City Council - Regular Meeting

¶¶ Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. ¶. ¶¶ Thank you.

Okay, we'll go ahead and start our study session. First on public comments, are there any requests to speak?

Only on the item number four on study session, the information on procedure for public comments.

Okay, great. So first item is City of Fount Valley Liability Workers Compensation Insurance Discussion presentation by Risk Manager Heather Campbell. Welcome.

item at a previous closed session council had requested information on the city's liability and workers comp insurance through the california joint powers insurance authority and the possibility of entering their primary program for one or both coverages so for this presentation cjpa will give a brief overview of fountain valley's partnership with the jpia and how we're doing and then i'll go over a breakdown of our claims for each program And then the comparison of premium costs, the excess that we're currently in, and the estimate for the primary. So from the CJPA, we have Paul Zeglovich, Alex Malor, and Lucy Brockmeyer. So they're going to present really quick. And if you have any questions, they're also here to answer questions.

Welcome. All right. Thank you, Heather. Good afternoon. My name is Alex Meller. I'm the Risk Services Director with the California Joint Powers Insurance Authority. And I'm going to kick things off today. Keep it brief, and then I'll turn it over to my colleague Lucy. I have to say though, before we begin, I was really expecting more people here for this, the risk and insurance presentation, but maybe next time. Right. Whoops. Okay, so we have some slides here for you. So we thought that it would be wise just to start off with a brief overview of who the California JPIA is and what we do. So we are a municipal self insurance pool. We have approximately 128 members across the entire state. And primarily what we do is we provide insurance coverage for our members. We provide liability and workers' compensation insurance. These are our two pooled programs, meaning that any losses that members in these pools experience are shared amongst the entire pool, which is beneficial, of course, if you are an agency that experiences a rather large claim. It is nice to have the ability to spread that cost out amongst the entire pool rather than paying the entire cost yourself. Beginning with our property program here on the slides and going down to our special events program, these are what we call our group purchase programs. So these are programs for which we go out to the insurance marketplace and we buy an insurance policy. That covers any members that choose to participate in those particular lines of coverage. I mentioned that we have approximately 128 members. We primarily cover small to medium sized cities. We also have 19 JPAs and seven special districts. We cover pretty much the entire state. border with Mexico in the south, the Imperial County, and then as far north as Mono County. I think I'm missing a slide here, but that's okay. I can speak to it myself. So while the primary reason that we have members is so that we can make available coverage when those members experience losses, we're very focused on helping members prevent losses. And so we have many different programs that are designed to help you more effectively manage risk so for example we have an employment practices hot hotline so if the city is dealing with a particularly sensitive hr issue and you aren't really sure about the best way to address that you can call and receive guidance A couple of other things I'll highlight. We also have a sidewalk inspection and maintenance program. This, of course, you can tell by its name, is a program that makes available resources to help members regularly inspect and maintain sidewalks. And then one of the programs that I'll highlight is our cybersecurity program. This makes available resources and funding to members to help members stress test their cyber security posture. And so that's just kind of a brief overview of what we do. I'm going to pause for a second there. Any questions I can answer so far?

Any questions of council? No, I think you're good.

All right, well then with that, I'm going to turn it over to my colleague Lucy. And Lucy is going to give an overview of some of the specific ways that we have worked with the city recently, as well as some financial data.

Actually, sorry, may I ask a question? Alex, can you expand on your selection of members to the JPAA?

Yes, that's a great question. Thank you, Maggie. So we're very selective when it comes to members. We are looking for members who are going to positively contribute to the community that we have developed, meaning that we want members who are proactively managing risk, who are being mindful about that. And when Fountain Valley was interested in coming back to join us in 2023 that was something that really stood out to us maggie maggie's team are very very focused on risk they understand the importance of managing it to the maximum extent possible and so maggie i think it's fair to say that the fit between fountain valley and jpia has been a really good one i think we were with you in the past can you tell us the history why we left Sure, I might actually defer to Maggie on that. I think Maggie has got that history.

So it was our former city manager who made that determination without consulting with the team and so that was the extent that we know. But the minute I received this position, I knew the benefit being with JPA and how selective they are with its member and also all the training resources that are available to the team that we lost during those years that we were away from JPIA.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Hi thank you I've actually been here before in 2023 so I don't remember if you were all here but good to see you again if you were my name is Lucy Brockmeyer I am your designated senior risk manager so anything that you need you come to me with a question and I try to magically make it appear so that is my role since joining since coming back to the California JPIA in 2023 the city has made broad use of the California JPI's resources. Here listed on the PowerPoint are some of the different resources and things that I've worked with with the city. I'm not going to go over each one. Obviously, you guys can read those. But the examples listed here show a wide range of support that's been provided. Also to add to something that Alex had mentioned is we offer a lot of resources that the city really enjoys and takes advantage of. One example was our mental health reimbursement for police and fire. That was a new resource that we launched, and it gave the city up to $15,000 in reimbursement for both police and fire. So that was a total of $30,000. So you guys are great at using our resources and reaching out and making sure that you know what's going on with the JPA, which is great. I enjoy that. Here are some of the different risk management partnership examples that we've had. They included some major construction contracts, some police procedures, and we have special consultants that we're able to reach out to that are able to help with this. So it's not just me doing the work and checking with ChatGPT. Okay, it's actually a live consultant who's able to assist with that. We also do facility inspections. You guys had a recent Cal OSHA compliance matter that came up. So we actually had one of our consultants come out and do a full site inspection for that area and provide additional feedback so that if there were any corrective actions from Cal OSHA, you were able to address them in advance. so this is i'm very proud of this fountain valley actually received the 2026 liability risk management award for municipalities with law enforcement the selection process was from 17 different members that made it to the top and basically it was based on lost experience the risk management efforts participation in our training program and also participation in our loss prevention programs And there are six, seven different program managers, seven different people that vote. And basically, you guys received almost every single vote. Only one program manager that you don't work closely with because they didn't know who you were. So I'm sorry that it wasn't 100% unanimous, but you guys got six of the votes.

I think that was property, and we're not part of that. So I think it's fair to say. Yeah.

uh heather was very upset wanting to know who it was i said heather there's nothing personal it's purely based on the numbers so this is our liability benchmarking basically you can see here that Fountain Valley has a really good three-year loss rate. It's substantially below the pool average. If you see, the pool average is a 6.04, and Fountains Valley is a 2. And the other two agencies next to Fountain Valley, Monrovia and Paso Robles, also have a higher rate than Fountain Valley, and they're also members with both police and fire. So we wanted to have like agencies so that you could see and compare yourselves to others. And with workers comp though, that is a little different story, but also want to point out that the driving factor is the 23, 24 year. So with workers comp these claims have a long life. They're not what I would I don't know if Paul would agree with the liability is simple But they tend to be shorter life claims We can probably sell them sometimes in six months to maybe no more than two years But workers comp has a potential of being open for the life of the employee And so those are always a little bit more hard to predict and determine what will actually happen with them in growth-wise. But if you see, Fountains Valley's three-year rate is 5.61 versus the pool average is 2.84. And the other two members with like exposure also have a lower exposure rate than Fountain Valley. Any questions?

Yeah, questions for you. So since we came back in 2023, like you said, our workers' comp, you know, average is a little bit higher than others. But since we've been back with GPIs for three years, has GPI offered any workers' comp training or look at our workers' comp where we're at?

So we offer our workers come symposium on an annual basis and you guys do attend that and then our Program manager Jeff works closely with the city and with our TPA Athens to monitor the claims. So we're always focusing on that.

And so you say annually, right? And doing 23, 24, 24, 25, any improvement have you seen or there's a risk that you saw that we could have improved? What's your analysis on that?

So the reported loss rate for the two most recent years is actually considerably lower. So I did have that, but I skipped it.

I just wanted to mention as well, part of workers' comp training is the prevention. So we do that through safety training. And through JPIA, we do, I think we're up to 40 to 45 trainings a year for our employees on safety matters. And there are broad ones open to all employees and ones that are very niche specific to the job. So we do take advantage of those, and those are free through the JPIA. So we are making sure we're doing those every year to help prevent workers' comp claims for some of these injuries.

Yeah, and even the facility inspections are also key. Even though most people see it as a liability factor, your employees are inside the facilities, right, your staff. And so having good facilities, having those inspections conducted and addressing the hazard is going to assist if that's what's leading to any type of injury.

What's the most common thing you get from a workers' comp or a liability? Is it a slip and fall?

Trips and falls, yes. Sidewalk hazards are key. We get a lot of those. A lot of repetitive motion, cumulative trauma type of claims normally when it comes to workers' comp, especially when you're dealing with PD and fire. Over time, if you have the holster in the proper position, the weight, it can affect the back and the body posture, potentially the hip. And so you have a lot of different factors with the human body that sometimes you don't know how a specific person's body, their own physical, will react to the work that they're performing. Any other questions I can answer?

Thank you so much for your presentation. We really appreciate it.

so we'll go maybe oops there we go okay so um as mentioned as part of the presentation we're in the jpia's excess liability program so for liability that means we have a 300 000 sir so each year the city pays the excess premium and then we pay the first three hundred thousand dollars of every claim that we have So this is a breakdown of our claims since fiscal year 23-24, since we came back to the JPIA, broken down by type and then total number of claims. So we've only had three in the past three fiscal years that have hit our SIR. So this is just a quick breakdown so you can see the types of claims that we're getting. Other is kind of those random ones that have nothing to do with us and that we usually immediately reject. So that's why that number is a little high. so to compare um the this chart shows a breakdown in comparison of the costs associated with being part of the excess program and then oh it's not fitting is there a way to make that smaller so we can see the whole thing It shows our total annual premium in column three that we're paying right now as part of the excess program. And if you go to the second to last column, total annual cost, dollar one primary, that's the estimate the JPIA has provided us if we were part of their primary program meeting the first dollar of any claim, they would start covering it. So for each of the three years, you can see we've actually saved money being part of the excess liability program, and we're actually each year saving more and more money. So we're doing pretty well with that. If we had been a part of the primary program in the past three years, or actually four years if we count this coming year, we would have paid almost $5.5 million in premiums. And right now we've been paying $2.365 million. So a pretty big savings for liability. Any questions about the liability program? That one's a little more straightforward. Work comp is a little more complicated.

Absolutely.

Thank you. Can you go back to the fly? Sure. Thank you. So 23 to 26, so far, like you said, we paid, what, projected 27, 2.3, right? Yes. The total premium. And if we were part of the workers' comp, it would have been 5.4? No, this is liability. Oh, liability.

Liability program.

Okay.

so yeah the excess we've paid 2.36 million but if we're part of the primary it'd be almost 5.5 million in annual uh premium costs okay so being a part of the excess program we've actually saved 1.8 million um not being in the primary program okay

And I guess the next slide will be the workers' comp.

Yes, I separated them because they're very different. So again, this chart kind of shows a breakdown of the types of claims and the number of claims for each year. You'll see in fiscal year 23-24, we did have a high number of claims. That contributes to that high dollar amount, why that year we have such a high cost. So we are seeing a decrease in the number of claims that are being filed. And then same thing on this slide. The third column over is our current annual premiums being a part of the excess program. Our self-insured retention is $750,000 for workers' comp. which is pretty common when you have police and fire and then the second to last column is the premium that we would pay if we were part of the primary program so the only year we would have saved money would have been 2324 That's because we had a lot of claims. We had one catastrophic claim. But every other year we've been saving money. But overall, the past three years combined, we've saved money being part of the excess program. So these are just some figures. The estimate for this year, we paid $488,709 in our excess premium. If we'd been part of the primary, it would have been $2.4 million just in the insurance premium. Any questions on this one? So basically, we're seeking council direction. Staff recommendation is to allow council to have more accurate, comprehensive views of the trends that we have in our insurance premiums and the claim costs. We recommend waiting until we have a full five years of data. Then that way we can really see the losses. We have time for claims to settle. So we'll actually have a more accurate view of each fiscal year and how much we've paid under the excess program. I think right now we just don't have enough data to do so. But it is a valid question. We do need to keep up on that trend to make sure we're in the right program.

And the only reason why you need additional data because it's only now that having you on board as the risk analysis, you start closing out those claim because it has been open.

We are in the process of closing out many claims right now. I was just talking to Dave Thomas. We have confirmation. We're closing out, I believe it's eight claims from one person we've settled. We are in the process of closing about 10 more. Um, so we are constantly trying to close out those claims. So we do have 87 open claims, but those run the gambit. We have some of them are, I think 54 of them are for retired employees. We're trying to settle those out. make sure we get the liability off the city a lot of the ones are just future medical only for our current employees which is like a zero percent permanent disability rating just because they work with us still we just keep the future medical open so we are constantly trying to close out those claims so we limit our liability

So my question for you is for those claims that are still open out there and then you try to close those claim out, are you able to foresee the cost of those projections future closeout claim? Because if those 87 claim and you project close them out, it's going to be way more than having with the three data now and it make more sense to have now than pay them out at that time because we pay most of it already.

Yes, well, those 87 claims, like I said, some of them are exposure only. We pay a couple hundred dollars. Some of them are a few thousand dollars, and some of them we can't close out because they're current employees. The retired employees, we are trying to settle them. We have kind of priced it out to see, but again, they're all not going to. The dollar amount the way they do the loss runs is they put that amount we pay in the year the claim was filed, so it's not going to be all. If we settled them all in 2627, it's not going to all be counted in that year towards our premium, so I don't know. Lucy could probably explain that a little bit better. but some claims we are not going to close because it's not cost effective some are way too expensive and some are way too minimal that we don't want to pay 50 000 to someone who just needs hearing aids every couple of years so there are some that we strategically do not close some the employees don't want to do a compromise and release and we can't force them that's their choice to do so we do constantly look through the logs i work with athens and JPIA to see, can we close this? Is it cost effective? And we see what we can do to kind of get that liability off the city.

Okay.

Do you want Lucy to explain the lost runs and how they're calculated a little better?

I thought, I mean, I'm on the private sector side. If I close that year on the workers' comp, my next year, my workers' comp goes up. So I'm not sure how it's not calculated.

So the way it works is we're looking at, for example, 23-24. So if you have a workers' comp claim open, that claim can be open for 10 years. But all of the costs associated to that claim is going to go back into your 23-24 bucket, basically, for that fiscal year. So even though you're making payments throughout the life of the claim, All of the costs of that claim, we're going to still put it back into 2324. So let's say we're looking at the city on a 10 year basis. and you close a claim from 22, and 10 years from now is 2016. Okay, sorry, my bad. So let's say you're settling a claim from 2016. That payment, we're not going to technically use it to reflect your actual loss exposure. And so even in the private sector, it's the same process. Most companies normally go with, like, maybe the state fund. I don't know which carrier you have. But they would be doing the same thing. So if you're $1, it's going to be different because you're only going to see the claims growing, but there's no money coming out of your pocket, right? Because you paid your premium, and that premium covers the cost of that claim, period. And in California, statutorily speaking, it doesn't matter what the claim cost. They have to pay it. It could be a $5 million claim. Your insurance company is still going to pay it. because it's statutory requirements. There are no limits when it comes to workers' comp. And one of the complexities when it comes to doing settlements is age of the employee that's going to require medical set aside i'm not sure if you're familiar with that process but that's money technically that we have to separate and say medicare is going to need access to that and so there's a lot of complexities if the employee is still with you you don't want to do a compromise and release because they can get re-injured and now you have another claim so now you're expanding your exposure so a lot of this is looking and seeing How do you want to limit your exposure? Do you want to increase it with a medical set aside or are you okay just leaving it open and having the reserves there and then potentially every year if the employee is not treating then they're reviewing the reserves and then they start to decrease the reserves. So eventually the claim can stay administratively open with no reserves. Did I make sense? Okay, because I might start getting too technical. Yeah. Any other questions or another explanation?

Okay. Does council have any direction or?

Let's hear from councilman.

Vice Mayor Harper, you're up. Thank you. Yeah, so I think we have, you know, it says you want to wait until you have five years of data. I mean, we have five years of data. You could just go back to 2022 and 21, right?

We can't because we were with a different insurance authority. We were with PRISM, so the data would not be accurate. So it would be something that JPIA can't give us insurance premiums based off of what we did with PRISM. So we can't forecast what our future premiums are going to be using that. So that's why JPIA, this was kind of a special project for them to figure out The estimate for the premiums for the past three fiscal years and this current one.

Okay. Yeah. So then the other thing that we might look at is looking at a lower SIR, seeing how it affects the premium. So maybe not down to zero, but maybe $500,000 if it would. And, you know, leave it up to you to make that determination and JPIA if it makes sense. Okay.

that's something we can definitely look at with the jpia i don't recommend that for liability because our sir is still low plus liability we do save a lot of money we would technically have to hit our sir seven times in the same year for it to be cost effective to be in the primary program for liability work comp we can explore lower sir i can work with lucy and see if that's maybe something that we can look at possibly for next year, I think your renewal period, they start asking us around December. So maybe we can ask their finance to see a lower SIR for work comp. We can definitely do that.

But I just want to also take this opportunity to say congratulations on the risk, winning the risk award. That reflects really well on Fountain Valley of EU and the RIC and the risk management team really done a great job. So congratulations.

Thank you. Can I ask you a question? How do you determine the five-year mark data? Why is it five years? Why could it be three years? It would be seven years.

It could be seven years. I think it shouldn't be less than five years just because, especially for work comp, because especially with PD and fire, those claims last for a long time. So if you only do a few years, you're going to see a lot of claims that aren't closed out. So if we give at least five years, then we really start closing out a lot of those claims. If we give it a little longer, it'll be even more accurate. But right now, I just don't feel – well, with the data we have right now, we're saving money being in the excess for both programs.

Got it. I understand. I just want to know how you come up with a year. As a private sector, we want workers' comp insurance right away. We don't want to wait until data. Yes. That's what I'm trying to figure out.

We are constantly tracking the trends and the benchmarks, and we will obviously bring it back to council if we're starting to see a huge increase in our costs. But I would like to wait for five years. Just again, we have some larger claims that are in the process of closing out. And then, like Lucy said, those reserves will even out to whether they need to decrease or increase. And so we'll have more accurate numbers about what our out-of-pocket costs are for each fiscal year to make sure we know if we are saving money, especially for work comp.

That makes sense.

Thank you. Councilman Granis?

