Planning Commission - workshop

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

We're off. We have a public comment.

Maybe I do. Are they recording? They should.

Testing, testing.

We'll just take a moment and see how our tech team is doing. kind of discussing a little wd-40 okay i think we're on thank you So just checking, do we have any public comments on this?

We do have one request to speak on the first item in study session and the third item in study session.

OK. Can we go ahead and invite them to speak now, or do we want to wait until after?

It's your- Let's have- they're waiting. Why don't we have them come speak? First, the speaker on police department assessment is Dan Stewart. Welcome.

Thanks. I'll go quick. I know you guys are ready to get started to hear the content of this report, and I see it looks like the whole PD might be hearing a large portion of them. I expressed in the last meeting I'm a little bit concerned about this report, specifically because it has no conflict of interest section in it. I don't know if Baker Tilly is listening or if they're going to be briefing you, but I'd love to know if they typically put that kind of section into their reports. If they don't, They really should. We already know there's one conflict with one of their clients who the FEPD also uses for technology, and that wasn't disclosed in the document that I saw listed. So I'd love to hear from Baker Tilly about that. They also, if you go to their website, they have relationships with the entire world about business and financial, right? And so I'd be very interested in knowing if the team who assessed Fountain Valley PD Might also have some connections to those other evaluations and paying clients because you don't want those dollars influencing you so the bottom line is you know, I think that FEPD and the council needs to review these recommendations that you're going to hear carefully and Not just accept them as independent or neutral. Okay, and then for future RFPs I'd love for the city to include in their RFPs that these types of evaluations include a COI and type of statement that guarantees that the team members are at least firewalled off and there's not some sort of bias from other considerations that we don't know about. And then the second thing I wanted to talk about is the main recommendation from staff on this was that more FVPD needs to be hired. But if you look further in, the survey item with the largest negative response from the PD team is up-to-date tech and tools. They feel like they don't have the tools that they need. There is no budget impact recommendation given by the staff for hiring more IT. I think that needs to be the top consideration. As a 30-year employee of Boeing, working on software for government contracts, I can tell you this is a common problem, but this is more dangerous because you all are giving the FEPD extremely powerful technology tools lately, and if you pile on top of that the fact that the tools aren't kept up to date or that may be open or available to cyber attack because of that, it compounds the issue. All right. So I'm asking the council to also consider and staff that they need to make a top priority hiring additional it to help out with, with the concerns there. That's it.

Thank you.

I have no other requests to speak on the side.

Okay. So I'd like to invite up the police chief. Welcome.

Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, City Council. I'd just like to address one thing with regard to Mr. Dan Stewart's public comment. There is a recommendation in the Baker Tilly study for a dedicated IT professional to be assigned to the police department. So that is something that is in there. However, that is not one of the things that we're going to be talking about right now. But with that, I just wanted to start with, you know, the goal of today's study session is to provide an overview of the 2026 organizational assessment of the Fountain Valley Police Department, answer any questions you may have, and to also seek City Council feedback and direction as they relate to next steps. On January 5th, 2026, Fountain Valley entered into an agreement with the Baker Tilly Advisory Group to complete a top to bottom organizational assessment of the Fountain Valley Police Department. Baker Tilly is a well-known large national premier assurance firm that helps organization improve performance, mitigate risk, navigate complex business challenges, and really just live up to their full potential. The truth of the matter is the Fountain Valley Police Department needs to be more purposeful and intentional when it comes to ensuring adequate staffing, having proper systems and processes in place, and making certain that we are sufficiently equipped to provide the high level of service that this community needs. The needs for progress were identified internally and the evaluation and assessment conducted by the Baker Tilly team made up of outside professional subject matter experts confirmed several things that we already knew and shined a light on some of the things that were not yet on our radar. The assessment took several months to complete and the efforts were led by team leader and retired Brea Police Chief John Burks. The professional assessment included the following topics. organizational leadership, administration and staffing, patrol services, data and technology equipment, recruitment and retention, dispatch structure and protocol, schedule and beat plan, community engagement, technology evaluation, and organizational culture. The top to bottom assessment was comprehensive and the findings and well thought out recommendations are solid. I'd like to now turn it over to Chief John Burks to talk about the project's purpose and scope, what was learned and where the Fountain Valley Police Department needs to go from here. And Chief Burks will be in remotely and turn it over to city clerk to turn it over to John.

John is unmuted and we should be able to hear you.

Okay. Thank you everybody. Mr. Mayor, members of council, It's my first time speaking at a council meeting since I retired six years ago. So I'm going to get back in the swing of things here. A little bit about myself. And before I even get into that, this presentation that I'm going to make today is going to be very brief. And there's a purpose behind that. I know your time is valuable, yours and the public's. And I know there's going to want to be a lot of discussion. So I'm going to just briefly go through some of the project, some of our recommendations, and then hopefully we can have a nice robust discussion about that. As Chief said, my name is John Burks. I am a specialist with Baker Tilly. Been with the firm for almost four years now. My primary role is working on assessments just like this related to local and county law enforcement. I've done these all over the country with a focus on the Western states in various sizes of counties and municipalities. Prior to coming to Baker Tilly, as the chief said, I spent my entire law enforcement career with the Brea Police Department, retired there as the police chief in 2020. During that time, I worked all over the department, commanded every aspect of it. So I have a broad base of experience and knowledge in this, in our industry, particularly in the region in Orange County, of course, working in Brea. I also have quite a bit of extensive training in executive leadership, including FBI National Academy and Post Command College. So I've been around quite a while, done a lot of things, commanded a lot of areas, been a budget coordinator, which is fascinating. Glad I don't have to do that anymore, but learned a lot doing it. And so that brings me to what I'm doing today with Baker Tilly. And on this particular assessment, as the chief said, we engaged earlier this year Our team, including myself, included another retired public safety executive, as well as some other members of our team that have worked in city government, including city manager. You can go to the next slide, Chief, if you want. Begin our assessment by looking at our meeting with Fountain Valley and considering the purpose and scope of what we were doing, as you see here on this slide, some of the main points. We wanted to do an in-depth review that was heavy on data and also speaking with members of the department to get their perspective on how things are going. So we set out to do a comprehensive evaluation of the department, focusing on staffing levels, structure, operational issues culture communications the facility also and at the end of this we were able to deliver a pretty heavy document of recommendations with an implementation plan along with it our analysis included a lot of one-on-one and face-to-face with members of the Fountain Valley Police Department. We had two focus groups, which included members of various levels of the department, both professional and sworn staff. I participated in those and was highly impressed with the members of the department. They were eager, they were engaged, excellent points and perspective. Nobody was shy or afraid of being candid with us, which we appreciated. Myself and my colleagues also conducted many interviews, including members of the police department's supervisory team, as well as members of city government from various areas, including human relations, city manager, city council, et cetera. Following that, we did a pretty detailed data dive. We utilized a highly experienced crime analyst to assist with this in gathering and analyzing the data. Some of what you see in the report and which was a big piece of how it became some of our recommendations. And then we just follow up interview or my interviews, but the follow up clarifications with members of the department and came up with the report that you guys have now with you today. But you can go to the next slide. So Some of our takeaways, and I mentioned this regarding the focus group, and it also came out of our employee surveys. You've got a lot of, not a lot, many, many people at that department who are proud to be there, who want to see the department succeed, want to see the department evolve. They want to be a part of that, and that's shown in their engagement level. We've got a really good sample on the employee survey. And you can see those results there in front of you, a high number of people that understand their job responsibilities, feel empowered, and most importantly, believe the city and the public give them a high level of support. So these things tell me that while the department has areas that it needs to improve it, it needs to address, there's a great foundation there and a great base of resources, particularly on the human side. So that makes it, It gives the Chief and his new command staff a great starting point to continue to evolve and maybe take some of our recommendations, take some of our observations, and make the department even better than it is today. Go ahead, Chief. The Chief, I think, may have mentioned some of these. I know he did in his staff report. Talking about some of the areas we looked at, staffing operations, facilities, organization, and other areas. Some of the areas that we've recommended filling really require no more than filling vacancies. As I'm sure the council is aware, the department is currently handling a number of vacancies and trying to get people hired and to get those filled. Some of our recommendations quite simply involve getting vacancies filled so that you can then spread those officers or other personnel out around the department to fill needs. And then in addition, we identified some new positions that we think would make a big impact on how you're providing service, the effectiveness and efficiency of that service. On the operation side, we took a really deep dive on patrol workload. And as you see in the report, we identified that currently the current number of patrol staff are heavily worked and they're having a hard time keeping up with it. Other areas we looked at operationally, including the detective bureau, we looked at the way they're managing their data and found areas for improvement there. We also go to some scheduling gaps that could be filled in various areas of the department. The department facility we found was in very good shape. We were actually quite impressed considering the age of the facility. The city's done a good job of trying to keep up with maintenance and letting the facility evolve as the field of law enforcement evolves, which a lot of cities sometimes fall behind in. And I think Fountain Valley has made a lot of good steps in keeping their facility up to date. We did notice some things that could still be addressed, but in general, we were pretty impressed with the facility itself. Organizationally, clearly there's been a huge transition for the department. And going through two interim chiefs into now your new chief, hopefully he's going to be there for quite a while, two brand new police captains. So there's a lot of organizational change going on. and during our observations during our discussions we got the impression that things had gotten kind of stagnant over the last several years and that communication had kind of suffered or fallen off um some siloing may have started among divisions and i think now that you've got a brand new command staff in place i think these things can be addressed i think it's actually rather exciting that the department can kind of um reset a bit and refocus on um building a really strong organizational culture. So looking at the basic areas or themes or categories that we took a look at, then Chief, if you go to the next slide, we'll talk about some immediate recommendations. Now, as I mentioned before, a lot of our recommendations involve vacancies, right? So we suggested adding patrol staff, but you can't add patrol staff until you get your patrol staff to where It's supposed to be now. In other words, fill your vacancies, then you can go about budgeting and allocating resources in addition to those. And that goes in some other areas too. So these recommendations here today that we're going to talk about as priorities are things you can add right now. And that can make an immediate impact once they get added. Starting with a lieutenant in the administration section, One of the things the department is lacking, and this is a position it's had before, is an administrative lieutenant. And in law enforcement today, the way it has evolved, it's become critical to have a clearinghouse and someone responsible for managing the department's professional standards. And that includes oversight of citizen complaints and internal investigations, making sure those are investigated properly, tracked, maintained. It includes tracking personnel records, oversight of those records, such as use of force incidents, maybe employee traffic collisions or performance evaluations. And the list goes on to other areas, department policy manual, PIO, social media, and so that the Administrative lieutenant position, which we think is extremely valuable and important, will go a long way to increasing and improving consistency and oversight in those types of areas. Consistent internal investigations, consistent personnel records management, consistency in recruitment and training. Very important position that we highly recommend. On the dispatcher level, excuse me for a second. Thank you. For dispatch, we did find that your dispatchers are extremely good at their job. Your CAD data is managed very well. In speaking with people around the department, there's a high level of respect and appreciation for dispatch, and I think that says a lot about the department and a lot about your dispatchers who are doing a great job. The area we identified, though, is the staffing level and the fact that there are several hours every day where you have a single dispatcher. That means one person to take all incoming phone calls from the public and other entities that want to call dispatch with the police department. And that same dispatcher then has to dispatch calls, manage calls, take questions from officers, do computer inquiries, all that by one person. That's tough enough on a routine call or during slow time. It's near impossible when you have critical incidents. And having a solo dispatcher during a critical incident, frankly, can be a safety problem for the public and for officers. That single dispatcher would have to take multiple 911 calls potentially, dispatch multiple units, receive information from those units and questions, potentially do some computer inquiries, all the 911 calls continue to ring, et cetera, et cetera. So solo dispatching, I think, is something that should be avoided whenever possible. Not to mention the fact that I believe it's also an employee wellness issue. When you're working by yourself for that many hours in a critical position like that, it's hard to take breaks. It's hard to take a relief break. It's hard to take a lunch break. Oftentimes, a solo dispatcher ends up eating their lunch at their console, or if they need to leave the facility, they have to call in somebody like an officer or somebody else who's really not trained to do that work. So we think it's important for the city and the department to try to close that gap. And with the addition of two positions and probably some schedule tweaks, you can close those gaps down to, if not no gaps, to a very, very small number of hours where there are gaps. So we think that's also another extremely important position. In addition, the court liaison position, which at Fountain Valley will be a community service officer, non-sworn professional position. Court liaison has grown in importance over the last, I would say, decade or so. Most departments have a single point of contact for court proceedings, oftentimes called a court liaison, hence the term we're using here today. This person in this position is responsible for being the primary point of contact with the courts virtually all criminal case processing issues. This includes subpoena management. It includes discovery request tracking. It includes calling officers in for court, calling officers off of court, other requests the court may have for materials or data or reports. Highly important position, and it has become more important over the last decade or so, I would say in my experience, Ports now are issuing more subpoenas and more discovery requests than ever. And it's gone up exponentially, frankly, over the last decade. And even since I've left the profession and speaking to my colleagues who are still in it, it continues that way. So we think it's important to have one position to handle this. Currently, Fountain Valley is utilizing, these duties are spread across many positions. And what that then does is just impact the workload for those other employees who have a primary job to do and run the risk of a lack of consistency or a lack of efficiency in managing subpoenas, discovery requests, et cetera. So we think it's important to return to that position, a position that Mountain Valley had many years ago that appears to have been cut during the great recession. And finally, the last one on this list, property and evidence technician. Evidence rooms in police departments are oftentimes really under-recognized for the amount of work and the amount of potential liability they bring to the city and the departments. Evidence rooms bring in thousands of pieces of evidence every year. Each piece requires intake, storage, any other types of management or processing that goes with that. And if it's not managed properly, property can stack up. It can potentially be misstored or misplaced and therefore go missing. And when needed for court, it creates hazardous conditions if property is stacked up in wrong places or sometimes you'll notice that if narcotics evidence has built up, that is a hazardous situation for employees that are due to you know, potential toxic issues raised by narcotics. So it's really, really important that evidence rooms are managed with the proper amount of staffing to ensure that evidence is in tape and stored properly and is destroyed per statutory requirements in a timely fashion. So right now, unfortunately for Cotton Valley, our findings were that your evidence room was in really good shape currently. Um, it's my experience of walking into evidence rooms. I usually find that there's stuff stacked around, uh, there's lack of space or lack of time. Um, I've done a pretty good job. Now, this has been a direct result of the use of a part-time annuitant employee over the last year that was brought in, um, by the previous interim chief Cox, um, specifically to do destruction. Destruction of property is an area that suffers when staffing is low or times are busy. Consequently, property stacks up. When I say destruction, I'm talking about evidence or property that is no longer needed for any kind of court case and that is eligible to be destroyed via statute or via court order. Those types of items of property really should be destroyed as soon as possible after those dates. that clear space for further property to come in. And typically when staffing is low, that work suffers and that causes evidence rooms to back up. So over the last year, Fountain Valley's done a good job using a part-timer to kind of keep up with that and get them into a good spot. The problem is that they've also used a CSI technician to supplement some evidence work. So now you've got your full-time tech, you've got a part-time annuitant, and then you've got some hours from your CSI tech helping with the evidence work. So it's our recommendation that that part-time annuitant position be converted into another full-time evidence technician for a total of two. We believe that with two full-time technicians, Fountain Valley will be able to manage the intake of property every day and also keep up with destruction. Chief, let's go to the next slide, which should be our final slide, I believe.

