City Council - Successor Agency - Housing Authority - Regular Meeting

Okay, great. Good afternoon. We're gonna go ahead and call the September 15th Closed session meeting of the City Council to order. It's 515. Can you please call the roll?

Mayor pretend Dunlap your council member Charles here council member Valencia Council members are and Mary Jung is not yet present Okay, now we'll have public comments for the closed session items.

I've seen none in chambers. Nothing online Okay, we will recess to closed session

All right. Good evening. I'll now call to order the City of Fullerton City Council meeting for September 15th, 2026, 530. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Mayor Jung.

Present.

Mayor Pro Tem Dunlop. Here. Council Member Charles. Here. Council Member Valencia. Here. Council Member Zahra is somewhere nearby.

For this evening's invocation, I'm going to ask our police chaplain, Mr. Frost, to please. Where did he go? Oh, there he is, sir. If you would be so kind as to provide us with the invocation. Thank you, sir.

Stand together. My father, we come before you. conducting your business, this in our community. So, Father God, I ask for wisdom to this city council. Give them wisdom in the decisions being made here. God, thank you for us all being a part of this community. We thank you for the joy that you have given us to be a part of your love for this community. God, walk before us in this day. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

All right. Mr. City Attorney, anything to report from closed session this evening? There's no report this evening. All right. Very well. I'll ask our membership if they have any ex parte communications to report. I'll look right. Okay. Look left. All right. I spoke with fire and police. And with that...

I apologize. Are we doing unions? Also, I was told it's just developers. So if we're doing unions also, yes, I spoke with fire and police as well.

Okay. All right. Thank you for the clarification. All right. We have... We were supposed to have two presentations. We're only going to have one, and that's fitting. You know, community means a lot of things to a lot of folks and a lot of different things to a lot of folks. But I'm particularly proud in the city of Fullerton that we have this family here. That on a tragedy that the world looked to our country, where fellow Americans died, perished for no good reason. Now this family took it upon themselves and took that grief and it became duty to them. I'm not sure what words I can say to express my thanks that they've done this for 25 years without blemish, without care for their own finances or their time and the sacrifice and effort that they put in to remember those who fell. And that's all of them. So I am extraordinarily proud of this family. They call themselves Fullertonians. I think it speaks to the best of us, never to the worst. So Townley family, it is with great honor and pleasure that I recognize you this evening. And I'm going to afford the courtesy to the one first responder on our council to present you with a certificate of recognition that is not nearly enough. So with that, I'll ask our council if there's anything. I would rarely ask, but in this case, I think all of us should say something to this family because they are remarkable. Councilman, you want to start?

I would. I really want to thank you for these 25 years of dedication for this particular memorial. I think it is important that we recognize it every year. I don't know if anyone here doesn't remember where they were on 9-11. I certainly do. I was here in Fullerton. It was in fact my first year in Fullerton. I had just moved and it happened 11 days after I moved. So it is a It's a day that certainly changed my life. It changed the world. And it's a day that, yes, we lost so many Americans and so many people and innocent lives. But it also demonstrated the goodwill in our country and how we all can come together. And you exemplify this. And so thank you for that. And I missed it this year. Unfortunately, I was traveling. But I have been to a few times over these last eight years and last 25 years to your event. So thank you again.

All right. Council Member Charles, anything you would like to say to the family that we're honoring today?

Yes, absolutely. And I did have a good conversation with the family at the door. I was able to go this year. And this year struck me particularly hard as 25 years later. To me, that's half my life. And I do remember exactly where I was, also here in Fullerton on Orange Thorpe in a small family home watching TV with everyone else and just huddled together and not knowing what was going to happen. And the care that's put into that memorial, the detail, The sheer scope of it, really, with your modest size lot, it's a good house, but it's not like you have three acres you're putting this on, right? You're doing this in your driveway and on your front lawn, and you have every single person marked and every single place that they passed marked, which really struck me, and every single face in that octagon. And I found one that, to me, looked a little bit like I was looking in a mirror, and it really struck me as well. So thank you, absolutely. I was very pleased to see that this was on the agenda for tonight. I think it's well deserved. I honestly think, I wish you had national news. I did see you got some ABC coverage, but I feel like this is something that you should be recognized for all the way up the chain, because it really is a service to our country that you're doing along with our city. So thank you for it.

All right.

Councilwoman Valencia you're presenting so you can say whatever you wish Anything you'd like to answer Yeah, first of all, I mean this year like like many years in the past was was just a I mean an awesome Recognition I think of that tragic day, but I think what's so important and I and I certainly see this as a father of two young kids and is that they don't have that same connection to it because they didn't live through it, right? We lived through it firsthand, and we see it every year, and we remember, and we know what it looked like in real time because we watched it, we heard it. And so what was really impactful for me, I think two or three years ago, I took both of my daughters for the first time, and they stood there, and they were like, wow, this is impressive. And they were asking me, what do all those flags represent? And I said, well, those flags represent the lives of all the innocent Americans who were killed on that unfortunate day. And I think my daughter at the time was about nine years old, and she stepped back and looked at me and thought, wow, couldn't believe it. And so I think not only being able to be there with our community to sort of recognize and remember what happened, But to continue to commemorate each and every year together with our community, I think, is very special. And I'm very grateful to you and your family for the sacrifices that you make in putting that together. I also think this year was a great touch with the lights. I know to be able to look up from where we live over kind of by Hillcrest Park, you know, to look up and see the lights and to see them, you know, from various places across town. It was also very special and impactful. So, you know, kudos to you and your family for, you know, all the years of putting this on. And I wish you the best as you continue to do this and in years to come, because I know you will. So so if you haven't seen it in person for everyone who hasn't, you should definitely be there next year.

All right. Council, if you want to join me on the floor, let's honor this family properly.

Hi. Is it on? Can you guys hear me? Okay. Hi, it's such an honor to present you with the certificate of recognition. We're having a strobe light show, I guess. Thank you so much for all you've done. I do remember also when it happened and occurred, I was in my grandfather's kitchen watching it, going to school to be a nurse. And I knew at that moment that my calling was to be in that hospital for the first responders that are out on that line to bring me those patients to save those lives. So I wanted to be on a different side of the first responder line, getting those people, treating them in the ICU, treating them in the ER, saving their lives actively within the hospital. So I'm all proud of all of our first responders that actively help every single day, putting their lives on the line, police, fire, and nurses that are here. And you guys recognize all those people that were affected by this tragic situation. So thank you so much. Keep doing it every year, and we'll help you grow. Do all the first responders in the room want to come down and just join for the picture, please?

And the people in the back, make sure that you're being directly between the shoulders.

That would be great. Perfect.

There you go. And right in the back. There you go. Okay. Now we've got everybody. Are you ready? Five, four, three, two. Smile. Awesome. Perfect. I'm just gonna wait for the kids. I think it's a little. There's gonna be like five other groups though.

Okay. All right. Next is a presentation that our chief of police is going to do regarding flock cameras. We're going to give an update on that. If we can get the presentation ready, I'll call the chief. Good evening, sir.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Thank you for the opportunity to share some information regarding our flock cameras. ALPR program. And ALPR stands for Automated License Plate Reader Program. So if we can go to the next slide, please. So in Fullerton, we have the FLOC ALPR program. It produces vehicle leads, and it doesn't produce personal profiles. And I want to touch on that for just a bit. And then I think there's some misinformation about what FLOC is, what FLOC isn't, and what ALPR readers are and what they aren't. Our flock cameras are in the public domain. They're on public roadways where there is no expectation of privacy, and that's something that's been established by all the courts across the land, that there is no expectation of privacy when you're on a public road, which is the reason why if you're at a stoplight and a police officer is behind you, a police officer can run your license plate because your vehicle is in the public domain. So what does our flock ALPR do? It captures still photos of license plates and vehicles from, again, visible public roads. It compares those plates with authorized hot lists to generate investigative leads. For instance, if a vehicle is stolen or wanted for a crime, it'll populate, and that's what a hot list is. What does it not do? It does not capture video. There's no use of facial recognition or biometrics. There are no names attached to the information that's provided through our flock system. There's no birth dates, no social security numbers. no addresses, no information from the DMV other than whether or not that vehicle is, quote, hot listed. What else does it not do? It does not continuously track people. It doesn't issue traffic citations. It doesn't predict who will commit crime. It definitely doesn't do immigration enforcement, any sort of traffic enforcement, any harassment or intimidation. And personal use is expressly prohibited, and we have numerous policies in place to protect that.

Next slide, please.

So this is what it would look like if you're in one of our police cars and a flock was up on your computer screen. It would pop up with a picture of the vehicle from the front and from the rear. So if you look at the top photo on the left, on my left anywhere, that's how the picture will show up on the computer screen for the police officer. The furthest they can zoom in is that bottom picture below it. So as you can see in this particular photo, you can't really see who's driving or any sort of facial information. Again, there's no facial recognition as a part of it. What would pop up is, again, whether or not that vehicle is wanted in connection with a crime or a missing person or a stolen vehicle. And then the picture on the right would be a picture from the rear, and obviously those are not the same vehicle. Next slide, please. So how do we use ALPR? So the first step is, again, a vehicle, if it's on a public roadway and there's a flock camera there, it will snap a picture of that license plate and then vehicle characteristics of that vehicle in public view. As it takes the picture, it checks the vehicle against any stolen or wanted vehicles. Again, it could be connected to a silver alert, an amber alert, a kidnapping, an active crime. It'll notify our officers while they're in the car. They'll get a text message and they'll show up on their screen as well. We'll dispatch officers to that area to try and locate that vehicle. They cannot just do anything based on what the flock information provides them. They have to verify that using our other databases and systems. And then if relevant, they'll do a potential car stop on that vehicle and investigate. Again, none of our officers act on a plate read alone. Human verification is required as part of the system. Next slide, please. So there's two different ways in which FLOC is used. Again, what I just described is the real-time response, meaning our officers are driving around the city. One of the cameras alerts that there's a vehicle that's wanted. A picture will pop up, and we'll dispatch officers to that area. The second way that it's used, and I think this is what causes a lot of the consternation surrounding FLOC and ALPR systems in general, is a post-incident investigation. So our detectives can search a database, and it'll tell us where that vehicle has been for us in Fullerton the last 30 days, and I'll get into that later. There's also a regional network, so all the agencies in California that share the data, we can see where a crime occurred. For instance, if there was a robbery at a business downtown, and we know that a black Honda Civic with a prescribed license plate was used in that crime, Our officers can get there. They get the information that a potential vehicle was used in it. They run it on their flock system. It'll pop up where that car came from. And since that crime, where has it passed where there is a flock camera? So it'll give our officers direction on where to go where that investigative lead may go. Next slide, please. So in Fullerton, we have 17 flock cameras. We have two 17 permanently permanent cameras. We have two cameras that can be moved. They're mobile cameras. So for instance, if we have a rash of residential burglaries in a specific area, we can put a flock camera in that particular area to see if we catch suspects coming and going. We have spent $236,000 on flock cameras since roughly 2021. And that's regarding equipment, Subscriptions, repairs, maintenance. We have had cameras since, flock cameras since 2021. Like I mentioned, our retention window is 30 days. Many agencies have much longer retention windows. We have it at 30 days where the information gets purged after that 30-day mark. In Fullerton, we have 135 active FPD users. In order to become a user, you have to go through specific training and continue that training. And just a real quick timeline, which I'll get into later. In 2007, the city council approved grant funding through UASI, which is related to Homeland Security for ALPR use. 2019, we deployed cameras on the SP Plus parking vehicles. And when I say we, those cameras, they're Vigilance Solutions. Those are operated by SP Plus, and we don't have anything to do with their contract. In 2021, Flock LPR was added under Chief Dunn. It was brought to council through the use of ARPA funding. I will say it was not specifically called out that those were Flock cameras. It was part of a larger technology package that the chief brought in at the time. And now we utilize Flock cameras, and Vigilant is used by SP+. Next slide, please. all of the data in that 30-day retention window that i mentioned that is that is owned by the fullerton police department meaning we control where that data goes flock is our technology provider but they do not sell our customer data which is our information that comes from those cameras they cannot share those that data with anyone other than the people that we authorize them to share it with it's not automatic so we control the sharing relationships of our of our data Again, we have a 30-day retention window. That's our policy decision that we have made. It's not from the vendor. They don't tell us how long to keep our information. We keep it for 30 days, and then we purge it. Next slide. Oh, I'm sorry, real quick. Can you go back to that? Thank you. We do have something called a transparency portal, which is on our website. It tells you how many cameras, all the information I just gave you, how many cameras we have, how many unique reads it has. how many times it's been accessed through that 30-day retention period. And that can be found on our website under a transparency portal. Next slide. So safeguards that we have in place. Obviously, misuse is a thing, right? We've heard about it on the news. I'm not going to stand here and tell you that that's not something that could potentially occur. And that's with any system that we have. So how do you prevent that? You have robust safeguards in place, and I believe that we have that. So for one of our officers to access the flock system, they have to provide a reason for it. obviously who they are, and then a case number associated with that search. It is permanently logged. We know who accesses our system. Our supervisors do an audit quarterly, which I'll get to. And then there's a network audit. We get information from Flock about who has accessed our system. And that's so we can make sure that the right people are accessing our system within California. Next slide, please. So our organizational audit, historically, it had been conducted annually. I have recently updated that to be every 90 days or every quarter. I want to make sure that if there is any sort of misuse, which, again, we have not experienced here in Fullerton, and we have robust systems in place to prevent that, but I don't want to wait 12 months to find out that there's a potential problem. So I have changed that to a quarterly audit conducted by our property crime supervisor. That's a sergeant in our organization. That audit then gets sent to a division commander, which is the captain. If we have any sort of misuse or suspicious activity, that shall be sent to our Internal Affairs Division for investigation. So FLOC also has something called an audit tool. And this is done in conjunction, will be done in conjunction every 90 days by our property crime supervisor. And what that will do is if we have an officer that runs the same plate multiple times, that's going to create a flag. And that flag gets flagged to a supervisor, and that supervisor is going to look into that and do an audit on what that officer was looking into. It could very well be that that officer was working a case There's a wanted suspect and he or she was looking into that multiple times. It could also be that there's something nefarious and so that's why it automatically flags that. It'll also automatically flag it if an officer searches something that's unusually broad or large geographic search or if it was past the 30-day retention. For instance, I met with our property crime supervisor today, and as of, what is this, today's the 15th, there's probably 10 or 15 flags from FLOC for him to look into today. And again, that doesn't mean that officers are doing anything nefarious. It means, hey, we'd like you to take a look at this. This is something that needs to be looked into further. And again, there could be a myriad of reasons as to why they're looking into it. Next slide, please. So our ALPR program, our flock program, operates within California's legal guardrails, which is SB 34. And that covers ALPR use, security, and sharing. It requires that there's a written, publicly posted privacy policy, that we have authorized users, we have training, we have oversight, which we have all of that, that we have accuracy, obviously, audible access. And SB 34 came into effect in 2016. And as I mentioned, our program started in 2007. Obviously, there's some concerns, a lot of concerns, I think, with a lot of our community regarding ICE and their ability to access our data and our sharing of our data with them. SB 54, which we've talked about many times as it relates to ICE over the last few years, also plays a part here with ALPRs. It limits our ability to cooperate with federal immigration authorities, so we do not. In California, police agencies cannot share ALPR data with any out-of-state or federal agencies. We base our current FLOC platform documentation. Federal agencies are excluded from statewide, nationwide lookup. And we only share our data with agencies inside the state of California. We actually don't even have the ability on the FLOC system to share outside of that. Obviously, we also have a policy. It's a written policy 428.2 that talks about our ALPR readers. It has recently been updated, actually as recently as today, to reflect certain changes that we have made to add to make our system a little bit more robust. And we changed our policy to make sure that we're maintaining best practices with other police agencies and state law. Next slide, please. So as I mentioned, our system predated SB 34. We started an ALPR program in 2007. Again, it was grant funded through UACI. And in January 1, 2016 is when SB 34 became effective. And what that said is that Essentially, you have to have a SB 34's public comment language applies before implementing an ALP program. It does not expressly address retroactive or reapproval of 2016's meaning our program existed before this went into effect. And so essentially, we don't have to subscribe to what it said at the time. That being said, because our ALPR program predated it, the 2021 edition of ALPR didn't constitute the implementation of a new ALPR program. Senate Bill 34 does not expressly require a second public comment meeting solely because existing ALPR programs change or changes vendors. So when Senate Bill 34 became effective in 2016, it said that a department should have some sort of ability for the public to weigh in on that system. Our position is that that occurred in 2007. That being said, it doesn't apply retroactively. So we believe that we are in compliance with Senate Bill 34. Next slide, please. Since we've added flock, we've recovered 274 stolen vehicles. We've located 18 missing people. Again, this number is actually outdated. It's 885,000 unique vehicles detected. I saw earlier today, I think in an Orange County Register article, they said a million, and that would make sense if it was from a different time period. This was submitted, I think, a week or two ago. uh... we've had four thousand vehicle hot lists and again that they probably register assume dot that information from our transparency next slide please nationally uh... of a study of two hundred sixteen law enforcement agencies that that utilize flock there was a an eleven percent reduction in vehicle theft sixteen percent roughly sixteen percent increase in vehicle theft clearances with an arrest uh... we've seen a six percent the increase in our vehicle theft recovery You know, we don't track every time our officers use FLOC for success stories, right? We don't track every time they use our specific databases. But I will tell you that in virtually every investigation our detectives do, they are utilizing FLOC in some form or fashion for investigative leads. FLOC reported contributing to locating more than 10,000 missing people Essentially, they're finding 27 people a day. So next slide, please. So regionally, Orange County Sheriff, the areas that they cover, all of their contract cities have flock. 24 other Orange County police agencies use flock for ALPR. Two use vigilant. Cal State Fullerton had been operating 46 flock cameras on their campus. They just transitioned to Axon. They're an Axon agency, and so it made sense for them to use Axon. since the majority of their technologies is Axon which is virtually the same system. Anaheim just added 72 ALPRs to their system. Costa Mesa had a very public misuse of their system and they just reviewed that and chose to keep their cameras after the misuse became public. Orange just renewed its program and the rest of our partners here in Orange County with the exception of one city that I'm aware of which is the city of La Palma does not have any ALPR technology. Next slide, please. And I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have.

