Planning Commission - workshop

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Calls back to order at 435. We're going to enter into study session. Before that, public comments. Are there any requests to speak?

Presently, I have no request to speak.

Thank you. OK, first presentation, Police Department Recruitment and Retention, presentation by Police Lieutenant Mike Parsons and Chief Greg Heredia. Welcome, Chief.

Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, City Council. So in the July city council meeting, there were questions about recruitment and what our overall numbers are with regard to staffing of both sworn personnel and our professional staff. So we did a little bit of homework to see exactly where we're at. And with that, we put a little PowerPoint together to give you an understanding of our authorized of full-time staffing numbers we are authorized for a total of 64 and we are currently at 56 with our on our sworn which puts us minus eight and professional staff we're at 22 or we're authorized 22 and we're down five so just going over the numbers here police officers of all ranks again we're down a total of eight dispatchers were down by two Actually, let me back up. We're down by eight, but we have two that are going to be starting in the academy this month. We are slated to start two additional police recruits in the academy in October, which will put us at a total of 60 here within the next couple of months. And then we have a plan to put the balance in the Golden West Academy in January. And with that, we also have two dispatcher, full-time dispatcher vacancies right now. We have one person in backgrounds and we have the hiring process started for another. Administrative staff, we're two of two. Support services manager, we are one of one. Support services supervisor, we are zero of one. And there is a typo on the memo that was sent. But with that zero of one, we actually have an employee who's been hired and they're gonna be starting on Monday. So I think we're better off than our numbers show here, uh, with regard to our record staff, we are two of four. We have one employee that will be returning, uh, hopefully. And we also have one that is currently in the process that will put us back to closer of full staffing to full staffing in that category. We're a three of three community services officers. We have one ID technician who is the equivalent of a crime scene investigator. And so we have one of one there. and our crime analysts were also one of one. So what I'd like to highlight today is our working relationship with human resources. We have a fantastic partnership and a collaboration and I can't give enough credit to Tanya and Tamron and the entire HR team with how quickly they are moving on things to help us address this challenge. They have helped expedite the process And with that, let me move on to the next slide here. They've helped expedite the process by putting job employment opportunities on our city website in a very timely manner. And they are closing the application window when we have enough qualified candidates, again, to make sure that we are moving as quickly as we can to get these positions filled. And then it goes to, you know, interviews and background and polygraph and medical and psych. There's a lot that is involved in bringing somebody on board, specifically for police department positions. Also, HR had recommended moving to ESOF, which is a web-based platform that helps with improving the overall efficiencies and timely communication at every stop along the way during the hiring process. And so the results of the efforts that they have put in in partnership with us, we cut down the recruitment and hiring time from what was six months down to three months. And so that is lightning speed in the law enforcement world. So I really appreciate the partnership there. They've also helped create a citywide video that highlighted not only police department positions but jobs throughout the entire city and coming soon, 2027, there will be a PD specific video that we're going to be putting together to highlight each of the areas of what it is to be in the police department and the positions there. And in talking with Tanya and doing an overall assessment of what HR's philosophy is, she used the word concierge. And that's really the level of service that we're getting here, that our applicants are getting here in HR. They're getting customized care and communication with each and every applicant. They are working with us to schedule ride-alongs for police officer applicants. They are working to schedule sit-alongs for dispatcher applicants. and scheduling conversations for applicants who want to talk to somebody who's actually doing the job right now. And so that personalized touch has really improved our hiring and onboarding system. On the police department side, we do have two people that are dedicated full time to our recruitment. And those people are Sergeant Bill Hughes and Corporal Tony Clements. And they work in partnership with HR with weekly meetings. And some of the other things that we're doing internally is social media. We're posting our job opportunities both on Instagram and Facebook. We have a pretty cool team that handles all of our social media stuff. So we have an audience and people subscribe and watch our videos. So the fact that we're generating interest and posting those job ads has been a good thing for us. Additionally, the electronic billboard, we have a partnership with Mike Thompson's RV and you may have seen it driving along the freeway where we are highlighting job opportunities for our police department here. And again, that is something that is great and working with members of the community and business owners to highlight the needs that we have here has been good. Outreach efforts. You have probably seen us at the concerts in the park and at National Night Out. We've been going out there routinely to highlight the need of our staffing challenges right now. And additionally, our folks went to Hot Rods and Heroes, and that was back in March of this year, and that was an event in Huntington Beach. And our folks won an award for the best police booth that we were recruiting for. So again, we're putting ourselves out there. We're trying to generate as much interest as we can. But I also think it's important for us to focus on workplace culture. And we are working very hard together to create a positive environment where people feel valued and respected and appreciated. And I think that plays into our ability to retain people. In addition to, you know, obviously pay and benefits are an issue. with every agency, and we are in a competitive job market. So we want to put ourselves in good position with workplace culture. We want people to be happy when they come to work. And when you're happy at work, you're going to stay. You're going to be loyal and work for an organization that you feel values you as a person. And we're also working to create employment opportunities, specifically in the area of specialty assignments. And that's one area that we have been challenged with, with those reduced numbers. When I started here, we had 52 sworn out of a total of 64 authorized. And when you're that in 12, may not sound like a lot, but when you're dealing with such small numbers, it's a high percent that we're missing. And with that, we have to draw back from those specialty assignments to put people in patrol in police cars. Because the reality is when somebody calls 911, we need to show up. And we are doing that. And although we are short-staffed, the quality of service and... level of service that we're providing to the residents here in the city of Fountain Valley has not been compromised. There's more that we can do when we are closer to fully staffed. And I really look forward to that opportunity because if we are able to get closer to fully staffed, then we'd be able to add additional officers to traffic, for example, or regional narcotics task force. and tackle some of the other issues that we're experiencing here. But outreach has been done by HR, by the police department, by both sworn and our professional staff. We've had dispatchers out with us trying to recruit additional dispatchers. And again, we've been able to generate some interest and it's really been like an all hands on deck approach to that. So just a couple things for the progress report before I close out here is, again, I just wanted to highlight the fact that we have weekly meetings, the police department and human resources, we have weekly meetings to talk about where we're at, to get updates on candidates, to talk about issues and to request positions to be advertised. And again, I think establishing that weekly working relationship has paid dividends on the ability to grow in numbers to an appropriate level. And again, you know, I'm going to double tap here on the results. You know, going from a six month process to bring somebody on board down to three months, that doesn't happen by accident. That happens on purpose when you have people that are working together for that common goal of getting people, the right people, you know, employed here. Another issue that we've dealt with has been, you know, historically as a city, we have only sent two recruits to the academy every fiscal year. And so, for example, we're at 56 right now. We should be at 64. That's eight officers. If we stayed true to that prior practice, we'd be able to catch up in four years time. as long as nobody left and as long as there are no more retirements between now and then. So as a police department and our HR partners we saw that as a challenge and we have since fixed that. We had four recruits that graduated earlier this year Again, we have two more that are starting this month and hopefully another two that are going to go in October and the balance is going to be sent in January to the Golden West Police Academy. We're looking at using different academies. Right now we have people that are in the Orange County Sheriff's Academy because their academy started soon. We didn't want to wait till January. We want to get people trained now and so we can get them into the FTO program. We want to move with a sense of urgency on all of these positions. And so with that plan outlined, my goal and my hope is that we will be fully staffed on the sworn side by middle to late next year. That's with people graduating from the academy and really being boots on the ground here in the city. And then the last thing I'd like to explain here is the success of our youth and our entry-level positions. We have a pretty robust police explorer program that's growing and right now we have We have two police services officers who are hired as recruits, and they're the ones who are gonna be starting the academy this month. And so those are those entry-level positions. Those are people who are already Fountain Valley City employees. They already care about this community. They already love this community. And the fact that we're gonna be able to hire them to be police officers. I think there's an investment in them already as they're investing in the city here in the future. We had two police explorers who just recently applied for cadet positions. And so we're really trying to create this culture of growing our own. And we want people to be a part of this police department who are already living in, working in, and playing in the city of Fountain Valley. So there's some really good things happening. And I'm excited to report on the progress. And I'd be available to answer any questions you might have.

Thanks so much, Chief. I'll open it to council questions or comments.

Councilman Granis. Thank you, Chief. I appreciate you putting this together. I was the one who asked for this back in, what was it, July? July, yes, sir. It was a quick turnaround, so thank you for doing that. When someone goes through the academy, how long does it take to get through the academy, do whatever they need to do, and actually be hired as an officer?

So the Academy is approximately six months and then to, um, to get them hired, that's another three. So you're looking at nine months ish, um, from start to finish. Some of the things that we've done to help our people be successful is we've actually hired them as city employees before the Academy starts. So this last group of four that graduated earlier this year, they were brought on board to. to be police department employees. And they were acclimated into the city family by working here at the front desk. Well, here, across the street at the police station at the front desk. And again, that's investing in them, bringing them in early on in the process. And we are also very purposeful in sending our folks to a pre-academy. That's where they get ready for the academy because it's stressful to be you know standing on line learning to march and you know the tactics and the academics and the physical aspect of a police academy it's it's not easy and we want our people to be prepared to know that stress is coming and that they're going to be able to manage it and they're going to have support and resources to help them get through and what percentage of the folks that we put through the academy don't make it through the academy

I know you're new. That may be tough to ask you. I don't know if Captain Parsons.

That's a good question, and I'm not sure if Captain Parsons or Tanya has information on that. But I know as of late, everybody has made it through the academy. We have had some people who have not had success in the FTO program. Once they graduate from the academy, that's where the learning really begins. when you start working with a field training officer and responding to calls for service and writing reports. And we do everything in our power to make sure that people succeed. And my philosophy is we're not in the business of washing anybody out. If anybody's having a challenge, the first place we need to look is at ourselves. We need to look in the mirror and find out how are we not being successful training them? And then having our field training officers talk to other training officers who are more experienced. hey, I'm dealing with this issue. What did you do? How can I get through to this new officer to help them grow and learn in the profession?

How many of our officers have we, no, that answers my question. How many officers would you say in the last year or two have left for other departments?

Let me turn this over to Captain Parsons, newly promoted Captain Parsons, as of Saturday.

Thank you for your confidence in me, Chief. Thank you. Congratulations.

Thank you, everybody.

It's quite an honor to serve in this capacity. At the end of the nine-month hiring process, there's also a 20-week FTO process. It's over a year from start to finish before they're a solo officer able to actually perform individually, so it does take a long time. I would say we're in the 90th percentile or better as far as the people that we actually recruit and hire to get through the police academy, which is essentially a stress inoculation boot camp, as well as an academic environment. Sometimes they have to remediate because of injury. If they're running four to six miles periodically throughout the week, injuries can occur, I would say. To the last question about how many people have chosen other agencies, I would guess around five in the last two to four years. Sometimes there's various reasons for that. There's personal family things that bring them to other states and things. That's fine.

Yeah, I don't think it's because we're a bad department that they're leaving. There's a lot of reasons they would. I guess being down eight officers now and a plan that says in January it's going to take upwards of a year to have, I just, I'm not satisfied with that. I think, and there's no reflection on you, Chief, you're new to here, so this is not a reflection on you, but if there are officers that are in other cities that we can recruit, which could get things quicker, I think we're in a crisis mode right now, being this far below. We've got officers working incredible amounts of overtime. We have officers that are not doing everything we need them to do because they're doing patrol and the stuff they have to do. So I would like to see, figure out, if we're somewhere in mid-county range, Let's just assume we are. We were. Then there's half the cities in Orange County are paying less than us. How do we go recruit and get our unfair share of officers from other cities? Because we need to do something now. and and i want us to get more creative the way you're doing it is you're you're increasing the funnel of the way we normally do it you're doing it more efficiently as well but you're but i'd like to see us do something in addition to that to get us to the number where we need to be you know quicker than really a year and a half from now city manager lee

If I can add to the conversation, I can confidently said in this last two years, we have not seen our officer leaving to another agency. So that's a lateral loss. So morale has improved tremendously in the department itself. And so the reputation is improving in the last two years and we've been successful. The other thing that I can add to the conversation as well, what we learned in the last two years is that our former retired captains were only focusing in recruiting two on an annual basis. And when we learned that, when I learned that, you know, and HR learned about it, we were very aggressive. Why are we focusing only on two recruitments when we have six to ten vacancy? We need to put more energy and effort and, you know, like what Chief is doing now, working with HR, working with command staff and so forth, and going outside of our standard operation in making those recruitment efforts.

Well, let me clarify. I did not insinuate in any way that it was something with our department that was a problem getting people to leave. I'm just showing that people leave departments and go to other departments so we can recruit. I'd like us to set a goal of five transfers from other departments in the next six months. What do we have to do compensation wise, bonus wise, something outside the norm to get five new officers from other cities to transfer to Fountain Valley? And then when you start bringing in these others that you're talking about, you know, we're going to have some attrition. So that will just get us to where we need to be still, even with five officers.

Councilman Bowie. That's a great thinking, but I think everybody understands at the end of the day, it's the power of the purse, right? How much money do we have in our coffer? I think that's your really big challenge right there. We always talk about find new ways to generate revenues. And that is the challenge that the, I know we don't have an economic development department anymore, but that is something that our city manager will have to strive, find new ways, be creative. And of course, with the help of our planning commissioners, that are here in the city, look at our ordinance. Is there anything we can improve to increase more people coming to our city to do business? Obviously, our commissioner understand that our city was fully built out. Okay, what are our options? How does the community respond if other cities, when they run out of space, what do they do? The only way to go up is go up. How does the community respond? If they respond negatively, well, what options do we have? That's something that our planning commissioners need to look at the books, look at the ordinance to find ways to make our city as business-friendly as our core values and mission statements are, business-friendly, because that's the only way we can generate more revenue and do a lot what you ask, and even more is the power of the purse. I want to ask about reference to the cost of the academy. So I kind of look it up. It costs, because we have to, once we sponsor the cadet or the student to go through the academy, future officers, it costs roughly between $41,000 and $5,000 to go through the academy at the Golden Ridge College. Am I correct? It's give and take about there. So I look it up because I call my friend who's a former director over there. It's about that much. So we pay for the academy. We're six months. And we also pay doing their educations as a part-time employee. So my question is combining that with a part-time, how much is that total? I don't know. Do we know the number, Maggie? If you don't, it's okay. We can bring it back later.

I'm sorry, your question was the part-time. What's the cost for the part-time?

Yeah, the cost for the part-time for the officer to go to the academy, we have to pay them as an employee, right?

For the academy? Maybe Tanya can share that. That's correct. We pay them an hourly rate as a police recruit while they're attending the academy.

Right. Do we know roughly by the time six months, how much we're paying them?

No, but we can grab that number for you.

Here's my point I'm trying to get with this. So let's say with a part-time six-month and the cost of the tuitions, I would say give and take $5,000. Let's say the whole thing comes out, let's say $15,000. Let's put that $15,000 to recruit. The other officer comes in as a bonus. That was trying to get at. And then you got someone that comes in, laddering from another department, who has experience, which is great, right? And then you get them on right away. You don't have to wait for that six month, that three month interview, and that two year probation to make sure he pass all that. You got an officer that's laddering in from another agency, boom. You got years of experience. A watch commander doesn't have to stress out, right? Because he has experience. That's something I was thinking outside the box. In addition to, I'm not sure what we've been giving out already for laddering, right? So it makes it, instead of much more incentivize the officer from laddering in. But of course, there's going to be a catch. When you're in, you got to make sure you service one year probation, let's per se. If not, all that bonus got to go back. That's an example.

