Read the June 1 meeting.

The

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

of zoom if you would like to participate by providing a comment on any closed session item please dial star 9 from your phone or select the raise hand feature from zoom from your device

for any member of the public that would like to provide any public comment on closed session and items only, please dial star nine from your phone or select raise hand from Zoom from your device.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Recording in progress.

Madam Clerk, are we all set?

Great, thank you. Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the City Council meeting for June 1st, 2020. Let me go ahead and ask if there's anybody that wants to address the City Council on any closed session items.

For any member of the public that have joined us by way of Zoom or in person, if you would like to provide any comment on closed session items, please select Raise Hand from Zoom or star 9 from your phone. And we did not receive any speaker cards for those in person.

Great. Thank you and let me just go ahead and give this disclosure before we begin. This meeting is taking place with a limited in-person attendance and by teleconference via Zoom. The public may access the meeting via the Santa Ana YouTube channel or the city's website. Please bear with us as the technology may disrupt the flow of the meetings and as you all have been following us, we have had some technical difficulties I think with YouTube every once in a while. So please bear with us and we appreciate your patience. Madam Clerk, do we call roll at this point?

Yes, Councilmember Becerra.

Councilmember Hernandez.

Yes.

Councilmember Lopez.

Here.

Councilmember Mendoza.

Here.

Councilmember Fan.

Is that your name?

Mayor Pro Tempeñalosa.

And Mayor Sarmiento.

Here. So we do have quorum. Let me go ahead and ask if there's any council members that wish to abstain from any items on the closed session agenda.

Hearing none and seeing none. we also from what I understand Madam Clerk we don't have any speakers that want to address the members of the council on any closed session items so we will be recessing in the closed session thank you

go ahead mayor pro temp I just wanted to clarify we were muted in the closed session but I am here yes we took note of that I believe the clerk went ahead noted both of you here yes I did thank you thank you thank you okay mayor

recording stopped

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'll see you next time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

recording in progress recording

good evening everybody i think we have recording in progress so i'll go ahead and let the public know that we are back in open session, some closed sessions, and I'll go ahead and call this open meeting to order. This is the regular City Council meeting for June 1st, 2021. I hope everybody had a great Memorial Day, safe, and you had some time to think about, honor, and remember everybody who gave their lives for our liberties and all the freedoms that we enjoy.

Yes.

Mr. Mike, this is Council Member Lopez. We're receiving static and an echo on our end. So if people in the chamber need themselves, that would be helpful.

Let me go ahead and I think staff heard that, that there may be an echo on your end.

I think we had a device that was on in the council chambers.

Is that better, council members, those of you who are on the line?

No, it's not any better.

Give us a second.

Yeah, I hear sort of an echo even in the chambers.

I'm carrying only this one. Non-agenda. So this is for item 29.

This is for 29.

Yes, all of these ones. Just so you're aware.

Okay, this is the only one.

Let me go ahead and also ask, for those of you in the public, if you have any devices that are on YouTube or on Zoom, if you could turn those down because it'll create some interference. some feedback. If you have your phones on YouTube or on the Zoom channel that we have in the city, you can open it so that there is no interference.

I don't hear the static in chambers anymore. Council members, those of you on the phone, do you hear any continued static?

No, it sounds much better. Thank you.

Great. Thank you for that.

I hear it's fine. It's fine.

Good. Okay, great. Thank you, council members. And please let us know and give us a heads up if you hear anything that interferes with your signal. So let me go ahead and once again call the regular meeting to order. Let me read some housekeeping notes before we get started. This meeting is taking place with limited in-person attendance and by teleconference via Zoom. The public may access the meeting via the Santa Ana YouTube channel or the city's website. Once again, please bear with us as the technology may disrupt the flow of the meeting. So we know that that has happened in the past.

That will probably happen tonight, and it will probably happen in the future, so long as we continue virtual participation from members of the council and members of the public. Madam Clerk, if you'll please conduct roll.

Councilmember Becerra? Here. Councilmember Hernandez?

Councilmember Lopez?

Present.

Councilmember Mendoza? Present. Councilmember Fan? Here. Mayor Potem-Penalosa? Here. Mayor Sarmiento? Here. Madam Clerk, I'll go ahead and turn it over to you for you to go ahead and read your script. But just as a reminder to members of the audience, if you'll please continue to wear your masks. We are, you know, still under the executive orders that indoors we have to have masks on. So thank you very much for complying. We're further away from you with plexiglass, so hopefully that doesn't interfere with any closeness between us and the public. So, Madam Clerk, go ahead and move forward.

Thank you, Mayor and members of the council. The public was able to begin joining the speaker queue at 4.30 p.m. in accordance with council procedures. Calls will not be accepted after the public comment session has begun. Speakers who are not in the speaker queue by 6 p.m. will not be permitted to speak. To request to speak, dial star 9 from your phone or click the button labeled raise hand from Zoom. You will be asked to announce your name or ward or neighborhood you reside in within the City of Santa Ana for the record. Thank

you, Mayor. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Let me go ahead and turn it over to Councilmember Becerra who's going to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Thank you, Council Member Becerra. We're going to have an invocation that's going to be delivered to us by Rabbi Steven Einstein. Council Member Lopez did us the courtesy of inviting the rabbi and we're certainly very, very happy to have him join us and lead us with his words of wisdom and words of inspiration councilmember Lopez would you like to preface any of the comments and give the welcome to to the

rabbi thank you mayor so yes I'd like to thank um um rabbi Einstein for being here with us today and and accepting our invitation. I also just wanna thank Jeffrey Katz, who resides in War III for speaking with me and helping us get the rabbi here today. And we've invited Rabbi Ensign to be here today and within the following council meeting, we've also have invited him in a mom to be here today. And so without further ado, go ahead, Rabbi.

Thank you.

We've just observed the Memorial Day. And for some it's a day off. For others it's a time for sales or to enjoy barbecues or it's simply the beginning of summer. But really, it is a time to memorialize those who gave the ultimate gift, their lives, for our freedom. We memorialize them best by defending democracy. So let us hearken to the words of Archibald MacLeish.

The young soldiers do not speak. Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses. Who has not heard them? They have a silence that speaks for them at night, and when the clock counts. They say, we are young, we have died, remember us. They say, we have done what we could, but until it is finished, it is not done. They say we have given our lives, but until it is finished, no one can know what our lives gave.

They say our deaths are not ours. They are yours. They will mean what you make them. They say, whether our lives and our deaths are for peace and a new hope or for nothing, we cannot say, it is you who must say this. They say, we leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning. We were young, they say. We have died.

remember us. Amen.

Thank you, Rabbi. Thank you for those words. And, you know, you are always welcome in the people's house here in Santa Ana. So we hope to have you back here with us at some time and hopefully sometime in person. Very soon. Thank you, sir. Let me go ahead. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Council Member Lopez, as well for that. Let me go ahead and move it along to the next portion of the meeting, which is a ceremonial presentation. I'll turn it over to Council Member Becerra for an award to Ed Arnold.

Phil BacerraItem 1

I believe staff has a video ready to queue up.

Phil BacerraItem 1

It's truly my honor to be standing here today with the legendary Ed Arnold. Since Ed's arrival in Southern California in 1958, he's been a very active part of our community. He came here as a member of the United States Marine Corps, and the opportunity to play football at Santa Ana College kept him here in Orange County. Probably part of that was the recruiting that they did to keep you here, which I'm appreciative of. Now, Ed also earned his associate's degree in business from Santa Ana College and his bachelor's degree in speech with a radio, TV, film emphasis from Cal State Long Beach, which, no shock there.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Ed began his broadcasting career at the age of 14 in his hometown of Texarkana, Arkansas. Along the way, he had been awarded an Emmy and a Golden Mic Award. And then in 2004, Ed was honored for his 50 years in broadcasting. And then in 2007, the Radio and Television News Association of Southern California honored him with their Lifetime Achievement Award. Then after a distinguished 60-year broadcasting career, Ed retired from the anchor desk in 2014 He's best known for his 46 years as a television news anchor and a sports broadcaster with KABC, KOCE, and where I've always known you from, KTLA Channel 5. Good days.

Phil BacerraItem 1

So not only does Ed have a proven track record in broadcasting, he's also a trusted and highly visible presence in our community. He's been involved with civic organizations, youth groups, and various charities going way back to the mid-1960s. He served on the March of Dimes Board of Directors for over 35 years. He was a 40-year volunteer of his local Boys and Girls Club. And then in 1968, Ed was a founding board member of the Western Special Olympics. And he still plays a role in the Special Olympics Southern California events that we have here. You know, the United States Congress, California Senate and the Assembly,

Phil BacerraItem 1

and the LA and Orange County Board of Supervisors, which that's a big feat that those two groups don't normally agree on anything, but yet they agreed on one thing, and that was honoring Ed Arnold. So now not only did Ed meet his wife, Dixie, at Santa Ana College, and their son Dean was born at then Santa Ana Hospital, Ed's commitment to Santa Ana College and his involvement with their annual golf fundraising event just shows another reason why I believe Ed would find Santa Ana to be a special place.

Phil BacerraItem 1

And so I wanted to give him one more reason on behalf of the community, and that was to honor you for all that you've done for the city of Santa Ana and the special place that you have here in Santa Ana. And so what I wanted to do is present you this certificate on behalf of the city of Santa Ana for all that you've done for Santa Ana and Southern California.

Councilman, thank you and the council members for this. This means a great deal to me, more than you'll ever know. Again, when I first hit Orange County, one of the first places I came was Santa Ana. We used to take the bus from the Marine Corps Air Station El Toro to Santa Ana. This is where we would hang out and we'd go to the movie and things like that. And through the years, it's meant a great deal because, as you mentioned, I met my wife. We've been married soon. It'll be 60 years. And had I not gone to Santa Ana College, I would not have met her. And I've got so many wonderful experiences.

And supporting Santa Ana College means a great deal to me. and I'll do it as long as they want me to. And for this and for all the nice things that you said, I'm very grateful and I thank you and I thank the council. Thank you, Ed.

Phil BacerraItem 1

If I just may, Mr. Mayor, as you saw in that video, excuse me, Ed is probably one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. I'm looking forward to the opportunity where we can make presentations like that here in the council chambers again because I think it would have been a treat for everybody to have the chance to see him in person so I want to thank Ed for coming down and accepting that certificate of recognition on behalf of the City of Santa Ana thank you mr. mayor thank you councilmember Becerra

yeah Ed Arnold certainly is you know he does have very deep roots to Santa Ana and I do remember him I think he used to do sports on Channel 5 so you know so I know he'd do the old la rams and you know dodgers and lakers so good for him and we hope to bring him back and surprising that we hadn't recognized him even though everybody else had recognized him it seems like so it was good good timing thank you for that so moving along to the staff presentations we'll go ahead to the update on the covet 19 and i'll turn it over to

madam city manager good evening honorable mayor and members of the city council tonight i have a brief presentation daniel will be loading it shortly it's about covid19 vaccine updates and then also some exciting news regarding the california's new vaccine incentive program which i do know the mayor had mentioned maybe we could do one locally at our city as well so first of all just last week governor newsom announced a new program it's called vax for the win which incentivizes more californians to get vaccinated in advance of the june 15th reopening

The program looks to increase the population of vaccinated Californians through cash prize drawings, totaling over $115 million. So the program contains 1.5 million giveaways for 10 Californians who have received at least one dose of the vaccine. To be eligible, you have to live in California, be 12 years or older, and have received at least your first dose of COVID-19 vaccine. The prize money is paid after the winner has completed their vaccination series.

And if you have already received one dose or have been fully vaccinated, you have automatically been entered.

Next, he has $50,000 Fridays. So in addition, 30 individuals will be separately selected to receive $50,000 each and to be eligible, it's the same requirements, live in California, 12 years or older, have at least received your first vaccine. And next he is also offering $50 gift cards, you call the shot California. And in order to get more people vaccinated, the state is awarding $50 gift cards for the first 2 million Californians to begin and complete their vaccination series. The $50 gift card will either be a virtual card that can be spent online where major debit cards are accepted or added to a mobile wallet.

A $50 gift card for Kroger, which can be used at Food for Less or Ralph's, or a $50 gift card at Albertsons, which could be used at Vons Pavilions. And to be eligible, same deal, you have to live in California, be 12 or older, and get vaccinated on or after May 27th.

Speaking of vaccines, I want to give you the updated locations for those that haven't received theirs that wants to get out. We do have at Edwards Life Science Park and Walk Clinic, every Wednesday through Sunday, residents that are age 12 and up can go to this location and receive their Pfizer vaccine. The building is located at 3009 Daimler Street near Dyer Road and the 55 freeway they are taking appointments so to make an appointment you would need to use

the state's website which is myturn.ca.gov and then our own mexican consulate of santa anna every thursday from 10 a.m to 2 p.m they are offering johnson and johnson vaccines for anyone aged 18 and up, and their offices are located at 2100 East 4th Street, and interested residents can call the consulate office directly at 714-581-4948. And then finally, the County of Orange is piloting a community vaccination clinic,

because as you recall, they shut down the super pods, but this is a community clinic, and it's at our train station, and it starts tomorrow, Wednesday, June 2nd. The clinic will offer Pfizer or Johnson & Johnson, and appointments are available from 3 p.m. to 7, and a follow-up day will be scheduled for residents who receive the Pfizer vaccine so they can also receive their second dose there. And to make an appointment for that location, you can go through the county's appointment scheduling website, which is othena.com.

If residents wish to get their vaccine outside of Santa Ana, two resources available to them are once again those two websites. Anywhere in the county of Orange you can secure a vaccine appointment by utilizing othena.com or calling the number on the screen. And anywhere within the state you can secure an appointment by using the state's appointment website which is myturn.ca.gov. And that concludes your COVID-19 presentation for this meeting.

Great. Thank you, Madam City Manager. Let me go ahead and bring it back to the council to see if there's any questions or comments. Council members, any comments or questions for the city manager?

I just have a comment. I want to say that I'm very pleased to see that we're making it easier for the residents to get their vaccination and doing our part as a city government to encourage our residents to get vaccinated and protect the rest of the public. Thank you for the efforts and for continuing the process in marketing such a very important decision that we need to make as private

citizens to vaccinate and keep not only just ourselves but our families and neighbors and our

cities safe thank you council member Mendoza council member fan thank you mayor madam city

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

manager just a quick update I might have missed it but I understand that we had shifted some of the testing funds right because and then testing hasn't been as popular I guess where did those

funds go so you are correct councilmember we did when you allowed us the money allocate the money to do testing you kept it open to do vaccine knowing that we were probably be pivoting shortly and so with that the city has a personally collaborated and hosted sites and also staffed so the super pod site that used to exist I guess it wasn't a super pot it was a a medium-sized pot at Santa Ana College. We staffed bilingual individuals to help work that site. In addition to when we hosted clinics at our own community centers, that was our collaboration efforts in the area of vaccines.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Awesome. Thank you. And I also wanted to just let folks listening, watching, that we have community members working with the city and the county to set up vaccination sites, and this is definitely a team effort. Today I was just at Russell Elementary School right there in Ward 1, and members of the Santa Anita Neighborhood Association, Felipe and Martha, were the ones who worked directly with Margarita Macedonio, neighborhood associations, and the school principal as well as the county to set up a vaccination site in an area that's accessible to residents. And so if you have ideas, if you have space,

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

and you think that there's a great location that could reach a lot of residents, please reach out to us, and we would be happy to work with you in the county to bring a VAC site to your neighborhood. Thank you.

Great, thank you, Councilmember, great comments. Any other comments from those Councilmembers on the phone?

Okay, hearing none, the only thing I was gonna say, Madam City Manager, great work on the update and all the effort being made. Glad to hear that we're all, you know, those who are vaccinated are already entered into this, into these lotteries to be able to win. So that's good. I thought we were going to be boxed out because we got it early, but it's good to know that it also pays off to have done it soon. You know, on the incentives, maybe there's a way that we can contact some of our venues to see how they can be, you know, helpful and encouraging and motivating those who are vaccinated

I know that the cube opened up, the Discovery Cube opened up on Friday of last week, and they were very encouraged about possibly letting people come in, those who are vaccinated free, and that might be something that we could do with the zoo and Bowers. And that way we encourage our own local residents at our own local venues to look at encouraging those that are vaccinated to have their cards. That gives them access. So something to think about. The last thing was I think, you know, to Council Member Fan's point, I know that there is a mobile effort

to take vaccines on the road and to schools, community centers, but neighborhoods, kind of like what we did with the testing effort and the CARES Act. So I know that the Revive Monies may have some funding in there for that. So we may want to join, either join those efforts, start our own to push that out. We know that I think from your last report, we right around 50% of the city's been vaccinated. We knew that the 20 or 25% that remain are going to be kind of sticky and a little difficult. So we do have some, you know, some motivating to do, but I know we will get there. And people think it's funny.

I was looking at these stats and they're saying that, you know, there's a lot of hesitancy in our community. There's actually not as much as we thought. I guess if you look at the Latino population, they were surveyed and two to one are willing to go ahead and get vaccinated. I guess their reluctance is they can't get time off of work. And, you know, some of the symptoms, you know, once you have, you know, taken the second vaccine or the first vaccine, it really does discourage them from taking the vaccine because they don't want to lose their job and they're not offered sick, you know, sick leave.

And that's something that's not good. They're also worried about the disclosure of information that may be asked when they're taking the vaccine. And finally, some people are still under the impression that the vaccines cost money and that there's a cost or a fee involved. So we have some educating to do and some information still to be pushing out, but this is all great stuff. I think the numbers are looking better for us, and it's encouraging just to see people and members of the public here in chambers. So I know we're definitely headed in the right direction.

We just need to do a little bit more to get us past that point where we know the community will be safe. So thank you for that update. Let me go ahead and ask Madam City Attorney if we have anything to report out of closed session or any abstentions.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 1

So Mayor, Council Members, and for members of the public, we had two closed session item discussions this evening, but we do not have any reportable action.

Great. Thank you for that. Let me go ahead and just as we go into this public comment section, let you all know that this is a time and place for the meeting for the City Council to receive comments from members of the public on the agenda and non-agendized items. Pursuant to the Brown Act, the City Council may not enter into any discussion at this time with any members of the public who are speaking. The public comment line is now closed, which has been open since 4.30 p.m. Madam City Clerk, is there anybody wishing to address the City Council?

Thank you, Mayor. There are speakers ready to provide their comments. To request to speak, dial star 9 from your phone or select raise hand from Zoom. Please do not call or Zoom only to listen to the meeting. Before unmuting callers, I'd like to begin by reporting the following summary of emails provided as of this afternoon by 4 p.m. Madam City Clerk, before you continue, Mr.

Phil BacerraItem 1

MAYOR, SHOULD WE CLARIFY THAT THIS PUBLIC COMMENT PORTION IS NOT IN RELATION TO THE PUBLIC

HEARING ITEM ON THE BUDGET? YES. SO I THINK WHAT WE WERE GOING TO DO IS WE HAVE SEVERAL SPEAKERS WISHING TO ADDRESS US ON ITEM 29 WHICH IS A PUBLIC HEARING. THAT WILL BE HELD SEPARATELY. WE ONLY HAVE ONE MEMBER OF THE PUBLIC THAT WISHES TO ADDRESS US ON A GENERAL COMMENT HERE IN PERSON AND THEN WE'LL GO AHEAD AND GIVE IT TO THE MADAM CLERK TO THE CLERK TO GO AHEAD AND call on those that are on the line.

Thank you. For those members of the public who have joined us by Zoom, if you want to speak on any agenda or non-agenda item, please make sure that you dial star 9 to raise your hand or select raise hand from your Zoom, from your device. And we did receive two written communications on non-agenda items, one Santa Ana resident in support of the climate change resolution, and one Santa Ana resident commented on a police response regarding noise issue for an event downtown.

So, Madam Clerk, before you call on anybody on the line, let me go ahead and call on the public member who's here in person and have him address us, and then I'll go ahead and turn it over to you for those who are waiting on the line. So let me call on Victor Mendez.

Good to see you all the time. Just a few comments. So on the trolley project, and I apologize, it's a little bit delayed. I wasn't around the last two weeks. But on the trolley project about two weeks ago, they turned Santa Ana downtown into a war zone.

It was gridlocked. It was horrendous. It was mess. This can happen during construction. So the issue is no one was ever warned about it. There was no signage. There was nothing that went out. As a downtown resident, I received nothing. That's got to really stop. Right now, businesses have no notice of when this construction project is coming down. The only sign of mitigation I see is this big, large sign on the parking lot about the forthcoming trolley project. I've seen open trenches guarded by plastic. I mean, this is very sloppy construction management from my experience, and it's an indication of operations.

We're going to be in big trouble. So Mr. Mayor, please talk to OCTA and see what's happening here. I'll be glad to point out the specifics, but we can't be allowed to turn Santa Ana into a war zone at the discretion of OCTA. That's just not fair.

Along that way, I continue to observe large concentrations of police officers in one location. I'm not saying this is bad, but I'm just it's a bad optic though. A couple of weeks ago I was at Avila's on 1st Street and I saw five sergeants congregated there at one time. I'm not saying it's legitimate. I'm just saying it's a bad optic. In lieu of the issues of our response to this, I think the chief should definitely look into that and just find out what is going on. But again, just from my standpoint, as a citizen, I just think it's a bad optic. The other thing regarding policing is that prostitution is now reemerging again.

on Main Street below 17. So I urge the chief and his vice squad to look into that. And also I noted today there was $500,000 they're talking about allocating out of our federal funds for school children. Ali Frank that is paltry low. Very low. We need to try to guarantee every four year old in this city a preschool education. We have to do it in light of the COVID. They need to recover as well and we need to do what we can to get them that that preschool education before they enter kidding garden. It's an investment that's going to be well

served for the long term. Lastly, I didn't hear numbers on the number of people vaccinated in the city in the update report. I heard a lot of good activity and that's great, but I think the real benchmark is how many have been vaccinated in the city against the population and you compare it to the county. Last time it came out was 135,000, so it's a little bit below where people are trending. This is what it's an easy. It's an easy benchmark. It's an easy measurement. I think you should just make it, you know, up front and transparent about where we stand on that. The activities

are great. I'm fully vaccinated now. My full family is vaccinated. The Santa Ana has done a great job, but let's start measuring ourselves and our activity. That's John Wooden used to say you can't have. You can't have achievement with a lot of it without measuring your activity or something like that. Anyway, and just lastly, I think the city as a whole is doing a lot of good things for its people. I've been a beneficiary that I will comment later in an email about some of my experiences and there have been some tough ones too, but I just think we

have a very caring city here. Our values are very strong. I don't think we compare it. No one can compare to anything and how we treat our people and how we care for them. Sometimes a little tough, but I know at the end of the day, if somebody, the citizens in trouble, they can go to the city and get help and that's something we should all be very proud of. Thank you.

Thank you, Victor. Madam Clerk, I'll go ahead and turn it over to you to go ahead

and call on those that are waiting on the line. Thank you. Caller with the last three numbers, 703, if you would please dial star six to unmute your call or select the microphone icon on your device.

Caller with the last three numbers 703. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Laura Morfine. I am with San Diego Springs Homeowners Association. First, I would like to thank Council Member Becerra for his leadership and common sense approach to cleaning up the homeless encampment on Ross Street. Secondly, we would like to see block wall rehabilitation included in the upcoming budget some walls in the city have chunks of dry paint peeling off or completely already peeled off in some areas the walls in need of the most rehab are in the main thoroughfares of flower between warner and

macarthur and on rate between edinger and warner finally i am in favor of adopting the new ordinance to prohibit spectators at reckless street racing exhibitions without first issuing an administrative warning as some of you requested. This is an important tool our police department can utilize to deter street racing in our city. I was disappointed that some of the newly elected council members minimize illegal street racing by suggesting that they just might be bored and that these young adults wouldn't be able to afford an infraction of $100 and that their own grandmother may be swept up during one

of these illegal street racing events. Those comments were simply ridiculous. Stop cuddling these individuals who are putting others at risk. Mr. Mayor, since you have the most experience in the council and I've known you for a while now, I would like to see you provide stronger leadership and guidance to our newly elected and members who appear to be uneducated and not having a complete understanding of this serious issue. Please support this ordinance and one vitality in our city is one too many. Thank you and good night.

