Read the September 20 meeting.

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Recording in progress.

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All right. Looks like we're live. Let me go ahead and call this special closed session of the Santa Ana City Council meeting to order for September 20th, 2022. And let you know that we are having this meeting in place, in-person attendance and by teleconference via Zoom. The public can access the channel via the Santa Ana YouTube channel and the city's website. and as always please bear with us as the technology may interrupt the flow of the meeting. I'm going to turn it over to the clerk so she can call roll.

Councilmember Hernandez?

Councilmember Lopez? Here. Councilmember Mendoza?

Councilmember Peñalosa?

Councilmember Fan? Mayor Portempozera?

Mayor Sarmiento?

Here. So it looks like we have quorum. Let me ask any members of the council that are present to see if they have any items that they wish to recuse themselves on or abstain on.

Hearing none and seeing none. Madam Clerk, do we have any members of the public that wish to address us in person or virtually? virtually? We do not. Great, so why don't we go ahead and recess into closed session we'll be back out in open session in a little bit. Thanks.

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Good afternoon, everybody. Let me go ahead and call this regular session of the Santa Ana City Council meeting to order for September 20th, 2022. Welcome, bienvenidos. It's great to have you all with us. Let me go ahead by opening with some just housekeeping remarks. This meeting is taking place with in-person attendance and by teleconference via Zoom. the public may access the meeting via the Santa Ana YouTube channel and the city's website and as always please Bear with us as a technology may interrupt the flow of the meeting

I want to let you know that we a couple of our council members are going to be joining us virtually so you may hear voices and Not see faces, but you'll see images on the screen, but nonetheless Welcome to all of you. Let me go ahead and turn it over to the clerk so she can call roll

Councilmember Hernandez present Councilmember Lopez here councilmember Mendoza council members can you hear us

on online if you can make sure that you're on mute when you're not speaking but who did we just call on, Madam Clerk?

Councilmember Mendoza?

Present.

Councilmember Peñalosa?

Councilmember Peñalosa?

Councilmember Fan? Here.

Mayor Potembecerra.

Phil Bacerra

Here.

Mayor Sarmiento.

Here. And before I turn it over to the clerk for her to go ahead and make her opening remarks, I just want to point out that screen right there. That is for people who are hearing impaired. That is a great device there because it helps us out, and it's such an important asset for us to have. I can't thank staff enough for having that technology for us. In any event, let me go ahead.

David Penaloza

Apologies, Mayor. I am here.

You're here. Okay. Okay, Councilmember Peñalosa is with us virtually. And so, Madam Clerk, go ahead and make your opening remarks.

To request to speak on agenda or non-agenda items within the city's jurisdiction, with the exception of public hearing item number 25, please dial star 9 from your phone or click the button labeled Raise Hand from Zoom at this time. Please hold your comments until the mayor opens public hearing item number 25 only. Please announce your name and word or neighborhood you reside in within the City of Santa Ana for the record. Great thank you for that I'm going to go ahead

and call on Mayor Pro Tem Becerra to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance and after that if you'll all please remain standing those that can stand please join us for words of inspiration from Miguel Hernandez. Please place your right

Phil Bacerra

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

If we can have Miguel Hernandez join us up here at the microphone, he's going to lead us in some words of inspiration. Thank you Miguel.

Thank you. Thank you Mayor. Good evening Mayor Sarmiento, council members and members of the public. It is an honor to say a few words of prayer and inspiration today. First, I want to thank Councilmember Jesse Lopez for the invitation. Again, my name is Miguel Hernandez. I am a proud, lifelong resident of Santa Ana and Executive Director of OCO, the Orange County Congregation Community Organization. We are members of Pico California Faith in Action nationally. OCO has worked with and for the community for over 30 years using faith-based community organizing approach.

Our aim is to be a multi-faith, multi-racial organization that puts faith into action by developing grassroots community leaders who can build a just community where everybody belongs. As a faith-based justice organization, I want to offer a reflection of prayer that raises the importance and sacredness of voting, especially as we near the November 8th voting date.

I have only missed one opportunity to vote since I was 18. When I first voted, I didn't really know why I was voting, but in retrospect, I was excited about having a voice in public life. I was tired of everything being decided for me. In some ways, I was reclaiming my dignity through the democratic process of voting. I believe that voting is a way of acting on my faith of liberation and building community. With this in mind, I want to thank the mayor and council members for participating in our democracy by running and serving as public servants. I believe your service is a sacred

responsibility to democracy and our community. And yet our democracy is not perfect because there are many barriers for people to vote. We must do the holy work of ensuring all our youth and adult residents have a voice and vote. My parents became citizens about 30 years after they immigrated from Mexico. I am so proud of them for going through the citizenship process and voting at each opportunity. With little formal education and understanding in the political system, they have been voting for decades now, and yet they always ask me for help because it is

intimidating for them to read a ballot that can seem more of a legal document. Many barriers for voting still exist, and we must do everything we can to remove the systematic barriers and support our people, all people to vote, especially our immigrant community.

In Santa Ana, we have come a long ways to ensuring all people vote, but there is much more we can do. It is my hope and prayer that we see elections not just as a competition, but a sacred opportunity for every person to live with dignity and build community where everybody belongs. I'd like to end with a prayer from Reverend Nancy Palmer Jones from one of our sister organizations. Spirit of life and of love, God known by many names and beyond all names,

move us out of despair and into action. Touch our hearts and minds with the truth that we are born beloved and worthy and that we all are connected. Show us how to embody these truths with all our words and deeds day by day by day. In this election year infuse our weary souls with a hope that action for the good will bring. May we move into this session with a clarity and determination that every vote

matters. Amen, shalom, salaam, and blessed be. Thank you. Thank you so much Miguel. Let me go

ahead and move to the ceremonial presentation of our meeting and I believe I'm not sure if the speech and debate team is all is all here. Do we have everybody? Let's go ahead and get started with that then and then we'll go ahead and move on to the next one. If the speech and debate team and the coaches will please join me up on stage.

good afternoon everybody and I have the privilege of welcoming and recognizing the Santa Ana Unified School District 2022 speech and debate team and I think they wore a tie at least the the guys did just to make me look bad because they look so good because they knew I rarely wear a tie but look it is my honor to recognize this team today. It's been long overdue. I wanted to do this earlier in the year and time just gets away so I'm certainly glad we can do it now because I know that the awards and their tournament just kept mounting and you know recognitions and titles kept going but we you know we thought that

this team was gonna it was gonna take a while before they hit the hit the ground running and started getting recognized but they were so successful so quickly that the awards and recognitions came early. So look it is it is certainly an honor when we can recognize talent that is from Santa Ana that's indigenous to our community that excels in so many things but academically and I think for me speech and debate as a lawyer is so important because I know that you know many in our community are very scared to have a

voice, right? And it takes a long time for us to find our voice. For me, you know, being in a profession that, you know, we advocate on behalf of people, knowing that young people find their voice early, and they become effective, and they become confident. And that's really something that I think these, you know, the speech and debate team efforts make. So I want to, you know, you know, I'm especially proud of it, not just because it's from Santa Ana, but I remember when this was just a concept when there was a thought to maybe start this program because we didn't have one in the in in Santa Unified we would see other

communities and I remember I think Fullerton was the community right that had an award-winning nationally recognized team and coach Tina Heddle you know was there and they didn't want him to leave because they realized how valuable it was to have the speech and debate program on their campus and in their community so I you know I was so heartened when they decided to go ahead and you know follow the coaches lead and and tell them look we can do this here in Santana even though our kids are challenged by much more than kids in the other 33 cities in our county but give them a chance give them support give them

love and give them guidance and they'll make us proud and that's what we're recognizing here tonight so let me just tell you a little bit about the program so the Santa Ana Unified School District speech and debate program was created in 2016 and has been competing in the National Speech and Debate Association's annual tournament. Since then the speech and debate program has earned the school district three national titles, not state titles, national titles. This year hundreds of elementary and intermediate school students from across the nation participated in the district's 2022 speech and debate Mardi Gras tournament

held virtually from January 31st to February 5th, 2022. Many Santa Ana Unified School District Scholars received individual awards in a range of areas. However, awards are not the only things these students accomplished. I say this because a speech and debate program changes people's lives as I was talking about. Speech and debate builds confidence, boosts classroom performance, improves communication, and increases critical thinking skills to prepare students for college. It provides life skills to a young person's success in the future.

Today, we want to recognize the 2022 Santa Unified School District students' speech and debate team finalists. Let's give it up for these names that I'm going to recite to you tonight. Miguel Carretero.

Destiny Ceja.

So Destiny's listening to us virtually because the coach just told me that she's at Cal Berkeley, that small campus up north that is, you know, I don't know. I hear it's recognized for some good things.

Let's make some noise for Ana Cecilia Fierro.

Cassandra Rios.

And last but not least, somebody who I've seen grow up. You know, and I remember when she was a year old when we started here at the city council. Grace Dinajero.

So, as I said, you know, these are speech and debaters that are that I'm not sure if any of you have ever gone to any speech and debate tournaments. And I had the privilege of judging a couple of debates that Sal invited me to. And one of the things that I realized as I thought, man, at their age, they are making some very, very articulate, coherent, effective arguments. I can't wait to see what they're going to do when they grow up. because at that age, I was just learning, you know, to just, you know, say my name. Just to, you know, because I was just so bashful and shy and really introverted.

But you realize that, you know, once people start realizing they find their voice, they can talk about amazing things, and we are blessed to have this program here in Santa Ana. I can't tell you what it's going to do for their future. Academically, you know, you're going to see changes in the way, you know, they go about studying about skills about just confronting things like interviews and confronting things like challenging moments they're gonna have that trust and confidence in their skills that they built up so I couldn't be prouder of of this team and what it's done but look this is just the beginning

they've only been around since 2016 so I want to thank you know the school district but more importantly I want to thank a former colleague of mine who was on this on the city council with me for years and I saw his life's work I saw what he did I saw how he changed people's lives in other cities and specifically in Fullerton and now having him here in Santana to do that with our kids is just an incredible sight for me to have been witness to so I want to thank him for doing all this for our students I know there is more to come but let me go ahead and turn the mic over to coach Sal Tinajero the director of the program thank you

so much Sal. So you're probably wondering, they only have five students on the speech team at Santa Ana High School? No, that's not the way it works. So there's 60 students, they compete year round, and then they have to go to a qualifier to qualify. Just to give you an idea, Santa Ana High School is in the East Los Angeles District, which means it's half of Orange County all the way up to LA and all into Colton and West Covina and that area. In each event, and there's only six events, only two people qualify. So all the schools from all those areas, only two people qualify.

Most schools don't qualify anyone. Many schools only qualify one. The magic number to win the national title is five. And here are our five. Here are our five.

So I was hoping we would qualify seven, and we did. But then two of them couldn't make it. So I looked at Ms. Benavidez, and I said, hey, we can't just go cold into nationals. She's like, well, what do you suggest we do? I said, there's a tournament called the Catholic Nationals that's about half the size. It's all private schools, but they'll let us compete. So we went there. We went there, and we competed. Santa Santa High School finished 10th in the nation at that tournament and then two weeks later we went to the big tournament the National Speech and Debate Association the big one the one

that is really hard to qualify for and at the last minute I thought we had lost I called my superintendent I said Jerry I'm so sorry man I said it looks like we're gonna lose by two points and he says how it's okay man you guys did a great job then I get a call from Broward County one of the coaches from Storm and Douglas and he says hey congratulations you guys are gonna win the national title I said no we're gonna lose by two points he says Sal I have people in the semifinals in this round and in this round I'm gonna tell you this right now we're gonna knock them out you're gonna win we won by a point one point

so a hundred percent of our students if you're in our program you're going to go to college and you're going to get a scholarship 100 we make sure their grades are good to go we have students at what cornell columbia we have georgetown all free rides because of the work they've done here so i'm going to say this again enough is enough you put the resources resources behind our kids they're going to outperform other kids because that's the talent we have here in Santana. I want to introduce one person to you. She's our team captain. And Destiny, I know you're listening. Destiny Seja did something that no one's ever done. She said,

T, I want to do my speech in Spanish. And I said, ¿qué? And she said, I'm going to do it in Spanish. I said, Destiny, you finished fourth in the nation as a junior. That's unheard of. And she says, I'm going to do it. At the Catholic Nationals, she finished second in the nation, performing in Spanish and the reason she did it her whole argument was I want people to know how frustrating it is to not be understood and she did a great job with it but that's what we do we carry our stories from Santana so the rest of the nation could see it and then we win trophies so I'm gonna pass it over to Cecilia our team captain

good evening everyone I just wanted to thank the council before us in the city before us for this award and for this recognition. We are immensely proud of our entire city and of our entire program. We are merely a fraction of what every single school represents in Santana. And I just wanted to present that, you know, year after year we go to nationals and we talk about issues regarding the border crisis, issues that we face as a all Latino team and it's so important for people everywhere, for students everywhere to hear those stories because they don't get to hear that on a daily basis. Speech is a very

selective program. Not a lot of kids get to participate in the program because of barriers that they have with financial resources or just not having accessibility to the program. So having speech in Santa Ana is extremely important because students like us that could have never imagined that we could have gone to other places around the world speaking about Latino issues get to speak about the issues that are important to our city and you know I just wanted to extend my gratitude once again to the entire program to our whole team that I am immensely proud of Destiny Seja who is in Berkeley right

now which if that doesn't show you what this program can do for you I don't know what else will so thank you again for this time and for this award and recognition.

So that is a hard act to follow. Let's do this if you all don't mind clapping for the parents of these national speech debaters.

We know it takes commitment, hard work, support, and as you know Ana Cecilia was talking you know it's difficult to travel to go to compete once you're just getting to a place like you know I know you guys compete at different places all throughout the country it's on top of all that the pressure that these kids feel but you saw they are cool and depression they make us proud they represent us well but let's give it up also for coach T's wife where are you

Say hello. Come on Jen, say hello. Jen Tinajero. And Emily Benavides who's helping the program a lot. Thank you Emily for everything you do. I couldn't be proud to have you all here. So when you guys win the next national championship, we got a date, right? We got a date. All right. All right everybody. Let's go ahead and take a photograph and recognize this and make it official.

Okay.

Three, two, one.

That's the Instagram post, right?

Alright, thank you so much. Thank you so much.

Thanks everybody. Let me go ahead and call on Councilmember Hernandez who is going to be making a proclamation presentation September 28th as a day to remember victims of police violence. So I'm going to turn the mic over to Councilmember Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, community, for being here today to join us for this historic city council meeting. If I can please call on the Lopez family to join me here in the front, the family of Vermin Vincent Valenzuela to join me in the front, and the family of David Sullivan to join me in the front, as well as Mr. Fernando Olivares.

Thank you.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Well, thank you everybody for being here today. Today we are having a historic proclamation, the first of its kind in Orange County. Today September 20th, we will be having this proclamation which will recognize and commemorate create a day to remember victims of police violence. Whereas law enforcement officers in the United States are expected to perform their jobs with respect for their communities and in compliance with the law. Yet there are incidents in which this is not the case.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

And whereas California is a leader among U.S. states regarding law enforcement accountability and reform legislation. This is demonstrated through the passage of Senate Bill 2, which is the peace officers certification civil rights, and Senate Bill 16, peace officers release of records, and Senate Bill 2 creates a system to investigate and to revoke or suspend peace officers certification for serious misconduct, while SB 16 increases transparency over peace officer misconduct

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

records. And whereas California law provides due process for all law, including law enforcement officers, the City of Santa Ana believes that law enforcement and our community members are to be afforded their due process and their statutory rights. And whereas the use of excessive force by law enforcement in the United States has been a long-standing and contentious issue. There is a growing body of research demonstrating the increasing use of excessive force by law enforcement, and whereas the California legislature declares that the authority to use

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

physical force is a serious responsibility that shall be exercised judiciously, and with respect for human rights, and for dignity and the sanctity of every human life. Law enforcement officers can only use deadly force when necessary in defense of a human life and whereas there have been approximately 7,743 people nationwide who have been reportedly killed by law enforcement officers since 2015. Whereas the human and social costs associated with police misconduct are incalculable.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

The economic cost of police misconduct is costing taxpayers in cities and counties across this United States Millions of dollars to settle lawsuits, most being civil rights violations That resulted in physical injury or, in more tragic cases, the death of a victim And whereas the impacts of police violence are not individualized meaning these traumatic events not only affect the victim but the victim's family and their loved ones as well and whereas many people have been a victim of police brutality and in extreme

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

cases deadly use of force incidents involving law enforcement officers throughout the united States history including but not limited to Fred Hampton, Ruben Salazar, George Floyd, Brianna Taylor, Jacob Blake, Elijah McClain, Valentina Orreano, Rodney King, Leonel Chavez, David Sullivan, Furman Vincent Valenzuela, Ernie Serrano, Angel Cruz, Manuel Angel Diaz,

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Joel Acevedo, Kelly Thomas, Cesar Ray Cruz, and Ernesto Canepa. And whereas on September 28th, 2021, Brandon Lopez was killed by Anaheim Police Department in the city of Santa Ana on Bristol and Santa Ana Boulevard. The community mourned this loss and a mural was placed on the site where he was killed. The mural raises awareness of the impacts of police violence by acknowledging victims of police violence and encouraging a message of peace and unity. The mural was created

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

by a Santa Ana native named Fernando Olivares, whereas the city council desires to acknowledge victims who were killed in deadly use of force incidents involving law enforcement officers, and we honor their families who carry the weight of these impacts while seeking justice. Now, therefore, the mayor and city council in the city of Santa Ana, now is a day to remember victims of police violence. Still, we say their names. A day to remember victims of police violence encourages all residents to honor

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

and to remember individuals who have had violent and even deadly interactions with law enforcement officers. The family and loved ones of victims of police violence must also be honored and commemorated as they fight to keep the names of their loved ones alive and live with the trauma and the impacts of these violent acts. So when I say, say their name, you will say Brandon Lopez. Say their name.

Brandon Lopez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Say their name. Brandon Lopez. Say their name.

Brandon Lopez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

And still we fight. I would like to bring forth these three families to recognize them and thank them for their act of courage and continuing to fight for human life. This goes to the family and the memory of Brandon Lopez. Miss Johanna Lopez, if you can please join me here.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Would you like to say some words?

On behalf of the family members of Brandon Anthony Lopez, we thank Mayor Sarmiento, Councilman Hernandez, and all the other council members for this proclamation. This proclamation is bittersweet.

It should not have happened.

We, along with the surviving family members of David Ordaz, Leonel Chavez, David Sullivan, Vincent Valenzuela, and so many countless others, should not be sharing, collaborating, or supporting each other through these instances of public and police violence. This must change. We ask for the residents of Santa Ana and all surrounding areas to support and join us in the fight for police reform and cease police violence.

On behalf of my son Brandon, my family thanks you. Thank you.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 1

Thank you everybody for being here. and although this is a very heavy subject, it is a subject we each have to talk about as Americans because this trauma and this pain isn't new in our communities. It is something that has been affecting us for generations

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and it's no secret that us as Americans, we're going to have to really challenge how much we love this country to be better for all of us and that requires a lot of uncomfortable conversations and that requires us to have to live in this discomfort that we all feel in the room today but the more that we have these conversations as Americans the better this country will be for us just like those brave Americans that fought for civil rights that were subjected to slavery and to the school to prison pipeline

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It was those brave leaders in the African American community and in the Italian community and in the Chicano community that fought. And of course, we can't forget that those liberties that we now face today and that we have, there is still a fight for us to be treated as human beings on land that is stolen. And in closing, I thank you all for this opportunity to share and to learn about an issue that is affecting every single one of us. Thank you, everybody, for your time, and thank you to the families that joined us here today.

Thank you, Councilmember Hernandez, and thank you to the families that joined us. If we don't have these conversations, these issues never get addressed, so it's good to meet them head on. Let me go ahead and call on Councilmember Jessie Lopez as she is going to present a certificate of recognition to the bicycle tree for their outstanding contributions to the community.

Jessie LopezItem 1

Hi everyone.

Jessie LopezItem 3

So I'm here tonight to present a certificate of recognition to a nonprofit that is located on Flower and 17th Street. it is a nonprofit that I hear a lot from my friends and in talking to staff our acting city manager tonight Steven Mendoza also mentioned that he has been to the bicycle tree and so the bicycle tree was founded in 2004 and one of the co-founders was Paul Nagel and we also have Mark Valdez and Jeff and Steve with us tonight and since 2008 they established their first brick-and-mortar

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store which is located here in the city of Santa Ana on the corner of 17th Street and flower and their mission is to equitably support bicyclists and create healthy friendly bicycle friendly communities through activities advocacy and education and they do this by helping folks fix their bicycles teach bike maintenance and other bike related subjects by advocating locally for bike-friendly infrastructure and donating bikes to people that need assistance in having a bike. And the Bicycle Tree also promotes a variety of fun activities and they include group rides there and safe in the city

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of Santa Ana and they believe that active transportation will transform our cities into to more healthy, livable communities that are more connected. And so I wanna thank the Bicycle Tree, and I wanna ask you to share a little bit about the work, some of the community projects or support that I didn't mention, just so Santa Ana residents know more and get to hopefully visit the store. So I'll pass it along to Paul.

Well, on behalf of the Bicycle Tree, I want to thank Council Member Lopez for the introduction and the council as a whole for their support of the work that we do. I'd also like to thank the council and city staff for the many ways that, the other ways that they try to make Santa Ana a safer and better place to bike and walk for the city's residents.

I'd like to thank the many people who have come to our nonprofit community bicycle center to work on their bike, to attend one of our classes. to go on one of our bike rides, to purchase bikes, parts, and accessories, or to receive a donated bicycle as a means of transportation.

Any acknowledgment of the efforts of the Bicycle Tree would be incomplete without recognizing the efforts of hundreds of people who have volunteered with us over the years. As Jesse mentioned, we got started first in 2004, and we held our first workshop in 2006, and it's been a fairly long road to get to where we are today.

Far more people than I could reasonably name here have each contributed their energies toward our mission of equitably supporting bicyclists and creating healthy bicycle-friendly communities through activities, advocacy, and education. Some people, as with many organizations, they help out for one day. Others remain an integral part of our operations for years. It's all very crucial to what we do. Everything we do depends on people who volunteer their time based on a love of bicycles and a desire to help members of our community experience the benefits of these machines.

Also just on the subject of volunteers, we did have a change in who could attend. So there's Steve and Jeff were mentioned. Mark couldn't be here this evening, but Pratius has come. Jeff has been a volunteer since 2018, Steve since 2019, and Pratius has joined us, I believe, at the beginning of this year, and has done a tremendous amount just in that short time. I also want to acknowledge a volunteer

named AJ Bryce, who was struck by a motor vehicle while riding his bike home in Tustin last October, and he remains paralyzed and in a care facility. And so we think of him often and just illustrates the importance of making our streets safer for bicyclists. I also want to give special acknowledgement to Santa Ana Active Streets, which Bicycle Tree was a founding member organization and with whom we are very proud to continue collaborating

with toward our shared goals of improving walking and biking in Santa Ana while centering accessibility and equity in the process.

