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Great. Good evening, everybody. Let me go ahead and welcome you all to tonight's meeting. This is the regular open session for the Santa Ana City Council for July 6, 2021. Let me go ahead and call this meeting to order. And let me begin by making a few comments, a couple of housekeeping comments as we start every meeting. So this meeting is taking place with 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 always, with the technology.

It may disrupt the flow of the meeting, and I hope all of you had a very safe and pleasant weekend, Independence Day weekend. So with that, I'm going to go ahead and ask Madam Clerk if she'll please conduct the roll call.

Councilmember Becerra? Here. Councilmember Hernandez?

Councilmember Lopez?

Councilmember Mendoza?

Here.

Councilmember Fan?

Here.

Mayor Procter-Panaloza?

Here.

Mayor Sarmiento?

Here. Great. I'll go ahead and turn it over to you, Madam Clerk, to go ahead and make some remarks. I understand that Councilmember Lopez may be en route to us, and here she comes in right on cue. You see that? I'm clairvoyant.

And for the record, Council Member Hernandez just logged in as well.

Awesome. Awesome. Go ahead.

The public was able to begin joining the speaker queue at 4.30. 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 and ward or neighborhood you reside within the city of Santa Ana for the record. Thank you, Mayor.

Great. Thank you for those comments. Let me go ahead and ask Mayor Pro Tem to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Mayor Pro Tem, if you will.

David PenalozaItem —

Absolutely, Mayor Sarmiento. Thank you for the opportunity. If you could please all rise and turn towards the nearest flag and repeat after me. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Great. Thank you. If you'll all please remain standing, I'm going to go ahead and ask our police chairman, Bob Barnett, to lead us tonight with the invocation.

Let's pray. Lord God we always are very grateful to gather together we ask Lord God in this meeting tonight your blessings would be very present here we need your wisdom and insight in all things because there are many goals Lord God to be accomplished in the remainder of this year we're grateful Lord God for the opportunities that you give us to serve you and to serve each other and we ask Lord God always our words actions and attitudes will be pleasing to you and a blessing to all and please Lord we don't take lightly the privilege of gathering together like we have tonight. It's a wonderful thing to

see each other and hear each other in person. Bless those tonight Lord to be honored who do a great work in our community and most importantly to Lord bless those that are part of our first responders the personnel of the police department and the fire department in our emergency services. We ask this blessing in the name of the Lord. Amen.

Thank you for those words. And let me go ahead and pass the microphone and the floor along to Councilmember Lopez, who's going to be presenting a certificate of recognition to Stanbridge University. Councilmember Lopez, the floor is yours.

She's here.

Jessie LopezItem 1

Hi. Good evening, everyone. Let me get my notes out. So thank you, Lisa Carraway, if you'd like to come up to the post. That would be great.

Jessie LopezItem 1

Hi. So tonight we're going to recognize Stanbridge University. And they have a signature program called Root for Change, which is an initiative that helps plant trees to help repopulate the urban forest locally here in Orange County. and the route for change initiative aims to help to restore areas damaged by wildfires and to help with reforest duration to increase water catchment areas and to assist with the beautification and enhancements of parks with the greater goal of helping to provide cleaner air and a healthier

Jessie LopezItem 1

environment and in 2019 Stanbridge entered into an agreement with the city of Santa Ana for the planting of 100 trees in Santiago Park. And so last year because of COVID there were a lot of delays but we were still we still managed to help plant over 20 trees with the help of students, volunteers, Lisa the Parks and Rec Department and Lisa Carraway and at Santiago Park at the Archery Range, the Nature Center and south side of the creek.

Jessie LopezItem 1

And so on behalf of our three families, I'm excited to recognize Stambridge University and thank them for helping the city to restore Santiago Park to a natural environment in this urban landscape. So thank you. And we have a certificate for you.

But if you'd like to address the council, feel free.

Jessie LopezItem 1

We're very grateful for this honor. Stanbridge University greatly appreciates its partnership with the City of Santa Ana and we look forward to more tree planting in the future.

Great. Congratulations. Thank you for being here. Thank you for doing what you do. And thank you, Councilmember Lopez, for making this presentation. Please, if anybody would like to make any comments.

do you want to take a photograph councilmember Lopez

great as they're doing that let me go ahead and call on the city manager to give us our kovat 19 update and of city manager

we'll get that loaded up for you so good evening honorable mayor members of the council for tonight's kovat update it's going to be a little bit brief and it's going to focus on information about vaccines.

I'll go ahead and start as Daniel is loading it up. The city of Santa Ana is working to increase our vaccine rates to further protect our community from coronavirus. As such, we're continuing to partner with local organizations and service providers to make sure that our residents have an easy access to the COVID-19 vaccine. Every Thursday, residents aged 12 and up can visit Villa Fundamental Intermediate School to receive their first or second dose of the Pfizer vaccine. The school is located at 1441 East Chestnut Avenue near Grand, and the vaccines are available by appointment or you can just walk in at that location.

And every Wednesday through Sunday, residents aged 12 and up can visit the Edwards Life Sciences Building to receive their Pfizer vaccine. The Edwards Life Science Building is located at 3009 Demmler Street near Dyer Road and the 55 Freeway. Vaccines are available by appointment only, and you can book that on the Othena.com app or by calling the number listed on the screen. And every Thursday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the Mexican consulate will be offering the Johnson & Johnson vaccine for everyone 18 and up. And those offices are located at 2100 East 4th Street in Santa Ana.

Interested residents can call the consulate's office directly at 714-581-4948. And as part of the Mayor's Challenge, the city has partnered with Orange County United Way and Providence for a vaccine clinic at Roosevelt Walker Community Center next week on Wednesday, July 14th from 3 to 7. Residents can stop by and receive either their first or second dose of the Pfizer vaccine or Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Individuals that are being vaccinated for the first time will receive a $25 Target gift card, entry into a contest for a chance for a Disney family vacation,

and a choice of tickets to the Bowers Museum, Discovery Cube, or Santa Ana Zoo. As always, there are other vaccine sites available. If you'd like to get vaccinated out of Santa Ana, the best way to access those sites are through the website, othena.com, or the state's vaccine website, myturn.ca.gov. The Vax for the Win program that the state of California kicked off, it's still continuing. There are some prizes that aren't available anymore, but there are some others that are.

The state is still offering the $15 million through $10 million cash giveaways to vaccinated Californians, which are selected at random, $50,000 cash giveaways to 30 vaccinated Californians selected at random, and a $50 gift card to everyone who gets vaccinated while supplies last, and there also are tickets to Six Flags while supplies last as well. And we, as always, encourage all eligible Santa Ana residents to go out and get vaccinated. And that's my presentation, sir.

Thank you, Madam City Manager. Let me go ahead and bring it back to the council to see if there's any questions they may have or comments.

Council Member Lopez.

Jessie LopezItem 2

Thank you for the presentation. I just wanted to ask if we're, I guess, moving forward because there's a new Delta variant out there, if we can include that. there is this bit of an uptick in Orange County cases for folks that are being hospitalized and I want to make sure that we're keeping an eye on that so thank you. Certainly can do that Councilmember.

Great thank you for those comments. Any other comments for the City Manager seeing none and hearing none the only and I didn't quite catch what Councilmember Lopez said but basically I know what we what I was hoping we could get maybe for the next update is what our numbers are looking like specifically in Santa Ana. I know that the county has had some success and we know that some zip codes are performing better than others. Some zip codes are not, you know, getting vaccinated to the rate we'd like to see them. So to the extent we can all work together on that,

that would be great. But the the other question, the other comment I wanted to make. I wanted to thank Councilmember Lopez and Councilmember Becerra. I know we were out in their wards doing some canvassing and we did that you know in neighborhoods where we had clinics and so I appreciate both of you coming along. I think the next one at Roosevelt Walker is in Councilmember Mendoza's ward so hopefully she'll come and join me there but I think it makes a big difference when you go to somebody's door and people seem very excited. The good thing is I

I think we heard a lot of people that were vaccinated already, but we, you know, urge them to call others that they may know to get vaccinated. So thank you all for doing that, and thank you for the update, Madam City Manager. Let me go ahead and ask the city attorney if there's anything to report at a closed session.

Thank you, Mayor and City Council members of the public. We do have reportable action on two closed session items this evening. The first is in the Marbella-Rangell v. City of Santa Ana case. the council by unanimous vote settled that case for $125,000. And then in the Gonzalo case and Jennifer Salgado case against the city of Santa Ana, the city council approved a settlement of just under $65,000, again by unanimous vote of the city council.

Great. Thank you for that, Madam City Attorney. So this is the public portion comment of the meeting, and this is for agenda and non-agendized items. You'll be addressing the council on these. We'll go ahead and do this pursuant to the Brown Act. The City Council may not enter into any discussion or dialogue with you by state law. The public comment line is now closed. I believe it's been open since 430. And what I'll do is we'll break this up as usual. I'll go ahead and call on people who are physically present first. And then those who called in, I'll go ahead and turn it over to the City Clerk so she can call on them.

So let me begin. You'll have three minutes to address the City Council on these items that you'd like to focus in on and let me call on Andrea Harris first. Ms. Harris are you here? Please go ahead and approach followed by Hector Gustos and then Steffi Duarte.

Thank you Mayor for having me today and for having all of us here in person for this meeting. I'm here representing the Arts and Cultural Commission for the City of Santa Ana. I'm very proud to be a member of a group that supports the vision of arts and culture in our city. I wanted to address you in regards to agenda item 27, in regards to inclusion of arts and cultural funding for the Revive Santa Ana funds that we've been discussing. Since May 31st, the budget talks have been going on with the City of Santa Ana. and the Arts and Cultural Commission's group, we came together and we actually

drafted a letter that went out to each one of you outlining support for the arts. We asked for a million dollars as well as additional city funds to support the arts. At this time we have received notice that a hundred thousand dollars has been allocated to special events funds for the city to do arts and culture in our community, but we really don't feel this is enough. We feel that the Revive Santa Ana funds need to be reassessed to really consider arts and culture as being a primary importance to the city. The artists and the arts and creative communities are second responders to the COVID epidemic that

we've had. These are individuals that are out here in our community working and bringing people together and helping to share and help to you know bring together kind of a rejuvenation in our community and we want to support them we want to support our outreach and our educational opportunities for our community of all ages the original letter went out to you and we wanted you to know that we wanted to bring up a couple things that we thought were of interest cities across the country are going ahead and they are bringing together ideas to support the arts and cultures knowing that this is a way to bring economic prosperity and

and also morale up in their communities. Chicago has invested over $60 million into their local arts organizations. San Francisco has included $16.2 million of their general fund into arts and cultural events and funding. New York City has set aside $25 million for municipal jobs and for support for the arts and cultures in the city. Los Angeles has established $36 million in arts recovery funds that will be carried on through the next three years. Though it does go on, the message is clear that these communities know how important art and culture is to their communities.

Residents here have voted on the Revive Santa Ana online vote. They were all able to submit their responses, and over 42% of our community who responded to the Revive Santa Ana recovery plan said that the arts and culture were critical and important to them. And so we would like you to consider again the arts and culture of our city. The city that prides itself on being heavily rich in arts and culture. Santa Ana has always touted this, has always shared this with the world, that we are a city of arts. But yet our arts are being left out and our artists and our creatives are being left out.

When we talk about artists, when we talk about creatives, we're talking about our literary arts, we're talking about our educators, we're talking about people in various different arenas in the city that have supported over the years an incredible growth of arts and creativity that's become very well known worldwide. I just want to say that it's important for you guys to really think about this when you vote. There are other items that you have voted for with the funding that we know is going to be allocated, especially like the homelessness issues, issues with education.

Those things could add the arts and creativity into those programs. Thank you. We can actually work together to bring something together to outline for arts and culture. Thank you for your comments, Ms. Harris.

thank you hector bustos followed by steffy duarte followed by mia verdin

hello mayor and city council my name is hector bustos and i'm here with the santana youth ballot we're a grassroots organization that actually just started last year and our purpose is to get youth in santana civically involved joined with me today are a bunch of youth a lot of them have never given a public comment before and many of them this is their first time actually at city hall so we're really here just to talk about the Revive Santana Plan and our need to continue investing in our youth in Santana so undeniably COVID-19 has impacted the youth of Santana

and in a lot of different areas and so oftentimes we forget to talk about the ways that youth have been impacted by COVID-19 and the unique needs that youth have. And we have some, some asks and some ideas that we wanted to share with you for your consideration of how we can use those federal monies to invest in our youth. One of the biggest areas where we see that we need some support is mental health and substance abuse treatment. COVID has deeply affected individuals and we need to make access to therapy more accessible maybe perhaps creating

community clinics in different parts of the city working alongside the county and just making a commitment to invest some of those monies and working with the county to invest in mental health and substance abuse treatment another area is around free enrichment programs you'll hear soon from a lot of young people who are actually actually skate as well that the skate community in santana is growing and i think that more than ever we need to promote the health and the well being of young people in the city and in and investing in these skaters can can really help

do that and another area is around paid work experience and internships we understand that right now the city does have programs for paid work experience but these programs only are throughout the summer so we're asking to expand those programs year long a lot of young people have had to take on jobs because of covid because their parents lost their jobs as a result of covid and they've had to take on that financial responsibility to support their households and so providing these experience and these opportunities to young people are critical

school. Another area where we think we could invest in our youth is providing free public transportation to all middle school and high school students. So this can be in collaboration with SAUSD and Garden Grove Unified School District to ensure that all young people have access to public transportation. Let's ensure that we completely get rid of the barriers, the financial barriers that young people and families will have as a result of COVID in the future. And aside from that, we also find the need for an investment in the sexuality and gender

youth resource center for queer young people of color here in the city. This can be a way a longer conversation, but I think that we need to see a commitment with these, you know, federal monies to support queer young people of color who have been affected by the pandemic and cater to their

specific needs thank you thank you steffi duarte followed by mia verdin followed by courtney calderon

hello everyone my name is steffi duarte and i am also a part of san anna youth ballot um i am here to talk about the roller skate loaner program um the skating community has always been very big here in Santana, but over the past year due to the pandemic we have seen a really big rise in interest of roller skating, specifically in young female skaters. I myself started skating in November and skating has honestly changed my life and I know that it can do the same for a lot of people. It's just not accessible unfortunately.

Skates are over $100, close to $200. So by doing, starting a roller skate loaner program, it would make it accessible to more youth and even adults. It's just a form of exercise, a form to release stress. It's amazing.

We think that we could use underused facilities that are designated for other activities and they can be used for better use they can be used for better they can be used better that's what I'm trying to say use more for example the tennis courts at Sandpoint I myself put a poll out on my Instagram and I put like hey how often are these tennis courts being used and almost everyone said like they're almost always empty so there it's a really large space maybe we can split it you know it's also a great roller skating is a great use for

transportation so getting to and from to the store or going to a friend's house it's really accessible

yeah and also by creating this space in this program i would allow for a safe space for people to learn a new skill. Skate parks are kind of scary especially as a woman. They're mostly male skaters and it can be very unwelcoming and yeah so thank you so much and I hope you will consider using the revive money. Thank you for those comments. Mia Verdin followed by Courtney Calderon

followed by Luisa

Hello City Council and Mayor. My name is Mia Verdeen and I would like to address agenda item 27. I'm here on behalf of Santa Ana Youth Ballot as well as myself as the Youth Commissioner from Ward 3. With the money from the revised Santa Ana initiative there are many ways we can spend this money responsibly to help the community thrive. One specific example is as previously mentioned by Steffi and Hector is the roller skate loaner program that Santa Ana's bustling community of skaters are starting up here a program where young people but people of all ages

all backgrounds can come together and learn how to skate so they don't have to take on that financial burden of um of buying roller skates again as stated previously roller skates are expensive and it's a really good recreational activity that could help our community thrive the roller skate community has seen an increase of interest over the past year due to covet 19 and these facilities where we could easily skate are not being utilized correctly. It will allow a safe space for people to learn a new skill, especially for folks who feel disenfranchised

and don't know where to start or to reach out because, I mean, activities like these, it's going to keep kids busy, I mean, or just anybody. It's a good activity and it promotes mobility within the community. We need more accessibility to these activities for all of the communities, but especially for our youth. We need these funds to go where it matters, to keep the youth involved and around in the community, to feel like we belong. We also need more of this money to go to mental health programs and substance abuse services that will assist people who need it in those places.

of places we also need to support our queer community we need a lot of resources that are not available in the community currently we need more than just rainbows painted on the on the sidewalk you know so if we can support our community in that way that would be great as well as the affordable affordable housing ordinance this this ordinance is important and we need um we need as much support going to it um that is all I have today thank you

thank you Courtney Calderon followed by Luisa followed by Edward Garcia

don't look so disappointed to see me again first of all I want before my time starts I want to applaud the youth that is here advocating for themselves as they have always done and have to continue to do because there's not a functioning government and the City Council that serves them. Okay secondly I also want to say if I stumble over my words again sorry still passionate still want solutions actually here. Third I want to say that there is a protest outside of a lead university tomorrow yeah Universal tomorrow at July 7th from four to six. This is how politics works guys. Part of supporting foreign policies like Free

Palestine involves knowing your place as local politicians. The fact that there is an organization, a private company here in Santa Ana that affects Palestinian lives. That's your guys' role to be aware of that. Welcome to politics guys. Again, going back to the youth advocating for literally their most basic rights. And I also agree with the lady over here about arts. The fact that our youth is here advocating for their most basic needs is not an excuse for you to privatize them. Stop redirecting money and privatizing our land and our resources.

Bracera, it's a really big issue that the police association supports you while you have accusations of sexual assault and you have more of a say in the youth budget? Bro, come on. And the fact that your colleagues don't call you out on it is also an issue. Jonathan, homie, where are you? Show up. You live in my ward. Like, where are the emails? You haven't even responded to my emails. This is accountability. Vicente, I haven't heard you tell anybody that our councilman, Louie, Louie, what is his name again? Corea, that guy that nobody really likes but continues to support because, hey, just by name,

did not even want to support something that you, you championed, heroes pay. He called your homeboy over here and was like, don't support it. Politics, it matters. Become informed because people died. The people who you wanted to give the heroes pay, they didn't want to be anybody's hero. They were someone's parent. They were just trying to make a damn living, guys. Recognize the power that you fucking are sitting on, and I'm sorry that I cussed. But again, people died in Santana. Do you guys know the names of the people that died in Santana? No? None of you guys?

I didn't have to have somebody die in my family to know that it fucking sucks to have to spend Father's Day without a damn dad. Or on Mother's Day without a mother. The fact that you disassociate politics and the policies that you guys vote on from the people that are your neighbors is messed up and it's not okay and it needs to change. Yes, fund the youth, but stop privatizing the money. You guys know that because who funds your campaigns, right?

Thank you. Luisa followed by Edward Garcia.

Good evening, council. My name is Luisa Lopez and I am here today in support of the Roller Skate Loaner Program. There has been a rise in roller skating since this pandemic, but even before then, I think roller skating has been really important to our community. Unfortunately, it has been really unaccessible for a really long time. Like a lot of people stated, roller skates cost up to $100, and that's if you want them to last you. Equipment is expensive, the wheels, all the things. that you need to keep them in shape are expensive.

So a roller skate program would allow our community members to get a chance to get a feel for skating, to see if they even like it and they want to commit to it. And if they don't, then they can just give back our skates. And if they do, then we can help them get their own skates or give them those skates.

And there's a lot of skate parks, like Steffi said, that sometimes aren't very welcoming to girls in our queer community. Sometimes there's a lot of boys and men who harass us, and we just want a safe space. I don't understand why there's a roller rink in Tustin for hockey players, but we don't have any store of roller rinks, even indoor roller rinks here in Santana. I know there used to be one back in the day. but I think it's time it comes back. I think there's opportunity to create programs for our

youth and there's money and we have the people who are willing to put in the work. So there's so many benefits to roller skating. It's eco-friendly, it's a good form of transportation, it's really good for the environment, it's really good for ourselves, our mental health, and our physical health. And I think that it's an amazing opportunity that not enough of our community gets to have access to just because of the price. And I don't think that's fair. So I think that if you guys really want to invest in our youth and in our communities, really put your minds where we want the money to go

to our community, to our youth. Even adults are skating nowadays. I'm sure all of you guys could get on skates. So thank you very much.

Thank you for those comments. Edward Garcia.

Good evening, everyone. I'm the mayor. I'm here today in support of the roller skate loaner program. I say this because I've personally experienced a good experience from community centers like skateparks and things like that. And I think it would be a great idea to expand that. And not just that, but also take a moment to really understand that it's all part of arts. And in many places around the world, skateboarding is considered an art.

For example, at the Macaba in Spain, they have skaters out in front. skateboarding is definitely an urban art. Skating is definitely an urban art and the city is one of the most densely populated cities in Orange County.

So we could definitely use more programs that allow the youth to establish themselves and become part of, feel like they're a part of the community and continue to work towards goals and just, you know, feel happy. after they do some skateboarding and some skating too. Thank you.

Thank you, Edward. So those are all the comments that we have for those who are present with us in person. I know we may have some speakers that are on the line and I'll go ahead and turn it over to Madam Clerk. But before I do, let me just remind if anybody's here speaking on item number 28, which is the Housing Ad Hoc Committee Report Out, This is simply a receive and file. There won't be any actual action taken. It'll be more of a report out from the ad hoc and a staff report and a discussion, but there will not be an official vote taken on that just in the event anybody is waiting for that.

So let me go ahead and turn it over to the clerk. Madam Clerk, please.

Thank you, Mayor and Council members. Speakers on the queue may provide their comments on any agenda or non-agenda items within the city's jurisdiction. When unmuted, please announce your name, ward, or neighborhood that you reside in within the city of Santa Ana. For the record, you will have three minutes to speak. To request to speak, dial star 9 from your phone or select raise hand from Zoom now. Before unmuting callers, I'd like to begin by reporting the following summary of emails provided as of today. We received one Santa Ana resident on non-agenda item commented on broken eviction court system process,

One Orange County Interfaith Coalition for the Environment, Common and Concern over Southern California Edison destruction of trees. One Boys and Girls Club Santa Clara Valley support Athens services for solid waste management services. One non-Santa Ana resident supporting community services for special needs consumers in Santa Ana. One non-Santa Ana resident requested to defund the police and invest in the community with increased social services. support climate change resolution to Santa Ana residents and three non-Santa Ana residents.

Request to make Willowick Park public park with affordable housing in support. There were seven Santa Ana residents and four non-Santa Ana residents and one Santa Ana Tenants United support. The city council adopted the proposed to adopt the proposed ordinance titled City of Santa Ana Community Preservation Rent and Stabilization Tenants Rights Act. And for item 27, revive the spending plan. One Orange County Congregation Community Organization and several others in support.

One public law center comment for council to provide 12 million economic stimulus to Santa Ana residents. One, Chispa comment for council to provide economic stimulus to low-income Santa Ana residents. And one, for item 28, the Housing Ad Hoc Committee report, the Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce commented concerned over proposed increase in lieu of fees. and with that Zoom ID John Hanna please select the microphone icon on your device

to unmute your call and you may proceed with your comment you have three minutes

okay can you hear me yes we could hear you okay I want to thank the council for this opportunity John Hanna I'm representing the Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters and the close to 900 members who reside in Santa Ana. On the item 28 I'd like to focus my comments on section 411909A5. That section says a developer opting for the in

lieu payment option or receiving funding from the inclusionary housing fund as well as its contractors and subcontractors at every tier performing work for the new housing units is encouraged and should provide an enforceable commitment that a skilled and trained workforce will be used to complete a contract or project in accordance with public contract code 2601 to 2602 this is uh was an important element added uh previously by the council uh i had uh requested

that it be stronger uh that didn't take effect but i do think that uh this item was left and the the ad hoc committee didn't uh make any changes here but i think an important change is necessary And that is the city should evaluate whether developers or their contractors and subcontractors are actually doing what the city is encouraging them to do, which is have an enforceable commitment for a skilled and trained workforce. It will create more jobs for local Santa Ana residents.