All right. And the city of La Palma is a square mile.

Yes, sir, it is.

Small. All right. Any questions for our council members? This was a pretty good update by the chief. I have questions.

Thank you. Thank you, chief, for the presentation. I'm certainly a little, I have to admit, and I've shared this with you before, I'm disappointed that this is a presentation and not an agendized item, because when I tried to agendize this, that was the intent so that the public can weigh in. So before I start with questions, I would like to ask to agendize this formally as an item for the next meeting, again, with maybe another presentation with maybe some of the questions that will come up. But mostly, it's to review. the policy itself because you stated that there is a policy in place and you've been updating this. So I think it's only fair that the public is made aware of this policy just to give peace of mind and for us to also discuss it. So I'd like to agendize that for the policy if I can get a second.

I will second it to be agendized.

For the next meeting. Thank you. IN THE MEANTIME, FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN OUR POLICY, IT IS AVAILABLE ON OUR WEBSITE.

A PUBLIC DISCUSSION IS ALWAYS MORE IMPORTANT, I THINK MORE RELEVANT AND MEANINGFUL.

YOU DID ASK FOR A PRESENTATION, SIR, NOT AN AGENDA.

WELL, WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF A I WAS INTERRUPTED, I BELIEVE. So I wanted to just go back. Since we are talking about the public process, you said that we didn't go through the public process that was required by SB 34 because we had already gone through it. We had already these cameras in advance from back in 2007.

Yeah, so I think I would argue that we did go through the process in 2007, which met the requirements of the 2016 SB34. To your point, we didn't do it again, if that's what you're implying. That's what I'm saying.

Yeah, we didn't do it again when Flock came into the mix. Yes, that's correct. Because the older cameras were not Flock cameras. That's correct. And they had a different type of technology, correct? Correct.

Yeah, I think you could easily argue that technology in 2007 is different than that in 2019, but the system itself was very similar, and the end result is very similar.

Right. The end result, but the technology is very different, and I would argue that this technology would probably have required SB 34 implementation and a public process. So that's why I want at least to bring this back to a public sphere, at least for that. But the other thing is that you mentioned in the early in the presentation what it does not do. So it just reads these things. But how do we know this? How do we confirm this? What is the mechanism for you to verify that It's not being used, because this technology is not just cameras, right? There's a data process, an AI. Is it AI processing that's happening?

Yeah, so there is an AI in the background. So I'll give you the example of the AI. So if a, let's go back to the robbery downtown. There's a robbery downtown. There's a black Honda Civic with a white bumper sticker, but there's no plate involved, right? An officer can go into Flock, and I'm simplifying it, but can put in Black Honda Civic, white bumper sticker, Fullerton. And it'll pop up those vehicles that match that description that have been in the area in that specific time frame. So that utilizes AI. Beyond that, it takes a picture of the plate, it runs it against its hot list, and that's the extent of it.

How is it comparing it? How is it analyzing this information, this data that it's gathering? Because this is a lot of data, right? I mean, you're talking about nearly a million cars a month.

And it's all instant, right?

So the AI is picking up these images.

where does this data where do these images go how is it processed what's the system that it's using are you asking for like their internal systems i couldn't tell you that i can tell you that it uses ai to do that i i'm not an expert on how flock works nor i don't know of any chief that would be but i can tell you that it uses ai to run that and then produces a response right right but i think it would be important to know at least the process in order to us for us to confirm that

They don't do anything else with this data.

Well, I'm not really sure what you're asking me because I'm respectfully, I'm telling you.

If I may, Councilman, you've agendized this item for the next meeting. Give the chief some time to prepare some of these answers to your questions rather than, I think the expectation right now is a little.

Well, I'll run through some of these questions so that maybe you can, you know, I don't mean to put you on the spot. No, that's okay. I just don't know. But this is the only avenue we have right now for this discussion. because it wasn't a fully agendized item. And you did have a slide for questions. I'm more than happy to answer them. So I'm trying to figure out the mechanism of transport of this data and how it's analyzed. Because if we are to confirm, if we are to be confident that it is not being used for anything else, then we have to also be confident and know what the technology and the processing of this data, right? Because otherwise, what buttons do you have on your interface that will confirm this?

Yeah, I'll have to look into it further.

Because that's what they're telling you it doesn't do.

It's the flock manual that's telling you what it doesn't do. I guess my question for you, just so I can kind of tease this out and get you the information you're looking for. Are you looking for like the specific name of the programs they run? Are you looking for – I'm telling you they utilize AI 100%. And it uses AI just like if you were to go into AI and say create, you know, chat GBT, create a flyer for me. Create this. It uses AI. It's got data. Yeah. It works that against other pictures that it has, and it comes up with a vehicle that is matching that description, right?

I understand how that works. But when anybody uses AI, it goes through data systems. It goes through a data processing center. It could be anywhere in the country, and then it transports back to us. So when you get the end result, that is stored for 30 days. But in the meantime, that data has traveled all over the world sometimes, and it's been processed. And the reason I'm bringing this up is because One of the concerns, I believe, one of the things that we've heard in the news is these data leaks. And they have been captured data throughout. So even though we think these are only these, this information is being captured and it's coming to us and stored and it's all safe, but in the process, that license plate has traveled and could have been intercepted somewhere. Sure, I'd be happy to look into that for you. So that's what I'd like to do. And I want to bring the reason for this is because I'm going to jump to this because we've been talking about this for months now, back and forth on email. And I remember when you asked, I want to jump to the audits. I asked for an audit and you said you would do it. And I'm grateful that you did. I think it was Sergeant Diaz who sent an email to Flock. And I want to make this part of the the public record because I thought this email, and you know, I thought it was extremely amusing but in also a very disturbing way because this audit that Flock did for us came back as and I'm not going to read the entire email, but it came from a site, from their email, Engage Success, engage at flocksafety.com. It just says, hello. That's their audit. Hello. No, hello, Sergeant Diaz. Just hello. Thank you for your patience on this. After reviewing your event log of all time, interesting English language, it appears that out-of-state requests were present, but all of them were not accepted. Signed, Casey, K-A-C-I. So there's no employee number, no last name. Who is Casey? She's clearly an employee that works for Flock. But why doesn't she have an employee ID? Why is there no last name? Usually, I mean, you call AT&T, you get better response than this. And we are paying a ton of money to this organization, to this for-profit company, this vendor. And this is the, we have to go through, I'm assuming this is AI. But I don't know, it could be a person in China. So I think I would like to know, this is not an audit to me.

Well, respectfully, you had asked me if we're going to talk about this. You had asked me if our information had been shared with ICE. I answered that question for you multiple times, that the answer was no, it had not. Then you asked me to receive it in writing from them. So the sergeant that reached out, that was the response they got, that it had not been shared.

Right, but the request was an audit of the system, how the information was used. And to my first question about how this data is processed, I want to know where this data is going and how it's being processed.

This is the first time I'm hearing this, right? So I absolutely will get you that information.

Yeah. Are there anything else that you'd like to know that could be done in an email to the chief? Because that's a public record as well.

I have corresponded for months with the chief on this.

CC me then if you'd like, and then I will make sure that those answers... or those questions are answered.

I think we owe it to the public for me to finish my questions.

It is a presentation, not an agendized item. I think you are really getting close to a line here. I don't think I... Listen, I'm all okay with you soapboxing. You seem to do that a lot. But give it a... Just give it... Excuse me! So please, please just wait for the item to be agendized, I'm sure you can question the chief on the answers that you would like. Right now, I'm not even sure what you're looking for in terms of information because the chief doesn't have it. That's clear. Please continue.

OK. There's a word called ad hominem. I'm not soapboxing. I'm asking questions because that's my job. That's what we're supposed to be doing. We represent the public. I don't represent flock, and I don't owe anything to anyone other than the public. Yes, and yes. You can call that soapboxing. Jeez. It's called trying to get good governance, right? It's trying to achieve a balance because we... I come from a country where our phones were tapped. We were afraid to say anything. So when I came to this country, it is because of its values. So I don't want a system that is surveilling the mom taking her kid out to school or for ice cream. I want to make sure that the systems we're using are credible, are vetted, and are constantly reviewed and have a public policy in place. That is what councils do. It's legislation. It's public policy. So this is where I'm getting at. I want to make sure that we have a system that obviously the public cares about enough and there have been numerous situations where there's been leaks and there have been cities across the country On both sides of the aisle, both Democrat and Republican cities have suspended the use of these flock cameras. So this is not an issue to take lightly. This is an issue to discuss and have a proper debate about policy and good governance. So I want to continue... You're going to get that next month. You're going to get that next month.

And you can repeat this exact same speech next month if you wish. All right?

I have a few more questions. Um... I want to know the list of the items that you said, the data you provided, the statistics about the success of usage of this. I think there was a 6%. But you also said that there's no direct correlation that you could prove.

Right. Well, we don't track every time our our officers use or detectives use flock and their success. There's not a mechanism to track that as it stands today. So it's not like there's a checkbox on their report or in our statistics. Was flock used? Yes. We don't do that with any of our data database systems.

Is there a way to find that out? to start tracking this? Because I think we need to know this for the efficacy of this program. Cost effectiveness, right?

Sure. Theoretically, we could. I'd have to look into whether or not that's something with our city attorney's office as to whether or not that's something we should do. I see. I'm just giving you the appropriate answer.

Absolutely. I appreciate that. You also mentioned In your quarterly audit, and I appreciate you doing the quarterly audit as opposed to was it was annual, I think. You said there were 10 to 15 flags. Could you identify those flags for us?

Like off the top of my head and tell you them?

In general, would you be able to bring those back at the next meeting as well as part of the continued discussion? I would not release that information. You cannot release it? I would not release that.

But what I can tell you is that it would be for potentially, again, an officer or a detective running the same plate multiple times. So that doesn't mean that there's misuse or that they are out of policy. It's just flagging it for us to look into further, right? And to your point, that's just good governance. Okay. So... How how do like who is are you responsible you the the the final authority on looking at these and making sure that they're all compliant with our policy and I have a police sergeant who's a supervisor in our organization reviews it if he or she in this instance it's a he sees some sort of anomaly he'll present that to his division commander who's a police captain which is the second in command in our organization and that that captain will then decide whether or not this looks like it's malicious or not and initiate an internal affairs investigation and in our organization since i've been the chief of police we've done 1 151 internal investigations on our people we've received 225 citizen complaints so one would tell you that we police our organization far more than the community has to police us

Final question. Could you find out who this Casey is? I'd be happy to. It'll solve lots of problems for both of us.

I'm very curious who she is. All right. Any other questions? Thank you.

I have some clarity questions on the presentation itself, and we'll have a further discussion next time, it looks like. And I would also like to point out, just to clarify some of the comments that were made back and forth, I think the Brown Act might make it tough for council members, unfortunately, to CC you if you would like to discuss this with somebody else. So we are tied by that.

Well, that's two. You're not Brown Acted out.

Well, if he would like to share with you. So I'm just saying. OK. Just to, again, clarify the presentation, because we are going to be talking about this Much more. I'm thinking a lot about this last slide here. That's before the question slide Looking at what other organizations are doing Of course, my district is where Cal State Fullerton is and so when we talk about what Cal State Fullerton is doing There's 46 cameras compared to our 17 plus 9 Could you talk about why ours is much lower than you know? why our citywide has only 19 compared to the 46 that are on the you know, square footage of the Cal State Fullerton campus?

Sure. So one, as of now, we have them only really on our major arterials. And I'm not going to go into where our cameras are for operational security. I'm sure there's ways to find out. But I'm not going to be the one that releases that information. Number one, it's on major arterials. Two, there is certainly a budgetary reason as to why we have 17. They're expensive, right? It doesn't mean that we shouldn't have 46, right? Like I said, Anaheim just added 72. But I think for us right now, that's a happy medium of having our major arterials covered for major crimes and suspects that come in and out of our city, which happens every day with our system. We are alerted to that. But I will add that there's commercial ALPRs as well, right? Like you go to the airport, you're for sure getting picked up by ALPRs. You go into Home Depot, Target parking lots, they all have some form of ALPRs. Some of them feed into our system. Some of them don't. So there are more than 17 in our city in addition to the 46 from Cal State Fullerton because many, many big box retailers have them because of organized retail theft.

So what we're talking about, though, is the ones that the police department has access to. So those would be private companies that would have access to that.

We have access to some of their cameras. HOAs in Fullerton have ALPR cameras as well.

That's interesting. I don't know if it's possible to get any numbers later on how many those are, if we can.

I probably wouldn't release their information. It's not my information to release.

That would be something that would be just interesting to find out if we could. But I know it's not something that we would control as a city. We can't fund it. If we were thinking about policies, that might be something we could think about. If we were thinking about regulations of those private entities, if we were concerned about it. So you said CSU Fullerton's transitioning to Axon, which is a different company. You said it made sense because Axon has other technologies. Could you talk about what those technologies are and why Axon might be different than Flock?

Sure. So I can't speak to Cal State Fullerton's decision-making, obviously. They are an Axon agency. I spoke to their chief today because I had the same question. We are an Axon agency as well, meaning we use Axon for our body cameras, for our evidence.com, which is our information where our videos go. Our tasers are Axon. A lot of the software that we run, our training systems, are all Axon related. Could we switch to Axon? Absolutely. It's essentially the same system, just a different provider. We could switch to Axon. That involves additional monies because we already are invested in Flock. The difference is that the information goes up to, and it's a technical one, and I don't have the technical answers for you today, but it is a technical one where the data goes into what's called evidence.com, which is very similar to where our body cameras, the information for our body cameras gets stored.

So data gets shared back with Axon as well? Would SB 54 also apply to those agencies? So the laws that you referenced aren't specific to FLOC. They're specific to any ALPR. That's correct, yeah. Okay, yeah, I would say I'm interested in knowing more about kind of this ratio, why we did settle on 17. I understand it was, you're saying, a cost issue as well what the differences are among the different agency companies. It's tough to say when you're talking about the system that we live in. And I'm always concerned about civil liberties, of course. I've talked about that many, many times. And when we talk about this world that we live in, I understand that our piece is just a small piece of this larger milieu, but it is the piece that the public gets to weigh in on and that we maybe have control over. I think it's due for a discussion.

Sure.

Thank you. And thank you for being transparent in the presentation and for being open to having all this. And of course, for following the policies and procedures and putting those online.

Of course. Councilwoman Valencia, anything to add?

Yes. Thank you for the presentation. A couple of questions. You can come answer them now or bring it back later for the agendized items. But my constituents had a couple of questions about how does the flock cover any audible? noise? Like, can you hear on these flock cameras?

Can we hear? No, it's strictly still photography. There's no video.

Okay. So you couldn't, would you be able to see or pinpoint like, Oh, shoot a gun or light a firework?

No, this is strictly related to automated license plate reading. So that's it. Okay. That's it. And it's strictly a still photograph.

Okay. So these are the questions coming from my constituents. So I just want to clear the air for those. And then when you come back would you be able to tell us about the training that the officers go through I'd be happy to okay and And that's pretty much all my questions. Thank you.

All right, mr. Mayor pro tem anything dad I'm gonna reserve my comments for the next meeting. Okay There was a Senate bill in California Senate bill 1013 authored by senator Cervantes that plays strict limits on data retention I've restricted ALPR data from being shared with the federal government or anyone out of state and required training mandates as well as tracking mandates, and it died in the assembly after passing the Senate. So they'll give it another go next year, I'm sure. But with that said, thank you, Chief, for the presentation. We'll move on. Thank you. All right. We've got... Youth Advisory Committee appointments, if anybody has them. Let's go right to left. Councilman Zara, any appointment you'd like to make?

Yes, I'd like to appoint Ms. Giuliana Nunzi.

Okay. Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, anyone you'd like to? I'm going to reappoint Zeke Winters. Okay. Councilwoman Valencia, anyone you'd like to appoint?

No one at this time.

Okay. And Council Member Charles, anyone you'd like to appoint?

Unfortunately, no one at this time. But my understanding, I would like the clerk to clarify this, is that if I am not able to appoint because I just haven't been able to reach my current appointee, is she able to stay on until another appointment is made?

If they haven't reached the maximum age of 18 and graduating, then yeah, they can continue.

OK, that's great to know. And then do we know when the next possible meeting of that committee is going to be?

I'm subtly looking at our staff that would charge it. Maybe this month? I know it's the fourth Monday. I'm trying to stall while she looks it up fourth Monday of the month I'm not sure if they're geared up for September October I'm just wondering how much of a time frame I have here.

I can look at this also Yes, if it's September we would not have another meeting I'm happy to keep on my current appointee and then if I want if I want to change or if I confirm with her that she might have aged out then I will Be happy to make an appointment at the next meeting

Okay. With that, I'll seek a motion for the two, possibly three appointees this evening. So moved. Is there a second? Second. Very well. Madam Clerk, please go ahead.

And also just note for record, I have no public comment on this item. Council Member Charles. Aye. Council Member Valencia. Aye. Council Member Zara. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Dunlap.

Aye.

Mayor Jung.

Aye.

Item passes. Thank you.

We'll go on to our regular business item, Solid Waste Management Services RFP selection. I will ask our waste specialist, Michelle Duran, to make the limited presentation. Good evening.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and council members. The purpose of today's meeting is to obtain direction from city council on the Solid Waste Management Services RFP firm selection. Next slide. To provide the latest status on the RFP proceedings at the June 30th City Council meeting staff was directed to advance three selected firms for further consideration that being CR&R Environmental Services Republic Services and Valley Vista Services. In addition the City Council lifted the communication embargo allowing direct communication with the proposers to discuss contract priorities and council also directed a City staff to host two community meetings to gather community input and feedback. Next slide. As a reminder, the baseline requirements of the RFP encompass standard industry operations and practices, as well as service enhancements designed to improve activities within the community. Notable features include solving legacy issues with commercial flexible container options and multifamily and downtown pricing. continued bulky item service, and abandoned hotspot collection in alleys and notable areas of the city, a full suite of SB 1383 compliance support, new or as new fleet and equipment, and expanded public education and residential billing services for continuity. Next slide. The three firms are provided the opportunity to refine their proposals with additional enhancements or changes in response to any City Council priorities, contract priorities, or communications they may have had from June 30th to August 24th. And now I invite our Solid Waste RFP consultant, Mike Vallier, to present the latest final offers.

