Read the April 19 meeting.

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I love you.

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Recording in progress.

Jessie Lopez

Hi, good afternoon, everyone. Clerk, please start the time or the meeting time.

Jessie Lopez

I hereby call the closed session meeting to order. This meeting is taking place via in-person attendance and by teleconference via Zoom, the public may access the meeting via the Santa Ana YouTube channel or the city's website. Please bear with us as the technology may disrupt the flow of the meeting. Madam Clerk, please call roll. Council Member Hernandez?

Present. Council Member Lopez? Here. Council Member Mendoza? Here. Council Member Peñalosa? Present. Council Member Phan? Here. Mayor Plotem Becerra? Here. And Mayor Sarmiento will be coming in late.

Jessie Lopez

Thank you. Would any members of the Council like to take this time to announce their abstentions?

Phil Bacerra

Thank you, Councilmember Lopez. Madam Clerk, do we have any speakers for closed session items?

We do not. And we didn't receive any written communication.

Phil Bacerra

Fantastic. I'll go ahead and adjourn the Council to closed session. Thank you.

Thank you.

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We'll see you next time.

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Transcribed by TransJoJoJo Thank you.

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I I I I

I I I I I I I I I I have so much fear Why are you going to forget

If I only want you to love

It's the soul that tells me to follow you

I want to give you all the time, give me your forgiveness

Yo no sé de amor, corazón

Yo sí sé de amor, sí sé de amor, corazón, corazón

You'll find me more

Say again Say again Para que vas a seguir

Entiéndeme I want you to fight for a life that is worth the price That's love, I understand And I have a love, I have a pen I have more than that Yo te tengo amor, te quiero dar todo lo que quieras

Se llama corazón, se llama amor Eres mi, eres mi corazón, eres mi corazón Yo te quiero dar amor, en ti el mejor

Te quiero dar mi perdón, sin mi amor

Is' el alma que me dices, que me dices que te siga Is' el alma que me dices, que me dices que te siga

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We'll be right back.

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I'm sorry.

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How do you say that you're parting me the corners of my bones that the wounds of my life have fallen?

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TransJoJo TransJoJo TransJoJo TransJoJo TransJoJo TransJoJo Thank you.

Transcribed by TransJoJoJoJo I love you.

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No one

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We'll see you next time.

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We'll be right back.

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Transcribed by TransJoJoJo Thank you.

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¿Para qué vas a olvidar?

Yo he tenido tanto temor

¿Para qué vas a olvidar? Si solo quiero ver por tu amor

It's the love that tells me That tells me to follow you

I want to give you all the forgiveness I want to give you all the forgiveness I don't know how to love I want to give you all the forgiveness Si sé de amor, corazón, corazón

Say again Say again Say again Say again Say again Say again Say again Say again Say again Say again Say again Say again Say again Say again Say again

! Say again Luchar por una vida que vale la pena Eso es amor, entiendo amor Y yo tengo, tengo, yo te tengo perdón Te tengo más que eso Yo te tengo amor, te quiero dar todo lo que quiero

Que gracias Sé de amor

Corazón

Sé de amor

Eres mi, eres mi corazón Eres mi corazón Yo te quiero, amor Is your love, your love, my love Is your love

Is your love, my love Is my love, what do you say? What do you say to me?

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I'm sorry.

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I love you.

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How to say that my part is mine, the skin of my bones, the wounds of my life have fallen.

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No one

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Transcribed by TransJoJoJo Thank you.

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What do you want to forget? I've had so much fear

What do you want to forget? If I just want you to love

It's the love that tells me

JoJo JoJo JoJo JoJo

JoJo Si sé de amor, corazón, corazón

Say my cry Say my cry Say my cry Say my cry Say my cry Say my cry Say my cry Say my cry Say my cry Say my cry Say my cry Say my cry Say my cry Say my cry Say my cry Say my cry Say my cry Say my cry Say my cry Say my cry Say my cry Say my cry Say my cry Luchar por una vida que vale la pena Eso es amor, entiendo, amor Y yo tengo letón, yo te tengo perdón Te tengo más que eso Yo te tengo amor

Thank you.

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Recording in progress. Mayor, the meeting is being recorded.

Great. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Let me go ahead and, number one, apologize to everybody for getting started a little late and call this regular session of the Santa Ana City Council meeting to order for April 19, 2022. Let me go ahead and begin by just reciting a little bit of housekeeping here. This meeting is taking place with in-person attendance and 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 interrupt the flow of the meeting. And I'll go ahead and ask the clerk

to call roll please. Councilmember Hernandez. Councilmember Lopez. Here. Present. Present Madam City Clerk. Thank you. Councilmember Mendoza. Present. Councilmember Peñalosa. Councilmember Peñalosa. Roll call. Thank you. Councilmember Phan. Here. Mayor Pro Tempecero. Here. Mayor Sarmiento. Here. So before we

proceed to the Pledge of Allegiance. I'm going to ask the clerk to go ahead and recite some of her comments before we get started. Thank you, Mayor. To request

to speak on agenda or non-agenda items within the city's jurisdiction, please dial star 9 from your phone or click the button labeled raised hand from Zoom at this time. Please do not comment on public hearing items 29 regarding the Community Development Block Grant Program and item 30 regarding the general plan at this time and wait until the mayor opens each public hearing item before proceeding to raise your hand virtually. When unmuted please announce your name and ward or neighborhood that you reside in within the city of Santa

Ana for the record. Thank you mayor. Thank you madam clerk. I'm gonna go ahead and call on councilmember Mendoza to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance and then if you'll all please remain standing we're gonna have police Chairman Bob Barnett lead us with some words of inspiration.

Thank you. Please place your right hand over your heart. For any military personnel you may salute our flag. Ready? Begin.

Lord God, I want to thank you for this evening and the opportunity just to open in prayer and ask that your presence would be here. We're so grateful, Lord, for our community. We're grateful, Lord God, that you tonight will display your wisdom and your favor and your blessing through our city council members and our mayor and our community as they share. And Lord, we're thankful for the things that you have done. We're mindful tonight, Lord, there are those that are going to be honored for their achievements, and their service to the community. We ask blessing upon them. And we, Lord, always are mindful of our first responders,

those of our men and women, Lord, that are in law enforcement, those that are in the fire authority, those that work in our hospitals. And, Lord, we thank you always in the name of the Lord.

Amen. Amen.

Thank you, Police Chapman. If I can have Dr. Ana Jami Jimenez from the Orange County Children's Therapeutic Arts Center and Jose Luis and Gloria Hernandez from El Grupo de Autismo, Angeles OC, join me here at the, I guess we call it the well.

Amazing.

So good evening everybody. It's my honor and my privilege to present this proclamation for Autism Awareness Month. And so for those of us, I think, here in the city, I think we know we've done this recognition in the past, but I think, you know, for me, I want to just reflect a little bit on my wife, my better half. She is a disability rights attorney and represents families with children who have different disabilities, whether they're developmental, whether they're psychological or cognitive, and many of them are autistic and on the spectrum. And so this

is special because it's her life's work, and I think it's important for us to take a moment to reflect on how important it is for us to make sure that the rights of those who do have autism in their family, themselves, that we support them, that we make sure that we are all supportive of the efforts to make sure that there are services, resources, and help and compassion. So in the spirit of Autism Awareness Month, I would like to present this proclamation to the Orange County Children's Therapeutic Arts Center and to El Grupo de Autismo Angeles OC. By recognizing these two organizations,

I hope to raise public awareness, acceptance, and inclusion of individuals with autism and the myriad of issues surrounding the disorder, as well as an increase in knowledge of the programs that have been and are being developed to support individuals with autism and their families. OCTAG is the first and only organization in Orange County offering unique programming that combines the arts, academics, and creative therapies to help people realize their highest capacities. OCTAG was founded with the purpose of providing arts, education, and therapy to children with

special needs and has been serving the Santa Ana community for over 22 years. OCTAG has transformed the lives of many students with autism through the arts programming that bring them joy and a vehicle for self-expression. Students at Octag with autism have excelled in various arts disciplines such as music, art, dance. Students like Cesar Galvan and Roberto Reyes have even earned state certificates in music with the support of their amazing staff at Octag.

Grupo de Autismo Angeles is the first Latino support and educational group in Southern California dedicated to families who have a child with autism on the spectrum. GRUPO AUTISMO ANGELES PROUDLY HOSTED AN ANNUAL COMMUNITY OUTREACH EVENT AT THE SAN ANA ZOO FOR COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AS WELL. DUE TO THE GLOBAL PANDEMIC, THE ORGANIZATION HAD TO PUT A PAUSE ON THEIR EVENTS FOR THE PAST TWO YEARS. THIS HAS BEEN DIFFICULT AS AN ORGANIZATION TO NOT HAVE AN EVENT THAT HAS MEANT SO MUCH TO SO MANY FAMILIES FOR OVER TWO DECADES. THIS EVENT PROVIDES

FAMILIES WITH THE OPPORTUNITY TO VISIT THE ZOO FOR FREE, ENJOY GREAT FOOD AND SNACKS, LEARN ABOUT being oriented and community resources. Children with autism, their siblings and families enjoy age-friendly activities. So we want to, you know, take a moment to just recognize these two organizations and they're reflective of so many other organizations but so many other families that have made sure that they provide support and resources to their children, to their, you know, family members, because we know that it is a, having a special needs child is a gift, right?

And it's a responsibility, and it's something I think that we all as a community need to make sure that we support. One of the things I wanted to do today is bring both of these organizations here because they symbolically represent so much of what's good in our community when it comes to providing supporting support to children with autism and with special needs. I've seen the work that Dr. Ana Jimenez-Jamy has done over at OCTAG over the years. I met her early on in my career as a new council member, and I've been really just a fan,

and somebody who just applauds the efforts that she does with her staff and with all the members there. And I've gotten to know Jose Luis and Gloria over the years with the Grupo de Autismo Angeles OC. And for them, they represent a segment of our community that are sometimes monolingual Spanish speakers, sometimes immigrants, sometimes undocumented. And they don't have access to resources. So to the extent that the regional centers throughout the county are able to provide support, those families really don't have any place to go and sometimes feel lost.

So, el Grupo de Autismo, Ángeles, really is that liaison, is that connection, is that way of those families being able to access vital resources. So I've been, you know, honored to be a witness to both those efforts. And again, as my wife's done this work and it's been her life's work, it is very important to me that we not only celebrate this month and be aware of how important the concerns are to this community, but that we support it. And one of the things I want to mention before I recognize the two groups and hand the proclamation

to them is to say that we as a city, you know, can do better in providing jobs for people with disabilities. And I think it's something that I will hope that we'll continue to make some success with, and I know that we are going to have some funding that's going to come for summer employment for our youth. And I think we have to be aggressive in making sure that we find children who are autistic, children who are special needs and who have disabilities, and bring them into our municipal government, teach them, and give them a safe environment for them to excel.

And work with our private sector partners to be able to absorb that as well. I think it's a community's work. I think it's all of our work. And I think we're going to be better for that. So with that, that's going to be my pitch and that's going to be my goal in the last few remaining months as mayor, to make sure that we do better with our community of families with disabled children and disabled siblings. So with that, let me go ahead and bring these proclamations.

And so I'm going to hand one off to each. And I want to say a little something in Spanish because we have so many members of our community that are Spanish speakers and monolingual Spanish speakers.

lo hacen con cariño, lo hacen con un amor, pero quiero que sepan que lo hacen con el apoyo de nuestra comunidad. Y yo como alcalde, y yo como alguien que estoy casado con mi esposa que ha dedicado su vida a dar servicios a las personas que tienen niños con necesidades especiales, tengo el orgullo de proclamar este mes aquí para Autism Awareness, pero queremos que hagamos mejor. Podemos emplear, podemos ayudar, podemos dedicarnos a integrar a los jóvenes con autismo aquí al gobierno municipal y al sector

privado. Y eso va a ser mi tarea en mis meses que me quedan aquí como alcalde. Entonces, let me go ahead and give the first proclamation here to Dr. Ana Jimenez-Hami, who I'm proud to call a warrior in this space, but I'm even proud of to call my friend dr rana

thank you thank you mayor sarmiento i um of course it's an honor for us to receive this and and thank you for remembering how important that mission is to us at octa and i wanted to introduce to you and to the community one of our most outstanding students at octa Roberto Reyes. I'll let him say a few words if that's okay. Of course. Hello, as Dr. Ana Hasenna, my name is Roberto Reyes. I am a student at OCTAQ. I was diagnosed with autism when I was about a year old. Growing up, it

wasn't really easy with a disability, you know. I was pushed away. I was neglected and it's been rough and OCTAQ has really helped me grow so much with their programs. You know, it's a very welcoming community. They're very open and you know, they don't care if you have a disability or not, you know. As soon as you walk through the doors they're like, hey, we know you're different but that's okay because you still matter. And to know that we are getting recognition that we need is just amazing. And Dr. Anna, along with so many people at the Center, has

helped change so many lives and so many families. I know she has done that to me and it's just really an honor to be a student over there. Thank you.

You know I brought him with me to the center. He did not write this. It is totally improvised. He's amazing. He is gifted. He plays four different instruments piano violin viola and harp amazing and he's an incredible actor so I just want to say thank you Roberto for coming to the center he's been coming to the center for 15 years he has another brother too with autism Jesus and he's also beautiful but he was taking classes at the center so I couldn't bring him I just rocked today and I told mom I promise after the

proclamation we'll leave quickly because he has to go home eat and all this stuff so I'm sorry mayor Sarmiento I'll have to escape right after but thank you mayor Sarmiento thank you council members it's an honor to be here and and we will continue to do this work because the community needs us and just like this beautiful group too thank you thank you yes we have two big events coming up Cinco de Mayo May 5th our community partner celebration and in downtown Santa Ana and May 7th May 7th we have

a beautiful Santa Ana Latin jazz concert in partnership with the city in the Santa Ana Art walk so please totally free open to the community everyone is invited el 7 de mayo tenemos un evento grande de jazz latin jazz los músicos son increíbles y es totalmente gratis en el santa ana art walk están todos invitados a las seis de la noche Ok, gracias.

Déjame invitarles aquí a la pareja de Ángeles de Autismo, aquí, que vengan a acompañarnos con unas palabras. Gloria y Luis, por favor.

Buenas tardes a todos. Es un privilegio estar aquí representando a todos los niños con autismo, as families, mainly, who are the ones who carry out a job. Our mission is, for more than 23 years, we have helped our Spanish community to provide services, bringing professionals to our organization that we educate and that we give the tools to our children to have a life independent, because that is the goal of each one of us as parents, that tomorrow they can live independently.

Thank you very much, Mayor Sarmiento. Thank you. We really appreciate this. I gotta tell you something about like when we started like 20, 24 years ago, it was like it been diagnosed like the number said about like it was one for every 5,000 children has been diagnosed with autism. The last number, you know, the current number, it's one for every 44 children they've been diagnosed with autism.

So do you know the necessity for, you know, to help us, especially for our Latino community? You know, like, Grupo de Autismo Ángeles is being served through the Senana and also the Orange County. So we try to just, like, help as many families as possible. We really, it's like, I don't know, my wife is like, it's the heart of this, you know, we call that Angeles, Grupo de Autismo Angeles, because we believe, like the mayor Sarmiento

say this, it's a blessing for us, that the little kids, they're angels. You know, we've been chosen to have this, you know, like a kid with autism. Our son is, Edson is 20, is 26 years old. He's almost 27 years old, six feet tall, you know, but something I just want to say about like we need to the community, the Senana, to give like, you know, provide jobs to our kids. It is important to include them. It is crucial. Our son has been working four years. It's like after graduating

for the school in their former school at portview so it's like it's amazing because he loves to just have their own money like robert say it's it's okay to be different it is okay so let's be inclusive thank you very much council member members thank you very much the art and culture community to their donation and also we will we have our uh picnic june uh it's the june the fourth it's in the cenarisu it's 10 32 3 30 if you want to join us because it's like you really you're gonna see it you know not as a you know any you

know like the kids it's a file but you're gonna see you know like the real person the real people who's amongst our community thank you very much We are invited to our picnic annual, we are going to be a pandemic, but thanks to God and thanks to the support we have had. We are going to have our picnic and we are invited to all the families, they can say that they come to the Autism Angels group, it is free to enter the entrance and they will receive attention to the children, to play activities, and we also put letters on autism because we have to educate our families and also the community.

You can also be welcome to your family and friends so they can learn how to help the families with autism. Thank you very much.

All right, all right, let's make some noise for both of these groups.

So the last thing I'll say is we now have a busy agenda. We've got a Cinco de Mayo jazz concert and a lot of things to do. And go visit the zoo. Please support these groups. Please support all the families that do some incredible work with the autism community. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, everybody. If we can have Mayor Pro Tem Becerra, who's already down there, and invite Roger Ayes, Chrisel Mendiola, and Fernando Olivares to receive their certificates of recognition.

Phil BacerraItem 2

If I could have Roger and Chrisel join me up here.

Phil BacerraItem 2

Well, tonight I was hoping to honor three. I know that one would not be three artists who have helped enhance the beauty and vibrancy of Santa Ana through their art on our city's utility boxes and murals. These artists are Roger Izar, Chriselle Mendiola, and Fernando Olivares. Their artwork is displayed throughout the city, and it's a fine example of how amazing our art community is right here in Santa Ana and how they help stimulate and foster the creation of arts and cultural experiences throughout Santa Ana. So I'm going to go into a little bit about each of the artists. So I've got Roger here with me today.

Phil BacerraItem 2

Roger was raised here in Santa Ana, and he's a founding member and lead artist of the award-winning Santa Ana Community Artista Coalition, whose community murals are spread across our city, including his Life in the Golden City Utility Box mural right there on 4th and Main Streets, right there in the heart of downtown. Also in downtown, he's got the historical Santa Ana timeline depicted in the alley right there between 3rd and 4th Streets. Now, Roger cites Tex Avery of Looney Tunes fame and Sergio O. Cadiz, whose concrete relief mural is right on the edge of City Hall here when you go on the south side of the building.

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Beautiful, beautiful mural. He cites both of those individuals as early artistic influences in his career. I was hoping to see Chriselle here. She's a fellow Filipino. know. Chriselle actually created the mural Sunflower Power II that's over on one of our wonderful fitness courts over at Lilly King Park, and I'm very proud to say down the south side of town in my ward. It is a beautiful mural, and in addition to that mural, she also did one of the utility boxes with the same theme of sunflower power. She's also been featured in mural festivals in Long Beach and Hawaii. And last but certainly not least is Fernando whose

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utility art, utility box artwork can be found at Bristol MacArthur. My dog Stanley Pup and I walk by it every morning, or at least almost every morning, and he's also painted the beautiful mural that many of us have seen when we go down First Street past the Blue Lot for Victoria Barrios. It was an amazing unveiling. I want to thank my colleague, Councilmember Hernandez, for putting that together along with the family it was a very touching experience and the artwork the the murals are so beautiful and and that was a creation of fernando now i got to meet fernando

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at that unveiling unfortunately we lost fernando to texas but uh what i'm very proud of the fact is that in the short time he was there in texas he brought that santa anna artwork with him and he won the dallas art battle competition barely when he first got there so i'm very proud of that So on behalf of the Santa Ana City Council, I wanted to thank each of the artists for what they do for our city for their Creative and wonderful artistic contributions to that and with that I'd like to

Phil BacerraItem 2

So Roger on behalf of the Santa Ana City Council in the city of Santa Ana I wanted to present this recognition to you and thank you for all that you've done. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you

I guess I have a few things I can say. Just thank you, guys. Good evening. I'm the artist Roger Isar, and I want to thank God, my family, and their community, and the city. My talents support and opportunities like this. It's a privilege to make art for a living, but it's an honor to connect with the residents and neighbors of my hometown through art. Hello, my name is the artist Roger Isar, and I do thank God for my talent, my family for the support, and the city for these opportunities. It's a privilege to be able to win my life through my talent, but it's a honor to be

able to connect with my neighbors and communities of my city for my art. Thank you, and I invite you to my two projects that I will have this weekend and also in Art Walk, which is Semilla Seeds and Cara Cara. I'd like to invite you guys for my next two projects. I have one this Saturday named Semilla Seeds and for Art Walk, Face to Face. Thanks.

Thank you for that presentation, Mayor Pro Tem. Let me go ahead and go to Councilmember Lopez, who's going to be making a presentation to the Southern California Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health, declaring April 28, 2022 as Workers' Memorial Day.

Jessie LopezItem 4

Okay, so are the folks from Southern Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health here? If so, please come on up.

Let's go.

Jessie LopezItem 4

Hi everyone. So today the city of Santa Ana declares April 28th as Workers Memorial Day and encourage residents, workers, unions, community and faith-based organizations to help us raise awareness and recognize the importance of advancing safe and healthy workplaces. And the origins of Workers Memorial Day coincide with the 1970 passage of the Occupational and Safety and Health Act and the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration also known as OSHA on

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April 28th, 1971. And the Act states that every worker has the right to a workplace that is free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm. And so you know SoCal OSH is founded on the principle that workplace injuries and death are preventable and accepting this proclamation today is Silvia Hernandez from the Southern Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health as well as a lot of family and friends and colleagues of loved ones who have passed away due to preventable

Jessie LopezItem 4

workplace hazards and you know just very quickly I want to share a very short personal story that my dad you know he gets up to work every day early very early in the days and at his workplace he unfortunately did have an accident that could have been preventable and fortunately for my family you know he did not pass away but it was an accident that rocked my family and so this is really important to me and I want to thank all of you for the work that you do in Andrew Keating for Santa Ana residents but just any Californian out there that really needs somebody to help them find their voice and really help

Jessie LopezItem 4

them with the legal process as well so thank you Sylvia would you like to say

something

we want to get the attention of the of the people of the all employers that the The workers' lives matter. So we are working hard to train the workers every day, but we also want the employers know about the, we the workers have our rights too. And we want them to be responsible of to have a work site safe and healthy for us. We want to return home to find our families okay too. so this is a loose man who is gonna say a little bit of words to you

that's a Sala ciudad forest is patio for a conus era los trabajadores this is an organization come on silvia organizadores como silvia que apoyan a los trabajadores I want to share a little bit of my story. I am a worker in restaurants. I know it is one of the most impacted industries by COVID-19, because they have no big spaces for the kitchen to have security. So, I know that there is a lot of problem in terms of public security, security for the workers.

So, I would like to ask the city to make the city more opportunity,

more attention to the needs that this industry is suffering.

También, como he experimentado lo que es el robo de salario en esta industria, sé que también esto afecta muchísimo a la salud, porque esto genera que muchos de los empleadores no provean seguro de salud a sus trabajadores. and that keeps us even more in danger of not being able to be atent at the same time of their personal health. I had one of my siblings for the pandemic, for not to have a complete health insurance,

so I would like to ask myself that part of the need for the workers, because we are working here, we are working here, we have different needs, We have different benefits, but especially the food have been very affected by this pandemic. I ask that attention to be able to support and not continue to do more. Thank you.

Jessie LopezItem 4

So I'm just going to quickly read some of the names of the folks that are present with us today. Mariana Angeles, who's a domestic worker. Marcos Barrera who works in construction, Griselda Martin Martinez who is a housekeeper, Nancy Jacobo who also works in a restaurant, Luz Maria Martinez who also works in a restaurant, Josefina Duarte who works cleaning stores, Iris Duniga who's a domestic worker helping people with disabilities, Israel who works in the assembly line for Kingspan,

Jessie LopezItem 4

and Raimundo Castrejón, who also works in the assembly line for Kingspan, who works with sewing, who works for Latino Health Access, who works with the labor project, who is an organizer for Smart Local Union, and Manuel Gonzalez, who's the director regional for SMART, John Murphy, who's also an organizer with SMART Local Union, Eddie Sanchez, who's the lead organizer of the England Empire, Southern California Coalition of Occupational, Safe and Healthy, and Sylvia Hernandez, who just heard from today. Thank you, everyone.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Councilmember for that presentation. Let me go ahead and call on Councilmember Mendoza for the next presentation to Micaela Andrade for her outstanding contributions to the community. So if Micaela is out there in the audience, if she could please join us up here on stage, I guess.

Good evening, residents and dignitaries such as the young lady who I am going to recognize today. Her name is Micaela Andrade, and she's probably the tallest person here tonight, right?

That's because of this wonderful award that she's getting. So come closer. So this is Micaela Andrade. What I'm presenting her today is a recognition of, certificate of recognition, but it's not just a certificate. It's not a piece of paper.

It's an incredible pathway to the success that she's going to have as a community, as a resident here of Santa Ana. because she is already at the tender age that she is she is already exhibiting leadership qualities that we so much need here in the City Council and I will be glad to step aside for you to take my place you're ready excellent well for let's first start by why don't you hold this so that you can show everyone over here and come closer and I am going to just tell the public all the wonderful

things that you've done. And think about all, as I'm telling you this, think about all the possibilities that are going to come. You're just beginning in your leadership position as a strong, smart, beautiful, and incredible part of our community here. So do that, and I will come back and sit there and listen to you and make these fabulous changes for our city and bring back so many services that we need, especially where you come from in the Logan neighborhood.

Micaela Andrade. Today, I welcome a young lady from the Logan neighborhood. Her name is Micaela Andrade, and she is an 11-year-old fifth grader. She's attending Santiago Elementary School. Micaela's mother and father, Christy and Michael Andrade, are raising her to value her neighborhood and participate in keeping it clean. Because it doesn't mean just keep it clean from litter, but keeping it clean from all aspects of the negativity that comes into a community.

That aspects are security, graffiti, and just having a neighborhood that is bonded, that is cohesive, and that they work together to make their neighborhood, Logan neighborhood, a wonderful and beautiful place and a place that Micaela is very proud to live in.