And it will also improve the environment. The South Coast Air Quality Management District this year found that a skilled and trained workforce, the local hire component, will help reduce emissions. Because for the construction, you're not going to have people coming in from as many people from long places, from areas out of our community. You'll have local people and there will be a significant amount of reduction in emissions. So it's good for the quality of air and it's good for Santa Ana residents. They'll make more money and they'll spend it here in Santa Ana businesses.

So I hope the city, as they review and take this, will look at in the future studying this and make sure that we document whether this advice and this encouragement is actually being followed. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Zoom ID Robert if you would please select the microphone icon on your device to unmute your call. Thank you you have three minutes.

Dear Mr. Mayor Sarmiento and honorable council members good evening I'm Robert Hammond a long-time resident of Santa Ana in Ward 3. Mr. Mayor before I speak on item 27 may I have my time told as I wish to share congratulations to my Ward three representative, the honorable Miss Jessie Lopez, as I was her fifth grade teacher at Hoover Elementary School.

Didn't know if I could have that.

You got the applause.

Well, all right, Mr. Mayor, thank you. I just briefly wanted to say to Ms. Lopez, it really makes me happy to see a former student get elected and thank you for what you're trying to do and help us all in ward three

so um with that mr mayor thank you um i'd like to speak like i said to item 27 on today's agenda which is under the business calendar on page 14. my wife and i have run for nine years a non-profit based out of Santa Ana, entitled I-9 Sports Association. Our program works with children ages 3 to 17 in seven different sports, and we're hoping to go to an eighth. Our goal is to help children to be active and healthy so they will do better in school. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that my wife and I are former school teachers. We already have an established infrastructure in place.

What we like to offer when we work with the kids through scholarships, especially to students that are socioeconomically challenged, we would like to be considered for the use of some of these funds so that we can provide sports for Santa Ana students. The sports that we currently provide are flag football, cheerleading, soccer, basketball, baseball, T-ball, lacrosse, and volleyball.

And we're always looking to hire people to instruct the children at play with us. And in closing, I would be most honored to work directly with honorable council member Lopez on this. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I wish the council members all the best.

Thank you. Zoom ID, Steven Mott, if you would please select your microphone icon. Oh, you may proceed with your comment. Thank you.

Thank you. Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Perfect. Thank you so much, council members, mayor, Steve Lamott, building industry association of Orange County, executive officer. Thanks for allowing us to still call in. Some cities don't do this and I got a couple sick kids at home and so it's nice to still be able to comment remotely. I am calling this evening on item 28, which was just stated as the Housing Ad Hoc Committee Progress Report and some of the recommendations regarding the Housing Opportunity Ordinance or, of course, the WHO. As some of you are aware, we submitted a letter last year with the Apartment

Association, the Orange County Business Council, the Taxpayers Association, the Automobiles Association, the, again, OC Apartment Association, the Manufactured Housing Educational Trust, and Commercial Real Estate Development Association with the Orange County Realtors, PacWest Realtors, in support of where the policy is right now. While I understand this is going to be a report out and discussion, we obviously don't know where it's going to go, but I just wanted to reiterate why we feel and from what we saw last year as to why the WHO was reduced to $5 a square foot compared to, at the time, a $15 per square foot.

And at the June 2nd, 2020, City Council meeting, City staff stated that during the period of 2016 to 2019, which was the period immediately following the 2015 increase to $15 a square foot, 2,900 units were approved by the city, yet not one of those pulled a permit to trigger paying the higher fee. And so what that means is no money was going into the affordable housing account. no money, which would have been for affordable units, no units were moving forward for the middle class or the millennials or really anybody. And no one is working on would-be projects,

whether it be union laborers you heard from earlier or those not able to be in unions. And we have to stress that if it costs too much to build in your city or any other city for that matter, builders can go somewhere else. And it just seems that the staff stated last year that that's clearly what was happening. Now, again, I don't know where this is going to go, whether, you know, the council will look at a decrease or an increase. But we really hope the city looks at the data. And as I see it now and from what we heard last year, it was really it's really showing that the lower fee and having a fee as well.

I mean, we're not talking about a zero dollar cost here is benefiting the largest group. Units are moving forward literally after the fee was reduced. Money is going to the affordable housing account. Union workers and non-union workers are working, being put to work, and we're creating housing for all. So I do just want to state that it hasn't even been a year yet since this policy was amended. And so I'm just hoping that, you know, we are still coming out of this global pandemic. I hope we can pause. I hope we can not do anything negative to this policy today. But I look forward to a good discussion. So thank you.

Thank you.

Zoom ID, Media Arts Santa Ana, if you would please select the microphone icon to unmute your call.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you, thank you.

Excellent. Hi, City Council, Mayor Sarmiento. This is Victor Payan, Director of Media Arts Santa Ana and a resident of Pacific Park. I want to talk to you about a couple of things. One is that we're very excited that our Millennial Producers Academy me is starting July 10th. It is a free program. We have three sessions. The first one starts July 10th for ages 18 to 24. And then we have sessions starting in September and November for ages 13 to 17. And all of these youth that I see out here speaking to you and doing their advocacy for the first time, I just want to reach out to you all to let you know that Media Arts is a great

way to learn how to use these tools in your advocacy efforts. So the class will be meeting Saturdays at 1130. Learn how to, from professional filmmakers and experts, how to use powerful, free and low cost tools and apps. It's a great way to start a career in the media arts for fun, for money, and to make a difference in your community. So you'll receive, participants will receive training in creativity, technical skills and professional development, how to use tools from Adobe and also social media tools like TikTok to make a difference in your communities. And like I said, very important in your advocacy efforts.

and you'll be able to make a film and the films that we make in the class will be shown in our OC Film Fiesta Film Festival. So it's a great way to empower communities and a pathway to real jobs and opportunities and a pathway to creativity. Funding is provided by the City of Santa Ana PRCSA so we really want people from all over the city to apply. This first class starting July 10th is for people 18 to 24 and this class is starting September 4th and November 6th are for ages 13 to 17. So please sign up and spread the word. You can sign up for all three classes

at massamedia.org and it's a really great opportunity to start a career in the media arts and be a producer. So just want to start with that. Very excited. I sent you all flyers so please spread the word to your constituents. Point two is to follow up on Commissioner Harris's statements about funding for the arts. It's critical to help residents who are creating jobs and generating wealth for the city to provide them with resources funding for public events uh like what has been provided in the budget is not the same as funding for the arts we need the grants we need professional

development we need infrastructure to create jobs we need community technology centers and cultural art spaces and the city of oakland recently allotted uh 3.9 million for the art so it's there's another um thing that i wanted to bring up the arts americans for the arts economic arts and economic prosperity study was uh i think something the arts commission recommended the city participate paid in it's only $9,000. And it's a study that will give you the hard numbers and hard data to see exactly how much money the arts generate for the city and how the city can adequately serve and develop this sector. 15 seconds.

And finally, for the Movies in the Park, I see an organization is getting $100,000 to hold screenings. Please provide resources and make it easier for local organizations to hold screenings in their own communities. Thank you.

Thank you. Caller with the last three numbers, 705, if you would please select star six to unmute your call or select the microphone icon on your device.

Caller with the last three numbers, 705, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device or select star six from your phone. Thank you. You've successfully unmuted yourself.

Hi. Yes, my name is Jose Hernandez. I'm a local resident here in Santana. I'm also an arts and culture commissioner, and I just want to say that I've been very much supportive of what my fellow commissioner laid out earlier as far as the arts and culture funding and the opportunity for us to use some of this revised Santana money to be able to particularly I think it's really fun with the arts and the importance of it, in particular with a lot of the calls from the youth about being able to invest in them.

It was a lot of the things that folks ran on and I'm sure will be very supportive of or have been. And I just want to continue to encourage that those folks are highlighted. And not to mention seniors as well, because folks are dealing with all sorts of issues of mental health and isolation. because of the pandemic even more so than usual so art is really a great way to address you know the hardships that folks have um i want to bring up also the issues that around housing right so as i believe i mentioned before and it's been mentioned the next uh crisis uh or epidemic that

that will be hitting our communities is going to be the the eviction crisis and the lack of uh true affordable housing is really key here. I'm hopeful that the council will be making the correct decisions on the housing opportunity ordinance, increasing those fees, back up to $15 if possible. We just thought we need to be able to have that and also closing the loopholes to making sure that it's the spirit of what it's supposed to be done.

We don't want buildings, you know, to development to happen without, you know, the development of the low income housing attached to it. That's what ideally we'd want, you know, an inclusionary housing type of thing. So I'm just, you know, really supportive of being able to strengthen that. And also, you know, I believe there was an organization, TUSANTANA, that proposed the potential rent control ordinance, rent stabilization ordinance. It's very much one of the things that could prevent a lot of these evictions and, you know, the foreseeable increases in rent that could come in the future.

So I also want to bring awareness to a situation I heard recently where there was an individual filming some of our murals. And sometimes he got stopped by the police and said, like, hey, you can't be filming here or else you're going to have to pay these hundreds and hundreds of dollars of fees in order to do this. So I just want to get some clarity on that to see if that is in fact what's happening. Because we shouldn't do that. We should encourage creativity with our community here and be able to uplift our beautiful talent.

Fifteen seconds left.

So I just want to make sure that that's happening. And lastly, I want to be able to get the conversation going around a joint use agreement between the Santa Ana Unified School District and the city of Santana so that we can get together and open up these parks for the summer and so that we can really do what's been talked about for a long time and open up our spaces for parking, but also for green spaces.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Zoom ID, Jose Trinidad Castaneda. If you, thank you. You may proceed with your comment.

Buenos noches, can you hear me?

Yes, we could hear you.

Okay, excellent. Mayor, city council and staff, my name is Jose Trinidad Castaneda. And I'd like to speak on housing and climate tonight. Two future items coming to the council's dais. one being the waste contract. I wanted to point out that this is a very good opportunity to negotiate with our waste collection companies here, buying for the city's contract, to lead and start planning to purchase electric garbage trucks. They're quieter, they're cleaner, they're way better for the city of Santa Ana,

And that is a point that you should bring to the negotiating table with these garbage companies, waste management companies. Two, with the climate change resolution that the council has discussed previously, make sure that you are bold and realistic in the science that is coming before us here. We are witnessing our oceans on fire, heat waves continuing to put people in harm's way.

And we really need to lead on this and take every opportunity to get more funding to the city of Santa Ana to deal with climate change. Last, on housing, I really appreciate what Mr. John Hanna was saying earlier tonight, that supporting the reduction of vehicle miles traveled with local hire requirements as part of future development agreements can really impact climate change and the environment here if Santa Ana were to include that. And so I just wanted to echo those comments. They were very refreshing to hear. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Zoom ID Penelope Lopez, if you would please select the microphone icon to unmute your device. Thank you. You may proceed with your comment.

Hello. My name is Penelope Lopez and I'm the organizing director of CHISPA. I'm calling to speak on agenda item 27 to support the implementation of a local stimulus check for residents of santana santana has the highest number of undocumented residents and workers in the county but despite other contributions on these communities have been excluded from economic relief the federal government provided a stimulus check to millions of americans during the pandemic, but they failed to include and provide aid to undocumented immigrants.

In addition, the state of California provided the Golden State stimulus to undocumented residents, but this also excluded undocumented residents who do not have an item. Equity and economic justice is at the heart of this proposal, and it is time that Santana provides relief and support for their undocumented community amidst this pandemic that devastated families. So we urge you to pass this proposal to provide economic and equity and justice for families and people most impacted by COVID-19.

And I would also like to uplift and support all the youth speaking out today, many whom are speaking out for the first time, for advocating for youth services and resources. And that is all. Thank you.

Caller with the last three numbers 751, please select star six on your phone or select the microphone icon on your device. Thank you. You may proceed with your comment.

Good evening, Mayor Samaritan and City Council members. My name is Indigo Rue. I'm calling today as you're up as other as you're from Viet RISE and as a longtime resident of Ward 1 of Santa Ana, I'm calling today to urge you to provide $12 million in direct economic savings for Santa Ana residents, including and prioritizing immigrant and refugee working families as Penelope just spoke on that before I did. These families are the ones who are most impacted by COVID-19 and I urge you to use funds from the American Rescue Plan Act in order to fund this direct surveillance assistance to these families and residents.

The intent of the American Rescue Plan Act is to provide crucial support for families disproportionately affected by the pandemic, especially those from racial and ethnic backgrounds that have historically experienced systemic injustice. Santa Ana has two of the four hardest hit zip codes in the county by COVID-19. And these zip codes include many families that were living at or below the poverty line prior to the pandemic whose systemic conditions were only made worse by the virus and its health and economic consequences allocating 12 million

dollars in direct economic savings the hardest hit and lowest income residents through a voucher or debit card will assist families most impacted by the covid19 pandemic as well as provide a direct economic boost to our hard-hit local businesses in the city and it is just crucial for you all to consider and really make sure that you do fund this $12 million in direct economic stimulus payments to make sure that our residents do understand that the government is trying to fund their lives as best as they can. Thank you.

Thank you. Zoom ID Biff Baker if you would please select the microphone icon on your device to unmute. Thank you. You may proceed with your comment. Thank you

Thank you very much. Good evening, honorable mayor and members of the city council. My name is Biff Baker, and I'm a long time parishioner at the Episcopal Church of the Messiah in Santa Ana. I also volunteer with OCO, the Orange County Congregations Community Organization and a coalition of other organizations in the area. And I've had lots of opportunity to see the challenges faced by low income and very low income members of the community. Thank you very much for the opportunity to make comments tonight on item 27 on the agenda regarding the use of the Revive Santa Ana program funds.

I would like to urge the members of the council to support the use of these funds to create a health care agency for the city of Santa Ana and also to provide direct economic stimulus for city residents. It is important to note that adequate health care has been lacking in Santa Ana since well before the COVID-19 pandemic. The residents of this city are demographically quite different from the rest of Orange County, with large Hispanic and immigrant populations, many of the latter undocumented. Without the kind of health care access many of us take for granted,

the people suffer frequently from pre-existing conditions, including high blood pressure and diabetes. Such problems are aggravated by exposure to environmental risks from the proximity of heavy and light industry to residential neighborhoods. When COVID-19 hit, testing and vaccinations were slow to reach low income areas, leading to higher rates of infection and mortality. I urge the council to move ahead quickly with a feasibility study for the establishment of a health care agency in Santa Ana, including a position of inclusion and equity coordinator to ensure that all members of the community have full access to services.

direct economic stimulus in the form of coupons or preloaded debit cards is another essential element of santa anna's recovery such coupons or cards would be usable only in santa anna businesses so that both the families and the local merchants will benefit the intent of the american rescue plan is to focus on the communities and populations most affected by COVID-19 due to discrimination and economic injustice. Of the four zip codes in California most affected by COVID-19, two are within Santa Ana. Thank you for the opportunity to share these concerns. Again,

I urge you to support using the Revive Santa Ana funds to establish a city health care agency and to provide a direct economic stimulus to the residents and businesses of the city.

Thank you. Zoom ID.

Tracy Law, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device. Thank you. You may proceed with your comment.

Hello, Mayor Sarmiento and City Council members. My name is Tracy Law and I'm a resident of Ward 1. I'm calling today about agenda item 27 on behalf of my organization, BitRise. Earlier today, alongside Oko Harbor Institute for Immigrant and Economic Justice and the Orange County Mobile Home Residence Coalition, we sent in a letter signed by 12 community organizations detailing why direct stimulus funding is necessary for the city's residents. Later, I'll also speak on agenda item 28. Firstly, I urge you to provide $12 million in direct economic stimulus assistance to Santa Ana residents,

including and prioritizing undocumented immigrant and refugee working families most impacted by COVID-19 using funds from the American Rescue Plan Act. Like Enigo mentioned earlier the intent of the American Rescue Plan Act is to provide crucial support for families disproportionately affected by the pandemic especially those from racial slash ethnic backgrounds that have historically experienced racist exclusion and systemic injustice and as you know Santa Ana has some of the hardest have hit zip codes in the county by COVID-19. As a response to COVID-19, some of the city's nonprofit

and community organizations have provided small direct financial support to hundreds of immigrant residents who are most impacted by COVID-19, but that amount is not enough. The city has a nearly once in a lifetime opportunity to provide a massive economic stimulus directly into the hands of thousands of the city's residents and countless small businesses. We also call on you to partner with local nonprofits to ensure the success of this program to allocate $12 million total in cash cards directly to residents. Lastly, for agenda item 28, as a renter in the city, I urge you to amend the ordinance

to increase the fee back to $15 per square foot. Results produced by the committee's consultant found that this number is even lower than the $17 that they recommend. The city needs to resolve its housing crisis, not make it worse as last year's amendment to $5 did. Thank you.

Thank you. Zoom ID Yesenia Escobar, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device to unmute your call. Hello? Hi, thank you. You may proceed with your comment.

Okay, I just wanted to come and comment on the halfway houses that are coming into our neighborhoods um we recently moved in and i see a lot of halfway houses coming into a community where there's a lot of kids um a lot of older people walking around and it's also bringing concern just not to us but to the rest of the community um we live in marliss drive um and not just one halfway house but now we have two halfway houses i've been trying to email the city council. I haven't got a response. I just wanted to get information on how these houses

work. I'm not opposed to it, but I'm not okay with having them around our neighborhoods, around kids, around older people. We did buy our house just for us to be living in a safe community and um that's where i want to get like more information if anybody in the city council could give us a call back or anything get information because i've been emailing everybody and they are not giving me any information that's about it for me thank you

Zoom ID Daisy C if you would please select the microphone icon on your device to unmute your call. Thank you. You may proceed with your comment.

Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. My name is Daisy and I'm with the Kennedy Commission. I'm calling on item 28. We support the recommendations modifying the housing opportunities ordinance to make it more effective and help create more affordable housing. So increasing it from 5 back to 15. We encourage the city to continue to make new affordable housing a priority. We'd also like to uplift the words of the youth here today and to also urge the city to provide direct relief to Santana residents,

prioritizing undocumented families affected by the pandemic. Thank you.

Thank you. Zoom ID Fatima Baque, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device. Thank you. You may proceed with your comment.

Thank you. Hi, good morning.

Excuse me, Fatima, you sound really muffled. If you can please clearly speak into your device.

Okay.

That's okay?

It sounds a little muffled. I'm not sure if you're using something to muffle your phone. That's better.

You listen to me?

Yes, now we can hear you. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Good evening, honorable mayor and member of the city council. My name is Fatima Paque. I am a community member speaking of Big Harbor OCO and a coalition community organization. I have a member of the St. Joseph Catholic Church in Santa Ana. The concern on the health care is defined for the degree in health disease. The potential using of health service experience and is a given by close relationship. between the basic needed on the individual physical health and intermediate needed on good nutrition, housing, environment, physical, economic, work safety, healthcare, and education,

which in turn and measure and define by the social and cultural condition for the Santa Ana. Therefore, this concept has really important implications for establish the priority in planning and decision-making the provision on the healthcare service in Santa Ana. The main problem perceived in families is economically and employee and health. They're living with someone with the health problem, for example, high blood pressure, diabetes, problem and depression. After COVID-19, this arrived for three types of experience. Departation on the economic depression, violence and relationship with the social environment.

Lack of resource is one problem in our community. The impossibility of pay for the medical bill on having the element for good health care, the point out of the deficiencies associated with a good or bad health, and this car health is not perceived. Right boot is really right. The community is having a position on the frustration because they have inability to break a circling between lack of resource, poor perceived care, and beginning ill. If you don't have the money and the person is serious, for me, they'll only say death.

For me, what is the word hell is for me when you don't have any money for the death? I think that hell is not just the same, but depending how one lives and how one feels. That is what I'm saying. Don't worry about the people say that I go on the doctor or buy my rent. And see that I have, I needed the healthcare for the Santa Ana and I needed the money for all people with a low income. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Mayor, that was the last caller we have on Zoom.

Great. Thank you, Madam Clerk. I believe there was somebody that submitted a request to speak card that was in the audience, but hadn't submitted it earlier and was here before the cutoff time. So let me go ahead and call on him. I believe he'll be the last speaker Pedro Magallon

good evening everybody mayor and city council I would like to speak to you guys here today I started coming to these meetings when I was 15 years old and had a dream back then about helping our community, about helping kids with parks, with fields to be able to play sports. And right now there's a lot of crazy things happening in our city. Now I would like to ask Mr. Mayor Pro Temp, David Peñalosa, if you could help me to get a meeting with your city manager, because I've been trying for three weeks, have not been successful. So if you could please help me. I've been following your Facebook.

I know you're very engaged with the community and everything, but certain concerns that I have. I'm okay with change, and I'm okay with new people. I'm not okay when people try to treat us like second-hand citizens. And it's unacceptable. I will always fight for the right of our kids, and I've been doing that. Today I'm 45, and I will not stop fighting for our kids in Santa Ana, because our programs are very important. especially the after school ones and if I could also miss Mendoza I talked to

you a lot about over Facebook a few times and if you could help me set up a meeting with the director of Park and Recreation because also I've been trying to get a meeting with them haven't been able to for certain circumstances mr. mayor thank you for helping us with the sexual harassment the one of our 17 year old girls occur at Santa Anita it's incredible that it took four weeks for the police to show up not one week not one hour not 30 minutes four weeks parks and recreation is doing a lot of

changes and I welcome but it's unfair that they hire the security company that they don't do nothing the only thing they do is open bathrooms and close bathrooms break our sprinklers because they drive their cars all over the fields yet they have time to do other stuff that to me are disrespectful never in my life since like I said since I stood up here the first time when I was 15 till right now that I'm 45 I've been so aggravated so disrespected like no others from not being able to get a meeting with the city manager and I'll be able to sit sit down with the

director of park and recreations the only thing i ask is teach us change teach us what you guys want us to do because i've been a community leader for all this time almost 30 years and i'm not going to go away and for my kids i will always stand to fight and die i'll never be on my knees so please if you guys can help me out some of you guys are females in this you guys have daughters sisters and it's unfair that a 17 year old girl has to get sexually harassed and we can't get the police to get there on time but yet we have a security company that doesn't do nothing you guys

got rid of our park rangers now the night staff is gone there's a lot of things going on that are gone and are we aren't protected so please i will sit here until the end of the meeting to see if you guys could help me set up these meetings because i want to work i want to continue to work and i want to continue to work for our community at 10 n thank you so much thank you

thank you pedro uh that concludes the public comments for this evening both in person and by phone so i'll go ahead and move along to the consent calendar items and ask any members of the council if they'd wish to pull anything off the consent calendar to discuss separately or if there are any abstentions or accusals that they'd like to make councilmember fan thanks mayor um i

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

I have to recuse myself from item 16 and 20 as charitable venture slash project kinship and Anderson-Penna partners are clients of my employer, Rattan and Tucker. And out of an abundance of caution, I will also recuse myself from item 23 for the same reasons. Thank you.

Got it. Thank you for that. Mayor Pro Tem.

David PenalozaItem 3

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. I'd like to pull item number nine.

Okay.

