City Council - Regular Meeting

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome. Welcome to the Elkhorn City Council meeting. The meeting is called to order. I'd like to ask our city clerk to please call the roll.

Council Member Kendrick is absent. All others are present.

Would you please stand with me for the Pledge of Allegiance and then afterwards remain standing for a brief moment of silence.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

The city clerk posted orders of adjournment of the July 28th, 2026 meeting and the agenda of the August 11th, 2026 meeting in accordance to state law and city council housing authority successor agency to the redevelopment agency policy. We have a presentation on today's agenda for the Alley Cat Art Fest. Senior Management Analyst Nate Prescott will tell us all about this. Hello, Nate.

Hello, Mayor and council members. I'm Nate Prescott.

I'm a senior management analyst in the City of Manitou's office, and I represent the city on the board of the downtown business partners. Nate, can you hold on one second? I don't think we have him on speaker, do we?

Check, check.

Okay, there you go.

My apologies. You can't tell up here. I'm Nate Prescott, I'm a senior management analyst in the city manager's office, and I represent the city on the board of the Downtown El Cajon Business Partners, and today we are here to present about the Alley Cat Art Fest. We have Chris here, who's going to give his presentation all about it, give you all the details, answer any questions that you might have, but we just wanted to help spread the word, show you all the great things that are happening in Downtown El Cajon.

Good afternoon, excuse me, hot mic. Good afternoon council members, mayor, city leadership. My name is Chris Gomez, I'm the brand communication and public affairs manager for the downtown El Cajon business partners. We are currently managing the PVID operations as well as most operations from maintenance and special events in the downtown area. Today I wanted to take a moment to highlight what we're working on that's coming up on September 12th is Alley Cat Art Fest. And to kind of go into this, I want to give you a little bit about the history of what the organizations that collaborated to create this new brand and new event moving forward. In 2011, St. Madeleine's Sophie Center launched Alley Cat Art Walk to celebrate downtown El Cajon's art community and local businesses through a free family-friendly event featuring live music, artists, vendors, and interactive activities. Last year, downtown El Cajon business partners collaborated with the city or partnered with the city to put on Art of All, Art of All was a celebration of fine arts in the downtown El Cajon area, but also highlighted creativity, music, and culture of East County in the heart of our community. This year, the association has partnered with St. Madeleine Sophie Center and local galleries to unite both of the events, both loved events, creating Alley Cat Art Fest, a celebration that honors downtown El Cajon, its rich history, and the inspired by vibrant future we have ahold of us. Some of the features of the event that we wanted to highlight are the branding components. We want to eventually brand this event as East County's premier art festival. There are several art festivals that happen throughout the County of San Diego, including Art Walk San Diego and various others. We want to make sure that this is the premier art festival of East County. We also want it to become a downtown Oklahoma gallery and business open house where we highlight and celebrate not only the galleries of our community but also the businesses that are there. The event is slated for Saturday, September 12th and with street closures starting at 5 a.m. The event will go from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. with streets reopening at 10 p.m. The event will draw over 80 fine artists from hand weavers, painters, photographers, sculptors. We will also have info exhibitors, as well as food vendors that will be selling food for those people that are attending the event. Our features of the event include vendors, live music, activations, food, and more. Here we have a site plan of our proposed request for closures. We were looking to close East Main Street to activate the corridor. Last year was closed with a stage located at Main and Salsfeld. Our focus is to use the current city assets that are already existing, including Prescott Promenade as well as Centennial Park. with three additional ancillary vignettes of music, as you can see on those small blue dots or blue squares. One at Olaf, one at Main and Magnolia, and the other one at Claydell and Magnolia. But again, the idea behind this event is to celebrate the music, to celebrate the arts, and to celebrate the community. You can see these green tent or green boxes, that is actually where we were looking to house our food court, which will be able to draw additional people off of Main Street into Arts Alley as well as Rhea. It's really, again, to showcase the arts district and what it has brought to downtown. Entertainment and live performances include activation of Prescott Promenade Stage with various genres of performers. Centennial Plaza, which will be our community stage, highlighting local school and rec musical and dance groups, similar to Park and Rec's TNT. dance troupe, Main Street musical vignettes, again, including various DJ performances, and then Olof Museum patio musical vignette, which will be a country band that has been selected by Olof Museum. Some of the event activations that we're looking at doing is the temporary chalk murals. This is something that you've seen probably throughout the United States and world where chalk artists come out and create these beautiful temporary masterpieces in chalk on the asphalt, which once they are installed for the day of the event for showing, that evening our pressure washing crew will come out and remove it with water reclamation systems to ensure that we are capturing that soiled water. The other item we're looking at doing is temporary community art projects, which will allow the community to help create art in our neighborhoods. The idea is to create these four by eight panels of whether they're temporary murals or additional activations and renderings that the kids can be a part of that we can use to showcase as photo opportunities for the coming years. We are looking at doing several kid activities throughout the day for the kids where they can create pieces of art for themselves to take back as well as some photo ops that will be throughout the community that people will be able to stop and enjoy and take photos with that will be able to be shared on social media. And finally live music and performances. One of the key features that we're really looking at as we do the revitalization and we're in the Renaissance period of downtown El Cajon, we're looking at doing restoration of our current assets. One of the key elements of this event was establishing a mural restoration and additional mural project program. The new Downtown El Cajon Association, which is the Greater Downtown Improvement Association, is a 501c3 nonprofit corporation that has been established to support the redevelopment and revitalization of Downtown El Cajon under the new CBD. Here we have, we've created a landing page on our website. If you scan the QR code, it'll take you directly to it. But it highlights, one, the art that we have in the Downtown area, both in Arts Alley as well as those throughout Downtown El Cajon. But one of the key features of that is we recognize that there are opportunities for us to revitalize those murals but also add to them. So Arts Alley will continue to expand with additional murals and restoration projects will be done as has already been proved as a prime example in Arts Alley and over by Olaf. We just worked with St. Madeleine's as well as Attention Getters to refurbish the Bird of Paradise mural in Arts Alley, as well as worked with the Olaf Museum and their private donors to revitalize the Navajo at Castle Creek mural. Here is an example of the Bird of Paradise, the before that showed it was one of the original murals that went up in Arts Alley. The progress of the mural being repainted and the finished product now on display today. This was done, I believe, about two weeks ago. And following that immediately was the Olaf renovation of that mural. So we're excited to see both of those pieces come back to life. Collaborations and partnerships that we have, not only with the City of El Cajon, but we also have our Alley Cat Art Fest Task Force, which is made up of St. Madeleine Sophie's Gallery, who is a sponsor of the event by underwriting $5,000. East County Arts Association, which brings a very large portfolio of artists to our community and downtown area. They are also partnering with us on this. Olaf Wakehurst Museum. and downtown alcohol businesses. Some of the other partners that we're collaborating with as well are East County High School Performance Groups, East County Recreation Performance Groups, as well as East County Community Arts Groups, similar to those of the La Mesa Commission of Arts and Culture and some of the other agencies out there. At this time, I'd like to open the floor up to any questions. Otherwise, if you scan the QR code, it'll take you directly to our website where you can enjoy more information. Good.

Thanks. Nice presentation. Any questions? Now, I think you answer everybody's questions. I really appreciate that. Just a quick comment, if I may. Oh.

I loved the Art Walk event.

It was fantastic. Thank you very much for putting it on.

It's a new element and dynamic for the downtown area. And, yeah, thank you very much for all the work you put in.

Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it very much. Staff, do you have any agenda changes?

No, sir.

Councilmembers? We're now at consent items. Consent items are routine matters enacted by one motion according to the recommendation listed below. With the concurrence of the city council, council member, or person in attendance, may request discussion of a consent item at this time. Council members, do you wish to pull any of the consent items? Staff, do you wish to pull any of the consent items? No, Mr. Mayor. Angela, do we have any speaker cards for consent?

No speaker cards, sir.

I'll make a motion then to approve the consent items. Moved and seconded, please vote.

Motion carries by unanimous vote of those present.

We're at public comment right now. I do want to acknowledge that our colleague, Gary Kendrick, is not with us today. He's been not feeling well and just wanted him to know that our prayers are with him. We're now at public comment. At this time, any person may address a matter within the jurisdiction of the City Council Housing Authority successor agency to the El Cajon Redevelopment Agency that is not on the agenda. Comments relating to items, on the agenda already been taken at the time that the item is heard. Please note that state law prohibits discussion or action by the city council on items not on the agenda. These are items that you might bring up during public comment. Therefore, this is not a time that the city council will be answering questions about issues you raise. However, we are taking notes of the matters that you're bringing to our attention and we will refer them to our city manager for follow up as needed. and, of course, an item may be placed on a future agenda. Angela, do we have any speakers for public comment?

Yes, sir, we have a total of 12 right now. The last one would be a remote speaker. The first, though, in person is Daryl Cotton. Good afternoon, everybody.

Hello, sir, how are you?

I'm good, how are you? Great, okay. Well, my name is Darrell Cotton. I own a commercial property at 6176 Federal Boulevard in San Diego. My neighbor is United Rentals. They're at 6144 Federal Boulevard. Since December of 2022, El Cajon has received millions of gallons of trucked in raw human waste. This is called septage from San Diego to your pump station on 1050 Vernon Way. United Rentals pulls this septage from its extensive port-a-potty rental fleet and it stores it in a massive above-ground holding tank. They're called frac tanks. And that's when this accumulated storage is left is left to bake in the sun and then ultimately truck here into El Cajon. So why El Cajon? It's because San Diego won't take it. And the county's Department of Environmental Health and Quality, DEHQ, which oversees bulk waste hauling, has, for whatever their reasons, chosen to ignore it. In terms of El Cajon's own records, they show that United Rentals has discharged more than 5.4 million gallons here over 43 months, and the city was paid more than $536,000 to accept it. but it was never allowed here. United Reynolds County's DEHQ hauler permit authorizes only two destinations, San Diego's Pump Station 1 and the OCSD Fountain Valley locations. El Cajon is not listed on that permit. So where does it end up? Well, none of it stays here. The untested, unverified bulk waste flows into the regional metro system and out of San Diego's Point Loma ocean outfall. It is hauled past San Diego Pump Station 1, roughly half the distance to El Cajon, only to reach the ocean anyway. If nothing else, I say here today registered with you, this has to be the one thing you consider when factoring the why. This operation model makes no sense. Under what authority, El Cajon's own records show the earliest discharges permits for this operation is dated of April of 2025. That's the first permit. But the disposals began in December of 2022. That's roughly 28 months and about 3 million gallons accepted here before any El Cajon permit existed. City staff tells me that the council doesn't approve out of city septage. So who did? Under what authority was this accepted? The agency should have caught it. The county's DEHQ found the company quote, in compliance, end quote. after visiting their yard, but they never checked where that bulk waste goes. To date, the DEHQ supervisors have not responded to my request to reconcile these DEHQ records with homes. This is also a hazmat danger. These tanks sit four feet off my property line, but they vent hydrogen sulfide around the clock, and that's a deadly explosive condition. Nearly 90 neighbors have signed a petition to shut it down, and that petition is in the records I will be distributing here today. My request is that the city's acceptance confirm whether it was permitted and tested and pause further acceptance until those questions are answered. To the citizens of El Cajon, your city has been used to discharge sewage that otherwise would not have been selected anywhere else. Armed with this knowledge, the question now becomes what will you do about it? I have a very well documented case and I'm ready to provide not only the print versions but the electronic versions upon your request. Thank you very much.

