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Recording in progress.

Jennifer L. Hall

Good evening. Madam Clerk, please start the meeting.

Valerie Amezcua

Yes, Mayor, please proceed.

Jennifer L. Hall

Good. I hereby call the Santa Ana Council 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 roll call.

Valerie Amezcua

Thank you, Mayor. Councilmember Becerra?

Jennifer L. Hall

Here.

Valerie Amezcua

Councilmember Hernandez? Councilmember Penaloza? Here. Councilmember Phan? Here. Councilmember Vasquez?

Benjamin Vazquez

Present.

Valerie Amezcua

Mayor Pro Tem Lopez? Mayor Mesquah? Present. Five members present.

Jennifer L. Hall

Perfect. Thank you. Madam Clerk, are there any additions or deletions to the closed session agenda? No, there are not. Any council members need to announce their abstentions on closed session items? Hearing none, Madam Clerk, do we have any speakers? Not for closed session. Thank you. We will now recess this portion of the meeting to consider the items listed on closed session agenda. Thank you.

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Recording in progress.

Jennifer L. Hall

Madam Clerk, please start the meeting.

Valerie Amezcua

Yes, Mayor, go ahead.

Jennifer L. Hall

Councillor M. Fenn, do you have a comment to me?

Thai Viet Phan

Thank you, Mayor. This is my fault, but I should have stated before the meeting started that I had to recuse myself from closed session item one in reacquiesce film forming foam products liability to litigation as Orange County Water District is a client of my employer with tenant Tucker and so I did not participate in the discussion or decision regarding that matter thank you thank you I

Jennifer L. Hall

hereby reconvene the Santa Ana City Council meeting to order this meeting is taking place in person in 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. Thank you, Mayor.

Valerie Amezcua

Councilmember Becerra?

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

Here.

Valerie Amezcua

Councilmember Hernandez?

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

Present.

Valerie Amezcua

Councilmember Peña-Liza?

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

Present.

Valerie Amezcua

Councilmember Phan? Here. Councilmember Vasquez? Present. Mayor Pro Tem Lopez? Here. Mayor Mesquia? Present. The records show all seven present.

Jennifer L. Hall

Great, thank you. Madam Clerk, before we proceed to the Pledge of Allegiance, please make any announcements.

Valerie Amezcua

Thank you. For members of the public who are on Zoom or teleconference, to request to speak during public comments on agenda or non-agenda items within the city's jurisdiction, you must dial star 9 from your phone or click the button labeled raised hand in Zoom now in order to be in the speaker queue when we open public comments. This does not apply to Public Hearing Item Number 28, for which comments will be heard during that specific public hearing. Please hold your comment on the public hearing until called upon at that time.

Jennifer L. Hall

Thank you. The first item is the Pledge of Allegiance. May I please have Chaplain Heather Riley come up and do 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

Jennifer L. Hall

justice for all thank you thank you may I please have the father from Immaculate and then Heart of Mary, please come up. Father, thank you.

Jennifer L. Hall

Thank you, Father, for coming up and doing the words of inspiration for us. Thank you.

We read in the first book of the Kings, chapter 3, verses 8 to 10, And your servant is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen, a great people that cannot be numbered or counted for multitude. Give your servant, therefore, an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this great people of yours. It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. Lord, we know that you are good and generous. We believe that you will give your wisdom to anyone who humbly asks for it. We pray for the elected officials of our city of Santa Ana.

Pour out your wisdom upon them, that they may in turn govern our communities with enlightened hearts and minds, and make sound, fair, and right decisions for all the people in our city. Thank you, Lord, for all our civil servants. Thank you for their hard work and sacrifice. May you continually bless them. May you generously give to each of them wise and discerning hearts to skillfully govern the people in our city. Give the mayor, city leaders, staff, and city council wisdom so that during these times of trouble in our world, they may solve problems, distinguish between right and wrong,

and bring order, stability, and prosperity to our community. Amen.

Jennifer L. Hall

Amen. Thank you, Father.

Valerie Amezcua

Madam Clerk, are there any additions or delusions to the City Council agenda? Yes, thank you, Mayor. Just one announcement. for item number 22, which is a resolution adding positions to the city staff, has been revised by staff to remove the reallocation of a position in the Community Development Agency. Action taken by the council on this item will be on the revised resolution as posted online and distributed. Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 22

Thank you. I'm going to change things up a little bit before we go to the presentations. Can we vote and bring up the, yes, I'm going to call them the members to the Parks and Recs Community Service Commission for a two-year term. The appointees are Sylvia Reyes from the Southwest Senior Center and David Dang from the Santa Ana Senior Center. Is there, I'll make a motion.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 22

I'll second.

Jennifer L. HallItem 22

Let's prepare to vote.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 22

If I could do a roll call, please, Mayor.

Jennifer L. HallItem 22

Go ahead.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 22

This is to approve the two senior representatives on the Parks, Recreation, and Community Services Commission. Councilmember Becerra?

Phil BacerraItem 8

Yes.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 8

Councilmember Hernandez? Yes. Councilmember Penaloza?

Yes.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 8

Councilmember Fan? Yes. Councilmember Vasquez?

Yes.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 8

Mayor Protem Lopez? Yes. Mayor Mesquia?

Jennifer L. HallItem 8

Yes.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 8

And if the two members could come join me up here in the front, we can administer your oath of office.

Jennifer L. HallItem 8

And this is the first time that we're having two seniors from our senior centers appointed to the commission. So congratulations. Please come up and give some a hand.

Jennifer L. HallItem 8

Did the gentleman leave? Oh, there he is. Perfect.

I, Sylvia Reyes, my name is David Dane, to Solomon swear that I will support and defend

Valerie AmezcuaItem 8

the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will be a truth and allegiance to the

Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of California, that I take this that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation, or purpose of evasion,

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 8

that I will well and faithfully be stretched,

duties upon which, and how to enter. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Jennifer L. HallItem 8

Congratulations!

Jennifer L. HallItem 8

All right, let's go on now to the presentations. If I can have City's Code Enforcement Team, because the week of October 9th through the 13th was Code Enforcement Officer Appreciation Week.

Thank you.

Oh my God.

Jennifer L. HallItem 1

Okay. You didn't come up here with somebody? You didn't come up here with me? All right. For Code Enforcement Appreciation Week. Code enforcement officers provide for the safety, health, and welfare of citizens in communities throughout the state of California. Code enforcement is able to keep our community safe through the enforcement of laws and ordinances dealing with various issues of building zoning, housing, animal control, environmental health, and life safety. The job of a code enforcement officer is challenging and demanding and often they do not receive recognition for the roles

they play within the community. Yes that's true we appreciate you. So far

Jennifer L. HallItem 1

this year the code enforcement division has identified and resolved a total of 28,923 violations, great job, great job, related to municipal health and safety, zoning and land use laws. Additionally, they have taken action to enforce various regulations and have carried out inspections and abatement warrants, resulting in securing and closure of more than 16 hazardous and deteriorated properties. Today, the City of Santa Ana recognizes and honors the code enforcement officers that serve our community and acknowledge their role in leading the way to improve the quality of life

Jennifer L. HallItem 1

within our community and i want to thank each and every one of them because you guys all do a fantastic job and so this is a proclamation on behalf of the mayor and the city council declaring this a code enforcement officer appreciation week i'd read the whole thing but it's really small and i can't see it but at the end it says now therefore we the mayor and City Council and the City of Santa Ana do hereby recognize October 9th through the 13th, 2023, as Code Enforcement Officer Appreciation Week, and encourage all residents of Santa Ana to join

Jennifer L. HallItem 1

in recognizing and expressing their appreciation for the dedication and service by the individuals who serve as our Code Enforcement Officers. So thank you all very much for everything that you

Benjamin VazquezItem 1

do. Let's give them a round of applause. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. And on behalf of our department, I want to thank you, Mayor, for recognizing us as well as the city council for bestowing this honor upon us. I have to say that out of all the years I've worked in planning, building, and code enforcement, this team is second to none, and it's the best code enforcement team I've ever worked with in my entire career. So you guys should be really proud of that. As your leader, I'm also proud to be leading this team as well. You do the finest work that I've seen in code enforcement. Under the leadership of Alvaro Nunez, as well as Sergio Verino,

I think these two gentlemen lead this division in an honorable way and represent the city every day to our residents in an honorable manner as well. Alvaro, please come and say a few words, please. You need to say a few words. Don't want me to put you on the spot, but I should say a few words. I'd say we're good. Thank you, Mayor, City Council members, for acknowledging our work. We do appreciate it. Most of the folks you see here in front of you either were born and raised in Santa Ana, have connections to Santa Ana, so we're proud of working for this city

and living in this city and actually vetted both professionally and personally. So we're happy to do our job, and I'll be the first to say I was elected to come on board, right, regarding taking a recognition because we do get paid to a particular type of a job but we acknowledge the appreciation and thank you very much thank you thank you city council

Jennifer L. HallItem 1

if you want to come down for the picture council members you want to come join

. .

Benjamin VazquezItem 1

Can you see everybody?

.

. Congratulations.

Jennifer L. HallItem 1

All right, next presentation is by Mayor Pro Tem Lopez, please. To Radiant Futures, declaring October 2023 as Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

Jessie LopezItem 2

Yes, thank you. Stephanie is here from Radiant Futures please come up.

Jessie LopezItem 2

Hi welcome. Okay everyone we're here to recognize Domestic Violence Awareness Month. We're going to be presenting this proclamation to Stephanie who's a community services manager with Radiant Futures. And so domestic violence Programs in California provide essential life-saving services for survivors, their children, and communities. The marginalization of certain groups in society, including undocumented individuals, transgender individuals, and people living with disabilities increases the vulnerability to domestic violence. Children exposed to domestic violence can experience long-term consequences, including

Jessie LopezItem 2

difficulty at school, substance misuse, behavioral problems in adolescence, and serious adult health problems which can ultimately impact the quality of life of everybody in the cities when not properly giving the proper resources to diagnose and prevent these issues to begin with. So this proclamation recognizes that every one of our residents deserves to live a life free from violence and abuse through this proclamation. We pledge to ensure the victims of domestic violence know they are not alone and that our community is here to support them as they courageously move forward to enjoy full and healthy

Jessie LopezItem 2

lives. Here to accept this proclamation as I said earlier Stephanie the Community Services Manager from Radiant Futures, formerly known as the Women's Transitional Living Center. Radiant's future in the city of Santa Ana includes the following weekly in-person Spanish personal empowerment programs, educational workshops for youth and young adults at the LGBTQ Center, annual participation in the OC Pride Parade, partner with the Sanana Family Justice Center providing advocacy for survivors of domestic abuse and human trafficking. Ongoing partnerships with the Nusong Church which is located on West 17th

Jessie LopezItem 2

Street in Mix Academy providing educational and prevention education in human trafficking and domestic violence. Today we declare October 2023 as Domestic Violence Awareness Month and we thank Radiant Futures for helping to protect and educate our community. Stephanie, here's your proclamation.

Thank you Mayor Pro Tem Lopez and Santa Ana City Council for recognizing October 2023 as Domestic Violence Awareness Month. On behalf of Radiant Futures, formerly known as WTLC, it is an honor to accept this proclamation. As you've heard, one in three women and one in four men will experience physical, intimate partner violence in their lifetimes. And so we appreciate the City Council and City of Santa Ana for recognizing the prevalence of domestic violence in our communities by advocating for our survivors and supporting them in their healing. If anyone here or online would like to partake in spreading awareness

or participate in any of our events, please visit our website at ratingfutures.org. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 2

Thank you. Next presentation is by Council Member Becerra to the Philippine Consulate General of Los Angeles. Declare in October 2023 as Filipino American History Month.

Phil BacerraItem 3

So, Mabuhay, everybody. So, as far as Philippines, Mabuhay is like aloha. It's like welcome, hello. It's a good greeting when she said yes. So, today we're very, very honored to have Philippine Consul Marie Christieng here with us today. She previously served in the Philippine Embassy in Berlin, and she is currently supervising the cultural diplomacy and community relations section for the Consul General in Los Angeles.

Phil BacerraItem 3

Long before myself or Consul Marie were here in the United States, the earliest documented evidence of Filipinos in the continental United States occurred on October 18, 1587, when mariners under Spanish command landed in Morro Bay, California. Many Filipinos came to the United States in the early 20th century. In fact, my Filipino grandfather moved into Santa Ana on 5th Street in the Artesia Pilar neighborhood back in the 1920s, so right within walking distance of Sarianas. So unfortunately, though, as you know, that neighborhood, that house is not there today.

Phil BacerraItem 3

October is an appropriate time to promote and reflect on the richness of Filipino and Filipino American history and culture. It provides all Americans with the opportunity to learn, honor, and appreciate Filipino-American identity and their historical and social contributions to the fabric of the United States of America. Next Wednesday, October 25th, Filipino-Americans will celebrate the 110th birthday of famous labor organizer Larry Itlion. He came to the United States in 1929, and in 1965, Larry was leading the AFL-CIO's Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, or AWOC,

Phil BacerraItem 3

of which the majority of the committee's members were Filipinos who had arrived in the United States in the 1930s. On September 8th of 1965, AWOC voted to strike against the grape growers in Delano, California, to pressure them into granting them higher wages and better working conditions. The grape growers responded by attempting to hire Mexican farm workers to have them cross the picket lines and break the strike. Lariat Leon reached out to Cesar Chavez, who at the time was representing the National Farm Workers Association, and asked Cesar Chavez to have the NFWA join AWOC in that strike.

Phil BacerraItem 3

Then on September 16, 1965, the members of Chavez's NFWA overwhelmingly voted in favor of joining that strike. Filipino and Mexican farmworkers officially joined forces to pick it together and fight for farm labor justice. AWOC and the NFWA would later merge to form the United Farm Workers, or the UFW. After working with Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta on the UFW, Larry Itliang decided to dedicate his efforts toward building a retirement village for UFW workers in Delano, known as Agbayani Village.

Phil BacerraItem 3

Now, I'm very proud of the fact that my grandfather, who was a master carpenter, worked with Larry Itliang and Philip Veracruz to make Agbayani Village a reality. Agbayani Village is located on the historic 40-acre site, just around the corner from the gas station where Cesar Chavez ended his hunger strike back in 1968.

Phil BacerraItem 3

Like Larry Itliang, Filipino Americans and their families have truly enriched our nation, our city, and our state through their work and contributions in organized labor, agriculture, their service in the armed forces as nurses, doctors, engineers, scientists, accountants, entrepreneurs, and teachers, as well as their participation in public offices, civic affairs, and community activities. So today the Filipino American community, believe it or not, is the second largest Asian American group in the United States and is the third largest ethnic group in California.

Phil BacerraItem 3

So today, I can say as the first ever Filipino American elected to serve on the Santa Ana City Council, it's my honor on behalf of the City of Santa Ana to declare October 2023 as Filipino American History Month, and it's my honor to present this proclamation to Philippine Consul Marie.

Thank you, Council Member Phil Becerra, Mayor Amesqua, and the rest of the Santa Ana City Council Members. My warmest thanks on behalf of the Philippine Consulate General in Los Angeles and my Consul General Edgar Badajoz. Thank you for the invitation for us to accept this proclamation declaring October as the Month for Filipino American History Month. We are proudly honored and privileged to accept this on behalf of our Kababayans, that means our fellow Filipinos Kababayans, and to all Filipino American communities. So the contributions of the Filipino American communities in the US is undeniable.

You have just mentioned a lot, right? So from the labor rights movement put forth by Larry Itliong to the most recent health care work, to our healthcare workers who work the front lines for the pandemic, to the teachers who help mold the minds of American leaders, future American leaders, and to many other Filipino workers. We are everywhere, and we contribute to the progress of the American society. But we are so good at integrating that we don't feel as visible as the rest of the ethnic community. You just said that we're the second largest here in California, but sometimes you don't feel that.

but I do invite you to come over to the historic Filipino town in LA, and you'll see that there's some Filipino restaurants over there. So it is our pleasure that for October, our Kababayans, the Filipino-American communities, get the well-deserved recognition and spotlight that they deserve. It is their time to shine, to proudly claim that they are both Filipino and American. So once again, thank you so much, Santa Ana City Council members, Phil for this and it is our hope that the Philippine American communities continue to thrive and provide significant contributions to American society. Maraming salamat. Mabuhay.

Phil BacerraItem 3

I'd like to go ahead and invite up some of the Philippine American Chamber of Commerce of OC to come up. And Arnel.

Yeah. Thank you.

So we'd love to dance with you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

Great, thank you. At this time we're going to move things around because people have been waiting for some time for public comments. Madam City Attorney, do you have anything to report out of closed session at this time?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 3

Yes, Mayor, Council Members. We can't hear you. Mayor, Council Members and members of the public, we do have reportable action. You had three items in closed session. The Council has just asked me to report that they're very pleased to announce this evening that Steven Mendoza will serve as the city's acting city manager. They have every faith in his ability to lead the city forward. They've also given some direction for the hiring of a recruiter and they intend to do a nationwide search to find the perfect person to continue to lead the city into the future. That's all the reportable action that I have.

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

Thank you, Madam City Attorney. At this time we're going to do public comments and then we'll go back to the presentation. Acting city manager Mendoza? Okay, thank you. David Mackler, please, as I call you, please come up in line up. Irma Havagee and Fong Vu, please, first three.

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

And you have two minutes to speak, please. Thank you.

I thought it was three minutes.

Yes, it's okay. Good evening. I'm here to speak about related Bristol and some of the developments heading our way like a freight train. I'm not a public speaker, but I am a retired architect, and I have some experience with city plans and planning and development, and I'm very concerned. And I've waded through the city plan and the environmental impact report, thousands of pages, and I can barely comprehend it, and certainly the average citizen and voter cannot. The density allowed by the city plan is too extreme.

Just the impact from traffic alone will render us on gridlock forever in that neighborhood. The streets are at maximum capacity and can't be surcharged much further without creating a full gridlock. And please correct me if I'm in error, however, I cannot find, after wading through all these documents, any scientific nor rational basis for the density allowed in the city plan, nor the proposed Bristol-related EIR. I see no utility study metrics regarding the capacities and abilities to address the demands of this dramatically increased population.

Yet SoCal Edison continues to warn us that the added demand and will create brownouts and also have the capacities and demands of the aquifers and power infrastructure have been determined by rational study. It doesn't seem to be anywhere that I can find this. It seems like we want a beautiful new development. However, I don't think that they have been researched and scientifically based.

I suggest that alternative two, which is buried deep inside that EIR report, be the starting point and the density be decreased from that point. And as our leaders, we ask you to please lead us forward.

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Your time is up at this time. Pardon me? Your time is up, sir?

Okay.

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Thank you. Irma? Thank you.

Erma? Good evening. I'm sorry for using Spanish, but it's very necessary. My concern is that they are violating the federal Constitution and putting in great danger our dear residents. hispanos. Por muchos años, todos trabajamos muy duro y causamos a nuestros hijos y a nuestros jóvenes que caminen bien, que caminen con la ley de derecho, que hagan las cosas bien para que

en el futuro tengan beneficios de todo eso. Al darle la habilidad de votar cuando la ley de migración no la dan, están poniendo en riesgo a todos esos gran jóvenes que están en el programa de DACA, los residentes que that they want to be citizens, and those people who are illegals, who may have the opportunity to be citizens or residents one day, that they have a tax record. That is permanent. For the purpose of trying to have more control, they are hurting the community that they suppose they want to help. They want to hurt. As a mother, as a veteran of a Mexican veteran,

in the Mexican Revolution, it's hard to see the manipulation of our society. I'm afraid. Typically, I work on very beautiful things, like concerts and desfiles, but when they abuse our community, they're trying to give them something good, they're violating the laws. They take a juror of following the federal and federal laws. Take a look at that this has consequences. Thank you very much.

Be reasonable and respect to the laws. Thank you.

Thank you. RECORD R. Good evening. I'm concerned. I'm sorry that I have to speak in Spanish.

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RECORD R. Hold on one second. RECORD R. I'm sorry. RECORD R. Can you hold on? RECORD R. So we're not going to do this again tonight. RECORD R. We're clapping. RECORD R. So we've got to get to public comments. RECORD R. So if we can just be respectful, please. RECORD R. Go ahead, Susan. RECORD R. We can hear you now.

RECORD R. Good evening. RECORD R. I'm sorry. sorry that I have to speak in Spanish but it's very necessary because this is a grave concern. Good evening mayor and City Council members. This is violating federal Constitution. You're putting at risk the Hispanic people that are that are here in the city and people have worked hard for years. We tell our youth to do the right thing so that they can have a brighter future, a better future and if you allow people to vote, then the immigration laws do not allow that. You're putting at risk people who are in DACA right now and people who are wanting to become citizens in the future.

