Read the May 17 meeting.

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Thank you.

Thank you.

Recording in progress.

Mayor, the meeting is being recorded.

Great. Thank you. Let me go ahead and call this special closed session meeting of the Santa Ana City Council to order for May 17, 2022. And let me go ahead and just begin with a couple of opening housekeeping remarks. 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 disrupt the flow of the meeting. I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to the Clerk to call roll.

Thank you. Councilmember Hernandez? Councilmember Lopez? Here. Councilmember Mendoza? Present. Councilmember Peñalosa? Councilmember Fan?

Here.

Mayor Potem-Bissara? And Mayor Sarmiento?

Here. So we do have a quorum. Let me go ahead and ask any of the Council Members if they'd like to abstain from any of the closed session items on the agenda? Hearing none and seeing none, Madam Clerk, do we have any members of the public that wish to address us?

Thank you, Mayor. No, we do not, and we did not receive any written communication.

Great. Thanks. Let's go ahead and recess to close session, then we'll reconvene afterwards. Thanks.

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Good afternoon everybody. Let me go ahead and call this meeting to order. This is the regular meeting for the Santa Ana City Council for May 17, 2022. Let me go ahead and begin by making some opening housekeeping remarks. 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 disrupt the flow of the meeting and I'm going to go ahead and call on the Clerk of the council to go ahead and call roll, please

Thank You mayor councilmember Hernandez

President councilmember Lopez yeah councilmember Mendoza present councilmember pin yelosa

David PenalozaItem 3

President.

Councilmember Fan. Here. Mayor Potem Becerra.

Here.

And Mayor Sarmiento.

Here. Great. Thank you. Madam Clerk, before we proceed to the Pledge of Allegiance, let me go ahead and call on you to make your opening remarks as well.

Thank you, Mayor. To request to speak on any agenda or non-agenda items within the city's jurisdiction, with the exception of public hearing items 39 and 40, please dial star 9 from your phone or click on the button labeled raise hand from Zoom at this time. Please hold your comments until the mayor opens the public hearing items. Please announce your name and word or neighborhood you reside in within the city of Siena Ana for the record. Thank you.

Great, thank you. I'm going to go ahead and ask Council Member Nelly D'Amenloza to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. And if you'll all please remain standing. After that, we're going to have some words of inspiration from Reverend Lee DeLeon. So, council member.

My pleasure. Please rise. Put your right hand over your heart. For military and previous military personnel, you may salute. Ready, begin.

David PenalozaItem 3

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

So if we could have Pastor DeLeon join us here at the podium. I just saw him. Did we?

Okay. I think he went outside just for a second.

All right. I don't see him. Why don't we do this? Let's go ahead and go to our first presentation, and then we'll go ahead and have the pastor lead us in our words of inspiration after that. If I can have the Orange County School of the Arts Ambassador Jazz Orchestra join me up here at the podium.

So welcome everybody. Let me go ahead and let you know that we're going to be recognizing the musical contributions to the community that the High School of the Arts, School of the Arts actually, have done for our community, not just here in Santa Ana, but all over the county and really all over the state. We're blessed to have them here in Santa Ana. So we're going to be specifically recognizing the Ambassador Jazz Orchestra. And so the Orange County School of the Arts Ambassador Jazz Orchestra was one of the top 15 high school jazz bands in the country,

selected from a very competitive pool of 89 schools to perform at the prestigious 27th Annual Essentially Ellington Jazz Band Competition and Festival at the Lincoln Center in New York City. That was on May 5th. The competition was from May 5th to May 7th. and we know how well the band performed there. So this event is on a large scale, it's a national scale, and it's known as the Super Bowl of Jazz Competition. And I love jazz, and I'm sure you all do too. So it's the hallmark program for the largest jazz education network in the world. The bands were invited to New York City to learn, collaborate,

perform, and compete for top honors alongside fellow musicians. I'm proud to announce that the Ambassador Jazz Orchestra placed third nationwide. Let's give them a big round of applause for that.

Not only did they rank third, but this was their first time competing in that festival. So that makes it even more significant because, you know, this was their first venture out. And today we all want to congratulate the members of the Orange County School of the Arts, Jazz Orchestra, and their director, John Reynolds. John, where are you? There you go, thanks. Thank you, John. Appreciate you. I'm going to give you the podium right now. I know you're eager to make sure you talk about these talented young people here. But San Ana is very proud for the outstanding musical achievements.

If you all remember, when we did the State of the City, I think some of you may have been up there with us performing as we were opening the State of the City. There's nothing better than music. I think music is a universal language. It's a way that we, you know, communicate with others, and it really does, you know, for us, show how important the arts are to the city and to our community. I think these are ambassadors in more ways than one, not just as a jazz ensemble, but ambassadors to the arts, ambassadors to the world of, you know, of music. And so that is very significant. So what we've been doing,

I think the last couple of meetings, we've had a mariachi group come up here and play some music. We've had, you know, other musical talent come up here. So we're turning this into half a concert, half a city council meeting, which is good, because music, it always sets the tone for a good meeting. So now we'd like to share with you one of the performances called Topsy, composed by Edgar William Battle and Eddie Durham of the Count Basie Orchestra. so let me let's go ahead and go to the video and let's take let's check this out

and if councilmember Hernandez is anywhere around here I know he was going to co-present so come on down councilmember

Orange County School of the Arts the ambassador jazz orchestra give them a A big welcome.

Thank you.

Let's turn it up. That sounds too good.

Thank you.

Thank you.

guitar solo

Thank you.

Transcription by Translation Translation

Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.

So my only question is how did they get third and not first, right? Man, let's give them another round of applause. You guys are crazy. That is amazing.

So look, they did this as their first time in New York City at the Lincoln Center against a lot of other talented young people. But let me turn the mic over to my colleague, Councilmember Hernandez, because he was just, I was bopping away, so I was losing it. There you go.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Can we please make some more noise for the talented young people up here? Thank you.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

I mean, very rarely are we at a loss for words here in the council, but I truly am at a loss for words for the talent that we saw on video today. I got to give you kudos, brother, for carrying that whole band with your drumming skills. So let's give them a round of applause.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

It takes a lot of hard work and dedication to learn an instrument, especially learn a genre as complicated and as rich as jazz. It takes a lot of dedication, a lot of persistence, and there's a lot of nuanced timing in jazz and to see young people understand it at such a high level, it's a credit to the educators and to the wonderful staff at OSHA. So I do want to also give you a round of applause. please give them a round of applause to the teachers.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

And without further ado, if we can please bring Dr. John Reynolds to the front, we'd like to present you a certificate of recognition.

So you'll have to excuse my voice. I've been yelling at students for a whole week in New York.

I like to think I'm just sounding more and more like Miles Davis every day, but Thank you for recognizing us here. It's a great honor. These kids Really really I shouldn't say kids these students really really played their hearts out and this is a group and a community effort. So thank you for this recognition and we are honored to share this with you

All right, so let's hand out some certificates. Go ahead, council member. You can call them out as we're doing.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Aiden Liu. Aiden Liu.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Thank you very much. Thank you. Allison Mullen.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Thank you.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Alvin Hajian.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Aiden Bavakwa.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Christian Marcel.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Connor Tang.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Ian Shin. Thank you, Ian. Thank you. James Deckery. Thank you, James. You're doing good work, brother. Kiana Kaminsky. Thank you, Kiana. Thank you so much for the sweater. Leo Swee.

Leo Swee. Leo Swee.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Thank you so much. Luke Toner.

Luke Toner.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

For always setting the tone. Thank you. Thank you, Luke. Mateo Cruz.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

I gotta bless you up, man. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. My man. Megan Etzel. Thank you, Megan. Thank you so much. Miri Etzenberg.

Miri Etzenberg. Thank you.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Nathan Tetsua.

He's also right. Not here? Okay.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Ryan Nicoloff. Ryan, thank you so much. Thank you. It's an honor. Keep up the good work. Ryder Mendelson. Thank you Ryder. Keep up the good work. Thank you. Samuel Chung. Thank you so much, Samuel. Thank you. And last but not least, Trent Horio. Trent Horio.

All right, so as we say goodbye, we're going to take a quick photograph, but the only thing I ask of you all, next time you guys play live. How's that? Do we want to hear them live here? All right, we'll do it next time.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

We're getting first next year. We're getting first next year? Woo!

Woo!

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

All right, there we go.

I should go in the back. Wow, I should be playing. Wow, every time. I'll hang out with you, right? I'll hang out with you. Okay.

Thank you, hope you get it. All right, well, thank you.

Thank you, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. You're all running. Keep up with your heart. Thank you. We didn't talk about it. We didn't talk about it. We didn't talk about it. We didn't talk about it.

We didn't talk about it. We didn't talk about it. We didn't talk about it. We didn't talk about it. We didn't talk about it.

All right, so we just had some music of inspiration, so why don't we have some words of inspiration? I'm not sure if Pastor DeLeon is now with us. Pastor, if you'll join us here at the front.

And if everybody will please give your attention to Pastor DeLeon.

How do you follow a great jazz band? Mayor Sarmiento, you should have moved that around a little bit or something. But no, no, thank you for allowing me to be here.

And we'll be praying in a second. But I wanted to thank you, Member Penalosa and Member Lopez. Oh, there you are. There you are. And then thank you so much for the proclamation that you shared on the National Day of Prayer, on the Cinco de Mayo. It was a great first event. It's the first time we gathered the city of Santa Ana to pray and we have much to pray about. You know, last night I was walking out of a board meeting and we had just taken a hard look at next year's budget. Not highly encouraged by it, you

know, running in the red right now. But as I looked out into the community, we're in the East Side neighborhood. That's where one of our programs is at. Charter school like the one we just heard from. And looked at some of the families moving around the neighborhood and concerned, many of them, on how do they do it? How do they make it from day to day? So it's a time to really gather, ask community, come together as community, and not only pray, but put some feet to those prayers. We have members in our coalition and the Kingdom group. We have the third largest distributor of free food

in the county.

We just gave away something like $60,000 in bank accounts and scholarships just two weeks ago to 45 students of Santa Ana schools. So a lot of highly engaged people in the Kingdom group, and that's who coordinated that event. but why don't we pray and continue this this attitude of prayer in the and the days and weeks to follow and that was my challenging words in closing to the group that day and father tonight we come together what a wonderful moment just to listen to this high high talent great talent

that we have right down the street we thank you for that we thank you father for members of this council that week after week work diligently in our community to serve us. We're thankful, Lord, that we can come together. And that's what the National Day of Prayer was just a few days ago. It was the time to bring community together and agree that we need you. We need you active in our daily life. We need you guiding and directing not only city but county leadership.

Father, we are grateful that tonight we can ask prayer for this council, for this mayor. And Father, know full well that you will respond. Father, continue to bless them, guide them, just speak a word of wisdom this evening as they make hard decisions for us. And keep us during this time. These are troubled times. We're facing a high degree of inflation. Lord, just came out of a pandemic. Wars taking place, Lord, and so much that impact the daily life of our citizens.

So, Father, we again seek you, pray that you would help us, and guide the leadership of the city, guide community leaders and others, pastors that are working diligently to serve you and serve the people of Santa Ana. Thank you so much and we pray in your precious name. Amen. May God bless you.

Thank you so much, Pastor DeLeon. Thank you for everything you do in the community. We certainly appreciate you and thank you for lifting our spirits. Let me go ahead and move along to the next presentation and call on Mayor Pro Tem to recognize the Public Works Agency.

Phil BacerraItem 2

Please applaud these folks.

Thank you.

Phil BacerraItem 2

So we talk about performances. So day in and day out, like our OSHA kids, there are folks that we rely on when it comes to delivering quality performances. And so tonight, I have that honor of presenting a proclamation recognizing our city's public works agency during National Public Works Week, which is this week, May 15th through the 21st. It's the women and men of our city's public works agency that keep our city beautiful and thriving. Whether it's fixing potholes on our streets and the cracks in our sidewalks, maintaining traffic signals and street lights,

Phil BacerraItem 2

and ensuring that some of the best tasting water around comes out of our faucets, right? So it's them that helps us do that. So it takes a team of versatile employees to provide those essential services to everybody here in our city. national public works week is held annually to recognize the public works professionals who provide and maintain vital public works and infrastructure and the key contributions that they make each and every day the theme for this year's national public works week is ready and resilient our city's public works team is always ready to serve the san anna community and they

Phil BacerraItem 2

are resilient in being able to deliver essential city services no matter what challenges they occur on behalf of our city council and the entire city i wanted to thank the san anna public works team for serving our community with resiliency and commitment so please give them all a round of

applause thank you mayor pro tem thank you mayor city council and thank you for our city manager Christine Ridge. Thank you for the recognition. We really appreciate being here. The theme again is ready and resilient. My team here is resilient and ready to do anything and everything that has to do

with maintenance of the right-of-way, streets, arranging services from maintaining buildings, fleet, trees, everything that Public Works does, this team does day in and day out. We really appreciate what they do, and they're always ready to serve. Thank you for the recognition. And before I forget, I would like to invite the community to our community event, family event for the Public Works Agency. see we have like an open house coming up this saturday at may 21st which is saturday coming up

from 11 to 2 at the walnut pumping station located at the 723 west walnut we love to see you there we have refreshment we have food we have activities we have prizes and tours of our pump station and And we also have what we call a pipe tapping competition. We have invited the cities of Anaheim and Huntington Beach. Our tapping team from Santa Ana will compete and it's something to see and I would like for you to come over and just share some of what we do in the Public Works Agency. I think you will be impressed with the team. Thank you again.

Phil BacerraItem 2

So that's Saturday at 11 a.m., right? That's correct. Right over by Santa Ana High School. So if we can see that.

Phil BacerraItem 2

Thank you, everybody.

Who doesn't love Public Works? Come on.

Congratulations. Congratulations. All right. All right. Let me go ahead and thank the Public Works team for doing all the good things that they do, keeping our city up to date. And we've got some hardworking men and women there. So thank you for all the work. Let me go ahead and call on Council Member Hernandez and Council Member Lopez to present a proclamation to the Santa Ana Active Streets, declaring May 2022 as National Bike Month. Council Members?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

If we can please welcome Sass to the front.

Hello. Hi. Pleasure. Pleasure. Thank you.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

Wow. Well, thank you all for being here. It is really an honor and we're humbled to recognize today that we're going to be proclaiming the entire month National Bike Month. The city of Santa Ana is presenting a proclamation to Santa Ana Active Streets to recognize May as National Bike Month. Established in 1956, National Bike Month is a chance to draw attention to the many benefits of cycling and to encourage people to give biking a try. Environmentally friendly, bike riding reduces our carbon footprint and has the added bonus of health benefits it brings.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

We also take this opportunity to raise awareness of the responsibility of all road users of public roads to practice traffic safety and to promote the idea of sharing the road. Santa Ana Active Streets, in honor of Bike Month, will be hosting a number of events this month and all throughout our summer. Tomorrow, Wednesday, May 18th, SAS, Santa Ana Active Streets, will be distributing helmets and bike lights at the intersection of New Hope and First Street, an area that is known to have a high number of collisions of bicyclists and pedestrians.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

SAS will be honoring a cyclist that was killed at the intersection in February 2022 with the memorial. And on Friday, May 20th, SAS will host a traffic safety course for youth at Fremont Elementary, which is in Artisa Pilar, my backyard. SAS will be teaching safe bike skills and how to be alert while riding on either the road or sidewalk. They will also have a course dedicated to pedestrian safety. And if you could do me the honors, council member, of joining me in presenting this proclamation and tell us about the last three events that SAS is having.

Sure.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

Yes. Oh, you already have it.

Jessie LopezItem 3

Hi, everyone. So on May 27, SAS is going to host a bike class for intermediate cyclists, and the class is going to teach you the principles and importance of being visible and being predictable responsibilities and rights as a cyclist, and also bike skills to use while riding on the road in a group or by yourself. Over the summer, SAS is also going to host a food tour bike rides, which I'm really excited about. I hope we get to do one in Ward 3. And three, Wrench and Rides.

Jessie LopezItem 3

And an eight-week Fix Your Own Bike program that's made possible through the partnership with the Bicycle Tree, which is on 17th Street and Flower, in Orange County's first and only nonprofit bicycle cooperative. So please follow Santa Ana Active Streets, also known as SAS, on Instagram, Facebook. and Twitter to get involved and learn how to participate in future events. And to the group that makes SAS Run, which is a really, really important organization here in the city, as you heard, they do a lot of promotional work, educational work, and they also hand out helmets and has a big emphasis on bike safety, on cyclist safety.

Jessie LopezItem 3

We just wanna thank you for all the work that you've done and that you continue to do. And on behalf of the mayor and the council, we wanna thank you again for the work and we want to recognize or proclaim the National Bightower.

So Chris, does anybody want to say anything?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

Would you mind sharing some words? Anyone would like to share? We'd love to hear from you.

Thank you.

Hi, everybody. My name is Christopher Forden. I'm the project director of Santa Ana Street. Thank you. I'm joined today with a bunch of our volunteers, past participants in different programs. Jamie, who has helped out with our and helped out distribute safety materials. Maria, who helps out in our advocacy work, trying to promote bus ridership and just help us out with so many things.

Natalie, I want to acknowledge everybody because I want to say that each individual, we're made up of volunteers, participants, and each person that we work with are vital to how we actually work. So I just want to acknowledge everybody. Natalie runs a cleanup project, clean out parks. So if you ever want to clean up parks, Natalie is an awesome person for that. Lucas helped build a bike and keep a bike from the bicycle tree. Same with Kobe. And, uh, Irene has actually is a part of the Willard neighborhood association, and we're actually trying to do a, um, open street event, uh, uh, in the world of neighborhood.

So definitely appreciate Irene and everything she's done. Um, Dorian is my, uh, is our SAS project coordinator. So thank you for that patience. I just want to say on terms of bike month, it's a month where we, it's, we want to try and encourage folks to get on a bike. But what I also want to explain to though, biking is already a part of the culture of Santa Ana. Walking is a part of the culture of Santa Ana. Our issue in Santa Ana is that it's a very dangerous activity to be moving in this way. So what I want to in this in this month of bike month, if you're going to go out, whether you're driving, be aware of cyclists.

Cyclists have every right to be on the road just like us. I always think back to the event on Bristol and 17th. We were talking to bus riders and I talked to a bicyclist and asked,

you know, we're just giving out water. And he said, you know, I don't feel like I belong on the road. I don't feel like somebody that actually should be on the road. And I said, like, you belong. And he got very emotional because you should be able to move however you want, whether it's walking or biking. And also it's in the California vehicle code that you can move on the road on a bike. So I just want to say that, um, while, uh, you're going on the road, be mindful of cyclists. Uh, it's okay to go slow. It's okay not to rush. And we're all want to try to make streets safer for everybody. So, uh,

thanks everybody. And, um, we'll be outside actually sharing some information about events. So, um, yeah, come stop by. Thank you. And, uh, Dorian's going to say one thing.

Hello, I'm going to read mine. So something I ask of all of us today is to be mindful of the space we take up in our daily lives. It can be directly connected to the way we travel on the road. Do you drive? Are you a cyclist? Do you walk or do you take the bus? How we move through space looks and feels different for each of us. and the safety of our mobility can at times be determined by things such as race, gender, sex, culture, and the color of our skin. It can also be related to how our privilege gives us advantages in decision-making processes in our workplace, at the store, and how law enforcement treats us. Navigating the

world is not the same for everyone and it is all our responsibilities to be considerate and look how we benefit from our privileges while others often receive the consequences. We want safe streets for all and it takes all of us being mindful of others and in how we create this safe world. It can be as simple as slowing down and sharing the road to multi-road users to how we connect with community voices and community groups. There's a lot of conversations to be had and there's a lot of lives to be saved so let's work together to make Santa Ana a place where we can all thrive and stay alive.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

Well once again thank you if we can make some noise for Santa Ana Active Streets one more time thank you so much.

All right, I'm going to turn it over to Councilmember Lopez, who's going to be presenting a certificate of recognition to Ernesto Cisneros.

Jessie LopezItem 4

Hi everyone.

Jessie LopezItem 4

So I am presenting a certificate today to author Ernesto Cisneros for his outstanding contributions to children's literature. And I have a copy of his book here. It's an autographed copy, so thank you, Ernesto. But Ernesto was born and raised in the city of Santa Ana, and he grew up in the Artesia Pilar neighborhood, playing foosball at El Salvador Park and riding his bicycle alongside the Santa Ana Riverbed. And Ernesto teaches now at Mendez Fundamental Intermediate School. And he is an award-winning author of A Friend Divided. And as an author, Ernesto believes in providing today's youth

Jessie LopezItem 4

with an honest depiction of characters with whom they can identify. And so some of the accolades that Ernesto has won through his writing is winning the 2020 Poppy Award, two international Latino book awards, the prestigious 2021 Buda Belpre Medal, a kid's choice award, and the Society of Children's Book, Writers and Illustrators Crystal Kai Award in 2021. And most recently he published Falling Short, which details the life and experiences of two middle school boys who are best friends.

Jessie LopezItem 4

And on one A basketball player and one A straight A student, and despite their differences, and high athletic prowess and classroom performance, the two of them help each other shine and give a lot of support to one another. And so for Ernesto, writing Falling Short was his way of taking struggles and negative experiences from his life and changing them into something positive. And I first heard you speak not too long ago at Boca de Oro.

Jessie LopezItem 4

And when I heard your own struggles of not just, you know, being an author and trying to break into the industry, but how do we also nourish young talent here in the city of Sanana, specifically authors. I thought it was really important that we share your story and that people know about the books that you've written, that you're a local author, and that they can buy the books here at Libromobil, if they like, located on Bristol. And so on behalf of the city of Sanana, Ernesto, I would just like to thank you for the contributions that you've made to children. and to your community. Thank you.

First I'd like to thank the entire City Council. It's a huge honor being that I was born here. I went to school here in Santa Ana. I work here, teach in Santa Ana, and I live in Santa Ana. So I really thank you to everybody. I really appreciate this. A little shout out to all the teachers and librarians who were so supportive of my work even before it was coming out. We just championed the story of Efren Divided, a story that actually takes place here in Santa Ana along with the other ones. One of the things I wanted to do was highlight the beauty of Santa Ana. And we got a big award, so I feel like this is our award.

And lastly, I'd like to thank my students too, because very often I sometimes feel that I'm the one who's learning more from them than they are from me and I want to thank them for just for the motivation and for always believing me and for pushing me to to strive for more thank you very much

Thank you, Councilmember, and thank you, Mr. Cezanato, so much for your outstanding work. We're proud of you. Let me go ahead and now turn it over to staff so they can go ahead and give their update on the COVID-19.

