our planner constantly do we have any concern like

can I talk to anyone thank you is there is there a time sensitivity with this request for the variance is it being sought I believe they're trying to

prepare for the upcoming school year which is starting this September construction construction correct so they want to be complete for the next

school year but well look I you know and I don't want to put you on the spot I think the issue is that there seems to be a disconnect between the dialogue between the applicant and the neighbors that may or may not be impacted. So to the extent that that can be somehow abridged or a forum, an additional forum could be provided, I don't see the harm, especially for the applicant. If the applicant is going to be proceeding, they don't want to proceed under adverse conditions, a hostile environment, the neighbors are going to be unhappy. If this is going to work, then it will, and if it's not, then we need to understand that as well.

And so I don't think the Planning Commission had the benefit of having as robust a discussion as we've heard from some of the neighbors here. I think the presentation by the neighbor who showed us the schematic was very compelling. and I think that they have a right to be heard and they have a right to discuss with the applicant and in a in a better setting than than this one so I would recommend that we put this over and allow for that conversation to happen I'll be happy to work with the applicant if that's the case I'll second that 30

days or is there a timeline 30 day okay any other thoughts council members support the continuance all right councilman's the lion is not here martinez is not here but their fives are here so 30-day continuance maybe you can use that time let's talk to the neighbors i suggest show them the traffic studies in more detail because i believe that what you're doing is not as intense as the 700 that are right now on 17th street down at the church on broadway but But look, these folks don't get a benefit of that. They don't see what's happening right now,

and they're concerned for what they think could happen at the site. But I also know that your hours are staggered, right? I mean, I heard somebody say that.

Our staff will work with the applicant and the neighborhood. More importantly, the neighborhood.

I think the applicant knows everything. I don't think everything's gotten to the neighborhood, and they're scared, and we need to talk to them. So those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye. Those opposed, motion carries. Let's go on to the next item. I'm going to recess the housing authority to the housing authority meeting and entertain a motion for our regular meeting, excused absence, and the item number three. second those in favor please say aye aye aye those opposed motion carries seeing no housing authority comments i will adjourn and convene the successor agency meeting entertain a motion on items one through uh three is is there a second second those in favor please say aye aye aye

those opposed motion carries i assume there's no city council acting as sex or agency comments So I'll adjourn and I'll bring it back to the work study session and take it to city manager.

Yes, Mr. Mayor. This evening we'd like to present a general plan update from our executive director of planning and building agency on the general plan development.

Thank you, Mr. Sminisher. Good evening, Mayor and Member of the Council. I'm really excited to be here in front of you tonight to bring an update to you regarding the general plan update process and provide you with a status of where we are. But before I do that, I'd like to take a moment to introduce our planning staff who's been working on this for the past two years now in terms of reaching out to the community and getting us to the point here today. We have the lead planning manager, Candida, as well as our team being led by Vernie Carverhall, Melanie McCann.

We also have Ricardo Soto and Ivan as well as Jill. they're all on our team and Manny is part of the advanced planning team they really have dedicated quite a few hours over the past two years to get us today and their efforts in terms of reaching out to the community they've met with over 500 members of the community had 40 meetings throughout the the community and also met with the g-pack and that all culminated in a summary executive

summary of the GPACs and what they have formulated and that was delivered to you just a little bit over a week ago in terms of the general plan update I will let the staff present information but I just want to share that you know the last time the city updated general plan was in the early 80s and it has been about almost four decades since we have had a major comprehensive update so this This is a really great opportunity for our community to look at how we can continue to celebrate our heritage and our diversity, but really reimagine or imagine ourself in what we want to be moving forward the future.