And if people who are not here legally want to become citizens, they will have a blemish on their record. And we are trying, that's all due because they are trying to control and trying to help these people. And as a mom, I'm very concerned. As a granddaughter of a veteran of the Mexican Independence War, the Revolutionary War, I'm furious. I'm usually here and talk about nice things, but this is abuse that is happening in the community. We need to follow the laws, and because there will be consequences if you don't.

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Thank you. Thong Du, please.

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

Followed by Vincent Tran. and Lisa Nguyen. Thank you.

Thank you.

for the city like many others, by the way to buy money for our family. Two, we are a part of the company that is a lot of people. Why? Because we are only a part of the company, but not to take away. The other part of the company, they have enough to take away what they have done for the city. For example, we have to take away the money from society, etc. Thank you.

of the National Council of the National Council that you are representing. If you would like to support us and help us to be honest, then we would like to support you in the days. Thank you. To translate, I would like to cordially greet the Council. In order to not waste your time today, I will not repeat what I presented in the previous meeting. I present what I could not express in time at that meeting because time was limited. Those who are members of the Democratic Party may ask, what is democracy? Is democracy the rule by the people?

Today, I and others living in the city of Santa Ana are listed as ineligible for the right to vote within the area they live in. Why? I realize this is unfair and we are being unfairly discriminated against. Why do I say that? There are two reasons. First, we are people who contribute to the city like everyone else through consumption and shopping for our family's daily needs. Second, we are the ones who contribute more than others. Why? Because we only contribute and do not get anything back, whereas citizens get back what they paid to the city, for example, getting tax refunds, social benefits, programs, etc.

I'm not a politician nor a financial researcher, but just an ordinary single mother who worked hard with her own strength to raise two sons so they can become good people who can contribute to the country and society. And I have succeeded in that matter. In conclusion, I hope that all members of the City Council should consider and think carefully about this issue to comply with the principles and standards of the Democratic Party that you represent. If you agree and support us helping our dream come true, we also promise that we will support you in the coming days when you need us.

Our help and support for you and our children, grandchildren, friends, and acquaintances will use their votes to invite you to continue to represent them because through this event they will realize that you are the ones who live for the people and care for the people and their trust in you will increase and be worthy of the title of the democratic party i would like to express my

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sincere thanks to you thank you the next one is vincent tran followed by lisa nguyen followed by

maria pina good evening city council members my name is vincent i'm the organizing director at I'm here to express my support for agenda item 27. Nearly one in four residents in Santa Ana are non-citizens and who have been affected by not being able to vote in local elections. And these are decisions by the city, by local municipal governments that impact their day-to-day lives. And I believe that every single person who has the right to or the right to vote the ability to vote should be allowed to vote.

And in addition, our city, our residents are living paychecks to paycheck and are trying to rely on the Santa Ana rent stabilization to stay within their hometown in their city. And we should further protect rent stabilization however possible. And when other cities in Orange County are trying to limit people's ability to vote and also regulate and control what people think and how people act. Santa Ana should be kind of that beacon of light to show that a new alternative is possible and

you know where the voices of immigrants and refugees are uplifted and are respected and then also the access to affordable housing is something that is at the utmost importance. You know, I think Santa Ana has the opportunity to be that beacon of light for Orange County and create a place that is more welcoming and a much better environment for immigrants and refugees. And I urge the council to push this forward and place these ballot measures onto the 2024 election in order for direct democracy to be enacted. And, you know, first, I would like to see some resolutions.

the resolutions have certain amendments that meet what the previous council members have. I didn't set your time is up.

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Thank you, so your time is up. Lisa Nguyen, followed by Maria Pina.

Good evening, city council members and mayor. My name is Lisa, and I'm here today with Viet Rise. I am in support of agenda item 27. Firstly, I would like to thank city staff for their hard work in drafting the resolution and ballot measure language. These are important first steps to ensuring that all residents are able to make their voices heard at the ballot box. In a city as diverse and dynamic as Santa Ana, it is imperative that we strive for inclusivity and representation for all residents, regardless of their citizenship status.

By allowing non-citizens to engage in the civic process, the city not only promotes a more equitable and inclusive community, but we also tap into the plethora of perspectives and experiences that can only be served to enrich our city. Now is the time to empower citizens as their voices play a monumental role in shaping the policies and decisions that will impact their future. Moreover, this initiative aligns with the broader efforts across the state and nation to foster inclusive civic participation. Cities such as Chicago, San Francisco, and New York have already recognized the importance

of including non-citizens in local governance, and Santa Ana has an opportunity to be a leader in this movement. I urge the council to amend the current draft resolution language to further align with the spirit and principles of the original proposal made by council members Hernandez and Lopez and supported by the community members. All residents deserve to be able to make their voices heard at the ballot box and all residents deserve to stay in their home and that we can continue to provide protections to our tenants and renters. Thank you so much today.

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Thank you. Maria Pina, followed by Wendy House.

Hello, good afternoon everyone. My name is Maria Piña and I am resident of the city of Santana for more than 20 years. I am part of the coalition of vote no-ciadana. I am here with you this evening representing my community, I have been part of the volunteer in the community in different things for more than 10 years. And I've seen how our community is impacted a lot of times with the laws that don't work for us. So, I think firmly that include a new law for all the people who don't have documents in this city, who work hard to do day-to-day for the economy of the city, is good for us.

I have seen the families who are not working for the laws that do not work for them. So I know that you have the opportunity to change this. This afternoon I ask you to think that you don't have fear, that you don't have fear of including a new law that benefits our community. As we heard, we know that in other places this law is already there. aunt aunt aunt caldeza, usted que es mujer y que es hispana y que viene de una familia inmigrante, usted sabe los retos que una familia cada día sufre cuando no hay una ley que los representa. Entonces,

por eso, esta noche les pido a todos ustedes que firmen, que pongan para la siguiente TVS, en la boleta, esta ley, para que todos los ciudadanos que ya votan tengan la decisión de decir que sí avanza. Gracias. Gracias.

Good evening. My name is Maria Pina. I've been a resident of Santana for over 30 years. I'm part of a coalition for non-citizen voting. And I'm here as a community volunteer for over, and many things, for over 10 years. And I see in my volunteering that the community is gravely affected by laws that do not work for us. and I'm here in favor of passing this new law that would allow non-documented people who contribute to the economy and to our places for these laws that do not work for us.

So I see lots of families that are affected by broken laws, and the families are broken up by laws that do not work for them. So do not be afraid to implement this new law that is going to benefit the community. And as somebody said, this has been implemented in other places already. Mayor Amesqua, you as an immigrant woman from an immigrant family, you know the challenges that families suffer who are not represented. So let's put this on the ballot. Thank you.

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Wendy?

Good evening, Mayor, State Council. My name is Wendy Hazy. i'm here on behalf of this more than 17 santa anna hotels and motels you'll hear from a fellow general manager shortly along with i know that several of them have submitted email comments these 17 properties charge hotel guests 11 hotel visitor tax in 2022 that hotel visitor tax generated eight million dollars for the santa anna generals fund the hotel visitor tax funds arts and culture parks and recreation, public safety, neighborhood services, and public infrastructure. Santa Ana is competing for visitors with Anaheim, Buena Park,

Costa Mesa, Irvine, and the beach cities. Our city is at extreme disadvantage when visitors arrive to Santa Ana hotels to scenes of drug use, encampments, and the feeling of being unsafe. The majority of those employed in Santa Ana hotels are Santa Ana residents. Without visitors filling those hotels, their shifts are cut which equals a loss of income. Santa Ana has one chance to make a first impression and that first impression impacts our economic vitality and the livelihood of those employed by our hotels. The hoteliers need the Santa Ana City Council to recognize the issues they are struggling with and make an

effort to resolve them by delivering actionable and measurable solutions to help mitigate the economic losses not only their properties incur but the city of Santa Ana incurs due to the loss of hotel visitor tax. The hoteliers need the City of Santa Ana to work with them to make the areas surrounding their properties safer for their associates and guests. Thank you.

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Thank you. Julia Gomez followed by Frank Atoyede. I apologize from the Holiday Inn. Julia Gomez please. Followed by Frank.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council. My name is Julia Gomez, and I'm a staff attorney with the ACLU of Southern California. Earlier today, we submitted a letter outlining both the legal authority that the City Council has to implement non-citizen voting, as well as the tools that the City Council has to implement it safely for immigrants. Other organizations, like Chinese for Affirmative Action and UCI School of Law, their Immigrant Rights Clinic have similarly submitted letters outlining the many ways in which you have the authority to do this. I want to focus on the tools that the City Council has.

The process of creating San Francisco's immigrant voting program shows that it's possible to develop a program that is successful when a jurisdiction is proactive and committed to developing solutions. Since the adoption of their non-citizen voting law, San Francisco has been working closely with community advocates to ensure that non-citizen residents are protected and can make an informed decision for themselves about whether they want to vote. For example, San Francisco has separate non-citizen registration forms and separate ballots to make sure that a non-citizen does not inadvertently register or vote in a

state or federal election or in an election in that case for anything beyond the school district. San Francisco also provides voters with what's called a right to vote letter. This is a letter that outlines the legal authority that non-citizens have to vote in school district elections. So when those immigrants go to apply for citizenship they could provide that letter to USCIS. Local advocates have also met with USCIS offices to train them on this right to vote and as far as advocates know there have been no issues that immigrants have been having with applying for naturalization. Early in the program

applications were getting flagged for secondary review but after that training USCIS was able to rectify that. There's no reason why the Santa Ana City Council can come up with similar solutions to ensure that immigrants are protected and can make the decision for themselves as to whether or not they exercise the right to vote. Thank you. Thank

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you. Frank, please. Followed by Celeste Rivero, followed by Alan Vandewort. Good evening, everyone.

I'm honored to be here and thanks for giving me the floor tonight. My name is Frank Atayde and I'm the general manager at the Holiday Inn Orange County Airport. As one of the Santa Ana Hotel properties that contribute more than $8 million in hotel's visitors tax to the city general fund, I want to express my concern regarding the unacceptable levels of crime, drug activity, and homeless issues my property had encountered. For today, I will only focus on one issue which I believe we can control. Theft.

We have a recurring theft that occurs usually during Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays at the hours of 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. Sometimes on weekdays at around 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.

The perpetrators are two male persons on a bicycle. Very simple to resolve. They would break down the car windows of our guests and steal their belongings. I am 100% sure that this will happen again this week. And if I could request the police to come over to my hotel, I would show you the videos and the pictures to catch these perpetrators. We would like the police support. We would like the support of the council. And we would like to have ongoing talks with this, if we may. We need your help and we seek your help. Thank you so much and have a beautiful day. God bless you all.

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Thank you, sir. Celeste Rivero followed by Alan Vandervoort, please.

Good evening, council members. My name is Celeste Rivero and I'm here with Clergy and Lady United for Economic Justice. I'm here in support of agenda item number 27. As a person of faith, social worker, and daughter of immigrants, this issue is near to my heart. I've witnessed firsthand the difficulties that come with being represented by those who do not have the interests of the whole community in mind. Those without citizenship already face additional barriers to accessing the necessary resources to live and thrive in our community, and allowing them to vote will provide an opportunity to

remedy that by having a say in who represents them. I also urge the Council to amend the current draft resolution language to further align with the spirit and principles of the original proposal made by councilmembers Hernandez and Lopez and supported by community members. All residents deserve to be able to make their voices heard and about in the at the ballot box as soon as possible not later at some undetermined point in the future. Again I support agenda items 27. Thank you. Thank you. Mayor I'd like to clarify for the

Jessie LopezItem 3

record that I was not a co-author so thank you.

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Thank you. Alan Vandervoort.

Vandervoort. Good evening. I'm, my name's Alan Vandervoort. I'm an owner of an apartment complex on North Main in Santa Clara for the last 23 years.

Recently, I painted a one-bedroom apartment. It cost me $2,800 to paint that apartment. Three years ago, that same apartment was $750. dollars. A gallon of paint now is over fifty dollars and was twenty-six dollars two years ago. I just paid fifteen hundred dollars for a plumbing bill. That just popped up. What the apartment owners in Orange County have been subjected to basically is rent control was eighty percent of CPI. My point is my CPI is different than your CPI. My CPI is more like

30 or 40 percent your cpi is a little over three percent i have to i have things like uh plywood and paint and labor was all all the increase in the costs are passed down to the apartment owners what is encouraging what is happening now is that we have to the president apartment owner we have to determine whether or not we can maintain the apartment what's going to happen is going to basically going to be run down because we have to make a decision whether or not so we can maintain the safety and maintain the apartments for the safety of the people that live

there versus increasing the amenities and so forth like that we can't afford to maintain that any longer so what i encourage though is a vote against the rent stabilization and let it to allow to be determined on the november ballot november 5th thank you thank you deborah russell followed by

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Melissa Muir, Deborah Russell, Melissa Muir, and Edina Hernandez.

Hello, good evening council. My name is Deborah Russell and I am a lifelong resident of Santa Ana, going back four generations. Tonight I'm here in support of non-citizen voting in municipal elections. Being born and raised and educated in this city, I have come to know many residents who care deeply about Santa Ana, yet like one in four adults of voting age cannot vote. I've also worked as an educator in this city in SAUSD and at Santa Ana College for over 20 years and in that time I have come to know many youth and many of their

families who care also very deeply about this city, a city that they have come to call home, that they contribute to as parents leading and organizing events like at my children's school here in Santa Ana. The people who are leading and organizing and serving very important roles also happen often to be non-citizens, that they want to have a say, they want to have a stake. I'm also a property owner here in Santa Ana and I know that having a stake in your city makes a difference. You become more involved. You show up like I am tonight.

You speak up and that helps makes our city stronger. Ensuring our non-citizen residents have this opportunity is something my family and I stand for and hope you support as well. Thank you. Melissa Muir followed by Adina Hernandez. Good evening, Mayor of Mesquah and council members. My name is Melissa Meir and I am the head of school for Nova Academy Early College High School located just a couple of blocks that way. I walked here tonight with many of our parents and students.

This is not the first time I have stood before you and I am here again pleading once again for your assistance and holding OCTA accountable for its OC streetcar project and the many dangers it continues to inflict upon our school. Construction began in 2019, four years ago, and there is seemingly no end in sight. Meanwhile, at the staging site located at our front doors we have unsightly trash and drug

paraphernalia accumulating behind OCTA's fence in plain view of our school community and students. Our students see this every day as they come to school. In fact, everyone sees it every day when they come to our school. Guess, you probably saw it yourself, Mayor, when you came to our senior exit interviews. And our school is beautiful. And our city is beautiful. Santa Ana is a beautiful city.

but when we don't have the support needed to be able to clean up the city it doesn't happen and a blind eye is turned or there's blaming as far as whose mess it is and who's going to clean it up the primary issue here is that every day students are put at risk and despite our many appeals for help in maintaining a safe area for our children conditions in around in and around the OCTA staging site just keep deteriorating please help us thank you

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thank you your time's up thank you Adina Hernandez please

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Adina Hernandez Cecilia Andrade followed by Maribel Aguilar

Hello, my name is Cecilia Andrade and I'm a parent of a student who is attending Nova Academy-Early College High School. Imagine finding the perfect school for your son, a school where your son will prosper socially, emotionally and academically. As a parent, I would like to see your son happy in the school, getting good qualifications and flowering in an enriching environment. So, it's how I feel about my son attending the Academy of Nova. Unfortunately, outside the walls of the school, there is a totally different story.

Due to the preparation of Octa and its complete lack of concern for students or the campus of Nova, my son and all the children of Nova Academy are exposed to threats to their safety every day. This has resulted in that many parents take a decision impossible to take their children from Nova Academy.

A place where they are floreting and want to be. And a place that will help their university dreams. Due to OCTA, parents are forced to bring their children to another place. A place that will not provide the academic and emotional benefits that they offer. SNOVA Academy. Espero que ustedes, como miembros de la Junta, nunca se vean obligados a tomar una decisión de este tipo. Una decisión en la que tengan que elegir entre la seguridad de sus hijos o donde recibirán la mejor educación. Como mamá estoy realmente preocupada por toda esta situación.

Es lamentable ver que en nuestra ciudad de Santa Ana se encuentre este tipo de problema y más a un lado de una escuela como lo es NOVA. Nosotros somos parte de la ciudad de Santa Ana. Ana, por favor, ayúdenos.

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A momento, señora. Hello.

My name is Cecilia Andrade. I'm a parent of Nova Academy. And I imagine having found the perfect school for your child, for a great success socially and academically for your child. And you're happy sending your child there to get good grades. And that's how I felt when I enrolled my son at Nova. Academy, but the problem is that outside the school, it's a different story. The OCTA staging area is bringing lots of concern. There's a lot of exposure, exposing the kids and everybody else

to risks, to safety every single day, and many parents are thinking of making the hard decision of leaving Nova Academy, this place that is providing this great opportunity, college dreams, making the college dream a reality for their kids. And the parents are thinking of taking their kids from Nova to who knows where, where they won't have the social and academic benefits that Nova offers. So I hope that you don't have to make that decision yourself.

As a mom, I am concerned about this and I'm very sad to see that this is happening in Santa Ana and this huge problem next to our school. Please help.

enojada y conmocionada por lo que se está permitiendo que suceda frente a lo que alguna vez fue un hermoso campus. Ninguno de ustedes querría que sus hijos estuvieran expuestos a lo que está sucediendo actualmente en Nova Academy. Debido al sitio de preparación de OCTA, por favor, escucha a los miembros de la comunidad para lo que fueron elegidos. We need your influence, compassion and help to ensure that NOVA Academy

is a safe place for the students to learn, learn and pursue their academic dreams. OCTA has dominated the space around our school and has put our children in danger durante demasiado tiempo. Por favor, ayúdenos a eliminar el área del sitio de preparación de una vez por todas. Gracias por su ayuda. Por escucharnos. Gracias.

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Gracias.

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Are you a Dina Hernandez?

Go ahead. Maribel, my name is Maribel Aguila, and I'm a parent of Nova Academy, and I'm a voter here in Santa Ana. and it's very sad and I'm very mad and very angry to see this, that this is allowed to happen next to this beautiful school, Nova Academy. And you would not want your children to be exposed to something like this. The OCTA staging area is a mess. Please listen to the community that elected you to serve them. You need to help our community and I hope that you never have to make this decision.

NOVA, we want NOVA to be a safe place for our Santa Ana kids to learn and to follow their dreams. And OCTA's staging area is taking around the school. And it's a risk to our own kids' safety. So please get rid of OCTA's staging area around the school. Thank you for listening.

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Thank you. Adina Hernandez, please.

Gracias. And yes, my name is Edaina, I'm also a student from the Academy Nova here in Santana. The reason why I chose Nova Academy for my son is because it's a great school that is concerned about the students, their safety and health. And what is happening with the obstacles that they have with the Octa, and the barriers and the stations that they have in the years without removing them,

Thank you.

Nova will be a good academy for our children in terms of the security that Okta is offering in the school. It is almost all the way out. Please help us to take responsibility for the interruption and the danger that we continue causing our academy. Thank you.

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Thank you.

My name is Edina and I also have a child at Nova Academy. and I chose NOVA because it's a great school. They are concerned about our children's safety and their health, and there's a problem with OCTAs blocking the barriers, blocking around the school.

I'm very happy with my child being at NOVA, but there's many issues with the homeless around the school and the OCTAs barriers around the school. There's a mess out there, and it's affecting the traffic as well. And I'm asking all the community, everybody who can vote to help us on this. NOVA is a good place, a good academy for our children. Please help us to make OCTA accountable. Thank you.

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Marina Calderon followed by Flora Flores and Annabel Pineda Medina.

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Ms. Calderon, Flora Flores, Annabel Medina.

Good evening everyone, thank you for listening. I'm also a mother of a student at the Nova School. I'm a test of how it's sucio there. I'm all the days with my son and the homeless are in the house. It's very sucio and please help us to keep clean and safe for the children. Thank you very much for your help.

Good evening. Thank you for listening to us. I'm a mother at NOVA as well, and I see that it's very dirty outside of the school. I take my son to school daily, and I see that the homeless leave their stuff behind there, and it's very dirty around there. So please help to keep the area clean, and thank you for your help.

