Read the June 21 meeting.

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See you next week.

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We'll be right back.

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I love you.

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See you next week.

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This is a test.

Yeah, let's go ahead and hear the music.

Okay, so this is a test. I just want to ensure you're able to hear.

We're able to hear.

And there isn't any attendees at the moment.

Okay, there's no attendees at the moment.

Oh, okay. If you could call in, that would be great.

Jessie Lopez

Mark, okay. Thank you.

Okay, so Mark is going to go.

Thank you.

Let me go check and see. Oh, he's still logging in.

Hi.

Don't worry about getting that.

Those participating in Zoom, if you would like to provide a public comment on closed session items, please dial star 9 to raise your hand virtually or select raise hand from Zoom.

David Penaloza

Madam Clerk, please start the meeting.

David Penaloza

This is nice.

Thank you.

Phil Bacerra

Recording in progress.

David Penaloza

Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to the Santa Ana City Council closed session meeting on June 21st, 2022. I hereby call the closed session meeting to order. This meeting is taking place with in-person attendance and by teleconference via Zoom. The public may access the meeting via the Santa Ana YouTube channel or the city's website. Please bear with us as the technology may disrupt the flow of the meeting. Madam Clerk, please conduct a roll call.

Councilmember Hernandez?

David Penaloza

Present.

Councilmember Lopez? Here. Councilmember Mendoza? Present. Councilmember Peñalosa?

David Penaloza

Present.

Councilmember Fan? Here. Mayor Platon Becerra? and Mayor Sarmiento.

David Penaloza

All right, thank you for that, Madam Clerk. Any member of the council would like to take this time to announce their absentations at this time?

No?

David Penaloza

Madam Clerk, do we have any speakers for closed session items?

I have one virtually, but did not raise their hand. Any member of the public who has joined us by way of Zoom, If you would like to provide a public comment on closed session items, please dial star 9 or select raise hand from Zoom.

Okay, and we did not get anyone who wanted to provide any public comment, and we didn't receive any written communication.

David Penaloza

Okay, thank you for that. We will be recessing the portion of this meeting to consider the items listed on the closed session agenda.

Recording stopped.

Thank you.

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I'll see you next time.

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See you next week.

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We'll be right back.

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I love you.

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See you next week.

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Take care.

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

Good afternoon, everybody. Let me go ahead and call this regular open session meeting of the Santa Ana City Council to order. Let me just begin with some opening housekeeping remarks. The meeting is taking place with in-person attendance and by teleconference via Zoom. The public can access the meeting via the San Antonio YouTube channel or the city's website. Please bear with us as the technology may disrupt the flow of the meeting. Let me begin by saying that I apologize for us coming out an hour later than we normally do. Unfortunately, we had a long closed session

set of items. So with those apologies, I'm going to go ahead and get the meeting started. I'm I'm going to turn it over to the clerk so she can call roll.

Thank you, Mayor. Members of the council, Councilmember Hernandez?

Present.

Councilmember Lopez? Here. Councilmember Mendoza? Present. Councilmember Peñalosa? Councilmember Fan? Here. Mayor Pro Tempecero? Here. And Mayor Sarmiento?

Here. Thank you. Let me go ahead and ask the clerk, before we begin with the Pledge of Allegiance, I'll go ahead and ask Councilmember Mendoza to lead us in that after your remarks, Madam Clerk.

Okay, thank you, Mayor. For those members of the public who would like to provide a comment within the city's jurisdiction, with the exception of public hearing items 67 and 68, 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 public hearing items 67 and 68, respectively. Please announce your name and word or neighborhood you reside in within the city of Santa Ana for the record. Thank you.

Great, thank you. I'm going to go ahead and now ask Councilmember Mendoza to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. If you'll all please remain standing after that as we hear words of inspiration from Gustavo Hernandez.

Please place your right hand over your heart, and for those served in the military, you may salute our flag. 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.

And if I can have Gustavo Hernandez please lead us in words of inspiration. Welcome.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councilmembers. Thank you, Councilmember Lopez, for reaching out to me. I was raised in Santana. I went to school here. I learned to read and write at a Santana school. I wrote my first poem in a Santana classroom, so this means a lot to me. I'm going to read a short poem. In this poem, there is a quest for clarity, and also some differing points of view as to what that clarity is and what it should be. But at the end of the poem, there's understanding.

And I hope that I've done my job as a poet. And I hope I'm bringing the message across that. That understanding should be that we should all be working toward personal peace, community peace, and some sort of happiness. The poem is called, No Matter What You Call It. After those days of blankness that come from hearing too much talk about fathers leaving this physical world like my father left this physical world, something returns. Don't get me wrong, there was no giving up.

I put myself together like most of us do, stacked myself up and together in dryness, bone, California limestone. My mother, who still believes improvised altars are lightning rods for a miracle, says that what I'm feeling, what has returned to me, is grace. And I want to agree with her. But who these days really remembers the definition of grace, or every one of its definitions, and then each one's reach and breath? Maybe I can call it sympathy. like the sympathy I felt for myself that time I planted a grapevine in the front yard and then ruined the soil with too much water.

Maybe I can name it sympathy, but there are days when I don't want to name a single thing or draw distinctions, days when I don't want that to be my job, name giver, analyst. Here is another confession. I am learning to walk again on this thing that feels like faith, Not a faith like my mother's, although we both count on our days paving a road to one specific place. A place where we are free to again notice the perfume left in our house. Where we're long healed and there is little room for grief. Thank you.

Thank you, Gustavo.

Please be seated. Let me go ahead and begin with the ceremonial presentation part of our meeting. And I'm going to ask, if I can ask, this is on the Suavecito Prom Sweepstakes Committee, so if I can ask everybody that's here for that item, come and join me up at the front.

David PenalozaItem 1

And Mayor, really quick, Madam Clerk, if you could just please note my attendance for the record. Thank you.

Thank you.

up here so this is a presentation that I've been waiting to do for some time and we've had to postpone it because prom took place quite a while ago right already but we didn't want to miss the opportunity to celebrate what's been done and we know that you know for the past couple of years we haven't had a chance to have prom in person and so you know our communities our schools got creative you remember some of the drive you know sort of the you know parade proms where people were driving by people's houses everybody found a way to try to celebrate the moment but you know nonetheless here in the community

I think we have some people who realize the importance of it so you know high school is related to academics the social life and you know learning graduating getting through that milestone in your life but prom is something special for many of us right it's a moment in time when we can be with our friends for maybe one last time celebrate each other you know and and be together and that was missing and sometimes not only does a pandemic prevent it but also finances you know prevent it not everybody in our community has a chance to rent a limo

rent you know tuxedos go to a fancy restaurant have a photographer and we know that those are difficult things and we have that expectation that everybody's going to be able to do that and that's just not the reality for all our families here in the city so we're so blessed to have people that realize um you know it means more to be a community member than just somebody who resides in the city to be a community member means to do those things that some people just wouldn't think of doing and to make those a reality for people that they know are special

in our city so i am extremely proud of these sponsors up here because they reflect the best of what our city has to offer they realize that it's important to not just be present you know for themselves but they're present for others and so I think as a community we need to celebrate these moments and make sure that we recognize giving because you know because we are so blessed to have that in our in our city so today I want to recognize the members of the Suave Cito prom sweepstakes committee for making dreams come true for 12

Santa Ana high school students and their dates yeah the sweepstakes took place during March and April with the proms being held in April and May that's how far and now we're almost in July so we want to make sure we get this in before the calendar year is over so in just two months the committee coordinated and launched the sweepstakes they found sponsors and sponsors and made sure deserving boys and girls experienced prom the way it's supposed to be experienced. The sweepstakes winners were chauffeured in Suavecito classic cars to their proms. They were treated to dinner at local Santa Ana restaurants and their prom tickets,

flower corsages, and boutonnieres were all purchased for them. Prom night serves as a symbol of four years of learning, friendship, and school spirit. They give young people the chance to develop their social skills. It's an opportunity for them to practice the social behaviors that will benefit them for the rest of their lives. Prom along with graduation marks the conclusion of high school and the beginning of adulthood for many students. It's an experience that students should never and will never forget. So, you know, as I was lifting, you know, listing those things like boutonnieres, corsages, you know, tuxedos,

nice clothes, going out to dinner, those things add up. And so, you know, those are costs that are heavy. And I, you know, want to thank whoever came up with that concept, and one of you will come and enlighten us and think about and tell us the story of how this was, you know, how this was derived. But more than anything, you know, I know that Suavecito in particular is a homegrown company that has the, you know, has the, has blessed enough that they could go work and house themselves and have their headquarters in any other city, any other state, but they decide

to stay here because this is where that business was born so I think that you know they took the lead on this they realized that it was important for them to give something unique as well which is of themselves I understand that some of these principles some of these sponsors even were the chauffeurs so you got a chance not only ride in one of the vehicles but have one of the principles be your chauffeur and tell them where you wanted to go and where you didn't want to go so so I you know I am just very very happy that they are here and that we're able to take this moment to recognize it because it took so long.

And again, my apologies, everybody, sponsors, all of you who, you know, took the time to do this, that it took so long. But look, I hope that this becomes maybe a tradition and maybe it's something that we can do next year because we know that there's so many deserving families that should have this experience. So with that, let's give these sponsors and Suavecito a big round of applause for these sweepstakes.

Now, if somebody here can go ahead and give me the back story and go ahead and tell the public what the community, what the back story is to the sweepstakes, I'll go ahead and give you the floor.

Hello, everyone. My name is America Bernabe. I'm an incoming senior at Godine's Panama High School, and I'm the current youth and government president. Today, I have the pleasure to talk to you about the Suavecito Prom Sweepstakes. This program was created to help ease the cost of senior activities and give students a once-in-a-lifetime prom experience The pilot program included Santa Ana Century Saddleback and Godine's High School three winners from each school were selected Participation was free to enter each week participants were given the opportunity to enter a raffle by earning raffle tickets by doing a series of tasks

For example, interview your lunch lady, take a picture with her, write about her and email it to us. Winners received a Suavecito classic card complete with chofer, prom tickets, dinner, and flowers. I would like to take the time to thank our incredible sponsors, Chapter One, Sarinana's Restaurant, Vasquez Law Group, Roman's Party Rental, whoop whoop, City Councilwoman Jessie Lopez, and finally Mayor Sarmiento. A huge thank you to Suavecito Pomade. we couldn't have done this without them. I would also like to thank Jonathan Hernandez and Councilwoman Mendoza who has committed to supporting the second annual prom sweepstakes.

Remember, it takes a village to raise a child. Again, my name is America Bernabe. Thank you for

your time. All right, so America did a great job in summarizing, you know, all the great things and all the people that, you know, had something to do with this. This obviously, you know, was something that there was probably a lot more work than what you described, I have a feeling. But look, it gives you a glimpse into what was done. But you know, what's important is that we've already got people lined up to help for next year. And hopefully this becomes a tradition that was started this year under difficult circumstances. But I'm so pleased to hand these certificates of recognition out.

Let me start with one of the principals over at Suavecito Pomade, Tony Adame. Congratulations, Tony.

One of the other sponsors here, former council member, Roman Reyna.

And Jonathan Vallinas.

Patty Sanchez. Here you go. You get two.

and I know somebody who works hard for all these efforts Sui Vasquez where are you

Angela Munoz

Andres Ramirez

Maggie Palomino. Okay.

Joshua Bravo.

All right, well, let's do one final round of applause for the Suavecito Prom Sweepstakes.

And let's all pose for a picture.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Let me go ahead and now turn it over to Mayor Pro Tem Becerra, who's going to be declaring July 2022 Parks Make a Life Better Month.

Phil BacerraItem 2

If I could have Tim Pagano, Bill Sandoval, and Rudy Hernandez, oh, and Anthony Novella, join me up here.

Thank you.

Okay.

Phil BacerraItem 2

So tonight, as I mentioned, I'm joined by Tim Pagano, Bill Sandoval, Rudy Hernandez, and Anthony Novella to recognize July of 2022 as Parks Make Life Better month. Santa Ana's parks and recreational facilities promote physical, emotional, mental health, and wellness through organized and self-directed fitness, play, and activity. They also create memorable experiences through engaging, accessible, and inclusive programs, dynamic events, and new opportunities designed to get people involved in their communities.

Phil BacerraItem 2

Today, the City of Santa Ana has 54 parks, 9 joint youth school sites, and approximately 13 miles of off-street trails for recreational use. We also have 32 playgrounds, 32 picnic areas, and 4 community gardens. We also have 6 soccer fields, 36 basketball courts, 35 baseball and softball diamonds, and 30 tennis courts.

Phil BacerraItem 2

And I'm not done. we also have two lakes, two skate parks, and two senior centers. And of course we can always use more, but as we've experienced during the pandemic, the parks and recreational facilities that we do have are very valuable resources for our community. Last month, our City Council unanimously approved the Santa Ana Parks Master Plan, which will guide our city's investments in parks, facilities, trail and trails excuse me an open space that reflect and celebrate community character heritage culture and history over the next 10 years that parks master

Phil BacerraItem 2

plan was championed by our former parks and rec executive director Lisa Rudloff the California Park and Recreational Society has a statewide public awareness campaign saying parks make life better and to that effort is to inform residents across our state of the many benefits of utilizing parks facilities programs and services seems like an easy one right so tonight it is my honor on behalf of the santa anna city council to declare the month of july 2022 as parks make life better month um gentlemen would you guys like to say a

few words thank you mayor pro tem uh becerra uh on behalf of the parks recreation community Services Agency. I would like to thank the council for declaring Parks Make Life Better month in the month of July. We're very proud in Parks, Recreation, and Community Services and honored to make life a little bit better for all the residents in the Santa Ana community and that's what we intend to continue to do. Thank you.

Awesome. Thanks, John.

Congratulations, everybody. Let me go ahead and now turn it over to Councilmember Hernandez.

Step out. There he is, right on cue. Councilmember Hernandez, I think you have the next presentation. That's going to be to United Fathers of America. So anybody here from United Fathers of America, come on and step forward.

and i'll turn the floor floor over to councilmember hernandez

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

all right well thank you everybody for uh being here today at our city council meeting I wanted to take this opportunity to recognize in light of most recently Father's Day, to recognize an outstanding community organization that is doing phenomenal work for residents in our community. And this organization that I'm presenting, this certificate of recognition, will be presented to United Fathers of America, to Dr. Marvin L. Chapman, president and co-founder of United Fathers of America. This organization is local to the city of Santa Ana.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

And joining us today is Dr. Marvin L. Chapman, president and co-founder of United Fathers of America. Joining him today are his wife, Marlena Chapman, thank you for being here today, and his executive assistant, Elizabeth Roman, thank you for being here as well. United Fathers of America is a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for children and whose rights are often ignored during and after the breakdown of a parent's relationship. They encourage and they assist fathers in remaining involved in the lives of their children

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

during and after the breakdown of parents' relationships by providing education, information, and empowerment to responsible fathers. United Fathers' focus is on minority, low-income fathers. They empower fathers with co-parenting skills, building education, and tools that they need to become cooperatively involved parents. United Fathers of America educates fathers about the needs that their children have to experience from fathers and about being proactively and positively involved in the reorganization and the restructuring of their family units.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

In 2001 and 2002, United Fathers of America was awarded the Community Service Awards from Disneyland Resort. In 2004, the final year of Disneyland's Community Service Awards program, they were awarded the prestigious Jack B. Lindquist Award, recognizing United Fathers of America as the number one nonprofit organization in Orange County. Thank you, Dr. Marvin Chapman, for help making a positive difference in the lives of fathers and, more importantly, children.

Thank you.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

So on behalf of the Santa Ana City Council, it is our honor to recognize your outstanding contributions to the community. Thank you, sir.

If you can please say some words. You have said it all. There's much more I can add except I would like to say that I am a co-founder. The partner that I started this with, Rod Bivings, passed away 18 years ago. but this award goes to the thousands and thousands of fathers over 41 years that we've been able to help remain proactively involved in their children's lives. Otherwise, they would not have that opportunity. Due to their social economics, due to their lack of information, due to lack of resources to attorneys, it has been a pleasure and an honor to serve Santa Ana.

Thank you. Can you please tell us?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

Now, Dr. Marvin Chapman, we're very honored and we thank you, but can you please tell us where you're located before you go?

Our address? Yes.

1561 East 4th Street, Suite 107, Santa Ana, 92701. Thank you, sir.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

Thank you. It's an honor.

Thank you.

Thank you for that presentation, Councilmember and Dr. Martin. Let me go ahead and now call on Councilmember Lopez, who's going to be recognizing Keep running Santa Ana for their contributions.

So all the runners, come on you guys got to be faster than that you guys are walking. You guys need to run up on stage.

Jessie LopezItem 4

I'll scoot this way.

Jessie LopezItem 4

Yeah.

Jessie LopezItem 4

Hi everyone. So I'm actually really excited to be recognizing the Keep Running Santa Ana Club. And as you can see by their shirts, they go by KRSA as well. And so today we're going to be recognizing the founder, Erin Garcia, but also the team members behind us who make up the running club and in their honor I wore my running shoes today so I've ran with the club embarrassingly only twice you know but you know in that short time that I spent with them I got to experience

Jessie LopezItem 4

firsthand a very humbly moment a humbly moment that I thought was for me anyway And so, you know, I guess let me start from the beginning because the idea of forming a running club came to Aaron when he was visiting several big cities like San Francisco, Seattle during his travels and he noticed that a lot of the runners were taking or using the downtown path to run. And so in late September of 2020 Aaron came across a music video by Pharrell Williams which highlighted

Jessie LopezItem 4

people of color, entrepreneurs, and learned about R. Rick Augustine, the founder of the Inglewood Running Club. And so he was really inspired by this, and he took the initiative to post a post on Instagram and to really just invite community members, his friends, to come run with him in downtown. And it's a three-mile run, and it goes up north through through War III but over time you know the initial run started with two of his friends and over time it has grown as you can see to a lot of the members

Jessie LopezItem 4

behind me but also a lot of the members that are not here today and I remember you know speaking with a couple of folks of like what made them join the running club and they felt you know they said that they felt safe running in a group environment and it was an activity that they wanted to do but they wouldn't do it by themselves and so I think it's really great that Aaron established this group that everybody has come together to really support one another and to keep each other safe which I think is really important and so KRS is an inclusive club that strives to keep the community active the club wants people

Jessie LopezItem 4

to know that runners do not always mean they have to be slim and slender and fast. In fact, I walked my first time and during the second time I got to also walk with some of the parents that we'll be sharing a story about. So KRSA created a Running With Purpose initiative and every month they sponsor SAUSD students and they sponsor a new pair of running shoes for our kids. And that really touched my heart when I first got to see it because when you're a kid you don't know what you don't know. And a lot of the kids in under-resourced communities, they'll

Jessie LopezItem 4

run with their vans or not, you know, like appropriate running shoes. And so it was really special when I got to see the kids being, giving, you know, Hoka shoes, which are really expensive shoes and it's not something that kids from the Willard neighborhood or that go to would get to normally ask their parents to purchase, right, $100 running shoes. And And here I got to see the club giving kids $100 running shoes. And so I thought that was really beautiful. And so on a monthly basis, KRSA selects a school and they will work with the designated

Jessie LopezItem 4

cross country coaches to help identify the most deserving students so that they can come out and invite them and not just the kids but their families to participate in the run. And so they've also been able to create great partnerships with a lot of the businesses in downtown Santa Ana like chapter one and the river brewing company and those businesses will also donate money to the club and so KRSA collaborates with Run Republic retail which is a running store and they also help provide top-of-the-line running shoes like coca's and during my last run with the club is when I really

Jessie LopezItem 4

got to see firsthand the goal of running with purpose and so again as I said you giving to kids from Willard or Lathrop may seem like a really small thing to do, but for the folks that come from those communities like myself, it's a big deal and I think it really touched my heart and it made me want to recognize the club, the members for fundraising their own money and giving back to their community in any which way that they can. And you know as I said, $100 shoes are not an everyday purchase for a lot of our working families and I I think that this was a really beautiful gift that all of you have done,

Jessie LopezItem 4

and I don't know that you actually understand the significance of it. But I just wanna thank Aaron and the entire club for fundraising and starting, not just the Running Club, but also the Running With Purpose initiative, and I will continue to support however I can, and I will come out and run again. So it really does bring me a lot of joy, and it was a really humble moment for me, as I said, but I want to invite Aaron to share a couple of words of, you know, just your journey with the running club and any other member that wants to speak.

Yeah, thank you for that, Jesse Lopez. Thank you, council, for having us. Thank you, Jesse, for coming out and joining our run twice, like you mentioned. And I invite everyone here to come and join us. We meet every Thursday on 4th and French. We run a three-mile route, but I don't want to discourage you from coming out. You can jog, you can walk. That's one of the messages that Keep Running Santa Ana is trying to push. We just want to get Santa Ana active, get the community active and out here. Lately, we've had some walkers. That's one of my big goals for 2022, to get a community of walkers to come out.

So if someone wants to be a liaison and say, Aaron, I want to lead the walkers to a one-mile walk, one-and-a-half-mile walk, the route, it took us about seven attempts before we landed on the route we're on, which goes north of Broadway and comes back. It's an out-and-back. It's a very safe route. Luckily, 20 months we have not had any incidents. We all look out for each other here. This is about one-fourth of the regular runners. We're a very large group. We can easily fill this room. Unfortunately, not everyone can make it. A lot of our regulars had other obligations today.