Growing up and seeing her grandfather and father involved in caring for their neighborhood, this is what inspired Micaela to become involved in her community. Listening to the stories of her late grandmother, Chepa Andrade has also had a positive impact on Micaela's upbringing. Micaela is athletic and she loves to play soccer, one of my favorite sports. Can you tell?

She is very warm and a caring young lady, and it is her goal to be a veterinarian when she grows up. Like many members of her family, Micaela understands that by participating in cleanups, she can create immediate results, just as we have seen in the Logan neighborhood. Cleanup events facilitates making changes in attitude, in behavior, and encourages the adoption of practices, such as recycling, which is so important for our Mother Earth, that can have a profound effect on waste management in our community. I applaud this young lady's involvement in her community. She is awesome. She's my hero.

Perhaps one day she will be taking my place here on the City Council. With much pride and honor, I would like to award Micaela Andrade with a certificate of recognition, Keep Neighborhood a Clean Award, and I thank her for outstanding contributions to the community, and I encourage her and challenge her to continue on this feat to make Santa Ana one of the best cities in the entire Orange County, and we're not going to stop there. We're going to make Santa Ana a model city for the entire state of California, but wait, we're not going to stop there. We're going to make Santa Ana one of the model cities where everybody wants to live,

and the entire United States of America would want to live in Santa Ana. So we're going to need some credible housing, clean neighborhoods, safe neighborhoods, and much more services. So you have a big job to look forward. Are you ready?

Yes.

All right. We're going to applaud for this young lady.

Why don't you say a few words?

Hi, I'm Mikaela Andrade. I am so glad I got this award, but I didn't do it for the fun of it. I did it for my family, my community, and my grandma Chepa. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I want to give Micaela a very special present, that she will forever treasure in her young life and she's going to come back and bring it to me when she's on City Council. Here is a very special, genuine, original, specially designed City of Santa Ana mask.

Thank you.

Okay.

So, thank you, Councilmember Micaela. Don't go yet. So, can you bring her up here, back here, because I see her grandfather and her dad in the audience. I see them here. Let's give them a big round of applause.

And I've known Frank Jr. for many, many years and the family, the Andrade family for many years. And they told me that she wants to be not just a counselor, she wants to be mayor. So why don't we sit her down in this chair for one second and let's take a picture of her while she's up here.

Thank you.

All right, so let's give it up for Micaela.

So no pressure Micaela, so you know you're going to be finding yourself up here soon. But thank you everybody for indulging us. I mean it's not often that we get a chance to celebrate somebody who has just such a bright future ahead of her and we all have our hopes with her as well. So let me call on Councilmember Phan for the last presentation that we're going to be doing this evening and that is for Vietnamese Heritage Museum declaring April 30th 2022 as Black April so if anybody is here to receive that if you can please join the council member up here on stage.

Thai Viet PhanItem 6

Madam City Clerk, next time put me before the very cute young girl.

Thai Viet PhanItem 6

Hi, welcome. Hi everyone. So today I'd like to issue a proclamation declaring April 30th, 2022 as Black April. For many of you who don't know, April 30th is known as Black April or in Vietnamese Tháng Từ Điên or also known as Ngài Mắc Nước which means the day we lost our homeland. It is a day to lament and reflect upon the fall of Saigon and of South Vietnam which took place on April 30th, 1975. This event marked the end of the Vietnam War and the

Thai Viet PhanItem 6

beginning of the diaspora of Vietnamese Americans, Vietnamese Australians, and Vietnamese across the globe. In the spirit of Black April, I would like to present this proclamation to the Vietnamese Heritage Museum, also known as Vienh Bảo Tàn, Y Sáng Người Việt. Yes, I said it right.

Thai Viet PhanItem 6

The Vietnamese, accepting the proclamation today is Châu Thuỷ, president and founder of the Vietnamese Heritage Museum. The Vietnamese Heritage Museum is a non-profit 501c3 based here in Orange County. They are dedicated to the preservation and exhibition of not just Vietnamese heritage, but Vietnamese refugee heritage. I myself am a Vietnamese refugee. My mom was nine months pregnant with me when she and my father fled Vietnam in 1987 and landed in Thailand and gave birth to me three weeks later near a Thai refugee camp.

Thai Viet PhanItem 6

I came here when I was almost two. And the preservation of Vietnamese refugee heritage is important because almost 50 years later there exists very little, there's not very many museums that keep track of these photos, these artifacts, the oral histories. I myself have very, very few photos of myself as a child. So the mission of the Vietnamese Heritage Museum is to search, collect, preserve, interpret, exhibit, and educate all the testimonies, art, and artifacts that

Thai Viet PhanItem 6

document the history of refugees, those who fled Vietnam after the war, and to educate, inform, and share our heritage with others. On behalf of the City of Santa Ana, thank you for honoring us with your presence tonight, for all that you do to help us remember the lives lost during the Vietnam War era, and to hope for a more humane and just life for the people of Vietnam. Thank you.

Would you like to speak a few words? Yes. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Vietnamese Heritage Museum, we would like to thank you, Mayor, and all council members

for recognizing this opportunity for us, and especially council member, Thay Viet Phan, and her staff. It's an honour for us to receive this recommendation. Santa Ana is the first city in California the Vietnamese refugees set foot. So I hope someday the museum will be built here in the city of Santa Ana. Besides recognizing the city council here, I also thank you, Director Brian Sternberg.

We've been working with Santana Library for the past few months, and they've been helping us to support us during the time that we don't have the office yet. So again, I would like to thank you and hopefully someday our mission is to educate the next generation about the Vietnamese heritage and also the journey of the council member here and myself, both people. So we hope that someday we continue to have the museum so people can come in and learn

about you know why after the fall of Saigon in this month 47 years ago that's why we are here.

Thai Viet PhanItem 6

So again thank you very much for the recognition. And before we forget since we're all about promoting events tonight the Vietnamese Heritage Museum is having their first annual gala on And Sunday, May 1st, 2022 at Santa Ana's very own Bowers Museum. So you definitely can check this out. There's going to be, I believe, a documentary film, some commentary and an exhibit for you to check out. I will be inviting my mom, my aunties, and of course I will be there with Joe.

Thank you very much. Another event coming up is at the main library in Santa Ana. We will have the book launch for one of the gentlemen from Hong Kong. He has a book and he took all the refugees, came to Hong Kong back to 1975 and he has all the photos and the book will be presented at the main library on May 14th. So I hope to see all of you there. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember, and thank you for that presentation. That's the last of our council presentations. Let me go ahead and turn it over to the city manager so she can give us the COVID-19 update.

Thank you, Mayor. So tonight for your presentation, Daisy Perez, assistant to the city manager, is going to do the presentation and we're focusing on the recovery efforts, which are very, it's a long exhaustive list of everything that we have been working on under your leadership.

Good evening, honorable mayor and members of the council. Santa Ana and the Greater Orange County region continues to improve a nod to residents being mindful and following public health guidance as well as the wide availability of testing and vaccines this presents us an opportunity to focus on how we are expanding our resources to recover from the pandemic to that end you will notice our covet updates will incorporate elements of revive Santa Ana a comprehensive pandemic recovery initiative that is funded by the American Rescue Plan Act and spearheaded under the

leadership of the Mayor and Council. So as you will remember, there's five spending categories that make up the Revive Santa Ana Initiative and I'm going to go through and highlight several of these programs that are up and running. And we have made significant progress on our COVID recovery efforts. I'll be highlighting a few of those for you this evening.

one of those is our COVID-19 emergency response through Orange County Fire Authority so since July 2021 the Orange County Fire Authority has responded to over 470 COVID-19 calls for service this makes up about two and a half percent of their total calls and you'll see there's been a significant decrease in calls for service since the last surge in the winter months

there's also been a bus shelter sanitization program that was recently completed over 588 bus shelters in the city were cleaned and sanitized over seven times this is about once every three weeks also through Revive Santa Ana the Public Works maintenance division was able to increase staffing levels to ensure high traffic pedestrian and bicyclist areas are maintained and cleaned several times a week to ensure the timely removal of trash debris green waste and personal property enhancements of such efforts will inspire the public to engage in safe and healthy activities such as walking biking and other outdoor activities

as you can see on this map since january 2022 when the program launched over 4 000 locations in the city have been cleaned by four crews of three staff members each and each crew covers about set or four miles in the city each day and you'll see these blue areas on the map those are our qualifying census tracts or our focus areas for the revived Santa Ana program where these efforts are concentrated there's also over 29 million dollars that's been allocated towards direct assistance programs and staff has been working very hard to get these resources out to our community.

One of those is our rental assistance program. We've distributed almost $26 million. And now staff has pivoted towards recertifying all of the families that have been previously assisted to pay off the remainder of their rental arrears and provide an additional three months of assistance. And we want to thank our staff, our eight service providers, and the Orange County United for all their work and effort to administer our emergency rental assistance. Over 3,000 households in the city have received assistance through this program.

We've also launched our food distribution programs. The council awarded agreements to five service providers throughout the city. One of those includes United Across Borders. They recently held a large food distribution and community resource fair at the Santa Ana Zoo. pictured in this photo and we're excited that there's now food distribution opportunities for our community six days a week. We also have some exciting technology programs available through our local library. One of those includes

Appy Hour instead of Happy Hour and this is to teach seniors how to use apps on their phone and they're really excited and they're seeking additional programs, I guess they really like this, and Brian and his team are doing a great job. They're also providing programs for youth as well. One of those includes the X-Stream Lab for students in grades four through six to learn about various STEM programs. And there's also robotics programs that the library has launched that are funded through Revive Santa Ana.

Additionally, there's funding that's been allocated towards various youth violence prevention programs. Of that, $264,000 was allocated to the Santa Ana Police Athletic and Activities League, or PAL, as some of you may know it as. And there's some exciting programs that the PAL is doing through Revive.

this includes four new youth sports teams I'd like to present the Santa Ana Ladybugs girls softball team the bumblebees girls softball team the Santa Ana wins running club and the sluggers boys baseball team they're also building a batting cage getting turf for the sports complex and adding additional staff you'll also see several additional items come for before you on May 3rd for an additional $2 million of investments towards youth.

There's also over $20 million being invested in various public health and safety programs, and a lot of these are currently under development. We're excited to make significant progress on these, especially the upgrades of various park restrooms and the addition of a public health plaza here in our Civic Center.

One of those exciting programs is our SMART team, which is currently active. For residents that are looking to call our SMART team, the community line is 714-242-3706. And since the inception of the SMART program, SMART has made over 773 contacts with individuals experiencing homelessness. And of these, SMART is case managing 253 individuals, and they've exited over 102 individuals off the streets.

We also have significant investments to our downtown, including our parking structures. One of those is additional security measures that were in place. So Patrol Solutions LLC was selected to provide security guard services in downtown Santa Ana. Security services include a street legal cart and a security truck. Security officers will be uniformed and the back of their shirts read public safety. The main objectives of the security is to serve as positive ambassadors with excellent customer service to downtown Santa Ana stakeholders while deterring illegal behavior, responding to urgent matters, and working in tandem with our

police department.

And then to administer all of these programs, there's just over a million dollars that's been allocated to various contract management, accounting, and and compliance. There's also been dedicated staff through our Human Resources Department to allocate a lot of these programs. And we're excited to share that many of these positions have been filled and staff is actively working on continuing to launch a lot of these programs.

That concludes my presentation and I'm available to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

Great, thank you for that presentation. Let me go ahead and bring it back to the council to see if there are any questions or comments on the presentation. Let me go ahead and start with Mayor Pro Tem and then Council Member Peñalosa.

Phil BacerraItem 7

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Daisy, for that presentation. I wanted to ask about specifically the SMART team. Is that currently a pilot program here in Santa Ana?

I'm not sure I would refer as a pilot program. It's up and running and funded.

Phil BacerraItem 7

I mean, this is something that we've just started, correct?

It's new. It's a new experience. We've never done this before. So in that regard, it is a new approach to addressing homelessness on our streets.

Phil BacerraItem 7

Okay. You know, it was advertised as this program that was meant to be the alternative to calling PD. Correct. And, you know, I have to tell you, I feel foolish having promoted this program to folks because it has not worked so far. I mean, I'm just going to flat out say it. It hasn't been working. I've got folks that have called in that have waited hours for somebody to come out. By that point, the person that they're trying to connect to the services has become disinterested and walked off. These folks end up turning around after, I mean literally an hour, they go and call police.

Phil BacerraItem 7

And my understanding with this concept is to get folks not to contact police so that they can focus on, or the police can focus on other issues not related to the homeless. But it's something that concerns me, and I know that we're going to be looking at funding for this program as we go forward. So I think there's some major concerns, not just from myself, but from the community about whether this program is truly working. And so I would like staff to come back with more about this and what you guys are going to do to improve the responses.

Phil BacerraItem 7

Because, again, they're not, they're worse than the PD responses on Priority 5 calls at this point.

Well, you are correct. It is a diversion from utilizing emergency 911, but I welcome your feedback. And I know Daisy did mention some of the stats in the presentation. They have had contact with over 700 individuals and have exited over 100 off the streets. It's challenging to do so. If you go out on any calls with them, they can't force services upon people. So it's really about engaging with the individual to try to convince them to avail themselves to services. So all of their visits would not necessarily result in an individual being removed from the street.

So if you're thinking or the community is under the perception that immediately a homeless person will no longer be on our street, it doesn't work that quickly. But I would like to discuss with you further on improvements we can make.

Phil BacerraItem 7

I appreciate that. And just the last thing I'll say is that it's not about an unrealistic expectation. These are expectations that when they call, somebody will show up. It's not a matter of whether they will have this person removed from a particular location. It's just when they call, they expect a service, right? And that service is not arriving. I've actually called myself a couple times, been very disappointed. Other folks have called and relayed to me that they were experiencing similar results. And, you know, to quote Mark Twain, there are lies, there are damn lies, then there are statistics.

Phil BacerraItem 7

And so while the stats sound great, what people are seeing, it isn't happening.

Thank you. Councilmember Peñalosa and then Councilmember Lopez.

David PenalozaItem 7

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento, and thank you, Ms. Daisy Perez, for that presentation. Very detailed for our community members to comprehend. One of the questions that I had in regards to the, I believe it was the sanitation and cleaning part of the presentation. I just want to get clarification. I know that a majority bulk of these funds, when it comes to the, you know, the rental assistance, the gift card giveaways that we did, the direct stimulus,

David PenalozaItem 7

those were done to the census qualified areas. For the sanitization and prevention program, the deep cleaning, is that also just isolated to the census track blocks?

There's two different programs. One was the bus shelter sanitization. That was for all of the bus shelters in the city. And then the deep cleaning through our public works maintenance contractors. That is specific to the QCTs or the qualifying census tracks.

David PenalozaItem 7

Okay, because I'm looking at slide seven that you presented on here where it shows a detailed map. Correct. Where most of the sanitization and prevention is isolated to the downtown census track area east side, which is fine, but when it comes to this, do we just ignore the rest of the city? Because currently downtown to me looks like a mess, aside from the streetcar. So I just want to know where our efforts are at, if they're just isolated to downtown and our downtown looks the way it is,

David PenalozaItem 7

you know, why are we ignoring the rest of the city per this map?

So through the Revive Santa Ana program or really the American Rescue Plan Act, there are several restrictions that we have. So in order to make this program eligible, we had to focus it in these QCTs. But as you remember, with the new trash contractor that's coming on board, they'll be able to provide these services throughout the entire city.

David PenalozaItem 7

Okay. So even though it's not direct assistance to residents and it's just deep cleaning of our streets and sidewalks and facilities, we're only restricted to use it in these qualified census tracts?

Correct. Okay.

David PenalozaItem 7

You know, it's, I know it's per the federal guidelines, but that just doesn't sit well with me because we do have a city that we all pay, you know, a lot of tax dollars into the federal government and the state. And if I'm a resident anywhere else in the city and I'm not, my sidewalks and streets on getting the quality of cleaning that residents in downtown are, I'd be upset. I understand the direct payment assistance and rental assistance to qualified census track, but just cleaning in general, I would hope that we find ways to make sure that that is spread

David PenalozaItem 7

evenly throughout the city.

We will do our absolute best. We are using consultants and getting legal advice when we spend these dollars because there is audit provisions and reporting provisions and clawback provisions so we do seek the advice and try to use it to the best extent that we can for the entire city. Okay thank you. Thank you for that.

Jessie LopezItem 7

Councilmember Lopez. Thank you Mayor Sorrento. I had similar questions regarding the sanitation cleaning sites that I saw on the map provided to us but you answer those so thank you for that. I'm assuming down the line we're also going to get another report that is going to detail apart from what you're presenting today how the other money is being spent? That is correct. Okay thank you. Thank

you. Any other questions or comments on this item? Seeing none thank you for the presentation. Let's move along to the public comment section of the meeting. So this will be the time and place for those of you here in person and those of you virtually to address the members of the city council for any items that are on the agenda or not agendized as well. You will have three minutes to go ahead and address the council. And please, you don't need to give your specific address, but let us know if you live in the city and if you do live in the city, what ward you reside in.

I know we have some members of the public that are on the phone and virtually. And we have about 42 cards here of people wanting to speak and address us on mostly the fireworks items. So what I'm going to do, just to make sure we have a lot of people that have to get back home, and those of you that are younger have to go back to do your homework. If you can, you're going to be given three minutes, but you don't need to exhaust the three minutes. I would suggest if we can compress that time into two minutes, that way we can hear from everybody, and everybody has a chance to speak.

So if it's okay with the City Council, if we go ahead and maybe compress the time, given that we do have quite a few speakers that want to address us, and we want to make sure we hear from everybody. So if you can, we can limit that to two minutes, Madam Clerk, just so we hear from everybody. Let me start with the first person, Doug Gillen, followed by Brian Kay, followed by Frank Andrade Jr.

Good morning, council. My name is Doug Gillen. I've lived in Santa Ana since 1952. I am a current resident of Wilshire Square. I've lived there over 40 years. I am chairman of the board of trustees for Santa Ana United Methodist Church, and I am also the chairman of our fireworks committee. Our church demographics is very unusual in that we have a large immigrant group in our congregation. We have members of our Cambodian Fellowship who've escaped the killing fields in Cambodia. We have Pacific Islanders, we have Filipinos, we have a large group that also speaks Spanish. And a lot of these folks have not graduated

from high school and their aspirations, their goals for their children are to graduate from high school and then go on to college. Now obviously, in social economics, they don't have those kinds of funds. So our church has stepped up and we have set up a scholarship committee for the use of our monies from our fireworks sales and we've been giving out thousand dollar scholarships for our students. Last year we handed out 18 scholarships and in those scholarships we have some of our students now who are enrolled in some very serious programs. We've got kids that are involved in community colleges. We also have kids who are graduating

from, we've got one young lady who is graduating as a master's degree in international affairs from Long Beach State. And these young folks would not have those opportunities if we did not have the fireworks funds that we've got. We find this is a very good way to go about our business. And I just would like to call your attention to your own visions and mission statements in your here and it talks about the investment in youth and your vision and also in your mission statement to deliver efficient public services in a partnership with our community

and we're trying to do that. So please reconsider this. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Brian K followed by Frank Andrade Jr. followed by James Sorto.

Happy day. Thank you for serving. It's been about 10 years since I attended a City Council meeting here in Santa Ana and I want to say the security detail of the police officers and the clerks have all made me feel very welcome. Tonight I really want to thank Councilmember Jonathan Ryan Hernandez for taking one of the first steps in building a community. He actually went out and spoke with the police officers in the course of their job in an attempt to make a stronger healthier communication process and give these officers the opportunity to do a better job. I believe that 90 to 98 percent of your officers are good and

they want to do a good job. I want to thank you also for remembering me and greeting me the other day. That was most impressive to anybody who thinks that these council members are not paying attention. It's been 10 years since I've seen Vincent Sarmiento and he remembered me. I've given you both name plaques today. Please don't take that down from anyone else. You've interacted with me and you've, in a sense, inspired them. Today, or this month, Benjamin Ferencz turns 102 years old. He's known for never again, and for standing up for the idea that physical violence is never an acceptable tool to silence political adversity.

He's also quoted as saying the law must be applied equally to all people, police and leaders, and for saying never give up. Now, I'd like to thank you for bringing autism to the forefront. If you're wondering what Benjamin Ferencz was talking about, he wasn't just defending Jewish people. He was defending the mentally ill, the disabled, people with different religious viewpoints. The Nazis actually had a team that went through their own population in Germany and exterminated over one million people simply for being disabled or having a different religious belief. Again, please, thank you for your statements. Thank you for your work.

Happy day.

Thank you for those comments. Frank Andrade Jr. followed by James Sorto followed by Sean Knight.

Hello, my name is Frank Andrade Jr., Mayor. Good to see you, Council members. I am the Senior Commander of the Royal Rangers at Templo Calvario Church. We are a faith-based mentoring and scouting group. We serve the inner city boys of Santana. We serve the boys that come from broken homes, single parent families, and they have limited funds. Thank God we're able to provide them uniforms, merit patches, which they earn, and we go camping and do different activities with them.

100% of our income, of our budget, comes from fireworks. If we remove the income from us, where will we get this money? Please don't do this to our boys. Please don't do this to the boys of Santana. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Frank.

James Sarto followed by Sean Knight followed by Tai Fujimono. I apologize for that pronunciation.

Good evening, Mayor Sarmiento, Councilmembers of Santa Ana and everyone here today. My name is James Sarto and I'm a part of a karate organization called Tekken Jutsu Kan Karate Do. We are a 501 C3 nonprofit organization centered in Santa Ana and will be greatly affected by the decisions made here today. We are for safe and sane fireworks because our students are predominantly children from Santa Ana. This program helps sustain our organization by helping the children of Santa Ana pay for tournaments, equipment, space, practice, and et cetera. This is an essential and integral part of our school's finance, which all goes to benefit

the children. Furthermore, it helps foster a positive environment for the kids where they can learn, grow, and make mistakes. Ultimately, by banning fireworks in Santa Ana, you're not only robbing these children from financial support that these kids desperately need, but a memory that will give fruitrition towards a positive impact to the community of Santa Ana. I speak from experience in such a way that I could have been a totally different person. But because this organization was around and instilled positive values like discipline, compassion, and responsibility, I'm the person you see here before you today, an

aspiring educator of Garden Grove with the dreams of helping the community of Santa Ana in memory of all those role models that helped me achieve my successes in life. Our organization doesn't stand alone. There are many athletic organizations and churches and other groups that depend on this program for the financial support. Therefore we humbly ask that the City Council keep fireworks legal in consideration of the children of Santa Please acknowledge our plea and we hope you don't ban fireworks. This is really important for the community and will greatly affect many organizations that depend on this program.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Sean Knight followed by Ty from the Samoan Church followed by Maria Lua.

Hello. My name is Sean Knight. I've been a resident of Santa Ana since 2015, and I live in Ward 2. Just right off the top, I'm the band director of the Saddleback High School Marching Band and Performance Ensemble. I'm in charge of about anywhere, depending on the year, 50 to 75 students, as well as the Saddleback High School beginning band. Fireworks make up about 95% of my entire band budget. Without it, we won't be able to afford, without the money we make from fireworks sales, we won't be able to afford instructors, equipment, transportation, uniform care, competitions,

basically everything other than a few songs we can afford a year from our district budget. It also pays for instrument repairs to help the upkeep of our songs and equipment as well.

I really feel like removing booths is the wrong way, removing fireworks is the wrong way to go about the issue of fireworks in Santa Ana. I've been told countless times over the years through students about the importance of band and the importance of the activities we do, the performances we we do with the marching band and students and how it's changed them and it's the most important part of their school day and by removing 95% of my budget my program will suffer and these kids won't get to do as much as they do now and they won't get to have just a truly important high school experience

as marching band provides and I honestly don't know what I'm gonna do without the money so please I hope you reconsider and keep supporting arts in the Saddleback band thank you thank you for your comments

Thai followed by Maria Lua followed by Veronica Rojas hello everyone my name is

Tai Fui Bono and I represent the First Samoan Congregational Christian Church in Santa Ana and we 100% strongly support the fireworks this is one of the main fundraising that we have for the upkeep and general expenses of our church and every most of the time we do serve the homeless there's one homeless house here in First Street, the house of hospitality that we serve and help those people out and sometimes we go on the street and help the homeless. So having

this firework fundraising it really helps our church to give out to the community and update and help us you know raise our church. Our fundraising Our fundraising comes from the families. It's donations. So donations means from the families. We raise our families and we also serve the church as well. So these fireworks, we 100% please help us keep this. I also thank you for giving us the opportunity to have our fireworks here in Santa Ana and also for continuing on this year.

And we strongly reconsider, please give us the chance to continue on this fundraising to go on, because it helps us and helps the community, too. Thank you.

Thank you. Maria Lua, followed by Veronica Rojas, followed by Samuel Rios.

Good evening. My name is Maria Lua and I am part of the Centurion Cheer Boosters. As you know, cheer is not looked upon as a true sport in our community. It's looked as just a recreational thing. Unfortunately, the funding from our school district is very minimal, if any. Our uniforms are very costly and the funding where we get it is from the fundraising that we do. once a year, which is the fireworks. We truly need this money. Our girls need the money. We come from a very, very non-rich area.

So whatever we can actually fundraise for these girls is what we're gonna be using for the uniforms. So I would greatly appreciate it if you keep fireworks going for us. It's our only fundraising. Thank you.

Thank you. Veronica Rojas followed by Samuel Rios followed by Veronica Garcia.

