Read the March 12 meeting.

Mayor Pro Tem, I'd like to nominate Councilman Tinajeri, Chair of the meeting.

Do we need a cast of vote?

Yes, I have four public speakers.

So we're good because there's no objectives.

By unanimous consent, it's been approved that Council Member Tina Harrow will chair the meeting.

Okay, I'd like to call up first speaker, Mr. Mark Rosen, followed by Mr. Peter Katz.

Good afternoon.

I'm here on behalf of citizens of Santa Ana. I know all of you. I've supported many of you for different offices, but on this particular item, this does not do you proud. This does not make you look good. What you're proposing to do today is, and I sent an email last week, I sent an email this morning to your attorney, and I'll cover the points very briefly. Number one, the resolution that you're proposing is an illegal expenditure of public funds.

You have a provision in your ordinances for liability funds and what they can be used for, and they can't be used for something like this. You're proposing to spend $200,000 out of liability funds for something that does not fit the liability. whereas if you wait till November to hold the proposal for district elections you'll have no charge and you'll avoid all of the complications that this current proposal is rising

Mayor Polito I'm sure has signed many ordinances that he didn't agree with this one is different this is an illegal expenditure and he has an obligation not to sign a resolution ordinance which would be an illegal act by the city. And I think he's acted properly. Second, the proposal is a violation of the California Voting Rights Act, which calls for a sequence of hearings before you submit it to the voters or pass your ordinance. And third, this meeting on March 12th was noticed yesterday, March 11th,

because you didn't have a quorum for the meeting on March 9th that you noticed for March 8th. That is a violation of the Brown Act, and I think I've submitted to your attorney what the violation is. There was a serial meeting by text on March 8th among at least four council members. One council member, and I'm going to quote from the text messaging, one council member said council number one said what is our options does someone else have authors to sign i.e. mere pro tem do we need to go to the court this morning to file a writ to compel them

to sign do we call a special meeting mr rosen if you could wrap up please okay man i would ask for

more time i'm going to give you 15 seconds to wrap your comments okay anyway you all know that you

participated in an illegal act under the brown act this meeting does not cure that what you need to do is disqualify yourselves uh you know who you are you ought to disqualify yourselves from voting on this because it's going to be a violation of the brown act when i was on the garden grove council we were investigating the brown act and it was not pleasant thank you thank you next speaker

is mr katz followed by irma macias

Yes, counsel, I would echo Mr. Rosen's comments as well. I find troubling that four to three vote. I still think it required a five-vote margin. And how can you borrow money from a legal aid fund when you haven't been sued yet? $202,000 would have filled a lot of potholes. David, you complained about potholes. We had Mr. Solari address the chief swearing in, saying that he single-handedly turned around the police department. He's talking about hiring police officers. Sal, you talked about programs for schools. Vince, you talked about restorative justice. Where is this money coming from?

Are we going to waste $202,000 on something that could wait until November? I find that troubling. And then you have these secret meetings. We passed the Sunshine Ordinance that clearly talks about the Brown Act and the Public Records Act and openness in government. What hypocrisy is this? You know, in the middle of the day, look how many people are in this room here. You know, I commend the mayor for refusing to sign this ordinance. I believe it's illegal, and I think it's returning us back to segregation, and I think that's the wrong move for the city. That's my personal position on that.

It takes away five-sixths of my vote in the city. But that being said, that meeting that was out last Friday, City Hall was even closed. So, you know, I mean, talk about openness in government. And you talk about boards. In Los Angeles, you have gold sidewalks on Rodeo Drive and no sidewalks in Watts, Compton, and East Los Angeles. And the same thing is going to happen here. You're going to have trade-off votes for money and candidates. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Katz.

Irma Macias is the next speaker, followed by our last speaker, Mr. Josue Hernandez.

Good afternoon, council members, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Irma Macias, resident of Santa Ana for 44 years.

I'm sorry, I think there's a few cards that I don't have.