But I want to recognize everyone, and this is why I invited everyone here, because I'm not Keep Running Santa Ana. We all are Keep Running Santa Ana. And when Jesse reached out to me and said, hey, can you give me a couple names to make a certificate for. I mean, the list was so long. I know we're going to be up here again, and when we have another opportunity, I'll make individual certificates for everyone. But just everyone here contributes to the Run Club. The consistency of everyone coming out, posting about it, sharing about it, really helps move our community forward.

A few of Keep Running Santa Ana's goals are inspire community, celebrate diversity, and unite Santa Ana. That's what we're trying to do. We're a very diverse group. We don't have a Facebook page. We don't have a website yet, but we manage our Instagram. And if you just glance through our photos, you'll see how diverse we are, all shapes, sizes, ethnicities. And that's another message I'm trying to push, normalizing, running in Santa Ana. And let you guys know that there's no particular image on what a runner looks like. For a while, I had imposter syndrome where I'm like, I can't lead a running group. I didn't run track in school.

I didn't run in college. But I was not going to wait around for someone else to start this group. So I took the initiative to come forward. I posted on my personal Instagram, hey guys, I want to run three miles on Thursday at 7 p.m. Two friends joined me the following week four. And here we are now. We average about 30 people a Thursday night, which is amazing. That is our flagship night Thursday nights on Calle Cuatro Plaza. And then, like Jesse mentioned, we do have relationships with some of the businesses in Santa Ana. In the back of my shirt is some sponsorships that we have for a race that we did from LA to Palm Springs.

And I do want to continue growing those business relationships and the benefit of the Running With Purpose initiative. I have Chapter One and Santa Ana River Brewery who donate a pair of shoes, a full pair of shoes, and they work directly with Run Republic, the run store. They pay the run store directly to sponsor a pair of shoes. So I invite other downtown Santa Ana businesses, other Santa Ana businesses to sponsor, you know, So she was like Jesse mentioned, it was a real moving experience. I was fortunate enough to have two working parents and I was an only child.

So if I didn't need cleats for baseball or whatever sport I was playing at the time, I was able to get those. But I know a lot of my peers came from households with four or five siblings and they weren't always able to afford that top of the line gear. So I know when we all come together and we all kind of come together as a community, put our money together, we're able to sponsor more students. So we've sponsored Lathrop, Mendes, my old middle school, Santa Ana, Saddleback, Century, just to name a few. And when I connect with the cross-country coaches, one thing I ask from them is,

please select the most deserving student, not your favorite student. You're in the locker with them. You kind of know who has the older shoes. And I see it when they come out here for running with purpose, like Jesse mentioned. They're wearing Vans. They're wearing Converse. And that's not practical running gear. So it does fill our hearts to be able to bless them with the appropriate gear. And that's once a month. And the initiative is running with purpose. So I invite you guys all to follow our Instagram page. Keep running Santa Ana without the G. You know, turn on the notifications. Come out. Join us. Invite a friend.

Invite a family member. And our big goal for 2022 is to get some walkers going. Thank you, guys.

Jessie LopezItem 4

All right. All right. We're gonna be presenting a certificate to you, but also to the club. So this is for you, and then this is for Joe.

Jessie LopezItem 4

Okay, so then I'll give this to you. And then, I don't know whoever wants to

Jessie LopezItem 4

take the Keep Running Santa Ana Club.

Good night. Good night. Let's go. Good night. Good night.

Jessie LopezItem 4

And did you wanna say anything? Thank you. Yeah, you can take a group of... Are you sure you don't want to share a couple words? We're not in a rush or anything. We are in a rush.

I'll keep it very short. I just want to say thank you, Jesse Lopez, for recognizing the club. And honestly, it just takes one person, like Erin, to invite more folks in. Guti is one of my good friends who is a new dad here in the state of Santa. And I wanted to say that because it gives folks an outlet to actually be healthy, meet people support local businesses but yet most importantly is we all keep each other accountable and we've done many activities outside the downtown so please we join we ask you to come and join us on Thursdays and afternoons and run with us thank you

Good stuff everybody.

And Richard's never bashful, but just this time, right? Well thank you everybody. Let me go ahead and turn it over to Council Member Mendoza, who is going to be declaring June 2022 as LGBTQ Pride Month.

And thank you, Council Member Mendoza, for doing this. Do you have anybody who's going to be receiving the...

I do. Would Ms. Stephanie Camacho Van Dyke please come up?

Hello, hello, hi there. You can stand right here, right next to me.

Oh, right here.

Okay.

Will, would you hold that for me?

Sure.

Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for your patience and standing, sitting here while we were conducting some very important business. We're usually done by six, so thank you very much for staying, because this is very important to recognize the organizations and individuals who make up our beautiful city of Santa Ana. So June is the LGBTQ month, but I want to give you a few, a little bit of history. In 1999 and in 2000, President Bill Clinton declared June as a gay and lesbian month.

In 2009 through 2016, and each year he was in office, our President, Barack Obama, declared June as the LGBT Pride Month. Then in 2021, President Joe Biden declared June also as LGBTQ plus Pride Month. And now in June of 2022, Councilmember Mendoza declares the month of June as LGBTQ Pride Month, and especially here in the beautiful city of Santa Ana.

So we should just not honor and respect our LGBTQ community members in the month of June, but rather we should be respectful and inclusionary throughout the year as valuable members of our community. And that's why I asked Ms. Camacho Van Dyke to come here and accept this proclamation from beautiful city of Santa Ana who does exactly that. We respect and we include our LGBTQ community. Ms. Camacho is with the LGBTQ Center Orange County,

and it was established as a volunteer organization in 1971 and incorporated in 1975 as a 501 nonprofit community-based organization. At the LGBTQ Center OC, all members and allies of the gay, Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community of Orange County joined in a network to support and unify. Their life-affirming programs focus on empowerment, and their advocacy efforts focus on speaking out against hate and discrimination.

They exist so that every segment of the LGBTQ population of Orange County has the resources needed to thrive in their own lives in our communities. The LGBTQ Center Orange County provides services to more than 14,000 individuals.

Excuse me, I lost my place because there's so many things that they do for our communities, especially here in the city of Santa Ana. So they provide services to more than 14,000 individuals annually across the broad spectrum of culture, ethnicity, age, and economic background. More than 7,000 mental health counseling sessions were provided for the past 12 months, which is an all-time high. The center also provides, the center provided $13,000

in food assistance to folks experiencing food insecurities due to the COVID-19 and has served more than 15,000 LGBTQ and allied individuals across all programs for the past 12 months. During LGBTQ Pride Month, we would like to recognize the resilience and determination of organizations such as the LGBTQ Center who are fighting for the rights of all individuals to live freely and authentically. This Pride Month lets our firm our obligation to uphold the dignity of all

people and to dedicate ourselves to protecting the most vulnerable among us. Joining us to accept this proclamation on behalf of LGBTQ Center of OC is Stephanie Camacho Van Dyke, who is the Director of Advocacy and Education. and I would like to invite her to say a few words.

Thank you so much, Council Member Mendoza. This is a great privilege, and this is so great to hang up in our offices. I did have a couple words to share that I prepared. So in words of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected in public office in California, he states, hope will never be silent. Incorporated in 1971, the LGBTQ Center OC remains one of the long-standing LGBTQ-specific service organizations located in Orange County. We have been responsive to the changing and growing needs of the LGBTQ population, providing

culturally appropriate and affirming health and wellness services. Now more than ever, it is important that we be visible, united, and proud during this month of celebration. nearly 53 years since stonewall violence against trans people specifically black and trans black and latinx trans women in particular is at an all-time recorded high in 2021 the human rights campaign tracked a record number of violent fatal incidences against trans and gender non-conforming people with 50 fatalities tracked anti-lgbtq legislation continues to be introduced in past in states across the country, affecting some of our most vulnerable youth,

specifically trans youth in particular. This Pride Month, I want us to think about what community means. It's showing up for one another when it counts. It has never been more important to show up for the LGBTQ community, specifically our trans and non-binary community members, which continue to be disproportionately impacted by discrimination, violence, and inequality. I do want to extend my greatest thanks to Councilmember Mendoza, as well as the Santa Ana City Council for openly recognizing LGBTQ Pride Month, as well as our community's achievements and diversity. So thank you so much. It means a lot. Thank you. Thank you.

We're going to get some folks.

Let's put that in front.

Second. A little more.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you for that. And let's all remember this weekend is Pride Parade here in Santa Ana. Saturday, June 25th. And I believe it starts at 1130, if I'm not mistaken. and in the downtown area. So let me go ahead and call on Councilmember Peñalosa, Councilmember Fan, and myself. We are going to be doing a recognition to the Career Online High School graduates. So all of you Career Online High School graduates, I see you in your tassels and your gowns. Come on up here and join us, please.

Thai Viet PhanItem 6

Hi everyone. So what is Career Online High School? So the Career Online High School or COHS is an educational service offered by Smart Horizons career online education and provides Santa Ana residents 19 years of age and older the opportunity to earn an accredited high school diploma and a credentialed career certificate at the same time so the goal of the program is to bring non-traditional and or adult learners back into the education system and prepare them for jobs in growing sectors of the economy students

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graduate with the tools to take the next step in their career or career education. This program is made possible through support and funding from the California State Library and the Friends of the Santa Ana Public Library. So joining us today are three of the four recent graduates of COHS program and I will turn it over to Councilmember Penalosa. Thank You Councilmember Fan.

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Good evening everybody. Good evening graduates. Good evening cutie. So the First graduate, Jonathan Betancourt.

Did I say that correctly?

David PenalozaItem 6

So right, come on up. All right, so Jonathan grew up in Hudson, Massachusetts. At the age of 17, he moved out of his mother's house to live on his own and eventually dropped out of high school to work full time. Almost a decade later, in the midst of a pandemic with a wife and a child, right in front of me, he relocated from Providence, Rhode Island to Santa Ana. He and his wife both knew they needed to go back to school and researched ways to achieve that. They found an amazing opportunity through the local city's library and signed up for the Career Online High School Graduate Program. And in only a few months, Jonathan graduated.

David PenalozaItem 6

He is now looking at colleges to begin a career in criminal justice. Round of applause, everybody.

David PenalozaItem 6

And we also have one of the graduates is Stephanie Garcia, who unfortunately had to leave a little early, which is okay. She was born and raised in Santa Ana, a child of immigrant parents. Stephanie lost her father at the age of 13. She started to veer off course a bit, dropped out of school at the age of 17. For more than 20 years, getting a diploma was always on Stephanie's mind. She lived in fear she would be asked for a diploma one day. Stephanie learned about COHS programs by following the City of Santa Ana's Facebook page. She took a chance and applied for the program and was

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fortunate to be selected to participate in it and now graduating as well. So she was here and she had to leave but we also give her a round of applause.

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And now I will hand it over to Mayor Sarmiento.

Mayor Sarmiento.

Great, thank you. And so this is a great moment to celebrate, you know, some of our non-traditional ways of being able to, you know, still excel in higher education. So I am extremely proud of us recognizing this great program. So I have the honor. Cindy, come on up here with me. So I have the privilege to go ahead and introduce Cindy, talk a little bit about her background and how she got here. And I love the first sentence, which says, she was born and raised in Santa Ana. Let's give that a round of applause because I...

It's always a good thing. So she's been married for almost 18 years and is a mother to six amazing... Man, that deserves even a bigger round of applause. Six amazing children. So Cindy learned about the COHS program from an email she received from the city. And that's always good. That means we're messaging positive things. She applied for this program because she wanted to better herself as a person. She wanted to see that she could be an inspiration to them, show them that no matter what life may throw at you, you can always reach your goals in life. And I think that's really the message here is that sometimes we don't take

traditional paths to get to where we are. And sometimes it's not linear, right? It's not, you know, from elementary to junior high to high school to college. It is very, it sometimes takes turns that we can't control. And being a product of one of those very interesting journeys to get to where I am, I'm extremely proud to stand next to people who are resilient enough to say, no matter what I'm confronted with in my life, I'm going to continue learning. So Cindy and all of you, I just want to say thank you for inspiring so many others that are watching you to do the same and to come back and go to school come back and do things that

are great uh and know that your city is being is very very supportive of you so let me go ahead and turn this over to you um we have to yeah one more and i think i'll turn it over to council member fan to go ahead and wrap it up um so cindy cindy doesn't want to stand next to me i don't bite i promise um but this is on behalf of the entire city and city council of uh people here in the in the city they're so proud of what you're doing and this is awarded to you for your career online high school graduation thank you keep going higher thank you

and I'll turn it over to councilmember fan so Alejandro come on up please so we

David PenalozaItem 6

also have Alejandro Goudiel born in Bellflower but raised in Santa Ana which is what matters. Alejandro is the youngest of four siblings. Alejandro learned about COHS from the San Anil Library employee and longtime friend from when he attended Teen Space, a program at the library. His experience in the program was very positive, especially since he had the opportunity to work on his courses during his overnight shifts. This allowed him to progress towards his goal with very little interference. In addition, it also allowed him to progress ahead of the class schedule and finish the program a lot earlier than what was initially

David PenalozaItem 6

projected. Congratulations.

Thai Viet PhanItem 6

And so before I bring any of the graduates up to say a couple words before we wrap up I just wanted to also say thank you to a director Brian Sternberg for working on this program. I believe he brought it to us and it's just incredible because here in Santa Ana we there are many of us on different paths and we need to support all of us and I just wanted to thank you for doing that because it's a great opportunity for our residents thank you

good evening everyone initially I didn't plan on saying any words but figured I might as well one of the most amazing things that I found about the Senate and Public Library is their constant ability to inspire and nurture entire generations. Even to this day, people, kids who are 10 years younger than me, they are still nurturing and providing a very, very positive environment for them. Sometimes for kids who don't have anything or who have worse situations outside of it. And the Santa Ana Public Library via the teen space has nurtured many generations from

people 10 years older than me with Cheryl Eberle who she herself was part of teen space she inherited it and she's done everything that she could to promote the same environment and to nurture as many people as she possibly could so it's amazing to think that people who are more than 10 years older than me and some who are even 10 years younger than me right now are currently being nurtured at the Santa Ana Public Library and I can't think how my life could have gone had I not had the support and the environment and the help and the resources that the Santa Ana Public Library has provided for me

thank you very much for winging the speech that was beautiful first and foremost I want to thank the Santa Ana Public Library and Olga and Catherine for really getting me through this and choosing me to give me this amazing opportunity that I wouldn't have anywhere else. So thank you for that. I appreciate that. And lastly, I want to say thank you to my beautiful daughter who thought the show was about her and my lovely, lovely wife who got me through all of this and really pushed me to keep going. Thank you so much.

I wanted to thank the city of Santa Ana for sending me an email at 3 in the morning and I applied for the application right away. Thank you to the Santa Public Library for everything, Olga and everybody for helping me out and especially my family. Thank you.

So let's give the graduates that are here, we have one graduate that isn't here, but let's give their families a round of applause because I know that.

Thank you, families. And with that inspirational, all the inspirational stories that we heard, I think that was a plug for another library, by the way. Right? Brian, you listening? Just kidding. So let's go ahead and take a picture and we'll wrap it up here. Thank you all.

Thank you everyone. Let's go ahead and move along to staff presentations and we'll begin with the city manager's update on homelessness.

That's going to be a tough act to follow. That brought tears to my eyes. So good evening, Honorable Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and members of the council. This is our eighth reoccurring monthly update on homelessness and the homeless services that are provided by our city of Santa Ana. So I have a short PowerPoint that will be appearing briefly. Tonight I'm really going to talk about four items, give you a brief update on COLT, which is our quality of life team, talk a little bit about the SMART program, and then share some more details of the Orange County point and time count,

and then really focus on talking about our navigation center, which now is housing homeless individuals. So starting with the outreach numbers for our quality of life team, this past month, May, they made contact with 368 different individuals that are experiencing homelessness, providing outreach services as well as enforcement action when necessary. They conducted 426 cleanups of various sizes. They also performed 133 arrests or issued citations for various offenses and placed or assisted in the placement of 45 individuals into a shelter. So they did have a very busy month.

Moving on to SMART, which is our Santa Ana Multidisciplinary Homeless Response Team. As you can see from the chart, you can see some of the numbers and stats since we started this program along with the red dots which shows that they are operating throughout the entire city this is a team that thanks to your leadership you did increase the hours it is a team that operates seven days a week from 8 a.m to 9 p.m they respond to reports that individuals make on my santa anna app and then also the phone number you can call directly as well they take those calls

And then there is an automatic diversion from 911 to the smart teams based on the information that the caller is providing to the dispatchers. The chart displays the activities from December 2021 up through June 15th. And to date, the team has had 3,315 outreach contacts, responded to over 5,200 calls from dispatch. And as noted on the screen, over 523 individuals have been assisted in exiting the streets of Santa Ana. For the month of May, CityNet exited 72 individuals off the streets.

And of this number, 58 individuals went to various emergency shelters, and four went home to family, and four went to hospitals, and six had other types of exits. Now pivoting to the point in time count, we did talk briefly about this in the last homeless update that you had, but we have some more numbers that we want to share with you. So overall, the count shows that the number of people experiencing homelessness in the entire county fell by 17% from 2019. That number was 6,860, and as a result of this last point in time count, it's 5,718.

We do attribute that to the number of increase in shelter beds throughout the entire county, as well as an increase in wraparound services. And in fact, 1,500 emergency shelter beds and over 400 units of permanent supportive housing have opened since the 2019 homeless count. Several cities have launched or increased street outreach as well to help bring unhoused individuals indoors. And the 2022 point-in-time count showed the fastest growing unhoused population across the county is in the area of adults over the age of 50. There are some subpopulations also depicted on the screen.

One of the significant success stories has been in the areas of veterans. So you'll see that of that subpopulation, it's dropped all the way down to 280 individuals. They break down the information by unsheltered and sheltered. So the next slide shows you the unsheltered population count for the entire county. And then it is broken up by service planning area. Our city is located in the central planning area, which is the beige one in the middle. There is still more detailed information coming out city by city, and I certainly will bring that back to share with you.

But in the unsheltered number of individuals, there was a drop from 3,961 to the 3,057 depicted on for the 22 count. The sheltered totals for all Orange County also decreased, but it was a much smaller decrease than what your decrease was in your unsheltered. Diving into a little more specific to Santa Ana, we've put on the slide a bar chart that shows you of the last four times counts were performed. That includes three of the Orange County Point and Time counts and then the one that the City of Santa Ana did on their own. And as you can see in both the sheltered and unsheltered count, we have had significant declines.

Now to talk about the homeless shelter, our navigation center. It is, it opened its doors. We did a very slow rollout and we transitioned individuals over. we started with addressing some of the women that were on the street and initially transferred five women into it but as of June 6 it pretty much is open for business and individuals that we were housing at other locations have now been transitioned over to our homeless center. So as of today June well sorry as of June 16th not today we do have 80 individuals that are residing in it and the breakdown is we have males of 45 females 35 we have parents of

three children of seven and the important pets of eight so that is one thing that's really unique about the city shelter is that we can accommodate all of those populations in segregated areas the picture over to the right that was taken at a kickoff meeting just prior to the opening and depicted in there is a lot of our partners that work very hard on this issue for us. The next slide will show you a little sneak peek of the inside of it. You can see the dining hall, the family lounge area, and we hope that everyone that enters the beautiful Santa Ana Navigation Center will be motivated to start something new in their life

and trust the magic of new beginnings. We did not do a ribbon cutting. We were more focused on transitioning homeless into it, but I certainly would offer and extend each of you. Please contact We'll be more than happy to do a single tour of you if you'd like to walk through it. And a lot of us spent some time in the end of May. We had a volunteer day on Saturday, getting that ready to open up. And many of your employees were all there. And we were assembling beds and setting up chairs. And it was quite an experience. So that is the conclusion of the homeless presentation. And we're available to answer any questions.

And then you do have another update scheduled at your next council meeting as well great thank you for that update let me

go ahead and bring it back to the council to see if there are any questions or comments on this presentation any members of the council have any questions

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or comments on this team councilmember Lopez thank you and I want to start off by thanking staff for working around the clock to accomplish this new shelter and get it built and get it up and running for the on house community here in the city of Santa Ana I also want to make a suggestion you know I use sitting it a lot and when we call the number for sitting it it'll ring ring ring and then it'll tell you press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish and I want to know if they can just say that at the very beginning there's no need for people to wait on

Jessie LopezItem 7

the phone I think it'll make the call a lot shorter also another thing that staff and I are aware about in Ward 3 and we're keeping our eye on is that there's been an increase of people in the area that are not the regular folks that we're used to interacting and servicing and so we are trying to research and find out what the uptick is about we don't know if it's because something else closed in another city and so people are now migrating over to Santa Ana but as soon as we have more information staff I'm gonna ask staff to relay that information to Ward 3 residents so you're not necessarily

Jessie LopezItem 7

gonna get that from me anymore but staff will be sending out that information so hopefully my colleagues can support that and I don't know if if you need a motion for that, Christine, or something? Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Any other? Mayor Pro Tem.