Flor Flores. Flor Flores. Yo voy a hablarles de... Ya tengo... Esta es mi tercera hija que he tenido en Nova Academy. Mi primer hijo, el mayor, y luego el segundo, y ahora la bebé. Lo que pasa es que Nova es una buena academia, y es bien deprimente ver todo lo que hay enfrente. Empezaron esa construcción, si mal no recuerdo, fue en el 2019. Para ahorita todavía no está terminado, está todo instruido, está horrible en frente de la academia Era una academia cuando mi hijo estaba en segundo de high school, era una hermosa academia

Es una academia muy buena, mi hija sigue ahí porque mis hijos han tenido muy buenos progresos de esa academia And for me as a father, to look at that, it's horrible, it's so bad, to look at everything that is, the garbage, no it's done in the construction, as I say, it's deprimating for me, imagine, for the students, to look at that day after day, when they come, when they come, to look at the garbage. For me, it would be that, please, if you listen to us, make something, please help us to help us.

or if you need help from our parents, we are ready to help you to clean the city. As our director said, Santa Ana is a very beautiful city, Santa Ana is beautiful, but we are the ones who do fey. We have to finish this construction so that the Academy looks beautiful. As I said, this is my third daughter that I have at Nova Academy, and I really don't like to change her, or that she would leave Nova to look for another high school, where she might not be receiving the good benefits that she received in Nova Academy. Please listen to us. And if they are so friendly,

Octa will finish cleaning. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Amesqua. I have three children at Nova Academy, my oldest, my second one, and now the baby is there. NOVA is a great academy for the children, but it's sad to see what's happening in front of the school. The construction has been around, I guess, since 2019, and they have not finished, and it looks terrible out there. My son, who was the second year in high school, it was a beautiful school back then, and outside as well.

and my daughter is there because my sons went there and they were doing great academically. It's a great academy. It's a great school. As a mom, I'm sad to see the trash that is outside. The construction is not finished and I see that day after day the trash is out there. So please listen to us. Please do something. and if you need help cleaning, we have parents that are willing to help you clean up the city. As the principal said earlier, Santa Ana is a beautiful city, but we are the ones who make it ugly. So let's finish the construction.

My three children attend to NOVA. I wouldn't want my third child to go elsewhere where she may not have the benefit of NOVA. Let's make OCTA clean the area. Señor? Hello, good evening. My name is Annabelle Pineda. I am a mother of a student who is at NOVA Academy. We have gathered here to come to come and come to us and that we are listening to our school. Because the school needs to be cleaned. There are areas that are dirty, they leave a lot of smoke.

why of all those who are here, who can help us to help us more in the area of the cleaning. When the students end that, we want to know how to make them cross, so that they can't cross any danger, because they will be the way. And that's what I've been doing, I've been doing my voice as a father, Apoyar a los estudiantes que ya han venido. Gracias por darme la oportunidad de venir en esta noche. Y eso es todo.

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

Gracias, señora.

Good evening. My name is Anabel Pineda. I'm a mother of Nova Academy. And I'm here with other parents. We are here for you to listen to our voice. We need the school, the place around the school to be cleaned. There's a lot of dust around there and it's not good for the kids for this for their health. We need your help and our students are graduating from Nova. They're going to colleges. They're getting good good help, good support at college as well. So we need your help. All the children that are there we want them to graduate. We need your help to to clean, to have them clean the area and

for the students to finish and when the construction finishes also the, for the children to cross the street because it's, so it's not dangerous because the railroad tracks are going to be there when that finishes. So thank you for listening tonight.

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

Tim Rush followed by Trin Grant followed by Theodoro Mendez. Tim Rush, Trin Grant, Theodoro Mendez.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and members of the council. I'm here as chairman of the G7 Neighborhood Leaders Alliance, and I'm here to tell you emphatically that we voted unanimously in opposition to your item 27. We hope that you will not put the items in item 27 on the ballot. I find it interesting that tonight we're recognizing Domestic Violence Month, and yet by your actions you would put the tenants in the buildings in Santa Ana at risk

because of your adoption of Just Cause eviction. So think about that. Pretty soon I'm going to begin to think that water is going to run uphill in Santa Ana. We spend our time worried about some of the most ridiculous items. Instead of tending to keeping the streets clean, attracting businesses, hiring more cops, making the city safer. Those are the things that people want. and you heard from businesses like the Holiday Inn tonight who emphatically are imploring you,

please hire more cops, get us some help so that when we have people come to the city and try to stay here, and we only got one shot at that first impression, and increasingly it's negative. So, you know, these folks from Nova Academy, also a good example of some of the things that we the council needs to be focused on not rent control something that has failed in every city around the world where it's been tried you heard from a property owner tonight who told

you that his costs are going up at the rate of 30 percent and he's not unique So please listen to the residents. Stop doing all of this fantasy council work. Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

Trin Grant followed by Teodoro Mendez.

Good evening, City Council members. My name is Trin Grant. I am a property owner of rental properties in Orange County, including Santa Ana. I have some concerns and questions regarding the Agenda 27 Rent Registry. The Santa Ana mandated rent registry is demanding personal information from rental property owners about all tenants, whether on the lease or not, such as their name, phone, email, and preferred language, certified by the owner under penalty of perjury. This is an invasion of privacy.

What will this information be used for? And why is the city requiring it? Since the City of Santa Ana is mandating landlords to provide personal information about all residents and guests living in every unit, what legal and financial protections are in place for the landlords if tenants information is given to city without their knowledge and consent is this a law handed down by the judicial court

system requiring landlords to comply if so what penal code is it thank you

Thank you. a pesar de que todos los residentes pagan impuestos y deben cumplir con las leyes locales promulgadas por los funcionarios electos de la ciudad. Las personas afectadas por las políticas deberían tener voz en las elecciones de las personas que moldean esas políticas. Espero que el Consejo Municipal explore formas de ampliar el derecho al voto a todos los residentes para fortalecer nuestra democracia. Gracias.

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

Gracias.

Hola, mi nombre es Ixalvi Dales Mendes y todos tienen hambre, es porque yo tengo hambre.

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

Claudia Morales.

Good evening, mayors and city council. My name is Teodora Mendez, and I'm here with Attendance United, Esperanza Inquilinos Unidos in Santa Ana. I'm here in Santa Ana for over 15 years and I'm here to support item 27. I believe it's not fair that non-citizens cannot vote. We are part of the economy. We pay taxes. We follow the laws that are implemented and that are voted on. So we need to be, we are affected and we need to have a voice in the elections that affect us. So I hope that the city council can expand the voting rights

for all residents so that we can strengthen our democracy. And Ixtel said that, I don't know if anybody's hungry, but I am hungry.

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

Thank you. Señora?

I have 24 years of living here in Santa Ana. I think we are Impacto, all of that community, for the economy. I am in District 4, in the community of Roswell and Baker. It is sometimes hard to live in our communities, to know each other and know what is happening in our community. So, I am very happy to be here, my husband is back, with the child in arms, already dormant.

I'm going to be supporting the number 27 of the agenda, because I think that when you get there, when you get there, you require, apart from being there, people who are here, families who are here, who want to support their projects, who want to be part of the decisions of Santana. because we already have 24 years living here, we love Santana, we love Santana, we go to the event of Santana and we know that you are as public servants, the biggest public servants here in Santana, we know that you are working hard and that need that support

of the people, so I also want to thank the support of the consejales that made possible that we are here, and we are here, supporting this 27th in the agenda. We know who they are. And we also ask you to support the others, like you, alcaldesa, for us to be able to choose as people who are there, who feel there, and that with much love, that with much love we can see each of you, and say thank you. Thank you for being our sentiments, thank you for being our voice. We want to support them and be part of the decisions of Santana. Gracias.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. I'm happy to be here, to be here as a family. We have the children here as well. I represent many families, immigrant families in Santa Ana. I've been in Santa Ana for over 25 years and contributing to the economy. and I'm in Ward 4, Rosewood and Baker, and it's hard to know when you know all the people, know their stories and their situations and their hardships. My husband is here as well. He's in the back. He has the baby in his arms, the baby sleeping, and I'm here to support item 27 on the agenda because when you are there, you're sitting up there,

you need the families, the families that are here to support you, and we want to be part of the decisions that are taking place in Santa Ana. And after 24 years, of course, we love Santa Ana. We are part of Santa Ana. We are part of the events of Santa Ana. And you, as public servants, we know that you are working hard, and as such, you need the people's support. And I want to thank you, and I ask thank you to all the city council members who supported and who are supporting item 27 you know who you are and we're

hoping that the other members of the City Council can support as well as you mayor Amesqua and I'm here to ask you for your for your support and thank you for supporting and for being our voice and we love you and we hope you make the best decision for Santa Ana.

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

Victor Mendez followed by Jenna Narajara followed by Carlos Pereira.

Good evening. Just some brief comments on item three. I'm very happy to hear that you're going to pursue a or look to pursue a company to get you through the recruiting process for your city manager. More so than the firm, I just encourage you to outline the process that you want that's going to work for you and it's going to deliver the person you need. I might add, I would add in the police chief recruitment as well, another critical position and one that certainly needs to be filled as soon as possible. But anyway, I'm very happy to hear you're taking that direction.

On item 27, I fully support the rent stabilization ordinance going to the voters. I'm not very comfortable in having this done at the council level. I think it's something for the voters. And the people will decide if this is something they want. along that way. I've had a lot of difficulty with permitting non-citizens voting. I'm at, because there's no definition of non-citizen. That can take so many different ways. And if you really look at what's happening out there in the country, when you make this list of cities that are doing it, it's all, for the most part, from what I've seen, legal immigrants,

permanent residents. It's not wide open just non-citizens. For me, I'm fully supportive of having legal residents vote. My son was a legal resident. I know the immigration system probably better than anybody in this council. I worked through that system. I sat on the bench in Juarez getting him through the border with his green card when he was three years old. I haven't become an American citizen i'd like to see legal immigrants have that right to vote but again be cautious what do you mean by non-citizen for me if you define non-citizen as a legal resident i'm fully on board

no problem um give me one second and if i run out of time well that's it for now thank you very much

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

thank you jenna namajara followed by carlos perrella

Hi, my name is Jenna Narahar. I'm here with my supervising attorney Annie Lai, representing UCI Law's Immigrant Rights Clinic. First, we wanted to address some of the immigration issues that some city council members have raised. While we too would not want to see anyone hurt because they participated in a local election in Santa Ana, we are not concerned that they will be. Federal immigration law does not prohibit non-citizens from voting in local elections if their participation is authorized at the local level. As has previously been mentioned, there are over a dozen cities across the country that

have enacted non-citizen voting, and as far as we know, no resident of those cities has faced negative immigration consequences as a result of voting. Additionally, Santa Ana can take some of the steps that San Francisco took to help its residents. San Francisco provides non-citizens with a letter that states the resident voted legally in a San Francisco school board election. Some San Francisco organizations have trained local USCIS officials to ensure they understand San Francisco's non-citizen voting law. Additionally, the Department of Elections

in San Francisco has helped community groups understand protections that govern voter registration information. According to them, ICE has not requested voter information from the San Francisco Department of Elections. San Ina has taken a significant step in asking staff to bring forth a resolution on non-citizen voting. However, the proposed ballot language here is of an advisory nature. It does not entrust the voters the ultimate decision of whether the non-citizens be allowed to vote. It merely asks voters that what their opinion on the matter is. Even if voters overwhelmingly support non-citizen voting

there would be no requirement for a future Santa Ana City Council to act. In contrast, San Francisco with Proposition N was not advisory and is something that

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

Santa Ana can adopt here. Thank you. Thank you. Carlos Perea followed by Tim Nguyen, followed by Angel Sanchez.

economic. I am here in support again to the number 27 of the agenda, to expand the vote to all the citizens, all the residents of Santa Ana, including undocumented people with permission of work and that also have their residence, because we all here pay taxes. First of all, I want to thank the majority of the Council, who is in support in expanding the vote of vote to all their residents, especially the conceals Hernandez and Vázquez, that are leading this initiative. Second, our coalition of families of Santa Ana, for elections just, has sent a letter to Santa Ana,

to the abogado and to all of you, on our amendments that we want to see in this resolution. We don't want a consultation, we want a consultation that is legal, the city of the city, so that it can be legalized the vote to all residents. Second, I want to direct the alcaldess Mezcua, the concejal Abe Serra and the concejal Peñalosa, which is going to expand the democracy for all. You say that they are worried about the issue of immigration in our community, but this law has been put on 50 years in different cities and in other states of the country,

and we have heard a case that is a case that is a citizenry to a person who voted legally, local. So it's important to recall. The second is, what do you fear? What do you fear? Expand the vote to all. Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

Next speaker after the translation, please.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. I'm going to speak in Spanish today because it's a very important issue for the community. There's a lot of misinformation going on. My name is Carlos Perea. I live in Ward 1 in the Harvard Institute. And I'm here to support Item 27, to expand voting rights for all residents of Santa Ana, undocumented residents, everyone, because we all pay taxes. And I want to thank the council majority who is supporting expanding the voting rights for all people, especially council members Hernandez and Vasquez.

and I'm here, the Coalition for Santa Ana Families for Fair Elections sent a letter with our amendment, our proposed amendments. So we want this to be not just a consultation, but we want to amend the city charter, so to make this, to amend the city charter. I also like to ask Mayor Amesqua, Mr. Becerra, and Mr. Peñalosa, you say that you're concerned about the immigration issue,

but there's laws that for over 50 years, there has not been a single case where citizenship has been denied due to this issue. So the second question is, you say, why are you afraid? Let's expand voting for all.

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

Thank you. Next.

Thank you. Good evening, Councilmember. My name is Tim Nguyen. I'm Immigration Justice Coney at VIT Vice. I am expressing my strong support for agenda item 27. This proposal aims to adopt two critical ballot measures up in the upcoming 2024 general election. One is to adopt the rent-stabilization and just-cost conviction ordinance, and the other is the permission for noncitizen voting in the municipal election. It is currently a harsh truth that nearly one in four residents and one in three adults

in the city are noncitizen, who despite being directly impacted by the decision made by of the municipal government are not given the right to vote. I believe every adult resident, regardless of their immigration status, should be allowed to participate in local election. This will help ensure fairness and equality representation for all members of our community.

I remember having a conversation with a non-citizen resident of the city of Santa Ana, and she stated, I work hard. I work hard for my children to have a better life than mine and participate and work in events that make this city thrive. But yet I don't have a say or represent it in the policies that affect me and my children. I can confidently say that our non-citizen community is a bigger part, it's the biggest part of making the city of Santa Ana to thrive and a great city to live in.

So when you vote, please look into the eyes and ask yourself if the non-citizen community standing before you who is committed to the growth of the city of Santa Ana, their life of the church and the community deserve a say in the policy.

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

Tim, your time is up. Thank you, sir. Your time's up. Angel Sanchez followed by Adelina Ballon followed by Laura Pantone.

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

Angel Sanchez, Adelina Ballon.

I'm here to support the number 27, because I think it's unjust to the residents no-cudadanos can participate in local elections, despite that all residents pay taxes and should comply with the local laws promulgadas por los funcionarios electos de la ciudad. Todos contribuyentes con impuestos, pero debido a su estatus legal, no todos tienen voz en la elección de las personas que toman decisiones

sobre cómo se graban a todos o cómo se gastan esos dólares fiscales. The pay of taxes without representation is unjust and democratic. The residents no-candidate conform to almost a fourth of the population of Santana and deserve to have a voice in the local elections, because the employees of the local government take decisions that affect them directly. It is important for me, my family, my friends, my neighbors,

to be included in the democratic process and to participate in local elections. The people affected by the policies should have a voice in the elections of the people who mold these policies. I hope the Council Municipal explore ways of amplifying the right to vote a todos los residentes para fortalecer nuestra democracia. Gracias y muy buenas noches.

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

Gracias.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council, Members. My name is Ángel Sánchez. I'm a resident of Ward 3 with the organization Tenants, I Hope, Esperanza, Inclinos Unidos. And I'm here to support item 27 because it's not fair that non-citizens do not have the right to vote. We pay taxes in the city. We abide by the laws that are created by the city that are imposed on us by the people that make the laws. And it's not fair that we pay taxes and we do not have a voice to elect the people who are making those decisions for us.

We do not have a voice on how the money that we pay is spent, and we do not have representation. Taxation without representation is not fair and is not democratic. And about one-fourth of the non-citizens in Sanana make up about one-fourth of the population, and we need to have a voice in the decisions that are made, the decisions that affect how we live and affect our lives.

I'm speaking here for myself, my family, my neighbors, my friends, because we want to be included in local elections to be affected, because we're going to be affected by the decisions that are made. So I'm asking the City Council to expand the voting for all residents of Santa Ana so we can have stronger democracy. Thank you and good evening.

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

Thank you. Adelina Bailón.

Buenas noches. Mi nombre es Adelina Bailón. Es un gusto estar aquí con ustedes hoy, conocerlos en persona, sino detrás de una pantalla o un cartelón en la calle. I live here in the district number 6 here in Santana for 30 years. I have three children, students, the largest in the college. I am a volunteer in the Center Cultural of Mexico, supporting the community events. And I am here to support the issue 27, that there is equality, that there is no differences by the status of migrating.

Sería bien que todos en la familia de estatus mixtos puedan votar para que puedan elegir sus representantes y poder ser escuchados. Y también estoy a favor de que siga habiendo estabilización en el contrato de rentas. Muchas gracias.

Good evening. My name is Adelino Bailon. I'm happy to be here with you in person and not just see you through a screen or through flyers out on the streets. So I'm a resident of Ward 6 in Santa Ana for over 30 years. I have three children. One of them is at college. I'm a volunteer at Centro Cultural de Mexico. and I'm here to support item 27 so that we can have equality and we do not have differences due to immigration status so that the members of mixed status families can vote and their voice can be heard.

I'm also here to support rent stabilization. Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

Thank you. Laura Pantel.

Followed by Sylvia Avendano, followed by Anna Charco. Good evening, Councilio. My name is Laura Pantoja, I'm resident of Santana for many years. I'm going to support the Punto 27 and I want to say that my colleague is David Peñalosa.

I'm going to go mainly because I've seen him in the Sol Academy, where I have my parents and he has sobrinos. and in that academy there were many parents who would benefit from the possibility of having a voice for voting. I've been here many years talking different things. I remember there was more than 13 years that we didn't have the rent of accounts and transparency and we came from the community to ask, right? And we were all together with families until the 12 of the night, until we did it. We wanted to have a city santuario and we mobilized. And in these last months we have been talking in reunions,

in small reunions with families, organizations, explaining what would mean that people have a voice in this city. Have you ever had a voice in this city? Have you ever had a voice in this city? Have you ever had that voice, right? And I have achieved it. And I think it's the opportunity to you as Council, I think they have a moral and ethical of giving that voice to people. Here, casual, every time we want something for the community, they get the great consciences to talk about private properties, that they have rights, that they have many houses, many properties, and talk about the vote,

and talk about the rent control, which has cost years. And every time we want something for the community, they mobilize them. And it's not that you hear those voices and hear the community. The majority of the people here are a working class, and a quarter of the people who live in this city would benefit from having a voice. I would like to hear you. You are here, but one day you will go and the community will always be here. Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

We're going to hold off. We didn't allow the others to clap if you guys can, please. Sylvia Avedano followed by Anna Charco.

Good evening, members of the City Council. My name is Laura Pantoja. I've been a resident of Santa Ana for many years. I'm here to talk about Item 27. My council member is Mr. Peñalosa, and I'd like to talk to him, and I see him sometimes at El Sol Academy, where I have my grandchildren, and he has his nephews. And we are here to have the benefit of having our voice heard so that we can vote. And I've been here in Santa Ana for many, many years.

And for over 13 years, over 13 years ago, we came here to the city council to ask for openness and accountability. and many families were here past midnight and we had we accomplished having this made a sanctuary city we fulfilled that and many fam now we're meeting with many families and organizations to let them know what it means to have a voice in our city through elections and I'm sure that

Some of you, your families or your ancestors, maybe at one point did not have this opportunity. So I believe it is your moral and ethical duty to do this. Now, when something like this happens, they have other interests that come up, private property interests, they talk about voting and they talk about rent control. and I'm afraid that you are going to be listening to them and not listening to the community. The majority of Santa Ana is working class and we need to have a voice. So I'm here to ask you to vote for us and to support us.

Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

Silvia Avendano followed by Anna Charco, please.

Buenas noches a todos, concejales, alcaldesa. My name is Sylvia Vendaño and I live since 20 years ago in Santana. I know the problem of this city and I love it, I love it, I love it. I am a favor of the number 27 and I'm thinking of our ancestors, my parents, my father came, my grandfather also came to work here. They took their work, they didn't take their work, they were working, They were farmers, they were farmers, they were gone. They never gave them taxes, they never gave them taxes, but they generated a lot of money for this country.