Before you leave, I ask our city manager, Graham Mitchell, if he wants to comment on this. It's kind of a technical question.

I know Mr. Cotton's been in contact with our staff. We're looking into it. So I'll provide counsel with an update once we learn more information.

Okay, hopefully we get it cleared up for you. Please feel free to come back and talk to us again as we get involved in this process.

Thank you. I look forward to helping you any way I can.

Next speaker is Marco Espinoza.

Hello. Welcome.

Should I just leave this here?

You can give it to the clerk.

Afternoon. Marco Espinoza. First time here. First off, beautiful mural. Very beautiful mural. El Cajon never have been. Growing up only spent a handful of time in the city would come with my grandfather. He was a trucker all across the country. He would park his truck here I believe at 777 Gabble Street. And Anyways I'm just local hometown boy and I'm a nerd for politics and government so I decided that I wanted to go to all the city council meetings in the county and El Cajon was next on the list so I'm just happy to be here just to be here really. I don't have really anything else of strong substance but thank you very much.

Thanks for being interested. You've got to come back and let us know sometime how we stack up against the other cities.

Brenda Hammond.

Hi.

Can't forget the balloons.

Everybody loves the balloons. First of all, I wanted to ask you if you thanked your office staff lately. They've been, what's with this? They're excellent. You know, they have your back. There was a rumor last week that I got on my phone personally and I didn't I needed to find out if it was true and the staff was awesome about it. Also speaking of staff Graham I got a new car with that cop night out. So I repurpose this one for you. Just in case you get any more guff about your awesome police department. Thank you. Thanks Brenda.

Carol Lewis.

Hello, welcome.

Hi, good to see you all again, Mayor, council members, staff. Do you have some flyers? And we're here because, as you know, there's an increase in need of food and insecurity in San Diego, as well as in East County. So I wanted to share a project that Alcohol Collaborative has been working on this summer, and we're really excited about it. This was a group that we started during COVID, when COVID was, kids were not going to school, and families were being laid off of their jobs, and we saw a need for food at that time. We brought together all of the food pantries in East County, and we formed a food network together. And as we see things happening these days with families losing their EBT and also the high cost of food right now, we're seeing more and more families again. So we brought back our food network. They were really excited. It's been a few years since they've been together. And we created a food access network with all of them combined. So they all have access to this website. And of course, I brought in my son. This is Craig Lewis, and we created this food website where people can go to access all of the food pantries in East County. We're really excited about it. We have San Diego Food Bank and Feeding San Diego signed in on it as well, too. So I just wanted Craig to show it to you and share some information on it.

I don't know how to share the screen, unfortunately. I'm plugged into HDMI. No, okay. Okay, well essentially the East County Food Network, if you just navigate to eastcountyfoodnetwork.org, it is one of the most useful websites for anyone that's seeking food resources in El Cajon and in East County. Recently with the EBT changes, a lot more people are dependent on food pantries and food distribution sites as opposed to their EBT card. So I highly recommend it. Anyone can sign up if they're hosting a food pantry. But the primary use out of it is it chronologically lists feeding San Diego and San Diego Food Bank's pantries by date. So you could go onto it and see what pantries are happening today, which ones are happening tomorrow, which ones are happening Friday. as opposed to navigating their websites, having to go through the individual lists. We partnered up with them, so it's kind of a nice way to chronologically go through and see which ones are closest, so when you need food, you can get it quickly.

We also, on the website, created a calendar of events, so they can go to the calendar and see the events. They can post flyers, so if they have any special events coming up, if they're distributing food or diapers or clothing on a special day, they can post that as well, too. But the nice thing about this is that all of the food pantries have administrative access to this site. So whenever information changes, they can update the information in real time. So this is always going to be current, which is wonderful because we know as in websites, they become very stagnant.

Thank you so much. Thanks for coming. I appreciate it. One more time, eastcountyfoodnetwork.org.

It's okay. Say it again, please. What was the website again?

eastcountyfoodnetwork.org. Okay, great.

Mr. Mayor, I have a comment. Carol, thank you so much for putting this together. I have been part of food distribution recently and trying to find places to take the excess food that I've been picking up through ECTLC and distributing it out. There are a lot of people who are hungry. I have your flyer that I saw on Facebook. Facebook the other day and it's been shared to 20 different community groups throughout East County Santee La Mesa Lemon Grove Rancho and El Cajon of course. So thank you for what you're doing. Your organization as well as ECE Assist through East County Regional or East County Homeless Task Force is really helping a lot of residents. I see people struggling all the time and so I am very much appreciative of your work and what you're doing and Hopefully we can get this food out to people more than just canned vegetables and mac and cheese. A little bit more out there. So thank you very much for what you're doing.

Thank you. We did see that the second and fourth Tuesday and the first and third Wednesday was getting awfully confusing for people. So this way it's just right there day by day. Yeah. Any other questions?

Looks like you did it all. Thanks.

Great to see you all. Thank you so much.

Good luck with all that.

Next speaker is Alan Nordholm.

Hello, sir. Welcome.

Good afternoon. And I'm here to talk a little bit about Parkway Plaza and the exciting things that are going on as a result of Alcone thinking about this. I know it's not...

Excuse me, sir. I'm just having a little trouble hearing you. If you could just speak up a little bit or speak into the microphone. I appreciate that.

Can you hear me now? I can, yeah. Great. I said I'm here to speak a little bit about Parkway Plaza and the exciting things that are going on there. Mr. Goebel had a very nice note that he sent to people regarding some of the food services that are moving in that direction. And there's a genuine excitement about the possibility of El Cajon looking at this. I know you have talked about it in the past. And... I think that's a good thing for El Cajon. As you know, it is an anchor complex for the El Cajon area. And I know you've asked your staff to put courses of action together related to the Parkway Plaza maybe. And I would just encourage you to consider, Graham, any course of action might include something like a citizen business owner group to sort of chat about how that could move forward. But I would say you're going to run into resistance because people will say, what's the government doing in this area? And I would argue that we wouldn't have an internet without ARPANET. That was the first internet, and that was a government entity. And so sometimes bold moves are needed and can only be facilitated by government intervention. So that's what I'm here to talk about, Mr. Will.

Well, thanks, I appreciate it. We're excited about the prospects.

And so are some of the business owners. They are not familiar, as I am, because I watch what's going on around here. But I encourage, I'm looking forward to the courses of action that are developed by your staff.

That's good. All right, thank you, sir. I appreciate it.

Next speaker is Will Kopuck.

Hello, Bill, welcome.

Hello, Mayor Wells and El Cajon Sea Council. It's been a long time since I last spoke on this podium. Anyway, I would like to give some thank yous in this room. Like, first of all, I want to thank Councilman Gary Kendrick who's not here. I wish him well that he gets better, but I Want to thank him for his long years of service I also want to thank him for his courage and conviction to protect communities in El Cajon and East County from belligerent ice agents He's done his job to protect vulnerable people, unlike the majority of this city council. I would also like to thank him for leaving his more formerly morally bankrupt political party, even if it means getting myriads of threats from GOP and MAGA constituents. Note to self, I don't want my side to threaten you and the city council members. It's wrong to threaten, physically threaten or harm people regardless of political affiliation. And I would also like to thank him for advocating his reelection bid and laying a new generation of leadership takeover. You deserve a well-earned retirement. Please get better. I also want to thank El Cajon residents and other residents of East County and San Diego County showing up to see council meetings in El Cajon. You're doing your civic duty by attending these meetings and making your voice heard. I would also like to thank Mayor Wells and the majority of the City Council for showing us who you really are the last several months or so and What you really are are morally grotesque and incompetent people who deserve to lose your seats via election law laws or resignation lists law or letter so we are coming for you and politically because you have failed the city of El Cajon. One way or another, we're going to get you. We'll get you. We'll get you. We'll get you.

Alexander Kraft.

Hello. Welcome.

Good afternoon. Good afternoon, city councillors. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor and El Cajon residents. My name's Alexander Kraft. I'm a long-time resident of El Cajon, homeowner, and candidate for mayor in 2026. Today I'd like to speak on the proposition being brought forward by the Majdal Center to recognize Middle Eastern and North African as its own distinct ethnic group in statistical and demographic calculations. You know, I just met today actually with an Arab community leader and actually our mayoral opponent, Ali Mahmoud. And one of the topics that we spoke about today was he pointed out that as the MENA community grows, the Middle Eastern and North African community grows here in El Cajon, not only does it continue to build our economy and our population and the vibrancy of our culture, but it's also become a destination for visitors. People are actually coming here as a tourist destination. That brings money into our city. Appropriate recognition of this group not only makes people feel welcome to move here and start businesses, but also to come as tourists. They feel comfortable. They feel recognized. They feel welcomed. And, you know, adopting the resolution that's been put forward, it would cost, there would be no cost to the city. In fact, there wouldn't even be nominal costs involved in drafting the legislation because that work has already been done by the Mejdal Center. At this point, all city staff needs to do is to move forward on considering and adopting that. These groups, they're clearly separate groups. One of the things, those of you who may not be familiar with this issue, is that these groups are being lumped into the white category. And yet, these groups are clearly separate groups. They're clearly separate from quote unquote white Americans in their in their material and economic and cultural interests. So the question has to be asked, why? Why not recognize this fact? Why not have more granular data in order to be able to do your job better as governance? Are you hiding something? Obscuring inequalities can only serve white supremacy. And let's be clear, race and white supremacy has cast their shadow over East County politics for far too long. It's the first thing people in the county talk about when the region comes up. Let's not pretend otherwise. Refusing to acknowledge the truth of our city's demographics only perpetuates this problem. Why wouldn't you let Majol and their coalition improve our community, our economy, and our reputation at no cost to taxpayers? Thank you.

We have five more speakers. Next speaker is Rich Ryle.

Hey, Rich.

All right, I'm on. I bet you all saw the San Diego Union Tribune. You made the front page. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Six years ago, I sued the downtown Elkhorn Business Partners for Brown Act violation and won. Today I filed a San Diego County District Attorney public integrity report concerning the illegal RFP that you are all aware of. This $150,000 PBID management contract awarded to New City America was the product of an RFP issued by a city employee, Mitchell. It was done without any authorization. It is an undisputed fact that no elected official ever authorizes RFP or this contract in an open, properly noticed meeting. The Union Tribune reported that Marco Lomandri told the paper there are no public records supporting how his own company selection was decided. Your own assistant city manager says the city has no oversight capacity over this spending. Your city manager said it wasn't my area of authority. Meanwhile, this council is now being asked to approve a successor district, the Community Benefit District, CBD, that will run for 20 years and collect at least $16 million managed under the same relationships that produced this contract. I'm asking this council to do two specific things. First of all, under the law, and that's what I, I just don't get this. The PBID law says that if you're sun-centered out of existence, the last year of your operation is closing down the PBID. There is no action at the PBID to close down the PBID. And the second thing is, it specifically says in the PBID law, you cannot use PBID money to create a new taxpayer. Doesn't that make a lot of sense? We don't want to have mushroom taxes, and that's exactly what you've done. You've eliminated the P bid, and now you substitute a super P bid. In this case, you're increasing the taxes by 200 to 400 percent. You're putting more people in, and you're using funds that you shouldn't have used It should be used to be closing the PBID. So I'm asking you, first, direct a city attorney or retain independent counsel to render a written opinion on whether the February and March 25th Mend meetings complied with the Brown Act and whether this RFP and contract violate government GOAT section 1090s conflict of interest prohibition, which would make the contract void by operation of law. Second, suspend further involvement in and urge the downtown partners to suspend further payments under the New City America Management Service Agreement until that opinion is complete. Be part of the solution. Before this council locks the taxpayer into a 20-year contract with Lomandri, before you expose yourself to millions of dollars in litigation costs about what's going on, please consult an attorney. Thank you for your time.