Yeah, no, I'm good with the five years. Let's do the five years. And it's not just cost. There's a lot of other intangibles they're providing that we take benefits of that is preventing cost. So I'm good. Councilman McCloskey?

Sure. Well, congratulations again, Heather and Rick. Very well deserved for the award. And I think it was, I can't remember when it was, I just recently did the workplace harassment prevention for local agency officials training on my tablet, and it was very, very beneficial. JPIA makes it very, very easy, and they offer lots of training, conferences, and more. And so I'm happy. Thank you. Thank you. Great reporting, too.

Yeah, congratulations. Thank you to JPIA for tonight's presentation, and I think we have pretty much a consensus from staff that your recommendation should be carried out, so thank you.

Okay, thank you very much.

Okay, next we're going to move into short-term rentals. City enforcement strategy and fiscal year 2425 OC grand jury report recommendation presentation by neighborhood improvement manager Ashlyn Newman. Welcome.

Thank you, good afternoon Mayor Cooney and council. So this afternoon, I'd like to talk to you a little bit about short-term rentals in the city. Both what we're doing in code enforcement and grand jury report that came out last year with some recommendations on how cities should assess their short-term rental program. So at council's direction, we're coming back to discuss our city program and then additionally the grand jury reporting. And I wanted to do just a little timeline of what we've done so far. So back in November 22, um, the, the ordinance was passed prohibiting short-term rentals in the city. Immediately we contracted with an agency that's called Host Compliance. But it goes out and it searches all the hosting platforms and gives us a list of the locations in the city that are advertising short term rentals. So immediately we had 180 on that list. So we sent out first notices to abate. We also put out a lot of public education. We set up a complaint form on our website so residents could complain directly to code enforcement about alleged short-term rentals in their neighborhoods. We contacted the online hosting platforms, let them know they're prohibited in the city of Fountain Valley, and asked for their help making sure that nothing was advertised from Fountain Valley in there. In February, we sent out the second round of notice to abate letters from everybody that didn't comply. And in the meantime, people were giving us new addresses. So it wasn't a one time deal, it was rolling. Code enforcement was busy sending out letters constantly. So by March 23, we had 75% compliance. So that means 50% of the advertisements dropped off the hosting platforms, and about 25% of them changed to 30 night or more rentals. And that left us with about 25% that we were continuing to pursue. So the admin site process began. Code enforcement wrote admin sites. Many of those appealed, so we had appeal hearings for a lot of those. And that involved the city attorney's office, code enforcement, myself, the director. July, August we got up to about 85% compliance and a year later we only had seven short term rentals advertised in the city. So I looked this afternoon and we have six now and that number runs between about two and six and code enforcement has open cases on those. So currently, there's two ways that we receive complaints. One, it might be identified by the software, and that's very much the easiest because the act of just advertising on the platform is a violation in itself. So code enforcement will send out an NTA letter, which is notice to abate. If it's still listed, they'll send a follow-up letter. In between there, they try to contact people. If they still can't get any response, then it goes into the admin site process. And again, much easier to enforce because we can just copy the listing that's on like Airbnb or VRBO or something and attach that to the site and that's a violation. Then we get complaints from residents who know their neighbors are running a short-term rental. We can't find it on any of our hosting platforms. Code enforcement may knock on the door. They don't get any response. The owner says, no, I'm not running a short-term rental. So if the reporting party will not testify as to what they've seen then an administrative citation can't be issued so a lot of times when we get complaints from people and you may also get the complaints of code enforcement's not doing anything well they are doing something they're sitting on the house they're knocking on the door they're trying to come up with some sort of information that the city attorney's office finds acceptable that we can write an administrative site but if we can't gather that evidence then we can't write the site So if nobody wants to testify, if the code enforcement officer can't find anything, the case has to be closed. A lot of times those get opened again because somebody else might call and then we go through the entire process again. Those are very time consuming as you could tell.

Actually, you mentioned 24, there were seven, right? And then now there's six. Are those six same address as the seven or different?

No, they'll close and some of them will get them to close and then six months later it'll pop back up. And then we start all over again.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, they're rolling, revolving. And here's our citations. So our regular admin sites are 100, 300, and 500. But for STRs, we bump up to 1,000, 3,000, 5,000. If we can't get any compliance after receiving three citations, it goes over to the city attorney's office. And a lot of times when property owners get a letter that comes from the city attorney's letterhead, that makes them stop. They won't listen to us, but they'll listen to the city attorney. Or if they don't, then they'll continue to be cited or the city attorney's office will take them to court to try to get them to abate. So a lot of our challenges are properties that aren't listed on the traditional platforms. Maybe they're on a non-English speaking platform, or I believe there's some sort of platform out there for youth groups. Because a lot of people will call and say, oh, it must have been a basketball team. There's 10 tall guys that went in. So there's some other platforms that are available that we're not privy to. Also, if a reporting party won't testify, we can't write an admin site if the code enforcement officer can't come up with any information. And then the big one is staffing. Code enforcement just does not have the time to sit on a house, particularly when they're available during the day. The people at the Airbnb or the short terminals are probably out doing something. So nobody answers the door, they can't sit there all day. So a lot of our problems is that we don't have nighttime staffing. And a lot of people are savvy. They won't open their doors, or they know the name of the property owner, and they'll say, yeah, I'm at my friend Bill Smith's house. When you look at the property owner, it says Bill Smith, but the neighbors know that these people are short term renters. They're not friends of the owners. So did anyone have questions on what we're doing?

Any questions, Councilman Constantine?

I do, actually. Since the letterhead from our attorney for the city provides a tremendous credibility weight, is there anything we can do to, instead of having the challenges that we may have that are very, very time consuming and staff consuming, have a letter from the attorney for the city at some point just kind of doing a reminder. You know what I'm saying? taking action at that point exactly but just maybe reminding of our policy or just something that we can put in writing just in conjunction with the attorney for the city so then maybe we won't have what we have sometimes.

It's something we can look into. In our letters, it does say that you will be referred for further legal action to our city attorney's office. No, and I get that. It's just that you've said, too, with the letterhead. But it possibly is something we could discuss of having a standard letter in there that has, yeah, I can look into that. Perfect. Thank you. Great report, too.

Councilman Granis. So for those that are still doing it when they shouldn't be, they're collecting occupancy tax. Are any of them paying it?

We are not getting anything. We don't have a program set up to collect it or anything.

Well, I think that takes it to the next level of, I don't want to say, I don't know, I'm not a lawyer, criminal, but it sure seems criminal if you don't pay your taxes.

And they're collecting it, so- Then they'd have to admit they're running a short term rental.

Exactly. yeah so which kind of lends me into this some grand jury report so back in 24-25 the grand jury did the report long-term solutions to short-term rentals and they I'm sorry before you get to that one other question is on the same line of thinking what if we made short-term rentals a hundred percent tax so this way if somebody did that we could go after them on the tax purpose or something like that

So we did take a look at the tax aspect. We did two things. One was we hired a company to go out and look and see if they could identify short-term rentals and send letters out to get them to pay. And we had a voluntary program also where a short-term rental could pay and get forgiveness for some of it. I think we made some small collections. Most people didn't pay. The other option that we had was... running hearings the same way that we ran hearings to shut the strs down so we could do that too that's a little bit more difficult to collect evidence you have to find out how many days during the month they were rented out and then you do an average directly to answer your question the 100 tax that to increase the tax we have to go to a ballot measure i should have led with that and just getting enough evidence on each one is difficult

So then the grand jury report, they- You can contact the IRS if you want to.

It's not IRS, but yeah.

So they did a research paper on this, and they mainly looked at Paris for Olympics 2024, and they found that the demand for SGR surged during Olympics, both the demand and the price. So they're recommending that cities should consider developing a plan for upcoming major events, which would be the 2028 Olympics for us, when they expect a surge in the demand for STRs. So this is the list of the cities in Orange County that have banned and allowed, and this came out of the grand jury report. And initially it was 19 and 15, but Brea has since joined the allowed list. And they just recently did a pilot short term rental program, and I wanted to talk about that a little bit. Rhea has a biannual budget, as do we, and they're on the same cycle as we are. And prior to their 25, 26 budget, they were looking for ways to produce more revenue and also dealing with short terminals that they felt like should have licenses so that they could be regulated easier. So they determined they were going to do a pilot program. And they approved their ordinance to change to permitting short term rentals in January of 2026. And it took quite a while getting all their documents together. And they have a really nice program on their website if anyone wants to look at it. But they have a really tight ordinance. They only are giving 100 licenses throughout the whole city. If you look at Berea, the 57 bisects it right in the middle. And they split the city up into three sectors. And on the more dense side, on the west side of the freeway, they have two sections. And then the other side of the freeway is the third section. And they do 25, 25, and 50. so they're spread out through the whole city. They have a very short application period, which they just closed on July 31st, and they're going to do each section by lottery. The license is going to cost them $1,000, and at renewal it's going to be $1,000. They're actually going to have annual inspections by building and fire that they're going to have a fee for. Only property owners can get a license. No renters at all. You're not allowed to have weddings there. You're not allowed to have big parties. They have a very super strict code. The only time you can get more than one license is if you have a property that has 50 or more units, which I would assume would be an apartment complex maybe, that the owner wanted to do two short term rentals within the apartment complex. They also are collecting TOT, and they're doing self-reporting for TOT instead of doing it by the hosting platforms. Hosting platforms do offer collecting TOT for cities. They'll come up with agreements for that. But the assumption spray I used is there on the left. So they did an average of the... The rental costs in their area, two night minimum. Annual occupancy for the industry is between 50 and 70, so they did 60%. They did 100 licenses. Their TOT is 10,000, I mean 10%. So they're looking at collecting about $507,000 for the year. I did a sample of what we may be able to do this morning. And I looked at old documents that we had from 2023 when we were closing down. And I took just the top 35 that I went down the list for, I threw out some of the higher ones. There were some in there for 1,500 a night, 1,200 a night, so those are outliers, threw those out. So I had nine one bedrooms, average $85, two two bedrooms, 183, four three bedrooms at 425, 14 four bedrooms at 453. Six five bedrooms at 458 with a weighted average of $333 a night. So if we use that average with 60% occupancy, 100 licenses, the TOT portion at 9% would be $656,000 plus, and then $100,000 for the licenses. So we would probably be around the $750,000 range if there was interest in amending the ordinance. So some direction for tonight, one option, continue to keep the STRs prohibited. We will need to do some public education ahead of the Olympics, making sure people are aware that they're prohibited in the city. And also, when we find them, we're going to need to to cite probably daily to take away the financial incentive of running the STR. Because if you're getting $1,000 a night, and you don't get caught for several days, and then you get a $1,000 bill, you're still making money. So we'll have to be really on top of it, do a lot of citing and a lot of education beforehand. Option two would be to consider a pilot program, something similar to BREA. to um with a designated end date breyes is ending in december of 2029 and um work with hosting hosting platforms to ensure that everybody's in compliance so tonight i'm just asking which direction uh council is interested in

Councilwoman Constantine?

Could you tell?

I know which direction you're interested in.

So I have to say, the city of Anaheim, just on a regular basis, they do allow short-term rentals. It's something that they allowed many years ago. And they had several hundred approved. They were very, very tight with their rules and regulations. You could sell the property and the license would transfer over. It might have been a three strikes you're out kind of a thing as far as being able to operate if you had some violations. It's dwindled a lot. And I'm not even talking about this program. I'm talking about the regular short-term rentals. No. This would take a lot of staff. We're already having challenges trying to close down the unpermitted short-term rentals that we had already. And it's not us. It's just the fact of this is what it is. We cannot. I mean, we learned this already because of the street sweeping enforcement. The relaxed street sweeping enforcement during COVID, I said way back, it's a different issue. Great, you're not going to have any citations for it. People still need to move their cars because we have to keep the storm drains clean. How do you theoretically get back the people to know we're going to start issuing citations again? I'm a no, politely, and for many reasons. Thank you.

Other council comments? Looking for some direction, either option one or option two?

i think option one's a default unless there's yeah so i i um i i tend to uh agree with option one uh however i think that uh during the olympics there will be a uh a demand and possibly an opportunity for um residents of fountain valley to who property owners that choose to maybe they have i don't know maybe they have uh people visiting from other countries you know and and i think um uh there i think we if we were to do a program i think it should be around the olympics not something like brea where they're doing you know thinking of more of like a permanent program So my thought would be to think about allowing short-term rentals before and after the Olympics for a certain short period of time.

Yeah, I would not do it just for the Olympics. For me, that would be just a headache without a lot of revenue. You know, it's the risk-reward. There would be very little reward. I also think the numbers that if we were to do it are way lower than what it would be. I think the numbers would be closer to about 1.5 million.

Yeah, I think I was being very conservative.

It's extremely conservative, especially for Fountain Valley. So if we were going to do it, there are ways to do it that protect the neighbors. I don't think there's an appetite for that at this point.

Well, I think we have talked about this years ago when we took away STR. Keep in mind that back then we don't have any policy. And I've said that when you put a policy preventing people from doing STR, people will be creative. Business people are creative. That's why they're business people. They find different way. There's my understanding there's a shift that went to sober living home. Can we do anything about that? No. That's a consequence of taking something that we didn't have a policy. And we can't do anything on sober living home right now. I think that's even more dramatic to community than STR. Is there time to do STR now? I don't know. I don't have the answer. But if you think that people are not doing it, you'll be crazy. If they're doing it, they're still doing it. They find a way of doing it. But we don't have the opportunity to collect the tax because we don't have a mean to regulate it. If we do it, we have a policy. We can regulate it. We can permit it. That's something different than what we didn't have before.

Mr. Mayor.

Yes, and just for clarity, so Councilman Bowie, option one or option two? It wasn't clear.

that's gonna be the pleasure of the council I appreciate my my point I'm trying to say is people I know my my my one try say is people are creative okay sounds like without any vote from the council member buoy I think it's option one well I want to say something if I may so if property owners did participate I mean on a regular basis

It would not be homeowners insurance. We're talking general liability. I mean, this is, it's not just, oh, we're going to get money from permitting. We're going to get, you know, TOT tax and everything like that. This is a big project. If we're going to permit this, whether it's on a short-term basis or forever, I'm not against short-term rentals in theory. If we have everything in place, I wouldn't do something like that. I even said way back when we were going to ban them, we had 220 some odd. They went up from whatever it was, the minimal we had in 2015 when we thought we had an ordinance. And so you couldn't, you know, kind of changed the game, even really that there was no game being played, so to speak. But we were being played with by property owners that were doing this. So shut them down. And I always said we could reconsider if we want to do that as a group, of course. But I would never even consider something temporary, the stop-start. Again, once you put it out that it's okay to do it, you can't rein them back in. There's no way. And short-term rentals, like I said, with the insurance and everything else, the inspections, everything and all the different parameters, it's a big project. I'm not against it, but I do believe it's important we maintain option number one at this point and then possibly consider if we're going to look at maybe the flavor of the city council majority as far as doing a full-time program and dedicate efforts to that and see what the interest would be with the community. And maybe, Maggie, if... If it's not too late, maybe that could go into a survey. I don't know. That's it. So we've got option one.

Option one for me. Like I said, I'm option one now, but I would consider something around the Olympics.

And I would say option one is really what the public expects from us as policy leaders. I'll never forget all of that public comment four years ago. And so I'm just kind of anticipating how the public would would receive a change in policy. The other thing to consider, Olympics are long-term. They're usually six to seven weeks. That's not a short-term rental. And so you may have people that want to do long-term rentals, and that's okay.

You can do that, right?

So, Councilor Grandes.

I'm just curious. It doesn't sound like anybody's in favor. Why has this even been brought back?

I think there was a council request just to have an update on the program. Our enforcement, yeah. I just threw in the other for the grand jury.

Thank you, yeah.

Okay, appreciate it.

I think we stick with option one. All right. Thanks so much, Ashley.

Thank you.

Okay, next is the Cultural Arts, Recreation, Sports, and Seniors, or CARS Advisory Committee presentation by Deputy City Manager, Community Services Director, Rob Frazell. Welcome.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, council members. Appreciate the opportunity to present on the cars committee, the potential cars committee. I'll wait for the PowerPoint to come on up. It's nice to be back up here. I missed the July meeting, so it's been almost two months. Thank you. Welcome back. All right, thank you, Rick. At the March 24th, 2026 City of Fountain Valley strategic planning meeting, the following item was assigned to the community services director and the chief of police. Strategic plan objective, improve integration, communication, and culturally responsive programming for the Vietnamese community. I'll just start with our staff recommendation and then have some information on why that's the recommendation and then open it up for council discussion. So staff recommends the creation of a cultural, arts, recreation, sports, and seniors advisory committee called the CARS Committee to improve integration, communication, and culturally responsive programming for the Vietnamese community in conjunction with other identified demographics within our community. So why through Parks and Recreation do we think that the Cultural Advisory Committee would be a good fit? As identified by the California Parks and Recreation Society, parks and recreational opportunities provide safe, welcoming spaces for residents to gather, whether for organized activities like sports and youth programs, informal gatherings such as community events, festivals, and cultural celebrations. These spaces help build a social network, strengthen neighborhood ties, and create a sense of belonging. Why now? As the city looks towards implementing, potentially tonight, the parks and community services master plan, it's imperative that these spaces, programs, and community events are tailored to our current and future demographics. The creation of a cultural arts, recreation, sports, and seniors advisory committee will provide community input into the decision making process to support these identified demographics. A little bit on the makeup with the staff recommendation. We'd like to kind of mirror the HH Advisory Committee and the City Hall Ad Hoc Committee. So similar to the Measure HH Advisory Committee, staff recommends that the CARS Committee meet on a quarterly basis to review and provide input on planned park development, upcoming community events, and community service programming. Additionally, the CARS committee shall provide either an annual or biannual updates to City Council on the impact of the committee. And then similar to the ad hoc committee, staff recommends that each individual city council member, including the mayor this time, has the ability to directly appoint one City of Fountain Valley resident to sit on the CARS committee for a term of two years. The initial term would be something to consider, whether we want to have two or three people on a one year term or a three year term to start, so that we have odd numbers, but that would be at your direction. So lastly, staff recommends the creation of a cultural arts, recreation, sports, and senior advisory committee to improve integration, communication, and culturally responsive programming for the Vietnamese community in conjunction with other identified demographics within our community. The CARS committee shall consist of seven members. Five city residents directly appointed by each city council member and two city staff. Staff shall be appointed by the city manager, and it's recommended to have a staff member from the community services department team, most likely myself, and the police department. With that, I'm open to any questions or discussion.

