Read the August 17 meeting.

Recording in progress.

Great. Good evening, everybody. Let me go ahead and call this closed session meeting of the Santa Ana City Council for August 17, 2021 to order. Let me just go ahead and make a couple of opening remarks. 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 usual. on the technology as it may interrupt the flow of the meeting. Madam Clerk, if you'll please conduct roll.

Council Member Becerra. Council Member Hernandez.

Jessie Lopez

Here.

Council Member Lopez.

Jessie Lopez

Present.

Council Member Mendoza.

Present.

Council Member Fan. Here. Mayor Potempo-Nalosa.

Here.

And Mayor Sarmiento.

Here. Thank you. It looks like we do have quorum. Let me go ahead and ask if any of the council members would like to announce any abstentions or conflicts of interest on any of the closed session items. Seeing none, Madam Clerk, I think we do have somebody on the line and somebody in person that would like to address us on one of the items. Irene Cabañas, are you here? Please come forward.

Thanks for joining us.

Thank you, Council. Thank you so much for this forum. I'm here on behalf of our family. My name is Avery Cama. And we're 20-year residents. And before that, San Ana was the first city that my mom arrived when she first immigrated here to the U.S. We're here to speak on items number two, three, and four on the closed session agenda regarding the empty lots on Flower and 10th Street. Since December, when our neighborhood association newly formed, we have expressed to the city council the need for a green space and open park

in the Willard neighborhood. Currently, we don't have anything. We have a small playground with wood chips on the ground, but there's no green space in the Willard neighborhood. We found out that those lots were public property of the city of Santa Ana. And at the time, the city manager asked us to hold our petition until the environmental justice survey could be conducted, which was held from January through May of this year. So the environmental justice survey results just came out. Thank you for providing that report.

And the number one thing that's listed as a need that the residents want is a public area and green space. So we ask that you take this into consideration as you talk about this property, and it's specifically the properties of 915, 921, and 925 North Flower Street. And I'd like for you also to hear from one of the youth in the neighborhood. Hi, my name is Colby. I am 10 years old and I live on Parton Street. Me and my friends don't have anywhere to play except for the small playground with no grass behind the Willard School.

But it's for small kids. It would be great if there was a park that we had that had a skate park or just grass so me and my friends can play football. Recently, me and my friends went, or me, sorry, I went to the Mariposa Park and it was cool because it had a big playground and a skate park. I would love to have a park like that in Willard. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Irene. Thank you, Kobe. Well said. Go Willard. That's where I went to.

Oh, well, thank you.

Thank you all. And Madam Clerk, we have somebody on the line as well.

Yes, thank you, Mayor.

For Zoom ID, Yossalinda Mendoza, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device

to unmute your device.

Thank you. I'm going to send a public comment on the open regular session for the non-agenda item.

Oh, wonderful, thank you. I'll put you back on the speaker queue.

Zoom ID, Kaylee Levitt, if you would please select the microphone icon. Did you want to-

I'm also here for public comment, thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Zoom ID, Mary Maduanya, if you would please select the microphone icon to unmute your device and inform us if you'd want to speak on any closed session items.

No, mine would not be.

Okay, I will put you back on the speaker queue. Thank you.

Zoom ID, Jesus Santana, if you would please select the microphone icon to unmute your device

and inform us if you would like to speak on any closed session item.

Zoom ID, Jesus Santana, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device and inform us if you would like to speak on any closed session item.

okay mayor that is all i have online but we did receive one written communication from one santa anna resident and commented on the need for open space and requested to not have private development and that is all we have great so why don't we recess in a closed session we'll

reconvene and open in a few minutes. Thank you.

All right. Good evening, everybody. Let me go ahead and call this regular open session meeting to order for the Santa Ana City Council for August 17, 2021. Let me go ahead and just take care of some housekeeping information. So this meeting is taking place in person and in-person attendance by teleconference via Zoom. The public can access the meeting via the Santa Ana YouTube channel or the city's website. And as usual, please bear with us as the technology may disrupt the meeting and the flow. And I'll go ahead and turn it over to the clerk so she can conduct roll call.

Thank you, Mayor. Councilmember Becerra?

Here.

council member hernandez council member lopez

council member

mendoza present council member fan

council member fan

Thank you. Mayor Pro Tempeñalosa? Here. Mayor Sarmiento? Here. Let me go ahead and advise everybody. Hopefully people are going to settle in. We're going to have kind of a long meeting tonight. I'm going to advance the solid waste item so we can go ahead and clear the room. We still have some dangerous conditions, not only here, but statewide and nationally with respect to COVID. So those of you who aren't masked, those of you especially who aren't vaccinated, please, I would encourage you to wear a mask. So we're going to go ahead and take that matter out of order.

So we'll do that as quickly as we can. But I also want to inform everybody that business item number 41 has been continued at the request of staff. and we will consider that at a future time. So, Madam Clerk, before we proceed to the Pledge of

Allegiance, do you want to go ahead and make your announcement? Thank you. The public was able to join the speaker queue at 4 30 p.m. by way of Zoom and phone call and also enter the council chambers. In accordance with the 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. Please hold your comments on public hearing items until the mayor opens the public hearing. To request to speak on agenda and non-agenda items within the city jurisdiction,

dial star 9 from your phone or click the button labeled raise hand from Zoom at this time. You'll be asked to announce your name and ward or neighborhood you reside in within the city of

Santa Ana for the record. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Madam Clerk. And before we have the Pledge of Allegiance conducted by Council Member Mendoza, just to let you know, we're going to do our presentations, do a update on COVID and some of those, and then we'll go into the body of the agenda and we will advance the item on the solid waste at that point. So, Council Member Mendoza, will you please lead us in the pledge?

To honor our beautiful country, please stand.

Place your hand over your heart.

any military personnel, past, present, or future, actually just past and present, you may salute our flag and to honor those who have died for our freedom. Ready? Begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please remain standing for the chaplain.

Please.

Lord God, we begin this evening by inviting your presence to fill this place. We need your wisdom displayed here as things are presented and decisions made. We're thankful for our city council members, are thankful for our mayor. We ask blessing upon them as they go through this evening. Lord, we're mindful of all of our first responders every time we stand here. We're thankful for our men and women in law enforcement, men and women in the fire authority. We ask blessing and protection upon them to keep them healthy and safe. We pray the blessing upon our police chief and fire chief.

Lord, we need your guidance always in everything in our city. Bless those that are going to be honored tonight too, Lord, and give wisdom, Lord, as we progress to the remainder of this year. And last, Lord, I have a big request. I ask, Lord, that you, by your power and your authority, would cause this coronavirus, this COVID-19, to diminish, become far less lethal. Lord, your word says that nothing's impossible with you, and I'm not afraid to ask. And I ask that in the name of the Lord. Amen. Amen.

Thank you, Chaplain.

I believe we have a videotape from the Southern California Association of Governments on the Sustainability Award.

How are you?

Yeah, maybe.

You just need to speak a little closer. There you go.

Okay, perfect. Alright, standing closer. Well, good afternoon, or I guess it's evening now. My name is Clinton Lorimore. I am the president of SCAG, or Southern California Association of Governments. For those of you that don't know, SCAG is the largest metropolitan planning organization in the United States. Overseas six counties, 191 cities, or 19.1 million people. So just a small thing. We have one of our regional council members here, Phil Becerra, and we're going to be talking tonight about the sustainability awards that Skagg has awarded, but we're going to get to that in a little bit.

First, we have a video, and I believe that it's cued, regarding a project here in the city of Santa Ana.

Phil BacerraItem 1

The Santa Ana Arts Collective is an affordable artist community and it's very dynamic in the sense that it has residential, commercial, live work, all contained in one project. You have 58 affordable units, 47 of them are in the building that was built back in 1965, and then you have 10 townhomes that were built on a previous circus parking lot. one manager unit on the site as far as the folks that live here the residents that are here qualified because their incomes fall anywhere between 30 and 60 percent of the area's median income. What makes this project really really

I think we're having a little problem with the audio where the volume is a little low so we'll see if we can correct that. I'm sure what the council member is saying is sounds really good from here even though it's a little low. We

We may have to restart it in order for whoever's sharing the screen to share the sound as well.

Phil BacerraItem 1

The Santa Ana Arts Collective is an affordable artist community and it's very dynamic in the sense that it has residential, commercial, live work and artist space all contained in one project. We have 58 affordable units, 47 of them are in the building that was built back in 1965 and then you have 10 townhomes that were built on a previous surface parking lot, one manager unit on the site. As far as the folks that live here, the residents that are here, qualify because their incomes fall anywhere between 30 and 60 percent of the area's medium income.

What makes this project really, really special is that it is the first adaptive reuse of an office building in Orange County to housing. It is the first ordinance to have been done by a city in Orange County to allow for the reuse of office building into housing. Researchers locally at the Orange County Business Council, regionally at Skag and all over the country, One of our best opportunities for infill development is adaptive reuse of underperforming commercial or underperforming office. And so the fact that Santa Ana took it upon themselves to create an ordinance that would allow this

and then immediately follow that up with a project that implements the ordinance, that is really half of the significance of this project is in that precedent-setting leadership that has been shown by the city.

Phil BacerraItem 1

I think what's important is we have a very dynamic downtown. town and to bring housing, jobs, entertainment together along with the county civic center, which is here in downtown Santa Ana. So this building here sits along two very highly used transit lines. So the idea that folks can walk outside their front door, get on a bus,

they don't even have to get into a car. One of the things that makes this project an anchor for the artist community is that it includes a gallery that is run by a professional gallerist for the benefit of the entire arts community of Santa Ana. So the location can be not only working artist space for the residents that live there, but also contains space that is for them and also for the larger arts community in Santa Ana. Within the project, there's a maker space, a yoga studio, and gallery space that's open for the benefit of the residents that are there and also the rest of the community.

Phil BacerraItem 1

It really fits in the sense that Santa Ana really needs to provide a dynamic, diverse range of housing, whether it's market rate or affordable, but the idea is this particular project is unique in the sense that it enhances our artist community, that we've really taken so much effort over the last couple of decades to grow here in Santa Ana, and this fits in line with that mission to help the artist community.

Should this tactical zoom lens be made illegal?

This is the first reasonably priced monocular with high-end features. It lets you get really up close.

and lets you shoot videos and photos with incredible zoom and crisp images.

I think, yeah, well, look, I know that we have this volume high when we need it low, and we have the other one low when we need it high. But I think we're going to take a photograph right before you presenting the sustainability award. And thank you for coming down here, President Lantz and Laura Moore. Thank you, Council Member, for the video and for your service on the SCAG board.

Phil BacerraItem 1

Mr. Mayor, this is an award to the city of Santa Ana, so hopefully our colleagues would like to join us down.

Thank you.

Thank you.

right next to high to transit it is underused unused property or out of the housing crisis which we know is affecting all of California Southern California so again on behalf of the Southern California Association of Government thank you for your service to your community and to our region as a whole thank you

Thank you for that presentation, Council Member, and thank you to Skag for that recognition. It is an impressive project that we have there. Let me go ahead and turn it over to Council Member Hernandez, who has a recognition for Mario Fernandez.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 2

I'll stand close to the microphone finally join me sir thank you for taking

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 2

well thank you

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 2

Through founding one of the first recording studios in the city, WISO continued to produce and record notable projects being recognized for publications and recording societies. From 2010 to 2016, Wizo collaborated with the late, great Nipsey Hussle to create some of hip-hop's most revered projects. He was awarded two gold records, a platinum certification, and a Grammy nomination. In 2017, Wizo formed Bitstream Audio here in the city of Santa Ana, for which he received two patents for his design and implementation of a new recording and music production hardware that is revolutionizing producers recording studio experiences.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 2

Today, Wizo is one of the most renowned producers in the industry and continues to preach the same ideology that he cultivated with Nipsey Hussle, building businesses, elevation of community, and building community through hip-hop. He continues to help and inspire those around him into ownership, business, and creativity. Congratulations, sir.

Thank you.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 2

On behalf of the city, we now declare today Mario Wizo Fernandez-Defi.

I'm going to throw the peace sign up.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 2

And if you would do us the honor and just tell us what this means to you today.

I'm extremely thankful to be awarded a platform for which I can continue with my brothers to build a strong community, to inspire others that when the odds are stacked against you, you can do great things, especially with great people around you. And by contributing to the community and continuing to inspire those who look like me, who act like me, and who have similar backgrounds as me, it's something that I'm incredibly proud and honored to have been awarded such an amazing... I mean it's my own day it's it's amazing and I can only I don't even know what to say to that

but all I can all I can all I can feel is that this platform is is is gonna give me a voice to continue to inspire others to build communities the way we have been able to thank you brother

Well, usually I'm just a guy right next to Wizzle, but my name is Francisco Salazar. Some of you might know me as Frank Salazar. Grew up here in the city of Santa Ana. Born and raised in the city of Santa Ana here on Bristol Street, coastal communities, which has been changed, right? But this is such a special city. What I wanted to say is we really believe in honoring the vibe and the energy of the city. I am very overprotective of the city. Likewise, just like Wizo is, me and him started our music or journey together around the same time. He went off and started producing. I started doing stuff at Interscope as an A&R.

Worked with notable artists like Eminem and a couple individuals that you guys might know. and really we really wanted to start a movement in the youth here in Santa Ana you know we're all musically driven and really wanted to have something impactful in the city I love this city more than anything and I know you guys here especially you know spending your time at six seven o'clock at city council meeting during the week right love this city very much so as well but But just on behalf of all of us and everybody sitting up here, I thank all of you guys, and I can't wait for the future of the city.

Thank you so much, and have a wonderful evening.

Thank you, Councilmember Hernandez. Let me go ahead and turn it over in that theme to recognize another special group of people. And this is going to be Council Member Lopez, who's going to be recognizing the Santa Ana High School for receiving the top honors at the National Speech and Debate Tournament. And I see a familiar face somewhere around here. So, Council Member Lopez, I'm going to turn it over to you.

Trustee Tinajero knows his way around here I think a little bit right? You know your way around here a little bit.

Jessie LopezItem 2

Hi everyone, good evening. So today we're here to recognize, you know, Santa Ana students receiving top honors at the National Speech and Debate Tournament of this year. And so we are presenting certificates of recognition to Mr. Tinajero, Emily Benavides, Corine Terano, Destiny Sejas, Ana Fierro, Guadalupe Guzman, Stephanie Meza, Jillian Palacios, and Cassandra reels and as many as you know I'm a saint so this is a very very special moment for me

Jessie LopezItem 3

and so to be recognizing my fellow saints is special and I have always said and will continue to say that Santa Ana USD kids are a force to be reckoned with. So now the National Speech and Debate Association is the largest speech and debate organization in the world. 49 states and 13 foreign countries participate in this annual tournament. The SAUSD speech and debate program was created in 2016 by former City Councilman Mr. Tinajero. Mr. Tinajero is now the communications program specialist for Santa Ana Unified School District.

Jessie LopezItem 3

For four of the five years that SAUSD has participated in the tournaments, middle schools have been crowned as national champions and this year our Our high school dominated. Sanana High School was crowned the national champion.

Yeah.

Jessie LopezItem 3

Yeah, yeah, so let me repeat. We have champions in the house, okay?

Jessie LopezItem 3

And so the group is made up of all Latina women. Please applaud for that.

Jessie LopezItem 3

And they went up against sporting schools, private schools, charter schools, and affluent public schools, and they managed to secure top honors. And so Cassandra Rios, Ana Fierro, Stephanie Mesa, and Guadalupe Guzman all placed in octofinals and quarterfinals, and Jillian Palacios and Destiny Sejapost emerged as fourth speaker in the nation out of over 3,000 students.

Jessie LopezItem 3

And four out of the six will be returning next year to battle for the title once again. And Jillian and Guadalupe were offered scholarships at multiple universities and the country and chose to accept the scholarship at Santa Ana College. And go Dons, you know? So on behalf of Ward 3 residents, we wish you the very best and we're so proud of the way that you represent our city and our school district. And thank you for making the Golden City where you make it.

Thank you. Thank you.

Jessie LopezItem 3

So let me leave a pause.

Thank you.

I'd like to have one of our students speak in just a second. But what I do want to say is that in 2016, I decided to leave Fullerton High School. And I felt that enough had been done there. And Santa Ana and Garden Grove offered me a position to start a district-wide program. The difference was Santa Ana is my home. And so I chose Santa Ana. And in 2016, we started the program. And we got beat up a little bit. Remember that? It wasn't fun. I told them we're just starting we're just starting in year two the Advanced

Learning Academy which is one of our schools in our district won the national championship in 2019 they won it again in 2020 they won it again so I get to sport the three-time national championship ring you know it's one of those where I go we're gonna all enjoy these so kids get to enjoy those too but this is what I told the district it's gonna take us five years to win the national championship in high school because now it's no joke we're dealing with 3,000 schools from across the country. To give you a perspective each one of these students only 10% qualified to nationals. 3,000 in each event

attempt to qualify only 10% qualify. So to not only qualify is a huge honor but then to win is huge. If you want to watch ABC they're going to put them on Hispanic heritage as one of the teams to celebrate and the beauty of this this is that these are all women these are all women who made a decision and said hey I don't care that this is male-dominated I don't care that when we come to tournaments we don't see other people that look like us but we're gonna tell our story gosh dang it because they need to hear it in 2016 when I told people

that I was starting a speech program here they went oh that's cute and I said oh no you'll see. If you put resources behind our kids, our kids will rise to the occasion, not only rise to the occasion, but win national championships. This is United States champions right here. So who wants to speak? I don't even want to talk anymore. I don't even want to talk anymore. Okay so this is Destiny Seja. She finished fourth in the United States. So out of 3,000 she's number four. We'll

take it. Here we go. First of all, thank you all so much for being here. First, I would like to thank the school board for putting in so much support and resource into our program. I've always said that the moment that we found out that we won the title, it felt extremely surreal because we accomplished something that felt extremely impossible. So being the first Latina team in the history of speech and debate to claim this title, it really just feels like a historical honour and moments. And I'm extremely proud and honoured to be a part of this team and to be able to be a

representation for the young students in Santa Ana High School. So I'm really just thankful and grateful to Sati Nahiro for creating this program and to the Santa Ana Unified School District for supporting us throughout it all. And shout out to my team members who have always been here for me and for each other throughout the entire journey. And we thank the city of Santa Ana for being those shoulders that we need to be lifted up as well. Thank you.

And I want to introduce a couple of people just so you know. This is Corinne Serrano. She's the day-to-day coach. She's the one that's there when kids are feeling sad, kids are feeling happy. She's the inspiration that drives it. And this is Miss Halima who just flew out from Peoria, Illinois, who's been coaching us virtually, a four-time national champion, one of the best speakers in the country at the college level, just graduated. We always hire the best. So she's here to celebrate with us today. Thank you to an amazing councilwoman and an amazing council who's doing a great job. Thank you very much.

Jessie LopezItem 3

Thank you everyone.

So Mr. Tinojero didn't really, he's too humble to say that back in 2016, he had been coaching Fullerton Union High School to national championships years before that. So we were ribbing him here on the council telling him, you know what, you need to move You moved back to your hometown. You got some great talent here. And look, what he just presented is evidence of that. So if there's anything that we should take away from this is that we have a lot of, you know, hidden talent here in the city. And all we need is, again, as the message was, to support those students and to have an all-female team lead us

as the first national championship team in Santa Ana. And speech and debate is no joke. I mean, that is something that is very difficult to do. We see how many people have difficulty just speaking in public and especially in our community. That is a big, big victory. So thank you, Sal, for all your work and to all the students and the parents. Thank you all. Muchas gracias a todos por apoyar a sus estudiantes. Thank you guys. Si se puede.

.

All right, moving right along to our last presentation that's going to be done by Councilmember Mendoza to Suavecito, recognizing August 2021 as Chicano Heritage Month.

Councilmember?

Joined by Councilmember Hernandez.

Good evening and welcome everyone. Today we are declaring the month of August as Chicano Heritage Month. So in honor of such a very important day, we are presenting a proclamation to Suavecito and also in recognition of other Chicano organizations throughout Santa Ana and our country. And so today we are going to present this proclamation to Suavecito. However, they are out of state for some very important business.

but this proclamation will be presented personally to them at the event that Councilmember Mendoza and Councilmember Hernandez have planned for this Friday and you're all invited whether you're Chicano or not everyone is the same in the inside no matter what color what country we come from. So please join us on August 20th on Friday from 4 o'clock to 8 p, 4 to 8 p.m. at the Dell High Center and I'm sure everyone knows where that's located. There will be food, drinks, entertainment, speakers, and prizes.

So the Cal, excuse me, the Cal, oh my gosh. Let me, let me start again. I should have attended the speech and debate with, with the kids. The co-founder of Suavecito, Antonio Tony Adame, was born in Santa Ana to Francisco and Rosalba Adame, both immigrants from Mexico. Suavecito employs over 100 people, mainly from Santa Ana, and they pride themselves in hiring santaneros in an effort to provide opportunities within their community.

During the pandemic, the hair company swiftly pivoted from making hair products to manufacturing hand sanitizer, which at that time was in very short supply and critical in fighting the coronavirus. From a Chicano background, organizations such as Suavecito provide a perfect example of the community contributions we are recognizing during this Chicano Heritage Month. For those who aren't familiar with the term Chicano, Chicano are people of Mexican descent

born in the United States. Today the term Chicano is an essential component of communities' revitalization and renewed sense of hope and pride. Regaining and regenerating the term Chicano was the first step towards releasing the psychological barriers in the minds of many Mexican Americans. Chicanos represent a significant and rapidly growing demographic in the city of Santana and we honor them for their invaluable contributions to this great city. So now my colleague will read the proclamation and say a few words on his own. Thank you, Councilwoman. Thank you so much.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

My pleasure. Wow, what an honor, Councilwoman Mendoza, to be able to stand beside you and and to support this amazing proclamation. As of today, history is being made. This is the first city in the United States to have such a proclamation to declare August Chicano Heritage Month is to kick down the doors. Chicano Heritage Month, the city of Santa Ana, whereas we remember and honor the Chicanos, Chicanas, and Chicanx that were slain for exercising their constitutional right to protest the war in Vietnam, resulting in August being declared as Chicano Heritage Month.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

And whereas the East Los Angeles Chicano Moratorium March, held on August 29, 1970, was one of the largest assemblies of Mexican-Americans. And whereas the Guzman and Mendez families, as well as many other Chicano and Latino families, sued the school system for its segregation policy. And whereas the Mendez case was significant in ending school segregation in the United States, Brown versus Board of Education, and in California. And whereas Chicanos have been part of the DNA of American culture with an undeniable influence in education, public safety, infrastructure, economic development, culinary arts, and as evidenced, governance.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

Whereas Chicanos are Olympic swimmers, muralists, artists, surfers, designers, lawyers, judges, and pioneers in custom automobiles and designs, and speech and debate champions. Whereas Chicanos represent a significant and rapidly growing demographic in the city of Santa Ana, and we honor their invaluable accomplishments and contributions. Now, therefore, we, the mayor and the city council of the city of Santa Ana, do hereby declare the month of August 2021 to be Chicano Heritage Month. And we encourage the residents to join us in celebrating. Make some noise.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

Si se puede. Si se. All right, I'm going to get a chat going with you guys before we take a picture.

Si se puede. Si se puede. Si se puede. Thank you. Can we take some time? I'm sorry.

We lose my travels.

We got to do one of these. We get a little happy.

Should we just stop?

and do that. Thank you Council Members and thank you everybody and I'm sure if the Suavecito team would have been here they would have loved it so we're sending them a lot of love from here to where they where they may be right now. As we know they're a homegrown company here from Santa Ana making us proud. So let me go ahead and move along to staff presentations and the first one is the update on COVID-19 and I'll turn it over to the city manager. Okay we'll get a presentation loaded

but good evening honorable mayor and members of the city council. Tonight's COVID-19 update includes the latest numbers of COVID-19 cases, county-wide vaccine distributions, reminders on how to keep yourselves and others protected against the virus, and information on local governments requiring employees to be vaccinated and plans for our employees here at the City of Santa Ana. So although the state has lifted most restrictions on activities such as capacity limits and physical distancing requirements, we still need to practice common sense safety measures until more people are

vaccinated. As the coronavirus continues to spread and mutate into new and more infectious variants, particularly the Delta variant, our COVID-19 positive cases continue to rise. This is significant because the Delta variant is more than twice as contagious as previous variants. This is especially problematic for people who are unvaccinated. To date, the city of Santa Ana has 46,768 positive cases and over 870 deaths in our community. On your screen, you will see the COVID-19 case positivity percentage broken down by zip code for the last seven days. The citywide case positivity rate is 9.47%.

The Orange County Health Care Agency along with city staff are closely following the case positivity rate in our city.