Hello good evening mayor and council members. My name is Veronica Rojas and I'm here representing Northeast Santa Ana Little League and I'd like to bring to your attention for you to reconsider the firework ban. It's one it's our number one fundraiser for the league these past couple of years during COVID years if it wouldn't have been for this fundraiser our league would not be there we couldn't of course you know do any other form of fundraising chocolate sales pancake breakfast other things that we've done to keep our league

afloat if it wouldn't have been for the fireworks sale with the loss of the fireworks we have seen also an increase in our field cost reservations. It's almost more than doubled in the last year, so that is an increased expense that we've had. If we lose our firework funds, we would have to increase our registration fees as well, which would also make it difficult for a lot of our community members to play, to register their kids, because not multiple families, it's more than just one child and it's hard for us to afford and bring those children out to the

fields. So I'd like for you to please consider that. Come out, watch the kids play and see how they enjoy themselves so we don't lose these kids out to the

streets. Thank you. Thank you. Samuel Rios followed by Veronica Garcia followed by Estela Salas followed by Donna Casanova. Samuel Rios, Veronica Garcia,

Estela Salas, followed by Donna Casanova, followed by Teresa Flores-Wigg.

Good evening Mayor Sarmiento and City Council. I'd be remiss to say that my full name is Estela Salas Sarmiento, but it often is fumbled, and so I decided not to include that, but I can see I was in good hands this evening.

You didn't think I'd pronounce it right.

Yes, yes, yes, you did. I am not a resident of Santana, but I have volunteered in the karate organization for over two decades. I would say that I helped be James Sorto, who he is today, and earned his black belt. So I am here, and I want to tell the story of the importance of our nonprofit organization. Imagine that you're a person, ages 5 to 95, who dreams of learning karate, but have little to no discretionary funds. Your dreams to learn would end as soon as you would know and discover

that it costs anywhere from $150 to $200 a month to be in a karate class. However, an organization like ours has provided this opportunity largely in part by being a nonprofit. If you ban the selling of legal fireworks, you will cut off the lifeblood of organizations like ours, organizations that provide experiences not typically possible to those we serve. The funds generated in these three days provide a year of sponsorship for our community. To ban the booth is to ban these types of life experiences,

life-changing opportunities for our community. Please help us continue to help kids in the community of Santana by keeping the fundraising opportunity through the sales of

legal fireworks. Thank you. Thank you. Estela Salas, followed by Donna Casanova, followed by Teresa Flores-Wig, followed by Vanessa Terrazas. Estela Salas? That was me. Oh, I'm sorry.

Donna Casanova, followed by Teresa Flores-Wig. Hello, I'm Pastor Una Casanova, and our church is in Ward 5, part of the Church of the Nazarene, and the fireworks booth is in... We cannot do what we do without the funding from the fireworks booth. It goes to our children and to our youth. Every single person here, every single program represented tonight, we are all invested in the training and the creation of the leaders of the future here for the City of Santa Ana. The money that we fundraise doesn't just go into the lives of these children and youth,

that goes back into the city, back into the community, helping all of the families here, helping the community. And I pray, I pray that you all reconsider banning safe and sane fireworks. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Teresa Flores-Wig, followed by Vanessa Terrazas, followed by Melissa Stile.

Those of you who I've called, if you can all start lining up that way we can get through this a little quicker. Thanks. Go ahead.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members. Thank you for the time to speak and highlight the importance of Agenda Item 28, which is the Charter Review Ad Hoc Committee's recommendation on fireworks. My name is Teresa Flores-Wig with TNT Fireworks. Present with me is our Vice President, Mr. John Kelly. Also in attendance are the various non-profit organizations that I am honored to speak on behalf of that participate in the city's fireworks program. TNT fireworks is America's number one source for consumer fireworks. As of July 2021 we've had the privilege to work in 297 communities permitting safe and same

fireworks, 67 of which are in Southern California and 10 of those in Orange County. Those include Anaheim, Buena Park, Fullerton, Huntington Beach, Stanton, Villa Park and your bordering neighbor cities of Costa Mesa and Garden Grove. Santa Ana has been a community that has enjoyed the patriotic tradition of fireworks since the 1960s. Codified into your city code in 1986, it has been a part of the fabric that makes Santa Ana one of the biggest markets in the state. With that much history ingrained into the patchwork of Santa Ana, it is disheartened to see just how quick Safe and Same Fireworks can be made a

scapegoat for the issues caused by the illegal fireworks activity the city is plagued with. It is my goal today to give a clear picture of the Safe and Same fireworks program in Santa Ana and what it provides for the many nonprofit organizations that operate each year. In 2021 the City of Santa Ana permitted 54 booths to operate Selling Safe and Safe Fireworks. The operators of these booths are bona fide nonprofits that your city staff vets in order to issue a permit. These nonprofits were the backbone of aiding the community at large during 2020 and 2021. They were out there providing aid via food banks, financial

assistance, scholarships, housing, and rehabilitation services, as well as funding the Little Leagues so that they could be here for when our kids get back. In 2021, these nonprofits collectively were able to gross $2.6 million in sales amongst 54 nonprofits. The funds they worked so hard to raise during their allowed and legal four-day period is paramount to the San Anac community. As you review Agenda Item 28, please keep in mind how moving forward with a ban will penalize nonprofits that operate legally and under all city rules. Thank you. If you could start. Thank you for

that. Vanessa Terrazas, followed by Melissa Stile, followed by Ashley Pulido. Good evening. I just

want to thank you guys for giving us the opportunity to speak. My name is Vanessa Terrazas. I am a church secretary at Trinity Crystal Ray Lutheran Church in Santa Ana. I sit on the property board and I also work with the youth. Opportunities for youth is in your guys' vision and some of your statements here, and as you can hear from my community, that's what we are here doing. We're here representing the youth, doing positive things in a positive way for them. I haven't heard any negative thing that fireworks support. Unfortunately, as a resident of Santa Ana, I have heard the

illegal fireworks for the last two weeks, and they've been ongoing. What are we doing about that? and also we do Easter egg hunts, we do tons of things for our youth in our community, vacation Bible schools that we provide during the summer. You know a lot of us do this as volunteer work, it's not a paid position for any of us, a lot of us volunteer our time because we care about our community and we want the kids to have something great to do. You know a lot of us have to go through permits, this This isn't the first time that I've been in this building. I've been here to go over different permits

and learn the safety rules and everything that we need to do to proceed with this. We meet with firefighters and different people to get signed off to move forward with this. And don't let the kids suffer over something that they shouldn't. They're doing it the right way. They're working hard for what they want and what they need. And I feel like that's what we need to show our youth, is you need to work and do things to get what you need. It's so easy to cross the border and bring illegal fireworks in to sell them, but we're doing it the right way. Don't slap our hand for doing it the right way. Thank you.

Melissa Stile followed by Ashley Pulido followed by Carlos Mondragon.

Hi my name is Melissa Stice and I'm a 23 year resident of Ward 1. I live in Santa Ana, I work in Santa Ana, I'm raising a family in Santa Ana, I have kids that go to school both junior high high school and community college in Santa Ana so I'm very invested in Santa Ana and I feel very passionate about the resources that selling fireworks gives to our our programs. I'm with Calvary Chapel High School. We have two booths it's a football booth and a wrestling booth and we would not be able to run our sports programs without the funding

that we receive from selling fireworks. We're able to keep our fees for our families extremely low, lower than most other private schools for playing football or wrestling. These fees go towards equipment, uniforms, transportation, so many things. Our wrestling team is actually ranked eighth in CIF state this year. So we have done great things and it's because of the help of these funds that we've been able to do it. And we just urge you to really think

about the youth right now and everything that goes into raising up the youth to be leaders of the future. And that's exactly what sports teams do. It teaches them how to work together. It teaches them how to win humbly and lose graciously. It teaches them how to work together to problem solve quickly and effectively and we we are just so passionate about being able to keep these funds so that we can continue to do the work that we've been doing for

so many years thank you very much thank you Ashley Pulido followed by Carlos Mondragon followed by Santiago followed by Elizabeth Roque good evening mayor

City Council members my name is Ashley Pulido and I'm representing the Century high school chairs um century high school cheer um so as you can see the fireworks stand is benefits us a lot it helps us with our uniform it helps us with our payments for everything our expenses everything that we need and um you know with covet and all that it took many of our families' jobs away, and it helps us. It helps us collect the money that we need. There's not other

ways of funding that can help us with this, and this is one of the ways on how we get our money for everything that we need for what we need to pay. It also helps us communicate with our community, helps us get to know everyone better. It helps us with lots of things.

It's okay, take your time. Yeah, I think you should really reconsider this. It also helps lots of other programs too, as you can see, as many people came up here telling you how it helps the youth and many, it helps a lot. And yeah, I really hope you guys can reconsider this. That's it.

Thank you, Ashley.

Carlos Mondragon followed by Santiago followed by Elizabeth Roque.

Good evening Mayor. Good evening Council. Hey, my name is Carlos. I'm 29 years old. I'm representing Victory Outreach. We're a nonprofit organization, 501c3. We've been, I've been a resident of Santa Ana for about 10 years. I'm currently a volunteer in one of our ministry Victory Homes. We're in Santa Ana. Like I said, we're a nonprofit organization, and we've been with the Fireworks Stands for about 30 years. That's how long we've been open as a church also. And our focus is we love our community like you guys do. We love our city. We love the people.

And we believe our focus is helping out the drug addict, helping out the gang member, the prostitute, the homeless. And we have a house. We have a free recovery home for them. We don't charge them. It's a nonprofit. All they have to do is be willing to accept the change and want the change. And, you know, we're there to help them. It's a one-year program. And we have many testimonies of many men, many women who've gone through this program and exited out with, you know, with dignity once again, with their belonging once again. And I believe that it's all been possible through these funds, through the fireworks.

and we just want to let you guys know, first of all, thank you for the opportunity for allowing us to as a ministry, but also for the opportunity of coming up here and speaking to you guys, and just want to let you guys know to reconsider. I love our community. I know our church loves the community. Many people love our community, and we want to focus on what's important, you know, but I believe when we're trying to focus on two things, our heart gets divided, and we can't complete something that we want to do, and that's, once again, raise up Santa Ana. I think we're a modeling city. I think we're a thriving city.

And I believe that all these organizations, nonprofit, if you can help us out and continue to have this place open for us and continue, you know, we can get these funds from the fireworks stands. We can really focus on what is important. And I believe that's the people and the people that are in need. And that's what we're here for because we love them.

Thank you. Santiago, followed by Elizabeth Roque, followed by Courtney Calderon, followed by Lucia Gonzalez.

Good evening. My name is Santiago Bautista. I'm here representing the Tekken Jutsukan Karate organization. We've been teaching in the city of Santa Ana for the past 35 years or so. I've been in the organization for the past about 15, 16 years. I live in the Delhi neighborhood. And we use these proceeds from the firework stand to help our students in our community to take them on trips. We've taken them to Hawaii, Alaska, New York, Mexico. So these funds go to a great cause. we spend endless hours at the stands, guarding them. I mean, you can't imagine how many hours we spend there between four or five different students.

And for you guys to think about taking that away from us, I mean, there's no other resource where we can get these funds from. I mean, we've tried candy sales, we've tried car washes, and they just, they don't compete to what we can make at a fireworks stand. And again, all these funds go straight to our community, they go back to our students, they go back to the future of the city of Santa Ana. So I please ask you to reconsider banning fireworks. We really need these proceeds. They do help the community. We've helped a lot of students. You heard from our other instructor. He's managed to change his life, turn his life around.

He's got his degree. He's got, I mean, I met him as a child and we grew up, we had a rough time growing up in a rough neighborhood. And for this to bring us out of that, he turned into a teacher, I became a teacher, I am the chairman right now of the organization, I am the head instructor for the city of Santa Ana on the parks and recreation side of it, and we teach at all, most of the city centers for the city of Santa Ana parks and recreation, and all those kids go and help out at this center. They help out at the fireworks booth, their parents come and help out, and we turn this into a family event, so I would kindly ask you

so please reconsider this. Thank you. Elizabeth Roque followed by Courtney Calderon followed by Lucia Gonzalez followed by Mia Verdin.

Hello, good night.

I wanted to discuss the council members requested items specifically the one where there's like an ordinance or policy to ban loud music for use by police police officers and just by being in the meeting tonight I think that the police departments like overly funded department some of those funds could go back to supporting these youth programs and churches.

That's one thing. Another thing is, I don't know, we just need the oversight committee.

I have family members to this day that the SAPD still messes with and it's just really horrific I don't know why we keep funding them especially with like how greatly they're being funded when all that money can go again back to the youth and resources in the community so just want

to say that thank you Courtney Calderon followed by Lucia Gonzalez followed by Mia Verdin followed by Larry Tran.

Buenas noches, good night. I'm here to discuss the same item as the previous person regarding the ban of...

Can you hear me better? Cool. So I'm here to discuss this last item as the last person regarding the ban of the loud music by the police. and despite me obviously here to actively support it, it's largely symbolic because I think while it provides a clear evidence of an abuse of power by the police, I don't want it to be ignored that there was a unanimous vote by everyone on this board, including the person that's bringing this up today, Jonathan, to increase the police budget and a ton of that money could have gone to serve

our schools the fact that there is a saddleback band teacher advocating for 95 percent of their budget and then there's a cheer there's cheerleaders here like an applause to the youths for showing up and advocating for something that they deserve a right extracurricular activities is something that we all know that they need and yet our schools are so poorly funded but our police force is so overly funded that's a reflection on a failure of the city and how the the money is being managed and it sucks because the people that are at the short end of the stick are our youth but here we

are tokenizing them there's so many so many of y'all advocated for so many services for the homeless and and all these things but i last i heard it's the churches that are providing a ton of these services and it's all for free and they're a ton of their money comes from fireworks sales and as dire as the funds are I think it's also a reflection that like we also need to reflect that it's about to be Earth Day on Friday. Fireworks are damaging to the environment are damaging to our furry babies that I'm sure a ton of us have so can we also reflect on a ton of that stuff. Thank you.

Lucia Gonzalez followed by Mia Verdin followed by Larry Tran.

Good evening Mayor Sarguento and other members of the council. My name is Lucia Gonzalez and I am a resident of Ward 3. I stand before you today to ask that you support agenda item number 32 and discuss a policy ordinance or resolution to ban police from using copyrighted music to prevent civilian auditors from posting police recordings. In my opinion, this policy should also make it illegal for police officers to obstruct with recordings in any way. When I saw the video of SAPD officers disrupting neighbors by blasting Disney music, I was completely disappointed, but honestly not really surprised.

The youth and other conservative community members have been telling you that increasing police budgets is a waste of money, but some of you don't care as long as the POA wins you an election. After the recording went viral, SAPD Chief Valentin posted a press release stating that the department takes all complaints seriously and that they are committed to transparent and objective investigations. But it's a little hard to be objective when you're investigating yourself and the data shows that civilian complaints hardly ever rule against SAPD. PoliceScoreCard.org shows that out of 207 total civilian complaints from 2016 to 2020,

only six ruled in favor of civilians. That means that only 3% of complaints have ruled in favor of civilians in a five-year span. Even with all this media coverage, I don't think our community will be heard, and I sincerely doubt that the police involved will face any repercussions. I am truly disappointed in the council members that continue to support the police to no end and who voted to increase SAPD's budget last year. All of these organizations, including Saddleback High School, which I attended, and I was part of the marching band program, and we had to fix some of the instruments with tape.

We had to fix some of the instruments with YouTube videos. I want you guys to think about ways that we can fund youth services and organizations and not funding the police. We need, these organizations have asked you today to allow them to sell fireworks, but we really need to start asking why these organizations have to go sell fireworks, sell candy, sell Christmas trees to be funded. Thank you.

Thank you. Mia Verdin followed by Larry Tran followed by Kelly Kraus-Lee followed by Victor Mendez.

Hello members of the City Council and Mayor. My name is Mia Verdeen and I am the Chairperson of the Youth Commission of the City of Santana. I am here on behalf of Item 28 discussing regarding the banning of the sale and use of fireworks in our city and Item 32 which is the discussion regarding banning of loud music played by police. Regarding Item 28, I strongly advise the City Council when considering the possible ban fireworks how many nonprofits churches bands and all these programs that totally rely on all of these funds for our programs to thrive and I'm speaking from

personal experience I am a member of my of the Santa Ana high school marching band and all of our budget is based on the fireworks sales we do these fireworks sales once a year and it's enough to fund our entire season this is these These fireworks sales are the reason why my friends and I can play our horns and wave our flags. We play for you guys. We're out here in the community and we're doing what we can to share the joy of music and dance and everything under the sun. We have cheerleaders out here and we have other bands that have the same issue.

And I don't understand, one, why do we need to rely on these fireworks funds when there's more funding going to the police? Maybe it's a school district issue, but I would like to see that changed. It just doesn't make sense. I would also like, what is it? In regards to the police, it's not only the funding, but it's also what they're doing that we don't always see. That's the reason why we have auditors like Santa Ana Audits that are out there and surveilling the police, which is in the First Amendment, the freedom of speech. There is no reason why there should be dissuasion for the freedom of speech, and I feel like

this calls for the conversation also for a police oversight committee by the civilians, not them investigating themselves.

Thank you, Mia. Larry Tran followed by Kelly Kraus Lee, followed by Victor Mendez, followed by Jose Bereleza.

Larry Tran.

Kelly Crouse Lee, followed by Victor Mendez.

Good evening. I'm Kelly Crouse Lee. I'm in the Lacey neighborhood, still trying to figure out my ward because the maps are broken online. So regarding banning fireworks, I hate fireworks. I leave the city every year at 4th of July because my dog can't handle it. That said, I'm a professional fundraiser. I can think of no other way for these organizations to raise as much money as they do in as short of a time as they do. And on top of that, one thing I haven't heard mentioned from the other commenters is I was reading the research in the agenda packet and it says, quote, safe

and sane fireworks accounted for a very small percentage of reported injuries in 2021. And yet we're using this research as evidence to potentially ban the sale of safe and sane fireworks. So the evidence doesn't support the conclusion. So we need to do a little more research to identify is that really going to help prevent property damage and injury. Secondly, regarding item 32, banning loud music for use by the police, the city can ban the music but that's a band-aid solution to what I saw, which was disrespect for our community and a flagrant violation of First Amendment rights.

If I ever acted like that at my place of work, I would be immediately fired. But you know what? It's not something I would ever do or any of my colleagues because we have a culture of respect for the community that we serve. And that's what we need to address. Thank you.

Thank you. Victor Mendez followed by Jose Verelesa followed by Susana Sandoval.

Mr. Mayor, I request my three minutes be restored. I'm not speaking on the fireworks.

Go ahead, Victor.

Okay. Yeah, I'll write it all. Well, I'd like to start off with several thank yous. First of all, to Jason Brown for getting the ERP3 up and running two weeks ahead of schedule. The timing was great. as we head into the moratorium for June 30th. I think having that up and running is a very good thing and will stabilize the community. Thank you, Mr. Cermiento and the rest of the council for recognizing Autism Awareness Month. These are very important members of our community, and they do rely on our support to ensure they have a great future. As some of you do know, I do have a son on the autism spectrum. He's done really well.

About 10 years ago, he told me that he wanted to go to UCLA and I didn't think he'd quite make it, but oddly enough he found a way through a UCLA pathways program and he proved a lot of people wrong. Today he just turned 25. I brought a sample of his artwork.

And maybe one of you can commission him for an art piece. I'm looking for a career as an art broker down the road. And again, Mr. Saramantos, thank you so much for coming out to 2222. You heard a lot of the public safety concerns, the threats to our senior citizens, who are very, some who are blind, some who are disabled. And they're very, very concerned about the safety of that building and realize there is a public safety issue but also something we have to work out with our tenant. But I received nothing but positive remarks from them and they're most grateful for your time

and very much appreciative and we look forward to going forward with you on some of the other concerns but again thank you for hearing us out on those important issues of public safety. On item 32, I believe time is better spent just putting your time toward developing a commission versus another ordinance. Let's get a commission to work, one that at least can oversee the police and have investigative responsibilities. I do want to respond to a few things. The POA is not against a commission. When I ran for council, they were not against a commission, nor have they done anything to hinder the establishment of commission.

Let's debunk that myth. The only hindrance right now is the council. So you guys know how to do your job and get one going. Oakland is a poor model for our commission. I'm in a class action lawsuit to get data out of Oakland. You cannot get public information out of Oakland due to the mess that place is in. Lastly, there's some staffing models that are just completely out of line. We only have about 56 complaints a year. I'm not saying that's a low number, but to assume a staffing model of eight people, full-time investigators as proposed by the ACLU and others, is a recipe for disaster. That's only eight cases a year. Lastly,

AB 1506, it's very important, AB 1506 requires the state attorney general to investigate death resulting from police shootings whenever there's an unarmed citizen. So we do have something there to establish that as well. Thank you. Thank you, Victor.

Jose Berelesa followed by Susana Sandoval, followed by Irma Jauregui, followed by Jessica Magallanes.

Hi, good evening all. My name is Jose Barriza. I'm with Santiago Little League Baseball out of El Salvador Park, Ward 5. I wish Hernandez was here.

Anyways, I've met a couple of our council women, like Jessie, and I'm here for the same reason a lot of people here are for number 28, right, the fundraiser, one of our biggest fundraisers of the year. Especially one of the things that was on the agenda or recently, but it was voted among you guys on December 7, 2021, was the increase of fees for field rentals for the youth. And I see Lisa's here. I appreciate that. 150% increase in just field rentals, a 400% increase in the lights. And this is blindsided because we were not told about this until January 1st, 2022. So I just want to bring that up.

The fundraiser brings in 60% of our money to fund the leagues and pass on the savings to the kids and the people in our community. Sir, thank you for showing up. So it is a big fundraiser for everybody, just like everybody has spoken about. And I'm sure you guys want to get this over with and hear everybody else out. But we want to keep the same and safe. And like somebody else mentioned, it's the loud ones that we don't like. You know, I have four dogs. They don't like them. We don't want those fireworks. The same and safe bring us a lot of revenue for our leagues, for our nonprofits,

that if we keep that money in the community for the youth, It would prevent a lot of the other programs that we have to go towards homeless and stuff like that, you know, for mental healthness and all those other issues that we have. So let's keep it, and thank you for your time.

Thank you for your comments. Susana Sandoval, followed by Irma Hauregui, followed by Jessica Magallanes.

I'll flip it. I'll go first. Good evening, everybody. Very nice to meet you. Thank you very much. I'm Irma Hauregui, Sanana Healthy Neighborhoods Alliance. I am very impressed and actually pleased to see the passion of our community and our youth. One of the things we did when we talked to you about fireworks, about the health concerns, is we must, absolutely must, help our nonprofits. To design something, to help something, and the passion of them, I totally support them. We must find ways to fundraise, to be fulfilling of their events. I love Saddleback. I love Calvary. I don't know the pastor from Wilshire.

I've been there 30 years, but all of them. We need to find ways to transition as life goes on for health concerns. We need to help them find ways to be successful and fruitful. That was absolutely one of the first things we've always talked to, everybody we talked to about fireworks. The concern about the results we found of our research from the Green Project, from UCI, from the contaminants environmental. That is a health issue and it's conflicting and it should not conflict with helping our youth, helping our citizens, helping our schools.

We should find solutions on how to fundraise because all of their problems is the fundraising. We absolutely must fund very strong fundraising. We should not have just one vehicle that unfortunately is damaging our citizens. We have a death of our neighbors. Their dog was terrified, ran to Edinger and he saw him killed and cars running over. over them. The drivers were just distraught, but he was just terrified. We have veterans, we have autistic children. So we have to find a solution to help the fundraising, but there is also the concern of the health. The contaminants and all the damage that the research has shown

is very serious. Thank you.

Thank you, Idma. Susana Sandoval, followed by Jessica Magallanes, followed by John Hanna.

Good evening, Mayor Sarmiento, Mayor Pro Temp Becerra, and council members. Councilmember Jesse Lopez, we wish to thank you for your push and recommendation to take the ban on the use, possession, and sale of all fireworks to the November Elections 22 at the City Council meeting on December 21st, 2021. You presented that. At the December 21 meeting, item 43, discuss and consider directing City Manager to direct staff to introduce an ordinance for a ban on the use, possession, and sale of all fireworks presented by Councilmembers Fann, Mendoza, and Mayor Pro Temp Bacetta was presented. The City Council

discussion resulted in the push and recommendation to take to the voters in the November Election 22. Thus the Charter Review Ad Hoc Committee was established to report back to the City Council with recommendation. Residents have invested months of work, research, and meetings since last year, 21, on this health, environmental, and safety crisis. Very serious. As we have had meetings with council members and communications, we have received support from four of you to move forward with the ban. Councilmember Jesse Lopez, we salute your push to take to the voters as the right and democratic solution, achieving a fifth

vote to take to the November 22 elections. It is our hope that we will have the full support and unanimous vote from the council to take to to the voters in the November elections. We are privileged to live in a democracy where citizens can exercise the right to vote. Let the democratic process take place, and let the voters of Santana decide the outcome on the ban for the use, possession, and sale of all fireworks. And I strongly emphasize with Irma Haurugi that we do need to find other mechanisms for the nonprofits to fundraise, but not

at the expense of the contaminants in the environment, our health issues, asthma, seniors. Just the toxicities are just incredible, and that is by all fireworks. So please vote unanimously to take to the elections in November 22 and let the democratic process take place.

Thank you, Susana. Jessica Magallanes followed by John Hanna followed by Mark Santos.

