Read the December 19 meeting.

That's small. Right here. Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?

Yeah.

I'm going to put the mic's remote and put the music back on. Okay.

Let's go ahead. Tom, give me a second. I'm going to test the audio from the video. Okay.

Hey, are you ready, Tom? I don't know.

I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! I'm sorry.

Okay, that's fast over here. Shake, shake, shake it all, shake it all. Heartbreak is gonna break, break, break, break, break. And the fake is gonna fake. Right there, while we make sure. And then just go through and make sure that all the three is too light. So it's this one, just go down and either by hand in the ear. And so, yeah. I can't do that. No, no, no, no. I'm gonna go to the seat. Yeah.

Big big big big big stop Keep it low. Just don't forget it takes like five seconds for it to actually start like going here and all this one. But even though at the base there's like something about it being too loud and it can just like mute it really quick and that kind of thing. But again, but here I just go live. No one wants to use it. No, I just, I don't once. Cause like I'll come up, introduce, hey blah blah blah. We have that, yeah that. You know, he just can give us his presentation which will get there. And then once the presentation's done, and it goes back to the live camera.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm ready to go.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'll see you next time.

Thank you.

I lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack

I'll see you next time.

I love you! I love you! I love you!

I love you!

I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you!

I love you! I love you! I love you!

I love you!

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'll see you next time.

Thank you.

I love you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

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Thank you.

I love you! I love you! I love you!

I love you! I love you!

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I love you!

I love you! I love you!

I'll see you next time.

I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you!

I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you!

I love you! I love you.

I'll see you next time.

I lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack

I love eating! I love eating! I love eating!

I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating!

I love eating! I love eating!

I love eating! I love eating!

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I love eating! I love eating!

I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating!

I love eating! I love eating!

I lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack

Thank you.

Thank you.

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I love you.

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I love you.

I love you.

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I lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack

I love you! I love you! I love you!

I love you! I love you!

I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you!

I love you!

I love you! Thank you.

I love you.

I'll see you next time. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

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Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

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Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Recording in progress.

.

Valerie Amezcua

Madam Clerk, please start the meeting. Yes, Mayor, go ahead. 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 the roll call.

Jennifer L. Hall

Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Becerra? Council Member Hernandez?

Johnathan Ryan Hernandez

Present.

Jennifer L. Hall

Council Member Penalosa? Council Member Fan? Here. Council Member Vasquez? Present. Mayor Pro Tem Lopez? Here. Mayor Mesqua?

Valerie Amezcua

Present.

Jennifer L. Hall

The records show we have five members present.

Valerie Amezcua

Thank you. Madam Clerk, are there any additions or deletions to the closed session agenda? There are not. Do any council members need to announce their abstentions on any closed session items? Hearing none, Madam Clerk, do we have any speakers for closed session? We do not. We will now recess this portion of the meeting to consider items listed on closed session.

Recording stopped.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you.

I love you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Amen.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I love you.

I'll see you next time. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

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I'll see you next time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

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I love you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack

I'll see you next time.

I'll see you next time.

I love you!

I love you!

I love you! I love you!

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I'll see you next time.

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I'll see you next time.

I'll see you next time. I love you.

Thank you.

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I'll see you next time.

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I'll see you next time.

I love you!

I'll see you next time.

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I'll see you next time.

I love you! I love you!

I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you!

I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you!

I love you! I love you!

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I love eating! I love eating!

I love eating!

I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating! I love eating!

I love you!

I'll see you next time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I love you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

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I'll see you next time. Thank you.

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I'll see you next time. Thank you.

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I'll see you next time.

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I'll see you next time.

I'll see you next time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you!

I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you!

I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you! Thank you.

Thank you.

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I love you.

I love you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack

Thank you.

Thai Viet Phan

Recording in progress.

Thank you.

Valerie Amezcua

Madam Clerk, let's call the meeting to order please. Yes, Mayor, go ahead please. I hereby reconvene the Santa Ana City Council meeting to order. The 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. As a reminder, this is a meeting to conduct the business of the city. As mayor, I am afforded the opportunity to call for a recess or a break or even to clear the meeting room if a meeting becomes too disruptive to properly conduct business.

Valerie Amezcua

Warnings will be provided prior to any action being taken. We appreciate your cooperation. For everyone's safety, per the fire marshal, please do not stand or place objects in the aisles, in front of the dais, along the back wall of the council chamber, or in front of the entrances or exits. To ensure that all members of the public may watch and participate in the meeting without disruption, designated media areas for filming and photography are marked with red tape at the back of the room. Guidelines for members of the news media or anyone else who wishes to film or photograph the meeting are available in the lobby.

Valerie Amezcua

During the City Council presentations and oaths of office, guests of individuals being recognized are invited to come to the front to take photographs. Thank you. Madam Clerk, please conduct the roll call.

Jennifer L. Hall

Council Member Becerra? Here. Council Member Hernandez? Present. Council Member Penalosa? Present. Council Member Fan? Here. Council Member Vasquez?

Valerie Amezcua

Present. Mayor Pro Tem Lopez? Here. Mayor Mesqua? Present. Let the record show all seven members are present in the chamber. Great, thank you. Let's proceed to the Pledge of Allegiance. Cesar, would you like to, Cesar Barrera, would you like to come up and do the Pledge of Allegiance for us, please?

Jennifer L. Hall

Mayor, could I make one quick announcement? Sure, go ahead. I apologize. Yes, that's all right. Thank you. For members of the public who are on Zoom or teleconference, in order 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 raise hand from Zoom now in order to be in the speaker queue once public comments commence. Thank you. Go ahead, Steve.

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

Valerie Amezcua

Thank you, Cesar.

Valerie Amezcua

The words of inspiration at this time will be provided by Pastor Rita Gutierrez. Pastor Rita, please come to the podium.

Good evening, Mayor Valerie, City Council, and citizens of Santa Ana. Merry Christmas. I'd like to share a scripture found in Isaiah chapter 6, chapter 9, verse 6. It says, for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulders. And his name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. I believe God is releasing peace over the city of Santa Ana and for those who are ready to receive it.

I'm grateful for Christ who gives faith, family, and country. Let us pray. Let us bow our heads. Father, we come with a repented spirit asking you to forgive us of all sin, word, deed, or thought. Lord, I pray for the city council, that you would guide them and help them to lead the precious people of the city of Santa Ana with a humble heart and godly fear. Father, we pray for the conviction of the Holy Spirit, that you would guide us in leading the people. We pray, Lord, that all darkness and evil will be bound from our city,

and that your precious presence and blessing will move mightily in the city of Santa Ana. Father, we humble ourselves before you, believing for change and for unity in Christ. Let thy will be done, Father, not our will, but thy will. In Jesus' precious name, amen. Thank you, Pastor Rita, very much.

Valerie Amezcua

At this time, I'd like to please welcome our carolers for a few songs of holiday cheer.

Valerie Amezcua

So as we had indicated, if you're going to holler out, we're going to stop the meeting.

Valerie Amezcua

So let's try to the carolers, if you can, please. Please.

He sings a love song as we go along, walking in a winter wonderland. Oh, in the meadow we can build a snowman, then pretend that he is farce and round. He'll say, are you married? We'll say, no man. But you can do the job when you're in town. You're in town. Later on, we'll inspire as we dream by the fire. To face unafraid the plans that we made Walking in a winter wonderland Walking in a winter wonderland Walking, walking, walking

Walking in a winter wonderland

Sleigh bells ring

We wish you a Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, We wish you a Merry Christmas, We wish you a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year, Good tidings we bring to you and your kin. We wish you a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year. And we won't go into the purgiv, now bring us a biggie pudding, Now bring us a biggie pudding, and a cup of good cheer. Good tidings we bring to you and your kin We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year And we won't go until we get so Until we get so

So bring it right here Good tidings we bring to you and your kin We wish you a Merry Christmas And a Happy New Year

Valerie Amezcua

Bravo, thank you so very much. Merry Christmas, thank you. Thank you so much.

Valerie Amezcua

Mr. Hawk, I believe we have some more coming. I was going to say Gabilan.

Valerie Amezcua

Okay, so you have something to present, Hawk?

Yes.

Valerie Amezcua

Let's do it.

Hi everybody and a very pleasant good evening to you wherever you may be as well as you on tube.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 3

We're going to take a break. We're going to take a break.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

piano plays softly

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

guitar solo

Thank you.

Thank you.

Oh, oh, oh, oh.

Thank you.

guitar solo

guitar solo

guitar solo

Thank you.

guitar solo

guitar solo

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I don't know.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm sorry.

I don't know.

Oh, my God.

Thank you.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 3

Mayor, please go ahead. You're live. Thank you. Madam City Attorney, your announcement please.

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 3

Yes, I'd just like to announce that the City Council made a decision to clear the Council Chambers pursuant to the terms of the Brown Act, which holds that when a meeting's decorum cannot be restored so that the business portion of that meeting can be conducted, the City has a right to clear the room and to continue with their public meeting. In this case, we must make an invitation to any members of the media who are present to come back into council chambers and we must make sure that we do have audio or video feed of this meeting continuing. So with that said, Mayor, you may continue with the public meeting. Thank you.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 3

Can we get the volume up, please? Because it was a little difficult to hear the city attorney. Is there a way to raise the volume? Madam city attorney? Madam city clerk? Yes, Mayor, we'll work

Jessie LopezItem 3

on that from the booth. And clerk, I'd like to enter into the record that I was not part of that decision-making process. That will be noted Mayor Pro Tem. I'm sorry can you

Valerie AmezcuaItem 3

repeat that I don't think the rest of us heard you. That I was not part of the

Jessie LopezItem 3

decision-making process to kick out the public from the chamber and that I

Valerie AmezcuaItem 3

disagree with the decision. So just to be clear Madame Craig we did not kick them out we cleared the room so I want to be very clear on the terms that we're using they were disrupting the meeting to the point that we could not conduct business so if Mayor Pro Tem Lopez wants to make comment she was not part of it that's fine please document that for the record however we need to conduct city business here are there any other comments before we start going before we start go ahead i also wanted to

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 3

engage in some public transparency that i was also not part of the vote to clear the room thank you

Benjamin VazquezItem 3

anybody else point of order as well can i also add that i was not part of the vote to clear the room

Valerie AmezcuaItem 3

great thank you let's move down to consent calendar madam city i'm sorry madam city attorney do you

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 3

have anything to report out? Mayor, members of the council and members of the public who are listening this evening. We did have closed session this evening but we do not have any reportable action. Thank you. At this time we're going to go

Valerie AmezcuaItem 3

to the consent calendar items 4 through 30. Mayor, if I can make the announcement

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

of additions and deletions to the agenda. Yes, I apologize. Go ahead. That's all right. Thank you. We can barely hear you. I will speak right into the microphone. noting for the record that item number 24 was an agreement for leased vehicles with enterprise fleet management. That item has been removed by staff and will be brought back for your consideration at the next meeting on January 16th, 2024. And then for item number 22, which is an agreement for parking meter mobile app with ParkMobile, a revised agreement to standardize the terms within the agreement itself with the action noted on the agenda

Jennifer L. HallItem 3

and in the staff report was submitted to you. action on that item would be the consideration of that revised agreement and all of those were also distributed to the council and posted online for the public to review.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 3

Thank you so much. Appreciate that. At this time we're going to go to the consent calendar, items 4 through 30, and I'll start on this. And Councilman Hernandez, any items you want to pull?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

A comment on item 18 and item 29 and 30.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 4

Councilman Becerra? I'd like to pull item 6, please.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 4

Councilmember Fan?

Thai Viet PhanItem 4

Nothing, thank you.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 4

Councilman Penelosa?

No comments, Mayor. Thank you.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 4

No pulling? No. Mayor Proton Lopez? Nothing to pull. Councilman Vasquez? Comment on 29. I'd like to pull items 7 and 10, please.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 4

At this time, can I have a motion? I'm sorry, is there any items that anybody needs to abstain from? No?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

I'll make a motion to move the calendar.

Phil BacerraItem 4

Second.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 4

Let's all prepare to vote, please.

Phil BacerraItem 4

Madam Clerk, I'm still logging in, so I'm a yes.