We recently brought forth the police incentive hiring program. We could revisit that as well, too, and see if there's something we could, talking with finance and the city manager, maybe we can look at that as well and come back.

Yeah, and these are budgeted positions. So it's not like we're trying to get money to hire eight officers we haven't budgeted for. This has been budgeted. The additional funding is how do we motivate them to get from another city to us. And there's a lot of cities that pay less than us. So maybe we get a little aggressive in our targeting target market instead of advertising in Fountain Valley, advertise in a city that may be paying a lot less.

And the only reason why I'm bringing this point, because I've just learned something new the other day. And it's actually better for our city if we are able to put that money aside and have those officer laddering. Because for those that we're putting through them, the academy, we pay for the school, we pay doing their educations. And at the end of the day, if they choose not to go with us, we lose all that money. Right? As far as the other way, we don't lose. We have not had a record of people leaving, but as you heard from our captain earlier, in the last few years, five of them leave for whatever reason. But at least we don't lose that investment money on those future officers.

Mayor, before Councilmember Constantine, I want to provide some clarification. For the police recruit, we pay around $43 per hour. For a police officer, we pay $47 per hour to $58 per hour. for information and as Tanya mentioned we do have police referral incentive program $10,000 we provide $5,000 upfront for lateral and then the other five once they pass probation we also have I believe around $5,000 incentive for dispatch lateral and so forth And that may be an area that we can look into and come back to City Council if City Council want to bump that amount up, which we can do because those incentives are being subsidized through the salary savings. And then I want to also provide clarification on economic development. We are still focusing on economic development. Actually, we have a management analyst that is completely focused on economic development that we created. So, and also Omar Dadaburi, our Deputy City Manager, Community Development Department, works closely with the Planning Commission modifying and revising some of our Ordinance to be more business friendly and we have seen that for the last three years So yeah, when you're talking about economic development, it's still a priority for the city. It still is embedded in Me personally because I came from economic development and economic development is second nature for me so yes recognizing from the City Council from a policy standpoint that And my passion for economic development and working closely with businesses has always been my philosophy. And it's all about relationship building. So, yes, we as a city are still focusing on that and continue to focus on that because that's an area where every city today are focusing on.

I want to add one point to what you just say, City Manager. So you say $43 is that for the police recruit. Is that eight hours a day, 40 hours a week we're paying them, or how do we pay them?

It's typically 40 hours or a little bit more than that per week.

Okay. So 40 hours, six months, we look about $41,000, plus $5,000, $46,000. So I think if we can come up with and incentivize, let's say, half of that, $25,000, to your point, I think you'll get your six-month recruit, right? Because instead of getting a student going through it, we give an incentive, $25,000, to come work for somebody. That would incentivize some of the officers, I think. Just a thought, something to think about.

Thank you.

I'm just curious on the incentives program since we've implemented, how many have we paid out?

A few, I think.

I think we provided that last time around, but we can go ahead and revisit and email to city council after the meeting this week.

Are you saying I'm old and don't remember?

We did go over it, I remember. I have the same syndrome, so we're on the same page.

Councilwoman Constantine, do you have a comment?

Well, yes, great presentation. And yes, we haven't lost our economic development department. Of course not, because that's very important for the city's growth. Also, when we met previously a couple months ago about the incentive program for the police, I was very much in favor of possibly increasing it to whatever city staff feels would be lucrative. And I look forward to more officers. Thank you.

Vice Mayor Harper?

Thanks for the presentation. I have a couple questions. One is with the Mike Thompson RV sign. I do drive by there sometimes and see advertisements for the police department. What's our arrangement with them? Do they show it a certain number of times per hour or per day?

I'll have to get back to you on that. I know Sergeant Bill Hughes made arrangements with them to get that going.

All right. Yeah, well, I'd just like to shout out to Mike Thompson for doing that for us. Really appreciate it.

I think it was part of their contract when we agreed to their sign. That was part of the contract.

And then next question is, do you know how many we have in the Explorer cadet program right now, approximately?

We have approximately 12 right now.

Oh, okay. So that's a lot of potential future.

It's up from what it was earlier this year. We do have an excitement brewing there where people are bringing their friends. And we have some new Explorer advisors as well who are making the program fun and entertaining.

Okay, and last question is, you mentioned this ESOP program, which is reducing the background check time. Can you give an example of some of the, like before the ESOP and after the ESOP, like one thing that sort of how we did it before and how the new program does it for the...

I could probably make something up, but I'm going to bring Tanya up.

Yeah, because cutting three months off, it just seems like...

Yeah, so prior to us implementing ESOP, there was basically the P&T Sergeant would have paper documents and have to go have people fill them out in hand, mail them out, et cetera. Now we have the system where these questionnaires are sent out via email and they have direct access to some of this information versus this paper trail that we were trying to catch up as well too. So it's made such a tremendous difference. We do credit checks through there. We get the references from there. And then it goes through a process where there's approval levels through ESOP versus a big binder that's printed out and then hand delivered to the next approver within the process.

So it's mostly a paperless process. Okay, great. All right. Thank you. That's all the questions.

One of the cool things about ESOP is when somebody uploads the document, the next person in line gets an email immediately to it's there. So it's really helping expedite the overall process. I'd like to add one more thing to the conversation earlier. about hiring academy grads and also laterals. So we have hired two this year. We hired Joshua Hawley, who was an out of state law enforcement officer, and he put himself through a three week post course to get himself certified to serve as a police officer in the state of California. So we hired him, and he has successfully completed the FTO program, and he's out on patrol. And then we also just recently hired Donovan Gomi, who is an academy grad. So we are trying to implement some of these suggestions to speed up the amount of time, or actually reduce the amount of time before we are able to get them out on the streets and on their own.

Well, that's great. So you're saying it works. So let's just help you fund that to get more.

I appreciate that. And the suggestions for creativity, I think, are really good. So thank you.

Great. Thanks so much, Chief and Captain Parsons. Apologize and Tanya for all the efforts. Sounds like the partnership is thriving and we appreciate all the efforts that you're doing as well as the social media. I follow Instagram and Facebook and they're they're interesting, effective. And I think that's another way to reach out and get more attention to our department. We have one request to speak on this matter.

We do, and currently I'm not able to ask that person to unmute. It says, oh, maybe now. Liz Andrade?

Can you hear me okay?

Yeah, now we can hear you. Hello?

Thank you so much. I'm a longtime resident of Fountain Valley. Can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Fantastic. Elizabeth Andrade, long-time resident with Fountain Valley. Just a couple of points of consideration. I'd love to understand the attrition rate, and it was discussed, but the time range of two to four years, it's so unclear to me about the true rate of attrition. Another point of consideration, the 20% increase on the department and not increase a sworn officers, but fulfilling the sworn officer requirement can perhaps create some stress for the existing officers and the rate of which we would want to ensure that those sworn officer positions are filled. We just may want to think about how to support the existing officers as that as those sworn officer positions get filled and just in the experience of building teams and building teams quickly, just thinking about those that are there and how they're being supported as they're onboarding new officers and team members. And the last one is, that the staying bonus so once understanding the the attrition rate over time and planning for that attrition rate as council member grandis indicated it would be interesting to think through in addition to the sign-on bonus and incentive what types of incentives are being provided to the officers as they continue to grow in their tenure with us and commitment to the city thank you for letting me express my questions i appreciate you all

I have no further request to speak. Okay, thanks so much. Appreciate it. Thank you, Chief.

Thank you.

Okay, our next presentation, Fountain Valley Sister Friendship City Association presentation by Public Works Director Scott Smith. Welcome.

Thank you. Perfect. Honorable Mayor, council members, the item before you here is a creation of a Fountain Valley Sister slash Friendship City Association program. Behind me, I'd like to take the time to slow down and point out that we have a number of stakeholders that have, and advocates that have participated in the discussions and meetings, and along with the city manager, myself, and the attorney for the city will, I'm sure, be available to answer questions or to provide input as the council would like. At the May 19th meeting, Fountain Valley City Council gave staff directions to create a program and staff is coming back with two different options to create that program or recommendations. One is doing under the umbrella of doing business as under the Fountain Valley Community Foundation and the other is creating a separate and independent nonprofit organization. Option one, the Doing Business As will fall under the umbrella of a currently registered Fountain Valley nonprofit, which would be the Community Foundation. And on August 20th, they voted to approve the FVSFCA, that's a mouthful, as a DBA under the nonprofit. Within your attachments on this item, attachments one and two, you'll find the MOU and the program guidelines. The other option is a nonprofit status, separate independent nonprofit. And this would require additional support from local nonprofits during the IRS submission and nonprofit status. Once again, the MOU and the bylaws are in the attachments. There are attachments three and four. The attorney for the city and staff recommend creating the FVS, the program.

I think we need to work on that.

That's right. Through a DBA for the following reasons. It creates its own identity, avoids duplication, so from an admin standpoint, managing it, independent fiscal operations and budgeting, able to focus on the program's mission, and the city council would continue to retain authority. As part of this, we wanted to put out there the proposed travel itinerary, which would be a delegation going to Japan, and that would be from November 18th through the 25th. I'm not going to read all of those dates, but you can see it's a packed schedule and visiting a different city, different area pretty much each day. The potential delegation would consist of the individuals site on this page from Kiwanis, the community foundation, educational institution. We'd need an interpreter and also potential consideration to David Kano to connect with the city of Fukushima. The travel expenses associated with that for the majority of the group, not the non-staff, city staff and or council members, would be through the funds that were raised, I believe, through the state of the city and would cover airfare, lodging, and transportation, about $2,500 to $3,000 per representative, total cost up to $15,000, whereas the city would be separate, covered through the general fund with the total cost up to $9,000 for those three individuals. And then travelers would be responsible for their own food and dining with that. I'd like to point out the recommendation, which is create the program as a DBA under the umbrella of the fountain Valley community foundation. That concludes my presentation. All of us are available to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thanks so much, Scott. I'm going to actually turn it over to city manager Lee for some direction.

I apologize. I want to go ahead and acknowledge and show our appreciation for our sister city advisory committee who are in the audience. We have former mayor Steve Nagle and his wife Nina Nagle. We have both superintendent, the Huntington Beach High School Union District and Dr. Ogata and then Fountain Valley School District, Dr. Stopp. We have our historian, Dan Gibbs, in the back. We have our late mayor, James Connell's son, David Connell. And we have Cal State Fullerton representative, Tam Nguyen. We have Reverend James Pike, who has a mission in Fukushima and Japan in general, and he has been a guidance for us and also providing recommendation on interpreter that have visited Japan on a regular basis. And then we also have Fountain Valley Community Foundation, Mary Ellen, and also Casey Henley. And I think I capture everybody. I'm sorry.

Nora.

I'm sorry. Nora Little right behind Nina and Steve. Again, really appreciate. It has been a few months effort since we received direction from city council and they have been very engaged in the bi-monthly meetings that we have had. For tonight, open for city council conversation and any of the advisory committee they're interested in adding a comment we would appreciate your perspective we are requesting the City Council direction in regards to either you know having the program under the Fountain Valley Community Foundation which originally was recommended by the Advisory Committee we did not get a commitment from Fountain Valley community foundation at that point in time and now they have blessed that and it has been our recommendation including the attorney for the city due to the fact that it would eliminate a lot of administrative effort and it saves the team a lot of time in addition to that the fountain valley community foundation will have the ability to support us as we forge forward with this initiative it is going to be a several year commitment in creating this program with the foundation and we are heading in the right direction because we're pulling a lot of nonprofit organization together for one common mission and acknowledging and respecting our pioneers, who is our first mayor, James Connell, and showing our respect in selecting Japan as the first country. If it's successful down the road, there may be additional opportunity. So that is one of the recommendation and the other recommendation and direction from city council in regards to this November delegation. It is important for us to move forward with it because we need the commitment with a potential sister city or and or a friendship city so that we can start planning for our seventh birthday celebration in june of 2027 and i think it's a courtesy for us if there's a commitment and then we would inform and extend the invite to them for that celebration so they can plan for that and ideally formalize part of our seventh celebration to sign you know a potential sister city or friendship city and if there is no commitment from potentially two or three prospect that we would visit during this delegation then staff will pivot and the advisory committee will identify if any alternatives that we can consider so it's a long planning phase but i think it's a great opportunity initiative for the city and in addition to that there would be two city council representation to that delegation and so if we can get city council a blessing then it is full force on my end and my team and the advisor committee and start planning for that november delegation

Great. Thank you. So we have two questions on the table. First, let's deal with the recommendation on the structure of this association. So I'm going to entertain thoughts. Vice Mayor Harper.

Do we need a motion on it? You want a motion on this?

As long as you can give us me direction, we can go ahead and proceed.

Yeah, since it's a study session item, we're not going to vote on it, but we're providing staff direction.

I'll support staff recommendation.

For the Valley Community Foundation? Okay. Yeah, I just want to add to that the Fountain Valley Community Foundation already does this for a number of organizations. So this isn't something new that the Community Foundation does. I think in our financial statements, there's probably 20 different entities that We hold money for and we do this kind of work for, and it's taking advantage of the 501c3 we have in place and the corporate structure that's already there. So adding to this is basically pretty easy for them to move forward with. Okay. I should say us.

Gotcha. Councilman Bowie? Thank you, Mayor. Ashley, can you go back to the structural recommendations, Rick?

Right there, I think that's what was it.

Yeah, the city recommendations. Well, first of all, like you said, Council Member Ingram, I do appreciate the Family Community Foundation stepping up their plate once again, serving the community. I believe they have a lot on their plate already. So that's another task on life. which is wonderful. And right now, you do have the resource. That's definitely, you do have the member to help out. The only thing that I would have a second thought, and it's something to consider, is as my colleague has said, that this organization has so many activity in the city already. And the sister city, ideally in the future, is to expand educations, hopefully into economics, because I think the end of the day is we want to improve the economic, you know, between two different countries. But at the same time, if we put everything under one basket, which is the Valley Community Foundations, we will – excuse me. Are we going to be exposed if there's an issue with the foundation that's going to bottleneck the sister's company? You see what I'm trying to get at? If there's an issue because it's under one entity. So I want to eliminate the risk.

So I would say yes, the Fountain Valley Community Foundation is sort of a middle ground between sort of having it as an internal city program and being independent. I will say that the MOU does provide pretty significant guardrails for how the money has to be spent, what it can be spent on. If the city provided money to this program under the Fountain Valley Community Foundation and then didn't fulfill that or the program ended, the money would have to go back to the city if it was not being used for that purpose. So there are guardrails in the MOU that do protect the city's interests and the sister city friendship program.

