City Council - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call the March 17, 2026 regular city council meeting to order. Let the record reflect that all council members are present tonight. Votes this evening will be recorded using the city's electronic voting system. At this time, the council will reconvene to consider public matters. If you wish to speak, please fill out a blue speaker card and provide it to the city clerk. If you wish to submit any written art materials, please provide those to the city clerk. They will be distributed to the city council. As required by state law, when speaking on an item listed on the agenda, limit your comments to the subject of that item. If you wish to speak on a subject not listed on the agenda, you may speak under the public comment portion of the meeting. Finally, please address your comments to the city council staff. only respond to questions from the city council and not from public speakers. We'll now move on to the invocation. Invita invitation will be provided by professor professor pastor Vanessa Howard from South County Outreach.

Thank you. Professor sounds great too. Thank you, Mayor Pico, city council and staff. Thank you so much. I always love to pray over this fabulous city. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come to you today with grateful hearts for the city of Lake Forest, for its people, and for the opportunity to be a part of the greatest city in Orange County. God, we thank you for the leaders of this city, for the city council, the staff who truly put their hearts and souls into all that they do, who serve this great community day in and day out. God, grant them wisdom, integrity, and discernment as they make decisions that impact the lives of so many. And God, we pray for the community that Lake Forest would be a place of peace, of safety, of care, and unity. Help us to treat one another with respect, to seek understanding, and to work together for the good of all. Lord, guide this meeting tonight that all the discussions here and decisions would be marked by wisdom, humility, and a spirit of cooperation. We ask your blessing over this city and all who call it home and your mighty son Jesus name. Amen.

Thank you. So that leads us to the pledge of allegiance to the flag of our country will be led by scout troop 4321. Please rise. Please place your right hand over your heart. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. 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. You may be seated.

All right, that brings us to presentations. Do I have a motion to consider approving presentation number one? So, so moved. Second. So, we have a motion and a second. Please vote. Thank you, council members. And that motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Madame City Clerk. Please read the title of item number one. The title of item number one is the recognition of the 2025 commission chairs. Thank you, Madam City Manager. Please introduce this item. Thank you, mayor. Tonight, we have a short presentation by our city clerk, T Merritt.

Uh, thank you, city manager Rose, and thank you, council members and mayor Penoyo. Tonight we are presenting the 2025 commission chairs and unfortunately our traffic and parking commission 2025 commission chair Jim FA is unable to um join us but we do have our uh planning commission and our um community services commission chairs here and so I'd like to invite them up. Um chair Tim Brutin and chair Thomas Luton if you please would come up and join the council members on stage. and so we can present to you our uh present to you your um certificates of recognition. So let's give them a round of applause. Those two

even All right. Each of you have a threem minute speech to give. You cut it down. Yeah. Cut it down to three.

So, I'm like I'm glad the city recognizes the chairs to our commissions. These commissioners u they have a lot of choices to make and we we kind of hope that that come to us. So, you guys have been doing a great job. Um, so in appreciation, especially to be the chair, uh, because you always have to be there. So the first one is for Tim Brutin and the other one's for Thomas Luton. Thank you for, uh, for leading the city the way you do. Thank you so much for your service. Appreciate all the work you're doing behind the scenes. Excellent job. Appreciate it. All right, that takes us to public comment. If you would like to make a comment, please fill out a blue speaker card and give it to the city clerk and your name will be called. Comments are limited to three minutes per person. The council and staff will not respond to questions or comment during this comment period. If you leave your contact information, staff may contact you to address issues raised during your comment period. When you're called to speak, come to the podium. Your three minutes will begin when the le green light is on. Green light will remain for two minutes. When the light changes from green to yellow, speakers will have one minute to conclude their comments. When the light changes from yellow to red, your time is concluded and please return to your seat. A timer is not displayed on the screen. Madame

City Clerk, do we have have we received any requests to speak? We do, mayor, and I apologize. We do have a public comment on our presentation item. Okay. Um, so we will take that public comment, and that is Margie.

Thank you, Madame uh, Secretary. Um, Margie Lancaster, City of Lake Forest, like 30 years. I just want to make a comment. I've served with Mr. Brutin. Where is he? Way in the back at your six.

I served with him for a one term. Uh last year when we were nominating, my only choice was for Mr. Brutin. He's a true leader. He brought his skills from being the director, facilities director at the u uh Richard Nixon Library. Uh he was a great leader. Um knowledgeable on all the items, attends a lot of functions even when he was still working. So I just want to say it was a pleasure serving with Mr. Brutin and he served as well on the community service commission. So thanking him very much. Thank you. Thank you.

