City Council - Regular Meeting

Would the meeting please come to order? The time is 4.05. I apologize to my colleagues. I had a necessary phone call that went a little longer than I had hoped. And with that, we're beginning what is the City Council regular meeting of July 14th, 2026. At this time, I would like the clerk to please call the roll.

Council Member Carroll.

Here.

Council Member Goh. Here. Council Member Liu.

Here.

Council Member Martinez-Franco.

Here.

Council Member Treseder.

Here.

Vice Mayor Mai. Here. And Mayor Eagren.

Here. If the clerk would just take a few minutes at this time to describe to those who may be participating remotely, as well as to those who are here in the council chamber, precisely how they can participate.

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 160-043-4844. The passcode is 272-906. You may also dial in by calling 669-254-5252 or 669-216-1590 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 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 90 seconds. Those who wish to provide written comments may do so by clicking e-comment on our City Council Meeting Agenda webpage at cityofirvine.gov slash agendas. 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 clerk at cityofirvine.org. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Mr. Peterson. And at this time, our first item of business... is a closed session. I'm going to turn to our city attorney, Jeff Melching, to describe the nature of the closed session. after which time we'll be convening in that session. Mr. Melching?

Thank you, Mayor. We have two items on for closed session consideration this afternoon. The first is a conference with legal counsel concerning existing litigation under Government Code Section 54956.91. The case is Marianne Frerichs versus City of Irvine et al., Orange County Superior Court case number 30-2024-0143-4573. The second item is a public employee appointment under government code section 54957, and the position there is interim city manager, and that's all.

Thank you, Mr. Melching. With that, we are scheduled to proceed return to the dais here at 5 o'clock.

At this time... Mr. Mayor, I apologize for the interruption. We do have one member of the public who wishes to speak.

Ah, all right. I did not know that. Thank you. At this time, please call that person forward.

Thank you. Our speaker is Mr. Thunderstriker. Sir, you have three minutes.

Welcome, sir. You have three minutes.

Let the minute show that it's E-Planet Thunderstriker Ristwalker. So I hope this new manager deals with some of the corruption that I'm dealing with around here. When I'm here last year submitting paper that two days before, submit things, say things, criminal infractions, nothing gets done. The media doesn't report about that. Today, when you're talking very much about the world, citizens organization with the rule, it can be accepted everywhere, had a geopolitical event. Before I came to Irvine, I came here, talked about newspapers shutting down instead of reporting on all this. Well, I'm finding out a whole lot of things since I've been out here. One is I'm probably not just Mensa, but Mensa's Mensa. And as far as like delusion and stuff, we need to talk about cognitive mass delusion in America. The fact that our social trust is so low and that I'm coming here saying people are seeing it going on. And you know, the things that go viral is some guy jumping up saying they're trying to take away my social security at a city council meeting. And it's like, wait a minute, the media is not reporting on criminal activity, the music industry. So I'm going to talk, just cut through the noise and all the stupid people. that the World Citizens Organization's rule can be accepted where I'm trying to deploy it on a collective intelligence substrate. I've been spoofed while I'm at the library. That whole artificial general intelligence, everything up until mid-November was at a standstill. Whoops, I'm getting spoofed while I'm doing, oh, I'm not going to talk about it right now. And then, pooh, and you have this big break. And then that happened again in last May related to semantics. So now it's like, well, now I have elements going up on the World Citizens Organization, a civics organization, the fact that it has not been talked about here in the most diverse community in America. So I'm hoping that whatever you guys are talking about with the city manager is going to try, because, you know, when social trust gets as low as it is, where we have tinted windows on school buses, our kids are going to go, but first-person shooter drills? And I think just recently, okay, this is the one thing that's going to be bittersweet for all people around here. The last full scenario. Everything that everybody talks about me related to the last two years, you take what the last one, and if you don't know what it is, you know, it's civilizational primitive. And you know how well that goes on Reddit.

And that is all, Mayor. Thank you, sir. And having heard those remarks, taking them into consideration, we will now be convened to close session and return at 5 p.m. sharp.

Thank you.

Would the meeting please come to order again? We apologize. We were in closed session longer than anticipated. And in light of the delay, we're going to just adjust the agenda a little bit so as to accommodate a report a presentation from our representative from the Tustin Unified School District. But in keeping with the requirements of state law and tradition, we will do the Pledge of Allegiance at this time and will be led in the pledge by Councilmember Betty Martinez-Franco. Please stand.

Please be seated.

have the invocation and the musical presentation after this presentation. So at this time, I would like to turn to what is item 2.1 on our agenda. Would the clerk please identify this item by subject?

Thank you, Mayor. Item 2.1 is a presentation, as you mentioned, by Tustin Unified School District.

Thank you. And of course, Zoom speakers can raise their hand electronically to enter the speaker queue if they wish to comment on this matter if they wish. The city, let me just introduce this by saying the city allocates funds to many local organizations. We do this as a part of our budget in order to provide important services and programs to our community. We've asked our major partners that receive more substantial city funding or support, whatever we might provide, to make annual presentations to the city council. This continues our ongoing commitment to transparency. We're very proud that as a city, for many years now, we have, as a municipality, this isn't done in other cities, we make both in-kind and cash contributions to the school districts, which have schools in the city of Irvine, and most people don't know we actually have four operating school districts within the city of Irvine. The Santa Ana Unified, Saddleback now as well, and Irvine Unified School District, of course, and Tustin Unified School District. I think there are four or is it five operating schools administered by Tustin Unified School District. We in turn send some money to the school district in order to support programming and add a little something by way of municipal funds to our otherwise self-funded school districts. So at this time, I would like to introduce Dr. Stephanie Yang. who is Educational Services Director. I'd like you to come forward and make this annual presentation, if you would. And welcome.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. Thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight. My name is Stephanie Yang, and I'm here on behalf of Tustin Unified, and we would love to share about how the City of Irvine's Educational Partnership Fund is making a direct and measurable impact for our students in Tustin Unified as well as Irvine Unified. Do I use this? Sorry. Before we get into the numbers of the fund, I just wanted to provide a quick overview of the students that we serve within Testing Unified. We service 21,600 students. About 50% of our students are socioeconomically disadvantaged, and about 16% are EL learners. And out of our 28 schools, we do have four schools that do receive our Irvine funds. Out of the 196,000 that we received from our Irvine funding, we have allocated in two different ways. One pathway is through our personnel and the individuals that we hire to support and provide direct services to our students. And the other 20% goes directly into our classrooms, funding different programs that our students have access to at these four schools. This is just a further breakdown of how these funds are used. A school counselor, some PE teachers, paraeducators, and school nurses are funded through the 80% of the budget that we receive from Irvine. And the other 20%, which was for classroom supplies, it funds a culinary lab at one of our schools that is in Irvine, Orchard Hills. And it also funds many hands-on manipulatives that students have access to on a day-to-day basis at Myford Elementary School. The four funding recipients, and I believe the funds are allocated based on their enrollment. So Hicks Canyon Elementary School, Meyford Elementary, Orchard Hills School, and Beckman High School. So you can see the prospective enrollment of those four sites. One of the most impactful services that we provide to our students with the funding is the hiring of our school nurse that services Hicks Canyon and Beckman High School. About 3,600 students are serviced, and last year alone, we had about 7,500 visits that the nurse supported with. And when we think about the support that these students receive from the nurse that they might not otherwise receive outside of school, we understand how impactful the funds are to our students. So thank you for that. Another impact that we have with the funding at Orchard Hills Elementary and Middle School, the funding was used to fund an innovation lab that students have access to on a weekly rotation or biweekly rotation. Students in all of our classrooms, grades TK through eighth grade, gets to rotate through the classroom, learn about robotics, and learn about different technology and IT resources and programs. Orchard Hills is one of our schools that sends many, many teams to the robotics, the World Robotics Competition, everything. So the support of these funds really gives them access to additional materials and supplies. What is also funded at Hicks Canyon Elementary School and Beckman High School are support personnel. So one of the school sites, Hicks Canyon, partially funds a two-hour paraeducator. And this individual specifically goes in to support intervention in our classrooms for reading and mathematics. And then at Beckman High School, surprisingly, we have about 40% of our students at Beckman High School who are socioeconomically disadvantaged. And so their priority was to hire someone who could be a community specialist, community liaison, to support connecting our families to different resources. So this is just a snapshot of our district's funding, which funds our district. And although $196,000 may not seem a lot, it truly is. It impacts our students at the four school sites in ways that allows them additional access and additional opportunities to engage in learning beyond the school day. And we just, from Tustin, want to say thank you so much for the funds and the partnership. And our four schools truly do appreciate the support that you provide to them. Thank you.

Well, thank you. If you would just remain there, please, for a moment. I want to turn to my colleagues to invite them to offer any comments or raise any questions with you. I want to maybe just begin by saying we've had a great relationship over the years with the Tustin Unified School District. TUSD does a remarkable job in education, right alongside IUSD. I think have about, is it about 15% of all Irvine students are in the Tustin Unified School District?

Approximately.

About that. Two of those were my own grandchildren who just got great education, great experience, wonderful teachers, administrators. And I think your superintendent was the superintendent of the year for the entire state of California some five years ago or so, is that correct?

Yes, he was.

Well, kudos to you, to the entire district, and thank you for making that report tonight. Council Member Liu, by the way, Council Member Liu represents District 1, which I think includes a number of Irvine, Tustin Unified Schools. Is that correct?

Yes. And in fact, I represent a district that covers the Tustin schools, all four of them. And I have had the pleasure of visiting several of them. And I have to say thank you for giving the kids such a great education. They all look happy. want to be there and learn. And I also have friends obviously in that area and they all have nothing but the best things to say about the school. So thank you so much for doing all that. And, you know, I've had the pleasure of meeting several of the trustees when we have our meetings and it's always been so cooperative and supportive. So we really appreciate the partnership.

Thank you. Thank you. Anything further? Well, please extend our gratitude to all your colleagues who uphold such high educational standards, and we'll look forward to another report next year. See you next year.

Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. Good evening.

Mr. Mayor, if I may, there is one speaker on this item.

Oh, excellent. Okay. Hold on in case the speaker has something. to say that requires a response. Mr. Peterson, our city clerk, please call on the speaker who wishes to be heard.

Thank you, Mayor. If I could call forward Frank Harris.

Welcome, sir. Hello, Mayor and members of the City Council. My name is Frank Harris. I didn't actually plan on speaking on this item, but when I heard her mention the School of Nurse, four of my five children graduated from Beckman. My oldest graduated from Monterey. My middle child, Kelsey, died when she was a senior from a terminal neurological condition. When she was dying, all she wanted to do was go to school. And so I just wanted to offer some positive comments about the staff at Beckman High School, the nursing staff and the special ed staff there. Absolutely fantastic. And Kelsey's neurological condition sometimes had her seizing four to 10 times, 15 times a day. The nurse, they would take her to the nurse's station. The nurse would call my wife or me and say, Kelsey had a seizure. She's fine. She's resting. They handled it beautifully. They handled it professionally. That was all she wanted, was to go to school. She had a wonderful experience. The special ed teacher who was helping her still contacts us. Kelsey died over 12 years ago. April of 2014. The special ed teacher that was in charge of her still contacts us every year on Kelsey's birthday and on the day she died. That is the level of commitment that these people have to their students. So I wanted to thank the representative from TUSD. I did not plan on saying anything today, just wanted to watch. But I'm so glad that you advanced her in the agenda so that I could offer some very positive comments to the city council and to everybody who's viewing. Thank you very much.

Thank you. What a remarkable story. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. I'm so glad you did. Wow. Anything further? Thank you. Thank you both. That concludes this item. Thank you. All right. I think it's required of me that we turn momentarily to our city attorney to tell us if there's any reportable action that emanates from our closed session.

Thank you, Mayor. We do have a reportable action tonight with regard to item 1.1, which was the item of existing litigation that the city is engaged in. The case there was Marianne Frerichs versus City of Irvine. And in closed session tonight, the City Council unanimously authorized a settlement that calls for the payment of $225,000 to the plaintiff in that case, with neither side admitting liability. This was an employment law. case, and the settlement agreement will be made available to anybody that requests it upon its complete execution. Other than that, there was no reportable action tonight.

All right. Thank you. That concludes our closed session item, which were items 1.1 and 1.2. Having had the pledge and advanced the presentation from our Tustin Unified School District presenter. We now turn back to the invocation. The invocation that is a part of our council agenda often comes to us in a little different form. An invocation which is intended to summon us to action, summon us to a higher place. Tonight comes to us in the form of a musical presentation. So at this time, it's my pleasure to introduce and call forward Emmy Basic, an Irvine resident, an accomplished actress, singer, and Broadway performer. Emmy is best known for her work in Miss Saigon and Mamma Mia. We're proud to have her perform as part of tonight's invocation. First, Emmy will perform our national anthem. And following the national anthem, Emmy will perform the prayer with our very own Kevin Corrigan, who serves as Supervising Principal Counsel Executive Assistant in my office. And at this time, would you all please join in welcoming Emmy and Kevin, and please stand for the National Anthem.

Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light what so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight o'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? That was wonderful.

Please be seated.

I pray you'll be our eyes and watch us where we go and help us to be wise. In times when we don't know Let this be our prayer When we lose our way Lead us to a place. Guide us with your grace. To a place where we'll be safe.

La luce che tu dai, I pray you'll find your light, Il cuore resterai, And hold it in our hearts, Per ricordarci che, When stars go out at night, Interna est la sede, Nella mia preghiera.

Let this be our prayer.

Quanta fede c'è.

Shed us for days.

Lead us to our place.

Guide us with your grace. Give us faith so we'll be safe Sonia, mon brando senza violenza Un mondo di giustizia e di speranza Ognuno di alla mano a sua vicina Simbolo di pace, di fraternità Forza che ci fa. Yes, let life be kind.

Intorno e dentro se.

And watch us from above. Con un'altra di amore. We hope it's all we'll find. Intorno e dentro se. And love is so true love. Let this be our prayer. Let this be our prayer. Just like every child. Just like every child. We need to find a place. Guide us with your grace. Give us faith so we'll be safe. I feel that they will save us.

That was wonderful. Really wonderful. Don't go anywhere. We're going to want to preserve this moment with a photograph. The council can remain seated. We can go down and join you, or we can stand here. What's your purpose? Right here. All right. I'm going to suggest that we stand up, though, because we're behind you all the way. All right?

There we are.

All right. We are so fortunate that these individuals actually live in Irvine, work in Irvine, and with all that talent that you share with us. So give them one last round of applause. Thank you. All right. We're making up for a little lost ground here. At this time, we move on to public comments for non-agendized items. This is the opportunity at the front end of our agenda for members of the public to be heard as to issues that are not on our published agenda. Comments are intended to be brief. We don't get into a back and forth because these are not agendized items, but so long as they're within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city, we allocate altogether a half hour at the front end of our agenda for those comments. Maximum time would be three minutes, but it depends on how many individuals wish to be heard. Mr. Peterson, how many requests do we have? Thank you, Mayor. We have 10 requests to speak. How many? 10. 10. I'm going to suggest we try to set it at about two minutes. That would allow for a few others to come in if they wish to fill the queue. But let's get it all in within 30 minutes. How many of those are present here and how many are remote?

We have seven present and three on Zoom.

Let's begin with those who are present here in the room.

Thank you, Mayor. If I could call forward E-Planet, Thunderstriker, Riftwalker, Adiv, Mittal, Jason Garshfield, Joanne Slobodian, Max, Alan Meyerson, and Rolf Parks. And we'll start with E-Planet, Thunderstriker, Riftwalker. Welcome.

So I'm going to talk about the World Citizens Organization. It has a unique rule. It can be accepted everywhere. Countries have the option for two slots, a citizen individual, a governing individual. You can have either, neither, or both. Every country determines their structure organically. There's no way each country has to have their structure organized. So that's about it. That's really actually all I want to say, because it's just so hard to get a signal out with all the noise going on in America, and people don't pay attention, and I just found out people are stupid. So that World Citizens Organization, I don't know what I should or shouldn't say besides that, because would I be jeopardizing it if I were to lie about things like the India and China de-escalation in 2020 was related? How about that China has been doing things that would seem to be operating under that conception already? And in America, I'm getting spoofed. I'm getting hacked at the library doing reports that nobody really cares about. Firstly, I showed up here two years ago. I'm like, well, you know, I'm here from Santa Barbara. I do things for over a year. The newspaper doesn't report anything. They shut down and So it gets awkward. So let's go back to the citizens organization. Why is that seemingly intelligent and rational? Countries have the option of two slots, the citizen individual or government individual, either, neither, or both, which everything's opt in. And so I don't know. But hopefully. Hopefully that's going to change because Americans do something, our low social trust. If you know as much as I do, you're thinking Civil War or what happened in USSR. This does go all the way to the top.

Thank you, sir. With that, we turn to our next speaker. Adiv. Welcome, sir.

Good morning and namaste.

Can you lean into the microphone a little bit? There we go.

Good evening and namaste, Mayor Agran, members of the city council, and members of the community. Today, we celebrate a historic milestone in our nation's journey, America's 250th Independence Day. This is more than another Fourth of July. It is an opportunity to reflect on 250 years of freedom, opportunity, and the enduring ideals that have shaped our nation. For Hindu Americans, this occasion holds a special and deep personal significance. Our heritage teaches the timeless principle of the belief that the entire world is one family. When our families came to America, they brought with them this enduring philosophy, along with their traditions, commitment to hard work, respect for diversity, and dedication to living peacefully alongside people of every background. America welcomed us with its promise of religious freedom and equal opportunity. It gave us the chance to build our homes raise our families, establish businesses, serve our communities, and preserve our culture and spiritual traditions. For that, we are deeply grateful. Independence Day also reminds us that democracy is not something we simply inherit. Democracy is something we strengthen over time through civic engagement, mutual respect, and service to one another. As Hindu Americans, we are blessed to have a dual identity. We proudly uphold the ancient value of Dharma, the principle of duty, integrity, respect, and service, while embracing the American values of liberty, equality, and justice. These values complement one another and help make our nation stronger, more united, and more resilient. As we commemorate 250 years of American independence, let us celebrate our shared achievements and reaffirm our commitment to building and- Thank you.

Your time is up. Why don't you just finish that last thought, if you would.

An even brighter future for generations to come. Thank you and happy Independence Day.

And thank you for an outstanding statement. Thank you.

Thank you.

Jason Gershford.

Welcome.

Happy Bastille Day. Yesterday, my air conditioning unit decided to celebrate Bastille Day early by imitating a French air conditioner. It stopped working. Of course, being a resident of the Irvine Company, of an Irvine Company apartment, I immediately called management, and they promptly and respectfully addressed my complaint. Just kidding. They treated me with contemptuous indifference. It took 24 hours and over a dozen phone calls to various different numbers to get the office to even send out a technician. And now I'm told that it'll be until Thursday before they can fix it. I understand that things break, even in the best managed departments, which the Irvine Company is not. But I should not have had to become my own lawyer to get management to even address the problem. There should be an easy system where a repairman can come out immediately with a single phone call during an emergency, which a heat wave is. Heat is not just annoying. It is a serious health threat, which can be lethal for vulnerable members of the community. While Donald Brand sits comfortably in his mansion, and while I might be an unusually vocal Irvine resident, I am sure that they are treating other less vocal residents this way and probably worse. In fact, they told me they expedited it because I was so vocal, which says something about their priorities. So when I stand here, I do not stand for myself alone. If they truly cannot fix an air conditioner in a timely manner, then they should offer a rent abatement to myself and any other residents who are affected by this. Until then, I will be turning up the heat on the Irvine Company until they turn the heat down. Now, I would like to give a shout-out to Pedro, who actually came out and spent two hours setting up a mobile air conditioner. That was more than anyone else did for me. I think we should put Pedro on the wall of recognition, and maybe he should trade places with Donald Bren. And so, again, happy Bastille Day.

Thank you for your comments. Joanne Slobodian. Welcome.

Thank you so much. Hello, everyone. Tonight I want to look at the Oak Creek easement the way a forensic auditor would, because something is not adding up and there are red flags everywhere. In January, the city recorded an offer of an easement covering approximately 176 acres at Oak Creek. Later, at a city council meeting, a city council member referred to a new easement. Today we hear the city has accepted an easement administratively without a city council vote. Instead of providing answers, each new development has raised more questions. Has the City accepted the easement recorded in January, the new easement mentioned in the City Council meeting, or another document entirely? If it's a different easement, what changed? Does it clearly protect the full 176 acres at Oak Creek? Accepting an easement administratively while moving forward with Oak Park Village before the public understands exactly what they've accepted raises serious transparency concerns. We also know that the other significant easements between private developers and the City, including Lakeshore Towers, Heritage Fields at the Great Park, and the 2025 Jamboree and Barranca Roadway easements were all brought before the City Council in public. Today we are told the easement could be handled strictly between the City and the Irvine Company. and that is that it does not require or involve any City Council action. If that's the process, why wasn't it used for the other developer easements? Why is Oak Creek being handled differently? Mayor Agrin, in the past, I've seen you direct residents to city staff when questions couldn't be answered from the dais. I respectfully ask for the same courtesy tonight. If these questions cannot be answered, please direct me on the record to the person who can reduce the easement the city accepted and explain exactly what was accepted. I simply want to see the easement the city accepted. The facts are in the documents. Facts don't fear transparency. Show us the easement. And by the way, Kevin, you rock tonight. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll just make a general invitation to our staff, the city manager, the city attorney here. If you would like to speak with Ms. Slobodian, we'll be happy to. LET YOU DO SO FOR A FEW MINUTES BEFORE YOU RETURN TO THE CITY ATTORNEY'S CHAIR OR TO THE CITY MANAGER'S CHAIR. OR DID YOU WANT TO DESIGNATE SOMEBODY ELSE TO SPEAK WITH HER?

I THINK OUR ASSISTANT CITY MANAGER PETE CARMICHAEL WILL BE MORE THAN HAPPY TO.

ALL RIGHT. THERE YOU GO. HE'LL JOIN YOU. Welcome.

Good evening. Another two weeks have gone by and we still have not heard anything about the City's decision about the easement offer. If the City intends to accept the easement, it will be the same easement that was offered by the property owner and recorded by the County. That offer has been sitting with the City since December 2025 and still has not been signed. The community deserves an update. Where does it stand? What is the timeline? Tonight, we will once again discuss rank-choice voting. I want to remind you guys that in August 2025, this Council voted 7-0, 7-0 one more time, to bring forward open space ballot measure in early 2026. That's almost a year ago. What happened? Who is on this Council has the courage to bring open space ballot forward and let the people decide. Have you seen the response from the community, discussions on Nextdoor, Facebook? Please, take this opportunity and honor your own promise. Provide an update on easement and bring open space ballot measure forward. It could be your last chance to think this. Why are you afraid of the people who can simply decide the future of open space before you spend resources and time of the staff members here? People are watching you, and we pay close attention to this issue. Even if your election campaign is not this year, we will still remember. Thank you.

Thank you. Alan Meyerson?

Welcome.

Good evening, Council Members. Alan Meyerson. I want to talk just a little bit about some history in the city tonight. This is in general about the Oak Creek thing. In the past, there's been initiatives and resolutions. People have gathered signatures, which was not easy, and voted on the Veterans Cemetery. In fact, they voted on the Veterans Cemetery on the outer site two times. And then this council and other councils voted against it. So they ignored the will of the people. With Oak Creek, 88-1 is involved with that. So I'm wondering if this is going to be put on the ballot. Because the initiative or the resolution, in spite of what the city attorney says, we all know what the intent of it was. And the intent was that it can't be changed without a vote of the people. So I'm not sure why we were looking for a loophole in this. I know the mayor has stated a couple of times that it would be on the ballot. But I don't know how the rest of you feel about putting this on the ballot. I know how the Irvine Company feels about it. And this is aside from the way I personally feel about that development, because I'm in support of it. But I'm also in support of doing what resolutions are there to do. You can't just ignore people when they vote for something and pretend like it didn't happen, like the Veterans Cemetery two different times. So I encourage you to put this on the ballot. I don't know what the timeline is for that project. I don't know if it has to be on this election or if it can be on the next election because I'm not sure what the timeline is for the project. But I hope before it's decided that we'll get to vote on it. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Rolf Parks.