Switching gears to talk about vaccines, the Health Care Agency shares countywide data on vaccine distributions across the county. To date, about 1.8 million Orange County residents or about 57% of the population are fully vaccinated. Getting vaccinated is safe, effective, and free, and we encourage all Santa Ana residents 12 and up to get vaccinated. Residents can visit myturn.ca.gov or call 833-422-4255 to get their vaccine.

COVID-19 has not gone away. To safely go about our daily lives, we need to get vaccinated, wear a face covering, get tested if we feel sick, and practice common sense measures to keep yourself and others safe, physical distancing, avoiding large indoor gatherings. In addition to prioritizing information sharing about COVID-19 testing and vaccines to the public, along with preparing for our rollout of Revive Santa Ana to help Santa Ana recover from COVID-19, we're implementing guidance on face coverings and planning a requirement that city employees be vaccinated. For a quick reminder, the CDC and

state requires that all people, whether you're vaccinated or not, must wear a face covering in the following settings. Public transit, hospitals, long-term care facilities, homeless shelters, emergency shelters, cooling centers, state and local correctional facilities and detention centers, and this does include our own jail, indoor in K-12 schools, childcare, and other youth settings. For people who are not yet vaccinated, a face covering is required when indoor public settings and businesses. This includes places like retail stores, restaurants,

and other businesses. In addition to the federal and state guidance, the City of Santa Ana strongly encourages everyone, whether fully vaccinated or not, to wear a face covering indoors. This includes when indoors at city facilities such as our community centers and senior centers.

more and more we are hearing about federal state and local public entities along with corporate america rolling out vaccine mandates for their employees in response to the highly transmissible delta variant this new variant is causing a drastic increase in the rates of severe illness and hospitalization among the unvaccinated population we are already seeing additional mandated requirements impacting some of our employees that work within the city jail, such as proof of vaccination and twice-weekly diagnostic screenings for those unvaccinated. Under the lead of Governor Newsom, some local governments have implemented or are in the

process of implementing vaccine and testing measures for employees, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Long Beach, and San Diego County. Following this movement, the City of Santa Ana is planning to implement additional measures to ensure the health and well-being of our employees and the community we serve. On July 6, 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a memorandum opining that private businesses and public entities are not prohibited from mandating COVID-19 vaccines that have only received approval for use under an emergency use authorization

or known as an EUA. Granted, any vaccine requirement must provide for exemptions or other reasonable accommodations for employees who cannot get vaccinated due to a disability or sincerely held religious belief practice or observance. The City of Santa Ana is carefully considering the practical and legal implications for our for requiring our employees to be vaccinated. To do this we will also consider best practices and implementing effective and compliant processes for identifying and addressing reasonable accommodations such as regular testing for those employees who cannot get vaccinated. And of course, the effective date

of this policy is pending our important conversation with our labor groups. There are a handful of other local governments that are implementing or considering implementing policies that would require their employees to get vaccinated. For example, the city and county of San Francisco enacted an administrative policy that requires all of their employees to be fully vaccinated no later than 10 weeks after the FDA gives final approval as opposed to just the emergency use authorization. The city of Pasadena recently enacted a similar administrative policy that will require all city employees to be vaccinated now

or request for a deferral until the FDA gives final approval of at least one COVID-19 vaccine.

Then I just one more item to report on. I wanted to provide a brief update on our outdoor safe dining program. because installation is happening around the city. The Santa Ana Outdoor Safe Dining Program is aimed at assisting restaurants within the city of Santa Ana along 1st and 17th Street with outdoor dining spaces to mitigate COVID-19 impacts. A total of 22 restaurants are participating. The restaurants will receive table, chairs, shades, and bistro lights. Additionally, 14 of the restaurants will receive installation of planters, rails, and a floor mural.

Installation commenced last week and is expected to be completed by August 30th. Additionally, the program is providing a sample for future outdoor dining design standards throughout the city. This program was made possible with the funding that we received from the County of Orange. That concludes the COVID-19 presentation and I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Great. Thank you, Madam City Attorney. I think there's an echo on my mic, so my voice isn't that high. but maybe we can get that adjusted. Perfect. Thank you for that update. Let me go ahead and bring it back to the council if there's any questions or comments from the council.

Jessie LopezItem 5

Council Member Lopez. Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. I do have, besides looking into the vaccination policy for staff on that topic, what is the timeline

looking like for that? We would have to, it's pending the conversations with each of the labor unions, so we don't have to meet and confer over the decision to implement a vaccine requirement, but we certainly need to sit down and meet and confer over the impacts. And do we have other

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policies in place to essentially protect staff from being in contact with somebody that may have

been exposed to COVID? Yes, currently everyone that's in the workplace that's unvaccinated is required to wear a mask. Everyone else is strongly encouraged, especially if they're in a communal setting such as a break room. And when we have an exposure at City Hall or any of the other city facilities, we track, we notify, and we send the employees that could have been potentially exposed to be tested. And then depending on symptoms or no symptoms in the testing, there might be a small

Jessie LopezItem 5

quarantine period of time. So our staff, they should be wearing a mask at City Hall. If they're

unvaccinated absolutely if they're vaccinated and they're sitting spaced out not necessarily

Jessie LopezItem 5

are we looking at any measures for the chamber that's a very good question it's something if you

if you are interested in implementing a policy for visitors to city hall mandating it for everyone that is something that i i didn't have in my presentation certainly if that's direction of

Jessie LopezItem 5

the council that is something that we could do as well osha given any direction on how businesses

government buildings should operate? For CDC, they recommend mask wearing for everybody that's unvaccinated, but they leave it up to the individual businesses or public entities

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on vaccinated employees. And do we have the stats for SDP vaccination? The percentage vaccinated,

I don't have that figure. Already they are going through a mandatory vaccination program relative

Jessie LopezItem 5

to the jail. Okay. Can I get that, those numbers? Certainly. When you get them. Okay, thank you.

That's going to be it. Thank you, Council Member. Any other questions or comments from the Council on this? The only thing I was going to say, I was going to basically just also agree with that. I know that we want to meet with our bargaining unit representatives to make sure that we talk about this. I don't think it's meant to be punitive. I think it's meant to be

obviously instructive because we have many of our employees and staff that deal with the public and if we're asking and encouraging the public we want to make sure that we lead by example and we make sure that we remember Santa Ana was one of the hardest hit communities during the first surge and so we're seeing some of that continue to linger. It's affecting and it will affect commerce here in the city it will affect the viability of many of our businesses that survived that first surge and we don't want to have to go back to those days where things are being shut down and there's closures and people not

being able to work and people more importantly getting sick so the sooner rather than later and I know it's not mandated that we have to check with our bargaining unit representatives we do it out of a courtesy and I think your approach, Madam City Manager, is a healthy one where we want to require the vaccines and in the event that there are, whether it's religious beliefs, whether it's comorbidities or immunocompromised folks, we want to give them the option of being able to prove up, you know, with a negative COVID test or some other way that we can allow them to continue to work. But, you

know, we certainly want to move in this direction and the sooner rather than later certainly helps. So thank you for that report. I think there is one other presentation, an update on the general plan community outreach.

There is Executive Director Min Tai from the Planning Department.

Thank you Mayor, thank you City Manager Ridge. I'm happy to be for you tonight to provide an update regarding the General Plan update. Before I begin my presentation, if I can take a moment to recognize our staff and our General Plan team who has been working hard on this project, leading the team with Planning Manager Fabiola Zalea Melica. She's right there. We also have principal planner, Melanie McCann, she's right there. And senior planner, Ricardo Soto, she's also being next to her as well. And finally we have associate planner, Jerry Cabrera, who is not able to be here with us tonight. The Santa Ana General Plan update

is a community vision policy document communicating the goals and policy and programs to accomplish the city's vision for development through 2045. Community outreach and engagement has been an essential part of the general plan update effort. Over the past six years we have had over 60 community meetings and workshops reaching thousands of residents and stakeholders throughout the city. To bolster this effort and to ensure engagement with Santa Ana, disadvantaged and environmental justice community, planning staff facilitated a multifaceted outreach campaign beginning in the spring of 2021.

The campaign consisted of a multilingual electronic and both electronic and hard copy survey that was publicized on our social media platforms with hard distributed copies by neighborhood leaders and residents. 10 virtual community meetings were held, each focusing on listening to live experiences of residents, property owners, and community stakeholders within the 30 EJ communities and neighborhoods that we have here in the city. During this process over 236 members participated in the virtual forum. Responding to city council and community input the outreach included a survey that

was made available in multiple language and publicized as I mentioned on all the social media platforms by our city. We also received help in distribution from area residents as well as neighborhood leaders as I mentioned. The campaign The team began with gathering a general plan outreach roundtable with various neighborhoods and representative, local stakeholders, providing us with ideas on how to best reach out to our community and how to best obtain participation from our residents and our community. Meeting flyers were mailed to every address within the EJ communities in Santa,

tolling more than 40,000 residents, occupants, and property owners that were sent flyer directly, informing them of the virtual environmental justice meetings as well as the neighborhoods and the meeting where they're located in. Meeting flyers were provided in English, Spanish, Vietnamese and were mailed to community a minimum of two weeks before each meeting. Meeting and availability of the survey was also publicized on social media platforms and hard copy again distributed by the leaders, neighborhood leaders. Staff also partner with neighborhood leaders to

distribute flyers to obtain the broadest reach possible by working with churches, organizations, schools, and community leaders. Live interpretation was provided in Spanish, Vietnamese, and Cambodian during the forum and the online surveys were formatted in hardcopy also in foreign language to allow those without internet access to participate. Each of the ten virtual forum was marketed and to focus on different neighborhood association that are geographically clustered around each other and as part of the environmental justice community.

With the majority of the allotted time each forum devoted to listening to live experiences, I'm sorry, live experiences of residents, property owners, and community stakeholders. The comment received during those forum can generally be categorized within the themes as shown on your screen there, waiting air and water pollution, improved public facilities, civic engagement, physical activities, healthy food options, as well as improved infrastructure. The online survey was accessible to the public during the month of March through May. there were a total of 746 complete surveys submitted and as part of the

survey we were happy to announce that eight residents receive each $100 gift certificate as part of their completing of the survey and as part of our

marketing campaign outreach. Excuse me Director Mann can I ask you to please raise your voice so that he doesn't have to turn up the volume and we don't hear

that feedback. Thank you. Thank you. I'll try to speak louder.

the outreach and the work that were completed culminate in us being able to share with the member of the public provide the opportunity to highlight the efforts of EJ issues by hosting an in-person open house forum scheduled to be on August 28th at the Southwest Senior Center from 2 a.m. to 12 p.m. and again this will be an opportunity for us to highlight the efforts addressed by EJ issues in the neighborhood groups and other agencies and it will be an in-person subject to again potential COVID advisory from CDC

or the governor lastly for so that folks can see that the feedback has been taken into account and being incorporating the general plan updates edit text has been demonstrated through track changes in the version that is the draft general plan that is being circulated public review and has been circulated since August 6 along with the EIR and a copy of the general plan EIR and the general plan itself will be distributed by Melanie tonight to each of the council members so that you have an electronic copy for your review

Some milestones that we want to share. Again, the general plan was released on August 6th. The planning commission work study session is scheduled to be on August 9th with the planning commission public comment hearing on the PEIR on September 13th. The planning commission public hearing on the general plan itself is scheduled to be in October, October 25th with the culmination of being the city council adoption and public hearing on November 16th of this year. Along with the general plan effort, we are also in the process of updating our housing element in tandem.

This is a separate effort that is in tandem with the general plan. The round table meetings occur during the month of June. We have an upcoming citywide survey during the month of September and August, serving our residents on housing issues. We will also have a community workshop in October. Hopefully this will be an in-person meeting so that we can continue to obtain residents input. With that update, I welcome any questions that you may have, and we look forward to presenting the general plan to our community and the city council in November. Thank you.

Thank you, Director Tai. And so I'm glad we prefaced some of that. I know we're having a little bit of audio issues here in chambers, so hopefully everybody can hear us at home on their screens and on YouTube and all the other platforms that we're using to go ahead and communicate. This has always been a little bumpy just because a lot of what we do now is under COVID-related and post-COVID-related conditions. And so we're trying to make sure that everybody has a chance to keep a safe distance, but at the same time be able to be heard.

So in essence, really what the presentation was, was the aggressive and assertive effort that you've made to outreach to the community to make sure that the community is able to comment and opine and make themselves heard when it comes to the general plan amendments that are going to be coming before us to consider later on this year. So we certainly appreciate staff's effort in doing that and will continue to be available and make it as accessible for everybody as possible. So if anybody on the council has anything to add to the presentation.

Any other comments? Melanie, I think you're going to be dropping something off. So let's. Here we are. We're getting these passed around to us. So thank you, staff, for that presentation. And that leads us to the next item, which is the closed session report. And I'll ask the city attorney to go ahead and report anything out that she needs to from closed session.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 5

Thank you, Mayor, Council members and members of the public. We discussed three closed session items this evening. Two were related to pending litigation, and the other was related to real property negotiations. We have reportable action on two of the matters. In the matter of Heather Heider versus the City of Santa Ana, the City Council, by unanimous vote, rejected the settlement offer made by the plaintiff and directed us to prepare for trial coming up in September. As for the real property matters, the City Council, also by unanimous vote, rejected the offer to purchase the three properties

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 5

and directed staff to negotiate for the adjacent three properties for consolidation for future park use. And that's all of the reportable action that I have.

Thank you, Madam City Attorney. That brings us to our public comment section of the meeting. And what I'm going to do is I'll go ahead and ask the Council if they have any items that they wish to pull off the consent calendar. and we'll go ahead and actually let's go ahead and do that now then we'll take comments on item number 43 which we want to accelerate up and then we can go ahead and tackle the consent calendar items after item number 43 and as we have public comments we will begin with comments on the public hearing item number 43 first then we'll go back and hear the general comments on the consent

calendar items and the business calendar items that we'll be addressing later after item number 43 is considered. So let me go ahead and ask the council if there's anything on the consent

Phil BacerraItem 5

calendar that they'd wish to go ahead and pull off. Mr. Mayor, I'd like to go ahead and pull items 12, 14, and 33.

Okay.

Council Member Lopez?

Jessie LopezItem 5

Yeah, I want to poll 9, 10, 13, and 20.

Mayor, Council Member Phan has her hand raised.

Great. Council Member Phan?

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

I will be recusing myself from the item 16 and 21 as the Orange Valley Water District and I believe it's BC Inc are clients of my employer, Rattan and Tucker. And I would also like to pull the admin sure item, although I forgot the number. So if, oh, no, item 37. Thanks.

Thank you, Council Member Phan. Any other items that Council would wish to consider?

I'll move the balance. Second. Great. We have a motion and a second. Madam Clerk, if you'll please call roll on that.

Thank you. If I can ask Council Members, you can actually use the voting module and go ahead and vote.

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

Is everyone on the screen saying waiting? That's what my screen says.

Yeah, I think we're all still waiting for the screens to become active so we can vote.

My apologies. It looks like it's not working at the moment. And I captured Mayor Pro Tempinaloso motioning and who seconded? Thank you, Council Member Becerra. Council Member Becerra?

Phil BacerraItem 5

Yes.

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

Yes. Mayor Pro Tempeñamosa. Yes. And Mayor Sarmiento. Yes. And just so everybody understands, once again, the items that were just pulled from the consent calendar by the council will be considered after we consider the public hearing on item number 43, the solid waste item. So we'll go ahead and go to that first and then we'll come back and take any public comments on the balance of the calendar, consent calendar that, on those items that were pulled. So let me go ahead and begin with those members of the public that wish to address us on item number 43, the public hearing.

Give me one second because I believe we may have some people online on the phone that also wish to address us on that item.

Mayor, would you like to have the staff presentation prior to the public comments?

Actually, let me go ahead and open up the, you know, go through and open up that public hearing. We'll get to that. We'll hand it over to staff and then we'll come back to the council and we'll go ahead and consider the comments. So this is the time and place for the public hearing to adopt a resolution to approve the exclusive agreement to Athens services for collection and handling of solid waste for a term of up to 18 years and authorized proposition 218 process. Let me go ahead now open it up open up the public hearing turn it over to staff to make a presentation and answer any questions that the council may have. Thank you

Mayor. Executive Director Nabil Saba. Evening Mayor, Mayor Potem, members of the City Council. Tonight, I will be providing you with a presentation of staff recommendation for the solid waste contract.

We recommend the award of the exclusive solid waste agreement to Athens Services. The agreement becomes effective 30 days from Council approval. services commence July 1, 2022 and expire June 30, 2032, with a mutual option to extend for a period of five years and a city option to extend for a period of up to 36 months. State of California, school and college districts and other agencies are not subject to the City of Santa Ana's agreement for solid waste services.

These entities contract for solid waste services directly with service providers. All proposers offered varied levels of environmental leadership initiatives and agreed to comply with the requirements of the Department of Transportation, South Coast Air Quality Management District, and California Air Resources Control Board regulations. All collection vehicles will be powered by natural gas and be model year 2021 or newer.

The cost of Athens services contract is the lowest overall for services similar to those proposed by other firms. Athens proposed the lowest price throughout the term of the contract for the 42,000 residential customers with curbside service with immediate savings of four dollars eighty one cents per month they offer the lowest at the additional residential curb site trash cart rate of four dollars 39 cents per month the lowest senior mobile home load generator service

rate of 13 dollars 16 cents per month lowest commercial cart service of 85 dollars per month lowest three cubic yard temporary bend service of $95 lowest three curb three yard temporary bend service of $95 for construction and demolition debris. Athens Services received the highest customer satisfaction rating among the four haulers. Clean City initiatives services

will be performed within within in-house staff. Athens Services proposed 10 free bulky item pickups per quarter per dwelling unit for apartments and condominiums a total of 40 items per year per dwelling unit other firms proposed unlimited bulky item pickup Athens Services also proposed the second lowest pricing for commercial service of four hundred forty nine dollars eighty cents the second highest pricing for multi-family residential service of

five hundred ninety seven dollars twenty one cents employees are not represented by a collective bargaining agreement or a labor union on the outreach a detailed solid waste contract residential customer impacts presentation was shared with the following our TJ pillar and flower Park neighborhood association come link downtown neighborhood association Fisher Park Florida Park Washington Square Willard Square Wilshire Square citywide virtual community meeting and we also held an in-person community meeting a solid

waste contract business customer impacts presentations was made or were made virtually to the Environmental and Transportation Advisory Commission, ETAC, and a citywide community meeting.

The next step for us is to comply with Proposition 218 process. It's for you to authorize the preparation of documents to proceed with the notification of proposed solid waste rates effective July 1, 2022, through June 30, 2023, five-year period. That includes the preparation and mailing of notices to all Santa Ana property owners and the scheduling of a public hearing at a future City Council meeting on or after September 21, 2021.

As far as the timeline is concerned, We are on August 17, 2021. We are asking for the adoption of the resolution to award an exclusive solid waste agreement to one of the four proposers, an authorization of Proposition 218 process.

And I just want to take you through our Clean City Initiative services. I would like to bring your attention to the first and maybe the second the third column under services and schedule For the services we've asked for under the city clean city initiatives For a service for abandoned item collection and litter cleanup that service schedule is six days per week from eight to five a right-of-way trash container service that service is from 7 to 11 a.m. six days per week

right-of-way trash container steam cleaning oh yeah trash container steam sorry steam cleaning that service is from 8 to 5 six days a week hardscape cleaning that's the sidewalk that service is from eight to five six days per week sidewalk curb gutter power washing that service is six days a week again portal service six five days a week including a Saturday from seven to six we also asked for alley cleaning

service and that is also from six to sorry from six seven to six p.m. six days a week. Just wanted to highlight those initiatives and I'm hoping with this contract we would make a dent in keeping our city clean. With that concludes my

presentation. Thank you. Great, thank you Director Saba. Let me go ahead and now open up the public hearing officially on this item and as usual I'd rather hear from the public before it comes back to the council so we can go ahead and get your comments and incorporate those into the record and also hear from you as well so as I mentioned before we have quite a few members of the public that wish to address us let me just remind you that there are three colors on the podium there when you come up and speak it'll you'll have three minutes to address us you don't need to use the three minutes if you can be more concise

since we have a lot of people that wish to address this brevity will be welcomed but the light will start at green it'll go to yellow and once you're at red that's three minutes and we will respectfully ask you to go ahead and discontinue your comments and as I said we also have some members of the public that couldn't attend in public and they're going to be addressing us by phone so we want to be able to get to everybody there and I'll start off with the first public request to speak, and that's by Doug Corcoran. And I really like it because he says he's available for questions,

and so he doesn't need to come up unless we have any questions. So we're on a good roll. Thank you, Doug. Next is Tanya Castaneda, followed by Omar Lucero and Raul Chavez.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor and Council members. I'm Tania Castelleda, Municipal Manager for Republic Services, speaking on item 43. Selection of a solid waste provider. Joining me tonight is our company's vice president, Richard Copeland, our general manager, Dan Kepner, our operations manager, Steve Lopez, and our government affairs director, Michael Johnson, and a team of our dedicated drivers and our employees that are here in solidarity of your vote. On behalf of our company, we thank you for the privilege and honor to earn your partnership.

Republic, the City of Santa Ana, is the best partner to improve the quality of life for residents and businesses, as summarized in the four main points following. Number one, best value. Less than 3% separates the bidders tonight. Republic bid residential rates close to where they are today, while offering the lowest rates for commercial and multifamily customers which make up 60% of total revenue of this contract and will receive the lowest rates. Number two, best community partner. We are deeply committed to the Santa Ana community. We're offering free bulky item pickup programs, scholarship and

charitable giving programs, and an outreach program that honors the diversity and inclusiveness of Santa Ana. Number three, labor. We offer a company culture that values and respects its people and an existing strong relationship with the union and welcome your current drivers and finally best on environment republic will service the city of santa anna with the lowest vehicle miles traveled that's over 22 million fewer miles than the others helping the city meet its climate action and environmental justice goals to reduce air pollution traffic congestion and road damage we're also leading with electric vehicles in summary

City of Santa Ana, we're happy and proud to partner with the City of Santa Ana to summarize on best price with lowest rates across your largest customer base and residential rates that are close to what residents pay today, best community partner, best environmental partner with the fewest vehicle miles traveled, and best labor, offering the most seamless transition to your current drivers to remain represented under a CBA. On behalf of the entire public services team, we ask for your vote to become your next partner. Thank you

Good evening council mayor. My name is Omar. I'm with public services

My previous support was Athens Services. I'm really glad that my decision to be at Athens Republic, it's been great for my family and great for my career. I'd ask for your support to vote for Republic this evening. Thank you.

Thank you, Omar. Raul Chavez, followed by Elizabeth Ramirez, followed by Najinder Singh.

Hello, Mayor and Council Members. My name is Raul Chavez. I was born and raised in the city of Santa Ana. I have been blessed to have lived in the same neighborhood all my life. I've seen the city grow and develop into a place I'm proud to call home. My residence lies in Ward number six. I have been employed by Republic Services for the last 10 years and I'm proud to work here. Republic Services is a company dedicated to service, excellence and most of all, safety. We are excited to win the Santa Ana contract because I would love to serve the city I grew up in. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Raul. Elizabeth Ramirez, followed by Najinder Singh, followed by Mike Silva.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. My name is Elizabeth Ramirez, Vice President of Government Affairs at Athens Services. Just wanted to thank staff and the city's consultant HFNH for embarking on this very long process over the last two years. We all know trash is not a simple issue. It's a very complicated issue. And we appreciate the efforts put forth through this evaluation process. This is ultimately resulting in a recommendation where you have the opportunity to change the path forward and beautify and enhance your community. We offer the best overall proposal.

We're proposing the lowest residential rates, saving your residents nearly $60 a year. That's a cumulative savings of nearly $2 million overall annually. We are the only proposer who performs all of our services in-house. We do not subcontract any of our services, which is important because that provides us opportunities to develop operational efficiencies throughout the city. This will only enhance the quality of life for your residents and your business community. And in terms of proposal references, well, we were rated the highest, which is a testament to the quality of service we provide,

our commitment to the communities we service, as well as our overall responsiveness. As a trusted street-souping vendor for the city for the last 10 years, we've worked harmoniously with your city staff, our drivers, and we've had no issues. But it is disheartening to hear folks try to disparage our business and our company and those who represent us. We have put forth our best effort to demonstrate our willingness to partner in every way possible. In fact, with regards to labor, as we've stated numerous times in the past, and I really want to reiterate again tonight,

we welcome the opportunity for labor to engage with our employees. We have always supported our employees' right to choose, and we will continue to do so. While unionization was not a criteria of the RFP, we will have and we will remain committed to honoring that request and we are willing to have that as part of our final agreements. But that should not be a disqualifier. With that being said, the decision before you tonight is not really a union company versus a non-union vote, but rather a decision to select the highest rated best value proposal for your community.

really appreciate your consideration and thank you for your time thank you

Najinder Singh followed by Mike Silva followed by Jesse Hernandez

good evening mayor and council members my name is the gender saying I am an operations supervisor for Athens services here at Athens services we pride ourselves in customer service, quality of service, and also our communities. Having worked for other haulers that care about productivity and saving money, I can truly tell you that Athens Services is different. We care about keeping our communities clean and safe. Athens is a family owned business, and we care about our cities and our drivers like family. Having worked four and a half years with the city of Santa Ana and

a lot of the drivers that currently service the city of Santa Ana, I can truly tell you that not only the city but the drivers being great hands. I look forward to working with each and every one of you and these drivers once again with the new RFP. Thank you. Thank you for that.

