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Great. Good evening, everybody. Let me go ahead and call this regular city council meeting for August 2, 2022 to order. Let me begin by making some opening remarks before I turn it over to the clerk so she can call roll. This meeting is taking place with in-person attendance and by teleconference via Zoom. The public can access the meeting via the Santa Ana YouTube channel or the city's website. And as usual, please bear with us as the technology may disrupt the flow of the meeting. I'm going to turn it over to the clerk so she can call roll.

Council Member Hernandez.

Councilmember Hernandez?

Present. Councilmember Lopez?

Jessie Lopez

Here.

Councilmember Mendoza? Present. Councilmember Penalosa? Present. Councilmember Fan? Here. Mayor Pro Tem Becerra? No. Mayor Sarmiento?

Here. Thank you. So I'm going to go ahead and ask any members of the council if they'd like to recuse themselves from any items on the closed session agenda.

Hearing none and seeing none, I'll turn it over to the clerk so she can make her opening remarks for those of you who are joining us online.

The public was able to begin joining the speaker queue at 4.30 p.m. to speak on closed session items only. To provide a comment at this time on closed session items, please dial star 9 from your phone or select raise hand from Zoom. caller who's phone number ends with the numbers xxx or zoom ID please dial star six to speak or select the microphone icon from your device to unmute and proceed with your comment on closed session items only please announce your

name ward you reside in within the city of Santa Ana for the record so do we

Do we have any members of the public? We don't. I'm sorry.

I just read through.

My bad. I should have asked that first. In any event, we'll go ahead and recess into closed session and then reconvene when we're done.

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Good evening, once again, everybody. Let me go ahead and reconvene the regular session of the Santa Ana City Council meeting for August 2nd, 2022. We're already in August. So I do want to call this regular open session to order. And let me begin by just making a couple of housekeeping remarks. The meeting is taking place with in-person attendance and by teleconference via Zoom. The public can access the meeting via the Santa Ana YouTube channel or the city's website. And as usual, please bear with us as a technology may interrupt the flow of the meeting. I do want to let you know that we have

a couple of council members that are joining us virtually. So you will be hearing them. and seeing their image on the screen, but they won't be present, but they will be participating on the meeting. And I'm going to go ahead and call on the clerk so she can administer roll call.

Councilmember Hernandez?

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

Present.

Councilmember Lopez?

Chair. Councilmember Mendoza? Present. Councilmember Penelosa?

David Penaloza

Present.

Councilmember Fan? Here. Mayor Pro Tem Becerra? Mayor Sarmiento.

Here. And before we begin with the Pledge of Allegiance, I'm going to ask Councilmember Peñalosa to lead us in that. Madam Clerk, I'm going to go ahead and have you make your announcement prior to that.

To request to speak on agenda or non-agenda items within the city's jurisdiction, please dial star 9 from your phone or click the button labeled Raise Hand from Zoom at this time. Please announce your name and ward or neighborhood you reside in within the City of Santa Ana

for the record. Great, thank you. Let me call on Councilmember Peñalosa to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

David Penaloza

Thank you, Mayor. If you could all please join me and rise and face our flag and put your right hand over your heart and follow along. 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.

thank you everybody let me go ahead and now ask pastor Tommy Coda to join us and lead us in words of inspiration and those of you who would like to stand up please stand and those of you who are unable to please join us in any event thank you

dear God we thank you for allowing us to have this opportunity to gather here in these chambers and we pray, Lord, that you would watch over us. Lord, we thank you for this wonderful city of Santa Ana. We pray, God, for all of its residents. Lord, I think of the school and all the students that are getting ready to just get back into their school classrooms, God. I pray that you'd prepare them and prepare the school district, Lord, to receive them. Lord, we pray for your hand of mercy to be upon us. God, I think of all of the businesses,

all the small and businesses, the large businesses. God, we pray that you would bless them, watch over them, and keep them. God, I think of, we also want to pray for our public works here in the city of Santa Ana, our law enforcement. Lord God, we pray for all of these things, Lord, to just be filled with your goodness, Lord, as we all together, collectively, just put our hands together to the plow, Lord, to make this community, make this city a great city, greater than what it already is. And Lord, lastly, I pray, Father, for our city council and our mayor, Father, I pray that you

give them great wisdom, as many things here in this place are going to be discussed, decisions are going to be made, Lord, and we pray for great wisdom and insight, Lord, to make the best decisions, Lord, that would be best for this city. And so, God, we thank you, and we appreciate and love all the things that you have blessed us with, Lord. Keep our city safe, and it's in your

son's name that we pray. Amen. Thank you, Pastor Tommy, for those words of inspiration. Let me go ahead and begin with the ceremonial presentations that we have tonight, and I'll begin by asking if Councilmember Mendoza will join me in doing the following presentation to Nasheli and Gilbert Lopez for their outstanding contributions to the community. If Nasheli and Gilbert are here, if they can please join me up here right in front of the dais.

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. I would like to say a few words for this amazing couple from Henninger Park in Ward 2. So you just let me know when you're ready.

I'm a slow walker, so I just got here to the podium. Let me go ahead and get over here and center this. So tonight, Council Member Mendoza and I have the privilege of honoring a couple here who really did something amazing, and they represent their neighborhood, but most importantly, they represent their city and what's best of the city, which is, you know, helping others. And they helped under some pretty difficult conditions. So I'm going to hand it over to Council Member Mendoza, who's joining us virtually. She'll say a few words, and I'll go ahead and bat cleanup. So, Council Member, it's all yours.

Thank you very much. So I would like the public to know what great people we have living in the entire city of Santa Ana, but specifically in Henninger Park neighborhood in Ward 2. And so I wanted to present this wonderful couple with this presentation for their incredible community involvement and their hero's behavior in being unselfish with their neighbors. On May 5th of 2022, Naxielli Lopez alerted her husband that a man was passed out in front of their yard and he was turning blue. Her husband, Gilbert Lopez, ran outside and immediately took action.

As a veteran, Gilbert's combat training kicked in and he took action. He assessed the situation and promptly called 911. Gilbert began compressions when he realized that the man was not breathing. He continued to provide first aid until the firehouse 75 arrived. The man was given a dose of Narcon and after a while he responded and he began to breathe again, thankfully. Mayor.

Mayor Mrakas- Yeah, thank you, Councilmember. And so you all may have heard or read about this story because, as you know, it happened in May. So we're a little late, so we want to apologize for the delay in this presentation to both Nasheli and Gilbert. But we really do mean it from the bottom of our hearts because just to go on to what the The council member was saying, so this is just one example of many that Nachele and Gilbert contributed to their community. This couple is known as generous and kind and they consistently go out of their way for others.

Whether it's helping to change a flat tire, sharing a meal with a neighbor, or responding to car accidents on Sycamore and Pine, the Lopezes are the kindest people that turn their street into their neighborhood, right? That becomes part of their community. And, Nachele and Gilbert, thank you so much for your courage, bravery, strength, and selflessness. They are truly what exemplifies our community the best. And I was just, you know, talking to Gilbert right now, he went to Via Fundamental and graduated from Godina's High School. Go Grizzlies.

In any event, I think both of them were, you know, he was born and raised here, Nachele, I believe, was raised here in Santana. So we sometimes don't say thank you enough to all of your individual efforts. They just happen to be put in a situation where they were either going to ignore something or they were going to act. And I think most of us in that situation maybe would say, hey, look, somebody else's problem, let somebody else deal with it, let a first responder come and address this. But they stepped up. And from what I can tell from their biography, from what those of you in your community, in our community,

neighbors of theirs have told us this isn't unique to them. This is something that they do because they feel that this is their community. They embrace it, and this is a responsibility for them, and they take it seriously. So we are so grateful to both of you for doing what you did, and you really do represent the best of what Santana has to offer. And when I was asking them who's going to, you know, say a few words on their behalf, Now, Shelly said, Gilbert. So we're going to give Gilbert the floor. But before that, let me go ahead and hold these and give the microphone to Gilbert so he can go ahead

and tell us a little bit about that day.

Hello, everyone. This is my wife, Shelly, once again. Hello. She's the one that alerted me with the notification that somebody was passed out in front of my neighbor's house. I rushed out outside to just see what was going on and noticed that he was not breathing whatsoever. He was purple to the face. And luckily with a few chest compressions, he was able to regain a little bit of oxygen back into his body. And the firefighters responded thereafter after the 911 call was made. I'm very thankful for my neighbors.

Lori and Brett Oles. They've been amazing neighbors throughout and Harper and Harper as well.

They've been with us through thick and thin, always you know they have always accepted us with open arms and the only thing that we can do is reciprocate that love. Also just one more thing in the Marine Corps I always thought that if you see something wrong you need to say something so I highly encourage every one of you to say something if you know somebody is in a need and in a time of need outside in the city. So it's our home. Let's make it so.

Council member Mendoza if you can hear us. Do you have anything to add before I go ahead and extend these two certificates to both Nasheli and Gilbert? Yes, I would like to thank them

for their courageous behavior because they had no idea what this man was capable of. I mean it could have been a danger to themselves so they risked their lives in order to assess the situation and and save this man. Imagine what this person's family is going through in being so thankful to this young couple and so they've saved not just one person but generations of future Santa Ana residents so now Shelley and Gilbert you have my forever gratitude in what you do and I hope in the near

future to meet you in person to shake your hand and just show my appreciation thank you very much and we appreciate your service in the military as well. Excellent.

Thank you for that. So, yeah, that deserves a round of applause.

So let me go ahead and extend this first. These are certificates of recognition on behalf of the entire city council, but most importantly, on behalf of all the grateful residents in the city. And this is just a gesture for our gratitude for everything that you did that day and everything that you've done for your neighbors and everything you're going to do in the future. So this is to Naxcheli Lopez, Henninger Park neighborhood hero on behalf of the city, and this is for Gilbert Lopez for being a neighborhood hero in Henninger Park. Let's give him a big round of applause.

And go Grizzlies. All right.

Thank you.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

Good afternoon community. If we can please have a lighter shade of brown, Robert Gutierrez and neutral ground make their way to the front please. Thank you.

Thank you.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

Well today, it's always a special time anytime the public comes together for a council meeting, but this is a really special time for a lot of our community members. The city of Santana is a beautiful, diverse city that is multicultural, and there are so many different groups of amazing people that have made this city what it is. And today I have the honor and the privilege of highlighting the Mexican-American Chicano community and today August 2nd we are providing a proclamation to Brie Lizalde

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

who is here on behalf of neutral ground and Robert Gutierrez aka ODM one dope Mexican and he is on here on behalf of a lighter shade of brown today the city of Santa Ana proclaims and we'll let the phone stop ringing thank you okay today the city of Santa Ana proclaims August as Chicano Heritage Month. We acknowledge the wealth of achievements of Chicanos, the outstanding wealth of culture, the diversity of Chicanos, and the contribution of civil rights activists who advanced the Chicano movement. When we speak of Chicano

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

heritage, we're not just talking about people of Mexican descent born here in United States. When we speak of Chicano heritage, we are talking about rich and diverse culture of people who have played a monumental role in shaping our community today. Chicano-based organizations that were founded in Santa Ana, like Neutral Ground, are a shining example of the community contributions that we're acknowledging and that we're celebrating during Chicano Heritage Month. For 20 years, Neutral Ground has provided services to our community members, and they are helping us change the story for our community that's

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

going to help us be proud of the stories that we have come from our community, that are going to help us put the pen back in the hands of residents so that we can positively tell our stories. The majority of the lives that have been touched by Neutral Ground are people who live here in Santa Ana, and they are people of Chicano heritage. I want to thank Neutral Ground for everything that they do. Please join me in giving them a round of applause.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

Chicano pride also takes form in music and this is why it is my honor to present this proclamation to Robert Gutierrez from A Lighter Shade of Brown. A Lighter Shade of Brown is a hip-hop duo that formed in 1987 by one dope Mexican aka Robert Gutierrez. The group is best known for their 1990s hit single on a Sunday afternoon. And one thing that I'm most proud of is that Robert Gutierrez is from Santana. He went to Carr and he grew up in our community. And he grew up spitting flows in a bathroom at Carr as a young boy.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

And to see him go from being a young boy who was late to class because he was spitting flows in a restroom to being part of one of the most influential tracks that Mexican-Americans all over this country grew up listening to, I want to just say thank you because you made it possible for people like me to stand here and do what I do today. So thank you for giving us a voice.

So now we keep the cops move blind looking for the booze For what Ruben had was plainness in the apple juice Get on the mic, get on the mic bro, come on With nothing he could do All the calls in the parking lot low profiling Everywhere you look you see somebody styling Calls with Lisp rolling deep with boom and sound It's a good time to cruise around in the parking lot Where all the bodies were stacking Hernandez was looking for some action Yeah, gracias, thank you By the way, I wasn't that tardy, bro. I'm just saying, you know, but we made it happen. I appreciate you, brother.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

With that being said, throughout this month, Chicano Pride will take form in remarkable blends of music, dance, art, food, and more with various festivals and celebrations that will take place this month. Please join me in acknowledging and celebrating Chicano Heritage Month with our community. Make some noise.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

If we can start by having neutral ground, share some words and then we'll conclude with you, Robert.

Well, we want to thank everyone, city manager, the council, Mr. Councilman Hernandez, and on behalf of Nathi, we just appreciate just being able to be a part of changing the story. We have dedicated as a family our lives to our community, to Santa Ana, and we're passionate about changing the way people look at us, changing the way people think of us, and really bringing life to the city. So thank you so much.

One more time for Neutral Ground. Hey!

Thank you, Councilman Hernandez. Appreciate it. And the council here. I'm honored to be here today standing as a young adolescent growing up. As he mentioned, Streets of Santana growing up, learning how to music at a younger age, reciting, you know, hip hop from the 80s, walking the car intermediate. I remember in the hallways at the lunch benches. And who would ever thought that, you know, coming from just being this little 13-year-old kid. and I say kid because I'm speaking to the children out there that are watching this that need to watch this that you know you could become somebody you know

someday and it just you know being focused and keeping your mind straight and follow that passion and that desire that you have you know to yeah they're gonna be distractions and whatnot in life as you know but if you just stick with the right people and surround yourself with good people goodness can only come out of that so i thank everybody who played part of this and this goes to the everybody in the city of santana who uh were my roots right here man and uh muchas gracias to everybody out there and we'll see you on the 28th august 28 chicano heritage month thank you

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Well done, everybody. Let's give them a round of applause as they go.

So, Council Member Lopez was going to make the next presentation to Preston Joseph Dillard, but since she's joining us virtually, I'm going to have the privilege to go ahead and present this to Mr. Dillard. So, is Preston here with us? If he is, please join me up here in front of the dais.

Preston?

Let's go ahead and go on to the next one, and maybe Preston might be in the lobby or on his way over here. Let me go ahead and turn it over to Councilmember Mendoza, who is going to be presenting a presentation, or actually Councilmember Peñalosa is going to be doing it on her behalf. Dr. Neary, if you don't mind coming up here and joining us. Let us embarrass you for a little bit and talk some good stuff. So I'll turn it over to the council members to make this presentation.

This is for you.

Anyways, how are you? Good. Thank you.

David Penaloza

So everybody, good evening. Welcome. This is Dr. Annabel Neri, who is, I guess, I believe you're the first woman president at Senana College, correct?

Multiracial woman of color, probably.

David Penaloza

That's what it was. But we are happy to be here. I know that Council Member Mendoza had wanted to recognize you. And I know we've ran into each other in numerous Senana College events, which I'm very... The difference in the short period that you've been there, already you could see it as a community member, as a resident, just hearing from staff and students at the school, what you're doing at Santa Ana College is monumental and changing the life of all our kids that go there. Kids, adults, it's college, but all our students that go to Santa Ana College. So thank you so much, Dr. Neri.

David Penaloza

And then this is presented to you in recognition of your outstanding contributions and support towards empowering communities through higher education. I personally am very familiar with the college, went there for about a month before I got accepted to college and dropped out, so please don't look at my transcripts at Santa Ana College, but started going there as early as 14 years old through the Upper Brown Program, was there every Saturday. So I know it's a program that still continues to this day, so I'm very happy that you guys are supporting it and doing all the things you can to bring

David Penaloza

our students along at Santa Ana. So without further ado, I'll present this to you. And if you could please, I mean, the mic's yours. Any words that you might want to share with our city?

First of all, I want to thank the mayor, the city councilor, council member, Venga Losa and Mendoza. It is a great honor. First of all, it's been an honor and a joy to be the leader and the president of Santa Ana College. The city of Santa Ana and the residents of Santa Ana are the most impressive communities that care about higher education and meeting the families and the multiple generations who have changed their families lives and their lives by attending Santa Ana College has been an incredible opportunity and the other thing is I want to echo that the partnership between Santa Ana College and the city is very

important to us we are a community college we want to be warm and welcoming And we just want to share that last week for the first time, Santa Ana College had a family night, a Noche de Familia. And I want to share with the city council and the mayor that over 2,500 city members or residents of the city of Santa Ana attended our first Noche de Familia. And I'm proud to say we had two-year-olds, we had strollers, we have abuelas, we had tias, we had uncles, we had cousins. and let me tell you we enrolled them all in something so

and again I just want to thank the mayor the City Council the members and residents of the Santana Santana is a beautiful city with many generations of family that I'm impressed with over and over again again it's a privilege and honor and I look forward to continuing our partnership with the city. Thank you. So I found

David Penaloza

our notes to tell the city a little bit about yourself and your background and so indulge me for a second. So Annabelle Nury, PhD, Dr. Annabelle Nury was appointed president of Santa Ana College in January of 2022. This year right? As the lead administrator of Santa Ana College, Dr. Nury is responsible for planning, organizing, and implementing educational policy and procedures to develop curriculum and student support services, managing the budget, leading government affairs, community engagement, and more. Dr. Neri has more than 25 years of experience in education. Dr. Neri has served in a

David Penaloza

number of leadership capacities, most recently a vice president of instruction and prior to that vice president of student services at College of Desert in palm desert dr neri was recently named the 2021 administrator of the year by the california association of post-secondary education and disability in 2019 the california community colleges named dr neri chief student services officer of the year a first generation college student with spanish as her first language dr neri is an equity advocate with significant work in social justice. Her guiding principle is to ensure student success is at the

David Penaloza

center of all decision-making. Please join me in welcoming and recognizing Dr. Neri as she continues to support our community as Santa Ana College's president. Thank you.

Before Dr. Neri goes, I want to say that I had a recent, recently attended an event in honor of Dr. Neary put on by the Chamber of Commerce in recognizing this incredible

person. Not only was she born in a place where women don't generally get any more education than just a few grades, she just kept going forward. And once she educated herself, she continued, She did the same thing for her family. And now she's doing it for our community.

And I wanted to introduce her publicly here to the entire city of Santa Ana and whoever may be listening to see what a jewel we have here in Santa Ana in having Dr. Neary running a very educational and prestigious community college where we are turning out the best prepared students. students where they have their skills that is going to get them professional jobs and be very competitive in the 21st century. Dr. Neary is the epitome of the motto that I went through in the

military, which was be all that you can be. And I see in her that she continues that segment of being all that she can be. Thank you Dr. Neary and I look forward to many many years of partnership with the Santa Ana College.

