Council - Regular Meeting

I'm a five.

Yeah.

Doll feet. Yeah, it looks like I was walking.

Yeah.

Good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to call the Anaheim City Council meeting to order. Pursuant to SB 707, this meeting will include in-person and remote participation via webinar. Clerk, can you please call roll?

Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Bayless.

Here.

Council Member Bacalva.

Present.

Council Member Kurtz. Here. Council Member Moss. Present. Council Member Meeks. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Leon.

Present.

Mayor Akin. Present. Let the record show we have all seven members present.

Do we have any additions or deletions to our closed session agenda?

Mayor, there are none.

And do we have any public speakers or speakers on the telephone to address our closed session agenda?

Mayor, no, we don't have any in-person speakers and any remote speakers, and we did not receive any electronic comments on the closed session agenda.

Wonderful. So we are now going to close public comment on the closed session, and we will recess to closed session. I'd like to reconvene the Anaheim City Council meeting back to order. Pursuant to SB 707, this meeting will include in-person and remote participation via webinar. The first item on our agenda is an invocation that will be offered this evening by Pastor James Bove from Calgary Chapel in Anaheim. Following that, Councilmember Maaz will lead us in the flag salute. Please stand if you are able.

Mayor Aiken, city council members, just want to say thank you. It's an honor to be here to represent Calvary Chapel Anaheim and the Christian community here in Anaheim. We're so thankful for all of your hard work and your service to our community. I'd like to start with Matthew 5, 3 through 10 from the Sermon on the Mount. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you for our city. Lord, thank you for this place and where we live, Jesus, and work and serve each other. We pray peace in our city, Lord God. We pray, Jesus, that your precepts, your principles would rule in this place, Lord God. I pray for each city council member that you would protect each one of them, that you would bless them with wisdom and guidance as they seek your heart and your will in all things, Lord. We invite your presence here tonight, Lord God. We pray for honesty and integrity. We pray for selflessness in each decision that the people would be in consideration, Lord God, and what's best for everyone involved. Lord, we pray protection over our city, Lord Jesus, in every aspect, Lord God. We thank you for those serving as emergency responders and in all kinds of capacities within our city, Lord. Again, we pray wisdom tonight in each decision, and we especially pray for your grace because we recognize that we're imperfect and we make imperfect decisions. So we ask your grace in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you.

And as we say the Pledge of Allegiance tonight, please keep in mind the men and women who are currently serving in our military overseas, including members of our city staff. Ready, begin.

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,

Next on our agenda are recognitions to be presented at a later date. Clerk, can you please announce them?

Thank you, Mayor. We have two this evening, recognizing August 2026 as Chicano Heritage Month and recognizing the month of September 2026 as Child Cancer Awareness Month.

Thank you. Are there any additions or deletions to tonight's agenda?

Mayor, there are none.

Can you please outline the public comment procedures and call forward the first several speakers that will be addressing our agenda?

Thank you, Mayor. Speakers have one opportunity to address the City Council. The first public comment period is limited to 90 minutes or until all agenda item speakers have been heard. Any time remaining of the 90 minutes will be provided to speakers who wish to speak on any non-agenda related items, but within the Council's jurisdiction. A SECOND PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD WILL BE OPENED BY THE MAYOR ONLY IF ANY NON-AGENDA ITEM SPEAKERS WERE NOT HEARD DURING THIS FIRST PUBLIC COMMENT. IT WILL BE OPEN AT THE END OF COUNCIL BUSINESS. THE TIME LIMIT FOR PUBLIC COMMENTS IS THREE MINUTES PER SPEAKER. IN COMPLIANCE WITH CALIFORNIA SENATE BILL 707 REMOTE PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IS AVAILABLE AT ALL CITY COUNCIL MEETINGS. Members of the public wishing to address the City Council remotely must submit a remote speaker card available at anaheim.net slash councilwebinar. Detailed public participation can be found on the City's website as well as on the published agenda. For in-person speakers and participants, speaker cards are available at the back of the Council Chambers. The name and contact information requested on the speaker card is optional. Any unidentified speakers will be called by the speaker card number. Remote participants will be called to speak following in-person speakers. At this time, I'd also like to announce that Spanish interpreting services are provided at every City Council meeting. Simultaneous Spanish interpretation is provided through the use of headsets, and consecutive interpretation is available to anyone who would like to address the City Council. For those participating remotely, the webinar supports automated live captions in multiple languages, including Spanish. For translation services in other languages, please contact the City Clerk's Office at least 48 hours prior to the scheduled meeting. At this time, I'd like to introduce our interpreter who will make the same announcement in Spanish.

Buenas tardes. Se ofrecen servicios de interpretación al español en todas las reuniones del, disculpen, todas las reuniones del Consejo Municipal. Se proporciona interpretación simultánea al español mediante audífonos y se ofrece interpretación consecutiva para quienes deseen dirigirse al Consejo Municipal. Para los miembros que participan de forma remota en el webinario, cuentan con substitutos automaticos de el directo en varios idiomas, incluyendo el español. Para solicitar servicios de interpretación en otros idiomas, por favor póngase en contacto con la oficina del secretario municipal con un mínimo de 48 horas antes de la reunión programada.

At this time, on behalf of the City Council, we would like to remind the public that Anaheim remains committed to freedom of speech, and we ask that speakers address the City Council with civility and refrain from making personal, threatening, abusive, slanderous, or profane remarks towards any members of the Council, staff, or general public. We appreciate you reflecting the spirit when you speak. The time now is 5.39, with the 90-minute public comment period set to conclude at 7.09, or until all agenda item speakers have been heard. We ask speakers to line up at the podium once they see their name appear on the projection screen behind me. For those participating remotely, you will be called forward at the appropriate time. And Mayor and City Council, we have one speaker on an agenda item. If they can step forward at this time are Joshua Collins.

Good afternoon, Maine Council. My name is R. Joshua Collins, founder of Homeless Advocates for Christ on Facebook. And first, I want to encourage everyone to give life to Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for us to save us from hell, to give us everlasting life. We've all sinned, and only Jesus can save us from our sins and give us that new purpose. And one of the greatest purposes that we have as believers is to help those in need. Obviously, Jesus cared very much for them. And I want to build a bit of an argument for safe parking for the homeless, a public area where they can do this and get this on the agenda. One of the reasons, number one, you know, if you're a convicted felon, you still have a right to food, shelter, basic sanitation, hygiene, bathing, medical care, a bed with blankets, all that kind of stuff. If you've murdered somebody, You have a right to that if you're taken into custody. Again, rights that these people have, even if they've done those types of things, Matthew 25 also tells us that God very much cares for those that are hungry or need basic necessities of clothing, those types of things, shelter. And he says that those that don't care about them, his people out there, he's gonna cast them into outer darkness. And number three, Proverbs 3 tells us to defend the rights of the poor and the needy. Proverbs 31 verses 8 through 9, defend the rights of the poor and the needy. And then number four, another fourth reason, James chapter 2 says, is it not the rich that oppress you and drag you into court and blaspheme the worthy name by which you are called? Right? So we don't want to be a city that's oppressive. Now, we see oppressive things happening sometimes. And what are we going to do about that? And of course, I ask for justice for the Arzola family as well and others that have been horribly treated in awful ways. I mean, that's just the next level of awfulness. But get this on the agenda to show that you truly care for those in need. It's very easy when you have wealth to neglect the people that are out there, but what can we do to create something like this? A safe area where they can park, right? Instead of having to run around and avoid the police and all that, but create an area where people can actually go Right. And you have all this land and we have Disneyland with billions of dollars coming in and we can't create a safe area for people to park. Right. We have we have homeless women. We have mothers out there. By the grace of God, I got mothers with four children. Both of them had four kids came in here and spoke and they got help. But what about the ones that they can't get in here for whatever reason? I'm sure there's other homeless mothers out there. We have disabled people. We have elderly people out there. What are we doing to bring that change, that mercy that that gentleman just prayed about? So I ask that council to move quickly on this and get this on the agenda and show that you care. Thanks for letting me speak.

Mayor and City Council, we will now turn to general comments. We have 20 in-person speakers and two that will be speaking remotely. If the first two speakers, if they can please step forward. Paul Hayek and Stephanie Donte.

On the homeless issue, believe it or not, the grand jury's looking into why there's no walk in, walk out. And I found it at OCTA's board meeting. A week, two weeks ago yesterday, and I know who's doing it and who's behind it. I'd like to see them get it where they can walk in, walk out. And as far as these other homeless go, a lot of them want to work but can't work because they got no place to leave their gear and why not let them walk in and help run the shelter, man it with their expertise. I met a guy the other day that was a carpenter. Right now, if we're not building them, we need to turn around and he said he'd move boxes and we have a brand new it's not here in Anaheim it's up in Fullerton Holiday Inn Express that's closed that could be turned into a winter shelter or a shelter like what we ran at Kramer and the studios we could turn around and get that going I'm going to that board and let them know what I'm thinking Let's help get these people off the street. I mean, we even have them where they have companion dogs.

Our next speaker, following this speaker, G. Price.

Residents have been asking specific legitimate questions about Anaheim's water quality and water department operations. Instead of answering those questions, the city gave us an overview. An overview is not an answer. The one admission we finally received concerned the shutdown date for well 51. The dates didn't match and the city could no longer deny the discrepancy. Now we know there is a problem, one serious enough to be reported across channels two, four, five, and seven. Today's question is simple. Will you continue to deny it? Between October 2025 and June 2026, two audits of Anaheim water operations were conducted under public utilities leadership. These were not casual reviews. Their stated purposes included protecting public health, ensuring drinking water compliance, identifying system risks and vulnerabilities, and recommending improvements to water production, water quality, SCADA, and HMI. In October, Brown and Caldwell auditors observed water system operators on shift. Operators spent hours answering questions and identifying areas where Anaheim's water system could be improved. Water Operations Superintendent Richard Salas then announced another audit intended to ensure the protection of public health and regulatory compliance. Its scope included Linnane, the distribution system, and Anaheim's ion exchange treatment facilities. Those facilities are particularly relevant now. On July 28th, the multiple supply wells shut down simultaneously. Residents lost water, Angel Stadium lost water, Disneyland lost water, even City Hall lost water. These aren't hypothetical vulnerabilities, they happened. Operators had already raised concerns about systemic issues, management protocols, and deficiencies involving the newer ion exchange systems. The auditors Leanne Russo and Leslie Knapp are gone. Taxpayers have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars. The public still hasn't seen the findings. This is particularly concerning when you consider that in 2024, the California State Auditor found that Anaheim lacked a meaningful contract monitoring process. So what did these auditors find? They did identify SCADA deficiencies, missing safeguards, testing problems, management failures, vulnerabilities that could have prevented July 28th. We don't know because Anaheim hasn't released the reports. Stop asking residents to simply trust everything is fine. Release the reports, release the findings, release the recommendations. After July 28th, this council should be asking, did Anaheim's own auditors identify these problems before the failure occurred? And if they did, what did the city do about them? Craig Parker, that question comes directly to you. Ma'am, I'm sorry, your time is up. Is this matter still closed? The taxpayers paid for these audits. They paid for the answers, so where are they? Our next speaker, G. Price.

Janine Robbins and Mark Herbert.

In January of 2024, the California State Auditor found that Anaheim lacked a meaningful contract monitoring process and didn't properly manage the contracts it entered into. The auditor found that Anaheim failed to adequately ensure satisfactory deliverabilities, monitor contractor quality and performance, and conduct compliance review. Also, they didn't identify contractor problems. These findings matter today. The city is paying Dudek $180,000 for a wildfire evacuation study that is over six months late. The same company that completed the festival evacuation study. And once again, residents appear to be doing the city's contract oversight. Is the city negligent, incompetent, or is this just the Anaheim way? Residents identified a potential discrepancy involving over 2,300 vehicles in the evacuation calculations. Dudek's festival study identified over 3,000 residential units in zones 4 and 8. This new study magically found 600 more units with 3,619. Which number is actually correct? Festival used 2.5 vehicles per household to calculate their evacuation times. This study uses 3.4 vehicles. Why is there such a large deviation? Is this an attempt to control the result by controlling the data that is inputted? Even more troubling, the study contradicts itself. Scenario five would completely evacuate zones four, five, eight, nine, and 10. A half dozen pages later in the same study, it states scenario five, zones four, five, and 10 would not evacuate at all. This is not a proofreading error. This directly affects the number of vehicles evacuating and clearance times. When DUDEC's two studies involving the same area use different numbers and assumptions, it is the city's job to reconcile them before residents have to. State auditors told Anaheim to improve its contract management. Is this improvement? Who reviewed the study? Who verified the calculations? Who approved releasing a study that contains contradictions? If nobody did, what exactly has changed? Does Anaheim still have no meaningful oversight with its contracts? The city fired purchasing manager Carrie Bouffard after she insisted that the city's rules and policies be followed. It seems Anaheim wasn't interested in fixing problems. Instead, they just fired the people that challenged them. And this matters. This is wildfire evacuation planning. People's lives depend on the city getting it right.