Thank you. Any other items that council members would like to pull off the calendar or recuse themselves from? Seeing none, hearing none, I'll go ahead and entertain a motion to adopt the balance of the consent calendar. I'll move the balance. I'll second. Okay. Did you get that, Madam Clerk?

I have Council Member Becerra motioning and Mayor Pro Tempeñalosa in second.

If I can ask the council members to please cast your vote.

Councilmember Hernandez? Mayor Sarmiento? Okay. Councilmember Hernandez, if you would please cast your vote.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

Yes, I'm trying to cast my vote on the application, but it looks like there's some technical difficulties.

That's fine. If you can verbalize it, and we'll go ahead and mark it for you.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

Yes.

Thank you. And with that, I have Councilmembers Becerra, Hernandez, Lopez, Mendoza, Fan, Mayor Potempeñalosa, and Mayor Sarmiento voting yes. Thank you.

Great. So that passes unanimously. That was the balance of the consent calendar. And I believe that was including the recusal by Councilmember Fan on number 16, 20, and number 23, just for clarity on the minutes. The only item that was pulled off, I believe, was item number nine that was by Mayor Pro Temp. So I'll go ahead and pass it over to him.

David PenalozaItem 3

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. And just I asked before I continue, I asked if the city clerk, if you could, in the future, if we could get the vote cast tally projected on the screen. I think you had mentioned that that was going to be happening. Not important, but I mean, it is important, but as we've moved forward. Anyways, thank you Mr. Mayor. Item number nine is to approve a First Amendment to the Emergency Rental Assistance Program spending plan and appropriate $14 million of federal Emergency Rental Assistance Program money allocated from the Department of Treasury. Just wanted to be very supportive of this item.

David PenalozaItem 3

It's definitely much needed in our community. There's a lot of members of our community that are hurting right now and need help and this is going to go a long ways. However, I just want to ask staff, I know Judson staff and Steven Mendoza have been working, I mean, over time to get these applications squared away and funds into the pockets of our residents. But I know that over the last couple of weeks, I've personally received numerous emails from residents that have applied as far back as September of last year, September 2020, which is, I mean, that's nine months ago.

David PenalozaItem 3

And then, you know, some March of 2021, four months ago. And they still have not received any yes or no or here's your check. I know that those two in particular, I worked with Judson, thank you, your staff over the last week to get them an answer and get them helped and see what the status of their application is. But I just want to remind staff that these are trying times and our residents are filled with anxiety of just being able to pay their rent and this is extremely important that we try to get this money to them as quickly as possible.

David PenalozaItem 3

I have sort of an idea of how long the numerous steps that we have to go through to get a check out. Thank you for one of the exhibits laid it out pretty clear in color of what the steps are to get this. But, I mean, is there a way that we could guarantee a payment to those eligible applicants and applicants that check all the boxes? Mr. Steven Mendoza, I'm not sure if you want to answer because this is your department. But, I mean, are we doing anything to try to expedite this and not have a six-month waiting period?

Yes, we are. Judson, why don't you come up so we can finish the comments and I'll introduce them. Judson has made this program very fluid so he can respond to the concerns that he hears with this and make adjustments. Two of the biggest adjustments he'll be making very shortly are the additional of nonprofits running the program. And then secondly, if the landlord does not respond to the tenant within seven days, Judson's staff is going to now issue the check to the tenant.

So he's offering these, making the program fairly fluid so he can adjust on the fly to respond to the concerns he's hearing in the field. Judson, why don't you take it from there? Thank you, Stephen. Thank you, Mayor, for Tim. In addition to building on that, June 1st, we began paying 100% of the past due rent for families who have applied. That was an important change so that we can assist more families with the funding that we have available. and then with approval by City Council tonight of this action on August 1st we're going to be doubling our capacity by increasing our providers from four providers to eight providers total

and we're hoping that hoping that change will definitely further expedite the delivery of assistance to families who need this assistance in our community. Thank you for that Judson and

David PenalozaItem 3

let's say for example just hypothetically speaking if a resident were to apply this afternoon today online for rental assistance and they haven't paid their rent since April when can they if they and they check all the boxes and they they everything's in the green and and they're verified how quickly can they expect to check for

that back rent great question so we have over 350 applications already submitted So there's going to be 350 applications ahead of them. And then on top of that, our providers are currently processing over 400 applications as well trying to get those payments out. So if they applied today, it could be anywhere around October or November before they actually get the assistance payment out to pay out their entire past due rent.

David PenalozaItem 3

So we are looking at a three to four month window before they see some kind of, and that's not necessarily a check but whether they're approved or not like if they don't meet the requirements do they find out sooner or do they find out hey you're you're good but we're we're backed up and you will receive a check three months from now or is it just kind of they're left in limbo until they hear something from us three four months from now well the providers responsible to

work with each family through their application requirements and so if they're if they don't qualify then our providers are responsible to tell them you don't qualify at the beginning you're over income or you you know you weren't impacted by COVID-19 or whichever you know would disqualify them from assistance but no family is left in this in limbo I never we we hear our families desperately waiting for the assistance but we don't hear our families waiting in limbo because we are constantly asking our providers to provide them with assistance and make sure that they're being followed up with.

David PenalozaItem 3

Okay. I just, again, just want to remind, you know, not only do we have a community for the large part that there's a huge digital divide in the community. English is not a first language. We're dealing with Spanish-speaking residents and Vietnamese-speaking residents, and there is a digital divide. So from what I have understood, there's been a couple residents that have reached out to me that are doing the application process for their parent and obviously the parent maybe doesn't have access or is not well dialed in and how to use their email and what not.

David PenalozaItem 3

So I just want to make sure that we use every effort we can if it means going to their household and knocking on the door to give them a status update or calling or sending a physical letter. every possible way to reach them, to let them know that they're not, that they're still in the process and it's a long time. And whatever we can do, if that's something that we have to do as council members up here, to make sure that there's additional staff to help process these applications, because with this approval of $14 million extra, I mean, you're going to see an increase in applications.

David PenalozaItem 3

And the last thing I would want to see is our residents, you know, going months without hearing anything because, again, the anxiety is high and people are anxious. You know, the moratorium on evictions is expiring soon from the state. So there's fear and it's warranted. And whatever we can do to help expedite that process would be best. Mayor Sarmiento, that's all I have. Sorry for rambling on a little bit. But thank you, Judson. And thank you, Stephen. With that, Ms. Mayor, I'll make a motion to approve the item.

Jessie LopezItem 3

I think others have questions.

Yeah, but good comments. Let me go ahead and just keep that at bay, but I know there's some other hands raised. I think Council Member Fan and then Council Member Lopez. And Council Member Hernandez, if you need to speak, just go ahead and get Madam Clerk's attention. Go ahead, Council Member Fan.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

Thank you, Mayor. Justin, will you please come back up? You might just want to stand there for a little bit. if we're being honest. So thank you. First of all, I'd like to ask regarding the expanding the various agencies from four to eight organizations that we're partnering with.

Do you yet have an idea of who they are? We do. We know. So our four existing providers are His Families Forward, Catholic Charities of Orange County, Salvation Army, and Latino health access. Those are four core providers that we've been working with since March 12th. The four additional providers that we're going to be bringing on is Families Together of Orange County, KPOC,

sorry, KPOC, South County Outreach, and Marinette, who does our underwriting for our

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

Downpickment Assistance Loan Program. Okay, great. And you know, the reason why I ask is I know that We have a long history of partnering with a number of organizations, and I just want to make sure that we have organizations that have a long-term relationship and capacity with the Asian American community here in the city. A lot of times what we see is the city provides incredible resources that a lot of residents who are Asian American or non-English or Spanish speaking don't know it exists. And I know we're doing a lot to do that outreach, and I know staff is working on the classification for the Vietnamese community liaison,

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

so hopefully they can get on board quickly and work on that. But that is something I do ask, and that we do do some targeted outreach with the media and other organizations that have those relationships, whether it's the temples, the churches, because they're trusted members and leaders in the community. And that's a great way to get the word out. The other question I had is, do we have specific benchmarks for these organizations to help people apply. So for example, if I apply today, you know, is there an estimated time as to when I would one, hear about the result of my application and two, an

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

estimated amount of time that I would receive a check or a direct deposit?

Great question. So on a weekly basis we meet with all of our providers and we ask everybody these basic questions. How many families have you assisted so far? How many families have been recertified so far? And how many families do you have in progress? And we are able to compare and contrast everybody's performance relative to one another.

In terms of those micro-level performance benchmarks of when the city assigns an applicant to one of our providers, like how long does it take for them to process them through and issue them a payment as quickly as possible. We don't have those more micro-level data. We have more macro-level data trying to achieve our collective outcome of keeping the program moving forward, administering the assistance as expeditiously as possible and pushing our team as hard as possible.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

Thanks. And the reason I ask is not so much about collecting data, but about, again, creating benchmarks for our providers. I know that if I were a tenant looking for this, I would literally be on the edge of my seat every single week as the federal government changes whatever it's doing. The state, hopefully, fingers crossed, knock on wood, that they extend the eviction moratorium, especially if we're out of work. We know that EDD benefits are ending at the end of August. So I think that it's just really important to continue to have that communication, and it seems like that's what we're doing.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

but also helping to create these benchmarks because it lets people know what to expect and how to budget as much as they can. The other question is, why does it take three to four months?

Well, it's really an issue of volume.

Relative to other programs in Orange County and throughout the state and throughout the country, We haven't closed our application process, which is something we're proud of as a team that since August 12th, we've kept that application process open. So that means that we're just continuously processing new applications. And we haven't, and like you said, a family who's learning about this today should apply today if they need the rental assistance, pay off their past due rent, and they were impacted by COVID-19.

So while we're processing several applications and we've approved over $4 million now in assistance for families, we have more applications coming in so it's just a matter of volume. It's not like we're closing it, processing all the applications and then reopening it at any point in time. And then the second bottleneck we have is unresponsive landlords generally. Landlords are not responding to our request for their W-9, their identification, their landlord participation agreement.

And so it's creating a bottleneck where we're approving $4 million of payments for families. But because landlords are not responsive, we've only been able to disperse $2.5 million so far.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

And that's why you're doing the one week, just a one week waiting period for landlords, okay, to address that bottleneck.

With a very hard deadline. If they don't respond by that seventh day, then we're going to turn around and make that payment to the tenant.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

Okay, so I know I'm going into detail about this, but if you have a one week turnaround for the landlord, how long does it take prior to approval? because I'm trying to figure out this three to four month window and let's say like does it take a week for us to review an application two weeks two months you know gosh well it it really depends

on the the readiness of the of the family so if if you have a family who's submitted a full application and they submitted their declaration of COVID-19 hardship, turn around, you ask them to fill out all these various forms and everything's ready and in place, then the provider would be able to approve the assistance very expeditiously for that family. But it really depends on the quality and integrity of the application and the responsiveness of the applicant as they're being

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

processed. Okay, thanks. And I guess my last comment really is regarding the kind of documents that we're requiring from residents. I know at least my mom who only speaks between me she has a really hard time figuring out what documents are and often it's relying on neighbors, friends, me to try to gather whatever information she might need because she's on Social Security disability or whatever else. So you know I hope that whatever documents we're getting we're flexible. A lot of folks you know to try to show their income they might not have like a W-4 or anything like that because they work in the cash economy.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

And so I just want to make that comment because it is potentially, this paperwork is a hurdle for a lot of residents, the ones who really need it. So I hope that we're cognizant of that and find many alternate forms of documentation. Thanks.

Thank you, Council Member. I believe Council Member Lopez is next, followed by Council Member Hernandez.

Jessie LopezItem 3

Thank you. Judge, did I understand correctly that if somebody applies today, they have about 700 families in front of them?

Yes. Yes. Thank you, Council Member. Yes.

Jessie LopezItem 3

And what was my other question?

Jessie LopezItem 3

One of the things I do want to see moving forward with this rental relief is possibly a report out to the council

Jessie LopezItem 3

that's going to let us know what we've spent, how much we have, what the benchmarks are as Councilmember Fan was discussing and the turnaround time for people I personally can you know share with everyone that I've helped someone fill this form out and we turned everything around very quickly and the wait time was still about three months and so I want to make sure that we're getting this money out to people quickly and I think we all understand that and I want to thank you for the work that you're doing but I do think that again more than six weeks is way too much and I think having you know some sort of

Jessie LopezItem 3

report out to us is going to be helpful so that we understand where we are with

this money thank you great thank you councilmember councilmember Hernandez

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

thank you mr. mayor I want to start by thanking Judson Brown you have been extremely helpful with helping residents in Ward 5. And I know that when I've had questions, you've made it pretty seamless. I just wanted further clarification because I know this is a topic that I've seen circulate in my email on many occasions. Could you just clarify once more for me that if a landlord is not willing to work with a tenant, that in this case, we will now be able to issue payment to the tenant directly?

Yes, thank you very much, Councilmember Hernandez. That is correct. If a landlord is unresponsive after we attempt to reach that landlord after seven calendar days, we will turn around and we will issue that payment to the tenant directly. We do ask that the tenant does execute something called a tenant participation agreement that certifies that they're going to use that assistance to pay their past due rent as certified as qualified by the family. But that's the extent of our requirements for the tenant's payment.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

Wonderful. And are families that are living in motels eligible to receive payment in these cases as well?

Thank you. That actually was a question we received as well earlier from another council member. Families who are currently residing in motels are not currently eligible for assistance. However, we do have two other programs that are more narrowly guided for those families, specifically our SAVES program. That's an eviction prevention program that City Council adopted last November and we launched on February 1st. That program is for families who have been notified that they are being evicted and then that program can provide motel assistance for families who have been evicted.

And then second, we've entered into an agreement with Families Forward for $50,000 to provide motel vouchers for families experiencing homelessness as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Mendoza. Then I believe Mayor Pro Tem has another comment.

Thank you. I'd like to know, you mentioned that if the landlord is not responsive that the money would go directly to the tenant. And so what is there, what kind of guarantee will there be that the tenant will be using that money for rental and later on may not use it for rental and then reapplies for more rental assistance? Do we have some kind of guarantee that the tenant has to use that money for that specific purpose?

Thank you, Council Member Mendoza. Great question. So when we designed that part of the program to issue payments directly to tenants, the extent of accountability that we're talking about that we implemented was in the form of a tenant participation agreement. So same with the landlord. The landlord signs a landlord participation agreement that certifies that they're going to be using our payment to pay off the past due rent for their tenant.

We ask the tenant to sign a tenant participation agreement that certifies that they're going to use our funds to pay their landlord. Beyond that, the Department of Treasury doesn't require us to have any additional verification that the actual payment was made to their landlord.

Thank you, Councilmember. Mayor Potem, you had another comment?

David PenalozaItem 3

I did, Mayor, but between Councilmember Hernandez and Councilmember Mendoza, the questions were asked that I had, so thank you.

Excellent. Thank you. Hearing no and seeing no other requests to speak, I just had a couple of comments, and I really want to thank my colleagues, Councilmembers, for keeping your comments brief and really asking some very good questions. Madam Clerk if you'll start the time on me so I don't go long because I could I can really speak and so I don't want to do that. But I first want to begin by just thanking you know Director Mendoza, Judson, this is incredible work right. Doing math on what you know how much money there is, relief for rental assistance and preventing evictions.

If you add all this up, this $14 million along with the ERAP I, which was $9.8, and what we're looking at from the state, possibly coming back to us later on, which is about $10.6, we're looking at $35 million, right, or close to that. So nobody in Santa Ana should be evicted for failure to pay arrearages on rent. So I really want to thank you because I know that it's a blessing, but it's also a lot of work to manage these monies and to comply with the Department of Treasury, comply with the State Department. So I know how difficult it is.

The only comments I had, and I think a lot of very good questions were asked, and most of them were asked already by my colleagues, is that I know we're going to be adding four additional contracts to help with the processing and evaluation of, you know, tenants' eligibility to the extent that we could also include some effort to do outreach. And I'm talking about some of the grassroots outreach that I think my colleagues have mentioned. It is old school. It is the stuff that I think many of us already experience in our neighborhoods. People don't have access to computers. They can't do it on the Internet.

Sometimes they don't know what number to call for an appointment. If we could drop flyers off in laundromats, grocery stores, maybe we could bring some of our part-timers back to be able to leaflet. and those zip codes that we know there are serious, you know, problems and there's a high concentration of tenants. The other one is I know that, you know, there's some sometimes there's some failure to comply by some landlords, as I guess was mentioned. So to the extent the city doesn't have any standing at an unlawful detainer action, which is an eviction proceeding,

I know my conversation with Director Mendoza was, you know, getting creative and finding a way that the city could be present at a hearing to be able to at least cure the arrearages and prevent the eviction from going forward. I would ask the Madam City Attorney to work with, you know, Director Mendoza in looking at that. Maybe there's a way that we could create something similar to the Deportation Defense Fund, which is the tenant, you know, defense fund, where we may have counsel at the ready to be present with tenants that are being evicted, because we certainly have the resources to prevent that problem.

Now, if somebody's being evicted for some other reason, you know, whether it's a nuisance action whether it's something else that's beside the point but for failure to pay rent and arrearages on that that shouldn't be the case here so I am very grateful that all of this is happening and that now we're going to a hundred percent cure versus you know eighty percent because we do have landlords that also live you know and and you know survive and subsist based upon these rental payments so that's a good thing so I agree with everything that's been said I simply want to make sure that we do this and we

have some time right because this doesn't expire till 2025 September 2025 is that that's what I read is it on the federal monies is that on the ERAP one is that that's one question I wasn't too clear on there that is that is correct

the funds don't expire until September 30th 2025 great so we have enough time

to be able to do this correctly and prevent anything from happening. The light just turned red. I think that's all I had. You know, and thank you for, you know, asking the questions and answering the questions that you had. Last question I forgot to ask is I know we're doing an 80 percent AMI, but we're prioritizing 50 percent AMI. Is that correct? Yes. Thank you, Mayor. We are we are

prioritizing the lowest income families in our community. So when families apply, when we sort that list we sorted by the income that they reported on their application so that we're we're serving those lowest income families first particularly those

families below a 50% AMI great thanks so I know that there's a motion to a move staff's recommendation is there a second I did want to see if we could include some of those adjustments that we spoke about up here if that makes sense with everybody I think there are there's funding available for that or does staff feel comfortable coming back with something or can you incorporate some of those?

Certainly, sir. We can incorporate the start with the registry process for what you were talking about being notified regarding any evictions. And then I was going to mention later we do have this $14 million mentioned in the Revive Santa Ana plan as well. And one of the points was going to be that we could also do more robust legal services for eviction prevention with both that money and then we also allocated a pot of money to the city attorney that you'll see later in your presentation tonight.

Great. And then flyers and leafleting and maybe information on the ground. So I'll go ahead and if there's a second for the mayor pro tems motion or did you want to clarify?

David PenalozaItem 3

No, I just wanted to say that I'm happy to include that as part of the motion so that it's clear. Great.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

I'll second.

Great. we have a motion in a second madam clerk will you please take roll or I guess should we just punch it in on the new system that we have yes yes so if

council members can go ahead and cast your vote

Mayor Sarmiento, if you would provide your vote.

I think mine's frozen, so let me see.

If you would please announce your vote, and we can go ahead and capture that.

I'm in support. I'm a yes.

okay motion carries seven zero with council members becerra hernandez lopez mendoza fan mayor pro temp and mayor serenito

voting yes thank you great so the motion carries thank you let me go ahead and move along to the first business calendar item item number 26 which is designate a voting delegate and up to two alternates for the League of California Cities 2021 General Assembly and I'll

turn it over to the clerk. Thank You mayor so this item requires a voting delegate at an annual League of California Cities conference and we do have Tony Cardenas here to answer any questions since we do have new council members if there are any questions that any member of the council have

and we also have up to two alternate delegates great thank you for that welcome tony how you

doing good evening marissa long time no see man i know it's good to see you again in person did you want to add anything to the clerk's comments um i was just going to provide just

a brief overview of the process go ahead if you need if you need me to okay santana council members Good evening. I'm Tony Cardenas with the League of California Cities. Just wanted to provide a quick overview of the general resolutions process. There's two ways for the League of California Cities to adopt policy. One way is through our policy committees. We have seven of them. They meet quarterly, virtually since the lockdown. And our lobbyist brings bills, issues, ballot measures to this committee. And they adopt a position if they want to. And our lobbyist has its marching orders and they lobby accordingly.

The other way is to provide the general resolutions process during our annual conference. It takes place September 22nd through 24th at the Sacramento Convention Center. We have over a thousand people registered. It's our first in-person conference, so I hope the majority of you can attend. But any member city can draft the resolution and tell the League of Cities what to do and what policy to adopt. So the city of Y wants to adopt a support position on the city of X. They draft the resolution. They get five cities to support that resolution, and those resolutions are sent to headquarters.

The resolutions need to be sent to headquarters by July 24th. We will then tabulate all those resolutions, put them in a packet for you, and send them out by August 6th is our intention when we want to get those packets out. So after the August 6th date is when councils across the state are going to be looking at those resolutions to see which one is qualified and to adopt a position if they are inclined to do so. And each city council also gets a voting delegate as was announced by our city clerk. And typically the council gives the voting delegate essentially some direction in which to vote for each resolution.

And on the last day of our annual conference, September the 24th at 12.30 p.m. is when the General Assembly will convene and when that voting delegate will have the chance to vote on that resolution. Prior to that, on September 23rd, there is a General Resolutions Committee, and that's an advisory committee that meets the day before. They get presented with all the resolutions, and they adopt the position, but that's strictly just a recommendation position to the entire General Assembly. So I just wanted to real quickly just provide the process and what this voting delegate entails and what the general resolution process entails.

And with that, I'll be happy to answer any other questions.

Great. Thanks for that overview, Tony. I appreciate it. Let me go ahead and ask any members of the council if they'd like to motion in second and designate a voting delegate, and I'll call on Council Member Mendoza. I see your hand raised.

Yes, I do have a question. Mr. Cartenas, how long is the term? And secondly, I would like to nominate my colleague Jesse Lopez as our representative.

I'll second that.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Peñalosa. And I would like to be selected as an alternative.

Great. Just for clarity before you answer that, Tony, on the term, that was a good question. What's – I guess we're taking these individually, right? We're not going to take these as a group. So let's go ahead and vote on the actual delegate.

on the voting delegate and then we'll go on the first alternate and then the second alternate.

Let's do that. Term, Tony, what's the term on that? The term is for one year. So it's just

for the annual conference. So it's just for that one year and for that one event.

Great. So we have a motion and a second. I see no other questions or comments. Madam Clerk, if you'll please call roll. And my laptop is still frozen, so I'll do a verbal yes.

Thank you. And all other council members, if you can please cast your vote.

Okay. Okay. Motion carries 7-0 with council members Becerra, Hernandez, Lopez, Mendoza, Fan, Mayor Potempeñalosa, Sarmiento. Voting yes. For council member Lopez as the voting delegate.

Great. Thank you for that. Let's go ahead and move along to the first alternate. And I believe we had Council Member Mendoza who offered herself up to be the first voting delegate. And is there anybody who'd like to second that? I'll second that. Thank you, Council Member Becerra. So we have a motion by Council Member Mendoza and a second by Council Member Becerra to designate Council Member Mendoza as the first voting delegate.

Thank you. Council Members, can please cast your vote?

And I'm a yes, please.

Thank you, Mayor.

Motion carries 7-0 with Council Members Becerra Hernandez, Lopez Mendoza, Fan, Mayor Potempo, and Yalosa, Mayor Sarmiento, voting yes.