Go ahead, Ms. Macias. Okay. And just here to echo I'm going to sound like you guys, just what the first and the second speaker said. As a resident of this city, district elections, it doesn't work for many of us. First, because as soon as they get their positions they forget about the minority. The issues that we really have. I wish this position would be a volunteer position where everyone would be fighting and see how many hands would raise up and say you know what I want to do it. For free. Not because I want a full time

if you guys are doing this with a part time imagine what you can do with a full time. Nothing. I have come to attend or to ask other council members and say you know what can you help me with this because the person that represent me is not coming forward through with the issues that we need in my neighborhood in my community how embarrassing that I you know how awkward I feel to go and ask another individual with you guys are citywide elected you suppose your responsibility is to represent every single one of us residents in this city and when they tell

me I'm not the one representing your district but yet because I care I'm gonna do it where are the voices of you guys I go to meetings and say you know what this person has done absolutely nothing for my district and yet you want a change for what because it will work in your best interest we are supposed to be your best in first interest every single resident in Santa Ana is not the same we all tackle different issues different neighborhoods and if you are here for the money it's money left and right going to different places don't make this

happen we need citywide elections because we are not well represented by individuals that come over here and swear that I'm going to do the best I can. No you guys are not doing the best you can. And it's so unfortunate that we, you ask for my record volunteer. Go ahead and wrap up. Become one. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Mr. Jose Hernandez followed by Mr. Dave Hohen.

Hello, council members. My name is Jose Hernandez. I come on behalf of a court and many community members that came out last week from the Vietnamese community, from the Latino community, from allies that were in full support of the actions taken by the four council members that voted in favor of it. And I just want to say, there's a lot of false information, segregation, and the fear tactics that you guys are going to fight amongst each other. I feel like it's deja vu. We heard all of these things in Anaheim. Accord, we fought and won for district elections in Anaheim to happen. And it was all the same talking points.

You guys aren't going to work with each other. You're going to create fiefdoms. You're only going to care about your district. That's just absolutely false. The fact of the matter is it made the representatives more accountable, more accessible to the community. And you all have to still work together, you know, in order to get things to pass. You know, you still represent. The other day, Mr. Villegas said, like, oh, I don't work for just, you know, my district. I work for all people. No, he works for the Police Officers Association, just like this lawyer, and just like a lot of people that are in opposition of this.

This is, at the end of the day, this is about a California Voting Rights Act. This is about the city making the right decision and getting ahead of this issue instead of dragging us through litigation. This is not about whether or not people feel it would work better and whether or not people would be represented.

And all these different, I don't know, what rambling happened. But the point of the matter is it allows for big money, big interest to get out of our elections and have it to be more representative so that real candidates and real council members and people that are really representing the community are able to stand a chance. And at the end of the day, we are violating the rights of the Vietnamese community, and that will not change no matter what the opinions are out there. And I hope that you do the right thing and you vote in favor and overcome Mayor Pulido's obstruction

the action of what was in fact by the city attorney was in fact said that this was correct. That you are within your means to be able to do this. So I hope that you do the right thing and are able to give voters the chance on June 5th. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Our final speaker, Madam Clerk, we don't have any other speakers.

Not for the closed session item. We have several other speakers that will speak again on the open session item.

Okay, Mr. Dave Hoenn.

Good afternoon. This is Dave Hohen, long-time resident of Santa Ana. So one person out of a body of seven can overrule the majority vote of four. That's not democracy. That's a dictatorship. When one person says that something's illegal, even though it's been all vetted, and still says that that doesn't count, that's a banana republic. It's not a democracy.

The argument has been there's been no public input about this. There's been lots of meetings about this. In fact, about a year ago, you guys had an agenda item to open it for discussion about doing board elections. And it got shot down by this body. We couldn't even study it. So you talk about public input, that's a bogus thing.

and besides this is to put it to a vote what's more democratic than that and then the argument i heard the other day was it's a hybrid system that works i'll tell you what we've had over a decade of of balancing on going into bankruptcy we haven't been able to have money to do some very important things um i don't think that hybrid system is working. So there's I encourage you to find some way to get this on the June

primary and not wait till November. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hohen. If at this moment we do not have any of any more individuals prepared to speak, I will then adjourn or recess to close session.