If I may, I'd like to share a little history behind the Bicycle Tree.

When we first started in 2006, we were working out of a house I lived in near Harbor in La Palma in Anaheim. We were just a bunch of punk kids who rode bikes with fairly rudimentary knowledge of how to fix them, but we had a desire to help people out while supporting bicycling as an efficient mode of transportation. We were concerned about the ongoing ecological collapse and mass extinction event that the ruling classes of our species have been creating, and we felt that utilizing used bikes and parts that might otherwise go to the landfill was a good use of our time.

We felt many bike shops primarily catered to white middle-class recreational riders and often weren't very accessible to anyone not fitting that description. We wanted to help people in our lower-income neighborhood repair their bikes affordably and felt that sharing tools and knowledge so people could repair their own bikes was a good way to go about it. We learned about the many community bicycle organizations that exist elsewhere, like Bikes Not Bombs near Boston, Recycle a Bicycle in New York City, and the Bicycle Kitchen in Los Angeles, and we were inspired. After we moved operations out of the house in Anaheim,

we began setting up pop-up repair stations at a multitude of community events and some regular locations in Fullerton, Anaheim, Orange, and Santa Ana.

It was in Santa Ana that we found our home after building connections with a number of great organizations like Latino Health Access, KidWorks, El Centro Cultural de Mexico, and the city's teen space program. program. With a small amount of savings and the support of many people, we opened our first real brick and mortar location in 2014. That was over on Main Street. In 2017, we moved to our current location at Flower and 17th. Now just to describe what we do, we're open to the public four days a week, during which anyone can use the shop's tools to work

on their own bike with the assistance of our instructor mechanics for a suggested donation of $10 per hour. We also have a bike education program we call Wrench and Ride in which participants learn about bike anatomy, bicycle types, bike maintenance, and safe cycling. Participants help repair a bike of their choosing and toward the end we go on a ride together and everyone gets to take their bike home along with a helmet, lock, and lights. Some of our key members, Tris, Colleen and Fernanda, could not be here tonight because they are currently wrapping up today's session of this program.

We donate bikes and accessories to clients of a variety of programs assisting people in need.

And it's been at least 13 different organizations in the last year that have referred their clients to us. We have hosted easier paced community bike rides, maintenance classes and other activities.

We also sell tuned up and refurbished pre-owned bikes along with used and new parts and accessories.

In other words, we're like a combination of a bike shop, a bike school, a bike thrift store, a community center and more.

We're also looking forward to providing services for residents at the new Legacy Square affordable housing development slated for completion early next year.

I invite all of you to come check out our center. As I mentioned, we are open to the public four days per week, and our hours are on our website at thebicycletree.org. Again, thank you very much. And also, I just had the thought earlier, I would have benefited a lot from attending a speech and debate program, and as a kid, I don't know. But do my best here. Thanks.

I want to thank the Bicycle Tree for helping me out. I'm epileptic and bipolar, and without the Bicycle Tree I would probably just sleep all day. So now I have a place to go at least four days a week. Thank you Bicycle Tree.

Jessie LopezItem 3

Well, thanks guys. Here's a recognition, Paul.

We'll take a group photo, everyone.

All right. Let's give it up for the bicycle tree.

Thank you, Council Member Lopez, and thank you all. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for those stories, and thank you for the... I could have used some speech and debate in my background, too, but please feel free. Thank you for joining us. You did. Great work. Let me go ahead and recognize now Councilmember Nelly Mendoza who's joining us virtually. She is going to be making a presentation, a certificate of recognition to Denise Naranjo and Manny Ruelas. If they could please join us.

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. So as Manny Ruelas makes his way down to the dais, I just want to say a few words. And Denise Naranjo is also with us, but she is attending virtually. And so today I'm presenting a certificate of appreciation to these two individuals for their service and time as commissioners for the great city of Santa Ana. and so the the boards and commissions are advisory groups that study specific policy areas and report to the city council about the work that they do when they meet together this helps the city council

deliberate on common municipal issues that affect the city we're always looking for people to apply to serve on these boards and commissions tonight i am pleased to welcome denise naranjo virtually and many Ruelas. Denise Naranjo represented my ward as the chairperson of the City of Santa Ana's Personnel Board. She served for two years from June of 2020 to June of 2022. Some of her responsibilities consisted of hearing appeals pertaining to city employee

disciplinary matters. The Personnel Board conducts hearings carefully allowing city rules and following city rules and procedures. Denise has performed her duties as the Personnel Board Commissioner with exceptional skill and dedication. Denise has unselfishly put in many hours of hard work and dedication to ensure that the matters that come before the Personnel Board are carefully reviewed, analyzed, and properly handled. Manny was on the Youth Commission,

and he represented my ward for almost a year from September of 2021 through August of 2022. As a youth commissioner, Manny acted in advisory capacity to the city council in manners relating to the youth and teen services, to programs and in cooperation with other public and private agencies. He also acted in advisory capacity for the proposed annual budget for the parks, recreation and community services agency and recommended policy and legislation for improving the position

of the youth, of our youth here in Santa Ana. It is my honor to recognize you for the time and effort you've given to Santa Ana. It is no easy task to volunteer for such city appointments especially during this time of COVID. Thank you Denise and Manny for your outstanding contributions to the community. On behalf of the City of Santa Ana I would like to recognize both of you for your time and service to our community as Commissioners. You should be very proud to display the certificate of appreciation in your respective homes as this marks our sincere appreciation for

your unselfish dedication and commitment to our beautiful city. You are now part of Santa Ana's history in a more profound way. Please take note that being a commissioner gives you the opportunity to develop and sharpen your leadership skills, such as you see here with Manny and Denise. I would like to add that the board has vacant positions open right now and if anyone in the community is interested and you would like to become part of our boards or commissions please submit your application through the city's website so today I would like to extend a warm handshake and in

tremendous appreciation to Manny Ruelas who is present and Denise Naranjo your certificate will be mailed out to you I thank you both and I look forward to meeting you in other positions of leadership with the great city of Santa Ana. Thank you very much and have a wonderful day.

Thank you for your service Manny and Denise both of them both of you. Thank you for serving as commissioners. We have another commissioner in the audience that happens to be joining us here. She's a youth commissioner, and her name just happens to be familiar to me. Dalia Sarmiento is a youth commissioner. Thank you for your service, mija.

Yay.

Let's give her a big round of applause.

Make sure to do your homework tonight when you get home. Anyways, thank you, everybody. Let's move along to the staff presentations. I'm going to turn it over to our assistant city manager to go ahead and do an update on our homelessness issue.

Thank you Mr. Mayor and members of the council. Tonight we'll be discussing some of our Colt activity, the homeless navigation center update, and an overview of some homeless to housing situations in Santa Ana where we are showing some of our success stories with some of our housing developments in the city.

First of all, our quality of life team known as COLT remains active and engaged in all areas of the city. During the month of August, COLT continued its daily coordinated responses through the city. We've had 377 contacts, cleanups were 536 with 106 arrests and citations and 44 placements of individuals into our shelters.

Now the Navigation Center, as you know, it's been open for a couple of months now and our total right now is 123. The breakdown of that is 73 males, 50 females, 18 children, 11 pets. And the total number of families occupied in the shelter today is 14.

Some of the activities and resources we've been having there is on-site medical appointments, parenting classes, referrals to mental health, AA meetings. COVID testing is an ongoing feature that we have there at the shelter. We have the day habilitation program, which provides stress management and job connections, and credit recovery assistance. We also have on-site social services, which comes to the Navigation Center, and again, that's the Carnegie Navigation Center, to assist guests with Medi-Cal, CalFresh, and General Relief. Three guests were connected to Main Street housing vouchers over this period of time,

and four guests were connected to permanent supportive housing, and one guest was connected to project-based vouchers, and one veteran was connected to a VAST voucher. We'll explain a little more about some of our housing opportunities.

Housing is critical to addressing homeless, as you know. We have a really good pipeline in our city. We're one of the only cities building permanent supportive housing, so we have the shelter, and then we also have the support system of the permanent supportive housing and housing is also critical to health care and both outreach workers and navigation staff work collectively and diligently to find the best housing situation for each individual they counter as we know that not not one size fits all in the city of santa anna we're proud to say that we have over 432 434 for permanent supportive housing units.

You'll see on the slide above you, the breakdown of the different developments with a different number of units. And again, we're always working on that pipeline and I have to congratulate Judson Brown and the private developers that are contributing to the permanent supportive housing situation in our city. And again, almost every year we have one breaking ground or one opening and the next up in our city is, next slide, is the north harbor village psh as you know that's on harbor is formerly a hotel so a westview house coming up in 2023 crossroads of washington and of course north harbor village coming up soon

so we're very happy with all of these um we by 2024 we'll have 10 permanent permanent supportive housing locations in our city again that helps with our pipeline it helps inform everyone at the shelter of what options are available for our clients in the shelter and moving them into the housing with that our next homeless update will be

Tuesday October 18th thank you mr. Mendoza let me go ahead and bring it back to the City Council see if there's any questions or comments we begin with

Thai Viet PhanItem 3

Councilmember fan thank you and thank you Steven for that update this might be for Nabil so I first of all I want to say thank you for that eight-foot fence right by the Greenville Channel. I know our residents in Ward 1, Windsor Village, Windsor Village North are very excited. However, in picking up my Ward 1

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community representative, Liz Beth Rosales, I noticed that those gates are not locked. I actually sent in a My Santa Ana app notification and I hope that we're gonna get those locks in soon because literally I was at the stop sign and saw a man push a cart into the channel because the gate wasn't locked.

We'll make sure that it's locked. I know staff reported to me today that they are manufacturing or designing lock boxes to preserve the lock itself. So I will follow up and make sure these are locked and no one is in the channel.

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Great. And I do want to say for all the residents out there, when you do come across a situation that is not an emergency, please use the My Santa Ana app. I know I got a follow-up, I got a text message, I got an app notification. I used it multiple times. But if it is an emergency, if you see someone in danger, someone in trouble, please call 911. That is still a valid method if there is an emergency. My next question regarding the homelessness update is do we have and maybe mr. assistant city manager chatted about this a little bit but it seems like there's a bit of a gap between the

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types of services we have where we have you know emergency shelter overnight shelter and then we have the long-term kind of more wraparound services or affordable housing right but there's this um space in between where they're not individuals are not exactly ready to live on their own but maybe an overnight shelter is not there a little bit beyond that do we have any roadmaps or ideas and kind of what is that in between or to fill that gap as you know the last

year and a half have been absorbed trying to get the homeless shelter up and now we're moving on to other solutions and our homeless interdepartmental team works on solutions and we bring those forward sometimes it's solutions regarding upkeep of the city, and sometimes it is shelter beds and different types of gaps, whether it's hotel rooms for families or those kind of things, and we'll continue to work on those for you. We welcome all input regarding gaps in service, and we can work on those and bring those to council in a later date.

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And I think, you know, I bring it up because I know in working with some other cities, you might have an overnight shelter to get people off the streets so they're not camping in the park, but during the day they have to leave and so they're just literally in our communities walking about outside and so you know community members families see that and they say well I thought we were building these shelter beds but the shelter beds are not meant to house someone 24-7 not every single bed is that way and so they're not ready for again that section 8 voucher or that you know

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position or that home at La Pesita Cinco but they're also you know only housed at night overnight so that's what I mean by that and I appreciate staff working on it but I wanted to put it out there for our residents that we are working on that issue but it is a big investment what we see for example in LA County are these pretty terrible actual mini homes or tiny homes that are insanely expensive to build, poorly positioned and flooded during the rains to try to fix this problem. I know our staff is looking to do something better than that, but I appreciate the update. Thank you.

Thank you for those comments. Let me call on Council Member Lopez.

Jessie LopezItem 3

Thank you, Marisol. Steven, I saw that we do parenting classes every Thursday. Is it possible for folks in the shelters to get some sort of finance 101 classes? because part of that is I'm assuming folks being prepared to move into some sort of PSH, and I would like for families that have been in the streets to kind of have that reminder of financial responsibility.

Yes, we'd be glad to work on expanding our services.

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Okay, and then can you remind me out of the nine people that were connected to housing, can you give me that breakdown again?

The nine people?

Jessie LopezItem 3

It says nine guests connected to housing.

Let me give you the breakdown.

I don't see the breakdown where I gave out nine, but I will go ahead and follow up with you and get that from Terry on the breakdown of where they went. Okay, cool. Thank you.

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And then, Nabil, I had a question for you. Can you just briefly talk to the public about Caltrans? My office is receiving a lot of requests for cleanups in areas close to the freeway, the off ramps. And you and I have had multiple conversations about the backlog or the process that Caltrans has in place. And I think it would be great for the residents to hear directly from you. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member. We, based on your request to meet with Caltrans, and we did have a Zoom meeting with the Caltrans maintenance crew. and staff, and they do have a policy that has been established statewide that they would respond to encampments within a three-month period. That's their policy. And the reason we met with them really was to make sure that we coordinate the efforts of cleaning the on-ramps, off-ramps, and the properties that belongs to Caltrans

within the area of the city of Santa Ana. Many times we call them and they do respond, but it's delayed and we try to coordinate the effort. The main purpose of the meeting was to coordinate the effort, but the understanding that the response to the encampment is very much delayed. And it is not just for the District 12, which is the one in Orange County, but it's statewide.

However, staff within the district in Orange County has promised that we coordinate better because they see the need in Santa Ana, but they also have many freeways to cover in Orange County that keeps them very busy. So we're doing our best. We have the person that is in charge of the cleaning or the maintenance of the on-ramp, off-ramp for Caltrans. I have her cell phone. Now we can communicate better on the request.

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Okay, thank you. And thank you to the department. I know you always answer my emails. Thank you.

Thank you, council member. Any other questions or comments from the council?

Clerk, staff, anybody online with a raised hand? All right.

Hearing and...

Do we have somebody?

David PenalozaItem 3

No, I briefly unmuted myself, but no, I don't have any questions.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member. Let me go ahead and thank staff. The only thing I would say is, you know, the other day I was driving by first as you approach Harbor, going west on Harbor. I forget what the street is. It's kind of behind that shopping center. the 7-Eleven. Seemed like a pocket, kind of a congregation. If you all can maybe put it on your list of hot spots or something to review, I know that there was quite a few people there that might need some help, and maybe we send our civilian team out there to take a look. In any event,

thank you for that presentation. Let me go ahead and move along and ask the city attorney if there's anything that she has to report out of closed session. Mayor and council members and members

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of the public. We did have several closed session items this evening. We do not have reportable action and the one item regarding the evaluation for city manager and city attorney has been postponed until the city managers return at the next meeting.

Thank you, Madam City Attorney. Let me go ahead and move along to the public comment section of the meeting and this is a time and place for the meeting of the City Council to receive comments from members of the public on agendized and non-agendized items. Pursuant to the Brown Act, the City Council may not enter into any discussions with the public at that time. We will hear from members of the public that are physically present first, and then we will hear from those that are online or on the phone wishing to address us as well. And just to let you know, you will have three minutes to go ahead and address the Council.

You don't have to use all three minutes. Feel free to be more concise. If somebody said something before you that kind of encapsulates what your thought is, maybe just say what that person said. We'll get through this a lot quicker. We have quite a few people wanting to address this on item number 25, so I will be asking the City Council's indulgence for us to accelerate that to the beginning of the meeting. But let's get through these first just a few public comments that we have. So let me begin with Fernando Delgado. Actually, clerk, let me go ahead before, Fernando, before you go.

Clerk, go ahead and read your comments into the record because we may have some people online that wish to address this as well.

Speakers on the queue may provide their comments on agenda and non-agenda items within the city's jurisdiction. When unmuted, please announce your name, board, or neighborhood you reside in within the city of Santa Ana for the record. To request to speak, dial star 9 from your phone or select raise hand from Zoom now.

There we go. All right. Great. Do we have any members of the public that wish to address us online? Four. Okay. Let me go through the speakers that are here in person, and then we'll go through to our speakers that are waiting for us online. Let me begin with Fernando Delgado, followed by Hector Bustos, followed by Jackie Barnett.

All right, good afternoon, Mayor and Councilmembers. First off, I just want to say congratulations to the speech and debate team. As a former teacher, I love seeing students achieve such incredible things, so congratulations to the team there. All right, so my name is Fernando Delgado. On social media, you might know me as Fernando de Veras. I'm here to speak on two items in today's agenda. The first is the proclamation that was made, declaring September 28th the day to remember victims of police violence. For me personally, since 2020, I've attended several rallies and marches and demonstrations

in support of victims of police violence and their families, and I've chanted too many names to count at this point. And at these demonstrations, I've had the opportunity to listen to the families share their experiences and describe the tragic stories of what it was like to lose their loved ones at the hands of police.

And there are a few common themes that you'll hear when they tell these stories. One is just how drastically your life transforms when your loved one is killed by police, the people who are sworn to serve and protect. The loss of a family member is always incredibly difficult, but when it happens at the hands of police, your life becomes a daily struggle for justice. Families are put in the position of having to defend the moral character of their loved ones against internet trolls who know nothing about you and your family, but are certain that whatever happened to your family member, they had it coming.

The second theme, however, is one of inspiration. At these demonstrations, what you see is the families meet each other and they sympathize in each other's pain. They see the overwhelming love that community members have for them and that they stand and celebrate with them. And for a brief moment, you see that they feel empowered because they aren't alone in their fight. And so, again, I applaud the city for this proclamation. It's a powerful statement on the part of the city to let these families know that we stand in solidarity with them, they're not alone, and that their loved ones are not forgotten.

Now, the second item I wanted to speak on was number 21 regarding an agreement to renew the city's contract with Lexapol. For those who are listening who aren't familiar with Lexapol, I want to give you a brief intro. So, according to an article from Mother Jones published in 2020, Lexapol is responsible for writing policies on behalf of police departments that serve to protect them from facing accountability for their misconduct. They also provide officer training and advise departments on public relations when it comes to dealing with incidents of misconduct. To give you a sense of the culture that Lexapol has fostered,

I'd like to share a quote from a man named Bruce Prate. He's a former police officer turned lawyer who co-founded Lexapol. At a training that was hosted by Bruce, he instructed officers to manipulate records and evidence of officer-involved shootings to avoid liability. He said, quote,

force that requires cops to try de-escalation techniques before they use force, if possible. Lexapol, as a company, discourages these police departments from requiring those kinds of policies. Companies like Lexapol aren't interested in improving the relationship between police and community. Their work aims to create a barrier between police and community, shielding police from accountability when they abuse their power. Thank you, Speaker. Your time is up. Could I just say one last statement? If SAPD really wants to build a bridge between law enforcement and community, let this be the first step. Reject the agreement with Lexapol.

Thank you. Thank you.

Hector Bustos followed by Jackie Barnett followed by Victor Mendez.

Hello, I'm Hector Bustos. I'm a resident at Ward 4 and I'm the communications director at Chispa. I'm here to speak on item number 21 regarding the city's contract renewal with Lexapro. So what is Lexapro? Lexapro is a private company whose primary priority is protecting police agencies from liability rather than protecting life and their business model undermines public safety in our community. In 2019 Lexapro lobbied against Assembly Bill 392, the California Act to Save Lives which was created which created new police use of force standards. So when the Act to Save

lives passed, Lexapol approached the implementation process by providing cities it contracts with across California with a use of force policy that was out of compliance with AB 392. The violation of AB 392 by Lexapol was recognized by the Santana City Attorney in a March 19, 2020 letter to Lexapol. The City Attorney's letter said that Lexapol's use of force policy was, and I quote, legally deficient and does not precisely comport with the legislative changes set forth in AB 392. So this is only one local example of the history of Lexipo's

long history of using its role and its influence to not only undermine efforts to reform use of force practices, but to also entrench the most egregious policing practices this council and the state of California have been moving to do away with. So at this time when Santana is in the midst of considering a police oversight commission, it's nearly a week since an in-custody death took place in this city and close to a year since Councilmember Hernandez's cousin Brandon Lopez was killed by Anaheim PD while SAPD

stood by, which was a day that raised so many questions about the use of force policies and procedures in both cities. It would be detrimental to public safety in Santana to renew Lexapol's contract. So we urge the city council to not renew the Lexapol contract. Thank you.

Thank you. Jackie Barnett, followed by Victor Mendez, followed by Deanna Sullivan.

Hello, community. I'm Jackie. I'm a mother of Santa Ana. I'm also an elder. I came tonight to speak woman to woman with Miss Christine Ridge. I don't see her here. A couple weeks ago, I'm sorry, a couple months ago, I was at the trial of the police officers that murdered David Sullivan. I saw Miss Ridge at the federal courthouse. I invited her up to the ninth floor to come and see what Lexapol is all about. To see the smug look on the officers faces was so disgusting to me to see that they knew that

they were untouchable. In our city, we have gone after our police department. They come after us as parents in SWAT gear, ready to shoot us when we have anything to say to them. They came after our kids when our kids marched on them also. They came out with batons when our kids have something to say to them. We do not authorize the city manager to be involved with Lexapol in any fashion. There is no defense for the murder of our children.

Mayor, there is no defense for the murder of our children. From Santa Ana PD, Anaheim PD, I'm also quoting from an article from Mother Jones. some of the company's policies, including the use of force policy challenged by Jackson's family, depart in significant ways from recommendations by mainstream policing organizations. The national consensus policy on use of force, a collaboration between 11 major law enforcement groups, requires cops to try de-escalation techniques before using force. Lexapol discourages police departments from requiring them.

Lexapol's policy allows officers to shoot at moving vehicles and also unarmed children. It may injure or kill civilians and officers. The ACLU has contested Lexapol's rules for handling immigration violations, which in some states includes a provision allowing cops to consider a lack of English proficiency when deciding whether someone may have entered the country illegally. A racial justice activist has looked at hundreds of police department policies, concludes that Lexapol's use of force guidelines usually lack requirements that have been shown to reduce police violence.

Lexapol did not respond to a request for comment. One of the founders, Bruce Pratt, spent a decade as an officer in Orange County, so they've obviously been studying us for a long time how to get our money. We're asking you all not to do this.

Victor Mendez, followed by Deanna Sullivan, followed by Sam Sullivan.

