City Council - Successor Agency - Housing Authority - Regular Meeting

All right. Go ahead and call the closed session meeting to order. Madam City Clerk, can you please call the roll?

Mayor Pro Tem Dunlap?

Here.

Council Member Valencia? Here. Council Member Zahra? Here. Mayor Jung and Council Member Charles are not yet present.

Charles just walked in.

I sit corrected. Council Member Charles has just walked in.

All right, so we'll now hear public comments on closed session items. Madam City Clerk, is there anybody on Zoom?

Nothing on Zoom?

No, seeing nobody in chambers. Go ahead and adjourn to closed session. Oh, this is on the closed session matter? Yes.

Today, I just want to share with you, well, first of all, thank you guys for updating the Fullerton municipal code book. It's updated for 2025. I think the last time it was updated was 2010, maybe 2018, something like that. But the book looks really, really good. So I want to thank you guys for that also. The other thing on the agenda, that I saw was the Illumination Health and Home, and I'm not sure why it's on here, but I just wanted to comment on it. We're talking about 3535 West Commonwealth Avenue, which is the 150-bed shelter. 110 of those beds are for recuperative care, and 40 of those beds are for emergency shelter, navigation center. we have 300 homeless people in the city of Fullerton and I just want to I Don't understand why we went from I think 60 bits to 110 bits knowing that we have 300 homeless people on the street that need those beds or emergency shelter Also, I just want to share this also Just in case it this this is what we're talking about on here the shelter should be I think we signed like a 10-year contract with that. I don't think it should have been signed for that long. I think it should have been like two or three years, like every other contract for the navigation centers in Orange County. We have, oh, another thing I want. The OCTA buses, they have a right to pick up and drop off the people at the shelter. A lot of the laws have changed because of Sharon Cork Silver. So there's no reason that you can say the laws or anything, or even the neighbors are the problem, because even the neighbors have to follow the law. And the law is that we no longer have to have shelters in industrial zones. It's a new law that says they can be in basically residential areas, commercial, manufacturing areas. But they can be closer so people can get the services that they need, like food, clothes, visit their families, because they are human beings. And so we need to really allow them to ride the OCTA buses the shelter is on a first-come first-served basis as we just signed the new Municipal codes which state that means that a person can go directly to that shelter. Thank you very much.

Thank you Okay, so, you know other commenters and chambers will go ahead and adjourn to closed session

Good evening. I'll now call to order the July 21st City of Fullerton City Council meeting to order. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Mayor Jen?

Present.

Council Member Valencia? Present. Mayor Pro Tem Dunlap?

Here.

And Council Member Charles and Zahra are, I assume, nearby, but not in the chambers.

Well, I'll ask the Mayor Pro Tem to lead us in the invocation this evening.

Sorry, wrong one. All right. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Father, we ask for your guidance and wisdom this evening as we gather to serve our community. We ask for the strength to make the right decisions and to make the best decisions for our community. In your name we pray. Amen.

I may ask Councilwoman Valencia, since you're here, to lead us in the pledge.

Sure. Everybody, please stand. That's able. Remove your hats. Right hand over your heart.

Anything to report out of closed session this evening, Mr. Attorney?

I have one report on a motion by Mayor Zhang, seconded by Mayor Pro Tem Dunlop. On a 5-0 vote, the city council has agreed to enter into a settlement agreement and general release with California Public Employees Association, known as CalPERS, on behalf of the city and four employees, Eddie Manfro, Cindy Collins, Greg Faust, and Jeff Collier. The city will pay a fee of a settlement amount of $40,000. PERS will release its appeals and any claims regarding any improper... A rewarding of benefits. Mr. Azar has also asked, I indicate that the attorney's fees in this case, we hired outside counsel, Mr. Berliner, and those fees were $187,000. Okay.

Any ex parte communications to...

Yes, I had a conversation with Foothill Affordable Housing Foundation. Okay. Okay.

at conversations with the Fullerton's Firefighters Association representatives and the Police Officers Association representatives.

All right. And there are no presentations this evening. We'll go straight to public comment. Madam Clerk? Oh, anything pulled? Forgive me. Any members of our council needing to pull anything off consent before we take public comment? OK. Madam Clerk?

OK. Have five people registered first person is Kate Park then Jim Apple and Karen Lareda. So Kate come on to the microphone Are you here?

Hello Fullerton community members and Fullerton City Council members. My name is Erin Kim and I am one of the current Vice President of Good Answer One. On behalf of Good Answer One, I would like to sincerely thank the City of Fullerton, the City Council, and the Fullerton Public Library for supporting our program and allowing us to use the City Library as a tutoring space. Having a welcoming and reliable space every Saturday has made it possible for us to serve students and create an environment where they feel comfortable asking questions, building confidence, and growing academically. To give a brief overview of our organization, Good Answer One is a nonprofit tutoring organization founded in 2013 with the goal of creating equal learning opportunities for underprivileged youth in Fullerton. Since then, we have provided free math tutoring to students in second through sixth grade from Title I schools. Our program is run by dedicated middle and high school student volunteers who are passionate about giving back to their community. Today, we have over 30 tutors who dedicate their Saturday mornings to helping more than 20 elementary school students straighten their math skills. Over the past several years, we have proudly served more than 100 students.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council members, librarians, and everyone here tonight. My name is Christopher Kim, and I also serve as the Vice President for Good Hands for One. Because of the support from the Fullerton Public Library, the City Council, and the families who have entrusted us with their children, we have been able to witness incredible growth in our students' mathematics skills, confidence, and enthusiasm for learning. We are truly grateful for the opportunities your support has provided and for allowing us to continue serving students in our community. Currently, we hold our in-person tutoring sessions at the Fullerton Public Library every Saturday from 1130 a.m. to 1 p.m., where our tutors work one-on-one with students to help them build a strong foundation in math. Moving forward, our organization hopes to continue to grow by recruiting new, passionate middle and high school student volunteers across the Fullerton area. By expanding our team, we aim to serve even more students and continue making academic support accessible to those who need it most. It has been an honor to introduce Good Hands for One to the Fullerton City Council and the community members of Fullerton. Thank you so much for your time and your support. We look forward to continue to continuing to make a positive impact on the students and families of Fullerton. Thank you.

Next speaker, Jim Apple, followed by Karen Lareda and Aaron Perrault.

Hello. Good evening. I want to say something positive about the city of Fullerton. First of all, we have a great program for seniors. fantastic program that I think it can change your life and I also think it can if not doesn't change your life could certainly improve your life. The sad thing is we have this great program in Fullerton and a lot of people don't know about it and the sad thing also is it's right down the street at Cal State Fullerton. So how do they not know about this great program for seniors at Cal State Fullerton right down the street. Well, the program's called OLLI. It stands for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. Some of you may know about it. Some of you don't know about it. But it's a great program for seniors. Four reasons why it's a great program for seniors. First of all, we offer over 120 classes. You're not going to find a program that does that. We offer classes in every imaginable field. We offer classes in Mahjong, ceramics. You want to learn a foreign language? Pick a language. We teach it. You want to learn to play a musical instrument? Pick a musical instrument, and we'll teach you how to play it. You want to learn how to play cribbage? You learn how to play cribbage. We have tons and tons of classes. Second reason why it's a great program. Based on my personal experience, when you retire, You basically, all your friends want to stay in touch with you, good luck. Out of sight, out of mind. This is a great opportunity to meet new people and make new friends. Third reason it's a great program. You have a chance to audit any class at Cal State Fullerton for free with the professor's approval. That means you want to take geology, anthropology, you can take it for free. The fourth good reason to go in the program, you get two free tickets to every sporting event. You want to go to a baseball game, a basketball game, two free tickets. So I'm here to tell you about our open house. It's August 8th. It's at Cal State Fullerton. Come check it out. You know, free parking, free food, a chance to meet the faculty, a chance to find out about the classes and see if this program works for you. So if you're a senior and you're looking for something to do with your life, this is a great opportunity. It's offered by Fullerton, Cal State Fullerton. It's part of the city of Fullerton. And I'm proud to talk about it. Thank you.

Next speaker is Karen Lareda followed by Aaron Peral and Jensen Hellstrom and that's all I have registered. Anybody else who'd like to speak please start making your way to the wall opposite me to line up to get to the podium.

Karen Lareda District 2. We have a pretty hefty agenda this evening with several items that require extensive presentation discussion and debate. Looking forward it appears that we can expect a few more heavily weighted agendas. So it confounds me as to why this council repeatedly cancels scheduled meetings using the lack of issues or worse a lack of quorum to avoid doing the city's business. We all understand that each of you may need a vacation here and there. But when any three of you indicate you will not be available for the same meeting, your commitment to the job becomes questionable. We are questioning. Given the numerous topics requiring the council's attention in the next few months we feel you are obligated to disclose why you have now canceled additional meetings in August and I believe also in September. Words are cheap. Transparency matters. Let us know what you're doing. And I think we can say that tonight has made clear by events that have happened that the Fullertonians are watching and they are paying attention.

And Aaron Peral and then Jensen Hallstrom.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the City Council. My name is Aaron Anthony Peral and I'm a resident of Fullerton who lives along The city approved and completed a major rehabilitation project only two years ago, yet today there are already significant cracks and major potholes throughout the roadway. i respectfully request that the staff answer the following questions was this a full reconstruction or simply an asphalt overlay is the project still under contractor warranty has the city conducted post construction inspections and our repairs already scheduled what was the expected lifespan of this project Second, I'm concerned about the lack of routine maintenance along this same corridor. As someone who regularly walks this stretch of associated road, I've personally observed weeds, overgrown vegetation and trash remaining along this roadway for more than two months. The overgrown brush narrows portions of the sidewalk creating difficulties for pedestrians, parents with strollers and individuals with disabilities. Litter has also accumulated in the gutters. and near storm drains. These conditions do not reflect the quality of maintenance that Fullerton residents expect. I have these photographs which I will leave with you that show the significant cracks and potholes in the litter that's just been accumulating the weeds that have been overgrown along all along. You can see it in the pictures. Finally I recently paid five hundred and eighty five dollars for building permit to install a single replacement window in my home. Regardless of whatever our neighboring cities charge, I believe this fee is excessive for a small residential project. A homeowner replacing one window should not pay essentially the same permit fee as someone who is undertaking a much larger window project. I respectfully ask the council to review the city's residential permit fee structure and consider creating a more proportional a proportional tiered fee schedule for smaller home improvement projects. Homeowners should be encouraged not discouraged to obtain permits and improve their homes within reason. Taxpayers deserve roads that last and neighborhoods that are properly maintained and fees that are fair. Thank you for your time. And I respectfully request that the council direct staff to investigate these concerns and provide a public response at a future meeting. I do believe that North Fullerton 92835 is kind of a forgotten land. Come visit us sometime. And I'll leave this, the letter, and all the cracks. And it is.

And Jensen Hallstrom. Next door, please. Next door.

Good evening council and staff. I would like to provide an update on the Sequoia Memorial restoration at Hillcrest Park. The project carried out by street tree revival of WCA seems to be nearly complete. Very glad to see that the memorial is now more structurally sound. A lot of the decayed and damaged Portions of the wood of the monument have been filled with resin and Now moving forward I would like there to be very careful in comprehensive plan for the replanting of the memorial grove You know, however, you look at it right now there are 55 missing memorial trees Hillcrest Park and those are the 55 trees that were planted for each Fullerton resident that had died in World War two so the city had unfortunately over the decades not held to the management standards that a Redwood Grove requires in Southern California a lot of local agencies can handle Redwood Grove's just fine. Everybody knows that OC Parks manages the Redwood Grove in Carbon Canyon Park, which is very popular. And that grove is 241 trees large. This grove is 55 trees large. I think that if staff is currently planning that project, that before any work is done, There needs to be a community meeting to have this process be transparent. There are a lot of considerations to successfully designing a redwood grove in Southern California, especially with the soil conditions of an exposed hilltop such as the area where that grove used to grow. have some pictures from a 1995 landscape architect report or apparently I don't actually I'll bring them next time but there was a Riverside landscape architect that in 1996 had put together a report as part of the Hillcrest Park master plan and he detailed the mismanagement of the surviving redwood trees at that time, including soil compaction and aggressive invasive weeds such as ivy, which were crowding out the canopies of these trees. As I mentioned before, the last tree died in 2015. And even after then, at least some stumps were left of them. But even just a few years ago, those stumps were all completely grinded up for no reason. They were not in any walkway or a trip hazard. So this Grove has really been disrespected and I want there to be a public transparent process and replanting it. Thank you.

And to our looks like we have one person left to speak. Anybody else please sign up line up now otherwise we will go to zoom when we do have one hand raised.

Good evening. I want to address what the votes of Mayor Jung Mayor Pro Tem Dunlap and council member Valencia have done to the process of city council meetings. In their vote to cancel four meetings, January 6, July 7, August 4, and September 1, and there would have been one more scheduled had not council member Charles strongly objected and it was taken back, and the last minute canceling of the May 19 meeting, what is happening tonight and what has transpired over the last few weeks is that very important issues are crammed into long meetings in order to get necessary city business accomplished. This is no way criticism of staff, all of whom I respect highly for their time and efforts preparing, working beyond their work hours to get this done. None of this was necessary. How can staff, council members, the public including me, be prepared to intelligently and responsibly understand, give feedback, and vote? When meetings are canceled and then many special meetings are scheduled at 4 o'clock, when most of the public cannot attend, it just reinforces the public's participation and input do not matter. When you waste precious staff time in the public's by unnecessarily delaying decisions, for example, waste hauler contract selections are required by state law, the housing development under builder's remedy at Harbor and Mimosa, You are not being transparent with everyone for your reasons. I am not prepared tonight as I should be because it was impossible to be prepared in such a short notice with so many important issues on the agenda. It just indicates to me that you don't care. You know what you're going to vote for. You have the majority votes and we are just coming along for the ride as required by law. that these decisions be made publicly. This is the reason why there is so much lack of trust of residents. That lack of trust is not unfair. Your actions and votes have created it. Now when you need people to move forward on what is needed, this lack of trust will keep people from voting for what our city desperately needs. You caused this. Thank you.

Good evening, City Council. Elijah Manacero. For those who don't know, both Fred Jung and Jamie Valencia were just served notice of intentions to recall. And... And I'm here to speak in support of recalling both of you. Next time. But for Fred specifically, the main reason why I support recalling you is very simple. I don't trust you with my tax dollars. And I don't think that anyone should. Within the first few months of you being elected, you fired our city manager, the head of the entire city. and staff left in a mass exodus they left in droves and i've spoken with some of these staff members and they explained why they left and it was because of the toxic environment that you created and i can just say what i've seen at city council with all the public looking at you it's very toxic so i don't know i can't even imagine what it's like behind closed doors so uh after they left though the reason why that matters is because um After they left, we couldn't stop people from leaving and we couldn't get people to come here and work. So you kind of put yourself in a pickle where now the only way to get anybody to work for the city of Fullerton is to give raises that we don't have the money to support. That was a situation created by you. This budget situation, you say it's your fault and you're right. It is your fault. You created this situation because you fired a city manager and you never told anybody why. You never it was without cause. We went through four city managers in one year. So I just want to say that at least one lieutenant one corporal may be cut tonight. Our deputy fire marshal may be cut tonight. H.R. likely won't have a director. And this is all a result of your decisions and your toxicity. So you have made this city an embarrassment. And if you have any honor you will resign and allow us to move forward with a clean slate. Thank you.

It gives me no pleasure in delivering my comments tonight. I've been attending city council meetings since 2002. This will be a first for me. I support the recall of Mayor Fred Jung for multiple reasons. I'll share two of at least five reasons that have greatly disturbed me. We need to trust our elected officials. Mayor Jung lied to us, thereby denigrating that trust. He misrepresented himself on his ballot statement, proclaiming himself as a business owner for a business the court could not establish as existing, and lying about turning around a $9 million deficit into a balanced budget. Mayor Jung has often conducted himself in a non-professional manner toward fellow city council members promoting a non-collaborative corrosive atmosphere. It shouldn't have come to this point. You've been mayor four times and bypassing District 5 member Zahra. This is totally unfair. You brought this on to yourself.

Marcie Frye District 2. I'm going to start a little differently. You can always tell a skilled teacher when a really skilled teacher is leading her classroom. She sets a positive tone. She's respectful. She values opinions. She collaborates. She promotes teamwork. She's forward thinking. She thinks ahead of what the skills the kids are going to need. And she plans ahead to make sure that they get those. She's ethical and fair, trustworthy. And opportunities are shared among students. They're not just taken with one or two students. She's also respectful to the staff and treats people sharing responsibilities and accountability with other teachers and the district when this happens if you visualize a triangle the students that solid base the students have nowhere to go but up and And everybody's happy. The parents are happy. The students are happy. The principal's happy because she's not getting complaints. And the district is happy because they're not getting complaints. So Mayor Jung, it's the same with the mayor. It's your job, or whoever's mayor, to set the tone. It's the same components that are needed for good leadership and a positive outcome. And we all know how that's been the last five years. It's not really, really working. And that's why I support the recall. Yes, it's expensive, but we can't afford to let this go on. The council majority is not going to be able to fix our city. The problem is as much revenue as it is the budget. We've got to get more revenue, and we don't have a forward-thinking budget. Team right now that that that has the vision to do it and we're losing one of them Ahmad who is a wonderful visionary because he's been pushed out ridiculously We can't allow this to continue because I don't know how much more damage will be done if the leadership doesn't change and the majority continues to control our city Unfortunately, Valencia just votes however Fred tells her, and she was recruited by Fred's donor to give Fred more power for the donor. We're in a budget crisis. I envision a wonderful, positive, collaborative, forward-thinking council.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, city council members. My name is Curtis Gamble. I'm an activist for our veterans, Cal State Fullerton students, OCTA bus drivers, our seniors, and our low-income community. These are just some of my recommendations. I want to thank Sasaki Kennedy for writing this article today. It's a very important article. And I want you to go online and check it out. The title of it is Fullerton Updates Its Code Books to Reflect Overhaul Homeless Shelter Ordinance. And this municipal code booklet, I think they call it now the Code of Ordinance, but it's the same thing. It's a really big, big book, and it's a reference book. It's in the library, so you can go there and use it also. And it was given to also about 10 different departments, probably just a couple weeks ago. So this is how our city should be run. I'm a military veteran, and that's what we do. We go by the codes, the standards. And I noticed that for the last few years, we haven't been doing that. That booklet hasn't been updated since, I don't think it really ever has been updated. It has just been patchwork put in there. So really, it means that we wasn't really following it. We were just making up our own rules as we go along. Now the book is updated, and we're going to need good leadership to follow this book. I'd like to thank everybody that had something to do with updating it, which was the city clerk, office, and almost just about everybody. You know, they contributed, and they put up with me coming back and forth, you know, asking a lot of questions. And even when we approved this, the mayor, Brad Young, I think he only said a couple words about the book. It wasn't that important, which lets me know he really didn't want to run the city the way we want it run. This code booklet is the state laws, federal laws, city ordinance. And the ordinance is a lot of times what we put in, our input. And so the city hasn't been run that way. and quite some time. So I just want to keep moving with the positive things, and if that means getting rid of a couple of city council members, that's fine with me, whatever it takes to win. If you don't want to do your job, you just don't want to do it. We can't make you do it, but we hate to see you go. Well, okay, no, we don't. But I'm just trying to be nice. Okay, so anyway, let me see what else. Did I have anything else down there? I just like to say that the city of Fullerton is a great place and we need to keep everything moving. The one thing that upset me the most is that we didn't let Zara be the mayor. And I hate somebody telling us what we can and cannot do. Our mayor position will always be on a rotating basis. Thank you.

Thank you. At the start, I'd like to mention the importance of vision when it comes to running everything, but especially something as large, as all-encompassing as a city that its services touch every aspect of its residents' lives. Vision is one of the most important things you can have as a leader. Vision is your North Star. Vision is what informs your decisions. It informs how you interact with your constituents. It informs the goals. It informs your budgets. It informs every aspect of running the city. We need vision. Our city has so much potential, but we have suffered from a lack of vision in our leadership for so long. Or rather, I should say, we have suffered from a lack of vision oriented toward the support of the residents of Fullerton for too long. I believe that this council majority, council members Jung, Valencia, and Dunlap, and Whitaker before Valencia, suffered from a vision that predominantly upheld the needs of campaign donors and people who they could do favors with, but not the constituents of our city. And that is a tragedy because this city has so much potential. This is an amazing city. This is a unique city. This is a city that has so many gifts. And if we simply have a vision to uphold and manifest those gifts our city could be great, but instead these council members have taken it in the opposite direction and have degraded our city. I believe that we can get our city back. I believe that our city can live to its full potential with the right leadership. And so I support the recall that was announced. I think we need to change the direction of our city and I think we need leaders who have vision. I think this recall is symptomatic of the fact that the residents of Fullerton have tried desperately to get the attention of our elected leaders and ask them to lead the way that we want them to and to make the decisions that we want them to make on our behalf because we elected them to the positions that they hold and they serve to our pleasure. And yet, that hasn't been happening. recall is the last option available in the democratic process to the residents of this city and if that's what it takes for us to get our city made in the vision that we see fit then so be it thank you

Thank you, Mayor and council members. First off, I want to start this off on a positive note. To the fire department and the police department, city management, to the council members that did reach out to me before the parade, including Dunlap. CHARLES AND ZAHARA, THANK YOU FOR REACHING OUT TO ME FOR THE BIKE PARADE. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT OF THE BIKE PARADE. THANK YOU, STEVEN, FOR YOUR SUPPORT. AND WE HAD A VERY SUCCESSFUL BIKE PARADE AGAIN. THAT IS WHAT THIS CITY IS ABOUT. THIS CITY IS ABOUT COMMUNITY. AND, FRED, WHAT YOU'RE NOT SEEING BECAUSE YOU NEVER LOOK AT ANYBODY, THIS CITY IS ABOUT COMMUNITY. YOU WANT TO LISTEN TO THIS COMMUNITY, AND THAT IS THE REASON YOU'RE FACING A RECALL, FRED, AND THAT IS THE REASON I SUPPORT THIS RECALL. We have tried over the years, Fred. How many times have I been up here and told you, no, we don't want you to be the mayor, Fred. We want to have Mayor Zahra. We have not had representation in District 5. One of the most important districts in this entire city. It encompasses your downtown. It encompasses all of your businesses in downtown, which are the heart and soul of this city. Yes, big businesses do as well, but the mom-and-pop restaurants are... ARE THE HEART AND SOUL OF THIS CITY. AND IF YOU HAD ONLY LISTENED TO US ALONG THE WAY AND NOT DECIDED THAT YOU HAD THE BEST IDEAS, YOU WOULD NOT BE SITTING IN THIS POSITION. SO I FULLY SUPPORT THIS RECALL. AND THERE'S NO OTHER WAY, I MEAN, IT IS A BAD OPTION. WE DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO SPEND THE MONEY ON A RECALL. IT'S NOT SOMETHING THIS CITY CAN AFFORD THANKS TO YOU, THANKS TO OTHER BAD DECISIONS THAT WERE MADE. IT'S NOT SOMETHING THAT THIS CITY CAN SUPPORT. In all reality, Fred, if you love this city, if you honestly think you want the best for this city, you would do what was right and step down and not have to force this recall, Fred. Because what good is it doing you? You're serving the needs of a few residents, not the constituents of this city. Ms. Valencia, I hate to say it, but you're the same way. All you've done is voted with Fred on everything he's ever had. What do you know about this city, Ms. Valencia? Do you come out to these events? Do you come out? I haven't seen you at an event yet. I haven't seen you support. I've seen every other council member in this chamber at an event. Where are you? Why aren't you supporting this city? Why are you listening to one or two donors when the rest of us, we all support this city? This city is a great city with many opportunities. Without you two on this, maybe we'll have more opportunities. And thank you very much.

Good evening elected council department heads and dedicated fullerton city staff, my name is Z. I became familiar with the city when I relocated here in 1978 ironically the same year that the fullerton observer was started. I want to thank Fred young. FOR CORRECTING ME LAST TUESDAY, JULY 14TH, WHEN I STATED IN ERROR THAT I WAS HERE IN THE CHAMBER TWO YEARS AGO WHEN THE FULLERTON FIRE DEPARTMENT WAS HERE IN MASS, MANY WITH THEIR SPOUSES ADVOCATING FOR ORANGE COUNTY FIRE AUTHORITY TO TAKE OVER THE FIRE DEPARTMENT. FRED CORRECTED ME, SAID THE MEETING TOOK PLACE FIVE YEARS AGO. THANK YOU. I APPRECIATE THAT. BUT UPON RESEARCH, That took place in the fall of 2022. The fall of 2023 would be one year. The fall of 2024 would be two years. The fall of 2025 would be three years. This is the summer of 26. We're not at four years yet, much less the five years you corrected me with. So we were both wrong, but I appreciate you wanting to correct me in front of the public as you did. As far as budget balancing ideas, when the council majority VOTES TO APPROVE A LEASE INTO THE 2040s AT A HUGE REDUCTION FOR A MAJOR DONOR TO THEIR CAMPAIGNS. DON'T TURN AROUND AND COME TO THE REST OF THE CITIZENS OF THIS CITY AND ASK US TO PUT UP A HALF CENT to take care of poor lease agreements that the majority has made. That's not fair to give one guy a break and put that weight on every citizen in here, okay? I don't fall for that. It's not a good idea. To the firemen and to the policemen, we are blessed to have you serve our city, and we have two great leaders in our police chief and our fire chief, and we should be thankful we've held on to them. And then I also want to say thank you to Fred Young for taking the blame for the budget. However, I don't believe it was the fault of one person. I don't believe that. Very manly of you to do that, but it was not the fault. However, what I did want to ask you about is I just looked up the results of the county supervisor and... Trout finished first. Shaw finished second. Espinoza third. You were fourth. I hope you've asked for a recount because as smart as you are and with the money you raised and with your USC Trojan degree, and I just can't understand how you could finish fourth. So if you haven't asked for a recall could you explain that to us how you finished last in a four person race with all the money you had because I can't explain it. I've been around you for three and a half years and you're a sharp cookie. God bless you all. Go Titans go Hornets go Cougars and go Lancers.

