City Council - Regular Meeting

I would like to call the regular meetings of the Public Financing Authority, Water Utility Authority, Housing Successor, Successor Agency, and City Council to order. City Clerk, roll call, please.

Council Member Martin? Here. Council Member Mora? Here. Council Member Rounds? Here. Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez? Here. Mayor Zamora?

Here.

Members of the Public Financing Authority and Water Utility Authority receive $150 for their attendance at these meetings.

Invocation, I would like to call upon Pastor Steve from Calvary Chapel to lead today's invocation. You guys can please stand.

Heavenly Father, we come before you and thank you so much that you've been so gracious and so good and so kind to us. Thank you that you're the source of wisdom and understanding. Lord, I pray that you would bless this city council. Lord, give them wisdom, knowledge, understanding. Strengthen them, Lord. Help them to resolve any differences. And Lord, bless this city, bless this people, and be glorified in it. Thank you so much for what you're doing. We love you, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. Pledge of allegiance, if you guys can remain standing. I would like to call upon Angel Corona from the Youth Leadership Committee, if you can lead us in today's pledge.

Place your right hand over your heart. Ready, 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. Angel, before you walk off, do you want to explain to everybody a little bit about yourself, things that you're involved with in the community?

I'm Angel Corona. I'm 16. I'm enrolled in Santa Fe High School. I've been involved in previous sports, football, tennis. That's about it. The clubs, I was ASB. I've been involved in AVID for a while. I was part of the Christ Before Athletics. And then now for junior year, Remove myself from these things and I become an entrepreneur. I started up my own business from my dad. We always start to grind young and since I was 14, he gave me this little washing car wash cart and I went around the neighborhood. People just started noticing because I was out there every day. And it just became really nice. It became big and became too much for our candle. And I realized that now I just have to advance it. And so right now we're starting the next journey. And my business is now called Crown Detailing. And soon we'll become mobile. I'll become mobile in six months when I'm able to achieve my license. So that's where the journey comes from. Wow.

Good for you. Do you want to? give any Instagram or any information on how they can get ahold of you? I mean, I'm just saying since you're already.

Yes, we're for free. Crown dot underscore detailing.

All right. Thank you, Angel. Appreciate it, man. Be blessed. Changes to the agenda. We have a walk on item that we have the city attorney who's going to read for us.

Thank you, Mayor and Manager of the City Council. We do have a walk-on item. It's a closed session item, which we'll add to the end of the agenda immediately following Council comments. The closed session item is potential litigation. Closed session is authorized pursuant to Government Code Section 54957 for this item, and there is a need to take immediate action. Council needs to make some decisions before the next regular meeting. Which is why we are walking the item on tonight. Thank you. Thank you.

Mr. Bobadilla, do we have any other changes?

We have no further changes, Mayor.

All right, presentations. Proclamation declaring July as Parks Make Life Better Month. I would like to call on Gus Hernandez, Director of Parks and Recreation.

Good evening honorable Mayor, members of the City Council. It's my pleasure to be here with our Parks and Recreation team as we declare July as Parks Make Life Better Month. Our parks are essential community spaces that bring people together, promote health and wellness, and strengthen our sense of community. We also recognize the dedicated parks and recreation professionals whose passion and commitment make our parks programs and facilities exceptional. And so it's my honor here to present our team to accept the proclamation, our parks and recreation department. If you guys can please come up and accept the proclamation from our mayor.

Maybe like tippy toes, back row, council.

Yeah.

Yeah, back, middle, yeah. Sorry.

Thank you.

Leigh Ann, do you want to say a couple words about it? No? You're good? Little curtsy, right?

So that's our only presentation, is that correct?

All right, I do have a presentation to announce that we have Cal State Long Beach here, and they're here doing, they said, a classwork assignment. So we have Alina, Sana, and Gerardo. So those of you from Cal State Long Beach, if you're their professor, they are here. Did that help you guys out? All right. So we have public comments on non-agenda and public hearing agenda. Public comments are now open. The public may address the city council on any item on the agenda or any other matter within the council's jurisdiction. You will have an opportunity to speak for three minutes once the city clerk announces your name. City clerk, do we have any speakers?

Yeah, we're adding Gus Fernandez. He's going to speak for three minutes. We're trying to test the system, make sure it works.

look gus hernandez all right good evening honorable mayor members of the city council again we are here uh today after fourth of july and our third of july uh event took place at los nietos park on friday july 3rd it was a great event we want to thank our community for attending we actually had a flyover that day The community was surprised with actually two flyovers that day because the flyover company got confused, and they came in the morning first, so they did a test run, and they were here bright and early, but then they came back and they gave our community a great flyover. The entire day was absolutely fantastic, featuring bands and DJ Hamm, and we finished it off with our fireworks show, which was spectacular. Thank you very much, and thank you for your support. We have a concert in the park on Friday. We do have a concert in the park on Friday. It is Vilma and La Sonora. So we expect a great turnout for that. We hope to see you there, 6 o'clock at Heritage Park.