They went, they built their houses, they built their dreams, they helped their families in Mexico. And now I also vote for everyone, because we can all agree, we can all participate, we can all work, our grandparents, our parents came and left, here we are, we are. And we have to talk about them. And also, we have to talk about the rent control, we have to walk, we are in resistance, we are going to put trabas, we are going to put the foot, but we are going to do it again.

We already won, we will do it again. When we return, we will win the control of the rent. Thank you. I just ask that you are consequent with your decisions and your votes.

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

And I thank you to all the members of the City Council.

Mayor, my name is Silvia Avedano. I've been in Santa Ana for over 20 years, and I know the problems of the city, and I love this city. I'm here to support Item 27, and because our ancestors were here, my dad was here, my grandfather was here, and they work hard, they work in the yard, they work in the field, and then they left, and they never got back any of the taxes that they paid, but they supported the generations. But they contributed here to the economy, and they were able to help the family in Mexico and build their homes there.

But now we are here supporting voting for all, because we can all practice this, and we can all participate in this. and we're here for our grandparents and the stead of our parents. And now that we are here, we like to have rent control. We have rent control, but now it's time for the resistance. And, of course, it's already passed, but there are going to be obstacles. But we are here. We won it before, and we will win it again. We'll have rent control. And I'm here to ask you to support the community. Thank you very much.

Good evening, Mayor Emesco and City Council members. My name is Ana Charco and I am here on behalf of Latino Health Access. I'm here to state our strong support for Agenda Item 27. This is a crucial step toward fostering inclusion, encouraging political participation and improving our community resources through increased stakeholder engagement. Moreover, it is a necessary move to bolster our democracy and ensure that all our residents have a voice in shaping the policies that affect our daily lives as well as the social the determinants of health they experience, regardless of their immigration status.

Therefore, we're enthusiastic to see the City Council move forward with exploring an expansion to the franchise in the local elections. To continue with this progress, we urge City Council to amend the current draft resolution language to further align the principles of the original proposal made by Councilmember Hernandez and Vasquez. Let us work together to ensure that all voices in Santana are heard and represent in our local government. In spirit of democracy, we believe that the decision should ultimately rest in our city's borders. Thank you for the attention to this important matter and have a great night.

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

Thank you. Emma Sanz Suarez, followed by Jana. Emma Sanz Suarez, followed by Jana.

Okay. Buenas tardes. Trabajo en el Centro Cultural de México, está en el Distrito 5. El centro es un espacio que involucra a la comunidad en cuestiones culturales, educativas artistic, the center was founded in 1994. The principles that we guide are the solidarity, the social imagination, where the history is important, the democratic participative and the individual responsibility. We are part of the coalition for elections just, we are supported by the 27th, the 2nd and 3, to ensure the control of rent and to ensure universal. The risk of not adopting these proposals is not to have a real democracy,

real, is exclusion, is not having leyes that protect the natural rights, it is a legal system, it is a system of caste, a system where no can't be, where one can't pay the rent, no is a system of legal life, the laws make people's lives, there are laws that follow human rights and there are laws that don't, the clavitude was legal, the santa inquisition was legal, more recently the exclusion of young people in education and employment was legal, it was un riesgo luchar para ganar DACA, la acción diferida para jóvenes y era también un riesgo

ganar DACA por la incertidumbre de que si no se puede renovar ese permiso, qué se iba a hacer, cómo serían los datos personales usados por el gobierno, esto fue similar al tener derecho a la licencia de manejar, fue un riesgo cambiar esas leyes, pero era más riesgo no mantener el mismo, mantener ese mismo sistema. Es lo mismo con el derecho al voto, es un riesgo que, es más riesgo mantener ese sistema de exclusión. El sufragio universal es una pequeña luz. Gracias por todo su apoyo, Hernández, Vázquez, Fan y López y gracias por considerar dejar de poner obstáculos a los demás. Gracias.

Good evening. I'm a volunteer at Centro Cultural de Mexico, Ward 5. I support the community. The center was founded in 1994. Our purposes are solidarity, social imagination, and history, and making history. And as parents, we're here to support. And I'm here to support item 27, options 2 and 3, rent control and voting for all. Otherwise, if we do not have that, we do not have a real democracy. We do not have rights. We become a caste system.

And when you cannot pay your rent, you cannot live a dignified life. And you're talking about laws, something that is legal or not. Slavery, at one point it was legal. The Inquisition, at one point it was legal. When we were fighting for DACA, it was a risk. There was uncertainty. about not being able to renew their permits. There was uncertainty about personal data being shared. When we fought for driver's licenses, there was a risk there. But there's a greater risk of not changing, of not doing something. So we're here to support voting for all,

and voting for all would be a small light. We'd like to thank all the council members that are supporting us.

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

Thank you. Jana, followed by Nadja Christmas, followed by Caitlin Brazer.

Good evening. My name is Jana, and I'm here with the Party for Socialism and Liberation. We've heard a lot of great comments about why non-citizens in Santa Ana deserve a right to vote, but I'd like to provide maybe a broader context to this.

Back when America was founded, who was allowed to vote? white, land-owning men. Looking around this room, looking even at the council dais, none of us with that description. None of us. The only reason any of us are here, the only reason any of us are even able to participate in this, is because people before us fought for our rights. People before us fought to give us a voice. History will always absolve the people who demand equal rights. People, history will always absolve the people who demand justice. And I hope the council chooses to be on the right side of history so that the people in the

future people 50 100 years from now they look back up at this moment and they see that you are on the right side of history thank you thank you name that

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

Christmas please followed by Caitlin Brazer

hello council members my name is Najah Christmas I'm a student at UCI and and I come here to support agenda item number 27, and I do so standing with the residents of Ward 3. First and foremost, I would like to thank the city for moving forward and expanding the right to vote in local elections. I also hope that the council will amend resolution language to ensure that when voters decide all of our neighbors deserve to have a say in government, that these voting rights are actually expanded in a timely manner. First, I would like to say that everyone contributes to taxes, but because of their legal status,

not everyone gets to have a say in the utilization of those funds and how those tax dollars are redistributed. Taxation without representation does not align with the values of Santa Ana and is generally undemocratic. Almost a third, that's 33% of adult residents in Santa Ana can't participate in local elections. That's inequitable and unjust. Residents deserve to have a voice in local elections. Residents deserve to have a voice in what their local government officials are doing because those decisions affect them directly.

It is important to uphold this democratic process for all. All voices deserve to be heard. How can you know the needs of the residents if they are made silent? How can you know the needs of the residents if you cannot hear their voices?

In conclusion, I stand in support of agenda item number 27. Permitting non-citizen voting legally, safely, and without penalty as UCI Law and others have stated today can be done in municipal elections on the 2024 general election ballot. Thank you so much.

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

Caitlin Brazer followed by Jose Hernandez.

Hi, good evening Mayor Mesquite, Mayor Pro Tem Lopez and Council Members. My name is Kaitlin Brazor Aceves and I'm a resident of Santa Ana Ward 1 and I serve our community as a trustee for the Santa Ana Unified School District Area 4. I am here to support the efforts of Santa Ana families for fair elections to bring non-citizen voting in city municipal elections to our city. All of our families and community members deserve to have their voices heard in our local city elections. As a community we will benefit greatly from including the diverse perspectives of our non-citizen neighbors, friends, and family members. Many

of these individuals are our colleagues, our former students, and the parents and grandparents of our students. Civic engagement is modeled at home and passed on by example generation to generation. Welcoming all of our residents regardless of their immigration status to participate in their local community elections will increase the civic engagement of Santa Ana youth and families for generations to come.

Over the years, I've had the opportunity to connect with many families at their door and encourage them to vote. Many of the heads of household and parents who answer the door often defer to their children as eligible voters in the household. Agenda Item 27 provides our city an opportunity to address this gap in access, allowing families as a whole to participate in municipal decision-making together and to signal that as a city we value everyone regardless of where they are on their journey to citizenship. I commend the city of Santa Ana and our community for moving this item forward and bringing it forward this evening and

once again leading the way for the inclusion and belonging of all immigrants. Thank you. Jose Hernandez please. Hello Mayor, Councilmembers, staff and my fellow residents I'm here not representing any office or client I'm here representing myself as a Santa Ana resident I want to start on a positive note I am proud to serve on the Arts and Culture Commission I want to thank this council for its approval of two hundred thousand dollars for sponsorships of art and culture event programming in the city and encourage anyone who has an idea for new arts events or workshop to apply for those funds as they're going

by fast and you don't need to have a nonprofit you just need to have a vision and a plan to make it happen go to the website for the city for details I want to lend my support for those on the council that have and will protect, vote to protect rent stabilization ordinance. I also voice my support behind the efforts of this council to look into the legally sound approach to the voting matter being discussed today. As a formerly undocumented immigrant, I can tell you how proud I was the first time I cast my vote for the candidates that represented my values.

I also want to encourage all my friends that are part of the nonprofit sector, the city and all of us to have a long-term plan to do deep voter education and engagement with all new voters. We have a hard enough time getting existing voters to care about the issues enough to vote, or if they vote, they do so for the person that undermines our needs and our interests. So it's like, you know, voting is like giving someone a gun. If you don't know how to shoot or who to shoot, you might shoot yourself in the foot. And so let's work to prevent that.

Finally, I'm disappointed that we have to go through yet another period of finding a city manager. As some of us can remember, the last time we had a position open after Carvalho left, it was a long and costly process as we went through three city managers in short order. I worry and wonder about the toxic environment behind the scenes that made her want to leave with the president of the POA. That toxicity was on full display when our city attorney just last meeting was accused by supposed collusion by a member of this council. Our city attorney basically said, I can leave when her ethics were being questioned.

reality is when we speak of cabals like anaheim we should speak of the cabal that's existed for years with the POA and the council puppets for those that coughed with that I'd say your perception is reality

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

City clerk can you go to the zoom yes mayor thank you first speaker on zoom

Valerie AmezcuaItem 3

Sue Lofton please unmute and make your comments

uh good evening i'm here to oppose uh item 27 and in specifically uh with regard to the rent control and just cause ordinances the as presented the resolution contains a series of violations of current state and federal law and it would benefit everyone both the tenants residents and the property owners if we had ordinances that were legal thank you

Valerie AmezcuaItem 3

next speaker on zoom casey nguyen please unmute and make your comments

hi um my name is casey nguyen and i am with the viet rise organization in support of of agenda item number 27 for non-citizen voting. Granting residents the right to vote regardless of immigration status aligns with the principles of inclusivity and diversity that are at the core of our nation. Our country was founded on the ideals of liberty and justice and these ideals should not be limited by arbitrary legal distinctions, especially as taxpayers who offer so much to our community. Immigrants are often seeking refuge from oppressive regimes, economic hardship or persecution and allowing them to participate in our

democracy is a testament to our commitment to freedom and equality. Through passing agenda item number 27 we will be acknowledging that the boundaries of citizenship do not define who deserves a say in these decisions that affect our lives. As we continue this discussion we need to remember that our democracy thrives when it is an open, diverse community with representation of all voices. The implementation of this initiative is a step towards building a more just and equitable society where every member has the opportunity to shape our collective future.

I urge the council to revise the present draft resolution language to better reflect the values of the original proposal made by council members Hernandez and Lopez and supported by people of community all residents have the right to have their voices heard at the polls once again i

Valerie AmezcuaItem 3

support agenda item number 27 thank you next speaker caller whose phone number ends in 335 please dial star six from your phone or select microphone icon and proceed with your comments

hello my name is michelle benzalez and i'm here to give a voice to mom and pop landlords that have been and will continue to be greatly affected by the rent stabilization ordinance my mom who has been a landlord for over 30 years immigrated here to raise a family and pursue the american dream she has valued long-standing tenants over price gouging and has had three evictions in total she has provided housing for tenants from generation to generation and is it It is unfair to group her in the same category as a corporate landlord. She is being punished for doing all these years what you're trying to accomplish with this RSO.

And sadly enough, there hasn't been any attempt to correct the imperfections, but rather the focus is on the super majority vote that will lock it into place. The current allowable rent increase does not cover the cost of inflation with property tax, insurance, inspection fees, the cost of maintenance, not to mention the utilities that are included in her rent. At this rate, it will take over 30 years before her rents reach fair market rent, according to HUD for 2023. Small business owners are starting to feel discouraged and are considering selling or doing a 1031 exchange to relocate their investment.

Unfortunately, the ones who are interested in these buildings are corporate giants. The political drama occurring here in Santa Ana has overshadowed the importance of protecting these mom and pop landlords during the rushed efforts to implement the RSO and enforce a supermajority vote. Take a look at Englewood's RSO, Section 8-128. They have taken the time to include provisions for landlords below market rent. Englewood is allowing them to increase their rents until it reaches 81% of fair market rent, according to HUD. This is in addition to the fair return and capital improvement petition.

The petition should not be the only tools available. They are difficult to navigate, time-consuming, intrusive, cost money, and hold much uncertainty. The RSO was created to protect from uncertainty of COVID, but it is far from perfect and has created new issues along the way, which we need to focus on amending before it's too late. I ask that you please vote no on items number 26 and 27. Thank you for your time.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 3

Next speaker, Aaron Saliba. Please unmute and make your comments.

Good evening, Mayor and Councilmembers. My name is Aaron Saliba. I serve as the general manager of the Double Tree by Hilton, Santa Ana, Orange County Airport. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. I'd like to share a few things about our hotel. Our property is locally owned and operated. We are currently in the middle of a $12 million renovation of the hotel. We've implemented a number of new measures to make sure that our property is safe and secure. We've added new security gates for our parking garage, installed a new camera system, and have third-party security nearly every day.

We appreciate the partnership and hard work at the Santa Ana Police Department and all the support they give us. We feel that we've made many investments to keep our property secure and ask for your help to make things better. We're very concerned about the level of homelessness in our area. There are frequent incidents of homelessness in our vicinity, which make our guests and our team members feel unsafe. This hurts our business, which impacts tax revenues for the city, and it makes our team members, most of whom live in Santa Ana, feel stress and anxiety.

We see daily panhandling on Carther Boulevard, and this really makes Santa Ana look unappealing and unsafe to our potential guests and clients. Our area is starting to attract some new businesses, and we hope this will continue. We feel it's important that our area feels safe and welcoming in order to increase the number of businesses in our area, which will be good for everybody. Hotels contribute more than $8 million to the hotel visitors' tax dollars to the general fund. We mostly employ team members who work here in town, as I mentioned.

Please help us to address these concerns so that we can contribute more to the city and continue to provide great pay and benefits to our team members. Thank you.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 3

Next speaker, Mexley Lopez. Please unmute and make your comments.

Hello, can you hear me?

Valerie AmezcuaItem 3

Yes, please go ahead.

Good evening, Mayor members of the council. My name is Mexley Lopez and I'm a resident of Ward 5 and a volunteer with Tenants United. Tonight I'm calling in support of item 27.

Before I make my comment, I wanted to address something that was said by Mr. Tim Rush earlier this evening when he was commenting on this month's being dedicated to survivors of domestic violence and he made an erroneous comment about the current Just Cause Ordinance. So actually, under the current Just Cause Ordinance in Santa Ana, a tenant can be evicted if they committed a crime on or off the property. And what our local law does is that it ensures that the eviction only applies to the tenant

who committed the criminal activity. And this actually protects tenants who are experiencing domestic abuse so that they're able to report a crime without the fear of being evicted. So I would advise Mr. Rush to do his research before he makes comments and misleads members of the council and their votes. I've also heard some comments made tonight about the legality of the rental registry. And I would advise the people who commented on that to do some research on the already existing court cases that have been heard after the apartment association has filed

lawsuits at the federal level against other cities who have enacted a rental registry and then all of those instances in the past the rental registry has been upheld by federal court even when there were allegations that the rental registry was illegal by requiring landlords and tenants to share private and sensitive information I also want to say that we can't have a true democracy until everybody who participates.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 3

Thank you. Your time is up.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 3

And Mayor, that concludes the speakers. Noting for the record, the e-comments received. Ten comments on non-agenda items. One comment on item 23, the density bonus agreement. Two comments on item 26, the rent stabilization and just cause eviction ordinance amendments. And eight comments on item 27, the two proposed ballot measures.

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

Thank you very much. At this time, Acting City Manager, can we hear the presentation, please?

Thank you, Mayor and members of the Council. Tonight we are going to delay the League of California Cities update. And then we are going to go right to the Rental Registry Program update if you're okay with that.

Jennifer L. HallItem 4

We are. Thank you so very much.

With that, we have Mr. Judson Brown taking over the computer with Mike Garcia, Director of Community Development. Thank you.

Mayor, Mayor for Thames City Council, while the PowerPoint is being pulled up, I want to thank you for the time. I think it's important that the public hear about the rental registry, so I appreciate being able to present on this topic tonight Myself and Judson Brown are available for questions Pertaining to the topic and with that and it looks like we're ready and I'll turn it over to mr. Brown Thank you Mike and good evening mayor and City Council the rental registry

Next slide sorry

There we go. Okay. The rental registry is required under the rent stabilization and just cause eviction ordinance. And all landlords with rental units must complete and submit registration forms for each of their rental units that they own in the city of Santa Ana. The rental registry is the city's online portal where rental property owners input their rental unit information, update tenancy information, submit notices, and pay the city's rental registry fee.

All rental units in the city must be registered in the rental registry. Exemptions must be claimed directly in the rental registry. An exemption does not mean that the rental property or unit does not have to be registered in the rental registry. Even if a rental property is exempt, it still has to be registered in the rental registry.

Who does not need to register? Owner-occupied homes are not required to register if no dwelling unit, room, or bedroom on the property is being rented.

The purpose of the rental registry is to monitor compliance with the ordinance. This monitoring is done by collecting data on all of the rental properties throughout the city, including the rent amounts being charged and changes in tenancy. By collecting data on all rental properties, staff is able to regulate rent increases and evictions on certain rental properties and mobile home spaces throughout the city. In order to fill the purpose of the rental registry to regulate rent increases and evictions, we are required to collect information

on every rental unit. This slide here shows the list of information collected for the rental registry, which allows city staff and the appointed rental housing board to regulate rent increases and evictions. Staff have determined that this information is required to be collected and recorded in the renter registry in order to further the purpose of the ordinance. The following information is not collected in the renter registry including lease agreements, Social Security numbers, employer identification numbers, or any other confidential information unrelated to compliance with the ordinance. To

respond to false claims being circulated the City of Santa Ana's rent stabilization program is not mandating the submission of the tenants actual lease agreement in the rental registry the city is also not asking for the names phone numbers email addresses and other contact information for each resident in each rental unit we are not collecting information on every tenant or occupant in the rental unit. We are only asking for the name, contact information, and preferred language for the head of household or co-head. The preferred language of the head

of household or co-head is requested such that staff can assist the tenant in their respective language, whether it be Vietnamese or Spanish. The city is also not asking about the tenant's race, ethnicity or nationality. The city's rental registry is maintained by the city software provider 3DI. Relative to false claims that the city is assuming a great deal of financial liability if its rental registry is breached and or contents exposed or shared inappropriately, 3DI is service organization control type 2 compliant, 3DI encrypts the data in transit and at

and data is behind a role based access and not publicly accessible. 3DI manages the rental registries for multiple cities throughout California, including the city of Oakland and Los Angeles, and they have never had a breach of their data.

In order to register, rental property owners need a computer, email address, their rental properties assessor parcel number, a PIN for their rental unit provided by the rental registry, and information on their rental unit. There are three parts to the registration process. The first part is verifying the property address. The second part is to provide the property owner and property managers contact information. And the third part is to input information on their rental units. For multifamily properties there is even a mass upload feature that allows landlords to input all of the

information on their rental units at the same time. Staff are also able to complete the registration process for rental property owners who do not have a computer. Regarding exemptions, rental units may be either exempt or subject to the ordinance. One of the most common reasons why a unit may be exempt is that it is a single-family residential real property that is alienable separate from the title to any other dwelling unit and the owner is not a real estate investment trust, a corporation, or a limited liability company. This legalese simply means that it is a single-family rental home or

condominium that may be owned by a mom-and-pop landlord. However, the rental unit is still required to be registered in the rental registry and the rental property will need to claim an exemption. The city does not know if a rental unit is exempt until and unless a rental property owner registers their rental unit and claims an exemption. If a rental unit is exempt, it must be registered as an exempt rental unit. After staff has built the rental registry and discerned which rental properties are exempt or subject to the ordinance, we will then begin the process of collecting the rental registry fee for

non-exempt units. The rental registry fee of $100 per rental unit will be used to fund the city's cost to implement, administer, monitor, support, and enforce the provisions of the ordinance. This fee will only be charged to rental property owners that do not claim a valid exemption beginning in January 2024. Exempt rental units are not required to pay the rental registry fee, but still required to register in the rental registry. Just like our city's business licenses, this will be a fluid registry that will be refined and built

over time. Since August 15th, staff has been conducting continuous outreach and education to rental property owners about the rental registry by creating a dedicated web page with the user guide, FAQs, and two video demonstrations, creating and staffing a dedicated email address and phone line, and providing eight weekly virtual workshops in English, Spanish, and Vietnamese. Staff and computers are also available at the Santa Ana Work Center to assist landlords in person.