Thanks, Michelle. Good evening, Council. Basically, your three firms can all do this job very well. In their final offers, I would say Republic Services I've been to their offices all over the country they have several words beginning with the letter R around their logo reliability is one of them. Relentless is what comes to mind here. I think local staff has been relentless with their structure to get you the best possible pricing. You have two options from them. One was much closer to CR&R's pricing, in fact matched it exactly. Again, my opinion is the rate adjustment table that it would use would cost rate payers more in the long run. Republic is countered with a slight increase to rates that my calculations estimate will be more expensive for three years. But by year four on they'll be less expensive to rate players. So again I think they're doing their best to keep your business. They serve most of the large firms in Orange County and you know they're the folks that you know. With Valley Vista they remain the low price option. You can never go wrong going with the low price for your rate payers. I think they have a unique facility the only high diversion organics waste processing facility. Their enhancements are not on par with what Republic Services is offering 4.2 million up front or CRNR 4 million. But they're giving it to the rate payers and the rates. Their margins are a little bit tight. But you have to look at the fact that they divert a great amount of the material that they collect. I deal with them in the city of Cyprus so they don't have a typical model as far as disposal costs. So I believe they can do it. And again they're the low rate payer. With CRNR they stand pat with an offer that to me is the best package of enhancements of the three. But it's close. I think their rates are going to be the lowest comparable if you want a large firm and their local success story. They started down the road in Stanton. They've grown into one of the most successful trash hauling firms in the Southland. They service more cities in Orange County than anybody else. So again I Don't think that they're a bad choice. In fact, they would probably, their Valley Vista would be where I would lean. But again, I can't fault you for thinking Republic should stay. I mean, look at all these people here. They want to stay your hauler. It's tough choice. So I'm here to answer any questions you have. But in the last submissions, like I said, there was a slight improvement in staying with the city's CPIU by Republic. But other than that, basically, you've read my report. You know where I stand.

All right.

Thank you for that. All right. Let's go ahead and take public comment before we go ahead and – oh, I'm sorry. Sorry, Ms. Strong.

No, no, that's okay. Please continue. Next couple slides. One more slide. So due to the delay in the RFP process city staff also requested that each firm submit an updated SB 1383 transition plan. So staff communicated the states and cities expectations to all the firms during our interviews at the beginning of the year. And the transition plan expectations are structured to ensure an effective and methodical process while minimizing the burden on community members. In order to do that this five step process is the best order to do it in which is customer data evaluation and revision education and outreach customer service level assessments and waivers exchanging of the containers and then completing the rollout. Next slide. So out of the three plans, CNR and Valley Vista need the least changes in the plan to align with the state's and city's expectations. But staff will meet with the selected firm once chosen so that we could review all the final details before the rollout and ensure that we are rolling this out in the most effective manner that benefits the community. All firms are in recognition of the citywide container replacement to meet the agreement and 1383 requirements. Next slide. So the RFP timeline was adjusted once more to allow council further review and public engagement. We still have some to be determined select final key dates. And as I have shared prior, further delays will jeopardize our standing with our compliance action plan with the state. If they don't feel that we're going to meet our July 1 deadline, they will more likely cancel our extension, which I really would not advise. Next slide. So just to give you an update, after the last staff meeting on June 30th, I did provide an update to the state as per their request and address their concerns and the city's renewed compliance efforts. So they responded by stating that they really would like us to move forward in an expeditious negotiation and contract award process manner to ensure that we can roll out by July 1 of next year. Next slide. So these are some deliberation priorities we've had along throughout the RFP process, and I continue to encourage that you consider these key deliberation priorities. Just to name a few, compliance and regulatory alignment, community engagement, and workforce reliability. Next slide. Council should also consider the feedback provided from the community through the two community meetings and through written comments. So overall community priorities that came out of those comments and in talking to community members, their interest in a reliable and consistent collection, transparent pricing, unlimited bulky item options, which I can confirm now all three firms are offering through this latest final offer. strong customer service and rapid resolutions, environmentally responsible operations and expanded organics programs, clear policies for commercial shared containers and overage documentation, and accessible communication channels and dedicated representatives. Next slide. Okay, so our proposed motion today is for Council to provide direction regarding the selected proposer, authorize staff to negotiate the final contract terms, and direct staff to return to City Council for final contract approval. Next slide. So that's it. Thank you for your time. If you have any questions, I am here and also our solid waste consultant and solid waste attorney. Thank you so much.

Thank you. And excuse the interruption. Let's go to public comment. No, that's OK.

If I may, I have just one very quick question.

Let's make it quick.

Yes. Just to verify, because I got a couple of requests asking about the the assistance given to some disabled folks bringing out their trash, is this still going to be in, I know it's in the current contract, will it still continue in any new contract coming up?

Yes, that is something that is very important, an item that's in our current contract, it's called a walkout service. So for disabled community members, they would go through a process with the hauler and If they cannot pull out their cards or things of that nature, then they would arrange with the hauler to have those pulled out for them. So that still continues. We have not removed that important detail.

All right. Madam Clerk, let's go to public comment.

I have four people registered. First speaker is Jeff Otter, followed by Eric Asanteon, Chris Alvasquez, and then David Perez.

Good evening mayor and city council. My name is Jeffrey Otter. I'm a district 3 resident and treasurer of the Craig Park East homeowners association. I've previously spoken about a massive disparity between the commercial rates proposed for multifamily residential properties and the rates charged to single family homes. Tonight I'd like to focus on that issue. and several contract provisions that deserve further attention. Valley Vista offers the most favorable residential and commercial rates and would probably save our association about $6,000 per year. and I support an award to them. However, among the three finalists, CRNR deserves special consideration for expressing a willingness to work with the city to develop a two-tier commercial rate structure that would better serve multifamily residential properties. THAT'S A VERY IMPORTANT CONCESSION BECAUSE MULTIFAMILY RESIDENCES REPRESENT ONE THIRD OF THE RESIDENCES IN FULLERTON AND ARE CURRENTLY BEING BILLED BASED ON SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENTS. THERE'S VERY LITTLE TRANSPARENCY TO MULTIFAMILY RESIDENCES AND THIS NEW AGREEMENT WILL NECESSARILY MOVE THESE 15,000 RESIDENCES TO A COMMERCIAL BILLING STRUCTURE WHICH WILL WITHOUT THE COUNCIL'S DUE ATTENTION, CREATE A HUGE DISPARITY WITH MULTI-FAMILY RESIDENCES PAYING MUCH MORE THAN SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENTS FOR SIMILAR SERVICES. LET'S SEE. SO THEREFORE, I ENCOURAGE COUNCIL TO SERIOUSLY PURSUE DURING FINAL NEGOTIATIONS A TWO-TIER COMMERCIAL RATE STRUCTURE WITH CCNR, SHOULD THEY BE SELECTED. I have five additional comments if the time permits. R&R should clarify how their bulky item collection would be provided to multifamily communities outside the heavy move in and move out periods identified in its proposal. During the community meetings, both CR&R and Valley Vista both indicated that custom containers could be provided without additional charge to better fit specific site conditions. That flexibility would benefit many multifamily properties and should be incorporated into the contract language. Specifically, CR&R has a side mount, and we have two three-yard bins going into an enclosure and with a side grab type of uh... arrangement the geometry wouldn't fit we would need a six-yard container to substitute six-yard containers would be too high for many of our senior residents to to safely and easily access and we would want a custom built container for that type of purpose uh... valley vista deserves credit for proposing a strong 1383 compliance support. However, its proposal lists holiday tree pickup for $25 without specifying whether that fee is a per tree per account or per trip. And since none of the finalists clearly address holiday tree collection, I recommend that regardless of who is awarded the contract, that the contract provide for Christmas tree collection as a special bulky item service at no additional charge. Thank you.

Next speaker Erika I see you coming up after that will be Chriselle Vasquez and then David Perez.

Good evening mayor council members city staff members of the community. My name is Erika Santillan and I am the operations manager at Valley Vista services. Thank you for giving Valley Vista the opportunity to be here today and allowing me to share why I believe we are the right partner for the city of Fullerton. I could stand here and talk to you about equipment technology route efficiencies diversion numbers and things that make a waste collection company successful. We absolutely have that. But I believe choosing your next waste hauler is about something much bigger. It's about trust. It's about knowing when a resident puts out their carts at the curb someone will be there. It's about choosing a company that understands Fullerton isn't just another contract or another route. It's someone's home. And that's where Valley Vista is different. We believe in going the extra mile. To us that means service respect communication and pride in the work we do. And those values don't just apply to how we treat our customers. They apply to how we treat our employees. Our employees are not just numbers. They are people. They are families. They are the foundation of our community. One of the things that I am most proud of at Bella Vista is the tenure of our employees. We have people who have dedicated decades of their lives to this community. Employees who have started as drivers dispatchers helpers and have grown into leaders. That kind of tenure doesn't happen by accident. It happens when people feel respected and recognized and we believe if we take care of our people our people will take care of our customers. And when you have employees who have been with you for decades they develop something that technology can't replace. They develop pride. Employees who wear that uniform understand that they represent us and the communities that we serve. Every day our drivers maintenance and customer service teams work together to make sure we deliver what we promised. Every person on our team matters and contributes to our success. And I know this because I have lived it. I've spent more than 20 years in the waste industry including working for both our competitors and I have dispatched work through our operations. And today I have the privilege of leading the VVS operations team. I've experienced what happens when service becomes just a number and I know what it looks like now in a company that truly gets it right. At VVS our drivers take pride in the communities we service. Because when you become part of a community you see things differently. You don't just see a route. You see someone's grandmother putting out their cart. You see families moving into their first homes. You see businesses opening their mornings every day. The truth is service we provide touches people's lives every single day. That responsibility matters to us. VVS is a company built on family service and community. And if you give us the opportunity to serve Fullerton I promise you this. We will show up. We will listen. We will take accountability and we will treat your residents with respect. Thank you.

ELLIE WILSON- Next speaker is Chriselle Vasquez and then David Perez and then anybody who's lined up who hasn't registered.

Good evening, mayors, mayor, council members, city staff, and the Fleurton community. My name's Griselda Vasquez. I am the customer service and sustainability manager at Valley Vista Services. Throughout this process, I've had the opportunity to speak directly with Fleurton residents. My goal was simple, to listen, understand what matters to them, and learn what they expect from their next waste hauler. As you know, VVS is a local family-owned company, and we have the people, experience, and resources to deliver what we've promised. We also believe great service should come at a fair price, especially for seniors and others living on fixed incomes. Fullerton residents should not have to choose between affordability and great service. As a customer service manager, I know that collecting waste is only part of the customer experience. What happens when someone needs our help matters just as much. At VVS, we do not outsource accountability. Our customer service team is in-house and works directly with our operations team. When customers contact us, they are speaking directly with Valley Vista. This allows us to take ownership and resolve issues quickly. If selected, we are prepared to make this transition as seamless as possible for everyone. We plan to have Valley Vista staff right here at City Hall providing direct in-person support throughout the transition. From the very beginning, we will be present, prepared, and accessible to the Fullerton community. As a consumer myself, I know excellent customer service can be hard to find. At Valley Vista Services, we have high expectations for all of our teams. I expect my customer service team to treat every customer the way they would want their own family to be treated, with patience, respect, kindness, and genuine care. Because excellent service isn't just about solving problems, it's about the experience we leave behind, and ultimately, that experience becomes our reputation. Sustainability is the other side of my role, and we understand the important work Fullerton has to do to get compliant with SB 1383. We have the infrastructure and processing capabilities, but I also know successful programs start with education and lots of outreach. Our sustainability team is ready to be boots on the ground, out in the community working directly with residents, businesses, and multifamily properties to educate, answer questions, and help Fullerton reach its sustainability goals. If Fullerton chooses Valley Vista, we want to build a relationship where residents, businesses, and city staff know they can count on us. We will be present responsive and always willing to go the extra mile for this community. We would be honored to serve Fullerton and if given that opportunity we will work every day to earn your confidence deliver the service the service we've promised and take great care of the people who call Fullerton home. And just a quick note after the holiday it is standard procedure for Valley Vista services to sweep through the cities we serve and pick up the trees at no charge. Thank you.

This is our last registered speaker. So then we'll get to the folks who are lined up and it looks like we have two remote hands Good evening council mayor.

Thank you for the opportunity. Once again, David Perez for Valley Vista services You've heard from some of our team members here tonight I'm also here with as much of our leadership as well as ownership. My brothers are here with me tonight That's how much we value this opportunity This is a big deal for us We've worked very diligently to bring you the best possible proposal that we could. We've listened. I think we've got it right. We offer the most robust compliance program, most robust outreach. I think right now we have the best team with regards to customer service, operations, maintenance, the best safety record, at least as much in the ways of resources and capabilities than anybody else in this room at this time and all within 10 miles of the city of Fullerton. But I think something that can't go unsaid is the impact of the rates. We were here recently and we heard that upfront monies were really not something the city was looking for and almost seemed abhorrent frankly based on the comments coming from the council. So we decided to leave the money with the rate payer. Now what that means is. To the normal rate payer, a single family home is $4.27 a month, $4.27 savings. That doesn't sound like a lot, but to the 5,000 senior homes in town, and that's an approximate number, but I think it's pretty close, it's 10.55 per home. Times that 5,000, that's 52,750 a month. Times 12, 633,000 a year. You add that in with the 427 for 22,000 homes, And we're talking another $1.127 million a year. Over 10 years, that's about $11.5 million in savings to the residents. Thank you. That only increases year over year because we all know the higher the number you start with, the more the annual increases become because they're based on percentage, of course. So we are indeed the best deal for the rate payer. We took that to mean that that's what the city wanted and that's why we left that money in there for the rate payer. You get all of that, the best service available, the best price available, that is the definition of value. That's where service and price meet on a scale, right? And that's value. That's the definition of it. And I'll just finish with this. Because we have been listening and we're trying to give Fullerton what it wants, not what we think it wants. We don't know what's better for you. You know what's better for you. That if we are chosen to move forward we would be more than willing to work with the teamsters to have a union shop right here in orange county where the current gentleman could work as union operators and any new hires could be union operators as well so that's a commitment i make to this council here tonight so thank you for your time look forward to the outcome thanks we'll start with our folks that are lined up

Good evening. Tonight I want to strongly recommend that you choose Republic Services. I'm doing that from a personal standpoint. They have served my family for over 40 years and we've been very happy with them. No one's perfect. An occasional miss pick up but they come back and get it. They've served the city for 70 years. They're a known reliable service for us. I think CNR CRNR has a good. proposal but why let one good company go for another one. And to say that you're going to rehire all the ones that are laid off from Republic if you change why do that. Why not just leave them in the company that they're at and keep that company. They know the routes. There'll be less transition. I strongly feel that we need a union company. Even if the other company treats their employees well, having a union gives the employees some kind of power to in the future or at any time to make a contract that is fair with everyone. My neighbors want to keep Republic. I've talked to many of them. I am really totally against enhancements so I'd say totally disregard that I don't think we needed to consider that for any of them. Lowest rate is not the always the best way to go. And and I want to say again I like a fair process and a fair process at the beginning. Our staff chose really good companies and then we started over. And had we not done that, Valley Vista would not have even been included. And so I look at that as a reason not to consider them also. So I strongly ask you to keep Republic. They're a fantastic company and fantastic employees. Thank you.

Hello my name is Patricia Hanzo and we are a family of three. We are homeowners. As far as Republic for our trash services I would strongly encourage you to keep them. This will mean no transition. I will not have to change my trash bins and so that would make me happy. In their in the slideshow they were showing it also shows four point two million dollars that they would give the city for road and infrastructure investment. And sadly our council member Valencia and our mayor Jung have brought a deficit to the city which has been embarrassing when people talk about our city for having a financial deficit. So Republic would give four point two million in road and infrastructure investment. So let's do them. They are also unionized. I am very much pro union and I think we should consider that. Initially the City Hall staff that looked at all these applications did not rate Vista Valley Valley Vista services well so they shouldn't have been on the top three at all. Sadly a lot of residents and voters are not paying attention to the details of what happens in the drama at City Hall with workers their recommendations to City Council Half the time the recommendations are ignored and it's sad. The CEO of Valley Vista was at the Hunt library. I think it was in July or August when there was a meet and greet and we were able to come as residents and talk to these folks. The CEO of Valley Vista services was there and I met him. I'm a social worker. I'm pretty blunt. I know how to interview people. I said, you know, something that's concerning to me, you as CEO gave $10,000 or $15,000 to Fred Jung for him to run for supervisor. And I said, did you do that? Because that's the word on the street. He said, yes, I did. To me, that's a conflict of interest. That's pay to play. The CEO of Valley Vista Services was honest with me, and I said, you know, it just looks kind of bad when you do that. So I was glad for his honesty, for having him confess to donating to Fred Jung as he ran for supervisor. And I'm really glad to the city staff here for hosting that event at Hunt Library for the community to meet all of these haulers and look at their maps and kind of figure out what they can offer what you know what kind of work they can do. So I strongly encourage the city council to pick Republic for trash services. Thank you.