I have one.

Councilwoman Grant, Constantine. What was that?

OK, so Rob, can you go back a couple of slides? Not the very first one. I think the second one where it talks to seniors. OK, so I'm a little thrown. OK, so I get this. This is for Vietnamese. Cultural arts, recreation, sports, and seniors. That's where I get thrown.

we can add a second S in there if you'd like but no no no it's not that it's what it is it's not I think I think I can clarify that for you councilmember Konstantin sure so the intent of this is basically community services typically prepared like a full year agenda of different program and services for recreation services and

Yeah, correct, aimed at supporting specific demographics.

So it's not only for Vietnamese, it's across the board. It's for everybody. Okay, well, no, I'm hoping to be very inclusive, of course.

So what we want to drive at through our community services department and through the city is that when somebody comes to a special event, say it's Summerfest, a luncheon, Easter egg hunt, that they feel like they're intended to be there, right? And so the creation of a cultural committee to provide that input of what would your family like or what would your... grandmother-like or what types of things would make this feel like an event that you're supposed to be at? Because in the long run, it's going to take steps to get there, but in the long run, why it's important for Parks and Recreation, when everybody assimilates together through the things that they like to do, then we become that one proud Fountain Valley family that we're really striving to become. Sure.

Councilman Bui? I think you responded. It's not just for Vietnamese. You replied right there with other identified demographic. That means anybody else.

Absolutely. You already said it, so I'm not sure. The initial strategic plan item was specifically for the Vietnamese community. And obviously with a population that's getting close to 40%, that's going to be a priority. But at the same time, a senior is a different demographic, and when they come to concerts in the park, they need to feel like they're also invited and included.

Absolutely.

Yeah, I support this. I think this is a good idea. I like the fact that the fifth concert was Vietnamese performers. I don't think we got quite the attendance we should have because I thought the communication on the acts were not accurate enough because many people thought they would be singing in Vietnamese only or just Vietnamese. And they didn't. They were great. They were great performers. And everybody who was there, whether you were Vietnamese or not Vietnamese, everybody enjoyed it. And I think that's the kind of stuff that we need to do and improve upon. And with a committee like this, we could learn from what we've done. When I was mayor during Summerfest, we had the community stage on that Sunday was all cultural acts and it was very well attended. I think we had about 750 people show up for just that. so I think it's good I think we could build off that I don't know if we need a separate committee I think we have I thought we were talking about each CD committee that already meets that only meets once a quarter and quite candidly it's maybe an underutilized group that potentially we just have them take on this role as well at least to start no thoughts

I think some of the other really big ideas that this committee are going to be tackling is the park's master plan. And getting a lot of that feedback from the public, that just helps streamline rather than have it all concentrated here, let's say, during council meetings, which are packed with agenda items. A lot of times we don't have the adequate time to flush out some of those ideas in a setting that I think it really deserves that kind of attention. So I think that's one of the tasks of this CARS committee is to help us with that vision.

I agree with the mayors that it is important to form this committee as part of the master plan as you stated earlier that you want everyone participation in the master plan as they are going to be part of the community.

Mr. Mayor, we do have a request to speak on this item. OK. Public comment, Katie Wright.

Welcome.

thank you mr mayor city council thank you rob very good presentation i looked at it and it was interesting to me because i like the idea of an advisory committee that's actually interacting with the people of the city all the people of the city I didn't notice that it was sort of triggered by an outreach for the Vietnamese community. I'm perfectly fine with that. I have a lot of members of my neighborhood. I have people from Turkey. I have your standard blue collar, red, white, and blue paps blue ribbon people. I have every kind of group. I love all my neighbors. This is great. What I would suggest, I have been on an advisory committee for a two-year period that was specialized to one particular group. What they did well, they did very, very well. What they did not do well was outreach in their designated community. I never saw them going around looking for people of disabilities to try and offer them help to say, hey, what kind of help do you need? They were not interactive with the community. If in your interviews you make it clear to all these people that are volunteering for this position, and without volunteers, what are we? If you could make it clear to them that what would be expected, I would love to see expected that they consider it an emissary position, almost a calling, outreach, and interaction with the public directly. It's long been a complaint of mine, and I know I love to give compliments when I can. It's been a complaint of mine for a time that a lot of the senior citizens have no clue what's going on. They are password fatigued. They are not signed up for the city emails because they have to sign up. And Colin explained it to me a couple years ago. You can't just send out blanket information to people that's spam. There's a law against that. You can't just email a whole community. They have to sign up for an account. Too many of them don't do that or they're inhibited by the fact that on a phone it's hard to read things. They're just signing up for anything and having to add a password. If you could make part of this a very definite desire that anyone volunteering for it takes it on as an emissary calling. Thank you. That's all I have to say. It sounds like a great idea. Thank you.

I have no further requests to speak.

Okay, Rob. So it sounds like we have direction to move forward with the CARS committee. Is there a specific on the formation of the committee that we can decide on?

Councilman Billy?

Yeah, you mentioned that five committee and then five members and then two staff members. What is the purpose of involving two staff members?

Two reasons. One, through Community Services Department, we would probably be the lead of the committee to share information about the Parks Master Plan, help them understand it, what the capabilities of the city and the plan possibly are, or meeting with them. Jake's in the room here. Jake puts together a great special events calendar by November of every year, so meeting with them. and saying, okay, here's our list of events. How can we use these events to better assimilate our community at tree lighting? So that would be the reason for having a community services member. The recommendation for a police department member, Police and community services are probably the two departments that interact with the community most on a regular basis. And just like you saw at National Night Out, it's so important to make sure all demographics in our community feel connected and safe with our police department, which obviously I think that was our best National Night Out we've ever had. We do have that. But reaching out into different demographics to make sure that's the case would be important.

Okay, on your part, I totally agree. It's very important that your department needs to be involved. I'm just trying to figure out how the police department, you know, comes in and play. Because the only reason I only say that with, you know, with a grain of salt is because to the minority group, when they see the police, like, I'm not getting involved with that. Why is there police involved here? They might get scared.

And I think that's the outreach we're trying to eliminate. But at the same time, it's written that the city manager would have the authority to appoint the positions we were just recommending from those two departments.

If that was hindering or impacting our ability to operate as a committee, I think we could look at a different- Just keep understanding also the cultural perspective from particularly the Vietnamese American. When there's a police involved, they will shy away. No, I'm not getting involved. There's a police, I'm not sure what they're there for. So they might get scared. So I just wanted to show from that perspective. But I understand that the component of the police department have involved, actually in my opinion, I think it's great. Yeah. But also try to understand from that perspective when we are trying to appoint people, they might. Makes sense. They call on board, when they find out, they back out later.

Yeah.

Okay. Thank you.

I think that's a good point. I think if you look at it, then that is more important for us to have the chief interface with them because that's where we want to build relationship, close that bridge. But yeah, you have a valid point and we can probably fine tune that if needed.

okay we still need direction from City Council consensus I see heads nodding yes so terrific yeah we're gonna go forward great job thanks so much excited okay and our last item on study session information on procedure for public comments

during city council meetings presentation by city clerk administrator rick miller welcome good early evening um basically just speaking to the public about how they can make public comments here at city council meetings we do offer opportunities for the public to comment on any of the three main portions of our city council meetings being closed session, study session, or the regular open meeting. At the beginning of the regular open meeting, the public has the ability to comment on non-agenda items right at the beginning or any agendized item. Then right after on our agendas, you will see a section that says public comments on agendized items. That is the time at which the public would identify the specific item on the agenda, item number five, for instance. That's what they wish to speak on. Anytime I receive a blue speaker card, I enter it into the system. I place the speaker where they've requested to speak, whether it be an agendized item or a non-agendized item. And for those who may have arrived late and missed the first public comment portion for non-agendized items, we do have a portion at the end of the meeting where they could then have the ability to speak again on a non-agendized items. However, if you spoke during the first non-agendized item period that begins at the beginning of the meeting, you would not get the chance then to come back. at the second time. For those that are on Zoom, I communicate with them. They let me know whatever item it is they would wish to speak on. I walk them through when I'm going to call on them, how long they have, if they have any questions for me. I also, since they can't see our speaker timer, I give them a one-minute warning through the chat feature that their time is coming to an end. But by and large, most people on Zoom are Less than three minutes. So I do know we have a public comment on public comments. But if you have any questions for me, I'm happy to answer them.

I think I just want to make an observation that I think we take this part of the meeting very seriously. It's a key part of the feedback from the public. It's part of our democracy. And so I know we try to make every attempt to make the speakers feel welcome, to give them the time to express themselves. And I think that's something that's part of our Fountain Valley brand of being a nice place to live. So thanks for all your efforts on that.

And with that, public comment, Katie Wright.

Welcome. Greetings again, Mr. Mayor, council members. Of course, the First Amendment is key to everyone that's ever taken an oath. I took my first oath in 1978 as a school bus driver. Believe it or not, there's all kinds of people who take that oath. I will absolutely compliment the City of Fountain Valley. City Council, Planning Commission, every meeting you have, it's a public meeting. Everyone is welcome to give public comment. I have seen we've all seen and heard of various agencies in account County will just go ahead and say the County Board of Supervisors in various cities nearby where they're very disrespectful they're very limiting they're very unpleasant I just want to compliment City of Fountain Valley and I will throw in my usual request I really think that you should extend the time from three minutes to five minutes I'm told at one time it had been five minutes in Fountain Valley and I know that in your Belinda it still is five minutes Just saying it's not unheard of and I know it's not very likely to happen. I get it But I have to throw that pitch in There is a situation that happens whenever we do have a big controversial issue or big public generating getting people coming out very often what will happen is they'll get a public comment section and then the developers and or whoever it may be giving a presentation that has brought out all these people. It could be that they give their presentation first, which gives the people a chance to understand what the story is. Then the people get a chance to speak. But then answers and more situation comes up from the original people who have the presentation time that's pretty much sometimes unlimited. and in that presentation moment sometimes people develop a question that they hadn't had before or it may generate an additional chance where a person wishes they could ask another question but it's too late they've already done it i don't know what can be done about that but it's a frustration i'm sure every city goes through this but again thank you so much it's a really great city it's a great place to speak your mind thank you

I have no other comments on this item.

Okay, great.

So City Manager Lee.

Can I clarify, Rick, on the public comment? If it's agendized, the individual would be able to have three minutes per agenda on the business.

Yes, I should have clarified that. The person has the ability, if there's 18 items that are agendized, they can speak on all 18 items if they wish. But again, the comments have to be relevant to the item they are speaking of.

And many cities do not do that. And the other thing that we do that I really like is that we allow the residents to speak when the agenda item comes up as opposed to everybody doing it at the beginning of the meeting or at the end of the meeting.

Any other comments on public comments?

Yeah, I just want to say great presentation, Rick. Thank you so much.

Okay, thanks so much. Well, that'll end our study session. We're going to take a few-minute break. We'll come back at 6 p.m. for general meeting. Thank you.

¶¶ Thank you. ¶¶ you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. Thank you. ¶¶ ¶¶ We're going to open our meeting.

At 6.07 p.m., welcome to City of Fount Valley general meeting. We'll start with an invocation. If you could please rise. God of wisdom, we seek your help today. Come and let your wisdom fall upon us. Oh, Lord, as we gather here for this meeting, give us clarity so that we can effectively deliberate each part of today's agenda, reveal challenging areas, and show us the best solutions that will apply. point our eyes to every positive outcome since our last meeting, and let these favorable results and developments encourage every heart in this room. Dear God, help us apply your wisdom as we decide on all matters and make plans that benefit the future of our great city. This we pray in Yahweh God's name. Amen. I'm also going to be doing the salute to the flag. Please place your right hand over your heart and ready to begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. All right, next we have City Council Successor Agency Housing Authority roll call.

Council Member Bowie? Here. Council Member Constantine?

Here.

Council Member Grandes? Here. Vice Mayor Vice Chair Harper? Here. Mayor Chair Kenean? Here. All members are present.

Thank you. Do we have any items to report out of closed session?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. On the first closed session item, Council 5-0 gave settlement authority. On items two and three, there was no reportable action.

Okay, thank you. And next we'll move to City Manager update. City Manager Maggie Lee.

Yes, Mayor, City Council, thank you so much. I just want to inform the public that the Recreation Center will be closed from August 17th to September 7th and reopen on September 8th at 8.30 a.m. to a hill and recover from all the fun events in the last eight months. If you need any assistance during this closure, send our team an email at fvrecreation at fountainvalley.org and we will get back to you as soon as possible. I also want to share with the public, we have a Citizen Academy from September 1st through October 20th. We receive 17 applicants and our team is gearing up for the Academy with an orientation on August 26th here in the Council Chamber. Participants will pick up their supplies, review Academy expectation and meet City Council and Directors. This immersive seven-week program provides the community with the opportunity to see how our city operates, innovates, and serves its residents. The department director, elected official, and first responder will directly engage with the participant. Once they complete the program, we highly encourage them to consider applying for the city's advisory committees and commission opening in October. That concludes my update.

Thank you, City Manager Lee. For the mayor's update, mayor's breakfast on October 20th, so join us for the next mayor's breakfast. This will be this Thursday at 8 AM, featuring guest speakers from our school districts. So we are excited to have Dr. Gabriela Maffi. She's with Garden Grove Unified School District. The breakfast will take place at Memorial Care Health System. That's over at 17390 Booker Street. District 1, upcoming career fair business registration. First District Supervisor Janet Winn, in partnership with the County of Orange, will be hosting a career fair at Freedom Hall in Miles Square Regional Park on Friday, September 18th. That will have staff who will be assisting and promoting the event to businesses with hiring needs, including forwarding information to the Fountain Valley Chamber of Commerce. Fountain Valley Adult Softball from September 1st through December 11th. Fall 2026 Fountain Valley Adult Softball registration is open now. Welcoming men's co-ed and recreational competition. Returning in new teams are welcome. Registration through August 23rd is $545 per team. We can spread it out. And seniors registration through 2023 is $465 per team. For information, visit the city website at fountainvalley.gov or call 714-593-4448. Senior Summer Camp, August 24th to August 28th. Please join us for our second annual Senior Summer Camp at the Center at Founders Village. That's on 17967 Bouchard Street from August 24th to the 28th from 9 AM to 12 PM. For more information, please call 714-593-4449 or visit the Center at Founders Village. The senior luau lunch on August 25th. Aloha, Fountain Valley. Please join us for the Senior Center's Luau Luncheon on Tuesday, August 25th at the Center at Founders Village, 17967 Bouchard Street. That's from 11 AM to 1 PM. A huge thank you to our sponsor, Memorial Care, for sponsoring this tropical luncheon. There will be Hawaiian dancers, $8 per ticket. The meal will be kalua pork, Hawaiian bun, Hawaiian macaroni salad, and vegetable blend. Desserts will be provided. Join the Agape Tennis Center team and Acing Autism this fall. At Acing Autism Fat Valley, we offer accredited weekly tennis clinics for kids and teens with autism. Our trained volunteers are paired with athletes one to one to support their individual needs. The first session is September 27th and the cost is $120 for a six week session. Scholarships are available as well. And you can learn more at acingautism.org or by emailing fountvalley at acingautism.org. And that concludes the mayor's update. Lots of great things going on. Okay, next is council members' items for future consideration. Are there any items for us to consider? Okay, hearing none, we'll move into presentations. So we're real excited tonight. We've got two really powerful presentations that I'll say. First is a recognition of an amazing person, I might say. This is Chef Marla McGee. Many of you know her as our Fountain Valley Rotarian, past president, kind of the heart and the glue that keeps the club in the good shape that it's in and all those wonderful things. So we want to embarrass her a little bit, bring her up. And say some nice things about Marla. So I'm going to come down. We've got a couple recognitions for you, Marla, and so come down. Okay, first from the city of Fountain Valley. Our city proudly acknowledges your outstanding leadership and dedicated service to the Fountain Valley Rotary Club and our community. The city of Fountain Valley proudly acknowledges your commitment to service, fellowship, and making a positive difference in the lives of others. So on behalf of all of the council, we'd like to give you this recognition, Marla. Thank you. But wait, there's more. From the county of Orange, our supervisor for the first district, Janet Nguyen. She also would like to recognize you. She's going to be here today, but we're going to honor you. Let me just read what's on the certificate. Your outstanding dedication to the Fount Valley community. Through your service with the Fountain Valley Rotary, you have embodied service above self by advancing education, supporting local youth, improving the environment, and enriching the lives of those who call our community home. So congratulations, outgoing President Marla McGee, and this is from Supervisor Nguyen. And this is fun for me because I've been a Rotarian about ten years. The club is a lot of fun. A little bit of a plug, we always are looking for new members. Hear that everyone? Always looking for new members. Yes, we have a lot of fun. There's some great events coming up. But one of the other things that I love about Marla is we have a common taste in music. A lot of people don't know that we love a band called Queensryche, right? There's a good band out there, a lot of people don't know. We're back in the 80s. But we just, yeah, we love to rock out. Not only is she a great cook, a wonderful Rotarian, her husband Brian is here too, and Brian does so much for the community. He's always at all the events. So we just want to embarrass you tonight, have you come up here, but really from the bottom of our heart, we have a Rotarian on the council, former, past president, Councilman Bowie.

And he's immediate. past president of the club too. He was right before me.

So thanks for coming out tonight. Congratulations. Thank you for all that you do and will continue to do. It's my home, so you know. Do you want to say a few words?

No, it's okay.

Okay. All right, we'll get a picture of you.

So for those who do not know Cheryl, Marla McGee, she's not a good cook. She's a great cook. And then if you want to try her food, please join the Roto Club because she makes breakfast every morning and every event. She's there. One, two, three. One, two, three.

Okay, we're going to shift gears a little bit on this one.

Next is a recognition of our outgoing finance director, Ryan Smith.

And I think what I'll do is I'll come down to the podium and read this.

Did you not know? Yeah, he's going. He's going to do it.