Good evening. I just want to talk briefly about the issue of police violence and supplement to Mr. Hernandez's motion today. Let's face it, police violence is a major police failure. it's just a failure at the absolute highest level uh we can talk about it but what what's the root cause where does this come from why does it happen i just want to kind of reflect on the past few weeks of my interactions with the police department as some of you know we've been trying to secure the security of the building we have a very serious drug problem we have prostitutes and we

have homeless we didn't feel we were getting a response from our police as we should be So we met with them. We talked to them. We got some organization going. In my follow-up calls I found out that our communications across the board in the department are quite fragmented. Nobody really knows each other. Nobody really talks to each other and that was challenging. So what I did is I took it upon myself to make them accountable. I said I don't want to call an 800 re-tip line. I want to talk to somebody live that I paid for and I want to keep them

accountable for service. It took some calls and took some discussion, some pushback, but I think today we're moving ahead okay. I think they're responding well. I think they recognize the sensitivity of our situation, but I think the thing that drove it to me was keeping our police accountable, not letting deflect or push off to somebody else. And I think when we get to the issue of violence and why things happen, that's what we got to be talking about. I don't think we need an 18-point plan from the ACLU. We just need something so basic and simple as just

accountability. You have an action, you're responsible for that action, good, bad, or indifferent. You're responsible for those outcomes and results from the city manager on down to that patrol agent. It's a matter of accountability. I would encourage our citizen to engage on this issue uh to hold our to hold your officer for that matter any uh leader or or or member of our organ of the city organization accountable i think you're going to find a better result it's not easy it's very hard here in santa anna and i shudder to think that some people who don't perhaps have

the background or a lot of a lot of skill sets to deal with it that's probably why they get frustrated but i think you know we have to do our best to keep them accountable always keep these people accountable our police and i think you'll have better improvement in service as well what i would hope to be a more productive police force as well as a more productive community and most of all a safer community that we can all be proud of thank you thanks victor deanna sullivan followed

followed by Sam Sullivan followed by our last speaker Chantelle Onofre.

Hello, my name is Deanna Sullivan and my son David Sullivan was murdered by the Buena Park Police Department. He was 19 years old. This happened on August 19, 2019. He was pulled over and for expired tax. David was unarmed. He didn't have a weapon. He was seemingly running away. He had a packed bag full of clothes and some snacks and he took a car that didn't belong to him. He took it from a gas station he was working at so he didn't hurt anybody. And like

I said, he didn't have a weapon. So officer Jennifer Tran and Bobby Colon shot David and escalated a situation where they could have talked to him. They could have made a huge difference in his life. Had they taken the time to make a plan and to actually talk to each other and make a plan or to follow some of these policies that are written by Lexapol.

They didn't do that. Instead, they rushed at him. He panicked. He went in reverse. He crashed or the car went off the curb and became disabled. David got out of the car. They told him to get out of the car he got out of the car and the cop bobby colin just kept running at him escalating a situation again never trying to talk to him never taking the time to ask this 19 year old what's going on and he should have done that from the very get-go but instead they have these layers of protection which we all know starting from the policies and the training that is by

lexapol to qualified immunity to the cops bill of rights layers and layers of protection so when cops are supposed to protect and serve they don't they escalate a situation which is reinforced by their policy by the policies in the training bruce prayett is a defense attorney in our in our civil case against the city he was murdered in the city of fullerton by the buena park police department Bruce Pratt still holds a seat on that board. Bruce Pratt maximizes his profit and minimizes the liability for the cops because who's holding them accountable? Who is policing these police? Cops are fallible. We know that. They're human.

They make mistakes. But when they become deadly and our children, our loved ones, our families are getting murdered, this becomes generational trauma that Jonathan Hernandez talked about. This affects not only the moms and the cousins and the aunts and the uncles, but the kids. And it keeps going on and on. And you guys have a chance to do something, to get rid of Lexapol, to get rid of their policies and their policing, and set an example to other city councils across Orange County. And stand up! You guys have a real opportunity here to make a difference. And this has to stop happening because it's not one bad apple.

That's a bullshit story. This is happening here, right here, Orange County. Not just George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, all these big names. Thank you. Right here. Your time is up. David Sullivan.

Thank you. Sam Sullivan followed by Chantelle and Ophrey.

Hi, my name is Sam. David was my little brother.

He was killed at 19 and I was 20, 21 at the time. I'm now 24.

And it's affected our entire family in a way that ripples out into the community. And now activism is the only thing I can do. I can't do anything else because my brother is gone. He will never have the chance to take accountability for his actions. He will never have the chance to grow from that point in his life at 19 where he messed up. These officers that killed him, they get to go on and go home to their families, and they get paid to go to court and sit there and watch us cry and beg for something to happen to them.

Nothing happens. The two officers actually got raises after they killed David. Bruce Prayett, the founder of Lexapol, he was quoted as saying, I don't care if you run him over with your police car. I don't care if you smack him with your baton, choke him out, tase him, bite him, shoot him. Was it objectively reasonable under the totality of the circumstances presented at the time? Lexiple, that's their entire motto.

If you can claim that it was reasonable in the moment for an officer to behave this way, they get away with it. If an officer says, I feared for my life, they get away with it. And this is only for civil trials, for having some kind of payout from the city to the family. Lexapol is not protecting any kind of liability. There's been people who have been dying, and there needs to be more action.

It's frustrating as civilian to come to your leaders and beg them to do something because you don't know what to do and so then you have to educate yourself on all of this stuff that doesn't make any sense and it still doesn't bring back your brother.

I urge you to really think about what Lexapol is adding to your community. if it's adding any amount of police accountability, or if it's setting these police officers up to get off scot-free. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Very sorry for your loss. Our last in-person speaker is Chantelle Onofre. Is Chantelle here?

All right. And I guess Sam was our last speaker. Let me go ahead and turn it over to the clerk so she can call on those that are waiting to speak to us from on the phone.

Zoom ID, ACLU, SoCal Police Practices. Please select the microphone icon to mute from your device and proceed with your comment. You have three minutes to speak. Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. My name is Jennifer Rojas and I'm a policy advocate and organizer with ACLU SoCal based in Orange County. I first want to thank Council Member Hernandez for putting forth the proclamation declaring September 28, 2022 as a day to remember victims of police violence.

This recognition, as we've heard this evening, is so important to families who have lost a loved one to police violence and to the movement for racial justice. We all must do more to ensure that people, no matter their race, can live with dignity and free from all forms of state violence. I'm speaking tonight on agenda item 21 regarding the proposed agreement renewal with Lexapol. We believe the agreement renewal with Lexapol must be weighed with careful consideration and we urge the city council to refuse the Lexapol agreement renewal.

As you know, Lexapol is a private for-profit police consulting company that issues ready-made policy documents and training to police departments. Lexapol claims their products reduce legal liability for subscribing police departments. However, they routinely diverge from policing best practices and even dismiss California state law. The California legislature passed AB 392 in 2019 to strengthen the statewide police use of force standard. AB 392 determines that police must avoid using deadly force unless it is necessary

to defend themselves or others from immediate harm. This new legal threshold is known as the necessary standard. Lexapol lobbied against AB 392 before it became law. Once the new law went into effect Lexapol released an unlawful use of force policy that completely omitted the necessary standard and failed to comply with AB 392 in several ways. Thankfully in 2020 the Senate and a city attorney's office wrote a letter to Lexapol stating that their policy was legally

deficient and the Santa Ana City Attorney's Office worked with community members to bring the policy in compliance with the law. The City of Santa Ana should not expose itself to liability again by renewing the Lexapol agreement. And it's important to know that Lexapol is not the only option for local governments. We urge the Santa Ana City Council to collaborate with the community and the city attorney's office to develop a new process to update the police department policy manual. Thank you.

Zoom ID, Brandon Siskel, select the microphone icon to unmute from your device and proceed with your comment. You have three minutes to speak.

Hello, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Oh, pardon, I actually meant to speak for item number 25. I didn't understand the instructions earlier.

Okay, thank you. Stay on the line.

Zoom ID, Benjamin Vasquez. Please select the microphone icon to unmute from your device and proceed with your comment. You have three minutes to speak. Hello, my name is Benjamin Ben Vasquez. I live in Heddinger Park in Ward 2. and I'm talking about accountability today. I'm a teacher of 19 years. I've been at my school for 12. We've had four principals. Every time there's a change, I go speak to the principal. I let him know that there are people who like to do checkoff lists, people who like to cover up

the work that we're not doing, the stuff we're not doing right, and they like to tell the district we're doing the work and every principal I tell them we have a great staff we have people who want to do the work what turns out is each principal in the past has turned around and has choking a checkoff list this is no way to run a school or a city with cover-up with lobbyists with people who don't hold the workers accountable luckily we have a principal and they agreed that a checkoff list wasn't the best thing for Valley High School and now we're putting in work. It's going to take

us time to do this work. It's going to take us thinking. It's going to take data and real work. It's not going to be about faking or blowing smoke as Lexipol does. We really, if you want to govern correctly, if you want to govern, you can't have Lexipol at the seat or at this table. We need to make sure that we have the right data, that we're looking at things clearly, that the information we we get is not smoke. We need to make sure that all the work that we put in is for good reason. So as you guys cannot, please do not keep flexible at this table. Thank you.

Zoom ID Candace Haas, please select the microphone icon to unmute from your device and proceed with your comment. You have three minutes to speak. I also want to speak on agenda item 25. Does that mean that you want me to wait till that item is heard? Yes, please stay on the line. Okay, thank you.

Great, thank you. So I was going to accelerate item 25, which is where, you know, most of our speaker cards are for. It's a public hearing, but I wanted to know from the Council, are there many items that we wish to pull off the consent calendar? I know definitely 21 will be pulled. Any other items that the Council has an appetite for on consent to hear individually? Or if you want to abstain or, you know, recuse yourself on any items?

Phil BacerraItem 3

I would just pull item 12 for a quick question.

Any other items?

All right. Is there a motion for the balance of the consent calendar?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

So we are pulling item 21. Would you like to pull that one? Yes, sir. I'd like to pull a Lexapol, item 21. 21 and I'll make a motion to approve.

Is there a second for the balance of the consent?

Jessie LopezItem 3

I'll second.

Great. We have a motion and a second motion by Hernandez, second by Lopez to move the balance of the consent calendar. Council members, please vote.

Madam Clerk, my vote is yes. This is Council Member Mendoza.

Thank you.

Councilmember Peñalosa, can you voice your vote?

Councilmember Peñalosa, can you hear us?

Councilmember, are you there?

All right, maybe did we disconnect or is he disconnected?

Has everybody voted here? Council member Phan?

I can see the green dot on her screen.

motion passes six passes six zero one with councilmember Hernandez Lopez Mendoza fan but Sarah Sarmiento voting yes and councilmember Penalosa absent great thank you let me go ahead

and call on mayor pro tem he pulled item number 12 mayor pro tem thank you mayor sarmiento um i'm

Phil BacerraItem 3

glad to see this project moving forward i just have one quick question so uh on the project there's going to be a masonry perimeter wall around the site uh will that have landscape covering around it yes it does okay i i just maybe i missed it in the staff report i didn't see it but that will be that's the plan yes okay so um with that i'm going to move to approve the item with the added ivy around the Mason perimeter wall.

Is there a second? I'll second. Any other questions or comments? Hearing and seeing none, we have a motion by Mayor Pro Tem Becerra, a second by Council Member Hernandez. Council Members please vote.

Madam Clerk, my vote is yes. This is Council Member Mendoza.

Thank you.

Councilmember Peñalosa, are you on the line? Can you voice your vote?

I think we may have lost the signal. I'm not sure.

All right.

Motion passes 6-0-1 with Councilmembers members Hernandez, Lopez, Mendoza, Fan, Becerra, Sarmiento, Borinez, and Councilmember Peña Losa absent.

Great. Thank you, everybody. Let's go ahead and move along to item number 21 that was pulled by Councilmember Hernandez. I'll go ahead and turn it over to him. It's to approve the agreement with Lexapol.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I thank my colleagues and members of the public today who voiced their concerns for Lexapol and shared their traumatic and painful experiences with this council and with our members of the community. Standing up here and sharing your experience is never an easy one, so I'd like to just say thank you to the families who came and shared their experience. Lexapol has a storied background in California. It is a private police consulting company that issues ready-made policy documents and

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

training to police departments and other municipal agencies. They have contracts with over 8,000 agencies throughout the state of California. And the task of creating these police policies and training should never be outsourced to private companies like Lexapol who are not accountable to the public. Lexapol's primary priority is protecting police agencies from liability rather than protecting those lives that officers took oaths to preserve.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

Now their business model undermines human rights and public safety in communities across this country. So let's talk about Lexapol's background. background. When you look at the background of Lexapol, if I can please have somebody here from our department who can answer this question. Sergeant Rodriguez, if you could please give us background as to how long we have been working with Lexapol.

We started implementing Lexapol probably approximately in 2013, 14, around there. And then it was a long process to get the policies implemented because they do go through a review process where we have to review them, our legal advisor has to review them, and we make modifications so the policy fits the need of the department and the community at large.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

Thank you, sir. The reason why I ask that question is because since 2010 to 2020, per the voice of OC, the City of Santa Ana, our police department has cost taxpayers $24.5 million in lawsuits. Madam City Attorney, can you confirm that number is correct?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 4

Yeah, I can go back and confirm with our risk management department. We do keep track of those numbers. I couldn't tell you on the spot whether that exact specific amount is correct, but we do keep track of them.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

Okay. So December 10th of 2020, Brandon Foe published an article that reads a headline, Santa Ana Police Lawsuit Settlements Cost Taxpayers $24.5 Million Over the Last Decade. That is an astonishing number. And if there's any indicator as to if Lexapol has been successful in the Santa Ana community, the answer points to no. Well, the data points to that not only do we have a very large budget for police services, but we're not taking into account the liability of working with programs like Lexapol.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

As evidenced, we have $24.5 million in lawsuits over the last decade. That does not look like success to me. Lexapol is a police lobbying group that subverts state law and policing best practices. Lexapol issued an unlawful use of force policy, training, and guidance that violated AB 392, the California Act, to save lives. AB 392 created a higher legal standard that authorizes the use of deadly force by law enforcement only when necessary, also known as the necessary standard.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

Lexapol lobbied against AB 392 and its predecessor bill. Lexapol's training stated that AB 392 did not establish a necessary standard and suggested that the language establishing a necessary standard was amended out of the bill. Lexapol's use of force policy completely omitted governing necessary standard and failure to accurately reflect California law. Lexapol then changed their policy only after extensive pressure by California residents.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

Lexapol had an abundance of pressure from residents, organizations, and cities. Hector Busto's representative with Chief Spashier today that the Santa Ana City Attorney's Office sent a letter to Lexapol in March 2020, stating that the use of force policy was legally deficient and does not precisely comport with the legislative changes set forth in AB 392. Lexapol, in closing, has worked behind the scenes to ensure that officers who do violate the law are not held accountable.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

This is not only costing us human life, it's costing us taxpayers millions of dollars that we could have invested into the very communities that are being brutalized. We could have used those $24.5 million to get our city to the point where we don't have a park shortage community. We don't have a park poor community. Well, here's why. It's because of companies like Lexapol that are costing you, the hardworking taxpayer, $24.5 million. That's not fair to our officers. It's not fair to our communities. It's not fair to the children that we are elected to serve and protect.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

And it's not fair to the families that are going through the trauma of losing their loved ones.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

And in closing, what I would like to recommend to my colleagues here on the council is we have an opportunity as a police department and as a city to actually build foundational trust with the community these officers took an oath to protect and serve. I think that decisions regarding life or death are decisions that should not be made by a private company. They are decisions that should be made with community input. This process that is being brought forth us today is not transparent, and a private company should not have that much power.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

And that is why I believe our police department should go into the communities that they serve, and they should hold a minimum of two meetings per ward and one across the city and they should have community input from the residents and at the end of all of those sessions we should put that community and put together and present it to the council I think that that is not only a way for us to build those relationships and and and regain that trust but if our police department is truly going to value the residents that it protects, then their input should be taken into account. So I will not be supporting Lexapol

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

here in the city of Santa Ana. And I'd like to make a motion and urge my colleagues to join me in pushing this item to the Police Oversight Commission, which will be formed in the next couple of months.

Thank you, Council Member. Let me go ahead and bring it back to the members of the council to see if there's any questions or comments.

Councilmember Phan.

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

Thank you. Hi there. So I am familiar with Lexapol. I work with police departments in other cities. I've looked at some of their form policies as many, I guess, we have lots of form policies that exist out in the world. Right? It's up to us to review it, to not take it at face value. at least I hope that's what we're doing. You mentioned that we do, we review it, we look at it, we have our city attorney's office review it to ensure that it meets our standards. I agree with the sentiment that Lexapol is here to lower liability, right? What is the least that we can do to stay out of trouble,

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

not what our best practices? I agree with that sentiment about Lexapol and And anybody can look up comments made by the co-founder. It's pretty horrendous if you just look up Lexapol and the issues that it's had throughout the country. They talk about restricting officers' use of force as, quote, bad for business. They talk about how they don't share who's making the policies that are drafted for these template policies.

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

And the UCLA School of Law actually also has, it's from their, I can't remember the name of the organization, the UCLA Public Law and Legal Theory Series also has lengthy research to discuss Lexapol's background, what it does, its influence and issues that come up. Now, I do want to ask you, though, if we did not use Lexapol, what would be the department's process or the city's process for updating policies as the laws change?

I think it would have an impact on the department because then we would have to either hire more attorneys to review our policies and our practices to stay up to date in regards to state, federal, and local mandates. So it would have an impact on how we update policies and how we deliver that training to our officers, which would require potentially moving officers from other assignments to our training division to be able to deliver those services.

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

Okay. And, you know, when you're getting the policies from Lexipol, can you kind of share the process by which the city goes through them before it's implemented?

Yes, usually what Lexapol is, it's in essence a library of law enforcement practices in law enforcement and custodial environments. And what they do is they provide a framework in regards to federal and state mandates. If we have a policy that we need or we have existing policies, they will give us something to work from. We'll review it. our training commander will review the policy, then he will send it to various senior management teams. We also have to send it to our labor unions and then to our legal advisor. Then everybody gives their input,

and then when it gives final approval from our legal advisor, then we publish the policy.

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

Have we looked at other options for, I guess, template policy, standard policies, and things like that?

No, we have not looked at any other options in regards to besides the way we did it in the past, which we would draft up our own department policies and our own department orders and procedures.

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

Okay. And some of these might be a little bit older, but I do know that there are other organizations that provide template policies or suggested policies for best practices, right? NYU School of Law's policing project, the Municipal Research and Services Center, I believe it's the American Law Institute's project on police investigations with template policies. You have the ACLU launched Freedom Cities campaign, and a number of other model policies. I think even the Association of Chiefs of Policies of Policy Center. I don't think all of them are currently up to date, but we have other options.

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

One of the things that I guess I'm concerned with this is that we don't know when this police oversight commission will, I guess, be launched. The last update we had at the dais was that we hadn't decided yet or don't know yet what the cost is for various types of oversight boards. And I don't want our city to not have updates for however long that might take. So I am inclined to approve this for a year while we go through this process of figuring out what we need to do

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

or how we would do community outreach because right now, I guess maybe it's Madam City Attorney or the Chief, What is our capacity to consistently update these policies as our laws, both state and federal changes?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 4

I could just answer that when I joined the city's legal team in 2012, it was the practice of the department to monitor and to draft our own policies. Remember that to keep the policies updated, not only do we have to look at the state legislature changes that come by, we are also looking at federal case law. And because these cases are often Section 1983, that federal case law is across the country. And so we did have a person, we had two people, in fact, and a paralegal that was funded in the police department. So there were two attorneys and then the one paralegal that was funded.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 4

Over the years, as the budget constraints started to appear and Lexapol was an option, they moved towards the Lexapol model. As you can see from the cost, they're significantly less than the two attorneys, one paralegal. But what we have really strived to do is with Lexapol, we do not take their policies for granted. People have cited tonight that it was the city attorney's office that took a look at the policy and revised changes. Some of those issues were brought to our attention initially in a complaint letter by the ACLU. But we were very quick to respond, and we agreed, and we worked collaboratively with the police leadership,

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 4

was very open to the changes that we made. We were one of the first cities to make those changes, and then other cities followed. So I believe that currently the process that we have is a good one in terms of the law. I don't know if there's more room to collaborate with our community. I think that's what we're hearing this evening. And maybe that opportunity comes through the Police Review Commission. But I would say as a city attorney, if you're going to make this change, could you give me just a little bit of time? Because I could not just like tomorrow tell you that I had the resources to make sure

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 4

that we were monitoring everything that's out there. If this is a policy change, I can certainly make changes to be consistent with your changes, but I don't want to leave the city unprotected.

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

Right. And that is actually my concern, too, because, you know, as cities and large organizations anywhere, when you rely on any resource for a long time, once you take out that resource, you create a vacuum or empty space, right? And now suddenly instead of maybe not the best policies ever, we just have no policies or we have no updated policies. And that leaves both residents as well as the city at a disadvantage. So I guess for me, I would like to see this. Again, I am inclined to approve it at this time.

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

but with the understanding that both the police department and the city attorney's office not only review all the policy and templates or model ideas that are brought forth, but that we also publicize it for others in the community to provide input, at least in the beginning until we get our police oversight commission up. And I believe that, at least I mentioned before, Police Oversight Commission is going to be involved in making policy. I think that it's important.

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

You know, what we heard today is that residents want to make sure they have a say as to the expectations we have for, you know, our officers and vice versa. When they know what we can share, this is what the policy is. And I know that Chief Valentin has been really at the forefront of making these policies we have in the city public. like I still think we might be one of the only cities in the county that has our entire policy up there long before it was mandated, right? So I'm really good with that because right now, I just don't see how you'd make up two attorneys and a paralegal at $160,000.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 4

And I would make a commitment that whenever we were asked to review a policy that we would put out, and maybe you'd make that a public announcement here at the city council meeting, and I could share that with the city manager's office as part of her update and then also distribute copies to the entire council and put it on our website so that there's a lot of transparency.

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

Well, that's very helpful. Thank you. That's all my questions for now.

Great. Thank you. I was just going to remind us, you know, Madam Clerk, if you'll please put the timer on us because, you know, look, we have a lot of people on the public hearing that we need to, you know, we want to call and hear from them. So let's try to be judicious with our time. Let's be respectful that we mandate the public to use three minutes Let's all try to use three minutes for us to speak. I know we could speak on this for days But we don't want to be here. So let me call on Councilmember Lopez and then we have I believe one of the council members online

Jessie LopezItem 4

Thank you mayor. So this is the first time that I'm hearing of Lexapro and I'm hearing about it at 4 p.m Community orgs and so I I have a lot more questions, just like out of natural curiosity, like what kind of training are they providing? What kind of training materials are they providing that the department isn't now?

So what they do is they provide an online platform where any updates to any legal mandates or any policies. It ensures officers get that information via their email, and then they log on to an online platform where they have to complete, whether it's scenario-based training online, whether it's multiple choice questions, or just to stay consistent on the policy and the rules and regulations that we have in place. Not the policies that Lexable has provided.

it. It's what our policy became. So any policy that Lexible provides, at the end, us, the agency, are the policymakers, and we own the content. And it's tailored to the needs of, like I said, our department and our communities. So that's the kind of training that they provide. They don't come out here and do training or anything like that. So it's not just legal.