Hi, good afternoon, Mayor and Council members. My name is Jessica Magallanes. I'm here representing Santa Ana Pony and Santa Ana Girls Fast Pitch. I'm here tonight to comment on the agenda, Item 28, regarding fireworks. Santa Ana Pony and Girls Fast Pitch host a booth each year to help us fundraise for our benefit of our kids. We have had booths for at least 10 years and do not want to see this great fundraiser disappear. It has become a tradition for our organization to host a booth, and we look forward to every year. Please vote to keep our Safe and Safe Fireworks Fundraiser

in our city of Santa Ana. Don't punish us for the illegal fireworks. This keeps our kids safe. This keeps our kids out of the street. We're struggling right now because our fees for the parks, have raised and part of this fundraiser keeps us to pay for that. So I do thank you for the time to give me to come speak up. I'm a little bit nervous. This is my first time. But I hope this really comes out as a good positive.

Thank you. You did great. John Hanna followed by Mark Santos followed by Nathaniel Greensides.

John Hanna of Orange here representing the Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters. here on number 10. I just want to thank the council for their attention to this matter. It's a serious matter, and I want to say that despite what some may have said, the prior ordinance did not lead to any work of skilled and trained workers. It did not. There was, and that's the simple thing that I can say, and off-channel I'll be happy to talk to people about

the evidence of that. This is an attempt to try and build a workforce. The private sector didn't do it before. This is an opportunity to see if this is going to work. We think it will, and we think this will do another thing. It'll build affordable housing, and developers will, as Councilwoman Phan said at the last meeting, you don't have to pay any fee if you build affordable housing. And we need more affordable housing. And so they may not have to use a skilled and trained workforce either,

but I'd rather see the affordable housing than not have anything at all. So I encourage you to pass this, and we stand ready, willing, and able to not only do the work, but to work with the council and if we have a partner on the other side of the development community to work with them to try and make any improvements that might be needed as we go through this process. I want to thank the council again and last thing you're going to pass a general plan amendments that's going to fast-track development that's going to make it very easy for developers

to move forward. So let's not be that worried. We support this General Plan Amendment though, but this is necessary because it's an exception to

the General Plan Amendment. Thanks. Thank you. Mark Santos followed by Nathaniel Greensides followed by David Salazar Chavez. Good evening. My name is Mark

Santos, I'm the band director at Santa Ana High School. I believe we are the flagship school of our Santa Ana Unified School District and we are the most visible organization in this city. Fireworks provides a majority of the funding for our program and whatever isn't covered by that is honestly I pay out of pocket and it's whatever we do to provide for these kids. Now the band performs at every football game away and home. We perform at the Wilshire Square Christmas Parade, the Fiestas Patrias Parade, Boca de Oro, a collaboration

between the city and the district and the mayor's State of the City Address. Now without funding from fireworks we can't do these kinds of things. We can't provide extra opportunities for our students. And without fireworks, we'll need to ask parents to donate financially to provide for these opportunities and it's something that they have not been able to do or they have not needed to do for years because of fireworks sales. If that's taken away, expect a lot of us to come back every year asking for money from the city because we are all stakeholders here. Ask for, expect the band to be asking for $20,000 a year just to operate.

And if every school organization has to come back here, that's about $500,000 a year that the city will have to cover that's covered through fireworks. And I don't have to mention to any of you how much fun kids have in programs like band and cheer and football. And band and other school activities keeps kids off the streets. And it's something that can tether a student to a community and to a school. And I think it would be devastating to take something away like the sale of fireworks. I know there's other ways to raise money, but it is the solution right now. Thank you.

Thank you, Mark. Nathaniel Greensides, followed by David Salazar Chavez, followed by Ricardo Valderas.

I'm not speaking on fireworks. Can I have three minutes?

My name is Nathaniel Greensides, I'm an Ward 5 resident and the Building Industry Association, the BIA, has existed in their current form since the 1980s. They have continually come to this council and said that they have not had enough time to consider proposals to ensure that the affordable housing supply can remain and that residents can remain in our city. In my academic career and in my professional life, if I asked for an extension and I failed to meet that deadline, I either got an F or I'd get fired. but I guess they think things operate differently because they make financial

contributions to the campaigns of at least three of the council members that are currently in front of us today. But I'm here to speak on something that I hope is not as political and that is the ceremonial street naming item number 27. To know our past paves the way to where we're going in the future. For our hoods, for our people, for our community to be able to see the name of somebody who they revere, who made a difference in their hood on their street, will make a difference not only now, but also for generations to come. That's why I'm here asking you all to consider the work that was put in

by the city staff, Nabil Sava, the director of public works, and his staff to make sure that that can be a process that can be followed. They did a really great job, and I think it will be really beneficial for special people in our local history, like Helen Schiff, founder of the OC Black History Parade, or Ruben Salazar, the journalist who was killed during the Chicano moratoriums, and he actually lived here in Santana.

When a people who feel connected to a place that they love can control the land upon which they live, or at the very least see themselves represented, or at least reflected, if not represented, in the place where they live, that's where society is made better, and I'd argue that's the only time it ever has. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. David Salazar Chavez followed by Ricardo Valderas followed by Jorge Rodriguez.

Hello, Mayor, Councilmembers. My name is David Salazar Chavez, 26 years old. And I'm part of the Victory Outreach, a nonprofit organization. And I'm here to speak about the banning of fireworks. I am not a resident of Santa Ana. I'm a resident of Orange. and I'm just here to say that our fireworks stands benefit our our communities the youth currently at our church I am the youth leader of the students and the young adults it's it's a privilege to to serve the community even though I don't live in the city I love this city here in Santa Ana

there's great potential and I believe that the city of Santa Ana benefits of of allowing us to do this fundraiser, our church has two stands, and it's a great opportunity for us to connect with the youth when they come up by fireworks, with the families, and just as our church mission statement, right, the part that says that Victor Arbich works cooperatively with others of mutual purpose in accomplishing the task before us. And I know that Santa Ana, the vision is, part of it says invest in the youth, and the mission it says to opportunities for the youth and a high quality of life for residents.

And so I believe that as the community backs up the sales, fireworks as a fundraiser, it helps students, families, the youth to be able to see that the community is there to back us up and having a way to provide a good quality life through not just the churches, but other organizations that are here. And I just want to say thank you for this opportunity to support the TNT firework stands. And I believe that this, if we continue to do this, it's going to continue to help benefit the families and the youth here. Thank you.

Thank you. Ricardo Valderas followed by Jorge Rodriguez followed by Jessica Paredes.

Ricardo Valderas. Jorge Rodriguez.

Jessica Paredes.

Cesar Plasencia.

Followed by Sylvia Ayala, followed by Guadalupe.

Hello, Mayor Sarmento, council members. I'd first like to applaud you for bringing awareness to autism awareness. I have a son that's autistic. He plays at Santiago Little League. great benefit. I would like to say that there should be some kind of like a budget from the city and maybe a small portion that is in favor to giving jobs to autistic kids because after high school it's kind of a stop. It really is. I applaud the two organizations that were here earlier because they give our autistic community something to do but it really is a stop. Saying that I would like to speak against the band of fireworks. It provides not only

you know 60 to I guess 95 percent of a budget for people that provide services for our community our youth something that we all take a passion for and we're all spread out throughout Santa Ana we're in your ward your ward your ward everybody's ward and we're all providing services for the community that we love that we live in and that we serve I mean do you guys want the do you guys want the fireworks to be gone no right I don't think so I don't think so so we're all against it and you know I will end it with you know I was here last time when they were trying to ban fireworks and it was someone from the Floral Park

area that said I hear dogs barking all the time in the city but no one says let's ban dogs in the city right so thank you thank you

Silvia Ayala followed by Guadalupe followed by Jackie followed by Perla Dionisio

It's good to give them to the people who have more need.

Because they have to be worth of what we have to gain. And I think they don't have to gain enough work and education that they have to have. The respect, especially for the people. I also ask that they continue to continue to celebrate the 4th of July. to help all those who need that need.

These are the peticions I bring. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Good evening. My comments are these, same as many of the people who have spoken before. I want to ask you that the officers be, police officers be better trained and that they need to deserve all the money that they are taking because the money, they need to earn this money and they need to serve the people. And this is, they need to work with us. and also for the 4th of July, we need to have all this money, we need to have this celebration, this money,

because this money is helping all the people that have all these needs. These are my asks.

Guadalupe followed by Jackie, followed by Perla Dionisio, followed by Ventura Gama.

Buenas tardes nuevamente a todo el personal del Concilio de la Ciudad de Santana, la bonita ciudad de Santa Ana. Y esta tarde vengo para hacerles saber que yo en lo personal no estoy de acuerdo con los fondos masivos que se están alocando al departamento de policía. Y tengo muchas razones y voy a comentar una de ellas. La razón es que cuando yo y mi familia hemos ocupado de su ayuda, nos han dejado muy desamparados. Como residentes, han hecho todo menos servir y proteger a la comunidad.

En una ocasión, en la calle Primera, le aventaron el carro de policía a mi hijo, tratándolo de matar, aunque se oiga rudo, le echaron la patrulla, lo bajaron de la bicicleta donde él iba y le azotaron todas sus pertenencias que él tenía en la mochila. This is an improvisationalism in terms of the police department and I'm not sure to support that with much money. These are the needs that they are putting in the firework

to help people with uniforms of schools, I'm not sure to prove that money to them. I agree with the ordinance that they give to the police police music to be able to grab their music. Sometimes they have asked if they are holding their camera and they pay their camera to be able to grab their camera. And that they have viral their bad behavior and their abuse in terms of the Latin community.

Latina. También estoy a favor de un comité que se le supervise. Gracias. Gracias. Jackie, followed by Perla Dionisio, followed by Ventura Agama. Good evening to the staff and the city council members and of this beautiful, the beautiful city of Santa Ana. I'm here to say that I do not agree with the massive money that goes to the police department. There are many reasons, but I want to share just one. I and my family, when we needed them, we were forsaken. We were forgotten by them.

They are not there to serve and to protect. This one time along First Street, some police officers tried to run over my son. and this might sound rude, but it is. They tried to kill him. And they got him off the bike and they took all his belongings from his backpack and threw them around. This is not something professional and I do not support this and all this massive amount of money that the police officers receive. And there are lots of needs.

with these fireworks, and they have needs for the uniforms and for the school, and I agree that the money should go to those needs. I agree with an ordinance prohibiting the police officers from playing loud music to avoid being recorded, and at times and occasions when they've asked the police officers if their cameras are on, they go ahead and click them off. And this needs to go viral, their behavior and abuse against the Latino community. And I agree with a police oversight committee.

Perla Dionisio followed by Ventura Gama. Gracias, Guadalupe. Hello, community council members. My name is Jackie. I'm a mother of Santa Ana. I remind you that water is life. We need to protect our water.

The treatment of our citizens is terrible. Our downtown has been decimated. We're fully vested in our community as board members of these nonprofits. And then you threaten to take away the funding that they have for our children, where we're trying to save our children's life here. We're bleeding out children at the hands of our cops. We've been telling you this for years now. And then we have to pay out millions of dollars in settlement funds to the cops that have killed our children. We pay for this. The downtown is decimated. We pay for parking.

We agreed to a tax increase. We get nothing for our money that we invest into us. What happened to the FBI investigations that we were under? and now we're under another investigation. How about the cops that we paid double time to at the park to protect perverts and child molesters on the 4th of July? Where's the investigations into these things?

It's insane that you're getting promoted, that you're trying to get promoted along with Juan Villegas, Vicente Sarmiento, trying to get promoted. How about the 1,200 rape kits that's on backlog with the DA office, the racist Todd Spitzer?

Where's that at? And you want to move up?

I don't think so. Thank you.

Thank you. Perla Dionisio followed by Ventura Gama.

Good evening, buenas noches. I thought I'd come here and introduce myself to SAPD, because apparently the gang unit thinks it's OK to pull up six units and surround my car, spend two hours, and not have the cojones to come and talk to me. So my name is Perla Dionisio. I am a single mother, an educator, a comrade to many collectives around the world. I also have a degree in psychology from Cal State Fullerton, and I also hold a much severe education specialist education credential that emphasizes in teaching children with autism.

It is rude and impersonal to call someone autistic. So people first language is very important when addressing our community. Furthermore, I am a co-founder of a Mujeres book club that addresses real issues such as indigenous resistance, oppression, colonialism, state funded violence, slavery, and self-love. I am also a co-founder of a community emergency response network specializing in responding to calls about domestic violence to prevent further harm and further sexual assault by

your officers to our community.

To all the churches and organizations out here begging these people to bail you out, what you all need to do is get involved in politics. If you don't know how these people end up, ask us, because we have helped and we have been instrumental in some of these campaigns. As a community, we rule and if the police department wants to keep pulling up on our streets, they're gonna be pulling up on the moms. So thank you and have a good night. Thank you. Ventura

Gama, it's our last in-person speaker and then we'll call on the speakers that

are online. Hello. I'm very nervous. I am in agreement with the resolution to band on music used by police and also agree to the civilian over overnight committee. I feel that both of these are vital as well as as we the residents of Santa Ana have fallen victims of police abuse. A lot of of complaints are thrown under the rug because no one cares about looking further into these issues. We are suffering as Santa Ana rest as Santa Ana

residents for lack of professionalism that we we serve on a daily and this has been an ongoing issue for years. Oversight committee will bring transparency back to our community. I think we deserve that. Our tax dollars are tax tax dollars are the the ones funding the police department and believe we should be engaged engaged in the well-being and and the conducts of our public servants to assure that they are here to provide us with the right service.

I've been a victim of the abuse of power by the police and with a broken heart, I share that my son with autism was a victim as well.

I got pulled over by a police officer just because I honked my horn because they were They were, a bus had to go and, well, around them and almost hit the divider. I, obviously I honked and they came at me quickly, pulled me over. The officer then began to inappropriately and aggressively approach me, stating that I was committing a crime by honking the horn. That got my son scared and he began to cry uncontrollably.

When I told the police officer that my son was upset and had autism, he said, you brought this upon yourself.

And, Judith, you could start wrapping up.

Okay. I asked for the supervisor. She shortly arrived. She also told me that I can make a complaint. So, long story short, all I'm saying is there's a lot of police that are corrupt and we don't need that.

Thank you. Thank you for your comments. That was our last in-person speaker. Let me go ahead and ask the Madam Clerk of the Council if there are any members of the public online that wish to address us.

Yes, thank you, Mayor, members of the council. Speakers on the queue may provide their comments on agenda and non-agenda items within the city's jurisdiction with the exception of public hearing items 29 and 30. Please hold your comments for public hearing items 29 and 30 until the mayor opens the hearing for each item. When unmuted, please announce your name, ward, or neighborhood that you reside in within the city of Santa Ana for the record. Again, to request to speak, dial star 9 from your phone or select raise hand from Zoom now.

Before meeting callers, I'd like to begin by reporting the following summary of emails provided as of today. We received 21 non-agenda items from Santa Ana residents requesting to end Santa Ana's discriminatory residential permit parking program. Item number nine, one Santa Ana resident requested for clarification, which I've already addressed. Item 27, the ceremonial naming of the street. Four residency not disclosed were in support. Item 28, on the fireworks item, five Santa Ana residents or organizations were in support

to continue the sale of safe and safe fireworks. and one Santa Ana resident who supports the ban of all fireworks. And then item 32 on the ban loud music, there were two Santa Ana residents in support and two residency not disclosed. And with that, Zoom ID Kathy Scott, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device. Thank you. You may proceed with your comment. Yes, thank you. Good evening, honorable mayor and council members. This is my first time addressing you, but I felt that it's very imperative

to address this issue of parking related to Metro East Senior Park. I have a non-agenda item, which I'm calling Operation Safe Passage for Seniors. On April the 8th, the residents of Metro East Senior Park received notification from the parking lot owner that the city of Tustin will no longer allow the use of 900 west first street to be used for parking by the residents now they are offering

off-site parking which will be at 2021st street my concern is that we are seniors some of us are able-bodied and some are disabled seniors this puts us directly into some of the unsavory criminal element in this area which is very frightening and unsafe it's also causing a great deal of anxiety for myself and other seniors I do have some short-term solutions such as a stationary security patrol for 24 for hours.

They are providing mobile security. However, that is not enough. There are some seniors who are still working. Some that are going to work at four in the morning are getting off work at 11 and 1130 at night. I'm requesting that there are lights and please don't forget your seniors. We do need safe passage. It may not seem a long gift. Okay, it may not seem a long distance for people to travel from these areas but at night it's very savory and very unsafe so thank you for your time

and please address this issue safe passage for seniors thank you thank you zoom id nathan taft if you would please select the microphone icon thank you you may proceed with your comments great can you all hear me okay yes we can hear you hi my name is nathan i'm in ward three here in santana and i'm calling regarding uh council item number 32. i uh i think it's quite honestly disgraceful that uh that it took a council member coming out to

confront a police officer um to stop blasting music at night in a neighborhood waking up children and and all to stop someone from filming them. They need to be held accountable for their jobs. So I think that absolutely we need to pass this ordinance preventing that, but I think the officers need to be held accountable. And beyond that, I mean, it speaks to a broader problem, like how long has this been going on and what other things are happening that we're not clear about. So we definitely need a civilian oversight committee to be established as immediately. And then just listening in to this meeting,

uh it's just it's wild that there's so many folks that community programs that are underfunded while our police are are overfunded and uh get all this money and then they disrespect our community constantly and it's it really it speaks to a broader problem within our within our community that we need to be redirecting funds from from the police department to community programs like these so they don't have to defend on firework sales to provide services for our of community, that's unacceptable. So I would call on you to pass the item number 32 and to establish a civilian oversight committee

of the police department and then to redirect funds from the police department towards community programs. Thank you. Thank you. Zoom ID, Cynthia Guerrero, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Hi, yes, so I wanna speak on item 30, the general plan update. So I'm from San Fernando, I'm a member of the Rise of Willow Coalition. I'm here to, I wanna start by saying that I appreciate this. Can you hold your comment until the mayor opens the public hearing item for item number 30? I'll put you back on the speaker queue. Thank you. Thank you.

Zoom ID Chispa number two, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device.

Hi, sorry, I always forget to change my name. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of the council. I'm Jairo Cortez. I'm here to speak on item 32, as well as the HOO very briefly. You know, I'm calling in like to support action on item 32 to ban police from using copyrighted music to essentially avoid transparency and accountability and infringe on the public's First Amendment right to record officers' actions while on duty.

Some of the most high-profile cases of police misconduct have only come to light because residents of the police across the country have recorded, you know, like officers. And these have been critical in ensuring accountability. However, there is a widespread pattern of police officers weaponizing copyrighted music to avoid transparency. And so I personally, and representing Lachizpa, we support council action to ban police from engaging in this type of action. Furthermore, this incident underscores the need for more civilian, for civilian oversight

of the Santa Police Department. So residents can submit complaints to an independent investigatory body that can address and can be trusted to address this type of misconduct. I think like this also raises a lot of questions about why it needs to take council action to to address the problem and why Chief Valentin and the Sanapolis Department is not addressing this problem internally through, you know, like through a policy created through the improvements process. Secondly, I wanna express support for the passage of the housing opportunity ordinance.

This ordinance is, you know, like essential to continue building affordable housing. Thank you, your time is up. Thank you. Thank you. Zoom ID Elias Casales if you would please select the microphone icon on your device to unmute your call. Thank you. You may proceed with your comment.

Hello? Yes hi you may proceed with your comment. Okay yes my apologies. Hi my name is Elias Casales. I am a Ward 3 resident. I live in the West Floral Park neighborhood. I'm also the president for Santa Ana Pony. I wish I was in person. I couldn't attend today, but I'm calling in to address item 28, the man of fireworks.

We actually do not support this item on the agenda. We are the largest youth organization baseball in Santa Ana. Very visible to city of Santa Ana since we serve every single ward in the city of Santa Ana. Just a month ago, we were recognized by council member Lopez because we have dedicated an extensive amount of time to our parks, Riverview Park.

and some points that I want to address how this ban will affect our registration is that you guys the whole council voted to increase fees field fees which that was a surprise to us It was, which have equated to $10,000, $15,000 of an increase from the previous last year.

And this is also, it's blindsided by these news that now they want to ban the fireworks. This adds insult to injury to the current measure that would ban the fireworks in the city of Santa Ana. this would eliminate an estimated 20% of our next, of our net yearly income. This is gonna cost, this cost would have to be pushed on to our families. So our registrations are expected to go up if this. Thank you, your time is up.

Zoom ID, David Carabajal, if you would please select a microphone icon on your device.

Good evening, mayor and city council. My name is David Carvajal and I am a lifetime resident of Ward 2. I'm calling in in support of agenda item 32 to ban loud music for use by police officers. I do wanna say that this is just the tip of the iceberg. The community has been demanding for decades for police accountability and transparency. Historically, our city spends a very disproportionate amount of the general budget on police when it should be spending it on our youth, our community centers, our libraries, our marching bands and our cheer teams whom we heard of tonight.

And it's absolutely embarrassing that the police department cannot behave in basic code of conduct. People making six-figure salaries from our taxpayer money cannot behave respectfully towards our community and that's a shame. So I'm calling in in support of agenda item 32 and also in support of civilian oversight with a very clear and concise understanding that oversight is just the beginning and that our residents and the people that live in the city of Santana deserve to be invested in more than our police officers do. Thank you. Thank you.

Zoom ID Maria Sanchez, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device.

Hi, good evening. Thank you so much. I'd like to thank Mayor Sarmiento for highlighting and recognizing autism awareness month. I have a nephew who is high functioning autistic. He is working tight. Otherwise he would have called in as well, but I'm calling in support to keep the sale of Safe and St. Fireworks in the city of Santa Ana. I was born and raised in Santa Ana. I'm from Ward 5. And we as a family have always enjoyed supporting the different organizations who benefit from families such as myself purchasing the fireworks.

And it brings me even more joy to support those organizations, knowing that it's bringing so much to them as far as activities and participation in their different school events or community organizations. So I definitely ask the council to keep the sale of fireworks. And I'm also in support of the civilian oversight for stopping police from using copyrighted music. And other than that, thank you so much and have a good night. Thank you. Zoom ID, Jesus Santana,

if you would please select the microphone icon on your device.

Hello, Mayor and City Council members. My name is Jesus Santana, a proud Santanero who resides in Ward 4. Today I'm calling as a concerned community member of our beloved city of Santana, in particular regarding agenda item 32. Two weeks ago, when I saw that our city's police department was making national news, I was not surprised that it was due to police misconduct. with documented history of past police misconduct and violence including the brutality edgar vargas arsate encountered in 2014 the marijuana dispensary raid in 2015 and the unbearable murder of random

lopez by anaheim pd last year it is urgent that you all as our elected officials move towards passing resolutions policies or ordinances that will help secure the safety of our community it is important that we redefine what community safety means and looks like to me community safety does not mean investing more funds to the police nor does it mean giving police full authority to investigate their own complaints that right there in essence is a conflict of interest what true community safety means to me is giving our youth residents and our most marginalized

community members the resources and opportunities to thrive living a life with dignity and respect that we as santaneros deserve should not be deprived from police officers who don't ever to live in our community, nor even take into consideration the community they are serving on a Monday night. This is why today I am speaking in agreement with passing a policy or an ordinance that bans police officers from playing loud music along with the civilian oversight committee that will ensure that misconduct is held accountable. To conclude, I would like to thank Mayor Vicente Sarmiento and council member Jonathan Hernandez

for joining the Zulivan Accion team and members of the Zulivan community in the community Caminata last Friday. 15 seconds. Your presence and time to meet, listen, and walk with members of our community is admirable. Thank you. And I hope you all have a good night. Thank you.

Zoom ID Denise Reynoso, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device.

Hello, Mayor Sarmiento and council members. My name is Denise Reynoso. I'm the president of the downtown neighborhood association in Ward 5. I am a coach and board member for Northeast Santa Ana Little League and I'm here to represent them. I just want to speak about the potential ban on fireworks and urge you to please reconsider and allow the sale of safe fireworks in the city of Santa Ana. Just like I'm here to echo what my fellow sports organizations and other students have expressed on how as a nonprofit we rely on the sale of fireworks

for our little league to stay open. And so I just would like to speak on behalf of all the children and parents and just urge you to please allow us to continue to be able to fundraise so that we can continue to serve the children of Santa Ana. As a teacher, I can tell you that it's really important for kids to be able to be active and to learn team skills. So I just wanna speak on behalf of them. Thank you. Thank you. Zoom ID, Tanya Reeves, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Tanya Reeves. I live in Ward two and I work in Ward two. I'm an attorney specializing in first and fourth amendment law. I'm calling to address item number 32. When I viewed the video that was recorded by Santa Ana audits, I was horrified. As a taxpayer in Santa Ana through my property taxes, I don't want my money to go to pay lawsuits for violations of fundamental constitutional rights. The auditor was engaging in protected speech.

it appeared that the police officer deliberately and intentionally attempted to thwart that speech by an unauthorized use of copyrighted material to which he did not have permission. And now there has been a report to the general counsel of the Disney company through their hotline for violations of their copyright. And apparently he is considering whether or not he needs to issue a cease and desist order

to the Santa Ana police and whether or not Santa Ana, City of Santa Ana, owes Disney royalties. This was inappropriate for so many reasons. It's clear that we need an independent investigatory body. further I want to know what culture in the police department allowed this officer to either come up with this idea independently or perhaps it was suggested to him by a supervisor or perhaps he had witnessed other officers doing this. 15 seconds left. I also support item number 28

which is the ban the published report by the ad hoc committee showed how much money the city spends on police department, fire department, personnel responding to fireworks. Perhaps we can use that money. Thank you. Your time is up. Thank you.

Zoom ID Daisy Cruz, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device.

Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Great, thank you. Good evening City Council. My name is Daisy and I'm with the Kennedy Commission. I'm speaking on item 10 and 32 tonight. For item 10, we support the changes for the housing opportunities ordinance and have heard over and over again from many organizations, residents for many months that this is needed and essential for affordable housing development in the city. For item 32, we echo the sentiments of the community on this item. It's completely unacceptable, but not surprising behavior. This behavior only demonstrates the importance of a police oversight committee

that is independent and resident led. The city must redirect funds to invest youth programs that we're listening to today, housing and many other resources, as well as a community. Thank you. Thank you.