Uh thank you, mayor. So now we will move on to our public comment and our first public commenter is Marcel Louis the 14th. Master Louis the 14th 26 years Foothill Ranch. Good evening everybody. Congratulations to the new mayor. Um couple of things. I already discussed a few things with the mayor prior to this meeting and Sharma government is looking into it and I appreciate you getting back with me today. Outstanding. He got back within like 10 minutes which is great. Um I also um want to thank the city app. I called in about the um was it cityside fiber that's doing a fiber work in Foothill Ranch? Well had a question on how they would finish up the project and I'd sent the app in. Within 10 minutes I had a response back which is just really impressive. So thank you for that. That's really really really good. Um still no reports from the council member who attends the Orange County Fires um sorry OCFA's board meetings. because we still have nothing in writing, no reports, nothing. Certainly would like to know what goes on on those meetings. Um, another thing, what is the city's endgame plan? How many people are you going to bring into the city? I mean, you're building houses everywhere. You've got these multi-use zones now. You're putting people in commercial areas. You're building up here and there. How many people are you planning on cramming into the city? We kind of like to know that one because it's going to impact everybody here. the more people you bring in, the more traffic, the more congestion, and the more the people would like to know what the plan is. Um, also on the emissions reduction, I know you're going to be putting in Costco, and you said that this particular project is exempt from

the CQA or whatever it is. Um, looking at your policy that's in the general plan, you still have all the emissions that you've got to meet. You can't get by them. So, I don't understand how it is every project you're doing, you say they're exempt from the emissions. Is there a new policy? Did you change it? Is this being updated? I mean, we'd like to know because you're penalizing everybody. We've got to be emissions reductions. There's a certain amount of CO2 we got to reduce to. But how can we do that if every project that comes in is exempt? You're never going to meet it. Okay, moving on. Um, that's pretty much it. I just wanted to say thanks to uh Captain David PZ of five uh police chief and his deputies for keeping us all safe and I appreciate that and that concludes everything that I have. Thank you so much and again congratulations to the mayor.

Thank you and thank you for your comments.

Our next public commenter is Jay Cost. Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to talk. I have three separate but related comments today on housing. First, I wish to thank the city council and the city staff who may not always hear the appreciation for the work that is done on the city's behalf for shephering in the more affordable housing we have here now. including the Royo and Baker Ranch, Caua and Clinton Ranch, and more recently the Mountain View and Raymond, the Meadow the Meadows on Bake and Aspen Court. Second, I have I read anist article about the study done at the request of the LA city council which reported last October that increasingly the housing there is being purchased by institutional investors Wall Street. It also showed that in the six years of the study reviewed, one out of five single family residences were bought by organizations, not individuals. It also showed that rental units owned by organizations have a high association with more evictions, more hability violations, and more housing insecurity for renters. The LA City Council now has the research to make policy that helps firsttime home buyers and mom and pop landlords. My question to the Lake Forest City staff and the council is, do we know what is happening here? are

institutional investors also increasingly buying single family homes and two to four unit buildings in Lake Forest. If we do not yet have those answers, I would suggest and ask that we do a similar study here to be prepared for what already has happened or will be coming. Finally, as regards to the agenda item number six tonight on your agenda, the Costco project, there is a new Costco north of Lake Forest whereby a developer also built affordable housing units above the new Costco store. I would encourage the city to promote this model, mixeduse buildings to accommodate businesses and housing for the folks who will be working at those businesses. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Our next public commenter is Pamela Estus. Hello. Um, I'm Pam Estus and I'm the CEO for the Boys and Girls Club of Laguna Beach that also serves Saddleback Valley. And I just wanted to thank the council for considering investing CDBG funds in the lives of our young people who live in Lake Forest. I also want to give an update on our work specifically in Lake Forest. And so over the last 12 months across our whole organization, we've served 135 unique young people who live in Lake Forest. at our El Toro branch at Mountain View. We enrolled 50 kids during that time. And of those 50 kids, 45 live in Lake Forest. The

