Read the May 11 meeting.

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Recording in progress

Valerie Amezcua

Sorry, the cameras are going to go on right now.

Valerie Amezcua

We are now live, thank you. Good evening everybody and thank you for being here. Today is a very important meeting. We'll be having our budget meeting. This is a wonderful time of year for us. So Madam Clerk, please start the meeting. Yes, Mayor, meeting is started. I hereby call a special open session meeting to order. this meeting is taking place with in-person attendance and by teleconference via Zoom. The public may access the meeting via the Santa Ana YouTube channel or the city's website. Please bear with us as the technology may disrupt the flow of the meeting. Madam Clerk, please conduct the roll call.

Jennifer L. Hall

Councilmember Becerra?

Phil Bacerra

Here.

Jennifer L. Hall

Councilmember Hernandez?

Phil Bacerra

Here.

Jennifer L. Hall

Councilmember Penaloza?

Present.

Jennifer L. Hall

Councilmember Fan? Here. Councilmember Vasquez?

Valerie Amezcua

Present.

Jennifer L. Hall

Mayor Emesqua?

Valerie Amezcua

Present.

Jennifer L. Hall

Six members present in the chamber.

Valerie Amezcua

Thank you. Before we proceed with the Pledge of Allegiance, please make any announcements.

Jennifer L. Hall

Yes. For members of the public, to request to speak during public comments on the budget workshop, if you're on Zoom or the conference call, please dial star 9 from your phone or click the button labeled raise hand from Zoom at this time. Thank you.

Valerie Amezcua

Thank you. So, Lorena, can you come up and lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance, please?

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

Valerie Amezcua

Thank you very much.

Valerie Amezcua

Madam Clerk, are there any additions or deletions to the City Council agenda? There are none.

Valerie Amezcua

Just for informational purposes, there were no words of inspiration added to this meeting so just to be clear on that okay thank you okay this is the time of the meeting for the City Council to receive comments from the public on the budget workshop only pursuant to the Brown Act the City Council may not enter into discussion at this time we will now hear from members of public that are on the end that are on the conference call or zoom followed by those physically present so we're gonna do zoom calls first and then we'll go into those is present. Madam Clerk, you're on.

Jennifer L. Hall

Yes, Mayor. First caller on Zoom, Karen M.

Jennifer L. Hall

Please dial star six from your phone or select the microphone icon to unmute from your device and proceed with your comment.

Can you hear me now?

Jennifer L. Hall

Yes, we can go ahead.

Hi, I am Karen Malley who works with Animal Assistance League of Orange County, a nonprofit group. It's been around for years for probably around the past 10 years, I have been in charge of spay-neuter vouchers. And so what I'm talking about here is hopefully Santa Ana will create some kind of a spay-neuter program that's affordable for its citizens because we were pretty much the only place where people could get vouchers and we no longer can afford it, at least for now.

and the county does nothing along these lines anymore. So it's extremely important. I can tell you this is a low count, but in one year, a male and a female cat who are mating will have 12 children. In two years, 67. In seven years, 370,100. And in eight years, 2 million and more. So it really is exponential. And although people have been working on this at the moment, there's very little work on it because it's unaffordable.

So if the city of Santa Ana could do something to create a program that was affordable for people, it would make a huge difference, particularly in many years from now. Thank you.

Jennifer L. Hall

Thank you. Next speaker, Kevin Marlin.

Okay, can everybody hear me? Yes. Okay, my name is Kevin Marlin. I'm the executive director for Orange County Animal Allies. We are also a nonprofit organization based here in Orange County. We're actually headquartered right here in Santa Ana as well. And I also wanted to speak to you regarding much needed improvements for animal services to the city of Santa Ana. and that's also one of the cities that which we serve while our programs provide services for all of Orange County approximately one quarter of the calls for services that we receive for both spay

and neuter and for veterinary care come from Santa Ana residents our programs strive to supplement the available programs for the underserved and low-income demographics and they're not intended to replace them and we don't currently receive any government grants or funding our operations are funded strictly based on public and local business donations with the removal of Orange County Animal Cares services and programs that they have they directly impacted the residents and disproportionately so for Santa Ana residents with regard to spay and neuter trap

and neuter and return for feral community cats as well as for personal pets OCAC has directly transferred calls to organizations like ours for animal intake for spay and neuter and we don't currently have the budget or resources to accommodate those calls and programs were not put in place to replace all of the burden and needs of the county. Currently our programs rely on contracted veterinary clinics to meet the needs of medical spay and neuter programs. However as you may be aware this is not working very well as veterinary programs within the county are are grossly understaffed and underfunded,

and there's just not enough available resources. We're currently working to resolve that program to provide the first Orange County nonprofit spay and neuter clinic, very likely to be hopefully placed in the city of Santa Ana, where we've called ourselves home for the last six years. And I'm asking the council to consider including funding to help assist the residents by offsetting those costs that currently fall on the residents. And more importantly, on the non-profits and rescue groups that are trying desperately to prevent animal overpopulation

in Orange County it's a little bit discouraging that the Orange County government has not stepped up to offer better services for animal care especially when we consider that our surrounding communities all offer services to residents we need assistance with property acquisition and ultimately funding to help balance the costs so that residents trying to do the right thing by other animals are able to do so. I welcome further discussion with Orange County Animal Allies so that we work together to curb animal overpopulations and to help alleviate the frustration and despair

experienced by so many when trying to care for their animals. Thank you.

Jennifer L. Hall

Thank you. Next speaker, username L-A-D-A-N-D-A-V-I-A.

Hi, yes, this is LaDanne. Can everyone hear me? Yes, we can. Hi, thank you so much for your time. I will keep it as short as possible, but I am really, my name is LaDanne again, and I run an organization called Friends of Normie. We are a nonprofit who, we're a cat rescue, cat rescue only. I wanted to come here today to please ask you just if there's any way that we can put some of this budget towards spay and neuter, whether it's vouchers or money towards a clinic or any kind of resource.

Because, you know, I've done a little over 3,000 cats in the last three years, and more than half of those cats have all come from Santa Ana. and I have worked with your residents. I have cleared hoarding homes in your city. And what I've learned is I think the residents do want to do the right thing. They do want to get their cats fixed. They just don't have the resources to do it. And as a result of that, I mean, I've cleared homes in your city with hundreds of cats inside the house and that's not an exaggeration.

so please just here to again ask if we could set some money aside to give to spay and neuter because we can't do it alone and I know I'm not alone in saying that we work really hard to try to clean up the streets of these stray animals that have nowhere to go and I know the residents want it too but they also don't know where to go so I would love to continue the conversation nobody can do it alone and if there's a way to get some assistance from the city and the government we all need it I know Santa Ana desperately needs it so thank you so much for your time and

I would love to continue the discussion if appropriate thank you

Jennifer L. Hall

Romina Yamashiro

Hi, can you guys hear me?

Jennifer L. Hall

Yes, please go ahead.

Sure. Dear members of Santa Ana City Council, my name is Romina. I am part of a dedicated community of animal welfare advocates who are deeply invested in the well-being of Santa Ana's animal population. Today, I'm here to discuss the need for a robust spay and neuter clinic, trap neuter return program, or some type of voucher or reimbursement initiative for non-profit organizations aiding the animals within our city. It is with a sense of urgency that I bring this matter to your attention. As we all know, Santa Ana is grappling with the significant challenge of cat overpopulation.

Every year, thousands of animals enter OC Animal Care, with the city bearing an annual cost of about $2.5 million. dollars. While this expenditure is intended to manage and care for our animal population, there is a growing consensus that this investment could be much better utilized. We propose a more effective, humane and ultimately cost-saving solution. Ideally, we would like to see the establishment of a spay neuter clinic, the implementation of a TNR program, or at the very least, the introduction of a reimbursement system for non-profit organizations that are already working tirelessly to address this issue.

A dedicated spay and neuter clinic or TNR program would directly tackle the root cause of the overpopulation, leading to fewer animals entering OC animal care. This proactive approach not only benefits the animals themselves, but also eases the burden on city resources, as well as aiding the residents of Santa Ana, who perhaps are not able to set aside $400 or $500 to fix one pet. Instead, a reimbursement program for the nonprofits helping the community will recognize and support the vital work these organizations do, maximizing the effectiveness of existing efforts within our community.

Furthermore, these proposed solutions have the potential to significantly reduce the city's expenditure on animal control as well as the money being paid to OC Animal Care, thus freeing up funds that can be reinvested into other critical areas of need within our community. I urge you to consider the broader benefits that this program can bring. Beyond the immediate financial and animal welfare implications, they also build a more compassionate responsible and community oriented city they send a clear message to our residents and to the world the santa ana is a place that value all of all its inhabitants humans and

animals alike i humbly request your serious consideration for this proposal we understand these are complex issues and we're more than willing to work with the council to find the best possible solution for our city and its animal population thank you for your time and attention to this critical matter I trust your commitment to making Santa Ana a better place for all residents

Jennifer L. Hall

Tim Johnson

hi good evening council and mayor and esteemed leaders of the city as well as the public Tim Johnson here. I'm a resident of Ward 3. Hopefully everyone has had a chance to review my lengthy email today that I've been putting together for the past week or so. But I wanted to bring a couple quick things to everyone's attention in terms of our budget. We have a lot of wants and needs in our city, but we also have to be financially, fiscally appropriate with disseminating those funds.

Our city is, although I'm part of the Major X Citizen Oversight Committee, I should say that these are my own comments and own feelings, our city is willfully unprepared, I believe, for the one-third drop in major X sales tax revenue from going from 1.5% down to 1%. So, it's a half percent drop in the actual rate, which is a third of it. That's going to be about $29.5 million in today's dollars. So, here in a few years, that's probably going to be closer to about a $35 million drop, and that's a cliff drop one time. think what our city is going to look like with a 30 million dollar drop in revenue if we're not

prepared for that we need to start preparing for that today we need to start saving uh funds we need to start putting money into a measure x sunset stabilization fund we need to start today if we start until if we wait we're going to be in a even more of a dire strait um something else that we most people don't know is that yes we are able to meet our daily our expenditures our revenues are greater than our expenditures right now but that is only part of the picture every single resident that is listening to this the i think there's six council members that are

in chambers every single one of us is about fifteen hundred dollars in debt debt that we don't even know we probably have $1,500 of debt that that our city will owe other people. If you look at our financial statements for 6-30-2022, you'll see that we have about $468 million deficit position and are unrestricted in that position. So a deficit that means negative. There are many cities in our well half of the cities in our county are surplus cities. they their residents have a positive asset balance santa anna is ranked 32nd 32nd out of 34 cities

in orange county in this in this uh fiscal measurement this is a big big problem we need to address going back to the major x rock if you look at the 10-year outlook that director downs provides you and provided the council for multiple years now there's a huge drop in my email i highlighted yellow because that Mr. Johnson your time is up thank you very much I appreciate next speaker John Ramirez

can you hear me yes please go ahead good evening mayor council members and city staff my name is John Ramirez I'm a resident of war two and I've lived in the city for 40 plus years I'm calling for tonight for about a couple of things though the first thing is our parks i would like the city council to set aside money to make sure we have enough uh armed uh security guards or even the park rangers to start adequately patrolling all our parks and any new coming parks that may be developed in the city soon um i'm tired as i'm sure most residents are tired of hearing

uh people our residents have to go to other parks outside our city to be able to enjoy them so uh We need to ensure the safety at our parks and make sure they're clean for everyone to enjoy. So I urge you guys to make sure enough security guards and park rangers are hired to make sure they're adequately patrolled. The other thing I want to touch on is also I would like the City Council to devote monies to more PAL centers opening up in the city. Officer Holcomb is doing a great job so far with the current PAL programs in place. The kids love being there and it's a good program.