Mayor Proton, that was the last caller.

Okay, great.

Phil BacerraItem 7

Thank you for that, Madam City Clerk. Let's go back to the agenda here.

Phil BacerraItem 7

Actually, we've got our mayor walking back out as we speak. I believe we'll be beginning the consent calendar.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Madam Clerk, and everybody who addressed the council. Let's go ahead and I'll call on members of the council to see if they want to abstain or pull any items off the consent calendar. Mayor Pro Tem? Councilmember Phan.

Phil BacerraItem 7

I'd like to go ahead and pull items 10 and 22.

Councilmember Phan.

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

I would like to announce my recusal for item number 26 as it involves a Dyer 18 LLC, which is a client of my employer from which I earn an income. So I will not be discussing that item. And if that is pulled, I will leave the dais. Thank you.

Councilmember Lopez.

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

I'll be pulling 26.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

Mayor Sarmiento.

Yes.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

I would like to respectfully pull item 27.

Thank you. Any other? And item 28. 28.

And so I will be registering a... Mayor Sarmiento. I'm sorry, go ahead.

David PenalozaItem 7

Point of clarification of those items, 27 and 28, are on the business calendar, so they don't need to be pulled.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

Correct. Thank you so much.

Any other items directed to be pulled or any abstentions on those? I will be registering a no on item number 17. And if we can pull, just for comment, item number 25, and I'm not sure if that one was pulled, but if not, I'll pull it. With that, I'll entertain a motion on the balance. So moved. I'll second. Great. We have a motion and a second. Councilmembers, please vote.

Okay. Motion passes 7-0 with Councilmembers Hernandez, Lopez, Mendoza, Peñalosa, Fan, Mayor Proche Ambassador, Mayor Sarmiento voting yes.

Great. everybody let me go ahead and go to item number 10 that was pulled by mayor pro

Phil BacerraItem 7

tem thank you mr. mayor I'm not going to continue to believe you're the point I'm just going to go ahead and make a motion to deny the second reading of the

ordinance before us is there a second hearing no second motion dies

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

I will second.

I'll second.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

I'll second.

We have a motion and a second to adopt the staff recommendation. Councilmembers, please vote.

Councilmember Mendoza, if you would please vote.

Thank you. Motion passes 4-3 with Councilmembers Hernandez, Lopez, Fan, and Mayor Sarmiento Vodinuez. Councilmembers Mendoza, Peñalosa, Mayor

Pro Tempecero dissenting. Great. Thank you everybody. Let me, I know I said that I'm gonna register a no on number 17. I mistakenly, I meant to register a no on item number 11, not 17. But I did have a comment on 17, if that's okay. So is that

clear, Madam Clerk? Yes. So you are dissenting on item number 11 and you just want to provide a

comment on item 17. Correct. So, you know, since we're, since that's the next item, I guess, in sequence, item number 17 is to award a construction contract to All-American. I just simply want to comment on the procurement process and the staff recommendations going forward. If we can include some items on work performance by the contractors and vendors that we retain, just to have a little bit more meat on the bones of the staff report. I see that they're ranked in a certain order. This is a company that's done some work for us in the past. They're outside the county. They're,

I guess they were the lowest bidder of the three that bid on this contract, and we have a bidder that's in Orange County. So I'm trying to see what the multiplier effect of maybe, you know, going with a vendor that's here in the county. Maybe it makes up that delta between what the lowest bid and what the next lowest bid is. But just looking at, you know, past performance, if there's any, you know, defects in the work that they've done, I know that we've used both, you know, All-American and we used R.J. Noble and others when we did the 300 miles worth of roads, I think, you know, years ago. And I know they,

you know, some of them performed really well, some of them didn't. But if I'm just simply asking, and going forward a little bit more detail on some of the procurement on that. That would be great. So let me move along to the next item. I believe that item was item number 22, polled by Mayor Pro Tem.

Phil BacerraItem 7

Mayor Sarmiento.

Phil BacerraItem 7

On item 22, I just wanted to say, I like the design standards for the digital billboards, that they include a requirement for the digital billboards and the digital banners who are awarded this agreement it shall include the City of Santa Ana, the words on the signs. I think that's great. That's something that when we were seeing signs at the Planning Commission, that was something I was always adding as a condition of approval. It's just a great, simple, easy way to let people know that they're seeing the City of Santa Ana. Director Saba, I do have a couple of questions for you.

Phil BacerraItem 7

So, Director Saba, are the only sites for digital billboards, the five sites proposed in Table 1 of Exhibit A, I believe it's called the Digital Billboard, Sites Considered for Development? Because I know there was another exhibit in the RFP that seemed to have a lot more exhaustive list. So is the five here the only ones that are part of this agreement?

Part of the RFP in the rating of our request for proposal from the various providers, we looked at all 13 sites that we initially had. So five of them were selected to be the best locations at this point of time. So we put those in our agreement. Although we still plan to consider all 13 in the future.

Phil BacerraItem 7

Oh, okay. So the agreement, though, even though Exhibit A has five in that table, the other eight are still on the table?

Yes, definitely. Okay.

Phil BacerraItem 7

And then on the proposed location for the digital billboard at what's called Well 28, the Santiago Archery?

Yes.

Phil BacerraItem 7

Up near the city boundary on the north end. Is that particular digital billboard, would that be located east of the tracks and south OF THE 22, AS IN IN THAT LITTLE AREA? OR BECAUSE THE WAY IT WAS SHOWN ON THE EXHIBIT IN THE STAFF REPORT, IT LOOKED LIKE THERE WAS ANOTHER POLYGON WEST OF THE TRACK. SO I'M JUST TRYING TO

GET AN IDEA WHERE IT WOULD BE. I BELIEVE IT IS IN THE SAN CHIACO PARK AREA. AND IT'S EAST, LET'S SEE, IT'S PROBABLY, YEAH, EAST OF THE TRACK. YES, IT'S EAST OF THE TRACK. OKAY. AND I'M

Phil BacerraItem 7

NOT SURE WHAT'S THE OTHER DIMENSION. YEAH, SO IT WOULD BE SOUTH OF THE 22, THEN. feels like basically really on or near the archery site not the um the canine oh yeah yeah not the canine is a water reservoir okay thank you um those are the only questions i have right now i you know i would just say for my colleagues i i like that the proposed agreement includes language that provides space for city ads public messages and discounts for city businesses to advertise. And that's the first two are something that when we've approved other digital billboards here in Santa Ana, we've always asked for that. And they've always been

Phil BacerraItem 7

accommodating for the city. So that's a good thing. It gives us the opportunity to, whether it's promote meetings, whether it's to celebrate holidays or certain accomplishments or achievements, they've always abided. So I appreciate that. But I got to say, I can't support digital billboards on the Santa Ana Water Tower. It's a 94-year-old historic landmark. I can't imagine putting digital billboards on it. I think it would just cheapen it. I think it would just, that's it. It would cheapen it. I really couldn't do that. That's the only one that I have issue with. The other ones, the other four that

Phil BacerraItem 7

are indicated in that exhibit, I'm okay with. Some of the other eight I have concerns with, but with that, I would want to know that, at least part of the agreement i'd want to have the um if there were any additional sites added to the agreement beyond the five or hopefully it'll be less than that when we're done um that we would have those come back to the council because there's a couple that i i have concerns with and seeing that there were only the the five on that um that exhibit i was okay with except for the water tower but the other ones there's some that are just you know very uncomfortably next to residential and i won't

Phil BacerraItem 7

go into them now because they're not on the table. But the other thing too, what I was also uncomfortable with is this council, and I'm not sure if it was last year or the year before, we had a lot of dialogue about telecommunication facilities that were popping up on existing power poles and other city or utility infrastructure. And we got a lot of feedback from our community that aesthetically they were not appealing. I mean these things look like an alien attached itself to some of our polls. And so, in the agreement, it talks about essentially giving the, who is this, the out-front media,

Phil BacerraItem 7

giving them the ability to go out and get these third-party telecommunication devices, and that the city would just approve them. And I do not agree with that. I think that's in the last paragraph of Section 4. I would like to, if we were to approve the agreement tonight, I'd like to see that change so that it would come back where we would remove the words without limitation from the first sentence.

Phil BacerraItem 7

And then we would amend the second sentence to read, city shall review proposed additional telecommunication devices and provide approval if such additional telecommunication devices are found to be compliant with applicable federal and state regulation laws and city ordinance requirements. In other words, when we have cell sites that have exhausted their 10-year agreement, they come back to the Planning Commission. They go through a review. I don't want to just see these things haphazardly just over-the-counter approved or have us bound to these when we don't know. I mean, it's literally sight unseen.

Phil BacerraItem 7

So I'd like to see those changes. The other changes real quickly are, as far as I mentioned already, in Exhibit A, Sections 1AA and Section 2AA, just to indicate that any additional locations are subject to approval by the City Council. And in Exhibit A, Section CA8, to remove the language after the words double-sided to eliminate any reference to the water tower. Again, at least for me, I'm very opposed to the digital billboards on the water tower, but I'd like to hear from my colleagues on this item. Thank you.

Is that like an amendment to the staff recommendation to remove the water tower as a potential site for a And in addition to those of the other language that you have? Correct. Yes. That's a motion. I'll make it a motion. Yeah I second the motion. So we have a motion in a second. Any other comments on on this? Councilmember Peñalosa.

David PenalozaItem 7

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento, and thank you, Mayor Pro Tempecerra, for bringing those topics of discussion forward. The only question I have is, is that motion, including the removal of the water tower for any possible advertising on there, which I am also not supportive of seeing, and any potential cell tower coming back to this council for any approval? Because as we've seen over the last five, 10 years, The increase in cell phone tower installations throughout the city have become an eyesore.

David PenalozaItem 7

And I would hate to give anybody just the right to have a staff at the staff level be approved without any consideration.

Just a clarification on the cell tower. Those are installation on the billboard itself. It's not a freestanding cell tower installation on the site. We will not allow that. It's on the billboard itself.

David PenalozaItem 7

Right. But it would still add to the billboard that's already.

Right. We would control how it would look.

David PenalozaItem 7

Right. Which still wouldn't be okay with me. So I want to make sure that that's part of that motion.

Right.

Phil BacerraItem 7

The idea with my motion is that rather than just have it be an automatic approval through staff, that it would be treated the same way as if any telecommunication devices were being added to whether it's a cell tower or structure, they would be reviewed by Planning Commission and possibly Council.

Okay.

David PenalozaItem 7

Perfect. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure that that was included as part of the motion.

Great. Thank you. Any other questions or comments on this item? Seeing none, just a couple of quick questions, you know, Nabeel or Min. I know that Min had been in some discussions with some of our existing digital reader board,

owners, both at the Centennial, at the Auto Mall, and I think Casey Heidler has one as well. In any event, I know this has been a long time in coming, so I guess I'm trying to understand, was this, I guess the reason why this vendor maybe was selected is because they're blending both the shelters, the bus shelters, and the signs there in addition to billboard signs throughout the city.

You're partially correct, sir. So what we did is we did an RFP to go for both, to do bus shelters and digital boards. And after they received all the responses, they did find it was probably in the best interest to break them apart. So you did previously approve a vendor for the bus shelters, and then the one that's before you is for the digital billboards and banners. And to follow up on your other comment, we do have an ordinance that is just about completely drafted to bring back for you, which would amend the municipal code, which allow for those other entities that you mentioned to pursue digital billboards.

OK, so this isn't part of that amended language on the municipal code?

This is just for city-owned sites to have digital billboards. Got it.

Thanks. Last thing is I know that the 25-year term, was that a negotiated term by the vendor? I mean, it seems like a very long time with the 10-year option, so we're talking 35 years. So we're basically married to this vendor exclusively at this point for the next conceivable future. So I don't know if that's typical of these relationships, these contractual relationships.

25 years is an industry standard, sir.

Okay. Okay. And we went with Outfront over Clear Channel and the others for that reason, I would assume, that maybe the return on the investment is going to be better for us than some of the

others? Mayor, we did evaluate the three proposals. We received three proposals, one from Clear Channel, the other one is from Outfront, and and the third was from Lamar. We evaluated all three proposals, and based on the evaluation criteria, out front was the winning proposal.

All right.

And it was basically really their strength and the real estate aspects of going after the sites and the permitting process.

Well, let's hope they're very good, because we're going to be with them for a while. So in any event, that said, we've got a motion and a second. Seeing no other comments, council members, please vote.

Motion passes 6-1 with council members Hernandez, Mendoza, Peñalosa, Fan, Mayor Potembecerra, Mayor Sarmiento voting yes, and council member Lopez dissenting.

Great. Thank you, everybody. I pulled item number 25, which is the appropriation adjustment for the Homeless Housing Assistance and Prevention Program funds. Those are the HAP funds. And the only comment I had on this is, you know, I know that the bulk or all the funds are going towards our standing up our Homeless Navigation Center at Carnegie. At some point, this will be built, and we need to have some continuum of housing. So this is temporary housing. That we shouldn't be in the business of just temporary housing. We should be in the business of a spectrum of housing.

And I know we have some permanent supportive housing out there, but we need to do more of a diversity of that, whether it's room key, home key, you know, other acquisitions of underperforming assets out there in the private sector. that we could acquire with this. So when people are ready to graduate from, let's say, a temporary navigation center into more permanent supportive housing, we need to have some options, right? And what we're finding, I think, and I know what the mayors of the big cities are struggling with, is that we've spent millions and now billions of dollars in capital improvements

for placements for people, and they're not taking them because the options aren't available. and everybody's stood up a lot of temporary homeless shelters, and they're just not the most,

the homeless population isn't receptive to those. So I just think once we stand this up, once we get Carnegie up and rolling, I'd like to see some diversity in housing for our homeless population. And I know that there's innovative things that are being done throughout the state. So with that, I'm going to go ahead and move the item, but I just wanted to make sure I made that comment going forward.

I will second that.

Great. We have a motion and a second. Seeing no other comments, council members please. What item is it? 26? Mayor Pro Tem? 25. Oh, 25. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

My screen. Oh, there it is.

Sorry, we were trying to capture the second.

Okay, motion passes 7-0 with Councilmembers Hernandez, Lopez, Mendoza, Peñalosa, Fan, Mayor Plotembecerra, Mayor Sarmiento voting yes.

Great, thank you. It brings us to item number 26. I believe that was pulled by Councilmember Lopez.

Jessie LopezItem 7

It was. Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. So I want to support this item because it's grant funding and I want to see the city accept the grant funding. I also understand that we need this shelter and that the construction is so far in that even if we wanted to write rewind back time it's too late for that but I do have concerns about you know this council continuing to approve appropriations with what to me it seems with no end in sight and I want to thank

Jessie LopezItem 7

staff for speaking with me about the item as well and I hope that I am able to gain clarity and certainty on a final date of when we can expect the shelter to open and a final budget as well because that is one of the biggest concerns that I have and you can email me since I was the only one that asked last time and I the only one that probably asking tonight so thank you

Thank you. Any other comments or questions from the Council on this item?

Seeing none, is there a motion? But I think your question was, Councilmember, to find a date, I guess, a date certain? Is that?

Jessie LopezItem 7

Yeah. We need to have a date for when we can expect the shelter to be open and a final budget for the shelter.

Thank you, Councilmember Lopez, for those comments. It is something that we go to federal court weekly on this topic, and those are the two items that we have been requesting. So moved.

Is there a second? There's a motion to adopt staff's recommendation on item number 26?

Jessie LopezItem 7

I'll second.

There's a motion and a second. Council members, please vote.

Okay, motion passes 6-1 with Councilmembers Hernandez, Lopez, Mendoza, Peñalosa, Mayor Proton Becerra, Mayor Sarmiento Vodinez, and Councilmember Fan Recusing.

Great, thank you. That brings us to the end of the consent calendar item. Moving on now to the business calendar, item number 27. That is, this is the ceremonial naming of streets, and I'll go ahead and turn it over to staff.

Thank you, Mayor and Councilmembers. WE DO HAVE A BRIEF PRESENTATION ON THIS ITEM AND STAFF IS AVAILABLE TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS YOU MAY HAVE. SO PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTOR NABIL SABA WILL BE GIVING THE PRESENTATION.

good evening mayor mayor pro tem members of the city council i have for you is a ceremonial street naming ordinance amendment of the city of santana municipal code As a background, during the January 18, 2022 City Council meeting, City Council expressed interest in recognizing outstanding individuals who have made a significant impact on their community through commemorative and honorary naming of streets.

The City of Santana Municipal Code must be amended to include such a program. The Environmental Transportation Advisory Commission, ETAC, established an ad hoc committee comprising of the ETAC Chair, Brian Germain, and Commissioners Nathaniel Greensides and Dorian Romero to develop the Municipal Code Amendment. The amendment and corresponding program documents were approved by ETAC 5-0 vote on March 8, 2022.

Why? To commemorate the service and life of individuals and groups and landmarks of historic events without impacting existing legal city street names and emergency services.

Who? Must be affiliated, individuals must be affiliated with the city of Santa Ana, must have significant and clearly defined cultural, humanitarian, and historic impact. Naming is limited to the names of individual, organization, significant events, or landmark. individuals must have 10 years of extraordinary community involvement and must be have been deceased for at least two years and have not been honored in other streets or street where most the signs can be put when most street most

city streets and intersections no impact to existing street names entire city blocks will apply no partial or fractions of city blocks, one name per block or intersection, no other sign toppers on a pole, maximum five of intersection, not on traffic signals, and public works agency will be fabricating and installing the signs. When signs will be installed by the public works agency after city council approval

and payment of the fabrication and installation fee, naming is valid for 10 years.

How individuals can request for ceremonial street naming? Request for naming can be initiated by a resident or owner of a property abutting the street, the neighborhood, and or a neighborhood or a community group. Individuals or groups need to complete an application which includes a justification statement, maps, and pay the associated application fee and submit all of that to the Public Works Agency. A sign, a specification, and the location must be approved by

public works agency verifiable documentation of two-thirds of residents or owners supporting the naming is required written notices to all property owners publicating will be held and then followed by a city council resolution these are some some samples of what we envision the signs would look like, the word honorary will be part, essential part of the sign. What if, what if 20% of the owners of all lots protest the naming? In that case, three-fourths city council majority vote

will be required. Otherwise, council majority will approve the action. A recommended action for tonight is to approve the first reading of an ordinance amending chapter 33 of the municipal by adding Article 11 relating to the ceremonial naming of streets, and I'm open for any questions.

Great, thank you for that presentation, Director Saba. Let me go ahead and bring it back to the council to see if there's any questions or comments. Council Member Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

Yes, fantastic job, Director Saba, and members of the ETAC Commission. I'm really excited to see this come to us here at the council. This was something that I brought forth during the month of Black History Month. When I was first elected to the council, I wanted it to be a large emphasis for us in the city of Santa Ana to really acknowledge the local heroes and sheroes that we have in the community. And one of those heroes that stood out to me most notably was and is Helen Shipp. Helen Shipp not only raised her family and raised them well, but Helen Shipp also raised her younger siblings.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

She lost her parents at a young age. And when I found out her story about how she raised her family, and in raising her family well, she also raised a community. And when I learned about the 40-plus years of black history, pro-black work that she did in our city to bring people together, I found great inspiration. And the reason why I brought this forth initially was because I had the idea, Director Saba, to have Willits change to Shiplane. That's where she raised her family. And I'm really excited to see this come to us now. My question pertains to Section 33-263, Item A.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

Ceremonial street name shall end 10 years after the date of the resolution. I am in agreement with this to an extent, sir. I would like to discuss with my colleagues, maybe if we can create different parameters around certain ceremonial street names. I think that there are certainly certain street names that can be designated for up to ten years but I would like to see us have something that is going to signify these historical community members that have done you know 30 40 plus years of work like Helen ship so I would like to see us include something like that and work with my colleagues in doing that because I know there's a lot

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

of amazing people here I know that we have had great city managers in the city of Santa Ana that served our community for you know decades I know that we have had a number of impactful people in the city of Santa Ana people like Ron Oh no that spent decades here with our city and I would hate to see us create ceremonial street names that only are existent for 10 years when there are people that dedicated their whole lives to making this community better so I'm what I would like to see is us add an addendum that for people that have serve their community you know 30 to 40 plus years that these ceremonial street

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

toppers stay on those very streets so that way families don't have to reapply

every 10 years great thank you for that let me go ahead and go to councilmember

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

fan and then councilmember Pena Losa thank you mayor and well so since it's top of mind I'd like to maybe make a recommendation regarding that item the councilmember Hernandez brought up maybe just a provision that says the city Council at its discretion can allow for the extension or approve a ceremonial street name for more than 10 years I think that might be enough rather than having to say well how long did they actually provide service to the city and I think unless they're an employee it's hard to say well you know they lived here for 40 years but really only 30 of those were actually in service of the city so

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

So I think that maybe part of the application can say, you know, if you seek for a longer than 10-year ceremonial street topper, you know, provide explanation or reasoning why, and the city council can consider it and make its own discretionary approval.

We certainly can do that, both council members, and customize the resolution that would be needed for the individual sign. So we can do it as part of the application, and then it can be built into the resolution associated with the request.

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

And you can have kind of two different ones. I guess the one thing I did want to ask is,

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

I don't know how I feel, I just want to put this out to the council, is this two thirds of residents or owners of the lots abutting the street or intersection in support of the Ceramonis street name, which can also include renters.

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

But I guess I don't really know, you know in some areas it's very commercial so for example let's take First Street right I mean one first street from Euclid to Harbor right is historically Little Saigon so if somebody wanted to to do that or let's say name it after somebody I mean you're looking at thousands of homes on that street alone or even if you're looking at the block from New Hope to to Euclid

right or am I thinking like to you know there is there is another program like the ones that we use for the neighborhood associations that for example we have Flora Park those are street toppers that this is especially for individuals group landmarks and historical events so I'm not sure if Little Saigon would be fit in this particular example because you know some streets are major

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

Cross streets that are that have thousands of residents because right there on first you have a ton of mobile home parks condominiums and apartment buildings so Two-thirds of residents on that block or on a block You know you're looking at you know 2000 homes or something ridiculous that would be incredibly difficult for a family or somebody to to I guess try to get signatures for. I don't really know how to get around that. I can see how if I live on a smaller block of single-family homes, you know, maybe in Wilshire Square, then it's fine, but kind of on the west side, we have these really large developments of

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

multifamily housing that would make it really difficult for folks to do. So that's kind of one of my concerns, And it doesn't have to be Little Saigon. It can be anything. So, I mean, we see how difficult it is with, for example, parking permits.

Great. Thank you. For those comments, Councilmember Peñalosa.

David PenalozaItem 7

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. And thank you, Councilmember Hernandez, for this item, and the ETAC Commission and Public Works. Director Saba, thank you. The only question I had in regard was to the actual fees. I didn't see where the fee, I know that the application comes with the fee that would be payable by the applicant. But is there an amount that's been set yet?

Yes. We are proposing two fees that relates to the ceremonial street naming. and they have been developed and set to be adopted through the budget process

David PenalozaItem 7

come July 1st. Okay, because that would be my only ask is that we are guaranteed that any of these ceremonial street naming is 100% covered by the applicant fees. I would hate to see any tax dollars go towards this, especially because of the way our streets look. A majority, I know we're fixing a lot of them and that's good but you know I would rather if we're gonna spend tax dollars you know I would rather we fix the streets and fix the the quality of

David PenalozaItem 7

these of the street names alone and spell them correctly so no joke on Ed Geiner but last summer but very supportive of this happy to see it come forward I would also be supportive of leaving it to the council's discretion on how long a name could be on there versus having different criterias for different applicants. But, you know, if it's going to be there for 100 plus years, then, you know, the City Council should have the discretion on doing that. So those are my only comments, Mayor Sarmiento. I just wanted to make sure that this was completely covered

David PenalozaItem 7

by any applicant that would want to apply.

Mayor Mrakas- Great. Thank you for those comments. Mayor Pro Tem.

Phil BacerraItem 7

Mayor Pro Temo- Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. So Nabil, as far as I guess what other cities have done, so when I saw the graphics right away, I thought of, and Brian, you'll appreciate this, Honorary Frank Sinatra Way at Rush and Bellevue, I think, in Chicago, you have that sort of topper on there. So I imagine in Chicago, the Sinatras aren't reapplying every 10 years to keep that portion of road as Honorary Frank Sinatra Way. So I guess I agree with my colleague's sentiment as far as having this just be at the discretion of the council.

Phil BacerraItem 7

Because at the same time, down the road, we may want to change a certain stretch of road to commemorate another person or group, whatever that is. I mean, that should just be the discretion of the council. But what I wanted to ask you, Director Sabo, was what was your findings from other cities?

Take Chicago, for instance. Sure. Ten years was typical. And there is a provision, and I believe in our ordinance change that after the five years, it can be renewed for another 10 years. I mean, sorry, 10 years. Once the first 10 years expired, there is an option that the same group can come back and renew the same process for the next 10 years. So there will be a resolution, a proponent for the sign again to come in and renew it for 10 years. That is the thought. Well, when I looked at the sample ordinances or sample, you know, other entities, 10 years

was typical. But again, it's up to you.

Phil BacerraItem 7

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Yes. Go ahead, Councilmember Pinalosa.

David PenalozaItem 7

A clarifying question I wanted to ask Director Saba was, let's say, and I'm just thinking now because of how often people get canceled nowadays. It feels like every day that someone else. Let's say three years down the line, whoever this honorary person is, something crazy comes out. And the council at the time says, you know what, that's bad. We want to remove that honorary topper from our city. Does this council have the discretion to do that? Or is it a 10-year period?