Next speaker, Jeanine Robbins, Mark Herbert, and Mike Robbins.

How many current and former employees have filed claims against Anaheim in the last two years? And has anyone on this diet stopped to ask why? Because behind those costly claims are employees who say they've reported retaliation, harassment, unsafe working conditions and misconduct, and weren't protected. Who is responsible for protecting employees? HR Director Linda Endall. Employees raising serious safety concerns say Cecil Looney told them to, let's see if I can get this quote exactly right, Sit the fuck down or you'll fucking regret it. What did Linda Endall do? Nothing. Employees report Pete Garcia repeatedly harasses staff while creating unsafe working conditions. What did Linda do? Nothing. Employees report Keith McDonald retaliated against employees for raising water quality concerns. What did Linda Endall do? Nothing. Can you see the pattern? Employees reported John Vasquez sexually harassed and retaliated against employees he supervised. HR reportedly substantiated these complaints, yet employees are still required to report to him. What did Linda Andal do? Nothing. Employees report fire department dispatch manager Brenda Carrion gave her niece a $500,000 contract and retaliated against employees who reported it. What did Linda Andal do? Employees involved in investigating allegations of police overtime abuse involving Jose Duran and Tony Lee subsequently reported retaliation. What did Linda Endall do? Nothing. HR is supposed to minimize the city's liability, not create it. Yet these problems escalate into claims, investigations, and litigation, and taxpayers pay the bill. Mayor Akin meets privately with Linda Endall, yet those meetings don't appear on the mayor's public calendar. Why? Risk management employees publicly described being overworked and understaffed while recommendations addressing staffing were ignored. Then the city spent approximately $100,000 on a workers' compensation study that Linda and Dahl also ignored. And Dahl and Vanderpool met with AdminSure without the risk manager. Why? Meanwhile, there are allegations HR manager Alex Mohajer walks around the hallways using a marijuana vape pen during work hours, including before negotiation meetings, yet he is responsible for investigating employee relations complaints. So who investigates HR? Is HR held to the same standards as everyone else? Council should demand an independent investigation. But Linda and Dahl isn't the only problem. Rob Fabella, you're the city attorney. Your job is to protect this city from liability. Yet taxpayers continue paying for claims and lawsuits while employees say the same problems continue. At what point do you tell this council that the problem is not the employees raising concerns, but the department heads you're protecting? Protecting leadership from accountability isn't protecting Anaheim, it's creating even greater liability. And Mr. Fabella and council, this is all happening on your watch. Imagine walking around a manager in HR just smoking pot blatantly in public with all the employees. Ms. Robbins, I'm sorry, your time is up.

Mark Herbert. Followed by Mike Robbins and Dave Duran.

Mark Herbert, AnaheimGrease.com. For months, you've heard residents express serious concerns about Anaheim's water system. Mayor Akin responded by interrupting public comments and labeling concerned residents the, quote, disinformation brigade. Criticizing the mayor's record isn't disinformation. It's a First Amendment right. For the past four months, residents have consistently raised detailed concerns while Craig Parker, Assistant General Manager of Water Services at Anaheim Public Utilities has consistently provided few answers. On July 22nd, at the Public Utilities Board Committee, Mr. Parker declared, the water system matter is closed. Six days later on July 28th, Anaheim's water system experienced a major malfunction. It failed. The failure occurred during the evening of Disneyland's 70th anniversary celebration, disrupting the restroom access, restaurants, and other operations while tens of thousands of guests were visiting the resort. Visit Anaheim, take note. Mr. Parker declared the matter closed, yet six days later, Anaheim couldn't maintain adequate water pressure at Angel Stadium and Disneyland, one of the world's most visited tourist destinations. Was this a surprise or could have been prevented? City leadership will probably say it couldn't have been helped, but the evidence suggests otherwise. It raises serious questions about the claim. City employees have been warning leadership about deficiencies involving the newer Eon Exchange Wells, the alarms, the automatic shutdown protections, and the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System, SCADA. Those warnings came before July 28th, not after it. Operators reported critical safeguards had not been properly configured or validated. The city's own incident review report reportedly found that alarms had been disabled and the SCADA security controls were insufficient. There was no clear record of when the alarms were disabled and why the procedures for restoring those alarms were deficient. Think about that. This is a drinking water system. After the Well 59 low chlorine incident, Anaheim went back to modify and test the automatic shutdown Records indicate those corrective actions were still occurring in 2026. Then came July 28th. At approximately 5 a.m., wells 56, 59, 16, 61 reportedly shut down simultaneously. Management was notified. Approximately 13 hours later, the same four wells reportedly shut down again for the same low, low pressure condition. So don't just tell residents this was a technical problem. Tell us what management did after the first failure to prevent the second. Tell us why the system failed again the second time. Release the consultant audits. Tell us the issues they identified before July 28th. Mr. Herbert, your time is up. And what recommendations management's implemented. And as for the Arzola family, when are you gonna step up and do something for that family? We have rogue elements on overtime and the gang unit. Thank you, Mr. Herbert. Do something.

Next speaker, Mike Robbins, followed by Dave Duran.

You know, we spent a billion dollars to establish the well system and the recycle system here 25 years ago. On August 5th, Chief Manny Sid attended a Los Amigos meeting and was questioned about the overtime timesheet allegations involving Anaheim Police Association President Jose Duran and former Vice President Tony Lee. Chief Sid responded, there isn't any necessarily specific culpability to any one person. There were systemic or managerial oversight shortcomings. Police officers are entrusted with enormous authority. We trust them to testify truthfully in court. We trust their police reports. We trust them with badges, weapons, and the power to arrest people. Surely then we should be able to trust them to accurately report the hours they work. California Highway Patrol faced allegations of overtime fraud within its own East LA station. CHP didn't simply acknowledge weaknesses in its oversight system. change its policies and move on. CHP investigated its own officers and referred the matter to the DOJ. That's an important distinction. What did Anaheim do? Hired a consultant to audit itself. just basically buying the answer that they want on the taxpayer's dime. So why does Chief Sid seem so reluctant to scrutinize the officers who actually submitted these hours? Could it be because Jose Duran told people that he got Chief Sid the top cop job? Did you guys know that or hear it from somebody? was that so Sid could do him a favor since the overtime audit was well underway? And some say Jose Duran told people that if Vanderpool didn't hire Sid, then Duran would get rid of Vanderpool too. Vanderpool agreed because he got a huge raise and in return, Duran happily pushed Vanderpool's agenda to outsource workers' comp to AdminShare. Rob Favela. Are you just gonna continue to look the other way? Pretend it isn't your responsibility to stop this type of behavior. Are taxpayers hearing about failures of the system rather than them receiving a clear accounting of the conduct of the people submitted these time sheets? Chief Sid says he's changing policies governing overtime. Fix the system. of fixing a system and determining individual accountability are not mutually exclusive. Blaming the system while avoiding the question is not about public trust, it undermines it. Frankly, you can't shift responsibility away from individuals and onto a broken system. Chief said, be the person Anaheim needs, please.

Next speaker, Dave Duran.

Water system failures, wildfire evacuation discrepancies, costly HR lawsuits, contract management negligence, conflicts of interest, and allegations that raised serious questions about who is doing favors for whom. Different problems, but the same pattern, a lack of accountability. Residents warned the city about the water system and were called the disinformation brigade. Craig Parker declared the matter closed. Six days later, the system failed. Taxpayers also paid for audits examining public health, regulatory compliance and vulnerabilities in the water system. Where are those reports? Residents, not self-staff, not city staff rather, identified conflicting numbers in the $180,000 wildfire evacuation study. Apparently taxpayers don't just pay consultants, we have to do their control, their quality control too. Employees report retaliation, harassment, and unsafe working conditions, while taxpayers pay for the lawsuits that follow. And in the police overtime scandal, as you heard, Chief Sid blamed systemic or managerial oversight shortcomings. Again, the system becomes the problem instead of the people responsible for managing it. Water fails, blame the system. Overtime problem, blame the system. Employees complain, protect management. Consultants fail, pay the invoice. Residents speak up, call it disinformation. The council proudly calls this the Anaheim way. Maybe it's time to ask what that really means because eventually you run out of systems to blame, consultants to hide behind and people to point fingers at. Eventually accountability leads to leadership and when leadership continues to ignore and refuse to accept responsibility, it isn't just a failure of the system, it's an absolute failure of city leadership. Do your best, and I know that's really difficult for all of you, to support the Arizola family in their needs. Enough time has come and gone. If you have any ethic, do the right thing.

Next speaker, Cecil Jordan Corkin.

I'm trying to give you the skeleton outline of Disney. That's only two months away. October, Halloween. And I'm trying to find out what's still available as what's going on at this time. It's just the old stuff and the dates when it really happened. When it went down in Florida at Disney World, Polk Sheriff Department was in control of that matter. And how many got arrested, employees, the autobiography, they stopped the autobiography of sexual journey of sexual and pedophiles, Disney, in court. I wished that I had an interview with the mayor, an interview with the mayor in these notes and questions and answers for about 30, 40 minutes on the program. I've seen her interview people on there. They used to run the programs and interview the programs. I forget that guy's name. and it's been on several times. Does official Disney porn actually exist? And I'd love to go through this. It explains the outlines of what's going on with, what has gone on with Disney and the time and dates. Florida again, Polk Sheriff Department And then the green one talks about the child pornography. And I'm trying to get you to interview me and make an appointment where you can talk to me on the television on the Mayor Channel 3 about Disney and that subject. And I'll pick out my titles. And those are the three books that I'd take if you wanted to interview me at that given time, and I'd bring my special Mickey with me and tell them what they worth. Because I have actually got some stories I could tell you about meeting Mr. Walt Disney two years ago. He used to ride up and down state and college in his Lincolns, several of them. And so that would be an interesting format if you're interested, Mayor Ashley Atkins. If you can sing and dance on Disney, then you can interview me, and I'm waiting for that to happen. And I could ask, and you could have a list of questions you wanna ask me.

And the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit on this matter.

Our next speaker, Melody.

Thank you.

Kelly Marler. Followed by Art Castillo.

Thank you. You can't keep a smile down on me.

Good evening. My name is Melody Marlar. I'm a resident of District 3 and a member and volunteer at the Anaheim Senior Citizens Club and an applicant for the vacant position of the Older Adults Commission to represent my district. One Saturday each month, the hardworking community staff under Maureen Richardson, the Anaheim Senior Citizens Club volunteers, and the Anaheim Senior Table Tennis Club have scheduled events at the Downtown Community Center. On that Saturday, those events and activities are dependent on the parking lot adjacent to both the Center and Center Greens Park and are usually concluded by 3 p.m. on that one Saturday each month. They are scheduled well in advance so that seniors and volunteers have access to that parking. On Saturday, July 25th, a pop-up event was scheduled at Center Greens Park that negatively impacted the parking lot availability for the seniors from all over the city of Anaheim that come in and depend on its availability. One of the state of California's master plan for aging goals is equity and inclusion for all seniors. And as a member of two vulnerable populations to neglect and isolation, I believe it's important for the city to consider the hard work of the senior citizens club volunteers and community services staff who schedule programs and services well in advance on behalf of all the city's senior citizens of anaheim and consider pre-existing programming before you schedule center greens park so that it doesn't future negatively impact the parking over there because they really are dependent on it Until we have a senior center that's large enough to accommodate us on a standalone, we have that one Saturday a month that when there's programming that's scheduled at Center Greens or at the Downtown Youth Center, it severely impacts all of the senior citizens that come into the city and come into the Downtown Community Center to go to those events and activities. Once more, senior programming is over that one Saturday a month at 3 p.m. My request is that any events at the Downtown Community Center, Center Greens Park, or the Downtown Youth Center be scheduled after all senior events and activities on that one Saturday a month be postponed until we're out of there by 3 p.m. in the afternoon on that one Saturday a month so that the parking is not negatively infected. Because there's nothing we can do if we're scheduled over You know, there are ways that we can work together to make sure that the seniors of this community are not overrun and not neglected by a pop-up event. And that's all I got, thank you. Art Castillo.