Jennifer L. HallItem 4

Thank you, Council Member.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 4

Why don't we do a roll call since he's not on yet?

Jennifer L. HallItem 4

It's okay. I was able to enter his vote. The vote is seven ayes, no nays to approve the consent calendar. with the exceptions of items 6, 7, 10. And then just for clarity, Council Member Hernandez, did you pull or just comments?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 4

Just comments.

Jennifer L. HallItem 4

Okay. So with the exception of 6, 7, and 10 for separate consideration and discussion and comments on 18, 29, and 30. Motion carries.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 4

Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 4

First item, Madam Clerk? Yes, the first item will be item number 6, pulled by Council Member Becerra.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 4

Council Becerra?

Phil BacerraItem 4

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So this is the Public Intoxication and Substance Abuse Enforcement Information Report. AC Rodriguez, on page two of the staff report, it states from October 1st to October 31st of this year, there were 1,189 field contacts related to public intoxication, 304 arrests related to public intoxication and associated nuisance activity, 70 arrests booked in the city jail and 234 arrestees cited and released in the field. So since 25% of the field contacts resulted in arrests, what happened to the other 75% or the 885 field contacts related to public intoxication?

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

Push your button, Chief. Is it on?

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

Can you turn the mic on, please, down in this area? Is that possible?

Thank you for the question.

In regards to what happens to the rest of the people contacted, a lot of the people that are contacted are offered help. In some cases, some take the help. In other cases, they don't. but if there's no law violation, they're allowed to continue along with whatever it is that they're doing.

Phil BacerraItem 5

Okay, because the direction from the council was to arrest and then offer them services at the jail. So I just want to make sure that that direction is being followed.

Yes, it is, Council Member.

Phil BacerraItem 5

Okay, so because what you just said right now sounds like they're given an option not to be arrested. If there's a violation.

If there is no law violation, there is no arrest.

Phil BacerraItem 5

Okay, so as long as they're not in violation.

Correct.

Phil BacerraItem 5

Okay. Well, the good news is, and I know that there is some skepticism, and this is not exactly a large number, but at least 17 subjects accepted services in referral to a shelter from October 1st to October 31st.

That's correct, Council Member. And to add to that, these are services accepted out in the field. I'm sorry, Chief.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

Can you hold on one second? I'm sorry, sir. Unless you're media, you need to be in the very back where there's red Xs there for you. that Fernando that would be you if you're in media then you need to go to the back please otherwise nobody can be in this room and if you're not media you have to be outside I'm not quite sure how you you were able to get in here I don't know why he's in here Councilman Becerra Chief can you tell me how he got in here

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

so I need you in the back on the X's please

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

That's correct.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

That's okay. If you're adding media like we talked about, but they have to be in the back where the X's are, correct? The red. Okay. Just want to make sure.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

Okay. So are we ready to start?

Jessie LopezItem 5

I have a question because I don't think I have clarity. do they have to be in the back if they're filming with large equipment or can they sit closer to the front if they just have their phones?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 5

If they have any equipment that's disruptive, they have to be at the X's.

Jessie LopezItem 5

Because I don't consider a phone disruptive. And they can sit in the seat. So you can sit where you were.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

So I don't know what you consider disruptive, but for me it's disruptive. And so we're back to the word game, right? You said I threw everybody out or whatever term you used.

Jessie LopezItem 5

It doesn't have to be a word game. He was sitting there not saying anything.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

May I pretend I'm not going to argue with you? We can just end this meeting. So if he's media, there's red cross back there. He can stay back there.

Jessie LopezItem 5

If you'd like to end the meeting, end it.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

I understand he can stay back there. Nobody's throwing him out. The PIO allowed him in.

Jessie LopezItem 5

And I'm saying that for me, it is not disruptive to have a member of the public sitting near the front holding up a phone. That to me is not disruptive.

Phil BacerraItem 5

Madam Mayor, if I may ask the city attorney, who's the presiding officer of the meeting up here?

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

I am. Okay, thank you. Thank you. And so I'm just trying to get this meeting conducted. And this is the problem when you all invite this in this room. so he's hollering questions at me from the back if you don't call that disruptive I'm not quite sure what that is so let's continue with the meeting we have business to do that are for that's for this city this for this city and you were all elected by the constituents in the city to conduct city business so can we continue please with this item councilman Becerra finish with your

Phil BacerraItem 5

questions please thank you madam mayor so on uh acting chief rodriguez so on page two the staff report states that the public intoxication initiative is aimed at nuisance criminal activity however many repeat offenders are unhoused individuals to enhance uh enforcement efforts sapd using esg funding works collaboratively with cnet and oc health uh to vet referrals for admittance to homeless shelters so what i want to uh first of all make sure we understand is that folks that are intoxicated it's irrelevant what their housing status is because public

Phil BacerraItem 5

intoxication laws don't don't qualify whether they're houseless or not correct that's correct council member and and so are the referrals um referenced in that statement are they being made after the person was arrested for violation of the public public intoxication laws so some referrals

are made out in the field if there is no violation of law. We also have now CityNet at the jail that started on October 30th and that's the number I was going to provide right now that's not on the staff report because that covers November but since we had CityNet at the jail since October 30th 37 people have accepted services at the Santa Ana jail. From the Santa Ana jail? Yes. That's

Phil BacerraItem 5

wonderful so these are folks that normally would not have received services would not have accepted services but thankfully through being at the jail they were able to be contacted and encouraged to receive services that's correct that's wonderful news thank you ac rodriguez those are all my questions so at this point i believe it's a receiving file so i'll move to receive and file the item thank you i just have one question

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

chief i apologize um you stated that citi net is now in the jail yes and what are their hours sir

is it the hours they gave us last last meeting i'm not i don't have their exact hours but i can find

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

down and report back. Yeah, I see Ken shaking his head. So it's the same hours that they gave us at the last meeting. So that's perfect. Okay. Thank you very much. That's all the questions I have. It's a receive and file. I think somebody's being called back here. Paul, are you

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

We're good? Okay. Mayor, we have a motion by Council Member Becerra to receive and file. Do we have a second?

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

Second. Okay.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

Let's prepare to vote, please.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

Council member Hernandez, if you could cast your ballot vote please.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

The vote is seven ayes, no nays. Motion carries.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

Mayor Mesquia, the next item is item number seven that you pulled.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

Thank you very much. Mr. City Attorney, I just will have the questions for you basically I'm hoping you can answer. I don't really have a question, I just have a comment. I believe this committee hasn't met since early in the year, March, April. Do you know the last time they met?

Madam Mayor, I'd love to have Hawk Scott come up and provide detail, any answer to that question.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

Okay, then I have some questions for you, sir. Thank you.

Okay.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

Mr. Hawk? I like the hat in Santa.

Okay.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

Can you tell me when was the last time this committee met?

The last time we did have a quorum was April of 23.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

April of 23. Do you have another meeting scheduled?

Yes, we do schedule one every month. We send out the emails to make sure people are going to show up. and if we do have a quorum we then will come go with the quorum and have the meeting but the last

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

time you had a quorum and had a meeting was april 2023 yes ma'am so i would just like to ask city manager and we'll see what my peers up here the colleagues up here the council members sitting up here want to do but i believe you met with the superintendent and you had a very good meeting is that correct i did madam mayor so um you know there's people who can't make the meetings during the day or the hours i'm not quite sure why they haven't met since april only not only the fact that there was no quorum um but maybe it would be best and again other people can chime in of course

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

that you meet with the superintendent and come back to us with some possible recommendations or something that you're working with him on is that possible madam mayor if that's the will of council we'd be happy to do that does anybody have any comments related to that or concerns or

Benjamin VazquezItem 5

are everybody okay with that i don't mind continuing the joint if we could have it but

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

i like doing both if that's okay with you no we have to vote on accounts and vassers my my oh sorry my only concern is the the committee has not met since april of 2023 so that's a very long time and i know i don't know you don't get out of work till 4 30 so it's a little challenging for even you so that's why I know the superintendent city manager had a meeting it was very productive and maybe we let him for a couple months meet with him and see what they can come up with because I know he's you're working on some park issues and some things with them we had a preliminary discussion

about a variety of different topics perfect thank you just you good with

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

that okay anybody else have any comments or concerns we're good we're all good

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 5

with that yeah I would like to see us continue to attempt to me I haven't not been available so I am in the minority where I have been wanting to meet so I would like for us to continue to come together I do encourage our city manager to proactively work and build a relationship with our superintendent and

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

those are my final comments thank you so if you don't have quorum are you going to continue being part of the committee meeting if not the superintendent can do Okay, so there's no other, if there's, I know it's very disruptive. If there are no, if you want to keep meeting, Mr. City Manager, that's with the council. That's not what I'm trying to do. I'm just trying to save everybody time. And it has been quite some time again since April of 2023 that you've had a quorum. And so you're on a limited time. So instead of you attending with them, you may be meeting just directly with the superintendent for a short period of time.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

and then you may send steven or somebody else hawk for that matter um i'm sorry mr scott you'll be sending him instead of you attending so i just i want to make sure it's a productive meeting so we're not not doing anything so that is why i asked if everybody was okay with just you meeting with

the superintendent yep and i'd be happy to arrange those meetings and have those just a final clarification does the council want us to continue trying to meet monthly or uh do that on a uh quarterly basis or something something different than their current schedule

Benjamin VazquezItem 5

can we survey the committee and see where they're at including those two school board members and and the three uh council members and see how their calendar looks i've been open every monday so but let's see where everybody's at so we can have quorum just do a survey between the five and see where is it five or four i think it's five five yeah your meeting's at five

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

You good with that? Yeah? So, sounds like they want you to find out what works for everybody, and then if the city manager and you work out either monthly or quarterly.

And I do have one thing to say. We do meet monthly with the school district, with our tech meeting, and we do discuss a lot of things. So, things are still being done with the school district, and we're still moving forward on a lot of things to get a joint use, to get some better things in. Like I said, they've gone through some changes. Oren, as you guys know, did leave. so we're going to be meeting a new assistant so again the relationship is good and again we will continue to try like this and then we will reach out to all board members see if we can do it and

it could be like you guys said maybe changing the day changing time to where everybody can meet

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

so you you and your staff meet with the school district on a monthly basis anyways yes thank you thank you very much maybe we could get a report um just briefly just an email this is what's going on if you if you can share with us that would be wonderful okay thank you all right we're perfect Let's move ahead. I'll make a motion. I think we approved it. I just had a couple questions. Do I need a motion?

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

Yes, Mayor. I'll make a motion.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 5

Can I get a second, please? Thank you, Councilman Vasquez.

Jennifer L. HallItem 5

Let's prepare to vote. A motion by Mayor Mesquite, seconded by Councilmember Vasquez to receive and file the report update on the Joint School Collaboration City Council Subcommittee.

Jennifer L. HallItem 7

Councilmember Peña-Losa.

Jennifer L. HallItem 7

The vote is 7 ayes, no nays. Motion carries to receive and file the update.

Jennifer L. HallItem 7

Mayor, the next item is item number 10.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 7

Item number 10, perfect.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 7

Who is that? That was by you. Who's making the presentation? or who do I ask questions to?

Kat Downs is making that presentation for staff.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 10

Item 10 is the engagement plan for fiscal year 24-25.

Great. Thank you, Mayor and Council Members. So what we have on your consent calendar item here is approval of the proposed budget calendar and community engagement plan. The budget calendar is subject to change. This is just simply our plan along with the community engagement plan. And so we will seek your, we plan to seek your early direction on March 19th, give you a little preview of what we're seeing with the draft budget. And then you'll have the meat of your budget discussions during May,

May 7th, and another date to be determined if the council decides that you need that. And then you'll see the draft budget scheduled for May 21st and then leading to your public hearing on June 4th with a proposed adoption on June 18th. So that's just a summary of the Council steps in this budget calendar. Of course, we're meeting with the Planning Commission for the Capital Improvement Plan. We're meeting with the Measure X Committee to gather their recommendations. We're conducting public outreach. And, of course, we have quite a packed timeline for internal processes. Next slide, please.