No, you have the option to recall that and redo what you just done.

David PenalozaItem 7

Okay. Yes, absolutely. Okay, just asking because you never know.

Great. Thank you for that. Councilmember Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I had brought this item forward, as I mentioned, because I wanted to, during the month of Black History Month, honor the contributions of the late Helen Shipp. So this was something that I did. I wanted to bring this forward to honor them so I would like to make a motion to move this item but I would like to include the amendment to have the indefinite also be something that the discretion of the council where we have a street honorary street name and the discretion of the council can decide whether or not it's ten years or definite and number two I would like it

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

so that if any council member moving forward brings forth a proposal to have an honorary street name changed, that the council in the city, we cover those costs. Because it's not a family or an individual or an organization applying, it's an elected official bringing it forth. So, for example, is let's say one of my colleagues brought forth Marlon Brando Way. Marlon Brando, the great actor from the Godfather series, he grew up in Santa Ana, I went to school at VIA. If we were to change a street name there, I would hate to see that only exist for 10 years. Marlon Brando being one of the greatest actors in the world,

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

it would make a lot of sense for that to be indefinite, much like we have Diane Keaton Way by Senna High School. So I would like to see those two things included, and that would be my motion.

Great. Thank you for that motion with those proposed amendments. Is there a second?

Jessie LopezItem 7

I guess I just want to clarify. I just want clarity. We're not changing street names, right? These are toppers, because I've heard this.

The honorary naming of a street, the existing street names are the legal street names.

Jessie LopezItem 7

Okay. So then what was the second, what was the third?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

So the second was that if an elected official that serves on this body brings forth a proposed honorary street name, that we then cover those costs, because that family or organization was not applying to change the street name. It was ceremonial. The elected official brought it forth because there's costs associated with somebody applying.

Jessie LopezItem 7

What is the typical cost of this?

The application fee right now will be set July 1st to $622. dollars and per sign fee will be seven hundred and eighty one dollars so if a

Jessie LopezItem 7

community member wanted to apply they would have to be responsible for the

600 and the 700 yes that's that's if it's only one sign there is multiple signs then it is seven eighty one times that number of signs okay so maybe I

need some clarification to so council member what you're saying is if the City Council requested an honorary street name which would be your majority direction to us there wouldn't be an applicant there wouldn't be a fee the

city would cover the cost correct unless we wanted to go to the Brando family and say we're gonna bill you guys for a street that we're gonna name after I think we're on to something here I have a question go ahead council

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

member look I'm sorry go ahead council member fan I was gonna try to imitate Council Member Lopez, but I can't.

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

So just a quick point of clarification for that, Council Member Hernandez. So if the council, you know, let's say we bring up as a council requested item, and I say, I wanna name it, I don't know, Mickey Mouse Way. Oh, that's a bad example. Okay, whatever, somebody way. Topper, right? Would we still have to do the 20% er, 60%? What was the number?

Two-thirds.

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

Two-thirds. So, you know, two-thirds resident. That's a great question.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

I would say no to that case because we as elected officials are on the ground. We understand the consensus of our neighborhoods. That's why we were elected. I think in the event an elected official brings forth something, I trust that that elected official did their due diligence to make sure that this is something that is reflective of that particular community.

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

So I guess maybe this is, I know these toppers are expensive. They're not cheap. And in real life they're like this big. They're way bigger than we think that they are. But I almost feel like, you know, that's not going to prevent somebody from lobbying me. And then I don't think anybody up here is going to be like, no, Ty, we're not going to support this one person that's like important to your community that you know about in your ward you know over there in that street I don't see this maybe I'm just being naive but I think we all respect each other and what we know in our individual wards and what's important so I almost

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

feel like that's a loophole for anybody who might want a topper right and I'm not saying that that's a bad thing I'm kind of saying that maybe then we should just have a process for the public to talk to the council and make a decision to approve toppers without the rigmarole of two-thirds vote, two-thirds residential signatures, which is going to cost lots of money and time for people to get signatures, and pay thousands of dollars if they want more than one sign essentially, or one topper. And maybe if we really want to be extra about it, make

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

get a supermajority vote of the council to approve and I don't know maybe that's naive but I just feel like having that kind of gets around this voter supported or resident supported item I trust that every single one of my

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

colleagues here governs ethically and I in my worst day would never govern that way so I don't hold you guys to that so I hope that that is not the case that somebody can lobby you to change a street name well no I just mean that I

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

might not know about somebody and the resident comes to me and says oh this is a really important person you know we should have an honorary street name for them it's in this ward etc and you know I bring it up as a council requested item and I think that many people here if we're explaining doing providing all the same information that the resident would in the application I imagine that most of my colleagues would support that just as you know I would support for example Helen ship honorary Street topper I'm not saying I think that's a good thing I'm just saying now we you know that that person doesn't have to

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

pay the thousands of dollars in fees and the rigmarole of getting all these signatures to get the street topper whereas there's this other process say if somebody doesn't have access to us then they have to pay thousands of dollars of fees I kind of feel like we shouldn't have to do that and we should just if the council approves honorary street toppers we should just approve it

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

I yeah I think that's a great point so so are you proposing to potentially get rid of any fees in the event that residents come forward and maybe there's an application process is that what you're proposing yeah if we if we're

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

going to make an exception for the council to approve something, we might as well get rid of the fees in the signature process. But I look at staff and like maybe that's really expensive and not a great idea.

So when the idea first came up with Council Member Hernandez, what we did is we researched it and we wanted to install best practices. And so this is the process that we would consider best practices. And I believed I understood Councilmember Hernandez's, if the council has asked for an honorary street name, that would be something that you would direct staff and we could just do. I didn't envision the council taking on the applicant and requesting on behalf of an applicant.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

That's correct.

Yes. Okay. So let me go ahead and just wind this up because we have Councilmember Peñalosa wants to make one more comment and then Mayor Pro Tem. And then I didn't think toppers were going to be this hot of a discussion, but in any event, this was supposed to be one of our lighter items, but we need to wrap this up because we've got a few more public hearings to go. Go ahead, Councilmember.

David PenalozaItem 7

Thank you, Mayor Salimento. And I want to just say that I agree with Councilmember Fan in the fact that I don't think that the city council should be able to just propose an honorary street name and have the city pay for it because I think that's inappropriate. and it defeats the purpose of having a policy and application process for the community to go through. I mean, these should be community driven and it should be at the cost of any family or organization or community that wants to bring this forward. Again, I drive around our city and just the fact that we would now be using tax dollars to pay for an honorary street name

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when our streets look the way they look, I know we're doing a lot in trying to invest in our sidewalks and our streets and repaving, but it's just, it could only stretch so much to how many streets we have that need the work. So, I would suggest that maybe if that is the direction that the city council wants to go in, to have the city pay for it. I think if, you know, if let's say I bring up a suggestion to go with Donald Duckway, you know, it's if, and if that should come from my city council discretionary funds,

David PenalozaItem 7

if it was something that I wanted to sponsor versus having an additional line item or budget within the Public Works Department. I mean, if that's something that, I think that the families and organizations and clubs and whoever's out there that wants to have them, have us consider them, they should still go through that application process regardless of who they are, but they should, they should have a little box. We can't afford it, we're interested in having the council member, like they do donation requests, and I know that right now it's isolated to nonprofits and 501 C3s or you have to, I wouldn't want that,

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obviously, for this purpose, but it would say, hey, can a council member sponsor this one for me? And it would come out of our discretionary funds, if that's something that, I mean, I would feel comfortable doing that versus adding an additional cost to Public Works. That would be my suggestion. And yeah, that's about it, Mayor.

Thank you for those comments. I think it's Mayor Pro Tem and then Council Member Pham.

Phil BacerraItem 7

You know, I'm in favor of this item, but obviously there's a little, I guess, question as to what is the right approach. I would be okay, if my colleagues would be, to possibly punt this for two weeks just to have staff come back to us with a side-by-side comparison of the cities that you've looked at and how they handle the different items that you've heard us discuss tonight. Because again, I think of Chicago right away because that's just one that I know, one city that has done this, but I'm very curious as to really on these items that we're discussing up here, does the

Phil BacerraItem 7

Chicago City Council unilaterally proclaim it? Does it go through an application process? Is there a way where, as we're discussing, the community has one path and the council has another? I know New York City does this. I mean, there's other cities. We're not we're not treading into an area that's unchartered. I think we have we can lean on some of our other cities for guidance. So that would be my suggestion for everybody's maybe just to have it come back because I don't, this is an excellent idea. I would just hate for us to not do it right. I'd rather really truly see what the best practices are out there.

Phil BacerraItem 7

But I'll leave that up to my colleagues at this point.

Thank you for those comments. Councilmember Pham.

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

I agree with Councilmember Mendoza, Mendoza, Peñalosa. I think that if we have one process, we should stick to it. That's why I said if we're going to get rid of the fees for the council, get rid of the fees for everybody and vice versa. And if we do keep the fees and our discretionary budget is exactly what it's for. We can sponsor that family or group and have those street signs for them. They're toppers. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. So I know we have a motion on the floor with a couple of amendments, and then we have a thought of maybe putting this over as well. Is the maker of the motion, would you consider continuance to get some clarity, or do you want to move the item?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

I'd like to direct staff to bring us back two options, one of the options that includes the fees and one that does not include fees. But I still do think that we need to see council discretion when it comes to 10 years versus indefinite. And that should be included in both of the policies. So I would like to direct staff. That would be my motion.

MR.

Phil BacerraItem 7

Councilman, would you be willing to add the side-by-side comparison for us to review as well? Yeah, absolutely. I'll second. Councilman Hernandez's motion.

Councilman Hernandez's motion. We have a motion and a second to continue. I think everybody had a chance to speak twice. I don't think we need to go as far as Manhattan or Chicago. Go to Palm Springs and Palm Desert. I mean, you know, because if you most of their streets are named after, you know, retired folks. And, you know, so it might be a good idea. I don't think any of those were ever endowed or paid for by the families. I think it was just something that you had folks there. But in any event, look, just maybe do a little bit of research on that and bring that back.

And I just wanted to thank ETAC and its ad hoc that did work on this. I certainly don't want to lose this either. I think one of the experiences with toppers that I had was Calle Cuatro. And that was a huge success, right? because we didn't rename the street or anything, but we know how historic that district was, is, and how historic that whole avenue is. And so that was something that the city decided to absorb because it is, you know, a historic arterial here in the city. So there is a motion and a second to continue this item with some of those considerations that were mentioned. Council members,

please vote. Motion passes 7-0 with councilmembers Hernandez, Lopez, Mendoza, Peñalosa, and Mayor Patan Becerra. Mayor Samantha voting yes. Great thank you for

that that brings us to item number 28 that's the charter review ad hoc committee's recommendation on fireworks and I'll go ahead and turn it over to staff if there's any information to provide. Thank you Mayor and Councilman.

We do have a presentation on this item. It is also a rather lengthy staff report, but the item before you is just to accept the informational report and then provide any further direction to staff. And Daniel Soto from the City Manager's Office will be doing the presentation.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. Tonight we have a brief presentation for you on the Charter Review Ad Hoc Committee's discussions and initial recommendations relating to fireworks.

This topic most recently began as a council member requested item from the December 21st, 2021 City Council meeting. There was consensus among the City Council to have the Charter Review Ad Hoc Committee discuss this and bring it back to the City Council, and that's what we're doing tonight.

Just a quick look at the legislative history of fireworks. Back in 1984, the City Council adopted portions of the Uniform Fire Code, which included fireworks regulations. Of note, our fireworks regulations define and prohibit dangerous fireworks, allow the storage, sale, and discharge of safe and sane fireworks during specified time periods, sets Sets forth a permitting process for fireworks boots, caps them at 85 and establishes a lottery

if we receive more than 85 applications. Sets forth regulations for temporary fireworks stands, public display permits, storage and disposal, and also notes that individuals cannot discharge fireworks toward any other person or in any other manner which threatens the safety of persons or property in 2016 the City Council adopted a resolution establishing a fine in the amount of $1,000 for violating the city's fireworks regulations looking at our at the last five years the city has issued electrical permits for fireworks

boots and those number of permits have varied from as low as 49 in 2018 2018, and as high as 20, or excuse me, as high as 70 in 2017.

Taking a quick look at some of our operating costs associated with fireworks, we took a look at the overtime costs associated with the police response for fireworks, and we see a variation. In 2019, we had overtime costs in the amount of approximately $4,000. And in 2020, we had an overtime cost estimate at $114,000.

Looking at our fire response, while our fire authority does not break down staff costs, we were able to look at the number of calls for service for each year. And those varied from as low as 55 this past year in 2021 and as high as 75 in the year 2018.

Looking back at fireworks booths, our planning and building agency administers the fireworks programs to issue permits, and the annual cost to administer that program varies from $7,000 to $8,500. Looking at the revenues that we receive from electrical permit fees, those revenues vary from as low as $4,800 to approximately $6,700 per year.

Taking a quick look at environmental impacts, fireworks are designated as hazardous because they can cause fire, injury, and death. Fireworks do emit toxic emissions and find particulate matter, and breathing in particulate matter can adversely affect the cardiovascular and respiratory systems. studies have shown and our local South Coast air quality management district sends out advisories each year about the significant increase in particulate matter that is measured across the South Coast air basin including Orange County

and Santa Ana around 4th of July every single year it is notable that fireworks are used all around the world for cultural celebrations and religious celebrations. Examples of some cultural celebrations include Fourth of July in the United States, Fiestas Patrias in certain Spanish-speaking countries, Lunar New Year in East and Southeast Asian countries, the Lantern Festival and Spring Festival in China, and New Year's celebrations worldwide. On the religious side, the Diwali and Taoism use fireworks as part of their religious

practices the city works cross departmentally to respond to and administer fireworks in Santa Ana fireworks regulations for example residents are able to connect with the city four different ways to report the use of dangerous or illegal fireworks and to report the use of fireworks outside of the specified times they can call into a tip line they can email us report the violations through the my Santa Ana app on a smartphone and visit our website and fill out an online form our police department responds to all reports of illegal fireworks and the discharge of safe and sane fireworks

outside of specified times the Orange County Fire Authority responds to emergency calls and our staff works cross departmentally on a public outreach campaign to educate folks about the use of safe and sane fireworks

More recently, the Charter Review Ad Hoc Committee discussed an ordinance that would prohibit the sale, use, and discharge of fireworks. The draft ordinance could be presented in two different ways. One would be an ordinance for city council consideration, and the second option would be an ordinance that would be taken to the voters as a ballot measure.

The text of the ordinance is attached as an exhibit to the staff report. And some of the highlights include that the ordinance prohibits the sale, storage, and use of all fireworks. It declares that the police chief, the fire chief, or their designee can seize fireworks at a firework owner's expense. It denotes that a violation of the fireworks regulations shall constitute grounds for issuance of administrative citation designated as an infraction and a fine. The draft ordinance also sets forth a disposal fee for fireworks at $250.

And it also declares that any person, including a host, a private property owner, who violates fireworks regulations would be liable for the response costs associated with the use of the fireworks or the violation of the regulations.

tonight the City Council has two options or three options to consider one is to direct staff to return with an ordinance prohibiting prohibiting fireworks for City Council consideration option two is to direct staff to prepare the necessary documents to present an ordinance to the voters prohibiting fireworks to prohibiting fireworks in Santa Ana and option three is to take no action I'm available if you have any questions thank you great thanks for

that presentation and this is not an item that we are going to be moving on it's just simply to give direction so let me go ahead and begin with the the ad hoc committee that as we always do when there's an item that comes before and comes out of the ad hoc so we have mayor pro tem and councilmembers Mendoza and fam won't we just go ahead and go in that order I'm sorry

Oh, there we go. What says Mayor Pro Tem Becerra here in the staff report?

David PenalozaItem 7

So I think because they agendized the item back in December. Yeah, as a council member item.

Go ahead and go up Peñalosa and then it's Fan and then Mendoza.

David PenalozaItem 7

Perfect. Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. I won't repeat myself, but one question that I had for this Daniel or Christine, I'm sorry, was I guess it would be more for the police department. With the $1,000 fee or fine for illegal fireworks, because we all know that is the majority of the problem, how many citations were actually given? Because I know we see a lot of calls for service. We have a lot of people calling the police department. The city council years prior made that fine $1,000.

David PenalozaItem 7

dollars, how many citations, I guess, in the last year were actually given? Because I would hate to sit here and tell residents, hey, you know, call the police. If you see use of illegal fireworks, we'll make sure to go out there and find them a thousand dollars. But, you know, I've just never seen numbers of how many citations are actually issued. Do we have that information? I know we

would have it. I don't know it off the top of my head. And I, we do have the assistant chief in the audience. So do you have that information with you? Yes, I do. Okay.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem and Council members. Thank you for the question. And I do have the number of citations for 2021. And in 2021, we gave out 48 administrative citations. Most of our enforcement, though, is done prior to actually the 4th of July. And that's done through undercover work and the seizure of fireworks. The administrative citations are throughout the enforcement period, usually from like June 28th through July 5th. So for 2021, we gave out 48 citations. And I can report back and get you the previous years also.

David PenalozaItem 7

Yeah, I would like to see that. I'm just, you know, I don't know how in a week all we could do is 48 citations. And I think that's why the public doesn't see that fine as a deterrent, because they know that police are going to be called thousands of times during that week for illegal firework use. But the likelihood of a police officer actually coming out and confiscating those fireworks or fining the person lighting them is very slim. because they only have 48 citations in a week, given the magnitude of how problematic the illegal firework use is.

David PenalozaItem 7

I just don't understand why it's so low.

Yes, the citations are a little bit more challenging, but there's no direct relationship between the citation and how much fireworks we actually confiscated. We actually confiscated approximately over 59,000 pieces of fireworks during last year's enforcement period. In some instances, people, when they call the police, whoever's involved in the illegal fireworks, they leave their cache of fireworks, or it's very difficult to pinpoint who actually the person is who's actually discharging the fireworks. And that could be part of the reason why the citations are a little on the lower end.

David PenalozaItem 7

Okay, thank you, Assistant Chief Rodriguez. That's it for the questions. And I just, first off, want to thank all the nonprofits that came out today to speak towards this item. One thing that the, of what I heard a lot of you, and the one thing that I definitely took from that is the failure of the Santa Ana Unified School District. The fact that we have Saddleback High School's Choir, Santa Ana High School's Choir, Santa Ana High School's Cheer, and all these other organizations that should be funded by the Santa Ana Unified School District.

David PenalozaItem 7

But as we know, they have many other priorities aside from funding all these programs for our youth because as we hear, all our programs at the Santa Ana Unified School District are severely underfunded and they're doing a disservice to the community by not funding and prioritizing these programs within the school district as it should be. So I have no issue helping as a city. but the school district needs to step up as well and help out these entities because they shouldn't have to have these fundraisers to be able to buy you know band equipment or any of

David PenalozaItem 7

that so definitely want to make sure that these non-profits when you do get a chance and budget cycle is coming up please go to your school board meetings those school board meetings are empty half the time and nobody ever goes to try to advocate and ask for this funding to be prioritized to these programs as they should be. So, you know, Santa Ana Unified School District, please Google, look them up. You know, that's where you should be asking for these funds and for these programs to be funded. So that is it for now, Mayor Sarmiento. Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Mendoza and then Fan.

Thank you. The ban that I brought for the proposed ban on the fireworks that was my intent was to ban the use of in sale and purchase and possession of it was for illegal fireworks. And I understand that the majority of the, actually all of our nonprofits are selling

and making a profit on the fireworks that are not a problem. We don't have a problem with those fireworks being loud, explosive, or being used months before the Fourth of July. My intent was to ban the illegal fireworks, the ones that are causing our pets to be traumatized,

our veterans to dive under their beds, the trash in the streets, the car alarms to go off, and injuries and pollution and the environmental impact. That was my intent. And I initially thought it would be a good idea to take it to the voters, just as my colleague Lopez mentioned. However, it would be a very expensive thing for the city to put it on the ballot.

And so I will not support the ban in taking it to the voters. And I suggest that we collaborate with the stakeholders who are interested in getting together with the nonprofits and with the city and coming to some resolutions that will deter and dissuade those would be people from using the illegal fireworks.

We were at a loss because I certainly don't want to prevent our nonprofits from making the profits because as we heard today, it brings in much revenue to buy much needed supplies and equipment and uniforms. And while I agree also that the school district should also help out in providing such items, it's probably because the booster clubs from each of the cities, that's one of the ways that they raise money. And so

if we can have the school district be more conscientious with their, where where their band, their choir, their football teams, it would certainly lessen the pressure on the nonprofits to depend just on the sale of the fireworks. And so, overall, my support would be my support

not to take this to the voters and just work with the TNT and some of the other firework people who come into the city for in providing our nonprofits the opportunity to gain the revenue in some other way. And so my support for this issue, even though I brought it up, would be to

not support it at this time. Thank you for those comments. Councilmember Fan. I

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

don't think I fully understood the last comment. Do you mean you don't support bringing this to the voters or adopting an ordinance?

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

That's correct. Okay. So just a little bit of background. When the ad hoc brought this forward, or when we were discussing it, right, we were trying to figure out if we supported a ban, which would be the most effective way to effectuate such a ban. And so obviously there are benefits to putting it in the, as an ordinance to be voted on by the voters because it'd be harder for a future council to repeal. But of course that involves elections, additional costs, putting on the ballot, and then there's the option of just approving it as a

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

council, in which case if it does get approved, of course it could be repealed by any future council. So that was the reason why we actually had both items before you to to see what the council's pleasure would be if we chose to ban the sale of fireworks and use of fireworks at the City of Santa Ana. I grew up here in the city and I don't think I realized how harmful fireworks were until this past July. I grew up on the west side living in my visiting my mom's cul-de-sac

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

you can see illegal fireworks at any time, as well as, quote, safe and sane fireworks. And there's smoke everywhere. I think that it's not a secret that fireworks of all types, both illegal and legal fireworks, cause negative environmental effects. I think that it's important for this council to really prioritize that. So I want to go through a couple items. First is environmental impact, right? We as this council have stated that we care about climate, we care about the air quality, we care about toxic lead, and we care about how our residents are living here

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

in the city of Santa Ana and that they deserve a safe and healthy place to grow up. Yet we are saying at the same time we are okay with PM 2.5, which is only safe at the, I believe the 12.5, Let me pull it up. The 12.5 level, but now when it's 4th of July or around that time, that number more than doubles. In fact, sorry, it more than triples. So what we're saying is that we care about health and we care about air quality and we care about our kids not getting asthma or having our families experiencing cardiovascular

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

effects and issues except when it's fun and except when it funds a number of individual nonprofits. I think that it's really important for us to really square that and what we are trying to say. If we are trying to get rid of gas burning stoves or try to electrify buildings in the city and we're not willing to also address this issue that not only has air quality impacts the day of 4th of July but the week after as well as impacts in the soil I think that we again it's a bit of a compartmentalization issue the other thing I want to address is there

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

are a lot of comments by the public talking about how these nonprofits are unable to function I was in the band I was in the orchestra I was a total nerd I played volleyball and we had to fundraise for every single one of those items and I agree very much with Councilmember Peñalosa because the school district has an $809 million budget. Their budget is significantly larger than the budget for the city. They should be helping to fund these items. You should not be fixing your cellos with tape. The school should be paying for that and I do question whether they are and why they aren't. So I really hope

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

that anybody's showing up here at the City Council and telling us that we're not funding enough, you know, youth programs when we literally did a presentation tonight about what youth programs we are further funding with Parks and Rec and with the other departments here in the city, why the school district isn't doing the same. So that's another issue. And then finally, one commenter made the comment, well, it should be $500,000 in profits for non-profit. Maybe the city should be able to fork over those fees, those funds for these non-profits to help them

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

sustain themselves. Well, I'm here to tell you that if $500,000, at least for me, is what it costs to ensure that these non-profits continue to function, but also ensure that we don't have the negative air quality impacts that affect individuals like me who are asthmatic but also our veterans that this city claims to support and care for who you know who are affected by PTSD are negatively affected by fireworks both safe and sane and illegal fireworks you cannot tell me a piccolo Pete is not loud and scary and the effects on animals and our environment I think

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

that's a small price to pay to keep these nonprofits functioning and keeping our environmental environment clean. So for me, I would support an ordinance voted by this council because it is consistent with the stance that we have taken before, whether it's on environmental impacts, whether it's supporting community nonprofits, or whether it's supporting a health and safety future for our students. I think those are all doable with that ordinance and I think that it's consistent with our policies. Thank you.

Thank you for those comments. Councilmember Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I just want to say I agree with my colleague, Councilmember Peña Loza and Councilmember Fan that the school district should absolutely cover the costs for these programs. It's heartbreaking to see children having to spend their Tuesday evening here advocating for fireworks when the school should be adequately funding these programs. However, I do also want to thank the community who came out today because they gracefully demanded for us as a city council to protect safe and sane fireworks in our city. The supporters were a diverse group of community members,

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

community members with different cultural backgrounds, differing political opinions, and professional backgrounds. people that all shared one thing in common, and that's that they would be impacted adversely by this decision. This decision not only hurts our community, but it also hurts the culture of our city. Fireworks have been deeply embedded into the culture of our city and the culture of Americans. It is a way that families in our community celebrate together during this very important holiday that holds much significance to them. And I think that speaks volumes of the diversity that was in the room earlier.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

The sale, purchase, and use of safe and sane fireworks within Santa Ana has been legal since the 1960s, and it is codified in the city charter since 1986. TNT Fireworks have shared publicly that their largest amount of sales is happening in the city of Santa Ana every Fourth of July holiday than in any other city in the state of California. And there are a number of nonprofits that we saw today that pleaded with us. There are only four days where these fireworks are sold. And there's only one day where it is legal for you to utilize these fireworks.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

And the safe and sane fireworks can only be lit on July 4th. It's not to say that there are not other fireworks that are being lit throughout those days. But it's also understanding that these safe and sane fireworks providers are not condoning the usage of illegal fireworks, and they're not condoning the usage of fireworks being utilized on any other day other than July 4th. Over 50 Santa Ana nonprofits rely on their annual sale of legal fireworks during this short four-day period to fund their organization services. And these groups range from the Santa Ana High School

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

award-winning cheerleading squad, the baseball booster club to the San Anaponee baseball, and the first Samoan congregation Christian church who was here with us today. So I don't want to punish our city's residents and the good actors that have been following our rules. I want to focus my energy on combating illegal fireworks being utilized the other 361 days of the year in town. So I am not in favor of taking this to the voter. I want to save our tax dollars and make it clear that I would like to see this end here, not in favor of moving forward.