This looks like our last speaker and then we'll go on to our remote.

Thanks Lucinda. My name is Jane Ranz. I live in what's now District 5. I just wanted to point out one of my neighbors came up here and said that he wanted to be positive, and I'd also like to be positive. A couple of things. I wouldn't be in District 5 with all the other downtown properties and homeowners and businesses if it wasn't for Fred Chung correcting the map for our district election, so I want to say thank you. The other thing is we're saying thank you to our firefighters. We wouldn't have those firefighters on our side, on our team, in our city staff if it wasn't for Fred Jung leading that effort. I just, I wanted to set the record straight. So anyways, I am, and Jamie, I'm sorry that you always get treated as from day one before you even said word one in your first meeting, accused of not being able to think for yourself. And I'm sorry. I know that as a woman that's something you go through on a regular basis and so stay strong. So I trust Chana Jamie Fred. Sorry Nick Nick you've been you did a great job on getting the general the housing plan through leading that effort I appreciate it. And Ahmad all of you filled your roles and I all trust every one of you to work through this difficult problem of our budget as you make decisions. And so carry on and do good work for us. Thank you.

Hi Nan Harold from District 4. And so hearing about this recall I just want to say that I do support the recall of both Mayor Jung and council member Jamie Valencia. And it's not because of decisions that you guys have made. don't agree with a lot of the decisions that Dunlap made. In fact I think the last four times I've come up to speak he's literally left the room. So that tells you a bit but I still respect him. I believe that Dunlap does what's best in the best interest of the city and there may be people that disagree with me on that but I truly believe that he is coming from a place of having his district's best interests. On the other hand for you two Mayor Jung my impression is that I don't feel like I can trust you with any of the decisions that are made. Councilmember Valencia I wanted to trust you when you first got elected but time and time again you have shown me again that you are incompetent and that you are always willing to support Jung no matter what he proposes. So there's been plenty said about Mayor Jung already. So just to go on some of the reasons why I would support a recall against. my council member Valencia. First of all you really don't listen to your constituents. There was 68 minutes of public comment begging the council not to elect Mayor Jang mayor again. And right after that ended you immediately nominated him. just dismissing all of those comments that were made by the public. Second, there was a member of the public who spoke out against Mayor Jung, and you responded by accusing that person of being racist. So when another member of the public posted the transcript of that comment to demonstrate the fact that there was no racist content whatsoever, you then block that person, which is a violation of that person's First Amendment rights, and you potentially expose the city to a lawsuit on that matter. Lastly I've spoken many times about my desire for immigrant support and dozens of your other constituents have come forward to ask you for the city's support. Not only did you not provide that support you weren't even willing to approve a statement of values affirming the city's commitment to public safety and inclusivity. And I have to imagine that's because Fred Jung specifically said during that meeting that he would not support that. So it's clear to me that you do not support your you do not work for your constituents. And for that reason I know that having a recall like Tim said is going to be an expense for the city that we cannot afford right now. And I cringe when I think about the cost that this is going to incur on our city. But the way that I see it the two of you have created irreparable damage in the city through your actions and allowing you to stay in office is only going to cause further harm. Thank you.

Let's go to Zoom.

Call-in user, you should be able to unmute. Go ahead, call-in user.

¶¶ Thank you. All right.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Enough of that. All right. Well, as I've said, this is Dominic Moonhart, former District 3 resident, and I am absolutely just stoked that there is going to be a recall on Councilmember Valencia as I was one of the first to ask for her to be resigned. And she didn't do it. So there it is. And then Fred, oh, that just makes it better. Because, again, you lost your Supervisorial race fourth place. I mean, I can't help it, but you are a loser. So there it is. To the fire and police, we absolutely support you. These are our heroes. And just I am sorry that we're going through this right now. So, Fred, enjoy your Supervisorial race song. And Connor Trout for supervisor, Katrina Foley for supervisor, and recall Jamie Valencia and Fred Jung. Thank you.

All right. No more callers. Okay. We'll go ahead and bring this back, and we'll go to our first item of the evening, which is the – Madam Clerk, can you turn up the mic? We seem to be having microphone issues again. All right. OUR FIRST ITEM IS THE PROPOSED STREET AND PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE BALLOT MEASURE.

ARE WE DOING THE COUNCIL REPORTS, PLEASE?

IS THAT THE END?

IS THERE A PURPOSE FOR THAT?

I'D LIKE TO STICK TO THE AGENDA ORDER. THE AGENDA ORDER HAS THE COUNCIL COMMENTS AT THE BACK.

I'M SORRY, ARE WE DOING THE CONSENT CALENDAR NOW, THOUGH? Am I missing that? I'm sorry, you're right.

I'm getting that from here. Forgive me. Council Member, you're right. Let's do the consent calendar. I'll seek a motion since nothing was pulled on the consent calendar.

Yeah, I'll move the calendar.

All right. Is there a second?

I'll second.

Got it. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Council Member Charles?

Aye.

Council Member Valencia? Aye. Council Member Zara?

Aye.

Mayor Pro Tem Dunlap?

Aye.

Mayor Jung?

Aye.

Item passes. All right.

Now on to the regular business item, which is proposed streets and public infrastructure ballot measure. I will ask our Deputy City Manager, Daisy Perez, to present this item.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council. Tonight, staff is requesting City Council's consideration of a proposed streets and infrastructure ballot measure. At the July 14th budget study session, the City Council directed staff to return with a proposed street and infrastructure ballot measure that included a sunset provision for consideration. Based on that direction, staff worked with the City Attorney's Office to prepare the proposed ordinance, ballot language, and the required election resolutions before you this evening. Staff is presenting this item tonight should the City Council choose to place the measure before Fullerton voters on the November 2026 general municipal election in Preparing the ordinance staff has developed recommendations regarding funding priorities accountability provisions and governance of this City Council's consideration All of these are a starting point this evening and City Council is welcome to provide alternative directions so they Should they so choose? For the next few slides, I would like to present our city engineer David grant them I would also like to add that our outside legal counsel Mark Mandel is also here this evening to walk you through Any proposed changes to the resolutions or ordinances that City Council would like to make if needed Good evening council

This potential measure is a city wide funding measure but since it's all about roads and infrastructure it stuck with me talking about it for a while. I will start with discussing our infrastructure fund our existing fund as it does provide the basis for this potential measure. So please stay with me for a couple of slides because I will bring it back to the proposed measure. Okay so back in 2020 council established the infrastructure fund from a public works standpoint. fantastic we've got extra money to work on our infrastructure it's a dedicated funding source but I do I do want to kind of hone in on the definition of infrastructure here from the infrastructure fund ordinance. So the vast majority of this has to do with streets, but I do want to point out infrastructure is not just streets, it's our public facilities and anything on our public property. So that includes our 30 plus buildings, that includes city hall, library, our historical structures such as the Muck, Hillcrest Reg, the train depot, et cetera. parking lots our parking structures and our restrooms now obviously a lot of our buildings are not in the same condition as our streets they're in much better condition thankfully however they still need repairs and maintenance on a regular basis and we need funds to do that next slide please so funding for infrastructure fund it comes from formula where 50% of revenue of general fund revenue above a certain baseline is automatically into the infrastructure fund each year since inception we have received that 50% we program it as part of the CIP budget solely part of the CIP project there's these funds are not used anywhere else other than the CIP budget although not required we do review the use of these funds within rack they are reviewed and their recommendations are taken into consideration we then take this to council as part of the budget process for final approval of allocations each year Next slide, please. So funding history, I know some people have asked what is the funding and how we've used it over the years. I want to point out the comments at the bottom in our recommendations that 75% of the available funding is put to streets. Now, you'll see the last three years, two years plus the proposed year, we are meeting that handily. So we're following the recommendations of our residents of NRAC. However, the previous three years, the first three years of Notre City, we didn't meet that, and that's because we had unique situations at the time where we needed the additional funding to address situations at that time. Next slide, please. Finally, in the background, just want to bring up our street conditions. Everyone knows we're not doing very well. Unfortunately, we dropped again to be the worst in the county. But I do want to point out all the other cities that are below PCI of 80. And so you can see where we stand. There's quite a few. And then also everyone compares us to our neighboring cities, where they're at. So you can see they're at or close to a PCI of 80. And the reason I say PCI of 80, next slide, please. Did I miss a slide? Sorry, got ahead of myself. All right, anyway, remember the PCI of 80. I'll get back to that. So I said I'd bring it back to, sorry, next slide. So I said I'd bring it back to the proposal, and as I show, here we are. The proposed measure, the way we broke it down, is we wanted to follow the existing infrastructure fund framework. Basically saying the same methodology, the same principles, the same procedures as the infrastructure fund, how we use it now, but providing some add-ons. Obviously it would be a voter approved, so only a voter can change it. It prioritizes street rehabilitation through the PCI. So basically that removes opinion. other words I can have an opinion but I have to follow the rules of the PCI the independent consultant will be preparing the PMP so they come up with the PCI so it takes the city staff and the council out of that equation we continue with the annual review of the budget and the CIP review that will be required to go through in rec that our volunteer residents right now the infrastructure fund doesn't require it but we do it anyway And then we'll also add on independent audits and public reporting. Next slide, please. So this measure, again, is for revenue for streets and infrastructure. So again, we're following what we're doing right now with the infrastructure fund. At least 75% of the measure would be dedicated to street and roadway improvements. That would be in place. And of course, council can make it higher. That would be in place until the PCI reaches 80. And 80 is kind of the golden number. That is what 80 agencies strives for. Once you have that number, you can, the state allows and other funding agencies allow you to use that funding in a different way because all your streets, the vast majority of your streets are in great condition. You don't need to put as much money into maintaining them. It is hard to get to 80. It takes a lot to get to 80 but once you're there you want to maintain it. So if we get there we could use the money on other infrastructure like parking lots or buildings but if it did fall below 80 again you'd have to put more money back into that area. With that I'll hand it back to Daisy.

Thank you. All right. The proposed ordinance includes multiple accountability provisions designed to ensure transparency and public oversight. Revenues would be deposited into a separate special revenue fund and subject to annual independent financial audits and public reporting. staff recommends continuing advisory review by the infrastructural natural resources committee or nrac consistent with the city's existing infrastructure fund governance framework and our current operating practices however this is currently a staff recommendation and the council may provide direction on an alternate oversight structure if so desired And final appropriations would continue to occur through the annual budget and capital improvement program budget approval process through the city council. Additionally, because this is a special tax, any future change to the measure would require voter approval. The proposed ordinance before the council includes two policy alternatives. The first option would include a 15-year sunset, which is estimated to generate approximately $225 million over 15 years. And as previously mentioned by City Engineer in other presentations, our estimated cost to repair all of our streets at this point Current dollars is about 200 million. So factoring inflation this may get us there But all other provisions are identical to option B, which option B would not include a sunset measure in place and would be in place until Otherwise decided by voters at a future date it would generate approximately 15 million dollars annually and this is based on our current taxable sales activity and So this evening, staff request the City Council's direction regarding the proposed ordinance and accompanying election resolutions. Specifically, the Council may elect either option A or B and provide any additional policy recommendations regarding the proposed oversight framework or other provisions before the ordinance returns for second reading. Okay, next slide. So there is a lot of legal documents and resolutions on this measure specifically. So I'm going to turn it over to our city attorney now to walk through potential options and next steps for moving forward.

Good evening.

Hello, I'm Mark Mandel. I'm a special counsel helping the city with this measure. Basically, this is an unusual tax measure. Like any special tax, which is a tax which is earmarked for a specific purpose, the tax needs to be approved at the election by the voters by a two-thirds vote. But this tax also, because of the type of taxes, because it's a sales tax, The ordinance that imposes it needs to be approved by a two-thirds vote of the city council. And that needs to occur at a regular reading before the election. So what we have before you today is the ordinance that imposes the tax, the introduction of that ordinance. The introduction of the ordinance only requires three votes. However, ultimately, the adoption will require four votes of the council. So the introduction is something of a test to see if you have the four votes. The other thing that's before you is the resolution, which presents the ordinance to the voters for their approval. And then there are several other resolutions after that that the city clerk is prepared to deal with things like arguments and the running of the election. And... So probably the first action after discussion would be for somebody to move to introduce either the ordinance that has the tax with no sunset, the ordinance that has a tax with 15-year sunset, or to do neither of those and move on to a different item.

If I could add. Let me just add a couple. I made a couple of comments. With respect to the adoption of the special tax, that resolution requires the civil majority of the council. However, as Mr. Mandel indicated, the actual enabling ordinance that allows the city to collect the tax requires a two-thirds vote of the tax ordinance. That adoption of that tax ordinance must occur at a regular meeting between now and prior to the election. The council does have the ability to adopt the other measures as you can by a majority vote, But it does not mean necessarily that the tax would be instituted unless there's a forfeits vote on the tax ordinance.

Okay. Let's try to do a better job of delineating that for the public. It requires how many votes on this council to get this on the ballot?

The resolution requires a simple majority. The tax ordinance requires a forfeits vote. Okay.

And if The deadline for placing the ballot measure on the ballot is August 8th. So if the council votes to put the measure on the ballot tonight, then it will not have an opportunity to take it off of the ballot. But if the ordinance is not adopted by the council prior to the election by a two-thirds vote, then if the matter is on the ballot, even if the voters approve it by a two-thirds vote, the tax will not go into effect. Because the council needs to adopt and then the voters need to adopt and needs to occur in that order.

Okay. So from just a practical perspective, so we're not putting the cart before the horse, the legal opinion is that a four-fifths majority or four of the five members of our council have to vote for this tax measure.

Correct.

but the resolution can go on the ballot with just a simple majority.

Yeah, you end up in a strange situation where you could have the matter on the ballot because of a simple majority, but because you never adopt the tax ordinance. Awful government.

So in essence, for us, to not... have it on the ballot and waste everybody's time and money, effectively we'd have to have four votes.

You are correct.

All right. I just wanted that clarified because I was even getting lost in the weeds. Okay. Thank you.

Can I ask a clarification question, please?

Sure.

Before we get into comment. Thank you. So in the presentation it was mentioned that the oversight committee was one point that we could perhaps discuss or modify if we were interested in doing that. That sunset provision, the 15 years mark, is that something that could also be modified if we were interested, or is that set? Sure.

No, we have a version that has a sunset, and we have a version that doesn't have a sunset. Right now, the version with the sunset has a 15-year sunset, but you can substitute any number of years for 15. Now, the one limitation is that today's vote to put the matter on the ballot, that is putting a version of the ordinance to the voters on the ballot. So ultimately, the version of the ordinance that you adopt when you adopt it has to match the one that is going to the voters. So you're really making your decision today about what that tax ordinance is going to look like, even though you won't technically be adopting it until a future meeting where you adopt it. You don't have the option of adopting something different in the future from the version that is on your ballot. And that's locked in as of today.

And just to remind the public, that's because, for people who might be confused, we don't have a meeting in early August. We only have one meeting in August that's after the August 8th deadline.

The deadline is August 8th. So this is really your last option, barring a special meeting, to make this decision and put this onto the ballot.

Okay, thank you.

All right. If I can get Mr. Grantham back up here.

While he's coming back, Mayor, could I make two technical quirky things very quickly? Of course. One of your resolutions, the one for the arguments, let City Council designate who can write arguments for and against. So I'll let you mull that over while we're going through the presentations, if you'd like to designate any of yourselves to write arguments for or against on behalf of the Council. Also, while the deadline to... Anything on the ballot is August 7th. We consolidate with the county So we have an earlier deadline to meet the county's printing deadlines and technically for past the county's deadline by a few days but they gave us the grace of Adopting this tonight to still meet their deadlines.

All right, very good All right, mr. Grantham From a practical perspective In your estimation, what would be the length of time, if you were king for a day, for us to get to 80, sir?

It would be at least 10 years.

10 years. Having a 15-year sunset, we're only giving ourselves five-year grace. Yes. All right. Okay. Any other questions from our council before we take public comment? We'll come back for comments and motions. Go ahead. I have a few questions.

For the oversight committee, it was chosen as NRAC. WHY WAS THAT MADE AS A CHOICE WHEN THERE ARE OTHER ALTERNATIVES OF THESE OVERSIGHTS COMMITTEES? SEEMS LIKE THERE WERE BETTER OPTIONS THAN THAT BECAUSE INRAC IS AN ADVISORY BODY THAT'S SELECTED BY THE COUNCIL AND DOES NOT HAVE ANY subpoena power or any authority to look at receipts and things like that. So it's only been, can only see whatever is presented to it by staff.

I think it was just because we've been doing it for the last five years. It's standard protocol for us right now. We would continue with that. And I believe, Daisy, you can correct me, there was additional requirements that we would put in for an independent audit or something to that effect?

Yeah, so in addition to the citizens' overtake, there would be requirements for independent audit and annual reporting requirements.

All right, so brings me to my follow-up question on the independent audit. Do we know who would do this audit? Are there firms that specialize in this type of audits? Or is it the same audit that we had that did not discover the $2.9 million for five years?

I will defer that question to our interim finance director to clarify who conducts our annual independent financial audits.

So we do have a contracted auditing firm that does our annual audit. To do a further independent audit of the sales tax measure with that requirement, I would defer to the city council you would like to have another independent firm do that audit. If that was the direction that was chosen, we would have to do an RFP to have multiple financial audit firms compete and get awarded for that.

And if that, let's say that was the route taken, is there enough time to add this as a provision tonight? Because it seems like there's a, Because that independent audit company that's on the contract with the firm, that's the same one that's been reviewing our audits and the one that missed the 2.9 million error, correct?

Yeah, so our contracted auditing firm, we're in the last year of that engagement with them. If the direction was to have that firm do that audit as well, we could do an amendment to that contract. or if the council wishes to contract with another firm, we would have to do an RFP.

And I might want to have Mr. Mandel kind of weigh in, but... Certain details, like which firm would do the audit, I don't think are going to be specified in the ordinance this evening. Some of those finer points would be worked out if this were to go forward. I think broad... POLICY DIRECTIVES LIKE TO HAVE AN INDEPENDENT FINANCIAL OVERSIGHT BODY, WHATEVER THAT MEANS, WE COULD SORT THAT OUT THIS EVENING. CERTAIN IMPLEMENTING DETAILS WOULD PROBABLY HAVE TO COME BACK AND BE SORTED OUT BETWEEN NOW AND NOVEMBER.

THAT'S CORRECT. WHAT THE ORDINANCE DOES IS IT REQUIRES THAT THE COLLECTION EXPENDITURE OF THE PROCEEDS OF THE TAXES NEED TO BE Audited at least annually by an independent certified public accountant that can be combined with your annual audit that can be a separate audit and in either case that would be something that the City would go through its normal processes to actually hire the auditor and The the in rack does have some additional responsibilities under this ordinance that does not have right now it does It does receive a copy of the audit. It has the ability to ask questions it would like to make recommendations to the council. It also has the ability to draft a report, and that report has to be placed on the city's website. And I think the logic behind using the NRAC rather than creating a separate oversight body was just administrative convenience. You already have a body which is giving you advice and kind of looking over your shoulder on what you're doing for infrastructure. I think the logic was it made sense it's just an infrastructure additional financing. It made sense to have the oversight of this be done by the same body that's already advising you and doing some oversight on your infrastructure fund from your other funds.

But to the councilman's point, there is an independent audit that we can seek as well by hiring a firm to handle that aspect, right?

Correct.

Very good. Now, you mentioned convenience. I don't think that's what we're looking for. I think we're looking for more transparency and truth. So I'm not very comforted by that the choice was about convenience for this election. of this committee.

I think when he says convenience, sir, I think it's really just we didn't have time to vet out multiple options. We knew we have the NRAC structure that, in our opinion, provides a lot of the type of oversight that this measure should have. But again, the ordinance before you, much like the sunset provision, at this moment it's a placeholder. If there are other avenues that the council wants to take it's something that we can consider this evening you know depending on the the complexity of any changes made this evening we'll have to just kind of take it as it comes and see how much we can legislatively modify here in real time because tonight is the last night so I mean certainly there's you know the lack of time and and these are these things should have been discussed

in detail over a period of time. There's a lot of vetting to do. All right. I want to move on to another question. Under this particular structure of these ordinances, I didn't read anywhere that there is a maintenance of effort clause to prevent the city from replacing any of the current spending that we have with this tax, levy tax, meaning that we could potentially take this money. People could think we're now spending $25 million, $15 million, and then the current $10 million, possibly. But then we're reducing what we're actually spending, reappropriating somewhere else, and then just relying on the $15 million.

You are correct. There isn't a specific maintenance of effort that applies to this tax. The reason for avoiding putting in a maintenance of effort is that once a maintenance of effort gets approved by the voters, that formula is locked in stone. It can't be changed except by the voters. And what tends to happen is that whatever formula you come up with over time winds up being more and more inappropriate just because of the way numbers work. Like, for example, necessarily the best example, but remember the kind of internet speed you had about 10 years ago. Imagine if you applied a maintenance of effort to that which said, okay, from now on, I get to have that speed forever but anything over that is going to be an extra product you do that what winds up happening is 10 years later that little bit that's protected winds up being just a fraction of what you actually want it's the same thing the same thing here if you lock up too much of your budget then It really takes a lot of flexibility away from the council if there's some other priority that does come up.

Okay. But is it not – okay, so this is now we're talking – Mr. Grantham can respond. Oh, I'm sorry.

Yeah, let me – I believe the councilman is talking about our MOE related to OCTA. Not necessarily.

I mean, this is a provision that's usually in federal grants and other –

Obviously, the MOE that we have through OCTA will stay in place. We anticipate that we will still have to allocate the funding that we do now as part of our budget, and I anticipate that's going to stay that way. So the $8 million to $9 million that we allocate Right now is our current budget will stay and we'll be adding to it. If this goes through in past we will be adding to it amount at least another 11 to 12 million to get us around 20 million dollars a year of budget for streets. That's the only MOE I'm aware of. If you want to. I don't know how you would add that.

I'm just concerned that without something like this we are telling the public that. Whatever we're spending, which was not enough, we're putting an additional amount of your money. But then later on, we could say, well, you know what? We can just take that money that we're putting, reduce it, maybe transfer it to another department. Because obviously, there's the word additional to the word convenience. Now there's flexibility. which creates a little bit of a gray area, whether this was... Well, I think this is infrastructure, so it could only be used...

If it's not used on the streets, it can only be used on infrastructure.

Right, but you can reduce your current spending from the general fund on infrastructure and replace it with this amount of money.

Only if we still meet the MOE using those funds. And right now, we believe we still need to use our... The allocations we get right now... We will still need to continue taking those allocations.

But this could change in the future. And we're now back to just the trust of the government.

I'd like to add something. So the vast majority of road funds in our city are restricted funds, either through state gas tax or through regional sales tax, which is the M2 funds that Mr. Grant was referring to. So we really don't have any flexibility with the majority of funds we currently program into our CIP4 streets. The flexibility we do have is with the infrastructure fund because that's technically general fund. But we do need that for reporting to maintain or for that MOE to continue to get M2 funding. So that would not go away without us being in jeopardy of losing our M2 funding for streets. So there's guardrails in place and the majority of funds we use now are restricted towards streets.

So if they are, why not then include this? Because it seems like in essence that's the practice. In what you're explaining, that we can't do this sort of reduction and replacement.

To your point, Councilman, I think what you're looking for is, has this ever been included before in a special tax measure? Is there a maintenance and effort clause that exists in any previous one that's been done in the state? Let's just use the state for a moment.

We'll have to ask Mr. Mandel to address that. He's done more of these than all of us combined.

Of course, I haven't seen every tax ordinance that's been adopted by every city in the state. But I am not aware of any tax ordinances that have this sort of maintenance of effort. What tax ordinances typically do is they put restrictions on how the money from the tax can be spent, which this measure does. This measure says that all of the money needs to be spent on infrastructure. until you hit unless you have the 80 pavement score 75 percent of the money needs to be used specifically for streets so this does have actual binding requirements for how the money can be spent but doesn't go beyond that and place limits on the choices you make with respect to your budget potentially potentially forever if there was this you do the no sunset bill that would no sunset ordinance then the other thing is that sounds like the bulk of the money that you're using right now is coming from state subventions like the gas tax which are specifically earmarked for roads and you have no flexibility to use that for anything else then the other money you have a lot of that if not all of it is the my it's in your infrastructure fund And that is being set aside pursuant to the ordinance you adopted back in 2020, which basically puts a percentage of your new sales tax revenues and the percentage of your new property tax revenues into the infrastructure fund, where it can only be spent on infrastructure. And all of that would continue. But this ordinance is really about the new tax and not your other budgets.