Thank you.

zoom id jose gloria or josie gloria if you would thank you you've successfully unmuted yourself

wonderful yes my name is jose gloria landes and i'm a resident of santana also one of the art and culture commissioners and I'm just the city clerk can you please let the

caller know we can barely hear him hi if you would hold for one moment while we try to increase your volume okay so it can you please try to speak into your

device? Yeah, I will speak louder. Is this better? Not really. Can you try again and

see if you can speak a little louder? Hello, is this better? No, it sounds like

we're we're struggling on hearing you okay i'll i'll try to yell if that works hello yes i can i

can hear them council member lopez can you yeah that works okay thank you you may continue okay

yes thank you mayor and council members again my name is jose gloria hernandez and i'm a santana resident and I was appointed some time ago to the Art and Culture Commission, and I couldn't be more honored to serve my community in a different way. For many years I was a community organizer in Santana working on various issues that I see that have now been resolved. For example, district elections. I remember when the former mayor basically ran out the clock so that

we couldn't have district elections in time. And so it's really a situation that there's been a shift, a massive shift in the way that I feel politics as usual has changed in Santana with the new council members and the new mayor. So I couldn't be happier the way that things are going. But my comments today are just as a resident of Santana saying that I'm I'm really supportive of the direct assistance program that is wanting to be done to give money directly to the communities that were most impacted.

Folks may or may not remember, there's a lot of undocumented members in Santana, and many of them did not have unemployment, did not get the extra $600 or $1,200 checks that a lot of people did. So those communities of Santana were very much impacted during COVID and they had to go to work. They were infected, many of them. And so it's really the right choice to do and I really support that aspect of it. And the other is, as has been mentioned previously or in previous meetings,

we really need to support the arts and give more funding because what is more healing than art? there's, you know, for me, myself, and for many people, whether it's music or visual arts or performance, you know, and funding arts to be able to provide that kind of healing and promote that type of public health for our youth, for our seniors, for all residents, it's really imperative. And also I supported the food distribution, you know, monies for organizations like United Across Borders and others that have been funding and providing valuable resources to our communities.

again many of them undocumented and they still are going to need that and the final thing i'll mention and many other things i'm sure they're hard to talk about is then a strong need for rental assistance but not just this one times money but the ongoing conversations for rent control that must be taking place um but then also the ongoing uh conversation around how to but continue to fund arts programming, and that could come through-15 seconds left. Marijuana, cannabis money, yeah, and other partnerships, but we must fund the arts, we must invest in our youth, and we must continue to rethink public safety. Thank you.

Thank you.

Caller with the last three numbers, 825, if you would please dial star six to unmute your call, or select the microphone icon.

Caller with the last three numbers 825. If you would please select. Thank you. You've successfully. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you.

Thank you. Good afternoon, City Council. I am calling to just continue to uplift what the last caller mentioned. the city of Santa Ana has had a forever history of having a lot of young people call city council every Tuesday. I've been doing this since I was in high school, a junior to senior year, and now that I'm out of high school, I'm here once again calling and asking city council

to one, prioritize and focus on youth investment and youth programs. And that's how it can look right now in the city of Santa Ana. This has been an ongoing message, an ongoing call from city council members in the past and now city council members in the future. I think it's really important after so many protests, so many calls from all the young people in Santa Ana last year in the uprisings for the demand of Black Lives Matter and the justice that young people are calling,

that the city of Santa Ana really takes this moment and do that reinvestment to youth programs. And one way that that can happen is that so many of y'all know a lot of youth organizations and COs that work with so many residents, with so many young people. There needs to be a collaboration, a bridge created, a relationship created from the city staff and city council members with organizations. It's really hard to work with city staff and with council members who are not open to the idea of bettering our communities.

It's really been the community organizations like Latino Health Access that have been stepping up to the game and advocating for residents. It really has been all the grassroots organizations, the young people organizations that have been doing food distributions to residents.

It has been the young people that have been calling for justice, have been demanding more youth programs like the library, mental health services, more jobs that are open to undocumented folks, more ways that young people can receive those opportunities. And my last comment is to continue to work with organizations that are continuing to reimagine what defunding the police can look in the city of Santa Ana. Let's not forget the testimony of y'all.

Sitting on this city council, on the city council seats, are folks who are part of calling that defund the police, like Jonathan Hernandez, Jesse Lopez, Vincent Sarmiento. Y'all are the folks that have been working with organizations and trying to have that conversation. So it's really now. Thank you. Your time is up. That time to have that conversation and that partnership. Thank you. Thank you.

Zoom ID Angel Reese, if you would please select the microphone icon.

Thank you.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Cool thanks. Yeah I'm from Santa Ana and I wanted to comment on the budget specifically.

I just wanted to mention that. Angel before you proceed I want to let you know that the right now is a period for the regular non-agenda items so for the public hearing item 29 on the budget the mayor will reopen that public hearing item at that time and you may provide

your comment then uh can i still make my comment or do i have you you can make your comment i just

wanted to make sure you knew that for public hearing item 29 for the budget you will you'll have an opportunity to speak at that time for that specific item so if you want to speak on

any other item on the agenda or non-agenda item yeah i was to continue my comment i wanted to mentioned that the way the fund should be used is to support youth in Tanana to provide affordable housing for undocumented folks and low-income people in Tanana. May I just make a comment?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 1

If this speaker is still commenting on an item that's on a public hearing, he should not be speaking on that item. Those comments will not be considered as part of the public hearing.

Angel, since you want to speak on a budget hearing item, on a public hearing item, that's the budget, I will go ahead and put you back on mute and then at that time I will go ahead and unmute you and you can provide your comment at that time.

So Madam Clerk, let me just go ahead and remind everybody before you go back online and start asking for other members of the public who are going to address the council. So we are going to be taking everybody's comment on the budget and on item number 29 during the public hearing section of the meeting, which is to follow. Right now, the public comments are supposed to be segregated to all the other agendized items or non-agendized items. So everything but 29, and maybe if anybody wants to speak on the other public hearing on item number 28, they're free to do so at that time.

but anything involving the budget will be will be addressed and we'll be called on to speak on that later when that item comes before us back to you madam

clerk thank you zoom ID Stephanie Dorantes did you want to speak on any agenda or non agenda item with the exception of any public hearing items

I wanted to speak on the budget as well. So is there, how do I do that? I will go ahead and put you back on the speaker queue for that. Thank you.

Thank you.

Caller with the last three numbers, 689, if you would please dial star six to unmute your call. And let me know if you want to speak on the budget or public hearing item.

Hi there, I'd like to wait for the public hearing. Thank you, I'll put you back on the speaker queue.

Zoom ID Roxell, did you want to speak on a public hearing item on the budget or any other agenda or non-agenda item? If you would please unmute yourself and inform me and I could put you back on the speaker queue.

Both.

Okay, so you may provide your comment on agenda or non-agenda items with the exception of public hearings and then I'll put you back on the speaker queue for the budget hearing item.

Okay, good evening esteemed council members, mayor and community members. I'm Roxelle Soto from Ward 3 and I ask that we stop the criminalization of youth who will create a record if you criminalize spectators at street racing or reckless driving because they're only spectators. Furthermore, I'm furthermore asking that you discontinue the historical prioritization of over-policing in the city and to invest in robust social services for Santa Ana youth and residents, not over-policing and suppression. The safest communities are not

the ones with the most police but the ones with the most resources in fact our police department is one of the deadliest in the country with 27 shootings per 324 000 residents and taking steps to keep officers misconduct records away from the public eye and handing over blank checks to replay political debts at a time of financial uncertainty for the city is financially and morally irresponsible to invest in youth is financially responsible as the city spends over $12,000 a piece on youth it arrests while only spending $152 per resident aged 10 to 24

on healthy youth development programs and services. I'm asking the city that they redirect this youth suppression funding to youth development such as funding the Santa Ana public library programs, economic opportunities. The residents thrive when they can take their families to parks, community gardens, educational, recreational programs that are available for its young people. And it's necessary for the youth to see programs that are preventative, such as jobs, internships, and fellowships for all youth in Santa Ana, including systems impact,

including helping undocumented youth. I was raised in the 80s in Santa Ana and we had a lot of youth sports and I'm not sure what the name of the program was but at every single after school they had like a like a sports thing where you could play kickball and with the rising cost of health care I think this would certainly help the families in the area that's it thank you thank

you I'll go ahead and put you back on the speaker queue and I'll meet you during the public hearing and comment period.

Zoom ID Crescent Food Bank, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device. Did you want to provide a comment? Hello? Did you want to provide a comment on a public hearing item, budget item or non-agenda or regular item on the agenda?

Well, actually, I was trying to find the agenda and I couldn't find it. So I think I'm just going to speak. I wanted to just say good evening to the mayor and to the city council members. I want to start off by saying thank you so much for everything that you guys do. And we're Crescent Food Bank. We are a local nonprofit organization that's located in the city of Santa Ana. We've been here since 2019, but Crescent Food Bank itself has been around since 2013. And we are actually one of the biggest organizations that distribute the food in the city of Santa Ana.

We actually started with Latino Health Access by providing them with the food during COVID. And we continue to serve other local organizations in the city of Santa Ana, as well as Southern California. The reason why I'm speaking out today is just because I wanted to comment with the fact that we need a little bit of support from the city. We are looking for a warehouse or any kind of temporary location because we'd like to kind of condense everything and be in one area. We're kind of scattered right now throughout the city of Santa Ana. We have an office and a warehouse and a functioning kitchen, but they're all in different places.

and we're trying to just get it all into one area. And we were hoping that the city could kind of help us to expand and so that we can actually better serve our community members here in the city of Santa Ana. We love the city. We want to be here, but we just need some support. I was hoping that if there's a temporary building, anything that's even an ugly old building that we could, you know, help beautify and renovate and make it a beautiful part of the city of Santa Ana, we would love that opportunity that's kind of why we wanted to speak out and kind of reach out and

meet you all we've catered before the city comm meetings we've actually it was the first I think the first meeting that we went to they were introducing you know the new city manager and so we we would we love being here and we we want to serve you guys and continue to serve we actually have a contract right now also with ultimate pace so we're serving a lot of the seniors here and within the city of Santa Ana in which they are a very vulnerable community so we just want the opportunity to expand and if you guys have any kind of building or any suggestions for us please if you guys could reach out to us we greatly appreciate it

thank you thank you so much

Zoom ID Erica Robles, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device and announce if you would like to speak on any agenda item or non-agenda item or public hearing item.

Hello, can you guys hear me?

Yes, we can hear you. did you want to speak on on a public hearing item budget or any other agenda item or non-agenda item

not agenda item okay thank you you may proceed uh well my name is erica robles and i've been serving also the community of santa ana and um i noticed uh the necessity that as the cities have

it's very sad. I mean, COVID-19 came to change our lives and everybody's lives. So at this point, I think that we all need to stick together, work with the government. We're going to be offering community fairs and we also we have resources of food also we're a non-profit too and I just wanted to let you guys know that you guys were really doing a really good job and hopefully

we can get together because I do want to provide vaccines for my people I have the pleasure to talk to a lot of families and then they don't want to get the shot because they're confused because of the language or because they think they have to pay for the they have to pay for the

for the vaccine so if I can work with all you guys and have these resources for our the families on Santa Ana I'm welcome to come and do it the name of the organization is United across borders because I was an immigrant when I came to this country and I love this country and then at this point we had to stay together and I have the pleasure to work with Mr. Sarmiento a great uh major and just thank you

thank you

Caller with the last three numbers 063, if you would please select star six to unmute your call and announce if you want to speak on any public hearing item, regular agenda item, or non-agenda item.

Thank you. You've successfully unmuted yourself. Can you please announce what item you want to speak on or non-agenda item?

Zoom ID Manny Escamilla, if you would please select the microphone icon to unmute your call and announce what you would like to speak on.

Sure. Hello. Can you all hear me there?

Yes, we can hear you.

Thank you. So I guess I'll be speaking both on the budget, so you can put me back in the queue after I'm done. But my non-budget comments were just related to generally the land leases or potential land sales that the city is still kind of doing moving forward. So I'd just like to kind of reemphasize the thought and idea that the city should pursue more of a land lease model, even if they're long-term land leases, you know, 50 plus years for undeveloped parcels, such as the one that was discussed in a closed session earlier today.

Because just in the long run, it will give the city, I believe, more flexibility and longer kind of financial return. So if there are needs that, you know, those assets can address in the future, I believe that, you know, it's also our responsibility to ensure that future councils have the opportunity to kind of readjust land uses and have additional opportunities for revenues for growth and for other uses down the road rather than selling public land which obviously becomes scarcer and scarcer as time goes on. Also I would like to vocalize my opposition to criminalization of

spectators. I think that really our focus should be on working with other municipalities and law enforcement agencies across Southern California to proactively identify the organizers and the individual vehicles so I'm not against impounding vehicles and putting them up for sale that's I think totally fair game for anyone that engages in those particular practices but spectating in a city where basically you know one of the things that makes Indiana wonderful is if you go down the street you have a lot of people walking down the street so if any of

these things were to occur and you kind of see it happening and you're out there videotaping you would essentially be cited or potentially cited especially if you are on foot and unable to get away in the vehicle so I really do think that that is something uh worth reconsidering with this ordinance I still don't necessarily believe it'll pass constitutional muster but um you know it's uh for the city attorney's uh office to talk about more so um and also uh particularly on the revived Santa Ana money I am very happy to see a memorial there so thank you so much to mayor

council and city staff for including that um as I've mentioned uh once prior I did lose two family MEMBERS AND YOU KNOW NOT THE HARDEST HIT YOU KNOW FAMILY OUT THERE I KNOW THAT THERE WERE SOME PEOPLE THAT LOST EVEN MORE AND IT IS JUST SOMETHING THAT I THINK WE'RE ALL LIVING THROUGH AND LIVING WITH AND I'M GLAD TO GET US CLOSER TO THE END OF THE TUNNEL BUT JUST WISH THAT YOU KNOW WE DON'T FORGET THE LIVES LOST AND APPRECIATE YOUR TIME AND I GUESS I'LL BE BACK TO TALK TO YOU ALL

ON MY THOUGHTS ON THE BUDGET THANK YOU THANK YOU OKAY MAYOR AND COUNCIL THAT'S ALL THE MEMBERS

the public than I have great thank you madam clerk let me go ahead and bring it back to the council this is now the consent calendar portion of the agenda and I'll go ahead and ask the council members if they have any items either to abstain from or to pull off the consent calendar mr. mayor I'd like to go ahead

Phil BacerraItem 1

and pull item six

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

councilmember fan mr. mayor I will announce for the record that I am recusing myself from item 11 as the project location encompasses my home and so since I live within 500 feet I will recuse myself from the item thank you

great so noted thank you councilmember mayor pro tem mr. mayor thank you I do

David PenalozaItem 1

not want to pull any item but I just want to comment on number 16 so I'm not

sure if you want me to pull it I mean if you're gonna be supportive and yeah yeah

David PenalozaItem 1

I'm supportive of it go ahead and if you want to make a comment on it okay I just now sure okay 16 was just to approve an agreement with the token engineering of design services for the McFadden Avenue protected bike lane and I just want to make sure staff knows where I'm heading with this keeping in mind just the new traffic delayed to the public and also that we try to do these as landscape as aesthetically pleasing as we possibly can including landscaping And that's it, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you for those comments, Mayor Pro Tem. I'll go to the council members on the line. Council members, anybody wish to either abstain or pull an item off the consent calendar?

None for me. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Mendoza. Council Member Lopez, I heard you.

Yes, nothing on my end. Thank you, Mayor.

Great. And nothing on my end, Mr. Mayor. Great. And the only item I wish to comment on is thank you, staff, on item number 27. Good work on that. I think you heard the council loud and clear on the idea of being supportive of outdoor patios and outdoor seating and dining. And also something that kind of went unmentioned but was really important, I think, is allowing our truck vendors, our lunch truck vendors, to continue to be able to use private properties. I think that is reso number 2020-055. So hopefully that will get an extended life, as will the other resolutions.

But I know some of our lunch truck vendors have said that private property owners don't know that this exists. So maybe what we can do is we can provide a one-page flyer, something that we can inform folks about what the language looks like from this reso and the ability that they have to go ahead and allow these lunch trucks to be able to be placed on their site. So with that, I'll entertain a motion for the balance of the calendar, noting the recusal by Council Member Fan on number 11, and with the exception of number 6. I'll make a motion to approve Mayor Sarmiento. Great. Thank you. We have a motion.

Great. We have a motion by Mayor Potem-Peñalosa, a second by Council Member Mendoza. I'll go ahead and have Madam Clerk please call roll.

Council Member Becerra?

Yes.

Councilmember Hernandez yes Councilmember Lopez yes Councilmember Mendoza yes Councilmember fan yes mayor potent

Pena Losa yes and mayor Sarmiento yes thank you everybody let's go ahead and pull item number motion carries seven zero Member Becerra's? Motion carries.

Motion carries 7-0.

Go ahead, Council Member.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I supported the first round of this ordinance going through the process because I genuinely believe that if you are participating in this activity or trying to enable it, I think there should be consequences. That's just this is not street racing is not an activity that doesn't have major impacts. I mean just ask the family of former OC Register Editor Eugene Harbrick and ask them if there was any impacts. And anything that's being done to enable this activity I think there should be consequences. That's just pure fact.

Phil BacerraItem 1

There should be consequences. And so I applaud my colleagues when they were originally looking at this and trying to come up with a way to, you know, I guess trying to satisfy the different views and concerns that were expressed here upon the Council Dias. But what I want to ask staff, and I'm not sure if it should be Madam City Attorney or our Chief, but in Section 36-707 of the proposed ordinance, it states that, quote, prior to issuing an administrative fine or citing as an infraction, the city must demonstrate that the person previously received a written warning.

Phil BacerraItem 1

And so my question for staff, oh, and by the way, that same language is also in the subsequent section 36-708. So that same exact wording is in there twice. What I wanted to ask was, how can the city demonstrate that a written warning was issued? Does the city or our PD actually track the issuance of written warnings?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 1

I can only speak from the prosecutor's perspective. I think we'd have to ask PD from a mechanical standpoint how they would track that. But from the prosecutor's standpoint, when the citations, if and when they were to come to our office, we would not file them with the court unless one of the officers had sworn that some type of warning was issued. So that as part of the filing that we would make with the court, we'd have to see that in order to comply with the ordinance. How the department will track that, how that works mechanically, I'd defer to the department.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Well, and I appreciate that, Madam City Attorney, because you have that luxury of time, whereas someone's on the field, and I'd ask the Chief if you wouldn't mind coming up and answering this. When an officer's on the field, and we know these instances, this isn't just one person walking by, there tends to be quite a bit of them, quite a folks around these street racing activities. So when your officers are out there, is there a simple, easy way for them to confirm that a written warning was issued?

Thank you for the question, Council Member Becerra, City Council, City Manager. No, it would be quite difficult, actually, to track that information. We don't currently have a tracking system in place. The other jurisdictions that have a similar municipal code section on the books do not require a warning. From a practical standpoint, it would be very difficult to track that aspect of it as it's written currently.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Okay, thank you for that, Chief. To me, the purpose of this ordinance was not to give our PD more busy work and more hoops to have to jump through to enforce what should be common sense. I don't believe that our officers are going to come through a scene of a street racing incident and just apprehend everybody within sight. I don't think they even have the capability to do that, let alone would they do that. So I, as I mentioned, I was open to seeing where this ordinance could go. I really was, and I was optimistic because I have faith in my colleagues that possibly we could see the right language composed.

Phil BacerraItem 1

But in reading this section, I can't support this language as is. And so what I would do is I would like to move the item, but with that sentence that I quoted stricken from both sections 36-707 and 36-708. That's my motion.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 1

And I would just like to remind Council Member and the Council that if you strike that language, then you would be conducting the first reading of that ordinance this evening. Because once an ordinance is proposed, if you do change something substantial like that, you have to go back to the first reading.

Phil BacerraItem 1

That's fine with me.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 1

Okay, just wanted to make sure the procedural, you understood that.

Great. So we have a motion with the amended language, which will re-trigger or restart the first reading of this ordinance as amended. Is there a second?

Mr. Mayor? Yes, Mayor Broughton.

David PenalozaItem 1

I'll second that motion, but also wanted to comment on the point that, I mean, Councilmember Becerra has a point when it comes to this language. language, that was some of the questions that I had initially when we first adopted this ordinance or the first reading of the ordinance with the proposed changes to the language was that there was absolutely, to me, I thought there was absolutely no way of anyone knowing who got a warning or has a previous written warning from a previous car meetup or race or street takeover, whatever you want to call it.

David PenalozaItem 1

But I know I heard some of my colleagues say that it could be somebody walking home from grocery shopping. Well, if you're at the intersection of Columbine and Majestic at 2 in the morning, an industrial part of town, I don't know how you would get there after walking home from grocery shopping. So it doesn't make sense to me. I've been on numerous ride-alongs when we come across these street takeovers. and it is clear as day that not only are they out there just spectating but there number of them under the influence of drugs and alcohol as I witnessed a few times on various ride-alongs so I'd be supportive of the emotion and I'll

be seconding that great thank you mayor Pro Tem councilmember fan thank you mayor

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

and thank you to my colleagues for you know raising your concern and considering this issue. Obviously I made the motion in the amendment last time to add the written warning.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

And you know I guess there are a couple things. Chief if you can come back up just so I can get some clarification. Or maybe it might be Madam City Attorney. So if there were no written warning this does say that you know we'd issue an administrative fine or citation prior to filing a misdemeanor? How do we track whether there is an administrative

fine or a citation? So we would document the interaction, write a police report, but again, the warning is where it becomes very difficult. I think Councilmember Bucera mentioned there are sometimes often large crowds, several hundred at these events, and the other piece of language as part of it written is that it requires that the person knowingly be there for that purpose. And so it requires some foundation by the officer, you know, implementing the section as well.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Right. So, but I guess my question is more procedurally, right? Because if we are pursuing a misdemeanor prosecution, we have to prove that there was a written infraction or citation. So in my mind, there is already a way of tracking these types of written, whether it's a citation or an administrative infraction. So I don't understand how a written warning, which could use the same process, cannot be implemented in the same manner.

The other question is, you know, the legal foundation to detain someone for the purpose of a warning, that could be problematic as well. And that's why the ordinances that are out there today don't require the warning. They require the knowing aspect that has to be worked up by the officer affecting the issuance of the site.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

I guess I'm also confused. Maybe Madam City Attorney, you can help clarify, but there are a number of other ordinances in this city and maybe in some other cities in which we do have written warnings to preceding different types of misdemeanor filing. So for example, you might have a written warning, then an infraction, then a misdemeanor. Is that not common practice?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 1

I think in some areas of code enforcement at times, we do see some ordinances that are written for warnings like prior to filing an administrative fine or penalty due to certain types of construction nuisances. We have to give them the ability to correct within 30 days before we can actually impose the fine. But I think that may be different in terms of how code enforcement tracks that. That's why I was deferring to the police department on how they track that because I don't know the mechanics of how they do that within their department. So I know in code enforcement they

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

keep a log. Right. Hadn't written logs. So I guess my question is less so you know the mechanics the chief is saying we do have written proof of a written citation or infraction but for you you The chief mentioned, well, no other cities that has a spectator ordinance requires a written warning because it might create a problem for detaining someone to tell them that they are violating the law and that we are providing them a written warning.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

And I guess my analogy is a little bit, well, we do do that for other types of whether code violations or something else prior to pursuing misdemeanors.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 1

And I think in my experience, just knowing how the code operates, code enforcement, for example, would actually send out a letter to someone. So we'd have evidence, and when that code enforcement person in that department will look into their file, they'll say, oh, here's the evidence that this person was warned, because they might have sent that letter certified mail. And that's why I think that those instances may be slightly different than when you're in the field doing, you know, criminal enforcement. Because they may not have that letter, there's not necessarily a file.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 1

Code enforcement keeps the way they keep their file and they track each entry into that. I don't know if there is an equivalent mechanism. That's why I said the mechanics, I defer to the department.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

But there is, right? That's equivalent in the sense that you do have written administrative citations that may come with a fine that is on file and if you do catch them again you can pursue misdemeanor, misdemeanor prosecution against this person, but prior to doing so, you have to show that you had a written administrative citation. Is that correct?