As a parent, I always tell my children, there are a couple of life lessons that I've learned is that timing is everything, but also, So you have to be prepared and be ready for that. And sometimes I'd rather be good than lucky. I mean, lucky than good. But you're not going to be able to capitalize on those good fortune if you are not planned or prepared to be able to accept that. So by taking this initiative in terms of planning ahead and really looking at our future, we're going to be able to capitalize on some of our good fortunes, such as our location here in Orange County,

are having great access to public transportation, great access to the regional transportation network. So really being able to capitalize on that. And I think by planning ahead and looking forward, we will be able to address some of the questions that the communities are wrestling with tonight, is that how do we better spend our resources? How do we focus our resources on things that we really need as, you know, we have scarce resources? We can start to plan ahead and say, you know, this year we'll devote towards capital improvements. This year we'll devote toward making parks and recreation.

So it is really a fundamental policy document that will have long-lasting, transformative impact to our community. So I don't want to take too much time, but I want to make that quick brief introduction. And Candida Nia will be presenting the status of where we are today and some of the next steps in terms of this general process. I made a commitment that we will come back on a quarterly basis to provide an update to the council, but also as a way to get your feedback into this general plan update process with a goal of completing this in early 2020. Thank you.

Good evening. We're really excited to be here tonight. We'd like to talk to you about

about we came here tonight to talk to you about where we've been and where we're going and to also to get some direction and interest from you about the work that we've already prepared. the general plan is the city's long-range policy document it's a comprehensive collection of goals and policies and it's also something that's mandated by the state of california every city has to prepare one but most importantly it is a tool and it's something that we as staff can use

and you as decision makers can use to define your vision and to implement that vision. It can be used to evaluate, it is used to evaluate capital improvements, land use decisions, and even how we operate in terms of running our government and making decisions. In terms of the big picture objectives, we're here tonight to look at how this community is going to transform. Min talked about how this is a transformative document.

We're gonna be addressing priority areas. We're gonna be specific, we're a built out city, but we are gonna be looking at those areas that are important to the community, and learning how to build on Santa Ana's assets, and protect them as well. To do that, we're looking at a fresh approach. We've called, we're bundling a number of elements or the seven mandated required chapters of the general plan into three large sections. One is going to be the built environment. The other one is the natural environment

and then ultimately services and infrastructure. The specific elements you look at, in the previous general plan we had small elements that dealt with specific issues. We're really focusing on 11 mandated elements in this, excuse me, they're not, seven mandated as well as four additional elements. of particular importance to us are the mandated ones, which are land use, open space conservation, safety, noise. But we're also looking at urban design and architecture

and the importance that plays in creating an image for our city and also affecting what is economic development. And that's another important element that we'll be looking at in the future.

We are, we also are looking at separately the circulation element and the housing element. The housing element, we're on an eight year cycle. That will come back, we're three years into it, so we're not touching that now. The circulation element is moving forward. It's a joint effort between Public Works and our agency, and you should be seeing that early next year.

in terms of the public we've completed now three steps the program we completed our first public outreach program you received a summary of that in about six to eight months ago it was we talked about the general plan video it was a word-by-word description and then summary of all of the information that we took from 40 meetings, our summer youth program, numerous pop-up events citywide. Ultimately, we spoke to over 400 people regarding the general plan, and that document and summary is available online.

The next group is the general plan advisory group. That was an advisory group of 14 members. We met with them. We had over 10 meetings during, excuse me, 14 meetings.

How much longer do you have to present, Candida?

About three more pages.

All right. Keep going.

Okay. All right. That shows issue identification issues. But mostly what they focused on doing was creating a vision. And this is the vision of Santa Ana and what we're basing our policy on. This is where we believe that we are going with the general plan. Through that, we're taking that vision and developing core values. These are the things that will run through all of our policies and all of our elements, the land use element. each one of them will look at health, equity,

sustainability, culture, and education.

Finally, our next steps are, we have released the RFP for our technical studies on the EIR and the background information for the general plan. We'll be designing this summer our second community outreach effort with initiating at the end of the year and our next council update we expect to come back to you in December at which we will bring forth the policy framework at that time and then an adoption of in March 2020 so with that if you have any questions

we're here to answer them for you.