Dr. Ryan Phan.

Good afternoon again, honorable council members and mayor. I'm Dr. Ryan Fan, here representing Majdel Community Center and thousands of residents that we serve. This is our fifth time speaking at city council specifically about this issue. And we, again, respectfully urge you to recognize more than 25,000 of your Middle Eastern and North African constituents. We're asking you to agendize the MENA resolution that we've already drafted with city staff. As a reminder, El Cajon has the highest concentration of Arab Americans of any city in the entire state of California. Other cities with large MENA populations, such as Anaheim and Glendale, have already passed similar resolutions. Despite delays in implementing the state and federal policies that have already been passed, these city resolutions send a clear message that local officials are committed to ensuring representation and respect for thousands of their constituents. So why is Elkhorn City Council hesitating? In our last public comment, we shared testimony from students who are asking to be accurately recognized and effectively served by the public education system. Today, I'm going to focus on public health to reflect the endorsements we've received from Grossmont Health Care District, Family Health Care Centers of San Diego, and United Domestic Workers, among many others. According to reports published by the American Medical Association and the American Journal of Public Health, the absorption of Middle Eastern and North African data under the white category masks disparities between and within categories. while also undermining rigorous scientific research. In particular, conflating these categories negatively impacts external validity, which means the extent that you can actually generalize scientific findings. Why aren't we able to properly generalize and analyze public health outcomes within these large categories? When we see changes in health data, do they actually reflect changes in the whole group's health or are they due to changes within subgroups that are invisible because of our current accounting? For example, if we see an increase in the rates of hypertension and diabetes in the larger white category, who's actually being impacted? Maybe it's hypertension on the rise in the MENA population. Maybe it's diabetes increasing in the Western European white population. Maybe it's the opposite. Without having these detailed data categories, you cannot tell. The establishment of a distinct MENA category will promote healthy communities by enabling health agencies to track disparities, design targeted interventions, and provide linguistically and culturally appropriate care. The improved health outcomes will also help to prevent avoidable drains on public health systems. Once again, I respectfully urge the City Council to agendize our MENA resolution that we've already drafted that will cost you nothing. Thank you for your consideration, and we look forward to seeing you at the next City Council meeting in September. Thank you. Graham, I have a question for you.

This issue really has to do with the census. Am I right about this?

For the most part, however, the resolution that they've drafted is beyond that. I have concerns with the resolution that they've drafted. So if the council were to direct us to bring something forward, we would bring forward an alternative resolution that did not commit funding from the city as the current resolution does.

I guess my question is, we have no jurisdiction over how the United States conducts their census. That is correct. Would this resolution be binding upon the United States of America in any way?

No, it wouldn't. And the other thing is that we have in the past written letters of support for this cause to the US Census in the past. But this is not an agenda item, so we probably shouldn't have some back and forth between us and speaker.

Yeah, I wouldn't mind a little bit of information so I can fully and deeply understand this issue.

Can I clarify one thing? Sure. I'll be quick. At the federal level, the federal government has actually delayed the census update, so it might not be in place by 2030. There's a state bill, AB91, that was already passed and signed into law, but they've delayed implementation to 2029. Local resolutions show commitment, and also as we're in conversation with the Department of Finance, who are trying to delay further, it helps us make an argument that this is important. So again, coming from a city where there's an extremely high population is very significant for that argument.

I appreciate it.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

I'll distribute the flyer that I left last night. Yeah, I'd be happy to take a look at whatever you have.

I just have one comment. I've talked to Dr. Phan a few times and I would really encourage one of my colleagues to please join me in agendizing this. I've asked this before and if we need to come up with, combining maybe taking Dr. Phan's resolution, taking Mr. Mitchell's recommendations, and maybe we can come to an agreement on that. But I think this is definitely something that we need. We've done it for other groups, and I've stood up for the Hispanic community. I've stood up, you know, and agreed with the Jewish community the resolution identifying antisemitism, I don't see why we can't do this one as well.

Appreciate that. Thank you for coming.

Next speaker is Rima Al-Khatib.

Hello, everyone. Can you hear me? My name is Rima Al-Khatib, and I'm a youth organizer at the Majdal Center. So I basically interact with youth every day. And part of my work is basically just interacting with youth, programming, and just see what's your experience like. Me and my family have lived in El Cajon, and I've been, I still live in El Cajon. Me and my family live here, and I've been through the school. public education system, and I know how it's like. One challenge for me was, and I've been seeing as a pattern within the youth that I work with, is that our meeting students and families are not being fully seen, and they're not being represented, not just in the school, but also within the community. They don't have that sense of belonging. Also, they don't have funding access. They don't have funding for them specifically. That also affects our healthcare system, as Dr. Fan also mentioned that, and most importantly for them, language access. And in addition to that, there is no data, so what's the point of all that? And myself, we might graduate from a university, so how will they be able to track that I graduated from the background of being a Middle Eastern MENA? So today I want to ask you to pass the MENA resolution and because it will be an important step forward to recognize not just our communities but also making sure our students' cultures and experiences are being valued and also reflected within our school system and the communities that live here in El Cajon. So I'm asking you again to agendize the MENA resolution. Thank you.

Thank you.

Ana Laura Martinez.

Good afternoon, El Cajon City Council members, staff. My name is Ana Laura Martinez. I have lived in El Cajon for over 35 years. I am here as an El Cajon resident, also a community worker, to ask you to please agendize and pass a resolution in support of the inclusion of the Middle East and North African MENA category, and also as a supporter of the Majdel Community Center as well. My community work is as a library worker at one of the best libraries in our county, just down the street. Having the MENA category is important for more accurate, simpler data that touches every aspect of life, as both Dr. Phan and Rima have mentioned, from language access to education to health. These metrics all tell us how unique and diverse El Cajon community is. Language access is an important resource I see our community needing more of, and this can change with the inclusion of MENA moving forward. I formerly worked at the County of San Diego Board of Supervisors as a legislative assistant, and our office received requests for resolutions. While some may think they're not important, they absolutely are. Our office approached resolutions as a way to show our support, our commitment to be for the community. We understood that there is a power at the local level to shape and reinforce what already may be at work both at the state and the federal level. You passing a resolution would let us El Cajon residents know that you, one, recognizing importance of our brilliant Middle Eastern and North African communities, and two, are ready for whenever the state and federal levels move forward, as Dr. Phan has mentioned. Thank you so much for your time, and I'm looking forward to the El Cajon Council members doing right by our community, specifically our Middle Eastern and North African communities. Thank you.

Thank you.

Last speaker is a remote speaker, and it's from Truth Tonics. And please, Truth, remember to press star six so you may join the meeting. I apologize. We just lost internet access.

So we should take a break.

We do need to take a recess to allow for this to be continued. Sure. Thank you.

Is it working?

Oh, she's back.

Okay. There we go. Okay, I'll begin. So, you know, it's true. It's your favorite remote speaker who sometimes comes and sometimes doesn't. So for the record, your live stream via the phone was 12 minutes late. And it turns out that the YouTube live stream is streaming via the planning commission page, not the council YouTube page. So somebody needs to go fix that because I miss Brenda's balloons. You've got to make this up somehow. So I have an opinion on how Oklahoma stacks up against other cities. I would say pretty good. One of my favorite cities in San Diego County. And I don't care what the tractors have to say about that. Yes the city needs cleaning up but for a big city it's doing OK and has a unique character I have yet to find anywhere else in California. But specifically about council I would say you guys are generally very friendly. Meeting room is pleasant and the seats are comfortable enough. So hey you're doing you're doing OK. And how's the deficit. Not too bad. So there you go. But I want to talk about public records requests. I looked at the allegation that a gentleman brought up about the sheriff dumping homeless people into El Cajon at the trolley station. MTS denied that such footage exists. They are serial liars though so don't take that at face value. But here's how you resolve that in the future for anyone comes across that is just get it on video and post it publicly because that happened in Imperial Beach by the Coronado Police Department. But the difference is video. They got caught. So there you go. I love telling people from other cities about the SELD incubator program. And why it continues to be propped up despite the fact that there's pretty much zero local businesses that are still in existence since its creation. This is Elkhorn's one big issue I see. So I did a public records request on what tax dollars the Caledonian Community Council has gotten the last few years and here's what the county sent me. The CCC received a total of $268,600 in the year 2022. In 2023 they received a total of $140,000. In 2024 they got $500,000. In 2025, they got $10,000. And so far this year, the CCC received a total of $130,000. Those were all checks cashed. So why can't the Chaldean Community Council produce results when they're getting enough money on average to pay at least one or two high salaries? The next step is to find out exactly where that money went. So be advised, this is just the beginning of looking into potential fraud like this. I also have about a billion more PRAs in the works, especially for the headquarters of fraud, waste, abuse, and corruption known as the County of San Diego. I also saw that Gary withdrew his candidacy a few days ago, and I'm wondering, was that due to illness or due to his new party not being willing to back him or both? Because you can't trust anything in politics, especially from the morally grotesque progressives who stereotype different cultures as all being poor in need of help, which is a lie. Plenty of Chaldeans are doing great in El Cajon. And by the way, Bill, I can hear your replies as long as I have the meeting playing, but only the clerk can unmute me to reply back. Thank you.

No other speakers, sir.

Thanks. There are no written communications on today's agenda. We have one public hearing on today's agenda, item eight is consider a revision to the police initiating towing and storage charges and staff will tell us all about this.

Hello, sir. How are you? Mr. Mayor, City Council, Joe Crawford, Lieutenant with the Elkhorn Police Department. We haven't raised our toll rates since 2008. So I looked into regional agencies and their toll rates and what we're currently charging compared to what other agencies are charging in the region and make a recommendation that we raise our rates to be in line with the Sheriff's Department. which charges rates for Santee, Lakeside, and Rancho San Diego.

What are those changes?

So in the resolution from 2008, our rates, so for a Class A vehicle up to 10,000 pounds, we are charging $180 per hour, or actually the tow company is charging $180 per hour. And currently the Sheriff's Department is charging for the same vehicle $260 per hour. So there's a schedule of changes based on the weight of a vehicle and the class of the vehicle and what we currently charge, what a tow company currently charges on our.

So you'd like to match the County of San Diego?

Correct, sir.

I'm gonna open up for questions. I have one question. I've always been concerned about towing, not because it's not a vital thing, obviously we need it, but I think there is always temptation for tow companies to cut corners and to be predatory in the way they go about looking for people that they can tow away. How do we prevent that from happening? Are we watching that? Is that a concern?

So this recommendation is just for police-initiated tows. So if we go out to a traffic collision and we have a vehicle blocking the roadway and so the police department calls for a tow company.

So not the tow from the parking lot of the apartment complex? Correct, sir. Okay. That's correct. All right. Well, that answers my question. I appreciate that. Council members, do you have other questions? Yes, go ahead.

Waiting for, there we go. So it's per hour, is there a reason why it's not a flat fee per incident? Because an accident that could be tied up for a while, that could be a four hour, Departure, get the car, come back, and you're looking at $1,000.

Yeah, so to clarify on that, when we request a tow, the tow company has a 20-minute response time. And the typical tow is around 35 minutes. That's the average tow length, is 35 minutes. So if we have a traffic collision that's tied up for 10 hours, say, on a collision, we don't call for the tow truck until we're ready for the tow. And per contract, they have a 20-minute response time. and then the time it takes them to load up the vehicle and haul it away.