Mike Silva followed by Jesse Hernandez followed by Abel Castro.

Good evening Mayor and City Council members. My name is Mike Silva. I live here in Santa Ana and I'm the Vice President of CRNR, family owned and based in Stanton and the presentations before tonight were right in our sweet spot sustainability, environmental justice, and even the high school kids. As I stand here before tonight, I honestly, we were a little surprised and heartbroken by the current staff report. As you remember, we were ranked number one six months ago by staff and the consultant. So we believe that we embrace the council's desire to be more than a trash collection service,

whether it's cost, environment, or community. On cost, the discussion of rates in the staff report is a little unbalanced and confusing. The pricing they're talking about is single-family homes and of the other three proposers no one can compete with that low price. We believe that's less than their cost. They skewed the rate the rate so that the vast majority of the revenue is on the apartment owners. You'll see that as you do the analysis. It's important to note that CRNR has balanced its rates to be fair to all residents and is the lowest cost over the 10-year contract which I

know Mr. Penaloza asked last time. So over the 10-year contract CRNR is the lowest union provider. Environment. The discussion at the council level stressed the importance of environmental leadership, yet virtually no mention of that is in the staff report about the environment. CRNR is by far the greenest company in the business. We'll have a carbon negative footprint day one and we have two facilities that nobody else has. We can convert grass and food waste into renewable natural gas. Nobody else can do that. We take the residual waste and we convert that into a coal substitute. Nobody else can do that.

Community. We have included within our budget donations and services in excess of $1 million. That will be invested back into the various charities. A portion of our profits come from seeing positive change. Just like Sunday's event, which I attended with the mayor and Mrs. Lopez, where we gave college-bound high school seniors scholarships. I just wanted to give a quick shout out. I met a young lady there, Stephanie Gutierrez, Santa Ana High School, first generation. she's going to Harvard. Kind of just blew our minds that she could do that in one generation. Pretty amazing. In conclusion, I'm reminded

of something we have heard numerous times in two years from council and staff. This contract is far more important than simply picking up trash. We believe that together, CRNR and the city can set a new standard of excellence. In my many years of competing for RFP processes, I have rarely seen council so committed and focused on environmental benefits and the betterment of the city providing trash collection and services. And that's obviously near and dear to my heart as a resident. Tonight's staff report simply does not reflect council's direction in our opinion. CRNR is the lowest union proposer, is the most environmentally

progressive, and exceeded all other financial commitments for the non-profit community. CRNR stands ready, flexible to be the best possible outcome for the city, and I appreciate your time in service to others. Thank you. Thank you. Jesse Hernandez followed by

Abel Castro followed by Miguel García.

Buenas noches. Bien, soy Viento, nuestro mayor de la ciudad de Santana y todos los concejales.

Señor Hernández, un poquito más elevado, si puede hablar. Está en casa, tranquilo.

Sí, es un placer saludarles. Yo trabajo por 41 años en Republic Services y vivo aquí en Santana desde el año 1975, in which I have seen a city flowering in development in all aspects thanks to the work of the government. As I mentioned, I have worked for the Republic Services for this number of years, 40.000 years old, in which I've seen that the security is promoted. It is the priority number one of this company to prevent accidents.

And all the workers have made us professionals. That's why I firmly believe that Republic Services has the best service and security than the other competitors. In addition, Republic Services provides the best tools or new work tools. In all departments we have professional services. For example, in the mechanical area, every mechanic works in their range to give better service to the communities.

Another thing that Republic Services provides to its employees is that we have good benefits, we have a retirement plan. In personal life, I have already received a retirement plan for 55 years old and now I have another retirement plan until I retire. These are all these things, Republic Services, for its workers, which I feel happy, happy and proud of working in this company.

And also that, we provide enough to provide better service to the client, such as glasses, lenses, ears, shoes, and other other tools to make it more comfortable and better service to all the communities. So, with the effort, as I mentioned at the beginning, of each of the mayor of Santana, and as I have seen the development of this city, and the service of the Republic of Services will give you a lot of better results. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Good evening.

Mayor, it's a pleasure to be here to say hi to you.

Vamos a escuchar la interpretación ahorita de lo que acaba de decir su compañero.

I worked for Republic Services for 41 years. I'm a resident of Santa Ana since 1975. I've seen a very developed, and the city has grown and developed a lot. Like I said, I worked for Republic Services for 41 years, and it's great to work for this wonderful company. They promote safety. Their number one priority is safety, and this is in order to prevent accidents. and all the workers become professionals in what they do republic services provides the best

service the best safety they provide us the best tools to work to provide for the community service of the community we we work in all of the departments do their best they are all professionals in what they do the mechanics and everyone and this is in order to serve the community better. They provide us with great benefits such as retirement. I'm 55, when I was 55 I have my retirement and now I have another opportunity to continue earning. They have good benefits, Republic Services offers and I'm proud to be working for them. They provide all the safety equipment, gloves, goggles,

earplugs, shoes in order to serve the community better. So I believe that and the Republic Service is the best choice for you.

Great, thank you. Ahora sí, señor Castro, acérquese al micrófono. Abel Castro, después Miguel García y Antonio García.

Buenas noches. Mi nombre es Abel Castro. Yo tengo viviendo aquí en la ciudad de Santana por 43 años. Y estoy trabajando para el público por 17 años. Yo me siento orgulloso trabajando para el público it's got a good company,

they're got answers, they got answers, but it's got answers,

it got answers, it got answers, got answers, got answers, got answers, got answers, got answers, got answers, got answers, got answers, got answers, got answers, got answers, got answers, got answers,

I am happy to work for Republic, also with the employees of work, with the mayor. I never had any problems with any mayor, because I try to take it well with all the chefs, with all. They say I'm a good worker, maybe yes, but we are here to serve. And if they give us the Santana contract, we are here to work. And as my aunt would say, if I would go there by the Oc, the Barney,

I would say, Abuelito, come on, or I want to manage the truck too.

I would like to submit this joint letter to all of our residents, all of our employees that are set on the residence. It's a commitment that we're making to all. Sure.

Go ahead and hand it to the clerk. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Abel Castro. I've been a resident of Santa Ana for 43 years and I've been working at Republic for 17 years and I'm proud to work for this great company. It's a great company. They all say they're the best but Republic is number one. I'm sorry I'm very nervous but yes we can. I'm happy to work for Republic. I get along well with my co-workers, the supervisors. I've never had a problem with supervisors. They deal with all of us. They treat us well and I like to say that I'm happy to work there.

They say that I'm a good worker there, so I guess I am. And if you award us a contract, I'd like to continue working here in Santa Ana. And when my son comes by on Warner Street, he comes by and says, hey, I want to drive. I want to be a driver as well. So I'd like to continue working in Santa Ana, the city where I live.

Thank you. Next is Miguel Garcia, followed by Antonio Garcia, and then Jeff Katz.

We are currently in the 10 years, since the 10 years old, we had 6 workers, now we are 5. In those 10 years, we had 8 and 12 trips to the day. We have kept the city much cleaner and we are now doing 3 and 4 trips to the day.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the Council. My name is Miguel Garcia. I've been with Athens Services for 12 years, 10 of those years in Santa Ana. Athens is a great company to work for. They offer great benefits. They provide us all the services that we need. They give us lots of training, training every three months. They give us trainings. Ten years ago, well, in the ten years that we'd been servicing Santa Ana, we used to have six workers, now we have five. We used to make eight to ten service trips per day to keep the city clean. Now we make three or four trips.

So if you award us the contract, we'll continue to give you a better and cleaner city in Santa Ana. So thank you for listening.

Thank you. Next is Antonio Garcia, followed by Jeff Katz, followed by Fabian Olmes.

ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży ży

and this is a great company. We're not just employees, but we are like family and the owners make us feel like them. They make us feel like family. I've been working in Santa Ana for four years and the sweepers too. And I'd like to, if you award us the company, I'd like to continue growing here in Santa Ana and providing great services for you. Thank you for listening.

Great. Next is Jeff Katz, followed by Fabian Ormes,

followed by Mary Lara. Good evening. They say if you want to know what's important to a city council, you take a look at their budget. I want to suggest tonight, other than looking at the budget, we take a look at the awards and the recognitions that were given out at the beginning of the council meeting. And what sticks with me are a couple of things. One, what Councilman Hernandez acknowledged, that we, in recognizing this as Chicano Month, we have become the city that knocks down the door. We're first. We're a maverick. And likewise with the Skag Award, we were acknowledged as one of the first to have this arts collective.

And as you well know, what's important to me is that our city not wallow in mediocrity or wallow in last place, but what we do is thrive for excellence and become first amongst all other cities in the county and the city. and that's why I want to lend my support to CRNR because I was most impressed by their environmental program and if we're going to embark upon significant environmental issues for our city we have to do that in a variety of fronts so that's that's number one but what else did we learn in our recognition

tonight in our awards that we gave look if they say home is where the heart is I I also think your heart is where your home is. And so Mr. Frank Salazar almost welled up in tears with the pride he had for Santa Ana. Likewise, Salton Arrow, he came back here to Santa Ana. And I'll be transparent. I'm supporting CNR in part because their C-level vice president, their civil engineer, is a War III resident. And I feel we're going to get better service by having somebody who has his heart here.

look I I can be here every first and third Tuesday of the month and and really fight for what is excellent and yet I chose to be here tonight in fact I would be here every first and third Tuesday if one Jesse Lopez didn't kick my arse but but I chose tonight because I do want to support that work through resin because I do think it's important for us to be a maverick we don't lay claim to be best in the city by simply being the cheapest I really want us to be a leader and it starts with a number of items but I throw my support on this

one tonight thank you very much thank you next Fabian Ole Miss followed by Mary Lara followed by cord law

good evening mayor councilmembers my name is Fabian almost I'm current Athens Services employee. I wanted to come here today and share a little bit about myself. I am a heavy-duty truck technician and I've been in the waste industry for the past 10 years. As a former waste management city of Santa Ana employee, I can truly say that both my former co-workers and the city of Santa Ana are in good hands at Athens. I really enjoy working for this family-owned company where I feel valued and not just like a number. Thank you and I look forward to keeping the trash trucks in the city of Santa Ana running with

Ashton Services. Thank you. Mary Lara followed by Cord Lal followed by Gary Clifford.

good evening mayor Sarmiento and council members my name is Mary Lada I'm the director of the TKO boxing club a 27 year old program I've been director for 26 of the 27 years we're a nonprofit We operate with an all-volunteer staff. We do not have a monthly charge for our members, so that is a rarity.

At TKO, we have goals and objectives, namely to encourage our youth to further their education beyond high school. So we created a scholarship program named after Deputy Chief Bruce Carlson. Fifteen years ago, he passed away. And in his memory, we have this annual scholarship. One of our recipients just graduated from Chapman University and is awaiting his results of the bar exam. We also encourage our kids to live a healthy lifestyle. So we created the Biggest Loser contest.

One of our youth lost 88 pounds.

So due to the pandemic, Jerome Center is closed. So thank you to the city. We were able to obtain a permit for our kids to have outdoor workouts. And we encourage you, Mayor and City Council, to make opening Jerome Center and other centers with youth programs to reopen. TKO has succeeded due to the generous support of such groups as Athens, who we have partnered with the last few years to make Christmas extra special for our kids. Athens truly cares about the communities they serve,

and by selecting Athens as Santa Ana's trash hauler, it will allow Athens to increase their support directly to the community of Santa Ana. Therefore, I encourage you to go with staff recommendation and vote for Athens to be the city's trash hauler. Thank you for your time, and good evening.

Thank you for those comments. Cord Lowell, followed by Gary Clifford, followed by Shane Green.

Thank you, Honorable Mayor and Council. My name is Cord Lowell. I'm Executive Vice President with Athens Services. I just wanted to address, I've heard in the community of some concern that we are a non-union company or union. We really support our employees' right to choose either. So we want to make it clear to all the waste management drivers that are concerned about their jobs that they won't lose their jobs. In this proposal, we've included employment offers for every last one of them, a $10,000 retention bonus, and we will let them be union if they choose to be so.

If we get more than 50%, they will automatically be recognized, and it's not an issue. so with that I'd like to thank you and be brief and I'm available for now

good evening mayor and city council members my name is Gary Clifford I'm the executive vice president of Athens services and I'm proud to be here tonight and I'm proud to admit all of you as I was sitting in the audience I've been looking up at your motto one that I'm proud of from our founding fathers it says e pluribus unum for many there are one and I think that's a good phrase for tonight and I'll come back to that but there's many people that are going to want to define who we are tonight but there's one truth to who we are and I want you to pay particular attention to the money and the time that your city

spent hiring a third-party consultant to audit these results and the staff that work tirelessly to give you the information to make a decision that's the truth of the matter and there's a lot of people that wanted to find who we are but the truth is we're a family-owned company that does outstanding service one that I'm proud to work for as a mayor and city councilman in my own city for three terms for 12 years I had to make a tough decision too and I looked at my staff and I looked at the consultants to be the third party auditors that kind of took the fog away and turn the lights on

for what I needed to do and I think your staff has done that I'm proud that Athens has organically migrated to the top and at least we got a recommendation for you but more importantly I want you to know that this company values its employees more than anything else I'm there because they value me we value every one of our employees and every employee that works at the waste industry that wants to work in Santa Ana that lives here or currently is employed here, Athens will take on in their current consideration as a union or non-union employee, and they'll be

offered more money than they're currently making, and they'll be offered a significant bonus. That's a win-win for you. So as a city council, you have the opportunity tonight to choose someone that your staff recommended that a third-party consultant said was the right thing to do, in their opinion but also benefits your residents your businesses and the people that currently work here so I hope you take that into consideration tonight I make you that commitment from my heart I've talked to you I will personally work with each employee I will make sure that their family unit and their

compensation rise and then in one year you can come back to me and say was the best decision for Santa Ana it was the best decision for everyone who works here and I believe it's the best decision for the environment thank you

very much God bless Thank You Shane Green followed by Eric Robles followed by Jim Smith

good evening mayor council members my name is Shane Green I work with LLG engineers or transportation firm that focuses primarily on traffic studies parking studies VMT studies one of the things we were asked to do by Republic was to look at what the VMT implications were for all four of these different groups. We felt VMT was the most appropriate. It's the most simple to understand. It's an easy calculation to do. And it's also consistent with the SQL process, which you guys are all familiar with. So what is VMT? Vehicle miles traveled, right? Very simple. Take the total number of vehicles,

multiply it by the miles that they travel, and highest VMT, most, most, highest VMT provides the most carbon footprint typically. Biggest concern for the environment obviously. So lower VMT better, higher VMT worse. One of the things we did is we took those VMT calculations, we did a comparison and ranked them. And so when we did our calculations we ranked them Athens was annually at 1.2 million VMT CRNR was at 1.2 million waste management was at 1 million and Republic was at 0.9 million so the

difference between the lowest which was Republic and the highest Athens was 2.3 million or 2.3 times which is very significant so I just ask that you take that into consideration you know we all want to make sure we ensure the environment, save it, protect it, and take that into consideration. Thank you. Thank you.

Erica Robles, followed by Jim Smith, followed by Adam Alvarez.

Erica, in the audience, I'll go ahead and set her card aside. Jim Smith, followed by Adam Alvarez, followed by Ron Herrera.

Good evening, Mayor City Council members and city staff. My name is Jim Smith and I'm the political coordinator for Teamsters Local 396, representing waste and recycling workers throughout the region, including those currently proudly service the city of Santa Ana. Thank you for the opportunity to speak before you tonight and for all the time and hard work you have put into the decision that is before you tonight. We at Local 396 have some serious concerns about the recent history and and misrepresentations of Athens services, the hauler that is being recommended by staff this evening

to replace your current hauler at waste management. Of primary concern is Athens' representation of themselves as an employee-friendly company. Nothing could be further from the truth. Despite their assertions to the contrary, their total compensation package, including wages, health benefits, retirement benefits, paid time off, etc. is far lower than that of Waste Management, Republic, and CRNR. It is not even close. For the past several months, in fact, Athens has actually been hemorrhaging employees with dozens of workers fleeing Athens for better jobs at rival companies like Waste Management and Republic

Services. Athens is also a notorious union-busting company, and just this year they were cited by the NLRB for numerous violations of their employees rights to freely organize. They even had the audacity to come before you and claim that 30% of their employees are represented by Local 396 when nothing could be further from the truth. Not one of their employees are members of Local 396 and never have been. In fact, they have been reprimanded no fewer than four times in the past two years by the city of Los Angeles for failing to have a labor peace

agreement in place with Local 396, a requirement of their contract with the city. And to this day, they are still out of compliance. And for the brief period when they did have a labor peace agreement in place, they violated it at every turn. I ask you, does this sound like an employee friendly company to you? Santa Ana is a blue collar working class city and its residents

deserve better thank you thank you Adam Alvarez followed by Ron Herrera

followed by Ron Ovadia well my name is Adam Alvarez communications director teamsters local 396 and I'd like to read this letter into the record dear mayor and City Council we are writing to share our concerns about Santa Ana's proposal for new waste recycling contract Athens services has a record of being a bad employer and they fall short on environmental issues as well. Athens has violated federal labor law for harassment and intimidation of workers, denying them high standards and dignity and respect in the workplace. We cannot have a waste haul that mistreats their workers whose labor ensures that they

are able to provide for their families. We believe that every person should be treated with dignity and respect. Every worker should have a voice on the job without fear of retaliation. The waste workers are a critical part of the Santa community. Their work has dignity and makes life better for all society. In addition, Athens relies on mixed waste processing which decreases recycling rates and contaminates more waste and recycling materials. For decades, communities impacted by waste facilities have witnessed the environmental and human cost related to the landfill and this is not the kind of waste hauler we

need in Santa Ana. We urge you to reconsider and help move the waste industry and a high road industry that values environmental responsibility and prioritize economic justice for every worker who makes it all happen as a city where a significant percentage of your constituents are working-class immigrants of color it's important to select the hauler that provides good jobs respects your communities and creates a bright future for its workers that you have now the city of san anu must do better sincerely roxana tynan executive director of the LA Alliance for a New Economy. Eli Flores, executive director of the Orange County

Communities Organized for Responsible Development, OCCORD. Carolina Sarmiento, director of El Centro Cultural de Mexico. Alice Berliner, director of Southern California Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health. Michelle Siler, executive director of Clergy and Lady United for Economic

Justice. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next is Ron Herrera, followed by Ron Alvarez, followed by chatting. Mr. Mayor and distinguished counsel, thank you for

giving me the opportunity here to speak tonight. As you heard, I'm Ron Herrera. I'm the principal officer and proud union member for Teamsters Local 396. And three of the entities that I represent are in this room and that's Waste Management, CRNR, and Republic Services. I have a three-page speech that I have in front of me, but I'm not going to give it. Okay, I'm going to cut my comments down because I want to compliment a couple of you, right? And that's the council folks

Hernandez and Mendoza, who gave an award for the 50th moratorium for the Chicano movement which I'm a product of and I'm proud of it and as you know that moratorium was against the Vietnam War but it was more it was about injustice it was about education and it was about social justice you know what I just defined I just defined a union and that's what we represent we represent social justice. I had the opportunity in 2000 to meet these fine brothers and

sisters here in those three companies when the start of my career as a teamster. And all we've done through your guidance, through your predecessors, is create good jobs, create opportunities. Create opportunities for children, probably like yourself who went to college who graduated from college some of my proudest moments or that of my members when they talk to me about their kids going to Stanford or Notre Dame or Cal you might he not be me he tunnels like

that going to those kind of schools and that's what the Union provides three representatives from math and services came up and said that it would be okay and it would be the their workers or choice to become union but that's the furthest thing from its truth and I don't want to get upset about it but it does upset me because I've seen the worker atrocity that happens you know in

Los Angeles. And just to end, when you make a decision, make it about people. Make it about the social aspects of your city. And when you do, you will select Waste Management, CRNR, or Republic Services. Thank you.

Thank you. Ron Ovadia followed by Chad England followed by Renee Martinez.

Mayor, City Council, thank you so much for having me. Quite honestly I stand before you as a citizen. I've been living and owning a business in Redondo Beach for the better part of 18 years. I don't really have any knowledge about the economics, the green footprint or all the other items that are being discussed. discussed I'm very respectful of all those items and quite honestly my perspective is how it impacts me and what I felt prior to Athens services servicing my area so as I mentioned been there for 18 years I believe Athens

services has serviced our area for about eight or nine I vividly remember prior to Athens taking over we constantly had trash in the area in the streets when the trucks came there was things of debris flying out my trash bins were costly dirty never felt clean or comfortable so when Athens did take over it was nine day different all of a sudden the trash containers were exactly where I left them that morning. The personnel were extremely respectful. I

really couldn't speak highly more of the people that I've had the privilege to deal with. Many times, numerous occasions over the years, I've had to call Athens to deal with both the items, electronic waste. The service is not only commendable but it is shockingly good from my perspective. They pick up the phone, they take care of things within 24 hours, they're respectful, they're honorable, pretty much anything you can want from a citizen. I've also worked in other areas, lived in other

areas in Los Angeles and Orange County over the years. Never see anything in Redondo Beach like I've seen other places you know trash bins strewn haphazardly on the ground just litter you just don't see it so when I had the opportunity to come in detail some of my experiences I honestly jumped at the chance and I

thank you guys so much for having me tonight thank you thank you for those comments chatting Lynn followed by Janine Martinez followed by Courtney

Calderon. Good evening, Mayor and Councilmembers. I came down from West Hollywood. I've been up there as a resident and a business owner for the last 10 years and just wanted to come down because it again kind of like the person who spoke in front of me. I don't know the economics. I don't know all that kind of stuff. I just want to say that from my experience with them from a residential standpoint, I've never had an issue. Again, they pick up the phone whenever I can call, whenever I call them from a business perspective they have absolutely been outstanding I

can call them they literally pick up the phone call within one minute they get back to me if I have something there as we all know we have some issues with some homeless and countless and things like that in West Hollywood and other neighborhoods they've been so good with working with myself and the sheriff's to come and take care of those issues pick up the trash in the neighborhood and things like that without question at all they're just an absolutely outstanding company that I've worked with. I'm from Chicago originally and being from Chicago we've had some issues in Chicago with different companies, I won't mention names

but Athens out here has been absolutely spectacular for me and my my experience out here so just want to come down here and by the way traffic it's definitely back it took me a while to come back. Thank you guys for your time thank you.

Thanks. Rene Martinez followed by Courtney Calderon followed by Oscar Mendoza.

Good evening, my name is René Martínez. I have almost four years working for Aten Services. And what I've lived in these years in the company has been good and positive things. From my arrival to Aten Services, I have been treated as if I were from the family. The heat and the human health care is in the company. As a employee, being part of Athens is a real pride, because the company is taking me and my family, giving me a good salary with the I can provide my family all the necessary necessary to get ahead in these difficult times.

With Athens, I have a great health insurance for me and my family, without me to cost a cent. Athens has paid vacations, I have days of holidays, days of holidays, days of disease, days of disease that at the end of the year if I use them, they pay me. I also have a retirement plan known as Forum One K, which also contribute to the company. I also have a substantial bonus of Christmas, as I also provide a uniform and other accessories for that I can do my work in a more safe and efficient way.

So I have no more than to give thanks to this great company for me given the opportunity, even without having experience. But Athens was the only company that took the time enough to train me and give me the opportunity to go ahead. God bless you always and always to this great company. Good evening.

Good evening, my name is Rane Martinez. I've worked for Athens Services for four years. Since my arrival there, they treated me like a family. You can feel the warmth, you can feel the humanity there in this company. As an employee, I'm very proud to be part of this company. They provide me with a great salary, which I can provide for my family.

I can provide for my family in any way I can. They provide health insurance for me and my family at no cost to me. They provide holidays. They provide paid sick days. and if I don't use them at the end of the year they pay me for those years. I receive also what is known as a 401k to which the company contributes as well. I get a Christmas bonus, I get all these boots and gloves and everything for my safety as well and I want to thank this great company for giving me the opportunity when I had no experience

and Athens has trained me to provide a good service. So God bless forever this great company, Athens Services.