Welcome.

All right. So I'm back again to basically talk what he's just talking about. I'm the co-chair of Protect All Irvine Open Space, which includes the Oak Creek Planning Area, Open Space Zero, Planning Area 52, and now apparently Focus Area 2 has included that. The Irvine Company has now submitted their plan to put about 2,400 homes in that area. When I spoke here the last time, you guys were voting on a zoning area, which just looked beautiful, like this beautiful park and nothing else. And I told you at that time, okay, we all want the park. Everybody wants that park, okay? But what came with it? Well, you know, the Irvine Company wants to be paid for that park. And how do they want? Well, they want homes. Apparently they want 2,400 homes. How are they going to get that park? Well, stage number three in this thing, you know, is, well, stage two was the application.

Stage three is you take the vote away from us, okay, and you make it your own.

And just like the last speaker was saying, for the people that are here, the people that are on TV, do you want 165,000 people who might be voting in November? Well, this council is much different than any other council we have. They want to take that vote away from you because they know that they won't win if public vote would not allow for that construction. And so, you know, I brought in attorneys to talk with you, and we've had a very good case that... concerned, the Taliban of Mission Indians from San Bernardino versus the supervisors there. And they won the case because it was a case much like this. They gave direction to the Board of Supervisors that you have to have a vote before you're going to develop the land. I know the city attorney over here wants to make a case. And that case isn't following the law. The law is the Initiative 88-1.

Your time is up. Why don't you just finish your thought?

And so, you know, the big question is, why does he not think that the Taliban of Mission Indians isn't the ruling case? And all the subsequent cases that have followed that, that has to do with the people gave direction to the council to put a measure on a ballot and vote. And this has a big deal because, you know, is this council even going to be here next year after the November elections? Because this is going to be the number one issue that's going to be before you guys. And you guys know that. I'm not giving you anything new. So please put it on the ballot. If you guys win, you win. Thank you. And I go away. Thank you, sir. All right.

Our next speaker is telephone number 348. 348, you may unmute your mic.

Hello?

We can hear you. Can you hear me? We can hear you. OK.

You want this topic to stay buried figuratively and physically. The city would not have a groundwater pumping station at the corner of Jeffrey at Irvine Center if groundwater was not compromised with jet cleaning solvent runoff from El Toro. TCE, techlachlorazine, a toxic plume is running under the golf course open space through the ranch in the Woodbridge development. It's three miles wide. I've had multiple long-term residents on my street and surrounding streets die of cancer. In fact, I've survived six cancers, trying to fight the seventh. Let me remind you that multiple myeloma, leukemia, T-cell lymphoma, liver, pancreas, breast, uterus, lung, and prostate cancer are life-threatening. You're in remissful in not working with the community of the ranch in Woodbridge, Orange Street, and of course Oak Creek Open Space over this issue. I assume the city owns the open space, not TIC. Your open space is a toxic issue. Which brings up another concern. How can a non-owner of a property request a zoning change on another owner's property? That's not right. Look at Oak Creek, the open space, and the Irvine Company's claim. You need to rescind this zoning approval based on sound logic. If you do nothing and continue to bend over for ticks, it will build on a toxic dump. Good luck for future lawsuits and law selections. I assume the extra chairs on the dais are for tips. Raise your hands if you're not accepting.

Thank you. Your time is up. Our next speaker is telephone number 238. 238, you may unmute your mic.

Yes, Castle. I'm the founder of Parents Rights and Children. Eight years of research, I reached out to Sergeant T. Goodbran, now Lieutenant Retired, on the Home Squad. The Mayor really appreciated it. And now that the youth have won a Men's Health Award for all the squad and two were elected, and there's a national cry in our community, in our country, around the world about SS Green Time. And as such that, the youth committed suicide in San Juan Central School. back in 18, and I reached out and arranged it with the founder in Utah and the funding, we need to realize that we are in a position to bring awareness to community recreation, your committee on health, and Congress passed the Kids Act, and we need awareness and we need to go trace in order for the AI to come. Now, I'm reaching out to you because I think Lieutenant, now I believe he's retired, Tinker Brent, in my opinion, should be recognized, federal, state. I was recognized in Congress when I helped go on police training for and I was on the stadium. I feel that's strong about it. And I have a website, social-emotional, social-emotional, P-A-W-S at C-O-M and the R-G. And it's used quite heavily, but we don't have the will of our Board of Supervisors, Board of Education, and Family Five yet. And I wrote to the President of the United States, Secretary of Health, and the FCC. They want to reduce screen time that's causing mental health. I get out of all the schools in Orange County. and Irvine School District does not know between books and screen time. And eSports, they were warned by the whole hospital not to do it, to be advised of the story. I think we need the community involvement, like Spring Strong and Petition Orange County. There's about 900, and they did San Diego and they did Los Angeles. I think we need to be more connected in terms of these therapy and read books are going back to, and pencil and tape,

Thank you. Your time is up. Our next speaker is telephone number 071. 071, you may unmute your mic.

Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. I keep hearing Jason come up with these renter complaints about the Irvine Company. Well, at some point, it just starts to sound like the same petty renter complaint over and over again. The air conditioning story, the phone calls, the management office, the heat, the rent abatement, all of it. The way this keeps showing up at council meetings feels like an absurd rant that does not belong at the center of city business. And honestly, after years of watching, he should ask why he still expects the city council to suddenly take on the Irvine company. The bigger issue is right in front of us. The open space easement and the voter-approved open space law from decades ago are being treated like they don't exist. They are clearly bought and paid for by the Irvine Company, especially the ones running for re-election this year. That is what residents should be paying attention to, not another complaint about apartment maintenance. Jason, please give it up. And Council, stop pretending these open space protections are optional. Thank you.

And that is all, Mayor. Thank you. That concludes our public comments on non-agendized items for this evening, allowing us to go forward with the City Manager's Report. Mr. Crumby, do we have a report tonight?

Thank you, Mayor. I have two quick items. The first one centers around the Oak Creek PROJECT. JUST A QUICK UPDATE, OPEN SPACE FOR OAK CREEK GOLF COURSE. ON DECEMBER 12, 2025, THE CITY RECEIVED OR RECORDED AN IRREVOCABLE OFFER OF DEDICATION OR IOD FOR OPEN SPACE EASEMENT FROM THE IRVINE COMPANY RELATED TO 162 ACRES AT THE OAK CREEK GOLF COURSE AND PLANNING AREA 12. AS THE NAME SUGGESTS, THE OAK CREEK IOD IS AN OFFER to dedicate open space easement. The city's ability to accept that easement is contingent on issuance of building permits for 75% of the development in Planning Area 12. After careful study and coordination with our city attorney's office, city staff has determined that the 75 acceptance prerequisite has been satisfied. And late last week, the city provided the Irvine Company with notice of the same. The city will have the right to accept the easement no sooner than 90 days from that notice. Secondarily, I'd like to highlight that a thorough environmental analysis will be conducted for the project. Staff is currently accepting written comments regarding the scope and content of the environmental analysis during a 30-day comment period that's currently open, which concludes 5 p.m. on August 5th. Comments may be sent to the following website address, oakparkatcityofirvine.org. A public EIR scoping meeting will be held on Monday, July 20th, 2026 from 530 to 7. Please, everybody attend and submit your comments. The meeting will be at Irvine City Hall in the Conference and Training Center. So that's the first item. Second item is our esteemed police chief will be providing an immigration update. Mr. Kent.

Thank you, City Manager Crumby. Good evening, Mayor and members of City Council. Only one incident report since we last met on June 23rd. On the morning of June 29th, Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement Unit took two people into custody in the parking lot of the Irvine Marketplace. From our understanding, both people had immigration warrants out for the arrest. and there was no other action that was taken and Irvine PD personnel were not involved in the operation.

Thank you. I don't want to extend this item other than to say that those two who were taken into custody constitute the 14th and 15th, I believe, individuals who were swept off the city streets and taken into custody. We have not been able to verify, as I understand it, who was picked up, nor whether the warrants involved were simply administrative warrants, which are not true judicial warrants in this case, And I think this entire matter will probably have to be put on the council agenda for more thoughtful and deeper consideration. But we've got a lot of problems in Irvine with what's going on, as do other cities. Real individuals are lost to follow up here, and we don't know where they're detained or what the disposition of their cases has been. This is not the way it should be. Forgive me for those editorial comments, but this is not an acceptable situation.

Anything further by way of a city manager's report? That concludes the report. Thank you very much, Mayor.

Thank you. At this time, we will turn to announcements, committee reports, council reports. This is the opportunity for those of us here at the dais to report on activities that we've been engaged in, make brief reports to the entire community as to events and other activities that have been engaging the attention of our council as well as the larger community. So with that, I'll turn first to Council Member Betty Martinez-Frankel.

Thank you. Good evening, everyone. I want to begin by thanking the Irvine Police Department and the Orange County Fire Authority for their coordinated response to the recent hazardous materials investigation in the Altair community and their quick response to the fire in Quail Hill today. Next slide. My office hosted our third free grocery distribution of the year in partnership with Three of New America. We served 71 households representing 236 residents, including many children and seniors. Next slide. Last month, we celebrated the launch of Irvine's Mobility Bike Share program with a ribbon cutting and community bike ride. There are two docking stations open, located here outside City Hall and at the University Terrace Shopping Center. Just download the Irvine Mobility Bike Share app, create an account, and use the app to find, scan, and unlock a bike for your next ride. Next slide. Registration is now open for our iRide Safe Academy program. This free e-bike safety training, hands-on riding, practice, safety resources, and educational panel. Students must attend with a parent or a responsible adult. Priority registration will be given to students attending Rancho San Joaquin Lakeside and South Lake Middle School or Woodbridge High School during the upcoming school year. Space is limited, so please scan the QR code on the screen to register. Next slide. Finally, I have a quick update from the SCAC Community Economic and Human Development Committee. In our last meeting, we reviewed two completed projects funded through the REAP 2.0 pilot program. The presentations explored ways to create more housing near transportation hubs and make better use of public and private land. Next slide. I invite you to stay updated on District 5 and the City of Irvine by following me on social media or subscribing to my newsletter. Please reach out to my office with any questions or concerns. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Martinez-Franco. Councilmember Liu, did you want to be recognized?

Yes, I did it a little too fast. Thank you.

Go right ahead.

Good evening, everyone. I'd like to share some updates in recent community events. Tomorrow, on June 15th, the Orange County Mosquito and Vector Control District will conduct a mosquito control treatment at UCI Marsh as part of its ongoing efforts to reduce mosquito populations and minimize the risk of mosquito-borne disease transmission. Next slide, please. I'd like to congratulate the seven Irvine finalists, our office nominated for the ACCOC 2026 Annual Innovation Awards. We're proud to see each of them recognized as finalists and we thank them for their hard work and innovation that makes Irvine the best place to live. Next slide, please. On July 27th, our office proudly hosted our second annual Older Adult Resource Fair. I want to extend my sincere thanks to everyone whose partnership helped make this event a success in connecting Irvine's older adults with valuable resources and services. Next one, please. On July 1st, my office partnered with the American Red Cross to host a community blood drive. Thank you to everyone who donated and helped support this life-saving effort. Next one, please. I want to thank the South Asian Senior Association and the Irvine Hindu Mendor for inviting us to their American 250 celebrations. I also want to recognize SASA and ECTA Center, and I'm proud to announce that I helped secure funding from Hope Foundation for its Senior Meal Program. helping bridge the gap in culturally responsive nutrition support for Irvine senior population. Next slide, please. Lastly, my team, along with NextGen Civic Leaders and PAVA volunteer at City of Irvine's Grocery Food Box Program at the Great Park. So I want to take this opportunity to thank all those volunteers for donating their time and helping make a difference for Irvine's families. Last slide, please. And thank you, and feel free to reach out to our office if you need any support. That concludes my announcement.

Thank you for your report, Councilmember and Vice Mayor James Mai.

Thank you, Mayor. And my report tonight is just an update on an item that we've been working on as the city that I've been working on for actually a number of years ago. A number of years ago, I came to the city before politics and everything and really wanted to push forward for something called a peace center, which would address the needs of our senior population. In Irvine and in South Orange County, we have 60,000 seniors that are eligible for a PACE Center. PACE standing for Program All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly. And I noticed something in Irvine is that a lot of seniors, they had to get in cars and every week, on average, six, seven appointments on a weekly basis. They had to go through finding physical therapy, meals was a difficulty that we had here in the city. And I came to the city and I spoke to the city along with Assistant City Manager Brian King. I don't know if he's here right now, but I spoke to him and I advocated for that, and I advocated for that, and the city was kind of surprised, and they said that, we're surprised that you're bringing this forward because it's something that we're trying to do as well. And I said, okay, and I told them, I said, you know what, I'm going to continue doing this. And eventually, you know, I got elected here into office. One of the first things I did was to bring forward a Pace Center and wanted to make that happen for the city. Well, if you can pull that up right now, Carl. So just last week, or two weeks ago, I got a visit from the CEO of Cal Optima, Michael Hunn, who is going to be retiring this year. And he announced that a PACE center is indeed coming to the city of Irvine. Cal Optima has purchased a 28,000 square foot location on Gillette in the IBC. It'll be the first PACE facility in Irvine. serves actually the first PACE facility in all of South Orange County. servicing the needs of seniors, bring 85 jobs, full-time jobs to South County and servicing the population here. So I wanted to express the thanks to the city, to Michael Hunt, who is retiring, and Cal Optima for making the investment into our community as well. So it's actually happening. It's been two years in the works, probably a little longer than that, but it's actually happening. So thank you to Cal Optima and thank you to the city staff wellness for doing this. looking forward to having this for our community. Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Mai. I see no other requests. Let me just conclude this section with a few brief announcements. I want to thank everyone who has joined us for our Summer in the City events so far this summer, and we want to invite our entire community to join us for upcoming concerts and movies. We have two exciting events happening this weekend. A Minecraft movie will be playing on the big screen at Hicks Canyon Community Park this Friday, July 17. Food trucks arrive at 6.30 p.m. The movie begins after sunset. On Saturday, July 18th, Jukebox will play Top 40 Hits at Mike Ward Community Park. That's in Woodbridge starting at 5.30 p.m. We'll return to Hicks Canyon on Friday, July 24th for a viewing of How to Train Your Dragon, our final movie of the season. We encourage people to bring low back chairs and blankets for seating at these events, pack a picnic, or purchase items from food trucks on site. We have even more planned in August with our 55th anniversary homecoming dance, Saturday, August 8th, and Symphony in the Cities, Saturday, August 15th. For more information on these events, visit cityofirvine.gov slash summer. Next, a very serious topic, drowning prevention. Water safety is a year-round priority in the city of Irvine. and we remain committed to preventing drownings through education, through outreach, and events like the Super Swim lesson that took place at William Woollett Jr. Aquatic Center this past Friday. As part of our ongoing efforts to raise awareness, Chief Kent, Chief Freeman from Orange County Fire Authority, and I would like to share an important water safety message with you. So if you would please turn your attention to the screen as we play a brief video. Summer in Irvine means more time outside, more time with family, and for many of us, more time around the water. But we also know that a fun day can change in just seconds. Drowning can happen quickly and quietly, but it is also preventable. That's why the City of Irvine is taking action to help families stay safe. Through our floating exchange program, families can trade in non-approved flotation devices and receive free a properly fitted U.S. Coast Guard-approved life jacket for children ages 6 and under. Float toys and inflatable devices are not a substitute for supervision or approved safety equipment. This program is about more than exchanging equipment. It's about giving parents better tools, better information, and greater peace of mind when their children are near water.

Here in Orange County, drowning remains one of the leading causes of accidental death for young children. That is why prevention has to start before anyone gets in the water. When you're on a pool, spa, lake, or any body of water, a few simple steps can help save a life. Never swim alone. Keep infants and toddlers within arm's reach. Assign a dedicated water watcher whose only job is to watch the water. If you need to step away, hand the responsibility to another adult first. No phones, no scrolling, no distractions. An emergency can happen in seconds. Active supervision saves lives. And if there is an emergency, call 911 immediately.

Water safety matters for everyone, children and adults alike. That is why we are encouraging families to remember the ABCs of water safety. A is for active adult supervision. Always wash the water, keep infants and toddlers within arm's reach, and never swim alone. B is for barriers. Pool fences, gates, covers, and alarms help prevent unsupervised access to pools and spas. And C is for classes and CPR. Swim lessons build confidence and water competency, and knowing CPR can make a lifesaving difference in an emergency. Whether you are at home, a community pool, or anywhere near the water, safety has to come first. Stay close, stay alert, and always watch the water.

The City of Irvine is proud to support drowning prevention through education, public safety partnerships, and programs like the Floaty Exchange. Every day is Drowning Prevention Day. Keep your eyes on the water, Irvine. There we are. Thank you very much. I particularly want to thank Chiefs Freeman and our own Chief Kent for their prioritizing of this issue. Every summer we try to encourage people, please be vigilant, be careful. Swimming is great. We love the fact that we train thousands of kids here in Irvine to swim, to be self-reliant. And it's our job, of course, to keep people safe at all times. So thank you, Chief. And with that, we'll move on to the balance of our agenda. Do we have any additions or deletions to the agenda tonight?

None, Mayor.

All right. We're getting close to being right on time here. Our consent calendar tonight, items 3.1 through 3.2, our Consent Calendar, of course, consists of items that, while they may be important and they may involve a fair amount of money, are nevertheless considered to be routine and non-controversial and ready for a single roll call vote by the Council for their approval. Again, the items tonight on the Consent Calendar are 3.1 through 3.7, Let me just turn to our city clerk and ask if there are any requests for people to be heard on consent calendar items.

Thank you, Mayor. We have two requests to speak, one in person and one on Zoom. I'm sorry, one what? Two requests to speak, one in person and one on Zoom. Can you tell me what items those are? I know the in-person speaker is speaking to item 3.7, and I don't know yet on Zoom.

All right. Well, with that, why don't we turn to the citizens who wish to be heard. If they would please identify the consent calendar item which they intend to speak upon. And each will have three minutes.

Thank you, Mayor. If I could call forward Jay Bruce.

Welcome, Mr. Bruce.

I will say, Council Members, I'm speaking on item 3.7, which relates to the Ottawa Center. I'm also a 2026 City Council summer intern, but speaking only for myself. Can you back up from the microphone just a little?

There you go.

Yeah, of course. Sorry. So I just wanted to say, I... I don't think it needs to be pulled or anything. I think it can move forward as a pretty smart revenue generator for the city. But there are some things that I want to note for the staff and maybe the city council to keep reviewing, especially as we have major events that could generate more train use. Of course, the Auto Center conducted the parking assessment. And looking at the raw data at the bottom of the document, I was kind of surprised to see that, although they'd said that only a few vehicles had been parked in Level 3. That's true for public use. But there are a few hundred vehicles that were parked in Level 3. in the raw data, which I can only assume is maybe used by the auto center itself, not its employees, but maybe they're storing vehicles there. I think it's interesting if they have been using Level 3 to park their vehicles before having a lease for around $100, $150 for Level 3. just how long I've been doing that. I think the staff report for the lease that's upcoming is pretty thorough about the temporary reclamation part, which I think is a smart idea for if there are large surges of traffic during major events, but I think it would be wise to keep track of how much usage is generated by major events like the World Cup or the 2028 Olympics to see how much increased parking there actually is, and also when we're considering existing restrictions on parking at Irvine Station that may be contributing to lower levels of parking like uh currently there's a 72 hour restriction on um overnight parking which if you're a family that's going on vacation for a week or something it may uh kind of restrict you from um parking overnight and taking the train to LAX because you have to register with the train station in order to keep yours longer for 72 hours. If maybe this council or a future council were to consider promoting transit use by maybe extending the overnight parking limit or streamlining the way to register with the train station to park overnight for longer, then you would see more parking there, and then you would have to revisit if you want to reopen Level 3 for public use. So those are just some things to consider now that we're limiting use of Level 3 for the public.

Thank you. Your time is up. Thank you. I'd just invite you to maybe... put together a brief memo on those points and submit them to us. I think you have some good insights and ideas that are worth our consideration. Thank you.

Our next speaker is telephone number 347. 347, you may unmute your mic.

Yes, this is Dee Fox, and I want to speak on agenda item 3.5. It's the special taxes within improvement area 19. If improvement area number 19 will finance infrastructure for the Great Park area, what specific mobility hub costs are not being paid through the CFD? And why were OCPA loan repayment funds selected instead? Improvement area number 19 is near Marineway and the Irvine Transportation Center. This area has been planned primarily for future transit-oriented development. Much of it was previously approved for office commercial and industrial uses. However, the city has been processing amendments to convert some of that unbuilt non-residential development into new residential neighborhoods. For example, the city has approved planning for up to 1,300 additional residential units by converting previously approved but unbuilt office and warehouse space to housing. And more recent track maps include residential units in various development districts within the same planning area. These are planned developments, not long established neighborhoods. So my questions are, which specific mobility hub expenses are being paid with OCPA loan repayment funds? We need to have a detailed accounting of how these taxpayer funds are going to be spent, if for no other reason to avoid duplication. And why can't the infrastructure being funded by OCPA payment funds be financed through improvement area number 19 bonds? It appears that the city is not using the most appropriate funding source, and I question if the city is choosing to supplement developer-backed financing with other city funds. Thank you.

And that is all, Mayor.

Thank you. With the public comments behind us, I'll move adoption of consent calendar items 3.1 through 3.7. I'll second. The motion offered by me and seconded by Vice Mayor Mai is properly before us. Any council comment? There being none, would the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Carroll.

Yes.

Council Member Goh. Yes. Council Member Liu.

Yes.

Council Member Martinez-Franco. Yes. Council Member Treseder. Yes. Vice Mayor Mai. Yes. And Mayor Agron. Yes.

Carry 7-0. Thank you. That concludes item three. We now move to public hearings. Would the clerk please identify item 4.1.

Approval of tax-exempt bond issuance by the California Statewide Communities Development Authority for financing an affordable senior housing rental project for Magnet Senior Phase II.

Thank you. This is a public hearing, which requires a little bit more formality. With that notation, I'll declare the public hearing now to be open, and we'll turn to our city staff to make a presentation. Please identify yourselves and go right ahead. About how long do you expect your presentation will be?

It should be very quick.

Okay?

GOOD EVENING, MAYOR AND COUNCIL MEMBERS. I'M JOSH BROOKS, DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES. I'LL BE PRESENTING TONIGHT'S ITEM. THE ACRONYM FOR TONIGHT'S ITEM IS THE TEFRA HEARING. THIS INVOLVES MAGNET SENIOR, TWO HOUSING PARTNERS, HAS APPLIED TO ISSUE TAX-EXEMPT BONDS THROUGH THE CALIFORNIA STATEWIDE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY TO FINANCE THE ACQUISITION AND DEVELOPMENT OF SENIOR RENTAL HOUSING PROJECT LOCATED AT 100 TO 152 MAGNET IN So the CSCDA is authorized to issue tax exempt bonds to promote economic development and public benefit. The public hearing is required under the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which is the TEFRA acronym. Three things are very important to note. CSCDA will be the issuer of the bonds. The proposed bonds are not an obligation of the city and the city will have no financial, legal, or administrative obligation for the debt. The project team is also available for questions on the project. So staff's recommendation is what's already begun to conduct the public hearing and then at the end of the public hearing adopt the resolution to the agenda to approve the bond issuance. That concludes my presentation.

Thank you. I just want to underscore the point that you made which is that there's no city exposure in connection with this project. Is that correct?

That's correct.

And you said individuals are here available to describe the project?

That's correct.

I think it would be useful to take two or three minutes for perhaps those representatives to come down and explain this project. This is a very good project. It's nice to know we're doing some really good things when it comes to housing and other facilities in our community. So could you call them down? Welcome.