Good evening, Mayor and Councilmembers. Tonight's COVID update is brief. I'm going to talk about the different variants and then as well as updates on vaccines and boosters. So I do have a short PowerPoint presentation. And starting with the variants, the CDC is working with state and local public health officials to monitor the spread of the Omicron variant and its sub-variants. As of December 2021, Omicron had been detected in every U.S. state and territory and continues to be the dominant variant in the United States. The Omicron variant, like the other variants, is composed of a number of lineages and sub-lineages.

The three most common that they are finding is BA1, BA1.1, and BA2, but there are others that are out there. I know probably right now we all know individuals that have had COVID recently. The Omicron variant spreads more easily than the earlier variants of the virus that caused COVID-19, including the Delta variant. CDC expects that anyone with Omicron infection, regardless of vaccination status or whether or not they have symptoms, they can spread the virus to others.

People infected with the Omicron variant can have symptoms that are similar to the previous variants. The presence and the severity of symptoms can be affected by vaccination status. The presence of other health conditions, age, and history of prior infection. Preliminary data that's been collected by CDC suggests that Omicron may cause more mild illness, although some people can still have severe disease, need hospitalization, and could die from the infection from this variant. Even if only a small percentage of people with Omicron infection need hospitalization,

a large number of cases in our community could overwhelm the hospital systems, which is why it is so important to take steps to protect yourself and others. To that end, we strongly encourage all eligible Santa Ana residents to get vaccinated. To pivot to vaccines and boosters, the CDC now recommends everyone ages five years old and older get their primary series of COVID-19 vaccine, and everyone ages five and older also receive a booster. Some people can actually get two boosters. Public health organizations around the world agree that the best way to prevent COVID-19 related severe illness, hospitalization,

and death is to get vaccinated. People who are up to date on vaccines, including booster doses, when eligible are likely to have stronger protection against the COVID-19 variants, including Omicron. The good news that is if you are five years and older, you can get vaccinated. A Pfizer vaccine has been authorized for individuals five years and up. And then of And of course, both Moderna and Johnson & Johnson are authorized for individuals that are 18 years and older.

And more good news, the FDA authorized just today the use of a single booster dose of the Pfizer vaccine for children five through 11 years of age to provide continued protection against COVID-19. Generally, individuals ages 12 and older who have completed their full series of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which means having received two doses, can receive their booster five months after the date of receiving their second dose. For Johnson & Johnson, individuals can receive their booster two months after their dose.

And the second booster shots are available if you're like me, age 50 or older, or if you have a compromised immunity. If you've initially received Johnson & Johnson vaccine, you should get the second booster only if it's been four months since your first booster shot.

So there is some information that's put up on the screen of the best, the fastest and the best way to get either vaccinated or boosted, including the website where you can secure an appointment or even find a walk-in clinic and then a hotline. And as always, staff is available to answer any questions you may have.

Great. Thank you, Madam City Manager, for that update. Let me go ahead and bring it back to the council to see if there's any questions or comments on this. Council Member's hand.

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

Thanks. Hi, everyone. It's just a comment because I've probably had three COVID scares in the last five months because allergies have been really bad. But one thing I do want to mention is that folks that I know have had symptoms and were consistently testing negative with the at-home tests. So I do urge anybody who is having symptoms to go get a PCR test. Those can be covered by insurance or otherwise, I think it's just really important because a lot of people are not wearing masks, going to restaurants, et cetera. And just be vigilant about testing. I know the federal

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

government is allowing a third round of free at-home COVID tests, and so I urge for free. So please sign up for that. Go get those and test if you ever are just thinking like me that something might be happening because it's better to be safe than sorry. That's all. Great. Thank you for that

comment. Any other comments or questions? Seeing none, let me go ahead and move along to the, I'm going to go ahead and ask the Madam City Attorney if there's anything to report at a

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 5

closed session. Thank you, Mayor, Council members and members of the public. We had three closed session items described on the agenda tonight. We discussed two of them. We did not go into closed session on the evaluation matters, which will be continued. There's no reportable action.

Thank you. So what I see that on the consent calendar we have three appointees as commissioners, so as opposed to having them wait, you know, throughout the public comment section, which may be a little lengthy. Let me go ahead and call them and maybe we can go ahead and swear them in if they have some other things they need to do. They're certainly welcome to stay, but I want to make sure that we are able to be, you know, good with their time. So we have Dwayne Rohrabacher, Jeffrey Katz, and Ana Padilla. If you'll all please join us here in the well to be sworn in. Mayor. Mayor,

if you can take the item out of consent so that the council... Got it. It's 8, 9, and 10. Correct.

David PenalozaItem 5

So that we can vote on that. Correct. Do you want me to make a motion? Sure. So I'll make a motion to approve items 8, 9, and 10. I'll second. Great. We have a motion in a second. Madam Clerk, please...

Can you cast your votes on?

There you go. Council members, please vote.

Okay.

Okay. Motion passes 7-0 with council members. Thank you. Hernandez, Lopez, Mendoza, Peñalosa, Fan, Mayor Protembe, Sarah, Mayor Sarmiento voting yes.

Great. Now we can come up. Do we have all three of them here? Come on, Ana and Jeff.

Yes, if you're here, if you can please come up.

I'm sorry, one at a time.

I'm sorry, one at a time.

I'm Jeffrey Katz.

Do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies foreign and domestic that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California,

that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I'm about to enter.

Thank you. Thank you.

Congratulations, commissioners. We just saved you two hours of your life that you won't get back after. In any event, let's go ahead and move along to the public comment section of the meeting. So this is a time and place for the council to receive comments from the public, both in person and online and virtual. Pursuant to the Brown Act, the City Council may not enter in any discussion at this time with any of the comments made. We will hear from members of the public that are present here physically first, and then I'll go ahead and hand it over to the clerk so she can

calling people who are online and on the phone. So Madam Clerk, I do have the numbers for those physically here. Let me go ahead and call on them first. Mr. Dale Helwig followed by Delilah Snell followed by Nan Collins.

Dale Helvig, Ward 3. Good evening, Mayor, Council, staff. 208 years ago, on May 17th, the Constitution was signed declaring Norway as an independent kingdom. 176 years ago, they started doing a parade. That parade is still going on and it went on today. It's comprised of children. No politics, no military, just children. And I find it refreshing that countries can still celebrate things like that. They believe that children are the future and I

think we believe that children are the future as well. And I really appreciate the fact that they do that. Park Santiago has a 4th of July parade because we like to celebrate the children's efforts as well and to see the smiles on the faces of the kids when they're walking down the street decking out their red riders, their wagons and everything else, I can see why Norway has been doing it for 176 years. I don't think we'll reach that stage for quite a while but I hope we continue that practice of having the parade. So I just want to let you guys

know that there are good things going on in the city and appreciate the work that

you guys are doing. Thank you. Thank you for that. Delilah Snell followed by Nan Collins followed by Les Hall. Good evening. Good evening Santa Ana City

Council and Mayor. My name is Delilah Snell. As you know I have a business in downtown and like so many of us it has been very negatively affected by the OCTA streetcar. As time goes on, the damage from the mess of this project is expanding and it is like a slow decay of our community. OCTA's lack of initial communication to prepare us, lack of appropriate signage, and this is the signage to direct to parking. I feel like a broken record. We just have signs in the construction zones. Messy construction areas, lack of access for pedestrians, and even emergency vehicles has caused us to be stressed out and feel angered

and we feel disrespected. OCTA figuring it out, figuring out how to work faster, work longer, have proper communication with impacted merchants, figuring out how to market, figuring out how to have done this correctly should not be learned on our dime. We should not be made to pay with our businesses and our mental health because OCTA does not know how to do this project correctly. This city has recognized this project and how it's been damaging our downtown and you have shown it by creating a business interruption fund. Recently, the county has recognized our impact with a similar fund, but this is not enough.

It will not be enough. There will be more construction on the streets and several intersections as well. This is too much for the area to withstand. We need each of you as representatives of our city to step up and write letters to OCTA to approve a business interruption fund for downtown. OCTA is the lead on this project and has continued to not recognize the damage that they have done. LA Metro is just about to debut, has debuted a similar project with the Crenshaw Line. They're our neighbor and they're doing this and they've stepped up to help their

businesses and you need to help make this happen first with OCT. Help them see the way. Their next meeting is on 523 and we'd like to have you give support by that time. Thank you. Thank you for

those comments. Nan Collins followed by Les Hall followed by Leonel Flores.

My name is Nancy Collins but I have terrible handwriting. Oh I'm sorry about that Nancy. That's all right. So my name is Nancy Collins. I live in Fisher Park and if you don't know where Fisher Park is we are just north of the Santiago Creek Bridge on Flower. If you've never been there come on by we'd love to meet you. Okay so I want to speak tonight because I know there's some budget discussion going on and I want to speak to a specific budget item. So we've got some real safety concerns about Flower Street from the Santa Yaga Bridge to Memory Lane and I want to address those really quick and let you know what's

going on. It's dangerous there and we're asking for some budget considerations to maybe include some infrastructure that would possibly put a median, extend the median all the way down. We've got residents that can't even back out of their own driveways because the street is just so fast. There's a near miss. If you've ever tried to cross the street at Fisher Park, it's like a game of Frogger. Okay? You finally put in a lighted crosswalk and we appreciate-

Nancy, can you pull the microphone a little closer to you there?

Yeah. You finally put in a lighted crosswalk sign about three or four months ago, and it's better, but it's still very dangerous. It's really bad. There's cars that come down memory lane at night and they do- it's a street racing issue and they do donuts. When we talked to the PD last year, they said, yeah, there's not much we can do about it. We don't have enough police to police that. They agreed that a median there would also be beneficial, and it would help. We're just asking for some consideration of funds that you consider putting money into your budget for extending the median from just north of the Santiago

Bridge all the way down to Memory Lane. It's very, very dangerous. And I want to give a shout out to Public Works, because they've been wonderful dealing with us and helping us. It's time for the council to look at the budget and not expect public works to always be looking for grants to fix infrastructure. So once again, I'm the president of the Fisher Park Association. We'd love to have you come by and meet you and if you have any questions, please give me a call.

Thank you, Nancy. Les Hall followed by Leonel Flores followed by Dr. Alan Wu.

I think I need this. A little nervous I haven't done this before, but here goes.

Okay. So I know every neighborhood in Santa Ana has problems with traffic. that race through the streets during rush hour, and we do too. Downtown Santa Ana is getting bigger, and the problem's just getting worse. The Fisher Park, Nancy, just explained that.

We're just south of the Orange Crush freeways, so there's a lot of commotion going on in this area, and cars come into our neighborhood from the northwest part of Santa Ana, especially in the morning, take all kinds of shortcuts to get off the main street. But the way our neighborhood is pushed up against the five, it seems like all of these cars end up going down one residential street. That's what Nancy was talking about. And it's kind of turned into a speedway. And that's really dangerous. Safety is really important.

So north of us and south of us, there are landscape medians, there's things to calm the traffic down, but except for a few signs and ground striping, in our part of the street there hasn't really been any improvements for decades.

So we're feeling a little bit forgotten, not unloved, but a little forgotten. And that's why I want to go to the pictures. This gives maybe a little more help.

The first photo is Memory Lane driving east towards Flower.

The second photo is going south on Flower from the Santiago Creek Bridge. And the central area is our little corner of Flower. You can see it's an incredibly wide street. It's all cement. And this is turned into a speedway. So that's really what we're asking. We're hoping to get some part of the budget allocated for this. And we're not asking this for the street. It's for the people that cross that street and the people that live on that street.

So we're kind of a small neighborhood. We're squeezed between other big neighborhoods that seem to have a lot more attention. And mainly we're just asking for the City Council to focus on the merits of our request.

That's really it. It's an important issue and we're just hoping there's some budget that can be allocated to that. Nothing's happened here for a long time. It is a big safety issue. Thank you very much for the time.

Thank you for those comments, Les. Leonel Flores followed by Dr. Alan Wu followed by Ana Cecilia Fierro.

All right. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Leonel Flores. I am a lifelong resident of the Madison Park neighborhood, a community advocate, and as of minutes ago no longer an arts and culture commissioner for the city of Santa Ana. Today was part of item 9 on the agenda to be replaced and unfortunately I was not given a chance to speak about why I was challenging this decision before it was voted on. But the purpose of me being here is to fulfill the duty I swore when I became a Commissioner and that is to defend our Constitution and the City of Santa Ana from any harm.

Today I am defending the city from a council member that felt it was okay to lie to a resident like myself, our community, but worst of all lie to our city staff and representatives. I wish I could have gave comment before the decision but regardless I am here to question the integrity, morals, and character of Councilmember Mendoza. May 6th I opened my emails and in my inbox was an email from city stating councilmember Mendoza informed them I was resigning and asking me to confirm with a resignation date I said no I had no intention of resigning and that councilmember Mendoza was never in

contact with me about this later I was called by multiple city staff members some relieved I wasn't resigning others explaining what she said her authority to remove me with no explanation and encouraging me to resign to make things easy hours later I finally got an email from councilmember Mendoza to top it off they wanted me to make my decision in two hours not even giving me a chance to process the chaos and lack of respect I was given for the last week I asked myself why I was being forced to resign or be replaced when councilman Mendoza fabricated a non-existing conversation like to city staff and manipulated her

authority and position of power to get her way and why now when my term would have ended this year is she using this to win her reelection how can any community members trust a council member that thinks it's okay to lie a person that thinks the resident doesn't deserve an explanation or phone call and worst of all lying to her staff colleagues and the city of Santa Ana lying to the people who are supposed to represent us and serving as our elected official it is a shame to have a person on the dais who thinks it was okay to lie and I cannot trust a person with that belief to hold that much power look what has

happening in Anaheim being investigated by the FBI for bribery and corruption. If our city officials keep letting things like this slide, our city will be next for investigation and I will not let our city be manipulated and abused by power and corruption. So today I'm here to defend the city of Santa Ana and ask the council not to enable or support this behavior or someone that thought it was okay to lie to our staff in city because if you do support and enable this behavior then what does it say of you is it okay to lie no matter what happens today I will continue to work and defend the people in city of Santa

Ana and I appreciate your attention if anyone would like to see the emails and conversations I'm glad to discuss thank you thank you Leonel thank you for those

comments dr. Allen Wu followed by Anna Fierro followed by Mia Verdeen

Mary Sarmiento and members of the City Council I'm here to speak on two subject one is the park correct master plan it's a wonderful park and rec plan for the city it recognizes underserved parks and communities it recognizes the aspiration of the people of the city to enjoy a park correct and reactivate programs that were dormant during the pandemic but there's two items I like to make sure we want bathrooms repair over at El Salvador Park and also the handball courts to exist over in Santa Anita because the residents mentioned that.

Now on my second item, I'm here to thank the city council, the city attorney, the city manager's office and the other staff that is working on the apology for the former 1906 council burning down Chinatown. In that heinous act, this city council has acted and governed with compassion and love. you recognize that although we may be poor, we may have natural origins that are different, we rise above that to build community and to be part of a community. We came here to work. You asked us to work and we did. And for that,

because of racism and hate, and over this weekend there's several hate situations that have happened, that remind us that when government, government, with love and compassion and work with this community embraces the diversity of that community, which we saw today with the jazz band and all the people that we recognize. This city council does that, and I'm here to, from the bottom of my heart, with my most sincere thoughts to thank you all. And I want to thank Councilman Jonathan for pursuing this and Councilwoman Tai Pham for leading the charge on this. And it also is not about just the Chinese American community.

It's about all of us with roots that are different. And we're telling our story that is included in the American story. That's all we wanted to do. And next week as we have the ceremony for the actual signing, don't tell Ruby, but I'm rating our decorations at the house that sit at that little altar ceremony, okay. So hopefully no one bumped into and knocked down. So thank you very much from the bottom of my heart. I really, really appreciate all the hard work everyone done. And you've done it with positivity at every stroke. There was nothing more than, yeah, let's get this done.

And now through the budget process, we're going to have money to rise up Chinatown again in various ways and create jobs. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Thank you, Alan. Thank you very much for those words. Ana Fierro followed by Mia Verdin followed by Irene Cabañas. Irene Cabañas.

All right. Good evening, Mayor Sarmiento and fellow council members. My name is Ana Cecilia Fierro. I'm 16 years old. I am a junior at Santa Ana High School, and I, alongside other classmates and friends that you will hear from today, hope to be a voice for the desires of the students in Santa Ana Unified District. The following demands are a fraction of what students at our school have deemed as priorities and my own personal desires for the city. As you have all heard in the past couple of meetings, our parks are rapidly expanding and improving for the better. While these improvements are needed for our community to thrive,

I believe that it is equally as important to address our homeless community in Santa Ana that finds sanctuary in these parks. I urge the council before me to put forth funds that serve the purpose of rehabilitation for the members in our community, and as well as providing accessible homeless shelters in Santa Ana. Sadly, this is not the only incident where our city has brushed past the underlying issues to make room for a seemingly better city. And the fact of the matter is that Santa Ana will never obtain long-term improvement if it does not address the very real issues that it is facing. Santa Ana's quote unquote crime problem

will never be fixed if we do not invest in the community in itself by not putting funds into the police. Time and time, evidence has shown that over-policed communities are never inherently safer. So if the council's priority is truly safety, we would be much better off with putting money into fixing the community instead of policing it. We cannot have prettier parks with new amenities without facing the ugly treatment of our homeless community. We cannot continue to allow bars to be built on every corner of downtown Santa Ana without increasing safe spaces for our youth.

We cannot continue to funnel money into SAPD without addressing the issues in our city that lead to the high crime rates. And perhaps most importantly, we cannot continue to move forward with monetary decisions without alerting the community of the voice that they have in local politics and decisions. When thinking about the budget, I hope that you are reminded of this speech and take the opinions of not only me, but thousands of santaneros who want to see their city improve. Once again, my name is Ana Cecilia Ferro. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Ana. Mia Verdin, followed by Irene Cabanez, followed by Lucia Gonzalez.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council. I'm here to speak about the budget funds and where they are going. As some of you may remember me, because I'm always here, my name is Mia Verdeen and I'm the chairperson of the Santa Ana Youth Commission representing Ward 3.

As chairperson of the Youth Commission, I see firsthand how youth are treated in the city. We are misplaced. Oftentimes we are not allowed to hang out in school after school, so we go out to the streets and there's absolutely nothing for us. There is nowhere for us to go or anything for us to do. It's no wonder that kids are so vulnerable to gangs and the violence that comes with them. I know there's money. I've seen the numbers and I urge you to think of the potential that investing in youth can have on our community. The youth needs more teen centers and youth safe spaces. I

recognize that there is a teen center space at the library which we really appreciate but there must be more. How is a kid from Segerstrom or or a valley supposed to get all the way to the library. There's just nowhere for them to go. I walk in with my friends in downtown on 4th Street and there's just nothing. The construction, it's just putting businesses out of business and there's just nothing for us to do. There must be funding invested in youth centers by the youth for the youth. It can be done, it only takes your direction. The youth deserves a roller rink

and a skate rent program. It's not fair that there's not enough safe areas for skaters to go. It would be great if the activity of roller skating would be made accessible to the youth of Santana. We desperately need better mental health services, particularly for youth and queer residents. It's a problem that there's not a single kid in this city that feels like they get adequate mental health care. It's a problem when so many youth contemplate taking their own lives because they get absolutely no support in their lives from their families, school, or peers. The use of Santa Ana simply deserves to have resources to feel okay.

Affordable housing options. Why is it that Santa Ana families for so many years have been moving out of our city and into the Inland Empire and other states because it's simply just too expensive to live here? Our people deserve to continue to call Santa Ana home and should not have to choose between putting food on the table or paying the rent. Better assessment on how the city handles homelessness. less focused on police responding to non-violent crimes and better investment of CityNet and other alternatives for homeless people. They deserve to have a shelter where they feel safe and won't be harassed because of the power dynamics

that some shelters around here have. Investment in quicker construction and fixing our roads in general. It's hard for youth to be outside. We deserve to have smooth roads to ride our bicycles on or roller skate on. Everything is so bumpy and there's just, It's not okay. When directing staff on where our city funds go, please think of what the youth need. We deserve to feel safe on our city. We deserve to have our own space in the city. While developers are busy making Santa Ana a space made for adults, implementing bars and luxury apartments that families can't afford, there's an expectation

that the council will be mindful of the youth. We voted you in, and we can certainly vote you out.

Thank you. Irene Cabañas followed by Lucia Gonzales followed by Veronica Gomez.

Good evening, Council. My name is Irene Cabanas, and I'm president of the Willard Neighborhood Association. This is my son, Kobe, and nephew, Lucas. We'd like to give comment on item 14, adopting the resolution for the Master Parks Plan. We are very excited to see a plan for more parks in our community. It is a great start. there's some very aspirational thoughts and plans there but we are here to ask for more to be funded especially for park poor communities like the Willard

neighborhood we currently don't have any green space except for a beautiful astroturf fields that we do enjoy if you ever go by the Willard community between 6 and 9 p.m. you'll see it packed to the rim with everyone running laps playing football, soccer, basketball court, and in the playground, but we need more. When we're at parks, we're not doing things we're not supposed to do. When we're at parks, we're celebrating birthdays. When we're at parks, we are getting together with families. The Willard neighborhood is made up of 80% renters, so imagine a community

that has very little yard space to go out and enjoy the community. We also wanted to recognize Ms. Lisa Rudloff in her efforts. She spoke at our last neighborhood association meeting and gave us an opportunity for feedback. We also wanted to recognize Jonathan Hernandez. Thank you for being an advocate for our community. There is a lot identified as future park space on the corner of 10th and Flower, So we hope that there are funds set aside for that park to be turned into a feature park.

And we look forward to being able to provide community feedback for what is featured in that park. Thank you.

Thank you, Irene. Followed by Lucia Gonzalez, followed by Veronica Gomez, and then Jeffrey Katz.