Thank you for that presentation and thank you Dr. Neary we are very very grateful that to have you here in the city. Thank you. Let me call on Council Member Fan and Council Member Hernandez for the next presentation. It is going to be to the Santa Anita neighborhood youth volunteers. So let's come on up, everybody. That's Melinda Martinez, Fernando Calderon, Victor Castillo, Ruben Calderon, Ebony Calderon, Priestley Castillo, Isaac Castillo, Andrew Castillo, and Bella Calderon.

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

All right. Oh, okay. There you go. So much trouble. You got it? Yes. Hi. Hi. It's cute. I have scooch down this way.

Hi. Nice to see you.

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

All right. I see you back there. You can come up here and take pictures too.

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

So I'm very excited to do this presentation. As some of you may know, both Councilmember Hernandez and I represent Santa Anita on the West Side. And so on June 25, 2022, the Santa Anita Neighborhood Association hosted an unveiling of a neighborhood mural at Lucky Center Market located at the corner of Jackson and Fifth. And I do want to have a huge shout out to our neighborhood association leaders, Martha and Felipe, because they came up with this idea and they said, hey, we really need a mural to, you know, prevent graffiti in that corner. And so they lobbied us, they say we need the money,

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

they fundraise and the mural is beautiful. I highly recommend all of you go and visit and check it out. So in addition to acknowledging and celebrating the hard work of the muralists, which we did at the unveiling, we also got to witness a group of young neighborhood volunteers coming together to make the event successful. So they arrived early to help set up, stayed late to help clean up, and they also on the day of the event helped with the audio and visual setup and unloaded food. I had more than one hot dog. So these kinds of civic engagement opportunities

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

can really lead to better outcomes for our community. And I can say with these, you know, volunteers, it was at the unveiling, they volunteered at the Thanksgiving pie giveaway, some of them actually walked with me door to door to talk about handball courts. I think it's just really important and great that we have our young people and our youth engaged in local government and engaged in what's happening in the community and so just congratulations to all of you and council member Hernandez do you want to say a few words yes please make a round of

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 5

applause for the amazing group of volunteers up here I want to thank councilmember Fan because the the statement it takes a village it really is true and it applies to us every single day in Santa Ana and she and I share the Santanita neighborhood and it means that we, you know, our job is to provide unconditional care, unconditional service to the residents and working alongside her and supporting the Santanita community has been such a seamless process because we have the same philosophy and it's meet people where they're at.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 5

And this mural started and the community came and talked to us. And we met with them over several different Zoom meetings. We listened to their advocacy. We listened to what they wanted to see come to actualization. And to see it from start to finish and to work with my colleague and to work with the neighborhood and all the volunteers that poured their heart and soul into this mural, to then see the community at the end of it, you know, feed their neighbors, you know, make sure that they had water, that they had juices, to make sure that they were feeling welcomed at this event. It was a really humbling experience.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 5

So we are honored to represent you, to represent your neighborhood, and we thank you guys for the amazing work that you do to uplift Santanita community. Thank you.

Thanks. Thanks for giving us the opportunity. to do a mural on our neighborhood thanks to City Santa Ana the help from family friends from the from the neighborhood so it goes pretty smooth when we kind of get together and talk about it but other than that it's great we could give the community back thank you

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

so the mayor did already say their names but we are passing out certificates and they were going to take lots of great photos so hang on one second

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 5

Victor Castillo

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

Ruben Calderon

There you are.

Thank you.

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

See, the mic doesn't hit you.

There you go.

Thank you, Council Members. And I want to give a shout out to Felipe Guerrero with the Neighborhood Association, who said we got to recognize the youth that had a big, big role in that. So let's give him a big round of applause. Thank you, Felipe. And thank you, Council Members, for that presentation. So that concludes our presentations for tonight. I believe that Mr. Dillard had to leave so we'll go ahead and continue that presentation for another time for Councilmember Lopez to go ahead and extend that to him. Let me go and if with the Council's indulgence and the

staff I'd like to maybe begin with item number seven from the staff presentation that's OC Streetcar but before OCTA staff does that we have a few speaker cards that I'd like to go ahead and call on for members of the public in advance and we'll go ahead and call those up first and then we'll turn it over to OCTA staff.

So if you all can get ready to just come forward, you know the drill. We may have some members of the public that are, or excuse me, members of the public that are on the line, so we'll call on them after we call on people that are here in person. So let me first call on Delilah Snell, followed by Maribel Gomez, and then Marcela Prado.

Good evening. Good evening. Thank you to all the council members and mayor that attended and spoke at the recent town hall that we had last week. What is happening in our downtown is serious. Our downtown isn't dying because of the OCTA streetcar mess and their refusal to assist this city. And it's an insult to businesses, this downtown, the city, and all of you here in this room. The customer retention of the area is dropping significantly. People in Los Angeles are calling me, telling me that they're hearing that this city is a mess and it's a nightmare. Is this the impression that you want? Because that is what is being created.

We need help, and we need this council to work together and to put all their efforts into making the area recover from this disaster. We need to change how people view our downtown because if we don't do something, something now to encourage people to come back here, you will not have a downtown. This downtown should have free, not until 5, not the first two hours, but free parking in all structures. For this needs to happen during the holidays, October 1st until the end of the year, but Really? All of 2023? And even beyond that because we know there's more construction on the way.

Business owners and delivery people who are just trying to do business in this area are constantly getting tickets. One business owner told me that he had over $800 in parking tickets. Drivers come in regretting having this downtown as part of their route. I've had customers ticketed for simply picking up an order. How is this inviting? I have talked to staff regarding a 10-minute pickup lane and that it can be monitored by the city and you can get revenue from this. Why hasn't this been done? I've been mentioning this since March. I recently heard that there's going to be an ice rink that costs over $700,000.

How does this help a dying downtown? If you're going to do this, please put it in the downtown because really that money needs to help your taxpaying merchants. And if you feel like this rink somehow helps the city, put it directly in the area where businesses can benefit from this. Lastly, I want this Council to not approve Item Number 17 as presented until Morton's transparent and detailed plan has been submitted and the community can provide proper input and vetting. Item 17 is vague and leaves open many concerns such as there's no specific earmark for downtown businesses. This is an emergency. We are in distress.

The report is not transparent as to where the money is being spent. The proposed expenditures do not separate between the two rounds of funding. You all need to take some time to hear the public comments from this last OCT board meeting last Monday. One business owner literally had me in tears. She is desperate.

You should all be upset at what is happening here and support this area that needs you. Thank you.

Thank you Maribel Gomez followed by Marcela Prado followed by Sean McConney. Thank you.

We have parking free, without time, security, retire the indigents and there is a lot of violence. No more events, we don't help anything. We talk about a project, a piece of hielo, which would cost $700,000, close to the center or area of Santana. This is a insult to the comerciants. what what what what

what

what

what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what what is to go home without having clients that day, as we are going to happen with us today, in our business, and you know the big and small businesses of the Calle 4. I ask you directly, Mr. Sarmiento, to take notes in this situation, please. And to all those who are present, thank you very much.

Good evening, members of the council. I ask you to please take the time to listen to the public comments that were delivered at OCTA on the meeting on 7-25-22. To hear the desperation, to look at the tears from the business people that were there. We need help. We need help with parking, free parking, unlimited parking. We need safety, take the homeless out of there. We don't have any events. Those events don't help us as business people. There's talks about bringing an ice rink, a $700,000 ice rink to the downtown, near the downtown area.

That's an insult to the business people there. Some of the business people have been receiving eviction notices already. We live off of our businesses. And we need the help. We need help for our businesses. And you specifically, Mr. Sarmiento, you know what it's like to go home without having any clients. So you know that we need help as Fourth Street business people. so we're asking you to help us and for all the people here to listen to us.

Thank you.

Thank you. Marcela Prado, followed by Sean McConney, followed by Erin Sinise.

Buenas noches, miembros del concilio. Agradezco que me permitan expresarme. Mi nombre es Marcela Prado y he estado en downtown Santa Ana por más de 30 años, casi 30 años, perdón. Estamos acudiendo nuevamente a ustedes. to ask that they put pressure on the OCTA, to approve the Business Interruption Fund, as they did in LA Metro. We are not less than them. You, as authority, and the ones who allowed this project, have the obligation to put in this horrible situation in which we are in. We don't want to hear the pretext

that they were not when the project was approved. You are now represent the role of the impact has been devastating due to the mala plan of the project. We have asked and they are not heard. We are now asking solutions. We need economic help. We are already in red. We have been receiving the help of the project. We have also paid expenses, not just the business. We want to put pressure on Octa to end quickly. The main street needs to be able to drive the traffic as possible, not in eight weeks.

We want solutions to the end. We are presented to the juniors and promised, but only were the words. We are tired of promises. We are not limited, we are not limited, we are not limited. We are not limited to the distribution of the 1.5. recién aprobado. No podemos esperar a que ustedes decidan distribuirlo. Señor Sarmiento, usted lo prometió. No tergiverse lo que nos prometió. Ustedes decidieron cómo distribuir el dinero. Saben perfectamente cuántos negocios somos y debieron hacer matemáticas para saber si alcanzaba de la manera que lo distribuyeron. El nuevo punto 1.5.

No podemos esperar. Queremos que tomen conciencia y responsabilidad de la situación. Otro comentario. La basura no está siendo colectada como se debe. Las calles huelen horriblemente. Por favor, también pongan manos en acción. Gracias.

Good evening, members of the City Council. Thank you for allowing me to speak. My name is Marcela Prado, and I'm a resident of Santa Ana for over 30 years, well, almost 30 years, and I'm here again because we are not asking. We're demanding that you pressure OCTA to institute a business interruption fund like they did in LA Metro. We are not less than they are.

We need this help. We need the help. And we don't need excuses on why, if you were not here when the project was approved, you are here now and you need to help us now. And our businesses are doing bad. And we need the help. The money that we have received is not enough. We don't have enough sales. We need this financial help. We have received financial help, but that is not enough. We also have personal expenses besides our business expenses. You need to open Main Street now, not in eight weeks.

We need to be respected, not just to hear words. And you need to distribute the 1.5% that was approved. You promised that yourself, Mr. Sarmiento. You know the number of businesses, so you needed to have done the math and know that that was not enough. So the 1.5% cannot wait. Do something now. Something else, the trash is not being collected and the streets stink. Do something. Thank you.

Thank you. Sean McConney followed by Aaron Sinise followed by Juliet Castro followed by Melissa Mir.

Good evening. Good to see you all. My question tonight is, can you guys live with $900 a month? Because this is what I made last month.

investment. Honestly, if you are going to tell me that this is an investment, I'm going to ask you how much you guys have invested in this. How many paychecks you have missed or given up for this project? Why we have to suffer? Why we have to invest for this nonsense, actually? I mean, I call it nonsense.

Well, I know today I look like banana. I'm yellow. But seriously, do I or all of us here, do we look like guinea pigs to you guys? Are we your experiment? Because we are not. We are not yours or CTA experiment.

The question right now, where is the second one and a half million that you promised us?

About 10 days ago, we sent you as a group an email and asked questions that are very important to us as all. Thank you city manager for responding to us, but honestly the answers were all kind of disappointing.

Do you guys really think we come here for fun? We have no life that we enjoy coming here and talk to you guys? ask for assistance? No. We are not here to ask assistance for the people who we don't know. And honestly, we don't care. We are here for us, for ourselves. We need help. We needed help last month even. Where is the second round of help that you promised? Why you decided to hold

on to the second one and a half million for the future businesses that will get impacted. If they need help, let them come and ask you. This is not our purpose to be here. We need help now.

On the subject of the OCTA, it's not really very heartwarming that our city... 15 seconds. Our city manager says that the city has no power to enforce the contract or enforce them to expedite. Five seconds. Okay. Council Member Pinalosa, you told us you have some power. Sir, your time is up. So we ask you please to practice that. Sir, your time is up. Thank you for speaking. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you, Sean. Aaron Sinise followed by Julia Castro followed by Melissa Meir.

All right. I was originally going to speak on something maybe a little bit more future-focused at this time, but given what everyone else has said, I feel like I should probably take it aside to say, as a resident who lives near 4th Street, I can say that the construction has been enduring and obstructive. And it's my hope that this doesn't besmirch the efforts to expand mass transit in Orange County, and I hope that we can do better for everyone. And it's my hope that we will come to the aid of the small businesses here so that there is not a risk of gentrification by larger businesses and chains

and other moneyed interests that might have designs on getting access to the prime real estate that a number of honest entrepreneurs and hardworking working class people already have access to. So with that said, hopefully I have enough time to get to what I was going to say.

So frequency, speed and accessibility are all key factors and effective alternatives to driving and factors that a distributed bus network alone cannot solve, which is ultimately why we've looked into the streetcar, I'm sure. It isn't just advisable but absolutely necessary for our counselor to explore, study, and support higher capacity for our most frequently used routes on transit, both in the interest of ridership and improving the lives of those of us, like me, who must take mass transit and have no other choice due to my visual disability. So, with that in mind, I would like to turn our attention to where we go from here.

The counterproductive proposal, of course, now that OCH Streetcar is nearing the completion of its construction, would be that we, after all this pain, go nowhere else. It would be beneficial to uncharitable interests outside of the city that the streetcar network is not expanded any further, and we are all forced between a drive through brutal traffic or a ride on a bus operating over capacity and stuck in that same traffic. However, this doesn't have to be how things go. Plans were considered for a streetcar line that was running north to act as a gateway to Anaheim, and it's clear why we'd consider such a thing.

The route from Anaheim would connect multiple magnet locations, such as Angel Stadium and the outlets at Orange. offering an alternative to take cars off the road and get them onto much more effective methods of travel. The 57 already runs this route and runs local and express service. With some limited changes to major intersections along Bristol Street and the repainting of lanes, it would be possible to run existing vehicles and center running lanes without running a large amount of rails. I would urge the council to consider in future plans less intensive methods of expanding and hierarchicalizing

our existing mass transit, adding capacity and improving the ride quality so that we can see results. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you. Juliet Castro followed by Melissa Mir followed by Stephanie Cuevas followed by Walter Ayala.

Good afternoon. How can you talk about Santa Ana being a great city and help the business? You're not even helping the business. You're here to protect us, to protect the city. You're not even protecting us from the disasters we have right now. This is an emergency. I don't see you helping the full. You're helping half. This is not a half of the trail. This is a whole trail. You need to help us now. If you cannot do this work, we need some new people that really can help us. We're suffering. There's people that are already leaving the businesses.

They're not paying rent. Why? Because we need people to come to downtown. I leave from people. I need people to come and do their hair. Today, I did non-haircuts. And plus, I'm here wasting my time. We need your help. All of you help. All of you, we need money to keep surviving on our business. the streets are closed this is like a second pandemic for us I want to be losing my only income I have this is what I do for living I've been doing this for 20 years nobody else gives me money to survive I don't want to be ending on

the street asking for money as a homeless I have a career I went to school I don't know if any of you suffered like how we are suffering how How can you go and put it there standing up, see if any client walks in? None. We're not playing. This is very serious. We really want you to help us. Like I say, you cannot do the work. We need somebody else to really help the community, the businesses. We're asking for help now. Please help us as soon as possible. We need your help.

Thank you.

Thank you. Melissa Mier followed by Stephanie Cuevas followed by Walter Ayana followed by Kelly Crousley.

Good evening council members and mayor. I'm here as the head of school of Nova Academy Early College High School located right where major construction is happening. The construction of the OC streetcar continues to stretch long past its originally promised date of completion. And those of us at NOVA Academy, along with many others in the downtown Santa Ana, continue to suffer the consequences. Here is some of what has occurred over just the last two months. City approved emergency exits designated for evacuations were obstructed with fencing

with no warning nor communication. Fencing was installed in front of the controls for our fire and sprinkler alarm systems, eliminating access for the fire department also with no warning nor communication to our school. Nova Academy's property has been blatantly encroached upon and further destroyed despite survey lines that clearly delineate our property. Many more bricks in front of the school have been broken and left behind haphazardly,

making them safety hazards. A large electrical pole has been erected on our property directly in front of our building, in front of our front doors, with no warning nor permission.

The intersection of Ross and 4th Streets has been blocked, the exact location where visitors and officials such as fire inspectors, that's where they park to conduct business at our school. This is also the city approved drop-off and pick-up location for students during the school year which will begin in less than two weeks. The blatant disregard for our school students and staff has become increasingly

evident as we have have helplessly watched our property be destroyed but it It is truly terrifying when evacuation exits and fire system mechanisms are blocked without our knowledge. The result of these actions could be truly catastrophic if an emergency were to occur.

The question we keep asking is, why does no one care? 15 seconds. How would you feel if your child's school were treated with such indifference? Please hold all streetcar project partners accountable for the damage and danger they continue to afflict during this prolonged construction process and ensure the safety and well-being of our students. We need your help.

Thank you. Stephanie Cuevas followed by Walter Ayala followed by Kelly Krausley.

Good evening, council members. My name is Stephanie Cuevas, coordinator of school culture and community involvement at Nova Academy. As my fellow colleague mentioned, head of school of Nova Academy, we are here advocating for our school community once again. We've been doing so numerous times already. Nova Academy's building once stood proudly as a fixture of an increasingly vibrant downtown Santa Ana community. Now it has literally been reduced to rubble. The area surrounding our building, as well as our own property, is either barricaded, ripped apart, or destroyed.

A beautiful courtyard, trees, and open space have been replaced by broken bricks, holes, equipment, and dust. It's bad enough that the city's property is in such a state of upheaval, but Nova Academy's property has also been encroached and damaged, with no warning or no communication to us whatsoever. How is it okay to rip apart our entryway, install poles on our land, and block off emergency evacuation routes on property that doesn't belong to you? Would any members of Santa Ana be treated this way? NOVA Academy's new school year begins on Monday, August 15, two weeks from now.

On that day, we'll have approximately 400 students, as well as their parents, arrive to campus, and right now we're not even sure if they can access our building because the roads around it have been blocked off due to construction. The mess that Okta and construction of the OC Streetcar have created must be cleaned up. Ross Street needs to be opened and crew needs to stop encroaching our property and putting the safety of those in our building at risk. We have begged for your help. We have urged action on behalf of our students and staff. Nothing is working.

What can we do to ensure a clean, safe, and productive environment for our students, our children of Santa Ana, to learn and to thrive? We have less than two weeks. We're hoping you can help us. Thank you.

Thank you. Walter Ayala followed by Kelly Krausley. And Kelly's going to be our last speaker in person.

Buenas tardes, señores del concilio. You will say that we are coming with the same same questions, the same people and everything. But you are sitting for the first time in this issue and are taking experience, we are doing the same. We are seeing that you are only doing pura falacia with respect to the needs of us. We will approve 128 million dollars for Revive Santana. We are the dead merchant. We are the dead merchant.

How many years have we been working and we have never been waiting for you to ask for a cent. However, you don't want to be expected that after the pandemic We put it in a construction when they could have been waiting for 1 or 2 years, so they could have been waiting for 10 or 12 years for this project, to be able to get out of this pandemic that has been carried out practically to the ruin of many people. So, ladies, where is it, or have you ever been to the heart of saying that we also have suffered? We also have to pay rent, we have to pay our children, but with this, how do we do it?

They are making demagogia in all places saying that we are going to help, that they have a million and a half. Now we don't know how to distribute that million and a half. We don't know. We say that we have another million and a half, but it doesn't correspond. Where does it go? Those who have not been affected by the construction?

