City Council - Regular Meeting

The meeting please come to order. This is the city council adjourned regular meeting and a special joint meeting with the irvine facilities financing authority. This is the meeting of 02/10/2026. The time is 05:08. And at this time, before inviting people to participate via directions and instructions given by the city clerk what I would like to do is have the clerk first call the roll.

Thank you mayor councilmember carol here councilmember go here councilmember lu here member martinez franco here councilmember trussieder

here

vice mayor mi here and mayor apron.

Thank you and if our city clerk Mr. Carl Peterson would explain to people at this time, particularly those who are not here in person, how they can nevertheless participate in tonight's meeting, this would be the time to do so.

Thank you mayor. Members of our audience who wish to speak may submit their name into one of the speaker kiosks next to the city clerk or in the main lobby. We also offer the ability to provide live comments via Zoom and submit written comments through our e comment system. For those who wish to participate virtually, visit zoom.us using any web browser or the Zoom app on smartphones or tablets and enter meeting ID 844. The passcode is 272906.

You may also dial in by calling (669) 254-5252 Or6692161590 and entering the same meeting ID and passcode. Those who wish to provide comments via Zoom are asked to enter the speaker queue by raising their hand electronically. The city clerk will call your name and allow you to unmute your microphone at the appropriate time. Those dialing in by telephone will be identified by the last three digits of their telephone number. We ask that you please state your name for the record.

The time limits per speaker are noted in the posted agenda and are established based on the number of requests submitted. All requests submitted after the first speaker is called shall receive ninety seconds. Those who wish to provide written comments may do so by clicking e comment on the City Council meeting agenda web page at cityofirvine.org/ictv. All comments will be provided to the city council as part of the meeting record and will be uploaded to the city's website. For technical assistance with Zoom before or during the meeting, please call (949) 724-6078.

For any other questions or assistance, please contact the city clerk's office at (949) 724-6205 or via email at clerkcityofirvine dot org. Thank you, mayor.

Thank you, Mr. Peterson. At this time I would like to invite those in our audience who are able to rise for the pledge of allegiance which tonight will be led in by council member Treseder.

Thank you please place your hands over your heart and begin. I pledge allegiance

to the flag

of The United States Of America

and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible

with liberty and justice for all. Please be seated. Next item on the agenda is our invocation our city council generally includes an invocation on regular meeting agendas and as I've explained before invitations come to us in many forms that are uplifting and inspirational in nature give us encouragement as we go about our business. Tonight's invocation will be in the form of two brief performances in recognition of the lunar new year which begins on February 17. At this time I'd like to turn to our colleague councilmember Melinda Lou and allow her please to take this opportunity to invite forward our special guest this evening.

Councilmember lu.

Thank you mayor. Tonight as we celebrate lunar new year and welcome the year of the fire horse, we're proud to highlight cultural performances that reflect our community's history, diversity, and shared traditions. The year of the fire horse symbolizes energy strength and renewal and lunar new year is a time for togetherness across generations these performances beautifully embody that spirit. Our first performance it is my pleasure to introduce Kim Young Hwa and Korean dance academy a respected nonprofit organization founded in 1980 to preserve and share Korean traditional dance and music. For more than forty five years this organization has played a vital role in cultural education and community outreach with performances at major events including the lis angeles olympics disney lunar new year celebrations and korean heritage night with the l a dodgers we are especially proud that in 2024 they expanded to Orange County further deepening their connection to our growing Korean community right here.

Tonight' performers are hannah lee and jala on and amy lee please join me in welcoming them. Our second performance is presented by the malaysian association of southern california in collaboration with the asian american senior citizen service center together they proudly present a malaysian singing group inspired by the beautiful diversity of Malaysia a multicultural country where languages traditions and cultures live together in harmony. Tonight' s songs reflect the voices of a multi ethnic community and include a special chinese new year song celebrating joy reunion and good fortune this collaboration reflects a shared mission to care for elders and children like family using music in service to bring generations together and strengthen community roots. Through music they celebrate unity friendship and the beauty of our differences The performers are Kim Choe, Michelle Khan, Eunice Chow, and Jennifer Wang. Please enjoy this wonderful music journey.

Hi, everyone. I'm Kim, Charlotte, and Eunice. We hope you guys can clap along with us. We're very proud to live in city of Irvine that celebrates all this beautiful culture. The first song is Rasasaya and it means share the love.

The next the next song is really how we greet each other in the Chinese culture. We we pretty much congratulate each other for Lunar New Year. So we put our hands together and we say, Gong Xi, Gong Xi, that's congratulations. So this is a classic Chinese song to to celebrate the Lunar New Year. Thank you.

Thank

you.

Can I invite my council colleague down here so we can take pictures with the performance today? Sure. I never realized my friends were so talented.

And we'll all be famous. That was lovely. Thank you so much. Thank you Councilmember Liu for bringing these talented young women here tonight. With that, we turn now to presentations on our agenda.

Presentations are listed as item one estimated start time was 05:15 so we' almost on time here. With that I' turn to the city clerk to identify item 1.1 by subject and title.

Thank you mayor presentation item number 1.1 is an update on destination irvine.

Thank you and as staff comes forward if you would introduce yourselves and speak to us about this item thank you so much.

Good evening mayor agrin and city council members I'm ms de bond director of destination irvine and joining me is melissa hayley director of communications and engagement We're here to present updates from Destination Irvine, the city's tourism division. In this presentation I'll provide a short history of the HID, Destination Irvine's purpose, Annual Report Recaps from the last two fiscal years, and Current Highlights. The full annual reports can be found at cityofirvine.org/hotelimprovementdistrict. In 2002 the 2% hid assessment was established via a city council adopted resolution. The 2% assessment is applied to all hotel room rentals in Irvine proceeds from the assessment must benefit the assessed businesses which are Irvine's 23 hotels under this resolution the ivine chamber of commerce was designated as the managing entity of the hid funds and as you're aware in March 2023 the city council adopted a resolution which shifted the managing entity of the funds from the greater irvine chamber to the city of irvine the purpose of the funds and the distribution percentages were not changed.

Then on 07/01/2023 destination irvine its three staff and its intellectual property officially joined the city forming the city's first tourism division. The hid is led by a seven member advisory committee comprised of three city delegates and four irvine hotel representatives destination irvine's core team is comprised of four of us who are greatly supported by melissa hayley and her entire communications and engagement department we also have two full service agencies noble studios for creative advertising and website support and uniquely driven who assist with our public relations efforts With the support of these teams and an engaged committee destination irvine is making great progress in its tourism efforts. Destination irvine's purpose is to position Irvine as a premier destination for all visitors. The same qualities that make Irvine an exceptional place to live, work, play, and raise a family are all the same reasons it's a compelling place to visit. By increasing hotel room nights destination ivyne helps generate additional transient occupancy tax revenue and supports local businesses through visitor spending throughout the city.

Next I' highlight key parts of the fiscal twenty three twenty four annual report which was the first year we were part of the city and even with this major organizational change from the chamber to the city we were able to make significant contributions to the tourism economy. Noted here is a financial overview of the fiscal year twenty three twenty four annual report on the left side are actualized numbers and on the right side are projections made for twenty four-twenty five. Looking at the twenty three-twenty four actualized numbers you can see that a total of $4,500,000 in assessment funds were collected with 3,400,000 being allocated to destination irvine which was higher than the adopted budget of 3,300,000 of the total hid assessment 1.1 was allocated to city cultural programs. The total hid revenue for fiscal twenty three twenty four reflects a $600,000 transfer from the chamber of commerce unused funds were added to the fund balance or reserves the projected revenue for fiscal twenty four twenty five shown on the right was 4.7 next I'll highlight some of our 2324 accomplishments. In fiscal twenty three-twenty four we secured five visit California media placements that covered to knock a farms Pretend City Bomber Canyon and Turtle Rock Nature Center there was a total ad value of about 47,000 for these complimentary ad placements.

As part of our public relations efforts in May 2024 we hosted a VIP media event in West Hollywood where many journalists are based. Two h a d committee members said re money and marina dutton attended as well as 18 media professionals who represented publications like l a times entertainment tonight and California live We shared with media why Irvine is the ideal Southern California destination, and we continue to share these stories with journalists. We hosted six media professionals in Irvine for immersive familiarization or fam trips where they stayed in our hotels for at least two nights and enjoyed some of the best of Irvine. Each trip had an itinerary that I that highlighted iconic Irvine places such as our trails the Great Park Wild Rivers Water Park the irvine spectrum center diamond jamboree and so much more. As of the 2324 their social media coverage garnered more than 70,000 views.

Next I''ll highlight key parts of the twenty four-twenty five annual report. Noted here is a financial overview from fiscal year twenty four-twenty five. On the left side are actualized numbers and on the right side are projections made looking at twenty four-twenty five actualized numbers you can see that a total of $4,800,000 in hid assessment funds were collected which was higher than the adopted budget of 4,700,000 of the collected hid assessment 3.6 was allocated to destination Irvine and 1.2 to city cultural programs The projected revenue for 2526 shown on the right was 4,800,000 and so far we' on track to meet this projection. Next I' highlight some of our 2425 accomplishments. In that year with our agency noble studios we redesigned the website to include a way to track its return on investment through partner referrals.

More than 10,000 clicks went from our website to Irvine hotels, restaurants and attractions. We also hosted 11 familiarization trips for media, meeting planners and sports planners, also social media content creators. We greatly ramped up our public relations efforts. We earned 25 media placements, garnering more than 81,000,000 unique views per month. At your leisure, please explore the link provided here to see more recently published articles as well as television broadcasts that I've done to promote Irvine.

By going to industry trade shows, building and maintaining relationships, hosting familiarization trips, and through targeted advertising, Destination Irvine has a direct hand in helping the city and hotels book groups meetings and sporting events sometimes it takes years before an event lead is received and actualized but by maintaining relationships and keeping irvine top of mind the rewards can be great. One example is USA ultimate championship that occurred at the Great Park in November 2024. Our Dave Lucy met with the event owner met him for the first time in 2019 at a trade show And by staying close to this client throughout the years, we eventually landed this event which was valued at more than $600,000 and 850 room nights. Here are four more great examples but for the sake of time I' like to point out just one more the Irvine based manufacturing business that booked a long length of stay at one of our Irvine hotels. Because of charles' continued contact and business relationships that he built with the client he helped secure this group valued at more than $2,100,000 and actualized more than 7,000 room nights.

We're excited to share that for FIFA World Cup destination Irvine participated in site visits with seven countries and have already toured four countries for the LA twenty twenty eight Olympics. Irvine is ideally located between official olympic venues specifically volleyball in Anaheim and surfing and trestles by using irvine's amtrak station visitors can easily enjoy official olympic events with little need for a car. This is one point we' be highlighting to domestic and international visitors. Next I' highlight our destination ivyne brand that we unveiled in August 2025. After months of analyzing Irvine's existing visitor audience and visitors sentiment surveys we also conducted stakeholder interviews and workshops We sent secret shoppers into Irvine to learn more about what visitors know and what they don't know about Irvine.

We created a brand platform that is responding with audiences. Behind the brand is a new campaign called the flip side of irvine where we' be highlighting all the reasons to visit. This is our new logo and tagline surprisingly so cal. The redesign logo was inspired by an aerial shot of irvine turning urban patterns into abstract geometric shapes that formed our one of a kind word mark. Each element is tied to our brand pillars like security and inclusivity the dark green is symbolic of irvine's green spaces the orange is reminiscent of irvine's agriculture and our location in Orange County the light pink is an homage to our proximity to the coast and the blue for our nearly perfect weather this logo is more than just a logo it's a piece of art Stakeholders loved that it reminded them of something they would see in an art gallery.

Now that the logo is seen in public at trade shows and at community events like taste of irvine we hear so many great comments the logo is unique just like irvine as part of the new brand we've produced new videos in partnership with voda films and have produced new branded merchandise which I'll show on the next several slides you' find out more from our long form and short form videos on destination ivine social channels specifically youtube. Here' our leisure video that highlights great park Wild Rivers, and our open spaces and more.

Irvine, California, the gem of Orange County, where you can soar 400 feet in an iconic helium balloon. Adventure into preserved open spaces. Explore a bustling culinary scene and endless entertainment options. Whether for business or pleasure, Irvine is close to renowned beaches, famous theme parks, and multiple nearby airports, making it the perfect destination for any trip. Make Irvine the gateway of your next Southern California experience.

And next, I'll show you the world premiere of our new video, the flip side of Irvine.

There's always a flip side when you visit Irvine, California. You can be here for your son and here for your son. You can be here for the sweets and for the sweets. You can be here to fast track and here to fast track. You can be here to jam and to jam. Come experience a getaway that's surprisingly SoCal. Plan your trip Irvine, California today.

We've launched a new series of targeted digital ads designed to elevate Irvine's brand in competitive tourism markets. These placements highlight the flip side of irvine contrasting dynamic experiences such as live entertainment outdoor adventure and globally inspired dining with our established reputation for master planning and business excellence. The creative intentionally pairs unexpected scenes to challenge outdated perceptions and position Irvine as both polished and vibrant. Where you can be here to fast track at a sales meeting or fast track at the go kart course at k1 speed or you can be here to circle back at a meeting or circle back at Wild Rivers on a slide so we love the contrasting scene of the flip side of Irvine. We' also expanding our branded merchandise efforts to build visibility and deepen engagement turning visitors and partners into brand ambassadors these curated apparel pieces reflect the updated destination irvine identity and are designed to extend the brand beyond digital platforms and to real world touch points.

The new brand identity confidently reflects Irvine as a vibrant youthful and modern city shifting perceptions from you have to go to irvine to you have to go to irvine. Destination Irvine maintains an active and growing presence across our social media channels generating strong engagement and meaningful interactions with visitors, partners and regional audiences our platform serve as a key resource for storytelling promotion and collaboration additional information campaign content and visitor resources can be found at destination irvine and please follow us on all of our channels. Thank you this concludes our presentation we're available for any questions you may have.

Well thank you very much. Before turning to my colleagues for questions or comments they may have, let me just offer a few comments of my own. Your presentation was terrific. Destination Irvine is a very very important part not only of our branding but of our budgeting as well. The fact that we're able to bring people to Irvine for tourism purposes or other purposes and the people want to come to Irvine is of vital importance to the hotel industry, to our businesses, to our budget as well.

These are vital aspects of our budget. I love the rebranding, let me just say, I'm a fan. Get some of that merch here at City Hall. We want to start getting it out, especially that green shirt with the Irvine on it. And surprisingly, Socals, I think pretty good.