I do have one more question here on the use of these funds. Do any of these funds or can any of these funds be used for salaries or any operations? And are there any protection? Other than what's presented, what is the protection from for the public to see that there is no gray areas there where this money could be somehow used through legal loopholes to plug the general fund deficit.

Well you're restricted to using it for public infrastructure restoration which is defined in the ordinance. And as long as you're below the 80 pavement score 75 percent of the money specifically needs to be used for street improvements. Some of that work could be being done in-house. Some of that your processes of contracting with whoever is whoever contractors are using that would be itself a part of the cost of doing the project. So, yes, some of this could be used to fund city salaries, but only for work that is the work on the public infrastructure restoration or street improvements, not for just general purposes.

All right. Sorry, one more question. Do we have any – or is this something – with these types of measures where you can put some procurement policies or any labor language where after a certain amount of money that there's some labor or union provisions in there just to guarantee the quality of work because we have seen over time the I mean, there was today just a gentleman who came in about Associated Road. And so how do we guarantee the quality of work from some of these contractors? So I'm just a little concerned about this amount of money and what it could potentially attract from consultants and lobbyists and firms that may not be scrupulous. And then we get some shoddy work.

Well, let me add that is Mr. Bice can make comment regarding the process, but there's a specific legal process we have to go through in terms of bidding and qualifications, and he oversees that bid process, which is objective and based upon his judgment regarding qualifications.

And by law, we're required to award to the lowest bidder as long as they meet the requirements of the city and state and federal law. Okay.

No questions for now.

All right. Council Member Charles, any questions?

Yeah, I'm going to follow up on that, actually. So you just said as long as they meet the requirements of the city, theoretically then the city could put in, like if we had a provision in there that says that we require union labor, that would be meeting the requirements of the city.

I'd have to defer to the city attorney, but I believe it's state law that requires us as public contracting code that we select the low bidder for capital improvement projects. There are certain times where they are deemed non-responsive or not qualified if they don't meet certain criteria, but they're not related to labor.

Are those criteria related to maybe work that they've done for the city in the past?

No, it's it's really related to if they didn't fill out the forms properly if they missed there were some administrative mistakes on there There's some middles things like that I was just looking at the pictures of Associated Road and I do drive that and I know I've reported some things to fix for you guys Unfortunately, not all the contractors a little bit contractors are great And that's something that we struggle with and that's why we have inspectors that try to hold them accountable as much as possible

Okay. Thank you. I just have another question for the attorney. Thank you. And thank you for your expertise on this and knowing all of the measures more than we do. Even if you haven't read all of them, you've read more than we have. So my colleague mentioned in terms of the oversight committee that we're thinking about, if NRAC is not the option, although I'm comfortable with NRAC being the option, honestly. I think they've done a good job already. But especially if we have that provision in place that is that the streets would be targeted by PCI. I think using an objective measure is a really great way to go that we need to have that list available and just keep with that. But you mentioned something about subpoena power. I mean, to me, that speaks more of a grand jury. Are you aware of any ordinance like this that's ever had an oversight committee that has that level of power?

Once again, not familiar with what's in every single city. Right, but just in your experience. Yeah, in my experience, no. These sorts of committees are advisory committees which are reviewing what's happening, making recommendations about what they think should be the priorities, having the right to ask questions of staff. Staff, I'm sure, is always willing to make presentations to the committee. And also, they do have the authority to issue a report, which has to be published on the city's website.

Is it usually put in these ordinances, like how that committee would be appointed or chosen or elected?

Yes. Well, they're always appointed. They're nearly always appointed with each council member appointing one member. Sometimes there's not that, and it's the council appoints all members. But ultimately, they are appointed, and there's really nobody to do appointments other than the city council. I've never seen an elected one of these boards. And usually, we would define in the ordinance who You know how many members are supposed to be there how they're appointed but here since you already have Advisory committee which is on the same subject It made points to piggyback on the existing for me rather than have two committees, which are each doing advisory on essentially the same thing infrastructure

OK, thank you. I appreciate the clarification. Councilmember, if I could just add one additional point of clarification. Because we are referencing the existing NRAC committee, citing the existing legislation, you're always welcome to amend the structure of NRAC in the future, should you wish to. And you wouldn't have to amend the ordinance, since it just ties you back to that. Thank you.

I appreciate that clarification, too.

All right. Councilwoman Valencia, any questions, comments we'll have after the public comment period?

I don't have any questions. I was on NRAC in 2023. I have been on NRAC for two years. I do feel that they are the best committee for going under this undertaking, so I appreciate you guys using them. So thank you, Public Works.

All right. I don't see the mayor pro tem, so let's take public comments.

Two people registered, Karen Lareda and then Catherine. Anybody else in chambers who'd like to speak, now's your chance to line up. And other than that, we do have a couple of remote callers.

Karen Lareda District 2. This was a lot to wade through but I managed it. I got the agenda the same time that the rest of you did and there is not more than one page that I might have missed in its entirety. So I don't want to hear that you didn't have an excuse to look at it. You did. Let's look at what is at issue here. Should a tax measure be put to the voters? Fullerton has the poorest standard ratings for streets in the entire county. It would take about 100 years at the current expenditure levels to reach good enough. Poor streets is always the number one complaint of residents. There is no other source of revenue to address this. So yes, let the voters decide. Will it accomplish the goal set forth? At $15 million annually, significant progress can be made in improving city streets and related infrastructure. Should it include a sunset? How long is long enough? Rather than committing to an open-ended tax, include a sunset date. A sunset date automatically stops the tax collection on a given date. Is 15 years too long? I considered a shorter time frame, but I rejected it. At about year 15 significant progress will be visible and allows ample time for the city to identify and implement new revenues revenues. If we discontinue the tax too soon all the voters whose streets have been repaired will have no incentive to continue that tax and it will then leave the remaining streets unaddressed. Can we trust the process to be transparent and the money to be spent as intended. I have poured over these documents and I am comfortable that the safeguards are adequate to protect against misuse or redirection of funds. Given the state requirements and mandated oversight even a council as negligent as this one should not be able to manipulate or waste these tax dollars. I ASK YOU TO DO TWO THINGS. I ask you to first adopt the ordinance and the resolution for a one-half cent sales tax with a 15-year sunset to be on the November 3rd, 2026 general election ballot. It will take four of you to make this happen. This is an opportunity to be responsible leaders. If the voters don't want it, they will vote no. Give them that choice.

Catherine then Elizabeth Hansberg and then folks who are lined up.

ELIZABETH HANSBURG Good evening. My name is Catherine and I live in District 2.

Where'd Nikki go.

Oh well. First off Councilmember Zahar Councilmember Shana thank you for all you do. The other three of you are really frustrating. I am not a couth person. I'm not polished. I'm a Sicilian. So when we get real irritated, we just have to let you know. One of my fellow residents came up here and wanted to thank you for a bunch of things and is the fellow stoner of community. I just want to know, what is she smoking? Because you came in to a council who had approved dispensaries. Now, Councilmember Zahara pointed out at the last meeting when you floated this idea of raising our taxes, You said no to the dispensaries. A lot of us stoners fought really hard to get legalized because we like giving our money to our city. Santa Ana, do you know Santa Ana brought in $13 million? We're negative 10%. That, I mean, I feel like we'd have a $3 million balance. We'd have more money. But instead, you come here and you're constantly wanting to cut services. Then you have the audacity, and I mean the sheer gall audacity, to come before the residents the constituents y'all are supposed to represent telling us you need more money four million dollars for roads for State College. I'm fortunate I live in Princeton Circle and because we're popular at Christmas time our streets got done in 22. Thank you for that. But at what cost? This St. Raymond has been a nightmare for literally the 10 years I've lived here. And I can't even remember Raymond being nice when my Meemaw lived here for the 40 years before that. So understand, the way you handle taxpayer money is absolutely unacceptable. And the three of you need to resign. If you actually care about this city that you literally was like, look what I did with $9 million, which then I do believe you got sued for because you lied. You should step down, because we can't afford to recall you. But at the same time, all you're doing is costing us money. You didn't allow the dispensaries to come in. That would have been a positive revenue into our city continually. Instead, we're wasting money. cracking down on dispensaries that are popping up. Literally, the one that I'm probably going to go to after this. Why? Because I don't want to go to freaking Santa Ana. I want to go after this meeting. I want to trust my council members. I don't trust Nick. Because why? He placates to you. And if you don't want to be tied to these two buffoons, then stand up for what is right. Your constituents have come up here and asked you over and over again. And instead, we're constantly being dismissed. The three of you need to go.

Last registered speaker is Elizabeth Hansberg.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council. I'm going to try to just be neutral and say that I'm here to express my support for a sales tax to be on the ballot in November. I really appreciate what the former speaker said about the marijuana tax or the taxes that would have been on marijuana if we had allowed dispensaries to happen. that didn't happen after Mr. Domer was dismissed. That would have been a revenue source. I believe that that revenue source was really valuable because the sales tax that was proposed in 2020, which was Measure S, entitled City of Fullerton for Street Repair and Emergency Response Measure. It says provide funding to fix local streets and roads, retain local businesses, maintain 911 emergency, pay for fire protection, firefighters, paramedics, public safety services, right? It was all the things that we're talking about right now. And Mr. Buchala's PAC printed signs and put them all over that said no sales tax. And so it didn't pass. However, I know that the city of Fullerton's residents are capable of passing a tax because in 2024, both the elementary school district, right, was just mostly just our own residents. And the Joint Union High School District, both were able to pass taxes or bonds, sorry, they were bonds, for infrastructure, for classrooms, for pipes, for water, right? So we can do this. Like when we are explicit in what the money is going to be spent on, people will respond. In as much as having good public schools supports people's property values, they're usually willing to support it. In as much as knowing we won't have the waterline break that they're experiencing in LA and that we have paved roads, that too will support property values. So if, I don't believe this, but if people are most concerned with property values, which I think some people are, even though I don't personally believe that, I think we can get there. And by all means, you should let the voters decide. You should give them the opportunity to weigh in on whether or not they want to have this as an option. With that I'll just leave my comments there. Thank you.

I want to say that I strongly support this sales tax for roads with or without a sunset. But I am asking for other things in addition. Wanted and I think actually staff did a great job Transparently make it clear to the public now in all educational meetings literature postings and in voter booklet information That only 75% will be used for roads have this information easily accessible on the front page of the city website I'd like to remove the infrastructure fund requirement So those funds can be used for other much needed services. Everyone says fix the streets, but I doubt that they mean by cutting all other needed services. I'd like to change the policy so that park dwelling fees are used closest to the development that is being mitigated, thus reducing the need for infrastructure funds from the sales tax. I'd like to implement the CPA's recommendations except for council budget committee, Because of Brown regulations, there would be a limit of two on the committee, and two members of the council should not have more input than other members of the council. I'd like to hire the expertise per Grant Thornton's recommendations, focus on economic development, and immediately pursue an economic business development plan as agendized by Councilmember Zara and seconded by Mayor Pro Tem Dunlap. Put in safeguards as suggested by council members are to require lobbyists to register. Only these actions can help the public see that the council is responsibly taking action in other ways, not just by asking for money and a sales tax from all of us. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Eric. I'm poorly represented here in District 4 and I just wanted to speak to the issue of the sunset clause. I understand the calculus that went into that time frame on it but I would just want to point out that if this were to pass and it were to be enforced for 15 years then that would just become background and baseline to most of the people paying it. And after that length of time, the funding stream, the revenue would have become very structural to the city and its maintenance and its upkeep and so on. And at that point, because cities and for budgeting processes, there's tremendous value on dependability, predictability, what income you can project and anticipate and count on year after year after year. So I would just point out that even if you were to put a sunset clause on this, And I'm not saying it's a bad thing to, you know, I'm not here to oppose the measure, but if there were a sunset clause on it, after 15 years of being enforced, there would then be, I mean, we're talking 2041, 2042 at that point, there would be tremendous, tremendous pressure to maintain or renew the So I would just want that to be kept in mind as you guys debate this or decide how you want to go about moving it. Thank you.

I support this with either 15 years or no sunset because I think about the future of Fullerton And they're going to need good roads too. And I just hate the idea of not being forward thinking and thinking of future generations. I also think this is an opportunity for council to be forward thinking and be visionary. And again, if the voters don't want it, then they'll vote it down. But I think there's a real opportunity for voters to pass this because they are so frustrated with roads. And it's an opportunity for us to work as a team to make something happen, to have some revenue continually coming in. As for the marijuana thing, I wasn't planning on speaking on it. I don't use it. And I voted against it when it came up on the ballot. However, I think we have to be smart about things. Someone else is getting that revenue now, not us. It didn't keep it from coming into Fullerton. It's still here. It's just we're not getting the money. So that's bad. That's not thinking about our people and our revenue. And that's what we need are visionaries to think forward about those types of things. Thank you for, and I appreciate if you let the voters decide. Thank you.

Good evening council, Elijah Manicero. I went to all the fiscal committee meetings and I advocated for a general sales tax. Um, I don't support this tax though. And I come to these meetings and I speak in support of good policy and good policy makers. And this is not a good policy, not because of the policy itself, I think it's fine but it's more the context around it. We found a major budget error and I think most Fullerton residents would agree with me that accountability should come before an increase in taxes. I don't think we've had accountability. Um, we hired someone for a service that does not invest, that is not for determining whether there was fraud or not. And then we use that as a justification to say that there was no fraud. And I talked with, I did a public records request and I got, um, a lot of information and I asked a mod. about uh his conversation with the auditors and he shared with me that uh conversation with daisy perez uh that she brought concerns to eric and she told him like this is not a balanced budget but yet when it was presented it was presented that way um and i think that that's something that was just it wasn't brought to the public it wasn't talked about And now we're just throwing this on at the deadline to pass it. There's no options. There's no discussions. We should have been on this months ago if this was something that we wanted to do. And on top of it all, this does not even solve our budget issue. There's zero dollars from this that goes into the general fund. IT EVEN SAYS THAT IT'S GOING TO SUPPLEMENT THOSE AUTOMATIC TRANSFERS TO THE INFRASTRUCTURE FUND. IT'S NOT GOING TO REPLACE THEM. IT'S GOING TO KEEP THOSE. SO GENERAL FUND GETS NO MONEY AND WE STILL HAVE A DEFICIT EVEN IF WE GO WITH MULTIPLE, ALL OF THOSE OPTIONS. SO I THINK THAT THIS IS A I DO NOT SUPPORT THIS. AND LASTLY, I JUST WANT TO SAY THAT WE WENT TO ON THE FISCAL COMMITTEE, THEY ALSO PRESENTED POLLING OF THE DIFFERENT TAX OPTIONS. THIS TAX POLLED AT AROUND 67%. IT NEEDS ABOUT 67% TO PASS. SO IT'S WITHIN THE MARGIN OF ERROR. And after education, it pulled at 66%. The general tax pulled a lot better. So I think that this is a tax measure that won't pass with voters. And I think we should try again next year and do this the right way and actually take accountability and look into what happened with those budget errors and why the budget was presented in the way that it was. And then we can talk about a sales tax. I would support it if we just do things the right way. So thank you.

Good evening. My name is Roger. I live in District 5. And with considerable respect to the gentleman who just spoke, nevertheless, I do support the tax. I'm not sure what you are afraid of to put this in front of the voters. I think the voters will tell you what they want. I'm not sure that you have, uh, the ear of the voters. I'm not sure that you understand, uh, what the citizens of this, of this city, what the residents of this city really do want. Um, but I would suggest you trust them. Uh, go ahead and move this to the ballot. I would suggest with a 15 year sunset, because that gives plenty of time to re-examine methodologies, uh, and successes. Um, And let the voters decide. Otherwise like I said I'm not sure what you're afraid of. But I support it and I would like you to move it to the ballot. Thank you.

SPEAKER 7 Hi everyone. I am Shirley resident of District 4. Wasn't here for this purpose, but since you are talking about our streets, I am going to speak. So I've been living in District 4 for over 23 years, so the issue with our streets is not just one council group. It is 23 years of those that have represented our district. My streets, if I knew I was going to be speaking on this, I would have brought you a piece of my street. I have replaced numerous tires, have repaired numerous cars for the issues of driving through my neighborhood. I've had my car repairman ask me if I off-road my minivan on a regular basis. I do not. I'm a soccer mom who serves the community in another capacity, but I do care about my neighborhood. My neighborhood is in complete and total disrepair. The streets are disgusting. I've watched neighbors fall. I have a neighbor that is in a wheelchair. I watch her struggle to get through the neighborhood just trying to go out for her daily walk. just needs to be addressed it's not just the streets that we drive on to get to our schools and our business workplaces it's the streets we drive through in our neighborhood to get out of our neighborhood onto those major roads so I would just appreciate you know for someone that's been serving this community for a long time but has lived in this community for 23 years the slurry coding is something that does not work 23 years of being a resident in that neighborhood. They've slurry coated our neighborhood streets once once in 23 years Not you know scraping it down and getting it where it needs to be to watch You know people go and ruin the bottom of their cars And not only that just the Falls I've seen a lot of neighbors fall throughout my neighborhood I've fallen running my husband's fallen running our kids have fallen roller-blading rollerskating and doing whatever. So I just strongly ask that we take a look at the way we repair our streets. I fully support a measure such as this to create safety for families, safety for those that just want to walk around their neighborhood in the evening, walk their dog, and not sprain an ankle or hurt their wrist in doing that. Thank you.

Howdy, howdy, howdy. Two things, well probably more than two. The idea that you should trust the voters is a hilarious piece of rhetoric considering that the voters showed up in 2020 and voted no to a sales tax and then council voted for all the things we couldn't afford despite that sales tax not passing and I was the only person at this microphone saying don't do that, you can't afford it, the voters said no. So the argument is trust the voters as long as they give me what I want because they didn't give a sales tax and the money was spent anyways. It brings me to a point. I want to bring up a term that people might not know about. It sounds dirty, but it's not meant to be. Not really. But it's a term called enshitification. And it came up several years ago in the context of the tech industry. And I'm going to summarize it really simply because I don't want to get into really the weeds of it. But essentially, a company offers you value. You sign up with that company. And then they stop giving you value. They just become predatory in order to maximize shareholder profits. A great example of this would be back in the day Google redefined internet search. And it was so good, we started calling it Googling things. And then they needed more shareholder profit, so they started pushing all of the ads further and further into your feed. So now what used to be the top search is now number 17, and the first five are usually sponsored. It doesn't benefit the people, it benefits the shareholders. If you look at the city of Fullerton like a corporation, which I know a lot of people on the left hate, but I'm gonna use an example here. People think that we the taxpayers, we the citizens, we the residents, that we're the shareholders. We're not, we're the consumers. The shareholders are city hall and the government sector unions. I happen to know that at least one council member went around and told the unions not to negotiate because it would hurt their position on the tax issue. So if you were to look at how you organize a government and why you organize a government, you organize it in order to make things better for the people in ways that we can't do on our own. We can't pave our streets on our own. We can't police our city on our own. So we collectively come together to do these things. And now we've gotten to a point where we don't do those things, but we pay staff more to not do those things. And it's mercenary tactics. If you don't pay them more, they'll go to a different city. If you don't pay them more, we won't get the best and brightest. Okay, so if we don't get the best and brightest, does that mean that we'll have a city manager that doesn't give us a budget within eight weeks of the statutory deadline? Oh, wait, we already have that. Does that mean we'll have a city attorney that gets us embroiled in multimillion dollar lawsuits that are their fault? Oh, wait, we already have that. Well, we have a community development director whose department misplaces $2.9 million for years and nobody's held accountable. Wait, we already have that too. So we're still ratcheting it all up. This idea that this tax is for infrastructure is a joke. It's a joke. Yeah, 75% goes to infrastructure. Daisy Perez has already said that they're going to move money out of the police and fire department budgets that count as infrastructure into it, and where will that money backfill, because money's fungible, into salaries and pensions. That's what's going to happen. We have no accountability. We have no standard operating procedure on it, and every meeting that we've had about this has been, how can we extract as much pain from our residents to give it to our shareholders, which are the public sector unions that donate to all of your campaigns, that tell you what to do. Some of you might as well have septum rings that lead you around by the nose so hard. It's absolutely infuriating. Get the budget in order. Like, you don't still have a budget? Get the budget in order, do your jobs, and then maybe beg for more money out of our pockets.

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE AISLE. I JUST WANTED TO POINT OUT A LITTLE HISTORICAL INFORMATION ABOUT THIS. SO FIRST OF ALL, THE ONLY TAX THAT HAS BEEN ON THE BALLOT WAS THE ONE THAT WAS A GENERAL TAX AND IT FAILED. SO THAT WAS AN ULTIMATE PULL. IT'S NOT GOING TO, YOU KNOW, THAT'S IT. BUT THIS SPECIAL TAX IS SOMETHING THAT WAY BACK IN THE WAY BACK MACHINE WHEN I WAS ON Um, citizens infrastructure review committee before in rack, um, back in 2018, we struggled to, we couldn't even get it agendized. Um, the, the council back then, none of you guys are on there. Um, it was a long known problem. even before the council in 2018. It was a long known problem that our streets were underfunded underfunded. So that's why it became a priority of the citizens infrastructure review committee. And back in on October 2nd of 2018 Our committee chair Ryan Alcantara came to speak at public comments to ask for just this tax that is being presented finally to the council. And it's been a long haul. So I have to say thank you city council members for asking to have this on the ballot and including it. Thank you staff members for putting it together. I would really like to see whether this passed the tests of the city voters. I think they are ready for this. They were long ready for it and I'd appreciate if you would give us the opportunity to take a vote on it. Thanks. Bye bye.

Good evening. Mr. Mayor, city council members, my name is Curtis Gamble, activist for the homeless, the veterans, the Cal State Fullerton students, the OCTA bus drivers, the seniors, and the low-income community. My recommendations, it's like I do not support any new taxes, and I hope that no one else would. Because I'll tell you why. First of all, I think that we should have a very, very good team when it comes down to managing the money. And the team that we have up here right now, you don't really talk to each other. You don't really get along. You don't get along with the public. We're never out together anywhere, just having fun, social. I think that we really need to straighten this relationship out. I'm looking for a divorce, Fred. Because we just not, we don't see eye to eye. We don't, nothing, have nothing in common. We don't even have the same goals. It's you, Fred. Not us. I'm just saying, I don't see the people wasting their money like that. We've made too many mistakes showing the public that we really don't care about them. But, you know, the only thing that one thing that really bothers me is when at the end of this speech, the mic, the three minutes you cut the mic off. I don't like it. I don't like all those little things like that that you do. And it hurts the public because these are very important things that we have to say and finish. We can't even ask you for permission. You know, can we finish it? Can we not? It's just bad. It's bad all the way around. I tell us, you know, I'm like, well, let me say streets. I wrote streets down here. Our streets, they are bad. They're really bad. I'm a former OCTA bus driver, and the buses cost a million dollars, somewhere around there. And that's just bad, even for the buses, for the trucks, everything. It's bad. And we should get support from the bus drivers, from the trucking people. And then I go on to homelessness. It's bad. You know, we got a shelter that's supposed to hold 150 people, and we have 110 recuperative care, which is people who come from the medical center, and only 40 beds for the homeless on the street. And nobody does anything else about the other 250 homeless people on the streets. We need new leadership. And that's about it. I just say no. You know, no for no new tax. Thank you very much for your time.

Hello. I have struggled with the idea of a sales tax for a while, as we all have. I'm familiar also with the city of Placentia as their neighbor. They had to institute a sales tax after their former city manager embezzled a huge amount of money and left their coffers with just double digits. And their sales tax bolstered their revenues for a while. But they committed to a tremendous amount of transparency. They had a newsletter that went out that described exactly how the funds were being spent. And they had a citizen's advisory committee. It was nonpartisan. It was not related to any city council proclivities. It was strictly an oversight committee that had an accountant and people who really knew how to analyze this. And they did a great job. But now they're in the red again. And the sales tax measures, I feel, are a Band-Aid measure. My concern with a sales tax is this. I know everybody is worried about their roads, but I have heard very little about the other services that our city provides that are already stretched thin. And they're not as visible. as things like the roads. But there are things that keep our community moving, and especially things that keep younger folks, children, as well as older folks, just seniors, going, for example, library services, parks, the service of parks, community center activities, especially those for seniors. These, I think, are really vital services that our city provides. And when you pull back on them, as they have already been affected in the past, You don't necessarily see the effects as visibly as you do with the roads, but they're there and they leave a deep wound in the city that's hard to fill over generations. I know the same can be said for the roads. You don't repair the roads, you fall further back on maintenance, and then it gets harder to play catch up. But I fear in this whole discussion, I haven't heard a lot of discussion on how we are going to preserve funding for those particular services. And I know you can make the argument that if you take a sales tax measure, you can divert funds away from the general fund and then preserve them for those community services. But I really haven't heard discussion about protecting those things that actually affect the most vulnerable parts of our population. And I don't understand why. And so I would beg, if there is talk of a sales tax measure, that that discussion be reoriented toward not so much how do we just fix the roads as a band-aid measure, but how do we do that in the interest of preserving the community services that are so vital to some of the most vulnerable populations in our city? I talked about vision earlier. And another way that vision exercises itself in these kinds of discussions is not just about fixing the roads, but how do you fix the roads long-term in a way that reduces long-term road damage? For example, how do you positively impact active transportation to encourage people to take trips on active transport instead of their cars? And I know I'm coming from a certain place by saying that, but that is part of the vision that prevents us from falling into these same traps over again. So I wanted to make those points as that could contribute to this discussion going forward. Thank you.