Okay, great point. I guess my point I'm trying to get at is I want to protect both entity, not the city, but also the family community foundations. Should something happen, remember, we're doing a program, we're going to be dealing with kids, right? They could be minor kids. If for some reason there's something that goes wrong, they find a way to sue the organization, and they're going to tag on the community foundation as well because they're leading organizations. I want to make sure that We set in a way that it protects not only the sisters, you know, city organization, but also the other end. So we are dealing with many entities here.

So the sister city program would be a DBA and essentially the same thing as the Fountain Valley Community Foundation. So there isn't a way to protect it from itself. The thing would be the MOU has to sufficiently satisfy the city that, and it does contain indemnification clauses. So just sort of between the city and the organization, there isn't a huge risk. Between sister city and the Fountain Valley Community Foundation, that is that sort of middle ground and Having an independent entity would alleviate all of the risk as far as that goes. But I will say the reason that I don't recommend that structure is that running a nonprofit and particularly getting the 501c3 status and what I find happens is that The advisory committee spends an inordinate amount of time on budgeting and, you know, off-mission administration, whereas putting it under the Fountain Valley Community Foundation allows the advisory committee to really focus on this particular program and let the community foundation do the organizational structure, the admin, the budgeting, and all of that.

All right. I'm going to leave what you're best at. I'm going to raise this issue now so that way as you draft the MOU and other contracts, be mindful of what I'm concerned of so that way you find a way to make sure those concerns are being addressed so that way we don't run into issues down the road.

Thank you, council member, and we definitely will do that.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Constantine, any thoughts, support, option one, option two?

I support community foundation. Okay.

I also support option one, F-E-S-F-C-A. Yeah, there we go. Okay, so I think you've got direction on the nature of the entity.

Yes, one more thing. So at the last meeting, the money was being given to the , right? I think, what, 37,000, I believe, roughly around there? So now do we need to have a motion or talk about that the money needs to be going toward, what's the process?

So right now, we are starting and creating a program within the Fountain Valley Community Foundation. With the delegation in November, we anticipate spending up to $15,000. So we're approximately having less than $30,000 with the Kiwanis. And there's Kiwanis representation with this delegation as well. and so technically we're only having like maybe 4,000 remaining and so forth once we wrap up with this delegation and in the future potentially you know the Kiwanis can donate that remaining funds toward you know any additional opportunities that arise from the conversation with the sister city advisory committee

Or we could thank the Kiwanis Club for all their efforts to this point and allow them to keep it.

That is also an opportunity. And the Kiwanis will continue to be involved in the Sister City Advisory Committee because they will support us in the future with fundraising opportunities and so forth. And so they enjoy that and we appreciate them for supporting the purpose.

OK. OK. The next question is, of the five of us, which two will be interested in attending?

Actually, have we agreed that we're going to do the trip first? I think that's the next step before we do council, would be my suggestion. And I guess, is it up to council for us to decide that? Or is it already decided?

It is recommended from the advisory committee. So it's at the pleasure of the city council if you give us a thumbs up and identify the two council member representation, because this is a city effort as well.

Yeah, and I won't be able to attend for work reasons and family reasons. So of the four of you, which two are interested in attending?

Yeah I would defer to the rest of the council if if if there is only one that wants to attend I'll be the second one but I'm happy to have the three of three of you go.

Mr. Mayor, in light of current Vice Mayor Harper not running for reelection, we're going to miss him too, I will serve as mayor starting at the end of the year, and I would like to attend. And it's not just only about that. No matter what, I'd like to be very connected with this program.

Okay, so we have Councilwoman Constantine as one, possibly Vice Mayor Harper as two. Any other interest from council?

Um, I would like to request that you give us some time to figure out if we could do this or not. Um, I will say though, council member Constantine, if you do not get reelected, you won't be mayor and you won't be on council. Um, well, you'll still be on council in November. So there is that. So it's not, it's not a foregone conclusion that you're going to be mayor.

Well, it's not a foregone conclusion to be accurate that I would be reelected, obviously. Absolutely. That's where you had a little bit of a misstep. Understood.

Okay. So we have Councilwoman Constantine and Vice Mayor Harper, unless there's any other interests.

No, I'm not interested unless...

I'm trying to get two. I don't want to... We're back to one.

Yeah, it's one. I'm the default if we need two and nobody else wants to go.

And it may just be one, if that's the pleasure of the council.

I can decide now. I'm fully available to attend, and I know we have... reason to not push this along, not for me as far as Maggie.

If I can recommend, if City Council needs some time to digest who the two council members that we'll be representing, you can take the time, but I would like City Council direction to move forward with this November delegation because there's a lot of coordination. that I need to do working with the cities in Japan and they need some time to make arrangement because they want to ensure if we do visit them that they're going to be successful and not feel like you know they're going to be disrespectful when we do visit them so if at minimum if I can get city council blessing that we're going to move forward with this November delegation. So there's going to be a lot of coordination that I need to work with the advisory committee commitment on date and so forth. I would appreciate that.

Thank you. Well, for me, I think we need a little bit more time. I'm trying to figure out what are we going to accomplish this second round going to Japan. We are very appreciative and thankful to the taxpayers for the first round going there. We have learned quite a few big information from going over there, what information they have given us, what are they looking for from us if they were going to join us, vice versa. So I'm trying to figure it out. I understand there's in the report, but is there really anything that's going to stand out that's going to make it really different from the first trip? I understand $15,000 may not be a lot, but that $15,000 could be extra money for the organizations to do whatever they need to do for the following years. Perhaps another council needs to go, city manager and the staff. I'm just thinking out loud. Unless you can convince me that there's really, really something, there's a really need for council to be there. Understand, you know, this is the money that was generously donated to the city, but every penny count for any organization, especially in this time in the economy, it's very difficult. So I think every penny counts. So I think a couple weeks, I think it's reasonable to give us some time to really think. Perhaps we can discuss, you know, what really big difference it's going to make for us to go.

The other concern I have, if you do hold off, the cost of the travel for airfare lodging will be drastic. We're two months potentially away from the identified date of December, I'm sorry, November 18th to the 25th. I've been monitoring airfare on a regular basis, so I'm a little bit nervous that it will get out of control for the delegation and so forth.

Council Member Constantine?

So Council Member Bowie, you're mixing the funding, you're mixing the non-profit funding with the City Council funding and the players involved. We also do have the schedule here, and it's all about networking and connecting and knowledge and gaining information in both ways, whether here or over there.

Well, I respectfully disagree with you. I'm not mixing the funding. You are. Whether the funding is coming from the general city funding or the organization nonprofit, it's still money. I'm not mixing it. I respect any money that is given to any organizations, how we want to use it. I'm not mixing the fund. You did. Now, okay. Okay, it's 9,000. Now, reference to networking, like I said, this day there's so much technology. If it's networking, you want networking, you do Zoom, unless there's something really concrete that you think that's really a must to be there. That's my opinion. That's all.

You made some comments in a prior meeting at least twice now on camera about your experience on the last trip. I don't really want to go there. So it's surprising. Are you considering going again?

I didn't say that's really the question on the table so I don't want to bring out dirty laundry here but consider this if if none of the council can agree who to go who's gonna go rest assured that we have good representation with former mayor Steve Nagel who will be there and will represent as well so I either way there you go yeah former mayor

So Mr. Mayor I would say at this point when I was saying delay the decision on whether we could go or not as a council member I still feel forward at this point we should move forward with the program and we're gonna figure this out after this trip whether this will be come to fruition or not so I say let's let's move forward and then give councilmember Bowie and myself you know a week or so to you know this was just one week yeah this wasn't it wasn't a lot of notice on this and you know we have real jobs and we have work and we it's also Thanksgiving week we'll return on the day before Thanksgiving I believe or Thanksgiving Day Is it Thanksgiving Day or the day before?

The day before. So the 25th is the Wednesday. Again, it's up to those that will be able to travel. If they do decide to go outside of the window, they basically would compensate the difference or whatever the case is. If I may, if I may invite Reverend James Pike to kind of share from a cultural experience with his many visits on missions and so forth, how important it is for us as a delegation to visit Japan in person than via Zoom if we're looking for some commitment, long-term commitment from some of those opportunities.

Welcome. Thank you so much. I'll address that question and Councilmember I'll address your concern because I think it's a valid concern and one that we should consider. I think I won't even speak about what happened on the last trip. I can just tell you from the last time that we've been in this meeting the particular culture and history of Fountain Valley that we've uncovered, including with the Kano family and with a growing interest in Japan to discover this relationship between Fountain Valley and particularly in this case, Fukushima, but even one of the other cities. there is a growing interest and a growing rapport that represents the work of this committee that's happened that is unique from anything that I've been involved in up to this point and I just think Fountain Valley has a very special opportunity with this trip to build on where you came from with your heritage and also become a special protector of that story, not just with Fountain Valley, but as you do a cultural festival with Japanese American and Japanese organizations in Torrance and then also with someone like the Tanaka Farm in Irvine that's keeping this heritage alive. So I think even from the last time that we spoke before this meeting, I didn't really want to come here tonight. But the reason I did is I believe that so much has developed and so much has happened that I was like, no, I have to be there and say, I think it's really important that you do this. I think it's really important that you say yes. Because there is a qualitative difference between meeting just on Zoom as strangers. If this trip didn't have a point, you'd be right that the donor dollars and the government dollars would be wasted if it could be replicated merely through an online forum of being like, hi, we're from Fountain Valley. Hi, we're from Japan. What we've done is we've really tried to identify what's made Fountain Valley unique, both with its heritage and people, that we can then match with people in Japan. Because Japan has the same concern. They're like, why would you all come over here if we don't really want you here? Like, we can host you and be like, oh, you want to go to dinner and here's someone wearing a kimono. But if it's like, oh, if we actually have heritage, when they find out that the Kano family still has relatives outside Fukushima, they're like, tell us who they are. We want to find them. So what we're seeing is this is beyond sort of a superficial meeting of people, and we're going deeper into histories, family histories, city histories that has the potential to really develop into something wonderful. And to the final point of the question that you asked, uh person to person is always better because we make those relationships and to the degree that the city wants to make an investment in these relationships i think you'll see this investment be multiplied and compounded in ways that we can't even imagine and not just free anniversary but five years from now seven years from now ten years from now i think you'll look back at this and be like that's where it started I really believe that. Otherwise, I wouldn't have come tonight. I would have just texted Maggie and been like, I can't make it tonight. Good luck. But I really believe in what you're doing. We're working on the ground to actually prepare for people to welcome and also help with transportation and some of those issues. And I'm only doing that because I'm a proud resident of this area. And I think what you're doing is unique and wonderful.

Thank you. Mr. Mayor, if I may.

Councilwoman Constantine?

Yeah, a couple of things. I want to say I will be attending the meeting next week that we have for this program next Tuesday. And my former career as a Disneyland Hotel employee, we dealt with a lot of Japanese. I learned all about the culture. In fact, our former GM was Japanese, Hideo Amemiya. So I believe I would be a great asset. Nothing to do with the election. Thank you.

Okay, I think, do we have any requests to speak from the public?

Was that for this item, Katie, or regular meeting? This item. Okay. Yes, I guess we do. Katie Wright?

Welcome.

Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate that courteous welcome. Everyone does, by the way. I hear it a lot of times. I'm a penny pincher. I can be a negative Nancy. However, on this issue, the cultural issue, I have no opinion on the cultural exchange issue. What I have an opinion about is that one of the council members is poo-pooing the amount of money being spent and conflating this nonprofit money, this city money, et cetera. It strikes me as horribly hypocritical for this person to bring up that amount of money when this person caused us to spend over $30,000 of city money on a third-party attorney to explore an issue which was, frankly, political payback for someone not agreeing with him. It cost the city $30,000. You can ask Colin Burns. It was described on tape over a non-issue. That's all I have to say. Thank you.

I have no other requests to speak.

Okay. I think we've heard from council on interest in attending. It's a, it's got about a one week decision.

Yes.

And my, okay.

My understanding right now is council member, um, Grandis supports the delegation, just a city council determination who will be that to representation.

If we have one. Well, not necessarily. We have one interest. Confirmed. If three of us want to go, then we're going to have to vote on it somehow.

Yes, the alternative that we staff have. But if you want to hold off and make that decision is basically we put the name of the hat and then just draw out of that hat.

Well, if I may, I disagree. I mean, it needs to go in order of who we are on city council. That's just my thought.

Vice Mayor Harper?

Yeah, I just want to state that I would be in support of moving forward with the delegation.

OK. OK. Put a pin in it. That's where it stands. Great. Thanks so much to those that came from the Sister City Advisory Committee. Thank you for your time and your effort. I'll see you next week. OK, our last study session item is the Little Saigon Recommended Design Guidelines. We're going to be welcoming up our esteemed Planning Commission. And I'll mention by name in alphabetical order, Kristen Escona, Cheryl Brothers, Rudy Huebner, Lisa James, Matthew Langer, and An Vu. And I believe, City Clerk, they're going to be coming up here?

I don't know if anyone's going to be able to see. Okay. Please come on up.

Hey, forget to get close to this one. Pushing close.

I thought we were going to sit in a lot already. Hello there. I got to pee.

Jesus, thank you so much.

Oh, gotcha, gotcha.

We'll just take a moment while Vice Mayor Harper returns.

How are we all going to figure it out?

You know, if I watched it.

my first roadies

Thank you. Thank you. OK. Welcome, Victor.

Thank you, Mayor. Afternoon, Mayor, City Council, and Planning Commissioners. I'll be providing an introduction to the next study session item. In 2024, Cal State Fullerton published a comprehensive economic study of Little Saigon, and one of the conclusions of the study was Little Saigon had now grown to include the cities of Westminster, Garden Grove, Santa Ana, and Fountain Valley. For Fountain Valley, that includes the northern part of the city, north of Warner Avenue, and With this as the background, in March 2025, the cities of Fountain Valley, Garden Grove, and Santa Ana applied for a grant opportunity to the California Jobs First statewide initiative and economic development grant. Westminster was initially going to be part of the grant, but decided to apply on their own. The three cities continued the application process. Cities propose using the grant to study the Little Saigon area and how to promote it as a cultural tourist destination to tourists already visiting the Orange County area for the theme parks, the beaches, sporting events, or any draws to Orange County. Drawing more visitors to Little Saigon would support the small businesses there and in turn create more jobs is the economic development aspect of it. The proposal including exploring the development of a business improvement district, a BID, conducting a market study and the development of recommended design guidelines. Ultimately, it was determined that there was not enough support for the bid, but feedback during the outreach was that there was still support for establishing a cultural nonprofit that would support and promote the Little Saigon area. While work continues on the cultural nonprofit, other aspects of the grant continue to move forward, including the development of recommended design guidelines. For the design guidelines, Gensler, a global architect and design firm, was contracted to develop these guidelines after extensive community and staff input. The guidelines are intended to provide guidance to developers, businesses, cities, property owners when developing new projects or improvements or renovations in the Little Saigon area. The overall goal is to provide a cohesive and feel throughout Little Saigon that provides a cultural authenticity and enhances the visitor experience. These guidelines can also be a tool to be used by the future cultural nonprofit for fundraising activities, such as applying for grants, private foundations, and it really presents a unified vision for the Little Saigon area. The guidelines are recommended and do not supersede or override any existing zoning, land use regulations, or engineering requirements. and here to present a summary on the guidelines and provide an overview of the community and staff feedback, answer questions related to these guidelines is Midori Mizuhara from Gensler.