Well, I'll start with a couple comments, Ryan. So for those who don't know Ryan Smith, he has been an invaluable member of the city since joining us in October 2022. This is following an extensive search for what was then our next finance director. We have been truly fortunate to have Ryan as part of our strong executive management team for over the past three years. With more than 20 years of auditing and municipal finance experience, Ryan has built an impressive career, beginning as an account technician in local government. His expertise and commitment played a critical role in rebuilding confidence and trust in the city's financial reporting. And that was most appreciated by all of us. Ryan's knowledge, integrity, and ability to navigate relationships and competing priorities have helped guide the city council and the city managers towards stronger reserves, reduced unfunded liabilities, and paying down the city's four outstanding debt obligations. He has always been willing to work collaboratively with the executive management team to address financial challenges and find solutions. His willingness to listen, accept feedback, and to engage thoughtfully, that's been an invaluable characteristic of Ryan. Particularly with the Measure HH Committee, and we have a few of those members here in the audience. Ryan is a person of integrity, discipline, and reliability, and he has consistently demonstrated professionalism, leadership, and teamwork in his role as finance director. We are truly grateful for Ryan's service and the lasting contributions he has made to our city. While we are sad to see him go, we wish him continued success and all the best in the next chapter of his career, which is, Dana Point? Thank you Ryan for everything you've done for our organization and for our community. How about a round of applause?

Do you want me to do that now?

We'd like to present a certificate of recognition to Ryan Smith, Finance Director. In recognition of your dedicated service and valuable contributions to the city of Fountain Valley, your leadership, professionalism, and commitment to excellence has made a lasting impact on our organization and our community. We extend our sincere appreciation and best wishes for continued success in your future endeavors. Ryan. And we're going to ask any members of the Measure H committee if you'd like to say a few words. Well, we got them. All right, I think City Manager Lee.

before Ryan get the podium as you can tell we've been beating him up quite a bit that you know this is his last City Council meeting just want to share how appreciative I am as a city manager being able to work with Ryan over the last three years very appreciative of everything he's done and I'm sure I can speak for the rest of the organization and the team executive to his finance department. He is an invaluable executive team. He will be missed and I do know where he is, so, you know, I will track him down if I need to, and he's well aware of that. So, again, Ryan, greatly appreciative. All the best in your next chapter of your career, and I'm sure we'll be able to see each other here and there, but you will be missed.

Ryan, I think there's a few council comments before we give you the floor. Councilman Granis.

Yeah, so Ryan, I want to say that, and I've said this at many meetings before, is as a council, before you were here, we had some issues in finance. And as a council, we didn't always trust the numbers we were given. And on a number of occasions, the numbers magically changed up and down and all around. And I said many times that what you have brought to this agency to this city is you provided the trust of your council and when you provide us numbers we know that we can count on them it may not sound out there like that's such a big deal that that should be a given but it is a really big deal for us In order for us to make the decisions that we do, we need to be able to rely on the numbers. And you provided that. You and the whole department. I will say, I know everybody's really happy for you. I am not happy for you. selfishly the way we are gonna miss you here you're gonna be hard to replace you're just calm cool and collected and and you do such a great job and and I just want you to fully understand how much and I know I speak for everyone how much we appreciate the consistency and and again I'll use that word trust that you brought so thank you for all you've done for us that's my boy

I don't think Council Member Granis is not the only one who's unhappy. I'm unhappy as well. Not only that you bring us the level of trust, but your professionalism is there. And really appreciate your professionalism here on the dais as well in closed sessions. You provide us very valuable data. and those data is very important for us to make decisions, whether it's for the city, how we manage city business, but for all the personnel that works for this great city. Without your data, it's hard for us to make decisions without those reliable data. So once again, we surely will miss you, and we wish you the best, and I'm sure Dana Point has select one of the best. Thank you.

So, Ryan, did I call you Omar once too many? Is that what's happening here? Just kidding. We miss you already. Thank you so very much. Thank you.

Vice Mayor Harper.

Thank you. Yeah, you know, in my career I've led finance departments, and I know how difficult it is. There's so many moving pieces. You've got to payroll. It's like the mail. It never stops. It's always another pay period that's coming up, and people are putting in hours. you got to get them right and so you've accomplished a number of things which I want to share with the remind people the public of one is we switch to a biennial budget which means we do the budget every two years this is the first year and that's projected to save about 500 hours a year of budget preparation measure HH the committee was let's say they were discontent I think at the time Ryan joined the city and they are the sort of the the oversight of the residents that makes sure that the city is spending HH money in accordance with what we promised residents and And Ryan was able to navigate that skillfully and get everybody back on the same page. Also, we went through a labor negotiation. It was a long one. he only went through one in his period here but it was probably like worth about three and you know every meeting we talked about it he had to re-crunch the numbers and come up with new ideas and he was always there as the money you know the finance arm and last but not least he was oversaw the complete conversion to a new accounting system throughout the city it took two years two and a half three years yeah so we went from Tyler which is our old system to Munis which is a you know, a modern system. And it's, you know, converting the entire system, HR, payroll, utility billings, all that. Ryan was the leader in that. And that's, you know, it's not just Ryan. It's everybody in the city. But there's somebody that's – you were the driver and got us through it. And so I just want to say again, appreciate all the hard work you did, all your staff that you – uh led and supported and they fought they are inspired by your uh you're doing so great job and uh we were very happy very thankful to have you here and good luck in the future and before i give it over to you ryan i also want to mention

Ryan is a passionate basketball player, and one of the things that we got to do, which was a lot of fun, was play some basketball. Got some sharp elbows. Sharp elbows, quick. I'm still not recovered from that last game, but that was one of the things that we're definitely going to miss. City Manager Lee also is pretty fierce on the court, so I'll never forget those games. What about me? Yeah, you're amazing. Amazing. Amazing. So Ryan, do you want to make a few comments?

Sure. So I guess people that know me know I'm pretty long winded, so I'll try to keep it short. Thank you, council, for this recognition. Working here has been a privilege over the last almost four years that I've been here. Growing up in small towns in Nebraska, I didn't know a small community feel could exist in Southern California, but it does. And I think that's a testament to the citizens and to you representing them. I'm going to miss my time. I always look back at my time here fondly. I enjoyed working with everybody. I had a finance team with Robin and Peter that are here. They're dedicated, very capable at their jobs, and really made my job easy. And I know that the department's in good hands with them around Maggie. Maggie hired me here, and I appreciate the trust and collaboration that I got to work with Maggie. And I told her she's the best boss that I've ever had, so I'll miss Maggie. The executive team, I think most of them are here, appreciate working with them. The collaborative approach that this executive team has is amazing. It makes everything so much easier when we're all on the same page and not working against each other like sometimes you'll have. So it's amazing how much better things are when it's that way. And again, to council, thank you for your trust in me over the last few years. Your trust in our department, I think, has been great. So thank you all.

I'm sure community services is happy that Ryan's moving on because he's very competitive when it comes to Halloween. And so, you know, his department kind of took the top two places last round. So, you know, community services has an opportunity this coming year.

Well, thanks so much, Ryan.

How about a round of applause?

Okay, next is First City Council, Successor Agency, Housing Authority, public comments on unscheduled matters only. Do we have any requests to speak?

We have a few requests to speak. We have 13. So with that, we will get moving on this. First public comment, Julie.

She's indicating no, so we'll draw. Okay. Next speaker, Libby. Welcome.

Thank you. Good evening, my name is Libby Frolickman, a 27 year homeowner in Fountain Valley. I'm so glad I decided to come early for the study session where I learned about our pooled insurance through the JPIA. And that what a great program it is and how much money this saved us since returning after leaving for unknown reasons. The OCPA was formed under the same foundational state law, the Joint Powers Authority, which allows small cities to pool their resources. And I'm here to support OCPA coming to Fountain Valley and have been anxiously awaiting its implementation. And as a homeowner with NEM 2 solar panels, I'm even more excited for activation. I believe we should have a choice of our electricity provider. For too long, we have been controlled by a monopoly power provider and forced to use Southern California Edison. I still read the hard copy newspaper delivered in my driveway every day. And just this week, there were articles about the wildfires that were caused by Edison power lines, and that Edison has a fiduciary responsibility to protect its shareholders. Likely meaning that rates will go up to cover the cost of their negligence. OCPA is a not for profit entity, focused on the community instead of shareholders, and I want to see that benefit for Fountain Valley. As a result of deregulation, we have a choice for the source of our electricity. Many of us are old enough to remember when AT&T was broken up. We were confused and didn't like the change, but in the end, our phone service became competitive and prices came down. We didn't need new phone lines into our homes. We were able to select any phone provider and service continued on the lines we had. In this case, Edison provides the lines into our homes, but we can choose a different energy provider. Our elected leaders in Fountain Valley have taken the steps that will allow our residents to be part of the future of clean energy and the choice of our power source. What I don't understand is why people from other cities are so concerned about where I get my power that they're spending an hour on the freeway just to come here to tell us we shouldn't have a choice. My message back to them and to all that like tradition or have some allegiance to Edison is that they're welcome to stick with Edison. As for me, I can't wait till my household is part of the OCPA. Thank you.

Michael Wellborn.

Welcome. Mayor Jim, members of the council, my name is Mike Wellborn. Had knee surgery on Thursday, so I'm a little slow. But I'm really pleased to be back at the city council. I live on and it's a great little community there. And I'm here to encourage this council to really take a good look at the opportunities for OCPA. Allowing everybody to decide where they want to get their electricity from. I think it's a great opportunity and I look forward to the switch that I can make and hopefully save some money. So thank you again, appreciate the time.

Next speaker, Steven Schwartz.

Welcome. Good evening, Mayor, City Council. I'm here also to speak in support of OCPA. When making decisions that impact our community's energy future for the decades to come, we shouldn't be allowing ourselves to be swayed by kind of outdated, one-sided arguments that recently stalled the progress that was made in Laguna Beach. A careful look at a recent coverage in the voice of OC revealed how easily opposition can get media to broadcast skewed data. In that piece, opponents compared Southern California Edison rates in mid 2026 with OCPA in 2025. No discussion about anything about rates and markets and the effects of the seasons. Even that article concluded that OCPA is stable, but you don't hear that very much. Joining OCPA is more than getting the best rate. Rather, it's mostly about two fundamental local priorities, choice and community control. OCPA empowers residents with choice. For decades, we've relied on a single investor owned utility with no local alternative. Community choice aggregation doesn't force anyone in a single path. It gives the residents and businesses the power to choose cleaner, renewable energy options that align with our environmental values. OCPA is a community focused provider. Unlike traditional utilities, whose primary accountability is corporate shareholders, OCPA operates as a locally controlled entity, local hands. remain in charge of decisions on energy procurement, sustainable goals, and community reinvestment. It's reasonable and prudent to track organizational stability, especially during the early years. But community choice aggregation programs across California have repeatedly proven that local energy procurement stabilizes rates and expands green power access over the long run. when it's supported by its communities. Delaying or backing away based on incomplete analysis or isolated public pushback misses the bigger picture. I urge this council to look past short term noise, base its evaluation on current balanced data, and bring local energy choice and control to our community in 2027. Thank you.

Elizabeth Andrade.

Welcome.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, council members. I wanted to create a bit of a bridge from the study session and an event that I recently had the opportunity to attend. And so during the study session we talked, there was quite a robust discussion about inclusive events, events in the city that allowed for residents to see themselves those spaces and belonging in those spaces. And I could not think of a better event to highlight than on August 5th, the Fountain Valley Firefighters Association's Pickleball Tournament hosted at Los Caballeros. Through that attendance at that event, seeing the representation of a variety of ages from the very gifted young children who are playing and winning to the diversity of ethnicities and language and what truly brings Fountain Valley together which is the pride and the joy of celebrating together. And so I bring that as an example of how these events are already taking place, how they're bringing community members together, and what makes Fountain Valley such a nice place to live. Thank you so much.

Laurie speak.

Welcome.

Thank you. Good evening. I'm a current resident of Fountain Valley with a decades long connection to the city. I only recently became aware that the FVPD was using an ALPR flock system. And I'm here to express my concern that there's been insufficient scrutiny as to the potential negative impact of this type of system on our community. My guess is that very few residents like me are aware that their vehicle movements are being recorded. But that naivete like mine I think will likely be dispelled sooner rather than later, given the growing awareness and outcry broadly across the country against these types of systems. The stated need for the system in Fountain Valley was to increase public safety through technology. And of course, there are myriad technologies that would aid law enforcement and improve public safety. And more than a few literary prophets that would warn us against the use of such systems. Improving safety cannot be the end that justifies any means. And any benefit resulting from the use of these systems must be weighed against the infringement on constitutionally protected rights, including privacy and freedom from warrantless searches and seizures. Regardless of our trust in the integrity and the intentions of the FVPD, it's our duty as citizens, and I believe your duty as our leadership, to ensure that powerful tools are not needlessly or carelessly put in powerful hands. The FVPD policy regarding the flock system, policy 424, seems to me to be quite expansive. The system can be used for any, quote, official law enforcement business, end quote, which is an extraordinarily broad phrase. The policy explicitly recognizes that the technology may be used, quote, to gather information related to active warrants, homeland security, electronic surveillance, suspect interdiction, stolen property recovery, end quote. But none of those phrases, as far as I can tell, are defined, like Homeland Security or electronic surveillance. According to the policy, the system may be searched for information without any showing of reasonable suspicion or probable cause. And it appears from my looking at the website that nearly 270 entities across the state have been granted access to Fountain Valley PD data. This is a powerful tool being implemented with, from my understanding, a lack of full understanding of how it's used without sufficient justification and without meaningful constraints. Apart from what I believe to be an infringement on the rights of the community members here in Fountain Valley, which has been described as a nice small community, a nice place to live. I suspect that the use of the system has and will expose Fountain Valley to litigation. which is already happening across the country as communities resist these systems. And I ask the city council to reconsider and reanalyze and weigh these important values in our community. Thank you.

Dan Hay.

Welcome. Good evening, Mayor Kenean and members of the Fountain Valley City Council. My name is Dan Hay and I'm a 30 year resident of Fountain Valley. Over the past 30 years, I've seen several things change in this city. But the most troubling change I've seen are the many sober living homes speckled within our neighborhoods. This council adopted ordinance 1607 in March of 2024 to bring permitting, spacing, and accountability to these group homes. The ordinance was created by the city of Costa Mesa who fought a federal court battle and won to be able to enforce sober and group home regulations. This ordinance is still on our books today. Earlier this year, our city received a letter from the state of California demanding we stop enforcing key parts of that ordinance, including our separation requirements. This letter required a response from our community development director. and it raises real questions that this council and staff have not formally answered for us residents are we actually enforcing ordinance 1607 or have we quietly stopped it appears we have halted all enforcement leaving our citizens exposed to unsafe conditions in my opinion we have done very little to hold these sober living homes accountable in the past Why adopt an ordinance if we are not going to enforce it? I'm sure other cities have received similar letters. Have we talked to any of them? Have we sought any legal advice? Could we possibly look into joining a group of cities and fight this together? Has anyone talked to the city of Costa Mesa and gotten their advice? I personally know the former Costa Mesa mayor that wrote this ordinance, and he would not be taking this lying down, and neither should we. Conversations need to be had. When Costa Mesa's ordinance was enforced, the number of unpermitted homes fell by 80%. The minute Costa Mesa started to hold these folks accountable, they started to arrive in our unenforced Fountain Valley neighborhoods, and we stood there and let it happen. The state isn't going away, they're going to continue to cause us grief, but there must be a limit to how much grief the city will endure. Our citizens deserve more. The staff and this council need to step up to the plate and do what is right and not run for the hills every time an attorney might need to be involved. Thank you for this time on this issue, but since I have 20 seconds, I was at that fireman's pickleball thing, and Councilman Grandis took me out on the court for the first time and taught me how to play. I hit a screamer past him, and he said, Dan, you've got to warm up hitting it a little slower. So I got my first advice from my first coach at pickleball, and we had fun learning the game. So thank you very much, folks.

Vicki Johnson.

Welcome.

Good evening, I'm Vicki Johnson. To protect all Fountain Valley residents and businesses from much higher electricity rates than SCE charges, and to protect Fountain Valley from millions of dollars in liabilities, Fountain Valley should exit from its agreement with the Orange County Power Authority immediately. The time to exit is now and definitely before October 1st to give the needed six months notice. Otherwise, Fountain Valley will be stuck in OCPA until at best 2028. Exiting OCPA is complicated. Delaying is not a strategy. In November 2024, Fountain Valley joined the OCPA to replace SCE for Fountain Valley's electricity generation, meaning OCPA would buy the electricity for Fountain Valley. All of Fountain Valley businesses and residents will be opted in to OCPA by default next April. Now, OCPA is in much worse shape financially and much riskier for Fountain Valley than in 2024. OCA's prices are now 12 to 16% higher than SCE. OCPA now charges the average resident $25 a month more than SCE, and businesses much more. That's hundreds and thousands of dollars more per year per customer. OCPA lost half its reserves from $90 million down to $45 million. OCPA has no credit rating. OCPA's prices for 2027 are unknown as it moves to a new cost service model. No longer even trying to compete with SCE, and it wants to build its reserves by $100 million. Who's going to pay for that? Fountain Valley is the only city to join OCPA since it was formed in 2021, and three of the six original members exited. Last year, Costa Mesa recommended don't join OCPA. And this month, Laguna Beach, a wealthy environmental city, recommended against joining OCPA by unanimous committee and city council votes. Both cities cited OCPA's current financial weaknesses. in 2024 fountain valley city's council was told ocpa would need to buy 25 to 30 million dollars per year in power creating millions of liabilities if fountain valley were to leave ocpa as documented in the annual reports for huntington beach the county Fountain Valley must agendize a vote as soon as possible to exit OCPA to cancel the OCPA contract and not subject your rate payers to much higher prices and ever increasing liabilities. And I join some others in saying deflock Fountain Valley as we're trying to do in other cities. Stop the plot cameras. Thank you.

Mike Ruff.