Especially when I think of what our branding in the eyes of critics used to be, which was Irvine, beige and boring. No more. It's really an exciting vibrant community and I know we want to be supportive of the destination Irvine program going forward. So thank you for an outstanding presentation. Let me turn to council member Martinez Franco first, followed by council member Melinda Lou.

Yes, thank you so much for that presentation. I think what you guys have done is an outstanding job. One question for you is what are you going to be doing? I know that you already visited some countries for the LA soccer games and the Olympics. What are you going to be doing forward to attract more visitors as far as advertising? Or is that a top secret sauce that you have right now?

Yes. So as soon as we have the word from FIFA, as soon as that announcement is made to know what part Irvine will play in the World Cup, if any, then we'll be able to activate our advertising plan so much is unknown depending on which team or if there is a team and so we're ready to turn on the lights as soon as we are able to make an announcement or receive the announcement from FIFA. And then for Olympics we are partners with orange county sports commission so we're having regular meetings talking about what leads are coming into the area and how we can all be supportive of each other as a county. And then yes advertising for the Olympics will happen at least a couple years prior so starting by the end of this year is when we'll start targeting Olympic audiences.

Well, thank you so much for that. And I want to see you guys submitting next I think it's in October or something like that. I don't know. Melissa might know better. Submitting some of the campaigns that you're doing to OCP RSA for Prism Awards. And we'd like to just see you winning. Oh, thank you. We'll do that.

Councilmember Lu.

Thank you. I want to thank you for all your hard work. And this is amazing. Like the mayor mentioned, the new branding shows the vibrancy of

the

city. I have a friend who grew up in Irvine who used to have a shirt that says where the heck is Irvine. So we are now the destination. So thank you for doing all this work, and I'm so glad I'm becoming part of the hotel improvement board.

Thank you.

Thank you. Without further ado, I'll turn to the clerk to ask if there are any public comments.

Thank you, mayor. We do have one request to speak via Zoom.

Yes, please call on that individual if you would.

Thank you, mayor. Our speaker is Eric Nashanian. Mister Nashanian, you may unmute your mic. Mister Nashanian, can you hear us? There's no response mayor

and that's Thank you. We'll mark him down as very supportive alright? Thank you so much for an outstanding presentation. Come back visit us again. At this time, since this is a receive and file item, clerk, please file this item appropriately, will you?

Thank you. No motion is necessary. Now we turn to presentation 1.2. Would the clerk please identify by title this presentation?

Thank you, mayor. Presentation item 1.2 is public safety update, urine review.

There we are. I'm sorry chief.

No problem.

I was looking for somebody to come around here.

We I snuck up on you, mayor. Welcome to chief you

go right ahead and introduce yourself please and thank you for being here tonight. Thank

you mayor good evening and members of the city council my name is Michael Kent chief of police and director of public safety. Tonight I''ll be presenting you with an update on our role that we played in 2025 fighting crime and also look forward to highlighting the great work of the men and women at the irvine police department that helps us maintain a safe community for residents businesses schools religious institutions and visitors. This past year we had the opportunity to celebrate our fiftieth anniversary as a department and I appreciate those of you that were there to help us celebrate this momentous event. For half a century the motto of the irvine police department has been in partnership with the community. Something that you can still see on our hallways and the side of our police cars that has stood as a promise to work with the community in keeping Irvine safe.

A promise that still exists today and embodies the trust professionalism and service we provide this amazing city. To our community I thank you for your continued support even through the hardest and toughest of times our profession has endured you have always had our backs and we look forward to serving you for another fifty years in partnership with you. In speaking our history I think it' important to highlight how far we' come as a city and as a police department. In 1975 Irvine was predominantly known as a farming community it was also home to the ltoro marine corps air station and the newly built university of california irvine. Irvine was 43 square miles of mostly farms.

When the Irvine police department was formed in 1975 we opened our doors with just 34 police officers serving 30,000 residents. The overwhelming majority of our calls for service were produce theft as well as traffic collisions involving loose animals on our roadways. Fast forward to today we are a bustling metropolitan with nearly three and thirty thousand people we now patrol just under 70 square miles of residential industrial and business complexes with a department of two fifty seven police officers and 200 members of our professional staff. Long gone are the days of produce theft the complexity of policing a city this magnitude has grown but so has the capability to meet those demands as well as setting the standard of what modern day policing should look like. Policing the largest city in Orange County requires a strategic organization which is why we have divided our command into three distinct geographic areas.

The university area highlighted in pink houses the university of california irvine and many of our original villages like University Park and Turtle Rock. Although John Wayne Airport is not in our jurisdiction its access falls on our roadways which creates significant traffic and safety challenges. The crossroads area seen in blue is home to our Wood Bridge and West Park communities as well as the irvine spectrum center which receives an estimated 15 to 17,000,000 visitors annually. Last but definitely not least the Portola area highlighted in green is home to the city's newest developments including the Great Park which also receives tens of thousands of visitors each weekend. Overall this geographic policing model allows our area lieutenants to take ownership of their specific neighborhoods ensuring they understand the unique issues affecting residents and businesses throughout our community.

I should note that each geographic area is broken down into three beats for our patrolling model ensuring a well balanced coverage of officers citywide. In regards to crime in Irvine I'm pleased to report that violent crime has decreased 5% and property crime has dropped by 16% as compared to 2024 and to note that' also a drop from 2023 as well so we' definitely going in the right direction. I do want to emphasize the significance of that given that we' the largest city in the county the second most populated and the fact that daytime population significantly increases as compared to surrounding cities and that we have seven different freeways that impact our city is pretty remarkable. As far as the crime specifically we saw significant wins with decrease in robberies commercial and residential burglaries and auto thefts However we did see some challenges specifically increases in aggravated assaults and shoplifting and I should note that a majority of the aggravated assault incidents involved disputes between acquaintances and family members. While organized retail theft is down general shoplifting and theft from construction sites remain areas where we focus our crime suppression on.

I want to also provide you with a snapshot of hate related crimes and incidents in our community in 2025 we documented 48 crimes and 31 hate incidents we saw specific increases in bias against the asians african americans and lgbtq plus communities as compared to 2024. I want to emphasize that our department takes incredible pride in empowering those who have fallen victim to this awful crime to come forward with a promise. A promise that would take this matter seriously and conduct a thorough investigation and hold people accountable for their actions. Any number above zero is unacceptable hate has no home in Irvine. I'd like to take a few moments and highlight the great work of the men and women at the irvine police department and our proven track record in suppressing crime while protecting our diverse community and providing quality service.

It begins in dispatch our first point of contact where staff gather critical information to dispatch our officers quickly and safely. In 2025 the irvine police department handled 190,000 calls for service that's an average of 16,000 calls of service per month. As far as crime suppression it starts with our patrol officers they take extreme pride in their work and the level of commitment they have for our community Our officers serve with a proactive approach to fighting crime not reactive. Having the support of our city leadership myself and of course our community definitely keeps our officers motivated as they patrol our community and send a strong message to the criminals if you commit crime in Irvine we will catch you. With an arrest when arrest isn't immediately made our detectives take the baton to conduct exhaustive follow-up investigation that brings closure to victims.

This past year we also introduced the new crime impact unit an undercover team that focused primarily on property crime in Irvine. The team conducted over 200 operations that ranged from self generated initiatives to collaborative efforts with the criminal investigations division. These efforts yielded many arrests including the disruption of sophisticated criminal networks related to organized retail crime and distraction theft distraction based thefts additionally our special investigations unit or siu is another group of undercover detectives that focus primarily on narcotics and vice activity Throughout the year SIU detectives managed complex high risk investigations involving extended surveillance, partial interdictions, probation compliance checks, and multi location search warrant operations. These investigations frequently cross jurisdictional boundaries and required coordination with local state federal partners like the FBI d e a and the ATF. SIU investigations resulted in the seizure of more than 24,000 pounds of narcotics recovered more than 20 firearms and seized approximately $300,000 in U.

S. Currency pending asset forfeiture investigation directly disrupting financial infrastructures for organized criminal activity. Given that the Irvine spectrum is one of the county's largest retail entertainment centers we have a dedicated spectrum team ensuring a safe environment for millions of visitors. The team provides seven days a week full time coverage and we double our staffing during the holiday season. As a result of this change last year we saw crime at the spectrum center decreased by 37% as compared to 2024.

Our directed enforcement team works collaboratively with our crime analysis unit and focuses their enforcement efforts in areas of the city that have experienced a higher than usual crime trends series or specific quality of life issues. They're exempt from handling radio calls and they merely focus their efforts on apprehending those looking to victimize our community. In today's age we cannot fight crime with personnel alone we must leverage technology. Our real time crime center is the brains of the operation using license plate readers and drone technology as first responders. This allows us to have an eyes on scene often before an officer physically arrives.

What truly complements that is the use of social media as an avenue to share a strong message to the criminals like I said earlier if you commit a crime in Irvine we will catch you and hold you accountable. This is a video that we put together that highlights to our residents and businesses our businesses some of the technology that we have access to but also educates criminals of our capabilities in maintaining a safe community.

Since 1975 the ivy police Department has used the latest technology and tools to keep Irvine safe. At the heart of our department, skilled dispatchers use advanced technology and computers to coordinate rapid responses to emergencies. Our real time crime center uses a vast array of cameras and license plate readers to provide real time data and information to police officers and detectives as they respond to and investigate crimes. Stolen vehicles, wanted people, and suspects can be identified in seconds. We launched our advanced drone program in 2018 transitioned to the latest drone technology in 2023 using drones as a first responder.

Drones as a first responder give us eyes in the sky within seconds, helping officers quickly assess emergencies, locate people in need, and keep our community safer than ever. We are committed to keeping Irvine safe safe by embracing cutting edge technology and sending a loud and clear message to would be criminals Irvine is not the place to commit crime.

This next video is an example of a crime that occurred in one of our shopping centers and how we were able to quickly respond using our drone program this technology allows us to check parking lots track suspects who flee and make better decisions in high stress moments enhancing safety for both the public and our officers as we safely take the suspect into custody There' no question this is the future of policing and irvine is leading the way. This next video is a quick video. I just want to highlight also the use of the drone program. This is specifically related to a domestic violence arrest that occurred in our city the suspect had fled the city and was hiding in a residence down in South County we had information that was in the residence and potentially hiding in the attic instead of sending detectives into the attic this is another great use of the drone program to be able to locate the suspect and safely take him into custody. Our traffic bureau continues to be engaged with our community through education engineering and enforcement and their outreach goes beyond social media community events and programs such as bicycle safety class bike rodeos e bike safety training for students civilian motorcycle school child seat inspections and the traffic stars program all focus on providing safety training and riding skills these programs are open to all O'erbrien residents especially our youth.

We also work collaboratively with our partners in traffic engineering and ensuring our roads signals and signs are designed in a way that enhance the safety of all those using our roads sidewalks and trails and of course enforcement is part of what we do to correct behavior that could put violators and or others at risk of injury or death. Lastly our DUI checkpoints are strategically set throughout the city several times a year to spread awareness and impaired driving and take enforcement action as needed. Our youth services unit is another avenue of connecting with our community specifically our youth. The mission of the unit is to work in partnership with the irvine and tustin unified school districts to provide a safe school campuses throughout the Irvine community. Our youth services unit is comprised of sworn police officers who provide support to our students and the schools.

I'm proud to say that the irvine police department has the largest use services unit in the county. Members of the use services unit are on our school campuses daily looking for opportunities to connect with the students and their families to provide guidance mentoring and resources. They're also on campus and ready to respond to emergency incidents including medical aids threats and acts of violence. Overall it's evident that in our community the support for our personnel in schools remain strong. One of our proudest achievements this past year is the creation of the I care program short for irvine community alternative response and engagement I care allows our patrol officers to focus on criminal enforcement while they deliver a specialized compassionate response to mental health and crisis related calls ensuring public safety accountability and community support.

In 2025 I care handled nearly 3,500 calls these are all mental health clinicians who respond to crisis often resolving situations without an officer needing to intervene. This has saved hundreds of hours of police officer time time that can be redirected to crime suppression and I should note that this is a service that complements our already existing mental health and home outreach officer program. Crime prevention and community outreach is absolutely crucial in ensuring a safety or a safe community Our threat management unit works with a proactive framework to identify assess and mitigate potential acts of violence before they occur. By integrating behavioral assessment intelligence analysis and targeted intervention threat management enhances public safety while reducing reliance on reactive enforcement alone. Simultaneously our community outreach unit strengthens our bond with the residents through neighborhood watch meetings our interfaith security partnership program as well as the private security partnership program that provides security services throughout our community.

The ultimate goal of these programs is to identify crime patterns and community risks early to intervene preventing any impact to our residents businesses and houses of worship. One of our strengths as an organization is the partnership and trust that we have with our community this collaboration continues today in many forms. Our community police academy is open to community members who live work or attend school in Irvine. Over the course of the nine week program participants are introduced to different aspects of the program. Another program is a community emergency response team program or cert for short which provides the participants the basic skills needed to protect their families and neighbors and to respond to immediate needs of the community in the aftermath of a disaster when emergency services are not readily available.

I should note that both the cpa and the sir programs are offered in mandarin and are also offered during the summer break for Irvine teens. Lastly our community events are one of our more special and meaningful ways of interacting and engaging with our community. Events like shop with a cop donut with a cop national night out in the Irvine Pd Open House just to name a few are ways that we look to personally engage with our community. Although crime fighting is a big part of what we do as an organization social media outreach has without a doubt been our most effective and efficient method in sharing information with our community. Over the course of the last year our public information office has continued to grow and I can proudly say we have large followership on all accounts including having over 101,000 followers on our instagram account.

That makes us the largest law enforcement instagram account in the county. And to note, part of our messaging on these platforms is the use of light dad joke like humor to grab the reader for us to have an opportunity to share our message. Over, overall our team focuses on primarily highlighting the great work of the men and women of the irvine police department but also uses those opportunities to share crime tips and request public's help in identifying suspects in our wanted Wednesday and felony Friday posts. The success of our social media outreach has sent a strong message to our criminals. A little over a year ago our team created a hashtag that says don't commit crime in Irvine the phrase has caught on not just with our community but with our officers as well motivating them to stay proactive in keeping our community safe this video is an example of how passionate our officers are about preventing crime in Irvine if you can please try to listen to what the officer says to the person that was ultimately placed under arrest.

You ever see us on instagram dude? Don't commit crime in Irvine you never heard that?

Never heard of that.

Get on the ground, bro. Get on the ground.

This next video is actually one of our viral videos depicting two suspects that broke into a high end purse store attempting to steal tens of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise. Our officers response use of technology in the collaboration with one another resulted in us safely apprehending the suspects who were responsible for numerous burglaries throughout the Southern California area. Again furthering the notion that if you commit crime in Irvine you will be caught.