Thank you for that. Councilor Benavides.

I want to thank you, Men, for bringing this before us.

As you mentioned, Mr. Tai, this has been 40 years since maybe the mayor was here, but the rest of us were not at the time, or at least most of us were not. It's a I appreciate even the way that the presentation starts, a shared vision for Santa Ana, and that clearly is one of the things that really will help drive a city, a vision, a shared vision, a vision towards a preferred future. And what hinders a city or an organization from thriving is when there isn't a vision, when there isn't clarity as to what direction we're going in.

Some of us have been talking about the need to update a general plan for years. since we got here and shortly thereafter. And I'm only a bit disappointed in that a few of us, including myself, will be gone before this is finalized and adopted, even though we've been seeing the need and pushing for it to happen, although I'm glad that it is here and that it is moving forward. A couple of questions that I have. of a few years ago I think just a couple years ago there was a I think it was

called an envision plan it's kind of like a where there was some of the potential development zone or development areas I think maybe a mr. Tyler predecessor helped to to lead and identify had some some staff input some council and put us to areas where we saw potential for for development for for uh for new development for for improvement uh will will those so one of my questions is whether those areas those zones are they being looked at and considered and folded into many of those areas are have been

identified as priority study areas in the new general plan and um so we are moving forward on that yes I know in certain areas we've had to we've resorted to specific plans a harbor specific plan several other specific Plans because we didn't have a general plan that's updated and that you know I had clarity So we had to kind of take certain sections in the city Ideally, we're doing precisely what you're looking at looking at the city as a whole and that the the potential and the opportunity that there is there

things such as transit is that something that I imagine is being looked at streetcars is just one piece but there are other elements that we hopefully in the years ahead that we'll be able to see

absolutely and as we work with our mobility consultants we are looking at different modes of transits as well so certainly the existing system we have we want to enhance but we're also looking at other ways to create potential for additional transit mode. Okay.

One of the questions, I know that there are certain areas or certain cities within throughout the country that have been that have been maybe more

intentional about updating their general plans and have maybe even been have best practices around you know being forward thinking are we looking at i i appreciate the fact that we're looking and getting information gathering and surveying internally here within the city which is obviously important because these folks here the advisory committee uh represented residents businesses number of different folks throughout the the different segments throughout the city it's important to to gain their input gain council's input there are cities throughout that maybe are of steps ahead of us from whom we can learn. Is that part of

what we've been doing or will that be part of the next steps of looking at best practices and how we can learn and incorporate? Yes, we have been looking at best practices. We have gotten outreach. As a matter of fact, Santa Ana Building Healthy Communities had designed a number of policy programs which we incorporated and they looked at other cities as well and we have been researching that as well. We're also working with a set of consultants who are bringing forward ideas and ideas for implementation of different programs. I also want to take an opportunity to recognize our staff because between our staff,

we have quite a deep number of years of experience, so our staff also brings a lot to the table, as Candida and the team I introduced to this council tonight.

The last comment I'll make for the moment is that there's definitely, I see, tremendous opportunity for Santa Ana. The way, as mentioned, from where we are geographically located in relation with the rest of the county, transit, both transit, bus lines, streetcar, rail, it's freeways, just the fabric, the history the architecture that the grid systems in certain sections particularly in our downtown the the fact that we do have that that that urban nature and feel that's that's unique to us so there are so many things that are

working in our favor if we do this well and and lay things out with regards to an updated general plan with with updated zoning codes and such there there will be a significant amount of investment of opportunity for continuing to take the city to where it can be I know that one of the things when it comes to people and whether being investors whether it be developers retail housing a number of different entities or that are looking to to bring investment they look at a smooth and clear path for for a potential project

And when we don't have an updated plan, it just can be quite unclear, convoluted. And so I think the fact that, again, where we're going, I think it's a positive thing. So my assumption is that there will be different elements of housing, retail, industrial types of uses and zones, identifying how we maximize what we have, where there is opportunity to modify some of those uses. I'd be interested in following up to get a little bit more of a deeper dive. I don't want to take up too much time right now,

but I do appreciate this opportunity for the council to be able to hear and speak into. I don't know if you have any specific questions. I know that was one of the things that you started with. Right now you gave us an update, but if there are any questions as far as direction, insight, that council would like to be able to speak into. And, you know, we understand that you have very limited time today, so that's why we forwarded some information to you in advance. We can also forward this power presentation after this meeting.

