Read the March 30 meeting.

Madam Clerk, have you called the meeting to order? I'm going to ask you all please to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Ready, begin.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

You may be seated. I believe we don't have an invocation today.

We have several, well really one main item that we have to discuss, but I know we have some folks that wish to address us. I just have to make sure that it goes quickly because we have to be in federal court at 10 o'clock and we're going to lose our city manager, city attorney, etc. So, out of courtesy, let me call on Supervisor Andrew Doe, who is our representative and has been working very hard on this issue, and we'll start with his testimony. Please go ahead, Supervisor.

Thank you, Mayor and honorable council members. I will try to make it quick. There is a little bit of ground to cover some history leading up to today and the issues that we face both as a county and as a city that I would like the people of the city of Santa Ana to know. Let me start by saying that I started working here in the Civic Center as a law clerk 31 years ago

and been with the county as an employee over the years for 20 plus years. I have always seen the city of Santa Ana as playing more than just a city role, but more of a regional role in terms of social services. And Santa Ana has always carried more than this burden in the county. And it has done so not with a lot of complaints. That's what I really admire about the city of Santa Ana, that we are compassionate. we reach out, we see people in need, and we provide services and we don't ever count chits, right? Unlike other cities.

But what I feel compelled to do today to come here to speak with you and with the people of the city of Santa Ana, whom I represent, is that I will not stand by idly to have one of my colleagues, Supervisor Spitzer, to campaign on the back of the people of the city of Santa Ana. I will not allow and tolerate the kind of fear-mongering, the kind of class-based type of maneuver that's being used to influence policy at the Board of Supervisors.

Let me go over a little bit of history as to why I am so incensed at Supervisor Spitzer's duplicitous conduct. because the problem with this riverbed is his doing in his district. When the grand jury report on the lack of infrastructure for the homeless was first released in 2005, of the five supervisors now sitting on the board, who alone was on the board at that time? Supervisor Spitzer. And then after the board of supervisors, he went to the legislature as a member of the assembly.

And for six years, he would be in the best position to know about funding for homeless services and MHSA funding, which is the Mental Health Services Act money. So when he came back to the Board of Supervisors in 2012, he, of all people in this entire county, would be in the best position in order to understand funding and services level that should be provided. And from 2012, when he got back on the Board of Supervisors here in Orange County, to now, to 2018, early this year, when we cleared out the riverbed, the riverbed lies exclusively in his district.

He alone has that responsibility, and we really couldn't go into his district to do what we wanted to do, I included. And so the idea that this is a problem that was beyond reach by Supervisor Spitzer is completely false. And then when I put forth the proposal to start to put law enforcement in the riverbed in order to get ready for what? To clear people out of the riverbed. We took six months for that outreach to happen. And then we were going to progress in a very methodical manner.

we broke the area down into six zones that would have taken probably two to three months to cover because we wanted to wait until the population from each zone to be absorbed and served before we moved on to the next uh zone but no supervisor spitzer went to the city anaheim and the people in his district and promised that he would clear it out in 30 days or less and so it overloaded the system and so it created what we have today, which is all of our resources are tied up. And then when we put, when we asked for solution, none was put forth by him. And what

we saw with the vote, with the hysteria from Irvine, is this. It's simply a class-based argument that if I pay enough for where I live I shouldn't have to deal with my homeless problem. I should shift it to some other city. I brought with me statistics today to show that Irvine has the third highest population of homeless in the county. The third highest. And yet we hear arguments that somehow you know that we don't want to live near the homeless. Well I'm sorry that is a

problem that we have in every city. We have to deal with them because that is our people. The solution is not to go to Santa Ana or some other city and say, oh no, put a shelter there and that's your problem. And can I move up to the next slide? How do I do it? And supervisors,

you're doing that. As a courtesy, I'm giving you more time, but can you also address if you have an opinion because you know we're contemplating today suing other cities right to bring them into the courtroom with Judge Carter right and this yeah

and and I wholly support what the city of Santa intends to do but here is the your cover right here is data right the bridge is a criminal place that is in Anaheim and by the way that's not an emergency shelter that is a service center you have to be referred there that is not a shelter where you can walk in with low entry to barrier or barrier to entry. Okay, so look at Kramer. 97.45% of the people they serve is from that area, North County, right? We have, we break the county into three service areas, North, Central, and South. But look at the courtyard that is located in Santa Ana.