Thank you. Next is Courtney Calderon followed by Oscar Mendoza followed by Walter Roberts.

So I'm here to speak on item 43 which is the solid waste contract and very similar to the first time that I came to speak about this, let me remind you whose money is it. Every single company here is tokenizing our overworked and underpaid workers. So the gentleman said, hace ratito, son buenos trabajadores. Cada persona aquí, cada empleado aquí, está aquí porque quiere trabajar. But I need to advocate for these workers. Because Athens, while you may say that it's not a disqualifier, that you're not unionized, the fact that you're fixing it now

and adding it to your like contract or your bid or whatever you want to call it like clearly it is so you're fixing it and every single company here is saying that they value employee safety how about you start talking about the fight cleanings and the police tactic that you use and that and how that endangers your employees um the air quality thing santa anna is not an island y'all so let's also talk about that um every um and then the last thing is el dinero es de la gente So let's start acting accordingly. Let's protect the workers because every single one of these workers have been essential before the pandemic.

During the pandemic, they all of a sudden became heroes. Let's start treating them as such with policies, quality jobs that provide them with adequate retirement benefits. and these community engagement that the companies do that are actually going to materialize into betterment of our people for the future, not just temporary. We don't need to just show up for photo ops, Jonathan. Okay.

Thank you. Oscar Mendoza followed by Walter Roberts followed by Desi Reyes.

Good evening, City Council. My name is Oscar Mendoza. I've been an employee for Waste Management for the last 14 years. I started my career with Waste Management as a driver and the last five years I've been a manager. Not only is this a city where I work, this is the city where I was born, the city that saw me grow up. I went to Valley High School. I graduated in 2002. Soon after graduating I joined the Army and I served in Operation Director of Freedom. during my time in the military. After my time in the service, when I came back home,

Waste Management gave me the opportunity to service in my community, service in my city. While working for Waste Management, I was mentored by the drivers that trained me, that spent a lot of decades in the city. And now I have the opportunity to be one of their managers and be one of their mentors. I have a lot of mentoring new hires, new drivers that we hire. I currently live in Ward 2. I have a daughter, and my wife works for the county. I have a daughter that goes to the Santa Ana School District. And although this contract is going to affect the community, it's going to affect me directly and my family.

So I speak on behalf of Waste Management and the employees of Waste Management. We would like to continue to be your service provider. Thank you.

Thank you. Walter Roberts, followed by Desi Reyes, followed by Steve Lopez.

Mayor Sarmiento, council members, I'll keep this brief. There's been a whole lot of speakers up here. My name is Walter Roberts. I'm the senior district manager for waste management of Orange County. I oversee the Santa Ana hauling yard. I just wanted to come up and say thank you to the city, to the council, to staff for the opportunity for the last 50 plus years to be partners with you. You know, 50-year partnerships don't happen by accident. And in my mind, it happens because of people that are sitting back here, you know, the men and women of waste management.

We have 120 waste management employees that live in the city of Santa Ana. I know you heard from some of the other haulers that have brought some residents, and that's great. I have 120 of them, and if I can give this to you, they've written letters and signed petitions for all of you. I just humbly ask that you keep them in mind tonight when you make your decision, and I'll keep it short at that. Thank you.

Thank you for those comments. Desi Reyes, followed by Steve Lopez, followed by Delfino Rea.

Good evening, Mayor, Council members.

So I'm here as representing Western Condominiums, Condominium Project, and Morrison Park neighborhood. And I want to share with you my experience. Can you hear me? My experience with waste management on the condominium side. On the residential side, I don't have any issues. Okay. Drivers are great. I don't have anything bad to say about their drivers. Hard workers, they know how to drive their trucks. My issue with them in the last six months has been their customer service department.

I will tell you that it's been taken care of. I'm happy with the results now, but it's just because of the complaints, the amount of hours I've spent on the phone with the customer service department. I'm going to share with you some pictures that I will be talking to you about so you know what I'm talking about.

So you're going to hear from the consumer side of a resident.

And like I said, these issues have been taken care of. it's all happy now but it's just to the frustration of being on the phone for hours and hours in the last six months at different times of the year I've been president of the association for 15 years we have no term limits there so

it's I still get elected so I must be doing something up there the so one of these pictures I wanted to show you is what they consider to be which get we get charged for the bins being overflowed and I wanted I wanted to show you what they're whoever makes this determination what they consider over overflow which I don't consider it overflow and the charge was reversed it's $48 every time they have to charges for that so that that's considered overflow the other one is another picture of a bin which is picked up on

the north side. It belongs to an apartment building north of us. It's not our bin. But their geopolitical positioning system thinks it's our bin, our complex. Which is not. That's the other picture. So, for the last three or four times that they've made that mistake, we get charged $48. I have to get on the phone, call, argue with people. This is not us. This is another complex.

So that's been the frustration with the customer service department on the condominium side. And I'm sure there was another, in one of our community meetings with Public Works,

another condominium complex was having the same issues, similar issues, Cabrera Park. So I wanted to bring you my experience on the condominium side. we pay more than the residential side of it. So in going forward I want you to kind of keep this in mind these pictures what's considered overflow what's not considered overflow because I have the liberty of having some flexible time and spending time on the phone and calling. A lot of your condominium complex board members it's a you know volunteer job they don't have that luxury.

so that's part of the you're hearing it from the consumer side the resident side and again it's these issues have been taken care of hopefully they won't occur again but I wanted to share with you my frustrations the last six months another issues oh my time's up but

But anyways, I want to let other people talk right now, but you have my experience. Thank you.

Thank you for that. Steve Lopez, followed by Delfino Rea, followed by Victor Mendez.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor, City Council. I'm Steve Lopez operations manager for Republic Services. Thank you all for your hard work and support. This is for the city clean initiative to Santa Ana. And I wanted to reassure that Republic Services is in the best position to transition the city's residents, businesses and current incumbents. As former district manager for the incumbent, I personally know the incumbents team of employees and drivers. Many of them have personally reached out saying they're ready to make the move with you, Steve.

They know me. They trust me. They will be valued, respected and safeguarded with their union wages, benefits and their rights. Let me discuss we are the best position to transition your current drivers and workers. Your incumbent employees are represented by the union. So are mine. We are the only bidder outside your incumbent who has the experience and existing CBA to welcome the current drivers so they continue the routes in Santa Ana. In addition to comparable wages, I am excited for them to see how much better our benefits are,

such as providing 12 uniforms and assuring that they have the vendor to service their uniforms for free. I know the city well, and my previous role with Incomit, I built these solid waste routes,

currently operating. As a long-time resident myself, I know every note of this city. You have my personal commitment and ensure there's a smooth transition. I humbly ask for your support. And I also want my team to raise their hands because that's the team back there that's going to be supporting the city of Santa Ana as we move forward. Thank you and have a good evening. Thank you. Delfino Real.

Followed by our last speaker, Victor Mendez.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor. I'm Delfino Roa, ROA. I'm working with waste management for 40 years I think the last time you heard me that in in Spanish

you see the difference in the waste management for all these years we work we don't have no problems everybody's professional everybody do the job we got the best retirement for the union the best salary that we have you know and And to meet myself, I don't want to work with a no union company because they pull you out from the sweeper to go over there and clean the beach and Redondo Beach.

You know, you're not going to see one of your nephews or grandson work with this company and they pull you out because there's no union. They pull you out to the other city, clean up the beach. but not all that you know I think for better future waste management is the best you know

so this is one of the best opportunities that you have you know you know you can go with us in the residential we pick all the stuff they have in the cura side even the people they pull the trash can from this side to the other side and we dump it with no problem in the residential area so you know what else we can tell the residents you can speak up with themselves and they can

decided. So thank you for listening. Thank you. Victor Mendez. Actually, Victor is our last speaker for in person because we have some speakers online. So he's our last in-person speaker.

that's the penalty you get for writing late anyway um i'm not going to speak to the technical aspects but i'm what i'm hearing tonight is a lot of technical aspects i'm hearing a lot about labor relations and don't get me wrong they're important but I have yet to hear compelling reason for quality of life for our residents. Now one of these speakers with all due respect talked about how the proposal or their company whatever will improve the quality of life for us. You're asking me as an apartment resident to potentially pay more in rent for this proposal. I'm a

senior citizen. I'm trying to save money and inevitably that price increase is going to pass down on higher rents. I live in a unit of 600 seniors and they're all going to be impacted. We're all on very fixed incomes, low income, and this proposal today is going to ask us to pay more. That's really not going to help us. But what do we get in return? I don't know. I don't see the quality or value behind this presentation from director sob or anything that's been spoken of today I hear a lot of good things about their labor relations to the workforces a hard-working there and that's fine that's not what this should

be about this is about a service that improves the quality of life for our residents government is in the business of providing high quality services not improving labor relations and etc that might be a great part of it but your number one goal should improve our services you know and I don't know which of these proposal proposals does that I think that's your job to decide if you okay and so that's what you're gonna have you're gonna have to do I can only speak from my experience at my new place we have about three or four mattresses that have been out there since I've lived with I went to the property

manager and this is over on first and I'm testing so I don't know who was responsible for that but I went over to the property manager so you know really should get rid of those mattresses you know they're they're a hell passers because I keep calling and calling they don't come by so that's just my experience and whoever's running this place right now and that doesn't do a lot for me to come into my apartment every night and see these old battered up mattresses still sitting there and no one's doing anything about it so I don't know, you know, you're going to have to make this decision at the end of the day. It's what you do,

it's your job. I can only say please vote for quality of life for all of us and kind of leave all the fog and the banner and everything and the emotions behind and do what's best for the

residents at the end of the day. Thank you. Thank you, Victor. Let me go ahead and turn it over to the clerk of the council who will be asking speakers that are on the line to see if we have any that want to address us on item number 43.

I feel like, okay, there we go. There you go. Thank you. For those members of the public that have joined us by way of zoom or phone when i unmute your call or zoom application please announce whether or not you want to speak on the public hearing item at hand which is item number 43 on solid waste and before i unmute the callers and those that have joined us by zoom we did receive written communication we had 210 santa ana residents comment on supporting the lowest

price provider that will provide the best service support waste management 105 santa ana residents businesses and organizations supporting republic 30 santa ana residents business organizations and two non-Santa Ana residents.

Supporting CRNR, four Santa Ana residents business organizations and one residency not disclosed. Supporting Athens, eight Santa Ana residents businesses organizations and two residency not disclosed.

Opposed Athens, one various organization. And with that, Zoom ID, Yosalinda Mendoza, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device and unmute your call.

Zoom ID, Yosalinda Mendoza, if you would please select the microphone icon and unmute your

of device. Zoom ID Kayleen Levitt, if you would please select the microphone icon. Thank you.

You may proceed with your comment. You have three minutes. Hi, I'm here for public comment regarding

a non-agenda item. Is that okay? No, if you can please hold your comment until that period is open. I will place you back on our speaker queue. Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Zoom ID Mary Maduena, did you want to speak on any public hearing item 43?

No, I want to wait for later, not this one.

Okay, thank you so much.

Zoom ID Roya, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device and inform me if you want to speak on item 43. I do not I would like to wait thank you

Zoom ID Media Arts Santa Ana if you would please unmute your device and announce if you want to

speak on item 43. No I'm here for agenda item thank you thank you Zoom ID Daisy if you would please

please select the microphone icon and unmute your device

and announce if you want to speak on public hearing item 43.

No, I'm going to wait. Thank you.

Thank you.

Zoom ID Nathaniel Greenside, if you would please announce if you want to speak on public hearing item 43.

Not for this item. Thank you, though.

Thank you.

zoom id jesus santana if you would please select the microphone icon and announce if you want to

speak on public hearing item 43 um i don't and i believe it was linda as well she wanted to speak

on a non-agenda item thank you zoom id george will if you would please select the microphone icon and announce if you want to speak on item 43 i would can you hear me yes we could hear you

you may begin with. Thank you. I'm a resident of Ward 3. I attended one of the briefings last week. Based on the information that was presented I had a number of questions that weren't thoroughly answered. It appeared that the information that was collected during the procurement process was pretty much uh sanitized so most everything from a unique perspective for each of the vendors was white washed so it was check the box yes they complied or no they didn't as we got through that presentation

i asked well if that's the case what are the criteria that the city is going to use to make a recommendation to move forward and that information was not available i asked had there been a recommendation already created and they said no they didn't know and this was just last tuesday and i just find out you know in the last few days that recommendation was made and my concern is is that the way that the procurement process weighted the various responses takes away a lot of the value of some of the various vendors that responded important to me is the environmental

impact and innovation and a quality of life impact to this residents of Santa Ana. We've got some things that are going on that everybody should be aware of global warming and green energy and there were various responses to those areas in terms of environmental impact and innovation but they all got the same box marked so they all got weighted the same. It was in my opinion based on what I HAVE READ, THERE WAS ONE VENDOR, CRNR, THAT HAD THE MOST INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS IN TERMS OF BEING ABLE TO TAKE ORGANIC WASTE, GRASS CLIPPINGS, FOOD, ET CETERA, AND THEN BEING ABLE TO RECYCLE AND

THEN REGENERATE THAT INTO ENERGY THAT THEY COULD THEN USE TO POWER THEIR TRUCKS. THEY DIDN'T HAVE TO GO TO THE GRID TO GET ENERGY FROM OUT OF STATE OR WITHIN THE STATE. THEY USE OTHER TYPES OF energy to power that that created a negative carbon footprint uh negative in terms of actually not helping us but in terms of crnr they provided their own energy based upon an innovative solution of using the waste that santa ana generates and being able to actually reduce the carbon footprint in our environment to me that's very important i don't believe that that was actually

highlighted enough in the response and I think that the city of Santa Ana should hesitate and look more deeply into this before they make a recommendation for all four. That's my opinion. We have young kids that are going to be growing up in this environment and we've got elders that are already in this environment. You look at the multi-tenant housing. They have lots of people that are crowded different tenants. We need to think about the big picture. Santa Ana could be a leader in this area, but if we do a race to the bottom, we're gonna miss this opportunity. I'd like the city of Santa Ana council

to consider this carefully and potentially hesitate before moving forward with the current recommendation. Thank you.

Thank you.

Zoom ID George, I'm sorry, Zoom ID or phone number with the last three numbers 994 if you would please select star six to unmute your call and announce if you want to speak on public

hearing item 43. Yes on item 43? Yes you may proceed with your comment. This is Dave LA president CEO of Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Mayor city council members and city staff uh thank you again for your continued work in support of our city behalf of the chamber i'm writing or sharing with you support of waste management to have continued service to our city of santa anna since 1963 long time ago before my time waste management has been a member in good standing with santa anna chamber of commerce and for over 20 years has served on

board of directors as well their local team of drivers and support staff have proven track record of delivering superior waste and recycling services at equitable rates while maintaining a company-wide best in the industry safety record my point is here lowest cost doesn't always necessarily uh guarantee best service but there's a whole thing called loyalty uh one of the callers earlier mention a 50-year partnership with the city that's huge and I think that's very very important as we look at all the haulers what kind of a reputation and what kind of experience have they had with

within our own city of Santa Ana and for a company like waste management to have spent 50 years with us I think that's a testimony of potentially overall good service. Also waste management plays a vital role in Santa Ana's vibrant and growing economy. They provide over 120 quality jobs to Santa Ana residents and I think that's a huge thing for us to really consider is that in this day and age workforce development we want our residents to be employed by our companies here in Santa Ana. So I want to point that out that was pointed out earlier as well.

Waste management also maintains a strong commitment to the Santa Ana community not only to the employers or employees to live work and raise their families here locally but they make every effort to support organizations like the chamber and other organizations with activities to improve our quality of life and environment here in Santa Ana with that in mind I just want to share that we are supporting of our long-standing member waste management for continued service in the hauling service for our city of Santa Ana thank you thank you caller with the

name Rahimi Pacheco if you can please provide your comment you have three minutes

okay thank you happy Chicano day WISO day and congratulations to the Santa Ana high school students for their debate recognition so cool I am a longtime resident of Santa Ana who's tired of the stereotype that Santa Ana is dirty. And I'm a mom who really cares about the generation about fighting, giving our generation a fighting chance. And I'm someone who believes that climate change is real. And we have to do everything in our power to reverse these damaging trends.

I was stunned while reading through some of the reports that these trash companies are driving sometimes 50 or 60 miles one way just to drop off one load of trash. And then they have to drive back to finish. That seems like an absolute waste. And we're paying for that. That's where our tax money is going. So trucks drive 60 miles one way just to drop off trash and then come back. How can we say we want a clean city and we want to fight climate change and we want to save money when we're sending trash trucks that far?

I think if we're going to be paying this much money to a trash company, it needs to go somewhere closer than that. I think we should go with whichever trash company will do the most to actually keep our city clean and not pollute our streets and do the most for our environment. And thank you, that's just what I needed to say.

Thank you.

Caller with the last three numbers, 994, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device or dial star six to unmute your call and announce if you want to speak on public hearing item 43.

Zoom ID Alondra Salazar, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device and announce if you want to speak on public hearing item 43. Thank you.

I would like to speak on that item. Thank you. Okay. Thank you.

Zoom ID David Carvajal, if you can please select the unmute feature on your device and announce if you want to speak on public hearing item 43.

No, not on this item. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, Mayor Pro Tempeñalosa, that was the last call we had.

David PenalozaItem 5

Thank you for that, Madam City Clerk. I appreciate it. And just to clarify with the city attorney, I would close the public hearing right now after the last speaker and bring it back to the council, or do I bring it back to the council before closing the public hearing?

You need to close the public hearing first.

David PenalozaItem 5

Okay, thank you. With that said, thank you to all the speakers, and this public hearing is now closed. With that said, I would like to bring it back to the city council for comment and discussion if anyone is interested, if anybody wants to take a crack at it first.

David PenalozaItem 5

Anybody?

David PenalozaItem 5

Well, while we wait for any takers, I just would like to,

David PenalozaItem 5

you know, Mayor, did you want to, or should I just take it off?

Sure, let me go ahead and just hand it over and just make a couple of remarks, because I'm probably going to come back to you in a couple of minutes anyways. Thank you for the indulgence on this.

So we've heard all the public speakers, correct? Great.

Great. And I think everybody is on and Councilmember Fan is on as well. Great. So let me just make some, you know, opening comments before I go ahead and call on the Council and ask for their comments and questions, if they have any questions of staff. You know, this is certainly a significant decision that we have before us tonight, so I want to thank all of you, especially the members of the public who came and spoke, and obviously those four vendors who are bidding and submitted proposals and responded to their request for proposal on this.

You know, and I want to kind of talk about our incumbent, Waste Management, that has been doing service for the city for 50 years. And so we want to thank you for the service that you provided our residents. I think it has not been insignificant that, you know, solid waste hauling is something more than, as I've said, just picking up your bin. It's establishing a relationship with the community. And next to our city employees and our city family, it's probably the most significant service that you all provide. So I want to thank you for that. And, you know, it's been so long that this city has gone out and considered

a new contractor that, you know, the fact that we're going out now doesn't mean that it's a reflection on any bad practice or bad service. But I think all cities and all municipal government have to look at their contracts and have to go out and consider what the market can render. So I think that's fair to do that. And I think, you know, it's been a lot of years. And I know my time on the council about four or five years ago, we tried to do this. And unfortunately, you know, a lot of council members were coming and going. Staff was coming and going.

So I want to thank staff for now putting this on a path where we can finally make a decision. And that's really, I think, what's the most important here is that we, you know, we have a council. We have a staff that's been able to go ahead and line this up so we can make a decision on behalf of the residents. And that's, I think, the most important thing that we can't lose sight of as somebody spoke, is that here we do have four vendors that are very, very well qualified and competent and can provide that service to our residents.

And so I'm certainly, you know, I certainly feel hopeful about that relationship with any of the four going forward. I also think that as we're listening to all the comments being made, the communications that we've received, and for me, I know I've had a chance to speak with every single one of the bidders and vendors that are proposing on this contract, and I wanted to hear from you and I wanted to make myself as available as possible. I wanted this to be a transparent process and I think it has been.

We had an ad hoc committee made up of three members of the city council to study this in detail. We've also had a special study session that's been provided for the public to be able to see questions that were being asked and presentations that would be made of and by the proposers. So I think this has been something that we've tried to exhaust all means of outreach, going to neighborhood associations, going to connect to council. And I want to thank our director of public works, Director Saba, for doing a really robust effort and just trying to get people engaged into this.

Because, you know, it is sometimes hard to put your arms around when you're talking about a contract that's close to $700 million. dollars. And, you know, unfortunately what happens is that as we were hearing good things about the vendors, we started hearing bad things about vendors. And that's where I think the conversation kind of degraded itself. And I'm really sad about that because, you know, it wasn't so much propping up who does good work and who could deliver service, but what's wrong with the others. And that's not what this conversation should have been about. This conversation should have been

about the fact that we want to change how and what the environment looks like here in Santa Ana. Not just picking up waste bins, cleaning up alleys, cleaning up bus benches, cleaning up all these other debris that we have in medians and all over the city so we can be proud of our city. So I think, and I want to thank our staff and city council because one of the most compelling changes here is this clean city initiatives that we're proposing. And that is something unique to most contracts, and I haven't seen that in other contracts in other cities that I've looked at,

where we're talking about not just picking up waste, but really cleaning up the city everywhere. So with those comments, I just want to also talk about some of the other items that I know were brought up sort of post, you know, submittals of proposals, and one of them is the Clean City Initiatives, and we had, I think, a 24-month window of time to go ahead and comply with those. I know that Director of Public Works reached out to all the vendors, and we're going to try to condense that time to 12 months, so hopefully everybody can comply with that, because we

really do need to get busy with cleaning up some of those ancillary areas. So I'm certainly grateful that you all are going to be able to help us with that. The next thing is what we call the Washington Square Neighborhood Association provision. That neighborhood association has funded and placed about 14 of its own trash bins in and around their neighborhood. So the incumbent has been cleaning those and maintaining those for the past, I think, 13 years. and so we obviously want to encourage that but because of prop 218 we couldn't allow that to be done exclusively to that neighborhood

because we have over 64 neighborhood associations and other areas in the city that may want to do the same. So I know that our director of public works has spoken to you all and hopefully you all are willing to go ahead and accommodate that if we have some other neighborhood associations that want to do a program similar to Washington Square. You know, it's probably not a program that's going to fit every neighborhood association, but for those that do, we certainly want to incorporate that service and encourage that sort of neighborhood pride, neighborhood cleanliness.

Finally, I think what we've heard, you know, that's been very important is just, you know, fair treatment of employees and making sure that employees have, you know, living wages, have benefits, are treated fairly, are treated with respect. And I think, you know, Santa Ana here, we've tried to do almost everything with that lens, making sure that working families are treated with respect. So I know that there is a labor peace agreement that the staff has extended to

the, right now, the recommended bidder. And I know that that is the only bidder that doesn't have a labor peace agreement within it. So that is something that, in my opinion, should be something that should be complied with. And from what I understand, the bidder has agreed to do that. So I would just say, to make it a little tighter, maybe what we do is we say, if in fact they're successful and we don't know that, they are able to comply within 60 days to do that. And if not, you come back and take a look at that with us. Or, you know, something that if they're not able to comply within those 60 days,

there's either a liquidated damages clause, there's some sort of fee that would need to be paid, but since they're the only standalone that doesn't have a union piece in them, that's something that I would say, if in fact they do prevail, that's something that they should comply with.

So again, I think I want to thank all of you for doing that. I want to bring it back to the council. I do know one thing is that the city will be much cleaner once this contract is awarded. I'm confident about that. What I'm also certain of is that there's going to be some unhappy folks, right? You know, there has to be one successful bidder on any procurement and again we've tried to make this as open and as transparent as possible and And I wanted to make these remarks for the record, for the minutes, because there may

be some folks who are unhappy with the results, and I don't want there to be any lack of clarity of the extent that this city council and staff has tried to make it as open and transparent to the public as possible while accommodating all the needs. And we were on the phone with Washington Square Neighborhood Association as late as last night just talking to them. So, all these things I think are an attempt to make sure that we provide the best possible service, you know, premium service at as low a cost as we possibly can while being reasonable to all the other priorities and values that we have.

So let me go ahead and bring it back to the council and what I'm going to do is I'm going to start with the ad hoc because the ad hoc had an opportunity to look at these, look at the information more in depth than the rest of the council and hopefully they can come back give us some of their specific feedback and guidance and that way they can go ahead and maybe direct the discussion so councilmember Fann has her hand got it let me go ahead and because I asked for mayor pro temp first let me have mayor pro temp first speak then councilmember Fann who was on the ad hoc and I believe councilmember Mendoza was on the ad hoc as well so

David PenalozaItem 5

we'll go in that order thank you mayor Sarmiento and and you know a lot of I I agree with a lot of what you've said. As we've heard, I was fortunate enough to be a member of the City Council's Solid Waste Ad Hoc. Going through all of the intricacies that make up a service contract of this size was very enlightening and interesting to say the least. I want to thank all four companies who are in this room tonight for going down this very tedious and competitive RFP. I know all of them have definitely put in the work and have made themselves available for all of us for any additional questions and meetings they might have.