Good evening, city of Fullerton. My name is Zee. I've been a longtime resident here.

I want to start off by thanking Dr. Amidzara for asking the hard questions. It seems like you always come through for us to think a little bit and get some middle ground about where the pendulum should land.

Also, I want to thank my bearded brother who brought up who could trust the spedding of this council. If you can't do it at 7.75%, let's throw some more money at you and see if you can get it right. What do I mean by that? When I was growing up, I didn't grow up in this city, but I did grow up in Los Angeles County. Sales tax, you know what it was when I grew up? 4.5%, okay? It's now 7.75 here in Orange County. In LA County, it's 9%. How much more has that gotten you? What's better? What's improved with more money? SO I WANT, THERE'S VOTERS WANTED ON THE BALLOT. I HAVE NO PROBLEM IF IT GOES ON THE BALLOT TO VOTE FOR IT. BUT FOR EVERYONE WHO WANTS IT ON THE BALLOT, I JUST LOOKED THIS UP. THERE ARE 34 COMMUNITY CITIES IN ORANGE COUNTY. OF THE 34, 23 SALES TAX, 23 OF THE CITIES HAVE A SALES TAX OF 7.75%. THAT MEANS ALISA VIEJO, IF YOU'VE DRIVEN DOWN THERE, Are their roads okay? Because if they are, they're doing it at 7.75%, as is Anaheim. And I know Anaheim has better roads than we have at 7.75 sales percent. So does Brea and Costa Mesa. Are their roads crumbling? I don't think so. How about Cypress, Dana Point, Huntington Beach? They all charge 7.75% for sales tax, as does Irvine, Laguna Beach, Laguna Hills, Laguna Niguel, Lake Forest, Laguna Woods, Mission Viejo, Newport Beach, not the whole city. There are parts where they have a half a percent sales tax more. I don't know where that's located, but they do have a double different. They have two sales tax rates in Newport Beach. City of Orange, 7.75%. Rancho Santa Margarita, San Clemente, beautiful roads. San Juan Cap, Tustin, Villa Park, Yerba Linda, all charge 7.75%. How is it they get it right, but here we can't spend our 7.75% to match their roads? It's not a money issue. It's a management problem. Where are you putting the dollars? And you want to give 15 more million dollars to a majority here that's willing to cut the lease agreements for their donors and then strap the rest of us for that half a percent to make up for these bad leases? Go back and open some marijuana dispensaries. Go back and redo every lease agreement in this city to where it's level for everyone. And then you close down somebody's diner area and run customers off because you don't like them. God bless you all.

Hi District 4. This all reminds me I haven't been here in a long long time and this all reminds me of the old saying the chickens have come home to roost. For five years you guys have been kicking this ball down the road. Kicking kicking kicking. Canceling meetings. Now I've never even seen that in my 72 years of living here that a council has canceled so many meetings. when we had all of this pending. You guys knew it. You knew it. But no, Nick, you didn't want those dispensaries to help. I was on that bandwagon with Tony Buchala. Can you believe that? And that didn't pass because you were very naive in thinking your children would be lured in somehow. I don't know how. But that could have been a good revenue source. So you've been here now five years, six years now almost. with all these delusions that you were going to think of all these revenue sources. I haven't seen nothing. I won't even pick on Jamie right now even though she's my district because she does nothing but vote with Fred. So there's nothing that helps me there. But I remember when we were all being interviewed by police and fire for the city council in 24. What was the main question that they asked us all three of us Fred Jamie and me was would we support a tax. And of course I live here. I know how jacked up our roads are. I know that. So I've always supported a tax. I was on the Measure S committee helping Ahmad and everybody deliver signs everywhere all over our city in support of it. So yeah I've always been in support of it I've always been in support of our city because I thought that's what we all wanted was to support our city city workers. But now I don't I don't really see that anymore especially with this council majority. I don't see it at all. All I see is demeaning ugly bickering and picking on every city employee that you can pick on. Jamie, all you do is thank police and fire. I don't know why. Maybe because they endorsed you, but that's all I hear you do every time I watch a council meeting. And I think, okay, yeah, thank everybody. For what? What do you do in return? Nothing. Nothing. We need some help here. I hope you two just resign. Don't make us go through all of this and spend all this money. But, you know, we guarantee you we will. We will do it. because it has to be done, because you haven't shown us that you guys can do the job. Thank you.

We have several hands raised online.

Let's take those.

Jose, you should be able to unmute.

Hi, good evening. Jose . I'm just going to go with some numbers here. starting with the cost breakdown for the roads that we have. We have 300 miles of roads. Residential streets are 2.3 million per mile. Arterial streets are 4.9 million per mile. And there is discussion or consideration of a sunset clause that doesn't realistically take into account that at only $15 million a year, hopefully, barring an economic recession, that we would be able to get the number of streets that are rated with a very low PCI and need urgent repair to a level where we will be okay with this half cent sales tax measure expiring in 10 to 15 years. I don't see it. realistically, just like being a magic fix over 15 years. I think we need to be a little bit more pragmatic, a little bit more just open to not having a sunset clause. I really, really do not want to go the way of other cities in Orange County that we can see have challenged themselves with problem after problem of the problem by instituting sunset clauses on you know major major quality of life issues for their cities so i don't want us to go down that way i would rather us just not have the sunset clause i've made my point multiple times over but it just bears worth repeating um Other than that, everyone, just please be respectful. We can have discussions and be respectful at the same time. Walk and chew gum at the same time, please.

Calling user, you should be able to unmute. Calling user, you're unmuted.

I'm sorry, that was on my end, so I do apologize for that. I'm Dominic Greenhart, former district resident. I hear everyone's concerns with the trust within the council, and I agree with them. I don't think this council currently is going to respect the tax measure. So I honestly, the roads do need to be fixed. I mean, we've had people literally die on the streets over the infrastructure. It happened right outside my house. So the thing is this, is that the council majority, we can't trust them, and I would have to side with the no on the tax measure until we get a new majority. That's basically where I'm at with it. Yeah, so that's where I'm at with it, and that's all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, anybody else?

Three more. Sharon, you should be able to unmute.

There. Hello. I agree with quite a few people that have spoken before, but I'm definitely in favor of a half cent or even a one cent tax. Put it to the voters. Make it dedicated only to streets and water main repair projects. that sort of thing, not fixing buildings or buying new furniture, et cetera, other sorts of infrastructure, just streets and putting the 15-year sunset, and if we need it still, we can re-up it in 15 years. I also think we need, of course, the revenue boosted, and it would be safer and cheaper to go ahead and allow some regulated cannabis clinics, one in each district. instead of all in district five or four that's ridiculous away from schools and as a way to boost revenue for people who need that kind of thing a lot of cancer people and other so those are my thoughts thank you very much hey arnelle you should be able to unmute um thank you can you hear me

Yes.

One second.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the Council. My name is Arnel Dino. I've been proud to call Fullerton home for more than 40 years, and I've had the privilege of serving our community on the Planning Commission, Interact, Economic Development, and Chair of the Water Rate Advisory Board, although not speaking in my official capacities. Serving in those roles has reinforced one lesson. Maintaining a city requires resources. and delaying difficult decisions at some point even over a decade or more than two decades makes them more expensive over time. The reality is that many of the challenges come down to funding. We all want safe neighborhoods, well-maintained streets, reliable infrastructure, quality parks, strong public safety, and responsive city services. Those expense expectations come with real costs. This isn't about any particular council majority or minority. The financial challenges facing Fullerton have developed over more than two decades and years across multiple councils. I supported Measure F. I believed in Measure F when I was sitting on Enright. These reflect years of deferred maintenance, postponed capital improvements, rising costs, and difficult fiscal choices. While those decisions may have addressed immediate needs at the time, they also contributed to the challenges we face today. I supported pursuing Measure S because I believe the City needed to begin an honest conversation about investing in our infrastructure and essential services. Whether people agreed with Measure S or not, the underlying fiscal challenges have not gone away. In many respects, they have become only greater. Before asking residents to support additional revenue in the future, we must continue to earn their trust. That means demonstrating responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars, setting clear priorities, and being transparent about how public funds are spent. If, after doing the work, the Council determines additional revenue is necessary, then we need to make the case honestly and exactly what those funds will accomplish unless the voters decide it's a ballot box. Residents have every right to be frustrated. They have every right to be concerned. But while we may be angry about where we are today, we shouldn't let that anger turn into assigning blame. The challenges we face weren't created overnight and they won't be solved overnight. They require honest conversations, thoughtful planning, responsible financial stewardship, and willingness to work together. My hope is that we spend less time looking for someone to blame and more time building the Fullerton we want for our next generation, focusing on solutions, earning public trust, and making difficult decisions today. Let's leave our community stronger for tomorrow. Thank you.

And last one. MB, you should be able to unmute.

Hello, this is Manish. I am the chair of the NRAC committee. and I request that the behest of the mayor to be allowed an extra minute or two to complete comments and answer any questions from council. In my official capacity, I'd like to state that NREC is in favor of an infrastructure only tax. The money must be used solely for infrastructure while keeping current levels of funding at the same levels so that the added revenue from the tax only increases that amount. We also believe that a sunset clause should be stated and clear to voters. There's a dire need and there is no other current option for infrastructure improvements. We also have to consider outside of just the state of our streets, the fact that inflation has gone up considerably, cost of materials, labor, and so on. There is no other option at this point. I appreciate and agree with Councilman Zarra's concerns for accountability. However, NRAC is the correct committee and does not need subpoena powers to provide proper review and recommendations, as ultimately, all decisions from all committees and commissions are overseen by council. Council always has the final decision. In a different example, Planning Commission has specific duties and responsibilities, and their decisions affect many projects throughout the city. But at the end of the day, council still makes the final decision. It would not be beneficial or appropriate to create another advisory committee. We don't need another bureaucratic entity set up to analyze and make infrastructure recommendations. You already have dedicated representatives duly appointed by council members. Bottom line, CERC and NRAC have been advocating for increased funding for infrastructure for decades. I will say that separately outside of my official capacity, my personal thoughts are that Other measures should have been taken over the last 10 or 15 years to increase revenue in the city. Most of that could have clearly come from better economic development. And while I'm not putting down any specific person, as I consistently speak positively of our staff, I believe that this one area has been extremely lacking and needs some changes, whether it be with different people running it or with more pressure put on that department with clear expectations and deliverables. That concludes my comments, and if there's any questions from council, I'm happy to answer them.

No more callers.

Okay. I probably don't agree with many of the speakers that spoke in terms of our worldview. Mine's probably very different. But one that consistently speaks every meeting, I do hear what he said regarding trust in the public and faith in the institution. And that the misallocation of funds has not only been widely publicized as it should be, but I think it is still cycling through the public at this moment. And I am concerned that timing is not great at the moment. That said, I supported this tax two years ago, or was it last year? Forgive me, I'm bad with dates at this point, Mr. Hahn. That's probably right. And I supported a public safety tax because 70% of our budget goes to public safety. And not addressing that in a meaningful and very specific way, we're just throwing Band-Aids on. But to the gentleman's credit that I was mentioning, he mentioned polling. Polling shows that public safety isn't ready right now, that perhaps the mood of the country, the mood of our city, it's just not there. So this is all that's left. And it's got a very slim margin of error. I think we're in the margin. So I'm concerned, and again, I've gotten to a point where I'm supportive of any tax, that so long as it relieves some of the pressures on the budget right now that exist, that again, economic development is a great term. But it means many things to many people. And it requires a lot of time, time that we don't have right now. And you can blame me for that. six years you didn't do anything that that's fair but that's not where we're at right now we're looking over basically what looks like a fiscal cliff and asked to make decisions on how to stop the bleeding in the city once again it seems to be a recurring thing uh so that said um You know, I'm looking forward to the discussion, but I've been pretty vocal, I think, and clear on my position on this and the reasons why and how I got here as opposed to where I started. Let's start with some comments. Councilman Zara, anything, sir?

I appreciate everyone speaking on this and appreciate staff's work. I think it's not just enough to admit fault. I think there needs to be accountability. We can't say that... We've made errors over the last six years. We've wasted opportunities on economic development. And there are many. We can go into details. Canceling ordinances and bad deals in favor of some at the expense of the taxpayer. But, and then we can't come in and say at the last minute, this is the last minute, or let's try to salvage all of this by asking the public, yeah, we need money, when we squandered all this time. I think context is important. I don't think the public should expect any difference in behavior just because there's added money. Because the issue is behavior. Yes, trust is important. We can't just ask people and hope that they would say yes. In elections, we all know the public can be manipulated. You can put campaigns and spend money and and push certain agendas and points of view. In this case, you're telling people, yeah, we don't have money for the roads, so give us money for the roads. But what they're not hearing is that, yeah, we can change some of these funds and pull some things from this department and put it under public works, and now we can pay for it using these funds. So and we've seen in the past how even presentations are missing information. We have to keep asking questions and digging. There is no transparency in this city. So accountability has to start with transparency and setting policies. And trust has to be built over time because it has been eroded over time. Interestingly enough, we were told we were faced with a $14 million deficit. But yet, in the next item, in the last study session, for those who paid attention, there was this little paragraph that said through efficiencies and other things, we achieved a $10 million reduction. How is it in just a couple of months, there was a $10 million reduction in that deficit to now bring us just to 3.9 through efficiencies? Why wasn't these efficiencies seen before? So were we operating inefficiently? Is that what it is? There's a lot of red flags, folks. This measure does not fix the deficit unless there's gray areas in which you can maneuver these funds. It certainly won't fix transparency. It certainly won't fix poor governance. Yes, economic development is a broad bracket But within it, there are so many things that we haven't done. I want to make just one point on the cannabis ordinance, just a correction. That was actually passed. It was passed back in 2020, right before the election. But then the ordinance, before it took effect, was rescinded. It was rescinded. And I also wanted to make another correction that it wasn't what Kitty said. There was one of the individuals who was opposing it, actually, for other reasons. But we won't get into that. So I think there are a lot of issues here. I still do have an issue with INRAC being... GIVEN ADDITIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES WHEN THEY ARE ALSO RESPONSIBLE FOR SELECTING THE ROADS, THEY ARE ALSO A POLITICALLY APPOINTED BODY. IT'S SEVEN MEMBERS, SO THERE'S NO DIRECTOR. TWO OF THE MEMBERS ARE APPOINTED BY TWO COUNCIL MEMBERS, USUALLY THE MAYOR AND MAYOR PROTEM. SO IT SHIFTS A LITTLE BIT ON THE POLITICAL SPECTRUM. I mean, I think there is also a risk in putting yet another ballot measure when it is at a time when we, yes, the $10 million thing is still a big deal, people. It's still circulating. And I think we are risking losing a ballot measure because there is no trust. And twice in a row might be quite detrimental to future measures. I have supported a ballot measure in the past. And I've championed it. I've taken heat for it from people who are now championing this suddenly. But it was a different time. Since then, I've went through five city managers. Five city managers. One of them, with all due respect, didn't have any experience, the first interim, had no experience in running a city. And as you saw, we had a CalPERS problem. because of hiring practices that were allegedly, I can't say it was because it was a settled case, but allegedly hiring malpractice. And that cost us $240,000. Why? Because on a whim, you fire a city manager, and then you bring in people who don't know how to hire people properly. So the issue is we have to look at this from a context. I think it's best to build trust over the next two years and focus on 2028 for a possibility. And in these two years, we need to put transparency, strengthen our transparency laws and policies, follow the policies that build the trust with the public, put strengthen our disclosure policies, our campaign donor influence policies, our lobbyists and policies. We need to do all of these things. Maybe even bring back the 630 council time meeting so that more people can engage. Because right now, I can guarantee you, aside from the people who are actively engaged and the 30, 40 people who showed up for these two meetings about the budget, probably no one else knows about this. We have not done a good job in engaging the community and letting them know that this is being discussed. So I don't know if I can knowing what I know And what I've experienced, what you've all seen, I don't know if I can in good conscience ask people for more money at this time. I think the trust factor is more important than anything. It pains me to do that, but I am not going to put something on the have this be my last major action. TO PUT SOMETHING ON THE BALLOT THAT HASN'T BEEN VETTED PROPERLY AND THAT STILL HAS A LOT OF QUESTIONS, I THINK THAT 2028 MIGHT BE A BETTER TIME. ALL RIGHT.

COUNCILMEMBER?

MY TURN. OKAY.

YOUR TURN.

THANK YOU SO MUCH. This is not a usual situation for me where council members Ara and I are on completely opposite ends. But I will say today we are on completely opposite ends. I understand that there have been issues in the past. In economics and in public policy and in health policy, we call that sunk costs. And when you're trying to think about the future, you actually disregard sunk costs. which is why pharmaceutical companies who say they're charging so much for drugs because of their research costs are lying. It's for profit. That's what it is. Some costs don't matter in an economic equation. To me, this is an economic equation. And we've got two big issues. And I think we're mixing them up way too much, honestly. We've got two big issues. This is why they're separate on the agenda. The budget, the annual budget, has issues. It has a general fund problem, absolutely. We have a revenue problem with the general fund where we can't maintain the level of services that people want from us. And yes, that does mean salaries, because services happen when people like firefighters and cops and code enforcement and community, all those people work, and we have to pay them living wages and salaries so that they can afford to live and work here. They're human beings. When all those things are paid for, it adds up to a certain amount of money, and we're finding we don't necessarily have that revenue coming in. We're going to talk about that in a second, and that's going to be a whole different conversation. That is a separate conversation. This conversation is about a problem that has existed in this city for, I mean, I've lived here for about 25 years. I'm hearing people who've lived here for 72 years. I think that's the biggest one so far we've heard tonight. Talking about our investment in our streets in a way that gives us infrastructure that the city wants. And it is not just streets. I appreciate that it's 75% for streets and 25% for us, because I know we've all gotten emails from people whose streetlights have been out for months. And we have to replace streetlights that were installed in the 1980s, 40 years ago now. That's not 20 years ago. That's 40 years ago that we're supposed to have a 25-year shelf life. And the companies don't exist anymore that can even replace those parts. So we have to completely replace a lot of infrastructure that's ailing. To do that, to just have our infrastructure that we have now, in an ideal world, I would have loved to have talked about this months ago. We're not in an ideal world. I have to be where we are now. Where we are now is that we have tonight to talk about this. And we have, we're hearing from our traffic expert. I'm sorry, our street expert, really. Guy who repairs everything and has been, for the years that I've been working here and the years that you've been working here, has presented every year, this is the list of things we are going to be able to do with the money that we have. Here's this other list of things we would love to be able to do, but we can't do yet. And we're putting it off year after year after year. And to do that costs about $225 million-ish. Our annual budget is $290 million right now, depending on how many federal grants we get and state grants we get. There have been other years that I've been here that it was $279 million. It's kind of in that range. There is no way to fit a $225 million problem into a $290 million budget and make that calculus work over the long term. One of our speakers mentioned that at our current level of spending, it takes 100 years to do everything we need to do to fix that. We just aren't putting enough money into it. And it's not because we're wasting it in other places. I really don't think so. I do look forward to the presentation on the budget and to hearing more about how we're addressing that deficit. But staff is working their tuchuses off, to use a term, my people. They really are. I see them every day. They're very dedicated to this city. And I appreciate every single one that shows up on special meeting nights, on July 4th, they're working overtime, on weekends. The city folks that are there 24-7, when I needed an ambulance at 1230 AM, the EMTs were there. I appreciate that our city services are there for us 24-7. And we can't expect them to take $225 million worth of cuts so that we can fund our infrastructure. So we're talking about two totally separate things. We'll get to the general budget later. Now, to fund that $225 million, what are we going to do? What can we do? Well, there's a bond possibility, right? And that's what the schools did, and they passed those successfully. Those are only on property owners, by the way. I'm a renter. About half the people in the city are renters. I actually don't pay into that. I could vote for a bond and not pay into it. It would go on people who own homes instead. I appreciate that the folks of our city recognize, the homeowners of our city recognize that that's a good thing to do for the schools. When I was campaigning in 2022, and it was just two years later. By the way, I'll keep talking about 2020. 2020 was some normal year that is not an outlier among all outliers of our lifetimes. It is not a normal year. Political science, by the way, always has this problem. Whenever we try to look at what things have happened before, the sample sizes are too damn small. I mean, I would love to be able to have a sample size maybe of a few hundred different of these measures, right, and be able to look at that. Certainly looking at 2020 as an example year, oh, my God. In 2020, half of us thought we weren't going to make it to 2021, and we're, like, not even thinking about the future, right? I mean, it was a weird, terrible, hard year. We couldn't even campaign by knocking on doors because we were afraid of making each other sick. Nobody was even vaccinated yet at that point. It was scary as hell. And we asked for a 1.125, I think it was, percent general tax. That's a very large tax increase, 1.25%. And when I was actually able to knock on doors, because thank God, good public policy, we got vaccinated all in 2021. And by 2020, I could actually knock on doors safely. And so many times, the first thing people would say to me, first off, oh my God, you're knocking on my door. No one's ever knocked on my door. They're very happy about that. But also, I would have voted for that 2020 measure. I mean, they would just say this to me, just spontaneously. I didn't even ask. I would have voted for 2020 if it had just been for roads and streets. if it had just been for infrastructure, if it wasn't so big. I've been hearing that for four years. And so to me, the problem hasn't changed. We have a $225 million problem. Economically, we have to solve that first before the public can trust us with anything else. Anything I post on my social media, most of the comments come back with, why are you talking about this and not talking about fixing the streets? When I talk about fixing the streets, it's like, why are we doing just slurry? Because we don't have the money to do anything else. The public wants us to do something about this problem. I really think so. And the way to do it, in my viewpoint, is to do this egalitarian measure that's going to get us the money. We aren't going to put a tax just on property owners. A sales tax is very broad. In terms of being regressive, because I very much care about people who are lower income, sales tax does exempt things that are not subject to sales tax, things like food. You don't pay sales tax on your food. You don't pay sales tax on your utilities or your rent. So it exempts all of those things. It is a higher consumption tax if somebody goes and buys a car. For me, when I bought a car, I'm not kidding, I bought a $15,000 used car. I've never paid over $15,000. I'm a public university professor. Very frugal. $15,000 used car. I paid some sales tax on that. Somebody else who's going to pay $45,000 for a new car, which I understand is what they're going for now, my god, is going to pay a lot more sales tax, and it's going to come back to our city. And right now with the 7.75 that is the minimum, we only get 1%. If we add another half cent onto that, we'll be increasing our revenue by 50%. And there's a lot of safeguards in place I'm hearing when I hear about this measure. I'm hearing a lot of safeguards in place, a lot of transparency. Anyone's free to come to the NRAC meetings and make public comment. Those things are even broadcast. You can always do public information requests. which I believe we get about 1,000 of them a year. So I'm hearing that we have those things in place to fix this one problem that I honestly do not want to look back on in two years, four years, five years, and have people say, why didn't you ever do something about the roads and streets?

And I'll say, well, we just thought we would wait another two years. Well, I didn't like maybe a person sitting next to me or not.

I don't think that's a reason to care about this. I think a reason to care about this is that we all want to do what's good for our city. We all want to make sure that we get this problem solved. And this is our opportunity, and this is our time. I don't know if I'm going to be here two years from now at this point. I want to make this time the opportunity that we actually pass something meaningful. And we're not even approving it. We're just asking the rest of the voters, all those folks whose doors I knocked, We're giving them the opportunity to say yes or no to this 0.5. And they will be able to express their democratically given opinions how they want. And I think that the polling shows that we have a shot. When I look at 67% as the point estimate, And the margin of error is the plus or minus around that. It's a plus or minus 2. And by the way, the thing could even come down to one vote. We don't know. That's happened. There have been ties. You have to flip a coin when there's a tie in the city, by the way. That could happen. We don't know. We need one vote plus over the level. But there's a shot. There's a real hunger for this. There's a lot of people in this city that want this. And they want to have the opportunity to be able to say, let's do something meaningful about our roads and streets and infrastructure, actually make real headway on that, and have the really tough budget conversation separately about, god, we have to cut some things this year. It's really not good. How are we going to deal with this next year? How are we going to deal with it the year after that? That's an entirely different conversation. And maybe there will be a general tax somewhere down the road on that. I don't know. Maybe it will be more efficiencies. Maybe it will be something else that we decide on that. But this separate conversation, how do we fix our infrastructure? How do we fix our roads and streets? I don't see any other option than putting this sales tax on the ballot right now or doing it two years from now or four years from now when it's worse and more expensive. That doesn't seem like a good thing to me.

All right. Councilwoman Valencia, then the Mayor Pro Tem, then I think for efficiency's sake, rather than sit there and try and figure out policy, let's just figure out if we've got four votes. And then if we don't, we'll just move on. All right. Councilwoman?

Thank you. I'm going to be short and sweet and to the point. I am not for the tax measure at this time. I am for a tax measure in the future. I know that the city is in an economic dismal situation, and we need the support from our whole city, not just our certain districts to help us, but the whole city to be involved. Everybody needs to be a part of this. The negative publicity in the community Do you have something to say? Yeah. Thank you. And the negative publicity that keeps going around in the city is making it worse. It's ruining the city's trust in staff, in council, in each other. It's putting a big wedge between everybody. And it needs to stop. And until we can develop this trust again, I don't know when it was, because I keep hearing that 70, 20, all these years, it hasn't been here in a very long time. So it needs to happen. So many opportunities are available to make this happen, and right now is not it. I'm for it in the future so we can do better outreach. As Council Member Zarra said, there's a lot of vetting to do. There's a lot of time to put into this, and I agree with him that we need to put better research, education out in our community. So at this time, I'm not a fan of this tax measure, but in the future, yes.