Thank you so much for having me tonight. It's a pleasure to be here. My name is Midori Mizuhara and I lead the Urban Planning and Design Studio at Gensler. As Victor mentioned, we're a global design firm with many offices in Southern California and across the globe, really. For this project, I had the pleasure of being the project manager and leading the Gensler team. I will say on our Gensler side, we came to this project very excited with a multidisciplinary integrated team of urban planning professionals, designers, architectural designers, brand designers, mobility planning specialists, and especially community engagement staff. And it was a pleasure to work with Garden Grove, who really led the three city client group and Fountain Valley and Santa Ana. I would say we, since kickoff in February, we met every two weeks and staff from all three cities participated. So thank you so much, Victor, Omar, and your public works staff who regularly joined. And this was really a collaborative effort across all three cities. Starting off project purpose, the goals here was really to establish a shared vision for the future of Little Saigon, strengthen the district's cultural identity and physical character, improve the public realm and enhance the visitor experience, and really guide future public and private investment through a cohesive design strategy. And, you know, as Victor mentioned, Little Saigon is large, spread over multiple cities, and, you know, businesses are growing across. So it really wasn't about drawing a hard boundary around a certain geography, but really focusing these guidelines on major arterial commercial corridors that had a high concentration of Vietnamese American businesses. So think of this document as guiding physical design in those areas. The district today, as we kicked off, our team walked, drove, shopped, ate, we ate a lot. And we discovered a vibrant, culturally unique district. And it is a wonderful place brimming with authenticity and culture. However, we also discovered some common challenges Auto-oriented retail centers with expansive parking lots don't make the best kind of pedestrian atmosphere. There's a strong cultural identity everywhere here, but there's some inconsistent physical characteristics, a real lack of shading and pedestrian comfort. And even safety from, you know, pedestrian auto, very large corridors. There's limited pedestrian amenities, and that's something that was really desired by community. There's diverse retail center sizes requiring kind of a lot of different design strategies. And there's many destinations here, but there's a lack of connectivity between destinations. And so it was really important to these three cities and the Gensler team that this was a community-led process and co-created with community and stakeholders. And for that reason, we developed a very iterative approach to design. We started in February. We kicked off with a really large spring campaign of virtual focus groups with leaders, business owners, cultural institutions, in-person workshop, and an online survey. So kind of hitting three different ways to engage. We then took all of those learnings back to the drawing board and our designers and planners throughout the spring and summer, created draft recommendations. Then we went out again for a second cycle. And that second cycle, importantly, was held at the Fountain Valley Recreation Center at Miles Square Park, I believe. Yeah. And that was a wonderful event where we then ran these recommendations by community and really got their feedback and say, did we hear you right? What do you think about these recommendations? And that allowed us in the late summer and fall where we are now to refine and finalize the recommendations. And so what we heard across those were some really clear common threads. The community and stakeholders really strongly want to preserve heritage, building on really important to not have these guidelines say, oh, we're going to create something new. It's about really building upon the layers that have built up over the decades that are so authentic and loved throughout Little Saigon. It's not about wiping something away and creating some new district it's about how do you celebrate the the Diversity here and the many different stories that little Saigon has to tell it's not one story It's about celebrating identity many identity is celebrating the unique spectrum of Vietnamese and Vietnamese American Experiences through design and space and it's about activating community life so how do we create more public spaces which are lacking in little Saigon for people to come together and for cultural events and connections between generations. And with everything that we heard, we created design values, and this really served as our north star. So this helped us guide what we recommended and what we didn't recommend and what felt very authentic to what we heard from community. Design for hospitality first, create a welcoming, accessible, and inclusive district. Honoring memory and storytelling. Again, it's not just one memory or one story, but many coming together. Looking towards the future. We heard from so many young families, I want this place to be relevant for my children. And how do we do that? How do we attract and keep multi-generational community here? Staying flexible and tactical. So what are the small wins, the affordable wins that businesses can do today? And then what are the bigger goals that maybe take bigger capital investment for the future? And how do we prioritize coordination and cooperation not only within the district or within one city or between businesses and organizations, but between cities? The many cities that Little Saigon exists within. And finally, I'm gonna say this so many times tonight, but embracing nature and leveraging the outdoors, by far that is overwhelmingly one of the top, top wishes from your community of more greenery, more public space, more places to gather. And so with these values, I'll stop and I'll just interject this quickly. While we weren't scoped to create a district brand, that is a whole other project, and that's a different project, but we did think it was important that the document and all the engagement materials and sketches that we created had a cohesive feel. our branding team created this interim graphic identity to work with for the process. And what we heard in our first wave of engagement was this real affinity and love for both the retro and nostalgic, but also something really new, bright, friendly, welcoming. So this was an attempt to create something of a brand identity that weaves together different perspectives and what you could call a mosaic. And so we use this brand identity to kind of illustrate some ideas for the purposes of this document. And so what is this document? As Victor mentioned, these are recommendations. What I'm sure a lot of you, most of you know what a design guideline document is, but it's a flexible set of recommendations to guide the future. It's guidance, not requirements, importantly. It's meant to complement existing zoning, and it's used by property owners, cities, designers, business owners, and staff. And so how we imagine this document being used, it is organized in four sections, which I'll cover shortly. And it's really highly visual, so you don't need to have a degree in planning or architecture to understand this document. It's in plain language, plain speak. Very visual, lots of diagrams, lots of example photos, and it's meant to really guide folks at any level that they're entering, meeting them where they are in terms of understanding. And what's meant to be achieved by this is it's supporting capital improvement planning and project prioritization across the cities and encouraging a coordinated approach to these. And so we organized the document into four main chapters, and the document's about 100 pages, so I'm not going to go through it, but I'm just going to touch on a very high-level summary of the goals of each chapter. So starting with streetscape and public realm, this would mostly be the purview of the public sector, the cities. This is public realm. streets and right-of-ways. Site design comes down to more the parcel scale. The property owner architecture is, you know, in the realm of the property owner, but also the business that is leasing that space. And signage and wayfinding kind of run throughout the three buckets I just talked about, because signage can be a storefront sign at a very small scale, a gateway over a major boulevard at a very large scale. Different parties are responsible for executing those. So I'll just go through a high-level overview, starting with streetscape and public realm. The main section goals here were to strengthen district, and I should mention each chapter is broken out into a series of recommendations with steps, corresponding imagery and diagrams, but there are many recommendations, but they all kind of fall within categories. that you see here, strengthening district placemaking and celebrating culture and character within public spaces. Those are things like public art, murals, bus stops, signage, expanding shade and trees and landscaping, really introducing more opportunities for either temporary or permanent outdoor and public space, and improving walkability and connectivity. And some of the ways and some of how those elements might come together and create something greater than the sum of their parts separately when they come together. This is just a sketch. This isn't saying this is any one particular place. This is just a hypothetical. Street lighting, you see banners, you see street furniture that's coordinated in style, roadway medians to introduce greenery. We developed a number of options for gateways from very lo-fi and less expensive to larger and architectural built out. Pylon signage to mark the entrance of a district shaded canopies because we know it's not feasible to plant a million trees But you could have different kind of tensile structures and canopies outdoor seating really really important to community and things like bike lanes and enhanced crosswalks for walkable safety and comfort And again, I mentioned different different Gateways, you could have a banner. We also did a number of different sketch options of built out more architectural features. You can see this all come to life in color. Um, the next kind of scale or chapter of, uh, recommendations is site design. So going to the parcel, um, and some of the goals at the site level were improving site access, getting to the site, but also circulating throughout the site comfortably and safety safely. Um, and with a certain level of design, uh, aesthetics, um, strengthening site placemaking. So creating places that are easily plug and play, uh, with events and programming. and then creating that active community spaces. We heard from so many families, I want a place where I can go with my mom and go eat and then I can watch my kid and I can do some shopping and how did three generations all hang out in one space together and enjoy themselves and eat and shop and all kind of be in one place together on a Sunday afternoon. So at the site level, some of the elements that we talked about in the guidelines were enhanced pedestrian lighting, decorative paving, which could also be storytelling trails, ways to inscribe histories and stories in the paving, or different public art pieces that tell the stories of Little Saigon. Wayfinding kiosks, we heard so much. We don't, a visitor doesn't know and get intimidated to know where to go or how to access. So enhanced signage and wayfinding. Shade trees, really important. Places for temporary activation that are built in. And of course, public art. And then going to architecture, some of the goals here were enhancing storefront character, improving comfort and visibility for businesses, and designing distinct roof forms. And I will just mention here, this was probably where there was the most discussion because every single person has different affinity for different architectural styles, and there's not one architectural style that defines the Vietnamese American style. experience or aesthetic so it is that collage and that building upon layers and layers and decades of history and different aesthetics that I think make little Saigon special today and we may keep it special and interesting into the future so we are not proposing one architectural style be blanketed over this district at all that is not the intent here but it is a a palette that can kind of showcase many different things and be tied together. So another intent of this document is to both is to recommend specific things but also to educate folks that you know don't even know what an awning or clear story means. So these simple diagrams can kind of help educate what are the elements of an architectural facade and then how Might I introduce different elements to improve that pedestrian experience in different ways that don't all have to look uniform? We're not trying to create a uniform experience here. That's what's interesting about cities is you encounter many different things along the walk and along the sidewalk, right? And so if this is the diagram, this is one notion of how that could come to life with color, with materiality, and texture. And we created a bunch of different, these are just examples of diagrams where we tried to make it really easy to give lots of options for facade materials. Um, and these, all these materials were vetted by community through many workshops, um, and preference voting and prioritization through digital surveys, through in-person workshops as well. So these preferences for style came through directly from community voices. Again, just pointing out different ways to have shading elements, signage, landscape and ornamentation, even potted plants. When you're talking about, you know, cheaper and tactical winds versus larger and expensive, there's the whole combination here. And these are rendering sketches of what could be, not what needs to be, but just to inspire folks of some visions. And lastly, signage and wayfinding, which really touches all the different scales. Some goals here were to create welcoming moments and landmarks at the large scale. How do you know you're entering somewhere special and entering a district? Once you're in that district, the second goal, how do you enhance navigation and district legibility and know where to go? What's down that street? Can I stay a little longer and just park once and go to multiple destinations? And how do I know where I'm going? And then third, really celebrate culture through graphics, color, and art, and partnerships with local artists. And again, in terms of signage, there is the tenant signage, which we wanted to propose many different types that all kind of work well together in diagrams like this. And then you see that graphic identity come back. This isn't a design proposal per se, but a sketch of how identity could play out in a cohesive set of elements such as street poll banners across all cities which would really create a very easy way to recognize that you're in a district if you start seeing the replicated graphics and imagery and font over and over again And here's just one sketch of how that could play out as you transition from the sidewalk into a shopping center with some mixed-use residential. Maybe that's a new development. You see how signage kind of directs you to where you're going and how to understand the place. And so I just want to end with a shared vision. So this was intended to be a lasting framework for preserving cultural identity while shaping it for future generations to come. and really wanted to create places where people feel welcome to walk, gather, and experience the heart of Little Saigon, and empower property owners, businesses, and cities, city staff, to all kind of work together to shape a more vibrant, cohesive district. And I think that concludes my presentation. but I'm hoping that this can be a tool for folks at the three cities that participated to get grant funding and of course the nonprofit that's being developed to use for future funding and planning. Thank you.

Thank you so much for the presentation. Very interesting. My first question is, have you ever seen a city council and a planning commission all assembled on the dais before?

You guys are so cozy.

Someone should take a picture. So I'll just open it up. And Chair Langer, same with you, if you want to ask for any questions.

I'm just going to go first.

Thank you. Well, first of all, thank you for the presentations. So one of the flyers you show, you know, the design and all that, as you know, a little bit of a history of the Vietnamese American and old culture, a lot of it was influenced by the French. And part of that, because I saw some of the dining, as you know, that the French dining, a lot of it is outdoor. so i didn't see too much of that in there it's just something for you to take a note of yeah if you've noticed if you i don't know the last time you you've or i seen at least see any pictures like the in vietnam before and now there's a lot of influence of the french on the outdoor dining yeah so that is something to think about as part of you know recommendation or suggestion as part of the planning So the French has a lot of influence on the Vietnamese culture reference to dining. I just want to point that out.

Thank you. We heard such aspiration from the York communities to more outdoor dining and more outdoor space. So they really echoed that.

Commissioner Huebner?

Hi. Yeah, this is a fantastic presentation, and I come from a visual design background, so I really appreciate the cohesive visual presentation, the iconography, the use of color. Even though I know it's not final, I like that your firm is already thinking about a strong visual identity for this district that is unique and distinctive, and that's not just kind of a one-size-fits-all. So the fact that the Design guidelines are going to have some flexibility built in, I think is very smart. My question is, have you given this presentation in Garden Grove and Santa Ana, and how have they responded to it?

Yes, a week ago today, I gave the presentation to Garden Grove. And then at the end of the month, I believe I'm going to go to Santa Ana as well. That date is still TBD. So the Garden Grove presentation went really well. I think 90% of the questions were, okay, now what? This is all great and wonderful, but where's the money? And how are you going to implement this? And how is a small business that's struggling to make ends meet going to do this fancy facade? And I think the answer, a lot of the discussion in Garden Grove was the intention that this document really serves as a vision and a North Star for cities and to go to philanthropic foundations and, you know, other public sector grants. So I would say the most of the discussion was around what's the next step?

Yeah. So kind of continuing on that, it's reasonable to assume that having the, these design guidelines in place will give a city more leverage when it comes to applying for grants or other sorts of financial assistance to say like, Hey, it's one thing if I say, Oh, we want to do this and Hey, there's three cities that have the shared vision, but it's another thing to actually have something to show for it. That I think is kind of the intent behind this exercise.

It's a first step, right?

Yeah. Just a little update. You know, we started looking at a business improvement district, so that would have been required support by, it would be in a ballot initiative. At least 50% of the property owners would have to vote, and then there would have been a tax assessment on their properties. But there would be a funding, a regular, reliable funding source for this endeavor here. The support wasn't there for that, so now we're kind of pivoting to this cultural nonprofit. We have a lot of community members, stakeholders, a lot of people that are very interested in being involved. They grew up in the area, there's this connection. And so now the idea is now we're going to go with this cultural nonprofit. We're going to give it some tools. There's going to be some bylaws. There's going to be a board, committees, and advisors. And then now we can go after these grants and other funding sources, private funds. foundations and stuff so that's kind of where we're at on that and this is kind of as you mentioned this would be a tool where we can go for a grant and say look we already have a vision long-term vision for this project just strengthen any kind of grant application that they would apply for so just a little bit of background at the very beginning of this process I was in ironically the city that wasn't part of this

exercise. It was actually an Assemblyman Tree Taz office where the Orange County Business Council awarded a grant to the cities of Fount Valley, Garden Grove, and Santa Ana. We were standing in Westminster. And so that's probably a challenge with this overall business improvement district is to not have that city at the table. This is one of those things where hopefully we can reach out and there can be an inclusion with our friends in Westminster.