Now, the city is in the first year of implementing a rental registry and is asking for cooperation from rental property owners as we identify rental units. The first rental registry outreach letter was sent to 27,309 property owners based upon best practices from other cities with rent stabilization programs such as the city of Inglewood and Hayward. The mailing list used data from the county's treasurer tax collector for properties where the owner pays property taxes and does not claim a homeowner's property tax exemption. The fact is that it is very difficult to identify all

properties with rental units, especially single-family rental properties. Therefore, staff prepared a second letter focused on 13,154 single-family properties to explain that owner occupants who do not use their home for any residential rental purposes are not subject to the ordinance and will not need to register in the rental registry as of the date of this presentation there are only 3,300 units registered in the rental registry therefore staff will need to continue conducting outreach and education and we are planning to send a forthcoming letter only to multifamily rental

property owners in November

Thank you again, Mayor Mescu and members of the City Council for the opportunity to present tonight. Staff are available for any questions that you may have.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

Thank you very much. Appreciate that. So if you want to speak, please press your button.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

Okay. I have a couple questions.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

So I know we met, Judson, and I met with your staff, and thank you very much. I appreciate that. But since the time that we met, I've received copies of letters, I think Mr. Garcia, I even shared with you, that people were being asked to give their rental agreement, their lease agreement, and then if their child lives with them and pays any type of rent. For example, if my son lived with me and he paid, I don't know, $200 for groceries, I'd have to register my home. So I'd like some clarification for those watching at home and for those that are here.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

So I need to hear, and I think people need to hear, when you ask for a lease agreement and I heard Judson's presentation, but I saw a letter and I have it, I have a copy of it and I've kept it. So when you get a letter and it says we need the lease agreement, rental agreement, so there's Social Security information on there, if they have one. There's personal information on there. So I think you know where I'm going with all of this. So if we can talk about that or if you can explain all of that, and then the letters were, yeah, I appreciate it, you went to 26,000 and 13,000 and you're lowing as you go on.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

But my concern is the information. And I appreciate Justin saying that, you know, I think you said never, there's never been a breach. Well, never is not a promise. There can be a breach because we've had companies, Microsoft, you name it, big companies, the government has had a breach. So never is never, don't, I wouldn't ever use that word because breaches do occur. So if you can share, Mr. Garcia, please, I'd appreciate it.

thank you yeah i i have a mayor and city council i have a letter in front of me and it's not from our department it's from finance and management services agency and it's for a different program it's for business license and they have exemptions for those purposes so that is not from the rental registry and from the rent stabilization and just cause eviction program it's a finance and management services agency so and it's it is related to a family member rental exemption and it's for business license not for the rental registry and for the

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

rent stabilization program so I want clarification on that because this person and the people I've spoken to they don't have businesses so I'd like clarification so maybe the right hand's not talking to the left hand I don't know. So are you telling me then in this rental registry at no time, no time, are you asking for a rental agreement or a lease agreement?

That's correct.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

At no time this rental registry is asking for that?

No.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

So all you're asking for is a name, address, and phone number and email if they have one.

Yes, we're asking for address, unit number, property type, ownership type, occupant type, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, tenancy start date, initial rent, current rent, tenant's full name, tenant phone number, tenant's email address, and tenant preferred language. And that's the tenant's full name for only the head of household or the co-head. Thank you. Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

And so are you sharing this information with the tenants? Are you requiring landlords to share this information or get permission from the renters to give this information? I understand you're just asking for name, initial rent, current rent, but are you the tenant's full name, head of household, or co-head, their phone number, are you getting, are they signing a release, giving permission?

No.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

So they don't know that their information is being given out?

Thank you for that question. The city is not requiring landlords to obtain consent from a tenant to provide their information in our rental registry. The purpose of the rental registry is to regulate rents and changes in tenancy on behalf of landlords and tenants, and that is not a requirement as part of the ordinance.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

Wouldn't we want to have permission? I mean, if I was a renter, if I rent an apartment or a home and I knew that, you know, they're going to give my info, even if it's just my name, my email address, my phone number, you know, my address, I would want you to ask me, is that okay? It's kind of like when you open an app on your phone and they say, we're sharing, you know your info and hit this button if you only want you know the basic shared right I know it sounds kind of weird but it's kind of like I always said no don't share my info so I mean why are we why do we need that I think the best way to

describe it is this is part of the tenant protection process whether it's eviction or they're going to if we get a call from a tenant who says hey we have received a rent increase that is undue we need to verify that that is indeed a tenant in that unit that should be protected and is in our rental registries and I agree I think

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

that's wonderful but I think for me and I'll stop and I'll come back with my next question is there any other questions no no I have three minutes three times three minutes go ahead sir

Phil BacerraItem 5

go ahead oh so good councilman Hernandez can you hit your button yes I didn't see it here thank you

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

Thank you. Please hit your button, you guys. Thank you.

Phil BacerraItem 5

Thank you, Mayor Mesqua. So back in May 2023, staff presented the council with the proposed rental registry fee of $100 per unit, and that was supposed to generate $3,245,000 to fund 14.4 new employees, right? So that means that staff needed to find 32,450 units to pay for the rental registry fee in order to fund those employees. So my question is, how did staff determine back in May that there would be, or that there are 32,450 rental units in Santa Ana that would be required to pay this fee?

It was based on information on the number of units on properties that are multifamily, properties that are mobile home spaces, and assumed information on single-family property rentals. That is probably the most difficult information to obtain is on the single-family rentals. I think a lot of people who live in Santa Ana know there's about 10 square miles in the center of town where you pull in those single-family neighborhoods, and it's hard to find parking. And it's because a lot of those rooms and homes are being rented out.

We would need voluntary compliance from those single-family property owners to register in the rental unit. But there were assumptions made based on the homeowner exemption at that time.

Phil BacerraItem 5

Well, so the reason I'm asking that is because you're relying on these assumptions. So first it's saying there's 32,450 rental units. That's your universe. But then when you're sending out these letters, they say stuff like, let's see, until you claim an exemption, the city will assume your rental unit is subject to the provisions of this ordinance. A second letter came out that said, let's see, assuming and assume we're in bold on those. Because these addresses are the same, the city is assuming that you reside at the property in question. Another line, therefore, through issuance of the second layer of the city will assume

Phil BacerraItem 5

your property is an owner-occupied property and is not being used for any residential rental purposes. But you gave us a finite number. You told this council that you're going to hire 14 employees and it's going to have a price tag attached to it. And in order to garner that, in order to pay for that, you would need to have compliance from all these folks in these units. but yet letters went out saying, I don't know, I assume you might be using it for a rental. I don't know. Can you help me understand how we went from a finite number to which you based your budget on?

Phil BacerraItem 5

There are 14 people that are going to be potentially hired that are relying on there to be a budget item, right? And everybody up here kept swearing up and down, and staff included, said this is going to be full cost recovery. Full cost recovery. But I'm not feeling that this plan is pretty solid. Like, can you explain to me how any of us should feel comfortable, how the future 14 employees should feel comfortable that that money will be there because there's a finite number to which you guys will get compliance from?

So we are basing the information for a budget based on that number. We will be hiring individuals as revenue comes in and as we're able to cover that from other sources like Inclusionary Housing Fund right now. We only have one individual, the rent stabilization manager, who at this point will be hired soon. And we are going to slowly implement the program. This is a lot, it's very similar to business license and other programs where you're dependent upon revenue coming in from participants, from businesses that are paying. And so similar to those programs, there's a rollout,

there's time that you have to collect information. We feel confident that the $32,254, I believe it was, that that could be obtained, but it's going to take some time, a lot of education and outreach.

Phil BacerraItem 5

So help me understand, did you just say that part of paying for this was going to come from the inclusionary fees?

That's correct.

Phil BacerraItem 5

but you presented to us back in May that that wasn't the case. You were going to have full cost recovery because you were going to get full compliance from over 34,000 rental situations. Isn't that correct?

I believe at that time we mentioned that we would have to fund, pre-fund some of the, I'd have to go back and remember, we would have to pre-fund some of the start of the program.

Phil BacerraItem 5

You said full, full cost recovery. That's why I'm having a problem with this right now.

Well, I can go back and look at it. I don't know that I said that.

Phil BacerraItem 5

Mayor, I'm just going to conclude with the fact that for this, you guys both keep referring to the business license. This is just like the business licenses. We don't have nearly anywhere close to full compliance with business licenses.

Do we? We do not have full compliance.

Phil BacerraItem 5

And this is going to be the same way? This is very similar, correct?

It is similar.

Phil BacerraItem 5

So, in other words, I should expect not enough compliance, I should expect a funding gap, and I should expect four people up on this dais to say it's the right thing to do and take from other services to pay for this boondoggle.

I would caveat that, that this fund is a special fund in the budget. So the program itself can't go over budget. It can't take from other funds. Currently, we're front-loading the costs of providing this service using our inclusionary housing fees, which we plan to repay once we collect rental registry fees for fiscal year 23-24.

Phil BacerraItem 5

I won't continue because I've gone over my three minutes, but I'll just say what you said right now.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

You just contradicted yourself right there. I'll come back to you, Councillor Bessire. Mayor Potem-Lopez?

Jessie LopezItem 5

Yes, thank you. So the purpose of the registry is to help enforce the rent civilization ordinance that we passed I think in 2021. There is no point in adopting ordinances if you're not going to fully fund the mechanism to provide staff the proper and necessary tools to enact the ordinance right. We recognize the Code Department today because they are the enforcement officers of the city that help with the municipal code that go out to different neighborhoods and we refer emails calls text messages that we receive about hey somebody's parking on

Jessie LopezItem 5

the lawn hey somebody you know extended their driveway hey somebody is working out of their home or running a shop right we use the code officers to help with the municipal code so that is exactly what the right registry is it is extension of that so it is also to help protect the vulnerable households from displacement and unjust evictions the fact is that there are many many landlords in the city and that is not opinion that is a fact and you can pull records from the city from emails that we receive that we receive that our

Jessie LopezItem 5

staff receives about unfortunately their landlords choosing to refuse to comply with the city's ordinance so if your overall eat those is follow the law then please speak with them so that they can follow the law in the code here in the city of Santa Ana I just said we get emails all the time I forward them to our city staff about the things that are happening with the tenants with property owners here in the city and the rent raises we're seeing that go beyond the three percent which is putting a lot of families at risk of displacement and eviction as I said you know not too long ago we got an email about somebody that

Jessie LopezItem 5

said hey I showed up to my apartment my lease is not up in a day or two my stuff all of my things are already out on the street what should I do right so without these mechanisms in place we cannot do anything for the residents of this city So I say all of that to also acknowledge that there are many property owners that have been doing the right thing even before this ordinance was established. I hear from them all of the time saying, hey, I have good communication with my tenant. I've never given, you know, flippantly a $500 rent increase because I know them. I know they have kids.

Jessie LopezItem 5

The price of rent goes up every single year, right? Groceries are up. Gas is up. You know, everybody's being outbid. in this rental market and so they have great relationships and I very really am so thankful for those relationships because it shows a lot to me it tells me a lot about wanting to have great strong healthy communities in place but when we have people here who are purposely define our ordinance it hurts everybody it hurts every single person involved in this business and so I want to say that

Jessie LopezItem 5

you know part of why we're having this discussion with the registry which I'm happy that is being brought up is because we've heard now for weeks for weeks a lot of misinformation and I want to thank staff for addressing that misinformation and so the ordinance does not require the collection of Social Security numbers in fact September 26 every single member of this council received an email from you director with a lot of other staff CC'd

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

Mayor Mascua, you can come back when you're time. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

Councilman Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 5

Thank you, Mayor Mascua. I just wanted to thank you, Judson, and your wonderful department and all of your staff for your leadership and all the good work that you do. You guys report on the facts. You take good direction. You guys are consummate professionals. You guys are always day in and day out looking out for how can we help our neighbors. I'll tell my colleagues here because that's why we're elected is we can disagree amongst each other. But one thing that I will not stand for is disrespecting any of our staff and treating you guys without the utmost respect.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 5

So if anyone on this dais offended you guys today or talked to you out of line, I just want to let you know we respect you here in Ward 5. My office will stand with you guys because I want to tell you the impact that rent control has had for families in my district. there was a apartment complex off of Civic Center where there were over 20 different units that had received the same eviction notice many of which were students at the time who were enrolled in school they did not know what protections were available to them the evictions at that time looked just it

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 5

wasn't until they reached out to my office that they were able to learn that as a council member sitting here at this dais I was able to include language to prevent children who are enrolled in Santa and Unified School District schools who are in the middle of a school year you cannot evict them as long as they are enrolled in school so that allowed over I mean dozens of families to stay within their apartment complex at a time where housing looked insecure so instead of adding to the homelessness crisis that we have across California rent control helped protect families many and those families still live in those units and judson

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 5

that wouldn't have been possible without your leadership and your staff so i just wanted to conclude my comments by saying thank you and thanking my colleagues and that concludes my final

Benjamin VazquezItem 5

comment thank you councilman vasquez thank you so much mayor for bringing this to our attention and uh i think it's a new project it's a new program and we're going to have some hiccups and we're learning along the way. And I appreciate you working. I'm new, and I did hear early on that it was going to be front-loaded and paid for by other funds, and then we would get the fees of the $100. I do remember that much. And what I would like to see is an education and sent out to all the neighborhood association meetings. I know next week on Tuesday I'm at Piccolo and they would love to get this information.

Benjamin VazquezItem 5

Just to clarify all the things that are being said and what they're hearing so we're all on the same page. So if we could get this information, a presentation to all the neighborhood associations for the renters and the landlords as well. They're asking for information and a lot of help along the way trying to understand this new program. But thank you so much. I know it's going to be rolling out, might be some bumps along the road, but I know we're going to get it straight because you guys do amazing work. Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

Mayor Pro Tem Lopez, I'm sorry, the names are not coming up.

Jessie LopezItem 5

Yeah, so as I was saying, I was talking about the misinformation, and on September 26, we all received an email from you describing the list of information requested in the tenant unit so if people would have read that email then we would have been people here would have been able to correct misinformation weeks ago and so the email even states the city's rental registry does not require landlords to submit a lease agreement right and then it goes on to list all of the bullet points that you just listed not too long ago no social security number no ein

Jessie LopezItem 5

or other confidential information is going to be collected or retained so I want to remind people that our code of ethics states that we are not to circulate false or misleading information to support your positions specifically in this case against rent stabilization or protections for renters it is false and the comment the public comment that was stated earlier about domestic violence it's truly disgusting to state that victims of domestic violence are harmed by the RSO when we explicitly spoke about that very publicly and people can go back and watch those meetings. So thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

Council Member Finn.

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

Thank you, Mayor. Hi Judson. Hi, Director. First of all, thank you so much for the hard work on this. I just so appreciate CDA's commitment to ensuring that Santa Ana residents are housed. However, however hard that is, because our governor, our president, this council has reiterated time and again that housing is a crisis. There is a housing crisis. So I just want to thank you, because this is a difficult task. It's a Herculean task, in that every day you go to work to try to ensure that Santa Ana residents stay housed. So I want to thank you.

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

The first question I have, whether it's for Director Garcia or for Judson, is does Section 8-3149 notice requirements under the Rent Stabilization Ordinance state that landlords must provide notice to tenants on or before the date of commencement of tenancy regarding the Rent Stabilization Ordinance?

It does. Yes.

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

So what that means is we do notify or the landlord should be notifying tenants of the requirement to comply with a rental registry and other provisions that are related to the ordinance, correct? That's correct. Thank you. And please tell me, when we have the language requirement, right, you're not collecting data on race, someone who's Asian American like me would prefer English, I'm not asking for Vietnamese you know language preference my mom who's Vietnamese who's a tenant we would put English for her because she would ask me to help her out whether it's in English Spanish or Vietnamese I guess the reason why we put that in

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

there and please confirm if I'm wrong is because our ordinance specifically states that the landlord must negotiate the lease in the tenants preferred

language is that correct that's correct and it's also for staff to be able to put Spanish speaking employee who can speak with a monolingual Spanish speaker or Vietnamese and so forth to be able to communicate appropriately.

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

Thank you and I guess the way I would look at this registry and what you're all working on right is let's not make perfect the enemy of the good and I think what we're all doing here is to do good right I've had friends who have have been evicted because they couldn't afford rent. I've had to borrow money to afford rent before I ended up on the street as a college student. And all we're trying to do here is the best that we can to help tenants stay in their homes. Is there any law, can you name any law, maybe Madam City Attorney, can you name any law that has 100% compliance?

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

Can you name Mr. Acting City Manager, can you name any program in the city of Santa Ana that has 100% compliance?

No.

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

In the state of California, anything? Have any of us heard of that?

I can't think of any, but what's important in this is that if a landlord does not register, they cannot move forward with a rent increase. They cannot evict a tenant. There's a lot of information that they cannot submit a petition for fair rent. So they need to be registered in order to be able to basically serve as a landlord and do a normal. If they have a four-cause eviction, a lot of that gets put on hold. Because that's one of the mechanisms that kind of requires a landlord to comply with this ordinance.

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

Thank you. And I guess I ask that question because we're trying to hold our staff and the city council and everybody to this perfect bar of a perfect program, perfect compliance, perfect everything, when what we're trying to do is get this new program off the ground. We are working toward that every day. There are going to be improvements as we go, as we learn, and we're doing the best we can by hiring RSG, which has a ton of experience in this area. And so again, I just want to thank you for coming and showing up every day, despite how hard it is

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

for you to do your job to keep Santa Ana Residence House. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Becerra.

Phil BacerraItem 5

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So you're right. There aren't many programs that have 100% compliance. But the reason why I'm harping on 100% compliance is because that's what was needed to fund 14.4 bodies to execute this ordinance. So this isn't about everything needs to be perfect. It's the fact that staff gave that to us. That's what four people on the dais said, yep, we can support this because there will magically be 100% compliance. and shockingly there isn't I mean every rental situation I say situation because some of these situations I don't know if I'd qualify them as units but they're

Phil BacerraItem 5

not all permitted right so we obviously have accepted that perfection is not what we're trying to achieve here so we we can all accept that question for staff though so when we is it true since we're talking about facts here right because I want to make sure we're all clear I'm reading from a letter that was sent out. This is the first one that you guys sent out. If your rental unit is exempt from the ordinance, you must claim the exemption in the city's rental registry. Until and unless you claim an exemption, the city will assume your rental unit is subject to the provisions of the ordinance

Phil BacerraItem 5

and will commence enforcement accordingly. Is that a true statement from the letter? That is a true statement. So we're talking about scaring people. You know, oh my gosh, the fear of people being evicted, what landlords are doing. Well, now it's the city invoking the fear. Now it's a city saying, you better do this. And by the way, you may or may not be exempt, but you damn well better sign up for this thing, or we're going to come in and enforce. Because we assume, we assume based on this magic system that you may or may not have a rental situation.

Phil BacerraItem 5

But until you prove that you're innocent first, right? You know, we're saying you're guilty until proven innocent. You've got to prove that or else we're going to commence enforcement. That's what this letter says. The second letter that you guys sent, I didn't read anything in there taking this back. So is it safe to assume, right? That's the theme, right? Assume. Is it safe to assume that because it wasn't included in the second letter that this draconian language is still relevant, that you guys will be bringing down the hammer and going after everybody that you assumed had a

Phil BacerraItem 5

rental situation, you will be commencing enforcement accordingly. That's verbatim. Is that safe to assume that's what you're going to do?

The city does have the power to enforce its ordinance.

Phil BacerraItem 5

That's not what I said. We have the power to do a lot of things. Is that what you're going to do?

That I do not believe that's what we are going to do. It would be very difficult to enforce that across 32,000.