Great. Motion carries. Moving along to the last designation for the second alternate voting delegate, I'll go ahead and entertain a motion and name for somebody to be that delegate.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

I'm on the general reso committee, so I'll nominate myself for second alt.

Okay, I'll second that. So is there any other questions or comments? Seeing none, Madam Clerk, if you'll please call roll and cast my vote as a yes, please.

Thank you.

Council members, please cast your vote.

Motion carries 7-0 with Councilmembers Becerra, Hernandez, Lopez, Mendoza, Fan, Mayor Potempeñalosa, and Mayor Sarmiento voting yes.

Great, thank you. So thank you, Councilmembers. Thank you. I believe the delegate is Councilmember Lopez. The first alternate is Mendoza, and the second alternate is Fan. So thank you for your service, all three of you. Let's move along to item number 27, which is the revived Santa Ana spending plan and appropriation of the Federal Rescue Plan Act. And I'll turn it over to the city manager.

Thank you. Honorable Mayor, Mayor Potem, and Councilmembers, the item before you is seeking approval of the revived Santa Ana spending plan and the needed appropriation adjustments to begin deploying these needed resources. I do have a presentation that will walk you through the spending plan categories and the proposed programs and services.

Which will be loaded shortly.

Okay, here we go.

Just starting with some background information. This March, the American Rescue Plan Act was signed into law providing our city fiscal recovery funds which allowed for the development of the revived Santa Ana. The funding consists of two payments for our city totaling $128 million, with the first allocation of $64 million already received and available for programming. Also important to note, the city is a recipient of an additional $15.8 million in rental assistance and housing vouchers. These additional dollars are included in the spending plan, but were appropriated earlier tonight under a separate staff report.

As anticipated, the recovery money does come with strict guidelines on reporting requirements and eligible uses. These guidelines began to roll out soon after the enactment. Eligible uses in general permit spending on COVID-19 response efforts to decrease spread and bring the pandemic under control, replace lost revenue for governmental units to support public services, support immediate economic stabilization for households and businesses, and address systemic public health and economic challenges that have contributed to the unequal impact of the pandemic.

The city does have substantial flexibility to tailor eligible programs for our local needs. Fiscal staff will continue to monitor for additional guidelines, clarifications, and other modifications throughout the rollout of Revive Santa Ana to ensure compliance. It's important to note that this is only the first tranche. The second tranche you have quite a while to program and it more than likely won't be received for 12 months. and the spending timelines on this a little different than the rental assistance. The funds for this first tranche and for the second tranche would need to be obligated by December 31, 2024,

but could be spent up until December 31, 26. So shortly after learning about the availability of the local recovery funds, as directed by City Council, staff conducted outreach events. The very first engagement opportunity for the community to provide input was on March 25th. Following that, the city launched a trilingual survey both online and in print. Separately, the city council engaged in discussion and provided direction to staff during five different public meetings. The spending plan presented tonight incorporates those discussions, comments from community members,

and reflects the most up-to-date information on the spending guidelines from the U.S. Department of Treasury. So the overall spending plan. As you might recall, Revive Santa Ana focuses on five different priority areas. Pandemic recovery, direct assistance programs, public health and safety, critical infrastructure, and city fiscal health. Starting with the pandemic recovery category, this category has a proposed allocation of $5,150,000. Programs within this category focus on immediate recovery and specific improvements to address inequities.

They include mental health recovery, a memorial to lives lost, public health equity, expansion of critical communication methods, sanitation and prevention, and COVID emergency response. So starting with mental health, $750,000 is to provide community mental health supportive services by contracting with a mental health first responder and providing a no-cost mental health hotline for all community members. $200,000 for a memorial to remember those that lost their lives due to COVID-19 with the specifics to be determined by the Arts and Culture Commission.

$200,000 to perform the feasibility study of establishing our own public health department. $2 million to expand our critical communication methods, including programmable signage at our community centers and parks, expanded contract for targeted text message alerts, and greater investment in translation services. $500,000 for continuation of sanitization efforts in high traffic areas such as bus shelters. $1.5 million for increased costs associated with the emergency medical response by Orange County Fire Authority.

You might recall earlier versions of the spending plan also had proposed funding for vaccination collaboration, education, and an inclusion and equity officer. I am pleased to report that we have been awarded a grant that will provide the funding for those items. Next are the direct assistance programs, the largest of all five spending areas at just over $26 million. These include early childhood programs, daycare, afterschool, youth activities, emergency rental assistance, emergency housing vouchers, food distribution support, business and non-profit assistance,

youth violence, sexual assault intervention, re-entry programs, technology skills, and resident direct assistance. So first in the area of early childhood support assistance for $500,000, this was identified as a priority and you will also see additional spending in one of the other categories for this type of services. These dollars can assist non-profits in providing targeted programs. And one quick exciting note, staff is already working with TRF for providing free birth to 3 year old daycare at some of our community centers. TRF has a separate source of grant funding for that program. Next is youth programs with $300,000.

and similarly staff has been researching various programs and has the potential for a partnership utilizing also separate funding. Listed within the direct assistance program is the $14 million that you just spoke about regarding the rental assistance, which we know there is a significant need, and one of the other critical components that you have raised is providing assistance with eviction prevention legal services. Included in this category is also a spending plan for emergency housing vouchers of $1.8 million that we've been awarded.

There is assistance of $1 million to help the food banks and the distributors provide the free food, which we are still finding is in high demand in our community. • Direct assistance of $3 million to get businesses open that have struggled during the COVID-19 pandemic and to also assist our key non-profits to make sure they are sustainable and get up and running to provide services • $1 million for violence intervention programs which focus on youth, sexual assault and re-entry programs • A half a million for technology skills and digital literacy programming which our

library is already starting work on. And then lastly, a direct assistance of $4 million to the residents that are hit the hardest. An assistant at this time is planned to take the form of a debit or a gift card for our local businesses in Santa Ana, particularly focused on food. And just to remind you, this is the first tranche and we also have the second tranche dollars coming and right now staff does have a recommendation for a large amount earmarked in this category as well. So the next category of public health and safety has a proposed spending amount of over $16 million for a number of critical areas.

Some of these areas were frequently mentioned in the community input and in council inputs. They include healthy activities, pedestrian improvements, addition of park space, additional healthy food choices, homeless services, upgrade to park restrooms, enhance security. So more specifically, this category includes $50,000 to bring back this year and encourage healthy activities is the Revive 5K, which is already tentatively scheduled for October 23rd. $3 million to greatly enhance pedestrian safety and address severely blighted conditions that

exasperated by increased homeless population along First Street.

$7.8 million to invest in expansion of open space to encourage healthy outdoor activities. $1 million for a central farmers market and for community gardens to promote healthy food choices. $1 million to address neglected and vacant storefronts with property compliance assistance. And part of the goal there would be to take vacant storefronts and hopefully help the landlord improve them so that we can get new businesses opened up to strengthen our economy.

One million to form the Rapid Response Homeless Services while redirecting 911 calls to an alternative dispatch center.

One point five million to replace the outdated park restrooms and to enhance public safety. For the first phase, we're ready to start with Memorial, Madison, and Campesino Park. And the last item under Public Health and Safety is $1 million for enhanced security to increase the usability of our parks and community centers.

Transitioning to our fourth category of critical infrastructure, it's a proposed spending of $20,750,000. And it includes improvements to city-owned parking structures, community broadband, community centers, library, mobility improvements, information technology, streetlights, storm drains, and channels. So starting with the parking facilities. A half a million dollars is proposed to make needed improvements to facilitate economic activity.

3.5 million to identify and address pockets in our city that have no low cost and or high quality internet access. More and more details are coming out on exactly what localities can spend the dollars on. It is fairly limited and it is to only address areas where there is not an affordable and they have the set determination as to what they consider quality. So the first step would be to perform an assessment citywide and we can identify those areas for you. $1.5 million investment for needed renovations in our own city-owned community centers,

but then also at the Delhi Center, which sits on city land.

$7 million for transforming the Central Library into a state-of-art facility with a focus on early childhood learning. I think you heard during the budget presentation some of the great ideas from our city librarian.

$1.5 million for bringing library resources to areas without them to ensure greater accessibility. This also was talked about briefly with the budget, the plan. They're almost like a vending machine library so that anybody can go up to them and check out a book and we can install them in locations for a pretty reasonable amount of money. $1.5 million to address alleys, sidewalks, traffic calming, curb and gutter. This was something that was mentioned quite a bit through the community input.

$750,000 to better secure storm drains and channels. $1.5 million to enhance neighborhood safety with more street lighting. That dollar figure could provide an additional 250 street lights. And $2 million for information technology and process upgrades to better serve our customers and enhance recovery. The final spending category is city fiscal health of $11.6 million. Like similar other businesses, the city, during the downturn of the pandemic, it did impact certain revenue streams for us. So for this area, it's just four items.

The first is half a million dollars to replenish our unemployment and our paid leave expenses. $500,000 for increased legal support services. This would be for a city attorney's office. It would be really two-fold. It would be just because we do bombard her with a lot of work because all of these programs will entail the creation of contracts, agreements, MOUs, and then also so that she can add her input and assist with eviction protection prevention services. And then $200,000 for the finance department, which as you can imagine will see significant increase

in just the accounting and compliance requirements needed to track these dollars. And then last, we have a reserve calculation of just over $10 million for lost revenue. But I will tell you this is just an estimate and a reserve because right now they still are working at the formula that they're going to allow local governments to use in order to calculate what the U.S. Treasury will recognize as a revenue amount that is entitled to be replaced.

Of important note, we are expecting even more money coming our way from the federal and state level in the areas of homeless services, youth programs, and as mentioned, the public health equity money that we know we are going to receive. So this is the proposed Revive Santa Ana spending plan for the first payment of the $64 million plus the additional rental and housing assistance totaling an additional $15.8 on top of the $64. I'm seeking your approval of the overall categories and the conceptual program and services only.

All required agreements, MOUs, contracts will come before you for separate approval. And we do recognize that changes are going to happen over the spending period. As I mentioned before, obligated by the end of December 2024, spent completely by the end of December 31, 2026. We do think there's going to be further clarification of guidelines. And we know from the CARES program experience that some programs are more popular than others, so we want to keep the flexibility to be able to redirect. and then we also anticipate that you will identify additional priorities that

you might want us to shift so I may also recommend that in the near future we change the standing COVID-19 presentation so that you can have a standing revive presentation to stay informed and update the progress and then make the necessary tweaks as needed so in addition to the ask to approve the overall categories and programs and services. The staff report before you is also seeking the appropriation adjustment which would authorize the spending. As you can imagine we have a lot of work to do behind the scenes that need to be performed and we're very anxious to bring in the needed

resources including part-time employees and other administrators as Judson just talked about so that we can start the process of recovery and emergence from this pandemic myself as well as all of the staff are available should you have

any questions great thank you for that presentation and I'll go ahead and bring it back to the council I do believe that we have councilmember Hernandez who

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

wants to address you thank you mr. mayor I have a question madam city manager there's a number of areas that I'm extremely happy to see included in the revived Sanana spending plan most notably the mental health recovery at 750,000 I just want to to echo to my colleagues that this is certainly a start but it is certainly not enough 750,000 I don't think is going to suffice for us to have a comprehensive mental health recovery plan so I would like to see that

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

increased number two early childhood support and head start for child care daycare it's extremely important that we have infrastructure to be able to support reopening our city myself as a parent I understand the barriers firsthand I wish I could join you guys in the chambers right now but the The reality is for a lot of working class families, childcare is still a barrier, even though our economy is opening up and even though our city is opening up for parents, there are still barriers and challenges that come with going back to work physically.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

I think that $500,000 is not going to be anywhere near enough to support residents in this community with getting back to a sense of normalcy. So if we can strengthen the amount of money that goes to early childhood support and head starts, I think that that is going to be critical in us having a successful reintegration of having our residents get back to work and eventually go back to school. Number two, I mean number three rather is after school and youth sports program. We are the youngest city in Orange County per capita 13 to 24, but we are also a city with a number

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

of significant challenges that a lot of other cities don't face. Most notably, when it comes to youth sports programs, I know that there has been a large population of kids that have been extremely limited to services that they can afford. Right now we're in the middle of summer and average programs throughout the summer range from $97 a week starting. It's very expensive. $300,000 is not going to suffice. So I'd like to see that increased and I'd like to propose that. Number four, youth violence, sexual assault intervention reentry. A city as large as us,

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

we have nearly 400,000 people in county, but we have over 100 established and non-established gangs, graffiti crews, cliques and organizations that largely are made up of young people. So in order for us to have services that are designed to ensure the support of a safer environment that is conducive to learning in a social social emotional wellness and growth and health we have to properly be able to have budgets that are representative of creating that very environment that we want

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

families to thrive in so looking at the one million dollar threshold i think it would be most beneficial for us to have that amount increase because of the fact that right now the community protective factors that we have in our city are essentially non-influential non-existent rather in competition to the influence of gangs and the culture of gangs that we have in our city it's going to really take a lot of collaboration with community organizations to really get some key work done to be able to deter people from joining them. So I think that this number needs to increase significantly

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

and it would be most beneficial to see us change the primary lead department on youth violence, sexual assault intervention and reentry from PD to community development agency. I think that that is going to be where the best scope of work comes from is when we work within that agency there and my last question is a question Madam City Manager related to community gardens I see healthy food access under public health and safety and direct assistance programs as food supply and distribution could you give me some

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

clarification is healthy food access just pertaining to community gardens or potential

community gardens and development? Certainly. So under, Councilmember, under direct assistance program, the food supply distribution is to help the food banks restore their food supplies as well as to help the two main distributors in our city hand out the foods. But then under the public health and safety, the healthy food access as presented includes a central farmer's market as well as assistance for community gardens for healthy foods did that clarify yes

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

thank you and an additional question madam city manager I have some some some critiques when it comes to seeing youth violence sexual assault intervention and reentry and seeing that the primary lead department is a police department it's not because of the fact that I don't think the police department would do a good job i just know that there is a department that i think is is much more suitable for the work that that is to be done and that's the community development agency what is needed to change the primary lead department from pd to cda

certainly council member the the reason that pd was included on that is for a couple different reasons the first one is we believe that sexual assault intervention is something that would fit nicely within our Family Justice Center which is within the the PD department so it lent itself to that and then further on some of the re-entry and intervention programs speaking with some of the popular providers out there they did request a police involvement at some level but what we certainly can do and it's it's at your direction we can replace it with community development or add

community development as a co-lead for these items okay what were some of the programs that that made that recommendation so that was speaking with naughty of neutral ground he said there does need to be some police involvement not not completely not ran by it but there was some benefit in it and that was also consistent with speaking with the city of la when we were looking

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

at the grid program okay so potentially this relationship would work in conjunction with each other where say for instance we have a youth that for instance committed a low level crime these programs would be able to work with pd almost like a diversion program would

hopefully that would be the goal

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

Okay, wonderful. And then last question that I have is the transformation of Central Library to support early childhood learning as an advocate of early childhood learning and early childhood education. I'm really excited to see that. The number that I see here represented is 7 million. That's a great number, and I'm happy that the library is getting that. Could you give me a little bit more info on what we can expect from that 7 million?

Certainly in general terms, if you approve this spending plan, you would receive all the details on any proposed renovation. But as you know, that is our main central library. It is of a significant age. I believe it is technically considered historic, and it has been a long time before it's been thoroughly renovated. So the renovation would completely change the interior of it to engage with more interactive materials. I know Brian talked about this briefly but having themed book stacks with interactive activities on the end of them one of the other big changes would

be in the outside area where there would be a child playground area that had the tactical learning I believe you you had recommended actually a vendor or I can't think of the name was a play scapes so something something similar to that and the outside so it would really take a great asset in the heart of the Civic Center and make it a state-of-the-art library is what we would be hoping to achieve wonderful and then now that

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

we're on the topic of of talking about logistics with the conversation that we just briefly had centered around youth violence sexual assault intervention re-entry with PD being the primary lead here for the department now if it were changed to CDA that does not change the scope of services and how well they work with PD correct no sir the in fact

many of these line items are going to take heavy lifting from multiple departments what was listed on there was just the the lead department so if we change the lead department for that item to be community development they still will need to be working and collaborating with the police department when needed

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

okay i would like to make a recommendation um to change it from pd to cda and um and then lastly to have us have a more robust mental health recovery i i do want to just throw a number out there i think a good start would be getting us to that million dollar threshold increasing our for early childhood support and Head Start, getting that to a million as well, increasing after school and youth programs, getting it to half a million, I'd say. And maybe we look at taking some of the central library funding or some of the broadband access

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

or potentially some of the information technology and process upgrades. If we can just kind of work through our numbers here and make everybody happy, I think it'd be great. because the last thing I want to do is see us implement some programs that are truly not going to be as effective as they should. So just thinking from a critical lens here of how can we make the most of this robust spending plan that we have. And that is all the comments I have at this moment.

Okay. Thank you, council member. And we certainly can, with the council's direction, make those changes. I do want to also just point out that this is the first tranche. So there is a second tranche and i know we're focused on the first tranche but the second tranche in all of those areas would actually take those categories even higher than the numbers that you had suggested but what you are requesting is to just for the first tranche to increase to those amounts

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

is that correct okay thank you great yeah and and then my i'm so sorry i just see we have the reserved for revenue loss allocation so maybe we could look at that as as a potential source that we can tap into so just uh just an idea for my colleagues great thank you council member for

those comments let me go ahead and see if there's anybody else who has any comments

Jessie LopezItem 3

council member lopez i do thank you um i did want to echo council member hernandez concerns about mental health being a low number so we can increase that that would be great I would be supportive of the recommendation again with the child daycare head start I think that's a low number I am supportive of having CDA be the primary organization that takes the lead when it comes to youth violence and sexual assault when it comes to healthy food access I think I saw that we're talking about having a farmers market but we also have a micro farm in War 3

Jessie LopezItem 3

and the same folks are trying to replicate that at the walnut and daisy law and so when it comes to healthy food access here what I would like us to do is to support that organization and help make that happen and so you know not not just financially but whatever we need to do to work with them to bring another micro farm to a much-needed area of the city that's gonna produce healthy foods and and essentially have that option be for residents to buy at a low cost I would like to learn more about the addition of park space slash open space

Jessie LopezItem 3

if there's any lots that have been identified or what specifically in other parks we want to expand on I also want to learn more about the new library branch one of the things that I've talked about here before is bringing back bringing back the McFadden Library Center the McFadden Library it's a building that's designed as a library and I think that it would be some of a cost savings for us and really that part of the city needs it and a lot of brilliant minds have gone through the McFadden Library and have come back and help out the community and so I do want to see that be restored supportive of

Jessie LopezItem 3

the safety streetlights I know there's there's a couple of places and more three that needs that but overall I think I need to learn more about some of these line items and so I think the chart that was given to us ahead of time is great I just saw the presentation today but I do have more questions than that I still want to make sure I fully understand. It's essentially $80 million, and I got a six-staff-page report on that. So thank you.

Great. Thank you, Council Member Lopez. I believe Council Member Fan is next.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

Thank you, Mayor. Hi, y'all. Thank you so much for the presentation. And, Christine, I really appreciate you going through the various items. However, I also have a lot of questions. I understand that this $80 million is supposed to be a general kind of deposit. However, I think maybe to speak for myself, for example, if we're talking about mental health recovery, what does that look like? What kind of orgs are you going to go out to look for, to work with? And that's something I guess I'm going to try to ask questions about, so it might be a little long.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

So the first thing is regarding mental health services, I think we heard a lot of the youth, and I've met with a number of them, especially those who are LGBTQ, who've really struggled during the pandemic. Many of them have not been out with their families. And you know, when you are essentially at home 24 hours a day, it's become very difficult. So as we look at mental health recovery, I would like for us to specifically hone in on LGBT, you know, the community, but also youth in particular. I'd also like for us to work with you know in-language

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

nonprofits and that's going to be the I think the hardest step to find nonprofits that specifically do this work in the various communities. I know in my community I didn't even learn what mental health the word for mental health was in Vietnamese until 2019 and because that is something that is not discussed in our communities and so I really hope that we don't just look for you know XYZ org that is known for mental health I want us to look for orgs that are specific to the needs in our community and there are a number of them that we can find to introduce you to I do support increasing the dollar amount as

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

a young person as someone who has utilized therapy myself and who know many others who've utilized therapy it is very difficult to access that because a lot of health insurance you know may or may not cover it there are not enough therapists and so I really hope that we can include more money for that service in this trunch on the next regarding youth sports I guess what what is this how are we looking at that is it supposed to be just engaging with a number of service providers to have events.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

Okay that's really great I you know I guess I'm asking because there has been some residents have reached out to me and asked about you know skate parks or access to soccer fields and wanting to make sure that we do you know help them get with that process and have access to these kind of items my next question is regarding direct assistance program or the whether it's the rental assistance or other things but do any of these assistance programs help with mobile home

residents sorry about that can you hear me council member for rental assistance yes I think that question was posed by another council member and then for direct assistance of course it I mean the the type of resident struck dwelling wouldn't have any bearing upon like the gift card or for groceries or food

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

distributions okay and I guess in here what I don't see under the direct assistance programs kind of general category is assistance with you know mobile ham mobile home land leases what we do know is that these mobile home residents are they tend to be seniors on a fixed income they do not have a lot of you know they're affected by the economy whether there is any changes in cost living or increases to their land leases they're not protected under statewide rent control and so it can be very difficult in that regard so I do hope

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

that we can find a way to assist them under these various direct assistance programs specifically to the land leases and whatnot I guess my my follow-up question to that is regarding mortgages I do understand you know homeowners have a ton of protections regarding you know when someone can take your home or any of or foreclose on your home but once that process happens it is very difficult for our family and for many families we're not talking about you know all the fancy folks who live in Floral Park but but for many of those who saved up you know four or five members

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

of the family to try to afford a mortgage and for them losing that mortgage or not being able to meet that requirement would be very difficult. And so far, I know there might be some stuff with the federal support, but if there's any clarification for that, that would be really

helpful. Certainly. So make sure I understand. So you're looking for those who own their own home and falling behind and facing a potential foreclosure type of assistance. So I do know right now that the federal government has remained in place foreclosure protection with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac back mortgages, which are your predominantly financing vehicles for the most of the residential dwellings. So right now there is a prohibition against foreclosures, but I understand that when that lifts, your concern would be the assistance with stopping the foreclosure.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

Yeah, because I know we are so focused, and we are rightly focused on evictions, but at the same time someone who is being foreclosed on what we saw in 2008 2009 with the housing crisis is that it upended entire families communities cities all across the country and I would very much like for us to avoid that especially because for many families especially for first or second generation like mine that is your sole source source of family wealth and it you know blood sweat and tears to getting there if you do get there so if if we can find some way, if there is a need. Maybe there isn't a need, but if we can look into that,

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

that would be very helpful. My next question is regarding the youth violence prevention reentry. I did have the same concern that Council Member Hernandez had regarding having this program under PD. And the reason why I mentioned that, I really appreciate that you mentioned Mr. Nati Alvarado with Neutral Ground. I know he's done a ton of really great work in the community with gang prevention, As many of those in the community know, violence is a disease, and it's been shown that you can address it like you do with public health crisis, and I think he's been working on that matter.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

But when you're talking about reentry and violence prevention, in my mind, I don't know if that falls under community development or Parks and Rec, because these are the programs that keep people out of trouble. And so like you said, they're going to be a number of, they're going to work together, so that's fine. But I hope in some of these cases, the first time that they meet with someone who's working on violence prevention, it's not a police officer. And that's not because I don't think our officers are doing a great job, but for many of us who were raised in the city, like myself, I was taught not to speak to a police officer

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

because my family was afraid. And so if that is the community that you grew up in, it is very hard to develop that relationship if you don't have another one to kind of ease you into it. The other thing is I'd like for us to, and I don't know if you've already discussed with them, but I'll work or talk to the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, ARC. They are a, you know, organization that works to literally prevent recidivism. and I've worked with them on a number of pro bono projects as a law student and they work with juveniles also so I think that would be a good start. The next

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

question I had was regarding the expansion of open spaces. You know I mean that's great I think I've mentioned a lot about wanting to open more community parks, park-to-parks, neighborhood parks like Mariposa Park but what does that look like? Is that going to be a part of our Parks Master Plan? Is this what this money is going toward?