David PenalozaItem 5

I met with all of them personally. I purposely went last week on vacation, so they don't bother me the last week.

David PenalozaItem 5

But I mean, all of them were made themselves available, so thank you for that.

David PenalozaItem 5

I know, to make myself clear, I know that all four of them are very, very capable of hauling our trash away. I mean, if I could do it, I'd be out there doing it. I mean, you're picking up the trash and taking it off, right? You know, that's us as residents. That's all we see.

David PenalozaItem 5

And there is no doubt that you guys could all do it very well. However, as we went through these numerous meetings, I realized that it wasn't just about collecting our trash and taking it away. it was about community, honesty, safety, our environment, the environmental quality of our city, the cleanliness, technology integration, level of service, customer service, and most importantly providing quality jobs with competitive and prevailing wages. As I sat on this ad hoc every meeting we had I went down my list whether it was a mental list or a physical list in my hand and just

David PenalozaItem 5

to see which business checked off every box. The ad hoc, at least I did, asked our city staff and consultants at these businesses, if they would even be considered, they would strive to agree to the numerous asks and requests that we were making.

David PenalozaItem 5

I must say I was always under the impression that the solid waste ad hoc would be the one recommending a holler to the city council for approval, which turned out to not be the case which is you know okay I would have preferred to done the other route but you know I'm just happy that we're now here to make this the selection and one thing that I that I just being on the ad hoc that was very important to me was just customer service user integration

David PenalozaItem 5

making sure that our multifamily complexes have that also that opportunity and to do the bulky item pickup.

David PenalozaItem 5

And also to make sure that our rates, whoever we choose, remain competitive. One thing that I constantly questioned as I went through this process was why Athens' residential rate was so much lower than all the others. Not just the three that were going through this process, but across the country at numerous different cities of our size, they were all kind of pretty level, even. And then you see Athens with the big dip. and it was troubling to me to see that there were other that there are other

David PenalozaItem 5

rates were getting absorbed into the commercial the family the multifamily complexes which wasn't to me that it makes sense you know we don't want to you know try to skew something to look a certain way when you're affecting another part of the business so with that said Director Saba, I just have a couple questions in regards to your recommended hauler.

David PenalozaItem 5

Where, and you know I work in the private sector, I deal with just day-to-day operations of a business all day long, and I just I want to ask where does this company Athens haul their trash

to where are their facilities thank you mayor pro tem give me one second and I did ask that question of Athens and for refuse they will be taken to trash to

our men landfill which is in Irvine 14 miles away from Santa Ana similar to the

David PenalozaItem 5

others it's it's in Irvine you said yes and where's there I guess there are sorting facility is it all going to to this landfill they have the option to

go to Bria Olinda but their primary landfill use will be it has to be an Orange County correct so they will be taking this to Bowerman landfill but

David PenalozaItem 5

But it's not 100% going to a landfill. Where do they do any sorting?

Sorry, that's the refuse. For the recyclables, Athens will be taking their recyclables to Republic's facility in Anaheim, 8.9 miles from Santa Ana.

David PenalozaItem 5

And that's something that Republic service is willing to do? Is that something that they agreed to?

According to the document that I have, yes.

David PenalozaItem 5

From Athens or from Republic? From Athens. Is there a contract between the two companies that would say that that's a facility that they could use?

I defer to Athens to answer the question.

David PenalozaItem 5

Okay.

With regard to the waste stream, about 74% of the waste stream goes to Bowerman and Irvine. The green waste goes to Tierra Verde that's on the El Toro Marine Base. We do have a reciprocal swap agreement with Republic and City of LA and others where we process trash and we process theirs. We additionally have internal infrastructure in relationship with all the recyclers at Orange County and LA. So we have guaranteed that we'll take care of all the recyclables. It is an open market. We do do business and processing facilities do make money on the tonnage.

So we plan on taking it to Republic. If they don't, we can handle it internally or find another outlet in Orange County.

David PenalozaItem 5

So if you were to handle it internally, where exactly do you take the recyclables to?

We take it to the City of Industry MRF, that's going to be roughly 12% of the waste stream. Additionally, we're building another MRF that's in Irwindale that will be done in about two years.

David PenalozaItem 5

And what's the distance that your drivers would be traveling each time?

Just for the recycle, we have a local yard that we've identified in Anaheim that's about four miles away but the city of industry loads would be a last load back and they

David PenalozaItem 5

go about 31 miles. That land in Anaheim that you've identified as in you plan on buying you plan on building something purchasing I mean well it's a existing

yard that's zoned for hauling and parking it does have a facility and it is empty so we can occupy it and go into escrow tomorrow. So what if that falls through

David PenalozaItem 5

and you do realize that you do have to take your recyclables to, you know, you said 31 miles one way. I mean, I just, I'm trying to look at the business model here. And, you know, as a business guy, as somebody who I said comes from the private sector, you know, your goal is to make money. Your goal is to have a profit. I mean, that's what, all four of them, not just Athens. So how does it pencil out when you're looking at rates that are so low for residential, but you're going to be having this longer commute to, it just doesn't make sense to me, mileage, hours of drivers and whatnot.

David PenalozaItem 5

So there's a lot of, you know, I'm not certain that I'm pretty clear on just these numbers that are being presented to us. Are numbers going to increase when we realize that you can identify a land in Anaheim or something falls through?

Mayor Portem, if I could address you also. I'm also involved in a current purchase agreement for a local facility that will process the recyclables it will own. And I'm making the commitment, I did it when we put our RFP in. We also have that reciprocal relationship with Republic already. And I do have a document that we submitted from Republic. I can guarantee you this, sir, that the product that we pick up from Santa Ana will be sent to a facility in Orange County. the trash, the green waste, and the recycling. There will not be a time when we'll have to use our industry MRF, but while we're working that details out,

and I said that at this dais as public information, that's up to you, but you're going to have to have some faith in our ability to make that right. Our price includes profit for us and using the local facilities. Our facilities are just for a backup. We have more of those than anybody else in the room locally, But I'm telling you honestly, I can't disclose it now because we're in due diligence and we're in final escrow phase, but we have a processing facility that we will own probably within 60 days that's very near your city limit. and it will not be all of those mileage calculations as i said e pluribus unum there's many

that will be one the the one choice will be that we will we will be driving less miles and all of that will be coming out of your city and you'll have the benefit of that and you could you can mark that down we will not have to at the end when this contract is initiated we will not have to take any recycling back to our city of industry murph it will either be processed here or

David PenalozaItem 5

transferred here in this city, but it would be processed outside of the city

of Sanana, correct? That's another thing within this scope of Santa Ana within one or two miles outside the city limit. But in Orange County, that was another

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very prominent ask of mine as part of the ad hoc is that whoever we choose or whoever wants this contract would limit have the most smallest footprint when it comes to a use as in as a Murph or or processing facility and whether it's a parking garage for the trucks that's fine but I'm saying you know when it comes to the actual stuff that would affect a surrounding neighborhoods quality of life just my whole goal was to limit that so I want to make sure

that that's not being considered no sir my commitment to you when we spoke and it is now tonight in front of you and the entire city council that it will be handled locally it will not be in Santa Ana as you know we opened up a local office we're going to keep that we may have a nice local customer service area but I'm telling you again and I want you to hear from the source you have the two guys that are running the company right here in front of you all of those commodities will be handled in Orange County within a five to seven mile scope of this very building right here and I can guarantee that so we wouldn't do a

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long-term contract without having that right what one final question so I could hand it over to some of my other colleagues on the ad hoc was in regards to your residential rates being so much lower than the other three there was a significant increase in all your other rates whether it was commercial or multifamily can you explain that is that being are you absorbing that residential reduction into the others no I can I can look at that we look at this

city again as an entity not just one way stream or the other and we know the benefit of having a very competitive residential rate and when you're looking at a multifamily or commercial we're still not the most expensive we're competitive and your your staff told you that but what's more important is that where we are going to have more recycling coordinators and environmental managers out there than anyone else. We are going to visit, you know that, for not only every ward, but for the entire commercial district. Our customer service people are going to go out and

visit those multifamily customers and those commercial customers. And what we have done in other cities is we will teach them how to have more recycling and more organic waste and less trash. Trash is the most expensive component out of all of it. So my argument to you is that the rate that's in the rate table will not be the rate that the customer or multifamily sees because as you add think about this as you add the component of organic waste and remove that from your trash it's going to make your trash cheaper so if you have a three yard bin you're going to be able

to reduce to a two yard bin you're going to have the organic and now you're actually going to have a lower price so what I want you to realize is that our bid is balanced between residential roll-off which is industrial commercial and multifamily. Your staff has indicated to you that we're the best overall value taking all those into considerations. And again, I met with you personally. My commitment to you is to not let you down. And if I'm not telling you the truth, you can throw us out of town. But I'm just telling you that what I'm saying tonight is honest. Our residential rate is competitive. We can't raise

that throughout the contract without your approval. It's fixed the entire time. Our commercial rate, and our multi-family rate are set and it's my job to make sure that it's lower for those customers. And I can prove to you historically that that happens when you have people in the field that will visit those customers and actually make their trash less. You know what I mean? And so when you look at our proposal, we have more of those people in our proposal than anyone else. And the other thing you've never heard come out of my mouth is a negative word about any of the other haulers.

I'm just here to talk about the Athens proposal why I think that your staff and the consultant made the right decision and I'm hoping that you can join them because I won't let you down mayor Pro Tem I will not do that and I'm going to be here for a while and you have my number thank you I think I think that's

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that's it for question I'm available for any of the questions representatives mayor Samantha I will hand it over to you to see if my other

colleagues on the ad hoc have questions let me go ahead and ask a couple of other members of the ad hoc committee to go ahead and comment councilmember fan are you are you with us

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

yes i am with you it's like a seance there you are first i'd like to echo what the mayor said about this process i joined the trash ad hoc kind of just saying all right well i'll I'll do it. I'll list it on my list of ad hoc committees. And it's really been a learning experience and something I've put a lot of time and energy in. I feel like I've met all of the haulers way more than I've seen my mom in the last six months. They will all tell you that I've met with each other multiple times, lots of conversations and phone calls, because this

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probably will be the largest contract I will be voting on in my career. So I take it very seriously.

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Unlike the mayor, however, I like to hear what some of the issues are with the various haulers because it's a very particularized industry. It's an industry that is, I think, a bit insular and who knows better what the others are dealing with, struggling with, or good at than their competitors. And with that, we were able to ask a lot of questions and being a part the ad hoc we were at able to ask for more demand more get more information and i'm really proud of being able to kind of bring all of that to the surface and really get as much information as

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possible to make this decision um i you know i'm struggling with this and i know it's going to be more than three minutes but um it's a you know i think every hauler has something that is really great that I think makes them stand out because we all know they can all haul trash. But to me, there are a few issues and items that I've been thinking about mulling over and how do I select a hauler that isn't just great today, but great 10 years from now and great for as many

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people as possible. So the first thing I'd like to say is thank you to Director Saba and his team and our consultants because I know we've demanded a lot from them and asked a lot from them. I've been at a number of public meetings, the special study, as well as the comm link meeting, helping to answer some questions that residents had or just to see what the engagement was like. And so with that, I guess I kind of want to go down the list with some of the pros and cons to kind of explain a little bit of my thought process. I think Mayor put it really well,

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which is no matter who we choose, somebody will be happy and somebody will be upset. But I think instead of looking at it like that, I want to think of it as a we can't go wrong type of situation because all of these haulers are great. All of these haulers are within a couple percentage of each other and all of these haulers have, I think, proposed some really great new things for our city. So the first thing is looking at the quality of life. Some of the commenters mentioned, well,

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are we focusing on quality of life? Are they going to be able to deliver on that? And yes, I really believe that the RFP itself, as well as the Solid Wings Ad Hoc, we really hounded on what more can these trash haulers do other than haul trash? And I really believe that the Clean Cities initiatives and the additional outreach, education, community events, as well as the additional bulky pickup, Mr. Mendez, instead of having your management company call, you will be able to call to get those mattresses picked up. And I think that is what we all want. The second thing is definitely price.

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um i had the same concerns as council member excuse me mayor pretend penelosa um you know when i was looking at it we had three callers who were very close to each other and one who was very low regarding the single family residential uh carts hallway carts and how that happened was because the commercial rates, the commercial bins, the big medical bins are a lot higher. And so, and also for multifamily residential. I bring that up because, oh, let me turn off my video.

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I bring that up because I live in multifamily residential. Many people in Ward 1 who are in mobile home parks live in multifamily residential. Many of our seniors live in multifamily residential. And I don't think it's fair for our seniors and for our businesses to, you know, subsidize single family homes who often have a higher income every year. So I think that's really important for me. And one thing that I was really concerned about, um, the other thing I was really

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concerned about is, you know, the environmental concerns. I don't think it's a secret that, you know, Councilman Lopez and I have discussed, or many of us up here have discussed climate resolution. I have asked many questions about climate and how that would impact not only, you know, the carbon footprint, but also the city itself, the residents here who are already struggling with climate impacts. And so for me, I'm really excited that a local hauler like CRNR has, you know, really incredible entrepreneurial recycling and green use and reuse and,

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you know, anaerobic digestion. But I'm also really excited that a company that we have, our current haul of waste management, is already investing in a lot of this, closed-loop digestion and creating their own renewable energy, but also that Republic is recognized for being a member or looking to comply with the Paris Climate Accords. So for me, not having a very strong environmental component is not acceptable in the city of Santa

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Anna as a second largest city in the county as a constituency that suffers from climate effects. I think it's really incumbent on those of us, especially those of us who have another 50, 60, 70 years. I don't know, I can live to 100. It's really important that climate is addressed. And I think that was one of my biggest concerns also with the recommended hauler. The other issue that I was really concerned about is the size. I understand that there is, you know, all the haulers can haul waste, but I am concerned about natural disasters. I am concerned

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about what happens if Orange County is hit by major flooding or a major earthquake. And so for me, that really pushed me toward one of the two larger haulers because in a major earthquake where are we going to get the support who's going to come in and relieve those haulers who are you know those truck drivers and employees who can't work while their family is being affected by a natural disaster. And for a city as large as Santa Ana, I really feel like having a large,

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well-established organization that is able to quickly come in is really essential. Because I expect climate emergencies. That's really sad to say, but I think that is on the horizon, and we have to be prepared for that. And I do believe that the two larger waste haulers are able to do that. And the last thing for me was, you know, going back to how do I balance all of these interests? How do I ensure that we have a hauler who is treating their employees well? How do we have a hauler who cares about what we're doing with the environment, who is being

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entrepreneurial and who's investing in environmental benefits and climate change energy, excuse me, climate change issues to address that and how do we choose a hauler who is going to be responsive to our residents and one of the things that i do also want to say is you know we didn't decide to go this route for an rfp just to have change for change's sake i don't believe that i know that there's a lot of commentary about this new council and being so different but for me i think if you

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know something's not broken don't fix it but at the same time I really do feel that as we've heard from actually many residents including several in my ward unfortunately the current incumbent is not meeting their expectations and what they need for being responsive to their concerns and so I really struggled with do you stay with the W no or do you go with someone new but maybe get a sack of rotten potatoes. But I trust that through this process and our director, as well as the

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multiple conversations I've had with residents and the haulers, I do believe that Republic Services would be able to meet all of those requirements. I expect that they will not only comply with the RFP, but that they are able to exceed expectations, particularly because they are established here in Orange County, they have MRFs and recycling centers nearby. And I really hope that their dedication and investment in clean electric vehicles, as well as clean energy is something that they will continue to develop moving forward and be at the forefront of that. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member. And before I go to the last ad hoc member, Council Member Mendoza, let me just go back to staff because I know there were some questions I think that may have gone unanswered on the rates. So can you touch on that, please?

Sure, thanks, Mayor. From the table that I'm looking at, which is a multifamily refuse bin rates, the difference between the different haulers is not significant between, give you an example here, and the table is really complex because a different level of service varies my sample here is from table 2f 14 item or line number 14 which is 400 customers the difference between the

lowest which is in this case is Republic and CRNR is 0.7% and between Republic and Athens is 5% and between Republic and waste management is 19%. So that's the difference and that's just a sample. I don't believe that the numbers are skewed. In fact, we went back and forth and all of the haulers adjusted their rates to eliminate the skewedness and or having to have one particular customer pay or subsidize the other.

I think it's very balanced what we have and that's all I have to say on this one here.

Thank you. Thank you for that. Let me go now to Council Member Mendoza who was the third person on that ad hoc committee. Council Member. Thank you, Mayor Sarmantel.

And I would like to thank the four haulers that they've been working really hard these past few months in providing the information. And also in meeting with us and providing the best possible information for us to make the decision that is going to be beneficial to our residents and to our commercial businesses. And also thank you to Director Saba and his staff. They've been working very hard on providing reports and data that is comprehensive to us.

and also with the purpose in mind to select a hauler that provides quality services at reasonable prices and guarantee or at least not significantly increase residential rates or commercial rates. And the things that we were looking at was, as my colleagues mentioned, is a company that is energy efficient, that will not leave a huge footprint in our environment, someone who is pro-labor and union-friendly

and has the goal of benefiting their employees and not just profiting for themselves, as someone who can provide a good compensation with benefits to their employees, and that the provision include local hire component in their contract.

We met extensively and no matter how we vote, I know that there will be some unhappy people. And with this in mind, I want all of you here in the audience and on Zoom or on the phone to know that the ultimate goal was what is the best interest for our residents? What is good for our city? And it was tough because each of the companies have their positive services.

And as it is in life, there are a few challenges and consequences for each of the companies. And I initially agreed with staff, but the staff's recommendation is no longer my interpretation. So I will be focusing on and voting for somebody who is proactive with the community and has a relationship with our city. We want a, I want, what I want as an elected official is grassroots neighborhood association support.

And I want the best value for our money, lower rates for multifamily dwellings, lower rates for commercial bin service. and also someone who is local in the area and that that is for the purpose of having local trash disposed and recycled in a facility that is near Santa Ana so

that we don't have the bad burden of leaving more contamination and hurting our environment. So with Athens what I really was not very favorable for them was that they would have to haul the trash to an off-site that was approximately 60 miles.

So when a waste truck is filled, so that truck goes out to a facility that is about 30 miles away, and so it's sitting in traffic, and it's a delay for those communities, those neighborhoods who get their trash picked up, and they have to wait until it gets emptied and then back another 30 miles to continue with their trash pickup. So it does two things. It's creating more traffic, and who knows with the traffic here in Orange County,

in L.A. County, surrounding counties, it's a long, extensive commute. We want the best for our environment, as all of you do. We want the lowest vehicle miles traveled, which will reduce air pollution and street damage.

I would prefer trucks that are electric trash vehicles. that's to reduce our footprint in our neighborhoods and ultimately our world. And we are a crowded city already. We are building here. There's hardly any land to build any more new facilities. and we need a hauler, a trash company hauler,

who already has disposal facilities near here, in Santa Ana, or already near here.

I want a waste company to have goals aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

There is one of the haulers who has been very actively in our city and who provides the greatest benefit to you, the constituents, and to our city.

This includes in-kind services for charities and nonprofits, who will have a Santa Ana customer service office right here in Santa Ana. someone who provides student scholarships. And this particular company has already provided over $7,000 in student scholarships.

We want a seven day week cleaning of alley and illegally dumped items, not just once a week, but actually six days a week. And it is important to me as a pro-labor person that we have somebody who is union already, who has the best interest for their workers and providing them benefits. And we have someone who already provides over 6,000 more in wages a year versus a non-union company.

And this is equals to $2,000 more in wages a year versus the incumbent who is only $20,000 in the past 20 years.

The employees need their 401k medical, dental, vision, and life insurance. And so we're looking out for a company that is in the best interest of not just making a profit, but also ensuring that their workers are adequately compensated.

One of the lowest price haulers is already in our pool of constituents because 60% of Santa Ana's total annual revenue comes from commercial businesses and multi-family dwellings.

And I believe that's all for my notes. So at this time, I cannot support staff's recommendation for this company as it does not meet the criteria that I was looking for as part of the ad hoc committee.

Great. Thank you for those comments. I know that there was some discussion earlier, and I'll bring it back to the balance of the council that didn't serve on the ad hoc committee, because I think those of us who weren't on the ad hoc committee didn't get as much detail on this information. But there was some discussion about a reciprocal agreement with Athens and Republic. Is somebody from Republic available to maybe address that? Because I think Athens had an opportunity to mention that, just for clarity purposes, and I think that might be helpful. Remember that we've already had a study session on this,

and the hour is getting late. So again, brevity please will be welcomed.

The company has never approached us for an agreement,

and there's nothing in place with our particular division. We're permitted, as you might know, for 10,000 tons per day between our Anaheim and our Huntington Beach facility, so we have all the permitted capacity already in the neighborhood. And to permit a new facility, as you might well know, it takes years to do. So I think we provide all that criteria in terms of having the available capacity and know there's no agreement in place, nor have we been approached for an agreement and we're not interested in some sort of waste swap.

Great. Thank you for that. And again, that's fine. I'm going to go ahead and continue on with the city council. Please be ready if they have any questions. But again, we've had an opportunity to ask questions of all four bidders on this, all four proposers. So I hope all of that's been exhausted. But to the credit of the recommended bidder, they also said that they have other opportunities and other, you know, sites that they may be working on. So just out of fairness. Now let me go ahead and bring it back to those who weren't on the ad hoc committee. And let me start with Council Member Hernandez, and I'll go with the others.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 5

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank all the residents and the workers that took time out of their busy day to be here. This is, I think one of my colleagues mentioned it earlier, this is the largest contract most of us will ever vote on. So months of preparation, research, and lots of seeing trash haulers. but each provider brought something special and unique to the table that is that is worth acknowledging. I want to thank Waste Management for their their tenure with the city of Santa Ana

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is to be celebrated. Republic for their emphasis on ensuring that they have a strong a strong approach to quality of life and service. CRNR for their environmental commitment and their commitment to community investment, the largest of any other provider in Athens for for celebrating you know having family-owned companies. I think that is that is a tremendous feat. It's not something that you typically see, but after listening to the residents receiving hundreds of emails over just the past couple of days, I want to touch on a topic that residents brought up.

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There was a senior resident that brought this up via email, and I saw Mr. Mendez also bring it up. And that was quality of life. Quality of life is something that is essential to the city of Santa Ana and our residents. This isn't just about picking up and disposing of trash. If that's the intent here, then that's probably not going to be a very successful bid. But on the topic of quality in life, the reason why I could not place more emphasis on the importance of labor is because when you have the power and the backing of organized labor, you have a guarantee.

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And when you don't, you merely have a promise. Workers do not strive and they do not thrive, they do not win with promises. They win because of guarantees. And on that topic, labor, worker protections, job security, benefits, local hire, retirement, that's quality of life. Quality of life looks like that. I want to touch on four different topics that are important to my decision making as an elected. And number one is value. When we look at value, that should be at the heart of our decisions today.

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Of course, we don't want to see substantial increases for our trash haulers. This is a working class city and every single dollar counts in a working household. There's some families that have two to three families just to get by. and with that being said I'm not going to be supporting the proposal today for Athens and the reason why is because of the fact that I did some research today and I saw that although they had a very low cost I did see that in neighboring cities in LA County there was a significant jump

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in cost there was one city in particular where it was $33 and and I was concerned because I don't want to see an increase over the next five years, over the next ten years. So that was something that was very concerning to me. There's best quality of life partners. When I've looked at front and back the providers, there's one provider that comes to mind for me when it comes to the best quality of life partner. This particular provider has a proactive community relationship and building team.

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They have two individuals that are going to be committed to working with our neighborhoods on the ground outside of just providing the services that they provide. Grassroot neighborhood association support is key. Free multifamily dwelling bulk item pickup program of 10 items per unit per quarter. That's up to 40 items. A free single family dwelling bulk item program of four items, four pickups per year, up to 16 items. I didn't hear too many proposals that we're going to integrate their services into the MySantaAnna app.

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This is a city that is always evolving, and we want to make sure that government and service is at your fingertips. And making sure that your company is adaptable and is friendly to our users is going to be key. That's how we help alleviate issues where there's mattresses that are lying on the side of the road or in your apartment complex. In addition to that, best employee employer and labor relations. That is extremely important to me because I have a working class background. My only experience that I've ever had as a worker has been being a union member.