Good evening, Mayor Sarmiento. and other members of the council my name is lucia gonzalez and i am a resident of ward 3. i am here today to talk about agenda item number 38 which discusses the city budget last year 40 of the entire city budget went to sapd to be exact that was 141 million 82 500 sapd is one of the most dangerous police departments in the state of california sapd ranks 10th in the state for police killings and sixth in the state for police shootings S.A.P.D ranked 166th out of 176 police departments observed in a study by policescorecard.org because of high spending lack of accountability

excessive use of force and other metrics proponents of high police spending including council members Bacetta and Peña Losa often claimed that we need to excessively fund the police to keep our communities safe from violent crimes but that's not what S.A.P.D. or any other police department spends most of their time on 66 of sapd's arrests were low were for low level offenses 21 of sapd's arrests are just for drug possession since some of you only care about elections i'd like to remind you that there are more of us than there are police in the city most of the police

officers funding your campaigns can't even vote for you because they don't live here police will never prevent crimes as well as resources can this city criminalizes homelessness drug use and poverty but never stops to ask why our predominantly low income and Latinx community is disproportionately likely to live under these conditions. These are systemic issues that necessitate systemic solutions not punitive ones. If we want less houses people on the streets we need to build quality homes for them. If we want to reduce interpersonal violence we need to we need to fund

mental health services. If we want young people to go to college or into the workforce we need to fund the resources that they need including more youth spaces by funding the police more than more than services that would actually benefit our youth you're showing every single young person in the city that your fear that they might one day become criminals outweighs your confidence that they will be able to accomplish great things in life a city budget that excessively funds SAPD will harm this community

Thank you. Thank you. Veronica Gomez, followed by Jeffrey Katz, followed by Victor Mendez.

Hello, everyone. And there's sure a lot of good points and everyone that has been sharing here. And I'm here to extend an invitation for a cultural event that we're hosting on Centennial Park on June 26th, and we would like to send the invitation to all of the council members. We have always have come with Mr. Sarmiento, Major Sarmiento, with all his support, so we would like everyone this time to come and join us. I'm not sure who's the person that holds the award. I think there's in between two words, so we would like everyone to come and join us.

we would like you guys to come because we think it's a great opportunity for you to start since we are coming out of a pandemic to start getting in touch with the community so they get to see you and get to know that you are here to support us that not everything that is going on in Santana it's it is negative that you know there's people out there that are we are concerned and we would like them to know, the community, that you are there for them too and providing good things for them. As well, we would like to also ask for guidance on you, because we think that having these cultural events

in different areas, not only in downtown Santa Ana, will help also in the economy of the small business in the surrounding areas. But we're not perfect, and we also would like some guidance and your every possible way support for us to continue hosting these type of events. So thank you so much for your time, and we will get in touch with you with a formal invitation for everyone to come and join us. Thank you.

Gracias, Veronica.

Is Jeffrey Katz still? Got it, thanks. Victor, you're up, followed by Paul Sanford, who is our last in-person speaker, and then I'll turn it over to the Clerk of the Council so she can call on people who are online or

virtual. Thank you. In that this will probably be your last budget cycle Mr. Mayor I'd just like to thank you for getting us through some very difficult times and just for being a steady hand in these challenging tumultuous times you've done a great job of coalescing our issues and being just a moderate force on the council. So on behalf of all the citizens, I wish to thank you for your efforts and your time. I just want to run through the presentation. The 10-year general outlook, it's as clear as a bell. We reach a critical mass in 2030 and it's time to start being a very good steward and looking for

ways to lower that deficit or get more revenue. Pretty simple. Leverage the general fund, The general plan, you have a new plan, so I think you can take that into account and try to lower that gap.

The general fund revenue. Cannabis seems to be having some difficulty in this state. I'm not too sure how that's going to translate into Santa Ana, but something to just be worried about and how it translates into your general fund revenues. I wanted to bunk the myth about overfunding police. It's 36% budgeted this year. last year it was 40 the year before is 43 10 years ago with 53 that doesn't show like a trend of overfunding there is work to do in the police and I have a few comments to that effect but let's have a rational clean clear specific discussion of what we do with our police funding and in these generalities that

really don't support a meaningful discussion the internal service revenues or service funds I spoke endlessly about workers comp lo and behold fund balances are too low there is yet to be a plan for the workers compensation fund 12 million dollar deficit how can you correct something without a plan the certificate of occupancy proposal hallelujah congratulations rationality sensibility has finally come to Santa Ana with a two-tier certificate of occupancy fee for those small businesses or entrepreneurs want to establish a beachhead in Santa Ana and grow their business great idea

Thank you. I know Mr. Bracera has been working that for a while. On the CIP I'd like to request that a first that a some work be done the first in Tustin intersection where senior citizens and disabled city senior citizens cross. We need the lighting. Turns out it's on the Tustin side. We need some money to protect our senior citizens and prevent serious accidents from occurring. The speed on those streets is getting faster and the traffic will only get heavier. here. With respect to the police budget, a little control over overtime, and let's dissolve

the MET. Let's get rid of it. I'm tired of it. I'm tired of hearing about it, and I think it's just really should just turn over the Sheriff Barnes where he can exercise adult leadership in respect to the safety concern and use the difference to fund community policing and youth programs.

Victor, if you can wrap up.

I still have fun. Am I over?

Yeah, you're over. Oh, go ahead.

Sorry, you screwed me. Ten seconds, please. Go ahead. Okay, thank you. Give me one second.

Okay, real quick. So, again, let's establish a police commission for $1 million and community wellness for $1 million. We are not a healthy community, and I think we need to put some money into investing in our wellness and making us just better people as well. Thank you. Thank you for those comments.

Our last speaker is Paul Sanford.

Madam Clerk, do we have members of the public online?

Yes, we do.

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento, and good evening to fellow councilpersons. My name is Paul Sanford. I'm a resident of Ward 3. I'm lucky to be under the guidance of Jesse Lopez, who does a wonderful job in our district. And I just want to thank you all, first of all, for a couple things. as being a resident in Fisher Park and the Greater Floral Park area, there have been some tremendous improvements. Fisher Park itself looks absolutely 100% better, and the effort both from the city staff and the council persons that we have spoken to has been tremendous. It's really gone from being sort of run down to something

that's really used by children, families in the neighborhood, and has really sort of brought back to life. So I want to thank you for that. I'm here to speak to you about item 38. I think Ms. Collins and Mr. Hall spoke very articulately. I'm not going to repeat what they said. I'm going to articulate a little more. We're all a member of Fisher Park Homeowner Associations. None of us live on Flower Street. We're not here because it's an enlightened self-interest. We've had complaints from the neighbors on Flower Street. And I think just to add a little bit more information, it's only about a two-block spread.

It's very small, north of the Santiago Bridge and up to Memory Lane. and it's quite strange. They'll ask us why is there no median here, why there are two lanes and such, we don't know. There's medians all the way down Flower and there's up Flower farther towards Morrison Park. It's extremely dangerous. My 91 year old father, who we moved to Floral Park, I lived at the beach forever, and he loves to walk the loop and up to the park and he won't walk anymore. The cars speed and come down at a massive, massive rate in that wide zone.

It just opens to two lanes. So if I could ask you to beg, start working at solutions to get us something that adds a little bit more safety in that area, whether that's medians or a different way to look at it. And also the street racing at night, that memory lane and flower lane intersection, you can be guaranteed there's always fresh skid marks in a circle when I ride my bike on the bike path at least two to three times a week. So I thank you graciously for your good work. City looks great. City management has done an incredible job. So thank you for your consideration.

Thank you, Mr. Sanford, for those comments. Let me go ahead and now turn it over to the Clerk of the Council. I believe we have some speakers that are on the phone or online.

Yes, thank you, Mayor, members of the Council. Before unmuting callers or those who joined us by Zoom, did want to announce that we did receive written communications. One person who works for the City of Santa Ana spoke on a non-agenda item, parking concerns requesting adding green curbs in densely populated areas. On item number 14, two Santa Ana residents in support of increasing funding to improve Park Santiago, one Santa Ana resident had various comments and concerns regarding the plan, and one Santa Ana organization did not support the plan as is.

Item 38, one Santa Ana resident commented to allocate funding to improve Flower Street. And item 41, there were copies of the ordinances for the City of Irvine and Artesia provided. And with that, Zoom ID Lynn Lee, if you would please select the microphone icon on your device or select unmute. Thank you. You may proceed with your comment.

Thank you. Mayor Sarmiento, City Council. My name is Lynn Lee. I am addressing item number 36, the city apology for the burning down of Chinatown on Main between third and first streets in 1906. I have lived here in Santa Ana for over 25 years. I currently live in Ward four. I've been a teacher and curriculum specialist in Santa Ana Unified. Every summer I teach the people's history of Orange County and we teach the hidden history of the communities of color in and around Santa Ana. We teach about the historically black segregated neighborhood called Little Texas that was redlined,

about the segregated Mexican neighborhoods Logan Barrio and Delhi that was also redlined. We also teach about Little Saigon and the Vietnamese refugee experience, And yes, we teach about the horrific city sanctioned ethnic cleansing act of the burning down of Chinatown in 1906. This act of violence, land grab and theft has been swept under the rug for too long. When ethnic groups are targeted by a city council, this is called systemic racism. This was a bold effort to rid the city of Santa Ana

of any Chinese people. And they were successful for a little while. With this apology, the city of Santa Ana is reconciling with its racist past and we can now move into healing. Cities that don't apologize, and there have been many that have burned down their Chinatowns are bound to repeat their institutional racist acts. So I commend you for bringing this to a vote. Thank you, Tai Fan, Jonathan Hernandez, and Alan Wu for your leadership in this apology. I hope that this apology turns into a lesson plan for all Santa Ana schools. I hope this apology turns into a plaque or a marker to remember what happened.

I am a descendant of Lim Lip Hong, a Chinese railroad worker on the transcontinental railroad. Had it not been for the Chinese immigrants who worked on the western portion of the railroad, it would never have been built in the short amount of time it was built. Yet they were given no recognition for their valiant contribution. It is important that we recognize the contributions that Asian and Latino immigrants have made to building Santa Ana and Orange County. It is important that we recognize the contributions of the black community to Santa in spite of it being able to hang out

in downtown Santa Ana after dark in the 1940s and earlier. Yeah, if I said it.

15 seconds left.

Okay, that's another apology that should be coming. It is important that we learn about the Ahachemen and Tongva tribes that were here before Santa Ana. And by the way, they're still here and they are teaching us about the land every day. I also wanna give a shout out to all the students who spoke. I'm so proud of you speaking your truth to power. Please listen to them. Mayor and city council, thank you for-Your time is up, thank you.

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

Thank you. Good evening, mayor and city council. My name is Danny Vega and I'm a resident of Ward 3. So I watched the Batman movie this past Friday and it was a great movie, I highly recommend it. As much as I would want to though, I can't put on a Batman costume and tackle crime at night in Santa Ana. Because when it comes to tackling crime, we the residents give up that responsibility and give it to the government to do that. Because we cannot have a bunch of vigilantes running around the city. It would be chaotic. Also, if there was a broken sidewalk or broken patch of street outside my house, I can't go out and repair it myself.

we rely on the government to do that because we don't want a bunch of unqualified people fixing the roads that we drive on these are the most basic services that we the people and trust our government to provide with our tax dollars but then I look around Santa Ana as I go home on my bumpy commute down flower or Bristol and I look at the conditions of our roads sidewalks unfinished projects like the widening of bristle street i look at our high crime rate and i have to say there's a lot left to be desired i've been hearing a lot of talk of surpluses here

we have a surplus we have a surplus well so what so what we also have the highest tax rate in orange county and what do we have to show for it all i'd be embarrassed saying that in public that we have a surplus because then people will be saying well it's no wonder you have a surplus you don't spend and money on your roads. So I asked the council, as you're discussing the budget tonight, to think about the most basic services that our government should be providing and fund that to the fullest. Thank you.

Thank you.

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

Nathaniel Greensides, Ward five resident. I wanted to make mention of a few items I take of interest. At the last city council meeting, I submitted a public comment regarding the use of military equipment. And while I do applaud the efforts to make sure that the public knows exactly what their tax dollars are being spent on, I disagree with the military equipment that has been procured by the San Antonio Police Department. I don't think there's any need for drones which can surveil us from above that can see into our houses without entry because it's outfitted with special cameras and sensors and radars.

I don't think there's necessarily a need for robot dogs that can enter a building without a person present. And I generally am going to be against the idea that we should further militarize our police. We don't need military on our streets, militarized equipment on our streets. regarding item 12 i think it's really cool that the parks and recs has acquired some really awesome things like ipads a 3d printer a couple of arcade games in the downstairs teen space the arcade room and then stem kits steam education kits from a company that i really truly appreciate called

add a fruit and even a robot for people who are autistic and so i think that's really awesome that the library and parks rec are making an effort to make sure that our youth and our residents as a are able to participate in what I can, I think everyone can fully agree that the future of our world is dependent upon technology. Regarding the parks master plan, I think it's really ambitious and awesome that the general plan is trying to pursue three acres of parkland per 1000 residents eventually. And then over the next 10 years, the parks master plan is trying to pursue at least 1.5 acres of parkland per 1000 residents

over the next 10 years. I do worry about where we're gonna find that space. and I think to the extent possible it'd be cool if we could get some public private park agreements such as I take for example Salesforce Park up in San Francisco is a public private park agreement and there's a many places in San Francisco where during certain hours of the day members of the public can go up to the top level of skyscraper for example because it's a private park space and then the last thing I'd like to bring out is the proposal to restructure business

licensing tax rates as we put on the ballot. I do appreciate the intent to redo some of our tax laws that have existed since a long time, especially in regards to the telephone service taxes. While folks pay taxes to have a telephone line if they live in Santa Ana, the business licensing tax for those who operate telephone service companies hasn't existed because back in the day, the city Council at that time wanted to incentivize companies investing and setting up service in Santa Ana and I think we're long past that point in time in which it would be safe to

institute a little bit of business licensing for the companies which are trying to set up shop and do business in the city of Santa Ana. And that's it thank you.

Thank you. Zoom ID Thrive Santa Ana if you would please select the microphone icon on your device.

Hello, good evening everyone. My name is Luis Sarmiento and I'm also a Santana resident. I'm calling to comment on a few items. I also would like to speak on item number 11 against the use of military equipment by Santana PD. I think that just categorically we want to demilitarize our police and use our public resources on other types of strategies to create peace in our communities.

Which also leads me to item number 38, our budget. I want to applaud the youth who have spoken up today to question police funding. And to those who this evening are demanding an increase in funding for youth centers, for low barrier shelters, for our houseless neighbors, and also for programming that will create social and economic development in our neighborhoods here in Santana. And for item number 14, the Parks Master Plan, I again want to thank the city staff who have put a lot of work into this Parks Master Plan

and doing a lot of research to paint a roadmap of how we want to develop more parks in the city. There are some recommendations that are part of the staff report that we want to make sure are included.

And one of those key edits is that that the Parks Master Plan should include the increase of budgeting for parks as part of our plan. If we do not prioritize park funding in our own general fund and in our own budgeting, it's gonna be difficult to really create those types of collaborative partnerships that we're talking about. And as a nonprofit partner, a lot of times we've seen that we don't have a strong partner on the other end of the table

because a lot of times, especially parks and rec staff that has been cut so severely in past years, they don't have the hours, they don't have the right types of insurance to partner with community in making their space and their staff available for the type of collaboration that we want. So, and also a quick shout out to Irene and Kobe from the Willard neighborhood. I did a really quick search-15 seconds left. That the Flower and 10th Street site is included as a future park site. And just a real quick heads up.

I'm not sure if it's included as a future park site. I hope that we can be sure that that site is included as a future park site.

Thank you, your time is up.

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

Thank you.

Hello, can you guys all hear me all right?

Yes, you may proceed with your comment.

Okay, I really regret not being there in person today. It's very vital for, I think all of us and the residents to stand up for everything that is going on right now. This is unbelievable that you guys thought about, that you guys didn't even think about the community before swearing on commissioners to our city and remove this.

Carla, it seems like you're disconnecting. Carla, can you hear me? It seems like your line is spotty.

I can hear you. Can you hear me? Can you hear me?

It's spotty. It looks like your connection isn't very clear.

How about now?

Yeah, it's a lot better. Thank you.

Can you guys hear me loud and clear now?

Yes, you may proceed.

Okay. So I was saying that it was, can you restart my time? I was saying that it was unbelievable that you guys didn't even think about the community before swearing on conventioners to our city and removing someone with life speaks volumes about the city and the corrupt way that some city council members work. I urge you to reconsider the removal of this commissioner and replacing him with people that are unfit for the position, claiming that you need people that help the community or maybe start with having adequate people for the position and do a thorough background in who is gonna be representing our city.

We deserve honest commissioners and city representatives and we as a community need to be considered before making these decisions you guys are really overreaching your powers and this needs to stop why don't you guys focus on the real problem like the OCTA problem that we are facing as downtown business owners instead of this do things right already and stop being deaf to the voice of justice we Sanano residents really need you guys and we're starting to wake up and this will no longer be tolerated furthermore when we call the police because we really need them. They are nowhere. They don't come out.

They don't prioritize our lives. We obviously need to be dead before they come over here. And this is a joke of our funds and still trying to allocate more funds to them is disrespectful to us. Please relocate our funds on something more productive and hire well-trained officers that actually like and deserve their opportunity. Police is overfunded and they do not deserve our tax money. when they cannot do their job right. Most, if not all, San Ano residents have lost their faith in our police system because you have failed us. Nelly Mendoza and Phil Mendoza and Phil Becerra, I have reached out to them

and they have no interest in helping the community. When we have problems and we certainly do not need, we already have problems as residents and we certainly don't need them to add more to what we're already facing in our daily lives. San Ano Police Department lacks serving and protecting our community and that is pathetic and we deserve better for our high tax rates you want to approve military equipment for these unfit police who are already drunk on power hurting our city residents i oppose that too i urge you guys to really reconsider what you

guys are doing because you know what there's thousands of families and lives at stake with the decisions that you guys keep on passing 15 seconds in consideration thank you and you guys

have a good night thank you zoom id chispa if you would please select the microphone icon on your device hello can you hear me yes we can hear you you may proceed with your comments um good evening

my name is benelope lopez and i'm the organizing director at chispa i'm here to speak on agenda item 38 and urge you to prioritize a fiscal budget that reflects the needs of youth and working class families especially the most vulnerable residents including bipoc and lgbtq youth and immigrant individuals we are in strong support of the proposals put forth by community organizations such as chispa santana youth ballet and the santanero project that reflect the meaningful and impactful community investment. We urge you to support the allocation of, we urge you to support

a $1 million allocation within the 22-23 fiscal year budget to properly fund a robust and effective police oversight board. We support the allocation of funding for grants to community-based organizations that provide mental health and re-entry services for youth, as well as increased funding for youth jobs within city departments such as the library. Increased funding for youth services within areas in city hall that provide young people with access to skill development, recreation and housing. The safest communities are those with the most resources and these community

investments have improved to work and provide positive outlets for young people to thrive. Again we urge you to support a budget that meets the needs of the community. It is imperative that we invest funds to programs that benefit youth and working class families. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mayor, that was the last caller.

Great, thank you. Let me go ahead and bring it back to the council to see if there are any items that they wish to either pull off the consent calendar or abstain on. And I'll go ahead and ask if anybody would like to pull any items off the consent calendar. report anything on those councilmember fan thank you mayor I would like to

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

recuse myself from item 21 I believe this came up last year it's the same company as a tetra tech is a client of my employer Rattan and Tucker and so if it is pulled off consent I will leave the room during its discussion. I believe item 30, that is also on the consent calendar. And I apologize to trying to make sure I have it correct. I will have to reduce myself because the Orange County Water District is a longtime client of

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

my employer and just out of an abundance of caution, a lot, a lot of abundance of caution, I'm going to recuse myself from item 32. Although it is a resolution in support of the Santa Ana River watershed weather modification pilot program, it is made up of a number of other public agencies, which does include Orange County Water District. And so although several steps removed, again, out of an abundance of caution, I will remove myself from the room if that is pulled

from the consent. Thank you. Great. Thank you for that. And seeing no others, I'm going to recuse myself from item number 35. Again, out of an abundance of caution as well. I received in-kind contributions from the proposer, so I'm going to go ahead and just abstain from that. And I'm also going to recite a no on item number 11 on second reading. So seeing no others, I'll go ahead and-Mr. Mayor?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 5

Yes, go ahead. I'd like to pull item 11.

11. Got it. Seeing nothing else, I'll go ahead and entertain a motion for the balance.

David PenalozaItem 5

I'll move the balance. I'll second.

We have a motion and a second for the balance. Council members, please vote.

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

Oh, I'm sorry. Can I pull item 36?

Sure. Thank you. Did you get that, Clerk? Yes. Madam Clerk, I'm sorry?

Yes, we have items 11 and 36 pulled.

Council Member Fan, would you please, Council Chair Rowe?

David PenalozaItem 5

Mr. Mayor, I have a brief comment on one of the items, if I may. Sure, go ahead.

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

Council Member Fan, were you able to log in? Actually, I also like to pull number 14. Okay, so pull 11, 14, and 36. Thank you.

Go ahead, Councilmember Faniola.

David PenalozaItem 5

I just wanted to comment briefly on number 14, but since Councilmember Faniola, do you want me to go ahead? Okay.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 5

Mr. Mayor, I just had a brief comment as well on the interagency and wanted to thank our Public Works Department for the fantastic work they're doing there. I personally went and toured at the site and toured the site and was beyond impressed so I just want to say thank you to staff and director Saba and and everyone else there thank you so much

good stuff good stuff councilmember Lopez did you have something no I thought

Jessie LopezItem 5

I heard counter-member Pinalosa second but I could have gotten that wrong

correct I have kept mayor pretend but Sarah we have a motion in a second

Jessie LopezItem 5

already and then councilmember Pinalosa second my my screen shows counter-member Hernandez is a second which is why I'm asking. Okay, thank you. All right now that that's clear

I think we're voting on the balance of the consent calendar with the recusals already stated on the

record and the no's and the comment. Okay, thank you for that. Okay, motion passes 7-0 with Councilmembers Hernandez Lopez Mendoza Pena Loza fan mayor pretend Becerra mayor

Samantha voting yes great thank you everybody let's go ahead and move along to item number 11 I believe that one was pulled by councilmember Hernandez I

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 11

thank you mr. mayor I pulled this item because there was a large amount of community of interest in talking about how are we approaching public safety and what do our public safety strategies look like. Many of the emails and responses I've seen from our community is that they feel that to have policing strategies that are overly aggressive does not contribute to us feeling safer in this community. As evidenced I gave some pretty clear examples and also cited some studies that were taking place. There were two peer reviewed

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 11

reviewed studies, one by a researcher at the University of Michigan that I shared, and the other by scholars at Emory College of Arts and Sciences and Louisiana State University. They were both published, and what they found in their studies was that police departments that get more equipment from, more militarized equipment, results in killing more civilians than departments that had less. The finding from that research was specific to the 1033 program, which was a federal program that has operated since 1997. And in this study, they found that the agencies with the most military gear, as I mentioned,

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 11

had higher numbers of police killings in the year after getting the equipment. A rate of civilian killings more than double that of police departments had received that had lesser equipment. So, I don't support this item because I have not seen our department effectively demonstrate their ability to use militarized equipment. As evidenced, I gave an example. And if the data isn't enough, I'll have to share it again. The experience that I had on September 28, 2021, I'll remind you, there were police officers present, high-ranking police officials,

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 11

street closures, helicopters, spotlights, two different police departments with hundreds of millions of dollars between them, members of Anaheim PD, SWAT, police dogs, tear gas, concussion grenades, pistols, and then rifles. What resulted was an unarmed man being shot 22 times by Anaheim Police Department, while his family watched and pleaded with law enforcement for de-escalation. So if that data was wrong, I wouldn't have shared this example with you. I don't have a lot of faith that us acquiring more equipment will make this community safer, especially when it comes to drones.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 11

We had our militarized police vehicle pressed against Brandon Lopez's vehicle for over four hours. And in that time, we still were not able to identify if he was unarmed. Unfortunately, what resulted was he was killed, shot 22 times. That equipment didn't help us in saving someone's life. That equipment didn't help us in improving community safety perception in our city. So I don't know what drones is going to do when we had human beings, a vehicle that can fit upwards of seven people, and they still got it wrong that day. I don't understand why we would leave it up to technology and utilize these drones

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 11

when the very officers that would be working these drones were the same people that were in these vehicles that were unable to identify whether this person was unarmed. And that is my reasoning, Mr. Mayor, is I can't be supportive of this item. I would much rather see our department go a different route and use those funds to build community relations and to be on the ground that to be above us and above our homes and our community. And I just don't have any faith that this equipment is going to make our city that much safer. That concludes my comments. Great.

