City Council - Regular Meeting

Would the meeting please come to order once again? The time is 5.05 p.m. The council having returned from closed session, I'll now turn to the city attorney and ask him to report on any reportable action.

Thank you, Mayor. On item 1.1, there was no reportable action this afternoon.

Thank you. That takes us now to the Pledge of Allegiance. Those who are able in a moment, I would ask them to rise and remain standing for the invocation, because I think we have, do we have the national anthem as part of that?

We don't, Mayor.

Then they don't have to remain standing. But I would at this time ask folks who are able to rise for the Pledge of Allegiance, which will be led tonight by Councilmember William Goh.

Ready? Face the flag. Begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Please be seated. Tonight's invocation will be in the form of a musical presentation. So at this time, it's my pleasure to introduce and call forward Naomi Gesk, an Irvine resident and recent graduate of University High School. Naomi has earned numerous awards as a soloist and chamber musician, including the 2026 Orange County Artist of the Year, Instrumental Music Division, and first prize at the American Harp Society National Solo Harp Competition, Intermediate Division I. Throughout the years, she has performed a wide range of styles, from classical works by Bach to favorites by the Beatles. She also founded the IUSD Harp Ensemble, a student-led group of harpists at all levels. Naomi will be continuing her education at UCLA this fall. And as part of tonight's invocation, she'll be performing American Medley, which is America and America the Beautiful. arranged for harp by Sylvia Woods. And that will be followed by Up, the theme from Disney Pixar's animated movie Up by Michael Giacchino. Please join us in welcoming Naomi Gesk.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. piano plays softly

Hold on here. Thank you so much. I'm going to ask my colleagues to join me. We're going to take a photograph with you, Baskin, your glory. And we have a little presentation to make as well. All right? Hold on. Thank you. We had some technical difficulties earlier, but now that they're worked out, I want to take this opportunity to, on behalf of the whole council, present a certificate of recognition signed by all of us, presented to Naomi Gesk. And I'm going to read it. There we go. It says, on behalf of the city of Irvine, we proudly recognize Naomi Gesk for her exceptional music talent and outstanding contributions to the arts. As a senior at University High School, Naomi was named the 2026 Orange County Register Artist of the Year for Instrumental Music, honoring her remarkable artistry and dedication. In addition to her achievements as a harpist, she has demonstrated inspiring leadership by directing the IUSD Harp Ensemble and sharing her passion for music with fellow students. The City of Irvine congratulates Naomi on her accomplishments and thanks her for enriching our community through her extraordinary talent. Thank you so much, and your musical talent is just beautiful. It's wonderful. So let me give this to you. If you want to make a speech, this is your chance. No? Well, we wish you all the best as you go to UCLA and beyond. Thank you so much. I'm going to give this back.

Thank you.

Thank you again. for that wonderful, uplifting musical presentation. Earlier today, city manager Sean Crumby asked that his city manager's report tonight be moved up so that Chief of Police Michael Kent could be recognized to briefly report on a tragic event in our community. Midday last Tuesday, July 22nd, Irvine police were called to help deal with a young man who was apparently experiencing a mental crisis. He was outdoors, armed with a knife, and appeared to present a danger to himself and others. Every year, many hundreds of calls like this come to our police department. Our highly trained police officers and associated personnel, while exhibiting great compassion and professionalism, managed to de-escalate and resolve these situations without resorting to force, and certainly without resorting to lethal force. That was not the case last Tuesday. when extensive efforts to deescalate culminated in an officer-involved shooting, resulting in the death of 20-year-old Daniel Melved, an Irvine resident in the Turtle Rock area. City of Irvine Police Chief Michael Kent will now provide more details and describe the steps ahead. as we all try to fully comprehend what has happened and why and what comes next. Chief Kent.

Good evening, Mayor, members of City Council, and the Irvine community. My name is Michael Kent, and I'm the Chief of Police here at the Irvine Police Department and the Director of Public Safety. I'm speaking to you tonight with a heavy heart regarding the tragic officer-involved shooting that occurred last week. A loss of life in our community is deeply painful, and I want to acknowledge the profound tragedy of this event. Our heart goes out to the family and loved ones of Daniel Miltved, who lost his life during this incident. I want to also acknowledge the profound and physical and emotional toll an incident like this takes on our own responding officers and their families. We are ensuring that our personnel receive the care and support that they need as well. To the Irvine community, I recognize that an event like this raises serious questions. People naturally want answers, and they want them quickly. While I understand a desire for immediate details, I encourage everyone not to rush to conclusions. Unfortunately, I'm limited in what I can discuss publicly tonight due to the ongoing investigation. To ensure complete transparency and accountability, this incident is undergoing a thorough multi-layer review. This includes an independent investigation by the Orange County District Attorney's Office, as well as concurrent investigations by our own Criminal Investigations Division and our Office of Professional Standards. What I can share is that calls involving individuals experiencing a mental health crisis are amongst the most complex and heartbreaking calls for our officers to face. Annually, our department responds to thousands of calls related to mental health. And while we continually invest in specialized tools, training, and working directly with professional crisis intervention specialists from the county and our own, such as the Irvine Community Alternative Response and Engagement Team, or ICARE, The unpredictable nature of crisis situation presents extraordinary challenges for first responders and the families alike. In this case, our officers were called to the scene after Mr. Melved reported experiencing a mental health crisis while armed with a knife. Members of our crisis negotiation team engaged in on-scene dialogue for over an hour, continuously encouraging a peaceful resolution so he could receive help. Our partners from the Orange County Fire Authority and our own eye care team who had previously worked to connect Mr. Meldved with resources were also on scene ready to support. Despite these de-escalation efforts, the situation escalated rapidly when Mr. Meldved raised the knife and charged towards an officer. Tonight I ask for patience as we remain firmly committed to keeping our community informed. In the coming weeks, our department will be releasing a comprehensive critical incident debrief video. The video will have 911 audio recording, body worn camera footage, and a detailed breakdown of the timeline to give our community a full and transparent look at what happened. And in closing, I want to thank the Irvine community for their continued support as we navigate this tragic situation together. Thank you.

Thank you, Chief. Appreciate that report. Is there anything further under City Manager's report?

Nothing further tonight.

All right. And I understand there may be some individuals who wish to have something to say about this matter. The appropriate time will be when we get to public comment for non-agendized items. Thank you all. That will be probably within the next 15, 20 minutes or so. With that, we'll move on to presentations. I'm going to ask our city clerk to identify item 2.1 by title and subject tonight.

Thank you, Mayor. Our first presentation tonight is Orange County Fire Authority Irvine Insurance Services Office Class 1 Recognition.

Welcome.

Hello, Council. My name is Andy. I'm coming here from Verisk ISO. I'm here representing our company. Oh, I don't have the buttons here. I'm here representing Verisk ISO tonight to issue our award to Orange County Fire Authority and to City of Irvine. Does this work? How do I go back? Sorry. I can't see anything. I'm sorry. So anyway, so this is going backwards.

Is there a way we can reset? Just hold on a second. Let's see if we can straighten it out.

I can't see it.

Just let them know next slide.

OK.

All right, so sorry about that. So anyway, I'm here representing Verisk ISO. What we do is we evaluate cities and fire departments across the country. Currently, there's about 38,000 cities and fire departments, districts that we evaluate every year, or every five years, I should say. Most recently, Irvine, OCFA, the Irvine Ranchers Water District, the local communication center, and dispatch, they were all evaluated to be given their annual review. Go ahead, please, go to the next slide. Pardon me where I wear my glasses here. So what we're actually here for, the product we cover is something called PPC, or Public Protection Classification. And what that does is it looks at those 38,000 fire districts across the country and we evaluate how well and how effective they are. The PPC considers all the fire suppression capability relative to the risk of the degraded area. So depending on the size of your community, you guys get evaluated based on the actual risks, not what could happen in some city like New York. It's really just the risk of what happens right here in Irvine. Generally, what happens is better fire protection is measured by this product, the public protection classification. It generally leads to better experience in fire loss and also on insurance rates. A lot of people don't realize, most of the public probably has no idea that Verisky SOPPC exists, and this gets evaluated every five years. But what that has a direct impact on in the city is how expensive or how cheap your commercial and residential fire insurance policies are. The reviews are conducted every five and six years. Can you go to the next slide, please? Out of the 38,000 fire departments we have in the country, we've reviewed, we have a one to 10 scale. One is the best, 10 is the worst. And out of all of the class ones in the country, there's only about 500 of them, 517 right now, last time we checked. And that's less than 2%. It's actually less than 1.5% of the population has a fire department that has a class one. Go to the next slide, please. And when we look at the fire departments, not just the fire department, I know we've talked about a lot, but it is really a community evaluation as a whole. We look at water, communication centers. We look at the fire prevention building inspection departments. And what we're doing is we don't just make up our own rules as we go. We're using nationally accepted standards. I would say 10 or 20 years ago, we did kind of have our own standards that we developed. Ultimately, what ended up happening was that over the years, organizations like APCO, NFPA, AWAWA, these are, although they're just four-letter organizations, they mean a lot to each of the individual's water communications and fire departments. These are proven standards, and ISO cites them as our standard. Moving forward. Next slide, please. Some of the things, like I said, we mentioned. We look at what the water department can do. We look at what the, I think it was Irvine Rancho's water, and what they were able to do in regards to how many hydrants they have, what size type installations, what's their maintenance system like. We look at the community risk reduction of a city, what their ability is to do fire prevention, inspections, investigations, public education, outreach, all sorts of things. On the fire side of things, we look at the... their training capabilities, their response times, how quickly they respond to fires, how effective they are on scene. And then the communication center, we look at how quickly they can accept the 911 call and how quickly they can dispatch it.

Please, next slide.

And ultimately, like I said in the very beginning, is how does this actually affect the city? What does this really matter for you guys? Ultimately, this is, as it's a community review, historically, I believe you're a class two agency. And then nowadays, now that we've gone through this evaluation in the last few months, or I should say in the last year we did the evaluation, it takes several months to go through, but it was just recently made effective here in May. But what this actually means is that when you've gone through a class two to a class one, ultimately, the goal anyway, is that we've lowered the rates for insurance policies in the city. So if there's any media here, if they were trying to figure out how we can capitalize on this, is ultimately say, this is now the time that you can tell the public to go and try, when you're renewing your insurance policy, shop around. So ISO, Verisk ISO, we don't set the rates. However, we do set the rules to set the rates for the insurance companies. So when you're getting an insurance policy, they will have, you'll have the likely on everybody's renewals, we'll see a slight drop. Not significant, not a lot, but overall of what the whole community can do, I would argue it's a pretty big significant drop. The fire department worked with us for, like I said, it's probably about a year-long process to get to here right now, and they did a really good job. Historically, they were a class two, and although we'd graded Orange County Fire Authority as a whole, we focused in just on Irvine as itself just because of some of the things that you guys were able to do that not the rest of the county could do. So when I worked with Orange County OCFA, they were able to accomplish a class one for just the city of Irvine. And this is the first time that's ever been done. So I think it's actually an admirable achievement. The fire department, fire chief Freeman's here with me tonight. And he, him and his staff were able to pull this off. So anyway, so the next slide is just basically the opportunity to just give us the, I have the award for him. And this is just in recognition. In recognition of all the work that they've done and what they've been able to pull off, I have this award for Chief Freeman in the city of Irvine. It's your ISO Class I plaque. This is the first time it's ever been given to you guys. So, like I said, admirable achievement, Chief. Thanks to the department. Thanks to the city of Irvine. That's all I have for you guys tonight. Do you guys have any questions before I go?

You've taken over my role. Do we have any questions for... Do we have any questions or comments at this time? And Chief, do you like to say a word or two? And then we'll open you up to questions as well. Thank you for the presentation.

Yeah, no, it's a huge achievement. It really illustrates the partnerships we have here in the city between the city, Orange County Fire Authority, Irvine Ranch Water District, and all of us kind of working collaboratively together. to achieve this ISO Class I rating. It does bring benefit to our community and to our citizens, as mentioned, with the insurance rates. So that's a huge one. So I'm very happy tonight. Thank you.

Well, thank you. And I think I speak for all of us when I say when we see what's going on by way of wildfires, insurance rates, people in desperate situations, knowing that people are coming together, institutions are coming together to try to cope with what we're all facing is a note of encouragement at a sometimes discouraging time. So thank you very, very much. We appreciate the presentation. Do any of my colleagues have anything to add? Councilmember Martinez-Franco.

Yes, thank you. Thank you so much for the presentation. And I can only say as a representative in the Orange County Board, Orange County, oh my gosh, CFA Authority Board, I can only say that I am so proud of all the job that you do. I can see firsthand all the progress that you have done in our city and the investment that you continually do from community outreach to saving lives to just being involved with the community. All those benefits are paying off, and I really thank you and the entire CFA for all the job that you guys do here. Thank you.

We're going to give you a round of applause. Thank you. Thanks so much. And do we have any public comments at all?

We do, Mayor. We have one person on Zoom. They may actually be for public comments, but if I could check, that'd be great.

All right. Check to see that it's on this, whether it's on this item or not.

Okay. And we do have, I apologize, we do have one speaker in person as well.

All right. Why don't you just hang on just in case something comes up. Okay. Go right ahead.

Thank you. If I could call forward E-Planet, Thunderstrike, or Rift Surfer.

I think we're OK.

I just wanted to say thanks to the firefighters, because they're really the most respectable Americans that we have.

Thank you very much for your comment. Anything further?

We do have one on Zoom. 238, you may unmute your mic. 238, are you there? And that is all, Mayor.

I think that concludes this item. Item 2.2, yet another presentation. Would the clerk please identify this item by subject and title?

Thank you, Mayor. Presentation item 2.2 is One Irvine Workforce Summer High School Program.

Thank you and welcome.

Thank you.

Please identify yourselves.

Good evening, Mayor Agrin and City Council members. We are here to provide an update on the One Irvine Workforce Youth Service Corps program. I am Jennifer Hale, Senior Management Analyst in Human Resources, and to my right is Management Analyst Jennifer Warren. We are known as the GENS. This program is funded by the Youth Service Corps grant through the Governor's Office of Service and Community Engagement. This summer, 21 local youth have served the Irvine community in our summer camps, the Fine Arts Center, and citywide special events. The team is with us tonight. They look so nice. The goals of this program include increasing youth employment and developing important life skills such as goal setting, leadership, customer service, business communication, career readiness, and more. We'd love to share a brief video of what they've been up to this summer.

One of the most impactful or memorable parts of this experience has been the people I have gotten to meet. And so throughout these workshops, I've really gotten to bond with my fellow Watervine Workforce people, as well as my coworker at my park site. We all went on a van to get fish cakes and other products for our food distribution, as well as that these workshops I've really gotten to just get to know them and kind of share this experience of getting practical skills together.

My experience with the Youth Service Corps has been so positive. I've been learning so much from the different panelists and the mentors that have been coming in and talking to us. This program has impacted me through the different skill sets that I've been developing. I've been learning how to do a lot of communication as well as basic workplace skills where I've been able to directly translate that into my workplace.

And one thing that the Youth Service Corps has made particularly memorable is just positivity. I've been through a lot of different organizations and I've never seen such a great amount of organization and positivity. I may have a hard day at work and particularly long hours, but just the positivity of my leaders has really inspired me to translate that service to the public.

The One Irvine workforce has shown me how to grow outside of my own comfort zone. It's allowed me to just build different personal connections, especially through mingling with different people in my cohort. I specifically have been working at a community center working with kids, and that's been really meaningful for me because it's taught me more what I want to do in my future, which is definitely working with kids, but that also there is a way to do that while still working with the government and with Irvine and just helping connect us all together and building that bridge.

We are excited to share that we anticipate a fourth round of funding, which will continue this program and our adult apprenticeship program through 2028. We're happy to answer any questions.

Well, let me just get things started a little bit here by saying thank you. This is a wonderful, wonderful program. The state has invested a considerable amount of money and organizational design in... giving our youth inspiring opportunities and opportunities to inspire us. Those of us here at the dais recognize, particularly every summer, things really come alive here at City Hall and in the community. We have all these wonderful young people who are part of internship programs, or in this case, the One Irvine Workforce summer high school program, and to see these young people get engaged in productive, positive community activities, important parts of lifting up our community. For them, I think they draw from it an understanding, a better understanding of their city, of how they can be a part of it, some of them get sufficiently inspired that they actually go into public service in one form or another. We've had many of them return later on saying this program, these programs have inspired them. So I'm just I think my colleagues all feel pretty much the same. And we do have a certificate to present and a photo to take, one more photo to take. I'm glad you're all dressed up. You look great. And let me turn to my colleagues to see if they have anything to add at this point. You mentioned also, let me express my appreciation for the mentors. the workers here at City Hall and beyond who take the time to share with these younger people the nature of their work, the nature of their community service, and in so doing, teach and inspire these younger people to be engaged, involved, and a part of their community. That warms my heart a lot.

We couldn't do it without them.

Well, wonderful. Anything further, or have I said it all? Maybe I've said too much. Let's take a picture, all right?

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

All right.

I think I see.

Young lady in the back in the blue, I don't see you.

Yeah, there you go. All right. I still don't see you.

Go to your right, to your right. There you go.

Yeah, there you go. Perfect. All right. Okay, let's give it a whirl. Okay. On a three, I'm gonna take a few here. Okay, here we go. One, two, and three. And we'll do a couple more here. Okay, one, two, and three. And one more.

Okay, just try to get everybody.

One, two, and three. Sorry, that's more than three.

Can we figure out how we're going to share these with everybody?

Yes, I don't know. Did you guys get your shots? I think so. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Mr. Peterson, did we have any public requests for speakers, commenters on that presentation?

We don't, Mayor.

All right. I think that then allows us to move on to the next item. All right. Having concluded our presentations, 2.1 and 2.2, we now turn to the public comments for non-agendized items. That portion of our agenda allows members of the public to come forward and speak to issues that are not a part of the published agenda, but are a part of our subject matter jurisdiction. So if there's anything going on in Irvine that you wish to comment on, please feel free to do so. Do we have any requests tonight?

We do, Mayor. We have 25 in person and we have three on Zoom.