Come out with your hands up All the way out. All the way out or you're going get bit.

As police chief ensuring we hire the right candidates to serve our community is of the utmost importance. A key component to our success is who we hire to be a representative of the irvine police department. Our personnel are amongst the highest educated and well trained in modern police tactics in the industry. Like I mentioned before we hire great people and we teach them how to become police officers. After completing the hiring process and graduating from the academy our officers endure a tough six month in house training program prior to being released on their own.

But the training does not stop there. Throughout an officer's career they will endure thousands and thousands of hours of training which will provide them with the knowledge, skills and abilities to be able to perform their job as a police officer safely and effectively. Key training concepts some of them listed here on the screen continue on an annual basis to ensure our personnel are up to date on the latest tactics technology policies procedures and laws. One of the trainings I'd like to highlight is our continued investment into the cultural sabbatical immersion program the participating officers are immersed into different cultures for a period of two weeks live with a host family and spend their time engaging with those communities at their schools houses of worship orphanages shelters and other areas where they can serve and connect with those communities. Not only has this created an opportunity for officers to see the world differently but it has provided them a sense of appreciation to the ethnicities nationalities cultures traditions foods and languages that make up the city of Irvine we launched a program in 2023 and have sent officers to Ghana Uganda Tanzania Nepal India Srilanka Cambodia Ecuador Guatemala Peru and Columbia with upcoming trips to different parts of the world These trips are paid for by community donations and are coordinated by nonprofit partners.

I want to emphasize that we are the only police department in The United States that has such program The international association chiefs of police magazine plans to publish an article on our program in the coming months. This video is a quick highlight of one of our officers visiting Guatemala and she shares her experience during her visit.

I was in Quetzalcoatl, Guatemala, which for short, they call it Shela. So Shela, Guatemala, and it's about 8,000 feet above sea level. So that was a whole experience in of itself. I stayed with a host family. Griselda was her name, and she had a husband and three kids and a dog. It was awesome. I loved it. It was like coming home to your parents house every day and she had home cooked meals, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I had my own room. There was a dog.

I love dogs. So it was so nice. It was so comforting. At the end of your day, I'd get back to the house and she's wants to know about my day and what I did. And it was just nice having like a a spot to go back to where you felt safe. It was comfortable after a while. My Spanish definitely got better because they spoke no English. I think I ran into maybe one person during my trip there that spoke English. Other than that, it was all Spanish speaking. In my first day of work, someone from the company that we work with, a broader view, met me at my host family, and they walked me to the shelter the first day.

They don't give you the address to the shelter because it's confidential. I mean, it's through the government. So they walked me there and it was like, hope you remember how to get here. See you later. So by day two, you gotta figure out how to get there. It was like a twenty five minute walk. I'd wake up, have breakfast, and then head out for my day, walk about twenty five minutes. And then it was kinda like the Wizard of Oz. You'd knock on this big gate, this big door, and this man would peep through this little peep hole, and you'd have to tell him what you were there for, tell him your name. He'd look at his sheet, make sure you were allowed to be there, and then he'd let you in.

The shelter was for girls 18 and under that had been abused sexually, non sexually. A lot of them had children. There was girls as young as 12 that had children, just had babies, and they're breastfeeding, and it it was eye opening. It was totally different than anything I've ever been introduced to here, anything I've ever seen. Obviously, we have teen pregnancy in America, 12 is crazy.

Prior to me going out there, I had asked for donations from people. I was taking a whole suitcase knowing I was going to the shelter, and they had very minimal things. I took a whole suitcase of items that I was just gonna donate and leave there. While I was working at the Spectrum, I hit up Sephora, the beauty store, the makeup store, and just told the girls, the workers there, what I was doing, and a bunch of them donated makeup that they get from working there. When I got to the shelter, I gave it all to the moms, to the girls, and seeing their faces light up was an experience I'll never forget.

I just made their whole year, and it was something that we would take for granted here throughout the weeks that I was there. They would start sharing their makeup. So I'd come in and girls are wearing, like, eye shadow, and it was really fun just to see them using it or asking me, what is this? It was fun giving that to them, giving something to the moms, helping them feel pretty and loved and all that stuff.

So I'm part

of our ACT team over at the police department. So I do Brazilian jujitsu. So I was gonna teach them some sort of, like, self defense. Right? Ninety percent of these girls either just had a baby or nine months pregnant.

So you can't teach them Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. The room for the amount of girls that were in there, there was probably a 100 girls to a tiny room and that's they give them a cot and that's for them and their babies. So they sleep with their babies and when they have to go to school, they leave their babies on the bed and hope they don't roll off. And while I was there, at least one rolled off and fell on the floor because there's so many babies and there's sometimes it'd just be me. At one time, like, by myself, I was left with 25 babies and it was just me.

And so I only have enough hands. At one point, was holding four of them. Like, rocking on this leg and bouncing on this leg and this one's holding a bottle and crying, and there's 20 more babies sitting in front of you all crying and all wanting something from you, it was just me at times. It was wild. I'm not kidding you. Like, these girls would go have like, some of them were pregnant, like, months pregnant. I'd say while I was there, four of them had their babies. So they'd go to the hospital, have their babies, and a day or two, they'd be back. And they're in class, like, the next day. So these babies are, like, days old, hours old.

And so I prioritize them. And then the toddlers, if they're getting into something, prioritize that. It's like, kinda just got away your options. Like I said, there was a baby that, I guess, had woken up from their nap, rolled off the bed, never cried, never did anything. So when the mom got back from class, she's like, where's my baby? And me and the staff members were like, I don't know. And her baby had fallen between two cots and was on the floor and had had like a cut over its eye. Small cut, but was just lying on the floor. And it was an it was no biggie to her. She literally picked up her baby, licked the blood off, and kept going about her day.

Like, her baby didn't just fall off the cot and was laying on the floor for an unknown amount of time. One word I'd say, eye opening, life changing maybe. You saw some things that I've never seen before. I probably will never see again in my lifetime. Being able to help the girls and, again, they'd look at me like I was in a unicorn when I first walked in, but by the end of it, were all crying and begging for me not to leave. And the connections you make over there and my host mom, my host family, like, I would have never met her. So I would just say life changing.

It was it was awesome.

Our commitment since our inception in 1975 has been and will always be the safety of our community. Moving forward as the city continues to grow so will our department and the mission vision and values of the irvine police department as well as the quality and character of our officers and professional staff will remain as the best in the business. We will continue to provide only the highest level of service to our community and consistently look for innovative ways to maintain public safety in our beautiful community. Thank you that concludes my presentation I'm available for any questions you may have.

Thank you very much chief for an outstanding report and of course we're all very very proud of our public safety department, all that it does. Keeping people safe is of course the number one priority at every level of government. And our police department does an outstanding job here in Irvine. Most people don't understand just how complicated that is, myself included. I'm learning things every day.

But in a country awash in guns and all kinds of tools that allow the criminally inclined to use those tools, endanger the public, to figure out how to keep people safe is not an easy job. And our police department has evolved in wonderful ways over the years. One of the things you did not touch on was the new technology with drones. We first introduced drones, it must have been ten years ago or more. But, these appear to be such an extraordinarily valuable tool now.

And, I would say about six times a year, half a dozen times or more, I am kind of amazed as we encounter cases of typically elderly people wandering away. It might be a child, but typically it's elderly people, perhaps with dementia, wandering from their home, from their neighborhood. And the rapid response that we're able to mount now with the use of drones, mapping out an area, and preventing what could be a real tragedy by identifying where that person is and returning him or her safely back home. For me it's very heartwarming. Those stories typically end happily.

And this is just one example of the use of new technologies to provide what is not just policing of our community, but an element of social support as well. And I know our officers are trained in the social sciences and practices of social support. The other thing that I have learned over the years is how much pride you and our entire department takes in the restraint that our police show in applying tactics of de escalation in instances that could escalate into real violence. And I know in the exercise of free speech in our city, which we're advised of demonstrations that take place every week and weekend in Irvine, we are protective of those rights and in confrontational circumstances where police involvement is needed, it's almost invariably to de escalate a situation that could escalate into something tragic even. Obviously, on our minds is the whole question of the federal immigration enforcement policies that are underway in other cities, have been also here in Southern California.

And I know we're spending a good deal of time and effort trying to figure out what is the appropriate role of our own police department and our own city in the face of this new and very unwelcome challenge. So I just want to say how grateful we are for the outstanding job that you and all of our police officers and the entire department does. With that, I've added my comments here. I just want to turn to my colleagues. First councilmember Martinez Franco, followed by councilmember Tresidar, and councilmember Liu.

Councilmember Martinez Franco.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you so much for this presentation. I am so proud of all the work that you do. It's no secret that I moved to this city because it provided me from safety, escaping from an abusive relationship. I was able to provide this safety that I needed for my two daughters and knowing that the police department was responsive and fair when if I needed to call them.

But now working with you guys is just I see the commitment that you have to the community. I see everybody just working just to be able to connect with the community and create that trust. I really value that. And keep on doing the good work. And thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Trish Cedar.

Thank you yeah I'm so grateful for your forces work and for your work here I can tell that the community has a lot of faith in the department which means a lot and rightly so I think you're an amazing leader and we're so lucky to have you here. And I also really appreciate how your force goes above and beyond. Especially I love that exchange program that you have, That video of the women in Guatemala was was touching and disturbing to me in a lot of ways. I can imagine that it would be hard to know what that was really like without actually going down there and and seeing that and experiencing that. And I imagine that if she then runs into folks who've immigrated from Guatemala here that she'll have a much better understanding of of where they're coming from.

So that's just one example. So, think that's wonderful. I have a few questions from my neighbors. Okay, so, I get a lot of complaints about loud cars going up and down the streets. My neighbors do not like that. They want to know what you can do about

That's a great question. We frequently get questions specifically for racing cars or loud exhausts. We do have obviously a very robust program in our traffic bureau we do work collaboratively with the office of traffic safety through the state we have grants that are very specific to this to hire officers and overtime to go out there especially in the Friday and Saturday nights when you hear them more often and more frequently and it's it has yielded to a lot of citations a lot of toes and some arrests as a result of that you know unfortunately with the city being so large for us to be able to cover almost 70 square miles is challenging but I think what's really important is for the residents to continue to reach out to us provide us an idea where these are happening so we can focus our efforts in those specific areas. Other thing I do want to highlight is we're working in partnership with flock cameras they actually have a specific camera called the raven that it was initially designed to pick up gunshots but they have modified the technology and network and pickup loud exhaust or tire screeching and we have that strategically placed on trial basis right now in certain parts of the city to see how we can potentially leverage our enforcement efforts being able to identify these cars and it has come to the point where if someone has a license plate or an idea of where these folks live we're actually show up at our house and educate them on the importance of making sure their cars are compliant with the vehicle code not to bother obviously their neighbors and the communities as they're driving through.

Thank you. I know that's the hardest moving target for these folks but that sounds great I appreciate that. They also wanna know about e bikers. So they I get a lot of complaints about e bikers behaving badly. And I was just wondering, do you do you ever use the drones to track down to follow the e bikers?

Yes the short answer is yes as you saw in the presentation last council meeting just some of the efforts of our traffic folks and some of our patrol officers what we're doing out there we do we do have certain operations that we put together it's not uncommon for some of the kids to take off on their e bike if a police officer is trying to stop them and our philosophy is we're not going to chase them last thing we want to happen is for for them to just make a bad decision run a stop sign or run a red light and they get hit by a car it's it's not the intent behind that but some of these operations we use the drones and we'll follow them back to the house and we'll have a conversation with them and their parents and make sure that they're educated and if there's a need to take some sort of enforcement action issue citation or tow a bike we'll do that as well that

sounds great because I can understand you don't want someone really freaking out because there's a police car behind them, but maybe a drone might not inspire the same reaction.

Correct.

That's great. And then the last thing I hear get questions from is, to what extent does the police force coordinate with ice or customs and border patrol I know the answer to it but I just wanted to give you a chance to say in public

no I appreciate the question we we do not coordinate with ice or border patrol we do not do any we do not conduct any enforcement operations immigration is not the business that we're in we're in the business of public safety and making sure that we keep our community safe it's really important our community knows that especially being a community that's a representative of the whole world that if somebody was to call us and ask for help their immigration status is not relevant to anything that we're doing.

Thank you.

My response when people ask is we already keep our city safe. Are perfectly capable of doing that ourselves. We do not need to bring in other people. People have asked about the flock license plate readers. They've read articles that might share information with the feds and I was wondering if you

know about that at all. We do not share any data that's specific to immigration with any organization especially ice for border patrol. By law we can't even do that.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

You Councilmember Cecilia, Councilmember Liu, and Councilmember Mai.

Thank you. Just a few comments I personally went to cpa on former mayor con's advice and it was a great experience so I encourage everybody to sign up for that and also my office went through the cert program another great program and now 1% of the city has been certified, so join in. And so I want to say that I brag about our police department to other people, because we started community policing before that was even a trend. And I appreciate that you use education, building relationships with the community, to start with crime prevention, because that's way more important than enforcement, in my opinion. And I'm very thankful that you all serve with valor and compassion and keep us safe.

And this is not an accident, that we are the safest city twenty years in a row. So thank you very much. And I really like my colleagues have mentioned I really appreciate the fact that we are observing the law to make sure that we are observing the state law that we are a century city. So thank you for that one as well.

Thank you councilmember blue councilmember vice mayor my.

Thank you mayor and thank you chief Kent for the report. I think one thing that people some people know and some people don't is that you thank you for your service as well. You started as a police explorer in the city of A in the city and just walking down the halls back there in the in headquarters we see the pictures of you on the wall as a as a young explorer that's commendable and great to see as well I also want to say thank you for keeping it the safest city in America. People always say we are one of the safest cities for our size, cities in America, and they say because there's no crime that happens in Irvine. But, the truth is there's crime that happens here and the reason we're the safest is because of the force.

So, thank you for that. It's also one of the reasons that people want to live here. It's one of the most desirable places on the on in the country because of the force as well. And, another part of that is your community. I have to give it to you guys on your community policing. A lot of us grew up in different areas of the country. Personally, myself, I have a six year old son. When I was a six year old and I saw a uniform, I would run. When my six year old sees IPD he runs towards you guys. Thank you so much for for your community policing and being a part of the community where the kids feel safe and everyone feels safe and proud of of the force. Thank you very much.

Thank you. That concludes comments here. I'd like to turn to our city clerk and ask if there are any public comments.

Thank you Mr. Mayor we do have one request in person.

Please call on that person if you would.

Thank you mayor. Actually we have two I apologize. They just went away on zoom. In person is Mona.

Welcome.

