Read the May 5 meeting.

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Jennifer L. Hall

Mayor, go ahead.

Whenever you're ready. Thank you, Madam Clerk. I hereby call the Santa Ana City 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

Council Member Becerra. Council Member Hernandez. Council Member Lopez. Here. Council Member Fan. Here. Council Member Vasquez. Present. Mayor Pro Tempignolosa.

David Penaloza

Mayor Meskwa?

Jennifer L. Hall

Here. Five members present. That is a quorum.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Are there any additions or deletions to the closed session agenda? There are none. Thank you. Do any council members need to announce their abstentions on closed session items?

Jennifer L. Hall

Hearing none, Madam Clerk, do we have any speakers for closed session? We do not have any in-person speakers, Zoom speakers, nor did we receive any e-comments related to the closed session agenda.

agenda. Thank you. We'll now recess this portion of the meeting to consider the items that's been co-sessioned.

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so

Mayor you can go ahead. Thank you very much Madam Clerk. Let's start the meeting. I hereby reconvene the Santa Ana City Council meeting to order. This meeting

Jennifer L. Hall

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 this is a meeting to conduct the business of the city there's an 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 warnings will be provided prior to any action being taken we appreciate your cooperation for everyone's safety per the fire

Jennifer L. Hall

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 entrances and exits during City Council presentations guests of individuals being recognized or invited to come to the front to take photos madam clerk please conduct the roll call councilmember Becerra here councilmember Hernandez present councilmember Lopez here councilmember fan here councilmember Vasquez present Mayor Pro Tempagnoloza.

Benjamin Vazquez

Mayor Mezcua.

Jennifer L. Hall

All seven members present. That is a quorum.

Madam Clerk, before we proceed to the Pledge of Allegiance, please make an announcement.

Jennifer L. Hall

For members of the public on Zoom or teleconference to request to speak during public comments on any agenda item or nonagenda item 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. This does not apply to the Housing Authority agenda for which comments will be heard during the specific public hearing meeting please hold your comments on those items until specifically

called upon thank you thank you the first item is the pledge of allegiance on the agenda may i have uh miss gloria alvarado please from the chinese labor fed come up and lead us in the pledge

if you please rise

Jessie Lopez

Please repeat after me. 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, Mayor. Thank you very much. At this time, we're going to have the words of inspiration will be provided by Rajan Zed, the Universal Society of Hinduism. Sir, if you can please come up, and you have three minutes. Thank you. Starting with the Gayatri Mantra, which is considered the most sacred mantra of Hinduism, I shall be reading from ancient Hindu scriptures, some as old as 1500 BCE, then interpret in English.

We meditate on the transcendental glory of the Deity Supreme, who is inside the heart of the earth, inside the life of the sky, and inside the soul of the heaven. May He stimulate and illuminate our minds. Ashtoma Sadgamya Tamsoma Jyotirgamya Mrityur Mamratam Gamya Lead us from the unreal to the real, lead us from darkness to light, lead us from death to immortality. Tasmada Sakta Statnam Karyam Karma Samachara Asakto Hyacharan Karma Parma Pnauti Purusha Karma Neva Hi Samsiddhi Mastita Jankadaya Loka Sangreha Meva Pi

Sampa Shankar Tum Rahasi Strive constantly to serve the welfare of the world. By devotion to selfless, one attains the supreme goal of life. Do your work with the welfare of others always in mind.

May we be protected together. May we be nourished together. May we work together with great vigor. May our study be enlightening. May no obstacle arise between us.

United your resolve, united your hearts. May your spirits be at one that you may long to either dwell in unity and conquered. Peace, peace, peace be unto all. Om.

Thank you. Thank you so very much. We appreciate you.

Madam Clerk, are there any additions or deletions to the City Council Agenda? There are none. Thank you. At this time, before we proceed with ceremony presentations, the City Attorney is getting some information. and I will be reading it out loud because sometimes after comments public comments people leave or staff have to go somewhere so I want to make sure everybody's on the same page and hearing the same information that has been shared with with us at the last City Council meeting we asked our city attorney for a full report on the coach royal situation and the status of the

city petitions we have received a comprehensive memorandum on the facts the prior lawsuits, the evictions, and the status of the petitions. The information shared with us included the fact that the parties, Kingsley and the tenants, agreed to keep many of their stipulations and evictions confidential. Kingsley and the tenants are subject to the state mobile home residency law. It is a state law and the city is preempted by this law, meaning that the law is is controlling and the city cannot interfere. The city's role in this situation is based on the voter approved ordinance, which is summarized in two parts.

First, there is rent stabilization and second, there is just cause. The coach Royal tenants are not alleging any violation of the rent stabilization part of the ordinance. They are alleging harassment and retaliation. The ordinance that was approved at one time by the City Council and subsequently by the city's voters states that retaliatory eviction protections can only be alleged in a court of law. The city cannot take action in relation to these type of complaints. The anti-harassment complaints are the ones that the city has jurisdiction over and these

These are being handled through the petition process involving an independent administrative hearing officer. Again, this is being done in accordance with an ordinance adopted by the voters. The city is aware that there was a confidential settlement agreement between Kingsley and the tenants. We believe that settlement to be... When I say we, it's the city. We believe that settlement to be in the millions of dollars based on what some advocates have have said, but we cannot verify this because it was the subject of a confidential agreement. The city is doing all that it can legally do under its ordinance.

In addition, the city has provided emergency rental assistance and assistance through several of its programs, providing thousands of dollars to tenants. For example, the Baragon family collectively has received over $149,000 in city funds from from several programs. We are sympathetic to the tenants and have been responsive. Coming to the city council and saying that the city is doing nothing is just not true. The city is enforcing the law, it can enforce, and it has provided nearly $200,000 in funding to the impacted tenants. It was recently reported that the tenants have turned

to making threats and acting physically aggressive with our city staff. that behavior will not be tolerated by the city if the tenants choose to continue to work with the city the city will work with the tenants and be supportive however if the tenants continue to make threats we will pursue all legal remedies to protect our staff and officials thank you madam city attorney for writing that and i can hopefully speak for everybody up here we're all very concerned of what's happening at the mobile home park and our hearts go out to the residents there and I've asked the City Attorney to please write a letter to the District Attorney's

Office and to the Attorney General's Office to have them possibly start their own investigation into this matter but we felt it was very important to share this with the public so that we can share the truth of what is actually happening and what the city can and cannot do so thank you Madam City Attorney for that okay let's move on we're going to move to our presentations Councilmember Lopez Lopez, you're up. Airborne system for the outstanding contribution to the successful landing of Artemis II. It's very important. An Orion capsule. Come on up, people. Please, airborne system, come on up and join us.

Cut them up to the front. There you go.

Thank you.

Jessie LopezItem 4

Thank you, Mayor, for allowing me to present first. This is something that's really exciting, not just for me personally, because of my love for education and science and all that I learned when I was growing up. but because of the work that we are going to recognize tonight and it is happening here in our incredible beautiful cool city and so good evening I am so thrilled and honored to be able to do this presentation and recognition tonight I wanted to recognize and highlight the extraordinary extraordinary contributions of airborne systems a company with a remarkable

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legacy spanning more than a century of innovation, engineering, excellence, and public impact. Their California operations are proudly based in Santa Ana, reflecting a strong local presence that continues to contribute to our regional economy and workforce, and I'm so proud that you're based out of our community. Airborne Systems has long been a cornerstone of advanced manufacturing and and high-scale job creation, contributing meaningfully to both our local economy and to critical national and global missions. This work exemplifies the kind of forward-thinking industry that strengthens our community while helping solve

Jessie LopezItem 4

some of the world's most complex challenges. Most recently, airborne systems played a pivotal role, as all of you should know, in the success of the Artemis II mission, returning astronauts to Earth after their first trip to the moon in over 50 years please a round of applause

Jessie LopezItem 4

their team engineered and manufactured the parachute system for NASA's Orion spacecraft as Orion completed its high-speed re-entry from lunar flight the parachute system deployed in the final landing stage, safely decelerating the crew module for splashdown. The parachute system, comprised of 11 parachutes, is initiated at approximately 25,000 feet with the ejection of the forward bay cover parachutes. Dros deployment followed at approximately 22,000 feet with the operation culminating in the three pilot parachutes,

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extracting three main parachutes near 6,000 feet, reducing splashdown velocity to 20 miles per hour. The successful splashdown marks another milestone in the Airborne Systems' legacy of supporting human spaceflight programs, including previous Orion developments and test efforts.

Jessie LopezItem 4

The success of the Artemis II clears the path for future lunar launch landing missions under NASA's Artemis program. This technology was essential to ensuring the safe return of astronauts as we embarked on the next era of human exploration. This achievement represents not only technical excellence, but also a proud moment for the region and this city, showcasing the global impact of the work done right here in our community. Beyond government space programs, the company has been instrumental in supporting commercial space flight.

Jessie LopezItem 4

The recovery systems have contributed to missions involving the Dragon Capsule, the Boeing Starliner, and the Blue Origin's New Shepard, demonstrating their versatility and leadership across both public and private sectors. In defense and aviation, airborne systems continue to deliver mission-critical solutions. Their work includes the T-11 parachute system used by U.S. forces, as well as a recovery system for some of the world's most advanced aircraft, including the F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Lightning.

Jessie LopezItem 4

They also support the Missile Defense Agency with air launch targets, further underscoring their role in national security. Their legacy includes historic programs such as the Space Shuttle, Orbiter, Drag Parachute, and the Discovery Capsule Systems, projects that helped define early eras of aerospace innovation and continue to inspire so many achievements today. today. From their deep roots in Southern California to their impact on a global stage, Airborne Systems North America represents the very best of engineering, expertise, reliability,

Jessie LopezItem 4

and innovation. Their work not only advances science and technology, but it also strengthens our economy and inspires future generations of engineers and innovators. It is so exciting to me to think about the role that they might play in 2028 when the next moon mission is planned. The success of Artemis II clears the path for future crewed lunar landing missions under NASA's Artemis program. The airborne team designed and manufactured the parachutes for this mission,

Jessie LopezItem 4

along with the previous projects supporting the Mars Perseverance rover in Artemis I landings. In 2019, they were named the number one company in the world. We should all be applauding.

Jessie LopezItem 4

And they are hiring in STEM right here. So I really love that. Future Santaneros, if you love science, if you love education, please. You have so many incredible opportunities in this community. I am so giddy to be presenting this recognition tonight, and I want to thank our Arts and Culture Commissioner, Ms. Deborah Russell, who always proudly recognizes and works with our community for making this introduction and highlighting the work of so many people behind me. So on behalf of my office, I want to commend Airborne Systems for their continued excellence, and I want to thank them for their continued contributions

Jessie LopezItem 4

to our community and beyond. Thank you for your contributions, not just to Santa Ana, but to our country as a whole. And if you ever need to volunteer, someone to send to the moon, I am right here. Thank you very much. And we would love to hear from one of you.

I think we just really want to say thank you. I mean, we think it's really cool to work where we work, but after hearing you say that, I don't know, I feel more pumped than ever. We were all very proud of that mission of course. We love to do cool things. Keep an eye out for us. We're gonna continue to do cool things. We're a group of 400 so we are small but mighty. Thank you guys for this recognition. Thank you. First off, we're all really proud honestly to be a part of the community. To think that something that was designed and built in Santa Ana starting 20 years ago got to go around the moon and then come out come back

here is something we're enormously proud of and I think all of us as part of Santa Anna should be really proud of that so thank you

All right, next up, I am going to present Santa Ana's annual youth poster contest winners. Here we go.

All right, as they all come up.

City staff going to join them? We're going to wait for them. Hi, guys. Hi. Okay, so little ones, you come right in front. Right here in front. Right here. Right here. Little ones. Okay, the rest of you, come on down. Come close. Where are you going, G? You want to be right here. Right here. Right here. You need to be here. Okay, perfect.

Okay, as city staff finds their spots, good evening. Good evening. On behalf of the City Council, I am pleased to recognize 12 outstanding young artists whose creativity reminds us just how essential water is to our lives, our environment, and our community. Tonight, we celebrate the winners of the 11th Annual City of Santa Ana Youth Water Poster Contest. This year's contest invited students to complete a simple but powerful phrase, water is, and they finished it. and their answers were thoughtful, personal, and deeply meaningful. One student wrote, water is a reflection of us.

Another reminded us that water is a life source. Another described water as love, sustenance, hope, life, community, and adding that it is what holds us through a lifetime. Together, these posters show how Santa Ana's young people understand water, water, not only as something we use, but as something that connects us and deserves our care. This year we received 509 entries from 37 schools across Santa Ana, each one offering a unique perspective through creativity and imagination.

This annual contest sponsored by the city's Water Resources Division, and thank you all of you that are up here from the Water Department, continues to be a fun and educational way for students to explore the role water plays in our daily lives while learning about stewardship and responsibility we would also like to thank the san anna unified school district participating schools and the many teachers and families who support and encourage students to take part year after year to all the families that are here thank you so very much and of course we

thank our judges alejandra garcia david pursley victorino victor bermejo and tramley for their time and thoughtful review of this year's entries. And now, drum roll please. All right, there you go. I am pleased to announce this year's winner. As your name is called, you can come forward but I'll give them a certificate to give you, okay? Don't close your eyes, I promise you're gonna get called. Okay, in the first category, ages five to eight, our finalists are Catalina Pena.

Do the parade wave. Do the parade wave, Miha, like that. Okay. And Roe Holton from Spring CCOC. Woo-hoo! She's awake. She's awake.

Okay. Our grand prize winner is Damian Ornelas from Lincoln Elementary. Parade wave. Parade wave. You gotta wave.

Alright, round of applause. Okay.

Thank you guys. Okay, you want to wait right here? Okay, so wait right here. I got to call the next group. Okay. Believe me, you're going to get your gifts right now. Don't worry. Okay. In the second category, ages 9 to 12, drum roll please.

Our finalists are Melena Cedillo from Lathrop. Come on up. All right.

And Brianna Carmona from Lathrop. up. Our grand prize winner is, I'm sorry if I say this wrong, Leila Luna Reyes from Taft. All right. Congratulations. Okay. In the third category, ages 13 to 14, our finalists are Alejandra Rachel Bravo from Carr Intermediate.

I'm so sorry. Okay I apologize. What is it? Alondra. All right thank you. See they have it Amy. Alondra. I'll have to talk to the staff. Catherine Wences from Via Intermediate.

And our grand prize winner is, and if I say your name wrong please tell me, Quetzali Lopez from Saddleback High School.

Okay thank you ladies. All right congratulations. Okay the fourth category, ages 15 to 18 our finalists are you know I have a problem with names tonight Nayeli Luis Martinez from Middle College High School

Nayeli and Victoria Romero from Segerstrom

Okay. And our grand prize winner is Ty Do from Bolsa Grande.

He does. Okay, congratulations to all of our winners. Your posters, yes, give a big round of applause.

Thank you.

You always get excited when it's about our young people, right? It's amazing. I love it. Your posters remind us that water is not just a resource. It is something we depend on every day and something we all share a responsibility to protect. And that is very true. So we gave them a round of applause. Let's give them another one, please.

Every single one of them.

We invite everyone to take a closer look at the winning posters which will be on display outside the council chamber and featured in this year's water quality report. At this time the water resources staff will be available at the back of the room to guide our winners and their families to receive their trophies and prizes. Hold on don't leave yet, don't leave yet. And then on behalf of the city council we want to thank you to the water resources staff, our schools, our teachers, our families, and students for continuing to support this meaningful program. And I just have to say that I sit on the Orange County

Water Board and Councilmember Fancin's on Met. Met, yes. Met Water Board and we call water gold from heaven and that's what it is because it's so important to each one of us in this room and to all of our families. And so with that, does Does anybody want to say anything? No? Mihal, you want to say something? You sure? Nobody? All right, water, staff, come on up. Robert? Yeah, Robert's gonna come up and speak.

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to appreciate everybody that helped out. Alondra Slees is our new conservation specialist that really stepped in and took a lead and got the poster contest up and going and all the kids ty doe is our returning uh winner won last year and she won again this year so thank you for your winners for participation your posters are great and we'll be looking forward to entering entering them in the mwd contest this upcoming year uh june june thank you water resources division rudy public works alvaro for letting us uh host this annual contest thank you thank you and we're going to take a quick picture okay

Thank you.

Thank you.

stay here please

David PenalozaItem 1

a couple more

all the water

Okay. Okay, next presentation is Mayor Pro Tempano-Losa recognizing Isaac Alegria and Christian for outstanding academic achievements. Come on up.

David PenalozaItem 2

All right.

David PenalozaItem 2

All right, come on in, guys. Step up. All right, good evening. It is my pleasure to recognize Isaac Alegría and Christian Cuatrallo. Right? Is that right? Okay. From, for outstanding academic achievements, they both were recently selected to attend the National Horatio Alger Association Distinguished Scholars Conference, a highly competitive and prestigious honor that recognizes students who have demonstrated perseverance, academic excellence, and a commitment to their communities.

David PenalozaItem 2

Out of 106 scholars selected from across the United States and Canada to attend the National Scholars Conference, these two outstanding students, those cheers are for you guys by the way, were chosen to represent Santa Ana. Isaac Alegría is a proud Mexican-American santanero born and raised in Santa Ana and a senior at Sage High School as well as a graduating senior at the Wooden Floor. Isaac has committed to attending American University on a full scholarship where he will study international studies and Arabic studies. He aspires to become an international lawyer dedicated to improving diplomatic relationships between the

David PenalozaItem 2

United States and Latin American countries. Isaac is an alum of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Next Gen Latino Leadership Program where he was nominated to deliver a speech on youth empowerment and advocacy in Washington DC. As a member and editor of the Scholastic magazine The Giver's Guide, Isaac helped lead a team of 70 students in publishing six award-winning editions. He collaborated with 25 organizations to produce over 50 articles, supported new writers, and contributed to raising $2,500 for charity. His work focused on important social justice issues

David PenalozaItem 2

including false imprisonment, homelessness, and immigration. Isaac was recently recognized by one oc at the spirit of volunteerism awards for his dedication to community service through opportunities like these isaac has further strengthened his commitment to advancing and empowering the latino community nationwide christian a senior at santa ana valley high school plans to attend the university of california san diego where he will study neuroscience and pursue a career in psychiatry an ambitious path dedicated to improving the well-being of others. During his time in high school, Christian served as vice president of

David PenalozaItem 2

the California Scholarship Federation where he promoted scholarships, leadership, and service. Through his role, he helped foster a culture of academic achievement and encourage his peers to give back to their community. Christian has also made an impact as a healthcare ambassador advocating for health education and awareness. His involvement in HOSA future future health professionals allowed him to compete in dental competitions at the state level while building valuable professional connections. In addition, Christian serves as a mentor through Big Brothers Big Sisters of America where he supports the guide and

David PenalozaItem 2

guides younger students, providing them with encouragement and resources they need to succeed. Christian's dedication to service, leadership, and academic excellence reflects his deep commitment to creating meaningful change in the Santa Ana community. Please join me in congratulating Isaac and Christian on their incredible achievements and wishing them continued success in all their future endeavors and their college careers. Give them a round of applause please.

David PenalozaItem 2

Now gentlemen we're going to give you both the opportunity if you like to say say a few words. I'm not sure if your families are here, but who wants to go first?

Isaac. All right, let's go. It means a lot to be up here in a city that I was born in, raised in. My family immigrated here about 25 years ago, and my mom's watching through Zoom. She's at work right now.

or other people in our community can't, but here I am, and hopefully I serve as an example to other students living and studying in Santa Ana that it's possible for us to not leave this place, but it's possible for us to get a good quality education on scholarships. There's people out there that care for us, and personally, it means a lot that Evany is here for us from the Horatio Alguerra Association of Distinguished Americans. And I wanna thank Mr. Benolosa, as well as the other city council members for making this possible,

showing other students that we're here and we're able to get an education just like everybody else. Thank you.

David PenalozaItem 2

All right, and thank you for that. Remember to come back after you're done with your school, with your school, pay it forward, and give back to the city that raised you. Thank you so much to both of them. Round of applause to them both, please. And Miss Ebony, do you want to come up here to take... Come up here, get in the picture. We could have somebody take a picture. Here, do you want to give your phone to... Yeah.

Thank you.

All right. Next up is Councilmember Becerra. He's recognizing the Orange County Fire Authority and Parks and Rec declaring May 2026 as Drowning Prevention Month.

Come on up. Thank you.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 3

no take it back take it back good evening everybody a lot of staging going on behind me all good chief i just like to stay on water all right good good well first of all tonight we joined both the orange county fire authority and our own city of san anna parks and rec department to proclaim may 2026 as drowning prevention month and may May through August 2026 as drowning prevention and awareness season. In an effort to increase the awareness and preparedness of residents, OCFA's 2026 campaigns

Valerie AmezcuaItem 3

– Always Watch the Water and Never Swim Alone – will kick off in May and continue through August. As the summer season heats up, persistent high temperatures, increased water activity, and a lack of awareness continue to heighten the risk of drowning incidents here in California. Drowning remains a leading cause of injury-related deaths among children under five in California. These incidents can occur silently and swiftly, and often as little as 20 to 60 seconds. OCFA's mission is to reduce these tragedies by fostering collaboration, increasing public

Valerie AmezcuaItem 3

awareness and equipping communities with life-saving knowledge. Santa Ana's Parks and Rec Department is also dedicated to providing exceptional services, facilities, and programs to our residents for play, exercise, and lifelong learning. Through expanded public education efforts, enhanced emergency preparedness resources, and proactive drowning prevention strategies with the City and its partners, we hope to empower individuals to recognize and address water-related risks. Tonight we encourage all families, parents, residents, schools, recreation facilities, businesses, and homeowners associations to become

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partners in preparedness by increasing their knowledge of proper safety measures in drowning prevention. In declaring May 2026 as Drowning Prevention Month and May through August 2026 as Drowning Prevention and and awareness season, we reinforce our dedication to the safety and wellbeing of all the residents of our city. So I'd like to bring up Chief Henry, come on up. Chief, I'd like to present you with this proclamation. Sir. Say a few words.

Absolutely. I just want to thank the mayor and the city council for recognizing this. As you know, drowning is a leading cause of death for children under the age of five. Last year, we had 95 drownings in the area in California, specifically here in Orange County, and 30 of them were children under the age of five. So in the city of Santa Ana, we had six, and one was a fatality. So I'm glad that we're accepting this, and we're working with our partners here in the parks and recs. And for more information, go to the parks and recs as well as ours at OCFA.org. And we talk about ABCs, right?

A, always have, you know, adult supervision, which means adults don't swim alone either, right? B, barriers, and lastly, C, classes. Learn how to swim, learn CPR. So thank you. Thank you, Chief.

Thank you. Hi, everybody. I'll make this real quick because I want to turn it over to one of our outstanding team members. First off, to the community, thank you. Mayor, Mayor Pro Temp, council members, thank you. And our city leadership, thank you for all the love and support. Thank you. that you show to our Parks and Recreation Aquatics team, who right here behind you is now in its fourth year of being in-house with the City of Santa Ana. And I am proud to tell you we have done over 12,000, yes, 12,000 swim lessons from infants all the way to our senior citizens. So a big round of applause to that team right here behind us.

And last, I'm gonna bring them up, or I'm gonna bring up Juan, but just so you can recognize them, Christine, Christian, Evelyn, Christina, Cece, and Amanda. These are your leaders out in the water parks, along with our partners in American Red Cross, Kaiser Permanente, and USA Swimming, who give low-cost swim lessons to our people. So again, thank you for the support. And Cece, if you want to come up here, she's got a great speech prepared for you. And thank you all for supporting us.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. Thank you for your leadership and commitment to water safety on behalf of the City of Santa Ana Parks and Recreation Aquatics Team. I am honored to receive this Water Safety Month Proclamation. We invite the community to our pools this summer, starting on June 1st. This summer, we will offer swim lessons, junior lifeguarding, recreational swim, and adult fitness programs. Registration opens May 18th with scholarships available for both adults and youth. We also invite everybody to join us for our Orange County Safer Summer Pool Party on July 18th at El Salvador Pool.