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And to remind everybody why that's so important to me is because I'm an elected, but I am no different than our residents. I had a very adverse experience as a young man and became a parent at the age of 17. and having a union ensured that my daughter can have a roof over her head, that I can provide and have health insurance to make sure that she has access to health care, so that she has dental treatment, and to ensure that I have a retirement, you know, at a reasonable age. And that's extremely important, and there's a provider that I really am a big supporter of after

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seeing how cohesive this presentation was, pension averaging $2,000 monthly for lifetime of an employee, 6,000 more in wages a year versus non-union companies, that's 60,000 over 10 years, 2,000 more in wages a year versus the incumbent, which is 20,000 over 20 years. And lastly, it's best on environment. We need a caller that is going to be environmentally friendly and that is going to adapt to the much-needed change of being inclusive of climate change and

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how badly that impacts our community. And note Santa Ana is also an environmentally red city. Neighborhoods like Dalhai struggle with quality of life because of the environmental impacts that development and warehouses have had on their neighborhoods. There's a provider that has the lowest vehicle miles traveled reducing air pollution and street damage but most importantly if we can have vehicles on the road for lesser amounts of time, that means less congestion, that means less risk for workers that are driving trash to and from.

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And the only proposer to offer an electric trash vehicle, and lastly, no new disposal facilities required in the city. This company that I'm looking to support is Republic, and the reason why it's the only waste company to have climate goals approved by the SBTI and aligned with the Paris Climate Accord. And with that being said, I will not be supporting the proposal today, sir. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member. Let me go to Council Member Becerra.

Phil BacerraItem 5

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want to begin, as many of my colleagues have done, and thank all the haulers who participated in this very long process, very intense, extensive process. And I couldn't thank the haulers without thanking our staff and our consultants because what you did, I would say you made our lives a little tougher because you were able to get these haulers all within, I mean, really very close margins of each other. And I think it's making it tougher for us to render a decision here tonight. So thank you and dang it, Nabil.

What the heck?

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You know, I do want to ask, though, I have two questions. First, one of our residents brought up, and by the way, I want to thank all the residents and businesses who chimed in on this issue because this is a very important contract. It's a very high and expensive contract, and it's just good to see that residents care and they want to weigh in and let this council know why they believe a certain hauler should get the contract. But with that, Director Saba, one of our residents brought up the term overflow.

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And I want to understand, is that something that's defined in state law or through state standards? Or is that done by each hauler?

I believe it's done by each hauler. and it's, you know, I'll have to defer to Christy Kendick and our staff to help us out on defining what is an overage.

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Sorry, Christy, I know you've been able to not have to.

Right here. Got it. Hi. So basically, overflow is more of a safety issue and a matter of having trash fall out of the bin as they are dumping it into the container. So, you know, typically the industry wants your lids to be flat so that everything in it is safe and it can be safely dumped. It can be open a bit. each one of them is probably it's a subjective thing but it's really all about getting the trash lifted and into the back of the truck safely so that it

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doesn't fall all over the place and that makes sense but my question is more of who determines that in other words we've all seen bins that maybe the lids not completely closed but nonetheless the trucks can get the trash into their backside you know relatively easy so what I'm trying to understand is who

determines that it would be the training at each facility okay so training of the drivers and then the drivers interpretation of that training when

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they're on the street okay perfect thank you for that well actually no maybe I don't know if you need to answer this or maybe it might be for director Saba the items that you had brought to the council today or I think that were mentioned earlier today regarding labor peace agreements so the the current recommended hauler, I believe that was why this particular issue was brought up, the other three haulers, would they be subject to this? Because as they've all discussed, they all have some sort of labor component in their workforce. So would they need to have this? So in other words, if this

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council were to go with one of the three haulers that was not the staff recommended hauler, would we have to go in and actually put that language in?

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So only just to the one that staff recommended?

That's correct.

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You know, Dave Elliott from the Chamber weighed in and said that, you know, the lowest cost is not always the best. And I think right now we're seeing that. We're seeing a situation where, you know, there's a lot of questions still on this particular hauler. and the labor component, that's one where it really compels me to look to the other three. You know, one thing I do want to say, though, with this whole agreement, whoever we decide to go with tonight, one thing I'm really proud of with this council and our staff is that we genuinely have one of the most transformative agreements before us today.

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So whoever we select, I mean, the Clean City Initiative, I mean, that's something that, you know, I've lived in apartments here in Santa Ana and you know the current hauler you know charge the fee for folks to have items you know bulky items picked up and unfortunately there are folks that they weren't gonna pay that so next thing you know we saw those bulky items along the side of the road or in other places that they shouldn't be they would ultimately end up getting picked up but it just why why make it more difficult for folks so I'm glad that this clean city initiative

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have really got the haulers to all come in and talk about bulky item pickups and enhancing that because I just think it's a waste not to do that. So I appreciate that. With the Washington Square Neighborhood Association and the Neighborhood Association Public Right of Way Trash Container Service, you know, I was a little nervous when I had heard the initial discussions with Washington Square and how we might not be able to encourage what they did. I think it's important that we don't penalize a neighborhood for being proactive and actually going out of their way to make their neighborhood cleaner. And they did a great job.

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They partnered with our current hauler, and they had a program that really makes their neighborhood one of our beautiful neighborhoods here in the city. So I'm really relieved that staff working, in fact, Councilmember Hernandez and Mayor Sarmiento and working with Washington Square, I'm really happy that we're talking about this service that we would open up to all of our neighborhoods. The environment is something that, you know, we can't ignore it. We have to be realistic. And while cost, of course, is important, but the long-term effects of what we entered into agreement with or for is very important.

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And I think that many of the haulers came to us with some outstanding items that showed that the environment is very important. And I want to credit our staff and our consultant for pushing that and the council. Because, again, this is something that this is going to be a long-term contract. And it has to make sure that we benefit our community in the long term. In regards to the labor component, this is something that is personal for me. I come from a labor family. You know, my dad was a grocer, and my grandfather is a carpenter, union carpenter. And for me, this is an important issue.

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And so the principles of labor are very important to me. And so with that being said, you know, to say that you're not going to get in the way of organizing versus supporting our folks in labor, those are two different things. And it really rubs me the wrong way to hear that. you're just going to have this passive relationship with your workers and their well-being and their compensation. That's just not right. So to me, that's a very, very important issue. And for me, it really leaves me whittled down to three at this point. And so I will say right now, I think that

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it's a tough decision for all of us. I think the rates that have been proposed, again, they're very, very close. I think that each of these, well, each of the four haulers could do the job, but I think three of them really, I think, step up when it comes to something that's important to me, and that is the labor component. While again, as Dave Elliott said, you know, cost, lowest cost is not always the best option. And I think especially in this case, that would be the situation. Those

are my comments right now. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Great. Thank you for those comments. So I'll go ahead and have I think the only person that hasn't spoken aside from myself and I opened up these comments was a councilmember Lopez so after that maybe we start narrowing it down the the time is getting late we're a few minutes before 10 so I want to make sure people get home safely and before midnight

Jessie LopezItem 5

councilmember Lopez thank you mayor and I guess first I just want to say how excited I am to hear how concerned everybody is with our carbon footprint And I think that we'll also have more opportunities down the line to support those initiatives. But I have always had a resident first approach. And so my decision tonight is going to reflect that. And I have heard from more three residents. And I hope that all of the haulers in this room tonight can understand that. And I genuinely hope that no one will hold anything against me.

Jessie LopezItem 5

So I also want to thank our staff for all of the work that has gone into this. I know that it's been time consuming, so many resources, and again, time and energy has been put into your recommendation, Director Saba, the Trash Ad Hoc Committee, our consultant, and also Sanayana residents for emailing us. You know, as the clerk said, we've received more than 200 emails about what they would like to see from this council. And so, you know, I also want to thank War III residents for showing up, not just tonight, but during community office hours.

Jessie LopezItem 5

They expressed, you know, their concerns with a spike in rates and really what they wanted to see and the expectation that they had of me. And so, you know, hearing from waste management workers tonight really moved me and touched me because I understand that for you, this is your job, not just for yourselves, but for your families. And so, you know, this is also, you know, the service that we're through residents expect to receive.

Jessie LopezItem 5

And so for those reasons combined, there are two haulers, I think, that are going to be viable options for Worthy residents. And having said that, I think that all four could do a really great job. And I just want to thank everybody again for being part of this process. It's my first time going through this process with some folks. And that's all that I have to say, Mayor.

Thank you.

Great. So I think everybody's had an opportunity to speak and I don't know if we're any more clear than when we were than when we started. But look, the goal here is, at least my goal, is for us to make a decision here tonight. I don't want us to leave punting, continuing this because we really don't have the luxury of time and this is a very time sensitive matter that we have to decide on. We know that we have some compliance issues that the state is requiring us to meet. So to the extent that we make decisions tonight and come back and

do the second reading at the following, will this require a second reading or is this a single reading item? Single reading? Okay. So to the extent that we get it done tonight, it'll keep us on the timeline, right, to be able to comply with meeting that July 2022 start date. So I really do want us to get there. I'm glad we're kind of talking about narrowing, you know, the discussion. That was where we began months ago, so we're still narrowing down a little bit. I guess, you know, my question, just to lead off, Director, is, so we have an incumbent

in waste management, right? And that's on waste, on solid waste, but we also have sort of a pseudo-incumbent in Athens, right, because they do our street sweeping. So I wanted to I wanted to get your opinion because your department works with the street sweeping. And I remember, you know, because I can go back as far as when that contract was entered into with Athens because it was right after the recession. And we had to outsource our street sweeping because back then we used to do it in-house. And unfortunately, you know, we were very close to filing a Chapter 9.

We had to look at outsourcing a lot of what we used to do in-house, which wasn't pleasant because that's one thing we really, really had a tough time doing. we had to let go of our whole fire department and go in with the OCFA, the fire authority, and have a sort of a regional approach because we were that close to filing a bankruptcy. So that being said, after these years of relationship with them, what's the relationship been with them on that service?

As far as street sweeping with Athens, they have met the requirements of the of the agreement their agreement expires I believe in 2024 we have few mere two couple more two more years left on the contract but they have been doing an outstanding job in street sweeping in fact we are talking to them right now about their ability to help us with the bike lanes if you remember you know we have you know bike lanes that are six feet wide and would like to do a better job in cleaning those now. So we are in conversation right now with them to enhance that service.

But they have met all of the obligation and the provisions of the existing agreement, and we're happy with their service.

Great. Thank you. And that gives us a little bit of background on, you know, relationships that we already have, as we can point to with waste as well. I mean, we've had, you know, sort of a description of their relationship with communities and with neighborhood associations and with a lot of our non-profits and work that they've done because in 50 years you can do a lot, you know, and certainly you can also make mistakes and that's expected. Nobody is perfect when it comes to any industry. But, you know, what I see is that when we look at each one of these, you know, each one of these

vendors, there's litigation involved in almost every single one, right? One community is unhappy with, you know, one vendor, another one is unhappy with another. So we can certainly sort of pick and choose, you know, who's doing the best. But I think for Santa Ana, I think we have to tailor the services for our community. My goal, and actually my hope early on was that this city is large enough that we could have had two or three vendors, and we could have had those vendors compete with one another and we would have seen over time who delivers the best service

and who would have reduced the rates for our residents. That was really my hope. Unfortunately that didn't work out but I do see other communities that have multiple vendors in them and we would have been able to see those that are you know delivering service at a high level at a reasonable rate and that is really you know one of my goals here is to get as much premium which I think we will get with these clean city initiatives that we've embedded in every single one of the contracts that we have. But I know that I want to thank Mike Silva and CRNR, because I saw them over the weekend at the scholarship over in Floral Park,

the effort there, and I've seen that they have a very good model. They have, you know, I sometimes think when you have corporate companies that are so large, you get lost, right? And I think that when you have companies that are small enough, I think that are nimble enough and relatable enough, I think you can build relationships with them. And I certainly hope that we see that, that sometimes as large as you are, you get detached sometimes from those individual client relationships.

And again, looking at whether it's government, private sector, whether it's the nonprofit world, I think you want that nimbleness from companies to be able to flex. And so I want us all to keep that in mind. But look, I think we're ready to at least have a motion and some consideration of, you know, one of the haulers, I'll be looking to those members of the ad hoc to lead us on that. Because again, I think to their description, they had a lot more detail and time to be able to sift through. But I've heard some good directive comments so far.

but I do want to lean on them a little bit more because they did have a time to kind of dig down into the weeds a little bit. So let me go ahead and get back to them.

Council members? Everybody went deaf on me.

Up, repeat, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow,

somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow,

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

Mayor?

Yes. Hold on one second, Councilmember.

Pesting? Oh, wonderful. Thank you. Thank you very much.

My recommendation is that my counsel, that we not adopt the recommendation of staff in this case. on most other, actually in probably every one of the rest of the staff's recommendations we have accepted because it hasn't been as difficult as this issue. It's probably the most difficult vote that anyone here on this council will ever take.

And we've molded over hundreds of times and the best selection that we could give to our residents. And it is unfortunately not at Athens. And waste management has done a great job.

However, we need to select a new one. I mean, someone who's with over 60 years here with the city, it's not that they're doing a bad job, but it's that there's someone, another holler that's going to provide even better services.

And I recommend that the staff's recommendation be rejected and that the contract be awarded to the hauler who is going to be conscientious of namely their employees. They have a safety record that is impeccable, who has donated tremendously to our community

in such ways as scholarships and to many of the nonprofits here in Santa Ana. And they're out there in the community. I've seen them in several of our events, and they're visible. And they're going to have an office here in Santa Ana available. There's two dedicated people who are going to be especially just for the city of Santa Ana. So my recommendation is that the Republic Services be awarded the contract. They are conscientious of a local hire and they have provided the most benefits to their workers

and have guaranteed that they will pick up the employees from waste management and give them the better benefits. So my recommendation is to not approve staff's recommendation and select instead Republic Services.

Got it. Thank you, Council Member Mendoza. We have a motion on the floor by Council Member Mendoza. I think Council Member Phan was trying to connect with us. Council Member Phan, can you hear us?

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

Yes, thank you, Mayor. After the silence, I figured I'd make the motion.

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

But Council Member Mendoza beat me to it, so I will second her motion.

Got it. So we have a motion and a second. Any other comments?

By the Council? Okay. Seeing none. Hearing none. Madam Clerk? Can we vote on the device? or are we going to do a roll call?

Yes, if the council can please go ahead and vote on the device. You should see.

So everybody's clear on the motion, correct?

Madam City Attorney, did you want to?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 5

I'd just like to clarify if there are modifications. Is that motion contained or just a motion to award the contract to Republic?

The way I understood the council and council member Mendoza, if you want to go ahead and recite it, but the way I understood is that it was to not go with staff's recommendation and instead go with the, with Republic.

Phil BacerraItem 5

Council member Mendoza, if I might ask you, in regards to accelerating the clean city initiatives by one year and establishing that neighborhood association public right away trash container service, would you be open to adding that language into your motion?

Definitely.

Phil BacerraItem 5

Yes. And would Councilmember Pham, would she be okay with that as well?

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

I guess. Yes.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 5

I would like to also clarify that it's not just a motion to approve the contract. You have a resolution in your packet, which is required. And that resolution is currently reflected in the staff recommendation. So it would need to be changed to reflect your motion on the table. It's in your packet.

yeah what do you suggest madam city attorney how would we so you have in your packet as exhibit

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 5

number five and this will be the formal action that you take to approve an exclusive agreement for the collection and handling a solid waste right now it all reads the staff recommendation allowing athens services to provide your exclusive solid waste hauling services so any changes that you'd like to make we just need to make sure that we put them in this document with any changes that you're requesting and that you actually adopt the resolution

Adamson all right does that give me one second councilmember so does the motion as it was recited right now does that reflect those changes that you would

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 5

need us to have in the resolution I did I was able to clarify the one year start date on the clean city fee and I did not take record of the second one. The second one was the

sort of what we call the Washington Square Neighborhood Association provision where the new hauler would not only you know pick up manually the 14 bins in Washington Square but also pick up I like I guess electrically or maybe in a less manual way those that any other of the other 64 neighborhood associations would install. Maybe not all of them, but those are the ones that...

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 5

And then finally, if you were to do that, we'd need to have a public recognition by the hauler that you are going to vote on and that they accept those changes.

Got it. And they're here. Can we bring them up? Is that easy?

Phil BacerraItem 5

When you're ready, yeah. Mr. Mayor, if I may just real quick tweak my amendment and Council Member Mendoza, if you would indulge me. in addition to those two I'd like both of those to also have no impact on the rates proposed.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 5

If you just give me I'm going to need one moment to pull their contract I have the staff recommendation ready so just bear with me one moment I need to pull that contract make sure.

Let me have them come up though on the other two items.

Would you like Nabil to clarify the two additions?

Go ahead.

We would like to add the two provisions. The first one is the timing of the clean city initiatives. We would like to request the implementation of clean city initiatives to be accelerated by one full year with no impacts to rates except for abandoned item collections and litter cleanup to be implemented on July 1, 2022, six months acceleration. We're good with that? We are. Okay. The second one is the Washington Square Neighborhood Association, but that's not the title of the

action. Just reference. A request to establish a new neighborhood association, public right-of-way, trash container service as part of the clean city initiatives with no impacts to rates. This includes the following program would apply to all neighborhood associations present and future. Association will need to make the request for the cans. Cans shall be collected once a week at the same time as a weekly service for the area. Cans shall be placed on the public right-of-way where vehicles do not impede the collection and are collected

automatically cans must meet the same specifications as the public right-of-way trash container service in exhibit 11 of the agreement cans shall be steam cleaned on the exterior and the interior as specified in the right-of-way trash container steam cleaning service in exhibit 11 of the agreement the number of neighborhood cans shall not exceed 896. This number includes the Washington Square Neighborhood Association cans. Holler will supply a maximum of 882 new cans.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 5

I'd like to clarify that would be added at section 5.2.6 on page 96 of the proposed agreement and that other change would be reflective in exhibit number 11 to the agreement. Great.

So, just…

I have three more items, please. Only the Washington Square Neighborhood Association 14 cans will be collected manually. Washington Square Neighborhood Association 14 cans service shall start on July 1, 2022. The new Neighborhood Association public right-of-way trash container service shall start at the same time as the right-of-way trash container service in exhibit 11 of the

agreement do you agree to that thank you anything further director we're good great thank you so look we don't like doing business like this it these any other changes should have been done in advance so I apologize but thank you for coming up to the podium and consenting for the record and for the minutes so So feel free to go ahead and sit down. Council Member, so it's your motion. Council Member Phan second. Are both of you good with the changes that were included on that motion by Director Saba?

Yes, I am fine with the changes.

Council Member Phan. Okay, sounds like a yes from both of them. So we're back where we were. So let's go ahead and, unless there's any further comments, Let's go ahead and take a vote on this.

So, Council Member Hernandez, Lopez, Mendoza, Mayor Pro Tempeñalosa, and Mayor, you guys can go ahead and select.

There's nothing on mine. Let's just do an oral vote.

Council Member Becerra?

Phil BacerraItem 5

Yes.

Council Member Hernandez?

Yes.

Council Member Lopez?

Yes.

Council Member Mendoza?

Yes.

Councilmember Fan? Yes. Mayor Prochanpeñalosa? Yes. Mayor Sarmiento? Yes. Great. Well, thank you, everybody. I certainly appreciate your time and your indulgence. At the very least, we got this done. So thank you to staff. Do we need a recess for five minutes, maybe, for us to regroup? Why don't we go ahead and recess for about five minutes and then we'll come back?

Yeah. Thank you. Hey, good job on that, ma'am.

Recording stopped.

OK. We got one. Christine's like, I don't care who it is.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 5

At least we're just talking.

I appreciate it. We did it. We walked away with one.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 5

What about your residence? What about your residence getting the cheapest?

You got someone, right? Yeah. Congratulations, yes. I just want to go well and then who's going to go? What do you mean?

You know, it was, I looked after the rest.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 5

By the way, what a great job, Bill. Remember, we started talking about this five years ago.

The public serves me and the essential.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 5

They serve me as a little bit. They just cost a lot more.

They're getting better. They're still tall the same.

It's the deal. You're still close somewhere in the middle of the corner, huh? Really? You're still in the house? Yeah. Yeah. I miss you.

public comment section right before consent calendar and I have some cards request to speak cards from folks that are in the public I think a lot of them may have left us already, but we may have some people on the line as well. So let me go through the speaker cards for people that are here.

Octavio Cesar Martinez.

How about Maria Fernandez?

Sarai Aupero.

Veronica Garcia.

Alejandra Luciano.

Catalina Iniestre. Iniestra, si la veo.

Bienvenida.

Muy buenas noches, señor alcalde. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

My name is Catalina Iniestra. I am resident of the city of Santana for more than 25 years. I am a volunteer volunteer group of Seily and a community of housing.

We have touched doors in our community and the problems that we are experiencing today, that we are experiencing, that we have been experiencing due to the pandemic,

where our residents and inquiries are being desalojated because, that unfortunately they have been left without work and that were affected by this pandemic.

Our situation is leading to a point where we are not going to be part of families living in the streets, because the owners and corporations are increasing with rent every six months. And even if a family has two or three jobs to solve this problem, we still have in these conditions that this pandemic has been to more empeorate the situation.

It is unacceptable that the demograph of Santana have already been in control of rent,

Thank you.

much in extra most lapwals desgraciadamente no estacen no escuchada y estamos siendo terriblemente afectados por esta situación de que las aumentos de renta no tienen control en esto necesitamos su apoyo gracias gracias

good evening mr mayor members of the city council My name is Catalina Iniestra. I've been a resident of Santa Ana for over 25 years. And I am a mom and a resident of Santa Ana, a leader in the Saley Group and a housing coordinator. We've been knocking on doors and there's a big issue of rent increases, which has only been worsened and more evident by the pandemic. People are being evicted. People are because they've lost their jobs due to the pandemic.

The situation is worsening and soon many of us might be part of the homeless population because the corporations and landlords are increasing our rents every six months. There are families with two and three jobs and even though they have two or three jobs, they're still under these conditions that have been worsened by the pandemic. We do not accept that this should be the case because in Santa Ana we do not have rent control,

so we urge you to schedule the first rent control meeting in September before the eviction moratoriums end. Thank you for listening to our voice because our voice has not been heard as of late. We have been affected by rent increases. Thank you for listening.

Thank you. Next speaker is Mireya, followed by Maria Ceja.

Good afternoon, good evening.

derechos y habilidades que los hombres y mujeres a quienes sirven ustedes. Con eso en mente, la vivienda es un derecho humano y nada de esto es nuevo y siempre hemos tenido el problema de las rentas muy altas y parece que hubo que pasar lo del COVID, desgraciadamente, para que ahora se ah magnifique más este problema que ya había existido antes y ustedes como mis empleados necesito que pongan en la agenda la primera lectura de la ordenanza de control de renta

y casa justa en la primera junta de septiembre y que sea aprobada antes que terminen las moratorias de emergencia ustedes como servidores públicos tienen la obligación y responsabilidad of protecting our families and avoid more strangen in our children to the living room. We want to help each other and help each other. Because right now, you may have a roof and are well economically, but in reality, the boat can be turned. And I hope honestly that no one of those will pass to you. Thank you. Good night.

Thank you.

Good evening. It's actually late at night now. My name is Mireya. I'm a Santa Ana resident and I'm here to speak for the voices of the people who cannot be here. I'm here to speak about rent control. and you're supposed to represent the people and the people who represent us you do not have more rights or more abilities than the people that you represent housing is a human right and there there's always been an issue of high rents in Santa Ana and it's sad to say that

COVID had to come to make this more manifest, to magnify this issue. And you, as my employees, I ask you to, and I'm telling you to place on the agenda for the first reading and the first meeting in September, something on rent control before the moratoria end. Your job is to protect the families and to avoid trauma being caused to the kids that would be suffering under these conditions. Right now you have a roof over your head, but the ship can shift at any time.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you. Maria Ceja, followed by Mesli Lopez, followed by Karen Rodriguez.

Good evening. My name is Maria Ceja. I am born and raised in Santana and I'm also a volunteer tenant counselor with Tenancy United Santana. So we're here today to provide a non-agendized comment for rent stabilization and just cost protections in the city. I mentioned that I was a volunteer tenant counselor and in the past year and almost, I should say almost a year and a half, I've been working with tenants on the ground and I've also canvassed different neighborhoods and different wards around the city talking to tenants firsthand about their experiences with

unjust rent increases and unjust evictions even through the pandemic and I just want to stay here that although there are state protections now I want to remind you all that they're temporary and they're going to be expiring within the next month. And I want to remind you that they're not enough. Like I said, they're temporary. And despite the state protections being in place, tenants are still being evicted as we speak. Also, I want to remind you that there are hundreds of applicants still waiting for CARES rental assistance funds. And I've spoken to people on the ground that are still waiting for this money

and still waiting for all of their rent to be paid or waiting to hear a response back from these applications. So I also want to state that the National Low Income Housing Coalition just published an out-of-reach report stating that it requires 89 hours for a minimum wage worker to afford a one-bedroom apartment in the nation. For Santana, it requires 104 hours for a minimum wage worker to afford a one-bedroom apartment. So that doesn't include people that make less than minimum wage in the city. As we know, we have a large undocumented immigrant population here who may work for less than minimum wage here in the city.