Got it. And John, if I can, Chief Burks, if I can hijack here just to add a couple of points of context here. And then I'd also like to invite Robin up to explain some of the finances that are associated with these recommendations. But just going to the court liaison position, for example, and I'm going to toggle back to that, is in 2021, there were 1,110 reports submitted. 2022, it was 1,340. 2023, 1,320. And 2024, it was 1,690. Last year was 1,860 cases submitted and monitored by court liaison. So between 2021 and 2025, the increase from 1,110 to 1,860 cases is an approximate 68% in overall workload. The work is broken down between several different people, and it accounts for a total of 69 hours per week that this court liaison work is being done by our support services manager, records, police officers working in a detective capacity. And for example, there are four detectives that average eight hours a week handling court liaison duties or on duty. And if we were able to hire a court liaison, that would free up detective time. So you would essentially get one detective back every single day. And that's another recommendation within the Baker Tilly assessment report. So we're trying to get creative on how we can accomplish as many things as we can but also know that we need to be a good steward of the city's budget we're asking for the things that we believe we need not necessarily the things that we want and then just for dispatch context mandated overtime is a thing employee burnout is a thing and in 2024 there were 110 mandated overtime shifts in 2025 there were 100 This year, which is not yet complete, we've had 136 mandated overtime shifts. That's a lot. That is very taxing on our people. And I echo what Chief Burks has mentioned on that. But with that, I can talk on this stuff for a while. But I want to turn it over to Robin, because she's done some pretty significant homework. And I will set you up with your first slide.

Thank you, Chief. Welcome, Robin.

Thank you. Good evening. Where'd the mouse go? Are you guys controlling it? Oh, got it. OK, so these are the five positions that we're talking about today. We're looking at an annualized cost for the current fiscal year of $844,250, keeping in mind that we are a quarter of the way through the year. after going through recruitment, we expect maybe half of that would be needed, and that we do have salary savings to use for the current year. This is a summary of our forecast, our 20-year forecast. So looking at the current baseline for personnel expense, would be a $49.9 million cost in 27, 28, and $52 million in 28, 29, projecting out to 37, 38 when Measure HH sunsets would be $64.5 million. With the new positions, it would be 50.8 next fiscal year, 53.4 in 28, 29, and it brings it to 65.7 in 37, 38. So the numbers at the bottom, that is the projected cost increase. And it takes into account a 5% increase over the next three to five years. And then it smooths out 2% after that. And if you want to see the forecast, hard to read, but this is what we're looking at, where we're getting those numbers from. So this is the current forecast. which if we take out, it currently shows, you look at the purple line if you can see it, it says 1.8 operating deficit. However, we don't actually consider the OPEB contribution of 2 million to be an operating expense. So we take that out, it leaves us with a 200,000 surplus next fiscal year and about 100,000 surplus in 28-29, about 400,000 surplus in 37-38. So then looking at the addition of the five positions, about 700,000 operating deficit, 27, 28, 800,000, and 28, 29. And then it brings the deficit when Measure HH sunsets to 751,000.

Robin, if I can provide an additional clarification. Yes.

If you look at the line where it says CalPERS UAL additional payments, that's directed from City Council in addition to our commitment.

These are additional $3 million that we have identified as a line item, but it's not required, just FYI.

Yeah, Vice Mayor Harper.

I have a question on this slide. Looking at the personal expenses line, it goes from, looking at column one, two, and three, it goes from 41 to 44 and then jumps to 50. Is that really going to happen or is that, assuming all positions are filled, how does it jump so much in one year?

The 2728 number also includes the, where is it, 3.7 million for the ambulance program, which you can see four rows down goes away because we absorbed it into the city. So that basically 3.7 gets moved up to personnel. So that's the majority of that increase plus the 844. Okay.

All right. Thanks.

Well, thank you very much. Um, at this point in time, we'll, we'll open it up to questions from the council. I know we have chief, um, John Burke's, uh, still on myself and Robin will be available for any questions that you might have.

Yeah. Thank you to chief Berks. I appreciate the presentation. Um, we also greatly appreciate, uh, you chief for idea and many of the police, uh, found out the police department staff here in the chambers. And so now I'd like to open up to questions from council who wants to go first. Oh, let me, I think we were remiss in and not letting the public know that we do have council woman, Constantine. She is with us through the power of technology.

through Zoom? Yes, she is attending through Zoom.

Welcome. Maybe we should just do a test. Councilwoman Constantine, are you there? I have to let her unmute. Hold on. OK. There you go.

Yes, I am. Thank you. Great to be with you all. Great presentation, too.

All right. Thank you so much.

Mr. Mayor, if I can inquire briefly. Thank you. For the public, Councilmember Constantine is participating for a just cause because she has any work-related function. And Councilmember Constantine, is there anybody in the room with you that's over 18 years old? And if so, what is your relationship with that person?

No, there's nobody here. I'm in San Diego for ICSC Western by myself.

Thank you. Okay, great. Open up to comments, questions from Council. Councilman Grandes.

Yeah, great report, Chief. Appreciate all the effort that went into this. I know it took a long time to get to where we are today. One thing I really didn't see and hear in the report, and it's probably in there somewhere, and I'm hoping you could touch on it. One of the most important things to me, besides just staffing levels, is the safety of the officers and the equipment and how safe they are. Does it say in the report what level we are in terms of equipment? Do we have the best to make sure that they get to go home every night?