Look at the percentage of the people we serve there and how many of them actually come from the city of Santa Ana less than half so we have data we have statistics that show concretely that Santa Ana is being dumped on and when Supervisor Spitzel promised to clear up the riverbed without creating an infrastructure where does he think those people are going to go and so it is very disingenuous now to to conjure fear all over the county and say we don't want you know sex offenders

and drug users in our community well do we of course not okay and what's what is even more offensive to me is the courtyard is within 500 feet of an Academy and it's about a quarter of a mile away from account of OSHA which is a very respectable high school that the city of Santa created and also blocks away from residents. How come Supervisor Spitzer never raised that issue one time? And in fact, he spouted, you know, glory and great comments about the courtyard and the services they provide in the county. So why is it only an issue when it comes to South County, to Irvine, even though they

have their own problem as we see from data? And so, Mr. Mayor and Council Members, I am here to stand behind you all the way. I think this is time. It is time we say enough is enough. Don't take advantage of our generosity, of our hospitality. We will do our share, but

we will not be dumped on. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Secretary.

in order to bring them into the court with Judge Carter. And we have to be out of here, I think, no later than 10 minutes before 10 because we have to be over in federal court with Judge Carter at 10 o'clock. He's going to be dealing with these issues today. So a real quick comment, please, from Tim Johnson, followed by a quicker comment from Peter Katz.

Good morning. My name is Tim Johnson. I'm a resident of Santa Ana. You should have all received about an 8.5-page response overnight Our kids matter too. I urge you now that it's the time to act. Santa Ana has carried the burden. It is time for other cities to step up. Talk is not working. Legal action is what these people will understand. Right now, there are thousands of Santa Ana residents outside these doors rioting. They're speaking their voices. Do you hear them? Do you hear them? Yeah, we do, but let's make it quick. They are the silent folks of Santa Ana.

They're not getting on buses like there's folks in Irvine and shipping them up here. They are silent workers working hard to provide for their families. If they're concerned about safety, how about the San Diego Library that's 200 yards away from the courtyard? How about OSHA, where Irvine folks send their kids to OSHA, and they're going to tell me that they're concerned about safety around schools with a shelter?

This is craziness. All right, 15 seconds. Thank you. Peter, real short. I know you can do it. and then Abigail and then Connie the shortest speech of all. Go ahead Peter.

Yes Mr. Mayor I just want to say two things. For Todd Spitzer to say we're moving too quickly, you received a letter along with him on May 17, 2016 from the Superior Court addressing this problem and nothing has been done over the last two years. And last night the city of Costa Mesa voted unanimously not to use the development center on Harbor Boulevard. That would be a perfect alternative to housing people. There's only 100 people there. It can house 12 hundred people as a temporary shelter till we find something else to do and we have to end this

dumping by other cities in in our 15 seconds peter so thank you so much i just want to keep these people from moving into our neighborhoods once the election is over abigail if you can stand

up and connie if you can just stand behind abigail that way we'll have to wait for people to walk up and after connie connie it's going to be phil becerra please go ahead good evening oh

Good morning. Where's our apology? Spitzer or the whole supervisor apologized to something that didn't even happen to them. We're living this. So you guys have to do something. And I believe Miguel Pulido, your term is up. So you better step up or I am not going to. Thank you. I'm not supporting you if you don't do anything.

Thank you. Connie. And then.

And then Phil.

Good morning. We started a petition encouraging the City Council to really lean on the county and all the powers that be to help divide up this problem. And I just want to say that we've had over 283 people sign it at this time. It was started yesterday afternoon. And just let me quote this from the petition. If you feel that the other OC cities need to step up more and help out, please sign this petition to encourage our city council members to lean on the Orange County government and other OC cities to step up and do their part.

Thank you, Connie.

You're welcome.

Phil, followed by Francisco Arreola. Francisco, if you can come up, followed by David DeLeon.

Good morning, Mayor Polito, members of the council. Enough's enough. We need you guys to step up. We know you guys can do it, but we need you to step up. Enough's enough. Our city has provided compassionate resources for all the folks that are out there. And the 33 other cities in this county have taken advantage of that. You guys are strong. I have faith in you. Please make us proud. Thank you, Phil.