So please, I want to propose that you guys schedule a first reading for our proposed ordinance for the City of San Clemente Community Preservation, Rent Stabilization, and Terrence Rights Act because we know that we need permanent protections for renters in the city. This is a renter city, and we need them now. So thank you.

Thank you for that. mesley Lopez followed by Karen Rodriguez

good evening council members and mayor my name is mesh Lee Lopez and I work as student support specialist at Orange Coast College and I also volunteer my time with tenants United Santana which is a grassroots housing justice organization. I am also a resident of Ward 5, so Jonathan is my representative. And today I am addressing you on a non-agenda item. So like Maria and others mentioned before me, we are here to ask that you please agendize the first reading of our proposed grant control ordinance for the first meeting in September and that you arrive at a decision before the end of September, which is

when the state protections will expire. We know that the federal protections go until the end of October. However, those protections do not include just cause eviction protections, which the state does. And our ordinance includes rent control as well as just cause protections. I also wanted to highlight that this ordinance that we proposed to you all was written by the people and for the people with the help of the Public Law Center in the UCI legal clinic and that we've ensured that it's in accordance with all the state and

federal laws and moreover I just wanted to mention that this ordinance has been brought forth to you to your consideration several times since 2018 and as COVID-19 numbers are still on the rise and our community is still feeling the impacts of the pandemic it is more pressing than ever that we enact strong renter protections in our city and in the last year so we got these numbers from the san anna unified school district there are 5 000 children in the school district who participated in the mckinney vento program and for those of you who are not familiar with

this program it's a program specifically for students in the district who are homeless At the same time, there's 87% of the students in the school district that are considered economically disadvantaged. And aside from that, our city has the highest number of residents who are living below the federal poverty line. I think that coupled with the fact that we're a majority renter city is enough for us to be able to have an ordinance that protects renters in our city.

And I hope that you all do what's necessary to give us the rent control ordinance that we've been asking for, especially considering those demographics, which I just mentioned, many others that I don't have time to mention, and also the fact that there's 18 cities across the state that already have rent control. So there's absolutely no reason why we should not also have our own run control ordinance. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Karen Rodriguez followed by Karen Romero Estrada.

Karen Rodriguez. Karen Romero Estrada. Courtney Calderon. Ted Hancock. Excuse me, Mr. Hancock. Courtney Calderon is here and you'll follow her. Thanks.

Okay, so this is on the non-agenda item, but very similar to the folks before me. It has to do with rent control. And in this case, I will speak to all the council. Does the revenue made from your inaction worth the lives of the Santaneros? or as you may like to call them heroes or essential workers. But in reality, all that means is that these lives are dispensable to you because you are so unwilling to cancel rent and also not shut down downtown, right? Because revenue and strongly encouraging people to wear masks in these places

doesn't actually protect our workers the same way that having these ordinances put in place but no enforcement so that our people are not getting evicted is the same BS. there's no accountability. It's really frustrating that people are having to come tell you stats that you guys are very well aware of. Renters consist a lot of the city of Santa Ana consists of renters. That's something you guys are all very well aware of. Why are you guys not acting accordingly? If you don't have a backbone, Vicente, to shut down downtown because of revenue,

at least have the backbone to cancel rent. If you want to like use our lives so sacrificially, at least give us some money, no? We have children that are behind in school because they're underfunded schools. This is all connected. The same way that the 10-year contract that these solid waste companies are over here trying to bid, this is all connected. Stop acting like you have not been in politics for how many years? It's time to actually answer the cries of the people. They need rent control. Thank you. That's it.

Great. Thank you for that. Ted Hancock, followed by Abraham Moya.

Ladies and gentlemen, if I'd known what a momentous decision you had tonight, I would not have come here with a non-agenda item, but I did not, and I would have also brought a coat. I've been a co-owner of property here in San An for 30 years. We own a 121-year-old house, and in 2008, we replanted the grounds and flowers with no lawn. The co-owner developed asthma. We dug up the flowers a week ago, which brings me to the crux of why I'm here. I want to put down decorative rock on 80 to 90 percent of the ground.

lawns, I might add, in 1900, when the house was built, didn't exist. What you had in the front yard was a rose bush, a lilac bush, and some hollyhock, and that's what I want to put on the front of the yard today amongst the decorative rock. But Santa Ana has an ordinance limits rock coverage to 35 percent 65 percent must be planned perhaps this was reasonable when enacted today it's total inanity on the way here five hours ago on the news tonight

cbs announced that the metropolitan water district gave a surprise announcement of a 15 percent water cut the next stage will be allocation with fines like me Mendocino Oroville we all know what's happening to those water facilities we've been in a 10-year drought I say to you that I could be 50 years 100 years or 500 years which is a wink of time geologically and and we're also confronting climate change how many Santa Ana residents are at a juncture which I am and they're

ready to spend four to five thousand dollars to redo their yards I might add this is this building that I have is a law office here on Ross Street we've been been there for 30 years I offer you an opportunity to show all Santa Ana residents how beautiful a rock landscape can be to encourage others and therefore I need a waiver or an amendment to the current ordinance. Lastly on the way walking in here I saw drought tolerant grasses which you have right outside that's great but they require water and

And water and time will accrue to thousands of gallons of water, as opposed to a beautiful rock. I'm ready to work with any city planners to create a beautiful rock landscape with an absolute minimum of water usage. I await your decision. I'm holding up work right now on your decision. I'm not familiar with your decision-making process, and therefore I do not know how you will get back to me or what, or if this is just an act of free speech that I'm involved in. So that is my pitch.

Thank you, Mr. Hancock. Is there somebody on staff that might be able to maybe speak with Mr. Hancock in the lobby area there?

Thank you.

Thank you. Abraham Moya?

Desi Reyes? Victor Mendez?

Just give me a few seconds here, this rent control issue. Scroll down AB 1482. That's a statewide rent control law we have in place, which limits the increase to 5% plus CPI for any building 15 years or older. So before you spend all this energy on a rent control order, because I'm not debating as good or bad, why not look into how residents are being affected, protected? And if these residents are not being protected under that law, that's a problem. But I would encourage you to look at this and see if there is an impact to people and it's maybe not enough. But again, you have an existing state law in place,

and it's been a place for a couple of years that could be protecting these people, but maybe it's not being enforced. Thank you on that.

Give me a second here.

Anyway, I haven't seen any progress to date, and I know you've been a very busy council, and our city attorney has been busy from what I'm reading as well about the progress of Mr. Bracera's proposal on trying to find landlords who don't comply with our codes.

Uh, you know, a lot of people could be at risk right now. Seniors like myself, children in our residents and then a month. So I hope in the next couple of weeks we can see some type of scoping document that gets this ball rolling. And again, um, after a month, I'd expect to see something. I understand you guys have been pretty tied up. Um, but, um, you know, I don't want to see this die and I'm not intending to see it die. Uh, also regarding the city attorney's office, I continue to see this what appears to be a budgeted city attorney's position. 15 FTEs were budgeted in 2017 when they had an actual allotment for a

city attorney position, and that same number of changes is still the same. So I don't know what's going on there. I first thought it was errata, but right now it's concern, and I'm not going to let that one go either. So somebody should just look into it and resolve it, get the money out of there. If this has been going on for like 20 years, I'm not kidding you, 20 years of budgeting has been done the same way and there could be money just sitting there waiting to be plucked out of the general fund and put somewhere else. Along that way I was very distraught to read that article in the voice of OC. It was just disappointing to

me to see how our issues are being aired in public particularly when I consider issues of confidentiality and I just think we're better than that and we have better ways of resolving our issues and our disputes among you know you know internally and not to air it out in the voice of OC. Candidly, it read like a National Enquirer article, and I would just assume we do things a little bit better next time. It also makes me wonder how our city attorney is spending her time if she can't get the policy, but she has plenty of time to spend with the voice of OC on some type of scandal.

I did attend the police commission

meeting, and I thought that was very well handled. Real simple. It came down to just a few points we need to keep in mind. Behavior, performance, accountability, and building trust. I don't think it's that complicated. It really isn't. We don't have to scope models. We don't have to go back and forth. Think of those parameters, and you have yourself a very effective police commission. Item 23, you continue to allow contingencies to be budgeted into contracts. $906,000 in this item 23, the logic is simply lost in the citizen. Why you want to continue to do that when you're arguing for money,

like things on our robes and stop signs, et cetera. But the issue, like I said, the logic's lost, but the issue remains open for me. And this is really for you as a council to figure out. Number 36.

Victor, if you can wrap it up, your light's red.

Item 36, one word, outstanding. Thank you, Council Member Hernandez, for getting that going on the child care. And lastly, number 40, I would only ask on this pension issue that you find out what the flow of funds will be on this. Is it yearly? Is it annually? Is it something that's done at the end? you may get hit with a bill you don't expect. So I would just simply- Thank you, Victor. Due to due diligence. Thank you. Thank you.

Joshua Gonzalez, Tim Rush, Idalia Rios,

Jose, oh, Idalia Rios, followed by Jose Hernandez.

Good evening.

Good evening. Se me olvidó. Se me olvidó su...

Alcalde. Alcalde. Buenas noches, alcalde, concejales. La verdad es que ya es un poquito tarde y no pensé que fuera a tardar tanto tiempo, pero decidí quedarme porque sé que tengo el privilegio de estar aquí y que otras mamás no tienen, que otros papás no tienen. so I'm here to ask you to put the language of rent control in the first week of September as I mentioned, I'm a father leader and I have a lot of clothes that I would like to put in this moment but the most important thing is the mom

and I'm talking about mom because I think many of you are parents, are moms and they are working here because they want the best for their families, or for their children. So, as they want the best for their children, the families of Santana deserve a place where they live. At the beginning of the meeting, when they gave the certificates, the young people recognized the investment that the school district has had with them. And that's why there is a celebration at the national level, because it has recognized the work of the investment that there was with those students.

I ask you, are you going to invest in your residents? Really, the heart of you is in the way that your citizens have a place where they live? We are not asking you to have a place where they live. Simplemente que puedan permanecer en sus hogares. La vivienda es una necesidad básica, ya no es un lujo, es una necesidad básica. Y si ustedes pueden decidir realmente por el bienestar de las familias de Santana, háganlo, porque es una inversión que en un futuro se va a poder celebrar. Muchísimas gracias. Gracias.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. And I know it's late, but I decided to stay because I realized it is a privilege to be here because other moms cannot be here, other dads cannot be here. And I'm here to ask that you put to first reading on the first week in September this ordinance for rent control. I'm here to wear many hats in the community, but the most important one is the one as a mom. And I have, again, I have many, as

many parents you want the best for your children as well. And likewise, the Santa Ana families deserve a roof over their heads. When they were giving the certificates earlier this evening to the young ladies, they recognized the investment that the district had made on them and on their program. And their success has been recognized nationally because of the investment made in their youth. So my question for you is are you going to invest in your residents? Are you going to invest so that they can have a roof over their heads? We're not talking about any dignified roof, just something over their

heads. Housing is a basic human need, human right, so you need to invest in Santa Ana residents so in the future we can all have something to celebrate.

Thank you. Jose Hernandez.

this. Happy to be back. The last time I was here I gave Jose's greatest hits. Back then was district elections, which was a campaign that I helped lead with the organization and coalition that I was with, as well as community benefits ordinance and rent control. So happy to see that district elections has taken place because I believe that it's gotten us the most progressive council in the 10 years that I've been paying attention and perhaps ever. We have Latinos, we have women, and we have progressive champions. So I'm happy for that.

I'm most happy that we have a new mayor that is much more open and I can go on. the differences between what was and what is. But I remember when I first came here, when I was part of Occupy. And yeah, definitely came with a lot of energy and a lot of passion and like yelling and like do this and do that. And then we got voted down. So I'll never forget that, Mayor Sarmiento.

It's, you know, like what has changed, what has allowed me to, you know, as I've gotten older, is that change takes time, but also that we need to be able to advocate and work with the city council and reach out when we can, call in as often as we can. I feel sometimes that there's a disconnect and there's a need to want to do things now when it's like, you know, just bureaucracy, it's messy and it takes some time. so you know I see that now and I'm just speaking for myself but I do want to mention and highlight that rent control is very much a thing that that must

happen here in the city of Santana so as mentioned before AB 1482 is is a reality and it has helped a lot but we still have a long way to go we can make it our own here we need to create a rent control board that you know manages disputes and allows for these things to happen and make landlords happy and make renters happy and make everybody happy because, you know, not all landlords are slumlords and not all tenants are good tenants. You know, there's just, you know, the nuance, right? So I want to just mention quickly that I'm glad that a new waste management or, you know, new trash disposal service has been chosen.

and I believe that, you know, I'm happy that a lot of research was done by everybody here.

But yeah, you know, I definitely believe that we need to continue to advocate for our children, for our youth, you know, as much as we can, enforcing the community policing and really trying to think outside the box of what public safety looks like in our city and throwing more money at the police and thinking that we're going to do, like make everything safe just by more boots on the ground is just not has been shown that that's not the way to go by being more proactive is is that's how we're going to do it and I want to say I'm so happy that you know we don't have that thing that frisks uh children and and women and

older women when they came in I thought that was so stupid and I I mentioned that all the time that I was so angry every time I had to come in here and had to be patted down like I was a criminal So I'm glad that that's gone and I'm glad that we'll need those gone and I'm happy that we have a council at least that that's willing to listen and we might not agree with every one of you up there but I do believe that for the most part you have the best interests of your residents at heart and perhaps we disagree on the way to get to where we want to get to but you know I'm willing

to work with anybody and that that is willing to work you know for the betterment and improvement of my people my communities that are struggling and will continue to struggle past this pandemic. So thank you very much. Thank you for those comments.

And I think that was our last in-person speaker. Madam Clerk, do we have anybody on the line that

wishes to address us? Yes, Mayor and members of the council. We do have several. And before I start unmuting the callers that we have on the call or on Zoom, we also received Britain communication. Two Santa Ana resident on non-agenda items commented on the saddleback view transient issues. One non-Santa Ana resident adopted requested to adopt the climate change resolution. Seven Santa Ana residents commented to agendize the rent control tenants right act. Item number 13, Willowick update, one Santa Ana resident,

a member of Rise Up Willowick Coalition commented on various issues with updating the staff report. Item number 27, the towing company agreements, one Santa Ana resident was in opposition. And that's all I have for written communication.

communication call zoom id kaylee levitt if you would please select the microphone icon on your device

hello can you hear me yes we could hear you you may proceed with your comment thank you

great hello mayor and members of the council i am speaking as a volunteer of tenants united Santana and I want to thank all of the council members for being open and willing to consider rent control and all of the uh asks that we've had throughout the pandemic um I want to echo the what has been previously said that this council's receptiveness and thoughtfulness of the community is so appreciated and is so important. I also wanted to just speak to the AB 1482 concerns

that some people have brought up just in case others are wondering as well, which is that AB 1482 actually sunsets after 10 years, which means it's not permanent. And it also still allows for an 8.3% rent increase, which is way too high for residents here in Santana were already extremely rent burdened, which means they spend more than 50% of their income on rent. And I also want to echo the out of reach report shared, which actually stated that here in Santana,

minimum wage workers would need to work 104 hours per week to afford a modest one bedroom apartment, which is so high already. So asking residents to shoulder additional rent increases on top of an already extreme situation for housing that we currently have just for a one-bedroom apartment is already asking a lot. So 8.3% is too high. And this is not even considering that many people are already making below minimum wage. so that number is even higher for them.

So I wanted to share that as well as share that our ordinance creates a rent board, our proposed ordinance, which helps provide representation, manage disputes, and enforce the ordinance, which AB 1482 lacks. And our ordinance also includes mobile home protections, which is a huge demographic in the city, specifically for folks who are on a fixed income.

And our ordinance also provides language justice protections, which currently throughout the pandemic, so much of renters rights have relied on tenants communicating to their landlords and landlords have been communicating in predominantly English, even important things like eviction notices. So and it was also on landlords to actually let tenants know their rights. 15 seconds left. I just wanted to share that we need protections now and our ordinance provides a baseline baseline of protections specific to the residents here in Santa Ana. Thank you for your time.

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

Yes hello can you hear me? Yes we can hear you you may proceed with your comment thank you.

Excellent. Thank you. This is Victor from Media Arts Santa Ana. Great to talk to you all again. And I wanted to say that I know it's a long meeting, so I'll keep this short, but we're in synergy on a couple of things with my statement today. i wanted to first uh be excited that you guys are declaring this chicano heritage month because the chicano community goes you know back hundreds of years here in the united states and in california and this saturday 11 30 we are actually having a producer on zoom as part of our millennial producers academy uh alison soto mayor who is the producer of a documentary about oscar seta

acosta the legendary chicano lawyer activist uh the rise and fall of the brown buffalo and she's also producer of Bridging the Divide, Tom Bradley and the Politics of Race about LA Mayor Tom Bradley. So she'll be speaking about her career and encouraging people to pivot to digital media production to address the issues of their lives, such as the recall that we have going on. And it's very important to empower our community. So we want to invite everybody to go to www.masamedia.org and register. It's at 1130 on Saturday. It's free. And she lives in O.C. She's an O.C. filmmaker.

And you can stream both of the films I mentioned on canopy.com, which you access via a library card. The second thing is that we are having our 12th O.C. film fiesta, October 12th through 24th. It will be a virtual hybrid festival. And we have some great submissions. and we have early bird tickets on sale which you can also get at masamedia.org and ocfilmfiesta.org we're thrilled that the santa ana artist collective was recognized by skag versus the sustainability award because this was before a lot of your time but i know that mayor sarmiento

was there media arts santa ana and united artists of santa ana were actually two of the driving organizations behind creating affordable artists housing and demonstrating that artists were a preferred class in affordable housing and we knew in our advocacy with the city and we actually said this that it would make a transformative difference that innovative developers would seize at the opportunity and we even said and it'll be garnering awards and it we're like happy to see that it did that santa ana was at the forefront because we worked together We're very excited about that and the public good that it did.

And I want to also talk about agenda item nine, the cannabis funding, because, you know, I looked at the proposal or the which you guys have slated for the expenses, and I still don't see the arts in there. I know that the arts were originally was supposed to be one of the categories that was funded by cannabis.

15 seconds left.

And I think that there's still a way for youth to be served through the arts, hiring instructors, professional development. And I'd like to have a meeting with somebody to ask who I could meet with to discuss possibilities within the framework of serving youth that we could come to the middle and really, really help suit for charge the arts field. Thank you. So I want to ask who I could have a meeting with.

Thank you. Caller ID Daisy, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device to unmute your call.

Thank you. You may proceed with your comment.

Can you hear me? Yes, we could hear you. You may proceed with your comment.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, City Council, and community members here today. My name is Daisy and I'm with the Kennedy Commission and I'm here in support of community members ordinance for rent control as previously mentioned. More than half of Santana's residents are tenants and the pandemic has only worsened the housing needs that already existed in the city of Santana long before the pandemic. across Santana's more than 40,000 render households 61.2% spend 30% or more of their gross income on housing costs.

Additionally, 28.9% spend 50% or more of their gross income on housing costs. We urge you to listen to community members, community needs that would protect tenants. Please include this ordinance as an agenda item at the beginning of September. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Zoom ID Nathaniel Greenside, if you can please select the microphone icon. Thank you. You may proceed with your comment.

I am Nathaniel Greensides, Ward 3 resident, soon to move back to Ward 5. I have been paying $1,375 a month for a 530 square foot apartment on North Tustin Avenue, the village apartments to be exact. My lease is expiring at the end of this month, and the management sent me a letter listing out my three options. Option one, renew the lease for another year with a rent increase of 8%. Option two, switch to a month-to-month contract at a 19% increase. Or option three, I can give 30-day notice and move out and start the annoyingly expensive process of moving elsewhere.

I should note that AB 1482 sunsets in 2030 under the assumption that somehow rental flutability in California will be resolved by then. Additionally, AB 1482's enforcement mechanism is to fight the landlord in the UD process. i doubt that those who have touted the benefits of ab 1482 have not have struck have not struggled as i have to assist tenants with being evicted and navigating the court process to stay housed using ab 1482 as their defense even a lower five percent max increase on a two bedroom here in santa anna renting at 2500 would mean 127 dollars less per month for a family to feed and provide

for their kids any attempts to try and negotiate lower rents for many if not most or all santaneros are ill-fated. Many low-income, multi-generational, mixed-status, non-native English-speaking households and families wind up being pushed out and priced out of our city, even when they know their rights as tenants. For families with kids in school, displacement is devastating, not just to the child who is uprooted from their schooling, but also for the schools and communities where funding is directly related to the number of students enrolled at the school. For a city whose motto

is education first it's wild to me that there exists no city-wide protections to ensure stability in our public schools hidden talent cannot thrive if our students and educators families are constantly struggling to keep up with ever-increasing rents the proposed ordinance called community preservation rent stabilization and tenants rights act that was drafted by tenants united santa anna was born out of community input and also contains findings regarding the massive displacement and evictions that have taken place since the start of the covid 19 pandemic despite

the eviction moratoriums and protections landlords hold a monopoly on rents in our city and always fail to justify rent increases with an equal increase in the quality and or supply of housing tenants in our city has been seeing their rents increase with all sorts of fake reasons provided by landlords which i outlined in my written e-comment that i submitted earlier today But the real reason that rents are increasing is because landlords are choosing to increase rents, thus prioritizing their own profits over our people. The ability of landlords to easily displace and destabilize our communities is unjust, to say the least.

Enacting rent stabilization and tenant protections in our city before the pandemic protections end in September will ensure that this destabilization is prohibited moving forward. 15 seconds left. We'll also ensure the success of future generations of Santaneros who have been here and want to remain. Have a good night.

Thank you.

Zoom ID, Yoselinda Mendoza, if you would please select the microphone icon. Thank you. You may proceed with your comment.

Thank you. My name is Yossi and I'm a volunteer Tenants Rights Counselor for Tenants United Santana. and I'm commenting on a non-agenda item. I am urging you all to pass the City of Santana Community Preservation, Rent Stabilization, and Tenant Rights Act, which will provide immediate and permanent relief for a lot of residents here in Santana so that landlords cannot increase rent by more than 3% for a lot of residents here in Santana. It's also going to provide just-cause eviction protections for all renters in the city. I'm urging you all to do this because residents in Santa Ana

have been incredibly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. As a volunteer counselor for over a year and also sharing previous comments made before, I've had many cases where renters, many single mothers, many who work in domestic care have now lost their jobs or now work literal hours because of the pandemic. These mothers have been in survival mode trying to beat the basic needs for their children while trying to keep their families housed. And it takes so much work for them to be protected under these emergency temporary COVID-19 housing protections. They have to navigate complicated and changing laws, navigate how to formally send

declaration forms of financial distress, and then navigate in how to formally apply for rental assistance. It's an exhausting and super slow process. They're also trying to catch up on rent and taking on a lot of rent debt, and at the same time experiencing predatory rent increases. Although there are these emergency housing protections during the pandemic, many renters are still being evicted for reasons not protected under the law. And it's very important to stress that these protections are going to end very soon. This ordinance would provide immediate and permanent relief for residents in Santana.

So I'm asking you all to please agendize the first reading of the proposed ordinance no later than the first city council meeting in September. And to enact the rent control before emergency housing protections expire in September of 30th, 2021. Thank you.