Jessie LopezItem 4

It's like day-to-day.

Yes.

Jessie LopezItem 4

Another question. Why do we feel that we need to contract with Lexapro to provide our officers with vehicle operation training?

They provide training on all our various policies that we have on the books, but that doesn't mean that we don't provide our own additional training or any additional training mandated by post, whether it's here at the department or at our training center or if we send someone out to a training class regarding driving.

Jessie LopezItem 4

We do do our own separate from this. So for this contract, we don't have to accept their additional, because I don't know if the additional training that's written in the staff report like the vehicle training comes at an extra cost. Can someone clarify that for me?

I have Commander Sorensen. He's our training commander and our flexible, most knowledgeable person of the department.

Yeah, so the training that they're referring to in there is what we call daily training bulletins. And what it is is it provides officers with a scenario. So essentially it's a verbal scenario. It kind of tells a story. and then it's in that scenario will be particular to a specific policy within the manual and then it goes through the piece of the manual that that that scenario applies to so basically for example it'll say hey you know officer Jones and officer Smith are having this conversation about driving and using seatbelts and officer Smith says oh I don't have to wear a seatbelt and then

it'll put a piece of the policy in there that says hey driver when you're driving a police vehicle you're required to wear a seat belt and then it gives us some a summary of it officer smith's statements were not consistent with the policy and then it then the next page is a question so it'll be something to the effect is when are officers required to wear their seat belts and then it gives you a multiple choice question or multiple answers i should say and it would be like when are you required to wear a seat belt anytime you're driving a city vehicle and that's the correct answer.

Jessie LopezItem 4

But we don't need Lexapro to do that, right, for our officers? I mean, I'm hoping that the answer is yes.

That was a very simplistic... Okay. What I really... So what happens is they send me daily training bulletins for every day of the month. I sift through them and pick out relevant topics because our patrol officers typically work 13 to 14 days a month. I issue 14 of those so that they're not getting set with multiple daily training bulletins, which ultimately takes time and takes them out of the field. So I only assign as many daily training bulletins for actual work days. But what I'll do is I'll pick more obscure policies that officers may not look at every day

to ensure that they are reviewing those policies. because there are certain policies that can be pretty obscure like I can't even think of one off hand right now but every month I send out a daily training bulletin regarding First Amendment assemblies I send out a daily training bulletin about use of force the real high profile topics things that we come across every day things that can create a lot of liability for the city just as just to reinforce what the policy says. If nothing else, it creates conversations during roll calls and team meetings regarding that daily training bulletin that came out.

So they're really just ticklers as to this is the policy, this is what it says, so that they're not forgetting policies that we don't typically come across every day.

Jessie LopezItem 4

Okay, thank you. And on the second part of my question, and the additional services that they're proposing, is that coming at an additional cost?

Which additional services are you referring to?

Jessie LopezItem 4

They're talking about each year Lexapol will furnish 365 customizable scenarios, training bulletins that will link directly to the policy manual. The daily training bulletins will address use of force, vehicle operation, discriminatory harassment, and a variety of other law enforcement risk management processes. So I don't know if that already is included.

Yes, all we're asking is to continue the services that were already

Jessie LopezItem 4

Okay, thank you. I must have read the staff report wrong. So I like Councilmember Phan's recommendation of extending it for a year until we have something more in place. I actually like having folks inside in-house to do these recommendations that are going to be here day to day, that are going to be part of the community and part of the department, because I think that provides a different context for the type of policy recommendations. that we're going to give the officers or that are going to be approved for the officers. I also like the transparency aspect of moving forward with sharing the policies,

Jessie LopezItem 4

specifically for this year when we, it looks like we're going to approve the contract, making them accessible online and making them shareable to the council so that we have, I guess, a better understanding of how this is working and what are the policies that are coming forth.

Jessie LopezItem 4

and I think ultimately I would like for us to get back to the two attorneys and one paralegal, again, because I like the idea of having our own in-house personnel. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you. I believe we have somebody, do we have one of the council members online that wishes to speak?

Council member, go ahead.

Yes, thank you, Mayor Sarmiento.

I totally agree with council member Ty's right, recommendations and it's very important that we do not leave our city unprotected. And for that reason, I will second her motion to continue these services for another year.

And then we can look to see if there are any changes that need to be made. So I will second that motion. Thank you.

Thank you, council member. Any other questions or comments? Mayor Pro Tem.

Phil BacerraItem 4

Thank you, Mayor. Well, one thing I'm looking at just on the agenda here, it says for a three-year period for this agreement from July 1, 2022. Why are we seeing the agreement now and not before July 1?

Well, actually, sir, the current agreement expires September 30, so it's actually October. I don't know where that July 1 came from.

Phil BacerraItem 4

That's what we see on the agenda.

Phil BacerraItem 4

Well, if it is October, then you guys are ahead of the game. Thank you.

Phil BacerraItem 4

I want to echo some of the comments that you've already heard up here in the sense that, you know, I think that, you know, with the Police Oversight Commission, it will be a good opportunity for the community to review these policies. That's the intention. And that will be coming. So with Lexapol, because we are using them now, I think it would not be a good idea for us to just abruptly stop using this service. There was a policy that I had a concern with, and I asked for it to be reviewed by the council. There was one a couple of months prior to that that council member Hernandez asked to have reviewed by the council.

Phil BacerraItem 4

As seven policymakers, we can always review these policies. So it's not that we can't review them. I mean, it's the fact that maybe there's concern that maybe Lexapol has a philosophy that differs from some folks here on the dais, and that's a fair thing, but ultimately the council should be reviewing these if they have concerns. And to PD's credit, they're all available online. When I was concerned about a certain policy, I didn't have to ask DC to look it up for me. I can just go online myself and do it. So the information is available to the community, but I do think to just abruptly not approve this contract

Phil BacerraItem 4

would not be responsible. But I think the sentiment of just given where it seems like the trajectory we are on to adopt a police oversight commission, maybe it would be prudent for us to just go ahead and move this item for a one-year extension for now and to have it returned back to us. in nine months, assuming that if we have an Oversight Commission, great. If not, then we can look at what we need to do going forward. But assuming we will have one by that point, I think it would not be a bad idea just to extend this for at least one year. So I know Council Member Mendoza had mentioned she had seconded a motion,

Phil BacerraItem 4

but I don't believe any of my colleagues made a motion. So I'll go ahead and just for the sake of it, I'll make a substitute motion. I know Council Member Hernandez recommended not approving it. I'm going to make a sub motion that we go ahead and approve it for one year.

Go ahead. We may have some other council members. So if it's a question to his motion, do you have a question to his motion?

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

Yes. I actually do have a technical question for this. I know we talked about a one year, but obviously the proposal is for three. Does that, I mean, we don't know if they'll be okay with the one year instead of three year term.

That's correct. In the proposal that's in front of you today, most of the costs and expenses are to create that same training platform and policy platform in our custodial environment at our city jail. And that's why those costs are in there. Usually a one-year extension would not meet the threshold of coming here to council today.

So most of the items on this contract are to expand those services into our jail to be consistent as an entire department to hold all our people accountable under the same policies and procedures versus having jail policies, jail procedures, police policies, and police procedures.

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

Sorry, my question was really more, is Lexapol going to be okay with a one-year term is my point.

They will be.

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

Okay. Thank you.

So give me one second.

So we have a substitute motion. Actually, Council Member Hernandez's motion was never seconded. So, you know, there isn't a motion on the floor because it didn't have a second. So we have a motion to limit this contract to one year versus three. That's the only departure, my understanding, is from what's recommended by staff. So we have a motion and a second for that. Let me go ahead and just make sure we circulate to see if there's any other council members that wish to speak on this topic. Yes, Mr. Mayor. Give me one second because I haven't spoken. Excuse me. One second, council member. I apologize. Anybody else? Okay.

So let me speak to this and I'll come back around. We need to wind this up just because we have another item that we have a lot of speakers on as well. So we have a motion in a second to limit this to three years. You can sit down, Deputy Chief. Thank you. I am not going to be supporting this and I'm disappointed because, look, you know, we've gone without and we've actually outsourced work like this to other consulting firms and other attorneys. If we need another two, you know, a set of two attorneys and paralegals to do work like this, we do that for cases all the time.

In fact, if you look and do the math, this contract, the value of this contract, I believe, is...

What are we asking for for this? It's $169,000, $170,000. That could retain for a year probably some outside counsel to help us with this training. So we used to do this before. when I got here on the council, we used to do our own policy procedures and we tailored it to our community needs. And that is something that I think that all of us want to see, is anytime you outsource this to an outside consulting firm, whether it's police training, police policy, anything, it's always missed because they're doing it from an outsider's point of view. You're not doing it in-house and you're not doing it to community standards.

So I'm disappointed that this is something that we're finally thinking, hey, the sky's going to fall, look, we have a training manual. It'll get us through and we can go ahead and find somebody to go ahead and work with us to do that. Second thing is in 2020 when Lexapol had to be called and contacted because they were interpreting the reasonable use of force differently than what the California legislature had dictated with AB 392, it took several meetings that I had to take with the city manager, with the community to get those letters drafted to get that clarified. So look, I do not have confidence in them.

And this cannot be the only way to go. So I will not be supporting this. I'm disappointed because look, if you do the math, 24 million dollars in money is paid for settlements for bad police practices. That doesn't mean police are bad. That just means that training is not good. And that goes at the root of what we're talking about. So to the extent that we should be looking at better training, better police policies, better direction, we should do that in house. So if we were to say let's carve out a little bit of that money, let's bring it back in house, let's bring it back inside.

If we have to pay for attorneys in our city attorney's office to do that, that's what we should do. That is money well spent. That's money invested to make sure that the standards that we're going to be training our officers for reflect our community needs. Lexapol does this for many other cities. That doesn't mean that we have similar circumstances in other cities. So 95% of law enforcement agencies in California use Lexapol, but we're not like those 95%. We're not like the other 33 cities in this county. We are very unique, and we have different challenges. So I'm disappointed.

I wish we could go another way, but that'll be for another council and another time to decide this, but I will not be supporting the motion. That said, Councilmember Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I fully concur with your comments. I'm proud to serve on this body of government here in the beautiful city of Santa Ana. And here on this council, we have a very diverse set of opinions that often differ. But there are a number of challenges that we are facing as a department, many of which the public are aware of. There is the challenge of leadership, and of course there is the challenge of now Lexapol. It's costing taxpayers $24.5 million over the last 10 years.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

If there's any evidence here, and your policymakers are voting yes on that, then is this really a fiduciary responsibility to protect the city? when it's continuously costing us in lawsuits, whether it be for excessive use of force or an officer-involved shooting, or if it's the continuous items that are brought to us in closed session. It is costly to you as taxpayers, and these elected officials who are on this body of government have a responsibility to represent you, many of which these leaders that I serve alongside said they would govern and

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

create policies that reflected transparency and equity. Now before we take this vote and before I make my sub motion let me tell you who their training instructor is and what type of substance is being taught. The training webinar instructor Bruce Payet said quote unquote I don't understand why cops have this inherent need to take bloody photographs of suspects after they get into a fight or whatever with the bad guy. You guys are taking photos of this guy when they look like their face has been through a meat grinder. Their white shirt is crimson red and you're snapping color pictures.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

Stop it. Clean it up. Clean them up. There's a simple formula you all need to commit to in this memory. Red turns to green at the time of trial. If there's blood in the photo you're going to pay money. As evidenced in the last 10 years the city of Santa Ana's paid twenty four point five million dollars. I would like to make a sub motion for us to continue this item and for our staff to bring back alternatives and that those alternatives feature our police department going into the communities that they're paid to serve and getting community input throughout this

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

time that we're looking for alternatives. That is my sub-motion, Mr. Mayor.

Great. Thank you. I'll go ahead and second that motion. And if there's no other discussion, I think all of us have had a chance to speak.

Phil BacerraItem 4

Just one quick question. DC, if you would mind, when did we start using this entity, Lexable?

We started the implementation in early 2014, I believe. It was in 2013-2014 that we started, but it was a slow rollout period that our policies probably didn't come into play, most of them, not until about 2018, 2017-2018.

Phil BacerraItem 4

And was this?

2020.

Phil BacerraItem 4

Okay, so was this, I mean, just our agreement, our city's agreement with Lexibor, was that something that was done just with PD, or did that come to the council for a decision?

I would have to get back to you on that one. I was not aware of how that process worked back then in 2013, whether it was here at Council or not.

Phil BacerraItem 4

Okay. No, I appreciate that. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Seeing no other questions or comments, let's go ahead and vote on the substitute motion presented by Councilmember Hernandez and seconded by me.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

the substitute motion is to continue yes to continue the item and for staff to bring back alternative options to Lexapol and that those options also include community input from the residents

Council member Mendoza, can you voice your vote for the sub-situ motion?

My vote is yes, thank you.

Council member Peñalosa, can you voice-

David PenalozaItem 4

This is just to continue, is there a time, council member Hernandez, is it 30 days or?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

Yes, for staff to bring this item back to us within 30 days with alternatives and with community input. That would be the addition.

David PenalozaItem 4

I'm okay with that. I'm a yes.

Motion passes by unanimous consent.

Thank you, everybody. Moving along to the next item.

This is item number 25. Let me go ahead and make some brief remarks and letting you know that the hearing is on item number 25.

This is for ordinance number 2022-1. It is on the medicinal cannabis and retail consumption lounges and temporary events. This is basically to take a look at the ordinance once again on cannabis. I'm going to go ahead and open the public hearing and ask staff if there is a presentation, and then I'll go ahead and call on members of the public that wish to speak on this item.

Thank you, Mayor. We do have a brief presentation. Go ahead. The regulation of legal cannabis has been in existence in Santa Ana since 2014, beginning with the medicinal use under Measure BB, and has continued to evolve in the market, with the market and the industry as well as state regulations to maintain the city's leadership and looking forward on future trends. City staff have routinely brought forward ordinance updates for considering by City Council. The proposed action before the City Council tonight will update the existing key cannabis regulations in the city

to address changes and updates to be consistent with state cannabis regulations to maintain the city's competitiveness and foothold on the industry through streamlining our process and regulations, reducing the tax rate on the supply side, allowing for consumption activities to occur within the city, increasing the number of storefronts in the city, and enhancing social equity and community benefits measures.

The City Council conducted a work study session regarding the draft ordinance on July 29th of this year. At the meeting, the Council received input from the community and industry and stakeholders and provided direction on a number of key topics to staff including administrative amendments, retail and consumption activities, temporary events, tax rates, as well as community benefits and social equity measures. As a follow-up to the study session, staff continue to receive input and feedback from the various commenters that spoke at the meeting.

The changes in the proposed ordinance tonight can be largely categorized into four broad categories, including retail and consumption activities, community benefits and social equity measures, financial reductions, administrative updates, which I will be going over in the next few slides.

The key retail consumption amendments include allowing up to five additional retail storefronts for a total of 35 and using a phase selection approach beginning with priority for entities on the 2014 waitlist established under Measure BB. And subsequently, four entities rank under the recreational selection process in late 2017 early 2018 before going to the open market this phase approach we feel is will facilitate the cities in terminating the measure BB wait lists and then

beginning in 2023 the regulation will also allow retailer to relocate within the green zone map which will also be adopting as part of this update a unique feature of this ordinance is to allow retailers to offer consumption up to half a gram of cannabis products for instructional purpose giving our retailers another option in place of opening a full consumption lounge lounge as proposed retailer will also be able to host up to two temporary consumption events per calendar year subject to a land use certificate process and

implementation of older and air fuel tank control and operational safety measures.

Under the proposed ordinance and responsive to council's direction, the city could host Cannabis Festival and events throughout the calendar year and limiting participation to only legal cannabis businesses that are already operating in the city. The ordinance will also allow for both medicinal and adult retail use to donate cannabis in accordance with state law to eligible medical patients, including veterans with medical conditions under Senate Bill 34.

Related to community benefits and social equity, under the current regulations, it's important to note that all of our community benefit plans and operating agreements will sunset this December 31st, 2022. The new requirements would implement a 1% mandatory minimum spending requirement of the gross annual income earnings on community benefit, social equity, and sustainable business practices. The proposed phase in period will be over two years beginning with half a percent in 2024 and finally the full 1% in 2025.

To restate the proposed program will be mandatory beginning in 2024 and will require each operator to submit an annual spending plan allocating a minimum of 1% of the gross revenue to specified activities with measurable goals and objectives in each of the following categories and these category includes local hiring from disadvantaged and environmental justice justice tracts in the city paying above the minimum wage local sourcing contributing to local charitable organizations occupational related employee training and safety equipment and services

development of a skilled and trained workforce working with recognized labor apprenticeships, or state programs such as the High Road Training Partnership, as defined by the State Unemployment Insurance Code. And finally, the seventh item is a sustainable business practice, an example energy and water safety measures as part of their operational requirements. So, again, the funding in each of these curricularies with measurable goals and objectives is mandatory. I think it's important for us to note that.

The qualifying social equity and community benefit measures have been structured to mirror those defined by the state incentive programs under SB 1336 and AB 195. So, depending on the level of commitment of the plan committed by the operator, a business using our structure can also qualify, potentially qualify for tax credit program under the state tax credit bills that was completed as part of the trailer bill on the budget this year by the state. Finally, the requirement of this program I implement by resolution, which means that

it can be modified as needed to keep pace with our community values and local economic conditions.

Additional, the key financial amendments of this ordinance include lowering the taxes for the supply-side cannabis businesses to 1% and respectively lowering the price per square by a similar amount to reflect the same change as proposed for the tax rate. Addressing micro-businesses and shared manufacturing facility in the local tax code will also maintain financial incentives for vertically and horizontally integrated businesses. The amendments to the three chapters currently 18, 21, 40

will not lower the retail taxes for both medicinal and adult use, which are currently at 6% and 8%, respectively. Additional administrative items as part of this ordinance include eliminating the local batch requirement and only requiring compliant state law for batch display by the businesses, eliminating the live scan requirement for everyone except business owner. This measure is both a streamlining measure as well as a social equity measure intended to address prior discriminatory practices towards those in the cannabis industry.

The ordinance will consolidate all medical and recreational regulations from Chapter 18 into Chapter 40 for streamlining and ease of navigation of our regulations. It will require all pending cannabis retail businesses to submit plans so that they can open within one year of the effect of the ordinance. It will also readapt our cannabis map by resolution with no changes to the 1,000-foot buffer, but includes certain properties of industrial nature added to the map. And I'll be going over the map in the next few slides.

So on this current map here, the added areas include existing site developed of industrial office nature along Harbor and Sunflower Avenue, as you can see indicated by the circle in red. The left-hand side is the existing map and the right-hand side is the one that's proposed to have the additional area. And as you can see, the additional area continues to respect the current 1,000-foot radius from parks, schools, and residential properties. The following map, in this following map, this map shows that it will include the existing

office development along Alton Avenue and Red Hill and then the Brook Hollow Business Park.

I think it's key to note again that these locations are all within the existing areas of what we call the Green Zone map currently. They are not venturing outside of the existing buffer zones. And finally, this map shows this is the midsection of the city along the east border. It includes the McFadden Place, Pacific Center, SD, specific development area, and then again, this also shows the Brook Hollow Business Park.

In conclusion, it is recommended tonight that the City Council conduct a first reading of the ordinance as well as adopting the two resolution, approving the tax rate, commercial cannabis area maps, the number of retail storefronts, the number of temporary events, and the community benefit and social equity programs as outlined in your staff report. That concludes the staff's report. I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you for that presentation, Director Tye. Let me go ahead and call on members of the public now that have submitted cards of speak on this public hearing. And as I mentioned earlier, you can go ahead and use the three minutes, but I think if you want to be concise, it'll be very welcome at this time. We have a number of people who want to address us, and we have some members of the public online as well that are going to be addressing us. So let me begin with Avery Wilson, followed by Ray Iskander, followed by Jonathan Garcia.

Hello, my name is Avery Wilson. I'm a member of the UFC 324. I'm a shop steward in a legal cannabis industry. The industry has helped me achieve knowledge, understanding, and safe access to medical marijuana. I'm here today to ask the city council to support lower cannabis retail taxes for businesses that meet labor standards. To start, I'd like to share why by lowering taxes can be beneficial to medical patients, like myself. Growing up, I was around a lot of family members who abused substances as well as other addictions. In my early years of high school, I started to develop symptoms of psychosis,

which is when the brain interprets things that aren't real. With the use of straight marijuana, I blocked out the things I would hear and see. A few years after high school, my mental state was not flourishing, and I was always smoking just to numb everything. When I arrived to work in the industry, I was flooded with a lot of health information as well as shocking benefits from specific terpenes. When I realized I can target my issues specifically with certain strains, I started my research. I eventually found specific strains to help reduce sinus pressure, which helps with my chronic migraines,

as well as certain strains with extra CBD to help with pain management. My access to proper and regulated medicine has aided my struggles, so it helps me target my specific ailments instead of just being numb to everything. Lowering taxes helps make sure that cannabis users like myself can access medicine at a more affordable price. By incentivizing businesses towards increasing average minimum wages with these tax breaks, we are incentivizing more consistency and job security. Plus, increasing the time an employee works in one clinic can help build individual relationships

with medical patients, which can help provide an educated and trusted environment for people to retrieve their medicine. If we set the minimum wage standards to 115 percent, it would create more incentives to be happier at work. I know that when I feel appreciated in such a way, I feel more inclined to put more effort at work in my community. With these types of standards, we'll have to make these jobs into careers. At my job, which is primarily a delivery operation, we've had to fight for 40 cents per mile reimbursement, which is 22 cents below the current mile standards set by the IRS.

That means a lot of our drivers aren't receiving enough money to cover the operation of their vehicles, so this push can help a lot of people. Our proposals help create a leverage and a more level playing field for employers that want to do the right thing. Increasing these standards can aid in living comfortably and not just from paycheck to paycheck. In these trying times, we need as many people to be able to support themselves as possible. We should also include removing back-trapping checks for new employees. We must not exclude the people who are willing to work with medicine that's being used for healing.

To conclude, this push isn't just for me or my fellow coworkers, but for all the future employees of the industry. We are not trap houses. We are not underground businesses. We are legal workers in a growing industry. Let's push the industry past the cusp of surviving and into comfortable thriving. Thank you for your time and attention. Thank you.

Ray Eskander, followed by Jonathan Garcia, followed by Francisco Salala. So if you guys can all just start lining up, that way we can get through this a little quicker. Go ahead. Sorry about that, Ray.

Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, City Council, City Staff, everybody who's been involved in this entire process, we want to say thank you for letting us speak, letting us explain our industry, letting us explain how our current woes in our industry is changing every day. My name is Ray Escander. I own a company called Bud Technology. We're a local distributor here in Santa Ana. I also belong to the OCAA, who's also a group of people who are owners of this industry. And we've been able to take the time and educate everybody here in this building, as well as the city, on what does cannabis mean, how does it work, how does it integrate,

and all the different entities that are within it. I do want to say that we appreciate this new ordinance, 2022-1, and all the changes that you made after many hours, weeks, days of education, explanation, debate by the industry staff and city council. We finally have an ordinance that meets the industry's current needs and also has the ability to change as our industry changes and effects by our neighbors around us that are coming into what we'll call competition. We appreciate the fact that this now will become a resolution so that the city can act quickly.

If there are changes in the future regarding retail tax, which we know has been a very, very hot topic, but we do want you to know that as things change, that this ordinance also gives us an opportunity to change the resolution so that you as a city can make changes effectively and quickly so it doesn't stump our current operators by adding those five licenses and having more dispensaries in the city. As a distributor, as soon as news spread, I can honestly attest today that we actually have two new customers that we never would have had unless this ordinance changed. So we appreciate that you listen to us.

The 1% tax rate will help us. It will keep us from going into bankruptcy. We've literally been trying to keep our doors open and effectively as a city, the city staff, and you as city council, we appreciate what you've done so far and we hope that you'll just support the ordinance and vote in a month. Thank you.

Thank you. Jonathan Garcia followed by Francisco Savala followed by Laura Mueller.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen of the council. My name is Jonathan Garcia. I'm actually here with my brother Isaac Garcia for both born and raised Ward 5. I still live there, Ward 5. I just want to thank you for the opportunity to speak on this subject. It's very important to us. I am a veteran of the United States Air Force where I obtained a top secret security clearance. Had extreme broad knowledge in working in the cannabis tech industry now for the past 10 years. And my brother is actually an attorney, graduated from UC Hastings College of Law and actually

went to Berkeley as well. So we're actually here because we've just recently founded a company, Yerba LLC, and a grassroots company. So from here, born and raised here, still live here. And we're in the process now of attempting to actually open this. The first part of this being a cannabis consumption lounge that we look at as being part of what the community is and what we've seen be built by you all and by ourselves, which is participating in that with all the arts that are here within the city having said that we've run into a couple of hurdles primarily on

the amount and number of permits that are allowed we see that of course there is the addition of the five that are coming but with that is also the elimination of the wait list which in essence really will occupy those five as well potentially so one of the things that we've looked at and actually hope to propose to the council really is not necessarily the additional permitting but maybe even looking at what is the separation of a consumption lounge and what that is called as a permit itself and the addition of potentially permits allocated to those lounges themselves. We don't necessarily see there needing to

be a tie and again myself having been in the industry for over ten years now to a consumption lounge and a dispensary and we actually see there as an opportunity to actually bring in more revenue for the city itself and for the entities themselves should there be and they be treated separately. The second hurdle that we're also seeing is really the restriction, the zoning restriction imposed on what would be the consumption. Again this time back to the separation or what we're looking at as being the separation of the two entities. We're really hoping actually being able to adopt this within you know

downtown the Santa Ana area. You know partaking in the art walk and basically what is the the lifestyle of what we've built here as a city um and then the last the last part i'll be quick as well because i'm uh is really just the the lowering of the taxation i think that there's really no no way for us collectively as an organization as an entity within cannabis to even function uh with the the rate that we're we're at we're taxed at right now and i think because we have been the forefathers uh as in santa anna and we do want to be that hub and also

downtown Orange County, downtown cannabis, we do really need to look at what is the consideration

of lowering that taxation. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Thank you. Francisco Zavala, followed by Laura Mueller, followed by Sabrina Eiler. Good evening. My name is Francisco Zavala.

I live here in the city of Santana, and I am here representing Hermandad Mexicana.

Benjamin Franklin once said, nothing is certain but death and taxes. We in Hermandad Mexicana are in support of the USCW tax break proposal. This would provide fair wages, better benefits, and expand labor rights within the cannabis industry. We can use the revenue saved from the tax break on our workers and our communities who have been affected by the war on drugs. And at the same time, we must address the ongoing racial disparities in the cannabis industry. In Armada Mexicana, we believe that our community should have confidence to buy legal unionized shops in the city of Santana and Orange County. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Laura Mueller, followed by Sabrina Eiler, followed by Jairo Cortes.

Hello. My name is Laura Mueller. I work as a bud tender in the Catalyst Santa Ana location, and I am a member of the UFCW Cannabis Workers Union. I'm also a lifelong resident of Santa Ana. I've lived off of McFadden and Euclid for most of my life. I am here to encourage you as city council to lower the retail taxes for cannabis for employers that meet basic labor standards. I believe that lowering retail taxes is important because it makes the cannabis more affordable and accessible to the community.

I have a couple of stories that I want to share with you in which cannabis has impacted me and my family's life in such a positive way. My uncle, unfortunately, suffered from alcoholism. In about 2015, he broke his foot and, of course, was given pharmaceutical medication. He was dizzy, felt sick, nauseous. I couldn't really stand to see him like that, so I offered him some cannabis. And instantly, he felt better. and most importantly he actually stopped drinking. My second story is about me. I suffer from, well suffered from sleep insomnia and anxiety growing up. I couldn't get a full eight hours

of sleep and I remember the first time I did smoke cannabis I did finally get like a full hour, a full eight hours of sleep. Finally in working for the cannabis industry I have come to see another side of it. Unfortunately during the pandemic I lost my job. I was considering leaving Santa Ana completely because I knew I couldn't afford the high cost of living without any income. However, I was I applied and was given a job at Catalyst. Since then with my employer and our union contract I have seen regular wage increases and benefits that have allowed me to stay in my home

city. I know that for many people in the industry this isn't realistic. So that is why I ask that we at least make sure to lower tax rates to businesses that take care of their workers and the community. This will help make sure that people like me who grew up here in Santa Ana have opportunities to stay, work, and thrive in this industry. Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to speak here today. Light, love, and lower taxes for us all. Thank you. Weed for the people.

Thank you. Sabrina Eilert followed by Jairo Cortes followed by Maria.

Good evening. My name is Sabrina and I'm an inventory manager at Catalyst Santa Ana and a shop steward at my shop with my union UFCW324. At my job, we offer living wage jobs, health benefits, paid vacation, sick time, holiday pay, and participate in community cleanups. This upcoming Sunday, September 25th at 9 a.m., we will be doing a block cleanup around our shop in Santa Ana. We have flyers available with a QR code to scan for more information. We'd love to see you there. Although we are making these positive impacts, we continue to struggle with high taxes.

While competitors in the black market and legal market aren't making the same steps to invest in their employees or community, we need to work together and shift our focus on how we can filter the money back into our communities. As a Santana resident, I encourage you to allow access to consumers to have a safe space so they can learn more about the products that they are consuming. Cannabis lounges, festival events, farmers markets, and holistic centers would be great to get everyone involved and educated. It is also important that the businesses that run these events and spaces are responsible

members of our community, so I'd encourage you to make sure that they meet the same labor standards I have mentioned as well as my fellow co-workers. There are many facets to this plant and not just the benefits of consuming it. Alcohol has taken lives for many, many years, yet remains more affordable and accessible to our people. We appreciate you taking the human cannabis relationship seriously in health science and public policy. Knowledge is power. It allows us to network and give us more of an enlightening approach to what once used to be such a dark market. Let's get creative with cannabis and make a positive impact for us

all. Weed for the people. Thank you.

Thank you. Jairo Cortes followed by Maria followed by Alexis Medina.

Good evening Mr. Mayor and members of the council. I'm Jairo Cortes, I'm executive director at Chispa. I'm here to speak on item 25 in support of UFCW's proposal to tie lower taxes taxes for cannabis retail operators to clear commitments to good quality jobs for their employees and commitments to support the local community. Year after year, CHISPA staff and members join you in this chamber to advocate for more good-paying city-funded jobs for young people in Santana. Often these opportunities are paid for by the city's cannabis tax revenues, and for

us and the young people we advocate with, it is imperative that Santana's cannabis industry continues to reflect the city's commitment to good paying jobs for young people. And when young people in their 20s make up a significant section of cannabis workers, the following things in UFCW's proposal become a no-brainer for us. We're fully in support on ensuring that employers pay their employees at least 115% of the minimum wage, offer the majority of workers full-time hours, provide on-the-job paid training opportunities, and commit to hiring at least 40% of their employees from low-income neighborhoods in Santana.

The cannabis industry can continue providing pathways to low-income families in Santana, and so we encourage you to adopt the proposals shared by UFCW members and leadership. Thank you.

Thank you. Maria, followed by Alexis Medina, followed by Anthony Medina.

And then Sandra Medina.

This is my grandmother, Maria Morales. She is here to support the tax reduction and to help support our union workers, our cannabis workers here in Santana. She says that it is well-deserved and that...

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and I don't have any money. She was sharing about her own experience with cannabis and how it has helped her tremendously with her arthritis. Again, advocating to lower tax so that way she herself can access it since she has no financial means to truly get it on her own without the support of family such as myself. it does wonders for her health. Thank you. Thank you.

Muchas gracias. Alexis Medina followed by Anthony Medina, followed by Sandra Medina.

Hi, good evening or good night. I'm almost getting there. My name is Alexis Medina and I am a Santanera and a local but tender. When my grandmother immigrated her family to the city 45 years ago, she envisioned a life where access to better health, education, and living standards would provide the foundations for us to thrive, and not just simply survive. From walking a couple streets over to La Cuatro with her as a little girl, to now walking her to her first city council meeting, this This is the generational support and community that represents who we are as a city.

We are here this evening to advocate in favor of lowering the cannabis tax to ensure better access and benefits to our community. I am a proud union member of UFCW324 at a unionized cannabis dispensary in Santana. Through my experience as a bud tender, I genuinely find so much joy in sharing my education and passion for cannabis with those in my community. While navigating cannabis can be overwhelming for many, it is an essential role to help those who can benefit from cannabis, whether it be our elders, cancer patients such as myself,

or to our everyday guys, gals, and non-binary pals. Here we go, how we go about policy in cases like this is how we take care of one another. In order for us to better serve our community. It is important that we make sure that the reduction in taxes also benefits us as workers and the community at large. We need to make sure that the businesses that benefit from this tax reduction also benefit our community and are also investing in our community as a whole. We need to hold them up to providing better labor standard representation and access. While my career in bud tending has provided me with the means to

financially support myself, along with access to health insurance to help my mental and medical health. There is still so much that can be done to better those in and out of the industry. So let's start with the 32% tax because sheesh, my goodness, I wouldn't be exaggerating to say that a big chunk of those who come to the shop oftentimes walk out empty handed due to the hefty tax. This in return makes it harder for locals to access the recreational and medicinal health that cannabis products have to offer. Both behind and in front of the register, supporting lower retail taxes to Santana

businesses that meet basic labor standards, like paying 115% of minimum wage, giving workers opportunities to work full time, and provide career advances and opportunities are a few ways that we can benefit. it. As a proud, brown, queer, Santanera who is currently undergoing cancer treatments, I firmly stand with our local cannabis community, industry, and union here in Santana.

Thank you. Anthony Medina, followed by Sandra Medina, followed by Shelly McKay.

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to say thank you guys so much for listening to us today. like many of you I'm just here to support my family as well sorry to support my family as well especially my sister I know working in the cannabis industry can be something that sometimes is uncertain especially with the way policies regulations and everything's up in the air still being developed I know a lot of people sometimes fear for the careers of being blacklisted in other industries especially in government and or high up industries as well just speaking for myself I have been like a user of cannabis as well for many years

and it has helped me with my anxiety my insomnia and my overall stress and I truly believe that there's many benefits and I would I know someone had mentioned that they would it would provide safe spaces for people who consume cannabis and I feel like that would be a really beneficial aspect to this as well. Growing up my family wasn't very supportive of cannabis. We have gone through, we've had to make many, break many generational curses. Me and my sister had gone through a lot. There's been many times where sometimes we couldn't go back home and just sleep in our own bed.

It's very hard going through high school, going through college, going through all the other disadvantages that we have to go through as minorities and it can vary, it just weighs on you very much and I know that, sorry.

Take your time.

I know that just having a safe space where you can just do what you please, some people like a cigarette, some people like a beer, some people like a joint and I know that I I love my city. I'm very proud. I've been living here all my life for 25 years in Santa Ana. And I know that if there was a place I could have gone to somewhere in downtown Santa Ana or anywhere else, that would have been great. Somewhere I felt space, I could have done what I needed to do to relax and not feel like I had to be ashamed of who I was just to get the benefits, help that I needed.

And I feel like that's just something that would tremendously help people because it would transition the way people view cannabis. It won't be something that's very taboo. It would be something that's more approved of, and I feel like that would just start the snowball effect of rolling towards better policies, better perspective, and overall a better view and safety for users as well. Thank you.

Thank you. Sandra Medina followed by Shelly McKay followed by Jonathan Edwards.

Good evening. My name is Sandra Medina. I've been a resident of Sanana for over 43 years. So I've been here since I was the age of five. So normally I got my education. And as a mother, there's been a lot of times that I have agreed and disagreed towards this. But I just want to know and let everybody know I'm very proud of my two sons. One graduated from UCI, the other one from Chapman. And I'm very proud even though I know what they consume. Like my son said, a lot of times we had arguments kicked out from the house for the same reason, but now they're back home, and I'm here supporting them.

And as a Mexican mother, we always stand by the family. So that's something I'm very proud of. And just one thing I would love, it's like taxes. Right now it's very high cost of living. So as a mother, I know they're going through hard times, and having those tax rate, it's ridiculous because it's hard to afford a lot of things. And like my daughter mentioned, she's going through a cancer. And is there something that's helping her? I mean, there's a solution for everything. And I would love to take consideration and always back up the new generation

because some people are fighting their own battles and they're still fighting for others. So I just want to say thank you.

Thank you. Shelly McKay followed by Jonathan Edwards followed by Elliot Lewis.

Good evening Mayor Sarmiento and council members. My name is Shelly McKay. My husband and I are fractional owners of Cannabis Works Dispensary in Santa Ana. I currently run our Cannabis Compassion Program via SB34 and serve as cannabis educator. I also serve on the board of OC Normal and also as director of compassion for LA Normal. As a business owner in Santa Ana, I want to thank you for taking the time to listen to the comments I have regarding the proposed amendment to allow 35 retail licenses to sell both medicinal and adult-use cannabis. SB 34, or the Dennis Perrone and Brownie Mary Act, has allowed for compassionate donations

to patients in need. California's legal cannabis regulations, coupled with Prop 64, had the unintended consequence of eliminated access for many low-income, terminally ill, and chronically ill patients who rely on medical cannabis provided through charitable compassion programs that were in place under Prop 215. When SB 34 was signed by the governor in 2019, this then allowed us licensed dispensary retailers to donate cannabis to patients in need. Cannabis Works launched its first donation to 20 veterans on March 1, 2020.

To date, we have hosted 22 events, and our patient list has grown to over 200 at each event. The time it takes to coordinate and the diligence needed for the required recordkeeping necessary to host these events is no easy task. For each SB34 event we host, it requires staff time to execute it. We are in need of more retailers to contribute to SB34, not only because of the burden it puts on the couple that are doing it, but most importantly, to establish and sustain a community benefit in Santa Ana. Cannabis Works offers education for our patients as well as community-based support groups,

and by offering free medical cannabis to patients, this effectively reduces current massive out-of-pocket expenses for patients. We understand patients are in the most price sensitive and often rely on the legacy market. SB 34 then has become a way to reduce the size of the legacy market by eliminating the patient's need to patronize it. To date, the only other dispensary offering an SB 34 program in Santa Ana is the pharmacy as well as, of course, us. There are at least four other dispensaries in Santa Ana that would like to participate in SB 34 but cannot.

I'm simply requesting that you allow for all licensed dispensaries in the city of Santa Ana to sell both medicinal and adult-use cannabis Lastly I want to comment on retail taxes I realize that Santa Ana staff does not recommend an adjustment the city's retail tax revenue continues to grow simply because Santa Ana has been the city that Has basically monopolized the cannabis sales so with Costa Mesa currently on the verge of opening up retail stores with a 7% tax rate and no cap, this would most definitely have an impact on Santa Ana retailers. I would kindly ask you to revisit this sooner than a year from now. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Jonathan Edwards, followed by Elliot Lewis, followed by Danielle.

Good evening, Mayor Saramento, City Council members and staff. My name is Jonathan Edwards, and I'm a resident of Ward 4, and I've worked in the city's cannabis industry for five years. Three of those years at a unionized dispensary and for the last year and a half I've been a shop steward with the UFCW Local 324. What I'm here to ask for today is that you keep the health of our industry and its workers and consumers in mind as you consider changes to regulations. The reality is that legal cannabis as an industry is failing and this is largely because it's being suffocated by unnecessarily high taxes across the board.

The Associated Press wrote an article about the black market here in California and found that it is estimated to bring in $8 billion, roughly double what the legal market brings in. This is simply due to the fact it's cheaper. Why pay upwards of $80 after taxes for something you can get for $35 at a black market shop? By lowering taxes, we can be more competitive with this growing illegal market that threatens everything we stand for. I work for Catalyst here in Santa Ana, which is part of UFCW. As a unionized worker, I have many benefits that other cannabis workers do not.

Currently I'm making $18.50 an hour as a bud tender and in December that goes up a dollar. I also have vacation, sick time, holiday pay and healthcare. However, non-union shops regularly see wages at minimum wage with few or any benefits. I have spoken with workers from shops like Planet 13 and Peoples to name a few and I've been told that they rarely get raises or benefits except what is required by law. And even then that's not always the case. So not only are responsible companies like mine competing against illegal businesses, we are also competing against other multi-million dollar operators like Planet 13

that don't meet the basic labor standards we're advocating for. So what we, myself and other union members, are here asking for today is an opt-in retail tax break for businesses that invest in their workers and surrounding community. We are asking that you include our recommendations for a minimum 2% retail tax relief to legal shops that also align with the proposed labor standards put forth by UFCW, including paying 115% minimum wage, majority of workers at full time, IRS reimbursement for miles driven, 40% local hiring, and provide on-the-job training for advancements within our industry.

But really, 2% doesn't go far enough to address the issues at hand, but it is a start. We really need larger tax breaks, like 4% to 6%, to truly to be able to beat the virus to our industry that is the black market. I'd also like you to keep in mind that with lower taxes means lower prices, which will incentivize customers to shop at legal shops with labor standards versus going to the black market, which will translate into more sales and even more tax revenue and better working conditions for industry employees. And with the possibility of consumption lounges, it's just another source of legal cannabis for our residents.

And combine that with the increase of sales due to lower taxes and prices can help offset any potential decrease in tax revenue from businesses who opt in by maintaining labor and social equity standards set forth in the ufcw proposal i thank you all for your hard work and i look forward to seeing santana continue to be a leader in this industry and for this industry its workers and community to thrive thank you thank you elliot lewis followed by danielle followed by derek smith i'm elliot lewis catalyst ceo first i just want to applaud all our guys that came up and spoke you guys killed it good job you

know I also want to apply to City Council on the on the first item we made a really big deal about the 24 and a half million dollars over ten years to went out in lawsuits but if you just do the math you're taking that much basically each year from the cannabis industry and really there's no nothing other than inequality that describes why we do it this is a legal business and we're being being treated unequal under the law. I believe cannabis taxes should be drastically reduced. As a pragmatist here today, what are we discussing? I want to support the USCW's plan.

If we can get 2%, we'll take any crumb we can get. We need it badly. I think one of the most common misconceptions that's out there is that cannabis guys are making money. We're getting destroyed. We are not making money. And we do everything we can as an employer to pay a good union contract. One of the hardest things that I've ever had to go through in my entire life is sitting at a table when I know gas prices are up, when I know that rent prices are up, and that I know we're in an inflationary situation, but the money's too tight to give

any more to our workers. And it's not that anybody on the executive staff is taking money. So, you know, if there is a way to even the playing field, I, you know, again, the state is the bigger problem. I do think we should lower taxes across the board. It was never intended that this cannabis this should just be a big money grab and be unequal treatment under the law. But at a minimum, let's look at employers that are trying to do the right thing. We're doing everything we can to do the right thing. The way that we've survived in this industry is just running really tight and really lean.

And some of our competitors, and this is not a judgment, they have, you know, F.U. money, excuse the language. And we just don't. And we're just grinding away, trying to make it happen. And we need any help that we can get, even if it's 2%. that puts us in a position that next time we sit down at the bargaining table, we can get our workers what they deserve. And the other thing I'll say is this. Cannabis, in my life experience, has been something that has brought people that maybe couldn't make it in another job or weren't fashioned for another job. It's an industry of underdogs, and we're taking them in,

and it's something they're passionate about. And about 35%, 40% of our workers that work on our executive staff that are way more valuable than somebody you can get from anywhere else came or started as bud tender as a reception. It is the one place with the most upward mobility for young people or people that maybe don't fit in suit and tie kind of job. So let's at least here tonight recognize that we're doing the best we can. And if there is some tax break on the table, we support the UFCW tax break. We appreciate all your hard work on this. There's been a lot of things in there.

I don't have time to go through them all, SB 34 and everything like that. But at the end of the day, you know, we're just asking for a little crump. Please, can you give it to us so we can do the right thing as the employer? We for the people.

Thank you. Danielle, followed by Derek Smith, followed by Bailey Jones, followed by Luis Aleman.

Good evening. My name is Danielle, and I am from Catalyst Cares, from Catalyst Cannabis Company here in Santa Ana. Catalyst Cares is the community service and policy advocacy branch of Catalyst Cannabis Company. Catalyst Cares is driven by the passion to help enrich the communities surrounding all Catalyst locations while the cannabis side of our company is focused on offering good union jobs with living wages and benefits, prioritizing social equity applicants and selling fireweed at fire prices. That is only the beginning of our movement to transform communities we serve.

Through the Catalyst Ambassador Program, who run the Catalyst for Change programming at each store, Catalyst Care staff and the ambassadors are tasked with managing the following. Conducting open houses, coordinating public cannabis education workshops for patients and consumers. That would be a good spot to put the consumption lounges at and to actually work with that. And to invite the community to come in, to engage with us. And that's what part of our open houses do. So if we have someone coming in like, are you shelling my kids drugs? We'll be like, no ma'am, sir. We're not. This is completely illegal. It's actually medicine.