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

So I guess my point is I'm not sure we're saying that we cannot tell someone with a written warning that you are violating the law.

I don't know that I'm saying that we can't. It's just, and I think from a code enforcement standpoint what they're responding to are more stable situations oftentimes what we're responding to is not stable we've got hundreds of people running in many different directions there's either injuries that have already occurred or in some unfortunate circumstance there's deaths and so we certainly can entertain that it just removes uh that enforcement that immediate enforcement

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

aspect of it. Okay. I understand and I can understand and appreciate the kind of difficulty of doing that in the field when there are several hundred people. However, I guess in my mind whether you're doing a written warning or a written citation or administrative fine, in both instances you have to stop the individual in order to write up this fine or this citation and then provide them with that information. I do understand a written warning is in your mind less of a penalty, right, of course, compared to the infraction or citation.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Now I guess my other question is as you're discussing, you know, there might be a crowd of 200 or 300, there might be people drunk or on drugs as the Mayor Potem mentioned, but I also believe that being drunk in public or or whatnot can also be itself a violation of current existing law, correct?

Correct.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

And if someone is blocking your access in order to enforce or do your job, I believe that is also a violation of existing law?

Correct.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

And if somebody is hurting others or doing anything to cause harm to others, that's also a violation of existing law?

Correct.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

So we really are just looking for the individuals who are not actively hurting someone who is not drunk in public, who is not doing drugs in public, but who is merely at the location to watch this illegal activity. Correct?

To watch illegal activity and also potentially engage in a specific role within that illegal activity.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

But I do believe, well, I guess then my follow-up question is if they are engaged in quote a specific role say for example organizing the street racing or publicizing the street racing or driving or or taking notes of the street racing with that fall under our current street racing prohibition no okay so if you are the ones who setting up the organization It's not a violation.

So you actively have to be involved in the street racing. The spectator ordinance would be for those that are at the scene, encouraging the event. Some are timers. Some are flag draw folks. They've got various roles. A lot of this has been brought together by intelligence, by officers that are in the field, talk to people, social media, open source intelligence. And so that's why we know what we know at this point. So this is just another tool to provide officers out in the field.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Well, I guess because I'm also maybe Madam City Attorney, you might chime in. So for me to better understand, if we're saying street racing is illegal and we have a group of people who come together and say, I am going to make an event of this illegal activity and help bring it forward, in my mind, that sounds like conspiracy to commit a crime. Is that not true or maybe I'm just off?

I mean it could be. It could be. Certainly.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Right. So I guess my point is to better understand the fact that we do have tools in our toolbox in order to prevent this type of activity from happening. And what we really again are looking at is a very narrow set of individuals who may be present at the scene of this illegal activity. We met for a few hours today and I really appreciate meeting the officers and I think we have incredible officers serving our city. But one of the things that you and other officers have mentioned to me is that one of our main goals is to educate. And so to me when we're talking about decriminalization and ensuring that residents or anybody else

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

is educated about issues in our city is that's I think what the written warning is meant to do. Also, I had mentioned my concerns regarding constitutionality for folks. And so when you do have a written warning and you show up again and you have an infraction and you show up again and you have a misdemeanor, it would be quite difficult for someone to try to say, I didn't know. I was exercising my first amendment right. So I guess with that, I just want to thank you Chief for answering my questions. I am still supportive of this written warning. I think that we do

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

have a mechanism to track that just as we do currently, whether it's through code enforcement or through a written infraction or citation that involves a fine prior to filing misdemeanor charges against an individual. And so with that, I'm supportive of the current ordinance in order to ensure we do the best that we can to prohibit street racing while protecting First Amendment rights of our residents and ensuring that we do not encompass so many people that we would violate others' constitutional rights. Thank you.

Great. Thank you, Council Member Fan. I believe Council Member Mendoza has her hand up.

Yes.

Go ahead, Council Member.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. I want to emphasize that this ordinance is actually a tool to prevent death or injury to our citizens. While everyone has a right under the Constitution for a peaceful assembly, it does not say that you have a right to assemble to a for a criminal activity or participate in a criminal activity such as the drinking in public.

And so we are not criminalizing our youth with this ordinance. We are actually protecting you. We want to keep you safe. and we want to send out a message that street racing will not be tolerated in the beautiful city of Santa Ana. In essence, as my colleague mentioned, Council Member Kai, Kai Fem, this is, you are coming out to watch an illegal race. You are participating in an illegal activity.

you are part you are an accessory to a crime and we don't give a warning to someone who has attempted murder for example it's a crime you're an accessory to a crime so let's look at it in in a perspective that is reality and just the bottom line think about it for the youth out there for the parents for you as community activists we were put in office and we swore we have an oath of office to keep you safe to provide a quality of life that is

in essence um something that is going to be beneficial to you putting yourself in danger is not a benefit. So I ask you to please look at it from our perspective and support us. Support us to keep you safe.

Thank you, Mayor Cremendo.

Thank you, Council Member. Madam Clerk, any other members of the Council on the line wishing to speak?

No, Mayor. I do not see.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Mr. Mayor, if I might respond to one of the comments made.

Sure. I know I haven't spoken yet, but let's go ahead and I guess if you guys want to make a couple of quick comments.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Mine's super quick. I just, I think the issue being brought up of trying to take this activity, the street racing activity, and somehow show a link to it as if it's a code enforcement matter and how we treat a code enforcement matter versus something that is lethal. Let me emphasize lethal. Parking your car on the front lawn and having code enforcement come by and cite you or warn you and wag their finger at you, different from the activity that takes place as mayor pro tem said in the middle of one of our industrial sections of our city at 2 a.m in the morning and so i just want to be clear that while

Phil BacerraItem 1

i appreciate the idea of trying to figure out how we can correlate one process with another you're addressing two different things it's not even apples and oranges it's apples and watermelons at this point thank you thank you for that council member or excuse me

David PenalozaItem 1

Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Mayor Salmiento. I just want to, I mean, point out that the, there is some cynicism from certain groups coming out saying that this is an ordinance that the police department wants to use to criminalize our youth. And that can't be further from the truth. Nobody wants to go out there and, you know, arrest an abuelita walking home from the bus stop and to her home and happens to come across a street racing or street street takeover event it's merely to serve as a deterrent it's the the the message the message to be out there that's saying that if you're out there participating spectating illegal street

David PenalozaItem 1

racing or street takeovers you could be fined up to a thousand dollars it's to serve as a deterrent and that's merely what it is i don't think um i know that the mayor used the example of you know his son being across the street from his house watching the street take over to send the videos, I'm sure that if a police officer came up, he could say, well, I live right there. Here's my ID. This is my address. I don't think that anyone out there in their right mind would say, well, too bad you're getting a $1,000 ticket. You know, that's it's cynicism from groups trying to just limit everything that you could. I know that there's

David PenalozaItem 1

even conversation of police officers, traffic officers not enforcing traffic violations, which it's silly it's it's it's nonsense it's uh it's simply to serve as a deterrent so um I'm supportive of Councilmember Sarah's motion to to change it um at this time that's it right

great thank you um seeing no others on the line let me go ahead and just make a couple of quick comments so I certainly understand and appreciate the uh intention of this um you know effort to to try to prevent and stop street racing. I don't think there's anybody who wants to condone that or support that. I just think this is a solution that's looking for anybody to cite, and I think what it does, it's kind of misdirected because it goes after people who aren't really organizing or participating in it. I would be very supportive of enhancing any sort of enforcement against those who are coordinating

are acting in conspiratorial steps to further this. But, you know, to talk about people who've been impacted by this, as we all know as policymakers, facts make bad laws. And I think what we want to do is that there could be some unintended consequences as a result of this. I just see, you know, and I heard, you know, somebody give the example. You have a big street event and there's hundreds of people. Who do you select out of that crowd? I mean, you don't think that personal biases are going to come into effect, profiling will come into effect.

So I'm worried because we're putting our police officers in a really difficult position to select who is the most involved spectator, is the most engaged spectator. How are we going to speculate that? So I just think this has some constitutional challenges, as was said. I certainly, you know, would be supportive of additional resources and effort into going after those that organize, going after those that coordinate and participate. That is completely fair because we want this stopped. But going after inciting a bunch of people in the crowd isn't going to stop or solve the problem.

If anything, it's going to be punitive on those that are simply present and being present at a scene of a crime unless you're conspiring doesn't really seem like it's solving this problem. So if we really want to solve the problem, there are ways to, you know, through social media now, track these. In my opinion, you know, I just think it's also just trying to define the role of what's a spectator. You know, it's just an indefinable, you know, definition that I see here in the ordinance. But in any event, I think we do have some other efforts in trying to address this.

I think our public works staff has come up with some very creative ways of how you engineer your way out of this. I know the city of El Monte had a huge problem with street racing, and they did temporary speed bumps where these long arterials would be used. So there are ways, I think, that in addition to education, but more importantly, going after those that are clearly responsible. And I just don't see that nexus here. So I certainly appreciate Councilmember Fan's effort to try to do this, because I think she has made really, really compelling arguments.

I just can't support casting this wide a net, but I certainly appreciate and applaud her efforts for trying to find a balance and a way to try to get to the heart of this. But I just have a difficult time as a lawyer, as a policymaker, and as a parent. to support this. So I'll go ahead and call on Madam Clerk if there are no other comments or questions. I believe we have a motion by Council Member Becerra, a second by Mayor Potem on the amended motion as modified by Council Member Becerra. Council Member Hernandez, you did have

your hands virtually raised. Did you want to provide a comment? Yes, thank you, Madam City

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

clerk um much of what i wanted to to state the mayor covered quite eloquently um i i do want to see us hold um street to take over um you know organizers and drivers i want to see that us hold them accountable to the law to the fullest extent um absolutely i'm just worried that there are some There are some gray areas in what is being proposed, and I'm afraid that, unfortunately, it's not going to deter the problem.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

I think that it is going to have more impacts financially on people that do spectate, but I am concerned that they're still going to continue. And I very much want to see us bring forth a solution that can stop street takeovers because they're dangerous. I just don't feel like this is going to do that because there's going to be organizers and people that take full advantage of an ordinance like this and will never get to the bottom of it. And they'll understand that, too. And I just want to see us get to the bottom of it.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

I'm concerned that this isn't the most effective way to do that.

Thank you, Council Member. Any other virtual hands raised?

No, I do not see any others, Mayor.

Seeing and hearing no other comments or questions, Madam Clerk, please call roll on the amended motion by Council Member Becerra.

Council Member Becerra?

Yes.

Council Member Hernandez?

No.

Council Member Lopez? No. Council Member Mendoza? Yes. Councilmember Fan? No. Mayor Pretend Peñalosa?

Yes.

Mayor Sarmiento?

No. So that motion fails, is there any other follow-up motions?

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Madam City, or maybe Madam City Manager, I guess I'm a little bit confused, just for clarification, because the motion was made, but it wasn't an amended motion.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

I will make a motion to approve the second reading of the ordinance as recommended by staff.

I will make a motion to approve the second reading of the ordinance as recommended by staff.

I will second. pro tem. But okay, so we have a motion by Councilmember Fan, second by Mayor Pro Tem.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Mayor, I'd like to comment one last time. And sure, as you know, one of the comments that was just previously made about the financial impact on those who spectate, I would just ask my colleagues as we're putting this forward is how about the financial impact on those that are hospitalized or even worse, the financial impact on those who have to endure a funeral, who have to put forth a funeral, who have to bury a loved one because of this activity. And we're sitting here worried that somebody who enables this activity, we're trying to figure out every which way to get them out of any responsibility.

Phil BacerraItem 1

To me, it's just, it's amazing that we're even debating this. But nonetheless, I won't be supporting the motion on the floor right now. Thank you.

Thank you for that comment. Any other comments on the motion? Just one in response to Councilmember Becerra. I THINK THAT IF YOU WANT TO SAVE LIVES, YOU'RE GOING TO BE GOING AND HAVING THESE PUNITIVE ACTS AGAINST THOSE THAT AREN'T ORGANIZING, AREN'T PARTICIPATING, AND IT'S GOING TO MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD, BUT IT'S NOT GOING TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM. SO, MADAM CLERK, IF YOU'LL PLEASE

CALL ROLL. COUNCILMEMBER BECERA? NO. COUNCILMEMBER LOPES NO COUNCIL MEMBER MENDOZA

COUNCIL MEMBER FAN YES MAYOR PROTEM YES MAYOR SARMIENTO NO

MOTION FAILS 3-4 GREAT THANK YOU

FOR THAT YOU KNOW I MISSPOKE EARLIER BECAUSE I THINK I WAS TALKING ABOUT ITEM NUMBER 27 BELIEVING IT WAS ON THE CONSENT calendar but it's an actual business item so you have my comments on record for that i promise i won't speak again on that item but let's go to item 26 and that is city produced events and i believe

we have a report from director rudeloff or madam city manager um yes we do uh mayor and council members we know that because of covid we had to cancel a lot of the city produced events and you're probably wondering when are we ever going to be able to restart those so this is really an informational report where Elise is going to talk about the events that we produce because you do have three types of events that happen in your city you have those that the city produces you have those that the city may do some type of sponsorship for and then you actually have all

third-party non-profits and community groups put on events as well so with that i will turn it over to executive director rudloff thank you very much

thank you uh yes this evening we're here because we received suggestions uh to hold additional city sponsored events and i'm seeking direction from the city council related to these type of

events can you talk a little bit louder oh sure uh the parks and recreation can you hear me yeah

i think the mic's above you okay okay um the parks and recreation agency produces a series of special events each year and they are planned and coordinated by city staff and planning for these events typically takes anywhere from six months to a year prior to the event some of the events that we hold there's two in july shakespeare in the park that happens at birch park fourth of july celebration that happens at centennial park sorry is that too loud now sorry and there's one

event in September, Fiestas Patrias. It's a festival and a parade and it takes place on Flower Street and it is a two-day event. There is one event in October, the 5k fun run. The route starts and stops at the starts and ends at the Civic Center and there's one event in November, Plaza Navidena and that is located at Plaza Calle Cuatro. And my department budgets for these events and And in fiscal year 2019-20, we budgeted $365,000. However, due to the pandemic, we did not have these events in 2020.

And we are not producing these events in 2020-20, I'm sorry, 2021. They take a long time to get ready for a significant time and effort to produce these events. but it doesn't mean that there's not going to be any events in the city of Santa Ana we are accepting permits for other producers to provide events to the community and also we have budgeted for movies in the park this year so we're going to hold 14 movies in the park throughout the city so we are going to

have some some events they're not going to be these five events and our next big event will be in 2022 the 4th of July celebration and we did budget for that so tonight we are just looking for direction a council member has suggested to hold additional city sponsored events such as Juneteenth and the indigenous People's Day and we would like direction on that great thank you director Rudolf

Let me go ahead and bring it back to the council, see if there's any questions or comments.

David PenalozaItem 1

Mayor Sarmiento.

Mayor Pro Tem.

David PenalozaItem 1

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. And thank you, Director Rudloff and your Parks and Rec staff for putting this presentation together and this item. I know that the last year and a half for everybody, I mean, it's all been a sad and dim year with the pandemic and everything that's going on. No social events for anybody. and the city sponsored events were always a nice kind of just public gathering for our city, for our residents. Everything from Fiestas Patrias to the Fourth of July celebration to all the numerous art walks in downtown and to the TEP parades on Little Saigon.

David PenalozaItem 1

It wasn't city sponsored, but just some of the numerous events that the city's put together. with these events I I do want to see I know that but one of the things that was stated in the staff report was that it takes anywhere from six months to 12 months to put these events together and not to talk dimly on on the parks and rec department but that's just government in general of why it takes you 12 months to close down and decided to close down the street for a fiestas patrias parade i think

David PenalozaItem 1

that with the amount of of turmoil and just uh grief that our residents have faced in the last year i think it's important that we look at ways where we could bring back some of these events uh not wait till 4th of july 2022 but bring back some of these events at a smaller scale i was thinking Fiesta Patrias is a month away, so that's probably a little harder to do, but something like Fiesta Patrias is in September. It's a huge celebration of just our culture and the various cultures that live in the city of Santa Ana. I know that residents look forward

David PenalozaItem 1

to it. I know that in the last couple of years it's been a massive production with stage and A-list artists, but it doesn't have to be that big. I know that that could potentially take a long time to put together because of the talent that we've got to, you know, schedule and whatnot and secure. But if there's any opportunity where we could do these events on a smaller scale,

David PenalozaItem 1

specifically for Fiestas Patrias, you know, I think it'd be nice to have something to look forward to, for our residents to look forward to, come out to a festival, hang out in the streets, have some nice, some good food, and have a cold beer on the street, just something simple that the residents can enjoy. I know that even up here as elected officials, any chance we get to be in a parade, that's always nice. And that's not, you know, to me that doesn't seem like it would take 12 months to put together.

David PenalozaItem 1

I think that's just thinking huge as we have in the past, but I would be supportive of trying to find some dollars. I know that most of the events that we had budgeted for in early 2020 were canceled. We should be able, because once we give up any of the, I know it was almost around $350,000 that we would budget for special events. Is that correct?

Yes, $365,000. And then also for Fiestas Patrias, we solicit about $150,000 of donations.

David PenalozaItem 1

From donations and sponsorships.

So that takes a little time.

David PenalozaItem 1

I know that once we don't decide to budget for those events and not necessarily give the money away, but don't budget for in the budget. I know once it's gone, it will be hard to find in the future. From what I've seen in the past in my short time on this council and my experience, once that money is not budgeted for and put somewhere else, it's hard to bring back, to bring these events back to life. For the 5K run, you know, that's something that I know a lot of community members look forward to as well. I don't see why that would take so long to put together.

David PenalozaItem 1

But there's room here where we could definitely expedite this and do events on a smaller scale, maybe not as large as we have in the past but uh definitely uh bringing some back for for this this year you know not not wait till july 2022 that's over a year away i think our residents are ready to go back and you know see each other and enjoy each other's presence and and enjoy the fine things in life and that's those are my comments for now mr mayor great thank you mayor

pro tem i believe we have council member lopez and hernandez both uh wanting to make a comment go Go ahead, Council Member Lopez.

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. And thank you, Director Radloff for the presentation. You know, I am a little bummed that we're not going to be able to do these events, as I'm sure everybody else, but I do respect your decision, and I understand why that decision was made. And so my suggestion is that I would like to see Parks and Travel be included for the 2022 event list. there is an active effort to occupy the park now by the community. And so I think it would be nice to have that collaboration with the neighborhood, the residents, and have something city sponsor there.

And it doesn't have to be a massive event. A smaller event is fine. But, you know, something that is going to help bring out more three residents is something that we would be very grateful for. and I can certainly work with you and your team to help move these efforts along. And also I just wanna say that I love the 5K runs. I love the SS Positas and I support the suggestions of the two events on the slides that were given to you. Thank you.

Great, thank you, Council Member Lopez. Council Member Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I am so happy that we're able to talk about celebrating community because that's something that makes everybody feel at home. Now, I had made these two suggestions for us to add Indigenous Peoples Day to the calendar. This date is an important date for Natives because it is us acknowledging the history and the stories of people who were here before us. And this is their home. And I think that it's only right for us to introduce an Indigenous Peoples Day. In 2018, the city of Los Angeles did that.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

They commemorated it with a celebration and a concert, and they had multiple tribes there. And it felt like a community. It was extremely empowering to see that. But I think that Santa Ana is a city that stands on those values of inclusivity, diversity, and celebrating culture. So with that being said, I want to see us have an Indigenous Peoples Day. In addition to that, Juneteenth is an important celebration for us to acknowledge. Emancipation Proclamation is something that changed the country, but it's something

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

that we still struggle with in communities of color we are predominantly a latino city as many people know but what most people also fail to acknowledge is that this community was once a thriving and black community and anywhere between bristol street mcfadden avenue rate street and santa anna boulevard that was once home to a thriving african-american population and in santa In Anna, our African-American population started out very humbly around 433 African-American families in 1950, all the way up to close to 10,000 in the 1980s.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

And those numbers have dwindled because it got so expensive to stay and live in this community. But there are still African-American pioneers that are home and that live in this community, and they are to be celebrated and they are to be at the table with us. Because I believe in inclusion and diversity, I want to see us celebrate people that are in this community. And in addition to that, I think that it's important for us to go a step further and not just having these be celebrations that we have be part of our calendar, but these should be holidays where city staff have paid days off.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

We need to be able to celebrate our community. And I think part of that is giving our city staff those days off, I think, really sends a message of progression here in the city.

Thank you, Councilmember. Let me bring it back to some of the Council members here physically present. So Councilmember Becerra.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Lisa, for that presentation and the good news about 14 movies in the park coming. So that's great news. As far as the events that we're talking about here, the city produced events, you know, you broke down that there are three types of events that globally we're talking about, city produced, city sponsored, and third party sponsored. Well, they all have one thing in common. They're here in Santa Ana. And we don't seem to celebrate our city enough. I mean, we celebrate parts of our city or different groups within our city, but let's celebrate the whole city.

Phil BacerraItem 1

And, you know, our city was founded on October 27th of 1869, and we just happen to have a 5K that takes place in October. What I'd like to suggest and recommend is that we take an event like that, adjust the programming, and really take the opportunity to celebrate the city. Celebrate just all the wonderful things that make Santa Ana shine. You know, I think that if you're looking for an event that is inclusive, I mean, that's it. Whether you are Asian, Latino, Anglo, wherever you are, you are within Santa Ana, you are part of a resilient city, and we should celebrate that. And I don't think we celebrate it enough.

Phil BacerraItem 1

So my hope would be that as we try to fine tune our events that we bring forward, and I know we have some roadblocks when it comes to COVID, but I hope that we are at some point able to really truly celebrate our city thank you great thank you for those comments any other

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

comments councilmember fan thank you lisa for the director would love for the presentation i do want to ask is the 5k fun run accessible like do we have walkers or like a wheelchair portion yes Awesome. I'm asking mostly because I'm a walker and I would like to participate. I do understand that it's not on the calendar because we're doing the movies, but I would like to, I guess, keep that open because it is an outdoor activity. It is a fitness-inspired activity, and we do have less traffic right now,

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

so it might not be as disruptive as a typical 5K fun run as we go into the fall and maybe have more vaccinations maybe a celebration of hitting 70 75 vaccination rate just a thought there i do want to comment i do appreciate councilman baseta talking about citywide events and celebrating the city i'm not going to put on a third dead parade for the county of orange but i do want to i guess i have questions about juneteenth as well as indigenous people's day i I think both are really important to recognize and to celebrate.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

But there was a comment, I think, from Councilmember Hernandez about making it a paid holiday for staff. Do we have an idea of what the cost of that would be?

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Or I guess is it within the realm of this agenda item?

So I'll attempt to answer that, Councilmember. So your employees are all budgeted for. So if they're here working, you're paying the same amount. If they're off on holiday, you're paying them the same amount. Where it might have increases or where we have premium pays with different bargaining groups, we're working on a holiday, they make slightly more. That would be the impact. I don't even want to try to estimate the dollar amount for that. But for the bulk of the employees, you're paying them for that day. If it's a holiday, they just won't be working, but you'll pay them the same amount.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Great. And apologies that I don't know this, but do we work on Columbus Day?

Is it combined with President's Day?

We actually can't remember that right now. Hang on one second. HR saying yes.

We have a holiday or no? No holiday.