Francisco followed by David. Good morning. My name is Francisco Arreola. I've been living in Santa Ana for more than 40 years. You know, unsentimental because this is my city. And these people that take it away from us. But I tell you something, if the council people, they don't do their job when the time comes, we're going to do something about it too. This city has been silenced. You know, a lot of people, they work at 9 a.m. That's why they're not here. So I wish that they would come here and show us the anger that I have right now.

We know Francisco. We know. Thank you, sir. Okay. Thank you. David.

Good morning, everybody. Leave it to an all-Latino council to act like a typical Latino family. We fight amongst each other. We go months without talking. But if anybody from the outside messes with one of us, we all unite and we stand together and we fight. It's time for us as a council and as a city for us to show you that we're willing to stand behind you and that we're willing to stand behind any action you take. Thank you.

Thank you, David.

with that I'm going to recess for a moment and we're going to go into closed session

we just want to take the opportunity to thank you all for coming this morning we're going to go into closed session and be back out for a public item on the 85a

Thank you.

We're going to take a motion on an action. Afterwards, some people are going to leave to go over to federal court. And then I think there's still going to be another item, 85A, that Michelle is going to continue to hear after some of us leave prior to 10 o'clock. So at this time, I would like to call on Councilman Vince Sarmiento to articulate a motion, please.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and I want to thank everybody who came out and spoke. And before I give direction on the motion, I'd like to say that, you know, to Supervisor Doe, I welcome him to the party. This has been something that we've been talking about for a very long time, so I'm glad he finally came before us and is standing with us. It's been years that we've had this problem in the Civic Center and throughout our city. We realize that the Civic Center isn't the only sensitive spot in the city. We now have many, many encampments, and we have been asking for relief.

And I know in October of last year, I actually asked that we file an action against the county because they are the agency that's vested with this right to address the homelessness problem. They're the ones who've been receiving money from HUD. We realize that they've been putting a lot of money away, and Judge Carter and his federal action identified that as well. So I am very outraged as you are by some of the comments that I heard from our supervisors that tend to put more value in families and children outside our city above ours. I don't know why their outrage was so delayed and why

wouldn't they have been outraged by all the impacts that the city of Santa Ana and our families have been receiving. So that really was offensive. That really was something that I think that all of us were very disappointed to see, that they were so willing to apologize to others outside of the city of Santa Ana, and where their apology has been to our families. And they meet right across the street, so it's not something that isn't visible to them. So it's not something that they can claim ignorance to. So today what I'd like to do is give direction and move this action,

give direction to the city attorney to research grounds on a federal question to file an action against the County of Orange, to provide relief, and to relocate the homelessness encampment in the Civic Center, but throughout the city as well, on a cost recovery basis. And I'd like to see if that research and those recommendations could be brought back to the city council on this Tuesday's meeting. And I believe that's April the 3rd, if I'm not mistaken.

Yes. Mr. Mayor, I'll second the motion.

That's a motion to second. Discussion? Councilor Solario?

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I am in support of this motion. I think the key thing is finding what our standing is, the ground, what kind of remedies we envision at the end of the day. Consistent with this, I see that it's very important for us to have a wish list to the county of what we want them to do. For example, from my perspective, I think it should include resources for the education and enforcement that we've been doing on a day to day basis. For example, we have a very successful quality of life team that is doing work identifying encampments,

helping folks find resources, housing, services, but really that effort should be multiplied at least times three. We also have other county facilities, whether it be flood control channels or like the Santiago Creek area, other areas where if they won't reimburse us for law enforcement services, we should call on their team to enforce those areas because we have many issues and concerns there. And then really the courtyard, it was always meant to be temporary. It needs to be shut down. There really are health and safety and other issues with that property, and we need those individuals to move to a better, more permanent location.

Also, we have plans for clearing the Civic Center area and the Plaza of the Flags. There's a timeline that that should end by April 2nd. And I know there may be efforts to slow that down. It shouldn't be slowed down. It's not humane out there. We're going to run out of time. We've been having flooding and other issues, so we've got to address that. So we as a council, hopefully for next Tuesday, can also finalize an action plan. And I know that's part of what we've been working on as well. but I do support the motion. All right let me just say any other comment real

brief David yes thank you Mayor just brief comment so tonight or this morning we're giving direction to staff to work on getting ready and being prepared all I would say is that we do need to then take action Tuesday come around let's be ready to take action and take as aggressive an action all right we're

about to leave. So let me just say, look, we've got to stand up for our city. This is what we're doing. It doesn't end today. It's a process, but this is definitely the right step. So with that, those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Those opposed, motion carries unanimously.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. We do have some members of the public that wish to speak on the 85A, and so I'm going to call on Susana Sandoval, followed by Abigail Alleman and Irma Macias.