Phil BacerraItem 5

So then the people who receive these letters should just assume that this is nonsense, that this is what you're putting out there. So they're not even going to expect enforcement, even though it's bold and underlined. And I'm not making that up. It's right here, bold and underlined. We'll commence enforcement accordingly.

No, to clarify, again, what Mike is saying, the city may commence enforcement.

Phil BacerraItem 5

No, it says we'll commence enforcement. I am reading that verbatim. It says we'll commence enforcement accordingly. Not may, not should, will.

I will read from the ordinance. Okay. Okay. Beginning, commencing October 1st, 2023, the city may commence enforcement against any landlord who fails to register a rental unit or provide current and accurate data regarding a rental unit pursuant to Section 8-3160. Okay.

Phil BacerraItem 5

But that's not what was sent out to the residents that we assumed have rental situations. That's all I have, Mayor. Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

Councilman Panalosa.

David PenalozaItem 5

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, staff, for the work you've been putting into this and the presentation. It's unfortunate that you guys are given this workload without real direction from the very beginning. Always cart before the horse, which leads us into these problems.

David PenalozaItem 5

I guess the question that I have, Director Garcia, is since the rental registry took off, you might have said this during the presentation, but I don't see it on the PowerPoint, how many units have been registered already? A little over 3,300 units. 3,300. And have those 3,300 paid the fee? No, we have not started collecting the fee yet. And why not? Shouldn't it be on registry?

Yeah, we're hoping to receive enough information and a good enough database to begin collecting a fee. And we're hoping to commence that in January of 2024. Exactly. As we stated in the presentation, after we've built the rental registry and discerned which rental properties are exempt or subject to, we will then begin the process of collecting the rental registry fee for non-exempt units.

David PenalozaItem 5

I just don't understand why you wouldn't collect the fee upon registry if...

In certain circumstances, we have to determine if an exemption is indeed an exemption. There are other processes that we have to go through as we're creating the database, essentially.

David PenalozaItem 5

Okay, because I do recall that you guys were going to front load the payment for this, so I will agree with my colleagues on that, which was unfortunate as well, because now we're in the red when it comes to this, as Councilmember Becerra mentioned, of a policy and ordinance. So when you start collecting that fee, you're already going to be in the hole and you're going to try to fill that hole back up and bring us back to the green. How is that going to be possible if you're not collecting the fee? Do you expect in January of 2024, when you start collecting this fee, that you're going

David PenalozaItem 5

to get out of the red and have enough money to hire the bodies needed? No, I do not expect that we will be able to be at that point in January 2024.

And our department is the most efficient department in the city, no offense.

98.5% of our revenue is from non-general fund revenue.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

I don't know that everybody agrees with you on that.

98.5% of our expenses are covered by non-general fund revenue. So our goal is to make this revenue neutral and we're going to keep going towards that. So, okay.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

Mayor, finally. Thank you. I'm going to make a point here. So thank you, Mr. Garcia and Judson Brown.

David PenalozaItem 5

Mayor, I was still speaking.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

Right, but I was just notified of something.

David PenalozaItem 5

Okay. So that's it, Director Garcia. Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

So I had asked this item to be agendized. I wanted to have a discussion. So it was put on as a presentation and I did ask for the presentation, but I wanted to be able to discuss it. So, Acton City Manager, can you please put on the agenda for the next City Council meeting for a discussion, because I think other people have questions or comments. And so we'll agendize it for the next meeting. So thank you. We're going to move on at this time.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

All right. At this time, we're going to go to the consent calendar items. And items, we already handled the members to the parks and recs. So it would be 6, 7, and then go down to 9, 9 through 26. So at this time, are there any items that want to be pulled?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 5

I'll make a motion to move the items.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

Thank you, Councilman Hernandez.

David PenalozaItem 5

I'll pull item 26, Mayor.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

Item 26. Any other items being pulled by Mayor Votan?

Jessie LopezItem 5

Yes, 16, please.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

16. Any items on this side? None?

Phil BacerraItem 5

Actually, I want to pull item 9 for a question.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

9 for a question. Councilman Vassos, we're good?

Good.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

Okay. Councilman Hernandez, you made a motion?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 5

Yes. I just wanted to register. I'm a no vote on item 25.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

You're a no vote on 25?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 5

That is correct, madam.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

Okay. All right. And you made a motion. Is there a second?

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

I'll second.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

Let's prepare to vote at this time, please.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

Council Member Hernandez?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 5

Yes.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 5

My vote isn't coming up?

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

Yes. It's not showing?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 5

Yes, it's not allowing me to vote, unfortunately.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

Okay. I filled it in for you. Thank you.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 5

Thank you.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

The vote on the consent calendar is 7 ayes, no nays with a recorded no vote by Councilmember Hernandez on item number 25 and items number 9, 16 and 26 pulled for separate consideration. Motion carries.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

Thank you. Item 9, please.

Phil BacerraItem 5

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I pulled this item. I see Mr. Gaminski here. I just have one question. With this item, this is a smart team and it primarily discusses CityNet and how they

Phil BacerraItem 6

help the SMART team. My question, my only question is, so the last council meeting we had a discussion about the public intoxication and service offering policy that the council supported. So what we heard was that when folks were leaving the jail after being arrested under state public intoxication laws, that they were given a nice shiny pamphlet, which I would think that most of us could agree that that probably is not the most convincing way to get folks to accept services. So with the help of CityNet, we might be able to make a little bit better of a case for

Phil BacerraItem 6

some of these folks leaving our jail that they probably should accept services. Not saying that they all would, but is there a reason why we don't have at least one of the CityNet folks at the jail so that we could do that? Because I don't want to put the onerous on our police officers. That's not their role to be in the business of trying to offer services, except for those that are cross-trained. But in the instance of folks leaving the jail, I don't believe our jailers are trained in that way. So is there a way that we could have a CityNet person at the jail making the case to accept services to those that are leaving?

So individuals are released from the jail 24 hours a day. So it wouldn't be just one CityNet person. It might be several. Based on what you've said today, I think it's probably a good idea for me to get in contact with the Senate Jail Manager, Administrator, and as such, when he finds that he has an inmate that will be released, that he contacts CityNet, and then CityNet use that as just another standard call for service to respond to our jail to provide those types of services that you're interested in seeing people get. I have seen some of the statistics that have come from the police

department. I don't know exactly how many of the people that they're contacting are actually being booked. So to place a body there 24 hours a day would probably be fairly difficult. However, I can tell you that based on my statistical review of CityNet over the course of the last year, But more importantly, 10 different times throughout the year, I called CityNet anonymously and said, I have a problem at the corner of walk and don't walk.

I parked, sat, and audited to find out how long it would take them to get there. That way, they provided information that said they had a response time between 30 and 35 minutes. My audit showed that I think the response time was 34 minutes. but if we simply have the jail manager contact his subordinates the individuals that are releasing out of our jail we could set up an operation much akin to what happens at the orange county jail with the assistance of project kinship as people are leaving i think that's an excellent idea sir

and i can definitely take that up with the jail manager oh and i appreciate that whether it's

Phil BacerraItem 6

CityNet, whether it's Project Kinship, if there's a way that we make this policy work in that we are truly trying to offer services. We're not just trying to arrest our way out of a problem, but we're actually trying to get them in a place where we can have a better opportunity to get them to accept services. So whether it's CityNet at the jail, whether it's CityNet being called to the jail, whether it's Project Kinship, I'm looking forward to hearing what you are able to work out

with our jail. Yes, sir. I think that's an excellent idea. And I think we can definitely move forward with something like that. Perfect. Mayor Pratton? Oh, thank you. I'm sorry,

Jessie LopezItem 6

LinkedIn? Can the number of street exits, the 908 being reported, how many of those

are in permanent housing? So if you refer to the information that I shared in the update the last time I was here. If you go to page four of the memorandum I submitted.

Permanent housing was 13. It depends upon whether you decide that staying with friends or not is permanent housing, but 13 were listed as concrete permanent housing. Out of the 908? Yes ma'am. Okay. Go ahead. Go ahead. Oh I was just gonna say a majority of those individuals went the 819 actually went to emergency shelter so that's the the biggest allotment 819 of the 908 went to emergency shelter and do

we track those 800 do we track the 819 meaning after they become in emergency shelter if they transition from emergency shelter to a hospital safe haven rental by a client living with family permanent housing then they get subtracted from emergency shelter and put into

Jessie LopezItem 6

the other exit destination classes okay thank you and then can you let me know how many um detox

beds we have the city of santa anna yes we subsidize zero detox beds we have zero detox beds

Jessie LopezItem 6

Yes. And can you let me know how many mental health beds we have?

The city of Santa Ana subsidizes and is responsible for zero mental health beds.

Jessie LopezItem 6

Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

Sir, can you tell me how many social workers and clinicians, I know that we had maybe two and then we had met with the supervisor's office and we had asked, I believe there was an ask for even additional. Then I hear they've been removed.

can you clarify that please so it is my understanding ma'am that we had one for three days a week that was supposed to be four days a week or would be full time for them it is now my understanding and my understanding is probably several weeks old that that one individual who was here three days a week has been cut down to two and that we received an additional person who also is here for two days a week. However, there is a new snag that the city is involved with.

That snag being that the County of Orange's mental health agency is now under a new decree from the state of California saying that if a person is suffering from a mental illness, Their first interaction should not be with law enforcement. It should be with mental health professionals. As such, the County of Orange Mental Health Agency is pulling back the resources that we had based on that new California law.

We are attempting to work with them to assure the County of Orange that the individuals that you had all asked for from the county to be with our police officers. They're a team that go from mental health issue to mental health issue. The law enforcement officer on that team only acts as the driver and as a background security officer for that mental health clinician. And we're trying to push that understanding with the county in hopes that we can re-secure our resources.

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

So with the decree from the state, did they pull the clinicians or social workers from Fullerton as well? It's my understanding that it would be a county-wide edict. Can we verify that, please? I'm working on that, ma'am. Because I believe when we met with the governor's office, they were going to check into that and get back to us on that. I don't know if you heard back from them.

Yeah, they're struggling in coming up with a response to that specific issue.

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

All right, so we can reach out to their office again. All right, thank you. Councilman Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 6

Thank you, Madam. Thank you, Ken, for your presentation today and for the work that your office is doing. I wanted to just provide a refresher to some of the members of the public that may not be aware of the history of the SMART team. But on October 5th, 2021, the City Council approved an amendment to the agreement with CityNet to commence an enhanced street outreach an engagement pilot program to accept non-violent mental health or substance abuse calls for service for individuals experiencing homelessness.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 6

This program was established to lessen the city's dependency on law enforcement as the first responder to non-criminal homeless matters. issues related to people experiencing homelessness. Homelessness oftentimes intersect with mental health, underlying mental health conditions that may not be treated. So my direction today, sir, is going to be simple. I think that this program can be rather effective. I think the challenge we're having is the time. This program starts at 7 a.m. and ends at 9 p.m. Some of the hours of service

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 6

where we need the smart team the most are going to be from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. So I would like to see us increase the hours of services, and perhaps that's bringing something back to us here at the council, where perhaps we can begin extending hours from 9 to midnight. And if we can see an increase in services and, you know, successful exits, and hopefully some mental health support is something that folks are able and willing to receive, I do think we'd see a substantial increase in successor if we can increase those hours from 9 to midnight.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 6

And perhaps, you know, once we have the data to reinforce that this is something that is good for the services that we're rendering, perhaps it's looking at extending it to longer hours. But I think that's what Project Kinship has done really well, is they are at the county jails all throughout the hours of the night and morning. And I think that's where this program is having some small gaps. So that's my direction, sir. I would like to see longer hours, and perhaps that's something that can drastically change how this program's working. But I thank you for the good work you're doing, sir, and if that's something we can

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 6

get done, I implore you to get it done.

Yes, sir, understood. Just to let you know, when we started this program and several members on the dais had spoken about the same issue you're bringing up, right? We evaluated overall calls for service, and even the calls that are going to the City Net Dispatch Center after they're closed, to find out what types of calls for service we were missing through our hours. We found that calls for service did drop dramatically, about nine.

Now, I can go back and I can relook at those numbers again, and I will, as directed.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 6

Thank you, sir.

But it's also good to understand that we have a relationship with CityNet that allows us to have them alter their business hours. So when Colt decides to go out and do something overnight, we're taking CityNet with us. When we alter our strategies based on time of day, CityNet and the smart team have been very willing partners to alter their time. But what you've said, I understood, and I will be more than happy to go back and take a look at that and see what that looks like, sir.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 6

Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Greatly appreciate it.

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

Thank you, sir. So we're going to move on, but I just have one quick thing. Yes, ma'am. You can just send us all an email if that works for you. When we change hours, it may affect rate of pay and things like that, because there is a turnover in CityNet. And so there's a lot of things that come with when we work late nights, safety issues. who's not prepared maybe for that. They're going to have to probably be out with law enforcement, I believe. So, right? So you can send us an email or give it to the active city manager who can share with us. So then, or include it in your homeless presentation next month. That would be great.

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

Thank you so much. Is that all for you, Councilman Hernandez? Perfect, thank you.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 6

Mayor, if we could please have a motion. I'm sorry? If we could please have a motion to receive and file the report.

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

I'll make a motion to move.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 6

Second.

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

We're going to move to receive and file. There's a first motion and a second.

Jennifer L. HallItem 9

Please vote.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 9

Mayor Pro Tem Lopez.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 9

Thank you. Vote is 7 ayes, no nays. Motion carries.

Jennifer L. HallItem 9

Item 16, please.

Mayor and members of the Council, this is agreement with MIG for a zoning code update at the cost of $1.574 million. With that, this was pulled by Mayor Pro Tem Lopez. I wondered if you had a question or would you like to see a presentation?

Jessie LopezItem 16

I don't need the presentation. I have a proposition for the Council to consider. And so looking at it, ideally, based on the conversation that took place during the last agenda and the feedback from the public, I would like to see some sort of additional bullet points, specifically naming the need for the key revisions to be prohibiting new gas stations in our land use zones. And so I'm open to feedback. I saw that part of the timeline here is learning and preparing research.

Jessie LopezItem 16

I'm sure that that will probably, the community engagement series is going to be made to the public. So I don't know if that is also an opportunity for people to give input about the zoning code.

If I may, Mayor Pro Tem, there is an extensive outreach component of this agreement. And the consultant that is being hired will meet with businesses who have concerns, residents who have concerns, multifamily owners who have concerns. Every land use category you can imagine we will be doing outreach to, to make sure that's represented in the first draft that goes either to the Planning Commission or to yourselves. Okay. Got it.

Jennifer L. HallItem 16

All right. Thank you. Is there a motion? Madam Mayor, I'll move the item. I'll second as a prayer to vote.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 16

VOTE 7 ayes, no nays. Motion carries.

Jennifer L. HallItem 16

Item 26. Is that the one we just did?

David PenalozaItem 16

No. Thank you, Mayor. I pulled item 26. Thank you, sir. is a second reading of ordinance amending article

David PenalozaItem 26

of the municipal code to require two-thirds approval by all members of the city council for certain future amendments for the rent stabilization and just cause eviction. I pulled it just because I firmly believe it is an unnecessary exercise to violate our city charter, and our city charter still makes it able to basically abolish this entire thing altogether if a council majority chose to do so. So it's pointless exercise. Apologies to staff for having to go down this route and waste your time. I know it's limited, especially the city attorney's office. Apologies to your office as well. But that is it. And yeah.

David PenalozaItem 26

Thank you, Mayor.

Jennifer L. HallItem 26

Thank you, Councilman Alyssa.

Jennifer L. HallItem 26

Councilman Fan.

Thai Viet PhanItem 26

First of all, I would like to thank again all of our staff for the hard work that you did on this item and I would move to approve. Thank you.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 26

I'll second your motion.

Jennifer L. HallItem 26

Councilman Becerra, you had comments? Nope. Let's prepare to vote please.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 26

The vote is 4 ayes, 3 nays, nays by Mayor Mesquah, Councilmembers Penaloza and Becerra. Motion carries.

Jennifer L. HallItem 26

Thank you. Let's go to the business calendar. Item number 27 is related to the ballot measures. Madam City Attorney, can anyone have a staff report please?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 27

Mayor and Council members, this item before you is appearing at the direction of Council initiated by Council initiated items. We put these together because they would involve a general municipal election. The first item, which is the adopting rent stabilization and just cause eviction ordinance, is simply an identical ordinance to the one that you just conducted the second reading on. And then the second issue is a question as to whether to permit non-citizen voting in municipal elections. We did listen carefully to public comment that was made tonight.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 27

If it is the will and desire of counsel to implement any recitals as made a commentary by the public, we can add that. If there is a will and desire to go further than just the advisory question that we were directed to prepare, we could do, take any action. We originally noted to you that we could not bring this item forward at this meeting, but we did want to put it on here as a discussion item so that we could do any cleanup, take any of your directions so that we weren't assuming adding language to the ordinance. So with that, we would ask that you take action separately on question one, whether to put

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 27

the ballot measure forward to adopt a rent stabilization just cause ordinance, and then number two to address the issue of permitting non-citizen voting in municipal elections. One of the questions we did point out on this item was to seek clarification from the Council as to whether the voting by non-citizens would only apply to the election of municipal officers at your elections where you elect the officers, or whether the non-citizens would be permitted to vote in all municipal elections, whether those elections were potentially initiatives, referenda, tax measures, recalls, et cetera. We will need direction on that issue.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

Thank you. Let's look at the list here.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

Councilman Fahni, you had your question?

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Madam City Attorney, for your explanation. I would like to move to approve, to adopt a resolution calling and giving notice of a general municipal election to be held in the city of Santa Ana on November 5th, 2024, for the submission of a ballot measure to the qualified voters proposing a rent stabilization and just cause eviction ordinance and requesting the Orange County Board of Supervisors to consolidate this election with a statewide general election. And so my motion is to move to approve that resolution. Thank you.

David PenalozaItem 27

I'll second your motion. Point of order, Madam City Attorney. Madam Mayor, have you entertained the motion yet? Or are we still in discussion?

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

No, I was still in discussion.

David PenalozaItem 27

Okay, thank you. This is a public hearing, correct, State Attorney?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 27

No, this is not a public hearing. It's a business calendar item.

David PenalozaItem 27

Oh, my bad. I was looking at the wrong title. It's a business calendar. In any event, it's still a discussion item, correct?

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

Yes.

David PenalozaItem 27

Okay.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

Do you want to speak?

David PenalozaItem 27

Yeah, actually.

David PenalozaItem 27

Thank you, City Attorney, for your work on this and City staff. But what is unfortunate about this entire thing is here we have a City Council majority putting the cart before the horse yet again.

David PenalozaItem 27

When rent control was adopted at 3 in the morning, as Council Member Becerra often says, what four members of this Council did was say, hey, City staff, make this law immediately. We do not care how much it's going to cost. We do not care what it's going to take. We do not care what it's going to look like. And we do not care how you implement it. And we do not care about the sustainability of this ordinance in the long run. Now that it's law and we got the sweet headline, take the next few years to figure out what it all means, what it's all going to cost, and how you're going to implement it. That's what happened.

David PenalozaItem 27

And as we saw in the last couple of months, the numerous thousands of residents that are receiving this rental registry notice that shouldn't have gotten it. Hundreds have reached out to me personally and saying, hey, why am I getting this? Now, the council majority is doing the same thing, wanting to allow non-citizens to vote in local elections. Who is going to run these elections is the first question. to quote our city attorney from the last time this was discussed I can assure you that the county's registrar voters is not going to run these elections who is

David PenalozaItem 27

going to register people to vote I can guarantee you that the county will not do we have to create our own elections department and hire our own elections officer is this limited to permanent residents or is it absolutely anyone who call Santa Ana home. Who's going to prepare and mail out these ballots? Is it going to be the same situation that we saw with the rental registry letters, where thousands upon thousands of people get these letters that should not have gotten them? Are they going to send them to just any...

David PenalozaItem 27

How is this going to happen? That is the problem here. So now, because the city council majority is up for election, they don't want to discuss this publicly. They want the voters to say, hey, do it. And then they take the next two, three years to figure out how to implement it. This is what the problem with the council majority that keeps making these different ordinances and decisions and laws is not so much that they're bad ideas or that they're bad ordinances, but it's the process that they make these decisions under. It's frustrating. It's frustrating

David PenalozaItem 27

to city staff and it's unfortunate. So, Madam City Attorney, I guess the questions are, do you know if any of these questions that I had, do you have the answer to any of them? Have they been provided to you by the council that brought this forward? No. Okay. Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

That's it, Mayor. Nobody pushed a button on that side that I can see. My hand's raised. Okay, well, I see you all looking at me, but I don't see names on here. Okay, so I see Council Member Fan only. So feel free.