Mayor Jung, members of the City Council, thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Ken Calvo. As a long-term resident here in the city of Fullerton, growing up here, we had a great trash company. It was called MG Disposal. So I'm a little disturbed to hear about Republic being here 70 or 40 years. They haven't. It was MG Disposal. It was owned by the Gallio family. The Gallio family lived, worked, and cohorted with all of us, went to school here. Some of them were in class with my siblings. Their service and their impeccable attention to detail was awesome. It was great to have a family-run business. Years later, I moved away. I lived in the San Gabriel Valley and was fortunate to have Valley Vista Services as our trash company. Their service was exceptional as well. Their rates were reasonable, and they always responded to extra service requests. And after a while, I figured out that they too were a family-owned business. It all started to make sense. So after returning to Fullerton, I learned that we no longer have MG Disposal, but a large corporation servicing Fullerton after buying out the company that bought out MG Disposal years ago. Almost every week when I get home on a Monday, I have to pick up my trash cans, sometimes lean over at the curb, sometimes in the middle of the street, and they're on their side, and I pick up my neighbor's trash cans because she has a disability. And so I've complained multiple times. I've even taken and sent pictures, so I'm a little disturbed with that, and it really bugs me that I keep having to do that. It seems the days of having a family-run business and a tight-knit customer service-oriented operation run by a family is long gone for us. You are all here to make a decision about the choice of service for our next trash services. I noticed that there's three different contractors, three different prices, with Valley Vista being the cheapest or least expensive, I should say, for businesses and residents. Speaking to other businesses growing up in the city, they're excited about not having to have an increase or having the middle amount of increase as possible. So with that, it would seem to be a slam dunk if you have to choose customer service of a small family business, lower rates, and you're going to have that attention to detail that you only get from smaller companies. I understand that two other companies have offered to do different things, such as pay $4 million towards street repair. From the looks of their pricing, however, I would say that the difference is just that. It's in their rates. And they're adding to the cost that we would all have to pay, basically, in essence, a new tax. I don't believe that $4 million would do a whole lot as far as street repair in the city of Fullerton. We have a couple of streets, more than a couple of streets that are in need of great repair, and that might not even buy us two streets worth of work. I also noticed the Valley Vista Services Office offered to do street sweeping for free, and I believe in that city, our city's between 20 and 22 square miles. That's a significant cost savings. I don't think that's something that's brought into consideration. So in the end I hope you will all do the right thing and choose what you think is the best interest of the city of Fullerton in these tough economic times. Sorry but I think the choice is pretty clear. I think we all want to save money in these hard days. So I appreciate your time. Thank you.

CONCIE PEDROZA- Je suis de retour.

Bonjour. Bonsoir. Councilman Devers. Mayor. Mayor Pro Tem. I am Yolanda Harrison, widow of Todd Harrison and resident of Rancho La Paz and a sitting member of our HOA board. I have been looking at this garbage contract and I have one very specific concern. Rancho La Paz was a seniors community. It's not anymore. I wonder why that happened. We now have families with children living alongside seniors, many of whom are still living on fixed incomes. And those households do not necessarily use garbage services in the same way. A senior living alone may not put out very little trash. A family with several people may generate considerably more. I don't even fill up my own trash can in a week. But if the rate structure spreads those increased costs across an entire community, the senior who generates one little bag of garbage every week can end up helping pay for someone else's larger household. Rancho La Paz doesn't get that choice. It's folded into our land leases. That's not equitable. Ce n'est pas equitable. And I want to be clear about something else. I'm a union baby. I grew up understanding both the good and bad of organized labour. I believe people who do difficult physical work should be paid properly, have decent benefits, work safety, and somebody standing behind them when they need it. I also know that putting the word union on something does not magically make every contract, every decision, or every price a good one. Don't give me a fake choice between treating workers fairly and protecting residents who can barely afford another increase. A good contract should be able to do both. And before anyone else tells me that a residential rate is just a residential rate, I want council to remember that garbage collection is not an optional purchase. Residents cannot comparison shop. We cannot say, no merci, I don't like that price, I'll use somebody else. You choose the provider, you approve the structure, we pay the bill. So I want to know exactly how mobile home parks and communities like Rancho La Paz will be billed under each proposal. By household, by container, by volume, by actual service, or will the cost generated by larger households be simply averaged across everyone? Because tabernacle average is a wonderful word until you are the 80-something-year-old widow subsidizing the garbage reduction by a household of five, or a 54-year-old widow subsidizing the household of five beside her. pay the workers properly, protect their safety, give them decent conditions, and protect your residents.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. Julie Beretta, Senior Vice President with CRNR. It's nice to see you all again. We also want to take a moment to thank your city staff for the hard work that they've gone through during this RFP process, and we've appreciated getting to know them over the last several months. So it was said previously, you have three very capable companies before you that can all do the job for the city. But I just wanted to leave you with a few thoughts before you make your decision this evening. You have two haulers that are union, one that is not. As stated, union employees have higher wages and secure pension retirement plans for their employees. You also have two haulers that are located in Orange County, one in L.A. County. As you know, earlier this year, you were required to sign the Wise Agreement, which requires all solid waste generated in Orange County to be disposed of in an Orange County landfill system, something to consider. That includes the contamination that's in recyclables that may be shipped to an L.A. County company but have to be transferred back into Orange County per the Wise Agreement. I'd like to state that CRNR is the only hauler in their proposal provided a hundred percent sb thirteen eighty three procurement which will help the city meet its state goals where the only holler that will process all of your organic waste at our anaerobic digestion facility which in turn we produce renewable natural gas that will service our trucks that serve the city of fullerton we believe we provided a competitive package for Fullerton ratepayers, along with substantial community investment to support scholarships, charitable giving, and road improvement fees stated in the staff report and the supporting documentation. We have the experience to be your next hauler. We've transitioned 17 cities in the last 20 years, and we would love to add Fullerton to the CRNR family. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, city council members. My name is Curtis Gamble, activist for the homeless, for the veterans, the Cal State Fullerton students, OCT bus drivers, and our senior community. I'd just like to say that I'm kind of, I liked both of the presentations, and I think they were great. I do support Republic, though. And I'd just like to say this, too, that I hope that you have listened to them very clearly and that you make the best decision on behalf of the community. The community is counting on you to do the right thing. Thank you for your time.

GOOD EVENING, COUNCIL. I JUST WANTED TO REMIND YOU GUYS THAT THIS IS A LONG-TERM CONTRACT OF ABOUT 10 TO 20 YEARS. SO IT'S ALSO A LONG-TERM PARTNERSHIP. AND I THINK THAT WHICHEVER COMPANY WE CHOOSE SHOULD BE ONE THAT CARRIES ITSELF WITH A HIGH ETHICAL STANDARD AND HAS A GOOD REPUTATION. CR&R and Republic Services meet that standard. Valley Vista does not. Prior to this process, David Perez, the CEO of Valley Vista, gave a contribution of $15,000 to Tony Bouchala's PAC, who this PAC and the principal officer has spent $60,000 on Valencia's race, over $30,000 on Jung's. and over 5,000 or 6,000 on Nix. So I think a company that would even do that should just be disqualified from the get-go. That's not someone that we should be paired with. And I think both CRNR and Republic are both good companies. I criticized Republic last time, but they significantly improved their offer. And I think you should make a decision between those two companies. have the other one be the backup in case they try to change terms or anything like that leading up to the award date. But I don't think that Valley Vista should be in this discussion at all. And like what was said earlier, they scored sixth out of nine. And Fred, you changed the process to allow them back in. So it's not a good look. It's going to be a worse look if you go with them though. So don't get Valley Vista. You have two qualified haulers right in front of you. And yeah, just go with Republic or CRNR. Thank you.

Good evening, happy September. ZJ, one of the longest term residents of this city from most people I've heard talk in the last three years, been here since 1978 when I relocated here. Hardest thing in life is change. Every one of you elected officials, myself and everybody in this gallery, Resist change. It's hard, difficult. It's needed. Republic, whatever their background history is, they didn't pick up my trash on two different occasions because of strikes. When I asked for a refund, I went round and round and round and round and round. And when I hear the people from Valley Vista talk about service and pride. Republic doesn't have that. When I finally got a hold of a Republic official and I was speaking to her in customer service, I said, my call is about a strike. She said, we haven't been on strike. I said, December of 22, you were on strike. I don't remember that, I wasn't here. Terrible customer service. As you may recall, I was a committee member for the investment advisory committee. When I started on that committee, we had a contract with a service provider who invested the city money. Early this year, They got removed. I asked Mr. Avila why. He said it's time for change. It's time for change. So you only really have two options. One is a union hauler. One is local to Orange County. One has contracts throughout Orange County. One is compliant with SB 313 for procurement. They contain organic waste, natural gas in their vehicles, and they offer scholarships. Are you somebody who cares about students and education? That's the only company that's offering scholarships. That's one of their programs. side interests in what to support in life. I work in education. I think there's a value in scholarships. I know there's a value in a higher education and moving forward and progressing. So it's time for change. If the three people who have taken Campaign contributions vote in a certain direction this city should protest in the streets because it's bought and sold and Since it's time for change. There's only one legitimate and capable company that services Orange County with some sort of consistency Yeah for hands and zoom AV you should be able to unmute and

Hello, can you hear me? You're a little quiet. If you speak a little louder, that'd be great.

Oh, thank you. Good evening, Council. I'd like to comment on Fullerton PD's flock presentation because it contains many material omissions. First, their representation.

Madam Speaker, you're welcome to comment on the flock presentation, but please do so at the next item, which is public comment. Can we do that? This is the waste dollar item.

Okay, thank you.

All right, thank you. Next speaker.

Okay, Garrett, you should be able to unmute.

Hello, yes, I was also looking to comment on the Fullerton Police Department presentation. Understood. Thank you.

Please hold for the next comment.

One more hand. Stephen Sherry, you should be able to unmute.

Yes. Hi. I was there earlier, but I have to leave. I play hockey on Tuesdays, so I had to leave a little early. But I did just want to make a comment. A couple other folks have brought it up that Valley Vista trash service Specifically, David Perez has made large contribution to a PAC that Tony Buscella runs that has gifted Mayor Jung, Jamie Valencia, and Nick Dunlap their seats. Nick Dunlap has daddy as well, but those... those funds definitely do prop up the majority on this council. And I was just going through our records. I run another PAC in the city, um, called Fullerton Forward. And, you know, I don't see, I don't see any checks for $15,000 there, David. Um, and so it seems like a little lopsided on who you're supporting, um, at the city level. The other thing is I saw that Valley Vista brought out an electric trash truck to the community meeting. I would not be surprised if they just rented that thing and painted it in Valley Vista colors for the event. Valley Vista gives me Vince Vaughn season two true detective vibes. I really think it would be a major mistake for the city of Fullerton to select a trash hauling company led by someone so cavalier to just throw around political donations in such a way, promise to bring in the Teamsters. I mean, there's no evidence that Valley Vista has supported unionized workers in the past. As for the unionization of their workforce, a lot of promises made and I'm very skeptical of Valley Vista Waste Services. And I just wanted to make sure for the public record that everyone was aware that there are multiple PACs in the city, foundations, community organizations doing work. And this organization decided to give to one of those that benefits the city council majority of which they're about to receive their contract. So you can follow the money. Thank you. Thanks, Speaker. Thanks, Speaker. All right. Let's go ahead and bring this back. All right.

Any members of council with questions for the consultant or our staff?

I have a couple of questions. Go ahead. You start. There was the mention of a two-tier system. Could you maybe explain a little bit on that?

Yes so in the new agreement we are updating how multifamily is being billed because in the current contract they're being billed two times. So they have a single family rates a standard rate that's built by the city by our utility billing and then Republic Services bills them a rental bin fee. So by trying to mitigate and make things easier in the new agreement, we are doing a standard where four units or less is residential, five units or more is commercial. But then they would be charged commercial rates. So Mr. Otter, who made a public comment earlier, stated CRNR is right now, from the last offers we received, The only firm offering to do a special multifamily rate a standard rate the way a single family home pays they're offering to work with the city to create a standard multifamily rate. So instead of it being a commercial rate it would be multifamily.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF. Okay. I see. And how much. How does that translate to cost. DIRECTOR MACKLIN.

That's something that if they're selected then as we're negotiating and finalizing terms it would be discussed at that time so that it would be a more reasonable rate for multifamily members. Especially residents, I should say, because their operations are different than a commercial business per se.

The second question was on the mobile parks. How is that handled amongst the three?

Yeah I would have to look into that for the Rancho La Paz because normally the way it's billed it's billed per property address and in multifamily you bill per unit. So I'm not aware of this change from seniors to how Rancho La Paz is billed. So I'd have to look into it and then I can get back to you with that information after.

But in general, do there count as each individual home, mobile park home, is considered a single family, essentially? It's billed as that?

It can be, unless they're doing it like a multifamily residential unit, and then it's billed per unit. So like I said, I'd have to look into how they are billed.

Oh, I see. So the main... company the landlord is using it like a multi-family billing or an individual billing so I'd have to look into that and particularly for rancho la paz and we do have another one that is a senior residence mobile park if they're billed the commercial are they now being excluded from the senior rate that is a good point we would have to look into it because we don't have senior rates now that's something we're doing in the new agreement yeah so it would be something we'd have to look into that would be really great to look at in the next phase of negotiation because we do both Republic I mean all of them distinguish between the senior rate and the residential rate correct and then so maybe the we only have two mobile parks I think in the city maybe three

I know the senior mobile park is on Valencia.

Yeah, there's that one. And then now Rancho La Paz is mixed.

Yeah, now it's mixed. Yeah, we'll look into that. Council members are.

Thank you. That's all I have.

Yeah. You know, one question I had, not so much about these proposals, but getting more, I guess, back more to the RFP. I wanted to see if I could get some clarification because I will say, I think for those who were here and have followed, I kind of, ENJOYED THE EMBARGO AND HAD OFFERED TO CONTINUE THE SELF EMBARGO BECAUSE I DIDN'T FRANKLY WANT TO BE BATCHERED BY ALL OF THE REPRESENTATIVES FROM THESE COMPANIES. I WILL SAY THANK YOU TO CRNR FOR REALLY PESTERING ME ENOUGH TO KIND OF DROP THE EMBARGO BECAUSE I WAS ABLE TO MEET WITH THEM AND ACTUALLY FROM THAT STANDPOINT EVERY VENDOR TO GET A LITTLE MORE INSIGHT HERE. I THINK I DO HAVE A FEW QUESTIONS SPECIFICALLY FOR CITY STAFF AND THAT IS I KNOW ON THE HEELS OF OUR LAST MEETING WHERE WE TALKED ABOUT SORT OF THE FEES THAT SOME OF THESE HALLERS WERE OFFERING TO PAY UP FRONT RIGHT. SOME OF THEM WERE ACTUALLY STRUCTURED AS LOANS OUTRIGHT TO THE CITY WITH, YOU KNOW, EXTREMELY HIGH INTEREST, RIGHT? AND NONE OF WHICH THE CITY ACTUALLY ASKED FOR. BUT HAVING SAID THAT, I THINK ONE THING THAT REALLY CAME APPARENT IS THE CITY IS ACTUALLY CHARGING THESE, YOU KNOW, HAULERS, EACH OF THEM, UNDER THE TERMS OF THE CONTRACT, ABOUT $3.7 MILLION A YEAR IN FEES. AND ALONG WITH THAT, YOU KNOW, I GUESS WHAT I'VE HEARD IS THAT IN TALKING TO THE HAULERS, THEY SAY THAT'S ABOUT 20 TO 30% than averages in other cities and so I'm trying to figure that out because certainly that's something that ultimately is going to end up impacting the rate payers and if we want to stand here tonight and talk about rate schedules and the best rates for our rate payers well then we should really look at trying to cut that down so that it's in line with what other cities are you know I mean it's in line I assume it's somehow related to our costs or our expenses at least based on you know some of the research I've been able to do but I kind of want to get an understanding of that and want to see where we came up with those fees and how we see that as in line with the marketplace considering, again, it's about 20 to 30% higher based on kind of what I've figured.

So when we were, we researched for a year prior to the RFP being released. It'll be one year on Thursday. And we looked at a lot of different contracts, all Republic contracts in Orange County, different contracts from other haulers within the Orange County sector we looked at. one in Palm Desert, one in Riverside, one in Hawthorne, so different LA County regions. And the 10% franchise fee is actually average. A lot of other cities also do have legislative compliance city fees and NPDES fees or vehicle impact fees, different types of fees. Other cities do offer those types of fees. So we didn't feel that they were outrageous from what we noticed from what other cities are doing. And based on the requirements in California with the state legislative mandates, a lot of them are unfunded. And we do have to ensure that we are compliant with those programs. Not all haulers offer a full suite you know, funded mandate legislative contract. So we didn't feel that those types of rates were out of the norm, but are open if council wants to revisit that. We are happy to revisit that and take your considerations moving forward.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's important for me, especially considering like one of the comps that they offered, and this was specifically CR&R, it indicated that I think the highest fee they pay is about $3 million a year TO THE CITY OF ORANGE WHICH IS VERY COMPARABLE I THINK IN TERMS OF POPULATION SIZE HOUSING UNITS YOU KNOW KIND OF LAND CONFIGURATION AND SUCH AND SO I THINK AS FAR AS LIKE LOOKING AT OUR RATES I MEAN I THINK WE SHOULD BE LOOKING TO COVER COSTS I MEAN AT BEST NOT TRYING TO PAD THESE FEES AND INCREASE THESE COSTS THAT ARE ULTIMATELY GOING TO DRIVE OUR OWN PRICES HIGHER SO YOU KNOW THE WAY I SEE IT I MEAN IT SEEMS LIKE WE'VE STILL GOT SOME WORK TO DO HERE WITH RESPECT TO YOU KNOW PRICING WITH SOME OF THE VENDORS THAT WE'RE STILL WORKING WITH SO I don't want to get into comments too much here, but that was my initial question and concern. So thank you. All right.

Council Member Charles, any questions to ask?

Of course. And I have questions also of the haulers that are all here too as well. So I'm going to start with staff. And this one I'm bringing up because it was brought up by the public and I apologize that it is one particular person, but I do think that it's important that we talk about this. Could I get the city attorney, please, to weigh in on the Levine Act issues, that if it is, in fact, that one of the people up for the contract, one of the companies, has donated over $500, I believe, is the limit to a particular person, do they need to recuse themselves from this?

Contributions to political action committees is exempt from the Levine Act.

So according to the Levine Act, it's exempt. Correct.

So they may have made a contribution to a political action committee that does not fall under the Levine Act.

So there's a funnel through, as was talked about by one of the callers. Okay. All right. Thank you. So let's talk about the slide number. They aren't numbered on my printout. I'm sorry. I believe it's slide number four, the one that has the comparison. Comparison. And it says price ranking and all of that. I really have some difficulty with Republic being placed in third here from what I see on here. And I heard our consultant saying that Valley Vista is lowest commercial. I've heard a few people mention that. According to this chart, Valley Vista is highest in commercial. It's $267.99, comparing to $256.67. So if we could explain that discrepancy, please. Is the slide just wrong?