Almost 30. We're going to ask that the comments then be limited to 90 seconds each. And typically we try to reserve about a half hour for public comments. So with that, why don't we get started. Again, this is public comments for non-agendized items, items that were not on the printed agenda. All right.

Thank you, Mayor. If I could call forward Ayaan Rahman, Justine Cunningham, Susan Sayer, Chandler Moore, Emma Betts, Raymond Meldvett, E-Planet Thunderstriker Rift Surfer, Bente Tisaba, Grace Meldvett, and Christine Drover. And we'll start with Ayaan Rahman.

Welcome, sir.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. Housing has been a priority that Irvine has been working on for over 35 years. I want to speak in support of expanding opportunities for affordable housing by opening more projects to a wider range of developers. With qualified companies competing to build housing, it creates a healthier market, encouraging higher construction and management standards, greater innovation, and more choices for residents. It also helps put downward pressure on costs, making affordable housing dollars go further. A competitive market also increases accountability. When developers know they have to compete for future projects, they have a stronger incentive to deliver quality housing, respond to residents' concerns, and operate efficiently. Irvine does not have a housing crisis, but an affordability crisis. which we can remedy through this or by making current options cheaper with the practice of competitive pricing. By encouraging competition and supporting accountability, we can deliver more affordable housing, improve quality, and will allow us to serve our residents the way they deserve. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your comments. Justine? That's okay.

Honourable Mayor, Irvine City Council, my name is Justine Cunningham. I ask the clerk to enter my full written statement into the record. I am a concerned citizen. There was a fatal shooting down the street from my home. This young person, along with his sisters and my daughter, were all Vista Verde and University High School alums. This young person is one of 3.2% American youths with severe autism. I ask you to consider the future in Irvine. What is going to happen to all the neurodivergent youth within our community? Autistic children in Irvine are handled through the IUSD school district. By the turn of a birthday, when they turn 18, they fall into the hands of the Irvine Police Department and are criminalised. We have a problem. You must do better. The Council must commit to a full and transparent investigation. I am demanding that Irvine change its protocol. There are examples of cities across the country that have local ordinances that respond to non-violent mental health crises with clinicians, EMTs or paramedics, not police, never an armed person, never ever showing up at the front door with a gun. For the love of our community, change this now.

Thank you for your coming. Susan Sayer. Welcome.

Good afternoon. My name is Susan Sayer, and I'm a longtime Irvine resident who has been an active participant in council and commission meetings for decades. I mourn the loss of a couple of longstanding features for which Irvine has become highly regarded. The first one is the Irvine Village Community Development Plan. The Irvine company working with the City of Irvine developed Village Community Development Plan requiring each village community to contain housing of all income levels, walkable parks and schools, swimming and playground facilities, and walkable community commercial districts. New community villages are being developed without including walkable community commercial districts, without walkable schools and school and playground facilities. Now community commercial is disappearing because the airline company leases are so high that the commercial businesses can't afford them. And now Irvine Company is replacing a commercial business with large apartment residential projects. The second thing I'm mourning the loss of is reasonable access to council meeting participation. Irvine council meetings used to prioritize community participation, but now public participation is strongly discouraged. Meetings often last past midnight.

Thank you. I understand you've been in touch with us making this point, so your time is up, but we'll be in touch with you, Susan. Okay? Okay. Thank you.

We also need time for people to meet together here.

I agree.

Thank you. Chandler, more?

May I ask to play a sound clip of Daniel just a few days prior?

I'm sorry, a sound clip?

A sound clip.

Does that require us to do anything?

I can hold it up right here, no problem.

That's not something that we got, Mayor. But it's something you can play there?

Yes, I have it right here.

I'm over here. Second attempt at four plates at 20 years old. A tip I want to give you is if you fail, always, if you fail, never give up. Always keep trying and keep putting your faith and trust in the Lord. My dad's mom only just passed away, but she really, really knew the Lord a lot and poured into us and really, really took great care of my dad and all of us. There's no doubt. Um, I have the best parents. They really, really take great care of me and important to me. I was born and raised into a Christian family when I was adopted from biological parents, Carmelita and Mike at her own birth. And, um, I just wanted to say you can do anything you put your mind to and never, ever give up. And always keep your spirit in the Lord. And all we is in heaven with our husband, Richard, which is my dad's dad and dad's mom. So let's get sharing the video.

And that was just a few days prior. And my name is Chandler. His brother-in-law, brother in Christ. I'm not here to attack anyone. I'm here because my brother's life mattered. Daniel wasn't just another name in a report. He wasn't just another incident or another headline. He was my brother. He was a son, a friend, and someone who was deeply loved. His life had value, and his memory deserves to be honored. My prayer is that no other family has to stand here. My family is standing today. If there's anything that can come from Daniel's life, let it be a renewed commitment to transparency, compassion, and preserving life whenever possible. Every person in crisis is someone's son, someone's daughter, someone's brother or sister. Please never lose sight of that. We will continue to seek the truth because the truth matters, but we will leave justice in God's hand. But until the Lord takes my soul, I will use my voice to question and hold the city of Irvine accountable for change so that no other family has to feel this pain. And may I read a piece of scripture that we're all under by in this court system. Romans 12, 19 through 21. Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God, for the scriptures say, I will take revenge, I will pay them back, says the Lord. Instead, if your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they're thirsty, give them something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals of shame on their heads. Don't let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.

Thank you for your comments. Emma Betz? Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor Agrin and fellow council members. My name is Emma Betz, and I'm here today to speak about the organization and structure of current city council meetings and how they may be made more efficient and effective. Irvine City Council meetings are exponentially longer than those of many other cities in the United States. Irvine City Council meetings last on average 5 hours and 30 minutes. For example, San Diego has a population of approximately 1.4 million people compared to Irvine's 312,000. Yet, San Diego's Council meetings last often less than 3 hours. Part of what makes Irvine's council meeting so long is that the meeting is structured to include agenda items that are still in the exploratory or initial discussion phase. Irvine could reasonably adopt practices similar to those of cities with shorter meetings by utilizing committees to more fully develop the discussion ahead of the full council's deliberation. It would be beneficial for local government to take greater advantage of committee meetings as a space to discuss exploratory phase items. If more open action items were designated for committee meeting review, then issues would be resolved more efficiently and in greater quantity. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for your suggestions.

Raymond, Melvin.

Welcome. Hi, thank you for the time. So I'm Daniel's uncle. You just have to do something different. We all knew Daniel. We dealt with him since he was born. He was fine. We knew how to handle him. We knew how to play with him, how to hug him, how to let him express himself.

My daughters are afraid.

They're afraid to be out of line now and to ask for help. You have to change. You have to learn. Give them more time. Allow someone to be who they are. No one had to be afraid of him with that kitchen knife. No one had to use that amount of effort, that amount of fatal Energy on them. They didn't. My own daughters knew how to take care of them. Please make that change. Please put the energy in so the other people in the city aren't afraid to call the police for help. It's the result. Unless you make that change, that fear will grow, and they'll go out and bounce. There's no need to. The angel deserved to be alive. Please, thank you.

The Global World Citizens I talked about last week is the organization that can make that change. Countries have the option for two slots. One is a government individual. One is a citizen individual. You could have either, neither, or both. Countries determine their own structure. I also said at the Great Park board meeting that it's about to be deployed on the most advanced technology that we have right now. There's not an accurate single name for it. I can say coexistence, collective intelligence, global brain is part of the thing that you can use to understand that. The website is wco.wco.workers.dev. We know that Irvine is a really diverse community, and technically this could be a global phenomenon within just before I make it here next couple weeks. I don't have a lot of confidence in Americans, but you never know. Again, countries have the option for two slots, a citizen or a governed individual, either, neither, or both. Countries determine their own internal structure. It's wco.wco.workers.deb. And you guys know that I've had some problems here, and I really shouldn't be here talking about this this way, should I? So the community can do something to affect the community's future. Let's hope that happens.

Thank you.

Binti?

Welcome.

Just last week, someone was shot and killed 300 feet from my house. His name was Daniel Meltbeth. I was asleep when it happened. And so when I woke up and heard that that happened, I thought it was fake. Because I've lived in Irvine for 14 years. And the one thing I heard over and over was that it was safe. So tell me how we've gotten to a point where most every parent of an autistic person is now afraid to call the cops during a crisis because their kid might get shot and killed. How is that safe? And I know the police officer who did it probably feels pretty awful. I know they didn't come intending to kill. And so I ask, how? How did the situation get so bad that shooting became an option? How were social workers and officers so poorly equipped that they only made the situation worse? How did multiple police officers not think to use mace or a taser or disarm an autistic man in any other way but killing him? How is that safe? No matter what your answer is, something has to change. Thank you.

Welcome.

Hi. I'm Grace Miltvet, the sister of Daniel. He wasn't shot in the arm. He wasn't shot in the leg. He was shot in the heart. And he died instantly, despite what they say. No one survives that. I wanted to just circle back to what you said, Michael Kent, about how the officers tried to de-escalate the situation. I'm speaking on behalf of my dad and also the neighbors that witnessed it. You did not try to deescalate the situation. You didn't. You were pushing my dad back, who is the person that knows him best. My sister and I have deescalated this situation countless times. The officers assured my dad they would not harm him. They even said that they won't tase him because he might fall on the knife and hurt himself. Something has to change. We moved to Irvine because you guys apparently have the best resources for autism. And I do believe that because my brother was thriving. However, he called for help because the officers in this county were his hero and he wanted to be an officer one day. And I say that past tense because obviously that's not the case anymore. And like the previous person that spoke before me, it is unfortunate that now people with Kids that have autism are afraid to call officers now because this has happened multiple times, not in Irvine, other places. So I want to stand up here and ask that you will do something. Something has to change. This isn't OK. It was sloppy. You took my life away. I look at life, and it's dull now. What do we have to live for? He was my brother. If you were to knock on any door in my neighborhood and ask him, who was Daniel to you, they would have nothing but something good to say. If you went to the gym, everyone knew him. He was not a criminal. You guys are equipped with bulletproof vests. My work takes me into some pretty crime-filled areas, and I have nothing to defend myself. You are grown men and grown women with bulletproof vests, tasers, and pepper spray. So I'm going to leave it at that, that you guys will do something.

Thank you for your comments.

Christine Drover, and if I could also call forward Heidi, Bobby Rush, Pam Wyckoff, Julie Glossbrenner, Jason Garshfield, Alan Meyerson, Heather Branham, Joanne Slobodian, and Olivia. Welcome.

My name is Christine Drover, and Daniel was my neighbor. I have been fortunate enough to live on this earth for 80 years. Daniel will never have that luxury. He will never again share his infectious smile, his kind spirit, and the warmth he brought to everyone around him. The world needs more people like Daniel. On that July morning, Daniel happily began his day at the job he loved and where he was loved in return. Before that day was over, his life was tragically taken. I am here to be Daniel's voice. I'm asking, begging you to better train Irvine's police officers and crisis intervention teams. They need a deeper understanding of autism and other developmental disabilities. They need the tools and training to recognize the signs of autism and to de-escalation more effectively whenever possible, instead of resorting to deadly force. There had to be a better way that day. Please let Daniel's precious life become a light that leads to change. Let his death inspire a world that is kinder, gentler, and more compassionate. A world where people with disabilities are met with patience, understanding, and dignity. Please don't let Daniel's death be in vain. Honor his memory, making sure what happened to him will never happen to another family. The world needs more Daniels.

Thank you for your comments. Welcome.

First of all, my condolences to the family of Daniel. That is just so heartbreaking. I'm so sorry. Members of the Council, good evening. I stand before you today to demand the immediate retraction of the resolution passing the last meeting's RCV ballot measure that allows it to automatically return every mayoral election until it passes. While the intent to bring critical issues before the voters of Irvine may be clear, the process executed here completely fails to comply with Orange County election regulations and the California Elections Code. Under established California election law, placing a measure on the ballot is a distinct discretionary legislative act required for every single election cycle. Once a measure is submitted and voted on, and if it fails, its legal standing is officially void. There is no statutory mechanism in California law that permits a local measure to carry over or automatically enroll into a subsequent election upon failure. To suggest that a ballot measure could contain a self-executing clause carrying it forward automatically until it passes directly violates state qualification standards. The Orange County Register of Voters operates as a gatekeeper under the strict duty to enforce California election law. THE REGISTER IS LEGALLY REQUIRED TO DENY AND REJECT ANY MEASURE THAT ATTEMPTS TO BYPASS THE MANDATORY ELECTION SPECIFIC QUALIFICATION PROCESS, INCLUDING THE REQUIREMENT FOR A NEW COUNCIL RESOLUTION, NEW BALLOT TITLE AND PARTIAL ANALYSIS AND A FORMAL FILING DEADLINES FOR EVERY ATTEMPT. Passing a measure with procedural noncompliance or unenforceable mandates exposes the city to legal challenges. Rejected filings by OC vote in a waste of public funds. I demand this council retract its approval. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment.

Bobby, Rush.

Welcome.

It's me again. You know how we voted for Prop 88. We want to know how you voted for it, because we get to vote again. And do we vote for or against you? That's my major concern in coming. But I also have a lot of compassion for the young family who lost their son. But I have compassion for the police officers that had to deal with this as well. They did not set out that day with the idea that let's go kill someone. But they are dealing with horrible, horrible emotions as well. those who cared for him, those who witnessed it, whether it be police officers, neighbors, fire officers, paramedics, and as well as our chief of police, the doctors and the nurses that cared for this young man. Yes, there needs to be better mental health care. That would be wonderful. but the family needs to watch out for those that they love, that they know that have troubles, so that they can help protect their sons and daughters. Again, I support our police officers in the city of Irvine. I believe that we do live in the safest city in America. I've been told that when I was in Israel, and I support our police officers. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Pam Wyckoff? Welcome.

Welcome.

Mayor and council members, I am speaking in opposition to ranked choice voting, which hopefully we will vote against in only 14 weeks. Since our current elections are not secure, it's not time to enable more cheating. Recently, President Trump released proof of voter fraud starting in the 2020 election. The New Jersey DMV automatically registered 6,600 unqualified voters. Hundreds of them actually voted. China got roll records of 220 million voters. The FBI and CIA covered up this Chinese connection. Wealthy troublemakers have joined a few misguided Irvine citizens and are determined to turn Irvine into another Oakland or Minneapolis. CalRCV claims studies support RCV. The studies have all been challenged and debunked in an online platform called the Liberal OC. We have these studies paraded around like they're the Ten Commandments. I encourage Irvine voters to vote against RCV and restore our republic.

Thank you for your comments. Julie Glossbrenner. Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council. I'd like to begin by saying how sorry I am to the family members, friends, and the community of Daniel. As the mayor said, my name is Julie Glossbrenner, and I'm an Irvine resident. I'm here tonight to speak in general about one of the values that has made Irvine the exceptional city it is today, which is our commitment to preserving open space. For decades, Irvine has been known for thoughtful planning, beautiful parks, trails, and the balance between development and conservation. That vision has helped create the outstanding quality of life that residents enjoy and has made Irvine one of the most desirable communities in the country. In 1988, Initiative Resolution 88-1 reflected the importance of our community, what they placed on protecting open space. While it includes provisions for certain development, it also establishes preservation as a guiding principle for Irvine's future. I believe that principle remains just as important today. As Irvine continues to grow, I hope the city will continue to place a high priority on preserving the open spaces that define our community. Residents consistently tell us they value these spaces, not only because they enhance our quality of life.

Your time is up. Just take a few more seconds if you wish to finish.

Thank you. But because they help preserve the unique character of Irvine for future generations. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Jason Burschard. Welcome, sir.

Thank you. 150 years ago, James Irvine built a legacy. Donald Bren turned that legacy into a Leviathan. The Irvine Company owns the vast majority of rental units in this city, leaving residents with a limited array of options at their disposal if they want to live in Irvine. They can rent from the Irvine Company. Buy a house, good luck with that, or else not be a part of this community. I've spoken previously about my misadventures as an Irvine Company tenant. Rest assured, Council, I am not the only one who has been ill-treated, or even the worst, only one of the loudest. My conversations with fellow Irvine residents have revealed plenty of stories by people who choose to do other things when they're Tuesday evenings than come to these meetings. I speak for many. Irvine is one of the most beautiful places to live in this country. It is also a company town, and the Irvine Company is a cronyist monopoly that ought to be broken up. Whether it will or not is a separate question. Greater competition in Irvine would improve both affordability and quality of housing, and those of you on the council who claim to oppose corporate greed should live up to your ideals. And I would like to wish the family members of this young man my deepest condolences for whatever that may be worth. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment.

Alan Meyerson.

Welcome.

Good evening, council members. Alan Meyerson. I wanted to speak to the last meeting, the agenda item that had to do with ranked choice voting. I want to speak to the behavior of some of the council members, actually one of the council members. I've noticed a pattern, and the pattern is when usually it's the mayor or the council member, Mike Carroll, oppose what Kathleen Treseder wants to get done. they speak to the subject that they're opposing. They speak to the subject and they speak to why they're opposing it. In response, Councilmember Treseder calls them bullies, brings up possible conspiracy theories as to why they're going, saying the things they're saying. And I'm just wondering what kind of constructive way to respond is that? What does that actually accomplish when you call somebody a bully? And with your response, it makes me wonder who really is the bully? You need to deal with the subject at hand. If you can't respond to them based on the subject matter of the time, then you probably shouldn't say anything. But you've done it over and over again. It's divisive. It doesn't help anybody. It doesn't accomplish anything. It doesn't help to get whatever's trying to get passed done. And you might want to take a look in the mirror because, you know, that old saying, when you point a finger at somebody, there's three pointing back at you.

Thank you for your comments.

Is Heather here? Heather B? Go ahead, Olivia. Thank you. Welcome.

Good evening. My name is Olivia, and I'm a lifelong Turtle Rock resident and devastated neighbor here tonight to demand full accountability for Daniel Melbit's murder and the implementation of systematic changes to how the IPD responds to mental health crises like his. But I was home at 104 last Tuesday from when I heard an IPD officer fire several consecutive bullets into my neighbor Daniel, ultimately killing him.