And are they charged per hour, per half hour, per quarter hour?

It's per hour is the rate.

So if one hour goes into one hour and five minutes, it's a two-hour job?

I believe so. I don't have the exact information from our records department. That's okay. But I believe, yes, if it goes over an hour, then you would trigger the second hour.

Okay, thank you. Chris, Mr. Ortiz, Michelle? Okay, well thanks, I appreciate you answering those questions. Thank you, sir. We may call you back if we have more questions. Yes, sir. Are there any speaker cards on this item?

Sir, we have two. First one is Brad Ramsey, and Mr. Ramsey said he is available only if you have questions for him.

Okay, I don't, and who is he exactly?

Mr. Ramsey is from Road 1.

Oh, okay. He's the contractor. Okay.

I just want to speak in support of this item. I appreciate what the staff did. You should know that the sheriffs are the other lowest rate in the county. So if we include CHP, other local agencies, they are quite a bit higher. So it has been since 2008.

So I'm going to go ahead and ask you the same question. Even though We're talking about tows that are police initiated. How do you combat the greed factor with towing where people are sometimes accusing tow agencies of taking liberties and towing people that don't need to be towed? Is that really happening or is that a concern?

It does happen. It is a concern. I don't have a feel for how often, but the laws are really tight on the books, so enforcement can be there. There's been great strides to clamped down on that, it is totally separate of this.

Okay, all right, well thank you, I appreciate that. Steve has a question?

Yeah, on the billing, do you charge, you heard my example.

Yeah, it's a good question. Usually it specifies, but it is incremental, either by the minute or a fractional hour. It's not a whole hour.

And that depends on the contract?

Yeah, it changes, like CHP is by the minute, some are by 15 minutes. But we don't charge two hours for five minutes.

Any other questions? Mr. Ortiz.

Forgive my ignorance on this. We are only paying tow companies $180 an hour and $45 a day. That's our current rate right now. the tow companies came to us to say, that's low, if you wanna keep using us, you should consider raising, or if you want tow companies to respond, you should consider raising, is that right?

More of a plea that we need it, our insurance is up 500% since.

Yeah, so our rates are low and the tow companies are probably losing money on this and they probably don't wanna use us because we're paying so low. Is that, am I understanding this correctly?

Absolutely, most of the towing we're doing for the city is cleanup. It's abandoned vehicles. It's parked vehicles. Got it. We don't get any money for that.

Yeah, okay.

So we're out the cost of disposing of those vehicles.

Okay, great, thank you. I just have one question. We'll go with Michelle and then go back to Steve.

Question, what is a yard person or the yard help? It's like $60 an hour, $75 an hour? Oh, it's the labor?

Yeah. That doesn't really happen. So it's something that's always been there, so it's a price item that we don't really use.

Okay, I was just kind of curious, because when I first read that, I'm like, I bet you that person's not making $75 an hour.

Yeah, it's been there since I've been here, and it's not something we use.

Thanks for clarifying.

Mr. Cole? So the charges that we're talking about, are they the charges that the city pays, or the charges that the customer pays?

It is the charges the motorist pays. The city doesn't pay for the tows.

Yeah, so the city's not being charged these rates. This is what we're allowing them to be charged to the person at the other end. Does this contract allow us to define some billing terms like quarter hour, half hour?

I don't know that. I'd have to look at the agreement. If the council wants to pull this item, we can bring it back for consideration. I'd like to pull the item.

We've had a couple contracts that... I'd like to pull the item. That's something... I don't think residents should be paying more than what really is fair. It would seem unfair if we go 10 minutes into the next hour and they're charged for a full hour. It would be nice to have that imprint in a contract.

Let's... hear the rest of the speakers that would come back and discuss that. Do you have more questions for our speaker? No, thank you. Thank you, sir, for coming, and thanks for all the hard work you guys do. Thank you.

Sir, we had a remote comment, but Mr. David Reynolds is not currently signed in.

Okay. So that would be the last. That's the last of the speakers? That's the last speaker. Okay, I'll bring it back to, actually, I need to make a motion to close the public hearing. Who's second? Please vote. Okay, Steve, I think you were going.

I apologize, sir. It takes a little bit to bring this up, but motion carries by unanimous vote.

Steve, I think you were going somewhere else. I'd like to make a motion to postpone this item to the next council meeting.

Second.

Moved and seconded.

Motion carries by unanimous vote of those present.

Before we leave from this item, Graham, Are there any questions you have for the council so you can come back fully prepared?

I think what we'll do is we'll bring this back. We'll look at what contractual obligations or opportunities that we have and if there's an opportunity to ensure that someone isn't being, from what I heard, someone isn't being charged for two hours if they go into their second hour. That seems like a fair thing to have. And if there's other contracts that have similar language, we'll try to mimic that language and bring that back to the council.

One more. Is there any way to tie our fees to like the median fee or something like that? Is that...

So remember, these are not our fees. These are the fees that we allow tow companies to charge those that are towed in our community. So if the council wants to, I mean, my recommendation is that we probably review this on a more regular basis rather than every 10 years because we're always going to have these huge catch-ups. I think one option is to have an automatic trigger in there periodically. or maybe we'll just direct staff to come back every four years or three years or whatever it is, so we're not catching our fall behind.

That's what I was looking for. Thank you, Mr. City Manager.

Okay, we're going to move on to the next item. Thank you. We have three administrative reports on today's agenda. Item nine is a report on homeless programs and services, and staff will tell us about this.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council Members. My name is Yanni Pelayo-Brito and I'm the Senior Management Analyst with Development Services Housing Division. Today I will be presenting on the Homeless Programs and Services Report. This is for the last six months. The reporting period is January 1st through June 30th, 2026. Within the last six months there have been 14 active programs, seven of which have been administered through service providers and the remainder through our city departments. There are a total of four funding sources for these programs and services. That includes community development block grant, permanent local housing allocation, low-mod income housing asset fund, and the general fund. For this slide, I will be describing the different programs and services provided, again, through the service providers as well as the city departments. For Crisis House, they currently manage the emergency sleeping cabins at Meridian Baptist Church. They provide transitional housing for women and children in El Cajon. They are using PLHA funds to provide residents with assistance for security deposit as well to allow for easier access to permanent housing solutions. They are continuing outreach as well. This is in part for their CDBG grant received back in 2021. They will continue to provide outreach efforts until 2031. Crisis House will no longer receive PLHA funding. However, they did receive a new allocation for the upcoming year, which I'll go ahead and talk about later in the presentation. East County Transitional Living Center, they are continuing doing their emergency shelter program, housing navigation, and outreach. These programs are non-faith based, and they do provide essential and wraparound services as well. They do have other faith-based programs. They do have their one-year family restoration program, as well as their other one-year programs for single males and single females. Homestar, they did provide three different programs. The homeless outreach program is street beach outreach, which they sometimes went out with the police department to conduct this service. They do, during outreach services, connect their clients with other programs that they provide as well, such as the emergency housing placement program. Case management, again, this is done with the clients that they interact with and connect with during outreach. They also do have the rapid rehousing and rental assistance program. This is for a minimum of six months, and it was for families or individuals earning less than 30% of the area medium income. These programs will no longer be available because funding was concluded as of June 30th. However, the services will be provided by other service providers. Other service providers were selected through the city's notice of funding availability approved by the ad hoc committee. And again, I will be talking about that later on as well. The Interface Shelter Network Program, this is for the rotational emergency shelter conducted from January through March. They provide connections to permanent housing solutions and they also provide the shelter, meals and support. The Family Health Center of San Diego serves as the current intake coordinator for this program. Salvation Army has the reunification program, also known as the A Way Back Home program. They provide transportation, food, and case management for families that want to reunite with family. They also provide case management in the three-month period and six-month period following the reunification. East County Homeless Task Force continues to play a role in informing, engaging the community members and they continue advocating for the homeless population. The city's police department has the homeless outreach team known as the hot team. They continue to provide weekly outreach support. This is done to build rapport, offer services and connect individuals to other resources. They do go out with service providers and they usually do about three hours every Friday. Under the police department as well, there's a special enforcement unit. They conduct homeless task force every week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This is along with Public Works and Parks and Rec. They are also supported by Caltrans and the California Highway Patrol. Their main focus is addressing quality of life issues, cleanup of illegal encampments, and enforcement of local laws. So as a whole, they do create the neighborhood quality of life team, and that ensures the city's parks, right of ways, and drainage channels are clear of debris and trash. They also do receive support through contract services through Urban Corp. We also have the alcohol and information technology department and they are keeping the homeless dashboard updated. This is the website that's available to the public and it can be accessed through our city's website. It includes resources and progress made from these programs and services and also the results of the city's managed point in time count. And the website to access that is alcohol.gov forward slash homelessness for anyone that's interested. In terms of accomplishments, in the last fiscal year, 25-26, there was a total allocation of more than 1.3 million. During that six-month period from January 1st through June 30th, we had over 700,000 in expenditures. The total of clients served was above 1,500. A person served means a person that received some type of service or assistance from the programs. This can be a contact through outreach, rental assistance, or someone placed in emergency shelter, as well as case management. The same person can receive assistance from different programs, but they're not able to receive the same assistance more than once. From that grand total, we have 290 individuals that were placed into permanent housing, 167 into transitional housing, and 329 in emergency shelter. For the quality of life team, they completed 63 cleanups and removed 264.5 tons of debris, and this is including both city streets and city storm channels. In this report, we did have a two and a half year look back. For the last two and a half years, total expenditures are over 3.2 million. This resulted in more than 8,600 individuals being served. Again, this number does include outreach as well as case management. and the other programs provided. Out of that total, more than 1,000 were placed into permanent housing, more than 800 into transitional housing, and more than 1,900 into an emergency shelter. This information is also part of the attachment one of the report. Going into the new fiscal year 26-27, we do have new programs. We have Crisis House that was allocated $300,000 for a tenant-based rental assistance program. We have outreach and housing navigation under Family Health Centers of San Diego and they received an allocation of $500,000 for a two year period. And lastly we have San Diego Rescue Mission for the emergency shelter. They received an allocation of $210,261 and this is for a two year period. Some other updates that occurred over the last six months is that the city did contract out with RSG to complete monitoring for the city funded programs to include CDBG and PLHA funds that has now been completed. The next city managed point in time count is pending scheduling. And lastly, for the permanent local housing allocation fund, there is a new allocation available in the near future and staff will come back to council at a later time. As a result of the data provided today, staff recommends to continue funding homeless programs contingent upon available funding, to continue seeking new funding opportunities that align with city priorities, to continue financial support for the East County Homeless Task Force, to continue supporting emergency sleeping cabins and expansion efforts, to continue providing a six-month update, and to continue maintaining and updating the dashboard. That concludes my presentation. I'm available to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate that. Any questions?

Yep.

Michelle, go ahead.

Of course. Ayani, thank you. Nice report. Question. Do we do any follow-ups? So when someone goes into permanent housing, do we do a follow-up in, say, six months, a year, to 18 months, and see if they're still in that permanent housing? Same thing would be for transitional housing and for emergency shelter. Because my question is, or my concern, is that we get them into permanent housing, and if the provider or whoever is doing that case management, are they following up and making sure that they are still... you know, either meeting guidelines or do they need additional help? Is there any deficiencies in what they're receiving so that they can be successful and not return back to the street? Because that's kind of my worry, especially for emergency housing. I realize that that is very short term, but I'd also like to know what efforts are being done to make sure that they can get into either transitional bridge housing and then from there going into permanent housing. Do we have any metrics on that? Do we know what they're being followed up on? Because if we're going to put this money out and support organizations to provide this service, I want to make sure that the efforts are good and valid and these people are becoming successful and get them off the street, whether that means more intensive rehabilitation for any substance abuse issues or whether it's mental health or whether it's Whatever it takes, if we're going to spend this money, let's make sure that it is good and well received and is doing what it is intended to do. Anyway, you now may answer.