And we're happy to teach you more about it if you have time to learn about it. We do things like that. That is what Catalyst does. Catalyst is a culture, but the cannabis industry is a community. And I think that seems to be a disconnect just across the board, not just here in Santa Ana, but with the state as a whole. It seems to be disconnected that we have a community to provide and to support and to give. We are here for the people because we are weed for the people. I don't hear anyone else doing that. I don't hear anyone else saying these things and I don't see anyone trying hard enough and to say that we can't lower our

taxes for what reasons but other than that to say that we're not going to seems to be rather sad. Seems to be rather sad. So higher access and lower taxes. Get those consumption lounges in so we could start building communities, so we could actually start building rapport. And maybe that way also you as council members can go and greet your community members and see how well that you can connect with them. Maybe you may not agree with it, but at least you can understand it. And that is going to make a big difference between you and the rest of everyone else.

Weed for the people. Thank you. Derek Smith, followed by Bailey Jones, followed by Luis Aleman, followed by Joshua Skewer.

Good evening, council staff. my name is Derek Smith I'm the political director for UFCW local 324 appreciate your consideration of our perspective as the city contemplates this step I would like to lay out the UFCW proposal that's been referenced we would like to establish a community benefits model for retail operators may choose to opt in if they do so they would need to fulfill number one wages for employees at 115 percent of minimum wage which is $18 with a requirement to go up to 120% within three years. Local hiring of 40% of employees that would need to be met within two

years. We understand that hiring local may be difficult, and so we support any effort from the city to promote local outreach to make this possible. Three, participation in a high road training partnership defined by state law and recognized by the state. If a retail operator meets or exceeds these standards, they will be eligible for a 2% retail tax rebate and should receive priority consideration for the newly established consumption lounges and temporary consumption events should council approve those tonight. We acknowledge that staff has developed

an alternative community benefits model. We believe these two can coexist together and if an operator chooses not to opt in to our proposal,

we see no reason why the city's model should not be applied. We appreciate your consideration, as we all have an interest in the continued success of this industry. Thank you all very much.

Thank you. Bailey Jones, followed by Luis Aleman, followed by Joshua Skinner. I'll get it right.

Hi, my name is Bailey Jones. I'm born and raised in Orange County, currently a Santhana resident. I'm a bud tender at Mr. Nice Guy and member of UFCW324. I've been working as a bud tender for over two years, and I'm here today to make sure that as you update the tax and labor code related to cannabis, that you as a city council members keep us workers in mind. I've spent my free time these past few months visiting shops, reaching out to other workers, both union and non-union, to share about our proposal to improve labor standards in the cannabis industry, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

You've already heard what we've been advocating for. What I'm most excited about our proposal with the union would that would create an actual living wage for me and my peers. Although many people have misperceptions about the cannabis industry, we are truly a business of health. This is a medicine for a lot of people. Being at Bud Tern is often treated as a sales job, and that is not the case. We are providing professional knowledge of cannabis and high-quality, safe and tested products from seed to sale. despite our hard work many of my fellow industry workers struggle to afford to live in santana let

alone orange county the current wage standard in our industry is way too low for the amount of revenue coming in the city is getting 20 million in revenue that means there is more than 250 million in sales our policy helps incentivize the employer to opt in to paying fair wages and making sure that us workers are also profiting. The proposal put forth by our union also include training that will help us create the standards of knowledge and skills in the cannabis industry. I am not alone in my support for the policy proposal. I'm turning in 250 signed petitions

almost exclusively by other workers in the cannabis industry. Other workers will also share with me that they generally make more in sales in a month for the company they work for than what they take home annually in total pay. People are excited to hear that the city council could create an incentive for employers to do better. Today is the opportunity for you all as a city council to lead the way, keep us workers that make this industry run in mind. You'll be hearing from business owners, their lobbyists and lawyers that of course have a lot more resources and revenue than we do as workers.

But we workers stand united before you today so that U.S. City Council and those owners understand that this industry doesn't happen without us. We are the front line of your $20 million generating machine. We are in the trenches where our ball says multimillion dollar company. Don't leave us workers behind when you are updating these laws. Thank you.

Thank you.

Luis Aleman followed by Joshua.

Good afternoon, Mayor Sarmiento and Councilmembers. My name is Luis Salaman and I am speaking here on behalf of the Orange County Labor Federation as well as resident of Santa Ana. We commend your support for item 25. However, we felt that this item is lacking one Q requirement and that is the support of the UFCW measure, right? We've seen Santa Ana be a leader in cannabis over the last 10 years, but over the last two years it's falling behind. We've seen what Costa Mesa has done, we've seen what Long Beach has done in terms providing for the workers in support of the cannabis industry and we want Santa Ana to continue

that process right and like my brother Derek mentioned by creating an opt-in model with this the only with tax breaks in the form of a community modeling a community workforce agreement type scenario you encourage these businesses to do good by their employees to focus on local hire by raising that minimum wage to 18 dollars an hour and therefore increasing standards of living and therefore they can reap those benefits, right? And that's what we're seeing in Santa Ana. Thanks to the cannabis tax over the last couple of years, it's helped Parks and Rec in this city meet at means to do long-needed improvement projects, right?

And we want to continue that in the city of Santa Ana. So we stand full-heartedly behind UFCW's proposal. We feel it's passed through time to encourage cannabis growth in the city that takes into account workers and their needs. And as you can see, there's a council chamber full of folks and others at home that are there supporting workers. So we're encouraging you to adopt item 25 with UFCW's amendment, which we feel it's not in any way conflicting with the original motion. And we stand here in support of the workers and hope that you can do the right thing. Thank you.

Thank you. Joshua is our last in-person speaker, and then we'll go ahead and go to the phone lines and the virtual lines.

Hello, everyone. City Council and everyone here today. I appreciate you all being here and listening to me. I'm a worker in the cannabis industry. I live and work in Ward 4. I love Santa Ana. I love cannabis, and I'm here to advocate for the workers of the industry. I feel that this item 25 is just a giant handout for the owners of the industry. I feel like I, as a worker in the industry and a consumer, am not really greatly helped in any way by anything in it, by the taxes even itself. One 1% is not going to be a huge difference on what I'm purchasing.

I don't have much money to buy stuff, so when I'm buying cannabis, it's going to be really small amounts anyway. So personally, as much as this diverges from the rest of my union, I don't think you guys should lower the taxes at all unless there's things in there that help workers, whether that's minimum hours. like currently at my shop at From the Earth, we just got a new union contract to help protect us, and the owners have been retaliating in ways that they're allowed to legally by cutting hours and by laying people off. My hours personally have been cut, and I'm barely able to afford rent.

I barely was able to afford to be here today. And it's a problem, and I think you guys need to really take the time to make sure that there's something in there that helps us, whether that's raising the minimum wage in the industry, anything you can do to add in there, it really is gonna be essential because I don't see it, again, helping me personally at all. I might not be able to live in this city anymore if there's not any sort of protections. And just to, I guess, add some sort of context to this too, I please, please hope you listen to this wholeheartedly. We're more like a pharmacist than we are like a fast food worker,

but we're treated like fast food workers. as much as I respect fast food workers for what they do, and they are also underpaid, we have to be extremely knowledgeable about this product. We have a lot of personal training that is not provided by the employees that the employees take for granted, and they don't train us on. We know about cannabis in ways that they don't tell us about, that they don't train us on. That helps people get the correct medicine that they need so that they actually get the benefits they need out of cannabis. So it's not just another drug that gets people high.

It's actually a medicine, and it is what it's supposed to be. And the more high turnover rate we have on these jobs, the more unknowledgeable people are replacing us. And the worst products are being sold and promoted. The worst companies are being promoted. and I've noticed, honestly, a drop in the quality of worker rights and worker pay in industries since more cannabis companies have joined the industry and been non-unionized. I definitely noticed unionization helps. I'm not even a union member, and I'm here supporting the union because I know it helps my fellow cannabis employees. Thank you, Speaker. Your time is up.

Thank you very much.

Madam Clerk, I'm going to go ahead and toss it to you. Do we have any members of the public that wish to address this online?

There are four speakers ready to provide comments for public hearing item 25. Before I'm meeting callers, I'll report out the following summary of emails provided. We received five emails from Santa Ana businesses in support of lowering the retail tax rate and one email from a CENAN organization providing various comments and input regarding the item.

Caller, Zoom ID, Candace Haas, please select the microphone icon to unmute from your device and proceed with your comment. You have three minutes to speak. Thank you, Mayor, Council, and City staff. My name is Candace Haas. I'm the founder of Orange County Normal, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. I'm also the board chair and I've worked in the city of Santa Ana for the past years at Pharmacy Santa Ana. First of all, I want to thank the council and the staff for all the time that they put into the proposed ordinance and the changes.

There's many important issues that have been addressed and we thank you for that and support most of the modifications. The two that I don't support are adding five additional retail licenses and maintaining the current retail tax. I've said that I said this at the meetings with council members and at council city council meetings as important as helping the businesses in the city it's also important to make changes that will benefit the citizens and keep consumers coming to the city the retail tax on cannabis is the highest in the county there are other products and services that are taxed way lower than

cannabis cannabis currently is taxed at 32.25 percent not even alcohol or tobacco or vapes are taxed at that high of a level. Cannabis is a life-saving medicine. Many seniors depend on this medicine to get off prescription medications and are unable to pay the taxes and buy the products that they need. Your citizens are already bearing the cost of the increases in living, gasoline, food, and are struggling. If we're giving struggling businesses a tax break, then we also need to do so for the residents. Irreputable damage will be done if we don't take action and reduce taxes now.

and about in the year if we wait till then for the market analysis there'll be stores in Costa Mesa and we would have lost a lot of consumers to that city and it'll be hard to get them back and also by that time many people may have been laid off we urge you to reconsider and reduce the retail taxes now when I was involved with the OCAA I know that we collected hundreds if not thousands of signatures and I hope that they provided those to you the second issue which is not supported is adding another five retail licenses in meetings with city staff we've told

you as dispensaries that we're currently struggling that only a small amount of dispensaries is making it adding a five another five licenses will not add revenue to the city but just dilute the pot existing dispensaries are already going to be at a disadvantage with the highest tax rates in the whole county they can't succeed if you bring in more retail dispensaries in the city and then us having to also compete against the 60s dispensaries that are opening costa mesa i also want to say that i do support the new requirements for community benefits there's been many many years

where a lot of the dispensaries haven't been providing programs and I think this is an important step in making sure that everybody's providing public benefits. Thank you for your time and consideration. Zoom ID Brandon Sisko please select the microphone icon to unmute from your device and proceed with your comment you have three minutes to speak. My name is Brandon Sisko I'm a resident of Ward 4 for nine plus years, a stakeholder, a 2018 selected adult use entity, and was also fourth on the medical wait list. Naturally, when adding additional adult use permits as proposed,

one draws from the adult use selection list. If one were adding medical, then one would draw from the medical wait list. The adult use selection process already gave priority to the medical waitlisters by awarding up to 10 additional points out of 100 myself included as my group was number four on the medical waitlist during the adult use application process after using our number four medical waitlist position during the selection process the adult use selection process to earn the additional 10 points we scored three away from an adult from an adult use permit so naturally we

We let our number four medical waitlist position go, as it was already used for extra points towards the adult use process and now obsolete. The current proposed language would wrongfully and unfairly give medical waitlisters not only priority over the previous process, which already gave them slash me priority, but would also circumvent the merit-based process entirely, essentially resorting back to the obsolete lottery.

To note, these permits are valued at $2 million each as of August 2022, and most medical waitlisters who remain actually already participated in the adult use selection process and scored below myself and the four other adult use selected entities who co-signed the letter I emailed you this morning, which includes supporting documentation. I love my city and I'm asking the city to bench this vote while ensuring fair and equitable language is utilized. Thank you.

Zoom ID Benjamin Vasquez, please select the microphone icon to unmute your device and proceed with your comment. You have three minutes to speak. Hello, my name is Benjamin Ben Vasquez. I'm here in support of cannabis workers and the Mob and Shop Cannabis Shops. Santa Ana needs to stay competitive and what is a budding industry. I agree and I want to hopefully we pass the UFCW proposal. We can reduce taxes while strengthening workers and gaining community benefits. We need to have these jobs for our youth, our young people who are in really need of good paying jobs where the majority come from Santa Ana.

I also believe we need to nurture this industry with on-site consumption and festivals if we could. Thank you.

Callers, phone number ends with the last three numbers, 320, please dial star six from your phone and proceed with your comment. You have three minutes to speak.

Caller, please dial star six to unmute from your phone.

Caller with the number ending in 320.

Hello, good evening, mayor council and city staff. I'm a representative of CFF property, LLC, speaking on the item regarding the addition of the five licenses as a prior caller has already spoken about this the adult use licenses would be more appropriate for the city to be selected from the runner-ups of the 2018 merit-based process those applicants already used medical weight loss positions and were ranked with

more consideration given than the 2015 lottery the few that remain on the medical wait list at best are there for harmless speculation or at worst they were you know potential litigants of the city uh is there reasoning for being there some of the names on that list and i think that the 2018 ranking process was much more heavily considered and these adult use permit should be selected from from that list of applicants and runner-ups. Thank you.

Was that our last speaker? Great, thank you. Let me go ahead and bring it back to the City Council. I'm going to go ahead and close the public hearing and see if there's any questions or comments from members of the council let me go ahead and call on councilmember

Jessie LopezItem 4

Lopez thank you mayor Sarmiento I want to thank our staff for all of the work that you have done I know we had a work study you've had separate meetings with the council members you met with the industry all of the stakeholders that have given you their feedback and I appreciate all that you've done and the extensive ordinance that you provided not just to the council but to the public for me it's really been an educational process of understanding the industry the impacts of the workers or what they're facing and what has been lacking here in the city of Sanana because we were the first and there was

Jessie LopezItem 4

a lot that we didn't do back then but that we know better now and we can definitely improve on and so I am gonna start with letting you know what I'm fine with with what i read from the staff report i'm fine with the eligible areas i'm fine with the relocation i support the decrease from six percent to one percent on the supply i think that's going to keep us competitive with long beach i also appreciate that you added that that context to the staff report that you spoke with the counterparts in long beach um i'm supportive of the consumption lounges but i didn't want clarification

Jessie LopezItem 4

because I know for Councilmember Fan one of his strong points was that the for the consumption lounges there should be no outdoor smoking so I wanted to know for the festivals if that was going to be applied as well and how that would

be applied. Thank you council member for that question so the proposal as as put forth for the council tonight is allowing for outdoor consumption both with the lounges as well as the temporary events and festival with the restriction requirements that when it's consumed outside the area that's used for consumption will have to provide a air scrubbing or purification system that basically treats the air before it gets released back into the open.

Jessie LopezItem 4

Okay, thank you for that. I'm going to move on to my amendments, okay? So under community benefits, I wasn't 100% satisfied with the framework that was presented. So I want to make sure that we are allowing for the festivals, for the consumption lounges, for the tax rebates programs perhaps that we're going to discuss. I want to make sure that the workers in our community receive something meaningful and concrete in return so I would say that under section 40.9.2 I'd like to see some of the benefits that concretely described in our

Jessie LopezItem 4

ordinance the full-time jobs and that means working 32 or more hours the wages the reimbursement for the delivery drivers which is something that I mentioned during our work study session. I want to see language about the high road training partnerships and I need a social equity plan and I know that staff knows that because I've said that multiple times but I don't necessarily want to just throw it out there and have it be a blanket option for the industry or for the licensees to do. I want us to be able to provide

Jessie LopezItem 4

structure as to what we expect that plan to contain and so I do want to see how they plan to train and recruit if we're asking the businesses to hire from our local community specifically from those census tracts that are experiencing you know below poverty levels of poverty how the applicant will partner with community benefits organizations here in the city of Santa Ana. And we've also discussed how, what other measures employers can take to help really

Jessie LopezItem 4

combat the disproportionate impact of the war on drugs here in the city of Santa Ana. And, you know, I give all of those recommendations, understanding and being in agreement that while we are asking for that, I am also going to be open to the tax rebate, and I'm open to starting at 2%. So I think that any business here in the city of Santa Ana that is able to show us that they are giving back to their workers and to our community, that they should be able to apply for a tax rebate because I don't disagree that the taxes are really high.

Jessie LopezItem 4

And so again, I'm open to the tax rebate program. And moreover, under Section 40-9.2, I do want to see language describing how any designee is going to, how they're going to determine whether each RSP application demonstrates compliance with our future ordinance so it can be anything from they can prove conformance with the community benefits required by our ordinance last chapter whatever that specific language is going to be you know and they can submit an

Jessie LopezItem 4

an excitation form signed by a bona fide labor or organization and we can talk about the specific language you know in its separate session but I do want to see that language added to our ordinance additionally I'm supportive I am actually supportive of the additional storefronts I believe that when we create these caps we also create an artificial value of the licensees and that is not you know that is not creating an equitable marketplace and I have said it before and I will say it again I want Sonana residents to have the opportunity to be part of

Jessie LopezItem 4

the industry. Lastly I want to thank the workers that came and were vulnerable. We heard some really powerful stories about you know being retaliated and being harassed and that is completely unacceptable and that is not something that any worker that any business should be proud to be engaging in and so I want to thank the workers for for their courage and for sharing those experiences with the council thank you

thank you councilmember let me go ahead and see if there's any other members of the council that wish to speak anybody online that has their hand raised

Councilmember Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I fully concur with members of the public who came and shared their testimonies and workers' rights. Only workers deserve value and credit. And at the end of the day, this cannabis industry wouldn't exist if it wasn't for those very workers. So I stand in solidarity with them. I am supportive of seeing us have the 115% of minimum wage be 18%, I mean $18 an hour. So I just want to make that very clear. I'm supportive of seeing that. I'm supportive of the cannabis lounges. I think that this is going to be good for removing the stigma related to cannabis.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

And that stigma is why this country criminalized black and brown communities and funneled people through the prison system. and there are people doing life sentences for less than half an ounce. And those people deserve justice. And as a city, I think us having these cannabis lounges is a step in the right direction in making this medicine more accessible to people. Number two, for staff, I am supportive of the demands from the community to decrease the tax of distribution from where we're currently at and getting it down to 1%. Santa Ana is the first city in Orange County to legalize cannabis we should

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

stay at the forefront of being bold cannabis leaders and that's why I support I support our city staff's recommendation of going to 1% for distribution on the retail side I would like to see an amendment where that where we decrease the tax down to 6% so that we can be at the forefront of also having the lowest tax in Orange County when it comes to retail. I also want to make my comments related to the cannabis festivals, that I am supportive

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

of seeing the city have cannabis festivals in the city of Santa Ana where there is consumption and ingestion. I am supportive of that. The only caveat that I ask staff, Director Min Tai, is the amendment is that I would like for the Cannabis 420 Festival to be organized by the City of Santa Ana. And I would want us to be the first city in Orange County to organize our own 420 Cannabis Festival and that we partner with local Santa Ana cannabis

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

operators on splitting the bill. And the caveat is that the only cannabis that can be ingested or sold there is Santa Ana cannabis operators.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

And in addition to that, making sure that this cannabis 420 festival that we have in the city of Santa Ana, that the food that we sell is 100% from Santa Ana, that the vendors that we have present in these events are 100% from Santa Ana. And those are the amendments, Director Mintai. Is there any additional direction you need from us? Do you need a motion?

At this point, we would ask for a motion if that's your motion.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

Okay. I would like to make a motion to approve.

Let's go ahead. I think we get a sense, I think, what you were saying in addition to Council Member Lopez, there's some suggested amendments that might be able to be incorporated into this and we'll have some more discussion. but I see your motion being formed right now. I think there's a way that we can maybe compress and condense these items and make it easier to augment what staffs recommended. I think, as was said by one of the speakers, I think we can have some amendments coexist with what staff already has on the floor. I see that we have a comment by Mayor Pro Tem. Is there anybody else on the line that has nothing yet?

Okay, go ahead.

Phil BacerraItem 4

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. First of all, I want to thank everybody that came out tonight. Thank you to all the workers from UFCW. Thank you to the retailers and those in the industry that have come out. I think among both of you, you guys have provided all of us with valuable insight. And I think it's really commendable with what UFCW has been proposing in regards to trying to incentivize. And I think that that's noble. I actually think that some of the stuff should be done by just should happen. I don't think that some of it needs to be incentivized.

Phil BacerraItem 4

But with that being said, Director Tai, I'm going to just run through some of my amendments that I would like to see. The first one was in section 39.2. We talk about the temporary consumption events. And what I'd like to see there is the consistency. It says single or multi-day. I would like to see the words maximum 48 hours added because you have that same language in 40-8.11H. So just for consistency. On 40-1.C.2, we talk about consideration of certain things.

Phil BacerraItem 4

things, considering. But I think what we need to know, though, is how the industry is actually meeting some of these items. And so what I would ask is that that section be modified to say that the plan shall also document the quantity of full-time employees and quantity of employees, not including supervisors, whose wages exceed 115% of California minimum wage at the time of hire. I think it's important to know how the industry is treating its workers in Santa Ana. So I'd like to see something a little more absolute that talks about what we'd

Phil BacerraItem 4

like to receive from the retailers. And then in 40-5, okay, I appreciate what staff's trying to do in the sense of if you don't know where you're going to be, just look at the map, right? Here's a map, point to it, there it is. When I was on the planning commission, we had a map that labeled or showed park deficient areas. And Ali, you probably remember this. This thing was probably photocopied 10 times over. It was probably from the early 90s. All I knew is it kind of looked like Santa Ana. I couldn't tell you where anything really was because it was just a map that wasn't well maintained. And as staff turns over over time,

Phil BacerraItem 4

rather than just hope that the map is up-to-date and accurate, I want to keep certain criteria in place. So I do want to keep the actual verbiage that talks about the 1,000 feet away from sensitive uses. But within Section 40-5, what I'd like to see is something that, because I know that what we're trying to do is fill in those gaps in the industrial zones where we have SDs. And so I know the previous language didn't address that. So I'd like to defer to staff as to what the appropriate language might be.

Phil BacerraItem 4

but what I'd like to do is rather than just say go see map, I'd rather there also be text that defines where these areas are. And so I think that what you guys are trying to do is address the Swiss cheese problem in the industrial zone. So we can probably address that through calling out the SDs, whether it's by industrial nature, whether it's by the specific SDs. I'll look for staff to bring us back something. Like I said, in 40-6, I would like to keep the language that talks about the 1,000 feet buffers from sensitive uses. I don't believe it's anybody's intention to encroach, but let's just be absolute, certain,

Phil BacerraItem 4

and clear, and let's not have that be debatable down the road. So if we can keep that language in there, that would be in 40-6, that would be subsection A and then subsections 1, 2, and 3. And then I guess a quick question for PD. DC, if you wouldn't mind, or whomever wants a pop-up here, as you guys are coming up, I'm curious. In 40-8.4.A, we talk about the security guard at the retail locations, and we say that they should possess a valid Department of Consumer Affairs security guard card.

Phil BacerraItem 4

And I just want to ask for PD to let us know, is that sufficient in your guys' opinion?

I'll go ahead and defer to Commander Gonzalez. He's worked with our marijuana task force and all our cannabis.