The thing we really want to get some feedback on is the vision that has been developed by the GPAC and some of the core values. We believe that those are a great, you know, they present a great base for us to move forward, so we get confirmation that will give us a really good direction to continue to move forward in the same path. So I'll be happy to meet with any council members to discuss the information in a different setting as well. Yes, sir. One of the things that I would like for us to meet sooner rather than later, we talk about partnerships with different entities.

One of the things that I'm very cautious about is that there's a reason why there are district-approved charter schools in our city. I'll give you an example of a district-approved charter school. OSHA is a district-approved charter school. OSEA is a district-approved charter school. El Sol is a district-approved charter school, and so is Ed Cole Academy. The reason they're district approved is because there has been a thorough research on what the educational levels and standards are at those particular schools.

I would like in our master plan, if we're going to be partnering with our educational partners, that we also put down that we do not allow any more charter schools in our city that are not district approved. So that's something that we may need to take a vote, and I'm okay to take that vote. And the reason for that is because right now what's happening is that the county, which is predominantly Republican, more conservative, I think it's a 4-1 in that county, what they do is our school district doesn't approve a charter because they don't feel that they're meeting the needs of students,

and then they go to the county, and then the county approves it. and so that's a disservice to our governing bodies here. So there's a time where we have to push back as a community and say, well, if you found a loophole, we're going to close it over here. And so that's a true partner. So I want us to have that conversation with the rest of the council. I know that I can't dictate all by myself. It has to be a joint group. Anything that is approved through the district, and they are approving other charter schools that are, there's some in going through the system right now,

that they're looking to approve because they're meeting the needs of students give you an example um are free reduced lunch okay free reduced lunch these district approved charter schools are providing free reduced lunch to students who are at need the non-district approved not all of them but some of them don't do that don't provide that service so those are the kind of things that we have to look at so anyways those are my comments mr mayor

Thank you. Councilor Benavides?

I think the only other comment previously that I was neglected to mention is that as we look at the city and its future, at one point, Santana, and actually probably when this general plan was approved a number of decades ago, we're more of a quieter, smaller town, bedroom community. Times have changed. Needs have changed. Going forward, we're getting to a place where we're in. embracing more urban nature city and with that comes density with that comes

you know intensification of development it doing a vertical development is a part of that we spoke a bit ago but but in a different times traffic is is going to continue to be a concern but but frankly it comes with being an urban environment you go to Los Angeles to go to New York go to Chicago you go to Portland you go to larger cities reality one of the things that I've come around to realize is that it's just gonna take us a bit longer to get from point A to point B and that's just part of the nature of being in an urban environment

so I imagine that that's probably you know we try to mitigate it but it's it's imagine that our general plan will lean more towards embracing the fact that we are an urban center and allowing that will allow for some of that intensification and and development and and uh uh and higher density that's my my last point okay i just have a couple

comments on councilman sarmiento one just on the charter school discussion that is i'll give you a different example you know Somali Academy it's over on the west end part of Garden Grove Unified School District Garden Grove didn't feel comfortable because they haven't really done that many charters and so they kind of got stuck so I encourage the you know the really it's the Orangewood Foundation to go to the county a very thorough difficult process and they got approved and today because of that if

you go to the samueli academy it's an amazing school over on the west end long waiting list strong connection to uc irvine a lot of our our santa anna kids are going to school there and graduating going to tremendous universities because of the education that they're getting So I just think this has to be a more robust discussion and I think we just have so many successful schools in the city that are not, you know, approved by the local districts. And remember, we have five of them in San Ann. It's not just San Ann Unified. And I think some are very, very successful and an asset to the community.