Yeah, so we do have good equipment. We're keeping up to date with that and staffing is definitely an issue. There are 33 recommendations in this Baker Tilly report. 13 of them are staffing related. There are some recommendations that we're not pushing forward right now because it seems irresponsible for us to ask for more officers when we haven't filled the vacancies that we currently have. One of the recommendations that is made by the Baker Tilly study is to move our minimums, the minimum number of officers we have in patrol at any given time from five to seven. And I think that would obviously bolster safety, but we're operating, public safety is not compromised by how we're operating right now, because we are ensuring that we have adequate staffing by mandating people in when necessary, if they don't choose to voluntarily come in to work an overtime shift on their own. So we've had to shrink back some of the extra things that we have done, for example, right now we have one motor officer and years past we've had three or four. And we also are not participating in a regional narcotics Taskforce right now because we don't have adequate staffing to be able to loan somebody over to that Countywide task force. I think it would be fantastic if we can get to that point and once we do reach full staffing we'll be able to Resurrect some of these specialty assignments, you know right now it wouldn't be very difficult for any one of these officers standing behind me to go out in the area of Miles Square Park and find somebody that is either possessing or has purchased narcotics or has paraphernalia. The reality is we don't have a detective assigned to that task force. My goal is to go after the people who are bringing that garbage into the city, the people who are selling it, the people who are profiting off of it and contributing to addiction here in the city. But we need to get to full staffing before we can make some of those choices and do more when we get more officers.

Chief, I think Council Member Grandes was referencing in tools for our employees to be successful. What I can see through this report, which we are pursuing, is the in-car camera. And we're working with our legislator Townsend our grant writer to pursue an opportunity there to ensure that we can enhance our tools to better support our staffing and providing better services in the community so if I miss anything chief you can go ahead and touch on that no I actually just you know decided to stay on the soapbox to preach a little bit about so I do appreciate that we do have sufficient technology and tools to

But, um, city manager, Maggie Lee just mentioned something that's important. We had, um, we received grant funding or promise of grant funding from, um, council member, um, Derek Tran, Congressman. I'm sorry. Um, Derek Tran and the amount of 300 plus thousand dollars to give us in, in car cameras right now, our officers have body worn, which is fantastic. But the reality is if you're driving code three or you're in a pursuit, We don't get that footage that you would get with that added technology of a forward facing camera to, um, to, to view traffic, to make sure that our officers are driving in a responsible way, slowing down for red lights, clearing intersections before they go after a suspect. But it also would have a rear facing camera for the back seat. So when we take somebody into custody, the camera would be positioned in a way that they would monitor that per person. that is in our care and custody. And oftentimes it prevents or it actually highlights the truth when a false allegation is made against our officers about how they're treated. And I think that's a fantastic tool that will be They will pay dividends in risk management and potential litigation down the road I appreciate the answers, but I still don't think it answers the question.

I'm trying to get at Staffing I totally get that cameras that's protection from lawsuits. It's I evidence etc when I say equipment I mean do we have the best bulletproof vests do we have the best utility belts that are the lightest weight or I mean I don't know what is required but I haven't heard anything yet to make sure that everything that they have is the best and latest equipment in terms of their self-safety?

So yes, sir. We do have sufficient body armor. We just recently transitioned to the Glock pistol. And that was done as, and we got new holsters. We had an incident and we identified an issue with our holsters. Now everybody has new holsters. so we won't have a repeat of something that happened that could have been tragic. So we are staying up to date. When anything happens, we reevaluate and we reassess what tools we have in place. We do have tasers, pepper ball, a variety of tools, and our drone program is pretty amazing as well. And so we are giving our officers the tools that they need to be successful. And so, for example, on a high risk stop, traffic stop, we can deploy the drone to clear the vehicle to see if there's anybody else inside the vehicle behind our own police vehicles or a position of advantage where we are not overexposing ourselves to potential injury or being shot. So we do have the tools and technology in place. And I'm sorry if I misunderstood your question, but I am tracking and the answer is yes. And if I am not fully accurate with that, the people in the back of the room will correct me and I will come back here and provide updated information if there are needs that I'm unaware of.

And was that covered in the report?

I don't recall specifically, Chief Burks, are you aware of the technology pieces or the officer safety equipment that was, was that part of the assessment?

We didn't specifically say in the report the state of officer safety equipment. However, I can tell you that in my interactions at the department, both in individual interviews and focus groups, plus in just observing around the department, I saw nothing that caused me concern about officer safety from an equipment perspective. To my knowledge, based on what I learned, it looks like mountain valley police officers are properly equipped.

And I will take this question back to make sure that we are fully equipped to make sure that our people are safe. Appreciate it. Thank you. Yes, sir.

I do have one other item on the staffing levels. I understand the importance of all the staffing levels, but we still, and I've been harping on this in the last few meetings, is we're still understaffed. We need more positions, but we got to fill what we have. And we talked a little bit about this. I spoke with you and the HR director about a challenge to get five laterals within the next six months to help get the staffing levels where we need to be. We try to be in the midpoint of range in the county, which means there's many cities that are lower paying. There are people in other counties, other states that we could try to recruit from. So I do want to put that challenge out there. By March 31st, if we could get five laterals That will help in a lot of this overtime that we're paying and getting our staffing, which is critically important, to the levels they need to be.

Agreed. And challenge accepted. I'd also like to mention that we have two recruits that started Academy this month, and we've identified two more that will be starting in October. And we're hoping to fill, if not by way of lateral, the remaining vacancies with the Golden West College Police Academy that's going to start in January.

Yeah, but as we talked about, that's going to take a year or so by the time everybody goes through that, goes through probation, goes through everything. And at the same time, there's always the chance that we're going to lose officers due to retirement and other things. So I still think even with that, the need's going to be there. So I'm glad you accept the challenge.

Yes, I agree. And we're going to move with our foot on the gas in both categories to get officers hired as soon as possible. Thank you.

Okay. Any other council members? Vice Mayor Harper.

Thank you. Thank you for the report. I want to say thanks to all the officers and police department personnel that are here. We appreciate it. It's great to see everybody together, but who's in charge over there? No, but thanks for all your great work on behalf of the city. We really appreciate it. I had a question about the school resource officer in the report. It said that we had one for Garden Grove Unified School District, but I thought we also had one at Fountain Valley High School. Is that not correct? Because my kids go to school there.

we we currently do not have a dedicated school resource officer for fountain valley okay we do for the city of garden grove and um the garden grove unified school district pays three quarters of that officer's salary which gives us the the ability to to be physically present that is something that i've talked with with both both captains recently about the need to add an additional sro that is a recommendation that is made in the baker tilly assessment report

But did we used to have one and now we don't have one anymore? Because I remember seeing somebody there.

It's my understanding that we did, and that was another position. When you don't have enough people to do all of the extras, which would include SRO, motor, and the other specialty assignments, You have to shrink back because we need to put people in police cars because if someone calls 911, we have to show up, and that's priority one.

No, I understand. So you're saying it hasn't been a budgeted position, but when you had extra people, they would go over there? Or maybe I thought I saw somebody, but it was not a dedicated person.

If I can provide some clarification, it's not a dedicated resource officer for Fountain Valley High School. However, when there are needs and so forth, we do have an officer that would provide the support that is necessary for the school in itself. Correct me if I'm wrong. I think the chief is also working with the school superintendent to have an ongoing conversation that allow our department to have a dedicated school resource officer at the site, but right now we don't have a dedicated one.

It's not dedicated, got it. So it's just kind of there from time to time. Okay, got it.

And then let's see what else they have.

Yeah, I think the positions in here are, I would agree that they are priority positions. So, you know, based on the study, based on especially the court liaison, I know there's a lot of, I don't know, How we got 1,800 cases, does that include everything from traffic tickets to burglaries and everything, or is it specific types of cases?

Those would be criminal cases, which would be the misdemeanors and felonies.

Okay, so we had 1,800 of those in one year. That seems like a lot.

And a lot of those aren't necessarily crimes. It could be proactive arrests where we go out and we stop somebody and they're in possession of paraphernalia and or controlled substance. And that case still needs to be presented. And then there will still be items of discovery, meaning the report and the video and all the extra stuff that will have to make its way to court as items of evidence for that case.

Are we having, does that mean we're having more, I guess, commissions of the crimes or just greater enforcement or a combination or can you?

I will tell you, you have a very proactive police department. Every day we have a recap report and there are a number of arrests that are on there that are just being done by way of pedestrian checks and vehicle stops. We are being proactive going out there to get it to make sure that we're keeping this community safe. We're not just waiting for calls and being responsive. We're being super proactive. And I think when When you are proactive, you're going to generate more cases than you otherwise would if you're just hanging out at the station waiting for a call to come out.

Well, I think one of the reputations that Fountain Valley has is a very safe place to be. And I think from the residents, I've heard a lot of positive comments about the police and their feelings about safety. And so that reflects well on everybody in the department. So on behalf of the residents, I want to thank you guys for keeping us safe. And I support the recommendations in the report. Thank you.

thank you sir it's just a quick follow-up so each report or each the 1800 that doesn't represent necessarily 1800 crimes is there like multiple times they have to go for one crime or is that 1800 separate crimes those would be 1800 separate crimes but not all of those crimes have a victim

So there's a difference between homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft, and theft, where you actually have an identified victim. When you have somebody that is arrested, again, I'm just going back to the drugs or a weapons possession, for example, you don't have an identified victim, but you still have a criminal case, that number would go into that 1,800 cases because it's going to be prosecuted as a crime. Thank you.

Thank you. And that does not also include, does it also include the traffic, you know, for the officer has to go to court if, you know, the defendant, you know, decide to fight the ticket? Does that include that in that statistic or no?

Traffic court would be different when it's citation related. If you have a traffic related crime DUI hit and run collision type of thing then that would go to the district attorney's office for prosecution and then that would be incorporated in that number because we'd have follow-up required for again all of the items of evidence that need to accompany that case.

great you mentioned earlier you know identify the five full-time employee whether you know whether it's it's a need or once so here you have identified five of them i totally understand the need for the lieutenant the the two dispatchers and the court liaison but in your own assessment do you because i'm hearing that you know we do have someone that handles the property and evidence technicians And I could see the court liaison, how beneficial that would release a lot of the officer of their time, you know, prepare the documents, record and all that. I could see the needs of that. But the property, do you think there's urgent needs for that or that could be revisited at a later time?

I think we have a temporary solution in place and we need a long-term fix. And so there's $54,000 being paid annually for our retired annuitant. And that money could be spent to pay for that property, the CSO property and evidence technician. The work is there. And my goal with hiring an additional CSO for property and evidence would be to give them additional work, right? Because right now we have, we basically have one and a half people doing that job. And that half person is a retired sergeant who's very savvy, works very hard. I feel like we get 40 hours of work out of him in a 20-hour work week. But the reality is, again, we need that long-term fix. And there are multiple recommendations made in this Baker Tilly assessment. Property and evidence technician is one. There's also another recommendation for an additional person to handle all of our digital related evidence. My hope is that we'd be able to identify somebody to come in and do this property evidence technician who is also computer savvy and might be able to do that additional role because we are in the business of getting the most out of every employee that we can. And so I do feel like these five positions, all five of them are critical, although I will acquiesce and tell you that we do have a temporary solution in place for that property and evidence technician.