Sorry.

Every time I hear or see his name now, those rounds of gunfire ring in my ears. It's no wonder why Daniel felt threatened and couldn't regulate himself when the IPD barred his dad from entering the scene and surrounded him with officers, multiple officers armed with much deadlier weapons, thank you, than his steak knife. The worst part is that after Daniel called IPD for help, the officer deployed to help him reached for their gun first. My heart goes out to the Milpitt family who is suffering an unbearable loss. This was a gross miscarriage of justice, not public safety, and we demand full accountability for Daniel Milpitt's murder and changes to be implemented to the IPD's response methods to mental health crises like Daniel, we won't stop saying his name. Thank you.

Thank you for your time. If I could call forward Max Yee, Derek Shirk, Natalie, and Louette Forrest.

And we'll start with Max.

Hello. First, my condolences to Daniel's family and friends. So now we know the open space easement will be accepted. That was the great news two weeks ago. That decision was long overdue, but we will continue watching the acceptance process closely, and I hope it moves forward without delay. The fight is not over. The next issue is the claim that 5,000 housing units can be built on the Oak Creek. In my view, that number is based on a planning error. Yet the developer continues to use this number to threaten the community and create fear about what could happen to this land. This issue has been raised many times during public comments. The city knows about it, but does nothing. Please take action. Correct the error. Don't allow planning mistake to be used against Irvine residents. I thought the city will take an action on the election, on the ballot measure, but the agenda item was pulled last minute. I don't know what happened to this. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Derek Shirk.

Good evening, my name is Derek Shirk and I live in Orange Tree right across the street from the Oak Creek Preservation Area that was established by the voters in 1988 when they voted for the 88-1 ballot measure. A couple of weeks ago the planning department released their initial study of the Irvine Company's plan to destroy this preservation area and the plan is much worse and destructive than we could have possibly imagined. They intend to extend one of the overlay areas, Focus Area 2, onto the preservation area, and then use the overlay rules to construct an unlimited amount of housing with no maximum. And the initial study said 2,400 units, so people at home may be wondering, how is it unlimited? Well, let me read to you from Section 596 of the Irvine Zoning Ordinance. residential and or residential mixed use development entitled pursuant to the RRMU overlay shall be allowed to exceed development intensity and square footage maximums, maximum number of dwelling units, maximum vehicle trips, and other traffic limitations established by the general plan zoning ordinance municipal code or any development agreement. So basically no limit development here. And this is a shall, this is non-discretionary language City officials are required to allow development on this property if this plan goes through with no maximums. So we're talking thousands of units on a property that the voters voted for preservation.

Thank you for your time.

Hi, I'm Louette Forrest. I'm a sustainability commissioner, but I'm speaking as a citizen. I'm here to support the family of Daniel and my own family and 1999 had a horrible tragedy, more like Rob Reiner. But it was, as my friend Carla Jacobs said, they're preventable tragedies. And it never leaves you. It's never going to leave the people that witnessed this. But the beautiful thing here is that these folks want to change things. And that's why I'm here, too, because I've advocated in this space. It's hard because it's hard to talk about, but I don't want people to ever have to go through this again. And it really is a failure of the mental health system in so many ways. I think we need to convene a commission. I am happy to volunteer. As you all know, lived experience is very important. A gun is a failure of this system. And our system, it fails on many fronts. And I think we can do better. I know we can do better.

Thank you. Your time is up.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Mr. Mayor, we have two individuals in person who have AV materials, so if I may transition over to Zoom and then come back to those speakers.

Yes, please. Thank you, Mayor. And the queue is closed at this point.

Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Our next speaker is Eric Nishanian. Mr. Nishanian, you may unmute your mic.

Thank you, Mayor Agron, Council Members, to the Melvin family, Daniel calls from Sean.

We can't hear you. Our next speaker is telephone number 715715. You may unmute your mic.

Yes, this is D Fox 715. Can you hear us? Yeah, can you hear me?

You think we have a problem with all incoming calls? We might, Mayor, if I could try one more just to confirm. Our next speaker is Kristen McNamara. Kristen, you may unmute your mic.

Are you able to hear me?

We can hear you.

Thank you. I'm here to talk about Daniel Mountbat. Irvine is neither the safest city nor is it safe for all. Ultimately, it was not at all safe for Daniel. How many mental health-related 911 calls has Irvine responded to in the last five years, and how many involved neurodivergent individuals in which the use of force resulted in serious injury or death? Regardless of the outcome of Daniel's investigation, what is the immediate policy review that's been initiated to determine whether a different response could have produced a different outcome? Your call to action in the wake of this tragic loss of life is to create protocols for handling neurodivergent crisis and safety for all. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jeremy Ficarola. Jeremy, you may unmute your mic. Mr. Ficarola, can you hear us? If I could try one more, Mayor. It looks like he hasn't unmuted his mic. Our next speaker is telephone number 392. 392, you may unmute your mic.

Mr. Peterson, I...

Yes, I'm here. This is John Doe, a citizen of Irvine, a conservative citizen regarding Daniel Gus Melvitt. Just wanted to voice my opinion on a few things. One, regarding the use or lack of use of Irvine PD's 40 millimeter left legal, which is allowing both officers safety It allows the public safety and it allows the preservation of life for people in mental health crisis, especially with edged weapons. I also urge for a change to the eye care program in which there will no longer be two unarmed people. However, it should be modeled in a way where there is a clinician and an armed officer. Again, I understand that 835 ABC allows for the room for tactical disengagement and repositioning. It's feasible. It's an hour long. This incident was an hour long, or it's not long. I believe that flow is smooth, smooth is fast. And things were rushed. They shouldn't have. And there was no mention, no site, no deployment of a 40-millimeter. That right there shows negligence.

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

Mayor, can you hear me now?

We can hear you.

My name is Craig Derby, founder of PRDC. I ruled the bill in California, AB 1718. I committed myself to my family to correct the deficient debt. I understand the rules. I worked with BACA in the county. I worked with the county chiefs one time and had the bill signed and the bill offered. I'm a supporting law enforcement. but you have a flaw in government about diverting into other people who don't understand the mirage of disorders and screen time and how you pass it on to this agency you want to do in the press release. It's flawed. And I've been looking at this for a long time, and it's a local government call. We're not making sure that our professional status social workers, law enforcement, in order to go to a separate call to diffuse the situation and not have to deal with child abuse. I'd say that we have to do better. I'd say that this has got to end. And I have quite concern about our government in California about bringing a change and a rapid response Thank you. Your time is up. We'll try Mr. Nishanian again. Mr. Nishanian, you may unmute your mic. Thank you. Can you hear me now? We can hear you now.

Great. Council members, Mayor Abram, Mr. Melgood, Daniel Melgood, called the police. He was not committing a crime. The community knew who he was, meaning the police department and other mental health care workers, and they knew that he was an issue, and they knew that he was presenting a threat to himself or others. This was not a penal code matter. It was a welfare and institutions matter, at least at a minimum of 5150 hold. And there was no reason to use bodily harm, grave bodily harm, when he could have been defused by shooting him in the leg. shooting him in the hand, moving out of the way and tripping him. And, you know, it's funny that when there's a bear in the neighborhood, we use sedation as a means to extricate the bear from the neighborhood. And that could have been used also. It doesn't make any sense. And having Waleed being the PSO in situations like this is terribly ironic and sad. Waleed should not have presented anything regarding this matter. You should have used a public information officer. The credibility of the city with Waleed as a PSO, especially in a situation like this now where you have an investigation, is certainly an issue. The city lacks credibility when it comes to conducting investigations about incidents. Waleed is an example A of that.

Thank you. Your time is up. We'll try 715 again. 715, you may unmute your mic.

Yes, this is B5. Can you hear me? We can hear you. Okay. I want to speak about the OCPA and the loan payments. I want to know why we're not getting updates regarding the OCPA to or James Mai. The city on November, I'm sorry, in September of 2022, the OCPA repaid the city $250,000. Then on November of 2025, OCPA paid the city $914,000. March of this year, the OCPA paid the city $343,000. The OCPA still owes for June. I don't see any payment coming in for June. And they have two more payments this year after that. And then in January of 2027, the loan will be paid off. And then at that time, we can remove one council member from the board. James Mai did not negotiate the OCPA on a sooner payoff date. The final balance remains scheduled for January 2027. James Mai did this deliberately. preserve either his seat or Kathy Trecedar's seat on the board. Because once the balance is paid off to the city, one of them will lose their seat. So they need to keep us updated on the OCPA and what's going on. We get nothing from them, absolutely nothing. There's two people on that board. Why are we getting nothing? And I just also want to say my condolences do go out to the

Thank you. Your time is up. We'll try Jeremy Ficarola again. Mr. Ficarola, you may unmute your mic.

Yeah, hi there. Jeremy Ficarola. Just calling with regard to requesting maybe an update on the Jeffrey Open Space Trail Bridge. I'm in Cypress Village. I'm an avid hiker and biker. And I'm definitely looking forward to the bridge. I know a lot of my neighbors in the community have been asking about when the bridge will be opened up. I believe, if I'm not mistaken, there's an opening There's like an opening ceremony on August 11th. Seems really soon. So I'd like to know, are we still projected to open this bridge on August 11th? The bridge doesn't look like it's quite there yet, so I'm just wondering about that. And I think it would just be amazing, an amazing event. I know we've been waiting a long time for this bridge. It has taken a very long time. But I think once it's opened, it's just going to be an incredible addition to go over the Site 5 freeway to the potentially public open space park at Oak Creek. And I'm looking forward to that once all these legal issues and procedural issues are hashed out, which they do need to be addressed, but I am definitely looking forward to this and like an update on the bridge. Thank you.

And if I could call our last two speakers forward, Sinan and Joanne Slobodian. And we'll start with Sinan.

Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor Egren and council members. My name is Sinan Bayer, and before I begin, I would like to express my deep sorrow over the tragic death of Daniel and extend my heartfelt condolences to his family and loved ones. I truly love Irvine, and I want to contribute something meaningful and valuable to this city Can you share the first slide, please? So, okay, I want to share something. Irvine has a significant tourism and hospitality potential, and the city has 23 hotels and more than 4,900 hotel rooms and a strong foundation in tourism and travel. However, Irvine is still not always recognized as a complete visitor destination. And Irvine does not lack of tourism ascent. Second slide, please. So to better understand this opportunity, I developed a third question visitors and hospitality survey. The survey examined the six main areas, destinations, hotel experience, visitors, and local spending areas. The purpose is understanding the complete visitor's journey like some ask question. Next slide, please. So this survey is designed for adult overcomes visitors and participants could be reached throughout Irvine hotels, great parks, events.

Thank you. Your time is up. Let me ask you, do you have that survey available so you can leave it to the clerk?

Yes.

All right. I'll give you a few more seconds to wrap up, but I think what you have laid out is probably something quite important that we ought to have a chance to review well beyond the scope of this meeting, all right?

Yeah, sure.

Take another 15 seconds to conclude your remarks, and then, Mr. Peterson, you'll see to it that we each get the survey, all right? Go right ahead.

The sample profile shown in this presentation demonstrates how a citywide visitor study could be structured and reported. Last slide, please. So the analysis identifies several areas that should be examined throughout the formal visitors. The main opportunity is not simply to create more service. This is to make Irvine existing service, attraction, and activities, but participants and visitors, tourists, Irvine is clear and hotels and city-supported events could also provide direct booking links, but the visitors also want some combined accommodation, transportation, dining, and local spending time. And I will say how many participants we tried. 150 tourists completed our survey.

Let me interrupt you if I might. Council Member Melinda Liu, right here is our representative on the Hotel Improvement District. I know this will be of keen interest to her as well as I think to myself and to other council members. Would you just make sure that Your survey and perhaps a more fulsome presentation could be arranged for, not tonight, but beyond.

Can I give the survey and full report?

Yes, and our city clerk is available here too.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you, and thank you for the survey.

Joanne Slobodian.

Good evening everyone. Very sad night indeed. Daniel deserved better. May his memory be a blessing and a force for change. Falling agenda item 4.2 tonight is actually a gift. It forced me to go back and review your July 22, 2025 meeting where you unanimously voted to approve how Oak Creek should be decided. In that meeting, Mayor Agrin said any change to Oak Creek's land use had to go to the vote of the people. Mayor Agrin and council members Mai and Treseder said they wanted a simple, straight up and down ballot on Oak Creek, easy for voters to understand. A few minutes later, City Attorney Jeff Melching explained how that can work, and we can do it now. He said, yes, you could do an up and down vote about whether to change the land use designation on the Oak Creek Golf Course, but you'll have to first prepare an environmental impact report. Now the city is finally doing that EIR. So my ask tonight is simple and consistent with what you already said. Direct staff now to prepare that straight up and down Oak Creek ballot, development versus preservation, so that when the EIR is complete, you're ready to put a clear question on the ballot. Mr. Peterson, please play the clip. Thank you.

It would be a up or down vote on the golf course itself, the golf course property.

Yes, you could do an up or down vote about whether to change the land use designation on the Oak Creek Golf Course, but you'll have to first prepare an environmental impact report.

Thank you. Your time is up.

Please keep your promise. Is that finished?

I think we had a few seconds left.

Yes, just. Finish it.

Do an up or down vote about whether to change the land use designation on the Oak Creek Golf Course. But you'll have to first prepare an environmental impact report.

All right. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, I apologize. We do have one more, one last speaker.

All right. Let me just say that I will be addressing under announcements the question of Ms. Lobodian, I would suggest you stay. I'll just have a comment relevant to your comment in a bit at an appropriate time. Go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor. Our last speaker is Hannah Kashimi.

Hi, my name is Hannah, and I'm a USC Social Work grad student and future social worker and Irvine resident. I came here today to do a public comment later this evening for agenda item 4.4 as part of my policy and advocacy class final. However, as a future mental health professional, I would like to use the separate comment to advocate for autistic individuals in Irvine to receive proper care during crisis situations. I suggest City of Irvine invest in disability-informed training for police officers and invest in crisis systems with trained mental health professionals that are better suited to people experiencing behavioral health emergencies. We should also consider the possibility of strengthening non-police crisis response that prioritize de-escalation, trauma-informed care, and safest possible crisis intervention. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. And that is all, Mayor. Thank you. That concludes our public comments tonight. We had our city manager's report. We now proceed to announcements. And I'm just going to take the liberty of going first on this one. Under announcements, committee reports, council reports, it's a chance for council members to present briefly here events in the community, what they've been doing, and so forth. I'm going to use just about 30 seconds to explain on the matter of whether or not there will be a ballot measure in November. I had put what I call the catch-all matter on the agenda, which would notify folks at the dais and the community at large that tonight was the last opportunity to put something on the November ballot. There had been talk about this or that or the other, advisory measures, particular measures, RCV and others. And the reason I pulled that off was because it was clear that there was going to be no specific direction on anything given tonight. On the matter of Oak Creek, I remain absolutely committed to there being an appropriate vote at an appropriate time on the Oak Creek matter. An environmental study is being undertaken now. There's an application going through the process. If we were to say tonight, up or down, up or down on what? The project? A zoning provision? We were not prepared. as a community and certainly I wasn't prepared as somebody committed to a vote to just slap something on the ballot. It has to be the right measure at the right time based on the reality of where we are in this process. What does that mean as a practical matter? I think if the council approves, it would probably mean a vote in 2027, probably in the spring or summer. It would be a special election. That's all I'm going to say on that. I have a number of announcements here that I'd like to take care of. August summer and city events. You and all the other folks in Irvine are being encouraged to celebrate the final days of summer at our summer in the city events. Join us Saturday, August 8th. at the Great Park for the city's 55th anniversary homecoming dance. Enjoy music and dancing, food and refreshments as we honor 55 years of Irvine. The community is encouraged to dress the park, wear an outfit that represents your favorite decade. Enjoy our final movies on the lawn Friday August 14th at Hicks Canyon Community Park. The evening will feature a showing of Zootopia II with food trucks and family-friendly activities. Summer in the City concludes Saturday, August 15th with the annual Symphony in the Cities concert featuring Pacific Symphony at Mike Ward Community Park in Woodbridge. Enjoy an evening of popular classics, favorite pop tunes, and patriotic music. For more information and a full schedule of events, visit cityofirvine.gov slash summer. Next is National Night Out. Join the Irvine Police Department for National Night Out on Tuesday, August 4th from 5.30 to 7.30 p.m. at the Great Park Palm Court Arts Complex. Get to know your Irvine police officers and Orange County Authority firefighters, and enjoy a fun evening that includes police and fire vehicles on display, activities and games, photo opportunities and giveaways, and of course, food trucks. Irvine has long been recognized as one of the safest cities in the nation, and that's due, of course, in part to the partnership between the community and our Irvine Police Department. This annual event helps strengthen connections among neighbors and the police officers and firefighters who serve our community. For more details, call 724-7042. I hope to see you there. Next, there's still time to participate in our National Park and Recreation Month Challenge, where you can explore our city's award-winning parks, facilities, and amenities while earning prizes along the way. To participate, pick up a field guide at any Irvine Public Library location. Supplies are limited and residents can also download and print a copy at cityofirvine.gov slash parks. Then visit participating locations and complete activities to collect stamps from city staff. Collect six stamps. to receive a 2026 Park and Recreation Month drawstring bag. Collect 12 stamps to receive an exclusive America 250 enamel pin. Prizes are available at City Hall while supplies last. The Park and Recreation Month Challenge ends July 31st, so get your field guide and start exploring. For a list of participating locations and more information, visit cityofirvine.gov slash parks. And finally, sensory... AI wildfire detection. I'm pleased to announce that the City of Irvine is partnering with Sensory AI to deploy an innovative wildfire detection and risk assessment network throughout the Irvine Open Space Preserve. This new sensor network goes well beyond cameras. It is designed to detect wildfire ignitions in their very earliest stages. This information can help public safety personnel assess conditions before a fire starts and, if an ignition occurs, respond with critical information when every second matters. Last year, the city worked with Sensory AI and the Orange County Fire Authority to test several sensors in our open space. Those sensors performed even better than anticipated, demonstrating their ability to detect ignitions and provide valuable real-time data. With funding from the California Department of Conservation's Regional Forest and Fire Capacity Program, the city and our longtime land management partner, Irvine Ranch Conservancy, are now preparing for a large-scale deployment throughout the Irvine Open Space Preserve in 2027. I also want to recognize Sensory's AI founder, Ryan Honore, I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, Honore, who first conceived of this technology as a high school science project. Ryan will attend Stanford University this fall on a wildfire fellowship and will remain directly involved in this important work. Protecting Irvine's open spaces from wildfire also helps protect the neighborhoods that border them. I want to thank Sensory AI, Irvine Ranch Conservancy, the Orange County Fire Authority, and our city staff for bringing this promising public safety technology to Irvine. That concludes my announcements. Ryan is not here, I presume. Am I correct? We probably ought to bring him in at some point. Thank you. Thank everybody for allowing me to go over the normally allotted time. With that, I'll turn to Council Member Melinda Liu for her announcements.