Mountain View program costs over $150,000 a year to run. And because these families are struggling to get by, we do not charge them anything for their kids to attend. That means that it costs us $3,000 per child per year for that program. So, you can see how important this community support is. Research has shown that for every dollar invested in a Boys and Girls Club, the social and economic ROI to the community is more than 10 times that. That means that our program at Mountain View returns approximately 1.5 million in community benefit. And that shows up in increased academic achievement that increases future earnings and brings in more taxes, improved health and well-being, which reduces health care expenditures because of healthier behaviors, diets, and physical activity, increased family household earnings. In Orange County, next to housing, the largest expense for families is child care and essential societal skills that reduces crime and violence and improves mental health. So, besides funding the program, we're also helping hoping to ask you to help promote and advocate for our kids. And in a quick shameless plug, we we're asking everyone to save the date of October 17th for our super fun annual Lake Forest fund raiser right here. In closing, remember that Lake Forest needs our Boys and Girls Club kids and our club key kids need each and every one of you. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Our next public commenter is Sandra de Santiago. Good evening, city city council members and community leaders. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Sandra de Santiago and I'm the Saddleback Valley area director representing Boys and Girls Club of Laguna Beach while also proudly serving Saddleback Valley communities with club club sites in Laguna Hills, Mission Vjo, and Lake Forest. I'm here today to highlight the impactful work happening at Our Toro Branch in Lake Forest at the Mountain View Apartment Complex. At the Boys and Girls Club, our mission is simple but powerful. To provide a safe, inclusive, and enriching environment where every young person has the opportunity to reach their full potential. For many families in our community, we are more than just an afterchool program. We are a place where children feel supported, valued, and inspired every single day. Since opening our El Toro branch site in April 2024, we have served youth in Lake Forest, providing them with consistent access to positive mentorship, structured programming, and a safe place to go after school. At our Toro program, as mentioned prior, we are currently serving 50 youth and importantly 45 of those children are residents of Lake Forest. These numbers represent real families in our city who rely on us for support, stability, and opportunity. Our programs are designed to go far beyond supervision. We focus on leadership and character development, helping youth build confidence, responsibility, and strong decision-making skills. We also provide homework assistance and academic to support to ensure students stay on track and succeed in school while creating life-enhancing programs that expose youth to new experiences ranging from STEM activities to art and recreation. Most importantly, we offer a safe and inclusive space where every child feels they belong. Having a

positive environment environment like this is more important than ever. Working families need reliable, high-quality programs for their children, and youth need spaces where they can grow, not only academically, but socially and emotionally as well. The Boys and Girls Club is committed to continuing this work in Lake Forest, expanding our reach and deepening our impact. With your support, we can ensure that even more children in our community have access to these critical opportunities. Thank you for your time, your leadership, and your dedication to the youth and families of Lake Forest, and we look forward to continuing our partnership with you to build a strong, bright future for the community. Thank you. Thank you for your comments.

Our next public commenter is Mike Davidson. as I'm continuing some talks on uh considering uh ICE and BBP escalations. Um the threat to our community by ICE and CBP have uh been reduced since their withdrawal from Minneapolis. We were expecting it to increase and many uh um many court rulings, court order violations and resulting in process reorganization of these agencies in Lake Forest. This is also largely uh the reduction is also largely due to the excellent rapid response work of our churches, various volunteer groups actively documenting local raids and informing people of their rights. Still, the threat to to comm to to the community remains and can escalate at any time. So again, I am asking the city council to consider forming a response plan. um school boards, churches, immigration law offices, uh various volunteer groups, the state, counties, and various cities have already done this or have uh their staffs looking into this. We have plans for all other potential safety issues. Why not this? I would also like to call attention to an in-depth study published last month uh by the county of Los Angeles titled economic impacts of federal immigration enforcement. I could not find any appropriate uh any similar study for Orange County, but the um results should uh translate fairly um fairly evenly. Um key report findings are from a respondents to a survey for the period July to September of 2025.

Um undocumented workers contribute an estimated 17% of the county's gross domestic product. These workers uh support industries including construction, manufacturing, retail, and services. 90% of businesses perceived growth uh growing distrust across federal and local governments. 82% of businesses reported negative impacts from immigration enforcement with 44% losing over half of their revenue. 52% experienced reduced daily sales revenue and 51% reported decreased customer traffic. 59% of employers expressed concern about maintaining their current workforce. 70% of businesses experienced staffing shortages following enforcement action. 33% of employers said workers were afraid to report to work. Steven Chung, president and chief of executive officer of the uh Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, um said Los Angeles County's economy depends on

Thank you for your comments.