Good evening. Everybody who talked here tonight was very interesting because I never talked to anything about the subject matter of the city taking care of our issues. I've been finding in the school board and the city and other activities where we're clueless of what your role is and what their role is over here. When we go to try to ask for something, we're just blockaded and no answers. At the school board recently, I ran into that. Now I have 45 years that I've been advocating for young men and I was saving them from getting expelled. And I couldn't believe that all of a sudden it's something that we have no jurisdiction. You guys work with the police We talk about them you take pictures with them the school they're in it you guys let them come into our schools the sor the new type of police because they had problems with the older ones and When we try to ask for questions the public and these people I don't even know what the school board They're saying you and a lot of other items the same thing comes to the same conclusion You're holding stuff back, and we don't know what you're doing. We would like to be you know where the city is taxpayers we're the citizens that you're working for us and we're kindly asking why don't why are we surprised when you do you guys do something an agenda that that pertains to what you guys did without our knowledge and and actually having a debate having our right to come and you know debated or whatever you want to call it just to have our voice and this was coming from people i didn't even know so there's a lot of things here that that could be uh giving us i think because i asked the school i said what laws now i can't go help a kid the parents said i can go in now you're reverting me i can't when i for 45 years i did it i would be able to get parents permission go inside and and do a hearing and uh 99 saved the kid and got him back to school education But the educators are looking at me, no, can't, you know, and it's like really scary to be in that tone of voice. And so I'm just trying to say if you guys can do us a favor, find out and display our laws that we have the rights. What rights do we have? THAT WE CAN ASK YOU SOMETHING AND YOU CAN RESPOND TO IT. THE POLICE HAS A UNION AND THEN THERE'S THE EMPLOYER AND EMPLOYEE. I STARTED LEARNING THAT. WE CAN'T JUST ASK. THEY HAVE NO RIGHT. THE CHIEF HAS NO RIGHT TO PUSH AN OFFICER BECAUSE HE'S UNDER A UNION THAT WILL GO AFTER HIM. SO HE HAS TO FIGURE ANOTHER WAY OF DOING IT. BUT I THINK IN THESE CASES OF THIS OFFICER THAT WE'RE TRYING TO GET OUT OF THAT NEIGHBORHOOD, I think if it's getting this tight, this kind of a disruption in the community, you think maybe that he would be kindly to say, I would volunteer to go to another area and not cause a problem. I mean, I think that would be nice, right? I think you guys would want to tell him. I know you can't make him, but, you know, if he's doing something that's not right, disrupting the community. I'm an advocate. I just try to make things work better. So, you know, kind of taking thought about that. And the Veteranos here, we're still here.

Mr. Castillo, your time is up. Our next speaker.

Good evening Mayor and City Council members. I am representing Lions Club and we are planning to open up a Lions Club in the city of Anaheim. So we are very pleased about that. And we are working towards all the logistics, getting all the licenses and everything which is due for City of Anaheim. And the most important thing is that we are establishing, being a new club, we are trying to establish to bring volunteers, the community members, and what are the community needs. So I'm going around to different associations to find out all the community needs of each district so we can find out where we can do the community services as per the district needs are. The other thing is our priority areas are, we are going to be starting with hunger, vision, pediatric cancer, diabetes, environment, and mental health. So this depends upon each district what the needs are. So we'll be going according to what your needs are going to be. And the other needs will be the senior health, and also individuals experiencing hardships. We do give references. It is strictly voluntary. So we are looking for members to join us who can improve your community per se. And the other thing is we want to find out what are the strengths, what is the demographic, and what are the challenges in each district. That's also we are going to find out. So I will be I'm going to be the president, hopefully. So I'm the president in the Fullerton branch now, so I can't be president in two places. So I have to wait for my presidency to finish. And the other thing is to meet with all the leaders. and, of course, the city council members to ask how, why, what, when. And we are going to be collaborating with the public a lot to find out. So we will be holding small meetings. So I have picked the venue, the place to meet for the Lions Club is the Youth Center, which is on the beach below, and that's got enough place. And when we are going to be having any kind of fairs, health fairs, the parking lot is very feasible for the public. So like I said, the other thing is when we come across all the existing organizations, we don't want to duplicate. So I need to find out because I just live only three miles away from here, but it's just on the border of Anaheim and Buena Park. So I don't know the demographics of Anaheim. I have a lot to learn. So I'm going to be finding out all the organization needs and wants. And the last thing is going to be talking to all the church members too, because they also do a lot of programs at the churches. So we can collaborate with the churches and help get their help. And of course, police department and the other fire departments and everything.

and thank you for listening we'll have our next speaker card number 7615. hello city council i'm here again to represent the duty managers that have not been given a raise for 10 years They work at Anaheim Convention Center. Duty managers were told raises only happen in July. With coworkers gossiping about various pay increases, they've learned that they occur throughout the year. Current duty managers remain in the dark if and when they will receive a raise at all, being told nothing retroactive and to expect very little. It is pathetic that management cannot at least be honest with them. How have the duty managers not been given a raise for 10 years and their 2024 request was so easily ignored for the last two years using the mid-year budget season and reclassification study as excuses? Now I have a new ACC compensation oddity to share with you. Michelle Henry, events manager of 20 years who oversaw the duty managers, recently retired. Her replacement is Jose Medina, former event manager too, now event services director. He is doing the identical job that Ms. Henry performed as manager and yet a few days after her departure, the position became a director. Same job, the woman classified and compensated as a manager, the man compensated and classified as a director. Coincidentally, most duty managers are women, and I see five women and two men on this city council. So ladies, how does that sit with you? The man gets paid and automatically as a director classification, but a woman who did this job for 20 years remained a manager. Making matters worse, the duty manager's pay request in 2024 was put off because of the lengthy reclassification study, yet Ms. Henry's position was reclassified from manager to director in a matter of days. Can anyone make sense of this? The excuses given to put off the duty manager's raises were lies. Their treatment violates the Anaheim employee handbook's merit system compensation guidelines. So whatever happened to the money allocated by Ms. Henry before her retirement for duty manager raises this year? Was it possibly given to the new event manager director instead of the 10 people that never got a raise or that do all these 10 people but 10 people and those positions that haven't been given a raise for 10 years. She said it outside money for raises for these people and they haven't been told squat about it it's embarrassing, so let me read one last thing to you as a reminder, this is what the merit system says in your handbook. Positions having similar duties and responsibilities shall be classified and compensated on a uniform basis. And I've made it clear that these duty managers have significant responsibility, yet they're the cheapest, least paid people in the entire convention center. Hourly wages, no bonuses, no benefits, not a damn thing.

I want to just share and take the time of celebrating the Chicano Heritage, Chicano Month. Chicana, not just Chicano, but Chicana as well. I want to connect this history with, I remember taking classes at Fullerton College with Jerry Padilla and Adela Lopez, Chicano history, Mexican-American studies, and also Native American history, where I was 18 years old. No, I was 17 years old when I actually got to attend Fullerton College, a graduate class from Anaheim, home of the champions, by the way. There's three new murals now in Anaheim High School, and I'm so glad that it doesn't say home of the colonists, or colonists knows no limit, or colonized. I'm so glad that the change is coming. Because psychologically, I always knew who I was. I always knew I spoke not just Spanish-English, but ,, which is the linguistic family. We belong to the Hopi, to the Comanche, to Shoshone, Paiute, Yaqui. I can go on and on. And Hatchiman. We're under the linguistic family. And by the way, I drove by Anaheim Hills. I love . I actually saw a lot of the grass was on the left side coming from anaheim hills this way to anaheim canyon on san anna canyon on the left side there's uh grass but on the right side i saw a lot of the grass was gone there's more desert plants you know because there is no water in the state of california so i'm thank you i don't know who's moving that but i want to thank you and your people in that district you know and um but we're making changes like the oc vibe with this new chicano mural uh lady one she has this new mural of a chicana woman you can see it from the fifer if you're coming from from to juan capistano this way you know and um so there's changes happening but with the arzola family i remember natalie i wish you were here the last meeting but yes it was the colonists that did not allow mexican chicano chicano people of color in that pool at pearson park And I wish you, as a councilwoman, that you bring this monument of history. We did know that in 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan run the city council of Anaheim. And there's a councilman from the city of Westminster. They have the Mendis Freedom Trails, two miles. It starts on Garden Grove Boulevard, and it ends all the way to Bolsa Chica, I think it is, or Golden West Boulevard, all the way to Huntington Beach. It goes through two cities. And when you walk there, they talk about the KKK in Anaheim, how they were the colonizers that killed and murdered, and they're still killing us. Look what happened to Arizona, look what happened to Donna in 2012 when Dr. Jose Moreno was this Chicano councilman. But anyways, there's so much to talk about. We have a lot of healing to do, but I hope we have a monument, some type of educational history for the kids, for future generations, like the young two twins sitting right there, the two Chicano Native kids that have that Native American blood that they know the history. And by having that monument, we can create healing and spiritual awareness and we heal and hopefully we can get that with time and education and hopefully connect with the school board. Thank you so much, thank you.

Our next speaker, Angelina Ortega.

I just need a moment. I'm here because I know I can speak up. I was sexually assaulted on January 26th. I knew I said I didn't want it. There was a previous text I said I didn't want it. Anyhow, I'll go on. and the same person is my roommate. This happened in Anaheim. On February 5th, I screamed no four times. No, I don't want this. And I was even louder. I can have a loud voice. I naturally can speak loud. So I know you heard me. If I say no, I'm loud. Like I could say no, no, no. Finally he let me go. On February 7th, this is my roommate I'm talking about. I paid my rent on February 7th. On February 9th, two days later, we had, I wouldn't even call it an argument, He just noticed that I was going to be a little confrontational verbal. And right away, he starts saying, you're hitting me. You're hitting me. I was not hitting him. He said, I'm recording you. I'm recording you. So I panicked. And I called the police. And I told the police, I want you to come as my witness. He's saying that I hit him when I'm not hitting him. So officer, I have a great memory. I can tell you many officers' names that I have met. That day, Officer Ruano showed up February 9. I asked him, did he tell you I hit him? He goes, no, you didn't hit him. And I was like, I told him, I feel that if he's making false accusations about me, what's next? You know, I don't know what's next. I don't know what he's capable of. The very next day, February 10th, I had a domestic violence restraining order against me. I have never in my life been accused of domestic violence. I'm 44 years old. I don't condone domestic violence. But my roommate wrote a lot of gibberish to a judge at the court in Orange. And I read everything that it said, the restraining order. What he wrote as his defense was, it looked like she was gonna hit me and I was scared. There was no police reports ever against me. I never even tried to hit him. I never even raised my hand at him, but yet I'm asked to leave my apartment and I thought it was fake. I didn't believe the restraining order. And I also have the cutest dog, a 13 pound ESA dog. That day, I didn't believe the restraining order, and I went to walk my dog. All I had was a dog, a leash, and my clothes. I had no purse, no ID, no money, nothing.

Ma'am, I'm so sorry.

I have more to say at the end. I can speak more. You're saying my three minutes are up?

I know this, thank you so much for coming here today. On your, the first incident, did you file a report with the Anaheim Police Department?

Well, can I tell you that on March 19, I was told to shut up by Anaheim PD. I tried to say, hey, this guy has made sexual advances toward me, and I was told by Officer Jay States, shut up three times. And I didn't report the sexual assault till May because I was already told to shut up many times, and I didn't get to the part where I was arrested for nine days innocent, no charges. I spent nine days in jail, moving around all over OC, and then I had a false warrant put on my record from, OC put it on me. They found a name that matched my name. No fingerprints, no matching ID, wrong birthday, and I went to LA.

also so that's why i was in jail innocently if you're comfortable could you leave um your contact information so that we can you know direct you to both legal resources yeah i may be homeless i already have an eviction notice and the judges because they see an arrest they think i'm guilty just because you're arrested does that mean you're guilty i have never been charged of anything absolutely and we have um officers in the back but i also want to make sure that we have your contact information um just in case you're not comfortable addressing it tonight so that we can follow up and make sure. Addressing what? If you would like to talk to an Anaheim police officer.

Oh, I've made a formal complaint on their portal. Okay. And I called in that I haven't been contacted. It's been over a month. So they have many complaints. I have formal complaints.

Okay. Well, I would, if you're comfortable, I'd like your contact information so we can follow up.

Yeah. So the reason I'm speaking, it was also Anaheim PD, you haven't done a great job.

Thank you so much for coming.

I'm here today in support of Abar Zola, a young Chicano man who had his life stolen. He lived his life full of dreams, but it ended quickly when he ran into Nathan Garcia. Who's Nathan Garcia, you might ask? He's one of the most corrupt officers Anaheim has hired in a while. He allegedly tried to cover up a brutal assault on a 14-year-old minor who he had deemed with his partner Kyle Smith that he had stolen the bike. Over a stolen bike, two grown 20, 30-year-old men assaulted a 14-year-old child. Anaheim was ordered to pay 247,000 in this case. What does 247,000 give you? You have to literally survive against a killer cop. He's traumatized for the rest of his life, and just like the family, we are traumatized. If this was anyone else, the two officers involved would have been charged with assault and a minor. I have lived all my years and I have never thought about beating up a kid on a bike. That is not normal. Officers know once they're in the building that they could possibly get away with murder. Still, Anaheim PD is holding all the charges against Emmanuel and they are not feeling sorry for him. Anaheim PD killed Albarazola in front of his friend and they haven't released any information about what really happened that night. The second officer had his body camera off and Nathan Garcia fell over. If it wasn't for the neighbor's camera directly across the city, directly across the house, then we would not have a single angle of Albert's killing. Nathan Garcia will claim that he shot out of fear and out of self-defense, except he wasn't the one being held at gunpoint. Nathan Garcia waved his gun directly at Albert's head. What do you expect of a person? The human nature is when you sense danger, you get scared, you run, you try to do whatever you can. Albert was laying on the ground, he wasn't moving an inch. Every month that goes by that you guys won't tell us who was the partner, it just makes it more obvious that it could have been Kyle Smith. You know, it just screams Kyle Smith. I haven't seen Sutter since he told me that it wasn't Kyle Smith. But I mean, I don't really believe Sutter because he told me both officers had their body cameras on at the time of the shooting. I mean, the family was waiting for the second officer's point of view and it was never released. Thank you.