There are some cities that have combined the Indigenous Day and taken over Columbus Day and made it a holiday.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

That's why I asked. Because I I do not celebrate Christopher Columbus. He founded nothing. But we don't have that as a paid holiday, so it wouldn't be a combined type of, or removing Columbus Day and replacing it with Indigenous Peoples Day. Okay. And then Director Rudloff, you know, with these two new events and celebrations, which are obviously incredibly important. I think many of us growing up in Santa Ana didn't know what Juneteenth was until we, you know, I think educated ourselves and learned about it.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

And Indigenous Peoples Day, I think, is truly important to recognize the land that we are on. I guess what is the budget cost, the estimate for what kind of celebrations these would be and how much that would cost?

Right, right. We don't have the cost. If we were to have these, you know, there was a concert mentioned, so we wouldn't know what they would look like as far as a parade or a celebration. I know that Director Sternberg is providing some library activities and awareness of Indigenous Peoples' Day and Juneteenth this year. And he can speak to that later if he'd like. But we would have to figure out how much these would cost and would it replace any of those five that are very coveted events within this city that I just mentioned. So we would need to figure out what the budget would be for those events if you wanted to have those.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Okay, thank you. I just wanted to get that. and I guess at some point if we do get that information it would be helpful for me at least.

Thank you. Great. Thank you Councilmember Fan. I know we have Councilmember Mendoza who wants to address us.

Thank you Mayor Sparmento. Thank you so much for that report Director Woodloff and for making a great effort in returning these activities to our residents. They will create a much more stronger sense of belonging and bonding with our residents. My question is, there used to be some really entertaining and popular fun days on Sundays at Bowers Museum. Is this a city sponsored event or is that something separate that the Bowers does on its own?

I believe that is Bowers event on its own.

Okay, fantastic. Well, I hope we can bring those back as well. That was it. That was my question.

Thank you, Councilmember. I think everybody's spoken. Let me just say just a couple of things on this. I appreciate the presentation. And, you know, I remember we used to have a Black Pride Month celebration and parade, and we had a Mother's Day event where it was done at the stadium, and it was a big deal. We had a lot of A-list musical talent. We had a Cesar Chavez Day event. So a lot of these things, it seems like we're introducing new things, but a lot has gone away as well. So I don't know if it's adding or replacing some of what we lost already

and maybe updating it with some new reflections of what the council presently believes is important to share with the community. So I think that's the discussion more than, you know, are we adding to a list? Well, our list got really short for a while there because we, you know, I think we were down to just, you know, 4th of July and, you know, just a couple of these others here. But before we did celebrate, and my concern was I know that in the downtown some merchants, and I think Daisy helped me with this issue, there was some question about who was pulling the permits for the third parties, right?

Were they Santa Ana residents or were they outside the city and who gets priority? So I know when you pull permits to do something in the downtown, you really are impacting businesses there. And, you know, if you're a local business, then I think you have to kind of canvas your, you know, your neighbors and other merchants. But if you're somebody from the outside, you're kind of plopping yourself down and really impacting. So I know that I think that's outside of maybe your purview because I think at the downtown, I'm not sure who it was. I think it was PD, somebody who helps with the scheduling and the permitting.

Correct. You would fill out a special event permit request if it's public property, and it goes through the PD department. If you're having one on private property, it's through the planning department. It's a use certificate.

Yeah. So, you know, maybe just something for us to look at. You know, I certainly think all these are really great events. I think the time is maybe really going to be sort of our enemy on a lot of these. I think with Fourth of July, as important as it is, one of the reasons why I think, you know, Fourth of July was so important is that we had a chance to celebrate together, and it would reduce the amount of, you know, fireworks and those illegal fireworks that go off, you know, and, you know, for one month before and one month afterwards. I can't ask or you can't comment from the public.

So, yeah, so but we'll call you when you when you're speaking on the other item So, you know, I think right now for fiestas patrias I think one of the things I did speak to with the Mexican consulate is that They're one of the principles in this whole event and I think Tamara Pro Tems point It's a really important event, right? I mean we used to draw like a quarter of a million people here It was one of the largest events that went on sometimes for three days It was it used to be Friday Saturday Sunday Then it was just Saturday and Sunday, but it was combined with a parade, big event,

sort of similar to what the Tet Festival and Tet Parade was like in Little Saigon. And so these were mostly, well, like you said, we raised monies through sponsorships, right? I think there was maybe 100,000 or maybe more that was raised to support the event. I don't know if that will allow, if we have the time, to do something that scale. Maybe it's something smaller that we can do at a really reduced venue, and maybe the Mexican consulate if they're able to, right? Because I know that they do what's called the grito, which is the actual ceremonial independence, you know, marking the Independence Day for not only Mexico,

but several other, you know, Central and South American countries. So, you know, a lot of these, I think, they're just going to be, unfortunately, victims of time because, you know, you can't do something on a large scale. But to the extent maybe there's a way to do something on a reduced scale and maybe those two, whether it's Juneteenth, and I like the idea of rolling Indigenous Day into an existing holiday just because I think it should be recognized. And I think somebody was saying that Columbus Day is combined with President's Day and that's the holiday, but maybe we can remove the label of it being Columbus Day

because I'm also not a big believer in that. But maybe it's Indigenous Day rolled into President's Day and that's the sort of the term and the label for that holiday that the employees, you know, enjoy. So, you know, just my comments. Again, on this item, was it just direction you were looking for or was it an actual? Because this is just information that you're providing with us, correct?

Absolutely. Information, I understand your thoughts and your desires, and we're here to try to help make whatever we can happen, bring events to the community. We're going to do the best we can this year with the budget that we have. And we certainly don't want to remove these events next year because I'll be coming back asking to fund all of these events again. And then some. And maybe we can work with other partners that might be able to provide a 5K run. And then we can utilize that funding for another event. So we'll work on partnerships. We'll look within our budget.

I'll work with the city manager and we'll try to figure out what we can for this year and bring the community together. That's why we wanted to bring the movies in the park because people said they want to go to their neighborhood They want to bring a picnic. They want to watch a movie They want to get together have some popcorn and so we'll continue to do that and think of different ways to provide these community events to the Santa Ana residents

Gotcha, so let me call on mayor pro tem then councilmember Hernandez and then Lopez

David PenalozaItem 1

Thank You mayor Sarmiento and I guess this was just more on questions and thank you for I'm also in agreement that we should recognize Indigenous Peoples Day and not you know I wouldn't even say the man's name he's been dead 500 years but it we should because I like just like my colleagues I believe that you know it the Islam wasn't founded by him you know and with With that said, I wanted to, I'm also supportive of the other two events, or I guess it's also

David PenalozaItem 1

Indigenous Peoples' Days and Juneteenth, but I also want to kind of bring focus back to the events that were already planned and have been scrapped because of the last, of the pandemic.

David PenalozaItem 1

Are we, have, so, and to Mayor Sarmiento's point of what exactly the direction is here, because I know the staff report asked to provide direction to staff. Are we having the 5K run this year?

No. We are not having any of those five events listed.

David PenalozaItem 1

So no 5K run.

Correct.

David PenalozaItem 1

No Plaza Navideña. And that's where I guess I'm trying to see if this would be the right time to see if we were to say, if we were to give you the green light, Director Rudolph, and say go ahead and have a 5k run or the Plaza Navidena. Are there funds available or budgeted for those two events?

They are not budgeted. There are no funds available for 21-22.

David PenalozaItem 1

21-22.

With the exception of the planning budget for the 4th of July 2022. Correct. Yes. Thank you.

David PenalozaItem 1

Okay. And I guess that's also my concern is you did mention that next year, with next with the 20 to guess 22 23 budget you will come back asking for for these events to be budgeted for and I'm trying to understand that as we move away from having that budgeted now it will be harder to find those dollars as I've seen in the past for these events because of of how we've all been cooped up at home the last year with minimal exercise gyms have been closed I think something like

David PenalozaItem 1

the 5k run is extremely important to have in the in our city. I know Councilmember fan brought it up how it should be a celebration. The mere fact that we could be outside and run, you know, massless and vaccinated, you know, that that should it's something that we should encourage people to do is be outside, live a healthier lifestyle exercise, because those are a lot of things that we rarely talk about. We had this this pandemic COVID-19 and it did the people that

David PenalozaItem 1

that unfortunately passed were people that were that had many had pre-existing conditions or were not as healthy as as we could have been and I think that's not true when we could If we could promote a healthier lifestyle in our community, that would be better for us if we could allow this event, 5K Fun Run, and the Plaza Navideña. You know, I've been to a handful of the Plaza Navideña events in our city and just seeing

David PenalozaItem 1

the faces of these hundreds of kids that come to the Plaza Navideña that live in Santa Santa that gets to take a picture with Santa Claus and maybe this year could be socially distanced and a lot of for a lot of our kids it's the the gifts that are provided during Plaza Navidena from donations it's the one gift that they receive for a lot of kids in our in our neighborhood in our neighborhoods these are small events I don't think they require a lot they obviously they do require money because of staff but I would like to still see if we could find a way to have those two events put together because it'd be the

David PenalozaItem 1

right thing to do for our community and and that's it Mr. Mayor and Councilmember Lopez you say a lot of things are not true but I stayed quiet so thank you thank you I think we have Councilmember Lopez

and then Hernandez but just a couple things I guess I think you're looking more and more confused Lisa said so so I and no I'm just kidding I'm being facetious and in a sense that I think you know to mayor pro temp's point those are important events but I think we can make an argument for any one of these events that are they're all important I mean they're all really important so I know that we're struggling a little bit and we're maybe making you know you struggle because we all believe maybe in a reduced scale all of them could be possible it's just very challenging

because none of us knew what this year was going to look like I think and that's where we really lost not only last year but this year as well because it was hard to budget for something that was completely uncertain. So I see staff's challenge. Madam City Manager.

Thank you, Mayor. Sorry to interrupt. I think I have an idea that might work. So I know you can appreciate all the work that goes behind the scene at planning some of these events to get the sponsorship money, to book the contracts. It is a very lengthy process. But with the 5K run being a physical activity outside, one of my staff members just said, well, that would qualify for Revive Santa Ana dollars. So to the extent we can put the 5K run on, we could maybe do that one. Part of our challenge is Lisa couldn't go through the planning process

because the state was basically closed down and you were unable to have these types of large crowds gathering. you know, we're still all counting on the governor to open up the economy on June 15th. We don't really know is there going to be any more restrictions still left on outdoor large attendance events. So that's also one of the challenges that we've been dealing with. But I would recommend that if you like, we could use some revived Santa Ana dollars and do the 5K run.

All right. Well, let's listen to some more. I think there's two more members of the council who want to speak. So I think it was Lopez and Hernandez. So Councilmember Lopez.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. And Lisa, I just had a request. And listening to the comments and because I'm new to the council, do you have a list of what events have been put in the past? What has been phased out? What we're budgeting and planning for with the time that you need? And if you have that, if you can send it my way. I really appreciate it. Yes, we could do that.

David PenalozaItem 1

They're in your staff report Councilmember Lopez.

Great. Thank you. Councilmember. Let me go ahead and go to Councilmember Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to take this opportunity. I know we talked about a lot of things, Director Rudeloff, so I want to be very concise. I want to start by responding to Council members fan regarding the community celebrations um and thank her because it's such a great topic for us to to talk about because it's one thing for us to propose these events which truly diversify us as a city in celebrating everybody um so my proposal for indigenous peoples day is to have a concert in 2018 the city of los angeles held their inaugural indigenous peoples day celebration

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

i had the honor of being a part of that i got to see exactly what it what it looked like firsthand and what it entailed was bringing together natives bringing together the different tribes that we have all throughout southern california businesses that are native owned and organizations that are native led and then the day concluded with a concert right in front of city hall and the concert was headlined by redbone a 1970s rock band who is infamous now for their inclusion in the guardians of the galaxy soundtrack come and get your love a fantastic song star lord is walking

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

with his walkman pretty cool um and then black eyed peas um taboo who is a native american is a member of the Black Eyed Peas, but those two individuals headlined that celebration. I envision us getting that done for our community here. And I can assure you that residents would be extremely excited. Our community should be about making memories and what better opportunity to do that. Moving forward, Juneteenth, the additional proposal I made to be concise as to what I would want that to look like, my proposal would be for us to have a parade a black led parade starting in the heart of the

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

black community which is right off of willits and rate street what a lot of people don't know is that the black history parade the only his black history parade that we have in orange county is in the city of anaheim it originated here in the city of santa anna right off of rate and willits with the ship family and um who i like to consider one of santa anna's queens it was a black mother who was raising her children in a humble home off of that corner that started this parade because she did not see herself in her community at the table um in doing that she founded an organization

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

called the orange county heritage council and um and what i would want this celebration to look like is having a parade and then concluding it with a concert where we have black-led organizations, businesses. There are a number of fantastic businesses in that area and in my ward, and I can assure you they would be honored to be at the table and to lead these events. And next, I do support what the mayor brought forth. I'm too young to remember, but I do know we had a Caesar Chavez day. I think that would be important for us to see if there's opportunity for us to bring that back.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

I think that that helps a lot of people in knowing your history, you know your power. And then lastly, there is the city of Anaheim, like I mentioned before. They have the Black History Parade for the first time in a couple of years. The parade has not happened, obviously because of COVID. It did not happen again this year. There's an opportunity for us to bring a parade which originated in our community. It is a Santa Ana parade. I do think now is the opportunity and the time for us to bring that parade back to this community. Orange County Heritage Council is a Santa Ana organization

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

and a Santa Ana family. So that makes a lot of sense for us to do that. And I am gladly championing that. And I hope the rest of my colleagues do. And lastly, we're a young community. The youngest city in Orange County, ages 13 to 24. I think it would make a lot of sense for us to maybe look at cutting out an event that really doesn't empower and position young people to transform their lives.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

I think if we found an event that we can replace with a literacy and early childhood education event, I think that would be great for our students and families for us to have an event where we embrace and uplift reading and education and poetry and the arts. It'll give children an opportunity to showcase their skills. And we have so many powerful young people in our city. I can only imagine the stories that they can tell if we give them that platform. And lastly, I know I'm saying lastly, there's just so much exciting stuff we talked about. The 5K event that Council Member Fan and the mayor talked about.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

I think that that's a great opportunity for us to embrace public health and wellness. We are a community that struggles with obesity and with having access to clean and healthy foods. We are very much in a food desert here. If we have a 5K event, it gives us an opportunity for us to introduce different alternatives to what we typically see. We don't see too many people being active in our community. I think it's important for us as a city to champion that, particularly because we have a lot of talent in this community. We have Gilbert Melendez, who's a 12-time mixed martial arts world champion,

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

the most successful combat sports athlete in Santa Ana, who's from our community. We have Ronnie Rios, who is on the route to becoming a boxing world champion. We have Alexis Rocha, who is another up-and-coming talent. We have Ashley Evan Smith, one of the best MMA fighters in the world. She's at the top of the weight class at 125. We have Jesse Ruiz, who's an Olympic wrestler who represented us in 2012 and in 2016. I can see people like them happily being a part of a 5K. So I think it'd be great for us to bring all of the aforementioned back.

Great. Thank you, Councilmember Hernandez. Look, there's so many we could. Obviously, there's excitement because it sounds like we all want to get out and do something positive. I think that's part of, you know, because after being cooped up a year or 15 months, I think everybody just, you know, says, hey, let's go out and celebrate. And I think, you know, it's fair. But I think to Councilmember Lopez's point, just to clarify, I think Mayor Pro Tem did say there's a lot in the staff report, but I guess what she might have been asking for, and maybe I'm speaking at a turn for her, but she wanted to see what maybe was phased out.

So I know what I'm talking about, Mother's Day was years ago, right? And Cesar Chavez Day was, you know, not as long ago, but I know the Black History celebration and parade was phased out quite a while ago. So maybe that's, I think, what she was asking about. Like, what we once had, which we no longer have, I don't think that was in the staff report.

Right.

But maybe that might be the information. But what I would suggest maybe, just as you consolidate this, look, it's a work in progress, right? I mean, and maybe things that could be pushed out later on a smaller scale. Or if you can come up with, like, a schedule for next year, hey, these are things that we, you know, is there support from the council for these and maybe bring it back to us. and we can kind of you can canvas us then on timing but you know look this we don't want our head to explode here because you know there's so much talk of us wanting to you know get out and

have fun and be with one another and i think that's the enthusiasm i mean you know it'd be worse to say i don't want to i don't want any celebrations right um so i mean it's a good good problem to have so thank you for that um yes councilmember fan apologies just one last thing

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

just because I'm trying to wrap my head around a lot of these events and especially for Juneteenth. Again I want to thank Councilman Hernandez for bringing these issues forward. I do have a question because I know OCHC also does Black History Month parade. It's located in Anaheim but it's really big and apologies if I missed some of the conversation. I stepped off for a minute there but I guess have we reached out to them at all? I guess maybe not because I know with organizing parades it is massive, massive undertaking, lots of permits and other issues and I just want to make sure that as we engage these

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

community organizations and wanting them to be involved with these types of big events that there is also capacity on that end. We had two Thet Parades in 2020 for the Vietnamese Little Saigon community and let's just say it didn't all go off without a hitch and I just want to make sure that if there are already existing events that we support those and be a part of that and so maybe engaging with them as you go through this process would be very helpful for me to better understanding you know how to prioritize and the budget and things like that.

If I can clarify, Council Member, you made me think of something. So you really have two things. You have what's happening this coming fiscal year and what's happening in the next fiscal year. And I did have the opportunity to talk to Council Member Hernandez, and he clearly understands that those big plans are not something that's going to be in this immediate upcoming fiscal year. So we can set those aside and do all of the research. What I'm summarizing from the discussion for the current fiscal year is let's see if we could still do some type of a fun run,

potentially something in Calle Cuatro in November, and then start the 4th of July planning. That's my consistent direction that I'm taking away from this, in addition to the 14 movies that she already has planned in the parks. Is that a good summation?

I think so. I think that's a good summary. I think that's a good summary after all that. But like I said, when we talk about sort of high-level stuff, we can go off on tangents, as you can tell. But yeah, I am supportive of the new events, too. So for next year, that'd be great. So thank you for that. Let's move along to item number 27, which is authorizing and considering the temporary implementation of some of the relief measures. And this is the one I jumped in front of, but I'll turn it over to you, Madam.

We liked your comments, Mayor. We do have, I mean it is self-explanatory in the staff part, but we do have a short presentation if you would like us to give that. Okay. Director Mintai from Planning.

I know he's going to be very concise. Right?

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Potem and City Council. This item tonight is asking for your authorization to extend some of the COVID measures that we implemented during the stay at home order during 2020. The city adopted several resolutions basically authorizing certain outdoor activities to occur in our retail business sectors as well as restaurants and eating mobile establishments.

So the executive order, as I mentioned, allow for those operations to take place with the guidance and under the guidance of the booklet that we put out that provide guidance for different types of business to be able to open to operate both on private properties in their parking lot as well as on certain street right away and public right away the proposal that we have tonight is really based on what I said earlier anticipating that the governor will provide directions to fully open the economy on June 15th and if that happens we basically have many

of the executive orders go away the city manager as indicated previously some of these has already gone away and we want to make sure that we provide an opportunity to continue that after the full reopening of the economy and some of the examples that we have include you know uh downtown structures that are called parklets that provide for um space and outdoor eating areas that's using the city sidewalk or public right away you can see in the picture here a couple very good examples of what's been done now downtown other sidewalks as

well this is also in our downtown but as you drive throughout the city there are also restaurants are utilizing their parking lot as well so this is not only exclusive downtown but downtown really took on this this COVID measure allowance and and thrive throughout the the uh the pandemic closure um other businesses throughout downtown was able to exercise that as well as they do on private properties we see a lot of benefits to this and we see that potentially we can look towards a future to where some of these elements could continue on a permanent basis so what we're proposing to print place is a temporary time

period of about 12 months to allow for staff to be able to basically evaluate and assess the impacts of the full reopening of the economy on some of these activities that we have now traditionally had traffic pattern how does it impact parking and having a full 12 months will give us an entire annual cycle that goes through back to school the holidays go through the New Year

and then also spring break. So it really gives us a full breadth of the busy high activity times of the year for us to evaluate and come back to you with some recommendation potentially, as I mentioned, to put this on in consideration of permit regulations that would allow for outdoor activities specifically related to dining and retail. So we will be looking at bringing this back probably sometime in April with an assessment for you to evaluate and provide you with our observation.

We also ask that you authorize myself, the director of planning building, to really be able to modify, to revise, or to refine these activities under the guidelines so that we're able to react in real time should we observe any negative impact so we can just stop it instead of having it to go back to council. or we saw something very beneficial is to be able to keep that going or potentially allow that to further be enhanced. So that way, again, our goal is to have a full 12-month period for observation.

We're also working with interagency, including PBA, CDA, PWA, and PD to evaluate and hear everyone's input as well as concern. So with that, we're recommending that the City Council adopt the resolution authorizing the temporary implementation of the COVID-19 measures for outdoor business activities.

Great. Thank you for that presentation, Director Tai. Let me go ahead and bring it back to the Council if there's any questions or comments. I think Mayor Potem had asked to comment on this earlier. Go ahead.

David PenalozaItem 1

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento, and thank you, Executive Director Mintai, for this information. very supportive of extending this. I know it was through executive order to allow for these outdoor spaces and public spaces to be used by our restaurants and businesses across the city. I think it's been a lifeline for all of our restaurants and businesses to be able to extend outdoors. and it would be very costly and detrimental to the day-to-day operations of these businesses if we were to just, you know, tell them from one day to the next, hey, you got to move all your

David PenalozaItem 1

operations inside again and tear down whatever was built outside to allow for this. So very supportive of this. I'm hoping that it extends more than a year, more than the 12 months that we're looking at because all the businesses, the few business owners I've spoken to is that they've seen their sales actually increase from pre-pandemic times with the outdoor seating and outdoor capabilities because people like being outside. It gives you that European feel and cities across the nation are pointing to that same

David PenalozaItem 1

result is that people enjoy being outside and businesses booming outdoors. So very supportive of this. Thank you for working with staff on this and looking forward to what the results of the any changes of this come back in 12 months. Thank you.

Great. Thanks for those comments. Any other comments from members of the council? Council House Member Becerra.

Mayor Becerra.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm supportive of the item as well. I just want to make sure that not only are we working on permanent standards for some of the items that we see today as far as outdoor dining, et cetera, but I also hope and sorry, Nabi, I'm going to rope you into this, but I'm hoping that we can also see work with Public Works to talk about possible feasibility studies of street closures because I'm going to just throw it out there. I don't think if we keep Third Street closed between Broadway and Sycamore, the entire transportation infrastructure will break down.

Phil BacerraItem 1

I think, in fact, if anything, it'll enhance what we already have on the Second Street Promenade. And there are probably some other places in Santa Ana where, you know, not just downtown, but other places that might be a possibility. But I would just like us to also include that in the mix as well because, you know, the parklets are something that we've always heard and talked about. But, you know, obviously the pandemic rushed their implementation. But I think that, you know, this is a great exercise for the city to engage in, to really see what works and what doesn't work,

Phil BacerraItem 1

especially now that the economy will be hopefully fully back in swing post-June 15th. So thank you for bringing this item forward. I support it. Again, I just hope that you'll also include the feasibility of the street closures. Thank you.

Great. Thank you for those comments. Councilmember Fan.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Thank you, Mayor. And I wholeheartedly agree with my colleagues about the street closure and the outdoor dining. I guess it is very European. The one time I've been to Italy, there's plenty of chairs and tables outside. And they don't have fence there or anything. It's just you know that that's kind of where people sit and relax. And I think it creates a greater sense of community as you're able to mill about and see people outside. And we have amazing weather. So, you know, being able to capitalize on that and help with increased seating for some of these restaurants would be quite incredible.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

I am very supportive of, frankly, a walking-only downtown. I've mentioned this before. I think that that is a feature that can really help improve accessibility and really, again, creating a more thriving downtown space, as we do in many other areas, like Third Tree Promenade and Santa Monica. So I look forward to hopefully seeing the results after a year and really looking to do something long term if the results support it. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Phan. Any other council members on the line wish to comment or?