It does the community relations between the police and the community. So I think they're doing a good job there. The other thing I want to touch on too is regarding the OC Animal Shelter. I understand the city of Santa Ana contracts with the shelter for services. So I hope and pray that you have authority in pushing this matter forward. The O.C. Animal Shelter currently does not allow the public to walk through its kennels to observe and bond with the animals housed there. This does a great disservice to the animals housed there as it does not allow animals to bond with potential owners in person.

This in turn leads to more animals being put on the list to be euthanized. The practice of allowing the public to fully walk in and bond with the animals at O.C. Animal Shelter was stopped due to the pandemic hitting us in 2020. It was done in accordance with safety measures in regards to COVID. The pandemic is over now and you city council overwhelmingly voted two to three meetings ago to declare that the pandemic was over. So there's no need for the OC animal shelter to still have this pandemic measure in place. I know for a fact that a few of you council members are pet owners and hence you have a caring heart for animals.

And this is not a political issue. It is a humane issue. so we should all be in agreement on this i urge you to demand the oc animal shelter to allow the public to walk in and bond with animals without an appointment needed if it only means one or two lives will be saved by a person bonding then it was all worth it this concludes my comment

Jennifer L. Hall

thank you all and have a good night next speaker erica rasmussen can you hear me okay yes we can

Thank you, Council. My name is Erica Rasmussen. I'm an independent trapper that does TNR. That means all the cost of the fixing of cats and the vaccinations that I do comes out of my own pocket. I've roughly spent about $3,500 so far this year and at least $10,000 last year. If you didn't know, Santa Ana and Anaheim makes up 50% of all the intakes at OC Animal Care, where 14 cities currently contract. 70% of the calls that I get are coming from your residents needs. Needing help with feral and friendly community cats your residents are desperately

seeking help for various feral cat and kitten issues and your population is outrageous. I'm currently working on a portion of a neighborhood in Santa Ana near the border of garden grove where I was alerted to some bottle baby kittens whose mom had disappeared. When I got to location the gravity of the situation became real. This was a cat friendly portion of one neighborhood and I was made aware of several female cats that were ready to pop with kittens at any time. I tried to trap them ahead of them having babies and was only able to get one out of seven.

So I had six female cats drop litters of kittens before I was able to get to them. Think about that. Now I have anywhere from 24 to 36 kittens with their mothers needing homes and to be fixed. And I'm talking about a small sliver of just one neighborhood. This wasn't the entire neighborhood. This is just a small portion of a neighborhood. Think of those numbers I just gave you and now think about your entire city having cats that are having kittens. I'm almost certain that you guys have seen an uptick in coyote calls and dead animal pickups since OC Animal Care

stopped their TNR program back in 2019. If you guys could implement your own spay neuter clinic or a TNR initiative or possibly a voucher system slash reimbursement for the people that are doing the work that the shelter should be doing you guys would be saviors in the eyes of all residents sitting in these issues. I can't recall the amount of money that you guys pay OC Animal Care at the moment. Or every year to bring in animals to, but you're not getting your money's worth and the animals you bring in there don't get treated very well or have a chance to ever leave. Please think about implementing some sort of spay neuter clinic

reimbursement program for your residents or for the people that are taking care of your residents like me i'm an example to the be an example to the uh 13 other cities that contract there at oc animal care by stepping up where they are lacking thank you so much for your time

Jennifer L. Hall

thank you mayor that concludes the speakers on zoom and noting for the record we did receive 11 emails that were distributed to council and posted online in regards to this budget workshop

Valerie Amezcua

Great. Thank you very much. Okay. Public comments and those present. Azucena Soria, please.

Good afternoon. Good afternoon to the City Council. Hi, my name is Azucena. I'm here for French Park Neighbors Association from David's school. I'm asking if we could get the funds for the PAL program. It's going to be beneficial for all our children as well as the neighborhood, as we know. There's a lot of gang units and everything, including our children from the school as well. And also there's a lot of homeless, so it would be a nice thing for the PAL program to be there because if they see more cops going in back and forth,

they will feel more secure as their neighbors and our kids as well. They could also have programs and also like... Sorry, I just got a bad call from my daughter that she's in the hospital right now.

Valerie Amezcua

Oh, I'm sorry.

She's epileptic, so sorry about this. So please, I just feel more comfortable if cops are there to support our school and our neighbors. And that's it. Thank you so much.

Valerie Amezcua

Tina Davidson.

Good afternoon, esteemed city councilman, Mayor Amazon Kuhl. Thank you. I'm Tina Davidson. I'm the president of the Santa Ana Historical Preservation Society. Yeah, we're the saps. We maintain the historic home of Dr. Will-Ella Howe Waffle. And first of all, I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you for our security fence around the Waffle House. It looks absolutely fantastic. It's really brought a lot of attention to the house.

I'm here today because I need, we need, the house needs a painter. We're in bad need of a painter. That house has not been painted in over 20 years, and it's really starting to get bad. There's damage to the wood on a lot of the places on the house, especially the top layer, the top floor near the roof, where the roofs meet. We're seeing some damage happening up there, and we're in bad need. There's a lot of places where large chunks of paint are popping off, and what's exposed is 134-year-old wood.

This house, in case you're not familiar with it, was built by Santa Ana's first lady doctor. What a gal. The house is fantastic. Construction-wise, we're in good shape. We're stable. were okay. But we need a painter. I was able to get the paint donated by Bear Corporation. What do you even say to a company that will do that? This is fantastic. But we need someone to apply it. Please give us funds. We have a bid already. We have a color scheme. It's going to add to the little pocket of

earth that we're on all the buildings around us are starting to be refurbished our color scheme is going to fit in with the community we've had some professional help on that also donated but we are in desperate need all the little things that go wrong with the house we take care of on our own and we're able to do that but this time this is beyond our budget we're nonprofit also. We're all volunteers. None of us get paid a dime, but we are in need of painter. If you give us this painter, I guarantee I'm going to give you back a showstopper of a house.

We're going to have a lot of traffic accidents with people stopping to look at it. If you have not seen the fence around, please drive by. It's absolutely magnificent. It really adds to it. This is the heartbeat of our community built by an incredible woman. We have to keep that history alive. So we have to protect it. So I'm asking City Council to please set aside funds for us. Thank you.

Valerie Amezcua

Thank you very much. Dale Helvig.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council members, and City staff. As you know, one of the goals of the city is to move the needle off the 1.1 acres of land per 1,000 people and get it up to 3 acres. In order to do that, we need to make a strong investment in purchasing land.

Repurposing Willowick Golf Course, repurposing Riverview Golf Course is not going to change that because they're already currently listed in the open space as parkland. So we need to look at acquiring more land. And it's great to see the $3.5 million grant for the Bristol and Tolliver, I think, street area, one and a half acres there, Flower and Tenth we're working on. But those add up to about two acres of land. So we've helped 2,000 people out, out of the 300,000 that we have in the, 300,000 plus that we have in the city.

So I'm hoping that you guys can work on that, getting more land acquisition for parkland space. And also I would like to see Officer Holcomb get some more funds for his PAL program. As you heard from the previous speaker, it's having a positive effect, and I think you all know that it's having a positive effect on the youth. Thank you.

Valerie Amezcua

Thank you. Jeff Katz?

Good afternoon. I'm here with fellow Floral Park neighbor Evan Miles. We are going to consolidate our comments and do it in half the amount of time out of respect for you. We're here not to speak on behalf of our neighborhood. We're here to speak on behalf of the Santa Ana Triangle. We've been working on this project for a couple of years, and thanks to the work of a number of council members and our mayor, and most importantly our chief, who've helped us address two gang homes that have now been eradicated, we're making some great headway.

The nice part is that there's been a coalition of wonderful ministries, the city, but most importantly a bunch of committed citizens doing stuff for a neighborhood that's not their own but we need some funds so we're here beseeching we know cities are all about parks and infrastructure this is a neighborhood that doesn't have any parks has horrible infrastructure but we want to get to the best the most challenging part which is just giving the youth something else other than joining a gang. We encourage the PAL coming here. If I could, I would join forces with a spade of neutering people that we're talking about,

but I don't know if that's the right way to handle the gang problem. We've got other issues, but we think we can do it with the right youth programming, and we just need help from our city.

Yeah, and the other comment I would just add with what Jeff said, it's been amazing to be a part of a group of people where we have people who have worked in different neighborhoods and who are a part of this who've had, I mean, a success in some of these efforts where I've watched over the years a lot of things that people have attempted to do. They haven't necessarily succeeded. You've got groups like Higher Ground, which is a nonprofit. You've got people who are advising us like Kevin Brown, who's a part of Side by Side Church. He's been involved in different neighborhoods in the community. And you've got people like, you know,

Nadia Alvarado, Neutral Ground, who are kind of stepping forward. But in addition to having people with this kind of an issue, you know, they can bring the right people on the table, I think, to really reach, you know, the neighborhood. The youth helped build that neighborhood from within. We've been fortunate to have the Neighborhood Association for that neighborhood's, you know, basically revive, you know, restarted. and those neighbors, you know, or kind of the leadership within that group being a part of this as well. So we're excited to have the neighbors from, you know, the Triangle

and other, you know, French Quarter part of this. And we're excited to have really an incredible group of people have the experience to kind of help us succeed at this. You're making a liar out of me. We're done, but we're good. Thanks.

Valerie Amezcua

Thank you very much. Mia Verdin.

Hello there. Good evening. Well, evening. Good afternoon, City Council and Mayor. My name is Mia Verdin and I am a lifelong born and raised resident of Santa Ana. I live in Ward 3 and I am also the chairperson of the City's Youth Commission. I'm here to speak to you on behalf of asking for further investment in youth, particularly for a youth center It's funded by the city. Our city is one of the youngest cities in Orange County, with 25% of our residents being under the age of 18, according to US Census Bureau data. Santa Ana is a city that unfortunately does not have many third spaces for their youth.