So we've written up a community engagement plan in a detailed format so that you can see it and provide additional direction. We plan to go to the city's committee and commission meetings, having a meeting in each ward, at least one. of course the comm link meeting we're gonna have table booths set up at city events like we did last year but we're looking to expand it even more engagement promotion through the city newsletter social media nonprofits that's a new thing this year that we're gonna try to get the word out on the city

budget and then we're looking to prepare an informational video and of course we'll have our simulation tools back and our survey and then we're going to be looking for in-person feedback so just every year we try to expand the scope a bit more on our community engagement and so that's why we prepared the details for you so that you could give us your feedback so at this point i'm happy to entertain any questions or take any further direction from

Valerie AmezcuaItem 10

the council let me see any speakers i don't see anybody here let me i have one here councilman

Benjamin VazquezItem 10

vasquez um i think last year we asked to expand to have more surveys and more people put in we had maybe 1200 people and that's very little for a city of i'm sorry can you say that again we have

Valerie AmezcuaItem 10

1200? 1,079.

Benjamin VazquezItem 10

1,079.

Actually, we ended up with over 1,500 engagements, but I do understand the point. Yes.

Benjamin VazquezItem 10

If we can work with all our departments and wherever we can attach people, or if we're giving cultural grants to those events, if they could pass out the word in every nook and cranny. so our goal should be you know a lot more than 1,000 more than double it because we're so far behind it we need so much more voices go to the senior centers make sure their voices are taken in the youth centers are taken in and and and make sure people know how important this is this is as almost as important as voting in Santa Ana the way we use this survey so I'm hoping more

Benjamin VazquezItem 10

people are engaged and take it upon themselves to do it and any efforts we can do with the nonprofits as well, I'm hoping we could push that. Thank you.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 10

Thank you, Councilman Vasquez. Thank you for the presentation. I just have a few. So did you say 5,000 people you were able to reach?

1,500 on just the survey alone last year is over 1,500, 1,500 and some change. But we are hoping to expand a lot more. We're going to open the survey period and the tools for a much longer period this year, so we're hoping that will help us. But we're, you know, again, expanding to working with the nonprofits. Just this morning, to Council Member Vasquez's point, we had a meeting with planning and building and community development staff to get, you know, they have their ear to the ground, and so we got some feedback from them and some good ideas that we're working on.

so we are we're pulling out all the stops to increase engagement this year so I know this

Valerie AmezcuaItem 10

is the time where the council can give you some you know some of their thoughts on this so I think it's really important and I thank you for everything you're doing I hope that we're also going to do some door knocking snail mail emails I think Councilman Vasquez you mentioned the senior centers the non-profits that's great we don't know what our community wants right unless they come forward and and take this survey so whatever we can do maybe there's a little card we can create and give it to our patrol officers so when they're out coffee and they make contact with our community

Valerie AmezcuaItem 10

they're passing out that little card that says please take this survey city staff can have it we can have it up here to say please take this survey there we should be able to really reach more than we did last year because and and the top two items were homelessness i believe and public safety and i think we'll see the same thing but but we want to be able to say we've reached 10 000 or 20 000 i would i would hope that we could reach that many so um mr city manager do you plan on having a particular staff engage with this i know there's a team but will there be will you be

Valerie AmezcuaItem 10

working on as a group maybe door knocking a campaign to get people more involved clearly

this is important to all of you and so yeah we'll organize a internal meeting to have a discussion about that with our executive team as well as our city manager staff to see what other creative ways we could do to increase that number yeah thank you and when i say campaign i mean a

Valerie AmezcuaItem 10

campaign for the city i don't mean any other campaign and and cat thank you very much i did have a meeting with my measure x commissioner and he shared with me and gave me the information and i think it's great that we're now having those discussions too so the new year i'll be asking for a presentation on that as well. So thank you. Mayor Pro Tem Lopez.

Jessie LopezItem 10

Yes, thank you. Kat, thanks for the presentation that's in the staff report. I wanted to see if you could do a youth forum citywide as part of the proposed meeting locations and proposed meetings in general. And also if you could add to the calendar having a meeting at Fisher Park inside the cabin because I know that that will be really well attended as well.

Thai Viet PhanItem 10

thank you councilmember fan thank you i'm sorry if i missed this it's been a lot but do we do text

messages for the survey at all we have a we have access to being able to text message but from what i understand it's it's a service that's really supposed to be used in emergencies and so while during the pandemic we were able to couple other messages with emergency messages via text but just for these purposes I don't think that we can use that system but I can certainly inquire again so obviously all of us up here know

Thai Viet PhanItem 10

there are a variety of services where you can do text messages to get information you know say hey take out the survey we want to hear from you things like that. I don't know how effective it would be for something like take a survey regarding the budget, what the response is, but you will likely get, you know, you'll be able to target, you know, in language, you might get a lot more young people. I don't know, right? I'm just trying to put some ideas out there for you to vet, maybe work with our PIO to determine a certain universe of people that may not be going out to the senior centers

Thai Viet PhanItem 10

or any the library and whatnot the second item it's kind of related to the youth forum idea but I know I do a lot of partnerships with the school districts that serve Ward 1 residents I go I talk to high schoolers about civic engagement so I'd love to share that but in talking about collaborating with all of our schools especially the high schools obviously they have civics courses English courses extracurriculars maybe that is one way to have someone go into a classroom and say, hey, you want to know what it means and exactly how to affect local government or government? This is your chance.

Thai Viet PhanItem 10

And it's kind of a fun interactive project even if that is something that's doable in the next four months for you. Okay.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 10

Thank you. Thank you very much. So Santa Anita Unified has an ASB council that meets every month, and it's all the ASB presidents and vice presidents that meets with the superintendent. and their leaders at their school sites, but thank you, Catherine Fan for mentioning that, at the high schools, and so that's a great place to send information or send a staff there to give them a presentation. I know when I was there, they would do projects, so that may be something they can get the students and the parents, at least the parents involved in that, and the students as well, so I think that's great.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 10

And text messaging, I mean, from a legal, is there a legal standpoint? I mean, the city can't do it because why? Is there something, Mr. City Attorney?

Good evening, Mayor. Our office could definitely look into that, but I think the Finance Department hit it straight on the head. The text message is related to emergency,

meant for emergencies, but we could definitely look to see if there's any wiggle room there.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 10

Yeah, if we can look, That's a great idea. Thank you, Council Member Fallon. That's wonderful. We could look. I don't know if you don't have any legal standing.

Thai Viet PhanItem 10

And it might not be using, so I understand when government might have access to phone numbers for emergency services, but there are other programs and service providers that maybe we might want to engage with if it's in time for this or something in the future. That's all.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 10

That would be great. Thank you. Council Member Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 10

Yes, thank you. Just wanted to say thank you, Catherine. Fantastic presentation. I am supportive of the youth forum. I think that that is important. We're a very young city. It would be important for us to hear from our youth. I am also supportive of Mayor Pro Tem's request to utilize one of their cap-in spaces in Ward 3. I also would like to see us host one of these forums at one of our parks. I think it would be great to host one outside. Perhaps a great host would be Campesino Park. there's a lot of great new amenities there there's construction happening at santanita so

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 10

on the west side of the city i know that having a meeting at the campesino park residents would well attend that that's my direction at this moment thank you

Valerie AmezcuaItem 10

so what it sounds like at all the parks so that would be great if we could do that it would be wonderful instead of going through the list and i'm glad the council members brought that up so again we're going to make contact right face-to-face contact with everybody and so and we're

hoping to piggyback on some of your city council newsletters too perfect yeah and mayor's coffee

Valerie AmezcuaItem 10

with the mayor i'm always out there and the council members that are always out there having their meetings we can do that as well all right thank you let's is there a motion i'll make a motion a second thank you so much let's prepare to vote

Jennifer L. HallItem 10

a motion by mayor mesquist seconded by council member hernandez to approve the budget calendar and community engagement plan for fiscal year 2024-25 vote is seven eyes no nays motion carries thank you at this time we're good yes the next item is item number 18 for a comment by council Member Hernandez?

Valerie AmezcuaItem 10

Thank you.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 10

Yes, thank you. I just wanted to pull this item, comment on this item very quickly because the council just approved today an appropriation adjustment to recognize grant revenue in agreement with the State of California Office of Traffic Safety to secure a bicycle safety grant in the amount not to exceed $199,000. Today we approved an agreement with Charitable Ventures of Orange County to provide bicycle safety education. this is going to be a program that will help us reach our families that are walking to school that are using public transportation that are using bicycles

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 18

skateboards or what-have-you this is going to allow us to work with kids get them helmets get them lights teach them all about pedestrian safety and how to get to and from so this will go to the Santa Ana Active Streets organization which has done phenomenal work across the city I just want to thank my colleagues for approving this infrastructure. Thank you Councilman

Valerie AmezcuaItem 18

Hernandez. We're now at the end of the other ones. There's two more for

Jennifer L. HallItem 18

comments by Councilmember Hernandez, item 29 and item 30. Thank you. I also just

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 18

want to take a moment to celebrate Santa Ana history. Today we passed a ceremonial street topper honoring the legacy of a Santa Ana mother, a matriarch who was born December 16th 1926. She resided in Logan. Her name was Josephine Chepa Andrade. Mrs. Chepa Andrade's legacy is everlasting. She was a community advocate and was known for gathering signatures for petitions and persuading and encouraging neighbors to attend city hall meetings. In the late 1980s, Chepa took a lead to form the newly formed Logan Neighborhood Committee.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 29

The purpose was to stop the rezoning of the family-oriented neighborhood into an industrial park. She advocated for neighborhood improvements such as the following. Neighborhood Watch, Logan Community Center and after-school programs, Toys for Tots for Neighborhood Children, PTA, food bags, development of Logan Park, which is now named Chepus Park, annual trash cleanups, street repavement, and Logan neighborhood reunions. We also recently on the City Council approved a amount of about $500,000 for Parks and Rec to design a new Chepa Andrade Community Center. So lots of amazing things happening.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 29

The ceremonial street topper for Mrs. Josephine Chepa Andrade can be found at the intersections of Washington Avenue and Stafford. We also approved item 30, ceremonial street topper celebrating Miss Lydia Romero Cruz. Ms. Lydia Romero Cruz has outstanding contributions to the city of Santa Ana. She has a school named after her, which was formerly Spurgeon Intermediate. And since we have introduced the ceremonial street toppers, all three of those street toppers have honored Santa Ana mothers. The first being Helen Shipp, the second being Josephine Chepa Andrade, and now the third being bilingual educator, Ms. Lydia Romero Cruz.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 30

May they all be remembered for their contributions to Santa Ana's legacy. we celebrate you today and always thank you thank you can I ask you to hold them

Valerie AmezcuaItem 30

up as we can all see them is that possible yes if you can present those sir yeah I know you and councilman but Sarah want to speak I just want to see them and everybody can see them the council and the cameras are on so they'll record them that's why I asked you to do it turn them back around sir

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 30

beautiful a little more to the left there we go great thank you very much thank you

Benjamin VazquezItem 30

councilmember Vasquez thank you mayor and thank you for making sure that Lydia Romero Cruz was in that name at when it was renamed and it was taken off initially but now it's Lydia Romero Cruz intermediate I really appreciate that I really love this and all of us teachers feel appreciated with Lydia Romero Cruz's legacy that we're seeing and this is something that's honored her family she comes her father was a friend of mine and he's a great guy and I I'd go talk to him for four hours at a time just go down to the store he had a Catholic store by the Yost he got in

Benjamin VazquezItem 30

Central Culturar de Mexico to open, reopen the Yoast. And we had an amazing event for Day of the Dead. And we did 10 more events at the Yoast Theater with the help of Sam Romero, Lydia's father. So I am so happy and honored to have this for her here as a teacher and what she meant to the city. Thank you.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 30

Thank you, Councilman Vasquez.