All right. Mayor Pro Tem.

One final swing? Yeah. No, a few things to say. Obviously, I think it's no surprise. I didn't support the tax in 2020, and I don't like what we've got in front of us tonight either. I think if you look at it, and I know there may be reasons for it because of the way the agenda is structured, but I think it's interesting that we're first asking our residents, voters, to support a higher tax rate before we're actually addressing the spending issues, right? Because that's addressed in our budget, which is the next item that's up. Then, of course, I don't know if it's ironically or just poor timing, we're also discussing a tax giveaway a little later tonight that you'll want to stick around for. But aside from that, the frustrating thing for me is that there are people who we heard from tonight, and there's people that actually reached out to me and said, you know what, I am the target voter for this ordinance, but not right now. I've gone to the Financial Oversight Committee meetings, and I've seen what this is like. I've seen the budgeting process. I don't like it. Earn our trust, and we'll support it. And naturally, as somebody who believes that taxes are already too high and that we're all over tax as it is, I thought that that actually resonated with me, and I shared that viewpoint with some other folks. And coincidentally, I actually got other calls from people that shared similar insights that they felt, They couldn't support it tonight. They couldn't support it this year. But perhaps in the future, as we work to make some changes to our budget, we work through the deficit situation that we're facing, that we're dealing with, that maybe there would be support at that time. But even looking at tonight, which, of course, has been noted several times as a special tax as opposed to a general tax, I think what's interesting is that this whole 75% to roads, for me, it's 100% to roads and streets or not at all. I mean, that's just my own view of how it should be. It should be 100% to roads and streets or not at all. And absolutely, there should be a sunset clause because I think that's, again, part of the oversight and transparency process. You're going to tax people more. You're going to fund the roads and streets. And then at that point, you're going to report back and you're going to show them the progress that's ongoing, the progress that's still needed. like financial advisors like to say, the trend is your friend, right, with respect to the stock market or other investments. And I think that's kind of what has to be shown here, is that things are heading in the right direction because of good governance and good stewardship of the tax dollars that are being spent, reinvested in our roads and streets. But at the 75% figure, and then this whole notion that somehow these funds are going to be allocated to other things, that maybe money can be moved around and that certain things will be allocated to become infrastructure, THAT'S BAD NEWS. WE KNOW HOW THAT'S GOING TO GO. UNFORTUNATELY, AS I TALKED ABOUT AT THE LAST MEETING WHEN WE DID TALK ABOUT OUR BUDGET STUDY SESSION, WE'VE GOT A THREE DECADE HISTORY OF INCREASES IN TAXES NOT GOING TO OUR ROADS AND STREETS BUT INSTEAD GOING TO LABOR COSTS AND SUCH. SO AS WE ARE SEEING THOSE INCREMENTAL INCREASES IN TAX FUNDS, THEY'RE NOT BEING REINVESTED IN OUR INFRASTRUCTURE AS THEY SHOULD BE. THAT'S WHY THE STREETS REFLECT THOSE CONDITIONS.

That's really the just I think the gist of where I'm at with this So I'd move that we receive and file the item and and move on with our business tonight Okay, there was a motion I deserve I'd like to just say just one follow one second There is a motion is there a second or receiving and filed this side Okay Okay, there's a second Yeah, I just want to say

There's three comments I'd like to just do a little rebuttal on. This is not personal in any way. This is about actions we've seen, actions taken or not taken, that should have been, the erosion of public trust, and the administration of attacks by the same people that everyone is saying we don't trust. So this has nothing to do with anything personal. So I just want to make sure I say that. There is also, I think, Councilwoman Charles said something important, that there may be another future possibility, I think very likelihood, to go back and ask for more money. So I don't think that is a healthy way of looking at a measure of such. It has to be well thought out, and then you only have a few options with the public. And as for the negative publicity, I don't see that anyone was putting out any negative publicity. has become apparent as the public is noticing and putting out videos of commentary here. The words coming out of our own mouths are being pushed out into the public. And finally, people are seeing it. So I think these are all self-inflicted wounds. And I don't think we should punish the public for it. I will support the receiving file for now.

You know, actually, if I could, Mr. Mayor, I want to add one comment because, Councilman Zara, I think you really hit the nail on the head with respect to the spending. And I think, you know, this idea, I think, you know, I kind of left out of my comments the notion of just how rushed this was, right? It was almost like, hey, it's third and goal from the one-yard line. Let's punch it into the end zone and see if we can get it onto the ballot. And I don't think that's the way you want to address something like this. For those of you that aren't sports fans, that's the notion is that it was very rushed trying to score because we're approaching a deadline. Anyways, I want to preface that. But, you know, and then the idea that we're somehow going to come back and ask for more money later or we could ask for more money. I kind of look at this as, hey, you've really got one shot to get it right and there's no rush to get it done. I mean, certainly the way it is right now is not done right. And so then we've got time to do it right if that's really what's of interest. So that's all right.

I understand you want to wrap this up, but I do have to say, to quote Wayne Gretzky, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. So I appreciate that staff worked with me to take this shot. I encourage them to do it. It was definitely... You know something I wanted to do I've been working on it for three years, so it's not that rushed We had a fiscal sustainability committee meet we've been talking about it for many years We've been working on the language for quite some time I wish we had maybe brought it to council a little earlier this year, but you know got a little lost in the shuffle so I just want to say I appreciate staff's work on this, and we'll keep seeing how this goes over the coming years because it's just going to get worse, and that's what the urgency is. When you can pick up a piece of your street and come to council, that's what the urgency is.

All right. Madam Clerk, there's a motion and a second. Let's take the vote.

And this is to receive and file the item. That's correct. I'm sorry, Mayor Jung?

No.

Mayor Pro Tem Dunlap? Councilmember Zara aye Councilmember Valencia aye and councilmember Charles. No apologies.

I went backwards on that voting order Just to mix it up all right Thank you for that and Moving on to our public hearing item. We've got a couple this evening first one is our fiscal year 26 27 proposed operating budget I'm directed to Mr. Avila, sir. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Tonight will be part two of the fiscal year 26-27 proposed budget discussion in which the first meeting and budget study session was held last Tuesday on July 14th. As a quick recap, staff presented a review of the all funds proposed budget including all the city's enterprise funds which includes water sewer to name a few its special revenue funds such as the aforementioned measure M2 and gas tax funds its capital improvement projects plan or proposed CIP budget and the general fund proposed budget for fiscal year 26-27. For the general fund staff provided three budget scenarios for city council consideration. in order to balance the current 3.8 million operating deficit. Tonight, I will focus on the proposed general fund budget for fiscal year 26-27 and the proposed budget scenario options before you today for city council direction. With any direction taken tonight, we will present the final fiscal year 26-27 proposed budget for formal adoption at the August 18th city council meeting. This chart I'm about to show is the same chart that we presented last week and shows the city's updated financial position for fiscal year 26-27. As a quick recap, the city started with an initial 13.7 million deficit position, as reported back in March 2026. And now we're down to 3.8 million net operating deficit. I will now walk you through how we got here. In doing so, I will explain various components of the financial forecast. And before beginning, I will be showing both the original baseline budget in column one against the current proposed budget in the last column on the far right. First is the fund balances. The total fund balance, as shown in the highlighted green row, starting position totals $26.3 million per the completed fiscal year 24-25 audit. As part of the fund balance, we do have allocated fund balances that are restricted for other purposes and cannot be used for general operations. This totals $10 million and are netted out or subtracted out from the total fund balance. That leaves us with an available starting fund balance of $16 million, and this is both the same starting fund balance for both the original base budget and current proposed budget. Our baseline revenues have increased from 141.4 million as shown in column 1 in the original base to 143.8 million as shown to the far right column in the current proposed. This is due to one time restricted funds which includes the downtown parking program as well as general plan update updates funds that are being repurposed for operations. One time revenues of 1.2 million which includes unclaimed engineering and development bonds of $800,000 and a one-time withdrawal of $400,000 from our Section 115 pension trust that will be applied this year. In addition, there are revenue adjustments totaling $700,000. On the expenditure side, our expenditure budget has decreased from $150.4 million to $145 million as you will now see in the current proposed. This is due to the following. The unfunding of nine full-time equivalent or FTE vacant positions, which equates to 2.8 million in savings. Operating reductions totaling 1.8 million. And then lastly, 2.2 million of reduced allocations to the city's workers' compensation and liability insurance internal services funds will help contribute to balance the budget. This leaves us with the projected operating deficit before any transfers in or out of 1.1 million. And as you can see in the chart, this is reduced from 9 million back in March of 2026 to now 1.1 million before transfers in and out. For looking at transfers in and out, In the current proposed the main adjustment is a 1.5 million one-time reimbursement from the equipment maintenance fund back to the general fund And this is due to that fund accumulating reserves as a result of vacancies over the last several years Further our transfers out shows a slight reduction for IT capital projects as we transition to a new IT services provider and After factoring in net transfers in and out, the city's deficit position is now and increases to 3.8 million. And a big portion of this increasing is due to the city's infrastructure fund requirement as required per municipal ordinance. And that obligation for fiscal year 26-27 is 3.9 million. With the current Deficit position the city is projected to end this fiscal year twenty six twenty seven with a twelve point two million ending fund balance and a half percent general fund reserves level. So where we are today this is the city's current general fund financial landscape. The city has a structural deficit problem Again, which means a structural deficit occurs when the recurring costs providing municipal services grows faster than the recurring revenue revenues available to support these services There are several other cities within the state facing similar structural deficits including the cities of Irvine Costa Mesa and City of Orange so we're not alone in our deficit issues and this is largely due to rising expenditure costs and including the cost to maintain competitive salaries and fiscal year 26-27 represents the last year of most salary increases for the city labor groups. This is also attributed to rising CalPERS pension costs primarily due to our unfunded actuarial liability or better known as OAL which continues to increase year over year. Lastly revenue growth Is being tempered and being outpaced by expenditure growth? So while the city's number one revenue property tax continues to be stable and increase Most most other revenues such as sales tax has remained flat or even declined You know contributing to the city's deficit issues and challenges So as for as presented on the prior slide We now stand before you today with a structural deficit of 3.8 million, and this serves as the basis of the proposed three budget scenarios before you today to address the budget gap. So this next chart and slide summarizes how we reduced our deficit from 13.7 million to 3.8 million. These are all listed in the forecast but I think better illustrates how we got from 13.7 to 3.8. So first we'll start with total additional revenue and transfers in of 4.1 million. This is due to increased revenues from improved ambulance collection revenue as well as the city's efforts to recover short term rental TOT revenues and fee collection. Again, I mentioned the one-time engineering and developer bonds that will help contribute for revenues this year, as well as the withdrawing of our and drawing down on our 115 pension trust account. The 1.5 million payback and reimbursement from the equipment maintenance fund. And again, as I mentioned earlier, this is due to excess reserves that have resulted from staffing vacancies over the last several years. So after factoring in 4.1 million of revenue adjustments, this lowers our deficit to 9.6 million. Next, we do have total expenditure and transfers out reductions of 5.8 million. Due to the city manager initiative and collective work of all departments, we have identified 1.8 million in operating and maintenance savings. reductions include reductions to community events such as first night fireworks only fourth of July event as well as other community programming reductions on the services side of things we have proposed reduced graffiti removal services as all the security services as well 2.7 million is related to the unfunding of the nine vacant positions across all departments and All of this detail and service impacts were presented by departments last week, and it is also in your agenda or packet as an attachment as well. For the expenditures, there was also a $1.4 million expenditure adjustment to our baseline budget. And this is largely due to contractually obligated increases, such as the North Spa Collaborative which shifted from using grant funds, as well as right-sizing public safety overtime. Lastly, we do have 2.2 million reduction, again, I mentioned in the forecast file, or chart, which reduces the allocations to the workers' compensation and liability internal services funds. So their expenditure reductions combined with the additional revenue has resulted in a reduced deficit position of 3.8 million. This next slide summarizes scenarios A, scenario B, and scenario C for your direction. Scenario A is what we're calling baseline services and use of reserves. This is actually the current financial position of the city, which I just went over, and includes all the aforementioned reductions. And it also utilizes $3.8 million of available reserves to balance the budget. Scenario B is what we're calling a balanced budget for fiscal year 26-27 and year one only and this is achieved through service reductions and deferrals. This presents a balanced budget for fiscal year 26-27 only and increases reductions by 1.5 million through the in funding of an additional 15 vacant positions or a total 24 unfunded positions. This also utilizes a additional 1.5 million one-time payback from the building maintenance internal service fund and very similar to the equipment maintenance internal service fund this fund has accumulated reserves through vacancies over the last few years and lastly this defers 800,000 of IT capital as well as an additional deferred maintenance Scenario C is entitled balanced budget for three fiscal years and structural deficit reductions. So this presents a balanced budget from fiscal year 26-27 through fiscal year 28-29 and increases reductions by an additional $800,000 and then funds an additional eight positions and 32 total positions. This also utilizes the one-time revenues and transfers in and expenditure reductions over three years versus keeping it in, most of it in fiscal year 26, 27. These next two slides and charts just illustrates the financial impacts of each scenario. This chart shows the ending fund balances for each scenario so in scenario a again This scenario utilizes the use of reserves. So we'll end fiscal year 2627 at 12.2 million and then we'll slowly utilize reserves for the next two years and end with the 4.6 million fund balance by fiscal year 2029 Scenario B we're going to balance the budget in fiscal year twenty six twenty seven and then at 16 million and then by year three you'll see we'll end at eleven point nine or twelve million dollars. Scenario C is the structurally balanced budget for three years and as you can see any fund balance will be 16 million over the duration of those three years. This next chart just shows the reserve percentage levels of each scenario as I mentioned in the financial forecasts. For scenario A we'll end the year we'll end fiscal year 26 27 at 8 and a half percent and then that'll go down to 3 percent by the end of fiscal year 20 29. Scenario B we go from 11 percent to 7.8 percent and then scenario C it's you know and it's a slight reduction because the reserve level is dependent on our expenditure level which expenditures will grow but essentially just a slight reduction. And with that that concludes our presentation and you know we end with our recommended recommendations. So recommendation 1 is to provide direction on the proposed budget specifically the budget scenarios A B or C and then recommendation 2 is on here to continue the public hearing to formally adopt a budget for August 18th because we did initially intend to adopt a budget at tonight's meeting. But now that has that has changed. So we're aiming for the next meeting and we have to do this action. And with that, I'll pass it back to the city council.

All right. We'll go to questions before we have comments. Let's take public comment. I'll go ahead and open the public hearing. The municipal budgets, just by nature, Mr. Alos, they're conservative, right? The assumptions in the budget. Yes. Revenue forecasts. They're very conservative by nature of the budget, right?

Just the process. We don't want to over-promise on revenues and end up coming short. So we do our best, and we always aim to be somewhat conservative. But again, we do look at historical data and consultants to help us get to fairly accurate projections.

The bulk of our... This is to ask the bulk of our... Revenue for the city is property tax comes from property tax. That's correct Have we accounted for the fact that home sales are at a seven-year low? There's a certain uncertainty in the public as a result split into the market. There's Uncertainty in the market. So are are we baking those assumptions?

into the revenue forecast so it's again for like some of you know these economic projections you know we do rely on the advice from our consultants. But you know we do try to find that balance of you know presenting accurate property tax projections. First you know it's it's for some of these you know trends it's you know it's difficult to estimate on you know when it hits the property tax roll. So even you know if you know House sales are slightly down. It may not hit this upcoming fiscal year. It'll likely hit the next fiscal year in the forecast.

Okay. But even a single-digit percentage off of our forecast is significant revenue that is then we have to reassess on our budget, correct? Yeah. For property tax especially, yes. All right. One other thing that I had a question on before I go to the rest of the council, see what questions I have. The $1.8 million in maintenance reductions, explain that for the public and the council. Maintenance of what? Where did that come from? Are we not maintaining buildings? Are we not maintaining cars? Where did $1.8 million come from for maintenance?

So the $1.8 million in maintenance, part of that is actually IT capital. And that, I believe, is about $400,000, $500,000. The other part of that is we're looking at our vehicle or deferring building maintenance. But again, that's why we call it one time. It would just be for this year only. And then next year, we can rely on that because we do have a lot of maintenance needs in the city.

Okay. So it's capital improvements that we're not, it's $1.8 million worth of capital improvements in the city we're not doing. You only accounted for the $400,000 and thereabouts more or less for IT. But didn't we already have IT savings somewhere baked in the budget already?

I'm sorry I misspoke okay the 1.8 million you're referring to are the operating reductions generally speaking we you know there's there's a broad term we use it's called operation and maintenance but that essentially that what that represents are like all the city departments discretionary spending that it does so that could be your professional services budgets it could entail you know reducing certain maintenance levels like with trails and landscape and things like that but THIS IS NOT THE CAPITAL, DEFERRED CAPITAL. IT'S COMMUNITY EVENTS, IT'S SERVICES THAT ARE BEING REDUCED FOR NEXT YEAR.

OKAY. STILL UNSURE WHAT THAT WAS, BUT ALL RIGHT. COUNCILMAN ZARA, YOU HAD SOMETHING, I APOLOGIZE FOR INTERRUPTING.

YEAH, ACTUALLY, MY QUESTIONS WERE ON THAT. I DO HAVE A LITTLE BIT OF A question on on these reductions operation maintenance very broad and I know some of these are one time why is it that these haven't been identified and I know there was a broad term used in the staff report of efficient efficiencies what why haven't these been identified in previous budgets I mean these are significant amounts of money

Yeah, I mean, I think the goal, every budget year is different. And what we wanted to do, the initiative we set out to do was to, you know, reduce our operating budgets and our efforts to either reduce our, you know, deficit position or present a balanced budget as far as, you know, why they weren't done in previous years. You know, that's a difficult answer to say. But for this, you know, particular budget year, we've tasked all our departments and our department heads to look at their operations and take an honest look at all their operations and what they're doing and see if we could, you know, reduce our budget substantially. So the goal we set out was to reduce our budget by 5%. And it was a combination of both, you know,

Operating or program program reductions as well as the unfunding of vacant positions and then the other in the same Same idea on the the second one the ISF reductions the workers comp and liabilities. That's a 2.25 million What exactly is that and why? How has it been identified?

So our workers compensation and liability and insurance internal service funds. Those are two funds that probably have the healthiest reserve levels out of all the city funds. So for both those funds, we both set aside reserves to address any liability ongoing claims as well as future claims. And the same with workers' compensation. We set aside a certain amount of funds for ongoing and future claims. And then on top of that, we do have a positive fund balance in excess of $10 million in each of those funds. But by reducing the contributions to those funds, we're not taking away fund balance because we don't want to diminish our ability to respond to any future large claims. But we're aligning those funds' annual spending So we're aligning those funds actual spending with historical spending. So we've identified that we could conservatively reduce each of those funds by a million and a half two and a half million collectively and that Those operations will still be able to pay the day-to-day bills, support staffing. But the challenge is if there is a large claim, we would have to dip into reserves to respond to any large claim.

Council Member Zara, if I may, just to provide additional clarity.

Since you are, could you also explain what type of liability we're talking about? I understand workers' comp, but what's the liability of other parts?

For the liability fund, I would defer to our HR director or city manager.

I'll answer that. It's our general liability. It's the litigation claims, the trip and falls.

These are actual lawsuits that come to the city, not just claims from employee claims or anything like that.

No, no, no. This is our general liability fund.

What's the current fund total?

The fund balance? I'll have to defer to Stephen on that.

While Steven looks that up, I did want to provide some additional clarity in terms of why weren't these brought up. Your question was why weren't these identified in previous years? And several of these actually were, but they were one-time reductions, not ongoing reductions. So it would be a continuation of previous years. So I pulled up the information from last year's budget. And last year, there was a reduction to the liability and workers comp allocations of $4.03 million. In addition, there were other proposed reductions in the budget study session that the city council chose not to pursue. For example, the city manager included one option that removed 4th of July and first night from that budget, which council at that time chose to maintain in the current budget.

Okay, so on the liability insurance fund, we do have set aside $10.9 million in reserves. So that's been set aside per our year-end audit. On top of that, we do actually, we have $19.2 million set aside. On top of that, we have $10 million of available fund balance in that fund.

So it's a $9 million and then a $10 million reserve? Yes.

So we have $19.2 million set aside for future claims. And then on top of that, we have $10 million of additional fund balance. So that'll be a total of $29 million.

And when you allocate, in the past years, it looks like we've allocated $4 million. And this year, it's only $2 million. And you said this is a conservative sort of allocation or estimation. is there more is there so is that something we can maybe utilize more to balance this budget even if it is one time I mean I know this every year it's gonna have to be assessed but is there more that because that's a very large fund is I mean well to your point councilman what what I think is a better question to answer from the councilmember is

Is there a legal threshold for, is there a cap that we can't go under? Does something like that exist for insurance purposes, a liability that, I mean, we have our share of trip and fall cases.

This would not be a legal cap. It would be more of what's prudent, right?

Well, I mean, it is a legal cap because you're You're paying that out, no?

And that's the fund that we're paying any... No, I just mean is there like a statutory requirement that that fund balance remain at a certain level?

So best practice is city of our size. And I don't mean to interrupt your question. Best practice city of our size. Is this kind of the norm?

Yeah, so we base our allocations off actuarial reports for both the worker compensation program as well as the liability... program and that's done by a consultant that recommends certain allocation levels. So you know I'll let Eddie or Laura correct me but the way we allocate both programs are we call them confidence levels and that can range from 85 percent to 80 percent and 75 percent. You know I believe you know you know the consultant always recommends the higher amount. But essentially you know that's how we allocate and and and they tell us like you know We should have this you know certain reserves level to respond to XYZ claims And I believe it's based off You know ongoing claims So what we do we we allocate to each department based on a combination of factors experience of claims and

size of the department, number of employees. And again, we try to achieve a revenue into those funds annually so that they don't go down. Now, what has happened is that those funds have accumulated a healthy balance. And so what we've chosen to do this year is not charge the department so much because we feel like we have a little bit of a cushion. In years past, when we didn't feel this budgetary pressure, prior administrations would not have wanted to touch these funds simply out of an abundance of caution because of the fear of litigation or large claims that we weren't expecting. That's kind of like a last resort. But looking at the fund balances right now, we feel that we can at least reduce the allocations to the department to provide them some operating relief.

Right. So my point of all of this is knowing that last year, let's say, this was $4 million that we used from this fund. This year, right, that's what you said? Correct. This year, it's $2 million. I mean, I'm trying to figure out, how do we reduce this $3.8 if this is the gap? And is there an additional million from this fund that is a healthy fund? If there is, God forbid, something, there is always the ability to come back to council And say we have this extreme circumstance where we need to go back to the reserve. But right now, the goal is to try to minimize the impact on the general fund reserve. And if we can utilize, even if it's an additional million, which is in between what we did last year and this year, then that's one million less of this 3.8%.

That's correct. So the anticipated claims payout is that $19 million amount. So that is fully funded. And in addition to that, you have fund balance on top of that.

Yeah. Wait, what? Sorry, could you?

So the mayor had asked a question, like, how much do we legally need to maintain? The amount of future anticipated claims based on the reports are fully funded at this time.

Meaning that we are anticipating paying out $19 million? Correct.

Wait, but the councilman is asking a fairly interesting question that I just want to kind of pull the thread on this. Let's yank the string a little bit. We have more in the reserves for liability claims than we have in our own reserves from a percentage perspective?

From a percentage? Yes, from a percentage perspective, yes.

And that doesn't strike as slightly odd to anyone? It does to me.

I'm just trying, yeah. Is this what we're obligated to? We're anticipating $19 million of legal payouts over the next year?

Not the next year, just future claims based on all of the discussions in closed session of open claims over time. Not just in this next year.

Right. But if we ought to take this as a year-by-year budget, We're not expecting $19 million worth of claims, God forbid, over the next fiscal year.

That is correct. You are not.

To use a similar analogy, much smaller scale, it's almost kind of like the unfunded liability concept in CalPERS, right? We're not anticipating paying every dollar of retirement to every employee tomorrow. But we are having to meet our annual obligation. I think in basic answer to your question, could additional funds be used from a combination of those two funds to help bridge the general fund deficit? I'd have to say yes. I'D WANT TO GO BACK AND TAKE A CLOSE LOOK AT THAT AND CERTAINLY FOR A ONE-YEAR PERIOD OF TIME, I THINK THAT PROBABLY WOULD BE POSSIBLE.

I THINK THAT WOULD BE MUCH BETTER THAN TRYING TO FIND POSITIONS TO DEFUND OR USING, YOU KNOW, DEFUNDING POSITIONS AND ACTUAL SERVICES FROM SOMETHING THAT WE'RE JUST HOLDING ON FOR ANYTHING ANTICIPATED, WHICH WE CAN ALWAYS GO BACK AND REVISE IF NEEDED. I think there's at least a million that we can probably utilize there. Anyway, I have one last question on this, but it is about labor negotiations, future negotiations. Has that been factored in? I know that all the contracts for next year are all up next year, all the labor contracts.