Third spaces being areas outside of school, work, and home, where we can just be ourselves, exist, get whatever resources that we need, whether it's tutoring, whether it's exploring, if you like to paint or learning how to ride a bicycle things like that those are important and our youth deserve to have the resources that we need to further express our interests and what we need to do as a student in st anna i see firsthand what my peers experience in my community i know for a fact that if this city committed to further investment in youth services

and that many opportunities would be given to our youth to fully flourish outside of the city The city of Anaheim has two youth centers, the downtown Anaheim Youth Center and the West Anaheim Youth Center. They include full-sized basketball courts, community meeting rooms, dance and fitness rooms, an internet accessible computer lab, youth activity rooms, and youth programming rooms. Garden Grove also has a Buena Clinton Youth and Family Center that provides after-school tutoring for students in first to sixth grade, summer program for kids in middle school and

elementary school and a community engagement program for youth ages 13 to 18. These other cities all have numerous youth centers so why is Santa Ana the only city without a proper youth center that is actually funded by the city not just a nonprofit organization. While the city public library and the Salgado community center have youth spaces and programming they are also only geared for youth ages 13 to 17. All of the youth below the age of 13 and older than the age of 17 deserve to be supported by their city. While only 10% of Santa Ana's residents

are older than 65, the city also offers two senior centers that are fully funded by the city. So where's the one for the youth? In the proposed budget, $146 million would be going to the police department, which is a $6 million increase from the last adopted budget, while at the same time, only $700,000 is being increased for things like the library. That's another thing I would like to touch on quickly. The city of Santa Ana only has two libraries, while the city of Anaheim, that only has 45,000 more residents, has 10. Do better. The money is

there. Thank you. Carl Benninger. Good afternoon, Mayor, Council, and City Staff. My name's Carl Benninger. I live in Ward 4. I have a couple things to ask today. First of all, it is, I've asked already and I'll ask again, we want to get CERT going in the city and we're We're looking for a line of $250,000 in which we buy equipment, radios, and get ourselves prepared. Of all the five major cities in Orange County, we're the only one with an active CERT program.

We need to improve that. Second thing I want to ask for is really for your support. We have in our area a drain channel, flood control channel, that runs from, it's open from Warner all the way to Sunflower. One of the residents of the area, Pete Lockwood, came up with, I think, an excellent idea, and that is to cover it. And if you cover it strong enough, you can turn that into a park area, that whole stretch. We know this is county money that we need to go talk to and we will be talking to them. But I'd like to leave here today or within the next week or so with the support of this council that we proceed with this

and we'll go to the county on June 13th and 14th. They're having their budget meeting and we'll end up talking about them. And not only would you possibly open up more park areas, eliminate the vector problems we have in that area you eliminate the homeless problem we have in the area and we have four schools in that area that fall closely to that drainage area all that would be resolved if we end up going on it and the last thing i have to ask is only because hawk has picked on it but he says i need to ask for one time proposition to remove this red wing jersey so uh is that asking that talk 50 or should be more anyway thank you

Valerie Amezcua

Thank you. Lorena? I'm going to just chop up the last name. I know I do it every time.

Valerie Amezcua

But you know who I'm talking about.

Hi. My name is Lorena. I'm a resident of Ward 4. And I'm here on behalf of my neighborhood, Republic Homes. I'm fortunate to live in a neighborhood where we meet on a regular basis. But I remember the first meeting I attended. One of the hot topic was a signal, traffic signal, that was very desperately needed in our neighborhood. The city, there was a city representative there and they assured us that it was being looked at and reviewed. Well, I remember this meeting is because I was eight months pregnant and during the neighborhood meeting I started to have contractions. I was pregnant.

Well, my son is 22 years old and we still don't have our light signal. This signal is dangerous for our community. We've had countless accidents, two of them that are resulting in deaths. I often see families crossing to get their kids from our neighborhood over to Jefferson Elementary School. And just last week I saw a lady running across the street pushing a stroller while she had a little baby walking in her hand. and it's also very dangerous. We only have two entrance and exits in our neighborhood and both of them are very dangerous for our residents to exit and turn left. So I am asking the city council to please fund

our traffic signal that it's much needed. Thank you.

Valerie Amezcua

Thank you very much. That ends public comments at this time.

Valerie Amezcua

The only item on today's agenda does the fiscal year 23-24 budget workshop. Madam City Manager, may we have the presentation please.

And thank you, honorable mayor, mayor pro tem and council members. We have about a 20 minute presentation for you that is the accumulation of this is the third time to receive input. So we had the early budget direction, we had the first workshop, this is the second workshop. And in addition, I know you all received 825 pages of proposed budget. So you have that as well. I'm feeling really good at our progress that we've made so far, but I will turn it over to Executive Director Catherine Downs, and she's going to walk you through the presentation.

Catherine Downs, Executive Director, Executive Director, Executive Director, Executive Director, Good afternoon, Mayor and Council Members. Thank you for having this dedicated budget workshop. Our approximate 20-minute presentation will delve into a handful of topics, but we're We're here to answer any of your questions about the proposed budget and receive your direction.

This presentation includes an overview of the proposed budget, some background and best practices, discussion topics, and next steps.

First, an overview of the budget.

These are the changes made to the proposed budget since receiving your May 2 direction. We believe the proposal reflects the council and community spending priorities. We removed the $200,000 increase for crossing guards and shifted that money to add community intervention programs. We will continue to pursue school district contributions to fund the difference between between our budgeted spending and the current level of service. We've added one-time spending for stadium flooring, the water tower safety and feasibility study for visitors, security cameras, and test case expansion of existing programs

for community intervention and animal services.

Recurring spending has been added for a beat making program. The $200,000 for the community intervention recurring programs is the amount shifted from crossing guards. The proposed general fund budget is balanced. It includes $400.9 million of recurring revenue and $400.8 million of recurring spending. Once again, we have leaned heavily into one-time spending from the available general fund balance. The 18% general fund reserve of $72 million is funded, leaving more than $29 million for one-time spending.

In your draft budget document on the right-hand side of page 3, you can find the details for all additions to the general fund budget from the current year.

General fund revenue is summarized here. Property tax and sales tax, including Measure X, continue to represent more than 60% of unrestricted funding for general government services. Our revenue estimates are conservative, but based on realistic scenarios and the latest data available. The cannabis revenue estimate of $16 million reflects the rate decrease. For comparison, the expected revenue prior to the rate decrease was $22 million. As we receive more data, we will continue to reanalyze cannabis tax revenue and proposed adjustments throughout the fiscal year as needed.

This is a summary of general fund spending. $203 million, or roughly half the budget, is allocated for public safety, including police, fire, and ambulance. Restricted money, not general fund, provides primary funding for public works and community development. To illustrate, the total public works proposed budget is $258 million, or one-third of the citywide budget across all funds. The total community development budget, which includes housing assistance, is $134.5 million across all funds.

You will be able to see department summary information during your June 6 public hearing.

Next, we'll take a look at the General Fund 10-Year Outlook with a couple additional scenarios. The Outlook is a tool to identify potential future budget gaps. We take the proposed recurring budget and factor inflation for years 2 through 10 of the model. We include known events like scheduled debt payoffs and the Measure X rate reduction in 2029. None of us can predict the future, so actual results will always vary from our different models.

In FY21, the outlook showed a $74 million gap in 2029 due to the Measure X rate reduction. After pension refinancing, the FY23 outlook showed a reduced budget gap of only $21 million. However, one bad year of revenue does have a significant impact on the entire outlook. For fiscal year 2024, we expect general fund revenue to be flat with no significant overall increase. This had the effect of increasing that potential budget gap in 2029.

The updated general fund 10-year outlook includes the following assumptions. Only recurring spending is included, debt payoffs, the Measure X rate decrease, inflationary increases based on the CPI forecasted by the California Department of Finance, an early estimate of $1 million for the City's contribution to OC streetcar operations beginning in fiscal year 25, year 2 of the model. Even though some employee bargaining groups are still in negotiations, we have also included planned wage increases.

This is the updated version of the model. For year one, the proposed budget, we are balanced. We get a spending reprieve in year two with payoff of the police building debt. The 2029 budget gap in this status quo model is $24.7 million. There's a good chance that future years will include increased spending for employee pension contributions, but we do not yet have those numbers from CalPERS reflecting recent low investment returns.

I'm sure you've all heard the discussion in the news regarding expected recession. By many accounts, it is expected to be a quote-unquote mild recession. Mild recession is defined in a variety of ways by different economists. In this illustrative model, I have gone with a 1.2% sales tax decrease for 12 months, including Measure X. With this scenario, you can see how quickly the reprieve from paying off the police building debt disappears. years, and the 2029 budget gap widens to $31.4 million.

Each time we have provided a 10-year outlook, we mention that it does not include new revenue from development. There is a reason we don't include that potential new revenue. Development projects can easily be delayed, change scope, or simply not materialize. With that said, this is an illustrative example of an outlook with new revenue from three sample developments. A medium-sized mixed-use project, a small hotel project, and a very large mixed-use project. If we were to realize new revenue from these potential developments, the 2029 budget gap effectively disappears.

A scenario like this would provide the City with an opportunity to focus on one-time spending before 2029 to improve parks and rehab streets. Staying away from the expansion of recurring services would help us reach the goal of having a balanced budget when the Measure X tax rate decreases, and we could provide more tangible improvements for the community directly related to Measure X taxation.

On May 2, the Council directed us to bring back the plan for the Measure X tax rate decrease. First, I wanted to point out that Measure X began paying for an existing $16 million annual budget deficit when it went into effect on April 1, 2019. Since then, we have increased the general fund reserve, refinanced the pension debt, prioritized one-time spending, and segregated new services added with Measure X to easily identify areas for future spending reductions.

As you saw in the last illustrative example of the 10-year outlook, additional tax from new development would also help to close that 2029 budget gap.

During each City Council budget workshop, we focus on the general fund because it is the primary operating fund of the city using your discretionary revenue. Next, I would like to focus on restricted funds. Spending restrictions come from grant awards, other federal and state allocations, developer fees and our own enterprise funds supported by user fees for individual benefit. Some examples of restricted funds are included here. Measure M2 and gas tax can only be used for street improvements and right-of-way maintenance.

The water, sewer and refuse enterprises collect fees that can only be used to provide services to system customers. Housing money can only be used to provide housing assistance.

This is a summary of the entire proposed city budget totaling $764 million. The general fund accounts for more than half of the budget. The remaining portion is for restricted funds. We focus less on those because there is little to no City Council discretion for how those funds are spent. Your discretion comes in the form of approving recommended projects for those funds in separate reports such as the CDBG spending plan that you approved on May 2.

Every city, including Santa Ana, uses internal service funds to centrally account for services provided to various departments. Examples include fleet maintenance and workers' compensation payments. The cost of these internal services is allocated to each department based on their proportionate usage. The City Council's reserve policy does not require reserve balances for these funds, but sets ideal targets to ensure internal services are fully funded. Realistically, much of these internal service costs are allocated to department budgets within the general fund.

Due to competing demands for general fund money, we have been very careful to control the increase of internal service charges. In past budget reports, both during the annual budget process and in quarterly reports, we have given the City Council a heads up that certain funds are underfunded and have requested additional infusions of one-time money. I wanted to show you our full list of internal service funds with the estimated balance at June 30, 2024, and the target balance for each. Some of these funds are doing okay, but for others we do need to find long-term solutions.

An example is the Public Works Project Management Fund. Engineers charge their time to projects they are working on. Usually, those projects are funded with restricted money. Sometimes the restrictions limit the amount an engineer can charge. Overall, engineers cannot charge their time for admin, management, and non-productive time such as vacation. Staff has been working on improving the business model. An example is obtaining approval from granting agencies for increased bill rates. But more work needs to be done. It is possible that as funding allows, we may return with a request for a general fund

infusion for public works project management.