So technically we could revisit that one then, is that what you're saying?

If that's the direction of council, yes, sir.

OK. The only reason why I point that out, because I do agree with my colleague here, is bring the lateral five of them up to speed. So the department needs money. And if we can use it temporarily, use that and focus on the money and try to get those lateral coming over, because we may have to increase the bonus.

Yeah, but a majority of the five laterals are already funded. It's just they're not hired.

Agreed. And also the bonus is paid for via via salary savings. So that's essentially cost neutral be paid for out of the police department's current budget.

OK. I want to check with Councilwoman Constantine if she had any comments, questions.

Thank you so much. Yes. I mean, I completely agree with the assessment. It was a great presentation. I'm fully on board. with the positions that we need to get some great staff hired for. And just like Council Member Grandes said, we do need to bring in some other officers, some new officers, sooner rather than later. And just keep going from there. Thank you again.

Chief, I'm curious, can you explain the relationship between our IT department and some of the IT matters that the police department deal with? What's the relationship?

So there are a bunch of different systems and processes that are currently in place. And I don't know if I'm going to turn around here to see if Scott Kim is in the room. I might need a phone friend on this one. There's a lot of technology-based systems that need to be managed. And one of the recommendations in this Baker Tilly study is for a dedicated IT professional. And I don't disagree with that at all. But we have Scott and his team that are very responsive to any of the needs that we have. And I'll invite you, Scott, up if you want to address that. Sure.

Yeah, I'm kind of looking for any potential redundancy, any kind of efficiency, those sorts of things.

So we do continue to try to find efficiencies using software and programs, but it does come to a limit. I think some of the concerns are really the 24-hour support. But fortunately, right now, I am the 24-hour support, so I've gotten calls at 3 in the morning, 4 in the morning, and kind of help out when we can. And so if deemed emergencies, we'll have my team knows they can come when needed, so weekends, nights. I believe this is valid that we do need support, but it wouldn't, to me, I think we'd need more than one, right? For 24-7 support, we'd need nights, weekends, midtimes, and we would need some special senior positions because they would be managing some of the police programs or more programs and not just day-to-day help desk requests.

So it's a little bit more complex than that. So it is a 24-7 operation, as Scott had mentioned. And so I don't think we're there to assess that portion yet. But I think based on priority, I think from a need standpoint, what has been provided at this point in time is immediate need.

Yeah, and I think part of it is, and I'm learning too a lot about, as cyber security and protecting the physical world now are running in parallel, we're all looking at ways to stop the bad guys. And they always are looking for ways to get in that we're not ready for. So I just want to point out that there is a partnership, there is a collaboration with our IT department and law enforcement. um and and i think as a council we've been we've been always mindful of of supporting i.t and with supporting i.t we're also supporting uh you know our police department because because they are intertwined couple of thank you thank you Scott so just a couple overarching thoughts I think and this has been touched on many times and we're not hearing this for the first time but returning to levels of service that our city was accustomed to which our residents and our businesses and everyone who who lives and works and you know, wants to feel safe in Fat Valley has always expected. So so we're coming back up to that in my mind. And and this is part of that process is returning to the levels of service. We talk about services of cover in our fire operations. And to me, it's a similar kind of assessment. So another way that I like to think of it is we're sort of in emergency mode. You know, if we had a sinkhole at one of our big streets, There would be no hesitation. There would be mobilization. There would be resources, money spent because we got to fix and get back to normal levels of service. Right. So I completely support this. I think this is this is long overdue. And and I think what you're looking from from council, and we want to make sure that we're doing our job here, is giving the police direction and giving staff direction. So let's try to work that out. I think I'm in full support of the recommendations. Vice Mayor Harper is in full support. We heard Councilwoman Constantine just

to verify with absolutely yes yeah there's no there's no doubt uh i mean uh you know a safe community you know first responders you know do a great job you know and you're part of that first responders so we need you know the law enforcement as well as fire department to have a great community yeah and and of course we're mindful on on the expenses uh but we're also confident with economic development and some of the ideas coming up

That's where we need to be pushing and figuring out ways to finance some of this. But we're in a position right now where how can we not move forward with this and still expect Fountain Valley to be a great place? So any other comments from council? I think we got what we needed.

We got direction from City Council, so in the near future, our PD will be working with our HR department and get the item on the agenda for your formal approval.

Great. Thanks so much, Chief, and thanks to everyone here in the chambers for supporting. All right.

Thank you for your support.

Yeah, you're welcome.

Much appreciated.

OK, our next study session item is the sister city advisory delegation presentation by Scott Smith, public works director. Welcome.

Thank you. I thought you were here to fix the squeaky door. I do it all. Whatever.

It's your pleasure. Let me get that. That's good. Honorable Mayor, Council Members, this item before you is a continuation of a conversation that started at the last City Council meeting. And I can wait a second.

Yeah, maybe we'll just take a moment. Councilman Bowie just stepped up for a second.

I have no songs. I have no dance.

Kind of a fancy tie there, though.

You like that, huh? So this is the result of 32 years of training from my wife. So finally sinking in something.

You're saying the tie is 32 years old?

She still dresses me sometimes.

Wish I could be there, everybody. Miss you guys.

I was waiting a moment because council member really stepped out, but I can start whenever. OK. Do you want to wait for a moment, or do you want me to go ahead and? I hear him. We'll just give him a minute. Welcome back.

I'm sorry. I didn't know you were waiting for me.

No worries. So I'll start over. Honorable mayor, council members, this item is a continuation of a conversation that started at the last city council meeting regarding the sister slash friendship city. And really the focus of this conversation is identifying the two council members that would serve as delegates regarding the upcoming proposed trip to Japan. That concludes my introduction to the item. And at this point in time, I'd like to turn it back over to the dais to have that discussion regarding the selecting those council members.

Before the city council have a dialogue, I just want to share based on the last week, week and a half of coordinating airfare and lodging, wanted to make city council aware that We're requesting that the cost for airfare lodging go up to $3,000 and then additional $500 for transportation, for train and so forth, and shuttle services that may be required through this delegation. And through the state of the city, the funds is available for that capacity, and so I just want to make city council aware, I think, the time goes by, those costs will continue to increase. So we're hoping to get City Council direction if City Council will support one or two max for this upcoming delegation in November. Thank you.

And let me start the conversation. How about the first question to answer is whether one or two council members. Maybe we can start there and sort of.

Great. Before I ask questions, City Manager, can you clarify, so 3,500, that's 3,500. And that's 3,500 for who?

So we have one representative from the Kiwanis, one representative from Cal State Fullerton, one representative from the school, I'm sorry, Fountain Valley Community Foundation, potentially a representative from Cal State Fullerton, our late Mayor James Connell, David Connell will be joining us in that effort in order for us to have dialogue with some of the prospect in Japan and then one interpreter. So there will be a total of five from the sister advisory committee and then one representative staff that would be myself and potentially one to two council member So if you're looking at $5,000, $3,000, $15,000, and another $2,500, so it would take us up to $20,000, for example, and the funds from the state of the city would be able to cover those expenses for the sister advisory committee. And then for staff and city council, it would come out of our general fund, which we did budget $10,000 related to the sister city program.

Perfect. That's why I wanted the clarification. So from the city standpoint, it's $10,000 for staff, whoever is going. And the other request is coming from the state of the city for the advisory committee. Okay. I just want to clarify. What's the ask?

Yeah.

and those are from sponsorship from the city of the city but the city have a lot to do a lot of work to get the sponsorship thank you and then also just to clarify so the ten thousand dollars that's budgeted that's for all sister city activities for the fiscal year right so that's kind of a not so much this trip it's that's really the full budget for all activities yes and um the City Council and staff do have a line budget for conferences and you know those business meeting and so forth that we do have available as well okay so maybe we can talk about the the first question which is what's the pleasure of the council is there a desire for two members or is there a desire for one Or curtain three? Other? Yeah. Council Member Lee.

I'll just go back to our last meeting. And I believe Council Member Kim Constantine definitely wants to go to Japan trip. So and then at that point I think there was a discussion whether I or a council member greatest was going to be the second person to to go now to answer to to your question is me personally, I think that one should be sufficient to go to the trip because my Reason is once again, we go here. Hopefully it will strike a deal which whichever city in Japan that we'll be working with. We don't know. So to me, that's an unknown factor. Therefore, if it's an unknown factor, I think only one council member should be enough to attend. And if that council member is, for some reason, is unable to attend for the last minute for whatever the reason, then we should have an alternate. That's my opinion.

okay okay that's a good starting point so any other feedback from council um one one council member or two on this upcoming trip yeah i uh um i um i would say that go ahead uh councilman constantine if you'd like to go ahead vice mayor harper

OK, so my feeling is I think either one or two would work. Having been on trips on the city behalf, whether they're local or have to go somewhere, my feeling is if the city council member is willing to put in the time to do the trip it's uh it's it's beneficial there are uh you you there's networking opportunities you forge um bonds with people there's there's just a lot of um a lot of good that comes from going on a trip so i would i would support too if there was another council member that uh was interested in going um either council member grandis or council member bowie But if the consensus is just one, Council Member Constantine, I support that as well.

Okay. Council Member Constantine?

Sure. You know, I have to say I really support two. And just in going in the order that we have as far as the rotation goes, the very set order that we have would be myself serving as mayor this coming year. end of year, you know, December. And then council member Grandes currently, you know, would be the vice mayor. And of course, if I weren't reelected, I mean, we have to be realistic. Council member Grandes at this point would be the mayor. So that's why it's beneficial for two. I'm here currently at ICSC Western, the big retailer. It was now called Innovating Commerce Serving Communities, the shopping center conference. I work my tail off. I'm extremely participatory. I'm here with Omar. They're still at the convention center. I had to leave, but I seriously put in, you can't even imagine, I'm extremely participatory in the conversations that I had today, in the meetings that we've had so far, several. I mean, it's just, I wish you guys could see it. It's really, really beneficial. And sometimes I appear very quiet in certain respects, but connecting, That's what I do. I love to do that. And the last trip to Japan, while I was there and participatory to a certain level, I was more deferring to the fact that Council Member Bowie was the mayor at the time. So at the same time, you know, it was just a little bit different, the roles. But I honestly would support, too, and the people that I suggested. Thank you. Okay.

Well, we've got one, one, one or two, two. And Councilman Grandes, you seem to be the deciding factor.