How much is the money from the first million and a half? No lo sabemos. Sin embargo, ya no, aparentemente no vamos a recibir por el momento el segundo millón y medio. Entonces, ¿qué pasa con ustedes, señores, como autoridades? Creo que poco a poco ustedes nos van minimizando. Si no hubiésemos hecho la protesta en OTA, quizás también no hubiesen acelerado los trabajos como lo están haciendo. Y qué bueno, esperaron que nosotros gristemos en las calles para que ustedes nos puedan ayudar. So, I hope you take the issue in your hands and as I said my colleagues,

I ask you to help us, we are not a mend, we are not a mend, we are not a mend, we are not a man who won't have the bread through our business. So please, I just repeat, I hope you take the issue and support us as they should be. Thank you.

Good evening members of the City Council. I'm here to say, you might say that we're here to have the same asks, that we're the same people that are coming by, and just like you are probably here for the first time, we are here too also. And I'm here to tell you that the fallacies that you have done towards our needs, and you're about to approve $128 million for the revive monies. But what are we? Are we just the dead merchants? For years, we have been working. We have never come here to ask you

for a single cent. But now you are, you approve this. And after this pandemic, right after the pandemic, you are having this construction where you could have waited maybe one or two years and then started the construction to give us some time to help our businesses. Our businesses are going into ruin, and we are suffering. We cannot pay our rent. We need to not just pay our rent. We need to bring food for our families, for our kids. And you're out there as demagogues saying that you're helping. You're bringing $1.5 million, but we don't know how that money was distributed.

We don't know now there's talks about another a second one one point five million dollars, but they're saying that does not come to us It's not going to come to us. So we don't know what's left of the first one and a half million dollars and We're not going to be receiving any of the second one and a half million dollars so You need to help us. We don't want to be left behind And we we need that we need this help and we are hoping here that you do something that you demand from octa that they help us and you we're working we want to work

we live off of our businesses so do something to help us thank you thank you uh kelly crossley is our last in-person speaker on this item good evening kelly crossley ward six i'm here tonight in support of the business owners and the downtown community i echo everything that you've heard But I also thought it would be helpful as a resident who lives along the construction zone to share my experience. Unfortunately it's not good. OCTA ripped up privately owned palm trees and refuses to accept responsibility for it. My neighbors have sustained damage from the construction, cracks in concrete on our first floors.

And OCTA said, oh contact Walsh, this isn't our problem. Street sweepers can't access my street because the OCTA cones and construction signs are blocking the street and also the last week the while the street super is going by there's a porta potty in the red right where the street super is supposed to be plus it can't make that quick angle where the construction zone is so I'm wondering if OCTA is going to send someone weekly to street sweet my street because we get a lot of litter and all the pine cone droppings or now perhaps that's my responsibility since it seems to be my responsibility to document all

of these issues and email them weekly to poor councilmember Penalosa I also have construction workers parking in my driveway, double parking in the middle of the street, parking in red zone, blocking fire hydrants, parking on no parking streets, parking during street sweeping. One time I asked one of them, could you please move your car? That's a fire hydrant and there's a huge apartment complex. This is dangerous and you have the street blocked off. There's only one way in for a fire hydrant. He moved his car to the other side where it was also a red zone. Every sign is covered in graffiti. I do report it in the app but

the city, it's not their responsibility, it's OCTAs, because it's their property, and so it doesn't get addressed like when it's on Santa Ana property. Also, they started construction at the train station this week, I've been watching it, and yet the intersection right outside my house is closed, and tons of intersections downtown are closed. Why further inconvenience us residents and the business owners and the community? Why not finish what you started before you further destroy the community?

Finally, I would like to know how construction is being expedited. I see maybe one person per quarter mile. I walk the whole route every day because I live down here and I walk my dog constantly. And it's disappointing. I just see no one working. And this would never happen in Irvine. And I'm disgusted to see our city treated this way. Thank you.

Let me go ahead and ask the clerk if there's anybody online or virtually that would like to comment on this item.

Mayor, it looks like there are two attendees online. Let me double check to make sure that they're here for item 7. Speakers in the queue, if you are here to speak on agenda item 7, please dial star 9 from your phone or select raised hand from Zoom now. For all other speakers who are here to speak on all other agenda items and non-agenda items, please lower your hand now. Public comments will reopen at a later time.

»» Zoom ID, Daisy, please select the microphone icon to unmute from your device and proceed with your comment. You have 3 minutes.

»» Zoom ID, Daisy. »»

Zoom ID Martha, please select the microphone icon to unmute from your device and proceed with your comment. You have three minutes. good afternoon my name is marta garcía miembros del consejo my name is I live here in the district of santana I'm going to talk about the point 17 I would like to help us please and those of the desalojements, for what we are spending on COVID, with family, close, neighbors, neighbors, neighbors, neighbors,

who have seen the need to take their things, to be in the street, so we ask you to give them that they have to share that money they have to the community, or I don't know how to do it, so that they have to give them to the families. It is very urgent to avoid the desalojos,

Good evening. My name is Marta García, City Council. I'm a resident of Santa Ana. I'm going to speak on item number 17. Please help us. There's many evictions going on still due to COVID. There's families that are in need that are going to the streets because they don't have any money. We demand that you distribute the money to the communities. I don't know how that works, but send it to the communities so that the families can be helped. This is urgent for the families to avoid eviction. We need medications for people who are sick. Some people are dying and they need burial expenses. So thank you for listening.

Mayor, there are no other callers in the queue.

Thank you. So let me go ahead and turn it over to staff, and I believe city staff is going to begin with the first part of the presentation, and they can go ahead and kick it over to OCTA.

Yes, thank you, Mayor. Presenting the city's portion and introducing OCTA for theirs is Nabil Saba, Executive Director of Public Works.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, members of the City Council. I have two presentations for you today, one from Public Works City of Santa Ana, and the second is from OCTA staff. tonight's presentation let's see the right's presentation is to provide you with an update on a status update of the city project that is in the sphere of the OC streetcar alignment it is the Santa Ana Boulevard protected bike lane.

The project includes a protected bike lane along Santa Ana Boulevard from Flower to French. It includes the paving of the north track of the slab. It starts...

Sorry about that, let's see.

There you go.

The city project is a Santa Ana Boulevard protected bike lane. Again, it is a bike lane project on Santa Ana Boulevard from Flower to French. It includes the paving of the north track slab of Santa Ana Boulevard. The starting date on the project is August 8th, coming up soon. The initial phase of this project starts with the paving from Bush to French and going west from that point forward. It's anticipated to be completed in the first quarter of 2023.

As far as the business interruption funds, we have two sources of funds. Sanana Business Interruption Fund is the first one. 107 business grants have been paid. 48 new applications are pending payment. A new allocation of the city funded, $1.5 million, will be available beginning August this month. The second source of fund or business interruption fund comes from Orange County. 102 business grants have been paid. 29 businesses are pending payment. 94% of the fund has been spent.

There are two sets of projects that are in the alignment of the OC streetcar. There are three projects that are active. construction projects the the first one is the Lacey crossing residential and adaptive views project on 4th and Standard Avenue and also the Toll Brothers mixed-use project which is on flower and Main Street the third one is is the Lacey Square on Santa Ana Boulevard and French Street there are also three projects are in the planning development projects that are in the

planning they are the fixed residence residence project on sanayana boulevard and garfield red oak mixed use which is on fourth street and mortimer and the last one is third and broadway mixed use which will be on third and broadway that concludes my presentation i'm open for any questions otherwise I can introduce the team from OCTA. Russ Liu and Teresa

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

Olivari will be presenting. I have a couple of questions. Go ahead, Councilman. Thank you, Mayor Salmiento. First and foremost, Director Saba, thank you for your presentation. Much appreciated. And my question is in regards to the additional 1.5 million. So those funds will become available in August, so they should be available now?

I believe so, yes.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

Okay. Do we have a confirmation, Madam City Manager, as to if they were informed that they are now available?

So with the second round of funding, it was intended to go to the businesses that are being impacted as the future as the construction moves along but at the request the downtown merchants they did want a second to go at the money as well so we are going to put a firm deadline date for the the newer impacted businesses so that when that deadline passes they will then have funds that will be released to the existing ones that have received the first bucket if

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

that makes sense okay so that so essentially will it'll be a much more simple process for those who were recipients the first time around?

For our funding, yes. If you already received it, you have everything on file. For the funding that we did the distribution for the county, there was a subrecipient form that needed a signature and that was based on county requirements. So that made one extra step that they did have to do to receive those funds.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

Okay. And then my last question, and I'll let them do their presentation, Okta, but I do have some questions and some comments for them. The last question I have is in relation to the 1.5 that we first initially approved. I know that we had some changes that we requested. One of the changes was independent contractors increasing from 1,000 to 1,300. So that way we can offset any potential cost for people having to pay for an independent contractor license. So can we confirm if that is something that is in effect as well?

It is. I just turned around and got acknowledgment from our assistant city manager who oversees the economic development efforts. Yes.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

Wonderful. I would say moving forward, if we can include on our presentation the amount of independent contractors that have submitted paperwork, the amount that have been paid out, and the amount that are pending applications.

We certainly can do that, sir.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

Thank you, Madam City Manager. At the time, I don't have any additional questions. I will wait for OCTA to complete their presentation before I conclude my comments. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. Let me call on Councilmember Peñalosa that has a question as well.

David PenalozaItem 7

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Director Saba, for that presentation. The only, I guess I just had a comment or question for clarification, Director Saba. In your presentation, slide two, it says that there will be paving areas north of the track slab on behalf of OCTA. Is there going to be any paving done on the south side of the track slab?

Yes, that will be part of the completion of the project when the tracks are completed, yes.

David PenalozaItem 7

So why is it only listed as paving areas north of track slab on behalf of OCTA?

Because that is part of our project as the protected bike lane.

David PenalozaItem 7

Okay, so the south side will also be paved?

Oh, absolutely, yes. Except it will be finished by OCTA as part of their project.

David PenalozaItem 7

Because I can see a contractor thinking that a Mickey Mouse patchwork is okay in San Ana, which I want to make sure that it's not, and they know that it is not. So any repaving is done evenly across the board from sidewalk to sidewalk or protected bike lane to protected bike lane. The other question I had and just so that we know this moving forward with the protected bike lanes along Santa Boulevard if you recall my one request on the protected bike lanes on Bristol and Ettinger was that landscaping was included as part of the

David PenalozaItem 7

protected bike lane and not just a cement slab or brick to add greenery and landscaping to our streets, are we going to include landscaping as part of these protected bike lanes?

I believe so. We started from Flower to Ross right now, and that portion has a median where planting will happen and so is for the remainder of the project.

David PenalozaItem 7

Great. That is something that I, any protected bike lane in the city that comes in from now on forward, I would hope that we incorporate landscaping as part of it. So thank you, I just wanted to make sure that that was understood. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for those comments. Any other comments from the council at this point for our Public Works Director?

Hearing and seeing none, let me go ahead and I guess turn it over to OCTA so they can go forward with their presentation.

Good evening, Mayor Sarmiento, Mayor Pro Tem and Council members. I'm Ross Liu, Program Manager for the OC Streetcar project. I'm here to present an update on the project. I am joined by Teresa Olivieri, Community Relations Specialist who will be providing THE OUTREACH UPDATE. THE PROJECT IS APPROXIMATELY 70% COMPLETE AS OF TODAY. WHILE I WILL FOCUS MY PRESENTATION ON THE WORK DOWNTOWN, I WILL ALSO PROVIDE AN UPDATE ON OTHER AREAS OF THE PROJECT SO THAT THE PUBLIC IS AWARE OF THE PROGRESS BEING MADE ON THE FOUR-MILE CORRIDOR.

NEXT SLIDE, PLEASE. THE CONSTRUCTION IS WORKING DOWN INTO LOGICAL SEGMENTS BY LOCATION AND character of work. Segment one on the westerly side as shown here is within the OCTA P right away between Harbour Boulevard and Raid Street. It includes the maintenance and storage facility or MSF and two bridges. This segment is also where the initial vehicle testing will take place upon vehicle delivery. Key activities in segment one include the placement of plants which are raised concrete blocks to support fixed rail on the bridges. The Fairview Street and the 5th Street at Great Crossings are completed with the exception of train warning

and gate system which will be installed at a later date. Can you go back to slide three please?

I can notify you when I'm going to advance. Thank you. Shown here is the Westminster and Santa Ana river bridges which are substantially completed with the placement of concrete plinths and rail. The photo on the left shows the wooden forms that shape the plinths. The photo on the right shows the completion of the work and the removal of wooden forms. Next slide.

The project achieved a significant milestone with the completion of steel erection at the MSF on May 10th. The picture on the left reflects the placement of the final being signed by the project team members and Walsh, the construction contractor. Other key MSF activities completed included concrete placement for the first and second floor slab, the building roof and various site improvements. Next slide.

Segment 2 to 5 are the in-street running segments between Raid Street and the Santa Ana Regional Transportation Center or SARTIC. Another achievement last quarter occurred on June 9th. The westbound lane on 4th Street reopened two vehicles between Bush Street and French Street. This is the segment that is in front of the 4th Street Market area. This is the first section to reopen since 4th Street was closed to traffic on February 1st. The picture on the right shows the reopen lane with the new curb and gutter decorative pavers and roadway pavement the

reopening was made possible by having the contractor work extended hours and weekends which i will talk more about in later slides next slide in close coordination with city staff the main street intersection was closed at fourth street and san anna boulevard on july 11th i understand the concern regarding the recent closure of the main street intersection before opening other blocks along 4th Street. To explain, please understand that the embedded rails will be placed through 4th Street from Ross Street intersection to Mortimer Street intersection eight blocks. Rails that have already been

placed on 4th Street west and east of Main Street intersection must be connected through the intersections. The end of the rails are currently exposed if you go up there and you can see for yourself so that the connection can be performed therefore the blocks on either side of the Main Street intersection cannot be opened to traffic. After main intersection is reconstructed and rails are placed, then we can reopen. Our goal is to reopen main intersection and adjacent blocks on 4th Street by August 24th or 25th. I would ask the public understand that these dates are subject

to change based on availability of asphalt supplies. Next slide. Progress is made on the construction of the platform stop excuse me the station stop platform on 4th Street the picture on the left shows the foundation form work for the French Street platform and a picture on the right is the Sycamore Street platform you can also see placements of the overhead canary system poles that have been installed project-wide 80% of the posts have been installed regarding the eastbound lanes between Bush and French we cannot open this lane due to the ongoing work for the French platform which requires additional time to

construct foundation and place many electrical communication conduits. Next slide. So I want to touch briefly on some of the concerns we are hearing from the community. Regarding the pacing and sequencing of work, the contractor work hours are generally 6 a.m. to 3.30 p.m. The contractor has worked and can work extended hours beyond 3.30 p.m. when the work can be performed efficiently as exemplified on 4th Street with the reopening of the westbound lanes from French to Bush. Staff regularly encourages the contractor to work on weekends and they have when it's efficient to do so. Sometimes the weekend work is large like

an operation like a large operation sometimes it's a small operation that is not noticeable. For example the intersection reconstruction work which is a large operation have occurred on some weekends. We also have subcontractors working on weekends performing electrical conduit placement and relocations. These workers are generally small with small crews so they don't attract much attention. We also understand the importance of the holiday season to downtown businesses. We're working closely with the contractor to ensure the roadway is open on 4th Street by Thanksgiving.

We will be discussing greater details at the community meeting this Thursday that Tresa can provide more details on. Next slide.

Moving on to other segments on the corridor, work is progressing well on segment 2B which is located between Bristol Street on the west side and Flower Street on the east side. The westbound track has already been constructed so the current effort is the embedded track in the eastbound direction. The eastbound work started on May 4th and the contractor has completed all eight concrete pours. The fast progress was made possible with the modified track slab design, as shown on the left, which significantly reduced impacts to very unknown utilities. Next slide.

On June 20th, we initiated the demolition and reconstruction at the 4th Street and Ross Street intersection, which is located next to NOVA Academy as shown in the first two photos. The first photo shows the demolition work. The second one just shows unknown utilities that we continue to hit on this project. Through public meetings, we have heard concerns from NOVA Academy regarding work during the start of the new school year. Therefore, we initiated this work earlier than planned with a goal to reopen this intersection before the school starts on August 15th. Extended work and weekend hours have been authorized to reach our goal.

So there are two things I want to highlight right now at the NOVA Academy. First, it's under demolition. So if you go up there, you see broken bricks, dirt, piles of rubbles, and so forth, similar to what you saw when we first started construction on 4th Street. It's not a pretty sight. I acknowledge that. But we're doing our best to get the work done quickly. But when the work is done, you get a chance to see what the finished product is, and you can see the finished product that we have done on 4th Street in French. So I know right now there's a lot of concern with the way it looks,

but we're working very hard to complete the work by August 15th. I also want to add on a second point that we have been coordinating with Nova Academy. We understand the importance of that school to the community. I mean, myself, my daughter goes to school in Santa Ana, a couple blocks up from where the demolition is. So I know what Nova Academy is going through, And so I have a personal interest in getting it done and timely communicating with NOVA Academy. We have met with staff regularly, and we assist where we can. For example, during the summer, we do know that they have summer programs.

We have set up flaggers and drop-off points to make sure that the parents know where to drop off the kids and pick up the kids through the construction area south of where the demolitionists work. We also know that there was a summer event. We reached out to the school. We assisted them on that event as well to provide flaggers to make sure that there is good circulation to get the parents and the kids to the event. We've also participated in other events too to make sure that there's security. We've heard the concern about their storage yard before the demolition began. We removed the fence to deter homelessness.

We placed security lighting there as well. I've personally been in that area to make sure that all things are in place for the school. So we do know the importance of the school and we are listening to them and working with them. Moving on to the next slide.

So we have made good progress this past quarter for track installation. This map shows all installed track with red lines. I will now turn it over to Teresa to discuss public outreach. Thank you. Next slide, please.

Good evening, everyone. Mayor, council members, Teresa Oliveri from OCTA. Our second quarter outreach efforts continued with construction notifications, expansion of the Eat Shot Play efforts, and a return to public outreach meetings with a focus on activities in two segments, the downtown, known as segment four, and the area near the Metrolink station, known as segment five. On May 8th and June 28th, Ross and I led presentations in the downtown focused on the intersection closures, beginning with French, then at Bush, and most recently, Main and 4th Street closure.