Welcome. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

I urge the City Council to exit the OCPA. Only Fountain Valley has joined since OCPA started up in 2021. Three of the founding members left Huntington Beach, the County of Orange, and Lake Forest. My city, Laguna Woods, voted to not join OCPA. Other cities where OCPA gave presentations did not join. Dana Point, Stanton, Placentia, notably last November, Costa Mesa's Finance Committee recommended not joining, and just this month, Laguna Beach's Environmental and Sustainability Committee and the Laguna Beach City Council voted unanimously to not join OCPA. All these cities in the county recognize big problems with OCPA. You all have received a handout. It was mailed to every one of you individually. I'll excerpt a little. The Environmental Committee wrote a 14-page report. Committee members include a professional portfolio manager, a solar industry expert, and the president of the Laguna Beach Democratic Club, significant because CCAs like OCPA have been part of the Democratic platform. Here's a key quote from their report. Based upon its analysis, the ESC concluded that the risks associated with joining OCPA at this time outweigh the potential benefits, financial uncertainty, customer stability, and operational considerations. Even OCPA's top marketing people have left. Andrew Giovanni, who sold Mr. Grandis on OCPA in 2024, has left OCPA to work for a former Irvine OCPA board member who last year called OCPA predatory. Jackie Henderson, who was just here in June with the CEO, has left OCPA to work in the theater department at UCLA. It is imperative that you agendize canceling your contract with OCPA, rescinding your membership in the agency, and starting the exit process, which cannot be completed until July 1, 2027. If you do not commence this action as soon as possible, you will soon be saddled with substantial energy and other liabilities and risks. It's not worth it. It's not worth it. You pay more, and it costs you more.

Dylan Stewart.

Welcome. Hi. Thanks for having me. Hear me OK? Yes. Fantastic. I grew up in this city. I've been a resident for 31 years. And when I was young and I was in Boy Scouts, I was sitting back here, got some merit badges sitting here listening in on these meetings. So it is with a really serious weight in my heart that I come here to speak about something that is very concerning to myself. And that is the flock ALPR cameras that have been really just installed in our city without real oversight and without real public information being made available to everyone here. And I think it's just really contrary to popular belief that these devices don't really make us safer. It just kind of makes everybody suspect to a crime prior to a crime being committed. It doesn't prevent any crimes. It just violates our fourth amendment right at the end of the day and I don't know when I think of Fountain Valley I really think of this town as being small and very forward thinking and when I look to my left and my right in media I'm sure you guys have done the same we're seeing a lot of cities being rising up and either canceling their FLOC contracts or considering the oversight of their contracts as a whole. And I'm not saying to come right out the gate and cancel the contract. What I'm saying is let's evaluate what it looks like to audit the use of this contract. I'm a CPA. I know what auditing looks like. Even with really good systems, there's always ways to improve it and there's always ways to be transparent about how a system operates. And I just feel like a lot of these flock deals that have gone through happened quite quickly and real analysis of how it was going to be monitored and maintained was not performed to the degree that it should be when everybody's rights are going to be affected as directly as they are. So, you know, I have a whole spiel here, and I'm sure I could keep going, but at the end of the day, this is a very big topic with a lot of people, not just in my age range, and I would really like to encourage the council to agendize, maybe taking a look at our contract with FLOC, just because having dozens of people starting to show up at all of these meetings is going to start to take up a lot of people's time. And I think it's really important for us to open up like a bigger dialogue over how we're going to affect these contracts in the future and know how it's just going to affect all of our individual citizens. But yeah, so I really appreciate you guys taking the time to listen to me and I hope you have a great rest of your night.

Welcome.

Thank you. Good evening. I'm a resident of Fountain Valley, and I want to express concerns about the adoption of FLOX ALPR network in the city. FLOX system continuously captures and retains data on the movements of all residents, not just suspects. contributing to a national surveillance network that aggregates location data across thousands of cities. This creates a de facto surveillance database of ordinary daily life, including activities such as visiting a doctor or a therapist, picking up your children from school, or going to a place of worship. Unlike with phone data, residents have no choice about their locations being logged, and no legal process stands between that data and law enforcement. Flock retains this data on its own cloud servers, meaning the city does not have full control over who can access it or under what circumstances. We've already seen stories where users outside of a jurisdiction accessed records without that jurisdiction knowing about it. For example, Oxnard published a news release in February 2026 that said their police department, OPD, suspended the use of flock after an, quote, audit revealed that even though OPD's flock safety security settings had been set to California-only access, a vendor-enabled nationwide query allowed agencies from outside California, which also include federal agencies, to query OPD's data without OPD's knowledge or Continuing this contract normalizes mass surveillance of residents who have done nothing wrong. I ask the council to terminate the contract with Flock and to reject future contracts with vendors whose systems enable mass surveillance of residents who have committed no crime. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. We have a common theme of the flock topic. And so at this time, I'd like to bring up our police chief or police and the staff to provide a little bit of information on this timely topic.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, City Council. I do follow the news and the scrutiny, so I think it is worth having a conversation. But I would like to add a little bit of information for context for those of you and our community that don't know what Flock is all about. So Flock Safety is a technology company that specializes in public safety, specifically through the use of cameras equipped with automated license plate reader technology. Fountain Valley PD does in fact have a contract with flock safety. We currently have 10 cameras strategically placed throughout the city covering public roadways. Also, all 10 of those locations are posted on our city's website to ensure transparency of what we have going on here in the city. The motion activated cameras are at a fixed location. And it's important to note that the cameras take still, single image pictures of passing vehicles. They are not recording, there are no videos, and the cameras are not intended to photograph the vehicle's driver or its occupants. In fact, the photographs are largely taken of the vehicle's rear end, capturing the license plate and description of the vehicle. The public safety benefits of the ALPR technology cannot be overstated. In simple terms, we're better equipped to protect Fountain Valley as a result of having these cameras in place. How do they work? Law enforcement professionals receive real-time alerts when a vehicle associated with a statewide database is detected, enabling officers to quickly locate and apprehend individuals involving serious crimes such as vehicle theft, robbery, child abduction, and other dangerous criminal activity. Additionally, AOPR data can also be used after an incident occurs to assist in an investigation, such as identifying vehicles involved in hit-run collisions, kidnappings, and other crimes, and timestamping location-based data to confirm and rule out investigative leads. Do we use ALPR for immigration enforcement? The answer to that question is no, we do not. Fountain Valley PD is a municipal law enforcement agency in the state of California that does not enforce federal immigration laws, nor does it use ALPR data for such purposes. In accordance with department policy, ALPR data is used exclusively for legitimate law enforcement purposes only and is not used for immigration enforcement. Also, the data captured by our flock cameras is owned by the Fountain Valley Police Department, not flock safety, and the access to the data is limited to approved personnel only. And the retention period is set at 30 days, although the information may be retained for a longer period of time if it's connected to a criminal investigation. The department's policy related to flock cameras is included in previously stated General Order 424, entitled Automated License Plate Readers, ALPRs, which can also be found on our department's website. We have successfully used flock technology to locate and arrest wanted suspects, recover stolen vehicles, find missing persons, and it is my firm belief that moving away from this technology will compromise our department's ability to address and solve crime. The criticism that some police officers have violated public trust by using ALPR data inappropriately is valid, which is why audits are so important. We require our personnel to enter a case number and a reason for each inquiry for accountability purposes. We also conduct monthly audits to ensure the system is only being accessed for those legitimate law enforcement purposes, and the last audit was conducted yesterday. So what I'd like to close with is Ronald Reagan once said, trust but verify. Audits are important, and then that's something that we do to make sure that this technology is used in a professional manner to ensure public safety and to protect those. When crimes occur, we have those investigative leads, and we also get those real-time notifications to help us identify and arrest criminals. And the last thing I would like to mention is with regard to transparency. You can look online at the activity and the data associated with Fountain Valley PD. You can go to transparency.flocksafety, flocksafety is all one word, .com, forward slash fountain-valley-ca-pd, and you can get additional information about our usage of the flock safety technology for the benefit of this community.

Thank you, Chief, for that safety information. As we are still in public comments for unscheduled matters, we appreciate that. We're going to continue with the public comments.

Yes, sir. Dan Stewart.

Hi, Mayor and Council and staff. Thanks for this time. I wanted to cover two things tonight. First, I want to say thanks to the city for the residential roadway rehabilitation that's happening right now in Quad B4. That's my home area. And the contractor seems to be doing a really good job there, so I wanted to say thanks to the city for that. I appreciate it. The second item is to talk about FLOC. And I had a lot of things prepared here. I might go off script, so bear with me. But anyway, what I want to talk about is that I reviewed the video on the agenda of when the contract was unanimously approved back in August of 2024. And there was a six-minute discussion, and most of that was a briefing from Captain DeSantis, I believe. talking about how they were super excited to use the system. And he described how systems scan and store vehicle information, like Chief just talked about. And he said that this was to help the PD perform an investigation of alleged crime. But what the captain didn't cover is that the system stores and processes all of the vehicles that passes by the TIM cameras installed in the city. And it uses AI on that stored data for up to 30 days. And that includes law-abiding citizens. So FLOC has many issues, and you heard some of them tonight, but I wanted to talk a little bit about one. And I'm a little out of my comfort zone, and I'm sure the PD can correct me if I'm wrong, but One of the core issues is that it inverts the order of how police investigate crime. Traditionally, a crime happens first, then plausible suspects, a list of them are developed, and then they investigate the suspects. But with Flock, as soon as any of us get into our car and drive around, we are all suspects under investigation actively. And when a crime does occur, the database and the AI and processing systems give police a list of pre-investigated suspects. That's you and me and everyone who drives through the city, may not even be a resident. Therefore, Flock is not a tool for investigating crimes, but it's a tool for investigating pre-crime. And this is, as mentioned, it's a super powerful tool. I have no doubt that they've had success with it, but it changes how police do investigations, and it deserves more than the six-minute discussion that happened when the approval occurred. I look forward to talking to FVPD, and I would also like to have a town hall meeting that has legal and the council, PD, and citizens in equal time to talk about All the issues with the subject and all of us get educated and on the same page. I've been to the transparency side. It's a summary only, but it is good information. But verification right now is done by the PD themselves. And for something this powerful, it should be an independent validation. That's it, thanks. Appreciate your time.

Julia Baker.

Welcome.

Welcome. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and city council members. I'm very concerned about flock. I know what the police chief just said, and I was in all the Costa Mesa City Council meetings for the whole thing. And so there are some good things. The problem is that when you have bad actors, which can happen anywhere, It can be abused and all the times that we've seen in the news where they relate the different abuses or whatever. I'm pretty sure that those police departments had safety. regulations and systems in check i don't think that um that's it's just valley and you know a few other really good places i think most police departments if not all do because they really care about it because most people are not bad actors however it can be and it has been used to injure people, like maybe not physically, but to hurt them. Like a woman who was stopped because her license plate was misread. She got out of the car and there was a police gun in her face. A black family that was stopped and taken advantage of That's the wrong word, sorry, but roughed up. And it turned out that it was the wrong license plate. And these things are happening all over the place. And the fact that it's not this police department necessarily that is not taking care of things well, not doing their systems, not doing their audits, Flock is there. Flock is doing things. And the companies that make Flock often have poor security so that other people can get in there. That has been documented. I don't need to give you the list of all that. I'm sure you have access to all that information too. And I do think that it is not part of our civil liberties to be followed and to be recorded and for the information to be kept even for 30 days. Thank you.

Next speaker is on Zoom, Liz.

Good evening, Council. I'm a resident of Fountain Valley, and I'm here to petition to request the removal of flock safety cameras. I'm not against public safety technology. What I'm against is a system that was sold to this council as a local and controlled when in practice it isn't. In response to the Fountain Valley PD captain that just spoke, still images sound harmless at a time, but networked together across thousands of cities, they built a full movement history of anyone not just suspects. Saying we don't use it for immigration is also what Dayton, Ohio's policy said. Their own audit found that their data had been searched over 7,000 times for immigration enforcement anyway. Because once data is a national network, local policy doesn't control the queries, who queries it. And saying we own the data didn't stop Mountain View, California from finding out federal agencies had accessed their camera without authorization under the same assurance we're hearing tonight. Blocked camera safety markets itself as a local opt-in tool for catching crimes. In practice, it built a nationwide searchable surveillance network outside city-by-city contracts that officials say they never fully understood. That's the core of the problem. Cities agreed to camera on a poll and got enrolled in a system that any of its 5,000-plus agencies and repeatedly federal agencies could query without a warrant. The pattern across nearly every case is the same. These aren't communities rejecting the idea of public safety technology. They're communities that installed cameras believing the data would stay local, then discovered it was flowing into federal databases and other agencies without their knowledge or consent. A bait and switch on basic terms of consent that local government exists to protect. I'm not asking you to wait for our own audit to find out the same thing. I respect that the Fountain Valley PD has already confirmed they did an audit just a week ago, but you guys failed to mention who is doing the audit. We also need to validate that they're doing honorable audits, and it shouldn't be done internally with just the Fountain Valley PD. The Dayton, Ohio, in audit revealed that from Dayton's camera, had been searched more than 7,000 times for immigration enforcement purposes. In Mountain View, an audit revealed AFT Air Force and GSA Inspector General access the surveillance without authorization, prompting the police chief to disable all 30 of its flock cameras. Again, I'm asking you not to wait for our own audit to find out the same thing. Please remove the flock cameras. Thank you.

Jerry Tashiro.

Welcome. Welcome. Thank you. Welcome. Hello to all your mayor and the councilmen and the staff. Thank you for listening to me. I'm here today to support OCPA, the Orange County Power Authority. I live in Fountain Valley right behind Sam's because I've been a resident for 50 years. I have my family, my two daughters, and my brothers, my dad have moved to Fountain Valley. So we have quite a few family members living in Fountain Valley. But I support it because it brings competition. It brings competition. We need competition. It brings more efficiency and generally lowers the cost. With AI and the power grid and all the demands on a power grid, you know, the more power, more power availability and different avenues will maybe help protect us from blackouts. And I want to, I do not really know the data on that, but I'd like to get that. But I support it. We need more competition that brings the more clean, renewable energy that is affordable to Fountain Valley. On a personal note, I've been here 50 years, and about 46 years of it I had lived without an air conditioner. I just usually about two weeks was needed for an air conditioner, so I never bought it until recently. With, you know, the higher temperatures that are coming, I invested about a new air conditioner. And my costs are going up. So anyway, I can, you know, have competition. Competition usually brings out the best product that works. that can be formed, because competition is the heart of capitalism. So I'm a capitalist, and I believe that we should support it and support this new competitor, OCPA. Well, that's about it. Thank you for listening to me. Steve Toshiro.

welcome thank you I've been a resident of this community for approximately 36 years I have been like to express my support for the Orange County Power Authority The reason is I believe in having a local community-based electricity provider. A provider that is both responsive and responsible to our community and is also affordable. And responsible in being that it provides an alternative choice for electricity. For every resident of this community, they invest in programs and incentives that actually help our residents, like us, in business use less energy and they save money that way. I also like OPCA as a nonprofit organization or agency that invests its revenues, profits, into our community rather than the shareholder. And for these reasons, I think having local energy choice, keeping our investments and decisions clearly in our community makes some sense. And for this, I would like to encourage the Fountain Valley Council to support the Orange County Public Authority. Thank you.

Next speaker, Connor Choi.

Welcome. Hi, honorable mayor and all city council members. My name is Connor Choi, and I'm here today to voice my support for the Orange County Power Authority. People my age, around early 20s to 25, the choices we make about our energy system genuinely shape the future we're going to live in, especially as AI continues to progress and as Orange County continues to develop the way it is. Cleaner energy technologies are growing fast. I'm excited to see local energy innovation and more clean tech jobs developed here in Orange County. The only way to have choice is with OCPA. Otherwise, the only choice we have is the for-profit utility, and OCPA is for non-profit. Please continue to support energy choice in Fountain Valley. Thank you.

I have no further request to speak.

Mr. Mayor.

First, Councilman Granoff. Oh, go ahead, Councilman McConister. I'll defer.

So, you know, in light of all these speakers tonight, I do have a question for our city. I don't know if it's the attorney for the city or our city manager, Maggie. You know, we are hearing, you know, a time deadline if we want to potentially exit the contract, you know, being October 1st. To my knowledge, we haven't received anything official. I think it was Council Member Grandis. You were going to get us some information from OCPA, what all the timelines were. Basically, the clock is ticking. We have two city council meetings in September. So that's it. Thank you.

Council Member Grandis.

Yeah, I guess I normally do the AB 1234 comments at the end, and I present on different meetings I attend. So since there's so much, and I honestly did not know there would be so many speakers tonight on OCPA, but since there are, I think it's better to talk about it now than later when most people leave. So first off, for Ms. Johnson and her partner, Mr. Al, I want to thank you guys. Tonight, you kept your comments to OCPA and to the agency and what you strongly believe in and how important this is to you. Clearly, you drive up here from your home. You're not a member of an OCPA city, but you care deeply about it. And whether you realize it or not, I know Ms. Johnson probably does, is she sends me lots of information and I read every piece of it. And I do respect what she says. Don't always agree with it, but I do respect it. And I will say that one of the meetings that I attended this last month was the cost of service pricing that's going to be coming out for next year. OCPA in 2026 locked in their rates that were set in 2025. So those that were set in 2025, they did not raise it or change it at all in 2026 to keep it steady. And part of that was businesses especially were like, we don't like to see cyclical prices going up and down. But they are correct in that SCE currently is less expensive than OCPA at this point in time. But if you take the last three-year average, it's about the same price over the three-year period. What I am working on and my commitment to our city is that there will be a rate plan, and it's going to be a two-year rate plan that will be less costly than SCE when we join in April of 2027. Now, I am one of five votes, but my understanding is that this is going to go forward, that they will bring back that rate that was lower than SCE. And that rate schedule will be voted on a little bit later this year. So in 2026, we'll know what the rates are going to be for next year. And my commitment to our public and to our council is if that does not happen, We will reconsider what we're going to do or postpone joining. We've already postponed once before for other reasons, but we can postpone again if we need to. The other thing that was brought up with Laguna Beach, one thing that's confusing about Laguna Beach that my understanding, and I could be wrong on this, that The final vote hasn't been done yet, but it's been pushed down the road at this point. And one of the problems that Laguna Beach has is, I think it's 25% of their city is with San Diego Gas and Electric and the rest is with SCE. It's a very complicated city to bring on board when you're now dealing with two separate power agencies. If we're going to bring on Laguna Beach, there has to be other South County cities more in SDG&E to come on board. And then the last thing I'm just going to bring up now is the OCPA also voted on a green discount program. So if you are income qualified, if you're having a rough time, you don't have a strong income, that there's a green discount program that's already started and those rates are priced below SCE and it's called the green discount program. And it's also done without, because of grants, it's done without affecting OCPA's bottom line. So that's the other good part about that. So with all that being said, Yeah, I mean, that's trying to see in my notes what else I wanted to cover here. so later this year we'll have the rates for next year and again my understanding in the commitment is that for that two-year period fountain valley residents that are opted in which is a requirement by the state it's not ocpa that says everybody has to be opted in it's a state law everybody will be coming in if you don't opt for a higher level which I will be doing because to me, young man who's there, it's their world coming up. And if I could do 100% green energy and pay five or ten bucks more a month, that's worth it to me. And I think it's going to be worth it to a lot of people. But most importantly, if you don't believe them, if you don't like them, if you don't believe in green energy, then in about 35 seconds you could opt out and stay with SCE and it doesn't affect you. So we're going to be doing a lot of reach out and making sure people understand this program. But I just wanted to cover a few things for that. Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Councilman Grandes.