A free water safety event featuring water safety education and resources. We look forward to seeing the community at the pools this summer. Thank you.

También los invitamos al evento Orange County Safer Summer Pool Party el 18 de julio en la piscina El Salvador. Un evento gratis que explora recursos para seguridad en el agua. Gracias.

Thank you.

All right. Next up is Councilman Vasquez.

Recognizing April 28th as Workers Memorial Day.

Let's have Director Rudy Rosas join Councilmember Vasquez, please. Are they here? Oh, perfect. Never mind, Rudy. You were saved. Thank you.

Benjamin VazquezItem 5

Good evening. Tonight I'm proud to recognize the Southern California Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health, or SELCOSH, to honor April 28th as Workers Memorial Day, a solemn day of remembrance for those who have lost their lives, been injured, or become ill on the job. Observed each year on the anniversary of Occupational Safety and Health Act, this day reminds us that the workplace tragedies are preventable and calls us to renew our commitment to a safe and healthy working conditions for all. SoCalCOSH advocates for safe, healthy, and secure jobs for

Benjamin VazquezItem 5

every worker and is grounded in the belief that workplace injuries, illness, and deaths are entirely preventable. Across Southern California, including the Inland Empire, Orange County, and the greater Los Angeles region, they expand the worker power through through coalition building, direct action, education, leadership, development, ensuring that workers have the tools and support needed to create safer workplaces.

Benjamin VazquezItem 5

Through their policy and advocacy work, SoCalCosh partners with worker organizations to push for stronger protections, including expanding health and safety coverage, advancing language access in the workplace, strengthening anti-retaliation laws, and supporting the creation of worker-led safety committees. They also collaborate with local and state agencies, academic institutions, and public health partners to improve enforcement systems and drive meaningful work-centered change. Workers Memorial Day is not only a time to remember, it is also a call to action. It challenges all of us, employers, policy makers,

Benjamin VazquezItem 5

and community members alike, to strengthen protections, up lift worker voices and ensure that every person returns home safely at the end of the workday on behalf of the City Council I thank Salka Akash for their unwavering commitment to worker safety dignity and justice and I am proud to recognize April 28th as workers Memorial Day in our community

Thank you for that. Hello, good evening. My name is Albert Munoz, an organizing worker with local union Smart 170 sheet metal workers. In 2026, the biggest hazards for tradespeople in Orange County involved extreme heat, stress during site work, and respiratory risk from high silica dust in rapid industrial construction. construction. Sheet metal workers, HVAC technicians and industrial fabricators face significant hazards including excessive heat exposure requiring strict Cal OSHA indoor outdoor compliance. Amputation and crushing injuries from machinery press breaks and severe ergonomic strain from

handling heavy, sharp materials. Other major risks involved silicosis from fabrication, falls, and electrical dangers. Here are a few of the top hazards in 2026. Heat illness due to rising temperatures, machine guarding failures, improperly guarded press breaks, and fabrication equipment caused serious amputation and crushing injuries. Physical and ergonomical hazards. Workers face injuries from handling, cutting, and shaping sharp heavy metal sheets.

Respiratory illnesses. Asbestos, which when disturbed releases fibers leading to asbestosis, mesothelioma, and mesothelioma. hazardous fumes containing substances like hexavalent, chromium, cadmium, and nickel, which are documented as respiratory hazards.

Electrical hazards. HVAC professionals continue to face risks from electrical systems requiring rigid lockout tagout protocols. protocols. When we organize, we take safety, health, and health at the workplace very seriously because protecting employee well-being is a fundamental moral, legal, and economic necessity. A safe, secure environment reduces injuries, boosts moral and productivity. When workers

workers feel secured and valued, their engagement and dedication increases.

Effective safety measures are not just about meeting minimum requirements, but creating a culture where everyone's health is recognized as a valuable organizational asset.

We are not the only industry that faces high hazards at work. We are partly part of a Southern California Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health to actively work and advocate for better standards to prevent injuries and deaths in every work site. The Southern California Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health advocates for safe, healthy and secure jobs for all workers and aims to disrupt the root causes of work-related injuries, injuries, illnesses, and fatalities. Through coalition building, we expand worker power, direct action, education, and leadership development.

Now I want to introduce a SoCal Coach organizer in Orange County, a dear friend, and a powerhouse in organizing, Sylvia Hernandez.

Thank you, Albert. We are here just not as organizers, but as witness in advocating for all workers. We always say that we will work hard until every work site is safe for workers so they can return home safe to their families. Special attention, I'm going to mention domestic workers

work, hard work, I would say, as California government has updated the standards to align them with federal OSHA law, but still we need to cover more than half of the domestic workers in the whole state of California. the are covered now. So we are still working for them. Also indoor heat that affects workers like janitors or

restaurant workers. They also need stronger protections at a federal the federal law. So we're still working on that. And I'm very proud to be here on behalf of all of those workers, every industry, and saying thank you. We will really appreciate all of the workers here present, not only here but there, present in this room. We really appreciate that the city of Santa Ana recognizes that every worker life matters. We had on April 28 the water

tower enlightened, so we really appreciate that. Every worker in the city should know that we are valuable, not only essential workers, but valuable residents of this city. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Mr. City Manager, can we please have a presentation?

Alvaro NuñezItem 5

Yes, we're going to have an economic development presentation by Community Development Director Mike Garcia. We'll be quick.

While we're waiting, Madam City Attorney, do you have anything to report out?

Sonia R. CarvalhoItem 5

while we're waiting yeah thank you mayor i'd be happy to do that this time um make use of our time thank you we did hold a closed session on several items this evening we have one item reportable action in the case of javier flores versus the city of santa ana the city council voted six to zero with council member hernandez absent to settle that case for sixty thousand dollars and we also had a recusal um which i'll let our council member ty fan make thank you

Thai Viet PhanItem 5

Thank you Madam City Attorney. I was recused from item, closed session item number four, Conference of Legal Counsel, but due to the confidential nature of that I cannot discuss why I had to recuse myself. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you very much Madam City Attorney. Mr. City Manager.

Your mic sir please. Please. Good evening, Mayor, council members. Thank you for the opportunity to provide an update on the city's Economic Development Division and our activities. Tonight's presentation will highlight how the Economic Development Division supports local businesses, drives revenue growth, helps attract investment, and advances initiatives that strengthen the city's economic future.

So what we do, the Economic Development Division does not have land use enforcement powers, but what we do do is strive to assist businesses in job creation, connecting businesses to private investment, site selection, and work with businesses on retention and expansion efforts. We like to work across departments to help solve challenges for obtaining necessary permits, whether it's with the city, the county, or state agencies. agencies.

Economic development provides not only one-on-one advising and startup guidance, permit and licensing navigation, but we also try to connect businesses to grants and our workforce programs in our division with the work center. In 2025, we opened the business assistance office on the first floor near the planning to offer in-person, phone, virtual, and walk-in support to make city services business friendly. And staff are in the Business Assistance Office Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

We've currently met with over 300 businesses to try to help them navigate permitting and business license processes. We advertise these services on the website, social media, the newsletter, and through word of mouth that comes in from calls on our economic development hotline.

We try to understand that the development community prioritizes jurisdictions that have clear, consistent, and predictable processes. To that end, we meet regularly with Planning and Building, Public Works, Fire, Police Department, and other departments to understand and identify ways to address issues that affect our businesses, including streamlining the development review and permit process, working with planning and building. They've done a great job with bringing in tools like Accela, starting with PBX, and their permits on demand, the pod service. Our police department has been very important to us,

working with businesses that are having issues with crime, trespassing, and with fire with public safety issues that could affect their business. Our Economic Development Division has an Employment Services staff at the Work Center at 801 Civic Center to connect employers and employees with hiring events, business engagement, and identifying qualified candidates for businesses. Here are some highlights of some actions that have been taken and some numbers that have come about through our business concierge services with 5600 businesses opening in 2025

after looking at our business license activity. We conduct monthly workshops and economic development in English and Spanish. We also have been responsive to over 250 business hotline calls and hosting monthly workshops that have served more than 200 attendees. I wanted to highlight the Asociación de Emprendedores. It's a grant-funded program that brought in Spanish language training to 84 different businesses and dispersed approximately $29,000 in grants to help small businesses launch and grow their business. We're currently working on a survey.

We've gathered 80 responses at this point, and over 50 respondents have reported that they have now successfully secured a business license and are actively working towards opening opening a business in the city. Here are some more business grant activity, including $57,000 in microenterprise startup grants to help small businesses launch and stabilize their business and create new economic activity in our community. Our youth workforce programs are very important to our community.

We had 714 youth employed in the paid professional positions through the Santa Ana Youth Program. Our work center not only provides that, but has delivered over workforce services to over 1,700 individuals. I think it keeps growing every day, so we're happy about that. We've expanded our employer engagement by connecting with over 2,800 employers, hosting 11 job fairs that have served 212 employers and over 1,200 attendees at recent apprenticeship fairs held at City Hall and at the Work Center.

One of the important ways that Santa Ana attracts visitors and tourists is through arts and culture. and sorry about that and one of the most important things that the city's council did was invested 150 grand into the monthly art walk the art arts and culture division workgroup of our economic development division also awarded 43 artists grants together all of these total 383 thousand dollars of investment over of over a two-year period and some notable grants that I wanted to highlight include Frida cinema. They were able to fund an intern. They were able to prepare 48

promotional films of local artists. There were 40 free disc jockey or DJ classes held at Pizza Press. Green MPNA or the Madison Park Neighborhood Association worked with over 100 participants to paint neighborhood murals and the Cambodian family provided free Khmer dance classes that led to a performance.

Wanted to also say that one of the more important things that we've done is really connect with the Sahuayo Michoacan, and we did our Sahuayo Sister Cities Business Expo with over 2,500 attendees. And we're looking at expanding with that as well as other opportunities, like working with the Vietnamese community as well. The Vietnamese Business Forum was also well attended. Something that happened was a change in how we do our web page. I want to give a thanks to Minh Thai. He brought us together, got us to look differently at our website.

We looked at how we could create business startup guides that provide step-by-step guidance to businesses to understand the requirements, timelines, permits, and the next steps for starting a Santa Ana business. and we broke them up into different industries. We're open to seeing how others could, other industry guides could be created. Our department has been working with Paul and other folks to work on important business retention attraction tools. We launched a Made in Santa Ana video series, which spotlights local businesses and tells Santa Ana's economic story in a modern and engaging way.

Our first one was with a bare paint, and the second one was with Flame Broiler. We continually produce monthly newsletters with over 10,000 subscribers and obtaining 200,000 combined views. These efforts have helped promote Santa Ana as a place to invest, visit, and do business.

You know, the city staff, Chamber of Commerce, Travel Santa Ana, all work together to promote restaurants and new businesses. We wanted to highlight, as you can see, a lot of the new businesses that have been coming to town are restaurants that have added to our city's delicious food scene, in the words of Travel Santa Ana. Here's some examples from some recent ribbon cuttings. Our businesses that are expanding within our city are not just restaurants and retailers, storytellers, but we like to celebrate those that have had a quick expansion, such as Andrew Rill.

Andrew Rill is one of the ones that I'm going to highlight in a little bit. Very important to how new business activity can strengthen our corridors, create jobs, activate storefronts, and expand our local tax base. Main Place is an example of that. Main Place, not only with their expansion with residential, but the creation of the culinary district will be important to the future of the city. Related at Bristol will completely change the way tourists, residents, and Orange County visitors experience South Santa Ana.

Anna Robinson Pharma in November 2025 reached out to our economic development division to work on expansion and coordinate the financing process and bring forward a bond financing opportunity through the California Enterprise Development Authority, which resulted in the issuance of up to $40 million in taxable revenue bonds.

Andrew Hill, as I mentioned, has been very important. They quickly grew from one location to eight facilities, which has totaled over 651,000 square feet. Andrew Hill is a leading defense technology company. We're happy to have them in the city. Tire distribution, converted an outdated multi-tenant industrial complex into a modern distribution center. And this is very important for the city retaining its competitive advantage for industrial space in the county. Wanted to get into some of the numbers on retail vacancies here.

Santa Ana's retail market remains one of the most stable in Orange County. It's got a vacancy rate of 4.1%, which matches the county's overall average, and it outperforms other markets. including the fact that Santa Ana is essentially on par with Irvine, reinforcing its position as a steady, well-occupied retail sub-market.

This slide shows that Santa Ana's overall vacancy rate of 16.15% is notably skewed by elevated vacancy in the airport sub-market, which inflates the market-wide average. In contrast, the core Santa Ana market is performing significantly better with a vacancy rate at just 10%. It's the lowest among Orange County submarkets. Our industrial vacancy rates have always been low and they continue to be so, where 4% vacancy is well below the county average and we're outperforming strong and consistent, with

with strong and consistent tenant demand.

We have a lot of development momentum that has been built up through larger development and reinvestment projects. What I wanted to show, it's gonna take a little bit, but we're gonna show the video. We don't have time for that, we will move on, but this is a highlight that we'd like to show you from the GROW conference. You can find that in other locations. It's a great video on highlighting a lot of future development coming. We continue to stay and explore hotel opportunities at different locations within our city, including redevelopment and infill sites.

And we are looking at conducting a hotel feasibility study to evaluate market demand, identify the strongest development opportunities in our city, and determine what hotel product types are best suited for Santa Ana. Ultimately, this feasibility study should position us to generate new transient occupancy tax revenue or hotel visitor tax, which will support tourism and strengthen the local economic activity. We do keep our General Plan 5 focus areas at the front of our minds when we are working with folks that are looking for sites. Economic development opportunities advance these target areas through business attraction,

attraction, investment and redevelopment. And through the public realm's plans, streetscape, placemaking and infrastructure improvements will make established areas more attractive to businesses, residents and visitors, strengthening the city's market confidence and accelerating reinvestment. Here are some key initiatives that the Economic Development Division will be focused on. One of the most important things is outlining broader strategies for business retention and attraction.

And industry clusters are ways that we're going to group related businesses, suppliers and workers, so that they can be located near each other at a minimum, understand that there are good business-to-business connections that can be had in our city. We're going to be looking at manufacturing, aerospace, healthcare and medical service, logistics and trade, creative industries and maintaining a good relationship with our retail and small business corridor areas.

The downtown continues to be a focus area for the city. We think that through marketing and continuing with the city's Clean and Safe program, preparing preparing for the Orange County streetcar, and other opportunities and growth will help to make the downtown a thriving area for the city.

We're working on a mixed-use business attraction initiative. It's gonna target these ground-flow retail activation. One of the ways we wanna do that is have economic development staff target businesses that are less dependent on parking, such as cafes, creative retail, and neighborhood serving businesses.

We've identified 147 different commercial properties with vacancies and through a vacant to vibrant initiative we're going to focus on identifying vacant commercial properties with by engaging with those property owners and brokers, marketing their available sites, and trying to work with the property make sure that they support new businesses by offering pop-up or reinvestment opportunities, flexible leasing options. These are ways that we hope that vacant properties can get back on the market.

Looking ahead, I wanted to spend a little more time here and identify areas where we can expand revenue, such as attracting tenants at Santa Ana Regional Transportation Center. Center. Staff has been marketing the station to prospective retail tenants. However, unfortunately, inconsistent foot traffic has continued to present challenges in attracting and securing long-term occupancy. The development of the county-owned properties near the Santa Ana Regional Transportation Center represents a major economic opportunity to strengthen

in this area and created as a true transit oriented district that's right off the 5 freeway activating these underutilized sites can bring new housing retail office and even possibly some hotel development that's being proposed along that santa ana boulevard boulevard corridor of course we'd like to attract new events to the stadium we think that'll be good for bringing in visitors spending and exposure to the city that can help economic spill over into our hotels our restaurants and other local businesses i think it's important for the city

to continue with its cultural arts and entertainment focus that's one of the things that truly gives the city a unique identifying character for within the county formalizing it as a district and Arts and Entertainment District can attract more visitors and events and business activity. We're looking at whether there's a vacant property activation fee or incentives that can help property owners to create opportunities for new and faster activation of their vacant spaces. City

owned property creates some advertising opportunities. This will create not only It can certainly help alleviate tax burdens, but it can also help create advertising partnerships for some of our businesses within the city. We're working with Parks and Recreation to look at how to improve the film and permitting process and take advantage of Santa Ana's historic character and unique locations. These concepts can help bring in an immediate fee revenue by making these changes will help Santa in a position itself for long-term fiscal sustainability we're looking at how the civic

center can be revitalized and how the city manager's office might be looking at possibly a civic center revitalization master plan which can present significant economic opportunities of modern our public facilities and activate under utilized land within the civic center Finally, I wanted to mention Willowick, which is a 100-acre golf course that's actually owned by the City of Garden Grove, but it's within our boundaries. I know that in the past, Willowick has been a lot of efforts, taken a lot of efforts for redevelopment. We think it would be important to reengage with the City of Garden Grove to explore potential

redevelopment opportunities.

In closing, I wanted to thank you. It's important for us to understand that supporting businesses in their growth, creating jobs, generating revenue, and strengthening commercial corridors are the most important thing that our team can handle. And long-term opportunities that will benefit residents and businesses are basically the main goal for our department and mainly within the Economic Development Division. We're happy to present this to you and turn it over to the City Manager.

Thank you, Mr. City Manager. I think we're done. And so if the Council has questions, I know I'll call on you right now. If the Council has comments or questions, I just want to say that we have 24 people who are waiting to speak. So maybe we could start the conversation and then go to public comments and then go back, depending how long this takes. So I just want to remind that. Councilman Becerra, I saw it go up quick and fast there.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 6

Go ahead. I was, Mayor. Thank you. First of all, thank you, Director Garcia, for the presentation. I do appreciate one of the aspects of your presentation to talk about walking people through the public counter, because we do have some folks that come in. They know how to navigate the process. But for a lot of folks that we're trying to encourage those entrepreneurs to come into town and open up shop, it is important to be able to understand the process. Time is money and I appreciate that your staff is helping them make it their way through. You mentioned the hotel feasibility study, so tell me a little

bit more about that. We think working with their different hotel consultants that do this type of work for cities, they at a minimum would help identify what different hotel occupancy and average daily rates could be achieved.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 6

I'm sorry Mike, and maybe I was a little vague. What I meant was, so have we kicked it off?

We have not.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 6

And do you have a timeline when you expect to?

Yeah, we're hoping that through this coming fiscal year that we'll have it underway.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 6

I appreciate that. I just want to say not only should we be looking at how to attract more hotels, but we need to be looking at how we improve the climate for our existing hotels. else. You know, if you look at the rates in Irvine versus Santa Ana, we're talking like from Hotel Circle to a mile east, you look at anywhere between $60, $80 per night, a differential. And to me, Santa Ana has way more to offer. No disrespect to Irvine, but at the same time, let's be real. I mean, I mean, beige boxes are vibrant downtown. I mean, the comparison is night and day.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 6

There should be no reason why folks aren't staying in the middle of Orange County. If you want to go to something as far north as Yerba Linda or Brea, as far south as San Clemente or all the way out to the ocean, we're in the middle of it all. I see a lot of our artists here tonight, and they've helped make our downtown very vibrant. Again, why would you not want to stay somewhere like that? But, again, there's obviously a reason why it's happening. and there are, as you said, consultants that know this stuff. They're smarter than all of us combined. Let's get them on this and let's move it forward.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 6

Last thing I'll just say is, well, two things. One is we need to be looking at incentives to bring folks in. I don't wanna go back to the days of redevelopment, but I'm looking at what Bray is doing. Bray is trying to attract businesses. They're getting notoriety for that bit. They're out there, they're trying. They're not just playing small ball. We're not gonna get to the point where we won't have structural deficits if we don't think bigger than where we are now. You know, I don't want a Disneyland. We don't need a Disneyland, but we do need something. Think

Valerie AmezcuaItem 6

about this. Anaheim right now, as of 2023-24, $247 million in TOT taxes. That's taxes that people, not our residents, but folks coming to Santa Ana are paying. Do you know how much we are getting right now for the last three years? 9.5 million. That's all we're getting. So for those that are in the audience that want to see us buy some land for parks, imagine what we could do for 224 million per year. We'd have a lot of parks, but that's what we've got to start thinking bigger. We've got to think a lot bigger. If we don't, if we don't, we're going to continuously see these

Valerie AmezcuaItem 6

structural deficits. We're going to see taxes go up because we're not thinking big. We're not attracting the revenue that we need to attract. So I'm I was very emphatic about having this presentation tonight. I want to thank you, Director Garcia, for doing it. But and there's a lot of promising things in there. There's some promising developments coming down the pipeline, but we can't rest on our laurels. We've got to do better. I mean if you think about it, last thing I'll say, if we had just 8% single-digit, 8% of Anaheim's TOT, we wouldn't be talking about

Valerie AmezcuaItem 6

structural deficits this year. So thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Councilman Hernandez.

Jessie LopezItem 6

Thank you. Councilmember Lopez? Yes, thank you. Thank you for the presentation. One of the key initiatives that you brought forward that I'm very supportive and I hope that staff urgently works on this is the vacant land initiative, right? There's absolutely, and you have heard me talk about this publicly and privately, there's no reason why property owners, particularly those out of state, are holding onto property in our city for 10, 20, 30 years without any consequence, right? We need to generate money, we need to ensure that they are aware of the issues on their property lots and the cost to the taxpayers of the city

Jessie LopezItem 6

because we are the ones ultimately paying to ensure that there are no nuisances because of a lack of care and a lack of partnership with the city. So I hope that you're able to bring that sooner sooner rather than later because that is something that I hope that this council is able to support moving forward. And I also support the request of diversifying our business portfolio. We don't want a McDonald's in every corner. I think that that is against the elements of our general plan in terms of fighting for a much healthier community. And that's not just about the number of trees that we plant in the city, but it is holistically,

Jessie LopezItem 6

It is a holistic approach. And I also just want to thank you for this presentation. I know that you've heard so much in terms of how can we remove some of the red tape, some of the bureaucracy that we've heard from so many in our community, and I've seen some of those steps being implemented. There's much more that we need to do, but I do think that we are heading in a much better direction than we were five years ago. And I also just want to thank, I can't read my own chicken scratch as they say.

Jessie LopezItem 6

Well overall, just thank you for the presentation and I know that we'll continue our conversations. Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing, oh I'm sorry, Council Member Vasquez, go ahead.

Benjamin VazquezItem 6

Thank you. And thank you to the staff and the vision of economic development that we've been calling out for. there was good work put in and i appreciate the development of different sections and the vision of not just one we're not going to rely on one area we're going to rely on multiple areas to bring in a new economic development to bring in new revenue so i appreciate don't take your eye off a harbor it's our busiest corridor people go from disneyland to the beach and we have a trolley going there so if we could bring him down here it would be great keep your eye on the ball i

Benjamin VazquezItem 6

appreciate the moving forward on this and now we're now this city is working for the best for all the people and not just for one person i mean like this is amazing work you guys have laid out a plan and i hope we move forward with it thank you thank you councilman vasquez the

The streetcar only goes to Harbor. I just want you to know 4.1 miles, not near Disneyland, but just want to clarify that. So thank you, but it's important. They can take the bus from Harbor to Disneyland. Thank you for the presentation. There's a lot of really good information and I know that you kind of went through it. And I know the different members up here have had meetings with the city manager's office on economic development. And thank you Council Member Lopez for bringing up the vacant property activation. I know we talked about that today when we met. I brought that up with you as well,

especially on the corner of Grand and 17th, that out of state owner that I always ask Mike about. And there's some things that we can do, and I'm looking forward to doing those things so that we can hold him or her accountable so that we don't have that huge lot on 17th and Grand, vacant and looking just awful. So great presentation. There's a lot that can be done in our city and there's a lot to do. Mr. City Manager, thank you for thinking big by even putting Willowick on here. That's gonna be very interesting time for us.