We provided an overview of the sequence of events the merchants and visitors would see as the work progressed. We answered questions and listened to merchants' comments. On June 14th and 16th, Ross and I again led a presentation to residents and business owners in segment five to discuss the track installation activities between roughly Minter to Santiago Street. We again provided a sequence of events and intersection closures and answered the audience's questions. As individual elements of the above mentioned intersection closures progress, members of

the outreach team go out and canvass the area to talk to business owners and residents about the upcoming activity and provide them with a flyer. We identify specific issues that they tell us about and we bring them back to the technical team for resolution. In mid-July, Sean Thomas of the Public Works Group joined me at Flower Park Neighborhood Association where we provided an update on city projects and the streetcar respectively. Next slide please. Our e-shot play program continues to expand and during this reporting period the number of participants grew to include more

than 80 participants. Our social media and geo-fencing efforts are bringing awareness of business in the program and we are providing individual metrics back to businesses. We are maintaining our traditional media campaigns with Spanish radio and newspaper ads and on June 18th we had another radio remote. We partnered with Cerveza City Brewery with an event that they were hosting for local influencers who learned about the project and were excited to see what's happening downtown. We continue to partner with the city who provides us marquee space on electronic billboards for downtown businesses. It's exciting for the

businesses to see themselves on the marquees and these are opportunities that they haven't had before. We produced a walking map with all the downtown businesses participating in each shot play and it has been distributed to more than 3,500 households in the area around the downtown and we are adding it to lobby and tabletop displays and locations around the downtown. I think you all have a copy of that in front of you as well. We also produced GoPro videos that bring drivers from the five freeway direct to the four city-owned parking structures that

support the downtown these videos are on our website and are available for business and event organizers to link to to assist them in bringing people to the parking structures we also developed a campaign that showcases downtown santa ana with a video that is currently running at the free to cinema on fourth street another 11 theaters will be added later this year we will be having additional public outreach meetings in the downtown and in september we will again invite the community in segment five to talk about the next milestone in that segment sequence that will close the

Santiago intersection to install the curved track into the future Sartic streetcar station stop. We also have had the opportunity to showcase the project in Santa Ana in a recent tour with the Electric Engineers Association. Another staff member and I joined more than 50 members on a tour of the alignment, and they really enjoyed seeing the Sartic station and learning about the future of transit in Santa Ana. Recent tours include members of the ASCE, American Society of Civil Engineers, and this morning I took a group of college students selected for the

WTS Transportation Academy. These tours are a great opportunity to share the investment that we are making and the partnerships that we have with social, I'm sorry, with federal and local partners. Our next outreach meeting will be Thursday at Salon Santa Ana in their second floor banquet space public work staff will join ross and i and the city staff will begin the presentation and at eight at eight i'm sorry pardon me at 8 a.m and ross and i will follow as we have tonight and take questions after that we plan to have these meetings monthly

through the end of the year that concludes the presentation great thank you for that let me go

ahead and bring it back to the city council to see if there's any questions or comments um members of the council. Is there anything else from public work staff on this? Got it. So let me,

clerk staff, do we have anybody with their hand raised online from the members who aren't with

us physically? It looks like Council Member Mendoza would like to speak. Let me call on

them just because they're not here and we can get their comments initially. So Council Member Mendoza, So go ahead.

Thank you.

I saw in the presentation that the hours were extended so that the workers could work longer hours and they were trying to finish or at least get the major part of the work done by Thanksgiving. Is that my understanding? and the question is will the majority of the 4th Street be open for business before the Thanksgiving holiday?

Mayor Sarmiento, Council Member Mendoza. So I believe the main question you're asking is will 4th Street be open for the businesses by Thanksgiving? That is our goal. We're working very hard towards that goal. It's going to be tight, but we feel that it is accomplishable. So just to give you perspective, our goal is to open up the roadway, both eastbound and westbound, from the Ross intersection all the way through French before Thanksgiving. We want the roadways to be open so this way customers, the public can get access to the businesses.

But keep in mind that the roadway work is the majority of the work and that's what we're aiming for. There will still be ongoing work on a sidewalk as we're putting in those nice decorative pavers, the OCS poles, any of the electrical work and so forth. But that will be done within a construction zone that's not going to disrupt anybody on the sidewalk in terms of getting access to the business. So that is our goal. I also want to highlight that we are shooting towards a very important date that's coming up. We're working really closely with the city staff, the contractor, and pretty much it's all hands on August 24th and 25th.

That is a big asphalt paving day for all of us. What we plan to do is pave the reconstructed Main Street intersection, but also pave basically from Sycamore all the way to Bush. So that whole stretch right there, Sycamore as you're heading east through the main intersection, to Bush, to French, is to try to get all that open on both the east and westbound direction. Now as I highlighted earlier, one of the biggest constraints that we have is the asphalt supplier. We are battling other constructions in Orange County. It's hard to lock in these dates and also to supply, but we're working very hard to make them commit to that date.

Thank you. Councilmember, any additional comments?

No, that was it. Thank you.

Thank you. And is Councilmember Lopez good?

I don't see her hand raised at this time.

Let me go ahead and go with Councilmember Hernandez and then Mayor Pro Tem.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First and foremost, thank you both for being here today. I know it's important to our businesses it's important to our community and it's important to the council I want to start first by asking if you can clarify where Okta placed equipment at the Nova construction site sure all the

equipment needs to be maintained within the city's right-of-way which where the work is being done. There's no equipment being stored on the private property, which is NOVA, with the exception of the protective crowd fencing. Those are the crowd fencing that you see also on 4th Street that separates the accessible sidewalk to the construction area there. The crowd fencing is placed within the NOVA property to prevent any access into the construction zone. all the equipments are within the street itself and construction so was

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

actor aware that they were putting children's lives at risk by blocking fire exits and blocking locations that were designated you know to ensure that if there ever was an emergency these children can safely exit a school were you guys aware that you were blocking an emergency exit what I think it's

important to understand that what has occurred has been coordinated with the city and also with fire authority. So we don't do anything in a black box, we communicate very well. So just to give you a perspective on the access that was described is that within Nova Academy and the adjacent businesses that run along Sasser Park, unfortunately that became an alleyway for the homeless. So homeless was using that as an access to get from one end of Sasser Park to the other end and homeless unfortunately interacts with the student. Working with the city, the law enforcement and so forth, a metal gate was put in to block that access.

We also understand that even though the gate was put in to prevent that access for the homeless, it did prevent maintenance access to a fire system that the fire authority needs to check. And so given that, we did coordinate with them again to remove the gate. I think what was really helpful was that when we removed their covered fencing around the storage yard at Sassah Park, also put in the lighting and added security, that really deterred the homeless from being in that area significantly. Even Santa Ana PD will attest to that.

So given that there was really no more high traffic by the homeless people, so it made even more sense to remove that gate.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

Thank you for sharing. I had very serious concerns with Okta blocking the exits and placing children's lives at risk. That's not something that we want to see happen moving forward.

Sure.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

I think it would be good practice that you guys check in when you guys are working around a school, specifically the Nova Academy School, to please work very closely, over-communicate with them, work with our city so that this doesn't happen moving forward. My next question is, there has your presentation today, you talked about how there has been construction taking place on the weekend. Many of the merchants can attest that that's not what's being reflected. We don't see that happening. I don't live far from downtown, so I don't see it either. Can you confirm if there is a schedule for weekend construction?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

Because as evidenced, we're not seeing it.

Okay. Sure, I can confirm that. As I noted, there's different types of operations that occur on a weekend, big operations, small operations, and so forth. So starting with the large operations that occur regularly at the intersections, I remember there was a weekend work at the Ross intersection that we had to coordinate with city staff in regards to the prior event festival that occurred that weekend. So all that construction had to be coordinated to make sure that the participants have access to the event.

We also have been working on weekends to make sure that the track work and the preparation for the track work at Ross and his sections is also in place for the upcoming concrete pour. We have work on weekends on bush when it was demolished to try to get ahead of that. So a lot of the demolition work we try our best to work on weekends to get that done. Some of the smaller work, as I mentioned, deals with the subcontractors, and there are a handful of subcontractors on this project. Some of them are the rebars installers that are on the track bed itself.

Lots of it is the underground conduits, irrigation lines, and so forth, which requires maybe just one or two individuals out there to make the connection, just because it's just a small operation. It doesn't require large equipment that would gather attention. I do know that EBS, who is one of the subcontractors for Walsh, who placed this nice decorative pavers, they have stepped it up. They implemented a second crew working extended hours and are committed to work on Saturdays to get caught up with the pavers. So this way not only will we be able to open the roadway, but more of the sidewalk areas for pedestrians.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

Can you confirm if there will be construction this weekend, sir?

Sure. I can certainly reach out and follow up with your staff if you would like.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

Thank you. I think something that will help everybody here on the city side and also put a lot of our businesses at ease is if we can have these schedules published weekly. So that way businesses can take into account if there's going to be construction Saturday morning from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., they can be mindful of that and we can better prepare. And it also makes this process easier for you and us because there's more transparency. And I think the more transparency, the happier our businesses are, which leads me to my last point.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

On the city of Senate and aside, as soon as we were aware of the challenge that businesses were experiencing, we responded. We created a fund of $1.5 million. Furthermore, the county supervisor, Katrina Foley, we appreciate her leadership here in the city of Santa Ana. She also allocated funding to support our downtown businesses. And we recently introduced an additional $1.5 million in funding, totaling $3 million on the city side. When is Okta going to listen to the signs behind us that say that these businesses need more funds, they're asking for your support?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

specifically the sign behind us says Okta enough lies pay us now at what point does the city have Santa Ana have to continue to pour money into supporting our businesses before Okta says you know what we need to do our due diligence and carry our water and pay some of these businesses like we have so I can

certainly answer that and I welcome Jim Biel if he wants to expand on it but But before I get to that point, I want to go back just really briefly on the schedule and transparency, which I support. It's really important that we're very transparent with the schedule and what's going to work. So every Wednesday we have the Construction Progress meeting at 10 o'clock. Your city staff is there. They know what's coming up in three weeks. But we also know that things change week per week as different operations change. And we coordinate regularly. I have your staff on my cell phone.

They have my cell number, and we talk regularly about the schedule. Not only that, but we also do a check-in on Thursday morning, not only with us, contractor, and your staff, but we focus on 4th Street and also the work that's going on on Santa Ana Boulevard between Ross and French. So there's a lot of discussion in regards to work. So we have that information. Your staff has that information. And again, we adjust as needed.

In regards to what OCTA can provide, I think it goes without saying that that question has been discussed a handful of time at our board meeting, and also a handful of time we responded without legal that we just cannot provide the business interruption fund. However, we have stepped it up to provide expenditure elsewhere. So, for example, on the outreach, and I'll have Teresa share with all of you what we spend on outreach to help with the businesses. On my end, basically I made it clear that I'm going to approve all extended hours, weekend works, premium time, whatever it takes, whatever costs to get this work done quickly.

So that's how we're contributing our way and also getting the work done quickly, which we know costs money. And not only for the contractors too, but also for our CM, our program management team, for the suppliers who has to basically divert certain supply away from another contractor and charge us premium for that. So we are incurring costs for this project, but we're doing it in a positive way.

Thank you. Thank you for those remarks, Councilmember. Let me go to Mayor Pro Tem.

Phil BacerraItem 7

Thank you, Mayor. Guys, I want to thank you for coming tonight. I know it's been a while since you guys have been back here before the Council and before the Santa Ana community here in these chambers. So I want to thank you, and I hope that these updates will continue monthly throughout the duration of construction of this project. In touching on the item about what OCTA can and cannot fund, so we've heard it consistently that you cannot provide funding directly to the businesses. But as a OCTA, the County Transportation Authority, in response to some of the comments

Phil BacerraItem 7

made by members of the public about free parking in our structures, is there any way that financial assistance can come from OCTA to help subsidize free parking and not just 9 to 5 or 7 to 5 but maybe later into the evening, seven days a week?

Phil BacerraItem 7

Okay, sure.

I think there are discussions between our CEO and the city manager regarding gathering information. No decision has been made. No staffer, OCTA staff has not brought forward a decision to be made about that. at this time. But I think, I don't know if, uh,

Phil BacerraItem 7

Well, no, no, it's, it's not for staff to answer because I'm asking if OCTA will do it. I'm not asking if the city will do it. I'm asking can OCTA?

Well, I think OCTA is gathering information that they've requested from the city. And so I think that's where the discussions are, have led to. Okay. So no decision, I can't, we can't announce the decision. It hasn't, nothing has gone before our board yet.

Phil BacerraItem 7

Okay. But, and so I guess hopefully at a future update you can provide us feedback from whether it's your legal counsel or whomever as to whether that's an allowable expense. Because we've heard loud and clear that OCTA won't provide funding to the businesses directly, but perhaps maybe there would be a way to assist them with free parking in our structures. So just something if you wouldn't mind following up with us on that. On the signage that you guys have on the outside, or I'm sorry, the signage that you have in the construction zone. In talking to one of the merchants after their meeting last Friday,

Phil BacerraItem 7

one of the merchants said, you know, we see these signs that says certain businesses are open and it's literally the merchant looking out at a sign that's telling them their neighbors are open and their neighbor is looking at a sign that tells them that they're open. So it's helping each other know that they're open. The problem isn't understanding whether each other is open. It's for people on the outside of the construction zone to understand that these businesses are open and waiting for business. So I would ask you guys to look at signage outside or on the periphery of the construction zone. So if you're coming up Main Street,

Phil BacerraItem 7

having some sort of signage that gives people the idea that maybe if they, you know, head right on Third Street or, you know, just some sort of directional information that these businesses are open. You have signage, so if you're coming out of the parking structure, I applaud the signage that you have that allows a pedestrian to see that if they veer right, certain businesses are open, if you veer left, certain other businesses are open. But I think it's important for these folks that there's some sort of indication on the outside of the construction zone, loud and clear that these businesses are open and maybe some more

Phil BacerraItem 7

details similar to what you have within the construction zone. Graffiti in the zone is is out of control. And our city has an amazing app and our contractor does great work. But a lot of what I'm seeing, especially as I walk 4th Street, a lot of it is on your construction signs. And I know it's a pain, it's an expenditure, but I would really appreciate it. And as some of the folks mentioned here tonight, would this be tolerated in other cities? I don't want to pass judgment, but I do wonder because there's a lot there. And it really, to me, it just screams neglect.

Phil BacerraItem 7

So that sort of small detail goes a long way. So if you guys can really work with your contractor to do that. In regards to one of the slides you mentioned, that the contractor is allowed to work on the weekends, allowed. That's great that they're allowed, but my question, and I think that's what I was hearing a lot of folks ask you, is what is OCT doing to get them to work? to actually get them out there. As I sat in Alta Baja Market the other day, I saw two or three people on the 4th Street construction site at 4 o'clock. I mean, there's plenty of daylight out there. Nobody's out there.

Phil BacerraItem 7

So it'd be great to have more folks out there. So when you say they're allowed, if you wouldn't mind elaborating, what are you doing to actually get them out there? I know you're offering overtime, but what are you doing to get them out there?

Sure. So I know the importance of getting this work done, as I've stressed several times, Maybe allowing it is too nice of a word. I can honestly say that we're pushing them. And again, I bring in the weekly meetings, the Thursday check-in meeting with the staff. So your staff has heard me say numerous times that we need to work overtime, extended hours. Now, as I noted, that there are some big operations, just small operations. The big operations are generally by Walsh with the big equipments and so forth as it relates to the roadway. The other big equipment operation too is the rails and also building up the track slab.

Recently there hasn't been much activities out on 4th Street until recently because of the smaller work done by the subcontractor. If you go out there today, you see that one of the biggest operations we're doing right now is placing the aggregate base in preparation for the upcoming asphalt paving on August 24th and 25th. Prior to that big operation, in terms of placing the aggregate, there had to be some smaller work that had to be done by the subs. The subs, unfortunately, when compared to the primes, do have limited resources because they're a smaller company, and so they do have some limitation in regards to the weekend

work, and that's where I would push them to work on the extended weekdays instead. So we are pushing where we can on the weekends. I urge you to maybe end business to maybe look around and see that there are actually some workers out there. When I say some, again, we're talking about the smallest subs, not the big prime contractor with the big equipments. But we are pushing them, Mayor Pro Tem.

Phil BacerraItem 7

And I appreciate that. Not everything is involving a jackhammer or a big vat of concrete. I get that. But I think everybody would appreciate really leaning on the subs to get out there and get their work done because, you know, especially for the timeline that you're sharing with us to get done by Thanksgiving, I mean, that's a lot of coordination. So I do not envy your task in doing that. In regards to something my colleague had mentioned as far as transparency and putting out a schedule, it's great that you're meeting with the contractor and the subcontractors. It's great that you're keeping our city staff in the loop.

Phil BacerraItem 7

But I think what's important is for the community to understand what's going on. Last council meeting where you guys weren't hearing some of the public comments that came in, one restaurant was anticipating their segment of 4th Street to be closed a week down the road and then all of a sudden they opened up and realized, oh no, 4th Street was closed that morning. And so they didn't know that. And so I kind of picked up on this theme in some of what you were presenting, like for instance with Nova Academy. You're coordinating with the city. We have a lot of projects that go on in the city where they keep staff in the loop, but

Phil BacerraItem 7

the folks building need to do that coordination themselves. They need to be proactive. So with NOVA, just telling city staff doesn't check the box. That doesn't satisfy it. I mean, the fact, what scares me is I don't want to hear about NOVA students trying to get out of their building in a case of an emergency and OCTA staff or the contractor or a subcontractor didn't coordinate with a school. and these children are trapped because nobody bothered to tell them that certain things had to be moved around. And I appreciate the fact that you are dealing with the homeless and you're dealing with these other factors,

Phil BacerraItem 7

but what I'm asking of you, and I think the community is asking, is just please, talking to city staff is not enough. You need to coordinate with the folks on the ground. Talk to these folks that are, whether the businesses, whether it's the institutions like the schools, they need to know what's going on. And I know things change, but, you know, we're talking about outreach, right? We're talking about a million-plus dollars in outreach. I'd rather have less of eat, play, shop, whatever that's called, and have something that's more informative for the community in regards to a construction schedule

Phil BacerraItem 7

so that these businesses can try to the best that they can to work around it. My last question is in regards to the construction schedule. So help me understand, and I'm hopeful that there is a reasonable explanation for this. You guys shut down the intersection of Bristol and Santa Ana Boulevard. Bristol-Mageddon, right? You shut it down. It's a major arterial, not just for the city of Santa Ana, but for the entire Orange County area. And you guys, or your contractors and subs, were able to knock a lot of significant construction out in a weekend, right? Or maybe it was two weekends, I forget.

Phil BacerraItem 7

But here we are talking about 4th and Maine. And my concern is that just because Maine is not a countywide arterial, I mean, other than going through Orange and then into Irvine, but there doesn't seem to be the same sort of haste, the same sort of eagerness to complete that work. I mean, to say that you can get Bristol and Santa Ana Boulevard dialed in in two weekends, and for 4th and Main Street it's taking two months. Can you explain what the differences, what the different challenges are to getting that work done on 4th and Main quicker?

Sure. I can certainly answer that. And then after that, I want to go back to your early comment in terms of being transparent and communicating with the community. So first off, I think it's important to understand that when we did tackle some of these large intersections, being Bristol, even Flower, we shut it down for well over a week. In Flower, it was a little over two weeks. So we had some big operations, excavation, and basically paving and track work. The work on 4th Street is a little bit different. One of the biggest differences when you compare to the big intersection of Bristol

and also Flower with downtown is downtown is very constrained. It's only a two-lane corridor. We're parking on the side. So there's only limited equipment we can put in that area. You know, it's not as large as we would like to, to do the amount of excavation and demolitions and so forth. We also have to do it very respectfully. I mean, to be honest with you, when we shut down Flower for over two weeks, there was dust flying area. You know, we were just blowing and going, getting things done. And I know that in 4th Street, we have to be very respectful and do a lot of the dust control to limit the work as well.

4th Street also have a lot of unique things that these big intersections don't have. One thing is there are no irrigation lines that we have to content with that went to all the planners that we have to protect and relocate and adjust the location as well. There's also a handful of city installed lights and conduits through there, some of them for the Christmas lights and other things that we have to deal with, which we didn't have to at this big intersection. We also have basements. You know, I didn't realize there were basements in these businesses until I actually got to 4th Street and the designers told me.