Sorry. That's okay, thank you. That's a great question and yes the agencies do provide case management. They also do provide case management follow-ups. Usually the goal when they are being case managed is to have a self-sufficiency plan for any data that has to do with them exiting back to homelessness. That is data that we have to go back and look at but for case management purposes they do do follow-ups. Usually at three months or six months, but they have a self-sufficiency plan and they go based off that.

And do we stipulate if that person, say they've been put into permanent housing and we do a six-month follow-up and they're really struggling, what are the efforts from some of the organizations that we provide funding for, what are the efforts of those organizations going back in and maybe doing a little bit more case management other than just a phone call, hey, how you doing? You know, what... What are some of the stumbling blocks for that person? You know that they're maybe not be in permanent housing or You know what I mean? It's like Do they have steps in place and I know that you don't work for the organizations that are providing that service But as the agency that's providing them funds would be something I'd like to know. Thanks. I

Yes, so they do have the self-sufficiency plan that they go based off of, but then after, for example, there's some exceptions. For example, with the emergency shelter, if 30 days may not be enough, then they can increase it to 60 days. That would be an example. Or if they are still struggling when they are in permanent housing, then they would contact the case manager and see what steps they can take after that.

John, Steve, go ahead. How do we have a sense of people that are from El Cajon or people that are brought into El Cajon?

We do have the monitoring that we just conducted for all our agencies. Part of that is ensuring that the intake process requests information that shows that they are currently living in El Cajon. And through the monitoring, we established that all the agencies did meet that component of the program.

And what's the criteria for living, for saying that or counting that you live in El Cajon?

They do have to be living on the streets of El Cajon. They do ask them for how long, where they've been staying, if they have been living with other family, what address. So they do ask for their last address of where they were living.

Okay, thank you. Okay, thanks for all your information. We appreciate the report. We may call you back.

Thank you.

Are there any speaker cards on this item?

No speaker, sir.

Okay. Back to council for discussion or a motion to accept the report.

I'd like to move that we accept the report as stated and continue our support.

You have a second. Okay. Move and second, please vote. Item 10 is regarding code compliance best practices. And I see Noah is here to tell us about that.

Great. Thank you, Mayor and council members. Again, Noah Alvey, Deputy Director for Development Services. And again, today we're here to talk about best practices for our code compliance division. And we're really here to talk to the council and get some feedback and direction on those best practices that we looked at and kind of how we're conducting business. So our current procedures actually date back to a policy manual that was adopted in 2023. It first prioritizes immediate public health and safety. then it follows up with environmental impacts next is unauthorized construction and then lastly we would look at aesthetic and nuisance violations like things like landscaping as well as trash and debris so currently we're primarily conducting reactive enforcement so that's just only when complaints are coming in so we're not going out and taking proactive enforcement actions however we do do some proactive proactive enforcement when directed by council Our current approach is really flexible. It does allow us to work with individuals to come up with plans to resolve cases based on their budgets and timelines. And lastly, we do utilize expedited enforcement for reoccurring issues, and we can go directly to citations if there's that recurring issue that's really causing a problem in the community. So we did a deep dive into some of our case data, and so here you can see... the list of our data from the last 12 months. So the table does show 822 cases that were opened in the last year. There were 665 cases that were closed. So we're looking at for each workday an average of 4.1 cases opened each workday and 3.3 cases closed for each working day. Additionally, I wanted to note from a look back at the last year, you can see that there's a notable increase in the number of new cases. Those typically occur at the end of summer when school's back in session right about now, as well as in January. So after the holidays are over and everyone's coming back, we do tend to get more cases during those time periods. So for the closed cases, staff did find that more than 95% of the cases were resolved prior to monetary citations. So we're getting voluntary compliance without having to find individuals. Of those, about 32% of those cases were closed without a courtesy letter. One of the interesting things that we found when we were looking at the data was that more than 100 of those cases were for trash cans or containers that were left at the curb for more than 24 hours on trash pickup day. So those cases come in, but then by the time code compliance goes out about 24 hours later, they see that they've already been taken back in. So we are spending a lot of time as it relates to that type of activity. 28% of the cases, or 188, were closed after a courtesy letter, and then the last portion, about 35%, were closed after a formal warning. So as part of our analysis, our co-compliance officers conducted full-day ride-alongs in La Mesa and Santee, and they've joined me here today. So this time I'm going to invite each of them to come up and talk about what they observed in La Mesa and Santee.

Good afternoon, Mayor and members of City Council and City Manager. My name is Mikia Walker, and I am the co-compliance officer with the City of El Cajon Development Services Department. This past June, I had the opportunity to shadow the co-compliance officers with the City of La Mesa. During my visit to the City of La Mesa, I had the opportunity to learn more about their community development, structure, and co-compliance operations. The city of La Mesa is nine square miles and has a population of 61,000 residents. Each co-compliance officer have between 40 to 50 active cases with a population of 61,000 residents and only two co-compliance officers. This represents staffing ratio approximately one co-compliance officer for every 30,000 residents. During my visit, I also learned about the types of code compliance issues their officers commonly address. This includes sign violations, complaints related to trash and debris, property maintenance concerns, graffiti complaints, and garage conversions that have been completed without the required permits. These type of cases reflect many of the day-to-day concerns that code compliance officers encounter while working to maintain safe, clean, and well-maintained neighborhoods. Council members, I'd like to briefly highlight some best practices used by the City of La Mesa in its code compliance process. The process begins with the courtesy notice giving residents an opportunity to voluntarily correct the issue La Mesa allows 14 days for compliance, followed by a follow-up inspection to confirm whether the issue has been resolved. If the violation remains unresolved, citations are generally issued only when authorized by the city attorney. This approach allows the city to focus first on voluntary compliance while ensuring that formal enforcement is appropriate and properly authorized. Another key component is clear and professional communication. Residents should understand what the violation is and what corrective action is required and when it needs to be completed Detailed documentation is also important for consistency. This includes inspection records notices Communication and when appropriate before and after photographs finally early follow-up and consistent timeline help improve voluntary compliance and reduce disputes by ensuring residents know what to expect. Overall, these practices promote a code enforcement process that is fair, consistent, transparent, and focused on achieving compliance. Based on our review of La Mesa's practice, We identified several opportunities that could help improve our code compliance process. First, we could simplify courtesy notices so that the residents can quickly understand the issues and what action is required. Second, we can clearly identify compliance deadlines, making it easier for residents to understand when corrective action must be completed. And third, we can provide clear, step-by-step instructions so residents know exactly what to expect of them. And finally, we can develop consistent letters and notices to help ensure clear and uniform communication throughout the enforcement process. Thank you.

Thank you, Makia. So our second review is with the City of Santee, so I'll invite up Nicole Campbell.

Good afternoon, Mayor and members of City Council and staff. My name is Nicole Kim and I am a Code Compliance Officer with the City of El Cajon's Development Services Department. During my visit to the City of Santee, I had the opportunity to learn more about their Code Compliance operations. The City of Santee encompasses approximately 16 square miles and has a population of about 60,000 residents, one Code Compliance Officer for every 30,000 residents. Their Community Development Department includes building, planning, and zoning, housing and code compliance. They have one full-time and one part-time code compliance officer. During my visit to the city of Santee, I also learned about the types of code compliance issues our officers commonly address. These include vegetation and weed abatement encroachment cases, recreational vehicles parked on landscaping, recreational vehicles connected to utilities while parked on residential property. Parking enforcement issues and business licensing enforcement cases are the type of cases that reflect many of the day-to-day concerns. I also had the opportunity to learn about the City of Santee's procedures for addressing code compliance violations. In Santee, they prioritize voluntary compliance and generally attempt to work with the residents before issuing any type of citations. Residents are typically given additional time if they're actively making progress towards compliance unless the violation presents immediate safety concerns. Santee uses a certificate of noncompliance, which records unresolved code violations against a property title. Letters and notices are standardized within their system. One of the most valuable aspects of my visit to the city of Santee was learning about the best practices they use to support effective and consistent code compliance. One of the key takeaway was the importance of encouraging online complaint submission, which improves organization, documentation, and case tracking, also maintaining flexibility and encouraging voluntary compliance can improve cooperation from the residents. I also learned that detailed documentation is critical to maintaining consistency through the enforcement process. The certificate of noncompliance provides additional long-term enforcement for unresolved violations. Another best practice that I found to be beneficial is strong coordination with law enforcement, building, and fire personnel that improves the effectiveness during complex enforcement cases. Based on my observations and what I learned during my visit to the city of Santee, I identified the following opportunities to strengthen our communication with residents and property owners. We could produce standardized letters and notices to ensure they integrate directly into the case management system and reduce the need for manually created documents outside of the software platform. Thank you.

Sorry.

Thank you now.

So in addition to our two site visits and ride-alongs, we also did some interviews and surveys with Escondido and Carlsbad. And so we put together this comparison chart here just to compare and contrast each of the jurisdictions. So you can see Carlsbad has the smallest caseload per officer, whereas El Cajon has the highest caseload per officer. I think one of the other items of interest that we noted was that El Cajon is the only city that uses custom notices. We draft very custom letters that are business friendly in order to inform someone of a complaint, in order to make them aware of it in advance of just sending out a notice saying that you're in violation. So we're the only jurisdiction that we surveyed that actually does that. We also noted that El Cajon was the only jurisdiction that accepts anonymous complaints. All the other jurisdictions require some type of form to be filled out in order to accept and investigate a complaint. Additionally, we noted that Carlsbad, Escondido, and Santee do record violation notices on property title. We think that that could be a very effective tool in order to inform future property owners in advance of purchasing a property of a violation. So as an example, if a house was being flipped and we know that there's building code violations that were going on, at least we would have the opportunity to get that recorded on title. so that before the new property owner came in and purchased the property that they would be aware that they need to come in and get permits. So we tried to take some time to reflect on the data. We did find that our current approach is really flexible, but I think the benefit there is that it can adapt to unique situations. We are really successful in closing upwards of 95% of our cases without issuing citations, which I think is also a positive. For challenges, we did find that there is some public frustration when it comes to those repeat violators or nuisance properties where maybe you have ongoing issues with trash and debris. We did find also that we do spend a lot of time on those custom letters and that we do have that lower staff ratio to the number of residents. So here we want to just identify some of our potential opportunities and process enhancements. We think it would be a benefit to eliminate anonymous complaints. We think it would be helpful to standardize the complaint intake process to require some type of application or form just for tracking purposes. We think there's also opportunities to simplify and standardize our letters and notices We also think that there's an opportunity to eliminate enforcement of trash can or trash receptacle violations, which are often resolved on their own so that we're not dedicating so much staff time to that issue. We also think there's an opportunity to look at some changes to the municipal code. Right now, we go through a superior court process as it relates to citations. So maybe there's an opportunity to transition to an administrative law judge approach. That's what we use for our tobacco retailer violations. So those were the opportunities and potential process enhancements. So for today, we're just really looking at having an open discussion and dialogue with the council. So we put together these discussion points so that council can maybe give us some direction. So when it comes to trash container enforcement, we'd like council to give us some feedback on whether or not we should eliminate enforcement for trash cans. We think that would be an opportunity to potentially allocate more time to proactive priorities that are potentially identified during city council's annual goal setting. For property maintenance, should we enforce, should we make enforcement procedures less flexible so we could have more of a mandatory schedule for enforcement of things like landscaping issues Right now, you know, we worked very closely with each property owner because each property owner has certain circumstances that may be in play. Sometimes, you know, maybe it's an elderly couple that doesn't have the resources available and they'll come in and say, oh, I need to go maybe work with my church or get some volunteers to come help me. So our current procedure allows us that flexibility. But we do have a lot of issues with property maintenance and we're getting a lot of complaints about that. So we could be more diligent. And so we're asking for council feedback on that. We could also explore opportunities for expedited enforcement and cost recovery for those types of same issues. So we could look at opportunities where we would go out and notice the property, do the property cleanup, and then send the bill. And then lastly, on the citation process, should the municipal code be amended to allow citations to be reviewed by the administrative law judge as opposed to through the superior court? So that concludes my report. Again, this is just intended to be an open discussion. I'm just looking for your feedback.