Sonia R. Carvalho

I'm sorry Mr. Chair as you're chairing this meeting I just like to make sure we get on the record I'm going to ask the city clerk a few questions in terms of establishing the meeting for today. My understanding is that the city has a policy that our mayor call special meetings but in the absence of calling a meeting by our mayor we do have a policy in which individual council members can notify the city clerk if they desire to have a special meeting and I may ask the city clerk did you receive a request from the individual council members? members for the scheduling of this meeting today and when did you receive

those requests? Yes I did either by text message or by email by four members of

Sonia R. Carvalho

the council who are all present today. On those emails was anyone other than yourself copied on those emails in terms of their request for the meeting? Not

that I'm aware of. The only thing that I confirmed was the time of the meeting so the 1.30 time was confirmed with two members of the council. I just wanted to

Sonia R. Carvalho

sure that this meeting was being held independently of any meeting that you had previously called last week. Madam, go ahead Councilmember. There was another

question that you requested of the clerk of the council and I'm not sure that that was addressed. You asked about when the request came in right for this meeting and if you can address that part of the question when you received those. When did you receive the request?

sorry when did I receive it I'm sorry I'm losing track of my time Saturday I'd have to confirm because I believe the first request I received was from Councilmember Sarmiento and I believe I'll have to confirm because I don't remember it was by email I remember that I guess I would ask

Sonia R. Carvalho

were all the requests received at least 20 more than 24 hours yes yes with more than 24 hour notice

it just took me a little longer to confirm the time.

Sonia R. Carvalho

Thank you.

All right.

We will recess to close session.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'd like to call this meeting back to order. Madam clerk.

We have.

We have conference with legal counsel before we go any further I'd like to call up some speakers. Mr. Mark Rosen followed by Mr. Peter Katz.

I spoke already. I'll just wait to hear what your decision is or was before I do anything else. Thank you.

Mr. Peter Katz. Followed by you mama see us.

Yeah, I just want to reiterate the fact that, you know, you have a full budget that shows a $17 million deficit looming here in the next couple of years. So, I mean, we have to be careful with our pocketbooks. and I'm hoping that if this gets on a ballot and it passes, we're going to have to redraw districts and then redraw districts again in two years when the census figures come out. So there's gonna be a lot more expenditures that go along with this. So this is not an easy road we're going down. And I'll just remind you one paragraph from the Sunshine Ordinance, that while the Brown Act and Public Records Act

exists to facilitate public participation local government decisions and to curb misuse of the democratic process by secret legislation by public bodies. The Santa Ana Sunshine Laws are designated to reaffirm and strengthen the need for transparency as represented by these laws. Thank you.

Thank you. Ms. Irma Macias followed by Josue Hernandez.

Hello again. And just going back and hopefully you listen to what the community is saying. We are not a group. We are individuals that for years have been here walking, living the needs of our community. Not a group addressed by someone.

And if by changing this, you thought that you will stay 12 more years? As someone say, I'm not going to run for mayor because if this happens, I'm going to stay 12 more years. Well, I don't think that it's the right thing to do. A service to others leads to greatness. And I'm going to leave you with this. Just do.

the next right thing for the community, not for you. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Macias. Jose Hernandez, followed by Mr. Carl Benninger.

Yes.

I just want to go ahead and reiterate our feelings that a lot of folks would be here. A lot of folks were here at the last council meeting. A lot of folks sent their letter of support from the Vietnamese organizations, of the Vietnamese community, Latino community. So it's not devoid of a mass amount of people that want this to happen. I just think it's really unfortunate that one person, Mayor Pulido, saying he won't sign something that the council decided to do, that he was able to single-handedly obstruct the process as it were. I think it's undemocratic.

I think all the arguments that are being made against it are just not have any kind of validity really. And at the end of the day, I just, I've seen, the proof is in the pudding. I've seen what happened in Anaheim. From one election to the next, they had better representation. They were able to curtail the power of big money. We're already seeing the amount of hundreds of thousands of dollars that the POA is going to flood into this election in 2018, which makes it very clear why they want to obstruct and delay, delay, delay. That's the same thing that Disney did in Anaheim.

Ultimately, they lost, but they were able to delay it just enough so that they were able to have a gate tax voted away so that for 40 years, that community was not able to benefit from the gate tax in Anaheim. And so that's why they know, and as Councilmember Sarmiento clearly laid out, if we don't do this now, then a lot of folks would be able to be grandfathered in, and district elections wouldn't apply to them. That's why it needs to happen now, and the community is in full support of the Vietnamese communities being demarginalized, and that everybody in Santana, all parts, everybody gets better representation.

And I hope that if any issues were able to be cured, resolved, and that we can leave here with a better, more democratic and more representative body for Al Santhana residents. Thank you. Thank you.