I think either one or two would work. This trip, part of it, it sounds like this wonderful, exciting get to go see the world. Based on the last one I went on, I was really Wondering do I really want to do this again? It's a big effort. It's a huge effort and I know my wife was stating to me, she was like, you're going to do that again? Because it was running from train to train to meeting to meeting. It wasn't social, really, other than seeing some of the stuff and visiting the one town that I went to that was north of Tokyo, Sakura City. where I got to meet the mayor. I was the only council member on that part of the journey, and a big reason was I had already planned to extend my trip personally, and so that's why it worked out. I think we could get away with one person. I think two would work as well, so I'm really giving you a bad answer.

No, it's good. That's why I wanted to start with this question first, because it's sort of the determining issue, one or two.

Mr. Mayor, may I take another?

Yes.

Thank you.

Yeah, our last trip was extremely hot and humid, and it was crazy. Got lost a few times, but still made it. And it's a Yeah, it's not a social thing. It's a very fast pace. And I really would hope we would have to. Thank you.

Councilman Bui. so um one or two you know either way will work but giving the you know the expense on the second round and we don't have assurance that we could you know which city we're going to sign with so i'm more lean toward one person you know, to be really, you know, fiscally responsible, you know, of the general funds and the fund from the state of the city. You know, if it doesn't materialize, that means we got to do it again. We got to travel again. So if you don't have a concrete deal, just like anyone on the business world, if you don't have a business deal, you don't travel that far and spend that much money until you know you go there and sign a deal. But if you go there just to meet and greet and hopefully create a good relationship, and hopefully we sign a deal, We did that last year. So, you know, that's my only thing that I'm concerned. And I want to hear from you and city manager. I believe one of the daughter of the mayor was here. Am I understanding that we spent a lot of time with her? And what does your sixth sense tell you? And when she went back to Japan, what is that communication is like? You have a sense if it's going to fall through or not.

We did get a response from the mayor Hekkinen City Mayor Kinoki and she expressed her gratitude of the opportunity of her daughter visiting our community and recognize how our community are very generous and embraceful of her visit and she due to that feedback She wanted to continue having a relationship with the City of Fountain Valley. I think with this trip, our goal is to work toward our 7th birthday celebration and if we can solidify if the relationship is still there and they want to be one of the sister city or a friendship city, we extend the invite for them to join us in June of 2027 as part of our celebration and ideally that would be a formal setting for us to sign the friendship city agreement and or the sister city program. That is the end goal of this visit, and it also gives our sister city advisory committee, since we have not visited Hekinen City, an opportunity for us to assess that community to ensure that it would be a good fit for us from the City of Fountain Valley standpoint. think Sakura City with our ongoing communication with them which mayor and vice mayor has been participating they have been very embraceful and definitely want a friendship city relationship with us and we're hoping to firm that up through this visit and extend the invite for our June birthday celebration

OK, that's great. Just for clarifications, so she is the daughter of the mayor. And does she hold any position in the city? And since coming back, has the mayor himself or staff have emailed you in the progress of that discussion?

Herself. That's what I know. No, the mayor is a female. Oh, OK.

I did share that with the sister city advisory committee. Correct. Yes.

Okay.

Yeah, and to layer on, Councilman Bui, I think, so the intent of hosting Kiko Kiyoke, the daughter of Mayor Kiyoki Koke, is, you know, it's more of a goodwill gesture. I think you raise a good point, you know, what's the process for solidifying a friendship and you know, really a sister city agreement. And it does have a sort of a contractual nature to it. So there is going to be a, you know, a meeting of the minds, a moment of probably ceremonial handshake. But more than that, you know, there is going to be signing of documents with commitments that behind those commitments are financial, but much more, right? There's the, you know, of course the cultural, but really it... the evaluation of who is going to be the best sister city and the best friendship city is still kind of being determined. And I think that trip is going to sort of strengthen that courtship, if you may, a relationship, right? Because it really is as much subjective as it is objective.

Agree. So in other words, we go there, just like you said, courtships, to figure out which city would be best fit for our city. And in their token, they're going to find out if we're best fit for them as well. So to me, it's not a sure thing. So I think having only one council member should be sufficient with the city managers along with all the advisory committee. I think that's more sufficient. I don't really think we need to bring the entire team just to find out which city is going to work for us and which city is going to work for them. And if you all recall last year, I always remember the statement. That was the first thing he said. Well, we need to find out what economic, if we bring Fountain Valley to our city. They look at economic. So that means we need to do the same thing. What is the economic impact it's going to be for us as a city of Fountain Valley, what we're doing right now? So that is still in the process.

We don't know.

you know, so I think he's Electing one person is sufficient I understand that councilmember Constantine mentioned that I'll be met, you know, I want to go but my humble opinion is I think we should Appoint Glenn Grandis and here's where I'm going with this. I Not say she's not going to get elected. But what happens if she doesn't get elected? Would you send someone who's not going to be here next year to give any input? And I have concern. Glenn Grandis have done a tremendous good job doing reporting in any community he belongs to. So I think he'll come back with a great report. As an alternate, then let's put Kim Constantine as an alternate. If for some reason Glenn Granis can't go, who knows? He might not be able to go, right? He just got a new job. So who knows? They might call me, hey, Glenn, you need to come and work. Okay, boss, I'm coming in. So you never know. But in case he can't go, then Kim Constantine will step up.

Mr. Mayor, if I may.

Yes.

Okay. So council member Bowie, you know, please don't count me out. And like I said, in the last meeting, I want to be a part of this and I will be a part of this in the future, no matter what. And at this point, you know, as far as reporting goes, I'm extremely thorough. Seriously. I question maybe at this point, do we need to have a rep from Cal state Fullerton and even the community foundation? I question that at this point. And, um, I really wouldn't have a problem with being the only council member on the trip. So, I mean, ideally I'd like to have two. I think really it would be better for relations there. And as part of a member of the ad hoc committee, we just had a meeting last week and I saw the correspondence from the city to various cities in Japan and back and forth. And, you know, these dates are in there and, you know, we want to be seen as extremely serious. This is a completely serious matter. And it's important too that for the success of this program that we really do it right. And so I have to say, I disagree with your thoughts about me representing the city. I actually can represent very, very well. And I've had a lot of experience before with Disney in the Japanese culture and all. I don't always put all my cards on the table, but let me tell you, when I need to shine, I shine, and I'm there, and I can represent extremely well. Thank you.

I just want to respond real quick on what you just said. I never say that you give a bad reporting. I'm just saying that if Council Member Garandes ought to go, he will come back with a great report. So there's really no need for a second person. That was my point.

I think either one of us are very... We're very well versed in reporting when need be.

Okay. my gut is telling me that it's important to have the mayor there and unfortunately our current mayor cannot do it so really i think then it's really important to have next year's mayor there i think that's critically important and as we sit here right now we don't know if it's council member constantine or myself who will be mayor next year all depends on the outcome of the election um i am uh I am able to go. I will be going from Chicago. I have a meeting in Chicago. That's why I wasn't sure. But the meeting, just like last time, I was traveling and the meeting ends on the date that everyone's traveling from. Found it interesting. It's actually a lot cheaper to fly from Chicago than LA. That was a surprise. And the second thing is it's only because of the way you fly. You fly over the North Pole, over Alaska. It's actually only an hour further from Chicago than LA to Tokyo, which was also a surprise. But here's a compromise I think that can work for everyone. I'm always into let's try to make everybody happy. I think it's important, like I said, to have next year's mayor there. So why don't we have Councilmember Constantine and I go? However, we get a refundable trip for Councilmember Constantine. and if she does not get reelected then we just send one representative we send two if she is we send one if she's not and we do a refundable ticket i think that kind of things and the other thing with the funding just i want to be clear last year we each get a council allocation for conferences and i was nowhere close to using my funding and and this year as well i haven't used a dime yet for funding so it's it's the funding I don't think is an issue and second yeah I think this would be I don't know how do you feel council member Bowie that is that a compromise that's okay I want to make sure I understand that what do you mean by refundable if she gets elected because the election doesn't happen until the elections before the trip yes well when is it the date of the trip no it's Thanksgiving week November 25th

Are we able to get the refund? I don't know.

I think you just pay upfront extra for.

It's a small, you get a refundable ticket. You would just buy a refundable ticket. I don't think, Council Member Conci, you haven't purchased a ticket yet, have you?

Oh, of course not, no.

Okay, so then we can cancel the hotel. We could can't if she if that doesn't and then this way we're guaranteed to have a mayor there.

I think that's a good compromise and that is spending the you know, the city money wisely. Yeah, I'm okay with that.

And it's meeting the objectives of the sister city Advisory Committee, which is to have representation of kind of decision makers and those that can influence so Great. Thank you, Councilman Grandes. Every now and then, I come up with a good one. OK. So I think we've given direction.

Got direction. So I'll have Talia work with Councilmember Constantine. And Councilmember Grandes, I'm sure he will be able to do it on his own, and then he'll reimburse.

Fantastic. All right. Okay. So we'll move into our next study session item. It's presentation on political sign regulations and campaigning on city property presentation by city clerk, Rick Miller and city attorney, Colin Burns. Sorry with the city attorney. Welcome.

Good evening, mayor and council city's ability to regulate political science and campaign speech. So there are some key constitutional principles in this area. First, content-based regulations are suspect. Content-neutral time, place, and manner rules may be allowed. What's the difference between content-based and content-neutral? Generally, do you have to read the sign to understand whether a regulation applies? Is the cornerstone for whether it's content-based or content-neutral? Regulation should serve significant government purposes, and we have to allow alternate channels of communication. The interest that we have in signage is generally traffic safety and aesthetics. What we can generally regulate, again, in the sign area is your size limits, setbacks, visibility issues, basically the structural elements of signs, not so much the content. The distinction being we can regulate off-site versus on-site commercial speech. What we should avoid regulating, political viewpoint. We can't allow a topic to be discussed, say the presidential election, and then say, but you can only discuss one side of it, not the other side. Preferential treatment for favored candidates, that's what I just got into, and discretionary approval schemes without objective standards. So the ability to speak on public property depends on the form. Private property also. So for private property, that private property gets the greatest protection for non-commercial speech signs. That says political signs. It should say non-commercial. We can impose reasonable safety and size regulations. For public property, the ability of the city to regulate depends on what the forum is. For public property, we have a proprietary interest. So you have several types of forum. There's public forums. A public forum is the surfaces of sidewalks, the surfaces of the streets, the surfaces of the park, the area outside City Hall. These are areas where time out of mind, they have been open for discussion, free speech discussion. Those receive the highest level of protection, that's your public forum. A designated public forum is an area that is not a public forum, but that we have thrown open for speech of any kind. Those are very rare. What is more common is what's called a limited public forum. That is an area that is not generally a public forum, but that government opens up for speech of a limited amount of topics. This room right now is a limited public forum. We're inside City Hall. The inside City Hall generally is not a place for expressive activity. We don't allow people to go pick it up and down the hallways of City Hall. We have taken this one room and opened it up for free speech on a specific area of discussion, which is matters that are within the City Council's jurisdiction. That's a limited public forum. And then there's a non-public forum. Those are areas like a department head's office at City Hall, the chain link fence that goes over a freeway overpass. Those are areas that are not areas of traditional discussion or public forums and have not been open for public discussion. Best practices, keep laws content neutral. That means we don't regulate the message, but we regulate either the size of the sign or the volume of the bullhorn or where the sign can be located. Use objective standards. Apply the sign equally to all noncommercial speech. We cannot select certain kinds of noncommercial speech for preferential treatment, and we cannot elevate commercial speech over noncommercial speech. That is why our code has something called message substitution. which says that anywhere a commercial message is allowed, a noncommercial message is allowed. And for commercial speech, there's an on-site, off-site distinction. There is no on-site, off-site distinction for noncommercial speech with a minor caveat. We just had a case come through the U.S. Supreme Court called Reagan versus National Outdoor Advertising that does seem to recognize some very minor on-site, off-site distinctions between commercial speech, we have to see where that goes. For now, I would assume that all commercial speech gets the same treatment and there's no location restriction for it. And we need to avoid viewpoint discrimination. Anytime we allow speech, we can't pick the viewpoint. In other words, if you allow political speech, we can't say only Republican, only Democrat, only whatever party. Okay, let's get to our sign code. We have what I think, and I wish I could take the credit for it. It's a very well-written sign code. We hired somebody to do it. The person only did sign law. And the way he did it is he separated properties between private property and public property. For private property, here are our rules for non-commercial speech signs. Because remember, we cannot say political signs. That would be drawing a content-based distinction for non-commercial speech. We cannot do it. We can say temporary non-commercial speech signs. There are four TNC signs per parcel in a residential zone.