Phil BacerraItem 7

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. In your slides, you talked about 523 street exits. What does that exactly mean?

I believe you're referring to the slide, Mayor Pro Tem, on the SMART team, and it's 523 individuals have been assisted in exiting the streets cumulatively from the time that we started the SMART program, And it can be a whole variety of things. It can be they were placed in emergency shelter. It could be that they were united with family members. It could be they were assisted to transition into a sober living home. Those are the most typical types of street exits. But the bottom line is they're not on the street unsheltered.

Phil BacerraItem 7

No, and I appreciate that. I just wanted to get an idea just to make sure what exactly that statistic meant. In regards to the SMART team, I've said it at other council meetings, And, you know, in between that last time and today, I'm still getting a lot of complaints. You know, people really want to try to use it. They understand the purpose of it to divert calls away from PD so that PD can go after criminals. And for folks that really just need assistance, the idea is that the smart team would do it. But I keep getting story after story about, you know, they've called. It's been long response times.

Phil BacerraItem 7

In fact, that was something that was missing from your report tonight was have the response times decreased or increased. I'm going to bet money they probably increased because, frankly, you know, when I talk about the MySanana app, oh my gosh, that's, you know, everybody loves it. Everybody says how responsive it is and how wonderful it works. I literally get the exact opposite when talking about the smart team. People are not happy about it. They don't see the response. And it's not that they expect, you know, instant results as far as, you know, the person they interact with is going to automatically accept services,

Phil BacerraItem 7

but it's the fact that people call and they just want to see the response, and there's just a whole litany of reasons. I mean, I know that when Council Member Lopez was talking about the delay and actually having somebody pick up, or even just that automated press one for English and two for Spanish, I've had personally on a couple of instances where it just rang and rang and rang and nobody picked up. and it's very frustrating. So something's got to be done here, you know. And Sandy is doing the same thing over and over, and this smart team, for whatever reason, I want to keep giving it a chance,

Phil BacerraItem 7

but it just is not working with my residents.

So Mayor Pro Tem, we did give the average response time when Ken Gaminski gave his presentation last time. I'm sorry, I can't recall what it was. There have been some hiccups, and we've been making adjustments along the way. I think one of the biggest education factors is if there is an emergency situation with a homeless, do call 911. I mean, the police will be even the first ones to tell you that. This is dispatching social service workers and outreach workers. So it is in an instant, you know, emergency response to them. So it's not as quick as that.

So it should be used for those instances when our residents see a homeless individual that looks like they're in need on the streets, but it's not intended to be at the same pace as an emergency response such as a law enforcement officer. So if it is, if someone's in immediate danger, whether it's the homeless individual or they're threatening another individual, this isn't the line to call, you should still call 911? No, and I understand that. I think a

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lot of people understand that. The problem is they'll call on somebody who is not violent, who does not pose a threat, which means they wouldn't call the police department so they call hoping that someone will come out and offer services but unless the homeless person is dead asleep or unable to move sometimes they pick up and they move and so when the calls are made you know maybe the homeless person walks away you know and they're walking so they don't get that far but when the smart team is dispatched they arrive at a site if they don't see the person they don't do a lap around just to see if maybe the person

Phil BacerraItem 7

went five minutes one direction or another, they immediately check the box and they move on to the next call. And so I think there's a lot of frustration because when people don't see the response, and you could say, well, that's not the intention, but realize the end user, they're not waiting for us to, I mean, they're trying to work with us, but at the same time, when they don't get that result, they're going to go right back to what they've been doing, which is calling PD, and they're anticipating some sort of resolution to the call.

Phil BacerraItem 7

And again, I think a lot of people want to give this program a chance because I think many of us that interact with the homeless recognize that many of them are not posing a threat and they don't warrant a police officer interacting with them. But something has to be done to, I think, improve the response time. Again, I understand it's not immediate, but there's a difference between an emergency reaction, like quick, get somebody out here, somebody's in danger, versus let's get somebody out of here because we want to get this person help. There was a person in my ward that I want to give thanks to our Colt team for this,

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where there were interactions of multiple occasions because the person, someone would call and then the person would pick up and leave just because that's what they did. And it took a while to finally get the services to this person. But again, I think if you had a more quicker response, that particular individual probably would have got assistance much sooner than not. So my hope is that as you guys are evolving the program, there's something we can do to improve the response times because it's not an emergency issue. It's just a matter of actually, you know, making the contact before they slip away.

Mayor Pro Temp, we certainly we can bring back with the next presentation those response times. I think you will see that they are not extremely long.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Mendoza.

Thank you. Great job to staff in getting those 80 beds opened up at the Navigation Center. My question is, do you have a timeline as to when more beds will become open, or when we can start using the facilities and eventually use up and fill it with homeless individuals so that we can put it to full use?

I believe by the end of June we will have the permanent certificate of occupancy, which will scale it up to capacity for 200. And then the second story of it, first we were going to place it on hold, but we have continued to make the improvements up there, which will add an additional 100. So it will be up for 300 individuals in the shelter, with the vast majority of that occurring by the end of this month. Oh, wonderful. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Seeing no other comments, I simply want to say thank you to staff, number one, for getting this. And I know it's been a while, but I do want to give a special shout-out to Ken Gaminski, who I know did a lot of work on his own and his team to try to accelerate the construction. I know we've had some bumps in the road, but it really, you know, at this point, we're able to do, you know, these many beds, but the idea is to get up to 300 eventually. so we'll be able to help a lot more people. Please, I don't see him here, but let him know that we certainly appreciate his work

because it's been a long time for the council to be expecting this to be done. So that being said, I think that's it for this presentation. I believe the OC Streetcar Project presentation by OCT, I guess they're not gonna be able to be present with us tonight.

They were unable to attend tonight, but they did forward an update, and each of you should have received that by email several days ago.

Got it. That brings us to the closed session report.

Phil BacerraItem 8

I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor. I'd like to actually comment on the OCTA presentation. So on our agenda tonight, it says that they were invited. And so did staff, did you invite OCTA staff to come?

Certainly our Public Works Department did make that request for them to come.

Phil BacerraItem 8

So outreach was made from the city to OCTA and their response was?

I don't think it was an immediate response, but they did eventually get back and it was a matter of staffing. So right now their CEO is in New York. They're in the middle of a financing obligation. He didn't have staff available. The other thing that they did communicate with is that they really only want to come and do an update when they have some really major updates to make announcements on. And they do believe that they will have that in July. So we are fully expecting their participation at your meeting in July.

Phil BacerraItem 8

Well, I've been to multiple meetings in the community where I've heard OCTA staff promise if they were invited, which I have to believe that that's why our agenda says invited. I mean, why would you put that on there for any other reason other than they were invited? They were invited, and they decided not to show up. I reached out to the CEO of OCTA today, and I'm going to read parts of that email that I received from OCTA's CEO. So it's good to know that he was responding to me from New York. This afternoon he said, I've been in regular contact with Mayor Sarmiento, both in his

Phil BacerraItem 8

capacity with the city and as an OCTA board member regarding the project. Because of this partnership, it was my understanding that your staff serving as our project partner would update the council. Now my first thought on that is, why would OCTA, the project lead, ask our staff to provide the update? THEY COULD MAKE IT. I MEAN, THEY ARE NOT A SMALL AGENCY, AND YET THEY COULDN'T FIND ONE OR TWO PEOPLE TO MAKE IT DOWN HERE. I'M A LITTLE DISAPPOINTED IN THAT.

Phil BacerraItem 8

AND THEN THEY GO ON TO SAY THAT THEY COMMUNICATED WITH YOU, MADAM CITY MANAGER, AND THEY SAY THAT THEY WOULD BE PLEASED TO OFFER AN UPDATE TO THE COUNCIL WITH SUPPORT FROM CITY STAFF. AGAIN, IMPLYING THAT CITY STAFF SHOULD HAVE TO BE THE ONES. They're not your staff. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. I don't know if Nabil's got folks out there joining the contractors swinging hammers and doing work, but I'm assuming it's OCTA's contractors. So I don't think it's fair to you, Madam City Manager, or to Director Saba to ask you to have to provide the updates on behalf of OCTA.

Phil BacerraItem 8

I can't imagine if we were doing that in other places for other agencies. I just can't imagine how we would be able to step in in that role. And then when I further pressed the OCTA CEO, he said, I'd be happy to discuss this request with OCTA Director Sarmiento. So, Mr. Mayor, I'm not intending to put you on the spot, but what I really would like you to, you know, from the council, because I believe, and my colleagues can correct me if I'm wrong, we asked for OCTA staff to come to this council to present monthly updates. Not every meeting, but monthly updates.

Phil BacerraItem 8

Because while they are having meetings with select individuals in the community, we know that many folks watch our meetings. They can access it on YouTube. They have the ability, especially if they're actually making progress on the project, to get the word out to as many people as possible. And I think there's a lot of people tonight that would probably have more questions because there's no update from OCTA staff. So, Mayor Sarmiento, because you're our only representative from the Council to OCTA, can we get your commitment that you'll ask the CEO and have them bring staff? Because one minute they're telling us it's an invite,

Phil BacerraItem 8

one minute they've got to contact you. So, since they're asking you, and again, I'm not trying to deliberately put you on the spot, but can you help us get them here?

So, let me go ahead and just respond. And are you done with your comments? So, I've asked them to come. I think all of us have asked them. and the invitation was extended when they first came. One thing I would remind us is that they hold meetings every other Monday, and I think I've seen many of those members of the public, the merchants that have been there. I think we all, as council members, can go independently and go let them know that we'd like to have them come back, you know, or make any comments to them that you'd like to make of them when they come present to us. I would invite you all there.

I see Supervisor Foley's Chief of Staff here, Mr. Annis. Her and I have been trying to compel them to not only come to this council meeting, but to meet with members of the community regularly. So, you know, that's something that we've done together. But I would invite all of you to those board meetings. They're Monday mornings, and, you know, it's not a bad idea to go represent your residents and people in your ward and the city there to make sure.

Phil BacerraItem 8

If I may, Mayor Sarmiento, the CEO is saying that he would discuss this request with you. I can show up, the other five of us can show up, but it sounds like he wants to hear it from you, and I'm hoping that you can compel him to come to our meetings because these folks here, they're already taking time out of their night to be here, and then to ask them who are already struggling with their business to take time out during the day to go to a board meeting. I mean, we're already asking a lot of them. I mean, what's a 30 minutes to come here, 15 minutes to give an update to the city of Santa Ana? Is it really that much?

So I think they should come. They've been invited by me to come. So you don't have to compel me to do anything that I've already done. But I think that you also, we also don't want a grandstand up here. here, we all know that what we've all told them as a group is for them to come here and do something.

Phil BacerraItem 8

Are you saying that I'm grandstanding?

Well, I think right now you're stating the obvious, which is we've all invited them to come here. I don't think there's anybody on this dais that doesn't want them to come give regular reports. I'm not sure if I'm mistaken about that. I'm not, to the exclusion of somebody who serves on that board who's asked them, there is nobody here that wouldn't want them to come. So, let that be clear, right? So, let's not state the obvious in any event.

Phil BacerraItem 8

Mr. Well, real quick, Mr. Mayor, if I may respond. The only reason I'm bringing this up and the only reason I'm directing comments towards you is because I've had email correspondence with OCTA CEO today. So, it's not obvious to everybody. I took time out to invite him myself, thinking for some reason there must have been some miscommunication between our staff and OCTA. And then I get this response that says, I would be happy to discuss this request with OCT Director Sarmiento. So hence why I'm asking, if you wouldn't mind, I guess, asking again.

Let's do this. Madam City Manager, please draft a letter in writing, and you can have our Public Works Director also sign off on that, letting them know that from my office, I want them to come give regular updates.

Thank you.

So it's going to be stating the obvious, putting something in writing, reducing it, memorializing the obvious to what we've already done. But in any event, look, Look, rather than go round and round in circles about this, it's pretty clear, and I hope there's a consensus, unless there's a council member up here that don't want them to come. And if that's the case, let them speak now. But look, to the extent that we all want them to come. But I would remind us as well, they are the lead agency, but they're not the only agency. So they do 90 percent of this work. I think we have 10 percent. Is that what it is?

10 percent interest in this project?

I'm sorry, I'm not sure if it's exact percentage, but certainly as a local agency, you know, we do coordinate closely with them on the street activity. Okay.

So let's do this. In the event that they don't show up, if the public works director wouldn't mind giving us an update on what the city's done and what's been done by OCTA as well, that's not going to remove their responsibility. But at the same time, we can go ahead and ask questions of our staff. And as I said, you know, when it comes to claims, when it comes to work progress, we can get updates from our staff as well. So why don't we do that? That way we plug those holes when they're not able to come or they decide not to.

So I do think that we have some responsibility as a city, as a public works agency as well, to make sure that the project is moving along well. And we have somebody to respond to on our behalf. Go ahead, Councilmember.

David PenalozaItem 8

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. And thank you, Mayor Pro Tem Becerra. The frustrating thing for me, Madam City Manager, is that, you know, last week I attended their community meeting that they had at the San Ana Regional Transportation Center, which was to update the community on the San Ana Boulevard stretch construction that's going to commence in the next couple of months, which is in Ward 6, which I represent. And I didn't know about it. I wasn't invited by OCTA staff. I was invited by a resident along with the mayor that this meeting was taking place. So I show up at this meeting, and the two staff members from OCTA

David PenalozaItem 8

that have come before us to give updates and presentations say that they'd be more than happy to come if they were invited. So I'm sitting there, and it's like, we are on our agenda to come next meeting. I think you've been invited. And so we went into this back and forth of them actually being invited to come present here. and now hearing from the CEO that they would only come to present at the city council meeting if there was a big update from the project, which according to them, there isn't. But just last week, 4th Street has been opened in one way.

David PenalozaItem 8

I think that's a pretty large update given the ordeal that we've been through the last six months. Second, they are now updating the local residents about a full Santa Ana Boulevard potential closure because of the construction of the railing that's going to go down there. I think that's a huge update, given that it's a stretch that connects her downtown with the Santa Ana train station. So, the fact that OCTA with a straight face can say, there's no large updates right now, so we're not going to come. I mean, that is a blatant lie. Obviously, not you guys, not the mayor up here.

David PenalozaItem 8

nobody or the mayor pro tem, but for most ETA staff. So I think it's very frustrating to go to these meetings and see large updates, but then tell us, hey, we don't have large updates to give you. So we're not coming to your city council meeting. I think that is where I'm very frustrated with. I mean, at this point, I don't know where to address it. So I'm happy that we're moving that direction now of formalizing a request to come update us. But I think that's critical because of that stretch of Santa Ana Boulevard that's going to impede on a lot of residents and private homes, not businesses at this time,

David PenalozaItem 8

but private homes and hundreds of people that need to come in and out of work every day and have probably no idea that this is coming. So just my opinion, two cents, and I will leave it at that. So I would hope that if we can, add all our signatures to that letter so that there's this clarity on wanting them to come here to give a presentation. So that's it, Mayor Sarmiento. Thank you. Thank you.

Council Member Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 8

Yeah, I just wanted to say thank you, Madam City Manager, for putting this on the agenda. And I can attest when the streetcar construction first happened, Mayor Sarmiento and I, at the drop of a hat, we would happily meet with not only street merchants, but our city manager. and and Okta on a number of occasions so we have consistently advocated the mayor and myself for octa to provide a level of transparency that residents and businesses deserve I think I echo similar sentiments I would like my name added to that letter madam city manager I know our city manager did her due

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 8

diligence in requesting for them to be present today the city of Santa Ana had nothing to do with why they decided to not show up but I can assure you that our city manager actively worked on making sure that we extend that invitation. So with that being said, I want to be proactive in talking about updates and talking about moving forward and getting out of this challenge of the streetcar. So I'm going to read an update for the Orange County streetcar. Okta is looking to expedite construction activities where feasible. I'll provide a summary of recent Orange County streetcar construction milestones

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 8

that they shared with us via email. What they've reported is that they have a substantial completion of the Santa Ana River and Westminster bridges with the placement of concrete plinths and rails. Fairview Street and Fifth Street at grade crossing are completed. 80 percent of the overhead catenary system poles have been installed. Construction of the maintenance and storage facility, MSF, is ongoing and completion of still erection occurred on May 10, 2022. Embedded tracks installed include Santa Ana Boulevard westbound from French Street

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 8

to Wright Street, eastbound from Wright Street to Bristol Street, and eastbound from Flower Street to Sasser Park, and on Mortimer Street from 4th Street to 6th Street. Embedded eastbound track and Santa Ana construction is ongoing on Santa Ana Boulevard from Bristol Street to Flower. Key completed work on 4th Street has progressed to having all embedded track complete from Broadway through French Street except for the intersections at Main and Broadway the Bush Street and French Street intersections are significantly completed and are now open to traffic and Sycamore Street and French Street

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 8

platform work are ongoing the westbound lane from French Street to Bush Street was recently opened on June 9th 2022 the eastbound lane cannot be opened until mid-August due to the ongoing work at the French Street platform on June 20th the Santa Ana 4th Street Ross Street intersection was closed special track and intersection work will be accelerated to significantly complete the work and open the intersection before before the start of Nova Academy School on August 10th and the last update is on June 20th eastbound track work began on Santa Ana Boulevard from Mortimer Street to Santiago traffic was

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 8

shifted from the north side of Santa Ana Boulevard to accommodate the construction zone and that completes my my update thank you great thank you

seeing no other questions or remarks let me go ahead and look compliment the council member that represents that district in addition to council member Mendoza council member Hernandez thank you for that thorough update because that is a productive comment I think that what that does is it gives people an idea of what work is being done let me just give you that kind of update that you know, I think is important that has not a lot to do with work, but it has a lot to do with the relief. And here with us is, as I said, Supervisor Foley's Chief of Staff, Nick Annis, who's going to be speaking on public comments.

And I'll go ahead and call on him a little later. But we're going to be appropriating 1.2 million dollars that the Board of Supervisors in Orange County went ahead and dedicated to this relief effort. So that is in addition to the $1.5 million that the city has already dedicated to business interruption grants. Tonight will be the final vote on the budget, which includes another million and a half of relief that will go towards business interruption and grants towards businesses. I know that there's been discussion now of providing grants to independent contractors

who also work in the city who don't have business licenses, but to the extent that there'll be $1,000 grants made available to them. So that brings a tally to in the event that the budget is approved, and I think everything looks good to approve the budget with the line item of a million and a half. That's $3 million from the city in addition to $1.2 million from the county. So that's $4.2 million. In addition to that, I know that Senator Umberg's office has been in contact with me, and I've been advocating lobbying him very hard to have a legislature also provide some additional relief and to grow this business interruption grant.

So he is looking at dedicating another million towards this effort. So that brings the total to over $5 million. That doesn't mean that OCTA is off the hook. We still are working with them. I know the city manager's office and I are working with them diligently to see how they can provide some effort because we've, I know Supervisor Foley and I have asked them to consider giving additional business grants individually to businesses. They believe that legally they can't. So to the extent that they can provide some other sources of support to maybe something

that is a public purpose, like a subsidy for the parking, that is going to benefit not only the public, but customers and staff and employees that work there. So that is another way that they can provide relief, which will free up some money on our end to be able to provide some additional individual grants. So that is the work that's ongoing to grow the amount of relief that's available. It started at a million and a half from us. Now it looks like it's going to be growing, hopefully, to over $4 million, $5 million. So that is the work that goes on behind the scenes, because we know that the construction,

fortunately is going at the same, is going at a pace at least quicker than what everybody expected. It looks like it's accelerated. But the relief that all of you have asked for is something that has been an ongoing effort. And hopefully now, as we approve the appropriation from the county, as we approve the budget, that's another $2.7 million that'll go into that account as of tonight. So that is always good news, that there'll be some additional relief. that won't be a new program. It'll just roll into the existing program that we have, and it'll cause no delays. So with that, let me go ahead and move along to the next item,

which is the closed session report. And I'll ask the city attorney if she has anything to report out.

Thank you, Mayor, members of the council, members of the public. We had three closed session items this evening, but we do not have any reportable action.

Great, thank you. That brings us to the public comment section of our meeting. And so this is the time and place for the City Council to receive comments from members of the public on agendized and non-agendized items. Pursuant to the Brown Act, the City Council may not enter into any discussion at this time. We will hear from members of the public that are here in person first. And then I'll turn it over to the clerk to see if there's anybody online that wishes to address us. We are one of the most accessible meetings. I just want to state that sometimes.

as we always forget, but there are other public agencies that only allow people to appear in person. We continue to allow for people to comment to us by phone, virtually, and that's something that is really, really important in an era of lack of transparency and open government. So, I do want to remind you that you have three minutes to speak. You don't have to exhaust the entire three minutes. Please let us know your name, and we don't need a specific address, but if you could tell us where in Santa Ana you reside, specifically the ward if you know,

that will be helpful. And I'll go ahead and ask the clerk if there's anybody online that wishes

to address us. Yes, Mayor, we do have one caller online. Go ahead and make your comments and then we'll go ahead and start with the in-person. Did you want to start with in-person? You want to start

with the virtual? Let me go ahead and do the in-person. All right, without further ado, let me call on I've mentioned him twice already so Nick Annis come on up here and you'll be our first public speaker followed by Valentin Martinez followed by Ratiel Aseshi

good evening mayor council I don't mind coming after hours to give an update I thank you for having me I just wanted to comment and thank the city of Santa Anna with partnering with the County of Orange on this grant you know Supervisor Foley was elected a little over 15 months ago to a district that didn't include the City of Santa Anna but when a little over six months ago we were assigned to represent the city as a result of redistricting we initially saw it as a challenge to be sort of thrust into representing such a large and diverse

city but we also saw an opportunity to show what we can do when our county partners with our city So one of the first major issues we faced was the streetcar. And so after we approved our $1.2 million grant last month, we decided to approach the city to see if they'd partner with us to administer. And so when I think Dylan Wright reached out to your city manager, he probably didn't even finish the sentence before. She said yes. And so we got that into effect right away. And we are just so grateful that we could work together to get this money out into the streets and partner with the city, with Supervisor Foley.