Thank you for those comments. Any other comments on this item?

Seeing none, is there a motion to move the item or a motion to deny the item?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 11

I'll make a motion to deny the item, Mr. Mayor.

We have a motion to oppose staff's recommendation.

I'll go ahead and second.

We have a motion and a second on that item. Any other discussion?

Thai Viet PhanItem 11

May I make a sub-motion to approve?

Great. We have a motion, a substitute motion to approve staff's recommendation. Is there a second?

David PenalozaItem 11

I'll second.

We have a motion and a substitute motion and a second to approve staff's recommendation. We'll take that one up first. Council members, please vote.

David PenalozaItem 11

Mayor Senator Mendoza, should we wait for the mayor pro tem to come back in the room?

Thai Viet PhanItem 11

Can I make a comment about this? Sure, go ahead, please. Sorry. I just wanted to clarify a few things. and if I'm stating anything wrong, please let me know.

Thai Viet PhanItem 11

You know, approving this policy does not mean we are automatically approving every single purchase requested by the police department. Is that correct?

Thai Viet PhanItem 11

Great. So when you are seeking to approve certain types of, whether it's weapons, gear that is protective of officers, or any type of non-lethal items that are listed on this very broad definition, you would come to the city council if it meets a certain price criteria?

That is correct.

Thai Viet PhanItem 11

Great. So I think one thing I really want to make clear is that we are not up here saying, go buy tanks, go buy artillery, go buy any of those things. In fact, the city of Santa Ana under police Valentin specifically removed ourselves from the 1033 program. Is that correct?

Yes, he did. That's correct.

Thai Viet PhanItem 11

Great. And I think it's really important to clarify that this, adopting this resolution allows us to participate in joint task force with other public policing agencies, whether it's the FBI, whether it's some other organization that we might have to cooperate with that have these policies. So it's not to say we're going to go and automatically have a blanket approval of everything that you want. In fact, this council has asked many questions about public safety requested items. But I wanted to make that clear, and that's why I'm supportive of this item.

Thai Viet PhanItem 11

It gives us flexibility, and it gives us the opportunity to have the conversations that we need to have rather than saying no, and then when we do need to purchase something or when there is a request, we're not nimble enough to actually bring this back because it's an ordinance, which essentially would take us 44 days. So with that, that's why I wanted to move to approve this item. Thank you.

Great. Thank you for those comments. Any sign of Mayor Pro Tem?

All right. Well, look, why don't we vote on the substitute motion? before us so council members please vote Thank you.

Motion passes with Council Members Hernandez and Mayor Sarmiento voting no and Council Members Lopez Mendoza, Fan, Peñalosa voting yes and Mayor Potembecerra absent.

Great, thank you. I think the next item is item number 11, or excuse me, item number 14 that was pulled by Council Member Fan.

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

Thank you, Mayor. I wanted to pull this item because we've had a lot of public comments about it regarding the Parks Master Plan. One thing I did want to say was first thank you to Director Rudloff as well as our entire Parks team, MIG, and all of the members of the public, commissioners who participated in this. I know it's been a long, long road, and I know that it's a really important program for everybody. A couple comments. I did receive a few emails from the public. I do know staff has a presentation, so I'm not sure if anyone up here is interested in it, but I do want to specifically mention that

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

as far as I'm aware, every public comment that has been made has been incorporated into this parks master plan and that the parks master plan isn't about making direct budget allocations to purchasing items or or anything like that it's to create a roadmap for us over time on how we would go about purchasing land or any other types of potential open space if they become available so I do want to urge those who have said well it's not specific enough it's not detailed enough

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

And it's partially because we want to be able to, again, be nimble to create an overall roadmap on how to purchase these lands. For example, if we don't have enough money for streetlights, does that mean that we can't go forward with acquiring the parkland? I hope the answer is no. And by not having those specific requirements, we're able to, you know, take it step by step. One thing that I did want to specifically bring up, Director Redloff, is I know that there were a number of areas that referenced Willowick Golf Course.

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

And it was clarified in the Parks Master Plan that Willowick is owned by another city agency, the city of Garden Grove. It is not within the authorization of the city of Santa Ana to do anything with it, right, other than land use and zoning controls. I would like however for us to add in references to Riverview golf course into the parks master plan in areas that we say you know we were looking to acquiring Willowick or developing Willowick into a public park I think it's important that we do have a golf course in our city that we do control

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

and see what we can do with it I think it would be a great you know addition to the parks master plan if that is possible is it I mean I don't know

councilmember van can you specify exactly what language you wanted added

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

in on that yeah so for example there are a number of areas that state you know acquire willowick golf course as potential you know public open space etc etc I would love to see for us to specifically reference you know turning Riverview golf course into a public open space that is not a private golf course. We certainly can include that. Yeah, and I think it's important for us as well as the public to know that as we are looking at Willowick, which again, they've closed our RFP, we have no authority to require them to do anything with that

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

property, but we do have property in our city that we can eventually turn into public open space and I think Congress member Correa as Councilmember Penalosa mentioned is very open to working with the city to making sure

that that happens. We could absolutely accommodate that. We have a lease agreement currently on that property but it does expire in four years which is well within the 10-year time frame of the parks master plan. Great and with

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that I just again wanted to say thank you so much for engaging with the public. I know that there have been many meetings on Zoom in person. So with that, I would move to approve. Thank you.

Great. We have a motion to approve, and we have some additional comments as well. Councilmember Villanueva.

Can I make a clarification? Lisa, don't you need her motion to include the recommended changes?

Yes. If there's any recommended changes, please do so in the motion.

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

Yeah, so I'll move to approve as well as include the recommended changes and actually one last thing I forgot to mention is I really wanted to thank my colleague Mayor Potembecerra I actually remember this coming to the City Council when you mentioned it Initiated by staff, but I think you really championed it. So I'm really excited To to finally be here. So thank you. Great. Thank you for that

Phil BacerraItem 14

Yeah, we've just got I just want to clarify so we've got as far as the uh additions they'll be from exhibit three slide 27 and 28.

yep okay we can answer one thanks councilmember peña losa and then councilmember hernandez and

David PenalozaItem 14

councilmember lopez thank you mayor sarmiento i just want to also say lisa thank you thank you so much for taking this on uh over the last two years i know when we first started to venture down this path. It's something that we, you know, we're all very excited about because it's the first. It's historic in our city, especially because of how park poor it is. And it's a little bittersweet to me because it's, we know you're retiring and you're counting the days, but I want to thank you because this is, I know this is like your love letter to Santa Ana,

David PenalozaItem 14

you know, as a goodbye. So thank you so much for working on this very hard. Your entire staff, I know Ron O'no worked on this as well, who's no longer here as well, so it's bittersweet because I know it's something that you guys just kind of worked together on and now you're both going to be leaving us. But I am supportive of Councilmember Fann's addition to that text and, you know, on top of, you know, our goal should always be to improve and add to our park space. That has been my goal since day one is how can we get there?

David PenalozaItem 14

And taking a closer look at Willowick is one way, but also looking at assets that we already own, like Riverview Golf Course, a couple of years, you know, will go by very quickly on how we could try to work to make that a part of our, put that back into our park system, especially because the infrastructure is already there for it. So very happy to have that language in there. Wherever Willowick is mentioned, let's mention any areas that are large in acreage, like Riverview Golf Course, that we could also think of. I mean, no stone should be left unturned of areas where we could build on our open space.

David PenalozaItem 14

One thing that I also, you know, over a year ago, I remember it was Mayor Pro Tempah Sarah and I that went on a ride-along with then-Deputy Chief Kaminsky on a Saturday morning to look at the transient activity on the railroad tracks by MacArthur and Alton. And one thing that came to mind is knowing that those stretches of railroads are no longer used by Union Pacific. They're sitting dormant and have been for years. I think Deputy Chief Kaminsky might have mentioned that that stretch of railroad along MacArthur and Alton hadn't seen a train on its tracks in 10 plus years.

David PenalozaItem 14

And those businesses also attested to that. So there are ways that we could start looking at purchasing this property from Union Pacific to increase our trail system, our bike trails. I mean, there's opportunity there that we could build on. And it would solve numerous issues across the board of leaving private property that's not tended to by the property owner, put it, you know, into our park system and increase all of that park space. I know that I recently, a month ago, visited the Open Streets event in the city of Garden Grove, and they did a lot of work along their, their, their,

David PenalozaItem 14

the union or the PE right away, and along the railroad tracks built open space. And so that's something that I would like to, if we can emulate here and look at. And that should also be considered as part of this open space goal that we have in creating that space per residence. One thing that I also want to point out is in the trails and the natural features, we mentioned two lakes. Are we, Centennial Park, are we looking at that as one lake? Yes. Okay. That's what I thought because I was like, there's a street that separates the two, the smaller lake and the big lake. There's Thornton Park.

David PenalozaItem 14

to me that's three lakes so I just wasn't sure if that was a typo in there but I did very happy with this again just thank you thank you for for your effort to this and I'm hoping that as we move on through through this budget cycle we really look at how we could focus back our dollars and investment into our open space into our park system and making it better for our entire city. I know that there's a lot of financing that goes behind this. We're going to need a lot of money to do everything that's in this 10-year master plan. And there's a couple small things

David PenalozaItem 14

come to mind. I know that there are, I guess, sponsorship opportunities, you know, in our stadium, in our soccer complexes, the zoo. I know that we've a couple years now, we approved the selling of alcohol at the Santa Ana Zoo, and that's a good revenue source. I know that the zoo oftentimes operates in the red, and that's something that we could solve by expanding that. And I hope that's also, you know, put some gas behind that so that we can get a vendor. I know

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that that the senator Romburg was there and presented us with that grant for the zoo some of the guys at Suavecito who owned that the brewery were like hey would that be awesome if we could come in and sell beer here at the Santa Ana Zoo and there's been Santa Ana River I mean there's been multiple Santa Ana based breweries that are excited about that that idea and it's a great way to potentially bring revenue into our zoo I know that that you know if a million people visit us annually, you know, half of them bought a beer, that's revenue for the zoo that

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could fill in that gap. So just trying to be creative and finding ways to finance all the extra stuff that we're doing. One thing that I even thought about with Measure X sunsetting in 10 years, I think there's potential to, if we start weeding off of it and we get to a point where we can now sunset the last half percent, maybe take that to the voters instead of, you know, looking at bonds or anything and be like, hey, we want to extend this half a percent another couple years, five years, but it would be 100% restricted to the park system in order to see this master plan

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funded and seen through. Because one thing I would hate to see is us to sit here with this beautiful plan and not have funding behind it to make it happen. So thank you again. Mayor, that's it. I will happily second, I don't know if I already did, but I would happily second Councilmember Fan's motion to approve this. So thank you.

Thank you for those comments. Let me go ahead and go to Councilmember Hernandez and then Lopez and then Mendoza and then Mayor Pro Tem.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Director Rudloff. This is a fantastic policy that you've brought forth and certainly is going to be a great legacy for you with the City of Santa Ana. I was really happy to see just a number of different things that were included, especially the potential acquisition of Willowick. So the only recommendation I would have, Director Rudloff, is I would like to see the tent and flower lot be added as a potential park space. Since I know we as a council, we heard the advocacy of the Willard community loud and clear. We'd like to respond by saying that we want to see that included.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

I know that there are a number of community organizations that want to see more community involvement. I know that you guys did a great job centralizing your efforts and involving different community voices, so I want to commend you there. I think for me, I would like to see that park added. That's really, for me, that was probably the biggest priority and only critique that I really have of course more outreach is always appreciated at this moment if we could see this additional park added I would

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

be supportive of your motion councilmember fan is to see the the tenth and flower park added to this parks master plan I'm certainly councilmember

nerd we can add that we are in the process of acquiring some that is not under our ownership but a portion of it we do already own so we can add that in

wonderful thank you so much thank you for that let me go to councilmember

Jessie LopezItem 14

Lopez and then Mendoza thank you mayor sorento hi Lisa so I'm just gonna start off my comments with a couple of acknowledgments and then I'll move into my comments friendly amendments for councilmember fan so first I just want to thank the community of Santa Ana you know for those of us that have been involved in in this work of park equity we know very clearly that this conversation was not a focal point for a lot of people in government or agencies and so you know I think it's important to remember right that our community did a lot of work for us to be able to sit here and approve this plan and talk

Jessie LopezItem 14

about this plan and I think all of us know that there was a very you know fierce group of people in the city of Santa Ana that forced the conversation of the importance of open space and equitable parkland in the city of Santa Ana Because as people know only 4% of our land is dedicated to park space here I also want to thank you and the team for all of the work for all of the meetings for including different stakeholders I was going through this plan and I felt really really proud of the work that was brought forth to us I thought this was a really beautiful developed report for this council to read.

Jessie LopezItem 14

And I thought it was really clear in terms of what is the priorities for the city long term. That being said, I do. Can you remind me was our original goal with was that two per 1,000 residents, two acres?

Well, the general plan indicates three acres per 1,000 residents.

We are trying to strive within the first 10 years. We're at 1.1 right now, and we're going to try to get to 1.5. And that's a significant amount of money, but eventually we want to make it to three acres.

Jessie LopezItem 14

Okay. A park line. So I read 1.5 in here. That was the 1.5 acres per 1,000 residents. I think that is a doable goal. I support it. It's more than doable. I want to see us achieve it. However, you know, I don't want the original three to be abandoned. I want us to continue to strive to do whatever we can, as it was said earlier, you know, leave no stone unturned to be able to make that happen. And so I'm just going to go through some of the things that I wrote down while I was going through the plan. I didn't see anything about mural restoration for the murals inside of our parks.

Jessie LopezItem 14

Is that going to be part of a different policy? That would be a different policy. That would be a different policy? Okay. Actually, that's in progress right now. Okay, perfect. And then I was surprised to learn the Grissett Park. Is that a public park? Yes. So it's fenced off, but it's a public park?

It is fenced off. It's part of the joint use agreement with Santa Ana Unified School District, and they utilize it for essentially their school activities. and so but we own we own it correct we okay we aren't at any is I think that maybe when we amend our Santa Ana Unified School District joint use agreement that should be a topic of discussion so the community can use it as well as as the school could be sure I got it secondly I was going through the

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list of let me find it I was going through the list the columns of essentially what the recommendations were for how many you know community gardens we should have how many baseball courts we should have I think that's what page 113 and so I just want to you know make a friendly amendment the first one being that the number of community gardens increase from two to five I think personally you know saying that for the net future of 2030 when we're close to 400,000 residents that the goal should be to add two more

Jessie LopezItem 14

community gardens is not enough so I would like to see that go up Councilmember Fan do you accept that amendment yep that's fine by me and I

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

think also Councilmember Hernandez's amendment if Councilmember yeah I don't

know if anybody wants to keep track of these yeah I just want to let you know also that we have our consultant Cindy Mendoza on the line so if we would like her to chime in at any time and kind of explain things and Cindy is taking notes and maybe she can recap at the end perfect that's fine I don't have any

Jessie LopezItem 14

questions for Cindy I'm just gonna run through these also skate parks it says we have two now and it states that there should be there should not be any more added and I disagree with that I think that we should look into adding at least one or two more skate parks moving on to a second recommendation for staff so I I noticed on the southeast portion of the city, the Sanayana Trail doesn't belong to the city. And I just wanted to put it out there,

Jessie LopezItem 14

if there's any talks or any desire to annex that land, because on the northeast side in Ward 3, that side of the Riverview actually belongs to the city. And I think we can actually include that if we are able to acquire that land and to be part of the open space ratio, and I think that would help us get to our goals. So I would want staff to take that into consideration. I don't really know if that's an amendment.

Christine? So I'm sorry. You lost me, Councilmember Lopez. I'm looking at page 113, and I wanna make sure what you stated, because Lisa, correct me if I'm wrong, but the page is stating that there's five community gardens already and the need identified in the last column are you following me Lisa I'm getting there

1 13 so does that indicate there's five community gardens and the need identified as an additional two that's how I read it okay I thought you you reversed the numbers and said two with a needing five.

Jessie LopezItem 14

I just threw out two, like I would like to see that number be increased because again, nearing a 400,000 population, I think there should be more than seven in the city.

So the question, Lisa, that you were asking me about was whether we can commit to increasing trail space on private land. Is that what the question is?

Yes, and we would have to look into that.

Yeah. Yeah, it could certainly be an aspirational goal, but I'm not comfortable with identifying a land that we're committing to public use that is not owned by us.

Jessie LopezItem 14

Okay, got it.

Jessie LopezItem 14

Also, staying on that same topic, in War III, near the 22, by Grand the Underpass, again, aspirational on my end, would be for us to acquire that, because right now we play a lot of phone tag with the different agencies. there's a lot of need in that area and it would be a lot easier to address the issues there if we were the owners of that area and again it would our add to the parkland goal that we have overall another thing it's very clear in black

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and white here that some of the most park some of the parks that are in the worst condition are in War III and so when staff is bringing recommendations to this council in terms of improvements or capital improvements I would like for staff to keep the parks in War III you know at the forefront of the list because the parks master plan does tell us that the parks in War III are in really bad condition and so I would like to see some movement on that

Jessie LopezItem 14

And I also would like to say that I would support removing the district structure for the parking fee, which is a recommendation that is in here. But I guess I actually had a question. Are those things, I know, sorry, Lisa, but are those the action items within the parks master plan, are those things that the council can bring separately to the entire body?

they certainly would be and a lot of the actions in the park master plan will all be coming back before you for a council action because the agreements and the nature of the activities

Jessie LopezItem 14

majority would require council approval okay perfect um let's see what else do i have for you

Jessie LopezItem 14

yeah and i just want to you know state on the record that i would be very supportive of exploring how to designate, especially around the Santiago Creek area, areas that would be protective against significant disruption of habitat values and the rest of the things that the Parks Master Plan details. So I think it's only two recommendations for you, Councilmember Fan, the increase in the community gardens and the skate parks. That's fine. And actually,

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

just a quick comment about the community gardens i think on page um 39 of the parks master plan it says um four community i think that's a typo it should say five to be consistent with the other tables um it's figure 2-1 page 39 and it says outdoor recreation 77 total and underneath it says four community gardens yes thank you i'm okay with those amendments if my second is okay

with the amendment. Thank you. Great. Are those all your comments, Councilmember? Yes, thank you.

Great. Thank you for that. Councilmember Mendoza. Thank you, Mayor Fariangelo. I want to acknowledge all the hard work and effort that Lisa has put in and along with her staff and the commissioners who've worked on this park master plan. It's a long time coming and our community and myself, We truly appreciate what you've done because parks are part of our good health and well-being and so in the future I would also like to See about having parks that are more central to Santa Ana

In war two specifically my new ward there's two parks there's Pacific Electric and Jerome and then one in the process of being being built so something a little more central, because it's still not within walking distance of the very central area around McFadden and Flower. So in the future, if the vacant lots come up and maybe more pocket parks. And so I want to also ensure that we have lighting for the courts, the tennis courts, the Neal Machander courts that we have the funding

for the lighting for tennis and also for the pickleball courts there. And I know we don't have the lands such as the Great Park does, but you and your staff have done an incredible job with the amount of open space that you've worked with. So I acknowledge that and I thank you. And also I want to thank you for this fabulous commemorative t-shirt. It's very nice. And when our parks do become opened, I think that this is going to be kind of like a historical t-shirt to have. And thank you and happy retirement. Thank you.

Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem.

Phil BacerraItem 14

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. Just like everybody else, I wanted to thank you for all your work, not just on this plan, but for everything you've done for the city, all the policies, all the procedures that you standardized. I think that, well, it doesn't sound like an amazing legacy. I think for all of us here, we know how amazing that is. So thank you for all the work that you put into that. And, you know, talk about a good streak we have. When we have these long-term employees that are leaving, they leave on these extraordinary notes, right? We've got you leaving having completed this plan.

Phil BacerraItem 14

We had Melanie McCann leaving on the general plan update. So I'm glad to see that. Hopefully we don't lose too many more employees, but if we are, these are the ways that I would like to see them depart. I appreciate the shout-out for Eugene Grissett Park. That, to me, seems like one that it's a low-hanging fruit. Lisa and I have talked about this before, where it is city-owned property, but it's an outdated joint use agreement with the school district. That, hopefully, I emphasize hopefully, should be an easy one to remedy, because right now, people utilize that park all the time. I know the school district rents it out to soccer,

Phil BacerraItem 14

and I know certain dogs that like to use that park when school's not in session. Having said that, I appreciate all the work that's gone into it, into the plan, especially when we talk about the acres per thousand. We all know that this is an aspirational document that, well, let me rephrase it. The general plan is the aspirational document, and this is the plan. This is like the implementation tool. This is what's getting us there. And so I think that this is reasonable. This is a 10-year plan. The general plan will outlast this plan, and hopefully the successor to this plan

Phil BacerraItem 14

will get us even closer, if not past that three-acre mark. So I appreciate this is a well-thought-out approach to getting us closer to our shared goal. And with that, those are my comments. Thank you. Thank you again, Lisa.