We've cut it to the one minute.

No, no, we'll give you two minutes.

Okay. We support you in pushing back at the OC supervisor's decision. This decision is blatantly an economic class discrimination against Santana. We are horrified by the living conditions of the homeless population on South Main Street and the devastation in our neighborhoods and the horrific impact on businesses and daily public health risks, growing trash and needles found on our streets and the detrimental impact on children. We fear for the safety of everyone. We have been talking about this crisis for a few years now and asking for the city's help to solve.

A first step is to move the MHA Mental Health Association on South Main to a more appropriate location. It is our understanding that the MHA is out of compliance with city code standards for their permit to operate. We plead with you to move MHA out of our neighborhoods and away from our businesses, and it impacts 15 schools that are right adjacent where the children are always seeing very inappropriate activity and behavior. So with that, we just applaud you with the vote that you just took, and it is really all about protection for everyone, including our homeless neighbors.

We are all in jeopardy of a major catastrophe, so we thank you for the action that you just took.

Thank you so very much. Abigail?

Abigail Alamon, don't see her, followed by Irma Macias.

Good morning, my name is Irma Macias and I'm here on behalf of Comlink and the 64 neighborhood associations that the city of Santa Ana is divided into. First of all, we're presenting the 60,000 students that walk by every single street in Santa Ana. And I think this is a major step while you're moving forward, looking forward for your continuous support. And also we have an issue with the needles program. Please don't bring it back. It's another issue. The homeless is something that needs to be addressed ASAP or as soon as possible.

Another thing that happened is that on the last meeting, the buses loaded from other cities, and there were only two representatives at that meeting. I understand that everyone works, but that time was essential for all of you to be there and support our community. Thank you, Jose, and thank you, Juan. Looking forward to keep on working with you guys. Thank you.

Great. Tim Johnson, followed by Peter Katz.

Good morning. Thank you for your leadership on this motion that you just voted on.

The city of Irvine has shown their true colors. They are putting out red herrings. They know that the property is appropriately zoned. They know that well over half of that property is clean. They know that 25 acres is far more than enough property to be able to locate an emergency shelter. They now are going to be proposing a temporary housing shelter that is going to take two and a half to three years to permit, to build, and to fill. The residents of Santa Ana do not have two and a half to three years. We measure our crisis in a matter of days, not in years.

I applaud your actions today. but we must take action and we must continue to take action. I plead with you, make the right choices and lead. As millions of Christian followers are mourning the death of our Savior Jesus Christ today on Good Friday, I plead with you to show compassion to those who need it, those who are willing to accept it, and those who do not have the capacity to be able to show that they can accept it. I remind you that you are leaders of this city, leaders of our community, and that true leadership is about serving those who you have come to lead.

Thank you for showing up this morning and taking on this very important issue.

Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Followed by Mr. Peter Katz, Dave Holm, and Elizabeth Weber.

Yeah, good morning. I'm going to reiterate a couple points I didn't get a chance to make earlier. I'm Peter Katz, president of the Comlink board that oversees all 64 neighborhoods. And I sat at that board of supervisors meeting and watched 10 year old kids brainwashed into believing that homeless people are monsters. And to get pushed them up to a microphone, we have to fight back. I mean, these cities are dumping people in our neighborhoods. We know it. It's on videotape. the judge has copies of the videotapes of Huntington Beach, Laguna Niguel, and Irvine

dumping homeless people in our civic center, and this has to stop. But I think a long-term solution is needed. I think affordable housing for all Americans should be a constitutional right, and I think that all 34 cities need to step up to the plate and take responsibility for this crisis by putting a conservative pressured emphasis on the state and the federal government to deal with this issue and it's going to take all 34 cities working together they need to share the responsibility if you take the number of homeless people here and divided by 34 cities

each city can find a place in their city to house 30 or 40 people in their city and it would blend into the community we should not be living like a third world country like haiti or the dominican republic we have enough resources and money in this country to deal with this problem and i I applaud this council for stepping up to the plate and opening both barrels and allowing these cities not to pressure the Board of Supervisors. And when Andrew Doe was on vacation, they reversed their decision as a cop-out to me, as I see it. And so what makes our school children and our libraries any less than the ones in their cities?