Mr. Carl Benninger and also followed by Mr. Ken Wynn.

Thank you and good afternoon. I'm either for or against. I lived under both systems and there's pros and cons. and we can spend a lot of time talking about it. What I am against right now is I've stood in front of you here asking money for our trees and mediums, and unfortunately we couldn't get a dime for that. And I just think we're rushing into something without taking advantage of a report that the city attorney couldn't release to us about the demographics to see where this would be. And so I have a real concern suddenly taking $232,000, taking a report that we paid for that we're going to ignore, to move this quickly on it.

And the threat of a lawsuit, to me, doesn't make sense because you've applied back to them, is being looked at, and we're going to do it in November, and we'll do it for far less than what's going to cost us now. I think the big question I did ask some of the members up here in front, why now? Why at this late hour are we asking for this change of vote? And it's leading that there's many hidden agendas, whether it's being that the police are going to try to control the election or whether we're trying to change terms, but it's leaving a lot of suspicion out there that there are hidden agendas for why this is being done.

Myself, I just don't see the need for the money to move this quickly, to spend for it and get in June's election, when we can do it in November for a lot cheaper. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Ken Nguyen?

I'm here on behalf of any American community.

First, we would like to express our sincere appreciation to Councilman Vincent Samento, Councilman Tina Sautier-Nehiro, Councilman David Benavides, and as well Councilman Jose Celio for your continued support to the Vietnamese American community as well, especially support for the vote by district effort. I believe the word by this election vote by district will give our group, especially Vietnamese American residents here in San Diego, a better chance to be represented on the city council. Also, the council member will have better understanding of the need and unique problem of their

constituent and effectively representing the community member advocate interest of resident of that ward and resident will have better participation and prove that because their vote will have more meaningful chance for success.

But not any mean we are not supporting the extension of term limit. We urge Mayor Polito to sign the resolution to put the measure in the ballot and let the voter decide vote by district or not. Thank you very much for your attention.

Thank you, Mr. Nguyen. I'd like to open it up for any comments from any members on the council.

Actually, Madam City Attorney, would you like to give a report?

Sonia R. Carvalho

I'm prepared to respond to some of the questions that have been asked. If you'd like to conduct your conversations first, it's whatever your timing, the pleasure of the council.

Go ahead.

Sonia R. Carvalho

So first of all, council and for members of our public that are here today, as many people who know that have worked with me, I take very, very seriously those laws that speak to our transparency, helped you design and draft and adopt your sunshine ordinance so I'd really like to begin by addressing allegations of a potential violation of the Brown Act I'd like to be able to state clearly that it's the position of a number of our staff people and the council members that there was no violation of the Brown Act that the conversations that occurred were carried out to plan the meeting and

Sonia R. Carvalho

to identify what the subject matter of that meeting would be and not to form a consensus. Nonetheless, that meeting was not held and so therefore there's no violation. Today's meeting was called legally as I understand that individual members contacted the city clerk and that's how the special meeting for today was addressed. I'd also like to address briefly the email that we received last Thursday. It was sent to me again this morning and the allegation that that is that the city cannot take money from the city's liability fund to pay for a special election. Of course I have to take seriously any type of

Sonia R. Carvalho

communication that accuses individual council members of wrongdoing and even threatening them with personal liability. If you bear with me for just a moment I want to explain to you where I believe this argument is coming from. The City Council, you have a municipal code. Sometimes we have provisions in our municipal code that are very old. I was once asked to speak on old provisions like you can't let your chicken cross the street or you can't keep your horse in the backyard. And of course some municipal codes across Southern California still contain these old provisions.

Sonia R. Carvalho

The provisions that were cited to in the email were adopted in 1976. Those provisions identify a liability fund, but what was left out of that email is that the code also identifies what's called a general insurance fund. We don't have anything in our budget today that's called a liability fund. In fact, what we have is something that is called the Liability and Property Fund. We name it, it's fund number 80. And based on the research that I've done, it appears to me that those funds were actually combined into one to manage both the settlement of claims and to manage our self-insurance program.