So thank you again, Mr. Garcia for this presentation and ready to move on. Thank you. Okay, this is the time of the meeting for the City Council to receive comments from the public on agenda and non-agenda items. items. Madam City Clerk, please explain the public comment procedures and call the first

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

speakers. Thank you, Mayor. Pursuant to resolution number 2025-004, speakers are requested to address the City Council directly and to refrain from profane language, racial epitaphs, and libelous or slanderous statements that disturb the decorum of the meeting. Pursuant to the Brown Act, the City Council may not enter into discussion at this time. Speakers will have three minutes for their comments. Before calling speakers, I'll report the summary of emails provided as of today. By 2 p.m. the city received a total of 54 e-comments, six on non-agenda topics, 14 related to item 10, three for item 11, 11 comments for item 28,

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

14 comments for item 29, and six comments for item number 30. Those were distributed to the city council and made available online for public review. We'll now hear from members of the public that are physically present in the council chamber, followed by those on the conference call or Zoom to provide comments on agenda or non-agenda topics. Please state your name and

the ward or neighborhood that you reside in for the record. Excuse me before you call the names. I just want to remind the Council and I've discussed this with the City Attorney as well as the City Manager. If we're going to get up and leave and go to the restroom or if you need a break we can call a break here at the meeting and take five minutes so everybody can take care of what they need to take. But it's on a regular basis that people get up and leave with only four for council members here. Sometimes we have to look around to see if there is a quorum here. So I would ask that out of, and I've asked this before,

out of respect for the public, out of respect for comments, out of respect for just the positions that we all hold up here, that we try to remain seated. And if you need a break, please say something so that we can take a five minute bathroom break for everybody up here because we all need that. So instead of getting up and leaving. And then at the end of the meeting with council comments, comments, I really want to say thank you to the council members at State for the entire meeting because it shows such a sign of respect for each other. So thank you very much. Madam City Clerk, go ahead.

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

I'll be calling three names at a time. If you could please line up in the center aisle behind the podium. Nancy Robles, Jared Lindo, and Ed Murashi, first three speakers. Nancy, Jared, and Ed. ! Speaking time is three minutes.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members. My name is Nancy Robles and I serve as President of SEAU Local 721 representing the folks who serve this community day in and day out. I'm here to speak on two items tonight. Item number 28 and item number 30. First we support item 4, regarding the ordinance establishing staff and operational standards for self-service checkout stations in drug and food retail establishments. As technology evolves, we must strike the right balance between innovation and

responsibility. Convenience should not come at the expense of good jobs, worker workers, safety, or quality customer service. On item number 30, the budget work-study session, we recognize the seriousness of the city's projected deficit. Our members understand these challenges. We live here, face the same rising costs, and care deeply about the services we provide. However, we have serious concerns with the proposal suggesting employees' furlough, especially especially as it appears to target represented employees while excluding others.

That raises a fundamental issue of fairness. SEIU was the only union that furloughed more than 15 years ago because we love our city and we did not want to see it face bankruptcy. And we do not expect to be the only group asked to shoulder that burden again. again. If furloughs are considered, they must be applied across the entire organization. A citywide problem requires a citywide solution. Singling out one group places an unequal burden on those already contributing every day. Furloughs are not just numbers, they are reductions

in pay that impact families, morale, and the quality of service to our residents. Before Before moving into this direction, we urge the city to explore all other options and engage all labor groups in a transparent and collaborative process. Our members are ready to be a part of the solution, but it must be a fair, consistent, and shared endeavor. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council Members. My name is Jared Lindo, and I've lived in Washington Square neighborhood for the past 10 years in Ward 5. I'm here today to respectfully request that the City fund a neighborhood park, specifically option two, identified in the Washington Square feasibility study. I'm speaking not only as a resident, but as a father of a 15-year-old daughter, Gabriela, and a one-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Penelope, and with my twins expected on the way, where they would be here supporting me, but they're taking care of their mother.

When I think of Washington Square, I think about where my children will grow up, where they'll play, and how they'll develop into the future, and specifically, the city of Santa Ana. My goal as a father is simple, is to provide them with a safe and nurturing environment to do that. Currently, children in the neighborhood, including my own, are gathering after school and playing on the streets and parking lots due to an absence of a safe public green space. Washington Square serves families from nearby schools, including Bullard and Heroes Elementary.

Two schools, thousands of residents, and zero parks within Washington Square neighborhoods. A park in Washington Square is not just for children. It would support the full life spectrum of this community. It would provide space for families like mine while supporting the health, mobility, well-being of our aging residents. This neighborhood dates back to the 1920s. For over 100 years, it's been without a park. Over time, development has eliminated green space, and today the area is identified as a park gap and environmental justice community and underserved in access to open space it's a

community just a throws a stone's throw away i want to thank the city and the staff for the work that you've done to recognize this and to begin addressing these long standing inequities the feasibility study confirms that this park is real and it's a viable opportunity and it directly supports the city's park master plan goal of acquiring land and providing park access in underserved neighborhoods like my own. I respectfully ask that the city take next steps to fund option 2 while this

opportunity still exists today. Thank you for your time and your support of our

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

Park Community Park. The next three speakers, if you could please line up. Ed Marashi, Nina Jurek,

Alyssa Arney. Good evening, City Council members and staff. I'm Ed Marashi from Floral Park. I'm also the Santa Ana Historic Resource Commission Chairperson. And I wanted to give a quick summary of some of the activities we've done this past year, because it will also tie to Agenda Item number 29 tonight. Besides the six meetings we've had the past year where we've reviewed 17 properties, we've also had three subcommittees. One of the subcommittees was the Historic Preservation Award Committee, where in January we presented four homeowners who had done amazing jobs at

preserving their homes and presented them awards. And then the second The second one was the, it was the Chapter 30, where we're looking to make the first major changes I've ever seen to the Chapter 30 charter. And those will be coming to you shortly. We voted on them in March, and they're going through legal discussions now, and then they'll be presented to you for your vote. And what they do is they talk about three things. Number one, dereliction of property, putting more enforcement into that.

Number two, making sure that realtors that present future homeowners that are interested in buying historical property, that that is a historical property, what that comes with. And then finally also changing the purview of the HRC Commission itself, because up to this point the purview has only been the structure, where now we're looking at doing the overall property itself. And then finally, the last one we've done, and this started with Commissioner Escamilla, was with the Vasquez murals. So the whole idea of bringing public art and putting that on the historic register was presented.

We then formed a sub hoc committee at the end of the year, had our first meeting, and now we have our next meeting on June 4th. So the outcome is I'm hoping that after you discuss item 29 that you agree having public art put on the historic register makes sense and that you also direct the HRC which has already started that work to continue and finish it because you've seen the other things that we've been able to accomplish this past year. Thank you very much for your time.

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

Nina Jurek, Alyssa Arne, Jeff Dole.

Hi. Good evening, Mayor, members of City Council. My name is Nina Jurek. I live in Washington Square, Ward 5. Thank you again for listening to my continued plea for a park in Washington Square. For the past three and a half years, myself and many of the neighbors have stood before you. You've asked us to show community support and we did. We came together, we organized, we got petition signed, which were later a part of the feasibility study. But what we haven't fully shown you until tonight is just how deeply this community wants a park. You may have received an email or two to that effect.

And they are here in attendance tonight, just a sampling. Thank you, neighborhood, for all of your support. For me, the why just really hit home over this past holidays. My son lives out of the area. Rest of my family lives well over an hour away. I've got a 95-year-old father. I am the house that everybody gathers at and it's a drive to get to me. Within the family, there are three littles. After everybody drove, my son over six hours to get to me, we had to get the wiggles out of the little ones and they had to go find a park to play in.

My 95-year-old father looked around and went, what? They just got here. We had to get the littles out. It took a while before we could all reconvene. and what we realized is that we were truly missing a connection. That is my why. It really became clear. A park in Washington Square would allow all generations to gather, walk together, share those moments without having to pack up and leave. You know the site. You've identified that it's ideal for a Park. The need is undeniable. Washington Square is an environmental justice area.

We're surrounded by schools including two elementary schools, middle school, Santa Ana College. We are near one of the busiest intersections, 17th and Bristol. Our neighborhood provides a direct opportunity to balance all of that busyness, all of the traffic, all of the people with a park. We're thankful for for the past year that the city has displayed tremendous growth for parks in our city. Infrastructure within the city has gone on all around the perimeter, but what hasn't happened is within Washington Square. Our neighborhood remains underserved.

Our city is short approximately 10 acres of needed open space. Washington Square residents are taxpayers. We contribute to the city. We're simply asking for equitable investment of her neighborhood, respectfully urge you to fund option two of the feasibility study and move forward with the acquisition before the opportunity is gone. Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

Alyssa, followed by Jeff, followed by Nicole Gee.

Hello, Mayor and city council members. My name is Alyssa Arne and I live in Ward 5 and I am here to advocate for the implementation of said park. Thanks, Nina, for the wonderful speech. I moved into the neighborhood about five years ago, and it was honestly a pleasant surprise. I didn't realize how historic the neighborhood was, and our house is almost 100 years old. It is a very special neighborhood, and I think that building this park would really highlight that. It also falls in line with Mayor Meskwa's beautification of the city initiative. So we would really, really appreciate your support in backing this for our beautiful

neighborhood. Thank you.

Jeff Doley, City Council Member, Washington Sq. I actually recently emailed you regarding a possible policy improvement that would offer for cost savings and cleaner environment by promoting more native plants. And I'd love to discuss that further, but I'm here in support of item 30, that is a park for Washington Square. Washington Square is a highly walkable and vibrant neighborhood. For instance, we frequently have neighborhood events that have a lot of fun, like potlucks, movie nights, chili cook-offs, and currently we host these events out of our homes, which are very limited capacity.

These are old homes, a lot of smaller homes.

And Washington Square also has many families within it, as my neighbors have pointed out.

And without a park, it's common to see children playing in the middle of the street because they have nowhere else to go. So having a park would provide a space for events as well as a safe space for children to play. Washington Square is an environmental justice community, and the only green space we have at the moment is in our own yards, which are modest in size. We have a willing seller of the land. We may never get an opportunity like this again. So please do not overlook our neighborhood's needs. This is about quality of life. Give Washington Square Park that it deserves. Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

Next three speakers, Nicole Gee, Tracy Simons, Sue Palak.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and council members. My name is Nicole Gee from Ward 5. I would like to express my strong support for the development of a community park in Washington Square. As a public health nurse certified in oncology, I see firsthand how environment and access access to healthy spaces directly influences long-term health outcomes. Access to a safe, nearby green space is not simply an amenity. It's a critical, evidence-based public health resource with measurable physical, mental, and economic benefits. From a healthcare perspective, regular access to parks and green spaces supports increased

physical activity, which is associated with reduced risk of chronic diseases, including several types of cancer. cancer. Leading public health authorities, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute, emphasize that consistent moderate exercise like walking, biking, or active play in a park can significantly improve overall health and reduce long-term health care burden. Mental health outcomes are equally as important. Time spent in green space has been shown to reduce stress, anxiety, and depression, while while improving mood and cognitive function, which I could use right now.

In my profession, I see the growing impact of stress-related conditions, and access to natural environments is a simple yet powerful preventive tool that benefits individuals across all age groups. Beyond health, financial benefits of a community park for urban cities are well documented. Parks contribute to strengthening local tax base as they attract residents and small businesses, support local and economic activity, spending over time by promoting preventive health and lowering health care costs associated with chronic disease. Well-maintained parks can contribute to reduce crime rates and

improve neighborhood desirability, further supporting economic stability. However, proximity is key. Residents are significantly more likely to use parks when they are within walking distance. Without accessible green space, many urban communities face barriers to healthy living, contributing to long-term health inequities and higher societal costs. Investing in a community park is a practical, forward-thinking decision that supports both public health and economic vitality. An investment is not only in infrastructure but in the well-being, resilience, and sustainability of our

community. We see your passion and we see your commitment for Santa Ana today, the the Santa Ana for Tomorrow, and our children's Santa Ana. We respectfully urge you to support the development of a park in Washington Square as a meaningful and lasting benefit for the community. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

Tracy Simons, Sue Palak, Johan Lopez.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council. My name's Tracy Simons, and I'm a resident of Washington Square. Thank you for your time. I'm here to ask for your support in creating a walkable, multi-generational park in Washington Square, one that serves children, families, and seniors alike. Our neighborhood is historic and vibrant, but we lack a safe, accessible green space with an easy walking distance. Many residents, especially seniors and families with young children, don't have a nearby place to walk, play, or gather without getting in a car. A walkable park would change that.

It would give children a safe place to play close to home and provide seniors with a comfortable place to stay active. Just as importantly, it would create a shared space where neighbors can connect across generations, strengthening the sense of community that already defines Washington Square. There is more than a park. It is an investment in quality of life and equity. Every resident deserves access to safe, nearby green spaces. I respectfully urge you to support a walkable, multi-generational park in the Washington Square and to prioritize community-centered spaces like this in Santa Ana.

Again, thank you for your time.

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

Sue Palak, Johan Lopez, Victor Bermejo.

Good evening, Sue from Ward 4.

Do you know what a pederast is? P-E-D-E-R-A-S-T? A pederast is a grown man who goes after and grooms vulnerable, naive adolescent boys into an illegal sexual relationship. It's sick. I have known three people who have been affected by a pederast. Now, I'm talking about many years ago, but I do know what a pederast is. Harvey Milk is deemed to be a pederast. And I want to tell you, I don't think any of you up here, not one of you do I think is approving of any of this. I'm just trying to bring something to your attention.

I cannot celebrate Harvey Milk Day because, you know, these three people that I knew, One of them grew up to be a school teacher and he stabbed himself in the stomach trying to kill himself. Another one that I knew in the neighborhood, I knew that he and I had heard that he never recovered and was in and out of mental hospitals. A third one tried to kill himself also and suffered all his life from what happened to him and none of the three were gay. I give the city the benefit of the doubt

on all of this because I'm from a different generation and I realize that some of you may not have ever heard about this and I know it was a long not that long ago that I heard about the term pederast. So you know the most notable relationship that Milk had was with an unstable adolescent 16 year old boy and as that boy matured into a man he committed suicide and it said it was because of the tumultuous relationship he had with milk and not long ago the US Navy changed the name of a ship from the Harvey Milk to a World War two hero so I

understand that the city is locked into an MOU on this honoring business with milk and I know that a lot of this has come down from San Francisco or so I'm I'm sorry, Sacramento. But I want you all to do your homework about all of this because you know what? If you decide to stand and have your picture taken for a ceremony honoring Harvey Milk like you did last year, and I don't think you knew about this, so I'm not accusing you of anything, I'm just saying is that maybe you want to think twice about that and not have your picture taken because it's going to follow you all your career.

And I can tell you the devastation that I know of of men like this, and sometimes it's I'm not going to say it's a ring. And there was rumor that this came from a ring from a major city that people were involved with this. And I don't know how many people were affected in the town where I grew up with this. But I cannot stand and honor Harvey Milk. And I'm ringing the bell. And you do as you please. Sue, your time is up. Thank you very much.

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

Yohan Lopez followed by Victor Bermejo and Giovanni Chavez.

Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. You can raise that up, sir. You can raise it up. Yeah, all the way so you don't have to lean over. So I'm a first-gen low-income student. We're writing to address a critical and preventable health issue in Santa Ana which is limited access to basic dental care. In partnership with Affordable Dentists, our community initiative provides free dental dental screenings and oral health education to underserved families focusing on prevention and to reduce long-term health costs. This effort is supported by faculty from the UCLA School of Dentistry and student volunteers from Santa Ana College,

UCLA and UCI, bringing together experienced clinicians and future providers in a unified community effort. Untreated dental disease remains a leading cause of pain, missed work in school and preventable healthcare costs. By delivering care directly into the community, we remove barriers and provide immediate impact. We would welcome the opportunity to partner with the city to expand this initiative through community events and city facilities, public health outreach coordination, community awareness and efforts, and we respectfully request a brief meeting with your office to discuss implementation in alignment with city priorities.

We strongly believe here at Affordable Dentists that everyone deserves access to quality dental care, regardless of age, income, insurance status, and location. And thank you for your leadership and commitment to the health of Santa Ana residents. We look forward to working together to expand access to care. Respectfully, Johan Lopez, future doctor, and not just any future doctor, but future doctor at the UCLA School of Dentistry. Thank you for your time.

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

Victor Bermejo, Giovanni Chavez, Jorge Rodriguez.

Good evening, City Council, Mayor Mezcla. My name is Victor. I live in Ward 5. I'm the commissioner for Ward 6, Arts and Culture. And I'm here tonight to talk about how we're short two commissioners from Ward 1 as well as from Ward 5. The reason this is important is because it is not meeting our quorum to pass grants, community events, as well as murals. I enjoy my position at the Arts and Culture. I was a part of the water poster judging contest.

And just a shout out to all the contestants. I've never seen so many young ladies, artistic young ladies, coming out of the city of Santa Ana. So it'd be great to really get our commission going. It'd be great to see one of the contestants five years from now say, I was at the dais and now I'm applying for a grant from the city. So thank you for everything you guys do. I appreciate it. And you guys have a great night.

Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. I'm Giovanni Chavez, a Santa Ana resident in French Park, I'm speaking on item 28. I urge you to adopt the staff and operational standards for self-service checkouts at our drug and food retail establishment. We are seeing the real consequences of removing the human element from our retail stores in real time. Retail theft has increased, residents have lost jobs, those that have kept their jobs are overworked, and our residents get a weaker overall customer experience. experience. Staff and operational standards would help us address all of these issues,

particularly when dealing with the looming budget deficit. It is critical that our residents get the best out of our retail establishments. I want to state unequivocally that staff stores are safe stores. More supervision for self-checkout services means more jobs. It means less theft. It means more safety. It means more real human conversations, real interactions at our stores, of course, real community bonds. This is a win-win for our communities. It ensures that we reduce retail theft, that we provide jobs, we provide a better customer service for our residents, it ensures that we are improving

the quality of life in our communities. I am proud to stand with my UFCW brothers and sisters in this item. These workers do the hard work, they work the hours, and they improve the lives of our residents. Let us stand with them. I urge the city council to do the right thing and adopt the proposed staff and operational standards for self-service checkouts. Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

Next three speakers, Jorge Rodriguez, Miguel Martinez, Jose Perez.

Hello, Mayor. My name is Jorge Rodriguez. I'm a bakery manager here in the city of Santana out at the Albertsons on 17th and Tustin. I'm here to support my coworkers on item 28, on the self-checkout ordinance. and I would like to share with you the problems with it. It's only run by one person, typically a cashier, until someone comes in and alleviates them. And currently they're answering phones, unlocking baby formula, unlocking the liquor cabinet, and many more. This creates an unsafe environment. We're chronically understaffed at the stores, and customers often have to leave self-checkout to go find someone,

like myself or my coworker Miguel in produce, or me in the bakery. bakery. It's not working out. People don't know how to use self-checkout at times. The machine doesn't work or it glitches. We try to help the customers the best we can when they have problems with self-checkout, but oftentimes they get hostile. They verbally abuse us, the person watching self-checkout as well. And there's always a problem with high theft. One customer would buy a lot of bagels but would only pay for one bagel while he's holding the whole bag. That's my labor just to be stolen in the blink of an eye.

Management says nothing can be done but there is. This ordinance will help my co-workers because their only task would be watching those three self-checkout machines. Their responsibilities would be less and customers will start to build trust with us that we're actually watching self-checkout please vote yes on this ordinance to support us and the stores thank you

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

Miguel Martinez Jose Perez Carlos Camacho good evening everybody and my

name is Miguel Martinez produce manager at operas is here in Santa Ana speaking on item 28 I worked at Albertsons for 37 years and throughout my years at the the store, I've seen the problems the self-checkout causes. Lines are long. Customers come through with overloaded carts. They have trouble with codes and more. I've also seen how people steal through self-checkout. They have mass quantities of items but ring up as one. And if they get upset, they go off on one person. They're who is watching over the self-checkout. There isn't a safe girl in charge or manager usually far away and unable to come and help in time.

She also has to do other things like monitor the other check stands and help out in the front. The ordinance will help make it easier for us grocery workers. Customers will be able to go out faster. They'll be happier. Our stores will be safer. Not so aggravating for the customers. Vote yes to support the ordinance to ensure our stores are safe and a good place for workers and customers. Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

Jose Perez, Carlos Camacho, Beth Thomas.

Good evening, Mayor, Council Members. My name is Jose Perez. I am the President of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 324. We represent 21,000 members in Orange and Los Angeles counties, with 16,000 of them working in the grocery, drug retail, and pharmacy industries. I am here tonight to speak in support of a responsible self-checkout ordinance. Across our communities and stores, we are seeing a rapid expansion of self-checkout machines, not to improve service, but to cut jobs. jobs. Workers who once staffed registers are now expected to monitor 8, 10 or even 12 machines

at once. That's not efficiency. That's understaffing. And this has real consequences. It leads to increased theft, it puts workers in unsafe situations, and it creates frustration for customers, especially seniors and families who need assistance. This ordinance is about balance. We are asking for common-sense standards, safe staffing levels, limits on how many machines one worker can monitor, and ensuring customers always have access to a safe checkout lane. Cities across California are already taking action because they recognize that safe stores

are staffed stores. When the ordinance was passed in Long Beach, the sky didn't fall and stores didn't close. In the contrary, we have seen real positive change in Long Beach and Costa Mesa for workers and customers. Now community members can go to any of these stores protected by these ordinances at any time of the day and see a real human being at the self checkout. In audits we have conducted due to the ordinance we have seen an increase of one and a half staff members and a small increase a small increase in part-time hours for checkers this is a direct positive impact as

intended by this ordinance self-checkout are still open and we are seeing an increase in the speed of which people use self-checkout the ordinance works this is a responsible ordinance intended to protect good jobs, improve public safety, and ensure a better shopping experience for everyone in our community. We urge you to stand with workers, customers, and our community by supporting this ordinance. Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

Carlos Camacho, Beth Thomas, Alicia Rojas.

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

Excuse me, sir, could you pause for a moment so I can fix your mic?

Madame Clerk, you start his time over so he can start over, please.

Can you start over, sir, once they fix your mic? Thank you. Yes. Better?

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Carlos Camacho, Chief of Staff for the Orange County Labor Federation. We represent 97 different local unions in Orange County, 270,000 union members. The proposal before the Council tonight is significant because it requires businesses It requires businesses to mitigate the consequences of self-checkout on workers. Increased use of self-checkout results in fewer workers doing more work. It results in customers having fewer people to turn to when they need assistance. And it results in workers receiving the brunt of customer frustration.

The self-checkout ordinance is part of Labor's approach to addressing automation which affects workers in all industries. It is a core value for labor that businesses do not have the right to unilaterally implement automation with no regard for how that implementation impacts workers or the community that they serve. Over the last 10 to 15 years, Santa Ana has been a leader among Orange County cities in how it considers the needs of workers and community members. You have an opportunity to be a voice for workers and customers. Tonight, you can send a message that Santa Ana is beautiful and welcome in a city that

cares about workers and its residents. Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

Next three speakers, Beth Thomas, Alicia Rojas, Sean Verdeen.