Thank you for those comments. Why don't we just go around? I think the ad hoc committees already had a chance to comment. Any other members of the council that are not on the ad hoc committee that haven't spoken? Mayor Pro Tem and Council Member Lopez?

Phil BacerraItem 7

I never thought I'd see the mayor want me to speak, but thank you.

Phil BacerraItem 7

I want to thank everybody that came out tonight. And as my colleagues have all echoed, the folks took time out of their evening to come out and make their case. But one thing that I do, I'm more than happy to echo what my colleagues said in the sense that, you know, for an entity like the Santa Ana Unified School District to have a budget larger than the city of Santa Ana's and their organizations are coming to the city asking for money, that just seems twisted. There's something wrong there, right? They should be going to the school board. The school board should be saying, hey, we've got

Phil BacerraItem 7

enough money, we can help you out. But no, instead they are out manning firework booths. So I just want to be clear that the Santa Ana Unified School District has a larger budget than the City of Santa Ana, so I hope that people do take the advice of what my colleagues have already said and go down to the school board meetings and advocate to them. You know, I recognize all of the negative impacts that fireworks have and hence why I had signed on originally to the item that came before the council. My, you know, I have a young puppy at home and I definitely love our veterans and to have them suffer through the holiday is just,

Phil BacerraItem 7

you know, it breaks my heart. At the same time, we also live in a democracy and the fact of the matter is that we saw tonight an overwhelming outpouring of support for fireworks. And they are part of America, as we all know. They're just something that when you think of Fourth of July, you think of patriotism and you think of fireworks. There's definitely a negative impact to that. But at the same time, it is something that we heard the community tonight come out and make the case. The other thing we as council members are charged with is being you know, responsible for the finances of the city and to make sound fiscal decisions.

Phil BacerraItem 7

So, just to remind all of us, Madam City Clerk, what would it cost to put a single item on the ballot for the upcoming November 2022 election?

Ms. Each ballot measure added to the election or as a question is $100,000.

Phil BacerraItem 7

Okay. Thank you. So, $100,000. You know, I took it upon myself to do a little research as to how these ballot measures fare in other cities. And, you know, the old adage, insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. What we've seen throughout Orange County is that when these ballot measures go to the voters, they usually lean on the side of fireworks. One could argue going ahead and bringing it forward to the voters of Santa Ana. But I look at this and I see a consistent pattern throughout Orange County. You have more folks here pushing to support fireworks.

Phil BacerraItem 7

And so I think for us to put this item on the ballot would be fiscally reckless on our part. And so I'm going to side with my colleagues tonight and not support bringing this item forward to the voters. I don't think it's something that, given the pattern that we have, And given all the other charter amendments that I believe that the ad hoc is going to bring forward, I think we have a lot of productive things that we're going to accomplish, hopefully, at the ballot box in November. And I just think that with what we've seen historically with this pattern on propositions when it comes to fireworks,

Phil BacerraItem 7

I think we already know what the outcome will be. So I'd rather put our money towards these other measures and be fiscally responsible. Those are my comments. Thank you.

Thank you for those comments. And when I call on you, you don't have to say yes, but, you know, I'm just kidding. I don't want to put you on the spot. Councilmember Lopez, would you like to make a comment?

Jessie LopezItem 7

Sure. Yes.

Jessie LopezItem 7

So this is why I'm really excited about the joint school collaboration subcommittee that I tried for almost an entire year for this council to say yes to, because there are clear gaps in how we service Santa Ana families and how SAUSD and other school districts that you know have an impact on Santa Ana families service them as well and so I'm really hopeful it was one of the agenda items today that got passed and so I'm really hopeful and I'm looking forward to working together with people that are going to be open to working with the

Jessie LopezItem 7

council members and I don't think it's a new issue I think clearly it's been happening for a long time now and you know some of these organizations have been fundraising for years and years and years and so yes I agree you should definitely go and advocate for more funding from the school district and I do agree with councilmember FAD I have championed you know the reduction of greenhouse gases and I will continue to come back to this council and address the concerns that I have that we established in our climate resolution last year electrification you know all of those things because I think they're

Jessie LopezItem 7

important I actually don't think it's reckless to give this to the voters I think that this is an issue that has been coming up in prior councils for many years now and this is an opportunity for us to finally put it to rest. Let the voters of Santa Yana decide if this is what they want to see moving forward or this is not what they want to see moving forward because we're not going to be immune from all of you know all of the other cities that celebrate Fourth of July around us and we're not going to be immune from the own you know

Jessie LopezItem 7

toxins that we as a city release into there when we do a fourth of July celebration as well and so I think there are a lot of questions and concerns and this is why I have said and will continue to state that this is an issue that the voters should you know take care of once and for all that way no future council can say well I didn't agree with the past council no we are going to we and every other future council should respect the voice of the voters. And that is where I stand. Thank you.

MR. Great. Thank you for those comments. I think everybody had a chance to speak on this. I'll go ahead and just make my brief comments on this.

Phil BacerraItem 7

MR. Can I ask just one quick question? MR. Sure. Go ahead. MR. Sorry. Maybe this is for Madam City Attorney. Right now, the maximum fine for having illegal fireworks or using them outside of the approved hours is $1,000. Does this council have the ability to increase that by vote of us up here?

So currently the way the system is designed is that we have an administrative fine and penalty, and that's $1,000. That is governed by state law, so we cannot exceed what the state law provides for. If we were to bring civil actions against individuals, which of course takes city attorney resources, et cetera, et cetera, then we can establish additional fines. But those additional fines would be a result of prosecuting them per se in a civil action, whereas the administrative fine or penalty, the issuance of a ticket, is limited by state law. Okay. Thank you.

Great. So as I was saying, I think everybody had a chance to speak on this. You just need direction from us tonight. You probably heard quite a bit.

I do not hear a consensus from a majority with direction, so per my note.

You haven't heard from me yet. Okay. So I don't know if that's going to change anything, but I'll go ahead and, you know, put my two cents in this. So, councils pass, and I think it was true what everybody said, has been struggling with this as long as I've been on this council, right, and probably prior to that. And I think one of the things that was missing is that we even introduced a public Fourth of July celebration in hopes that people would attend that and not, you know, use illegal unpermitted fireworks. That was really the goal of that, in addition to having a, you know, sort of a community gathering as well.

So I think this isn't an easy question. Right now, I'll give you sort of a lawyerly response, which is, you know, my first, you know, thought is that a ban on legal fireworks doesn't address the problem with the illegal fireworks. In other words, if we were to cure, if we were to say that was going to cure the problem with unpermitted fireworks, then I'd say that's the way to go.

There is no doubt about it. But it is extremely tenuous to say that if we place a ban on the legal fireworks, that that's going to eliminate the problem that we have. I don't think there's a nexus there. I think what people complain about are the quarter sticks of dynamite, which are called MADs, going off and, you know, causing an incredible amount of damage, injury, and harm and trauma. to, you know, not, I mean, look, pets are great. I love pets. I have a pet of my own. But I'm more worried about families who have children with disabilities and who are, you know, people who are much more sensitive to sound.

So to the extent that we can do something and we've, we increased the penalties, I think years, I forget what it was, 2016 or 17 to $1,000, that was supposed to be a deterrent. It may have deterred some, it didn't deter all. So I don't think this ban is going to deter those who are in the black market from bringing these fireworks in and transacting them and using them in our community. So I just don't see this solution solving the underlying problem, which is to get rid of the black market illegal unpermitted fireworks. So that's one.

So I don't think that the ban would achieve what the goal is here. So I think it's not, it doesn't really solve the problem. The second one is on the air quality. That is an extremely important question because I want us to be consistent with what are environmental justice protections and other stances that we've taken to try to be a much more environmentally

concerned city with, you know, impacts. The particulates that are released, I think, when it comes to the PM 2.5, what's unclear is that when these readings were taken, did they segregate out the illegal fireworks from the impact on this? And was it just the safe and sane? So if you're measuring the impact of particulates in the air quality, are you doing them? And how do you isolate just the legal? It's a very difficult reading to take and finding to make. So I don't see that that is the solution either,

because I think that, you know, the illegal fireworks are commingled with the legal fireworks to create that air particulate. So that's another thing. But what I do think is that we keep doing the same thing. It's not getting us anywhere. One of the things I think I would propose is that, you know, if we were to continue allowing legal fireworks, is that the legal firework industry and the nonprofits, actually, but more of the industry, have some way to help us enforce and prevent the transaction

and the use of illegal fireworks. So to the extent that there was some, kind of what we do with the cannabis industry. I remember when we introduced the cannabis regulations, there were 120 illegal operators and we set aside a third of the revenue towards enforcement and then we reduced the number of unpermitted operators to less than 10. I think that, you know, the industry had skin in the game. The industry was able to help us solve that problem. I think here we need to figure out how we can have maybe a deployed task force that helps identify through maybe geo-tracking or some other,

you know, technology where these fireworks, where the illegal fireworks are being set off. Because you see a piccolo peat doesn't go up in the air and, you know, and it doesn't make this the incredible noise that an M80 does. So there's got to be a way to be able to distinguish between the usage of one versus the other. A sparkler is not the same thing as something that is being set off and can blow off somebody's hand. So I would say that would be my suggestion, is maybe to speak with the industry as well to see, look, maybe we use a fee, and that fee can be used to deploy,

because I saw what worries me is the overtime hours that we're spending on this. And I know what it's like right around the three or four week period around Fourth of July, you have a bunch of patrol cars just running around all over town. And it's very disconcerting because they're not responding to dangerous, other dangerous calls for service when they're, you know, trying to track down, you know, the users of illegal fireworks. So, and finally, on the nonprofits that are listed there. Yeah, I think everybody, you know, was talking about, you know, the school district

funding them. I think that's fine. I think it should be a shared responsibility. But I also think that we also need to include some nonprofits that haven't traditionally been included on that list. So if we can work to refresh that list, I certainly respect the nonprofits that are being, you know, that came before us tonight. But there are plenty of emerging nonprofits that provide services to members of the community that are not listed there. And I know that's within our discretion to do. It's not really the industry that selects the nonprofits that they fund. That's something that they're given direction by us to do.

But those are my comments. I think that, you know, we've talked this one pretty thoroughly. Let me go one more time to Councilmember Fan, and I think we can wrap this up.

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

Thank you. then maybe I can make a recommendation that the council might agree on since we're I think so all over the place right is to bring this back to the charter ad hoc and incorporate some other potential I guess enforcement mechanism that might address some of your concerns regarding the illegal fireworks. I think that in talking to PD actually they say that part of the enforcement issue with the illegal fireworks is that they can't get to the legal fireworks given that the legal safe and sane are being burned in the

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

street. So once an illegal firework comes off there's a you know a report cops can't get there and then by the time they do someone is gone. But if that's the case I still don't think that that fully addresses the environmental issue, but maybe we can also address situations such as response recovery ordinances or provisions that is in this draft ordinance. And I thank you to the TNT folks who actually brought up some of these ideas where we would be able to charge, you know, whenever we do confiscate these types of illegal fireworks, that we would do it a charge for the response time and the cost for the city attorney, et cetera.

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

On top of that, I'd like potentially to look into social host ordinance, where if an illegal firework is found on your property, you are responsible. If you really want to be truly ensuring that people do not have illegal fireworks, that if it's found on your property, it's yours, and we will fine you for it, and we will enforce it. I think that might be a stronger mechanism than having to show that somebody blew it or something like that, and that would apply to anybody. So I would still support an ordinance to ban this, but maybe we can discuss some other potential items

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

that this council might agree on that might not be a full ban.

MR. Great. Thank you. Councilmember Peña- I'll be quick, Mayor.

David PenalozaItem 7

I promise. Just, Councilmember Peña- I like that suggestion. Maybe the more proper or appropriate avenue would be the Public Safety Committee versus the Charter Ad Hoc Committee. just thinking of working with our law enforcement agencies to see what we could do. So, I would be supportive of seeing this go to the …

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

Female Speaker- It's not a charter item. Female Speaker- Yeah. Female Speaker- Really.

David PenalozaItem 7

Male Speaker- Go to the Public Safety Committee to see what changes we could potentially make and maybe restrict, you know, if it's restricting the amount of permits we allow each year by a little bit or seeing what kind of enforcement mechanisms we could work with the industry people, that would be, I think, something for the Public Safety Committee to consider. Thank you. That's it, Mayor.

Thank you. So there's some dispersed...

I believe I have direction. So we won't proceed with going to the voters or bringing back an ordinance to council banning the Safe and Sane. What we will do is, via the charter, not the charter, but the Public Safety Committee will look at different ideas for stronger enforcement.

I guess we're just going to keep on talking about it, so that makes sense. Thank you for that. Let's move on to item number 29, public hearing on the CDBG program. And I'll go ahead and see if there's a presentation on this. Madam City Attorney.

We do not have a presentation on this item, sir.

Great. Thank you. And we have one public speaker, so let me go ahead and open the public hearing. And our one speaker, is it in person, Madam Clerk? Jeanette Frechette? That is correct. Or Janice Frechette? I'm sorry about that.

Say to the bitter end.

Right? Thank you.

Good evening, counsel. Thank you so much for this opportunity. Community Development Block Grant is an opportunity for us to bring our nonprofit into Santa Ana. And we had just an amazing opportunity to present our intergenerational literacy program to the council in January. And what we do is we provide mentoring opportunities to struggling readers here in Santa Ana. In 2020, we launched an intergenerational intervention program at Edward B. Cole Academy in partnership with Tempo Cavalario.

And we have been able to serve one-on-one tutoring, mentoring with older adult mentors to struggling readers here. And our goal is to expand those services. We aren't one of the chosen nonprofits in the initial budget recommendation, but I felt so strongly that you all needed to know that literacy is the gateway to academic success for all children. And the mentoring component that we have for our older generation to work with our young children here in Santa Ana is so critical and has been so well received by the families, the children, the schools,

that being able to expand these services to additional after-school programs, additional schools, some Heroes Elementary is interested in having our program there. We provide over 450 one-to-one mentoring tutor sessions every single week and we pivoted doing it via Zoom and have over a 67% increase in academic achievement first through fifth grade in their reading oral fluency skills. So I really wanted you to know Parentis Foundation is here to serve the kids in Santa Ana. We are throughout Orange County in after school and in school programs. We're a newer organization so we weren't as familiar as

some of the other programs that have been suggested as funding opportunities, but we are making a lasting impact not only for our children but our senior citizens that act as mentors and guided coaches for these children. So with that, like I said I wanted to stay to the bitter end to share who we are. We're Parentis Foundation and we're here to serve children, excel their academic skills and literacy, and build social-emotional growth through mentorship with their senior mentors. So thank you for this time. Thank you, Ms. Frischette. Excellent

comments. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for staying. Let me go ahead and I think that was the last public comment, Madam Clerk. Nobody online? That's correct and

we also didn't receive any written communication. Great. Thank you for that.

So, let me bring it back to the Council, and I'll call on myself this time first. Normally, what we've done on these, and I think we've done this in the past, is we kind of see what the recommendation is from staff, and I believe that, you know, we kind of absorb it a little bit and see if there's any adjustments or edits we may want to make to amounts and maybe to others that may not have made the cutoff. And I think Ms. Frechette's point was really well taken. is one thing that I have seen with the whole CDBG process is that it is a very, very extensive, labor-intensive process,

and there has to be some familiarity with the, you know, administrative, you know, bureaucracy to deal with this. And so we tend to see the same nonprofits funded, you know, chronically, just because they are very familiar with the process. They know how to audit. They know how to document this. And we don't really give much of an opportunity to sort of new emerging nonprofits that are maybe not familiar with the application process because it is very rigorous. So to the extent that, you know, we maybe can bring this back like we've done, I think there isn't time sensitivity from what I recall, Madam City Manager.

So we do have to submit, I believe, by May 15th. So you have an additional council meeting between now and then. So you would have an opportunity to have it continue to the very next council meeting.

Great. And then if we see, you know, look, one, you know, there are some adjustments, there's some edits, some movement. I know we've done that in the past. We present it to you and hopefully you and staff can make that work for us. And it comes back to us hopefully with everybody having some opportunity to comment and opine on this. That's sort of been the practice in the past. I'm certainly not ready to tackle it right now because there are some questions on those that were not, didn't make the cutoff, and, you know, also on amounts. And, you know, to do that from the dais would be kind of clumsy, I think, at this point.

So give me one second. So, you know, that would be something that I would suggest that, you know, we just kind of, you know, live with this for two weeks. You bring it back at the next meeting. Is that first meeting in May?

Yeah, if that's the council's direction, we certainly can accommodate. I would urge any of you that wanted to make any suggested changes to get in contact with Stephen Mendoza right away, because we do have a deadline on the submission for the agenda.

Got it. Great. Thank you. And let me go to Councilmember Peñalosa and then Hernandez.

David PenalozaItem 7

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. And to your point, I believe that the mayor, you know, has a good point in regards to the numerous nonprofits that might not have the knowledge to, or experience, I should say, of submitting and going through the CDBG process. So my question, I guess, just to staff, and maybe Steven, you could, or whoever, or Judson maybe,

David PenalozaItem 7

when these nonprofits go through this process, I mean, do we ever provide any sort of workshop at the city level that could, you know, around this time when the application process starts, where we could educate and help these nonprofits familiarize themselves, new nonprofits that aren't familiar with the system? Is there anything that we ever do to that regard?

Yeah. Yeah, there is an entire RFP process where we are open and training them. They all present to the Commission themselves, the Community Development Commission, and then a group of the commissioners comes together to rate them. And during the entire process, there's outreach prior to applying. And we also, Judson, if you want to get up and describe some of the mentoring that we do with some of these first-time applicants. And you remember we've also switched to a two-year cycle.

David PenalozaItem 7

Judson Weissman- Okay. Because right now you've said it, there is an RFP process, but even that, a lot of nonprofits are not familiar with the RFP process or what an RFP even is. So, how do we, you know, I'm just asking just in general from the get-go beginning, early inception stages of any nonprofit that would want to apply for some of these funds, is there anything here at the city level that we could say, you know, make that outreach and say nonprofit, there's, you know, $10 million available that you could have some, but you just got to go through this. Here's how.

I'll let Judson describe what he's been doing since he released the RFP. Thank you very much, Council Members. So following approval by City Council on November 2nd to issue the NOFA process, to start the NOFA process, we then schedule a workshop for interested nonprofits to learn all about the application process. It's a very thorough workshop our staff Mr. David Flores provides that workshop to the nonprofits and then assist any nonprofits who are working through the application while the application window is open and it's open for it was open for November 3rd to I

David PenalozaItem 7

think December 20th okay thank you so so in short answer yes there is a okay and because the same organizations do appear every year and the four years that I've been here, I see the same names, which they're all great organizations, but I want to make sure that we give the smaller ones a chance as well.

David PenalozaItem 7

With that said, I, that's it. That's it, Mayor. Thank you.

Thank you. Great comments. I forgot who was next. Was it Hernandez and then Lopez and then Fan?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm in agreement with you two. I am not fully ready to make a final decision at this moment but I would like to see this brought back to us at the councilman a meeting in May and I will be reaching out to director Mendoza so that I can offer any suggestions I'm gonna take a look at it but um but thank you that'll be my direction thank you

Jessie LopezItem 7

councilmember councilmember Lopez yes thank you mayor segmento I'm not ready to move forward with this tonight but I would like Stephen if you could reach out to Angie so we can set up a meeting and talk about it and I would want in advance a list of all of the organizations that apply for the CDBG funding I want to see what has been getting funded what's not getting funded and why not and in terms of the workshop Judson maybe you answered this earlier and I just didn't hear you correctly is that like a step-by-step of how you apply and if you have any questions is staff available to help

Jessie LopezItem 7

you know organizations that maybe don't have as much staff on hand to deal with the requirements or the grant whatever it takes to apply for this yes thank you

very much councilmember Lopez it's a very thorough presentation including the step-by-step process on how to submit an application and the outreach is very extensive as we detailed in the staff report. And I would just add that the list of organizations that were not funded was reviewed by the commissioners that were appointed by City Council as well.

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

Thank you. Council Member Fan. Thank you. Judson, I feel like you should just stand up there.

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

So just a point of clarification, I wasn't able to tell, but I think from my prior experience, most of these are awarded, but they're awarded on a reimbursable basis. Is that correct?

Yes, that's correct.

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

And so I think, and is that a requirement of CDBG?

It is, yes. It's a reimbursement-only grant.

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

Okay. And so I think, because I think Assistant City Manager Mendoza and I have talked about this, whereby CDBG isn't really appropriate for a lot of the smaller nonprofits because there's a very high reporting criteria because of the CDBG grant itself, not necessarily because the city is imposing it, but the grant requires it. Correct?

Yes.

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

And that because it's a reimbursement basis, a lot of these, I mean, $60,000, you have to have $60,000 to get $60,000 essentially, correct?

It's quite an extensive process to comply with the grant requirements and receive those reimbursements. Right.

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

But what I mean is, you know, in order for me to get the $60,000, I would have had to expend $60,000 and show you a receipt that I spent $60,000. So essentially, you know, a smaller nonprofit is not going to be able to get $60,000 because they probably don't have an operating budget of $60,000. Right. That's correct.

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

So, you know, while I do understand the concern for smaller nonprofits, I think it might be likely a better place to look somewhere else in the city's budget, whereby we as the city can have maybe not a looser or lower standard, but a lower barrier standard for these emerging and local nonprofits that might not have the same staffing that, you know, for example, America on Track might, because it's a national organization that is fully funded and is able to provide that reporting. Because I know we hired, I mean, Ruby, right? She does grant reporting specifically for, I think,

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

for Public Works because there's so much, so many requirements in receiving these types of funds, and staff itself has to go through all of these things. So, I guess that would be my comments for this, and hopefully we can come back with some other options for smaller nonprofits that might be easier for them to get funding for. Thank you.

Great. Thank you for those comments. Any other questions or comments? The only, I guess, additional comments I would make, I think they were all constructive comments.

You know, aside from just, you know, the reason that, you know, some of them are maybe not large enough or maybe don't have enough funding to be able to provide the cost reimbursement that's expected. I think it's also maybe just the outreach. I don't know. Because I think maybe it's a good training session that's provided, but a couple of things. Have we reached out to all the nonprofits that could be interested in this? Have we really exhausted that? Have we done it in Spanish? Have the window of response time is fairly short. And Ms. Frechette doesn't strike me as somebody who is not sophisticated, right?

She's somebody who strikes me as probably can navigate that system well and ask the right questions and be able to provide good responses. So if she's, you know, having some issues and maybe they just didn't rate her as high, look, maybe, you know, another pair of eyes up here would. That's really the role of us, not just, it's to look and review to what the recommendations are from the commission. But I do see that some of these could even be absorbed, some of these nonprofits could even be funded through some other way. Let's just, for example, you know,

Nappy's House, it's a gang prevention program. It's an extremely good program. But why wouldn't it be funded as a crime prevention line item for the police? And maybe that frees up the money here for some other use or some other purpose. So those are the questions I think I want to find. I want to ask a little bit more of and may need a little time. I don't think there's huge adjustments here, but there are questions here that, you know, I think we can look at a little bit more critically and then we can maybe make some space. As you know, as others were saying, some of these nonprofits could be funded from other sources.

And if that happens, then we can absorb other nonprofits that didn't make this cutoff. And we diversify the use and the purpose of these monies. And that's really the goal. Because I'd hate to box some people out just because, you know, it's a limited amount of money. But those are the things, you know, Judson, I would be asking you to do is see what other departments can absorb some of these nonprofit purposes. And I think, you know, with respect to, you know, Stephen, you know, sometimes we give the response that we've done everything we could and we haven't.

And so I just want us to, you know, make sure we turn every rock over and make sure that we do as much as we possibly can and not just say that this is a satisfactory system. It isn't. We can always improve. And that's, I guess, what I'm looking for. So those are my comments, and I would just go ahead and recommend that, you know, we put the item over. You know, there are some questions. I don't think this is a bad list, if anything. These are some quality nonprofits, but I do think that there is some room for improvement and some room for adjustments on this. So I'll make the motion to continue the item. I'll second your motion.

Madam City Manager, you said the timeline was to have it adopted by what date?

So it must be submitted so that we secure the 2022-2024 no later than May 15th. So you just have one council meeting. So what we will do is first thing in the morning, we will send you out of the 33 applications received. There were six that did not receive any funding. We'll send you the details as to what their scores were and what the rationale was for them not receiving any funding. And then once again, we would look for your input really immediate so that we can make the cutoff.

So the list includes the six that didn't get any funding?

We can send you the information on the six that did not get funding and the rationale from the commission for their scoring of those six.

Do we have the data on who we outreach to?

Yes. We provided that detail in the staff report. We could provide you more specifics in terms of the data. but we do have just general information in the staff report. But we can tell you about how many organizations we reached out to.