Good evening, council members and mayor. My name is Randy Mai. I am vice president of development at Related California. We are the developer for the newest affordable housing community in the Irvine Creek Park community. We've built over 800 units of affordable housing, three family projects, and three senior projects. And we've started construction on a 40-unit project in the Great Park. And this is our newest affordable community for seniors, 22 units.

You said 800 units? Correct. Altogether? Over 850 units altogether.

Currently completed.

That's terrific. And although this is kind of a routine matter, it does involve a lot of funding. More important, I like to point out to people, it involves dozens, in fact, probably hundreds of people to make worthy projects like this possible. And yet, somehow, it all gets pulled together with our staff, obviously. lenders and private entrepreneurs involved in the whole enterprise. But I didn't want this item to go through without at least drawing some attention to the fact that, wow, this is going to provide a lot of affordable housing for a lot of people who desperately need it.

That's right.

So thank you. I see no requests from my colleagues, no questions or comments. With that, a motion to close the public hearing.

Mr. Mayor, if I may, just for the record, there are no requests to speak.

Thank you. With no requests from the public for comment, a motion to close the public hearing would be in order at this time. I'll so move. Is there a second? I'll second. Seconded by Councilmember Liu. Would the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Carroll. Yes. Council Member Go. Yes. Council Member Liu. Yes. Council Member Martinez-Franco. Yes. Council Member Treseder.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Mai. Yes. Mayor Agron. Yes. Carry 7-0. Thank you.

There be no further requests for comments. A motion would be in order at this time. I'll move adoption of the... Resolution.

Second.

Seconded by Council Member Treseder. Any discussion? There be none. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Carroll. Council Member Goh. Yes. Council Member Liu.

Yes.

Council Member Martinez-Franco.

Yes.

Council Member Treseder.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Mai. Yes. And Mayor Agron. Yes. Carry 7-0.

Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you very much. It's great work. All right, having dealt with this item, we now move to council business, item 5.1. Would the clerk please identify that item by title and subject?

Irvine Center of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Implementation Actions. Thank you.

I see we have some very capable city staff. here to make a presentation. Just to get some idea about how long do you anticipate your presentation would be? I know that this is a very important project. I just want to get some idea of how much time.

I think we'll be probably 10 minutes, 10, 15, 10, 12 minutes.

That's great. No rush. Just want to get a sense of the parameters here. Please introduce yourselves and go right ahead.

Thank you, Mayor, and good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council. My name is Pete Carmichael, Assistant City Manager. I'm happy to be joined this evening by Karen Cook, Director of Economic Development. We've got a fairly brief presentation. I'm going to give you some background, a little bit of history on the project. Karen will walk you through the center, and then we'll round out with some potential next steps. and recommendations. Just looking back at the council direction that got us here today, going back about a year and a half to January of 2025, the city staff and staff from the Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce presented the Irvine Innovation Economy Report. which had some interesting insights as to the economic transition that the local economy is in and some opportunities for long-term growth. That was the basis for the next item that came to the council a year later, January of this year. at which point staff presented the economic development blueprint for the city, and the council approved and directed staff to move forward with the implementation of the Irvine Center. And that's what brings us back today. Over the last seven months, staff has made great progress on a number of different component parts for the Innovation Center, fundraising, identifying a space and securing a potential lease, and bringing in a number of partners to provide content and resources. With that, just to kind of give a 30,000 foot view for a moment, as you may remember, the city and the chamber jointly commissioned the economic innovation report that was presented about a year and a half ago. And it was presented at a time when the city really is in transition as it approaches build out. The chapter that included sort of conversion of ranch lands to new master plan communities is waning. and really pointed the need to identify organic sources of long-term economic growth and high-wage job growth. The study had a lot of data analytics. It certainly benchmarked Irvine relative to other innovation hubs throughout the country, but also included a lot of outreach, over 90 touchpoints in the community C-suite executives, entrepreneurs, small business and business support groups. And a couple of key highlights emerged. One, it identified four or five key sectors for growth, as much as 20,000 jobs in Irvine over the next five to 10 years. Those will be familiar sectors to you, health care and health care innovation. medical technology, next-gen defense, sustainability, and decarbonization, as well as enabling and creative technologies and gaming. But two themes really I think more than anything else emerged. One was small business and entrepreneurs really remarked that it's difficult to access capital. Irvine and Orange County is often in the shadows of LA and San Diego. And that was a challenge they faced time and again. Second was disjointed resources. There was an awareness that there were resources out there for small business and entrepreneurs, but really hard to find a one-stop shop where someone could walk them through how to start a business and how to get the resources and funding they need. And that really was the launch point for the center. And with that, I'll hand off to Karen to walk through that in more detail.

Good evening. So these findings ultimately informed the development of the Economic Development Division Blueprint, establishing the city's long-term roadmap for driving economic growth and enhancing Irvine's position as a leading innovation economy. One of the key initiatives in the blueprint was the establishment of the Center of Innovation and Entrepreneurship to serve as a centralized hub for business resources, entrepreneurial support services, including access to capital for businesses looking to start, grow, and scale in Irvine. The Center is intended to leverage Irvine's existing strengths for high-wage job creation by aggregating these resources, capital access, and talent to create a more coordinated entrepreneurial support system. High-wage job creation strengthens Irvine's tax base, funding parks, public safety, and community programs, and really creates a multiplier effect as each high wage job supports additional local service and supplier jobs. It also helps more residents live and work in Irvine in family-sustaining careers, boosting household spending, keeping the community economically resilient over time. Irvine already benefits from leading employers calling Irvine home, anchoring R1 research institutions, exceptional quality of life, and strong workforce talent. But those assets are not always easily connected through a single accessible structure for entrepreneurs and growing small businesses. The center addresses this opportunity by creating a one front door for the entrepreneurial economy designed to aggregate business support services, access to capital, also vetted business advising, workspace, and programming all in one place. As identified in stakeholder engagements conducted as part of the study that Assistant City Manager Carmichael mentioned, today many valuable resources exist across our region, but they are often for entrepreneurs to navigate. They must independently identify the right partners, determine eligibility, travel through the county, and coordinate across multiple organizations. An expanded structure creates barriers to business growth. and reduces the likelihood that promising companies grow here locally. for the user and provide all those key ingredients. Instead of the entrepreneurs navigating that network, the center provides one destination space, expertise, strategic relationships, and more importantly, peers. A model is intended to improve access and service delivery speed, reduce friction, and create a more effective platform for business formation, acceleration, and startup growth. It also reflects a neutral city-led approach that brings together complementary partners rather than duplicating services that exist already in the region. The proposed facility is located at 510 Technology on the map you see in front of you, Suite 100, which is the ground floor, and contains approximately 24,000 rentable square feet. It is a three-story building. Staff identified the site as the preferred location after evaluating multiple options across the city, including UCI Research Park and the Greater Spectrum Area. The site's located right off of Sand Canyon within Irvine's healthcare corridor, provides access to Interstate 5 and 405, and includes existing laboratory infrastructure from a previous tenant that are expected to reduce tenant improvement costs and shorten the implementation timeline. A central feature of the Center's model is the integration of partner organizations that provide coordinated and complementary services. Co-located partners at the Center include the Orange County Inland Empire Small Business Development Center, the Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce, and American Lending Center, while also advancing procurement of an accelerator operator that is connected globally. Under this framework, the city provides strategic leadership and curation. The SBDC serves as a primary intake and business navigator and advising partner. American Lending Centers providing federal SBA and state SSBCI accredited lending, financing related guidance, and capital access support. The Greater Irvine Chamber supports business engagement, connectivity, and advocacy, and the accelerator operator currently undergoing the RFQ-RFP process will oversee the center's operations, startup acceleration, capital deployment, and global connectivity to other national and global innovation hubs. So what is the center? The proposed facility layout before you includes a reception and business concierge area demarcated by number one, co-educated partner office suites demarcated by number four, co-working and private office space, accelerator incubation space, a training and collaboration classroom demarcated with number six, These elements are intended to support different types of businesses, including businesses in Irvine's dominant and high impact sectors that Pete mentioned earlier, and require technical lab facilities such as medical devices and next gen defense at various stages of development. Presented before you are preliminary renderings of the proposed facility, creating a purpose-built environment that supports startup growth, collaboration, advising, education, events, and product development activities. So what makes this center different to what's currently on the market today? Unlike many existing entrepreneurial support organizations that are affiliated with a one single university or institution, the center is designed as a neutral hub that intentionally co-locates complementary resources providers under one roof. This integrated approach creates a seamless, no-wrong-door experience, enabling small businesses to access coordinated business services and education programming. The center is also designed to lower barriers to participation by emphasizing affordability, flexibility, and accessibility. So many of the services and resources offered at the center are no cost, such as the services provided by the Small Business Development Center. And businesses may access co-working and other spaces through not only tenured incubation, but also flexible day passes and other short-term options without long-term memberships or program commitments often required by other current facilities. In addition, the City's RFQ to RFP process for the accelerator operator has garnered competition from global accelerators such as Plug and Play, Techstars, Generator, who are all on the list of qualified bidders currently advancing to the next stages. These are preliminary KPIs and metrics for success that we've outlined. The center's five-year projected outcomes reflect an aggregation of KPIs from the center partners, taking into consideration the capabilities and capacity. Staff estimates the center to physically incubate 50 businesses in this five-year term, support more than $250 million in funding raised by companies served through the center, supporting the creation of approximately 10,000 jobs, and that's through our partners through the SBDC as well, so that's both tech and non-tech, and generating more than 300,000 square feet of new commercial space demand in Irvine. To maximize the impact of the city's efforts to retain homegrown companies locally, Staff is also working actively with the Irvine Company on a streamlined graduation process from the center into Irvine Company's Flex Plus portfolio, which includes step-up space that is smaller with shorter-term leases to ensure companies start, stay, and grow here in Irvine. In addition, through preliminary data provided by the co-located partner, the SBDC, the center projects to serve more than 3,000 entrepreneurs and small businesses, provide more than 50,000 hours of one-on-one consulting and technical assistance, and facilitate more than $12.5 million in professional services provided. In addition to the consideration of the lease that we'll be discussing in just a little bit, staff is requesting authorization to execute MOUs with partners for the center, including the Stella and John Foundation, the SBDC, American Lending Center, and the Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce. I'm going to go through each of the partner frameworks and what a coordinated operation of the center and what their defined roles and responsibilities will be. So first and foremost is our first partner, Stella and John Foundation. The foundation has representatives are here present with us this evening in the audience. Founded by John Shen and Stella Zhang, founders of American Lending Center, the Stella and John Foundation supports initiatives that promote entrepreneurship, education, and community development. The foundation has also provided philanthropic support to higher education and entrepreneurial initiatives across Southern California, including the Stella Zhang New Venture Competition at UCI Business School, reflecting its broader commitment to advancing entrepreneurship and workforce development locally. The Foundation's donation complements ALC's operational involvement, creating a coordinated public-private partnership that supports both implementation and long-term success of the Center. Under the proposed donation MOU, the foundation has committed approximately $3.9 million over a three-year period to support implementation and early operations of the center. This includes a $2 million upfront capital contribution, as well as a projected $1.4 million over three years to cover projected operating losses, significantly reducing the city's financial risk during the center's startup period. Additionally, the Foundation has agreed to provide up to $500,000 as an additional contingency to cover potential construction cost overruns in the initial build-out of the space. The donation, MOU establishes a framework for acceptance and administration of these contributions and authorizes the City to receive scheduled donations over the three-year commitment period. Our second partner is the Orange County Inland Empire SBDC. Representatives from the SBDC are also with us this evening in the audience. Funded by the Small Business Administration, the SBA, and the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development, GO-Biz, the SBDC is administered locally by Cal State University Fullerton and is one of the nation's premier providers of no-cost business consulting, training, and technical assistance. The national network serves more than 8 million residents across 96 cities, and the SBDC maintains a network of more than 150 certified business consultants with expertise spanning from finance, marketing, accounting, human resources, international trade, technology commercialization, and other specialized disciplines. The SBDC's presence as a center will consolidate three complementary programs that are currently delivered from separate physical locations across the county, and they'll aggregate to the Irvine location. The SBDC anticipates maintaining five dedicated full-time staff members on site, a rotating network of 27 specialized business consultants, and a full-time front desk administrator who will serve as the center's primary client navigator for services. Under the proposed MOU with the SBDC, the SBDC will serve as the primary intake and referral partner, provide no-cost advising and workshops, referrals, sharing of performance metrics, and those services are annually valued at $2.5 million and will be provided in lieu of rent. Our third partner is American Lending Center. Access to capital ranks among the greatest challenging facing startups and entrepreneurs and growing businesses. To address this need, the city will partner with American Lending Center, a California regulated lender nationally recognized for their expertise in government-backed financing programs for small and medium-sized businesses, including the U.S. SBA 7A loans and the state small business credit initiative SSBCI financing. Founded by John Shen and Stella Zhang, ALC has deployed more than $2.2 billion in financing to thousands of businesses across 50 states, helping create and retain more than 140,000 jobs. Through its expertise in capital access and business financing, ALC will provide on-site lending guidance, connect entrepreneurs to financing opportunities, and help businesses identify and navigate appropriate loan programs to support expansion, startup, and business growth. Under the MOU with ALC, ALC will provide small business lending services, financing guidance, workshops, related programming, and occupy approximately 2,000 square feet under a market rate occupancy agreement and contribute an estimated $286,000 towards tenant improvements for that 2,000 square foot of space. The Chamber will use this space also as a, sorry, the Chamber We'll also be using the center on a flexible basis for business outreach, referrals, and programming. Sorry, I got ahead of myself on the fourth MOUs to chamber. The fourth MOU is with the Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce, which representatives are unable to be with us tonight this evening. The Greater Irvine Chamber will be using the space on a flexible basis for business outreach, referrals, and programming. And the chamber will serve as a strategic partner supporting business engagement and serving as a bridge between the center and the broader business community. The Chamber will have access to meeting and collaboration space, event space within the Center, and be providing office hours, networking events, education programming, and other activities to support entrepreneurs and small business throughout the community. Now we're going to move on to the business terms of the lease. The proposed lease with the Irvine Company, again, is for approximately 24,000 rentable square feet, a 510 technology drive, suite 100. The proposed 10-year lease provides the long-term stability necessary for the city to invest in tenant improvements, recruit strategic partners, and establish a sustainable operating model. Key business revenue at $2 per rentable square foot per month. Initial monthly rent approximately $72,000. The agreement 10-month rent abatement period and a tenant improvement allowance of $100 per square foot at approximately $2.5 million. This reduces upfront occupancy while also helping the city's needs. The lease also includes building top and monument signage, shared business park amenities, and a 3% construction management fee. Together with the property's existing lab infrastructure, these lease terms enabled the city to activate the center more quickly, cost-effectively than would be possible at other comparable facilities we explored. Despite these, staff has substantially completed negotiations with the Irvine Company, and remaining revisions to the lease are expected to be administrative in nature, if any, without materially affecting the business terms summarized above. Staff has completed a ROM pricing, which is a rough order of magnitude pricing, to provide a ballpark estimate of construction costs. The estimated total build-out cost is approximately $7.8 million, detailed here on the top table. That total includes $366,000 of soft costs and project management fees. approximately $5 million in TI costs, 1.6 for furniture, fixtures, and equipment, and with a 10% contingency built in for FFE and for TI costs. The capital funding sources we have lined up to meet that 7.8 million need is approximately 8.2 million, and include the city's previously appropriated $2 million CIP budget, a $1 million federal earmark appropriation for research and development equipment championed by Representative Dave Min, a $2 million philanthropic donation from the Stella and John Foundation, the lease tenant improvement allowance of $2.4 million from the landlord, ALC's tenant improvement contribution of $286,000 and a potential half-million dollar construction contingent donation that can be utilized by the city if necessary from the John Stella Foundation. Together, these resources provide a three-to-one leverage relative to the city's $2 million capital investment. The overview of the operating pro forma is presented on this slide. For revenue streams, the center will generate revenue through facility rental revenue, sponsorship revenue, sublease revenue, and donor support during the first three years. Staff has already had early productive conversations with other community stakeholders as potential sponsors to come on board, including professional service providers and health care partners. Total projected revenue is 1.1 in year one and increases to 1.9 by year five as this space activates. So projected net income is negative for the first three years, as shown here, and becomes positive in year four and five, as demonstrated here. With donor support filling the projected operating gaps during that startup period of year one through three, the center is projected to reach financial self-sufficiency by the end of the first three years. Despite these projections, the proposed lease does represent a significant long-term investment by the city in Irvine's economic future, and outside investment really mitigates the city's risk, especially up front. Pending city council approval, staff will advance implementation to center with this proposed timeline, finalizing the lease agreement, executing partnership agreements in Q3 of 2026, completing the design and permitting process and initiating TI improvements in Q2, Q3 of 2026 of this year. Concurrently, staff is going to continue with the procurement of the center's accelerator operator that is currently moving on from the RFQ and RFP process, and work with strategic partners to finalize occupancy agreements, coordinate programming, and prepare for a center opening in Q2 of 2027. As implementation progresses, staff will work collaboratively with the SBDC and all of the co-located partners, including ALC and the Greater Irvine Chamber, and the selected accelerator operator and other ecosystem partners to coordinate occupancy, establish procedures, develop initial programming to prepare for the public launch. The preliminary implementation timeline is summarized here. And while it is subject to change, the timeline provides the overall roadmap from transitioning the center from a strategic vision to become a fuller full operational resource serving Irvine's entrepreneurial community. So tonight there's three actions before you. The first one is to authorize the city manager or designee to finalize and execute the lease agreement for the Irvine Center of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at 510 Technology Suite 100. Two, authorize the city manager or designee to execute the MOUs with the Stella and John Foundation, the Orange County Inland Empire Small Business Development Center, the Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce, and American Lending Center, and negotiate and execute associated occupancy agreements and other related agreements as necessary to implement those partnerships at the center. And finally, authorize the city manager or designee to accept donations from the Stella and John Foundation in accordance with the associated MOU and implement any associated budget revenue and expenditure appropriations necessary. Approval of these actions will allow staff to proceed with the next phase of implementation. and positioned the center to begin serving Irvine in 2027. So this concludes our presentation. Sorry it was quite lengthy. I know we had a lot of material to go through, but staff is available to answer any questions at this time.

Well, thank you very much. Go ahead. You have a fan club out there, apparently. Thank you for a very thorough presentation. I see a couple of my colleagues here at the dais have either questions or comments at this time. Let me ask of our city clerk just to get an idea of how many requests there are for public comment.

Thank you, Mayor. We have 12 requests to speak.

Well, all right. Why don't we take a quick round of questions or comments from council members at this time, beginning with Vice Mayor and Council Member James Mai.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for the presentation, Karen and Pete. That was wonderful. You've got fans up here as well as in the audience as well. So if I'm hearing this right, it's going to start in 2027 is when Projected launches.

Correct.

And is there going to be, how is the initial cohort going to be accepted? How are people going to know about this? Is it going to be an application process? Can you talk about that a little bit?

Sure. So the center is open for everybody, right? So it's going to serve venture-backable startups and ventures and also traditional businesses. As you know, the SBDC serves over 3,000 businesses in our community every year. So as part of the, actually the accelerator portion, as part of the RFP process, the couple that I mentioned, they typically have different models. Some do cohort-based, some have ongoing enrollment. So I think on the accelerator piece, we'd have to coordinate with the accelerator operator on what that model would be. Some communities prefer to do cohorts and some operators prefer to just do rolling admission for capital deployment.

Got it. All right. Yeah, I think this is wonderful. I think this is a great opportunity for the city. Being in the startup space about 20, 25 years ago, myself working with Tech Coast Angels and various incubators in the local area, at the time we didn't have anything like this. So this is just refreshing to see a city investing, doing the right thing, investing in our people, investing in our businesses as well, and you have my full support in that. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Mai. Councilmember Martinez-Franco.

Thank you, and thank you Pete and Karen for the presentation. Since the first time I saw the Center for Renovation, I was really excited for all the things that you guys are doing and just bringing together all our Chambers of Commerce communities. We have a diversity of CHAMBERS IN HERE IN IRVINE, AND TO HAVE THE ABILITY TO USE THAT SPACE FOR THE MEMBERS, IT'S GOING TO BE JUST A WONDERFUL OPPORTUNITY FOR EVERYBODY. SO THANK YOU SO MUCH. AND ON BEHALF OF ALL THE CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE AND AS A REPRESENTATIVE OF THE ORANGE COUNTY HISPANIC CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, THANK YOU SO MUCH.

THANK YOU. I wanted to maybe comment first and then ask you a question. In reading a very extensive report and understanding all the thinking that went into it, I really think in the very first paragraph you captured the context in which we find ourselves. I mean, we have a remarkable business community here in Irvine, but it has changed dramatically over the years, and it's changing yet again. I just want to read this, because I think you captured in one fairly brief paragraph precisely where we stand. It reads here, Irvine is at a pivotal moment in its economic evolution. For decades, the city's growth has been fueled by thoughtful master planning, commercial development, and the attraction of major employers. While those strengths remain foundational, with the city nearing full build-out, and with competition from other regions increasing, long-term economic competitiveness will depend less on real estate development and physical expansion and more on fostering innovation, entrepreneurship, and high wage job growth. I think you really captured it all in one paragraph. I'm very impressed with this proposal, with the concept. I invite folks going into this, and in fact, I implore our staff, others going into these major undertakings to use their imaginations. Imagine the best possible outcome that we could have from this kind of investment and imagine the worst outcome. I think it's often a failure of imagination that gets us into real trouble both ways. So on the positive side, imagine the best possible outcome. Let's say a number of entrepreneurs come into the picture. They're a part of this initial cohort. Some of them are bound not to be successful, others successful. Some may be extraordinarily successful and become billion dollar corporations or enterprises. Would we be sharing in any of that billion dollar corporations, profits down the road having invested in them?

I think I would answer it in two ways. Certainly to the extent that they start, grow, and remain in Irvine, the city is going to benefit. High wage job growth leads to sales tax, leads to transit occupancy tax, leads to property tax. So indirectly, absolutely the city will benefit. Will the city benefit by way of the profits of the company? Does the city have an equity stake in the company? Not immediately. But looking back to the pro forma Karen mentioned, there certainly is an opportunity once the center becomes self-sustaining and even profit generating for the city through a separate entity to make equity investments in these companies that come through. And that's certainly something that we could bring back at a later date.

Yeah, I would really encourage thinking along those lines. The indirect benefits, yes, there are a lot of indirect subsidies, though, that the city gives to these various firms and so forth. We build infrastructure, we do all kinds of things, but the equity interest is something I would really like to see some serious thought given to it. Now, What does your imagination tell you about a worst case outcome, that this endeavor fails, and it fails badly over the course of the next five years?

Yes, certainly that's something we have to think about is what's the worst-case scenario. The good news is that this is, once the city's on a lease, this is an asset. It's 25,000 square feet in a Class A office location, and the city has the opportunity to sublease it. So absolute worst-case scenario, the center does not attract the interest that we are very confident it will. The city has the ability through the lease with a landlord to sublease that space to other users. We've negotiated what we think is a pretty mutually beneficial arrangement with the landlord and certainly rents are on their way up in this particular center. And so the worst case scenario would be the city sublets the lease.

And what might be the loss if it came to that?

Well, hard to project. I mean, ideally, the city's recouping its entire lease liability through a sublease, but hard to say at this point.

All right. Okay. Well, thank you. Oh, I see Council Member Carroll has a comment or question. Go ahead, Council Member Carroll.