All conversations that we've had, we were hoping eventually that that happens. And we're hoping for them to come and be part of the process, too. So that's wide open for them. Councilman Constantine?

Sure. OK. Just to be clear, this all started in 2024. I'm just going to read something very brief here. In 2024, the Cal State Fullerton College of Business and Economics published a comprehensive demographic and economic study of Little Saigon. The study determined that Little Saigon's growth now encompasses several cities, Westminster, Garden Grove, parts of Fountain Valley, and Santa Ana. Specifically for Fountain Valley, the area included the northern part of the city, north of Warner Avenue. So when I think about Fountain Valley north of Warner, we've got Brookhurst, Euclid, New Hope, and Harbor. If I'm missing one, help? Where are we talking about, quite frankly, for this? And also, too, to Councilmember Bowie's point, I'm sure he knows that there is permanent outdoor dining at the very large center we have at the corner of Brookhurst and Ettinger. And that came, you know, about several years ago because the grant needed to be used specifically only in that area. And I won't even get into it. But it's amazing, outdoor dining. And if nobody is... experienced it, please dine. So I'd like to have a little clarification. What we're talking about here, are we talking solely Brookhurst, you know, prior to Warner, or are we also talking Euclid, New Hope, and Harbor?

Well, there's not a specific at the beginning. When we were looking at the bid, we actually had a look at actual census tracts and actually map it out. So once that went away, now it's kind of wide open. So for us, though, as we're looking at our neighboring cities, it's the northern parts. It's Edinger running north of the city, and then you've got Brookhurst, you've got Harbor, and you've got Magnolia, and then like Heil. So there's a center there where the Long Coffee is. There's a center there. Right. And then north of that. And then that connects to our northern cities and kind of there's that opportunity to make that connection. There's a map.

We can bring up that map. It's pretty much north of Warner. Yeah.

It's not bad. Yeah. Okay.

Also, what I would add is the study is growing and honestly still growing. So we're talking one day it may go even further out than that and even include other cities that aren't in this. So the bid would have been a great tool to have. Maybe that's a little bit of a blessing where now we have more flexibility as to far as what do we call it, a Saigon. And if there's continued expansion of it, there's nothing in here that's restricting that.

Well, you know, for me, I'm not going to mince words. It's deeply concerning that the city of Westminster is not included. I don't know what to say.

You always can pick up them and call them.

Oh, that's funny.

If I still be concerned, you have the right. If you reach out to the Cal State Fullerton, one of the, I can't remember, the PhD professor that wrote about this article, I believe he has a more recent map on his latest study. It goes a little bit deeper than the beginning of my square part.

I think it was Dr. Puri that looked into it. I'm not sure if he's there anymore. But it's great to be here before my planning commission and my city council. So I can leave without saying a word. I think, if I'm guessing correctly, Westminster wants to protect an asset that came from their community. We believe, the other cities believe, that we all rise together. And I think the greater Little Saigon area could be better with all of us participating and not being isolated. You know, they'll do what they do. I think, you know, we if we do something like this, it'll be successful. But it also, you know, the market's going to be the market and people are going to go where they have interesting spaces to go to and where they feel comfortable. And the businesses, especially our small businesses, our restaurants that we'll keep promoting on Brookhurst and Ettinger will be a big draw. And we will hopefully continue to see that. So, you know, we wanted Westminster to be a part of it. And I think they're trying to protect their asset. But we're always open to working with them and we'll try to keep that connectivity going.

So if I may, what asset are they trying to protect the fact that they are mainly the little psych? I mean, I'm not, yes.

Little Saigon started in Westminster. It's it's known to be Westminster. It grew from there. They believe that they're the core and they're trying to protect their asset.

Okay.

Yeah, are we going to have any problem if we use the name Little Saigon now that you bring it up?

We should go in a trade market or something, shall we?

I guess that's a no.

Okay. I'm a little bit confused. I thought there was a large grant that went along with this already.

We received $550,000 to work on the bid, which is becoming the nonprofit, and the design guidelines. So the grant monies went to create the infrastructure, the planning behind it.

So we spent $550,000 on this report?

No. There's a lot more involved in this. This was a portion of the process.

I misunderstood. I thought this was the start of a grant that we received that we're going to spend money to improve the area.

This is near the end of the process. The next step would be to create that nonprofit, have the community involved. Why we have the Planning Commission and City Council here together is that eventually we like to bring this document in its final form before you. Normally, if you have design guidelines and you want to require that they be implemented, you do it by ordinance. We'll probably be just asking you to adopt it by resolution, saying that this is a goal for us, not a requirement for businesses to utilize. So then we'll work with the nonprofit to secure funding, probably create some sort of historic area that encompasses the greater Little Saigon area, and then go after grant funding to make these improvements.

Most of the grant that you have, half a million dollars, it was referenced to, it was, most of it was, it's in part of the requirement is to pay the consultant to get, identify the three area of the city.

Maybe bring up the slide that shows the six-month process. Yeah, I understand it was a six-month process, but I could have done this for a lot less than $550,000.

Yeah, again, it's a lot more involved than just this document. This document is a portion of the entire process. A lot of the time and effort went into outreach and talking to the business community, residents, cultural meetings to get a feel for the community and the area, working on the bid, having those meetings, and then what's now turned into the nonprofit. So, yes, it takes a lot of time and effort and money to kind of get to this point. This is just a portion of it.

I guess I'm left with the same feeling maybe that Garden Grove had is what now? Now what? So we have this. We spent a lot of money on it.

Now what? Well, luckily we spent no money on it, but we received grant money for it. But, yeah, so we would end up with this nonprofit. with this document and then as a staff and as a community we would work with certain shopping centers for saying so you know tried to get them financing or assistance in taking on some of these and I don't think one shopping center is gonna go make a drastic changes right away there'll be some incremental change the city at some point may say you know what be like what's going on over there we're gonna go and put some medians with some of these improvements And a lot of times it's the city going in and making investments in an area that is a catalyst for private development as well. And so I think hopefully we'll get some successes and it'll grow. And that's kind of how we see it. It's not a short term. It's not going to be, you know, you may not get some wins for a while, but it's going to build up to something is what we're hoping for.

I'm all about inclusivity. I think it's great that we embrace the Vietnamese culture in our city. You make up 40% almost of that, and that's really major and should be incorporated. But I want it to be inclusive and not exclusive, meaning if it's strictly in Vietnamese per se, It should be English and Vietnamese, some of the signs and everything, to make sure that it's inclusive of everybody, because that's what's really important is that we get everybody working together. It's not us versus them, and I don't want to see that moving forward. I want to see us all together. That's my feedback.

Yep. You talked about this model where you're going to have voluntary design guidelines paired with a nonprofit. Where has that particular model combination been successful? I mean, I just don't know. Are there other places where this kind of system has been set up and it's got a lot of results? Particularly, and I'll say, when it's not, this doesn't come with a lot of funding for the improvements and whatnot.

I'm not sure if my colleagues have any examples. A lot of the work that we did, one of the consultants that we had on board actually created the Little Italy district in San Diego. And so a lot of the work was modeled after that. That area has a bid. And so we were modeling after that as well. This nonprofit will change a little bit, but we can get you examples of where it's, when we come back before you, we'll bring some examples.

Yeah, we get to particularly when without a bid since that, as you mentioned before, has the built-in funding source. So I'm just curious, you know, if you go through this, is it just we're passing out design guidelines when people get permanent applications? Or, like, do you get momentum? How does that play out?

I would like to comment to what council member Grannis have said and my colleagues say agree. Well, I assure you one thing. I mean, I'm very close to the Vietnamese community American in business. I assure you probably one of the best customers and loyal customers are non-Vietnamese. It has nothing to do with us versus them. If you reference to more than one language in the sign, They're okay with it, but a lot of that, you need to change sign ordinance. It needs to get bigger because you can't have two languages, a tiny writing. So to your point, if you do that, there's going to be a lot of change in ordinance-wise on the signage because no business can have two languages and the writing is going to be small because when you drive down the street, you're not going to see it. Just something to think about.

I got a couple questions. So the first thing is I saw we proposed a lot of improvement on the area for the restaurant around. So when it comes to maintenance, does that come out of the pocket of the business owner, or does that come from any funding from the city? The guidance? Yeah.

So I mean normally just as any business would, they would work with their property owners and they'd be responsible for their private land. I think what we may try to do as well is try to work with the nonprofit to see if there's some funding that I think we believe, I believe we've received funding in the past as Councilwoman Constantine mentioned. And so there may be some grant funding to assist as well. But ultimately it's going to be private land and it'll be the responsibility of private owners. Hopefully, you know, if there's outdoor dining for an example, they're increasing the capacity and getting increased business from that, and hopefully that'll pay for some of the improvements they need.

Another question is, I saw, like, you just mentioned about, like, the city want to do some improvement thing. They just put some median there in the street and major arterial street and thing. Have been the guideline, they working with the traffic engineer. We propose those type of thing. Any congestion up to the river, go to those areas, have been considered in the guideline yet?

Yes, the Public Works and Engineering Department has been involved in this process. They are aware of it. They've provided some feedback, and we wouldn't do anything that would be inconsistent with their ultimate street right-of-way and street design. Okay, thanks.

I just want to make sure that planning chair Langer's question got answered. I think it was for the consultant. We remember.

I was going to give a second example. It is a neighborhood with a bid, but I've been working closely with the Little Tokyo, and it's a very different context because it's small and urban. But I've been working with Little Tokyo in downtown LA for about 15 years. And the process that they, they did a similar document. It was called a community vision called Sustainable Little Tokyo. And they did that to kind of have a vision to just be the first step of saying the community wants these kind of spaces. The community wants these kind of architectural styles, things like that. And so when they do get grant funding to speak to philanthropic grants or public money grants from different state or SCAG or what have you, they kind of have a north star of what they're working towards. So that's been successful in the Little Tokyo community. It's the only other in my professional experience that I've done a really similar type of project with. I have a question.

Oh, no, up to you.

So in the two examples that you provided, Little Italy and Little Tokyo, were those just within the boundaries of one city, or were they also multi-city partnerships?

I've only worked on Little Tokyo, but that's only the city of Los Angeles. So the multi-city is definitely a unique and more interesting aspect of this project, but

Have there been any projections about the economic stimulus that will come out of this once it's been concluded?

No, we don't have any study as far as a forecast. Part of the grant, though, we did a market analysis, clarity of place. So they're kind of like a tourism specialized firm. And so they've kind of did a study as far as visitors, where they're coming from, how they're getting here. They did a SWOT analysis, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The one thing from the study, though, is the obvious, the main thing that we got out of that is obviously there's the culinary sector food there, but there's also a secondary wellness sector in Little Saigon, Dr. Stennis, that also is an opportunity there for us. And there wasn't really any forecast, but that's something that this board, once this board's established, then, you know, that's something that can definitely look at as far as what their efforts are.

Thank you. I mean, I'd be really interested to see how that will play out across all of the partnering cities. Excuse my voice. I've got a little bit of a frog in my throat. But I come from a tourism background, so I was also going to ask if you had involved the DMO. And it sounds like you're already having those conversations.

I have something. I was just calculating.

Councilwoman Constantine?

Okay, so. if my calculations are correct. I have a question. The shopping center that's at the corner of Euclid and New Hope when you're going north, it's a large shopping center. There's like a crab restaurant on the corner.

It runs the same way.

Euclid and Ettinger.

Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. So the front area is City of Fountain Valley, the back commercial center is Santa Ana.

Okay, gotcha. Okay, so scratch that. So I think in my quick calculations here, which are not bad, Harbor, we have a center at Brookhurst and Ettinger and then Magnolia and Bouchard, maybe two, depending on the size of the streets, and then Heil and Bouchard. So there's not like a lot of shopping centers there. Technically speaking.

We're going to, you know, I think the effort's going to be put into places that it makes sense. So the design guidelines will be there. That doesn't mean we're going to put 100% of our effort everywhere. I think, you know, there's certain shopping centers on Brookhurst and Heil and Brookhurst and Ettinger that are probably better prospects for us. So, yes, they're included in the area. They meet the demographic requirements. But, you know, there's obviously, you know, sites that I've already had businesses predominantly that are Vietnamese American in nature. And so we concentrate on those areas that we think would be the best prospects. So, yes, there are, it's a larger area, but, you know, we're going to hone our efforts into areas where it makes sense.

Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. I mean, I'm just not seeing a lot of viability.

Okay, what's your bottom line? Are you for it or not for it? I'm not understanding what you're trying to say. Get right to the point.

No, I don't have any problem. I mean, it's interesting.

Okay.

I don't know.

It doesn't sound like it.

No, I mean, I want to be inclusive, of course.

But?

There's no buts.

Okay, move on.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Well, and I just wanted to make a final point because the map is up that the purpose of these design guidelines is to create a cohesive visual identity for the area, which goes beyond our city limits. But it's a way to say, Hey, if I'm coming into little Saigon and I can tell as I'm driving around, that I am in this special district, I don't want to all of a sudden be outside of that district when I cross into the city of Fountain Valley. So the whole goal is to make sure that if we have people that are already in that area, when they come into our city, they still understand, hey, we're in the same district. And if they want to be in that district, then they will be in that district and they'll know that they're here in our city. So it's that cohesive identity for the district itself that's a partnership between the three cities. And so even though you can look at the map and say, oh, well, this is only a few shopping centers in the city, well, it's making sure that those shopping centers look like the other shopping centers in Little Saigon.

Excuse me. And what we're hearing from community members is people I talk to that don't live in this area necessarily, when they say they want to go to Little Saigon and they meet up their friends, they automatically know in some instances, a lot of instances for the younger generation, they're coming to Fountain Valley. You know, we're over at the Key Concept restaurants and how, yeah, Brodard over there as well, how popular those are. And so, you know, when they refer to Little Saigon these days, they're not even necessarily referring to the original Little Saigon. They're referring to Fountain Valley already.

So let me enlighten a little bit more on what Omar just said. What they reference to when they go to Little Saigon in Far Valley, to the Vietnamese American, the new generations, it's the high end of Beverly Hills. That's where they come to Fountain Valley to experience the high-end food. That's what they mean by coming to Fountain Valley, the new destinations. Westminster is great, but that's the old Little Saigon. They don't say it, but in their head, that's the old Little Saigon. What the professor is trying to say is the trend is Little Saigon is moving south. Believe it or not, it's going to pass Fountain Valley. I'm here already. It's going to be Huntington Beach. But the Fountain Valley, it's an opportunity for Fountain Valley to take this opportunity because in their mind, this is a new Little Saigon with all the high-end things we're going to be at. That's their thinking of Little Saigon. And it has to do only with business, to be honest with you. Nothing else, residential, it's just more like business environment. And that is a good opportunity for the city of Fountain Valley to take the opportunity and raise as much, you know, taking as much opportunity as business goes by. Because tomorrow it might not be us. And you will miss the opportunity for revenue for the city when right now they want to spend the money. And they're coming not from here. They're coming from Irvine. They're coming from Rolland Heights. Far places. So, you know, I think it's an opportunity for the city.