Hello. Good evening, everyone. Chief, you know I respect you. We have a good relationship. I'm glad to be here. I haven't been here in forever, but I have been watching, so I'm not really gone. There are a couple of questions about safety for me. You did mention FLAC, and FLAC was mentioned, and FLAC does. Maybe the police department doesn't intentionally share, but FLAC is sharing that information. So, there is a concern about safety.

The other thing that I'm interested in, and I don't know if you can answer that, chief, what kind of drones do we have and how many drones do we have? Yes, it's not it gives you the idea of safety, but is the next thing going to be quadcopters? It just it's it's something that as a community we fear of, and I know everybody has done all the possible and all positive. But I have friends who have kids in high school, elementary school, and middle school. They are not running to you anymore.

They're afraid. And that's scary for me. And it shouldn't be the case. Because there is a trust that's being lost amongst our kids. There is a safety.

We, as adults, we're okay with all of this. But the kids are afraid. And they wouldn't be out protesting like middle school did, like high schools did, if they weren't afraid for themselves or for their friends. So, the other thing that we became aware of actually today is that a Trump administration official recently told Wired that California and New York are next for the type of investigations by the 3,000 people of ICE. If you go down this, you will find that they have leased, ICE has leased, on 2020 Main Street, that's the address, an office.

Now they are in Irvine. They are going to live amongst us. How is the police going to protect us? You're not gonna stop them if they come to take one of us. How do we deal with that? There is fear, and I know there's all positive, but we have to address it. It's not going away. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Are there any others? That is all mayor. Chief would you like to briefly respond to the at least the first question was the number of drones and you might want to add how they' used and how they' not used. Regarding the second question raised about ICE and Irvine and I don' t expect you to respond to that other than to say that we examine these issues and challenges every day and that we are formulating policies and responses that I think will become clear to the public in the weeks and months ahead.

But maybe you want to turn to the drone question initially if you do have a response to that

yes absolutely we and we have over 30 drones I don't forget the exact number is 30 something but they're all different sizes and shapes obviously depending on the type of operation if it's something small that needs to go into an attic or or another tight space obviously we have different sizes that can manage that from the larger drones that we use obviously over our communities and we have strict guidelines through the FAA and our policy and laws to make sure that we're very mindful that we're not buying anybody's privacy or using it in a way that is not appropriate All that information is available on our website and our policies and if anybody has any questions of course you're more welcome to visit our website or give us a call we'll be more happy to discuss that with them.

Thank you. I think that concludes this item. This is a receive and file item. No motion is necessary. Thank you again chief. Thanks for an outstanding report. Thank you. Appreciate it. Next, turn to public comments for non agendized items. Let me just say one thing with respect to the business agenda a little later on.

Items 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, without objection, I'll be moving item 6.3 ahead of 6.1 so that the two library issues can be handled together. And then we will deal with the mobility center question item 6.2 which council member go put on the agenda. So without objection that will be ordered. With respect to public comments, let me turn to the city clerk now. This is public comments for non agendized items.

Items that are not on tonight's agenda but items that citizens wish to bring to our attention that are within our subject matter jurisdiction, we set aside a half hour at each meeting for these purposes. Again, Peterson, please. How many?

Thank you mayor. We have 13 requests to speak, 10 in person and three on zoom.

13. So let's limit everybody to two minutes. Then we should be able to get it in within a half hour. If people need a few more seconds to conclude their thoughts, that will be granted by me. With that, please call on our first commenter.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. If I could call forward John Albritton, Alan Meyerson, Susie Winoker, rolf parks, and Jason garsfield. We'll start with Mr. Albritton.

Welcome sir.

How are you mayor council members. I applaud your new branding the green branding that you've come up with. I think that's wonderful except for the fact that your words and your actions aren't matching up at all. I'm here at Round Oak Creek, obviously. It's the largest open space in the center of the city.

It's over a couple 100 acres. And, you guys are trying to pave it over with the help of the Irvine Company. It's already been said online as of early twenty twenty six plans are underway to transform the privately owned Oak Creek Golf Course into a 50 acre public nature park. Adding significant open space in the center of Irvine. Going from a couple 100 acres to 50 is not adding open space.

That's deleting open space. And also, saying plans are underway, I've been arguing over this thing for more than a year now. How the hell does the Irvine Company think plans are underway? I think that's a huge issue. We've talked about this for months and months and months. The Irvine Company thinks this is all done. And it really upsets me. It's pissing me off that we have to keep talking about this. In 1988, this place was already put into permanent open space, and now we're talking about paving it over. And, they're going to gift us back 50 acres.

I don't understand this. It just belies everything that you're talking about. Your grand scheme of branding green open space, and then you're going to pave over the largest open space we have in the center of the city. It doesn't need to be a golf course, but it can't be paved over for multimillion dollar homes. That just makes no sense. Thank you.

Thank you. Alan Meyerson. Thank you for your comments. Welcome Mr. Meyerson.

Good evening council members I just want to speak briefly on the ocpa. I read an article today that basically says in 2025 the city council voted to change the default here for Irvine taxpayers to ocpa's least expensive plan basic choice. However, ocpa continues to charge ocpa has been purchasing dirtier energy than SCE for two of the agency's three energy tiers, including the basic choice tier in which Irvine ratepayers are now enrolled. All public utility companies are mandated by the state of California to publish an annual power content label that details the energy sources used to generate electricity for consumers. The most recent power content label for ocpa published in October 2025 shows that about 75% of its basic choice electricity tier is derived from primary fossil fuels, which means that each megawatt hour of OCPA's basic choice electricity produces the equivalent of nine forty two pounds of greenhouse gas emissions.

By contrast, only 43% of SCE's default rate electricity tiers derived from primary fossil fuels, which means that each megawatt hour of SCE's default rate electricity produces the equivalent of five fifteen pounds of greenhouse gas emissions. So, I'm reading that because this issue has come up before many, many times, but I have never heard one time any of the representatives that sit on that dais that are on the OCPA board confront this or respond to this. I have not heard one of you respond to this. And, I would really like to hear one of you respond to this. Is this fact or is this false? And, if it's false, please explain to me how it's false. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Susie Whitaker. Welcome.

Hi there. I think I'm going to sound a bit like a Debbie Downer after these beautiful presentations. But, I basically want to say I like the mantra don't commit a crime in irvine. But, I do think the irvine company is committing a crime by closing and wanting to develop the Oak Creek development or the Oak Creek Golf Course. I think I don't believe they're staying true to their agreements their good faith is out the window.

The open space in perpetuity and remaining immune from development it's again, out the window. And, like John said, what's going on? We don't really know where the city council stands. They want to be transparent. The Irvine Company is going on and on about all their plans.

I talked to golfers oh yes and that a done deal but I think that' what they want everybody to believe. I do think it' unfortunate that the phraseology we used in that beautiful branding presentation was this gem of open space and that's exactly what the irvine company the largest influencer in irvine is doing to our beautiful Oak Creek Golf Course. John I like a golf course but I don' think it should be paved over either. Anyhow I just basically wanted to say I do think it' ironic that all of the branding is all about beautiful greenery and here they' attacking this beautiful gem. That' another word they used a gem of open space and we all of us who are opposed to closing Oak Creek use the same phraseology.

I do

want

to thank the hotel improvement district on the brochure in the lower corner was two people playing golf that' excellent but with a population of about three and thirty thousand we have one very nice golf course but

we have Oak

Creek and Strawberry Farms anyhow and then another smaller one I don' think it' enough so thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Wolf Parks? Welcome sir.

Mr. Mayor, council members, I've spoken to you here before. I've spoken with you as president of the Orange Tree Master Homeowners Association having eight zero three residents. Today I'm speaking to you as co chair of the safe all of the Irvine Open Space And Protect It Committee. Why are we doing this?

Well we have I have filed an initiative with the city as of 12/15/2025. It is a citizens initiative to protect all Irvine open space including Oak Creek. It includes everything from Bomber Can and all the open space you have south of the freeway. And why is this? Initiative 80 eight-one is still the law of the land. You're supposed to accept an easement. You're supposed to dedicate the land, which hasn't happened yet. I don't know why. And, it's supposed to protect it in perpetuity to be open space, according to 80 eight-one. That is something you yourself, Mr.

Mayor, assigned. Presently, it looks like the city's engaged in backroom engagements with the Irvine company for them to build a park of some kind of a nature park encompassing about 50 acres but we don't hear much about is the other side which is they want to build 150 acres of homes on the land instead That's a violation of 80 eight-one. Why is it? Because it's supposed to be open land by initiative 80 eight-one in perpetuity. And, if it's going to not be, it's supposed to be done by a vote of the public.

This initiative is for the council to accept that the citizens are now putting forth another initiative to have the public be the ones that decide if that' going to be open space in perpetuity with an up or down vote no matter what. And you guys might come up with your own initiative that says, well, everything's going to be open except

Thank for you. Time is up.

And so You

can finish your comments. Go ahead.

And so We're here to let the people vote we want you as a government to be of the people by the people and for the people and not for the council and for the Irvine company. We're accepting signatures we started that today we'll be collecting them outside in the plaza we'll be coming door to door we'll see you in some of the shopping centers and such like that and we hope that this prevails and we hope that you obey 80 eight-one not just for the Oak Creek but for all urban open space wherever it's at Bomber Canyon 405 and jeffrey northland everything okay

thank you thank you for your comment.

Jason Garfield and if I could also call forward Rita Robinson Ben Seville, Mona, and Madeline Lister. Welcome.

Thank you, mister mayor. So, I brought today the flag of a free Iran, hopefully upside down, sorry. But, it's a flag which I earnestly hope will be flown at some point on Iranian soil in the future. I feel the need, even though this isn't a city issue, I feel obligated to bring your attention to it. To the tens of thousands who were gunned down, peaceful protesters who had military equipment brought out against them, and to the fact that our president, who promised them aid in January, in no uncertain terms, has to this point left them high and dry, which is a bipartisan problem since President Obama did the same thing in 2009.

There were a lot of people here as well who were full of self righteousness about the war in Gaza, and I have not heard one word from any of them. So, if we betray the Iranians at this point, it will be a repeat of what we did in Hungary in 1956 when the people rose up, the West did not help them, and they were crushed and subject to two more generations of tyranny. And if anyone is interested, go to YouTube and look at the last radio broadcast of the free Hungarian radio, and you can hear them pleading for help. And, you could just replace Hungary with Iran, and it would be the exact same thing. So, I want the Iranians to know that there's a few of us who haven't forgotten them.

And, I hope that one day Irvine will be sister cities with a free Tehran.

Thank you for your comments. Ben Seville.

Thank you, Mayor and honorable council members and Chief Kent. The founding fathers of this country said that their legal documents would be based on the natural rights philosophy. Their favorite philosopher was John Locke who had articulated the trilogy of rites of the individual, namely life, liberty, and estate. And that word estate meant land. It's the old English term for land.

Liberty and life were contingent on having the natural right of access to land. But the plantation owners of Virginia and Carolina who had left the English shores to carve out their big estates in the New World, they weren't going to share the right of land with any comers from Europe. They weren't going to have the right to access to land enshrined in their sacred documents, so they excluded it. Anybody landing on the shores in New York seeking the land of freedom were told that they had the right to life and liberty, but in place of land, what they had was the right to the pursuit of happiness. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The plantation owners succeeded in erasing the right to land from their documents. And this is the system that we all now live within, a system of modern day slavery. And, sadly, in Irvine, the plantation owner is the Irvine Company. This system creates many of the modern ills of society. It creates land speculation.

It creates the ever increasing encroachment into green space and open space as we seek to build away from the city because the price of land in the city is too expensive. And, ultimately, it leads to the whole array of social problems that we have today. You're in a difficult situation, but I would urge you to consider that land belongs to all.

Thank you. Your time Thank is

you for your comments. Mona?

Good evening again. It's nice to see you guys. It really is. First,

chief,

I will I just wanted you to know that I I do respect you, and I respect the police department. And, you know that. And, I will have a conversation with you because I want to know the kinds of drones, the OEMs, and all that stuff. The one comment that I have to do that to all of this council is that watching what's been going on, although I'm not here, I'm watching on Zoom, I'm disappointed. I'm disappointed to see the same fraction.

You're There's a fracture. For a little while there, I thought it was a cohesive city council. And, what I'm seeing now is I'm seeing the fracture. All you need is one bad apple to ruin the bunch. And, that's we need you to be cohesive.

You need to work together for us. Not against each other, not because I'm gonna run for mayor, I'm gonna put down the present mayor. Because, so stories, we all see. So, let's let's not play games. The other thing that I wanted to say, and I want to say it quickly, is that there is a study that was done by UCI that basically says that OC has lost at least 54,000,000 businesses have lost because of the ICE actions.

That is going to reflect on us so we can talk about all these projections. FIFA coming. Who wants to come here when you have an office on 2020 Main Street?

You Madeline your Lister?

Welcome. Good evening council members my name is Madeline Lister and I'm a sophomore at woodbridge high school. I wanted to come before you tonight to thank councilmember Martinez Franco for showing her support at our anti ice student walkout on January 30. That was one of the greatest things that I've ever done and the energy and just the feeling that we were making a difference was so incredibly empowering but there was still this lingering feeling that we were doing something wrong since there had been a lot of tension with our school office about whether or not our absence would be excused and I just think that made a lot of people really nervous about speaking out against this pressing issue but when we saw you there and you gave us inspiring words we just all felt so relieved to be shown so stronger support from an adult especially one so prominent in our community and I just wanted to sincerely thank you for everything that you're doing for the Latino community as the daughter of a Mexican immigrant I can tell you that it just truly means so much and you're such an amazing example that immigrants are here to do good things.

So thank you for showing up that day and showing us that speaking up as youth is not a bad thing, and that in the face of all this fear and hate, we could truly come together and have the

support of the city. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Next. Mr. Mayor, we

have one individual left in person. They have a video, so if I may I'll go to the zoom speakers and then we'll come back to that.

Alright, please do.

Thank you so much. Our next speaker is Joanne Slabodian. Joanne, you may unmute your mic.

Good evening, everyone. Tonight is officially petitioned opening day for the system led initiative to protect Fairmont Open Space. For months, I've been asking for a practical way to protect our designated open space. I met with many of you, but on an issue this large, no single council member can stand up to a powerful developer alone. I'm here tonight because residents are now doing the job this council promised to do last summer.

On 06/24/2025, mayor Avery, you said we must be faithful to what we promised in 1988. On July 8, you and council member Carroll said the decision belongs to the people. And on July 22, this council voted seven zero to move forward a public vote to fix the proposed loophole. But on August 12, the process stalled. Nothing went to the voters. So when the city stops, citizens stepped up to finish what you started. Our logo is a shield protecting a map of Burma. One message, we are protecting open space in every district for every neighborhood. Now I'm asking you to help us finish the job with these three clear commitments. Number one, commit now to accept the initiative once signatures are verified.