Phil BacerraItem 30

Councilmember Becerra, please. Thank you, Madam Mayor. One thing Councilmember Hernandez left out was it wasn't just a rezoning exercise that the city was engaged in they actually wanted to punch Civic Center Drive through Logan and you know it was great to see that that did not happen and the advocacy from CHEPA and that community was amazing and I think it was something that I think was inspirational to many neighborhoods throughout Santa Ana I just wish that we were able to celebrate them here in the chamber tonight thank you

Valerie AmezcuaItem 30

Thank you Councilman Becerra for adding that because I know my father was part of that and so it's an honor now to see the street topper and Councilman Vasquez you're right it was a wonderful ceremony when we renamed the school. Her father was with us that day and her mom and it was a great ceremony at Liddy Romero Cruz Intermediate and he couldn't be with us here tonight. He's getting along in age but hopefully he'll be able to join us on another evening. So with that, is there a motion?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 30

I do believe the item is approved.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 30

Okay, perfect. Then let's move on.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 30

I did have a very brief comment, Madam Mayor. If our staff with Public Works can kindly invite the city council to join them in installing these street toppers, it would be a monumental moment for Santa Ana. And I would implore all of my colleagues to join us if their schedules permit. Thank you.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 30

I would believe we have every street topper we do something, right?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 30

Typically, we've only had one, so I would like it to be practiced that we invite the council. That would be great.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 30

I would, too. Thank you for bringing that up. So who's in charge of that? Would that be you, Mr. City Manager?

Madam Mayor, we could make that happen.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 30

Thank you. Perfect. Thank you so very much. Okay. Now we're going off the end of consent calendar. Let's go to the business calendar at this time. Go ahead, Jenna.

Jennifer L. HallItem 31

Madam City Clerk. Item number 31 is related to an agreement with CityNet. I'll defer to the City Manager for the presentation.

Yes, Ken Gaminski will do the staff report for the City staff. Thank you.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

Thank you very much.

Mayor, City Council, thank you so much for the opportunity to talk to you again about CityNet as a contracted entity within the City of Santa Ana. Next page.

Before you tonight, you have two options. Option one is to approve an agreement with CityNet in an amount not to exceed $3,841,845.

That actually is the same amount that we brought to you two weeks ago, and you requested that we reevaluate the way that we were examining CityNet and its use. We'll go into further discussions about that in a moment. Option two is a not to exceed amount for the contract of three million five seventy one. This is a reduction in

the financial amount but no reduction to the services that were originally offered to the council. CityNet provides what we in the city of Santa Ana refer to as smart outreach. It is a non-law enforcement centric response to individuals currently experiencing homelessness on city streets.

new in 2024 you will see hours extended from 7 a.m to 11 p.m seven days a week in total this is an additional 18 hours of manpower time per week added to the contract we talked last time about what the jail release program means and what some of those metrics would mean, but we're also bringing the jail release program forward and adding that to the services CityNet is responsible for. Again, the jail release program is not a homeless-centered program, but it is a program for

individuals being exited from our Santa Ana jail, whether they're homeless or not. And additionally, you will see that this year we do have an increase in the amount of money that we're proposing to offer CityNet. And that's because a market wage analysis was conducted and with that we have found that CityNet's wages needed to be increased. The CityNet as an entity struggled last year to fill all of their positions for every single

day based on wages. 2023 deliverables, and this was a year-to-date deliverables from the beginning of December. Outreach contacts, they had performed 6,050 COVID engagements of 23-24. They had been dispatched out to 8,403 calls. They had provided case management at 6,834 instances, provided mental health assessments 46 times, and there were 775 street exits. Again, we have discussed

what street exits means and where those went in the past.

Next. This is an example of what CityNet will now be completing for the city.

You had seen reports in the past with a map and several metrics, but we've worked with CityNet to increase the amount of information that they're bringing forward to us, And we're adding a success story of interest. You'll notice on this report, this is from December 6th of 2022, when the program was initiated until October 31st of 2023.

I won't waste your time by going through the exit destinations that we have gone through in the past. However, you'll notice that the largest exit destinations are emergency shelter.

2024 deliverables. We're going to be expecting CityNet to outreach to 4,000 or have 4,000 contacts. We have transitioned into asking them now to be more engaged in substance abuse. to perform assessments and then work harder with our community to find places for people who wish to get off of drugs, to find places to be. We're expecting CityNet to dispatch 8,000 calls, provide case management 1,020 times. We discussed what the positive jail release exits would look like last time.

that's set at 25, with a total of 850 street exits. This is what option one means.

For the original amount as stated in the last presentation, we have come up with 80.78% of the total cost will be for boots on the ground costs or costs that are directly attributed to the program itself and are not administrative in nature. 19.22% are administrative costs. What we did was we moved money around from several different components. CityNet came forward and said based on our track record with them, they would no

longer seek executive leadership compensation so we put the executive compensation money back into the contract as well as moved several other items around coming up with about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars which would allow us to increase the CityNet program by one team the concept behind that one additional team would be to direct that team to as I have heard from the dais in the past, specific locations where we know we have individuals who are extremely

target or extremely resistant, service resistant, and that we will send out this specific team to those specific locations, to those specific people, to contact them not when CityNet receives calls for service, but to contact them every single day because we know where they're at, make sure they understand that we as a city and CityNet are going to continue to be engaged in their transition out of homelessness and contact them one time, two times, three times a day to see if there's anything that we can do to help them as they transition out of homelessness.

Option one also deals with the overarching increase in hours.

option two is roughly the same concept it is 80.24 percent boots on the ground costs 19.7 percent administrative it leaves the current 10 field teams so the reduction is that you see is actually the reduction in executive compensation and the amount of money we took away from several of the smaller administrative categories

With that being said, the City is recommending that you utilize option one so that we can in fact have that one extra team to do exactly what I have heard from the dais that you want, specific targeted engagement with individuals who are in our streets, are service resistant, and need more attention than they have been getting to this point. I am ready for any and all questions.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Mayor Bruchem Lopez.

Jessie LopezItem 31

Yeah, so I agree that we need to have a much more thorough conversation about the effectiveness of our programs, the effectiveness of how far our dollar is getting us for the, you know, for the overall feeling and knowing that it's working and it's working I think in the right direction and I and you know I talked about being a thorough conversation because it's not just about being reactive which is this discussion right there's an issue and we're being reactive to it but how do we proactively make sure that people are not entering homelessness how do we support more

Jessie LopezItem 31

affordable housing how do we reduce evictions in our community there's a range of solutions that many other jurisdictions have piloted that show incredible positive results and so I think that also has to be part of the conversation as to how do we move away from investing millions of dollars year after year if we're serious about that and to and to being reactive I personally would like a much better understanding of the per dollar for house on house individual really any metrics that compare how the money is I

Jessie LopezItem 31

want to know what the return is that and that's part of my comment of what I said in in the last City Council meeting and I do tend to agree that government should handle these should handle and manage these services I would love to have them in-house do I think that we're there no unfortunately those are conversations that I've had with our executive leadership that have let me know, you don't have a team to roll out tomorrow, right? So I'm not going to say cancel CityNet because we don't have a safety net to fall on. We don't have a safety net for our residents to call and do the outreach. And I think we have to be very clear

Jessie LopezItem 31

that CityNet is not the enforcement arm of the city. We've asked them in their scope of work, which was attached to our agenda item for them to do direct outreach and that's what they've done you know I've been with CityNet on the ground we were at the creek to get one individual to give us a maybe it was about three hours so I know how long these days must be for them and so I again I would be happy to see this be brought in house I don't know if we have the ultimate long-term revenue fund from the general fund to cover this you know in the absence of grants in the absence of state money or

Jessie LopezItem 31

county money or federal money but ultimately the vision for me would be to have some sort of hybrid program in place working collaboratively with the county we have you know Supervisor Sarmanto who's been great so far in supporting the vision that we've all been asking him to do and so there could be supplemental money regionally that we can have access to and again I think that's the long-term vision for tonight I will support your recommended action can I think you doing this work day in and day out gives a lot of I think comfort to me make understanding that I am making the right choice here tonight

Jessie LopezItem 31

right and so when I've heard from our staff saying that you do not want to see this program go away that in fact if the council moves in the direction to completely eliminate it it would truly demoralize them and that they would see no path moving forward that tells me that you believe in the work that is happening here and I would like to see it continued until there is a you know a factual plan a concrete plan in place.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

Councilman Penelosa please. I don't have any comments for you. Okay. Councilmember Becerra.

Phil BacerraItem 31

I thought your hand was up. I apologize. Thank you. Thank you Madam Mayor. So can I I gotta admit, I'm kind of amused at the idea that we've got an $86,000 discount because we have credit due to long-term Santa Ana partnership. I just wish they would have recognized that credit when you first brought it forward because now it kind of soured the waters a little bit because I'm thinking, wow, 16 hours a week, six-figure salary. Doesn't seem like their intent was genuine on that.

Phil BacerraItem 31

So, you know, and Ken, I appreciate that you took the time to speak with me about this item, And I've wrestled with it. And when we spoke, your response was to add more bodies to this program. And whether it's $3.8 million or $3.5 million, it's a lot of money to pay people to offer services that are just overwhelmingly rejected. We know that they should take those services, but they don't. And we can't legally compel them to do so. We already pay for staffing at Carnegie that can provide these same services. If a homeless individual wants these services, you're scowling at me, they can't offer those services?

So Carnegie is the Illumination Foundation. Correct. We pay the Illumination Foundation to operate the shelter, but we don't have any other street outreach component. I'm not talking about outreach.

Phil BacerraItem 31

I'm saying when they arrive at the shelter, and let's say they want substance abuse treatments, they want maybe direction towards a mental health assistance program, couldn't Illumination Foundation within our shelter, and even within the county's shelter over at Yale, both of those facilities could be conduits to get folks into the services that they want and need?

Absolutely. That's why we try to get people into shelters, so we can get that regular connection.

Phil BacerraItem 31

Correct. So I'm just, you know, to continue, I mean, we see these folks on the streets. They are, you know, just like rotting away. They're drug-induced zombies at our bus stops, our sidewalks, our parks. But expecting CityNet staff at a cost of $3.8 million to try to reason with people that are out of their minds on drugs, I think is insane. we've seen our cult team which has staff from both police and public works and people like saying that they're trying to connect them to services they have so much more promise we've seen them go out and tackle what our residents what we on the council want to see tackled which

Phil BacerraItem 31

are these homeless encampments and and the other gathering spots if you will for these folks that in a lot of cases these aren't folks that are just waiting for affordable housing these are folks that are actively breaking the law. They're shooting up. I mean, they're stumped over. I mean, that's why a lot of calls are going to the PD because they're saying, hey, I thought using drugs out in public was illegal, and here's a bunch of folks doing that. So that's why those calls are going to PD. So I don't see how this money is actually effectively getting these folks off the street. I just don't. CityNet was removed in other cities

Phil BacerraItem 31

because I think they came to the realization sooner than we did that it just doesn't work. You know, to me, going out and constantly trying to ask these folks, do you want services? It's like going to a vegetarian and saying, but I've got a really good piece of steak here. They don't want it. They're just not going to take it. And you can offer it to them 10, 20, 30 times. They're just not going to take it. And so having these folks get paid almost $4 million to go out and just get constantly rejected. I admire them because they could take rejection well.

Phil BacerraItem 31

But with that being said, that's not what we're up here to do is pay for folks to go take rejection. We need to get these folks off our streets. And Sandy is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result in this over what? A couple years now, Ken, we've been going back and forth about how do we make CityNet work. It's not working. I mean, we want to divert calls from PD. We do. But the unfortunate thing that we're facing today is that a lot of calls for PD, it's not because they're houseless. It's because they're out there doing drugs.

Phil BacerraItem 31

They're out there jiggling car door handles. They're trying to take whatever's in the cars. It's not because they don't have a rent check. It's not because the rent's too damn high. It's because they're breaking the law. So to sit here and treat it this way, we have a federal judge and our city manager can attest to this. He didn't say you need more CityNet. He said you need more enforcement. He says you got problems. You've got encampments that are growing out of control and to come back with four million for CityNet to say, well, we'll have more people go out and

Phil BacerraItem 31

ask them if they still want that stake. I just, in good conscience, I can't support this. my only things I would look at is either we just not move forward with this contract or at the very least to some of my colleagues comments maybe a soft landing maybe we go six more months and we look at having some folks that are able to accompany our cult teams that so while the police are out there and while public works are out there addressing these encampments that then the folks can stay behind and work with them and you know face that rejection about hey do you want the

Phil BacerraItem 31

services oh you don't okay thanks for playing we'll move along but I think to just fund this many people to just go out there and constantly be told no is a waste of our money so I'll be either voting no or if someone wants to go ahead and extend it maybe six more months until we can bring the minimal buys we need in-house that would be my suggestion right now thank you if I might

answer a couple of your questions I had no questions oh they sounded like questions to me

Phil BacerraItem 31

Oh, no, I was pretty clear.