Next, I would like to turn the presentation over to our Assistant Finance Director, Alex Trinidad, who oversees the Budget Office. Alex Trinidad, Director, Office of Finance and Finance and Finance and Finance and Finance Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. This part of the presentation I will briefly go over a little bit of background on our budget as well as best practices.

So the budget document is very large and a detailed report that not only is used by the public but it's also used by city staff throughout the fiscal year. Sections that the public will be most interested include the narrative at the beginning of the document. So this would include financial policies, strategic plan on hot topics, revenue and labor trends, workforce changes, explanation of our budget process, and a 10-year outlook. Some of the items to highlight include the estimated fund balance summary. So this is a summary by fund that includes the beginning balance as well as the proposed activity for the year.

It includes also an estimated ending fund balance. Another item is the general fund reconciliation. So we want to show full transparency. so this reconciliation shows the evolution of the budget from the prior year. Then we go into the department sections. That includes strategic priorities, performance measures, position summaries, and the detailed department budget. The final budget document will include all these sections. The draft budget includes only the budget detailed information for now.

So I would like to have a reminder to the public that state law limits the city's ability to raise revenues. Taxes are for general benefit and must be approved by the voters. So this will require a simple majority for general tax or two-thirds majority for restricted uses. The other revenues are for fees for individual benefits and are limited to the cost recovery. We wanted to share recent developments. The Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act has qualified for the November 2024 statewide ballot to further limit local government's ability to raise revenues.

So this would raise the approval threshold to general taxes to two-thirds. This would also expand the definition of tax to include regulatory fees. This includes development fees. And lastly, this would be retroactive to January 2022.

So this is our revenue best practices approach. So we use recurring revenues for recurring spending. We focus also on utilizing most of the restricted resources, sources first before using general fund money. Here we have a list of major sources of revenue for the city. For taxes, this includes property, sales tax, and others that are used to fund public services such as safety and recreational activities. Fees are charges to cover individual service costs. Some examples include permits and water utility charges. The city receives various different grants and other federal and state allocations

that are used for restrictive purposes. Some examples include street improvements and housing.

So the budget draft document also includes a proposed capital improvement program. this is scheduled to go to the planning commission on june 12. as part of the best practices we use the following so we maintain existing assets before developing more we utilize professionally developed master plan to prioritize projects and lastly we include consideration of future maintenance and replacement costs so this includes this concludes my section thank you thanks alex the next section of the presentation will focus on topics for city council discussion and direction.

On May 2nd, we heard a mixed reaction to the proposed fee increase of 4.1%. Fees are charged for services that benefit individuals, such as a building permit fee. The proposal is based on actual employee compensation increases, including negotiated increases and step increases. These fees help pay for employees who provide services, as well as the systems they use to do the job. We are in various stages of modernizing those systems which include business license tax, financials and payroll, credit card processing, land management system, and the dog licensing system.

We continue to recommend the fee increase which is well within the CPI increase of 5.56%. If the City Council directs us to decrease or eliminate the fee proposal, we would also seek direction for spending that should be reduced to rebalance the proposed budget. On Tuesday, the agenda for your regular May 16th meeting was published. Agenda Item 9 outlines the recommendations for a rental registry fee to fund a new rent stabilization program based upon implementation of the related City Council ordinance.

The proposed budget includes the recommended $100 per unit fee as well as new program spending.

On May 2nd, City Council requested information for police officer deployments in different areas of the city. We've included information here for South Bristol Corridor, Downtown Santa Ana, and each City Council ward. The police chief has separately provided you with detailed information on these deployments. The City has moved forward with a number of environmental justice implementation actions from the general plan. The proposed budget includes the activities of an environmental services division within the planning and building agency, as well as $750,000 to prepare a climate action plan.

The City has collaborated with OC Healthcare and other organizations to raise awareness for increased health care. And the Delhi Groundwater Cleanup is the first interagency initiative to address environmental issues.

Our current concession contract ends in several months. An RFP for a new concession contract has been posted and proposals are due on June 19. Alcohol service at both the zoo and stadium is a mandatory requirement of the RFP. Parks and Recreation is working to promote the RFP to local concessionaires.

The City has identified six park sites for splash pads. The plans and specs are nearly complete for all. The budget includes funding for the first two sites at Madison Park and Thornton Park.

We also have a status update for park restrooms. Prefab restrooms have been completed in Memorial, Campesino, and Madison. Prefabs are funded and in process for Angels, Windsor, Heritage, and Riverview. Renovations of existing restrooms will be completed soon for Santiago West and rentals at Santiago Gas House. Other renovations in process include the lawn bowling and nature centers. We still need funding for renovations of El Salvador and Santiago baseball field restrooms. This is an excellent example of what can be funded next year when the police building

debt is paid off. Parks and Recreation is creating a master plan for park restrooms.

I noted earlier in the presentation that our general fund revenue estimate includes the impact of cannabis tax rate decreases. Two-thirds of that tax revenue is transferred to the Cannabis Public Benefit Fund to be used for youth and enforcement services. This summary includes the estimated fund balance at July 1, 2023 along with a reduced funding transfer for Fiscal Year 24 and the proposed spending budget. The Fiscal Year 23 budget included significant one-time spending. We were able to balance the proposed Fiscal Year 24 budget by sticking to the recurring

programs and not including any additional one-time spending proposals. officials. The estimated fund balance at June 30, 2024 would be slightly more than $2 million. We recommend leaving this fund balance in case revenue estimates need to be decreased further after receiving more data.

The next planned meeting is the Budget Public Hearing on June 6. This is when you'll receive presentations from each department head and you can consider further public comment. Our June 6th recommendation will be an introduction of the Fiscal Year 24 budget ordinance. The second reading and adoption is planned for June 20. Recommendations will also include adoption of the miscellaneous fee schedule and capital improvement plan. During the coming fiscal year, staff will continue to update recurring revenue estimates, which may allow the City Council to consider additional spending priorities.

That concludes the prepared presentation. We're ready to answer your questions and receive any further direction.

Valerie Amezcua

»» Perfect. Thank you so much.

Valerie Amezcua

And I see here our next public hearing June 6th, City Manager, and we want to adopt on June 20th. Hopefully we get there, right? Okay.

Valerie Amezcua

Okay. I'll call on each Council Member to provide comments and direction. will follow the decorum procedures from our resolution establishing rules and procedures where each council member will have three minutes for their initial comments. Once all council members have spoken, we can have additional rounds of three minutes each if needed. Madam City Attorney, can you explain that a little bit, please?

Yes. Good afternoon, Mayor and members of the City Council. City Council, Santa Ana Municipal Code section 2-104 provides that the City Council shall by resolution adopt rules of decorum and order for its meetings. Such rules shall include time limits and other standards for debate and discussion.

Resolution 2013-019 establishes these rules. Section 5 provides that a Council Member should limit himself or herself to three minutes at any one time without permission of the presiding officer.

Valerie Amezcua

Thank you very much. So just to inform the council, when you ask a question of staff, the clock will stop. Once you start speaking, the clock will start again. I believe, Jennifer, that is what you had informed me. Also, which is great for us, when you want to speak in front of you, I think Jennifer has showed Norma all of you how to push the button to speak. It's easier that way so I don't have to keep looking all around and miss somebody. So please hit the button to speak and then I'll see it right in front of me, which is wonderful, yay, and then I will call on you. So thank you. All right, let's get started.

Valerie Amezcua

All right, I see that hand went up. Mr. Hernandez. Excuse me, Councilman Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

Thank you, Mayor Mesquite. I just want to thank our staff for the presentation. I am supportive of the one-time spending that is being proposed for the stadium flooring and a forklift at $980,000. This will help us generate revenue for the city, host regular sporting activities and events there. So I'm supportive of the Feral Cat Trap and Release RFP for low-income assistance to spay and neuter. I know Councilmember Peñalosa and I have been advocates for animals, and our furry friends need some more support. So I'm supportive of that. I am supportive of the one-time spending for additional expansion of community intervention.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

I am supportive of recurring spending for beat making. I wanted to ask for more funding in our general fund expenditures to be allocated to our Parks and Recreation Department. They are currently at $15.21 million, which is only 3.6.7% of our budget. Our library is presently at 1.79%. Our library needs to, I would like to see an increase in funding to library services, Parks and Rec, as well as Community Development Agency. I would like to propose to see at least $2 million funded to the Community Development Department.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

In response to the housing shortage that has happened here in California, Governor Newsom recently created grant funding which is no longer available. that was up to $40,000 to incentivize homeowners to build ADUs in response to the housing crisis. I think that that would be a great solution here for Santa Ana. If we can incentivize homeowners with grants that can pay in five different tiers to incentivize building, tier number one would be 25%, tier number two would be 50%, tier number three would be 75%, tier number four would be 100%. for those houses that are emergency houses where you have 10 12 people

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

living in there not enough space these are the types of ADU programs I think that would help families like that and lastly I would like to see an amnesty program so if we are going to roll out an ADU program what a great opportunity for planning and building as well as community development to work together that can help us address the housing crisis as well as the challenge that we have with people experiencing homelessness I think that would be a great solution for housing and it keeps families here improves property values and beautifies neighborhoods I would also like to see us allocate some

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

additional funding to support our Parks and Recreation Department when it comes to the funding needed for El Salvador Park and Santiago baseball the renovations can be funded through the police enforcement fund that comes from cannabis benefit. Currently they have $3,520,000. Parks and Recreation has $3,207,000. There could be an abundance of funding taken from there to help fund those restrooms. I also want to advocate for the request from our youth to see a teen center. And that concludes my comments.

Valerie Amezcua

Thank you very much, Councilman Hernandez. I don't see anybody else wanting to speak.

Valerie Amezcua

No buttons?

Valerie Amezcua

All right, well, did you push it, Councilman? Ah, there we go, Councilman Vasquez.

Benjamin Vazquez

Thank you, Mayor.

Valerie Amezcua

Does everybody know what button to push? We're good? Okay.

Benjamin Vazquez

Thank you, I appreciate it. I'm in agreement with Councilmember Hernandez. I do appreciate the cat, trap and release. We have seen many cats go up in my neighborhood and my mom's neighborhood, who is currently trying to catch a cat who has had three litters in her home and then give away all those kittens. So the more we can help, the better. I'd like to see more money for youth. If we're going to get serious about crime, we have to get serious about families and youth. So I'd like to see more money for parts and rec, more money for libraries, and the SAID

Benjamin Vazquez

program if we can increase in the summer. If we have jobs for kids in the summer that would increase the benefits to their families, to themselves, and we will see crime go down, nothing beats a bullet like a job, as Father G says from Homeboy Industries. So I'd like to see more kids being employed in the summer when times are free. The SAI program, the California Now program are great and we should get the word out about all the beautiful things going on there. I do appreciate the POW program. The POW program is a program where adults are mentoring youth.

Benjamin Vazquez

and if we have more than just PAL but we increase it across where we have volunteers doing the work as well as the PAL program does I think we do more we'd be more efficient to use general funds for other resources so I like to see more more support for youth programs for sports programs like TKO and And whenever we have volunteers coaching, whenever we have volunteers mentoring, that would be great. I would like to see for, we had using the water tower for visiting purposes. I think that's a great idea.