No, it's not a discrepancy. uh... in the pricing matrix that we prepared we look through your current services not everybody gets a three yard bin once a week some people get multiple times a week there's different sizes of recycling containers so what the matrix did is it took everybody's proposed rates and put it into the same service levels across all the rate categories so that's where valley vista when people are using bins for recyclable materials valley vista is much cheaper And so again in one of my reports I said that's actually a good thing for rate payers going forward because right now SB 1383 is making everybody have a recycling program. So people are adding carts for recycling so they're compliant. But if anybody's ever tried to throw a bunch of cardboard boxes out in carts it doesn't work well. What they need to do is reduce their trash as much as they can and have a big recycling container because it's cheaper. So that's where Valley Vista.

But can we explain this number. What is this number on this slide then? What is this telling me?

Okay which number are you referring to?

Commercial $267.99 compared to Republic at $256.67.

That's a three yard bin once a week rate and it's taken from the pricing matrix and the comparison document that we prepared that has this.

So why is it on here? Is it because that's the most common? Do commercial commonly use that?

It's a commonly referred to rate to show a comparison. So we're showing the same rates for everybody. We can't show them all but overall the number is based on a mix of rates.

So in the comparison that is the common used comparison Valley Vista is much higher by this.

No in the. Which is what I'm saying. Commonly used figures that we we did to display. Also if you looked at our matrix we gave an overall number that said based on their billings for residential services here's how they rank. It was used in the scoring criteria.

This is the three yard bin that is most commonly used. I just saw our staff nod for that. For commercial that use the three-yard bin, this is the price compared to Republic. Okay, thank you. I appreciate the clarification there. So you mentioned also that Republic was cheaper after four years. Could you go into that, please?

Well, they weren't cheapest overall. They're the most expensive overall.

Cheaper after four years compared to the CRNR.

Comparing the 10-year table.

Mm-hmm.

of the CPIU that the city wants to use versus the GTCI which is the schedule Republic wanted to use there's a there's a gap between those. So staying with that over 10 years.

Can I just clarify your language for one second? I'm so sorry. Because I had some pretty extensive conversations. And they put their proposal together based on their usual practices. And then the city came back and said, look, we want to use this other CPIU. And they went forward and said, OK, we're going to do that. And we're going to talk to our... Headquarters and go up and they came back and they said okay We're gonna use that with the city of Fullerton and I think that's being characterized somehow as they did something Unsolicited and that just doesn't make sense to me because we asked them to use that and then they said yes They worked with us on this if I could they were asked to clarify if their pricing would change if they used a different schedule because by our estimation that would have made them much more expensive over term and

And let's face it, you're probably not going to want to go out to bid again in 10 years. If you're talking over 20 years, this is potentially $40 million more that ratepayers would pay by using that schedule.

But they're not using it anymore. They're using the CPIU, and so that's what we're talking about. So according to that, after four years, they're cheaper than CRR.

No, no, they're cheaper than if they had kept the schedule that they originally wanted to. what what they were asked was would it change your rates they didn't answer the question they gave back a new proposal that reduced the upfront payment from four point five to four point two five million and they increased some commercial rates by three percent all the trash so it's higher initially but I'm saying by using the CPI you by year four And thereafter, it'll be better for rate payers using CPIU.

OK, which they've agreed to use. So that's good. I'm glad that they've agreed to use the better for rate payers. So CRNR, their $4 million road improvement investment, which has stayed consistent this whole time, but a new wrinkle came up now that I don't think we talked about before. Was it that split for two years? It's not a one payment, it's two payments over two years?

$2 million each, $2 million a year the first two years of the agreement.

Yeah, so then it's actually not $4 million. I mean, the way that lottery payments work, the way that economics works is that if something happens later on, you discount it. $2 million next year is not the same as $2 million this year. So really, it's not $4 million technically. And Republic's going 4.25 now. OK. Let me look at my other questions here. So talking about the downtown area, has there been any kind of pull out upon the three companies when we look at the downtown area rates?

I think you can speak to those. I know that that was initially a challenge because people weren't exactly doing apples to apples in pricing comparison. So we didn't want to unfairly score anybody. So we didn't include those in the matrix. And I think since then that that's something we've tried to get clarity on. It would be something I would recommend negotiating on along with the multifamily rates. But again you have to get somebody across the table from you.

The first choice yeah, so it's possible Maybe that two-tier system could could happen regardless of holler as well if that's something we said that we wanted to pull out the multifamily I think that is really important Okay, and then I do have some questions for the hollers themselves if if we can do that if that's Okay at this point. It looks like it is great So you know Republic I you guys didn't nobody got up and made public comment and which kind of surprised me. You have a large contingent here, and you've been very vocal offline. I hope that also you would make some public comment, but we didn't get to hear that. So I do have a couple of questions for you if there's anybody that would like to come up. And I appreciate also some of the residents also speaking for you as well. I need to get some emails as well, also in support of you. I'd like to say that. The emails that I got from residents were in support. So let me, I'm sorry, just looking at my questions here. Okay, so thinking about your community supports, because it was mentioned that CRNR was the only one that does scholarships, that you guys don't do sharps disposal, you know, those kind of things were brought up before. If you could go into some more of those community supports that might not be listed here on this table.

Sure. First of all, thank you, Councilmember Charles, for giving us the opportunity to speak. In terms of the community support, outside of the 4.25 that's going into the infrastructure, we have an annual $215,000 that goes to charitable contributions and donations. We also have another $25,000 in in-kind service, and both those are annual. In terms of the scholarship payments, we are open to the idea during negotiations to apply a portion of that to scholarship.

Okay. Go ahead. You were about to add something else.

No problem. And then also part of that $215,000, that could be part of it. Additionally to what my colleague Peter had mentioned, we are also providing over $17,000 annually for ROWP compost procurement. And then also part of our $4.25 million, which is in excess of all the competitors, part of that also could be used for additional compost procurement. In addition to that, we are providing $200,000 annually for HHW event support. We're also providing programming for Sharpe's collection and other programming that was referenced by the other proposers.

Okay, great. Thank you. And then I did have the opportunity to tour your facility, which was literally down the street from my district, just down Kramer Boulevard. So it was very easy for me to get to, two minutes away. And it was a very large and impressive facility that one of the things that you talked about there was, and it also came up in CRNR. I'm going to definitely have you come back up and talk about this as well. But staying within Orange County, that recycling things need to stay within Orange County. And how does that work with your system?

So the facility you toured is both a recycling center and a transfer station. So all the material that's hauled from Fullerton is taken to our transfer station or direct hauled straight to a Orange County landfill.

OK. And I believe there was something about recycling also with the bottles staying local?

Everything stays local. Everything is processed in that recycling center.

OK.

And those facilities are well-established, certified, and permitted, and they're not at risk for any type of CalRecycle pullback on certification, like the high-diversion waste facilities and other facilities from competitive proposers.

Okay, great. Thank you. And then there was one other thing, and staff might need to comment on this part as well, but it was because also a speaker came up and said that they really like that they already have a green recycling bin and they don't want to change their bins, just make it easy for them. Could you speak to that requirement about needing to change compost bins if we were to go with your company?

Sure. So some of the Fulton residents current day already have three bins. And for those who do have three bins, one being a green waste currently, that as soon as 1383 is signed becomes an instant compliant with organics as well. And for those who don't, obviously we would drop off a third cart to those residents.

So if you already had that third bin, you could keep it essentially?

Absolutely.

As a health insurance researcher, that reminds me of Obamacare. If you like your insurance, you could keep it. But going back to that, I think that's an important thing. But if staff could mention that, because there was something you said about that the state requires that everybody has to change, whether they just got one or not. Yes. And thank you so much. I'm going to go on to the other callers. I appreciate your time.

So we do have to have SB 1383 compliant cards. They're color coded and also they have to have certain labels that have to be approved by the city. So as republic is our current incumbent when they do replacements on some of the new cards they are now having those color coded Compliant cards we don't have the labels yet but one of the requirements of the new agreement is that they also have to have some type of number or barcode or labeling because they have to be attached to every single customer in order for us to be able to know who they belong to especially now with 1383 Enforcement is one of the requirements that will fall upon staff. We're not going to know if who to give education and outreach to even whoever the hauler is chosen. We need to know who those carts belong to. So I don't. Some of them may be color coded but they might not have the marking. We have to make sure the labels are approved. They could maybe put a label on some of the carts that are already there. But prior to this also our city didn't have like right now with 13 3 gray or black is trash recycling supposed to be blue and organics green. But we had a different color for recycling. So we would have to make sure that every single, single family or business owner or multi-family complex has the correct containers. So we still would have to have Republic do a citywide check. But also there's a lot of people that don't have the new container. It's not that no transition rollout.

Of course. But if people already had it, it could be easier for them.

And we make sure there's a number or a marking or a barcode. They can keep that one there.

Okay, great. Thank you. All right. So would the vice president of CRNR like to talk? Thank you. Thank you. And in our discussion, we talked a lot about your anaerobic facility and all that, which I wasn't able to go visit because it is distant. But then when you just mentioned about the Orange County aspect of it, I think that does need clarification because I believe where that's located is out in Paris in San Bernardino County. So if you could go into why then that would be compliant.

It's still compliant. What I was referring to earlier in my conversation was about landfill waste. So that has to stay within Orange County. But similar to Republic Services, our recycling material recovery facility is located in Stanton. So all of our recyclables that we collect for residential and commercial waste would come back to our Stanton facility. be processed and then organics with similar companies everyone's kind of sending them all over the place there's not a lot of infrastructure in Orange County so we send our organics to our anaerobic digester in Paris and then again other companies so that's that that meets the requirements organics do not have to stay in Orange County okay thank you and then one other question about I'm sorry if

There's so many things floating around in here. Thinking about your rates, at this point, Republic and you, your rates look comparable according to here, but your senior rate is pretty high compared to the other folks on these. Your senior rate was $27.60 compared to $18.68 for Republic and then Valley Vista slightly a little bit below that. So if you could go into why those are at that level and if there's any room to move there.

There's definitely room. We follow the procedure that we have in many of our contracts. Most commonly your senior rates are 10 percent less of your basic single family rate. Pretty common in most agreements if you look at them doesn't matter who the hauler is so those fluctuate. So if that's something that is important to the city or the city would like us to look at we're more than willing to negotiate that rate with staff.

Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you. And if someone from Valley Vista would be I know that you have a lot of staff here as well. And I did two of your facility as well just getting that out there and It was a good facility to look at. It was a good place to start. I do believe that you're doing good work out there. Thank you. But I am concerned about, I was looking at your proposal and I was talking about the two-stream compared to three-stream bins and that you have a two-stream recycling facility. And if you could talk about the certification of that and why that could be compliant because the three-stream is definitely compliant, but yours is maybe not.

So we have a high organics waste diversion facility. It's one of the only ones here in Southern California. And we can offer a two-bin system versus a three-bin system for locations with space constraints, like multi-family locations. We're fully compliant with CalRecycle. So that would also save payers money, because they wouldn't have to have three containers if there's no room or space.

But thinking about the compliant with CalRecycle, I was looking at their requirements, and they do have to certify pretty regularly. Can you talk about when yours is up for certification again, and how is that working?

Yes. I'm not 100% sure when our certification is up, but one thing that we strive, that we do at Valley Vista, like I mentioned earlier in my speech, we do a lot of outreach and education. So it starts at the beginning. the customer. So we have to make sure that our customers are recycling properly and that helps us in our certification. I actually have Manny here who can talk a little bit more about that.

Manny Perez, Business Development Manager. Certification is ongoing by CalRecycle constantly. It happens every quarter. The review is about half a year behind, about six months. So we're currently compliant. We submit reporting to them regularly and we look forward to our next compliance.

Okay, great. And I'm glad you came up because one thing you mentioned in our conversation, as everybody knows, I'm very pro-union. Being union myself for over 25 years in my career, I definitely stand in solidarity with the union folks. And you mentioned a labor peace agreement, you said, with the Teamsters. But when I looked into that, that seemed to be more related only to Los Angeles. It doesn't have any effect in Orange County. And then, of course, the president or CEO of the gentleman there mentioned that he would be open to doing, or committed to having this be a union facility. So if you could talk more about whether or not that is something that we should think about, the labor peace agreement, or if we should just put that aside because it's not valid here.

Yeah, the labor peace agreement is with the Teamsters, and it is for the city of L.A. It does not apply to this area, but just for the record, we were a Teamsters union shop a long time ago that was decertified, and... because employees decided that they weren't getting their best deal with the union. And of course, like Mr. Perez, my father, said, We are open to unionization. We welcome them, and we look forward to them giving their best deal for our employees.

And I think you told me that unionization was almost my entire lifetime ago, right, in the 70s? Yeah. Yeah, quite some time. Things change, you know.

Still true.

Yeah. Well, thank you. Those are my questions. I appreciate it. If you'd like to say something.

Dr. Charles, yeah, if I could just clarify a little bit. Yes, the labor peace agreement is specifically for the city of Los Angeles. But it does show that we do have relationships with the teamsters and we can negotiate. And we're willing to enter into those type of agreements. So my commitment to the city was that, you know, if that is something the city desires, that we can work with them to make the union shop here in Orange County. Again, there's a lot of nuances to that. I'm sure there's a lot involved with the employees and the votes and how all that works. But I would have to count on our teamsters to kind of walk me through that.

Okay. Thank you. And thank you. Those are my questions. I believe we're not doing Comments yet as I heard mayor Pro Tem Dunlap say we're holding comments for later.

So those are my questions Any questions to ask or I feel like a lot of questions were asked and I appreciate the presentations I appreciate the haulers here. I appreciate touring Republic's facility and Meeting with the other haulers and speaking with them as they're about their systems. I I have studied this proposal a lot. I still have you know as mayor pro tem was talking about the rates and Just more things to ponder about the best rates for our city and the best services. So we'll continue on our conversations All right.

Let's go to council comments Councilman Zara you want to start us off?

Sure I appreciate all the haulers. I appreciate meeting with the staff. I had lovely conversations with all of them. I'm glad we did lift that embargo because we were able to connect on a personal level with folks. I didn't tour the facilities only because I didn't have, unfortunately, the time to do that. I've been traveling a lot. But I do have some reservations on, and I was honest with everybody about my opinions. My reservations with Valley Vista is the size of the company. One comment that was made, I think it was made as a source of pride, which I think they should, that they wear many hats. And I think for the size of our city, we are probably more suited for a larger company that could service some of the the different aspects of our city. We have Cal State Fulton. We have the college. We have the St. Jude's complex. So it is a significantly large city compared to some of the other services. So that is the, you know, I don't, I won't speak to, you know, I think they all have an integrity and care for their work. So nothing on that. I commend everybody and their passion. Between Republic Services and CR&R, I think they are, to me, the top two contenders at this point. But given the fact that Republic, the current incumbent, did come back with a more reasonable and very competitive pricing, I would favor keeping the incumbent only because the disruption – But in this case, this is a very significant change. It's a large city, and the disruption, I think, will be – we have to weigh that in as a factor. I've seen Republic Services work over the years. I think there were some moments of disruption of work, obviously, with the strike. But I don't think we can fault the corporate entity itself. There were circumstances that led to it. And both parties ultimately came to an agreement. And I was on the pickets line, by the way. And they know that. But I also saw the work that they did during the pandemic and servicing our city when our residents needed it the most. AND CONTINUED WORKING. I'VE GOTTEN TO KNOW SOME OF THE WORKERS WHO LIVE HERE. AND AGAIN, DISRUPTING THE LIVELIHOODS OF INDIVIDUALS WHO WORK IN OUR CITY IS SOMETHING THAT WE HAVE TO TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION. AND I DO APPRECIATE THE OTHER HALLERS SAYING THEY WOULD ABSORB THE WORKFORCE AND SO ON. BUT THAT IS A DISRUPTION TO A FAMILY AND TO OUR RESIDENTS HERE AND NEIGHBORS. With that in mind, I think my choice is to stay with the incumbent because it is, I think, the more reasonable choice for our city considering the pricing, the scope of the work, and the consistency and continuity of the service.

All right. Council Member Charles, any comments you'd like to make?

Sure. OK, I thought you were going to Mayor Pro Tem Dunlap. I'm sorry. But I can make my comments now if we like. OK. So I also want to extend my thanks to all three companies for sticking with this process through a long haul and being able to come at us with competitive proposals and being willing to open up your facilities to us. I had conversations and visited the ones that I could distance aside on the third. So of course, for me, the union aspect is a huge deal. I understand the pricing aspect. I am concerned that maybe the pricing is so complex as to be disingenuous. And if we're looking at comparing apples to apples here, what's being presented to the public is that Valley Vista is actually higher for commercial. So it looks to me that they're using the commercial rates to be higher. so that the residential could be lower instead of kind of spreading it out more evenly, which CR&R and Republic Services both seem to be doing. And I'm also concerned, honestly, although on one hand, I appreciate saying we will become union. We'll go with the Teamsters. On the other hand, the whole point of your rates being lower is that you weren't using union to get to those lower rates. And so if you then end up becoming union, will those rates have to be renegotiated? Will they then be comparable? Or how is it possible to pay the union living wages and benefits and all of those things at the same rates here. It doesn't seem to work. And then the other aspect that I am concerned with is when we look at the comparable cities, Republic Services is the only one that does service cities that are larger than us, along with, again, to my concern, Cal State Fullerton uses Republic Services as well. That would be consistent within my district and within Fullerton. And so I am concerned. Happy that the incumbent came back multiple times with multiple different offers and really worked with our city. I do like the 4.25 for roads and infrastructure. We were not able to get a sales tax on the ballot for this year. And I do think that I understand we have $225 million of backlog road repairs, but this is going to help for this year. So that's something that I'm interested in and appreciative of. So I do think the incumbent, and it is less of a transition for our residents overall. So I am in favor of the incumbent also at this point.

Okay. Councilwoman Valencia, any comments?

I do like the fact that Republic is our incumbent. I do like the fact that they know our city very well. I am interested about Valley Vista's low rates for our city. I feel like there might be a little bit more work that we can look into, but I'd like to hear what my other colleagues have to say.

All right. Mr. Mayor Protem.