Thank you. Good evening, everyone. I'd like to share a few updates. Next slide, please. I'm excited to announce my appointment as chair of the Orange County Housing Finance Trust Board of Directors. Thank you to Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley for her leadership as chair for the last three years, and I look forward to serving with my new vice chair, Vincente Sarmiento, and other members for more housing options in the county. Next slide, please. At our last Hotel Improvement District Operating Committee meeting, the Destination Irvine team reported that our partnership with Expedia delivered more than 35,000 nights, booked in $7.2 million in hotel revenue this past year. The U.S. Men's National Team at the Great Park and the World Cup Watch Parties at Great Park Live also drove a surge of interest in our destination urban website with organic web traffic increasing 47% this year. So big thank you to POSQ, city staff, and my office for presenting the series of watch parties. Next slide, please. At last week's Orange County Sanitation District Board meeting, the board moved forward on refinancing up to $15.7 million of outstanding debt, which is expected to save over $700,000 a year in interest. Those savings stay with the ratepayers served.

Next slide, please. Thank you.

Thank you to Irvine's Troop 616 and all of the parents who joined us for visiting Irvine City Hall last week. It was great hearing from the scouts who asked great questions about how we address traffic, housing affordability, and transportation issues in Irvine. Next one, please. My team also held a Mock City Council workshop with our summer interns, giving them a firsthand look at the council decision-making process. Congratulations to our interns, Lavanya Srivastava and Ji-Hoo Yoon, on completing their summer internship with my office, and thank you for your hard work and dedication. Next slide, please. I attended the 2026 AAPI LEAD National Summit in Los Angeles, where we exchanged experiences and ideas on policy to improve transparency, community trust, and services to our constituents.

And the next one.

And this will conclude my report, and please reach out to our office with your concerns. Thank you.

Thank you for your report. Council Member Martinez-Franco.

Thank you. And before I start, I want to thank Chief Kent for providing an update and for answering some of our questions today. Obviously, first and foremost, my heart continues to be with Daniel's family and everyone who loves him. Any loss of life is heartbreaking. On the other hand, I have worked with the police department for a whole year. And I have seen how much they care for the community. I don't want this to be an excuse for people not to call them to be afraid. I understand it's really hard. And as a community, we need to get together. But we also need to make sure that our police department that we are so fortunate to have one of the most respected police departments in the nation. Our officers dedicate countless hours to rigorous training, preparation, and serving our community with professionalism. My hope, however, is that we continue to strive for excellence while supporting our community and dedicated officers who work every day to keep our city safe. Thank you. Now let me start. A few weeks ago, I was honored to attend the NALEO 43rd Annual Conference in Los Angeles and spend time with Latino leaders from across the country. It was a meaningful opportunity to learn from one another, reconnect with colleagues, and reflect on the work still ahead for the communities we serve. Next slide. I also joined residents to celebrate the Urban Historical Society's 50th anniversary in District 5. For five decades, the Historical Society has preserved the stories, places, and memories that help us understand how urban became the city it is today. So congratulations to the Urban Historical Society on their 50 amazing years of service, stewardship, and love for our community. And if you haven't visited, pay a visit soon. They have really cool things in there. Next slide. Finally, my office was proud to host our iRide Safe Academy for young e-bike riders in our community. Throughout the day, parents and students learned side by side about e-bike safety laws and responsible riding from public safety, transportation, and medical experts. Then students had the opportunity to put what they learned into practice and earn their IUSD e-bike permit. So a big thank you to the Irvine Police Department, our panelists, city staff, and community partners who helped make this event possible. I'm so proud of every student and family who joined us and made a commitment to a safer, more responsible rider. Next slide. You can stay up to date on District 5 and the City of Irvine by following me on social media and subscribing to my newsletter. So please reach out to my office with any questions and concerns. Thank you so much.

Thank you for your report. Councilmember Martinez-Franco, Councilmember Goh.

Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us tonight. I have a couple updates from OCTA. Next slide, please. OCT is offering $2 rides every weekend to the Orange County Fair from the Irvine train station. There are more than 20 convenient departure times to and from the OC fairgrounds every 30 minutes. Skip the traffic, save money on parking, and take advantage of this opportunity. Next slide, please. This Thursday, July 30th, OCTA will host a community workshop here in Irvine. At the workshop, residents will have the opportunity to voice their opinions on local transit needs. In addition, OCTA needs your help in developing a future transportation plan. Scan the QR codes to RSVP and fill out the survey to earn a chance to win a $50 gift card.

Next slide, please.

Finally, scan the QR code to stay up to date with our newsletter and social media. That concludes my council updates.

Thank you, Council Member Goh. Vice Mayor Mai?

Yes, thank you, Mayor. And I wanted to start off by saying condolences to the family of Daniel, who was here earlier. They may be watching live. Also, as someone who works with the autistic community, in my personal life, my heart goes out to you and your family and those who loved him. I look forward to seeing the footage, the police footage. Perhaps we can learn something from that and look forward to seeing that. Can you please bring up the slide? All right, they already are up. And first, let's go to the next slide. The first update I have is for the We Ride rideshare program. This program is for those that are ages 60 and up or adults with disabilities. It started in April, 2026. Quick update is we are now at 650 rides per month, 750 paid subscribers. We're still looking for 10 volunteers, volunteer drivers needed for this program. On top of that, we have the TRIPS program. Updated on that is 1,500 rides per month. So this program has been a success. I'd like to thank the staff that's involved in making this happen as well. Next slide, please. Next update is something that I've been receiving from a number of residents. Just a quick update on Our Lady of Peace in Northwood, in the area of Northwood. We had a scoping session earlier this month, and these are some highlights of that. The summary is 68 multifamily units, nine set aside for affordable two-story townhomes, including a rebuild of the church on site. As you can see from the map here, there is the church development partner on the right-hand side and the residential development on the left. The timeline for this, for those that have been asking, is October 2026. Draft EIRR is going to be released. February 2027, final EIRR will be released. March, April 2027, we'll have the public hearings. As noted on here, there's no zone amendment. Currently, the project is in CEQA, stages two of 10. There will be no council action on this unless it's called.

Next.

Next update is Nonprofit Week will be back. We finally set a date for this. This is going to be on October 2nd of this year. It's going to be reduced by one day and will feature a full conference focused on supporting nonprofits who are looking for grants, fundraising, and resources. And this will be... We'll have this up on the website soon. Sponsorships will be available shortly and available to anyone who's interested in sponsoring the program. Last slide, please. And I'd like to say thank you. Thank you to, this is a picture of my youth advisory team. I'd like to say a shout out to Malia Chin, my summer intern as well, who will be going toward Patrick Henry University this fall. And also I'd like to quickly mention that this is city managers, Sean Crumby's last meeting. Thank you for your service to the city of Irvine and good luck on the rest of your journey.

Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor Mai. That concludes, I think, the announcements and reports from council members this evening, taking us to the next section of our agenda, which is the consent calendar. The consent calendar tonight consists of items 3.1 to 3.8. Consent calendar items are ordinarily considered routine and are approved on a single roll call vote. Members of the public, however, have an opportunity to speak to those items. Are there any such requests this evening?

We do have one request, Mayor, on item 3.7.

Why don't we... Excuse me, Mayor. Could I comment on one of the items very fast? Yes. Sorry for the interruption. Go right ahead. I just want to remind the council that item 3.5 was heard earlier at the Great Park Board meeting. And direction from the Great Park Board was that after execution of the agreement, the item be presented to several commissions and committees. And so staff will, I just want to remind the council that staff will follow up and execute on that direction.

All right. But fundamentally, a vote yes on the consent calendar is a... approval of what we had approved earlier.

Absolutely.

Excellent. Thank you for that notation. Again, that's items 3.1 through 3.8. Mr. Peterson, we have one request to be heard?

Correct, Mayor, on item 3.7.

All right. Please have that individual speak to us now.

Thank you, Mayor. If I could call forward. Heidi?

Welcome.

Good evening. Thank you. Good evening, members of the council. This city is forming a library advisory committee. It already has a DEI advisory committee. Irvine can find room for those. So where is that same commitment to America's 250th anniversary? Right now, America 250 in Irvine consists of a few library programs, a scavenger hunt, and a flag exhibit that's about to close in a few days. Worse yet, most residents don't even know that these exist. On the 4th of July, the city provided nothing. This milestone deserves a full year of celebration. Compare this current approach to how quickly council approved a temporary amphitheater at the Great Park for the Daisy Chain Festival, or how, without skipping a beat, the Great Park balloon was decorated to honor the U.S. men's soccer team with an exclusive kickoff event. Our nation's 250th deserves at least that same level of fanfare, if not greater, starting with the 250th anniversary sign on the balloon itself.

I'm going to interrupt you. 3.7 is regarding the Library Advisory Committee.

Correct.

And you've spoken about America 250. Yes. Can you redirect your remarks to 3.7, please?

I am. And what I'm saying is if you're going to create a library advisory committee and give it all this attention, you're giving it a second hearing, then you can definitely do a America 250 committee. Thank you. Let's see. I think you've made your point. Well, I have more, and I do have time.

More about 3.7? Yes. Okay, speak to the library committee, please.

Well, the library committee is something that I've spoken about those, and if you're foreign of what I'm speaking to, the library committee form a 250 point, and... Tonight, Council America 250 Committee will ensure this milestone gets the celebration it deserves. This committee would oversee a featuring a major fireworks drone show, the Guild of Valor's 250 flag through July 4th, commemorative events, schools, church, community pride, and American independence. Participation from Council.

Time's up. Thank you. To know that we seconded by Council.

The terms of the city may flex.

Seconded. members actually. Two things I think can be said about that. One, we, among us all, I think recognized the terrific service that you, Sean Crumby, had provided for us upon the departure of Oliver Chee. with so many things going on in the city, many of them that were your direct responsibility to get things built, to get things done. In fact, when you were hired here, you were described as the getter done guy, get these projects moving. And of course, all that we heard about tonight and we'll be hearing about going forward, these many, many huge capital projects in the city while maintaining the very highest standards of best practices in care for our roadways, our parks, our recreation areas, all of those things for which we receive recognition and awards. It's not easy being the city manager of this city. I've worked with enough city managers to express to each and every one of them that I would never, ever want to have their job, even if they paid me five times or ten times what the city manager gets paid. You're basically on call 24-7. Cities are complicated places. It takes a lot of people, properly managed, to be able to see to it that a city is run and run well in a way that serves the people who, of course, put us in the positions that we hold. So I think on behalf of the entire city council, I want to say thank you very much. I know you didn't want a big hoopla or whatever with your leaving, but I want you to know that we're very, very grateful for your service. Thank you. And with that, we thought it would be appropriate to replace you with another Sean. We didn't want to disrupt things very much here, so let me just say that Sean Joyce, I had the pleasure of working with him for 10 years when I was in the council. He succeeded Allison Hart, who preceded him. Sean came in, I think he was raised in Irvine. I think he was raised in Irvine, and he wanted to, I think fairly early in life, he indicated that, or he decided he'd like to as he went into city management and all, he'd love to come back to Irvine. As it turns out, he did. He served us well. He retired from the city. and then began to take up a little gig, which is actually a great service to all of Orange County and perhaps other cities as well. Kind of an itinerant city manager filling in because he is, so capable and so experienced as a city manager, and that at this time of transition for our own city, that we could have him back as city manager is, I think, fortuitous. And I see that Sean is here this evening. I don't want you to speak to the motion, but if you wanna say something Assuming this motion is adopted, we'd be delighted to hear from you. And with that, I'm going to turn to my colleagues who want to say a word or two. And remember, we have a pending motion. With that, Councilmember Martinez-Franco.

Thank you. And I want to echo Mayor Agran's words. And I'm going to leave all protocols of council members here. And I'm going to speak as a friend. I think you're on our hearts. And this year that you've been working with us, I mean, it's been a pleasure. We have our disagreements and some issues. But nevertheless, you always advise us well and guided us in the right direction. So thank you so much. I wish you well in your next adventures. And I know that we're going to keep in touch. And I mean, I cannot say anything else more wonderful from you. And like Mayor mentioned, going from one shan to another shan, even though I haven't had the opportunity At the time to speak with you, Sean, I only heard really good things from your performance before and how much staff really appreciate you. So I'm looking forward to working with you, and welcome back to Irvine. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Martinez-Franco, Council Member Liu, and then Vice Mayor James Mai.

A quick comment. So thank you, Sean, for... All you've done. And I really wanted to share this story. So Sean had served the city with not just professionalism, but with compassion. And I wanted to share the story about how the rat house in the city, my friend texted me on a weekend, on a Saturday afternoon, and said, I'm in Arizona. My neighbor needs help. Please help him. They have a rat infestation in their house. They need medical attention. And I immediately called Sean and said, here's the situation. Two hours later, my friend texted me back and said, oh my gosh, you moved fast. And I said, no, it's the city staff. And Sean took care of it. got them resources, sent them to the medical care, and not just that. We follow up, and he follow up. And when I mentioned that this family lost everything, including clothing, and I bought them shoes, Sean actually said, let me know what else they need. and that is someone who's serving the residents with compassion. So it is our loss that you decided to retire from here, but I really wish you luck, and I want everyone to know, and I hope I can speak for the residents. We really appreciate what you've done, so thank you. And to our new Sean, welcome back, and thank you for being willing to come back and help us, and I look forward to working with you.

Thank you, Council Member Liu. Vice Mayor James Mai.

Yes, thank you, Mayor. And Sean Crumby, Sean, I already wished you well, but I wanted to add on to that. I think it deserves attention, too. The first time that I met Sean Crumby, I remember it very clearly because we were touring the Great Park, and I was like, this guy's really passionate about this city. The entire ride there, he was talking about how lucky he was to be serving the city and how we have things that other cities don't. That was memorable. Well, it was also memorable because we were going on a tour, but they locked us out. So I had to actually get the bolt cutters and cut the gate open to get through to the Great Park. So that was very memorable. But thank you again, Sean, for all your work and your love for the city while you served. Sean Joyce, I haven't met Sean Joyce. I see you in the audience right now. I got a chance to spoke to you once. I only know you by reputation, and I know you were city manager during some crazy years here, and if you can deal with that batch of people up here, I'm sure you can do all right with this batch as well. So thank you.

Thank you. Now, I understand that... Technical difficulties have been overcome in one case, and another person wishes to be heard. Public comment, right?

Yes, thank you, Mayor. Our original speaker that I called earlier is back in the chamber, and then we have one on Zoom that we'll try again. Okay, go right ahead. Thank you, Mayor. Joanne Slobodian.

Thank you. I didn't really expect this, so I appreciate it. Good evening. I urge you not to approve Shawn Joyce's interim city manager contract as written. Joyce retired from Irvine in 2018, earning approximately $294,000. Today, Irvine is being asked to pay him $434,242 for a one-year interim appointment, roughly a 48% increase over what Irvine paid him before he retired. The agreement also provides executive benefits, an additional $13.44 per month because he is CalPERS retiree, and a severance provision that leaves taxpayers paying the remaining salary in benefits if he is terminated without cause. This is not only a high salary, it is a high-risk contract for taxpayers. Huntington and Luguna Beach hired Joyce for about $122.68 and $143 per hour, respectively, with no benefits or severance. Irvine would be paying approximately $209 per hour. Why didn't Irvine negotiate comparable terms? This is part of a larger pattern. Sean Crumby's total compensation increased from about $298,000 to about $459,000 in one year. as an increase of more than $160,000. These high executive salaries are part of the reason we face a $6 million deficit, which you only closed by shifting money from one account to another. That is not sustainable. After you hear public comments, which is it, I guess, come back with a revised contract for Joyce that is financially responsible and more in line with interim agreements like cities like Huntington and Laguna Beach, a contract that serves the entire city of Irvine, not just Joyce's pockets. You do not need to flash big dollars to attract talent to amazing Irvines. You need contracts that reflect your fiduciary duty to taxpayers. Thank you so much.

Mayor, our Zoom speaker lowered their hands, so that's all the speakers.

All right. With that... I think we have concluded public comment, comment from the dais. There's a motion properly before us. 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 Agran. Yes. Carry 7-0.

Great. Let's give a round of applause to our two showrunners. Thank you. Tom, did you want to say anything? Welcome back.

Thank you very much. I appreciate your support. I'm coming back just because I miss this place so much. I'm mostly kidding there. I really do look forward to providing great service, continuing great service over the next year. I did grow up in town. I've lived here more than 40 years. Thank you, Larry, for remembering that. I work with Sean Crumby in Huntington Beach. He has become a good friend of mine. I look forward to trying to carry forward what he's got underway and what you have underway collectively. I really do look forward to this opportunity to take everything that I've learned from all the mistakes, occasionally a good decision too along the way, to really put a capstone on my career here in my hometown. Thanks again. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Look forward to working with you. Thanks so much. Thanks.

Thanks, everyone.

Thanks. Good night. All right. That concludes item 4.1, taking us to actually to item 4.4. Items 4.2 and 4.3 were removed from the agenda, which was originally published on July 21st. So we are now on item 4.4. Would the clerk please identify this item by title and subject?

Consideration of a request by Councilmember Treseder to adopt a resolution supporting California Senate and Assembly bills relating to utility, affordability, and accountability.