Great. Thank you, Mayor. And yeah, I too want to thank the team very much for the It's fantastic. I just want to also just reiterate what the mayor said. As you both know, I've told you both personally on the telephone and live that I think that... We have an opportunity of a lifetime to lend Irvine and the greatness of our city, the city of innovation, to a center like this. And I think that it feels like to me, or I would say in my opinion, it is to me about 85% of the way there. And that 15% that the mayor talked about, who stole my thunder by a little bit here, And Tech Coast Angels was actually mentioned up here tonight just a few minutes ago, which is great, is that this is an innovation center without the incubator part that I think that this feels like and it's going to look like and it's going to have that amazing shared kitchen space that looks like, you know, somewhere up in San Jose and Or, for example, the business I just toured yesterday, Field AI, which is one of the most coolest, innovative things that are happening in Irvine. Or Terran Orbital that I saw two or three weeks ago. We have the opportunity in Irvine to lend our name and our resources. And we're about to go sign up for a very expensive lease with the Irvine company. and do all these partnerships and work with John and the team as far as this incredible philanthropic commitment they're making to also incubate these companies and take the extra step of partnering with them. And as I mentioned to you, and I just want to say for the record, the city of Irvine currently does that. And if it can do that with senior citizens living in our mobile home parks, meaning partner with them as we've been doing for years, We can certainly do that in an incredible state-of-the-art innovation center where we're offering all these resources. When I say that, I'm talking about the mobile home renovation program that the City of Irvine has had for a number of years. It's very simple. We have certain community dollars that we've had for a long period of time that we get from HUD, and we purpose those community dollars in an incredible way. A lot of our mobile home parks have incredibly outdated wiring in their fire hazards. So we have this incredible combination. And I think I even told John Chen about this. We have a thing where we partner with these homeowners. We fix, we give them the money, and we literally fix their electrical systems and get them up to code and keep them safe, which of course is a fire hazard for our entire community. But we keep these homeowners safe. And what do we get in exchange for that? We put a second mortgage on their house. That's right. We put a second mortgage on their house right behind their first mortgage with a reasonable interest rate. And it never comes due until the title changes. So if these folks pass away and it goes to their children, title changes, we get repaid. And that has actually been repaid into many, many, many thousands of dollars. I didn't do the research. I apologize, staff. I've surprised you. We should have had it. But the city has actually received great profits. So look, if we can do that with senior citizens, with, you know, Jane Jones in Meadows, Irvine, you know, in the Groves Mobile Home Park. We should be able to do it with these companies because if we get the next field AI, if we get Dr. Ali from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who is literally sitting right in the spectrum right now, one of the most gifted people in the United States of America who's been backed by Jeff Bezos and NVIDIA and like six other funds that are about to pursue another second $700 million round. for what they're doing there. I'm not saying we're going to get the next field AI, but I as a council member would feel like, geez, we're putting this whole thing together. You guys have done such great work. And we have another Terran orbital that we're going to incubate here with a couple of professors from UCI. And we didn't get 4% out of it. We didn't get some kind of a, And I've talked to you guys about this. And we can't do this from the dais. And I'm going to support this. But I'm not going to let this go. And if I have to put stuff back on the agenda and needle my colleagues, I'm going to do that. But we have to have, Irvine has to have its peace. They have to have some kind of an upside. We don't have to make it difficult. Some of us, we know what's safe. Karen and I, we've talked about safe agreements. We know how this thing goes. This is not hard to do. And we don't want to get in the way of governance, let them run their companies. to the moon, let them run them, maybe sadly to failure, like many companies, unfortunately, have that other direction. But we want to invest in this portfolio at the Innovation Center. Well, when one or two of them becomes next field AI, and remember that name, field AI, everyone. It's truly an amazing thing. what they're doing with robotics and artificial intelligence right here in our city. We have the ability for one or two of those to hit. And then the city of Irvine literally sits in the same position as Kleiner Perkins. And there's no reason why the city of Irvine can't sit there. And I bring up the residential homeowner rehabilitation program because it's almost like, there's an interesting juxtaposition where we're obligating, we're giving money to senior citizens in mobile home parks in our city to do an important, valuable thing that's for the good. And yet we're going to have these people with their incredible ideas and their geniuses sitting there. And I'm going to have this feeling personally as a fiduciary, wait a second, we need to be, if I'm putting second mortgages on mobile home parks, how am I not getting some very small reasonable percentage of equity without interfering with board governance, just passive. So that when this thing IPOs, when it has a strategic sale, or in the example of Terran Orbital, which was a small CubeSat satellite company, where my wife with IPSF, before she became a board member, was like greenlighting a program with three IOSD kids and a dad who worked at Terran, the precursor to Terran Orbital, but put a CubeSat up into the sky that was successful, became what it was today. And to be literally acquired three years ago by the second largest defense company in the United States, we should be part of that. So anyway, that's my piece. So I support this, but I really do think we need to, you guys have to sharpen your pencils. You knew it was coming. I've talked to you about this. I'm surprised that you're pitching this without it, and it bugs me, but I do think it's a great thing. I'm not gonna stand in the way of it, but I'm gonna really insist that we get something for it. Beyond, and I appreciate Pete, you know, and you make a great point about the economic lift that it's going to create great economic lifts. But we should be consistent. So if we're going to do residential, we should either eliminate the mobile, which I don't want to do, but we should either not put second mortgages on mobile home parks, or we should keep that awesome program in place and put together this incubator in a place where companies who succeed greatly will pay a small sense of thank you or a toll or whatever you want to call it back to the taxpayers of Irvine. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Council Member Carroll. Why don't we turn to public comment at this time? How many requests do we have now?

We still have 12, Mayor.

I would suggest we get started on those 12. Why don't we leave them at two minutes maximum? And anybody else coming in after the first speaker would be down to 90 seconds. And then we'll close the queue when we get to about 30 minutes, okay?

Thank you, Mayor. If I could call forward E-Planet Thunderstriker, Caroline Fitzroy, Jim Eli, John Gutierrez, Ahmed Zabi, and Mike Daniel.

Only two minutes. It is E-Planet Thunderstruck Rift Walker, which I had to add because of the coherence problem that everybody in the whole wide world has, I guess. So one thing is when it comes to innovation, well, let's talk about a collective intelligence substrate. And oh my gosh, when Mike Carroll just said about so many innovators at UCI, well, starting last middle of November, there was a big change in AI because I was being spooked when I'm dealing with the kind of things that I've tried to deal with, say and do things. Even last year, I have a paper that, well, you guys didn't do anything on this day. It's a criminal infraction. Well, Irvine probably does have exceptional AI going on right now because I'm being spooked. even again in the middle of May related to semantics. When I have something that, oh, well, I can come out with it actually this week, that they haven't figured out. So either way, we're dealing with this innovation thing. They might be soon hooking into a collective intelligence substrate that they really didn't help start. It's probably a new civilization primitive. For the people that don't know, humanity only has about half a dozen. The last one, which is the internet, was really recent, but usually it's several centuries. Well, I can't really promote the one right now because I'm getting hacked and I have the shadow dealing with my Reddit posts. When I have this long post about a civilizational substrate and somebody has a one-sentence wonder, it's too long. Well, I come in here, I do public comments talking about all kinds of things. Who cares if we have, you know?

Thank you.

Caroline Fitzroy. Welcome.

Good evening, everyone. I have to admit, I've never been to a city council meeting. So I'm happy I'm here and I'm speaking. And it's because I met Karen.

Council Member Carroll said, lucky you.

Yeah. No, this is very interesting. We welcome you.

I hope you're comfortable. Go right ahead.

I'm going to make my teenage son come next. So I met Karen and heard about the center. I grew up in Orange County, moved to the Bay Area, and I've worked for startups, for startups who are funded by Kleiner Perkins and Andreessen Horowitz and others. And that led me to start my own business. I work with startups still in the Bay Area. We help them recruit talent. And I am constantly flying there and have been looking for opportunities to integrate in Orange County because I moved back five years ago. So I'm really just coming to offer support. It sounds like everyone's very supportive and this is exciting. So I'll leave it at that. I'm just here to support. Thank you.

Well, thank you for your comments and come back again. Jim, Eli. Welcome, sir.

Thank you. I'm Jim Ely. I'm the vice chairman of California International Bank, and I'm the managing director of SBAPro.com LLC and the president of the small business development corporation Orange County that provides loan guarantees on behalf of the state of California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank. And I have collaborated with Stella and John at American Lending Center with government guaranteed lending. You talked about the need for access to capital. Well, you're collaborating with the right guys. These guys know how to innovate. They know how to collaborate. They know how to foster entrepreneurship. So I just want to let you know that your partnership with Stella and John and American Lending Center should prove to be fruitful. The other thing is this is a great idea. But I got to tell you, ideas are the easy part. Execution is the hard part. And John has proven to me that he knows how to execute. He has taken very complicated esoteric ideas like interlacing one government guaranteed program with another or a unique source of capital with a government guaranteed program, and he's been able to execute in that way. So I want to encourage you to continue the collaboration with John. and Stella and American Lending Center. In addition, I also know the folks at the Orange County Inland Empire, SBDC, and they are going to be a great partner for you guys too. So I just want to encourage you to be supportive of this center as proposed. Thank you.

Thank you.

John Gutierrez.

Thank you for having me. Thank you, Mayor, City Council. My name is John Gutierrez. I'm the Senior Vice President of the Orange County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. And I got to tell you, I'm very excited about the center. I personally am also an entrepreneur. We own a hospice company. We started it almost 15 years ago. I've been a resident of Irvine for 20 years. My son was born and raised in Irvine. Went to Northwood High School. He is now a student at Irvine Valley College looking to transfer to UCI. He volunteers for my hospice with my wife and he goes out and he visits seniors in the community and he interacts with them and he comes back with these amazing stories of what he's learning interacting with our business. And so when you talk about what we're investing, we're investing into the future of the children in our community. People like my son, who I hope I can pass the baton to him with my business when I look to retire in the next 10, 20 years. And so I thank you for what you're doing. I thank the SBDC, Mike Daniels and your team and everybody involved, the foundation, because let me tell you, this is going to be huge like if you're not an entrepreneur you don't know how tough it's been for us after the pandemic we had 100 employees before the pandemic i have 20 employees now that's how bad the pandemic crushed us and i can tell you as the vice president of the hispanic chamber of commerce i hear every day how much we need what you're building We need this center for many business owners. The mentorship, the capital, we need it, and we appreciate you. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments. Ahmed? Welcome.

Thank you for having me. Good evening, Mayor, council members. My name is Ahmed Zobi. I'm the founder and CEO of Center Health Technologies, a medical device company based here in Irvine. I'm also a resident of Irvine, living down in Irvine Spectrum. And I also graduated from UCI and chose to build here in Irvine. I have to be honest, there hasn't been a lot of real structure since I started my company. and for founders like myself in this city, and we still don't have the help today. I went through a local accelerator at UCI when I graduated, and while it meant well, the system weren't really there in place to help companies actually raise capital. Free space is great, but you got to get that capital going. I'm the only company out of 30 in my cohort to have survived and be here today, and that's because I just can't really quit. I think it's a disease, as entrepreneurship is. But I hope to be able to bring to this world the necessary medical innovations to help save countless lives, not just here in Irvine, but around the U.S. as well. But one of the things that I've seen over the years is that I've seen founders and friends of mine getting swooped up by other states, Arizona, Tennessee, Hawaii, with their innovations. And to Councilman Carroll's part, too, they've actually put money into the startups. They've invested their capital into the startups, taken that equity incentive there and helped push the companies through to an exit. And I hope to see that here soon. through this program. And this isn't unique to one program. Too many local programs are just pay-to-play pitch events where you're promised investors, but there isn't really that substance there. So I hope that with this new innovation center, we can really get to that substance with an accelerator partner that has the history to be able to bring that capital to this area and help companies succeed. We're excited for this opportunity because with a successful operator, we believe not only Sinter can grow, but other companies in our network can grow. So give the next generation of Irvine founders what we had to build ourselves. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Mike Daniel, and if I could also call forward Kristen Gentry, John Kiesler, Zarina Bee, Susie Harborth, and Brighton Liang. Welcome.

Thank you, Mayor and City Council. Good evening. My name is Mike Daniel. I'm the Network Director for the Orange County Inland Empire Small Business Development Center Network. So we're super excited about a project like this that Pete and Karen and Hillary have put together. We think that this is a great opportunity for us to partner and really help business to start and grow. So a little bit about what we'll be bringing to the table. So we'll be bringing three centers. I'll talk about a couple of the other ones, but I want to get to our largest center, which has actually hosted Manal Richa, who's behind me. And so she'll be bringing about 20 of her consultants, and they focus on restaurant, retail, hospitality, food-based businesses, child care, personal service, professional service, helping doctors start doctor's offices, dental practices. So I know we talked a lot about innovation and tech, but we also are there to support restaurants in growing to their second location, expanding. So they'll be bringing a lion's share of their resources here. We also have one of our tech centers that will focus on really late angel to series A capital. And so they'll be helping people prepare for that and doing pitch presentations and SBIR funding. And then lastly, we have another one of our centers that's focused purely on debt capital. I THINK AS YOU HEARD FROM KAREN'S PRESENTATION, THE NUMBER ONE NEED FOR ALL BUSINESS IS CAPITAL, AND I KNOW WE TALKED A LOT ABOUT EQUITY CAPITAL, BUT DEBT CAPITAL IS A HUGE PIECE AS WELL. SO WHAT OUR CENTER DOES IS WE ACTUALLY PACKAGE THE PRODUCT FOR SOMEBODY, AND THEN WE MATCH MAKE THEM WITH A LENDER. THERE ARE HUNDREDS OF QUALIFIED LENDERS. WE WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT OUR BUSINESSES GET TO A QUALIFIED LENDER AND DON'T GO ONLINE AND GET NEXT DAY FUNDING AND ALL OF A SUDDEN THEY'RE PAYING 50% INTEREST AND THEY'RE OUT OF BUSINESS. We think that this is a great opportunity. We at Cal State Fullerton are super excited to be a part of this. And so, you know, thank you to the city and thank you for including us in this.

Thank you for your comments. Welcome.

Thank you. This is my first time attending one of these as well. So here we go. Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Kristen Gentry. I'm an entrepreneur building a cardiovascular med tech device, developing a heart failure device focused on advancing health care needs. And one of the most unmet needs, I have experienced firsthand the opportunities and challenges founders face when building innovations to market. Irvine is home to world-class universities, innovative companies, and incredible talent. We have what it takes to become a leading place to launch and grow startups. But is it a critical need in our ecosystem for a trusted, founder-focused accelerator that provides guidance, connections, resources for entrepreneurs to succeed? I'm here today to support the creating of the accelerator that truly serves entrepreneurs and founders building the next generation of companies. One of the biggest challenges startups face is we don't know what we don't know. Founders are experts in what they're building, but they need support in areas that help the company succeed. We need support from experienced mentors, connections, investors, partners, founders' pathways, resources the founders can trust. When founders lack the right guidance, they are vulnerable for costly mistakes. and programs that do not meet and always align with their success. Irvine has the opportunity to build something very special and different, an accelerator based on transparency, accountability, experienced mentors, and measurable results. Irvine has the opportunity for a new standard to support founders. Let's create an accelerator to support the founders and trust to give the support that the companies need to build tomorrow's devices. Thank you.

Well, thank you for joining us, and thanks for your comments. Thank you.

John?

Welcome.

Honorable Mayor, members of the City Council, my name is John Keisler, and I'm the CEO of the Sunstone Investment Group, which is a local small business located at Airport Towers here in Irvine. And something that you are hearing, and I've heard a few times tonight from some of these entrepreneurs and small business owners, is that this is the first time they've ever been to their City Council meeting. And I think that that's one of the most important things that you're doing with creating this center, a physical place where the private sector is meeting their government, their local government, and being able to not only tap into technical assistance and capital access, but also to connect with their local government around technology. the industries and the priorities and the resources that they need to succeed here, from licensing and permitting, but also just being able to meet one another and meet city staff for the first time. So we're extremely excited at Sunstone. We have about 24 full-time employees now. We hope to grow in Irvine. And I know that small businesses, entrepreneurs, but also government funding, private capital, When they see a city council establish a physical place, it's like establishing a sacred space for entrepreneurship, for something that people, that you value it and that you want more of it. There will be many cities that are envious of what you're doing and hopefully more that copy what you're doing because that's the thing we need more than ever in the American economy for our young people, but also for our entrepreneurs from some of those bigger companies you were talking about. When they get that idea but don't know how to take that idea out of their company and start their own business, sometimes those are your best and most successful entrepreneurs. So thank you for doing this. Sunstone is behind you 100%. We're so grateful for what John and Stella are doing, a true public-private partnership.

Thank you very much. Serena? Welcome.

Good evening, City Council members, distinguished guests, and fellow community members. My name is Zarina Bahadur, and I'm the CEO and founder of 123 Baby Box. We are a developmental toy and baby subscription box company based here in Irvine. I'm a proud UCI alum, where I earned both my bachelor's and master's degrees. I started my company while I was a student at UCI and competed in the New Venture Competition. I was fortunate enough to win first place out of 114 startups. After graduation, I made the decision to grow and build my company, not in Silicon Valley, but here in Irvine. Along the way, I was incredibly fortunate enough to have Sunstone become my first investor. John and Stella have dedicated so much of their time and energy to supporting entrepreneurs, and I've seen firsthand the impact they have on founders like me. They don't just invest in companies. They invest in people. helping entrepreneurs turn ideas into thriving businesses. It's inspiring to see them partnering with the city to help bring the Irvine Center of Innovation and Entrepreneurship to life. I strongly support this initiative because entrepreneurs need more than just good ideas. We need mentorship. We need access to funding, strategic partnerships, and a community that helps us grow. By investing in entrepreneurs, Irvine is investing in innovation and the great generation of companies that will choose to build and stay here. Thank you so much for your time, and thank you for supporting Irvine's entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Thank you for your comments. Susie? Welcome.

Good evening. Thank you for having me. My name is Susie Harborth. I am an Irvine resident investor, having been both a venture capitalist and an angel investor, and I'm a serial entrepreneur. I currently invest now from my own family office. I chose to relocate my family to Irvine, like many of us, because of the quality of life here, because of the concentration of innovative companies and the opportunity to build alongside an incredible business community. I've had the privilege and pleasure of living in many innovation ecosystems, including San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, and San Diego. Entrepreneurship is exciting, but it can also be challenging and lonely. And as you've heard from many supporters today, the resources that entrepreneurs need in order to fully thrive is something that Irvine has an opportunity to really support. An innovation center creates those opportunities and strengthens the ecosystem that already makes Irvine such an attractive place to live and build. It sends a clear message that Irvine is a welcoming landing pad for global companies. I speak to a ton of international companies looking for a satellite location and a presence in the US, and I'm always encouraging them to look at Irvine. And also for those launch pad of local businesses which you've heard today, small businesses, retiring founders, entrepreneurship through acquisition, lots of initiatives that I think the team and the city staff are really championing and I'm super excited to be a partner as much as I can. So in ending, I would like to say that Irvine is an amazing place to work, live, play, and grow, both professionally and personally, and I hope you support this initiative. Thank you for having me.

Thank you for your comments. Brayton.

Hello, City Council. I'm currently a high school student, but today I don't just want to stand here as a student. I also want to stand as an entrepreneur who wants to build a strong community that can shape the future. Because while ideas, technology, and hard work are essential, it's having a community and a place that gives you new opportunities and gives you new ways to expand that allows for true innovation. This is why I would like to support the Irvine Center of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, as well as thank the Stella and John Foundation, as well as Sunstone Venture and Innovation Center. Because over the past year, I've seen just how much incredible work they've been able to do. And by combining founders, investors, mentors, and so many people together, it creates these moments that simply would not exist otherwise. For example, just a few weeks ago, I was able to present at Irvine Tech Day just right here, actually. And it was only through these initiatives that it was able to come to life. Because when expanding entrepreneurship, you're not just helping one idea, but you're also creating an ecosystem where leaders can gather together and build on that momentum in order to create a permanent hub for collaboration. And even just a few days ago, I was at the CAST Global Youth STEM Entrepreneurship West Regional Competition, which I believe Melinda Liu was actually there to speak and advocate for. And it's only through initiatives like these and the public support that it's able to grow and actually help the youth and help entrepreneurship expand. So, in conclusion, I would just like to support the Irvine Center of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and I really hope that you guys can make it come to life. Thank you.

Thank you very much for your comments. Our next speaker is Nadine Afari. Nadine, you may unmute your mic.

Hello everyone and thank you so much Dr. Agrim and the City Council members. My name is Sandita Fari and I am based at Rady Children's Health. I also support innovators and entrepreneurs at the University of California, Irvine. And we have so many pediatric startups and larger strategics that want to move to Irvine to build their families, build out their academic research portfolios and intellectual capitals with their businesses. I also want to thank Karen and Pete for the incredible work that you've done in pediatric research, innovation, entrepreneurship, and acceleration. I can't thank you enough. We are underfunded in pediatrics, but we are here. We are ready to serve. And we want to help build off these pediatric med tech and biotech startups. I also serve actually at the PDC FDA level to help accelerate pediatric medical devices through the FDA pathways. And also the ONC, which is our Office of National Coordination for Health Information Technology, which is our principal federal entity within HHS as well. We have a new initiative called Operation Trial Blazer to accelerate children's health research innovation, clinical trials, decentralized clinical trials, and pharmacy as well. I also want to add, and this is something that I have chatted with Karen about often, is we need to accelerate the workforce development. I think Irvine is an incredible place to do that. I need more clinical data sandbox architects for pharmacy trials and hybrid roles in managing de-identified data, clinical champion liaison as well. I'm so grateful and thank you so much for helping us innovate in children's health. And Karen and Pete, it has been an honor to serve under your leadership and help.

Thank you. Your time is up. Our next speaker is telephone number 258. 258, you may unmute your mic. You have 90 seconds.

Good evening, mayor and council members. This is Manesh here. I'm an Irvine resident in the IBC, the Irvine Business Complex, and I wanted to speak on the innovation center idea. Overall, I do support the concept. I think Irvine should be looking at ways to encourage innovation, new ideas and spaces that can help the city keep moving forward. So I'm not here to say no to the idea itself. I actually think this is something Irvine may need. But I do have concerns about the cost and the structure of it. I'd like to ask whether the city is also looking at lower cost alternatives or other models that could reduce the city's capital investment and then the ongoing financial commitment. Because if this becomes a costly operation using taxpayer dollars, then we need to be careful before locking into something expensive. My main concern is what happens if it doesn't work as planned IF THE CITY ENTERS INTO A LONG-TERM EXPENSIVE LEASE WITH THE IRVINE COMPANY AND THE CENTER FAILS OR UNDERPERFORMS, OUR TAXPAYERS WILL BE EXPECTED TO BAIL IT OUT. SO MY ASK IS SIMPLE. PLEASE SUPPORT INNOVATION, BUT ALSO FULLY EXAMINE LOWER COST OPTIONS, THE FINANCIAL RISKS AND THE EXIT STRATEGY BEFORE MAKING A LONG-TERM COMMITMENT. THANK YOU.

AND THAT IS ALL, MAYOR.

THANK YOU. Having concluded our public comments, we'll take one more round of council questions, comments. A motion would be in order at the appropriate time as well. I have two requests to be heard, one from Council Member Liu, followed by Council Member Goh.

Thank you Mayor and thank you Brighton for the shout out. I want to thank Karen and Pete for pushing this forward and working so much on this project from the time that I got on council. I was really excited to have that because from previous job experience, I know that there are lots of people with great ideas. They just don't know how to navigate the system. They don't know how to find capital. They don't know how to even set up a business legally. all in one, just go in, have the service, have them all from starting with an idea to building and expanding their business. That is invaluable in the city of Irvine. And I also want to thank John and Stella for what they've been doing, not just for small businesses, for students as well, what they've invested in so Irvine focused. And so this is a great way, this is the city of innovation. I'm so glad that we're finally able to have an innovation center. And I've been talking to a lot of local business owners and people who have capital to invest and they don't know where to go. Quite frankly, there's a lot of buzz and excitement right now. Every time I mention this, they can't wait for this to happen, and they want more information. So I'm glad we're finally able to have it at this meeting. I wanted to point out that, well, I think we all know, unfortunately, most businesses in the first three years, they run on a deficit or a loss. and they might not survive. So I understand the need or the interest in having equity in some of the businesses that we incubate. I think we had a discussion about that. Karen, would you be able to remind us what the concerns were?