I know we've been working on other items with the city related to adding security officers for the flood channel, moving up renovations for our courthouse. I think we're going to be talking about some of those response time issues and homelessness and how we could further those partnerships, but we're incredibly grateful and helping getting our residents support and looking forward to working together. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Anis. Thank you for those comments. And please give our regards to the supervisor. She's been a tireless advocate on behalf of this issue. Let me go ahead and call now on Valentin Martinez and then Bratiel Ashesi,

followed by Mimi Marr.

Hola, buenas noches. Mi nombre es Valentin Martinez. Soy dueño de Ninos Brairo.

Mi tienda está ubicada en la calle 4. Desafortunadamente, estamos todavía I was still fighting for the good and bad, but I don't come to this. I'm only going to give you a few words. Many times, they judge the good and bad politicians, but the bad politicians are. They generalize this case. I don't come to this. I'm just going to give you the thanks for what has been helping us. that since this construction started,

all of you who are here have been doing everything possible so that our businesses continue to move forward. And more than anything, I would like to thank you.

Thank you, Valentin.

Good evening, my name is Valentin Martinez and I am the owner of Nino's Bridal, a store on 4th Street. and unfortunately we are still fighting regarding this issue, but I'm not here to speak about this. I'm here to say that sometimes we judge the good politicians and bundle them in with the bad politicians, but I'm not here to speak about that. I'm here to just say thank you. Thank you for your help. Thank you because during this construction, all of you have done everything that is possible to help our businesses continue. So I'm just here to say thank you.

I think we should invite Valentin back here again. Just kidding. Mimi Marr followed by Kimberly Castro followed by Moises Vazquez.

Hi. Since OCTA is not here, I just want to say thank you for being supportive of the business owners downtown. I want you to thank you for listening to what we have to say. Thank you for the original $1.2 million grant. I'm also very grateful for the Board of Supervisors approving the $1.2 million grant for our city to disperse. This will help a little. Just want to thank you for continuing with your support for the downtown business owners.

I was told that I can only come up here once, and I wanted to comment on item number 54. And so I also want to thank the council and mayor for adopting a resolution to appeal resolution number 416 by the former Santa Ana Board of Trustees to burn down and destroy the Chinatown in 1906. I'm also speaking on behalf of Commissioner Alan Wu, and he can't be here tonight, but

much of our lives have been limited by the Chinese Exclusion Act and racist treatment, and that was law back in the late 1800s of the Chinese Immigrants American repealing the resolution to burn down Chinatown will prove that we did nothing wrong and that we're Americans.

Again, thank you for that. Thank you Mimi. Thank you for those powerful comments.

Kimberly Castro followed by Moises Vasquez followed by Victor Mendez.

Oh my God. Hi guys. Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. My name is Kimberly Castro. I'm 16 years old and I am a resident proud, born and raised in Santa Ana and I am also a youth leader at Latino Health Access and in youth groups. I'm also representing Vela. I would first like to thank everybody and for including the suggestions of Santa residents in the city budget plan to be approved and I would also want to thank and continue to invest in youth programming and services services job training job opportunities and allocating funds for a police oversight

board as a youth in in the Santa Ana it is also it's always important to keep us in mind and investing in our programs it allows us to have a safe place when you invest in us it gives us the power to strive and succeed as young people in the community despite our differences don't forget the youth we are the new generation and we will continue to make Santa Ana a better place for ongoing years please continue investing in the health and wellness of the Santa Ana youth thank you everybody thank you Kimberly

Moises Vasquez followed by Victor Mendez followed by Maribel Gomez

Good evening. My name is Moises Vasquez. I'm raised in Santa Ana and I work with youth at Latino Health Access. And I just want to thank, as you approve the budget for our city, just to continue considering investing in youth and investing and allocating funds for a police oversight committee, which is something that I remember being in youth groups when I was younger and that's something that we have been asking for for a long time. So thank you.

Thank you, Moises. Victor Mendez followed by Maribel Gomez followed by Ana Laura Padilla.

So on a night when we're celebrating parks, you know, and our youth and our libraries, I don't really feel this budget really respects that tradition. You know, it didn't come to my attention that you were actually allocating this two-thirds revenue from cannabis to general citywide expenditures for police and for our code enforcement. It wasn't transparent. It wasn't clear and it took a lot of digging in my part to figure it out Water under the bridge. We're at a decision point. I get it. This can't go on again next year

Having said that I've identified several pools of money that may be available to help out our good youth and our and our people $400,000 for the overage of a 2 million that was authorized for the eight police officers 6.5 million in unaccrued funds from the equipment maintenance fund. And again, I'm just guessing here. 6. million from this unallocated reserve, so to speak. 3.0 million from the balance available through 630.22 that's projected for that two-thirds allocation of cannabis meant for the parks. So my understanding, I don't know if it's already been observed,

there's about three million for parks at year-end 630 23 projected so there's a money sitting there that we can do something tonight what what will we do my recommendations four hundred thousand dollars to establish a storefront psychological support for our community those two officers that died in El Monte were the result of responding to a domestic violence incident. Mental health is not a duplicate service, and you should not be holding back because you've got a liability.

Again, these two officers died out of a domestic violence response. One million for a mental health fan. Two million to get our parks and services back where they belong. You know, bring it back for programming later, get the money in there, and if you don't like it, kick it back to the reserve. I'm okay with that. But give our parks, our youth a darn chance.

Now today I came across a very interesting overtime, an overtime report for police overtime. I can't go into detail right now, but there are 468 instances in this overtime report over three years, three payment years.

The highest number of hours that were logged was 1,476 hours in one year, overtime. 1,476 in one year. In two years, one officer made $200,000 in overtime. In fact, he's a sergeant in the vice, I believe. Let's agree that what Councilmember Becerra did was good and helps moving forward, but we got some paths that you guys got to clean up and figure out so this never happens again. It's almost, you know, when I look at the data, and I know it needs to be investigated, needs to be vetted, it's kind of obscene. Victor, if you can wrap up. Thank you.

Thank you, Victor. Maribel Gomez, followed by Ana Laura Padilla.

Buenas noches. Buenas noches a todos y todas. Mi nombre es Maribel Gomez. I'm here tonight to give the thanks, as some of my colleagues already said, in the name of all of you, that helped us. And so, we have been able to keep our businesses open. We are here to listen to the progress of OCTA in the 4th Street Street. But, surprise, Octa is not present, no has respect for us, even more, he announced the cierre of some streets and closes others without warning.

We are exhausted, so we ask to the city and our representatives, and to you in special, Mayor, thank you for your help, but we ask that we force Octa to be present. when it is on the agenda. We are present here, leaving our businesses and all our activities and being present here tonight. Thank you very much for listening to our comments. We really appreciate you all. Thank you.

Good evening to all here present. My name is Maribel Gomez and I'm here tonight to thank you for everything that you have done to us. As other people have said, you all have helped us to keep our businesses afloat. And I was here, I'm here tonight to hear from OCTA. But all surprise, OCTA is not here. They do not respect us. And when they make an announcement, they announce the closure of some streets, but actually they close other different streets without a previous notice.

and we're asking you as our representatives, asking you specifically Mr. Mayor to help us, to represent us. First of all, again, thank you for all the help that you have given us, but we want you to force OCTA to be here when they are on the agenda. So once again, thank you for all the help that you have given us in this matter.

Ana Padilla.

Madam Clerk, is there anybody online?

We do have one.

Good afternoon, Mayor and members of the Council. My name is Ana Padilla and I have two businesses in downtown Santa Ana. Like my other colleagues, I was here because I was expecting an OCTA update, but it's just so disrespectful that they didn't show up again.

I'm just frustrated. I'm sorry. But I just wanted to see that the street card is just causing so much stress on us, and I appreciate Council Member Hernandez that gave us an update, but the update is wrong. And I'll suggest to all of you, whenever you get an update from the OCTA, go and walk the streets and see that what they're writing on your reports are right. I have my restaurant, Perla Mexican Cuisine, on 4th and French. I received an update on last week saying that they were just going to close Rose Street, but they were not going to be touching 4th Street until all 4th Street was going to be open.

Well, I just found out yesterday that they have closed 4th Street right in front of my business because they did not have any way to storage the tracks and also their trucks, so they used that street for storage. And that was something that I did not plan ahead for my business because I constantly ask for them, when are they going to close that street? And they say, not yet. So I was very excited at the OC Pride Parade because it was going to come down that street and it was going to benefit my business that has been hurting so much from this. And now

it's not. They have to move it to 3rd Street because now they cannot pass through 4th Street when those are the businesses that are being more affected and that we need these type of events to help us and bring more customers. So all I'm saying is that OCTA is not giving the reports accurate, and that's what we need all of your support to put some check and balances on them, to just tell them to respect our city, to respect our community, to respect our people, to respect the business owners that were there every day trying to survive to this new pandemic that we have.

It's infuriating that it doesn't matter how many meetings we go, because we're there every Monday at 9 a.m. when they have a meeting. And all we ask is for an accurate update. All we ask is for them to have check and balances, to not neglect the city, to not disrespect us at this level. That's all we're asking right now. Because, yeah, we ask for an interruption fund. They already say no. And we're thankful for the money that you're giving us to survive. We're super thankful for Katrina Foley and the money that she pushed to be approved. Yes, but more than money right now, we need a plan. We need to know what's happening.

We need to be advised. We have invited them to town hall meetings. They don't come either. We need direction. What's going to happen next? How can we survive through this? What street is going to be closed? Yeah, they open for a street, but you cannot go through Bush. So it's creating more mess. So that's all I wanted to say. Thank you again for everything.

Madam Clerk, so that ends up our in-person comments. Do you have anybody online?

Yes, thank you, Mayor and members of the Council. It looks like we also have two additional who raised their hand virtually. Before unmuting callers, I'd like to begin by reporting the following summary of emails provided as of today. 11 non-agenda items from Santa Ana residents requested to end residential permit parking Program for item 11 to Santa Ana businesses in support of approving 1.5 million for downtown business assistance item 54 one Orange County resident requested a plaque to be placed at the location for a commemoration item

62 29 Santa Ana residents were in support of the item item 6 and that's all So with that virtual caller, Zoom ID, Carl Benninger, if you would please select the microphone icon to unmute your device and proceed with your comment.

Good evening, council. This is Carl Benninger. I live in ward four in the city. I have three items I want to cover quickly. Number one, you guys did a great job on the budget. And so please pass the budget tonight as is. There's something there for everybody. And it's a great compromise because not one person got everything. But there's a lot of good things in this budget. I would recommend review after 90 days and see if you're still on. Don't wait for half of the year. Do it in 90 days from now and you can make adjustments from there. Secondly, I'd like to announce that Comlink will have its award meeting this Thursday

at Santa Ana College, the Johnson Center. We're going to recognize 12 heroes that live up to the model of Tomlank, improving neighborhoods block by block. And that's what these folks do. As well as 14 people in our most beautiful yards. None of these people get paid. This is all volunteers. And so anyone that's out there, please come. We have food. We have parking. And you're more than welcome, 7 o'clock, Santa Ana College, Johnson Center. Just follow the signs when you get there. And lastly, I was really impressed tonight of who this council was recognizing. All of you did an excellent job.

And I feel very close to the ones that get through school because I had to go to work in junior and high school to finish my high school education, Catholic school, as well as then college. And so I gave up parties. I gave up, even lost a girlfriend one time because it was no fun to be with. But once you get that degree, it makes a world of difference. and rather than saying this owed me go out and make something of it that's so beautiful by this country that you can develop yourself and if you work hard good things happen so with that

I'm I'm I'm finished thank you thank you zoom id Carla A if you would please select the microphone icon to unmute your device

yes good evening so I wanted to mention on the topic that um Phil was talking about in regards to uh prioritizing um calls that do come in I myself was a victim of assault by um these aggressive of homeless is that are walking around our city and putting a tremendous threat on us, sober minded civilians. So it's becoming a really, a tremendous difficult situation to even walk to the stores now. And when we do call the police,

if we're not alert or we're not acting promptly, we do not get the adequate attention. These polices are not attending to our cause until after two hours. and this is seriously disrespectful and we do need to be prioritizing that because it can save people's lives and in regards to the OCTA they should have been there that's not okay we all need to be informed and taken into consideration and being updates we need constant and updates as business owners, we need to feel like we matter.

And we are not getting that feedback from certain people, especially OCTA, and this really needs attention. We also would love to beg you guys, all of you guys that are sitting here as representatives from the city to make sure that all of us as business owners are being informed of everything that is being just informed to certain people. And a lot of us are being left in uncertainty. And this is for a lot of the business owners in downtown Forestry. So it is very vital that we make sure

that we have a point of contact and that we are informed that it's just not one person that you guys are contacting because this is not okay. Like I said, we need to be informed And thank you for what you guys have done so far, but we want to make sure that things are done adequately and at least we can have some peace of mind in knowing what is to come. Thank you so much and have a good night.

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

Good evening, my name is Juliet Castro and I want to thank you all for the support that we have given. But I also want to remind you that already have five months in which we have been affected. My business has been affected by this construction. My business has been vandalized. I have spoken with the representative of Orange County, and I have not sent any calls or anything. And it's not just as I'm saying all my colleagues, that we are here, we are here, we are here, and that they don't be here at this way, even if they are even here, they are even here to us.

And I want to say that in these months, that the 4th Street and Broadway will be closed, in some days more, I'm going to be a little more affected. My economy has been down, I'm not generating the same thing I did last year.

I'm very important to help you. I would like to give you the help that we are going to give you to everyone. I'm in the second floor. For the second floor, maybe it will be a little less than what I had given. It's very important to me to talk about what I'm going to be going to be. Because this is part of what I'm going to be doing in a year. I want to thank you once again and thank you for being considered as we are going to share the funds that are going to exist because I don't want to lose my business.

is what I do, only I pay my rent, my insurance, I pay everything. I'm not a single, I'm a single, I'm a single, I'm a single. So I have to look at how I can get help to survive in Orange County, which is very, very expensive, and all of you know. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Juliet Castro, and thank you for all the support that you have given us. But I'm also here to remind you that it's been five months that our businesses have been affected. My business has been affected. My business has been vandalized. And I try to speak to the representative from OCTA and have not received a callback. And it's not fair that we are here. We come to these meetings, and they don't come, and they don't listen to us.

Maybe they're even laughing at us. I don't know. So in the next few months, I'm concerned because 4th and Broadway is going to be closed. And my business has not been doing well. My income has been even lower than last year's. So I need help with my business. and I'm asking that you distribute the money equally for all my business is on the second floor and maybe because of that I may be receiving less help due to that so please thank you for this and please consider the distribution of the

month the funds the money and I'm counting on this so I don't lose my business from my business I have to pay my rent and my insurance and all my expenses. I am alone. I'm not married. I'm single. So it's very expensive to survive in Orange County. Everything is expensive, as you all know. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Members of the Council,

that was the last caller. Great. Thank you. Let me go ahead and bring it back to the Council to ask if there's any questions that they wish to pull off the consent calendar or recuse or mention a conflict. And I'll begin. I'm going to go ahead and recuse myself on item number 20. I did receive a campaign contribution from Guarantee Chevrolet. So I'm going to recuse myself on that item. I'll open it up to the council to see if there's any others. Councilmember Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 9

Councilmember Hernandez Hernandez, Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'd like to pull item 26, item 11, and I'd like to make a comment on item 54. I received an email from Alan Wu, who shared he wouldn't be able to attend today, and he wanted to relay that he was thankful for the council and the apology across this nation in the Chinese community. Chinese American community, large and small, they noticed what Santa Ana did. Chinese American leaders and leaders of API organizations noticed, school teachers have shared that they are going to use this apology in their lesson plan when teaching Asian American history,

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 9

and that the Asian American and Chinese community are thankful for this agenda item to repeal the actions of the 1906 Board of Trustee. and he would like to urge the city council to pass this resolution. And on behalf of Chinese American community, I'd like to thank the council for removing the shame and embracing the Chinese American community. Much of their lives have been limited by the Chinese Exclusion Act, racist treatment of Chinese immigrants, and Chinese Americans. Repelling this resolution to burn down Chinatown will prove they did nothing wrong and that they should be embraced as Americans.

Thank you, council. And just to get it correct, you pulled item number 11 and 26 as well? Correct, sir. Got it. Okay. Anybody else? Councilmember Phan?

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

So many. All right. So I have a list here because we have 68 odd items. I'd like to recuse myself from the following items out of an abundance of caution as some of them are either current clients of my employer or somehow related to current clients. And so if they are pulled from the agenda I will leave the dais in the room while it's being discussed so item number 18 people space 22 Los Angeles truck centers 37 Boutier engineering 50

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

Atkinson Anderson the law firm 61 Santa Ana College ranch slash Rancho Santiago Community College District and 62 Jamboree to clarify I have personally never worked with any of these but someone at my firm has thank you thank

Thank you for those. Any other?

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

I have comments on some other items. Sure. Do you want to go ahead and make them now? So regarding item 54, first I'd like to say thank you to staff and thank you to our city attorney's office for following up with this specific item and drafting this resolution. For just, you know, Council Member Hernandez, Commissioner Allen Wu, residents have spoken about this, but when we issued an apology for the burning of Chinatown, it was really important to us, as brought up by local historian Dylan Almendral, actually an Irvine resident, Cindy Su, who brought

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

this issue before me, that we also revoke these resolutions that are still on the record, that are still on the books, that promote hate and racism and acts of terror. And so I'm just so proud that our city council is supportive of this and that we continue to right the wrongs of the past and that we can celebrate our diversity here and i think the fact that we have a diverse group of individuals not just within the city but around the county and the state of california who are noticing this particular issue tells us that doing the right thing well there's never a wrong

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

time to do the right thing so thank you thank you for those comments any other mayor pro tem thank

Phil BacerraItem 9

YOU I JUST WANTED TO ALSO POLL ITEM 26 THANK YOU ON MY LEFT ANY THANK YOU MAYOR I JUST WANT TO POLL

ITEMS 56 AND 62 GOT IT ANY OTHERS SEEING NONE BEFORE I ENTERTAIN A MOTION FOR THE Oh, Councilmember Lopez.

Jessie LopezItem 9

Sorry, I didn't catch the first part of the items that got pulled. I was walking in.

So, Councilmember Hernandez pulled item number 11 and item number 26. And Councilmember Peñalosa pulled item number 56 and 62.

Jessie LopezItem 9

Okay, great. I'd like to make comment on, I'd like to provide comment on item 13, please.

Yes.

Jessie LopezItem 9

I just want to thank the mayor and our supervisor, Katrina Foley, for being able to successfully

Jessie LopezItem 9

fight for this funding that we're going to be appropriating today. It is my understanding that it was not an easy fight. There was a lot of roadblocks that the supervisor was met with from different supervisors or even their own legal team. And so this, to me, does not go unnoticed. I appreciate it. I hope that the business owners that are here today receive this money sooner, rather than later but that is one of the reasons why we are appropriating the money today because it was much easier for the city of Sanana to be able to give the money that the county had as opposed to the county trying to give

Jessie LopezItem 9

that money to the business owners that rightfully deserve it because of the construction project that has been mismanaged by OCTA so again I just want to thank the supervisor and city manager I would like to actually send a letter a thank-you letter to the supervisor I don't know if any other council member has any interest in signing on to that, but it would be a request that I would be making of CMO staff.

Thank you, Councilmember. I do want to mention that staff wants to continue a couple of items as well. Item number 61 and the corresponding item on the Housing Authority calendar, item number 4. So both of those with the indulgence of the Council and at the request of staff, we will be continuing those items to the next meeting. I simply want to talk on a couple of issues that were mentioned already. The one on the apology for the burning of Chinatown. I want to thank the Council members that took the initiative to do this. I think it was a unanimous support. It was a great ceremony.

I think Mimi spoke very, very well and passionate about this. I think it's especially important to Asian Americans, the Chinese community, but it affects us all as immigrants and those of us who make San An our home, and to empathize and understand that how difficult the moment it was and for us to acknowledge that there were mistakes made, egregious mistakes made by our predecessors here in this council. And to the extent that all we're offering is an apology on their behalf and on all our behalf, that government should not be involved in thwarting any immigrant population under

the guise of what was unfortunately what they called out as a public health emergency. And it just shows how overreach by government can be so dangerous to any communities and sometimes they're done under, again, like I said, the guise of what appears to be a legitimate public purpose. That was abuse and that was discrimination and that was hate. So I'm hoping that this small gesture took us a long way in curing that and at least providing some relief for the Chinese community, but also the Asian American community and the immigrant community as a whole. And finally, I do want to echo what many of you have said.