Next speaker, Pearl Arzola, followed by Grace Arzola.

Hello. So on Sunday, my cousin got, no, on Friday, my cousin got pulled over for double parking, which was false because he just pulled up from my house and he was calling me to move my car. But then once he called me to move my car, he also said that the cop pulled up in back of him and pulled him over. They asked if the car was stolen, which was actually kind of stupid. Why would we be driving stolen cars? And then after they asked him for his license, registration, and insurance, the cop faces me and goes, so how's your dad doing? And I look at him and I'm like, Why do you care how my dad is doing when you killed his son? How do you think my dad is doing? How do you guys think my dad is doing right now? How do you think my mom's doing right now when Anaheim PD has murdered my brother? brother in front of our lawn, in front of our faces, and shot his best friend in his head in front of our faces. How do you guys think we are doing? Do you guys think that we are doing fucking fine and dandy and we are just right here? We are trying to survive. We're in survival mode. So I just think it's honestly harassment, the fact that he would even ask that insensitive question and ask me, and this is also the same officer when you guys took us to the precinct that night this is the same officer that was looking at us in our faces just like oh well you guys you guys are here so who cares who cares who cares when we were asking questions I asked him how my dogs were doing because Anaheim PD went inside my house and let my dogs loose and I have confirmation from my neighbors that they opened the door and all of my dogs were running wild. I have a husky. I don't know if you guys know anything about huskies. Once a husky is let loose, there is no way to get in the back because they think it's free game and everyone's having a playtime and it literally took the neighbors two hours to get that husky and you guys just didn't care for my dogs or anything. You guys didn't even care for my brother. You guys left them laying there until four in the morning. But I just think it's really insensitive for Anaheim police officer to ask me how my grieving father is doing and ask my cousin if his car was stolen. I think you guys really need to put pressure on these cops and tell them to stop asking insensitive ass questions. Thank you.

I'm here to ask for justice for Albert Arzola. This was actually the first summer vacation that Albert did not attend our yearly family river trip. It was really heartbreaking. You guys took that from us. And I say you guys because you guys continue employing the person that shot my nephew in the back. You guys keep on enabling this police department. You guys just paid a settlement of over $240,000. for the assault that Nathan Garcia did on a 14 year old. What could you guys have done and reinvested that money in at-risk youth? What could we have done? We come here and we keep on demanding justice and I know it's, It's hard for us to get that justice, but I have faith in God. And the verse that the pastor read earlier actually brings me a lot of comfort because it says that Christ will comfort those that are blessed are those that are mourning for they will be comfort. We will be comfort. And God has us in our hand. Has it been hard? Yes. And you know what was also hard? seeing the national night out where Natalie posted her poster child for the reelection campaign. Natalie, you posted Nathan Garcia, and that was a slap. That was a slap. That was a slap in the face for us. But it's okay, because you're running for reelection. And I'll make sure that I knock in every door on District 3 and tell them that you protect killer cops. I will tell them. I will knock. we have a coalition it's not just me natalie we have a coalition and we will be knocking we will be knocking we'll be organizing we will make sure that someone sits in that chair that represents the whole city's interest not their own and that does not protect killer cops i just someone wings of kindness posted that you guys keep on harassing the mondragon store, and Mas, you're big about picking up trash and this and that, but the code enforcement were out there, because this lady has a trash can outside of her liquor store. Do you guys rather have people walking, throw stuff on the floor, or throw it in the trash can? What do you guys want? The planters are too big, they're blocking the sidewalk. You guys can't have it both ways. You guys told her to take off an Angels flag, but when the Ducks were in the playoff, which I love the Ducks, I love the Angels, love, I'm proud to be Anaheim, born and raised in Anaheim, you guys hang up the flag from the city hall. What's the difference between you guys and Mondragon? Why is there double standards? Why don't you guys love your community members, the people that put you guys in those seats? You guys should love, care, and protect them. You guys pledge an oath to the Constitution, not to the police union. Shame on every one of you.

Juanita Lopez, followed by Christine Lopez.

Hi, my name is Juanita Lopez, and I would like to move from where I'm living because I have 19 years living there, but the rents are too high for me to pay. It's like $3,000 for me to pay for the rent. And I thought I would like to move, but I can't move from there because the rents are just too high. And... I can't move from there. So I don't know what I could do. Is there a way that I could get any help? Because I paid a thousand and something and the rents are just too high for me to move from there. So I don't know where I could get any help. And worried and mad and upset that because my, grandson Albert Arzola got shot. You know, they killed him. They shouldn't have shot him. They shot him. The police department came over and shot him at his house when he was already in the house and he had his hands up. I don't know why they could have done that. Kill him for no reason. Shame on that. Yeah, I want justice for my grandson. I don't know why they don't give a police report of saying why and how he killed him. That damn cop, I forgot what's his name. Yeah, that Nathan Garcia has shot my grandson for no reason. He should be living right now, being happy, enjoying himself with us, and now no longer he's with us because of this, of what he done to my grandson. And now he's no longer with us. So awful, how such a shame of doing that to my grandson. That's all I got to say.

Thank you, ma'am. Ma'am? Sergio? Sergio? Would you be able to have her talk to, we have two people from our housing department that are in the back. Depending on her personal situation, they should talk to her and they can give her all the resources that are available.

Hello council members, mayor and city manager. We have reached the eight month point where our lives forever changed. Albert Arzola was murdered on the doorsteps of his home by one of your employees who is still out patrolling our streets. The public needs to be aware that this unfit individual who has caused harm to two families that we know of is still on our streets. Whoever is responsible, whether it be you, the mayor, the city manager, the chief of police, need to be held accountable. Albert did not commit a crime. He was a hardworking, loving resident who worked in Anaheim. His former teachers, supervisors, community members can all attest to Albert's fun-loving character. His cousin, who is a D1 athlete at a prestigious university, still is asking why. All she has is memories of going swimming in the summer at Tita's house and going to Nickel Nickel and Albert letting her win sometimes. I constantly hear the excuse that it's an active investigation that has nothing to do with how the police chief intends to address the policy violations of his police officers or to ensure that our communities are safe. It's just a cop out. We know that when the police department participates in their own investigation, it always serves as an injustice to the true victims of the crimes. So I will continue to ask, what do you plan to do when you know there are repeated abuses by officers that cost your constituents lives? When is it enough to stand up and change the system that harms so many of us? Until it happens to one of you? Take your elected position seriously. Show you have backbone. Don't just be a wallflower. You may not see the consequences of your actions now, but all of us will remember the repeated inaction and make sure that your constituents do as well. Rent control, you know the majority of residents in Anaheim rent one of over 54% of occupied housing units according to the census reporter. You have an obligation as elected officials to address the concerns of your constituents. If they all voted, you would no longer have a choice than to pass rent control ordinances. Otherwise, you would lose your seat. So that's what you can do for my sister who lives in Anaheim who's gonna vote in November. pass an ordinance. You have the majority of voters that are renters, and you are not listening to them. You're disconnected. I don't know where your time and energy and representation belong, but you're missing that. You're not connected with the community. Take action. Thank you.

Our next speaker, Ariel Espinoza.

I'm here to ask justice for Albert Arzola. Nathan Garcia killed my cousin. I never met Officer Garcia, but he caused me the greatest pain in my life. I am young and it's hard for me to process his loss, but what is harder for me is to understand how there has been no consequences for his actions and how city council wants the community to feel safe when police officers with violent history like his is at events while under investigation. And to make it worse, Natalie posted him like he was officer of the year. I hope you're ashamed of yourself, Natalie, because what you did was wrong. He killed someone. He killed my cousin. And just in case you guys were not able to see the photo when I held it up, here it is again. Or you can ask Natalie to look in her archive on Instagram and show you it on her phone.

Next speaker, Bethany Alberg.

Hi, I wanna talk to you guys tonight about enforcement. There's been a theme that has been ongoing in the six months that I've come here and also in the lives of my neighbors around me of inconsistency in enforcement. And what it ends up being is when it seems like when the codes and the laws protect people in power, then we uphold them as a body. When they don't, we can't do anything about it. This is an administrative issue as much as it is anything else, and I want to assume that people who are involved in upholding the law in Anaheim are just really incompetent. Because, for instance, I requested from the city clerk some public records that are supposed to be presented to me within 10 days of request. I received an email back that said, I'm going to call on this code to postpone it 14 days. when I read the code it said they have to give a reason for why it's being postponed that is a simple code that anybody can read and understand how to follow through on it instead it just feels like it was used to push off something that I had asked for and that that is the that is the um the pattern that I see. I see it with small businesses in my neighborhood who are, like somebody else said, are targeted by code enforcement. It wasn't even Mont-Dragon. We had a really successful coffee truck that was bringing life into our neighborhood, and code enforcement got called on them so many times that eventually the person who came to check on it looked at a code that is contradictory between the state and the city and and said you have to do this but you can't do this and it was literally you can't have both the codes the codes are not they didn't make sense in that way but it was used to push that business out of anaheim and into santa ana because they're they're doing better about food vendors so When the pattern continues to target Latino and Chicano businesses, families, neighbors, that is very concerning as an Anaheim resident. So you guys need to get better at communicating your understanding of the law instead of hiding behind it. You need to explain to us your understanding of why you can't talk about this, why you have to have a stone face. I understand that there's a reason, but you guys aren't communicating it. So we're getting a stone face. I'm sorry, your time is up.

Thank you. I'm sorry, ma'am. Your three minutes is over. Thank you.

Mayor and City Council, we're going to now turn to our remote speakers. Our first speaker is Bobby Olay. We currently do not see him in the webinar. Our next speaker, Leslie Lopez. And Leslie Lopez is not in the webinar. That concludes our public comments, Mayor. And then Mayor, noting for the record, we did receive six general comments that were received electronically. Each of those public comments were distributed to City Council as well as posted on our city's website and can be found at anaheim.net forward slash public comment.

Thank you very much.

Mayor and City Council, if you want, we did just got notification. It looks like Leslie Lopez did join. Do you want to go ahead? Leslie Lopez, if you can please unmute yourself at this time. Leslie, we do hear you. You can go ahead. Your time has started. I'm sorry.

Are you guys able to hear me? Yes.

Yes.

Okay. Thank you.

You know, go ahead and start.

Okay. Hi, my name is Leslie Lopez. Um, My cousin Albert Azola was shot by Anaheim police on December 6th. What's most concerning to me and my family is that for approximately six months, they didn't want to identify the officer who was involved and kept it from the public. We are given explanations on why his name couldn't be released, but now I'm beginning to question all those explanations. Natalie Rubicava posted photographs of the officer publicly on her social media. yet the city hasn't posted for the rest of the community to see. If there was genuine concerns about releasing his identity because of safety or privacy, then why was his photograph now posted publicly by Natalie? Without giving context, she made it seem like it was an honor to have him involved within the community. My cousin was 19 years old, and he wasn't a threat that night. Albert was running towards the place where he believed to be safe. He was going into house when Officer Nathan Garcia pulled him back. From my family's perspective, the situation was not properly assessed before using deadly force. He came out of an unmarked video and no audio was picked up while he was in the car, which seems a little convenient that there was buffering occurring. I'm also deeply concerned about what we have been told about Officer Nathan Garcia, prior history and allegations of excessive force. If there was previous incidents involving excessive force and misconduct, then why is he still in a position where he can use that deadly force? What accountability and what additional training was put into place prior to those incidents? My cousin did not get a second chance. Albert deserved to live. I also want the community to understand how these SITUATIONS AFFECT EVERYONE, NOT JUST THE FAMILIES WHO LOSE SOMEONE, BUT THE CITY ALSO PAYS SETTLEMENT INVOLVING ALLEGATIONS OF POLICE MISCONDUCT AND THAT'S PUBLIC MONEY. INSTEAD OF REPEATEDLY PAYING LARGE SETTLEMENTS AFTER SOMEONE IS HARMED, You can invest this money to training, accountability, de-escalation tactics, and also building some more community trust. We have known that Nathan Garcia has already had a lawsuit because of excessive force on a 14-year-old. I'm asking the Anaheim Police Department and Anaheim City, the City of Anaheim, to be transparent with the community. Because Albert wasn't just an incident report, he was my cousin, a 19-year-old whose life mattered. Our family also has to live the rest of our lives without him. We deserve transparency and we deserve accountability and our community deserves to know when an officer uses deadly force and who they are. The department has done everything possible, hasn't done anything to help us and know that they are actively training and working with their officers to um to know the standards and how to deal with um high pressure situations because this should never happen to another family again i'm sorry your time is up right the mayor and city council that concludes our remote and in-person speakers thank you very much so we're now going to close the public comment portion of the meeting and move to council communications if any council members have something to share please ring in

I'll start with Councilmember Moss.