Sure, I'm happy to speak about that. So approaching the pro forma for the center, understanding the current financial circumstances the city is facing, what we presented tonight is what we call the lowest risk option. on getting the project off the ground and most cost effective for the near term, five years, call it. When we make what Council Member Carroll had said in regards to the equity investments, those generally take time. BEFORE A TRANSACTION HAPPENS AND YOU CAN ACTUALLY SEE THAT EQUITY SHARE RETURN TO THE CITY. SO WHAT IS PRESENTED TONIGHT IS REALLY A DE-RISKED MODEL THAT ALLOWS THE CITY TO ADVANCE THE PROJECT WITH AS MINIMAL COST AS POSSIBLE ON THE FRONT END. NOT REALLY TAKING INTO CONSIDERATION ON THE EQUITY SIDE YET. HOWEVER, WHEN WE TURN POSITIVE REVENUES IN YEAR 4 OR 5, WE HAD EXPLORED POTENTIAL ALTERNATIVES ON HOW TO USE THAT SOURCE OF POSITIVE NET PROFIT AND POTENTIALLY THAT IS AN AREA OF OPPORTUNITY TO DEPLOY CAPITAL BACK INTO WHAT CITY COUNCIL DESIRES AT THAT POINT IN TIME. which may be equity investments and whatnot. Simultaneously, I think we can address, we are going through the RFQ, RFP process. So as part of the RFP process, we are building, we are asking our stakeholders OPERATOR POTENTIAL OPERATOR IN THAT COMPETITIVE PROCESS TO BE CREATIVE AND IMAGINATIVE FOR THE CITY REALLY PUTTING THE CITY'S LONG-TERM GOALS AND OBJECTIVES ONE BEING THE CENTER SUSTAINABILITY AT THE FOREFRONT SO THAT IS ON THE TABLE AS WE CONTINUE TO go through the competitive bid process, and we will be returning back to City Council when that process wraps up, probably within the next, I would say, 60 days.

Thank you. And I agree with you. It's great for us to get this off the ground first. And thanks to all the investors and the people who are willing to contribute and donate to the city to have this private-public partnership, to have this off the ground. And I understand that in a few years, we'll be able to revisit the issue about having equities. And I think this is a great start. So thank you so much for all your work. And I fully support this.

Thank you, Council Member Liu. Council Member Goh.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm glad to see a project like this in the scale. Having gone to UCI, part of the business school, you know, there are resources at the university, but a lot of it is university-driven in that setting, which is appreciated, and that's, you know, an organization like University of California Irvine brings a lot of benefits to our city. Having this location at this side of town greatly enhances the services that we can provide to the entrepreneurs and businesses. And I just want to thank Stella and John Foundation for taking a leap of faith and investing in our city. I think what they bring to the table will definitely resonate And in terms of moving forward, I'd love to see us take a more of an active role in investment, just like we have community centers, libraries. Why not put this in one of our buildings instead of going to the Irvine Company and renting space? In the future, I'd love to see a bigger format of this in one of our own buildings so that it would be there to stand for the rest of time. So in terms of equity, I think it would be a great idea if we can find a way, but to answer Councilmember Carroll, hopefully there's a lot of intangible benefits that come out from successful companies that do come out of this. Companies like Dell, you know, how much they've transformed Round Rock, Austin area. Companies like Zappos, who've really given back and reinvested in the community in downtown Las Vegas. I think that economic impact has to be considered as well. And like I said, just like Stella and John took a leap of faith, we have to take a leap of faith and trust that those founders will give back to our community. And we've already seen a lot of that. If you look at the buildings at UCI, what they're named after, you can already see what type of contributions these leaders have. So I think... Moving forward, this is a good model to have. We may not receive direct tangible benefits up front right away in terms of equity. We might see a little bit of a first couple years of growing and getting to the right place. But overall, long term, this is a good step forward. Being rightly located next to the major universities and having the talent pool remains in a unique spot to take advantage of this.

Thank you, Councilmember Goh. Councilmember Treseder.

Thank you. Yeah, this is a wonderful center, really great. However we can support small businesses is we should absolutely do. And so I'm grateful to the staff and our partners for doing this. I will make the motion. Then the motion is for the staff recommended items here. They're listed in the agenda, but in brief. One, authorize the city manager or designee to finalize and execute a lease agreement. for the Irvine Center of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Two, authorize the city manager or designee to execute MOUs with the Stella and John Foundation, Orange County Inland Empire Small Business Development Center, Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce, and American Lending Center. And three, authorize the city manager or designee to accept donations from the Stella and John Foundation in accordance with the associated MOU and implement any associated budget revenue and expenditure appropriations.

Thank you for that motion. Is there a second? I'll second. Seconded by Councilmember Liu. Comment. Councilmember Carroll.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I just want to speak to the motion. I'll be supporting it. I just want to clarify some of the things that were said up here. My view is not that city tax pay dollars need to be invested. My view is, as I had communicated to staff, so my colleagues know that we're already contributing value in the space and there's, you know, the mentorship we're going to provide and everything else with regard to that. There's value being transferred and conferred. It may not be a lot, but there's some essential value that's being transferred by these companies essentially at the Innovation Center. So whether it's baked in now, which it won't be, and I don't agree there should be a number of years, I think it needs to happen very, very soon, that we should figure out a way to... to have these companies that we call it our portfolio, if you will, at the center, that we get something for that in regard to the contribution that we're making to them. But I'm not advocating taxpayer dollars being invested, so I just want to make sure we're clear that when I come back with it, it's going to be about taking a view of what we're contributing in kind, Mentorship, opportunity, collaboration, the lease space at a Class A amazing building that people pay market rent for to the Irvine company. And how do we translate into some kind of, you know, essentially phantom value? And how do we bake that phantom value? And, again, the company, you know, just to kind of lay it out, Karen and I, you know, these companies may not be incorporated yet. We're just figuring out is there a way to work a context and the point at which the thing is goes from an idea to a laboratory to a – and this is what it was. I mean field AI literally I learned yesterday was a group of people from Jet Propulsion Laboratory that entered into contests, and they weren't incorporated yet. But at some point they became an entity. And at that point, people got behind it and backed it and got, you know, pieces of ownership, equity, we call it. And I think that's an opportunity at some point for us to get something, however small. So thank you. Just wanted to clarify that. And I'll be completely supportive. I think this is wonderful. Thank you.

Thank you. I see no further requests for comment from council members, that being the case. Would the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Carroll? Yes. Councilmember Goh? Yes. Councilmember Liu? Yes. Councilmember Martinez-Franco? Yes. Councilmember Treseder? Yes. Vice Mayor Mai? Yes. And Mayor Akron? Yes. Carry 7-0.

Thank you both. Thank you all for your participation in this important matter tonight. Thank you. That takes us, let me tell you what my thinking is here a little bit. Although we've made significant progress with our agenda, I think we should move ahead with By the way, 5.2 was moved to, the consent calendar is 5.7, so that takes us to 5.3, which is the establishment of the Library Advisory Committee. We do intend to take that now. And my thought was, depending on how we do on that, we may wish to move up ranked choice voting, I'm gonna consult with my colleagues. I'm just sharing at this moment what my own thoughts are, all right? Okay, and if we do that, we may wanna take a brief break before we actually move into that. But let's see how we do on item 5.3. Would the clerk please identify this item by title and subject?

Establish library advisory committee, approve bylaws for the committee, and authorize the city manager to execute memoranda of understanding with Friends of the Library organizations.

Thank you. With that, I'm going to turn to our very capable staff in this matter. Would you please introduce yourselves, Mr. Slama and your colleague as well?

Yes. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Agrin and city council members. I am Chris Slama, the director of community and library services. And here with me tonight is Julie Zioli, our city librarian. And as mentioned, we're going to be discussing with you for your consideration the establishment of a library advisory committee. So just a real brief background on where we are now, and then I'll hand it to Julie to go over some of the details on the proposal for the committee. Back on February 10th of 2026, the city council directed staff to develop a plan to establish a library advisory committee composed of one appointee per city council member, two at-large members that would be subject to the requirements of the Brown Act. Staff returned on April 28th, 2026 to the city council under that direction to propose the new structure. After discussion deliberation, the city council ultimately directed staff to return with proposed bylaws for a library advisory committee composed of one appointee per council member, liaison members representing each of the existing Friends of the Library organizations, Irvine Unified School District, and the Irvine Public Library Teen Advisory Group, as well as an additional Friends of the Library liaison representing the Great Park. The City Council also directed the committee attempt to meet monthly during its first six months and quarterly after that. And now I'll hand it to Julie.

Thank you, Director Slama. So the committee would serve in an advisory role to the commission and would promote awareness and advocacy for equitable, high-quality library services CONSIDER COMMUNITY NEEDS AND PROVIDE APPROPRIATE RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE COMMUNITY AND LIBRARY SERVICES COMMISSION. WORK COLLABORATIVELY WITH ORGANIZATIONS WITHIN THE CITY AND THE SURROUNDING AREAS THAT HAVE AN IMPACT ON LIBRARY SERVICES BY INFORMALLY SHARING INFORMATION LEARNED AT Provide input and feedback to the Community and Library Services Commission on strategic initiatives, including the library master plan and future library facilities. Report annually to the Community and Library Service Commission on goals and accomplishments. And perform such other duties or studies as may be directed by city council. In order to follow Council's April 28th direction and in accordance with the proposed bylaws, staff recommends authorizing the city manager and or designee to negotiate and execute memorandum of understanding with the Friends of the Library organizations formed in support of planned Irvine Public Library facilities, including the newly formed Friends of the Great Park Library. CONSISTENT WITH THE CITY'S EXISTING MOUs WITH THE HERITAGE PARK, UNIVERSITY PARK, AND KATIE WHEELER FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY ORGANIZATIONS, THE AGREEMENT WOULD ESTABLISH THE ORGANIZATION'S RELATIONSHIP WITH THE IRVINE PUBLIC LIBRARY AND ITS ELIGIBILITY TO APPOINT A LIAISON MEMBER TO THE LIBRARY ADVISORY COMMITTEE. SO BEFORE YOU ARE THE PROPOSED ACTIONS TONIGHT, WE'RE HAPPY TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS.

All right. Let me first inquire of the city clerk. Are there requests for public participation on this item?

Yes, Mayor, there are. We have six requests to speak.

How many in the chamber and how many remote? Five in the chamber and one remote. Thank you. All right. I think we'll take a first round of... council comments or questions of staff. And then we'll move right on to hear from the public and then see if we can move to a point of action here tonight. Any requests at this time to be heard? All right, let's go with the public.

Thank you, Mayor. If I could call forward Jay Bruce, Adam Hill, Lucy Liu, Mari Fuji, and Heidi. And we'll start with Jay Bruce.

COUNCIL MEMBERS, I'M JAY BRUCE, I'M 2026 CITY COUNCIL SUMMER INTERN BUT SPEAKING ONLY FOR MYSELF. I JUST WANT TO SAY I SUPPORT IN GENERAL A LOT OF JUST BASICALLY THE WHOLE BYLAWS THAT WE HAVE PROPOSED HERE. I THINK THE STAFF HAS DONE A GREAT JOB INCORPORATING AND SPECIFICALLY LIKE I REALLY APPRECIATE THE PUSHING BACK THE MEETING TIME TO 5 P.M. I WAS SURPRISED A LITTLE THOUGH TO SEE TODAY UNDER THE AGENDA AGENDIZED TODAY, THIS AROUND NOON MEMO FROM COUNCILMEMBER TRESEDER PROPOSING A LOT OF CHANGES TO THE BYLAWS. I THINK WE ALL UNDERSTAND THE IMPORTANCE OF getting this committee set up quickly, expeditiously. And I feel like giving this memo out the day of the meeting kind of doesn't give everyone enough time to really consider the ramifications of what's suggested. Just off the top of my head, I think it's THE MEETING FREQUENCY I THINK CAN BE DECIDED BASED ON STAFF NEEDS, MONTHLY OR QUARTERLY. I THINK MAYBE MONTHLY WORKS WELL, ESPECIALLY FOR THE MASTER PLAN TIMING. I have less issue with that. The bigger issue I have is removing the district requirement. We already have kind of duplicated representation for Great Park, University Park, and Heritage Park, I think, to a lesser extent, with the Friends of the Library appointee and the City Council appointee. And now to have... THE CITY COUNCIL MEMBER IS ABLE TO APPOINT MEMBERS FROM WHEREVER IN THE CITY, WE COULD POTENTIALLY HAVE, FOR EXAMPLE, MIKE CAROL IF HE APPOINTS A GREAT PARK PERSON TO THE COMMITTEE, THEN WE'LL HAVE THREE REPRESENTATIVES FOR THE GREAT PARK. I THINK THE DISTRICT REQUIREMENT IS IMPORTANT TO ENSURE THAT WE HAVE EQUAL REPRESENTATION GEOGRAPHICALLY, ESPECIALLY WHEN WE'RE CONSIDERING THE MASTER PLAN of where we're going to be putting library facilities and such. Aside from that, the library master plan delaying all the progress until the library committee is formed, I think that would just, our initial projection was for it to be finished by like November, and given that it's been delayed a few months, I'd be surprised if that doesn't get back even more, and I would just see if, the formation of this library committee beyond just the bylaws, getting appointees and onboarding all of them, if that would result in the entire master plan being delayed by like half a year or a year, and how, if that's really worth it. I think it's worth considering, but especially the district thing, I think, we don't have to go ahead with removing the district requirement, and we should really discuss the other two proposed changes. Otherwise, thank you to the city staff. Thank you. Your time is up.

Thank you for your comment. Adam Hill. Welcome.

Thank you. Good evening, Irvine. My name is Adam Hill. I am the treasurer for the Friends of the Great Park Library and a scout den leader and a father of two young boys. I've seen in my professional and personal life the impact that the right resources can make in students' life. I'm a former teacher as well. Good news. I know everyone here actually has the same goal. Make timely, meaningful change in the community while leveraging resources in an effective way. Mike might call it fiscal responsibility. James could call it reducing bureaucracy. Kathleen and Larry both often say we should safeguard community tax dollars. Melinda is a champion for practical solutions, and I know William delivers on his promises. And Betty, I know we can both move forward with our plan while preserving the University Park Library. We agree on the goals, but we disagree on what path drives that balance between our impact and our resources. I love the Library Advisory Committee. One line item in the memo tonight is critical. I would ask, would you please flip to it now? It's at the very bottom. 1.3.4.1. If you would, put a star just like, this is critical. This is why I'm here. This is why I'm not with my kids right now. It says, condition precedent for strategic initiatives. I want you to consider right now if this line deserves your yes or your no. Number one, has anyone calling for a freeze in the progress that is specifically called out in this line, have they clearly said what specific outcomes of that LAC are not possible without this freeze? Okay, why can't they meet their goals without this? And number two, if you vote to lock out city and contractor progress, it says 60 days, but really it's gonna be three months, however long it takes for that first meeting to be formed and start, then 60 days. So don't just limit it to that. I mean, we know how projects go. We know that time is money, and for government projects, sometimes time is money times 10. I absolutely support the LAC, provided it is driven by specific goals and clear problem statements, and that we don't chisel and stone tonight, right now, that progress must freeze. Please, council members and mayor and vice mayor, ask yourself if your vote tonight is going to serve me, my children, my neighbors, and my scouts. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Lucy, Lou? Welcome.

Hello. Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Lucy Lu. I'm an Irvine resident, a parent, a former librarian. Actually, I was an entrepreneur librarian helping business and entrepreneur to get connected to local resources. I'm very interested in the topic we just had earlier. But tonight, I'm here as the president of the Friends of the Great Park Library. I'm here to support authorizing the city manager to negotiate MOU with the Friends organizations such as ours. MOU solidifies the relationship with the city and guarantees that the funds we raise go directly to the Irvine Public Library. So this is in line with the council's own unanimous vote back in October 28th of last year to build a main library in the Great Park Northern Sector and build it expeditiously. So we know our library staff is amazing. In just the last month, they've added 3,000 items to the collection. And just for comparison, from which library? What that means is we have a public who is clamoring for more library services. Our bookshelves are full, the seating is scarce any time of the day, and all the programs are full and bursting at the seams. So this is exactly the time when the Friends organization can help. For example, Friends of the Huntington Beach Library was formed before the Central Library was constructed. Back in the 1960s, they sold the books at local public parks to create the collection. One of the for that library. Cisco library their decade so eventually 69 million dollar I'll want to do a funding author every program We bring to life strengthen the library today library of tomorrow the Great Park library and However, I do We need a progress

Marlene.

Much appreciated and to Council for the life commissions like talented people today over others. We serve not only cards are not written to one section to one respective district. I also plan not to commit a seat at IPL leadership estimates until October or November. It's leadership to temporarily pause needed. I believe many of us had a separation agreement from Orange County and vetted before it was approved. The same mistake again and then unnecessarily rush into developing our master plan development for just a couple of months. Now the committee be seated and ready to provide detail to help ensure that this important document is done right from the get-go. The final master plan will be our guide for the next 20 years and longer. Waiting just a couple of months for the committee to be seated is not a lot to ask for. Allow the library committee to be seated so they can be a valuable asset to the IPL staff, not just on the library plan, but other important topics as well. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Heidi? Welcome.

Vice Mayor Mai and members of the council, once again, I'm requesting an appointment to the Library Advisory Committee and to remind you what my top priorities will be. First, I will make sure only age-appropriate material is available for our kids and students. To be direct, no porn in the library. You don't have to be a librarian to know porn does not belong in a child's reading book. If kids are curious, they can turn to a trusted adult. Second, I will keep bathrooms safe for everyone, children, adults, and families, with separate safe spaces for the two sexes plus a gender-neutral option. And unfortunately, I need to point out that I'm a staunch supporter of gay rights because for some strange reason, creepy reason in my opinion, protecting kids from sexual material gets twisted into homophobia. That's not right. I know it's easy to make lofty promises in a speech, so what truly qualifies me for this position is that I cannot be pressured into doing the wrong thing. When I'm on this committee, I will not be bullied or pressured to compromise my beliefs. In my personal and work life, I've stood my ground against these coercive types to the point of being ostracized or even losing my job. Foul material will only get into our libraries over my dead body. I encourage every one of you on this dais to start with this issue, protecting children, when you consider your appointments. Even if I'm not selected, I'll be watching this committee closely. I will not hesitate to tell the public if an appointment here allows porn for kids. Thank you for your time and consideration. I'm ready to serve with integrity for all Irvine families.

Thank you for your comments. Lee, you have 90 seconds. Welcome.

Thank you. I'm Lee Handy, a strong library advocate and an energetic supporter of our Irvine public library system. This is a time for rejoicing. After years of seeking the establishment of a library advisory committee, it is now a reality. I'm ready to clap, but we'll go on. For that, I thank you city council members, each and every one of you, and I thank our city librarian, our city library staff, our director of community and library services. This is just momentous. You've done a lot of hard work to bring the committee into fruition, and it's an extraordinary accomplishment. Our Irvine community members will now be able to have an active voice in the development of our libraries. The committee, known as the LAC, will give important feedback on key issues. Most crucial will be the insights it will provide on the library master plan, which will shape the future of our libraries. I reviewed the carefully drafted bylaws before us here tonight and seek only a few changes to them. Meetings should be held monthly rather than quarterly. Implementation of the master plan process should be delayed a few months until the LAC is formed and functioning. Also, I would like to see the district-based residency requirement eliminated.

Thank you. Your time is up. Just a moment. Did you sign up? before the first speaker began speaking?

Well, I didn't. Unfortunately, it wasn't complete. There was one box that I failed to fill in.

Why don't you go ahead, continue with your remarks. I'll grant you another. Did we start with 90s? You take another 90 seconds. Speakers, do we have? Those are all in the library. What could be your comments?

Our next speaker is Michaela. Correct, Mayor. All right. We can hear you.

Thank you for the opportunity to address you on this tonight. As I conveyed in an earlier email, I think this is a really strong draft, and it benefits only from a few small revisions. I'd like to use my time here to explain why I hope you can work out some guarantee in or beyond that this is standard and operational before the master plan for the initiatives continues. We've discussed the document for the Irvine. It's going to guide hundreds and millions and hundreds and thousands of our citizens. input from council, the community, library, and listening sessions, development of trends. It's even meets.

It's an investment in the mission available as moving along. And also what really which is a library time from the county to the city of Irvine.

It's Mr. Derpy. Our children are suffering from cognitive delay. We suffer from lack of awareness to go back to reading books in our school. which is a movement that's on paper. And there's a paused reading program for kids that have empathy and be able to learn to read if they're afraid to read to themselves or somebody else. We will have to read books about parenting skills in libraries in terms of how to deal with the conviction of the child's determination to have the advice that is destroying our children's development. I encourage the city council and the commission to be ahead of this situation and behind in the literacy of our children in college. They can't read very well. So this is a very important issue. And I hope that you will evaluate that and not just go on and continue as is, because it's just not a lot of awareness and research. And we need to bring it forth in our community and release some things. And I hope you will engage this conversation. You have my number. I've improved the research. Thank you very much.

And that is all, Mayor. Thank you. That concludes the public comment. At this point, I'll turn to council members for their further comment or indeed if there are questions of staff. Council Member Treseder.

Thank you. Thank you so much for putting all this together. I really appreciate it. I think that this committee is going to be very important for providing a voice for our residents and a way to liaison easily with the Community and Library Services Commission and the staff. For the most part, I think these laws were, I think probably what a formula to wanting to discuss some changes to the day. I can, I would like, this is just a small one. Committee shall consist of no. It mentioned commissions and committee master plan.

I also have months of that before we, no, we don't.

That talking about monthly.

This commission. Master plan it's the parks master put myself out to be like maybe take this in touch of our other committees halftime issues Julie has joy materials and we need to do for a committee but Maybe a stretching of resources that that doesn't really provide the the intended role We have lots of public input channels with regard to this such as that what we've just received, you know This is the highest channel right here the seven people that are elected by the 300,000 residents of Irvine and So we can certainly have multiple calls with many of the speakers that were here tonight. I know my colleagues have as well. Just real quick, with regard to the master plan, look, I mean, I think I speak for everyone, but I strongly oppose any delay of this master plan. We have a consultant in place. We have a, you know, there's this leading library firm. I think the idea now that we would maybe put a pause on that or just sort of, put something in the current process or throw some sand in the gears with this firm that we're working with, I don't really think has a productive end and a result involved. Not saying that we don't want the public input, and I think the testimony to the fact that the seven of us spend many evenings past 12 a.m. listening to that very public input, and we'll listen to a lot more of it on additional items, you know, is... you know, is sort of the counter to the idea that we're not interested in public input or we're not interested. But the fact that we're even discussing this is basically the result of a public input, a couple of people that wanted this. So I guess, and that's sort of my answer really to, so those are my substantive questions. But I think in the end of the day, I've had a lot of conversations with my appointed commissioner who, you know, recently moved off the Community Services Commission who, when I was a commissioner, he was the chair of the commission. Kevin Trussell, and, you know, I think the concern here is we're adding more bureaucracy, and I don't want to just be an anti-bureaucracy person because government is really, really, really damn good, particularly at this level. It's actually great, and I'm proud to be part of it. But as a former chair of the Community Services Commission, now called the Community Services and Library Commission, and we could argue, you know... you know, after hours of why the library is even added because it doesn't say the community services and animal service, you know, the animal care center commission. It doesn't say the community services in the great park. It doesn't say the community services in the senior center commission. So I guess I want to know if we're going to go forward with this. And I am a current library user. My kids are current library users. We're at that library at university park every other week, at least. I wonder why we're not committing a committee for the great park. That debate used to be had 10 years ago when I was on that commission. And why are we not having a separate committee? You know, we have a really robust animal care center community. The seven of us know that. Why are we not creating a separate animal care center committee? And then are the seniors going to say at Lakeview, at Rancho, or maybe let's just say there's a group at Rancho over there near me that says, hey, we want a committee for the seniors. We already have that. And it functions the way it does. So I'm just a little concerned and given all this and the fact that I guess I have 16 seconds and I'll just not say much more on this except to say that I'd like to hear what my colleagues would say if I were to propose to put this off for six months. The idea is not that the committee goes away but that we just put it off. Because I feel like it's going to interfere with our conduct of our staff that we put in place to run a Irvine public library system. And we currently have the mechanisms in place with the commission, which is an appointed commission that we each, you know, commissioners that we appoint. That may, you know, may be sufficient while we kind of work out the library plan and work out what we're doing. You know, I hope there would be support for something like that, which is not saying that we shouldn't do it. But I am a little concerned and I am a little surprised And the surprise really comes from the fact that if you asked me a little while ago, before this all came together, that we'd have people from the Friends of the Library sending in red lines and talking about the fact that we need to pause the Irvine Master Library plan, fully intentioned. I respect everyone's view. It's just I think I'm going to have to side with the staff on this one. I think they're doing great work. I don't think it's easy. I think it's maybe the heaviest lift we've had short of the Great Park itself. And I think it's working out great. And I'm really worried about burdening them further. And that being said, I think all of us are open for all the public input we could possibly get. So those are my views, Mayor, and I'm open to any other thoughts. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Carroll, Council Member and Vice Mayor. James Mai.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Chris and Julie. A question here is when, I know we've got a time frame of October, but when can we start appointing people to the committee? What's the time frame for that?