Thank you. And thank you, Mayor and Council Members. I'm Beth Thomas. My husband, Kelly, and I have had the privilege of living in the Washington Square neighborhood neighborhood for 22 years. We just moved last summer to Fisher Park, a mile north of Washington Square. We love this city. Advocating for the Washington Square Neighborhood Park has been the most important contribution I've had the privilege to do with my neighbors. Getting our house added to the Mills Act and getting trees replaced were second to this to support our neighborhood and the city of Santa Ana. We are very fortunate in Fisher

Fisher Park to have a passive park in the neighborhood to get together as neighbors,

friends, furry kids, families, something that many of us take for granted. We have seen wonderful beautification projects on the perimeter of Washington Square in recent years.

The Bristol widening being finalized to the west, median landscaping all around the neighborhood, neighborhood, the addition of the clock tower on Flower and many more. Thank you for your support of these projects. We're beyond excited to receive your support of this rare and time-sensitive opportunity to be able to support inside this beautiful historic neighborhood. On behalf of my neighbors in Fisher Park, we look forward to our neighbors in Washington square having the same opportunity to enjoy their sense of community outdoors together for generations to come thank you

good evening mayor Emescu and members of the council Alyssa Rojas Ward 6 artist and co-founder of the Santa Ana community artists coalition I'm here in support of agenda item number 10 and 29 the passage of this public art preservation policy is a long overdue step toward fulfilling the vision set forth in our 2016 Arts and Culture Master Plan. It ensures that our city-funded artistic treasures are protected and maintained for future generations, including the historic works by Sergio Cadiz Moctezuma and Emick D. Vasquez. Without official historic designation, we know how vulnerable these works are,

as just last year Chicano Gothic at Memorial Park came dangerously close to being destroyed, saved only because the community spoke up. The case for investing in the arts is not only cultural, it's economic. Arts tourism generated over $81 million in Santa Ana last year per Travel Santa Ana report. Our city holds something rare, one of the largest concentrations of Chicano murals in Southern California, rooted in decades of community storytelling, resilience, and pride. I also want to recognize your leadership. Thank you Mayor Emascua for supporting artists, Councilmember Jonathan Hernandez for championing restoration funding,

Councilmember Benjamin Vasquez for uplifting arts education in our youth because art saves lives, and especially to Councilmember Jesse Lopez for introducing Agenda Item 29 and continuing to push for arts funding and historic recognition. I also want to give a special thanks to City Manager Alvaro Nunez for being the first City Manager to truly understand the power of of the Arts in Santa Ana. Your leadership is making history tonight. As the first Chicano city manager and an advocate of the arts, this movement would not be possible without you. The past weekend during the restoration of the Viva Santa Ana mural,

we saw what this policy made possible. Over 100 community members showed up to paint and care for a mural that belongs to them. Through a city grant support, we hired 13 youth interns, high school and college students, gaining hands on experience in preservation and community leadership. This was what investment looks like. I urge the city council to build on this momentum by establishing a public art trust fund with an initial commitment of at least $50,000 to ensure long-term conservation and equitable investment. And as a next phase, we have the opportunity to expand access through QR codes and digital mapping,

transforming Santa Ana into a true open-air museum where every piece of public art can share its history, its history, its story, and the voices of the community behind it. Santa Ana is a special place. With your support, it can continue to lead as a cultural capital, honoring its past while building a more inclusive and creative future. Let's protect not just our public art, but the stories, the people, and the history that it carries. Si se puede. Muchas gracias.

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

Next three speakers.

They know what they're talking about.

Shifting gears.

Back to Washington Square. I'm sure you've seen a pattern in a lot of the speaking here tonight. I just want to commend you guys for all the exploratory efforts you guys are doing into placing a park in that neighborhood. And I'm trying to think of something to say that hasn't been said already, but you've all heard it. Just my thanks, first of all. A second. I really encourage you guys to come through on any given weekday, between 5 p.m. to sunset. Come through our neighborhood.

You're going to see people of all ages, generations, walks of life outside, walking around the neighborhood, walking their dogs, taking their kids out for a stroll. Honestly, it's beautiful.

And in terms of the park, I really hope you guys look into supporting option two.

and to piggyback on some other people are saying we have a really strong neighborhood community we try and host many events for our neighborhood association in fact the most recent event that we were going to host for this spring is canceled because there's nobody available to host because most of us don't have a home big enough to host a neighborhood so a park would really go a long way here um we don't need uh more urban density uh you guys you know hats off to you you're ahead of like the the state mandated uh development goal for housing so i know we'll get there as a city

so i think it's time to turn our attention to parks and things like that that are going to enhance our quality of life so thank you for moving this forward thank you

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

Isuri Ramos, Carl Benninger, Dale Helvig.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Isuri Ramos. I'm a lifetime Santana resident, live in Ward 6, and the executive director at Chispa. And tonight, we're supporting several agenda items, item number 10, 28, and 29. First, Chispa strongly supports item number 28, establishing clear staffing standards will help ensure that employees are adequately supported, that their safety is prioritized, and that customers have access to assistance when needed. Thank you for agendizing this item tonight, and we urge you to vote yes. We're also very proud to be here in support of the arts, specifically items number 10 and 29.

The development of a public arts and preservation policy is critical. As our cultural assets, we need to ensure that they are protected, maintained, and accessible to the community. Public art reflects our histories, identities, and collective memory. We also strongly support the identification and historic designation of artworks by Sergio Ocadiz Moctezuma and Emile Diovasquez. These works are foundational to Santa Ana's cultural landscape and deserve formal recognition and protection. And lastly, we ask that, well not lastly, but we ask that as you consider difficult budget decisions,

such as staff furloughs, that these be considered in a fair manner, and the SEIU 721 members are not disproportionately impacted. And after hearing public comments, I also have to speak in support of the perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to acquire vacant land in Washington Square and provide a park in that neighborhood. That's the neighborhood that I walk through every day on my way to Wilson Elementary, and I know that this new park would not just serve Washington Square, but also the students at Wilson Elementary and the Willard neighborhood as well. So thank you all, and have a good night.

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

Carl Benninger followed by Dale Helvig.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members. It's been a while since I've been here, but I've been watching you on TV. Thank goodness for being able to do that. I wore my Detroit Red Wings shirt in case you forgot who I was.

I want to start off with a couple of announcements. and very exciting at Eddie Westfield on May 23rd, Orange County Soccer Club was gonna bring their game to the stadium. Yours truly, we've run into Time Clock and Scoreboard, and I've seen some very exciting games with them, and I'm sure this on the 23rd will be another exciting game. So you wanna see good hockey? Good hockey. Good soccer comes at the Eddie Westfield. Also, on June 25th, Comlink will be having its awards night, and I've seen the 36 nominations for most beautiful yard, and I don't wanna take them home. My wife will say, why doesn't ours look like that?

But we will be honoring the neighborhoods, heroes, and most beautiful yards at that time. And so you are all more than welcome. I'm really coming here to talk about budget. You are really the managers of the budget. And as Christine Rich put it, managers of an 840 million dollar company. And so because of that, you need to look at things from a business, not a personal. And one of the things I learned in my time working in industry is if you're going to hire a consultant, limit the time. If you get very comfortable with them, and the problem is it costs much more for a consultant

than having a person hired for that position. And when I bring up the city attorney, this isn't a comment that she's doing bad or good or what have you. It's just business to have that position in-house rather than out to a contractor. I've heard comments like we need the expertise. Well, then hire the expertise. I've also heard comments about she gets paid only as if we paid another city attorney. Well, that's great because we only have her a third of the time. Why not have an attorney 100% of the time? That's what we need. in that position. Those that say, well, we only pay her salary and her benefits. You do in the fee,

you pay her company. Not only do you pay her benefits, but you pay her bosses part of his salary, part of his benefits, and all the way through the organization, because that's how contractors work. And there's nothing wrong with it. It's just where it is. And I have, in industry, had to hire contractors to solve the situation, and we did that. So when you consider it, please Please remember the words, it's not personal, it's only business. With that in mind, I want to bring up one area, look for projects that are on running. The popular one right now is a parking study, and I know I've talked to Rudy and he's inherited this.

This is really the third parking studies that we've had with no results. We cannot continue like that. Eight years ago, we were gonna do the whole city. That got turned into two areas in the city, and now it's ending up to just the parking permits. Please look at excess spending like that. that and let's put it out there. Councillor Schell, your time

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

is up.

Councillor Neill, Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, city council members, city manager, city attorney, all the executive directors behind me, Parks and Rec, Public Works, Planning, and everybody else. I just want to thank you all for the time that you guys put in in making this city better. I'd also like to wish you a happy Cinco de Mayo Day. Hope you enjoyed the day. Hope you enjoyed the evening safely. And I'm hoping one day that we are able to enjoy an international day.

I say that because not many of you probably know May 17th is Constitution Day for Norway. Norway. So I'd like to see us celebrate other countries besides the ones that we're currently celebrating and I think we can do that, combine some of these events together and make an International Day where it's really addressing all the residents of Santa Ana. Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

Mayor and City Council that concludes the public speakers that are present We'll now begin with the Zoom speakers.

Madam Mayor, we're hoping to get recognized for public comments.

I'm sorry, did you fill out a card? No, I was not able to obtain a card. Tim James, California Grocers Association on item 28. I understand that, sir, but unless you filled out a card, if I make an exception for you, I have to make an exception for everybody else. I apologize. This is consistent with what we've experienced with the city so far, so thank you. I'm sorry, I've only been here four years, but I apologize that you filled out a card in a timely manner, thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

Speakers on Zoom, when unmuted, please announce your name and the ward or neighborhood that you reside in within the City of Santa Ana for the record. Victor Mendez, please unmute and make your comments.

Can you hear me?

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

Yes, please go ahead.

Okay, item number 12. Let me begin by saying, hey, I heard that there's a lot of interest in reducing commercial property. I hear there's a lot of interest in increasing vacant property activations. I heard there's a lot of interest in making best use of our assets. I also heard there's a lot of interest in improving revenue streams for our hotels. Well, guess what? All those opportunities are available on East First Street being grand and tested. Here's another thing that you should realize.

We can kind of better realize this opportunity if we activate the long, delayed project, street improvement project that got kind of wound into the multimodal project. And with all due respect, it was legitimately so. But now is the time you can take that project out, move it forward, and start realizing all these opportunities I just listed. We have hotels. We have vacant properties. We have storefronts that are vacant. All these types of opportunities can be started achieving by starting our street project, which is fully funded and 90% design and has been community tested.

It's been vetted. So the times now, I'm not sure what we're waiting for or what we're trying to do or trying to achieve. But if you're looking to gain revenue streams and improve neighborhoods and improve the business climate, start with the East First Street upgrade project between Grandin, Tustin, and we'll see some things happen. I'm fully supportive of it. I'm fully supportive of bike lanes. I've been a convert to it. Let's get it done. Let's start getting those businesses up and activated. Let's get our hotels in good shape. The Holiday Inn, I'm sure, is waiting for it. And let's start getting that money coming in. Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

Next speaker on Zoom, Courtney Carranza. Please unmute and make your comments.

Hi, my name is Courtney Carranza. I am Director of Government Affairs for Albertsons and Vaughn's. And I'm here to respectfully urge the council not to pass the proposed ordinance related related to grocery and drugstore staffing standards for self-checkout stations. I also want to address concerns around self-checkout and share what we've learned from our recent experience in Long Beach, experience that directly applies to Santa Ana. First, there has been no measurable retail theft impact associated with self-checkout.

With our Long Beach stores, when we compare theft data with self-checkout before and after removing self-checkout from four of our Long Beach stores, we have not seen a reduction in theft. The consistent pattern we see is individuals walking out through the front door with unpaid merchandise, often bypassing checkout completely. The narrative that self-checkout drives theft simply isn't supported by our real-world experience and data.

Second, self-checkout is already one of the most heavily monitored areas. These lanes have multiple layers of oversight, trained team members stationed nearby, real-time camera systems, weight-based sensors, and software that flags irregularities. It is not an unmonitored or high-risk environment. Third, we already have a collective bargaining agreement in place with self-checkout provisions. divisions that was ratified last year and the union itself encouraged its members to vote yes our community members want self-checkout it's a tool that helps us keep lines short and improve

guest experience again we ask you not to pass this ordinance tonight and if the council chooses to continue exploring this ordinance we respectfully ask that you meet directly with the grocers before moving forward thank you

Jennifer L. HallItem 6

Mayor and City Council that concludes the public speakers that were cued when we began.

Thank you so very much Madam Clerk. Okay at this time we will be going to the consent calendar items 7 through 26. R.B. Forest council members please announce any items that you'll be abstaining from due to a conflict if there are any and if you want to pull an item I'll be calling on you shortly councilman hernandez oh i'm sorry he's gone councilman becerra

Valerie AmezcuaItem 7

no items to pull but i'll be a no on item 25. thank you sir um councilmember fann

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

nothing to pull but i have to note my recusal from item number 24 as the city of anaheim as as a client of my employer, Rattan and Tucker. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Vazquez.

Benjamin VazquezItem 7

No items to pull.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

Madam Mayor, my apologies for missing your first round.

Thank you, one second. Council Member Lopez. Yeah, I'd like to pull item 10. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

Thank you, Madam Mayor. No items to pull. I just want to register a no on item 24. Thank you.

Thank you. Mayor Perlton.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

No items to pull, Mayor.

Thank you. I'm going to pull Item 25. Can I get a motion for the remaining items, please?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 7

I'll make a motion to move the items.

I'll second. Mr. Prater, vote, please.

Jennifer L. HallItem 7

Motion by Councilmember Hernandez, seconded by Mayor Homescua to approve consent calendar items items number seven through 26, with the exceptions of item 10 and 25 pulled for separate consideration discussion.

Thank you. Go ahead, Madam Clerk.

Jennifer L. HallItem 7

Is the electronic voting up?

Jennifer L. HallItem 7

Council Member Fan?

Thai Viet PhanItem 7

Yes.

Jennifer L. HallItem 7

Yes.

Jennifer L. HallItem 7

Vote is seven ayes, no nays, with a recorded no vote on item number 24 by Councilmember Hernandez, and a recusal on item number 24 by Councilmember Fan. Motion carries. Mayor and City Council, the first item pulled is item number 10 by Councilmember Lopez.

Go ahead, Councilmember.

Jessie LopezItem 7

Thank you. And I wanna start off by thanking you, City Manager, Thank you City staff, the Arts and Culture Commission, all of the advocates that came to speak tonight, that took time to write an email, that have been really speaking to all of us on this dais for many months, really wanting to see this move forward. Because we recognize that they have been working towards this framework for many, many years. And, you know, my perspective is that this policy that is on the agenda is a real shift, and that's why I want to thank you, city manager, because for too long we've celebrated public

Jessie LopezItem 8

art in the city in all of its forms, not just murals, and then have forgotten about it. And so the maintenance and the preservation framework in Section 3, the annual inspections, public art inventory, artist consultation before restoration is exactly what has been missing and what our community, all of our constituents have been asking for. And so I also appreciate the recognition of artist rights under the VERA and the CAPA Act. And you know, there was a speaker, Alicia, who spoke about almost a mistake that the city made, right? Of almost the painful reminder of what happened

Jessie LopezItem 8

into Sergio Cadiz's Great Street mural in 2019 because there weren't these protections in place. And these are pieces of art that mean so much to so many of us that were born and raised in our community. And so I just wanted to flag two things for my colleagues and for you, city manager. First, the Public Art Trust Fund is referenced in section 1.1. But we know, right, this is a receiving file tonight. and so without a dedicated funding stream these even the best policies don't ever get to be implemented and get to be successful and so I'd like to see

Jessie LopezItem 8

a concrete proposal come back to the council for how we're not just going to receive and file this and put it away on a shelf and forget about it and I hope that my colleagues will support this request tonight and second I just want to convey that this policy does not operate in isolation. Sections 2.32 and 3.1 appropriately recognize Chapter 30, our historic preservation framework, as part of the toolkit. And so Santa Ana is the home to one of the largest concentrations of Chicano public art available. And the vision here is that we have an opportunity

Jessie LopezItem 8

to create an open-air museum in our city, which I think, will only attract more visitors to our community, will strengthen our local economy, support small businesses in our community, and really, I think, also complement the work that Travel Santa Ana is doing. And so I know that you recognize that. I wanna thank you again. I wanna thank all the artists that had a role in putting this art together. There's a really comprehensive chart that staff put together of all the feedback of our community. and if you review that feedback, you'll see that our staff is saying, this has been implemented, thank you for your suggestion,

Jessie LopezItem 8

we did not think about this. And so I really wanna thank you all for the work and for partnering with the artist community here in the city of Santa Ana. And I do wanna thank all of my colleagues for supporting this item tonight, and again, I ask for your consideration to bring back a proposal for funding the public art policy. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Lopez. And Mr. City Manager, I would just say that in the 18 months that you've been here, almost two years, that you are following through on everything that we've asked with you and your staff. And so thank you for all of that. And we look forward to hearing back from you regarding the RS part. Do you have a motion, Councilman Lopez?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 8

I'll make a motion to move the item with just a brief comment, Madam Mayor.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 8

I'll second with comment as well.

Jessie LopezItem 8

Okay.

Hold on. Were you done?

Jessie LopezItem 8

No. I was going to actually take you up on your question. I would love to make a motion, Mayor.

Okay, thank you.

Jessie LopezItem 8

And I'll second her motion.

Thank you. Councilman Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 8

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I want to begin by thanking the City Manager's Office as well as the artists in the community who advocated for this change. Alicia Rojas. Alicia over the last 10 plus years has been working outside of the city and beginning within the community in neighborhoods like Articia Pilar where over 10 years ago community community came together in an attempt to restore the La Raza Mural. There was very little city support. There was a lack of infrastructure to restore grants, but the lack of infrastructure that existed for the city at that time highlighted the need for policy changes.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 8

Alicia Rojas was committed to seeing these changes actualized. I want to commend the city manager's office because it took having a Chicano city manager who understands the value of what these murals bring to the community and the stories that they tell and the impacts that those stories have on our families it took a city manager like Alvaro Nunez working with the artists community and even in the areas where there was pushback when it came to Vara rather than the city closing its door the city opened its door and was willing to make the changes that the artists desired and that's the direction that we're taking taking Santa Ana.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 8

But it's not a direction that we can go alone. It's one that the community drives. And so today's policy is a reflection of the needs of the community. And I'm very happy to support this item and I'll be voting yes. Yes. Thank you.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 8

Thank you. Councillor Becerra, please. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So my former arts commissioner, Robin McNair, was a strong advocate for the creation of the arts and culture master plan. In that plan, there was a goal to establish the formal public art program and policy that's before us today so i want to give a shout out to robin and say thank you because it was her vision and her advocacy that has got us to that point today this policy establishes a framework that ensures that public art projects are implemented in a consistent and transparent manner that is

Valerie AmezcuaItem 8

very important especially how passionate people are about art so it's good that this is happening And I appreciate that staff incorporated a lot of the suggestions from the artists. I know all of us received a lot of comments from the artists, incorporating the minimum of a 30-day public comment period prior to the alteration or removal of artwork, public notice on the city's website, community outreach. Again, thank you for putting all those in there. I think that will help this policy thrive. So thank you for that.

Thank you very much. Okay.

Jennifer L. HallItem 8

Madam Clerk, anything else? Motion by Councilmember Lopez, seconded by Mayor Meskwa to approve the recommended action for item number 10, the Public Art and Preservation Policy, receive and file.

It's prepared to vote, please.

Jennifer L. HallItem 8

Vote is 7 ayes, no nays. Motion carries. The next item is item 25 pulled by you Mayor Meskwa.

Thank you very much and I'll be very brief. This is the performance evaluations for the city clerk, the city manager and the city attorney. I just want to publicly thank all three of them for the job that they do for us. The city council only has three employees that work for us and that is the city attorney, the city clerk and the city manager. And so if people are wondering, well, why didn't our city manager get a raise? Well, the city manager took it upon himself to share that he didn't need a raise at this time, but his contract was extended. And that's because of the great work that he's doing.

And I want to say thank you publicly to you and to your staff that have done a phenomenal job. And you always say 18 months. I'll say two years that you've been here. You know, you are taking us places we, you know, I grew up in here. my family's been here for a long time and i've watched the city go through a lot of things and you've uh you're taking us now with your staff the police chief um taking us places that we have never been and hopefully we're going to continue to move in that direction and matt city clerk thank you so much for everything as well um you do a lot for us i don't think people realize

everything that you do whether it's the pra request the elections i could go on and on the The list is very extensive, so I wanted to take a moment to say thank you. Madam City Attorney, I know that you also did not request a raise, but you had a contract that gave you a raise, that 3.5%, I believe, with Sama gets, you get, so that's a good thing. I didn't realize that until I did some research, and so I kind of was like, well, okay, you didn't request a raise, but you did get one, and so that's a good thing. And so I just wanted to be very public about the work that they do.

And yes, they have the chief that works with them for the city manager. They have executive directors. They have lots of staff. How many staff do you have out of the total? A couple thousand?

Total. Yes.

Alvaro NuñezItem 8

Sorry, she would take 1,600.

And, you know, our city manager has to work with every single one of us in the council up here. And as you know, we're all very different. Some of us call at 6 o'clock in the morning and he answers. Not me, but some of us up here do. Some of us, I won't say who, but some of us call on Sundays and he answers. Some of us call on Mondays at 10 o'clock in the morning because we know he likes to sleep in a little bit sometimes. He answers. I know that when I call Sylvia, it doesn't matter, Friday night, whatever it is, she answers. All the directors, and I call Rudy to say, Rudy, the graffiti, please. They answer.

And that was not the case before. So for me as the mayor, that's my experience. That was not the case before. So I want to thank all of you for really just going above and beyond. You're committed to the city. We see it. We appreciate it. And I think the community, I know the community sees it. And it's not just about the art, the Chicano art. It's not because you're Chicano. It's because you've worked for this city for 32, 33 years. You may not have been born here. Everybody puts a big deal on that. But you grew up here professionally you lived here you raised your children here and it's you've done

more than just the artwork you know whether it's Logan whether it's completing projects this year we'll have so many projects completed you're pulling things off the shelf that are very uncomfortable to discuss the budget conversations that we're gonna be having people will see they're gonna be very different we're tightening things up because there's not that fear of like oh my goodness we got to share this with the community and that is because we We have leaders that are willing to lead. And sometimes you have to make those really hard decisions. And so I just wanted to personally thank you. I want to thank you.

I want to thank our city clerk. And I want to thank our city attorney. That is why I pulled the item. And because people probably know, like, oh, what happened? He didn't get a raise or she didn't get a raise. I'll leave the city clerk or whatever it may be. Well, she deserved it, the city clerk. But you've done wonderful things, all three of you. And I just want to say thank you very much as the mayor of this city. So thank you.

I SEE IT GO UP. NOW EVERYBODY WANTS TO TALK. COUNCILMEMBER VASQUEZ, THREE MINUTES.

Benjamin VazquezItem 8

I JUST WANT TO MOVE THE MOTION AND SECOND YOUR WORDS BECAUSE YOU SAID IT ALL VERY BRIEFLY. I MOVED IT.

YOU SECONDED IT. ALL RIGHT. COUNCILMEMBER FAN.

Thai Viet PhanItem 8

IT SAYS REQUESTED.

I DON'T SEE IT HERE.

Thai Viet PhanItem 8

I JUST WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE REQUESTED. about Madam City Clerk. For those of you who don't know, I was a part, well, many of us were here to hire you and we took a chance on you, right? And I think that you have surpassed my expectations. You went through the ringer. We had a lot of crazy elections, a recall, a referendum, the general, now we have a primary and another general coming up and and a lot of things and a lot of changes in the city clerk's office. So very glad that you stepped into the fire

Thai Viet PhanItem 8

and have really elevated the city clerk's office and really been present here in our community. I see your family. I see your daughter. They haven't forced you to quit yet after meeting me, so I appreciate it. And so congratulations, and I'm really glad that you're here with us and are are continuing to work in the city, even if you're from up north. And to our city manager and city attorney, thank you for your service. I know, especially as city attorney, personally, how difficult your jobs are. I would never wanna be a city manager. It sounds awful. I don't know why you do it.