And counsel, before you begin your conversation, we know that a lot of these are operational issues, but as you can tell, there's a lot of philosophy that goes into how code enforcement is taken. To sort of steal first George Bush's term, we offer a kinder and gentler code enforcement process, which is one of the reasons why you get very few complaints from people that are complaining about enforcements. That's a great thing, but at the same time, It does put a lot of pressure on Ms. Walker and Ms. Kim to resolve things in a way that may be not the most efficient and it puts a big strain on them. So we just need to understand from a council perspective what you want, what is your philosophy as a council And these four areas can kind of help guide us in some of that area to know whether we want to streamline a little bit, maybe get a little bit more aggressive on some things, or maybe keep the same philosophy that we've practiced in the past. But we're just looking for some council feedback on some of these items.

Okay. No, we probably have some questions for you. Let me first though see if there's any public comments.

Yes, sir, we have two speakers. The first one is Alexander Kraft.

Hey, guys. Alexander Kraft again. Boy, that does get hot, doesn't it? You probably think I'm going to come up here and try to make political hay about a certain ongoing lawsuit regarding proactive code enforcement. But I'm actually not, you'll be grateful to hear. I actually wanted to add just another point to the conversation on this, which is there's a sort of a well-known, I don't know, people kind of call it a loophole regarding code enforcement with that it seems that the enforcement piece doesn't come in until after a project is completed, and so people will sort of leave projects visibly incomplete for a long time to sort of avoid the code part. There's actually a property that I can think of just off the top of my head that's had you know, plywood sheathing on the front of it for almost 20 years. There's constant sort of clearly off, you know, unpermitted and non-code compliant work being done on that property. It's somebody's hobby. So I kind of just wanted to bring that in to the conversation. Obviously, you know, I would tend to agree with the philosophy of not being too aggressive in proactive code enforcement, but I do kind of wonder where the sort of balance happens there for situations like that. This property's undoubtedly been you know, reported several times. It's just one in particular, but I know that it's kind of an issue that people are aware of. So thank you for allowing me to add that into the conversation.

Last speaker is Truth, who is participating remotely. Truth, can you hear us? Can you hear me? I can hear you.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you, Truth.

Okay, great. So code compliance is definitely a serious issue everywhere, so much so that I actually sent this information to a neighboring city. So thank you for the great write-up. I actually find it strange that nobody went into detail about graffiti or encampments. in relation to code compliance because we know that's just I mean I'm I'm thinking that's the main issue but maybe it's regular homes. I don't think so though. It's not my perspective. But by the data it's obvious that Escondido and Carlsbad are overspending on compliance officers while Oklahoma could probably use at least one if not two more officers at a minimum. That's what I'm thinking. I'm also a little concerned about the city potentially getting rid of the anonymous complaint option. Has there been an issue with that method. if not why would you get rid of a way for people to report report and avoid retaliation because what if someone reported gang graffiti what if they reported their neighbor for having 10 foot high weeds blocking the sidewalk i mean that could come back maybe i don't know uh i understand maybe you're getting too many complaints that are anonymous but i i don't understand why government needs people's information all the time i appreciate the custom courtesy letters but that's unnecessary you can easily have several different versions of letter just pick the most applicable option surprise you weren't already doing that yes there could be cost recovery for chronic problem causers why not get your money back yes there should be expedited enforcement for vacant and abandoned properties because if not then you expose surrounding properties to potential squatter drug fires i recommend strict enforcement and requirements for vacant properties Any reports on our regular homes should be sufficed with a simple letter and compliance unless something goes unresolved for an excessive amount of time or escalates. So overall soft for the non-criminals regular people hard for the blatant criminals like the big business who can afford to put barriers and stuff to protect their properties. Thank you.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF. All right. Noah come on back up. At least I have some questions for them. I'm sure the council members do. Anybody want to start?

The administrative law judge versus superior court, is that a faster, cheaper option? Is that why you're recommending that?

I think it would be a potential better course of resolution. So one of the issues is that sometimes going through the superior court process isn't feasible, maybe just for someone that's not mowing their front yard. So the administrative law judge process would just kind of be similar to how we handle tobacco retailer license violations. So we think it's potentially an opportunity to have a better process.

Can you get in front of an administrative law judge faster than you can a superior court judge?

Yes. Well, the administrative law judges, so when we have our tobacco retailer hearings, we bring in the administrative law judge and conduct the hearings here inside the chambers.

Does it cost the city less to go before an administrative law judge than a superior court process?

Yes.

Okay. Two yeses. So far, so good. The anonymous part, there's two ways to look at it. One is... I tell you my name and I have a complaint, but you promise not to reveal my name to the party who needs to come into compliance. In that way, I'm anonymous. The other way is I don't tell you my name, but you still take my report. What does anonymous mean here?

I think when we're looking at anonymous, we do take complaints over the phone where someone just calls and says, can you go take a look at this, and we will go and do that. We think that there's potentially an opportunity just to have at least a contact information so that we can respond back to the person that's making the complaint so that there's some accountability that's going on there. We do keep information anonymous so that it's not disclosed to the extent feasible under the law.

Yeah, I support that philosophy that the complaining party must give their name and their contact information, but that you will protect it. Yes. Otherwise, they'll never call to complain again, and worse things could happen. So that's a philosophical position. Anonymous complaints, the judge... I have a different philosophy on commercial versus residential. So my philosophy on commercial is a little stricter than it is for somebody who's a resident homeowner. And I should say a vacant lot can be probably somewhere in between that. I don't know. But with commercial property, there along heavily traveled uh... quarters and if graffiti is left up for a long time it's just bad for the neighboring businesses and things and if there's debris uh... could be leftover encampment debris left on private property i'm a little stricter on commercial than i am on residential i'll just kind of leave it at the top level there as far as the trash cans i think the trash cans actually do fit into two of the city's goals which was beautification and public safety. I'll give you an example. When I'm waiting to turn left onto my street, cars will pass me on the right and they'll pass in the bike lane or the parking lane and One neighbor happens to leave their carts out one or two days after the pickup date. Somebody's going to nail a cart when they don't see it or things like that. So carts are still important to me. But here's the solution. You don't need to go out the next day after trash day. You can somehow put up language that says, if the cart is up two or more days past, let us know. But we're not going to go check out a cart that's one day overdue. So you kind of filter out some requests by your own report here that says most of them are resolved within the next day. So if you don't even accept the complaint until two or more days, that helps solve that. I'd also suggest rather than do the whole courtesy letter thing, I've seen Edco put door hangers on trash carts to say the reason why we didn't pick up your trash in this cart today is because and they just check boxes it's green waste in a blue recycle can or whatever you can just hang a door hanger on there that says just a reminder you got to take in your carts you don't need to do a letter you don't need to do a database just keep it simple those are my two suggestions on that

Can I add one thing on trash receptacles, if you don't mind? One of the other issues is a lot of times they're becoming a tool for parking in certain neighborhoods. So sometimes you'll have maybe a neighborhood that doesn't have sufficient parking and the people are using trash cans to kind of protect parking spaces. So there is a little bit of an issue with that, but I love the idea of using like the hangers on the trash cans. So I think an effective approach could be potentially just to state on the website that we don't enforce trash can removals, but when observed, we will be placing those hangers on the trash cans.

Understood. You've heard my philosophy, at least. You can do the practice. The other things that you suggested that you think would be good, I support those. Thank you. Thank you.

Noah, thank you very much. And what a great project. Going to our neighboring cities, checking out what they're doing. Really, really, really outstanding. So I'll kind of go through the list for you. I don't think that the trash container enforcement is a big priority in my eyes either. people going out of town, asking neighbors, can you take out my trash, and then them forgetting to bring it back in. Documentation, I think, is everything here. Because if there is a problem with residents using the trash cans to reserve street public parking, if that's habitual, then maybe we address it after x amount of weeks, consecutive weeks, or cumulative weeks, sending a letter or something. But really, really, really low priority with regard to proactive versus reactive. I really believe based off of our staffing that we have to be reactive and not proactive. They have a lot on their plate and we don't want to bite off more than we can chew. So I think as a philosophy, we should be reactive. I love the idea of standardizing these letters so they can churn them out quicker and we can document, make their lives a little more simple. The online submission is great, again, so we can have the documentation. Absolutely encourage voluntary compliance. I'm also a little concerned about getting rid of anonymous complaints for the same reasons that Councilman Goebel said. I fear that there could be escalation, retaliation, and then it's going to be over lower priority frivolous things than our already overworked staff is going to be fielding more calls in a neighborhood. And so I don't know that I'm a big proponent of getting rid of the anonymous, I think, requiring a name and phone number or something but then protecting it from the public i think is is completely appropriate so but giving that information out to the public of who reported it i wouldn't be in support of um I love the idea of recording the notices on title, so new homeowners, if it goes up for sale, the disclosures there, there's going to be some accountability for disclosures. Hey, this is out of compliance, this is out of compliance, so new homeowners aren't walking into a trap. I love the idea of an administrative judge, let's do that. And I get a lot of these, I've worked with at least four or five different neighborhoods where there's a home who a senior citizen or an elderly person lived for 20, 30, 40 years, they pass away, and then the home falls into disrepair by relatives living there, there's riffraff, car engines and it's disgusting and dirty trash is piling up. That is reminiscent as well as vacant lots that become a public nuisance. Those I believe we should prioritize, expedite, We get I get calls from neighbors, you know, so and so we loved her. She passed away. Now they're they're they're they're kids are living in the property and it's just we don't feel safe walking past it. They're up all hours of the night. I don't feel so. And then the same with the anecdotally the vacant properties. not securing the site, homeless encampments, not feeling safe, those would be my priority ones. And ultimately, I think we should be the public health and safety immediate risk. The lower the risk to public safety and health, you know, voluntary compliance. We shouldn't be heavy handed, you know, with you're not mowing your lawn, tiny things like that. So there's my feedback. Thank you.

Michelle?

Okay, it's my turn. Thanks, Noah, for the report. A couple of things. First of all, what type of compliance issue do we see the most?

I would say, you know, the trash cans were really the thing that came out when we looked at all of the data. I didn't categorize them by topic area, but you do see a lot of complaints for trash and debris. We do a lot for temporary signage as well, for banners and such.

All right, so going over, and one more question before I go over the discussion points. What do you think contributes to our 95.8% success rate?