Our next public commenter is Amy Stevens. Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Amy Stevens and I have owned a home in Lake Forest District 4 for 14 years. In the past few weeks, two girls on ebikes were injured near Foothill Ranch. A man was attacked by five teens on ebikes near UCI and an elderly woman was seriously injured in Seal Beach after being struck by a teen on an ebike. These incidents are different, but they point to a shared community concern. The rapid rise of ebike use, especially among teens, and the need for clear rules to help keep everyone safe. I have also heard directly from local parents walking by elementary age child to school near a high school campus. This comes up often. Families are seeing close calls and are unsure what the rules are or how they are being enforced. I want to be clear. I'm not anti-bike nor anti- youth. Ebikes are a legitimate transportation option. This is about safety, clarity, and accountability. I recognize and appreciate that this council and staff are likely already aware of these concerns. I am here to respectfully encourage bringing your discussions into a public proactive conversation. Recently, the city of Irvine advanced updated ebike regulations after reviewing collision data and hearing from residents. Their approach includes clearer speed limits, restrictions on illegal modifications, parental accountability, and flexible enforcement. I have heard from Irvine residents who have already noticed a difference. I'm not here to suggest that Lake Forest copy Irvine word for word, but their process offers a useful

reference point, which is why I again am respectfully asking this council to consider agendaizing ebike safety for a near future meeting. As part of that, I would encourage a process that includes both data and community input. As a starting point, I am asking the council to request that staff one, review recent ebike and bicycle collision data in and around Lake Forest. Two, evaluate how our current municipal code addresses ebikes, scooters, sidewalks, and trails. And three, explore best practices from nearby cities and engage the community as you consider potential updates. I appreciate the work this council is doing to balance safety, mobility, and fairness. My hope is that we take a proactive communityinformed approach so that are we so that we are setting clear expectations before something goes wrong rather than reacting after it does. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your comments. Our next public commenter is Randy Johnson. Well, well, good evening, council. I haven't seen you guys in a raccoon's age. Uh, and uh, I really miss you. I really miss you, you know. So, I can be political, too, if I need to be. Anyway, folks, I'm here tonight actually to speak on item 12. Okay, that's the main event for me. Mr. Johnson, you're going to have to wait till item 12 pops up.

I'm not talking about item 12 here and there. Okay. All right. Let Let me go on. Okay. Could I get a nut for a couple seconds?

Okay. And u So my main event is is item 12. Um but uh you know, I stopped by the compost giveaway on Saturday and I really have to commend CRNR. I got there like at 8:15 or something like that. They only had a few bags left by that time. Okay. They had to come with more bags. so more people can get that compost if they need it and everybody should be checked for ID to make that sure they live in the city of Lake Forest. Okay. But afterwards I went to the rec center because I don't go over there very often, you know. Uh but uh I checked with the kid behind the counter and I said, you know, is there any basketball leagues here for guys my age? Like if you're over 60 or whatever, you know, he looked at me like I had two heads and I said, "Hold it." I said down in San Juan Copist Toronto they have basketball games between guys 60 and 70 and 70 and 80. Okay, I've been down there before and I played. And I said, "Why don't you have something like that here in Lake Forest?" You know, and he said, "I don't know." You know, and uh uh maybe maybe staff and council can look into that. You know, guys my age, we don't just sit home and drink beer and watch the sitcoms and ESPN all day long. Okay? We like to do things, too. All right. So, it'd be nice to get out there, be able to play B. I'd like to play basketball. And I'm sure out of 87,000 people here in Lake Forest, we can find a group of guys over the age of 55 who want to go out in the court and shoot some hoops with me. All right? I I can play with the 29 year old guys, too. But I'd rather not do that full court. Okay? I can do it, but I don't want to do it because I might get hurt. But if I do get hurt, I won't sue you for $550,000. Okay? I promise I won't. I'll even sign a medical waiver if I need to. Okay. All right. So, and number three, uh, with regard to ICE, everybody's complaining about ICE. Their complaint is with Basera and Schiff. Okay. They're

the ones who are the lawmakers. All ICE is doing is carrying out the law. Okay? Illegal foreigners are not supposed to be in the country without authorization. That's the truth. Okay? tell these people back here who's ever in fa who's ever trasht talking ICE go down to Tijana and demand free health care you know go down there and ask for SNAP benefits or something like that you know I wouldn't recommend it because I know what happens to gringoes down there who go down there and ask for those types of things okay I've seen it all right so uh give him a couple extra seconds you got a couple extra Our next public commenter is Mark Hermanson.