So just another question, do we have more items to cover? Is this pretty much it? any comments from I know councilor Vince I'm you dad comments but any comments on the left from the Vegas or Solario all right go ahead councilor Sarmiento

well I just wanted to thank you and your staff for working on this I know it's been a while and I know there's been funds allocated towards this for the past couple of years so I'm glad that it's moving along you know as I think councilmember Benavidez summarized it well I think all our expectations are being met because we realize this is a very difficult tool to work with and I think when people come into the community the first thing they ask is what does your general plan allow for so when you're talking about an antiquated older document it makes it very difficult you have to do a lot of spot

zoning you have to do a lot of curing of you know sort of band-aiding you know a solution for people so hopefully this will help one of the things I know because this community grew up as, you know, without a governing document, you have a lot of incompatible uses right up against one another. So to the extent that you all are softening those edges, creating those buffers between light industrial and industrial and residential, you know, those alleviate a lot of the concerns that, you know, what came before us tonight, you know, on the issue of impacts and intensification of uses.

we all want to see those but we want to see those in a measured way so to the extent that this document will help us address that I certainly want to thank you for that but we will have a chance to see this document as it evolves and so we appreciate the update. Thank you.

Final comment before you leave. As we look at the OC streetcar and thank God it's coming I think it's going to be a wonderful project that will impact the general plan and and uses along the central city as we go east to west this was a very very big month for us because a week ago at octa we had to take a hundred million dollar vote and that was an increase basically going from 300 million to 400 million largely because the administration held us up for a long time and then with the tariffs on steel

guess what went up we had a big increase in our bids on steel and so now you're there you pay the higher you know price or you don't do the project and thank God the board saw it fit at OCTA to increase the budget and now the project is basically you know really coming down the track literally and so you know the yard I think that's going well Miss City manager I think you've been following that very closely would you want to

speak to that briefly yeah just briefly I think that the OCTA folks asked the city to take the lead we got them to a certain point and now really the ball is in their court we just recently about tweaks ago sent them a letter said do you need anything else from us we're waiting to hear from them but we're

hopeful that they're going to close the deal. I think we are, but I thank staff and the city because we did our job there. But now, you know, the construction bids have been let out. We're about to award and then construction is going to begin. So I just want to make sure that that's integrated because as Councilman Avias is talking about, you know, big cities and alternative ways of getting around and all that, certainly an environmentally friendly light rail running on electricity is going to be a big part of the future. So with that, thank you, and if there's no more comments, I'll go to public speakers. Thank you.

Laura Perez, followed by Lizzie M. Lyles.

I'm not going to go off script this time, I promise. Good evening, everyone.

I wanted to provide an update on the 4th of July event from two weeks ago and the history walk that was put on by the city of Santa Ana. As we had mentioned on the July 3rd council meeting, we had intentions to peacefully protest a committee member by the name of Lupe Morfin. Last year, Mrs. Morphine invited a man that is known to terrorize communities that are made up of immigrant families and making his living by live streaming those acts via Facebook, YouTube, and a personal blog. during last year's walkthrough and the history walk. Mrs. Morphine's friend took advantage of the attention that he received from community members

and made money by live streaming those community members along with children and parents of the city during portions of the event. The support he received online was filled with hate and ignorance by outsiders. For an entire year, we questioned who was responsible for this man partaking in the event and we never got an answer or a promise that this man wouldn't show up once again. So we took initiative and showed up to expose the sole responsible party for his presence. Our presence was effective to the point that George Washington, who was paid by the city of Santa Ana, came to her defense by intending to lunge at me.