Excellent. Yeah. Great. Thank you. So there's a motion and a second for a two-week continuance to the next meeting.

Any further discussion? Seeing none.

Mayor, if I can ask if you want to close the public hearing.

We want to continue it. Well, that's the motion on the floor to continue the public hearing. I second the motion.

Thank you.

So the public hearing will remain open until the next meeting. Councilmembers, please vote.

Motion passes 7-0 with Councilmembers Hernandez, Lopez, Mendoza, Peñalosa, Van, Mayor Proten, Becerra, and Mayor Samantha voting yes.

Great, thank you everybody. That brings us to the next public hearing item on the general plan, that's item number 30, and I'll turn it over to staff to provide us with the presentation.

Yes, Mayor and Council members, we do have a brief presentation on this item, and we're excited to bring it back to you. I have to credit our Executive Director, Min Tai, who has spent numerous hours, as well as our EJ communities, they have spent numerous hours on this as well, at working to incorporate the concerns that they had with the original draft. So the focus of his presentation is going to be on addressing the EJ issues. And I will turn it over to Executive Director Min Tai.

Thank you City Manager Rich. If you can give me a moment to set up.

Director Tai, can I just interrupt you for a second? Let me go ahead and defer to Councilmember Fan. She has a comment to me.

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

Thank you. I just wanted to make a comment, a public comment, because in a prior meeting I had recused myself from this item out of an abundance of caution due to then pending FPPC complaint relating to the WHO, but it was all related to my employer and my work. Of course, that FPPC complaint was summarily dismissed and was actually not even investigated and rejected by the FPPC. And so on the advice of the City Attorney, and in light of that dismissal, I have determined that I am able to participate in the general plan update discussion and vote. Thank you.

CHAIRMAN BERNANKE. Thank you, Councilmember Fant. I thought you were going to add a BAM.

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

BAM.

CHAIRMAN BERNANKE. Director Tai, go ahead.

Just for purposes of discussion, let me go ahead and just formally open up the public hearing

Thank You mayor good evening mayor mayor pro tem in the City Council it's been a long journey actually almost seven years since we started this process our mayor and City Council encourage all of us to think big and dream big I'm here today to present to the mayor city council in our community the updated general plan called the Golden City and beyond this is our community's grand vision for the next two decades but before we do that I have a couple images I'd like to share with the council and the community when you look at these images you instantly

recognize and probably have the name of the cities in your mind already just from the images and if you think about Los Angeles, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Rome, New York, you'll be right. These are war class cities all over the world and they are instantly recognizable through their architecture, physical, cultural, social and historical landscape. They capture a thing, a place, a feeling, the thing we would call that it feeling. War class is just now about the scare of a city. It's also the quality, the substance, the

place that touch on the wants and needs of our residents, and the place that attracts businesses as well as tourists from all of the world to visit. It is to experience that brand. And when you look at this image, you can see that we too, the City of Santa, is instantly recognizable by the images that we see. Santa Ana, we have our cultural celebrations, we have our historic neighborhoods, architecture, historic downtown, museum, and so much more. Santa Ana, in my opinion, and I think in all of our opinion, is poised to be a war-class city.

We are a city that also has a seasonal climatic event that is named after us, the Santa Ana Wind. So we're on our way, and the wind is behind us.

I'll be covering these topics tonight and will conclude with the recommendation to adopt the general plan and the related resolution.

The city's general plan was not comprehensively updated since 1982. And over the last four decades, our community has seen many changes to the physical environment. The needs and the issues facing our community are significantly different today than in 1982. The general plan is required under state law for every city. It is also a roadmap of Santa Ana for our future and needs to be updated to align with our community values and aspiration as we have them today. The plan also serves as a policy document providing a foundation for decision-making and guiding regulatory framework.

It is also a planning document guiding our decisions and the physical development of the city through a shared vision. And that shared vision is, as you can see on the slide, our shared vision is holistic, it is inclusive, and it vests in the future generations. The goals and policies and implementation action contained within the general plan all work together to achieve this shared vision. This vision is also guided by our core values that were shared with us by our community through our extensive outreach. And those core values include culture, sustainability, health, education, and equity.

And as you can see, they are also reflected in our shared vision as well.

The key focus of the plan includes a range of topics that you see on the slide. Notably, it proposes to improve the quality of life and the physical environment, addressing environmental pollution concerns, creating economic development and employment opportunities, growing sustainably, responsibility within the five land use focus areas of the plan, just to name a few.

The five focus area that you see here we consider to be areas of reinvestment opportunities or identify early on in the process by our community, civic leaders, and community stakeholders as reinvestment opportunity areas with the greatest opportunity for success and benefiting from the change in land use and development to facilitate economic development and revitalization. Some of the focus area are experiencing minimal reinvestment from existing owners as well as with development interest from the development community, while other areas also capitalize

on the location and its proximity to high activity opportunity areas. This strategy of our general plan is a focused growth managed strategy to the areas that can use the best benefit and be the most successful while minimizing disruption and maintaining character of established lower density neighborhoods throughout our city as we heard during our outreach with the community.

following up from the meeting of February 15th after the City Council first considered this item we received over 150 comments from the City Council as well as EJ stakeholders after meeting with EJ stakeholders and following up with the City Council the process resulted in over 60 modifications and clarification that were made to the plan that we felt were responsive to the comments. And those comments really were to strengthen land use policy and to address EJ issues while guiding our future land use decisions.

The complete listing of the comments received, as well as the City responses and clarification to the documented comments are both attached in Exhibit 1 and Exhibit 2 of the staff report for your reference. And at the conclusion of this process, we met with the EJ Roundtable on April 4th, explained and discussed the changes and clarifications, and we received overwhelming support from our local EJ stakeholders.

Some of the key modification requirements as the result of the process really does strengthen commitments and leadership pertaining to environmental pollution concerns, advocacy, public education, addressing community health and wellness issues, prioritizing strategies to remove and mitigate environmental pollutions, prioritize open space preservation and development, as well as increasing the park ratio to three acre per thousand, prioritize public engagement, education, involvement by our community, including EJ stakeholders, as well as local and indigenous representations,

and then strengthen the land use policies and actions to facilitate future land use decision-making process.

the the the strategy of our general plan in terms of addressing EJ is one that is foundational pioneering and ongoing it will have a dedicated city EJ staff position to work with the community and for the community we the city will serve as the repository for gathering information and also dispersing information to the public and the community about environmental justice issues we're proposing to form an environmental justice action committee for engaging our community

educating and guiding strategies for addressing ega issues resulting in a continuous process for improvement and informing our community we see this as a holistic process it's ongoing as very foundational in terms of the next steps with the adoption of the proposed general plan update tonight we estimate that the effective date of the general plan will be 30 days from the adoption which is May 20th however I want to provide a clarification that the effective date would be 30 days from the

signing of the resolution so hopefully that will get signed quickly after the adoption the comprehensive update of the zoning code and development standard will be the next big items that we will follow we're looking to release the request for proposal on the comprehensive date of the zoning code within the next few weeks we will share a draft as i committed to with the city council prior to releasing that we will provide and allocate we will work with our community and city council to provide and allocate resources for new programs and services. Staff will be busy implementing the actions.

As I mentioned, this is a living document that will have an annual and five-year review process and we'll be working with the community to also consider and implement, not consider, but also implement and administer a survey every two years.

Our recommendation tonight, my last slide, is for the Council to certify the program EIR in compliance with CEQA and certify that the project EIR has been completed pursuant to CEQA guidelines. There are no environmental superior alternatives to the project that will avoid or substantially lessen the significant environmental effect as identified in the draft PEIR. concur with the finite mitigation measures contained in the PIR, and adopt a statement of verifying considerations prior to certification of the PIR. Two, adopt the general plan update number 2020-06.

And finally, adopt a resolution overruling the Orange County Airport Land Use Commission's determination that the proposed general plan update is not consistent with the airport environment land use for John Wayne Airport including supportive findings that includes my staff report and I'll be happy to answer any questions but if I make it take a moment before that and take a few minutes to recognize the team that has been working on this project the staff team members that were part of the leading project management team include Fabiola Zalaya Melker planning

manager, our lead project manager, Melanie McCann, principal planner. I also want to share that Melanie has worked for the city close to 35 years and she has announced her retirement this May. So if this adoption is complete tonight, that will be a big feather to help NCAP her great career.

And you're pulling out all the stops now.

Mr. Ricardo Soto has been working on this project as well as Jerry Guevara since the beginning. I just want to share that Ricardo actually started the project, got married, have had two children, and is still working on the project. So I'm pulling it out another stop here. I also want to thank you from the support of our team, Assistant Senior Manager Mendoza and his economic development team, Mark Morley and Judson, for supporting us with the economic development element as well as the housing element, which is not being considered tonight, but they have worked feverishly on that.

I want to thank Nabil and his team, Zed Kalula, for supporting with mobility and addressing transportation issues. I want to thank Executive Director Rudloff and Suzy Fajanek for working on us with the master park um i'm sorry the open space element our consultant here tonight is colin drucker from place work along with joanne hatfield steve bush and mike erizabel we also have amy hoyt who is our legal advisor on the sequel work as well as i mentioned this team has worked and

spent countless hours and dedicate their own uh sometime personal time to this project so we really can't do this without them so thank you so much I really appreciate it I also want to thank our city manager's office our city manager Christian reach for supporting us and providing guidance every step of the way the Planning Commission the Historical Resources Commission the Parks and Recreation Board our Community Development Commission as well as the ETAC for providing input throughout our development of the plan and finally our City Council for your support and guidance throughout these number of years and this whole process.

And hopefully we have delivered something that you are truly proud of and can adopt tonight.

Thank you. Great. Thank you for those acknowledgments. I think they're well deserved. And I guess if we wouldn't be moving this, Melanie would have to stay with us another few years. So we're really going to help out here. I think we have a member of the public that's online. Madam Clerk, if you want to go ahead and call them up.

Thank you, mayor. And before I actually unmute, and we actually have a few callers actually now, but before I unmute the callers, I did want to also announce that we did receive written communication from two Santa Ana residents organizations and one county organization. And they just provided various comments and concerns regarding the general plan. And with that,

I Zoom ID, Cynthia Guerrera, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device to unmute your call. Thank you. You may proceed with your comment. Hi, you can hear me, right? Yes. Okay. So good evening, Mayor and council members. I'm from Santana and I'm a member of the Rise of Willow Coalition. I'm here to comment on item 30, the general plan update. I wanna start by saying that I do appreciate that he's efforts to address environmental justice through the general plan update. There were some revisions made to the plan that addressed some of the environmental justice issues raised by the community

during the general plan update process. And while the draft general plan being voted on today's an improved version of the others we have seen in the past, you know, it unfortunately still fails to provide policies that will effectively address these park deficits. It concerned residents and the coalition have consistently raised throughout the general plan update process. The current deficit is 154.44 acres and it is projected to increase to 346.41 acres by the year 2045. So the parkland deficit more than doubling by 2045 is a key indication to SLEs that the open space policies and programs proposed in the plan will not

address the city's parkland deficit. To address the park deficit, the Rise of Willowick Coalition proposed that the city implement a no net loss of open space policy that would require a one-to-one replacement of lands known as open space that was not developed for open space users. The city rejected including open space not owned by the city of Santana in the no net loss policy, arguing that the policy could be seen as unreasonably infringing on private property owner's rights. The city's being unnecessarily cautious in this case to the detriment of Santana's residents. Rise of Willowick submitted a letter as public comment

in today detailing examples in which other California jurisdictions implemented similar no net loss of land policies that were successfully upheld in court. Like Stanislaus County's no net loss of farmland policy. The letter also provides different ways in which the no net loss policy could be modified to mitigate the risk of unconstitutionally infringing on private property owners, right? So I think all this to say is just that we think there is a way to successfully a loss policy for the city includes open space.

And yeah, so, you know, rather than rejecting the coalition's non-a loss of open space policy proposal, I do ask that the city do the following at this time. One provided detailed reasoning for the city's fear of implementing a non-a loss policy that would apply to open space not owned by the city of Santana. The reasoning should not, should go beyond simply stating that the policy might unreasonably infringe on private property owner's rights. Instead explain what research the city did to come to this conclusion. We know what evidence, what is the exact, like the exact reason why this seems to be a concern

and provide evidence for that. 15 seconds left. And also before approving the draft general plan, the city should work with Ryza Willowick to modify the no net loss of open space policy so that it addresses any reasonable fears the city might have. The coalition is prepared to help in drafting that policy language. If not, the general plan update the city-Thank you, your time is up. Loss of open space policy during the municipal provision that follows the adoption of the general plan. Thank you. Thank you.

Zoom ID, Karen Romero Estrada, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device. Thank you, you may proceed with your comment. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Thank you. Good evening or at this point, good night. My name is Karen Romero Estrada and I'm also with the Rise of Willowick Coalition. And over the course of the general plan update, Rise of Willowick has provided input and we commend the city staff and council for being receptive to our and other advocates input. Together we are working towards the same goals of rectifying environmental injustices

and increasing open space and park land in the city through the general plan update and other ways. There are multiple approaches that the city must take in this update, including creating new park land and preserving current open space through its policies. I'd like to highlight one of our strongest recommendations to protect existing open space in the city, the no net loss policy for open space, but designed not only for publicly owned spaces, but also for privately owned spaces, such as Willowick. Designing the no net loss policy in a broadly applicable way is essential to protecting and improving the open space available

to the people of Santana. Based on our meetings with Santana staff, this idea has been dismissed without written legal assessment and analysis of the benefit of adding privately owned properties to the note net loss policy. We submitted a letter providing examples of legal standing where similar policies have been allowed on privately owned properties if it benefited the public. Additionally, even with the risk, the policy can be drafted to reduce the risk of lawsuit of a takings argument. Some examples that we provided in our letter were providing an option for an in-move fee and writing a waiver into the no net loss policy

for scenarios where it cannot be legally applicable. I want to articulate that tonight is not the last opportunity to work on such a policy. Rise Up Willowick can continue to provide policy language and input to craft a no net loss policy in a way that will help further the city's and the community's goals to increase and preserve current parkland and open space for the health and wellbeing of the city as a whole. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

Zoom ID, Andrew Brady, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device. Thank you, you may proceed with your comment. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Good evening, honorable mayor and council members. I am Andrew Brady of the DLA Piper law firm here to comment on the proposed general plan update. I'm here on behalf of our clients, Derek Santa Anna LP and Roars Gale Holder LP. We submitted a letter dated April 18th, 2022 that is in the record that raises the same points. I will briefly address now.

We have clients that own two adjacent properties on the west side of Grand Avenue between 17th and 21st streets. The two properties cover approximately 15 total acres of land on a major city thoroughfare and these properties are within the Grand and 17th Street focus area under the proposed general plan amendment and are within Ward 3. We want to commend staff on preparing a thoughtful well-formed land use element. They did an excellent job and we do understand the DeJong Plan has largely been brought back to address environmental justice issues which is

unquestionably vitally important but I'm here today to address two nuts and bolts issues regarding how the land use element will function and apply in key focus areas. First the land use element adopts interim development standards borrowed from other city land use specific plans to apply in focus areas. These plans apply and will apply until the zoning code can be updated, which as you know, can potentially take up to several years. For our client site, the interim development standards include three separate land use designations under two plans. However, the general plan does not clarify what happens if there is a conflict

between interim development standards. Under the plans applicable to our client sites, this results in some uses being allowed under one plan and prohibited under another plan. In terms of building types, the different plans have conflicting provisions. So if you tried to apply them all, no building types would be allowed because they are all prohibited under different applicable designations. Our recommendation to resolve this important issue is to request that the council include language in the land use element, specifying that the least restrictive applicable standard under adopted interim development standards

and focus areas apply. This would give clarity to applicants and city staff regarding how the interim standards would apply and would provide the maximum flexibility to all parties to fully utilize interim developed standards in key focus areas identified in the general plan. Second regarding allowed building types we similarly recommend adding a provision stating that all less intensive building types to those allowed under interim development standards can also be approved at the discretion of the city. As it is there's a patchwork of of different interim development standards that do not clarify exactly what building types

can be allowed in certain areas. 15 seconds left. That concludes the comments. Thank you for your time and great work by staff. We really appreciate, on behalf of our clients, really great effort. Thank you. Zoom ID Lionel Flores, if you would please select the microphone icon to unmute your device.

Hello, can y'all hear me? Yes, you may proceed with your comment. All right, thank you. Good night, Mayor and City Council members. My name is Leonel Flores, lifelong resident of the Madison Park neighborhood. I just wanted to express my support for the adoption of the general plan on the condition that the policies recommended by the various environmental justice groups that we work with are included in that adoption. I appreciate the time that men and the city staff have taken to go over these policies with us.

And I also want to thank the University of Irvine for helping us prepare these documents for the last couple of years.

And yeah, that's basically all I wanted to say. There are still a few things that we wanted that were not included, which includes the minimum of a thousand foot, uh, buffer zone, which is the recommendation from the California air resources board between sensitive receptors and heavy industrial, um, uses, but we know that this will be an item that we will continue to work on, you know, for the duration of this upcoming general plan. And I hope that, um, you know, the city does uphold their end and as well as the city council and the mayor

to be liaisons for the community when it comes to environmental justice issues and dealing with the various state, local regional agencies that oversee the monitoring of the different environmental pollution issues we have. So once again, thank you for taking that time. And I support the adoption of the general plan and with the inclusion of the recommendations for the environmental justice groups. Thank you. Thank you.

Zoom ID Jabari Brown, if you would please select the microphone icon. Hello, can you hear me okay? Yes, you may proceed with your comment. Thank you. My name is Jabari Brown. I'm an attorney from UC Irvine's Environmental Law Clinic speaking in support of Madison Park Neighborhood Association and OCEJ and environmental justice advocates from the communities of Santa Ana. As a foundational issue, environmental justice should remain at the forefront of the city of Santa Ana's priorities. Second only to the communities and constituents themselves, the land, air and water resources of Santa Ana

deserve priority and protection. I really appreciate the city's efforts to engage the community in round tables. However, time will tell if the city will remain dedicated to the priorities and issues the community groups raised. Now the creation of an environmental justice action committee is an amazing and great first step. I would encourage the city to remain engaged with the community members to assess inventory and remediate hazardous environmental contamination, especially around public spaces. is I believe there is a clean future for Santa Ana and it necessarily involves the concerned residents who wanna work with the city

to ensure that Santa Ana is that shining city that matches the examples that Min outlined earlier in the presentation. So thank you for your efforts.

Thank you, Mayor. That was the last public comment.

Great, thank you for that. And thank you to all the members of the public that commented. We are now in the public hearing. It's been formally opened. We've heard from members of the public, and we've had a presentation. I'm going to go ahead and bring it back to the Council for any questions or comments. And let me start with Mayor Pro Tem and go from there. Actually, Mayor Pro Tem, go ahead and go, and then we'll bring it back to the ad hoc and get comments from them as well.

Phil BacerraItem 7

Okay. Well, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want to thank everybody for their participation from our community, our stakeholders, our staff, The collaboration is nothing short of inspirational. Min, thank you for everything that you did. Thank you for not giving up on the plan. We've hit a couple roadblocks, or speed bumps, if you will. But you stayed with the plan. You kept it going, and your work with the community, especially our environmental justice advocates, to bring them to the table, to hear the comments we heard tonight. Again, that's a testament to you and your staff's work, so thank you for that.

Phil BacerraItem 7

Many of the recommended changes and clarifications reflect our entire community's desire to have a safe, healthy, vibrant, and resilient city. From our residents to our businesses to this city council, this general plan is a statement of our collective reaffirmation to making our golden city shine for many years to come. actually seven years ago that this whole effort began. I can't believe I say that out loud, seven years ago, and some of the statements you made, just to really hammer that home. Back then I was appointed to the General Planned Advisory Committee while still serving on the Planning Commission. So I'm excited

Phil BacerraItem 7

because I'm going to conclude my comments tonight. I'm just going to jump right in. I'm going to make the following motion. So I'd like to make a motion that we adopt a resolution certifying the final recirculated program environmental impact report including adoption of the environmental findings of fact pursuant to CEQA adoption of a statement of overriding considerations and adoption of a mitigation monitoring and reporting program to adopt a resolution approving general plan amendment number 2020-06 with the recommended changes and clarifications as shown in the attached Exhibit 2 with the additional item to

Phil BacerraItem 7

allow the use of the least restrictive interim development standards to apply within those five focus areas within the plan, and to adopt a resolution with the findings that overrule the John Wayne Airport-Orange County Airport Land Use Commission's determination that the proposed general plan update is inconsistent with the Airport Environ's Land Use Plan.

Great. Thank you. We have a motion on the floor, and let's go ahead and go on with further

I will second that motion.

We have a motion and a second. Let me go ahead and bring it back to the ad hoc committee, which this item came from. As you know, the ad hoc committee on housing was vested with a few objectives, and I think this is one of them. So let me bring it to Council Member Lopez, and then I'll call on Council Member Fan, and then myself.

Jessie LopezItem 7

Thank you, Mayor. So first and foremost, I just want to say thank you to staff. As you said, this has been years in the making, and I think staff is ready to move forward, and so am I. And I also want to thank the organizations, the advocacy groups that kept working, not just with us, but with staff. and I feel a lot better about the plan and the amendments that we are going to be hopefully adopting tonight and you know it took a long time I think it

Jessie LopezItem 7

feels like for many people but this is a document that could have been rushed through and we made sure that it wasn't because it's important that all of the concerns that the community was bringing forth are reflected in this plan that is essentially a blueprint for the city moving forward and so you know one of the things we talked about earlier this year was when I gave my public comment was you know that open space element because we had a no net loss park policy but we didn't have one for open space and so one of the things that I want to get clarity from our city attorney is what we heard tonight from the public

Jessie LopezItem 7

which is can the city of Santa Ana, do we have the authority to designate all open space in the city of Santa Ana as that in the general plan?

Okay, I'm going to try to take a shot at answering this, and then I'm also going to let our chief assistant city attorney, John Funk, who's been the primary representative from our office on the general plan. but are you asking if you could as a matter of policy just entirely have your city designated as open space yeah all open space for dollars regardless if it's public or private I would say the answer to that is probably no and there's we go into great detail as to why but I know I think there's a specific question as to how you're designate some of your open space so I'm

to defer to John. Yeah, Council Member Lopez, I would concur with Sonia. I don't think it's either a practical matter or a legal matter that that would be advisable or possible to designate the

Jessie LopezItem 7

whole of the city open space. No, not the entire city, not the entire city. Yeah, I think you

misunderstood the question. It was more, I think the question that it probably, like, I'm not going to speak for the council member. She can speak for herself. Yeah, so not the entire city. You know,

Jessie LopezItem 7

the the areas that are already open space can we keep them whether they're private or public keep them as open space oh yes with that clarification customer Lopez the answer would be yes and I'm sorry I didn't you didn't

understand I certainly apologize for the confusion so you're just saying if you

right now all of your space that's designated open space you're saying are you compelled to make it something different not compelled but can we whether

Jessie LopezItem 7

it's private or public can we designate it in our general plan as open space is it sorry maybe it's

late maybe if i can provide uh some clarity so the question is really aiming looking at there is a distinction between open space that is in the public ownership such as the city of santa ana or parks and open space which we already have a no net loss policy created for the council member and the community is asking providing such a no net loss requirement for privately owned properties that are currently zone open space or is used as open space purpose so that they can never be changed into another such as Willowick.

Yes part of what you're doing is you're legislating you can make decisions here about how you want land you how you want land to be used in your city so I'm trying to understand because it's if you have existing parcels whether they're private or public and they're currently designated for open space use it leave

them as open space if you want that is correct so in the case of Willowick it would be remaining as open space under the current general plan designation what the advocacy group is asking for is a policy that indicates that those land use changes cannot be changed to other than open space in the future for a private property.

Got it. I understand now. Sorry. I haven't been as involved. But you're making a legislative decision for now that you have to have reasons for making for now. this city council cannot mandate what property will be used for designated in the long term or in the future and all property owners unless you put some restriction can come back at any time and ask the city council not that they're entitled but can ask for an amendment at some point we hope that through a process like this one that the city council has a policy that says no we don't want to entertain general plan amendments for a period of time because

we worked so hard on obtaining this, but you cannot right now today make a decision or the council cannot make a decision today which forever says this will be open space or it can never be changed. If you're looking for a long term protection of land whether it's private or public you would have to look into ways of either purchasing or negotiating long term what we call conservation easements that would be the method by which you could protect spate land and and keep it as open space thank you for that really good breakdown

Jessie LopezItem 7

I appreciate it the second question I had for you director was I know one of the big ask you know throughout this process has been the buffer zone designations can you just explain why that is not being adopted in the general

plan so what we have adopted in terms of policies and addressing issues of buffer and addressing incompatible land use is to evaluate a variety of a strategy our community is asking for in instituting a numeric number such as 1,000 feet as a new city that is something when you have new development occurring and raw land, it's much easier to do that. As a built-out city over 150 years old, we have many instances where these kind of situations will not lend itself to address

those policies. Our goal is to have a policy that maintains a flexibility, to be able to take guidance from the various agencies, such as the Air Resources Board, where appropriate, it, but also to take local situation and local environment into consideration before we take action. So we take a very systematic approach by first requiring that we evaluate and study our existing environment and situation, and then work with the regulations and follow

up the zoning code to provide these standards so that they can be implemented. And one of those standards could include 1,000 feet. We just don't want to have the inflexibility of locking that in, but to ensure that we can continue to maintain and work with our community and work with existing situations to address all land use situations. So it doesn't preclude us from adopting and implementing 1,000 feet. It just leaves it flexible so that we can have the ability to address these type of issues with a variety of strategies.