I do. Mayor Sarmento.

Sure. Go ahead, Council Member.

in addition to all the items that my colleagues have mentioned i would also like to say i am supportive of this this issue and however i would like to see a little more beautification of the barricade we need to make it look really pleasant like the one we saw in the presentation rather than the cement or plastic barricades. So that would be great. And if we could look at something permanent in the future, I agree with Council Member Pham. I think it would add more to the entertainment aspect of our city.

And another thing that I would like for us to look at is let's provide some more free parking. because if we have that added initiative for the potential customers, that they don't have to worry about the parking while they're having a nice meal at a restaurant, because one hour, one free hour at the building structures is not enough. That's just barely enough to say hello to everyone in order to get the full experience of a nice evening downtown and socializing with your friends, you need at least three hours.

So let's do something with like the downtown Fullerton area where they provide free parking to the public and the metered parking has been done away with. And I realize that the business owners make some money in this way. However, if the people are not coming because of the parking, then they're going to lose up on making money anyway.

So I think so in order to help the businesses thrive a little more, let's continue providing some free parking and see what we can do in talking to the business owners about maybe validating at least two hours. So in addition to the two hours, then we can also have the one hour in the meters. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Mendoza. So let me go ahead and call on Councilmember Lopez.

Thank you Mayor Sarmiento. I just want to say that I'm very supportive of this item. And it's really exciting to talk about and think about the possibility of downtown being only walkable. One of the things that I love about Europe so much. And also just want to say that I also support your comments, Mayor, in making sure that we're working with our food truck vendors and having them be on the logs that they are. So thank you.

Great, thank you for those comments. Any other comments from anybody on the line? Great. Hearing none, all entertain a motion to adopt staff recommendation.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Mr. Mayor, I'll make the motion to adopt the resolution.

I'll second. I will second that.

Great, we have a motion and a second. Madam Clerk, you can go ahead and call whoever you want for the second. I think we have Councilmember Fan and Mendoza. Councilmember Becerra? Yes. Councilmember Hernandez? Yes. Councilmember Lopez? Yes. Councilmember Mendoza? Yes. Councilmember Fan? Yes. Mayor Potempo-Pinaloza? Yes. Mayor Sarmiento? Yes. Thank you, everybody. Let's move along now to the public hearing portion of our meeting and I'll go ahead and turn it over to the clerk because I believe she has something she wants to read into the record before we start and then I'll go

ahead and start with item number 28 members of the public who would like to

make a comment for public hearing item 28 please dial star 9 from your phone or select raise hand from zoom now

thank you mayor great thank you for that madam clerk so this is item number 28 this is to adopt resolutions approving the 2020 urban water management plan the 2020 water shortage shortage contingency plan and amend the 2015 urban water management plan so I'll go ahead and ask the city manager if there's a

presentation yes mayor we do have a presentation executive director Nabil Saba of the Public Works Department and he also has his consultants available

with him so I will turn it over to Nabil. Good evening Mayor, Mayor Potem and members of the City Council. We do have Serene from Arcada. Serene is our consultant for the plan. I don't

think she is on the line and she can dial in. Serena you are a panelist? Yes thank you and you

could also um share your screen oh okay hello everyone let me let me share my screen and then

begin so good evening mr mayor good evening city council members thank you so much for having me on today and there are three items in front of you today related to water planning for the city and i'm just gonna move on you can see the slides right no no serena we cannot see your slides okay glad i asked okay hold on oh i i did not share yet hold on okay screen

all right okay now we can see it thank you awesome thank you so there are three items in front of you today for adoption related to water planning the first item is the 2020 urban water management plan and it is to represent the city's planning elements to satisfy the 1983 urban water management Plan Act. It is a state requirement that comes every five years. I will go into that a little later. The second item is the 2020 Water Shortage Contingency Plan. It has to do with planning for

shortage and drought and how to respond and be prepared for those events. The third item is an appendix that will be added to the 2015 Urban Water Management Plan and this is to provide reporting on how how we will reduce delta reliance to satisfy the delta plan policy on wrp1 and i will go into detail in each of one on each of them so the 2020 open water management plan to give a little bit of background on what it is and what

the purpose of it and what we did. So really an urban water management plan is a document required by the state for all urban water suppliers within California who serve either more than 3,000 customers or more than 3,000 acre feet of water annually. It has been in place since 1983 and this this is the eighth reporting cycle since the inception of the act it is to be done every year every five years ending in zero and five and is

due on July 1st of the following year so for this cycle it is July 1st 2021. So for this cycle it will be an update to the 2015 urban water management plan with a few new

requirements. In a nutshell, essentially an urban water management planning process is to look at how reliable you are, the city is, in terms of water that you have to serve. So it looks at long-term projection for 20 out of 25 years of as it compares your water demand and your water supply where your water is going to come from how much will be needed and how reliable those sources are and this time around there are two new items we uh DWR or the the California Department of

Water Resources added a near-term look so it's a drought risk assessment that looks ahead for the next five years the immediate five years to follow and also that is an annual supply and demand and assessment procedure that has been added. So you have to look at the current year plus one single dry year. So the new items that were added by the California Department of Water Resources this time around is driven by the drought

that was going on in the past few years. So they want to make sure that all of water suppliers within California have a robust plan and are prepared to handle shortages. So some elements that have been going on or added to the 2020 urban water management plans include the long-term drought assessment, where it used to be a three-year consecutive dry year assessment, and now we are doing five consecutive years, so a longer look at dry years.

The near-term drought risk assessment, specifically looking at year by year from 2021 to 2025. And the water shortage contingency plan is a new requirement that used to be a part of the urban water management plan, but this time is required to be a standalone document with some new robust elements added. The fourth item is energy intensity reporting. That was an optional item five years ago. This time around it is mandatory

and it looks at how much energy is used to produce and distribute water within the city. The last item is reduced Delta Reliance reporting. And I will get into that in a minute here.

so cities water use and supply overview so to compare water use and water supply

in the past decade the water use within the city has been relatively stable it has really come down in the last five years and 99 of the water use within the city is portable and 1% is recycled. And looking ahead to the next 25 years or so, we are projecting a very slight increase, very low 1.2% increase between now and 2025, and an even smaller increase in the next 20 years

from 2025 to 2045. On the water supply side, the city of Santa Ana relies on groundwater, local groundwater from the Orange County groundwater basin in 2020, fiscal year 2019, 2020, about 76% of the city's water supply came from the Orange County groundwater basin. About 23% was supplemental imported water from metropolitan and 1% of recycle. Looking ahead in the next 25 years we're looking about

84% of the city supplies coming from local groundwater 15% from metropolitan and recycled water is to stay around 1%.

So the gist of the urban water management plan is to do the reliability assessment. So the three scenarios that are required by the state, and that is to look at an average condition, a single dry year, and then five consecutive dry years. and the conclusion of the assessment is that the city is projected to meet full service demands through 2045 for all three scenarios and to back that up we have Metropolitan in their urban water management plan this year concluding

that they will be meeting full service demands for all of them member agencies and also Orange County Water District is projecting to be increasing the basin pumping percentage up to 85% through 2045. So to give you a benchmark there, currently for 2021-2022 water year, the basin pumping percentage is at 77%. So it is Orange County Water District is will be expanding their groundwater,

reach out groundwater replenishment with the expansion of the groundwater replenishment system phase three.

So key findings of the 2020 urban water management plan, just to recap what I already said is that the city has the long-term water service reliability under average year, single dry year, and five consecutive dry years. On the near-term side, the city also has the supply capabilities sufficient for a drought lasting five consecutive years. And with that, the city has plans for supply implementation and water use efficiency investments to meet its projected water demands.

On the water shortage contingency plan side, so there are new requirements, as I mentioned, to really make sure that water suppliers in California are prepared and have a robust plan in place to deal with shortage scenarios. So the water shortage contingency plan is now a standalone document. And the key elements of it include an annual water supply demand assessment.

So starting July 2022, California water suppliers will be reporting to the state on an annual basis, looking ahead to the following year and see whether there's enough supply to meet demand.

Director Saba, can you, and my apologies to the consultant, how much more do we have on this presentation?

We have a few more slides.

Two more slides if you like.

I can speed up if you would like me to.

Go ahead and just maybe if you can summarize. Thank you.

Sure. Sure, so essentially the city has, there's a lot of words on the slide, but the city has a robust plan to respond to shortage from up to, from 10% to beyond 50% shortage. And then the last item is the amendment to the 2015 urban water management plan. And the background on that is that the California Department of Water Resources did not have a guidance, did not provide guidance in 2015. So no one add that to that 2015 urban water management plan.

So everyone this year just had to make sure that they report on how they're doing locally to make sure that they are doing everything they can to be as self-reliant as possible. So with that, it's just reporting your water use efficiency and advanced water technologies such as the what OCWD or the what we're doing for the groundwater replenishment and with that to summarize everything is will satisfy the requirement of the urban water

management plan Act the public hearing is today and the recommendation we are on track to meet the July 1st deadline and the recommended actions today is for City Council to adopt the three items in front of you, the urban water management plan, water shortage contingency plan, and the addendum to the 2015 urban water management plan. So with that, that concludes my

presentation. Thank you. Great. Thank you for that. Director Saba, anything else that you wish to add?

Just I would like to add, this is a good news report, but I know the city is set to drill more wells because, as you can see, we'll be needing to pump a lot more water from 70 percent, 73 percent to 85 percent in the future. So we have the need to drill more wells, replace old wells, and deal with a contaminant called PFAS. So those are what we are against in the Water Resources Division, and we'll be working diligently on solving this issue.

This is excellent news. No, don't let me diminish the report. I mean, this is very good news. So let me go ahead and open the public hearing and ask the clerk if there is any members of the public that wish to address us on this public hearing matter.

No, Mayor. All the ones that I have currently are for the next item.

Great. Thank you. I'll bring it back to the council to see if there's any questions or comments.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Just one comment quickly.

Yes. Council Member Pham.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

I just wanted to make a comment that I sit as the representative for the city of Santa Ana on the Metropolitan Water District Board. And they are very much aware that there is a drought. It is scary. We all remember what it was like a few years ago where neighbors were reporting other neighbors and people getting fined for watering their lawns. And the only way to prevent that from happening is for all of us to continue to be good stewards of our water. And I do want to thank you. and the department and our consultant for doing this because just so the public knows,

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

there's no city in Orange County that is so self-reliant as we are here in Santa Ana. It's so lucky and blessed to have the best water in the county, the best part of the OC Basin. So I just want to thank you for also saving taxpayer dollars by using local water instead of imported water because all of that is about ensuring that our residents get the best price for the best water that we have access to so with that thank you so much thank

you excellent comments we are very blessed here any other questions or comments from the council madam clerk nobody on the line wishing to comment no great let me go ahead and hearing none and seeing no other requests to speak let me go ahead and close the public hearing and entertain a motion from anybody to move this item.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

So moved.

I'll second.

Great, we have a motion and a second. Madam Clerk, if you'll please call roll.

Council Member Becerra? Yes. Council Member Hernandez?

Yes.

Council Member Lopez? Yes. Council Member Mendoza? Yes. Council Member Fan?

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tempeñalosa?

Yes.

Mayor Sarmiento?

Yes. Motion carries 7-0. Excellent, motion carries. Thank you, Madam Clerk. I'll go ahead and turn it over to you. Do you want to make another instructional comment to those in the public that want to speak?

Yes, thank you, Mayor. Members of the public who would like to make a comment for public hearing item 29, this is the budget item. Please dial star 9 from your phone or select raise hand from Zoom now. Thank you.

Great. So this is the time and place to consider the ordinance to adopt the fiscal year budget 21-22, approve the revived Santa Ana spending priorities, approve a resolution for changes to the city's classification and compensation plan and the budget, and adopt the seven-year capital improvement program. So I'm going to go ahead and open up the public hearing and call on those members of the public that are here in the audience physically present, then I'll turn it back over to the clerk so she can call on anybody who's maybe on the phone wishing to address.

So let me go ahead and begin by calling on Chloe Rios-Wyatt. And I'll remind you all, the more concise you can be, the better. That way we can hear from everybody. And please state your name and don't need to tell us your address. just simply tell us if you live in Santa Ana, if you're a Santa Ana resident, and maybe what ward you live in. So that'd be great.

Okay. Thank you. I'm on my back. Thank you. Yes, my name is Chloe Rios Wyatt, and it's nice to see you all again. I work here currently in Santa Ana. I was a long-time resident of Santa Ana, but as some of you already know, because we've been in talks, I moved out of the county because when I started my transition, there was no services for me and there's currently no services for me. So with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, the need to access basic resources for transgender people in Orange County intensified. We are here today because we are tired of being treated like second-class citizens.

I personally grew up in Santa Ana and I had to leave to a different county because of the lack of services specifically tailored to tend my needs during my transition. It is really sad to see many other community members who are also fleeing this county because we continue to be underserved and because we continue to be a historically marginalized community. My colleagues and I started Alianza Translatinx as a response to this lack of basic services for us and because even after all these years, there are still no services for us in this county.

During the first year of establishing the organization, Alianza Translatinx surveyed our community and we found that 26.1% of the participants experienced hunger during COVID-19 pandemic. And 78.3% of those surveyed reported having lost their income due to the pandemic. Although there are many, many local organizations providing resources during the pandemic, our community, the trans community, was very afraid of accessing these services because of all the historical discrimination we have suffered and the lack of sensitivity from many local providers.

We demand that $10 million are allocated from the federal funds being provided to the city to revive the city of Santa Ana to the transgender community. With this support, Alianza Translatinx will be able to hire more staff. We can extend our outreach to more transgender individuals, especially youth trans individuals in this county. And really intensified our community advocacy and helping our community. I heard earlier a concerned resident regarding prostitution on Main Street. Have we thought about why these people are doing this type of survival work and why the spike?

I can tell you what's going on because Alianza Translatinx has been going there once a month from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. providing preservatives and information on HIV and STD prevention and education. And most of these people lost their job as a result of COVID-19. I hope that the same energy and passion you all are putting towards street racing can also be put into investing in transgender lives who are also dying because of many reasons, including hate crimes, incidents, and lack of services. Also, for events, there are no LGBTQ-related celebrations. We used to have the Pride Parade. I don't know what happened to that.

I hope that we can add this to the list of events, to the city planning. It is imperative we include everyone when it comes to celebration, especially during this month, which is Pride Month. We are also a part of this community and we deserve to live, to be tended to and to thrive just like everyone else in this city. The current budget and plan you are proposing does not include us, the transgender community, and it's completely wrong. We demand that you revise the budget and include $10 million to be allocated to support the transgender community. COVID-19 is setting our community farther behind and we deserve to be a part of the

Revive Santa Ana so that we can also live, thrive, and survive.

thank you.

Viana Serrano? Shorty left. Thank you. Analy Garcia? Analy Garcia?

Good evening. My name is Ana Lea García. I'm representing Trans.

I'm going to speak Spanish, so it's just to say to the interpreter who's prepared. So, I'm going to go ahead. I'm going to go ahead.

Okay. I'm representing Trans. Latinx. Necesitamos la ayuda de tener un lugar donde no nos estén discriminando y a tener un shelter para las personas como nosotros para tener donde dormir, donde estar y no nos estén discriminando. Cuando uno va a la cárcel, te mandan con los niños when we have to be with the girls.

Thank you.

shelter for people like us where we can sleep we can be and not be discriminated when we put us in jail they put us in there with the boys and we should be placed with the girls thank you Cynthia Espinosa

Muy buenas noches a todos. ¿Sí me escucha?

Un poquito más alto si puede hablar.

Ok. Mi nombre es Cintia Espinosa y estoy en la posición voluntaria de la organización Alianza Translatinés sin recibir ningún sueldo desde el mes de marzo del 2020. Estoy aquí para hablar con ustedes al respecto del plan de Revivir Santa Ana. We urge the federal aid that they sent to Orange County to receive a part of that aid, because we have no service for many years, the transgénero or gender non-conform. It is sad to think that we are residents of Orange County and we have to go to other condados

and to take the basic services, like the treatment hormonal, chirurgical and psicological, just to mention some, which we have here. Well, now, with the cold head, we decided that with the help that we receive, and we hope that we receive, at least one, $10 million,

we want to invest in a shelter especially for the transgénero and gender non-conform. I have three reasons for which we urge a shelter for transgender and gender non-conformity. The first one is that the shelter is for transgender and gender non-conformity. The people who are most affected by COVID-19 are the most affected by the COVID-19. Many of them could not pay their apartments, apartments and some were desalojated. One or another, they decided to leave the shelter, which they couldn't get, and then they decided to leave the shelter for the treatment and transphobia that they received from the person who works there,

by not having a change of name, gender or appearance.

Second point, for the help of my transgénero minority, who is not accepted by their family and decided to leave their house, they are doing the work sexual and are in a street situation. We want to help them in that way, before they get other drugs and alcoholism, for the depression of their situation, including the COVID-19.

3. This is also helpful to support my transgender community who is fighting or who already got their asylum, and when they leave a detention center, the majority have no place to stay, to be able to support them temporarily in what they can do with the help of us and other organizations with which we work.

Just to say that, please, be aware of your mind, that you can think of our community, and that, as you know, my parents didn't have thought of having a transgender woman, and I'm representing my community, and that, as my parents, you may be parents and mothers and could have in their family a person like us. Apart from that, they could probably be married with a transgender woman, or maybe have a hidden friend of a transgender woman,

but we would like to be generous with the transgender community, and gender non conforme. And what better is that we can help us and so we can give it directly to our community.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good evening. My name is Cynthia Espinosa and I'm a volunteer of Alianza Translantinx and they've been there helping without us helping since March 2020. and I'm here to talk about Revive Santa Ana. It's urgent that you give us some help, that you help people in Orange County. We want to be part of the monies that you are getting from the federal government. There have been no services, it's sad to say, there are no services for transgender, trans women and gender non-conforming people. And we have to go to other, even though we live in Orange County,

we have to go to other counties to get the basic services for treatments for more cosmetics etc and now that we're thinking with cold head now we want to help and we want to have at least 10 million dollars so that we can provide it for our community we need a special shelter for us for the transgender and gender non-conforming and for people who have been affected by COVID-19 They have not been able to pay for their apartments and their places, and some have had to go to shelters, but they were in shelters that they left because of the treatment they received there

because they did not have a proper name change, legal name change because of their gender, their appearance or whatever. Number two, there are minors who have not been accepted by their parents, and some of them have resorted to being sex workers and end up living on the streets. We need to help them before they fall into drug abuse. And third, we need help for our community to get asylum because they do not have a place to live. And we want to support them through our own organization and collaborate with other organizations to help. And please be aware that my parents didn't know

that they were going to have a person like me as a child. So think about this. you might have one of your children who's transgender, who might marry a transgender person, who might have a girlfriend who's transgender. So please be generous with these funds and help us.

Great, thank you for that. Rachel Posos?

Good evening, my name is Rachel Pozos. I am a volunteer at the Ansatral Latinx. I am a volunteer, we have a year working with the organization, and we do it with a lot of pleasure, because we know the need that our community has. But we are here today to include the Valle Reviviendo Santana. We hope we can share with your support and generosity, because for many years, as I said, we have no support from other organizations

that really, supposedly, provide services to the transgénero community and really, no service comes to this type of community. The Alianza Translatines is the first organization in Orange, the Orange County, who has been concerned about the transgénero community. We started in times of pandemic, very difficult times, and we really hope we can continue working in some way. We hope to support you, because the need is a lot more in the transgénero community. It is sad to come as organizations to other organizations

to help us, which they always leave us the last one and always is if we have left. It's sad, but it's always the last one, even in this. And all for wanting to give us a better help to our community. In these cases, during the pandemic, many salons, many restaurants, because the majority of the transgender or LGBT community is dedicated to all this that has to do with beauty salons, restaurants, and I just hope that they can help us, include us in this help. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Rachel Polsos and I'm a volunteer with Alianza TransSantinx. And like many people said, I agree with what they said. I want to echo that. I've been a volunteer with this organization for over a year with no salary. But I'm happy to do it because I know that there's a lot of need in my community, the transgender community. I'm here to ask to be included in the Revive Santa Ana funds, funds distribution. For years, we've never had any help from any organizations that are supposed to help our community.

And Alianza Transantinx was born during the pandemic, and we've been helping as much as we can. And there's no—we're here with the strength to do this, but we want to ask for your support so that we can get some money for our transgender community. It's sad that we have to rely on other organizations that are supposed to help our organizations, our community, and they only help us when there's anything, when there's something left and if there's something left. And they're supposed to help our community and they don't. Please help us with this.

There's beauty shops and restaurants because in our community, we work in beauty shops and restaurants. That's how we earn our living. so we ask to be included in the federal help that you receive.

David PenalozaItem 1

Okay next speaker to address us on item 29 is Brisa Mendoza.

Good evening, my name is Brisa Mendoza, chica trans. We ask that the support of you is economic to strengthen our group and help other people who need it. And so, we want to be equal to men and women, to be all together, we are chicas trans. and we ask that you can touch your heart and help us in that way to be able to move forward in our TransLatinx alliance. Thank you.

Good evening, my name is Grisa Mendoza, I'm a trans girl, and I'm here to ask for your support financially so that we can strengthen our group and we can help our community. We are here to ask for support so that we have equality all men and women and trans girls. So we ask you to touch your heart and help our Alianza Trans of the next organization to succeed.

Next speaker to address this on item 29.

David PenalozaItem 1

Next speaker to address this on item 29 is Monica Rios.

David PenalozaItem 1

Monica Rios, por favor pase.

Buenas noches. Well, as you know, my name is Monica Rios and I'm here for...

David PenalozaItem 1

Monica, can you please raise your voice a little bit, please?

Yes, good evening. My name is Monica Rios, as you mentioned, I'm a volunteer of the Trans Latinx Translating. and what I want to remind you is that the Trans Trans is one of the most forgotten communities, we want to be more visible, we are able to support us,

we ask that we are going to look at the budget of the $143 million that has received the the city of Santa Ana, to provide services for trans women, because, unfortunately, many of these women trans suffer from discrimination and sometimes it is not easy to get jobs, because employers or companies do not accept us simply for who we are or for how we see ourselves physically. It's why the Trans Latinx is the same as we want to provide more services for our community.

But without your financial support, this will not be more complicated. I just want to ask you to include the trans community in the plan of Revivir a Santa Ana. Thank you.

David PenalozaItem 1

Thank you for your comment.

Good evening. My name is Monica Díos and I'm here as a volunteer of Alliance and Trans Latinx. I'm here to remind you that the trans community matters and we are always forgotten, we're always last, and we are here to be visible. We are here to advocate for support for our community. We want to be included in those $143 million you are receiving for the budget for trans women, to provide trans women services. We want to work, we are discriminated against, and it's not easy to find work because we're not accepted because of who we are

or our appearance. At Alianza Transantinx, we want to help our community, we want to support our community, and without your help, financial support, this would be much harder. we asked to be included in the budget in the revised center.

David PenalozaItem 1

Next speaker to address us on item 29 is Natasha Flores.

David PenalozaItem 1

Pase por favor.

Buenas noches a todos. Vengo aquí a apoyar a nuestra comunidad trans. Por lo mismo que estamos olvidadas. Yes, but incluso maybe a little but maybe a little but yes, but unless تم incluso incluso but unless تم incluso incluso incluso incluso incluso incluso incluso incluso incluso incluso incluso incluso incluso incluso incluso incluso

David PenalozaItem 1

but but Gracias.

Good evening. My name is Natasha Flores and I'm here to support trans women in the trans community because we are forgotten. I myself have been beat up twice. I'm here for you to pay attention to us. We need your help. Please touch your heart and help us. Thank you.