Good evening, Mayor, Council. Thank you for having us here. Yeah, that provision would be beneficial. Our vice unit does go out and work with code enforcement hand-in-hand to ensure that not only the guards are on site, but we also make sure that the guards are in compliance with all the rules associated with them being there providing site security.

Phil BacerraItem 4

Okay, so the language that is currently being proposed that they possess a valid Department of Consumer Affairs security guard card, that's sufficient for you? Yes. Okay, perfect. Thank you, guys. My next one is in 40-8.10.B and C. I would like to add the word licensed where we talk about the commercial cannabis retail businesses. I just want to make it very clear. I know it should be obvious, but let's just be absolutely clear that we are talking about licensed businesses. And just to clarify, in B and C, in the proposed language, it's a little bit of a different description.

Phil BacerraItem 4

And talking with Director Tai earlier today, I believe what we want to convey is consistently it's commercial cannabis retail businesses. So if we can have that in both B and C. And then let's see, I think there was a subsection V in 40-8.10.M. It just seemed like language that was out of place because the overall section talks about odor control response and that language does not. I believe it's point of sale language so that probably belongs in its own subsection I believe.

Phil BacerraItem 4

And then as far as the tax rate goes, I'm absolutely supportive of the 1% for non-retail. And I would support 6% for medical and retail. And my reasoning for that is very simple. I think that, you know, Santa Ana has been on the forefront of the cannabis industry or as far as allowing cannabis. and yes, of course you're going to have people that are coming up behind you, right? And we've got Costa Mesa coming in with 7%, Huntington Beach is proposing 6%, Stanton's proposing 6%.

Phil BacerraItem 4

I think it's very important for us to, I would like to see it even go lower, frankly, because I'd like to see us be that much of a leader in this particular industry. and I think that, you know, as far as there's been some concerns expressed about lowering the retail rate, I believe that by lowering that retail rate, you're going to see more business here. I think that there's some concern that, you know, if you lower it, we'll have less revenue. And every time we've had projections on cannabis revenue, it's always exceeded our projections.

Phil BacerraItem 4

And I think that by lowering that rate, worst case scenario, we can always come back and adjust it. I mean, if we really see that much of an impact to revenue. But I believe that we won't. I believe that if anything, it'll help augment that revenue. And so what I would like to see in the resolution that would, let's see, modifying various non-retail commercial cannabis tax rates, I'd like to modify the table in Section 1K to gross receipts tax rates for cannabis retail businesses and consumption lounges to 6%, but also ad language requiring

Phil BacerraItem 4

staff to return to us within a year with an updated market analysis and an analysis on whether sales volume increased and whether tax revenue increased. So not just to simply say we're just going to reduce the rate, but let's be methodical about it. Let's see what that gives us.

Phil BacerraItem 4

And then finally, I would like to, and this is just, we already discussed this, but in the resolution establishing the map of commercial cannabis eligible areas in the city, I wanted section three to also state that this map shall only identify properties that meet the requirements of Santa Ana Municipal Code sections 40-2, 40-5, and 40-6. Again, just to clarify that it's not just purely the map that's going to determine where these businesses can be located, but that there's also some stated criteria within the municipal code.

Phil BacerraItem 4

So those are my recommended modifications at this time. But I do want to thank staff. You guys have really done a great job of taking a lot of different things. I think in other subject matters, we would probably only do one or two of these things, but you've been able to bring it to us. And what you saw from our study session where you were able to kind of put out those menu options for us, the fact that you're able to bring all of this forward to us today, I think is a lot of credit to you guys. So thank you for doing that.

Thank you.

Let me go ahead and call upon myself and then I'll go ahead and circulate back to the council members that haven't had a chance to speak. I did want to thank everybody who came to speak to us, and both in person and online. And I do want to thank staff for all the hard work that they've done on this and really members of the council here that entertained a work study and have been talking about this for a long time. I think we're in a good place because we're talking about how do we provide some relief? How do we provide some support to the industry to make sure

that it continues to be healthy, competitive, and strong? You know, let me take you back a few years because I think I'm the only one on the city council that was part of making that bold decision to regulate this industry. I remember when I first came on this council, there was an outright ban and moratorium on the entire industry. And we, back then, had 120 unpermitted illegal operators throughout the city. After we decided to listen to the community and listen to the industry leaders and residents, and we realized, okay, this is something that we can do,

and we can not only create a thriving business industry, but also address a lot of the black market issues that we had. We dedicated early revenues to enforcement. We continue to do that. But we also use a lot of those revenues for programs for our youth and augmenting our own general fund. So we've come a long way. And it's only right that we're talking about reducing taxes at this point because when we started, there was no market. I mean, there wasn't other cities coming online. We were it. so there wasn't really any study or analysis or you know comparison for us

to really look to because we were that leader we were that pioneer so now I think we see that there is an evolving market around us and we need to adjust with those times so I'm really glad that the industry you know has prompted us to do that but we're also being receptive to do that so let me just um you know get to some of the other things that the industry has done. During the pandemic, a lot of cities suffered. And we really didn't know where we were going to land when businesses shut down. One of the reasons why we remained solvent and healthy fiscally was because of the industry.

The cannabis industry helped us survive that moment when many communities didn't.

And, you know, it goes unsaid sometimes, but we want to thank you for that. You know, for those of us who made that decision early on, you don't realize how difficult a decision it was, how many people said, you all are going to infest our communities with crime. You're going to, you know, infest our communities with drugs. You're going to damage families and lives. And that was a very, very difficult thing to listen to because these were people who believed it. And I'm not saying they were completely difficult or not understanding, but it was a really courageous decision that we had to make.

And it was in the face of some very strong opposition. And we had people that were religious leaders that came, people that really understood, had some valid points. So it did take some courage and I wish you know some of my colleagues were on the council here today to see what we're doing now Which is being responsive to the industry and paying respect to the industry So by paying respect to the industry you pay respect to its employees You pay respect to its workers because no industry is successful without its employees And we know that well here at the city

So I I just want to speak at a high level because to get into minutia look that's not our role Our role is to dictate public policy. And, you know, the public policy is that we have to make sure that we support our industry and our workers. And I want to follow along with just the high-level discussion about reducing what I call supply-side or non-retail, you know, part of our industry. Those are our manufacturers, our cultivators, our distributors. They are way out of market. We know that the market is at 1% or 2%, sometimes even lower, but we're way out of whack on that.

We're at 6%, so I am very supportive of reducing that 6% to 1% for non-retail and supply-side.

I also think staff's proposal that they submitted for our consideration tonight is a step in the right direction. I think that they've listened to the industry, they've listened to us during our work study, and I believe that that's something that can coexist with what I heard tonight from some of the advocates from UFCW. And I do think that that is a baseline that we should use, which is the model that they proposed to us tonight. But I do want to augment that, and that's where I think my motion would lie, or substitute motion if there isn't one on the floor, or whatever.

if there's a substitute or a motion to be made, my support will be to augment what staff has and include what's considered an opt-in. And that opt-in would be to reward and incentivize a 2% decrease on the retail side, so long as they comply with the community standards that were set forth by UFCW. And the reason why is this. We can do a blanket 2% reduction, but that doesn't mean that those benefits are going to inure to the employees. And that's my goal, is that to make sure that the industry continues to thrive, but that the employees continue to advance and be able to profit from this as well.

That's what the circulator is all about.

And making sure that the money stays in the community, I think, is extremely important. So I heard that, and I understand that the goal and some of those provisions that were proposed by UFCW involved making sure that 60%, at least 60% of the employees are full time. And they're at 115% of minimum wage for the first year, and I believe in the second year, to get to 120%. So I am extremely supportive of that. And I'm also supportive of the high road training that we need to make sure we include because that speaks to the social policy and the social justice and equity element of what we did here.

And when we introduced this industry, it was always to give people an opportunity to succeed, not just a few, but everybody who's involved in the industry. The third would be to include the local hire element, which is to meet a threshold of 40%. And I think that that's difficult to do overnight, and I see that I don't want to be punitive or harsh on any of our operators. I want to make sure that they get there gradually. So I would say if we can meet that 40% threshold over two years, maybe we do 20% the first year and then get to 40% over time,

We have them work with our work center and make sure that we train some of our residents and get them ready to be employable by the industry. And they can draw from our pool of residents that will be looking for these well-paying, safe workplace jobs. So all the other things that are included and that were mentioned, I'm very supportive of.

But I do think that this element of the community benefits is to reward good actors, is to make sure that, you know, people, operators get the benefit of that 2% decrease on the retail side, to make sure that they do that so long as they comply. This is an agreement. This is an arrangement. This is something that's consideration on both sides. it's going to benefit them. But one thing I would add that I didn't hear from USCW is that those operators that do comply with these community benefit standards that we just listed in this criteria, they also get priority for the on-site consumption lounges. They should be considered first.

If they're good actors and they're supporting their workers and employees, they should get first dibs at that. And I think that it goes for festivals as well, as described by Council Member Hernandez, that those festivals include those elements that he spoke about to make sure that they all are Sanana products and Sanana staff and employees. So those would be my additions to what was proposed by UFCW just to make sure that those good actors get rewarded, those good actors get supported.

So that would be my motion, you know if there isn't a motion on the floor I'll go ahead and and try to encapsulate that into a motion. If there's a motion on the floor, then it'll be a substitute motion. But those are my comments. Let me go ahead and go to the rest of the council that hasn't had a chance to speak.

Jessie LopezItem 4

Mayor Sardegmento, I would like to second your motion.

Thank you, council member.

So we have a motion and a second. Let me go ahead and call on, if there isn't anybody online or is it?

Council member Peñalosa.

Let me go ahead and go ahead and council member Peñalosa and then council member Fan.

David PenalozaItem 4

Thank you, Mayor Salmiento. I just also wanted to thank all the various stakeholders that came in tonight to speak on this, as well as our city staff, Ali and men. You guys have been working for years now on getting us here. And I just wanted to quickly voice my support for seeing that reduction of the percentage to 1% on the distribution side. I think that's just,

David PenalozaItem 4

I mean, it makes sense. And I also want to voice my support on the opt-in option and seeing that 2% rebate to all the good people in the industry that are abiding by the good policies that we want to see put in place, like the 115% minimum wage and the local hiring as well. The only thing that I am concerned about, similar to the mayor, is that I don't expect our local businesses to comply with the 40% local hire by tomorrow.

David PenalozaItem 4

I would hate to see people potentially laid off or fired due to needing to meet this 40% threshold. So obviously it's going to have to be done gradually. I know that the stigma that exists in our community resonated with me. One of the speakers that spoke tonight talked about, you know, practically being disowned by his parents because of cannabis. And I have a couple of family members, young cousins of mine that have tried to work in the industry.

David PenalozaItem 4

And their own parents have disowned them because of the stigma that comes with it. In their eyes, it's, oh, you know what? My son now is selling drugs for a living. And that is what we're trying to move away from. So whatever we could do to help on that end, to make this a gradual approach, I'm fully supportive of that.

David PenalozaItem 4

And that's about it. I'm very supportive of seeing this. The only thing that I'm not too comfortable with, and men, maybe if you could step up to the podium, is I'm still trying to get clarity on how we're going to. So what do we say to the people that are already here in business? And now the additional potential five licenses that we're going to issue. What do we say to the people saying that now these five are going to have better locations?

David PenalozaItem 4

Or, Min, are you there?

I am here, Council Member, and thank you for bringing that issue up. We also thought this process long and hard and evaluate how we can ensure the most equitable way. So the way that the five additional licenses to be considered is that those qualified applicants that are on the wait list needs to ensure that those locations originally applied for are the ones that are to be considered. So they're not proposing to get new location, but these are locations that have already been previously reviewed.

And if they don't meet the standard of the current requirements of being within, you know, not within 1,000 feet of park, schools, or residential, or within 500 feet of another business, they would be disqualified. And we would move on to the next eligible applicant. Does that help clarify, sir?

David PenalozaItem 4

Yeah, that absolutely does. thank you so much man um with that those are those will be my only comments mayor um very supportive and and and i'm happy that you highlighted the fact that while over the last two years while cities around us saw their their their budgets take a huge hit because of the industries they relied on ours you know saw a surplus saw this industry maintain our budget at levels that we hadn't seen before. So happy you made a highlight of that because it's very true and it's not often that we do mention that of what the industry has allowed us as a municipal government to do. So

David PenalozaItem 4

thank you for that. Those are my comments, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member. Thank you for those

comments, especially on the wait list issue. That is very important and thank you for touching upon that. Let me go ahead and go to, let me go to Council Member Mendoza and then Pham.

Thank you, Mayor Sarmiento. Yes, I agree with my colleagues. I want to thank all the UFCW people who are here. It does take courage to go forth on something so new and unexplored area. and we are definitely here to ensure that workers are protected. I am in agreement with the 2% reduction on the medicinal non-retail side, and I also want to ensure that we maintain that 1,000-feet buffer,

and I really like the opt-in option that was proposed by UFCW's representative. I think it's a great idea because this is going to incentivize for community benefits resources and for local hires. So that's a great incentive and I'm also in favor of that tax rebate that these retails have the option to get if they meet the criteria. So I will be supportive

of that reduction, 2% reduction. And I just want to ensure that that 1000 feet buffer remains in place. And so I will be supportive of that.

Thank you, council member. Thank you for those comments. Let me go ahead and go to council

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

member fan thank you mayor i feel like my colleagues said everything that needed to be said um i actually need some help ali and min i know we've had a lot of comments and i know in the past we've kind of done a table type situation where we can say you know yes no etc i don't know which items have actually gotten kind of majority support and which have not i know a couple council members mentioned the thousand foot others have not so I'm not a little not super clear on that maybe you're not ready to do that but overall I just want to say thanks to to your team everyone OCAA UFCW I know I've met with all of you a

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

million times it feels like I know all of you so personally now and so the first thing I wanted to address is relating to the 1% which I think we're supportive of that. Glad that the 420 event will be Santa Ana run. I'm glad staff added that after the last, I guess, study session. I think the definition of a bonafide labor organization is already added, right, defined after the last study session. That's helpful. Relating to the outdoor lounges. So I'm gonna put

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

this out there you know if you're talking about being brave I would love to see cannabis retail at all commercial retail areas in the city if we truly want to make it like any other business in the city we would treat it like any other business in this city so that would be that would be my preference you don't tell a restaurant that they cannot serve beer because of wherever they are I mean we do have some alcohol licenses by the state but otherwise you know we have lots of those restaurants around right now I know we're not there yet and

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

I know that we at least I believe we will get there eventually and so I wanted to talk about this outdoor smoking lounges because what we have right now or the retail we require retail to go with the lounges I understand the reasoning for that right they're kind of vetted they're already their organizations or companies that we already understand and know but my question with the outdoor smoking right we have the odor control provisions I'd like for staff to kind of talk about that a little bit more I've stated on the record since last time that I'm pretty opposed to outdoor smoking and the reason for that is

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

historical and personal I'm a sufferer of asthma I was raised I grew up with asthma because my father smoked at home and we know the negative effects of smoking it's not just tobacco smoking it's smoking in general that is bad for your health on this dais we have stated many times and residents have come to us and said there's an air pollution problem in the city of Santa Ana particularly in Ward 6 and particularly near industrial areas and guess what that's where these lounges are going so if we are taking a position to say we do not support air pollution and we want to change it we want to be mindful of

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

environmental justice it's a little bit you know it seems kind of difficult to also support outdoor smoking now so that's why I wanted to ask staff right we have these requirements for outdoor air scrubbers you know what I guess at what level are we doing that how do we decide you know what the odor is is it Because right now, when it's indoors, it's pretty easy. We require that. It's not a problem. But once it's outdoors, at what level are we going to decide, you know what, we're going to shut you down in your outdoor lounge? Is it just any complaint whatsoever? How is that going to work?

That's a great question. And it's one that, as part of the enforcement process, it will be something that we will work through. but the performance standards that we have is when there's detectable order and that we receive complaints. I think the thoughtful process to looking at this issue is that by allowing lounges at the current existing location and not any other location at this point in time is that such locations are fortunately located very deep within industrial areas areas where you don't have as many residents nearby that could potentially be impacted by the uses.

That doesn't mean that the workers cannot be impacted. So our points of reference will be detectable level of odor that we receive complaint and through our investigative process we can address those issues. That's really what we're going to be proposing as part of our enforcement process for the odor detection process.

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

Right, because I do understand in West Hollywood, the outdoor smoking lounge is on the second floor. Unlike here in Santa Ana, I think they'll all be kind of ground floors, so it's a little bit different. I guess I'm just going to take a leap of faith and ask that for the, you know, retailers, industry who choose to have outdoor smoking, that understand that we will be enforcing the odor requirements and the smoking requirements.

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

It's a difficult decision for me, but it's something that, you know, I know staff has advocated for, the industry has advocated for, and we want to make sure not only are our residents protected, but also our workers. So, you know, I'll be around. Ward 1 is expanding. The map expands into Ward 1 for lounges and retailers, so I would like to follow up. I will follow up with that. I'll drive by late at night or something. Maybe late at night. You shouldn't be operating late at night. The other issue that I wanted to bring up is regarding the labor component.

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

So I know that there are some who said, you know, lower the tax, others who say, you know, what we're willing, we'll take whatever we can get. I want, and after a lot of consideration on this issue, I would like to make this an opt-in program. And I know the mayor had brought that up so I really appreciated that. One of the things that some individuals are saying, hey, well, you know, the tax is too high because we have Long Beach, because we have Costa Mesa, because we have Huntington Beach. Last I checked, Huntington Beach isn't legal yet.

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

And as far as I know, Costa Mesa doesn't have anything actually up and running. It's been two years, right? they're still in the hearing process that was continued to August and I think this continued again that's the problem oh Ray is shaking his head but whatever the case is I don't see anything up and running just yet but the point is we have some time I would like for us to hold fast at the current retail tax rate but that's why last time I asked that staff provide these numbers in a resolution so that we can come back quickly and adjust them as necessary.

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

Let's see what happens, right, when we expand the lounges. Let's see what happens when we decrease the retail, excuse me, the supply tax rate and go from there. However, as we discussed up here, we want to incentivize and reward those good employers who are going to hire local, who are going to pay workers well. I kind of worked at the best fast food restaurant employer in the industry which is In-N-Out Burger. And so I understand what it's like to be flipping burgers and making a somewhat livable wage and getting health insurance and getting paid vacations. And I'd

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

like for us to be better. You know, someone told me that in Santa Ana, we can decide to make, you know, cannabis jobs, low paying entry level jobs, or we can make them good paying jobs. And I think that's where we're trying to get at. However, there's a bit of an issue with implementation of a 2% tax rebate. I spoke to our director of finance and I would like to propose that we do allow the 2% tax rebate minus administrative costs for staff because in order to do a 2% tax rebate you get the tax rebate then you have to do an audit of you know what the taxes were how much you're

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

going to actually provide back in rebate. I think that way you know we're still providing the benefit and you know the city is not now paying additional costs for administration of this benefit I think that in general we can all benefit from that the last thing I wanted to talk about is relating to and I'm supportive of you know the local hire at phasen and things like that the last I want to talk about is the five additional permits sorry before I move forward I I don't think the opt-in program should be, you should not have to wait to get the lounge permits in order to join the opt-in program.

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

I guess my point is, it's kind of difficult. I'm not sure how you would implement a program that says, hey, you meet this standard and then you can get a lounge permit. I would like to see this as, again, if it's beneficial to the employer to be in this opt-in program they'll do it right I want to expand the lounges in the city that's part of the benefit and that's part of why we're keeping our retail rates high and so I would like to make that clarification regarding the opt-in program for the five additional permits I'm kind of concerned there was a lot of

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

confusion about the measure BB wait list and then a 2018 but I know there's no wait list for 2018 that's just comments that people made out in the world but But now I'm not sure I support any additional licenses because we got threatened with a lawsuit by having additional licenses if we don't open it to everyone. I guess my question is, if we open additional licenses and we do not prioritize the Measure BB applicants or wait list, is that a problem under that previous ordinance?

So the current wait list, and I want to put a capital W in front of it, is the 2014 wait list that is mandated and identified as part of the 2014 Measure BB. The 2018 process was an evaluative merit-based process that allowed for the additional 11 retail licenses, but there was not a wait list that was identified under the 2018 ordinance of allowing for retail adult use.

So the only wait list, again, the big W is the 2014 Measure BB wait list. if the council doesn't take any action to remove the wait list, it's still going to be something that the city maintains and will have to maintain until it is distinguished.

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

So Madam City Attorney, you know, we got this letter from EJD Law Group that states that it represents a number of cannabis retailers who would like to operate it in the city. And they said that, well, if we open additional licenses but somehow prioritize this capital W wait list, which was mandated under our previous ordinance, that they're going to seek legal action against us. Is there a concern? Because to me, it's the most equitable way to go through this process. We told people to wait. We told them to reapply and tell us where they're continuing to be interested, and then now they're opening new licenses,

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

and we're telling them, no, we're not interested in you. Is that problematic?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 4

Councilmember Pham, I would have to say this. I think that Santa Ana's regulatory process is one of the most comprehensive and defensible in really all of the state. You continue to operate and implement strategically, and you've always followed the rules. So my response to that would be that I could not see a court telling us that we can't use a wait list that was established by the voters that has been fully implemented and that you're going to honor. Having said that, anyone can file a lawsuit. And we often find when cities increase their list or make changes that we do end up having some litigation related to that.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 4

But I would say you should make policy the way you see fit. And I don't see that being a successful lawsuit against you. That wait list is valid, it's been maintained, and some people have spent resources trying to remain on that list.

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

Thank you. So I guess the way I look at it is we are opening all these different ideas, these lounges, all of that stuff. I don't know if we need to expose ourselves to additional liability and additional complaints and additional claims of inequity by opening this wait list right now. Maybe we just go with this ordinance and say let's implement all of these myriad provisions and come back in a year or two, whenever, and see if it should be expanded. So I know those were a lot of comments. Hopefully you took good notes, Ali. Thank you.

Phil BacerraItem 4

Mr. Mayor?

Yes, go ahead.

Phil BacerraItem 4

I had a question for you on your motion. Two questions, actually. Did you include in your motion anything about additional retail locations?

No, I think when I just went ahead and said I'm layering on top of staff's recommendation. Okay. And then there wasn't any changes with respect to that.

Phil BacerraItem 4

Okay. And then one thing I want to throw out to my colleagues just to kind of split the baby here. What would my colleagues think about possibly a 1% across the top on retail, 1% reduction, but having the opt-in program for the 2%. So for those retailers that are willing to opt in, that would be wonderful. They can get down to 5%. But I think just to help the industry that's been so impacted by COVID, I think 1% is not a giveaway. I mean, it's really assistance at this point, especially given some of the testimony that we heard tonight from some of the retailers.