Sonia R. Carvalho

I'd like to read to you from the provision under the General Insurance Fund, which has been folded into this fund 80. It's very clear that under expenditure of funds, that monies in this general insurance fund can be expended for a number of purposes, very broad, including operation of the insurance program itself, including but not limited to. These are kind of words that a court looks at when they're going to decide whether something is illegal, that that's not exclusive. It's saying including but not limited to, and they're giving examples. Some of those examples include wages and salaries, fringe benefits,

Sonia R. Carvalho

city employees, management, administration. but what's most important in this section that it includes materials and supplies and also contractual and professional services for litigation and the settlement of claims so before I go further on that I'd like to ask the city manager if he or his staff could address the use of this fund in the past and some of the ways that we've set precedent in terms of its use

thank you madam city attorney it is my understanding that the liability property fund before my time of course has been used to pay for anything that would be anticipated as liability it's gone as far as being used for capital projects for example when those capital projects would reduce liability to the city so in this case here when we received THE LETTER. I CONFERRED WITH THE CITY ATTORNEY IN TERMS OF HOW CREDIBLE OF A THREAT THAT WAS. BASED ON THAT DISCUSSION, I THEN TURNED AROUND AND ASKED MY FINANCE DIRECTOR

IF WE HAD MONEY IN THE LIABILITY FUND BUDGETED THIS YEAR THAT HAD NOT BEEN ENCUMBERED YET THAT COULD BE USED FOR THIS PURPOSE. AND HE ASSURED ME THAT THERE WAS. AND THAT GOES TO POINT OF WHETHER THIS IS A FOUR VOTE REQUIREMENT TO USE THE MONEY VERSUS A FIVE VOTE REQUIREMENT TO MAKE AN APPROPRIATION PRIOR TO. IF WE HAD NOT HAD ENOUGH MONEY IN THAT FUND AND WE NEEDED TO GO TO FUND BALANCE AND MOVE MONEY INTO THAT FUND, THAT WOULD BE A FIVE VOTE REQUIREMENT. I'D ALSO LIKE TO BRING OUR FINANCE DIRECTOR TO, AND I THINK HE CAN, on this.

Yes, good afternoon, council members. The city manager is correct. When we first looked at the item originally, we were anticipating using general fund fund balance in order to fund the project. However, when the letter came up and the seriousness of the letter came into play in terms of pending litigation and liability to the city it brought into as an option the liability fund for use if if the council so chose to do that because it was consistent with past practice in terms of limiting the liability to the city in terms of potential actions the city could take in order to mitigate

the cost to the liability fund by performing certain actions obviously in this case i was asked whether or not the contractual services line item had sufficient funding to support the cost of the district elections. And as I looked at it, it did have sufficient funding. So therefore, it was contained within the fund. Because council was not augmenting the budget, nor was it transferring funds from a different fund source into the operational budget, five votes was not required.

Sonia R. Carvalho

I'd like to just briefly also speak to the issue of that is the process in terms of spending the money and what led to the decision that this was actually presenting liability. In the email that we received, the allegation is that you're moving too quickly, that you're not complying with the California Voter Rights Act. There's actually two issues to discuss there. The first one is that in terms of timing, the City Council has been addressing the issue of potential bi-district elections since December 6, 2016. We've had no less than four to five meetings on the subject, including 85A items.

Sonia R. Carvalho

and public RFCA's that were presented to the council, both at the meeting of December 20th, 2016, the meeting of January 17th, 2017. There was an exhaustive RFCA, which identified by district elections and all of the actions that would need to be taken to implement them. We also received correspondence earlier in June of this year, last year, in which we had an individual alleged violations, and we were working on that by hiring a demographer. we reported to the public. And so we have numerous responses to that. Most importantly, however, I think some would say to us that you don't have real liability under the CVRA.

Sonia R. Carvalho

All I can say to that is that over hundreds of public agencies in response to these kinds of letters have taken action. I'm only aware of a handful of cities that have decided to fight off these types of attempts. Santa Monica did unsuccessfully. The city of Huntington Beach has budgeted almost a million dollars in their fight. And I think in our assessment, our professional assessment, we felt that this did pose real and potential liability. Finally, on the issue of the California Voter Rights Act, the allegation is that we're somehow not following a process. We need the public to really understand two things.