Had Santa Ana PD and several other event attendees not stood in between us, an assault would have taken place and city officials that approved contractors such as George Washington would have been held liable. Two other incidents that occurred shortly after was a verbal attack by a committee member and also Lupe's son, Jesse Moreno, along with the second assault attempt by him towards me once again was about to happen. Had it not been for Santa Ana PD intervening, Mr. Moreno could have laid a hand on me. So my question for everyone here tonight is, what can we do as a community to remove the current committee members

that have made this event part of their political agenda during an outside, during an outside city events. Lupin morphine's interest is not to promote a safe and educational activity. Rather, it is to bring danger to our children and the residents by calling the city, and excuse my French, and this is exactly in her words, a shithole full of illegal aliens. Thank you. Dale, Lizzie, Lyles, and Dale.

Lizzie, you're next. Oh, okay, thank you. And then Dale.

And then Naui.

Good evening, Mayor and City Councilman. My name is Lizzie M. Lyles. I live on Pine Street in Santa Ana, and I'm from the Central City neighborhood. I am again before you to discuss banning fireworks. I know people say safe and sound and then we have the illegal. I want to ban them all. The 4th of July this year, the fireworks began in my area approximately 4 o'clock, but they had been going off for months prior.

the loud noise and they and it continued until one or two o'clock that evening the noise was unbearable loud blasting the fireworks was so light that if we didn't know if it was day or night where I live you do not know this is impossible for us to sleep. I live in a neighborhood where we all are old and we're afraid of something happen to our homes. The fireworks that shoot up could hit our roofs and burn up our

houses and we don't want that to happen. In the house that I live in, I am definitely afraid of that and because the fireworks were directed toward our homes.

I know you have already have information from the Santa Ana Police Department, from the fire departments, but do you have information from the local hospitals and departments that clean our streets after the 4th of July?

What a mess. I walk the streets. I see all of that mess. I still see it today. We need to seriously look at police calls and citations, number of possible house fires because of fireworks, injuries to our children, and extra manpower from the police department and fire department, the money that we're spending that we don't need to. how much extra money do we spend for those extra services when we could ban fireworks my suggestion would be for all of us to get together to discuss the

banning and find another way for fundraising and we could do this I think by committees we could have please conclude soon go ahead I think we could have the Santa Ana, the City of Santa Ana staff, neighborhood associations, community members, the fireworks supporters, Santa Ana police, fire department, and the waste management, because they have to clean up all this mess, and we're still doing that today. I thank you for

listening. I will be here again next year, and the next year, and the next year, talking about

banning fireworks. Thank you. Now we, oh Dale and then now we go ahead Dale. Dale Helwig,

Park Santiago Neighborhood Association. The discussion on the work study, follow-up discussion on the work study was interesting in fact that the envision map was brought up again and as you hopefully know the developer 2525 is basing his project on the envision map so i don't want to get into that tonight though but it's another discussion i did want to thank mr salario last meeting for asking the city attorney for clarification on what you guys are allowed to say and do and i'd also like to thank the city

attorney's office for providing the advice and clarity by saying you should not take a formal position at this point in time you could disqualify yourself on the vote but I'd also like to thank her for saying that you can go ahead and seek or essentially ask questions and look for concerns of the project and And that's one thing that I don't really see you guys doing. You're waiting for the EIR to come out. You ought to be looking at this project now. It's going to be very intense. And I don't know if you'll have enough time to go through it all.

So ask your questions. Voice your concerns now. Look at the EIR when it comes out. but as you go home tonight why don't you swing by Ross Street and look at the five six-story building going in for the county office space that's what we're looking at going in across from Discovery Science Center if you want a visual excellent visual that's how high it's going to be so thanks thank you now we give me your last name

Huitzilopochtli. Nawi Huitzilopochtli. Gracias. Thank you.