And I think that's deplorable for them to even use that as an excuse. So I'm concerned about one last thing is that our faith-based organizations are also not stepping up to the plate. And the railroads are not stepping up to the plate. We need these people as part of this solution. So I'm encouraging you to reach out and ask some of these organizations. This is Good Friday. These faith-based organizations are in the business of saving souls, and they should be helping save souls and not pushing them out of their parking lots into our civic center. So thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Katz. David Hohen, followed by Elizabeth Weber.

Good morning. Dave Hohen, longtime resident of Santa Ana. I just wanted to bring up something that I noticed. when we were doing volunteer work downtown Santa Ana, we got to know a lot of the homeless people. Not a lot, but quite a few of them. And what we noticed was very few of them came from Santa Ana. A lot of them had lived in Santa Ana, but they hadn't started out being homeless in Santa Ana. They started out somewhere else, and they came to Santa Ana because they were homeless. So this is a shared responsibility because it's not Santa Ana's problem any more than it is Irvine's problem,

than it's everybody's problem, and we need to share that responsibility. Another thing, I talked to somebody who has a home down near the Great Park, and he said that there was nothing in his real estate when he bought the home that said that there was a possibility of a homeless facility near his house, And I'm wondering if the Irvine company should be held responsible for not disclosing that fact. Anyway, my thoughts. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Cohen. Elizabeth Weber.

So good morning. Thank you guys for championing this. I have some letters on behalf of some of the students over at Santa Ana College. This issue is something that not only Santa Ana College is affected with, but also regionally. And it's an issue that on a state level we've been addressing as a student body.

Everything that I heard on Tuesday was very fear-driven and driven by a lot of misinformation. And I think if we stick to the facts, when you want to help people that are in this type of a situation or in the condition that these people are in, the first and most part, or the most important thing you should do is get them as far away from that environment as possible. I think it's safe to say and we all agree that Irvine is one of the best locations that we have within Orange County. So that's just facts driven.

You know, with the funds that have already been allocated, we need to remind people that nothing's being taken away from anyone. Again, another fear based item that brought a bunch of Irvine residents over. It's why are we giving these people free housing? Why aren't they getting jobs? So a lot of bad information and not very many facts are being given to these people. The fact is it's what's best for our community to think of us as a whole and not as individuals. Irvine is a part of a whole. Santa Ana has carried the brunt for quite some time. We need to start looking at this from a holistic standpoint.

They have the feasibility with UCI to take some of those interns and to take a lot of the resources that they have and really give exceptional service to these people, which Santa Ana is not in the position to do. Anaheim is not in the position to do, and those are just facts. So I think if we go at it to the county, fact-driven, that ultimately all we want is success. We want to be successful in this. And I think across the board that would be what anybody would say. This is not demonizing, and it's not to place blame on Irvine because they haven't been a part of the solution. It's bringing everybody to the table.

And if we try to be solution-based, I think we could get a lot further than tit for tat. I would hope that you guys would consider, as a city council, to allow your employees the ability to show up on Tuesday. They're here. They see it. They're on the ground. They could speak on this issue a lot more than probably a lot of us that work 9-5s or are at school. They're here. So if you guys want representation, allow our employees who deal with this on a day-by-day and walk past it to show up and use their voices. So other than that, thank you for your time. Thank you for everything you guys do. And who can I give these to?

Thank you, Ms. Weber. Appreciate it.

Now we're going to bring back to the city council in regards to the 85A, which is city council to approve a short-term homeless plan and provide input and direction and action citywide plan. and i'll just uh say very quickly um you know the city of santa anna has presented our staff has presented a city-wide comprehensive plan to this council it is definitely one that it goes beyond just the civic center obviously we have some pending emergency issues right now that we need a short-term plan to address the 500 plus folks that are currently in our motels

in motels throughout the county that will be released. The vouchers are expiring this week. The first thing that I would like to add and ask our staff is to please write a letter or communicate with the County of Orange and Supervisor Doe. As he stated that it's expiring this week, they may continue the vouchers. They're not sure. The last thing that we want is for those 500 plus folks to come into our city and so I would ask that they continue those vouchers in those motels and they until they get enough shelter to place those folks because there's

nowhere else for them to go if those vouchers expire and they just let them go we all know where they're coming they're coming here to this city we cannot allow that to happen my request in regards to this short-term plan would be for us to direct our city staff to immediately should have been done yesterday a couple days ago but to immediately do a count over the 45 plus encampments throughout the city how many homeless people we currently have throughout the city we know the number in the Civic Center but we don't know the totality in all these encampments