Benjamin Vazquez

And I would like to see also we could expand revenue by having on-site consumption of cannabis. I know we were looking at it or it passed. and it would be great if we can have a place in the city where people are welcome to do that, and I'm proposing maybe the train station as a place for adults to have on-site consumption to increase the revenue for the city.

Benjamin Vazquez

That's it for now, Mayor. If I have any more, I'd add afterwards. Thank you.

Valerie Amezcua

Great. I'm gonna ask a few questions then I'll go back to Councilman Hernandez. He has his head. Can you talk a little bit about for those watching at home, this is my question. You're on page 8, the 10-year outlook.

Valerie Amezcua

Can you elaborate a little bit about that? Because I think, you know, people may think we have more funding, but then when you look at one-time spending, right, it's like, oh, we won lotto. No, we really didn't. So can you talk about that, please? What is the outlook?

Sure. Thank you, Mayor. The outlook is basically just an extrapolation of the recurring budget structure. So today's recurring revenues, today's recurring expenditures, ramped up by inflation over the next 10 years. And it's really just a tool to see things like the 2029 budget gap when Measure X rate decreases.

The history of it is that, you know, it does evolve every single year. It changes as circumstances change. We don't include the one-time spending in this because one-time spending comes from from the general fund balance, the accumulated balance that is available for spending. And when I say available for spending, I mean the balance less the amount of the City Council's reserve, that 18% reserve of $72 million, and then what's left over. And what's left over, our estimate right now, is $29 million available for that one-time spending.

So it's kind of like spending out of your savings account versus spending out of your recurring paycheck. That's the difference.

Valerie Amezcua

Thank you. My next question is on the fee increase for the general public watching at home. Can you talk about that please?

Sure. Thank you. The proposed fee increase is just, well, first let me roll back. Our fees are based on cost recovery. So state law says that we can't make money off fees. We can only recover our costs for providing these services. Well when our costs increase to provide these services, our city staff provides plan checks. That's somebody working the counter. That person gets a wage increase that is negotiated with their bargaining group as well as a potential

step increase if they haven't been at the city that long. So those wage increases drive up our costs to provide that service that only benefits one individual. So we request a fee increase each year to keep pace with those increasing costs. If we did not increase our fees over time, we would be charging far less than our costs to provide the service, which means that the general taxpayer money, like property taxes, would be subsidizing services that benefit an individual.

So the idea is that you want your general taxes to benefit the general population, and you want your fee revenue to benefit just the person who is receiving that service.

Valerie Amezcua

Thank you very much. One more question for you. City's contribution on page 9 to the OC Streetcar begins in year 2425. Again, this is for the general public watching at home because I know many people are watching at home. It's $1 million is an estimate.

Yes, this is a very early estimate. From what I understand, we have a 10% contribution. It's based on a formula, you know, with an operating agreement. This is because the streetcar would be providing service through our city. And so there's related operations that we would be participating in above and beyond what OCTA, or I'm sorry, Orange County Transportation Authority funds. So again, this is a very early estimate. It might be less. It might be more. But this is our best guess at this point. We have not received the detailed estimates from OCTA yet.

Valerie Amezcua

So you can start my time.

Valerie Amezcua

So my concern is it could go up, it could go down. We don't know because, as you just indicated, we have not received information from OCTA. So, again, from a fiscal standpoint, we have to be ready for it to go over a million dollars. And that's why when we start talking about one-time money in my eight years of experience on the school board, one-time money is one-time money. That's what it means. And so then what is the budget for the city, right? We have to look at that as a whole. We could want lots of things, but what is a priority? So the streetcar is going to go into Garden Grove.

Valerie Amezcua

And so let me ask you a question, since my time will stop right now. Is Garden Grove also going to be giving money for their portion?

I believe that Garden Grove has a similar operating and maintenance agreement with OCTA that the City of Santa Ana does. I don't know their exact percentage, though. I don't believe our executive director knows the...

Valerie Amezcua

Nabil, can you come up so we can hear you? I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate it.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, member of the City Council. To tell you the truth, I don't know the details of the agreement with Gardening Grove, but my assumption it would be similar to the one that is with Santa Ana. We'll have to review both and get back to you on that.

Valerie Amezcua

But our amount can increase. It can be more than $1 million.

It's possible, yes. This is just an estimate and it's early estimate.

Valerie Amezcua

What did you base the estimate on?

We had conversation with the OCTA staff and 10% of the operation right now indicates about a million dollar. Just a conversation right now, the real number would come once the OC streetcar is functional and actually transporting riders.

Valerie Amezcua

And where would that $1 million or more or less come from?

My assumption would be the general fund.

Valerie Amezcua

That's what I thought.

Okay.

Valerie Amezcua

So it'll come from the general fund, which is taking money from us.

If I can clarify, Mayor, it's not for the upcoming budget year?

Valerie Amezcua

24-25.

24-25.

Valerie Amezcua

No, and that's what I said initially, and it was just to clarify, because the budget, in my opinion, is not just the one year, right? We have to prepare ourselves. Like, I think, Kath, you were talking about your savings at home, right? You have to prepare yourself. They recommend you have six months of your mortgage payment in your savings account. Why for that rainy day, right, or up to a year? So 2425 is going to be here in a blink of an eye, and so then we don't know if it's going to be over a million dollars or less than a million dollars. And I think it's important for the community to know that

Valerie Amezcua

And I wasn't here when the streetcar started or was approved, and I don't know if anybody else was, but was the council made aware that there was going to be a cost to us? That is a question.

You know, to tell you the truth, I'm not sure what the conversation was at those days because it was before my time.

Mayor, also it was before my time, but I do believe that in the process of approving the streetcar, the format and template for the operation and maintenance agreement was the council was aware of it.

Valerie Amezcua

Great. Thank you. Can I, and I don't know if any other council members, but can I get the history from the streetcar, the complete history all the way from the start so that I can take a look at it just for financial purposes. I want to see how much money or if there's any other additional funding. There's a lot of things in here I agree with. I think one of the things that I really hope that we can find the funding for is the CERT program. It is not if there's going to be emergency, but when. And we need to be prepared for it as a community, as other cities are prepared. Also, I'm very supportive of the Pell program.

Valerie Amezcua

And then I had mentioned previously code enforcement. we need to take a look at code enforcement and staffing among code enforcement and also public safety. The community, when I speak to them, and I know, you know, I speak to lots of them, I'm out about all the time. Yes, parks are very important, but we need to have safe parks. We need to have, you know, either police or security or park rangers to protect our parks and our families that are at the parks so that they're not being bothered or there's not any issues going on. So it doesn't take maybe from the police department services.

Valerie Amezcua

And if we are going to increase parks and have them open as we want them to, then we're going to have to, and we have a need to increase the number of police officers that we have. So let me go to the next person to speak. Councilman Hernandez, please.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

Thank you, Mayor Mesquah. Just wanted to thank our Chief Valentin, I'm really supportive of the district policing that you introduced, sir. I think this is going to build a bridge, help community members become more familiar with the department. And I think that's a starting point that is healthy. So thank you, sir. I wanted to mention, I see that the downtown Santa Ana police liaison is mentioned. I do also want to emphasize the importance that we can't just simply have police in downtown without code enforcement. because we have people who are getting shot inside of a bar

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

and there's no justification for anyone ever entering a bar with a gun to begin with. That's a code enforcement issue. We have officers who are parked in downtown all the time and they didn't stop that bullet. We need to fund code enforcement so that they can introduce rules and regulations to be able to hold businesses accountable because there's no reason why that bar should still be open today. So I do want to emphasize that I'm thankful that police are putting a large emphasis on downtown, but we also need to strengthen code enforcement to ensure that we're bringing forth solutions.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

The Cannabis Public Benefit Fund, I want to mention, I would like to see us utilize funding from police enforcement to fund cameras for our police department. Those cameras should be placed at the dash of a police vehicle so that it can document, capture everything that happens in front of them. And we should also have cameras installed at the back of our police vehicles to capture what happens to passengers. This would be one of the most transparent investments that our city can make. It would protect us from litigation and it also ensures that we're engaging in the most transparent practices in California.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

I urge our colleagues to support that. I would like to ask staff to utilize the cannabis public benefit fund, police enforcement funds for that. I would also like to see funds from police enforcement be utilized to fund family wraparound services, so that when there is a crime that does happen, we have specialists who work on case management, they wrap the entire family, and we can ensure that there is healing at the core of why there is such a strong need for us to address crime and pain in this community. I would like to see us fund more case management through the police department.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

That looks like partnering with non-profit organizations so that we can be proactive in preventing crime. Organizations like Neutral Ground would be fantastic partners. Reentry is something that we need to fund. And I would like to also see a component of intervention be introduced to Parks and Rec, where we work with nonprofit organizations like Project Kinship, Neutral Ground, and we have community interventionists stationed at our parks and recreational centers where they can actively work in these more at-promise neighborhoods that need the additional resources. This would be a great way to have people on the ground.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

That concludes my comments.

Valerie Amezcua

Thank you, man. Thank you, Councilman Hernandez.

Phil Bacerra

Councilman Becerra, please. Thank you, Mayor Mesquois. So first of all, staff, thank you for putting this together. I mean, it's like one of those, you know, you go online and you answer four or five questions, the next thing you know, it spits out like a designation or, you know, a personality test, right? That's really what you're doing. You're taking the input from the community and seven folks up here, and you're putting together this budget. So I really appreciate all the work that you've done. I want to thank the folks that have come out today to speak on some of the items.

Phil Bacerra

as far as the animal shelter and as far as the flower flood control channel so both of those items are something that the county needs to step up with its funding and just for those of the those of you that are interested june 13th and 14th across the street that's where you would need to go to speak to the board of supervisors but for my ward for residents yes i absolutely support covering the flower street channel the county has done unfortunately an abysmal job of managing managing that channel going down there once a week to clean it it literally becomes

Phil Bacerra

housekeeping for the homeless that are down there next to our schools next to taff next to macarthur unacceptable so i support that um i absolutely do not support defunding our police funds do not support that so I do not want to see staff move funds from our PD please in regards to park security anything we can do to enhance it one thing to keep in mind everybody is that we were talking about a park in Riverview and instead of folks going yes please expand the park people are saying no don't that's where the homeless are gonna end up camping out people are actually saying no to

Phil Bacerra

parks because we can't keep them safe clean and secure so that should be something we need to prioritize. As far as investing in youth, absolutely agree, and that's why I support investing in PAL. I think PAL has been an amazing program, and that's something that we need to do to continue to invest in our youth. The program has had amazing results, and the further expansion, the better. The Howe Waffle House, one thing that Ms. Davidson didn't mention is that that's a city resource. That is not owned by the nonprofit. They are doing God's work by keeping that up, but we need to make sure that we give them the resources to do it.