Again, in terms of the first meeting of the committee, it's really going to depend on how quickly the seats can be filled, reach a quorum, and onboard. So without making any guarantees, I think we'd be looking at late October at the soonest. But to Councilmember Treseder's point, we would certainly try our best to get them onboarded as soon as possible.

Great. All right. Just some... Some of my thoughts on some of the things that were brought up by my colleagues here is, you know, I'm for removing the district restriction on there as well. I have on my committees and my commissions, I have people from all over the city. We have a large city of 320,000 people. I don't want to limit to one geographic area. I have people that are talented that live in the Great Park that I've appointed to committees. I have people in District 1 in Orchard as well. I mean, it just depends. I mean, if there's talented people out there, meetings as well, I think input is great. There's no reason, especially some are going to be on these. I've seen committees, and I don't think I don't want to slow it down.

Thank you, Martinez. Frank, who of you would you like to go? All right. We're not going to involve so many. I do think some of the suggestions make sense about restriction on that can always be monthly. That's a real burden. People kind of find their way by month or time. We sort of need a kind of a timeline. When do we expect to be in place and operational? these various memoranda with friends of the library and so forth, it would be helpful to me to actually see it all on a sheet of paper to get of this. I do want to make a couple of points that concern me, and I've expressed them previously. I want all this All this effort. Community Services Commission, Community and Library Services Commission. What is the official title? I sometimes transpose the words.

Community and Library Services Commission.

Okay. Okay. It occurred to me that's Cal Services Commission, isn't it? Yeah, C-A-L. Okay. I never hear anybody talking about financing. How are we going to expand that? our library system, improve it. I see a lot of, you know, people jockeying for kind of power and where the next branch might go. And I get it. That's kind of natural. But nobody talks about how this is going to be funded. And I am absolutely going to insist that the master plan include within it funding alternatives. When you go build new libraries, it's at least $1,000 a square foot. And we're talking about, for our city, hundreds of millions of dollars over time. And although there's been interest, I know, in what the Friends of the Library might do to step up its fundraising and assistance, there's been talk about creation of a foundation. In my humble opinion, that's not going to cut it. We're not going to have the library of our dreams based on a newly established foundation. unless somebody knows of an angel or angels that are prepared to come up to the plate with tens of millions of dollars right out of the gate. So that concerns me about the master plan. I just want the master plan done. I want it done right. I want everybody to be participating in a positive, constructive way in that master planning process. I don't know what this means in terms of the timing of the creation of this advisory committee versus the master plan. It sounds to me like our professional staff can work all this out on a timely schedule. A master plan, there's a lot of preliminary work that goes into the preparation of a master plan that does not require, that preliminary work does absolutely not require that the Library Advisory Committee be established and operational. So if it lags behind a few months here, I think we're gonna be all right. That's, again, my sense of it. I do think we should defer to our professional staff in most instances. Do you have any problem with any of the relatively minor suggestions that have been made, changes? If so, say so now. Does it concern you about removing the district?

As far as the district representation, no. As you know, we've done a lot of community outreach over the last couple years, and we did often hear comments about being sure that all districts are represented, but if it's the pleasure of the council to remove that, it's no problem on staff's part.

And the frequency part, if we start out and it's monthly, and they want to continue meeting monthly, I don't have a problem with that.

Do you? Well, I think that may affect the way the bylaws are written currently. But the first six months, definitely understand the necessity to have them between the onboarding and really getting that public outreach component of the master plan going is important. I would have concerns about... TIME CONSUMPTION AS FAR AS STAFF. THE OTHER PIECE OF THAT IS BEING ADVISORY TO THE COMMISSION. 30 MONTHS IS NOT A LONG TIME TO PROCESS AND BRING BACK INFORMATION THAT WE CAN STILL HAVE AMPLE TIME TO APPRISE THE COMMISSION WHILE GETTING THE WORK DONE THAT THE COMMITTEE IS LOOKING FOR US TO DO. BUT AGAIN, IF IT'S THE PLEASURE OF THE COUNCIL, WE CAN SET THAT UP.

WELL, INSTEAD OF REQUIRING A ONCE A MONTH MEETING, We went back to the original formulation of it will be once a month for the first six months or a year. And thereafter, the advisory committee itself can change how often it wants to meet. If you wrote that into the bylaws, You wouldn't have to change the bylaws then. This is kind of a drafting thing. I think, Mr. Melchin, you understand what I'm trying to do here. In other words, let's start it out one way and see how it works. And the advisory committees, they start to work together. They say, you know what? We should continue to meet once a month, or maybe we should meet every two months or whatever. All right, that was just my thought. That's it, that's it. I'm trying to figure out where we're gonna go with this tonight. Maybe I wanted to ask Council Member Treseder, do you wanna push through and make or not make these changes tonight? or do you want to continue this matter and finish it up with everything in front of us at the next council meeting? I'm just inquiring.

Yeah, thank you. I think that I'll try to push through.

All right. Then why don't we recognize you and see if you can specify a course of action here.

OK, thank you so thank you so much for all of your input. I have heard that for the most part it seems like there's majority support for removing the from the their respective district language and the City Council appointees section so that we can appoint from across the city. I also hear that the majority of the council do not want any pause to the development of the master plan and I certainly understand the rationale behind that. In lieu of that, is it possible, I'm asking the staff this, could we get, as soon as the LAC is formed and established, can we allow them to please weigh in on the outreach plan for the library and the approach for data collection, not to pause it, but just to make sure that's the first thing they get to talk about.

That would likely require a change in scope of service with the consultant. Okay.

I think if I could add in there, once that conversation happens, I mean, there is a massively robust amount of public outreach within this master plan. And we can maybe share that at a future meeting once we know the schedule more in detail. But I think certainly Council Member Treseder, as soon as we get the committee on board, we will go through that first and foremost with them. If there are any adaptations that can be made without a change in scope, we would absolutely consider those.

I don't want to have to do a change of scope with a contract we already have. But yes, please bring the data collection plan and outreach plan to this committee as soon as it's seated. I'd be grateful for that. And then I'm fine with not having any language in the ordinance about pausing the master plan. I want to follow up on Ms. Bott's question. She asked a council member to ask the staff about what they envision the role of the library committee is in advising the community and library services commission. Would they do this like at every meeting? Would they have a liaison or how would they communicate back and forth?

I think that would definitely be part of the discussion with the committee themselves. But within the bylaws, it does have part of the duties to report annually. But certainly, I think if they wanted to report more than that, that could definitely be at the pleasure of the committee as well.

Absolutely that the annual report is consistent with other committees and that's more of a goals and accomplishments So especially during the master planning process we would just the staff is doing a monthly report now We would figure that in the agenda to the Commission Okay, that that sounds great.

Thank you. I appreciate that and then in terms of the meeting frequency it seems like well But my perspective is if we have the monthly meetings in the bylaws, it's easy to cancel them. It's harder to add them. But I take the mayor's point that we could include some language in there about the meeting frequency being at the discretion of the committee. Does that sound right, Mr. Melching?

You certainly can do that. Yes.

Okay. All right. So in that case, I think I can make a motion, and I'd love to hear what people have to think about it. So I move that we follow the staff recommended actions, which is introduced for the first reading, read by title only, an ordinance of the City Council to the City of Irvine, California, adding Division 10 to Title III to the Irvine Municipal Code Establishing a Library Advisory Committee, to adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Irvine, California adopting the bylaws of the Library Advisory Committee of the City of Irvine with the following changes. One, to the membership, Section 2.1.1, Removing the phrase saying the committee shall consist of no more than 13 voting members all of which and so as an aside to Councilmember Liu I would love to hear a bit more about your concerns about that But I'll just put that in there for now. Okay, so continuing the motion revise section 2.1.1.1 to eliminate the text from their respective district and so that we could appoint from the city as a whole. Then for section 3.3.1 about the meeting frequency, to remove the text that says in February, May, August, and November, and then remove the phrase, notwithstanding the foregoing, the first six meetings of the committee shall be held monthly on the first, second Wednesday of the month, and replace that with meetings, the frequency of the meetings may be adjusted at the discretion of the committee. And that is it for my motion.

I second. Thank you.

All right, there's a motion and a second. I think at this point, Council Member Liu, you're up next.

So I want to finish some of my questions and the concerns of the proposed bylaws. If we can go to, if I can direct your attention to 2.1.1, the appointment part of that. I know that the Council Member Trusider did say no more than 13. You're including that again. Well, first of all, if we're concerned about the timing and how we complete or fill the seats of this committee, moving forward without a cap or without a Defined number will make it really hard to know when this committee is completed and that's my concern and so That's why I wanted to have a certain number. It could be 13 It could be 15 whatever number you feel like having or the original nine that we were thinking about But it has to have a certain number my other question is it says all of which shall be reside or work in the city. Irvine now has its own library system that is fully funded by Irvine taxpayers. We have property tax. So can you explain to me why the member could be appointed from people who work but not necessarily live in Irvine? I mean, it doesn't make any sense to me.

Council Member Lew, I'll take that question. That just follows the template that we've used for other committees in the city. It is certainly within the council's discretion to say that given the nature of this specific committee and the nature of the funding for libraries in Irvine, that it would be only appropriate to allow residents to be members. That's up to the majority of the council.

I believe when we appoint committee members or commissioners, we are restricted to members who live in the city.

I believe that's true for commissioners, but not for committee members.

Not for committee members, I see. But because of the funding source, I think it wouldn't be fair for anyone who works here and not lives here to be part of the committee.

I think the only caveat to that is the way that it's written. We would have a representative from Irvine Unified School District. So there could be a case that they choose an appointment that maybe doesn't live in the city, but happy to hear.

In that case, wouldn't they represent an entity that has resided in Irvine?

We, this is a problem that can be solved with the language if that's the council's pleasure. The residency requirement is based on the membership, not the member's organization. The way it's currently written, but we can write it differently if that's the council's pleasure.

I would like to see an amendment on that one. And the other thing is, how will the formation of this advisory committee align with the overall library transition timeline, including remodeling at Heritage Park, the future opening of the main library, the expiration of the lease of Katie Wheeler and University Park? And just to make sure that we have continuity to ensure that is consistent throughout the process, because what we see is that you have different people coming in and out, then policies can change and we essentially wasted time or valuable resources in changing policies.

Sure. I definitely understand the concern there. My answer to that would be the master plan process will be about 12 to 18 months. That will be essentially adopted by the city council and that will be the guiding document moving forward regardless of who's on that committee until it's updated whenever that date comes.

Okay. Well, fundamentally, while I do support having resident input on how we make a master plan. I am very uncomfortable with the current status of the bylaws as proposed because there's so many things that needed to be clarified and to be certain. And I hate to make changes on the dais or make so many changes on the dais. So I appreciate your work, but I will be very uncomfortable voting for this today.

All right. I'm just thinking of whether this could be at some point bifurcated, trifurcated, voted on in pieces. Certainly when we're talking about an ordinance, if that's in good shape, we want to get it going. The bylaws can kind of trail behind. Is that correct?

Yes, that is correct, Mayor. But if I could, I want to take an opportunity, maybe for the benefit of Council Member Trecedar as the maker of the motion, the requirement that there be 13 members to the committee also appears in the ordinance. And so if there is a desire to remove that requirement from the bylaws to facilitate a sort of an ever-growing membership of the committee when there's a new MOU with a new Friends of the Library, then a parallel change would need to be made in the ordinance.

Would you like that included in the introduction of the ordinance?

Yeah, thank you.

And the second on that, who was the second? Okay, Council Member Martinez-Franco agrees. So that will be deemed to be included in the introduction. I'm just trying to move things. Yes, go ahead.

Sorry, I just want to make sure I make the record very clear because of the formalities of doing an ordinance. In order to achieve that, in Section 2 of the ordinance, we would delete in its entirety Section 3-10-102, which is composition of the committee, and then we would change Section 3-10-103 which currently is titled appointment to say composition and appointment. And to begin with the sentence, the library advisory committee shall be composed of the following members, which shall be appointed as follows. And then the rest will remain the same.

All right. I assume the maker of the motion is comfortable with that language.

Thank you. I am.

And the second. All right. Why don't we just, push ahead with the ordinance. The ordinance alone would require modification of your motion just to simply be a reading of the ordinance with the previously stated changes.

Could you please clarify that again?

Well, the ordinance is law.

Yeah.

And the other stuff can follow later, but I'd like to get the ordinance adopted because we have to have a second reading and 30 days and so forth. And if the bylaws trailed behind a little bit in time, I don't think we're disadvantaging ourselves.

OK, for example, we could maybe bring back the bylaws at the same time that we're voting on the second reading of the ordinance.

Absolutely.

OK, that is acceptable to me.

All right. Is that acceptable? All right. So we're dealing with the ordinance only. And the motion has been clear, the motion and the second. Council Member Treseder, did you want to be recognized? No, I'm good. Okay, Council Member Liu.

So a quick question I just wanted to know. If we're bifurcating this and adopting the ordinance today and delaying the adoption of the bylaws later, would there be any issues with signing the MOU? Because there are three action items. Yes, sorry, Mr. Melching.

Councilmember Liu, no.

Okay, so will we be able to essentially adopt the ordinance and also direct staff to... My suggestion is let's stick with the motion now and then immediately following adoption of the motion,

you or somebody else can introduce a motion to approve staff recommendation number three.

We're bifurcating all of them. Okay. Thank you.

All right. I think we're prepared for a roll call vote.

Councilmember Carroll.

Yes.

Council Member Goh. Yes. Council Member Liu.

Yes.

Council Member Martinez-Franco. Yes. Council Member Treseder.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Mai.

Yes.

And Mayor Agron. Yes.

Carry 7-0. Excellent. Now, a motion would be in order to move Staff Recommendation 3. which again is authorization to negotiate and execute memoranda of understandings with the Friends of the Library groups. I can move that motion forward.

Okay, I'll second that.

That's moved by Councilmember Goh. Was it Councilmember Trecedo who seconded? Oh, I'm sorry, Councilmember Liu seconds it. Any discussion? There being none, would the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Carroll?

Yes.

Councilmember Goh? Yes. Councilmember Liu? Yes. Councilmember Martinez-Franco? Yes. Councilmember Treseder? Yes. Vice Mayor Mai? Yes. And Mayor Agrin? Yes. Carry 7-0.

All right. Two-thirds of the work is done, and we'll be bringing back the bylaws as soon as possible. All right? Well, that was easy. Okay, now what's next? Let's move on to the ranked choice voting. That would be my suggestion. I would suggest if that's agreeable to folks, because we may not get beyond that tonight. Is that understood by everyone? No objection? All right. I'm going to suggest, however, we take a 10-minute break, take a recess for 10 minutes, and we return and make sure that we're underway by 10 o'clock. All right? Thank you. We're in recess. the meeting come to order again. We are at 10.05 p.m., having been in recess, as it turns out, for 15 minutes. And I think, without objection, I'd like to just review for a moment where we are in the agenda if we were without objection to move forward with the ranked choice voting matter. I think it's a practical matter. That would be our final item of business tonight. Is it acceptable to push the others to another meeting? Everybody all right with that? All right. Let me just also mention in that connection that I had put the final measure on. which was to possibly discuss giving direction to the city attorney to prepare one or more measures for placement on the November 3rd municipal ballot. I conferred with the city attorney. I put that on kind of as a catch-all to make sure that everybody understood we were at the end of the line here in terms of putting things on the November ballot. But as it turns out, we could actually, as late as our next meeting, our next regular meeting, which is July 28th, we could consider ballot measures. If we were to approve something, it would then be on the November ballot. And in fact, the absolute drop-dead date is about August 4th, is it? Fourth or fifth?

Mayor, the county needs to receive... The city council actions, resolutions, putting an item on the ballot, plus the direct arguments, plus the city attorney impartial analysis by August 7th.

So really we'd have to get everything by way of direction would have to be done on the 28th. And then... of the council could meet again in a special meeting if needed.

Correct. As it sits right now, I don't have any direction. So there's nothing for me to write. So what would happen on the 28th is I would receive direction if any is to be given. Then there would need to be a special meeting to approve the resolutions and then sufficient time to do the direct arguments and the impartial analysis. Get all that done by the 6th so that it could be submitted to the clerk, to the, I'm sorry, the registrar, the Orange County registrar on the 7th.

I understand. I'm just laying all this out because it suggests to me it gives us a little more breathing space than we previously thought we had. Mindful of that, at this point, let's turn to item 5.7. Would the clerk please identify this item by title and subject?

Consideration of a request by Council Members Martinez-Franco, Liu, and Treseder to discuss amendments to the proposed Ranked Choice Voting Ordinance and resolutions ordering the submission to the qualified electors of the City a ballot measure related to Ranked Choice Voting elections at the General Municipal Election to be held on November 3, 2026, setting priorities for filing written arguments and providing for the filing of rebuttal arguments.

Excellent. I think this was actually placed on the agenda by way of a memo from Council Member Martinez-Franco. Am I correct in that? So I'll turn to you at this time and we'll open things up with your presentation. All right.

I thank you. I want to first thank city staff and the entire community for the extensive work and analysis they have completed on this ordinance. This request is simply to bring the Ranked Choice Voting Ordinance back in the same form so the council and the public could have more time to review the proposal language, red lines, amendments, and supporting materials. The three proposed changes will provide timely preliminary results, remove a separate county approval condition, replace a fixed dollar cap with a flexible but enforceable cost limit, I DON'T NEED ANY OTHER MODIFICATIONS, AND I APPRECIATE STAFF CONTINUED DILIGENCE AND BELIEVE BRINGING THIS ITEM BACK GAVE EVERYONE THE TIME NEEDED TO FULLY CONSIDER THE ORDINANCE AND THE PROPOSED CHANGES. SO I WILL RAPIDLY DO MY MOTION, AND IF YOU DON'T MIND PUTTING IT IN THE GYM. I would like to move to adopt the red line language of initiative ordinance number 26 as outlined in the June 24, 2026 memo for submission to the voters at the November 3, 2026 general municipal election and to establish the procedures for filing written and rebuttal arguments. Do I have a second?

I'll call for a second. Oh, hold on. I'll call for a second.

Yeah. I did.

Was that you, Council Member Trecedar?

Oh, either one.

Council Member Liu. All right. The motion has been made and seconded. And how many requests do we have?

We have 30 requests to speak.

All right. I think at this point it would make sense to limit everybody to 90 seconds. Those who recognize that their point has already been made by someone else might actually consider waiving their right to be heard. I think we would probably benefit from, well, I guess we can hear from the public first. unless council members would like to respond to what's before us initially in one quick round and then taking public comment. Let me just start things that way. Is there anyone who wishes to be heard before we hear from the public? Seeing no requests, why don't we just get started?

Thank you, Mayor. If I could call forward. Excuse me. Scott Purley, Joanne Slobodium, Jeff Stark, Pam Wyckoff, Ankur, Doug Elliott, Tai Chuang, Dwayne Meek, Michael Fusco, and Alexander R. And we'll start with Mr. Purley.

Welcome. Thank you, Council. My name is Scott Purley, a longtime resident of the city. I don't understand why we are pushing this to the voters today when the council has not even publicly, openly discussed the benefits or the claimed benefits of the proponents. Are we to assume that you accept the benefits? Voters will certainly assume that you have. As to the benefits, ranked choice voting will not and cannot ensure majority support. Nor will it prevent strategic voting. And it will actually encourage it. It will also not enhance democracy. If anything, it will be harmful. There are no real benefits to voters. 22 states have even banned ranked choice voting. Everyone knows how to vote, and we know what the term majority means in elections. If you have to eliminate or modify ballots to create a new magical majority, you're kidding yourself and the voters. You need five pages of this agenda's supporting documents, five pages to describe how it works, and most people still don't know what you're talking about. The registrar of voters cannot yet handle ranked choice voting, and you want to commit today to use it in 2028. If the voters say yes, what is the rush? Table this subject indefinitely. Thank you.

Your time is up.

Commit to further analysis and open discussion. Perhaps we'll learn why 22 states have abandoned. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Welcome.

Thank you so much. Ranked choice voting is not a harmless idea you try again. Irvine already has an election system that works. Residents understand it, trust it, and it produces clear election results. Yet you're asking taxpayers to spend $710,000 to replace that system with a new one that no one has shown we actually need. On top of that, you're asking taxpayers to spend an additional $15,000 just to put it on the ballot. During a budget deficit, that's not fiscal responsibility. We already debated ranked choice voting. This council chose not to move it forward. Now we're back debating the same proposal again, but nothing's changed except your language. Irvine's election system still works. Before spending $710,000 to replace our election system, show us evidence it's broken. If you can't identify the problem, don't spend the money. Every dollar spent implementing ranked choice voting is a dollar that can be spent on public safety, maintaining our parks and open space, repairing streets, meeting with others. If there's an election problem, it has a problem. $710,000 replacing an election system that already works. Vote no on ranked choice voting. Thank you so much.

Thank you for your comments.

Mayor, why is it necessary to vote to integrate our six race pluralities and these banned in 19 states? 0.59% of jurisdictions in the country use ranked choice voting. The federal government is considering a bill to ban it. Only special interest groups and cheaters want our CV. RCV is not practical regarding voter information, implementation, tabulating, security, and confidence. I've been to the Santa Ana voting facility, and there's hundreds of people there. And you know what our ballots look like when you get them in the mail. You see our information guides. Why are the big donors? targeting Irvine for this. All the cities in Orange County, Anaheim, Buena Park. As our council officials, you must stop this radical change of our election system. It makes it more difficult to vote, more difficult to count votes, and more difficult to trust the voting system. Ranked choice voting is wrong for Irvine's elections. Thank you.

Your time is up. Thank you. Ankur? Welcome.

Hello, council members. My name is Ankur Parikh, and I recently graduated from Woodbridge High School. I'd like to thank Council Member Martinez-Franco, Liu, and Cheseder for bringing up this item. I'm in strong support of ranked choice voting in Irvine. As the former ASB president at Woodbridge High School, we recently implemented ranked choice voting to conduct our own ASB elections. And we've been using it for two years now. And we noticed there was such a big difference in how our elections were conducted. There was a more diverse group of students who ran for a position. Elections have shifted from being so opposing to also having candidates reach out to different groups of students, trying to get their votes to the second place vote, even if they know that that group of students is not likely to vote for them first. This coalition building has led to stronger groups of ASP members being elected that better represent all students on campus, not just those friends that they know well. In Irvine, a similar thing can occur with a similar process of voting. Rank choice voting is not much more complicated than voting for a single candidate. The only difference is that in addition to one's first place vote, they can also rank other candidates. If we're able to do this with high school students, the city can certainly teach the public about this different voting system. I'm a strong supporter of ranked choice voting to make our elections in Irvine more democratic and our elected officials more representative of their constituents. Thank you.

Doug Elliott. Welcome.