Thai Viet PhanItem 25

You might wanna get your brain checked. But seriously, the work that you do really makes our communities better. And I hope that even with the most difficult of days, you go home remembering that you're a part of making this community better. So thank you for your service. Thank you. Councilman Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 25

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I would like to fully concur with my colleagues. And I'd like to begin by thanking the three of you. It truly is an honor to work with each of you. Over the last six years, we have been able to see the city's business move forward. Madam City Clerk, you have streamlined the city council meetings. You have got us up to date on our past meetings. You have made sure that our public records requests are in compliance with the state of California. Madam City Attorney, you have done a phenomenal job defending the city, reducing liabilities

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 25

in the city, and ensuring that the Santa Ana City Council updated its rules in terms of the city council meetings. Also have ensured that we have implemented policies that will make sure that our city staff get home at a reasonable hour, whereas before some of our council meetings may have went into one, sometimes two in the morning. That is not a thing that we see happen here at the chambers anymore. more and Mr. City Manager a true honor it has been in work with you over the last several years your first year you've brought 24 million dollars in capital improvement projects to the city of

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 25

Santa Ana a sizable investment in Santa Ana from our Congressman Lou Correa that is the level of partnership that we expect from our city manager we want a city manager that is going to activate the city that is going to be proactive in the relationships that are good for Santa Ana and and you have done that. And so I just want to tell you, I'm proud to work with you. I'm proud to be able to see you move the city's business forward. And I look forward to working with the three of you. And so looking forward to voting yes, thank you.

Thank you, no further comments. There's a motion and a second.

Jennifer L. HallItem 25

Mr. Mayor, I need to make an announcement prior to the vote. Pursuant to government code section 54953 D3I, an oral summary of salary and benefits shall be made prior to final action of the council on any local agency executive.

Jennifer L. HallItem 25

approval of item number 25 includes documentation of the acting city clerk annual salary of 159,000 effective September 1st, 2022 through February 26th, 2023 and a salary increase for the city clerk to the annual amount of $215,004 effective April 21st, 2026 and an amended and restated employment agreement for the city manager extending the term of the agreement and additional three years to August 5th, 2030. 30. the vote is open also includes approval of a resolution of the city council of the city of santa ana affirming positive performance evaluations for the city attorney city clerk and

Jennifer L. HallItem 25

city manager approving a salary adjustment for the city clerk and approving an amended and restated employment agreement for the city manager through 2030 adopting a resolution of the city council of the city of santa ana to affect certain changes to the city's classification and compensation plan to amend resolution number 2021-026 to create a new classification and to provide special ASSIGNMENT PAY FOR SPECIFIED CONFIDENTIAL EMPLOYEES IN THE CITY ATTORNEY'S OFFICE AND ADOPTION OF A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SANTA ANA TO AFFECT CERTAIN CHANGES TO THE CITY'S

Jennifer L. HallItem 25

CLASSIFICATION AND COMPENSATION PLAN AND RECOGNITION OF SALARY FOR THE PREVIOUS ACTING CITY CLERK

SEE THAT'S WHY WE PAY YOU BECAUSE NONE OF US COULD DO THAT I JUST WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT

I'M SORRY EXCUSE ME MAYOR PROTEM WANTS TO SPEAK REALLY QUICK I APOLOGIZE THANK YOU MAYOR I'M

David PenalozaItem 25

LOSING MY VOICE SO I JUST WANT TO AROUND OF APPLAUSE ALL THREE OF YOU THANK YOU I DIDN'T the vote will be enough.

All right. Let's prepare to vote, please.

Jennifer L. HallItem 25

The vote is 6 ayes, 1 nay. Nay by Councilmember Becerra. Motion carries.

Great. Thank you. That's the end of the consent calendar at this time. Madam Clerk, we're going to go on to the business calendar. Item number 27, please.

Jennifer L. HallItem 25

item number 27 is an ordinance amending municipal code to allow permitted users to serve and consume beer wine and distilled spirits at city facilities and to increase permit threshold related to picnics of 50 or more persons mr city manager so if the city council wants a presentation we have

Alvaro NuñezItem 25

um park state executive director hawkscott we don't need a presentation but thank you copy that

I'll make a motion.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 27

Second that motion, Madam.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 27

Actually, if I may speak.

Sure. Go ahead, Councilman Messer.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 27

We're so quick to go tonight. I love it. So I actually do have a concern with what's before us tonight. So when I had my review on this item, it was portrayed to me that this was going to be about facilities, right? Like that we were talking about alcohol and facilities. So not in the parks, as in anywhere and everywhere there's a tree or grass people could be drinking. It was supposed to be in the facilities. But when I read this, what kind of concerns me is, so it talks about, let's see, this would be 31-3D, any use where alcohol is served or consumed in accordance with the city's

Valerie AmezcuaItem 27

parks, recreation, community service agencies, rental facility use policy adopted by resolution of the city council. Council. I guess what I was concerned with is on the website that policy was not a part of this agenda item. So I had to ask staff for it subsequently. And I guess where I'm concerned is that if we're going to talk about alcohol, I think it's a sensitive issue, especially in our parks. And I feel like there should be a little bit more guardrails in the actual code. I'm not opposed to the idea of us, and I think what the spirit and intent was, was as to allow for alcohol in the actual buildings, the facilities.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 27

And I know it's defined in the policy, and I know for many that might seem like a weird nuance, but it's important that it be more strengthened in the code. It's a little more difficult to modify in the code, and I think it's important that our residents, our families have the assurance that it isn't something that staff, and I don't mean anybody that's sitting in here tonight, but staff in the future could just change on a moment's notice. So I would ask my colleagues to consider having this brought back in 30 days. I don't want to play policy crafter tonight up here on the dais.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 27

I would rather have staff come back with something that just maybe takes a little bit of what's in the proposed policy that wasn't available on the city's website. And bringing that over to the ordinance that's before us this evening. I support the concept. I just think that maybe staff can better tune this because right now when I read this it seems a little open-ended and I'm afraid that future staff can interpret this as a way that

our residents would not appreciate thank you Councillor Becerra and for bringing that Mr. City Manager I know you want to reply but I just want to be clear what it says here is that that they'll have to have the where it says

this has been you guys worked with the City Attorney's Office, Santa Ana Police Department, Risk Management to ensure compliance with state and local law public safety requirements and the risk management best practices and we're going to be in compliance with abc right so and thank you for bringing it up the question i would have is like i'm having a party right at the park i have a big family i'm gonna have a baptism i'm not gonna be able to just have alcohol anywhere like i gotta get a license from you so i'm not a fan of alcohol in the park either that's not what i

how i read it here so i just would like clarification in 30 days if you want to come back so we don't take discussion tonight but i do want clarification too and thank you councilman becerra because if we're having it at the zoo or the concession stand at eddie westfield or like we have brewed the zoo right and we have other events um we have the 5k where i don't know i wasn't there they should they sold alcohol we sell alcohol um but i i it makes me very nervous if we're just gonna say hey you're having a party at the park whatever family let's say my family But I'm going to ask you for a permit to sell alcohol.

I'm concerned about the safety. Then we're going to need police if something happens. So kind of I would like some more clarification as well. And so if you can bring that back in 30 days, I'd really appreciate that. Does that work for everybody up here? We'll make a motion for the 30 days or to pass the item?

Valerie AmezcuaItem 27

Motion for 30 days?

Okay.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 27

So, yeah, I'll move to bring it back in 30 days.

Okay. And you're seconding Councilmember Mayer-Protem? Sure.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

Just to clarify, we already had a motion on the floor to approve the item.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 27

Then I'll make a sub-motion to bring it back in 30 days with the comments that I had. Are you supporting a sub-motion? Yeah, I'll second.

Alvaro NuñezItem 27

So just for, so we understand. So codified, obviously there's, we need clarity in the code, right? Right, and so the recommendation is instead of a policy, make it more of a codified type of action.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 27

I guess, just if I may, so what I'm saying is that when I read this, I could easily interpret this. I can go to Hawk's staff and say, so I'm gonna have a bunch of booze, and I'm gonna do it over in the open field right over at the park.

Alvaro NuñezItem 27

Okay.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 27

And I think that that should not be something interpreted.

Alvaro NuñezItem 27

Right, that's not the intention, okay.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 27

Real quick, last thing is, is when we talk about facilities, because it gets a little ambiguous, a park facility one can say, oh, the entire park is a facility, versus what I think you meant was the buildings at the park are facilities.

Perfect, there's a motion on the floor in a second, and go ahead Madam Clerk, it's fair to vote. I'm sorry, Councillor López?

Jessie LopezItem 27

Yes, thank you, thank you for raising these points. I am gonna be supportive of the motion, and I wanted to know if this is in response also to the item that I brought back, that I brought forward in terms of eliminating the permit required for picnics, because you and I have discussed this, right? That language is still here. Okay. And I am not gonna be supporting language, whether it's tonight or 30 days, whatever, that is still saying that our constituents need a permit to picnic in the park.

Alvaro NuñezItem 27

We will remove that, absolutely. Absolutely.

Jessie LopezItem 27

Okay, and then moreover, can you also provide clarity in terms of SB946,

Jessie LopezItem 27

because my council member requested item also had a request, right, to allow paleteros, these push carts to operate, and it's a little unclear still still if that is the appropriate statute that is supposed to allow all jurisdictions in California without it having to go through the municipal code.

So you can bring that back in 30 days.

Alvaro NuñezItem 27

We'll provide clarity in the code, but to answer the question, yes. Unless we have a concession agreement in specific parts, then in our state law, vending is allowed.

Jessie LopezItem 27

Okay. I guess I would love to just meet with city staff to review all of the questions that I had for tonight. Thank you.

Alvaro NuñezItem 27

Thank you.

And Mr. City Attorney, please include there's a difference in my mind for a picnic or barbecue with family than a political event that claims to be a picnic. So I'd like to make sure that we clarify that.

Alvaro NuñezItem 27

We'll work with the city attorney's office.

Thank you. So if they're out doing something, then I just want clarification. of the city attorney says that we can't change it or there's no difference, then she can-

Alvaro NuñezItem 27

Right, we still have to be where we have First Amendment rights. 30 days, yes, I understand that. Okay.

Before Councilor Fenton starts to, you know. I saw her body language, but I need to be clear, because it's kind of like the aid thing. Well, we don't want anybody working, running for office, but you can run for school board, but you can't run for city clerk. So there's always this difference here, so I'd like some clarification.

Alvaro NuñezItem 27

We'll make sure there's clarity in the meeting code being brought back.

All right, thank you. Let's prepare to vote, please.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

Sub-motion by Councilmember Becerra, seconded by Mayor Pro Tempagnoloza, to continue item number 27 for 30 days.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

Councilmember Fann.

Would you all vote?

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

Vote is seven ayes, no nays. Motion carries, item is continued.

Thank you. Item 28, Madam Clerk.

Jennifer L. HallItem 27

Item 28 is an ordinance establishing staffing and operational standards for self-service check out stations and drug and food retail establishments?

Thank you, Madam Clerk. So I met with the city manager and I met with the city attorney to bring this item forward. And thank you, UFCW and the Chinese Labor Federation for being here tonight and SEIU for this item. Really appreciate all of you being here. And why did I bring this forward after meeting with UFCW and going myself and having an experience? I don't shop at a certain store anymore because when I go there, they only have self-checkout and it's very uncomfortable for me. And when I need assistance, I have to wait. And I understand what data, you know, earlier the caller talked about data and whatnot.

But for me, it's important for the employees. It's important for the quality of life. It's important for safety. And so I'm just going to read this so that everybody understands what we're doing. The proposed ordinance is designed to address several key issues related to the operation of self-service checkout system. Increased employee presence in checkout areas improve oversight and may deter retail theft, which has been identified as a growing concern in retail environments. Establishing minimum staffing ratios reduces the burden on employees tasked with monitoring

multiple transactions simultaneously and helps mitigate workplace conflicts. maintaining staff checkout lanes ensures that all customers including seniors individuals with disabilities and those who require assistance have access to traditional service options additionally public notification requirements and defined enforcement mechanisms promote transparency and accountability by providing customers and employees with clear expectations and recourse in the event of non-compliance the proposed ordinance provides a balanced and enforceable framework to ensure that self-service

checkout systems operate safely, responsibly, and serve the needs of Santa Ana residents, workers, and businesses. Adoption of this ordinance will align with emerging regional standards while preserving flexibility for local implementation. In no way, shape, or form are we attempting to close any stores. We are just attempting here and hopefully we have the votes. So, it's Cimoroto, Costa Mesa, and Long Beach where we look at the employees and what benefits them. Yes, the markets are important. Yes, it's a business, and we know they're not going anywhere.

But I want to make sure our Santa Ana residents go home safely and they don't put themselves in danger because, again, the quality of their life matters to me. And that was why I brought this item forward. And again, thank you, UFCW, for working with me, Jose, and all of your staff and all of of your members because it's very important that we, we, I mean, that we as a council, we as a community take care of our community and our employees, your employees, so and your members. So thank you and I know there's members up here who want to speak, Councilman Becerra.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 28

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I want to thank you in particular, Madam Mayor, because you're the one that not only proposed this, but you've been championing this initiative. And when you came to me and mentioned what you were doing and you had done your homework, you were leagues ahead. So I really appreciate all the effort that you put into it. I want to thank UFCW for your advocacy. My father was a very proud UFCW member. So for me, this is very personal. So I appreciate that. And also, too, the proposal is not unreasonable. It's one employee for every three self-service checkout stations.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 28

You look at the grocery stores throughout our city, I'll say it sometimes I almost feel like the grocery stores don't think Santa Ana needs a staff and that's not appropriate I think we deserve the staff and unfortunately the reason why we have laws is because sometimes we have to codify what should be already expected so again thank you Mayor Meskla thank you UFCW and I'd be very happy to support this item.

Thank you Councilman Serrano any other comments? Councilmember Vasquez?

Benjamin VazquezItem 28

THANK YOU, MAYOR. THANK YOU, MAYOR, FOR BRINGING THIS FORWARD AND UFCW FOR WORKING THIS OUT WITH THE CITY AND I APPRECIATE IT. MYSELF, I WAS A UFCW MEMBER IN COLLEGE AT THE RALPH'S ON BRISTOL AND 17TH. WE'RE GOING TO GET YOU A SHIRT.

Benjamin VazquezItem 28

I LOVE IT. AND I DO APPRECIATE THIS. I DON'T LIKE DOING THE SELF CHECKOUT LINES. WHEN WE GO TO SPROUTS, WE We always go through the grocers checkout line and I'm looking forward for Warner and Bristol to come through and making sure we have enough people there because I like shopping late at night and we need multiple bodies up there in the front to have a safe place for us to shop. Thank you very much for this and I look forward to having a yes on this.

Thank you, Councilman Vazquez. Councilman Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 28

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I want to thank you for bringing this item forward and also thank the members of UFCW for their efforts to move the industry to toward the direction where workers are respected they're treated with dignity and they're empowered the automation of union jobs is something that is going to cripple our economy it is important that when workers organized we stand with them and we support them what really highlights the importance of this initiative for me is that there was not one worker who spoke in opposition to this initiative,

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 28

whether it was in Costa Mesa, whether it was here in Santa Ana, or whether it's in cities that are very similar to our size, workers in large numbers. Not only are they in favor of this, but they're the ones organizing these initiatives. I am supportive of protecting these union jobs. I am supportive of ensuring that the workers have better access to safety and support within their colleagues, given that when we see a couple of stores that some of my colleagues may have listed that are non-union, you see the automation of the cashier and it is completely

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 28

removed the human to human interactions and the experience as to why we frequent some of these stores. When we go to a place like Stater Brothers or Albertsons, you may have that relationship with your butcher or your cashier and the optimization of union jobs is slowly removing that connection and and so I am favor of this initiative I look forward

Jessie LopezItem 28

to voting yes thank you councilmember Lopez yes thank you I want to thank everybody for being here in the chamber people that called in or sent an email I think it's really important that we recognize how much more now people are being asked to do and we actually you know got to hear from some of our own employees that worked in other grocery stores in the past and they shared their own experiences and so I'm going to be supporting this tonight but I do want to ask of our internal team that when you bring these you know staff reports forward that there is an actual policy analysis because what I see before me is a

Jessie LopezItem 28

trend analysis and so i think that these types of policies are very very important we know that the state is also looking at doing something similar and so i think for the benefit of every member of this council in our community i would love to see more substance that's my request but again i'm

going to be very supportive thank you thank you mr city manager i'm not sure we could add whatever whatever substance she wants, the vote's what matters here. So let's prepare to vote. I'm sorry, Mayor Pro Tem, go ahead.

David PenalozaItem 28

Thank you. I just wanted to say that I agree when I first got on the city council, these staff reports were six, seven pages, and now we're seeing these like one, and this wasn't the only item tonight. I'm saying the very minimal information on these staff reports that I've been, I've been seeing this trend as well. So more information that we could provide for our residents i know they're time consuming but if we could provide that information that'd be that'd be appreciated thank you and then you're going to get told no more let's prepare to vote

Jennifer L. HallItem 28

mayor we actually do not have a motion on the phone i'll make a motion i'll second the motion

second by councilman becerra go ahead and take the roll call please let's do a roll call madam Thank you Madam Clerk.

Jennifer L. HallItem 28

A motion by Mayor Emescuwa seconded by Councilmember Becerra to introduce for first reading an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Santa Ana adding Article XXIV to Chapter 8 of the Santa Ana Municipal Code regulating the staffing of self-service checkout operations. Councilmember Becerra?

Valerie AmezcuaItem 28

Yes.

Jennifer L. HallItem 28

Councilmember Hernandez? Yes. Councilmember Lopez? Yes. Councilmember Phan? Yes. Councilmember Vasquez?

Benjamin VazquezItem 28

Yes.

Jennifer L. HallItem 28

Mayor Pro Tempagnoloza? Yes. Mayor Mezcua? Yes. Go to seven ayes, no nays. Motion carries. Ordinance will return at the next meeting for second reading.

Perfect. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Now we're going to go to the, excuse me, we're going to end the business calendar. We're going to go to Councilmember requested item number 29 by Councilmember Lopez.

Jessie LopezItem 28

The floor is yours. Yes. Thank you, Mayor Mezcua. So tonight I'm really just asking my colleagues to consider discussing and directing the city manager to direct staff to identify, evaluate, and prepare nominations to the City Register of Historical Properties for Public Artworks by Sergio Cadiz Montezuma and Emilio Vasquez, located within the boundaries of the City of Santa Ana. I also want to thank the Historic Resources Commission for their work on the evaluation. We heard one of our commissioners speak tonight, but I brought this forward because I strongly

Jessie LopezItem 29

believe that these artists, that it is imperative that we proceed in filing for this recognition. And so I would rather see that happen sooner rather than later. later. And so there was an example that was brought forth that we almost lost Chicano Gothic because people did not understand, did not value, did not see the importance of this mural being in Memorial Park. And so this request is very simple. I urge my

Jessie LopezItem 29

colleagues to support it, to give you direction, to ensure that city staff is moving this process process along and not just waiting six months or whatever the process may be because I think it's incredibly important and I'm open to hearing the discussion, whether my colleagues give direction or whether they refrain. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Lopez. I'll be supporting this, Mr. City Manager, so I look forward to this coming back in 90 days. Thank you, Council Member Lopez, for bringing it forward. Council Member Fenn?

Thai Viet PhanItem 29

Yes, I'd like to see this move forward, but I'm so sorry if I missed it, but I'd love to get a better understanding of the city's responsibilities, legal responsibilities, financial responsibilities, especially for those that are on private property, and the impacts of historic preservation on private property. So for example, there may have been, I'm sorry, I can't think of something right off the top of my head but say there is a mural that was painted you know 50 years ago on a private wall and now it might be designated as historic how how does that impact the property owner's ability to

Thai Viet PhanItem 29

change modify etc so i'd like to kind of get that scenario for us so that we can make the best informed decision thank you thank you mayor parton thank you mayor and thank you councilmember lopez

David PenalozaItem 29

I'M BRINGING THIS. THIS IS AN EASY ONE FOR I THINK ALL OF US TO BE SUPPORTIVE OF. I AM DEFINITELY SUPPORTIVE OF THIS ITEM. THE ONLY QUESTION I HAVE AND I HAVE ONE FOR COUNCILMEMBER FAN AND ONE FOR COUNCILMEMBER LOPEZ BUT WE'RE NOT QUESTIONING FOR COUNCILMEMBER FAN BUT KIND OF ALMOST IN AGREEMENT BECAUSE I KNOW CITY MANAGER I REMEMBER WE HAD A CONVERSATION ABOUT about one of the murals, I think it was at Santa Ana College that was being listed as one that we should help preserve. If I'm not mistaken, I think it was Santa Ana College.

David PenalozaItem 29

And the question arose of why should we help preserve that mural, right? Not only is it not our property, but it's a separate government entity. So to Council Member Phan's point, you know, she has a point on where does that responsibility fall on when it comes to these private properties? And the question, Council Member Lopez, just for clarity on my behalf, is this something that we would, I mean, why only these two artists?

David PenalozaItem 29

I know these are the more historic artists, but I'd like to see something that will really identify, like, all the various artists in the city. And I know these are historic, so it comes with that historic lens, but is this something that we would, can we expand?

Jessie LopezItem 29

Yeah, that's the prerogative of the council, absolutely. We have a focus on these two because there's been two instances. We've already lost some of these artists' work that have been painted over in this city, right, that have really instilled a sense of disappointment and distrust with the community. and you know we all saw that we almost lost the wall at Memorial Park and so that's why there's a focus on these two specific artists and most importantly because the work of these two artists is all located within public areas of the city so it would not have to deal with any private properties or within private

David PenalozaItem 29

businesses awesome thank you for that so I clarifies it for me but I would like to see when this comes back the and the more artists identified uh and not just i say to these two who are great artists and and historic in our city and we should preserve them but make sure

Alvaro NuñezItem 29

that we're not just selecting the two understood just just as a quick reminder um because it got mentioned both with with this the this recommendation from from city council and also part of the discussion with the arts and culture I think one of the first directions we provided when we were acting city manager not even permanent city manager was actually the preservation of the media Vasquez mural I think we did them within the first 30 45 days we immediately implemented despite two city managers before me asserting that it was gonna get repainted

Alvaro NuñezItem 29

didn't fix so so it doesn't get lost on me as far as from from this sense of quote-unquote community mistrust I want to make sure that where we're here this is why we focus on one providing immediate direction to make sure we preserve the media Vasquez mural and at Memorial Park as a reminder and then second working to get this policy implemented that that was approved previously right public works planning parks recreation and the absent culture working again with the Arts Commission. So this is something that for us, it is a priority, so we'll look at it as far as that goes. As far as this specific recommendation,

Alvaro NuñezItem 29

we'll start with Cadiz because it's true, it's being covered, and the media wasters to provide us that component. Then if we find something along our process of reviewing, and we have questions, then we can go ahead and expand our review in public lands. Is that good?

Jessie LopezItem 29

Great, and I would just love to add that both of the artists are no longer here, So right this is again the urgency. Thank you

And day 90 days is what states here mr. City Manager, so thank you very much. We're all good

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 29

Yes, thank you madam mayor, I'm also fully supportive of the item mr. City Manager So I would like to see us focus on historical murals murals that have exceeded, you know, 30 years 25 years in the city but I do think that in addition to that we need to document and archive all of the murals that are presently up. And so I want to see that practice be consistent. And that'll be my final comment. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilmember Vasquez.