Newport Beach adopted a certified initiative directly instead of sending it to the ballot, saving taxpayers the request of an election and preventing an independent expenditure campaign. Irvine can do the same. Number two, be among the first to sign the petition tonight. Three, help us reach Irvine voters. Use your social media, newsletters, and the Irvine community the community, we need 19,000 signatures.

Signals available outside city hall tonight. Look for volunteers in green wearing the Protect Irvine Open Space Shield. Our Our next speaker is Eric Nashanian. Mr. Nashanian, you may unmute your mic.

Thank you, mayor Egren, council members, Eric Nashanian. I was gonna say earlier that I believe the US men's national team for soccer has announced that they'll be using the Gray Park for training for FIFA. And then in on 11/12/2024, council directed staff to establish the office of inclusive excellence with assistance of with the of the DEI committee. If you go back and look at the January council meeting, DEI meeting, it's evidence that both the office of inclusive excellence and DEI need to be disbanded. This is the first opportunity that DEI had to assist staff in setting up the office of inclusive excellence.

They indicated that they did not know what what they were supposed to do. This leads to the question is why aren't your community members communicating directly with you about what you want them to do with the Office of Inclusive Excellence? It's been over a year since you guys directed staff to to engage in this endeavor. Are They spent an hour and a half preparing an advisory motion asking you what you want to do. What are you folks doing?

The DEI was supposed to prepare an RFP for a DEI consultant. They failed miserably. They then worked an avenue for proliferating recovery plan grant funds that we still don't know what the what those funds were used for, although they were supposed to be overstaffed reporting. Now we have this. How is it that your committee members on DEI don't know what to do?

How is it that over for over a year, there's been no communication with with you and your committee members about the Office of Inclusive Excellence and what your position was with regard to your establishment and what steps they were supposed to take? It's enough of this nonsense. It's wasting time. I'm sure the staff member, miss Moss, was completely frustrated that she was scapegoated and somehow being aggressive with the council with the committee members. They have no idea what they're supposed to be doing. Ms. Minkota is she's

aloof.

Thank you. Your time is up. Our next speaker is Jeremy Ficarola. Mr. Ficarola, may unmute your mic.

Yeah. Hi there. Jeremy Ficarola, Irvine resident. I'm the president of Cypress Village Homeowners Association, but I'm only speaking as a resident, not on behalf of the association. I would like to speak about the Oak Creek open space debate here. I'm personally impacted by this area since I live, you know, just a stone's throw away from Oak Creek right on the other side of the 5 Freeway. I've been the biggest critic of Irvine Company with regard to certain developments, such as the Orange Heights development in true open space wilderness area. But Oak Creek is not, in actuality,

is not open space.

It's a golf course. It's not really it's not accessible to the general public to go walking or hiking, going around there. So in this regard, I support Irvine Companies' development. I I support more housing. I support an open space that the public can access from the Jeffrey Open Space trip. I personally would definitely enjoy that. So I'm hearing a lot of this sort

of pushback from the open space advocates, some, you know, quote unquote open space advocates. But it's just a giant golf course.

Like, let's just be honest. It's a giant golf course that's very expensive. I have no problem with that being closed down and turned into something a space that's more usable, which is housing, which is great, and actual public access trails and things of that nature. Secondly, completely separate point, totally different, our traffic bikes. I think we could improve the flow of traffic by doing another time study. Sitting at a intersection for, you know, two minutes or almost two minutes when there's no cross traffic. Something has to be done. Same canyon.

You. Your time is up. Our next speaker is Max. Max, you may unmute your mic.

Hello. Welcome to this nation in my presentations we just saw. We own slideshow of the golf course and reasons why to visit Citi. And for the record, I don't play golf. An Residents have spent countless hours fighting this.

But let's be clear, it's not just about the golf course. It's about all open sea open all open space in the city. We have spent hours speaking in the meetings with zero results. And if you keep trading our parts for more buildings, people will no longer want to live in this city. Now it's people's story. That's why we started Citizens Initiative. And if you care about the city, please add your name. Thank you.

And our last speaker, mayor, is Michelle Johnson, and miss Johnson does have a video. Alright.

Welcome.

Before I begin, Mayor, I do have slides and I've timed them to three minutes, and I would respectfully request if I could just go through the slides in that timeframe.

Yes.

Is possible?

Yes and we're well within thirty minutes so please go right ahead.

Mayor and council members I'm here to

update you on the orange county power authority next slide please from the start ocpa said they would offer a different choice from Edison through local control over their energy purchases but ocpa is still using Northern California consultant pacific energy advisors to negotiate all their energy purchases in 2025 ocpa bought almost 35% or 75,600,000 of energy from edison so ocpa not only has no local control but is purchasing 75,000,000 of energy from edison then reselling that energy to member cities at a markup. Ocpa also promised to reinvest profits into communities they serve to showcase and promote the benefits of renewable energy today Irvine represents 63.1% of ocpa the dominant member city Fullerton is next at 22.9 then Buena Park in Fountain Valley who is delayed joining ocpa ocpa recently raised their rates 12 to 16% above edison's rates for all of 2026 which will cost Irvine ratepayers alone at least $23 to $30,000,000 so they are buying energy from edison reselling it to irvine ratepayers at 12 to 16% higher cost than what we would have paid staying with edison. Now let' look at their sponsorships and grants this three year review revealed a redistribution scheme that takes profits from Irvine families and businesses and transfers this money to Fullerton, Buena Park and even Fountain Valley.

On city specific dollars Fullerton gets a much higher dollar amount than Irvine who isn't much farther ahead of Buena Park. Even the ebike program provided 62% of the vouchers to fullerton bicycles instead of irvine. Total dollars given out over the three years was 674,000 remember this is money rate payers provided. The top 10 recipients are listed here again with fullerton taking the top spot and irvine just barely above lobbyist group climate action campaign and the city of buena park next slide many of the sponsorships had nothing to do with renewable energy football scholarships tree lighting soccer clubs a beauty pageant even a vegan sponsorship this is where your hard earned money is going out of irvine for the benefit of other member cities final slide This slide is the most important for the people sitting behind me take a picture of it o c p a is now 12 to 16% more expensive than Edison providing dirtier energy with emissions 83% higher the city council moved all Irvine households renters and businesses from edison into ocpa 30% of Irvine rate payers have already opted back to edison you can go back to edison in only six business days go online or call one of the numbers listed here because there is no one looking out for the ratepayers in Irvine thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

And that is all Mr. Mayor.

Thank you Mr. Peterson. Thank you to all our commenters. We appreciate that you take the time to share your views with us. With that we move on to the next item on the agenda which is the city manager's report.

Thank you mayor we have three items tonight they' be very fast and brief. The first one is going to be presented by Gerald Cheem in the city manager's office. And we're excited to provide a quick update on demolition to the All American Asphalt site.

Go right ahead. Uh-oh. This isn't working. Good

evening mayor and members of the city council. My name is Darryl Jim a senior management analyst in the city manager's office with me I have Brian Palivka manager of Great Park I'm here to share a brief update on the former all american asphalt site To give a quick recap, in 2023, the City Council finalized a land deal involving the purchase and decommissioning of this 11 acre asphalt plant. Included in this historic deal was a land transfer that enabled the creation of Gateway Preserve and Gateway Residential Community, which you'll be hearing more about later tonight. However, I'm happy to inform City Council that the plant that you see before you has been cleared of all asphalt producing infrastructure. This will further pave the way for the site's incorporation into the Gateway Preserve.

We want to share a quick video footage of the final moments of the site's demolition. Let's see if I

can get it to play here.

Thanks to our communications and engagement department for putting this video together. Well, I also wanted to share a photo of what the site looks like as of last week. It's ready for further development and integration into the open space as part of the 700 acre Gateway preserve. This concludes my brief update on the former asphalt plant with more to come on tonight's agenda for the Gateway residential village. Staff are here for any questions or comments.

Thank you, Darryl. Thank you very much. Second update tonight will be made by Robert Espinoza. I'd like to say a shout out to our human services team. Robert is the supervisor, and he's going to do a brief and fast update on WeRide.

Good evening council. Thank you for the introduction. I'm incredibly proud and excited to be here this evening to talk about WeRide. WeRide is the city's new same day on demand transportation service for older adult residents 60 powered by volunteers. We ride works in partnership with the trips program to provide reliable accessible transportation to older adults as well as individuals with disabilities.

I would like to introduce a short video that introduces we ride and how it supports older adults and staying connected throughout our city. The video is embedded in the powerpoint one second Oh, sorry about that. That's okay. Well we have a great one minute video put together by our communications team that introduces We Ride to Irvine residents. We have received overwhelming interest and support from the community.

Since we ride was announced on December 19 125 new transportation memberships and renewals have been processed 180 residents have attended a we ride information session we ride launched last Monday February 2 in our first week of operations we ride services were responsible for a total of a 145 rides along with our existing trip services a record total of five twenty six rides were performed during our initial week of combined services. We ride would not be possible without the support of passionate and dedicated volunteers wanting to give back to our community. Volunteers have been giving to this program since December 2025 to train and prepare for this month's launch and have already contributed over three sixty hours of service to this program. We have two of our volunteers here tonight that we would like to recognize for their commitment and service to our program. Norm Garrison and Audrey McGillicuddy.

Thank you so much for your time and I'll take any questions or comments.

Thank you Robert thank you very much great job last item is just a brief immigration update by our police chief, Mike Kent.

Thank you, Senator Major Cumbria. There have been no ICE or border patrol operations in the city of Irvine since we last had our city council meeting back on January 27.

That concludes the CD manager's report. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much. And, do we have any additions or deletions to the agenda tonight?

None tonight.

Forgive me for leaving the room momentarily. Councilmember lu followed by councilmember trecedar councilmember martinez franco. Announcements please.

Good evening I' here to share some of the things we' been doing working on and also some announcements. In January the orange county mosquito and vector control district responded to 19 service requests including 15 for mosquitoes as well as inspecting and treating 17 swimming pools which are breeding grounds for mosquitoes and the diseases they spread. Next slide please. On February 24, orange county sanitation will host a free screening of unless something goes wrong, a film emphasizing the important work of maintaining water infrastructure to protect public health and the environment. After the film there is a Q and A with the director and a free tour of Oc Sands reclamation plan number one spots are limited so please register online at the oc sand website.

On February 2, I attended Countering Hate twenty twenty six, a summit on understanding and preventing antisemitism and hate in K-twelve schools at UCI. As the city liaison for IUSC and TUSD, I want to ensure that all of our kids, regardless of family background, are protected from all forms of hate. Just like Chief just mentioned, hate has no home in Irvine. Next slide, please. On February 5, my chief of staff and army sergeant herself attended the ACCOC homes for heroes veterans housing orientation.

This program underscored the vital role of coordinated housing employment and mental health services in supporting Orange County veterans on their path to stability and independence. A special thank you to janbury housing for their work and involvement with this program. On February 17, at 6PM, our office will be holding an e bike town hall at the Portola Springs Community Center. IPD will provide updates on new e bike laws and ordinances, and we will have UCI Health to emphasize the dangers of reckless riding, including medical and trauma incidents. And I hope to see all of you there.

Next, please. So finally, I would like to give a shout out to Girl Scout Cookies. It's Girl Scout Cookie Seasons to support our local scout troops. Scan the QR code provided on the screen or find any Girl Scouts in front of your local supermarkets. In addition, you can scan the QR code on the right to purchase Girl Scout cookies to donate to two eleven marine battalions. Thank you that concludes my report.

Thank you councilmember lu councilmember treseder.

Thank you.

According to state law we are required to report back from the boards that we sit on when the boards take action. I'm going to give you a few reports today. First of all, OC power authority vice mayor mye and I sit on the board. We met on February 9, which is yesterday. A highlight for that meeting is that we discussed a community energy plan.

The community energy plan is a plan for how we can distribute aid to our residents and especially those who are particularly, they're not as well off as others, how we can help them contribute to renewable energy. So two things that we highlighted as being high priority are helping renters with heat pumps. We could use potentially revenue that we receive from OCPA to offer heat pumps to residents who are otherwise not well off. Heat pumps are helpful because heat pumps, they can heat units and they can also cool units. You can put them in your window and so it doesn't require them to be installed by a landlord and so this is a way we can give it directly to the renters the renters benefit and they'll receive lower cost of their energy Another priority is efficient refrigerators and freezers.

Refrigerators and freezers use a lot of energy in households, and they can become very efficient. So we also are looking into assisting our residents with lower income levels with purchasing efficient refrigerators and freezers. We will be talking about these issues further. The plan is not concrete yet, but we did make some initial discussions. I also attended the League of California City's Environmental Quality Committee on 01/23/2026.

That was in Sacramento. I represent the city of Irvine there. This was our first meeting of the year so we went over work plan priorities we decided our priorities will be number one disaster and emergency preparedness and response including wildfires number two energy and utilities that includes community choice energy and number three water and wastewater will be meeting two more times this year where we' going to be going over those work plans in more detail the next meeting is in Costa Mesa next month. Finally for the irvine community land trust the board met yesterday February 9 james my and I were voted on to the board to represent the city of Irvine it was a largely an organizational meeting so we voted on the executive committee and committee members the chair remains the same

Brian. The

chair remains the same that' brian h the vice chair remains the same Nancy Donnelly the treasurer is new that's me and the secretary remains the same that's russell fellbop I got placed onto the finance committee and vice mayor my got placed into the development committee We both look forward to representing Irvine over the next year. You.

Thank you for your reports and announcements. With that we will turn to councilmember betty martinez franco.

Thank you. Good evening, and I'm excited to share a few updates and announcements from my office. Next slide, please. On January 30, I stopped by to support local high school students who exercise their constitutional right to peacefully protest and make their voices heard. And thank you, Madeline, for your beautiful comments.

I really appreciate it. These young leaders walked out to speak out against recent federal immigration enforcement measures and the tragic loss of life connected with those actions. I'm incredibly proud of our students for being civically engaged and reminding us all that peaceful protest is a powerful and important part of our democracy. Next slide. As part of being one of the persons representing Irvine in the Southern California Association, I have a report.

And Southern California Association of Governments Student Showcase is now open for submissions. This showcase challenges students to demonstrate innovative solutions to sustainability related planning issues on local and regional scale. Finalists will receive complimentary event registration, hotel accommodation, and admission to SCAG's twenty twenty six Regional Conference and General Assembly in Palm Desert in May 2026. You can learn more about the application guidelines and showcase details by scanning the QR code or visiting their website at scag.ca.gov/scholarship. Next slide.