Thank you, and good evening, council. I'm Doug Elliott, city commissioner, speaking only for myself. I think I have to disagree with one of the previous commenters saying that there hasn't been any showing of a problem. There's no need for this. Well, excuse me, but if you believe in democracy, the bedrock principle of democracy is majority rule. And when you can have a mayor elected by 37-point-something percent, as we have a couple of times in the past, that isn't majority rule, that's minority rule. We hear that ranked choice is complicated and confusing, but we also heard tonight what an innovative city Irvine is, full of smart, well-educated people My previous speaker here just said, as former ASB president of Woodbridge, that Woodbridge High School is using this system. Maybe if people find it complicated, we can get some of the Woodbridge graduates out here to educate the public. And, you know, I just have to say from personal experience, I voted reg choice in San Francisco 20 years ago. You do it once and it's new. Do it a second time. It's like riding a bicycle. It's not a problem. Thank you. Your time is up. Do this.

Thank you. Hi, Truong.

Hi, good evening, city council members. I'm T. Truong, serving on Transportation Commission, but speaking on behalf of myself. I'm a District 5 resident. I moved here in 2023. I'm a postdoc, so I have a PhD. I'm really educated. It still takes a lot of effort to read all the city council members' candidate statements and really know who to vote for the first time. I really like to thoughtfully know who I'm voting for. I know a lot of other people feel the same. So I want to echo previous speaker's sentiments that it will really increase democracy and participation. People will... feel more of an effort to buy in and read more about the candidates and to have more confidence that their voice will be heard. So I really support range choice voting to increase democracy and really support the voters in having their voice heard. And so I really urge you to put this on the ballot. Thank you.

Thank you. Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm Dwayne Meek, and I have lived in Irvine since 1987, in my house in Turtle Rock since 1989. And I basically am speaking tonight because since I have been involved with the Cal RCV movement, I have been out with my purple shirt talking to people in Irvine. And what I am finding is that as most people hear what ranked choice voting is, what the benefits are. We've got a really educated populace out there, and they're smart enough to deal with ranked choice voting. And when they hear what it does and the benefits, they're very, very supportive of it. And we're not asking you to make the decision. All we're asking you is to put this out to the people and ask the people, is this something you want? So I request that you do that and put the ordinance out onto the November 3rd ballot. Thank you.

Thank you for your time. Michael Fusco. Welcome.

Thank you. My name is Michael Fusco. I've been a District 5 resident for going on about two decades. And I'm here in support of Ranked Choice Voting. Most of what I wanted to say has already been said by everyone in the purple shirts. But Ranked Choice Voting is a proven system that has been adopted by cities nationwide. It's not too complicated. It's actually pretty simple. And it is a perfect way of making sure that most people get most of what they want. The ranking system is simple. You don't even need to understand how the votes are counted in order to choose your candidates. Everybody knows how to rank things. You just make your choices and trust that the people counting the votes are doing their job properly, which they do. So again, I'm here in support of ranked choice voting, and I strongly encourage you guys to vote in favor of it. Thank you.

Thank you. Alexander, and if I could also call forward Rafael Umeda, Athena Dang, Michelle Lin, Christopher A., Jubilee Yoon, Ryan L., Sanchit C., Mia Villegas, Tia Chung Swanson, and Troy. Go ahead, Alexander. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Alexander Rudenshold. I'm an Irvine resident of five years. I'm a steward with the United Auto Workers and a political researcher at UC Irvine. I'm here today in support of putting ranked choice voting on the ballot. Democracy is an ideal which drives our country and one which we should strive for at every level of government. Here in Irvine, we lead the way in so many different areas, in parks, safety, schools, and more, like we've heard about today. Letting voters decide whether to adopt RCV so that voters can self-determine their own election system would continue that tradition here in Irvine. As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary, we owe it to strive to advance the ideal of democracy in our city, just as my union fights for democracy in my workplace. Not to be content with outdated systems which prevent people from expressing their full range of opinions. Let's allow voters to determine how their elections happen and if the voters consent to be at the forefront of expanding democracy by engaging more Irvine residents in the process. City Council, I urge you to vote yes so that voters can be heard on RCV. And I believe strongly that Irvine can continue to lead the way in expanding democracy. Thank you.

Thank you, Rafael. Welcome.

Hi, my name is Rafael. I'm a graduate student in the physics department at UC Irvine. I'm also a member of the UAW. And one thing I think that's really important about RCV is that it ensures or at least incentivizes campaigns to be run in a positive issues focused manner. It de-incentivizes negative ads that candidates may use against each other so as to not alienate other people that can possibly be in a coalition that they can build to get second place, third place votes that make sure that the most amount of people in Irvine can get the most of what they want to see. So yes, thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Athena?

Good evening, Council. My name is Athena, and I've lived in Irvine for over 20 years now. To be completely frank with you all, this is my first time ever speaking at the City Council. I was too afraid to ever stand up, but there's one cause that caused me to come out today and break that 20-year silence. I come here to share my support in ranked choice voting and urge you to vote yes on this. Ranking choice voting has worked for over 30 years across the United States. And even here at home in California, Redondo Beach is one of the latest cities to adopt ranked choice voting. And so the cost is minimal, and ranked choice voting cities see higher voter turnout. especially among younger voters. I urge the council to move forward with the ranked choice voting to ensure that every vote matters. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Michelle?

Good evening, council. My name is Michelle Lin. I grew up in Irvine, and I went to the public schools here. And the reason I'm here tonight is I want you to support ranked choice voting. While I understand that the council is concerned about costs, I think about what our city would gain if our tax dollars went to fund ranked choice voting. Instead of seeing candidates attack each other, ranked choice voting encourages candidates to differentiate themselves by focusing on the issues. And nothing makes a voter disengage faster than an attack ad. And not only does ranked choice voting increase turnout, as previous speakers have mentioned, it lets voters feel more empowered and that their votes have an impact on their community. Plus, it helps to deter vote splitting or spoiler candidates which is in the interest of any person running for office. Another point to think about is Irvine should be a leader in the county, and personally, I would not like to see Huntington Beach adopt ranked choice voting before we do. Therefore, I encourage you to add ranked choice voting to the November ballot. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your comment. Christopher? Christopher?

Good evening, council. My name is Chris Frogsberg. I've lived in the city of Irvine since 2000. I want to address one particular issue that's come up a lot for criticism for ranked choice voting, and that's the claim that it's a solution in search of a problem. You know, I went back to look at the register of voter records, and we even had a mayor elected by an outright majority since 2010. That's 16 years ago. For the five cases we've had for people who have been elected via district, four of the five didn't get an outright majority. How can we have so many frequent cases where we don't get outright majorities and then claim that this is a solution in search of a problem? We're going to have cases all the time where we're going to have people that don't win outright on our city council, on our mayor seats. I mean, it's pretty clear that this is something that's going to affect outcomes. And obviously we see on the city council, we've got people that got elected with 32 or 31% of votes. The idea that, oh yeah, that's going to be the same outcome. Yeah, there's probably a couple of those where outcomes would have been different. Given that, it's very clear that this is going to change out. This is not going to be something once in 10 or 20 years. It's an important thing. And we should, as council, should vote yes on this proposal. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Jubilee. Welcome.

Good evening. My name is Jubilee Yoon, and I'm a longtime resident of Irvine. It's an honor to be addressing the council this evening. I'm especially excited to speak today in the city where I grew up, in the city where I've learned the values of America, and where I've returned to be able to practice it here. It's my first time, so I'm a little bit nervous. What I've learned about America is that we are unique in that we give opportunity for its citizens to have a voice and to participate democratically in creating a better world for us and our future children. I'm here to share my excitement for the opportunity for Irvine to lead the way in introducing Rank Choice Voting in Orange County. I'm especially excited about the way Rank Choice Voting encourages democracy. So many of my peers in Irvine are checked out of local politics because they believe that their vote would not matter. And to some degree, I find myself in that group as well. With Rank Choice Voting encouraging more issue-based campaigns, I strongly believe More individuals will come to believe that their vote will be consequential and we can expand the image of Irvine beyond just a utopia with low crime rates and manicured streets, but also as a democratic utopia. I believe this vote will send a strong message to the rest of the county and the rest of the nation on what our city believes, and I hope you might vote to reflect the values we hope to encompass as a city. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you. Brian?

Good evening. My name is Ryan Lanphier. I'm an almost four-decade resident of the city of Irvine. I live in District 1. I've also had the privilege to work with the ROV for the last three elections. So speaking in terms of somebody who's interacted with hundreds of Orange County voters, I think we're more than sophisticated enough a new system. I think the great thing about democracy is we can always do it better. And so this is a proposal to give that opportunity a chance. I think many of the people spoke about the positives of ranked choice voting, so I don't really need to go into that other than just support this initiative and at least give us a chance to Irvine City residents to look at this going forward. Thanks.

Hi, I'm Sachit. I'm a PhD student at UC Irvine, and I just want to reiterate my support for rank choice voting. I think that reducing the toxicity of politics and increasing the engagement is 100% worth any of the investment that we've mentioned before that is necessary for the rank choice voting implementation.

So I strongly support that we put that to the ballot for the voters to decide this year. Thank you.

Mia, welcome.

Hi, thank you. Hello, my name is Mia Villegas. I'm currently and have been an Irvine resident since 2021. And I also work in Irvine and I have continuously since then. I'm speaking in favor of adopting ranked choice voting in Irvine. RCV will further democratize our elections by ensuring that, to win, candidates will actually need a majority of support from Irvine voters. And it's also a long-standing tried-and-true system used not only globally, but all around our country, including several jurisdictions already in California. And as a union member and elected leader in my union statewide, I've seen rain choice voting actually used in my own union to democratically decide things such as our bargaining priorities. And that's among thousands of members across the state. And that's how we ensure that every one of my union siblings' voices are heard and their vote is heard. And I believe that we can do the same thing in Irvine. So I urge our Irvine City Council to vote rain choice voting forward so that Irvine voters can continue to use their voice on this fall's ballot. Thank you.

Thank you.

Tina.

Welcome.

Hello, good evening. My name is Tia Chung Swanson. I'm a graduate student worker at UC Irvine, Irvine resident of four years. I just similarly want to speak in support of ranked choice voting. I think a lot of us have presented a lot of really useful things that ranked choice voting can do for us. And I'm particularly interested in making our elections more democratic and giving the voters a chance to actually decide on this in November. Thank you.

Thank you. Troy, and if I could also call forward Dana B., Jenielle Rollins, Mari Fuji, Siddharth Mehta, Jeremy Ficarola, Tomas Castro, and E-Planet Thunderstriker Rift Walker.

Good evening, Council and Mayor. My name is Troy Cole. I am a resident of District 4, a senior spacecraft systems engineer, and a union member. I am here to advocate for rigged choice voting because, like people have said before, it improves our democracy. To that point, we are living through, at least in my lifetime, unprecedented times where democracy at various levels around the country has come under attack. And to Council Member Carroll's point earlier, local government is the main place where government affects the individuals' lives and has a direct impact. So I think it behooves one of the smartest cities in the county, Irvine, and to go forward and be a vanguard for democracy and be a guide for other constituencies. municipalities within the state and the country. So I advocate you to vote yes for the motion to allow the residents of Irvine to decide whether or not we want RCV. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Dana? Welcome.

Hi, my name is Dana Bagulie. I've been a resident of Irvine something on the order of seven years and a proponent of right choice voting something on the order of 20 years. And when this was first introduced, I don't know, three months ago or whatever, I remember Councilmember Carroll talking about how local government is special and really I wish I remembered the words because they were really quite special and I I'm very excited at the prospect of Irvine. Well, I'm excited to get out there and sell this to the voters. And I really would love to be given that opportunity by a yes vote by all of you now. Thank you.

Danielle, thank you. Welcome.

Hi, my name is Janielle Rollins. It's very far past my bedtime, and I hate public speaking, so I'm going to keep this short. Vote for ranked choice voting. Everyone else has already said pretty much anything I'm going to say. I cede the rest of my time. All right.

Thank you. Mari, welcome. Hi, hello again. Yes, please place this on the ballot. Don't vote no to shut it down and not allow the voters to weigh in. You've already heard many reasons why RCV is a better way and improves our democracy, but the momentum is growing in this country. Last year, as you heard, Redondo Beach became the latest California city to use RCV. Eureka! had just approved using RCV starting in 2028. Fort Collins, Colorado also is starting to use RCV for the first time last year. Voters in Skokie, Illinois just approved RCV for their local elections, joining Chicagoland cities, Evanston and Oak Park, which already use RCV. Closer to home, Huntington Beach may be another city to use RCV for their council elections. It's grown from just 10 cities in 2016 to now 50 states, counties, and cities representing 17 million Americans in this country, which is about already 10% of all registered voters in our country. Published research has shown over and over again that RCV delivering on its promise on less toxic campaigning and that candidates in RCV elections reach out to more voters Voters overwhelmingly say they like and understand RCV, with 97% of voters in last year's New York City primary saying RCV was simple and easy to use. Thank you.

Well, good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Siddharth Mehta. I am a newly Irvine resident of District 3, and I'm part of Sunrise Movement in support of Ranked Choice Voting. I think this is a great opportunity for Irvine to be a forefront for OC to be proponents of Ranked Choice Voting, especially because I caught wind that Huntington Beach is also doing Ranked Choice Voting via court order. And since we were worried that there would be upfront costs for this for Irvine, well, Huntington Beach will be paying the upfront costs first, and then it'll be less expensive for us. So I think this would be a great opportunity to push forward for rank choice voting in Irvine as we speak. And since I live in District 3, vice mayor of mine, if you vote yes on this, I will personally rank you number one on my ballot. Hopefully that's a good selling point, but I don't know what you'll vote on, but hopefully yes. So please vote yes on ring choice voting.

Thank you. Jeremy Fikarola. Welcome.

Yes. Hello, Mayor and Council. Jeremy Ficarola, Irvine resident. Again, most of what I want to say has already been said, but I support ranked choice voting, obviously. And really, for the price of five Irvine PD Cybertrucks, we could change democracy in Irvine forever. This is, I think to me, this is a no-brainer. It empowers the voters. It allows us to have control of our vote and the outcomes. So please support ranked choice voting.

Thank you. Thank you. Tomas Castro, welcome.

Good evening. Thank you for having me. I won't belabor the points that so many others have said. So I'll just say that at a time where our national democracy is falling apart, approving RCV will send a strong signal to Irvine residents that our city leaders care about protecting democracy right here. So I strongly urge you to approve this motion today. Thank you.

Thank you. E-Planet Thunderstriker Rick Walker. Welcome.

That last person, he was the smartest one because as our national democracy is falling apart. Now the first public comments, there was only 10 people, but you shortened it to two minutes. And the last time I was here, you did some funny business with the time. And what I'm wondering is if all these people know that are here tonight, that somebody was here 20 years the first time, do they know how low, how dangerously low our social trust is? That I am the cliche, the last fool person in their town. And if it goes the same rate that it's been going since the hippies, we only have about 10 years.

Thank you. Our next speaker is AK. AK, you may unmute your mic.

Thank you. Rank choice voting is not election reform. It is election manipulation dressed up as reform. It makes voting more complicated, counting less transparent, and elections more expensive, all while making it harder for ordinary voters to understand how the winner was actually chosen. And let's be clear, many Irvine residents already do not trust this council. The last thing you should be doing is pushing a more complicated election system that will create even more suspicion and more public erosion in confidence in this council. Irvine is already facing a budget deficit. This is not the time to spend more taxpayer money creating a more complicated election system that nobody is asking for. By the way, I have to disagree. This is trying to solve a problem that does not exist in this city. So let's ask ourselves, who benefits from this? This is part of the Democratic Socialists of America's Align activists and ideological groups that have promoted ranked choice voting as a tool to reshape elections and defeat moderate candidates. I have no idea why any council member would want to push for this radical idea. Reject ranked choice voting. Stop making government more complicated, more expensive, and less trusted. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Stacey Kaye. Stacey, you may unmute your mic.

Hello. Elections should be easy to understand. Mayor Agrin, you mentioned at the beginning of this meeting tonight that this council remains transparent. However, Rank Cho's voting is anti-transparency. In traditional elections, whoever gets the most votes wins. The results are easy for nearly everyone to follow without needing a tutorial. Ranked choice voting assumes voters will rank multiple candidates. However, in practice, some voters will rank only one candidate. Skip rankings, accidentally duplicate rankings, or misunderstand how rankings work. Rank choice voting requires explaining, multiple elimination rounds, vote transfers, exhausted ballots, and changing vote totals. You can audit RSVP. if you want, but the process is more complex for the average voter to follow. It will reduce accountability and delay final results by days, if not weeks more. Our last election for District 5 took about a month to count votes with traditional voting. How much longer do you think this process will take? This is also part of the DSA platform. This is a political maneuvering tactic of the DSA to strengthen and increase their standing in our city, as well as drive more division in our community. In addition, how much will this cost to put this on our ballot? We are in a $6 million shortfall. Please do not spend the money to put this...

Thank you. Your time is up. Our next speaker is Adriana Maestas. Adriana, you may unmute your mic.

Hi, this is Adriana and I serve as a community services and library commissioner, but I'm only speaking for myself. And I just want to say, let the voters decide. I think that rank choice voting is going to give us more choices. And I think that is a good thing in a democracy. So yeah, I support this. I hope to see it on the ballot and I am excited that Irvine could be innovative with our elections. Thank you.

Our next speaker is telephone number 347. 347, you may unmute your mic.

Yes, I just want to clear something up. Huntington Beach is not going to go to RCV. A Orange County Superior Court judge ruled that Huntington Beach, because they did not go to district elections, is ordering them to use RCV. They are fighting that, and they will keep fighting it. So to say that they're using it and lying like that is just ridiculous. And people who don't vote for RCV are not stupid, okay? And I hate that you people have to start doing that. And, you know, you can't be fair when you want to argue your point. First of all, I haven't heard anything positive about it yet. You can use all these word salad words, but I don't know what they mean. But also... Only seven out of 482 cities in California use RCD. What does that tell you? Oh, we have seven cities in California that are smart and the rest are all dumb? I mean, come on, people. This is just crazy. Our elections are already being manipulated. We don't need RCD to further manipulate them. Thank you.

Our next speaker is telephone number 071. 071, you may unmute your mic.

At the last meeting, it was clear that the city council agreed that if the costs were over a hard cap of about $700,000, no ranked choice voting. That is still a lot of taxpayer money. But anyways, at least there was a cap. Well, that vanished. It is a moving percentage of the entire budget of the city. We see you council members. And then, goodness, at that last... You said if it was over $700,000, no ranked choice voting. What happened, Kathleen? What happened, Betty? What happened, Melinda? Tell us. Only can a super majority of the city council stop it. This is set up to trick voters in November. It is a scam set up by the radical left. We see you. You have not fooled us. It is self-serving and unethical. You are all running for re-election and buying special interest support. I demand each of you, each state, that ranked choice voting is the right for senior citizens and people whose first language isn't English. State, this is a good use of taxpayer dollars while you are screened. We're in a budget crisis. Watch while John Park and former mayor use this in District 1 and Mr. Byron and Mr. Anthony in District 5. Ha ha. Thank you.

Our next speaker is telephone number 258. 258, you may unmute your mic.

Good evening, mayor and council members. This is Manesh. I'm speaking against ranked choice voting. And honestly, this whole thing is getting a little too obvious. This idea has been pushed very hard by a small group of local Democrats. Somehow, that small group seems to have an enormous amount of influence over four members of this council who are running for re-election. Could it have to do with the endorsements? So now, right before campaign season, We are to believe this is some urgent civic reform. Come on. We have real problems to face. This looks less like public improvement and more like political favors trading. And who pays for it? The taxpayers do. The city would have to spend money explaining a new system, changing how ballots work, changing how votes are counted. And then telling seniors and every other voter, don't worry, it's easy, when it clearly is not as easy as voting for one person and counting the votes. Irvine does not need a confusing new voting system just because a small political group wants it and certain council members want their support. Please stop this before taxpayers get stuck paying for it. And before you confuse voters even more to vote for it. Thank you.

Our next speaker is telephone number 971. 971, you may unmute your mic.

Good evening. This is Jess, 34-year resident. I'm speaking against ranked choice voting. My first concern is taxpayer cost. We're talking about changing a voting system that already works. People vote. The votes are counted. Top vote getter wins. That is simple, familiar, and understandable. So before the city spends money on new systems, new voter education, new outreach, new ballot instructions, and all the staff time that goes with it, residents deserve a basic answer. What problem are we actually solving? Because from where I sit, this feels like a costly solution looking for a problem. What is the real reason to put this on the ballot? Whose bidding are you doing? And the people most likely to be hurt by this are not political insiders. It's people like me, seniors, newer voters, busy parents, and people who just want to cast a clear ballot without needing a college textbook.

This just isn't fair, you guys.

With ranked choice voting, voters have to understand second choices, third choices, and a new set of rules. This is not a pothole. This is not public safety. This is not parks maintenance. This is an expensive election experiment. Please keep Irvine elections simple, clear, and accountable. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Tiffany. Tiffany, you may unmute your mic.

Hi. Good evening, Council. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for bringing this back for further discussion and making these meetings accessible. I'm just calling in support of ranked choice voting. I'd like to just say as a reminder, life is not just full of binary choices. We have to make a lot of decisions and prioritize as adults. I think we're a very smart city capable of considering more than just two options at a time. And I think there's a lot of value in ranked choice voting that requires us to actually look at more than just one candidate with a letter of R or D At the end of it, I think that would be more collaborative for our communities. I know talking about this with my neighbors, they've seemed very supportive of being able to find candidates they actually really believed in. And then I keep hearing a lot of folks saying it's too difficult, it's too expensive, it's a plot. But there has always been this resistance to enfranchising people in this country. And I think it's very patriotic to continue to make voting more equitable and accessible for our community and our residents. I mean, at one point they said even letting ladies vote would be too complicated and EXPENSIVE AND WE MIGHT OWN LAND AND OH MY GOODNESS, YOU KNOW. SO I WOULD HOPE THAT WE DON'T USE FEAR MONGERING AS A REASON TO STOP MOVING FORWARD AND MAKING PROGRESS. SO THANK YOU SO MUCH AGAIN. HAVE A GOOD EVENING.

OUR NEXT SPEAKER IS RYAN DACK. RYAN, YOU MAY UNMUTE YOUR MIC.

GOOD EVENING, COUNCIL. MY NAME IS RYAN DACK. I SERVE AS THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE SOUTH ORANGE COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT. and am an Irvine resident. I am here tonight, of course, speaking only for myself. Before I get into RCV stuff, I really hope you guys consider a policy on AI. Collins, it's kind of getting ridiculous. I just want to say the city will have to stop calling itself the city of innovation if Huntington Beach gets ranked choice voting first. And we can't even let the voters decide if we wanted to. So I highly implore all council members to vote yes on this item. Each of you knows we are better than Huntington Beach. Do not let them lap Irvine. Vote yes on this item and hold up the idea that Irvine is, in fact, the city of innovation. Thank you.

Our next speaker is telephone number 585. 585, you may unmute your mic. 585, can you hear us? Here, we'll try one more time. It looks like they did.

Hold on one second.

Okay, 585, do you want to try again? There's no response, Mayor, and that's the last speaker. All right.

Thank you. Thank you to all the speakers, all the commenters. We appreciate your participation. With that, I see several of my council colleagues wish to be heard. Let me call on, let's take one round here. I'll call on Council Member Martinez-Franco first, followed by Vice Mayor Mai.

Thank you so much. And thank you everybody for coming and giving us their comments. I was made aware that I forgot to include a couple of things in the motion. So can I redo this motion? Is there a process that I need to do to redo the motion, Mr. Melchin?

Thank you, Council Member Martinez-Franco for bringing that up. I understood your motion to be. the four recommended actions that are listed under items 5.7. With recommended action one being a resolution, And the attachment to recommended action one was an ordinance, and that's the redlined ordinance that you're referring to. So I think your motion was to adopt all four recommended actions, but use the redlined ordinance as the attachment to recommended action one.

Yes. But we also need to approve the budget, right?

Yeah, that's the fourth recommended action.

And it's included in this? No.

Yeah, I think I'm just trying to restate your motion for you. Your motion is the four recommended actions that are on the agenda, which are the three resolutions plus the budget adjustment, except for the attachment to recommended action one is the red line that was in the packet.