You know, this has been an interesting process for me, I think, as we started out initially with, what, 10 to 12 bids that we kind of sorted through. And to be honest, from the very beginning, you know, I kind of saw like, hey, you know, the top one and two, I think at that time was CRR and EDCO. That was probably who I favored at that time. And frankly, you know, I think staff was pretty willing to kind of ask Republic from the very beginning. And, you know, based on my understanding of the circumstances that kind of led to this point, that was something that I was okay with at that point, considering, hey, I felt that there was this, sort of adversarial relationship between Republic and staff, and it seemed like they just couldn't work it out. But then as we moved through the process and as the embargo was lifted, I actually saw kind of getting out and talking to these folks that, frankly, I think that just as we sort of were presented with this idea that Republic was difficult to deal with and not willing to come to the table, I think it actually became apparent that, in fact, our own city staff, and I'm not putting this on the folks that are here. I think there was other folks, including folks who have moved on to other cities, no longer here, that were involved in those discussions that kind of led to this sort of impasse, if you will, that forced us through this process. And I think if there's a benefit to that, it's that we've kind of gone through this process where we were essentially in a long-term, what had almost become an evergreen contract, You know, as people have noted through the various, I think, renditions of, you know, whether it was MG and then Tormina, Republic and what have you. But, you know, here we are. And I think what's really become apparent in meeting with all of the vendors as well, you know, we actually had the opportunity to sit down with these folks. And, you know, Republic, I think, was actually the first and really of the groups that I met with, you know, is really here to kind of show that, hey, look, they care, they know our city, and, you know, they're frustrated for why we're even here because, you know, in their view, hey, of course, and I get that they would see their businesses not having done anything wrong, and I was quick to call them out on that. But, you know, I do think, you know, the point is, you know, we've kind of got to where we're at because whether it was staff, whether it was Republic or both, But it kind of put us through this exercise where I think now we're ultimately going to get a better deal for our rate payers as a result of it. I think folks have noted there are various conversations they had with the different waste haulers. And I'll be honest, I sat down with Valley Vista, and I think it was actually refreshing to see in this setting where here we have this sort of national or international conglomerate in Republic to sit down with a family-run business You know decades in service here in Southern California and to sit across from second generation you know three brothers that currently run the business I think there's something you know very special about that but that's not. Entirely what we base our decisions off of right we're going based off of what who we believe based on experience and based on track record will be the best service provider for our city. And I will say. you know, again, and I, as someone who had CR&R pretty much ranked number one, I think, in each of my kind of runoffs, as we got to the final, I thought, you know, I just, I got to be honest, I didn't see it based on the presentation. And I thought it was interesting because they kind of badgered me to meet, right? And they said, hey, can we meet? Can we meet? Can we meet? We really want to meet. The reality is this. I work in the property management, the real estate business. We have properties across Southern California. And as a result of that, I work with a lot of different waste haulers, and we see there's no perfect vendor, right? I think I made the joke at one of the prior meetings that it's the same trash, just a different bin. And I think in many ways it is. So I think what we're looking at today is trying to get the best opportunity for our city and for our rate payers going forward. And I think that at this point, I mean, I'm probably leaning towards, and if not in favor of Republic, I think one of the things that we should be doing is looking at, because what I've heard through multiple speakers tonight and also through the reports, I think that there's obviously still some room both in pricing and also in the rate schedule. And so I think we need to refine that. And I also think that we need to take into consideration the compliance fee of like $3.7 to $3.8 million. I know I would like to get a better understanding of just where that came from. Because again, I know there was this idea that, hey, it's in line with what other cities are charging. But, again, you look at Orange's numbers, most comparable city, they're at about $3 million. So we're still, you know, $700,000 or $800,000 higher on an annual basis. And, again, that's ultimately something that's costing the rate payers, right? So I don't know if that's going to complicate things too much, but I would really like to see what these rates would look like, you know, if we were to cut that fee, you know, really to the kind of bare bones minimal of what we absolutely need to charge for it and then go back and see where we end up. But, you know, that's – Those are kind of my comments. That's that's where I'm at tonight and frankly It's it's been an interesting process because again as I noted like initially Yeah, I was kind of fine with riding Republic off, and it's like almost like they've kind of gone You know raced you know from you know from from bottom to top so that's that's where I'm at and I Be curious to see where the rest of the council's at all right. Thank you.

Mr.. Mayor pro tem I YOU KNOW, THERE'S A GENTLEMAN UP HERE TALKING ABOUT TRANSPARENCY. I AGREE. TRANSPARENCY IS CRITICAL IN THIS ISSUE. IT'S ONE OF THE MOST MEANINGFUL DECISIONS ALL OF US WILL MAKE ON BEHALF OF THE CITY AND ITS RESIDENTS AND BUSINESSES. THAT SAID, THE PROCESS HAS BEEN REMARKABLY TRANSPARENT. QUITE FRANKLY, REPUBLIC INITIALLY WAS RANKED DEAD LAST NINE OUT OF NINE. after we went and offered them another go around, sharpened the pencil, they both did. And this time around, they did it again. This is not a contemptuous position. As far as I know, can't grow broke taking a profit. So I think all of us need to consider that Orange County's landfills are not infinite, they're extraordinarily finite. Within the breadth of this contract, one will close for certain, perhaps two. I think you have to consider the breadth and scope of a company and their capacity to be able to serve not just this contract, but 20 years from now as well. You know, I think the existing vendor, to my colleague's point, is a low risk. I think they have the knowledge that comes with institutionally being of service here for many, many decades. That said, I also think you can't ignore the cheapest one for our residents and businesses. So with that, what I would move to this evening, and I will make the motion as such, is that we move forward with Valley Vista as the lowest bidder and Republic our current bidder. And let's see how much we can get out of sharpening a pencil one more time. Again, I can't repeat this enough. Don't go broke taking a profit. With that, If there's an alternate motion or if there's a second, I'm happy to entertain it. I'll make a substitute motion. Can I just say something real quick? Oh, go ahead, yes.

I mean, I think, you know, I'm not... What was that?

There was no second.

Oh, okay. Well, no, again, I think for me, really, at this point, I'm more interested in just kind of refining the rate structure. Like, I would like for us to kind of land on And I don't know if the only way we achieve that is through the competitive bidding process, right? It's kind of bidding two people against – two companies against one another, right, to get the best terms. And, I mean, I know certainly in business and contracts that's usually how it's done. But I think there's a lot of different things going on here. And I think as a council we need to give the vendor, I think, good – direction and clarity on where they're at so they kind of understand because we do go to like a top two um you know where we ultimately make our determination i i don't want to get like you know apples to oranges here we need to be able to make a decision on this and so um you know that those are kind of my thoughts understood uh any other comments unless there's a second we'll move on to the next motion okay

I have a second on that one, but how Mayor Pro Tem was stating it, have some, provide some direction for these haulers to come back.

That would be the expectation. Okay. All right. Well, can we, listen, before we call the vote, I mean, I am curious to see what, you know, fellow council members have to say, because I think with respect to this process, again, we've gone through this for over a year, and I think we need to hear kind of you know, the objections to this process. Because I think, like, at least for me, right, we have heard both from staff and from the vendors that are here that there is more room in pricing. And I just, I'm curious to see how, you know, if we were to move forward with just one vendor, like, how we get the best opportunity there, right? And that's, I'm curious to see if that's part of it, right?

Let's ask Councilman Zara. You were going to make a substitute motion. Well, first of all, I think that we've,

Did you want to go ahead? I just wanted to finish. Oh, go ahead. Finish. Sorry.

No, I just wanted to piggyback what Mayor Pro Tem was saying in respect to that it's a really hard decision because Republic is our current hauler. You guys know our streets. You understand what our city needs, what we need to get compliant with. You can do all these things. The rate difference is different. So it's just kind of something more to kind of look into. And I agree with Mayor Pro Tem about that. that's just where I want to put this and that's why I think that it's good to kind of look back at these two haulers and provide a little bit more direction. That's where I'm at with that.

Okay. Councilman Mazzara anything? So I mean we've we've this this process has been extremely long now and we do have deadlines coming up with the states and so on and I think we just need to make a decision. We have to make some decisions and it has to be tonight. We've narrowed it down to two to three and And I think they have come with what I have read as the best and final. So I don't know why we should drag these three businesses longer. LET'S JUST MAKE A DECISION, CHOOSE ONE, WHICH ON THIS POINT I WOULD OFFER REPUBLIC SERVICES AND NEGOTIATE WITH THEM. I DO AGREE THAT WE SHOULD LOOK AT OUR OWN RATE STRUCTURE ON THE BACK END AND THEN THAT COULD BE PART OF THE NEGOTIATIONS MOVING FORWARD.

SO YOU WANT US TO NEGOTIATE AGAINST OURSELVES WITH REPUBLIC?

NO, THAT WAS THE SUGGESTION OF COUNCILMEMBER DUNN.

NO OFFENSE TO REPUBLIC BUT THEY'RE HERE AND THEY DIDN'T DO THAT. Ultimately what led us down this path, right? So I mean I look I'm with you and frankly, I mean I do think You know, this is like it's like you're putting your cards on the table, right but not good No, you brought that up, right? Right? No, but that's what it's about I mean in like we again we heard I think two or three people here tonight plus city staff say hey, there's more room There's difference in the rate schedules. There's different in the rate structures And I think we owe it to the rate payers to go back and see what that best and final is. But again, if we have just one party and we say, hey, okay, great, we've already accepted you. Please come back with your best terms.

They're going to say, okay, this is really all we can do.

But the rates have gotten better each time. But I also think part of the room is this whole $3.8 million fee that the city is charging annually. I think we need to really look at that and understand why and understand the impact of that on the rates because My belief is that lessening that fee to the haulers will actually lower our rates.

Sure, but that could happen during the negotiation. While we're moving forward with the contract that we are choosing, with the hauler that we're choosing, we can look at our own rate structure, and then down the line, once we make a deal, we can go back and revisit these numbers and lower the rates for our residents. These are two separate things, and we can do those. Whoever we choose, we are going to do that as per what you want. Regardless of what we're doing.

It didn't happen the first time around. It barely happened the second time around. That's the process.

But we are at a point now where we're asking these haulers to give us their best and final, and they did. And now we're telling them, let's go back and negotiate again.

The hauler that you're asking us to negotiate with solely GAVE AN ENHANCED NO SOLICITED OFFER IN THE LAST WEEK. I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU MEAN BY NO SOLICITED. EXCUSE ME.

BECAUSE IT WAS SOLICITED BY CITY STAFF. THEY ASKED FOR IT IN AN E-MAIL

That's not what they did as far as the director of Public Works can he can attest to this what they asked clarification they didn't ask for a rebid or a Anything else beyond that, but please allow me to finish what clarification is me allow me to finish. Thank you To your point I get what you're saying. I'm just saying that that hasn't happened of record yet It is because of the competition in the room that we've gotten better rates for our rate payers. I

OK, then in that case, then let's go with the two top bidders. I think, look, I understand.

That would be CR&R.

Yes, CR&R and Republic, because they are the two comparable size companies here at this point. But they're not the two top bidders. They're the only ones that can give us.

Let's ask the consultant that we pay good money for to give us practical advice. Sir, who are your top two, based on Councilman Zara's logic?

Well I actually mirrored the councilman's logic. Please don't make those remarks in that way please. OK. CRNR and Valley Vista would be my selection because their rates are lower. Granted they're a lot closer now with Republic. So again to your earlier point you can select a firm to negotiate with without eliminating the option of negotiating with somebody else. So if there's somebody that the council prefers that they want to negotiate with, they want to lay fees and everything on the table and say, hey, look, our multifamily rates under your proposal are too high. Can we do a little give and take? Can we lower some fees? Can you do this and that? You can do that with one hauler. You can do that with two simultaneously. Again, I share a little bit of... Councilman Zara's concern and is that how many best and finals can you have I understand that you want to keep the competitive process open But I think it's nearing the time where you want to actually negotiate and get to brass tacks CRN are in Valley Vista because of the race. Thank you. Thank you. All right I

I mean, I got to be honest. I'm really indifferent on that. I think Republic should be in the top two. I'm indifferent as to the other two, so I don't, you know.

Okay. All right. There's not a substitute motion. I will make a substitute motion.

And I would like to make some comments on the motion, too. I haven't yet been able to comment because I've been letting other people speak.

All right. What is the substitute motion you'd like to make before we go to Council Member Charles for her comments and comments? perhaps a second.

If we are to negotiate, my substitute motion is to move forward with negotiations with Republic Services and as a second backup tier to have CRNR, because they are the two major competitors with each other. They are the ones that can. I mean, Republic Services only came down to these numbers because CRNR was their major competitor. So that's what we're doing.

OK. All right. Council Member, please.

Okay. Yeah, so going back to the notion of having two at all, I'm really concerned with that because I was thinking about what our staff said earlier and looking at the timeline that's already been pushed back for I think the third time now. I as as often happens I'm concerned with us being out of compliance with the state You know if we I think if we still keep this process open with two haulers at all I think Having saying we can negotiate with one and having one as a backup if it falls through Would you characterize that as being kind of similar to maybe a house being in escrow and having a backup buyer if you could? It's a contingency thing. So I think that's where I'm most comfortable landing. Now, I do think that the savings with Valley Vista are, I don't want to say that they're wrong, because I hate to just be that flat out. But I think it's a little illusionary. I'm concerned, because the point is that they're coming in so low. because of being non-union, because somehow they're not paying, and also because the commercial is higher there. And so I don't see it being consistent over the long term. And I am concerned with the aspect of that they are funding folks on a political level. I am concerned with that, honestly. So yeah. I mean, I'm just going to say that straight. I'm the only council member up here right now living in that world, and it's important to keep our noses clean on this. We shouldn't be taking money from folks that we knew we were negotiating with a year and a half ago, a year ago. We shouldn't have just refused that. That being said, I would like to second Council Member Zara's motion that we direct staff to negotiate with Republic, especially on the multifamily. I think that is Certainly something to look at, the two-tier system, making sure that multifamily is being charged similar to single-family residential is key. And I would like to have that clearly spelled out in our next presentation, which hopefully will be in closed session to negotiate a final contract and approve it. But that wasn't really spelled out in this presentation, even though we talked about it multiple times. So let's please do that next time and have CR&R as a contingent firm that would be the next one of comparable size, since they do service Orange as well.

All right. There's a substitute motion. Madam Clerk, call the roll.

You know, actually, can I, let me ask, I'd like to ask Council Member Zara, are you open to a friendly amendment to continue the, that bidding process with CR&R and Republic to a best and final? Because I just, I'm a little concerned about, I'm fine with that as a top two, but I, you know, I think, I do think there's still more room to go here. I think the best opportunity for our rate payers is through that process. So that's, I mean, again, I would support CR&R and Republic in a top two. I don't like the idea of rewarding one tonight and then keeping somebody in a backup holding position. I would much rather, I think, go forward one more time. And I don't think this is something that has to be a prolonged or drawn-out process. I think this is something that could come back at the next meeting, I think, at this point.

Can I just get clarification as far as the timeline, then, in order to consider that? Just to see, is that... Because, again, this was the best and final, supposedly. Right.

And so now this wasn't going to come back for approval on schedule until the second October meeting. So was that the 25th the 20.

Our meetings are October 6th and 20th. So if we could have selection on the 6th and then have a contract on the 20th that would be preferred.

I mean is that is is that a reasonable timeline to negotiate. If it's if a person is if an entity is selected on the 6th?

For staff and yeah. Good evening council Patrick Munoz I'm your special counsel on solid waste matters. I'm the person who has to do the drafting. That is a incredibly compressed schedule. If that's what you would like to do I will do everything in my power to make it happen. But I just have to warn you in advance there's a risk that I will come back to you and say I just couldn't get it done. IN THAT SHORT OF A TIMEFRAME WE WOULD HAVE TO MOVE INTO A NOVEMBER MEETING.

SO WHAT IF IT WAS PUSHED TO OCTOBER 20th WITH A NOVEMBER, YOU KNOW, WITH A NOVEMBER, WHAT ARE OUR NOVEMBER MEETINGS?

THE CONCERN I HAVE IS THE TIME BETWEEN OCTOBER 6th AND OCTOBER 20th. IT'S THE SECOND ONE.

SO WE HAVE THE MID NOVEMBER?

THE THIRD WEEK OF NOVEMBER. AND THAT IS ALSO MY, SEE, THERE'S ALSO ANOTHER RISK IS I WON'T BE ON THE COUNCIL. After November, that is my last official meeting. So we are now subject to this complication of having a new council member if this drags on beyond December. And after me have gone through all of this time, someone else is going to come in and make a decision not knowing this whole process.

No, but you said past December, right? This would be for November.

They have to know the process, yeah.

Yeah, because there's only one.

We aren't reorganizing until the second meeting in December.

Sorry, the second meeting. Yeah, that's what I said, the second meeting. So if the idea is we bring it back October 20th, was it? Yes. That could meet the November. Then we could have contract November 17th.

You'd be looking at November 17th, yes.

Could we bring it back October 6th, though? I heard that we could bring it back October 6th. He was worried about if we accept someone October 6th. Drafting it by October 20th. That's that's what I heard.

So I think that well, I mean that's I guess from that standpoint That's where I'm like, I mean really I think at this point, I mean that's So is it staffs recommendation?

We do come back in first meeting in October and then have mr. Munoz come back the second meeting in November. Is that what is your recommendation?

Well, we've made it, but now we're debating. So it's really just a matter of how much time do we think we need to have the haulers sharpen the pencils again? We're in a three-week time frame between the next meeting, so we do have an extra buffer. So I think October 6th should be reasonable to get whatever update proposals there's going to be. I'd probably recommend at this point looking at November 17th for adopting a contract because I do think there's some complicating factors that have come up tonight as far as negotiations I Mean it's down to the wire and any any deviation any changes you are now with a council member who's gonna make it who's gonna vote on this and

that had not gone through this whole entire process. So this is a huge risk we're taking for one meeting. I think it's worth the risk considering it's the long-term process. I will make the amendment, and we'll go with the top two, and let's bring them back and make a final selection.

The top two being Republican CR&R?

Republican CR&R, yes.

Okay, and as the seconder, I will accept that friendly amendment.

Thank you. All right, Madam Clerk, let's call the roll.

Councilmember Charles I councilmember Valencia. No Councilmember Zara. I remember Tim Dunlap.

I mayor John again have Republic Who is ranked third by a consultant? I mean, I'm okay with CR and R and Valley Vista at this point too, but no item passes I Okay, we'll go to the public comments, general public comments.

I have three people registered. First is Yolanda Harrison, then MJ Knorr, and Patricia Hansen.

I'm going to wait for the craziness to go.