Benjamin VazquezItem 29

Thank you. What a beautiful day for art and artists. Just passing good policy that covers all the murals, right? When we did this initially, all the murals are being protected by the city. We have a plan to make sure that the artists have their vera rights protected. I love it that we're also going to protect our city treasures now. We're going to make sure that these treasures that belong to us as a people are going to guarantee that generations will have them for years to come, and we'll all be able to enjoy them. Thank you. Thank you.

Councillor Passero?

Valerie AmezcuaItem 29

I just want to register my support.

Perfect. Thank you. So, Mr. City Manager, are you clear? All right. Thank you. That's the end of the Councilmember requested item. If you allow me, we're going to jump over to the Housing Authority because we missed that at the last meeting. So we're going to recess the City Council meeting and convene to the Housing Authority meeting. Madam Clerk? We're recessing the City Council meeting, convening to the Housing Authority. I hereby call the Housing Authority meeting to order. Madam Secretary, please conduct the roll call.

Jennifer L. HallItem 29

all authority member becerra here authority member hernandez president authority member lopez authority member fan here authority member vasquez president vice chair penuelosa president chair

mesqua president six members present thank you madam secretary secretary do we have any speakers

Jennifer L. HallItem 29

for the items for the housing authority if there's any member of the public on zoom that wishes to To speak on the Housing Authority items, please raise your hand now.

Jennifer L. HallItem 29

Seeing none, we do not have any in-person speakers nor did we receive any e-comments related to the Housing Authority agenda.

Thank you.

Jennifer L. HallItem 29

Can I get a motion and a second, please?

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 29

Make a motion to move the items, Madam. Second.

Thank you. Any comments?

Jennifer L. HallItem 29

Motion by Authority Member Hernandez, seconded by Authority Member Vasquez to approve the recommended actions for Consent Calendar Items 1 and 3. Authority Member Becerra?

Valerie AmezcuaItem 1

Yes. Yes.

Jennifer L. HallItem 1

Authority Member Hernandez? Yes. Authority Member Lopez? Yes. Authority Member Phan? Yes. Authority Member Vasquez?

David PenalozaItem 1

Yes.

Jennifer L. HallItem 1

Vice Chair Penalosa?

David PenalozaItem 1

Yes.

Jennifer L. HallItem 1

Chair Meskwet? Yes. So it is six ayes, no nays with the absence by Authority Member Lopez. Motion carries.

All right. We're going to now close the Housing Authority and reconvene back to the City Council meeting. We are going to go to work study session, item number 30. May I request a bio break before we start the study session? Sure, let's take a five-minute break. Thank you very much. Thank you. Five-minute break.

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So just remind Council that at 11 we'll have to take a vote to extend it. So hopefully we will not go that long. It's 915. And it's not that I'm rushing. It's just that we're going to be very clear on what we're asking here. Mr. City Manager, are you ready for the City Council Work Study session regarding the fiscal budget of 26-27? Go ahead, Mr. City Manager.

Alvaro NuñezItem 30

Finance Director Alex Rieda will make a presentation for us.

Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. members. During this budget workshop, I will provide follow-up information from Early Direction. Tonight we'll review the updated outlook and potential options for balancing the budget.

So tonight's presentation will cover community outreach, the general fund outlook, and revenue and cost recovery strategies, followed by one-time resources, the cannabis fund, and next steps.

So first let's look at the results from the community engagement.

So as part of the budget process, staff conducted community outreach across all wards, including neighborhoods, meetings, nonprofits, and community commission meetings. So in total we had over 500 engagements, 282 attendees, and more than 2,000 survey responses. So this year we also expanded our outreach by making the survey available year-round, including a QR code on the calendars mailed to all households, increased social media outreach through the city manager's office communication team, utilizing the city's digital digital marquees, newsletters, also it was featured content on the City's main homepage,

and also placed alerts across all website City pages. So staff from the budget team and the City Manager's Office communication team dedicated approximately 100 to 120 hours to support community meetings, events, and overall outreach efforts. efforts.

So we received just over 2,000 responses with 84% completion rate. So as shown on the chart, participation increased over time with the highest response levels in March and April. Social media and the Santa Ana app were the primary ways residents heard about the survey, accounting for over 50% combined. combined. So this information will help us better focus and improve our outreach efforts strategies next year.

These are the top budget priorities identified by the community through the online survey. Residents were asked to rank what they feel are the most important areas for funding. The top five responses were public safety, pavement repairs, youth programs, housing and mental and health addiction services. Separately, in December, the city conducted a scientific poll through a professional polling firm as part of the broader outreach efforts, and the results were very similar to our survey findings. So while the online survey is not a scientific survey, the similar results

across both efforts provide an added confidence that these priorities are broadly reflective of our community input.

So within the other category, common themes included parks and beautification, street infrastructure, code enforcement, and senior services. So overall, these responses are consistent with the main priorities we saw. So we also asked the community where they would be most willing to see reductions if needed. So arts and culture programs ranked highest, IS, FOLLOWED BY HOUSING AND PAVEMENT REPAIRS. THESE RESULTS HELP US INFORM THE DISCUSSION AS WE LOOK AT BALANCING THE BUDGET.

NEXT, I'LL WALK THROUGH THE GENERAL FUND OVERVIEW AND THE CITY'S CURRENT FISCAL OUTLOOK. PLEASE NOTE THAT THE BUDGET IS STILL IN DEVELOPMENT AND MAY CONTINUE TO CHANGE BEFORE FINAL ADOPTION IN JUNE.

So the updated estimated deficit is approximately $13 million, reduced from about $19 million from the April 7th meeting. Since then, our staff refined both revenues and expenditures which helped reduce our deficit. On the revenue side, increases to charges for services based on CPI, higher park-related revenues were included as discussed in the staff report but were offset by a recent consultant update to the reduced sales tax by approximately $1.2 million. On the expenditure side, the OC Streetcar contribution was reduced from an assumed $2

million to about a quarter of that amount due to delays in the start of operations. And then certain contracts were held flat based on staff review. and the equipment replacement funding was not included in the budget this year.

So this summary outlines the draft general fund budget, which includes both recurring and one-time resources. So total recurring revenues are approximately $425 million compared to spending baseline of about $438 million, resulting in an estimated deficit of $13 million. So staff has identified potential balancing options totaling 8.4 which reduces the remaining gap to approximately 4.7 million. In addition, there is approximately 3 million in one-time funding remaining after incorporating the proposed one-time uses outlined in the staff report which has been set aside for City Council priorities.

So this slide highlights the key drivers of the budget. So overall, revenues are increasing by about 3%, while expenditures are increasing about 6%. So a key factor on the revenue side is that sales tax, which makes up about 34% of our budget or revenues, is growing at less than 2%. On the expenditure side, labor costs are increasing about 7.7%, and pension and liability costs increasing by about 17.9%. With contracts, services increasing about 3% for OCFA. So this is not unique to Santa Ana.

Many cities across Orange County and throughout California are experiencing similar pressures due to inflation and rising costs. So this gap between the revenues and expenditure growth is what is driving our structural deficit.

So approximately 68% of charges days attributed to Santa Ana are driven by over-the-counter straight drop-offs. In response, staff is evaluating a range of actions focused on reducing intake and improving cost recovery. So these include reviewing the shelter contract and municipal code, exploring CAT licensing and improving outreach to identify unlicensed pets, and implementing a public information campaign to guide appropriate use of the shelter. Staff is also evaluating potential policy and program changes, including a trap and

neuter return program, additional spay and neuter services, and other measures to reduce ongoing intake. So these efforts are intended to generate savings over time and better manage costs with no immediate impact to the current budget.

So the Historic Resource Commission program currently costs about $100,000 annually. So with approximately 46,000 offset through fees. Moving to full cost recovery would generate about $54,000 in savings. An additional option for council consideration would be to consolidate the commission under the planning commission, which would result in approximately $10,000 in additional savings. In addition, there may be further budget balancing opportunities related to non-mandated commissions, including arts and culture, environmental and transportation, parks and recreation, and youth.

So these are not currently in the balancing measures and could be considered as additional options for council direction.

Next I'll walk through revenue and cost recovery options.

As requested by city council, this provides additional information and transient occupancy tax or TOT. So the city's current TOT rate is 11%, with 33 active hotels generating revenue. The recent collections have remained relatively flat at approximately $9.5 million annually. For comparison, Santa Ana's TOT rate is within the range of among cities around Orange County. It is also important to note that any changes to the city's TOT rates will require voter approval through a ballot measure. ADDITIONAL DETAILS IS INCLUDED IN THE EXHIBIT IN THE STAFF REPORT.

TANANA'S CURRENT PRIMARIC SERVICE CHARGES ARE BELOW REGIONAL MARKET LEVELS RANGING FROM ABOUT 27 TO 55% LOWER THAN PEER AGENCIES. STAFF IS PROPOSING TO ALIGN OUR RATES WITH ORANGE COUNTY EMS OR OSIMS TO BETTER REFLECT REGIONAL STANDARDS. Approximately 86.5% of the transports are covered by Medicare, Medi-Cal or private insurance. But most patients would not see a significant change in out-of-pocket costs. The additional revenues from this adjustment is estimated at approximately $700,000 annually and has been included as part of the City's proposed balancing measures.

SO STAFF IS SEEKING CITY COUNCIL'S DIRECTION ON WHETHER TO ADJUST PERIMETERIC SERVICE CHARGES TO ALIGN WITH OATSOM'S RATES.

SO RECENT STADIUM EVENTS GENERATED APPROXIMATELY EIGHTY THREE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED AND NET REVENUES ACROSS ABOUT FIFTY HOURS OF USE. SO STAFF IS RECOMMENDING A FOURTEEN PERCENT FEE INCREASE WHICH IS ESTIMATED TO INCREASE ANNUAL REVENUES TO APPROXIMATELY THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND. IN ADDITION TO THE FEE ADJUSTMENT STAFF WILL CONTINUE EFFORTS TO INCREASE UTILIZATION OF THE FACILITY WITH PROPOSED IMPROVEMENTS HELPING SUPPORT ADDITIONAL USE AND EVENTS. PROPOSED CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS OF APPROXIMATELY $1.6 MILLION HAVE BEEN IDENTIFIED TO IMPROVE MARKETABILITY OF THE STADIUM INCLUDING

REPLACEMENT OF PERIMETER FENCING, RESTROOM REFORMATION, INFRASTRUCTURE TO SUPPORT FOOD So these improvements would be funded through the acquisition and development district funding. There's also an additional $2.2 million in unfunded locker room rehab needs. Staff is seeking City Council direction on the proposed fee adjustment.

So as discussed during early direction, staff is currently finalizing a proposed technology fee as a new cost recovery measure. measure. So this is the first time the city is evaluating this type of fee, which an early estimate ranging between 7 to 8% per permit, generating approximately $700,000 to $800,000 annually. These estimates are preliminary and will continue to be refined as implementation details are finalized. Staff is seeking city council's direction on whether to include a technology fee and the miscellaneous fees scheduled as part of the proposed budget.

So, residential care facilities are state regulated and not subject to local business taxes, which limits the city's regulatory authority. In contracts, sober living homes are not state regulated, are subject to city's business tax, and were recently addressed through the updates to the municipal code established regulatory standards. As a potential option, city council could direct staff to pursue quality of life concerns through enforcement abatement for both facility types with the ability to recover associated costs.

However, it is important to note that abatement is a resource-intensive process that requires significant documentation, coordination, and time, and would involve a lengthy legal process to pursue.

Okay. Next we'll walk through potential uses of those one-time resources. So staff identified approximately $11.6 million in one-time general fund resources as revenues for Fiscal Year 26-27 increased. The City's 18% reserve requirement also increased resulting in about $2.2 million to the reserves and leaving $9.4 million available for one-time spending. As discussed during early directions, staff recommended a series of one-time uses, including

contributions to the liability reserves, facility repairs, pension stabilization, and support for residential street sweeping, which council expressed support for. After these proposed uses, approximately $3 million remains available for city council Council priorities.

With the remaining one-time balance, these are potential unfunded one-time needs for City Council consideration. If City Council is interested in activating the Bristol and Wilshire sites, there are potential improvements options for that location. Council could select one of these options going forward. But one of them could be a splash baths, mini pitch, a pump track, a dock park, or a fitness zone. Which of these options would City Council be interested in?

In addition to the Bristol and Wilshire site, these are other potential unfunded one-time needs for City Council consideration. These include Washington Square land purchase for future park development. the three prefab restrooms at Centennial Park, specific plan for two general plan focus areas, the Cabrillo Park restroom and general site improvements, Alton bike trail lights and cameras, street lights at 18 and Jefferson, foundation for a privately funded patio court at Thornton Park, shape structure at Inup Park, street lights at Lilly King Park,

Park, Hotel Market Feasibility Study. So which of these items would Council be more interested in prioritizing for the remaining 3 million in one-time funding?

And next, I'll walk through the City's Cannabis Public Benefit Fund for Fiscal Year 26-27.

So for Fiscal Year 26-27, the Cannabis Public Benefit Fund is estimated at approximately approximately $8.5 million based on current revenue estimates. The allocation remains consistent with City Council policy with 52% supporting youth services and then 48% for enforcement services. On the youth service side, funding supports library operations, recreation programming, and other youth-focused services. On the enforcement side, funding primarily supports police, code enforcement, and city attorney's office. office. But cannabis revenues continue to face pressure as more cities allow cannabis sales and due

to the highly regulated environment. So staff will continue to closely monitor revenues as this funding remains an important source of support for supporting youth program and services.

Next steps, we'll walk through the balancing measures identified to date and seek your feedback on how to address the remaining deficit.

So this slide summarizes the balancing measures identified to date. In total approximately 8.4 million has been identified. This includes about 1.3 million in revenue adjustments from cost recovery increases. Approximately 4 million in workforce changes primarily from eliminating long-term vacant positions and reducing part-time staffing, part-time budget. budget and about 3.1 million in public works contract reductions and other programs and service changes. Together, these actions have reduced the initial $13 million deficit to approximately 4.7 million.

Additional details is provided in Exhibit 3 for reference.

These are the categories that were introduced during early direction to help guide priorities. If City Council were to agree with the balancing measures presented this evening, there will still be a remaining gap of approximately $4.7 million to address. At this stage, staff is seeking City Council's direction on how to close the remaining deficit, including any preferences regarding potential program reductions within the nice-to-have categories, as outlined in Exhibit 4 of the staff report.

So to close, these are the next steps in the budget process. Following tonight, staff will refine the proposed budget based on City Council direction and return with the balance proposed budget. The proposed budget will be shared with City Council on May 19th for further review and direction. If needed, City Council may also consider scheduling an additional workshop in May, so May 12th, 13th, or the 15th. In June the first reading of the budget is scheduled for June 2 followed by a second reading and adoption on June 16. With that staff is seeking Council direction this evening and we are available for any questions you may have.

Thank you so very much. And I like the last page here where must haves, should haves and nice to haves. It's very important that we all remember that. So I always kind of go last. So I'm just going to really quick cover mine because I don't have too many.

First of all, totally supportive of the Washington Square land purchase for future park development. I'd like us to look into that, Mr. City Manager.

I know that it's important for the community. It's important for us. And we are lacking parks at our city. So I'm sure you can get back to us on that. Public safety, as we all know, is very important. The Alton bike trail lights and cameras, street lights at 18th and Jefferson. And street lights at Harvey and the Carroll cul-de-sac. Again, it's a public safety quality of life issue for me about having lights and our community feel safe. And the Edna Park structure. I'm just going to give you what I support and we'll go from there.

The one-time unfunded needs for consideration at Bristol and Wilshire. We can possibly use that money for the Washington Square Park. I know exactly where that location is. And it's, I think you beautify it and put grass and all kinds of things there and trees and make it look pretty. But it's really interesting the things that we have listed here for that area that's on a main street there that can be quite dangerous. I want to say thank you to staff because since I've been sitting here, we have had a little over 1,000 responses to the survey, about 1,200.

And so it appears that we've had 2,057 responses. So I really, really appreciate the work to get that. And I'm going to say it again, and I always say it. You can look at the priorities that the community responded to, the 2,057 people. Public safety. Public safety, and I really like that now it's pavement repairs is the second one. That's really important. So where is it? Public safety, right? What were the top two, Alex? Public safety? Am I reading this right? And pavement repairs? That is correct. That's interesting and I love that. Okay, great.

Public safety, pavement repairs, youth programs, and then housing challenges. So okay, that's what I have for right now. Let me start with the council. Council Member Becerra. Council Member Becerra.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 30

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So first of all, thank you, staff. Thank you, Alex, for the presentation. A couple of quick questions. First one, what is the technology fee?

Thank you for that question. So this is kind of a normal thing, but in order to provide efficient services, for example, both Acela, the new permitting system, there's a cost to that, right, to the city. And so the technology fee is really to recover those costs because there's ongoing maintenance and subscription costs, but also to help us keep up with technology in the future. So that is what the technology is for.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 30

So, I mean, just to understand, so you would assess that as part of fees from the city? In other words, this isn't going to appear on people's internet bills or cable bills. This is not, it's only for, I guess it'd be better to classify as like a user fee, or a user fee, user of city services fee.

That's correct.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 30

Okay, perfect. I just wanted to make sure and get that clarification. And then on the lights at 18th and Jefferson, you know, so there's lights being proposed over the cul-de-sacs next to Lily King, which I appreciate and I thank staff for including that. But 18th and Jefferson, the cost jumps up to 300,000. Is it because there's more lights? I just want to understand why that cost jumps up.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 30

So how many lights are we getting out of that then?

Thanks for the question. 18th and Jefferson is 18th Street, actually from Jefferson to Broadway, for about four or five lights and all the underground infrastructure that goes into them.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 30

So it's not just the intersection, it's a stretch of roadway?

Correct.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 30

Okay, perfect. Whereas the cul-de-sacs adjacent to Lilly King, we're talking about two streetlights? Correct. Perfect. Thank you for that. So just to answer kind of a couple of the questions posed in the presentation, pursued nuisance abatement on illegal sober living homes, yes please. We've got plenty of those still around and we definitely, I know I field a lot of calls and emails regarding those. People are asking about our ordinance and I want to thank staff for the ordinance that they brought forward because now I can confidently say you're You're darn right we can do something about it.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 30

So now we just need to do that follow through. So yes, please. Bristol and Wilshire, I agree with the mayor. If we're looking at possibly doing something for Washington Square Park, we don't have the ability to say and, it might be or. If we were gonna do something at Bristol and Wilshire, maybe the fitness zone might be appropriate. But if not, I think we need to look at Washington Square. And I wanna ask, and I don't know if it's gonna be Assistant City Manager Mentai

Valerie AmezcuaItem 30

I or our planning manager, Ali, but I think there needs to be a little clarification on the Washington Square Park because in my conversations with some of the residents in Washington Square, there seems to be this belief that the property owner can walk into the public counter and get permits to build Manhattan-style high-density housing. I don't believe that to be true. I'm pretty darn sure that's not the case. And I feel like the property owner might be using that as a scare tactic. But can I get clarification from staff about the potential development of the existing vacant property for the park?

Alvaro NuñezItem 30

Our executive director from Planning and Building can provide that response.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 30

Councillor Neill.

Councillor Kiley.

Thank you, Councilmember. member. So under current state laws and local ordinances, the quick answer to that question is

Valerie AmezcuaItem 30

no. Okay. So in other words, the only way that they would be, the concerns that have been expressed to me, the only way those would be realized is if a majority of this council were to vote to change the zoning on that property, correct? Correct. Just like any other R1 property in the

city, the properties could be developed with homes, ADUs, and JADUs, junior ADUs. Under SB9, it would be duplexes and ADUs, same density. But anything like, to quote you, Manhattan-style development require majority approval of a general plan amendment and zone change to up-densify the sites.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 30

So a general plan amendment and a zone change, not just even a zone change. We're talking a whole package of entitlements.

Correct, as well as any accompanying CEQA documentation.

Valerie AmezcuaItem 30

Okay, thank you for that, Ali. And the reason I'm putting that out there is because I think it's important that our executive director of CDA, Mike Garcia, who does an amazing job in property acquisition, I would hope that when Mike goes and talks to that property owner, it be clear that, and we've had this happen in other instances in the city where we've had outside entities, agencies, try to play cute and come in and make a demand on property as if they have a higher development potential that they do not have. And so I wanna be clear. So anybody in Washington Square that's watching,

Valerie AmezcuaItem 30

they do not have that high development potential, but I would tell you I do support a park in Washington Square, but let's figure out how to get there. And then really, I guess really the other thing is I just want us to be more cognizant of trying to grow revenue. I'm going to keep saying it over and over. I know we've got to look at fees, I know that we're gonna nickel and dime our way to try to get, you know, a balanced budget, but we've really, you know, there's no time like right now to start looking at what we can do. We've already got some big developments coming down the pipeline. I want to thank staff and my colleagues for

Valerie AmezcuaItem 30

supporting those that are going to allow us to realize revenue, but it's not enough. And when we look at what other surrounding cities are doing, especially the ones to the north of us, there's a lot of room to catch up. And so I would say yes emphatically on the hotel feasibility study, as I mentioned earlier, not just on attracting new hotels, but also what we can do to create a climate that makes our hotels the most attractive in the area, even more attractive than our neighbors to the north. As I mentioned before, I'm going to give two quick categories of

Valerie AmezcuaItem 30

asks. So from a citywide perspective, the in-custody transportation vehicle to assist our colt personnel I think still needs to be part of the mix. What we can do at the Santa Ana train station as far as populating those vacant spaces. I appreciate what I saw in the presentation for the the Santa Ana Stadium enhancements. Although I was shocked at the revenue shown. I mean, I imagine modern day is the number one football team in the nation and when they bring teams from out of town, I mean, they're packing the entire bowl. So I don't know, I'll leave it up to you guys, but I just, I thought those revenues were a little low

Valerie AmezcuaItem 30

and especially Council Member Hernandez and I were talking about those concerts, you know, we thought might've attracted a little bit more revenue. new. And then just bringing it back to my ward real quick, the Alton bike trail, the video monitoring would be really appreciated. The lights on the, the two lights on the two cul-de-sacs next to Lilly King Park. I'm hoping those aren't gigantic asks. I have a laundry list of things to go through, but you know what? In reality, you've really done a good job in making us realize that, hey, this is not one of those years where we can provide

Valerie AmezcuaItem 30

you an exhaustive list and come away with 75% of it. So I'm keeping my asks to a minimum, but I know these are asks that would be very, very appreciated in my ward as the mayor's emphasizing and as your own report emphasizes public safety, just basic good old-fashioned infrastructure improvements. You know, people want to drive on roads that are smooth and safe. So as long as we can continue to go down that path i think we'll be in good shape so thank you very much thank you

councilman sarah again the must-haves the should-haves and the nice-to-haves councilman

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 30

hernandez thank you madam mayor i want to thank our our city staff alex cat downs city manager nunez for today's presentation i'll keep my my comments very um brief number one i'm supportive of us allocating monies to prioritize road repair that remains a liability for the city where if we have accidents or if we have sidewalk issues where if we can reduce liabilities in those areas by funding the repairment of some of these said sidewalks or roads I think that that'll help us long term given that over the last six years of being elected I've seen this be an issue of of consistent liability for the city,

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 30

given that we have a very limited amount of monies that we've allocated at a million for sidewalk repair. I would love to see that threshold increase,

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 30

not substantially, not two million, but maybe we can get a little bit of a sizable budget to prioritize a very healthy construction schedule. I would also love to see the city identify roads that need to be repaired as well as sidewalks and potentially projects that may already exist within the city that that has for instance when we had the streetcar they were tasked with having to repair some of our streets the orange county sanitation district is doing construction off of euclid they will then have to repair the streets they will have to repave the roads as well as is ensure that the sidewalks are repaved.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 30