Oh. Okay, then I won't say anything.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

I have some questions. Surely. And then you can, maybe you have a separate meeting with Councilman Becerra separately. Chief, can you come up, please? Don't go anywhere, Ken. I'm going to have questions. Mm-hmm.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

so i know that this is a city net um you know issue with with our cult team right and our smart team and which has our police officers attached to it and they do a great job so what is your plan um to improve this i guess because i hear councilman becerra i hear you know both sides but i I also know that we have officers out there, and as you know and I've shared with you, there's times where I drive by and somebody looks like they're, I'm not sure if they're alive or dead on the street, and I see two patrol cars drive by. And I know they're super busy. We're short how many? 33 officers, 36 officers? What are we short?

Right now we're approximately about 36, if not 38, officers.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

Okay. So then I guess my question to you is what are we doing, what are you doing in the police department, or what is the police department doing, to assist with this issue? Because I know you have day shift, right? And then you have the PM shift, which is graveyard, right? Correct. And then you have an in-between, what do we call that? I always forget the name.

Swing shift.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

Swing shift, okay. So how do those officers, what is the direction you're giving to the officers how to contact them? And it's related to this item because I don't want to just ask Ken questions, but this is also a police issue. So what are we doing, if you can elaborate a little bit?

Yes, thank you, Mayor and Councilmembers. What we're actually doing is actually looking at this as a major quality of life issue. And actually tomorrow I'm meeting with all our bureau chiefs to discuss reallocating and redefining missions for some of our other units to address and add more resources to address these quality of life issues.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

And when you say that, what does that mean?

such as our other units such as directed patrol to support colt and to adjust hours for other units to be able to be out there when we're needed the most regarding these quality of life issues

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

so and i'm not asking you to share what you're going to share with your troops but will we will you be addressing the narcotic use that i mean we passed the ordinance several months back and i know you are addressing the alcohol and if you see to the drug use but we're at the point like Today I was driving here and there's a guy passed out on the sidewalk and sometimes I stop, which I shouldn't, but I do. And I just kept driving and I thought to myself, I hope somebody drives by and stops. I don't know if he's alive or dead. But then I'm thinking, what about all the people that are driving through Santa Ana and seeing this?

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

And I didn't think to call Colt because I call them for everything. And it's not just their job. It's all of our jobs. It's the entire city. It's all of us. right and so the police department but that's why I want to ask you how are you going to assist them and and is there a way you can move officers around to add more to their team whether it's

narc team you know what what is it that you can do without disclosing too much as for operational security we are looking at the concern of the drug violations narcotics violations and we are going to have a strategy to address that and that's part of the reallocation of resources that we're going

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

have a discussion on tomorrow thank you and you'll be meeting with um ken and the stream and the city manager and whoever else needs to be part of that correct okay thank you thank you very much you can okay i have a question for you a really question comment yes ma'am so i'm going to support option one i'm not sure you know the the year i mean i don't know what else we could do in six months we wouldn't be able to to terminate i mean we could terminate any time but what are we going to do right what is our backup and um you know i've only been sitting here a year officially

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

as of december 13th and so other people have been sitting up here um and so they've gone through this with you since the beginning right of cold we've spent what 24 million on the homeless that's just

the shelter well we spend about 24 million dollars a year on the homeless just a year and is that

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

including the shelter is that that's a separate that includes the shelter but this year we had

the additional expense of purchasing the shelter so it went up should be somewhere around 38 that's a lot of money that's a humongous amount of money

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

okay you stopped me for a minute um so I was looking at the exits and I don't want to go through all of them so it'll take time and we can go over them you know separately but when you have 592 exiting to the emergency shelter what does that mean they're just they're going to an emergency shelter for 72 hours for a week four days what is it

so individuals are transported to the emergency shelter city net hands them off to the if or path at carnegie and then they stay there until they transition out of homelessness or choose not to be there any longer or are removed for disciplinary reasons. Okay and out of

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

all the exits I only see one for a psychiatric hospital. I only see one. Okay so yeah we can meet separately and talk about this again. Can you tell me the amount of money we spent this year again? 24 plus 14 so 38. 38 million dollars we've spent on that would be my my hazard of a guess and the homeless and the many issues i bet you there's no other city in the county that has spent 38 million dollars is there

i would think not but remember we do have 14 million of it is what we spent for the the uh the shelter yeah we purchased the shop 24 is about what i'm aware that anaheim spends so we're in the same ballpark as another large municipal city but it is no question a huge

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

amount of money i think the difference you asked at anaheim and i could be wrong so please correct me they're working with the salvation army they have an eight store i think it's eight stories or they have a couple stories on the program and can you elaborate councilman bassar are you aware of

Phil BacerraItem 31

that i just remember it was something a little more intensive had more wraparound services

attached. Correct. They have the Salvation Army. They also have Bridges, which is the county shelter. They have, remember since we have the county, we have a total of about 650 beds. I want to say Anaheim has about 720. We get a tremendous amount of beds from the county shelter.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

We have our 125, correct?

We have 125 beds at the county shelter that by court settlement are ours.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

And then are we allowed to bring in more than 125? Because I know there was some drama with that or some disagreement how many beds they were going to actually give us.

We become part of the entry system past the 125 beds. So we're past 125? It comes and goes, but yes. okay and then our shelter is sitting right now at about 176 174 so roughly every night how many

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

empty beds give or take do we have at our shelter 20 okay so again we've spent 24 million dollars on the homeless and um we're still having i mean we've gotten better don't get me wrong and thank you for everything and the cult team and the police department and everybody who's played a role and I think the frustration and I understand Councilman Becerra's frustration I've only been here a year and we've had long conversations about this and healthy hearty discussions about how do we do this right nobody has an answer if they did we bottle it and sell it and get our 24 million back so

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

there is no answer whether it's affordable housing whether it's right no there is no answer because I have worked the streets where I've taken in three, four hours to try to get a guy to go into a shelter, as you know, and then you gotta get him to the hospital and you spent six hours there. And so it is not as easy as people think, but what I'd like to see, and I think the city manager is having those conversations, correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. City Manager, is what can we do more? Like what is it that we could think out of the box to do more and to add to the work that the CityNet is doing?

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

But I would not support going past a year without seeing some drastic changes. What you have here, it states that they're going to add a team with item number one. You're adding a team. What does that mean?

So currently, with the original contract that came before you, there were 20 teams. With the monetary shifts, we came up with enough money to add one additional two-person team. That's the two-person team that I said instead of being reactive would be proactive. and go out to address the areas and the individuals we know are most service resistant and spend more quality time there with them. So we have 20 teams of two.

We have 10 teams with 20 people.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

And you're going to add one more team?

Yes.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

Okay. All right. So we'll meet separately about this. i see council member fan and council member vasquez but i think that's all i have for right now and thank you and again i just want to be really clear that the city of san anna has spent just this year alone 24 million addressing the homeless issue and then an additional 14 million in purchasing the building correct that sounds correct to me ma'am it's a lot of money and we have been um i'm going to say we have really taken the hit um as a city around the homeless issue

Benjamin VazquezItem 31

Councilmember Vasquez thank you mayor I'm gonna give you a minute to let you respond to councilmember Bessette has questions that were questions to you or because some of the things is is CityNet not working or is it a situation where we have an opioid problem and we have a housing issues because I saw your report a lot of the goals were met and they were overshot so I don't know are we sitting the goals too low? Are we saying the standards so low or are we in a

situation where we're gonna need more support? I appreciate the opportunity, sir. I know that it was said that CityNet's being removed from several cities. I'm unaware which cities those are, but I can tell you that the City of Anaheim just awarded CityNet a two-year, eight million dollar contract for the exact same level of services that we're receiving here. And when I come here often I am asked to compare us to other cities so I thought it was important that if we have a concept that CityNet is bad and being removed we should also put it out there

that CityNet just received that large contract. Last year CityNet documented 1,176 total street exits. So that's 1,176 times that they took a body that was off of the street and they put it somewhere else. Out of those 1,176 exits, 727 of them were unique, meaning it was 727 unique people that they spoke to, and they got 727 unique people off of our streets.

That's 62% of the total 1176, which means that, because I was asked the question, how many people, how many times did they, did people get shelter and then come back and and have to go in again and again. And I can't tell you whether it was one time, or two times, or three times, how many times they've gone back. But what I can tell you is that CityNet took 727 unique people that were currently experiencing homelessness off of our streets. And my question has been, and will remain, when I go to sleep at night, if we don't have CityNet to do this,

who's going to remove 727 people from our streets? I don't know where else to go. We put out an RFP for this service several years ago. CityNet came and replied to our RFP and is performing the things that we asked them to do. As we move forward, it's important that we adjust and find other things and other ways and better uses of this resource.

But I just can't get past 727 unique people that were homeless and they spent the night in the shelter.

That's life-changing to me, sir.

Benjamin VazquezItem 31

That was about it. Yes, and thank you. and I know we have family rooms in there and just as a point I have brought up McKinney Vento which is housing insecure as a school district sees it they could be in the garage renting a room a car or unsheltered my school is at 28 and a half percent housing insecure these are kids who are living in garages, living in cars, or renting a room where there's not now two families per unit, there's three and four families per unit. They could be out of the streets at any time.

Benjamin VazquezItem 31

So we do have a housing issue that we had a few ladies come in and I talked to them before they left and they're saying the rise of evictions are going up. The rise of people not being able to pay their utilities is moving up. So we do have a hot issue. Besides an opiate problem, we do have a housing issue. There's multiple issues. We're not just doing this for people strung out on drugs. We're doing this for families. We're doing this for youth. We're doing this for regular folks who are down on their luck. So I do appreciate your work. Thank you.

Benjamin VazquezItem 31

And thank you all for supporting all the work we've done on homelessness here on the dais. You guys have this council in the past. without me on here you guys have uh i've been i've been trying to get a grasp of what's happening and i appreciate the work that has been done before we came on thank you thank you councilman

Thai Viet PhanItem 31

vassas councilman fan thank you mayor uh thank you ken for all this information in the presentation um i think we all know that homelessness is an intractable issue and it's not just one thing right there are lots of causes and the causes compound on each other whether it's missing rent and and sleeping in your car until you can't sleep in your car anymore or you do drugs and then it becomes you lose your job and then that's what happens or or you're a victim of domestic violence who has to leave so I think there's just so many causes and

Thai Viet PhanItem 31

And unfortunately, a city, no city alone can solve it. And I think that's what we saw. I think in addition to the CityNet activity, because I do agree, right, I voted in support of Councilmember Becerra bringing that item to enforce public intoxication that would, you know, that's blocking the sidewalk and things like that. I guess what I want to say is that we have to use all the tools in our toolbox. we have to continue to build affordable housing we have to continue to maintain our shelter beds we have to continue to enforce what we need to enforce we have

Thai Viet PhanItem 31

to continue in my opinion offering services because yes sometimes it takes residents many many touches I guess you would say to feel comfortable or trust the system or trust anyone else who's helping them. And I guess I bring that up because I know we talked about, well, it's an enforcement issue. I wanted to ask the city attorney's office just to confirm, I guess, what I think I know. You know, if someone is arrested for, say, using drugs, right, on First Street, what happens? Can you just kind of walk us through that process really quickly?

Thank you for your question, Councilmember Fan. Although our office doesn't prosecute drug violations, that would be a health and safety issue. From our experience, typically there's one of two things that can happen. Someone can be cited and released or someone can be taken into custody.

Thai Viet PhanItem 31

And so from my experience, if someone's taken into custody or even arrested on a warrant because they were cited and released and didn't show up to court, they maybe end up at OC men's jail, there's CJ1, that's where I've been before, to conduct their arraignment. But I guess from my understanding, a lot of times people may not go to jail at all, and they might get cited, or they do go to jail, but it's a few days. Is that pretty common?