Next, I'm excited to share a few community events that will coming up next month. My team and I will be hosting a town hall to discuss your questions and concerns about the future of the University Park Library. The town hall will take place on Tuesday, March 3 from six to eight m. At the University Park Community Center. Next slide.

And the city of Irvine will be holding its first ever women's conference on March 13. This event is open to the community and will feature a panel of speakers in various topics. We will be sharing more details later this month, and we can wait to see you there. Next slide. The Orange County Fire Authority will be hosting their annual open house on March 14 from ten a. M. To three p. M. This event will be held at the OCFA headquarters in Irvine, And it's a great opportunity to meet your local firefighters.

Doctor. Member, your

time is up. Go ahead. You can finish up, please. Thank you.

I would like to next slide, please. I would like to invite you to stay connected by following me on social media where I'm sharing updates about what is going on in District 5 and in the city of Irvine. Next slide. And you can also stay up to date by subscribing to our monthly newsletter. Please scan the QR code to sign up. My office is always available for your questions and concerns, so please reach out by giving us a call or email. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Next is councilmember go.

Thank you mayor. Good evening everyone. First I have an exciting southern California association of government board update to share with you regarding the twenty twenty eight summer olympics. At last week' CAG regional council meeting we approved funding for 12 quick build transportation projects ahead of the twenty twenty Olympics. This program advances connect so cal goals through passenger and freight travel management quick build safety projects and community hubs to learn more about SCAG's LA twenty eight games mobility program, you can scan the QR code on your screen.

Next slide, please. To help the community stay connected and informed with all the things the City of Irvine, I' decided to launch a new series of virtual town halls called inside city hall where city staff will give presentations on their respective department followed by a Q and A. This month we' be hearing from Melissa Haley director of communications engagement for the city of irvine she' be sharing updates on the upcoming citywide annual events exciting programming planned for the Great Park in the years ahead and you get a sneak peek at the new branding and communications effort. Join me on Monday February 23 05:30 p. M.

Registration is required and you can do so by scanning the qr code that's displayed on your screen. Next slide. My office is bringing pickleball to the Great Park with our upcoming district two pop up pickleball event. Grab your paddle bring a friend and join us Wednesday February 25 from one to four p. M. At Wild Rivers. Wild cups are welcome but RSVPs are strongly encouraged to secure yourself a court. You can reserve a court by scanning the qr code that's displayed in your street. Thank you very much.

Thank you councilmember gog councilmember mye.

Thank you mayor.

Wanted to thanks for putting that up there. I just wanted to make a brief announcement that in honor of lunar new year, Orange County is home of 800,000 asian Americans. 25% of them are vietnamese american many of them are from Irvine right here on February 21 I will be walking my office will be walking in the parade hope you will join us and 15,000 other attendees in person happy new year and thank you.

Thank you councilmember and vice mayor my. I have just two announcements to make regarding citywide matters. This is an invitation to the public to attend the annual state of the city address on Tuesday, March 10 at our March tenth City Council meeting. The event will be held here, of course, at the Irvine Civic Center and will begin with a public reception at five p. M.

Followed by my state of the city address at six p. M. There' much to look forward to in Irvine this year as we continue to provide an outstanding quality of life for everyone who lives in Irvine works in Irvine or visits Irvine. I hope you' be able to join all of us at this event so that together we can rededicate ourselves to an even brighter future for our beautiful city. Additional information is available at cityofirvine.org/stateofthecity.

Next this regards the spring issue of our wonderful publication inside Irvine, including class registrations. The spring issue of inside Irvine is available online at cityofirvine.org/insideirvine. This issue highlights several things. Our city's urban forest master plan. It also highlights accessible transportation options including the new We Ride service that launched this month.

Also there's a story about the Irvine police department's innovative cultural immersion sabbatical program which we heard about earlier this evening which allows officers to gain a greater understanding of the traditions customs and perspectives of our diverse community. And finally, it includes information on resources available through our office of health and wellness. Plus, as with every one of our quarterly publications, you can browse camps, classes, programs, and events available for children and adults in the activity guide which is just a tremendous compendium of activities available for young and old alike here in the city of Irvine, including informational classes, class participation events, remarkable publication of all of these events. Inside Irvine will arrive in homes this week in time for class registration, which opens Sunday, February 15. To see the most updated activities and to sign up, visit yourirvine.org.

That concludes our announcements and reports of council members for the evening allowing us to move to additions and deletions to the agenda Mr. Sean crumbi our city manager are there any additions or deletions to the agenda?

None tonight mayor.

Thank you. As I announced earlier item 6.3 will be moved up just ahead of 6.1 that we can consider the library issues together. With that, we move on to a procedural matter that I may need some help with from the city attorney and from the city clerk please don' hesitate to jump in. This is a joint meeting so at this time I want us to convene to a special joint meeting. We are in a council meeting now we are convening to a special joint meeting with the irvine facilities financing authority and the time is 07:37.

To make this procedurally proper will the clerk please call the roll.

Thank you mayor councilmember board member carol here councilmember board member go here councilmember board member lu here councilmember board member martinez Franco here Council member board member Trusieder?

Here.

Vice mayor vice chairman Mai? Here. And mayor chairman Akron? Here.

To kind of explain to the public at large this means we're wearing, correct me if I'm wrong Mr. Milchin, but we're basically wearing two hats now as a board member for the irvine facilities financing authority and for the city council. With that I think we now move to the consent calendar do we not

that is correct mayor and actually you have two consent calendars one for the city council and one for the irvine facilities financing corporation.

I' going to find my place here just one moment. I think we go straight to 4.1 or do we do the city council one first?

Actually, what we would do is do the consent calendar first. You have a city council consent calendar, which consists of item numbers 2.1 through 2.8. And then there's one consent calendar item for the authority, which is item 3.1. When we have a joint meeting with the great park or with the former successor agency you can approve the consent calendar with one vote if you wish.

With one vote all right. One motion excuse me. All right. With those consent calendar items both before us, I want to turn to you first and ask if there are any public commenters on either of those consent calendars. Of course consent calendar items are considered by the city management to be matters of routine nature.

They may be important but they' of a routine nature for purposes of our voting. Individuals and council members may speak to items are there any requests from the public? There are no requests to speak mayor. There have been no requests and no requests from council members to withdraw items. That being the case with a single motion, we can improve the consent calendar items that are on our agenda tonight.

Also move. Second. I'm sorry seconded by vice mayor and board member James Mai. With that, would the clerk please call the roll.

Council member board member Carroll.

Yes.

Council member board member Go. Yes. Council member board member Lu. Council member board member Martinez Franco. Yes. Council member board member Trusieder.

Yes.

Vice mayor vice chairman May. Yes. And mayor chairman Akron. Yes. Carries seven zero.

Excellent that concludes that item enabling us to move on to item four is that correct?

That is correct it's a joint item of the city council and the authority. It's item 4.1.

Would you please identify that item by title and subject.

Approval of updated transactional documents with Brookfield for gateway resident village.

Excellent. Incidentally if there are any people who wish to participate by way of public comment remotely this would be the appropriate time to enter the queue and raise your hand. With that I' turn to our staff to present this item please identify yourselves and right ahead with your presentation.

Good evening mr. Mayor and members of the city council my name is pete carmichael assistant city manager and with me this evening is lauren jung from the city manager's office michael o'connell with the irvine ranch Conservancy and with us remotely on audio is Nicole Burdett with Brookfield Residential the item before you tonight is a continuation of the gateway project which has been before the council several times over the last couple of years. I'm going to take just a minute, walk through the timeline, kind of where we stand today relative to what's come before and what comes next for the Gateway Project, and then hand off to Mr. O'Connell to give kind of an exciting update on some recent approvals for the preserve, and then Lauren will walk through the Gateway Residential Village remainder of the slides. As the council may remember, a couple of years ago almost, in 2023, the city selected Brookfield Residential through a competitive RFP process, which then led to an exclusive negotiating agreement and a development management agreement with Brookfield in the 2024.

After a year of a lot of hard work by the Brookfield team and city staff, in December, we brought forward the entitlement package for the Gateway Village. That included CEQA clearance by way of an environmental impact report, vesting tentative track map, and a variety of other entitlement documents. As of now, in February 2026, we're before you with some updates to a whole variety of transaction and supporting documents that have been updated to reflect the recent approvals in December. Pending the council's review tonight, we would move forward with site work start at the Gateway site later this spring that would include the grading utilities roadway installation all work striving for a grand opening in early late twenty twenty seven or early twenty twenty eight and that would include the community itself with the model homes the fourth and final segment of the Jeffrey Open space trail that runs up the new Jeffrey extension and the 700 acre Gateway Preserve after that point in time homes would be selling and that would run between 2028 and 2031. A very quick reminder the Gateway Vision is approved by the City Council just a number of years ago really had three components.

The closure of the all american asphalt plant you saw a great video of that earlier this evening and the incorporation of the plant into the Gateway Preserve the preserve again 700 acres 10 plus miles of mountain biking and hiking trails and habitat mitigation and restoration and then the third piece the Gateway Village 70 acre site approximately one of the last master plan villages in the city we're going to hit each of these components For the next one I'm going to hand off to Michael O'Connell with Irvine Ranch Conservancy to give an update on the preserve.

Welcome, sir.

Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor and members of the City Council, it's great to see you again. I'm very excited to be able to kick off with some great news, which is that the resource and recreation management plan for the Gateway Preserve was approved by the regulatory agencies in December. They deemed it concurrent with the NCCP and the HCP that the city is a permittee on. And so, this essentially represents the major entitlement for the preserve and the trail system.

I have to note what an incredible job the staff did in getting that done. I've been doing this a long time and it was the cleanest approval letter I have ever seen from the wildlife agencies. That was due to the hard work particularly Chris Slama and his team, as well as the city manager's team put into that. So, news on that. Let's see. Can I go back? Can you go back? Thank you. I'm not going to spend a lot of time in these slides because we've been here a while. But just the one takeaway from this is, as Pete mentioned, we're going have nine or 10 miles of brand new trails, really spectacular visitor facilities.

Note for you that the All American Asphalt Site, as well as the Quarry site, which is in the lower right hand corner, are not yet entitled as part of the preserve. They have these existing uses that have to be reconciled. And we've talked in the past about a community process for talking about what the constraints of the plan are, and then looking at how those might be created as visitor experiences. But those would be trailing along the rest of it. What would open in 2028 would be the staging area and the trail system, which is what I think a lot of people are looking forward to.

The reason why we can't open it before that is we don't have anywhere to put people. We don't have anywhere for them to park. And they would be driving through a construction site to get there. So, everybody's excited to get out there, but we need to be just a little more patient. There's also a lot of restoration.

The city has committed to 110 plus acres of habitat restoration as part of this plan, And in fact, that work has already commenced. If you look up on the hill above the end of Jeffrey, you'll see what looks like rows that have been recently mowed there. That's actually site prep for the restoration that's going to be going on. Pretty soon there's going be some beautiful coastal sage scrub habitat up there. The other key elements of the RMP that I want to note for you are that the preserve is part of the NCCP reserve system, so it comes with all of those restrictions.

And there is going to be a need for additional capacity for the city's open space patrol in order to manage that area. They've got their hands full already with the open space reserve that's open. And once the gateway preserve comes online, we've been working closely with Chief Kent to identify what capacity needs will be there. And there's going to be a lot of opportunity for people to be involved. As you know, the native seed farm is up there, just volunteer opportunities all over the place.

So, we're really, really excited about it, and we'll continue to keep you updated as we move forward. Next steps. 2026 preserved, and we're going to be managing the preserve consistent with the NCCP in the meantime. So, we kind of have a of a keep the lights on approach that we're working on, and to that will ramp up then to very active management starting in 2028 with a big old ribbon cutting for trails. And

that is it.

Thank you Mike.

Thank you.

As Pete mentioned, Gateway Village is planned to be one of the last master planned residential villages in Irvine delivered through a close partnership between the city and Brookfield the project includes eleven thirty eight homes with 25% of units restricted as long term affordable housing The village will sit adjacent to the Gateway Preserve and along the final segment of the jost with the new public trailhead park providing direct access into the preserve homes are anticipated to hit the market in early twenty twenty eight. This map shows the Gateway Village site in closer detail including its relationship to the jost and the Trailhead Park with linkage to the preserve together Gateway Preserve and Gateway Village will advance housing open space and environmental restoration goals in a fully integrated way. Now we' going to go over the financial framework as Daryl mentioned in the triple a asphalt demolition update the city financed acquisition of the former triple a plant with approximately $326,000,000 in bond proceeds supported by a debt financing lease structure that pledged Gateway Village land as collateral. Under the city brookfield deal structure the city is responsible for horizontal infrastructure which includes grading roads and utilities Brookfield will provide 105,000,000 in deposits to the city in two installments these funds will support site work and initial triple a debt service.

Once infrastructure is complete Brookfield will purchase lots from the city in phases this structure allows the city to retain more land value and reduces Brookfield's carrying costs. The documents before you tonight do not change the roles of the city or Brookfield established under the original dcma approved by city council in October 2024. Instead they ensure the following goals continued surplus lands act compliance refinement of deal terms based on updated information modifying the triple a financing lease documents to allow flexibility streamlining administration and project delivery coordinating delivery of the Jeffrey Open Space Trail and improvements and allowing progress toward annexation of the Notch parcel which is part of the Gateway Village design from the county Together these documents are designed to preserve city value and streamline implementation as we continue the Gateway Village project. The surplus lands act governs how public agencies sell or lease land with a focus on promoting affordable housing. To meet those requirements, the updated document set adds two new agreements, a market rate disposition and development agreement, which I'll refer to as a DDA, and two affordable dda's these agreements are explicitly required under state law to ensure affordability requirements and other required obligations are met the market rate dda governs the transaction of the market rate lots there will be one affordable dda for each of the two affordable housing parcels and those agreements are structured to authorize the city manager to make revisions as the affordable housing program is finalized and to allow assignment by Brookfield to the selected affordable housing developer or developers.

Under the original dcma the city receives 100% of land sale proceeds up to a target land value of $541,000,000 with proceeds above that split 85% to the city and 15% to Brookfield in addition Brookfield was entitled to an 8% profit margin on home sales with profits above that shared equally with the city these terms were designed to allow the city to participate in future increases in land and home values since execution the contours of the deal have evolved resulting in a lower residual land value with several modifications to the terms of the dcma to accommodate. The amended document reduces Brookfield's profit threshold from 8% to 7% with the city sharing in profits over 7%. This change is estimated to increase city gross proceeds by approximately 11,000,000. Originally Brookfield was expected to build two thirds of the market rate lots with the remainder sold to other builders. Brookfield has since requested to develop all six market rate lots this would streamline delivery reduce complexity and provide greater certainty around timing and project delivery of the gateway village under the amendment brookfield will purchase all six market rate segments.