Yes, so we have all the labor groups factored in for fiscal year 26 27 and in the forecast there is one more I believe it's the PD safety groups that are expected to get The last year will be fiscal year 27 28, but these are the current obligations under a current.

Yeah, but Looking at the future. I mean, are we? What is the plan for negotiating new contracts, let's say? Have you thought about that?

I think what you're asking is, have we put any kind of estimate of future bargaining increases into the forecast? And I believe the answer to that is no. There's always a very modest salary growth put into every year's budget, but as of right now, there is no estimate of what future negotiations could result in. Okay.

All right. I have no further questions right now. Thank you very much.

All right. Before we go to the next council, you know, you brought up a good point, but I think also, Councilman, the reason why they didn't bake that in is then we're assuming that we're naturally going to give XYZ amount of compensation, right? And I don't know that that helps or hurts our labor negotiator. All right, Councilwoman Valencia, any questions at all on the budget?

Yes, I have a couple. Thank you. I think that there's a lot of confusion out there about the vacancies and the cuts of positions. Just to be clear, these vacancies, nobody has this position currently, and these are just vacant positions. We're not taking someone's job, correct? Correct.

Correct. These positions are not filled currently.

So we're not taking jobs away from somebody.

Correct.

Okay. Thank you for that. And then how long have some of these vacant positions been vacant?

A little bit.

Sorry, I'm going to let Laura address that. I looked at a summary earlier. Some are as recent as this year, 2026. Some have been vacant since 24. So it's a combination. But Laura, I don't know if you want to fill that in a little more.

No, it varies by department. If there's a specific one that you'd like to know, I can tell you. But yeah, to Mr. Manfro's point, it varies.

And are there reasons why they haven't been filled?

Combination of reasons. Some departments have put positions in as placeholders, and so they asked us to defer on filling some of the positions at the time. Others were part of the 3% that not just from this fiscal year, but from the prior fiscal year positions that were being held for salary savings per the directions of the city managers at the time. So we have various reasons for why positions may not have been filled over time.

So I'm hearing a lot of the vacancies are placeholders, so that the department heads can pay their employees overtime or based

No, not specifically for overtime. Again, when we were given directives for some of these holds over the last couple of fiscal years, vacancy savings was one way to achieve some of those savings. Now, of course, some of those vacancies, there was some offset for overtime, but that was built into the overall savings that we're trying to achieve.

So I think the term placeholder was not a good term. They were holds directed by prior city managers to the tune of 3%. So some of these, but we didn't take them off the books. We left them on the books, but told the department heads they could not fill them.

OK. Can you explain to the public why they were held on the books and not filled with people?

To save money. Specifically, to not have to pay the salaries. So rather than fill them, the city managers in the past wanted a 3% vacancy hold to allow for hopefully coming in at 3% salaries below what the budget would actually say.

OK, so now can I explain for at least with regard to the police department? So for the fiscal year 2526, our previous city manager asked department heads to hold 3% of their salary and benefits to help bridge the gap in the deficit for 2526. So for the police department, that was $2.1 million. So I had to come up with $2.1 million in savings. So how did I do that? I took a police lieutenant, police corporal, two police officers, a dispatcher, and a dispatch lead. I could have easily filled all of those positions, but I held them because I was asked to hold them for salary savings in 2526, which is why I have vacancies that you can now take in 2627 because I was asked to hold them for salary savings in 2526. Does that make sense? Okay. Okay.

Councilmember, questions?

I feel like we covered quite a bit in the study session, and I'm ready to hear what the public has to say.

Very good. Mayor Pro Tem, anything? All right. Let's go to public comment. Madam Clerk, please call the public.

We have two people registered, Karen Lareda and Jennifer Garcia. There's Karen. Jennifer, are you here somewhere? You left OK then we have Karen then after Karen anybody who's not registered that would like to speak is your time to you know the drill by now line up on the wall and we'll get you up to the podium next. Can I have those six minutes.

Karen Lareda District 2. I want to agree right away that I do believe that this budget item should have been agendized prior to the tax measure. That would have been the proper order. You are asked to select one of three options tonight to carry forward to the August 18th meeting. The city is in big trouble financially. There is no putting it any other way. It does not help at this point to assign blame. Rather it is an opportunity to face the facts and take the difficult steps to regain control as quickly as possible and as painlessly as possible. Option or scenario one, while it certainly does not give us everything we want, it does choose to look the other way and assume that money is somehow going to fall from the sky. It also dips into our reserves. In my estimation, scenario one is not even worth considering. Option 2. Likewise is still a bit of a fairy fairyland proposal. It buys one year with fewer cuts and less pain. But one year is a blink of an eye. There can be no magic pill that will provide significant new revenue in one year. And we end with an even greater deficit going forward. Scenario 2 excuse me is also wishful thinking. Option or scenario 3 it is the most austere and the hardest to swallow for everyone. More cuts more doing without. But it buys a little bit more time to develop solutions. I have been coming to these council meetings for over four years since I moved to Fullerton. I have repeatedly and persistently asked for more economic development efforts. Don't waste money on underfilling with an economic development specialist. We need a creative, out-of-the-box thinker with connections. If the solution were obvious, every other city would be doing it. Fullerton needs a breadwinner or two, and only a highly qualified, innovative director will do. We all, and I mean all of us, benefit from the success this position can guarantee. I appreciate the difficult situation that fire and police are in, and I would ask that tonight you select option three or C. and that you request the police department and the fire department to go back and see what they can do to generate the two positions that they need, and then also to consider.

Thank you. Next speaker. Madam, please take the other person.

Well this is one of the items where I'm going to ad lib which I don't do great. So hopefully I'll be understandable. I actually want the first option. I don't see the point of taking those severe cuts when each year we have a budget. And I liked what Councilman Nazar suggested of taking another million from that one fund and lowering our deficit which would really help. If we really put together what we should in terms of economic development it could change if we're really creative with that. But I'm going to kind of repeat some of the things I've said at other times is I don't want private privatization of our libraries, water department, airport, police and fire departments, and ambulance services. I don't like the idea of selling city property or buildings which can be a slippery slope depending what it means and what those properties are. I said earlier implement the CPA's recommendations except for the council budget committee. Higher the expertise per Grant Thornton's recommendations. truly focus on economic development in a creative way. I had supported the sales tax, and that's not going anywhere. We have difficult decisions to make, but again, we have to have a heart. There's small things that are really important, the bike lockers at the transportation center, And it's bigger than just those lockers and those people it allows people not to have to drive on our roads the senior transportation Program is truly life-saving I Know we're gonna probably cut January 1st and January 4th events, but you left the fireworks That's the one didn't need to get rid of I mean, we shouldn't have policies that are harmful. They're completely Harm for Everyone's Health, PTSD, Animals, Wildlife, the Environment, Air Quality, Fire Risk, and Just Our Peace. And Council Member Charles, I wish you would rethink that one. Someone just shared with me that they watched on TV a drone show about the country's 250th birthday. And they said it was just so moving, the kinds of things you can do with drones that are healthy. And we may not have the money for that so I just I don't think we need those severe cuts right now Maybe next year. We'll look at it a little bit from the deficit. I think isn't a bad thing at the moment. Thank you

Elijah Banasero there was a good point made last meeting and also this meeting that if you defer maintenance on roads it gets more expensive over time and the same is true for cuts to staff if you cut staff what ends up happening and like for example police you get a lot more overtime and sometimes that can be more expensive than if you guys would have just hired the employee Um, and it's also, uh, results in a lot of consultants being hired because we don't have those people in house. So I think that there are merits to, uh, ALL OF THESE POSITIONS STAYING, BUT I WANTED TO HIGHLIGHT A FEW THAT I THINK ARE ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT. FIRST, I THINK THAT THE DEPUTY FIRE CHIEF IS VERY IMPORTANT BECAUSE THEY AFFECT DEVELOPMENT AND THEY AFFECT OTHER DEPARTMENTS OUTSIDE OF JUST FIRE. AND I THINK THAT IT IS I DO HAVE ONE QUESTION, THOUGH, I WANT TO KNOW WHY IT'S SO EXPENSIVE. IT WAS LIKE OVER $500,000 FOR THAT ONE POSITION. SO I WAS CURIOUS ABOUT THAT. I ALSO THINK THOUGH THAT THE ASSOCIATE PLANNER AND THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR, I DON'T THINK THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR SHOULD BE UNDERSTAFFED OR I DON'T THINK WE SHOULD USE A SPECIALIST FOR THAT. I THINK WE SHOULD HIRE SOMEONE WHO'S ACTUALLY LOOKING TO FIX THESE STRUCTURAL ISSUES IN THE CITY. AND I THINK AN ASSOCIATE PLANNER IS IMPORTANT. Because when properties are sold, when people are allowed to build, then properties get sold and they get reassessed. And when they get reassessed, that increases the property tax that you'd be receiving as a city. So I think that those positions are especially important. Aside from those ones, I do think we need to invest in grant writing as well. And I think Townsend public affairs was doing that. I don't know if they still are, but if they're not, I think that that is something that we need to continue because I mean, it's, it's free money and sometimes there's a match, but you get it snowballs. So you get approved for some grants, then you can get more grants and that can fund a lot of the needs that we have in the city. So I think that investing in, those specific areas would be good for the city. Thank you.

This looks like our last speaker in chambers and then we can go to the remote speakers.

I wasn't going to chime in, but simply wanted to echo the call for a grant writer. I know this is the wrong time to be making requests. We're trying to cut. We're not trying to add things. However, I wanted to underscore that point, whether it's for right now or whether it's something you put in your pocket you think about later when we have the money. But there are just not a lot of opportunities to bring this topic up. And so I thought I'd take advantage of this window. The grant writer was a great point. Our city does not have a dedicated grant writer. And at least in the active transportation world, this has certainly been an issue. Our staff works super hard to find grants. It's not easy. It takes a lot of time. But one of the problems with this process is that When you have a full-time grant writer, and you can churn out these grant applications, and you get really good at it, and the state or whatever agency sees that you're earning this grant money, it then spirals up. Santa Ana, I believe, has a grant writer, and they've gotten so many grants related to active transportation projects and others. because it builds on itself because you establish a reputation with the governing agencies and you're able to get more grants and this is free money out there this is this is money that it's not free it takes work to get but this is money that is available to our city that requires a small match in comparison to the amount of money that comes in so that it is worth having this discussion at this point when we don't have a grant writer and we can't get grants um then we're sometimes in some situations pushed to the bottom of the pile and then we're not eligible for grants as strongly just because we don't have the expertise of a grant writer or because our staff is pulled in so many different directions that grant writing is not necessarily a priority that they're able to address at that time when a grant is available so this is i understand that this is a bit of a pie in the sky request however it also ties into investment in the future, where if we were to hire a grant writer, it could be an investment in the future that it's worth taking at this crossroads. Thank you.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, City Council. My name is Curtis Gamble, activist for the homeless, the veterans, the Cal State Fullerton students, the OCTA bus drivers, the seniors, and the low-income community. I just wanted to kind of share, well, yeah, kind of share, well, I kind of have a question in a way. But the, you know, I deal with the homeless a lot, and I'm The budget, from what I can see, just overall, it's very consuming. And, for example, what I'm saying is when I'm out there in the streets and I see police officers chasing after homeless people, you know, for whatever reason, I see one police officer spending a large amount of time WITH ONE INDIVIDUAL, WELL, ACTUALLY, IT'S THREE OR FOUR OR FIVE POLICE SHOW UP, BUT ONE INDIVIDUAL WHEN WE CAN REALLY JUST LET, FOR EXAMPLE, A BUS DRIVER TAKE CARE OF THAT BY SIMPLY PUTTING THEM ON THE BUS AND LET THEM GO DOWN TO THE SHELTER AND GET THE SERVICE THEY NEED. I CALL, I PERSONALLY CALL THE PARAMEDICS MANY TIMES, AND THEY COME TO THE FULLERTON TRANSPORTATION CENTER TO ASSIST, AND I'M LIKE, THIS IS VERY EXPENSIVE. Why are we spending so much money with the paramedics, the fire department? And again, it's one homeless person who just needs some medical help. And a lot of times, we can just even put them on the bus and send them right up to St. Jude. but we're not getting any cooperation from the city. They, for example, don't really want to follow the rules, the laws that says shelters are available on a first-come, first-served basis, and they don't want to follow, like, let the people ride the bus to the shelter, to and from, so that they can do everything in their life. I don't know why you're babysitting. I mean, I appreciate that you're helping the homeless, but it's costing us, costing a lot, and I see it every day. And I'm going like, if they manage their budget like they do on the homeless thing, if they're managing the other parts of their budget as badly, then that's not good. We don't need that much help. And I know that's something for me to be saying, we don't need to help. We need to be able to help ourselves. And I'm saying this as for the homeless. We don't want you to babysit us. We don't want you to pick us up and take us everywhere. We want to wake up in the morning and do our own thing. You know, we want you to follow the emergency shelter rules and laws and because I'm just using this because it could save the city a lot of money. We don't want the police to be involved with the homeless unless they have committed a crime.

Jose, you should be able to unmute. Jose.

Thank you. It's getting late so I can tell that people are not making sense anymore. Good evening. Mayor City Council, Jose Trindade Castaneda. I don't know if everyone is capturing the fact that a structural deficit requires structural solutions. um so i love hearing about grants and i love hearing about individual uh roles and job positions that could potentially help but what we're talking about in the long term for the city of floor 10 is attracting major developments and attracting major corporations that that hopefully encourage more spending. So this is a capitalist economy in which the city of Fullerton operates and navigates this capitalist economy as a municipal corporation. Mr. Ferguson stole my thunder earlier by saying it, but if we don't think like that, we don't get out of this rut. And so if we don't attract a biomedical, biotech kind of hub, if we don't create something in the way of a jobs center, jobs hub, where people come to work, and it's a area of the city that focuses on specific uh industrial outputs that's the way we need to think in order to get just this public agency out of the rut 10 15 years from now so without that kind of thinking i just think or you can go with scenario b and call it a night you should be able to unmute

Yes, good evening, Mayor Zhang and our council members. I want to start by thanking everyone, especially our city department head, for devoting so many hours and a few months of their precious time in devoting on this budget process. And I would like to share three thoughts. One, it's people. Two, it's service. Three, it's money. So number one, I want to thank Councilwoman Valencia for clarifying the vacancy, and thanks to Police Chief for clarifying that as well. As far as library-wise, I know the one vacancy is not a vacancy. The staff left two weeks ago, so there's no one have that position, but it's not a vacant position. It's actually a crucial position that we're hoping to fill, But in order to present a 10% cut, that is currently no one is holding that position. And I always value people. I think staff are most important or one of our most important assets. And their dedication makes a huge difference. And I appreciate that we are not letting go of anyone because they are a crucial member of our community. Two, services. Well, we are proud to call Fullerton our home. because of the parks, the library, the park safeties, you know, everything is important. We believe that we want the service and we are asking for the quality service. And so when we are arranging for our money allocations, I understand, you know, quality sometimes does come with money. That leads to money. Now, I always believe that fiscal responsibility is crucial. It has to guide every decision that we make. Balancing budget is not optional. It is our responsibility. And I'm curious about when the consultant advised for us to go to scenario C. I wonder if it is about the credit rating because we understand credit score. Each one of us has a credit score. We guard our credit because we know when we borrow money, a bit of credit allow us to get lower interest rate versus someone with a lower credit score. And I don't know how much weight that plays with it. I know that we did not get through the sales tax measure in earlier meeting. And I'm hoping that we need to consider control our expenses At the same time, it's important to be creative about money generation, revenue generation, whether it's sales tax, whether it's grant. Please, we want the quality, and we need to pitching to help the company to move forward. And thank you all. Good night.

One more call-in user. You should be able to unmute.

All right. All right. Hello, Council Members. Good night, actually. It's night already. My only request is to not cut fire and police. I should have probably said this before. I'm Dominic Munar, the former District 2 resident. As I was stating earlier, I would just like to only request that we do not cut any fire or police positions, whether they're vacant or not, because those positions are absolutely needed. I know the that the council is about to make a difficult decision and I hope that we don't cut any fire or police positions regardless of their vacancy or not because those as I said those positions are needed please don't cut their those positions and that's all I have thank you no more callers okay let's start with

Comments and then I'll seek a motion from our council council member Charles you want to start us off Well, this will be brief I Don't like a lot of things that I'm seeing here and From my perspective. I appreciate the don't cut fire and police note we ended on with as I said last week I Well, I was thinking scenario B might be tied to a sales tax increase. And obviously, that's not happening. But in my mind, I understand reserves are important for doing good financial picture I just I find it so galling to have money in reserves millions of dollars in reserves when we have horrible city services and not enough police and a point eight ratio already under scenario a and I just I can't stomach sitting on millions in reserves so from my perspective I think scenario a along with adding in some more is what I would prefer if I have my preference. I'm pretty sure it's not going to be the case. But I understand the need for needing to fill these positions so that we don't have overworked employees that just is a kind of a death spiral. That once you start overworking people and then we have a situation where we're not supporting our departments, then people start leaving and then we're Retraining people and it's just a constant spiral and we were already in that and we had we had stopped that bleeding So I don't want to go back to that world where we are in that situation again So I I'll see what my colleagues have to say at this point very well councilman czar anything to add Yeah, so thank you.

I I I think that if we are able, so the budget is not just about cuts. It's also about providing the services, right? So this is important to keep in mind. We're not just coming here to try to cut things. So, you know, just going back a little bit to tapping into my memory of my time as a doctor, when you have a patient you create, and I'm very sure, Councilwoman, Valencia would attest to this. When you have a patient, you create a therapy plan, but you start with the most conservative approach. You don't go straight gutting their entire organs. So I think that's what I think we should be doing here is taking this year after year. We cannot predict what's going to happen next year. We cannot predict what's going to happen three years from now. So I would take a more, lack of better terms, I know it's weird coming from me, but a more conservative approach, right? But I think that's what we need to do, be a little bit more measured in how we make these cuts. I think we might have identified an additional million from the liability fund. And if we have a starting point at... THEN THAT ONLY BRINGS US DOWN TO A REDUCTION OF 2.8 FROM THE RESERVES. AND THEN BECAUSE I DO THINK I DO AGREE WITH COUNCILMAN CHARLES THAT WE DO HAVE TO USE SOME OF THE RESERVES. I DON'T THINK THERE'S I'M SEEING A COMBINATION OF THINGS HERE. I DON'T SEE A CLEAR OPTION THAT YOU GO ONE THIS OR THAT. And as far as positions, I wouldn't be OK with defunding positions that are crucial, that need to be filled, but we're just in the process of doing so. But maybe if we have lived, if the departments have lived with something for two years or more, then maybe they can sustain themselves an additional year until we look at next year's budget. So maybe identifying those vacancies that have been in the long-term vacant and then see if we can close that gap and achieve maybe another million in savings there. And that brings us back to only a million from the reserves. So it's a combination of things that... I'M HOPING WOULD BE A GOOD APPROACH AT THIS POINT. I DO AGREE THAT WE NEED TO LOOK AT OUR GRANT WRITING. I REMEMBER WE DID WE USED TO HAVE TOWNSEND PUBLIC AFFAIRS AS A GRANT WRITER BUT THEN THAT WAS CHANGED UNDER THE PREVIOUS CITY MANAGER AND I'M NOT SURE WHERE IT IS RIGHT NOW. AND I DO THINK THAT ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT POSITIONS ARE AS CRUCIAL AS SAFETY POSITIONS BECAUSE THEY ARE THE ECONOMIC ENGINE OF THE CITY. AND I THINK WE NEED TO MAKE SURE THAT WE'RE NOT TAKING AWAY ANYTHING THAT COULD BE CRUCIAL IN BRINGING IN MORE REVENUE AND CREATING OUR ECONOMIC PLAN AND SO ON. AS FAR AS THE RESERVES AND THE ISSUE OF THE CREDIT RATING, I DON'T KNOW HOW CRUCIAL A CREDIT RATING RIGHT NOW FOR US IS. be more important if we're seeking bonds and things like that or refinancing. I don't know if we're confronted with any of those scenarios over the next year. But anyway, those are my thoughts at this point. I don't know if there's, again, a clear choice, but I think there's a combination there.

I'm just gonna repeat some of the stuff that I said last week that are from my own words Fish fiscal responsibility means living within our means balancing revenues and expenditures avoiding chronic deficits and prioritizing long-term sustainability over short-term spending fiscal discipline builds reserves for emergencies through either recession or natural disasters so we don't have to slash jobs when times are even tougher. It also signals businesses that our city is a reliable place to invest and hire if we have good economic stability. It is hard right now. It's not easy to make this decision. I would hope that these department heads can do a good look at themselves, come back to city council, And if they need an ask, if they have a want, if it comes down the line that we need these vacant positions back open to help the greater good of our city, please don't be shy to have these conversations. This isn't a closed door. This isn't a no. This isn't a forever. It's just for now we need to get things under better wraps. So that being said, I put a motion in for scenario C.

Yeah, I'll second that, but I do want to say, you know, it's interesting. There's been a lot written about this in the past week or so, right? We went through this process, what, two months ago we started what we thought, I think some of us thought or expected to be an audit, and unfortunately that process became quite convoluted, right? Here we were looking for more transparency, better answers, and unfortunately ended up with you know, I don't know, a dumpster fire, I guess might be a good way to put it. Certainly in the practical, I think the sort of the aftermath of it, right. We had hoped to have better answers and better guidance as we went through this process. And it seemed like, you know, there was a sort of an internal emphasis on, Hey, trying to use this data, you know, instead of using it for better budgeting or trying to improve operations, you know, it seemed to use this focus to try to sell, to try to sell the tax increase. Um, Again, that's my opinion. You can't say that's fact, right? But that was kind of my impression by reading some of the data, the emails and the exchanges that I've seen. And, you know, people are entitled to their opinions. I don't think that's the right approach. And it's certainly not something that I supported at the time, and it's not something I support now, considering I think the most valuable part of that process was not the first part where they were going to complete the audit and then report on their findings. You know, the second or third part of that evaluation It was actually one where they were going to look at the city's operations and try to look at procurement and purchasing and other contracts so that we could find these savings, right? Because just like we heard about tonight, the funds that are allocated in reserves for potential litigation and things of that nature, there's really no rhyme or reason to it other than, hey, the past city manager had used this as an allocation. We don't know if it was maybe an insurance policy. You know, like a risk management policy that provided that guidance. We don't know that it was required by our insurance carrier. We were just doing it because it had been done for that, you know, like that for year after year after year. And I found that a lot of times, I think, you know, with the city, and this is not necessarily a reflection of the folks here. This is kind of just, I think, bureaucracy and, you know, municipalities and government in general. it kind of gets set on cruise control, right? And things get done because they've been done that way and that's just how you do it. And sometimes that's good and sometimes that's bad. And I think, unfortunately, you know, at a time where we wanted those answers and we wanted that guidance, we didn't get it. And here we are tonight looking at really three situations or three scenarios that aren't good. We've got one option, C, you know, which at least gets us a few years to kind of work out of this. And so I don't necessarily think this is like the best or ideal choice. I think it's really the only choice tonight because again, it gets us a little more time and we can't, you know, I don't think we can be as short sighted as just looking one year out and really, you know, in the, you know, the, the grand scheme of, of, of time, right? Like three years, still not a lot of time, but you know, I think it's enough that it'll give it, get us on a path to really figure things out and, and kind of decide the next steps. So, um, Support an item. I am obviously see we've discussed and those are my comments. Mr. Mayor.

All right Madam clerk, there's motion. There's a second. Let's call it roll.

Okay, and this is for option C Councilmember Charles No Councilmember Valencia. Aye Councilmember Zara. No Mayor Pro Tem Dunlap. Aye Mayor Jung. Aye Item passes 3-2

Okay, we'll move on to. I'll move that. I'll second. All right, Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Thank you. I'm sorry, what are we voting on at this moment? Moving the hearing to next month. Okay, the motion is to set it for the date certain of August 21st, just to make it clear.

August 18th. 18th. In the council chamber by 30 p.m. That's the next council meeting is the 18th.

Today is the 21st. Got it. Thank you.

Yes, I'll continue. We have a motion and a second. Council Member Charles? Aye. Council Member Valencia? Aye. Council Member Zara?

Aye.

Mayor Pro Tem Dunlap?

Aye.

Mayor Jung?

Aye.

Item passes.

Can I just, I know we took the vote, but I'd like to see that liability fund OPTION LOOKED AT. STAFF HAS DIRECTION.

IT'S A GOOD IDEA. COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANT PROGRAM FISCAL YEAR 26, 27. I BELIEVE THAT'S STILL THE PUBLIC HEARING AS WELL. GOOD EVENING.

GOOD EVENING, MAYOR, CITY COUNCIL. I KNOW HOW TO EMPTY A ROOM, DON'T I? I'm presenting the fiscal year 2026-2027 annual action plan, which outlines the city's proposal to invest in the community development block grant and home funds. Next slide, please. Annual action plan identifies the activities the city will undertake during the upcoming fiscal year using HUD entitlement funds. What's in front of you are the priorities that reflect both the HUD requirements and synthesize input from residents and community partners into a clear action plan. Next slide, please. HUD organizes all eligible activities around three national objectives to provide decent housing.

Sorry, I apologize. Mr. Valdez, could you speak up a little bit because I can't hear anything.