Okay, so I want to talk about the Lupe Moreno, or AKA Lupe Morphine situation. Lupe Moreno has been involved in many city events. She's part of the, or she used to be part of the Santana Library of Friends. And this person has put down our community, the Mexican Indigenous Committee of Santana, since she's been involved in the city. She calls us illegal. She calls us wetbacks. She calls this place, like what she said, a shithole. And she brings her racist friends like Arthur Sharper that goes harassing street vendors that calls people in our community backward people.

And she's for deporting children. She's for ICE agents going into our schools and deporting children. How could this person be allowed to be in any committee in the city? How could Santana support? Go ahead.

No, I just wanted our city attorney to figure out where it is because I've got questions. Can somebody go see if our city attorney is still around? Just hold on a second, please. I won't start the clock again for him. I don't want him penalized. But I just want her to hear this.

No, I just want you to hear this. Just continue from where you were, please.

Okay, again, this is Nahui Witzilopochtli. I'm an indigenous rights Mexican activist. And again, I want to talk about Lupe Moreno, a.k.a. Lupe Morphine. She lives in Santana, but she has a history of degrading our people, putting down our people, calling us illegal sweatbags. and she's for she's for ICE deporting our children, she's for ICE going into schools deporting children she's a part of the Santana or friends of the library of Santana

and I want to just stop you there for a moment is she a member of the library board or anything? I don't believe so yeah but many years ago she's been gone so how can she be on a committee? she's not

she used to be, I don't know if she is but no it's not when she was she was saying this kind of stuff and she was allowed to be in the city and she's she's against people speaking spanish i'm for if you the more languages to speak the better i agree and and um i remember um david benavides remember that um the fourth of july parade or event that was supported by the city and she brought her friends she started calling the the people that were um going to this event which she called us wetbacks remember um You even denounced her for saying that. I think it was you. That was in like 2007.

And now, here at the city, Lupe Moreno is bringing her racist friends, like Arthur Sharper, that goes around harassing street vendors, calls them illegal, calls them wetbacks. And Lupe's racist family does the same. You can look at their Facebook accounts, look at Lupe Morphine. see what she thinks about the city of Santana see what she thinks about our community the city shouldn't support or fund any event that she's a part of because all she does is bring white supremacists and races to our

communities let me stop you saying are we funding events for Lupe Moreno that

anybody's aware of no I don't believe we're I don't believe we're funding anything I think that my understanding is that there's this community group that has a walk of history.

Yeah, but we don't fund anything. No, we don't.

Why don't we do a separate meeting with a city manager? Let's get some of these specifics so we can try to help you out.

Like I said, I said fund it or support it because the city is involved.

Well, and we don't want to, but thank you. Okay. Thank you very much.

Perla.

And then after Perla, we have Gary Thomas, and then Patty Mays.

Okay, good evening, everybody. And like the corruption in this city, thanks to you, this shirt never gets old. So I am here again because we were, last year there were only five of us protesting Lupe Moreno and her racist friends. This year we had a bigger crowd than the whole stage that you guys had for five hours out of the day.

Next year we're going to have thousands of people at the city. So I am here to ask anybody who is in charge of making or of approving these people that are so filled of hate towards our community and our students. I was the immigrant child that crossed the border holding her abuelita's hand when I was 10 years old, coming to Santana. So this hits home. We were here on the 5th of July of last year asking for questions. We spent hours on the phone.

We asked several people individually and up here to help us keep these people out of our neighborhoods. We were here until almost 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock last week trying to get you to stop these people from coming.

And they were here.

And like Laura said, if it hadn't been for the Santa Ana Police Department, she would have been assaulted. Not just by one, but by three people.

So this is a liability on your hands. Because we were also aware that there were skinheads walking around. But because there were a lot more of us, they didn't dare to approach us. but now there's articles and op-eds and pictures of us flying around these make America great circles

and I'm not afraid if I was afraid I wouldn't be wearing this shirt if I was afraid I wouldn't be up here so I want to tell Lupe Moreno to bring it

thank you Gary

Gary? My name is Gary Thomas. My family has been in Santa 100 years. My grandmother's sister was a second woman doctor here in 1919. What was her name? Hester Weiler. Thank you.