I would like to also, and I sit right next to Supervisor Foley, you know, would like to thank her and her staff for the work because, And thank our staff, because I know our staff is going to be appropriating those funds and being able to use the same program that we have to go ahead and allocate those funds, which means that there's not going to be a delay in creating a new program, new criteria, new eligibility. I know that our staff was very quick to say, you know, just go ahead and appropriate it to the city. We'll go ahead and incorporate it into our existing program, which will accelerate the distribution.

So, you know, that is something I think that when agencies speak to one another, and again, for me, it was such a foreign thing because we had very little relationship with our predecessor representative at the county before, and now Supervisor Foley has been a very hands-on supervisor and very helpful to the issues that affect our city, and that's something that was very alien to us. So in any event, let me go ahead and entertain a motion for the balance of those items that were not pulled off the consent calendar.

David PenalozaItem 9

I'll make a motion to approve, Mayor. I'll second, Mr. Mayor.

We have a motion by Council Member Peñalosa, a second by Council Member Hernandez. Council Members, please vote. And by the way, my screen is off, Madam Clerk, so I guess you'll need a voice vote from me. I didn't pull the plug.

Yes, if you can please provide your voice vote.

I'm a yes.

Thank you.

Councilmember Hernandez, were you able to vote?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 9

It's not allowing me to vote.

Okay. Would that be a yes? Yes. Thank you.

Okay, motion carries 7-0 with Councilmembers Hernandez, Lopez, Mendoza, Peñalosa, Fan, Mayor Pro Tempecer, and Mayor Sarmiento voting yes.

Thanks, everybody. Let me go ahead and begin with item number 11 that was pulled by Councilmember

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 9

on this thank you mr. mayor I want to thank our staff for for bringing this budget forth I just had a couple of requests I would like to see in light of the most recent Juneteenth festival I want to thank the city of Santa Ana parks and rec staff city manager staff for making sure this event was a success as noted there were some challenges with it when it came to to the costs of putting on the event so in light of that I would like to request a $20,000 increase for Juneteenth a $20,000 increase to the Asian American festival

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 9

that councilmember fan requested so I would like to request councilmember fans event to increase from 30,000 to 50,000 I would like to request for Chicano Heritage Month to increase from 30,000 to 50,000 and I would like to increase Indigenous Peoples Day from 30,000 to 50,000 so that way across the board we have an adequate amount of funding so that we have the least amount of challenges possible so I would I would ask for my colleagues if if we can indulge in having equity across the board for these events great thank you

councilmember any other questions or comments I just had a point of

David PenalozaItem 9

council members mayor so I'm supportive of seeing these increase but just want to make sure we could identify the pockets of money where we're going to take this money from. And also, what would be the amount now for Juneteenth, the Juneteenth event?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 9

It's currently funded at, I believe, $75,000. Yes, so I would ask for a $20,000 increase. We had a large festival over the weekend, world-class talent, the Delphonics. We had Howard Johnson, Jay Holiday, Slum Village. It was a free festival. Thousands of residents came out. There was a kid zone from 11 o'clock a.m. to essentially 7 o'clock at night. Santa Ana residents were enjoying their time, making memories at the park. So taking that into account, I was there the whole day. I know that there is more work to do. So with that being the only African American festival that we have, I would respectfully ask my colleagues

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 9

if we can see an increase there, an increase in the Asian American festival that Councilmember Phan introduced, which is funded at 30,000. I'd like to see that increase to 50. Chicano Heritage Month increased from 30 to 50. And Indigenous Peoples Day, which is currently funded at 30, increased from 30 to 50,000. I had the honor of working close with our Parks and Rec staff and learning about this process. And I can assure you, we are not doing our community a service if we give them this low of a budget. The last thing you want is for us to not have the right celebrations in place for these communities.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 9

These are very sensitive cultural celebrations. I want to make sure that we're well equipped financially to celebrate them. And I would make a motion to include that.

David PenalozaItem 9

Thank you for that clarity, Councilmember Hernandez. The only reason I asked is because you mentioned we wanted to make sure that we had equity across the board, but I don't, you know, bringing the Asian Chicano heritage and all the others up only 20,000, then adding an additional 20,000 to the Juneteenth event?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 9

Yes, with Santa Ana being one of the largest African-American populations in Orange County, Orange County doesn't have a very large African-American population. I think it's important that we create infrastructure to be welcoming of the black community and to support the ongoing efforts for racial justice.

David PenalozaItem 9

I agree 100% wholeheartedly, but the, and I would defer to Councilmember Fan. Councilmember Fan, when it comes to just the Asian American population in our city, I can't talk to the amount of people or how large that constituent block is, but can you, you know, talk on that a little bit? Because, you know, if we're talking about equity, we want to make sure that, that communities that are large in scale in our city are fairly represented.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

Yeah, off the top of my head, I believe it's 12 to 14 percent that it's Asian American, majority Vietnamese American. I believe the number is approximately 25,000 Asian Americans.

David PenalozaItem 9

So I would be supportive of leaving the Juneteenth event at the current $75,000 a year and then increasing the others so that there is a fair equity across the board when it

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 9

comes to these events. I'm not opposed to that, Councilmember Peñalosa, keeping it the same amount and seeing the increases there. I'm certainly not opposed to that if my colleagues are supportive of seeing those respective increases. Perhaps this is something we can revisit after we have those first celebrations.

Great. So we have a motion and now a revised motion. And is there a second?

David PenalozaItem 9

I'll second that. Just when it comes to the pockets of money, where can we identify this funding from, Madam City Manager?

So you would be seeking an appropriation of an additional $60,000. and without Councilmember Hernandez identifying a place, I would recommend we take it from the $6 million unprogrammed.

David PenalozaItem 9

Okay. So I just wanted to make sure that we have a pool of money to take it from. So happy with that. And, yeah, I'll second the motion.

Great. We have a motion and a second. Councilmember Phan.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

Thank you. And thank you, Councilmember Hernandez, for bringing this up.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

Madam City Manager, I just wanted some clarification. So that $6.7 million unprogrammed, right? Exactly. It's going down. We're drawing from that. And that's fine. You know, these are tax dollars that are used for residents, right, for services. And I do believe that these events, cultural events, heritage events, historic events are for residents. I think it is really important that we celebrate each other and the diversity we have in the city. But I also, you know, I guess I'm just trying to understand we had a much larger surplus estimated.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

And I guess every time we're kind of drawing down and down and down. And I guess at this point, what are we looking at left?

So with the allocation made tonight, you still have available $6,000 and, let's see, I'm doing math in my head here. 6 million. Sorry. Oh, yes, I've got a bad idea. You got me nervous. If we're down to 6,000. I didn't mean to scare everybody. You are down to $6,046, no, $26,301.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

Okay. And that, those are estimates though, right, for the upcoming year. And I know Director Downs is nodding, and I just want to share with residents that, at least for me, speaking for myself, that I do take into account that this revenue estimate can change. Just as last year our revenue estimate changed upwards because the stock market did well and people were buying a lot of items, but now with inflation maybe tax dollars might go up, or there might be the R word, right, a recession, as some people are saying. So I just, you know, am supportive of this, but I do want us all to keep in mind that as we allocate dollars

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

to events, items, programs, that we also recognize that the $6 million left over doesn't technically exist yet. And I'm sure you and Director Downs will let us know as we move along if there needs to be any adjustments. And with that, I just did want to clarify, it's 25,000 Vietnamese people and about 37,000 Asian Americans in the city.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

I am perfectly happy to actually draw down the money from this, you know, crossing guard contract that I completely wholeheartedly disagree with, which currently has $250,000 allocated. with the $30,000 taken away, so $220,000, whatever's left over in that would still cover this amount, but I think that's a passing comment because I don't think I have the support on this dais for that. I have another question, and maybe Council Member Hernandez can help me understand regarding the Juneteenth event. With the Mid-Autumn Festival or the Asian Heritage event, cultural event that we're looking at,

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

One of the major items that we want to focus on is building relationships and sponsors with community partners. Is that something that we did? I didn't notice in the flyers that we have a lot of community partners and sponsors, and so I just wanted to get information about that.

Excellent question. Thank you, Councilmember. So with the Juneteenth event and similar to what's going to happen with Chicano and Asian fall we have a very short period of time and so if you approve the budget tonight ideally the Chicana would occur in August ideally the Asian celebration would occur in September so that is a very short window to program a city produced event so for Juneteenth what we did do is after hearing what the council members wishes were we partnered with OC Heritage Council we didn't have a formal agreement with them but we did have a just a delineation of you handle these things

and we will handle these things and we hit the ground running to do it we debriefed we have lots of things that we can improve upon and so i am asking you to be patient with the rollout of these newer ones since typically for an event like this you would want a minimum of six months to plan there's insurance requirements there's contracts you have to put in place but we will do our best and Juneteenth OC Heritage Council was successful at getting some sponsors to offset their cost.

And if I may?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 9

Yes, Republic Services was extremely helpful to the Heritage Council. I know they had some sponsors they've worked with from their Black History Parade that helped offset some costs, but I figured this increase to the new festivals that we introduced was going to be significant. And as staff knows, there's costs that just can come out of nowhere. and I would rather have us be prepared for that than to have to scramble and help an organization, you know, fundraise some funds when we're two months or three months away from a celebration.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

Thank you. And that's just helpful for me to understand because one of the expectations that I have and that Director Jennifer Wang from AACSC had brought up when asking for these events was that we would partner with community organizations, those who've had experience putting on these events on a smaller scale and bring in our local partners. With that, I am supportive of the increases to Indigenous Peoples Day, the API cultural event, Chicano Heritage Month as well. I think I do agree with Councilman Peñalosa at this time regarding Juneteenth

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

because that is a very significant amount of dollars. I also want to make one last comment, which is to thank Councilman Hernandez, because last time I just wasn't clear about the difference between Hispanic Heritage Month and Chicano Heritage Month, and we had a brief conversation afterwards in which he helped me understand and learn about the differences, and I think that's what makes this dais in our city very unique compared to a lot of others. So I'm excited to see what it's all about. Thank you.

Thank you. Give me one second. I'll make my way around.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 9

any other comments on the left that council member hernandez thank you councilmember fan and um i just wanted to touch on that and i think this is what's really important about these festivals right is there's so much to learn about each other um there's so many diverse stories in the city of santa anna that are all worth celebrating and um if you have any questions or you're unfamiliar with a culture that's exactly why these events are are put together so that we can celebrate diversity and truly come together as a community. And I think it's important that these festivals, especially in the Asian community,

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 9

that these festivals are put on by members of the Asian community, that they're staffed with Asian businesses, that we're supporting Asian artists, and this applies to all of the different festivals. I think part of what really makes Sen An special is our approach to celebrating culture and diversity, and I think Juneteenth certainly demonstrated that. So I'm looking forward to working with you all on this council on bringing people together. Thank you.

Thank you for that. The only comments I'm going to make on item number 11 is that when you step back and look at what is included in this budget, it really is pretty significant. So I just want to thank everybody who worked on this. I want to thank staff. Special shout out to our Director of Finance, Director Downs. Thank you for taking meetings with all of us and working and listening to the public, more importantly. One of the things I'm so proud of when we adopt a budget really isn't the end product. It's the front end of what we do, which is to go out to the public first and listen to them

and ask them what their priorities are, what their comments are. You see other public agencies and other cities, they do it in reverse. They'll present and propose a budget and then they'll take questions and comments from the public if there are any. And that really to me is not the way you engineer, you know, a budget, a public budget. So, you know, included in here is an incredible amount of investment for youth, an incredible amount of investment for infrastructure, but a lot of what was guided in this was was directly from members of the public who sent us items that they thought were important to include.

So, as we have the merchants here tonight, they advocated very strongly for the $1.5 million. And I want to thank council members up here who were strong advocates from the very beginning to say the initial $1.5 million will be complemented by another $1.5 million. That's something that was said early by many of you up here. So I am just proud of the budget that is going to be considered and adopted tonight on second reading. With those adjustments that were made by Councilmember Hernandez and Peñalosa, I am very supportive of those as well.

One thing I would just say to people when we talk about events, I think the reason why we have to fund all of them, or to the extent we have to fund fully the events, because we don't have time, right? we can't seek sponsors, we can't seek outside support, because that is a luxury to have that time. I know for Fiestas Patrias we used to have so many sponsors that the cost that the city ultimately had when it partnered with the Mexican consulate was relatively small, because it became such a successful event. So hopefully to the extent that these events become

successful, they become well attended, sponsors want to be part of it. Who's not going to want to be part of a successful event. So we hopefully can get to that point. But because, you know, these are sort of fledgling events that we're initiating, yeah, the city does have to fund it at a higher increment. But hopefully that's not the case going forward. So with that, we have a motion and a second with some amendments that were attached to this budget. I think the clerk and staff caught those. So council members, please vote. My device is still not working so I am a yes thank you mayor and we do have

someone from IT coming down with the assistance for you okay motion passes 7 zero with council members Hernandez Lopez Mendoza Penalosa fan mayor pretend Becerra mayor Sarmiento voting yes thank you

everybody congratulations that's a one one big thing down for tonight moving along to item number 26 that I believe was councilmember Hernandez's item yes

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 9

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm really happy to see that we have a new park coming to Ward 5 off of Raitt and Myrtle. This is a community that has desperately needed open space and has lacked it. It was a community that was formerly known as Little Texas, the heart of the African-American community, not only in Santa Ana, but in Orange County. The first black families that came to Santa Ana were from Texas and and they came right to that community there are over 21 black churches in Santa Ana most of which are within the vicinity of where

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 9

this park will be located there's a number of amazing things that I could distinct our city manager and parks and rec staff for by getting this park created most notably I want to say thank you to the community members that engaged in the collective process of identifying a name. I just wanted to share that I am supportive of seeing the component of El Refugio included. However, I think it's important for us to go a different direction. The City of Santa Ana has a number of parks that acknowledges

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 9

different cultures. We have Chepa Andrade Park, which is in Logan, which celebrates a Mexican-American Chicana who fought against the zoning in her neighborhood. We have amazing parks that highlight different stories like Sasser Park, which highlights an officer in our city who passed away in the line of duty. We have parks that tell stories. One of the most important Santa Ana stories that goes untold is the story of Ed Crothers. Ed was a important staple for for African Americans, not only in the city of Santa Ana, but in the United States.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 9

There's a famous picture that took place at the 1968 Olympic Games. And in this picture, it features Tommy Smith and John Carlos. And it features two black men with black gloves on their hands. And their fists are raised up as they're standing on the podium. That black-gloved salute protesting the treatment of African Americans, the reason why that protest happened was because of a Santa Ana resident. Ed Corenthers grew up in the city of Santa Ana, attended Santa Ana Valley High School,

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 9

and set the record for the highest jump at 7 feet and 3.5 inches. He graduated from Santa Ana Valley High School, went to Santa Ana College, entered the 1964 Olympic Games, and placed eight. In 1968, at the Mexico Games and Olympic, and at the Olympic Games in Mexico, he won the silver medal. At this time, Dr. Martin Luther King had just got assassinated, and he used his opportunity as a medalist to protest the treatment of African Americans.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 9

And what he did that day changed the course of how this country treated African American athletes. Furthermore, with the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, by the time that Carruthers was one of the top jumpers in the world, many prominent black voices for equal rights across this country had been assassinated. In many cases in cities across this country, it erupted violence in communities that were impacted

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 9

by these losses. And ED represents that Santa Ana is a city where our people don't want to share despair, the despair and the pain that we have, but we use our opportunities of these significant victories to highlight the hope that this community has. And for us to highlight the story of Ed Carruthers, a silver medalist that helped lead the silent protest in 1968 after the assassination of Martin Luther King, it cements that not only is Santa Ana a city that embraces true diversity, but we are leading the front in honoring those heroes because because Ed is still alive.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 9

And it would be unfortunate for us to not be able to tell these stories. And I think having a park that also highlights the history of El Refugio, which El Refugio was a adobe, where Mexican immigrants would come together and they would be able to have shelter. And I think if we would be able to have a final design for this park which incorporates a historical marker and perhaps naming the playground El Refugio and including the intersectionality of how black and brown people have come together. Santa Ana was the first intersegregated school system

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 9

in the United States. And I think that this part can help us tell that story. So I would ask my colleagues, through the direction of the black residents in Ward 5 and in the Little Texas community, I would like to ask my colleagues to support me in naming this park Ed Carruthers Park, and including a component of El Refugio, and having a historical marker, which tells that story as well.

Phil BacerraItem 9

I'll second with comment.

Great, thank you. We have a motion and a second, Mayor Pro Tem.

Phil BacerraItem 9

Thank you. You know, as we're talking about naming a city park in the capital of Orange County, we have such a rich history that we don't need to go all the way back to prehistoric times or or you know beyond even just the 153 years that this city has existed we have such monumental people that have come through this community that that lived here that have improved this community and uh thank you council member hernandez for talking about ed caruthers you know uh he set so many records at san anna college and what i love about the story of ed caruthers is the fact that if with all of his athletic

Phil BacerraItem 9

accomplishments with all the fame that he brought to the city of Santa Ana and to his community it's the fact that he continued to give back even beyond that he coached sprinters at Santa Ana College that to this day still hold the records for that institution in addition to being an Olympic hero for this country he also helped over the garden grove unified school district in their special olympics and special needs programs i i to know the story of ed caruthers i think you know to put his name on a park here in the city of san anna i think when you look at his legacy

Phil BacerraItem 9

regardless of whether he's black whether he's asian whether he's latino whether he's white he has an astounding story and i uh concur with councilmember hernandez this would be a great honor to put on this park based on what he's done. With that being said I also agree with Councilmember Hernandez of having that element there of a refugio in the park as well because as history has shown us there is a show of so there's history that shows that there that Adobe was located very near if not on that actual site so I think we are so blessed in this city to have such a remarkable

Phil BacerraItem 9

history and to be able to talk about a gentleman like this and put his name on a park I'm very happy and enthusiastic to second the motion great thank you we have a motion in a second any other

comments seeing none the only comment I was going to make is you know I have a photograph of that you know of the Mexico City Olympics where you have John Carlos on the podium with his arm I had I had no idea that Mr. Carruthers had a role in that. The only question I had, and this is unfortunate, but I understood that we couldn't name parks after people who were still alive. I thought it had to be done posthumously. Maybe that's not the case, and if it isn't, I'm fine with it, but I just wasn't sure if that was a policy of ours or something in the code. I remember there was a park on Standard McFadden.

I remember there was some of the members of the public or some of the members of that neighborhood wanted to name it after Victoria Zaragoza and she's still alive and I know somebody from staff told me that that was impossible. We do have a

Your Honor, we do have a municipal code that lists some criteria for the naming of parks. I will have to defer to Tim Pagano or maybe the Attorney's Office as to whether there is the requirement. I know that was an item that was discussed when we were talking about honorary street naming but I don't want to state it incorrectly as it refers to parks. Mr. Pagano, do you know if there is a prohibition of naming a park facility after an individual that's still living?

Nothing states it in the municipal code as far as post-communicacy or if they're still alive. So I think the only distinction and maybe this was the confusion at the time was that there is a provision where it recognized a family who made a distinct significant contribution to the well-being of the city, including past mayors, council members, board or commission members, or cities, but not anybody that's currently employed. So I don't know if that necessarily falls in alignment with the example that you just gave, Mayor, but that's the only thing specifically with an individual.

Gotcha. With that, that works. I mean, like I said, I just didn't want to make sure that we were adopting something, then we're going to have to come back and say, you know, after all, you know there's a there's a technical problem with it and we we can't do it so that that aside thank you for the clarity I have a question the mayor yes

go ahead remember my understanding was that there was a contest with for the community to name the park so is that going to be an issue and I support the motion I am in favor of honoring such a great Santa Ana resident it question

Councilmember Mendoza and though we have an established process to go through for the naming of a park facility, the City Council has the final say on what you choose to name it. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Vaniello.

David PenalozaItem 9

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Council Member Hernandez, for the suggestion. Fully supportive of it. The only thing I would ask, Madam City Manager, is that when we... I drove by, and I know we had a groundbreaking, but it doesn't look like there's been much construction. Just a side note. But I would hope that when we do, finalize and get close to completion we look at adding some kind of plaque that could educate our residents on why the park is named what you know we're choosing to name because that's I think that's another missing component that we see amongst a lot of things in our city is that things exist things are named a

David PenalozaItem 9

certain way but nobody really knows why so that would be a nice little touch to

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 9

to add that's it good point if yes councilman perhaps we include a statue with that podium with the fist up that could be that could be how we tell the

story just an idea all right well before before we get any more ideas let's not let's go ahead and vote on this matter so we have a motion in a second council members please vote

Mayor, were you able to vote now?

It's showing green on mine. I voted yes.

Thank you. Perfect.

Okay.

Motion passes 7-0 with Councilmembers Hernandez, Lopez, Mendoza, Peñalosa, Fan, Mayor Patel Becerra, and Mayor Sarmiento voting yes.