I think it's really the patience of Makia and Nicole. So a lot of times when we get to the citation process, we're giving them, right before the citation process starts, we're giving them multiple final warnings and deadlines. And so we try and utilize contracts when possible so that we get at least the property owner to document what their plan is. And so we give them that opportunity. And then if they finally don't live up to their promises to us, that's when we jump to the citation. But we're really careful to try and not go to citation unless there's a clear violation.

Right. OK. That sounds good. My philosophy on this thing is I think we need to kind of stick with what works for the city, staying anonymous and maybe incorporating some of those actions from other cities. So sort of a combination of everything. So if we go down to the trash container enforcement, rather than putting door hangers on, is it something that we can just maybe work with EDCO to put in their billing so it doesn't cost anybody anything extra. The guy picking up the garbage can doesn't have to come out of his truck and hang something on there. I mean, that's a lot more responsibility on the guys that pick it up. So I'm just wondering if maybe we, you know, just something that stays on EDCO's billing saying, hey, don't forget, you got to pick your trash cans and get them back in within, XYZ number of hours or days or whatever. I just think it would kind of cut down on cost and the guys that have to pick up the trash to get out of their vehicle and do that. Because I know my neighbor puts stuff in the wrong cans and my trash guy, he doesn't look through them and to see whether there's recyclables in the garbage or in the The green can. So I'm just trying to make their job easier.

I think there's definitely an opportunity to work with EDCO on their notices because they give out those nice informational sheets about when you have your every six months, you know, your free opportunity to bring a load in. So I think we communicate with them.

Yeah, just sort of an education piece.

But we wouldn't be asking EDCO to put hangers on the trash cans. That would be something that we would do through code compliance. The officers would have those in their vehicles. And if there was that ongoing issue of parking or something else, we could just hang those then.

Okay. Thanks for the clarification on that.

However, we can have EDCO put some information in their next newsletter about, when trash cans should be brought in so we can handle that. We'll reach out to them about that.

All right, property maintenance. When it comes to businesses, absolutely we need to be more stringent. The CVS property on Fletcher Parkway is a prime example of that. Get it cleaned up. But when it comes to residents, I think that We need to work, and I don't know how this would work out, and I brought this up before, is getting organizations that volunteer. You know, if you've got a neighbor who just can't get out there, my neighbor, for example, her husband passed away. If it wasn't for my husband getting out there and mowing her yard, her yard would never get mowed. So if we, maybe we can give, you know, you've had a complaint, Your weeds are three feet high. But here are some places that you might be able to call, and they'll come out and do it for free. JustServe is an organization. There might be somebody else where they have someone come out and mow lawns and do that type of simple maintenance just to kind of keep them up to compliance. And maybe that's something that we can work with other organizations, maybe just putting it out there. You know, it's good for them and they have volunteers that wanna help others and so let's give them opportunities. So that might be something that we can do as far as residents go.

Yeah, we do try and connect people to those resources when it's available. So like recently we had an issue with a single family homeowner that it erected a canopy in their front yard as a carport that they weren't able to keep. who was an elderly couple and didn't have the resources to bring it down. And so we tried to connect them with El Cajon Posse, which is a group that does those types of activities. They ultimately ended up working with their church in order to have some of their friends from church come and help take it down. But we do, based on the specific issue, try and connect those dots. Also work closely sometimes with Shadow Mountain Church where they've offered those services as well. So I'll reach out to them when needed.

That's good. I mean, and it shows that we're not just trying to be the bad guys here. We're not just the government and, you know, here's a citation and here's a warning. that we're trying to give them. And a lot of times they're struggling and dealing with other issues, a spouse died or health issues. They may not have the wherewithal at that moment to think outside the box. Oh, I could contact my church or I could contact this organization. So having a list of suggestions when we go out there, maybe to give that elderly couple or the lady living by herself, hey, here's some suggestions, you know, to kind of help mitigate this issue. Exploited enforcement, I, you know, I agree with that. Just keep going with the direction you're going on that. And I also agree that let's go for the administrative law judge. We don't need to go through superior court. I think it's make it a little bit more, a little less informal or a little less formal. When it comes to businesses, yeah, I'm going to be a little harder on them just because they already have to jump through hoops to become a business. They should know what they're getting into. And there are some that are chronic, let's just say, They chronically fail code compliance issues. We just need to kind of be more diligent on them. And so, yeah. Thank you. That's it.

Everybody's had a lot of good things to say, and I agree with most of them.

I was surprised that 95.8% of these problems are resolved before citations.

I think that's a big win. Maybe one of the reasons that we can afford to have a lot less enforcement officers than some other cities. So you're already doing things very efficiently and I appreciate that. When it comes to the trash cans, I think 24 hours might be a little bit heavy handed and I think it might just put us in a position where we're running around constantly to solve a problem that's going to rectify itself in the next 12 hours anyway. So I can see some latitude and flexibility in that case. But I was just thinking, why couldn't we work with Edco? And when we get a complaint about that, send an email or a text saying, hey, you're your trash can's been out 24 hours, please put it back. I think that might be a very efficient thing to do that can be mostly done through AI.

Yeah, I think we could definitely work with EDCO on opportunities for just some education that we can send out as well as some easy type signs or door hangers that we could use.

Anything we can modernize or we can... would make sense to me. I like the idea of municipal law judge versus the whole rigmarole of a superior court. I think that's less traumatic for the citizen and probably less costly and traumatic for our staff as well. And I do think that We should be looking at ways to really focus on the egregious problems, the ones that are dangerous, the ones that ruin the character of the neighborhood, the people who are belligerent, the people that, we've had so many of these cases over the years. I think we should, saved as much of our time and effort capacity for really pushing hard against that and not so hard against some of the less critical issues that come by. Again, I think that for people that are not keeping up with their landscaping or they've got the resting truck in their front yard, I think that Doing this electronically is probably the easiest way to get this done. Because we already know that once you have a conversation with somebody, 95.8% of them are going to comply. So as much as we can take out of the hands of human beings and put into the hands of humans, I think there it is. Electronic communication is the better, but. Overall, I'm very impressed by the statistics that you gave us and the fact that we are doing it with one officer per 50,000 residents, whereas many of the cities are doing it for as low as one out of 16,000. That's impressive. I would have expected, based upon that, that we would have sent more like a 60% completion record. So you're doing something right. So thank you.

Thank you.

I just wanted to add two more, actually one question. Is it possible to use pictures submitted by neighbors as documentation from the city if it's time stamped? Is that possible to use and will it legally hold up in a superior administrative court?

So typically we want the code compliance officer to observe the violation before issuing a notice. And so if there's a picture that's being taken from someone's yard, we typically ask that resident, can we come to your yard? Can we see if it's visible without looking over the fence? So we try and take that approach. And then if someone wants to use something that they provided to us, we'll ask them if it's okay. But then typically we're just communicating with the complainant with regards to that.

The scenario, my question is born out of a scenario in that these nuisance properties, typically the incidences occur outside of working business hours. neighbors are being woken up at 10, 11, 12, 1, 2 in the morning, and they'll take pictures and they'll take video of the incidences happening. And that can be very strong evidence if we can document that and use it to say, you know, these neighbors have taken pictures and videos of these incidences for two straight months, three nights a week. So I would hope that we could use that evidence submitted by neighbors and that could expedite the citation or the process to have a judge look at declaring it a public nuisance. Does that make sense?

Yes, I would just add that typically if it's like a noise complaint or like a party complaint, those types of issues are being processed through the police department for like late night noise issues. So a lot of times what we're dealing with in backyards maybe is the construction of a structure without permits or maybe someone is living in an RV. So those are a lot of things that we can observe, you know, through aerial imagery, through Google Maps, and we're able to document it without kind of trying to get in the middle between two incidents.

The only other thing I'd like to submit, I know my other colleagues said maybe be a little bit harder on businesses. I'm going to take the opposite approach, especially with small businesses. It's so hard to comply with California law, with a lot of different things. I don't think we should be treating our small businesses that have maybe some, as long as they're frivolous. If it's health and safety, that's a different thing. But it can be very difficult. I know that we had a situation years ago where there was a sandwich board up uh for one of the businesses downtown they were getting code compliance calls on it and i know our code compliance people are that our department worked with them and it's all good but um i would say i don't i from a philosophical standpoint i would not want to come down harder on businesses just because they're businesses. Behind that business is a person, is a family, they're people, they're trying to make it in California, which is one of the most difficult places to run a business, and so that would be my philosophical push.

Steve, go ahead. To pivot a little bit on that, recently we were notified that city staff and county health And code compliance went out to some of these sidewalk vendors in town who aren't permitted, and they are an individual grilling up stuff on the sidewalk and reportedly pouring things into the street. So you must be held accountable for that kind of behavior, even though you're a one-person operation. And if you are just dragging your feet because you're claiming you're a small business, it depends on the situation. There are some businesses who have these flashing lights around their windows. They know they shouldn't be able to do it. They've been told, and they just... don't care about the city and it makes the city look bad that we aren't tough on things that are detrimental to the city. So I think both of our comments can exist in the same space. It depends on the situation.

I think the issue with the sidewalk vendors is that also elevates to more of a life safety issue because they're blocking the sidewalk and they're blocking accessibility for people in wheelchairs as well. So I think that's kind of where it transitions from being a small business to a quality of life issue.

Absolutely. And it's a safety issue. It's a fire issue. When these guys are cooking with grease, And they're dumping grease into the storm drains. We've got legal compliance issues. Absolutely right. It's not just a simple roadside business. It's a health and safety concern.

To back up on Mr. Goebel, they just turn the lights off and they're back in business by 9 o'clock. And they're bold about it. they just come out and say, yeah, we just turned off the lights, come on by, we're still here. So I'm not sure what we can do and how this, what you're looking from us on it, but that's definitely something that I think we should, that has to do with small businesses and those that are trying to skirt regulations.

OK, any more questions?

Can I just say two things in conclusion? I just want to mention there was some talk about graffiti. I just want to remind everyone that on our My El Cajon app, there's the graffiti where you can report graffiti. So a lot of our graffiti gets taken care of by urban core through a contract. So our code compliance officers, when they're out in the field, they're taking pictures and reporting graffiti on the app so that it can be covered up. So it's not something that code compliance is directly addressing.

Well, that's true for public property. Urban Core does. But on private property, it does become a code enforcement issue because it's private property. There's a property at 1329-ish Main. That empty lot, that graffiti is, doggone, that's been up there for a month. And that stuff, those letters are like eight feet tall on a shipping container. So I don't know, speaking of cracking down on businesses, I don't know why people who drive East Main every day have to look at these eight foot tall graffiti letters and what is, there's more to the story, but Urban Core doesn't go onto private property, to my knowledge, unless there's a permission letter.

That's my understanding. We will take a look at 1329 East Main Street and get that taken care of. Thank you. Just the last thing that I wanted to say in closing is I just want to give a big thanks to both McKee and Nicole. They did a great job in working with me on this presentation, really helping me put together a lot of the data and taking the time to go on those site visits. So I just really wanted to acknowledge and appreciate all of their effort in this process.

Thank you, ladies. Excellent work.

Thank you, Noah. Thanks, Noah. We appreciate your work as well.

And council, we're bringing back a vacant lot policy. It's part of the city council action plan that's coming back to you sometime in the next month or two.

All right, we've already done the public comment, so it's back to the council. Seems like we discussed this pretty well, but if somebody would like to make a motion to accept the report. So moved. Second. All right, move and second, please vote.

Motion carries by unanimous vote of those present.

The last administrative report on today's agenda, item 11, is a report on complimentary tickets to the Magnolia. I'll ask staff to introduce the item. Same thing.