That is correct, Councilmember Faye.

Thai Viet PhanItem 31

Yeah, and it's the cycle, right? We're spending a lot of police officer time to arrest someone, take a book gum, they go to jail then because of state law nothing that we control because of state law they're out again and I guess my point is that is one way and one option that we have and we continue to enforce but it's also important to I think offer the services because like you said yes 3.8 million dollars is a lot of money but that's also 700 plus individuals who we are trying to get off the streets in

Thai Viet PhanItem 31

some form or fashion. I would like to support continue with this CityNet agreement while seeing what else we can do. I heard and I might be wrong that the state is continuing to invest in homelessness in the budget. I don't know whether our state lobbyist is helping us to get some of those grant funds or dollars. I know care court is supposed to be coming up or supposed to be established. I do know that there are not enough judges. They actually took one of their judges sitting on a different panel for care court, but I'd like for us

Thai Viet PhanItem 31

to work closely with that to see how we can work on getting those who are mentally ill into that because there are no more mental health hospitals, public mental health hospitals, like we used to have. So we talked about creative ways, maybe let's if you haven't already which I imagine you have finding how we can utilize those additional resources while we continue to do this because I think and I might be wrong if we take away a service like CityNet it will just mean those 700 plus people who would have had services are not going to get them and I'd also still like to see the cost of what that means to bring in house because

Thai Viet PhanItem 31

I imagine a staffer in-house whose mid-management is at least six figures, plus pension, plus health benefits. You're looking at 200. Do you have the number for that? I do as a matter of fact, ma'am.

Oh, okay. Can you share that with me? Thank you. So after the last experience here, Assistant City Manager Mendoza asked CDA to come back with a number, what it would look like to use consistent type job classes currently involved in the city. I took it upon myself to actually look at Transparent California to find what job classes would look like throughout the state, right? So after examining, it was CDA's review that said that CityNet, the contract is $3,841,000.

if we were to bring it in-house the same program with the same staff levels and numbers it would cost 7.745 million dollars when I did it through transparent California my number was 8 million

Thai Viet PhanItem 31

261 thousand so I know I'm taking a minute too like with the amount of money it's a lot of money And I guess part of why I kind of figured it would be more is because Sittanyan has economies of scale, this is what they do, they're not paying the same pension loads that we are, and those compound over time. Right, so I guess with that I give you my thoughts and my comments. I really appreciate the additional data and I would support, I think, what the mayor mentioned, which is this one year contract so that we can continue to look at other creative solutions. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am.

Thai Viet PhanItem 31

Thank you. Councilman Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 31

Yes, thank you. I want to support. Is there a motion on the floor, Councilmember Phan?

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

No, there's not a motion. We're still doing.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 31

Yeah, if you would like to see this contract continue, I'll make a motion to continue the contract with option one.

Thai Viet PhanItem 31

Yes, but I guess with direction that we do look into some of the state and other creative funding sources and care for it. Thank you.

Again, I don't want to cut you off, but again, just so you're aware, the funding for this is not a general fund. The funding comes directly from the state through HHAP funding and is one-time only funding we then seek every year.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

You need to use that microphone. Every year. I'm going to say vacuum.

Thank you. I'm sorry to interrupt, sir.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 31

No worries. Thank you. I hear the concerns loud and clear from my colleagues and I very much share the same sentiments sir I want to first and foremost thank you for giving us this information and I'm going to read you know part of why this contract is so important to our residents as we talk about this discussion you know the city of Santa Ana is currently under contract with CityNet and we provide they provide trauma-informed non-law enforcement homeless outreach and engagement resource referred to as smart team this is also a policy matter that is going to help our

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 31

police officers respond to crimes in the community it's going to help delegate issues that police have responded to and it's going to pass it to CityNet which helps our law enforcement agency respond to those life-threatening emergencies which are crucial it helps us with response time as well all of which is why I'm supportive of this contract, Ken. I thank you for answering our questions up here, and I look forward to our vote. Thank you.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

Councilman Becerra.

Phil BacerraItem 31

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So, Councilman Vasquez asked if City was working. The question that wasn't asked but then was asked somehow, someway. My one-word answer would be Bristol. If it was working, Bristol. And all you've got to do is drive up and down Bristol, not just South Bristol, but all the way up to First Street. And you can see all the fun camps. You can see all the bike chop shops that should be enforced. So I don't ever, ever see CityNet out there. I mean, and those things don't just pop up once a quarter, once every six months. It's daily. And I don't see anybody out there saying, hey, do you want some services?

Phil BacerraItem 31

Hey, do you want to try that steak, Mr. Vegetarian? Nobody's doing that out there. So when we talk about CityNet and what their statistics are, right, I'm still amazed how we don't track. So if a person is contacted by CityNet, they say their name is John Smith, then at some point after 20 touches later, right? So I assume that to know that they've actually contacted them 20 times, they've somehow entered their information into a database, right? Someone's clacking away at the keyboard, put their information in. HMIS. What? HMIS. So we're able to track that, correct?

Phil BacerraItem 31

but it sounds like we aren't able to track because I was confused by what you were saying is we weren't able to understand whether they had I would say permanently exited. So CityNet can track

that they've talked to Council Member Phil 20 times. CityNet can track that they've offered you services 20 times and what they have offered. CityNet can track that they've taken you to the shelter and dropped you off. CityNet can tell you how many times, CityNet can't tell you based on the data that they have access to how many times they have dropped you off at the shelter. Now

Phil BacerraItem 31

when you say what data they have access to, they're inputting the data. How do they not have access to their own data? I mean you could put up a spreadsheet and say I put Joe Smith in the the shelter on Monday and then I put them in again on Friday. How do they not be able to have access

to their own data? So the data that they input is into HMIS. Okay. And the question that you're asking has never been asked before. Seriously? Yeah. That's interesting. So 720, what they can't tell us is, is what we've asked them and what we've talked about. They can tell us that 726 individual people they picked up and they took. Then they can tell us that they've actually taken 1140 something to the shelter. Now if somebody is taken to the shelter and then they fall out

for some reason and are then taken again, that's still a success at least as far as I'm concerned. They're not on the street and we're taking them back. But the key metric in that is 727 unique people. That tells us that at least one person got reentered 400 plus times, which is the delta between the two, right? Or two people 240 times or three people and then the numbers go on. We can ask CityNet to track that data. whether somebody has been taken back to shelter one time or four times it's just never been

something that we've asked them to track and once we put data into hmis it's a county system and how you can get data back out of that county system is problematic at best the mayor can speak

Phil BacerraItem 31

to county systems well ken i i don't i don't really care about the county system if we're contracting with this contractor and we want certain metrics met i mean maybe god forbid they create a separate excel sheet. But we can ask them to do that. That's a non-issue. But I can't believe that. You can ask them for that. I know, but after so many years, we never thought that that might be something we want to track. We talk about how many times we need to coddle folks to get them into shelter. So obviously that would be data that we would need to know, but then we're

Phil BacerraItem 31

not tracking that data. So I'm kind of confused. So at one point we're saying we need to know, because obviously how many times does it take to get a person into shelter? Like, it would be good to know how much resources we're expending on one person to get them to eventually accept services. But we're not really accurately tracking that because we don't really know that once they went in, we put it into this, you know, HMIS, whatever it is, and so then now we don't have access to the data or CNET doesn't have access to that data.

Phil BacerraItem 31

So it just seems like we're not accurately or consistently tracking to understand that when Joe Smith is exited and then he comes back out and then he's exited again. I feel like we or sitting at whoever should be trying to see what is it that's working, what is it that's not working. What is it that worked with Joe to get him into shelter and why is he in there so many times? Is that a mental health issue? Is that a drug dependency issue? Where's that data? And again, I don't care about the county system. I'm saying why wouldn't our contractor compile that data?

Because when you work with these people and you know why they've fallen out of shelter and you work with them every day, it's a data point that they don't need. They know the person. We as policy or you as a policymaker, you want to know the data. Right. Therefore, I'll ask them for the data. I appreciate that. And then, so I just

Phil BacerraItem 31

wanted a couple of other things. You mentioned Anaheim. You know, if we're going to compare ourselves to Anaheim, one thing that Anaheim has is prosecutors. So to me, I mean, if we're going to talk about what we should do like Anaheim, I think also too is we should add to our city attorney's office some prosecutors so we can go after these misdemeanors because I think we'd be more effective that way. And then as far as comparables, you mentioned you'd done some off-the-cuff math looking at transparent California. But when you're looking at what CityNet has proposed, CityNet also proposed their own

Phil BacerraItem 31

dispatch center, which I think is very duplicative. And so when we're talking about measuring scale to scale here, I think that there has to be much more analysis done than rather than just going on a website and saying, okay, case workers across California are X amount of thousands of dollars, multiply that by 10, 20, or 30. I think that what CityNet proposed, I mean, especially with the credit they gave us, I mean, that's something to factor in, right? 3.8 million, and they gave us a credit because we're just such good customers, right? So to me, I feel like there should be more of an analysis because once you take out the

Phil BacerraItem 31

credit, then I think that we need to look at what it means to, whether it's bringing bodies in house or continue to contract. One last thing and I Councilmember Fan left so maybe I get to make motion instead but one thing I would, Councilman Hernandez is still here, so I'd like to ask well we're talking about you know this ambiguous so we should do things you know we'll move to approve the contract for a year and then talk about things and stuff for a year or two. Like what we've been asking the county to do with MHA we had to swallow you know this thing with the

Phil BacerraItem 31

contract and say okay fine we're going to have to deal with a year's worth of MHA so what I'm saying is when MHA or when they approved MHA they also said we're going to stop it at the end of the year they're giving it another year but they're going to stop it what I'd like us to do I'm not saying we should stop it because we should do the analysis but what I would like to ask my colleagues to support is that staff comes back with an analysis within six months to give us a comparable about what it would mean to bring it in-house but also to to start looking at what's that I can respond to that right now okay numbers he gave you

weren't from transparent California they were our numbers comparing our cost of dispatchers versus their cost of dispatchers okay every line item that they have in their contract we have a comparison of from homeless services manager to police services dispatcher to code enforcement officer to management analyst and that total just for staff alone is 4.9 million dollars then it goes up to purchasing 24 vehicles, then it goes to liability, then it goes to emergency motel services that they offer, purchase of office equipment, overhead. And he is right. It is $7.7 million. It is not a guess that he pulled out of his back pocket.

Phil BacerraItem 31

Well, and to that point, thank you, Stephen. So to that point, though, you have some of these staff that are already on board. We do have a code enforcement staff, right? We do have some—

We do not have code enforcement directed to this task. We have code enforcement dealing with private property issues.

Phil BacerraItem 31

Well, our code enforcement deals with a lot of issues. They don't just deal with one set thing. So anyways, so I'm asking my colleagues. This is a conversation now between my colleagues. So I'd like to ask, would you be willing to accept that we have an analysis, a thorough analysis come back in six months so that we can see whether we should, when we come back to this same discussion in December of 2024, we don't have to have the same discussion again. Can I ask the question? I'm sorry.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

Sure. Why would you wait six months? I mean, I think he could do it within a few months. Oh, I know. There was a lot of information there, so I don't think we should wait six months because then we could start planning ahead.

Phil BacerraItem 31

I am glad I'm not the one asking for the expedited.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

No, I'm not expediting it, but like three months. Why do we need to? I mean, what do you think, Ken? Sure. Three months.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

If Councilman Hernandez is fine with that. You want to add that as a president amendment?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 31

Yeah, that works. If we can look at some data and this contract, we'll still continue for the year, correct?

Phil BacerraItem 31

Correct, until December. And then we can vote on it again. What I just want to be clear, I don't want you to come back with just kind of some hypotheticals of where we may or may not pursue funding. I want to look at what we are doing to improve this situation. Yes, it's great that we're getting 700-plus exits off the street, but for my constituents, they don't see this as a good thing because they keep constantly stepping over the same people and the same needles and the same feces. They don't want to keep seeing that they don't want to keep doing that so the numbers sound great

Phil BacerraItem 31

But as the old saying says there lies there are damn lies than their statistics. So I want to see results

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 31

I Would be supportive councilmember if we could also add an amendment to direct our city manager's office to meet with supervisor Sade Manto to also find An opportunity for us to have a multi-agency approach maybe Supervisor Sarmiento's office can assist us financially with filling some of those gaps. I know that this is a priority to him as well. So I think if we can cover any area where we have struggled when it comes to this policy, I think having Supervisor help us carry this financially would help our city.