Mr. Mayor, if I may. I just wanted to touch on something Planning Commissioner Hugh Brunner said about the centers. I almost lost my thought. The cohesiveness of the centers. I mean, ultimately, though, everybody, this is up to the property owners. I mean, we can't impose or change anything about properties style-wise. Without, you know, the property owners, you know, willing to do things. So we really must proceed with caution. And yes, the center at Brookhurst and Ettinger, I mean, they're bulging at the seams. The business they have, the lines out the door, it's amazing. And you're right. People are interested to shop and dine and they're looking for great restaurants, of course.

And I think what Commissioner Huebner, not to put words in your mouth, but what the intent here is to have certain stylistic elements that tie in together across all the cities. And so you might have street furniture, buses or benches, street poles from the public sector side, landscaping elements, similar types of ornamental trees and flowers and whatnot that tie it together on our side. And on the private side, you'll have similar elements as well that tie the entire area together. And so that's how you'll know that you're in this area.

Right. I mean, by the same token, we certainly don't want to confuse anybody. We have to really, this has to be very well thought out and executed if it's going to be. Thank you.

I think we've had a robust discussion. We've had counsel and planning up here, which is a cool moment. Thank you for being up here and together. You didn't have to go to a planning commission meeting.

You got efficiency.

I want to thank Gensler. You belong to a world-class firm. I work in design and construction, so do some of my commissioner colleagues. And so this was not done with any lack of diligence. It brings worldwide global perspectives to this project. So I really appreciate that. I think this is not the end of the discussion, but just the beginning. And so there's opportunities to continue these dialogues. And I'll give city manager Maggie Lee the last word as we wrap up the study session.

Actually, I was going to see if Planning Commissioner Cheryl Brothers, if she wants to add any comment, you're good. OK. Yeah, pretty much wanted to wrap it up. Council Member Ted Bui is correct. Fountain Valley is known today as the Beverly Hills of the Vietnamese American. a good population of Vietnamese American in Fountain Valley are white collar. You're looking at attorneys, you're looking at lawyers, you're looking at dentists, owners and professionals and so forth. We definitely want to take advantage of that because that's an identity that is good to hold on. Westminster, Garden Grove and so forth, it's more of, you know, the first generation, like, you know, the old school mindset mentality. And we are anticipating there will be a growth in that area. And Key Concept is a perfect example for Fountain Valley in itself, because we need the younger generation to come to Fountain Valley to dine, to spend money. That's where, you know, the meat and butter for us as Fountain Valley with limited shopping center, I mean, limited commercial center and so with the limited commercial center we want to take advantage of it and you know with this little Saigon district it's more of a region effort and we have local Disneyland and everything like that that's a major tourism that we want to create an identity that those visitor wants to come to Fountain Valley in addition to you know Garden Grove and Santa Ana and ideally you know with our elected official if they're able to convince the city of Westminster to jump on the bandwagon I think it adds a lot to the effort and so you know these guidelines again It's for us to potentially working with business owner, property owners, developers down the road if the momentum is still there. I know collectively with the collaboration, the advantage of us pursuing grant opportunity down the road. It's definitely higher and I know legislature likes to see more of that instead of silo independent community just, you know, focusing and navigation center is another great example. And we received the county of Orange support financially. And those decision makers, the funding that they have, they want to focus on more collaboration from a regional effort instead of individually.

Mr. Mayor, if I may just, I want to thank Victor Veramontes as well. He's been working very hard on this project. He's been the main project leader at the city. A lot of logistic, you know, challenging efforts and sitting on phone calls and interviews and whatnot. He spent an inordinate amount of time on this. I just want to thank him for that. Great. Thank you.

I want to add to City Manager Magali. She's absolutely correct. That is the reason why Westminster understand that. That's why they want to protect that asset because they know the next generation are moving toward Fountain Valley to spend the money. That's why they don't want to be part of it because if they're part of it, they know that they give a helping hand to expand that. That's why they want to stop and protect the assets.

Except I have one issue with that shopping center. And the key concepts is my wife and I, every time we go there, the food is so good, the lines are so long, we can never get in. So if somebody knows somebody that can help get a reservation, we're in.

Thank you.

OK. Great. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thanks for being here. Thank you, everyone. We'll just take maybe a five minute bio break, and we'll be back.

Thank you. Thank you. . . . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. ¶¶ ¶¶ Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. so Thank you. ¦ ¦

I'm gonna call our meeting to order at 6 50 p.m. I apologize we're a little bit behind schedule but we're back on track and as always we start with an invocation so if you will please rise and I'd like to invite up pastor Kenny Pannis welcome

Lord, thank you for just this opportunity for us to all gather here today. Just pray for the mayor, the city council. Pray for the city of Fountain Valley. God, just the people. Just pray, Lord, that you would give us wisdom and that you would make this a great meeting and a productive one. In Jesus' name, amen.

Thank you, Pastor. Next is our salute to the flag. I'd like to invite Councilmember Ted Boyd to lead us.

Yes, would you please join me and salute the great flag in the country? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, Council Member Bowie. Next is 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. Are there any reportable actions at a closed session? City Attorney?

No reportable action.

Thank you so much. Are there any supplemental communications?

There was one item regarding item number three. There was a minor correction to the staff report. It has been given to city council and public.

Great. Thank you. Next, we'll move to city manager updates. City manager Lee.

Yes, Maine City Council, I just have one public comment. For the upcoming Labor Day holiday trash collection and street sweeping schedule, Labor Day holiday is coming Monday. And so in observance, of the Labor Day holiday on Monday, September 7th. Trash collection will be moved a day afterwards. So trash collection for Tuesday, September 8th will be on Wednesday, September 9th. Wednesday will be on Thursday, September 10th, and Thursday collection will be Friday, September 11th, and Friday's collection will be on Saturday, September 12th. Street sweeping, same apply for Wednesday, September 9th, will be moved to Thursday, September 10th. Thursday street sweeping will be Friday, September 11th, and Friday street sweeping will be on Tuesday, September 14th. That concludes my comment. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, City Manager Lee. So for the mayor's update, the original Lobster Festival with Fresh Live Maine Lobster, flown in daily, will be held on September 11 to 13, 2026 at the Fountain Valley Sports Park on Brookhurst. Come see a variety of popular artists throughout the day on the dance floor. Enjoy tasty eats in the food court, check out the local artists, visit the beer and wine garden, and sing a tune at the karaoke lounge with a live band Friday and Saturday night. There is something for everyone, including magic shows, balloon sculptures, face painting, carnival rides, and games. And parking is free. Like the commercial, right? The Orange County Inland Empire Small Business Development Center, or SBDC, has multiple offerings, including their six-week hybrid program for those who are interested in starting their food business. We've been talking a lot about food, Foodie Valley, here in the and using AI to attract more customers for the holiday season. For more information, go to sbdceats-2026.eventbrite.com. And... OK, so we've also got the annual Hyundai Hope on Wheels 5K, which will return on September 26. bigger, brighter, and more impactful than ever. Whenever you join us in person or run virtually, this is your chance to make every step count in the fight against pediatric cancer while supporting incredible local nonprofits right here in our community. This year, we've got three exciting ways to participate, a certified 5K run walk, a high energy color fun run, a flexible virtual 5K, And here's the best part. Every single registration fuels the mission. Your entry directly supports Hyundai Hope on Wheels, helping fund life-saving pediatric cancer research while also giving back to local charities serving the Fountain Valley community. Race Day takes you through the beautiful Fountain Valley Sports Park and the scenic Miles Square Regional Park, creating an unforgettable experience for runners, walkers, and families alike. All in-person participants will receive an official race shirt, finisher medal, a finish line photo, and a finish line video. So grab your friends, bring your family, and be part of something bigger than a race. Together we run with purpose. to bring hope, fund research, and help end pediatric cancer. Register for both the 5K run and the Color Fun Run for only $40 for both races. Register before September 15 at 12 AM to guarantee your race shirt. I'd like to invite you to join us Saturday, September 19th for the third mile with the mayor. Meet at the Fount Valley Recreation Center on Brookhurst. Residents are invited to lace up their walking shoes and join me, the mayor, for a mile or so. And we'll have some fun and activity of gathering Community gathering designed to bring neighbors together while enjoying the outdoors. This community walk is part of the, what I call the Fitness Valley Initiative, encouraging residents to stay active while connecting with local leadership and our fellow neighbors. Walk alongside me, your mayor, Police Chief Craig Heredia, Fire Chief Chris Nigg, City Manager Lee and members of the city staff for a casual community stroll. It's a great opportunity to enjoy the outdoor, meet your neighbors and ask questions of city leadership. And we're requesting that you wear orange to recognize September as Hunger Action Month in Fountain Valley. Hunger Action Month is a national effort to raise awareness of food and nutritional insecurity in our community. We want to inspire members of our community to take action when they can support hunger issues in Fountain Valley and all of Orange County. There's no reservations needed. All are welcome. Hope to see you there as we take steps toward a healthier, more connected community. And then lastly, on Friday, September 11th, the Fountain Valley Fire Department and Fountain Valley Police Department will hold a brief remembrance ceremony at the city's 911 Memorial in Veterans Park. the site of the World Trade Center steel monument. This year marks 25 years since the September 11th, 2001 attacks on our nation. 343 FDNY firefighters and 23 New York Police Department officers, 37 Port Authority police, and overall 2,996 people lost their lives that day. This ceremony is structured around an Orange County Fire Operational Area communications tribute, meaning fire departments across the county will observe the same moment together on the air at the same time. All city employees are invited to attend. If you plan to join us, please arrive at the memorial at 830 a.m. The ceremony begins at 845 a.m. and concludes shortly after 903 a.m. the moment the second tower was struck. And with a verbal tribute and a moment of silence for the 2,996 lives lost that tragic day. So that concludes my mayor's update. And next is council member items for future consideration. Are there any council members who wish to present an idea?

I do.

I have three women, Constantine.

Sure. Okay. So the first one is, I know, um, we have a consultant and staff working on a survey for our residents and, um, I just kind of wanted to get a second on us going full speed ahead on that. Not to put it out to the public before the election, no. Sometime after that, but still keep working on it if we could. I'm seeking a second.

I think we were told there's not a consensus that there are three council members, because I'm fine with it going right away too, but I don't believe we have a third that's interested in doing that. I think they want to wait until after the election and see who gets elected, I was told. So if there's a third that's interested, I'm good with it.

I guess I don't understand the topic. Didn't we already authorize a community survey to go ahead?

there's a mix in interest in moving it forward now staff will get city council direction if you're ready to move forward we can go ahead and work with the consultant there were interest in expressing you know hold off until 2027 when we have new elected official we know for sure you know vice mayor Patrick is not running for re-election so we have one new council member and so I have included as part of our strategic planning session if city council want to discuss more Staff is okay moving forward now or wait until 2027. It's really at the discretion of the city council at this point in time. We have three proposal. I think two have experience with the initiative or the main category that city council is interested. And I think one, the team is comfortable in recommending And it's within my authority, so I can definitely move forward if there's a comfort by the city council at this point in time giving me the green light. Or we can discuss it at the upcoming strategic plan section, which is September 17.

Since that's coming up, let's just discuss it there, and then we can talk about it.

And I just want to ask a question. So when those proposals were received, do they have an expiration? Are they good for a certain amount? Would that carry us through, even if it was, say, 90 days from now?

Yeah, the consultant is flexible with us. They've been sitting on the sideline, I would say, at least six months at this point in time. Yeah, I think they've been working with other clients for this upcoming election, November 2026. Right now, it's a little bit of the downtime. And so if it's in 2027, I'm sure they'll be able to work with us as well.

I think my other, and this is a bigger concern, is we're in a season where there's so much media coming at us. There's phone and video. And so I would just worry if we got into that effort there may just not be the kind of response that we would hope for. And so I think when you talk to surveying firms, there are ideal times when I think we're crossing the line here.

Not agendized. Mayor Kenean, this is not, as I said, it was never the intention to put out this survey before the election time. So I'm going to drop it and I want to be clear. So item number two is if we don't already have an ordinance on the books, I would like to have us look into one that encompasses no campaigning on any city property. I'm really seeking a second. Hold on.

Let's check with the city attorney. I believe we do have rules in regards to that.

So yes, there, that is part of, um, campaign law currently that there, you know, you don't involve city staff, you don't campaign on city property. It can't involve your current role or involve that already. And I would be happy to provide a pocket brief, if you will, on what the regulations are in that regard.

I'm not talking about myself, and I am definitely not talking about any city council member. I'm talking about somebody running from the outside to be a city council member. That's what I'm not talking about me or any council members. Yeah.

So that would also take a little bit of also legal research regarding First Amendment rights and freedom of speech. So I why don't I go ahead and sort of brief counsel on that issue and I'll get a better understanding of exactly what the concern is. Right.

It would be somebody coming in here campaigning. passing out flyers, coming up to the mic, being at the senior center, you know, connecting with the people. Oh, I'm running for city council. If this were to happen, is this okay? Or be at the yard or, you know, wherever. I got you.

I will definitely brief council on that. Thank you.

Okay, so number three is... And in light that it is currently campaign season, I want to, if we can, and I don't think it would be that much of a stress, I'm asking pretty please for one of you to please second this one about temporary non-commercial signage, which is also known at this time of year as campaign signage, for us to have a little study session Because on our ballots, we're going to have a lot of candidates running for various offices, not just Fountain Valley, a lot of propositions, judges, whatever. Hopefully, we won't have campaign sign chaos. But if I could request that we... Please, somebody second so we can have a little informational session on our very next city council meeting, which is September 15th. And that will be because, too, campaign signs can be placed this coming Friday the 4th as long as they are placed with permission legally and properly according to our city ordinance.

For clarity, Councilwoman Constantine, what was the ask?

A study session about temporary noncommercial signage, a.k.a. campaign signs, how they should be placed, you know, the dynamics about it.

It sounds like going over the rules and regulations. Right, yeah. Yes, that's why I asked the question.

Right, sorry.

Is that something that staff can do in five or ten minutes?

Not today.

No, not today.

Yes. Yeah. Let me get some clarification from our attorney for the city based on the first one that was asked and support. Is this same subject matter that we can, it wouldn't even necessarily be agendized.

The question about the law related to campaigns, that's just the law. And that's something that really staff and council would all benefit from. So that would just be more something that city attorney, That information is something city attorney would provide to staff and council in general. It doesn't necessarily have to be a matter of a future agenda. So that isn't an item for future consideration that would need a second.

I mean, it sounds like every campaign cycle, this issue has been coming up. We've addressed before over and over. I'm not sure.

We have challenges here and people want.

Let me finish my thought, please. Sure. Every campaign cycle, the same question has been brought up. The city has given the answer. The next cycle, you ask it again.

Of course.

What part of the explanation don't you understand?

It's not that I don't understand. I understand perfectly clear. This is merely a little thing of information. We're all about information and connecting and helping the public. People need to see what's permitted, what's not. We have a little discussion that the city clerk or somebody on behalf of the city, a staffer can present it. This is not harmful. This is educational and informational council member buoy.