Sure. I'm so sorry. Let me just start over on this slide. The HUD organizes all eligible activities around three national objectives to provide decent housing, to provide suitable living environment, and expand economic opportunities. Every project in this action must advance at least one national objective. Next slide, please. For fiscal year 26-27, the city anticipates receiving approximately $1.4 million in CDBG funds, including carryover funds, which is a total budget of $1.485 million. For the home program, the city expects approximately $476,000 in new entitlement funds. combined with carryover funds that equal $1.62 million. Just to give you some context on the carryover funds on the CDBG sides, those carryover funds are for funds that we did not use for home improvement that are now allocated. on the home side, those carryover funds are now gonna be used for TBR, our tenant based rental assistance. We were prescient enough to forecast what we needed to fulfill the funding for that particular program. Next slide please. As you know, the Community Development Citizens Committee reviews all CDBG applications, hears presentations, asks questions to the nonprofit organizations, and provides recommendations to city council consideration. Next slide, please. This year, the city received 18 applications. Ten programs are recommended for funding. Five includes homeless and at risk services and programs to include senior meals and three are involving youth after school programs. Next slide please. Before you, as I previously mentioned, this slide shows CDCC's final funding recommendations. These recommendations will directly shape the programs we deliver this year. We had a strong pool of applicants, and obviously, CDC's requests and recommendations were based on not only the funding, but also the community benefits. Next slide, please. Fair Housing Services activities continue to be funded through our city admin plan, or rather, admin fees. Fair Housing Funds, Fair Housing Foundation, excuse me, provides education for tenants and landlords, provides seminars of fairer housing practices and laws, and their goal is to serve over 225 Fullerton residents.

Next slide please.

The Housing Division currently monitors many programs but in addition to that CDBG funding is used for code enforcement, public works street improvement, parks and recreation. This year the CDCC allocated $25,000 to the Senior Mobility Transportation Fund. The need was for $50,000, so we'll, really up to you to determine, to fill that gap, right, to secure those $50,000 funds. Next slide, please. Outside of just administering our federal funding, Housing division entails a lot of work. We provide housing compliance to our housing portfolio. We provide homeless outreach and shelter coordination. We administer housing assistance programs. We're really involved in community partnerships and advocacy for those at risk of homelessness and those who are seeking housing support. And our policy is really derived on the need of our community right where we help those who are looking for hope and security in their home. Next slide please. Part of that oversight encompasses 20 affordable housing developments in the city that equals out to 750 rental affordable housing units. That compliance includes operational and fiscal monitoring, physical property inspections, habitability concerns, and resolving tenant management grievances. I will take this time to thank Mayor Fred Young and Councilmember Zahra in supporting the housing team and supporting those tenants with their care and concern in resolving some of these issues. So thank you for that. Next slide. Please. Housing staff works alongside the Fullerton homeless liaison office officers the Hope Center illumination foundation and we work with our county partners to monitor funding and to support some of the programs that are nonprofits entail. As you know, we have a very proactive approach to homelessness. I like to think of our homeless program as a continuum of care, which focuses on the individuals in the organization I just mentioned. Homeless liaison officers are very critical in working with our dedicated community outreach specialists. and supporting shelter referrals, street outreach, and engaging in case management meetings on a weekly basis. We had a reduction of homelessness this year from the point in time count, 23%. And I like to think of it as the dedicated work that all those partners that we work with have done, right? And we just want to kind of trumpet that success.

Next slide, please.

Part of the oversight is facilitating monthly meetings with Illumination Foundation. You're not seeing a lot of clients from Illumination Foundation before you as you did in the past. We meet with them on a monthly basis. We go over their management plans, their operational effectiveness. emergency plans, work on case management issues, and also incident reports that may affect some of those residents that are living in there. Again, I want to thank Councilman Zahra for leading that, providing me with that idea to meet with Illumination Foundation on a regular basis. And we've been very successful in setting expectations and roles and responsibilities. Next slide, please. I'm very excited to address this to you. Over the last six, seven months, we've been meeting with Fullerton School District, Cal State Fullerton, Fullerton Colleges, local high schools to focus on two issues, housing and food insecurity. Recently, we went to Capitol Hill to advocate for more federal funding from Representative Correa's office. I'm very confident that in the next three to four months, you'll see more activity from the federal level to provide and support and fill that gap when it comes to housing and food insecurity.

Next slide, please.

So the recommendations is obviously to approve the 26-27 annual action plan and authorize staff to submit the documents for HUD and to authorize the community and economic development director to execute all agreements with the nonprofit organizations. That concludes my presentation. I'm here to answer any questions.

Well, first, I want to say the city, in terms of its point-in-time count on that reduction, which is impressive, really has a lot to do with you. And I've said this before and I'll say it again the city benefits from your Willingness to go beyond mr. Bott job title and really care about the community in meaningful way when they're Certainly at some of the lowest points I did have a question regarding With all due respect from to council member Charles. We have a request in from Cal State Fullerton and auxiliary services of He wanted I don't know 33 and change we gave him 20 or their committee gave him 20 They're their own entity they have grant writers they they've got a robust thing Why are they going through the city for something like this?

This is a new program that they established it's an extension arm of the college not to be mistaken of any funding they could possibly get through the college and They're looking for the city to assist in this endeavor. This is an important program that provides after school support for students. I think your curiosity was our curiosity. And after reviewing the application thoroughly, we didn't see any issue with that. Many universities, in fact, to provide these type of services similarly in other cities, right? But it's really, again, it's, we really want to bifurcate CSUF to what this particular funding is for.

So the name's not doing it justice is what you're saying?

ONE THING I'LL CLARIFY IS AUXILIARY SERVICES IS ENTIRELY GRANT FUNDED SO IT MAKES SENSE THAT THEY'RE SEEKING ANOTHER GRANT SOMEWHERE. THEY'RE THE ONES THAT ADMINISTER ALL THE GRANTS THAT COME FROM OUTSIDE AGENCIES.

ABSOLUTELY. OKAY. ANY OTHER QUESTIONS FROM COUNCIL MEMBERS BEFORE WE GO TO PUBLIC COMMENT?

NO. I JUST WANT TO THANK MR. VALDES. I THINK HE HAS BEEN A TREMENDOUS ASSET TO THE CITY AND YES, 23% REDUCTION. Are we the only city that has seen reduction in homeless in our point of count?

That's right.

Yeah. So I'm really pleased with that. And also I want to thank our citizens committee for all the work they did on the CDG funds. So good job. Thank you.

All right. Let's see public comment. Madam Clerk, anyone?

No one registered and no hands raised. If anybody would like to speak, go ahead and line up and come to the podium.

Okay. And nothing on Zoom? All right. So we'll just take what's in chambers. Good evening.

Hi, everyone. Finally, my time for why I'm actually here. So I am Shirley Ramirez. I'm the chief operating officer for the Boys and Girls Clubs here in Fullerton. We are the largest nonprofit that are serving youth here in the city. For those that don't know us or don't know anything about us, we serve about 2,100 youth annually for summer programming. We have about 125 to 150 at our main site across the street every single day. I'm tired. I've been here. ALL DAY LONG, SO THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME SPEAK. CDBG IS A HUGE CONTRIBUTING FACTOR TO WHAT WE DO. WE DON'T GET A LOT OF FUNDS BECAUSE OF GRANT WRITERS NOT BEING ACCESSIBLE TO US. SO IF YOU WANT TO SPLIT A GRANT WRITER, HEY, MAYBE WE CAN DO THAT. BUT WE ALSO REALLY GOT NEGATIVELY HIT BY THE DISTRICT, I MEAN, THE ELOP FUNDING WHERE EVERY CHILD IS FREE FOR AFTERSCHOOL PROGRAMMING HERE IN THE CITY. Benefits us on one side is we're able to serve a youth at three Title I schools, but our main site, which is right across the street that's been there for 73 years, is being impacted because those kids were losing to free programming. The other reason that we really struggle with funding is we serve youth only in Fullerton. So when we compete against other nonprofit organizations applying for grants that serve Multiple cities they get the funding we don't because we're solely here and then I know a lot of people talked around economic development economic Economic development here in the city of Fullerton would benefit nonprofits that serve people here in the city because it will bring Organizations or companies into the city to be able to fund Nonprofits such as us because when we're solely in the city of Fullerton, it's really difficult for us to compete So just a little bit about us. We've been serving youth here in the city for over 73 years Our original building was across the street where the community center now lies. We were there for a long time with the building a pool and a gym and I'm releasing the land for a dollar a year through the city and The redevelopment about 14 years ago when they built the community center knocked down our building our pool in our gym And we now went from a dollar a year lease to paying seven thousand dollars a month sharing a building so a little bit of an impact on us where you know we do struggle with trying to make ends meet but we're still here we're still doing what we do and I love it if you ever want to come tour the sites that we have please do so learn a little bit about us until I got this job didn't know much about them then I've been here for 23 years but it's absolutely in my mission it's what I do every single day and I absolutely love it so Thank you for giving me the time and for you and your organization. Thanks for hearing us. Thanks for reading our application. We truly do appreciate the support. Thank you.

You forgot the Christmas toy drive.

Christmas toy drive is 800 kids that we serve every year for free here in the city. And we don't charge a cent. We just open the doors up and. LOVE ON THEM AND I HAD TO FORCE ONE OF MY STAFF TO BE THE GRINCH THIS YEAR, BUT IT WAS FUN.

IT'S QUITE A WORKOUT TAKING THOSE TO THE CAR. IT IS. ALL RIGHT. NEXT SPEAKER.

GOOD EVENING, MR. MAYOR, CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS. MY NAME IS CURTIS GAMBLE, ACTIVIST FOR THE HOMELESS the veterans, the Cal State Fullerton students, the OCTA bus drivers, the seniors, and the low-income community. I like this item. I like what I heard. It's all positive things, and it's just great for the community and for the homeless community also. So I'd like to keep heading in that direction. But I will share with you some of my own things that I just wrote down. We have 300 homeless people in Fullerton. These are just numbers, but we have 300 homeless people in Fullerton. Um, we have a shelter, uh, Fullerton Navigation Center. It has 150, uh, beds there. Uh, so we still, uh, in theory, basically have 150 people on the streets, uh, and they need to be, they need to have a bed also. Uh, Bulletin Municipal Codebook, the book that we just updated, it has the emergency shelter information in the back of the book. So anybody that want more information on emergency shelters can look in there. Also, I'm just going to read what I wrote down. Taney Homes. We should also add Taney Homes to our collections of beds. There's no reason for us not to. The Board of Supervisors has already approved them, and we can work with Doug Chaffee and get that done. Safe parking program. We know we need a safe parking program. We know we have homeless people out here living in their cars. These people need a place where they can, they need a safe parking program. How can we not have a safe parking program in any city? How can we not have tiny homes in any city? Also, we need our shelter to be on a first-come, first-served basis. We have 34 cities. All our municipal codes for emergency shelters clearly say in each one of these cities that this shelter is available on a first-come, first-served basis. I don't mind using the Hope Center where there's a reservation, but at the same time, don't take away the opportunity for us seniors to be able to come and go as we please. We haven't committed any crime. And so therefore, we're no different than you. The codes that had said that we had to, shelters had to be in an industrial zone, it's no longer there. Sherwin-Cork City had removed all those 1,320 feet that a shelter had to be away from parks, schools, and residents. That's no longer there. Also, I'd like to share with you, churches now are allowed to have emergency shelters. And I'd like to see us work On that, helping the churches establish it. We passed, I think it was SB4, that will allow affordable housing on churches' properties. So that would be a good thing overall. Also, the homeless people should be able to ride the OCTA bus to and from the shelter. And the shelter said that you can stay there for six months within a year, and the days of stay don't have to be consecutive. So thank you if we can get these things done. Thank you very much.

So I would like to apologize to Mr. Gamble for interrupting. We were listening still, but I realized as you were talking and I was looking at the thing that the Cal State Fullerton description says CSU through CHN. And CHN might mean Center for Healthy Neighborhoods. And if that's the case, I might have to recuse myself from this entire thing, which is why I went over and checked with the lawyer on that. And that's why it had to be done at that moment, because I might have had to leave the room. But could I ask, Mr. Valdez, does CHN stand for Center for Healthy Neighborhoods? Yes. Is that correct? Yes, it does. OK, so I've been informed that, and that is an organization that is also created through the College of Health and Human Development, which is my employer. We've done this before. So I'm going to need to recuse myself from that decision. So I believe we just need to pull out that line and talk about it.

We'll just do a line item.

We'll do that as a line item and do the rest. But just as a comment, while I'm making these comments, thank you for answering that question. I do want to say thank you to the committee and the staff. This is the committee that I served on before I was on council and was chair for two years. And I very much appreciate all the good work that you do. I know that the committee is extremely careful in looking, vetting the very long applications, hundreds of pages that they look through while they do this. And so appreciate their thoughtful attention to it and all the good work that this funds in the city.

May I'll make the motion to approve this without the line item. Oh I see. Okay.

I'll make the motion to approve these sir second Very well, madam clerk, please call the roll No, you weren't the maker of the motion you weren't the second so you're asking for a friendly amendment, please ask I

I would like to amend it that the Boys and Girls Club get their full allotted ask. It's only 10,000 more.

Where would you pull that from?

We got to pull it from another nonprofit.

Okay. So they're only budgeted that amount that they can only get. Like the total has to equal that for all of these funds.

If you're going to, if you want to give $10,000 more, they're going to have to remove it from someone else, right? 20% of our public service contract goes to nonprofit organizations, right? Public service activities. Okay, so that 20% has to be allocated. Right. Not more than that. But that's your decision, right? So if you want to do that, we just need to pull it from somewhere else.

No, I'll keep as is.

Okay. There's a motion. There's a second. Madam Clerk, call the roll.

Council Member Charles.

Can I just make one more comment, please? I'm so sorry.

It's

I think it's up to you all but there's a gap on senior mobility service of twenty five thousand dollars. I recommend that we could pull those additional twenty five thousand dollars from a home improvement side of the shop and it would not affect any of the projects that we have allocated for that money. DIRECTOR DEWOLF Okay. DIRECTOR BURKE I'd fill the gap.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF I will amend to include that. DIRECTOR BURKE Hold on one second. It would have been good for you to say that. in the outset. I know. I apologize. It's late. Is that a friendly amendment?

Yeah, yeah, I'll make that a friendly amendment, yes.

Friendly amendment from staff, no less. Is that all right with the second? Very good. Madam Clerk.

Okay, the motion is stated with the $25,000 dedicated to senior mobility pulled from the Home Improvement Fund.

Okay, Council Member. And also voting on all of them except for CSUF Auxiliary Services. Noting your exemption.

Noting my exemption on that line. Okay, then yes. Aye. Okay. Councilmember Valencia. Hi Councilmember Zaria. Hi councilmember. I'm sorry mayor portem Dunlap. Hi mayor Jung.

Hi item passes, okay Let's get to the final regular business item which is tax-exempt bonds issuance by the California statewide communities development authority for UCA UCE apartments this was continued from our June meeting

Then I will ask Mr. Valdez who's who's already here tonight's item is a tougher hearing related to the acquisition and preservation of UCA UCE apartment homes this presentation will explain And will provide an overview of the tougher process and answer questions by counsel that were asked at the June 16th meeting next slide next slide, please TEFRA stands for Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982. This is a federal procedural requirement whenever tax-exempt multifamily housing bonds are issued. The city is required to conduct a public hearing and approve the bond issuance. Importantly, TEFRA does not approve the development, does not commit city funds, and creates no financial obligation for the city. It simply allows the bond issuer to proceed with financing.

Next slide, please.

The California Statewide Community Development Authority or CSCDA is a joint powers authority that issues tax exempt housing bonds throughout California. CSCDA serves only as a conduit issuer. The bonds are repaid entirely by the borrower, not the city. The city's taxpayers are not responsible for repayment, nor does the city pledge its credits or assets. Next slide, please. So the project overview involves the acquisition of two existing apartment communities adjacent to Cal State Fullerton. This type of preservation Project directly supports the city's adopted housing element by providing affordable housing that serve lower income households. While no housing units are being constructed, preservation is recognized as an important housing strategy. Together, they contain 395 existing apartments. No new construction is proposed. The objective here is to preserve these existing apartments as affordable housing for long term. Without preservation, these apartments would remain market rate housing without long-term affordability protection. Next slide, please. This is really the heart of the proposal. The project would establish a 55-year affordability covenant. All 395 apartments would become income restricted. 40% of the units would be affordable to households, earning up to 60% of the area median income. The remaining 60%, would serve households earning up to 80% of the area median income. These preserved units do not count towards the city's regional housing needs allocation. As I mentioned, they advanced several housing element objectives. So rather than building new affordable housing, and we know the cost of what that takes, this project preserves existing housing at a scale that would be difficult and very expensive to replicate.

Next slide, please.

This has been one of the primary questions raised by city council. First, I'd like to make one point very clear. Approving the TAFRA resolution does not grant a property tax exemption. The county assessor, not the city, determines whether a welfare exemption is appropriate after transaction closes. The city has no authority over that decision. If the county assessor were to approve a welfare exemption, the estimated general fund impact is approximately $185,000 annually to the city. Just to take that out of the abstract, the city of Fullerton currently receives $66.6 million annually in property tax revenue. Even if a welfare exemption were granted, the city would continue to receive more than $66.4 million annually in property tax revenue. Again, city council has established clear precedent on this matter, In a previous action, the city approved a TEFRA resolution for the Ventana Apartments Home Project, which utilized CSCDA tax-exempt bond financing. Today's request follows the exact same federal TEFRA process.

Next slide, please.

So just to summarize, the project preserves 395 existing apartment homes. Secures affordability for 55 years. The city is not fulfilling a Federer Tefra requirement is only I'm sorry is only fulfilling a federal Tefra requirement The city is not issuing any bonds. The city assumes no financial liability The city does not approve a property tax exemption any future tax exemption remains slowly slowly with the authority of the Orange County Assessor and Ultimately, tonight's action allows affordable housing for over 400 units and creates no debt or final obligations for the city. So staff recommends city council to adopt the TAFR resolution authorizing CSCDA to issue tax-exempt multifamily housing revenue bonds in the amount not to exceed $100 million. I'm here to answer any questions, and we also have the project sponsor, Noah Mayer, to answer questions as well.

ALL RIGHT. BEFORE WE GO TO COMMENTS, BEFORE WE GO TO COMMENTS, LET'S JUST COUNCIL QUESTIONS LET'S JUST COUNCIL QUESTIONS AND LET'S TAKE PUBLIC COMMENT AND LET'S TAKE PUBLIC COMMENT BEFORE WE BRING IT BACK. BEFORE WE BRING IT BACK.

ANY QUESTIONS? ANY QUESTIONS? JUST A QUICK QUESTION. JUST A QUICK QUESTION. I MEAN, THESE ARE A LOT OF I MEAN, THESE ARE A LOT OF HOUSING, LOW INCOME HOUSING OR I MEAN, THESE ARE A LOT OF HOUSING, LOW INCOME HOUSING OR REDUCED INCOME HOUSING.

REDUCED INCOME HOUSING. CURRENTLY MARKET RATE. CURRENTLY MARKET RATE.

CURRENTLY MARKET RATE. IT'S CURRENTLY MARKET RATE. IT'S CURRENTLY MARKET RATE. IT the missing middle income, which is something we don't really have much of in the city. So it creates a little bit of a diversity in that low income bracket from the moderately low income to the low market. AND I THINK I BELIEVE THOSE ARE THE PEOPLE LIKE NURSES AND TEACHERS AND.

IT'S AN ASPECT OF WORKFORCE. RIGHT.

YEAH. SO THE EXPECTATION IS THAT THE PEOPLE MOVING INTO THESE ARE GOING TO BRING IN ALSO ADDITIONAL INCOME TO THE CITY, YOU KNOW, SOME EXPENDABLE TAX, SOME, YOU KNOW, INCOME TO SPEND ON TAXES AND SALES TAX AND SO ON. ECONOMIC ACTIVITY. If we were to build, I know how long it takes to build low-income housing, and we just had 61 units, just to give this in context. Was it 61 units? 64. 64 units. OK, I stand corrected. 64 units that took about six, seven years, something like that, yeah, to build on a city property. This is 395 units. There is no way that we could have built this in any way in the city from scratch.

No, no. These are units that are just falling on our lap. Yeah. Right?

Yeah. So I think this is a really good opportunity. And yeah, I appreciate the work that you've done. And I appreciate you clarifying also a lot of these ambiguities that we had earlier. All right.

Any other questions?

Yes, thank you. So I wanted to go to the memo. I know it's really late. I think this does need to be corrected. I believe this would probably be included in the supplemental materials at some point, this memo that we received by email. It says the UCE appraised value, and I'm pretty sure this is a big typo. It says $44,030, and UCA apartments appraised value is $74,000. Maybe that was supposed to be in thousands, but there's nothing on the table that marks that, so. I just want to clarify, the current assessed value is actually $118 million of these. Is that correct? That's right. $118 million. With the annual property tax estimate being $1.188 million, which is what's listed here.

That's right.

Okay. Okay, great. And then thinking about the AMI, you know, I just want to clarify this. So when we're talking about AMI, you know, one-person household, 60% is $78,000. One person household for 80% is $104,000. I mean, it's incredible that these salaries are as high as they are, but that reflects the very high income area we live in, right? Can you explain what AMI means?

Yeah, it's an area median income standard that HUD establishes for all communities. And as in front of you, it indicates what those parameters are for the average median income It doesn't necessarily mean that those families are making that money, but it's rather a range of bracket where they qualify for.

Under that range, yeah. Yes, that's right. And so median is not average, actually. It's not average, no. Median, for those who don't remember your college or high school statistics, is that half the population is less and half the population is more. It's the middle point, right? Yeah. 70% to 80%, what we're saying basically is that these are folks that are less than that But just what I find interesting, and I'm just going to say this as part of my comments, and then we'll move on, I know. $78,000, by the way, for a one-person household, that's more than an assistant professor makes as a starting salary at Cal State Fullerton. It's almost double what a staff member makes for a starting salary. They're still being offered in the 40s, the low 40s. So our biggest employer right next to these apartments is offering salaries that people – I've known people who got jobs at Cal State Fullerton, and then when they found out how expensive it is to live here, had to turn those jobs down because they just couldn't afford it. So I just want to point out that our biggest employer is employing people in this salary range quite a bit, quite a bit, and has trouble with staffing. A lot of open positions. All right, thank you.

Okay, any other questions at all? Very good. All the comments then.

I have two people registered. John Brushy, are you here?

Doesn't look like it.

It looks like he's online, so we'll get to him in a moment.

And Chris Norby, who I don't see in the audience. Oh, there you are. You're directly on my line of sight.

Then we'll get to the folks who are lined up.

Chris Norby, 2820 Street. Who's making money on this deal? Well, the developer, obviously, is making money. The bond brokers, Wall Street, is going to make a lot of money selling bonds. They make a lot of commissions, and there's a lot of money in commissions. The wealthy investors in tax-exempt municipal bonds, of course, are going to make money on this. Who's losing money? Well, this is the current property tax bill for the two properties involved. And it's almost a million dollars in property taxes that these properties pay currently in annual property taxes. Now, it's been said you don't grant the property tax exemption. No, the assessor will grant it, and he will grant it, and the deal is based on that. Every other nonprofit that does this does this so they can get off the property tax rolls. Now, the city gets some of this property tax. Who gets the rest? The school districts, the community colleges, the water districts, the county general fund. This is nearly a million dollars in lost tax revenue that you're going to be giving this developer for this project. No new units are going to be created. It said that, well, we're preserving housing. We act like they're bulldozers right there now, ready to tear this housing down. This housing is going to last a long time, whether this deal is approved or not. Affordable. Let's make it affordable. Well, it's affordable to somebody or they wouldn't be living there now. The term market rate is waved at you like some kind of a warning. Well, 99% of the housing is market rate. And the only way the market's going to respond by lowering housing costs is by increasing the supply, which this does not do. So I would urge you to oppose this, and if you do approve it, do what previous councils have done, including when I was on the city council a number of years ago, which is demand an in-lieu fee to cover the lost property taxes. And you can do that, because these property taxes are real, and they go for police, they go for fires, they go for teacher salaries, they go for infrastructure, they go for all the services that the people living in these units are going to need. Why put that burden on others? Just so this developer can make money, these bond brokers can make commissions, and these wealthy investors can make tax-exempt income. This deal is not good for the city. Yes, you're required to have this hearing, but you're not required to approve it. And I urge you not to. Thank you.

For a long time we've said that we need more housing stock to lower rents or prices of housing. How long has that taken. Not in my lifetime so far. It just keeps going up and up and up. This is an opportunity for these people those units almost 400 units to be able to live at the incomes they have. And I urge you to pass this. People make money on housing all the time. This is for the benefit of the city and people who need to live there under those income levels.

Thank you next speaker Good evening as a former student of the university Didn't it not get through in four years took me quite a while to get that for your degree. I based on paying rent and having to work full-time plus, I'd only take two classes a semester at nighttime. So this housing is, as Dr. Charles said, provided by staff that works at the university across the street, and we should approve this and take care of people in this city that serve students. We're trying to make a better advancement of their own lives i support this i hope you would to thank you for your time this evening it's getting late speaker good evening mr mayor city council members uh...