Okay, so I don't need to modify it?

Yeah.

Okay, perfect.

And you need Councilmember Liu to agree that that's the motion.

All right. Councilmember, Vice Mayor, James Mai.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, everyone, for coming out here. It's great to see civic engagement like this. I wish I had crowds like this in support of my stuff that I like. But thanks for coming out here, and thanks for voicing your opinions. I'm not going to try to convince anyone about the merits of this or my opinions on it, against it, for it. I mean, I'm not going to convince anyone here in a purple shirt. I'm not going to convince the people that put this forward here. We've already talked about that last meetings. We've talked about it. You've talked about it. We've talked about it already. And for me, it's more of a practical matter, and it's about cost, too. I mean, the way I look at it here, again, I'm not talking about the merit of this. I'm talking about... You know, for example, when I go buy a car or something, I go to a car dealership, I don't go there and say, I love this car. I'm going to put a down payment, I'm going to make a commitment and sign to buy this thing, but I don't know the exact cost on it yet. But I'll be back, I got a commitment on it, and if it doesn't reach a certain amount, then I'll buy it. That's not practical. You know, I want to know exactly how much it'll cost. I want... the ROV to tell me how much it's going to cost, how much it's going to cost the city, how much the city is going to have to invest to make the changes here and throughout the county. And then there's a price tag. You know, I don't think that's a big problem to ask people for some time to get the price tag and then get it to the voters if you want to, but get them the factual information, not just a guesstimate. You know, I don't believe that things should work that way. I think that we need to identify the cost, and then we make a movement on that, regardless of if we like it or not. We make a decision based on cost, and we should do that. So, you know, I'll be against this, but that's my main concern here is cost. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Mai, Council Member Treseder, and then Council Member Liu.

Thank you. I really appreciate everybody coming out and staying so late. There's a lot of commitment here, a lot of energy, and I'm so glad for it. I just want to, I've talked in past meetings about why I support Make Chose Footing so much, but just to reiterate, in this city, I can tell you in the elections in this city, people do use spoiler candidates to try to come in and shave votes off somebody they think might win. So just to give you an example, let's say you're running for office and you think you have an opponent and you think they might beat you by maybe three percentage points. You have a couple of choices. You can campaign, tell people about the merits of your case, be positive. That's one choice. Try to say, I should be elected over this person. You have another choice, and that is you can run spoiler candidates. So you recruit somebody who you think they're going to peel votes off your opponent, and you get them in the race, and they don't need to do really well. They just need to get enough votes to remove that. And I can tell you, it happens here in this city, and it affects our election outcomes. And I am confident that if we have ranked choice voting, that it's going to improve the voice of the voters and have better outcomes. I think it will remove this tactic, which is being used by special interests and others, like as a rule. I do hear the folks who are saying that they're concerned that ranked choice voting might allow fringe candidates to come in who are maybe more extreme than would be normally elected under a conventional system. I have looked at the studies and the data for that, and I just don't find support for that. assertion in general when you have ranked choice voting coming in the candidates who are elected become more moderate and or better reflective of the overall composition of the voters. So I just can't find evidence for that. And I think that the benefits of ranked choice voting are so strong, I think in this particular city especially, that I'm willing to support that. And again, I just don't find strong evidence for the assertion that we would get more fringe candidates elected.

All right, thank you.

Thank you. I want to start by saying that yes we are concerned about cost as well and yes we did put a cap on that and yes it went from a set number to a percentage which works out to be the same number so That to me is essentially still the cap. And the fact that there is a safety belt put in that if it's too costly, we can vote to stop the implementation. And so that still puts the decision on this council's hand to say, you know what, it is too expensive. We just can't afford it. We're gonna have to be fiscally responsible. So I want everyone to know that that is, that is already built in. And that's a real concern. Having said that, I mean, is this the best way to, you know, we don't know. I mean, I don't want perfection to be the reason we stop any progress or any change. So I feel like this is something that will fundamentally change the way Irvine residents choose their representative, and the decision to adopt it belongs to the voters. And so I support having this on the ballot to have Irvine residents have that voice if they think this is the best way that they think will represent their voice on the council. So be it. My personal opinion, honestly, doesn't matter at that point because it is up to the voters, up to the residents in Irvine, to pick the way that they want to choose their representation. So I do think this should go to the voters and have them have that voice. And then they can evaluate it, take the time to actually study it, to learn what it's about. And if at the end of the day they choose to adopt it, then they will vote for it. If at the end of the day they feel like this is still questionable, then they won't. But it is their choice and not ours on the dais. So that's why I'm supporting having this on the ballot. And that's all I have to say for today.

Thank you, Council Member Wood. Council Member Carroll.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I just also want to say thank you for everyone coming out. I really appreciate what everyone had to say, really, on both sides. And Purple Shirters, congratulations. I think you're my favorite group that I can't support. It's absolutely 100% official. I really appreciate it. I've had dialogue with a number of you and some of you are my friends. And like Vice Mayor Mai, I disagree on the... the merits of the thing in good faith. And I think that we all kind of agree in the room that my personal one since AP government in high school was learning that or really questioning with my class why Election Day is not a national holiday, which is a national disgrace. I would truly put everything, and you're all willing to, you know, you're welcome to hold me to it so long as I shall be a public official in some capacity anywhere. I would call that the triumph of a career to change that because it's a joke in our amazing nation, especially, and I'm going to call it that, on our 250th year. It's an absolute joke. I... Would also agree, too, with Councilmember Liu with regard to, you know, if it is going to be put before the voters that we have some kind of baseline understanding. It gets into the situation where some of the details, at least the way I understand it, you know, are kind of going to be hard for a low information mid- Everybody in this room understands these words that I'm saying, and that's the good thing. But the bad thing is everybody outside of this room doesn't understand when I say low information off your midterm voter. We all know that. We're all into this, right? That's why we're here. It's 1110, and we're all here. But the other 140 or so thousand registered voters don't know what a low information midterm voter is, but they're going to be one, you guys. And is it really fair when we have this thing that says it's going to be a percentage of the balance sheet of the city of Irvine because Mike Carroll said, hey, there's a staff report, and then asks his colleagues, can we just say that that's what it'll be? It'll be $700 and whatever it was, $11,000. And the colleagues say, OK, yeah, that's good. And then Mike Carroll says, and if it's over that, we're not going to do it, OK? Because this is cost. And I respect that some of you guys may have this view that there's no price for the democracy of changing it to that. We can concede that. I'm just saying, for me, it's a cost issue on this point. And the answer comes back, OK, sure, if it's not greater than that, if it comes out back greater than that, then we won't do it. But then the problem was the goalposts got moved. The red line, the changes, you know, you know, become something different than that. It becomes this percentage of the budget. And then what's worse is the safety valve thing. And I just want to turn to our city attorney. I apologize. I'm putting on the spot real quick, but it's not just a simple majority. It's got this sort of thing that, again, you guys, everyone in this room could disagree, but I know in my heart of hearts, voters aren't going to understand worth a darn the safety valve. But When it turns out to be more than 2% of the budget or whatever that footed number, that is, the calc, what is the ability to stop the implementation based on, let's say, ROV coming, Bob Page coming back and telling Carl Peterson that it's 2.7 million, just for a fun example.

In that instance, assuming that $2.7 million is more than 23 one-hundredths of a percent of the city's general fund budget, it will require a two-thirds vote of the city council to not transition.

Why is it not a simple majority?

You can just answer factually. Because the text says so.

Exactly. So look, it's a super majority vote that makes it kind of difficult. I understand the advocates want to lock it in. You guys have really good lawyers. I'm a good lawyer. We're all good at this. I write red lines for a living. I can read them pretty well. So it's all kind of set up that way. So the sad part is, I mean, unless everybody here is going to agree that we're going to put that in bold in a way that Mr. Melching can write it so that a voter can actually see it, I still have a concern with that because, you know, we're talking about low-information midterm voters. Granted, we're a very intelligent city. We're going to have 80% turnout. I get it. But this is the last race anyone's going to be thinking about because they're going to be more concerned with governor, and they're going to be more concerned, you know, ostensibly with, you know, Congress and state assembly and stuff like that, you know, and judges. And maybe, you know, I think we're probably last or close to last on the ballot. I don't know. So I am concerned about that override thing. I think it's probably fair that we say that if there's a cost, which was kind of the understanding I think we all left with at the last time we really talked about this, there's a cost. And then if it's higher than that cost, then we just kind of go back to the drawing board. That's just my two cents. But thanks for listening. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you. Council Member Liu, before I call on you, I'm gonna ask a few questions. Let me just say, generally speaking, I'm intrigued by and supportive of ranked choice voting being adopted in various settings. Within the Democratic Party, it's favored. within the local clubs and so forth. I've been in one or two other settings where it's been used. And after doing it about four or five or six times, I got comfortable with it. I see its advantages under certain circumstances. It would have been great if we had ranked choice voting in the gubernatorial race, the last one. I would have loved to have kind of ranked... I would have loved to have been able to rank among the 62, the top five or whatever. But that was kind of a special case. This is a big deal. If this were adopted by the voters, there'd be a lot of blowback. I just know there would be. And that would lessen probably over time as people got more comfortable with it. San Francisco, if memory serves me correctly, moved from a standard runoff election. They used to have their elections for supervisor and mayor in November. And then the top two would be a runoff in December. And they moved, I guess, a decade or more ago to ranked choice voting. And that's great. It seems to work for them. That's great. We just got finished with transitioning to district elections. We did that very carefully over a period of a couple of years. That won't be a completed transition until this election is conducted. We brought in experts to help us, drawing of lines and so forth. And I'm glad we did that. We would have otherwise been sued like Santa Monica got sued, cost them 10 or $20 million by the time they finally had to cave. And by the way, it's costing Huntington Beach now because they're opposed to the California Voting Rights Act, which basically mandates district elections for larger cities. In any case, I like the idea of ranked choice voting. It's not the only way of electing folks. I've been thinking about this issue a lot. We actually have runoff elections in our supervisorial race. We're in the midst of an election in Irvine for supervisor, Katrina Foley versus Diane Dixon. And, The primary will now lead to the runoff. And for the most part, that seems to work for them. That'll get them to a majority. If you're in a top two election, you get to a majority. And yet, I wonder, would it have been different if it were countywide? They both had about 47%, and there was a 6% candidate in there with whom I'm totally unfamiliar. Would a ranked choice voting, would it have changed the result? Would there have been somebody who got to 50% plus one? I don't know. I've looked, by the way, at previous Irvine elections, and yes, because so many candidates tend to run in Irvine races, there are many instances where When the votes are counted, the winner gets 35%, 38%, 42%. I've been over 50% a couple of times, several times, other times under. I look at those, and it's just speculation on my part. Would it have been different if it had been ranked choice voting? I doubt it. In most cases, I doubt it. And again, this is all speculation. This is all part of the experiment. The trouble I have with this, to make a choice this consequential two years in advance of when it would be put into effect and without having fundamental information that we could gain over the next six months to a year and then have a vote as late as March, which would be the presidential primary election also here in the state of California, why not get that information and have the election then? We would actually know much more about the cost. We'd know more about the technical issues. And we would know more about how all this could successfully be implemented. And the voters in the city of Irvine would know a lot more as well. I've also thought of the idea, since we have plenty of time here, I've thought of the idea of really hearing from the voters. by putting an advisory measure on this November. Explain what ranked choice voting is and ask people what they think of it. Wouldn't be binding. And I don't know what the outcome would be. I certainly would be much more comfortable moving forward with ranked choice voting knowing that there's a majority constituency out there for it. So this is the status of my thinking. I definitely don't want this put in front of the voters now. This provision on cost, by the way, cost is not the biggest thing to me. If I knew we had a totally bulletproof way of implementing this, but it costs more than the existing system, and the voters approved it, I'd be for it. But this is disingenuous. I gotta say, Councilmember Carroll, you were very gentle on the matter of the cost. I sat here at our previous meeting, and Councilmember Carroll asked Councilmember Trecedar, with that $710,000, Would that be a hard cap? And the answer was yes. So then it comes back and it's now gonna be a moving percentage, which wouldn't change the number that much. It'll go from 710 to under the percentage basis as our population grows and so forth. So maybe it'd be 750,000. The problem is implementing this may cost $2 million or more. I've spoken to people in the Registrar of Voters Office, people who are experienced in their systems and changing systems. By the way, we have been so fortunate in this county. We have had just an outstanding Registrar of Voters All the years that I've been here, all the elections, I can't think of one screw up of any consequence at all. I mean, that's amazing when you really think about it. So the system as it exists now is working. Moving to a new system, can we do that technically? And at what cost? And this is all speculation, but I'm almost certain you can't do it for $700,000. We can't even hold a simple special election in Irvine for $700,000. But to change all the technology and the ballot and everything associated with it, especially when we're first in, nobody else is in. I've been told would cost millions. We don't know, but let's find out. Let's find out. The way this provision is written, this is just disingenuous. It's so unfair. Those who are concerned about cost, that's a legitimate concern. That hard cap, became not only a soft cap, it became no cap at all. If the costs came back and it's 2 million bucks, we're stuck with it. We gotta go ahead. Unless two thirds of the then sitting city council defers it. Really? Get a super majority? as a way of locking in these costs. And by the way, once you lock it in, you're on your way for good every election. And this is complicated legislation. I used to be legal counsel for a California Senate Health and Welfare Committee. I analyzed legislation. I occasionally drew up legislation. As lawyers, I think we understand, and other people understand as well, just how careful you have to be with words. Because when you put something on the ballot and it's passed, you are stuck with those words. You are stuck with them. You can't amend that unless you provide within here a mechanism to amend it. Am I right about that, Mr. Melching?

You are in the context of this? Of this. Yes.

Yes. Correct. So this is really important business, and I think we would be so foolish not to take our time here recognizing that for the 28th election, we could put this on in whatever revised form to clean it up and make sure it's bulletproof. We could have voter approval in March of 2028 and it would be operational in November of 2028. Meanwhile, I'd like to know what the voters think about ranked choice voting. And I would think those who are strong proponents would want to seize the opportunity this election season to use an advisory ballot measure to explain it and lay out its positives and ask people if they would like the council to put on a binding measure later on. That's where I am in this. Several people said the rush, what's the rush? And forgive me, my colleagues, but I'm just gonna accumulate my time here and just finish my remarks, if you don't mind. What is the rush? I think it's a political calculation. Let's jam it through when we can. And I just think that's not fair to the voters. It's not fair to ourselves. Do the hard work of educating people, winning an advisory vote. Incidentally, if it lost in the advisory vote, it doesn't mean you can't put it up for a vote after that. The election might wind up being 51-49. Who knows? Let me say something else, and I appreciated all the comments. One gentleman, however, said, with ranked choice voting, the voters don't need to know how the votes are counted. I understood what he was saying. But think about that for a second. Don't we want the voters to know how the votes are counted? Oh, it's done pursuant to some algorithm. Really? How do we know whether it was accurate, whether it was correct? If there's a system in this environment with this rotten national administration that we have, they are working every day to undermine confidence in elections, in election results. And if people don't know how the votes are counted, that just feeds into that nonsense. So I would implore the proponents to consider not rushing this through, not putting it on the ballot, but taking a little time here working on this, maybe focusing on doing an advisory measure or not, but think about getting it on the ballot no later than March of 2028. I just think that's a better formula for moving forward. I also asked some questions, some technical questions I mean, think about this for a second. How would this work? On election night, those of us who are political junkies, and on election night, we can't wait to get that first cut of votes, and then the second cut, and the third cut. With ranked choice voting, as I understand it, you can get the first round of voting election night. But after that, because you're going to be knocking people off the ballot, after that, you have to wait until every single vote has come in. Provisional ballots have been certified as permissible and to be counted. Those who failed to sign their mail-in and need a ballot to be cured. All that takes two or three weeks. Actually, I think by the time they do the curing of ballots, it's three weeks. And you won't get any results beyond that first cut on election night. Well, then you come up and explain it to me. You come up and explain it to me, how it gets counted. How you can proceed counting while you still don't have all the ballots in. How do you get an accurate count then as to who came in last? Yeah, sure, come on forward.

Thank you, Mayor, for that question. The system would work no different than what we have currently. At every round, essentially, you run the ballots and you see who is coming ahead. Those results can be updated as each round is completed. It's no different than what we have right now.

How can you do that if a If there's a ballot that has come in, if there's been a mail-in ballot, or there's been some question at the polls and it's a provisional ballot that has to be checked for signatures or this or that, how can you conduct round two?

How would you conduct round two with provisional votes now? It is no different than the system we currently have. The only difference is that you have different rankings that come in, and those rankings essentially dictate what that round looks like.

But the rankings might change based on when you open an envelope.

Subsequently, the rankings would be changing. Essentially, the tallying takes place again with what you have accumulated so far. It's not a matter of elimination of the previous ballots. So you're still, you continue to accumulate the ballots and you continue to go through the rounds of ranking as each round comes in. So even if there are certain candidates that previous rounds, they may have slipped further down or up as a result of new ballots that are coming in and recounting of the original ballots, they can continue to move up and down on their ranking.

But I thought you'd take the person who's last on the ballot, and take their votes and reallocate them.

The vote gets transferred to their second or third choices depending on the round, correct? But those, so we're talking about two different things. So there's essentially at each preliminary votes that are, vote counts that are coming in. So that process that you're referring to takes place at that point, certainly. But then as subsequent ballots come in, as late ballots come in, they will continue to get counted, and the previous ones would go through the same process yet again to ensure that any elimination that's taking place and the transfer of votes is properly counted for the subsequent candidates.

If I'm a... If I'm a candidate, and I'm running pretty poorly... Sure. But... we've got a great vote harvest effort afoot to collect all these things at the end. And those last ones that come in that are not opened yet, if they're not counted, and as a result, I'm knocked off the ballot for subsequent rounds.

No, that's what I'm trying to explain. That's not correct. You're not, oh. I think he's not understanding. Yeah, so one thing that should be clear is that each round of counting that takes place essentially isn't final. I think that's maybe the misunderstanding here. So because we're going through a round, similar to, for example, what happens with our current system where the certification isn't final until all the votes have come in and they've been counted. So then you're going to redo it. Exactly. You simply redo the process to ensure that you have the proper counting and transfer of votes for all voters and their voices are properly heard. And this is all done by computer? This is all done by computer the same way that it is now. However, if there's a need for a recount, that's also doable. There's been recounts that have been done in Australia for over 100 years when there were no computers and it was simply a matter of going through paper ballots. So there isn't an issue with recount, with any audits of the votes. None of that is a problem. And in fact, since we have history of this information of how it's been done, the quarks have been worked out over those 100 years of implementation in Australia or in Ireland. And they've also been worked out in California since they've been implemented for over 30 years in California as well.

All right. Well, I'll... for the moment take your word for it. I would love to see it explained to me in greater detail so I understand it better. My argument, though, still is what's the rush? Do this right. Do an advisory vote. use that as an opportunity to educate the entire city as to this possibility. I'd ask you to consider that. Originally there was going to be no vote at all, which I think would have been not well received by the voters of the city of Irvine. I'm glad though that there was agreement that no, we should move to a ballot measure And we have plenty of time to do that for 28. So I was... Order this November. What's that?

Order this November.

Well, we can't... You don't actually think this would be... implemented this November.

No, not implemented. But if there's any concern with regard to certification or what the ROV will go through, the system that's actually in place, the HART InterCivic is the same system that's actually being used in Redondo Beach. It's already been certified once by the state. The changes that are being implemented by HART will most likely get recertified because their system has already been certified for RCV by the state for at least one city. It's actually used in other cities as well. I believe it's Albany that also uses HART system. So there should be no issue really with the changes that are being implemented by HART, nor by the implementation getting certified by the SOS in order for it to be implemented for use in the elections by November of 2028 in the city of Irvine, as well as in Huntington Beach.

Thank you for your comments.

My pleasure. We're here to serve. However, we can answer questions. We're happy to do it. Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

Thank you. I'll turn to my colleagues now. Councilmember Liu, followed by Councilmember Treseder, followed by Councilmember Mai.

I guess this is a question for Carl. How much is our current cost for running an election?

Our last election was around $340,000. And I'm talking about the general, not the special D5 one that we had. That was different. It's estimated that our next one is going to cost maybe upwards of about $400,000 or so. $400,000?

Correct.

Yeah.

Yeah. OK. So this is a bit more than that.

I would imagine it would be based on the data I collected. But again, the Registrar's Office could not even give me a preliminary estimate because they don't know.

I see. Well, in any case, I feel like this is an important choice, and so it really deserves public debate. And the fact that we're debating with activists and just the seven of us on the dais, I don't think it's fair to... the rest of the city. So I would think it would be better for us to have it out there and have people debate about that. I mean, our regular residents don't come to the meetings, let's be honest. So I feel like that if we put that on the ballot, it will encourage more debate out in the open with general public. And maybe that will be a better way for them to learn a little more about this.

Thank you, Council Member Wu. Council Member Treseder, then Council Member Mai.

Thank you. Yeah, first of all, I just want to say that I want to apologize to the people here for how you've been treated just now. I don't like it when council members berate the public who've come in here to speak. It's not OK. I also just want to follow up on a couple of the mayor's comments to get a better understanding of what he was trying to say. So he mentioned that this is disingenuous and that it's a political calculation. And I just want to hear more about that. How is this a political calculation, and who is making that, and who is being disingenuous? Through the chair.

Council Member Mai.

Oh, no, I'm sorry. My apologies. I still have more time.

Oh, go ahead.

Okay, so it looks like we're not going to hear about that. There's some sort of... accusation out there that somebody's doing something that we shouldn't be doing. When in reality, this is a grassroots effort. These are people who are residents of the city, well-educated about this issue, have worked together to ask for it. This is the best of government. This is what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to listen to the voters and bring the conversation into the council. We're taking it even a step further by asking to put it on the ballot. So we're asking the voters what they want. They'll have plenty of time to discuss it and learn about it before they vote. I guess I just don't understand where these accusations are coming from. I am guessing that I will find out in the next issue of the mayor's newspaper. We'll find out what he's saying is the political calculation. I guess it's me. Somehow it's always me. But in reality, it is the folks here. And so we're listening to them. They are taking the lead. The changes that we have asked for to this text has come from them. They put the thought into it. They put the time into it. And I think that they deserve to be treated with more respect here than they have. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. And I'm going to look at this from a lens of non-politician. This is my first time in office here. I didn't really trust government that much before coming into office. One of the terms that I've heard before in the past, or one of the sayings was, I'm with the government, and I'm here to help. I always remembered that. And I don't have a lot of trust in a lot of things. I don't have a lot of trust. I really appreciated the words that you talked about when you were educating us on the process. You know the system. You know what you're talking about. And I appreciate that, but I'm going to have a hard time telling my 90-year-old neighbor Explaining it and having you explain to that every single 90 year old person or every single person that has a question They're gonna have to go through that education process. Also, I think that's gonna be a challenge. I'm just making a comment It's not not an attack. I'm just making a comment. It's gonna be difficult for a lot of people new voters elderly people people are just in general that are distrusting of the system already this is going to add another layer on to that and And I think, again, the cost is the main thing. Adding on to that is that we can't undo it. I mean, if it's 1.5 million, if it's 2 million, if it's 3 million, we don't know. We're just guesstimating how much it's going to cost. The ROV... I mean, everyone has tried. I've tried to contact them and ask them how much this is going to cost. They have not given us a cost. I've asked staff. I've asked Carl, how much is it going to cost? We don't have an answer for that. We don't even have, we can't guesstimate because it's not fair to guess. um we don't know how much this is going to cost and we aren't going to be able to undo it without a super majority that is that is scary i wouldn't want to put anything uh forward that i wanted and said that hey you know let's get this let's jam this through and no matter what the cost is no matter what it's going to be i think that's a big problem i don't see why there's such a big rush into this right now If it has merit and if people want it, they will have it. We don't need to really just really rush into this and get it done right away. I don't see why it's such a rush, but we'll see how the vote goes here. Hope we can get there before midnight.

Thank you, Council Member Mai. Council Member Martinez-Franco.