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

Push the button, please.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

Go ahead.

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

I'll take all their time. Yeah, go ahead, three minutes. Well, first of all, I'll just go ahead and address the rent stabilization ordinance. This is not the first time the City Council, the staff has seen this. This came to the City Council, the last City Council who sat here for a ballot measure, and during COVID, the city council at that time refused to extend the time for residents to gather signatures during COVID, when this city had the highest rates of COVID infections and COVID deaths. They said, no, you cannot go out there and continue to gather signatures. That's up to them.

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

That was their prerogative. This is not the first time the city council or the residents of the city of Santa Ana has seen this item. This will not be the last time because it will go on the ballot so that the city residents can decide whether they want to vote on it and ensure that it is protected for residents in perpetuity. We are doing this because it is something that residents have advocated for time and time and again because it is unconscionable the level of unfairness that residents and tenants have to live through, have to deal with when wages are not going up, costs are going up and they can't afford to live here.

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

Not everyone is married to a veteran like I am and was able to purchase a home. Not everyone has family who has a home for them to live in. Not every person has friends and colleagues who are willing to lend them $500 to make rent the next month. And so the least that we can do on the city council is to make an effort so that residents can stand up and say, yes, we want this protection because it matters to us. There is nothing wrong with doing the best that we can to keep people housed. And I'm proud to have admitted that I was wrong when I ran for election in 2020. I was wrong

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

for not going out and supporting rent stabilization because I wasn't sure. And you know how I became sure? By talking to seniors who said, I can't afford medication because I need to pay my land lease on my mobile home. I can't afford to buy food because I need to make rent this month and I'd rather starve than be homeless. Not everyone has family or friends who's gonna be there for them and the least that we can do as the City Council is to try to help make it a little bit easier to live in the city, to make it a little bit easier to make it to the next month and to make it a little bit easier

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

to raise a family here. So I'm proud to admit that I was wrong in 2020 and that and talking to our residents and having done my own research to support this ordinance and adopt a resolution to put this on the ballot so that residents in the city of Santa Ana can vote their conscience, so that residents in the city of Santa Ana can finally have their day at the ballot box and decide for themselves whether they want to enshrine this in our municipal code and prevent future city council members from taking away a right that will help to ensure that they stay housed. So again, I read my motion and call a question. Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

Councilman Vasquez.

Benjamin VazquezItem 27

Thank you, Councilmember Pham, for putting this up for vote. And we're here today to protect our families. We are here today because the California Apartment Association tried to take over the last election. They spent $14,000 on behalf of Phil Becetta. They spilled $13,000 on behalf of David Penalosa. They spent $31,000 on behalf of Mayor Valeria Mezcua. And now they're spending tons of thousands of dollars on a recall to get their fourth vote, to get rid of rent stabilization and rent control in Santa Ana. They want to take over our city.

Benjamin VazquezItem 27

This is the reason we are doing this today. It's to protect the work that has been done, to protect the word of the voters, and to make sure we're not taken away by these special interests who are coming into Santa Ana and want to control our city. And in fact, perception is reality. In fact, perception is reality. Let me say it again. Perception is reality that some folks up here have taken money and are doing the bidding of special interest. Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

Thank you. Get on the list. Are you on the list? Councilman Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 27

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just wanted to say thank you to staff for the presentation, for putting this together. I'm going to keep my comments concise. I've been a part of this diet since the first argument for rent control happened. And as a resident and as a parent, I understand the importance of protecting families. Housing security is one of the most strongest forms of public safety. If families do not have housing security, crime spikes in impoverished neighborhoods. So this here is a form of public safety. And I want to thank my colleagues who are on the side of the residents for putting special

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 27

interests on the back burner and listening to the very people who elected you. Many of us, you know, have our differences on policy. But the one thing that I think we can agree with is that, you know, there's always going to be disagreements amongst, you know, how are we helping our neighbors? This is one of those agreements that we're just not all on the same page with. But I can assure you this. There is nothing more democratic and equitable and fair than our residents voting. And the votes, you know, at an election will tell you exactly where our residents stand.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 27

I'll tell you as somebody who ran on rent control and was elected without special interest having to prop me up, call me before meetings and tell me how to vote, this is about protecting residents. And I can assure you that in the November 5th, 2024 election, residents will turn out and we will see where they stand. And I can assure you the people stand together. That concludes my comments.

Phil BacerraItem 27

Councilman Becerra. Thank you, Mayor Mesquat. So, you know, it's kind of a shame that we can't have a policy discussion on this dais without turning into a political commercial. Perception is reality. Perception is reality. Really? Well, I hate to break your heart, Ben, but the reality is some of us up here actually understand the issues, and that's why we feel the way that we do. It's not because somebody contributed to our campaign. We could dissect all of our 460s up here and start making accusations about whose interests are what. But some of us understand the issues and we feel passionately because we want our residents

Phil BacerraItem 27

to have homes. We want them to be in homes where the landlords can actually afford to make the repairs. That's what we want. That's what I'm fearful of. I'm seeing where you've got landlords that are selling units. They're reducing the amount of rental units in the city. That's a reality. That's a fact. That's not something the apartment association says. That's just happening. Look at the news. Look at it. That has nothing to do with contributions. It's easy to make it seem like, oh, the boogeyman, it's a contribution. That's why they're doing it. No, no.

Phil BacerraItem 27

It's because I know that these policies are going to have such a terrible impact upon our community. You guys sit here and say, oh, all these people, they're being thrown out and this and that. But you're not looking at the long-term solutions. You guys are all saying with emotion, but we're policymakers. We're here to look at how to make law that's going to be able to help folks long-term, not just get votes in the next election. So you guys are all talking about contributions, but yet you guys are the ones politically grandstanding for the next election.

Phil BacerraItem 27

You know, I appreciate when Councilmember Lopez was all of a sudden interested in gas stations but couldn't take a vote on the last council meeting when the gas stations in her ward where I've got hundreds of emails saying we didn't want it and she couldn't even vote on the item. So you want to talk about special interests? You want to talk about those? Let's have that conversation. Those are my comments. Thank you.

Phil BacerraItem 27

May I pretend is your hand up?

Jessie LopezItem 27

Yes, it is.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

Go ahead.

Jessie LopezItem 27

Thank you. So the pastor that was invited to speak tonight, you know, he said, he opened up the meeting, really beautiful sermon, or really beautiful words of inspiration, and he said, sound and fair, right? And to me, giving these issues to our residents, to the voters of the city, is sound and fair. I am always going to be interested in understanding what the voters of the city think, because I believe that it can provide me with valuable insight. It is not my job up here to block these opportunities from them. It is not my job to take voting opportunities from them.

Jessie LopezItem 27

It will be, and it might not even be, right, the responsibility of the voters to decide if they want to explore these opportunities, not just for themselves, but for their family members, for their neighbors, and for the kids of this city. It is not my job to silence the voters of this city. And so our code of ethics, our code of values, and I'm referring to it once again in this session, is that we should all help promote meaningful public involvement in the agency's decision-making process. And by giving this to the voters, that is exactly what I am doing and living by our code of ethics.

Jessie LopezItem 27

Now, when it comes to me being conflicted out from a previous policy decision, I was conflicted out. I was honest about that. I spoke to the city attorney's office and she said you should not be making this decision. But let's rewind the clock back to 2021 when I brought forward a climate resolution that addressed the exact same issue. And who voted no? Oh, it was you, Councilmember Becerra, not just once, but twice. We had to talk about addressing climate issues in our city. We had to talk about addressing the lead in our city. We had to talk about a plethora of issues. And you were the sole person that voted no twice.

Jessie LopezItem 27

So thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

Councilman Vasquez, is your hand up again? Yes.

Benjamin VazquezItem 27

I wanted to amend a resolution for non-citizen voting. First, the title, a resolution of the City Council of the City of Santa Ana. May I?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 27

I'm so sorry. May I just make a point of order, so just for the process. We did have a motion on the first item. We have a first and a second. Okay, yes we did. So we should act on that and then go to the next one. We weren't done with discussion. My apologies. My apologies.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

So let me just ask, are you done? Councilor Bissette, did you want to say? I want to say something.

Phil BacerraItem 27

Yeah, I did vote against that climate action resolution, or your treaty as you called it, because it was unrealistic. We have a climate action plan in place. I'm about realistic solutions, not pandering to different interests that come in. By the way, is that an apartment association camera, or is that somebody that's with you guys? I don't know. You tell me.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

So I'm going to just close with this. So we're going to, and then we're going to vote on the... Why are you so nervous, Council Member? We're not going to have that here. We're not going to have it. That's not what we do up here. So you can go outside and scream all you want. So, Councilman Vasquez, I agree with you. Perception is everything, right? That's what you always say. You know, when I became mayor, I sit up here and I hear everybody talking about our marginalized community and our poor people and, you know, how bad Santa Ana residents get treated. I'm very happy to live in the city. I love this city.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

My family immigrated here. One side did. One side was born here. We sit up here and say we're here to help people. And Councilman Pendleton, when he started with his questions, they're great questions that our city attorney does not have answers to, not because she doesn't know her stuff. She's a great city attorney. But she can't answer, who's responsible, Madam City Attorney, who's going to be responsible for this election? The register of voters? We don't even know that. So that's why there's concerns about pushing it through so fast without doing the work. And if we want to look at who gives money, currently there's

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

a recall and there's sites and money you can't even trace it. So we talk about dark money up here, you can go look or when you change your 460s, somebody up here does because a blogger writes about your employment but then you go change it three four times so let's be let's be transparent and I don't want to come up here and do this but when you start to throw digs councilman Vasquez I don't hear you telling the public how you got what 13 percent raise or nine percent raise senate unified I mean you're not hurting you're doing very well for yourself and that's great

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

what you should be doing is some people how can I help you do as well as I do do as well as I do Somebody put, oh, the mayor lives in Floral Park. No, the mayor does not live in Floral Park. The mayor lives in Morrison Park in a home that she bought on her own. After my divorce, I bought on my own because I've been working since I was 13 years old. So, yeah, if people give me money in my campaign, great. Let's look at who's walking for you. You have high school kids at your last election. They walk. Did you pay them? All the speech and debate kids? You want to talk about speech and debate perception?

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

what happened with that program right so when you lay with dogs you get fleas so let's talk about who's working whose campaign up here and I really try to be professional and keep this up but when you start to throw the first dig about perception you can look at my 460s all day long I don't hide anything I don't hide who gives me money at all proud POA money I am so proud to be endorsed by fire and law enforcement throughout this county because people up here have had to call 911 to get help and they come and take care of them so you can throw out the mayor well I don't even know how much they pay because I don't even look

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

at those forms but if I sat down and looked at everybody else's forms up here especially right now and there's a recall and you can't find where that money is going we have a problem or councilman Vasquez and you're a great teacher right but are you telling the community what do you drive a $90,000 car when at the rest of the community they're living 11 people to an apartment and now we have this rental registry that we're going to share their personal info to and god forbid we have a breach and their information gets shared and i'm not trying

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

to scare them i want them to be happy in this city i want them to stay here i want people to live here but i didn't run for mayor because i have nothing better to do i am happily retired from the county after serving for 30 years and getting injured on duty and i still sit up here So you can throw out my name, you can call me names on social media. I love it because what I learned in Naleo, for all of those up here that don't know, any publicity is good publicity. Naleo taught us right, if you were paying attention in a breakout session you would have heard that. Any publicity is good

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

publicity, so I'll take it. So when the voice of OC says every single time they write, Mayor Mesquo, Councilman Becerra, Councilman Panalosa, you know, funded by POA. I was out there walking every day, knocking on doors, and you all know it up here because when I go to the community, people know who I am. I don't see the rest of you all out there all the time. So maybe you are, yes, but not everybody. So no, no, don't stop me because I didn't stop you. So don't talk about ethics either, because you sit up here and you talk badly to us, you're disrespectful, and then you want to bring up ethics when somebody's saying something you

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

don't like. So let's go on with this item, but I'm going to tell you right now, you want to push back? Go ahead, Councilman Vasquez, because I can push back too. We could talk about G1, G2, G3, too. That's going to come up too. We could talk about lots of things. So let's not go down that road. Perception, you're right, my friend, or Councilman Vasquez, it is everything. You're right. You're very right.

Benjamin VazquezItem 27

So let's go on.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

Madam City Attorney.

Benjamin VazquezItem 27

I didn't get my chance to speak.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. I have another three minutes. Go ahead.

Benjamin VazquezItem 27

Thank you so much. We have seen how this city is being torn apart, and we've seen it, and we have a recall, and the police officer association is another one who had a POA president who said he would burn this down. And I came into politics because if I didn't, the rent control would be gone. and I see the children who are affected by rent control. I see the children who need it, who have a one-bedroom costing $2,300.

Benjamin VazquezItem 27

Those kids at Valley High School, where the city is 17% housing insured, Valley High School and Phil Becerra's ward is 27% housing insured. 27, one in four. I would have 12 kids in the class of 40 who are housing insecure right now and as I teach and That's why I came in because I understand the policy and not only the policy but the people and how it's affecting them And I and I working I came to work hard for those students and those families who attend that school That is in your ward and we're having a hard time and and your ward looks beautiful

Benjamin VazquezItem 27

There's grass and lawn and one family housing, but there's garages being rented. There's rooms being rented. We are so dense in Santa Ana. And the policy that I know is policies that help families, and that's why I ran, because I understand my families. Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

Thank you. Council Member Bessire, and then there was a call to order. Go ahead, Council Member Bessire.

Phil BacerraItem 27

so i just got to ask councilman vasquez how many how many housing units have you ever been responsible for building how many and just go on with your statement i i assume that's zero whereas i've been responsible for getting thousands of units entitled you have got zero entitled and the policies that have been adopted since you've been elected have only stifled housing growth in the city. So don't come at me talking about how many people are living to a room. Your policies are reducing housing in the city. You're making it more expensive to live in the city and pretty soon you're gonna diminish the quality

Phil BacerraItem 27

of housing in the city with these policies. That's all I have to say. Thank

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

you Madam Mayor. Mayor, Council Member Phan. No thank you. I'll say Mayor Phan. No, no, no. Go ahead. on the record please. Well first I want to say thank you to everybody who's here, everyone who's made comments as well as my colleagues. I truly truly believe that we all want the best for this city. You know every word is different, every experience is different, everyone has a different life but we want the best for this city. Most of us here were either born here, we were raised here, we have homes here, and I just really, I guess I

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

just want to reiterate that because I want all of us to remember that each of us were elected to represent our residents and I very much respect that even when we disagree, even when it's different groups of people who support us or whatever the case might be and so I wanted to reiterate that and with this ordinance with this ballot measure what we're doing is to help ensure that residents have a voice that residents all residents whether you're a landlord a tenant no affiliation whatever the case might be you get to take a vote on whether you want this to be in our municipal code and so with that I ask

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

that we call the question and vote on my motion that was seconded by council

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

member Hernandez thank you I will right now I didn't get my third round I just Madam City Attorney, so just before we vote, so what happens now because we have no idea how this is going to roll out. At least those that are proposing them, they're going to vote yes on it. What's the next steps?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 27

So I'd like to just clarify, Mayor, what I have written down is that we have a motion from Council Member Fan and second by Council Member Hernandez only on the first issue and And this is the resolution that would call for an election on the ordinance. Correct. Is your question related to the non-citizen voting item? Okay. I can answer that. I just didn't know if it was related to the ordinance. Well, I think that what would happen is, first of all, I guess there is still a remaining question. I know that part of this question here is asking the county to even consolidate.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 27

And I'd look to the city clerk to make sure I'm correct about that. is that part of our resolution calling for the election is to ask for the County of Orange Board of Supervisors to consolidate our election with their statewide election in November of 2024. Do you know what I'm referring to, Madam City Clerk? The resolutions? I'm just clarifying that.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 27

Yes, both resolutions have that clause in them to request that these measures be put on a consolidated ballot.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 27

Correct. And so what I was referring to you the last time was, we don't know whether the county will accept that with respect to the second item. I know that you had people coming forward and saying, this is the law, this is what we think. I've come forward and advised you that I don't think that that decision up north says what everyone is saying it says. That's just my legal opinion. They have an opinion. That's the first issue. And then the second issue is in terms of answering your questions, we wouldn't know. If the voters decided to approve this, we would have to take implementation measures.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 27

I couldn't tell you how long that would take.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

So can you come back at a later date with some more information or can you tell us when you'll be able to come back? Because we know the election's not until next year, so, and I'm not trying to rush you. So just whenever you have a moment, if you can email us and then we'll put it back on the agenda for you to share what the plan is.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 27

And I would have to, I would ask for the courtesy to work with the city clerk because this is her area under the Charter is all the elections but I suppose we could do some research and find out what that would look like. Because your your

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

recommendation to us was not to move forward with this so and then we're gonna vote right now so it's gonna have consequences so so I just want you to come back at some point and answer the questions and. When you put these

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 27

measures forward there is also a directive that the city attorney prepare what's called an impartial analysis and part of my impartial analysis would have to disclose to the public who'd be voting on it any legal questions that I might think would be out there so that the voters have a true opportunity to balance and understand both sides and there might even be a statement that the implementation could be delayed because of open and remaining questions.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

Well I'm sure we're gonna get sued for it as well so let's prepare to vote.

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

Well I know at the beginning of this item the city attorney asked us to bifurcate the two different ballots so are we still going to have an opportunity to

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 27

talk about the non-citizen voting item? Well we are but yes because the only motion that's on the table is the rent stabilization. Okay so now we're gonna

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

vote and then we'll go back. Thank you. I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you.

David PenalozaItem 27

Can you wait or are you just rent stabilization? No just this is about rent stabilization. Okay go ahead. So Madam City Attorney the question that will be before the voters is shall the measure adopting a rent stabilization and just cause eviction ordinance be adopted? Yes or no?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 27

Correct.

David PenalozaItem 27

What happens if it fails?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 27

Because we've presented it as a standalone ordinance, and the ordinance that you adopted tonight would remain on the books. Because the ordinance that you adopted tonight was adopted by the City Council, with that caveat that any future council could repeal it, right, even though it has a two-thirds requirements for some amendments. ordinance, what this ballot measure will do is it will put that exact same ordinance before the voters. If the voters approve that ordinance, it could never be repealed unless it was repealed by the voters. There is some what we call saving language in the ordinance, which would allow the council

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 27

to make adjustments in case there's changes in state law, just like we did with our cannabis ordinance many years ago. But if that is adopted by the voters, it could only be repealed by the voters.

David PenalozaItem 27

So it technically, I see all those signs back there talking about democracy doesn't really equal democracy because you're not giving anybody an exit to say no. It's just yes, I want this.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 27

But if they don't vote yes, they can vote no.

David PenalozaItem 27

But the ordinance remains.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 27

The current ordinance would remain on the book subject to revisions by future councils or even repeal by future city councils.

David PenalozaItem 27

Okay. And I guess this is the issue where these questions and discussions aren't bad. They're not bad to have. We should have them because there's needs in the city. These questions are brought up. It's the process of how these things are brought forward. That's what's so frustrating. It's when our professional staff can't answer any question about these measures, whether it's the other one, which I'll talk more about in a second. that's where it becomes a problem and it's not it's laziness on behalf of the City Council to say hey let's put an ad hoc together we're gonna do the work

David PenalozaItem 27

we're gonna get all these questions answered and then we're gonna go to the voters and be like hey this is what we have a nice little package but you can't do that and that's what's unfortunate it's pure laziness they I'm sure they'll get the six voice of OC articles with different headings for the next couple of weeks and and it's it's just what it is so those are my comments mayor thank you all right

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

let's vote it was moved by councilmember fan second by councilmember hernandez

Valerie AmezcuaItem 27

yes this is the resolution of the city council of the city of santa anna calling and giving notice of a general municipal election to be held in the city of santa anna on november 5th 2024 for the submission of a ballot measure to the qualified voters proposing a rent stabilization and Just Cause Eviction Ordinance, and requesting the Orange County Board of Supervisors to consolidate this election with the statewide general election.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 27

And the vote is four ayes, three nays. Nays by Mayor Emescula. Councilmembers Becerra and Councilmember Penaloza, motion carries.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

All right, let's go to the next one.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

This is the adopt a resolution calling and giving notice of the general municipal election to be held. Yada, yada, yada, you got it, right? Councilmember Han?