So, you know, if we have to be in this waiting situation, I really would like to know from the attorney for the city, I just don't want the city to be on the hook adversely financially. So what is our, I mean, this is just a waiting game here.

Actually, before the City Attorney respond to that, thank you, Council Member Granis, for the report. But I do recall at the last meeting you did say that you were going to bring back the information as to the date when we need to exit without any penalty. As Council Member Constance said earlier, you made all the report, but you left that out. Do you have a report for that? I'm just wondering.

Right, because of agenda issues, we really don't want to have a large discussion on that. Yeah, I get that.

Yeah. One thing just to answer on that in liability. So if they buy energy contracts, let's say the worst thing happens. They buy energy contracts and we decide that we're going to leave. Then they sell those energy contracts. It's not something like we're 100% responsible for 100% of the energy product that's purchased. The city of Huntington Beach, when they left, there was potential liability on their part. But what they did is they did it over a six month period so that all those contracts were sold. All those contracts were sold for more money than it cost actually, so they paid nothing when they left. So the liability to our city is not great.

I'm sorry.

And you're right, I did say that I would have that particular date when contracts are being purchased, but contracts are not purchased all at one time. Contracts are purchased about a year in advance. So some of the contracts are already being purchased.

uh but again the liability would only be for if those contracts were sold for less than well i just want to be sure that the city has the upper hand here i mean to me cancel the contract start over again that's just a thought thank you okay so let's move into public comments on scheduled matters do we have any requests to speak i have no request to speak on scheduled matters

All right, next is consent calendar. Consent calendar items one through nine will be approved simultaneously with one motion unless separate action and or discussion is requested. Does anyone wish to pull a consent item?

Yes, I don't need to pull it, but I'm going to register a no vote on item number.

Nine. Or is it?

Item number nine, the creative ordinance, as I stated when this was brought up, I don't think we need to draft an ordinance for this. I think it's unnecessary. Thank you.

Okay, noted.

I'd like to move items number one through nine.

I'll second.

All those in favor of approving items 1 through 9 say aye. Aye.

Are we going to vote on this software? I'm not there yet with the consent calendar.

We'll try it on item 1 and see how it works. But it is noted on item number 9 that Vice-Minister Harper has voted no. Okay, great.

Okay, moving into administrative items. Item 10, approval of amendment number one to agreement with Temporary Staffing Professionals, Inc. for an amount not to exceed $180,000 for temporary staffing services. Presentation by risk manager, Heather.

Welcome. Good evening again, Mayor, City Council. So the city entered into a contract with temporary staffing professionals for temporary staffing services on November 19, 2024, with the term ending on June 30, 2027. The original contract was a not to exceed amount of $300,000. Temporary staffing professionals has provided and is currently providing temporary staffing services to support city operations by assisting I'm sorry, assisting departments with staffing vacancies and providing administrative, risk management, financial, HR, IT, and project-related support. To ensure continuity of operations, staff is requesting that council approve an additional $180,000 for continued temporary staffing services through the end of the contract on June 30th, 2027. Currently the city clerk department has budgeted 55,000 for one temporary worker to aid the risk management division and finance department has budgeted 125,000 for two temporary workers, one front counter worker for vacancy coverage. Uh, during the recruitment, they budgeted $50,000 and one temporary worker for business license pilot program for which they budgeted 75,000. So the options are to approve amendment number one to contract 1533 with temporary staffing professionals in an amount 180,000 for total contract sum of 480,000. Or alternative two, do not approve amendment number one and provide staff with direction. And staff recommends approval of amendment number one to the contract.

Thank you, Heather. I'll open up to questions from council. I'll move approval.

I'll second.

Any other discussion? Please vote. Yes, question from Councilman Bowie.

How critical is it for the city interim operations if we don't approve this?

I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you.

How critical of the city operation if we don't approve this staffing?

If we don't approve the amount, risk management will lose their temporary worker. I don't know if finance has enough money to get the front desk worker to get through the recruitment. And then we won't have the money on the contract to do... their other temporary worker for the pilot program. We have run out of money on the contract.

Okay. Well, I like the idea that you brought this back. The contract doesn't end until June of 2027. Yes. Which is a lot more than three months.

Yes. We very much need this extra money to get us through.

This is an indication that I hope to see many other vendors bring before us ahead of time like this. This is great. It gives us plenty of time to have questions or discuss further if we need to. But other than that, we sure don't want anything that slows down the progress of the city.

Thank you. Any other discussion?

Please vote on your screen So this is we're voting on the screen yeah, well, I don't know what it shows on your screen this is yes, right vote for current item I need a Can we vote yet? I need a motion in a second. We already had a motion Councilman Grandis it a nice councilman Constantine It's ask us to vote

My choice is illuminated green I will say I'm not seeing it on my oh you gotta hit save

Hit save. Oh, I didn't even do it. Okay. There we go.

I didn't see that.

Look at that. Wow.

Very nice.

Well done, everybody. Thank you very much.

Where's Scott Kim? He should be very proud of me right now.

It looks like SportsCenter up there.

Yeah, it does. Okay.

Very nice.

Okay. That's an exciting item 10. Moving on to item 11. Approval of amendment number 3 to agreement with Libert Cassidy Whitmore for legal services to allocate an additional $600,000 for specialized legal services presentation. City Clerk Risk Administrator Rick Miller.

First off, I'm really upset I didn't get to fully enjoy it and see what that did. It was very... It was very green. It was impressive. Great work.

I'll abstain next time.

We'll see what happens. The item I have before you is the approval of the Third Amendment with Lieber Cassidy Whitmore for specialized legal services for our... lawsuits or any hr related matters at december 17 2024 city council meeting council approved the last amendment to this agreement with a not to exceed amount of one million dollars the contract this contract is set to expire June 30th of next year. So at the time that we started in 2024, the city clerk slash risk management department wasn't handling the risk or the HR related cases and issues that we are now. And with that happening, a lot of the costs associated with the HR related claims and HR related lawsuits were paid from the city clerk to that contract. However, I have extra money budgeted that is what we're asking that needs to be moved from the city clerk's budget into this contract that was originally allocated to the HR department. So there is sufficient funding. I'm not asking for any new funding. It's just moving it from my budget into this spot so that we have enough money to cover the rest of The eight nine months of this contract now with that being said We are going out for RFP on the legal services for HR related services we anticipate Going to Bringing this forward at the end of the year early next year so that council can see the result of the RFP. If LCW is selected as one of the firms that's recommended for legal services for HR-related matters, we will present that. If they're not, then we will move forward with whatever council's decision is. Why we want to do it now and get it to you in December or January is the fact that once we select the new legal firm, if it's not LCW, it will give us time to, from any January forward, that new legal company is taking care of the new legal issues related to HR, and it also gives us a five-month window to offload existing issues that LCW is dealing with to the new company, new legal service for HR-related issues. So with that, we're not asking for new money, it's just moving money from one pot to another. With that, happy to answer any questions.

I'll move to approve. I'll second.

And you said this is not due until June next year?

The contract expires June 30th, 2027.

Wow, and a second one in a row before three months. I wanted to give you a certificate.

all right they're listening I'm gonna vote no just to see what color so there was a first from councilman Grandis a second from councilwoman Konstantin we had discussion I think we're ready to vote first I jumped the gun I did the first and second first

I'm learning too. So pardon me, it was first was Councilmember Grandes? Yes. Second?

Me.

Councilman, okay. Hit save. Item number 11 passes 5-0.

I don't know why I'm hearing ESPN music every time that flashes. This is exciting. Okay, thank you so much. We'll move on to item 12, approval of amendment number one to professional legal services agreement between City of Fountain Valley, successor agency to the Fountain Valley Agency for Community Development, the Fountain Valley Housing Authority, and Straddling, Yoka, Carlson, and Ralph, LLP. Presentation by Neighborhood Improvement Manager Ashlyn Newman, welcome back.

All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Kenean and Council. So this item is a request to approve the amendment number one to the professional legal services agreement between the city at all and Straddling, Yoka, Carlson, and Routh LLP, which I'll just refer to as Straddling. And the request is to add an additional $200,000 to the contract to increase the not to exceed amount to $600,000. And tonight's Les Brady of Council for Straddling is here tonight and will be available for questions. So this contract was a three year contract, and it runs from July 1, 24 through June 30, 2027. And it's shared between administration and community development. And then within community development, the planning division and the housing authority use the funds. So the housing authority and administration used some of the funds, but the planning division used a lot of the funds. And right now we're down to about maybe $30,000 left on the contract. So the reason the planning division used so much is due to the new inclusionary housing ordinance that requires a big developments of 10 or more to set aside 15% of their units for affordable housing. And with that comes the need for an affordable housing agreement that requires specialized legal counsel. And that's what straddling provides for us. So the good news is that straddling has recouped a lot of the money for us, so the developers reimburse us for funds. So they've already reimbursed us $170,000 plus, and there's another $30,000 in the pipeline for that. So tonight I'm asking you to add $200,000 to the contract for not to exceed for $600,000. And that would be alternative one. And also staff is anticipating putting out a RFP towards the end of the year so that we'll have new council in place or possibly straddling again, depending, for services after the June 27th expiration. So with that, I'm available for questions, as is Ms. Brady.

When you said new council, you meant new lawyers, not new city council.

Just me. Did I?

I don't know.

No. Maybe Stroudland again. Maybe somebody.

Are there any questions from council? With an IL?

I'd like to move item number 12, please.

I'll second. Any further discussion? Please vote.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Item number 12 passes 5-0. I just want to say thank you to Councilor Brady for being in the audience. Thank you for all your work.

We're having fun. I have to say, Ashlyn, I love that title that you have. Has that always been your title?

For about two or three years. See, I didn't know either.

I love it. That's a great title.

Okay, item number 13, rehabilitation and resurfacing of New Hope Street from Edinger Avenue to Heil Avenue, Ward Street from Apache River Avenue to Ellis Avenue, Ellis Avenue from Brookhurst Street to Ward Street, and Slater Avenue from Starfish Avenue to Ward Street. Project number 25005, presentation by engineering associate Ryan Damon, welcome.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of the council. The item before you tonight is the rehabilitation and resurfacing of portions of New Hope Street, Ward Street, Ellis Avenue, and Slater Avenue under project number 25005. These roadway segments were identified as priority corridors through the city's pavement management program. Similar to previous arterial paving projects, the scope includes the removal and reconstruction of deteriorated pavement sections and reinforced rubberized asphalt concrete overlay throughout the project limits. It also includes the reconstruction of sidewalks, curb ramps, and driveway approaches to improve accessibility and achieve ADA compliance. Together, these improvements will enhance roadway safety, mobility, accessibility, and the overall condition of the corridor. The city advertised the project on June 25th and received nine bids on July 23rd. Onyx Paving Company submitted the lowest responsive and responsible bid in the amount of $3,169,000. Onyx has over 35 years of experience completing public works projects throughout Southern California. They've also successfully completed the city's Quadrant D1 residential paving project back in 2023. And they're currently working on the Quadrant B4 residential paving project. Due to the size and complexity of the project, dedicated construction management, inspection, and materials testing services will also be required. Staff solicited proposals from the city's approved on-call consultants and recommends issuing a purchase order to Onward Engineering in an amount not to exceed $198,660 for construction management and inspection services. Onward submitted the lowest of the five proposals and also prepared the project's bid documents, which will provide familiarity and continuity throughout construction. Staff further recommends issuing a purchase order to Nino and Moore in an amount not to exceed $22,140 for materials testing services. Nino and Moore submitted the lower of the two cost proposals received and has successfully completed projects in the past with us. There is sufficient funding in the adopted fiscal year 26-27 budget. The total anticipated project cost is approximately 3.72 million and the adopted project budget is 4.5 million. Funding is provided through the general fund, measure HH, SB1, measure M, and the water and sewer funds. Construction is anticipated to begin this fall and conclude in winter 26-27. Therefore, staff recommends that city council accept the bids and award the construction contract to Onyx Paving Company in an amount not to exceed $3,169,000 and authorize the purchase orders to Onward Engineering and Nino and Moore for the associated professional services. Thank you and I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you, Ryan. We'll open it to council for any questions.

Vice Mayor Harper.

I have a question. So with regards to the funding sources, according to the staff report, the total budget is $4,500,000. And the estimated project cost is $3.7 million, roughly. So it's an $800,000 difference. So does that mean that, and then there's various funds listed, the general fund, Measure HH, RMRA, Measure M, Water Fund, Sewer Fork. So the $800,000 difference, will that come out of the general fund? So it'll end up with the general fund being under budget by the $800,000? About, yeah.

Okay.

All right. Thank you.

Well, we are very excited. Council.

I'm just going to move the item.

Okay. Yeah. I just want to make a quick comment. So, you know, these are one of many projects that the city has committed to returning our pavement to those conditions sort of prior to the 405 construction. And we do appreciate your patience. These projects, these procurement efforts take time, but you're going to start seeing construction. And that's what's exciting to me is we're going to start seeing results. And so get ready for paving and get that pavement condition index back up closer to 100. All right.

I'd like to move item number 13.

I'd like to second. That's okay. Any other discussion? Please vote.

Item number 13 passes 5-0. Thank you.

Can we get some sound effects with the future?

I'll work on it.

I keep hearing ESPN. Okay. Item 14, project number 25016, communication improvements for New Hope Street and City Hall. Accept the bids and award a construction contract to Crosstown Electrical and Data Inc. for the project. two five zero one six communication improvements for New Hope Street and City Hall project in the amount not to exceed one hundred seventy four thousand four hundred eighty two dollars presentation by Yesenia Penaloza assistant engineer welcome

Good evening, Mayor, city council members, and city manager. I will be presenting to you the communications improvements for New Hope Street and City Hall project. So as you may know, this project consists of two locations. The first location is off of New Hope Street. And as you can see here, the fiber line, which is the green line, shows where the new fiber line and the installation of conduit will be placed, which is below existing sidewalk. Starting from fire station number two, all the way down to the intersection of Warner Avenue and New Hope Street. The purpose of this work is to replace the existing radio communication portion of the system at fire station number two. As for the next location, it will be here at City Hall. And again, looking at the project location map, the fiber line will go through from City Hall all the way to Police Department into the IT server room. And so for the fiber installation, there will be two additional fiber optic cables in the existing conduit between City Hall building and the Police Department. And the purpose behind this work is to provide redundant fiber optic cables between the buildings to be used by IT department. Construction project expenses and budget. So for the total project budget, it will be coming out of general fund in the amount of $223,000. And the total project expenses is in the amount of $197,945. Project timeline, so for this project, the advertisement started back in June of this year and we received seven bids back in July of this year. And Crosstown Electrical and Data Inc was the lowest responsible and responsive bidder. The construction start date is anticipated for summer of this year and will end in fall of this year. To conclude, staff recommends that the City Council accept the bids and award a construction contract to Crosstown Electrical and Data Inc. for project number 25016, communication improvements for New Hope Street and City Hall, in the amount not to exceed $174,482. And that concludes my presentation on this project. Thank you, and please feel free to ask any questions.

Thanks so much. Are there any questions from Council?

Vice Mayor Harper. Can you go back to the map of the city hall improvements? The map?

Oh, the map.

Which one? That one. That's good. Okay. So it says you're going to install two additional fiber optic cables in the existing conduit, and the purpose is to provide redundant cables. So I guess my question would be if the purpose is redundancy, wouldn't you want to put it in, like, a different conduit? Because theoretically, like, the reason it would fail is because somebody drills and hits the conduit. So why would you put it in the same conduit if you're redundant?

So I'll have our senior civil engineer explain a little bit more on fiber. Okay.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. Council Member Harper, to answer your question, yes, that is a good point. Typically that is what we would do for our traffic network. I think the point of this is the redundancy is more so that IT, could have dedicated fibers for the different departments. So here, as you see on the map, they're going to be running two additional fibers. I believe the intent for them is to use one fiber dedicated for their connections to the HR room, another fiber dedicated to the connections to the TMC so that it's physically separated on separate fiber lines.

okay it's still I guess I guess it still doesn't I guess I don't quite understand the the it's not a value it's not for it's for a separation of data not for uptime or backup yes okay so it's just a kind of just adding additional capacity exactly or the redundancy okay all right thank you I'd like to move item number 14 first one Ted your turn

I'll go ahead and second. Any other discussion? Okay, please vote.

Item number 14 passes 5-0.

Thank you so much. Okay, we'll move on to item 15, Voluntary Range Intergovernmental Transfer Program for Cost Recovery of Emergency Medical Services for Calendar Year 2025. Presentation by Division Chief Tim Psyche. Welcome, Chief.