Okay, good evening.

Bonjour, Council Members, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem. I'm Yolanda Harrison, a Canadiens Hérin, widow of Todd Harrison, and resident of Rancho La Paz, and a sitting member of their HOA board. It's been a long time since I stood at this podium. Frankly, I really shouldn't be here tonight. My health is far too delicate. I was actually fighting for my life on Friday. But I came. For years, Todd and I came here twice a month, meeting after meeting, issue after issue, researched, we spoke, we went home angry and exhausted, and then muddy, we had to come back again. Public participation is not free. It costs time, energy, sleep. I watched what that stress did to my husband, and I believe it contributed to losing him. So standing here costs me something, too. Mary Young, I have very little patience left for the way I have watched members of this community be treated. Council Member Valencia, the same applies to you. There are recall campaigns underway against both of you. Residents can examine the reasons, examine your records, and make their own decisions. But contempt does not make people disappear. Sometimes it makes them want to come back. You have not always had to agree with me for me to know you were listening, both of you. There's a difference between disagreement and disrespect. You're currently off my radar. Be happy. I've been gone for a while. I'm back. I've never stopped paying attention. I've watched from home. There's some serious issues at Rancho La Paz that aren't being dealt with. We're having gas meters forcibly installed at the front of our units. A single car accident and Rancho La Paz is going to go up. There's other things I can talk about, but really, my health is not strong. I was fighting for my life on Friday and a couple other times in the last month. I won't say what's going on. But I'm here, and I haven't stopped listening, and I'll keep on waving my husband's banner.

Salut.

Thank you. Next comment.

Next speaker, MJ Noor. OK. Who I don't see here. I don't think she's here. Next speaker, Patricia Hanzo.

OK. Good evening.

Good evening City Council my name is Patricia Hanzel a resident and property owner. Thank you for agendizing the topic of surveillance for the next meeting. The automatic license plate readers need to be audited quarterly which just started in 2026 according to our police chief. I would suggest that a city ordinance needs to be discussed and brought to the floor and made a motion on an ordinance to enforce the rules and hold wrongdoers accountable in regards to data collected by our police department. Driver's license information and my car details need to be protected to avoid identity theft. Could corporations and vendors get a hold of our history of tickets, DUIs, incarceration information, home address, date of birth? The users of this data, whether it's a secretary, a police chief, a sergeant, a city manager, or an employee of city hall, any user that can access this data that is gathered from automatic license plate readers needs to be logged and vetted. And measures are needed in order to prevent the downloading of data onto a USB key. How many hours of training do users get and how often. If that can be provided at the next meeting I would appreciate it. The word on the street or what I heard it last month is that in Northern California there is a data center accessing Fullerton Police Department files. So someone on the city council needs to explain what the purpose of that is and how our data is being used by a data center. Is there a contract is there an MOU memorandum of understanding or is money being exchanged. I value my privacy and expect City Hall employees and police officers and their staff to be held accountable for misuse and abuse of driver and or car information. Do sharing decisions as explained earlier do sharing decisions get done by the city manager ALPR police sergeant and or the police chief. Are AI companies doing data gathering in the background? Another topic I wanted to discuss with you are, I've heard about the recalls, and a recall is a method for residents to fix things. Many of us are unhappy with the city council majority. In this process, we get to remove problematic city council members that put special interest over the interest of community programs, parks, housing, water, and the public libraries that I cherish, that my community cherishes, and the HOA that I live in cherishes. I don't want the library or water system being privatized. Thank you.

Folks that are lined up.

Hello, good evening. My name is Ray Francis. I have an issue with the street sweeping in our area. I have a disabled neighbor, and to the point she has blue paint on her curb that says she is disabled. It's hard for her to put her groceries in her home. My husband and I, we do the best we can with trying to help her. And I just don't think that she should be charged for street sweeping when it's very difficult for her to get around, to get her groceries in. My husband, he drives her car on our side on the alternating weeks. I have called... and talk to sergeant flint full of Floyd. And we go said this and I thank them for returning my phone calls on this issue, my husband also spoke to Jamie. But that's the other day and she says she was going to call him back she never did I would like a answer to this she's disabled and recently widowed and we need to help these people that are disabled and especially a widow it is said in the bible that is what we have to do to take care of widows and orphans and i feel strongly about this and that's why i'm here again tonight to solve this problem.

The police chief's going to address you right now. I'm sorry? Police chief's going to address you right now.

I live on West West Avenue, and my neighbor is Elaine. She's 1855 West West Avenue. She has a disabled painting in front of her home, and we are directly across the street.

Okay we'll look into it and I'll get in touch with you.

Please look into it because I've had too many people tell me they're going to look into it and call us back and they never did.

Well good news.

We need to take care of these people.

I'm on video telling you I'm going to do it so I promise you I'll do it.

Thank you.

Excuse me. It will happen.

It better happen or else I will be back.

We will help you. I promise.

All right. Next speaker. Next speaker.

Good evening. I'm Debbie Langenbacher. Trust, it's something that is sorely lacking in our community in Fullerton. Lack of trust with the city council. Not long ago, it came to light that there were $14 million that were somehow misplaced. When we trust that our city council and officials will be good stewards of our tax dollars, and this happens, trust is broken. Seems we can't trust city council to follow their own resolution of succession of mayorship either. We cannot trust that some members of council are prepared to address concerns of residents or that they take into account the well-reasoned opinions of our residents. This in part is why there's a recall being considered. Currently, we understand there are 19 flock cameras in Fullerton, several at major intersections along Orangethorpe, but others throughout the city. It's my understanding that these cameras use AI in recording and distribution of data when recording license plates of numbers of passing cars. Nearly 900,000 license plate numbers are recorded each month. While having the license plate number of a stolen car or a getaway car from a crime can be helpful for law enforcement in neighboring cities, the excessive surveillance can be potentially harmful to law-abiding residents. The city's website identifies 325 agencies with which this data is shared. Even if there was trust with Fullerton City officials, How can anyone trust that these 325 other agencies with which the data is shared? Where else might they share data? Who's auditing? How is AI involved? Once again, trust is broken. with the likes of Sam Altman, Dario Amodi, Jacob Coxon, and others sounding the alarm on the use of AI, advocating for slowing its progress and warning of potential dangers for its misuse. How can Fullerton support the use of AI-operated flock cameras? Other cities and states have stopped the use of these flock cameras in their communities due to concerns with privacy. As residents, our trust is untattered. Please do the right thing.

Good evening, council. I am Harry Langenbacher. I live in Fullerton. And I want to express various support of the idea of bringing the flock issue back as an agendized item. I believe it's very important to get public input. I hope you will gather questions and concerns that our residents have about this. I know some residents are so concerned they consider giving their car to another family member so it's no longer registered in their name. I think you have to hear everyone's concerns. I think it might even be suitable for a town hall sort of discussion. And I appreciate Chief Radice's presentation and his effort to explain their use. And it was very impressive. And he emphasized guardrails. But I want to point out that, We are increasingly living in a police state, and I don't mean at the local level. I believe Chief Rattus would like to use a licensed place to recover all the stolen vehicles and catch all the getaway cars, and that would be great. But we have federal agents that will have seized nongovernmental buildings and gone in and ransacked them. gone in with their computers and downloaded all the data they could get out of the computers there. Where is our data stored? What is going to happen when federal agents come and ask for that data with 800,000 license plate reads a month, you can generate heat maps that show where a person travels around the city. This is frightening to me. What else was I going to say? But anyway, as long as this data is out there, it can be abused. There are other federal agents who are hunting people down like animals and will even kill people who get in their way. This is very concerning if they could ever get hold of our data and track our residents. I ask you to do something to to assure our residents that this isn't going to happen, even if it means ending our flock usage. Thank you.

Are you that excited to see me? Did you miss me? You guys know how I feel about how you spend taxpayer money and two hundred and thirty six hundred thousand dollars seems like a lot to be spied on. Now I'm an open book but when the owner of a company thinks that transparency is equivalent to terrorism and that no information is sacred and that our Fourth Amendment rights don't need to be protected. I take issue with that. Now, forgive me, Chief, I'm sure you had to make an oath. I'm not sure if it's the same one that all of them had to take, but it does say that you will protect our amendments. And according to what I've been reading, truth is, I couldn't have told you what FLAC was six months ago. And now I know all kinds of words that are super annoying, because we have leadership across the board that is irresponsible, lying to us. I mean, at least we're lucky. You're really not that good at it, so it's pretty much out in the open. And I'm very grateful for all of the people that spend all their time making sure that if we did miss something about your corruption, it's definitely on the headline the next morning. With that said, $236,000 is what our city has spent on flat cameras with leasing and maintenance and all kinds of stuff. That sounds like a lot of library books that we should buy. Perhaps the dystopian novels that warn us about having surveillance. might I recommend 1984 or Fahrenheit 451? Or my favorite author, Octavia E. Spencer, in both Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, she was quite specific on why this was a bad idea. If you're more of like a Terminator person, I feel like there's an entire franchise of why this is a bad idea. Now, with that said, You've literally hijacked this city four times because you think that you're going to be the best mayor. A lot of us feel that the proof is in the pudding and that hasn't happened. This is an opportunity for you to take some leadership. You kind of failed with the whole trash situation. You guys really like to push a meeting and then, like, congratulate yourselves for having a meeting again, except that we just keep moving a meeting. And I don't know if your plan is just to wait until Ahmad is gone, but he's literally the only one still advocating. No offense, Shiana. But he's trying to get all the things out before he leaves, because you've made it impossible for him to represent his district. I don't think you being in charge of long-term contracts is acceptable considering that you don't respect the rotation.

Good evening, City Council. My name is Bianca. I'm the current co-chair of a student organizing group at Cal State Fullerton. I'm here to echo the sentiments of the 400 students and counting who signed our petition against Flock on our campus at Cal State Fullerton. These students are concerned, as we should all be. If we can't feel safe with Flock at our school, how can we feel safe with it in our city? This affects everyone. News has already been arriving of police misusing Flock databases to search for ex-girlfriends, acquaintances, anyone. The Electronic Frontier Foundation did a public records request on searches done by police using Flock's database, including the reasons listed for the searches. "'Lol,' said one. "'He he,' said another. "'Robbery? I don't remember the case number. Leave me alone.'" And there are more. Weird kid, sexy, Roma, and the slur for Romani people. All of this was only found out after the searches were completed, after the harm was done, after an officer learned where someone lived. We may think it won't happen here, but how can we know? It was mentioned that there are policies in place to prevent personal use. Did all these other police departments not have similar policies? Are we simply different? My concern is that we don't know. We as the public can't see these searches unless we go through the process of requesting them. Should we wait for a misuse to happen? Should we wait for a stalking? Should we wait for a father to be searched 78 times over five months as he brings his kids to school, as has happened just this month in Texas, according to KFDA? Police are also not allowed to collaborate with ICE. It doesn't stop police officers from using Flock to do so. What wasn't brought up during today's presentation was a public records request by 404 Media that revealed police officers doing these searches, writing ICE in the search bar for the reason. And again, we wouldn't know this until after. Should we really be trusting a private company with our information like this? I and 400 students are concerned. We don't want to be tracked like this. We don't feel safe like this. We don't want to be tracked on campus much less our city. I understand that there are internal safeguards but internal isn't enough. Closed doors aren't enough. Right now, we are simply relying on the transparency of a police department that didn't even feel the need to implement public comment even though it could have chosen to. How am I supposed to trust that they are looking out for us? How am I to trust a police department like this? I don't think we should be using Flock at all.

Sorry. Good evening, City Council. I'm also a college student at CSUF. I think she did a great job illustrating why flat cameras are a bad idea. And yeah, I mean, I'm here to back that up. I don't think it's a technology that can be trusted. I know me and many other young adults in Fullerton feel this way. I mean, it's been proved to be used for nefarious purposes, like in Costa Mesa. And who's to say, like, something like that couldn't happen. But instead of, instead of tracking down, like, a girlfriend, it's, like, it's used to back up an ICE raid. I mean, like, if this information gets in the wrong hands, like a previous speaker mentioned, I mean, it's dystopian. I don't think it's possible to account for this technology not falling in the wrong hands, because it already has, whether it be the hands of individuals or if this information makes its way to corporations. The Fullerton PD site claims that it doesn't track personal information other than license plate numbers, but it doesn't change the capabilities of the technology, because they've already been proven, and the dangers of it. I mean, I understand, like, I guess I understand the appeal in concept, but in practice, it's like, it's, I don't know, I think it's gone too far. But yeah, that's all. Thank you.

Good evening council staff. I'm Jensen Hallstrom. I would like to start off by repeating my call for a transparent process in respectfully replanting the memorial Sequoia Grove at Hillcrest Park. I have mentioned this many times now and there is still no basis for a transparent process in the way that the monument itself was very quietly restored no respect really paid in celebrating the monument not not even a social media post from the city i'm glad the work was done but uh it still goes to show that after multiple times bringing up this same point that this was a historic memorial grove that had some Even early awareness had been provided to the city when the Grove was in decline and I had mentioned this in my last comment in 1995 there is Riverside landscape architect firm which was hired to assess the tree population within Hillcrest Park and there were only a few surviving Redwoods at that point. Mostly had been killed from invasive ivy climbing and crowding out the canopies of these trees and also soil compaction from heavy maintenance vehicle traffic. Soil conditions can be improved trees can be assessed and monitored. There is a precedent for well-managed Redwood Groves in Southern California. I would really hope that a council member, somebody can actually agendize this to be the discussion that it warrants. I don't know how a council could go on just very lax while I keep repeating that we're missing 55 memorial trees for service men who were Fullerton residents that died in World War II. And it's just amazing that the city has still not provided any information, any conversation, any agendized item. I would also like to state that recently I had discovered Over 3,000 square feet of cement paved over the creek bed and creek banks of Bassentry Creek near the intersection of Lancer and Bassentry Road. This is a blue line stream, a designated protected waterway, which I believe The work could have possibly been done illegally because a stream bed alteration permit was not sought out and obtained for this work. We need watershed health to be a priority in the city. Following our recent September storm, I saw so much traffic.

I want to express my concerns with the Flock contract, but moreover with all of surveillance technology. And there's going to be other companies besides Flock. It's not just Flock. This is surveillance technology. This is the technology that can track you in your vehicle or outside of your vehicle, which is why they exist on the college campus where there aren't motorized vehicles. This can track your vehicle as it moves around from place to place. This is an ALPR, automated license plate reader, but it's actually a lot more than that. The FLOT website says no plate, no problem. It will track your car, make model color, bumper sticker stents, even if there's no license plate. And it will track where you go, and that information can be compiled to create an entire dossier on all of your movements throughout a city and beyond. That information can then be further compiled to understand more of your movements, where you went, what you did when you were there, when you were outside of your vehicle, who you were with, et cetera. And this can be very dangerous information. The problem is dragnet mass surveillance. The problem is tracking innocent people before they've ever been suspected of a crime. And the reason that that's important is because privacy is the basis of humanity. Privacy is the thing that allows us to promulgate ideas, to discuss them freely with each other, to engage with each other without fear of repercussion. And without that, we are not human. We are just computers. We are just robots. All of that information about us can be used to retaliate against us if the right force comes along. And that's why protecting our privacy is the basis of humanity. And that is why releasing this data, even collecting it in the first place, is a surefire way for it to be abused and leaked. And so we have to be very careful about how we go about this. Our humanity and our civil rights are at stake. And just because this exists in other places, just because something similar to this may have existed 20 years ago, two wrongs don't make a right. Our legislation has not kept up with the pace of this technology. And so it is up to us to make the right decisions now before things go forward. I would urge city council to have a town hall, not just a city council meeting, but a back and forth dialogue with the residents of this city to really understand what they are giving up. The lack of transparency is appalling given that so much of our civil liberties are at stake. This is out of proportion. When so much is at stake, we should have more discussion, more openness, not less. We should not be trying to hide behind this. We do not own this data. No matter what FLOC tells PD to tell us, we do not own this data. It can be shared. Second, I want to support the recall against council members Chung and Valencia. Part of the reason for this recall are things like this right now, why I'm standing here at the end of this meeting making general public comment instead of at the beginning like it used to, where more of the public could hear the comments. This is a problem. This is a lack of transparency issue. Underscored by the lack of decorum shown by Councilmember Jung at this meeting, barking at other people, Councilmember Zara was trying to introduce transparency into a very opaque process that affects us all, and he was truncated. So I support this recall, and this is the reason that you are under a recall attempt. Thank you.

Good evening, City Council. Elijah Manacero. I also want to talk about Flock. I support our police department. I recognize that they are keeping people safe and that they need to request equipment to do so. But I think that there needs to be a dialogue with the community and they need to consent with what tools are being used. As someone who's not under suspicion of anything, I don't want my photo to be taken every time I'm driving and I don't want that to be stored anywhere. That's just not something that I personally would consent to. And I know that SB 34 allowed there to be EXEMPTIONS, BUT I'M NOT, I'M STILL NOT ENTIRELY CONFIDENT THAT THE ALPRS FROM 2007 ARE THE SAME ALPRS BEING REFERENCED IN THAT BILL. AND I WOULD HOPE THAT AT THE AGENDIZED DISCUSSION THAT THE CITY ATTORNEY CAN GIVE AN OFFICIAL WRITTEN OPINION ON THAT AND EXPLAIN HOW THOSE 2007 ALPRS ARE THE SAME AS TODAY WHERE THEY HAVE SEARCHABLE DATABASES WHICH IS HOW IT'S DEFINED IN THE BILL. Yeah, and the last thing, like there's 135 people who can access this. I couldn't state with confidence that I trust 135 people to access data like that. I don't think I could say it for 10 people. So I do think that it's necessary to have this discussion and inform people about what our police department is doing so it can increase trust and we can hear the public's thoughts on it. So thank you.