Phil Bacerra

They put in that fence through city funds, and they did an amazing job managing that. So I hope that we continue to support their efforts by making sure they have the resources when it comes to the painting and other work on that city asset. It's truly a historic asset. CERT, I hope that we are able to find some money for CERT. That's not an expensive investment for something that can be very critical when the time comes. So I hope that we're able to do that. And I just, again, want to thank staff. you've addressed a lot of my concerns I brought before revenue generation you

Phil Bacerra

know the the what you call due diligence on the water tower those things I again you've put that all in here so I'm looking forward to combing through the actual draft budget before a public hearing but I just want to thank you guys for what you've done and I'm hoping that this meeting will wrap up soon because you've done such an amazing job of putting everything into this

Valerie Amezcua

budget so thank you thank you yes I have done an amazing job

Thai Viet Phan

Councilman Fang. Thank you Mayor. So a few things. Yes, thank you to staff. I know how difficult it is to get these many line items all together and we're all very different individuals up here. So I kind of will just try to go down to my list of notes that I've been taking. The first is regarding subsidizing spay and neuter. I'm not supportive of that, specifically subsidizing or providing vouchers. I do know that there are a number of free or subsidized programs in the county and

Thai Viet Phan

other nonprofits that does exist. However, I do support some type of TNR program in our city because I know that it's really proliferated. I think during COVID, in fact, my mom had some stray cats in her neighborhood and they ended up having two or three litters that summer and we we had to try to get them to the shelter and it was a really big issue for the neighbors so I would like to see that the question I have about let me go through the so when we talk about the crossing

Thai Viet Phan

guards you remember I brought up the crossing guards a couple years ago you know I'm glad that we're not spending the $200,000 in additional funding for the crossing guards but I am curious how you know it says continue to pursue joint payment or joint funding for this but I'm really not sure what we can do other than to urge our residents our parents our families to urge the school with their 1.1 billion dollar budget to help pay for crossing guards in the city in fact many of our city streets schools are nearby major arterials on Fairview and

Thai Viet Phan

whatnot these big streets where a lot of drivers are not watching where they're going and they're hitting children and families and we've been getting a lot of hit and runs lately so I really do think that our residents should go to the school district board meetings and urge them to help fund that on top of that I I just guess I want to know, because I'm really not sure, what, you know, we respond to the school districts with our police. We have MOUs with them that we don't charge. Do they pay to use our stadium for graduation events?

So, Council Member Fan, that was like a couple different questions buried in there. So, to your first question, the mayor did send a letter to the board of the school district requesting assistance with crossing guards. And as directed, I have engaged with the superintendent. And, you know, in addition to looking at potential joint funding, we also are looking at potential volunteer opportunities for that. So to answer that one, the second question on does, do they pay for our stadium? Yes, they do. And they're in the process of doing their permits right now for their graduation that will be held at our stadium.

And then was there a third question?

Thai Viet Phan

Yeah, you know, I mean, we obviously have a lot of officers who respond to calls, things that occur on the school.

So, the Santa Ana Unified School District is one of the few school districts that does have their own police, but in addition to that, we do respond to the district facilities.

Thai Viet Phan

Okay, and that's at no cost to the school, right?

Correct.

Thai Viet Phan

Okay. Can you get us the estimate of the cost of responding to school site incidences by our PD?

I certainly can. I actually already have a year's summary of the number of calls that we've made to school district facilities for Santa Ana Unified. Okay, but the cost? We can estimate what the cost is.

Thai Viet Phan

Great, thank you. My other question is regarding the one-time spending on page four of the PowerPoint. It says additional expansion of community intervention programs of $75,000. Which exact programs is that?

So for that, that was a request made at the first workshop. We don't have the exact provider or the exact type of program, but we did hear from a majority of you that that was a focus you wanted us to do so more than likely it would be through an RFP process to nonprofits and we can target more specific programs geared towards teens young adults but the details of it have not been determined yet so if you want to provide any more direction on that that would be helpful

Thai Viet Phan

okay and then we have the recurring spending which is another two hundred thousand dollars on top of that for community intervention programs

That was the move over from the crossing guards.

Thai Viet Phan

Okay. I guess it seems duplicative to me because we are moving it over to have $200,000, which is more than the $75,000 of one-time funding that was originally requested. And so I think that that's a savings. Let's start with the $200,000 because in addition to the $200,000, I think we have CDBG grants and other funding that we have been funding nonprofits to do this type of community intervention, correct?

Valerie Amezcua

Councilmember, if your time is up, you can come back. Thank you. Ask the question and come back. We will come back around. Then you can ask it again. Thank you. Councilmember Becerra, please.

Phil Bacerra

Thank you, Mayor Mesquale. One thing I left out in my first round of comments is just simply on the slide about police officer deployments, it talks about four officers assigned full-time as permanent assignment to the downtown business liaison unit. But then for South Bristol, it just says patrol staffing, three separate patrol shifts. That's not any different than what happens now. So I would like to see assigned officers to South Bristol and the adjacent neighborhoods. Assigned.

All good? Is that a question? No, that's not a question.

Valerie Amezcua

That's a statement. Okay, thank you. Okay, thank you. Well, the clock should have still been going. It was a statement. Councilor Van, go ahead.

Thai Viet Phan

Thank you, Mayor. To follow up regarding park security, I just wanted to say that we've seen a big improvement in some of our parks, partly because of the new tree trimming policies and processes. Specifically, I drive around Windsor Park a lot, and you can actually see into the park now, which is really, really nice. And so I think we should really just keep that up. But where we're doing it, right? We heard from residents that park security is an important aspect of ensuring that our residents can use this park. It's happening. We have a new security contractor, Lions Security, which is different.

Thai Viet Phan

They've only been working with us for a few months now. So let's give them an opportunity and let's see how that changes and maybe we can revisit this any type of increase and whatnot in the mid-year budget update if we need to increase that work because line security is armed they do have a specific supervisor and but they can be armed yeah they can be armed but let's let's give them an opportunity to see what additional work we need to see them do the next thing I want to mention is regarding the cameras in the back of the police cars I think that's a great idea Councilman Hernandez but I'd like to see that work being done

Thai Viet Phan

and that policy being reviewed and implemented by the Police Oversight Commission. I think that that would give them the opportunity to really study what kind of cameras, how that would be implemented, when it needs to be turned on, etc. and really have a robust discussion with our community on how to do that. So that's where I would go. The final thing that I would like to look at is, you know, we're talking about the decrease in funding and revenue over the next few years as a result of the sunset for Measure X. and we're talking about one-time funding so I think Mayor you you know really

Thai Viet Phan

brought up what's a one-time funding and this is actually something that Councilman Peñalosa had brought up last time that I think is a really great idea but don't hate me staff is the Winter Village it's a really wonderful fun time but when it was brought up under ARPA funding specifically from ARPA funding it was to really generate some revenue and bring some cheer to our communities and last year it cost us $900,000 out of the general fund, and now we're looking at $1.4 million, and that, I believe, is a net estimate from ticket sales. I just tried to crunch the numbers. We had 35,000 people, estimated attendance.

Thai Viet Phan

Even if about 15,000 of them were paying about $40 to go skating, we're still looking at a really large amount of funding from the city, and while I do think it's a really fantastic time, I just think that 1.4 million dollars can be used better in other ways and different programming and part of that and is you know I've talked community members have advocated for and I've talked to our director of libraries and it's about you know you had Dia de los Núñez and Dia de los Lutubos that Councilmember Hernandez and I were at and it was just super fantastic and you

Thai Viet Phan

did it for thirty thousand thirty five thousand dollars it was an amazing event with 4,000 people visiting, and I'd like to see something like that being done between the library and our parks and our partners for a lunar festival event. That's something that residents

Valerie Amezcua

have asked for. I'm sorry, your time's up. I'll come back to you. Okay, thank you. Thank you. I want to stick to what we had agreed to. Councilman Panalosa, please.

David Penaloza

Thank you, Mayor Amesquia, and I just want to thank our lovely staff for putting this together. I know you've all been working really hard. And I want to thank one of the speakers that spoke about being pregnant when they had the traffic signal meeting and now her kid's in his 20s, I believe she mentioned. Madam City Manager reminded me of our conversation that I've often had with you about Bristol Street and how I was in diapers when that project started. I am now 35 years old. So it just gives the community an idea of how long these public works projects take, but something like a traffic signal shouldn't take that long.

David Penaloza

With Bristol Street, Madam City Manager, the question I have in particular, it's more related to the capital improvement projects in here. I noticed that I saw, well, let's start with Orange Avenue, then I'll move into Bristol Street. With Orange Avenue, there was a dollar set aside for protected bike lanes. And I know that along Orange Avenue, there's multiple temporary roundabouts. And I'll use air quotes when I say temporary because they've been there for five plus years

David Penaloza

and no sign of being developed into permanent roundabouts or whatnot. And I know that working very closely with a lot of the residents that live on Orange Avenue, My previous planning commissioner used to live on Orange Avenue, so I'm familiar with my grandma lives on Orange Avenue on this stretch. So I know that the number one concern there is a speeding of cars. And I wanted to ask, with Maple Street Bike Trail and Main Street, is it appropriate to have a protected bike lane sandwiched by two bike lane arterials that go in the same direction?

David Penaloza

I mean, it's early from one street to the next. I guess I'm just trying to get an understanding of would our money be put better used to these temporary roundabouts and addressing that over additional bike lanes in an area where it's already sandwiched by? bike lane areas?

Well, both traffic measures are to improve the safety of both the bike riders and the pedestrians and the cars, but I will certainly defer to the engineer in the room. So if Nabil Saab, our director of public works, wants to comment on those two options, and then maybe you can speak to, because I believe most of our protected bike lanes are done with restrictive funding.

Bike lanes are funded by grant funding, ATP active transportation grants or program grants. So they're restricted on what we can use them for. We apply and then we get the money and then we implement. And I'm not sure what the question was, but before I asked what the question was, the roundabouts on Orange and most of the roundabouts that we have right now, they're not temporary, they're experimental. So the experiment has succeeded. Now we are looking for funding to make them permanent. Some of the roundabouts that we have right now are in areas where they are QCT,

which is ARPA funded. So we will be, and we have projects to convert the experimental roundabouts to permanent. So that is in the work right now. And there is other funds that came to us through

for traffic calming that we would be using to make the rest of the roundabouts that we have in the city more permanent or convert them to permanent. So we do have a plan. The engineers right now are designing all the roundabouts. They are very successful in calming the traffic and slowing the traffic or the speed. The question is?

David Penaloza

So I guess I didn't want to see what I think back to a couple years ago when a previous council member pointed out the fact that there were blue light poles added throughout downtown and two years later they were ripped up for the streetcar and removed. So I don't want us to be redundant in these projects and seeing bike lanes installed and this work being done and then a year or five years from now, whenever that is, see them ripped up to install these permanent roundabouts. And those are similar concerns that I shared of Bristol Street. I see that we're approving capital improvement funds for protected bike lanes between St.

David Penaloza

Andrew and Edinger along Modern Day High School and Sepulveda Elementary. The problem is that are these protected bike lanes going to be a part of this Bristol widening are we going to go in there and install these bike lanes because we have the money and it's restricted and then still have to deal with the lack of any progress on Bristol Street?

Valerie Amezcua

Nabila, so you can answer his question and then his time's out. I've got to move on to another council member.

Sure. The reason we get the funding for the bike lanes and the active transportation grants is because of connectivity. Our engineers look at the Bristol bike lane and San Andrew. So the reason we are successful in getting those grants is because of the connectivity between San Andrew and Bristol. So San Andrew bike lane, I mean, sorry, Bristol street bike lanes will transition into San Andrew and that is why we are actually successful in getting the grants. Does that explain your question?