My name is Curtis Gamble, activist for the homeless, the veterans, the Cal State Fullerton students, the OCT bus drivers, our seniors, and the low-income community. Recommendation. I like this item. But at the same time, I think we should help out any homeowners. And I agree with what Mr. Novi was saying I agree with him also but at the same time I'm very excited about the complexes the apartments that we build and I think we can make up for this by building more in which we should be because we have a lot of older units in the city and they needed to be up-to-date because they're kind of like obsolete and For example, like the city lights apartment. It's got rats, roaches. Well, I don't know about rats, but a lot of roaches. And it's just an old apartment, the elevator and everything. We have quite a few units in the city like that. It just needs to be replaced. So we can still go ahead and take advantage of this opportunity and just continue to build and do what we've been doing. Also, When we're doing these different projects, I just want to say, like, we need to stick to our codes and understand the law. Like, for example, this municipal code that we just signed that says you can stay at the, for example, like shelter for like six months within a year, or you could, You could have first come, first service. First come, first service. We need to follow our code very much into the code. It's something that we, the city, hasn't been doing. And this is as far as housing is concerned. So I don't think I'm getting off subject. This is as far as housing is concerned also. And this is housing. It's not just emergency shelters anymore. It's transitional housing, permanent supportive housing, rapid rehousing, any type of housing that you can name. So it's very important to me to acknowledge the codes and obey them. I think that's about it. But like... don't know why we think that we can just pick out the coach that we want and and not obey them i don't know why we think that poor people seniors just you can just put them in a van and shuffle them around the city and they don't have the same rights and opportunities to uh as far as housing is to come and go in the communities thank you very much for your time again we do have two hands raised in zoom um elijah you should be able to unmute

Hey, everybody, I had to leave a bit early and I wasn't planning on speaking on this item, but I think that both Ahmad and Shana made good points. The other speakers were right that housing is a supply issue. So and this isn't adding any new units. So it's not addressing the housing issue. but what it does do i think and again this is a point made by shayna and ahmad as well is that it does make our land use more efficient in the short term because as diane said our housing supply uh it just we aren't keeping up with the demand for housing so in the short term what this does is it allows teachers and faculty to live near the university. When you allow people to live near their work, it reduces traffic, it reduces emissions. It's very good to allow people to live near their job. And as Shaina said, This is within the income range of faculty at Cal State Fullerton. Now, not all faculty will be able to get those kinds of jobs. This isn't limited to faculty, but it is efficient to have them live closer to their work. And this would provide that pathway. I think that Nick did make a good point, though, that approving this does have implications for property tax revenue. But I think in terms of the economic efficiencies as it pertains to land use, that this would be a beneficial project. And lastly, I would just want to ask, it was brought up that Ventana Apartments went through the same thing. I think it'd be important to know if that was something voted recently by this council. When was that voted, the last TEFRA vote? uh project because i just want to make sure there's consistency here and that we're not applying the standard to one project over another because um again this is the decision made by the assessor but uh it could still have those implications but i'm just curious if this was if that was a decision made by this council why is there not consistency there if that is the case So that would be my one question. Aside from that, I do support this item. And I think that the economic activity generated from this would be better than, would be more beneficial than the property tax loss. So thank you. All right. Next speaker.

And last caller. John, you should be able to unmute.

Yes. Hello, everyone. I was actually there at 530, and in the interim, I had driven home, cooked dinner, cleaned dinner, and watched two TV shows. Well, you all have still been there, so I want to just thank you all for working as hard as you have on this issue. I am a professor at Cal State Fullerton, and the only thing I want to do is to emphasize how acute the need is. You know, there are at least four groups, and Shana, Council Member Sheryls, has referred several of them. The students, between 5 and 15 percent of those are housing insecure, but multiply that by 45,000 students, and that's a lot of people. Our second group is our faculty. About 1,500 of our 2,200 faculty members are part-time, and they max out at about 60,000 a year. So they would all fall comfortably under the AMI. And then our full-time faculty, our tenure track, and as has been mentioned, they start at $78,000 to $80,000 a year, which is very close to the upper end of that AMI. Many of them would qualify. And I can just say, having been on many search committees and have hired new faculty, none of them are living it. They all live in Long Beach or Riverside or Corona, and they drive in. And finally, the staff. And all of them are much lower than both of those numbers. And very few of them can afford to live in Fullerton. So I think this would do a huge bit of good for a lot of people. And finally, I just wanted to say it sounds like Council Member Dunlop is a fellow football fan. I am proud to say the Cal State Fullerton football team is undefeated since 1988, something Council Member Jung, not even the USC football team could say. But just to extend Council Member Dunlop's metaphor a little, he was saying that, you know, he feels like it's third and goal and you're trying to get into the end zone and... I will take that ball and run with it. You know, it's third and goal. What else are you going to do? You can't punt. You're not going to kick a field goal. The only real question is what player are you going to call that will get you in that end zone? And you only got 40 seconds to do it. And I do think that's kind of where we're at with this. We have a lot of people that are living right at the cusp that are on the brink of losing housing or just being priced out of our city. And if there's something better to do, right, let's do it. But we got 40 seconds, right? We are at a time where the city and the city council could probably afford to wait, but the people in the housing situation really, really can't. And it's a lot of people that need an immediate solution. This sounds like it's viable to me. But whatever we do, we have to do something that can get some housing assistance to these people that are in need. Thank you very much for your time.

All right. Thank you. Anybody else? Very good. Let's go ahead and bring this back. We'll start with council comments. I'll seek a motion somewhere in there.

If I may, I'd like to make the motion to approve this. It is late. I just want to say that, yes, it is a supply and demand that we need more housing. But the fact is that we're not building enough housing. The supply is not coming. And certainly we're not building affordable units anymore. We do know that there is a need in this particular economic bracket, especially in our city with Cal State Fullerton and St. Jude's with all the nurses. These are families that we do need in our city to live here. So there is a socioeconomic impact, a positive impact that will come from this project. And I also want to say on those, you know, somebody's making money, and even if you want to advocate for market rate developers to come in and build, they'll be making money too. So I think that is capitalism, and this is the society we live in. But if there is a social benefit, a city benefit from this, and the impact is very minimal. Thank you. So I made the motion. Understood. Is there a second?

Yeah, I'll second it. Thank you. Mr. American, can I make some comments? Yeah, no, absolutely. I know Mayor Pro Tem Dunlap absolutely wants to make some comments.

Would you prefer to go first or second?

Actually, Council Member, please go. Okay, I'll keep going.

It's your second, so go ahead. Yeah, so I hear and I hear former mayor, former assembly member, esteemed colleague, Mr. Norby's concerns. I'm actually very curious about the in lieu fee that was brought up, because this is the first time I'm hearing about that possibility. So is there someone on staff that could speak to that, or is that something we don't? I would just like to hear more about that. Is that a possibility? What could that look like?

So we did discuss that. It's a pilot. It's a payment in lieu of taxes agreement that we could have with them. But unfortunately, we have spoken about it with the deferral and the timeframe. They are past what they could to make that decision. So I don't believe that that is on the table for discussion anymore. But I can certainly defer to the proposal, the sponsor to be able to answer that and confirm that. But that is what we were discussing earlier.

Okay, yeah, and I actually do have a couple questions if you'd like to come up. And I didn't give you these in advance, so I apologize if I'm throwing things at you that you don't know. But what is the market rate rent in these buildings right now?

Off the top of my head, I don't think I can answer that question, but it's well above the 60% rents that would be correlated with the 60% AMI.

Right. So when we think about in our city generally market rate rent, we've got like one bedrooms that are about 2,400 from the last time I've looked at this point. You know, we're talking about percentage of people's income. I mean, to answer Mr. Norby's question about what do people who are living there do now, well, they overcrowd. You know, if you can't afford the rent, you find two or three or four or five other people If you have a two-bedroom, you might do three per bedroom. That is overcrowding, but you try to make it work as best you can, which is a difficult quality of living for mental health purposes. Obviously, I'm in favor of this. I really do feel like when I look at these incomes of these 60% and 80% AMI These are the incomes that when I was growing up, my parents would say, God, if you make that income, you've made it. You'll be great. You could buy a house. You could do whatever. You make over $100,000 a year. You're good. And here we are. I'm all grown up, and that is absolutely not the case. And now these are considered to be and are legitimately so, households that need financial help to be able to afford rent living in our area. Even two-income, three-income households can have difficulty getting up to $148,000 a year for a four-person family. That's someone who would be subsidized. That's the upper level for being subsidized under this new proposal. And just to ask again, just to clarify, we currently have 750 affordable units in the city. So this would be over 50% more affordable units than we currently have. I mean, the need is there from a society standpoint. I understand that there is a bit of a property tax hit, but I hope that that can be absorbed in our budget and Staff is saying that that is a possibility. I know we just had this big discussion, but I feel like this is certainly something that would help a lot of people who either live here or want to live here or could live here, and it's very much needed workforce housing. Thank you.

All right. Go ahead, sir. Yeah, so I'm going to make a substitute motion to reject the item, and I'm going to tell you why. There was a caller that had, I think, called in earlier. And it made asked about the Ventana and the fact that the city had previously approved that was before I was on council There was previously you know we had dealt with two of these maybe four to five years ago From joint power you know did where they wanted us to join a joint power authority to then issue You know allow the CSC da to issue these bonds Got voted down at that time I think both projects that came forward and so you can imagine my surprise when this came forward last week or last year at the last meeting NOT TO BE HEARD BUT ON THE CONSENT CALENDAR AS THOUGH WE SHOULD JUST BLINDLY APPROVE THIS BECAUSE IT'S ON THE CONSENT CALENDAR. SO WE WANT TO TALK ABOUT, TO ECHO SOME OF THE EARLIER COMMENTS WE HEARD TONIGHT, YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT TRANSPARENCY. THE ISSUE AND I DO TAKE ISSUE WITH THE STAFF PRESENTATION SUGGESTING WE HAVE TO APPROVE THIS. WE DON'T HAVE TO APPROVE THIS AS STATED IN THE REPORT. WE HAVE TO HEAR THIS. AND WE DID HEAR THIS. AND HAD IT BEEN APPROVED ON THE CONSENT CALENDAR WE WOULD NOT HAVE HEARD IT. I think that's very offensive and very sneaky to do that. For one, I think that was just setting the table really poorly for this particular applicant. But I also think it's really important. We want to talk about growing our economy and staff time, things like that, what priorities should be. We should not be consuming time with projects like this considering our city's financial circumstances. We want to classify, hey, there's only a small impact to the property tax revenue overall, right? This is a slippery slope. I mean, when you look at the housing element, for example, our housing element indicated over half of our city's housing stock was constructed prior to 1970. And so when you look at that, it's just like these apartment buildings. There's so much housing stock across our city now being similarly maintained and similarly provided to folks that are earning two to three times who have to earn an income. of two to three times the monthly rent that puts them directly in that threshold. You know, this whole nuance between low income and middle income, I'm sorry, middle income workforce housing, those are folks making $58,000 to $110,000 a year. And at that income, listen, I'm just reporting facts here, those incomes, people are earning the two to three times the monthly rent, what it takes to qualify to live in that very apartment building right now. And for some reason, you know, we're discounting the economic impact and the economic activity generated by the residents who are there right now, as though these new residents that would potentially come in are going to somehow spend more or create a greater impact, which is foolish and really without any basis whatsoever. So, you know, it's quite frustrating to me. You know, it seems like, look, we have this entire, I mean, we're going on hour five of a meeting where we talked about raising sales tax on our businesses and residents here in our city. We've talked about drastic cuts to city departments as we're trying to work through these budget issues. Now we're talking about corporate welfare, issuing really an incentive to someone who's paying above market for these properties. I mean, listen, this is a $180 million transaction, and I do take issue with some of the math that was presented because on $180 million, if you use a millage rate of about 1.034%, The city's annual portion of the tax revenue that's generated is over $279,000 a year. And that's just the city's portion. So I think when you look at it like that, you kind of have to reduce it. And you look at it, look, in recent weeks, I mean, staff has had meetings. We've had community meetings. We've gone through these processes trying to find places where we can make cuts in our budget to get to a place where we're better off. And this is just not the way to do it. So hopefully, hopefully I'm heard. Hopefully this is, you know, resonating. If you want to, you're welcome to debate, but.

Oh, no, I just wanted to make one clarification. The purchase price for both of the assets is $119 million. The TEFRA is, it's just kind of how you apply for these different things. It's up to $180 million of bonds can be issued, but we don't plan to issue. $180 million worth of bonds. Okay, thank you.

I would also like to clarify that at 58,000, somebody is making after taxes $3,238 a month at 58,000 a year. At 110,000, they're making $6,141 a month. after taxes. And there is no way in heck that that is two to three times what the rent is that they can afford it. Even if it's two times, that means they're paying 50% of their income in rent. I live at that income scale. I don't know how many other people next to me do, because I don't know your income. That is where I live. And I know just how freaking hard it is to make things balance at that income scale. And I am lucky enough to have a two-income household. And I am lucky that I no longer have to work three jobs. But I remember what that's like. And this would absolutely be a godsend to the people that are living there if they have the income level to afford this. I can tell you that. It would be a godsend.

All right.

And so if you just want to do it because we don't need property taxes, I understand you care more about the property tax money than you care about helping the 395 people or however many people are going to be living in those units. But just be clear that you're actually hurting people.

It's actually not hurting people. That's your classification. You can spare the dramatics and we can stick to the facts because the reality is here we're not talking about low income or affordable housing. And frankly, You know, I was offended when staff put that discussion in front of us and tried to couch this as though it was affordable housing. We're talking about workforce, middle-income housing. There's a different percentage range. There's different amounts. Even if you look at the income range or you look at the dollar amount of the rents that folks are paying, I mean, listen, we have to be precise about these things. And, you know, just because something sounds good or it looks good or because somebody presents it to us and says, hey, you have to do this, it doesn't mean you have to. You're welcome to vote your conscience. And clearly, you know, with kind of the – Circumstances you've trying to outline or attach to me as to why I'm voting this way, you know, you're welcome to do that, but Well, you're also making a blanket statement that we should never do any of this This has nothing to do with affordable housing and frankly Okay, okay No, it's not Madam Councilmember Yes

There's a motion. Let's see if there's a second.

Could I make one more clarification just for Mayor Pro Tem Dunlap's sake? This particular style of bond issuance wouldn't be asking for you to join a JPA like how the ones in the past have? That's a different... I get it.

My issue is the property tax exemption. I just wanted to clarify.

Can you answer the in lieu situation that it's done? It's off the table now? Because you never answer the question... Director said that you it might have been gone and then you can speak on that.

We have never done a payment of taxes in this particular strategy and any of the municipalities in California. Just as an update if anyone cares to the current state of the deal is that it's actually fallen out of contract. We're waiting for this to see if it's something that we're going to put back on a contract or to proceed and create the affordable housing for the area. It's not something that I can decide right in this moment. I guess.

And just to clarify, just to add on to that, usually the payment in lieu is also as part of a JPA agreement or a public benefits agreement as part of these deals. For the TEFRA, there's multiple programs that they have under that arm in itself. So that's why it wasn't brought before. And then in terms of what the timing looks like, he spoke to why he can't explore that or where they are with the agency. Just a few things for clarification. The intent of this, we pass through real estate agreements through the consent calendar. They're usually pulled if there's a public hearing item or otherwise requested through the regular hearing. Or when we pull it, we provide a full presentation. The context of this being approved, it does need to come to the local authority, but the decision is solely yours. You can either agree to it or you can deny it, and it goes back into the authority. If it came across as that you had to approve it, you know, we apologize that is not the intent, but you as a local jurisdiction as part of the internal revenue requirements, it does come to the local jurisdiction in which the project lies. So you have the ultimate decision of whether you want to support it, whether that's for affordable housing or a bonding or if you're part of it, depending on the program that they propose to you. So at this time the proposal that they have obviously is for the approval and as part of that approval your fiscal impact is the property taxes component that you'll have to weigh in addition to the affordable housing that is provided. The affordable housing is a bracket and that goes all the way up to 120% depending on what it is. Some of these have 110 to 120 and I don't disagree when it's at those levels you're kind of masking the whole concept of kind of market rate depending on what it is the 40% and the 40% 60% 80% you know just to echo the comments that we've received again in terms of the value add we meet with I just met with Cal State Fullerton last week there's others we do have a significant need for workforce housing that goes along with St. Jude's as well and is that workforce component and that workforce is the folks that have either single incomes or those families so those are just things that we're working through on the policy and the priority side but certainly you know we understand that there are implications on both ends and it's ultimately the council's decision on both and just to clarify sixty percent is count is characterized as what in our housing element is it low income is it moderate income what is that level You know, I'll have to check. I don't have that in front of me right now. I'll have to check for that.

My recollection is 40% was extremely low, 60% was low, and 80% was getting more, I think it was moderate, classified as moderate.

No, I don't want to misspeak on it, but I believe it goes even lower for extremely low, but we can certainly get that for you later. Okay, thank you.

All right. You know, the one thing I will say, too, just because I know there were a few comments there, so it says... This is from the staff report. It ensures a public hearing and then requires approval. So just the presentation could be better.

Okay. There's a substitute motion that was made by the Mayor Pro Tem. Is there a second?

Can you hear? I'm sorry. There's a lot that happened.

It was basically just to reject the item.

Reject the item. Oh, okay. I'll second the item. Okay.

Okay.

Don't qualify to live there if you must know thank you There's a substitute motion Madam clerk for the substitute motion to deny the item councilmember Charles No councilmember Valencia. Aye Councilmember Zahra. No Mayor Pro Tem Dunlap.

Aye Mayor Jung this came before us a couple times over I was I denied it Last two times. I'm gonna remain consistent on that. I Substitute motion passes Now we're going to council reports Before we get to our council Somebody want to let me know from staff what's going on associated terms of the residents issues the litter the maintenance the

Road condition That's the first I've heard of it. So we'll investigate and adjust it appropriately.

Yeah Let's try and address it. Especially since we rehab that road not so long ago. Yep. Okay, very good Anybody want to start us off councilman czar if you want to start I Think it's late, but I do want to just give a shout out to Ali and

I do encourage everyone to go to that open house. It is a good program. I was very lucky to be invited to do a little talk as well on civil engagement. So I was a civic engagement and it was a very wonderful experience. AND AS FAR AS THE OTHER, JUST ANOTHER ITEM I'D LIKE TO POINT OUT, WHICH IS THE REPLACEMENT OF THE TREES OF THE MEMORIAL, I WOULD LIKE TO SEE some community input, maybe bring this to Parks and Rec Commission for a presentation and maybe get some input from the public on it. But more than that, I'd like to see maybe an adopt a tree program. I don't know if we have something similar to that in the city, but it would be great to see if we can get some community participation to fund some of these trees and maintain them over time. And maybe we can expand this program into other other parks as well. So those are all my points for tonight.

Thank you. Good direction. Could I clarify with Director Bice, is there any project anywhere on the horizon for planting a redwood forest or grove? Not that I know of, no.

Not to my knowledge.

Okay.

That's not what he asked, but that's not what he was saying.

It's the memorial in Hillcrest Park?

Correct.

Well, aren't they going to replace some of the trees there?

That wasn't in the plan as of now. Oh, it wasn't?

We've been refurbishing the monument itself. Oh, I see. I thought there was a whole replacement.

Well, then I'd like them to agendize an item to consider that as an option. TO SEE AND MAYBE IT COMES WITH SOME SORT OF ADOPTED TREE PARK. BECAUSE I THINK THE ORIGINAL TREES WERE MEMORIAL TREES.

I'M HAPPY TO AGREE WITH YOU ON THAT BUT I THINK PARKS AND RECS COMMISSION SHOULD GET A PRESENTATION LIKE YOU ASKED FOR. YEAH. I THINK THAT'S A GOOD WAY. THAT'S FINE. THAT'S FINE. BUT I'D LIKE IT TO BE A FORMAL PROJECT. I DO AGREE WITH YOU IN TERMS OF THEM TAKING A HARD LOOK AT IT.

Sure. So I will start with the moment of silence for Professor Josh Grassetti, who was head of our musical theater program at Cal State Fullerton. You might have seen him last year at La Mirada Theater in Peter Pan Goes Wrong. He died tragically by suicide just recently. It's also the same week that 988 turned four years old, so please use this free service if needed. Also, I'd like to mention that there have been many victims of ICE violence around the country, which I continue to condemn, but recently in Tustin, just next door, ICE terrorized a family by breaking their car windows right next to a high school, and the high school board is dealing with that now. I hope this violence ends soon. I really believe it must and it should. I do want to thank the public speakers. I appreciate the gentleman who mentioned Alank Associated. I made sure he got my card on the way out. One thing I'd like to remind staff of is that sometimes on these borders, Google gets weird, and then our street sweepers and trash don't even have us on their routes. that happened to my complex over in green tree they fixed it when we brought it to their attention but it's possible with the litter the street sweeper maybe doesn't know that's in fullerton so you might want to double check on that the other aspect of that area is that you know craig park right there it's also county owned a section so it's possible that the problem not the problems in the street obviously we have to deal with that but the the the litter problems honestly might be in something that the county is also supposed to clean up so Those are two issues over on that side of the associated there. On terms of the Memorial Grove, I was also going to talk about that. Parks and Rec, I think, is the right place for it. I've been advocating since I've been on council for a healing garden to memorialize those we lost during COVID when thousands died here in OC alone. This kind of Memorial Grove would be good for that, along with all of the other memorials we have. This week, I did go to a rededication of the Memorial Grove at Cal State Fullerton for seven victims of the school shooting that occurred in 1976. which until recently was the worst mass shooting in Orange County history. Those seven pine trees have been cared for by the campus. When two blew down, they redid them. They just re-landscaped with sustainable landscaping. Orange County DA Todd Spitzer, I want to thank him for his support of that. And he was there speaking very movingly as a victim's advocate. And the families of the victims were still there, even in their 80s, coming to this. So I think that these things really do matter. And if we're able to create that kind of space again somewhere in in Fullerton, whether it's Hillcrest Park or otherwise, I think that would be really good. An important announcement from the Orange County Mosquito Vector Control District. If you haven't been paying attention to this, I'm putting it on social media. We've all been putting it on our social media. Thank you, city staff, doing that. and also my newsletter, but West Nile virus is really very much here. It has been found in mosquitoes in every part of Fullerton at this point. They've been spraying, you know, trying to control the population with a non-toxic spray. So if you see them spraying after midnight, it is non-toxic. But please remember to take precautions to avoid mosquito bites. We are in the height of the season, and it's not just Fullerton. It's, at this point, 16 cities throughout Orange County. So it's really the entire region. So just make sure to wear your bug spray, especially when you're out at dawn or dusk. That's when they're most active. Get rid of standing water, please. And I would also like to tell everyone that office hours are canceled for this Thursday. I'm getting on a plane tomorrow morning, so this is a fun day. But I will be back for the office hours on July 30th, where I will be out in the community at my annual Brewster's ice cream stop. So if you want to come by on Thursday from 12 to 2, On the 30th, the Brewster's ice cream. I'll be happy to talk to you about city stuff and buy you an ice cream. And thank you very much.

All right. Councilwoman Valencia, anything to report?

Just two things. This weekend is Christmas in July that the fire and police are putting on over at the Fullerton Loop. All the toy donations go to Pathways that they give out, obviously, at Christmas. It's a bike ride. Last year, the fire department made hamburgers for all of the participants. You bring an unwrapped toy or backpack item or something for a child so they can give it away for Christmas. It's a great event. I highly recommend going. And I also have been working on doing a trash day in my district where people I'm going to get Containers out and people will know where they can Dump their trash so we get rid of all the illegal dumping in my district because it's getting a little out of hand And I want to help the community know where they can dump their trash the appropriate bin to dump their trash It's not well marked So I'm trying to work with our current hauler and see what they can do for labeling recycling The greens and the trash better so that we don't have this illegal dumping situation. That's all

All right. Mr. Mayor, anything?

Yeah, I've got a few things. Actually, I get to celebrate some members of our community tonight. So first, I'd like to congratulate the Shady family. They recently celebrated the milestone of 100 years in business at Reliable Sheet Metal, which is over on Walnut. And, you know, it's funny. We talk a lot of times about, hey, the businesses that have been in the longest running businesses in Fullerton. I actually checked with the chamber, and they were going to get back to me, but 100 years in business has to be close up there with the longest running. So they've had three generations of the family working in the business, and we wish them continued success. Also got a few related to local sports. We have Fullerton Hills Softball, who is right now competing. This is their 14 and under team that's actually up in Seattle playing for the Western Region Championship. We wish them all the best. Golden Hill Little League has now won at the 12 and under division, which for those that follow Little League, this would be the team that would go to the Little League World Series if they were fortunate enough to do that. They've advanced out of the sectionals. Now they're in the Southern California State Championship, and they take on Sweetwater Little League out of San Diego later this week. We wish them all the best. They've had a number of other teams advance and win that district as well. So very happy for those teams. And actually, speaking of Golden Hill and some of their alumni, I actually have to congratulate Fullerton resident and actually the pride of Golden Hill Little League, Hermosa Elementary, and Parks Junior High, Max Radjic, who made his Major League pitching debut for the St. Louis Cardinals last month. He got to come in and relief against the Kansas City Royals. He did pretty well, but we're proud of him here and wish him a long and successful career. I would also like to congratulate Eric Jong, who was drafted by the Seattle Mariners, and he actually was on the 2019 Golden Hill Little League team that won the, you know, that went back and won the Little League World Series then. So, you know, very excited for these members of our community and wish them all the best, you know, in their careers ahead.

Thank you.

All right.

No further business. We stand adjourned.