The reason I bring this up is because there was construction alongside Flower Street at Angels Park, and some of that construction is still up at this park where it's very much a construction site. So a lot of residents will reach out and say, hey, it's hard to walk on that park, or it's, you know, I wanted to reduce as much liability as we can for our city, so I wanna prioritize finishing projects like that. that. I also want to highlight the importance of having speed humps along Washington in the Washington Square neighborhood between Bristol and Flower Street. We recently had

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 30

a very busy steady schedule of construction that's all Raising Cane's, Better Buzz Coffee and of course the development of the Early Childhood Center at Santa Ana College over over the last five years. So you've seen a lot of construction happen here on this part of the city, sir. And 17th and Bristol being one of the busier corridors of the city. I want us to ensure that families who are in Washington Square have decreased traffic with respects to our need for emergency responses so that they can effectively get into the neighborhood. I would request the speed humps that have been placed

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 30

alongside Washington in the Logan neighborhood neighborhood and in the Artisa Pilar neighborhood and Willard where there is now a gap for Washington Square. I think that construction should be consistent. So I'd like to see that the speed humps be added on Washington. I also am very excited that Santa Anita Park will be opening this year, 2026. Given that this is going to be a brand new renovated park space, we can expect an abundance of families and children coming to this park. families that live on the west side who may be attending Santa Anita Park my concerns is that

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 30

many of those families will cross between Figueroa and First Street as evidenced by the Neighborhood Association and residents I want to thank Wally Gonzalez they've highlighted their concerns with residents jaywalking to that park in the past given that you have Harbor and first street it's a very busy corridor i want to make sure that we have a crosswalk and a light intersection for us to look into you know what avenues we do have as a city to reduce traffic collisions and to protect pedestrians should they cross and they are jaywalking i want to i want the

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 30

city to provide a safe place for them to access that park a lot of those residents are not going to use first and harbor we're just we're going to be realistic so we want to protect them and We have had a history of accidents along First and Fairview, and those have been fatal. And so the city does have a history of collisions on First Street. And so I think out of an abundance of caution, we need to fund that, given that the $26 million invested in Santa Anita Park, I would say that this is the right thing to do.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 30

I also want to raise awareness to increased concerns with traffic and pedestrian safety alongside 6th Street and Raitt near the Our Lady of the Pillar Church. The church has communicated with me, as well as the home that is located on the corner of 6th and Raitt, that many of the members of their church have issues when they're crossing the street to get onto 6th Street and Raitt. A LOT OF THE CARS, YOU KNOW, THERE IS AN INTERSECTION FOR THEM TO CROSS AT 5th AND RATE. BUT WHAT I DO LIKE IS WHAT WE'VE DONE AT 10th AND RATE STREET. WE ADDED THE LIGHTS AS WELL AS WE ADDED LIGHTING AT THE END OF THE NIGHT.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 30

SO IF A PEDESTRIAN IS CROSSING BECAUSE MASS ENDS AT 9 O'CLOCK AT OUR LADY OF THE PILLAR, YOU HAVE RESIDENTS WHO ARE WALKING HOME SOMETIMES AT 9 O'CLOCK AT NIGHT AND IT'S VERY DIFFICULT TO SEE THEM. SO PERHAPS WE ADD LIGHTING SIMILAR TO WHAT WE DID TO 10th AND RATE. I think that that could alleviate some of those issues. I am also supportive of us looking into identifying how we can maximize revenue at the train station. I think that that is a very, very important amenity for the city to invest in. I think that that'll bring us some good revenue to the city. I'm supportive of us adopting a trap-neuter release program

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 30

for cats with no cost spay and neuter services. services. I'm also supportive of considering an additional veterinarian staff at the zoo to be available for both no cost and low cost spay and neuter services. Supportive of condensing the historic resources commission to the planning commission. If that saves the city money, I want to do that. I'm supportive of the paramedic service charges with the condition that we We do not decrease firefighter services. I want to add to those services. And if we can streamline public safety by adding a paramedic, I want to do that, but

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 30

not without, I do not want to see any decrease of services for OCFA. I'm supportive of the Santa Ana Stadium rental fees and us doing our due diligence to generate revenue. I think it is important for our city manager's office to work with Parks and Recreation and and prioritize activating this. Perhaps it's looking at creating a specialized position where maybe you guys have somebody who focuses on activating the stadium, whether it's sporting events or music or modern day, what have you, there should be a steady calendar of events and that calendar should be made available to all residents in the city every single year,

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 30

the same way that residents who live in LA receive a calendar or information related to the Greek theater, Hollywood Bowl. those are important opportunities that the city can capitalize on. I am supportive of the Washington Square acquisition of the property that's located in their neighborhood. This would be an opportunity for us to ensure that we are aligning with our parks master plan. We, alongside the corridor of Flower Street, have Fisher Park. We have, of course, you know, we have a number of parks across the city that we have been working on.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 30

Washington Square is one of the unique neighborhoods where you have two elementary schools within the neighborhood. Wilson, Quiroz, you have Mendez, you have Santa Ana College, and you have Willard. Those are five schools where at any given time, you have thousands of students who are walking to and from home between that neighborhood. Many of those residents live in that neighborhood. And so I think that for us to continue to ensure that we are adding park space to the city, given that we are a park poor community, I want to support us working with the CDA,

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 30

Mike Garcia, and identifying if there's a smaller dollar amount for this property. It was once 3.8 million, it is now listed at 3.2 million. We're seeing this property value go down. I would love to see the city negotiate. I think we can get this property for far far less than what it is listed for. So I would like to see the city pursue that and that'll be my end of my first

round of comments. Thank you Madam Mayor. Thank you. All right must have, should haves and want to have. Councilman Villescaz. Thank you and I have some comments city manager so you can tell your directors and

Benjamin VazquezItem 30

staff housing is a safety matter housing is important during covid we were locked in our houses violent crime went up 30 housing is safety when we have six to ten people in an apartment that's safety concerns the kids go out to the streets to play there's no parks nowhere safe safe for them to be. They go either in the parking area of an apartment complex or they go to the alley and they find trouble or they become trouble. Housing is safety. Investing in youth is safety,

Benjamin VazquezItem 30

right? Where Irvine has our same population with 250 officers and we have 400 officers, their department is not better than the Santa Ana PD because we have housing issues here. We have a dense population housing is an issue here the cost is high so when we're looking at safety and people are asking to be safe we have to look at safety for children I went to a conference with Sheriff Barnes tells he tells the public for every dollar we spend on youth we said we save seven dollars on

Benjamin VazquezItem 30

criminalizing them for every one dollar we invest in youth and save seven at the back end according to Sheriff Barnes so those things are safety investing in youth parks libraries housing we need to learn how to manage and I'm not saying the police are not but you need to manage and balance that out we need to to look at safety of children who have healthy lives. In Irvine, let me bring Irvine again, those kids are invested in by their parents. And our parents can't afford to have two jobs,

Benjamin VazquezItem 30

and they can barely afford the housing that they do have, living in garage and garages, renting out a one bedroom for a family. That's why this is safety. When you talk about safety, it's about healthy families and healthy children and I want all our directors to understand that I would like to have healthy families and children who are safe at home I would like to have it

Benjamin VazquezItem 30

so when we define in and these simple surveys what safety is make sure people understand what we're saying it is but how we come to it how we manage a city when you manage a city you make sure you have healthy families you have healthy children you bring it together you have a department that works with community a police department that works with community thank you that being said I'm I'm gonna want to see, I support Washington Square Park to have a park there.

Benjamin VazquezItem 30

We could hold off on Wilshire Park, I was champion that, but I would push for Washington Square Park. I would like to see an increase in police oversight and a book kiosk type of library at Pio Pico Elementary if we could, thank you.

Councilmember Vazquez, I'm sorry, the last part you want to book kiosk where? At Beale Peak Elementary or just in the neighborhood? That neighborhood is fine. Okay. I just did a motion. Thank you. Councilmember Fenn? Yes, I called on you. Go ahead. Not ten minutes, just three.

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

I thought she was ignoring me.

I'm not ignoring you.

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

Okay. Okay. So I'm feeling a little confused because it seems like when I had my one-on-ones and the presentation, it stated that we have approximately $4 million gap right now in recurring expenses. And then there's a one-time fund of $3 million. So I'm a little bit confused.

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

Some of these items that are being requested are significantly I just don't know where the money is coming from for a lot of these things. And so I guess it's just we need to make big cuts. That's the only thing we can do right now is we have to make big cuts to things that we do love and that we've supported because we have to make the numbers work. I do understand that we kind of separate out one-time funding.

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

funding, but in some of these things that are listed, it's not really one-time costs because you have recurring costs that will be added to it. Right? Please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm really just trying to understand. So let me just start with the $4 million recurring budget deficit. »» Hold on a second.

I guess there's a conversation so he can hear too. You can when she's done if you like, please.

»» Perfect. Thank you. Okay. Councilmember Fenn, go ahead and finish.

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

»» I support that. Thank you. »» Go ahead. »» So, okay. Okay, $4 million to make up for it. In our one-on-ones, we talked a lot about, okay, what are the high-cost items, the big-ticket items that serve a very small and discrete number of residents?

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

One of the things that we talked about, and it hurts my heart because it was something something that I really loved, I learned about, and I really supported, but it's unsustainable with the budget that we have, and that's PAL.

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

I was very, very excited to have a PAL at Santa Anita Community Center in Santa Anita Park, but we're spending almost a million dollars for a very small number of residents. And those are the difficult cuts that we have to make. So with my feedback and direction to staff, I want to see what it looks like to cut PAL, or at least the Santa Anita location and the Roosevelt Walker location, and just keeping the current location. Or limiting it some way, bringing it down. I know both Parks and Rec and our library has lots of programming.

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

programming, if they can do it for a more affordable rate because we're not paying or having more expensive staff do it, let's look at that. How can we serve students as best as we can with less funding?

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

When we talk about staffing and we're going through a lot of these increase in costs for staffing, that's just how every city functions, right? We're going to have to look at cuts to part-time positions. We're looking at cuts through a lot of services.

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

I'm not in support of any furloughs. I don't think that's fair for if we're requesting people are going to work. People who are in salary are going to work. They should be paid for that time. But I support the expenditure savings. I support cutting Historic Resources Commission and rolling all of that into parks, excuse me, planning. Every application that goes through planning and historic resources, all of that should be reimbursable. It should be a deposit. The resident or whoever the applicant is should be paying for it.

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

That is standard among every city almost that I work with. with, and if they're gonna get the benefit, the tax benefit of the Mills Act in which they are not paying for the parks, they are not paying for the roads, they're not paying for the pavement or the street sweeping, they should at least pay for the application and staff time. We need to get rid of ETAC, that should also roll into planning. Parks and Rec, sorry, we can get rid of that too, they don't take any active actions. You can roll some of that into planning. You can roll some of that into arts and culture.

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

So see what you can do to consolidate all these commissions, all these, hopefully that will free up some staff time. As to the one-time expenditures, I'm trying to look at, again, you know, we're all talking about public safety and what does that mean.

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

Street lights at 18th and Jefferson, we talk about being able to light where people walk when it's dark at night. That's something that's important. I think we've talked about the Alton bike trail and cameras for a very long time.

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

I don't know about the cameras, but the lights.

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

No cement foundation for paddle courts. It's privately funded. They can fund the foundation. I am so sorry to all the Washington Square residents, but $4 million to purchase land that we don't have the money to actually improve and turn into a park, please correct me if I'm wrong, I think the $4 million is just for the land purchase. We cannot afford that. We cannot afford that. That is already above the $3 million one-time funds. That's not including the actual grading, improvement, maintenance, staffing, and increased security plus any type of infrastructure that we have to put in at the park.

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

So it's just not possible right now. And if our team is able to get funding from a future state assembly member who may be sitting on this dais, or a state senator, or a congress member, great. But until that happens, I am not going to make promises that this city cannot keep, especially when we've seen historically when park maintenance gets defunded and we're not maintaining the restrooms that we have in the parks that we have it becomes underutilized it becomes dangerous and we have a terrible cycle

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

of that I don't want us to be back there which means I don't support any of the Bristol-Bristol-Wilshire activations we don't have money for any of that and I I think that any dollars that we can save, like I would love to have more restrooms at Centennial because it's going to get used more. If that's possible, great.

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

But any money that we have left over for this, I know it's a one-time fund situation, find a way to use it to help cover the recurring costs. Whatever you can do. I don't know the math on that or I don't know the structure on that. But that would be my request for staff. I don't have any additional requests. I don't have any additional desires because right now what we're looking at is what we have to cut, not what we have to add. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON WONG. Thank you, Councilmember Fenn. I have the one-on-one and yes, that's why I keep saying must-haves, should-haves and nice-to-haves. Before I forget, I do want to talk about the animal shelter and I know we get, I'm sure we all get emails about this. Can you please share? I want the community to know, can you please share how much we spend for the animal shelter for animals from the City of Santa Ana? So we're spending around $4.2 million in animal shelter costs. And we're paying the county $4.2 million? Correct. And why can we not have our own, and I'm not asking for it, I want you to explain why we could not.

Can you repeat your question? Sorry. Why can we not have our own animal shelter? Sure. Besides the cost, I mean, what is it, the cost? It really is the cost to actually start our own shelter. I think it would be in the millions, over $10 million to find a location, you know, zone it the right way. We just recently had discussions with other cities, and it is an expensive endeavor, and that requires additional staffing costs as well. But I think it would be probably more expensive than having it with the county. And is it true that the City of Santa Ana pays $44.52 a day per animal that's dropped off at the shelter?

Yes. So they ask them for ID? For example, we have a bird from Santa Ana that's been sitting there. We've paid $6,000 for this bird to be held at the shelter. Yeah, in order, when you drop off a pet, they do ask for your ID at the shelter. So I see the face of the Councilmember up here. And the only reason I bring it up is because I appreciate all of this and we're going to give what we want and what, again, must haves, should haves, and nice to haves. But we're not digging into the animal shelter for me. And I ask those questions because I get the calls about, you don't like cats, Mayor. You're not saving our cats.

You're killing them. Or the coyotes are eating them. I know the tears. I have a cat. I love my cat. Don't worry. Her name is Baby. I love my cat. And I have Milo now, too, as a cat. But the cost that the City of Santa Ana pays, I don't think our residents know. And I want to share that because, you know, we talk about, you know, how much we spend on homeless. We talk about how much we spend on public safety. We talk about how much we want, you know, we want from A through Z. But let's talk about the animal shelters. So $44.52 a day. So it's $4.2 million a year that we spend, correct?

And stray cats alone is $1 million?

That's correct. Yeah. So that is why I would fully support bringing something to the zoo. You have it here, I believe it is. Consider additional veterinarian staff at the zoo to be available for both no cost and low cost spay and neuter services. I don't know that we need them full-time, but we may have them. We do need them full-time for the $4.2 million. Sorry, yes, we do. And I hate asking for that, but I'm just saying it doesn't need to happen this budget cycle, maybe next budget cycle, because again, is it a priority? It's a lot of money that we spend for stray animals and mostly cats, stray cats.

So I just wanted the community to be aware of that. So when they call us or email us or yell at us and say, you don't like cats and you don't do anything for our cats, this city is spending $4.2 billion a year and we're paying $44.52 a day, correct? Okay, just want to make sure. Councilmember Lopez. Thank you.

Jessie LopezItem 30

I want to start by acknowledging the work that city staff has done so far this budget season.

Jessie LopezItem 30

You know, I think you deserve so much, so many thank yous actually for helping to reduce the projected deficit from where it was originally to what it is now. I think that that is significant progress, very meaningful, and on behalf of my constituents, I want to thank city staff for working hard to do that. And I also really, really appreciate the transparency in this report, showing the reconciliation line by line. I think that that is exactly what this council and this community needs, to be informed, to understand the impact, the issue that we are discussing

Jessie LopezItem 30

here tonight, the issue that we've been trying to highlight for many, many years. That said, obviously a $13 million gap is still very serious, it's still significant, and the 4.7 million that the Councilwoman just pointed to also is very, not a great place, right? right? And so we're not done making hard choices. This budget cycle is not going to be the only budget cycle that hard cuts are going to be made. And I want to make sure that for me, you know, we're making them in the, we're making cuts where they make sense to make

Jessie LopezItem 30

cuts without a massive impact to our families in the city. And so several items in Exhibit 3 give me pause because I want to make sure that we understand who exactly is observing the impact of these cuts. And so I wanted to know with the park maintenance contract, you know, it is down $960,000. The park security is down $300,000.

Jessie LopezItem 30

That's nearly 1.3 coming out of parks operations. Ward three residents, we rely on these spaces. We use these spaces on a daily, on a daily. These are the spaces where we have neighborhood events, where we have community gatherings. And so I want to know, will maintenance cycles be reduced and what parks are going to lose coverage?

Councillor Stroud. Councillor Stroud, thank you for the question. First, I'll say the team is working on getting the lights at the elevated tank changed to red. It takes a few minutes, so working on that. Councillor Schell, Thank you, Mayor Paterson. Mayor Paterson, In terms of the cuts, we'll start with security.

The $330,000 or so cuts to armed security, we have four

security guards 24-7 servicing all the parks. The cut represents losing one of those for full-time 24-7 coverage. So there'll still be security, there'll still be coverage. It'll just be impacted a little bit in terms of timeliness. In terms of the park maintenance in general, it is a reduction in infield baseball, infield maintenance. pest control and mowing of the parks. Again, the service will still be performed, it'll just be performed a little less frequently.

Jessie LopezItem 30

Okay, I would like to propose that instead of swapping, you know, eliminating one park security, that you eliminate some of the security that patrol this compound, right? On the weekends, I see them, there's not much going on around here, and so that would be my preference. and this is a highly secured location, right? You have the federal building as well, you have the City Hall Jail across the street, you have other county buildings here, and so we can go without the security here that often are just walking on their phone. That is my preference. I'm not gonna be supporting cuts to our park security.

Jessie LopezItem 30

You all, especially when we have done park site visits, you hear the feedback of park security. You hear how much they do. You also hear that sometimes when they call PD, they don't receive the support that they need. And so they are imperative to our parks in ensuring that we can maintain them. That is not my personal opinion. That is the feedback that we have gotten from them time after time after time. And so I asked my colleagues tonight to keep an open mind and keeping our park security, because I think that they are incredibly important and very needed, frankly.

Jessie LopezItem 30

I also wanted to know, in February I raised, and I'll raise it again, that some of these programming that we have in the city, they're not necessarily luxuries for family. And so, I need more information from city staff in terms of finding the efficiencies in our programs. I think Councilman Phan raises a great point. What is it I would like to know to bring forward a a per capita cost analysis of, for example,

Jessie LopezItem 30

the PAL activities compared to equivalent parks and recreation youth programming. Because the cuts moving forward cannot just be about eliminating youth programming in our city. It is about asking whether the city is getting the equivalent value for the equivalent investment, the dollars. And so if a parks and rec and after school program serves 50 kids at X amount of dollars, and a PAL program serves a comparable number at a materially higher cost, that's a relevant data point that this city council should have. That is a relevant data point that the community should have access to.

Jessie LopezItem 30

That should inform our policy choices on this dais. So I am requesting that comparison before we rule out any program from the balancing conversation that we're having tonight. I hope that my colleagues can also support that request because really it's rooted in transparency and truly understanding what is working in the budget and what is not giving us a full return. I also understand, I also saw the navigation center contribution elimination. I would love to know, does that mean that the city is going to lose the resource entirely entirely or is there a path to alternative funding?

Thank you for the question, Councilmember. The thought on that is shifting those, I think you're mentioning $75,000 in shelter costs. So those are being moved to restricted monies. So for example, HAP funding, that would pay for that. Similar process is thought for the homeless manager. So instead of being paid out of general fund, it would be paid from

Jessie LopezItem 30

restricted monies. Perfect. Thank you so much for that explanation. In February, I think that we can reduce Cultura from four to two. It really will be the prerogative of this council if they even want to have it at all. I think that's an easy thing that we can save pennies, but that's what we're doing now. I also appreciate that staff has put together a concrete menu of options. A few that I want to flag that I'm supportive is, of course, the lightning on 18th Street and Jefferson. You know, we have the Bowers Museum, we have the Kids Museum, we have the wooden floor in this area.

Jessie LopezItem 30

This is an area that is highly, highly active and visited, and so I want to thank staff for your proactiveness, for listening to the concerns that our constituents have highlighted. There's also sidewalk issues throughout this area that have been not addressed in many, many years. And so when we're talking about one-time funding, that is where my priority is going to be in our shovel-ready projects that we just need the funding for, right? And so a lot of these projects have already been highlighted from my office to yours, and those are easy things to do.

Jessie LopezItem 30

I will also be focusing on ensuring that, you know, with the one-time funding, we, that I do my part in fund projects that, you know, that benefit our entire community, like park restrooms. You know, Cabrillo Park, Edna Park. Edna Park is basically a regional little park, in case people didn't know. It is used by all of the cyclists in this county. It is a connection point.

Jessie LopezItem 30

And ultimately, you know, most concerning here is if we do not address these restrooms in the condition that they are, the lack of privacy that they have, these will be liabilities for the city long term, I have no doubt. And so I think that this is in the city's best interest, in the council's best interest. I am also open to the conversation about TOT increase. I don't wanna make that decision alone. I don't even know that I'm there yet. I would need to speak with our partners like Travel Santa Ana. I want to learn more about this. But I think a conceptually modest increase is reasonable.

Jessie LopezItem 30

Again, I want to learn more about this. And I know that this is something that I think that that many members of the council have highlighted. I'm supportive of moving forward with the paramedic rate alignment. The staff report, to me, makes it clear that 76% is already covered by Medicare and Medi-Cal at fixed rates, so I don't think that there will be a negative impact to our constituents.

Did you wanna say something, city manager?

Jessie LopezItem 30

Okay, got it. So thank you and it leaves almost, you know, 700,000 in recoverable revenue for the city. I am also supportive of the HRC consolidation for cost saving purposes. And in February I said I was fine with the credit card processing fee and I would love confirmation in a future budget staff report that the cash payment options will continue continue to remain an option for our community. And furthermore, can you confirm if some of the nice-to-haves in some of these charts were removed?

No, it should be the same information that was provided during early direction.

Jessie LopezItem 30

Okay, got it. And the other thing that I will highlight again is the consolidation of special events with NPD. I think it should be consistent like all other departments. I'm sure that that will provide a cost savings and maybe if staff would provide an analysis, I think that would be helpful as well.

Jessie LopezItem 30

And I think that this is going to be a very difficult budget discussion moving forward. There's really no doubt about that. There is no doubt that, you know, there are many things that are going to be up for debate and there are things from my point of view that will not be up for debate. And so I just want to make sure that we're looking at every program through the same lens, that every department is being treated the same, and that there are not just going to be cuts, you know, from parks and from public works. Every department needs to do their part here.

Jessie LopezItem 30

And that also includes your department, city manager. And I look forward to having further conversations internally and publicly. Thank you.

Thank you. Mayor Patel? We're good? I know you're not well, so...

Alvaro NuñezItem 30

Thank you, Mayor. So before we expand, so there's clear direction because we're going to be vacant months. It's freezing in here. Councilmember, so just so we get clear direction, Councilmember, you said about the cuts in the City Manager's Office. Can you give us where you want us to make cuts so we

Jessie LopezItem 30

can start moving on that also? I would need a list of every, you know, what is all encompassing in these departments because the chart that we provide, that you provided here, includes Parks and rec includes PD, includes planning, includes community development.

Jessie LopezItem 30

Okay, I think there's a finance part here.