I'm telling you, a good candidate want to be out here with any policy, he or she will reach out, the city clerk, please give me all the campaign rules.

And they will. Oh, Councilmember Bui, excuse me, this is not the Councilmember Bui. This is for our residents, for business owners, for people driving through our city who want to maybe know what should be. I don't see anything wrong with information.

Can I clarify? Let's go back to, so this is the third item for consideration.

Sure.

It sounds like maybe a fact page or some kind of informational, beyond just what's available to the campaign, to the candidates.

We have on the city clerk's website, of the city website, on the elections page, the flyers there. The one-page flyer that is given to all candidates. And if a resident were to ask me for it, it's kind of the standard. It's a concise flyer. a document that explains what can and cannot be done related to campaign signs.

And so this is a request maybe I made in the election two years ago, maybe something before that. It's informational. It's educational. It's not harmful. It takes a few minutes. There's something about seeing a presentation that we can refer to or save the clip of the video and forward it to somebody. There's nothing. Can we please get a second? This is really not a stretch.

So the ask is a staff presentation on this subject matter?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Something similar to what I did last meeting, public comments. Yes, and it was wonderful. Here's how you make public comments.

Thank you, City Clerk Rick. It was great.

I mean, if it's something like that.

Yeah, I'll support that because I think if there is a need for clarity on some of those items, I think that's helpful.

Thank you very much. Thank you. I'm sorry.

And I just want to remind the audience and those watching that we actually have the first day of our Citizens Academy tomorrow night here in the chambers. And we're actually going to go over a lot of those kind of items. And I'll be speaking. And so invite those who want to come join and learn more about all of those items. So perfect. Any other council members with future consideration? And before we do that, City Manager Lee.

Um, due to our scheduling, uh, with study session, so forth, I know there were some feedback that we've been starting at 3 30 PM and it's been tough for those council member that has a job full-time job and so forth. So with the upcoming, um, city council meeting, If it's okay with Council Member Constantine, you know, some of those political sign or information about signage during election period, if we're unable to put it on September 15th, are you okay if we include it on October 1st, I believe?

Yeah, unfortunately I'm not. It's just very, very brief. It's, you know, whatever we have on a slide. We have that one pager, City Clerk Rick. We have that one page.

It's on the website, yes.

Yeah. I mean, this is just a real, there's something about having the presentation here by a staffer. It's timely. By October 1st, that's a little too late.

Yeah, I agree with Council Member Constantine. The only thing I would caveat is don't spend more than five minutes on it.

Well, yeah, it doesn't have to be long. Thank you. Okay. I got that.

You can take two minutes. Awesome.

And you do it in one. Just kidding.

Okay.

Any other items? Council? Okay, we'll move into First City Council's successor agency, Housing Authority public comments on unscheduled matters only. Do we have any requests to speak?

We have requests to speak on non-agendized items. First speaker is Vicki Johnson.

Welcome.

Good evening, City Council. I'm here to oppose and recommend that Fountain Valley agendize exiting the Orange County Power Authority. I lived in Irvine when the OCPA started. I followed it a long time. It targeted the city I moved to next. I have a lot of experience with the Orange County Power Authority. And I go to the board meetings. In July, the CEO said they spend about $26,000 per year on each board member. Now, a 2026 sampling of the board members' expenses show that Councilmember Grandis has attended about six meetings a month, sometimes eight meetings a month with the Orange County Power Authority, and he's being paid some $1,500 to $1,900 per month, and that's not including the trip reimbursements and travel reimbursements. and he is often meeting with the CEO of the Orange County Power Authority weekly. What are they discussing? Is Councilmember Grandis giving you Councilmembers a weekly summary of these weekly meetings with the CEO of the Orange County Power Authority? I've attended many, many board meetings, and I've never heard Councilmember Grandis ask or say anything substantive. He just votes yes with the rest of the board. OCPA is supposed to be a public agency, subject to the Brown Act, and it touts itself as transparent. But these CEO meetings with Councilmember Grandis appear to be one-on-one. Mr. Grandis, when he was speaking at the Fountain Valley City Council, often makes what I consider to be vague and misleading statements. I've sent you a little batch of emails how he said he has only one out of five votes on the board. OCPA allocates voting by load. Fountain Valley will have about 10% of the vote, the smallest of all the members. He just poo-pooed that Laguna Beach analyzed and decided they wouldn't be joining Orange County Power Authority because of financial weaknesses. He said Huntington Beach was easily, no cost to it, got out of OSPI. They exited. Such would not be the case with you. It's quite complicated. So I send emails about all this, but if he is attending weekly meetings with the CEO, why does he know so little? What's going on? Fountain Valley should agendize and exit the Orange County Power Authority to protect its rate payers if Orange County Power Authority is being governed with these secretive meetings without public knowledge or oversight. Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, I'm going to make a comment on this. So a couple things. One is... The Brown Act does not have an issue with one-on-one meetings. I have one-on-one meetings with Maggie all the time, too. We all do. That's standard. She's also wrong in that we're only at 10% of the vote. We're an equal vote. We get one-fifth because we're five board members. And she is right that I did do attend six to eight meetings a month. I get paid for six of them, even if I attend more. And it's somewhere between 1600 and 1900 a month. She's right. However, and she knows this. I donated it all. I donated in June 30th. I earned about $10,000 to that point. And I donated it all to the Boys and Girls Club of Huntington Valley. And she knows that. To come up here and argue about OCPA is one thing, but to personally attack me for doing it for nefarious reasons is incorrect. And again, I donate 100% of all that I make. Nice try.

Next speaker, Mike Ruff

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a comment real quick. Councilman Blay. Thank you for, we appreciate all the speakers, but ideally it is point of order. If any speaker wants to address, I think it's more appropriate, according to our decorum, it needs to address to the mayor and the body as a whole, and stick to the point of concern, not demonize the individual or representative of any individual organizations that try to represent the city I think the point is taken but I think it will be more professional if the conversation was to carry just the point of the concern but not to address to the individual as the individual because the order quorum specifically already said that if you're here you're addressing to the mayor and the body council and the council not to individual indirectly

Thank you, council.

Next speaker.

Mike, the floor is yours.

Thank you. My eyes are still dilated. I hope I'm not as fuzzy. I'm going to compare numbers. The State of California rate comparison notifications, a required mailing, it's a postcard by the California Energy Commission, sent to each OCPA customer, actual numbers, compares SCE to OCPA for an average monthly bill for residential, low income, that's 30% discount, supposedly, and commercial customers. Published late August 2026. There's a table, I'll read some columns here so that you can hear some actual numbers formally presented. Comparing SCE rates and OCPA Basic. For residential, it's $203 per month, Edison. OCPA Basic, there's a typographic error, but it comes to a $25 difference per month more for OCPA than SCE. For care program for low income, that's $123 per month for SCE and $147 per month for OCPA Basic. Commercial, $273 per month for SCE, $301 per month for OCPA Basic. Each OCPA customer receives only one such mailer a year in a postcard, and I think you have copies of that. It has been criticized for looking like junk mail. The procurements of renewable power for SCE and OCPA Basic are almost the same, 41% versus 44%, yet OCPA Basic customers are being charged 12 to 16% more than SCE. Low-income residents who qualify for the care program get a 30% discount. That discount is subsidized by other ratepayers. Under OCPA, care customers pay $24 per month more compared to NSEE. In other words, low-income OCPA care customers are paying $147 a month compared to SCE's $123 per month. This goes counter to the intent of the care program. The City Council has, in effect, penalized them by putting them into OCPA. This mailover is difficult for elderly, less well-educated, and non-native. English speakers to understand. They are disadvantaged by CCAs like OCPA and pay more than others who understand they can opt out or downgrade their choices. There's no mention of how to switch from OCPA to SCE or how to opt out on that mailer. There's no mention that city councils voted to join OCPA and that city councils can vote to get out.

Mike, your time's up.

Thank you very much.

JP?

Actually, Mr. Mayor, before you go on, the document that Mr. Rao is talking about is prescriptive by the state of California, and the OCPA nor any other CCA is not allowed to modify it in any way, include any of that information. That's not the intent of it. And therefore, they are not allowed to. And then also the OCPA, and they know this, is starting the green energy program, which will be discounted for those that are lower income. And as we mentioned, the plan for OCPA in the city of Fountain Valley, when we join next year, will be lower than SCE for the basic rate, and we will stick to that. Thank you.

Okay. JP?

Welcome. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, council members, and thank you to staff for holding it down. My name is J.P. Vallique. I wanted to direct the council's attention to the results of the Fountain Valley Parks and Recreation Survey that was recently completed related to the master plan, and in particular the questions regarding the use of the newly leased 16-acre addition to the city's rec center, sports park, and parklands complex within Miles Square Park. Among many worthy priorities listed by residents, there was a consistent consensus that community garden space would be utilized by Fountain Valley residents. For better or worse, community gardens in Orange County tend to be designated specifically for residents of a given municipality. Because Fountain Valley does not have a community garden, there is a gap in opportunity for our residents that cannot be covered by neighboring cities or other local options most of the time. Shared outdoor purpose-built spaces are a way to forge bonds across cultures, genders, and age brackets. We have a wealth of such spaces covering a variety of activities, but we do not yet have a community garden. This 16-acre expansion seems like a perfect opportunity to change that. As the master plan progresses, I would ask you to be champions for garden plots. Growing food is magical, and allowing our residents space to share that magic is a natural extension of Parks and Rec's outstanding work. Thank you.

On Zoom, we have Speaker Liz.

Good evening, City Council. When people talk about just one of these, privacy or safety, they're prioritizing the wrong thing. And what we have to prioritize as a country is compromise. How do we have our safety and how do we balance privacy? A quote from Flock Safety CEO Garrett Lingley, defending his company amid nationwide backlash. He's not asking for compromise. He's asking us to compromise. We didn't get a vote on the balance. We got cameras first and an apology to our second. And here's the tell. The same week his home address leaked online, Google agreed to blur it again. His listing photos have been scrubbed from Zillow and Redfin too. So the man asking the country to accept less privacy for more safety has spent real effort making sure his home isn't searchable. Compromise apparently is a one-way street. This year alone, more than 56 cities have dropped flock. Last week, Luttenberg, Texas voted to shut off all 28 cameras. Why? 459 agencies have gotten into their data. Only 83 were ever authorized. Same day, Kendall County, Texas commissioners refused to renew. Tempe and Cave Creek, Arizona hold the plug on their contracts. Harrisburg, Virginia terminated their contracts. The LAPD canceled their contract against the cameras falsely flagged cars as stolen. Dayton, Ohio covered the cameras with trash bags after finding their data had been misused. El Cerrito, California, voted no renewal. San Francisco received a lawsuit. Flock's own CEO is now admitting there's no accountability built in, while quietly protecting his own privacy. There are three primary ways we're headed. One, the Fountain Valley City Council gets ahead on future misuse discoveries. Two, Wait for the misuse discovery. Three, hear from the residents via a petition. I'm asking the council to do two things tonight. One, Oz Fountain Valley's lock safety ALPR contract and cover the cameras pending a full independent investigation. And two, I'm asking for a public recorded vote on the motion. Not a study session, not a we'll look into it, a vote on the record. We voted you in. We have a right to know where you stand. Thank you.

Next speaker is Katie Wright.

Welcome.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I and a lot of other people are in the Citizens Academy this time. It's not our first meeting tomorrow night. It's our second meeting tomorrow night. We had our orientation last Wednesday. If a person doesn't want to be subjected to listening to a candidate campaign on city property at a city event, what does one do? Who do I complain to? It happened last Wednesday night. I didn't appreciate it. Who do I complain to? Dare I say the name? I guess I should. There's three people here in addition that are witnesses that were there when we did our introductions. Dan Hay had to get up and say he's running for city council. I didn't appreciate that. It was a city event on city property. I don't like hearing that. I know it's not appropriate and I don't like it. Who do I complain to? What is done about it? It's not an agenda. You can't speak to that, but maybe a city attorney can help. You say, well, let's go ahead and do a study session. We'll have staff come up as long as it doesn't take more than five minutes. We know the rules. The rules are explained to everybody. Why is it that they're not enforced? And why is it that I'm standing here complaining on camera because I don't like it, I don't appreciate it, I don't want it, it's against the rules. What's going to happen? What's gonna happen? And I know the city council members can't answer this, but it's my understanding that when appropriate, sometimes Colin does answer my question. So I'm asking, what actually gets done about it? I have a former mayor who's kind of sort of tongue in cheek looking at me as if to say, hmm, this is interesting. You're all former mayors. You've all campaigned. You've all known the rules yourselves. Have any of you? Well, you can't answer me that. It's not OK. It's not appropriate. This is the beginning. We're not even really into the campaign season yet. Why do I have to listen to this in a city event when I'm volunteering as a citizen to learn more about the rules, and I abide by the rules, and You know, a couple years ago I was a candidate and I abided by the rules then. Why do I have to witness this in my face, in everybody's face, and most people don't know it's against the rules. Why is this allowed? Why do you have ordinances if they're not going to be enforced? Is there something that can be done? Do I contact FPPC? Is that the only recourse? And are they going to care? 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, Eight, seven, six, five. And Rick will enforce the rule of this August body.

Time is up, Katie.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor Harper?

Yeah, I'd like to make a comment. First of all, I appreciate the speaker's comments, and I would like to ask for the attorney's input on this. It's my understanding that campaigning is not appropriate on any city property or city events, and so if that is happening, I'd like to just kind of clarify it at this time.

So I do think, as I said, I'm going to brief staff and council on exactly what is permissible. And then I think the city attorney's office can work with staff directly regarding where people can make complaints, how those complaints should be handled down the road so that it is appropriately dealt with. And I know city clerk is very involved in the campaign process and will definitely include him.

Yeah, I'd like an answer now. I mean, is it appropriate to campaign on city property and city events? Yes or no? Or what's, it should be a quick answer. I think the answer is no, but if it's not, then I'm interested to hear why.

So I can tell you it is not appropriate for any incumbent city council people to campaign on property. And my understanding, although as an attorney, I don't like to throw out an answer if I'm not 100% sure and have read the government code. So I'm just going to be perfectly frank with you. My understanding is absolutely it is not appropriate. But I don't want to direct city in a certain way unless I have seen the government code in front of me and I am 100% certain of the answer.

All right. Fair enough. Thank you.

We have one more request to speak. Okay. And hey. You should have a lease contract.

Welcome. Yeah, nice to be here. Well, it was until a couple minutes ago. I'm part of that Citizens Academy, and I'm really enjoying it, by the way. And there was probably 20 people in the room, and they asked everybody to introduce themselves. I did not bring any city council campaign flyers. I didn't wear a campaign shirt. I didn't have a campaign hat. i didn't have vote for dan hay on anything that i was carrying or or had with me uh they so i talked about every person went down the line and i didn't know i wasn't allowed to say dan hay is running for city council or i'm running for city council i did i did not know that i wasn't allowed to say that i'm running for city council so I Introduced myself and it took me about three minutes to talk about myself and at the end and I said by the way There's a couple other candidates in the room. I'm sure they'll mention this I'm running for City Council and so are the other two it was that innocent So I'm sorry that I said that Dan Hay is running for City Council. I promise I won't say I'm running for City Council I do think it's appropriate to cut off the conversation.