Phil BacerraItem 31

Well, Council Member Hernandez, if you're okay, I agree with you. I think seeking Supervisor Sarmiento's help is great. I'd like to limit it to because CityNet is about the outreach and so we'll just if we're okay just keeping it to the outreach yeah okay okay so I have I have

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

a couple of questions I think the city attorney walked out but Sonia's here she's she's the most experienced she's she's the one who knows so earlier Madam City Attorney when when Councilmember Fan was talking about them getting arrested or cited was it I don't think it was one of you right I think you were talking about that and and the city attorney mentioned that um or she talked about them going to the county jail but the whole point of us passing the ordinance was that they would go to our jail and that way they're not released they're not going out the back doors the officers

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

are barely getting in their car so we're actually detaining them um and have we had the conversation

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 31

about bringing in-house prosecutors yes so i see two parts to your question the first question is where are we taking them to which jail are we taking them we did have a staff meeting met with the chief met with the city manager's office staff to talk about whether it would be possible when we do detain or make arrests to have them brought to our jail and that's something I would let the chief address with respect to prosecution services we have discussed that before I think that we would be happy to take on that responsibility we've looked at the city

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 31

of Anaheim's model. They have numerous prosecutors and their program is a multi-million dollar program. Their prosecutors are also housed at the North Court facility, so they're right there in the courthouse. I even had a conversation one time with the city attorney of Anaheim asking if they would consider doing some type of regional cost sharing, whether they had capacity. And as you can imagine, all the prosecutor's offices don't have a lot of capacity and there wasn't a whole bunch of interest there wasn't a lot of interest in doing that but I'd be happy

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 31

to renew that conversation maybe we can partner in doing that there's always in my mind economies of scale when you work together so I can renew that conversation but we would be happy to do that what we're not interested in is getting just one or two prosecutors that will not work because when you are prosecuting you need a whole host of services to go with that an investigator the secretaries the paralegals to assist it's not just sending the attorney to court so if you want us to cost that out as part of the budget we'd be happy to work with city manager's office and give you some models and you can make a

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 31

decision as to whether that's something you want to allocate funding to I would

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

like that I think if we want to add that I don't know my colleagues Philip here but I definitely think that would be something that we should look at there

Phil BacerraItem 31

if I may just piggyback off that maybe that's something that you bring to us as

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

an option during the budget okay and then as far as our jail chief you guys are working on that meeting with the city manager the city attorney staff on that issue um okay so ken my last i think i think you said something ken or stephen was sitting it offers motels and this i'm going to be i'm going to end with this but um they offer motel stays for families

so we give them an allotment of money it covers rapid rehousing fees so an example would be Several weeks ago, we were contacted and found a family that was living in a car. They were here from Tennessee. We could not find a place for them to go. We subsequently used the motel voucher to put them in a motel for the night and then turned around and secured transit for them to go back to Tennessee.

but we wanted to keep them in pocket so that we knew where they were and how we could help them return home so we use those funds for those types of reasons thank you no i'm glad that you

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

returned them to tennessee that's very important um and i just want to close with i think you know i do understand councilman becerra's concern from his ward as you know i cover the entire city and as I shared with the city manager and with Stephen with you on many occasions even poor Mike Garcia gets it from me all the time find something you know let's go after firstry whatever it is but our constituents need to know what we're doing and they need to hear it over and over and over again because as I shared with you the other day the woman that was raking her front lawn on flour and the guy was passed out in front on her lawn

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

and the watch commander I called, he was very nice, you know, ma'am, I'll send a unit. And I ended up stopping myself and making contact with him. I said, you should get up, the cops are coming, they're gonna arrest you. He did get up and move, but then when I waited a few minutes, parked at 7-Eleven, came back around, he returned because an officer had not come. And not because they don't want to, but because we don't have enough. And if we don't have enough, then that also needs to be the issue we're addressing. and they're responding probably to other calls that are important, far more important.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

Not that that's not important, but it's important that a woman that's raking her lawn, because if I go outside and I rake my lawn and there's a gentleman passed out on my sidewalk, whether I'm mayor or not, you bet I'm going to be calling 911 and I'm going to say, come get him right now. I want him off out of front of my house. But she was just raking her lawn because she's used to that bus stop on Flower Street that they sleep on. Well, he wasn't on the bus stop. He was on the sidewalk in front of her house. And it was extremely disturbing to me. And again, we've had these conversations many times. I live in the city.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

I hear from constituents every day almost about they send me pictures. You know, people sleep on their lawn. Somebody slamming heroin. and somebody half naked or naked walking down the street, or they share with me what happens when they go to the laundry mat, and there's naked people in there, people doing drugs. We have beautiful parks that are, the bathrooms have to be secured because they're in there, you know, conducting prostitution, or sleeping, or taking baths, or whatever it is. That's our quality of life. So I know you understand. That's why we're so passionate up here about it.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

And I know Stevie doesn't, everybody understands that, and everybody watching from home. We've spent a lot of millions, millions and millions and millions of dollars trying to fix this. I really believe we were the dumping ground. We're looking at how, one, how do we not become the dumping ground anymore, stay the dumping ground. It's great that we can work with the Board of Supervisors Office. I would ask we work with all of them, not just one, but all of them, because we need their help. They all need to tell their cities, do not bring your homeless to our children, I mean to our city.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

and we're working with Judge Carter and I know Mr. City Manager you are doing something Steven you're doing more so I appreciate all of that and I'm gonna support the item but I do want it like we said in three months you come back with some really good data you know addressing everything that we've said here but also really you know getting down to the nitty-gritty of okay you've met Johnny ten times you've contacted ten times Johnny doesn't want to go to shelter Johnny doesn't want service we know that Johnny wants to get high and do his thing. So then what do we do next? Because we have constituents to answer to.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

What are the police going to do? Keep arresting him for misdemeanor offenses, citing him, citing him, citing him, because then those citations become a warrant. And then he goes in, he comes out, he doesn't appear for court, and then it becomes a warrant again. Right? So I know the cycle very well. So see, that's what we should be doing, I would hope. And those that really need that, they want to be housed, let's house them. Those that, you know, we get into a hospital, but let's do it. Those that we can get into our first time home buyers or whatever it is that we're doing, our affordable housing that we have,

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

I think we have one open right now to put in your name for the lottery, I believe. So those are things that we wanna do, but I do wanna see the data as well. So thank you for that hearty conversation up here and the dialogue. So let's prepare to vote. There was a motion with a sub motion. I think Council Member Fian, you left the room and there was a Council Member Hernandez. Thank you, Ken, so very much.

Jennifer L. HallItem 31

thank you to all the staff thank you so just to clarify um and we would need concurrence from councilmember fan on the friendly amendment made to councilmember hernandez's motion that she was the second which is to approve approve recommended action number one and direct staff to return with an analysis within three months and also to direct the city manager's office to meet with supervisor sarmiento regarding a multi-agency approach to outreach efforts thank you would

Thai Viet PhanItem 31

that include well I guess the direction to the city attorney's office regarding the prosecution as part of the budget yeah I would just take that as direction

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 31

I'll be in a motion for that I would understand that's part of our budget

Thai Viet PhanItem 31

yeah we talked about it yeah okay that's fine by me thank you all right let's

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 31

prepare to vote madam city clerk my vote is yes my my tablet is dead

unfortunately

Jennifer L. HallItem 31

vote is yes okay perfect thank you councilmember Penelosa the vote is six eyes no nays with a noted absence by mayor pro tem lopez motion carries thank

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

you mr. city manager I apologize I I did not go to you for comments do you have any sir you'd like to no comments tonight okay at this time we're gonna go to count comments from the council I don't see any madam city attorney I didn't leave you out either right I'm gonna make sure I didn't leave you out as well okay all right let's go to councilmember comments council member

Benjamin VazquezItem 31

Vasquez please thank you I just want to state myself mayor pro tem and council member Hernandez are supportive of an immediate ceasefire and we apologize that the decision was made not to allow public comment we do not agree with that decision we we do this asking for a ceasefire from the dais in order to push our government to have a ceasefire it's been done the LA Times editorial has push for the government to have a ceasefire has been done in city councils across the state in the

Benjamin VazquezItem 31

country it's been done with a security council with just the united states vetoing the world is calling for a ceasefire at the general assembly in the un in the streets of sanana and the streets of california this country young people and all folks of all ages all races are asking for a ceasefire it's not a radical ask 20,000 have died 10,000 children it's not radical to stay to say stop the killing it's not a radical ask it's just it's it's very hurtful that

Benjamin VazquezItem 31

that's taken away from like their lives being taken there are people under rubble we can't go save them and and and we're asked we're told we're radical for asking for something so small as a ceasefire so people can live thank you that's all I

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

have tonight thank you councilmember panelosa

thank you mayor I just want to wish everybody a Merry Christmas and Happy

Thai Viet PhanItem 31

New Year Thank You councilmember fan Thank You mayor it's been a really intense two weeks and I guess I want to say the first off you know I am really disappointed that we did have to clear the gallery tonight due to I think behavior that prevented the city from carrying out its business I was one of the council members who said that in fact I think I might have made the motion a couple meetings ago to allow public comment on issues that may or may not be within the

Thai Viet PhanItem 31

city's jurisdiction because I believe that people should have a right to make a comment. But you do not have a right to interrupt the carrying out of city business, to prevent city staff from making presentations, to prevent public members who are coming here to carol, students, children who were going to be recognized tonight from being recognized. We had two incredible women being honored with you know honorary way signs and we

Thai Viet PhanItem 31

couldn't celebrate that here in this city. Residents of this city did not have the ability to celebrate that because some people wanted to interrupt and prevent that from going forward. And that makes me really sad because I do support the right to call for an immediate end to the violence. In fact, I said that on this dais multiple times. And it's my job to take into account the feelings and experiences of residents in this city. And it's my job to try to build some type

Thai Viet PhanItem 31

of consensus and some type of bridge building but that's not what we saw what we saw was disruption even after clearing out the gallery could barely hear staff talking about how we're going to engage the community about the budget here in the city of Santa Ana that's what I care about and so the amount of harassment the amount of name-calling the amount of disturbances that I've endured and this council and the staff and the city residents have endured is just wrong and you have a right to stand and say you call for a ceasefire you

Thai Viet PhanItem 31

have a right to protest with your Congress members your senators you have a right to issue your own statement at any time as many other elected officials have but you do not have a right you do not have a right to prevent city residents from making comments about city business or preventing this city from carrying out the business that we need to. So, you know, I hope that everybody does do some reflection, as I will, with my family.

Thai Viet PhanItem 31

I will take this time for Christmas and New Year with my family because I know it's important. I know everybody cares about their priorities.

Thai Viet PhanItem 31

But I really do hope that when we come back in the new year, people can have actual conversations with each other and we're not always going to agree and not everybody is going to be able to have a conversation with me. There are people that I'm going to be able to call back and there are people I'm not going to be able to but we try. I know every single person on this dais and staff whether you're a director or management or even an intern, we try to respond to everyone. But as you can see, we're still trying to hire a city manager, a police chief. We're trying to deal with the budget.