Thank you. With that, I'll turn to Councilmember Treseder to further introduce this item.

Thank you. A number of our residents, especially those who are customers of SoCal Edison, have contacted me because they're concerned about increases in their energy rates. The issue that we have right now with the current system is that if investor-owned utilities want to raise their energy rates, All they have to do right now is submit a proposal to the California Public Utilities Commission, which then typically approves it. They can have some information to support their claims, why they need the higher rates, but there isn't really a lot of concrete requirements. for transparency in how they request their increase of rates. And rates have been increasing quite a bit. So, SoCal Edison's rates increased about 12.3% in the past year. This is a very difficult situation for our residents to keep up with. Now, fortunately, we have a number of bills that are being considered right now in the California state legislature that will put some brakes on these increases in electricity costs in our investor-owned utilities. Collectively, they require more transparency, they offer more flexibility for meeting resource adequacy requirements, and so forth. So I am asking the fellow council members here to consider adopting a resolution where we support some or all of these bills in an effort to try to keep our electricity rates down for our residents. And I think I'll leave it at that. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Trescenor. Do we have any requests? from the public to be heard on these items?

We do, Mayor. We have 12 requests to speak, 10 in person and two on Zoom. All right.

Why don't we take those now unless council members wish to offer something now? All right. Let's just turn to the public then.

Thank you, Mayor. If I could call forward Hannah Hashemi, Anthony, Tai Chuang, Alexander Rudenshield, and Rafael Umeda. Mayor's first time limit.

I'll defer to you. How many do we have? We have 12 total. Twelve. Let's see if we can try to keep it to about two minutes. I'm not going to cut anybody off, but if you can hold your remarks to two minutes, help us move things along. Thank you and welcome.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and council members. My name is Hannah, and I'm speaking in support of item 4.4, the resolution on utility affordability and accountability for my policy and advocacy class final. Utility costs are not just a budget issue. They affect whether families can meet basic needs. When electricity and water bills rise or become harder to understand, the burden falls most heavily on residents who are already stretched thin, including low-income households, renters, older adults, and families balancing rent, food, transportation, and childcare. Through my policy and advocacy coursework and social work, I've learned how systems that are intended to support low-income families can often be difficult to navigate, inconsistent, and at times harmful. Many families face structural barriers that keep them in cycles of financial instability, where rising costs and limited protections make it harder to get ahead. From a social work perspective, this highlights the importance of challenging inequitable systems and advocating for policies that promote dignity, access, and economic justice. Efforts like this resolution represent an important opportunity to address systematic inequities and support families who are working hard but remain underdeserved underserved by existing structures. As a social work grad student at USC and Irvine resident, I think about how financial stress affects stability, well-being, and family functioning. Supporting affordability measures is one way the city can help protect residents from unnecessary hardship. and show that basic utilities should be transparent, fair, and accessible. I encourage the City Council to adopt this resolution and support state bills that improve utility affordability, accountability, and billing transparency for Irvine residents. Thank you so much for letting me share.

Thank you for your comments. Anthony? Welcome.

Thank you. Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Anthony Ogama with Climate Action Campaign, a nonprofit watchdog. I'm here because Irvine families deserve better than what Edison is giving them and because this council has the power to say so publicly right now when families are being squeezed dry. Edison rates have more than doubled over the last decade, up 101%, and five more pending rate increases are awaiting approval, causing no end in sight. More than 800,000 Edison customers are now behind on their bills, according to the CPEC. Families bear this burden most severely. This is more than just an affordability crisis. While families struggle, Edison posted $5 billion in profits last year, the highest of any investor-owned utility in the entire United States, according to the Energy and Policy Institute. Their CEO received a 20% pay raise, nearly $17 million. The average person in California would need to work 213 years to earn that, and he got that raise the same year state regulators found Edison responsible for the catastrophic Eaton Fire, which killed 19 people and left thousands homeless. This is a result of legislators allowing their utilities to take advantage of Irvine families. Our legislators have allowed a massive transfer of wealth from working families to executives and their shareholders. Edison spent nearly $30 million on lobbying and campaign contributions last year to protect every bit of it. but momentum is building in Santa Ana's entire city council. All seven members indicated their support for a resolution backing these reforms in their July meeting. San Diego has already passed one. Irvine can stand and should be next. Four votes on this package are expected before legislators' August 31st deadline. We respectfully ask this council to adopt a resolution supporting this bill package. Thank you for your time and for your leadership.

Thank you for your comments. T. Trong. Welcome.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. My name is Ti Trung. I'm an Irvine resident in District 5 in West Park. I serve on the Transportation Commission, but I'm speaking today on my own behalf. I'm speaking today in support of the resolution to approve the package. As an Irvine resident, concerned geoscientist, and proud union member, I especially support Assembly Bill 2516 on grid manufacturing, which is endorsed by my union, UAW Local 4811, UAW Region 6. Myself and many Californians are increasingly recognizing the risks posed by aging infrastructure, whether it's visible above ground or hidden beneath us. The majority of California's grid infrastructure is older than a typical operational lifespan, leaving the public at risk of power outages and the state vulnerable to wildfires. History has shown that regardless of the initial hazard, whether seismic or atmospheric or otherwise, there will be fires, there will be wildfires. If the infrastructure is lacking adequate safeguards, we'll have fires and it'll be devastating. And the topic has already come up a few times in the city council already. So investing in the infrastructure to protect against these vulnerabilities is not only a safety priority, it's also an opportunity to create thousands of good union jobs and advance a green and just transition. which is super important to the workers of Orange County, not just in Irvine, but in our region. I also support Senate Bill 905. As a rate payer and a community-based researcher, I'm especially encouraged by the development of public tools and websites to track important metrics related to electricity costs and performance. This type of transparency reassures me and I'm sure it would reassure the public to better understand how our utilities are performing over time. So overall, I hope to see Irvine continuing to lead in sustainability and adjust transition that reduces wildfire risks while creating pathways for good union jobs and promoting consumer oversight and transparency. Again, I urge the council to support this. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Alexander. Welcome.

Hi, councillors. My name is Alex Rudenshult. I'm a District 6 resident here in Irvine, a member of UAW 4811. And I'm here to ask you all to support this measure, especially because of the inclusion of our priority bill, AB 2516, like T mentioned. AB 2516 establishes a coordinated, cost-effective solution to many problems facing California and Irvine residents. The California Grid Manufacturing Initiative provides a comprehensive approach to challenges by combining centralized procurement with strategic investments in domestic manufacturing capacity. First, the CGMI will conduct a statewide assessment of grid equipment needs and aggregate demand across utilities and agencies in consultation with key energy institutions like SoCal Edison and others. By pooling procurement and leveraging bulk purchasing, the state can reduce unit costs by providing manufacturers with the long-term demand which is needed to, certainty which is needed to expand production. Second, the initiative authorizes the state to pursue public-private joint ventures when supply shortages or excessive costs persist. These partnerships would help expand and establish California-based manufacturing facilities, increasing production capacity while strengthening competition in the market. Third, the CGMI uses a self-sustaining financing model that leverages lower-cost public financing tools while protecting the state's general fund. Through these structured procurement agreements and preferred supplier agreements, the initiative can recycle revenues and maintain long-term operational stability. Delivering major benefits for ratepayers, workers, and the climate is really important to us, and modeling shows that this initiative could deliver substantial benefits for Californians and people here in Irvine by improving supply availability, reducing cost inflation, and accelerating grid deployment. It could generate approximately $40 billion in ratepayer savings in 2024. Thank you.

Your time is up.

by 2040 and cumulative savings potentially by 217 billion by 2050. So please support this set of assembly bills. Thank you, or bills in general.

Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Rafael, and if we could also call forward Azara B., Zora M., Tomas Castro, and Doug Elliott. Welcome.

Thank you. Hi, my name is Rafael. I'm a resident of District 6 and member of United Auto Workers. I want to speak in support of AB 2516 because of escalating equipment costs, which are driving up utility bills for everybody. Supply shortages have also led to dramatic increases in the price of grid equipment. In recent years, prices for major transformer categories have increased by roughly 45% to 95%, and really showing no indication of changing course. These costs are ultimately borne by California ratepayers through higher utility procurement expenses and infrastructure investments. Without a coordinated strategy to address supply constraints and stabilize costs, these price purchases will continue to compound as California undertakes the large-scale grid investments required for electrification, wildfire mitigation, and renewable integration, things that I support, many of you also support. AB 2516 provides a path forward by leveraging California's market scale to secure more reliable supply and lower utility costs through coordinated procurement. So once again, I support AB 2516, and I hope you all will too. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Azara Boshay, and I am an Irvine resident of District 6, and I am a member of United Auto Workers Local 4811. And I do research related to extreme weathers and wildfire impacts. And I am here to speak on support of this resolution, specifically in support due to the inclusion of AB 2516, which focuses on improving the California grid. And supporting this is crucial as an aging grid can increase increases wildfire risks. And this is because over 40% of California houses are located in the wildfire urban interface. And nearly 20% of wildfires between 2016 and 2020 were actually started by electrical infrastructure. And because our infrastructure has been aging rapidly, approximately 70% of transformers are now more than 25 years old, and roughly 15% have been in service for more than 40 years, which is well beyond their operational lifespan. Delays in replacing these aging equipment can increase the risk of outages and contribute to wildfire vulnerability. So modernizing grid infrastructure is therefore essential, not only for supporting clean energy deployment, but also for maintaining reliability and protecting communities from wildfire risks. For these reasons, please vote yes in support of these bills, specifically in support of AB 2516.

Thank you for your comments. Zora? Welcome.

Hi, thank you. My name is Laura Mahaley. I'm a researcher at UC Irvine, and I wanted to talk to you a little bit about the supply chain bottlenecks and how they're delaying critical grid investments, specifically looking at AB 2516. So California's energy transition depends on the timely deployment of transmission and distribution infrastructure. However, the market for key grid components has become increasingly constrained in recent years. Since 2019, demand for large power transformers have increased by more than 100%, while demand for step-up transformers used to connect renewable energy products has grown even more dramatically. At the same time, the manufacturing capacity has not kept pace. As a result, lead times for some transformers have expanded from as little as one or two months to roughly three years. These delays are already affecting California's ability to upgrade grid infrastructure and interconnect new renewable energy projects. Today, more than 13 gigawatts of renewable energy projects face delays, with approximately 6.5 gigawatts directly tied to long-lead grid equipment shortages. These supply constraints are not only slowing progress towards the state's climate targets, they're also putting additional pressure on ratepayers and increasing the risk of reliability challenges. So we do ask you to please support this, and thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Tomas Castro. Welcome, sir.

Good evening, Council. Before I begin my comments on this item, I do want to say that my heart goes out to the Melfitt family. And you know, there was a shooting here in Irvine and as well in Madison. And I just hope we can use this moment to push for real changes to our policing. But with that said, my name is Tomas. I'm a resident of District 5. I'm urging you to approve this resolution. And thank you to Council Member Chesire for introducing this item. Electricity affordability has become one of the biggest financial challenges facing California families. More than 50 residents have already emailed this council ahead of this resolution, both in June and ahead of this council meeting. And your constituents are telling you loud and clear that they need relief. Fortunately, nine of the 10 bills in this resolution have already advanced through the Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee. The 10th bill, SB 1159, followed a different committee path because it addresses artificial intelligence governance and transparency. Irvine is also not acting alone. Laguna Beach has officially supported SB 1098 to improve oversight of utility spending. Buena Park supports SB 886 to ensure AI data centers pay for the infrastructure they require instead of shifting costs onto families. Brea, Westminster, and Newport Beach support SB 1159 to protect public participation by preventing AI-generated comments from overwhelming local meetings. Tonight, you have an opportunity to take a stand for residents by supporting affordability, accountability, and a clean energy future that families can actually afford. So respectfully, we ask for your yes vote on item 4.4.

Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Doug Elliott. Welcome.

Thank you, Mayor, and good evening, Councilmembers. I'm Doug Elliott. In addition to being a city commissioner, I am also on the Community Advisory Committee for OCPA, but I'm only speaking for myself in support of this proposal. Back in May, I had the privilege of representing OCPA at the California Community Choice Alliance Conference in Sacramento. It was a wonderful and informative opportunity to hear from some really distinguished speakers from around the state. We had panelists from regulatory bodies, energy providers, and legislators. One of the prominent speakers was our own Assemblywoman, Connie Petri Norris, who chairs the Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee. We also heard from her Senate counterpart, Ben Allen. What came across loud and clear at that conference was that this issue of affordability is a major problem and a major concern throughout the state. We heard a whole panel discussion on wildfires in which we learned that nearly 20% of on their bills is wildfire related. Consumers are paying for investor owned utility liability for wildfire damages. We're also paying for the cost of mitigation of future risks. So their negligence is causing these disastrous fires and the consumers are bearing the cost. in addition to hopefully finding their own fire insurance. At the same time, though, these companies are reporting record profits to their shareholders. What's wrong with this picture? I think pretty much everything is. So I would just urge the council to pass this proposal and let's see if we can get some relief for our rate payers. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Mr. Mayor, our last in-person speaker has even materials, so if I may transition over to Zoom and then we'll come back to that individual. Please, go right ahead. Thank you. Our next speaker is Eric Nishanian. Mr. Nishanian, you may unmute your mic.

Thank you, Mayor Avery and council members. I want to bring it to everybody's attention that Thomas Castro should be registered with the city as a lobbyist. He received a grant from OCPA, and he does not announce that to the city here. He did not announce that previously to the city when he spoke about it at OCPA. speak at council meetings, including this one, in favor of OCPA matters. Additionally, I haven't seen one resident who is not a union member or a lobbyist or an academic or a member of the Sunrise Movement come here and complain about their utility rates from the SCE. If Ms. Trestor was compelled to do this because of outreach from the residents, he would have thought that lobbying member, or a union member, or an academic, a researcher, or a student. And you should think about that, because this is both toothless and it's harmless. So yeah, go ahead and pass it. But what does it really do? It looks like you guys are being bullied by Ms. Tresdor, who's using cable from UCI and the Sunrise Movement. This is the person that claimed... responsibility for implementing OCPA. And it looks like she's just using this because it already passed in other jurisdictions. It's not an original idea. And I just wanted to say that with regard to Sean Crumpy and Sean Joyce, Pete Carmichael should have had this job by default. And I wanted to speak to 4.1, but I was prevented from doing so. It just shows how toxic the city is that Pete Carmichael and Ms. Gutenberg and Mr. King were not considered for the city manager job. Thank you.

Our next speaker is telephone number 715. 715, you may unmute your mic.

Yes, this is DeHoff. If utility affordability is truly Kathleen Trecedar's concern, then the conversation should start with the OCPA, where the city has direct influence. This resolution does not even mention the OCPA at all. It says nothing about OCPA's rate, financial condition, governance, or what steps Irvine can take to improve accountability for its residents. Instead of addressing whether Irvine residents are receiving fair and competitive energy rates, which we know we are not, or whether the city should reconsider its participation, this resolution shifts attention entirely to Sacramento. It is also worth noting that Councilmember Kathleen Trecedar is not even enrolled in the OCPA. That raises legitimate questions about how connected she is to the real issues facing Irvine residents. If Irvine residents are being asked to pay more for energy through OCPA than they would under SCE, then that is exactly the kind of issue this council should be examining. Yet rather than focusing on these direct local impacts, this council member chooses to focus on taking a political stance on state legislation outside the city's jurisdiction. So one has to ask whether this is truly about utility affordability or whether it is political positioning as Councilmember Treseder approaches re-election. If individual Councilmembers want to advocate for legislation in Sacramento, they are free to do so as private citizens. But using City Council meetings to debate state policy diverts time and taxpayer resources away from the business of governing Irvine, and we deserve better. These tactics by Kathleen Trecedar is the reason why our council meetings go on for hours. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jeremy Ficarola. Mr. Ficarola, you may unmute your mic. You have 90 seconds.

Yeah, hi there.

I am not a commissioner. I've never been a commissioner. I'm not a lobbyist. I'm not paid for to speak. on behalf of any other organization other than I'm a resident, I'm a homeowner at Irvine, and SCE Utilities are out of control way too expensive, and they are a monopoly, and I prefer a choice. That's why I also support OCPA, and I hope that it succeeds so that it could offer an alternative to this current monopoly by SCE. So I'm sorry, Eric Narshanian, I'm just a regular that supports this item, and I'm not a commissioner, and I'm not paid for, and nobody told me to speak on behalf of this other than I hope that this gets passed. Thank you.

And our last speaker is Ian Cration.

Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor, council members, staff, and importantly, members of the public. My name is Ayn Cration. I do have slides. I'm with Climate Action Campaign, and we want to thank Councilmember Tresider for bringing forward this item tonight. We are here because families across California are being crushed by skyrocketing electricity bills. As this graph, which will be up shortly, from the California Public Utilities Commission's Public Advocates Office shows. Is it up?

Oh, it is. Okay. Sorry, I just didn't see it. Thank you.

Our leaders have allowed Southern California Edison to more than double electric rates over the last decade. Next slide. As a result, one in five Edison customers is now behind on their bill by $833 on average. These high bills are the direct result of the failures of our state leaders. Next slide. Meanwhile, Southern California Edison became the most profitable utility in the United States in 2025, taking in more than $5 billion in profit while customers paid some of the highest electricity rates in the nation. The reforms in tonight's resolution have gone through Assemblywoman Petrie-Norris' Energy and Utilities Committee She represents Irvine, and it is important that she hear from her community on this matters. These bills and this resolution will begin to reform our broken utility system, and the legislature will cast their final votes on these items starting August 3rd when they go back to Sacramento. So if Irvine wants its voice to be heard, now is the time to do that. Consumer Watchdog reports that California's investor-owned utilities spent more than $30 million on... on lobbying and campaign contributions in 2025. And so adopting a resolution like this gives Irvine families a small way of institutionally pushing back on that disproportionate influence. 83% of California voters say that lowering electricity bills should be a top priority for lawmakers. So we thank you for your consideration. Thank you. Your time is up. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you for your comments. And that is all, Mayor. Thank you. That concludes the public comment. I'll turn to my council colleagues now. Councilmember and Vice Mayor James, oh, I'm sorry, no. Councilmember Melinda Liu would be first. Councilmember Martinez-Franco would be next. And Councilmember Treseder would follow.