We're gonna keep that repeat repetitively going

well that was all I said by the way I wanted you to know that so I took three minutes here to complain about something did you want to call the FPPC go right ahead I'm sure the citizens will be happy to hear that thank you so do we have any more candidate I want to take the form for three minutes I think are there any more public comments Mr. City Clerk

No we have no more city clerks. We have no more public comments.

So that was unscheduled matters. How about public comments on scheduled matters.

We have one request to speak on item number five which is a consent calendar item. If you can have the person speak now if council can elect to pull the item. It's not necessary. You can certainly make the comment without polling. It's council's mayor's discretion.

I missed that. What was that?

We have a request to speak on item number five. However that, yeah.

So why don't we do this? Let's move into consent calendar and see how that goes. So consent calendar items one through five will be approved simultaneously with one motion unless separate action or discussion is requested. Does anyone want to remove any item?

No, but I will put it out there to approve these items.

I'll have a second. I'll second. Please vote.

It was a first by Council Member Constantine, second by Vice Mayor Harper? Yes.

I'm sorry, did you say there was a comment on item 5?

Yes, I'm going to get to that in one second before I announce the vote. We have a public comment on item 5. It's not necessary to pull the item. Did we just vote on it? We should hear the comment before we vote on it. I have not displayed the vote. I can clear the votes if you like.

We can bring up public comment. Councilman Grandes, you request the speaker? Yes. Okay. Why don't we bring the public speaker up?

Dan Stewart.

Welcome. Thanks for the opportunity to speak. I appreciate that.

Yeah, I want to speak about Item 5, the Baker-Tilly Amendment. In December 2025, the RFP with the city stated that Baker-Tilly will, among other things, audit the technology use of Fountain Valley PD, and answer the following question. Are any of the department's current technologies contributing to any unintended issues? And that's just one thing among many. After that, in March 2026 of this year, Baker Tilly had to recuse themselves from an evaluation of the city of Palo Alto because it came to light that they were a client of Flock. So they're getting paid by Flock themselves and they performed a multifaceted evaluation of their system. So it would seem that we have a conflict of interest here. It's been a spicy meeting so far. I've got Some strong words, but I'm gonna skip those and I'm gonna get to the point. Let's not kid ourselves into thinking that we're buying a neutral independent evaluation here. I hope this is just an oversight and not something more, but I would like to know, did Baker Tilly disclose to the city that FLOC already pays them? If the answer is yes, did the city require Baker Tilly to firewall the FV evaluation team and guarantee there was not a conflict of interest? Because Flock pays Baker Tilly for corporate services, the firm should not be conducting an independent third party review of Fountain Valley PD. So what I would like to see is that Baker Tilly be required to formally list any public safety vendors that they are a client for. and we review that against who we may be working with and be evaluating against in Fountain Valley PD, then we should isolate the, we should carve out the technology use, unintended surveillance risks, flock systems, and other ALPR procedure evaluations that are being done by Baker Tilly, and hopefully get a refund from them for that, and use those funds to hire someone who really is independent to evaluate FVPD. So I would like to not see this increase be approved tonight and instead ask for a refund for their portion of the evaluation where they have a conflict of interest. Anything else really starts to smell bad. Thank you.

Mr. Mayor.

I have no further request to speak. Councilman Bowie.

I'd like to achieve to come up to have an opportunity to respond. It's because I believe that it was important. We all have a meeting with you and you presented to us how important this was. So I'd like to have the opportunity to respond to that.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for that. So Baker Tilly was contracted to conduct a comprehensive review of the Fountain Valley Police Department to include staffing, operations, beat plan, how detectives operate and make some recommendations after conducting interviews of individuals and group interviews to ensure that we are establishing and implementing best practices. And the study is complete. And we're hoping to get a copy of that report to you in the coming days. And as far as any allegations of a conflict of interest, I'm not aware of any conflict. And as of right now, that is new information.

I think that's new information for all of us. So I'm sure that you will take the appropriate and make sure if there's any issues. But other than that, I don't have anything else to add.

I cleared the motion and vote. Do they still stand for items 1 through 5?

Just a point of clarity. So item 5 is specifically additional compensation for the presentation of their findings? For them to come and present. It's a specific task?

Yes. Just for them to come and present their findings to the city council.

OK. And I stand by my motion to move the item. And I will be voting yes. Actually, on all the items presented.

That's what I was going to clarify. So this is a motion to move all consent calendar items forward.

Yes. Thank you.

I'll second.

Save. Items 1 through 5 pass 5-0. Thank you, Chief.

OK, we'll move into public hearings. Each person will have up to three minutes to speak on each public hearing. Number six, introduction and first read of an ordinance revising Fountain Valley Municipal Code chapters 2.36 and 2.38 and repealing resolution number 9900, presentation by acting finance director Robin Harnish. Welcome.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and council. Good to see you tonight. OK, so what we're looking to do here is essentially align our current municipal code ordinance with federal and state thresholds. It would align our local thresholds with current law. Currently, it's going to be federal. We're going to be still below those thresholds, and it's going to match our state thresholds. It would alleviate the administrative burden for staff make purchases and go through the bidding process and codify Resolution 9900 which is currently a resolution. They would put it directly into the code So right now we have direct purchases are set at 3500 and that's for materials supplies equipment we're asking to increase that to 10,000 and Informal quotes are gonna be now called simplified acquisitions. That would increase currently from 3,500 to 50,000 would go up to 10,000 to 100,000. Formal procurements are going to increase from 50,000 to 100. And then professional services negotiated contracts currently at 50 would increase to 100,000. And as I mentioned before, this is all related to federal thresholds, and it's still below those ceilings. And it is not going to affect our grant eligibility. And also, just to point out that based on council request, city manager authority is still going to be at $50,000. The finance director is still at $25,000. Those are not changing. For public works procurement, we're requesting increase from $45,000 to $75,000 for negotiated contracts. Informal bidding would increase from $175,000 to $220,000. And then the council over threshold award option goes from $175,000 to $235,000. And that just means that if we estimate an amount below the below the informal bidding of 220 and it ends up slightly over, you still have the ability to approve that. It's also going to codify the our current piggybacking purchasing, which is followed, but this just makes it more official, formal. It's and it's going to establish approval thresholds and documentation requirements officially. We are going to codify for financial, for federal that, sorry, just basically to eliminate any conflict of interest, small minority business, women owned businesses, make that a formal in our ordinance. And then lastly, our IT purchasing authority currently was set as a resolution. That was to approve IT software, hardware, and professional services that cumulatively exceed $50,000, provide that each individual contract remains at $50,000 or less, and related contract amendments. And so it basically just eliminates that resolution and makes it formally adopted into our ordinance. There is no fiscal direct fiscal impact for this. Uh, public notice is posted outside city hall and we will be coming this back, uh, bring this back on the 15th for the second hearing. And then lastly, I said that to the 15th for the second hearing after the 30 day waiting period, the ordinance would go into effect October 15th and staff will initiate a comprehensive update to the administrative purchasing policy to reflect this as well. I think I didn't mention that currently the public works portion was split between 2.36 and 2.38 of the municipal code to simplify and make it more comprehensive and easier to understand. We put that all under 2.38. And then also we are asking for the informal quotes at the request of council to increase it from two quotes to three. And that's all I have for that. I'm here for any questions.

So hold that thought. Let me open the public hearing. Are there any requests to speak? I have no request to speak. OK. Close the public hearing. Open up to questions from council.

No questions, but I'll move the item.

I just want to say thank you, Robin. This is a great first report as officially interim finance director. Great job. And you also did a great job briefing us all before the meeting. So I've seen this presentation already. You've answered all my questions. You did a great job. So thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Robin.

I'll second. Did you say before the meeting? I didn't get that briefing. I'm just kidding.

I'm special. May I read title? Yes Thank you for the report by the way an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Fountain Valley repealing and reenacting chapters 2.36 and 2.38 of title to administration and personnel of the Fountain Valley Municipal Code

And just for a little bit of clarity, so some of these limits are to put us in alignment with some of the federal rules. We talked about that in the briefing. So I just want the public to understand that that's also a consistency with other standards. So they're not done just to increase, but because there's alignment with federal law as well.

It is. And I did check with our grant consultant apologies Townsend Townsend and they did confirm that this is not going to impact our ability to apply for grants or anything like that there could be administratively some grants that might request like a full bidding process but because they're aware of these changes now they will look out for that and they will notify us and it will just change maybe how we explain when we want to apply for grants okay

Thank you so much for the presentation. We've got a first and a second. Please vote.

Item number six passes 5-0.

Thanks so much.

Thank you.

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

We have no more requests to speak.

OK. And next is City Council Successor Agency, Housing Authority, AB 1234, general comments. Councilman? You need to change around a little bit. I'll lose track, so we'll go with Councilman Grandis.

All right. That's a situation well. All right, so Thursday, August 20, I attended the Fountain Valley Community Foundation board meeting Saturday, August 22. The ribbon cutting for FV Pickler, which is the new indoor pickleball facility. It was a lot of courts. Really super nice facility over at the old Rite Aid. I consider it thrifty on Magnolia and Talbert. On Tuesday, August 25th, the Boys and Girls Club, the Huntington Valley Board Meeting. Wednesday, August 26th, I briefly attended the Citizens Academy Orientation. Thursday, August 27th, UCI Health Fountain Valley Board Meeting. Things are really getting good at UCI Health. Such an improvement over Fountain Valley Hospital, so give them a chance. They're doing really good work. On Friday, August 28th, I attended the grand opening of the Essence of Viet Comfort Food. oh my gosh that food was so good i really enjoyed that uh over on warner and bouchard that's right warner and bouchard uh next to mills diner that area over there if you haven't tried it really i guess very fresh and good food so um and then i also attended uh five ocpa one-on-one briefings with the ceo during the month and i'll report that plus other staff

There. That's my report. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Grandes. Councilman Buoy? Sorry, creature of habit.

No worries. On July 15, I attend the PCTA board meeting. As you all know, for the month of July or mid-August, I was on vacation, so there's not much to report during this period, although I know a lot of my colleagues have been attending a lot of events during this time. On 8-19, I attend the PCTA board meeting. On 8-25, I attend the Senior Center Lua. And it was fun. You know, get to learn a few words, but some of the Tahitian words, it's hard. I couldn't pronounce it. I would say aloha. That was easier. But the other one was pretty tough. On 8-26, I attend OC SEN board of director meeting. On 8-27, I attend OC division meeting, which was the board of director elections. And on 8-28, I attend the Essence of Viet Comfort Food. It was a grand opening, and I'm surprised to hear that you enjoyed it. Did you try the shrimp paste, the purple one? I did, a little bit. Okay.

I dipped it in. I took your suggestion and went easy on it.

Yeah, it's either you love it or you hate it. It was good. So I'm glad you tried it. Other than that, that's my report.

Thank you, Councilman Bowie. Councilwoman Constantine?

Sure. The peanut sauce was good, but I didn't try the purple paste. Okay, so I did attend two of the grand openings my other colleagues mentioned. On August 19th, I was a speaker at the Fountain Valley Republican Assembly at IHOP in Huntington Beach. On the 20th, I attended the mayor's breakfast. Then as our city's trustee to Orange County Mosquito and Vector Control District, participated in the monthly board meeting at their district headquarters. In the evening, I participated in the Community Foundation Grants and Board Meeting. On the 22nd, I stopped in at the library. They were having the Friends of the Library half-price sale, and it went for a week. And then on the, recently from the 23rd to the 27th, as the City of Fountain Valley Trustee on Orange County Mosquito and Vector Control District, drove to Palm Desert and attended the CSDA Conference, which is the California Special Districts Association. my report was submitted it's kind of lengthy already to our city clerk and that'll be included with next time's meeting minutes the 29th I presented a certificate on behalf of the city of Fountain Valley to a new restaurant that we were talking about on the essence of Viet comfort food. And as a reminder to everybody, please remember to dump out any standing water in your front yards and your backyards. West Nile virus is around in some cities around us. Wear mosquito repellent. And for more information, ocvector.org. Thank you.

Actually, I have a question for Council Member Constantine. Sure. Is there an increase? No, I'm not going to talk about that. An increase in mosquitoes in our city? My feet are getting eaten alive when I go outside.

Well, I mean, it could be. That never happened before. There could be some untreated pools. I went around with Vector a ways ago, and we visited several homes that they are treating for mosquito problems because of untreated pools here in the city. And yeah, it's an issue. Thank you.

You're tasty. Thank you, Councilwoman. Constantine, Vice Mayor Harper.

Thank you. On August 19th, attended the PCTA meeting. August 20th, OCTA Finance Committee meeting. Also on August 20th, the Mobile Source Air Pollution Reduction Committee meeting. August 27th, attended the Pickler Ribbon Cutting Grand Opening. Very nice facility over in the old Rite Aid on Magnolia and Talbert. and on the August 24th attended the OCTA board meeting and that concludes my report and the board the OCTA I guess the latest thing happening there is we the they're testing the streetcar in Santa Ana and try I think they're shooting for opening end of this year beginning of next year so it will go from Santa Ana train station over to Harbor Boulevard should be a nice nice connection

Thanks, Vice Mayor Harper. My activity since our last meeting included the following. On August 20th, I participated in the Orange County Concerts in the Park event at Freedom Hall, hosted by our supervisor, Janet Winn, and county staff. Also, Councilman Bowie was on stage. That was a lot of fun. We welcomed the band called Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, which drew a very large crowd to the outdoor stage. It certainly has been a great summer of concerts at Miles Square Park. On August 22nd, I also attended the grand opening and ribbon cutting for the new Pickler business at the former Rite Aid Thrifty site in town. What an incredible transformation they've done, and we wish them massive success in this indoor pickleball and entertainment concept. On August 26th, I attended and made opening comments at the Citizens Academy orientation at Founders Village. We're excited to welcome the new class of 2026 and wish them all the best in this learning journey. Then lastly, Councilman Bowie and I attended a special luncheon for the OC. Round table? Oh, see, around the table event. And we want to give a plug. That's going to be on September 27 at 3 o'clock at Miles Square Park in the south east corner Euclid and Warner area.

Okay. And the best part is we are going to, our goal is to break the Guinness World Record. And I think so far what we're hearing, I think we are going to break the Guinness World Record. And this extension is invited to 34 cities. to come and join us. So it's about Orange County breaking the Guinness World Record. So it'll be exciting. So for those who would like to partake, reach out to our mayor. We'll give you more information.

Yes, thank you so much. Wait, wait, you didn't say what record they're going to break. You got to talk about the potluck.

Oh, you're right. The Guinness World Record to have the largest outdoor potluck. And if we break it, we'll take the title away from India. India is currently holding the title. So that'd be very interesting how that's going to play out.

Okay, we are five minutes to eight. We are going to be adjourning. Our next meeting will be September 15, 2026 at 6 p.m. here in the Fountain Valley Council Chambers. Have a good evening.