Thank you. Excuse me. Thank you. I have a few slides to share. Starting on August 3rd, we had a backpack giveaway in the Anna Drive neighborhood. ICNA Relief provided the backpacks and school supplies. This event was organized by residents and parent leaders from the PTA. My friends Sandra, Yesenia are there, and you can see students there who are volunteering their time to give back. So I just wanted to acknowledge the organization that donated the supplies as well as the residents who gave their time. Next slide, please. And we did have National Night Out, as was mentioned. Last Tuesday, it was in District 5. We had many residents and neighbors grateful to welcome residents from all over the city to Juarez Park. I met Minnie, Miss Wheelchair California. You can see her there in the picture on the far right. She is an Anaheim resident. And so we had a great conversation that evening. Anyhow, just wanted to acknowledge the police department and the staff who put that event together. And I want to congratulate Jason Perez for being the reigning champion of the donut eating contest. Next slide, please. Last Thursday was the first day of school at Anaheim Elementary, throughout the district, and there was one school in District 5 that had a special surprise from the folks at Disneyland. Mickey and friends came to the first day, as well as cast members and volunteers, to welcome families to campus. So it really was magical. There was a balloon arch and balloons, and sorry, bubbles, as well as backdrops and characters. And it was really cool not just to see the kids' excitement, but their parents as well. We have a lot of families, parents that went there to the school themselves. And so it was just amazing to see that connection. And we appreciate the generosity of Disneyland Resort for coming out and making those special moments for those kids. And last slide, I want to share that this Saturday, there's gonna be an event at OC Animal Care, which is our contracted animal service provider. They're clearing the shelters. So this Saturday, dogs who are 25 pounds or more are free. So the adoption fees are waived. Adoption fees are always waived for veterans, so you are encouraged to come out if you're considering getting a dog. I also wanted to mention that the second Saturday of every month, there is a drive-through pet food pantry. So I appreciate the efforts that it takes to put that on and lastly i want to congratulate the chamber of commerce they put together an amazing taste of anaheim last friday evening on center street it was good music good food and a lot of great neighbors connecting with each other so i want to acknowledge the hard work that it took to put that event on and last thing i want to mention is this month's Clean up with your council member will be Saturday, August 22nd. We'll be cleaning up at Rio Vista Park. All are welcome to help clean up, to have conversations about concerns, but we'll be there working together to keep our trash out of our waterways. So that's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Mayor Pro Tem Leon and then Council Member Kurtz.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I had the opportunity to participate in this year's Chalk Walk at Disneyland, joining thousands of people who came out very early in the morning to support the Children's Hospital of Orange County and the incredible work that they do for children and families throughout our region. It was an early 3 a.m. start, but a morning well spent for a great cause. Thank you to everyone who participated, volunteered, and helped make this year's Chalk Walk such a success. We also, as was mentioned, celebrated National Night Out in Anaheim. It's always a great opportunity for families to come out, to meet the officers who serve our neighborhoods, to ask questions and build relationships. Of course, I will echo my colleague in congratulating the man, the myth, the legend, Jason Perez, the undefeated donut eating champion for, I believe, five years running now. So congrats to him. I don't know how he does it. I think I did it one year and I think I only got through like one and a half. So kudos to him. Thank you again to Chief Sid and our Anaheim Police Department and all of the folks who helped organize such a great event, a great evening for our community. And finally, my office hosted our fourth annual back-to-school bash a couple weekends ago, and this was our biggest one yet. We welcomed more than 2,000 people and students in just a few hours at Madison Elementary. Families received backpacks and school supplies, free back-to-school haircuts thanks to True School Barbershop, food boxes distributed by CapOC, hot dogs from AMEN, OCEA, and much, much more. Throughout the morning, families also had access to community resources, to activities, performances, and plenty for the kids and students to enjoy before heading back to school. An event serving more than 2,000 people takes a lot of other additional people working behind the scenes. I'm incredibly grateful to everyone who helped and stepped up. I wanna thank Carina's Backpack Project for being such an important partner for this event, to all of the businesses, community organizations, volunteers, and staff who contributed their time and resources to make this happen. Many were there well before we opened and stayed with us through the end. And I especially wanna thank my staff and our all-star volunteers, Kelly, Angie, Patty, Richard, Miranda, Ian, so many, so many more. We couldn't do it without everyone. I also wanna especially thank the Anaheim Elementary School District, along with Principal Brown, the staff at Madison Elementary School, including Santos and Marcos, members of the custodial team for opening their campus to us and working with our team to accommodate an event of this size. I know there was a number of different city staff that was there as well, clerk's office, our chief, Chief Sid, PD, public utilities, acting general manager was out there as well, and I probably missed a few others, but I appreciate everybody coming out to this. um and you know four years into the back to school bash events i'm really i'm incredibly grateful for what this event has become for everyone who continues to help make us make us help us make it possible and to all the students across our community who have already gone back to school are getting ready to head back i hope you have a great school year ahead to all of our teachers to our educators our school staffs thank you for everything that you do for our students throughout the year And I know my staff is not gonna like when I say this, but we're already looking forward to year five and making next year's back to school bash even bigger and better. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you so much, Mayor Pro Tem. Campos-Gertz.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I don't have any slides. And Mayor Pro Tem, you did exaggerate a little bit. We didn't have to be there at 3. 3.30. Don't exaggerate. I just want to say I also had the opportunity to welcome over 7,000 walkers along with Mayor Pro Tem. Welcome them to the Chalk Walk and to Anaheim. It was a crowded early morning. I just wanted to mention one thing. For those of our residents who have not had the opportunity to attend a gardening class at the Anaheim Public Utilities New Sustainability Center, I highly recommend it. The class will teach you how to plant native plants, plants that don't take as much water, grasses that don't take much water. Actually, some don't take any. And they hold these classes about once a quarter. Be on the lookout. They're always posted on the Anaheim Public Utilities website. They're free. They're on a Saturday morning. It does take all morning, but a great class, great instructor. So thank you, Andrew, for teaching the class. Thank you to Public Utilities for putting it on for our residents. And that's all I have.

Thank you so much. Council Member Rubicava?

Thank you, Mayor Aiken. Clerk, I do have a couple of slides, but before that, I'm just gonna mention that I was born and raised in Anaheim, and I have the great honor of representing District 3, which is home to 50,000 residents. I'm the first Latina to represent my district, which I do proudly. And I know there were a couple of people who mentioned that we may not have equitable representation in our city, but we do. I take that very seriously, and I know that there's many council members on this dais who do that as well. So with that said, I would also like to mention that I'm grateful, and Matzl here is a witness to this, that we were able to vote in unanimously August as Chicano Heritage Month in the city of Anaheim. We're only the second city in the state of California to recognize our Mexican-American community. And I would like to also highlight the fact that I sit on the fair board, but we had the great honor to invite Dolores Huerta, who checks many boxes, Not only did we honor her here for Women's History Month, but we also recognize the fact that she has been a champion for labor, she's also been a champion for Chicano movement, and we were proud to have her in our presence this past Sunday. At the age of 93, she's sharper than I am at 47, so. Next slide. I also want to mention that we do have an exhibit in recognition of Chicano Heritage Month at our downtown community center, which is also our senior center, which was mentioned earlier today. And thank you, Shawnee, and your team, because you have made this initiative a priority. We also have murals that have gone up in our city specifically around Chicano Heritage Month. And I will also mention that we are working on the mural at Little People's Park to facilitate figure out a way to preserve that history because the Chicano movement back in the 1970s was something that was significant in the city of Anaheim. So I wanna make sure that we recognize this and if you have not already taken the time to visit this exhibit, I ask you to please do so because there are a lot of very talented Chicano artists that are in our city and they deserve for their art to be seen. And then as many of my council colleagues have mentioned, we did have National Night Out, which is a police officer hosted event that is throughout the nation. I had the great honor of attending with many of my council colleagues as well as my family. And it was a night to celebrate not only community but public safety as well as being with people who are not only from District 5, It was in District 3 last year, but I was happy to go to District 5 this year. But many of our District 3 residents and families were also in attendance. So I wanted to highlight some of them here. And I know he's already been mentioned several times, but Jason, the reigning donut eating champion, I think he ate a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts in a minute and 40 seconds or something like that. And he still ate dinner. So I'm just going to mention that, which I think is amazing. Next slide. So I also do want to apologize to the senior community, because I know that we had a speaker here who actually is my nominee for my senior position. So I'm happy that she's already very active in the district. But we do host a backpack drive. And I am proud to say that we did give away 600 backpacks to our local youth in the city of Anaheim. We had families who attended on July 25 here at Center Greens, which is one of our newest parks in the city. We did have a car show, which did take up some of the parking, so I will be aware of that inconvenience in the future and not host it on a Saturday that will impact our seniors. But in all honesty, it was something that was with good intentions. We had a local car club, which I partner with for this event every year. With that, we were able to not only host families, but we had many of our city departments, including fire, public utilities, public works, We have our interim public utilities director, not Ducu, but doing very well in the current role, who was also there on a Saturday in very hot weather. So I just want to thank them. We had the school districts who were also in attendance. We had a person or a barber volunteering to give haircuts to our students who were going back to school. So it was a really great day of community. And I also want to thank our youth engagement from the police department for giving away hot dogs and our local Starbucks for hosting refreshers. So we did get to see a lot of families participate in this. So thank you for everybody who attended. I also want to announce that we do have some construction going on, which is beneficial to District 3 because it is enhancing the infrastructure on Harbor Boulevard. And I also want to thank our contractor who came out. He was actually knocking door to door to let everybody know about the ongoing construction that will take place for a few months. here in the city of anaheim but it will enhance our infrastructure which is something that this council takes very seriously in terms of making sure that our budget is dedicated to things that are benefiting the residents who live and drive in our city And then I also have to mention as a board member, our chief of police, and we also have battalion chief from fire who will be competing against each other. Well, not just each other, but other people, but they are doing it for good fun to raise money for Chalk Hospital. So if you have not already had the opportunity to donate, please do so. It is benefiting kids and their families who are struggling with childhood diseases and other things that are just harmful to their family at this point. But thank you, Chief, and thank you, Battalion Chief, for dedicating your time. And I hope that this is not going to be a workers' comp issue, so please be safe in those cars. I think I have one more slide. Yes, okay. I also just wanted to congratulate and thank Officer Angelica Mejia, who just retired from Anaheim PD. She served our city for 31 years. She's an Anaheim native. I don't know if she was born here, but I know she grew up in Anaheim, so it's always nice to see people who look like us serving us. So I also just sad to see her go, but she dedicated a good chunk of her life and career to the city of Anaheim. So I wish her the best. And I will be asking the mayor and council to bring her in for recognition at the end of the meeting. That concludes my council comments.

Thank you so much. So that concludes our council communications. And now is the time for our city managers update. Mr. Greg Garcia, do you have anything to report?

Yes, Mayor, a couple items. First is a general update on the ongoing stadium assessment. We selected a structural consultant to perform the final engineering analysis and assessment of the stadium test results. The final assessment is expected to be completed late this year, as I previously mentioned. No additional developments at this time, and we will continue to provide general updates as the process plays out. Also, something we look forward to every year is the cultural exchange between Anaheim and our sister city of Mido, Japan. It's especially exciting as we're commemorating 50 years of friendship and partnership this year. Starting this Friday, we'll be hosting six high school students from Mido, Japan. They'll be staying with Anaheim host families and visiting various landmarks across our city, including the Museo, Anaheim Fire Station, the Sustainability Center, In addition to going to an Angels game, Disneyland, and more. Also, the students will be here for our next council meeting on August 25th. That's exciting. That doesn't happen very often. And we look forward to having them and showing them a glimpse into life in Anaheim. Also, we did, our students from Anaheim, we do send a group of Anaheim students to METO every year as well. And so they just return from their trip. And so we'd love to have them in to share their experience as well. So that concludes my updates. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mr. City Manager, and thank you to our sister city commission. I know they work very hard all year to make sure that both our students have a good opportunity in Japan and that we show the Japanese visitors a good time. So thank you for all their hard work. We are now going to address the city council consent calendar. Items one through 15 are before us. Are there any members who wish to pull an item? Council Member Maz.

Item number four, please.

Mayor Pro Tem Leon? Anyone else besides Councilmember Maas pulling an item? Okay, can I have a motion to remove, to move the remainder? We have a motion and a second, please vote.

The consent calendar included item number 14, which is ordinance number 6627, the ordinance of the City Council of the City of Anaheim approving development application number 202600022, adopting amendments to title 18 zoning of the Anaheim Municipal Code to implement the six cycle housing element and maintain consistency with the state housing law in finding and determining that this ordinance is not subject to the requirements to prepare additional environmental documentation per CEQA guidelines section 15061 and California public resources code section 2080.085 because it will not have a significant effect on the environment. And the vote is seven ayes, no nays. Motion carries.