Sonia R. Carvalho

Two things are happening here. First, you're asking the voters whether they would want to amend your city charter to allow for bi-district elections. That's what this does. this is not putting into play the process anything else you're asking the voters whether they wish to change their system how you handle the issue of actually looking at your existing words and how you address that issue is separate and the action that you took on on March 6th was the issue of posing this question to the voters and directing staff to come back to you with a plan to lawfully

Sonia R. Carvalho

implement the will of the voters should that be the will of the voters so I wanted to make that clear. And then I think I just have some reportable action after this if there's any questions I'd be happy to answer them before I provide the reportable action.

I'll open up Councilmember Solorio.

Just a couple of brief comments. Thank you City Attorney for that. So many of you know I served in the California legislature and it was the legislature that enacted with the governor's signature the California Voting Rights Act. And so I take that act very seriously. Also over the past decade I've watched cities up and down the state try to fight back against the elements of that act. And to my knowledge, no city has been successful in stopping the ramifications of the California Voting Rights Act.

We've seen through some demographic research and really I monitor voter election data. And I have seen, and now with the demographic information, I believe that we as a city have been diluting the Asian American vote. And I think the voting rights act says we ought to stop. And so the remedy is to go to by ward elections or by district elections. And so pretty much in every case that I've seen settle in this regards, there's always been that action as remedy. and here in our own county we've seen some of that just in the past decade.

The city of Anaheim has went to district elections under that act. Garden Grove has the city of Fullerton, the city of San Juan Capistrano, and the list goes on in terms of the power and the impact of the California Voting Rights Act. I also sit up here as a Latino American who knows well that this history in the past has diluted. the Latino American vote and so I want to be a responsible elected official and now knowing that there's an issue of Asian American representation and possible violation under

the California Voting Rights Act, I want to make sure I take every action possible to live within the provisions of that act. So with that, I continue to support the actions of the City Council and soon we'll be hearing what the outcome of the closed session was. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other council members that wish to? Council members have me in.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to staff for that presentation and for the background on that, and thank you to all the speakers who had to come here in the middle of their day. We wish you wouldn't have had to have come. You shouldn't have to be here. We shouldn't have to be here because there's another question that came as a, that developed as a result of this, is that we started talking about a public policy question that we simply wanted to have resolved by the voters and it was about whether or not we move from an at-large election to just by district

elections what's evolved into is now one member of our council having veto power over what the will of the larger council does i don't know any other body that has somebody who's equally elected as his or her colleague to be able to be arbiter and the final decision maker on whether or not something is legal. That's what the court of law is for. So as a result and as a function of what we started talking about, we've now started talking about somebody having complete power over whether or not something gets processed.

And this was very time sensitive. This was supposed to be completed by Friday of last week. So we missed a deadline for somebody who deliberately abrogated his ministerial responsibility. That's required under the Charter. And whether or not we agree or disagree on something, that's beside the fact. When those of us who disagree with something, we win or lose by the nature of the vote. The majority makes its decision. And whether or not we're in the minority or in the majority, we respect that. And we expect that of all of our elected officials.

But when somebody thwarts that and thwarts the will of the council, you're thwarting the will of the people because this council represents the voters and the residents in the city. So that's what's more troubling to me or as troubling as the underlying question of district elections. For me, you know, there is a time sensitivity or there was a time sensitivity because there are three open seats that are going to be coming up in November. And under district elections, it would have made a much more, there would have been much more parity in the way those seats would have been decided.

I think that those of us who support district elections realize that even though our hybrid system requires us to live within a certain ward, we still have to run at large. So your vote can still be diluted. And I saw a community within our city whose votes were being disenfranchised. And we not only identified this in 2016, but we've had conversations and meetings publicly held where you as a public have been present at. I see faces that were here at those meetings back in December of 2016, and we've had meetings since then. So we've tried to put this before you because this is a question that we wanted you to decide.

Obviously, we're having a difficult time as an elected body for making that decision, so we thought this is important enough that it should go to you.

I THINK THAT AT THIS POINT, IT IS TROUBLING, IT'S UNSETTLING THAT WE HAVE TO BE HERE, THAT WE HAVE TO BE DEALING WITH ONE OF OUR MEMBERS ACTING CAPRICIOUSLY AND UNDERMINING WHAT THE majority of his counsel has legally and duly voted to do. So I'm just going to say let's discuss the policy question. Let's get this before a court of law. Let's have them decide whether or not a person has abrogated their responsibility. But this is something that

we have to cure later as well because this is something that is now symptomatic of the THE CITY ATTORNEY IS NOT A LARGER PROBLEM.