So there has been a park expansion that's long been on our Executive Director of Parks and Rec's wish list, and it has to do with Santa Anita Park. And that is a park that has great potential and is going to get improvements to it, but it has virtually no parking for it. And there are some underutilized properties directly north of it that if that park could be expanded, it would bring its presence out to First Street and it would also provide for a lot of parking. So that one is the top of the list. But as with all of these, we haven't gone out and done proposals. We don't have contracts for you to look at right now.

And that's certainly where all of the details will be buried in and also the time that you can, you know, I know I think youth should have this many of that type of program that those details aren't included in the staff report because we haven't gone out and solicited proposals to bring back options for you to enter into agreements. We certainly have received a lot of unsolicited proposals that we're keeping, and we're reviewing those as we were putting together this list. But thank you so much for the direction. It helps.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

Thanks, and I am very excited. And Lisa, Director would love to know, Santa Anita residents have been calling for the support for years. for Santa Anita Park it is I hope to see that it get expanded to First Street I think it would make the park a lot more safe for residents and you're right I know you haven't gone out to look for the contracts yet but I guess the question is what contracts are you gonna look for and so I hope that's what my colleagues and I are trying to give some direction on the question about property compliance and assistance is this like a facade renovation program which I know

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

there are other cities that have something like that so this is the

brainchild of our executive director of planning so I mean do you want to come up and talk about a little bit of what you had in mind that we could roll out that would hope hopefully open up more economic activity magic exactly it's very similar to a facade improvement program however but it really addresses code violations as well and our intent is to look at the most egregious properties identify those and work with those properties

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

great yes we would love our commercial properties to come up to plot compliance but I do know we have a ton of kind of strip malls that are pretty run down especially after the 2008 recession and I hope that as we revitalize those and we support small businesses that we also support these small property owners if possible to really give our city a facelift especially we drive down Harbor some of those strip malls look terabed so I would like to see those you know look better and bring people into our city my next question is well you've

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

address of broadband access so the community center renovations would that include the Santa Anita Community Center or is it just generally I'll ask

executive director Rudlaw from Parks and Rec to talk about that as to what she once again has a wish list as well as you can imagine on these items maybe your priority as far as the renovations you know we utilize the community centers and the senior centers they were critical to our deployment of COVID-19 resources so I will let her talk about the priorities that she would be recommending yes the renovations would consist of probably like painting redoing floors restrooms things of that nature so a million and a half

doesn't get you much but we will be doing some renovations to some centers and I don't I believe Santa Anita is one of those. I know we have construction going on at Santa Anita, and they are going to actually use the community center as their staging area. So before they leave, they get to paint, they get to re-floor, and they get to fix it up. But we will have a list of the community centers that are most in need to be renovated.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

Thank you, and thank you for your creative thinking about having our contractors use the community center. I know that again that is something that residents in Santa Anita Park have requested for a very long time Regarding this list of areas. I hope that we also reach out to the neighborhood leaders Because they'll know what what they need. So thank you. My next question is regarding pedestrian and mobility improvements the 1.5 million dollars Or sorry three million dollars What? So you said expanding sidewalks. Is this going to include bike lanes?

So there's actually two areas. Are you speaking about, we have the First Street Homeless Safety Project, which does improve pedestrian, but it also is the area that's been severely blighted as a result of homeless. Are you speaking of that one, or are you speaking of just the pedestrian mobility improvements?

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

Just the pedestrian mobility improvements.

So that was one that came up quite a bit from the community. is sidewalks that were in severe repair, alleys that needed to be resurfaced that hadn't been for a long time, curb and gutter. So it would be a combination of both improvements for vehicles as well as pedestrian foot traffic and some of the areas that are the most in need. So Nobil certainly would be able to prioritize those and bring back recommendations as to the spending allotments.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

And is this in addition to the $1 million we allocated in the budget for sidewalks?

This is. This is additional funding.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

Great. I just want to make a comment that, I'm going to say it on the record, I hate bike lanes. Those ones with the white stripping, no one uses them. And I think I'd rather expand the sidewalks than have these bike lanes. So I'm just going to put it out there.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

Because everybody rides their bike on the sidewalk. And I wouldn't ride my bike down Bristol it'd be very dangerous my next question is writing channel fencing this is a big one so it's storm drain gates and channel fencing I get a lot of calls from residents especially by Windsor and commercial tenants who are having a ton of problems with the channel there is this gonna be included in that or is

that still the county's problem it's a there's a combination throughout the city of areas that the county is responsible for and then areas where the city is responsible for so this would be the areas that is under the city's jurisdiction and it would be twofold we have had a lot of encroachments into channels and storm drains so we will help with that but then also with this does help with polluting and help control flooding in our city as well I'd

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

I'd like to also request that instead of chain link fences, which end up getting cut all the time, for folks who go through into the channel, that if at all possible, we look at wrought iron fencing or some other fencing that isn't going to be cut with wire cutters, because then you just end up having to fix the problem every weekend. The last question I have is regarding information technology and process upgrades. Is this internal upgrades?

Yes, this would be for all of the city different processing methods to serve customer related. So whether it's enhancing our ability to do online business, faster turnaround time, just ease of services to the customers, and also to expedite things so that we can add to the economic activity as well.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

Great, because I do know that I've gotten a lot of calls from small businesses, small business owners who have trouble, say, submitting their plans or getting access to their plans, especially during COVID. And I know we were like half staff and remote, but in my opinion, you know, any developer or small business should be able to deposit those online if possible, and then just mail it in physical copies if necessary. And does this include cybersecurity at all or is that not on this list? Jack do you want to answer that question? I

know he has done a lot of work in this area already based on what's been happening across the country. Yeah so right now cybersecurity if it pertains to a COVID relief item it could be included so if we're doing something with technology where we need to add in cybersecurity and we have that nexus to tie into COVID, then it would be included. But just cybersecurity in general would not be included in it at this point. But the rules are still in flux, and we're looking very closely at what projects would be included and what wouldn't be. And if there is any way to pull in cybersecurity,

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

I definitely want to add to that. Thanks, because I know, you know, with the rental assistance, we're asking landlords for W-9s with a lot of personal documents. And the last thing I'd like for us is to be held ransom and we see that's happening with a number of public agencies across the country and so that is a big concern we're woefully underfunded when it comes to cybersecurity so hopefully some of that can be tied in to protecting these kinds of personal information that we're requiring residents to submit to us we will look for those thank you thank you

mayor thank you councilmember I believe mayor pro tem is next yeah thank you

David PenalozaItem 3

Thank you, Mayor Salmiento, and thank you for the presentations, Madam City Manager and your staff. I know we've been working very hard on this. The one question that I have first off is the second tranche of money, how much are we expecting, and when can we expect that to come to us?

So we're anticipating roughly the same amount for a total of $128 million, so $64 million and $64 million. And that would be the ARPA dollars. And then in addition to that, we fully expect that we are going to receive additional dollars for housing related above what we normally get. As far as the receipt of it, what we are told is that it will not come any sooner than at least 12 months from the first tranche. So that's a year out.

David PenalozaItem 3

Okay. Which is great to know exactly when that could possibly come to us. And the reason I ask those questions is because I agree with a lot of what my colleagues have asked. Councilmember Hernandez and Councilmember Phan, I know they asked for increases in mental health recovery and the early childhood development and childhood daycare because, I mean, they are correct. Half a million dollars, you know, is pennies when you look at the grant scheme of trying to provide child care

David PenalozaItem 3

adequate child care for for the amount of the of our population that would need it so um i was just trying to think and i'm going down this list and and you know and and i hate being the one to say you know increase this but with no you know uh direction or idea so i i'm i'm not i'm supportive of increasing these but possibly using these because i'm assuming that the second tranche is gonna have similar guidelines and we're gonna have a similar spending plan to this i i don't see

David PenalozaItem 3

how it would be very much different of trying to address covet related uh inadequate um or uh deficiencies that we've seen over the last year um am i wrong madam well certainly we we can program

the second to whatever that council does desire but many of these we did just as an exercise for staff we do have similar amounts in the second tranche for some of these very same types of programs that would be recommending to you now obviously when we receive the second tranche we're gonna have a lot more experience with these programs and services we might have some that are extremely popular and in need and we might have some that you you choose not to direct any more

David PenalozaItem 3

resources right that would make that makes complete sense because I want to see those increased 750,000 for mental health recovery again seems very little to the amount of mental health need that we are seeing not just with our youth and and our residents but just also the the homeless population living on our streets I mean that is just a huge huge need so and I'm trying to go down this list to see okay where where can we take money from where can we reduce money to supplement those that increase in things that we're seeing you know I would hate to you know be the one that says let's take a million from that 14 million in

David PenalozaItem 3

rental assistance to supplement those increases to because all of these are extremely important and valuable to our city and just our public health overall and quality of life moving forward so it's definitely very nice to know that we are getting a second tranche in about a year and that could be used to I mean I'm assuming that these funds will also be used as startup costs to whatever these programs will need because they they all need they're all new they would

David PenalozaItem 3

need some kind of foundation to start I also had similar concerns with the the youth violence and sexual assault intervention reentry not necessarily that it shouldn't be in PD. The reason why I'm asking this is because I know that within the police department, we currently have our Family Justice Center that, you know, two years ago, we invested a lot of money into starting that up. And I've heard a lot of good success stories from the Family Justice Center within the PD department, police department. And I know that when we first

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brought that forward, the concerns I had then is should this be within the police department, given that naturally our residents too are fearful of seeking law enforcement help and would be fearful if they had just suffered some kind of sexual violence or assault by their husband or spouse or would they feel comfortable going into a police department. I remember asking those very questions when we were going down that road and now seeing how successful our family

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Justice Center has been given where it's at. I don't want to duplicate the work and give under CDA another area of addressing similar situations, whether it's with youth or sexual violence or whatnot. So that's something that I could be interested in contemplating, but at the same time, want to see, has the Family Justice Center really been you know, or can they be support and the, the ink, because I'm assuming that that million dollars would go towards that Family Justice Center and providing services out of that center?

A portion of that certainly. The one thing that's really neat about the Family Justice Center model is it's already, there's nonprofits out there already doing a lot of this work. And the Family Justice just provides them the location, the referrals, the desk, the phone, the computer. And it's not a substantial amount of funding that's needed to pay for the nonprofit. These are nonprofits that are already working in these areas and we're very excited to join in a partnership to be co-located in the Family Justice Center.

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Right. Thank you for that. And like I said, I'd be supportive of maintaining that youth violence and sexual assault intervention reentry within the police department because I know that's where our Family Justice Center is and has been operating out of, which has been successful from what I've heard. and the different cases that I have heard about I could I could sit up here and support that I would I am comfortable with this one thing that councilmember fan brought up that I also kind of and and I am supportive of bike lanes maybe

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not the designs we've seen come up in our city but just I mean just today I was driving on Edinger and there's just the amount of trash and debris that accumulates in these protected bike lanes I know I've brought this up before to Public Works Director Saba and yourself Madam City Manager but how I mean I don't I've never seen them be cleaned I'm not sure exactly who's cleaning them and how often they are cleaning them I know that that's part of the spending plan here is it's just additional cleaning of these right of these different areas of town but I mean that's a huge concern it's just the

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amount of debris that is collected within these protected bike lanes because a street sweeper can't fit in there and can't drive into the protected bike lane to clean that. So it would require somebody with an air blower, I'm assuming, or a broom to get in there and sweep all that debris out unless there's other ways that we've been cleaning them, which I haven't seen, but please.

No, certainly. I'm not an expert in street sweeping vehicles. I do think they do have some smaller versions that may be able to do that area, but we can certainly add that into in a couple of different places where we are cleaning and addressing blight. That is something that could be added into that already recommended programming.

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Okay. And final just comment, and Councilmember Pham, please don't hate me for this. The $7.8 million for Santa Anita increase in open space. I absolutely love, I definitely think that Santa Anita does need that increase and opening it up to First Street to have more visibility from the public right away. But because we are limited on these funds, you know, is it wise to use that much money for one particular area, maybe bring it down to six million and use that 1.8 to supplement those increases in the other areas we're asking?

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again I'm just I'm just I would love to give Santa Anita Park 10 million I mean that's the reality but it's like what can we do with even though it's a lot of money it's not much we're trying to stretch it in a million ways all good programs all good much needed areas but how is was there a reason why we we decided to give this large amount to use towards this one area of town I know top of the wish list of the Parks and Rec director and much needed but is there wiggle room there to Use that a little bit to address these other areas that we want to increase

Excellent question councilman and this is an estimate This is you know proposed spending certainly we would have to go out and determine if a property owner is Willing to sell their property and negotiate with them and go through all of that So this is an estimate but one of the other reasons why that park in addition to being on leases top of her list, it will serve as a walking park to one of the harder-hit census tracts. So as far as location and as far as compliance with U.S. Treasury guidelines on spending, it checks off that box as well.

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Okay. So it's a census tract, so it would be an appropriate area to expand the park space.

Enhance open space, correct.

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Okay. That's basically it. I'm overall supportive. I want more clarity on the parking structure improvements and maybe assistant city manager Mendoza, you could kind of clarify what that looks like and what parking structures I know I'm trying to think of the ones that the city owns. And there's a couple.

Yeah, there are. We would try to avoid third and Broadway because, you know, that has a development right agreement and development opportunity going on with that. it'll be painting of the remainder of them all of the three parking structures in downtown yeah all downtown so just painting well painting refurbishing sandblasting cleaning landscaping as you know they took a beating during the covid with a lot of the litter around it and plantings

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around it at the base of them so it's time to refurbish them a little yeah and which i'm okay with and seeing these upgrades into city parking structures I mean we but we all saw the tragedy that happened in Florida it's different it's apartment building versus a parking structure but I mean it's the same thing if these areas aren't addressed and maintained and they're neglected like we have neglected many city-owned facilities in the city you could potentially see a

tragedy like this and so and it also helps us recover the funding that we lost through parking lost revenue during that period of time. Okay, so okay,

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with that said, and I'm just trying to process what was just said with in regards to the parking structures, so that is a that is a accurate estimate of what it would cost to paint, refurbish these three different parking structures.

Well, again, as city manager said several times, you haven't green-lighted anything yet. So we don't have RFPs, we don't have bids, we don't have proposals on many of these things discussed in the plan. We would like to go in that direction and get more robust information for each of the programs everyone's met. Once we get the green light today, we'll begin doing that and we'll be able to sharpen our pencils.

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Okay. Okay, thank you for that. Last comment, Mayor. I am supportive of that reserve for revenue loss allocation because, you know, the fiscal health of our city is important. And for decades, numerous people that have sat on this dais have just kicked the can down the road and not worried about the financial stability of our city and burdening the generations to come with the debt. that I mean we are in a structural deficit that we approve this budget 13 million dollars you know in the red and it's something that we should always

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keep in mind when we're dealing with the public purse is is you know making sure that we're not kicking the can down the road and trying to to be as cost effective as possible but that's that's it mayor Sarmiento those are all the comments I had excited for all of this thank you staff and that's it great

Thank you for those comments. Any other comments from members of the council? Council member, I believe Council member Mendoza and then myself and then Council member Hernandez once again.

Thank you Mayor Sarmiento. My questions are regarding the allocation for the parks and recreation. Are we going to be looking at the vacant lots around our city and possibly turn them into some small green space for the neighborhoods such as we did for in the neighborhood where the Pacific Railroad Park is at. It's a small lot but it's it's used quite a bit by the community and it's it really beautified the area.

Excellent question certainly councilmember to for the line item of addition of park and open spaces one of the the largest recommendation from staff is to do the expansion of Santa Anita Park but to the extent that you know we're able to do that and there's additional dollars I love the idea of finding little pocket parks that can serve a walking nearby community thank

you yes that is a very important issue that my constituents keep bringing up because we do see as we drive around our city there's a lot of vacant lots that we should look into. They may be on our surplus vacant lots list or we could purchase. Then I have a question also along those lines on the parks and recreation line item. Previously we had kind of talked about in partnership with the Rancho Santiago Community College Board

in partnering in beautifying and upgrading Centennial Park, where we would share the expense of having a community resource center that could be used by Centennial Education Center for their students as a library, information technology, computers, and other resources for the community that the students would use but it would also be open for the public and in addition also to upgrade the Centennial

Park structures and clean up the lake or reduce the lake and just in general

upgrading that park as well. So those items that haven't been specifically particularly included in any of these programs or services, but I do recall, now that you mentioned it, that yes, we were working very closely with the community college district and a potential bond that they were going to do. At that time, we did want to partner with them and do a shared library within the education center. So I do know that our city librarian, Brian, has engaged in the conversation. I don't know if you have any update that you can provide in terms of some type of a shared

library okay so it is something we're still pursuing but certainly if you wanted to allocate additional dollars from here for that that's a program we

could add definitely I think it would benefit both of us the city and the college district because we would be sharing expenses and the benefit is to

the entire city and our residents so I would recommend we include that in the the existing allocation for new library branch or expansion of library accessibility? Yes, good idea.

Okay, and then I, along those lines, I have a question regarding the information technology line item. Did we include the free wireless accessibility for our various locations, our public access areas such as the transportation center, parks, or any place where we could have free internet services for our residents?

We were headed down that path when we had, when we actually originally had a much larger dollar, you might remember in some of the earlier versions, for broadband access, it was a lot higher dollar. But then as the guidelines rolled out, they really did tighten it as far as what a city government can do in that area. The schools and libraries do have a lot more flexibility in that regard, so I know that Brian has been working as to what he can seek. you're gonna have to correct me if I'm wrong but there is funding directly available for libraries for computer access and internet access did I state

that correctly Brian so those are separate funds outside of here that we can pursue but in terms of the ARPA dollars going for something like that right now it's not allowed for in the guidelines for a city to do that okay

Okay, very good. I support the funding that is going into Head Start. As you know, I am a higher education advocate, and being a Head Start parent myself and seeing the results of the Head Start education, how that can benefit our students, I want to see if there is a possibility that we could also partner with the school districts in using their facilities for Head Start so that we can share the expense as well? Or are you thinking of separate facilities in locating buildings that are city-owned

rather than school district-owned?

No, I like the idea of utilizing existing facilities that the school district has as well. It was initially we were thinking that to the extent that we could open up community centers for a lot of these programs, whether it's daycare or early childhood learning, but then also there might be existing providers that do have already their physical locations and maybe it is something that we can subsidize for qualifying residents. So looking at all options just so that we can ensure that we do make a dent in the need that's out there for these types of services.

Okay, very good. Just two more questions. in our library funding is the Tecmo bill included in there or is that a separate funding so you've already funded the thank you with the approved

budget and I know we're very anxious there was a little bit delay in getting the it all mounted with all of the amenities on it as as with COVID a lot of the supplies and automobiles were one of them and large trucks were one of them but that is in the works and hope to roll it out October of this year

that's great news and lastly on the planning and building areas we need to find a process that it expedites the building permits so that we have more prompt building and the sooner the the structures are built and the developers are done it means more revenue to the city more tax dollars so how can we use some of that money to have some kind of system that will remove some of those

obstacles for our developers we are already headed in that direction councilmember I know that you've had a couple items come before you in the recent past and that is doing a land management land-based management system but also the necessary applications to submit those types of plans and voluminous documents for that. And certainly to the extent that our IT director with the information technology and process upgrades that's being proposed here, recommended at $2 million, to the extent that those are applications and processes that we can improve

that are relative to helping the recovery of the economy, they would be permitted expenditures.

Very good. That concludes my questions. Thank you, City Manager, and thank you, Mayor Sarmantel.

Thank you, Councilmember. I see Councilmember Becerra.

Phil BacerraItem 3

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just wanted to touch on a couple things. I wanted to thank the youth that came in earlier today to talk about roller rinks and roller skating.

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I think if as we're looking at amenities for parks and as we know that there's some flexibility when it comes to how this ARPA funding is going to be spent, I know Thornton Park would love to see a nice hockey rink. So if you want to bring that down my way, I'm happy to help you find a space for that. But again, thank you to the youth that came in and advocated. It was just great to see, you know, folks coming in that just, you know, had the courage and bravery to come up and and talk to this council and ask for these things. So I just want to thank the youth that came in and did that this evening.

Phil BacerraItem 3

As far as bike lanes, you know, I don't we joke about, oh, the inconvenience and some of the construction and whatnot. But let's be very serious here for a second. Bike lanes, especially protected bike lanes, why I'm so vociferous in their defense is because they literally save lives. I mean, I don't know who would want to bike down Bristol with a painted line between them and a moving lane of traffic that's just completely crazy and so I think everything we can do to continue to add protected bike lanes is life-saving it's economically reasonable because it helps our community our blue-collar workers travel throughout the city and

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beyond so I think those are very important I'm glad we're still investing in those the Central Library I'm very excited about seeing that come to fruition not just from the sense that it's a valuable amenity for our community but it's a symbol of Santa Ana's prominence that library was designed by an architect who was a very well-known civic architect and was designing libraries throughout the United States including one that's very well known which is the expansion of the Detroit Public Library which is a beautiful expansion and looks very similar to our main branch library I

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I absolutely believe McFadden, the old McFadden branch, should still remain as a PAL center. I think the PAL program is amazing. And I think we need to be a little more nimble as far as how we look at library expansion. We're talking about the kiosks and some of the technological advances. But I think what I've seen the county system do at some points was take existing spaces within shopping centers so that we can spread the locations out. I don't really think that, you know, unless we, it's just, I think the era where we can just start planting brand new libraries,

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that's going to be difficult for us to do if we really truly want to serve as many of our youth and our residents as possible. I think it's more important to have smaller spaces that are accessible to folks in our community, especially those that walk and, yes, bike. And then I really support us replenishing our reserves to mitigate those lost revenues. I think that's just a fiscally responsible thing to do. We're in a $13 million operating deficit, and you don't hear many folks up here on the dais talking about that. But whether you talk about it or not, it's a harsh reality that we have to acknowledge

Phil BacerraItem 3

and we have to do something about. And I appreciate some of the comments from my colleagues that were talking about some ways that we could try to generate revenue because, again, we're spending more money than we're taking in, so we need to address that. my last thing I just the overall exercise before us tonight madam city manager these are categorical allocations right like we're not we're not getting into the super duper specifics and I feel like some of the stuff while I appreciate the suggestions that my colleagues have tonight I feel like we're getting a little further into the weeds than probably what you

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intended with this item coming before us tonight is that correct I will

Councilmember I certainly appreciate all of the direction I unfortunately I can't answer some of the detailed questions because we're not there yet with with that type of information but what I hope to do is to have the spending plan approved and then we will go out and we'll seek those services and then we'll come back to you with the details whether it's an MOU a service agreement or whatever the vehicle may be where then you can also further tweak it as you see fit but then also we would be able to answer the question you know this space can accommodate X number of children for a head start, it will serve X number of kids,

X number of hours a day. Those are all information I don't have at this point in time.