I want to start by saying, again, we're not villainizing utilities or politicizing any of it. It is real that utilities impact how a family can meet their basic needs. So I am inclined to support this resolution. It's true that we can all individually do it, but the city governments routinely also support any legislation that will align with the city's policy. So it's, again, not really political, even though we are a political body. These bills, I want to point out that all 10 of these bills remain active in the 2025-26 legislative session, and most are currently pending before the Appropriations Committee. That means they've kind of passed the first test and are awaiting funding in some cases. So these are viable bills that are actually going to be hopefully improving our energy reliability and reducing the cost and increased transparency. And I want to say thank you to Assemblywoman Conti-Petrie-Norris for her leadership on AB 2463 and AB 2516, which both seek to protect rate payers from unnecessary costs and strengthen California's electric grid for the future. It's true that we are facing a lot of old aging grid system, and with our increased use of electricity, it's becoming a little more dangerous and also less reliable. So I want to say that I will support this resolution just so we can reinforce Irvine's commitment to reliable, affordable energy and help advocate for our residents for benefits that can benefit our residents' businesses. And hopefully we'll be able to have more reliable energy and also bring down the rates. And that's all.

Thank you. Council Member Martinez-Franco.

Yes, I want to thank Council Member Trecedar for bringing up these resolutions. I think it's very important to keep addressing the gap that we are creating sometimes when these companies take advantage of the rates that they are imposing in our residents. And I want to add, it's not only low income families, it's also a category that I call financially vulnerable people, where you have a good job, but you're still living day by day with your paycheck. And you're vulnerable to losing it all if you lose one day of not being able to go to work. And how many, for example, single moms have to stay from work when their child gets sick? They are already being financially vulnerable, and when that happens, that leaves them behind paying their bills. So I really want to thank, again, Council Member Treceda and, of course, Assemblymember Cody for pushing these bills together. I also want to thank the community for all the advocating that you did for your calls, texts, if I didn't go back to you because I've been so busy, but know that you've been heard and I read your emails and text messages. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Council Member Martinez-Franco, and now Council Member Treseder, and following you, I think I'll offer my comments, okay?

Thank you. Thank you to all the public speakers who have raised their concerns and to council members Lou and Martinez-Franco for offering their support. I'm just going to talk about a few of the bills that are listed here just to give a sense of why they're important. So, first of all, I just want to say, as others have mentioned, we're really lucky. Our Assemblymember here, Assemblymember Caudie Petrie Norris, is actually chair of the California State Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee, which is a position with a lot of responsibility, and she is in a position to push back on the investor-owned utilities. So one of the bills she has brought forward is basically requiring the CPUC, the California Public Utilities Commission, to conduct a very thorough system-wide review of the methodologies they use to determine how much capital how much the cost of capital can be passed on to the customers of the utilities. Right now, the utilities can more or less just say, you know, we needed to put in a whole new set of lines here, transmission lines, it's going to cost this much, so we're going to charge our future customers this much. This requires a methodological review of that approach. The other one that she has brought forward, it will help, let's see, It establishes the California Grid Manufacturing Initiative. And the idea behind this initiative is we have the grid. We have our transmission lines and other things that SoCal Edison, SEG&E have set up. But we also have an additional grid that's on top of that. And that is the grid of home solar panels, home battery walls, even EVs that can carry charge, those can all be considered part of the grid potentially. And if we are thoughtful about how we incorporate that into our grid and how we use our energy, we can be much more efficient with our energy and reduce costs to the rate payers. There's a couple of other ones that I think are really important. One is Assembly Bill 1761 on data disclosure. This bill is sponsored by the California Community Choice Aggregation Alliance. And this bill is important because it will require the CPUC to be transparent about the methodologies they use to calculate something called a power charge and difference adjustment. The power charge and difference adjustment is a... It is a problem for folks who are getting energy through community choice aggregation because this is an extra charge that the CPUC can add onto the bills of these rate payers in order to make the prices a bit more equitable with SoCal Edison. And this approach, I think, has been abused by the investor-owned utilities in order to really maximize this fee and try to make it look like the rates for CCE customers are as high or higher than investor-owned utilities. Another bill that I think is really important, Senate Bill 1138 by Padilla, involves RA requirements. So right now, utilities are required to purchase resource adequacy power, and this is power that is fairly far in the future. And the idea is that it will make sure that there's always power available to customers no matter what the circumstances. Now, right now, there's really, really strict restrictions on what counts as resource adequacy. And right now, the utilities that have resource adequacy energy, they're not really allowed to swap energy amongst themselves very easily. And that makes this whole process less efficient. It drives up energy costs. So this bill would allow these entities to swap the resource adequacy power contracts more easily and basically improve our efficiency and drive down costs. So these are just a few of the bills that are listed here and why I think that they're important. And so at this moment, I would like to make a motion that the city council adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Irvine, California, supporting California Senate and assembly bills relating to utility affordability, and accountability for the 2025-2026 California Legislature regular session. And the text for this resolution is in the agenda, so hopefully everybody's been able to see it. And so I just ask for a second, please.

I'll second.

Thank you.

There's a motion offered by Council Member Treseder and a second by Council Member Liu. Let me offer some of my comments, if I might, and I I think we've gone through actually more than one round here. I see Rebecca Moss is here. Could you come down and speak a little bit about our legislative subcommittee and our process for weighing in on state legislation?

Certainly. Hello. I'm Rebecca Moss's strategist in the city manager's office. And almost two years ago, the council adopted our 2025-2026 legislative platform, which does have some different overarching policy statements. and due to the policy statements adopted throughout the legislative cycle myself assistant city manager Michelle Grettenberg our state and federal lobbyists and the council adopted legislative subcommittee do review bills throughout the year and Adoption of that and the legislative subcommittee does not preclude any council member from bringing a bill to the full council for consideration Thank you

And maybe you could describe the lobbyist who works for us in Sacramento.

Certainly, we have Townsend Public Affairs. They have a contract with the city. They have folks in Orange County and in Sacramento who review bills proactively throughout the year based on the adopted legislative platform. And anybody who wishes to have bills reviewed, part of the contract, we can also have them weigh in.

Thank you. Well, Councilmember, we also have federal representation, do we not, on a country basis?

Yes. Yes, Mayor. Carpe and Clay, pardon me, are our federal advocates.

I say this because, although it's not typically known by the wider Irvine community, we do interact with the state legislature on a selective basis to try to deal with pending legislation. programs and so forth that are of benefit to our community, lobbying for those and, of course, against cuts and so forth. Council Member Goh is, I think, the other council member on our legislative committee. We don't have a third, do we?

No, sir. It is yourself and Council Member Goh.

All right. I used to do this kind of work. I used to be a legislative analyst, but legal counsel with the State Senate Health and Welfare Committee a long time ago, analyzing legislation, writing summaries of legislation and so forth. And it's kind of crazy in Sacramento. I mean, there are thousands, literally thousands of bills that are in, hundreds of bills on related subjects and so forth. And it's the job of our legislative analysts, I'm sorry, our legislative advocates, our lobbyists, to follow these for us. Is that correct?

They do help us with that, yes.

We give them direction?

Yes, sir.

Okay. And let me just add a, A couple of thoughts along those lines. Having been legal counsel receiving communications on these matters, I got to tell you, weighing in with a resolution doesn't do much of anything. It is a way for a city to speak. And I think on important items, the city can and should speak from time to time. What makes me a little uncomfortable about this is I don't know which are the more important bills among these, which actually have a chance of passage, or are effort would make a difference. As you know, over the course of the last year, our legislative committee and I personally have been heavily involved in trying to ensure the HAP funding, restore the housing funding in the budget making trips to Sacramento, lobbying legislators and so forth, you've been on some of those trips. That was very targeted and it proved to be very effective. We were hoping to sustain a billion dollars a year, which helps fund our program. I'm gonna take just a little added time here. And that, targeted activity made a real difference, made a real difference. Let me also say, I listened as each and every one of the folks testify, I agreed with just about everything in the critique of SCE. Look, SCE is by design a regulated monopoly. It is not regulated as strongly as I would regulate it if I had any say. And to the extent that legislation can strengthen that regulation, I'm for it. I'm against excess profits. I'm for returning excess profits to the people. I'm for a number of these bills as described, particularly Cottey Petrie Norris's 2516, which would bring grid manufacturing to the state. I think it would be beneficial in a whole host of ways. I think what I'm trying to say here is that I want us to be more thoughtful, more selective and do the hard work. Each and every one of us has the inherent authority to, on our city stationary, on our city council stationary, on the mayor's stationary, to weigh in on these bills. You don't need council approval for that. Am I right, Mr. Melching? You're correct. Obviously, when we write in, it's not or make a phone call or whatever. We need to make it clear we're representing our own views, not necessarily representing the views of other council members or the council as a whole. But those letters, I found, and now it would be, of course, emails. Those letters in the old days made a difference because they came from legislators, that is to say local elected officials in our case, around the state. So you have my pledge. On the important bills here, we need to find out where they are, what bills are being merged together, what amendments are being added and so forth. On those that rise to the top, I want to be informed by our lobbyists what those are. I want to be informed by you what those are. And I want you, as mayor of the city of Irvine, write a letter. Communicate. Add emails to it and phone calls, and personal visits wherever possible. And I think we need to work a little more closely with Kati Petri-Norris, Assemblymember Petri-Norris, and her office on this, and she can advise us. And let's have an impact. That's my feeling. I hesitate to vote yes on an omnibus resolution because, quite frankly, I don't know what's in a number of these bills. One of them kind of catches my eye here is Senate Bill 1138. I think that was referenced by Councilmember Treseder. And it effectively reduces the reserves of OCPA as a means of helping OCPA to compete with SCE. I want them to compete. I want them to compete effectively. But I don't want to give legislative handles that are risky or ill-advised. And I've just learned to be careful about these things over the years. And so I will not be voting for an omnibus resolution I will be doing my part in writing individual letters. And I'm ready to work with other council members, with our legislative committee, with our lobbyists to have some real impact in these closing days of the legislative session. Thank you for giving me the extra time to express my views here. Council Member Vice Mayor James Mai.

Thank you Mayor and thank you Council Member Richard Cedar for bringing this forward here. I like to say that a lot of these things that happen in Sacramento, sometimes we can talk about them. Having teeth on it, I don't know so much, but taking a position is perfectly fine. Council Member Chesed, I'm happy to even write a letter in terms of supporting a lot of these bills on here as well. I'm happy to do that with any of my council members as well if they're If they have something they're interested in, I'm happy to do that. But having a discussion about this, since we're having a discussion about this, it's great too. I do pretty much agree with almost all of these bills. There's several in here that are concerning to me. not by so much, but since we're talking about it, SB 1159, which bans AI autonomous agents from counting as persons under the Public Records Act. That's an interesting one because it's not really a rate affordability bill at all. It's basically an AI governance rider with zero connection to utility costs. I don't know why that's in there, but sometimes... Lawmakers do that. They jam things in. People are just like, why does that belong there? That's something that is in there as well. SB 905, utility profit limits and public financing and executive pay mandates. That one, I'm kind of questioning that as well. The profit margin limit on safety spending is reasonable. That's not the part that is the issue at all. But the part about the public financing of capital projects, it moves the utility infrastructure funding onto government books. That's worth knowing whether that creates contingent taxpayer liability before we bless it. Tying executive pay to legislative rate targets, that's kind of like, are we trying to say that the state should dictate private companies' compensation structure? And I'm not I mean, if it's a private company, it's a private company. We shouldn't be dictating their compensation structure, even if we disagree with it. A lot of these companies, they pay millions and millions of dollars to their CEOs. And, of course, a lot of people feel that's not fair. I feel that sometimes that's not fair as well. But dictating what a company should pay their executives is... is a tough one for me as well. But just wanted to make commentary on those two items. I'm supportive of just passing this so that we can show support for a lot of these bills. This is a nonpartisan issue. Both sides have supported many of these bills on here. Again, thank you for bringing this forward.

Thank you. I think that concludes the comments. There's a motion before us. I'm gonna just take one minute in my second round to say I will be voting against the motion, but I would like our staff to be providing me with an update from our lobbyists as to which bills are moving And assuming this resolution passes, which among these are the most important that are moving, where if we weigh in individually or collectively, we can make a difference? And you have my pledge that I will be doing so, doing the work of contacting the appropriate legislators on the most important bills that we know don't contain poison pills, don't include amendments that gut them and so forth, but are real bills doing real things that will make a difference. I'd like you also to be in touch with Assemblymember Cottey Petrie Norris' staff and get guidance from them as to where these bills stand and which ones would benefit from our involvement.

Thank you, Mayor. We'll circulate that to yourself and the Council when it's been prepared.

Thank you. Councilmember Mai.

Thank you, Mayor. I wanted to go a little bit further than this and see if I could make a friendly amendment to the motion just so that we can pull and review these. I'm not comfortable with these. Just to pull these and review them or just exclude them from the motion, which is SB 1159 and SB 905.

It's fine with me to pull them off of it. Just have that not included in the motion.

All right. Let's see, was there a second?

Yeah, I'll agree.

All right. The motion and the maker of the motion and the second accept the friendly amendment to delete which ones again?

SB 1159 and SB 905. 1159 and 905. All right.

I see no further requests to be heard. With the friendly amendment incorporated, would the clerk please call the roll?

Thank you.

That concludes our business on this item, taking us to the last two items. And thank you to those who took the time to offer public testimony tonight. That takes us to items 4.5 and 4.6. 4.5, would the clerk please identify this item by title and subject?

Thank you, Mayor. Item 4.5 is consideration of a request by Councilmember Liu to discuss the preparation of a nitrous oxide ordinance.

Council Member Liu, the further introduction to this matter is yours now. You have the floor.

Thank you, Mayor. So this is the second time I'm introducing this to, well, 4.5 and 4.6 items, but I'll speak to 4.5 first. It is a ban for the city, on the city level, for nitrous oxide personal use. And Last time when I introduced this item, there are some concerns about whether this is an Irvine issue and I'm going to reiterate my concerns that I think it is bad policy, bad governing to wait until something disastrous to happen before we act on it. Good governments should proactively protect the residents And in my opinion, this is something that has been going on around the states and especially being adopted. Similar ordinances have been adopted all around Orange County. And it is time for Irvine to finally act on it to protect our families and children. And I want to... answer a few of the questions that some people are asking. Isn't nitrous oxide personal use already illegal? Yes, it's true that the state law prohibits the possession of nitrous oxide for intoxication and only selling or furnishing it to recreational inhalation. inhalation. However, it is still legal for a lot of other uses and there's a loophole when people are not checking what the purpose is when individuals purchase it. The current state law requires proving the seller's knowledge or intent and we all know that it is hard to know what is in somebody's mind and to prove that. So if we will pass an ordinance in the city to regulate it, we'll actually expand our enforcement methods and also make it easier for not putting all the burden on law enforcement. We can actually use other enforcement methods to control this. And so this is essentially, again, to stop the loopholes and to protect our residents in this case. And there's been efforts in Sacramento, although they're still going on in Sacramento, and some of them have not been very successful. What I'm trying to do is, again, we're not waiting for something disastrous to happen and waiting for Sacramento to act on this before we take appropriate actions. And this is... I think it's very important for all of us to make sure that Irvine's not the only city left in Orange County that does not have anything with regards to nitrous oxide regulation. So with that, I am open to any questions and any comments from my council colleagues.

I don't see any requests from the dais. to be heard. Do we have public commenters?

We do, Mayor. We have three via Zoom.

Why don't we take those now, and then we'll return to the dais for questions and comments and perhaps a motion.

Thank you, Mayor. Our first speaker is telephone number 715. 715, you may unmute your mic.

Yes, this is . So what happened to the nitrous oxide ordinance that Council Members Melinda Liu and Kathleen Trecedar directed staff to prepare on October 14, 2025? Council Members Melinda Liu and Kathleen Trecedar brought the site forward, yet it never came back for public consideration. If this issue was important enough to justify staff time, why didn't the sponsors follow up? This isn't just about nitrous oxide. It's about accountability. When council members ask staff to spend time in taxpayer resources preparing an ordinance, they also have a responsibility to make sure that work doesn't just simply disappear. This is not good governance. Directing staff is only half the job. Following through is the other half. Residents expect more than symbolic votes and political positioning. This is clearly not an issue. So why bring it back again? What other enforcement methods are you talking about, Melinda Liu? Give us some examples. How much is this going to cost the city? We're in a deficit, you know. And how many reported incidents have there been in Irvine? Is this even an issue? Thank you.

Our next speaker is Eric Nishanian. Mr. Nishanian, you may unmute your mic.

Thank you. Council members, I want to reiterate that this is a non-issue and it's a waste of council business. There's nobody here in support of this resolution. How are you going to regulate against whipped cream? Are canisters used for food purposes? Are you going to prevent an adult going to go to a food service outlet which exists at Irvine and buying these canisters and then using them for personal use? You guys can't even regulate business licenses in the city. And that's an income stream for the city. Where have you guys gone with this? Melinda Liu has nothing better to do and doesn't know how to write a resolution that has any teeth or any purpose that's supported by any residents, and you guys are wasting city resources. The only thing that happens with nitrous is that someone stupidly opens it up while they're in a car in a close situation and kills themselves, or they drive around with a bunch of canisters and do their best blue velvet with nitrous oxide and nothing has been presented here that shows that it's harmful to residents. This is a waste of city resources.

Our next speaker is Ryan Sherman. Ryan, you may unmute your mic.

Thank you very much. Good afternoon or good evening. Ryan Sherman, California Narcotic Officers Association. We're in strong support of this proposal to draft an ordinance. Nitrous oxide is incredibly addictive. It is deadly. It frees brain cells. And when people are high on this stuff and they're driving, they end up killing people. There have been numerous deaths, including traffic deaths, around the state that have been caused by nitrous oxide overdosing. It's been a huge issue. So we appreciate Councilmember bringing this item back from last fall and your strong support of this measure.