Great. Thank you. Moving along to item number 56. I believe that was polled by Councilmember Peñalosa.

David PenalozaItem 9

Yes. Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. And number 56 was to adopt the resolution for fiscal year 2223 of SB1 local streets and road projects in the amount estimated at $7,553,000 in capital improvement projects. This is a great, great item to be before us, and I'm excited about it. The only question I had, and this is probably more for Nebiel and Public Works, I know that one of the stretches of roads getting heavy, heavy rehab is standard between Warner and First Street along the ward I represent. So I wanted to I know it's $1.9 million. I'm very happy to see that.

David PenalozaItem 9

And I know that this was a project that was commenced by by Councilmember Michelle Martinez, you know, four or five years ago, meeting with community members along Standard, and I'm happy that it's finally here. And I know that I've been on you about Standard and St. Gertruth and all those stretches of just what seemed like we've neglected for years. So the question I had, Nabil, is I know that when residents and, you know, those neighborhoods met years ago, the the and most recently as well the the issue was was traffic and not traffic I'm sorry but the

David PenalozaItem 9

speed of what these cars I mean it is a high highly highly uh sped uh street and stretch of highway because of how wide it is um I know it's it's a very wide street and in your project description it says reconstructing resurfacing of existing pavement and replacement installation of missing or damaged curbs, gutters, sidewalks, driveways, approaches, and wheelchair ramps within the segment of roadway. But it doesn't really talk about any traffic calming, bulb outs, reduction in street width, which I know that was highly demanded by that community because of the speed that these

David PenalozaItem 9

cars that travel along standard take. Can you, are there going to be any traffic calming measures that can be implemented?

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem and member of the council. So Standard Street is getting two projects. One of them is a bike lane that has been approved, and with that, the street on Standard will be narrowed to accommodate a speed reduction and those kind of features. So that's project number one. Project number two is the rehabilitation project that we have here. So Standard will have both. Not only are we going to redo the entire street with the $1.9 million here, I believe, but also there is a, like I mentioned earlier, there is a bike lane project that is going

to start from first all the way to, I believe, Warner on Standard to traffic calm that street and make it slower and include a bike lane, too.

David PenalozaItem 9

And these will be protected bike lanes, correct? Good question.

I'll have to get back to you on that because I don't want to mislead you. The protected bike lanes really are dictated by the width of the street existing. Very wide. Right. So there's room for it. So we'll, yes, if there is room for protected bike lane, we do that.

David PenalozaItem 9

Okay, because I would hate to all of a sudden see plastic delineators. No. A long standard, heavy industrial area, and it would just add to the blight and not aesthetically pleasing. I haven't said that in a while, but that would be, I would hope that when these protected bike lanes do come in, that we go the route of Bristol Street and we incorporate green landscaping as part of the protected bike lanes because of how dense this area is, very industrial, very concrete jungle, if you would, because it's all industrial.

David PenalozaItem 9

So, I would hope that we include green landscaping like we did on Bristol when it comes to the protected bike lanes. But with that, so there will be traffic calming measures that could help that coincide with the construction of this 1.9 million resurfacing project?

Yes, for sure.

David PenalozaItem 9

Okay. So, obviously, not now because it's not agendized, but I'm going to definitely request a meeting to go over the protected bike lanes along Standard. Absolutely. And make sure that the design is up to par.

Absolutely.

David PenalozaItem 9

Thank you, Director Saba. With that, Madam City Manager, I will make a motion to approve this item.

Second.

Phil BacerraItem 9

All right, we've got a motion by Councilmember Penaloza and a second by Councilmember Mendoza. Colleagues, please vote.

Motion passes with 5-2 with Councilmembers Lopez, Mendoza, Peñalosa, and Mayor Plotembo-Serra-Vodinez and Councilmember Hernandez and Mayor Sarmiento absent.

Phil BacerraItem 9

Thank you, Madam State Clerk. And the next item that we have off consent is item 62. And I believe that was also pulled by Councilmember Penaloza. And Councilmember Fan, you're stepping off. Okay. Councilmember Penaloza, go ahead.

David PenalozaItem 9

Sorry, Councilmember Fan. The item number 62, very, very excited that it's finally before us, is to approve a pre-commitment of $5.2 million in Home American Rescue Plan funds. And the reason why I pull this item is because, as we all are aware, the city of Santa Ana does have a seat on the Orange County Housing Finance Trust, which I am a representative of. And it's not often that we get to highlight what the trust is doing and what the effects it's having on the region, you know, across the region.

David PenalozaItem 9

And I wanted to highlight that on May 18th, 2022, the Orange County Housing Finance Trust approved an award of $2,480,000 in funding for WisePlace with my support on the board. It was an interesting board meeting because the city of Costa Mesa also had a project on the agenda that was requesting funding that was very competitive and scored very highly alongside WisePlace. And the RFP process through the Housing Finance Trust was a competitive one with four other applications competing for these same limited funds. And that board meeting was a little contentious.

David PenalozaItem 9

I had to kind of wrangle because they were trying to cut the budget in half, the amount, and hand it over to that project in Costa Mesa. And I, you know, with the help of Judson Brown and Steven Mendoza, who were very instrumental in guiding me through this whole process, was very happy to fight to make sure that we kept those dollars here for this project in Santa Ana, Wise Place. This project would not be feasible without this award of additional funds from the trust and further demonstrates our city's work on the Housing Finance Trust Board to advocate for resources to address the homelessness crisis for our residents.

David PenalozaItem 9

Since the creation of the Housing Finance Trust three years ago, the city has secured $2.2 million to develop 89 units of permanent supportive housing at North Harbor Village, $832,000 to develop 15 units of permanent supportive housing at FX residences, $2.5 million to develop 86 units of affordable housing at Crossroads at Washington, which is item 68 on tonight's agenda, and $1.4 million to develop 85 units of affordable housing at the Westview House Project, which was approved last month. In total, the city has secured over $9.4 million in funding for projects in Santa Ana,

David PenalozaItem 9

while also encouraging and supporting the development of affordable and permanent supportive housing projects outside of our city, in the north and south service planning areas, which I've also been very vocal about because initially it felt like it was an orchestrated effort to keep all the permanent supportive housing in Santa Ana. And I also stood firm and made sure that, hey, you know what? This this is a crisis that has to take that that the entire county, North Central and Southern Spa have to take the initiative and have to make sure that they have projects in their cities that are going to house these houses folks.

David PenalozaItem 9

So thank you to my colleagues for appointing me to the Housing Finance Trust Board to represent our city's interests and needs. and just that, Mayor, wanted to make sure that we remember that we have a seat at the Housing Finance Trust Board that's doing great work. And thank you, Judson. Obviously, none of this would be possible without you and your guidance. So thank you a lot. And with that said, Mayor, I will make a motion to approve this item. Great. There is a motion. Is there a second?

I will second. We have a motion and a second. Any additional comments or questions? If not, Council members, please vote.

Okay, motion passes 5-2 with Council members Lopez, Mendoza, Peniela, Samir Potem, Becerra, Mayor Sarmiento voting yes, and Council member Hernandez absent, and Council member Fan abstained.

Got it. Thank you everybody that brings us to the business calendar item First one is item number 64 and that's to designate a voting Delegate and up to two Alternates for the League of California City's General Assembly I guess we'll go ahead and open it up

Go ahead Councilmember Pham I would like to nominate them Go ahead Councilmember I would like to nominate Mayor Pro Tem Becerra, since he is on the board already.

Great.

Phil BacerraItem 9

I politely decline. In fact, I would turn around and go ahead and nominate Council Member Penalosa.

Sorry. I meant Penalosa. I apologize.

I appreciate it, though.

Phil BacerraItem 9

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Fan?

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

Oh, yeah. Same. I was going to nominate Council Member Penalosa. I am on a number of committees for the league and have gone to a lot of events. and he's there because he's on the board so i think it's a fine extension of his duties great

do we want to include any alternates on this or can we go ahead and defer that

Phil BacerraItem 9

unless anybody wants to remember you said you're on there as well

um i can be an alternate great there we go easy and uh councilmember lopez are you an alternate on

Jessie LopezItem 9

on the league as well or do you attend i sit and serve in one of the committees I was the appointed representative last time. I'm happy to support somebody else this year. I think.

Well, it certainly can't be me. So, you know, whoever else.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

So, would you like to be second alternate? If I have to be. It doesn't have to be. Unless he's not there and I ditch, you know.

I'll be second alternate if my colleague is unable to.

Great. So, I think we have a designate and two alternates. So with no further discussion.

Do we need to vote?

I think there's...

Yes, we do need to have Council vote.

So there's a motion and there's a... Well, is there a motion by Council Member Mendoza? Who was the second on that?

Phil BacerraItem 9

Council Member Mendoza. I think it came at me and I declined, so... Oh, I'll second that.

Second by Fan. Council Members, please vote.

David PenalozaItem 9

Thank you, by the way, to my colleagues.

Phil BacerraItem 9

We're not done voting yet.

So I'm still frozen, Madam Clerk, but I'm yes.

Yeah, I'm frozen too. Mine is frozen. Give me one second.

Control-Alt-Delete.

I should wait for the vote.

You should be able to vote now. Sorry about that.

Okay. Great. Now you can vote, Councilmembers.

Okay. Motion passes 7-0. Councilmembers Hernandez, Lopez, Mendoza, Peñalosa, Fan, Mayor Protembe, Sarah, Mayor Sarmiento voting yes.

Now you can thank everybody.

David PenalozaItem 9

Thank you to my colleagues. You know, I do sit on the Board of Directors for the OC Division of the LEA California Cities and doing a lot of good work. Last week, we met in Buena Park with the governor's office. So that was a nice update on everything from Care Court to all the, and Assemblywoman Sharon Krip Silva was there as well, provided updates on all the millions and millions and millions of dollars that are available at the state level. Billions, actually, not millions. That highly encouraged our cities and cities in Orange County to go after that funding because that surplus will probably not exist next year.

David PenalozaItem 9

So go after it, staff, across the board, whatever money is out there for good things. That's it, Mr. Mayor. Thank you.

Thank you for that. Moving along to item number 65, which is the lobbyist disclosure policy.

So, Mayor, that will be the city clerks.

Great. Madam Clerk, I'll go ahead and let you present.

Yes. Thank you, Mayor, members of the council. So I do have a presentation, which is essentially the staff report. And I also have Andrea Miller, the consultant who I've been working with on drafting the lobbyist ordinance and also collecting information from council from the last work study session that we did.

The second slide. There was added language that was related to the purpose and intent of the regulation that was added. So specifically, the new language indicates that the purpose for enacting these regulations is to promote public confidence and trust, to preserve the integrity of local government decision-making and provide members of the community with access to information about persons and organizations who attempt to influence decisions of city government through the use of paid lobbyists. And slide number three, providing the definition of lobbyist. Since there wasn't a council majority consensus,

staff suggested a threshold amount of $500 for the calendar month as an effort to compromise. And so if council wants to provide any direction to staff, I'm happy to hear that. Next slide. Expanded the definition of lobbyists to include the nonprofit organizations and client.

Next slide. Added the language related to the information to be disclosed at the time of registration and established that the registration expires and must be renewed annually.

Next slide. Provisions related to quarterly reporting, including information required to be disclosed, deadlines included in the initial draft of the proposed ordinance were retained, and effective dates updated. This expanded the section related to registration fees to provide the City Council may by resolution set the registration fee as well as fees for renewal and late filing. and staff is going to be seeking direction from council on this even if it requires for staff to go out and look at other jurisdictions to see what

they're doing there are some pros and cons that I'm finding as I'm reaching out to certain jurisdictions next slide added language requiring the use of the clerk of the council's electronic filing system to file the online registration forms and disclosure reports. Added language providing that duly authorized owners or officers of lobbying firms shall review the contents and electronically verify under penalty of perjury that he, she, or they believes the contents are true, correct, and complete based on personal knowledge or

on information and belief. And retained language that the Clerk of the Council will make all lobbyist registration and disclosure reports available online to the public and make copies available through the Clerk of the Council's office. And then next slide. Retained language that the Clerk of the Council will make all lobbyist registrations and disclosure reports available online to the public. Oh, I'm sorry. Added language related to the duties of the Clerk of the Council, including a provision that the Clerk may issue notices advising a registration and filing obligations.

If within 10 days of the issuance of the notice, the lobbyist complies or furnishes satisfactory evidence that he, she, they is exempt, a violation will be deemed not to have occurred.

This section also requires that the registration forms and disclosure reports be maintained for five years. Slide, the next slide. Added language that would enable an unregistered lobbyist to make a presentation at a public meeting of the mayor and city council after making certain disclosures related to his, her, their lobbying activities and agreement to register within seven calendar days and pay a late fee registration.

Lobbyist registration and disclosure fees, in addition to the ordinance, fees related to the lobbyist registration and disclosure program shall be set by resolution. Annual review of the fees is encouraged to ensure that the costs related to the program administration are fully recovered. Other items to be considered in setting the fee are provided. The registration fee should include the registration of the lobbyist as well as a cost per client. Registration forms and annual and quarterly disclosure reports related to larger firms with more clients will be more complex, requiring staff time to review and process.

Next slide. The lobbyist registration and disclosure fees. In addition to the ordinance, fees related to the lobbyist registration and disclosure program shall be set by resolution, annual review of the fees is encouraged to ensure the costs related to the program and administration are fully recovered. Other items to be considered in setting the fee are provided. As one, the registration fee should include the cost for the registration of the lobbyist as well as cost per client and staff hours required for processing firms with multiple clients, registration forms and annual and quarterly

disclosure reports related to larger firms with more clients that will be more complex.

Next slide. A penalty for late registration and late filing of disclosure reports should be established to recover the additional cost related to notices and record keeping. Registration should expire each year and require renewal if the lobbyist continues to qualify for registration. Payment of a renewal fee should cover the cost related to the processing or the process and processing of the annual and quarterly reporting requirements. And next slide. A preliminary fiscal impact analysis to manage the lobbyist registration policy and disclosure filings.

The Clerk of the Council recommends that an additional staff member be hired to fulfill the functions required of the policy, which is estimated personnel cost of $40,000.

And with that, if Council could provide staff direction and if you have any questions.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. I thought I saw somebody in that little window. Is that the consultant?

Yes, the consultant is with us.

All right. If we have any questions, she can go ahead and answer. You already went through the presentation. So let me bring it back to the council, see if there's any questions or comments.

Mayor Pro Tem.

Phil BacerraItem 9

Thank you. Let's see here. So under the exemptions from registration, there is a Section 2-908F. I'm not going to read the whole thing. It's a pretty long paragraph. I guess what I want to maybe have our consultant or Madam State Clerk, if you're able to answer this, what does it mean? Just put it bluntly.

Phil BacerraItem 9

I'll jump at once.

Andrea, did you want to answer that on 908F?

I certainly can. And I did want to begin though by one expressing appreciation to your city attorney's office. They provided the work that they had previously done for you. And we attempted to utilize that as a starting point and then incorporate some of the comments that the members of the city council made. Section 2-908 includes a lot of the language that was provided by your city attorney's office previously. We did add a couple of sections again, and in response to comments we heard from the council. So under that section, we're excluding or recommending that the council exclude public officials

that are acting in their official capacity. So the people, government agents that are working on your behalf and working within the portion scope of their employment.

Phil BacerraItem 9

If I could just stop you right there. I understand there's a bunch of exemptions. I'm zeroing in on just a couple. So I'm talking about 2-908F.

f so um f is a provision that's related to those agencies that are exempt from federal taxation and specifically those that's section 501 c3 which tends to deal with non-profit organizations and so they're representing people in this case indigent persons persons whose primary purpose is to provide drug services to indigent individuals such as the homeless discussion that you had

earlier.

Phil BacerraItem 9

But I see that it says that. I guess what I'm trying to understand is as you go further along, this exemption shall not apply to direct contacts with a city official in any situation other than a publicly noticed meeting. Okay, so other than direct meetings, that's when they can have contact. But for the purpose of attempting to influence a city decision with regard to any city funding, the organization is seeking nor to any person employed by the organization with respect to his or her activities related to the organization and only we wanted to make a

distinction and and i apologize i don't remember if this is language that came originally from your city attorney's office or if we added some language but really in a nutshell we realize that there may be employees of the organization of the non-profit organization that are acting on behalf of the organization when they're discussing issues with you providing information when they're attempting to influence you, it should be done in a public meeting. If they're acting on their private behalf and not in their affiliation with the nonprofit organization, then we recognize that that would be an appropriate time.

So if they happen to be a member of your community and they're asking about something or they're discussing issues with you that relates to their private residence or something relationship that they have with the city of Santa Ana, as opposed to them talking to you or speaking to you on behalf of their organization and attempting to influence decisions on behalf of their nonprofit.

Phil BacerraItem 9

Okay, because the way I'm looking at this, and I was just hoping for clarity, but as I'm reading this, it sounds like other than in a public meeting,

Phil BacerraItem 9

this exemption would apply, correct?

It applies to any situation other than when they're in a meeting before you and before the body.

Phil BacerraItem 9

Okay. And then let's see. I only have two others. Same exemptions, Section 2-908D. Any person appearing solely as a speaker at or providing written statements that become part of the record of a public hearing or enforcement proceeding at the city. So why is that being called out specifically?

This is related to a couple of situations. One where someone is providing information to you in your meetings and they're providing it to all of you and the information they provide becomes part of the public record. Or it could be someone attending some type of a code enforcement hearing or an administrative citation hearing where they're providing information related to some situation.

Phil BacerraItem 9

So this is more of a resident that's coming in that wants to… Okay. And then… Right. And then on section… Now getting out of the exemptions now, going into section 2-914, I noticed that, this is ticky-tack, but I noticed that 2.914 versus 2-, but my main concern is why would we allow a lobbyist who is not registered as a lobbyist with the clerk to appear at a public meeting or before the council or commission and then make a presentation to me you know this this grace period

Phil BacerraItem 9

i think is going to get exploited i i don't support having that in there i feel like if they're going to be lobbyists they're professionals and they should know better and if they know that we have an ordinance and they're obviously registering with our clerk or if they're not they would be informed that this ordinance exists. I don't know why we would give them that leeway. So I personally do not like the idea of them being able to appear. If they're lobbyists, if they check the boxes per this ordinance that they're a lobbyist, I don't think they should have some sort of lag time to register.

Phil BacerraItem 9

And usually if you've got a project where you're asking for someone like that to appear before a commission or a council meeting, IT'S NOT LIKE THEY'RE SPRUNG ON YOU AT THE LAST SECOND. THEY KNOW THEY'RE GOING TO BE A PART OF IT AND THEY SHOULD HAVE THE WHEREWITHAL TO, YOU KNOW, BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY THEY'RE GOING TO TRY TO MAKE THEMSELVES AWARE OF THE PROJECT SO THEY CAN INFORM ALL OF US, ET CETERA, ET CETERA. AT THE VERY LEAST THEY SHOULD ALREADY BE REGISTERED BEFORE THEY START THEIR LOBBYING ACTIVITIES. SO THOSE ARE ONLY THE THREE ITEMS.

COULD I JUST RESPOND TO WHY WE INCLUDED IT AND CERTAINLY IT'S A POLICY DECISION AS to whether or not you as a group want to remove that.

Phil BacerraItem 9

Sure.

We were attempting to balance the idea that there may be people that aren't necessarily professional lobbyists, but maybe they're affiliated with nonprofits or even for that matter, small companies where they are lobbying, but they may not be as sophisticated as some of the large lobbying firms that have multiple clients and certainly are and should be familiar with your rules and be able to comply with them so we were attempting to find some way where those individuals that legitimately make a mistake and i agree that the that should not be and i i agree

you may have people that try to exploit it but this is really intended to provide or at least was drafted to try to provide that opportunity for maybe those smaller companies or those non-profits that may have lobbying activities but they are you know more loosely maybe they're lobbyists, they really do other things by day, but they're also lobbying. And to give an opportunity that if you wanted to hear from them and they'd reached to register, they could. But like you said, those more professional lobbying firms, I think should be familiar with the regulations. And so

you may not want to include this. We were just attempting to balance that idea that we're, it also includes criminal penalties. We want to give that opportunity for those people that may make an honest mistake.

Phil BacerraItem 9

I would just respond to that with the clerk puts out the agenda, right? And so as these items are on the agenda, if there are items where lobbying is taking place, let's say, for instance, a development project, I think the beauty is having the clerk be the center of this particular ordinance. It allows for a lot of this to come together. So in other words, I believe that the clerk's office could reach out to, say, Planning and Building or whichever appropriate department when it comes to the items and coordinate to see are there lobbying efforts being made on behalf of some of the applicants coming

Phil BacerraItem 9

before us on the agenda. So I, again, I still express my opposition to that particular component. I think that, you know, it's really, if we're going to adopt a law, you know, we need people to know those laws. So I would say that our clerk's office needs to do a good job of making sure folks know that. So whether we have to put it front and center on the website, whether we have to, you know, notify folks that we see that come to the council meetings, that regularly speak, that we know are paid to come and speak to us, I think that's going to require a proactive effort on behalf of our clerk's office.