As discussed earlier brookfield will provide approximately 105,000,000 in deposits to support horizontal infrastructure and early debt service payments paid in two installments. In the unlikely event of a city default brookfield would seek return of its remaining deposit. Because deposit funds may be expended the updated agreement provides brookfield with a deed of trust on a portion of the Gateway property as security. If the city were unable to repay the deposit by 2031, Brookfield would have limited remedies under that deed of trust. Staff believes this structure appropriately balances risk while allowing the project to proceed.

The AAA acquisition bonds are supported by a financing lease that currently pledges the Gateway property as collateral. As the project advances that structure needs to be modified to accommodate Brookfield's deposit security and future lot sales staff working with the city's bond underwriter and Brookfield have established a framework using existing flexibility to maintain appropriate bond security while allowing the project to move forward. Initially, the city will reduce the amount of gateway property pledged to allow the city to grant Brookfield the deed of trust for the initial deposit just mentioned over time the framework provides a path to remove the Gateway Property from the lease entirely with substitution of other city owned property such as the Crescent property following the anticipated five point exchange in April furthermore as land sale proceeds are received and the triple a debt is paid down the amount of property required as collateral will continue to decrease these modifications provide the flexibility necessary to deliver the Gateway Village project while maintaining appropriate security for the bonds staff is also requesting approval of an administrative resolution to establish the gateway project special fund authorize acceptance of deposits and land sale proceeds and allow the city manager to administer contracts capital improvement projects and budgets within the limits of deposited amounts it also establishes a project account with a working capital mechanism of 500,000 to support qualifying construction activities the resolution is administrative and supports efficient project implementation the urban company is obligated to construct the Jost segment for North Of Portola as part of an implementation agreement with the city dated back in June 2003 gateway village relies on three entry roads and infrastructure crossing the Jost including an under crossing and a trailhead park that will serve as a primary entrance into the Gateway Preserve through the proposed reimbursement agreements the irvine company will construct certain infrastructure concurrently with its Joss Trail work reducing costs, minimizing construction durations, and avoiding duplicative work.

To note here, for Joss segments one through three, the city opted to enhance the landscaping and quality of the trail by reducing acreage the Irvine company was obligated to build. While the reduction in acreage is not available for segment four, the city is agreeing to provide two acres of park credit to the Irvine company for use in future projects to ensure that the joss segment four is delivered at the same high quality as earlier segments one through three. The city holds an option to purchase an approximately two acre parcel known as The Notch which upon acquisition of the title will become part of the Gateway Village site and has already been assumed in entitlements and project design. Acquisition requires annexation through the local agency formation commission also known as LAFCO the first step in this process is approval of a tax transfer agreement with the County Of Orange which is the resolution before you tonight The calculation is based on a longstanding formula driven methodology used for prior annexation to determine on a go forward basis how property taxes are shared. If the council proceeds with adopting the resolution tonight the agreement will go to the county board of supervisors next month following LAFCO approval the city will be able to annex and acquire the Notch parcel.

The recommended actions before you tonight are listed here and are organized into two categories the first slide here shows all council recommended actions while the next slide will show the action for the irvine facilities financing authority to consider Starting here with the council actions as a quick recap recommended actions one and three update the Brookfield deal terms as described earlier in this presentation and authorize the city manager to complete the blanks in the documents for example legal property descriptions dates and exhibits recommended action to approves the resolution for the market rate and affordable ddas for consistency with the surplus lands act and also authorizes the city manager to complete the blanks in those form documents including legal descriptions dates and exhibits and to make revisions as affordable housing program is finalized. Recommended action number four approves and authorizes reimbursement agreements with the irvine company for delivery of jost infrastructure and the trailhead park recommended action five approves modifications to the triple a financing lease documents to facilitate the Brookfield deed of trust and future sale of lots recommended action six adopts a resolution approving the property tax exchange for annexation of the Notch parcel from the county of Orange and recommended action seven adopts an administrative resolution to create a special fund for gateway and streamline implementation of the project the recommended action before the irvine facilities financing authority is shown here as recommended action eight and is the authority's resolution to approve modifications to the triple a financing lease documents if council approves the recommended actions tonight staff will finalize and execute the agreements resolutions and documents builder deposits would be expected to be received later this month with site preparation and horizontal construction beginning this spring model home construction is anticipated in mid twenty twenty seven with the community's grand opening expected in early twenty twenty eight along with the opening of Joss Segment 4 and the gateway Preserve These recommended actions will maintain project momentum and deliver the gateway vision.

Staff is available to answer any questions and online we have a call berdette president at brookfield residential land who is also available for questions.

Thank you very much for that report. I have one procedural question can we handle recommendations one through seven and eight with one motion or do

you want to? We would like two votes mayor one for items one through seven and one for item eight.

Let me at this time I think to move through this most effectively I' like to move adoption of staff recommendations one through seven. Is there a second?

Second.

Alright, the motion and a second. The motion is properly in front of us. But now I'd like to turn yes sir.

Mayor, I had one thing that I wanted add or clarify with regard to the recommended actions. You'll see a number of them authorize the city manager to finalize. You see that in the wording on item number one and number three and number four. And it was also made clear in Ms. Zheng's presentation.

We want to be clear that there are a number of blanks and exhibit documents that need to get filled into the package that's before you before they will be ready to execute. And the city manager will go through that process and finalize those documents without coming back to the council again. And we just want to make sure we've made that very clear on the record before you vote tonight.

All right. Is that understood by everyone? Good. With the motion now made and seconded, I'd like to ask a question or two and make a comment. By the way do we have requests for public comment? No Mr. Mayor. You mentioned affordable housing. Is the affordable let' see the number of housing units altogether with the gateway development is what number?

113825% of those which is two eighty seven units are restricted as long term affordable housing.

The two eighty seven units are those affordable fifty five years seventy five years or in perpetuity?

According to surplus lands act it is required at minimum fifty five years as the affordable developer or developers are selected that will be determined at that time but at minimum fifty five years.

And what what happens in fifty five years to the affordability of those units?

It depends on the structure of the affordable project. What we would strive for is an ability to extend or the ability to have the option to extend at the end of term. But, it'll be subject to the final negotiated terms with the affordable developer.

All right. Well, let me just say this. This is an extraordinarily complicated transaction. I just want to remind folks that it began with the all american asphalt plant and the environmental and even the health dangers that it presented to this community. What we managed to do, and council member Carol and I were privileged to actually give some early guidance on this deal.

But I must say it was former city manager Oliver Chi who enlisted our management staff, skilled personnel, working then in partnership with the Irvine Company to create an almost unimaginably remarkable deal that turned lemonade, it turned lemons, into lemonade and then some. This is such a magnificent project with the extension of the Jeffrey Open Space Trail, with the Gateway Preserve, with all that it's going to do for this community. And it just was incredibly complex and creative. And I just want to publicly thank our entire staff, everybody who had a part in this, because I don't think there's any deal like this comparable that went on in recent history in The United States Of America. I mean, think it's that significant addressing affordable housing, addressing the environmental concerns, addressing the open space preservation concerns, and of course providing for a healthy, highly qualified, highly qualitatively, just an extraordinary quality of life for folks.

Amazing. It's just amazing. And it will all be unfolding and put in place over the next, what, five years or so?

That's right.

We expect to be completed with all of this, and the construction and the occupancy literally within five years?

Yeah, I think final sales would be early 2030s, 2031, 2032.

All right. Well, kudos to everyone who's been involved. Tremendous. With that, I'll turn to my colleagues if they have any comments or wish to weigh in with questions. There being none, the motion is properly before us. Will the clerk please call the roll.

Thank you mayor. Just to clarify, this is acting as a city council to approve action items one through seven?

That's correct.

Councilmember Carroll?

Yes.

Councilmember Go. Yes. Councilmember Liu. Yes. Councilmember Martinez Franco. Yes. Councilmember Trusieder.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Mai. Yes. Mayor Agram.

Yes. Carry seven zero. Thank you. That takes us to staff recommendation eight which is I' move staff recommendation eight regarding the irvine facilities financing authority action Is there a second?

I will second.

Seconded by councilmember lu. Are there any questions of staff? Comments that wish to be made? No comments from the public? All right. That being the case, would the clerk please call the roll? Board Member Carroll?

Yes.

Board Member Go? Yes. Board Member Liu? Yes. Board Member Martinez Franco? Yes. Board Member Trusieder?

Yes.

Vice Chairman Mai? Yes. Chairman Agram? Yes. Carry 70.

This was historic, folks. Thank you. I''ll move adjournment of the special joint meeting. There a second?

Second.

With the clerk please call the roll on adjournment of the special joint meeting.

Council member board member Carrol.

Yes.

Council member board member Go. Yes. Council member board member Lu.

Yes. Council

member board member Martinez Franco. Yes. Council member board member Trusieder.

Yes.

Vice mayor, vice chairman Mai.

Yes.

And mayor chairman Agram.

Yes.

Carry seven-zero. The joint meeting having been adjourned we now reconvene to the city council meeting and proceed with our business. The next item item five public hearings with the clerk please identify item 5.1 by title.

Consideration to update circumstances for the collection of fees for processing vehicle impounds or storages.

Thank you. With that, we'll turn to our staff our presenter please identify yourself thank you.

Good evening mayor city council members and staff my name is Shaheen jahangard and tonight to would consider updating the circumstances for the collection of fees for processing vehicle impounds or storages. Public safety personnel impound or store vehicles.

Let me interrupt you I failed to state this is a public hearing which is now called to order.

Public safety personnel impound or store vehicles as authorized by California law pursuant to California vehicle code section twenty two eight fifty point five and is further authorized under city resolutions. California law authorizes the recovery of funds to enforce certain California vehicle codes and promote traffic safety on the public roadways. These resolutions are open to public view and on file with the City Of Irvine's traffic bureau. Currently contract towing service providers collect fees on behalf of the city of irvine from the registered owner of a vehicle impounded or stored pursuant to a violation of driving with a suspended license or driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol. The tow committee comprised of personnel from Irvine Police Department's traffic bureau recently surveyed orange county public safety departments including the orange county sheriff's department and police departments from Lagoon Beach New Port Beach Costa Mesa Testin and Santa Ana.

Each of these departments recover funds for anywhere between 20 to 30 different sections of a California vehicle code this survey demonstrates that the irvine police department may update the circumstances in which it collects fees for processing vehicle impounds or storages in order to be in greater alignment with best practices. Public safety proposes updating the circumstances to collect release fees from registered owners who negligently operate their vehicle to cover the processing of impounds or storages. A negligently operated vehicle is defined as any vehicle stored or impounded for any of the reasons listed in the attached chart. The release fee shall not be imposed in any of the following circumstances as determined by public safety after the registered owner or agent of a registered owner requests a post storage hearing. Those include when the vehicle was left behind because it became inoperable while being driven if the owner made a good faith attempt to promptly remove the vehicle from a location where it was not permitted when the vehicle was stolen, when the vehicle was left by an ill or injured driver, or when it is demonstrated to the satisfaction of the chief of police or designee that neither the registered owner of the vehicle nor the registered owner's agent if any was at fault in creating the circumstances leading to impounding of the vehicle.

A registered owner or an agent of a registered owner believes they are exempt from the fee in accordance with any of the above listed criteria may request a waiver of the fee from the chief of police or his designee. If the registered owner or agent for the registered owner meets the criteria for waiver of the fee, the contractor shall not charge the release fee. The fees will be collected at the time of the release by the contractor and will be paid to the city the following month. The city's administrative services and public safety departments will keep a strict accounting of these fees and regular written confirmation will take place to ensure accurate and timely payment of collected fees. At its regular meeting on 12/15/2025, the finance commission voted four-zero-three in support of the city council approving the recommended actions.

The recommended action is that the city council adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Irvine California to update the circumstances for the collection of fees for processing vehicle impounds or storages. Thank you for your time and I'm available to answer any questions or address any concerns.

Thank you very much. Are there counsel comments or questions at this time? Alright. City Clerk, do we have any requests from public commenters? No, Mr. Mayor. No requests? By the way I did take a look at the entirety of the report. How much money do we generate from this?

I would estimate we currently generate about $30,000 a year.

30,000. And, the tow operators, do we have any idea how much they manage to collect from these towing operations and impounding?

I'm not sure how much they collect.

And, what is our arrangement as far as towing companies? That's typically a competitive bidding process. How often is that?

We currently have an RFP that will be posted later this month to revisit our contract, which expires at the end of this fiscal year.

All right. For a while, we were getting complaints about excessively aggressive towing operations in apartment buildings and the like. Do we get many complaints?

I haven't received any complaints in the last two years that I've been in this role. And we also don't collect any fees for any private party impounds.

Okay.

Very well. If there are no further questions or comments, I'll move that we close the public hearing. Oh, yes. Did you oh, I'm sorry. Councilmember Liu. I recognize Councilmember Liu at this time.

Just a quick comment. I remember back when I was serving on the Finance Commission, we were told that I was looking at the chart that we are actually one of the lowest, if not the lowest, in Orange County?

That's correct.

Just wanted to make sure that

we are

letting the public know.

Good. We want to be nice people even when their most valuable car probably their most valuable possession is in our hands right?

Yes sir.

With that, again I'll move that we close the public hearing. Second. Seconded by councilmember lu. Will the clerk please call the roll. Councilmember Carrol.

Yes. Councilmember Goh. Yes. Councilmember Liu. Yes. Councilmember Martinez Franco. Yes. Councilmember Trecedor.

Yes.

Vice Mayor May. Yes. And Mary Egren. Yes. Carries seven-zero.

Councilmember would you like to move staff recommendation?

Yes so move.

I will second it. Absent any counsel or public comment, will the clerk please call the roll.

Councilmember Carroll. Yes. Councilmember Go. Yes. Councilmember Liu. Yes. Councilmember Martinez Franco.

Yes.

Councilmember Trusieder.

Yes.

Vice mayor May yes mayor a green yes carry seven zero.

Thank you very much.

You very much.

Now we move now to council business item six. Would the clerk please identify by title item 6.3, which will now move ahead to item, ahead of item 6.1.

Thank you, mayor. Item 6.3 is consideration of a request by mayor Agron to discuss the Irvine Public Library Master Plan and consideration consideration of of Library library committee. Committee.

Thank you. This is one of two library items on the agenda tonight. What I think I' like to do and by the way I thank those in the audience for their patience their perseverance in this council chamber, as well as all you contribute to our discussion of an improved library system outside of the council chamber. With that, what I'd like to do is actually read my memo, which probably will take about three minutes. But I sought to put this together in a way that gets us to better understand where we are in this remarkable transition from having been part of the county library system to now being part of being in whole our own library system.