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

Thank you so much, Mayor Mesqua. And thank you for clarifying earlier. So first, I'd like to thank all the speakers, everyone who came out and talked about this item. I know it's a tough issue, and I think it's a really important issue for all of us. So first, I'd like to state that we received public comments, a letter that had some red lines as to the preamble, the whereazes for the resolution that is a public record on the agenda. Madam City Attorney, I would like to see those provisions, those whereazes recitals included in a ballot measure resolution.

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

I think that that is really important to lay out who we are, why we're doing this, and why it's important. to us and to the City Council and to the people of the City of Santa Ana. The second thing is I really appreciate you bringing this back in such an expeditious manner. I think it's really great that we all can have this conversation here on the dais. I do, however, would like to see some revisions as to the language of the ballot measure. I think currently, currently, you know, I'm thinking about food, that we I think that the ballot language is a little bit weaker than I prefer and

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

so what I'd like to see is that we have ballot language that states essentially that the residents of the cities or the voters of the city of Santa Ana approve a charter amendment to allow non-citizen voting and I would like to see that also the residency time to be consistent with the residency requirement for someone in the city of Santa Ana today to be a voter which I believe is 30 days pursuant to, I think it's Supreme Court precedent. And I would like the City Attorney's Office to bring back the language to amend the portions that would be amended in the Charter to be attached to that resolution.

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

And I would like for that to come back, if possible, the first meeting in November. That would be three weeks from now because we have an extra Tuesday. Is that doable?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 27

I think if the only changes you're recommending are the recitals, the residency requirement, and the basic language change in the charter, we can accommodate that.

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

Thank you. And I guess I would just like to speak to the public on this item. You know, the first question I had about it is how would that affect immigrants, right, non-citizens, people applying for the N-400s. Even as a law student, I was helping individuals gain their citizenship. I think I'm the only one on this dais who's had to swear my fealty to the U.S. Constitution to become a citizen of the United States of America. and I would like to say that with the evidence that we have, that is not an issue and we will address it as we go. But at this point we're looking, we're just saying, how do we say this is what we want?

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

We're letting the voters of the city of Santa Ana decide and say, this is what we want, we want you to pursue this. I don't think that's a problem. I don't think that's putting the carpet before the horse because it's already giving the residents a voice before we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars implementing a program that the residents may not want thank you oh and with that i would move to

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

approve your time's up so let me go on councilman council member hernandez please thank you madam

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 27

mayor i will second your motion council member fan so just for clarification um the language that you're requesting is is shall the measure shall the measure to amend the city charter to allow by the November 2026 elections. Non-citizen residents, including those who are taxpayers, parents, guardians, and legally recognized caregivers of a child, to vote in the city of Santa Ana municipal elections if they are otherwise eligible to vote under state and local law be adopted. That is the language you'd like to see included, correct?

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

No, Council Member Hernandez. I'm asking the city attorney to come back and provide some other ballot language that would achieve some of those goals. but I'm not sure I quite agree exactly with the language that was provided in the public comments.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 27

Okay. Yeah, I wanted to respond to a couple of comments from my colleagues, and as well as a comment that our city attorney made. A very important one is that there are still questions surrounding this measure. What is important for us to acknowledge is that there are parameters in place to ensure that we are protecting our city legally. So, number one, this would pertain to all non-citizen residents, including undocumented residents with work permits and residency. Number two, it was important to include the word non-citizen residents, including those who are taxpayers and parents, but not limited to just that.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 27

So, I wanted to make sure that there was some clarity on it. And in terms of what can they vote on, that is something we have seen many people be concerned about. It's simple. Voting for municipal elections, which is mayor and council, and city ballot measures. That's fair. These are issues that affect taxpayers. No taxation without representation. One out of every four residents is undocumented in Santa Ana. That is a substantial number, and that is why I believe there is a new day and age in this country. We live in a country that at one point allowed for slavery to happen. At one point, women could not vote in this country.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 27

It takes bravery to stand and to change government to work in favor of people. And that is what we are seeing before us. The discomfort that many colleagues are experiencing is the discomfort that comes with progress and change. I welcome the fact that we're going to have different opinions here. But the opinions that are most important are the voters. The voters will decide November 5th of 2024. I will second your motion, Councilmember Phan, and I look forward to voting on this.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

Thank you.

Benjamin VazquezItem 27

Councilman Vasquez, please. Yes, I'm in agreement as long as it comes back with shall be allowed to vote and not and not anything more like, are the citizens okay, or the citizens, like we're taking the survey. So as long as the folks, as long as it said, shall be allowed to vote, is on there and strongly worded, I'm okay with Council Member Tai. Thank you so much.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

Council Member Bucera.

Phil BacerraItem 27

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I love the comment, as we go. that's that's kind of in the theme with first I thought was gonna be assumed right we've been doing a lot of assuming tonight but now it's as we go and I know councilmember Penelosa brought that up earlier that we see things thrown forward and then we'll you know figure it out as we go and then the fact that we're gonna bring it back November 7th I mean gosh maybe we should just bring it back the Monday before the recall election that would be better right I mean this is nothing more than just political theater this is and what's

Phil BacerraItem 27

what's terrible about it it's one thing to bring it back at a time bring bring an item back at a time that is harmless. But to bring something back that can impact someone's ability to become a United States citizen, just, I mean, I guess there are people that when they run for office, it's so important that they will forsake other people's quality of life and their ability to become a citizen in order to move ahead. And that's just terrible, it's unconscionable. I just, I can't believe we're having this discussion when you have such an impact on folks. So I would just say, yeah, I will not be supporting this.

Phil BacerraItem 27

I won't be supporting bringing it back on November 7th. This is just nothing more than political theater.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

Council Member Fenn.

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

Thank you so much. Madam City Attorney, I guess I did make a motion, but given that we're asking that this come back to you, did you need a formal motion or is direction okay?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 27

I think direction would be okay so long as I know that four of you are voting to support that direction. Got it. So I would prefer a motion.

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

Because I know Councilmember Hernandez and Councilmember Vasquez had brought up some good ideas about the shall language. It is very important to ensure that we do implement such a system if in fact the ballot measure is voted, it does pass. I do agree that it should apply to all municipal elections, including mayor, council member, as well as ballot measures. and I would like to put in the time frame by 2028. I do understand that as we go through the process of researching and implementing the program, if the citizens of the city of Santa Ana do vote for this,

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

that we have that time to implement the program. So I would say that. And with that, I guess,

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

I support this issue because it's important. Again, it's important to make sure that our residents feel heard. We talk about having a quarter non-citizens here in the city of Santa Ana. We make sure that they got their COVID vaccines. We looked at, in the past, getting driver's license, work permits. These are all issues that the state of California has determined and the city council has determined is important in our city. And I guess I'd like to say that it's never a bad thing to expand the franchise. You know, I think when we talk about who gets to vote, whose voices matter, what

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

does that mean for us? As the first Vietnamese American council member elected to the city, we had to have a lawsuit to sue the city of Santa Ana so that residents, Vietnamese American, Asian American residents felt like they had a voice to elect a person to represent their interests. There are over 30,000 Vietnamese Americans who've lived here for decades and had never had their voices heard. And so I think in expanding the franchise we make sure that all of our residents who we determined is qualified enough, smart enough, good enough to be a commissioner has a voice in our elections. I think that's a good

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

thing and I appreciate my colleagues as well as those who came out to speak today to say let's see if this is what residents in the city of Santa Ana want and we were talking about concern for non-citizens I have sat with a mother who is undocumented because she was fleeing sexual assault she was fleeing violence in Guatemala with her three children and I have sat with her to help her get citizenship and asylum no one can say that we do not care about non-citizens in the city of Santa Ana we care and part of caring is to ensure that your voices matter not when you just show up to make public comments but

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

that you can actually vote for those who represent you and make decisions for you

Benjamin VazquezItem 27

thank you I just wanted to make sure that folks know that non-citizen voting has been around for a while there hasn't been any and we haven't heard of anybody being held up for their citizenship in San Francisco. They give an affidavit letter as they provide their N-400 letter and they go through smooth. What we can do also is educate folks as they register to vote, work with immigration offices and make sure they understand

Benjamin VazquezItem 27

that Santa Ana has legal voting for non-citizen voting as well and take on measures that have happened not just in San Francisco but across the country. Non-citizen voting is legal in the United States. It is legal in the United States. It's not the first time it's happening. It's not a wild idea. So we're going to find our way here in Santa Ana and making sure we get the voice of 30% of the people who are being ignored. How do we ignore 30% of our neighbors to what their needs and wants of this city is and that's what we're doing so I'm looking forward to seeing

Benjamin VazquezItem 27

this again next week next meeting thank you mayor for time Lopez yeah I'm fine

Jessie LopezItem 27

giving this to the voters for them to decide so I would be supportive of your

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

comments Councilwoman Fenn thank you there's no other comments so

David PenalozaItem 27

Councilman Panamosa thank you mayor Miscua I guess to go back to the questions I had earlier, these aren't bad conversations to have. I guess my question would be Councilmember Fan, I agree with you. This is important to discuss, which is why it should be discussed and put together and have these questions answered. So I guess Councilmember Fan, do you know who would

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

run these elections? It could be the city or the registrar voters. I don't think

David PenalozaItem 27

the registrar voters would run these elections?

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

I mean, you don't have to think it, right?

David PenalozaItem 27

But why don't we answer these questions before we move down this path?

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

Because before spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer time just to implement a program that we're not even sure the voters will support. So let's just say, hey, voters, what do you think? Should we implement such a program? And once we do that, then we can go and actually implement the program. Isn't that the most direct democracy to do to see if they even want something like this?

David PenalozaItem 27

You didn't do that with the RSO. You did the complete opposite. Actually, we did.

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

We had.

David PenalozaItem 27

No, you adopted it first and then appropriated money to research it.

Thai Viet PhanItem 27

Well, I won't get into the conversation with the RSO. You didn't ask the voters. Actually, they did have a ballot petition and that there are individuals on the council who did not allow them to collect signatures during COVID. So, Councilman Poundless, we were back in the way. Okay. Thank you, Mayor.

David PenalozaItem 27

So, I would just say that, you know, all of us up here took the same oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America and the state of California. And in the Constitution of the State of California, Article 2, Section 2A, clearly states a United States citizen, 18 years of age, and resident in this state may vote. So I'm not going to sit here and say that I'm supportive of being in violation of our California State Constitution or our U.S. Constitution because, yes, we probably aren't all naturalized citizens up here and took an oath to this country, but we took an oath when we got elected to this office.

David PenalozaItem 27

So with that, I'm not supportive of this because there's a thousand questions that are not answered that our city staff cannot answer, that nobody knows how this is going to work. And as we saw with the RSO, how wasteful it's been with these letters, not knowing who they're even going to. I can only imagine how these ballots are going to roll out when we do go down this path. So that is it, Mayor. I'm not supportive of this. It's unfortunate we're moving this direction. And yeah, I would rather see this researched before. That way we can ask the voters, hey, this is what it looks like. Do you agree, yes or no?

David PenalozaItem 27

When Measure X was thrust upon the voters in 2018, there was a year of outreach and community meetings, and our city clerk's office was in every ward and every neighborhood, telling residents with every department head this is why we we think measure X should be approved this is why this is what we're gonna do with it what do you think community do you agree yes or no finance director was out there it was done properly it wasn't just nope this is democracy this is how we do it you know I heard a couple meetings ago my colleagues say we have four votes let's go kill the discussion. You know, I see the school district,

David PenalozaItem 27

they never have any discussions. Everything's done behind closed doors. They just come out. Meetings are 45 minutes done. Everyone's in agreement. That's not how we operate here. You want to be transparent? Have these tough conversations on the dais. Have them in the open. Don't force it onto people and then do it later. You know what? Figure it out later. We'll figure it out along the way. It's just, it's sad.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

but those are my comments mayor all right so I'm going to close out now did you just put this up

Jessie LopezItem 27

go ahead and then I'm going to close out I have a question for you and only you can you please correct me if I am wrong to clarify the my understanding of the purpose of an advisory question is to allow governments to gauge public opinion on certain subjects or policies and these types of ballot measures are non-binding and they do not change our local laws, state laws, or federal laws, which means that our city staff will be preparing an advisory question

Jessie LopezItem 27

to ask registered voters in the city of Santa Ana if they support the subject of this discussion. However, no new laws will be enacted and no new laws will be changed or any current laws

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 27

will be changed. Mayor Pro Tem, yes, that is what is proposed and that is what I have before you. So if you adopted what is before you, you would be accurate. What I have been asked to do tonight that I took notes on in terms of going the next step and amending the city charter would go beyond an advisory measure. And that's why I asked for four votes so I'm clear on whether you want the advisory measure, which is what I prepared only, or whether you want me to take that next step and draft a ballot measure that amends the charter. Understood. Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

Thank you for clarifying that. It's interesting when we get educated up here. So I'm going to close out because I haven't had my opportunity. So bravery, discomfort. So I'm very familiar with it. I'm probably the most senior up here. lots of life experience, lots of things in my life. Sitting on the school board for eight years, I brought in restorative justice when nobody else was. There's people that are sitting in this audience that I worked with when they were young and were learning, and rah, rah, rah, right? We're

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

going to do the right thing. So let's not talk about discomfort or bravery because just sitting up here, you know, you get hit left and right. We talk about, oh, we're attacking a woman. Oh, we're going to feel bad. Let me tell you, as the mayor, it can be uncomfortable sometimes. I get attacked every single day. What I wear, how I look, what decisions, what I say up here. When the Voice of L.C. writes an article, they only take three words of what I said. And everybody brings up Jerry Serrano. Jerry's retired. He's probably traveling the world. I have no idea. And I'm sure they'll say that I said he's traveling the world.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

because I know. No, I do not. I'll be really clear. No, I do not. I do not know what he's doing. But I know he's retired. So we can talk about Jerry's going to burn down the city. That's over with. That's gone. It's gone. Stop. Please. Let's talk about where we're going forward, how we're going to go forward, what are we going to do. And we are policymakers up here. Since I've been elected, there's been very few conversations about generating revenue. Because guess what? We should be having those conversations. Generating revenue. Businesses are leaving our city. They're not coming in. They're leaving our city.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

Are we having those type of conversations? No, we are not. We're policy makers. We should be having that. We should be having these discussions. Are we having the discussions about small apartments, small mom and pop, the Michelle Gonzalez woman that called in here that her mom, who's 87 years old, who owns a small complex, she might sell it to a big developer and he's going to come in, evict everybody and oh, well I saved them. No, you didn't save them because people are sallying now to big developers because they cannot go in there and take care of the apartments the way we want them to. Different subject.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

So again, I was not raised to go out and tell people, oh, I feel so sorry for you. I'm so sorry because you're this. I'm so sorry because that. My grandmother didn't speak a word of English. But she raised us all and she educated herself and she got a job and she got her citizenship. So same thing with my other grandmother. My mom was 14 when she had me, my dad was 17. Look at him, what a successful lawyer he is. Worked hard. So when people up here say bravery, discomfort, I could talk about that. Raised on government assistance, slept in a room with five people. I could talk about that.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

So why am I passionate about running for office? Because I know what it's like to be poor. And what I have I bought myself. Not my mommy, not my daddy. I don't rent a room from somebody. I tell you what I've done for a living. I don't hide what I do. I don't hide my employment. I don't hide where I live. I don't hide my beliefs. But this is wrong because as Councilman Panalosa said, and I agree with him 100 percent, and Councilman Vasquez has brought up San Francisco a few times. San Francisco took years to do this. They did their homework. They slowed it down.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

They took a look. And what we're doing is we're just jumping in the water because it feels good right now. And it's an election time. And it's a recall time. It's kind of like politicians that just show up when they want a photo op. And then they leave. We have lots of those. So if we want to do this right, we should slow down, take the time, do the research, meet with our city attorney, create an ad hoc, talk to the community, go out to every neighborhood association and talk to them, present it to them. But that is not what we're doing. There's four people up here that are just jumping in the water because it feels good

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

it looks good, rah, rah, rah, pat yourself on the back because I'm saving my community. That is not what we should be doing up here. Creating jobs, bringing in businesses, generating revenue, looking at what is the city going to look like two, five, ten years, that's what we should be doing. That's mature, responsible leadership. That is not what we have up here. So you can call me names, you could say I'm this, I'm that, I don't really care. because I'm sitting here as the mayor and it's very interesting everybody talks about oh poor

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

women not only am I'm a woman I'm Latina I'm over 50 and I'm a protected class but nobody talks about that so yeah it's really interesting to sit up here and hear two different sides so I'm not supporting this not because I don't support the immigrant community my family came from immigrants I support them, but what I don't want to do is set them up. Just like with the rental registry. I don't want to set anybody up for failure. I don't want to do that. And so people can walk out here and say, oh my gosh, she's this, oh my gosh, she's that. Just remember who brought you to the dance when you were a 15-year-old little boy, who

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

taught you how to do this, who shared restorative justice, who sat in circles with you, who helped you get where you are today. So this is not about me not wanting to help immigrants. My families are immigrants. One side is immigrant, one side is pure Chicano. Born and raised here, live here, talk about Chicano history, I could tell you all about it. My mother was there when Ruben Salazar was killed. She laughs when she watches council meetings. She's like, oh my god, I could go teach them about Chicano history. Okay, so it's a crack up. I sit up here sometimes, I'm like, my

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

god, I feel like I'm with children. So let's vote on this and I'm telling you right now, this is not about immigrants. This is about doing the right thing. Our cannot even answer our question, not again, let me say this again, not because she doesn't know what she's doing. She's been with us 12 years. We should trust her. We should trust her to lead us the right way. But instead, again, we're jumping in the water because it feels good, we look good, and pat ourselves on the back. And make sure, voice of us, see when you write that story that you write it exactly the way I said it. That she knows what she's doing.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

She's been here 12 years. And this is not about not taking care of the immigrant community. This is about creating an ad hoc, taking it out to the community, as Councilman Panalosa was talking about. Sharing it with everybody, educating people, hearing from them, because we don't just serve one community. We serve the Caucasians in the city, the African-American community, the API community, and the Latino community. And the Korean community, and the Xi community. We serve them all. So with that, I'm a no vote. And I'm very passionate about this because I would hate that somebody gets hurt because of all this.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

That when you go, I don't care what anybody says up here about, oh, it's not going to hurt, you know, the ACLU, whoever comes out. It's not going to hurt you. It's not going to hurt you. Well, I don't know. Because next year is a presidential election, and I don't know who's going to be the president. And things are going to change if we get a new president. And we're going to be sitting here saying, oh, now people are being told they can't be citizens because you voted. You voted in an election. and you shouldn't have voted. So when that happens, I'm going to sit up here and thank this council,

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

or I'm going to come here and voice my opinion. So with that, I'm a no vote. Let's vote, Madam City Clerk, please.

Benjamin VazquezItem 27

Finally.

David PenalozaItem 27

So just a point of clarification. What is the motion, and what exactly is the language, Madam City Attorney?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 27

So I believe what I'm being directed to the motion is to return at the next meeting of the City Council. with a ballot measure that incorporates the additional recitals into the resolution as to who, why, etc. as submitted to you at this public meeting. To revise the ballot measure and incorporate the fact that a charter amendment would be needed to permit the non-citizen voters to participate in your elections. To specify that the residency requirement would be 30 days, consistent with the current language.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 27

And to, I actually was drafting some of that language, and to come back to you and have that ballot measure prepared for your consideration at the next meeting. So incorporate recitals, revise with the Charter Amendment, have a 30-day residency requirement, and incorporate that the measure applies to all elections. Those elections at which you elect your municipal officers and all ballot measures. I also had a comment about incorporating honor before the 2028 election.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

Madam City Clerk, can you do a roll call, please?

David PenalozaItem 27

Does that identify who would be allowed to vote?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 27

It would. What would happen now that I've been directed to actually draft a charter amendment, I would have to define non-citizens. It would be more extensive. what I can propose to you is a full charter amendment I noticed that what the city of Oakland did is they asked the question if the non-citizen voting shall be permitted as adopted by a further ordinance of the city council so I will probably come back and give you those options at the next meeting as I think it through as some of you may recall when we did have ad hoc committees for charter amendments you may recall that not only did we spend

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 27

a lot of time on them but when we got to the city council and we eventually ask you to vote on them, we would sometimes have one, two, or three different versions to go through, as you may recall. So I may have to do that with this amendment.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

So you may not be prepared at the next meeting?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 27

I will prepare it. It'll just come to you like a menu because I don't have the input to have questions. So it'll be like, okay, do you want option one, two, or three? Do you want option one, two, or three?

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

And thank you for mentioning Oakland. Because to give us a little bit of time, we're going to look like Oakland pretty soon. So let's do a roll call vote, please. Madam City Clerk.