We've been told there's close to about 465 people that our quality of life team has counted. We need to know what that count is for sure if we're missing any encampments. And so I want a call to action not only to the faith-based community to step up to help the city council to go and do that count immediately. I will make myself available to go do that count. I am also asking for our community residents, if you have the time and opportunity to help us go and count those folks as well.

We need to know how many of them are before they do, if they decide to approve the extension of those vouchers. But if they don't, we need to know exactly what that number is in our city so that we know if those folks are actually coming back to our community. community so i would just urge us to to to move forward with that action immediately and and um come back to this council what it will take to actually go beyond those 45 encampments to do that count um so that we can have a plan of action i and this coming tuesday i would hope that it can

get done by tuesday and so again i will make myself available day uh every day till tuesday to to get get that count because we need it obviously judge carter is asking all 34 cities on on tuesday we also have a council meeting and so we need i believe that is the first thing that we need to do i know councilman salario talked about a couple ordinances that he'll be talking about as well but for me i think the most important thing for us to do is to do that count immediately before Tuesday's meeting because again if you read the the comments from Supervisor Doe are as following

he said that those that are staying in motels after the vouchers expire this week some he said might remain in the hotels some may not so obviously the county is not sure if they're going to extend those vouchers and so we need to take action immediately and so that is the direction short-term plan that i'm asking our my colleagues here today to really direct our staff to do that count immediately and then i'll go ahead and pass it to councilman solorio as he wanted to talk about a couple of the ordinances that he wants to bring to the city council and then to councilman

juan viegas has raised his hand councilman solorio sure thank you thank you michelle very

very good points. I think some things that really for lack of time today we won't discuss in detail but they're scheduled to be on the agenda for Tuesday night and hopefully our constituents can write emails and support and come in support. Number one is we on our own but really also with encouragement of the federal judge have been encouraged to send a letter to all the other cities saying don't send your homeless to us. You know, don't dump your homeless here. And so we're working on an ordinance as well in this area. But as a first step, and I know the city attorney's office already has a draft,

we could send a courtesy notice to all the cities saying stop it, knock it off. We know it's happening. Work in conjunction with our city, particularly our PD, if individuals do have appointments or a place to stay. so that courtesy notice of homeless abandonment needs to be done as soon as possible. Also, we're seeing more and more panhandling, and really in many cases where it's unsafe even for the homeless themselves. They're in the middle of the streets. They're on intersections. They're in other sensitive areas. And I've noticed in our Public Safety Committee in the past,

research what other cities are doing to deal with what's considered aggressive and unsafe panhandling. And so we need to take action on that. And city staff has a draft. I'm asking my colleagues, whoever's interested to co-author that, as well as an 85-A item for next Tuesday. In addition to those unsafe areas like intersections, streets, You know, sometimes you have individuals, some frail, but also some young, where we're going to ATM machines or other areas. And so, you know, folks are coming out with money. And then if you have an aggressive panhandler and they're saying, hey, do you have money?

It really is. It's a volatile situation. There's many assaults that have been occurring. I know we've heard even of youngsters being assaulted and potentially kidnapped. NAFTA, we really need to protect our public by addressing those sensitive areas. And also Sacramento, which kind of has the cutting edge of this type of ordinance, there's also sections that really get at where they can safely panhandle so that there's that balance but we need to protect our residents. In terms of the more short-term stuff along the lines of what our Mayor Patim has suggested,

these external agencies have been getting a little bit more sophisticated on how they do homeless dumping so rather than dropping them off in the civic center where they know now we have a lot of cameras they go to like nearby 7-elevens and drop them off there we need to figure out if they have video cameras there or not particularly the one here on main street the one on first Street. Oftentimes now we're seeing that agencies will go to the periphery of their city, to their border, and say, hey, we're dropping you off here. Keep going that way towards Santa Ana,