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Well, and I would invite my colleagues to, you know, meet with you. And as we're talking about what programs aren't being funded enough, we need to find out where we're going to take money from then to supplement that funding. So I think it's a very difficult task to try to do that on the dais tonight so my hope is is that my colleagues will take advantage of your time and and try to see where we can move some stuff around if need be but I have the confidence that in approving this plan tonight we will still be able to fine-tune what we want to get to what we're trying to accomplish and also too

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I think you already mentioned this the federal government hasn't even really fine-tuned their spending guidelines yet I mean it's great they're giving out the money but we don't have absolute certainty as to what those guidelines are

going to be correct but they've come out with guidelines and then they've had to come out with clarification and then there's been feedback periods and we've made comments and the one that's really up in the air the most at this time is probably the broadband and the reserve for revenue loss so we're tracking it

very closely okay that's all I have mayor thank you great thank you I think councilmember Hernandez has a his hand raised as well but let me go ahead and call on myself before we go take any second round questions but I did want to bring us back again to what the item is asking for you're simply asking us to appropriate this money tonight with some flexibility on the spending plan line items correct so

So, yeah, so it's a broad approval. It doesn't have any specifics in it. But I think when we attach a number to it, and I know that's just to give us a sense of what, you know, where we think that should be. And, you know, I guess we get into sometimes these discussions about how specific we want to be, how broad we want to be. But staff can't do anything without direction from the city council. Once again, I need to bring it back to say that, you know, let's just, and I guess if we wanted to, we could abdicate our roles as policymakers and say, well, let staff go ahead and approve this money that we just received.

Well, we advocated very hard for this money because we know that the city has needs. And when we went and we asked for our fair share, it wasn't because we were just given this money magically. It's because our city was impacted completely disproportionately more than other cities in the county. And that's why we received almost $130 million. What I want us to come back to is that even though there's not the real specificity from Treasury on exactly how to spend this, one thing that we do know the themes I think that the legislative history you know how Congress passed

this was that there had to be a nexus to COVID and this isn't just a spending spree to say let's let's fix potholes because we have money now that what's the relationship to COVID let's make sure that we do that let's make sure that we have we do this with the second I guess you know theme that runs through this is there was an equity lens that was applied to this, meaning that this was supposed to be spent in those areas and for those families that experienced the most loss. So this shouldn't be, you know, sort of a, you know, as some, you know, I think as I've heard up here, a drunken, you know,

sailor spending money. This has to be very specific on curing problems for those families that experience the most harm. So that's where I hope we can go back to let's look at those neighborhoods that were impacted we know where they are it's the same zip codes that we that were separated and identified by the state as having the highest cases of covid related uh problems so i think that what we're doing here and my question to the city attorney is is that if we approve this appropriation and these general categorical line items and i want to thank

staff and I want to thank many of my colleagues who were with me on phone calls to at that time zoom calls to neighborhood associations we were asking the public for their input which is how we arrived at some of these line item categories I'll let you know that our friends across the street didn't ask anybody nor did they want to have public input so I want us to recognize the good work that we did to go out and actually seek public input and engage the residents to say what is it that you'd like always explaining to them that this had to be a nexus to COVID related solutions that there had to be an equity lens on this

so you know these were things that we went out and did deliberately so when I see these categories I think all of them are worthy and I think all of them reflect what we saw as responses by residents when they when they spoke to us so I I'm certainly proud of what you presented I you know think what you all want from us is to say yeah I support these I think there should be a little bit more I'm not really comfortable you know you know commenting on specific line items you know here or amounts because we've only lived with this for about six days these amounts so I think it's a little unfair not unfair but I

think it's just not the best way to approach this because I know what we do with the community development block grants and that's only about a million dollars numbers would be presented or organizations would be presented to us and then we'd go back and kind of live with it for a little while and then come back to you and say you know what we think these adjustments should be made and then we approve it so I think that you know to do 80 million dollars you know is tough in a short time but I think what we can do is give you some guidance and some direction you know hey this is what we really feel strongly

about not you know and I appreciate and I respect everybody's opinion up here that's what we're supposed to do should we all agree that you know you know money should go into this category in a more robust way or we should maybe delete something by half look that's what staff needs to hear so I don't think we should be critical of each other's view of how this money should be spent we reflect we reflect the vision we respect we reflect the opinion of residents that voted us into office to make these decisions. Now, I just want to, you know, let you know that for me,

what's important are things that have a direct relationship to COVID. And I think what we saw is the healthcare that was delivered to our residents by the county during COVID during this pandemic was just, you know, was really, really unfortunate. We shouldn't have those thousand people who left us and passed away so I want to see you know something that we talked about with respect to having our own researching and investigating our own municipal health care agency I know that we were procuring for a consultant to help us figure that out and I know that you know another good piece of good news that I don't want to have go unnoticed

is that we receive form or we will be receiving four million dollars from the Office of Minority Health which is huge right it's just a great you know win for the city and thank you to all the staff that applied and worked on the grant application for that because that's really big we could use maybe some of those monies to ask these questions but I think you know when when it comes to spending we have this profound question do we spend on a bunch of small stuff or do we spend on big things that will change the lives of people in our city You know, some of these things will not change the lives of people in our city.

I mean, they'll help support some of the things that we're doing and we'll, you know, spread it out. But again, it is that question. Do we make a really profound difference? Do we make something large and meaningful and, you know, life-changing? Or do we do a bunch of small stuff? And that's something that we have to, you know, ask ourselves is that which direction do we want to take? So my only question is that I'll give some direction on what I think is, you know, maybe should be increased, should be decreased.

But I think for the city attorney, you know, is this like, are we going to, you know, we're going to approve this on a five, you know, on a super majority vote to appropriate the money. But to make adjustments on this, I don't see these being hard line categories. I mean I'm not sure if it's something that we're going to have to you know come back and have again a two-thirds majority to appropriate from one category to another because these are fluid categories is that is that correct or

yeah yeah I just want to make sure we we had looked at this question before and and it looks like according to section 607 of your city charter it talks about when you appropriate the money and when the originally the original budget was presented to you there were references to this money needing to be appropriated so we they discussed it at that time if you were to appropriate the money tonight into suit into specific buckets I think that you could use you can make minor changes within those larger appropriations with a simple majority vote within the same categories but if you start moving money from one

category to another so like we talked the other day about youth services or enforcement services. If you appropriate in these bigger buckets, I think you could make minor adjustments with them. But if you decide to appropriate tonight and then make major changes to those larger appropriations, those larger buckets, then I think you'd need a super majority vote. But if you make generalize, these are the buckets that they're in, and then you move within those buckets, I think you would only need a regular majority vote. Well, then in that case, you know,

if that's the case, then I really agree with Council Member Fan and Council Member Lopez that look, this is a lot to do on a very short period of time to be appropriating 80 million dollars and be able to only make minor adjustments to this. I think we, you know, we owe it to the residents, we owe it to ourselves to make an informed, intelligent decision and being thoughtful about, you know, do we want to, you know, increase something and, you know, doing it on the fly. I mean, we had a weekend to look at it over a long holiday weekend. I don't think that is a responsible thing to do.

I think that there is not time sensitivity on this as well. I believe that unlike CARES Act monies, these monies don't have to be spent for 2024.

Obligated by December 2024, spent by December 2026. I do want to make a clarification, and city attorney, correct me if I'm wrong, but when they appropriate, they're appropriating dollars to a specific fund and to a specific department. They're not appropriating dollars into categories on my spending plan. So there's a difference there. I just want to make sure you understand that. You're appropriating to a department, to a fund, and we have a separate fund set up for all of these monies. The spending plan is a simple majority approval of, hey, we like these concepts, staff go forward and try to put these programs together.

They're two different things. To the extent that you want to move something around of revive money that's within the Finance Department, I actually can do that myself without coming back to City Council. And I think that's what I was

trying to refer to and maybe not doing it as eloquently as a city manager, but if you were to allocate the $500,000 for example to the City Attorney's Office and allocate money to the Parks Department, that $500,000 really gets spent by me bringing contracts to you and it doesn't require supermajority votes when I bring those contracts to you per se but if but if I were gonna take my five hundred thousand and give it to a different department in whole not for the intended purpose that you originally gave it to us then I think that under your charter requires that supermajority vote but once you allocate

the money into the specific department we do not require we do not read the charter to require a supermajority vote to make a specific line item within a department. We make those kind of changes often. Similar to when you adopt the

citywide budget, you're appropriating money to departments, one category of contract services, one category for personnel, and you're appropriating that full dollar amount. Throughout the year, staff is making recommendations on how that is specifically going to be spent, whether it's based on the number of staffing or the number of contracts that they bring forward to you. That's why it's presented as two items. Approving the overall spending concepts and then appropriating the money, doing the appropriation amendment so we can start spending the dollars to start deploying the resources. Right, but conceivably if

we decided to defer this for two weeks, I mean we're not in jeopardy of this money somehow, you know, we're gonna lose any of this money or we're not gonna be entitled to the full amount. That just means we're gonna take more time to be a little bit more specific on how these breakdowns should be because I think to the city attorney's point if we if we do see and look I don't want Brian's head to explode or anything but let's just say you know we're moving something from the library and cutting that seven million to five million and we're gonna put that into mental health which is governed by or which is going to be

administered by CDA that's a big change and that could be a change that is something that the council may want to do not I'm just using that as a hypothetical but that's something we couldn't do with a simple majority and And that's what concerns me. So I would rather, if that's the case, it's my opinion. And look, my colleagues may not agree, but spending $80 million after looking at line items over a weekend just doesn't seem like the responsible, thoughtful thing to do. I'd rather us sit with this, live with this for a little bit, and come back to you in a couple of weeks. And maybe in the interim, as somebody said,

meet with you and meet with, you know, again, you know, think about this a little bit more because my priorities are here, they're reflected, but I just don't know how to quantify or I'm not certain how I want to quantify those allocations and those appropriations right now. So, you know, I think that this is a good opportunity to give you some thoughts, but that would be what I would have preferred is we give you our thoughts on how these initial, this initial proposal the spending plan is being done and then you adjust those and bring those back right that's what would have been I think that's what

would have been an ideal thing to do to reflect some of the comments that you've heard and then it comes back as you know as you know you heard people say hey we want to we want to increase the broadband access for example whatever the case is but I think right now just trying to adjust these things on the fly and trying to find you know you know were there you know three were there four that makes it a little clumsy and that's just difficult to do up here. I don't know if that's something that everybody is willing to do or at least some are willing to revisit this

just because I would like you to adjust this based upon what you've heard from us.

Certainly, sir, and you're absolutely correct. The money's sitting in the bank, so it's not going to go anywhere, but we aren't going to be able to program it until we take these two steps. With regards to the allocations, I definitely heard a majority consensus to increase the mental health to a million and the early child support to a million and the after school to $500,000. and that's basically an increase of $950,000. That would be $250,000 in mental health, and that would be a $500,000 increase in early child support

and a $200,000 increase in after school. So with that amount of money, I would recommend, if you wanted to make a decision tonight, what Council Member Hernandez's suggestion was and to take that difference from the estimate on the reserve for the replacement revenue. If you were ready to do that or if you want me to go back and make the changes and represent that, we certainly can do that as well.

You know, I'm supportive of those adjustments. I have some others I think that I personally think are important.

You know, I'm not sure if the $4 million for the direct assistance is sufficient. I don't know what the formula is on having that direct assistance go not only to residents that are low income, impacted by COVID, live within these zip codes and have this equity analysis applied to them. I don't know how that breakdown is going to occur. I don't know if there's going to be an equal amount of money in the second bundle of money that we receive. So I don't know if that's sufficient. that's something I'd like to revisit with you I think that you know again the

addition of park space that sounds great again I think Santa Anita Park is certainly worthy of it as our other parks but you know I believe that that's something that we needed to hear a little bit more about on the on the parking structure improvements to the extent that we do aesthetic improvements that's great. I just think we've had a lot of assaults and robberies and safety problems there to the extent we can do better lighting and do cameras or do whatever else it is that we can do to make sure that people that go into the city's parking structures feel safe. That's just something

that I think is just a baseline commitment that we should be making. I also agree that CDA maybe Maybe PD isn't the lead, but PD is a joint agency, as are others, on the line item for youth violence, sexual assault, and intervention. And, you know, again, on the business and nonprofit assistance, maybe we also, you know, look at doing some security for our downtown area. Again, those are our parking structures that we own, that residents come, that, you know, people from our city come in to, you know, shop in the downtown. Others from outside the city come and shop into the downtown.

Once you have a break in there, people stop coming. And that's something that we certainly don't want. I'm completely supportive of the community gardens as part of the healthy food access and of maybe talking about, as we're talking about McFadden Library as the PAL program site. That site could be a dual purpose. It could be a library in addition to a PAL site. There's no reason why we can't have the New Hope be almost a satellite site for PAL as well. to be able to do some of their programming from there also. But I just think we have a library or we have a venue or a place, a space that was designed as a library,

and I would love to see that come back. What the youth said tonight, I've heard and they spoke loudly about the rental program for the skates, about more mental health for youth. If we saw how many youth suffered from mental health impacts because of remote learning, being home under really difficult conditions, I think that's something that we should definitely be funding and increasing as much as we can. Internships, I think those are great. I think the LGBTQ youth center, all those things for the youth.

I think I know in the past when we've said the youth commission sometimes gives direction, a lot of times we say, well, who else can we ask? Well, we have a group of youth that can give us thoughts, and I'm glad our director of Parks and Recs went over and spoke to them because that input is valuable. And I think it was mentioned up here as well. We certainly do appreciate that because we need to have some direction. We don't know a lot of times what the youth needs, but them coming before us and asking us is certainly helpful.

So I would just leave you with those things that we really want to support youth efforts because there is a direct relationship to COVID on that, and especially those within those neighborhoods that have been impacted the most. Making sure that we have the municipal health care agency discussed and thoroughly researched when it comes to a feasibility study, and looking at the second tranche funding that if we find that that's the right path to take and looking at the direct stimulus that will not only benefit residents that were affected

but also businesses that will be receiving those monies that are going to be redeemed at their stores. And so, you know, hopefully that gives you direction, broad direction, high-level direction, which is, I think, what you were asking for. I don't think you wanted us to say, we're done with this, great job, here it is back in your lap. that's not our role and if everybody thinks that that's our role well you know that's not how government works government works with opinions with you know with advocacy and with you know critical thinking when it comes to spending so that is you know something that we're supposed to be doing up here

I think we have councilmember Hernandez who's been waiting to speak so go ahead

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

councilmember Thank You mr. mayor I'm gonna try to keep this very brief thank Thank you everybody for sharing such insightful comments and I'm really thankful to be able to serve alongside my colleagues here. I just wanted to thank you Madam city manager for giving us a comprehensive breakdown. I concur with the mayor. I do think that this is a really critical discussion that I wish we could as a council have a little bit more time with. So I just wanted to put that out there and to double down on my support, my advocacy to shift the lead department from PD to CDA for re-entry. It's important as we

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

discuss policy to have an evidence-based restorative approach. The community development agency is responsible for providing services in the area of economic development, job training, affordable housing, and downtown development. CDA allows us as a city to place emphasis on prevention, shifting our investments upstream. So this preventative investment can target early interventions through the line item of youth violence sexual assault intervention and re-entry this is exactly what we need to see more of because in our community poor academic performance

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and school disengagement are early indicators for youth who are at risk of engaging in anti-social behavior and punitive school policies that similarly suffer from bias become pipelines for young people into the criminal justice system we have a number of successful programs that i'm I'm sure are going to look to be beneficiaries of these funds who have a track record of effectively rehabilitating and motivating youth at the greatest risk of police contact. And it is for that very reason that I am supporting shifting it from PD to CDA, because this perspective line item

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is going to allow us to have restorative and an investment in rehabilitation and and that's that's the reason why I wanted to support it so with the reserve for revenue loss allocation that could potentially be where we fill in those gap right madam

city manager and that is correct and if I did my master that's an additional nine hundred and fifty thousand so that would be a reduction just below a million from the reserve up to those other three line items okay absolutely

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

and the only other thing I wanted to advocate for here to my colleagues and to you madam city manager is to increase the youth violence sexual assault intervention reentry one million is a great number it's certainly better than what we had before but for example if we can increase the amount of money that that we're spending here, this is an investment and restoration of community. For example, diagnosing and stabilizing people with mental illness and addressing substance abuse issues can be more beneficial to public safety and individual health than incarceration alone.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

But if individuals who are incarcerated are to have a chance at successful entry, investments must be made in educational, and education, vocational skills, cognitive thinking and effective re-entry planning i feel that if we have an increase in that funding there it gives us the best return on our investment i think a million is certainly a good start but if we can increase that i think that we're going to see some some drastic benefits come our way

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

thank you council member let me go back to councilmember fan thank you mayor and i want to state that I do support the mayor's comment regarding not being ready to appropriate these dollars and in speaking to assistant city manager Mendoza I made a comment that it's a lot of money 80 million dollars and just for fun you know this is larger than the budget for the city of Seal Beach that's lot of money and I know that we've talked about revive funds for a few meetings here and there I know we've done a lot of outreach and y'all have

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

been really fantastic about that reaching out to residents but I really do feel that although we're talking about funding for different departments there I think there's just a lot of direction that this can go into and I want to see those kind of laid out regarding you know how much is going into mental health we're saying a million dollars well where are we taking it away from or and whatnot and so I'd like to see that I'd like to see you know how this 80 million dollars will be adjusted and talk further about kind of direction where each of these funding dollars may go maybe not a specific

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

contractor but overall as I mentioned you know when we all talked about youth mental health and LGBT health that's a direction a policy direction that we want to be able to address prior to you know whether it's allocating these funds or different departments or something like that and so I guess again I just wanted to say I'm not ready to make that kind of allocation commitment today it

looks like you're about to say something just a slight correction so it's 64 million that we're asking for the appropriation adjustment you've already appropriated earlier

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

tonight the the rental assistant right okay so a lot of the same as the seal beach uh revenue so um

with that i'll pass it back to you mayor thank you um so i think we've all had a chance to speak and And the question now for staff is, what are your thoughts on incorporating some of those comments and maybe bringing something back that's adjusted that's reflective of some of the comments that you've heard?

Phil BacerraItem 3

If I can just real brief comment. Go ahead. I like what I'm hearing from my colleagues. This is a lot of money. And seeing how we are going to have to allocate this by department. and given some of the ideas that we've shared tonight, and obviously this would definitely shift from what's presented to us in the staff report, I'm okay with us continuing this item and having staff come back. My only ask of my colleagues is that we make the most of the time between meetings and we actually sit down with staff. We actually go through the exercise of trying to see if we're going to increase one column,

Phil BacerraItem 3

what column do we decrease in order to make that adjustment. So I think that exercise is important to do and I don't think any of us wants to abdicate our role up here but I think that we do need to Utilize our time most efficiently and I think having the discussion with staff I know that many a times Meeting one-on-one with staff helps kind of formulate something that we can bring back refined for the whole body to discuss So I'm supportive of continuing it My hope is that my colleagues will take the initiative to meet with staff and kind of figure out some hard numbers

Phil BacerraItem 3

to where they want to see the shift so that by the time something comes back I

think we're a lot more in agreement thank you councilmember that that's something I completely agree with I think what was tough to do on this time because we had a long weekend it was a long holiday weekend so I think it was difficult to maybe meet with staff at this point I think the responsibility will be on each one of the council members to be able to sit down and reflect what their opinions are and then staff will incorporate those bring those back that's normally what happens in these processes that you know we do when we receive monies on CDBG grants so so I think it's you know it's it's kind of

par for the course from what we've done in the past so I'm not sure if that was

Phil BacerraItem 3

a motion to mr. mayor I just want to say you know this is something that mayor pro temp brought up last time there's a there isn't always a need for a volley between us I mean you don't do that to every council member up here you don't respond to everybody's comments you accept them and then you move on but there are certain members that you decide to really take issue with and I appreciate your last round of comments because I think for the most part we agree and yes I recognize the fact that we had a holiday weekend we only have this large dollar amount item for a couple of days so I respect that so I

Phil BacerraItem 3

and I think that hopefully all of us will collectively find the time meet with staff and hopefully when we come back we'll have a good productive discussion

Got it. So was that a motion?

Phil BacerraItem 3

Motion to continue until, let's see, July 20th.

So we have a motion on the floor. Is there a second?

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

Second. Second.

Okay, we have a motion by Council Member Becerra, a second by Fan. No other questions. Madam Clerk.

Members of the Council, if you would please cast your vote.

Councilmember Lopez? Councilmember Mendoza? Yes. Mayor Sarmiento, were you able to? I got the defective laptop because I'm frozen again, so I'm a yes. Thank you, Mayor.

okay motion carries 7-0 with councilmember Becerra Hernandez Lopez Mendoza fan mayor pretend being a low sense our mayor Sarmiento voting yes great thank

you for that moving along to item number 28 which is the progress report and recommendation from the housing ad hoc on the housing opportunity ordinance and I think that's going to be director Ty who's going to give an overview. Yes,

your mayor we have a presentation for this item, Executive Director Ty, and then we also have available a consultant that worked on a study relative to this topic.

Thank you Daniel. Good evening Mayor, Mayor Portem, and Member of the Council. So tonight I am presenting the progress of the Housing Ad Hoc Committee and their recommendation. The purpose, as I mentioned, is for staff to provide a presentation of the report to the council on the progress of the Ad Hoc Committee, discuss the changes that the Ad Hoc has regarding the current Housing Opportunity Ordinance. and with that we would like to get direction from the council as to the next steps with your discussion.

In summary and a recap on the meeting of the ad hoc, the mayor and the council formed the ad hoc back on March 2nd with the direction for the ad hoc to discuss key affordable housing topics, including the housing opportunity ordinance. Tonight, the ad hoc is through staff's presentation providing recommendation on changes, potential changes to the who. The ad hoc will continue to discuss the remaining items and will come back at a future date. Some of the items will be addressed through the general plan update and housing elements,

so therefore, those items will be addressed at that time. This slide is a part of the data request from the Ad Hoc Committee during their discussion, the Ad Hoc requested for housing affordability data. We enlisted the assistant of MDG Associate Inc. to collect the data and provided the presentation to the Ad Hoc. I took the limit of taking a couple excerpt slides from the presentation as that was the key information that was used at least to show some housing affordable in the city.

What we can take away from this slide, it is a slide that shows the income and the gap and the rent and what you see there in the blue is the cumulative change in rent and then what you see in yellow is the cumulative change in income. While both lines for Orange County and Santa shows various varying levels of changes you can see that the Santa Ana lines on the right to my right shows a higher level of impacts and what we can take away from that is

that the changes impact our residents more than it impacts residents in Orange County.

This is a slide from MDG that shows the wages to affordable for a two-year multi-family rental. What we can take away from this slide is that in the various zip codes that we have, what it would cost to, or what a person would have to make in terms of hourly wages to afford a two-bedroom multifamily rental unit. You can see that the various dollars per hourly wage

is reflected for each zip code there. This slide shows three bedrooms of affordability for a five-person family by zip code and what this slides really show is that the amount of the percentage of families that can afford a three-bedroom house in each of the zip code and you can see that the various percentage including one percent for zip code 92704 what that really means

is that approximately 1% of the family of five in that zip code can afford an affordable housing unit for a three-bedroom house.