Gus, what was the turnout for the fireworks?

Fireworks had a turnout of 12,400 people. And the last concert in the park we had? Last concert in the park was 3,300, I believe. Yeah, it's one of our largest. Good job. The only other concert that was larger was a couple years ago when we had the mariachi. Yeah, so. Great job. Thank you very much for that. Thank you.

All right, so I will now, do we have any other speakers?

Mayor, we do not.

All right, I will now close public comments and move on to the next item. Staff communications on items of community interest. Mr. Bobadilla? We have none tonight, Mayor. Okay, so we have public hearing. Public hearing item number two. I would like to call on Mr. Bobadilla to read the title.

Thank you, Mayor. Tonight, our public hearing is a confirmation of the 2025-2026 weed abatement charges. So with that, Mayor, we ask that you open the public hearing.

The public hearing is now open. Anyone wishing to be heard, please approach the podium and state your name. City Clerk, do we have any speakers?

Mayor, we do not.

I would like to close public hearing. Is there a discussion or motion for the approval of item number two?

I'll move.

Second. I have a motion by round seconded by Maura. All members please vote now. Motion passes five zero. And it worked. That's the good part. It could have been much worse. Sorry, just we're all happy because we're a little giddy up here because this is our first time using this this system. So I do want to thank everybody who brought in this system and only that for helping us all out with this system. So thank you very much. Consent calendar. We have housing successor, successor agency, and city council consent calendar. We have a total of 13 items, numbers four through 16. Do we have any clarifications on any of those items?

Do not.

Is there a motion for the approval of the consent calendar?

I'll move.

I second.

Moved by Martin, seconded by Rodriguez. All members please vote. Motion passes 5-0. Appointments to boards, committees, and commissions. Council Member Rounds.

None tonight, Mayor.

Council Member Mora.

None tonight, sir.

Council Member Martin. Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez.

I'm done tonight, thank you.

And I have done. Council comments AB1234, council conference reporting. Council member rounds.

Thank you, Mayor. I have no conferences to report, but first of all, I'd like to congratulate our new fire chief, Mike Kaczynski. I know he's not here tonight, but he's well-deserved. I know he's going to do an awesome job, and he's well-liked in the community and with his staff, so I'm looking forward to that. Congratulations, Mike. Also, as already stated, the July 4th celebration on July 3rd was amazing. Totally amazing. Nothing but compliments. Everybody had a great time. The crowd was perfect. No real issues with anything. And everybody that put it together, everybody that had a hand in it, which I think was most of the rec staff, and just organizing, congratulations on another great event. concert in the park, amazing Michael Jackson tribute, that was something else. But there was a little gentleman, for those that were there, you saw him, he was what, three or four years old? Lucas. Lucas, he stole the show. And he was brought up on stage, performed a little bit, and then he went out in the audience, and I'm walking around, and he's performing and gathering, and people are videotaping. So I'm sure he was a big social hit that night, so. Summer's up here. I believe the Aquatic Center is going to be opening very soon, so make sure you look for that announcement. I know the Nakamuras are probably really excited. Okay, good. I got a reaction out of Paul. Normally, he's straight-faced, but well-deserved to there. I'm really looking forward to it, and we'll see everybody there. Have a good summer. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Mora.

No conferences to report, but yeah, congratulations to our new appointed chief, Mike Kozicki. We attended the volunteer dinner. I think we had 400, at least, volunteers. And we got a great crowd of volunteers, from PSO aides to the parks. I mean, just countless. And I think some of our other cities, when they mentioned this at the dinner, We attend conferences, and they're just surprised as the volunteer force that we have. I know that we have a lot of volunteers here, Isabel, Nakamura, and the Aguirres. If I'm missing anybody, my apologies, but I think everybody else is out volunteering somewhere. No, but we have a great group of volunteers. The Miss Santa Fe Spring pageant, that was incredible. It was a good job to the Abigail Foundation and all the city staff that put that together. Or Goose Velasco Neighborhood Center. Looks great, we had that ribbon cutting, so many amenities and I'm sure that our seniors are really gonna take advantage of that. Lots of stuff going on this summer from concerts to the pool opening up soon and so many events. So stay tuned, check out our social media and continue to have a great summer. Thank you. Thank you. Council Mayor Martin.