and if you come back, we're going to arrest you or deal with you in a different manner. And so what I envision is that as we're doing these counts, that our police department, our quality of life team, come up with contact cards or intake cards so that as we see them and we count them. It also needs to be by name so we don't double count folks. And then we need to ask questions such as, where did you come from? Who directed you here? So that we could continue to document these situations. Finally, I want our city staff team to come up with a plan for tripling the size of our quality of life team, even if it's through

overtime, because I know whether it be our police department or code enforcement or other areas, with overtime and we do have resources that we could generate for that I would like to see a plan for that and that also may be subcontracting subcontracting with local good quality organizations in this area like Mercy House that can help us staff up if we don't have it you know the sufficient personnel so those are my initial ideas and again next Tuesday we'll be hearing more on you homelessness of abandonment uh as well as panhandling thank you councilman salora councilman

sarmiento then councilman viegas okay councilman viegas councilman sarmiento

thank you mayor pro tem i i agree with the councilman suggestions regarding the ordinances we need to definitely have more talks about that so we can come up with a good ordinance for the future and I also agree with Mayor Pro Tem's point that we need to start a count to make sure who is actually in our city we need to ID them. Chief I think we have a database don't we they're a homeless database of who's who's in the city is that correct? Yes the our civic center

patrol team specifically has the data city-wide we don't and I've already initiated the request and we will have it done by Tuesday.

Great. Okay, so we can work with what we have and then add on some more. Because we need to ID these people, find out who they are, where they're from, and that way we can measure any increase. It's very important for us to get a count so we can know what exactly is happening, if there's any increases. And also, you know that saying, if you see something, say something? Well, if you see an agency out there, a police department or a sheriff's department, dropping off people in our city, please let us know. I'm asking the public to keep an eye out and please share with us a date, time, and location

and what agency it is, but we would like to know that. Thank you very much.

Councilman Sarmiento, thank you, Councilman Viegas.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem, and I'll be seconding the Mayor Pro Tem's motion with comment. I do think we need to get some data behind our efforts and make sure we have a point in time count, an accurate one. And so thank you, Chief, for following up on that. I know it's going to stretch our resources, but unfortunately we're at a moment in time where the momentum is moving so fast that we don't want to get lost. I mean, it's interesting how quickly other cities move, right? You know, in a moment's notice, Irvine mobilized, Costa Mesa, you know, Laguna. And what bothers me, and it rattles me to my core,

is that, you know, the outrage from the supervisors at what was happening in some of the South County cities that haven't borne the brunt that we have and their quickness to apologize to them when we've been doing this for years and we've had impacts to our city for years, there was no outrage. There's never been an apology. There's never been, I think, a supervisor until today. And it took a crisis to bring him here. And look, to Supervisor Doe's credit, he came. And I give him a lot of credit for coming here and standing with us. but it took a long time. So let's all be aware that this isn't, you know, a six-month problem,

this isn't a 12-month problem, this has been decades long. And we're right across the street from the Board of Supervisors. And they could see and witness our libraries being impacted, our employees being impacted, all of our residents who are walking around this area. Nobody was outraged. Nobody cared until this started creeping into their communities. So there's a benefit to me, I think, that the riverbed became an issue because it brought everybody else into this issue. If not, they would have been completely silent, as they have been for years. So we've been trying to do this and nobody takes pleasure in suing anybody.

I mean it's not to be litigious but there just isn't a legislative fix to this. Nobody is gonna say yes we want to bring this homeless shelter into our community. Who said that? What city other than maybe Santa Ana, Anaheim, Fullerton, the other 30 cities, when have they stepped up and said you know what this is a regional problem. Let's all work together on this. I've never heard a thing from them so nobody takes pleasure in this but we realize that this again doesn't have a legislative fix it has to be a judicial fix. When we can't come

together when we can't understand when the county is hoarding money that the federal court found that they've been hoarding money for years and not spending it on what they rightfully should be spending it on which is on services and shelters and ways to remedy this problem they haven't been so it's a really dark day for them I think because they really have let this problem bubble up to where we all have to be having special meetings looking at suing each other holding each other responsible when they had funds to be able to address this and not let it get to this point so look I don't apologize for the

steps that I think we're taking I think if anything we owe it to our residents and it's long overdue so I want to thank the mayor pro temp for looking at this in a in a short-term way in addition to the long-term problem that we're trying to address as well but you know I just am very very disappointed in you know our supervisors Bartlett steel and Spitzer it's just it's just shameful it's just really shameful because they should be coming before us and telling us you know what for all those years that you guys have been shouldering this burden we apologize

and we'll see if that day ever comes but i doubt it it'll only come unless a court compels them to

so in any event um thank you thank you councilman sarmiento councilman benavides thank you mayor