So item number four was pulled by Council Member Maaz. Would you like a staff report?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I don't need a full staff report. I'm hoping you can share key findings in this report and how they've been addressed.

Sure, of course. Again, my name is Brian Bielner. I'm the acting general manager of public utilities. And with me this evening is Craig Parker, our assistant general manager of water services. The report before you this evening needs approval by city council for the acting public utilities general manager to respond to an Orange County grand jury report. And there were several key findings. I'm going to ask Craig Parker to delineate those key findings for me tonight and what our responses are to those key findings. Thank you, Brian.

Okay, there were multiple findings in the report. The ones that the Anaheim had to respond to are in your staff report. So I'll go through a few of those. So one of them was that PFAS is a widespread and contamination that has been detected in Orange County groundwater. Community water systems are required to report PFAS monitoring in their annual consumer confidence reports. So Anaheim agreed with that finding and we have complied with all that. The second one that we had replied to is Orange County Water District has taken a proactive leadership role in addressing PFAS in Orange County Groundwater Basin through PFAS treatment implementation varied across local cities and water districts. Anaheim has agreed with that finding as well. We have taken a proactive leadership in addressing PFAS in a collaborative manner. And then another finding was what they call F6. Orange County drinking water meets or exceeds state and federal standards and is safe for consumption without additional home filtration. Anaheim agreed with that finding as well. Anaheim has met all state and federal standards. About 80% of our groundwater comes from, about 80% of our supply comes from groundwater. Then another finding was there are limited online PFAS education and outreach programs among Orange County water retailers. Most retailers rely on Orange County Water District. Anaheim disagreed in part on that finding. We have done numerous things and I will list those. We've had numerous open houses prior to our groundwater treatment program. We've had numerous community meetings on water quality, conservation programs, and bill assistance. We've had multiple student tours of all of our water treatment facilities. We've included high school students at all of our groundbreaking and dedication events for our groundwater treatment program. We've hosted resident students, school superintendents, and so on at our new sustainability education center. We've hosted regional events such as OC Green Expo, which talks about water sustainability and so on. Hosted Water Awareness Month every year and talked about all these issues. We've also agendized action and informational items at our Anaheim Public Utilities Board and this city council.

So those were the findings. And I would just also like to point out that the Orange County Grand Jury did call out Anaheim specifically as an accommodation for our work on PFAS treatment. They specifically commended us for launching one of the largest municipal PFAS treatment programs in the country, a $150 million effort. So it wasn't just the findings, but they also commended us for the work we have done in PFAS and that we are on the, I think the vanguard of cities in PFAS treatment. I think that is something to make sure that that's mentioned here.

Thank you. That was actually the statement I had highlighted and was hoping you would reference. So I appreciate your time and sharing that. I don't have any further questions.

Thank you. Council Member Meeks. I just wanted to acknowledge that I am a representative on the Orange County Water District who has partnered with Anaheim in a very quick response to the PFAS issue many years ago. OCWD came up with a funding plan so that we could shut down wells, we could build the filtration systems, and get those wells back on line to serve our customers, because imported water is a lot more expensive for our customers. But of course, we needed to treat this PFAS issue. And we've been, both Anaheim and OCWD has been recognized nationally as the model for proactively addressing this issue.

Thank you. Is there anything on our public utilities page that talks about the kind of the science and the methodology of how we got the PFAS out of the water and the systems that they use?

Yeah, we have a comprehensive website on this issue. So we talk about the basic problem, as you mentioned, the source, and then we talk about how we've responded to that. Any of the notifications that we've had to provide to the public are there. So anything the public wants to learn about the issue and what Anaheim and what Orange County has done is certainly available to them.

Thank you, I've seen it in person at some of the public utility facilities and it's just fascinating how they get something so small out of the water. So congratulations on that and thank you very much. Council Member Moss, would you like to move the item?

Yes, I'd like to move the item, thank you.

Thank you, we have a motion and second.

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

So we are now gonna move on to, excuse me, item number 16, which is a presentation by Visit Anaheim related to the Anaheim Tourism Improvement District Annual Report. City Manager, may I ask you to please introduce the team?

Thank you, Mayor. This item will be led by Mr. Tom Morton, Director of our Convention Center, and also the Visit Anaheim team as well. Tom, are you gonna introduce the team? Yes, that is a yes.

All right, just want to make sure the PowerPoint loaded. Thank you, Greg. Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and Council Members. As requested by Council Member Campos-Kurtz on June 9, City Council Meeting, Visit Anaheim will provide a presentation on the data that is collected and how it is used. So with that, I would like to introduce Scott Auklin. the Chief Marketing Officer of Visit Anaheim to provide the presentation. Scott, just tell me when to advance the slides.

Perfect. Good evening, Mary, Ken, and City Council. Thanks so much for having me here today. I am the Chief Marketing Officer for Visit Anaheim, and I'm here tonight to talk about something that we all care very deeply about, which is how we make our marketing dollars work harder to protect every TID dollar that is generated, and then also how we go about proving that it's working. Our industry, tourism marketing, is in the middle of a real evolution right now in data and analytical capability. We've always known that our campaigns were driving visitation, but what's changed is how much more we're able to understand about how that visitation actually is showing up in our market. So what drove it, where those visitors are coming from, how long they stayed, and a whole lot more that we'll talk a little bit about tonight. And i'm is at the forefront of that shift and that's what I really want to talk about and walk you through this evening. Where we can not only we can trace how every dollar is spent on marketing, all the way through to visitors footsteps right here in anaheim so not just whether they're clicking on an ad whether they're actually showing up. And I want to start with the intent behind every one of those dollars is just a level set. Every single marketing dollar that we spend is driven by one goal, and that's to book overnight visitation. We're getting better and more efficient at that every single day. And the math on it is also bigger than what a lot of us might think. If we were able to have every visitor stay in Anaheim just one additional night, we'd be looking at an additional $800 million in hotel revenue flowing through our city. So that's one more night per visitor across our entire visitor volume of $800 million. So when we look at this, this isn't just a marketing budget. It's a true revenue engine. And tonight, I'd like to show you those engines gauges. Tom, if you could go forward one slide. No, this is perfect. So we wanted to put visit Anaheim together as if it was a puzzle for you. And as you can see, we are much more intricate than some people might realize. So you can see here on the slide, we have everything from finance to community relations to operations. But tonight, what I'd really love to talk about is those areas that are highlighted in teal. So that's our leisure marketing efforts, our meetings and convention sales and marketing, our media relations, and our business intelligence. So those are really going to be the pieces behind everything that I'll be talking about tonight and the data that we'll be sharing.

Next slide.

So how do we know that this is working? Well, last year, our campaigns generated 117.5 million trackable impressions. Now, it's important to also mention that we generate way more impressions than this as an organization, but this is the number that we're actually able to track with a new attribution data platform that I'll also be discussing this evening. Now, this is a huge number and tells us how vast our reach ultimately is. But this is what is actually able to be tracked. Tracking impressions, though, don't tell us how many people actually showed up who were exposed to our creative and our marketing efforts. But thanks to this new attribution platform, we're getting closer and closer to having more clarity to answer exactly that question. And what we can now say for the calendar year of 2025 is that for every 1,000 of those impressions, we can measure 9.5 actual visits to Anaheim. So the impressions are no longer just a vanity metric. This is 9.5 real visits per 1,000 impressions. So these are real people, real trips tied back to a specific campaign dollar. We're measuring outcomes in the form of visits, spend, and ultimately what's coming back to our city. And also important to note here is that these visitors are offsetting nearly $9,000 in taxes per household in the city of Anaheim. Next slide. So not every dollar is also supposed to do the same job. And so I wanted to share with you this slide, which is really intended to show the full guest journey. So this is everything from awareness to inspiration, consideration, and booking. And because an awareness campaign isn't always intended to book that room that same day, but it's supposed to make that booking possible later on in that traveler's journey. And I want to walk through what each stage actually means here. On the awareness side, we're looking at things like earned media, connected TV, and social media. And I'll define each one of those quickly. Earned media is coverage that we don't pay for, so things like press, national segments, organic stories that are getting picked up by the news. Connected TV, think your streaming TV, so things like Hulu, Roku, YouTube TV. And we can now target it and track it because of the digital nature of that. Together, these put Anaheim in front of new audiences that might not be looking for us just yet. The next phase is inspiration. And under the inspiration moniker, we're looking at content, storytelling, influencer and creator work. We're working with a vendor called Stellar. And Stellar works with influencers that are coming to visit our destination. But within that ecosystem, you're actually able to book the exact same trip that that influencer is showing on social media or make the tweaks that are necessary to you and your family based on whatever Let's say the influencer is showing a three-day, two-night journey through Anaheim, and you want a four-day, three-night, and you have three kids instead of two. This platform allows for you to make those changes, and it also allows for us to put an ROI behind an influencer campaign, whereas before we were not able to do that. In the consideration set, we were talking about paid search and retargeting. This is capturing people who are in the active trip planning process and making sure that Anaheim shows up at the exact moment of that. And then lastly, the booking. And this is your promotions, your partner offers, that final push that actually closes the room night. Many of you might have heard about some of our seasonal demand campaigns, like 100 Days Till Summer, which is building urgency ahead of peak season. And this year, our winter campaign is getting a little bit of a facelift. Last year, it was called the Secret Saving Season. That was a little bit of a mouthful. So we are changing that to If You Know, You Go. We also listened directly to hotel partner feedback. For the 100 days till summer, we allowed for those hotel partners to facilitate that direct booking on their platform rather than through a vacation packager. And this was done with over 25 hotels participating in that campaign. And in order to participate, there needed to be some sort of call to action. And that could be in the form of dollar savings, value adds, free valet, food and beverage credits, and a whole lot more. I want to go back to the awareness stage just quickly, because this is where earned media, which, again, is the coverage that we don't pay for, can also prove its worth. Earlier this summer, we brought in skateboarding legend Tony Hawk into Anaheim to talk about the nostalgia travel trend that's really been sweeping across the country. And his media interviews were staged at the museo. And it was timed because of the skateboard exhibit that was also taking place at the museo. So it was right place, right time. And that earned coverage put Anaheim in front of new audiences nationally. The week following those interviews, the museum reported that their ticket sales increased by 40% to that skateboard exhibit. And that's the awareness to inspiration pipeline that's working exactly as we designed. One earned media moment with one measurable spike in a local business's ticket revenue, which is the kind of result that you can't buy with a media budget and one that our whole framework is really letting us actually prove happened. Next slide. So I also wanted to share on this slide what we had and then what that also couldn't tell us and the gap that we're closing with that. So on the left-hand slide here, you'll see that historically, and we still do, have access to all of these data points. So you're looking at things like hotel occupancy. You're looking at average daily rate for our hotels, REVPAR, which is the revenue per available room, TOT collections, TID collections, and just general visitation trends. But what that couldn't tell us was what you see on the right-hand side of this slide. You're looking at which campaigns actually caused that behavior, which creative was moving people throughout our destination, which vendors were earning their spend, and then which markets those visitors were actually coming from. And again, that's the gap that we're ultimately closing. And on the next slide, please. That shift in one sentence is that we can now see whether someone who saw our ad actually came to Anaheim. So again, to go back to the front end of this presentation, it's not whether they just clicked on an ad, but whether they actually showed up. And this is done through Tourism Economics' Symphony Attribution Platform. On the next slide, I'd like to show you how that operates in four steps. So someone in our target market is served a creative. So that could be in the form of video, display ads, social media. And that's where we are looking at that first block of exposure. The anonymized aggregated location data connects that ad exposure then to actual travel. And it's important to mention that no individual is ever tracked or identified. It's all anonymized. But that's the match. From there, the matched exposures get rolled up into metrics, which I'll talk more about on this next slide, but those are things like observed visitation, so people that are actually coming into the market, exposure to visit, so how long did it take for them to see the creative until they actually showed up here in Anaheim, and then also the share of areas that they're visiting, so where are they going once they actually arrive here, so we're understanding are the stories that we're telling help to disperse them throughout the destination. And then we actually see who came to Anaheim, again, where they came from, where they went once they were here, and that's visitation. You can see down at the bottom of the slide an example, very simple example, is if someone in Phoenix sees our ad, three weeks later they show up in Anaheim, we can now see that, and we can also see which vendor was helping to drive that behavior. Next slide. So none of this matters if it all just sits in a dashboard, though. So every metric that we pull is driving a real actual decision. So these are some of the metrics that our team is looking at on a daily basis. You're looking at things like comparing creative against one another. And we're able to cut underperforming ads faster than we ever have before. Vendor versus vendor. So we're reallocating spend based on who is delivering the results. And I'll walk you through that on the next slide in just a moment. Visit rate per 1,000 impressions, which is what I touched on at the beginning of this talk, which is our efficiency yardstick. Source markets. So which markets are performing? Which vendors are winning and where? The onward travel in the market is informing our partner and district level strategy. And then that time from exposure to visit. So again, how long it's taking for them to see something to actually arriving here is telling us exactly how far in advance we need to place media ahead of booking windows. And again, we're seeing this in near real time so that we can pivot mid flight and not waiting for a year end report to find out that something might not have worked. Next slide, please. I thought it would be important to show you a real case study example of this. This was something that our team was extraordinarily proud of last year. As a level set, I'll walk just briefly through programmatic media. It's a core piece of our marketing strategy. And to define programmatic media, it is basically advertising that is bought and placed automatically through software and real-time bidding rather than being negotiated manually. And this lets us target specific audiences and optimize our spend across many placements all at the same time way faster than we could ever hope to do manually. So last year, about mid-year, we brought in a second programmatic vendor to compete head-to-head with a long-time incumbent that we had worked with for a number of years. And for the first time, we were able to measure both on the exact same third party unbiased resource that I just walked you through, which is the Symfony Attribution Dashboard, rather than letting vendors do what I like to say, grading their own homework. Vendors don't like to give themselves anything other than an A or a B, as I'm sure you can probably imagine. But for the full year of 2025, we spent 75% more with the incumbent programmatic media vendor. So that generated nearly double the impressions of that of the challenger, which you can see here on the slide of 63.2 million impressions versus 30.8 million. But the observed visitation was nearly identical. 656,000 visits for 609,000 visits, meaning the challenger delivered double the efficiency, 10 visits per 1,000 impressions versus five on the same tactics with the same creative independently measured. So what that actually means for us here in this room is that the challenger didn't get more reach, but it got us more visitation. than the incumbent, ultimately for less investment. So for every dollar that we move from the incumbent over to the challenger, we were investing in more observed visitation, more real people that were actually traveling here to Anaheim with fewer marketing dollars spent. And this is exactly how, even with some of our budget that was recently reduced, we've been able to maintain and in some categories even exceed our visitation results. And this is what efficiency actually is buying us, the ability to do more with less. because we really do know precisely which dollars are working and which ones are not. Next slide. Ultimately here, the data told us something that we didn't necessarily want to hear. It wasn't that the longtime incumbent was underperforming per se, but the challenger was outperforming. And we acted on that. We shifted the investment to the challenger, and that's what an independent attribution platform like Symphony does. It takes the decision out of any relationships that were built, any habits that were formed, and it puts it back into the results, protecting every single dollar that the TID is generating. And by extension, it's protecting the tax relief that the revenue provides to the residents both in this room and across our city. Next slide. I want to also talk about our meetings and conventions marketing briefly. This same discipline extends here. We focus on two things really in this sector, and that's empowering our sales team to go out and close more business as well as increasing attendance for the groups that are already coming to town. I want to briefly walk you through two examples here tonight. The first is in the sports and gaming business. I know that many of you had heard from Katie Wright a few months ago about her laser focus in this sector. Our marketing team is building the assets, the collateral, the storytelling behind her efforts. And here's what that produced comparing 2024 to 2025. We saw a 10.5% increase in the number of events from 24 to 25, a 114% increase in room nights because of the size of those events that she was bringing in, and an 80.4% increase in attendance. And we expect all three of those numbers to grow again in 2026. That's a sales team that's closing more business that's backed by a marketing team built specifically for that sector. The second example is VidCon. This year, VidCon landed on the same dates as the Cannes Festival in Europe. So this was direct competition for the same content creator audience. VidCon came to us and asked for help protecting its attendance this year. So we launched a helicopter activation with a sweepstakes where attendees could actually enter to win a helicopter ride with their favorite content creator. That sweepstakes and the media attention around it gave potential attendees a reason to show up in Anaheim rather than going over to Cannes. We are excited to report that attendance for VidCon held nearly flat year over year, despite going head to head with a major European festival on the same week. And that's a marketing activation that was helping to protect a group's attendance, and by extension, protecting the room nights and the spend that comes along with it. Next slide, please. So I want to bring this back to where we started. Again, this isn't about impressions and reach anymore. It's about real visits. It's about protecting every single dollar that our TID is generating. And it's that extra night per visitor being worth roughly $800 million in additional revenue for our city. Every decision that i've walked you through tonight from cutting underperforming creative moving money away from an underperforming vendor and timing media to specific booking windows. All of that exists to make every dollar that our hotel community has entrusted us with to work harder for anaheim. I really appreciate all of your time today happy to answer questions if we're doing that, but otherwise feel free to follow up IV email and we'd be more than happy to discuss this in more detail thanks so much.