Ditto to rounds and more already. Like I said, I wasn't able to make it to the concert or even the Destiny. I was on a little vacation, so I missed the events. But I know we'll have more. We'll be there. And it's great to see our city with all the volunteers and having community come. And what's even greater about everything is that people from outside our city are coming and seeing how great our city is, how small but mighty we are. And it's awesome to brag that. It's our little community that's doing that. It's awesome. Cal State Long Beach, my daughter's an alumni there. She got her master's there, so thank you for being here. Rosario, thank you for being here. Nice seeing a friendly face. You know, born and bred, raised, everything, Santa Fe Springs, so thank you for being here. This new system, when we were training on Monday, it seemed so, knowing 16 years ago when I got on here, it was just a pen and paper, and you took notes, and even getting a mic, that work was Huge, and now we have all of this. Thank you, Renee. Thank you to your staff, to you, for the company. Thank you. Thank you for doing what you're doing and putting up with this and having patience to teach us. So thank you so much. The Santa Fe Springs concert. And one thing, if you guys have a chance, kind of sneak by the Aquatic Center. The Nakamura, the sign is up. I've seen it. The gate's kind of open a little bit. It looks wonderful. Well-deserved. Can't wait till it's finally open. So can't wait to open it up and having Paul's name out there. Thank you so much. That's it.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Before Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez starts, Mr. Bobadilla, can you announce or state the name of the company? I know you just walked out right when I said this, but hey. I'm pretty sure you can still hear us outside, right?

There was a lot of work that went into this, a lot of pre-planning just to get the software in, just to give the audience and folks at home an idea. Our agenda management was paper, paper emails, text messages, smoke signals. It was very difficult at times to review staff reports. Imagine reviewing 20 items, 2,000 pages on your desk and to do to the clerk in an hour so she can post it. There wasn't a whole lot of opportunities in our act. So now our agendas are electronic. I was literally in Sacramento reviewing staff reports on the airplane. and approving them on the spot or making comments on the spot. That is very efficient. It gives me enough time and staff to be able to communicate and not have to put the clerk in a position of having to post this on a Friday or a late Thursday or staying late because we're late. So we're in the new era of digital agendas. But the efforts of putting all this together had to be done within a window. I want to thank Kevin Perriman, Kevin, the back, raise your hand. Thank you, Kevin project manage this. Um, so literally when we finished our last meeting, we had a window to get all this wiring and Western digital there's in the back. So thank you so much. Again, these guys were in here hustling, getting all the wiring done, getting everything to work. Um, there's a new law that came into effect July one. So we had to incorporate new technology into our system. But everything now is in a way where our agendas, our AI, our camera systems, our AI, now I see them talking and the cameras point at me. So whoever's talking, the cameras automatically focus on whoever's talking. So the viewers at home can see the person speaking as they take their turn on the dais. You saw the new voting system where they actually vote on their screens. That is all captured for minutes. We don't have to listen to the meeting again and see what our council said. And everything, a lot of what we do is now AI generated, so it helps us be more efficient, more effective. So we're really excited about where this is going. And this also converts into a planning commission. It can convert to any other meeting seamlessly. So we're excited about the future of our technology, where we're going. And again, I want to thank Western Digital, Kevin, all the folks that helped out, James. And then our software is... What's his name? AJ agenda link. It's a great system. It's customizable to us where I think we're the only city that they're from Texas, but we're the only city that's using pretty much the whole technology. So we're going to be guinea pigs for everybody in the area. So Mr. Mayor, thank you. Thank you for the council for approving this and letting us put this together for you.

Thank you, sir. Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez.

Yes, thank you. We came in on Monday to learn how to use it and they were, you know, I've been here for eight years, but there's some people that have been here longer. They said they used to get stacks of paper. And it was a lot of work for another individual that's sitting over here. Priscilla, I'm sorry. But she did so much work getting all the paperwork ready for all the council people before the meetings would start. So now we're up to date, and that's where we want to stay. So it makes it easier on all of us. But everybody said about all the concerts. Oh, I want to congratulate our chief, Mike. I'm not saying his last name. I said I'm not saying that. But congratulations, he's great. And the concert was amazing, the first concert, the Michael Jackson one. I don't know if everybody here went to that, but it was a full house. You could barely get to the stage. There were so many people. Everybody had a great time. The 4th of July. Again, Gus and your staff and everybody involved, everybody that was there, our officers and all of us up here, we all had a great time. It was so much fun. The fireworks were amazing. Yes, so beautiful. All I can hear is, ooh, I heard a lot of people. And also the watch parties, our last watch party yesterday. We lost, but I had a lot of our residents asking for those big screens, giving me their address and said, take it over there. And I said, sorry, we can't, we can't.

But I'd have a Dodgers Super Bowl Series watch party.

We are right. We're not.

We're not. We might. We are. Yeah. Sorry about that.

Yes. Our volunteer dinner, our destiny dinner. Joe Angel, our mayor. He had his his his nephew. Was a recipient to the $20,000 scholarship. So that's great. And we all wish them congratulations to everybody that got scholarships. And we're just looking forward to this concert at Heritage Park. So We're all excited to go see what's in store for us. Other than that, thank you and have a great evening. Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, if I may. Go ahead. I left out an important piece of this project, the city clerk's office, Maribel, and your team. Thank you. They were behind the scenes getting all this worked with AJ and Western Digital to make sure all this was dialed in.