So we actually had to do surgical work in terms of saw cutting, removing stuff to not damage any of these basements. And we had to do constant adjustment and pause and get direction on what to do. So in summary, the big intersection work, we can just really demo, do the big work, get it done. 4th Street is more like surgical and control work that we have to do, which you can't do

fast. The other thing too I also want to highlight going back to what you were saying is I totally agree we have to be open to the community, the school in regards to understanding and explaining to them what's going on. As I mentioned earlier I have a personal interest in getting things done quickly for NOVA. We've had a handful of meetings with NOVA staff when which the city staff was in there and which is fine because we want to do the right thing we want to communicate quickly and so forth. So we're not using the city staff as an excuse. So please don't take it that way. We're going to do what we need to do to get the message

out as soon as possible. We follow the staff. They know what we're doing. There are ways in which we can communicate to staff afterward. But the main thing is that we get the information quickly to the schools, to businesses and what have you. And Theresa can expand on that if you need more clarification.

Phil BacerraItem 7

I don't need more clarification. I would just say that the community, the businesses need that clarification as to what's going on. So thank you for elaborating on that. And I know for you guys, I just want to say I know it's tough to be here. I know it's not throwing you a parade. It's not a celebration. I hope that one day it will be. And I hope that we are going to see the fruits of all this labor. But right now, as you've heard tonight, it is very difficult for the businesses in downtown. So I really do appreciate you guys coming out tonight and updating us.

Phil BacerraItem 7

And again, I hope to see you guys here each month until the completion of the project. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you. Let me call on Council Member Fan and then Council Member Peñalosa.

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

Thank you. Thank you so much for your presentation and thank you to all the business owners. First, I'd like to say that I'm sorry that the streetcar is going down 4th Street. I actually remember speaking to a downtown business and kind of asking, you know, wouldn't it be awesome if this were kind of like third street promenade where people can walk and really browse through all the businesses and really enjoy being in downtown turns out we can't do that because the streetcar is going down that street right I looked through the EIR actually went went way back 2014 and realized that there was an alternative plan the streetcar did not

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have to go down fourth street the streetcar could have gone a different route that would have voided all of your businesses. And unfortunately, while many business owners with SABC sent in common letters and objected to it, the decision makers at the time chose to go down 4th Street. Now, I know it is not your choice. You are staffers who are working to implement the decisions of OCTA and the former Santa Ana City Council. But I did want to point that out, that we are now dealing with the decisions made by our previous council members, our, you know, board members on OCTA, and we're trying to do our best to help our

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

downtown businesses. One thing I do want to ask you is that in looking at the EIR, it does say specifically that the overall construction activities is anticipated to be about 30 months, but the duration of concentrated construction activities would be no more than six months at one location along the alignment it's looking like we're hitting that six months right on 4th Street yes that that is correct so I guess what are we doing to you know you're talking about okay we're authorizing you know nighttime work extended hours have we looked into hiring additional workers so I just want

to clarify and I don't have the environmental document in front of me so I'm kind of going off of memory and what I remember seeing it the last time which is over two years ago I do know that it talks about concentrated locations on fourth street so Working with the city staff building upon environmental document and on the design and the specifications and the restrictions that we have in place for fourth street one things we talked about was allowing the contractor to do concentrated work on two block segment and then no work on two blocks and then another two blocks.

So that's our way to control and minimize the disruption to the forestry businesses. So if you add up those multiple stages, it actually equates more than six months.

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

Right. So I mean, I just wanted to iterate. That's what the EIR says. I didn't write it. Obviously, someone on staff did, and I wanted to make sure that our business owners know that that's what was presented to them, that no area would be closed longer than six months, and we are definitely going, you know, we're hitting that time limit. And with that, you know, I don't want it to be just a conversation between staff about what we can do with the transportation funds. We all pay into the transportation funds. Our tax dollars go into our transportation funds, and it should be no question as to

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

what OCTA will do with those transportation funds and that is to put it in an area that our business owners can utilize. And I understand if it is your legal counsel's decision advice that you cannot use it as a direct payment, but I don't think that there's anything at this time specifically stopping you to assisting a member agency to pay, for example, additional free parking 24 hours a day. I know that that is something that was great when I was eating in downtown.

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

I expect that to be done quickly, and I know that it can be done quickly, because our staff is ready and able to get that working. The other question I had for you, or I guess not a question, but it is a comment to your presentation. While it is great that you are doing tours of the transportation center with some students, It would have been really great if you took those students to downtown and help patronize some of these businesses Our business owners don't care that We are talking about how great this streetcar is at the transportation center or where you've gotten to be So if you would like to talk about how great it's been

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

Please do it elsewhere not in front of the business owners and our community. It's really suffering about this So I really do think that it's unfortunately quite soon now.

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

And, look, you know, I understand that it's really difficult to come bearing information that is not always welcomed or is somewhat bad news. But I guess I'd like to ask that when you're talking to, you know, the decision makers on the OCTA board and, you know, about what information you're going to bring to us, I really do hope that you remember that all these business owners are and they've talked to me and I've not been, you know, I'm not sitting here and, you know, checking every box and saying yes, yes, yes to everything because I like to ask these questions and be critical.

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

But I do hope that at least in your staff meetings, it's about being creative. It's about thinking outside the box and it's about saying how can we help, not what barriers we're facing. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Peñalosa.

David PenalozaItem 7

Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, OCTA staff, for being here tonight and presenting, giving us this update, and to our staff and to the merchants, most importantly, for being out here again when you should be at your shops making a living, but you can't because there's no customers. And, you know, it's very frustrating for me to keep having to have this conversation. I just want to say that I agree wholeheartedly with all of my colleagues and everything they've said. Councilmember Hernandez, Fan, and Mayor Pro Tem Becerra asked numerous questions and made a number of comments that I agree with and should be answered to.

David PenalozaItem 7

So I'm not going to repeat, but I will focus on something that's been brought up before, and it came up at the last community meeting we had at the Senate Regional Transportation Center back in June, which has to do with claims. Claims, you know, involving the project. I know that this morning, at about 5 a.m., I spent about an hour on OCTA's construction streetcar website perusing, looking for any claim information. I

David PenalozaItem 7

went to Walsh's construction company website. It was a very, very, very intense website and was not, I couldn't identify any area phone number or form where I could submit a claim if I'm a merchant or homeowner along this construction area. At the Regional Transportation Center you mentioned that any claims coming from merchants or private property owners or homeowners should go through Walsh construction.

David PenalozaItem 7

You know, OCTA, I find that very alarming and troubling to even have somebody say out loud, you know, I know OCTA is a public agency and so is the city of Santa Ana. In the city of Santa Ana, we have huge construction projects up and down Main Street, up and down Warner, up and down Bristol Street, all over the city. They're not our city employees doing it, they're private companies, contractors that we contract as a city and we award a contract to do this work. When there's been numerous claims involving this construction, we don't tell our

David PenalozaItem 7

residents, go call so-and-so contractor, file a claim with them. We take full responsibility because they are our contractor that we entrusted to do this work. And we're paying a lot of taxpayer dollars to do this work. So my concern here is that OCTA is a public agency. They should be at the forefront and taking these claims and taking leadership and processing any claim that may come from our businesses or our homeowners. And so I guess the question I have here is, Is there a representative from Walsh Construction Company here tonight? No, there isn't.

David PenalozaItem 7

There isn't. So I guess I'll ask you now publicly again. If our residents have any type of claim that as a result of this construction, whether it's a merchant or a homeowner, who do they reach out to to file that claim?

Sure. So as we shared at the public meeting, the process that we have is that TRESA is the main contact with the public. They can reach out to TRESA, and then TRESA can forward the contact to Walsh with the claim form for Walsh to address. Now, I understand your concern in regards to the claim, and our process at OCT is different from the city's. But because Walsh is the lead in terms of the claim doesn't mean we step aside and don't get involved. We had, Teresa and I have had discussion with Walsh in terms of statusing the claims,

making sure that they do reach out to each of those people to submit the claims and the status in regards to that. There are a handful of people where they have shown that they've reached out several times but they haven't been responsive. There have been claims that due to investigation, hasn't been in finding merit. And there were some that they did find merit, and they had paid those out. So again, there's a way in which the public can reach out to Teresa. Teresa can direct them to Walsh along with providing a claim form, and then we can also follow up with Walsh on the claims.

David PenalozaItem 7

Okay, so I guess what I would request from OCTA is that on your construction website under the streetcar, that we add a tab, a button, a link that clearly states claims related to this and takes our merchants or residents through step-by-step of what the process is to file the claim against OCTA or Walsh Construction Company. I know that a couple of residents spoke about the numerous issues they're seeing when it comes to blocking fire lanes, blocking driveways, ripping up private palm trees.

David PenalozaItem 7

These things should not be happening, and if they are, they should be easily handled administratively by whether it's OCTA staff or Walsh Engineering. hearing, our residents or our merchants shouldn't have to be on this goose chase to try to get these answers to these claims is one thing that I would like to convey. And I think that that's what's happening. I did, I left out the part where later in the day this morning, I called the hotline again to try to go through that process of what it was like and was asked to press one for

David PenalozaItem 7

English great or to continue in English if not other languages which is great that you offer that but it just sent me to to leaving a voicemail and leave a voicemail we'll get back to you with your questions so again it's very difficult for for residents to now have to leave a voicemail wait for a callback or not figure out how to file a proper claim because I know there have been residents and businesses that have filed claims from broken windows and and and whatnot, and they should be addressed quickly and know of where that claim is.

David PenalozaItem 7

And also, once the claims that have been filed, where can residents see that status of that claim? Is it just kind of sit around and wait or?

I think your question is if a resident or business owner submit a claim, how would they know what the status of the claim would be? Okay. So when they are in touch with Walsh, Walsh provides a contact person that they can reach out to to obtain the status. And certainly if they are reaching out to Walsh and Walsh for some reason is not being responsive, that's where we would step in. Again, we want to be involved, but we also want to go through the procedures that we have in place. So I would urge that person to reach out to Walsh to get the status. And again, if Walsh is not responsive, please let Teresa or I know.

David PenalozaItem 7

Okay. Because I know it becomes difficult to rely on Walsh Construction Company, especially when Walsh in the last six months has filed lawsuits against OCTA for numerous impacts to businesses. I know there was a body shop that was their body shop painting area was getting impacted by the amount of dust that was coming into it so they couldn't perform their work and that led the construction company to file a lawsuit against OCTA for not properly notifying and working with these businesses to try to help. And that's not in the downtown stretch, that's in

David PenalozaItem 7

other areas of the construction line. So when I know that there's lawsuits out there from the construction company against OCTA and now OCTA is telling the public, hey, any claims go through Walsh, you know, it doesn't give me a sense of hope or, you know, assurance that this is going to be taken care of and that our residents and merchants are going to be left out in limbo, which I don't want to see. So I would hope that we work on putting a tab together like FAQs on your website that

David PenalozaItem 7

could properly take residents through this and see how they could go through this process and be updated in a timely manner. The other thing I just wanted to mention is that there's still parking signage, signage that directs people, you know, exactly where to turn and where to, in order to park, to, you know, visit our businesses. I know that it's still not properly, the signs are getting better. I've seen, you know, that's which I appreciate, you know, it's slow,

David PenalozaItem 7

but we're working towards getting better signs, but there's still not proper signage on how to get me from. If I'm on First and Ross and I want to make sure that I want to visit American Barber Shop to get a haircut, how can I park and where's the best way to park? There's no signage telling me where to turn and where to park. So if we could work on that as well, I would appreciate. You know, our merchants aren't asking for much.

David PenalozaItem 7

The repeating message here is signage, parking signage, free parking. I mean, these are very minimal things, which I would hope that we could do. I mean, I don't see why we couldn't. And the last comment I would just make is that I've spoken to a number of attorneys about what a transportation authority could do. And everyone seems to say that the legal team you have at OCTA is mistaken. And that you guys should look into looking for an outside opinion on whether you could address business interruption funds.

David PenalozaItem 7

which I know that many agencies across this country have done, and I'm pretty sure OCTA could do as well. So thank you.

Thank you for those comments.

Is Councilwoman Lopez good?

It looks like Councilmember Lopez would like to speak along with Councilmember Mendoza, if that's okay.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 7

Mayor, if I may just make a brief comment, and I know that this is important to you, and I know it's especially important to the people that showed up. I think I've commented on this before. We do agendize this as a staff update presentation on our agenda. So I just want to remind the council that in the future, if you want to have an extensive conversation, we just need to properly agendize this because we do have other items that are agendized and hearing times that are agendized and expectations of going through the agenda. So it's just a Brown Act issue in the future.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 7

So maybe we could wrap up our comments and direction to our visitors and then go on to our agenda.

Got it. Why don't we do this? I think everybody's spoken with the exception of Council Member Lopez and myself and we'll I think end it there because everybody else has had a chance to speak. Go ahead Council Member Lopez.

Jessie LopezItem 7

Thank you Mayor and I'll make sure to stay under the three minute time limit that we have. But I really just want to say that I hope that we continue to see you at our council meetings. You know as the leading agency it's very difficult for our residents and business owners to come to the council meetings and not have a representative from OCTA and a minimum to listen to their concerns. Concerns that are some of the same, but that are also changing and that will continue to change as the route of construction moves away from downtown Santa Ana.

Jessie LopezItem 7

And I do think it's the bare minimum. I know that it's not, you know, as council member fans, that it's not always the easiest. to be faced with so much critique. But I hope that we can continue to see you come here, follow up with our staff and not just listen to the business owners, but really to go above and beyond to do whatever you can to help them survive this challenging time. This is their livelihood. This is what some of them have. This is the American dream for so many of them and they are part of our local economy. We need them and we need to move away

Jessie LopezItem 7

from saying no we can't to what can we do so thank you. Thank you for those comments so I think

everybody has had a chance to speak and let me just begin by saying please turn on the shot clock for me for three minutes. I don't want to speak any they did that to me at the town hall in the downtown so I'm going to do that to myself here. So I do want to say thank you to the public and the merchants who came here and spoke and I want to thank our public works staff and I want to thank OCTA staff for being here. So a lot of what was said I think is all relevant. One of the questions I had and I think somebody posed it, what happened to the second bundle of a million and a half that we dedicated? So we dedicated three

million dollars already and I understand that the second million and a half is in the process of being dispersed this month. So that answers one of the questions I think that you all came to have. You know one of the things I would say is that I know at the last meeting at OCTA there was some very compelling testimony given by the merchants. In addition to that, there was some money that was dedicated as well by the board, dedicated I think half a million dollars to have added work both on in the evenings and on the weekends. So that's important. You know, I think what we need to do is document those,

and I think when Council Member Hernandez was talking about maybe a schedule, that really helps going forward and looking back. So we can say, you know, these are the hours that will work this past weekend, this past week, it adds the transparency and it's incredibly important to the public trust. So I would say that's important. You know, I'm eternally grateful to Supervisor Foley who went ahead and, you know, gave the 1.2 or dedicated the 1.2 in addition to this council. So I think for those merchants that are speaking to us, we've been receptive. So what I think has to be done is solutions have to come from the merchants as well.

And I've had this conversation with Delilah Snell, and I think it's important that you all lead this. When you told us you need funds, we turned around and said, OK, we'll do a million and a half and another million and a half, and we'll compel the supervisor to do the same thing. I'm in conversations with your state legislators, telling them, help the merchants. I'm advocating with them. And it looks like one is very close, but hopefully we'll get there. The other thing I'm trying to see how we can do is two things.

OCTA legal counsel says that they can't do business grants. That's a legal question. My interpretation is different than theirs, but what I'm hoping to do is work with your federal representative and our federal representative so they can talk to FTA, which is the federal agency that dictates these projects, and tell them, look, can you make an exception or a carve-out for this project? That's one. In the alternative, the other thing that I had proposed was, and it's still being deliberated, whether or not OCTA can subsidize the free parking that the city is paying for right now, because that comes at a cost.

Therefore, if they do that, those monies that we're expending for that free parking, we can use to disperse, because we don't have that conflict that OCTA appears to, at least what the council appears to tell them that they have. So that is one way of circumventing that, and I know they keep telling us that we're not providing the information. Well, I think our staff has, and to the extent that we let them know, here are the numbers, it's pretty easy to calculate how many hours and what revenue is needed to keep that parking structure and all the parking structures free.

The other thing was, as I said, solutions need to come from you all. You spoke about a moratorium. There's a moratorium about to trigger on Thanksgiving. And that was something that was done years ago and negotiated years ago. And that's what the merchants wanted back then. I'm really compelling the merchants to say whether you want it or not. If you don't want it, we will be the first ones to tell, the city will be the first ones to tell OCTA, look, let's work through the holidays so you guys can get in and out as quickly as possible. Or do you want that moratorium as designed and as negotiated, whether you want it respected?

So that's the merchant's decision to make. It's not ours. It's not OCTA's. It's the merchant's to sit down and say, do we want this moratorium or not? So again, another decision that the merchants have to make. Nobody's going to make that for you. We want to listen to you, but you all have to reach some agreement and some consensus. The last thing I would say is when it comes to the revived dollars, I was going to ask the city manager if we could do something that's creative. I know we have some residual monies from the direct stimulus that we gave,

and I know we had some because we used them for our gun buyback, which I still think was a little odd. But I think that what we could do is use the residual cards that haven't been during the first bundle. Whatever we have left, let's go ahead and distribute those to residents, but let's try to have them spend those dollars in the downtown. Maybe we could geofence that so when they use those stimulus cards, they can use them in the downtown and spend it only there.

And if not, maybe create some brochures, some directories where we can tell them, go shop here, go spend that money because those are public dollars that they can be spending there. And you get a double whammy. Not only do you help people with their stimulus cards, but you help these businesses to receive those monies there. These are all solutions that, look, we can complain until we're all blue in the face. It's time for answers, and the answers have to come from all of us. Obviously, there's an issue at OCTA. They're having trouble coming up with some solutions. We're trying to work with them.

This council has come up with the solutions of saying, here's $3 million, you know, let's do some additional parking. Let's do whatever we can. I'm trying to come up with some issues. I know we even had a meeting scheduled with Congressman Correa. I was ready to attend, it got canceled, and you know, look, I don't know. I'm certainly here ready to say, let's talk to all of our representatives, not just at the local level. We spoke to the county. We need to speak to our legislators. We need to speak to our congressional delegation. We need to speak to everybody. So everybody needs to have a hand in this solution.

It can't just be one. So to the extent that we do that together, I think that's important. The last thing I would mention is on the comments by Councilmember Hernandez, I think information needs to be improved. Communication needs to be improved. I know there's a working group between Public Works and OCTA staff. I think a merchant or merchant representatives, whoever you guys want to choose, should be in those meetings or should meet with both those parties after those working meetings are done. So that way you know what's going to be scheduled, what was scheduled, and you can have a role in decision making.

Because, you know, it's who better than you all to dictate how things should go. But I think it's about time that we all, you know, come up with solutions. And that's important. You all know that. Finally, finally, the last comment I would make is I would, you know, I would request respectfully of OCTA staff to meet with the merchants in the downtown where they are. As we always say, meet people where they are, right? And I think for them to come here and have to wait, you know, parking, different things, I think it's better to meet in the downtown and, you know, talk to them directly.

I think, you know, I know there's a meeting coming up on Thursday, right, August 4th, but that's where the meeting should take place because I know when I went to their town hall, it was full. And I think to the extent that you all meet them where they're at and come report to us maybe on a quarterly, right? But the idea is you need to talk to them. And to the extent that we can be present at those meetings, I think it's important. But the engagement really needs to go between you and the merchants as well. And public work staff should be present at those meetings as well. So I think that that's how.