Phil BacerraItem 9

So I still have my opposition to Section 2-914, but thank you for the clarifications on the other exemptions.

Great, thank you. Let me call on Council Member Fan.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

Thank you. So thank you, Mayor Protembecerra. I had the same confusion regarding Subdivision F. and I, as written, I can't support it because I don't think I can wrap my head around it.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

So from my recollection, or at least personally, I believe that anybody who receives, you know, let's say more than $500, right, to influence a decision, whether it's at a public council meeting, whether it's one-on-one on Zoom, in an office, coffee, lunch, whatever, that's a lobbyist. I don't care where you do it, if you're getting paid to advocate for a project or make a legislative change. So, the way I'm reading this exemption under F is that we're saying it applies to 501c3s,

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

but it only applies if the 501c3 lobbyist is speaking at a public meeting. all other situations do not apply meaning all other situations is not what is not lobbying I guess I'm just not understanding the way this is phrased and so one we need to reword it in a way where it's just a lot clearer and to it To me doesn't matter whether you're doing it at a public meeting or one-on-one with me if you were being paid to influence a decision

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

And that's what you're specifically being paid for that is lobbying if the ACLU Staffer is getting paid to influence and have a meeting with me about police oversight that is lobbying if a developer is being paid to meet with me on Development project that is lobbying if there's no difference there maybe policy differences but the work is the same so can you please explain to me again this exemption

because it is not clear at all so how about if I instead make a suggestion that you eliminate the very last sentence

because I think that that may be what's creating the confusion

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

So, yes. I mean, that is creating the confusion, but I don't think a 501c3 should be fully exempt. Just because they are a 501c3 does not mean they don't have paid lobbyists who are here to advocate for legislative changes. and just because you're a 501c3 doesn't mean to me you should be exempt from lobbying registration there are lots of different 501c3s so I wouldn't want that

exemption at all I mean it can be excluded it's a policy decision yeah yeah

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

so so that's I guess my comment to my colleagues which is I don't think we should exempt 501c3s if they are paying for someone who meets the definition of a lobbyist. And I guess that would be my specific comment there. As to exemption, so I would recommend to just remove subdivision F.

In total. I'm sorry, I can't see your colleagues, see if they're shaking their head.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

Oh, well, we haven't voted yet. Oh, okay. Just comments, yeah. So my recommendation to my colleagues, or my preference would be to remove subdivision F in Section 2-908. Regarding subdivision D, I also do not agree with including the word or the phrase become part of the record of a public hearing. We have public hearings on a number of major items. Many of our ordinances require public hearings. They can be advocated by a number of different folks. And so just because a person's appearing solely to speak at

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

or provide written statements for a public hearing, I don't think that should exempt them from registering as a lobbyist. I think maybe if we limited the public hearings, that would be different. I'm not sure how we would limit it. The enforcement proceeding, I think is fine to keep. So if there's no clarification as to why we would put the word or the phrase public hearing in there, I would also strike that would be my preference.

So, and just make sure I understand. So strike just that phrase that become part of the record of a public hearing or enforcement proceeding. And so in the sense that providing written statements,

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

period? So I would I would remove of a public hearing because enforcement proceeding I think is might be a little bit different. Yes. But for public hearing you know we have a public hearing on tax ordinance or ballot measure all that stuff. I think it's just too broad. Okay. Great. Any other comments? Councilmember Fan?

Sorry, not for now. Thank you. Great. Thanks. Let me see if there's any other questions or comments.

Jessie LopezItem 9

Many other members of the council. Councilmember Lopez? Thank you to the City Attorney's Office and the city clerk's office. I know this has been something that I personally have been waiting to come back to the full council for a long time now. I just had a question about the timeline or the dates that are included in the proposed ordinance because it's very specific to when the report should start to kind of trickle in, which is starting in 2023.

Jessie LopezItem 9

And if this is adopted 30 days effective after the ordinance passes, the second reading, I just wanted to know from the clerk if the office is ready to take this on.

No, we are not. We'd still have to work on the forms, updating the website, really analyze what the fees are going to be because that isn't presented to Council tonight so I will have to come back to Council requesting for that to be adopted by resolution just a question

Jessie LopezItem 9

warrant the fees included in the staff report because I wanted to get some

direction from Council before putting presenting that to Council to indicate whether or not they wanted to if there was because there's so many varieties of types of fees that we could imply. There's late fees, initial fees, quarterly, per client, you know, all of what we have stated.

Jessie LopezItem 9

Does staff have a recommendation on at least a registration fee or an annual fee?

At this time, the only, I don't know what the fees should be sent. I do have an idea based on what I've already investigated with other cities or other jurisdictions and in learning from where they feel that they need to change their current fees I'm already working on trying to develop something but I don't have anything established at this time

Jessie LopezItem 9

the last time that we met and talked about this there was a chart that was presented to the council with the cities that the person we hired to compare would bring to us and that included the fees. So I'm just confused as to why that section of this ordinance is in moving forward.

Together. If I could add, I think that what we're trying to make sure that we do, the ordinance that you adopt will drive to some extent how much work it entails in the city clerk's office. She's suggested this evening that she will need some additional staffing to support this effort. The fees should be set at a rate to try to recover the cost that the city is bearing for the administration of this program. So once we have an understanding of the types of reporting that you're going to require of the lobbyists, that there's general agreement with the ordinance,

then she can, as she schedules it for final reading, in the meantime, we'll evaluate what the costs to her office are going to be to process the paperwork that's now being required and the fee should be commensurate to recover those costs.

Jessie LopezItem 9

Thank you.

Great. Any other questions or comments?

David PenalozaItem 9

I just wanted to say that I agree with Councilmember Fan's request to strike out subdivision Section F. Just wanted to state that for the record.

We need any further clarifications on this?

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

Yeah, I do. So, Subdivision D, I, you know, because I removed, I asked to remove the portion regarding public hearing because it's quite broad. There are a lot of people who come to speak at a public hearing who are paid lobbyists. We've seen it happen, for example, with fireworks.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

and similar with enforcement proceeding here because I don't see a definition for enforcement proceeding but that could be any situation in which let's say a developer who's building constructing etc and then you know isn't cleaning up or is creating a lot of debris or and whatnot so So can you give me, because in my mind an enforcement proceeding was kind of more like a maybe a, actually I'm not sure what I was thinking of enforcement proceeding, but can you kind of give me an example of why or a reason why we have D in there?

Because there may be people that you request information from, but I think maybe to get at what seems to be problematic i think the period should be at the end of record and then delete of a public hearing or enforcement proceeding because either one it's going to become a part of the the record of of whatever that hearing is or that proceeding is well because i'm leaning and and when we and when we drafted it we were really thinking about like administrative citations for code enforcement properties you know nuisance abatement actions that your code enforcement staff

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

may be bringing so i i understood that i think the code enforcement staff makes sense but then my other concern is again an example of say someone paying uh an applicant paying for someone to speak on their behalf which could be the same person who advocated for the legislation or project that's still a lobbyist even if they're speaking at enforcement proceedings so So, and then I considered leaving it at written statements, but in my mind, a written statement can also be emails.

Yes.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

So, you know, today in the remote world, we can have a hundred different emails back and forth and it can be just as effective as speaking in person. So I think for me, I would like to strike D. If you're a lobbyist, you're a lobbyist, whatever the situation might be. And go ahead.

I think this section though was, I think what we were trying to do is exempt those situations where someone's only responding to a request from a city official. They're not initiating the contact on their own. They've received requests from the city manager because the council has directed that they want more information about a particular project or they want some detailed information that maybe only a particular person can provide to you or to a staff member that needs information to assist with the processing of something.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

So then my recommendation for D is to strike everything

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

amended to say any person appearing solely at the request or demand of the city.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

Or city staff, whatever, right? And.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

And I think that should cover a situation in which we are telling them to come. Right.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

And in order to, you know, at the request or demand of city or its agents for the purpose of providing information. I think that should be pretty clear that we're asking them to come to give us information, not to advocate. So I do support removing F. regarding 2-214, I had a similar concern about a seven-day delay because often the hype and the issues, the articles, the blog posts, Facebook posts, all of those discussions happen the next day.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

So I would like to see that if a lobbyist who's not registered appears at a public meeting, that they, maybe my colleagues might entertain this instead of just removing it, because I do understand that there may be some circumstances that this might come up, is to require that they immediately after making the comment register.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

It's online.

Okay. Okay.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

Well, they can register at the meeting.

Yeah.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

So we all have laptops and computers, and you can't tell me you don't have access to one if we have it available for you right after you make your statements on the record, and you can pay. So those would be my, I guess, motion to approve with three amendments.

All right. So we have a motion with those amended items. Council member Lopez. Go ahead, consultant. Sorry, I don't know your name.

That's okay. I just wanted to, I mean, do you want the language to be immediately upon such presentation?

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

I can say immediately before the end of the meeting, because I mean, if they can have the presentation and come back or something. I don't know. I don't want to make it weird.

Phil BacerraItem 9

Prior to the conclusion?

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

Yeah, at the end of the item. There you go.

Got it. So we have a motion with those items. Councilmember Locke?

Jessie LopezItem 9

Just quickly, because I didn't see it when I was reading the proposed ordinance. I remember there was one of the things we had asked was to make sure that the EMT's calendars were a part of this, that they were public. And I don't know. Can I get clarification if it's in here?

I'm sorry, the what calendars?

Jessie LopezItem 9

The executive management team.

Did I remember that incorrectly?

Jessie LopezItem 9

I think you're referring. I apologize. Let's check there.

Jessie LopezItem 9

Another question.

Jessie LopezItem 9

Under section 909, can you confirm with me

Jessie LopezItem 9

if there is language,

Jessie LopezItem 9

if there is language that details, you know, all campaign contributions to a controlled committee of an elected city officio, I didn't see it. I might've missed it in the list because I see all of the other subsections.

Yeah, there's a reference in the quarterly reports.

C1 to officials controlled committees and recording. Thank you.

Great. Is there a second to that motion?

Phil BacerraItem 9

Mayor, I'll second. I just want to make sure I understand it. So, Council Member Pham, this is approve the item, remove 2-908 subsections D and F and then the modification to 2-914, correct?

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

So I guess you can remove D or add the comment of, oh sorry, yes.

Yes.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

Yeah, well, no, sorry. Because D was any person appealing solely at the request or demand of city staff, or at the city for informational purposes.

Phil BacerraItem 9

I'm sorry, okay, so 2-908, subsection D with that modification, removal of 2-908F, and then the modification to 2-914, correct? Correct. Okay, so I'll second that.

All right, we have a motion and a second, seeing no other questions or comments. The only comment I was going to make is, I think, was this the result of a lack of a better Council-led item that was brought to us? Or was this brought by staff?

or this this was brought by council this was a council member requested item and council member Lopez was really that's what I thought so thank you

councilmember Lopez thank you staff for bringing this to us I know we had tried to tackle this before right madam city attorney so then so we had a starting off point look tonight the Anaheim City Council is doing something much more robust than this this is the baseline just disclosure what we really need to get into if we want to make a difference is some campaign finance improvements and changes to our municipal code. These disclosures are fine. There's plenty of loopholes to get around with this. And again, it's just simple disclosure. I think if we really want to get to the heart of what seems to be the impetus of this is

really having to, you know, have us either participate or not on things that, you know, would be an extension of the expansion of the Levine Act that many regional boards and commissions already, you know, include. That is meaningful. Not saying that this isn't, but this is a very, very small step in what I think needs to be done, given what our neighbors in Anaheim are experiencing right now. So, in any event, I think it's fine. I don't know if it cures the problem, you know,

But what it really does is hopefully it's a small step towards, I think, a more broad effort to do reform of how and who is involved in the city and how they influence decisions here. And that's really the goal. Having lobbyists register, that's all fine and well. But it's how we accept those monies. and that's something that I think contributions and donations and influences on campaigns and elections, those are things that are meaningful and those are things that we obviously see in other cities impacting their ethics and their decision-making and their public trust.

So in any event, we have a motion and a second. Council members, please vote.

Okay, motion passes 7-0 with Councilmembers Hernandez, Lopez, Mendoza, Peñalosa, Fan, Mayor Patel Becerra, and Mayor Samantha voting yes.

Great, thank you. Moving along to item number 66, which is the flexible tax holiday. So I'll go ahead and turn it over to staff for presentation.

We do have a brief presentation that we can give you, or if you do not want to do the presentation, it's really five recommended actions that would place it out on the front of the voters on the ballot. The one action, recommended action number three, we do need direction from you because we are looking for a volunteer to offer the argument and any rebuttal statement. But if you'd like the presentation, we do have one ready.

I'm not sure if everybody's familiar with this item. I think everybody's had a chance to discuss this with you. Have you briefed the council members one-on-one? So hopefully, you know, that's clear. Does anybody want to offer any comments or offer themselves up, I guess, to help work with, is it you, Madam City Attorney, or is it the City Manager?

Finance Director, City Attorney, City Manager. We do have a tight turnaround on it. The argument needs to be written by June 28th.

Got it. Go ahead, Councilmember Phan. You're volunteering, I guess.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

No, actually I was trying to voluntold my colleague, Mayor Proton Becerra, since this was his idea, and I think it's a great idea, and you've been a big champion for it, so why not?

Phil BacerraItem 9

I'd be happy to work with you on that. Thank you.

All right, so we've got to volunteer.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

Work with city manager. Yes, I said. Okay. I was looking at her. But he said you, and I was like, oh.

All right, council member Hernandez. I'd also love to volunteer.

Great. Any others? Could be more than one. All right, we've got two competent council members that can volunteer on that. Any other questions or comments? Seeing none, is there a motion?

David PenalozaItem 9

I'll make a motion to approve with my two colleagues appointing them.

Is there a second?

Second.

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

Motion passes 7-0 with Councilmembers Hernandez, Lopez, Mendoza, Peñalosa, Fan, Mayor Potem Becerra, Mayor Sarmiento voting yes.

Great. Thank you, everybody. This brings us to the public hearing section of the meeting. and before the public hearing on item number 67, I'm going to go ahead and call on the clerk to provide some instructions to the public who may want to comment on this item.

Thank you. Members of the public joining us by way of Zoom or conference call and would like to make a comment for only public hearing item 67, please dial star 9 from your phone or select raised hand from Zoom now.

Great, thank you. So this is the item that will be repealing some of the municipal code on the commercial advertising signs and introducing consideration of a new ordinance that would allow for the construction of new digital reader boards. And I'll go ahead and open the public hearing and ask staff if there is a brief presentation.

We do have a presentation and we will make it brief.

thank you Daniel good evening mayor and members of the City Council the presentation before you tonight is a recommendation for the City Council to adopt an ordinance approving zoning ordinance amendment 22 20 22-0 1 the proposed amendments is to repeal and adopt new regulations

I apologize for that. The recommendation is to adopt an ordinance approving zoning ordinance amendment number 20-22-01. the proposed amendments is to repeal the existing ordinance and adopt new and updated standards in the city's zoning code for reviewing permitting and rating billboards within the city tonight I'll be going over the background and I'll finish out with the next steps as well as discussing some of the recommendation and the goals of this ordinance the city has been regulating

restricting billboards since 1984 no new billboards have been approved in Santa after 1987 which restricted severely restricted billboards placement in many areas of the city beginning in 2017 the City Council through the edit committee provide direction for staff to update the ordinance regulating and allowing for digital billboards along freeway corridors within the city with the goal of looking at removing some of the existing billboards within the city interior providing opportunity for addressing non-conforming structures within the city as well as creating community benefits as in revenue

opportunity along the freeway corridors for billboards operations staff conducted three public study session with the Planning Commission in June and July of 2020 and again in February of this year before initiating the public up to adoption process questions and feedback included background about existing billboards providing input on recommending distance away from sensitive land uses and then also to ensure that we conduct the appropriate outreach to the community and as previously mentioned no billboards have been

approved since the 1980s however the city through the Public Work Agency awarded separate contract with billboard companies to allow for new digital display on city-owned property along the freeway corridors and that is separate from this ordinance citywide there are approximately 92 private billboard sites the billboards includes large medium and small billboards some are double-sided some are single-sided all are static billboards and not the

digital billboards type that are being proposed for consideration tonight so this is just a quick map of the various locations throughout the city that has billboards they are located along major corridors the ordinance purpose is to require new boards new billboards to comply with state and local regulations and also to implement the latest state-of-the-art digital display programming technologies. It will restrict to eligible location for new billboards would be along the freeways

and away from residential properties. And I'm going to go through the following maps real quickly, but these are potential locations along the 22, the 5, and the 55 corridors.

the review process is with the exception of one which is administrative all requires that it's a public hearing review approval in front of the Planning Commission as part of the billboard ordinance process our goal is to look at the removal of billboards within the city interior. Therefore, there is a proposed exchange requirement that would be required as part of proposing new digital billboards. All of the requirements provide for a rate of 4 to 1.

But there is also an opportunity for billboards to be established as determined through an economic plan that is going to be a part of an operating agreement that is required as part of the permitting process as part of the operating agreement process all billboards again would be required there is a minimum guarantee fee to the city of equivalent to 90 90 thousand dollars per face of a digital billboard or 30 percent net advertising revenue the operating agreement also include provision allowing the site to reduce obligation as I mentioned, to remove non-conforming billboards

subject to meeting certain criteria that are of economic benefit to the city. This would really essentially allow businesses in the city that are of regional nature would be able to have an opportunity to also apply for billboards when they don't have access to billboards exchanged that are located within the interior of the city through a series of economic criteria that would we evaluate under the operating agreement

that's economic benefit can include as you can see on the list here there are number of benefits but the major ones include provision for public service announcements local hiring and public property improvements the intended result of the ordinance is to incentivize billboard removal as I mentioned generating community benefits as well as recurring revenues to fund public services the application process fee there are we anticipate their potential about 15 billboards that could potentially locate along the three corridors generate up to about ninety five thousand dollars in application

fees however additional revenue can be realized through the minimum annual hundred thousand dollars a hundred eighty thousand dollars that could be generated from each billboard that has to face as part of the revenue and that is the minimum that we would estimate per billboard per location if we were to build out the 15 location it is estimated that annually the city could realize up to 2.7 million dollars in potential revenue the community outreach was extensive we held three public workshop with the Planning Commissions

we also circulate the sequel document publicly and to all interested parties we also reach out to the ten neighborhoods along the freeway corridors that are adjacent to some of these eligible site and the feedback that we receive both through the Planning Commission the public process have all been reflected in the changes that are proposing your ordinance the sequel documentation for this process is a mitigated negative declaration this would be required to be adopted as part of your approval of the ordinance you can should consider to approve it tonight in terms of the next

step the Planning Commission recommended approval of the ordinance to the City Council at the April 25th meeting the City Council action if taken tonight would require a second reading of the ordinance after the approval of this process staff will begin the application preparation process as well as preparing for the application and submission process for the ordinance and that concludes staff's report and recommendation in this matter we'll be happy to answer any questions you may thank you great thank you for that

presentation we have a couple of speaker cards so let me go ahead and do that before we bring it back to the City Council let me start start with Scott King followed by Ariana DeVaria

good evening mr. mayor council members I will be brief it is late I want to thank in tie and the rest of the staff for putting this together this has been a long time coming. It is our hope that you pass this this evening. This is good for local business, not just billboard companies. And we've been waiting for this, so it's my hope that you will pass this proposed ordinance. Thank you.

Thank you, Scott. Let me go ahead and call on Ariana DeVarrio. Great. You're on call in case we have any questions. Let me go ahead and bring it back to the council.

Mayor, did you want to check for any virtual?

Do you have anybody?

I do not, but I did receive written communications. One Santa Ana resident in support of the item and one Santa Ana resident commented to revise the ordinance to protect the area view around the water tower area. And that's all I have.

Thank you for that. Mayor Pro Tem.

Phil BacerraItem 9

Thank you, Mayor. In the proposed section 41-1111, I was hoping that we would include something about a light and glare study. Maybe there's a more technical term for that. I just remember from when we approved the signs over at the main place, we had concerns all the way across the 5 freeway over in Floral Park and Park Santiago. not to say that that would prohibit any signs, just rather to have that data so we can adjust it accordingly. Because I think when they originally put it up, I could be wrong if I remember this correctly, but I remember that they had the sign up,

Phil BacerraItem 9

it was kind of dim, then they brightened it, then they realized, oh, they went too bright, and then they scaled it back. But it was that study that was able to help them adjust it.

So our mechanism for adjusting the issue is that we do have a standard that any billboards cannot be more than 0.3 foot candle above the ambient lighting, so they do have sensors to address that. In addition, through the operating agreement, that allows us to provide specific requirements for any specific billboard that we need to address, so we do have an opportunity to require that as part of our process.

Phil BacerraItem 9

And I know that 41-1111 is what you're asking for in the submittal, and I just figured you'd probably want to get that up front and then um in your proposed section 41-1130 subsection e it says that the these billboards shall not significantly block or significantly impair views of any landmark identified in the general plan so if i'm an applicant where am i looking in the general plan

am i we we the city staff that that's actually providing direction for us as city staff to to ensure that when we review the application process that that gets reviewed.