I'm angry. I'm just really just as our community is come share and you all as my colleagues and Councilman Salmiento was describing what our community has been shouldering, our families, our kids not being able to come and use their own library, being accosted. And we've been dealing with it, experiencing it, and other cities on just the idea that

they might have a temporary shelter in their cities. They became irate and they came out in busloads. And basically the theme that has been communicated, you know, so what does that say about their view of our kids, of our community, of our families, of our neighborhoods?

So I'll just say that we've been too nice for far too long. And I would echo the statement of members of the community, emails that we've received. And today we gave some direction to be able to gather some information, position us so that we can take legal action. And my expectation is that come Tuesday, we'll be able to come out here and declare to the residents of Santa Ana that the city of Santa Ana is standing with them, standing for them, and that we are going to court to fight for them.

So I'll just end there. And yeah, I'm just looking forward to us taking some very, very clear and direct action here in a few days.

Thank you, Councilman Benavides. And just if you could make a friendly amendment. And I forgot to mention, if we can also just add the citywide homeless plan on our website so our residents can provide some input. obviously we're not experts but they're out there in the trenches would love to hear from them the business community maybe we're missing something before we actually the this council vote on it permanently but right now I think the short-term plan is great and is putting that plan on our website so that we can get people to review it we greatly appreciate it accept the friendly

amendment fantastic all those in favor please indicate by saying aye aye I I'm

I'm supportive, but can you read what the motion is?

So the motion is to move forward to do the count.

Okay.

To provide the citywide homeless plan out on our website.

Okay.

And then to, you're putting your item as an 85A though.

Yeah, two are gonna be 85A items, but-So you want us to support that? If we can add-No, no, no, no. No, yeah, because it's an 85A.

That's almost like, where are you going?

right now but but but there's uh other two things one relates to the account that there be a contact card oh yes correct that'd be an element of that and then also that staff come back with a plan on how to increase the size of our quality of life team two also that's going to help do the can all these other things because we need personnel yeah fantastic so we'll add the other excuse me

you take a public comment on the amendment we are not no the public comment's over um so mr city manager mr police chief at this point can you include and hopefully we'll get the friendly amendment from councilman sarmiento is to add the contact card but i'm assuming you already have that in place um and then um what the cost would be to increase the quality of life team so if we can get an assessment of currently how many folks we have now and to increase the team what would that cost and bring and if we could bring that to tuesday's meeting as well i see some nodding heads so i'll

go ahead and accept the friendly amendment councilman i just my last comment i'm noticing that on our agenda we don't have a final comments by council so i just want to address this uh asking all of our community those here those who will be watching those who will be reading about tonight's or this morning's discussion it's I I know and I and I anticipate that many in our city are very disappointed by the action that the County Board of Supervisors took on Tuesday absent supervisor Doe who represents our district where last week there was some momentum the judge

pressured enough so that the county was apparently gave the appearance that they were going to have other cities take on some of the burden of addressing the homelessness issue and the cities of costa mes the cities of excuse me cities of hunton beach the cities of laguna miguel and of irvine pushed back and the county then rescinded those supervisors are from my perception and what I'm able to see their campaign. And so what I'm asking you as residents to remember them when Todd Spitzer is running for district attorney and when you see his name on the ballot,

when Sean Nelson from what I understand is running for judge when these other folks are running for reelection and they're campaigning, trying to score points politically in their jurisdictions at our expense. Don't forget that. Spread that word that in essence they're trying to they're on our the expense of our kids of our families of our neighborhoods they're going out they're trying to make a name for themselves. So please remember that when it comes to the ballot box these folks need to hear that we're not going to put up for that. Thank you. Councilman Benavides

this. All those in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. And with that, this meeting is adjourned to the next scheduled council meeting, which is Tuesday, April 3rd at 5 p.m. And thank you very much to all the residents for coming here.