Just to let you know, we do have teams that go out and talk to the individual businesses twice a week. So we are sharing information with the merchants in the downtown. down we go to where they are because again we're trying to be respectful and not you know impelling compelling them to come to multiple meetings you know we said we're committed to having monthly meetings in the downtown and we will so we'll have those opportunities for everyone to come together but we do go i also go to the city can't pardon me to the board meetings for the and a business council, as well as Downtown Inc. I went to the restaurant meeting last week,

you know, to talk to them. So we are having multiple conversations with the business owners. I think you could ask them how often they see outreach people from OCTA. I think they would tell you rather frequently.

Great. So I'm gonna ask the merchants, maybe they can have a representative that they can, you know, a representative or representatives meet with you, you know, after every working group, because I think it's important that they, for transparency, right, and also for their own opinion to be factored into the decision-making of what's going to be closed, how quickly work should be done. But I think that you have some natural representatives that have been speaking. I know Delilah and Ana Laura are good spokespeople for them. I know at the town halls they lead the discussion.

So maybe you make a point to set some time aside with all your meetings. If you're meeting with twice a week or whatever, meet with them. and make sure they have information because I think it's important. They could probably disseminate it to the group, and the group will be much better informed. So that would be my ask of you because I think they need to have a better system of networking with you and getting that information.

And I have, just to be clear, I have invited, I have requested meetings. We did have a standing meeting that we met with for a period of time, and then those meetings kind of fell off. So I'm happy to meet with Ana Laura, with Delilah, with whoever wants to have a meeting with me whenever they'd like to have it.

Well, look, they're here. Maybe you guys should maybe look at each other's calendars and, you know, sit down and meet. But we're, you know, I think it's a matter of improving communication. So that's important. And they just want to know when it's going to be done. But let us know on the moratorium. It's really important that, you know, merchants, you decide, do you want that moratorium as it's written right now respected or do you want to extend that time so the construction can be done quickly? So I will do, and I'm sure this council will do, whatever the merchants want on that.

So we need to have you all come together and decide what it is that you'd like to see with the moratorium, and we'll support that. So with that, thank you, everybody, for your comments. Thank you, staff, for presenting that. Thank you for coming as well.

Next item, I guess the next update is on COVID.

It is, honorable mayor and council members. It's a brief presentation tonight. I'm just going to touch on some key data, the new information about the new sub-variants that are out there. But I'm going to keep it brief because you do have an agenda item, business item number 17, which is all about our efforts to recover from COVID. So as Daniel puts up the presentation, I first want to let you know that the state is working alongside with the CDC to help public health agencies manage COVID-19. And they have some interesting summary data points that they just recently released.

Here we go. I'm on slide 3, Daniel.

So as of July 29th, Orange County's 7th day test positivity rate is 15.9%. It is a 2.4% decrease from the week. And as you can see on the graph, the positivity rate is decreasing. The last really significant increase that we had was in late December 2021.

The more good news, as of July 29th, Orange County's percentage of people who are fully vaccinated is 72.8. Among all California counties, we rank 14 out of 58. Being vaccinated and boosted is the best way to protect yourself from serious illness. To further illustrate the impact of vaccines, hopefully you can see this one, it's a graph that depicts the number of cases for the last seven-day reporting period. According to the data collected by the state, unvaccinated people were 6.3 times more likely to get COVID-19 than people who were fully vaccinated and had received their booster dose.

Now information on the variants. Viruses normally constantly change through mutation, and sometimes these mutations result in new variants of it. What the world is really focusing right now is the spread of the variants BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants. Last week, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced an agreement to purchase 66 million doses of Moderna's bivalent COVID-19 vaccine booster candidate for potential use in the fall and winter. Basically what they're saying is this particular booster will be more effective in preventing serious illness from those two new variants.

This announcement follows a recommendation by the FDA last month that vaccine manufacturers update their existing COVID-19 vaccines. In addition to the 105 COVID-19 vaccine booster doses that the government also recently purchased from Pfizer for potential use later this year, pending FDA authorization.

And on the vaccine, it's just a reminder, I always put this up during every presentation. Probably everybody has it memorized by now, but to get your vaccine, you can access the state's MyTurn program or the County of Orange Healthcare Agency. You can make an appointment. You can find walk-up vaccine locations by also contacting MyTurn or Athena. And that presents the presentation. I'd be happy to answer any questions.

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

Councilmember Paniello.

David PenalozaItem 7

Thank you, Mayor. I have no questions, just thank you for that, Christine. Maybe for future COVID updates we could add a, unfortunately, we could add a monkeypox slide or a monkeypox update as part of it. I know it's not the same, but I know that the Governor issued a state of emergency over that and and uh we're seeing counties around ours um kind of uh move in that direction so

that's all i'll ask thank you thank you good great comment um any anybody else nobody on on screen

um it looks like we we have um one caller in the queue that would like to speak i mean no other council members. Oh, excuse me, no, no other council members at this time. Got it, thank you.

So, thank you for the presentation. We'll go ahead and ask the city attorney if there was anything to report out of closed session. Thank you. Let me go ahead and, and I know we had some public comments on the update on the streetcar, so this is now a general, the general public comment section, and this is a time and place for the meeting. The city council to receive comments on agendized and non-agendized items from members of the public, and pursuant to the Brown Act, the council cannot enter into any discussion during this time. The limit is three minutes, and please limit your comments to that.

You don't need to use all three minutes, and we will hear from members of the public that are here present, and then I'll turn it over to the clerk so she can call on anybody who's online or on the phone. So, Madam Clerk, before I call on the two cards I have here, Is there anybody online that wishes to address us?

Mayor, there is one person online that wishes to speak.

Got it. Let me begin with our first public comment here in person, Adelaida Mateo.

Adelaida Mateo.

Victor Mendez is our last and only speaker in person. Our first and last.

Thank you.

Okay. Okay, well, Mr. Mayor, thank you for your most common sense remarks about trying to deal with this conflict of whether or not you can use federal funding for a BFF or a BIF, excuse me. I just might ask, just go straight to Lou and get FTA directly and issue a guidance letter. You don't have to be calling lawyers and getting their opinions. I think you're on the right track. just go to Lou, that's what he's there for. He knows who to call at FTA. He'll get the deputies involved. He'll get the right information and kind of put an end to all this. But again, common sense direction where you're going, and we appreciate it.

The other thing I just want to comment is I don't know if anybody's ever considered using local part of the funding for the BIS. We keep talking about this problem or conflict with the federal part, but there's also a local part of this funding. So I'm sure they have the ability to segregate this money or have this money segregated, and why can the money be drawn from that part, and what's the constraint there? So just some options. But I'm really here to talk about number 17, this plan or the lack of the plan that was presented by staff. It's just very difficult to understand what this plan really means and what it's saying.

There's no transparency in the numbers, and I have no idea really where it's going, particularly from the historical perspective. What money is left over and what remains to be done in these areas? I think there's some good areas, but again, it's just very hard to understand where they're going with this 128 million, and also where they've been. So how can you have a plan to know where you're going if you don't know where you've been? And for example, I don't know if you're repeating this 5K run based on that plan. I can't tell the difference. Are you doing another $700,000 ice cream? I don't know.

I think we just kind of flush this out. I think the ideas are there. And just come in with some clarity as to where this money is going. We talk about this fiscal stabilization money of $10 million. Well, where has that gone? What are we doing with that? Are we just simply feeding our liabilities and reducing our liabilities with that? I don't know. This money is intended for the community and to help us. So let's get a little creativity and think out of the box, as it was quoted earlier today.

Lastly, tomorrow the senior residents of 2022 will be holding a rally in protest of the 10% increase in our rent, and CBS News will be there. I understood that we were to receive some type of support in this next round of funding, given the commitments I heard from the city manager last time. Fifteen seconds. And so I fully hope to make positive remarks about what the city will do for the senior citizens, using the $64 million. Five seconds. Or not. I think I'll stick around and wait. You're both more than welcome to come. Sir, your time is up. Thank you so much for your comment.

You're more than welcome to come and just let me know. It will be arranged in parking. Thank you. That's all, sir. Thank you.

Thank you, Victor.

Madam Clerk, I guess you can call on the person who is waiting on line.

Mayor, it looks like that person had lowered their hands. There are no callers in the speaker queue.

Got it. So before I go back, I just wanted to, I know I asked for the city attorney to give an update on if there was anything to report at a closed session. I know there was an item on the clerk. Is there something maybe you can just generally say and not go into too much detail?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 7

Yeah, Mayor and Council members, if you'd like me to, we don't have legally reportable action, but I do understand you've had inquiries about your city clerk position. It is a position that is appointed by the city council as previously reported. We informed the public that the city clerk's employment agreement had been terminated for cause and so the city council is now gone into closed session to talk about what who they might appoint and what that process looks like so i can report that the city council has put together an ad hoc committee that the ad hoc committee will work with the human resources department

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 7

to identify candidates and that you may also be looking for someone to serve as your interim we want to assure the public that the elections process and the operations of city clerk's office continue to proceed smoothly and that we have the resources we need until you can identify another

candidate. Great thank you for that clarification let me just for full transparency say that I appointed mayor pro tem councilmember Hernandez and councilmember Mendoza to serve on that ad hoc committee for the search and recruitment of a new city clerk so with that let me go ahead and move along to the consent calendar section of the meeting and ask any members of the council if they wish to recuse themselves or abstain on any might on any items or if they wish to pull any items for individual consideration.

I'd like to pull item number 16, Mayor. I'm sorry to interrupt, Mayor, but did we have one speaker on the queue that we didn't get to? They bumped off. No worries. Good catch. Item 16? Please.

Any other members of the council wish to pull any items off? A motion to approve. I'll second. Great, we have a motion and a second. Council members, we're going to do, I guess, a roll call vote because we have some members that are not here, just so we can go through that. So Madam Clerk, if you don't mind calling roll on that.

On everything with the exception of item 16.

Mayor, can you repeat who motioned first?

It's to move the entire balance of the consent calendar with the exception of item 16 that was pulled by Councilmember Peñalosa.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

Motion came from myself, seconded by Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you for that. Sorry about that.

No problem.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

Peñalosa, Councilmember Peñalosa.

Thank you for clarification.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

Apologies. Thank you.

Councilmember Hernandez?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

Yes.

Councilmember Lopez?

Councilmember Lo... Yes. Oh, got it. Councilmember Mendoza? Yes. Councilmember Penelosa?

David PenalozaItem 7

Yes.

Councilmember Phan? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Becerra?

Phil BacerraItem 7

Yes.

Mayor Sarmiento?

Yes. Let me go ahead and now call on Council Member Peñalosa to, I believe he pulled item number 16.

David PenalozaItem 7

Thank you, Mayor. I promise I'll be very quick. 16 is the Orange County Grand Jury's investigative report findings and recommendations regarding how is Orange County addressing homelessness. Thank you for the letter that's attached, Madam City Manager. I, you know, like the letter. However, I know that in the grand jury report on page 16, one of the recommendations was actually R1 states that by July 1st, 2023, the COC and County of Orange should leverage funding to persuade South Orange County cities to open a regional low threshold emergency shelter for the homeless in addition to the Laguna Beach Friendship Shelter.

David PenalozaItem 1

I would like to have that section added to our letter in just kind of stating that we agree with that recommendation

David PenalozaItem 1

and see what we can do to kind of state that we agree to that statement because I know that that was part of the whole intent of having the different spas, the South Central and North Spas, that we would each have one, that South Spa has yet to open a shelter. And I think that if we could add that, can we? Is that something that we could do?

Thank you, Council Member. The grand jury is requiring us to respond to specific findings and specific recommendations. For Santa Ana, we weren't required to respond to R1. That wasn't one of their responses they wanted from us.

David PenalozaItem 1

So we can't even say, like, we agree with this recommendation and fully support it?

I don't think it would harm us to do so, to add an additional sentence, but they're just not requiring it.

We can. They're very strict on the methodology in which you reply to the grand jury reports. You actually have to follow instructions in the penal code, but we could put it as just a note at the bottom of the response.

David PenalozaItem 1

Okay, because I think that's what's caused a lot of the problems here that we're seeing in Santa Ana is that South County cities have neglected to do any part of addressing homelessness in the county. You know, when Santa Ana and Central Spa have led the effort. So I think that was just my intent is to kind of double down on recommendation one and say that we agree as a city. But if we can't do that, that's fine. I just think that that would be good to have in our letter.

Councilmember, you'll notice there's a note at the end of the letter regarding our date that we opened our shelter I could add it to the end of that note and I have a separate note on there for

you beautiful that works great thank you for that comment any other questions or comments from members of the council on this and I think that statement's consistent with the lawsuit that we filed against the county and the rest of the other cities so um uh in any event yeah we're not contradicting ourselves there so uh is there a motion i'll make a motion to approve mayor With that additional language, is there a second? I'll second. We have a motion and a second. And let's have a roll call vote.

Council Member Hernandez?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 8

Yes.

Council Member Lopez?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 8

Yes.

Council Member Mendoza? Yes. Council Member Fan?

Thai Viet PhanItem 8

Yes.

Council Member Penalosa?

David PenalozaItem 8

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tempecerra?

David PenalozaItem 8

Yes.

Mayor Sarmento?

Yes. That brings us to the business calendar item item number 17, and this is to adopt a resolution to appropriate the $128 million in American Rescue Plan money that we call Revive Santa Ana. So let me go ahead and turn it over to staff for a brief presentation.

Thank you. Honorable Mayor and City Councilmembers, this is an exciting item. We have received in the bank the second tranche of the $64 million, so we want to revisit the programming that you had previously approved, and then most importantly we would like to receive an appropriation adjustment so we can start spending the second tranche of $64 million. I'm going to be turning it over to Daisy Perez, assistant to the city manager, for the presentation and I believe she has a brief video to show you which is really a look back on what we have been able to do with those dollars to date.

Thank you.

approved the Revive Spending Plan. It involved federal stimulus money that would enable us to help our community recover from pandemic. We've now accomplished the first year of it and we've rolled out some tremendous programs directly providing resident assistance, direct assistance to businesses, food distributions, investment in our parks and libraries and community centers, and as we complete this first year we want to look back at all of the projects we were able to accomplish as we get ready to move into the next phase for a total commitment by the federal government of $128 million invested

in improving our community's recovery from COVID-19.

The Revive Santa Ana Resident Stimulus Program provides $300 prepaid gift cards to households in areas that have a 42% or above poverty rate within our city. When you see people coming up and receiving this card, you notice that they range from seniors to young mothers to just the regular workers for our community. And it's really great to see them come and be really excited about receiving this assistance.

The Revive Santa Ana Business Program Grant is a grant available for businesses in the city of Santa Ana. We provide assistance by connecting businesses to business seminars. After a business completes the business seminar, the business is eligible to apply for a business grant in the amount of $1,000. The Economic Development Division has received a positive response from businesses in Santa Ana. Many have taken the opportunity to participate in the technical business seminars and have applied for the grant. To date, we have approximately 140 businesses that have

participated in the program.

The homeless services division used revive funds to expand our existing street outreach and engagement program for those individuals living on the streets of Santa Ana. The expansion of this program was expanded to seven days a week, 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Santa Ana PD has received a huge uptick in calls for service related to unhoused persons. During the pilot program over 1,000 homeless related calls were diverted from first responders each month and more than two individuals were successfully exited off the streets of Santa Ana each day. This program has not only provided

assistance to numerous individuals on the streets but has reduced many of the non-emergency calls for service that Santa Ana PD previously responded to. Having the ability for Santa Ana to dispatch either Santa Ana PD or the highly trained case managers out onto the street provides the best outcome for all.

The Sanitation and Prevention Program of Ride-A-Ways is an enhanced service in which we focus in sanitizing and cleaning areas of high foot traffic. The funding allows us to service these areas multiple times a week in which we remove trash and debris. This program is important to the community because it reduces the potential spread of dangerous pathogens. In addition, the services allow for a safer and healthier environment for activities such as walking and biking. So our teams are out there picking up everything from the small trash and debris, even large items. Everything that you see in the streets, our guys are

handling that on a daily basis and residents have noticed it and have called in, have sent messages to everyone involved thanking them for our efforts.

United Across Borders is a foundation and we have about 80 volunteers and they're all from Mexico City. We provide different services. We have a food family, food assistance that we do Mondays and Wednesdays from 10 to 12 and we also sometimes we do school supplies. It's between 300 families on Monday. It can be 300 on Wednesday. Sometimes it's more so it varies like but adding all together we probably do a thousand families a week. I don't think without grant I was going to be able to get my own space so we can have

families come here and feel safe that they're going to have something to eat. So thank you Santa Ana and thank you for being there.

Thanks to the Revive Santa Ana funding we've been able to not only improve our existing park facility infrastructure but also acquire more open space to create more park facilities for the community. We've been able to completely demolish existing restroom buildings and install new prefabricated restrooms. At the same time we've purchased open space and are in the process of bringing on an architect to design a new park facility on Flower and Tenth. Santa Ana is one of the densest large cities in the nation and having accessible open park space is essential to our community. It's been a priority to create more open space that

is safe and clean for the public and inviting so that they can improve on both their mental and physical health.

The Santa Ana Public Library has a wide variety of programs and services funded by Revive Santa Ana. We have programs for people of all ages and abilities. Our technological and digital literacy program series has had a major impact on our community and on the people attending these programs. For example, we have a Astound Robots in Residence program which focuses on youth and teens on the spectrum. We also have an extreme lab program for children and

families that makes the connection between technology and art. We also have a great program for seniors which is our Appy Hour program. This program focuses on bringing seniors in to get help with lots of different devices such as phones, iPads, Android tablets, and more. It allows for our staff to connect with seniors, build a community network, and also enables seniors to become more confident in their own digital literacy and technology skills.

Today is opening day for the two softball teams we've created. We have the Santa Ana Bumblebees from the east side of town and we have the Santa Ana Ladybugs from the west side of town. This is just us spreading our outreach beyond the PAL Center and reaching more kids in the community through athletics.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the city of Santa Ana had the need to count all its events and programming for the community. As we began to look at ways to reinvigorate our city and through the funding received through the Revive Santa Ana program, the city of Santa Ana was able to implement the 5K run. The excitement this event built in the community, resulted in over 1200 people participating in this event and enjoying the activities that followed. All those that completed the event were able to receive a t-shirt and a commemorative medal to help them to remain motivated to continue

to develop a healthy lifestyle and begin to socialize as a family and as a community once again.

I want to thank you and welcome you to the first ever Santa Ana Winter Village and let's give a big round of applause to all our city staff who made this happen very quickly.

You know, when we started thinking about what we could do to bring back Santa Ana after this long two-year COVID hiatus that we had and the difficulties that everybody was facing, we wanted to do something fun that we could bring back for the kids. And look, many of our families here in Santa Ana haven't even seen an ice rink. They're not able to go out. So we wanted to bring a little bit of winter to them. And look, the weather even cooperated today because it rained, it got cold. So, you know, it feels like Christmas.

We also have a brief presentation where we're going to walk you through. You remember from the times that we've been there before you, we created five different functional areas that we focused on for our individual programs. Those areas include recovery from the pandemic, direct assistance programs, public health and safety, critical infrastructure, and city fiscal health. So now Daisy's going to walk you through each one of those buckets, but then go into a little more specifics on the programs that you had previously requested within each one of those. So I will turn it over to Daisy.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. So the first of the five spending buckets was recovery from the pandemic and total from the $128 million we will be investing $8.2 million. And in addition we have an additional $4 million in a separate grant that will also go towards these efforts.