We've been in this state before it was a state, 1848. We've given back to the community. My father was heavily involved in the COP program. I was involved in the COP program. There's things in the police department that kind of concern me. We have a mounted unit, which is a great luxury, but if we could trim that out of the budget and use it for other services and other areas of need, I would like to see that. That's a great concern. And then also my family has paid the ultimate price in law enforcement. My grandmother's brother was the first

peace officer killed in San Diego County in 1915 on a posse. There's several things that concern me about the city. Proper representation. I hear that we have city money being spent for people that are being detained by ICE, but yet sometimes I feel us as residents aren't being properly represented. I met Mr. Saurano at the meeting at 2525 Main, and I spoke with him, and I asked him if he would go around and speak with the neighbors, and he just looked at me. And I said, isn't that your job? And the next thing I know is I'm not making fun of your hat or your shirt.

I have a hat that depicts law enforcement. I had a red shirt on because my support for the fire department, Chief Bowman Wayne, was one of my dad's scouts. and I had to have a friend of mine that's pro-Trump from Mexico explain to me wearing a red shirt means I'm a Trump supporter. But, you know, being a widow, I don't understand that. A widow is a derogatory term for the white guy. No, it's not.

It's not, huh? It seems like that's what I've been presented at. This means you're light skin. Light skin, huh? I worked at the Indian Reservation at Paula for four and a half months. I know what it means to be an outsider. All the Indians told me I was an outsider. I have compassion, and we should reach out to those in need of your nationality, of any nationality.

Thank you. Thank you. Patty, why don't you come on down, please?

Hello, Mayor and Council Members. My name is Patty Mays. I've come to you before. I have written you letters. Once again, I just want to highlight that we're against 2525 Main Street. But I get the feeling, we get the feeling that the developer feels that this is a slam dunk. Why is that? Why do they feel that this project that is not zoned, It's not zoned for what they want, but they made an original proposal of 517-unit apartment complex that literally backs up to our unique neighborhood. They did resubmit, revise the plan to 496 units, still at five stories, still unacceptable.

The proposed development in combination with all the other developments going on within a half a mile of this location, like there's 1,852 new apartment units going in within a half mile. It's incompatible with adjoining our neighborhood. It's inappropriate use of land. For obvious reasons, this impacts our neighborhood. The surrounding areas would be devastating, increased traffic in a currently clogged area, increased pollution, overcrowding, lack of neighborhood parking, to name a few. I don't know if you've ever been at that intersection. It's a horrible intersection. There's been more accidents there.

I hope there's somebody doing a study on that, people getting on the 5-footway, the carpool lane, trying to get on the 5 north and south. It's just a horrible intersection. We had, in January, we surveyed the neighborhood. 96% of the neighborhood opposed this project. We had the Sunshine meeting.

Over 500 neighbors oppose it. in November. We had 150 residents at the scoping meeting in March, 170 plus letters for the EIR input. This project is not for this site. The developer sent out this beautiful brochure. It showed, and it's very misleading. I hope that you looked at that brochure and realized all the things that were misleading. It showed Main Street with four cars. I've lived in Santa Ana in Park Santiago for 30 years. I've never seen four cars on Main Street. It claims that they're working with the neighborhoods to develop a site that fits the neighborhood.

Patty, if you could conclude soon. The light is red.

Okay, and I've sent this all to you in an email. There's 500 voices against, no apartments, no rezoning. It doesn't even show the veranda. So how many stories will it be? Six, seven? We hope you'll take into consideration our valid concerns of this project and not award this developer the right to rezone. Please do not rezone this area.

Thank you. With that, I'm going to go back in a closed session. We have some things to do, and then we'll come out for council comment and to wrap up the meeting.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We'll be right back.

Thank you.