David PenalozaItem 1

next speaker for item 29 is Lisa Okamoto

hi good evening City Council Lisa could no longer attend but ask that I deliver her statement on her behalf. Is that acceptable? Okay. Thank you all.

Apologies. We are pulling it up. Okay. Good evening. My name is Lisa Okamoto and I'm a directing attorney with Immigrant Defenders Law Center, also known as MDef. We are the grantees of the Santa Ana Deportation Defense Fund and here along with the Harbor Institute, OC Justice Fund and Viet Rise and 32 other organizations in support. I first would like to thank Mayor Sarmiento and the City Council for your continuous leadership in advancing universal representation for immigrant community members. Santa Ana was the first city to pass a universal representation fund in Southern California

and we are grateful for the city in its continuous investment in ensuring due process for all. MDF along with the aforementioned coalition are here today to request that Santa Ana deepen its commitment to our immigrant families by increasing the fund to 300 000 annually and to make it a permanent program separated sorry while the current program played a life-saving role during the previous administration there are still gaps in representation that the funds could provide an increased fund will help us create a better infrastructure for more effective and

efficient case management and will also fund crucial social services so that our legal representation can be holistic. Families who face deportation proceedings have compounding issues including food insecurity and unstable housing and allowing for a social service component to our representation is crucial. Further, the increased fund will help meet linguistic and cultural needs of our Asian community, particularly for our Vietnamese immigrant community. Lastly, the immigration court currently faces a historic backlog with the average non-detained cases lasting

years. A permanent program will allow us to stand by our clients through the entirety of their case. Lastly, MDF is also in support and urge you to hire a full-time Vietnamese community liaison to address the disparities created by the lack of in-language services and to make local government more accessible to Vietnamese residents. A full-time Vietnamese community liaison who's fluent in Vietnamese, who has strong and meaningful connections to local Vietnamese community organizations and businesses and who understands the needs and experiences the Santa

Ana's largely immigrant Vietnamese population can be a bridge to fostering meaningful trust and belonging between the city and its Vietnamese residents. Thank you.

David PenalozaItem 1

Thank you Lisa. Next speaker for item 29 is Nati Alvarado. Please come forward.

Thank you council members and city manager Ridge. Nati Alvarado, I want to, when I was a kid we, growing up a lady down the street, Miss Avila would take us to the Boys and Girls Club. Back then it was just the Boys Club on Highland. I grew up in our Tisha Pilat area. They would drive us over there to the Boys Club, which was a good program.

But nowadays, it's a great program, but there's a population that we need to continually reach. And a lot of our kids can't, even though it's a great program, a lot of our kids in our city can't go to that program simply because of the barriers that are within our streets in our city. Back when I grew up, there was five main gangs in this city in the 70s. The first death I seen a murder was on Civic Center in Fairview. A friend of mine was shot at the corner store there. I was 14 years old. I've been seeing this through all the years that I've been in this city.

And I really hope that we could really look at with some of this Revive Sonata monies that we will be able to look at the prevention area of our young people and bringing them from throughout the city. Because to tell you the truth, there's great programs in our city, but there's a population of kids out there that are not attending these programs. It's a different population, and we have to focus on them. We're spending millions of dollars on these individuals that are not being addressed. They're being addressed because through incarceration, through the suppression piece of it all.

But I really believe that we have to, we may not see the outcomes right away, but we really have to invest into some of our preventative pieces with our younger kids. So across the board with all of it. So I just, I really hope that, you know, I work the streets, I've been working in the streets in San Diego for 30 years. I've been here all of my life in the city. I live in this city. I've worked in this city in the trenches for many years and the sad thing about it is that our city has put in very minimal monies into the population that I'm speaking of. The

ones that are in the alleyways, the ones are in the apartment complexes, that's a population that they're being they're being chased by the police but they're not being affected by us so we need to put more interventionists in our streets if something happens in our streets right now we have nobody in the streets i mean i have some guys that are out there but we have nobody in the streets that we could go to them and try to bring some peace to that some mediation to the issues it's been something that's been um ignored forever and i i think if we really want to you know i hear about the street racing and the deaths

and all that but you know there's been people that have been killed up and down our streets for many years and that got to a point in my own life that i stopped reading the register and i started glancing over the issues of murder and shootings and i finally had i was at a meeting one time at latino house access and a lady from the um from la started she was really mad and she says we need to make a stop to this. I thought to myself, what's she talking about? This ain't going to change. And what I realized in that meeting is I've become desensitized to everything that's taking

place in our city. We have to invest into our young people. And it's going to take money. It's going to take more people like myself to have a license to operate in our streets to touch them. So I hope and I pray that you guys, I mean, I've sat with many of you, council members before you guys trust me and I've sat with them and spoke to it and I've never seen any change and I really hope I'm still gonna do it whether there's funding or not I'm gonna do it but I'll tell you something we could do a lot more with some more

funding in our street thank you now the people appreciate we appreciate everything you do thank you for those comments Allison vote

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Sarmantho and Santa Ana City Council members. My name is Allison, and I'm the Youth Organizing Coordinator at VietRise. Alongside the OC Justice Fund, Immigrant Defenders of Law, the Harbor Institute for Immigrant and Economic Justice, and 32 other organizations, we strongly urge the City of Santa Ana to make the Deportation Defense Fund a permanent line budget item and increase it to $300,000 every year. As of today, we also know that 68 individual community members have also submitted letters of support in agreement with us.

A permanent multi-year commitment to the Deportation Defense Fund at $300,000 a year ensures there is equitable access for Vietnamese and Asian residents by increasing the immigration legal services to the Vietnamese and Asian community in Santa Ana. The Vietnamese community is the second highest population targeted by ICE, yet there are few structural resources and safeguards in place locally that support the Vietnamese community. The Deportation Defense Fund is one way to address the structural disparity through direct immigration legal support. Moreover, a large majority of the Vietnamese residents we

work with live in Santa Ana and in the past three years we have heard countless stories from residents who have expressed feeling like they've been neglected from city politics and affairs. And as a result, they turn to other cities in support for a sense of community and government resources. So that is why in addition to the deportation defense fund, we urge you to approve a full-time Vietnamese community liaison at $150,000 to engage the more than 25,000 Vietnamese residents living in Santa Ana. The city holds historical and cultural significance for Vietnamese

immigrants and refugees from the creation of the first supermarket owned by a Vietnamese resident to restaurants, temples, places of worship, healthcare services, and more. So we urge you to please hire a full time Vietnamese community liaison to address these disparities created by the lack of in language services and to make local government more accessible to Vietnamese residents. Echoing what MDFA said, a full time Vietnamese community liaison who is fluent in Vietnamese, who has strong and meaningful connections to local Vietnamese community organizations and businesses,

and who understands the needs and experiences of Santa Ana's largely immigrant Vietnamese population can be a bridge to fostering meaningful trust and belonging between the city and its residents. Thank you.

Thank you, Ross. Sabrina Rivera.

Carlos Perea.

Carlos Perea. Sorry, my mic was off.

There you go.

Hello, good evening, Mayor and Council members. I forgotten how long we can stay here in Council meetings, but I'm glad to be here. First, I want to start to address the conversation earlier around the street raising ordinance. I echo Pastor Nati's comments around different alternatives that can be taken when it comes to youth and youth behavior. And I'm definitely disappointed at some of the conversations from some of the council members around the punitive approaches to young folks. And specifically that there is something called due process and constitutional rights.

And that a year after the killing of George Floyd and many of the tragic incidents, we have seen how a tough approach to law and order the consequences of those can be. And yes, there is such thing as racial profiling. No matter how trained police or cops can be, there is still those personal biases that kick in when enforcing laws like this. So reactionary approaches to public safety have never been good historically. So with that said, again, my name is Carlos Perea and with the Harvard Institute for Immigrant and Economic Justice.

I'm also resident of World One, and I'm here to speak in support of the Deportation Defense Fund. One, I want to thank members of the council for being very supportive last special meeting to specifically increase the funding for the Deportation Defense Fund. And however, there is nothing that says on the staff report that was given to you about the longer, longer commitment to the deportation defense one, a multi year one, not just a yearly one. And I believe that is something that our residents deserve specifically or immigrant and refugee communities.

Secondly, this is not a brainer. There's a public support for the deportation defense fund. A survey conducted in April 2020 by Vera to Santana residents and voters specifically found that 79% of responders support the deportation defense fund. In addition, last year and the 2020 elections, the deportation defense fund was a key issue that came up and many of the specifically the mayor and newly elected council members have been very supportive of this fund and all of you want your elections. So for the rest of your colleagues, so you know, there is support for this and we hope that you do the right thing.

In addition, I'm also here in support of hiring a full time Vietnamese community liaison. I'm from World One. I see the need for a cultural competent staff to be at City Hall that specifically not only speaks the language, but understands the community. So let's make sure that we get that done. It's not again a no brainer. I also want to echo the comments from the trans community around Revive Santa Ana to ensure that they're included somehow in this economic plan. I'm also here in support of direct economic stimulus payment to residents.

Again, last year, many undocumented residents, many undocumented working class folks were excluded from any stimulus packages. The governor did something with some economic assistance, but it's not enough. We have one of the largest undocumented populations in the county here, the city. So let's make sure that everyone gets the economic assistance they deserve. And again, we have this council has an opportunity to continue to prioritize residents, not only in how you communicate with them, how you serve them, but also to make sure that you meet their basic needs. So I'm here in support of the Portation Defense Fund,

a community liaison for the Vietnamese community and direct economic help for our residents. Thank you.

Thank you, Carlos. Victor Mendez.

And is Dr. Elizabeth Rubio still here or did she? Okay, so Victor, you're our last in-person speaker.

Thank you.

So I'm hearing these comments and you know this council does a great job looking outward toward his residents just a great job just to the general observation I think you need to do a better job looking internally and how the city delivers those services there's a potload of needs out there as you know maybe some of these comments just might help you your workers compensation costs are exploding most cost and workers comp are going down years are going up even with the fact that you don't no longer carry orange county thought you're no longer you have a fire department

why are they going up when everyone else is going down quite significantly here at 9.6 about 30 40 increase over the last couple of years most of you are going down 30 to 40 percent over the last couple of years your general liability you know where's that money going uh 8.5 to 10.7 Why? How are you controlling those costs? Are you managing your legal department, your legal defense? Are you doing anything to prevent? I just tripped in fall one day over there on Ross Street because you put a post out and I tripped over it. I'm okay, but things like that can lead to cost, expense, and legal fees.

Something to think about. You're spending a lot of money on that and people out here have some real needs. you got 6.9 in metro the war in afghanistan is winding down you know we're no longer on the state of terrorism i think we can kind of loosen that up a bit you're only paying 400 000 to vice for people that protect keep drugs and prostitutes prostitutes from our children i don't see the value in 6.9 maybe there's some money in it that we need but again the war on terror is effectively we over we can relax and go back to civilization pretty much let's try to look at that critically

and what do we really need the discussion around outsourcing to the sheriff has been on the table before let's put it on the table now you have a lot of needs out there and and the money does not grow on trees the police department vehicle expense is not it's not transparent i can't find them in the line item although i am observing that they are doubling up on control so i applaud the police chief for that that would be more effective use of our resources as well as improve response times i don't know if in the purge line item you include an assumption for the reduction and the

obligations going forward through the bond agreement maybe you have to wait till that's in place and everything all the legal requirements are passed but i don't know what's included there so i'm just questioning that i will say that no one has been able to address that when this additional layer of liability occurs does occur annually whereas in the bond if it occurs if occurs annually you can be even for a wild ride on that so please look into that just having this i think overall it's a good approach. I think overall you will save money. I think you would

have to understand the process and how you get there. Lastly on the parking, you are in a deficit in the parking. You gave away $600,000 for third and Broadway project. Now you're in debt. What are we going to do about that? And we have some real needs out there for parking. You know, our businesses are suffering because of that one hour new revision and the limit and they need a they need a break but you are in debt in the park we used to be a 500 600 000 positive cash flow on third and with third and broadway you're now on the negative you know this is not a good way to

do business folks and you need to look at that where it's a little seriously i just like the usual conclusion of my time just to respond to a couple of things that were out there regarding warnings i didn't get a warning when i got a jaywalking ticket i got a 200 fine 7 8 in the morning going to work my whole day was gone whatever i was going to make that day gone No warning. You know, people go and do these things because they want to, and I think the police can, we can trust the police to make the right decision.

I think it's time for this, these speeding events and exhibition to be gone. I've always been killed three times by speeding cars. I now have an accidental death and dismemberment policy because I'm afraid of being killed, and I want my family protected. three times I've been almost killed by a speeding car events let's do a cannabis festival let's take advantage of who we are if Gilroy has a garlic festival let's do a cannabis festival generate money for the community and all these

events Victor if you can wrap up it lights red okay and just like I said

I'm one last point parking councilmember Mendoza mentioned that and yes let's just please revisit that one hour limit people are really hurting taco vendors are hurting another hour you know at least for another few minutes could help out. Thank you. Thank you so much for allowing me this time. Thank you. Madam Clerk,

I believe we have some members of the public that are on the phone line that wish to address us.

Yes, and before I unmute them, Mayor and members of the council, I do want to announce that we did receive written communication for item 29. One Santa Ana resident commented regarding an article about cities that defunded police, need more police officers and more training for Santa Ana residents' organization and Senator Umberg in support of the Vietnamese community liaison position. One arts and culture commission requested for a budget for arts and culture. One Santa Ana resident requested for reallocation police department funding to other social

services and one Dalhye Center CEO requested for funding for services provided at the Dalhye Center. An expansion for deportation defense fund to $300,000 annually to be included in the budget support were received by four Santa Ana resident, five non-Santa Ana resident, and one residency not disclosed. And with that, caller with the last three numbers, 689, if you would please select the R6 or the unmute feature on your device. Thank you.

Caller with the Lassie number 689, you've successfully unmuted yourself.

Hi there, City Council. My name is Tanya Navarro. And I would just like to say that I believe the City of Santa Ana is a beautiful, vibrant and diverse community. And I don't think that's currently being represented with the budget. Our city is all too willing to invest in the criminalization of its people versus investing in their growth. Right now, Santa Ana PD receives the largest portion of the city's revenue, and I don't believe that accurately represents what the city is about.

I'm calling on Santa Ana city leaders to break from this historical prioritization of policing in the city budget and invest in robust social services for Santa Ana youth and residents, not more policing and suppression. Many people have stepped up during COVID-19 to try to fill the gaps that our community has desperately needed. And I believe if we invest in these types of programs, we can invest in the growth of our community instead of imprisonment. The deportation defense fund is essential in the city of Santa Ana, and I believe it should be given a permanent line on the budget.

Organizations like Viet Rai, Latino Health Access, United Across Borders, OC Cortez have been essential during the COVID-19 time and have provided services that have been much needed even before the pandemic began. I think if the City Council is able to reach out to a lot of these grassroots organizations that are already doing the work on the ground and invest in their programs and invest in the youth and invest in the communities, then we'll be able to have a better community altogether.

I also want to echo everything that people have said about getting or hiring a Vietnamese liaison and also the message from Alicena Trans Latinx. And that's all, thank you.

Thank you. Zoom ID Manny Escamilla, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device.

Okay, hello, can you hear me?

Yes, you can hear you, thank you.

Thank you. So thank you, Mayor and Council. I am happy to see that you all are working together to get some different projects funded in this upcoming budget. I know that St. Ann is a better community when we bring in our different perspectives. So, you know, thankful for Councilmember Becerra with that support on removing that certificate of occupancy process. Really, it's only 370K in this budget, I know it's still in there, but eliminating that will have a major impact in the lives of small business owners along his support, along with Penelosa's support for additional funding for sidewalks.

And, you know, I know my mom will appreciate that. She always complains about the sidewalks around here. Also happy to see that dog park and the capital improvement fund. Council member Mendoza, you know, very eloquently supporting the increase in the immigration defense fund that does make a difference in local lives. So looking forward to continue to support there. Council member Fan with her support for the Vietnamese community liaison, much needed, a long historic precedent in the city of having different community liaisons when they're needed. And we definitely need that now. Council member Hernandez supporting

that afterschool programming in the budget, trying to get more money for it. I really do believe preventative services should be funded more heavily. Council member Lopez for continuing our open space and upgrading our park spaces. Looking forward to seeing if we can get more restroom facilities and bringing back that epic slide over in Park Santiago. And then Mayor Sarfanto, just thank you so much for your leadership and trying to push through transformational investments, including winning the argument on the local healthcare agency. So I just wanna see that, you know, kind of everyone working together.

I definitely wanna make a plug for reinvesting in the McFadden library, retaining that one librarian position that we have scheduled for elimination in the budget. And it's really the Santa Ana history room itself is understaffed. And I know we all talk about the preservation and love of our city's history, but we can use some more staffing there even if we just retain that position at a lower classification. And for the question earlier on the events that were formerly here in the city, well, the Santa Ana History Room can tell you that we had an Armistice Day parade, toys on parade, an annual rose float.

So we actually had a parade at the, sorry, we had a float at the Rose Parade, a Santa Ana Grand Prix bike race, OZ Pride, Golden City Days, both Cinco de Mayo and Piezas Patrias, the Times Orange County Holiday Parade, parade for the opening of the Pacific Electric Line, the Iowa Foresters and Elks would have their parade, as well as a parade for our local Company L, which is our former local branch of the US Army. So a lot of the great stuff in that history room, but we do need to adequately fund it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Zoom ID, Carla Juarez. if you would please select the microphone icon on your device.

Yes, hi, good evening. My name is Carla Flores. I am a resident in Santa Ana, Ward 5, and was previously Ward 2.

I am calling in regards to item number 29 and revised antenna. I wanted to make sure that I laid it through the meeting. congrats on everyone else who did to make sure that i advocate for residents who are the essential workers who kept us alive through the pandemic and that this um health is is mostly for them and i also want to um check help everyone else check our privilege that this is not a luxury or

money that we could choose for luxuries but it's for necessities and one of the biggest necessities is housing I also want to echo the fact that our undocumented families did not receive any support so they are also hurting and they're also essential workers same as our Latinx trans Latinx families as well who are also hurting and we've heard them many many times also among those the undocumented

folks also assistance on the legal funds definitely against the evictions that are coming

and the art is great but art is also a luxury if we could invest and programs on also have the youth who have also been very affected because their families when a family goes through eviction is not only the adults are affected but youth and youth programs that are from the youth, that the youth are the leaders and saying what they want. It's kind of like a community agreement.

And also, I lost my train of thought, but I do want to thank you for everyone who has participated. Also, I am in agreement on the Vietnamese liaison. and um and i lost but thank you please uh don't forget your essential workers who thanks to them mostly undocumented and thanks to them we are still alive because they did not have a choice

their bills were not going to get paid and they did not receive any support so this helped the Revised Santana has to go to the most affected and the most vulnerable in our community not for our 15 seconds left and I will use up all my time that I have left to remind you all that the essential workers were undocumented and the essential workers were of color and they had to put their lives on the line for us they did not have the privilege to work from home so So please help go to them.

Thank you.

Caller with the last three numbers, 416, please dial star six to unmute your call or select the microphone icon.

Caller with the last three numbers, 416, please dial star six or select the microphone icon

on your device. Thank you. Hi, my name is Orgert Munchie. I'm a resident here in Santa Ana, of board one and i just wanted to express my very strong support of establishing a vietnamese community liaison under a full-time budget um i think it's actually kind of disappointing that there's not already something like this in this city i know a number of the nearby cities that also have sizable vietnamese populations have had vietnamese language services for quite a while um i'm not vietnamese but my mother-in-law is vietnamese and i have watched her struggle many

times in dealing with basic necessities of life in this city um and accompanying her to things like when she got her vaccine and you know luckily for her there were other people there who could communicate with her but for that she might have been lost or confused almost the entire time when was getting her COVID vaccine. I think that's kind of not a thing that we want to emulate. The city poor representation like we see in Congress where the body makeup of congress members in almost no way reflects the actual population of this country. I think we can we can do better

and looking at the representation in Santa Ana and seeing that about 25 percent of the city is or 25,000 members of the city are of Asian, of Vietnamese background. The majority of Asian background individuals in Santa Ana, about 60%, based on a 2019 survey, found that they've labeled themselves as less than confident English speakers or listeners. And you have that kind of disadvantage. as you're having an enormous proportion of your city going on service, not participating in irregular parts of democracy.

I think it's kind of a super overview thing. This is obviously a majority Latinx community, but there's a very sizable Vietnamese population that has been nearly ignored. And it took, of course, until this last year to even have a member of city council represent that portion of our city. So with that, I just want to reiterate my support for it. I think it's deeply overdue. I think it's a bare minimum necessity that we should be doing for any community in this city that's of any significant size. Thank you. Thank you. Zoom ID,

budget, I'm sorry, Media Arts Santa Ana. Can you all hear me? Can you all hear me? Yes,

we could hear you. Thank you. Awesome. All right. Hello, Mayor Sarmiento and City Council. This is Victor Payon, Executive Director of Media Arts Santa Ana, and I am a resident of the Eastside Pacific Park neighborhood. And I wanted to speak to you today on the budget and the Revive Santa Ana funding to talk about the importance of the arts. And I was shocked just now to hear the the previous speakers talk about art being a luxury. Art is not a luxury, it's an essential part of the human experience of a healthy society, of a healthy population, and it's troubling that attitudes like that still exist in Santa Ana,

but I think it speaks to the kind of arts events that are presented to the public by interests that we label as gentrification interests that may not have relevance to the community. And that's why public funding for the arts is so critical because it ensures that equity is built into the process and that the needs of the city and the residents are addressed. We all know that arts means jobs. It means opportunities, education, emotional health, lower crime, social justice, tourism, self-expression, and civic engagement. Funding and prior programs for the arts will be felt in all wards,

in all cultural and immigrant communities, and by people of all ages, from students to seniors. Artists are essential workers. We all saw how the art sector stepped up to provide programming that got us all through the pandemic. often artists and organizations providing these services and programming out of their own pocket with no funding support. Remember all the free concerts, performances, screenings, workshops, classes that you and your children and family members and neighbors took to help get through the pandemic. Those were artists working on behalf of the public for the pandemic.

We need public performing and presenting spaces as we recover. Funding for the arts fulfills multiple priorities in the general plan and also in the master plan the arts master plan which is a 10-year plan and we're halfway through it funding festivals as was discussed should be considered economic investment and should be part of an arts budget the arts commission has submitted some funding recommendations in a letter that was referenced i hope you read it before you make your decision on funding they're recommending a million dollars for the arts from the revived

santa ana and this represents a fraction of what the arts sector already contributes

through activity generated by arts activities and organizations. So I urge you to read it. I sent an email on May 21st with information about the Otis Report and the Creative Economy. Usually it talks about how strong the economy grows each year, and this year it focused on how devastated the arts sector was by the pandemic. And Arts OC, Arts Orange County, is a recent survey that documented that Orange County Arts Community lost $121 million and thousands of jobs during the pandemic, so we need help to recover and revive.

Allocate critical seed money to jumpstart an artistic and economic post-quarantine renaissance with the arts at the center. The Arts Commission is asking for a million dollars from Revive Santa Ana. In my May 21st letter, I asked for $200,000 for the annual budget. We can use cannabis money for the arts, 2% for the arts, hotel money. These were ideas that were discussed before and not followed up on, but they will work. So make funding for the arts a permanent line item. And we're also asking for $9,000 to participate in the Americans for the Arts, Art and Economic Prosperity Study. It happens every five years.

We don't want to miss it. This is a reasonable request. And any investment you make today, we'll give back 10 times in the coming year. Thank you.

Thank you.