THANK YOU, COUNCIL MEMBER. COUNCIL MEMBER BELAVILES.

THANK YOU, COUNCIL MEMBER. COUPLE OF BRIEF COMMENTS. THERE HAS BEEN MENTION OF I APPRECIATE THE CITY ATTORNEY GOING BACK TO OVER A YEAR OF DISCUSSION AND MEETINGS. I BELIEVE BESIDES THE MEETINGS HELD HERE, THERE HAVE ALSO BEEN COMMUNITY MEETINGS. I think on at least one occasion, Madam City Clerk, can you speak to that with regard to the topic of district election?

Yes, I received a request from Comlink, I believe it was April of 2017, where I made a presentation to various members of the community about the charter amendment, placing an item on the ballot as a right of the voters. So we went through the timeline, the recommended timeline to propose that as a resident.

Thank you. So we're aware as a council, we're aware of interests of the community, questions, concerns presented by the community, counter to some of the comments that perhaps some of the speakers made today. And precisely for that reason, we brought this before, we brought this on a couple of occasions, we brought this before council on last week, Tuesday. Ultimately, it's about democracy. Ultimately, it's giving people the opportunity to decide whether they want to go to district elections or not, and ultimately to be able to allow them to not have their votes diluted.

The sense of urgency with regard to June versus November, when my colleagues just addressed it, there are going to be three seats that are wholly open seats come November. and if the voters decide come June, they do want to go to district elections, that would then go into effect at the November general election. And again, the new council members that the voters of Santana would decide to elect would be based on that new system that the community would have chosen.

During our time, during my time in the city and prior to being on the council and not going back too far back, there was the representation on this dais was different and was not a true reflection of the demographics and the community in the city of Santa Ana. So it's very quickly, however, things have shifted so that now you have an all Latino city council and and uh there there are strengths you know and things that as a as a resident of

this community as a latino that i feel uh you know that there's uh uh uh there's representation based on the majority of the population in the city however um reality is that i remember what it was like to not have somebody on on this council that reflected the community and so at this point you have two demographics within the city uh uh in one section of the city you have primarily an Asian population, another section of the city, you have primarily Anglo population that, in this case, we've demonstrated, history has demonstrated over the last recent elections,

where they, those sections have chosen, have based on their award chosen, voted for a representative. However, the at-large outcome of the election made it so that that vote was diluted and therefore another representative was successful in being elected. So what we're trying to do here is remedy that and do it sooner rather than later. And really, again, let the voters make their decisions. So it is very unfortunate that we're having to go through all of this process

because the mayor, and this is not the first time where he's chosen to make his own personal preference EXERCISE THEIR OWN PERSONAL PREFERENCE BY HIJACKING A DECISION OF THE COUNCIL. SO IT'S UNFORTUNATE. HOWEVER, IT'S IN FACT THE MAYOR'S LACK OF ACTION THAT HAS BROUGHT US TO HAVE TO EXERCISE AND GO THROUGH THIS WHOLE PROCESS. SO IF THERE'S ANYBODY WHO WE SHOULD REALLY BE QUESTIONING IS OUR ABSENT MAYOR. BUT GIVEN THAT, THOSE ARE MY COMMENTS. MR. CHAIRMAN, BACK TO YOU.

Thank you, Mr. Benavides or Council member Benavides.

I've listened to the comments and I thank you for being here. It's unfortunate and I'll explain and go into a little further that we're actually all here using city resources when in fact this should have been something that if there was a complaint the mayor should have taken it to court. I've heard people say that you know we have to listen to the community well that's in fact what we're trying to do we have been elected by the community to represent them and we come up here and we do the best we can to do that there was a vote taken there was debate that took place at the last council meeting

it was a spirited debate there were people all over here there's more people than there are here today that came and gave us their input and we voted on a That was the democracy. It was a 4-3. The mayor has a responsibility to sign off so that we can continue to move forward. The mayor failed to do so. I heard the attorney come up and say that he thought it was illegal and that that's why he didn't want to sign.

What's interesting to me that you could be fined 11 times from the FPPC and not have a problem with that legality, but you had a problem with this one. The fact is that if he had acted on a moral high ground on a variety of different cases, I would say, okay, I can potentially buy that. I still wouldn't agree with it. But the fact is, is that let me just tell you, there's precedent here.