David Penaloza

but i mean the the the bristol widening is that going to be done before or as part of the this protected bike lanes because i see protected bike lanes being approved they are two different

Valerie Amezcua

projects sorry so you can come back down some panels and ask that question again around sounds good three minutes thank you thank you um councilman vasquez please yes thank you i wanted

Benjamin Vazquez

to talk about safety and the police officer deployment. I really like the district policing liaison. It would be great to have a face, to be able to talk to directly at the city.

Benjamin Vazquez

Santa Ana is a big city. It's 300,000 people. There's 70 cities our size.

Benjamin Vazquez

As far as safety, we're the 13th safest in the country, according to Forbes magazine came out in 2023 January 2023 and the safety comes because of the work being done by nonprofits by the city with the parks and rec with the library it's it's work that's being done in the schools it's work being done by helping children so I'm really proud of the work that the community is putting into it. When we talk about safety about parks, I go to Jerome Park twice a week. I walk my dog and I play kickball and I walk around

Benjamin Vazquez

that park and it's a very safe park. It's a beautiful park and it's full and the reason that park is safe is because there is there is a there's programming happening at that park. The families, the community feel it. There's a garden. There's softball fields, there's kickball fields, there's football. People are walking their dogs. I see groups of women walking. I saw Benavidez, an ex-council member, Benavidez, walking with his wife. We had a little conversation. It's just such a beautiful place to visit. If you want to go to, I'll go visit more parks, but if you want to be at a safe park, come to

Benjamin Vazquez

Jerome Park in Santa Ana on McFadden and Center. I love it. I go into the community. It's great. It's a beautiful park. I walk my dog. I go every week. I'm there every week for the last month and for the next month for sure. I'll be visiting to walk my dog and play kickball. So when we talk about parks, let's talk about programming and safety in those parks. Let's talk about filling in with people. Let's see what we can do to make sure that the community creates the safety for us. I don't want to go past without saying thank you to the police officers as well as doing your part,

Benjamin Vazquez

but the safety does come from community engaging with themselves and looking after each other and being with each other in these spaces. It's what makes programming, makes these things important. Also, with the houseless issue, I know it's a big deal in Santa Ana. We have many, without a doubt. We have the 30 we carry and California carries 30% of all the houses people in the country. And it seems like they're being funneled in here. So we do need a lobbyist who's going to push not only for county money. We're not talking about money.

Benjamin Vazquez

We need money from the county for help with the houses and housing, but also from the state and the federal government. We need to really push for funds because we are being impacted more than any other city in Southern California with these issues. Thank you.

Valerie Amezcua

Thank you, Councilman Voss, I appreciate that. Councilman Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

Thank you, Mayor Mesqua. I am very thankful for this presentation that staff gave us today. I just wanted to close out my last round of comments. For Public Works, I would like to see the roundabout between Washington and 17th Street. I know Public Works staff has visited us there in the past. Director Nabil would love to see a solution on what that is going to entail. I know it's an area that many cars have frequently went over, the small installation that is there. To ensure that we're having more pedestrian and traffic safety, we'd like to see a roundabout installed. I would also like to see a left turning signal

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

on Civic Center and right. Currently, that is a yield only intersection. and it is one of our most traffic ridden pockets of Santa Ana. So we need a left turning signal off of Raiden Civic Center. It's right beside Santa Ana College as well as Fremont Elementary. So it is frequented by students and families. The last area I want to touch in is an area that I have mentioned over several meetings is investing in our downtown, an area of the city that has not seen the health that they have been used to for so long.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

The streetcar ravaged businesses in downtown. So what I would like to see is our cultural events brought back to downtown. I know that I advocated over many meetings, so I just want to double down to bring back the Fiestas Patrias Festival to downtown Santa Ana. and I would like to see the city of Santa Ana sponsor the Dia de los Muertos Noche de Altares Festival, which is put on by El Centro Cultural. So I would like to see a sponsorship at the level of $30,000 for that. And I would like to encourage our downtown businesses to work together during this time where they are impacted by the streetcars.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

I believe a cost-effective solution that we can introduce is waiving special event fees for downtown Santa Ana businesses. I would create a caveat that there would have to be a number of businesses partnering and working together in order for us to do that. So maybe the key number is, you know, three to five, just throwing that out there. But I think if we can get creative and come up with some solutions, we can help these businesses in the midst of a very difficult time. We can help generate revenue for our city and furthermore, make sure that no businesses are displaced as construction is continuing.

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

So that concludes my final round of comments. Mayor Mesquith, thank you.

Valerie Amezcua

Thank you so much. Just really quick, I want to mention the police officers. So I'm not in favor of taking any money from the police department. If anything, I'm in favor of adding additional officers. And I think at our last City Council meeting, we discussed about giving a larger bonus to hire additional officers. you know and I like that they're downtown in the South Bristol corridor but we have encampments of homeless people all over the city we have the quality of life team you know they can't do it all and then Santa NPD gets called out and they're doing I know

Valerie Amezcua

they're working hard and doing a good job but we need more and we know we have a homeless issue in the city that is only going to get worse now especially we have some additional people coming into our city you know they're going to be more people are going to be coming in the need is getting bigger it's not it's not getting better it's it's getting bigger so I also want to ask that Nabil if we can look at a traffic light at Fairview and Fifth Street with a Magnolia Science school there they've had numerous accidents numerous they actually had a child that was

Valerie Amezcua

hit you know by a mirror off of a car as he was standing on the corner so we want to avoid our children getting hit by the cars that are coming from our Merrill Cruz Academy as well as across the street Magnolia Science Science Center there the school there the charter school and also at El Sol if you can get back to us if they I know they have also requested a street light a traffic light there to so where they can cross safely those are just quality of life things that are really important that our residents are asking along along with parks and more police and more

Valerie Amezcua

security and I'm totally in support of council member fans requests for additional line security guards because our police officers cannot do it all and so maybe expanding their contract additional code enforcement they get called out everything as well again as additional police officers and I'm also supportive of the community there was a dish in here of community intervention work going on with our youth and youth programs I am supportive of that community intervention programs for $200,000 and I think councilmember fan mentioned that what is the additional expansion for the 75k do

we have a list no we don't have details on it so if you approve the funding then staff would be working on the details and the RFPs and selecting nonprofits to partner with or ourselves could do additional programming out of our community centers. Do we even know what type of services we're looking for? You have an early budget direction and then at the last workshop we did hear from each of you and we have notes from some specifics that you mentioned.

Valerie Amezcua

Perfect. Okay, finally, my last comment from my third round is that, and then I'll close out after the other two council members that are up here that want to speak, is that to generate revenue, you know, I'm a Discovery Cube expansion, really, whatever we can do, city manager, to generate revenue, whether it's Discovery Cube, Bowers, the zoo, we need to look at not just spending money, but generating money. and if we're going to have any type of cannabis event as I mentioned before we're going to need a large police presence many of them may be leaving that site under the influence and I'm a little concerned for our community thank

Valerie Amezcua

you let me call on councilmember fan please thank you mayor so going back to

Thai Viet Phan

my comment about removing the winter village again it really was a wonderful two years for our community but it's a 1.4 million dollar ask for something that originally when it was brought up was meant to be a one-time event during COVID resulting from the influx of ARPA funding right many people who have spoken asked about making sure our budget seeking one-time funding so one time funding but you know if we remove the winter village at 1.4 million dollars We can fund the $980,000 for the stadium flooring. We can fund $150,000 for the water tower and seismic study.

Thai Viet Phan

We can fund $100,000 or whatever amount for trap, neuter, and release. We can fund at least $30,000 for the Dia de los Muertos event. And we can fund a lunar festival or event for the Lunar New Year in 2324, excuse me, February 2024 at the request of $50,000.

Thai Viet Phan

Because looking at the list of our events, the ones that were most popular with residents are the ones that were most well attended for the amount of money invested are the ones that cater directly to our community needs and multicultural programming, like Chicano Heritage, like the Mid-Autumn Festival, like Fiesta Patias. I would also like to see Fiestas come back to downtown. It was a really amazing event last time, but I will leave it up to staff and all of you to figure out what's the right location for it. Finally, Nabil, my question for you is the Greenville MacArthur signal, I didn't see

Thai Viet Phan

it on the CIP, but I know there have been some requests for it. Is that something in the works?

I'm going to have to check with you on that. I don't recall being a project, but we can look into it.

Thai Viet Phan

Okay, because there are yield lefts right now from MacArthur going on to Greenville, and I think in all four directions, and there have been concerns with just because of the school, the queue, as well as the communities who live there. With that, I think that concludes my comments for now. Thank you. Thank you.

City Manager? Thank you, Mayor. Just a clarification, Council Member Phan, on page four where we talk about the stadium flooring, the water tower feasibility study, the security cameras, the additional dollars for community intervention, we already have that built in the budget based on your instruction from before.

Thai Viet Phan

Thank you. Yes. And that would then just be an extra $1.4 million savings. meetings, that again is about that fiscal responsibility that a lot of residents have brought up. Thank you.

Valerie Amezcua

Great. Thank you.

Valerie Amezcua

Mayor Partame Lopez, please.

Thank you.

Jessie Lopez

So a lot of what the public is hearing is I think information that has been shared publicly in past workshops that we've had. and I'm sure that you will hear it again during our next council meeting because I believe it's the budget will be on there as well. City Manager, I did hear a public comment though that the council voted to end COVID. Can you please clarify what we voted on?

So we did end our emergency order. Is that what you're referring to, Council Member Pretend? Yes, so it's a little different, correct? Yeah, so when COVID first hit our city, we did take the measure of issuing an emergency order, which one of the main things that it did is it provided staff the opportunity to move forward issue executive orders so we could provide assistance immediately to our community we no longer need that in place so we did rescind that that does not mean that our funding source that we still have that we call revive we still have dollars and those will be programmed through calendar year 2026 they

They have to be encumbered by December 2024 and spent by December 2026. So we still have assistant dollars outside of our general funds funding that will go on for a couple more years.

Jessie Lopez

Thank you. So it was really the public health emergency that was ended.

Jessie Lopez

The other public comment that I heard that I really enjoyed was the breakdown of debt that Sanana residents have accrued or have been imposed because they don't make these decisions. Only seven people get to decide those decisions. And so I think it's really important for that breakdown to be included in a staff report so that residents understand

Jessie Lopez

the impacts, the long-term impacts of the decisions that the council makes. And I think that will be-

Valerie Amezcua

I'm sorry, excuse me, can you move your mic closer? They're asking, thank you.

Jessie Lopez

Yeah, sure. And so I think that will be extremely relevant for them so that they know, again, as I was saying, the long-term impacts of the decisions that the council makes. because I think the conversation can be very granular, but there's a lot that's missing from, you know, the 10-year outlook that is not included in these PowerPoints, and that's not a negative to you, Kat. That's just other information that is privileged. But can you clarify or confirm, Kat, is the 1.5 reduction to the 1%,

Jessie Lopez

Is that the long-term plan for the sunset, Measure X plan?