Just a moment.

There we go.

One of the programs that was highlighted in the video was the Sanitization and Prevention Program.

Next we have the Direct Assistance Program. There's over $22 million allocated in this category for different programs such as after school and youth sports programs, the food distribution programs, as well as the resident direct assistance.

We also have public health and safety with a total of $34.2 million. A majority of this staff is proposing to allocate towards the addition of additional park and open space.

space. We also have critical infrastructure. A lot of these are one-time investments, major investments in the city, including a large investment in a full transformation of our main library as well as the expansion of an additional library and major community center renovations or upgrades.

And last is our city fiscal health with over $12 million invested there. Due to the federal allocation in our formula, we actually did not have any revenue loss, but the federal government is letting us allocate up to $10 million, which we're proposing to allocate the max for reserve. In addition, we have additional funding that's allocated towards administration and contract management. That concludes my presentation.

Great. Thank you for that brief presentation. and let me go ahead and bring it back to the City Council to see if there's any members that have any questions or comments

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 15

councilmember Hernandez yes thank you mayor Sarmiento fantastic presentation I just want to thank city staff and everybody who helped make this possible so thank you Daisy for presenting such a thorough document my question pertains to mental health my understanding is the last year that we had some mental health monies allocated are there any monies that that are still left over that maybe

organizations did not apply for yes so we still have the full 1 million dollar allocation there this has actually not been spent and staff is preparing the RFP and that will be available soon for people to apply so then there would be total of two million one million dollars so none of that funding has been spent

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 15

yet okay so it hasn't been spent okay so with the additional tranche of money here there is opportunity for us to increase that correct so it's up to the

City Council tonight to decide how you would like to allocate the funding and

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 15

if you would like to propose any changes okay thank you I I would like to propose to my colleagues to see an increase of 1 million to mental health, taking into account some of the tragedies that have happened here locally, and more recently, somebody took their life at El Salvador Park, and anytime somebody feels like there is no other way out, it's tragic loss for community and you know mental health continues to be a ongoing topic of conversation and I think that the right thing for us to do would be to

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 15

allocate additional monies toward mental health so I would kindly ask my colleagues to support seeing an increase in mental health from 1 to 2 million and I'm happy to see that we have infrastructure for our current library at 16 million I think that that's going to do wonders for our residents to see a library that is up to date and I just wanted to thank staff for making sure that was included that concludes my

comments Mr. Mayor thank you thank you council member let me go ahead and go to the others of any other members on the council that wish to speak on this item yes go ahead thank you I wouldn't

Phil BacerraItem 15

support the additional million, or it's the same million, right? We're just moving it over?

Correct.

Phil BacerraItem 15

Okay. I wouldn't support increasing it only because I would want to see what that's going towards. You know, when I first got on the council, and I, and city manager, I always tell the story where I asked her why we didn't have more money for sidewalks, and she said, well, I've presented you a balanced budget, and if you can find the $500,000 you want, then God bless it, go for it. So I did. And so I would say that I appreciate looking at, you know, trying to bring more money to the subject matter. I'm not opposed to the subject matter, but I think that we also have to consider what the county provides

Phil BacerraItem 15

and also what the funds, in addition, would go towards. So when I sought $500,000 back in 2020 for sidewalks, that was because I had consulted with public works staff, and that was the number they said that we needed in order to really jumpstart the program. So I would just ask that if we are going to look at moving monies around that we have some consideration as to what specifically those funds would go to. I'm sure there's programs out there. There's always something that we can spend the money on, but I would like us to be a little more surgical and specific when we get to that point.

Phil BacerraItem 15

But I do want to echo the sentiment of thanking our staff for the presentation and thanking our staff for coming through and coming up with these proposals for us. And my understanding is we'll have more specific allocations as we go forward as we award contracts for the specific items, correct?

That's correct. So as you've seen on previous agendas over the year, any item will come back to council for you to award specifics.

Phil BacerraItem 15

So this is just the general buckets for now, but the actual specific surgical appropriations will come down the road?

Correct.

Okay.

If I may clarify, so Mayor Pro Tem, we are asking for the appropriations tonight with this item and then just the overall categories like we did with the first tranche but as Daisy mentioned spending those dollars will require bringing back the individual items for your approval.

Phil BacerraItem 15

I'm sorry I was misusing the term appropriation so we're appropriating tonight but as far as the actual approval for the specific items that will come at subsequent items. Thank you Mayor.

Thank you. Any additional comments?

Anybody online?

I do not see anybody with their hand raised, Mayor.

I don't see anybody else here with their hand raised either. So let me just bring it back and make some remarks on this. So thank you for the presentation. Really glad that the second bundle of money is here. And really we're just appropriating the second, I guess, $64 million. Is that what it is? So I see that as a good thing that it's here, and I believe we have under the guidelines from the Department of Treasury until 2024 to allocate that, or has that changed?

That's correct. So we have until December 31, 2024 to obligate those funds and 2026 to actually spend those.

Excellent. So the important thing is that we have it, and I think we have general categories that I feel comfortable with. I tend to agree with Council Member Hernandez that there should be some adjustments. And maybe there's some adjustments that are no longer as pressing, right? I think you had mentioned on the city fiscal health, the Department of Treasury said we could spend up to $10 million for that. Are we required to spend that entire $10 million?

You're not required to, but that reserve that we thought we weren't going to be able to receive anything, by them allowing that, that basically would be transferring $10 million to your general fund. So you actually would have a much greater ability to use it for other things. So it would not be subject to the Department of Treasury's regulations for COVID related. So by taking that reserve that we are entitled to, it becomes a general fund type of expenditure. Right. You know, what would

be helpful, I think, is if you can bring back an item as well, or as we go through and allocate, you know, expenditures, specific expenditures with this, is I know that the guidelines from the Department of Treasury have been fluid, right? So they've changed our, you know, the auditing and accounting, and what categories we can spend this in. So just as a hypothetical, let's say we wanted to use some of this money for relief for the downtown, just speaking. This is COVID relief money so we can't really spend it as business interruption grant funding. But maybe that definition of what we can spend it on is ever evolving, right?

So if we could just do a check-in, that may not be the case, but I'm using that as an example. So to the extent that we had initial guidelines given, have those guidelines flexed in any way and in any categories. That would be helpful for me as we go through allocating and appropriating money for specific programs.

And we certainly do, and we check in all the time. We actually have legal assistance that helps us interpret the changing guidelines.

Got it. And then finally, I would just say, you know, to the question of what's been spent, and maybe, you know, to your point, you know, what hasn't been spent yet, what hasn't been dedicated, because we have time, right, for some of these, as you said, we have until the end of 2024 to obligate them and then to expend them before 2026. you know what that um you know what's residual still what went unspent from the first bundle would be helpful because that way we can see you know uh i don't know how the pandemic is going to evolve right so is sanitization at that level necessary uh right those are things that i think

we can you know see and um you know if that hasn't been expended or do we need to obligate that same amount going forward if the pandemic seems to be uh calming uh down those are just things that you You know, the whole structure of this is changing, and as we go through, and, you know, God willing, this is something that is not behind us but is much less intense in nature than it was two years ago, I think we can make some adjustments, right? And so those are things that I think are helpful in our decision-making as we go forward. So those are my comments, and, you know, I think that, you know,

I just want to look at this as we go through now a little bit more scalpel-like, because this is it, right? I mean, we're not getting a third bundle. This is, you know, the final bundle. And so to the extent we can use it very intelligently, you know, is something that I hope we do going forward. So that said, do you, I'm not sure if there was a motion.

Phil BacerraItem 17

If not, I'll make the motion that we move staff's recommendation.

I'll second. Great. We have a motion and a second. Seeing no other comments or questions, Madam Clerk, if you'll please call roll.

Councilmember Hernandez?

Yes.

Councilmember Lopez?

Councilmember Lopez?

Councilmember Mendoza? Yes.

Councilmember Penalosa?

David PenalozaItem 17

Yes.

Councilmember Fan? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Becerra?

Phil BacerraItem 17

Yes.

Mayor Sarmento?

Yes. Councilmember, are you still on? Councilmember Lopez?

Jessie LopezItem 17

Councilmember Lopez? So sorry, I had to step away from my laptop, but I'm a yes. Thank you.

Motion passes by unanimous consent.

Great. Thank you. Let me go ahead and move along to item number 18, which is the proposed charter amendments. And I'll turn it over to staff for a presentation.

You have a presentation, Mayor. Before we get the presentation started, I do want to make one comment. What you're going to find in the presentation is that staff has brought forward all of the requested ballot items with the exception of one item. So during July 19th discussion, Councilmember Hernandez suggested that the council consider a charter amendment to permit non-U.S. citizens the right to vote in city elections. He cited to the cities in the state of Maryland and the city of San Francisco, which had approved similar proposals. And it was something that the majority did direct us to move forward and review the matter

and prepare potential charter amendment language. Our city attorney's office researched the matter and found that the proposal is an issue of first impression in California for a charter city like Santa Ana. Research revealed that 11 towns in Maryland and two in Vermont have implemented similar proposals. The city and county of San Francisco voting system does not pertain to city council elections, and a New York City proposal was struck down by a state appellate court. Based on the numerous legal policy and implementation questions that need to be addressed, the City

Council was informed that the necessary work could not be completed in time to meet the state and county deadlines for our November 22 election. So you will see this item is not a part of this presentation. However, the Council may refer the matter back to the Charter Ad Hoc Committee for further discussion or direct staff and legal to perform further research and feasibility analysis. And with that, I will turn it over to Daniel Soto.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. I have a brief presentation for you on tonight's agenda item.

Just a quick background. The discussion on the proposed Charter Amendments that we are presenting for you tonight began in 2020 with an ad hoc committee. Those conversations continued into 2022 with a new ad hoc committee. Collectively the ad hoc committee in 2022 made a recommendation to move forward 16 administrative or clean up items that were discussed by the City Council on April 5th and at the July 19th City Council meeting. The City Council at the July 19th City Council meeting also recommended that staff prepare two additional charter amendments one to implement a lifetime ban and one to

change the voting requirements to approve the city budget the lifetime ban eliminates the eight-year cooling off period that's mentioned in the charter and what that means is that once the mayor or council member completes their term they are no longer eligible to serve on the City Council regarding the voting requirement item the charter currently provides that the city budget must be approved by a majority vote the proposed amendment would change that voting requirement from a majority vote to a two-thirds vote those charter amendments are placed together in one

ballot question and the ballot question is on your screen tonight what we have in tonight's staff report and agenda packet is the proposed resolution and the documents necessary to move this item forward. So tonight staff is recommending that the City Council adopt a resolution placing the ballot measure on the November 8, 2022 election ballot, authorize the filing of arguments and rebuttals, and designating up to five Council members to author those arguments or rebuttals, directing the City Attorney to prepare an impartial analysis, and directing the Clerk of the Council to publish legal notices as required. Thank you.

Thank you for that presentation. Let me go ahead and bring it back to the City Council. Let me call on myself just because I have a couple of questions on this and a couple of comments. So first on the comment by the City Manager, I do want to expand on that a little bit because I believe there was majority direction to bring back the item that was for non-citizen voting. So I know that the City Attorney's Office sent us a communication. I think it was well analyzed. I think it basically said that this is also a difficult question to address because of time.

I think this is, again, a novel first impression item that would be coming before this city council as a charter city and a state that really hasn't had this question presented. And for us to be able to prepare properly and given what just happened in San Francisco would be difficult. And I think, you know, I do agree with that, but I don't want the public to believe that or to interpret us that we pull this off, you know, independently. I think this was on the advice and on the opinion of the city manager and their analysis. And I do think that the question is a fair one to ask.

I think that, you know, this may be for a future council to tackle. I think that this may be a future question for a school board to tackle. because if you look at other cities that have implemented this, they've always started first with a school district or a school board tackling this because there is a nexus between somebody who has a child in a school district and a parent who isn't able to make any decisions on policies affecting their family. So that's normally the way I've seen some of these cases first come before municipal bodies

is that first they go to a school district or a school board for that question to be presented. Nonetheless, the overturning of the San Francisco ordinance was one that I think is telling, we're going to have to read that opinion a little bit more in detail to find out what occurred, what arguments there were there. What I saw was interesting is that San Francisco was its own city and county. So the questions we would have had to have addressed to bring this before the voters, and simply all we wanted to do was let the voters decide on this question. This is something that impacts them.

But it was much simpler to do in San Francisco because they are their own city and county. Here we would have had to have gone to the registrar because there would have to be communications on what criteria there is, and then the county would have to approve that as well. And I also felt a little discomfort with the fact that the question that maybe those petitioning residency status or in the process of filing a petition for residency status, how this implicates them. So if they were to answer a question in their process of applying for residency or naturalization and you vote, that could harm their petition

and you only get one bite at that apple. You don't get a second one. So those are questions that were so open-ended that, you know, Again, this is the 11th hour to do something that didn't make a lot of sense and was irresponsible, I think, for us to – not irresponsible for us to discuss it, but irresponsible for us to go forward and make a decision now without having done that investigatory work. I think a question like this coming in 2024, because that's the next time it would possibly come before the voters, that is a fair question to ask. And I think that hopefully we have plenty of time to do some real responsible research,

effective studies into other cases and how they've come out. But I think it's an extremely fair question to ask. I just think that time was not on our side on this one. and I do agree with the city manager. That's one. The other one was I know that there was majority support from this council on salaries or a compensation for the council, and I know what really didn't move the needle on that was the approach and the formula that was used, and I believe the formula was 66% of a judge's salary for the mayor and then for the council members, 66% of that of the mayor's salary.

So I didn't agree with that analysis. That didn't mean I didn't agree with the whole concept of compensation for the council. In fact, I do believe that a council should be compensated. So a question I had, Madam City Attorney, isn't there something that we could do unilaterally as a body without going to the voters? Isn't there something in our charter that allows us to trigger that? And again, it's a question I think it has to do with CPI, right, and, you know, us making a decision on our own to be able to do that.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 18

I'm going to check. I remember I drafted your last charter amendment, so let me take a look at that real quick and then I'll be able to answer that question for you.

Sure, and then, you know, we'll go on to some other discussions and we can come back. But it's a question I think that, again, I know I voted against the increase, but that doesn't mean I voted against the increase in concept. I voted against the formula. But I think that, you know, to the extent that for myself, it certainly won't apply to me. So I think I am the most objective person up here to say council members should definitely be compensated because this is not a part-time job. This is the only city of this size that isn't compensated to some degree more than just a stipend. And it's not a living wage. It's not a benefit.

that this really does impact the way you govern and represent people and thousands of people that we all represent. So in any event, those I think were my first two questions and comments, and now I'll go ahead and bring it back to the council for some of their questions and comments on this.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 18

So I can just very briefly, we define language. So section 402 currently reads that no increase in the monthly salary shall occur without first being approved by the voters pursuant to a charter amendment. And it does say here that in accordance with section, any amount is paid for 12. So we did provide for the city council members to receive certain types of benefits that can be adjusted. But it does specifically say that the salary cannot change without voter approval. If you had a number that you wanted to address this evening, we can incorporate that into the proposal.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 18

It's not that difficult because we had previously prepared something. It's just you didn't like the policy that was being recommended. So we could take that matter last if you'd like to.

Sure. And then the last question was, I just remember what my last question was, on the lifetime ban, so it's almost confusing. Is it, are you banning a council member from running for mayor at some point? And I know that we had, don't we have a 20-year role where you can't, you know, go and exceed 20 years?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 18

Great question. So I actually received a few questions about that, and I was going to propose this evening some clarifications in some language that I found. You know, give a lawyer language and we'll tinker with it forever. It isn't like I didn't have enough time here. But I did, in doing some additional research, found some really good language that the city of Long Beach has in its charter. And what it really does is clarify that these are absolute term limits. And the language I would propose would not disallow a council member from serving the 12 years as a council member and then the eight years as a mayor or vice versa.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 18

But what it would do is make it very clear that if you've reached your term limits, there's no cooling off period. That's what the proposal would do. So if you'd like to hear that language, I'd be happy to read it into the record.

Great. Well, look, I think at some point you may have that question, but those are two questions, the two last questions I asked on the ban and the compensation, I think. So let's go ahead and bring it back to the rest of the council members to see what their comments are on that.

Council Member Penelosa.

David PenalozaItem 18

Thank you, Mayor Sermiento. With that, since we just discussed that, Sonia, with the lifetime ban question, I think the intent of the ad hoc was to have a lifetime ban for council members and mayors as a separate office. So if somebody turns out as a council member, serves three terms for 12 years, they have a lifetime ban to serve as a council member again, but nothing stops them from running for mayor and same thing. So if we could clarify that, that would be great. But at least that was my intent as part of the ad hoc. And in conversations I had with my ad hoc colleagues, I know that that was the intent.

David PenalozaItem 18

So it wouldn't stop anybody from running for mayor or vice versa. And I know that I wanted specific language in there that doesn't reset clocks so that the public gets assurance that there's no, you know, resetting of clocks for, you know, me for example, that I've served a term, you know, doesn't, I don't start over and get to serve three more four-year terms. That's not the intent either, and I hope that that's very clear in the language that we have. I'm not supportive of increasing council member or mayor compensation. I am not, no.

David PenalozaItem 18

I know that when the conversation came up, there were a couple formulas recommended as options from the ad hoc for pay. There was that the comparing it to a judge's pay because the city of Chula Vista did it that way. and that was, and the other option was just allowing for, you know, increase in, in, in, come out of here, Councilmember. There we go. Sure, a blank. CPI increase that would, you know, be a, I don't know, under $100 a year

David PenalozaItem 18

an increase, which yeah, it's per month, which is not a lot, but you know, it's, I think it'd be a fair way to do it, you know, given inflation and the way CPI has been increasing. That was my recommendation. I know that the discussion was open to see what, and that was the purpose of the last meeting, is to see what the full city council thought, what different recommendations of pay there were. And from what I recall, I don't I didn't hear any. It was just shot down on arrival, not only the amount, but just considering having council increased pay.

David PenalozaItem 18

So not sure that there was a majority support for seeing council compensation increased. But besides that, I am happy with the staff recommendation. Thank you so much, Daniel, with the work that you've done the last three years to bring these forward. The only question I had was for these items, so we could condense them all into one ballot question, and that would be one, I guess, cost, right? One fee.

Thank you, Councilmember Peñalosa. Yes, as proposed, all of the Charter Amendments will be placed as one ballot measure, one ballot question.

David PenalozaItem 18

Okay, and that was for, what was the price for that? Do you remember?

The City Clerk's Office estimates that the cost will be $100,000 to prepare that one ballot question.

David PenalozaItem 18

Okay. The only comment that I would make and then I will end is that if there is a majority support tonight for a potential salary compensation increase by the city council that that is its standalone ballot measure I would hope that that is the case to be fully transparent with the public and so that the public understands what they're voting for come November and that is it Thank you, Mayor. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments from the Council?

Phil BacerraItem 18

Mayor.

Go ahead.

Phil BacerraItem 18

Thank you. So to clarify, we'll have the one ballot measure going forward. So we've determined that all these different items can fit under the one ballot measure.

Yes, Mayor Pro Tem.