Zoom ID Hector Bustos, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Hector Bustos. I'm a resident in Ward 4, and tonight I'm here representing Chispa. And so I want to begin my public comment by just saying that it's quite interesting to hear the council member from Ward 4 finally talking about the financial burden families may be facing while discussing the street takeover item, when he's consistently voted in favor of items that put these same residents in a vulnerable financial situation. If you want to talk about financial burden, let's talk about the financial burden facing our community members for years. Let's talk about this financial burden

our unhoused neighbors are facing and the vulnerable position they were placed in recently because of poor decisions made by the city. Let's talk about the financial burden families in the surrounding downtown area and families all across the city are facing because of your decision to put profit over people and approve luxury apartments in the Lacey neighborhood earlier this year. Let's talk about the financial burden the trans community is facing in Santana and the lack of resources offered to this community outlined by some of my neighbors today. Let's talk about the financial burden facing our community

because the police department absorbs the largest portion of the city budget. So I hope the city council member continues this argument of financial burden when addressing the budget tonight. I hope he acknowledges the way in which the public safety system we have in place right now, criminalizes our young people and puts them behind bars. What about the financial burden those families face? And aside from those comments, we would like to put forward some demands drafted by members of this community. Residents thrive when they can take their families to parks and community gardens, when educational and recreational programs

are available for young people, and when families are free from fears of eviction, deportation, and criminalization. So our very first clear demand is that we need to defund the police. This historical prioritization of policing in our city budget needs to end. We're calling on the Santa Ana city leaders to break from this historical prioritization and invest in robust social services for Santa Ana youth and residents, not more policing and suppression. This council has a responsibility to put its residents first. When our police department is one of the deadliest in the country with 27 shootings per 300,000 residents

and taking steps to keep officer misconduct records away from the public eye, handing over blank checks to repay political debts at a time of financial uncertainty for the city, it's financially and morally irresponsible. We also need to invest in our youth. It's necessary for youth to see programs that are preventative such as jobs, internships, and fellowships for all youth in Santana, including system impacted youth and undocumented youth. The city council must redirect youth suppression spending into healthy youth development services, programs, and resources such health counselors, youth re-entry programs, expungement clinics,

teen mom programs, and food cards for young people who don't have access to foods. And finally, this city council needs to focus on investing in housing. The city must establish and sustain a safety net for cities for families to work towards a full recovery financially and improving food and housing security, including rental assistance, universal income regardless of immigration status and free child care. Organizations across the cities have helped us get through this pandemic. The city has a thing or two to learn from these organizations. Organizations were able to get resources to our community without prioritizing

thing and criminalization of our community. So you can do the same. Learn from our community organizations and defund the police. Thank you.

Zoom ID, Jesus Santana. If you would please select the microphone icon. Thank you.

Hello, Mayor and City Council members. Today, I'm grateful and honored to be here. I'm speaking to you all. I think it's something that I also find as a privilege because due to lack of accessibility and technology, a lot of our Spanish-speaking residents are not able to do that.

and also our Vietnamese community as well. You know, I think it's something very important that we must address. So I please encourage you all to make sure that in the future meetings, we do what we can, especially with money coming in, you know, to support this accessibility to our other communities who are not able to join us tonight. But overall, in regards to saves, I mean, in regards to the federal funding that we'll be receiving to revive Santana, I just want to point out that most of the money that's going towards, you know, programs

that are going to be supporting our residents repay rent are not going to be going to residents themselves but to property owners so i think it's very unfair that this money is not going to be gifted and rewarded to the most impacted community members which are undocumented community members our trans at the next community members and also our youth you know i think for the most part we must do our due diligence to prioritize our community members because we do not want to continue the violence and systemic issues that have been affecting us through generations,

especially being born and being a resident of Ward 2, I believe. It used to be Ward 3, but now it's Ward 2. So I think for the most part, I just want to say that we must do what we can in this point in time to do what we can for our community members that, you know, represent Santana. I'm also a proud Santanero, born and raised all my life, and I think I want to make sure that in the future my nephews my future kids you know will have the the luxury and and also the experience of not growing up in in a lifetime where i you know unfortunately had to lose a lot of family

members and also a lot of friends when i was growing up so please i encourage you to prioritize

our community members thank you thank you zoom id thrive santana if you would please select the microphone icon on your device hello hi thank you please announce your name and if you're a resident

of the city yes thank you my name is Luis Sarmiento with Thrive Santana our community land trust I'm a resident of Santana.

And I want to speak in support of a lot of the community members that have mobilized today in support of the Vietnamese community, the LGBTQ, the trans community, whom are so often left out of these conversations and decision-making around the use of public resources, which should be benefiting our residents. And as this last year has shown us during the pandemic, the COVID-19 pandemic,

we should now understand that taking care of our most vulnerable residents is in the city's best interest and is in everyone's best interest. It's something I think that we've been talking about for years. So we call for a responsible use of our public funds to benefit Santana residents instead of paying for the increased cost of law enforcement and of the many public health crises we see today. Let us invest in preventions, in solutions that are driven by the real experts, by those directly impacted community members

whose well-being is at the center of our future as a city. And again, this includes investment in youth programs and also $5 million minimum to facilitate economic development on public lands driven by residents in Santana with collaboration with our community land trust Thrive Santana and with other community organizations. Housing for extremely low-income families in Mercadito, parks and community centers, and a low-barrier shelter for our houseless neighbors who are facing very difficult times.

Also support for small merchants and micro-enterprises, including cooperatives, and including support for capacity building. Also, the support for the Immigrant Legal Defense Fund, making that a permanent budget line item. And community centers for arts, culture, and theater in Spanish and in other languages, including indigenous, Chicana, Latin American and Central American culture, African American and Black culture and history, Vietnamese and Cambodian culture and history.

15 seconds left and other cultures and communities that have contributed to the history of Santana

and its neighborhoods thank you thank you zoom id dang t-lay if you would please select the

microphone icon on your device um hello good evening um the mayor and the council member Today, I just want to say I'm grateful to be here, listening to everybody talking, working together, building a better community. I want to voice my support for creating the Vietnamese license for the Vietnamese community. And also, I want to voice my support for the LGBT community as well as young adults and the immigrant community.

I think that we should focus on the new people, the young adult, where they can make a difference in the future. I think that would be a great idea. I won't just keep it short, but thank you for everything in tonight was a great night. Listen to you talk about community. Thank you.

Thank you. Zoom ID Josie Gloria, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device.

Zoom ID Josie Gloria, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device.

Zoom ID Fabiola Zamora, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device.

Thank you. You successfully unmuted yourself. you may proceed with your comment

ah buenos noches me nombre es Fabiola Zamora soy de la comunidad originaria nativa purépecha residente de Santana por más de dos de décadas mi comentario es y sugerencia disculpe tiene traductor en español

yes you can continue thank you my suggestion is use with responsibility the public funds invest in programs for young people and designed by young people support the community native originators of different cultures that live and pay the impetus in this city

calles limpias y vivienda flexible y digna para la comunidad obrera santanera más árboles y parques comunitarios y jardines comunitarios agrícolas para un futuro verde para los niños que son los futuros de mañana más centros de refugio para personas sin hogar eso es mi sugerencia y mi petición muchas gracias

Good evening. My name is Fabiola Zamora. I'm an original indigenous Purépecha, and I've been a resident of Santana for over two decades. And I have some suggestions for the responsible use of public funds, more programs for youth that are for youth by youth, more programs for Native Americans and people who live in this community who are taxpayers of this community, more clean streets and more programs for trees and for parks and for community gardens and so we can have a green life a green more green Santa Ana and finally more shelters for homeless thank you Thank you very much.

Zoom ID, no name.

Hello, can you hear?

Yes, we could hear you. You're cutting off a little bit.

Can you hear me now?

Yes, we can hear you.

Excellent, thank you. First and foremost, I wanna go ahead and thank the city council because you guys are, from what I saw from the video, you guys allowed individuals into a public domain to go ahead and express their First Amendment, which was a regress and redress of their grievances. So I thank you. That is awesome. It took you a while because ever since the pandemic, Walmart was open, Target was open, The airlines were open.

But it just seems to me that small businesses and people who are just trying to make ends meet were suffering.

So I digress. I thank you. My second comment is going to be the fact that you still do not allow comments. Last time I was on here, I literally went ahead and I read you the First Amendment.

I'm not going to do that again. I would hope that some of you guys are smart individuals and would realize that having open comments, whether it be on Zoom or whether it be on YouTube, is not only our legal right, but it's not a privilege. It's a necessity.

Furthermore, when it comes to the police department, it's a reflection. that if you want to go ahead and be a barber, you have to go through two years of schooling.

If you want to be a police officer, it takes a six-month academy.

I will stand behind any officer who does the righteous and legal and operates his profession with integrity.

But what I've seen and what I've experienced, I've seen officers lie on their reports. I've seen officers literally go to trial and go ahead and fabricate false accusations for the people of our community. That's not acceptable.

that's not acceptable our officers should be regarded with the uppermost respect but when the officers themselves are literally acting like hooligans and thugs just to go ahead and cover themselves you have 15 seconds left that's not right And look, I'm going to tell you right now, I have 7 seconds. They have the opportunity to tell them, people who don't have papers, don't arrest them.

Those half of $25 million, don't arrest them. You guys have the power, you guys have the opportunity to say, hey, you know what, we're going to stand up for our Latinos. Thank you. We literally have a president that was literally backing us up, and you guys are still just sitting there on your hands, acting like you're doing us a favor, when in reality, you're just playing politics.

Thank you for your time. Your time is up.

Zoom ID, Josie Gloria, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device to unmute your call.

Persona en la línea, por favor, active el sonido en el aparato que está usando Zoom con el nombre Josie Gloria.

Okay, Mayor, that looks like that was the last caller.

Great. Thank you, Madam Clerk. So let me go ahead and bring it back to staff because I know we had a special study session a week ago yesterday where we devoted a lot of time going over the budget and some details on the revive plan. So I understand there will probably be a condensed presentation and maybe an opportunity to speak with some of the directors as well. But I'll go ahead and turn it over to you, Madam Secretary.

Certainly. Honorable Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and Council Members. tonight's public hearing is your next formal step in the approval process as the mayor mentioned there's really four actions that are before you the first one is initiating the ordinance for our citywide budget approving the seven-year capital improvement plan there is a resolution to effect changes to the class and compensation plan which usually goes coincides with the budget and then I was seeking an approval of the Revive Santa Ana priority focus areas. We're not seeking appropriation of those dollars tonight and related programs.

We certainly will be coming back to you to forward all that information as far as appropriation. And when we implement services and programs, you will be the ones approving those contracts. So I know I want to thank you for your leadership and direction during this process. I know each of you have spent countless hours going through your 600-700 page document. This is the fifth time the budget has come before you, but this is the official introduction of the ordinance. So we do have a presentation, Mayor. You might not like how long it is, but we want to walk you through just the overall. We'll move really quickly on that.

We want to talk to you about all the things we programmed and revived based on your feedback, and then also the changes that we have recommended for you to meet some of your requests that you made. But one of the more exciting things of the presentation tonight is this is the time you get to hear from each one of the operating departments. They won't go into detail on their budget. It will be very brief on that. But it's also an opportunity for them to tell you about some significant highlights they've had this year under your leadership as well as some future goals.

So before I turn it over to Finance Director Down, I do want to acknowledge the Finance Director and her whole team. they have worked tirelessly at efforts to prepare this proposed budget before you tonight. We are a complex and multifaceted municipality and the preparation of a proposed citywide budget takes several months to accomplish and hundreds of hours of work. So with that I am going to introduce Executive Director of Finance, Kat Downs.

Thank you. Thank you. to propose an appropriation on June 15th for each spending category listed on this slide.

The proposed appropriation includes the first half, or $64.2 million, of the city's allocation from the American Rescue Plan Act, plus $15.3 million of funding restricted housing for a total of $79.5 million.

Next, I will provide a quick overview of the proposed budget. In the general fund, which is the primary operating fund of the city, we expect revenue of $340.9 million. In this chart, you can see that sales tax and property tax comprise more than half of our unrestricted revenue. In addition, let's see here, the revenue plus $12.8 million of the general fund balance available for spending gives us the resources we need for proposed general fund appropriations.

The proposed general fund budget is $353.8 million. This chart shows the breakdown by department as well as the payment for the pension debt.

In addition to unrestricted general revenue, the city receives revenues subject to spending restrictions. This chart shows the breakdown of the proposed budget for the restricted funding sources, including the city's water enterprise, affordable housing, gas tax for right-of-way maintenance, and grants and allocations for infrastructure improvements.

Next, each department head will make a quick presentation. Ms. Daisy Perez of the City Manager's Office will present the budget for both her office and the City Council.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. First, I'd like to provide a brief overview of the City of Santa Ana Organizational Chart. As you can see at the top of the chart, we have our residents of Santa Ana. Next is our Mayor and City Council, which are the policy makers of the city. And the Mayor and City Council have three direct appointees, the city attorney, the city manager, and the clerk of the council.

As you can see, the city council budget only makes up 0.1% of the citywide budget, which is about $600,000. dollars and all of that is comprised of general fund but it only makes up 0.2% of the general fund.

Next I will dive into the city manager's office budget. As you can see in the city manager's office we have three separate divisions. Our communications division which is currently one but we're proposing a second full-time position. Administration and operation which is five full-time positions and then our administrative support which is three full-time and one part-time position we also have three part-time management interns that are not included in the organizational chart

as you can see the city manager's office budget only makes up 0.3 percent of the citywide budget It is fully funded by the general fund, but that only comprises of 0.7% of the general fund, and that's a total of $2.8 million.

Next, I'll go ahead and share some highlights that we had over the last year. We are very busy. Our office led the COVID-19 response and recovery efforts, including the issuance of 16 executive orders. We produced 30 COVID PSA videos and administered over $28.6 million in CARES funding, which included 35,000 COVID tests, over 200 mobile resource centers, and a dedicated hotline assisting over 17,000 callers. We also launched a bi-monthly community newsletter to share news, updates, and other timely information to our residents, businesses, and other community members.

We led the Santa Ana 2020 Census Complete Count Committee, increasing self-response rates in 78% of census tracts in the city as compared to 2010 response rates. I'd like to share we will be expecting to receive our census data later this fall. And we also increased social media following by over 81% across all platforms. YouTube subscribers went up over 400% and our website traffic grew to an all-time high of over 500,000 page views in one month. Next I'd like to share some

goals for the next year. We'd like to continue to play a lead role in COVID-19 recovery efforts including the Revive Santa Ana initiative. Hire an equity and inclusion coordinator to educate and support city staff and elected officials to advance equity and ensure that all residents have what they need to thrive in Santa Ana. We'd also like to conduct a study of language, cultural, and communication barriers in Santa Ana households to formulate new strategies to better reach secondary English and immigrant constituents. Last, we'd like to play a lead role in exploring best practices for police

oversight, including identifying various models of oversight and evaluating the various frameworks.

Now I'd like to turn it over to our city attorney's office, and we have our city attorney here.

Madam city manager, let me see if I can maybe ask a question here. We may have questions of a specific director on their proposals, on maybe what their budget presentation looks like, and if we wait until the tail end, we're going to be swamped.

I agree, Mayor. Take advantage of the person that's in front of you with questions.

we can just ask while they're up there, and I'll just canvas anybody who has questions of that department director or department representative so we can go ahead and kind of go department by department if that makes sense, and we'll try to be stealth about it. Hopefully we'll try to keep to the three-minute rule if we can on this, and we'll all kind of play by the honor system on this one. So let me bring it back to the council to see if they have any questions. Question?

Council member Lopez. Council member Lopez, go ahead.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor Samantha. I really do like the breaking it down by department. And when it comes to CMO's office, one of the things that I noticed is that, you know, I'm essentially being asked to approve a budget that doesn't include another executive assistant. And so right now we have six council members sharing two secretaries. And so it's a little concerning to me that we're not planning to bring in somebody else into the CMO's office.

Because personally, I am very busy with the amount of requests on a daily basis that my office receives. and so I can only imagine the workload of having to be an executive assistant and managing three different people. And so I see that there's funding for this equity and inclusion coordinator. And for me, the priority would be to bring in somebody that's gonna be able to support the work that we are doing.

Great, thank you, Council Member Lopez. I believe Council Member Hernandez, you also have a question.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Or actually, actually, Council Member, hold on one second. Maybe there was a response to that question that was asked by Council Member Lopez.

Thank you, Mayor. There might be a question in there, I guess, just to help explain is our former government is a council manager form of government, and the council elected officials are part-time policymakers, and by charter, there can't be employees that work directly for them. So we do provide assistance within the city manager's office. And Councilmember Lopez, you're correct. We did have an individual and executive assistant that left. We filled that position with a part-time person that would take away some of the other tasks from the other two executive assistants so they could help with your workload.

The other thing that we want to do is with the three interns that Daisy mentioned that we now have in the office, we want to assign each of you to one of those interns as well. That would give you access to another individual, particularly in the area of policy research. I'd like you to see how that works for you before we go down another avenue of hiring any full-time bodies that are dedicated strictly to elected officials. Hopefully that makes sense, what I just said, and I did answer if there was a question in there.

Great, thank you. And I know I'll call on people as they're raising their hands or getting my attention, and I think it was Council Member Hernandez and I'll call on Council Member, no?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Council Member Hernandez. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yes, to Council Member Lopez's point, I concur. I do think that it is critical that we have an additional executive assistant. I know that we are city manager and council structure and I respect that, but I do know that for us to be more effective in our role, I just think it's better for us to have adequate amount of staff because I know that I share my executive assistant with two additional council members two very proactive council members and I

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

can only imagine how busy she is because I know how busy I am as an elected I'm very responsive to my constituents. So I want to see our city staff, you know, feel supported, not feel overwhelmed because at the end of the day, I want them to be able to perform at their best. And if they're overwhelmed with the heavy workload, I just don't think that it's conducive for the best results. So I would advocate and request for us to have, you know, a fully staff executive assistant team, just like when we came into office in December.

Thank you, Councilmember. Any other? Councilmember Pham.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Thank you. So a couple clarifying questions that I wrote down as you did your presentation. So for clarification, who's the second full-time position in comms?

So we reclassified the full-time executive assistant position to a management analyst level communications person. Is that the management assistant? Correct. So that would be focused on communications, helping Paul Eakins. As you know, he's very busy, and you all have a lot of requests for him, as well as he supports all of the departments in the city. And so our thought process on that was we would have one additional person dedicated to assist with more high-level communication projects, and that includes support for the council as well.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Okay, and so what does that mean with high-level communications projects? Like, are we talking about press releases, social media posts? Do we have a requirement that this person is bilingual? That's correct, yes.

So that would be drafting press releases, writing different things for the department, for the city, and mainly preparing things for the communications manager to serve as the editor.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Okay, got it. And would this also include PD comms or is that going to be separate? That would be separate. A public police department. I think they have their separate comms.

No, it would not. Actually, you do have PIO people that are out in the, if I understood your question correctly. They have a PIO. Police has a PIO. Public Works has a great community outreach person that helps with all the construction notices and Planning has the neighborhood services that also does outreach as well.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Okay, so I was just trying to figure out what departments this management assistant would work with. Okay, and then my other question is this study that we're looking for to discuss the language, cultural, and communication barriers. Frankly, that kind of sounds to me like the parking study that we don't need because we know there's a parking problem in the city I think all of us on this dais and those virtually can tell you what some of the language cultural and communication barriers are four of us just ran a campaign dealing with that in the middle of kovid and we reached out

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

to our very distinct constituents and so I guess I don't really know how much that's gonna cost or what that would tell us or partner up with UCI public policy and have some grad students do it for free? I don't know. I love those suggestions, Council Member. We do need to,

to the extent right now, I do want to correct some of the speakers. We spend almost $2 million in translation services between what we contract out for and the $1.8 million that we pay our city employees to be able to speak bilingually. And they speak Spanish, Korean, Vietnamese, Arabic, Chinese, and Hindi. So what we would need to do is if we are starting a policy where we're going to put materials out in various languages, I think we need to have a policy for that. Which documents get translated into how many different languages do we do that? That would be the purpose of doing a study to make sure that we are reaching out,

as you guys directed us to do, to make sure every part of the community feels heard. But it is going to take a policy to come up with what items do we translate into six different languages versus what items do we translate in two different languages. So that's what it meant.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Awesome. Just off the top of my head, I think an easy policy to kind of adapt is, you know, what does the state require for our ballots? What is the percentage of voters necessary to speak a certain language to require that a ballot be provided in that language? That might be an easy one to start off with. With that, that's all the questions I have for now. Thanks.

Thank you, Councilmember Becerra.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just have one question. So the equity and inclusion coordinator, how will that be funded? That's not something out of the general fund, correct?

We thought it was so important to add the position. We did add it. But as we've learned about the guidelines, we do think it is something we could probably fund with ARPA dollars. So if it's the direction of this council to fund a third executive assistant, I think we could probably shift the funding over for the equity now that we believe it is a allowable expense.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Okay, so that adds a little clarity here because it seemed like with this coordinator position that I think it sounded like some of my colleagues were saying that they felt that this would, I guess, kind of replace that potential third executive assistant. And I know that our executive assistants work hard and they are definitely swamped with a lot of the work that we provide them but at least with this equity and inclusion coordinator this is not something that's taking over a position that we I think a lot of us got accustomed to but rather this is something that's kind of a separate item you're correct

sir so really the replacement for the executive assistant was to bring in a part-time individual to free up the other two executive assistants time by having an individual that could do the routine processing and office I think Daisy can probably list the task that the part-timer is now picking up that before was spread among the executive assistants. Things such as processing payroll, purchase orders, and all of those types of tasks. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other requests to speak or any questions or comments? So just a couple of things, Daisy and Madam City Manager, on this. So I think there's some clarity here. I do think it's not a bad idea to maybe look at using some of the revive monies for the inclusion and equity person. Although on that, you know, it's almost a difficult role to define, and I think we need a little bit more work on how we get there with that. I really like the idea of getting the third executive assistant in its place

because if you look at an article that just came out on cities and how well staffed they are, most cities are a size, and I think I've said this a few times already, either are full-time positions for their council members and they're staffed, some of them, or they're compensated fully or they're staffed, and we have neither, really. So we have some, and as you said, our charter form of government, we can't employ anybody to help us. So we rely on the city manager's office to staff us up and help us. But it really is overwhelming because a city this size with as many complicated problems as there are,

with as many requests to respond to constituent issues, it really does suffer, I think, because we can't do that effectively. As much, like as incredible as our executive assistants are and as the department heads are and as the staff is, I mean, they do an incredible job, but it really is diminishing the expectation of what the public has of its policymakers. I really do think that it erodes trust, it erodes performance. And look, I'm not looking for a paycheck. I'm just looking for all of us to have some help, right, to be able to deliver services in an effective way.

And if you look at the cities like Oakland, even Anaheim and Irvine increase theirs. and Irvine's a smaller city. So to the extent that we have such complicated issues, all of us are expected to hold down full-time jobs, and look, all of us signed up for this, so we knew what it was. But I think we can deliver a more effective product to our residents if we do have some support. So I would say if you could do this, maybe during your mid-year review, let's see what these interns do to help us. Let's see what this third new executive assistant is able to accomplish. let's see what the full-time Vietnamese liaison,

because I don't think they're going to be just doing, translating, they're going to be doing a lot of things. They could be supporting the council as well. I mean, these could be dual roles. It doesn't have to be a singular purpose. So let's look at all those things, and if we see that we're still scrambling, and it really is difficult to not respond to somebody's call or not answer somebody's letter, not do things, it's a horrible feeling. So, you know, so we're just I think asking hey, let's let's let's fortify, you know, these these efforts that we have

So I would just say let's bring it back like at mid-year and let's let's see where we are, you know Based upon that. So those would be my suggestions if that works for the council council member fan

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

I do have this feeling and I I know I asked this question last time Madam City Manager Or maybe Daisy this equity inclusion coordinator I still can't really wrap my head around what exactly their tasks are supposed to be day to day and are they a temporary 12-month position just to help us with

the revive funds or are they like indefinite so as we roll out services to recover from COVID-19 we know that we have different pockets that haven't been treated equitably so the purpose of it would be a limited term employment which you can recruit. It's allowable under the ARPA guidelines. And it would be to ensure that all of the programs that we're rolling out under Revive and also other programs that we have are reaching all of the intended audience that need the most assistance. It's not something that if you approve this budget it's going to be instant

because only you can approve a classification and we don't have this classification. So So the classification would have to be created by HR. It would have to tell what's the minimum qualifications, what are the scope of their responsibilities, what's the established pay rate, and it would come back to you for approval before we could even attempt to recruit an individual in that position.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Great. So just like the idea of the Vietnamese community liaison, you have to go out, check neighboring cities, what they're doing, daily tasks. Just because, you know, the idea of equity and inclusion coordinator to tell us, well, we need a vaccine clinic in Santa Anita like the residents told us and so I just I don't know I have this feeling where it might be a little bit duplicative with the stuff that we're already doing but you know I'll do you have any examples of nearby cities or other cities that are using

this type of person oh I think Daisy has well councilmember fan if I just may add the equity and inclusion coordinator is a reclassification of my former position the senior management assistant. So some of the tasks that I worked on prior that could have fallen under this role is like the census 2020 efforts or the mobile resource center for care. So it wouldn't necessarily just be providing recommendations but also working directly with different community groups and external partners to make sure that we are providing equitable services. And when we developed this role working with our HR department we looked at Long Beach's

Office of Equity to offer guidance in terms of what that would look like.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

All right, cool. Thanks.