Great, thank you for those comments. I think there may be a couple of additional comments that people want to make. Let me just make a couple of brief comments if you'll all allow me to. By the way, start the clock on me, please, Madam Clerk. So I want to keep them short. First, thank you, Lisa, and your team and the consultant who's on the line. I want to thank you for your efforts on this. I know it's no small task, but I really do want to thank you for engaging members of the public and residents and people who normally wouldn't have been included in this process.

So it's a real testament to you taking, I think, the council's direction very seriously that we wanted not just the same voices talking about what they want to see, but going after those who are sometimes unheard. So thank you for that. That was very important to me, seeing certain groups that were represented there that represent all parts of our community. Secondly, the joint use agreements were really important to me when I started as a new council member. I hope we can increase this list that we have here just because I think we see that our

student population is decreasing and we have a lot of space that's going to be dormant and you know the district will be looking to work with us hopefully on finding out how we can activate that space and those are easily accessible spaces that we can not have to acquire but maybe you know use on a limited basis, but to the extent that we can support the district and at the same time create some open space opportunities for our residents. Those are very, very important to me. So I want to echo a lot of what was said already by the council members and Council Member

Lopez's discussion, I think, on what she would want to see on additional skate parks. I think those are great. I think we lost a handball court or two. And I know these are goal-oriented documents. These are guiding documents. They're not really meant to be specific, but to the extent that we want to make sure that there's no net loss of things that we lose in some places that are, you know, in areas that we have to expand or we have to convert. That would be important to me. And I think the discussion on Riverview was important to include that. I think we have Willowick, so that kind of confused me a little bit because we don't

control Willowick. It's mentioned in there. It's a public, it's a space that's not controlled by us publicly, but we've mentioned it before because it's within the city. So a couple of things that I think when when Councilmember Lopez was talking about one part of the riverbed on the south or on the northeast, I was looking at the southeast, southwest part of the city where the riverbed is shared by Fountain Valley on the west end and Santa Ana on the east end. So I've seen that in the letter from Council, or excuse me, Congressman Correa, he was talking about working with the Wildlands Conservancy and the Coastal Conservancy.

I think those are great opportunities to expand our footprint of open space. And I've seen that done in Anaheim and other cities throughout the riverbed. And he's been really aggressive on that. So I think staff is in the process of preparing a letter to him in response to his letter to me and the council. I completely agree on the Riverview golf course direction that he's taken. I just am going to ask him in return to make sure he writes a letter to the city of Garden Grove to hopefully encourage them to continue working with us on the acquisition of Willowick. I think it would be helpful.

I think that shouldn't be a discussion that is over. I think hopefully it's a discussion that we can continue with. So those, that in essence, were my comments I think that have already been incorporated. But I do want you to, you know, specifically talk about the riverbed because I think those are opportunities that we can, you know, easily increase our ratio of open space. And it's a real, you know, sort of, you know, not only aspirational, I think those are very doable. But one thing I did want to talk to you about is just generally spaces that we can activate.

Like I see the open space along Bristol, sort of the remnant properties along Bristol that are pretty large swaths of land, especially on, you know, I think it's between 1st, south of 1st. And I've seen that along our bike trails. We put some workout equipment and people use them and there's benches. And, you know, so to the extent that that could be something that we could activate because it's passive space right now. And we have, unfortunately, problems with not having enough workout equipment, and you've done a good job in activating some spaces in our parks with some of that workout equipment.

Maybe we could look at that and other sort of remnant parcels that are large enough to house that. And I just came back from Boston, and I saw that cities like ours that are as old as cities like Boston, there's a lot of pocket parks and opportunities where people just, there's a bench and there's a slide and there's things that, you know, they can use as spaces that are activated that normally would be dormant. And I'm thinking about some of our areas where we have multifamily apartments and there's just no park and there's, you know, there's really no space for

kids to play. And there sometimes, you know, they hit cul-de-sacs and there's these, you know, patches of green space. I don't know. I think those are publicly held by us, but, you know, residents in those areas and I'm talking about this street called Townsend that is just it's it's just north of Ettinger right so they call it mini Townsend and it's all apartments you know and and there I think it's car that's right across as Ettinger from them but you know it's it's closed and you know we're not able to act they're not able to access it they wanted a community center

but I thought look you can even do an open-air community center by putting you know sort of the tarps up on top, you put a bench, and you've got an open air community center that with our weather and our climate is so easy to activate, right? It's just a simple thing, but I think it would take some creativity on our part, but it really is just dormant space that doesn't have anything and to the extent that we could activate that space for them, that would be something again more high-level. I mean, you know, we don't have to look at just that one because we have a lot of these, you know, cul-de-sacs throughout the

city where there's a lot of apartments and there just isn't any space for you know kids and those communities to gather and I think that those would be an opportunity to maybe do that. I think you mentioned that with respect to pocket parks with respect to you know activating remnant spaces but if you can maybe do a little bit more in specifying that that would be helpful. You know where we don't have to build a community center you just you know like I said we can be creative with our open spaces And I've seen some other cities do that really well. And I'm sure we can do the same in our town as well. So that's really all I had.

I think everything else that was mentioned by others, I don't want to repeat. I'm very supportive. Thank you. Thank you for activating those, you know, the advisory committee to help you navigate this and get this completed. So let me go back and see if there's a second round. Hopefully they'll be short as well, maybe much shorter than me. but I think it was Councilmember Fan and then Councilmember Penalosa.

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

Thank you and I do so my a few comments I forgot to mention I was just in Chicago that's where I had my COVID scare when I came back but if you've been to Chicago you've visited Millennium Park and the largest park there Grant Park Grant Park is 319 acres it's huge and it was really inspirational and so that's why I wanted to make sure we address Riverview and other potential for as the mayor mentioned the Santa Ana Riverbed a couple comments I did want to specifically address because I've heard it from public comments is regarding how

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

you know other cities have so much parkland and open space just for reference the city of Fullerton has about it's about five square miles smaller than the city of Santa Ana but it has half the population and so that's why has a lot of open space the city of Anaheim has a similar population but it's twice the square miles the city of Irvine which I think we've heard several times today has a similar population but it's twice the size of the city of Santa Ana. And so I think it's really important to put that into perspective because the

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

city of Santa Ana is extremely dense and the most of the space that we're going to get with these pocket parks and whatnot is going to be partially by those remnant spaces what we already have or frankly eminent domain. And so we have to have that conversation when folks are saying don't displace people but by the way get open space I think that it's a very fair conversation to have and we have to be honest with each other about that because if you're looking for five acres per purse or you know four thousand or whatever that is we're gonna have to have a conversation as to how we can do that in a city as

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

dense and highly populated as ours and I also want to mention and a lot of these newer cities when you're seeing when they have all these big community parks and slides and whatnot, it's because they're being paid by Quimby fees, which didn't exist until a few decades ago, long after the city of Santa Ana was already established, long after the city of Santa Ana was already becoming highly populated. Quimby fees, if you look it up, requires developers to pay a certain amount into parks and open space. And so that's why you see a lot of these places with those. They're being funded by these projects.

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

Santa Ana doesn't have the same kind of space to do that in those types of Quimby fees. And on top of that, a lot of these neighborhoods in those cities pay HOA. A lot of our neighborhoods are older. They don't have HOAs. As far as I know, I don't see going to French Park and all of them paying HOAs. I don't see us going to Logan Barrio and all of them paying HOAs, but that's what's happening in some of these other cities And that's how they're funding some of those open spaces So I just wanted to mention that so that as we have these conversations about how we're going to increase open space in our city

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

We're also honest about you know, what kind of What kind of balance we have to meet? And with that, I think we added all of the other amendments comments making sure that Thrive Santana's comments and edits to yes the parks master plan are all going to be incorporated I don't know if there are any other edits to make sure we add it into the motion we have one more

comment so maybe there's another edit go ahead councilmember Pinalesa thank you

David PenalozaItem 14

mayor sapiento not many edits just wanted to also just double down on what the mayor mentioned of just looking at just spaces along the Santa Ana River I know in preliminary discussions that I've had with with Assemblymember Tom Daley's office and our Senator Umberg and Congressman Lou Correa regarding my, you know, not my dog park, but the dog park, our city's first dog park, and funding sources for it. You know, there was the—and I brought this up to you already, Lisa, and City Manager Ridge—of just looking at how we could expand that since it's up against the riverbed,

David PenalozaItem 14

How can we get that California State Coastal Conservancy funding available if we incorporate some open space amenities along the riverbed? There's an entry point. There's opportunity there to be creative and, you know, really build on that Santa Ana Riverbed expansion. That could really benefit our open space. and yeah just also again double down on what council member fan mentioned in regards to all these other cities around us you know unfortunately cities like irvine are planned cities from you

David PenalozaItem 14

know they had a blueprint and built from from you know designed uh as it went along cities like sanana unfortunately you know 150 years old people back then had no foresight to what would you know what would be the need, you know, 100 years later. And now we're, that's why we have, you know, crematoriums in the middle of neighborhoods. And it's awful. It's not ideal. But, you know, it is, wasn't, it's a poorly designed city from the beginning. And it's unfortunately something that we now have to try to mitigate and plan around and try to improve

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and push out these industries if we can. But yeah, I just wanted to make those comments that it's a hard task, but I'm sure we could all put our heads together and do it. Thank you, Mayor.

Great. Thank you for those comments. I think we have a motion. Go ahead.

Phil BacerraItem 14

Just one more real quick. Just, you know, we're talking about open space and being creative. We're talking about putting a park at the bottom of a river. But I, you know, something a little higher terrain. You know, we've got neighborhoods like Wilshire Square and Washington Square that actually have the word square in it. But they don't have a square. They're shaped like a square, but they don't have a square in it. I'd actually like, you know, now that Public Works is more involved with parks and rec when it comes to creating some of these spaces,

Phil BacerraItem 14

that maybe we look at possibly taking some of that public right-of-way where we can create small pocket parks. Everybody was talking about their recent trips. A couple years back, my wife and I went to London, and you see these beautiful little squares in the middle of neighborhoods, and they're not much bigger than where two of our streets and our neighborhoods intersect today. So just a thought I wanted to throw out there. I know that, yes, our city forefathers, you know, the real big excitement back in the day was Birch Park. And we look at

Phil BacerraItem 14

Birch Park today as an itty-bitty park. So, you know, obviously as time has progressed, we've gotten bigger and bigger with our ambitions, which is great. So, you know, unfortunately, we didn't have that. I think our city, thankfully, is very walkable. I think that the idea that we don't have large blocks in many parts of our city is a good thing, but unfortunately, they didn't accommodate parks you know you had welshire square that was seen as the junior high school track right so they didn't have that foresight that maybe a separate park would be a good thing so

Phil BacerraItem 14

anyways just wanted to comment that as we look for park space and try to get creative that would be

one other idea i'd like to throw out there absolutely and all your comments are fantastic this this master plan allows us to look at those things very carefully it gives us a guide when we want to purchase land, you know, what are we going to use it for? Is it usable? We don't want to just purchase something that's not going to be usable, you know, by the community. So I think this will set us up for just a great future in our park system, in serving our community, and I do want to thank the community. There's some people here. We had a Parks Master Plan committee and for 18 months

They were from everywhere within the community and different organizations, and I thank you so much. The commissions and the participants, they're gone. They got their food and they said, I'm out of here. But I really appreciate what they did. This is their plan. This is the community's plan, and I think it will serve you well. And it's been my honor to work on this, and thank you very much.

Great. Thank you for that, Lisa. Thank you for those comments. Seeing no other comments from the council, let me go ahead and ask council members to vote. We have a motion and a second incorporated with all the comments that were made

Okay motion passes seven zero with council members Hernandez Lopez Mendoza Peñalosa fan mayor putem but Sarah mayor sir me if the voting yes

Thank you everybody. Let's move along to our last consent calendar item. That is item number 36. I believe that was pulled by Councilmember fan

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

Thank you mayor So firstly, I wanted to thank my colleague, Councilmember Hernandez, Commissioner Alan Wu, who's out in the public, and also a shout out to local historian Dylan Almendral, who's been working really hard on this for a very long time. Actually, I think he might have been the first person who mentioned this to me. So that was definitely an education in my own local history. But I'm very excited to be able to vote on this and to support this. I do have a couple small edits that I'd like to make with staff.

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

The first is, and this is because Dylan, of course, being Dylan, sent additional information that he went looking for in the archives and microfiche. I complained that I couldn't see it, so if he can send a copy, and he said he couldn't because it's microfiche. In the resolution for section two, it says acknowledges acts of fundamental injustice, terror, et cetera. I'd like for it to say acknowledges and condemns acts of fundamental injustice. And I would like to add an additional section. So to change section four to section five and add a new section four to state that we

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

formally rescind and reject resolution 416, which is the resolution that was actually that actually approved the burning of Chinatown. So I think it's important for us to state that. Was there a legal question? I just want to make

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 14

sure it's okay. Yeah, we were just mentioning that the previous action that you were referring to in the section regarding rescinding was an action by a board of trustees. Oh, but. And you are a city council, so you might want to say that you reject or condemn their position, but we can't rescind it. Oh, really? Yeah. Just because we're a different ... I'm a different ... I would need to do research on that if you'd like me to do that, but you are a different group of people, or a different body. You're a city council now.

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

Okay. So, reject or any similar type of language. Close to rescinding as we can get.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 14

We understand the intent. And if in fact you can rescind it, if we look at that, then I'd be happy to put that language in. But since it's been raised at this time, I want to go back and look.

So how about formally reject the actions taken by the Board of Trustees on that date?

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

By resolution 416. I'd like to specifically mention it because it is an act on our books. it exists and it exists in perpetuity so I'd like for us to make sure to reference it and if it's possible you know quick an hour or two if we can do it I'd like to specifically say that we rescinded yeah and if there is a way to do that we'll come back and advise you of that thank you so those are my comments and no Commissioner Wu I will not read this in Cantonese because I do not speak Cantonese but I do urge everybody to read this and before I forget maybe I'm

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

kind of ahead of myself here, but I do recall us asking staff to plan a formal signing ceremony for this resolution where we invite the public, media, and the community to come and join us in a ceremonial signing of this. So I hope that staff will advertise it, make it clear to everybody, and communicate to everyone, and I hope all of you can join us. Thank you. Oh, and with that I move to approve.

Great. We have a motion.

Phil BacerraItem 14

I'll second with comment.

I think you, Councilmember Hernandez was ahead of you, I think. So let me go to you and then Mayor Pro Tem.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. This was an item that was important to everybody here on the council, but most notably, I want to thank Alan Wu. I want to thank the Lao family from San Ana Food Market. I learned about the Chinatown as a young boy, and it was something that that that I was not proud of knowing that our city did this it is the only instance of civically sponsored hate against a minority in in Orange County Santa Ana history to be specific it wasn't a proud

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

moment for our city and it is a stain on our history for over 116 years so I'm looking forward to working with my colleagues and working with leaders in the Chinese community and ensuring that this is corrected and I look forward to voting yes on this let's get this passed great thank you for those comments

Phil BacerraItem 14

mayor Pro Tem thank you mayor Madam City Attorney just to kind of go off of what Councilmember Pham was saying the City Council was referred to as the Board of Trustees going into the 40s if not the 50s so I would have to believe that we weren't handcuffed to not be able to rescind any orders. Yeah, that's why I

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 14

said I don't know I'll look into it, but even if we could, we couldn't take that action now. It's not agendized, so I would have to bring it back. That's why was my comment. I would have to bring it back to you in a more formal way. So I understand the request, so if it turns out you can, we'll go ahead and bring it

Phil BacerraItem 14

back. Okay, thank you. I just didn't like the idea of thinking we couldn't do anything past 1952 or something with the Charter. I'm in support of Councilmember fan and Councilmember Hernandez's resolution. I think this is long overdue and I'm glad to see us go through and I also echo the comments of my colleagues as far as hopefully we will see something more public and formal. I think this is something that we should be able to commemorate and celebrate with the community that we are acknowledging this part of our history and that we are recognizing it and moving past it hopefully to a much more inclusive future. Thank you.

Great. Thank you for those comments. Seeing none, I believe there is a motion in a second. The only thing I would say is I want to thank Council Members Hernandez and Fan. Commissioner Wu, thank you for all your leadership on this and more than importantly publicly apologizing to everybody who was impacted by this and probably not many of them are with us but their descendants are. So hopefully they'll pay attention to what is being done here today to at least acknowledge what you know what was done in our city and it couldn't be more timely because

we see acts like this still occurring in other places. And, you know, unfortunately, the, you know, the, you know, the injustices that I think, you know, occurred that we are trying to remedy by at least calling them, calling attention to them, I think will hopefully help. But to the extent that we understand that we still live in a society that is struggling with what we saw here happen in our downtown years ago, I think we are taking a very good step in at least calling attention to it and trying to rectify it. So with that, council members, there's a motion and a second. Please vote.

Okay, motion passes 7-0 with council members Hernandez, Lopez, Mendoza, Peñalosa, Fan, Mayor Proten Becerra, and Mayor Cermanto voting yes. Great. Thank

you everybody. Congratulations. It will be my honor to sign that resolution. So Moving along to the first item on the business calendar, that is to provide direction on a proposed ballot measure to restructure the business licensing tax rates. And I'll go ahead and call on staff and see if there's a presentation.

Mayor and Council, we do have a very short presentation. As you are aware, the Finance Department has been working on trying to modify our business license tax system for voters' consideration to make it more equitable between large and small businesses. So our Director of Finance will walk you through the presentation.

Good evening, Mayor and Councilmembers.

During your May 12th budget workshop, we presented a sneak peek of a proposed ballot measure to restructure the city's business license tax. tax. Tonight we are asking you to discuss and provide feedback. The proposed ballot measure would affect all business except cannabis, which is handled separately and is scheduled for City Council consideration on June 21st. To increase the City's revenue, it is an attempt to spread the tax more equitably across all business sizes. We believe the business community will welcome the change as we propose simplified calculations

with a single tax rate that would benefit many small businesses with annual gross receipts of up to $2.5 million a year. The ballot measure recognizes the gig economy and removes the exemption for utilities paying a franchise fee. The city's business license tax is non-regulatory. it simply raises money to provide services to the community such as public safety parks and right-of-way maintenance Finally we are proposing a tax holiday for the unlicensed and past due

The business license tax ordinance was last comprehensively updated in 1987 Many businesses are subject to higher taxes on lower gross receipts The city has many business tax calculations as evidenced by Exhibit 1 to your staff report the variations are difficult to understand and difficult to administer if the City Council authorizes us to move forward the proposed changes require a simple majority approval on the November 22 ballot I

Would like to cover some of the proposed changes This is a good example of the regressive tax rate structure we currently have, which is not beneficial for small business. For retail, services, administrative headquarters, commercial property rentals, and home-based business, we propose a single rate of $0.65 per $1,000 of annual gross receipts. There would be a maximum tax of $100,000 affecting large business with more than $150 million of gross receipts.

Also in support of small business, we propose to reduce the new business tax deposit from $506 to $200.

For wholesale, manufacturing, processing, gas and motor fuels, telephone and utilities, we propose a single rate of 50 cents per 1,000 of annual gross receipts. The maximum tax in this category would affect large businesses with more than $200 million of gross receipts. There are a handful of business types we would like to convert from flat rates to a single tax rate of 65 cents per $1,000 of annual gross receipts. We also provide proposed minor reductions to the flat rates for all other business types

and to remove a small number of obsolete business categories.

In order to achieve the recommended changes, we have a three-step process. The first step is to consolidate rate language into a single chapter of the Municipal Code. This will make the ballot measure easier to write and to understand. If the City Council introduces the consolidation ordinance on June 7th, I will make a presentation to the Chamber of Commerce on June 14th. In July, the City Council would reconsider, would consider resolutions to submit the proposed ballot measure to the county for the consolidated election.

If voters approve the ballot measure, we would return to City Council with an ordinance to reconcile procedural processes.

That concludes my prepared presentation, and I'm ready to answer your questions and take direction.

Robert Hopkinson, Director Downs, let me go ahead and bring it back to the council. Councilmember Peña-Losa.

David PenalozaItem 14

Councilmember Peña- Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. Thank you, Catherine, for that presentation. The one question that comes to mind is, first, there's no ballot text, question text ready yet, correct?

Yes, you would see that in July. So the plan is for June for you to see that first ordinance, the first step of the three-step process, and then in July to actually see the ballot language.

David PenalozaItem 14

Okay.

David PenalozaItem 14

The other question I had was just more to the cost of the ballot measure. And before I get there, because I know that's the city clerk's shop,

David PenalozaItem 14

Is this a ballot question that could be, it has to stand on its own, right? There can't, because it's related to fees and taxes?

That's correct. This would be a question to stand on its own. And my understanding is that for the consolidated election this fall, the estimated cost of each additional question on the ballot is approximately $100,000. and we have built that into our proposed budget for this item.

David PenalozaItem 14

Okay, and thank you for that. That was, I guess, that's perfect to leading up to my next question to the City Clerk's office. Madam City Clerk, in the staff report, it was listed that this ballot question has a potential cost of, and I'm trying to find it, $150,000.

David PenalozaItem 14

It says the voter ballot measures intended to be revenue neutral, but there will be an expense associated with the placement of a voter ballot measure on the November general election ballot, which is a budgeted expense from your office at $150,000. The reason why I want to get an accurate number for this is because back in 2020, when we were having this discussion, we were obviously cost has gone up in the last two years. So I understand that. At the time, it was, I believe, approximately $65,000 per question. Right now, Executive Director Downs is saying

David PenalozaItem 14

that there'll be $100,000 cost per question, but the staff report says $150,000 budgeted for this ballot question.

David PenalozaItem 14

Am I reading this wrong, or is there an explanation behind the increase?

Actually, I think what happened was we wrote this staff report a little while ago. we've been planning this for some time and I think that we had used an early estimate of the ballot question but we did get information recently that they are approximately a hundred thousand dollars each question so that's what we've built into the budget so the the staff report here is overstated with its

David PenalozaItem 14

estimate okay so it would be safe to say that the cost for this question would be approximately $100,000 per the county, not $150,000?

That is correct.

David PenalozaItem 14

And any other, I don't want to get too much into any other potential ballot question, but that goes, that's across the board for any other ballot question that goes on the ballot, it would be about $100,000 per?

That is my understanding, yes.