This mayor, when he didn't get his way on our current city manager, and that vote was a 4-3, he refused to sign his contract then too. Now I ask you, he's been mayor since 1992? Are you kidding me? Is that the way that we're going to conduct ourselves here in this city where you give somebody the opportunity to veto democracy in the city of Santa Ana? That is absolutely absurd.

What we are here about tonight is not about whether you agree with district elections. The question tonight is whether you agree with democracy moving forward in Santa Ana or not. Because you may disagree with ward elections, but I tell you this. There's going to be something else that you also may agree with and this mayor may stop it. And that's what we have to prevent. Because you may not like ward elections today and you're happy about the fact that the mayor used this tactic and stopped the rest of this community from having their voices heard, but next time it might be you.

And that's why we're here today. Because all this council was doing, and I want to make it very, very clear, was giving the residents of Santa Ana an opportunity to vote yay or nay. That, my friends, is called a democracy. We are standing here to incorporate, potentially incorporate a group of residents that has been disenfranchised from our voting system because we've cut their district in three. It's time, and some people will say, well, why now? Let me tell you why. Because when there was a threat of litigation, we look to where it has occurred before and we realize that they have lost. Not one has won.

And when we look at Huntington Beach spending a million dollars, no, I think it's better that we spend a nickel today instead of a dime tomorrow. And that's what we're looking at. I'm extremely disappointed as a council member that the mayor did this. Let me tell you what the mayor could have done. Do you know what the professional thing to do? And I think the attorney knows this, and I think any rational individual knows this. If you don't agree with it because you think it's illegal, fine. You still sign because that was the will of the people and you turn that in. And then on Monday, you file your complaint.

Because what should have been happening right now is the mayor should have been in there with Mr. Rosen in court, arguing before a judge why this was illegal. But you don't stop the voice of the people. You do not stop the voice of the people. And it's unfortunate that we're here today, and I hope, I hope that when this goes before a judge, the judge rules in favor of democracy and equal representation for all residents of Santa Ana. Thank you very much.

And with that, our meeting is adjourned. I'm sorry, we do have to have action.

Sonia R. Carvalho

I just want to report out the action and just take a moment to make sure we have this as we will be using the information today as part of the reportable action. So as many of you cited, the city charter provides that the mayor shall sign all resolutions and ordinances. There are no exceptions to that rule. In the past, not only the city of Santa Ana, but many cities have simply just looked to their mayor pro tem or another member of the council to sign documents when the mayor was not available or whether maybe a mayor chose not to sign.

Sonia R. Carvalho

But in the case of Torres v. Montebello, we learned that when a mayor fails to carry out his ministerial duty, we only have one remedy, and the court tells us that remedy is to seek a writ. In our case, the city charter does not vest our mayor with veto power. Our charter does not empower the mayor to decide what is illegal or legal, and then refuse to take action, regardless of how he personally feels on an action. So in this case, the remedy is for the mayor or a member of the public, just like Tim Rush did in hiring Mr. Rosen to seek declaratory relief or an order.

Sonia R. Carvalho

and the courts do not look favorably upon city clerks, city attorneys, city managers, or mayors who take the law into their own hands. There's lots of case law on this issue, particularly in the area of elections. The remedy is to seek relief from the courts and not to impede the process. So having said that, I wanted to report out to the public that the city council members that are here today voted unanimously to direct our outside special legal counsel to seek relief from the court, to seek an order ordering the mayor to execute the resolutions and to seek relief from our county registrar to accept those documents as well.

Sonia R. Carvalho

Our outside counsel will be handling the matter, and I will make sure that he reports to the city staff and to the council.

Any questions? Councilman Solorio.

Yeah, thank you for the fact that report. I think it was accurate and complete. given that I know there's some reports on the remainder of the agenda that I think we're on alternative but I don't think we need to consider those items anymore is that correct city attorney or city clerk the items listed under open session is that the open session reports that are mentioned yes that was placed

as an opportunity for council to have an openly discussed the options those options were considered in closed session with the city attorney reported on reporting on what the direction was from the city council so no other action is

needed at this time very good that's the clarification I was looking for thank

you any other comments so the attorney are you finished with your comments okay and then I will go ahead and adjourn the meeting thank you very much

Thank you.