City Council I do have some comments on a flock as well. So first of all I do appreciate the presentation from the police department. Lately we've seen infringements on our rights. We can we're more than welcome to criticize our own country but now we can't criticize others. And now we're under constant surveillance. In November 2025 a Cal State Fullerton women's soccer player was hit by a box truck and killed on associated in Yorba Linda. Her name was Lauren Turner. And after Lauren passed away the city passed what were supposed to be safety measures for that street. So the city added a foot of paint on the bike lane But in addition, the city added some cameras on that corner, and this is the city's description. So, quote, install an enhanced detection system that utilizes AI technology to identify near misses and illegal activity, such as crossing outside of the crosswalk, wrong direction drivers, bikers, scooters, et cetera, and end quote. And so to me, these cameras seem to do a lot more than what the flock cameras were described as doing. And I do think that these ALPRs have opened the door for additional surveillance. So if I can ask some questions for the police department for the agendas meeting. And I'm wondering, can the police chief bring back some information about those cameras that are used on that corner, including, I believe you mentioned the Axon cameras. So just some information about how their features, how they're used. And in addition, I'm wondering if the police department has monitored any of the statistics that were initially approved by the city, such as any of the near misses, the crossing outside of the crosswalk, wrong direction drivers, and all that. So were those statistics monitored? And did the police department do anything about some of those issues on that corner? And so if you're wondering, those measures were approved on December 2nd, 2025. And that's my comment. Thank you.

My name is Tony Capitelli, and I'm here for a couple reasons. One, because I live here and I hate flock cameras. I think the fact that especially Republicans, libertarian Republicans, claiming that want to do this kind of surveillance is completely insane. But I also am here because I've been to a few of these now outside of where I live, and every single presentation I've seen a police chief make has been the exact same. The exact same information has been presented. I don't know where they're getting it from, whether it's flocked themselves or what it is, but none of them has any detailed information on any of the technology. I heard the police chief say tonight, that he doesn't have to be an expert on the technology? Well, somebody in your department better be an expert on the technology if you're using it to arrest people. I mean, my God. And then I didn't expect this tonight, but I have not been here before. And I've read a little bit about you, Mr. Mayor. Other than our president, it seems like that's where you got your style from. I have never seen anybody more unprofessional in my life. The way you talk to your fellow council members, I have an online profile. I do political news and commentary, go by Truth Tony. I have a few hundred thousand online followers, and I just decided tonight that I'm going to make sure that you lose. Everything in my power. I'm gonna make sure that you lose because the city of Fullerton is falling apart I drive all the time and the roads are a mess. I mean you guys are terrible at this You guys need a new council in this city, and I'm gonna do everything in my power to make sure it happens Good evening.

My name is the Long-term resident of Fullerton relocated here became familiar with the city in 1978. I do want to say Good evening to the elected council department heads and our dedicated Fullerton city staff I'm not going to make any comments about flock because when it's agendized, that's what I'll make my comments What I do want to comment in is number three here on the agenda and it says presentation, flock camera update. So Chief Jonathan Radius got up here, he provided a thorough report using statistics both with positive and negative aspects of flock cameras. He discussed how it's regulated within the department. that red flags go up. They look into that. Sometimes it's a warranted red flag. Doesn't sound like anyone's done anything out of the ordinary. It was a very good presentation. Also reported that it's had 225 public objections or reports for police that might not be doing what should be done, yet he's done 1,100, and I don't remember the number of internal reports. If you have any problem with the police department, I suggest you attend their 10-week Citizens Academy. You'll become well-informed. After the presentation, our council member Dr. Ahmed Zahra asked some appropriate probing questions that the taxpayers want to know. He thinks like a taxpayer. And who's paying for the flock cameras? We are. So those questions are completely appropriate. We want to know. And to the chief's credit, he's going to look this stuff up and bring it back as an agendized item. And then Brother Fred said, did not like the way the questions were being asked, and he offered this. Dr. Mazzaro, if you don't get the answers you want from the chief, you can CC me on your emails, and I'll make sure you get the answers from the police chief. No, Fred, that's not how it works. No one needs to check in with you. Two men can communicate without your intervention. Yeah, you might be the mayor for four out of five years, but you don't run the whole city. You don't intervene for adults. You're impatient about questions. That's kind of your track record, brother. But it's not the way life works. I do appreciate, though, Fred, that you are consistent. Because just the way that you didn't want to hear any details about hard questions from the council member of the chief, you also didn't want to hear any details about the budget was lost $12.9 million. You wanted to pave over that. Have a good night.

Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, city council members. My name is Curtis Gamble, activist for the homeless. Activists for the homeless, the veterans, the Cal State Fullerton students, the OCTA bus drivers, and our senior citizens and the low-income community. These are just some of my recommendations I just wrote down. some things that I want to share with you. Number one, the Fullerton Municipal Code states that an emergency shelter should include other interim interventions, including but not limited to navigation centers, bridge housing, and respite or recuperative care. Bridge housing includes uh... tiny homes motels and hotels safe parking programs and apartments is to get people off the street right today we approved this well yet the city council andy uh... and the uh... planning commission bridge housing is like for example you got homeless over here housing over there these other items i mentioned are just bridges to get you there to protect you until you get there. So we need to get those and those are available immediately. That's something that you would do right today, especially with the hotel vouchers. The other thing I wrote down, number two, length of stay. This is from our municipal code. Length of stay. The length of stay of an individual client shall not exceed six months within a 12-month period. Days of stay need not be consecutive. This is what we want our shelter to observe and to do. People should be allowed to stay at the shelter based upon their needs, not the needs of the operator of the shelter. So if we could just make sure that that is enforced. I've been asking that for a whole year now, maybe two years. REFERRALS, NUMBER THREE, REFERRALS TO THE FULLERTON NAVIGATION CENTER EMERGENCY SHELTER SHOULD INCLUDE OCTA BUS DRIVERS AND CHURCHES BECAUSE THEY ARE ALWAYS AVAILABLE FOR THE PEOPLE 24 HOURS A DAY. WE LIKE THE HOPE CENTER, BUT IT'S ONLY AVAILABLE FROM 8 TO 5 MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY. THAT'S NOT WHY WE OPENED UP 15 EMERGENCY SHELTERS THROUGHOUT ORANGE COUNTY TO BE OPERATING ON A PART-TIME BASIS. It looks like the Hope Center needs some help, some assistance. And I would like to see the OCTA bus drivers who are in contact with the homeless every single day, all day long, being able to refer them. And also the churches. Number three, the Planning Commission. They're the one who started this no walk-up policy, March the 27th, 2024. Look it up.

AV, you should be able to unmute.

Good evening, Council. The Chief's Flock presentation contains many material omissions. First, the PD's representation of Flock's technology is misleading. It doesn't only capture a single fleeting photograph of a car in its license plate. It captures and analyzes such great details that Flock calls it a vehicle fingerprint, including its make, model, color, and even dents and stickers. And the chief states that Flock doesn't continuously track people, but this technology captures everyone's cars indiscriminately, 24-7, records and stores every single photo without a warrant, probable cause, and not even reasonable suspicion. Our patterns of life are being tracked and monitored continuously and retroactively with no legal basis as to why it is needed. This is mass surveillance infrastructure. The PD's claim that Flock produces leads but not personal profiles is also misleading. ALPR on its own does not tell you who owns the car, but this data doesn't exist in a bubble. It is combined with other data that the police have access to in their law enforcement systems, such as Klutz, which gives them access to DMV records, so with the plate they are able to easily identify the people driving the cars. Flock is one data gathering tool that allows law enforcement to create a personal profile on all of us. The chief also says that Flock is merely the tech provider and doesn't own or sell the data. But the data captured by Flock's camera transfers to Flock's AWS servers. And Flock is the contracting party with AWS and therefore owns the data, not the city's. Flock has control over who gets access to that data. And Flock has been found to be sharing data without authorization from cities on numerous occasions. And that is a primary reason why over 100 cities have canceled their contracts with Flock. The chief references a study at the end of its presentation that 216 law enforcement agencies reported 11% reduction in vehicle theft and a 15.9 increase in vehicle theft clearance by arrest after Flock was installed. However, the chief neglects to mention a caveat repeated in the study, namely that arrest clearances actually started rising during the three months before the cameras were turned on. which they emphasize weakens any causal link between the cameras and the clearance rate. The researchers also state, quote, evidence remains thin, end quote, and that they had to rely on FOC-sponsored research correlations that do not address selection bias. The study concludes by stating that the benefits, the uncertainties of the evidence, and the operational gains not observed all, quote, must be weighed against the privacy, governance, and data sharing implications of widespread plate surveillance. Evidence of effectiveness does not determine whether the benefits justify this.

Garrett, you should be able to unmute.

Hello. Good evening, Council. My name is Garrett. I'm here in response to the Fog Cameras Update Panel presented by the Fullerton Police Department. I want to start by thanking Councilmember Zahra and Councilmember Charles for your defense of our privacy and the people of Fullerton, as well as your scrutiny of these unvetted and publicly unreviewed technologies with proven potential for abuse. So earlier we heard a lot of justifications from the police department regarding the continued use of block cameras. Since this is not yet a council action item, I'm just left to think that this is solely to save face and reassure the people of Fullerton and Orange County that the abuses of power and inherent dangers of the police surveillance state are not something we need to concern ourselves with. I personally am very concerned with how these technologies are being defaulted into our communities under dated statewide regulations. I am concerned with the response, or lack thereof, to illegal uses of flock technologies by law enforcement, and I believe the continued use of these technologies in the face of such praise and abuse constitutes a serious area of concern for individual and community safety. While I understand that there are quote-unquote check and verify aspects of flock technology use in the police department, I am concerned about how reliant our law enforcement is becoming on unreliable AI technology and the false accusations and suspicions it will lead to. I am concerned that we are being surveilled and tracked anytime we are driving in the area when there is no suspicion of criminal wrongdoing. I am concerned about the amount of privacy we are willing to sacrifice in exchange for marginal reductions in nonviolent crime. So the case remains that the City of Fullerton is, without the input or consent of its citizens, providing material support to a company that is advancing and normalizing the nationwide surveillance state. The function and capabilities of these technologies are unclear to the public. Their inner workings are not understood even by the police we are trusting to use them. And any marginal reductions in crime are difficult to attribute directly to the use of these technologies. Furthermore, any guarantees of protected use within California guardrail regulations, such as defending against access by independent actors or the Department of Homeland Security, cannot be trusted since data leaks and non-permitted access are possible and have happened numerous times already. The bottom line is that surveillance does not equal safety, and we as a community need to take into serious consideration the lines we are willing to cross and the vulnerabilities we are willing to entertain in the name of law and order. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to seeing you all again when this issue becomes actionable.

And our last speaker, Libby, you should be able to unmute.

Hi there. Can you hear me? We can hear you. Perfect. Thank you. Hi. Yes, my name. Good evening, City Council. My name is Libby. I'm a Fullerton community member and I spend much of my free time here with friends and family. I'm here with Sunrise Orange County to urge you to cancel the FLOG contract, as many others have said, and keep all automated license plate readers or ALPRs out of Fullerton. Flock cameras don't just capture photos of people in vehicles. No, no, no. Flock cameras fingerprint vehicles to profile and track individuals in law enforcement databases that can be shared across Flock's network of cities and with federal agencies, in many cases without municipalities' knowledge or consent of that sharing. Now, let me be clear. This is warrantless data collection, and that is a privacy violation. The misuse of our data by stalkers such as the ex-police officer in Costa Mesa and other criminals is a consequence of violating our privacy by collecting our data. Even if Flock offers to whittle down all its features to only collecting license plates and nothing else, you are still violating our privacy by keeping these cameras up. And to be clear, the data is still collected if the features are turned off. You have no premise to base this preemptive civilian tracking on because you do not have probable cause or even reasonable suspicion. And we're not criminals. And it's been made very clear Flock does not care about us. One of many shining examples of this uncovered by public records requests is when a Flock vice president and employee accessed cameras in a children's gymnasium and pool to live stream children as a sales pitch of their surveillance technology to police departments. And that's because Flock and any ALPR company chiefly prioritizes maximizing profits for its shareholders, not public safety. Flock did not swear an oath to serving the public. You all did. And the fact that we have repeatedly had to beg you to stop warrantlessly tracking us feels profoundly undignified. As a girl and now woman who was sexually harassed for the first time at seven years old, I feel unsafe and further at risk knowing that my data is being collected by flock cameras in Fullerton. My friends, family, and I do not want to spend time here anymore knowing that we are tracked. Mayor and City Council, I urge you to join the other 150 plus cities nationwide who listened to their concerned community members and canceled their AOPR contracts. Please protect our privacy and terminate the Fullerton flock contract. Thank you. No more speakers. No more speakers.

I'll seek a motion. I will move the consent. I'll second.

I'll just note on item, I can't read this anymore. Item six, there is a little bit more to the motion than was on the agenda to authorize city manager or designee to make future budget adjustments as necessary. Council member Charles. Aye. Council member Valencia. Aye. Council member Zahra.

Aye.

Mayor Pro Tem Dunlap.

Aye.

Mayor Dunn. Item passes.

Okay, thank you. So I would first like to talk about something that's tragic. Absolutely tragic. Over the weekend, a 18-year-old from Cal State Fullerton passed away. He was at St. Jude Hospital, delivered there by his friends, and the investigation is ongoing as to what exactly happened, but it's clear that there were some... I don't know. I guess they had to go somewhere else. But it's clear that this 18-year-old should not have died this weekend. And so I would just like to say my prayers go out to his family. And I hope the investigation finds the cause speedily. And I hope that campus takes this seriously, that we want to protect our students from this kind of horrible actions. OK, so it is a busy month. In my tradition, it is actually the new year. So which means happy new year, good year. to everybody celebrating. It's also Alzheimer's Awareness Month. So it's a good time to think about that issue and be tested. If you need to be tested, get educated on that issue. Suicide Prevention Month, which I talk about quite a bit, that 988 is a resource that's free for everybody, just like 911. If you need any mental health, if you're in a mental health crisis, please call 988. They can help you in an immediate crisis. They can also give you resources locally if you need that. And also, today is the first day of Hispanic Heritage Month. I would like to take some time to think about and commemorate the good that has been done in this country and is being done by people of Hispanic and Latino descent, as we mostly say here on the West Coast. Hispanic is more of an East Coast word. This Saturday, and I believe they've left, but unfortunately, I just want to announce also that there is a wonderful annual event. It's called Flavors of Solidarity, and it is open to the public. It's very low cost, and it's very good food. So I hope that everybody will consider attending that and supporting a really great organization that does a lot of good work here. to help people who have immigration issues also. And I do want to point out that ICE is still very much a real issue, what they're doing. Just this last weekend also, as reported on Fullerton Buzz, two more people were abducted in our community. And the gentleman who posted that talked about how he had to be the one to tell the family members about this and how painful that was. It's still going on. And we still need to help immigrants who are being targeted by ICE, legal and undocumented both. OK, also, this is just such a happy comment section today, but the West Nile virus is still urgent. Please, please, please still be vigilant against mosquitoes. It is something that we have to be concerned with. The mosquito population this year is more likely to have West Nile virus than it was last year. So last year, if you got bit by a mosquito, it's about 1 in 10 chance that it had West Nile virus. This year, it's hitting over 50% chance. So please wear your mosquito spray. Yeah, wear that bug spray still, everybody. And if you have any standing water near your home, please make sure to dump it out, especially with the rains that we just had. I had to dump out some things on my front porch. I wasn't expecting that thunderstorm. Please make sure that you do that. I will also be attending the State of OC San event later this week. And so I look forward to reporting on what OC Sanitation is doing at our next meeting. as I will get that report. I just want to let folks know also my office hours this week will have to change a bit because of a community event that I'll be attending for Pathways of Hope. But I will be attending. I will be available by phone from 12 to 2 PM on Thursday. So I will keep my phone on me, and I'll step out of the event if need be, if you need to talk to me. But also, of course, I do make appointments with folks, if that's better for you, if that time doesn't work. And at the end of September, I'll be in Craig Park out of my community office hours. And of course, this is all in my newsletter. If you like to get my newsletter, please email me at Shana Charles at city of Fullerton calm.

Thank you I I don't have any any comments, but I do want to I had agendized a policy of disclosure policy on lobbyists who do business in the city, and it has not come back. I also agendized a local tobacco license that would generate some revenue locally here, something we don't have and other cities are doing it. And neither of these have shown up. I've got three meetings left. So I'm going to agendize both of those again, but with time certain to come back at the next meeting. If I can get a second for that. I feel like I have.

I don't know that it's necessary, but I seconded those originally. So I will second. And I will point out the city manager is busily writing down what you say.

But I'm doing this because I want to put a date certain. Because I've agendized things over the years, and they've disappeared. And I had to come back and agendize over and over again. I know this happens sometimes by error, but when it's a lot, I feel like maybe there's some Somebody dodging these in the back end.

I'll note that they are both in the agenda system, I believe, both for November. I'm trying to get in here and look, but I know they're in there.

We have it in the forecast for October 6th at this time for the tobacco regulations, as well as a few other items that you mentioned.

Well, I'd like the lobbyist disclosures to come back earlier than November, only because there's only one meeting in November, and that would be my last one. So in case it has to come back. So please bring it in October. October? At the next meeting. There will be room for discussions. Thank you. That's all I have.

I mean, I hate to interrupt. My understanding is we don't do our reorganization until December 15th. Is that right? So we'll still have council members are here for December 1st? And then the 15th?

I'm manifesting only three meetings. We won't have results online. I don't know. OK.

No, to piggyback on Council Member Zar's comment in the beginning, my hearts go out to that child's family. I'm devastated for their loss, and I'm deeply saddened that that's how this child had to come to St. Jude. So I'm interested to see how this happens and what the investigation shows. So I just want to pass that on to the family that I wish them the best.

Well, on a sad note tonight, we adjourn tonight's meeting in memory of Stephen Baxter, who passed away on October 28th at his home in Las Vegas. Stephen, or Bax as he was known, was born January 22nd, 1965. He grew up in and around Fullerton, very active in the punk rock scene at that time, and later would be very active in local Fullerton politics, active as an art curator here, and later moved to Las Vegas where he was really the driving force behind the formation of the Punk Rock Museum and actually had an opportunity to work with him when the museum center organized the Punk OC exhibit several years ago. And he's very gracious with his time to to get involved personally, not just to help contribute his sort of firsthand experience and insights, but also some of the artifacts from the museum and also in making introductions and getting other folks involved as well. And so I'm very grateful to have met him and to work with him in that in that time. And I'm even more grateful that he was able to experience that exhibit as well and sort of, you know, kind of recognize and relive some of those great memories that he had had here with his friends over the years. So with that, we'll adjourn tonight's meeting. Thank you.