So again, thank you for all your guys' hard work and getting us to where we're at today.

Thank you.

Thank you. What about Julio? You want to thank Julio for anything? About Nicholas.

Besides obstacles and trying to stop us. I'm just kidding, Julio.

No, Julio's great.

Fantastic.

No, we have a great team. Renee has put together a great team, so it really helps us out. But thank you. And so to go back to Kevin for leading this charge. I mean, I think coming into the office and seeing Kevin so many times over here where we're not used to seeing Kevin, you know, I don't know if we have him in a dungeon somewhere, but it's just it was great to see you just over here. You know, it shows the work that you can put together. And it's great because it's not just Kevin. It's you know, sometimes it can be Kylie. It could be other people in our staff out here. And of course, I'm looking and Gus and your name gets called in and people step up. And of course, as city council, that's what we expect for people to step up and do their part to play their role, whether you're the city manager or your parks and rec. It doesn't really matter. Everybody has a role to play in the city of Santa Fe Springs, and we appreciate all your roles, even to our volunteers. I mean, who go above and beyond to help us out. And you guys heard about how many hours How much savings? I think it was what? Over $300,000 in savings. Is that correct? $258,000 to be exact. Yeah, but it's, you know, I'm counting all the way till today, though. That's why. So yeah, so that's yeah. So it's just great to see all that. It's great to see the people that come in. They recognize the things that we're doing here in the city of Santa Fe Springs. I mean, we have our superintendent for Little Lake City School District, Ms. Johnson, out here. So welcome, of course. So once again, we're here to make sure that we do whatever we can to help out our community. And of course, it doesn't just start up here, but it starts with all of you guys. So I do want to thank you guys for all the hard work and the efforts that you guys put in. Volunteer dinners. We had the Destiny. We had volunteer dinner. We had the Fourth of July. watch party, the ribbon-cutting, the Michael Jackson. They said it best because, too, it was so packed that we had to literally go around and you know, literally traveled through the, along the wall line, you know, because that's how many people were there. We couldn't even, you know, try to say, Hey, let's just cut through all these people. It would be, it would be very difficult. Um, so it was, it was great seeing that, uh, you know, that you, when you go out there, that we had a problem that had to do with, we needed more space, you know, um, our watch parties, um, You know, when Mexico played, we had thousands of people. When the U.S. played, you know, we might have 150 people, you know, 200 people. But we still do it. We still do it because it brings family time. It brings people together to hang out and know that they're going to be in a place that there's not going to be any trouble and, you know, that people are there to have fun. Um, like Renee said, we were actually, we were at the watch party yesterday. We put on the Dodger game and we were talking and I asked him, Hey, if the Dodgers make the. the playoffs, I mean, we should start doing watch parties for the Dodgers. And my little brother looked at me, because he's an Angel fan, and I said, don't worry, if the Angels make the playoffs, we'll have a watch party, too. I know that sounds mean, but it's the truth. I just told him, hey, you know? And he just looked at me and smiled, because, I mean, he really believes his team is Kind of make the playoffs. So, you know, God bless his heart for that. So, yeah, so we're looking at different things to utilize to actually bring people together. So, Gus, I mean, you did this in a short span that we just would tell you. I mean, honestly, man, you hit it out of the ballpark. I mean, I don't know what other way to explain it unless I get a Mexican announcer to yell out goal for you. But, you know, you did a great, phenomenal job. So I do appreciate it. the work that you and your staff put in. And I know that's from everybody, that they all appreciate it. So with that being said, Rick, do you have anything to?

I just want to announce the closed session item. Okay. And also, I just want to congratulate the city council and Gus on an amazing 4th of July.

Yeah, you were there.

It was incredible. Best one I've ever been to.

That was his first event that he showed up. What do you mean? Well, the first. First, 4th of July. I'm sorry. First, 4th of July. 3rd of July. I'm sorry.

First, 3rd of July. All right. Getting back to business. We do have a closed session item. The closed session item is authorized pursuant to government code section 54957. It is a one case potential litigation. Once we complete closed session, we'll come back out and report. All right.

So at this time, we will reach this to closed session. We'll see you back in a few.

Thank you.

I would like to reconvene our meeting. City Attorney? Thank you, Mayor, members of the City Council. We are now back in open session, having met in closed session. The item discussed in closed session is potential litigation pursuant to government code section 54957. The item that we discussed was potential litigation, one case. With respect to this item, the City Council received a report from city staff. Feedback was provided, but no final action was taken in closed session. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you. And I would like to adjourn this meeting at 6.43 p.m., August 18, 2026. Everyone have a wonderful night, and God bless.