So the key provision that the committee considered looking at, the changes, are summarized in the table there. The major changes that the committee is looking at recommending is on the trigger. essentially is to include what's currently existing now which is a change in general plan density but also include a change in zoning classification density and reverting back to the former pool looking at a trigger date back to November 28th of 2011 for

all city initiated general plan and zone change that would basically be reverting back to the who that was previously in place prior to september 20 uh september of 2020. in addition to that the committee uh folk would like to focus on also providing for the extremely low income. This is for family earning zero to 30 percent of income of AMI, and it's considered extremely low. And if any project that would want to exercise this option,

only 5 percent of units would be have to be required. The other categories continue to remain the same and the committee is not making any changes there. Another change the committee is looking to recommend is for the in-lieue fee. As you are aware, the code currently allows for options to satisfy the crew including building on site, building off-site, rehabilitate, or opting out of the program by paying the in-lieue fee. The current in-lieue fee is five dollars. The proposed recommended in-lieue

fee is $15 per square foot for any development that would like to opt out. Additional enhancement that the committee is also recommending include additional eligible uses of the Inclusionary Housing Fund that prioritize on housing security, eviction prevention, legal assistance, and program promoting the creation of large bedroom units focusing on low-income families.

As part of the discussion process, the committee also asked for information regarding the feasibility on the in-loop fee before making the recommendation on the change from $5 to $15. dollars and a study was completed by Kaiser Morrison associate on the economic feasibility and the potential dollars per square foot that could be implemented in the city based on the current market conditions if a developer or if a housing development is opting to pay to the in-lieu fee and

those fees for both rental and ownership is as summarized so that concludes the staff's presentation on the key components of what the ad hoc has discussed today some of the recommendations i have with me tonight judson from the housing division we also have on the line is the consultant from mdg to answer any questions you may have about the housing data and kathy head is here with kma to discuss any questions and you may have about the feasibility analysis that includes staff support. Thank you.

MR. Great. Thank you, Director Tai. And so just to clarify, tonight we're not making any decision except reporting out from what the findings were, maybe the same information that the ad hoc received, to share with the full council and go ahead and get their comments and their opinions as well. So that's just to clarify on everybody. This isn't an action item tonight. This is more simply to give staff some thoughts and directions on what the ad hoc found and had access to as well. So I want to thank my colleagues on the ad hoc committee who took the time, I think we

met several times, just to talk about this and generally housing policy in the city. And I want to thank staff for being as available and informative as possible. And thank you, Director Tai. Thank you, Judson, for providing a lot of good information. You answered a lot of our questions, presented us with a lot of data. And Kathy, head with KMA, thank you for joining, I think, one or two of our meetings and providing some information as well as somebody who's worked with the city for years. So Councilmember Fan and Councilmember Lopez were on that.

I know that the Housing Ad Hoc has ambitious goals of tackling a lot of different questions on housing policy in the city, but this was the first one I think that we wanted to take in order of importance. So, you know, I think you summarized well what, you know, what the committee covered and what the committee's findings were consistent with some of the studies that we received, some of the analysis that was done on our behalf by the experts that were retained. So, yeah, it's really now to bring that information back to those council members that are not on the ad hoc

and see if there's any ad hoc members that want to add to what was presented to augment any information that may have been lost. The only thing I was going to say is that I know in the staff report it says in 41-1902, the first sentence says this section is amended to revert the language to the previous who before it was previously amended in October 2021. So that's October 2020, actually. Right? Correct. So, yeah, so that's just just a typo in there.

You know, but what I'll do is I'll go ahead and, you know, just call on the ad hoc members who were on the committee to go ahead and share any thoughts that may have gotten lost in the presentation or they may like to highlight at this point for our for the rest of our colleagues who weren't on the ad hoc. So, Council Member Lopez.

Jessie LopezItem 3

on the housing ad hoc and when I looked at the data that truly just confirms what so many people have always known that our resident are rent burden that for years wages and rents have been dislocated I have to recognize that there is no one solution to the housing crisis that we are in but I think you know the recommendation that we are putting forth is a small way that can help fulfill the need of our community and it would help with housing for all we know that California is has the

Jessie LopezItem 3

highest poverty rate according to the census poverty measure of 2019 and is one of the most expensive states to live in and it is clear that our city needs to take advantage of every opportunity it has to meet the needs of in this case War III residents and so those are gonna be my initial comments mayor thank you

for that thank you councilmember councilmember fan do you want to share

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

your thoughts yes first again thank you to Min and his team Judson as well as my fellow ad hoc committee members the who is obviously a very touchy subject and I think there are a lot of interest in many different ways and it's something that I've dealt with as a Planning Commissioner and then now as a council member and so I really wanted to dig into what good can it do how does it affect development in the city and you know what really is the need because you know we do here first of all you know we have a certain RENA number the

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

Regional Housing Needs Assessment number we blow it out of the water every year or at least in recent memory and so we meet these benchmarks that other organizations regional organizations set for us and I think that's fantastic and the one thing I would like to say off the bat is it's probably no other city in the county that builds more than us. We build and we support building, we support developers. But when I was looking at these numbers, it broke my heart, particularly the

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

slide about how many five-member families can afford a home in 92704, which makes up half of Ward 1 and a large chunk of Santa Ana, and the number is 1%. 1% of five-member families in 9704 can afford to live here. And that is a tragedy that we see in the city of Santa Ana, throughout the state, and across the country. And so I look at this WHO as to how do we address that, how do we get more funding for affordable housing or funding for families to be able to afford to live here.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

So during this process we were asking, actually I asked Judson, and maybe he can come up to clarify which is you know we talked about well federal affordable housing development in the city is you know we're we're building all of that and folks from other cities are coming to Santa Ana to live here because we're the only ones building affordable housing and I can see that right because a lot of cities are not doing that but Jetson if you can help because I know it wasn't in the slides help let the other council members know with our affordable housing developments

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

that have been happening throughout the city, you know, what are the typical percentages of those developments that are going to Santa Ana residents?

Of course, thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Phan. So for projects that we finance, we did a survey recently of the percentage of units that are going to Santa Ana residents and following the adoption of the City Council when they adopted the affordable housing funds policies and procedures in March 2018 we've been very deliberate to implement that local preference for Santa Ana residents to ensure that our projects that we're financing are going to serve Santa Ana residents and we found through that survey I don't remember the exact percentage off the top of my head but the majority of the our units

that we finance are going to Santa Ana residents, serving our local Santa Ana residents.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

Right, and I think some of them were in the 80 to 90 percentile range that are going to Santa Ana residents. So the need is there, and sometimes, you know, I want to address this on a supply side, right? Like, let's get more building, and I support that. I think everybody who's seen me talk about development has seen me support that. But at the same time, you know, the housing crisis is a fire that's happening today. and we need to address that. So that I think was the approach I was looking at when looking at how to address the WHO and how to support more affordable

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housing development. Because if the numbers work out, the numbers work out. Right? If the developer wants to go to Huntington Beach and build 300 units, good luck. Go ahead. Because they tried to revoke those kinds of projects there. They were sued by the state because they were revoking those projects there. And And I think that at this point, we see the discussion regarding, well, people are finally pulling permits. But these were developments, I think, that were applied for after 2015, but they pulled their permits after the WHO was amended. Is that correct, Min?

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

So I'm talking about a lot of folks who supported the WHO change said, well, it'll spur development, people to pull permits. That's where we get the WHO dollars.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

And they say, you know, it's been five years at $15 a square foot, so nobody's pulling these permits, so we don't have any money in the Housing Opportunity Fund. Were those applications that were approved prior to 2015? No, right? Because they would fall under the old WHO.

So we have pending application, not pending application, but projects that have been entitled also have been built at the various rate between $5 and $15 over time. What we have seen is that those projects that were approved at $15 had not been constructed, so they had not pulled permit to be built, but they were entitled under $15. The ones that you have seen built today have been either at $9.35 or $5.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

Okay, and how many applications have come in in the last year?

In terms of major housing development, probably no more than two or three major housing development projects.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

Right. So, I mean, part of that conversation, right, maybe it's not been a long time, but if you're looking at, well, we reduced it by 70-some-odd percent, we see more development projects.

We get a lot of inquiries. projects do take time to develop. The typical process is to work with staff, looking at a location, discuss project feasibility, discuss the zoning locations, and then they go through their financing evaluation, understanding what the city's fee structures, what they can build, and based on that they would go out and finance or get commitment for financing before coming back to the city and and you know so the time could be it could have been short right and then covet

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

happened in between so right so i guess my point to that is you know we have two projects that pulled building permits uh once the fee was reduced to five dollars those projects were kind of in the pipeline sort of happening for the five years since the 15 a square foot was was in place so it's not as though they waited around for a full five years after approval to pull permits. It was somewhere in there which is typical of any development project to sometimes take a little while. Some projects do take a while. Thanks. And so just to wrap up my

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thoughts, you know, all of these are issues that I think we addressed in the housing ad hoc and to see what we can do to increase housing affordability in the city, especially looking at these numbers. And with that, I guess I would just return it to you, Mayor.

Mayor Redekopalb- Great. Thank you, Councilmember Phan. Now, you know, we had the benefit of, you know, the ad hoc members had the benefit of seeing a lot of the information that was presented to us and deliberating it for a very long time. So we wanted to make sure that our colleagues that weren't on the ad hoc had an opportunity to see this and be able to ask questions of you, Min, Kathy, Judson, anybody else. But I'll go ahead and turn it over to them. So, Councilmember Becerra and anybody else who wants to go ahead and ask questions, please, let us know. Go ahead, Councilmember.

Phil BacerraItem 3

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, as far as the WHO, let's just take kind of a step back when it comes to the WHO in general. How many affordable units have been built as inclusionary since 2011 because of the WHO?

Thank you.

of units that have been built there are 10 units at 1901 and 23 units that were constructed by various projects so i would say less than 40 units in total that were built as part of the

Phil BacerraItem 3

inclusionary process so this is an inclusionary ordinance and since 2011 we've only seen roughly under 40 units total built as inclusionary units, correct?

23 and 10. That's 33 units.

Phil BacerraItem 3

Okay. And then, so as far as just this RENA cycle, which is what year to what year? So I think we're coming up on the end of it in October.

Correct.

Phil BacerraItem 3

When did it begin?

The next unit, the next cycle will begin.

Phil BacerraItem 3

Oh, no, no, no. I'm saying this current cycle that we're in. 2014. What was that? 2014. 2014? Correct. Okay, so from 2014 to 2021, seven years, we've built 844 – or let me take it back – developers of affordable units, without any provocation by the WHO, came into Santa Ana and built 844 low and very low units. Is that correct?

Those units were generally supported through our zoning code but also through our affordable housing fund as part of the affordable housing development projects.

Phil BacerraItem 3

But I mean there wasn't that much money in the affordable fund, hence why we had to eventually reduce the rate so that people would actually pay into it. But what I'm saying is folks were coming into Santa Ana to build affordable units. In other words, other cities need to do things to incentivize or attract affordable housing. Santa Ana, I think it's very safe to say, has not had to do that. This WHO, this inclusionary ordinance, has only produced 33 units of actual inclusionary units within development projects, but we have seen affordable units being built in the city without the WHO. Is that correct?

The projects, to answer your question, there are project development that, or market rate, where the WHO apply opted to pay for in-lieu fee instead of building the inclusionary units on site. And those fees were used by our housing division to leverage affordable housing projects in this city.

Phil BacerraItem 3

But the amount of fees that we've collected over time, which I think, I believe is around $17 million.

To date is about $21 million.

Phil BacerraItem 3

$21 million with the additional $3.8 million that we've received since the WHO was revised back in August of 2020. So, but 844 low and very low units were built and some of them may have received funding from the Who's and Lufi's, but I think it's very safe to say that the overwhelming majority of those units were not built with anything related to the Who.

Judson, do you have a little bit more correct information on the percentage? Because I believe most of those projects were involved, the city participates in some matters. May that be tax credit. It may not be all over. Yeah, sure.

the in lieu fees that were generated have financed the development of a hundred and seven units of affordable housing including the units at the Santa Ana Arts Collective, the units recently constructed at La Placita Cinco, and then we have as a city also have financial commitments for an additional 86 units of affordable housing in the pipeline. Now the 107 units that have been actually developed and constructed are a part of that. If the 844 figure is, I'd have to check the APR,

but if that's a figure then the 107 units are included in that 844 figure that you're using.

Phil BacerraItem 3

I'm not a math major, but that's less than half. In fact, I would say very significantly Thank you Judson for that. So I have a couple more questions. So I appreciate my colleagues taking the time and effort to take a look at this. But what I'm curious about is, so we've got two analysis referenced in the staff report. One from Kaiser Marston and one from MDG Associates. So what I was curious about, and I'm not sure who can answer this question, but how much did those reports or analysis cost? Because this is work being done by less than the

Phil BacerraItem 3

majority of the council asking for these reports. It's one thing that they were asking for readily found available data that staff provided, but it looked like staff has employed consultants, plural, to assist the ad hoc. So I was just curious, how much did those reports cost?

So one is an update. The Kaiser-Marsen was an update to a previous study that was commissioned back in 2020. And the second is including the gathering of data. Do you happen to have the approximate cost for both? Thank you, Council Member Pesera. The study that the commission, I'm sorry, that the ad hoc committee commissioned this year, similar to the study that was commissioned last May as well, cost the city roughly $10,000 in services by Kaiser Marston and Associates.

And then the services provided by MDG to provide analysis and data for the committee costs approximately $5,000.

Phil BacerraItem 3

Okay. All right. Thank you for that. So on the the Kaiser Marston analysis, did they take into account the cost of lumber? I know it sounds like a random thing but one of the issues that I think you know from my background obviously for me that know this, I work with home builders all the time and so I know that that's you know in talking to actual experts who are producing housing, today one of the current concerns is the cost of lumber. And so when I see a report that says here is a dollar amount that they're willing to pay in order to build in Santa Ana, I'm just curious did that also take into

Phil BacerraItem 3

account two things. One, cost of lumber, and two, the cost of skilled workforce, local higher union workforce. Those two factors, were those factored in to the assessment to say that projects or I'm sorry developers would be willing to pay 17 bucks a foot.

Thank you and we do have Kathy Head from Kaiser Marston who will be able to expand on the details and information and can answer those questions. Thank you. Good evening Mayor, City Council members. I'm Kathy Head. I'm president of Kaiser Marston and I've been working in Santa Ana my entire career which started in 1983. three. In answer to your question, our analysis is not specific to any single project. So it is very much an average sort of construction cost for an average sort of building, looking at prototypes of what have been built in Santa Ana and Anaheim, particularly focused on that, and then comparing

our analysis with revenues and expenses. So did we look actually to every single line item, and what does wood cost, what does concrete cost, etc.? No, but we work in every city in Orange County, and we analyze affordable housing projects in every city in Orange County and so we look at performance every single day and so we look at those numbers when we make our prototypes we look at the types of developments being proposed in Santa Ana to make our prototypes so we're confident I mean we say it in our analysis too these are prototypes every single projects going

to look different and so yes costs of wood go up costs of would go down every single cost goes up and down. So we just do our best analysis we can at the time we're

Phil BacerraItem 3

doing the analysis. Well, I appreciate what you do because, I mean, you're really trying to, you know, see through the fog to try to get a number. So I appreciate that. But I would say that right now, that's all I have questions. Thank you. I just, what my concern with this analysis is that lumber is a big issue right now. And again, if, you know, those of us up here interested in housing talk to developers. The other thing, too, is that we don't have a lot of steel constructed projects here in town. We're not building five, six, seven stories or higher. We're building, you know, four-story product or three-story product.

Phil BacerraItem 3

It's wood-based construction. So that would be a very important factor to factor in. And then the other really just kind of, I guess, where I want to kind of wrap up here is just simply this you know I I was on the council when we went ahead and reduced the in lieu fee down to five bucks a foot and that was because we were in the middle of a pandemic and we wanted to spur construction we also saw the fact that you you didn't have projects happening even without the pandemic because while they got approved whether they got approved in 2015 2016 or 2017 By 2020, they weren't pulling building permits.

Phil BacerraItem 3

And so the council acted, and I'm very happy with that because within a very short timeframe, we had $3.7 million go into our in lieu fund. And what's wonderful about that, while the WHO itself does not demonstrate its ability to actually generate affordable housing, what it does do, though, is it helps our community. because when people talk about displacement, one of the things that we focused on in the revisions in 2020 was to make sure that the in lieu fees were going towards down payment assistance. Santa Ana has been in the affordable business since the late 1960s. Since the late 1960s.

Phil BacerraItem 3

So there's a couple of units that our folks are living in today that do need some dire rehabilitation, and those funds were going towards that. So I think the main problem I have here is just very simple basic logic. You have $15 a foot, people weren't paying it. We reduce it to five, people start swinging hammers again, they're pulling building permits. Some of my colleagues said, wow, that's great, they're doing that. So why don't we jack it back up to 15 a foot? And then not only that, but then there's a study that says, no, not 15, go higher, go 17.

Phil BacerraItem 3

Because when 15 wasn't working, maybe if you doubled onto it and add 17 a foot, that was somehow going to work. To me, it's a very basic premise. Insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result. And we're not going to get a different result here. What we're going to see is we're going to see what happened prior to September of 2020. Because folks are going to say, you know what, you want to put that barrier in front of us, we'll just go to another city. And the sad thing about it is I've got colleagues up here that proclaim to be YIMBYs.

Phil BacerraItem 3

They say they want to build. They say they want to address housing affordability. It is simple math. It's supply and demand. You need supply to meet the demand. And how do you meet the demand when you're busy throwing roadblocks and fees and all kinds of hurdles in front of them? So it's kind of amusing, but it's also kind of sad to hear some folks up here talk about trying to spur construction, and then they talk about increasing fees and making it more burdensome to develop in our city.

Phil BacerraItem 3

So as somebody that works with home builders and knowing the concerns that they have today, I can confidently say that some of the proposed changes that are before us tonight would be absolutely devastating to home building in this town. Those are my comments. Thank you.

Thank you for those comments. Any other comments from those members of the council that weren't on the ad hoc that would like to ask Director Tai or any of the consultants that are here? Mayor Proton. Thank you Mayor Sarmiento. I

David PenalozaItem 3

don't have any questions for staff I just wanted to you know I couldn't have said it better than Councilmember Becerra. When we visited this last August and brought down the in-new fee from 15 to 5 we did it to spur development and it's yeah only two developments pulled building building permits but we got to remind ourselves that that was as a result of reducing these fees and it was in the middle of a pandemic when people weren't really necessarily jumping at the idea to build anything because of the unknown that

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still lingers today so I won't say anything that I didn't say just a couple months ago when we reduced this fee from 15 to 5 to spur that development and you know increase affordable housing funds that we wouldn't have had a year ago and we won't see coming in if we go back and reduce it to 15 not supportive of some of the proposed changes and that's it mr. mayor thank you thank you

Mayor Pro Tem. Anybody on the line? Council Member Hernandez, are you good?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

Yes, Mr. Mayor. The only question that I had was pertaining to the who, and I wasn't part of the council when the decision was made, and I don't sit on the ad hoc. I'm just interested in learning more about the workforce side of it. I know that there's a lot of good development projects that are happening um i'm interested in learning about developers that are utilizing the skilled and

trained workforce great thank you for that and you know the ad hoc didn't go into it and i think councilmember fan reminded me that that was an issue that we should have looked into again today's a receiving file so hopefully staff can get back to us on on some of that information and provide

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

it to the entire council um so and i i did have a closing comment oh sure go ahead i'm sorry go

Go ahead, council member.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

My apologies. I just wanted to say, I do hear the argument against increasing these fees, but I also acknowledge that a lot of the people that are performing in these jobs that are building these buildings, a lot of them, if we don't adequately address all of the intricacies that come with the who, what ends up happening is when we don't pay people the right wages the public ends up subsidizing the wealthy and i'm always going to stand on the side of the workers so i i want there to of course be balanced but i just wanted to also remind my my

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

the community and my colleagues we're dealing with millionaires here and uh and uh i always

got to put community first thank you for those comments um i know councilmember fan has an additional comment I just wanted to make a brief comment before then and it's not to respond to anything but just to and I think you know councilmember but Sarah to your point I I know that you responded to councilmember fans comment about developing and you said you know some members of the council say they're supportive of things so I don't think we're trying to be adversarial we're just trying to clarify some points I'll do better to make sure that I wait on my turn to clarify but I think that's what we want to do if there's something that

I say that doesn't make clear sense to you I think it's your responsibility to say my point of view is different and these are the reasons why and those are just arguments give me one second because I know but but but I but I have the floor sir so you know but you have to wait and again that's one of the things I was going to ask Madam City Attorney if you can circulate the rules of decorum the code of conduct and the chairs role and the role of those that are not the chair. So we can remind ourselves we're certainly going to call on one another. You'll have a chance to rebut. I'll have a chance to rebut if we

continue going back and forth, but we can't speak over each other. So I just wanted to say a lot of times it sounds like we're responding to each other's questions, but we're trying to clarify points that we're trying to advocate for as well. So I don't think there's anything wrong with trying to clarify a position that you see is different than yours by somebody else. And so that's all I think you were trying to do when it comes to talking about being a YIMBY or wanting to continue development but not supporting a reduction in the WHO or maintaining the WHO in lieu of fee where it's at.

So I think we can't get too sensitive about somebody having a contrary opinion. That's healthy. That's what we're supposed to do. So to the extent that we can do this in a way that's constructive to staff, that's constructive to the public, I guess one of the things I wanted to ask Kathy about was if you can maybe approach Kathy.

And thanks for waiting, by the way. So was this study that you did an update to a study that was previously done that you prepared for us?

Yes.

And not us meaning the ad hoc, but the entire city council.

Yes, it was from last year for the entire council.

Okay. And that study that was done last year, I was on the city council at the time. I don't remember seeing that study. Was that disclosed and shared to the council members?

I don't know. I can answer. It was not.

It was not?

It was not. The committee had different directions in terms of what it wanted to recommend. And so the study was presented to the committee, but it wasn't presented to the city council by the committee.

Got it. So we had the study that said, I believe, that the range that was supportable for it not to be considered a taking and violate the law was somewhere, I think, between $15 and $16, the original study that was done in 2020. The ad hoc has this report prepared and they decide not to share it with the rest of the city council because it goes contrary to what they were advocating for.

So the study at the time shows that for rental project, it could support $14.40 up to $16. And then for ownership, $11 to $16. And it's all per square foot.

Right. So it showed a parameter of somewhere between $14 and $16 that would have been legally defensible, and that's really what the findings of that report said. But I guess my point is it was prepared last year when these changes to the WHO were being considered and deliberated by the entire city council. Yet the ad hoc that was vested with the responsibility to take a deep dive into this issue had a report drafted and paid for and didn't share it with the rest of their colleagues.

I mean that to me is something that you know aside from the findings and the analysis and the information in the ad hoc or excuse me in the report I didn't get a chance to see it and I was on the council I wasn't on the ad hoc for obvious reasons but I didn't get a chance to see it as a council member we wanted to be as transparent as possible here in this ad hoc and make sure that everything was available to our colleagues. We get that this is something we're not going to agree upon, and I respect everybody's opinion on saying, you know, where we are right now is, makes complete sense.

So I respect the arguments for remaining where they are. I completely understand it. We could disagree, you know, and my disagreement comes from a lot of other elements that I found in the study, a lot of the data that was provided by, you know, CDA and Judson in particular and you, Director Tai. So I think none of us are off base and disagreeing with where we should be. It's somewhere between zero and 15. Who knows where that is, but I think that's something that we could discuss and that's something that we should have shared back in 2020 that we're now sharing with everybody on this council.