David PenalozaItem 14

Okay. All right. That's the only question I have. It's pretty self-explanatory. I just want to make sure that when it does come before us as a ballot question that the text is made available. And is this something, do we plan on making any of this outreach available to businesses, the Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce, downtown? I mean, any businesses impacted, would they be able to be aware of this before it's done and finalized?

Ms. Absolutely. Unless the City Council tells me to stop in my tracks, I will keep moving on this project. And again, I intend to make a presentation to the Chamber of Commerce on June 14th, and we will do additional outreach. Mr. Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Great. Mayor Pro Tem.

Phil BacerraItem 14

Mayor Pro Temer- One quick question. When should the Council adopt the Consolidated Rates and Schedules Ordinance? Should we do that very soon? Do we need to do that before we agree to the ballot question?

I believe so, and that's why we have it scheduled for you for June.

Phil BacerraItem 14

Okay, perfect. I'm in support of this item. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Council Member Lopez.

Jessie LopezItem 14

Yeah. Thank you, Kat. So I was going to actually ask if we had already received feedback from small businesses or the chamber and I know you just mentioned you're actually going to do a presentation after the council vote on this so my question is to Christine I would like some I'm like wider latitude to make edits based on the feedback that we received because I do think that this needs to happen however I think the details are going to be very important for you know for this ballot measure

certainly and when we draft the language you know we can have the latitude to make changes to amounts we have met with representatives from the chamber a few times on this subject and I've shared with them our proposal which was exhibit one to the staff report the before and after and they seem to be very supportive of it they didn't have any initial I'll call it edits for me they had a couple questions but to to date they seem to be supportive

of it okay thank you and councilmember Lopez if you you read the exhibit and you want to reach out to finance director myself we would love to get your input early on to make it go smoother but to answer your question about a little bit more of the history of this the chamber first approached the city about six to seven years ago requesting that there be more equitable business license tax approximately 80 percent of their membership is smaller businesses and so they were advocating on their behalf and we did engage with them about when I first started here so maybe two and a half

years ago but we did put it on the back burner when COVID and the pandemic hit and we shifted our priorities to other things and now as we're back to getting things done that we put on the back burner we we rose it again and we have a timeline this time because should you guys want us to put it on the ballot we do have that hard deadline of July

I understand the deadline thank you great seeing no other comments I was just going to mention that yet to the extent that you can incorporate what was said I think a lot has you've worked already with the chamber but to the extent that you know the downtown businesses are a little bit more organized they have their own association, maybe check in with them. Because we have such a diversity of businesses, right? Some that are extremely sophisticated and large, and some that are really, really, you know, micro, micro businesses. So to the extent that this is amenable to everybody,

I really appreciate the intent, which is to unwind the regressive nature of the tax structure and to make it much more simple and affordable for new businesses to at least start up. And And that's what we've really, you know, I think tried to achieve here. I know not everybody is going to be happy with this. I know there'll be the removal of the exemption for the utilities that pay the franchise fee. So, you know, it's not ideal. But what it does, I think it gives us equity, right? There are some, you know, businesses that are in a much better position to be able to go ahead and, you know, pay their fair share.

and it doesn't make sense that we give those more breaks than we do those that are struggling. And we saw that during this pandemic, most importantly. So with that, I haven't heard a motion. Go ahead, Council Member.

No action is needed, sir.

No action is needed. Got it. Go ahead, Council Member.

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

It was just a really brief comment. One, thank you so much for bringing this. Two, for those out there always saying that we're anti-business, this is something that the business community specifically asked for and asked us to address, and that's what we're trying to do here today. I'm very excited about that, and hopefully the residents will be too. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Councilmember Peñalosa.

David PenalozaItem 14

Thank you, Mayor.

David PenalozaItem 14

The one just final question I have. For that amount that's budgeted in the clerk's department for this ballot question, is that something that could be reduced? I mean, does it, is it, will it just be like a

leftover amount if? So it's, she has the amount available within her contract services professional, so to the extent only a hundred thousand is used, she would have the fifty thousand left within her budget. Okay, I just, I just don't want to

David PenalozaItem 14

see where we budget for something, knowing that it's a hundred grand and we budget $150,000 so at the end of the fiscal year we could say, look, I didn't spend $50,000. Not just your department, but I see that across numerous departments. You know, if we don't, if we know that, if we anticipate a cost at a certain level, that's not, you know, ask for more whenever that's possible.

And when we bring this item back to you in July, I'll make a note to myself here to ensure that we have the latest estimate on the cost, and if there's any difference from our budget, we can make an adjustment at that time or ask the council to do so.

David PenalozaItem 14

Thank you. Thank you for that. That's it, Mayor. Thank you.

Great. Thank you for that. I think those were the last comments. So let's move along to item number 38, which is the budget workshop, and I'll turn it over to staff.

So, Mayor and Council members, an exciting item. We had a very robust budget workshop before, and we worked over the weekend. Staff was very busy in trying to incorporate all of the information we took down from that budget workshop. So tonight you're going to get a lot more detail and then we do have slides that we have added in to encapsulate the items that we heard you say at the budget workshop. And once again, our Executive Director of Finance will be providing that presentation. She is loading it up right now and I will turn it over to our Finance Director, Kat.

Thanks, and apparently I lost the ability to be able to share my screen.

I'm going to turn to my tech advisor right here, our assistant city manager. Ah, there we go. This one? Mm-hmm.

All right.

And I too wanted to acknowledge the team effort that goes into building a very large and complex 861 million dollar proposed budget across 80 funds staff from every department has done an amazing job providing information and developing a spending plan to achieve the city's goals tonight is the third opportunity for City Council to provide direction on the proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year that begins on July 1st meeting topics include the proposed General Fund and Cannabis Public Benefit Fund budgets, workforce changes, fee changes,

a quick discussion of the health of internal service and enterprise funds, the proposed capital improvement plan, a recap of identified budget priorities, and the next steps in the budget process.

In addition to this presentation, there are three draft documents available on the City's website, the 836-page draft budget document, the 102-page proposed capital improvement plan, and the 162-page miscellaneous fee schedule.

This general fund summary shows that we expect $390 million of revenue and a recurring baseline budget of $362 million. The proposed budget includes $14.5 million of additions to the recurring baseline and and a transfer to the Pension Stabilization Fund. The result is a net surplus of $5.9 million. In addition, we propose one-time spending totaling $20 million.

If we take the estimated general fund balance of $97 million at July 1st, add the surplus, and subtract one-time spending, we are left with an estimated general fund balance of $83 million in June of 2023. The City Council's reserve requirement is 18% of annual revenue, or $70 million for next year, which leaves us with an excess available balance of $13 million. The full reconciliation of proposed changes to the general fund budget is included on page 3 of the draft budget document.

This is a breakdown of the $390 million estimated general fund revenue. property and tax and sales tax continue to be our most significant sources of revenue representing a combined 61% of the budget

general fund expenditures presented here include the proposed recurring budget and one-time spending the budget reflects the city's priorities with 50% of funding going to public safety for fiscal year 22 23 responsibility for park maintenance is transferring to public works to take advantage of labor and contract deficiencies the proposed budget increases park maintenance by four million dollars for security and maintenance enhancements if we had not transferred responsibility the parks recreation and community services budget

would have been 30 million dollars an increase of more than 28 percent the The 10-year outlook for the general fund has been updated. Year one of the 10-year outlook is the proposed budget, including the $20 million of one-time spending. For years two through ten, we included the budget structure of recurring revenues and spending, inflated by the increase of the consumer price index, as forecasted by the California Department of Finance. Debt retirements are factored in, as well as fluctuating debt service for the pension

bonds and corresponding deposits and withdrawals to the Pension Stabilization Trust.

The reduction of Measure X revenue is factored in FY28-29 and FY29-29, updated with the latest estimates. The 10-year outlook indicates the general fund may have a balanced budget until Measure X revenue decreases on April 1, 2029. By fiscal year 2930, we expect to have an annual budget deficit of more than $16 million. The expected deficit is substantially less than prior versions of the 10-year outlook due to the pension debt refinancing.

This is a summary of the Measure X spending plan with 24% allocated for one-time spending in accordance with recommendations from the Measure X oversight committee. Our current revenue estimate is 88 million. However, we identified a spending plan of 92 million in case the revenue estimate increases. We expect to receive updated information right around the time you are scheduled to adopt the budget.

During your May 12th budget workshop, we provided an overview of the proposed cannabis public benefit budget. This is a more detailed version of the budget for youth services totaling $7.2 million. The proposed budget includes one-time spending of $1.1 million for the New Hope Library renovation.

This is the detailed budget for enforcement totaling $6.9 million, including one-time spending of $1 million to replace mobile data computers.

There is a detailed list of all workforce additions and changes on pages 27 through 30 of the draft budget document. Most of the additions support direct services provided by Public Works and Planning and Building. The additions to the Police Department include record specialists to assist with public record requests. costs.

Miscellaneous fees are charges for services provided to individuals, not to the public as a whole. The proposed miscellaneous fee schedule includes 12 new fees and modifications for 32 fees. 30 obsolete fees were removed.

Planning and Building proposes a modification of the Certificate of Occupancy fee. It will be included with the building permit fee with no additional charge and there is a new tier one fee more affordable for building and mechanical occupancies.

The general fund is providing subsidies to the train station and parking enterprises. However, fund balances are low with no reserves. We will continue to monitor the situation for next fiscal year and seek opportunities to rebalance those budgets. We have made some improvements to the Internal Service Fund budgets, however the fleet, stores, and corporate yard funds continue to deplete accumulated fund balances with rising costs. After full evaluation we expect to propose changes to internal charges next year. Finally, the engineering fund continues

to experience delays in project billing and reconciliation. This is an operation we would like to fold into the general fund at a future time but only after we have current information and develop a plan we finished adding recently approved spending plans to the overall capital improvement plan which now has a proposed budget of nearly 45 million dollars key projects include street improvements traffic improvements sewer and water improvements and park and library facilities the capital improvement plan includes details for each project and

useful summary information including a project map on page 9 of the document on May 12th we presented the results of our community engagement efforts and we received feedback from the City Council several key themes emerged from the public conversation and we wanted to highlight the identified priorities in the current and proposed budgets. Many of the requested programs and services are already funded in our current year budget and we have proposed additions for other identified priorities.

As part of youth program priorities, we currently fund monthly teen excursions that are free of charge. We have three different programs for paid youth positions in different age brackets. The Santa Ana Youth Program is funded with local dollars, and we will look into the potential to serve undocumented students. Child development includes early childhood programming, STEM activities, robotics, and music programs at the main library. The Library of Things collection continues to grow with games, computers, and toys that support child development. The new Play and Learn patio address motor skills, development, and social learning.

CDBG funds parenting classes for teen moms. There is $497,000 for various nonprofits to provide after school programs. The first Knowledge Mobile launches early June. There is more than a million dollars of funding for programs at nonprofits, such as the Discovery Science Center, Kids Work, the Orange County Children's Therapeutic Arts Center, Padres Unidos, Think Together, and Project Kinship. Proposed editions include an outdoor library at Jerome Park with interactive play areas geared towards

early childhood education. The library has determined they have sufficient current year funding to purchase a second Knowledge Mobile in the coming year. The proposed budget also includes tech lab programs at the New Hope location, some of which will be geared towards young children. And finally, we propose to add another $100,000 to the city's youth employment programs.

Parks and recreation priorities include an array of active pursuits at the parks and recreation centers, which are already funded, as well as restrooms at El Salvador, lights at Thornton, and a new recmobile. Public Works is working on a pool infrastructure assessment to develop specific recommendations for pools the proposed additions include implementation of the park master plan and grant funded opportunities for a new park on Bristol and the King Street urban greening project four million dollars was added to the proposed budget to enhance park maintenance and security in addition to the 1.1 million dog park

allocation we have in our current budget the city has applied for grant funding And finally, we do have funding for new parks at Rayton Myrtle and Standard and McFadden.

Our current budget for community health, safety, and security priorities includes fire station improvements, mental health and re-entry services, as well as the CityNet pilot project. Proposed additions include another $3.1 million of fire station improvements, funding for police oversight expansion of direct patrol by wards another for code enforcement officers and expanded parking enforcement for nights and weekends finally PD is working with recreation and parks to co-locate a police presence in recreation facilities to address public right-of-way and

facility priorities the city is applying for EV charging station grants and we already have significant funding for streets parks and library improvements the city provides homeless encampment cleanups funding for street lights and traffic calming was added this last this year proposed additions include the Chinatown Memorial a recurring program of alley improvements entry point signage and millions more for streets and parks improvements the city plans to address streetlight needs with other allocation for more lights along with a master plan

and a recurring traffic calming program the budget includes funding for a dedicated CDA director and the department recently filled four positions and that would be community development agency on May 3rd the City Council approved two million dollars for programs provided by nonprofit organizations and the current year budget includes funding to convert the Cypress fire station to a multi-use center. Proposed additions include environmental justice implementation, equipment for neighborhood associations, improvements to service public records requests, zoning code updates, and the more affordable certificate of occupancy fees.

We do have a placeholder on your calendars for another budget workshop on May 31st. The budget public hearing is scheduled for June 7th and budget adoption is scheduled for June 21st. That concludes my presentation, and we're ready to answer questions and take additional direction from the council.

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

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Director Downs, for this fantastic presentation. I'm really happy to see the inclusion of the Chinatown Memorial, Lots of the things that we asked for. This is outstanding. Outdoor Library at Jerome Park, I think, is going to be a big hit for members in our community. Looking at the general fund review, pardon me, not this one, but the general fund expenditure, 396.4 million, I think it's fair to say all of us up here value families and children, but our budgets don't reflect that.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

parks and recreation is only getting 3%. 13.3 million for a city as large as us, with as many young people as we have, there's clearly a need, but we're not meeting it. Parks and recreation being at 3% is abysmal, and for as well of a department as we have, there needs to be a significant increase in funding there so that parks and rec can do their job properly and make sure that that action plan has support behind it in the amount of dollars that they need so that we can get there much faster. I think being proactive when it comes to public safety is placing more money into parks and recreation.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

And I think as a policymaker, when we have conversations about children and families, it's really easy to say, you know, we're a city that is going to get behind families and children, but it's where the hard, heavy lifting happens is in dollars, right? What are we as a city putting our money towards? And I can tell you it's not towards families and children. We have one of the most innovative library directors in Orange County, and our library budget is at 2%. That is very disrespectful to residents and children, especially young children that are zero to five right now. This is not setting them up for success.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

2% of this budget, it's a blatant disrespect. I don't feel like this is a balanced budget given that we have children dying in communities where there were once libraries. And I would need to see a significant increase in our library. Libraries that are similar to demographic and size, I know we have our library director here. If I can ask you that question, I know that we did this a while back, but I want to ask you one more time, Director Sternberg, if you can kindly come up here.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

So thank you, Director Sternberg. If you can kindly tell my colleagues and I, members of the public, if you can tell us cities with similar demographics and size to us, what amount of budget are they receiving? What's the dollar amount for cities our size? So like I had mentioned in a previous

Council meeting. Similar cities to our size comparables would be Anaheim and the City of Riverside. They are both around $12 million in budget. Wonderful. And how many libraries do those cities have? I believe Anaheim has seven and the City of Riverside has eight. So how many libraries

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

do we presently have in the city of Santa Ana?

We currently have two.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

Good, okay. And if we had a budget the size of these comparable cities, right, Riverside, Anaheim, what type of services can we expand?

So I think there's a couple things to think about here, council member. Those cities, Riverside and Anaheim, already have a build-out of seven and eight libraries. So that $12 million budget, let's just say roughly for each one of those cities, is going into all the staffing and the facility upkeep and the maintenance and the program spread across seven, eight different libraries. We don't have that quantity of libraries right now.

So the budget, that budget, may not be appropriate unless we had all of those libraries to begin with. And so my suggestion of doing a library master plan, looking at getting libraries built over time, and then funding those incrementally as we go, may be an approach to use so we're, you know, spending our money most efficiently.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

Great. But it's not to say if we had a significantly larger budget in library that you could utilize those monies to expand services and to get more innovative with things that we are providing in our library. Correct?

That is true. That is true. Obviously, more staff. We could do more programs now. But for what we're doing right now, we don't need any additional dollars on top of that to maintain current services. But if we, yes, if we had more staff, then of course, you know, we could look at.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

Thank you. So a large part of my concern, Director Sternberg, and why I place so much emphasis on libraries, is I think we have to reimagine the conversation of public safety, right? And the hardest part about reimagining it is offering alternatives, right? Because we are in a city that very much defunded our libraries. and I believe there was a timeline where we had libraries as its own department. Do you know when we moved away from that?

I believe it was around the year 2008 when the library went under the Parks Recreation Community Services Agency. Prior to that, the library was a department beginning probably somewhere in the early 20th century, late 19th century.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

How many staff did we have at the time in 2009? Do you have an idea of how many people were staffed?

Yeah, 2008, we were probably looking at about six more full-time positions than we currently have now, right before it went under the Parks Department.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

So I would like, thank you, Director Sternberg. You're welcome, sir. That's the only question I had left. Thank you. But I would like to ask my colleagues, I would like to see an increase in library. I think that 2% is not enough. And I would like to see an increase of at least getting our parks and recreation budget to 20 million. 3% I don't think that we're placing our residents in a position where they can prosper with these little amounts of monies allocated to such imperative services. The last thing I wanted to touch on as well was Measure X spending plan.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

I am not happy to see youth services only be at 1%, but we have, I'm really happy to see that we're retaining firefighters at 7.7 million at 8%, but again, I'm just not happy knowing that we're the youngest city in Orange County, having 1% of our Measure X spending plan allocated to youth services, I just don't think that is going to be, that is not what setting up our children for success looks like. So Director Downs, respectfully, I would like to see an increase in youth services here, four measure X spending plan.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

I would like to see an increase in parks and recreation and an increase in library. And I hope to see support from my colleagues here. So what are you looking for from us today at the council? Is this something we're going to be voting on?

No votes tonight. This is just giving us additional direction. I would like to point out that in addition to the general fund budget, we also have the Cannabis Public Benefit Fund budget that includes both library and youth services that can be added to the amounts that are presented for the general fund.

And also I'd like to point out that there is, if you add the library together between the general fund and the cannabis public benefit fund, you're looking at an $8.3 million budget as opposed to just the 6.3 that's in the general fund.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

Imagine if we were at 12, though. There's much more good that we can do with 12 than we can with eight.

Yeah, and then also on the parks, we did transfer responsibility for parks maintenance to public works so if we had not done that then the parks and recreation budget would be 30 million and then plus the cannabis uh fund budget of another 5.2 million would bring it up to a 35 mil s in essence a 35 million dollar budget for that uh that particular department which is closer to about maybe nine percent of our general fund which department again this would be the parks and

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

recreation yeah I'd still like to see an increase there okay thank you director

Downs thank you let me go ahead and go to other members of the council that may

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

have any questions or comments councilmember fan Thank You mayor so Nabeel because we've been calling and emailing today and it's again going back to streets I was able to go through a number of the items in the draft budget

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

so a couple things first I'd like to sorry let me just pull up the budget itself I'm looking at your slides and it's not okay so first is regarding the alley maintenance program I think last time when I asked about it that is 1.5 million dollars from the general fund however I want to clarify that when I followed up with our director of Public Works the alley maintenance program is specific to like back alleys city alleys that maybe but you know two commercial centers or something like that it is not our typical arterial

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

roadways it is not for example Euclid Street it is just back alleys that you might find throughout the city and while it I believe those are in dire need of repair, which is why we're adding $1.5 million. I am very concerned, as some of the public comments today, for our actual street pavement. Now when I was looking through this project, or the budget, we do state that there are

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

M2 funding, gas tax funding, as well as, let me see, and we have CDBG, right? But when I'm looking at the type of projects, the $20 million or so that is mentioned, those seem to me to be specific projects that fall under CIP, right? So these are big projects that we have on our CIP list that we're trying to fix. It's pavement, streets, gutters, that whole, the whole

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

shebang. But it is not the typical maintenance that we have for a street paving. I drove down Dyer just this morning to get my coffee and I literally see someone trying to slurry seal the street trying to fill in concrete or pavement in the cracks in the street and my analogy is if you're drawing a picture and you constantly erase it and you keep trying to redraw over it eventually you're gonna have to start over and start with a new piece of paper that's what street repaving is supposed to do and our city because we're small but we're high we're super

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

dense and we are the county seat, we get more traffic than most other cities of our size. So it's important that we use these funding, not just recurring general fund, but also the one-time funds. So for me, I would like to see recurring funding in our budget for street paving.

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

That is when, you know, folks up here are talking about core municipal services. What are we supposed to do? You know, the federal government is not coming to save us with this elusive infrastructure bill. The state has all this extra money, but I don't know what they're going to do with it. It's important for us to have safe streets. And, you know, folks who drive their cars every day, those streets will mess up your cars. they negatively impact the quality of your drive the cars and you're gonna have to do maintenance on it so I would like to see that we did that with our

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

sidewalk improvement you know five hundred thousand dollars is extremely low for street pavement in fact when I asked our director you know what where are we what what are we doing to deal with street pavement he says that right Now there's about 12.4 million dollars to address street pavement condition from Measure M, CDBG, and SB1. But what we should be at is 25 million dollars a year, which is extremely high.

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

I know city manager, you're nodding your head, but that's how far below our historically desired level is. And if we hit $18.5 million a year, we actually get more grant funding. So, you know, asking for $500,000 or $1 million a year to really do this work that we're supposed to be doing, I think is not a lot to ask in our recurring budget. As to the one-time funds, I would like for a Director of Public Works to make a proposal of what one-time funding you need for the next three, five years to address street pavement issues.

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

I think that, again, we have this one-time funding, this historically specific budget surplus, whatever we want to call it, but it's one-time funding. And I think that improving our pavement is a really important issue. So I'd like to make sure we do that.

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

I did see that we did actually fund the Director of Community Development Agency in the 21-22 budget. So thank you. And it's being carried over. Some other items that I wanted to follow up on is regarding, sorry, is just trying to better understand moving some of the items from our, or for Parks and Rec or for libraries.

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

and I just posed this in response to my colleague, Council Member Hernandez, I guess I'm up here trying to figure out what we're trying to move and what we're trying to move from, right? If we're saying we want to increase it to $12 million, the library budget or Parks and Rec, or whatever number it is, where are we trying to take it from? I think that's important because, you know, this is a pie and we have to move the slices around. So that would be my request because I don't know when you say, okay, I want Parks and Rec to be $20 million. Where do we get the other, you know, $6.7 million?