Our next speaker is Jeremy Ficarola. Mr. Ficarola, you may unmute your mic. You have 90 seconds.

Yeah, hi there. I also support this item. I'm glad that Councilwoman Melinda Liu is bringing this forward. I think it just makes sense. We don't have to have a long laundry list of very specific examples of of this occurring in our city necessarily to justify the passing of this because it really just takes one person, one individual in which this could have prevented from happening.

So I think this is common sense and I hope that it's voted, I hope it's approved.

Thank you.

And that is all, Mayor. Thank you. I see there are TWO REQUESTS FROM COUNCIL MEMBERS, COUNCIL MEMBER MARTINEZ-FRANCO, FOLLOWED BY COUNCIL MEMBER MELINDA LU.

And my position is the same as last year. I want to make sure that we do have more data on the number of cases that have increased. However, I have not seen evidence that either substance like the Kratom products, which we're not talking about nitrous oxide, are currently creating a significant or growing problem here in Irvine. And before adopting new local ordinances, I believe we should determine whether there is a demonstrated need within our community. I have a great trust in the Irvine Police Department and its ability to identify emerging public safety concerns and respond appropriately under existing law. And this question is for Chief Kent. Has IPD seen an increase in calls for service, arrest, medical emergencies, or other incidents involving recreational nitrous oxide or even synthetic Kratom products?

Thank you, council members. In regards to the nitrous oxide calls for service or arrests that are associated with it, we started tracking the data back in 2023, and the numbers have increased in the last couple of years. But overall, they've been pretty consistent for the last about three and a half years or so.

Thank you. I would also like to understand whether these proposed ordinances will require additional enforcement inspections or staff resources from IPD. Our officers already carry significant responsibilities, and I do not want to create another enforcement burden unless there is clear evidence that these regulations are necessary. If IPD is not seeing a meaningful increase in local incidents, I would be hesitant to move forward with the new ordinance for problems that are not currently affecting the nerve right now. If you tell me that it's heroin, of course. I mean, why not? But this is a substance that is used for other uses. And we will have to deliberate on how to split this use for the other use. Amazon cannot sell them. How are we going to regulate if they order it from Amazon versus everything, what will be the fines? And again, I believe the county already have a regulation to forbid them. So I don't see the need for doing these ordinances. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Martinez-Franco. Council Member Liu and then Council Member Mai.

I do have a slide. Okay, can we put that up please? Is it up? Sorry. Okay. So if you can see that, that's actually just a picture from a resident at a Irvine apartment complex. And that's all containers, nitrous oxide containers. Last time when I introduced this item, so let's just go back to that too, that didn't pass. So there's no ordinance, no instruction to draft anything, nothing to follow up. That's why this is reintroduced again. we have a busy schedule and nobody has the time to play around. So let me just go back to this. I mean, last time when I introduced the memo, it was because there was an incident where this car was pulled over with 90 canisters on the border of Irvine. And then shortly after that, there was a DUI case where the woman was suspected of being under the influence of nitrous oxide. And although the numbers in Irvine seem to be pretty low, One, it's hard to track because this dissipates pretty quickly, and it is hard to track if somebody isn't under the influence unless they're caught red-handed. Two, if you look at it, the numbers are increasing. And the number in 2026, that's the year-to-date number. We are only in July, and it's already at 30. And on top of that, the issue is not, and let me just say this again, it's not about if this is a rampant problem in Irvine. Are we waiting for something major to happen? Are we waiting for a life to be lost? Are we waiting for something disastrous before we act? I think that is terrible governance if we do that. So let me just talk about the enforcement part of that. If we have this ordinance, it will... give us additional tools to be used, enforcement tools like administrative citation, business license suspension or revocation, local code enforcement authority. They can also address regulatory gaps specific to local retailers while broader legislation is pending. So we are looking at other cities Passing this, so Orange County, cities of Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, Costa Mesa, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Santa Ana, Westminster have adopted local ordinance regulating the recreational use and distribution of nitrous oxide. For example, in Costa Mesa, our neighboring city, before adopting its nitrous oxide ordinance in May, 2026, their police reported a 125% increase in nitrous oxide related calls. Between 2023 and 2024, along with 10 traffic collisions, two overdoses of death, and the seizure of thousands of nitrous oxide canisters during an enforcement operation in a little farther north county in Fullerton before adopting its nitrous oxide ordinance in 2026, Fullerton reported a 328% increase in nitrous oxide-related arrests. Again, we are not waiting for the next major disaster. We're not waiting for the next collision. We're not waiting for the next person to OD on this before we act. This is not an overburden on law enforcement. We're actually expending enforcement tools. So it is not going to be all falling on IPD's shoulders to do this. I do not understand the... hesitation to be very honest in a city that is rated to be a great place to raise families and we really care about children we would care about families we care about our young people and what is the wait for that's my question for anybody who is unwilling to adopt this ordinance what are we waiting for if you can honestly answer that I don't really care if somebody is going to be under the influence of nitrous oxide and cause a major collision, then I'll respect that. But I think that's terrible governance if we choose to wait.

Thank you, Council Member Liu. Council Member Mai?

Thank you, Mayor, and that was a good graphic to put up there to put things in perspective. I noticed that those, Chief Kent, I have a question for you on that. Those canisters, the 30 incidents, do we have a source of where they came from when the arresting officer was making an arrest? Were we able to track down where that was from? Was it bought and sold in Irvine, or what was the origin of those canisters?

I'm not sure what the origin of the source was, but the canisters are obviously available from a variety of different sources that are out within the community, even online purchases such as Amazon.

Do we have any stores that sell recreational nitrous in the city of Irvine?

Not recreational, but it's definitely used for cooking or for medical use.

Right. And is there a reason that we don't have any recreational sales of nitrous in the city of Irvine? Is it already banned, or what's the status on that if someone was applied to say, let me open a head shop that sells nitrous? I don't see those, but is there a reason behind that?

Well, you're not supposed to sell the canisters for the purpose of recreational use, such as intoxication or inhalation.

Right. Yes. So what I'm hearing from you, and I've studied this a little bit, and what I know is that it's already banned from recreational use. The sale of it is also banned for recreational use, except for cooking along with... a number of other things that can be bought and sold for cooking that can be abused, and you're not supposed to abuse them, but they shouldn't be modified for recreational use. I think we all agree that nitrous oxide is a serious problem, the abuse of it, and it can cause neurological injuries, driving is on it, it's bad, fatalities. We have existing laws that prohibit this conduct. California makes it illegal to sell nitrous to miners. It prohibits it from selling or furnishing nitrous oxide when the seller knows it's intended for intoxication. The state already regulates many aspects of possession and sale. The legislature is also considering a statewide ban as well. I think enforcement... is the issue, not so much a resolution. Passing another resolution doesn't automatically increase enforcement when you can purchase this from another city next door. You can purchase these online. You can modify it to be abused as well. I really don't see the reason to duplicate state and federal efforts. I think Irvine's resources are best served educating our youth on not abusing things such as nitrous oxide. I mean, just for an example, I have never used nitrous oxide, but when I was in college, a lot of people used it. But I was educated, and one of the things that I was told is that if you take a hit of nitrous, it could kill about the same amount of brain cells as drinking a beer every year, a couple beers every single year for every single day. So I said, no, I'm not going to do it. It's part of education, even at that level. I knew not to use it. And I think that we should focus on education and prevention versus... pushing forward a resolution that is already in place. And I think the good governance is avoiding unnecessary regulation. We should intervene when there is a demonstrated gap. And I don't see a demonstrated gap here. And again, it's not about if it's good or bad or if we're waiting for something to happen. We can wait for anything to happen. Are we going to start banning things just because people are abusing them in their own separate form. The federal and state government already have things in place. This is just a duplication of that effort, and I don't see why we should do that. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Mai. I just wanted to follow up on one quick point that Councilmember Liu made.

These other cities that have adopted these ordinances

Have those ordinances had any impact locally in cities where they've been adopted? Do we have any evidence of that? Council Member Liu, do we have any evidence of that?

Is that for me, Mayor?

I'm just looking for an answer. Anywhere in the universe is there an answer to that.

Well, just speaking on behalf of the public safety, I don't have data from other agencies on whether that has changed from an enforcement standpoint, and if the numbers have decreased or have maintained the increase that they've seen.

Okay. Well, while I've got the floor, let me ask you a question, Chief. It's a little hard for me to understand here, but... Do you have the tools under state law to deal with this problem?

Currently under state law, there are penal codes in place, California vehicle code, and a health safety code that allows us and provides us probable cause for detention, for citation, and for arrest.

All right. And if somebody is sort of engaged in kind of the black market sales of these canisters and so forth in large numbers, is that something you have the tools to deal with or not?

There are state statutes in place that address that, yes.

Do we have incidents in Irvine where... those state laws have been relied upon to make arrests and gain prosecutions?

The graphic that was posted just a few minutes ago, each one of those arrests were used in assistance with the penal code that's in place.

And what is the penalty for Assuming after the arrest there were a prosecution, what is it? Is it a misdemeanor of some kind?

They are misdemeanors, correct.

Is it typically a fine or is there jail time with it?

I believe those are fine and a mandated program. I can't speak on the details of what the court executes from that standpoint. But for us, it is a misdemeanor citation that is provided.

All right. Council Member Martinez-Franco.

Yeah, thank you. I am going to piggyback a little bit of what Mayor and Vice Mayor have said, starting with Chief Kent. You already penalized someone who is already under the influence, regardless of whatever the drug it is. It's not that you're looking, oh, I'm going to look for heroin. I'm just going to. or I'm going to look for marijuana, or I'm going to look for alcohol. If you see someone under the influence, you will arrest them, right?

If someone's under the influence, it really depends on the circumstances. Of course, if they're operating a motor vehicle, then that would be considered a driving under the influence arrest, not necessarily a drug arrest. The fact that they're under the influence of a specific substance, that is what correlates to the arrest. But if, let's say, for example, someone's out and about in a public area and we contact them, and let's say they're under the influence of alcohol, that would be a drunken public arrest. Typically with something like that, they would be brought back to the station until they sober up and released to a responsible person that could take them back home. Or we try to make it an arrangement where they get a ride home. If they're under influence of some sort of a narcotic, that would also be an arrestable offense. Similar circumstances, depending on if there's additional charges or not, they could potentially be booked at an Orange County jail or a site and release from our station as well. Really depends on the circumstances and what the person is doing. I think the one that's more obvious is if you're operating a motor vehicle or even on a bicycle, you could get a driving or an influence arrest out of it.

Okay, let's put it another way. What if you find them in possession of illegal drugs, regardless, like if they have cocaine or canisters, you will arrest them regardless, right? Or it also depends?

It really depends on the circumstances, but if someone's in possession of illegal drugs or narcotics, they will more likely be arrested.

Exactly, so there is no difference. And to go back to what Vice Mayor is saying about creating community of reach and more education, we still have our DARE program, right?

We do have our programs.

Yeah, and I know that it's one of the best programs that we have in the entire county. So kudos to the police department also for doing this outreach to our children and educating and what kind of drugs or the potential drugs can do to their body. So I think that we need to be investing and you know I am a big investor in education and I think bigger than nitrous oxide we have a problem with e-bikes and that should be taken priorities. Thank you.

Blue.

I think I'll offer the motion now just to answer some of the questions. So I move to direct the city manager, city attorney, and city staff to prepare a nitrous oxide ordinance that closes enforcement gaps by prohibiting the recreational sale and distribution of nitrous oxide while preserving legitimate commercial and professional uses in establishing local penalties for violations. While the specifics of that will be on the memo and on the screen right now, do I need to read it verbatim? I mean, I kind of gave the gist of it.

Council Member Liu, as long as all the council members can see your motion on the screen, that's sufficient. Yes, so please display the motion.

And do I have a second?

Second.

Thank you.

And I want to continue on by answering a few questions. If just say no worked.

Let me just state for the record, there's a motion by Council Member Liu, a second by Council Member Treseder. Council Member Liu, go speak to the motion, please.

If Just Say No worked, then we wouldn't have a drug problem right now in America at all, because that's back in the 1980s. I believe Nancy Reagan, the first lady, was the person who was advocating for Just Say No. And unfortunately, that's not the case. And we are dealing with that. And just because something has a legitimate use doesn't mean that we shouldn't regulate it. We use opioids in the hospital in case of any surgery use. That doesn't mean we're going to be allowing anyone to use it for any recreational use. And nitrous oxide is sold everywhere. We can buy it on Amazon. We can buy it at gas stations, convenience stores. And most importantly, the Orange County ordinance applies only to unincorporated area, which is not Irvine. We are a charter city. We are not subject to the county's ordinance. And so the goal is to prevent it by being sold in Irvine and being possessed for personal use in Irvine. It's not that complicated. Irvine residents deserve better than reactionary government. We need to be proactively doing something to protect our residents. Just because it is not a rampant problem doesn't mean it's not a problem at all. If we see something that is coming, that is becoming an issue, that is hurting something, some people, and that has severe consequences, we should do something about it. why there is such a resistance on this. I mean, maybe people really like whipped cream, but we're not going to disallow any legitimate use, and that's carved out in the directions. So I would really highly encourage my council colleagues to join in in protecting Irvine residents from something that has severe consequences and use common sense to protect our residents.

I SEE NO FURTHER REQUESTS TO BE HEARD.

I'M GOING TO ASK COUNCILMEMBER CAROL, LOU.

YES.

MAYOR EGGERN. NO. VICE MAYOR MAY AND MAYOR. WITH THAT WE MOVE OUR FINAL ITEM. THE CLERK PLEASE IDENTIFY TITLE AND SUBJECTION OF A REQUEST BY COUNCILMEMBER LOU TO DISCUSS PREPARATION OF A CREATIVE ORDINANCE.

So this is another item. I wanted to put it out there so we don't get another question why we have to bring the same item back. We are bringing the same item back, but with more consideration. The last time we introduced the ban on kratom, we had received some other feedback from residents. Based on the feedback, we are changing a little bit of what we're proposing here. And one of the primary concerns raised was the blanket ban on petrol creating, which has been used for this being studied for therapeutic benefits. There are... we are taking so what we're all high juice really is even worse can drink we're getting aligned with city of Fountain Valley this is restricting synthetic while allowing so earlier this month Eastman administration that the announced its intent release concentration synthetic 7-0 while expressly excluding natural kratom leaf from its action that's why we're going to make our adjustments accordingly. To be clear, this motion does not ban all trade products in Irvine. Instead, it is intended to protect Irvine residents by targeting dangerous synthetic and high-concentration 7-oxidants to natural kratom for rural adults. And for this item, I think we'll... Go right ahead. Making a motion, I will move to request that city managers, city staff to prepare an ordinance that prohibits the distribution of synthetic kratom and products containing more than 2% 7-hydroxymitrogenin, permits the sale of the natural kratom only to individuals 21 years old. of age or older with age verification and establishes appropriate enforcement provisions, including civil and criminal penalties for violations.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you. The motion offered by Councilmember Liu has been seconded by Councilmember Treseder. I'm going to ask the City Clerk, do we have requests from citizens to be heard?

We do, Mayor. We have six requests to speak, two in person and four on Zoom.

All right. Why don't we hear from them first?

Thank you, Mayor. If I could call forward Ed Arthur and Stephen McIntosh. And we'll start with Ed Arthur.

Stephen, Mayor, good to see you again.

Welcome.

Yeah, thank you. My name is Ed Arthur. Mike? I'm a resident here. I have been for 40 years. I heard that this resolution was coming up before the city council, and I thought it would be interesting if I bring my perspective on it. I'm a Vietnam vet. I've been self-employed as a custom wood finisher pretty much all my life. So my body has kind of taken a toll. This is kind of proof of it. But about 10 years ago, I had surgery on my back And of course, they prescribed all the opioids and all that stuff. And I didn't want to go that route. And so I kind of looked around for alternatives for it. And that's when I found Kratom. I'd never heard of it before. I did some research into it. And I had somebody send me some samples. It's just this nasty tasting ground up leaf. Tastes like if you're out there eating grass or something. There's nothing flavorful about it or desirable. But I found that it worked for my pain. And so I developed a regimen of taking a couple teaspoons of it every day. And as I say, I did hard work. And at the end of the day, I would be sore. And if I take a couple teaspoons of it, just with water, helps with the soreness, helps with energy. And I never had the feeling that I needed to take more. I mean, it wasn't something that built up some kind of tolerance. And it's like, oh, more, more, more. And plus, there was no kind of a buzz to it or anything like that. I mean, the only buzz was, I guess, I was feeling better. And so that's a good thing. It's kind of like coffee. You know, we like our coffee. We're addicted to our coffee. This is actually from the coffee plant, too, which is quite interesting in that. So I just wanted to kind of put an Irvine face to it that this product is not scary. It's not something that people are selling it under the table and in dark corners and so forth. So that's all I wanted to do was just let you know and answer any questions if you had any.

Well, thank you. I think we last saw each other 4th of July in West Park 1. Culverdale community. By the way, you reminded me then of your service in Vietnam.

Thank you.

Yeah. And sharing this experience is very much appreciated by me. I'm happy to do it.

And by the way, just as a side note, I often find these nitrous bottles in the park behind my house. I mean, they looked like brand new. I didn't know what the deal was until I looked into it. So now I see that it's a thing. So, I mean, it does happen at Irvine.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Stephen McIntosh.

Welcome.

Thank you. Thank you, Council. The first thing I'd like to do is I'd actually like to apologize to the City Council. When I first got a copy of the agenda, I just had the title, the links weren't there to the full text of the proposal. And so when I wrote to Council, I was extremely concerned that we would get this full scope ban that so many people had spoken against last time. And I said that I was... not confident we would get a good bill out of the, or sorry, a good ordinance out of this. That's not true. From listening to Councilwoman Liu's comments, reading the items attached to the agenda that weren't there when I got my PDF about a week or two ago. So I just wanted to thank the Council for listening to our needs and to offer that the DEA has acted. In probably less than a month, you will have the full power of the Federal Controlled Substances Act to deal with these adulterated 7-OH products that are dangerous and that are sometimes mislabeled as Kratom to skirt regulation or to confuse consumers because they will pay more for them because they seem to do crazy things that Kratom can't do. And then they, unfortunately, continue using them, and so on. But again, I wanted to thank the council for its good regulation in this degree. And I would encourage the council and staff to speak to the California Narcotics Officers Association. They worked with Orange County to draft their ordinance, which is exceptionally good, compatible with what DEA is doing, compatible with what AB 1088, should it be resurrected, sought to do. So again, I would strongly encourage staff to contact them and to get that going for regulation. Again, I wanted to thank you, and I wanted to apologize for jumping the gun and being pessimistic when it wasn't earned. I know what you guys do will never please anybody, and it's often a thankless job. Again, I just wanted to apologize and thank you.