Thank you. I'm gonna pretend like I understood all of what you just said. Thank you so much for being here. I know we're gonna have some active discussions. I'll start with Council Member Meeks, and then Council Member Kurtz, and then Council Member Moss. I'm sorry, it's your request. Would you like to go first? It's okay.

Sorry.

I only have one question out of all that, because I almost understood it. When you talked about visitation and tracking, like, where they saw their impression, and then they came here. And then you tracked every place they went and spent their money. How is that done? Are you tracking my credit card? Are you tracking my phone? Yeah. Great question. And people worry about license plate readers. I don't know.

Absolutely. And it's a great question. I'll go back to the case study example that we used and vendors grading their own homework. And some of those vendors were using credit card providers prior. It wasn't necessarily the best metric to use because it was leaving out potential spend that people ultimately Maybe it was a member of the same household that wasn't a part of that credit card spend. So ultimately, the way that the attribution platform has shifted is tracking people based on IP as well as by household. So again, they don't know the name of any individual and where they're going, but they're tracking the device. And there's a lot of data cleaning that goes into that to make sure that we're deduplicating efforts. So within those numbers, we're able to understand and weed out people that are commuting to the city. That's not a visitor by our definition we're able to weed out people that are just driving through and not spending a certain number of hours in our destination. but ultimately it is showing us the footprint of where they're going so we see the share of visitation by district uh by point of interest so we've identified specific points of interest that we're leaning into with our creative um but ultimately that's my long one answering you your phone which is fine i don't yeah i don't care yeah which right i'm writing but but that's uh that's interesting okay thank you thank you thank you council member kirk and council member maz

I'll start with just one question for now. You had the incumbent and then the challenger. So you discovered with these two groups, you gave more money to the challenger this year. Is that ongoing or is it done or?

yeah it's an ongoing effort that our team is i'm not exaggerating making there's basically a 90-day look back window that gives us the right window to understand is that enough time ultimately to make decisions um so the 90-day window is what we've really kind of centered on but yeah that there's nothing ever set in stone um so we're making decisions and shifting budget and shifting tactics even within certain vendors on the fly based on results that we're seeing within the platform The and even to go back to earlier in the presentation we're using different vendors for different reasons so we're not holding every vendor to the same metric. So there's certain partners that we're working with that are designed much more to inspire and make people aware of you know, things like OC vibe or Disneyland forward or a new hotel project. So we're grading them on a different scale, but all of that to say we're able to shift our budget on the fly really based on what those results are telling us.

So you're not signing a long-term contract that holds you to a group for a specific time?

Yeah, no, there's no long term agreements with any of these vendors that we're actually placing media dollars with. And in addition to that, even within a vendor like the challenger, we're able to shift tactics within that, right. So we are seeing, you know, like our Hispanic and Spanish perform ads are outperforming our English speaking ads. So we're continually changing even tactics within relationships with vendors, as we're going throughout the course of the year.

Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Moss.

Thank you. I saw that there's nine and a half visits per 1,000 impressions. Do you have a goal or a number that would be considered successful?

Yeah, it's a great question also. So for programmatic, really the benchmark is somewhere between five to six visits per 1,000. It depends on the tactic that we're talking about. So I'll use travel and leisure. Condé Nast is good examples of relationships that are designed to help spread the word of what is going on in Anaheim. But in a lot of that content, we're not necessarily providing a booking mechanism for people to book a hotel room through it. So we're not judging them on the same visit per 1,000 impressions as we might be, take like an Expedia or somebody who's really kind of getting that traveler at the point of their journey, that they're ready to make a booking decision. So every vendor and every tactic has a little bit of a different benchmark for it. But the metrics that we shared earlier, somewhere between the five to six per 1,000 is typically what we're aiming for in that tactic.

Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem Leon and then Council Member Bayless.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you for the presentation and the ongoing relating of information to us. I want to dovetail off my colleague when you're talking about the incumbent versus challenger vendors from a fiduciary responsibility standpoint, which I know has been a topic of conversation here on the dais over the last few years, especially as it relates to the effective use of taxpayer dollars or public dollars. I just wanna say that I do appreciate that. And I'm curious if, I mean, I don't know how many vendors you have. I mean, is that, do you have a number in terms of how many vendors you actually use?

Yeah, throughout the course of the year, we probably work with anywhere. And again, there's different tactics from like digital out of homes, like billboards, right? So we're looking at anywhere from like 15 to 25 that we would roll out throughout the course of the year, depending on what it is that we're aiming to accomplish throughout that year. solid and you're saying um that that basically what what determines whether you bring another person in or another vendor in is just kind of depending on what the strategies you're using or the different campaigns that you're using great question um and one of the things so again i'm coming up on my two-year anniversary visit anaheim next month and one of the things that we're really uh laser focused on is never allowing these vendors to get complacent and i think um With that, we're creating a competitive environment for them that, again, back to Councilwoman Kurtz's question, we're constantly evaluating their performance. And we're never signing any type of multi-year. The majority of the time, it's no longer than six months at a time. So we're judging them on a continual basis. And we're always coming back in with new vendors every single year to see if they kind of meet the cut. So we're consistently challenging ourselves. We work with another media agency with significant buying power that allows for us to tap into different things. Like our team is looking at Twitch as a potential opportunity that also goes hand in hand with what Katie Wright's looking to do with e-sports. Is that another sector that we can really kind of raise the profile for what Anaheim can bring to the table? So we're constantly looking at that mix and making sure that we are optimizing it accordingly.

Solid. I appreciate that. My second question is on the slide about the right tool for each stage. Could you share with us kind of just is there a timeline that you see maybe on average in terms of going from awareness to booking? Is that, I mean, are we talking a few years, a few months? Does it really just depend?

yeah it's a great question as well, it, it is extremely difficult for us to get into the psyche of a traveler I think in the past, where you would have seen this is that it was much more of a linear path. For the traveler journey, so what destination are you made aware of does that inspire you or not, and if the answer to that was no you kind of went back to the beginning. Now this is much more circular. People are kind of dropping into, I don't even want to call it a funnel, they're dropping into the circle at any given time. And that's through things like AI. We've invested in a platform called Mind Trip that's allowing people to explore the destination before they've ever arrived here. Yet we're also using that same tool to enhance the visitor experience. We're working with our hotel community to put out pre-populated guides for the actual guests that's coming through the lobby that shows things like hidden gem restaurants that are within walking distance from the front door. So we're using all of these tactics now in much more of a circular manner rather than maybe looking at them as one-offs. Um, it's difficult to give you kind of a one shot answer to that. But on the consideration and booking side, you're typically looking at people that are coming to the destination within about a 30 to 45 day period. The 90 day look back is where you're getting people that are a little bit higher up in that funnel. But a lot of that also then goes back to what market are we targeting? So somebody that might be like in New York or like Rhode Island is going to take longer for us to pull them through the funnel, if at all.

So we're looking at that mix and kind of judging it accordingly rather than kind of looking at it linearly through just one lens Awesome, and then I'm maybe getting a little bit into the weeds But I'm just curious in terms of like the audience that we're targeting do we or do you? I know that we've had conversations in the past about how our primary market is Canada Mexico all these sort of international places

have we done any um any campaigns for more just like the local crowd that are maybe looking at more of staycations instead of vacations and what does that look like yeah big time um so international visitation is a uh percentage of our visitation but not the lion's share by any means um so the bulk of our leisure marketing efforts are here domestically in la san diego palm springs riverside those are our core markets Even within that, a big part of the rebrand that we just unveiled a little over a month ago is centered around local storytelling. It's centered around opening up people's eyes to what has already been here for decades. And so for us, that really allows for us to broaden the scope of that. We worked with Gus Hymes, who's a local legend tattoo artist to help design a mural over at Brewery X. And our launch party was designed to take place at Brewery X and not in a hotel ballroom with a step and repeat, because we want it to be with our community. And with that, I think we're really opening up the lens for people that are within a short drive to understand that there's more here in Anaheim. Certainly we want them to spend at least one night, but we're really opening up their eyes to what the possibilities are here to come back again and again.

And let me just, I do want to commend the team on that because I know that you have more of the highlighting some of the local businesses and restaurants across Anaheim, not just in the resort district, but in West Anaheim and other places. So I just want to, I do appreciate that. And that has always been something that I think I've brought up from the very start of how do we make sure that other parts of the city are also benefiting, especially the local mom and pop shops and small businesses that many of them have become staples in the city. So I appreciate you highlighting that. And so with that, that's all I have, but I appreciate the continuous work that you guys are doing and making sure that we're getting better and better is definitely important.