Okay to go.

Okay.

All right. Good afternoon, Honorable Mayor and City Council. My name is Ryan Villegas. I'm a Senior Management Analyst in the City Manager's Office, and today's presentation is on the City's complimentary ticket distribution for passes to the Magnolia. So this report came about from the 2026 City Council Goals and Priorities Workshop from last year. A request was made that staff explore a possible program for distributing some of the tickets the city receives at the Magnolia to city residents. So City Council Policy 828 guides the distribution of city tickets and passes. It conforms to the FPPC Section 8944.1, I was adopted in 2009 as it related to the East County Performing Arts Center and then it was revised in 2019 with the anticipated opening of the Magnolia. So essentially complimentary tickets are to be distributed by the city manager or a designee for public or governmental purposes and no disproportionate distribution of passes should be happening to any single recipient. So 829 stipulates several public and governmental purposes. The full list is within the policy, which is an attachment to this report. Here are some examples from that list, some of which are current practices that the city already does. So we have the promotion of city-controlled community programs, events and engagement, promotion of local and regional businesses, economic development and tourism activities within the city, We have promotion of programs and resources available to city residents, including nonprofit organizations and youth programs. And then there is employment retention programs, such as drawings raffles, which aim to support overall employee morale. And there's also marketing promotions, highlighting achievements of local residents and businesses. So the agreement between the city and Live Nation entitles the city to 300 tickets per year, not to exceed 10 tickets per single Live Nation sponsored events. And this entitlement does not apply for rentals and special events. So when there's like the dance recitals or the Nutcracker that usually comes in December. So those are actually rentals. So they're just renting the facility. So these tickets are not applied for that. And some current practices that the city does. We have So sometimes we'll offer tickets to the manager of the Magnolia, who will have a booth at city events like a Haunt Fest or Americon Main Street or concerts in the park. And she'll raffle them off or do giveaways to promote the venue. We've offered tickets to downtown El Cajon or the PBID for promotions at past events. And they've also had giveaways on their social media. And then we do have the employee raffle that happens every other month. employees can enter for a chance to win two tickets to an event, and then if they win, then they're ineligible for the next raffle, and then they can apply for the one after that. All right, so staff researched other agencies that have similar distribution practices. The city of Pasadena has the Rose Bowl. They receive tickets from the Rose Bowl Association, who puts on the parade in the Rose Bowl football game. Council members there hold district specific lotteries that residents from their districts can enter. Residents must verify their district residency and they use an online verification system for the whole program. Anaheim has several different venues for which complimentary tickets can be distributed. There it's focused on as a community engagement and recognition tool, focused on nonprofits and business contributions to the city. And then the city of Chula Vista, Um, their agreement for their amphitheater that they have down there, um, their agreement stipulates 12 tickets per event, and then, um, those tickets are distributed in pairs to each of the four city, uh, affiliated foundations. They have the Police Foundation, Fire, Library, and Animal Care Foundation. And then the remaining two pairs are offered to nonprofits who are located within the city, and then if there's any tickets remaining after that, then the city, um, has, uh, employees can enter for a drawing. All right, so to conclude, so this item was 2026 City Council Goal and Priority. Policy 828 guides the distribution of tickets and passes. We talked about the practices that the city currently does with those tickets, and then we also looked at a few agencies that have other practices that focus on residential lottery. There's community recognition programs, and then there's also nonprofit and city affiliate organizations. And with that, so the staff's recommendation is that the city council accept the report and provide feedback on potential updates to the city council policy 828. And I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you very much for your report. Thank you. Okay, questions?

Steve? When the city manager's office gives tickets out in a raffle or something, what if those go unused, the person doesn't claim them? Does that still count against our 300?

It does but staff can return the tickets back to the Magnolia so that it doesn't so it goes back towards the 300 It goes sorry the microphone. Oh, sorry So any unused tickets I can send back over to Paris over at the Magnolia and so they'll go back in to be sold but they will but It won't count against the 300 because it will have return the tickets sounds good.

Thanks And I'll also point out there are some Live Nation events that we don't put up for raffle. So if there's something that we think it's going to be a sellout because we're trying to also balance our bottom line as well, a lot of times we don't put those out for consumption.

Okay. All right, thanks. We'll call you back if we need you. Any public comment on this? Only one from Truth.

I'm glad the Magnolia provides tickets for residents. That's nice. My only concern is the district giveaways. Having a council member in charge of who gets the ticket sounds like it could lead to kind of political favoritism, kickback, especially if you were to give to nonprofits. It just sounds like a red flag to me. If the tickets were raffled at city-sponsored events, there could be an avoidance of playing politics. Even if the police or the firefighters raffle the tickets, it'd be better than council members individually distributing tickets to whoever they want to. Because maybe the council now is all great people, but at some point it may not be that. I hope that never happens, but it could happen. So I prefer the city's current ticket policy of city events, community member recognition events, businesses, and to hardworking employees. If there's some reason to change it, it was not made clear. because I go with the old standard, if it ain't broke, government doesn't need to fix it. Thank you.

Thank you. Is that comments?

No other comments, sir.

Okay, back to council. Anybody have any thoughts on this?

Steve? I'd like to suggest for discussion a more purposeful distribution to get some value out of this. And my thought, I recognize, boy, I agree. If we were in charge of giving things out, just the perception of who we give them out to just, it wouldn't go right. So to give them to individuals is just too burdensome administratively. But what I'm gonna suggest is that we have three buckets. A third, a third, a third. A third goes to businesses in El Cajon. It's their presence, it's their service which helped fund operations. Now, how do you select those businesses? That's up to you. It could be the highest sales tax producers in the city. It could be the newest. It could be the largest in terms of employees. You get to decide. But the idea is if we give tickets to these companies and the companies decide which employees, the employee loves their company because... They got free tickets. The company loves El Cajon because we acknowledge them for their contribution to the city. So that's my first bucket, businesses. My second bucket is NGOs, non-governmental organizations. In the same way, if we gave some tickets to the NGOs and you decide who, they can give them to their volunteers, they could give them to their supporters, And now their volunteers are happy that they volunteered with that organization. Their supporters are happy that they support that organization because they've been recognized. And that charity is happy with El Cajon because we recognize their work. That's the second bucket. The third bucket is the existing bucket for the city manager on the three points on page one, which was the employee morale, the raffle tickets, and I forget the third point, downtown alcohol business partners. Because they do pay assessments to the PBID for things that benefit the city, so it'd be great if they could So that's my three buckets, businesses, NGOs, and the existing city manager pool, third and third and third.

Oh, go ahead, Mr. Mayor. No, please. Okay. I like our distribution method right now. I don't like the idea of selecting specific businesses or nonprofits to give it to that that feels like it could be there could be accusations of favoritism i think we have to stick with raffles um randomized i had i had at one point the season tickets to the padres and trying to get rid of tickets that i couldn't go to for my clients was such a monumental task for some reason getting people to to get these unused tickets so i know I can imagine it's somewhat reflective of that. And so I don't want staff spending a ton of time trying to use these tickets. I think what we're doing works well. If we think it's going to sell out, don't touch it. Let them go to market. Let's sell it. If we know it's not going to sell out and there's an accumulation of tickets, then let's try and plan ahead to get them to... raffle out events get them get them to our employees offer them to our employees um city events giveaways i don't know maybe if we want to have residents do an online you know online form hey you submit this form to be in a raffle for tickets in the future and then we randomize that so it's all Randomized I want to stick to the randomization and not the city choosing people to businesses or organizations to give it to Maybe they yeah anyways randomized that that would be my only feedback Michelle I

One question I'd like to ask the city manager, you're the one who asked to kind of deal with this. What would be the most logical thing to do in your opinion?

I do worry about there's still a level of fairness by raffling them out via the internet because not everyone has access to the internet. It just, I don't know, there may just be some fairness there. I don't mind the idea of giving it out to the business community, but I can understand Mr. Ortiz's concern, which business? Is it the businesses that I bought a car at? It becomes, then people make accusations of that, and so I worry about that, but there are business organizations in this community, Chambers of Commerce, the PBID, those are organizations that we could support and get them to distribute them in a different way. But we can figure out, however council wants to direct, we can figure out a way to manage some of those issues. And remember, this is direction to bring back a modified 828 policy. So we'll take your feedback and we'll bring something back a little bit more formal and that may help you flush some more things out and we can have some more meat on the bones. But those are some of my thoughts.

This is something that I don't want staff spending a ton of time on. Come up with something, try and do our best, and if it's not 100% successful with regard to using all 300 tickets, that's okay. We got bigger fish to fry, yeah.

My opinion, would be, I kind of like to see the city manager just retain control of this and do what he sees fit by giving it to the Chamber of Commerce or the school district or whoever he feels. As I, That's what we've done so far, right?

Correct. I think we can do a better job at getting it out to more organizations. And if that's the direction from the council or the feedback, I don't think we need to change 829. We'll just implement sort of that general direction if that's where the council wants to go.

Does anybody have any objections to that? Say that one more time.

We'll continue the existing policy, but we'll work better to get tickets out a little bit more broadly than we have in the past. I heard an example, school district. I don't think we've ever given tickets to the school district. Chamber of Commerce. I think we can spread the net out a little bit wider without creating a lot of work to do that.

You might consider putting something on the website that says if there's a particular show that you or your organization would like to Ask if there's any extra tickets for it. Please put it down. We'll contact you if that's available.

I mean, this is $15,000 worth of tickets, 300 tickets at $50 a piece. And I think what we're trying to say is don't get bogged down by administrative burden, but let's get $15,000 of value back into the community.

Correct. But what we wouldn't want to do is spend $15,000 in staff time to get out the tickets, right? So we're trying to balance that, so that's helpful. Absolutely. Excellent. Thank you for that feedback, Council.

Okay. Thank you, sir. Appreciate that. There are no commission reports on today's agenda. Item 12 is my activities report. Now we're at activity reports of council members, Council Member Goebel.

As reported with some comments, thank you to staff for the Hammershaw Speed Mitigation Project, all departments that participated in that. I think it's showing some good results already. Thank you to the staff who addressed some Hammershaw parking issues out by Gustavo. There were some RVs dumping, Waste from their RVs into the green belt and the streets Thank you for ticketing semi cabs around the street. We're parking and blocking and actually I saw There was a semi on Hammershaw and cars were changing lanes to get out around it So it was eventually ticketed and it's not there anymore. Thank you. Thank you to staff for the e-bike response These swarms have become an issue in every city in the county, it seems like, and so thank you for the response, including the clever use of drones to follow them, find them. Overall, the city looks very good. The condition of the streets and sidewalks and things looks very good. You know, we don't often hear or talk about finance, but finance does a good job. So kudos to finance for, you know, when we don't hear about you, that means you're doing a good job. So kudos to you. HR, we don't really talk about HR that much. You got us through some contracts. Good job. That's all. Phil?

As reported with one comment at the Gillespie Field Committee, EDC Committee meeting today, we got an update that the Bradley Bridge expansion is gonna start in the spring of 2027, is that right, Nate? Spring of 2027, so we're getting there. And that's it, as reported, other than that. Special?

As reported.

Okay, there are no joint council member reports, general information items, and no first readings of ordinances, and no closed sessions on today's agenda. So that brings us to adjournment, the regular joint meeting of the El Cajon City Council, El Cajon Housing Authority, successor agency to the El Cajon Redevelopment Agency held this 11th day of August, 2026 is adjourned until September 8th, 2026 at three o'clock p.m. Thank you very much. Have all of August off.