Phil BacerraItem 18

Okay. I think the Mayor touched on the issue regarding the term limits and the cooling off period. and it sounds like our city attorney has some language that she wants to read into the record. But before she does that, the other item that I have a little concern with is the proposed section 413 in regards to ordinances and the ability to amend them on the second reading. I think that flies in the face of transparency to do it that way. The way it reads right now, it allows for corrections as discussed by the city council during a second reading. The full statement talks about grammatical or, you know,

Phil BacerraItem 18

other corrections, but then actual corrections discussed by the council. And I think that if we're going to adopt something on a first read or giving the community or the public a chance to see it on the second read as one last chance to weigh in, we shouldn't take that opportunity to all of a sudden bait and switch and try to change it. So I would strongly recommend that this council strike the words or corrections as discussed by the council from the proposed section 413. Other than that, I'd be willing to support the items as is. I want to also thank Daniel and city staff.

Phil BacerraItem 18

And yeah, to think about it, it has been, what, two to three years that you've been working on this through two different ad hoc committees. So Daniel, thank you for that. As far as the compensation item, I think the real crux is, first of all, amount, and how that amount keeps up as time goes on. Because to keep going back to the voters each time, that's why you pay or you have paid $1,000 stipend versus something that's more consistent with other cities of our size. So I don't know that we're gonna figure that out tonight from the dais what the appropriate formula or amount was.

Phil BacerraItem 18

I think last time when it was brought before the council, there was a sticker shock from folks as far as how much of a judge's salary we're going to try to tie it to. So I don't know if we can resolve that tonight. I do agree with the mayor's comments that given the amount of work that members on this council do and the size of this city, I think our compensation today is outdated. But again, I'm not prepared tonight to try to guess a formula on the fly. Maybe like other ballot questions, maybe it's something better suited for the next election. But I'm open to hearing what my colleagues have to say. But

Phil BacerraItem 18

I do reiterate that as far as the language in section 413, I would really recommend that we strike those words. Thank you. Thank you for those comments. Any other?

Mayor, it looks like Council Member Lopez would like to speak.

Go ahead, Council Member Lopez.

Jessie LopezItem 18

Thank you, Mayor. So I want to let staff know that I'm supportive of the lifetime ban as the ad hoc meant for it to be. And I think the city attorney said she has language from Long Beach that she can read into the record, which I'm supportive of, I'm okay with that. But I do think that the offices should be considered separate as I just heard one of the ad hoc members say that that was their intent. On the recommendation that was given to the council that received majority support by Counting Moore Hernandez, I did receive your analysis, city attorney.

Jessie LopezItem 18

Thank you for the analysis. I do think that there are a lot of valid questions.

Jessie LopezItem 18

And I wanna give you and staff direction to continue researching this policy question. On the policy, I'm supportive, but I do have a lot of, I guess, technical questions that need to be answered

Jessie LopezItem 18

before I would even feel comfortable bringing something forth to residents to take a vote on. And obviously taking your lead, I don't think that it's a recommendation that staff is ready to make at this point. I'm not gonna be supportive of the voting requirement change to approve the budget. So I'm not gonna be supporting that. I'm also not supportive of the second reading of the ordinance, which I believe is under one of the, one of the 16 administrative cleanup charter amendments.

Jessie LopezItem 18

So those are my initial comments for now.

Thank you. Thank you, council member. Let me go ahead and bring.

Mayor, it looks like council member Mendoza would also like to speak.

Great, thank you. Go ahead, council member Mendoza.

Thank you. I am not supportive of the increase in the benefits for council or the mayor at this time, I think it's something that needs to be looked at much closer. I know that the compensation that is currently offered is not in par with other cities, but we still need to analyze it a little bit more to ensure that it's something that it's not that it's a reasonable amount but at this time I'm not

going to support that and I am in support of the the term limits and I am not in support of the the voting for non-residents at this time either I'm a veteran and I fought very hard and I risked my life and many other veterans have risked their life for the privilege to vote. And so it's just not appropriate that non residents be given that privilege when when it's it's something that is specifically intended for US citizens as indicated by the United States

Constitution. And I am in favor of all the other recommended changes and good work on on this project to Daniel Soto. Thank you.

Let me go ahead and call on Council Member Fan.

Thai Viet PhanItem 18

Thank you, Mayor. Supportive of staff's recommendation, thank you. This is actually for Council Member Becerra. As to section 413, you said to strike or corrections as discussed by Council, right, in the second reading? Would it be, because the way I read this, is second reading except for clerical errors or corrections as assessed by counsel in my mind it's non-substantive changes like oh the that changes to the ordinance was written incorrectly so would you become because I think the purpose in that the city attorney is that we stay consistent with state law

Thai Viet PhanItem 18

so would you be okay with it saying for example except for clerical or errors errors or non-substantive corrections as discussed by the council? Because for example, I can imagine something might not be a clerical error, but I don't know, maybe it wasn't captured correctly in the edits during the council meeting in the first reading. If I may respond, I think you're now

Phil BacerraItem 18

starting to go down a slippery slope because we've seen this in this council where what is substantive versus non-substantive and we've heard different interpretations of that. I really believe that short of a missing comma or a period, what the words are or what they are, if we didn't capture it in its entirety, then you know what we do? We do another first reading. So if there's support for that, that's what I think we should be doing. But I appreciate what you're trying to do. And I really do. I think that you're trying to kind of expedite the approvals, especially if it seems like something that's non-substantive.

Phil BacerraItem 18

My only fear is that how do we define non-substantive? And I don't know that there's a clear-cut definition. So with the lack of that definition being available, I think that it would be much more transparent and clear for everybody if we just simply said, other than a missing comma or a period, we reverted back to a first read.

Okay.

Thai Viet PhanItem 18

Madam City Attorney, can you maybe help to, because I know some of these changes were staff-driven also, because they're kind of not clerical, but cleanup language. So do you have any history as to why that phrase was put in?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 18

It's really interesting you ask me that question because I do. I can tell you a little bit of the legislative history on Section 413 because as a city attorney, I was curious myself as to how that language came about. So the city charter had traditionally read in the same way that all other adoption rules apply to general law cities, and they followed the state general law government code, which says that there shall be no alterations, modifications, except for typographical or clerical corrections. in between the first and second reading, and if there are changes, you must revert back to the first reading.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 18

It appears that in the 2006 charter amendment, the language was changed to allow for substantive changes. Don't know why that was. When I went back and looked at the legislative history, that change was made on the dais, like tonight when they were proposing charter amendments. So that just goes to show you that we have to be careful about making those last minute changes on the dais because you don't always get to fully discuss it. So I think the Council's choice is this. Leave it as it is, revert back to the old language as it existed prior to the 2006 amendment,

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 18

or do something different, which is I think what is proposed here is a little bit different. So you used to just defer to the government code. You can go back and do that again. You could leave it as is, or you can do this adjustment, which was discussed by the Ad

committee.

Phil BacerraItem 18

Thank you, Madam City Attorney. I would actually just to be safe, rather than refer to the government code, I'd like to lift that government code language that you just read and actually put that in the charter amendment so that it's clear to the voters what it is they're voting on so that they don't have to thumb through the voluminous government code to figure out what we're trying to accomplish, but rather let's just place it right there in the charter.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 18

So for example, if I were to do that, you would modify this to say that a proposed ordinance may not be amended, altered, or modified after the first reading and prior to the second reading, other than to correct typographical or clerical errors. Alterations other than those provided for, as just stated, shall require a new first reading. That would be consistent with the government code.

Thai Viet PhanItem 18

I would be supportive of that. this was always something really weird to me because I had never seen this weird

Thai Viet PhanItem 18

change in my practice, in my experience. So when it's consistent with what our government code requires I think it is more useful for all of us because it has been vetted, right? Many jurisdictions have been doing that rather than this language that we kind of came up with. So I would be supportive of that. that. Regarding the council member compensation as well as the non-citizen voting, I would like to see in the future whether it be an ad hoc but probably better yet a subcommittee that actually looks at this that can also get input from the public as to what the public

Thai Viet PhanItem 18

thinks is adequate consideration for the service. I know that there are a lot of residents out there who are working people who just don't have the ability, the flexibility, the income to be able to work part-time and also do this work. I know that that's a loss for our community. It shouldn't just be attorneys who have flexible hours. We have so much talent out there and we should be able to use all of that talent by fairly compensating whoever is serving our residents and doing a good

Thai Viet PhanItem 18

job. And of course, the best way to ensure that they are doing their job is, you know, through an election or through a recall. Those are valid options to remove someone who is not doing their job here in the city. The comment I do want to make regarding non-citizen voting is first, thank you, Madam City Attorney, for bringing us that research. But I also want to specifically comment on the notion that only citizens who serve our country fought for the right to vote. We have undocumented service members, undocumented veterans who have risked their lives,

Thai Viet PhanItem 18

who have risked their families' lives to serve this country and have been deported. There are family members who are undocumented, who are green card holders, who have done everything that they can to serve this country, to help their community, and to better Santa Ana. And I would love to see these residents have a voice in our local government, if legal and if possible. I am from a military family, and it is extremely sad to me that we have someone who completely dismissed the thousands of service members and veterans who are undocumented, who have and continue to risk their lives for this country,

Thai Viet PhanItem 18

and who I think deserve a voice in our local government. And so with that, I would move to approve staff's recommendation with the adjustment to Section 413 to better track the government code. Thank you.

Phil BacerraItem 18

Council Member Pham, I'm sorry, Mary, if I may. Go ahead. In regards to, I think we were talking about the section on term limits and the whole cooling off period, I don't know that we had our city attorney read her language into the record for us to consider. Would you want to do that now?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 18

I'd be happy to do that. So this language will do three things. It'll make it absolutely clear what your intent is with respect to term limits. It will also fill in some blanks because, you know, we try not to draft for every scenario, but this language would also take care of a situation where someone might argue that they could be appointed to fill in a term because they wouldn't be running for a term. So I caught that one. And also that it would apply for someone who was running in a special election to fill a vacancy. Because again, the way we had previously drafted, we hadn't provided that.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 18

So with those changes, this would just read that notwithstanding any other previously enacted provision of law or of this charter, during his or her lifetime, a person may serve no more than three terms of four years each as a member of the City Council and may also serve no more than four terms of two years each as mayor. The City Clerk or other election official authorized by law shall not accept or verify the signatures on any nomination paper of any person if doing so would violate the term limit set forth herein." And so I think that makes it absolutely clear.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 18

We have litigation over that fact when a City Clerk did not accept nomination papers. And so I think through this new language, it addresses all those issues.

Phil BacerraItem 18

Thank you, Madam State Attorney. My only ask would be on that very first sentence rather than during his or her lifetime, just to be consistent with the gender neutral language, if we can just say during their lifetime. A small thing, but just to stay consistent. And does this also, because I know the other language we had, language regarding partial terms. Is that something that...

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 18

The partial terms will remain the same. We did not tinker with that language. That's existing language in your charter and we left that alone.

Phil BacerraItem 18

I believe that's consistent with government code, correct? It is. Okay. Thank you for that. I know you were making your motion. Would you want to adopt that as part of your motion?

Thai Viet PhanItem 18

Yeah, that's just part of the staff recommendation as far as I'm aware.

Phil BacerraItem 18

You had in your motion the language from...

Thai Viet PhanItem 18

413, the government code section.

Phil BacerraItem 18

Perfect. So I'll second your motion.

Great. We have a motion and a second. Seeing no other comments online or here in person.

Mayor, it looks like Council Member Lopez would like to speak.

Go ahead, Council Member Lopez.

Jessie LopezItem 18

Thank you. So City Attorney, I have a question for you. How difficult would it be for staff to bring us back language if you heard, you know, a council majority tonight in terms of moving forward with compensation and having the voters decide that question.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 18

So we have our deadlines that we have to fulfill so you could not give us separate direction outside of tonight's meeting without calling for a special meeting if there was majority support. Something that that was identified also by our staff member Mr. Soto is we already refer to in our charter, a government code that establishes the salary based on your population. That government code does allow for annual adjustments up to a maximum of 5%. It gets very complicated as to how you can actually adopt them. You can only effectuate an increase when council members are elected and take office.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 18

If you wanted to, you could amend that tonight. you could give us direction to amend the charter to simply be totally consistent with that government code, which would allow those 5% adjustments. Right now, your charter does not. It just says any adjustment goes back to the voters, but we could, on this spot, adjust that to allow for those 5% increases.

Jessie LopezItem 18

Okay, thank you.

All right. So I guess that's what I was referring to, right? The language, sort of the prohibition. and that's an inconsistency with the government code that our charter has.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 18

Correct. I think because last time, again, legislative history, mayors, you went from $125 a month to $1,000 at the time you did that. I think there was some concern by the then council that by also adding the 5%, you might not have gotten community support for that because it was such a big adjustment. But now I think if you want to be totally consistent with 36516, we could simply strike that second sentence and just say that the city council members shall be compensated in accordance with government code section 36516.

Look, when we talk about being consistent with the government code, that is another area that we're inconsistent with the government code. So look, I have no dog in this fight. I think that, you know, I certainly won't be impacted by it, but I certainly believe that that question's been, is something that should be answered at some point. I think, again, I completely agree with the analysis that a whole segment of our community is unable to run for office because they just economically and feasibly can't. So it does limit the pool of potential candidates that run for office, and that isn't a good thing for just democracy generally.

So, you know, I certainly think that that question, if it's not going to be answered tonight, it should be answered sometime in the future. It should be addressed relatively soon because I think it also interferes with the quality of the candidates that serve. They don't have the time to devote to these really, really complex questions and you see it in some of the deliberations that we've had in my time on this council. You have some very superficial analysis and very superficial debates and discussion. So I think the quality will improve, the service will improve and the representation to the voters will improve.

Finally, on Section 413, I think, you know, in the end, it's, you know, what's material, what's immaterial, or what's substantive and non-substantive is going to be a subjective question for the majority of that, you know, of the council members who are going to be moving the item on the first reading. So it's sort of a moot point. But that said, we have a motion and a second on the floor. Seeing no other discussion, we'll go ahead and vote on that.

Councilmember Hernandez?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 18

Yes.

Councilmember Lopez? No. Councilmember Mendoza? Yes. Councilmember Penalosa?

David PenalozaItem 18

Yes.

Councilmember Fan? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Becerra? Yes. Mayor Sarmento?

No. Motion carries.

Motion carries 5-2. Great.

We're going to move along to the next. item which is I think is it the city manager comments thank you mayor and

council members I just have one brief statement and this is really for transparency and for clarity we had received some questions on this item so if you will entertain me I just want to let the public know that on the City Council meeting held on July 19th the councilmember Hernandez did add a discussion item on the agenda concerning street vendors and hate crimes and the The council member requested items are requested and permitted by the city charter. We don't perform any staff review or analysis. It's merely for discussion. And as instructed, the city attorney researched whether the city has the authority to adopt laws

concerning hate crimes and how they are prosecuted. The city attorney also spoke to the Orange County District Attorney, Todd Spitzer, and research confirmed that the city of Santa Ana is preempted from adopting laws and addressing hate crimes. The state legislature adopts the California Penal Code and the district attorney prosecutes violations of the Penal Code. So following state law, the district attorney is the one that would review all alleged crimes referred to his office and if any crime committed against a street vendor is reported to involve an element of a hate crime, it will be handled by the DA's Hate Crimes Unit.

And I know each of you did receive a more detailed letter from the city attorney. And that's all.

Great. Thank you for that comment and I'm sure there's a lot of other comments but because we can't go beyond the scope of what You know, that's not that's a non-agendized item. That's basically an update from you on that But I know there will be some follow-up You know, probably individually so let me go ahead and bring it back to the City Council for their closing comments And let me begin with Councilmember Hernandez

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 18

I just wanted to thank the residents who came out today to participate in our council meeting I hope you have a wonderful rest of your night and and have a safe weekend. Thank you

Thank you Councilmember Lopez

Jessie LopezItem 18

uh have a good night everyone and uh stay safe and healthy thank you council member mendoza

yes um i wish i'm wishing everyone a fabulous chicano heritage month during the month of august and inviting everyone to the saturday night live concert at el salvador park this friday Please come out and join us for the last one. And just to clarify to the public and my colleagues that I never, ever dismiss any veterans. All veterans are included, no matter what race, gender, or cultural or ethnic background. So that is my position, and I have never, ever changed that. Thank you and good night, and I'm glad we're done before midnight.

Exactly. Councilmember Fan.

Thai Viet PhanItem 18

I'm never ready when you call me before Councilmember Faniolosa. So first I'd like to just let everyone know that we have our first concert in the park of the season at Windsor Park featuring the Smokin' Cobras on Thursday, August 4th. I'll be out there with my table and providing all this city information and whatnot, upcoming events. And so please, I hope to see all of you out there. I'd also like to say that I'm very excited for a lot of the upcoming events that we have this summer, all the events that Parks and Rec and our staff are putting on.

Thai Viet PhanItem 18

I am sorry I will be missing one of the movies in the park, Big Hero 6 at Rosita Park, but that will be next Wednesday on August 10th. And with that, I hope everyone has a great night. Thank you.

Councilmember Peñalosa.

David PenalozaItem 18

Thank you, Mayor. Just want to thank staff for all the work they've been doing and our new parks and rec director. Just know that I'm going to be driving around after this council meeting to make sure lights are on, gates are closed. I know. So just extra attention to that, please. I know we're getting into the swing of things, but I'd appreciate the attention there. And with that said, I just want to invite Residence Award 6 to Madison Park on August 17th for Movies in the Park and Movies in the Park at Memorial to watch Encanto.

David PenalozaItem 18

I will be out there personally, and we're going to raffle some Disneyland tickets for residents that are in attendance. So it's going to be a fun event and night. Wilshire Square had their neighborhood concert this past Saturday. Great event, great turnout, neighborhood community together. I'm happy to see these events start happening again. They had been dormant for a couple years because of the pandemic and we're getting back in the swing of things so looking forward to more of these neighborhood events in the near future thank you so much and good night everybody thank you mayor pro tem thank

Phil BacerraItem 18

you mayor I just wanted to thank everybody that came out to Carl Thornton Park today for the national night out I wanted to thank our police and fire departments for coming out and it was great to see all the children out there interacting with our first responders I want to invite everybody to my monthly community office hours this Saturday, August 6th, also at Thornton Park over in the George Upton All Access Park portion of the Thornton Park. And I would like to ask staff tonight if we could just be, during the middle of the meeting, we received some pretty sad news about the passing of longtime Dodgers broadcaster Vince Scully.

Phil BacerraItem 18

And I would say that, you know, to say he's a Dodger broadcaster really doesn't do it justice. he's somebody that broadcast

Phil BacerraItem 18

I'm sorry for me it's a sentimental thing because my family and I watched Dodgers baseball and to hear Vin narrate the games and tell the stories I remember sitting with my grandmother watching a 20 inning game with the Houston Astros I went to probably almost 2am locally but Vin was talking So you can get through it. 20 innings, no big deal. It's Vin. So I would like to ask, sorry I'm getting chucked up, I'd like to ask if we could light the water tower tonight in blue, in Dodger blue, because I think it would be very fitting for, I think, baseball's broadcaster, Vin Scully. Thank you.

I think that's appropriate. Thank you for those comments. And, yeah, to think we, one time we had Vin Scully, Chick Hearn, and these just icons in the three sports. There was, I forget the name of the broadcaster for the NHL, but he is incredible as well. So I just want to thank staff for all the hard work tonight. I know that it wasn't easy. It's still early. It's a few minutes after 10, so let's go enjoy our Tuesday night. Good night. We're adjourned, everybody.

Thank you.