So the question I had is the data that was presented to us. what struck me as something that was important is the balance we're trying to create. So we all understand there's obviously from the findings that were given to us, there's a need for affordability in Santa Ana. And is Santa Ana any different than other communities in the county? I would say that we have some of the lowest AMI not only in the county but in the state.

And so I'm looking at this projected monthly market rate rent schedule here that says an average monthly rental rate per unit for a studio is $2,420 a month. The average monthly rent for a one-bedroom unit is $2,600. And the average monthly rent for a two-bedroom unit is $2,830. dollars and a three-bedroom would be three thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars a month can anybody tell me how many working families in the city could

afford this rent that reside in Santa Ana from the from the graph that we saw and I think that was prepared by staff not many and I think that was to Councilmember fans point that's what struck us as you know pretty daunting and pretty compelling data that made us realize we need to provide some affordability nobody is saying we should do all affordable which is why we said 85% of a development could be market rate but there should be some set aside to benefit the residents of the city and I think an argument was made last year

during the revision of the who that said hey these these affordable units are going to people outside of Santa Ana, other people throughout, you know, that aren't residents of the city. And then we saw, I believe, something that was provided to us during the ad hoc that showed in many of our affordable developments, 70 to 80 percent, and some as high as 90 percent, went to Santa Ana residents. Can we do better and make them 100 percent? Probably not, unless we're ready to violate federal law. But we can certainly get them very high to where eight or nine out of ten people that will get those units that reside in Santa Ana so

I think that the units that we're developing that are affordable the vast majority go to our residents so I you know I believe that you know it's just a different paradigm I guess that we have on what our responsibility is to create market rate units that aren't going to be for Santa Ana residents and for people outside the city that are going to come in and move into the city and we're going to develop for them at these prices for a three-bedroom unit to be going for almost $4,000 a month. That would foreclose on anybody or many of our residents that live at or below the poverty line.

So I don't know if we're advocating here for developers or are we advocating here for residents. Developers have great advocates. I respect the BIA I respect the apartment association boat at both at the statewide and the county level But at the same time residents here that live in Santa Ana need to have advocates as well And I believe that's what we're supposed to do is Represent the residents and make sure that they have the benefit of being able to stay in the city and we're talking about Police officers school teachers firefighters that would be displaced and have to move to other cities in order to be able to you know

continue living and working here in San Anno, actually working here in San Anno, because a lot of people are getting displaced because of these high rents. So that, I think, is what, at least for me, had me support this change and this reversion back. I think the dirt here in San Anno is cheaper than it is in the rest of the county. I think there's a lot of benefits, and there's a lot of things that we could do to offset, you know, developers from being able to make their pro forma work we could defer payment on those who fees or on those in-lieu fees till post CFO being issued so they wouldn't have to pay those up

front there's certainly a lot of ways that we're willing to help developers we want them to come in but at the same time we don't want them to come in at the expense of residents and that's something that I think would be a very very difficult departure for me to make to say well who are we actually here to represent? Are we here to represent the industry or are we here to represent the residents? So that is basically my you know kind of you know cornerstone or touchstone on where I where I am on this. I know that the findings from the

report show between 17 and 18 dollars would be a defensible point. I think 15 is reasonable. That's something that, you know, is, you know, well within or below what the report shows. So, you know, I just think it might, I would say it comes back to the council, let us deliberate it some more. Tonight is, again, just to receive and file, but I would say it comes back and then we give direction on whether or not we want to send it for full consideration and

Phil BacerraItem 3

deliberation on that. Mr. Mayor, I just want one point of clarification. Go ahead. I don't appreciate the assertion that the previous ad hoc had somehow kept everybody in the dark on this report, because I can tell you right now, I never saw that report either. And the reason for that, just a little history lesson for everybody, there was an ad hoc that was convened by the former mayor, not our current mayor, by our former mayor, that had two council members that are no longer with us today. and they have the report that report was never shared with the it's called the

Phil BacerraItem 3

second ad hoc that was then the former mayor councilmember Mendoza and myself unless councilmember Mendoza I got a sneak peek of it I I never did so I appreciate the our current mayor asking the question about what was the genesis of this report that has since been amended so I just want to be clear that when it comes for transparency, we absolutely were not trying to put anything in the dark. And in fact, I would add, and Mr. Tai, if you can confirm this, last year during the whole, you know, call it the two ad hocs that were deliberating on the WHO, weren't there stakeholder meetings? Weren't there

Phil BacerraItem 3

numerous stakeholder meetings with affordable developers, market rate developers, advocates both in the community and professionally? Is that true?

When we went through the process, that's correct. And if I can bring a point of clarity in terms of the report was generated for the first adult committee, when the second adult committee or the subsequent information, the direction of the adult committee went differently. it was looking to reduce the number and it was really not looking at what would be justifiable. So I want to make that clarity is that the report was not presented by the committee because it did not reflect the direction that the committee wanted to go into,

which is reducing the fee, not necessarily looking at changing the fee to reflect the market feasibility study.

Phil BacerraItem 3

Thank you, Mr. Tai, for making that clarification because that's true. The intent, or I'd say the goals of that ad hoc was to reduce the fee. It wasn't to raise the fee as far as we could to make it legally defensible. We were trying to jumpstart building. And the idea that saying who do folks represent up here? Is it the developers or is it the community? I want to see good quality housing built. And so to make the assertion that anybody up here is doing it for anything other than to make sure that Santa Ana has quality housing for all income levels, I think is downright rude.

Phil BacerraItem 3

I think that I can't speak for everybody up here, but I can tell you right now from my background and my training, my experience, advocating for a lower rate was simply to jumpstart housing. because I work in this industry. I know that's what's happening. That's what makes it work. But as you said, Mr. Mayor, there are differences of opinions up here.

Thank you. And again, I'm not offended by the clarification, Council Member. So, yeah, so that's fine. Believe me, that's what we're supposed to do. So let's not, you know, we don't have to do any of that. So Council Member Fang, go ahead.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

Thank you, Mayor. And thank you to Council Member Bercetta for, you know, bringing up some of those points. I think it is really important to talk about jump-starting building in our city. So a few questions. Well first a few comments. You know we did talk about the cost of building and the cost of building affordable in the state of California is the most expensive. We all know that and you know we know lumber prices were going all haywire during 2020 but we do know that lumber futures are falling. In fact they've fallen by I think 10 to 50 percent and they're probably going to continue to fall as manufacturers pick up that.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

So I'm not really worried about a very specific snapshot in the first pandemic of my lifetime.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

Some of the other issues that I guess I want to address first is regarding supply and demand. right I think we are building again Santa Ana is going to be proud about the amount of building that it's done at all different income levels and we're going to continue to do that but we do know and I think men you know better than anyone the first time I met you I was talking about the general plan and that's something that we have to do to make building in the city easier you know taking away those obstacles making so it's streamlined making it so that developers don't have to come to the City Council every single time something

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has to happen because those are costs that are placed on the developers and I think that's really important to do however I really also believe that supply itself is never going to catch up with the type of housing that we require here in the city because at the end of the day you know we are just not building at the rate that our residents need it might meet some standard or number out there in the world but it's not meeting the need currently we see that in the data you know we're looking at a three-bedroom rental in Santa Ana you're supposed to allocate 30% of your income to housing correct that's what

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

HUD and all the experts say how much would a family have to make to afford a three-bedroom rental in the city of Santa Ana

survey completed in the amount that the mayor mentioned previously for three bedroom house approximately about $140,000 to $150,000 annually to afford a three bedroom house without what's considered rent burden, meaning that you spend more than 30% on rent.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

Right. A family would have to make $150,000 to afford a three bedroom home here in the to me because I can count on two hands how many people I know in the city of Santa Ana who can afford that rent. And so we have to address this issue and one way to do that is, yes, increasing supply. And I will stand up here all day and approve good development projects at high density

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

with lots of open space because we need that supply. But at the same time, I can't control what other the other 33 cities in the county will choose to do with housing all I can do is address the housing need that our residents need today and I think that's part of what we're trying to do here you know one thing I do want to address is during the housing ad hoc we didn't have the opportunity or we didn't speak to stakeholders or have a roundtable and in this process I would like to see staff reach out to the multiple stakeholders and have this roundtable discussion because we know that they hash it out all the time

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

whether it's a development agreement whether it's some other project moving forward in a number of cities whether it's state law right they work together and I would like to hear their input and yes sometimes developers will say the only good number is zero and of course you know housing affordable housing advocates will say the right number is 100% affordable all the time but I think that you are skilled enough to help work to get some input and report some of that back to us to the entire council so it's not just me meeting with you know the BIA or me meeting with the Kennedy Commission it's it's all of us getting

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

that information so I think that would be important the other thing I do want to address and I think Councilmember Hernandez brought this up is regarding you know skilled and trained workforce I know we have that language in the who from last time and I want to thank my colleagues for adding that language to have skilled and trained workforce you know as a part of the who because we know a lot of those skilled and trained workers live in the city of Santa Ana you know they are people who should be able to afford this development people who build these homes should be able to afford in these homes and if we can

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

consistently allow developers or builders to use those who are being paid less, we're going to continue to perpetuate that system in which we are subsidizing builders. So I would like to see for us to consider adding into the WHO in section 41-1909 to include the Public Contracts Code 2603. That gives us a mechanism to enforce skilled and trained requirements. Again, these are our residents who are working on these projects. Skilled and trained will ensure that we not only have good

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

development, but also that we pay people a living wage to do the work that we require them to do. So with that, I do hope that you go forth and speak to the stakeholders that we need to speak to. Thanks.

Great. So I think everybody's had a chance to speak and give some thoughts on this receiving file. So does staff need any further clarification from the council?

Just as a suggestion, Mayor and Council members, with that stakeholder roundtable, do you not want the ad hoc to participate in that process? You are asking staff to do that. I think it might be better suited for the ad hoc.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

That's fine by me. I would love to have all of us at the table and to hash it out. I think that would be great. Just a suggestion.

Great.

Go ahead, Mayor Pro Tem.

David PenalozaItem 3

Just a question. I think that's great that there is a roundtable discussion because the whole idea of this is to, I mean, I personally want to see a diverse housing stock in our city. I mean, no one's saying we don't want affordable and we only want market rate. Like, there should be, if we wouldn't, we'd say make it zero, you know, but that's not what, at least my intention is, you know, it's to keep it something where we do get funds into our affordable housing resources and get good development and spur development. With that said, Mayor Sard-Mienton, this is just kind of like an open question.

David PenalozaItem 3

Could this be a work study session type like we did with the trash haulers last week or two weeks ago with this roundtable or this discussion? And I'm just thinking out loud here. Not sure if that's something that...

Are you asking, Council Member, in case you wanted the entire council to participate in that type of a discussion?

David PenalozaItem 3

Is that what you're if that's possible if the ad hoc wants to take over and just that's fine But I'm just kind of again thinking out loud not really with

It's kind of asking we could we could hold a work-study session where we invited key stakeholders to come and speak at the podium of their viewpoints if you wanted to prefer to do it in that format we could do that

Yeah, I guess you know I'd be willing to defer to the council's pleasure on doing something like that. I would say we shouldn't embed it into a regular session. It would have to be in its own independent study session or else we'll be here until 2 in the morning again. So if that's the case, I just simply think that there was work done by the ad hoc to make some findings and recommendations.

I would like that to somehow be already sort of on a path to come back to us and maybe in the interim have that special study session with the stakeholders, again, if that's the pleasure of the majority of the council to bring it back as a study session.

David PenalozaItem 3

And Mayor Sarmiento, I have no issue with the ad hoc doing it. I'm just trying to make sure that I get 100% clarity on what's at stake here. I mean, this is a huge change for the housing opportunity ordinance.

Let me ask the committee members what their thought is. So, Council Member Fann and then Lopez.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

Well, as all you know, I love study sessions. I love asking people tough questions. So I would love to have, you know, give all of my colleagues the opportunity to ask in a public forum these developers and the trades and landlords and management companies, all of these questions. And just for a point of clarification, because I know you didn't have the number off the top of your head, you know, the two projects that pulled permits in 2020, I think it's Elon Mixed Use as well as Legacy Sunflower. Elon went to Planning Commission October 2018, which means it probably went to City Council sometime that winter.

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

It didn't wait that long to build. I assume that various, I don't know which housing ad hocs were existing at that time to look at the who. Similarly, Legacy Sunflower, entitlement approved June 2019. It waited approximately a year, during which time I don't know which housing ad hocs were looking at the WHO. So it's not as though these projects waited five years to go forward. They, you know, again, there was discussion among some members of the council, the previous council, regarding addressing the WHO already.

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and with that again I would love to have a public session to hash this out and I think the residents would love to hear it too. Great thank you that for that

Councilmember Fan Councilmember Lopez and then Mendoza. Agreed I'm fine with

Jessie LopezItem 3

the work study session but what I do want to ask staff is that you circulate a list of the key stakeholders what I find in the past is that your definition of key stakeholders is different than mine so I would probably have input on that

I would ask the ad hoc to create the list of stakeholders. Thank you for that.

Great. Council Member Mendoza.

Yes, thank you, Mayor Sarmento. When we do have that next study session or the ad hoc committee would get the numbers for us on the developers who pay in lieu fees to build the affordable housing units. what's the percentage or if it's a number, how many are using local skilled and trained workforce?

And that was my only comment.

Great.

So we're going to have a study session, I guess, and for the full council. Oh, I'm sorry. I think Council Member Hernandez was on hold. Go ahead, Council Member.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. it looks like we have some direction i was just going to ask a question to see if um if we could bring back the who with the ad hoc's recommendation but it looks like there's direction already

got it the only thing i would say is that you know maybe we can convene the ad hoc very quickly or you know just to and i don't even know if we need to convene it but maybe the ad hoc members can submit uh the names of stakeholders that would be helpful to be present and we may not need a meeting we just simply need you know the three committee members to go ahead and try to give you a list or our stakeholders that we believe would be helpful to be present and then we could schedule that quickly between some meetings and perfect and then you know we'll circulate that with the rest of

the council if they have anybody to add so for my clarity what I'm hearing is that the council is looking for staff at least to continue working on the recommended changes by the ad hoc in the meantime to complete a study session reaching out to stakeholders working with ad hoc on that list and then having that study session to discuss some of the proposed discussed

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

changes that's my understanding um just for clarification your um the proposed changes are kind of already in there. I think the only new thing was the skilled and trained issue. So if you can just add that, redline it, and when we come up with a list of stakeholders, you can shoot it out to everybody. They can look at it. They can mark it up however they want. They can comment on it. And they can come to the study session ready to defend whatever it is that

they want to advocate for. Great. Thanks. Got it. I see nodding heads. So all right. thank you for that staff let me go ahead and recess the City Council meeting and convene the housing authority meeting and go ahead and call on the clerk to

go ahead and call roll for us councilmember Becerra here count I'm sorry Authority member Hernandez here Authority member Lopez here Authority Member Mendoza here authority member fan here vice chair Pena Losa here and

chair Sarmiento here madam clerk do we have any speakers that want to address

the housing authority if any member of the public would like to speak on items listed on the housing authority please dial star 9 from your phone or select raise hand from zoom I do not have anyone mayor great thank you madam

clerk moving along to the consent calendar items does any authority member wish to make a motion move the items second great we have a motion in a second madam clerk if you'll please take roll or allow us to vote yeah your mind's working

Councilmember Lopez, if you would please vote. And Councilmember Mendoza.

Okay, motion carries 7-0 with authority members Becerra Hernandez, Lopez Mendoza, Fan, Vice Chair Peñalosa, and Chair Sarmiento voting yes. Thank you.

Great, that motion carries. So we are at the end of the consent calendar. I'll adjourn the Housing Authority meeting and reconvene the City Council meeting. I'll turn it over to the City Manager for her closing comments.

Thank you, Mayor. Just one brief announcement regarding free dental screenings. I want to thank Council Member Lopez for connecting us with this company. But this Saturday, the City will be partnering with Mobile Dental USA to provide free dental screenings to the community. The screenings will take place on Saturday, July 10th at the Southwest Senior Center. and appointments are required. So please sign up by visiting the website

And if you have any questions, this might be an easier one to remember. Just shoot an email to schedule at mobiledentalusa.com And that's all.

Thank you, Madam City Manager. Let me go ahead and bring it back to the council for their closing comments. Council Member Becerra.

Phil BacerraItem 3

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wanted to just announce that I'll be holding my monthly community office hours on this Saturday, July 10th at 10 a.m. over at the George Upton Barrier Free Park over at Thornton Park. Normally I have them on the first Saturday of each month, as I have since I became a council member. But with the 4th of July holiday weekend, we went ahead and moved them to July 10th. So July 10th, 10 a.m. I look forward to seeing folks come out. And I wanted to thank my colleagues for agreeing to adjourn tonight's meeting in the memory of Vladimir Gorin.

Phil BacerraItem 3

I met Vladimir through his work with People and Trees, and they're a nonprofit that has done a lot of work here in Santa Ana to plant trees. and him and his group have done a great deal of work, and I was very sad to hear that he had passed away just recently, in fact, right before a planned event over at Thornton Park. So I would just like to thank Vladimir for all the tireless work that he did for our community and send our deepest condolences to his family. And those are my comments this evening. Thank you. Good night, everybody.

Thank you for that. Council Member Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council Member Hernandez here. I just wanted to say thank you to everybody who tuned into today's meeting, and particularly to the youth who showed up today. They actually inspired me. The youth that came and advocated for roller skates and for skateboarding. I have an 11-year-old daughter, and more recently she started getting into skating as well. So with that being said, myself, along with my youth commissioner, Ray Diaz and my environmental transportation commissioner, Sui Vasquez, the three of us will be working together on launching a skateboard and a roller skate distribution.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

Details will come shortly and we will have the distribution event. We'll be getting out these skateboards and roller skates for free. More information to come. please follow me on social media to learn more about that event. Thank you. Thank you,

Jessie LopezItem 3

Councilmember. Councilmember Lopez. Thank you, Mayor Samantha. I do have a couple of important comments. First, I want to start off by thanking OCFA. I spent my Fourth of July with them, riding around town with Chief Henry and going to different calls. And it was a good night. There wasn't too much activity compared to prior years. And I think we can credit, you know, SAPD for all of the work that they've been doing and confiscating illegal fireworks here in the city. So thank you for the good work in that area. Also, you know, War III has experienced a couple of fires in the past couple of weeks,

Jessie LopezItem 3

and one of the main fires was on 17th Street and Wright. And because I work for you and as the OCFA director, I am watching the situation closely. this fire is under investigation and I have been told that an accidental fire has been ruled out I have also asked the city to update War 3 residents with any updates as soon as they are legally allowed to do so and as our city manager said the city of Sanana will be hosting a dental screening in April I reached out to dr. Zahedi and his team because I wanted Sanana residents to have this free service. I know that many of us when we lost our jobs we lost our health

Jessie LopezItem 3

care and so I just encourage all of you to come this Saturday and take advantage of the free screenings and sign up so that so that everyone is prepared and I just want to thank the mayor for supporting our efforts and I want to thank city staff as well for making this happen and I hope to see you Saturday. There's also going to be a community fair on the 17th at the Mexican consulate being hosted by United across borders and so the first start at 10 a.m. more information will be sent out and I hope to see everyone there as

well thank you thank you member thank you councilmember Lopez councilmember

Mendoza thank you mayor Sarmiento I'll be there at that fair are ready I already signed up yes I want to just reiterate some of the importance of that the information that the California Department of Public Health has issued even though most places are reopened and may not require a face mask. Californians are required for the California Department of Public Health regardless of the vaccine status to continue wearing masks in the following settings

in public transit, healthcare settings, including long-term care facilities, indoors in K through 12 schools, childcare facilities, and other youth settings, state and local correctional facilities, and detention centers, homeless centers, emergency centers, and cooling centers. California also has a voluntary digital COVID-19 vaccine record portal as an option to obtain your COVID-19 vaccine information electronically if you wish. And on a more local level, the Orange County Health Care Agency issued a press release

with some good news that 70% of Orange County residents age 18 and older have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Anticipating community and family gatherings and celebrations, the health care facility strongly advises residents to continue safe practice measures. And those who have not gotten vaccinated are advised to do so, in particular because of the new strains of the virus.

So I just want to let the public know that we're not out of out of danger yet, especially with the new Delta variant coming. It's especially affecting those people who have not been vaccinated. So anyone over 12 years old are encouraged to get vaccinated. And you can go on the Orange County webpage or Othena or calling the Orange County COVID-19 hotline for more information on where you can get your vaccinations. Their number is 714-834-2000. And walk-ins are welcome.

And the hotline has active and live operators Monday through Friday 8 to 5 p.m. And also I want to let you know that myself and Mayor Sarmiento did a taping over the weekend. It's also encouraging our residents to get vaccinated. It's on the city website. And so we want to keep our residents safe and we want to just encourage you to continue practicing wearing your masks and washing your hands and using the hand sanitizer.

and also my condolences and to our former mayor Pulido and his family in the passing of their 95 year old his his 95 year old father and that was it

thank you mayor Sarmiento thank you councilmember and thank you for those words and for reminding us that we are still not out of the woods and that we still have some work to do so thank you for keeping us focused on that

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

councilmember fan Thank You mayor a couple brief comments regarding the AB 1234 disclosure I will be attending the League of California cities conference in Sacramento in September and so the city has provided or has paid for travel lodging as well as conference registration you know I was really shocked and sad to hear about Mr. Gorin's passing. One of the first tree plantings I did was led by him, and he was just incredibly excited and thrilled to be able to get young people and residents out there planting trees, and it was actually at Thornton Park. So I am really sorry

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

to hear that. The only other thing I wanted to mention and remind everyone is that we are in a drought so please watch your water usage pay attention and you know let's please conserve because we don't want to be in a situation where we're mandated to do so and that is where we're heading these days so with that stay safe and we'll

see you next meeting Thank You Councilmember Fan Mayor Pro Tempeñalosa Thank You mr. mayor no comments tonight great thank you for that so I just wanted to thank staff and thank the residents who came to address us tonight you know it's funny when we start talking about making decisions you know we're talking about 64 million for from the revived funds 35 million for rental assistance four million dollars in a grant that we received from the office of minority health infrastructure money that we're hoping to receive from the federal government we're looking at receiving some money from the state

surplus for addressing the homelessness crisis that we have here so we are we do have challenges but we are truly blessed with a lot of resources that we're gonna have to to be able to allocate towards those so thank you for keeping us some keeping us informed and being able to make good decisions and being able to advocate so hard these monies and these grant fundings don't come by themselves they're done through a lot of strong advocacy and work on behalf of staff so don't think that goes unnoticed by all of us one thing I did want to do is close in the memory of Vladimir Gorin and I think councilmember Becerra

spoke well of his of his history and you know his his presence and his value to the city that he brought but I also did want to close briefly tonight in in Miguel Pulido seniors memory who was Miguel Pulido juniors father who was the former mayor and so I did know Miguel Pulido Sr. for many many years and he was 95 years young we will be formally adjourning next meeting in his in his memory and we'll be able to do a little bit more detail on his biography but from what I understand he passed away yesterday due to natural causes

peacefully with his family at his side so that's all we could hope for for anybody who lived a long and robust life as he did. So with that, I will adjourn both their memories and adjourn the meeting until next Tuesday, July 20th, 2021. Good night, everybody.

Thank you.

Thank you.