Phil BacerraItem 9

But I mean, I guess what I want to see for folks that are looking, right, especially because some of the locations as you get more toward the central part of Santa Ana, we have more landmarks in that area. I'd like to see something in here that doesn't limit where the landmarks are listed in the general plan, but there should be something that allows folks just even as they're doing their due diligence that they can look somewhere.

We could provide a maps as part of the application portal.

Phil BacerraItem 9

Okay. Thank you for that. And one of those landmarks that I am concerned about is the San Ando Water Tower. And I saw on one of those exhibits, I think it's potential billboard area two. So I appreciate Lisandro Orozco for providing comments. He's absolutely right. The water tower is one of our many landmarks, but it is such a prominent landmark. and it's such an identifying feature as folks are coming up and down the 5 freeway. So I would actually like my colleagues to consider an additional subsection in 41-1130. So it would be a new addition or new subsection.

Phil BacerraItem 9

It would be subsection F that just says, shall not be located between the Santa Ana Water Tower and the adjacent freeway in order to maintain clear view of the Santa Ana Water Tower. So that would be my addition to that. I will say one thing that I championed while I was on the Planning Commission was having the word Santa Ana placed on these billboards and so I appreciate that 41 1132 a states that the word Santa Ana Excuse me shall permanently appear on the billboard structure in a size large enough to be visible to drivers using the freeway

Phil BacerraItem 9

And I think that's the very least that we can ask for folks to identify that they are in Santa Ana as they should be proud of that So my, I would just say right now at this point, I guess I would put out a motion to approve with the additional subsection F.

Great. We have a motion. Is there a second on that? I'll second. We have a motion and a second. Any other questions or comments?

Jessie LopezItem 9

Yeah, I do have questions.

Council Member Lopez.

Jessie LopezItem 9

Thank you, Mayor Sabiento. And thank you for those questions. You took them right out of my list, actually. Another question that I had for you, Min, was can you just share with me a little bit about the concerns that War 3 residents talk to you about when you have the meetings with them?

Sure. So when we met with the residents, the concern was about the safety requirements. And as part of the review process, they would have to comply with all of Caltrans requirements as it relates to lighting, as it relates to traffic messaging. So that does not conflict with traffic signs and images. So those are some of the area's concerns, as well as potential impact to adjacent residential properties for lighting issues so how that was addressed with the Planning Commission was precisely these lighting standards requirements as well as the distance away from residential

Jessie LopezItem 9

properties and the day or did anyone really from the city talk to you about any concerns that folks had about the distraction of people when they're driving and seeing the digital billboards that you can share with the

residents that that was brought up however Caltrans does regulate the intervals between the changing of the images so the images cannot change more than four seconds at the minimum however the industry practices is anywhere between six to eight seconds and the signs cannot have moving images they'll

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

thank you one question Min is for section 41-1103 application to existing signs. I actually recall this item coming to me when I was on the Planning Commission, so it is literally a long time coming. But one of the questions I had was, you know, we do reference the business and profession code for amortization of these old billboards, but do we have anything coming up? Because the goal here is to update and get all of these fixed and, you know, into the 21st century. Do we have anything in the books that do

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

clarify are we working on something related to this specific section to kind

of hurry the process along I think that's something that we can look certainly look into you know discuss with our staff on our current progress this particular ordinance really is aiming at voluntary amortization of existing billboards for those companies and even incentivizing our local businesses and work with these billboard companies to have voluntary amortization of billboards within the city. We will certainly come back and provide any updated information regarding the amortizing process if we had anything with existing billboards that are not through this process.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

Okay, that would be great. I did want to support the public comment and Mayor Pro Tem's comment relating to the water tower. I actually was driving back from L.A. I don't remember, last week, was it last week? during the supermoon, the strawberry supermoon. But the water tower was lit up in pride colors, and it was just so beautiful, and I would hate for that kind of stretch of freeway to have a lot of billboard distractions. It would really take away from the fact that we work very hard to light the water tower up in many colors, depending on the holiday, the commemoration, etc.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

So I would like to see staff specifically look at, you know, what is the stretch of freeway where we should really exempt or prevent billboards from going up because it would, you know, it might be a mile. I don't know what it is, but, you know, as you're driving down the freeway, it literally, it could be blocked like this. So that is important to me. Not just if you're standing on the ground or anything like that. I think a whole combination of that is important.

Thank you, and we will work with the Mayor's Potem recommended language. We'll survey the area and provide the appropriate changes at the second waiting.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

Okay. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure it's not just billboards near the water tower, but along the freeway where you can see the water tower.

Yeah.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

My other question is regarding the table at 41-1110. The third item down is this conversion slash reconstruction of existing freeway oriented on-premise sign. Requires development project plan, CUP, operating agreement, three approving bodies, right, with a public hearing. I'm trying to make sure I understand what it is because there's no definition of, quote, freeway oriented on-premise sign. There's freeway oriented. There's freeway-oriented on-premise digital sign and on-premise advertisement sign. And they all kind of mean different things.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

I just want to make sure we use exact language of the definition that we have so that I know what we're talking about.

So existing freeway-oriented static billboards are your commercial advertising structure that advertise non-onsite signage. And so they're basically your billboards that are located adjacent to the freeways.

existing free-oriented on-premise signs are the ones similar to what you have at Main Place Mall. They are looking, they look and function like a commercial advertising sign, but they can only advertise on-site.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

So but what we mean then it is then we're referencing 41-1101-10 which is freeway oriented on-premise digital sign is what we mean in that table. Is that correct? Conversion correct. So I think we we should add digital to that to clarify that we mean freeway oriented on-premise digital sign because then you can read it as freeway oriented on-premise advertisement sign because you're combining two definitions. I want to make sure that we're specific as to what we're discussing.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

But then maybe that's then to continue on that, if we already have something that is a freeway oriented on-premise digital sign, do the ones we have now, do they not meet the standards of this ordinance?

They may not, but this also allowed them to provide for upgrading to an off-premise commercial signage if they are able to secure and procure a replacement and removal of interior businesses, you know, commercial businesses with sign that would want to work with the local location.

However, through the operating agreement and the economic benefit plan, if they are committed to advertising on-site advertisement for a certain amount of time, and they meet certain criteria such as employments of local area residents, producing revenue of a certain amount annually, and with a certain amount of annual investment that we can see as a plan, those all have economic benefit potential returning to the city. and therefore we would use those kind of benefit in place of having to do an

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

exchange rate of removing billboards. So that's fine I guess I'm trying to get to the point of so for those on-site signs was counts I assumed council or some other decision-making bodies approved them in the past right yes so I would like to see that on the table since we're referring to conversion slash reconstruction of existing freeway oriented on-premise digital sign that it just not require public hearing and go through the director of PBA and city manager I don't see why it has to go back to the Planning Commission go through conditional use permit and all this rigmarole if it's an item that a

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

location that was already approved by City Council there's not a time I think there's only like five or six of them in total in the city and we're just essentially upgrading them a little bit and to convert them from on-site to off-site commercial or advertising?

So generally they don't have similar conditions as they would to a digital billboard, but we can certainly incorporate those similar conditions into an administrative approval. I think we'll be okay with that. So if you are looking for administrative approval process for these type of sign, we'll just stipulate that we're able to add conditions as required so that it matches with what a a conditional use permit process would allow us to do.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

Okay. So, I mean, for me, it just seems like, you know, if we're converting existing freeway-oriented static billboards and allowing that to go through a lesser process that doesn't require public hearing, which to me sounds to be a way bigger lift than converting something that already exists and is already digital, then I don't know why we should make them go through the rigmarole of coming to planning commission.

Again, it's really more this thinking that they would never approve through our process. It's really established the record. They never were approved for off-site advertising. So we have to provide a mechanism that addresses the conversion of that to, you know, so it's recommended that we go through a public hearing process for that. But if the Council thinks it's too rigorous and too onerous, we can certainly make that that administrative process but duplicate the requirements of a CUP so that we can condition?

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

Yeah, because if you're converting an existing freeway-oriented static billboard, you're still, well, I guess it's just, my point is I think in both cases going through a ministerial process is perfectly acceptable to me. That would be my recommendation to update that. And that would be my comments for this. Great.

The maker of the motion and the second, are you agreeable to those additions?

Phil BacerraItem 9

I apologize. I got a little bit lost there. So Councilmember Phan, so you're saying the conversion reconstruction of existing freeway-oriented static billboard, you see that as going through the staff review versus the one underneath it of existing freeway-oriented on-premise sign that's going through the discretionary process. You're saying you want them both to match up as administrative?

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

Yes. We can have the same conditions, whatever conditions you need, but it seems to me that converting a static billboard is more difficult and requires more changes than converting the freeway-oriented on-premise digital sign. But I might be completely misunderstanding, but it seems to me both can just go through the same ministerial process.

I think we can get there in both situations. Again, it was to keep consistent with our process because in order to establish a new advertising structure, you would have to go through a conditional use permit. So the idea is that with the existing static billboard, they already have a conditional use permit on file. It's a matter of converting the static function to a digital function and applying the operating agreement where we would have all the abilities to address designs, address lighting. With the conversion, they already have a CUP for on-site.

We needed to make modifications so that it becomes allowable for either on-site and off-site or totally off-site, in keeping with that same process. So at the end of the day, you still have a conditional use permit that is consistent with the ordinance.

Phil BacerraItem 9

I don't have a problem with maintaining it, just because I think this is something that, you know, we want to be transparent about. And I think ultimately at the end of the day, I know some of the folks that are here tonight have waited quite some time. And so I know that once they get it, they're going to be elated. So I'm kind of leaning more towards keeping it the way Director Tai is talking about. But you brought up a very good point, Councilmember Pham, which is I'd want consistency in the terms used here. Because if we're asking you, then that means other people are going to ask you.

Phil BacerraItem 9

And I'd rather them be able to read it and go, ah, that's what that is. I want them to match it word for word. I don't want them to guess or assume what that may or may not be. So that, I think Councilmember Fan's comment was excellent on making sure that what is listed in this column under billboard type matches identically with the definitions up in 41-1101.

Yeah.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

10, yes.

All right, so those changes are clear to staff? Clear. Agreeable to the second? Council Member Lopez?

Jessie LopezItem 9

No, I just wanted to say that I wasn't going to completely be supportive of that, because I think, especially for War III, when you looked at the neighborhoods list, that's the area that would be most impacted, and they would want to keep the process as is so that they have some sort of say.

Right, so you're supportive of that. So let me go ahead and close the public hearing before we take a vote. The only thing I was going to say is I was going to thank staff. I was on the original Edibit committee when it existed back in who knows when, 2018 or something, when it was first proposed when we talked about. And the goal was how do you eliminate sort of the static billboards that were all over the city that were, you know, causing a lot of blight because they would be torn down, they would be, you know, they would be in bad shape. and what was once a detriment and a harm to the city which was being carved up

by freeways can now be a benefit right and so that's something that I think that that transition to making those opportunities available I think make a lot of sense you know I want to thank I know I see Rod Wilson that you know and I heard we heard from Scott King so thank you all for being strong advocates and being patient more than anything and I think you know to the extent that we can be as business friendly as we possibly can that's always something that's really important and this is one way we can do it so that all said thank you to staff for finally addressing this and bring this to us council members please vote

motion passes seven zero with council members Hernandez Lopez Mendoza Penalosa fan mayor pretend but Sarah mayor Sermia the voting yes great thank

Thank you. Moving along to item number 68. This is the, before we start on that public hearing on item number 68, I'm going to go ahead and ask the clerk if she has any instructions.

Thank you. For any member of the public that is joining us by way of Zoom or conference call, if you would like to provide a comment, please dial star 9 or select raise hand from Zoom. Thank you.

Great. This is item number 68, public hearing on the crossroads of Washington for an affordable housing project. Does staff have a presentation?

Mayor, we do have a presentation, but I'm not sure if you're going to require us to do it. This is an affordable project that has actually been before you on five separate occasions, and it has unanimously been approved, each one of those five times. This really is a culmination of all of the previous actions of council. that will allow related companies to close on their financing and develop this great affordable project.

Great. Thank you for that. Let me go ahead and open up the public hearing and ask the clerk if there are any members of the public here presently that would wish to address us or online.

No, Mayor. We did not also receive any written communication.

Great. Thank you. Is there any questions or comments on this item? Is there a motion I can entertain?

Jessie LopezItem 9

I'll move to approve. I'm happy to second.

Great. We have a motion and a second. Let me go ahead and question. Councilmember

David PenalozaItem 9

Paniello. Yeah, Mayor Sarmento. I just have a comment as we move forward with this project. I know that, you know, we originally approved it a couple of years ago. And one thing that, if I'm not mistaken, I might actually be mistaken on the location of the project. So, yep, yep, I am. So never mind. Thank you, May.

I love it. I love that comment. Thank you. We close the public hearing. We have a motion and a second. Seeing no other questions or comments, council members please vote.

Motion passes 6-1 with council members Lopez, Mendoza, Peñalosa, Fan, Mayor Potem, Becerra, I'm Marissa Amintho voting yes, and Councilmember Hernandez absent.

Great. And I should have mentioned that there's a companion item on the Housing Authority agenda on this that involves this development as well. So let me go ahead and recess the City Council meeting and convene the Housing Authority meeting and ask the Clerk to call roll.

Thank you. Authority Member Hernandez? Authority Member Lopez? Here. Authority Member Mendoza? Present. Authority member Peñalosa?

David PenalozaItem 9

Here.

Authority member Fan? Here. Vice Chair Becerra? Here. And Chair Sarmiento?

Yes, thank you. Let me go ahead and entertain a motion for the consent calendar, items 1 through 3, because we continued item number 4. So moved. We have a motion?

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

I have to make recusals. Item number 3, wait. Yeah, number 3, because this was item 62, So I do have to recuse myself from that because it's the same item as 62 and Jamboree Housing Corporation is a client of my employer Rattan and Tucker. So if it is pulled off the consent calendar, I will leave the room for discussion

Yes, thank you got it. So we have a motion for the for the balance By count by Meritam is there a second? I'll say great We have a motion in a second for the consent calendar with the exclusion of item number four and an abstention on number three by Councilmember Fan. Councilmembers, please vote. And for the record, the excused

absence also for authority member Hernandez since he's absent. Yes.

Motion passes with authority members, Lopez, Mendoza, Peñalosa, Fan, Vice Chair Becerra and Chair Sarmiento, voting yes and authority member Hernandez absent great thank you moving

along to the public hearing section of the housing authority agenda that is item number five I'm going to go ahead and ask the clerk if there's anybody online or anybody in public that would wish to address us on mayor we do not

and we didn't receive any written communication great thank you let me go

ahead and present the item item number five is the companion item on the crossroads at Washington that we just considered on the City Council agenda item.

Madam City Manager, is there any presentation on this item?

There is a presentation, but as similarly stated on the record at the other public hearing, it is an item that has been before you on five separate occasions with unanimous approval, and this is merely the culmination of that to allow the developer to move forward with the project.

Great. I should have opened the public hearing before I asked for public comment, but once again just for the record there is Open the public hearing there are no Members of the public in person or online that wish to address this on this item. That's correct

And we're written communication great

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

Seeing none is there a motion

I'll second we have motion in a second I'll go ahead and close the public hearing and ask council members to please vote

Okay, motion passes. 6-1 with authority members Hernandez, I'm sorry, Lopez, Mendoza, Peñalosa, Van, Vice Chair Vicerra and Chair Sarmiento, voting yes and authority member Hernandez absent.

Great, thank you. Let me go ahead and adjourn the Housing Authority meeting and reconvene the City Council meeting and begin with the City Manager and her closing comments.

I will pass, Mayor.

Thank you. Let me bring it back to the Council and begin with Council Member Lopez.

Any closing comments? If not, you can always pass.

Jessie LopezItem 9

Thank you, Mayor, for that reminder. I just want to quickly share that I partnered up with SAS and active streets to be able to provide skateboards free of charge to Sanana residents young Sanana residents and they are going to be having a workshop on July 9th 2022 and it's a build your own skateboard workshop so if you're free please check them out and attend it's a great opportunity to get a get a skateboard and learn how to build one. I also want to thank code enforcement staff for allowing me to spend my early morning with them. You know, we continue to work together with not just them, but the Public Works Department,

Jessie LopezItem 9

the Planning City Attorney's Office, the City Manager's Office, and addressing the commercial and residential issues that we have in Work 3, and specifically in East First. And so this morning we spent, we were out there, you know, knocking on doors, making sure that the conditions of the rooms in one of the particular motels are up to code and so I just want to thank staff again code enforcement I know that you've been a lean machine for a really long time and to be able to know that you're getting all the resources that you need to effectively be able to carry out all of the

Jessie LopezItem 9

things and duties that you're tasked with is important and again thank you for working alongside with me we're gonna continue to knock on those doors and make those visits and continue to do outreach to our businesses in War III. Thank you.

Great. Thank you for those comments. Councilmember Mendoza.

Yes, I would like to invite the public or remind them about the Orange County LGBT Pride Parade and Festival on Saturday, the 25th at Downtown Historic District. and the time is 11.30 to 3.30, so please join us for the parade and the festivities. And I would also like to ask our city manager to send a letter of condolences to the Orange County Water District

President Kathy Green in the passing of her husband, Dr. Peter Green, at the tender age of 96 years old. And I would like to ask that our meeting be closed in honor of Dr. Peter Green, who is very supportive of our water resources here in the city of Santa Ana, and had been a very involved person in the community. And that's it.

Great. Thank you for that. I knew Peter well. He would travel with Kathy often, and I believe he also is a former city councilman as well. So in any event, yeah, that's sad to know, but he lived a very full life and was very active. Thank you for that, Councilmember Mendoza. Councilmember Phan?

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

Caught me off guard there.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

So first, I'd like to say thank you to my colleagues for adopting the budget with the Asian Heritage event, cultural event. I think that will mean a lot to our residents. I speak all the time that I was elected in a district or an award that was part of a California Voting Rights Act to give voices, to help elevate the voices of Asian American residents in the city. And I know that I've had folks reach out to me who have never reached out to city staff or members of the city council before,

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

because they do feel that our city council, our city staff, and the people that they're interfacing with are listening and are supportive. And so I did want to thank all of our staff and this council for that. The other thing that I would like to remind everyone about is we are in an extreme drought, and it is not going away anytime soon. I know that we have shared information with our residents, but also realize that our businesses and commercial property owners also have to comply with a lot of the rules relating to saving water and whatnot.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

I think one thing that I would like to remind everyone and I hope that you don't have to snitch on your neighbor But in the my Santa Ana app we do have a provision for water wasting And you know you don't have to say who is doing it But if you see pooled water in the middle of the day All that other stuff please report it because sometimes people might not know what's happening Maybe there was a you know a faucet or something that broke and we want to make sure they're alerted to it we will get out of this. We will find ways to make it work for all of us, but we do all need to pitch in.

Thai Viet PhanItem 9

And so with that, I hope everyone has a good night.

Thank you. Thank you for those comments. Councilmember Peña-Losa.

David PenalozaItem 9

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. I just want to thank staff and congratulate all of you for the budget. It's approved. It's passed. So congratulations on that. And just wanted to respectfully ask the Mayor and my colleagues that we also adjourn tonight's meeting in memory of the two El Monte police officers that were killed earlier this month. Corporal Michael Paredes and Officer Joseph Santana, who were El Monte natives and tragically lost their lives a couple of weeks ago. So I make that request. And that is it, Mayor Sarmiento. Colleagues, good night, everybody.

Thank you for that. We definitely will, in addition to Dr. Peter Green. There are a lot of ties between this city and El Monte. You know, we had, I think our former city manager went to go work there. I think I mentioned before our current planning director came to us from El Monte. So, yeah, a lot of ties. Paralegal and my nephew lived there. In any event, let me move along to Mayor Pro Tem Becerra.

Phil BacerraItem 9

Thank you. Just real quickly, July 2nd, first Saturday of the month, I will have my monthly community office hours over at Thornton Park. and July 4th, Independence Day. So I just want to wish everybody a safe and happy Independence Day. We won't be meeting until later in July. So stay safe and have a happy 4th of July.

Thank you for those comments. So let's make sure we adjourn in Peter Green's memory and memory of the two fallen officers in Almonte. I also want to remind the clerk going forward, You know, the primary elections we just had were unfortunately a pretty dismal turnout. That's not on you alone, but, you know, I think the city's percentage of voters was like one in five, right? Close to 20, 20-something percent. So we can do better.

We should do better as we see what's going on in these January 6th insurrection hearings that we're all observing. Voting rights are precious. precious privilege and right and obligation that we should all protect but we should also try to stimulate you know votes in our city because no matter how we vote the whole idea is to have our have our folks you know vote often I think that the county got up to 35% somewhere near there that's not great but it's better than ours so you know let's see if we can start maybe earlier I know you made some efforts madam clerk so thank you but let's see if we can

start a little earlier. I do want to also add to the adjournment in closing this meeting in memory of Adrian Gael Hernandez, who was lovingly called Nene by his family. He was an eight-year-old boy who lived in Ward 2 that died due to complications with asthma that he battled courageously his entire life. He survived by his loving parents, Adrian and Josefina, and his big brother, Sebastian. Adrian was a student at Osea where he excelled in math and was loved by his friends and teachers and all the Osea community. Adrian was a gifted child who loved building Legos and could