I'm sorry, I don't mean to interrupt. I just want to make sure I understand that. So when you say residential zone, that's one house?

Correct, per parcel, one parcel. Well, when we get to an apartment complex, that would make things really complicated.

Understood.

We haven't had to have that come up yet.

So in a house, it's one house. Correct. You can have four signs on your front lawn. Correct. Okay. Just want to make sure. Thank you.

And like I said, this sign code is excellently written, but there's a couple of gaps in it. It's just like any any. Any excellent law will have a couple of gaps. This has one. That apartment issue is one of them that we're going to need to fix. You get a maximum of one temporary non-commercial speech signed per 100 feet of arterial street frontage in non-residential zones. What's a non-residential zone? It's anything else. A person, when they put a noncommercial speech sign, can have any protected noncommercial speech. I'm sorry.

No, please. I think we have to nuance this and make sure we understand it. So when you say 100 feet of arterial street frontage, if it's a shopping center, you cannot have two signs within 100 feet of each other.

my understanding of the hundred foot rule is for, if per every 100 feet of arterial frontage, you can have four signs. So if a property owner had, let's say, you know, 200 feet and it's the same parcel of arterial frontage, you could have up to eight signs on that property.

That's not what this says. That's not what that says.

And I paraphrase this because of the sign code was the sign map.

a little bit more specific that's the last slide okay okay that's why I'm asking yes it's okay so they could have so within a hundred feet I'm trying to think how big is a hundred feet so that that's pretty significant space third or third of a football field Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm just trying to visualize that. So you could have up to four signs within 100 feet of each other. Correct.

Assuming they are all part of the same parcel. Assuming that 100 feet is one parcel.

Does it say four signs or does it say one sign?

I just wanted to check my... Yeah, four signs per 100 feet of arterial frontage of a property. Okay.

I don't know 100 yards that's that's like a driver for me so yeah yeah okay okay thank you we have some size limitations also temporary non-commercial speech signs are allowed in the residential zone at all times they are only allowed and this is temporary signs in non-residential zones 60 days before and 10 days after a local state or national election and they cannot be placed in the corner cutback

OK, going. Sorry, can you go? I just want clarity on all this. So number five, maximum height. Oh, that's how high you can hang it, not the size of the sign. OK, I'm with you now. Never mind.

No, that's one.

That's the height of the sign, not the size of the sign. Correct. OK, I just want to clarify that. Thank you.

OK, public property. This is our property where sometimes we have a proprietary interest, sometimes we don't. This is for traditional public forums. That is the streets, the surfaces of the streets, the surfaces of the park, and the surfaces of the sidewalk. Signs are allowed in the traditional public forms, but they have to be personally held by a person or personally attended. So in Fountain Valley, you can't leave a sign in the public right of way and walk away from it. The person has to be there attending it. The maximum aggregate size is 16 square feet of all signs held by a single person. The maximum size of any one sign which is personally attended by two or more people is 32 square feet and this is the other gap that we've run into this year which we do not have a maximum aggregate size of all signs personally attended by two or more people so as our code as the way our code is written and i will be bringing an ordinance to fix this after the election if you have two or more people we don't have a maximum aggregate size limit for signs so we need we need to fix that

Would an easy up, would that be considered a sign? Or would that fall into something different?

Well, you'd have to look at, is it displaying a message? And there's some reasonable interpretations of these things. Somebody will put an easy up and it says Hobie, and underneath they might have one sign that says, say, vote for Joe Doakes. You know, would the Hobie EZF be considered a sign or is it something that's de minimis? You really have to use a reasonable interpretation. If you see something that looks like it's a very cohesive set of signage and it looks like it goes over two signs, then yes, all of that would be counted towards the maximum aggregate limit.

And if they have two people there, then it could be 32 square feet.

We have no limitation on that right now.

Okay. I was just saying, three people. So if they have a bunch of people in the booth, they could have as big as they want. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

No more than two display faces. You can't use smoke, fumes, and obviously you can't display signs on the roadway.

Colin, just to go back to, so number four seems to be kind of written for a rally or maybe a moment where you've got actual folks holding signs. I kind of think of like Main Street and PCH where there's a lot of large signs, but they're personally attended. And so that allows in the moment for that?

Yeah, that's like your employment union protest to a construction site, one of those.

But the key distinction is personally attended by? That is a distinction. The holder of that.

Yes. You can't simply leave signs in the right of way and walk away from them. And we do have a definition of personally attended. It's a distance-based definition. I didn't put it in this, but I believe it's to be personally attended, you have to stand within 10 feet or something of the sign. Got it. OK. OK. Political speech and specifically in council chambers. This is public property. We go through a form analysis. So this is a limited public forum, as we've already discussed. For limited public forums, we can limit the subjects of discussion, but not the viewpoint. Both state law and city law limit the subjects of discussion of the council chamber. Under state law, it says that every agenda shall provide an opportunity for members of the public to address the body on any item of interest to the public that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the legislative body. Stated another way, and I think a better way, our municipal code says any matter over which the city council has authority. So this gets us kind of to the core of the issue of what can people say at the lectern. I have spoken with other cities about this. They allow campaign speech. There are very few cases on it. I have two cases that I found. One is an 11th Circuit case that is not citable because it's unpublished. It said that Campaign speech is not within the subject matter jurisdiction of a city council, because city councils don't decide elections. The voters do that. I think that's the correct interpretation of law. There is also a California case that came out of a district court, fortunately our local district court, but not a court of appeal. And it was on a motion to dismiss, which seems to recognize that you can make a content-based distinction and prohibit campaign speech at the lectern during a council meeting. But I do not have a strong case on point for you. I don't have cases saying you can't do it. The scales seem to say we can prohibit campaign speech here. Logic seems to suggest you should be able to do that. I don't think city council meetings could function if every meeting we had, you know, 20 or 30 people come up here and give a campaign speech every single time. But I'm not aware of other cities that prohibit it. I talked to a neighboring city, and the city attorney there said, no, they allow it because there's going to be pragmatic issues. It's very easy for somebody to come up here and say, my name is Colin Burns, vote for me, and we can say, ha, that's campaign speech. But what if somebody comes up and says, you know what? If you elect me, I would have never enacted that thing that was on the agenda. Or I'm going to change something and I'll mix. There's always a way to be creative and focus your comment on something on the agenda to where we literally have to take a scalpel and say, well, the first three words were campaign speech and the five words after that were, you know, appropriate within the subject matter of the city council. So it has, it has really always worked better when everybody follows the Queensberry rules of coming into council meetings and just, you know, kind of make sure that, um, we allow city business to function as city business. The other issue that I've gotten questions about is use of public funds and public property. There is a government code that says that it is unlawful for a elected state or local officer to use any property or asset of the city for campaign speech. Taken to its logical conclusion, that would mean that you can't go out on the sidewalk and campaign. That is totally unconstitutional. That cannot be what that law means. It would never survive the First Amendment. So the way that it has been limited, as I understand, is it means property that isn't a traditional public forum, property that isn't thrown open for campaign speech. This is where you as elected officials get a bit of a disadvantage. The public cannot come up to your seat and make comments, therefore making a campaign-based comment from where you're sitting might run afoul of this, whereas somebody coming up here where the public is allowed, we get into the not so much of the using any property or asset because folks who have not been elected and who are not state or local appointees, employees, or consultants wouldn't be subject to this law. That's where we get back into our, is this the content of speech that we allow at council meetings? That's the more difficult question. With those general frameworks in mind, if the council doesn't mind, I got a few questions by email, and I was hoping to answer a couple of them.

Vice Mayor Harper? You're going to the mailbag, huh? Yes.

OK. That's right. Okay. The first kind of candidate introduced themselves as a candidate and candidate elected official introduced themselves as a candidate for the same office or a different office. This gets into, do we want to prohibit campaign speech at city council meetings at the dice? That's a difficult question. It's a policy decision. I think the law would allow us to do it. I think pragmatically it'll be different, difficult to do it. That's where you have to draw those lines and get that scalpel out. This is where we just ask everybody to kind of follow the Queensberry rules if we can. If it becomes a problem, then we start having a discussion about creating regulations and banning certain speech. But obviously, it's council's prerogative.

I think even the conversation we had in the last study session talked about people running for office and not. So it's going to happen.

It is, and it has happened. And we can pivot off of what we experienced at these council meetings. And at any time, if you want me to prepare a regulation or an ordinance, I can. We can. We would probably end up being a test case because I just don't have a strong Ninth Circuit case on point saying we can do it. The weight of the law seems to suggest that we can do it. The weight of logic seems to suggest that we can do it. But there has to be a case that says we can, and we might be the one.

One thing we didn't cover and I think was an issue, and maybe you did and I just didn't catch it, is we have different events that the city puts on that get sponsored. And the way I understood to this point, and I have nothing in this one way or the other, incumbents were not allowed to do it. Non-incumbents were allowed to do it. How do we even the playing field? Or do we?