Welcome. Thank you for your support on that last item. Actually, that helps with our connectivity for our fire station, which is critical for our response. So appreciate that. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of city council. My name's Tim Psyche, division chief with the fire department. I'm here to present our calendar year 2025 voluntary rate range program. So this is the third year in the state's voluntary rate range program, and we're asking you to approve participation for calendar year 25. Authorize the city manager or designee to execute two agreements between Cal Optima and DHCS. And authorize a payment not to exceed $551,979. And we expect approximately $555,850 back in net cost recovery. And I'll go over that in a second. So basically this program evolves around Medicare reimbursement, or Medi-Cal reimbursement, I'm sorry. Medi-Cal reimbursement reimburses our ambulance transports well below what it actually costs us. And the city absorbs that difference on every call. So this program lets us recover part of that cost using federal matching dollars. And it's cost recovery for service that we've already provided. So just to go over some of the history, I want to start first that our participation in this program is mandatory. And there is actually no contractual guarantee that we'll actually get our contribution back. But that said, no agency in this county has failed to recover its contribution to this program. And Felt Valley has netted about 2 million over the last two years in this program. So that recovery hasn't been abstract for us. It's almost entirely funded the capital startup costs of our ambulance program, which we'll be starting on December 1st. So otherwise, those funds would be paid out of the general fund. So just to put the numbers before you for this year's program, we transfer 541, 979,000. We put in a $10,000 contingency for a total authorization of 551,000. And we expect to get 1,120,234 back, which is an estimated $555,850 in net cost recovery. That's after the fees from DHCS, the Department of Healthcare Services takes their 20% cut and Cal Optima and Kaiser take their 2% cut. So also to note, too, the money is already appropriated in this year's fiscal budget, and our department is able to handle that initial $551,000 contribution. So staff is recommending alternative number one, which is to approve our city's voluntary participation in the calendar year 2025 program. And authorize the city manager to execute the agreements between Cal Optima and Department of Healthcare Services. And authorize a payment in the amount not to exceed 551,979, which consists of that estimated $541,979 plus a $10,000 contingency, just in case there's some invoice changes. And that's my presentation. Do you guys have any questions? Thank you, Chief. Councilman Bowie?

Actually, I do, Chief. You say it's a voluntary program, right? And you say it's not a guarantee either. So why have it?

So it's there, we can choose not to do it, and that would mean we're just going to take the lower end of the Medi-Cal reimbursement for our ambulance transports. But Medi-Cal won't pay the full price unless they, and they're not going to front the funds to get the federal match. They need non-state funds to pull that federal match down. So they leave it up to us to make that choice to do it. And if we choose to do it, it's up to us. But they have to put that caveat on there that's not guaranteed to get that money back. This program's been around for, I think, 13 years with Cal Optima, and they've never not given that money back to, and the fire departments have been in this program for over nine years, us being, this will all be our third year. So I anticipate getting that money back, and that's critical for us moving forward with our ambulance program.

Okay. Any other questions? No, go ahead. I move. Thank you. Councilman Brandes?

Yeah so two things one I remember three years when this first came to us and the math never made sense to me it still doesn't make sense to me but the results are there for sure. Can we put in more money and get more money back?

That's a great question, and the answer to that is no. So the money that CalATMA actually has received as part of this program is finite. And really, you'll note over the last three years, our amount we're getting back is less, actually, because we shared the word with other agencies in Orange County. And so Fullerton, I believe, joined the program, Brea joined the program, and it decreased our money. So the answer is no, we can't contribute more and get more. It's a finite finite amount depending on what what services we actually provide Got it.

I'll second councilman Bowie's motion Yes, I had a question so just from a timing standpoint, so do we pay this entire amount up front in a lump sum I

Yes, we do. Invoices go out in October and are due towards the end of the year, November. And historically, we've received the payment early in the following year. So I anticipate us getting this payment back in January or February. So it's within the same fiscal year, which is beneficial for us.

When you say we get the payment back, do they, what is that? Do we get it back all at once or we just get higher rate? Yeah.

No, so we give the money to the state, the state presents the money to the federal government, and the federal government matches the money. All that money comes back to the state, and then the state distributes that out to the managed care plans. For us, it would be Cal Optima and Kaiser, and then those agencies distribute that money back to us.

Is it a dollar-for-dollar amount that we get back, the 541?

Yeah, it's about $2 for every dollar we contribute. So, yeah, it's a dollar-for-dollar match from the federal government.

Okay, so I don't quite understand. So I thought that the reason we do this is because we can charge a higher rate per transport.

Our rates remain the same, so our rates are consistent.

Well, to the provider or to the passenger?

So these are all through Medicaid dollars. So in California, it's Medi-Cal, and in Orange County, it's Cal Optima. So Cal Optima reimburses us for ambulance transport at the very low end of the rate that they can reimburse us for. Okay. This program is basically just closing the gap at the maximum contractual rate that they can reimburse us at. And it closes that gap and allows us to recover. We still don't get the full what we would charge.

Okay, so there's two rates. There's a range of rates that Medi-Cal will pay. And so without this program, they pay the lower rate. Because with the program, they pay the higher rate per transport, right? So we're getting the higher rate for each transport.

Yeah, so the state provides a certain amount of money for the Medi-Cal patients. And the state, the federal government will give us more or match those funds if the funds are there. But the state won't use their own general fund to try to pull that federal match. I see. So they depend on the local jurisdictions to basically give the money to the state to take advantage of that federal match.

Okay, got it. I think I got it now. Okay, thanks.

Thank you, Chief.

I think there was a first and second? Both already.

We had a first by Council Member Bowie, second by Council Member Grandes. Okay. Please vote.

and item 15 passes yeah and I also want to just say thanks again to both yourself also chief McQuaid who was really kind of his his foresight and that started this this ambulance program it's really been a tremendous benefit to the city and you know you've done a great job at continuing continuing what he started and really appreciate your work thank you thanks so much

All right. Item 16. It is here. Approval of the Parks and Community Services Parks Master Plan. Presentation by Deputy City Manager, Community Services Director, Rob Frizzell.

Thank you Mayor, thank you Council Members. Council Member Grandes, that was a great question. That was one of the better ones in a while, the money match. We are so excited. Thank you so much for the opportunity this evening to present for your consideration, the first ever Parks and Community Services Master Plan for the City of Fountain Valley. Joining me this evening from RHA Landscape Architects is Doug Grove, behind us. Recently had his hip replaced, so we really appreciate him being here. And Neely Bat from Next Practice Partners. Doug and Neely led the consultant team in conjunction with city staff that created the parks master plan for your consideration. I would like to thank all of you for your participation. I thank our city team, our city manager, our different departments, and all the community groups that provided the outreach and input. So thank you. A little bit of background before we provide an overview of the plan. On November 21, 2023, City Council adopted the 2045 Fountain Valley General Plan. This plan had an action item to prepare a parks master plan. The action item states, prepare and adopt a city parks master plan that evaluates existing facilities, analyzes potential needs, cost, and phasing for improvements based upon forecasted populations. With that direction, the Fountain Valley Parks and Community Services Master Plan provides a comprehensive community supported road map for the continued improvement of the city's parks, recreation facilities, programs, services, and built upon extensive public input and demographic recreation trend analysis. Facility assessment, service evaluations, operational overviews, this plan reflects both the community's current priorities and its vision for the future. The presentation this evening will provide a brief overview of the master planning process that has previously been presented to council. But we'll focus mainly on the recommended park improvement plan, the cost for that plan, and the revenue opportunities to offset those costs. Approval of the parks master plan document does not restrict or require the city to do any of the items in the master plan. However, it does create a nexus between the city's general plan, allowing future park fees to be used in accordance with this approved plan. Those park fees which are governed by Fountain Valley Municipal Code 21.79 are typically charged to developers at the time of occupancy for the building. I believe if there are any questions on that, Omar can help us on when those fees are charged as well. Lastly, it's important to remember that this master plan is intended to serve as a living document that guides priorities while allowing the city to respond to new opportunities, emerging trends, and changing community needs. And with the direction for the CARS committee, that's exactly why we have a commission like that or a committee making advisory recommendations to the park staff and city council to stay current with those trends and needs in a community. Through consistent implementation and periodic evaluation, Fountain Valley can preserve the qualities residents value today while creating a safer, more accessible, sustainable, connected, and diverse park and recreation system for future generations. um so with that i'm going to hand it over to neela bat he will be going over the steps that we took to get us to the findings doug will present those findings we are going to try to keep it brief because we have shared that information with you previously but we do have the entire parks master plan on the powerpoint should you have any questions we can answer any of those so with that neela

Good evening, one more time. It's lovely to see all of you as well. Rob did ask me to keep it short, I'll be done by about 9.30. As he's mentioned all along, right, this is a plan of the community and for the community knowing where they're going. Which is where the community profile, your future demographics, the recreation trends, all of those were initially and throughout the plan kept in mind for where we want the plan and the recommendations to go. Doug and the team assessed all of the existing conditions as well. As we look at this plan in three parts, where are we today? Where do you want to go? How will we get there? The assessments helped answer where are we today. The community input, all your input, the staff input gave us a sense of where do you want to go. And the recommendations Doug's about to share spoke to how will we get there. So with that, we also assessed all the core programs, getting a great sense of what is it that the community wants and needs for all the different demographic groups. What are their interests as well? Cricket wasn't the most popular one, I'm really sad about that. But other than that, they were all wonderful programs and staff did a terrific job, does a terrific job. And the community surveys and the input continue to validate that. All of this, again, at the end of the day when we started the process, we had said we will have no answers, just questions. And that's what we did through the process, is ensure that the community's values and input drive that as well. So through all this combination of in person, online, English, Spanish, Vietnamese, meeting people at special events, statistically valid survey, online survey, all the rest. We got the input and these priority investment ratings are a great guiding tool for you to get a sense of what is truly representative and defensible in terms of the greatest good for the greatest number of people and thus the highest possible priorities. Things lower often tend to mean one of two things, either they are less important or you've already done a really good job meeting those needs, hence they're not such a high unmet need. This is for facility and amenities. This is for programs as well, and you can see the community's diverse nature, growing and to some degree aging, and yet I refuse to call them seniors. An active adult community has shared many of the recommendations on fitness and wellness, special events, cultural enrichment, water fitness, so on and so forth. All of these are what were kept in mind as we looked at then the level of service to get a sense of what is the community able to have access to. Not just what the city provides, you shouldn't be all things to all people, but what the community has access to and where are there gaps in terms of quantity. Doug's team assessed the quality and then the equity maps gave you a sense of access. So triangulating all of those gives you the best possible sense of what do people need, in what quantity, and where are their gaps, and how should you prioritize based on where the greatest needs might be. That leads us to this box improvement plan that I'm going to have Doug talk about.

Great, thank you, Nealey. Yeah, so this is the exciting part that everybody's been waiting for. The recommended parks improvement plan, we don't call it the CIP because that kind of gets confused with the city's CIP. So this is what we're recommending for the parks. So we start out, we have a very comprehensive Excel file that the city will get, staff will get, and this is a summary page of that. So we have kind of three pockets of money that we talk about. We have what's planned and has got funding already tagged to it. So in that case here, we have $400,000 that's already funded. Obviously the big ticket item here is planned projects based on the plan that need funding. So about $42 million worth of projects you can see broken down into parks, facilities, and trails. And then the last one is what you've completed in the last five or six years, which is always great to see. Because I think sometimes cities forget what they've done. You approve these little projects here and there, and you can see you've done almost $1.9 million in projects in the last few years. And that number will go up as the other numbers go down, so that can be updated by the staff on a regular basis. And again, a living document. This is a, it's in the document as well. It's a park by park summary of where the money is being requested. So we have obviously the first column there is the completed funds. Those are the things that were done recently. We have the funded column. We have the kind of the tan column there, which is the needs funding. That's obviously the majority of that. You can see each park and where the money is going. So it's very well spread out around the city. And then we also have phase one, two, and three, and those can change. So you can see where that money is being planned. And the last column is the total amount of money that's planned as well as what's been completed. So you can see how much each park is either going to get or has already gotten. Same thing for facilities, the two facilities you have, the recreation center and the community center, senior center. Some money is planned for that, as well as the trails. I'm looking at basically the four parks that have the Edison Trail and doing some improvements along there. Creating a crosswalk for people to come, maybe putting some fitness stations along. This document has what we call an action plan, which is just a super long list of all of the items that that we've recommended that Rob and the staff have talked about. And then any time those things come up and we want to do more, that can be added to that list and then these numbers will be reflected automatically by that. So we'll work with staff to learn how to update it and then you guys can see, they can bring it to council and show you on a regular basis what was going on. So it's a really great document. We also, because obviously we have a lot going on at the sports park, so we took what we have on the left there obviously is your existing sports facility, all the field numbers there. There in the middle is the 16 acre site that kind of wraps down around. The part to the right is what the county is doing, so we have all of that kind of coded in there. So improvements that we're recommending, and we didn't get into a lot of detail on this, but we did get the cost for new tennis building, new skate park and BMX track in there, improvements to the existing rec center, new parking area, dedicated event venue, new large scale multi-purpose recreation venue, new pickleball complex, so we're expanding the pickleball complex. Expand existing baseball fields, new dog park, new fitness areas, girls' fast-pitch field, upgraded access road to get back to the 16 acres, a new full-size soccer field, new U-12 soccer field, new softball baseball fields, a new event venue, community center there in the back area. And the new community garden so if we've kind of covered all aspects of things that that are in the plan And then this can be obviously as you get more into the detailed planning on this We've already got some organizations with the Ducks or you know Anaheim Ducks have come forward and wanted to do something with the city We have a ub6 soccer from Hank to beefs wants to do something so you've got some great opportunities with some additional funding as someone said other people's money and Which is helpful to help you guys supplement some of these exciting projects. So really excited about this plan, it would be fun to see it come together as you move forward. Key findings in the funding and revenue studies, strong foundation of alternative revenue sources. You have a lot of different ways to get money in, and Rob and his team are working on more ways to do that. Development fees, you have obviously your dip fees coming in from the new housing. So that's going to be a lot of income initially, which is going to be great. A lot of times you do these plans and there is no money coming in, so this is exciting. Your partnerships, you have some great partnerships. They're very excited to be involved with the city. They keep asking when the plan's going to be done, and I've said it's almost there. Parking fees has been talked about, is a significant untapped resource, so that's something we can be looking at. Community parks can become income revenue generators, especially with all of the people that are coming to your recreation facilities. User fees can continue to evolve and then the private sector delivery model has reduced the risk. So again, you're not putting all the money on yourself, you're partnering with some of these groups that really want to develop things for the future. I'm going to let Neely finish up here with the five big moves that we have planned.

So this is, in five points, a culmination of 18 months of all the rest. And what we often look at this is really from your standpoint, if you look back in five or ten years and you say, what did this plan help us accomplish? These are the tent pole items that you can look back and say, entire system wide, not just programs, not just parks or facilities or staffing. But across the board, how did this first ever plan transform and continue to build on the legacy and the excellence that you have across the city? So this is a living, breathing document and a roadmap. It's not set in stone. Every plan I did in 2020 January was obsolete five months later, right? So what you want to ensure is this plan is a roadmap that continues to evolve as your vision changes, as the community demographic changes as well. The good thing is you have a growing system. The park system with all these ideas and things that Doug showed will need to grow. Along with that, also the staffing needs to grow to keep up with the level of excellence, the service levels are expected as well, right? There is the potential for destination recreation spaces, right? Whether it's from a youth sports standpoint, which continues to grow as well, the revenue opportunity, the economic impact side, and just the branding of the city tied to these high caliber opportunities. It certainly is a potential that you have that not a lot of cities have to the same degree. Something I learned working at Disney as well, we always said the most important person is the customer, but the most important customer is your own team, right? You're only going to be as strong as the team that you have. Sitting behind in the room there, seeing all the department leadership is a great sense to the kind of leadership you all have cultivated as well, and they all continue to live upon that as well. I see the third consecutive amendment to outstanding performance review, so it starts from the top of the city manager. down to all the department heads, right? So you certainly have a great team, and there's only so much you can do in terms of more with less, right? So you're going to have to continue growing as well in order to keep up to all these recommendations. And ultimately, in two years, you're going to be the home for the first Summer Olympics this century in the U.S. It's going to be hopefully raining gold medals all over for Team USA. It's only fitting that we also, as a city and a department, look at that gold medal caliber, the award winning. That's not the goal, but if you do everything else well, right, we pursue excellence, the rewards will follow. And that's part of the mindset with the team as well, starting with Rob. You've got the president of the California Park and Rec Society with Jenny as well. You've got the former president with Doug. So across the board, your own team, your partners are all building their standard of excellence. And this is helping position you to be that, not just California wide, but nationally recognized and acclaimed gold medal agency. So with that, again, I want to just thank you for the opportunity and turn it over for questions or comments.

Okay.

My question for Director Rob Rizzo. Are you happy with this report?

Thank you, sir. Absolutely. There were a number of items that we thought would come out and some general access to the community parks, especially with the new housing development that we have coming in to our community. You saw that restrooms and access to those neighborhood parks was really important. One of the neat things that I never thought would have been up at the top of the priority index list was more community events, because we do a ton of community events. But it shows how much our community actually appreciates them. And I mean, to have that many and actually score that high was really, really remarkable. I think the excitement from the generational opportunity of a 16-acre expansion and possibly kind of a relook and a reconfiguration of our Fountain Valley Sports Park, we just signed our first 50-year extension. So that park's been serving our community for 50 years. It's done a fabulous job, but are there some tweaks and opportunities that we can do to improve it, to build upon those 16 acres? And I really liked when Nealey talked about becoming a destination for recreation. People want to be in Fountain Valley. People want to be in Orange County, right? People want this weather. It was a little bit warm today, but in December when it's 72 degrees or January or March, this is where people want to come and they want to recreate. And for a long time, we've said that we don't have a downtown and that our sports park really is that downtown and it's our meeting hub for our community and the excitement to move forward with the Cars Commission and have people this amount of opportunity to implement that and to have money to do it. Doug touched on the park impact fees. We're going to average somewhere between $8,000 and $10,000 per unit built. And with somewhere along the lines of 4,500 to 5,000 units planned in the city, that's a lot of park fees. And so the opportunity to lead this amazing team, to have the support of an amazing council who's out at almost every single community event, And then to see how well that our community responded to the Parks Master Plan. And at the same time, we asked, what do people want to do with the money? And they didn't clamor for like more, more, more. They said invest and rehab the parks that you currently have and improve those to make those spaces that we want to go. And so long, long answer. Absolutely, yes, I'm happy with the plan.

Great. Well, like you said, the community wants more community events. And hopefully, Fallon Valley will be known as a city of sportmanship, like I said before. The reason for that is it will bring tourism, competitions, that will bring in people dining in, spending money into the city, pulling gas before they're driving back home.

I have an electric car.

I don't know. Hydrogen. Charging for charging.