Great. Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem.

David PenalozaItem 1

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. And thank you, Daisy, for the information in regards to the city manager's office. Some of the questions that I had are similar to what my colleague, Council Member Fan, brought up in regards to the equity and inclusion coordinator. I'm not entirely sure as well what exactly that entails and what that's going to look like. I think of a city of Santa Ana, and I'm so proud to be a representative on the city council and be a resident of the city because of how inclusive and equitable this city has traditionally been, given that we're the central part of the county, I mean, compared to the cities around us.

David PenalozaItem 1

So I look out at our staff and all our executive directors, very diverse crowd. All of our direct hires are women, and I'm extremely proud of that. So I'm trying to comprehend what, you know, this, you know, what, I know there's always room for improvement across the board. Don't get me wrong. We could all do better. But I guess just trying to understand what exactly what tasks that this body would have. Also because it's listed right above the conduct study of language, culture, and communication

David PenalozaItem 1

barriers which go, you know, they work together. And I feel like we're doing, we're looking to hire somebody that would probably come as a result of whatever study, whatever results come from this study. So our goals are to conduct a study of language and cultural and communication barriers in Santa Ana households, but we're also asking to already hire an equity and inclusion coordinator to educate and support city staff and elected officials to advance equity. So I guess I'm just, are we doing both

David PenalozaItem 1

at the same time looking to see if there's a need for this and hiring one is that what's this the

study that's on there was prioritized by our communications manager to look at specifically communication strategies the equity and inclusion coordinator would look at things beyond just communications we did apply for a grant in collaboration with uci latino health access and the community health clinics which is a community equity grant and it would be two million a year and if approved which we should find out soon it would require a full-time project manager to manage these health equity initiatives so it would align with the potential for moving

towards different health resources that we provide our city and so that would be something that they could potentially oversee if we're awarded okay um thank you for that and one thing that i'm also

David PenalozaItem 1

I'm definitely not supportive at the time looking to bring on a third executive assistant for us to support the City Council just because I know that we've recently brought on a lot of very talented interns up on the eighth floor and senior management interns as well that that have been supporting our executive assistants and the City Council with numerous tasks and they're doing a fantastic job and I want you know to us as City Council members and to think of how we could also you know this is this is a part-time position for

David PenalozaItem 1

us and could we use the extra help sure I mean I personally also have a full-time job work 50 hours a week and I make it work I don't think in my two and a half years on the city council I don't think I've I've missed one scheduled meeting you know I maybe one or two that I've had to reschedule and I know that some of our executive assistants I've heard are doing duplicative work because of that because of our a lot of us up your failure to commit to the work that's already being done by our executive assistants so it's gonna take you know So it's a coordinated effort.

David PenalozaItem 1

These are part-time positions. We are part-time policymakers. But we also have to, you know, we know the job we signed up for. We knew it's part-time. We knew that it's hard, no pay, really, a stipend. And, you know, at the time, because of the numerous other issues that we want to address and we want to to bring on I don't think it's appropriate at the time to bring on the third executive it's been a couple months that we haven't had one and I think it's best to see how it plays out over the next couple of months now that things are opening up again if there's a need and like the mayor said

David PenalozaItem 1

in the mid-year budget review maybe then we could look revisit that and see if there's a need for that those are my comments mr. mayor thank you just just

Just last, before we go on to the city attorney's presentation, when it comes to equity and inclusion, we are striving to be a more equitable, a more inclusive community. If we saw how inequitable things were, especially during the CARES Act delivery and getting services to people, and seeing how some households are doing much worse than other households, that shows an inequity just by definition.

So I think the whole purpose of having some, you know, and we can debate about whether it's a person or maybe an outside firm that comes and provides that service to us, whichever way that works, this is certainly not a completely equitable city. There are families that struggle much more than others. There are some that are doing well. There are some that don't get information. There are 10,000 households that don't have access to the Internet. So just based upon just fundamental needs for us to say that this is an equitable city, it's not that we choose not to be or there's some decision that we've made.

It's just that people have different needs and our community is so diverse. You have people that are undocumented. You have people who have large families. You have people who live paycheck to paycheck and others don't. So I think that's the goal of having somebody or some firm that can provide that service because that's what we're hoping to do is make this a more equitable community. So that being said, I kind of understand that a little bit better, but Madam City Manager.

I'm sorry, Mayor, for the interruption. I need to correct myself with Council Member Fan. Our HR department is fabulous and included in the resolution that's before you tonight. they have indicated the addition of a classification title of equity and inclusion coordinator. So it is before you already. My apologies.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Okay. Because I thought I saw that in the line item. That's why. Okay. You did.

Great. Thank you. I guess we'll move along to Sonia Carvalho.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 1

Thank you, Mayor and Councilmembers. as we take a look at the city attorney's office and our organizational chart, just wanted to remind the council and members of the public that our office provides legal advice and services not only to the city council, but to our city staff and our commissions and all of the city's related entities and enterprises. We also prepare ordinances, resolutions and contracts and legal opinions related to land use, community improvement, community investment, our public utilities, public safety and other municipal law matters. We represent the city and its officers as well as employees

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 1

and civil litigation and we oversee the legal services that are provided by outside legal counsel. We also have this unique position of protecting the health, safety and welfare of the public through our effective prosecution of misdemeanor and infraction offenses. We also assist with the administrative fines and penalties program. So our office currently consists of me as a city attorney, an administrative staff of three paralegals. We also have in our transactional group three full-time attorneys. Our general counsel group, five positions are there. And this year we actually transferred one of our senior assistant city attorneys

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 1

into the police legal advisor position, given the amount of work that was being generated out of the police department. Over the past few years, we've found that organizing our attorneys into what is considered kind of like practice groups, something you might see more in the private sector, has not only allowed us to conduct cross training, but it's created more productivity and efficiency in our department. And I actually believe it maintains really high morale because it gives our attorneys an opportunity to go from different departments and to work with different folks.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 1

So our budget at this point represents about 0.4% of the entire citywide budget. budget, our $3.7 million represents 1% of the general fund expenditures. I did want to mention real quick that in comparison to some other cities, because we're often asked that question, just taking a look at some of our neighbors like the city of Anaheim, they have a special prosecution division, but even when you take that out of their budget and you look at just their civil division and their legal administrative division, they They have 20 people and their budget just for the administrative and civil position

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 1

is $6 million compared to our $3.7 million. When you also look at that at the City of Huntington Beach, for example, they have 11 positions in their budget and that equates to about $2.9 million. I don't know whether that includes their elected city attorney or not. So some of the highlights for this past fiscal year. We continued to support all the city departments in the ongoing local emergency due to COVID-19. That took up a significant amount of our time. We participated in the CARES Act task force that the city manager's office led by appointing one of our city attorneys to help.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 1

We've obtained several administrative abatement warrants to do cleanup and weed and rubbish cleanup and also handled other nuisance conditions on private properties. One of our big accomplishments this year is that we defended in-house 57 litigation matters that were brought against the city and its employees. It has been a goal of mine to retain as much legal work in-house as we can, because litigation is expensive when you look at the hourly rates. We've also prioritized and initiated nuisance abatement litigation against several local motels and commercial property owners, resulting in settlements that improve the conditions

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 1

and the quality of our neighborhoods. and we responded to 1,266 requests for legal services. And this was the number through April 30th. We track, we have a system where departments submit legal requests, and that does not include the requests that might come in as we're walking down the hallway or any of the requests that come from our city manager's office. We don't normally have them do that because those requests usually need to be done very quickly, handled quickly.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 1

So some of our goals for this fiscal year is to continue to provide support to you as elected and appointed officials, all of our city departments and the agencies of the city. As we look at the aftermath of COVID-19, we're going to have to unwind. And for example, we have to look at the Brown Act. How does that affect the city council? How do some of the things like your item on the agenda tonight and retaining open businesses that are operating out in the open? We're going to continue the abatement measures for nuisance properties with a focus on what

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 1

I call the abandoned buildings or burned properties and there are nuisance hotels and motels. We'll continue to support all of our city departments and agencies with technology and modernization projects. We'll support our continued efforts to address homelessness and to provide supportive services while addressing these impacts on the community. We will provide support to all the city departments and agencies with the continued implementation of effective policies and processes. And finally, we're gonna identify and implement training opportunities regarding legal issues. In fact, tomorrow morning,

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 1

if we don't get out of here too late, I will be assisting the Human Resources Department with a Public Records Act training session. And we will also be doing some administrative hearing training with the personnel board upcoming. So I'm happy to answer any questions if you have them. And otherwise, I'll hand this over to Daisy Gomez to give you the city clerk's budget.

Great. Thank you, Sonia. Let me go ahead and bring it back to the council to see if there's any questions for you and your presentation. Questions or comments from anybody on the

phone? No questions from me, Mayor. Nobody else?

questions in my end. No. Great, thank you.

Anybody here?

Just a quick question for you, Sonia. I know that on the cannabis funding, your office received some funding from that source for enforcement. And I recall that when that was initiated, I think there was 120 illegal, unpermitted operators and there needed to be a robust response to reduce that. Do we know what that number is right now?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 1

I would, I don't know the exact number, but I would say it's just a handful. We work cooperatively with code enforcement. But what the council should know is that we've taken that full time position because it was for enforcement and it's that full time position currently held by Mr. Montoya. You see a lot of him because what he's doing is we've moved him into what we call quality of life issues and that's why we've been able to file seven nuisance abatement actions against the hotels and motels and we brought more code enforcement actions

it's through that funding of his full-time position great so that initial purpose has shifted now not so much to abating or addressing the nuisance of these unpermitted operators but

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 1

to a different to the yeah and when we adopted the ordinance um mayor you may recall i don't know if other members of the council will recall, but when we adopted the ordinance that broke the cannabis revenue up into the three areas of youth, enforcement, and general fund, you may recall that we broadly defined enforcement because we did anticipate that there would be this possibility that at some point we would not be focused solely on cannabis enforcement.

Okay. Because now obviously the need for that enforcement for cannabis is not the same as it was when we first started. Correct. If we wanted to change those percentages in those allocations, reduce, let's just for example, reduce enforcement, shift some of those funds towards youth, that's something within our policymaking ability to do, right?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 1

You can. The ordinance actually restricts it to a third, a third, a third, but you can override that ordinance with a supermajority vote of the city council.

Which could be incorporated into this budget vote.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 1

I suppose if you did that, we'd have to go back and review the ordinance as well.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 1

Yeah, so if that were the direction of the council, then we would have to also agendize the ordinance and bring that back to you.

Take a look at that, and maybe that's something that can be done between first and second reading. That may or may not be a material change because we're just shifting monies around within the same pool. And I know we've had this conversation before. So would that be something that would be considered a non-material change that could be made from first to second reading?

I believe it would depend on the monetary value because you are permitted to do non-substantive changes, and you have a $650 million budget citywide.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 1

So your section 413 of your city charter allows you to make changes as long as it's within the same scope and it's insignificant. So given the amount of your budget, you could make several changes. If they're in the millions of dollars, that's probably outside of that scope. But if they're less than that, it fits nicely into the charter provision.

Okay. Well, keep that in mind and if you can bring that back to us just so we know. where adjustments can be made and if that if we need to have a reso or some other some other document that that allows for that so yes Okay, and I think that's that's all I have for Go ahead.

David PenalozaItem 1

Thank you mayor Sarmiento and thank you for those comments in regards to the The third going to to code enforcement or enforcement of this actually I think that's something definitely we should definitely visit and and take a look at because i know that i i personally haven't discussed that uh allocation of those funds and i don't think any of the other members on the city council as we're all pretty new one thing that i just wanted to clarify uh maybe staff could answer this when it comes to the third of going to enforce enforcement of this is this just going into

David PenalozaItem 1

general code enforcement or code enforcement specifically related to cannabis because the mayor's right the need for that much enforcement towards to address illegal cannabis dispensaries has gone down significantly compared to what it was back in 2016-17 but I know that it's the illegal shops do still exist and keep it's like whack-a-mole they pop up every you know different parts of the city every time they shut down obviously not as much as we have seen in the past

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 1

but is that it can i get clarification on that so so as i mentioned um when the city council adopt adopted the ordinance that allocated the cannabis funds into those three areas if you look when i bring back the ordinance for you to take a look at you'll see that the definition of enforcement was not limited to cannabis there was a policy decision at least made at that time that these monies were extra monies and what were you going to put these monies to use for. A third was going to go to the general fund, a third was going to go to youth services,

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 1

and a third would go to enforcement to increase the quality of life to address some of the issues that we've had with hoarding, abandoned buildings, burned out buildings and things of that nature. But that is absolutely a policy decision and can be brought back to you to reconsider. We have not, I would say for the last two years, we have not used a significant amount of the time of that full-time position towards illegal cannabis operations. We do have a cannabis issues that come up, whether you're considering new policies like, you know, consumption lounges or whatnot. So that person still serves that role, but we're not doing as

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 1

much enforcement of the illegal operations. Okay. Thank you for that, Madam City Attorney.

David PenalozaItem 1

And I definitely would be supportive of seeing what that looks like and seeing the youth portion increased a lot because it should, but not at the expense of, you know, a code enforcement officer or two because of how big of a need we have with code enforcement. I know your office, Madam City Attorney, you've been working extremely hard on all these nuisance properties and nuisance abatements, and I know you guys are doing a fantastic job working together in really addressing these community concerns that we hear every single day from neighborhoods across the city of what's really going on within our city.

David PenalozaItem 1

And I know it's a department that we have. I'm surprised to not see you ask for more staff because of the amount of work I know you guys have been doing. So thank you for that. Thank you for trying to stay within our means and seeing that. but I would be supportive of seeing that.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 1

If I can just say, I'd really like to thank my staff. They are incredibly hardworking, as many of the employees are throughout the organization, but I can tell you they work weekends and late evenings, and you should be really proud of them. They really care about the community, and that shows in the hard work that they're doing day in and day out.

Thank you for that. Thank you. Council Member Hernandez?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Yes, thank you. I, too, want to take this time to thank your staff, Madam City Attorney, and to thank you. You've been extremely helpful during my time on the council and I just want to give you that affirmation. And I also wanted to echo what Mayor Potem said. I do think that we should have an increase in the monies going to youth services. I think that that would be most beneficial. And on the topic of enforcement, we spend money, I know that to cover a variety of areas that pertain to enforcement, I just think that there's a missed opportunity.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

I know that we talked about enforcement and utilizing enforcement officers to crack down on illegally operating storefronts. And I know that if we just utilize our resources to continuously shut down these storefronts, they're gonna continue to just pop up in different locations. I think that we should regulate these illegal storefronts and we should open up more permits because those are tax dollars that our community could be benefiting from. that could help us create additional parts,

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

additional libraries, additional youth programmings. Maybe we can look at, you know, creating a department specific to youth development. So I think that was my suggestion that I wanted to bring forth is I just want our tax dollars to work well for us. And I think that there's a missed opportunity if we don't regulate that industry and we can have an abundance of tax dollars come to us that can really change the narrative

for young people in our city. Thank you, Council Member. And I believe Council Member Lopez has her hand raised.

I do. Thank you, Mayor Samantha. And, you know, Sonia, I just want to say that you've always been a wonderful resource to me and I want to thank you and your department for all that you do for not just the council members, but for the residents of the city. and Mayor I just want to thank you for bringing this up you know I'm very supportive of bringing back the ordinance and changing those percentages and I would be supportive of you know increasing funding for our youth and so I'm very excited to have that discussion with the entire council and thank you

for bringing that talking point up. Thank you Councilwoman yeah I think just for clarity's sake Sonia nobody wants to take away that enforcement it's maybe cutting a sliver off because obviously there's less of a need we still want to enforce illegal operators that's not good for the industry we want to make sure that those don't pop up but to the extent that we may be able to within that non-material change and maybe you can make that you know kind of take a look at that maybe it's going from 33% to 25% something like that that still allows you a significant fund to be able to because that fund is a lot larger

than we expected it to be as well. When we first started, we forecasted that as half of what it is

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 1

today. So, you know. Right, exactly. And yeah, I don't have concerns about that. I think that obviously that's your policy decision and we will make things work. We will figure out a way. You know, some of our nuisance abatement work is self-funded in a way when we do file some of them against the big corporate wrongdoers. We've been getting, you know, in some cases $50,000 in return for some of those cases so we could fund a position. So I'd be happy to work with staff to figure that out.

Great. Thank you for that. And I forget who was next.

David PenalozaItem 1

Mayor Salamito, just really quick, that's an excellent point. And thank you for bringing that up because I didn't think of the difference in amount that was generated back then. So thank you for that.

No, thank you for those comments.

Madam Clerk, are you up?

I am. Thank you.

So in our office, this is just a high level objectives of our core services and as you all know that they're all mandated by law. So we do have administration where we process our contracts, deeds, update our website, legislative, which includes the agenda, the legal noticing, conforming of the ordinances, resolution, election, elections, and then the records. We have 1.6 million citywide records that we maintain, and then boards and commissions, and that's about a dozen that we also do.

And our budget consists of 0.3% of the citywide budget. We are all general fund, 0.6%, at 2.1 million. And the highlights are, well, recently with our virtual City Council meetings, we held 27 of them since March 2020, and that was with little knowledge of virtual technology, which now I feel I'm an expert at. 2056 public records requests process since COVID shutdown

down in March 2020. So the numbers have actually increased since last year. And implemented a new public record system called Next Request. It's very robust and it's been one of those that we're constantly training staff with change of staff and also just learning new items on the system itself and then also an agenda management system prime gov which we are still also continuously developing and also training staff city wide training of staff to optimize the efficiency during COVID-19 pandemic

including the processing of agreements finalizing processing resolutions updating the municipal code process claims subpoenas summons and legal services. And we did fulfill 56 boards and commission seats. And our goals are, is to align our staffing levels to adequately address the workload requirements of the department. Presently, we feel that this translates to two full-time employees, which has not been proposed to this budget at this time. And then administration of a citywide records

management, so working on our retention schedule to ensure that there's compliance of storage, retrieval, and destruction of city records across all departments. And we're trying to bring this up to date according to law and this hasn't been done since 2013. Intradepartmental cross-training in our office, programs and systems to improve efficiency and effectiveness. And then a 16-month management and execution of redistricting of city wards and the 2022 mayoral and council races, which will include wards 2, 4, and 6.

And that's all I have.

Great. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Let me go ahead and see if any members of the council have any questions for you. Questions? Mayor Pro Tem.

David PenalozaItem 1

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. Not so much questions, but just comments. Madam City Clerk, thank you. And I apologize for the number of public records requests that you've had to process. I know one of the first things that I personally tried to address was making these electronic,

David PenalozaItem 1

these missions accessible to the public via the internet, which was, I mean, before I think they had to print out the form, fill it out, and either fax it or bring it in. And I made it a lot easier for them to do that. So thank you for keeping up. And in regards to the PrimeGov, the one question I had, Madam City Clerk, I know that part of the PrimeGov package that we also discussed in making everything more user-friendly to the public, and not just to the public, but city staff as well, and the management system that you've used, that you've implemented,

David PenalozaItem 1

one of the things we discussed was a voting system that we could all use to electronically vote, where it populates on the screen, who made the motion, who seconded, what the votes were, yes, no's. And I know that you previously had mentioned that that was something that is capable under PrimeGov. I know many of the other public agencies surrounding us, the Santa Unified School District, the Garden Grove Unified School District, and other cities use an electronic voting system that makes a clean-cut, easy recording of votes.

David PenalozaItem 1

I wanted to ask if that was something that your department was moving towards in the next couple of months or a year.

Yes, and hopefully actually starting June 15th, I'm going to try to manage with all of your secretaries to manage scheduling some training which won't take very long, maybe 10 minutes for the most part, but to get that implemented. It's already set up in the system. We just haven't used it because of COVID since we've been meeting virtually. And so utilizing that system would require that the full council is in person.

David PenalozaItem 1

Okay. That would be fantastic to see implemented to our meetings across City Hall. And would this require, and I guess this is more process, so I could save this conversation for another time, probably schedule a meeting with you, but do you know if this is going to be something that's just already accessible through our personal devices?

Yes, everyone will have. So you could use, it is a website, essentially. It's just a URL, so you could use any device. You could use your personal or city-issued device to utilize that. It's all about your login, just like it would be logging into your email account.

David PenalozaItem 1

Okay, and then that would make it easy so that in a meeting like this, someone calls for a motion and we vote and it populates on the screen and everyone can see. Correct. That would be great to see. Well, thank you for, again, all the work. I know you've been limited in staff and a lot of work, workload is only getting bigger. So thank you for that.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Council Member Phan.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Thank you. Madam City Clerk, well, first I'd like to say I use Prime Gov and Next Request in my day job. So they are very useful and they do help track the things that we do and help keep your agenda items on time. unless we give you a call on Thursday afternoon. So my question is really regarding the public records request. I also do that on a daily basis as part of my day job. What is the percentage increase from, I would say, you know, March 2019 to March 2020?

Oh, I don't know the exact numbers. I'd have to probably look it up and get back to you on that.

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

Thanks. Because, I mean, over 2,000 requests, I'm sure some of it is pretty, you know, routine. the agenda or something like that or plans and others not so much?

Yeah, no, I think the majority are actually, I mean thankfully some of them, some of the requests have already been submitted so they're duplicative. So a lot of times they, you know, residents or whoever submitting a request can actually look it up and pull the record. But there are a lot of them that we have to work with staff and try to figure out and even work and collaborate with the city attorney's office what can or cannot be released and you know knowing the exemptions and stuff so thanks and well one I am really concerned about the

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

2013 I think retention policy or what that was that you know that's been a long time since that's been updated but I do you know regarding the records requests as we're talking about our lobbyists you know there is a push on the state level to find a way to address the cost of these public requests. Because I know sometimes it can cost two, three hundred hours to fulfill a request. And I think it's totally the right of the public to get this information. This is public information. But whether it's addressing what kind of exemptions as a policy our city chooses to comply with,

Thai Viet PhanItem 1

most of the exemptions are not mandatory. We can waive them if we want. But finding ways to help streamline some of this to help save money because at this point, you could be spending five hours a day doing PRA requests for five days to address one person's idiosyncratic interest. And again, that's their right, but I think as a council we need to address the cost. and I think looking at the public records policy might help. Thanks.

Great. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Rosara.

Phil BacerraItem 1

This is just more of a general comment. I'm hearing great comments as far as policy and procedure and ways that we can streamline our processes and gain some efficiencies, but speaking of efficiency, it's about 5 after 11, and we're barely about to get to community development. I would just like to ask my colleagues if we can just stick to the budget. I think unless it's an item that directly impacts this bad boy right here, then let's please try to keep it to the budget. Again, I appreciate all the ideas. I'm not saying anything about whether they're good or bad.

Phil BacerraItem 1

I just think at this point, just for efficiency, let's try to get through the budget, please.