Alvaro NuñezItem 30

We'll provide a list of the position already on the city manager that we removed.

Okay, thank you. Mayor Pro Tem, they lowered the AC already. Thank you, Mayor. Twice I asked them.

David PenalozaItem 30

Okay, first I'll just quickly go over the revenue increases that we got to make. I definitely support moving full steam ahead with beginning the process of increasing that TOT tax. TOT, not only for our hotels, because it is one of the lowest in the county, but also the short-term rentals. Now that the ordinance has been invalidated by the courts, it's important that we start looking at that to see how we could start start generating revenue through that TOT rate.

David PenalozaItem 30

Paramedic service alignment, supportive of that. I also wanna voice my support for staff moving full steam ahead with the Willowick Golf Course and looking at those potentials. I know that's a long-term plan, but in the meantime we should begin to aggressively be in conversations with the city of Garden Grove to see what potentials we could have there for future revenue generators. As far as all the unfunded one-time needs for consideration, I don't want to see, and please record this, staff, because you probably won't ever hear me say this again, I'm not supportive of a dog park.

David PenalozaItem 30

And, no, there's an additional Bristol and Wilshire, no dog park. We already have one. Let's focus on that, keeping maintenance.

I thought you wanted to close your dog park.

David PenalozaItem 30

No, no additional splash pads. Let's stop with these extras that are going to require a lot of maintenance in the long run. What we should be doing with that property on Bristol and Wilshire, as well with all the other properties on Bristol, in aggressively investing in economic development to pursue businesses that would like to come to Bristol and Wilshire. Instead of putting a dog park there or another amenity that we need to invest in and provide maintenance for, let's look for, yes, another coffee shop. Another, I mean, what we've done across the street from Santa Ana College is amazing.

David PenalozaItem 30

That's what I want to see throughout Bristol Street so that we could bring businesses in here that are going to generate the revenue that we need to be able to pay the bills and keep the lights on. As far as all the other stuff on slide 23, I mean, which was I think exhibit two, if I'm not mistaken, I mean, I would just red X them all because we don't have the money. And I appreciate Council Member Phan for being a realist on the resources that we have and not being able to have any of these.

David PenalozaItem 30

What I do want to emphasize is that if I were to pick one of these things to invest our dollars in, it would be that park at Washington Square. That is a one-time piece of land that if we do not acquire, it will be gone and it will be gone forever. These one-time needs for consideration, those will be there's potential to do those and invest in them next year and the following year if we start bringing in that revenue but for the meantime if once something is built on that land

David PenalozaItem 30

it's gone and we'll never see it again what i would like to know is so i know it's a four million cost to purchase the land have we considered uh active conversations uh with the current property owner for not just purchasing the property but land swaps i know there's a lot of land throughout the city that we own that could be of equal size that they might potentially have a better use for if we were to say hey you know what we'll swap this piece of land on bristol street or whatever it is with this piece of land for you to develop and and help with entitlements if that's part of the deal.

David PenalozaItem 30

But I mean, have those, has that been considered, Mr. City Manager?

Alvaro NuñezItem 30

No.

David PenalozaItem 30

That's a potential that we could pursue. And I know that because there's an effort by the property owner to develop the site, let's work with them. Let's say, hey, you know what? If we can't acquire the property with cash, let's see what other piece of land in the city and there's a lot of city-owned parcels that are of equal size that we could potentially swap with them so I would like us to really pursue aggressively pursue that to bring that that part to this neighborhood and if I had to pick one that we need that we could use these one-time dollars for I would say let's put it all in the

David PenalozaItem 30

acquiring this land uh if if that is is uh and i know i'm one person up here but all these little hundred thousand here a hundred thousand there two hundred grand here those needs will still be there next year and the following year this piece of land won't so i think it's important that we focus on something that we could bring to bring a huge investment into that neighborhood and i'm sure councilmember hernandez is is supportive and and mayor i heard I heard her being supportive of that. But that is, those are the only comments I will make. But as far as those, I'm fully supportive

David PenalozaItem 30

of looking creative ways to acquiring this land for a park at Washington Square, but looking into the investments and the revenue that we need to pay the bills. I was driving down Euclid yesterday and I saw that 7-11 on Euclid and gas station. It got approved like six years ago, and it's been built, it's done, it's ready, it's been fenced up for, I mean, what's the issue with that, city manager? Do we know why that 7-Eleven gas station hasn't opened?

Alvaro NuñezItem 30

Ellie, if you can provide an update, please.

David PenalozaItem 30

It's been fenced up for years.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Construction stalled during the pandemic, and then the developer had a change of contractor. Permits were reissued to that changed contractor, and the contractor didn't pick up construction again for another six months after that. Now it is 99% done, and the city is waiting on Edison to energize the site. Once it gets energized, then literally we can issue certificate of occupancy and call it a day.

David PenalozaItem 30

Okay. And I hear this repeating pattern, and thank you for saying that. I mean, this is where we pursue litigation. I mean, it's, you don't see these things happen in other cities. Other cities open up, their businesses open up. Why? I mean, we're not the only ones relying on Edison.

Alvaro NuñezItem 30

And so I would hope that we just have these conversations. We'll go ahead and put in closed session and in two weeks, then we can discuss litigation against Edison.

David PenalozaItem 30

Thank you. Because that 7-Eleven and gas station has been boarded, fenced up. It's been 99% done.

Alvaro NuñezItem 30

7-Eleven, parks, memorial, bowers. We have quite a few properties.

David PenalozaItem 30

Over a year, two years. So these are the, yeah, it's been a long time that it's been fenced up. And so these are the things that the residents see and we see, and it's frustrating because that's money that's not coming in. And so, and yeah, I mean, that's it. But I would hope that we get creative with acquiring the property at Washington Square. That would be my number one priority for this budget cycle with what we have. And we could figure out the funding for building the park later on, right?

David PenalozaItem 30

I think the point here is to acquire it. And if that's a land swap, then let's look at that. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, colleagues.

Thank you. That's actually a great idea, the land swap. I like that. I like it a lot. Councilmember Vazquez.

Benjamin VazquezItem 30

Thank you for bringing that up. Invest in economic development, like heavy, and don't shy away from it. That's where we need to go to increase our funds. And that land swap would be great on multiple properties on Bristol that we have so many. That being said, I'm also in favor of the hotel market demand study that we have way at the bottom of the list to see where that goes. And I'm for the TOT increase, for keeping park security, and for the paramedic rate alignment, the consolidating of commissions.

Benjamin VazquezItem 30

I'm not in support of furloughs, but to defund vacant positions, I'm okay with, as we go. I am in support of reducing the PALP program to give more resources to more kids. And that's all I have for now. Thank you.

Thank you. Let me go on this side. Any final comments?

Alvaro NuñezItem 30

Mayor, if I can just quickly, because you can't mention on the furloughs. multiple times and i know some of the folks that the public comments just so we know the the item as as an option again because we are going to have that level of discussion and it is going to be a difficult budget budget period for us is everybody all collected all um collective bargaining units was part of that number we provided everybody except what the law requires the public safety which is sworn law enforcement the correctional officers and dispatch other than that everybody Everybody was included. It wasn't just one collective bargaining unit.

Alvaro NuñezItem 30

Just to clarify.

Thank you, Mr. City Manager. Councilman Hernandez.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 30

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll be very brief with my comments here. On the topic of furlough employees, City Manager Nunez, I'm not supportive of furloughing our employees, but given that we do have a looming budget crisis, the only area where i would be supportive is if this was an equitable approach across all of the departments and number two is i would need for our city to engage with our labor groups to ensure that there is a commitment to supporting our workers if we have labor groups that are willing to work with us

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 30

then we in good faith should meet with them so i think that that would be imperative i also want I want to echo my colleague, Council Member Phan. I thought she brought up some really fantastic points about the amount of youth that we are serving through the PAL program. I know it's a very well received program. Families that have been recipients of it are very thankful. But I do think given this budget crisis, we need to maximize the children we serve. We need every single dollar to reach as many of the children that we can. can um so i am supportive of of the ask that council member fan proposed for us to look at

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 30

saving some monies there maybe we bring some of those services into parks and recreation maybe they can activate some of those community centers i know you guys are providing aquatic services you know maybe we can really get creative with the type of services that we're offering i'm also supportive of seeing the willow wick golf course i think council mayor pro tem him, Penalosa brought up a fantastic point about us looking into Willowick Golf Course. I think that's a great idea. I also fully support the study on TOT tax and hotels. I think that that's important.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 30

And Council Member Vasquez has asked for expanding literacy and access to books in Pio Pico. Several years ago, there was a shooting in that neighborhood, I want to say 2023. So this is an underserved part of our city. It is a part of the city where we are now building a park space, but it still is a neighborhood where many of these children have, they lack access to literacy in our libraries. And I think having a kiosk, not to the scale of Jerome Park, but maybe something much smaller would be worth us looking at investing in.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 30

And then lastly is if there is, you know, areas of opportunity for us to fund police police oversight at a higher threshold, I would like for us to prioritize that, given the amount of cases that have come to this commission. I want to make sure that they're able to work efficiently. I know Mr. Morris has done a great job and is working on a couple of cases, but I know if he had the proper, if we had the proper budget to staff the police oversight commission, we could truly see this commission work for the community. That'll conclude my final round of comments, Madam Mayor. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Councillor .

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

Thank you, Mayor. Some stuff I forgot to mention. Removing personnel board. That's a very big expense that I think we can work on with our labor unions to figure out. And just to respond to some of the requests for next steps from the staff report, and and I echo my colleagues on the technology fee, sober living, yeah, go on the sober living homes look. You know, I think the public needs to be reminded that the city subsidizes pretty much every fee that the public pays, whether it's the park fee,

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

anything really, and I know that we have members of the public who say it's very expensive to rent, you know, a certain amount of park space and whatnot, not, but that's the cost that it takes the staff to do the paperwork and all those other things. And for a very long time, or probably as long as we can remember, the city's general fund has been subsidizing those costs. And now we are looking to make it fair that those who are using these spaces are going going to pay for the cost of using those spaces in addition to the fact that all of these require regular maintenance and all of that stuff and cleaning.

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

I am not available at any of the dates that you have on the agenda. So May 12th, 13th and 15th, but I am available the 18th, 20th, 21st and 22nd.

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

I also there was where are you going oh I have work guys and I think that covers all of the items that were pending on the staff report so I think that's it thank you

optional workshops are needed they're not no I don't I don't think we need optional workshops we're good without them i don't know does anybody have any final comments that's where lopez is your mic up okay all right so i think we're done mr city manager i just want to say thank you so very much and i like that you're very clear about um cat probably wants to stand up and say we have no money um about how we are tightening the belt and the conversations will get harder and harder and I appreciate that I think

we all do up here you know it's not an easy task for us to sit up here and and have discussions about what we're gonna what we'd like to cut and we all want so many things for our city to make it beautiful and a great place to live and a safe place to live but we don't have that money and so I just want to be be clear that you heard from all of us, we all thank you very much. All the staff, thank you for the one-on-one meetings. I know I appreciate it very much. Got a lot of questions answered there that I didn't need to ask here. So I really appreciate it.

And then next budget meeting we'll dig a little deeper and you'll come back with some more information about, as Kat has in here, Alex, the must-haves, the should-haves, and the nice-to-haves. And so that's where we'll go next. With that, let's go into Mr. City Manager. Do you have any closing comments?

Alvaro NuñezItem 30

Negative.

Negative. All right. That's a no. Council Member comments. Council Member Vasquez.

Benjamin VazquezItem 30

Thank you, Mayor.

Benjamin VazquezItem 30

Well, now I can bring up that I was the fastest council member at the fun run. I mean, I saw Jesse and David at the starting line, but not at the end.

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

You're lucky I was out of town. I just want to put it out there.

Benjamin VazquezItem 30

You slow, girl.

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

Okay, you sabotaged. You and Council Member Lopez sabotaged me last year. Let him finish. We don't have time.

Johnathan Ryan HernandezItem 30

Say the time. What was your time?

Benjamin VazquezItem 30

Go ahead, Council Member Vasquez. It was faster than last time, so it was good. I shaved off 15 minutes. I am looking forward to all the things that we have, the summer concerts and movies at the park and amazing work that the department does.

Benjamin VazquezItem 30

That being said, I do look forward to having a workshop for Comlink, the neighborhood associations, to apply for our culture and arts grant. So we're gonna hopefully get some block parties, get some festival parties, bring some action into the streets. The warning we're providing is for our community, so I'll do a workshop May 28th at Southwest Senior Center. Hopefully we can pull it off and bring people together to share the enjoyment of our city across all our neighborhoods. Thank you, have a good night.

Thank you, Council Member Lopez.

Jessie LopezItem 30

Yes, I wanted to know if we have a timeline line for when the Bowers Museum marquee is going to be activated. I know we're waiting for Edison.

Alvaro NuñezItem 30

We'll talk about it in a closed session in two weeks. Is there no one we can call? They have a government affairs person. We talked to the government affairs and his boss. Okay. Rock and

Jessie LopezItem 30

rolling. Okay let's let Council Member Lopez finish please. Thank you. Okay I also want to thank city City staff for helping coordinate with county. We had a, this Saturday we had a Pass Creek cleanup, and it was right, you know, west of the Flower Street Bridge, between Flower and the Baker Pedestrian Bridge. It was really beautiful to be in that part of the creek again, so many of our constituents came out, and I just really wanna thank the Fisher Park Neighborhood Association, OC Habitats, Public Works, Parks, your office city manager for helping coordinate, our Orange County supervisor,

Jessie LopezItem 30

Sarmiento, for helping us with the permits, because that's part of, we needed access to that area of the creek. We had over 50 volunteers, and so again, I just wanna thank you all, and I also want to thank city staff for being at the tree planting ceremony at Edna Park. I really want to thank you all for your support and for being there. We've gotten great feedback, you know, from our community and I think it was really meaningful for all of our residents to see city staff there as well. So I want to thank you all for the work that you did, for helping for the

Jessie LopezItem 30

preparation of the trees, digging up the spots of the trees, and helping us finish the planting of the trees and ultimately helping us maintain the trees because they also need support not just it's not just about planting them I also want to recognize that it's teacher appreciation week and I want to thank all of the educators all of the teachers in our community for the impact you make in our students lives every single day thank you oh you're welcome councilmember Brubaskis. Although I hear you give a lot of homework and I, you know, again, you know, I asked earlier if we could activate the water tower red. Thank you

Jessie LopezItem 30

Rudy for working on that. We did proclaim May 2025 as murdered and was an Indigenous Women Month. It's something that a lot of jurisdictions are doing now and we have a Native community here and so this is really meaningful to them and I want to thank city staff for activating the water tower and lighting it red. And lastly tonight, I would like to ask that we close in the memory of Matilde Santiago Reyna. Matilde Santiago Reyna passed away a few days ago and our thoughts, my thoughts, are

Jessie LopezItem 30

not just with her family, but with her husband Roman Reyna, all of the community that loves and supports them and And losing someone is very, very difficult. And I hope that people can show them the support that they need in this moment. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Farran.

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

First, I'd like to say the tree planting was super fun. Thanks to Paco, our parrot, for being out there with the Los Amigos team. team. We love having our high school volunteers. As many of you know, we had our Black April commemoration in Little Saigon, and it's always a

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

reflective day, I guess. It's been really... It's an interesting time because it requires a lot of reflection from those of us who are part of the Vietnamese diaspora. If you weren't here for my presentation, Black April is the commemoration of the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War on April 30th, 1975.

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

Vietnam has, the country is communist and has grown a lot in economic stature and many people love to visit just as I do. I've been there many times, I have family there, and it's a wonderful place to experience amazing culture, food, and just absolutely stunning natural beauty. But it's also a place where you don't have the freedom to speak how you feel politically. You don't have the freedom

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

of opportunity you don't have the freedom of in my opinion making your own choices if you don't have connections within the party and that's why we still see a lot of Vietnamese immigration into this country and I really hope that as young Vietnamese Americans and just as Americans who are whether you're a or progressive, conservative, moderate, whatever, and you talk about progressivism or communism or socialism and look at the history of the Vietnam War and what it means to this country, but also to that country,

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

that you take the time to understand the nuances of the people who are hurt, because it's really easy to look at it in a way that is very black or white. It's easy to say that someone like Ho Chi Minh was fighting off the yoke of colonialism and fighting for self-determination. And it's very easy to demonize a group of people who yes were communists and say that they took over the country. It's a lot harder to recognize that you can both stand for self-determination but also committed

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

committed incredible atrocities against your own countrymen. And so, as we go through this upcoming year, 2026 and the election, there's always a lot of heightened conversation around this space. And I hope that as we discuss politics, history, and context, that we're able to take a nuanced view of each other, of the environment that we're in and look at the policies, address the policies, fight the policies, criticize the policies, but not each other.

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

I also, well that's the sad part, well I wasn't sad, it's just kind of more serious, but the most important thing I'd like to say is happy, happy Mother's Day to all the moms, to all all the moms, the adopted moms, bio moms, mothers who are just people stepping up, the people who take care of you when you didn't know you needed to be taken care of, the people who are your village. And I have so many new moms in my life.

Thai Viet PhanItem 30

I have so many incredible women who have truly shown me what it means to be nurtured and loved. And I guess I just want to leave you with something that my mom taught me that helped me understand immigration, because I had a very different view when I was a lot younger. And as a mother, she said, honey, no one would leave their country and you would do anything for your children.

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And so this Mother's Day, I'd like for us to thank and appreciate all the moms who have defied every obstacle, every border, every danger, just so that their kid can have a better life than they did have a good night thank you councilman becerra thank you um it was great

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to see the chamber filled tonight thank you it was great to see the chamber filled tonight um passionate residents like you um i don't know i don't know um but no and seeing all the folks come out from washington square and um all of our union brothers and sisters it was just great because we were talking about issues germane to san anna tonight so it was just great it's not sometimes we have some out of town guests who are paid to come in and talk but it was great to have our local folks here um i wanted to clarify my vote on item 25 from earlier i did support the

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approval of the adjustment to our clerk's salary and i support the amended contract agreement with with our city manager. What I didn't appreciate was having all of the items lumped together for the evaluation. So I would just say right now, I really appreciate what you've done, Mr. City Manager. You've done an amazing job. Just there's been so many things as you like to point out, things that have been in the pipeline that we've all talked about and you've got them done. So I wanna thank you and Madam Clerk, thank you so much for all that you do. I mean, you constantly day in and day out

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show absolute professionalism and you're above the fray, which is very hard to do in a city like this, especially in City Hall. So thank you for all that you do. And speaking of thanks, I wanted to thank our Water Division staff. So we were out on the OC Marathon course on Sunday morning, very, very early, and our Water Division staff was out there. And I also wanted to thank Sylvia, and I wanted to thank my assistant Evelyn, because getting everybody out there to coordinate with the Sagerstrom High School track and cross-country folks. They were handing out Gatorade. We were handing out water. First,

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it was kind of cold, but then when you get this barrage of runners coming at you all thirsty, you don't really think much about it. So it was really fun. My aide, Andrew, was out there as well. In fact, Andrew's comment was, I didn't think this was going to be fun, but darn, it got fun. But our water division staff was just kicking butt out there. I mean, they really did a great job. In fact, I overheard a couple times from runners saying that we had the best water station out there, and I believe it because as you start to get the slower runners, you know, they were

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filling up their water bottles, and I can hear them say, wow, this water's cold. So I don't know if they're serving scalding hot water somewhere else. I don't know, but I know that they appreciate our water. And finally, congratulations to the Santa Ana College baseball team. They swept through through the three C2A regionals this past weekend, and they are gonna begin playing the three C2A super regionals on Thursday over here at Santa Ana College versus Citrus College. I don't wanna jinx and say where I hope they're gonna be, but let's just say they've been in this chamber before where we've recognized them

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for winning the whole darn thing. So let's see what happens. So with that, let's wish them the best and have a good night. Thank you. Councilman Hernandez.

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Thank you, Madam Mayor. Mayor, I want to start by thanking city staff for today's City Council meeting. I want to thank members of the public who took time from their day to share public comments. I want to respectfully request if we can end today's meeting in memory of Matilde de Santiago Reyna. I know my colleague Council Member Lopez brought her up earlier. She passed away April 26th of 2026. She is a mother who leaves behind her young children. She was a lover of nature and a lover of parks and somebody who frequently served our residents here in the city of Santa Ana.

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She was very, very strong and fought cancer for as long as she could. And I just want to send my condolences to the Reyna family. My heart is with you. God bless you. I also want to send my condolences and close in honor of the patriarch of Sarinanas Tamale Factory, Mr. J. Aicias Nieves Renteria, who started off as a cook. At one point many decades ago, he passed April 22, 2026, in the peace of his home, surrounded by his family who loves him very much.

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I also want to respectfully close out in the memory of Brianna Ruval Cava, a resident of Ward 5 in my district. She passed April 16th of 2026. We were classmates together at Santa Ana High School. Once a Saint, always a Saint.

Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem.

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Thank you, Mayor.

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Just one comment that I forgot to mention earlier was digital billboards. We could advertise on those as well. I think, I hope, to bring in that revenue. That would be something that I'd like to see. But with that, I just want to thank Public Works because driving around Warner today, I saw lots of activity this week or yesterday. Lots and lots of activity. So it was literally exactly two weeks after the last council meeting. And so it was nice to see all that activity on Warner.

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I hope it continues. I hope we move into seeing this finish. And I also just want to thank you guys for staying on top of that over the last couple months and really making sure that that gets finished. With that, just want to wish a feliz dia de las madres to all the madrecitas out there in the city of the Santa Ana, to the mayor, to the city attorney, to our city clerk. I know there's a lot of expecting mothers on the eighth floor, so happy Mother's Day to you too. And then dog mom, Councilmember Vasquez, happy Mother's Day.

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But, you know, Feliz Dia de las Madres to my mom, too. She sacrificed the world for me and my brothers and did it on her own as a widow. So I'm forever grateful for her and just her heart and grit to bring us along. long and Feliz happy Mother's Day to my wife, my beautiful wife who's the best mother to our two babies and happy Mother's Day to her and happy birthday to Madison in the council chambers.

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She gets to celebrate her mom on her birthday because her birthday is May 10th, Dia de las Madres. So it's all about your mom, Madison. Remember that. So with that, thank you, Mayor. That's it. Good evening, everyone.

Thank you. Let me be very brief here. When we talked about the commissions earlier and all the different groups, so ward one, we have three vacancies, personnel, Measure X, arts and culture. Ward two, we have three vacancies, youth commission, Measure X, community development. Ward three, we have one vacancy, rental housing. Ward four, we have Measure X and rental housing. Ward 5, we have Vacancy and Police Oversight, ETAC, Historical Resources, Arts and Culture, Youth Commission, Rental Housing Board, Planning Commissioner. Ward 6, Personnel Board, Rental Housing Board, and ETAC.

So I think Mr. City Manager, you're very, I think you got the message from all of us about some of these boards. There's a lot of vacancies. I did not make this up. This was sent to me as I requested. and so I think it's important either we fill them or we roll them over into just one or two boards so that we can get these taken care of and this is information I received today with that I would like to also say that you know we had an event the little Nino at George Upton Park for special needs families and all families were invited we fed over 500 people and it was a wonderful

event thank you to all the city staff the police department POA mosaic the The list goes on and on and on. There are just so many people, Albert Hernandez, so many people who provided food and services, and I can't list them all, because I did not write down lists to say thank you, but it was a wonderful, wonderful event. And the trees were planted, the Girl Scouts were there, it was just great. I'll be having coffee with the mayor at the Santa Ana Senior Center on May 16th, along with Councilman Hernandez, I mean, Councilman Becerra and Councilman Panalosa on May 16th from 9 to 12 we'll be celebrating Mother's Day with the