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

And I just want to see that so that I can see what else we're trying to move or address and things like that. That would be my only comments for now, and I hope that we can address those street issues. Thank you.

Great, thanks. Mayor Pro Tem.

Phil BacerraItem 14

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to remind everybody that we keep hearing the term one-time funds. And as we saw the trajectory of our finances, we need to be very mindful of some of the things that we're asking for, that they really are appropriate for one-time funds. I appreciate what my colleague, Councilmember Fan, is talking about. I think as we're talking about the budget, you know, the beauty of what we have here is we have amazing staff that we throw out the ideas to them, and they figure out where the money's going to come from and how to fund it. I think that's where we've got to be more focused on,

Phil BacerraItem 14

is stick to the policy and give it to them. Because I agree with Councilmember Pham that just throwing out the numbers, well, another city's got this, we should have this, or I don't like that one department has more money than the other. I think that among the seven of us, we have great ideas. And so hopefully staff's able to capture that, and I believe they're able to spit back a budget that reflects those priorities. Regarding the certificate of occupancy, looking at slide 13, I just want to make sure I understand it because I'm reading this and it says,

Phil BacerraItem 14

Tier 1 Certificate of Occupancy, Planning and Inspection, Building Mechanical Occupancies. So I guess what I'm trying to understand is my thoughts or what I envisioned was that from my conversations with staff, the idea is that they wanted to still have an inspection. They still wanted it to have a cost recovery mechanism. but that these would be situations where you're not, as I like to say, putting a hammer through the wall, right? You're not changing any of the wiring, you're not patching up anything, you're literally walking in, plugging in your computer, and hitting the ground running.

Phil BacerraItem 14

So for those, is staff proposing that that would be $249? Because that seems a lot, given how much the business license fee is going to be.

MS. MPT, we do have our Deputy Director to answer that question for you.

MR. Great.

MR. Yes, that's the proposed fee. And it's technically for business and manufacturing component.

Phil BacerraItem 14

MR. Okay, so how about an office? MR. So I've got…

MR. That would be an office aspect.

Phil BacerraItem 14

MR. So folks that aren't going to punch any holes in the wall, that are not going to apply for any building permits, we're going to ask them to pay $249 to inspect the office.

That was the initial proposal, yes.

Phil BacerraItem 14

Okay. I'm opposed to that. I think that's ridiculous. $249? That's what, triple, quadruple what we're proposing for business license fees? That's insane. I absolutely think that's ridiculous. That's anti-business. Thank you, Alvaro. I don't support that at all. I hope that there's a way we can figure out how to bring that down. It just seems insane that we would actually charge more for someone to come in and go, yep, this is an office. this is not involving any building activity, versus the Tier 2, which actually I'm assuming is where you do come in and do the inspections and sign off at the final CFO.

So the like for like is, though, that we still are expected to make an occupancy inspection. So that is part of that field component, right? So when we say it doesn't require tenant improvements, which we extend just a matter of changing offices, for example, we're still required to do an occupancy inspection. If the request is to say not have staff to be out there, then we have to find a mechanism so we can alternate that aspect. But you still generate a field inspection, you still generate a paperwork to document the actual change.

Phil BacerraItem 14

I understand, but just also understand the pragmatic approach that someone's going to come into our city, they're going to be, hopefully, impressed with the price of the business license, and then they're going to get the bill for the Certificate of Occupancy Inspection and go, why am I here in Santa Ana, why am I not next door? Because they wouldn't be paying this much for this sort of inspection in another city.

We can review that again and get back to you then. I appreciate that. Thank you.

Phil BacerraItem 14

And the other question I had was in regards to the last budget workshop I had talked about, having a substation on the southern end of town, something that would not be ground up construction, but rather occupy an existing space, whether most likely like an industrial space on the south end. Is that something that's still being priced out and considered in here?

So we're doing a couple of those items. You were the only one that requested that on the south end of town, and then we had requests from other council members in different areas of town. So Parks and Rec has already engaged in a conversation with PD to see if there's a way that we could use any of our existing parks facilities to do like police satellite offices. And in particular for the area that you were recommending, I think we might have an opportunity with some larger development projects that are planned in your area to score a storefront at little or no cost. So we're not abandoning it.

We're exploring the options for not only South End, but also other areas of the city where we lack a more constant police presence.

Phil BacerraItem 14

No, I appreciate that because like I said in my previous comments, I'd want to understand the cost before advocating for it fully. And my last comment is going to be that I appreciate Councilmember Phan's comments on streets and sidewalks and having a reoccurring funding of it, because that has been something that, since my first budget cycle as a Councilmember back in 2020, I was beyond shocked when I realized that we didn't have a dedicated revenue stream for those essential services. So I appreciate hearing more and more Councilmembers supporting that, and I'm glad to see

Phil BacerraItem 14

that staff has made strides to incorporate that in the budget since I've become a councilmember and I definitely will continue to support that. So thank you very much. Those are my comments.

Great, thanks. Let me go to Councilmember Lopez.

Jessie LopezItem 14

Thank you, Mayor Sarviento. I have a lot of questions, but I've learned that profound questions are better addressed offline. So I am looking forward to the workshop so I can have time with staff prior to that to be able to address all of the questions, concerns that I have.

Jessie LopezItem 14

However, can staff let me know? Maybe I am not seeing it in the presentation. One of the things we talked about last time was doing a pilot program for nonprofits in the city to help address you know some of the issues that I talked about in terms of youth working with the trades in terms of the mental health services for LGBTQ community the reentry programs the mental health services things of that nature certainly so on your slides

where we already are currently funding many of the things that you guys raised as priorities at the workshop. So they were spread throughout the different buckets. I don't know, Cat, if you want to put back up the youth program priorities. So you specifically had requested youth funding for skill development, reentry services, and community organization support. From my notes from the workshop, there was not a majority that was requesting additional community organization support. That said, we do have millions of dollars that are going to our local community-based organizations.

But re-entry and the youth funding for skill development, it's presented on slide, she'll pull it up, as it is currently being funded right now. Okay, got it. And the one item that we do have to do a little more research that you had requested is out of all of our internships, you had asked if it could serve undocumented students. And we did find one of our internship programs that does not use federal dollars, so we believe that it can. So we're researching that further for you.

Jessie LopezItem 14

Okay. I think that was, I believe that was County Member Mendoza's great suggestion, but I'm happy to support.

Jessie LopezItem 14

For the Santa Clara Avenue and bike lane, Director Saba, do you want to share a little bit about that?

Yes, good evening. That project is a continuation of the bike lane to go through, instead of going through the Santiago Park area, to direct the bike lane to go through possibly, it will be Broadway way to Santa Clara through all the way through the neighborhood somehow to

Jessie LopezItem 14

Fisher Park and then Christine I have a thank you I have a question for you during the last budget workshop you know I did ask specifically for for funding for Fisher Park and as you heard today there's there's a need in terms of safety feature traffic calming feature for the neighborhood you have a median can you let me know if that is budgeted in this works in this budget that you're

presenting to us yes we tried to make it as simple as possible with the presentation but maybe we made it a little more confusing if you look at the additions for public right-of-ways and facility priorities that was slide number 20 there is an additional 1 million for traffic calming that would be one of those projects that would fit under traffic calming and what are the rest of the projects under the 1 million and I would have to defer to our executive director of Public Works because there is there has been a long wish list for various traffic calming that he does have to prioritize and he does have to

analyze to see you know which ones he can actually implement I don't know Nabil if you're if you're ready tonight to speak on that item that is accurate

we will be developing a traffic calming request we have been getting quite a bit of requests from the community due to COVID and other reasons and we have been taking these requests unfunded so this million dollar will be to address those request and a priority.

Jessie LopezItem 14

Okay, got it.

Jessie LopezItem 14

Those are going to be all of my questions. I'm looking forward to scheduling one-on-one to staff to go through this presentation. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Councilmember Mendoza.

Thank you, Mayor Sarmento. Great things that I've heard from my colleagues and I'm supportive of all of that. But the only line item that I want to increase is the aquatics, because I don't think 335 is going to be sufficient to upgrade our swimming pools. So that is the only item. Everything else, as I mentioned, the street improvements, the library, the bike trails, all of that is in alignment with my desires to bring great services to our constituents.

So, I don't know exactly how much, but maybe we could look to see, get an idea what each pool, what kind of repair or totally redo the Santa Anita, Jerome Pool and Memorial Park. And do we have any others?

We would like to have an indoor one because a few of you mentioned doing more aquatics programming for seniors, and seniors do like the shade. So in the presentation, we do have currently funded the pool infrastructure assessment. So that will certainly give us more details on the magnitude of what the amount would be needed to renovate our two existing pools. Very good. Thank you. That was it.

Thank you, Councilmember. Let me go to Councilmember Peñalosa.

David PenalozaItem 14

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento, and thank you, Catherine, for the very thorough presentation. To touch on Councilmember Mendoza's comment, I'm also supportive, and I know Councilmember Hernandez mentioned it at the last meeting, of looking into our entire pool system and seeing ways how we could really invest back into them. Because I know that I made the comment last meeting about, you know, we have that really famous mural at Memorial Park that is in dire need of a restoration.

David PenalozaItem 14

And a year ago, I was like, I'm going to bring this forward to try to help this mural get restored. But then I turned around and looked at the rest of the pool and needing how just seeing how in desperate need that pool was and those locker rooms and that community center. And, you know, thinking back to I can't with a strict face advocate for something when the entire park around it is falling apart.

David PenalozaItem 14

So definitely want to see the parks budget, you know, increased as well as the library system. I know that when I first came on and we hired you, Madam City Manager, that was, aside from clearing out Harbor Street and taking you out on midnight rides, to see it for yourself, one thing was bring back our own library department and make it its own again and under Parks and Rec, and you did. And I'm very happy with that. It's been baby steps, but we're slowly increasing our library system along with our park system. I do want to echo a little bit of the comments of what Council Member Phan said,

David PenalozaItem 14

that I think all of us up here want to see an increase to our parks department and our library department. And when we advocate for that, let's try to, you know, give direction as to where we want to take it from, because we've got to take it from somewhere to give it to another department. I mean, that is part of why we're up here. With the, I'm happy to see the second Knowledge Mobile in here, because that's something that we should do. And as we look at areas to activate along the southern part of the city, I know we talked about a police substation.

David PenalozaItem 14

And one thing that I would love to see is I know that there's empty storefronts down Bristol Street. I know Daiso in the shopping center on Bristol and MacArthur by the In-N-Out is closed and it's empty. I was driving by there the other day and I said, why couldn't that be a third? If we want a third library branch, why can't we lease a space with the property owner and say, hey, we want to put a library in there for the next 10 years and make that a possibility. I know there's potential development plans for that area, and I think there's opportunity there to work with whatever developments come along that stretch

David PenalozaItem 14

to look at a third physical library branch on that side of town.

David PenalozaItem 14

The other thing that I want to touch on is something that comes up frequently, at least to myself, is the, and I know I've been emailed a couple times, is related to our pets. We have a lot of strays in this city and a lot of cats running around that are not spayed, neutered. Dogs, the dogs that get taken to the county pound, a majority of them are from Santa Santa Ana, those dogs that are found, they're found in or around Santa Ana.

David PenalozaItem 14

And there's a missing education component on pet ownership in our city of the importance of spaying and neutering your dog and cat. Unfortunately, spaying and neutering, like any other vet bill, is very, very expensive. You know, you're looking at $200 to $500 per spay or a neuter of a pet. So, I would like us to look at ways where we could, through our dog license department, how we could incentivize our residents to,

David PenalozaItem 14

I know we already do a lower cost dog license if your dog is neutered and spayed, But in order for you to get that lower cost, you need to spend the $200, $300 to spay and neuter your pet. And a lot of families don't have that, don't have that initial and then adds, now add another $175 license fee or whatever it is for. So it discourages residents from even registering your dog. I know growing up as a kid, every time we'd get a notice, I always had pets, we'd get a notice, my mom would just check the box, oh, it's dead, and send it back into the city.

David PenalozaItem 14

You know, I was five, six years old, it was out of my control, but I know my mom couldn't afford that, and there was no way that I didn't work, I was five. So, I think there's maybe if we could identify some funding to have as a kind of a rebate program for, I know it's probably not done or heard of frequently, but I think that's something that we could encourage is having a type of rebate program in our city for residents that want to spay and neuter their pet,

David PenalozaItem 14

bring it in, we'll reimburse you, maybe part of it, half of it, something that could get more families to be responsible with their pet ownership, and it'll equate to less animals on the street in the pound, you know, and being offered on Craigslist or whatever other, because I know I get asked a lot, are there low cost, I know we have low cost vaccination, but low cost Spain and Newtron, there has to be a way that we could kind of help in that regard. Another thing that I wanted to bring up, I was looking through the capital improvement projects

David PenalozaItem 14

and very happy to see the Bristol Street improvement widening from Warner to St. Andrew in here. I know that I've said it multiple times, Director Saba and City Manager, You guys all know where I was when this project was started. I was, I'm sure, in a crate, or not a crate, but a baby ring in diapers. And 1989, 88 is when this project was started, and it still has not been completed. And I know all the ways it's tied in because of the private properties that the city had

David PenalozaItem 14

to acquire over the course of the last 30 years, 35 years now. But I guess the question would be for me, Director Sabah from me, would be is the amount that's listed here on page 18 of your capital improvement projects document of $671,470. Is that the total amount needed to complete this stretch of Bristol Street? Because I know how expensive it is to restructure our streets and our sidewalks and our gutters,

David PenalozaItem 14

and I know that that's a big stretch of street, and that seems very low.

David PenalozaItem 14

Are we trying to identify additional funding for that?

Sorry, I can't find that.

David PenalozaItem 14

Page 18 in the capital improvement, proposed improvement program.

Oh, I'm sorry, 18?

David PenalozaItem 14

Yeah.

Oh, sorry, I...

Well, Director Sama is looking for... I'm sorry, I'm not looking at the same document. I'm sorry, I don't have that document. Yeah, while he's looking for that, I would let you know that there is $7.5 million in the current budget for that particular stretch.

David PenalozaItem 14

Right. There's how much? 7.5 million. Already allocated? Yes. So why are in this, is this because, is this strictly general fund dollars or?

So the capital improvement program is starting with the next fiscal year, 22-23. So the number you're looking at is what's proposed in the capital improvement project for $671,000. If the project doesn't get completed during the current year, that available $7 million would then be carried over into the capital project for the next fiscal year.

David PenalozaItem 14

So the $7 million that's already budgeted and allocated for this was from the previous year, and now we're expecting a carryover?

It's included in funding in the current year. And let's see here. I can tell you that it was a carryover from the prior year this this is normal for a lot of our CIP projects is that we get funding because we enter into a construction contract or we want to go out to bid we have funding for the complete project we know that we're not going to spend the complete project in the current fiscal year but you can't really enter into a contract unless you know that you have the funding earmarked for it and dedicated for it and so it you know it takes

time there are lots of many many many projects in the cip and sometimes it takes a few years to get them done but yeah there's there's actually more than eight million because that 7.5 million was

David PenalozaItem 14

just one line item of measure of money okay so i think it's knowing how long these projects take again it's been 30 plus years that this project was started I know was a huge undertaking of the entire Bristol Street from Warner to up memory lane I mean it's been numerous properties involved but you know I four years ago when I first came on the City Council I kept residents would ask me when are we seeing that stretch of Bristol repaved and I would hey it's coming this is temporary I'm sorry but we got to deal with the with the with the bad streets

David PenalozaItem 14

and the bumps and the and and now it's you know to me temporary and I've said this before it temporary is a couple days a week two weeks at the most and when we're looking at you know ten plus years and then a potential still another two three years for this I think we should look into this stretch I mean it's people heavily heavily driven on we should at least temporarily slurry or fill in whatever needs to happen but it's it's bad I mean just driving it daily I know it's and ties into what councilmember Pham was saying how we

David PenalozaItem 14

need a robust spending and spending plan for all our streets because it's every edge of the city I currently today in the morning I noticed my my car there's some something rattling underneath and i could probably say it was from driving on our streets of how bumpy they are uh i don't know for a fact but it just it's the only place i drive so that's it with with that um area that we put focus into these projects that we know have been on there for decades and any way that we can try to expedite that i'd appreciate it

David PenalozaItem 14

And aside from everything else, the only last thing I would ask is that one of those positions that are funded in the clerk's department should be the public records analyst, that strictly public records professional. I know we budgeted that position last year.

Mid-year, you made an addition to her budget for a records manager to handle all of the public records requests.

David PenalozaItem 14

And do we have an idea of when that position will be filled?

I believe she's kicked off the recruitment, but you would need to ask her.

David PenalozaItem 14

Okay. Well, when she comes back, that's it for now, Mayor, but maybe we could get that, because I know it's been a while, and that's important to get filled in. Thank you.

Great. Thank you for those comments. So I think we've gone around once already with everybody with, you know, and this is not an action item. This is just simply to give some additional direction. And I think there was a meeting on Tuesday specifically dedicated to this. So, you know, to the extent that we may need, in my opinion, maybe one more workshop, I think there's something that's already set aside or a hold on our calendars for the 31st of this month.

We do. We have a hold on your calendar, should you like another budget workshop. I do really like Councilmember Lopez's suggestion to do one-on-ones with you because we can certainly go through a lot more quicker. I think it's a great idea.

I would encourage everybody to do that. So, you know, in the event that we can't get there with those one-on-ones, then maybe it stays on the calendar. I think somebody, I think Director Downs had told me earlier that there were two holds, maybe on the 31st and on the 3rd of June. But to the extent we can maybe knock this out without that, let's let's be optimistic but if we can't you know we always have those two dates because I guess the first reading on the budget will be on the 7th at

least yes so we actually we removed the June 3rd date just because it just it's so hard to work to have it so just the workshop that we just had it was actually on Thursday and so we had Friday was City Hall closure that's why staff was working Friday and Saturday to get this stuff incorporated for you tonight. So doing a June 3rd workshop, if there's substantial changes, it would be really hard for staff to get done by the 7th. So we do have the hold on your calendars for the 31st if you want to have that workshop and then strongly encourage one-on-ones. That makes a lot of sense. So let's

be optimistic and see if everybody can, you know, get with you and your staff and have one-on-ones, you know, let's try to all make that work in our calendars. And if it doesn't, we have the 31st set aside. I simply just want to, you know, I'm going to live with this for a little while because I wasn't here on Thursday, so I didn't get the benefit of the first glimpse at this. So first, I think it's, you know, I guess I want to step back from this and kind of think about what we're doing, which is, you know, I heard some callers or a caller specifically talk about whether or not

we have a surplus and why we should talk about a surplus? Well, because we have one. So, you know, and I think that, you know, we are doing our best in taking the public's input on how we dedicate their monies. We aren't like other cities or other agencies where we propose a budget and then we have the public respond to what we propose. We actually go out first and listen to members of the city, residents of the city and they comment and applying to us and then we go ahead and try to prepare a budget around those comments that they propose and then we bring it back and we deliberate on this and which I think is the way it should

be done it wasn't always done that way before we would just actually propose a budget and then let the let the public react and that was always I thought backwards but I think you know just in contrast to what other cities neighboring cities to ours are dealing with around this time. You know, some of them are looking at, you know, potential Chapter 9 bankruptcies. And, you know, and we have some others that are in disarray, you know, unfortunate things happening to them. We should be very blessed to know that we are dealing with something that is a positive, that we're thinking about doing physical infrastructure

improvements, which we already do a lot. Because I think every time I look at an agenda that comes before us. I think especially in these past two years, public works has been dominating it by two-thirds, three-fourths of the content of those agenda items, which means that we have a very aggressive street improvement, physical infrastructure improvement effort, and nobody can say that we are not trying to improve what's really an aging city. And so I think we're doing our best to make sure that we improve the city. It doesn't happen overnight. So, you know, I know

we're all impatient, but, you know, this is government and this is unfortunately the way things work. We're dealing with prevailing wages. We're dealing with other requirements that mandate us to take our time and have contingency, you know, funds that are sometimes 40% of what we're, you know, dedicating. So it is very, very difficult. So I get that we want to have things overnight, but we are dealing with a city that's over 150 years old. So if we look at any part of the city, we know we can improve something. One thing I would suggest is that if we come up with

a better slide or maybe when you meet with us, I think Director Downs, you were referencing this when we were talking about, well, how much is dedicated to parks, right? So you have different pots of money that go to parks, whether it's Measure X, whether it's a general fund, whether it's cannabis, we aggregate that. And I think we should do that with streets and roads as well. I think that we can talk about, okay, what do these things look like cumulatively? And public safety and those things. And I think within public safety, I think there are even youth programs within public

safety, whether it's the PAL program, whether it's any other programs that establish trust between officers and the public. I think those are good things. I personally believe that being preemptive and preventive when it comes to law enforcement and public safety, it isn't all about enforcement or incarceration. It's about being very thoughtful and deliberate with funding for public safety and seeing how we can reduce crime on the front end, as opposed to the back end, because it's always much more costly in money and just lives when it

comes to having to enforce on the back end. So I would just say, let's look at aggregating some of those amounts so it's an easier look for us, as opposed to having to go to three different pie charts and bar charts and saying, okay, let's do the math. And this isn't really what it looks like, but I think it might be helpful to us on a broader scale.

So what I would just say to staff, I think I'm looking for balance, right? I mean, I don't think that we're a city that can just do potholes. I don't think we're a city that can just do asphalt and emulsification of streets, and we did that. We went out to bond a few, it's probably 10 years ago, we did 300 miles of streets, and if we have to do that, let's do that again. We don't carry much debt. You know, rates aren't as low as they were. I wish we would have done it before when rates were low. We should have taken advantage of that opportunity. But look, it's starting to go away.

But I think we are not a city that can just simply invest in all of infrastructure and all our funds in infrastructure. I think we can do both. I think we can make sure that we invest in a healthy way. But I think we can also, you know, address human infrastructure, which we have severe problems with. We have, you know, families that don't have access to just basic needs. And if that's not a civic core function, I don't know what is. So, you know, the health and safety of a community is something that we should prioritize here.

And whether it is safe spaces, libraries, open spaces and parks, I don't know, you know, what our role is up here. Because we can, you know, have great looking streets, but if we have unhealthy people and kids that are sad running around, then look, what good are we doing up here? So that's not, you know, that's not what I signed up for. I signed up for making sure that our city is going to be healthy and our residents are going to be cared for. So I would say, you know, we can strike a balance on those things. That's what I hope staff will continue doing. I think there is a good effort to try to do that here.