Council member if I can just respond, thank you for the the acknowledgement there and we're super excited we're actually. rolling out a new YouTube series and with that we've really tried to create this holistic environment within visit Anaheim we launched our first ever comedy and culinary festival earlier this year. The host of that YouTube series are two comedians and we are getting ready to roll out episode one in episode one they're going to okoyama bakery they're staying at the viv. They're going to Adventure Park. And so we're really excited for that to be front and center for them to go throughout everything that the city has to offer, not just what people might know us for. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Bayless?

Thank you. First, let me give some, maybe some credibility to Mayor Pro Tem's question, which was, I can tell you, I mean, this might be a little bit too much information about me, but I was watching the Roku TV and I did see your guys' ad here locally at my house. So they are definitely, we're seeing ads here locally for- But are you staying more than one night? Yeah, well, you have a point there. I'm not doing it. Thank you. So originally, I had just a quick question. This is the inner geek in me, I guess. But first off, you've got the click-through rate that's up there. It equals so many nights. My question is, that's just a blended rate for all of your campaigns, correct?

Correct.

So in this particular instance, let's say somebody, for example, did the click. but they picked up the phone call next and they made a hotel reservation, you wouldn't necessarily be able to count that as an extra night.

So to clarify, we're not judging them based off of whether they clicked. So regardless of whether they click on our ad actually doesn't matter as much to us anymore. The fact is that we now know that their device was exposed to our creative. So we're not worried about whether they call the hotel directly. We're not worried on where they book through. We're only then knowing whether that device, that phone, that laptop, whatever it was within the household is actually showing up in the destination.

So then did I get that wrong? Because I thought it was X amount of clicks equaled X amount of nights generated. I think it was on your first or second screen, maybe? Those are impressions.

Yeah, so impressions are different than clicks. So with impressions, it's basically how many people did we reach? How many people were exposed to the ad, not clicks? So in the past, you're absolutely right. We were worried about how many people were clicking through to any type of booking platform for us to be able to track that. This has completely changed the entire game for us, where we're not necessarily worried about them clicking on the ad, only whether or not they were actually exposed to it. And by exposing themselves to that ad, we're then able to know when they show up. OK.

So I'm going to ask a real technical question here because I'm curious. I understand what you're tracking on the back end. But when somebody pulls up to your website and they're using an app, say DuckDuckGo or something that's restricting the information for tracking, how are you able to track that? Or is that just a lost data point?

Great question. We lose them. It's a perfect question. So earlier this year, we instituted a new cookie platform. We lose people that are coming to our website. However, with that, though, we're not only tracking people that are coming to our website. I would love for 117.5 million people to come to our website. But they're not there. That is coming across every. So if we're working with TripAdvisor, if we're working with Expedia, if we're working through these programmatic vendors that I was that I was walking you through earlier, as long as we're putting UTMs and pixels on that and not every vendor allows that either. But the vendors that do, we're placing it. And so ultimately, yes, you're completely correct that if we're relying on just website visitation to track people that are coming to the market, we are losing visibility into them. But through these other channels where those 117.5 million impressions are coming from, we're able to really understand and know exactly where they're... Now, if they decline it through those channels, again, we're losing. So the good news of that is that we're probably under-reporting what is actually coming into the market, but we're still factoring that in when we're looking at things like benchmarking against the competition.

Okay. And I will say, I think competition is good, so it's good you're out there you know, seeing the vendors that are out there, because you definitely don't want people doing their own homework, as you put it.

Definitely.

I just want to ask one last question. I saw the last one was, was it $800 million in extra days? Yes. I just did some simple math here real quick. It wasn't real simple, but I said at an average room rate of $450, I came out with 4,650 room nights a day. So we have, I was ready for this question. We have 8.6 million overnight visitors.

that are currently staying 2.17 days on average. That's both leisure, that's both domestic and international. So if we were to increase that 2.17 to 3.17, and we take a look at our 2025 lodging revenue, which is 1.7 billion. Yeah, you're probably, yeah.

I get it now.

It's about $92 per visitor in hotel revenue. That's all right.

With that, I'll just end this. I know marketing is incredibly important. I know we need it, but I'm never sure which comes first, the chicken or the egg. So thank you very much.

Thank you for the questions.

Thank you. Council Member Kurtz and then Council Member Rubicalva. I thought of another question. You kind of answered it.

Much of your job goes to booking conventions at our convention center. So as part of your program for folks to add on making Anaheim so attractive that they're adding on another night or two or bringing their families because now their families can do things other than go to the park. Am I reading that right?

100%. Yeah, we're hoping that we can inspire those people that are coming here for maybe what would be a two-day or a three-day to stay through the weekend, to stay for one extra night. And ultimately, that's exactly what the strategy is by kind of opening up their eyes to the possibilities on whatever their interests are. And a big piece of that is focusing less on demographic information and more on affinity. So focusing less on the fact that somebody might live in Phoenix, but if, I don't know, you're 98 years old and you live in Rhode Island, but you love breweries, well, we want to let you know that we've got the most breweries in Orange County to inspire you to come on that next conference that you're coming to to spend one more night.

Okay, I'm laughing at her comments. I'm not laughing at you. A 98 year old wanting to go to a room. Maybe that's why they're 98. I have one more question and you made me lose my thought. I thank you for the presentation. It's amazing how you track and I think I wonder how I was tracked when I went on vacation. But thank you very much for coming in and making the presentation. I really appreciate it.

I appreciate the invitation. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Rubicava, and then go back to Council Member Maz.

Thank you. So I just want to, well, first of all, I'm going to say you're here for two years, so you missed the fun that we had before you arrived. But I also just want to thank you guys for providing some more information on how you are marketing, because that's a big part of what we do and Our TOT is really tied to the work that Visit Anaheim is doing, so it's very important that we're seeing. I measure results in how our TOT is rising or maintaining and not really on the marketing. I appreciate that and I love to see how it's all made, but it's really the results that speak for me at least. So thank you for coming in and giving the presentation on that. And I also just mentioned I was just in Portland. And at the airport, they have Visit Anaheim marketing materials there. So I think that's really beneficial as well. And it shows the reach that we have beyond just local markets too. So thank you. Question about your branding. So I missed the beginning of the presentation. My apologies, but I could hear all of the details, so I didn't see how much you talked about the branding. But can you explain the reason why you guys decided to brand? Because it's a little different, and it's just the word Anaheim, and it doesn't really give the visit Anaheim. So that's a little bit concerning to me. It's a little bit sort of...

flat so i'm just curious what made you guys decide to go that direction yeah thank you for the question and appreciate the comments earlier as well um the rebrand for us was all about matching i think the excitement and trajectory that our destination is on there was absolutely nothing wrong with our previous branding but it was about 15 years old at that point and what we were really hoping to capture and happy to walk you through a larger presentation as it pertains to the to the branding but the color palette's much more expansive it shows from sunrise to sunset and all the stories within it We are ultimately marketing the city of Anaheim. We did a ton of research. We brought in an agency that you might remember by the name of Collider Lab that brought a really interesting methodology into the mix. We used a lot of that data, tons of internal stakeholder interviews, local business interviews to understand where people's pain points were, what they were looking to highlight with the destination. And certainly what we do have the ability to do Ultimately, this brand is intended to be flexible, we have the ability to put visit and again would love to show you that visit as the primary qualifier. For katie right we're leaning in with win in anaheim for when we're out internationally it's anaheim California to let people know what state ultimately we're in that they might not be familiar with it. But all of that to say the stories behind this new brand are much more important to us than a color palette or a logo. They really get into what I was discussing with Council Member Leon, which is much more of the local angles and highlighting what the blue collar, the grit, the generational pride that we've really uncovered with our residents here in Anaheim. And we're putting that at the forefront of really all of the messaging moving forward.

No, and I appreciate the color palette and all that. I just think that when you take out Visit Anaheim, it does really, consumers are really motivated by the things that they read and to see just Anaheim could just be a brand, but it doesn't necessarily call for action. Sure. So I think that's something to keep in mind. I think as a city, we care really deeply about how Visit Anaheim is marketing our city. So that to me, just, it's a little bit of a concern.

Sure.

i know you guys are probably going to be monitoring it with all the metrics that you've put in place but i would just say that's something that i think is um probably a little bit of a miss or a concern is just adding that visit back in um i do appreciate the grassroots that you guys are doing i saw the youtubers or whatever they are the influencers and i think they're the two gentlemen that came to council for um uh i will not send them here uh Disney Forward, which got a lot of views and stuff like that. So that's really good. But just so you know, a lot of the Okayama and some of those businesses are already getting a lot of visibility because they are like seasoned social media. They have lines around the corner. But it's the smaller businesses that are like in the pockets that probably don't have as much visibility. So it's good to highlight the ones that already have a lot. But we have Colony Wine Merchant. We have In Familia, we have others that are in even the designated travel destination that we have in District 2, which is Little Arabia, a lot of those small businesses that could probably benefit from the social media. So if we can think outside of the box from the ones who are already popular, but maybe bring some visibility to the ones who could use it.

It's a great feedback and point well taken. We were super excited about a week ago. We unveiled the winners for a new program that is called Locally Loved. And with that, there's 14 local businesses throughout all different categories, Little Saigon, Little Arabia, the whole run of it. And that is a laser focus for our team to make sure that we're putting that into the hands of conventioneers that are coming into the city so that they understand how wide of the options that they have within our city. So thank you for that. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Just, excuse me, one quick comment. I saw that on Sunday night there was an announcement that Midsummer Scream, which is a horror convention, is coming to Anaheim next year. So it's leaving Long Beach and coming to Anaheim. I just want to acknowledge that that's a great fit for our city to go along with our Anaheim Halloween Parade and the Fall Festival. So kudos to whoever made that happen.

I can take no credit for that, but the team is super excited for that, and thank you for the acknowledgement.

We look forward to them growing in Anaheim. That's why they're coming.

I will not be going to that. I'll wait for you to get like an American Girl doll convention and then I'll come to that. Do we have any other questions or comments? If not, this is an informational item. So thank you very much.

Thank you very much for the time. Appreciate it.

So next on our agenda is item number 17 to appoint a voting delegate and up to two alternates to the Cal Cities Conference to be held on September 23rd to the 25th. City Clerk, I had a question. I'm on the board for Cal Cities and will be attending. Is this a voting delegate in addition to my vote?

um they just need also as as part of even though you're a voting delegate as part we also need a formal um approval by the council and send that to them for purposes of voting for that so they need a formal approval before the council okay okay is there any okay thank you i was yeah i'm sorry i just was confused about whether we needed i was like oh anaheim should get two votes i'm not against that

did you have a comment council i was just going to nominate council member bayless no just be the one but we need a formal approval before council No, because I know he has an interest in it. And I think there was a discussion back when we had other appointments to kind of diversify some of the opportunities. So that was the only reason I thought it might be a good idea to bring him forward. And I think it's something he's interested in.

Sure. I'm happy to serve in either role, whether it be the delegate or an alternate. I do know this year, I think the city of Marietta has brought forth a proposal, I think, that establishes some of the statewide working group to evaluate legislative, constitutional, and ballot-based strategies. So I do know there is a vote this year. I have also sat on one of the nominating committees for the league as well. So I definitely will be there, but I'm happy either way.

Okay. Do we want to do this one at a time? We have a motion and a second for...

So we have a motion. If we just need the nomination, so if you have more than one, then we'll just take each vote separately for the appointment.

We can do an alternate. If he's willing to do alternate, then mayor number one and then alternate.

We have to do it in two separate votes?

We could just do in one vote.

Yeah. Should we... There's up to two.

Should we name a city staff person to be that second alternate? Who are you mad at?

Figure out who you're really mad at and then we'll nominate that person.

We're confirming whether it can be a staff member or it has to be a council member.

It can be a city staff member.

I move to appoint Mayor Akin with Ryan Bayless as alternate and Greg Garcia as second alternate.

All right, we have a second. Let's vote. Ryan and I are totally not showing up. We're gonna be a firm maybe the whole time.

Council Member Bayless? And the vote is seven ayes, no nays. Motion carries.

All right. So that takes care of that item. Mr. City Attorney, do we have anything to report out of closed session?

No reportable actions, Mayor. Thank you.

Thank you. We have no remaining public comment from the first period. So now we're going to move for future agenda requests by council members. Are there any council members that have an item that they would like to put on a future agenda? Council Member Meeks.

Okay, I brought show and tell. Everybody probably gets one of these in their driveway, dropped on their, you know, and it ends up, mine just goes directly into the trash, because I don't leave it out there, but a lot of them end up in our streets, in the landfill, in our storm drains and things like that. Could staff look at, I mean, are there other options that these people we can enforce, or is this a First Amendment right that, you know, when does it cross the line from information to litter. So if staff could look at that, I would appreciate it.

I use those bags to pick up dog poop, so I will take that bag from you. I will re, I will re, I will reuse it. Council Member Rubicava?

I would like to request bringing in Officer Angelica Mejia for a recognition for her 31 years of service to the Anaheim Police Department. And then I would also like to have our city attorney come back with what we've been working on for rent control of enforcing the state rent control initiative that we already have in place and helping our Anaheim residents with solutions there.

Thank you. With no other business before the council, we are going to be adjourned until August 25th.