It has been a remarkable journey in a short period of time. We've got a long way to go, but I think it's always worth taking a couple of minutes to celebrate how far we have come in recent months and years. Again, this is a matter I want to thank city manager Oliver Chi. When he came on board as city manager he had a very ambitious agenda for the city. Unusually ambitious for a city manager.

And having experienced a city owned library system in Huntington Beach, he felt Irvine should absolutely move away from the county and create our own libraries system here. It took a little time to persuade me that we could handle such an extraordinary undertaking amid all the other ambitious projects we have underway in our city. I' glad he persuaded me that we should move forward and I' glad he enlisted talented folks to negotiate a deal with the county and to put us on the path to creating our own system. With that, let me just read my memorandum, if I might here. The city of Irvine officially assumed responsibility for library services on 07/01/2025, with the heritage park and university park libraries reopening as first branches of the Irvine public library on Sunday, 08/03/2025.

The heritage park library is a city owned facility. The university park library is a county owned facility that will be leased by the city for a five year term. The Katie wheeler library remained under county of orange management through 12/31/2025 and transition to city operations beginning 01/01/2026 under a three year lease agreement. The Katie wheeler library is scheduled to reopen as the city's third branch of the Irvine Public Library on 03/07/2026, just in a matter of weeks. Planning is already underway to grow and enhance the entire library system.

The city's first library master plan will serve as a strategic roadmap for building and operating a fully municipal modern innovative and community centered library system. The master plan will guide future decisions relating to facilities, operations, programs, staffing, and technology while articulating a long range vision that defines libraries as community anchors for learning, creativity, and connection. Development of the master plan is anticipated to begin in early summer. The process will include robust community and stakeholder engagement with opportunities for input through focus groups and other outreach efforts involving the community and library services commission, friends of the library groups, Irvine Public Library teen advisory groups, and additional community stakeholders. The master plan will also guide approaches for ongoing community engagement to ensure the Irvine Public Library continues to meet the evolving needs of Irvine residents.

The city Council has received comments and inquiries regarding the potential formation of a library advisory committee. Incidentally, I' received a number of very thoughtful letters from library activists and I' read those letters over and over trying to absorb some of the community sentiment. In accordance with the city Council direction, the community and library services commission is currently established to advise the city council on library services. Staff will return to a future city council meeting to provide detailed information on the development of the Irvine Public Library master plan. And, I think that will be soon.

At this time, it's recommended that consideration of establishing a separate library advisory body occur following completion of the master plan. This approach will ensure broad and meaningful community engagement prior to council consideration of any additional advisory structure. Any future process for selecting committee members would be designed to be transparent, equitable, and free from bias, ensuring broad and representative and frequent community participation. So, I placed this matter on the agenda for this meeting with the intent of directing the city manager and staff that the creation of any library related committee be deferred until the city' library master plan has been completed and adopted by the city council. Allowing the master plan process to conclude before establishing additional committees will help ensure clarity of purpose, avoid duplication of effort, and support a cohesive and well considered planning process.

That's the sum and substance of my memo. I've got a lot more in the way of thoughts, but I just wanted to put that in front of us now and open this matter up to discussion and public comment, discussion from my colleagues if they wish to weigh in now or after hearing public comment. Councilmember Trusieder would like to be heard. I'll recognize her at this time.

Thank you. I just want to clarify. Are we going to discuss the item 6.1 concurrently with this one or will it be one followed by the other?

We can. I I'd like to turn to 6.1. I'm happy to discuss that one in conjunction with this as well. Whatever is the pleasure of the counsel in that regard, I just want us to have a calm, thoughtful discussion at this time. And I'm making no motion at this time, Councilmember Treseder.

But I think we'll be able to form an appropriate motion after discussion of this item. I'm also willing to entertain discussion of item 6.1 at this time if that' your pleasure do it however you like.

Thank you I guess I just was expecting when you moved up 6.3 that it wouldn't be before six point one. But I want to make sure that council member Martinez Franco has a chance to talk about her item.

Yes, well she should feel free to do so. I don't think I have to, well actually, if you'd like to introduce your item at this time, we can discuss them both. They're obviously both very closely related.

With all due respect, I would prefer to discuss mine separately. That's a very different topic. But thank you so much for

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you. I just wanted to kind of paint a picture and understanding of where we are in the master planning process first. I note that we have staff available. And city manager Crumby, if you'd like at this time to call staff forward, that would be appropriate as well.

Thank you for the opportunity, mayor. Tonight, we have Chris Lama, our community services and library director, Julie Zioli, our city librarian, both here to answer questions.

Right.

Point of clarification. Sorry. Yes. So we're discussing six point three now. I just want to make sure.

Yes, are discussing six point three.

Okay. Thank you.

Did you wish to offer anything at this time, or did you simply want to be available for questions?

I think staff is available to answer any questions that you have.

All right. Do we have requests from citizens to be heard?

We do, mayor. We have five requests to speak, or excuse me, six requests to speak, three in person and three on Zoom.

All right. Perhaps we should hear from the public first. Should we do that? All right. And then we can discuss things here at the dais as well. Please call our first public commenter.

Thank you, mayor. If I could call forward Lee Handy, Jay Bruce, and Michaella Gonzalez Montaner. And we'll start with Lee Handy.

Incidentally, for those participating remotely, let's leave the queue open for a little bit here, at least. Okay? Welcome.

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here with you. I'm Leigh Handy, and I'm in favor of establishing a library advisory committee immediately. Both because it will be able to address issues arising as the master plan is being developed, rather than waiting until after it is in effect. And because it can provide independent advice to the current issues facing the Irvine Public Library system.

That's why I think it's so important to move it up to this point in time rather than waiting. Such a committee is critically needed during the two years it will take for the library master plan to be completed and adopted by the city council. Further, an independent library advisory committee that reports directly to you, the city council, will provide public access to information that is necessary in order to develop an effective master plan, and it will foster transparency to the community at large. Regarding the question of why have a library advisory committee, one could ask, why not listen to a variety of meaningful viewpoints. When you open it up, you get more information.

More information means you can make a very reasoned decision later on. Such comments can be very helpful. This is particularly true in this instance when the committee members could include people with years of experience directly applicable to our libraries. Examples of topics that the committee might provide advice on include input on library collections and programs. It might be a different viewpoint than the current one that the city is facing now.

Suggestions on service delivery innovations that may not have been thought of before, and ideas for funding our current and future library operations and building programs. This would all be something that could be handled during this two year period that we would have to wait until the master plan has not only been completed but adopted. The goal of such a committee would be to provide beneficial advice to the City Council that would help our library system deliver the best library services possible while meeting the needs of our residents and operating within a budget. Therefore I strongly urge you to support the immediate formation of an independent

Thank you your time is up. Finish up. Up.

Of an independent library advisory committee. I thank you very much.

Thank you. You know let me let me just interject with a question or two if I might, while you're still there. The RFP is out is that correct?

That's correct.

And it does include the RFP calls for proposals that reach out to the public, invite and encourage public participation.

If it's the pleasure of the council, staff can respond directly as to what's included in that RFP with much greater detail than I can.

All

right. Thank you, City Manager Crumby, and good evening, Mayor Agram and council members. To answer that question yes absolutely there are very specific deliverables that are written into that rfp for instance there's a minimum requirement of eight community open community meetings In addition to that, as you mentioned in your memo, there's a variety of smaller group focused discussions. So, with our friends of the library groups, with community members, school districts, universities, etcetera. A lot of the groups that we've started meeting with in prior studies. But certainly, there'll be an open call for robust community outreach and for people to share their thoughts and input.

So, there'll be, as a part of the master planning process, there will be invited participation. And presumably that will be robust. What about access to the Community Services Commission? Which is of course now the Community Services and Library Commission, that would be formal. But what about informal access two way discussion with you, with our city librarian, with staff at the highest levels, informally.

I presume that would be taking place as well, would it not?

Yeah, absolutely. And I say that's already ongoing. I mean, door is pretty open to anybody that wants to come and meet and share their thoughts on library services and the system itself. Yeah.

All right. Okay. I thank you very much for your comments. Did you have something to add?

Well, think the only thing I would add to what Mr. Slama has to say is that the community meetings are, if they're done like the ones for the feasibility study, and I assume they would be somewhat like that, the city librarian would come. She'd bring staff. There would be a presentation, perhaps by the library or by the consultant that will be hired. And then people in the audience can speak.

So, there is a voice for people in the audience. The difference is that part is not recorded. That part, it's up to the library to decide which of those comments at some point might get incorporated into a final master report or not. But it's a decision on their part of what will happen with the voices that were brought forth at the meeting. But if we have an independent library advisory committee, we would be creating our own report that would come directly to you so you would hear it directly.

Which is not to say it couldn't be at some level incorporated into what they're doing, but it's a little it's a different approach. And I think it's a valuable one. It's more direct community participation. That's my feeling.

I understand. Thank you for your comments.

You're welcome.

J. Bruce.

Hello council members I had a few varied thoughts on this proposal first I just wanted to out express my appreciation for the mention of the teen advisory group a mentor and a member of the heritage park teen advisory group, and I would love to be involved in the master planning process, maybe even a tag representative on any sort of committee that is created. So just a little shout out for that. But, I wanted to address specifically the Brown Act or transparency concerns that have been raised around the community. I don't really see a reason why this kind of library committee couldn't just be run like its own commission, you know, its meetings recorded and broadcasted with the ability for anyone to give public comment. I feel like it doesn't have to be a large committee.

If we want a large scale public outreach, it could be run like the workshops that we've mentioned. And if we want a smaller committee, then we can maybe even just separate the functions from the Community and Library Service Commission so they have a committee comprised of people who are more interested or special have specialized knowledge in library services, as opposed to members of the current community and library service commission who may be more oriented towards recreation, parks, those sorts of things. Either way, I mean, whatever happens, I don't I just don't think the committee has to be meeting in secret you know we could have its meetings just public if if we do if the city council decides to have a committee and with regards to if we should have a committee before or after the master plan is approved I would just say I think back to the process that we did when the city was first incorporated, and we were trying to decide the first create this general plan in 1973, And in June 1972, this contractor that was preparing the whole general plan, Wilson Ham, they spent a few months creating multiple citizens advisory committees with different to prepare and give advice on different elements of the general plan whether it be land use recreation open space and that was you know in the interim even before the general plan was adopted by the City Council they prepared this interim policy plan that outlined their policy recommendations for the City Council moving forward that they used between 1972 and 1973, know, 1973.

I think, I mean, we've done this before I think if we're, you know, it's a more specialized master plan with the Irvine Public Libraries I think it wouldn't be shortsighted to have a citizens advisory committee for libraries as we're developing the Irvine Public Libraries Master Plan. It has precedent. And I think it could work in terms of a master planning process. That's just my 2¢.

Just so I understand, are you suggesting a kind of an informal arrangement?

Think so.

Go ahead.

It was limited in the 1972 by the technology I think it could function as maybe if it would be too laborious on city staff that the citizens advisory committee could just meet within itself without public comment but I think there would be no reason really to not record the meetings and make the meetings publicly available to ensure that people know what's been talked about and can look at it for themselves. And, of course, prepare minutes and everything like that.

Just one last question. Do you personally recall the nineteen seventy two seventy three activity?

No, but I've spent enough time in the basement of links in library it kind of feels like it sometimes.

Alright. Thank you for your comments tonight.

Welcome.

Thank you council members for all you do for the libraries and also for entertaining this conversation. I think the keyword here is access. And if there was a second keyword, I'd probably say quality. We, as Doug Elliot put it when this, or Commissioner Elliot put it when this matter was before the commission last week, this is an area of intense public interest. And I think, as you will probably know from your inboxes and other conversations you've had, people are passionate about the library issues.

But you will also notice that week after week, it's like more or less the same five people who show up here to actually talk about it. And that's one of the reasons we care so much about a library advisory committee. It's hard to get here. There are a lot of people who wanted to be here tonight who couldn't be here tonight. A lot of people who want to have a voice on this that aren't quite able to get there.

So we, among the library advocates, if you will, feel passionately that a library advisory committee can do a lot of things for the city. I'll spare you the list, unless you want me to give it to you. But the one I will focus on is better communication. So I think that's not just communication and coordination between the city and the community, but also within the community. So, as director Slama said, staff have an open door policy.

It's incredible. Even today, tried to email somebody, Alison Tran, and say, surely there's somebody else I can send these very miniscule inquiries to. And she insisted that she'd be happy to help me with anything that came up. The customer service, or citizen service, is exquisite. And that's amazing.

And it's almost part of the problem because there are so many conversations, so many different people are coming and talking about different things that are priorities within their districts or within their communities. And then that information is circulating around creating sometimes confusion sometimes amazing coordination. This is one of the the pain points that I'm most passionate about as someone who's trying to exert a helpful influence on these topics. Then coming back to the idea of intense public interest, my deep concern is that if not properly harnessed that intense public interest will work against this project. We will see people mobilizing on their own accord because they don't have a central place to access information and they don't have a clear concept of how they can have an influence on these conversations.

I don't want this stuff to be ad hoc decision just because University Park can get their act organized they get x and another district gets y. I'm hopeful that we can work together to develop a process above and beyond the master plan this is much bigger than that to support decisions that are being made now in a community Thank centered

you. Just if you'd hold on a second. I'm very happy to hear you find the responsiveness of our staff, the open door policy working very well. You can pick up the phone anytime. You can communicate, right?

I'm getting responses to my emails at all hours of the night. It's incredible.

See, I think we all recognize we have just an amazing opportunity here to recreate our library system in a way that just astounds even us. I think what's required now is because there is this energy coming to us from all directions. There are special interests. I say that not in a derogatory way. The special interests that people have, they want their library.

They want it now. Or they want to fix up a library. They have their own vision of what a library system, our library system, should look like in the near future. So, let me, I mean, I'm kind of a student of organizational design. Always failing to find how do we organize ourselves to get this done or that.

What is the most efficient way? Not always failing, but it's a tough process. It's not really clear to me what the best way to proceed is here. But what is clear to me is that it requires leadership, Leadership from our staff. Leadership from the community services and library services commission.

I mean, actually have a commission devoted to library services. And, I think the idea of those entities, well, certainly you have access to staff right away on an informal basis, I would suggest that the Community Services Commission have the status of the library master plan and operations, seems to me it ought to be on a commission meeting once a month. And the meeting should be conducted in a way that, in a little more formal setting, people can weigh in with their ideas, their suggestions, their criticisms, and so forth. I just think we need, as I say, leadership, but we need as leaders to be listeners as well. Just do a lot of listening to the community.