I do want to compliment you on funding the Police Oversight Commission on the front end, because I know we haven't adopted that, but I do see an entry for that. I like the fact that you're using some one-time funds from the Revive pot of money for increasing, hopefully, our CityNet pilot project to make sure that we staff that up so police aren't responding to folks going through mental health crises and other trauma. You know, the fact that we have that you're looking at doing some adult reentry programs

and funding, you know, trans youth and LGBT youth with mental health services. I think that's something that we haven't done, and we have certainly a large population of youth in that category. And I think it's a great comment to talk about, you know, let's look at a pie chart. What are we going to use to, you know, fund something else? You know, I love pets. I, you know, I have a pet. He's unfortunately not the most therapeutic pet. He's my anti-therapy dog. So he makes me nervous. I have to calm him down. But look, if I have to choose between keeping him calm and keeping a

child calm, I'm going to always, you know, err on the side of keeping our kids safe. So I love pets. I think they're, you know, they serve a function, except mine. But, you know, but I think that we We just have to, you know, balance things. So I am going to be looking at these things critically because I think it is. It's a zero-sum game here. We don't have an infinite amount of resources, so we want to make sure that we say, yeah, we'd love to do everything, but sometimes we can't. On that note, I do want to tell staff that I think some of our surplus monies should be put away. And we should look at what the graph looks like here.

If you look at the slide showing, you know, 28-29, when we go from a one and a half cent, you know, sales tax to a one cent sales tax, we should be preparing for that. I know we're, you know, we're refinancing our pension debt. I know that may, you know, is going to kick in. I know we're going to have some debt retirement on our jail soon. That's going to kick in, but there's still going to be a problem in 28-29. And we should be getting ready for that and we should be setting aside some monies. If we don't do that whatever council is going to be dealing with this problem is going to be in a world of pain.

And I feel that if we have a surplus that would be a responsible thing for us to do to set aside some of those funds going forward, especially since we can see it. This isn't something that we're not on notice for or notice on and it's glaring us and looking at us, you know, right right in front of us. So those are my comments. The last thing I would say is I heard this in the last budget cycle when youth came before us and they said, can you provide us with skates? Skates, not a skate park, not a skate rink, but just skates to rent. Can we do that? Can we incorporate

that into this? Is that a real high price or high cost line item? Let's do that for our youth because if they're asking for skates, boy, I feel real, real bad that this is a second time after a year that we haven't done that. We provided them with a really nice skate, ice skate rink for about 30 days, and it was very expensive. It was very nice. But look, let's get them some skates. If they're asking for skates and that's it, let's do that. All right.

I do believe we have between parks and library, that was part of the programming that is included in the budget was to do roller skate rinks. So we certainly can add on if there's, we could probably find a sponsor that would provide skates at no cost to the city that we can provide to youth.

Excellent. Thank you. With that, I think there's one more comment that Council Member Fan has.

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

Yes, thank you. And Hernandez. So a couple comments. Thank you, Mayor, for bringing up the police oversight allocation. When I was looking through the budget, it's listed as, and I believe this is page 3 or page 7 of 836, but we have the placeholder for labor and police oversight. It's the recurring cost is listed as $5 million. For the labor and police oversight, what do you mean by the labor? You have a

number of bargaining groups that are going to more than likely be reaching agreements during the next year so we have a placeholder for those in addition to any anticipated cost related to the oversight. Got it that's really

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

helpful because anyone looking at that I don't want them to think that it's the assumption that the police oversight Commission itself is going to cost five million dollars. I think that's important to note. The other thing I wanted to clarify is that there's a line item for 1.5 million dollars for the 22-23 budget that says quote additional downtown business assistance is that supposed to be addition in addition to the 1.5 we've already approved yes the majority

directed us to find another 1.5 in addition to the 1.5 that we provided so we've programmed that in the budget based on your request for that so with your initial 1.5, this additional 1.5 would reach the 3 million that you had initially asked for. And then most recently, the county is doing 1.2.

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

Thank you. So I would like to state on the record that I am not comfortable with an additional 1.5. I personally don't recall, and I could just be totally wrong, that the entire council or the majority stated that we wanted an additional 1.5.

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

So I just wanted to state that and take a look because while I totally understand the difficulties for the vendors in downtown, I do also understand that there have been, you know, publicly stated comments regarding the loss in business that is not, I believe, necessarily in line with the tax remittance that is being reported. And so I wanted to make sure that as we are allocating $1.5 million, which can, in fact, cover the recurring costs of street paving for the entire city annually, essentially,

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

that we actually make sure that this is, you know, consistent and that we're not just giving out $1.5 million to folks in downtown who otherwise weren't hurt as much as they stay. So I want to make that clear. The other issue I have is that there's $250,000 for crossing guard program additional sites. Is this in addition to the $6 million agreement that we approved?

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

Well, it's $6 million over five years.

We did only one-year agreement.

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

So $2 million. Or almost $2 million. dollars because I haven't seen it come back so I just want to make sure one that I don't agree there's an additional two hundred fifty thousand dollars for additional sites we haven't seen any movement and in fact I've heard that the Santa Ana Unified School District specifically state that they have no interest in working with us and that it is solely the city's jurisdiction which is unfortunate because I know that in other cities school districts are working with cities and I also would like to see that we are actually going

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

through the list of crossing guard sites that have had street improvements and to remove those that do not require it the other item I wanted to mention is there is 1.5 million dollars for armed security for parks I am NOT opposed to this item but I do want to make sure that if we are getting armed security that we have them at the highest standards possible and that they meet similar standards to what we require for police officers.

We did. So you approved an item tonight to extend our current armed guard contract because we have an RFP that Public Works is in the process of evaluating that would include the city to have the option for armed guards. And we consulted with the police department to determine what were the highest level of training and certifications that you could seek for the instances that we want to use armed guards.

Thai Viet PhanItem 14

Great. And I'm sure we'll all do our individual briefings, but I did want to state those on the record. Thank you.

Thank you for those comments. Councilmember Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just want to start by saying I am 100 percent opposed to seeing armed guards, park rangers, in our parks. I don't know what message we're trying to send children and families when we have a parks and rec budget as small as that but even then to add armed park rangers to an already challenged community I don't think sends the right message we we have police officers which are armed I just don't see this being a good fiscal decision for our city to go and have armed park rangers. I don't think it sends the right message.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

I can promise you that if we go this direction, we will probably more than likely see a shooting in our community at the hands of a park ranger.

Sir, the armed guard contract isn't for placing armed guards in all of our parks. So we're responsible for security and parking structures around the train station, the entire Civic Center area.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

So what do we currently have in place right now?

So we have a contract with Allied where we staff security in several areas throughout the city, but they do not have any guns currently. And we've had an issue with some of our security, contracted security guards getting beat up.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

Getting beat up. Okay. And so having a firearm, how does that change the possibility of being beat up?

Well, I think an armed security guard in itself has more power to them for enforcing what the activities are that are occurring, say, in a parking structure, and they're less likely to have individuals beat them up.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

So it presents the illusion that if you are out of bounds, I can shoot you.

I'm not sure. I don't know if that's a question.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

That's what we're talking about, that we have guards that are getting beat up, so there's a need to have armed guards. I'm just concerned about that response. I think there's other ways that we can make these parks safer during the night maybe it's having increased park lighting it's it's maybe it's increasing you know funding for I take a look at a site that I visited recently with our Public Works Department which was very safe it was secured but they also had priors where people were breaking into these facilities they were you know jumping over fences and at times you know a lot

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

of people were intoxicated and staff communicated to me that they formalized relationships to the point where people were able to leave, but they treated them respectfully. Key word was respectfully and one of the staff members that I met with emphasized that. You know, it took several times before we got people to the point where they weren't coming into our facilities anymore. I would just hate to see a child or somebody who is experiencing homelessness be shot by a park ranger when we already are dealing with issues related to police violence.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

I want to uplift the comments of the young people that came to our meeting today. Madam City Manager, there were young students who echoed that they really loved the teen center that we have at our library. I think seeing additional funding for library I think seeing the expansion of teen centers I think looking outside of the box of just having a library having a mobile library but perhaps expanding the services of what the teen center space is providing which which I think would be a great addition to our city I

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

also think seeing a space perhaps in you know central Santa Ana maybe closer to to the side of Santa Ana where there isn't a library. I know Council Member Peñalosa mentioned an area where people are very distant. They're very far away from libraries. So maybe that's a potential location. I'm happy to see that we do have funds allocated, Madam City Manager, for a roller rink. Did I hear that correctly?

Yes, sir.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

Wonderful. Skate rental, fully supportive. Mental health care, big priority for me as well. I think something else is students and some of the youth that showed up here today mentioned smooth roads, street repair. That's a big priority for us and I think other ways for us to support Parks and Rec. Looking at the largest budget that we have here is the police department budget. It takes up 36% of this budget, $142 million.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

If this budget was reflective of safety, we wouldn't lose young people in the city like the young man that we lost in the ministry community. We wouldn't have lost two young people in downtown Santa Ana when there were officers' footsteps away from where those two shootings took place seven days from each other. I want to just remind my colleagues that we also have to create proactive responses in preventing crime. And I think one of the two of the most important departments that can help us do that is Parks and Recreation and Library.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

So as it pertains to Parks and Rec, different ways that we can activate our community, Madam City Managers, I think seeing more funding going into the youth sports programming. I mean, I look at a program like TKO, which on any given day has upwards of, you know, 20 to 40 kids working out at the same exact time. I envision if we had the funding for it, and I believe we do, seeing programs like that expand on other sides of the city where there are directly, you know, impacted youth in areas where there is a lot of violence. I think the expansion of the aquatics program is going to be essential.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

And I think a good way for us to maximize our aquatics program would be to have indoor pools because then seniors can use them and we can program them from mornings to early afternoons. Children can use them year-round, and I just think that's a fiscally good way of utilizing those pools. And I think if we increased funding for parks and rec, we could accomplish that.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

It's one of the things I haven't seen enough of is programs for seniors. I think that's a community that we do need to tailor more programming to. Parks and Rec is one of the only responses that we do have for seniors, so I'd like to see that strengthened. And I am also supportive of us through Parks and Rec expanding innovative programs that have significantly decreased crimes and police calls. Programs like the Summer Night Lights program. I think if we have that across communities with similar demographics, El Salvador Park, Del High Park, Santanita Park, we will see a decrease in violent crime.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

Specifically, we need to focus on those areas where shootings are occurring, gang violence. But first, we need to strengthen our infrastructure to be able to respond and prevent these crimes. Otherwise, we are only going to respond to them after they happen. So in addition to that, other ways that we need to strengthen our Parks and Recreation Department is by, I believe, increasing these budgets here, getting us back to a place where we have more community gardening programs. We have more staff that can handle a much larger capacity for community gardening.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

I know the graffiti arts program is something that we'll be rolling out over the next couple of months Seeing perhaps you know two different sites through the parks and recreation program And then in addition to that we can get innovative with reentry Crime prevention efforts by utilizing our community spaces community centers for instance El Salvador Park Jerome Center if we utilized small office space to have mental health services at a community center and and case management, we can see a significant decrease in crime, violence, and potential new gang members. Just by providing those services directly in-house

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

at these community centers, that is how we transform the conversation of public safety. We have to use these community spaces that have only existed to provide services to then provide, you know, wrap-around services and become hubs for community safety and relationship building. So that's my response to that. I think that there's an opportunity for us to take from police departments since those monies are already allocated for public safety. I would be very much open to meeting with them and looking at their budget and seeing how it's itemized. So that way maybe there are some gaps there where we can say,

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

hey, here's a better way to request them.

So, Council Member, you have the detailed budget, so you have the information. We will certainly make ourselves available for a one-on-one. I took meticulous notes on the budget workshop, so I know all of the items, and it really is for staff. It's trying to balance the request from seven different people, see where we believe there's consensus, and then program it. Of the things you mentioned, the majority of those are already programmed in this budget. And as Kat pointed out in her presentation, I think you said the parks budget actually went up, or is proposed to go up 28%. It just doesn't look that way in that pie chart.

Back to the mayor's comments, maybe we can do slides where we show aggregate amounts between funding. So your parks budget has gone up 28% for next year. Your police department over the last few years has actually gone down. But as policymakers, you would need to tell me you want to reduce 10 law enforcement officers so that I could have the money available to reprogram somewhere else. That would be direction I would need to receive from a majority of this council.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 14

Absolutely. Thank you, Madam City Manager.

Thank you for those comments. I think we have one more comment from Council Member Peñalosa.

David PenalozaItem 14

Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to voice my support for the skate rentals that you mentioned, Mayor, as well as maybe not just tied down to skates, but rollerblades, skateboard, maybe bicycles. I just would hate to see how much we can do, but I think there's a lot that, you know, just a couple months ago, you know, I was looking at skates. I was like, I'm going to take up skating again. It's been a while. And on Amazon, they were like 90 bucks. And so I changed my mind. So they are expensive, and that would be a nice thing to have available to our residents. Just a little clarification, Madam City Manager,

David PenalozaItem 14

on the one-on-one briefings that we can have. That would just be to answer questions, right, not necessarily to provide direction.

Well, it could be either. So I know that, I mean, you guys have a lot of feedback on the items and it does take an amount of time when we do the workshops. So if we had one-on-one, we could answer a lot of your questions, but we could also see where you're coming from with the budget. That would help us maybe be better prepared if we do the workshop again on May 31st, where we can say we already know that we believe most of you are interested in this, and this is how much money we can put towards it from another area. So it would be both, I guess, is the long answer.

David PenalozaItem 14

So, yeah, so at the next budget workshop on the 31st, I appreciate this presentation. I know I was the one that mentioned it, if you could make sure that it's presented before us of all the additions and changes that we proposed, but I would like the same on the 31st. That way we know what new information is now presented and has been brought up by all of us. I know I have some things that I also want to specify and see through. So, just the last question I have is in regards

David PenalozaItem 14

to the water infrastructure project that we, I know a couple, back in 2019, there was a water rate increase to invest back into the smart water meters. Do we know what the cost of that project is? The total cost?

Yeah, I believe you're referring to when the bill had the study conducted, which identified what our water infrastructure needs were going to be. Yeah. And then associated that with the rates. Do you have that information, Kat?

Or are you just specifically asking about the advanced meter?

David PenalozaItem 14

Because I know there was an adjustment because there was a lot of water infrastructure in our city. A lot of the homes, we have staff going around reading the water meters, and we were going to invest in new water meters that were smart, and you could get the reading from the comfort of your office, Nabil. you. But there was a cost associated to that full, I know it was a huge undertaking of that infrastructure improvement.

Right. In 2019, Councilmember, we conducted a rate study, and we included major projects in that rate study, and that's how we came up with justification of our needs for the water system. Part of the needs was to convert our meters, old meters, to AMI. which is automated wireless mirrors. So that project is $30 million, and we are, I want to say, three-quarters of the way into the implementation of those smart mirrors.

David PenalozaItem 14

So have we started replacing water mirrors?

Yes, we have. We have 1,000 new mirrors or remotely operated mirrors in the system that are being tested right now, just to make sure that the data collection from the mirrors are ending up in a computer somewhere that we are making sense out of that. And at the same time, we are upgrading our billing system to go along with that.

David PenalozaItem 14

Male Speaker- Okay. And just an idea, I was thinking of wanting to help residents knowing the cost of inflation, the cost of living, everything is through the roof. Maybe a way that we could help residents daily in their day-to-day lives and balancing their personal checkbook would be to look at ways that we could use a lot of this federal funding and surplus funding that we have to fund part of that $30 million water infrastructure project so that we could adjust, maybe bring down those water rates a little bit, reverse some of the increases that we've seen over the last couple of years?

David PenalozaItem 14

Is that something that has been kind of considered or looked into?

Dr. You know, to lower the water rates, that means that we have to reduce our investment in our infrastructure.

David PenalozaItem 14

That's-some of the surplus, not reduce them entirely, but just look at if there's a wiggle room where we could kind of try to subsidize some of it.

So, sir, if you're talking about the infrastructure program that he had the finance company come in and see where we needed to be with our rates in order to fund all the infrastructure needs and what the rate payer impact would be, not just AMI, because you threw me off when you said just AMI. There is a proposed 2% increase this July that was a part of that study and the adopted rates. It would be hard to address, to change it would then throw off the entire multi-year infrastructure improvement plan.

So that would be difficult because you would then be leaving the city short in the longer haul for accumulating the money to do the needed infrastructure repairs.

David PenalozaItem 14

Right. So I guess that's what I was saying is if we're looking, if we're expecting a 2% increase this summer, is that being looked into to say, you know what, we're going to freeze that 2 percent increase or not do it and then just fund whatever that 2 percent would have brought in with some of the surplus in federal monies that we're receiving. That way our residents see a savings on their end.

We do have a program where we are going to make up for residents that have fallen behind in their payments. That's something we can use the federal dollars for. To actually use general fund dollars or federal dollars to reduce an amount that we need our rate payers to pay, that gets a little more problematic because you would be using general tax dollars to the benefit of rate payers. If that makes sense.

David PenalozaItem 14

I see. Yeah, that doesn't make sense. Okay. So when that comes before us or when you have more information on that, is that something that we could probably sit down and go over?

Talk about that program?

David PenalozaItem 14

The program that...

Yeah, actually I can. So we had applied for, the state had a program and they had a formula. And they said, if you fit within this formula, report out what that is and we'll take a look at it. So we submitted $1.6 million of arrearages to the state for approval. They approved us, but by the time that we got the approval, those accounts were only in arrearage, I think, a little over $1 million, say like $1 million and $20,000. And so we're only going to be able to apply the $1 million

because the state doesn't let us use that $500,000 differential or $600,000 differential for other accounts. like we have newer rearages but it was very it was very narrowly defined and so we're using it the it's actually already been applied as credits to the water bills I think that got done in the last 10 days and notices are going out basically saying that you know we applied to the state for funding and the state has approved a credit for your bill you know that that those kinds of notices

are going out in addition to that when we're talking about the water enterprise we had a spendable fund balance of 47 million at the beginning of the current year and because the water group has our the water and engineering group has been been so aggressive about putting more projects on the books and getting them rolling for water improvements, we're down now to, at the end of this fiscal year, an estimated ending fund balance of $8.5 million.

So we went from $47 estimated down to $8.5 million. So the surplus that you might be thinking of, we're actually thinking in opposite terms. So we've funded a lot of water capital projects, and we're thinking that in order to wrap up the AMI project, that we're going to need to go issue bonds, issue debt to be able to pay for that. And correct me if I'm wrong, Nabeel, but was the total AMI project something like about $30 million? $30 million. Yeah, that's what I thought.

David PenalozaItem 14

Okay. Thank you for that, Catherine. That's going to be it for now. Thank you, Mayor. But whenever, I'll make sure to schedule something with you guys soon.

Great. Thank you, everybody. I think everybody's had a chance to give plenty of direction. And please, council members, use your personal time wisely and meet with both the city manager and Director Downs. So let's move along to item number 39, which is the public hearing on the, it's a TEFRA hearing for three loans to Westview House. and before the public hearing let me go ahead and call on the clerk of the council to go ahead and give some instructions to the public both here and

maybe online. Thank you Mayor and members of the council. Members of the public that are joining us by way of zoom or conference call and would like to make a comment for only public hearing item 39 please dial star 9 from your phone or select raise hand from zoom now. Thank you. Great thank you so let me go ahead

and open the public hearing and ask the city manager if there is a presentation.

We do have a presentation and my assistant city manager, Steven, is going to run you through the presentation.

Thank you, Mayor and Council members. Thank you for the opportunity to present this over two-year-old project for the city. As you know, Judson Brown and his fantastic staff does an RFP every couple of years. and we get some housing funds and this was part of a rfp two years ago and it was brought to the city council for an award of 3.9 million well we're past the point where all the pre-development is done and now we're ready to approve the loan documents as you you all may remember westview house is on a vacant lot it's proposed to be on a vacant lot on 17th street slash westminster

right across from the vacant Stater Brothers, if you know where that site is. It's 84 new affordable units with one manager unit, 58 three- and four-bedroom units for families, which is really exciting, and 26 one- and two-bedroom units for persons that were formerly experiencing homelessness.

this. Again, and here's the income breakdown of the 85 units, including one as the manager units. And we have some great renderings here. I know it's been two years, but you may have forgotten the aesthetics of the property. Staff is recommending approval of the $3.9 million. That was what was committed to two years ago, and that amount has not changed. That amount equals just over $2 million in home funds, $1.5 million in inclusionary funds, and $386,000 in rental rehab program funds for Westview House.

Staff is also recommending the subordination agreements for the city's three loan documents, and a future subordination agreement with the state of California for their financing. And of course, we have the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act resolution for the issuance of bonds. Tonight, this is a public hearing, but it's also a public hearing within a public hearing because there's a TEFRA hearing as part of this. So we'll have to do that as well. With that, we have Kyle Payne in the audience. Hi, Kyle. And we have Judson Brown if you have any questions.

Great. Thank you for that brief presentation. Madam Clerk do we have any members of the public that wish to address us on

this item we do have one virtually and we did not receive any public written communication zoom ID Nathaniel Greensides if you would please unmute

thank you hello Nathaniel Greensides Ward 5 resident just wanted to show up and offer my support of this project what's really cool about is it isn't that it's 84 new units in total, but it's 84 affordable units here in the city of Santa Ana. And then a portion of that will go to folks who were formerly homeless and that there will be some services provided so that those who were formerly homeless can get back on their feet. Cause just having housing alone doesn't necessarily equate to being able to remain house. There's a lot of additional aspects that need to be considered when transitioning out of homelessness.

So I'm really glad to see that this incorporates some of that. In addition, I'm really glad to see that there's open green space that's being incorporated into the project and

that's it thank you thank you okay mayor that was the last speaker great let me

go ahead and bring it back to the council I'll go ahead and close the public hearing and entertain any comments or questions or a motion to approve council

member Mendoza yes I support the item and I will make a motion to approve I I just have a question on the subordination of the agreement. Does that mean we have first place, second place subordination? We're at the bottom?

Yeah, we're down the line on some of these in fourth place.

But in your experience, a project like this, it does bring back the funds.

Yes sir, Judson, if you'd like to describe how the equity is on this project. Thank you, Councilmember Mendoza. The funds are repaid over a 55-year period and repaid back to the city in the form of residual receipts. 50% of those residual receipts continue with the developer. Residual receipts is all of the income after rent and operating expenses are paid through the project. So 50% stays with the developer, the remaining 50% go to

soft lenders like the city. Thank you. Those are all my questions. Thank you and