Well, thank you for your comments.

Our next speaker is Ryan Sherman. Ryan, you may unmute your mic.

Yes, good evening. I'm Ryan Sherman from the California Narcotic Obstetric Association. I'm a strong supporter of this proposal. It appears that it will likely mirror an Orange County ordinance, and some of the ordinances have been passed in other Orange County cities and counties and cities throughout the state. 7-0-H, as the previous speaker just mentioned, is expected to be scheduled beginning next month, I believe. And so, yes, I will make possession of 7-OH products a felony under federal law. However, there is no state or local similar law, and so that's why we believe that Susan needs to take this action, because plus that will only be temporary. It's scheduled to be in effect for about two years, and then they'll review and decide what to do with 7-0-H at that time. Our association doesn't have a position on natural kratom. We don't see that it causes the same harm, death, and addiction that 7-0-H does. And so we're supportive of the common sense regulations proposed in this proposal. And happy, again, to answer any questions. And thank you for your consideration. And to Councilmember Liu, We'll bring this back when it's a very important local measure to adopt. Thank you.

Our next speaker is telephone number 715. 715, you may unmute your mic.

Yes, this is Dee Fox. Well, here we go again. Yes. The city already considered a creative ordinance in October of 2025 and it got voted down. If circumstances have changed enough to justify revisiting the issue, the public deserves a clear explanation of what has changed, why existing county and state actions are insufficient And what specific local problems this ordinance is intended to solve? He just heard from a resident who is all for it. I don't know what else more you need. You're talking on, I don't know who you're talking to, but obviously you're repeating something somebody else told you. And here we have a resident that has actual proof that it helped him. Anyway, then what should this council allow you to bring back in item? When you voted down to completely shut down previous agenda items by OCPA arguing against revisiting or expanding discussion on matters that had already been considered. The hypocrisy is unreal. Residents deserve to understand what principle determines when a previously decided issue should be reopened and when it should not. This item should have been removed under Additions and Deletions, just like you did with the OCPA agenda item. And this item should have been deleted. Malinda Liu, you're wasting our time and our resources, and it's no wonder why the public is complaining about these meetings going on and on and on between you and your leader. I honestly don't know who's worse. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jennifer Gillis. Jennifer, you may unmute your mic.

Yes, hi. My name is Jennifer Gillis. I just wanted to thank you for this ordinance. I think it's a good ordinance. One of the biggest things that gets overlooked in these conversations is the people who are benefiting from natural cradle. There are countless chronic pain patients like me, for whatever reason, don't have access to adequate pain management, and they're left behind to suffer when these bans go through on natural cradle. And it's not because of anything they've done, but it's because the 708th Ministry chose to market these products as cradle products, creating confusion and causing harm in so many communities across the country. This proposed ordinance will align with the DEA actions and restrict access to minors, preserve access to the ones who rely on it, and I hope it goes forward. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Melody Wolfe. Melody, you may unmute your mic.

Hi, thank you so much for having me tonight speak. I just want to thank you guys for this ordinance. It's a great ordinance. July 29, 2025, I was the 12-year daily consumer of Kratom that was asked to share the stage with FDA Commissioner and HHS Secretary Kennedy. They asked me to share about the benefits of it for me. I'm a daily consumer. I was bedridden for about a decade. Things were awful at her home, then entered Kratom, and though I wasn't there for my kids as they were growing up because it was bedridden, it has allowed me to be there for my adult children now, such as, you know, taking care of my granddaughter for all summer long last summer. So thank you so much for this ordinance. It was a great ordinance.

Our next speaker is Misty Brown. Misty, you may unmute your mic. You have 90 seconds.

Hi, my name is Misty Brown, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank y'all for this Kratom ordinance. Because of the DEA action of temporarily scheduling 7-0-H, there will be an influx of people suffering through 7-0-H withdrawals, and natural Kratom will help them. There's thousands of people that follow me across all my social media platforms, and the people that got duped into believing that 7-0-H was kratom, they found their way back to the leaf because the leaf is what helped them get through those horrendous withdrawals. I am a seven-year kratom consumer. I was saved by it by just walking into a smoke shop. you know, seven years ago. And I bought natural whole-leaf, you know, creative powder that was lab-tested. It was locked up behind a glass case, and I was carded to purchase it. So thank you. Thank you for helping out these people that are about to be lost and withdrawn.

Our next speaker is Eric Nishanian. Mr. Nishanian, you may unmute your mic. You have 90 seconds.

Thank you, Mayor Ager and council members. First of all, this is not an ordinance that's been proposed. It's the drafting of a proposed ordinance, and the concept is good. I just think it's, again, a waste of city resources because Malina Liu has staff, and she's permanently capable of drafting novel about what she's proposing. And having now, you're going to have two meetings on this, this is going to happen, there'll be a third meeting regarding the proposed ordinance, which should have been proposed now. There's been ample time to grab this after the first council meeting concerning this one that got shut down exactly for this purpose. So, it's a great idea. Go ahead and pass it. But again, I think the lesson here to be learned is that she has staff, there's commissions, and this could have been drafted and brought to the city now rather than wasting more time and resources. Thank you.

And that is all, Mayor.

Thank you. That concludes the public comments. I'm going to... Well, I've got some questions. I'll wait and call on my colleagues. Let's make this the last round, however, all right? Councilmember Martinez-Franco.

Yes, thank you. My position is the same as the other one. I wanted to ask our city manager, Sean, if he knows how many places in Irvine we sell cratum, synthetic cratum in Irvine.

I apologize, Councilman Martinez-Franco, I don't have that number tonight.

Do you have any idea if we have even one?

Actually, I don't.

We don't have that information, Council Member. No worries. The other thing is that I did receive this time more emails asking me to oppose about this than the last time. And I understand the natural credo is going to be outside this. But still, I mean, we are creating a dangerous precedent to say that our city has a problem that doesn't have It's like when we said we have a financial crisis. What did we do? We created panic in the community when we didn't have a financial crisis. So by telling people that we have a problem, we are just creating panic in the community. And I'm not going to tell my community, yes, we have a problem when we don't have a problem. So I'm not going to lie to them. So I'm going to vote no with this.

Thank you, Councilmember Martinez-Franco, Councilmember Liu. Did you want to go now, or did you want to be the one to have the last word? I'm trying to be kind to you and give you the last word.

Okay, that works.

All right. What's that? Council Member Mai. I'll turn to Council Member Mai.

Thank you. So similar to the last one, you know, Kratom is not really sold in Irvine either. I think this is a DEA issue. I think a lot of these issues are They supersede us in terms of the law, in terms of, I mean, we can enforce it, but the law is law. The first time that this was brought, we pretty much shot it down because one thing here, which it didn't include the... The provision that mirrors the federal is what they're going to be doing, which is excluding natural kratom. So that wasn't in there last time. And the reason we voted no last time was because we didn't want to impact people like Mr. Arthur here, who uses natural kratom. It's a little different in terms of this time around, but I agree that it's a DEA issue. Also, I just wanted to say it's good to see you again, Mr. Arthur. Last time I saw you was about, well, first time I met you was about seven years ago. on Culver and you had a trumpet. Every time I saw you with a trumpet, I didn't recognize you without your trumpet and hat. But it's good to see you're doing well and you're finding relief, some sort of relief. And the good thing is that federally and at the local level, we're not going to ban natural kratom. So thank you. And that's all my comments.

Council Member Liu, in keeping with my pledge to give you the last word, would you allow me to pose a couple of questions to staff and then turn to you for the final word and then we'll take a vote, okay? I'm just largely uninformed about the nature or extent of this problem at all. Do we have a problem in the city of Irvine with Kratom?

Mayor, what I can share is we don't have a lot of statistics that are very specific to Kratom. The numbers that we do have are date back to 2024, a total of six arrests, two of those for DOI, and the other four were Kratom was an associated factor with a larger investigation or a different type of investigation. So for me to... be able to say that we have a Kratom problem. I mean, in the eyes of some, you can say one arrest is one too many. But the numbers... Yeah, go ahead.

Keep going.

Yeah, the numbers that we have are just that. It's just a more challenging type of item for us to be able to track.

From the way you described Those matters. DUI, that's under state law?

DUI would be state law under the California Vehicle Code, yes.

All right. And the other case you alluded to, part of a larger investigation, I assume that investigation involved state law of some kind. Am I right?

That's correct.

And what would this add? What would this add to your ability to deal with Those cases.

Again, when it comes down to investigating different items that are out there, whether it's drug, narcotic, alcohol, whatever it may be, there are specific statutes that we rely on to make decisions on the outcome of the investigation, if it is going to be a citation, an arrest, or even probable cause for detention.

Typically state laws, though, right?

state laws and from time to time, depending on the investigation and what is being investigated, federal law may apply as well.

That's why I'm wondering with this DEA, Drug Enforcement Administration, to tell you the truth, that sets off my antenna on what does that mean? Are local police going to be Is there a product that sort of is a bridge between the 70H and the natural? Is there some product that's kind of a bridge, a gray area?

I'm not sure.

A soup or whatever?

Yeah, I'm not sure about that, Mira. My apologies.

I'm just... I'm just uncomfortable with pushing ahead on something that is so unclear. I fear having seen this decades of dealing with drug enforcement that really wound up creeping into people's personal lives, people who were relying on something they discovered in a smoke shop or whatever, and they think it's doing them good, and if it is, that's great, and yet I'm just wondering if we're going to sort of begin to creep into our own municipal version of a war on drugs that I think will not serve the community well. That's my concern. Council Member Liu has promised you'll have the last word.

Thank you, Mayor. First, I want to thank Mr. Arthur for your service and for your honesty. And we heard you. So we are proposing something different and something that makes sense. It's common sense use, right? And I would think that everyone would agree that We don't sell cigarettes to minors. In California, we actually raised the rate of smoking to 21 years old, as well as alcohol. So I think this would not be a reasonable restriction on natural kratom use. And you're being responsible, and I'm glad you found kratom to give you that natural pain relief and pain management. Thank you for your service. And sir, you really don't need to apologize, Mr. McIntyre. I understand. It's really hard to have that reaction when you find something that is working for you, and we heard you, and we're correcting our course. And so I wanted to start with that. And again, we're talking about an item that That is like, well, we're talking about an enforcement issue and then we're getting the, why are we doing this? This is not an Irvine problem. When all the other cities in the county are actually banning it. Do we really want to be that only city that is going to allow this to happen? I mean, yes, maybe we don't have a smoke shop that is selling it. We also don't have a smoke shop in Irvine, as far as I'm aware, that is selling marijuana, which is perfectly legal in the state of California. But that doesn't mean Irvine residents are not smoking it. And we're not talking about banning the natural kratom leaves here. We are talking about the synthetic substance that is targeted to young children. And they're drinking it at a large quantity that is harmful to their health. I really don't understand the resistance in regulating this item when we're just trying to protect children. Again, it's the same thing as our discussion about nitrous oxide. If we have a city ordinance that is going to ban the synthetic product, which is falsely marketed as kratom, We can actually expand our enforcement tools and enforcement methods. Again, include fines, include suspension of business license, citations. And we're not creating anything more than what the city is already doing. We do, on a regular basis, inspect businesses that sell cigarettes for their licensing. I note that for a fact that we do check that. And so this wouldn't be anything too different. The fact that we are having this discussion and saying that this is a duplicate effort while residents are calling in to thank us and they're actual Kratom users that are being responsible, but I still see resistance on the dias is quite frankly mind-boggling. So I hope that my council colleagues can actually use common sense in this case to pass something that is reasonable. We are allowing the use of natural credums for responsible users 21 years and older. But we are banning the harmful substance of 7-OH that is hurting our children and being sold as energy drink products in any of those convenience stores. And since we're not looking at a complete ban, like Newport, Stanton, Tustin, Orange, Dana Point, Mission Viejo, they ban this completely. We are following the model of the county, like one of the commenters mentioned, that the California... California Narcotics Officers Association, Mr. Sherman represents, has a very reasonable regulation that is going to regulate a product. And like I said before, just because something has illegitimate use doesn't mean we don't regulate it. We're doing this as a proactive action to protect our residents. And I think, quite frankly, waiting for something disastrous to happen and being reactionary is being irresponsible. So with that said, I'm ready for a vote.

Thank you, Council Member Liu. If you'll forgive me, I'm going to I'm going to use my time again to raise just a few questions of you in connection with this direction and the motion. If there is a motion to prepare an ordinance, would that be based on another city's model ordinance? Do you have something? specific in mind?

Yes, so there is actually a model ordinance that has been provided by California Narcotics Officers Association that has been adopted by the County of Orange, Huntington Beach, Anaheim, Buena Park, Laguna, Niguel, Los Alamitos, and Fullerton.

All right. I'd like to pose a question or two, if you don't mind. as to how the ordinance would deal with a certain situation. And again, I'm kind of revealing my ignorance with regard to how kratom is used or might be used. But if Mr. Arthur or somebody like him, having had such a good experience with the natural leaf, were to start chopping up the leaves and putting them in baked goods and making them available to local football players who get banged up, who've got aches and pains and whatever, and suggested that this is a good remedy that they might consider.

May I ask how old the football players are?

Well, if it's a high school football player, it's not 21. So then what?

Well, I believe in that case, well, in this hypothetical, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe in that case that would not be allowed, right? But, you know, someone who is responsible, like Mr. Arthur, probably most likely would not do something like that. Yes, thank you for affirming that. And that is the point, that we are actually trying to prevent that from happening, and we're talking about the the 2% over 2% 7-OH, and we're not talking about just chopping it up and random use of that. You see that with marijuana use as well.

Well, I'll be very interested in seeing the draft that comes back. I have my doubts. I just don't see much in the way of benefit with this kind of an ordinance. If indeed Mr. Arthur and others who called in and have no problem with accessing the natural kratom now, I just don't see what protection this local ordinance would be providing. I have a hard time understanding how the language would work and the age requirements and all that. I think we may be sliding into an area that's

And if I may, I mean, first of all, I want to thank Mr. Nishanyan for having that much confidence in me. Being a lawyer doesn't mean I can draft ordinances. That's not my wheelhouse. But neither can my staff, who are not licensed attorneys. So I rely on our city attorney to do that, which is routine and normal for a city to do. And I think that's the responsible thing. But having said that, it's not unheard of that we use model... model ordinances or legislations to base our local adoption on. Since we already have a carefully crafted template, that will be something that will base our ordinance proposal on. Like I said, I'm comparing this just to like alcohol, like cigarettes, like marijuana, which are all perfectly legal in California, in the state of California, and we're restricting the age to 21 and over. I have not yet heard any issues with enforcement. Yes, there are issues with enforcement. Laws are meant to be broken, unfortunately. But that is not the reason why we should not have any laws or regulations. I don't take that kind of, quite frankly, a defeatist attitude when it comes to governing and protecting the residents.

All right. I think we should move to a vote. My sense, Councilmember Liu, is that you may have four votes for the direction you desire to be given to our staff. I would also like our staff, though, in connection with that, access the information about where these ordinances have been adopted elsewhere and what the results have been in terms of enforcement and improvement and community protection. In other words, there must be some data out there, aren't there? You don't object to that, do you? To getting information?

To have information and data? I believe the county has been keeping track since last January? Or, well, the county health department has been keeping track. I don't remember when.

Well, when the ordinance, if indeed this motion passes, the ordinance in draft form comes back to us for first reading consideration, perhaps. I would also like to have whatever data we've got to see whether there's experience elsewhere that has been beneficial with the adoption of an ordinance. Who knows? You might even get my vote then.

Well, is that a condition on adopting this ordinance?

No, no, no. You mean, is it a condition... On giving the direction, you mean? No, I'm not trying to change your motion to give direction. But I just want to say when it comes back, I want to see the data.

And I mean, we have been working with Mr. Sherman. So if there's any need, he's the expert on this and going around the state. So he'd be happy to offer his assistance in that matter as well.

All right. With that, I'm going to ask the city clerk to call the roll on the motion. Why don't we just restate the motion in case somebody's tuning in late.

Do we have a presentation? I don't know if we did.

A presentation, no.

Okay, so I'll just read it. I request that city managers, city attorney, and city staff prepare an ordinance regulating kratom in the city of Irvine specifically prohibit the sale, distribution, or possession of synthetic kratom product and products containing more than 2% of 7% hydroxymitrogenin 7-H-O within Irvine city limit. Permit the sale of natural kratom products only to individuals 21 years of age or older with age verification required and establish civil and criminal penalties including administrative fines and business license revocation for repeat offenders consistent with comparable California municipal code.

Very well. With that, would the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Carroll?

Yes.

Councilmember Goh? Yes. Councilmember Liu? Yes. Councilmember Martinez-Franco? No. Councilmember Treseder? Yes. Vice Mayor Mai? No. Mayor Agron? No. Carries 4-3 with Councilmember Martinez-Franco, Vice Mayor Mai, and Mayor Agron voting no.

Thank you, and I presume we'll see this when? In 30 days? Something like that? When is our next meeting?

The next meeting is August 11th.

And the one after that will be in September 22nd. It will be coming back to us on September 22nd.

Is that enough time? Yes, I want to respect your time. Thank you.

All right. Having completed our agenda for the evening, the time is 9.40, not bad. And with that, is there a motion to adjourn? So moved. Who said that?

I said it.

You did. Council Member Liu, I'll second that. 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. Mayor Agrin?

Yes. Carry 7-0. Thank you.

Meeting adjourned.