The plan that was outlined in your presentation, it shows that we are making progress towards eliminating that gap, the budget gap of 1% to 1.5%, or I'm sorry, reverse reduction from 1.5 down to 1% on April 1st, 2029. but this really hinges on the decisions that are made by the City Council for recurring spending. And so if our revenue were to increase and our recurring spending increases, then we will still have that gap.

However, if our revenue increases and we hold the line on existing service levels, do not expand that recurring spending and stick to just one-time spending that can easily be not done the following year, that's how we can continue to close the gap. So we have taken some measures to do it, but we're not all the way there. It is a work in progress.

Jessie Lopez

Okay. And just so that I know, when do you think that plan can be shared fully with the public?

So part of the exercise today was showing you different scenarios because it does change based on if you have one year of flat growth, it's going to widen that gap. If you have development come online that produces more revenue, it could quickly close the gap. So it's something that we will continue to monitor. It is very hard to predict that far into the future, but I believe by making the 10-year projection a significant component of not only our budget presentation, but our budget document that is the way that we can keep the public informed on it okay thank you I appreciate

Jessie Lopez

that the one of the things that I'm supportive I think I've thought about it and it's a fee schedule I wasn't sure during the last budget meeting but I think I'm fine with that moving forward I'm also supportive of the idea that was brought forth in terms of having to the cameras installed in back of the patrol cars. I'm fine if the police oversight wants to dig deep into the details of that policy. I'm also and I have been in the past supportive of the gang prevention efforts. Similar to Councilmember Fran, I had questions about how that would be how that would be managed but I'm fine

Jessie Lopez

with the RFP suggestion that you made city manager. And I've been struggling with the winter village idea because it was fun, it's been fun, I've been there, but I also understand the financial aspect and Councilmember FAN I think made a very compelling argument today. You know, the dollar amount that is hosted for this one event really can cover so many of the things our community members are asking for. I also just want to echo that Councilmember Vasquez brings up a really great point in terms of programming our parks.

Jessie Lopez

And I've been to the park that you're talking about for the kickball league. And it's really beautiful to see when so many families are out there running, walking, just living their lives. And they feel safe in the park.

Valerie Amezcua

Mayor, for a time, I'll come back to you. Sure. Because you're out of time. Push the button again. I'll come back after Councilmember Becerra. Councilman Becerra, and this is your last, this is your third one. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you so much.

Phil Bacerra

Thank you. I've heard my colleagues talk about traffic safety, and I just want to reiterate what I mentioned at the last meeting, which is as funding becomes available, I'd like to make sure that we...

Phil Bacerra

That's a creative way to have me stop. Anyways, left turn signals at MacArthur and Flower, Segersterman Rate, and Segersterman Flower. Those are, as you know, intersections where we have left turn pockets on all four sides, but we don't have left turn signals at all four sides. So as the funding becomes available, I'd like to see that happen. And then just in regards to the Winter Village, I mean, it's an amazing event. And while it does have a high price tag, what I'm hopeful of is that we were able to see from the first Winter Village to the second Winter Village a lot more sponsorship.

Phil Bacerra

And so before we give up any hope on that event, my hope is that our staff, by virtue of being able to attract some sponsors this past year hopefully we'll be able to attract more sponsors so um before any final decisions are made i'm hopeful that staff will be able to come back to us with uh probably a reduced price tag as far as what the city would pay and hopefully there'll be more sponsorships um coming in for that event those are my comments thank you mayor

Valerie Amezcua

thank you councilman panalosa

David Penaloza

Thank you, Mayor Mesquah. Just to finish my last comments, I guess I will end with let's not start more projects on these arterials when there's years and years of projects that are not being completed. That would be my request. Instead of adding more capital improvement projects, let's finish what we already have on the books. City Manager, the other point that I wanted to make is in regards to our splash pads in the city. Back in June of 2021, the city council approved $5.3 million to design and construct six splash pads as part of the capital improvement projects. Today, we have this presentation that

David Penaloza

says the budget includes funding for the first two sites. So I guess my question is, where are the 5.3 million from summer 2021 that we approved for the construction design of six splash pads

so partially and i can find i can give you a more detailed response um looking at the specifics of it but construction cost has grown exponentially and that's why we don't still have funding to accommodate all six of them i do believe also that some of the money was used for some other priority projects that we had to get done. I don't know the details of those, but I can certainly

David Penaloza

provide that to you. Yeah, please. I think in the future, because I've seen, you know, as being here now five years, five budgets, I see this often where we approve these great capital improvement projects and years go by and we don't see them. And then 10 years later, it's like, oh yeah, We use that money for something else with no memo or no really, or maybe it does come across us, but nobody says, hey, FYI, this money was that we're using for the stadium rehab was what was going to be used for the splash pads, so you're not getting splash pads anymore.

David Penaloza

That's something that we need to work on as a city to make sure that everyone's informed because those splash pads were something that the community was looking forward to, very excited about and to say now that we only have funding for two when we had approved funding for six is a little disappointing. With that as well I would also like to hope that as we move forward with this concession stands at the Santa Ana Zoo that we are trying to get a good deal out of whatever vendor comes in there and that there's some kind of a revenue sharing so that we could help fund the services at the zoo.

David Penaloza

I know we're doing that, but just wanted to make sure that that was happening. Aside from that, very supportive of everything else in the budget. I'm happy to now hear some of my colleagues echo some of the fiscal issues that we're having. There's been these graphs that are shown before us. It's the same graph that was shown two years ago and three years before that, and the year before that, this deficit, looming deficit is happening and has been happening for a long time. And so I see things on here. I know that we have half a million dollars that was added last year when we saw the same

David Penaloza

graph for council aids. But now, you know, it's kind of curious and interesting to listen to my colleagues talk about this fiscal conservativeness that we need to move forward with. So let's be mindful of that and as well as these capital improvement projects. Madam City Manager, please.

Valerie Amezcua

Thank you very much, Councilman Pellosa. Councilor Vest, is this your third time, third and final? Have you already gone three times?

Valerie Amezcua

Sure, you know how to count that.

Valerie Amezcua

I was counting, but go ahead, this is your final one.

Benjamin Vazquez

Thank you. I didn't know if I mentioned, but I did want to support the painting of the Waffle House and make sure we conserve our spaces of that kind. I wanted to support a teen center. I know the PAL program on McFadden is open only nine hours a week. We have space for a teen center, or we could have more space even at the Pacific Park Fire Station to be a teen center as well. So I want to support Councilmember Tai for the removal of the Winter Village and support other spaces where a community comes out and force and see where we can work.

Benjamin Vazquez

And mentioning one of those Noches de Altarres, which in the past I have been organizing. That's an all-volunteer RAN event. It's probably one of the best-run events with people coming out. The community really comes out, 40,000, 70,000, one of the biggest in the country, longest-term events in the Sanana. So it would be great to support that. I want to support cameras on patrol cars for transparency. I also wanted to mention that, once again, that we are one of the safest cities, according to Forbes and a study that came out in 2023 January.

Benjamin Vazquez

We have added eight new positions for officers that have not been yet filled. So before we add any more officers, I really want to make sure that the 25 that we don't have right now, fill them before we even think about increasing that number. Let's fill those positions as well. That's all. Thank you.

Valerie Amezcua

Great. Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem Lopez, and then I'm going to close it out.

Jessie Lopez

Oh, thank you. So anyways, just want to wrap up my comments on the importance of PARP programming. I know I mentioned that during the last meeting, and so hopefully we get to see some of those recommendations come from staff. Also, just want to state for the record, this is my third year, now discussing the budget, but I believe a year or two, this chart was not the same. It was much narrower of a cliff. And I think that is why a lot of us that have tracked Measure X are maybe shocked because it's gotten so much deeper than it was a year or two years ago. And maybe that's because we had so much federal and state money.

Jessie Lopez

And again, the council in 2021 decided to refinance the debt, which also helped with the issue of the structural deficit. But we do see it growing. And I think that's why now we're saying we can't wait until, you know, the cliff hits us. We have to have a plan that is proactively addressing this. But also, I'm very supportive of a teen center. I grew up going to the YMCA, which no longer exists, sadly. I used to work at the Boys and Girls Club. And so I know that that motto of supporting youth, having different services in one place is very helpful for people of all ages to go to.

Jessie Lopez

and so I would definitely would like to see something be brought back to the

Valerie Amezcua

council for consideration so thank you great thank you very much we've we've had a wonderful meeting thank you staff for everything that you have done I know this takes a lot of time we all know it takes time this is my first go around with the budget and I appreciate the work and listening to my colleagues that have been here for some time so city manager you are you clear in direction

we are and what we actually do is behind the scenes we get together with all of our notes and we try to glean where four of you mentioned consensus on any one item and when we can if we have the funding we incorporate that in so that's the process that we're doing that's the process that we've done with the early budget direction and with the first workshop and as our director of finance mentioned for your meeting on the 6th you will actually get a individual presentation from each department head about their department so it's a good opportunity

if you do have some specific questions for operating departments to engage them and look

Valerie Amezcua

forward to our next meeting that's great so every council member will have an opportunity to meet with the department heads and that's wonderful and those that called in thank you for your comments and those that spoke publicly here tonight thank you for the comments the next meeting of the Council is on May 16th at this time the meeting is adjourned I'm sorry I haven't spoken my third

David Penaloza

time and I you haven't done your well then are you sure you're counting right yes I I want to

Valerie Amezcua

speak the third time did you speak there so well oh let me backtrack the means not adjourned yet I think he has I want y'all to madam city attorney can you keep count so I'm choking with you all

David Penaloza

Good. I just really quickly wanted to point out, I'm looking at the additions and subtractions of the staff, and I want to give props to Chief Valentin, who I did see that there is another background investigator being asked and added to your proposed budget. So that just tells me that you are listening. As a department, I want to make sure that we're hiring officers, and obviously that that quality isn't left behind as well. So by adding another background investigator, I'm sure that that will hopefully speed up the hiring process in our police department.

David Penaloza

I don't support removing any funding from our police department moving forward at all. I want to make sure that our police officers have the tools they need and are fully funded as we move forward. So thank you for that. And that is it, Madam Mayor, for my comments. I kept it short.

Valerie Amezcua

Okay, don't push the button again. Okay, a process question, then I'm going to close the meeting.

Thai Viet Phan

It's not a budget question, but I know that our charter requires that our first reading of the ordinance has to be at a regular meeting, correct? And the second reading has to be at another regular meeting. So I just wanted to make sure that we're able to adopt the first reading of the budget in the June 6 meeting.

Jennifer L. Hall

Right.

Thai Viet Phan

Because the reality is we asked for a lot of changes, right?

There really are not a lot of changes between now and then. So we'll be ready to go with the first reading of the ordinance on the 6th and hopefully the final adoption of it on your second meeting in June.

Phil Bacerra

That's correct.

Maybe I shouldn't say this, but you also have a provision in your charter that does not have a hard requirement of you adopting your budget before the end of the year, which I would say that's not a good practice. Yeah, we're not doing that.

Thai Viet Phan

But I just wanted to confirm with all of us and the residents that we're coming. It's going to be looking pretty close to final slash final at the next meeting. And so any problems, talk it up to the department staff before then. Thank you.

Valerie Amezcua

Okay. Meeting is adjourned. Next meeting is May 16th. Thank you.

Thank you.