Thank you.

zoom id alondra salazar if you would please select the microphone icon on your device to unmute your call

hello can you hear me yes we can hear you you may proceed with your comment

good evening council my name is alondra i was born and raised in santana and i would like to to comment on a non-agendized item. I specifically wanna comment to urge you city council to agendize the first reading of our rent control ordinance at the September meeting. As COVID-19 infection numbers are on the rise again and our community is still attempting to recover the impact of the ongoing pandemic, we ask the Sanana City Council prioritize community-based solutions to address the housing crisis. A coalition of community organizations under the guidance of tenants United Santana have proposed to the city council

So an ordinance that would limit rent increases to a max of 3% once a year, to residents who lease land below their mobile homes and residents who rent inside of multifamily building built prior to 1995. Likewise, this ordinance would extend just cause eviction and protections to our renters in the city. Under the state of California's emergency housing policies, we currently have similar just cause protections, but these are set to expire at the end of September. With this in mind and with the knowledge that our community has been disproportionately impacted

by COVID, we request that the city council act boldly and swiftly to enact rent control and just cause as soon as possible. Specifically arriving to a vote on the ordinance by no later than the end of September. It's an urgent matter that must not be put off any longer. Although we applaud your efforts to amend the housing opportunity ordinance and to bring to Santana more affordable housing, these moves are insufficient to ensure housing stability for our most vulnerable residents and to help our community weather the aftermath of COVID-19. It's uncomfortable that given our

demographics and plan doesn't already have rent control like other cities across the state. 18 cities across the state already have their own version of rent control. Renters with rent debt and renters who have exhausted their savings to prevent rent debt cannot shoulder excessive rent increases any longer or they will be permanently displayed in our city. Please address the first meeting of our proposed ordinance no later than the first state council meeting in September and arrive at a decision before emergency protections expire at the state level this ordinance will be one mechanisms by which we can give renters a fighting

chance to stay housed and prevent further displacement and destabilization of our community thank you

thank you zoom id jesus santana if you would please select the microphone icon to unmute your device

hello mayor sarmiento and city council members my name is jesus santana i'm a proud born and and raised Santanero who has lived in current day war 2 for over 18 years. I'm a volunteer with Tu Santana and I'm also supporting a community called the Sullivan community with a resident led group named Sullivan Accion. But I'm here today making a public comment on a non-agendized item. But before I mention the item that many of my peers, neighbors and community members have already mentioned, I would like to start off by saying that it has been great to see

the Santana speech and debate students born and raised, entrepreneurs along with local businesses be awarded for all the hard work they are they have accomplished and conducted to put our beautiful city of santana on the map uh congratulations and i just want to say thank you i do have a question for everyone though a question that perhaps we have slightly missed but one that is immensely important to the success everyone has been able to achieve personally being the youngest from a family of eight siblings and being the only one born with the privilege of having papers or as

many of our community members call Pateles. The question that I would like for you all to ask is, when are we going to reward the hardworking, most impacted and vulnerable, low-income, undocumented community members who to this day are struggling to pay their rent due to the unexpected effects derived from the COVID-19 pandemic, which only were exacerbated? So for me, it's super important for me to highlight the issues of intentional displacement, which has been an issue that's been going on way before the COVID-19 pandemic. To many of us, these are our

parents, our siblings, our kids, and our families. More importantly, right now, it's our Santana community. You know how we can start rewarding them? Easy. During the first week of September, when the rent control ordinance is agendized, please vote in favor of the two Santana proposed ordinance called the City of Santana Community Preservation, Rent Stabilization, and Tenants' rights act. It is our duty as Santa Netics to protect our most impacted and vulnerable community members. Mayor and Council members, I implore you that please, please protect our loved ones. Do this for the youth and students who you awarded earlier and those

who are yet to come. For the people who have been impacted by their inability to find a job due to their immigration status. For the people who are doing all they can to pay their rent. For the people in danger of being displaced and being gentrified due to the existing opportunity zones within our city for the people experiencing mental health issues because of the unfair and unjust actions of property owners and management who do not care about our families because to them we are only dollar symbols again let's make sure we remind those cruel and unfair property owners

as the proud santa netics that we are santa ana no se vende santa ana is not for sale like cesar Medina a resident leader who I support the Nuestro Libranian Action Group. En Santana se puede vivir mejor and I would like to add en Santana se debe vivir mejor. Thank you all so much have a great night. Thank you.

Zoom ID Carla Juarez if you can please select the microphone icon on your device to unmute your call.

Gracias. Buenas tardes. Mi nombre es Carla Juárez y soy del Distrito 4. Vivo en Santana y también trabajo en Santana. Y muchos de nosotros estamos aquí, no porque queremos, pero es más bien por necesidad y porque tenemos miedo de que perdamos nuestro hogar or that families, friends, lose their home. I want to let you know, the developments that are in the line of line to be built are the following.

This is information that you can receive from the general plan. The units for low income are 529 and for super low income are 414. For families with moderate income, 2 units. And for families with low income,

8,154 units. 8,154 units. For families with moderate income, super por encima del ingreso moderado. Cuando dijimos que queremos mejorar nuestra comunidad, no nos referimos que queremos que nos reemplacen con familias de altos ingresos. ¿Dónde está la consideración o la empatía?

Saben muy bien que su comunidad está encargada y cargados de renta. And again, 8,154 units and 1,000 for low income and low income, 500 and 500. We need protection of the inquilinos. The rent control is already been paid for many years. but it was a few years, it was almost 600 firms that made us a mistake. And only because residents with papers can sign, although we know that many of our communities are not documents.

The most vulnerable families are the ones with children and children, and people of third age, that they don't easily find something to rent, Even a garage, a closet, no rent them. The protections are needed now, because as we see, tomorrow will not have a house for us and us. otras otra vez las unidades de extremamente altos ingresos es ocho mil ciento cincuenta y cuatro y

menos de mil va a haber para las familias de bajos y extremamente estupados ingresos los tejidos de la comunidad se van con esas familias que ustedes corren porque están tratando de hacer más dinero okay somehow

somehow somehow somehow somehow somehow somehow somehow somehow somehow somehow somehow somehow somehow somehow

somehow somehow

somehow somehow somehow

somehow

somehow somehow somehow somehow somehow somehow somehow somehow somehow somehow somehow somehow Thank you. You may proceed with your comment.

May I interpret?

Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Thank you.

Yes.

One second.

Thank you for listening. My name is Carla Juarez. I'm a resident of Ward 4 in Santa Ana. I live in Santa Ana and I work in Santa Ana. And there are many, we spend many hours here. We want the best. We're here for many hours, not because we want to be, but because we need to, because we're afraid to lose our home, either ourselves or our friends, our relatives, or our family. Just to let you know, in the developers pipeline, according to the general plan, on low income,

for low income people you have 529 units. Extremely low income you have 414 units. Moderate income you have 2 units but for high income or over moderate income you have 8154 units. That's 800-154 units. And this is for families with extra high income. When we said we wanted to improve their community, we didn't mean this. We didn't mean that we wanted to be replaced with high income families. Is this empathy? This is not empathy. We need rent control in our city.

We need rent control because over, we have 8,154 units are available for high income people, less than 1,000 for low income and extremely low income. We need rent control now. We almost achieved that years ago, but we couldn't because we just missed the signature count by just a few, and because only people with papers can sign. We need to protect the more vulnerable, the young people, the seniors. It's not easy for them to find a home or to rent a room or even a closet to rent.

We need to protect our people now. Again, the units were extremely high income people are 8,154, less than 1,000 for low income and extremely low income people. That's why our community is leaving and this is creating, the people who created Santa Ana are leaving and this trauma caused by having to move stays with us our whole life.

Thank you. Zoom ID, Sylvia Hernandez, if you would please select the microphone icon. Thank you. You may proceed with your comment.

but my neighbors.

I'm in a very poor neighborhood, with many problems,

where stories like the Don Chuy, they don't have to occur. Don Chuy, my neighbor, has 30 years lived here, in Chestnut and Hickory, and he was sick of COVID, and his wife had diabetes also. He had to take his savings, what he had to pay for all his life because he thought he would die when he was in the hospital to pay the rent two months ahead of the owner told him if he didn't pay you're out to protect his wife. His wife died and he survived, but he stayed without the money.

The story of the other neighbor who had to sleep in the car because he couldn't be in when we acquired COVID for the confinement, we were surrounded. Because, not because we want, but because we can't pay a house every one of us. My children deserve their place. Someone asked me what I would like to say, and I said, that my children have their own place to live. I would like to say that. They work two and three other jobs, and even gaining 14 dollars, they don't have to pay the rent.

I have 62 years and I am this year for the first time without working and battling and helping us in the community. I am here to ask that they put in the agenda, in the next agenda of this council, the proposal of the order for that vote for it, yes, and protect all residents, is that we are most part of the most working families,

that we are cooperating with the economy of this condado, of this place. As I said before, the workers live here. So it is urgent to put the proposal. The protection of the disaster is coming on September 30th. After that, there is no way to support any law.

thank you good evening um Mayor and City Council members, my name is Sylvia Hernandez. I live in the East Side neighborhood in Santa Ana for over 27 years. And I'm here because I'm concerned not only for my family, for myself and my family, but also my neighbors. We live in a poor neighborhood with lots of problems, and we don't want something to happen to us like it happened to Don Chuy. Don Chui has been a resident of 30 years in Chestnut and Hickory and he had he came down with COVID and his wife had COVID and had diabetes as well and he

had to spend his life savings to pay for two months of rent ahead of time because the the landlord said that he had to pay that ahead of time to protect his wife otherwise he would be they would be evicted so his wife died he survived but he lost his life savings or the case of another lady who had to sleep in her car because he had covid and she lived in an overcrowded situation in which she could not be near the other people who were living there living there because we live in those conditions not because we want to but because we have to and I want my kids to have their own place somebody asked me the

other day what's my wish my wishes for my kids to have their own place right now that we they work two and three jobs some of them make make $14 an hour but that's not enough to pay for rent I right now it's the first time I don't have a job and I'm here to request that you place on the agenda at the next agenda the ordinance and to vote yes to protect the residents of Santa Ana the people the hard-working people who are responsible for this the economy to keep the economy going in this county and put to place the item on the agenda

the agenda the next meeting in September we need to enact protections now because the protections end in in September so please do the right thing and place the ordinance on the agenda to protect the over half of the 350,000 people who are renters in Santa Ana.

Thank you. Zoom ID, Luis Tonali, if you would please select the microphone icon to unmute your device.

Hello.

Hi, thank you.

and I'm speaking as a renter. I have a 40-hour minimum wage job and that's not really enough to pay for rent. I am living with my brother and my mom and we're renting out a place because we can't really live apart.

I also have another job as a teacher,

and I want to be able to be more of an inspiration, be more of a, well, I don't know,

be a stronger role model and feel like I'm actually making my own life. And I don't feel like I'm doing that. I don't feel like I'm in a place where I can be as strong as possible for myself and for the other people in my life, which are my students, my family members, and my friends. A lot of us don't have the opportunity to be living as strongly as possible.

So I would urge you all to help us step forward to that place. And I think that ordinance would be a good start. Thank you.

Thank you. Zoom ID David Carvajal, if you would please select the microphone icon to unmute your device and proceed. Thank you. you may proceed with your comment.

Hi, good evening, City Council. My name is David Carvajal. I am a lifetime resident of Ward 2, and I also work in public health.

Just echoing the different comments that other volunteers of Tenancy United Santana have made, as well as community members and those that had to go home tonight because it's already almost midnight. Just echoing right that we really need rent control in Santana. All of you should be familiar with the ASK, the City of Santana Community Preservation, Rent Stabilization and Tenants Rights Act. We know that statewide protections end at the end of September. And so it's really urgent that you all kind of put this

on the agenda as soon as possible. You know, hundreds of people, hundreds of applicants are still waiting for the distribution of rental relief funds. Landlords are already filing eviction cases in court. Just a few weeks ago, we talked to a couple of tenants. I personally talked to a couple of tenants, one whose husband has end-stage renal disease and hasn't been able to work. um she and then she lost her job recently due to you know having COVID over a year ago

um and then just in that same building I talked to another tenant who you know whose family um hasn't been able to pay rent in over a year um and she received uh an eviction notice um completely in English right when she she doesn't speak English so like these are things that we're seeing day to day these are things that nobody's telling us right we're seeing it ourselves and so it's really important that we we look at this with a sense of urgency um you know we look at if kovat taught us anything is that housing means health care right the housing equals health care

and so you know we look at we look at housing as a public health crisis right we talk about housing around the country as a public health crisis and a really good way to mitigate this crisis is rent stabilization right and so we want to reduce if we want to reduce harm you know we have to make sure that we're doing and we're taking the correct steps to do that and so this ordinance is that right this ordinance is that step in the right direction and so I'm urging you to really do your best you know to to put this on the agenda as soon as possible so that we can have protections that go beyond September 30th

and that we start prioritizing a majority renter city. The majority of the constituencies of Santana is renters and so our policies need to reflect that. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Mayor, that was the last speaker.

Great, thank you. So we've come to the end of the public comment section And I believe and I understand from staff that there's only a few time-sensitive items that we could cover tonight, and it being close to midnight. It's been a very long night, and there have been a lot of items that were pulled off the consent calendar in addition to some of the additional items that we have on the business calendar. My recommendation would be, if the council is agreeable, that we take up the two time-sensitive items that are on the regular calendar, and I believe the items on the housing authority and move everything to the following meeting

if that's okay with all of you.

Phil BacerraItem 5

That'd be fine with me.

Do we need a motion for that?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 5

It really is a prerogative of the chair if you want to do that, but if you'd like to continue those items, you can take a motion.

Okay, and since we see that from staff that there's only those few items that are time-sensitive, why don't we take those up? I understand that the two time sensitive items on the regular calendar are number 37 and number 40 So why don't we take up number 37 and all those items that people pulled off the consent reappear? Obviously at the following at the following council meeting This mayor do we need a motion to move the balance? I think she I think the the city attorney said that as a prerogative of the chair I can go ahead and just continue the balance of that. That's okay. I see some nodding heads. It's late

I see, unfortunately, a lot of nodding heads falling asleep as well in the audience, which is why I think it might be best for us not to do our work in the middle of the night.

So, with the Council's indulgence, I'll go ahead and move to those two time-sensitive items. And the first one is, I believe, an item that was pulled by Council Member Fan, if she's still with us, and that's Item Number 37.

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

Hi, Mayor. um yes i'm still here it's 2 45 in new york so i know you're not going to oppose the the the shortening of the meeting for you definitely not um so i just really had a question about admin sure obviously um well you know the agreement itself went out a bit before my time and And I guess my question is just kind of, if you can give me a little bit of history on this. I've heard, you know, I had some employees kind of reach out and said they've had issues with it

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

or they knew people who have had issues with admin sure not being timely with reviewing or granting requests.

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

Has, you know, any of the management heard about that or experienced that issue? And how was it resolved?

Thank you, Councilmember Pham, for the question. This item was done by request for proposal back in September of 2018. And what we have found is that the customer service had improved and the specialized skills and certification that they offered to do our third processing of our claims actually had improved services. I'm unaware of any complaints regarding customer service. And they deal with employees. They deal with constituents. ones, they deal with medical offices. We do have Samantha here from the Human Resources Department, so I can ask her to come up to see if she's aware of any complaints from employees regarding claims.

They do the processing for workers' comp, but they also do the processing for general liability. So the population is not just employees. But Samantha, can you comment as to if you're aware of any employees having issues? Step right up there. Thank you.

Good evening. The complaints that I'm aware of occurred previously and it was due to primarily delayed response to inquiries regarding their claim, but those have since been addressed with Admin Shure. Another type of complaint is those regarding workers' comp claims where the injured worker's claim may be delayed or denied and the injured worker is inquiring about that status and hoping to expedite the claim.

But with delayed claims, they go through an investigation process, which the state has provided a guideline which gives the city of Santa Ana and any employer 90 days to investigate. So it's more of the timeliness in the replies back to the phone calls to the injured workers. But that has been addressed with AdminSure, and they have improved.

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

Thank you. That is really helpful. I'm glad to hear that.

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

I know I have people in my life who have struggled to get workers' comp or other claims addressed. And it's scary because you're hurt. And it's scary because you need to pay your bills. So I'm glad to hear that it's improved. I am supportive of this item. I just want to make sure that if there are any issues with administering, meaning if they're just overlooking claims, not being responsive, that we do hold their feet to the fire.

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

But if it's something where, you know, we're just going through the typical investigative process, then I'm obviously not too worried about that as much. With that, I'll move to support this item. Thank you.

I'll second. I'll second with comment. Go ahead, Councilmember.

Phil BacerraItem 5

I just want to thank Councilmember Fan for bringing this up. I had heard some of those concerns as well. So thank you, Councilmember Fan, for doing that, and I'll continue to second the motion.

Any other comments or questions from the Council?

Jessie LopezItem 5

I do have a question, Mayor Sardvandau.

Sure.

Jessie LopezItem 5

Why is this considered an urgent item that we have to vote on tonight?

Councilmember Lopez, the current agreement expires the end of August.

Jessie LopezItem 5

The end of August? Yes. So this is something that we talked about in the past. I remember, you know, Council Member Becerra saying, like, don't bring these types of agreements last minute to us.

Jessie LopezItem 5

I feel like that's happening again with this being considered urgent because the agreement expires the end of August.

Correct. So this is your, it's August 17th. This is your last meeting that falls within August, but duly noted on your concerns.

Any other questions or comments? Madam Clerk.

Thank you. So it appears all of the members of the council should be able to vote. The only concern I have is as a mayor, it looks like, so I think it might just be safe just to go ahead and do a roll call. Let's just do a roll call. We only have a few more items. Let's just do oral. Okay. Council Member Becerra?

Yes.

Council Member Hernandez? Yes. Council Member Lopez?

Councilmember Lopez? Yes. Councilmember Mendoza? Yes. Councilmember Fan? Yes. Mayor Pro Tempeñalosa?

Yes.

And Mayor Sarmiento?

Yes. Thank you. Moving along to the next time-sensitive item, which is the first item on the business calendar. that's number 40 that's the resolution for the bonds to refund the certain pension obligations so I'm not sure if we need any explanation do you want to

give a brief overview on that or I'm sure and then we have our finance director as well as our consultant to answer questions so we've brought this item before you we've given you a timeline with the critical steps necessary this is the next step which is the resolution authorizing the actual issuance and refinancing of the city's pension obligations with California Public Employees Retirement System. It is estimated to produce savings at around $145 million over the life of the pension bonds. And if you would like more information, I do know that Kat has a brief presentation,

or we can just take questions, whatever is your pleasure.

What's the appetite for the council? I mean, this is just the next step in what we've seen in refinancing our pension obligations. Does anybody need a quick refresher on this?

Jessie LopezItem 5

I don't, and I don't have any questions either.

All right.

Jessie LopezItem 5

I don't know where I think Dr. Downs has done a great job.

Yeah, thank you for that, and it was pretty comprehensive in the staff report as well.

If I could just make one comment, Maris. I just want to extend appreciation and gratitude to Kat and her finance team. She's been doing a lot of heavy lifting on this, and we did receive a credit rating, which was very good, a double A for the city for these pensions, which is going to result in an interest rate that we anticipate is going to be 2.6?

2.67, maybe? Which is a great. Yeah, with $145 million of savings.

so well the city manager just stole my thunder on one of the items I was going to mention in my public comments but I'm glad I'm glad we're able to do it here thank you congrats good work is there a motion I'll make a motion to approve mayor cinnamon second we have a motion in a second madam clerk councilmember

Becerra yes councilmember Hernandez yes councilmember Lopez yes councilmember Mendoza yes councilmember fan yes mayor pro tempeñalosa yes mayor sarmiento yes great work

everybody congrats to the staff on that let me uh go ahead and move along to the special housing authority uh calendar items we're going to recess the city council to convene the special housing authority meeting uh hereby call the meeting to order and madam clerk if you'll please conduct

roll call. Authority member Becerra? Here. Authority member Hernandez? Here. Authority member Lopez? Here. Authority member Mendoza? Here. Authority member Fan? Here. Vice chair

Peñalosa? Here. And chair Sarmiento? Here. Madam clerk do we have any speakers for any of these items on the housing authority? If there's any member of the public who would

like to provide a comment at this time please dial star nine from your phone or select raise

hand from zoom no mayor i do not see anyone all right so moving along to the consent calendar items number one through two any authority member wish to make a motion a motion mr mayor great we have a motion in a second seeing no questions or comments madam clerk if you'll

please conduct roll authority member becerra yes authority member hernandez yes authority Member Lopez? Yes. Authority Member Mendoza? Yes. Authority Member Fan? Yes. Vice Chair

Peñalosa? Yes. And Chair Sarmiento? Yes. So I'm a little confused because the consent calendar was one and two so we'll take three individually. Is that what it is? Because it looked like it was that incorporated in the consent calendar? That's correct. And that was a companion item to item number 38 I believe from the consent calendar that in the regular session that was approved as well so let me go ahead and adjourn the housing authority meeting and reconvene the City Council meeting and come back to comments from the city manager nothing your honor great thank you let me go

ahead and call on members of the council councilmember Becerra thank you mr.

Phil BacerraItem 5

mayor I'll keep it brief I just want to wish everybody a very happy Labor Day weekend. It's a good time to take the time to honor and appreciate our workers. And one update for the month of September, I will be holding my monthly community office hours on Saturday, September 11th instead of the first Saturday, as I usually do. That'll be at 10 a.m. over at the George Upton All Access Park located at Thornton Park. With that, I hope everybody has a safe and good night.

Great. Thank you. Council Member Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 5

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to thank the residents that took time out of their day to join us, the residents that made public comments, and send my congratulations to our new trash hauler, Republic. Today was a historic meeting for a number of reasons. We celebrated the speech and debate team, a group of young women students from our city that were able to win a very prestigious competition. That's a victory for Santa Ana. We celebrated an immigrant, Mario Wizo Fernandez, world-renowned producer who now has a Wizzle Day in the city of Santa Ana

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 5

August 17th and think a big thanks to councilmember Nelida Mendoza for making history introducing the proclamation of August being Chicano Heritage Month it what an honor to just be here today and and see all the happy faces thank you

great thank you councilmember councilmember Lopez I do may have a couple

Jessie LopezItem 5

So let me just lead off with saying that Saturday, the Cambodian family is having a resource here at the Chestnut Walker Community Center. So feel free to come over and, you know, take advantage of the free resources that will be there. I also just wanted to say happy Labor Day weekend to everyone and remind folks that you can register to vote, that you can track your ballot, that you can verify if you're register to vote. That you can register, that you can vote in person or by mail, but it is very

Jessie LopezItem 5

important that people take the time to vote during the recall. This isn't about, you know, people being inconvenienced by wearing a mask. This is about the fight for Medicare for all, the fight for climate justice, the fight to eradicate COVID, the fight for women's right to choose. We do not want any bans on our body. This is about our LGBTQ family and friends. This is about public education and the fight for accountability. So please make sure that you vote by September 14th. And I do have a question for our city manager who's not in

Jessie LopezItem 5

the room or oh hi Steven so two questions what is the progress looking like for the remote work policy and then the second question I saw the post for the equity and inclusion coordinator how long is that position going to be open

for you know I'm sorry at council member I don't know the time that it's open sometimes we do continuous until we receive enough applications but I can certainly respond back to you on that deadline. On the telecommute policy, I know we've initially reached out, and now we also are reaching out to the labor groups regarding the vaccine program. So it can be intertwined together since it does have relative, it's related to both of them. One of the means to help reduce exposure is telecommuting. So as far as a timeline, I would hope to have it back to you within, let's see, it's August, no later than the first meeting in October.

Jessie LopezItem 5

Okay, thank you.

Well, actually, the items, yes, they would need to come back to you to the extent there's a side letter reached with the unions.

Jessie LopezItem 5

Okay, thank you. And finally, I just want to congratulate our new Trash Hauler of Public Services. I am looking forward to working alongside you to make sure that War III residents are being serviced. Thank you.

Thank you for those comments. Council Member Mendoza.

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. So I would like to remind everyone that the drought intensity has been upgraded from an abnormally dry to a severe to moderate drought. So please continue to be conscientious of your water use. We need everyone's help. The west part of our country has even entered an extreme drought, so we have to be absolutely careful with our water and conserve it as much as possible before we're mandated by the state.

And also, I would like to inform council and our constituents that one of our very involved and longtime volunteer, Peter Katz, is in the hospital in a very serious condition. So prayers for his healing. And once he's able to, I'd like to see about presenting him with a certificate of appreciation for all the work that he's done for the city of Santa Ana. and lastly

there was a third one but I can't remember it's kind of late so I'll end it and maybe when I remember I'll come we'll come back

great thank you council member council member fan are you still with us

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

still alive well council members Lopez and Mendoza definitely stole my thunder As your appointed director for the Metropolitan Water District, the largest water importer in America, and we do import water from the Colorado River, which is 25% approximately of Santa Ana's water supply. We are asking folks to conserve and to watch their water usage and make sure that if you're water and you're only doing it early in the morning or in the evening when it's cooler.

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

You know, we're all in this together and it is only going to get worse. And that's why I'm really proud that with every action that we take, we focus on conservation and, you know, addressing

climate issues. And with that, have a great night. Thank you. Good night, council member fan,

David PenalozaItem 5

mayor pro tem. Thank you, mayor Sarmiento. I just want to wish all of the school children in our in our city uh happy and safe back to school i know a lot of the schools are resuming this week our teachers our counselors out there our parents good luck and um yeah see you next

meeting good night great thank you for that i'll keep it brief uh somebody's talked about september 14th please uh make sure you note that on your calendar that is the special election that we all should be participating in the madam clerk you're going to be getting out pushing out information so all our residents vote we just want them to vote and with that i'll go ahead and say good night to everybody we are adjourned until the next regularly scheduled meeting on september 7 2021 good night everybody