Thai Viet PhanItem 31

We're trying to deal with figuring out the homelessness crisis. We're working on tax issues that are coming up next year. We're working on so many city items, but we can't get to it because some people want one thing only, and we had that discussion it did not go forward by vote of this council and I tried very hard to bring it for it did not and that item has passed and so I really hope again we all walk away tonight that we can spend some time on self-reflection and I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year Thank you.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

Councilmember Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 31

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I want to thank the staff for the presentations today and for all of the hard work that you do in our city. As we come to the close of a year, we reflect on all of the good work that the city has done. And we also reflect on the challenges that we have overcome and the challenges that we anticipate. participate. Today was a difficult meeting for a number of reasons. I want to first start by apologizing to the residents that didn't get to voice their opinions. No matter what side of the

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 31

aisle you sit on, this is a place where you should be able to share. You should be able to talk about what your concerns are. And that wasn't the case today. I understand that there's a lot of pain There's a lot of families that are impacted by what is happening. We know that Santa Ana lost Alex Odeh, which was a Palestinian man from our community. We know we have residents in our community who have lost their loved ones in Gaza, and we also have police officers who are Palestinian. I've been approached by many people from across this community, whether they work for our

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 31

department, work for different departments in the city, or whether they're residents, all of which have shared that this is a topic that is affecting them and part of why I supported an immediate ceasefire is because I believe in humanity I want to implore that any opinion that comes to the City Hall chambers that you arrive here respectfully I understand trauma is difficult and it is hard to put your thoughts together when we are losing our loved ones. But there are people that are

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 31

also going through that that we're not able to share today. I ask that if anybody comes to this council meeting, you come respectfully, that you understand that difference of opinions are welcomed here. And even though there are difference of opinions, we don't chastise, we don't yell, we don't discriminate our neighbors regardless of where they stand on the issues. Even in the act of those that have dehumanized us, in the response of that, we have to show them just how much humanity we have when the world tries to take it. I want to close out by thanking my neighbors for coming out last weekend.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 31

We celebrated our seniors at the Southwest Community Center. I want to thank Capo C and the Orange County Heritage Council. And this Friday, we will be giving away toys for our fourth annual toy giveaway in Artisa Pilar at El Salvador Park. We also have a winter snow wonderland there. It's fantastic. We're going to be giving away over a thousand toys to kids in the neighborhood. All are welcomed. There will be Christmas music and pan dulce and champurado. And we look forward to seeing you all. Happy holidays and have a happy new year. Please give a big hug and a kiss to the people you love and be there

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

for them during the holiday season. Thank you. Madam City Attorney, before we continue, can you clear up some comments that were made please Madam City Attorney about clearing the room

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 31

yes um we're just prepared this evening as we knew that there potentially could be disruptions and I I think I do want to remind the city council of one thing that the rules that the voters adopted for you so not your rules not my rules not the state legislative rules legislature's rules but your rules say that the City Council shall, shall by resolution adopt rules of procedures for your meetings. It's not discretionary. It says that those rules of procedure shall include time limits, other standards for debate

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 31

and discussion among the council members and for the public's address to the City Council. It says that the presiding officer shall have the duty of maintaining order at all times and may direct that any person disturbing the meeting, speaking without permission, violating the City Council's rules of decorum and order, or otherwise acting in a disorderly manner, may be removed from the place of the meeting, and any peace officer present shall carry out such order. I didn't write these rules. rules. They were in your municipal code as I see that they were adopted originally in

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 31

1952. The ordinance was adopted and amended in 1965 and was amended again in the year 2008. All I can tell you is that I have a duty as a city attorney to help you enforce these rules and procedures in decorum. And I understand that some people might find it offensive. They might claim that they didn't have an opportunity to speak publicly, but those are the rules. If the City Council doesn't like those rules, you can always direct the City Clerk and I to make revisions to those rules. But so long as those rules are on your books, so long as your City Charter is adopted by

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 31

your voters, not by the Council, say that you have to have these rules, then I will continue to enforce them. I'll continue to advise the Chair, whoever that might be, that these are the rules and I would expect that we enforce those rules. That's what we did this evening.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 31

Thank you, Madam City Attorney. I just want to be clear on what we did exactly. So thank you. I appreciate it. Councilmember Becerra.

Phil BacerraItem 31

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Since this is our, thankfully, our last meeting of the year, I wanted to thank all of our city staff. You guys do incredible work for not only us up here, but for our residents and our businesses. And I especially want to thank our police officers tonight. Thank you for keeping us safe. Thank you for keeping order. and thank you for addressing what was the disruptive behavior that prevented this council's ability from celebrating our community and conducting the people's business we weren't able to do that tonight because the majority of folks from out of town came here to ask us to

Phil BacerraItem 31

address something that is outside of our purview it's very disappointing and frustrating but i'm glad we were able to continue and thank you to our police officers for helping us be able to continue I also want to thank all the residents and businesses that throughout 2023 have been tireless advocates for our city, whether it was going to the Board of Supervisors, whether it's providing comments, coming down and speaking to us. I just want to thank each and every one of you, and I hope that all of you have a Merry Christmas, a Feliz Navidad, Yang San Voive, is that good, Ty? There you go. Close, right? And Amalie Gallon,

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Paco and a happy new year. Good night everybody. Wow I can't do that. All right so let me just be

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really quick. We'll work on it. So I also want to thank city staff. You know December 13th was a year anniversary for Councilman Vasquez and I and it's been a very interesting year and I've learned a lot and I thank the staff, everybody who's really helped me learn along the way. My colleagues up here as well that have been sitting here so I really appreciate it. I want to just acknowledged that rosa from upstairs rosa flores is retiring on december 20th we have flowers for here for her here we were going to give them to her tonight and it's we're sad that we were not

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able to present her with flowers and the gift that we were going to give her for her i believe 30 years 25 years of service and she's on the eighth floor and she does a lot for many of us and so we're all going to miss her and i hear we have another staff that's coming in but nobody can and replace Russell. And so was she?

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I thought I vetoed it. You vetoed it? I thought I vetoed the retirement.

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No, she's gonna retire. Good for her. So we'll have to give that to her tomorrow. And so I really wanna thank everybody for the hearty dialogue we have up here. But I wanna be clear on something, thank you city attorney for clarifying it. And I wanna thank everybody that came out tonight. Modern Day was gonna be acknowledged as well as a good neighbor certificate, a resolution I was going to give a community member, which we've never done. And so there's a lot of things that we were going to do tonight. And thank you, Hawk, for Parks and Rec bringing

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the carolers and you were going to bring some other things forward. We were not able to, and I think Council Member Phan covered it. Well, I don't need to say much, but I will just say this, you know, she talked about name calling and attacked. I have as well, you know, and I get it hard and, you know, I'm this and I'm that and they come up with whatever name they want to call me. I just want to be really clear. When I got elected, I got elected as the mayor to serve the constituents of Santa Ana. And what I love about that is that I was asked to join to visit Franklin

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Elementary last week with Ms. Escobedo and Mr. Ramirez's third grade class. And I want to close with this. I'm sorry, before I do that, we had a toy giveaway this weekend and it was great. Thank you, Councilman Becerra and Penelosa for joining me and all the organizations that gave out toys and Andrew and Claudia and Frida Police Department for joining us. Thank you so much. It was a wonderful tamale fest that we gave out. Lots and lots of toys. So it was great. Thank you to everybody who donated toys. But my job as the mayor is to work for my constituents. And that

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is why earlier I made the comment that voters voted for us here to make decisions for the city of Santa Ana. And Councilman Fan made it very clear we couldn't address the budget tonight. There were so many things that we needed to take care of and really have discussion about. and thank you to Santa Ana Police Department for not only keeping us safe but really you know doing this in a manner that you know nobody can say you hurt them or harass them very professional as always and we really appreciate it and thank you again for keeping us safe and I really appreciate

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that when I call you and I say I have an issue because I'm being threatened or whatever it is you respond right away and I really appreciate that but I'm going to close with this this is from I'm third grade, Franklin Elementary, Ms. Escobedo, Mr. Ramirez's class. So if you just bear with me for a minute, it's very important. Dear Mayor Mesquo, my name is Aiden, and I'm a third grader at Franklin Elementary. They wrote all these themselves. Last month, we were learning about how the government can help our community. I hope you can help with the homeless problem in our city.

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For example, when I go to the store, they seem sick, and I don't feel safe. The city can help by offering them shelter, food, and medical attention. Thank you for your support. Sincerely, Aidan Quiñones. Dear Mayor Mesquo, my name is Samantha Reyes and I'm in third grade. I believe that our parks can be cleaner. I think that we can water the plants. I think that we can put signs that say, please throw trash in the trash cans. And I'm just randomly picking these, okay? And that is from Samantha. Dear Mayor Mesquo, this is from Amy Chavez Torres. My name is Amy Chavez Torres and I'm in the third grade.

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Think every week at least three people should go clean the park in Santa Ana. And in the parks they should clean the sand or the grass and the water fountains. As you are a mayor, I wish you can help us with cleaning the slides. I'll go out there hawking and clean slides. Just ask, okay? Here's another one.

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My name is Gustavo and I'm in the third grade. I would love to stop drugs because I hate drugs and I want police to see them and arrest them. They are dangerous for kids like us.

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My name is Christian. I'm a third grader of Franklin. This week we're learning about how the government can help our community. I hope you can help with putting more trash cans on the streets to help combat pollution. We should have more recycling bins too. Thank you. I thought that was beautiful too. Okay. My name is Jeremy and I'm a third grader of Franklin. I want the police to arrive faster to help people in trouble. One day a kid needed help, and when my mom called, the police took over one hour. They take too long and bad things happen. You should tell them to hurry and help."

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And I explained to them that I would invite the police department to come out with me next time and you would be sharing with them, Chief. Next one, my name is Delilah. I'm a third grader of Franklin. I wish you could put more cops on the street so people would stop driving drunk. It would keep more people safe on the street. The drunk driver should get arrested and go to the police station. And here's the last one. My name is Azari. I hope I pronounced that right. I have a concern in regards to drug abuse. This issue is a big problem in our community. For example, where I live, there's a bike trail and every day,

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children like myself are always seeing homeless and or regular people use drugs in the open. This has made the bike trail become unsafe. Please help make a difference.

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So I want to say this. this is my why. This is why I do what I do. This is why I ran for mayor. This is why I sat on the school board. It is not to sit up here and I don't have a personal agenda. I don't want to bring something that's an international matter to my city. You want to know why? Because we have enough issues here in our city, whether it's homeless, whether it's crime, whether it's children being molested whether it's people without homes the list goes on and on and on and if anybody wants to list of these a copy of these letters I will gladly give them

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to you because these third graders or Mrs. Escobedo and Mr. Ramirez are brilliant they see the problem they live it every single day so while most of us up here have a home and we probably live in good neighborhood and we don't experience what they do you should pay attention because these are our future leaders. These are our children that everybody up here says are so concerned about. If you are concerned about our children, let's address the issues here in Santa Ana. We're short 36 officers. We need to hire more police officers. We're short-staffed in our city. We're going to sunset

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Measure X soon. What are we going to do then? Where are we going to cut from? Why aren't we planning for these things? Five years is going to come in a blink of an eye when Measure X sunsets. five years, am I right? Four years? And we're going to lose, what, $30 million a year? What then? What then? So let's plan ahead. This is why I said a pair as mayor, and yes, I get called names, they say terrible things about me, but names don't hurt me. They don't hurt me, because most of the people that come here to speak, they're not even from Santa Ana. They don't live in our city,

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they don't walk to the market like our children do, they don't see their cousin get hit by a car, They don't see, you know, their brother, Odin, in the backyard. They don't witness the gang violence. They're not molested at their home or in our school sites.

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No, they're not. So when you sit up here, and I would really encourage that my colleagues up here really take a hard look over the vacation, say, this is why we sit up here. This is what we were elected to do. So when we ask those hard questions of city staff, it's not because we're trying to be rude or mean or offensive. We want to provide the best services. I think $24 million is a whole heck of a lot of money for the homeless. And thank you for all the amazing work we have done. But there's more to do. And are we short police officers? Yes. And people say, well, we shouldn't hire them.

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Well, I want them to come because their response time, because we did hire them more. On priority one calls, it's five minutes. It's decreased from eight to five. So, I would hope my colleagues would ask for a copy of these letters and take time to read them because you are up here to serve the constituents of Santa Ana. You are not up here for any other reason. You're not to bring your personal agenda up here. This is trash cans. That's an easy fix, Mr. City Manager. In central Santa Ana where these children live, I'd love to see more trash cans because we have them on the north end we have on the south end I think we have

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them all over the city but have we ever asked the kids what they mean I know I did that day and I know you would too so with that I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and I will see you on January 16th for our next meeting thank you to everybody our city attorney our city manager's office the eighth floor all the directors all the staff for everything you have done this year for joining me on every coffee with the mayor you guys are amazing and And I thank you for everything you do. And this meeting is adjourned.