There needs to be somewhere to be charged, right? You have a charging station, charge them before you go home. So that will hopefully generate some revenue for the city.

So great to hear from that.

That's it. Any other questions, comments? Councilwoman Constantine.

Yeah, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much, both of you. Thank you so much.

Oh, one last thing I would like to add is, like you say, community event, Rob, something to think about, a lot of parking, right? Because you can have multiple events, but if you don't have enough parking, that's going to be an issue. So something to think about.

so on on this potential sports park schematic here you can see on number five we have identified where we currently have two soccer fields to potentially turn that into a full-time event venue because i know how difficult it can be when we have park down time and rehab time so creating a space that's specifically for hosting events building in the infrastructure so it's a really turnkey location natural fencing or barriers so we don't have to put up that orange fencing when we want to get an abc license and things like that but at the same time the potential to to take out a little bit of that that field and put in additional parking also the potential of looking at moving all the soccer to the back so where we have a field deed there could also be parking right there and If you're looking at a potential multi-purpose event venue at the front of the park having multi-purpose multi-use parking for different times would really be beneficial and Doug also put on there an item number 12, expanding that access road, and probably looking at expanding it all the way down to add additional parking along that point. So finding the parking to meet the needs. On number four, you can also see... We're considering moving one of the softball fields either to where we have fields one through four or into the back and making another arm of parking come back down to where we're potentially looking at a dog park. So parking is definitely a priority.

This is exciting. Can't wait.

Vice Mayor Harper.

Thanks for putting this together. I know it's taken, what, a year and a half, two years to get it all together, but really a lot of outreach to the community and great feedback from the people. And this is, you know, along with we recently did the public services, public works program. Yeah, they just did a kind of a facility plan as well. So now between the two plans, the Parks Master Plan, the Public Works Plan, what's it called?

Facility Assessment.

Facility assessment, along with the dollars associated with each, it just gives us some real information where we can plan for the next 20, 30 years of improvements. And I think it's just really, really good work. So thanks again.

So this is just great, right? We were very excited to have the plan published and ready to go. It's a beautiful document and you guys did amazing work. One of the things I was thinking, would it be possible to get a few of these completely bound, maybe spiral bound? I would love to have a copy, I know it's big. But also just make that available to maybe some key areas around the city. So folks can actually see it, look at the maps. I think that might be helpful to start, first of all, learning what's in there. It's also going to be helpful for the CARS committee, because now I think you can see why there's so much kind of work ahead. Just looking at this map alone is mind-blowing, right, at first glance. know maybe that's one way to celebrate this plan is also to have a tangible visible document at our fingertips so absolutely we'll make that maybe a minimum of five one at recreation one at the senior center one at City Hall and then the two can perfect yeah cars and that type of deal that'd be great that'd be great yeah awesome

I want to add something, a little challenge for you, Rob. Okay. And we'll be here to support you as well. As you know where the line withdraws, where number three is, the whole entire line where the great middle and the amphitheater. Currently there's the fence from the county, right? I know where you're going. Oh, you know where I'm going with this, right? If you want to start communication with them, if they take out that fence, so a resident, if they go to Amphitheater, they can access through there. If not right now, they will have to go all the way around, right? And, you know, it makes sense to be able to flow both sides.

i think i think it's a great point and you know for our residents that are coming to the park they really shouldn't know whether they're on a county park or city park they're out there to recreate and use the location one thing that has held us back in the past is they charge for parking and we don't and so they didn't want people parking in our lot or Conversely, we didn't want people parking in our lot and going to their facility. So the opportunity to look at an long-term revenue source through parking and also connect with the county and match fees so that we can be more interconnected is a great idea.

You know, I just thought of another idea. So I think you really encapsulated this concept of a downtown because we have for years struggled to figure out where that is in our city. But I think you just told us what we've always known and that our downtown is actually in our parks. And part of that theme of healthy fitness valley, right, is really what we've been living all this time. And so thanks for pointing out that our downtown is maybe a little bit different than other cities, right? And that's where we play and we have fun. And so much more is coming our way.

Actually, what I've said is maximize the resource that we have and look at what we don't have. And that's something that we have, so we should maximize it.

With the potential of a big event center of some sort there too, there could be food and music and alcohol. I mean, that's what people are looking for. So there's the potential where it truly can be a downtown and not just for those who are sports enthusiasts. Yes.

so the new trendywood is not downtown it's a gathering place and we have been discussing and talked about the sports park as the community gathering place yes that's great okay well we have a little bit of work to do we do need to vote on this so thank you so much you have a motion yeah I'll motion to approve the plan second any other discussion please vote

Item number 16 passes 5-0. Great.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Next, item 17, designation of voting delegate and alternatives for the League of California Cities annual business meeting in September 2026. Presentation by City Clerk Administrator Rick Miller.

All right. Real quick. Yes. The league has their annual meeting coming up next month from September 23rd to the 25th. The league meeting this year is in Anaheim. The voting day is the Friday of the business meeting. And in order for the city to participate in voting, vote and appoint a delegate that will represent the city voting, as well as alternate if the city council wishes. So at this point, if we do wish to attend and vote, I would need council to appoint a delegate.

Alternates if necessary is there a reason we just can't make this permanent the mayor is the delegate the vice mayor is the alternate and We ever need a third. I mean, why don't we just do this and so we don't have to go through this every year not that it's I think the League is required to do The league requests a form every year that I send back to them I understand but if we do it permanently then you could just do it For example the mayor doesn't attend or the vice mayor you know Well then we appointed an alternate at that point Well I would like to volunteer to go so I'm planning on attending anyway I'll move to appoint Mayor Kenean as delegate and myself as the alternate I'll second that feature.

Thank you.

May I ask who was the second on that?

You give it to Kim.

Please vote.

We go Maggie.

Item 17 passes 5-0.

Okay. Next is item 18. Approve a third amendment to the city manager's employment agreement. Provide additional compensation and benefits following a positive performance review. Presentation by city attorney Colin Burns.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. During a recent council meeting, the city council reviewed the performance of the city manager. Following a successful review, the council determined to increase the city manager's compensation and benefits. Provided for council consideration is an amendment to the city manager's employment agreement implementing those increases. Pursuant to the Brown Act, before final action can be taken on the compensation or benefits of a city executive, such as a city manager, an oral report must be made during a regular council meeting. This is that report. Following the most recent review, the council agreed to offer the following increases. And there are three. The first, the city manager shall receive a one-time merit bonus of $5,000. Second, the city to provide 2% base earnings each pay period into the city manager's individual retiree health savings account. Third, city to increase its matching deferred compensation from $6,000 to $10,000 annually. The increases are proposed to be effective July 14, 2026, and the recommendation is to approve.

I just wanted to make one comment. I appreciate everyone on the council for completing the performance review in a timely manner and getting us to this point. So just a word of thanks to everyone.

Just one of the questions for the city attorney. I understand that this question was a closed session matter, how we made the determinations. the city manager has done a tremendous good job overall but none not all of us do agree that she should receive all the requests that she wants for as part of evaluations in the future are we able to say who vote yes and who vote no for on the the On the request on the salary?

You could vote no if you want.

This is the time where that happens, actually. This is the final action. Okay. The closed session is just to give direction to the negotiator who is the mayor and mayor pro tem. Got it.

Okay. I just want to know, just for clarification, that's all.

So, Council Member Bowie, when you vote, do you just want to see if there's a red thing up there?

Well, I've been seeing green all night long.

Okay.

Any other comments?

I'll move item number 18.

And I'll second.

Item number 18 passes 5-0.

Okay, next is City Council's successor agency, Housing Authority, public comments on unscheduled matters only. Are there any requests to speak?

We have no requests to speak.

Okay. All right, we'll move into City Council Successor Agency Housing Authority AB1234, general comments. Councilman Grandes, do you want to continue?

Sure, thank you. So on July 16th, 23rd, and the 30th, I attended Concerts in the Park. I want to thank the Parks and Rec team for a great concert series. You guys, they're not here, but I'm sure they're listening. Great job. I think everybody really enjoyed it and each week it got bigger and bigger there. On Friday, July 17th, I attended the Albertsons on Brookhurst and Ettinger, their grand reopening. They redid the store there. Tuesday, July 28th, Boys and Girls Club of Hunting Valley. I'm a board member, attended the board meeting. Wednesday, July 29th, the Fountain Valley Schools Foundation had a thank you dinner from our president, David Truong. Thank you, David. That was a great dinner. On Tuesday, August 4th, I attended the OCPA Cost of Service Project Briefing. I've already given the update on that. And then that evening, attended the National Night Out. Thursday, August 6th, attended the Fountain Valley Chamber Governor Affairs Committee Meeting. Saturday, August 8th, the Fountain Valley Firefighters Association Pickleball Tournament. That was mentioned a little earlier. That was a great event, and I want to thank my partner, Janice Fong, who's a great pickleball player. Her and I actually won the championship that day, so a huge trophy. Actually, no, I think we got a T-shirt. So it was a great event, though. They did a really good job, and it was a lot of fun. then that evening I really slept a lot the next day but that night then after the pickleball tournament went to the Fountain Valley Kiwanis pins for kids bowling event and it was just about sold out I think there were 59 of the 60 lanes sold and I believe over $60,000 was raised that night so that was just Fantastic. And Fountain Valley Kiwanis is also looking for new members. You gave Rotary a plug earlier. I got to give Kiwanis a plug. Yeah, but those guys did a really great job. And it was fun because the first game's 10-pin bowling. The second one game is if you get nine or nine, that counts as a strike. on the first ball and the third game is eight pins are better and the crazy thing is my first game i bowled a 179 that was the best game so anyway uh fun night and then monday august 10th we had the civic center ad hoc committee meeting and myself and council member constantine And there's about, I don't know, 11 people, I think, on that committee. We're talking about what are we going to do with the whole Civic Center? What ideas? And there was some really good outside-the-box thinking that even I didn't think was possible of what we could do here. So stay tuned for that. Wednesday, August 12th, I attended the Fountain Valley Chamber's Angels Night Conference. And the Angels actually won that game. I think that was the one game this month they won, so that was good. And then Saturday, August 15th, Robin's Nest, who really does a great job. If you don't know Robin's Nest, look it up. They raise money for high school students who are really in deep financial trouble. We have, believe it or not, even Fountain Valley High School has homeless students that attend. and throughout the district and they provide housing and food and all kinds of great things so they had a poker tournament and those of you know me for the last 23 years i put on a poker tournament for the foundation twice a year this one i got to play in and i actually won the whole thing first place so that was a fun event uh thank you to natalie mosier and all of the robin's nest group that's my report thank you Councilman Bui?

Well, first of all, I want to thank my council members for the last meeting. I think I wasn't here. You guys had it, right? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. The notice. I was here. On the notice today, I was kind of surprised on our... The city finance director was leaving two weeks, but I was out of town on vacation. So I guess I just find out through you that he was leaving. He put in the notice two weeks ago, so it's sad to see him leaving. But once again, I wish him best of luck with Dinner Point. I like to know if for item for future considerations I know we said earlier but I didn't have a thought until councilman Constantine mentioned earlier that if we could have agendize the for OCPA on the next meeting September to find out exactly if we had to exit what would we cost us because you told us that they might purchase power already and So we need to know, you know, what are the damage?

We're not going to know what it would cost us because there's so many variables involved. There's no way to know how much it potentially could because those contracts would be sold, as I mentioned earlier. There's absolutely no way to give that kind of answer.

especially in September when we don't even know what the rates will be until probably October November well it's a great idea and I'd like to second it okay nevertheless thank you thank you and I'll go into memory report later okay and just as a clarification we we did move the items for consideration from sort of the end of the meeting to the to the beginning and so that was just kind of a courtesy to make sure that that was I just want to make sure I understand you're asking for

feedback on what the potentials will be for in terms of correct but the potential would be in if there are any and you say that's not possible but or at least we need what's at the exact month of exiting if we need to because I guess when the speaker says six months so I'm not sure that's true or not I don't want to vet that out it's my understanding that it was going to be the various timelines of

for whatever was going forward that's what we understood from the last meeting so yes okay okay councilwoman constantine sure thank you okay before i forget the library is going to have a sale and It starts this Saturday. It's Saturday, August 22nd through the following Saturday, just every day that the library is open, the Friends of the Library, that is. They're going to have their annual half-price sale. The entire store is on sale. However, it does not include the items in the display case. So that's at the Fountain Valley Library, the Fountain Valley Friends of the Library. So some of my whereabouts since the last meeting were that I attended some of our concerts in the park, our national night out, stopped in at the Fountain Valley Fire Association annual pickleball tournament charity fundraiser at Los Caballeros, Also attended the Gold Award and Eagle Scout Court of Honor Ceremony at the Garden Grove United Methodist Church. Stopped in at the 18th Annual Benefit Pins for Kids Bowling Tournament at Fountain Bowl. The JPIA Workplace Harassment Prevention for Local Agency Officials. I did that on my tablet. I participated in the Fountain Valley Civic Center ad hoc committee meeting here, attended the movie in the sports park. Paul's Coffee Shop was featured for the second time on the Guy Fieri Diners, Drive-Ins, and Drive-Thru television show. I can't read my writing. But anyway, the first time they were featured was 2010 and then just a couple months ago. And then something I always spend a couple of hours at, I really – seeing our police in action was the police department and police cadets. They held a DUI and driver's license checkpoint on Brookers near Heil and Sergeant Pratt and her team were very, they were exceptional as always. And also helped check in campers for the annual camp out at the sports park. That's it, thanks.

may i'm sorry for yes can i get a clarification for the first and the second for ocpa um i know the next two meeting uh we have full agenda for study session already was there a timeline with that uh are we okay bringing back potentially the first meeting october because we've been starting meeting at 3 30 and i think it's been challenging for some council members because they're working

uh i guess it's okay only if you find out if the deadline is six months and you have to figure that out you need to figure out the timeline if we need to if we choose to exit we make sure that we're x we have enough time to respond truly um city manager maggie it was if we review the tape from the last meeting it was just going to be the various timeline of events where our city is involved that's the

I'll make sure that we get that to all council members prior to the next meeting. Not a problem. Okay. Appreciate that. Vice Mayor Harper.

Thank you. On July 15th, attended the PCTA board meeting. July 16th, the OCTA Finance Committee meeting. also later that day the concert in the park and then on July 22nd the JPIA award ceremony where it was mentioned earlier Fountain City of Fountain Valley out of 102 cities won a risk management award for our excellence in risk management so congratulations to Rick and Heather and and the rest of the team July 30th the concert in the park with the Vietnamese group which was they were they were great really enjoyed their energy so looking forward to seeing seeing them next year August 1st is the camp out stop by and saw the campers it was good well-intended but a little hot and then august 4th the national night out to watch part of the bad guys too um that was great uh rob frizell was a little sunburned coming back from his first trip but he looks like he's recovered now so that's good and then august 8th stopped by the firefighters pickleball championship and congratulations to councilmember grandis for his victory there thanks

All right. I'm being told that I have to come clean, that it was the beginner level that we played in.

Thanks, Annette. So my activities since the last meeting included the following. On July 16th, I was honored to make some opening remarks at the third concert in the park at Miles Square Park. The headlining band was We Are the 80s, and they were amazing. It was great to see huge crowds there for this totally tubular event at our great recreation center at Miles Square Park. On July 17th, I was honored to participate in the grand reopening of the Albertsons store on Southwest Brookhurst Street, Nettinger. Thank you to Councilman Grandis who was there for the festivities. On July 18th, I participated in the third annual back to school event at Freedom Hall. hosted by our supervisor Janet Wynn and sponsored by the Boys and Girls Club. In addition to seeing hundreds of happy students and their parents getting nice backpacks and a lot of merch, one special highlight was that my youngest daughter, Dahlia, was there representing Angels Baseball with her Strikeforce team and two corporate sponsorship executives, which my daughter introduced me to. This was our first co-lab event. As they say, it was so much fun. On July 21st, I chaired the OCTA Citizens Advisory Committee, where we received updates about topics such as the long-range transportation plan, the Newport Transit Center, e-bike safety programs, and the general OCTA outreach efforts, which have been very strong, such as their booths at all of the recent county events at Freedom Hall here in Fount Valley. On July 23rd, I made some short opening comments including recognizing Hyundai Motor America for their generous contributions to our community and then joined in the fun with the Bruno Mars tribute band. On July 30th, I attended the OCTA elected official round table meeting where we heard updates for the draft long range transportation plan and the future of measure M2 in light of its sunsetting in 2041. Later that night, I made some short opening comments for the final concert in the park, which was attended in a lot of fun. On August 2nd, I joined in our Rotary Club to prepare and serve breakfast to the hungry campers that participated in the 14th annual Great FV Campout at the Soccer Center at Miles Square Park. This is one of the most impactful events our small but mighty Rotary Club undertakes every year. On August 6th, I participated in the Monthly Government Affairs Committee or GAC meeting hosted by Fat Valley Chamber of Commerce together with my colleagues, Councilman Constantine and Councilman Grandes. Later that day, I participated in the elementary school renaming from Rosita to the Frank and Irene Palomino Elementary School. in neighboring Garden Grove. As Fountain Valley is home to multiple Garden Grove Unified School District sites, including Los Amigos High School, we are very proud to support the district. It was also interesting to note that the Palomino family was one of the five plaintiffs in the landmark California school desegregation case, Mendez et al versus Westminster et al. And so the other three families are the Estradas, the Guzmans, and the Ramirez's. They've been collectively known as the et al's for many years, and the Palomino's were actually the last family to finally get recognized. On Saturday, August 8th, I first attended and was privileged to recognize four Girl Scout gold awards and one Eagle Scout at the court of honor ceremony at the Garden Grove United Methodist Church. The Eagle Scout, Braden Tran, and one of the gold awardees, Kathleen Hun, are recent graduates of Fat Valley High School. So go Barons. B for L. Later that day, I participated in the Kiwanis annual pin for kids tournament, a major fundraiser, and bowled with three of my fellow Fountain Valley Rotarians. That was a lot of fun. And then lastly, on August 12th, I attended the Angels game with Fountain Valley Chamber of Commerce together with Councilman Grandis, and it was a lot of fun, and they won. So on that happy note, we will be... adjourning to our next meeting, which will be Tuesday, September 1st, 2026 here in the chambers. Until then, have a good evening.