So when we have something in the park, the question is, is it a closed event or an open event? If it's a closed event, then we can the meaning do we have a fence around it? You know, is it ticketed? If we have a fence around it and it's ticketed and we put a First Amendment area outside, we can prohibit campaign speech inside. And that's campaign speech. That doesn't mean that you can't have a mayor's booth. Ask the mayor question something else that I don't see that as campaign speech. That's communication with the public. That's information, not advocacy. But if it's open, like a concert in the park that's completely open, then that's a traditional public forum.

That didn't answer my question. So I understand a non-incumbent can an incumbent do it too.

Yes, in a traditional public forum that is public property, that is open for expression.

So everybody's on an even playing field. Okay, that's good. City Manager Lee.

Basically, the city attorney is saying that when you have an event that is, we call it private, which is closed, you can control.

Yes. I understand. Yeah, Summerfest. It's fenced in. We can control speech in Summerfest.

Understood. Understood. I think the way it was done this year is, at least what I was told, is non-incumbents can and incumbents cannot. But we're saying that's not the case.

When it's just the open park, everybody has a right.

Concerts in the park, specifically.

Yeah, concerts in the park is open. We don't have the issue.

I'm OK with it. I just wanted to make sure we clarify it.

The issue we have with those is, does somebody put in something that's so big that it interferes with the use of the park? If somebody comes in and drops in a booth or something else, is that something that's going to interfere with the use? It's unrelated to the speech. And for that, we don't have a policy. And for some of these, we need to fix some things after the election.

City Manager Lee.

I may add to the conversation. I think when it comes to the sponsorship opportunity, I think from a city standpoint, the city has the ability to identify guidelines. And through that guidelines, you can permit or not permit. And that's something that the city can definitely look into and have some type of policy that would reference the guidelines, what you can and cannot do in regards to some of those opportunities.

But I think what we're hearing is that right now the person, the candidate, doesn't even need a sponsorship. If they want to go out there with signs and an easy up, they can without a sponsorship.

At an open event.

It's an open event.

As long as we allow easy ups structurally, no matter what the message is on the easy up.

I want clarity to what city manager just said because I don't want to go down the wrong path and then later on we have to backtrack. Basically you're saying that the city can control um where they will allow or not that's what you just said at a closed event that's right the key was it has to be a closed event you got to make sure that you're it's a close not an open event you cannot make a policy an open event because you're going to hit on the first amendment right on sponsorships too free no it's open to public i i that's not the question if it's no the sponsorship you know it depends who control

Concerts in the park. It's a city event. I'm not saying I'm with it or against it. I understand. Clarify it.

If it's concert in the park, it's a city event, but it's open to the public.

Yes.

You can do it. You can't control that.

So we're saying we could put up an easy up if we want, and we don't need to even pay a sponsorship.

Unless it's an event and you close it. But if it's open to the public, you walk right into the First Amendment. So you got to be careful.

I guess we could probably control easy ups, though. Somebody could still campaign. But if every person brought an easy up, that wouldn't work either.

That would not work.

Okay. So they can campaign, they just cannot set up an EZL.

At the end of the day, to your point, and I really like what you raise up, is it has to be a plain feel, whether you're an incumbent or a candidate. But to me, if you start putting a lot of restrictions, it's actually a disadvantage for any candidate who wants to run. Because we sit on this council, we make rules, make it very difficult for them to come in. it should be equal it should be equal whatever it is whatever we decide either way i'm good just make it equal we don't make rules just because they're candidates then we block their opportunity to come in would like some clarification please who did you ask yes we can hear you kim

Sure. So, Attorney Collin, if you could. So, when you say closed events, you know, National Night Out, movies in the park, they're not closed as in fenced off. When you say closed, do you mean fenced off like Summerfest is?

Yes.

I think we need that point of clarification. Okay. So, with that being said, sponsorship packets... at some point, not tonight, but we do need to have something. And that would go for whether incumbents or somebody new running for whatever office. And I do think that's something we need to look into. It's not hard to do this. We just need to get a policy in place about what we're going to allow for sponsorship.

Steve Angeli.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, I think that's something that we can look into and assess. The recent national night out, we did receive community feedback that there were too many campaigning that transpired that took away from the intent of public safety engaging with the community. That was something that some of the residents felt like, you know, they were not comfortable with. But that is for discussion and so forth if that's an interest of the city council from a policy standpoint.

Can you explain what do you mean, what happened? You say public safety engagement. What safety, what's the issue?

The event.

Oh, it's called Public Safety?

It's National Night.

I know, I know, but you're saying that there was some concern about public safety.

No, National Night Owl is an opportunity for the community to be engaged with public safety, specifically police department. Oh, I see. Fire department do participate in conjunction and also any organization that wants to share information with the general public, yes.

Okay, I thought you meant there's something happened, so that's, okay, okay, thank you.

Please continue, city attorney.

Okay. The next one is, and I apologize if I skipped one, what are the rules about campaigning on other city property? We talked about that. That depends on whether it's traditional forum, non-public forum. Can a member of the public make a comment advocating for a candidate at the lector? That's the same discussion we've had about whether we want to prohibit campaign speech. I think that we can, but we would have to – I don't have a Ninth Circuit case for you. Advocate advocating for city council to pass a resolution not on the agenda in support or opposition of a ballot measure that is within council members prerogative. The council can pass resolutions supporting or opposing a ballot measure. So that would that would be permitted. Advocating for council to take action that is on the agenda relating to a ballot measure. Yeah, if it's on the agenda. Our current temporary sign ordinance requires posters to have the permission of the property owner prior to posting signs. Is the term owner being interpreted to mean tenant or owner? This is probably a gap. It needs to be whoever has possessory control of the property. If somebody is a tenant and has leased the entire premises such that the landlord is supposed to give them quiet use and they have the authority to say a sign can go, that would be who the owner is being referred to. Do we have any effective enforcement mechanism against people or businesses that violate the Fountain Valley sign ordinance? Yes, it tends to be going after the owner of the property. It is difficult to go after the person whose name on the sign because we cannot prove who put the sign there. We can only prove that a property owner is allowing the sign to remain. From my understanding, if it's on private property, um code enforcement or somebody else will go up and talk to the property owner first tell them that signs in violation ask them to remove it it's only when they refuse to remove it that we would issue an administrative citation and then we'd say the property owner allowed to remain on the property versus going after the person who placed a sign and i believe that is the extent of the questions um yeah i believe that is the substantive extent of the questions that's one grandus

Yeah, so a couple of things. Getting back to the four per 100 feet, we have nine candidates running. Does that mean that the first four who run and get there, it's theirs? Can the same person put all four in their spot and not allow anybody else to do it?

So yes, or a person could have a sign that looks like a checkerboard and put every single candidate on a checkerboard sign. That would be one sign within the size limitations. Like an NFL football Sunday where you have the screen be cut in four parts. Yeah, but that's not... It doesn't, and a lot of times you have to rely on the market and pragmatism to help these regulations, just like the fact that... We have to allow message substitution, but we're probably pretty convinced that the Ayers Hotel isn't going to pull their sign off and put vote for Joe Doakes on their sign or, you know, peace in Antarctica. Business owners want to advertise their business. That's why all of the signs on all the commercial properties haven't changed to non-commercial messages.

So one thing I'd like to see in the future, not this election, obviously it's too late. We have a requirement that there must be approval from the landowner. And the Sakyoka Farms, that's the one that's right outside Costco, that big farm area, they make you get written permission. You have to submit it in writing and it has to be approved in writing. I would like to see that the anybody who puts a sign up on private property gets signed permission from the right person. Because like in a shopping center, for example, there might be 30 stores, 20 stores, whatever it is. And one of the shop owners may say yes, and one of the shop owners may say, but they don't have the authority. The authority is the property manager of that whole thing. So if Sakioka Farms can do that, why can't we say that you must get written permission and file it with the city clerk before you are allowed to put your signs up?

So I think we can. It'd be a prior restraint, but a minor one, and I think it's objective. The issue we're going to run into is that same pragmatic issue. How do we prove that that person put the sign there? And if we can't prove that that person put the sign there, what is the administrative burden versus just calling the owner of the property and saying, you need to remove it, it's illegal? Or did you allow it?

Well, go ahead. That's a great question. I'm going to chime in on this one. Well, here's another problem you'll come across. The property owners, you know what? The city have no duty to know who I am, whether I approve or not. Because that's their right. They don't have to respond to it. Because I did ask that question to some of the property owners. Hey, are you okay with this? No, I don't want to respond. I don't have to. Well, then you shouldn't put a sign up there. Well, it's their right. You've got to be careful. They do whatever they want. They're tax holders. They pay, and it's their right.

You trump over their right? Well, we have rights on signs, and we have rights that tell shopping centers what they can and can't do, and this is one of them. If you want to allow political signs, you're welcome to, but you must fill out a form.

so that's one aspect from the landlord of the land so now on certain property now you have tenants and if you ever look at the lease contract on the commercial side there's no language that prohibit the tenant from exercising his right who he or she wants to support so when i'm let me let me go with this with this so when you're telling the landlord of the property will cite you but his lease with the tenant when the tenant lease that he has a certain right on that land as users so therefore you can't really prohibit the tenant of the store whatever who's on lease because as he's exercised his right who he or she wants to support so that's it's it's going to be some friction there

Yeah, but the tenant doesn't have the right to the street, to the 100 feet. That's shared amongst many. The tenant can put a sign up in their window if they want to. That's different. You get a business and put it up in the window.

That's a great argument unless that language is written in the lease.

And that's between the landlord and tenant. If it's not leased, you can't tell them where to put it? I disagree. I think we can tell them what to do because we have a policy within the city. And just like they can't put the flapper banners up, the guy who falls over and does all the crazy stuff, we control that too. We don't allow that. We don't allow banners. So... so you can't talk as it's disrupting sorry anyway um i lost my train of thought good flappers yeah so i i think you i think the city can i don't know i don't think this to be decided tonight but i think we should look into all these things when we bring this back okay mr mayor if i may yes councilwoman constantine

Yeah, so, you know, a couple of things here. I do want to say I do know of a center because there was an issue a few years ago. One specific center does have something in the lease as far as, you know, what signs are placed in windows. And in this particular center, they don't allow it. But in a general speaking, if a business wants to put a sign in the window, that's totally fine. There is nobody who should ever place signs In the ground, you know, like on street corners or in shopping centers without permission, without proper permission. And for Attorney Collin, if I could please get some clarification. What about the county riverbed areas where there's fencing or the county flood control channel? Are campaign signs ever allowed there?

I would call that a non-public forum. And then no, if it's a non-public forum, it would not be. Our sign code bans all signs except for those placed by the city or with permission of the city, with the exception of traditional public forum areas where we have those rules on signs need to be personally attended.