Phil BacerraItem 4

But again, I think that we all, I think you're hearing a chorus up here of wanting to support the opt-in. But maybe just as a gesture, doing a 1% off the top and then having the 2%, if you'd be open to that?

Yeah, I think we're saying the same thing because the opt-in would not undermine what staff is doing, which is the half percent then gradually to the 1%. So in essence, it is. Oh, I'm sorry.

Phil BacerraItem 4

I might have confused it. What I meant was just on, so 1% on the non-retail. I think we're all saying the same thing on that. I'm saying on the retail side, so from their proposing keeping at 8, I'm saying shave it down to 7 and then have the opt-in option to get you down to 5.

And I understood that. But I think staff's recommendation is on the retail side was to do the half percent gradually getting to the 1%.

So I want to provide clarification. The staff's recommendation for the 1% is a mandatory requirement to spend their gross revenue, 1% of the gross revenue annually on community benefits that mirrors the state's program that essentially is looking at local hires, looking at minimum wage standards, looking at hiring from disadvantaged communities. I believe the 1% that Mayor Pro Tem is talking about is actually reducing the actual retail tax rate from 8% to 7%.

Phil BacerraItem 4

Correct. And then also providing the opt-in that we're all talking about. So if we would shave it down to 7%.

Correct. So the 1% that we're requiring is a mandatory requirement of spending by the business on community benefit annually. So it's not reducing the tax rate.

Okay, so he's talking about a different 1% than your 1%. Correct. So look, there's too many percentages running around. That's why I just wanted to keep it really simple. This is getting a little bit, look, this is what happens when policymakers try to do staff work. And I think it's better just to keep it, I'm really not opposed to having the 1% on top of that, on top of the 2% opt-in, because yeah, we could get to five, I guess, for those good actors. So if there's a willingness on this council to just say, okay, we're gonna do a 1% reduction on the retail side. And in addition, you can get an additional 2%

if you opt in and you meet these compliance standards for community benefits.

Look, I don't see, I guess I don't want to take the motivation away from the good actors, those that are going to implement these compliance community benefit standards, to not want to have them go towards the goal of making sure that workers are going to be paid well, they're going to be trained, and we're going to meet those local higher thresholds that we set forth. So as long as it doesn't interfere with that, as long as it doesn't disrupt that goal, you know, look, I guess I'm okay. I wish, you know, is there anybody from the industry or from UFCW that would like to maybe address this

to see if maybe that additional 1% maybe disrupts that, you know, the goal of what we're all trying to meet? Derek, are you willing to go ahead and come up or maybe, you know?

Thank you, Mayor. I'm Matt Bell, Secretary of Treasurer at 324.

Sorry, Matt. My mind went blank.

That's okay. No, I think that's fine. I think the overall goal here is to help the industry and to help good actors even more. But I think the industry as a whole, I think there's been a general discussion that it's hurting. so I think and I'm making sure I get this right like a 1% off the top and then a 2% opt-in so it'd be 3% for the good actors but a 1% across the top I think is good for the industry in

general and gets a benefit all right enough said I know I was the maker of the motion so I am willing to go ahead and incorporate that into my motion and if the second to my motion which I believe was councilmember Lopez if she's willing to go ahead and agree to that we can go ahead and

Jessie LopezItem 4

consider that motion. Do we have the difference between the 1% and the 2% in terms of numbers?

Hi, Council Member Lopez, and good evening, Council. Yeah, we have some numbers.

If the city council were to reduce the rate by 2%, that would be $1.6 million less going to youth, $1.6 million less going to enforcement, $2.4 million less going to the general fund. if you were to increase that to 3%,

this of course assumes that everybody would opt in and take advantage of this program, which that may not be the case. So this is the upper limit of it. If you just did the 1% decrease of the tax rate and nobody opts in, then you're looking at like an 800,000 hit to the youth program, 800,000 to enforcement, and $1.2 million to the general fund. If everybody opts in to the additional 2%, so I'm giving you the one scenario on one end of it and then the other end with everybody opting in, then you would be looking at a $2.4 million reduction

of the amount allocated to youth, a $2.4 million reduction of the amount allocated to enforcement, and approximately $3.6 million reduction for the general fund. So unless we see some differences in collections, you know, as far as this spurs business, if you will, to increase business, then we probably would be bringing back some recommendations to reduce some of your budget allocations.

Jessie LopezItem 4

and do you think that would happen within a year

it's potential certainly in the cannabis public benefit fund that that very much is a reality the general fund does have some excess right now but the city council is currently in negotiations with its labor groups and you know there there may be some additions to the budget that would require that you're basically using all your excess potentially. And so then if this were to occur, the upper limit on it would require some general fund cuts potentially. Okay.

Jessie LopezItem 4

Thanks, Kat.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 4

Mayor, may I just add something real quick? I know you're trying to move the item forward. This item before you is a first reading. You did have a staff recommendation. There have been very detailed changes. We've got some people that have been very diligent in taking down those detailed changes. There does come a point at which all these changes become so much that you have to ask whether this first reading is really meaningful to the public. So I just want to be mindful of that as you move this forward. We will get you the second reading. It will reflect everything you've said.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 4

said, your discussion this evening is really turning more into like a workshop versus just an introduction and first reading of an ordinance. I think, Mayor, you mentioned that yourself, that we are getting into the very fine, minute details. But not my motion.

My motion was very broad.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 4

No, yours was. I'm just mentioning that everything that's being added on on top of your motion, we need to be careful. I believe you, Mayor, are driving this in the right direction from a process standpoint. I just want to be very careful as we start to add on the budget issues that we are truly in a first reading. That's all I'm saying.

Look, right now I think the, and I think Mayor Pro Tem brings up a good point, right? I think really the discussion is do we layer another, do we layer this 1% reduction, right? To me, it was exclusive.

staff's recommendation was the half percent to a one percent, you know, over time for those that didn't opt in. That was just going to happen for those that it was going to be mandatory across the board. I was simply, I simply wanted to layer on top of that this opt-in opportunity for those that wanted to meet these compliance standards. That was it. Right. You know, so I did want to keep it simple and, you know, and have it come back to us. If there's anything from this reading to the second reading, then I think we could go ahead and, you know, we could, again, so long as there are not substantial changes from what we're doing.

Look, in a way, and I appreciate the director of finance's comments when it comes to monies that could potentially be lost, but that's assuming volume isn't going to increase. So the way I see it, look, I studied economics under a few Nobel laureates in my time, and one thing that they did teach me is that when you reduce, you know, costs, and that's what we're doing on the non-retail supply side, I'm hoping that that's going to drive numbers up. And that's what I've heard from the industry.

And they're the ones that are boots on the ground, and they're seeing their, you know, their competition, you know, eat away at their customer base. So to the extent that we help them on that side, I think that the industry will be healthy. And I think those numbers that we heard are not going to be as large as they ultimately, you know, may be. So, look, I just think that, you know, we should look at this. And, you know, I guess I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. And when I think about adding or reducing the retail by 3%, that's a little bit more significant maybe than I'd rather go to.

I'd almost rather, you know, keep it simple and do the 2% opt-in for those that want to opt-in and those that don't. Look, they can continue, you know, continue at the rate they're at. So I'm not sure if that's where you were getting where you were going.

Jessie LopezItem 4

Yeah, I mean, can you just clarify that? are you accepting the proposal that Mayor Pro Temp is making to you or do you want to keep it,

do you want to keep your original motion as is? Well, you know, I guess right now I'd rather keep it as is, you know, and just keep it simple, keep it with the opt-in at 2%. I certainly appreciate Mayor Pro Temp wanting to give, you know, additional relief, but it could get, it could get a little, a little bit beyond what I was hoping is that going from eight to six for those good actors that comply with the community benefit standards is something that I could certainly support. Going to five maybe would be a little bit more than I think we could, but that's something that I would consider doing right now as a first step.

Phil BacerraItem 4

I'd like to just go ahead and make a sub motion, but I want to be clear because I think we're hearing different things. So, Min, please clarify for me. So when I talk about a 1% off the top, there was no proposal from staff about a .5 to a 1. You guys wanted to maintain the retail rate at 8%, is that correct?

Correct. The retail is at 8%.

Phil BacerraItem 4

And I apologize because when I kept saying 1% earlier, that I think got confused with the non-retail side for some folks. So on the non-retail side, we're all agreeing on 1%. So what I'm going to move is what I've been proposing, which is a sub motion to do 1% off the top, so that would bring the retail rate down to 7, and then with the opt-in that we're all talking about doing of 2%, which could bring it down to 5%. I just want to make one comment, kind of similar to what the mayor said. I don't believe that by allowing the rate to come down that we're going to see hundreds

Phil BacerraItem 4

of thousands of dollars all of a sudden not be available for our youth and for enforcement. I think it will be there. I think that the beauty of saying that out loud tonight is I know I'm hearing from UFCW and I'm hearing from the industry that that would work. So I think it accomplishes what we want, which is to incentivize good behavior and to help our workers, but at the same time helping an industry that really has, through the pandemic, been there when it comes to revenue for us to be able to continue to provide services for our residents and our stakeholders.

Phil BacerraItem 4

So my sub motion is 1% off the top, retail, and then the opt-in for the 2%, plus the other items that I mentioned earlier.

Mayor?

Well, then let's just do this. Look, let's just go ahead and incorporate that amendment into the motion that's on the floor without having to do a sub and a motion. So I'll go ahead and accept that amendment to my motion saying that there'll be a 1% decrease flat across the board, then the opt-in for 2% as an adjunct to that. So is the second good with that amendment?

Jessie LopezItem 4

I think Councilmember Phan had a comment.

I mean, look, the question is before you as a second. Are you good? Councilmember Phan.

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

Thank you.

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

Yeah, so I'm supportive of all that. I guess my question is, again, with clarification with this opt-in program for 2% opt-in, right, with the pay, all of that other stuff. So are we, or is your motion to tie the lounge permits only to those who opt in into this program?

So it would be a priority. So in the event that those that opt into the program and comply with all the community benefit standards should have a first right of refusal almost for those festivals and for the consumption lounges. Let's say none of those that opt in choose to even exercise that right. then it can go to those that didn't opt in.

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

Do you have a recommendation on the time frame when that would be at the festival? Fine. But I guess, are we going to make everyone wait six months, a year, three years, two weeks?

Look, let staff come back with something that they see as reasonable, right? Do you think it's a 90-day period? Do you think it's something else? I mean, bring something back to us that shows some priority that's going to be provided to those that meet the community benefit standards.

Essentially what I'm hearing is that the council eventually would like all retail businesses to be able to engage in lounge and vestibule. However, based on the op-in program, those would be the priority, let's say, within the first year to be processed, and then after that, the other businesses could qualify.

I think that makes sense. I think that's reasonable.

Phil BacerraItem 4

So, Mayor, one, oh, I'm sorry, just one last question was on the five, I'm sorry, the additional five locations.

That I didn't comment on, so go ahead. But I heard that there was consensus on where we were going for the five opt-in. Was that a recommendation from my thinking?

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

No, I had not supported the additional five licenses, given the literally someone sent us a letter threatening to sue us for wanting to adhere to the Measure BB wait list. And I do understand that there are a lot of changes going on here with the lounges and all these other things. let's just implement it and see how it goes and then open it up to everyone

else I'm agreeable to that I think that makes sense is that clear for staff yes

Jessie LopezItem 4

but staff's recommendation is to to it is to allow the five additional ones right

per your PowerPoint the original yes our recommendation is for that and my understanding under the proposed changes is to not go with additional five licenses and continue with keeping the measure BB waitlist.

All right, clear as mud.

Mayor Sarmiento. Mayor, Council Member Peñalosa has his hand raised.

Council Member Peñalosa, please.

David PenalozaItem 4

Sorry about that. I forgot to lower it from earlier.

I'm okay with those changes. Great. Thank you, Council Member. Appreciate those comments. Let me go ahead and now, seeing no other questions or comments, I think staff has a little bit more clarity after those clarifications. So thank you for everybody for making those clarifying comments. I think we're back to a much more clear picture. Would you like me to reframe it? Please, if you can recite it back.

So based on what we heard, the motion is to go with staff's recommendation with the following changes. We do not increase the additional licenses to 35. that the community benefit program is to be an op-in program as proposed by the UFCW as a 2% tax incentive after a 1% reduction of the retail, essentially bring it down to 5% if someone would choose to operate with the op-in program. The retail program basically would just be at 7% tax rate. That's what I heard.

Go ahead. I believe the... I'm sorry, with Council Member Becerra's edits on some of the clarification language in the ordinance.

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

I think, though, when you say community benefit program that staff originally created, we are okay with that and the 2% opt-in. Because you called it community benefit program.

Yes. No, that's correct because it's the original staff recommendation.

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

And this labor, which is called the labor recommendation. Got it. Okay.

Well, to me, those recommendations from UFCW are critical. Correct. Those are, I mean, look, I like the sustainability stuff. That's all fine and well. But the other compliance ones are the real critical ones. Understood. Right. So.

All right. Anything further? Seeing nothing?

Hearing nothing? Nobody online? All right. Why don't we go ahead and bring it back to a vote? So we have a motion and a second. Council members please vote. A motion was by me, second was by Council Member Lopez.

David PenalozaItem 4

Madam Clerk, I am a yes vote.

Madam Clerk, I am a yes vote as well.

Thank you.

Motion passes by unanimous consent.

All right, everybody, thank you. That did deserve a round of applause for all the confusion. Thank you for bearing with us. Thank you, council members. Thank you, staff. I know that if we were up here, it looked a little clumsy, but that's the way things work sometimes. But in any event, thank you all. Let me go ahead and... Sausage making. I won't say that. Thank you all. Everybody have a good night. Let me go ahead and bring it back to the council.

I'm going to go to the council member requested items that's item number 26 and I believe that's mayor pro tem's item so I'll go ahead and turn the floor over to him thank you mayor Sarmiento

Phil BacerraItem 4

so this so this item you know I brought this forward you know after we adopted the general plan update we're now starting to see applications for development that are requiring meetings per our city's sunshine ordinance the fact that we have a sunshine ordinance is this in the city which requires developers to hold these community meetings prior to public hearings before the city council and before the planning commission it is very commendable you know we as a policy you know

Phil BacerraItem 4

we are trying to have transparency throughout the development process but as with any policy it needs to evolve with current and future issues. You know, recently we amended the Sunshine Ordinance to address some concerns, and because of those amendments, we now require at least two community meetings, but the ordinance, you know, in looking at it today, it doesn't really provide clear direction on how presentations should be conducted and what they should consist of.

Phil BacerraItem 4

clear direction codified in our municipal code, I think is beneficial for both the developer and more importantly the community and the stakeholders. So I've brought forward a couple of proposals that I think hopefully my colleagues will support that we can codify that I think would help going forward ensuring transparency in these Sunshine Ordinance meetings. So the first is, what I'd like to do is clarify that these meetings should be conducted with a format of a single presentation.

Phil BacerraItem 4

And that way, so that everybody who attends and participates in the meetings hears the same information. Second, I would like to require a recording of the presentation. And that way, so that it can later be posted on the city's website along with the pertinent information for that particular development project application. And that way, you'd be able to view it even if you, for whatever reason, were not able to physically attend the meeting. And then the last item would be to add a penalty for applicants who fail to provide the listed

Phil BacerraItem 4

information, not to get a little wonky here, but in the Muni Code section 2-153H, what we should be doing is making sure that not only do we have, because currently in the Sunshine Ordinance we have language that talks about a penalty if you don't hold your meeting in time, what I'm asking for is in addition to that, having the same consistency with the deliverables. In other words, after you've conducted the meeting, you don't get to sit on it for a long period of time but you actually have to provide those items to staff in a timely manner and the penalty to be clear would be to just stop processing

Phil BacerraItem 4

the application because what happens now with the first community meeting in the Sunshine Ordinance is that if you don't conduct it in time and provide the materials to city staff, staff has an application that's deemed incomplete and nothing moves forward until you complete that item so if the application can then be deemed complete. What I'm saying is then going forward, for instance, on the second community meeting, if we don't have the items in, then that staff would then notify the applicant that processing has stopped until staff receives those items. So those are my proposals. I'd like to see if my colleagues

Phil BacerraItem 4

would support those coming back to us.

Yes, thank you. Let me go ahead and bring it back to the council. Let me start by saying thank you for those proposed changes, Mayor Pro Tem. I will be supportive of staff bringing those back to us so we can consider and go through those. I appreciate you going through that methodical explanation. Let me go ahead and ask if any other members of the council have any questions or comments. Council Member Lopez.

Jessie LopezItem 4

Yeah, I'm happy to support the changes. I know that we are also hearing about the radius expansion that we recently did with one of the specific developments in Ward 4. Residents reached out saying, hey, the 1,000 max radius wasn't enough because it didn't grasp any of the, it didn't include any of the homeowners there. So I still think that expanding that radius should be an option for this council and making it what I originally proposed last year, which was 2,000 miles, not miles, but you know, the radius of the, from the development.

Thank you, council member, council member fan. I'm good with it.

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

Spray it back.

What was that? Okay. Let me, let me call on council member, Penalosa and then Mendoza.

David PenalozaItem 4

Thank you, mayor Salmiento. And I just want to thank mayor pro temposera for the putting this item before us. I am in full agreement and support of it. and also supportive of seeing that radius expansion come back to us, as Councilmember Lopez mentioned. But I was kind of thinking about it over the last couple of days, and maybe it should be on a project-by-project basis, or we should have some kind of criteria that would trigger having that additional radius. For example, if we have a very, very large project, like we're seeing in Ward 4,

David PenalozaItem 4

yeah, I would like to see that radius expanded. However, if there's a Starbucks opening down the street from me, I really don't care to know about it personally. And I just think that it would add, depending on the much smaller projects like a Starbucks or whatever it is. I'm just using that as an example. You know, should a 2,000-foot radius be notified? I mean, I don't, I kind of just, I guess it kind of just depends on the size of the project is where I'm getting at, but overall supportive, especially the idea of having these meetings recorded for future viewings of those that can't be in attendance.

David PenalozaItem 4

That should definitely be a requirement. So thank you for that. That's it, Mayor. Thank you.

Thank you for those comments, council member. Council member Mendoza?

Yes, I agree. I think it's a very good idea to have this come before us.

Thank you, council member. Any other comments from the council? Seeing that, I think everybody said yes. We're all a yes on that. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Let me go ahead and bring it back to the city manager or the assistant city manager for his closing comments. Yes, go ahead, council member.

Before we go on to the city manager comments, I was going to respectfully ask if we could, I'd like to register a yes vote for the consent calendar that I missed. I was having technical difficulties. By the way, AT&T, if you're listening, your internet service is terrible in the memorial park neighborhood um i don't know how much more i could i could upgrade and it still sucks but anyways um if with your indulgence if you could allow me to register a yes vote for the consent calendar i don't appreciate it not sure madam

city attorney if that needs uh uh consideration council member your your your signal is even weaker is even weaker as we were listening to you make that plea that your signal was weak. So, but we got, we got it. You wanted to register a yes vote. And I believe what we would have to do is have a motion to reconsider first, have that approved, and then, you know, have you vote once again on the, on the items that you missed.

David PenalozaItem 4

If we could quickly do that, I'd love to make a motion to reconsider the consent calendar.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 4

He can't make that motion. I'll move it.

Let one of us do it. So hold on. I think Mayor Pro Tem will go ahead and make that motion.

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

I'll move it. I'll second.

We have a motion from Mayor Pro Tem, a second from Council Member Fan to reconsider the items that were mentioned that were missed by Council Member Peñalosa.

Phil BacerraItem 4

I already logged off. Yeah, let's do a voice vote.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 4

Can you just do a voice vote?

Phil BacerraItem 4

Yeah, that's fine.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 4

On the motion to reconsider.

What motion?

It was a motion by Mayor Pro Tem, a second by Councilmember Phan.

Councilmember Hernandez has left. Is that going to be an issue? No.

Councilmember Lopez? Sure. Councilmember Mendoza?

Yes. Councilmember Fan? Yes. Mayor Pro Tempecera? Yes. Mayor Sarmiento? Yes.

All right. Now we can... Did you get everybody? Hernandez, I think, did you?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 4

Now you'll need a new motion to actually reconsider the consent calendar with removal of the items and what happened can we not make a habit of this please

let's go ahead and just move it is there a motion to uh approve the balance of the consent calendar with items i believe 12 and 21 that were pulled so moved okay there's a motion by uh mayor pro tem is there a second i'll second okay we have a motion and a second. Motion by Mayor Pro Temp, second by Council Member Phan.

Oh, there he is. Madam Clerk, my vote is yes. I'm a yes, Madam Clerk.

We're going to do a roll call vote. Council Member Hernandez? Yes. Council Member Lopez? Yes. Council Member Mendoza? Yes. Council Member Peñadoza? Yes. Councilmember Fan yes mayor Potempo Serra yes and mayor Sarmiento yes thank you

thank you everybody for your indulgence on that let's go ahead and thank you everyone let's thank you let's move along to the assistant city manager's

comments thank you mayor and members of the council I'm proud to announce that after a year long an extensive review process the California Department of Housing and Community Development has certified the Santa Ana's housing element. We can put that one in the bank. For those of you in the public, the certified housing element is available on our website at www.santa-anna.org, generalplan.housing-element-update-2021. And we're very proud to take the lead in California on this subject matter. And that is my report.

Thank you for those brief comments. Let me go ahead and bring it back to the Council. Let me call on Councilmember Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just want to thank members of the public for joining today's meeting and my colleagues here at the dais for not only listening to the cannabis workers and industry leaders, but meeting them right where they're at. I think that that speaks volumes of the leadership here at the City of Santa Ana. We just recently celebrated Fiestas Patrias and Mexico's independence, and it was a fantastic event. Parks and Recreation did a great job having every single amenity from Ferris wheels for children,

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

resources, and local vendors from the city of Santa Ana, and great musical performances. and it's really exciting to see Santa Ana put on these events and we have thousands of our residents who are enjoying them. And next up, we have the Autumn Festival and Indigenous Peoples Day. So we're looking forward to celebrating with our community. Thank you, everyone, and have a good night.

Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Lopez.

Jessie LopezItem 4

Per AB1234, the city did pay for me to attend Cal City's conference, which was hosted in Long Beach. The city did not pay for any lodging, but they did pay for my attendance. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Mendoza?

Yes. As your Orange County Water District representative, I had the opportunity of attending a water summit here in our sister city in Anaheim. And the water agencies continue to do their best to educate the public in conserving water. but what is absolutely true and I'm asking the public's help in water reduction in order for us to survive this drought it is necessary that we reduce our water consumption by 40 percent

so please be absolutely conscientious of your water usage and reduce your water consumption at every, wherever it is that you can. It is a very serious situation. And so we're gonna get through it, but we need everyone, the entire nation, to participate in the water-saving measures. Thank you and good night.