Okay, because we have some issues now. So if somebody were to drive around Fountain Valley or just move about the city and sees signs questionable or maybe if they had questions or signage going awry, you know, multiple signs not within that distance of 100 feet, so to speak, you know, whenever a little bit, what would somebody do? Would they contact code enforcement? Do they contact the city clerk?

I'll ask the city clerk.

Councilmember Constantine, they could reach out to myself or code enforcement to inspect the property and the signs in question.

And then what about the issue of signs up the electrical poles? I know we have a couple now, and we've had a few past.

With those, they're not allowed. What I've done, and I believe what, if code enforcement lets me know of a sign that they see, I reach out to the candidate to let them know they placed a sign on a utility pole, and they need to remove it.

Because if the signs aren't removed from the utility poles, it's my understanding that the city cannot because of potential liability in removing the signs.

We wouldn't want to damage private property.

Right. Absolutely. So it is a big deal. And it is a big deal for our staff, whether it's you, the city clerk, or whether it's our code enforcement staff. There's a lot of labor, a lot of headache, a lot of just keeping up with the aesthetics of the city. And, you know, when people run for city council or even any other office, you know, well, of course, people that run for our city council, those candidates have to sign off with you, Rick, the city clerk, other potentials that are running, you know, for other offices of, you know, whatever the other elected offices are, they don't, you know, sign off on anything with you. Is that correct?

That's correct. Any non-city related candidate, I reach out to their campaigns and let them know we have a signed policy. I send them our signed policy and I let them know they have a sign that's violating that policy. And if we haven't removed it, sometimes if it's in the median, we will remove it because it's our property. But if it's on private property, somewhere violating our sign code, I let them know and that they need to remove it.

Yeah. And just the last thing I want to say, you know, you know, we hear a lot of, we hear a lot here in the city. I think a lot of us do. And to me, we just should not have any signage inappropriately, especially with people running for city council. It really is. I mean, I don't want to go on, but it's just so detrimental in so many ways. Thank you.

one last comment i would say to all candidates running in the city of fountain valley is we have a sign ordinance and there's a spirit of the rule as well as the actual rule and i would encourage any candidate you have control of your own signs you know other people may put them up for you or you may hire a service or whatever but it's up to you as a candidate when you run your campaign to control what people do for you and to monitor it if there's a concern or a complaint and it's it's not according to the rules or the spirit of the rule then do the right thing. Because quite candidly, I think it hurts you more than it helps you if people are, I can't say that word, if people are not happy with it. So that would be my advice to everybody. If there's a loophole, don't take the loophole. Fountain Valley is better than that.

Amen to that.

And that's, Not directed at anybody. That's everybody, no matter what you're running for.

we'll start looking like westminster and hunting vice mayor harper i think yeah i'd like to uh express a different viewpoint on this i i think that the signs that are show up everywhere for 30 or 60 days every two years or every you know whenever there's an election uh are we we already have pretty restrictive sign rules in fountain valley and um you know we're we're much have fewer signs than other cities, so I really don't have a problem with the signs that are up or have been up in other elections throughout the city. I do think that candidates should be mindful and, how do I say it, use professional discretion, but at the same time, I think our sign rules are fine and I don't want to discourage candidate from putting up signs because that's part of getting your name out recognition whether it's on a front lawn of a residence or whether it's you know on the corner of a of a commercial property so I I think that we already do enough to restrict signs and and I think we do a pretty good job at it thanks

And I have to agree with our vice mayor. I mean, it's not the first time we're doing this. And at the end of the day, you have to look. All these candidates cried out loud. Like the vice mayor just said, they just want to get the name out, right? And second, they're doing this for what? Volunteer their time to this community at the end of the day. It's volunteerism. That's what they're doing. And you want to make it more difficult for people who want to volunteer? It doesn't make sense. If we get paid six figures behind these diets, I get it. But we are all volunteers. And the candidates are volunteers themselves. So why go at it and try to enforce more rules where there's plenty already? It just doesn't make sense.

Mr. Mayor, may I make another comment, please?

Yes.

So, you know, we tend to think of Fenton Valley City Council candidates, however many there are in any given election year. There's higher office, there's propositions, there's the potential for, you know, others putting signs in our communities, like we're seeing some of our people putting in other communities. I'm just saying we have an ordinance. I like our temporary non-commercial speech signage ordinance, aka campaign signage ordinance, no matter what, we need to follow that. That is what we need to follow. And in doing that, one can effectively get the name out and just abide by our current ordinance. Thank you.

That's my boy.

Well, I believe like Rick just said earlier, so if you find that anybody who is violating the ordinance is there, Rick has said it, he will reach out to the candidate or the elected official. It is there. It doesn't stop on you. If you want to reach out to them with a city personal email to them, you can do it too. No one's stopping you. Basically, we have mechanism in place. And Rick says he's there. then you mentioned for those who seek high office or currently it's high office and they want to get reelected you know their their emails on on the website no one's stopping you councilmember bowie i know how to make contact that's i'm just talking about when i was saying this i was talking about the potential volume of signage that's what i was talking about we we don't want to be in anything go city we have an absolutely and which is which is which is which is great that's why there's no gray area for it which is great i agree with you we don't want it to be like la it's horrible but like i say basically we have a mechanism we have a rick miller it's there once you see something you notify or city clerk and yourself if you want to reach out let them know hey we have owners that's it that's the end of that absolutely and you know

There needs to be citations and notices before that, absolutely. I take it seriously, thank you.

So thank you to City Attorney Burns and City Clerk Miller for a very, You got more slides? Oh, we're not done. The last slide. OK. All right.

The last slide is just the sign ordinance which Colin went over. The only thing that I believe Colin did not refer to was the corners of intersections, which are typically popular for political signs. There's a 15-foot setback. down the street on either side plus 15 feet back from the start of the sidewalk. So that's the only thing that I don't, I believe. From the curb?

From the curb, from the start of the curb.

Okay, so from the street. Yeah, it's this diagram right here. Just, it's kind of a little triangle that you just wanna make sure you're outside of, Basically, that's just protect against any, you have signs that are right up against the sidewalk, could obstruct vehicle view or something like that. So that's all we're looking for there. As long as we're 15 feet back on the corners, then we don't have an issue.

Very good, okay.

All right, great discussion, thank you so much. We do have two requests to speak on this item.

Okay.

Katie Wright.

Welcome.

Thank you. The Founding Fathers never intended that people had to be rich in order to run to serve their communities, their country. Very often in the old days, they were. They could afford to go to another town and be Continental Congress people. Some of the people were simple cobblers from Connecticut, et cetera. And they really gave up a lot in order to serve their country and their communities. If you look at this from strictly a dollar and cents point of view, we have nine candidates. There's a misunderstanding Some candidates have to file a form 460. A lot of the public does not understand what that means. That has to do with candidates who are able to have a committee. They have a committee. It could be a committee of one, but that's kind of the rule of thumb guideline as I understand it. If you are a grassroots candidate coming out of nothing, you do not have the big money backers. You don't have pimps out there promoting your name for you with money. It's very limited. And yeah, I said that. I'm not afraid. It's a commercial expression for someone who's managing. Let's face it, politicians are not necessarily well thought of by many people, but when someone decides, you know, I really think I have something to contribute to my community, I'm gonna give it a shot. Some, by the signs, I save my signs. I'm gonna keep using the same ones and I only go out to people who've told me they want one for their yard. I don't care about the signs myself. I don't have friends who own shopping centers. I don't have the time to look up, well, who owns this? Who has the right to do that? Which store here? Which store there? You have people, nine candidates this year. You have, I think, four of them, maybe five of them, that fall under the category of doing a Form 450. That means anyone whose expenditures and contributions fall under the $2,000 threshold. Now, if people really do not like more of the same old, same old, and they complain about the politicians not listening to them, making decisions that cater to people who are developers, et cetera, I really exhort the public to pay attention, get to know the candidates, do not vote based on name recognition and postcards in your mailbox, or you're gonna get more of the same. This, to me, There is no rules. This is the Wild West. I choose to behave myself in an ethical manner. But the truth is, I could go out there for every sign someone else has. I could do it. What are they going to do? Call me and say, you need to remove your signs? OK. And then just go do it again the next day. There's no actual ordinance. Katie, your time is up. Thank you. You need to work on that. Libby?

Okay, we've got a public comment. Thank you. Welcome, Libby.

Hello. I'm a 27-year homeowner here in Fountain Valley, and one of the things I've enjoyed about those years living here is the sense of community and decorum we as a community have abided by. When it comes to political campaigning, we have neighboring cities that behave quite differently. I believe it is the general consensus of our community that we don't want to become like our neighbors. Those that prefer that sort of campaigning might want to be more at home in those communities. And I'm really glad we're reviewing these rules tonight for what we've created for our city and how they comport with the free speech rights we all enjoy and how we address violations. Thank you for addressing most of my questions. I still have several more came up. First of which is, can I get a copy of that PowerPoint? because it includes a lot that I'd like to be able to look at more.

Yes, that'll be provided. Yes.

Yes, he nodded at me. Thank you. I missed the very, very beginning because I didn't know that. One question I do have, though, we concluded that a candidate can introduce themselves at the podium at the comments, but is it allowable campaigning if a candidate repeatedly states that they are running for office in excess of simply introducing themselves? So that might be something to consider. Also, at a public event, you said that the mayor could have a booth, say, a mayor's information booth or something. So that would be provided by the city for the mayor, even if the mayor's on the ballot that year. So that's for free. But all the other candidates would be allowed to purchase a booth for themselves at public events. So that's something that might need to be considered. As you're looking at some of these rules and rewriting things, that 100-foot rule really kind of triggered me that maybe any individual candidate must have a much longer distance because if one candidate gets out and puts a sign every 100 feet and no one else is allowed to have a sign in between there, you've kind of really upset the playing field and not made a level playing field. So maybe it should be like one per block per candidate so that other candidates can get into that 100 feet rule. I am concerned about the enforcement mechanisms we have. I have heard, I haven't been over by Costco recently, but I've heard that there are signs on the fencing over there. Sending an email doesn't really do much. We may need to work on that. And is the 15-foot setback rule with regard to yard signs? So any yard sign still has to be backed 15 feet from in each direction? Because I think there's probably lots of those violations around town. And then since you covered most of my questions, I'm juggling. Well, I'm hoping that people that live in Fountain Valley choose to live here because we are a nice place to live and that we will not disturb that atmosphere. If we allow illegal signage to proliferate without penalty.

Libby, your time's up.

Sorry. I had a great line at the very end. Sorry. Thank you.

I have no further request to speak.

Okay, great. Thank you so much for the presentation from City Clerk Miller and City Attorney Burns. We will take a recess until 6 p.m. Be back in 10. Thank you.