Hey, good evening, council. I actually had something else I wanted to speak about tonight, but looking around at how many people are here, one of the things I know when a lot of people show up to a meeting, there's only one or two reasons. Either we have something going on or people want to yell about something. There's usually only about 20 people who show up regularly and only about five or six people that stay to the end. I would remind everybody there are people who don't make it and they watch from home. If you want to come up here and screech and yell and demand things of our city council, no one at home can understand you. It is a bunch of noise. If your goal is to come here and convince the council to do something or to agree with you, you can still be passionate and get your point across and do it in a respectful, wellspoken manner. When other people are speaking, you don't have to agree with them. Some people here have already made comments I disagree with and some people have made comments I agree with. I sit here quietly. I let them speak as and as it is their right. The thing I actually wanted to speak about tonight was uh kind of knowing your council. Councilman Voit made a comment that sometimes people come here and they're just full of venom. And that is true. I've seen it and anybody who sits here regularly has seen it. So one thing it's hard to do is speak like that when you know somebody. So Councilman Yu, I kind of looked into you and read about you this past weekend. You came here as a legal immigrant from Lean Anging, China. I sorry I can't pronounce it right. Councilman Yu also gave up working on Wall Street to join the army and serve this country. Um and he is a disabled veteran. You and I have a couple of things in common. We're both legal immigrants to this country and I never want to go back to England. They talk funny and they drive on the wrong side

of the road. Um, we both served in the United States Army and since we're both from the same service, I think we are both here because our two Marine Marines up here on the council, they need heroes, too. So, thank you. Thank you for your comment, Hero.

Our next public commenter is April Josephson. Good evening, honorable mayor and council members. The Pet Adoption Center of Orange County located in the Lake Forest Village Shopping Center has been Lake Forest active contracted community partner for supplemental animal services since opening in 2017. We chose to locate in Lake Forest because it was the only city locally that was unable to join Mission Veho Animal Services in 2016. We wanted to help provide the local community with additional resources beyond OC Animal Care to try to provide a level of service closer to what the neighborhood cities neighboring cities receive. We collaborated with the city and OC Animal Care as an adoption center pilot project with a concept that we would be a community-based adoption center that also provided shelter intervention services, education services, and events. Both organizations provided a small amount of financial support for our cent's initial buildout. Over the years, as conditions have changed, we've been proactively adjusting our services to provide additional support to Lake Forest residents and pets, including partnering with a local food pantry to provide ongoing pet pantry services to those in need, assisting with startup and partnering with our local our local lowcost spayneuter clinic, and working with a number of local vet offices to provide microchipping and basic veterary care to those in need as we are able. Just last month, we captured a stray black pug from the nearby neighborhood that was repeatedly escaping due to a hole in the backyard fencing. The family received an education to prevent Bingo from getting out again. We microchipped him, treated him for a UTI, and provided the young lowincome owner with needed supplies, including prescription dog food and properly fitting collar leash, and harness before returning Bingo home. The Paco Sea provides direct on the ground animal related services to Lake Forest residents on a daily basis

through our dedicated group of 80 volunteers. Our location within the city is often the first place people go to get help. The PAOC is listed on the city's website to contact for assistance. Many people believe that we are the city's primary animal services provider. We are currently working with city recreation staff planning the 2026 South County Pet Expo to be held April 26th at the Lake Forest Sports Park. As always, we'll have lots of dogs, cats, birds, and small animals available for adoption. The heart lowcost vaccine clinic, mini horse therapies coming again, and Mission Vos Animal Services are bringing is bringing their emergency response unit. Although OC Animal Care will have a booth, they've declined our request for an animal control vehicle this year. OC Mosquito and Vector Control District has promised their huge mosquito display unless there's inclement weather. We're excited to have the nonprofit OC Animal Allies join us as a sponsor for the first time. They will be providing veterans with free pet food and supplies. We are currently engaged in the sponsor signup pro process. If you would like to participate, you can email sponsor adopt occupetss.org. Thank you for your support.

Thank you for your comments.

And our last general public commenter is Andrew Okconor. Can you can you in the back hear what what's being said by the speakers?

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, here we go. Andrew Oconor, Foothill Ranch, original resident, been here 35 and a half years. It's a great day to be Irish. I'm 100% Irish, my heritage. Today the prime minister serve Ireland. Michael Martin was in the White House with President Trump. I'm disappointed there's not a proclamation today honoring the Irish here in Lake Forest. I think if you look out in the audience you see a spattering of green. Uh it looks like Mr. Voits has got a little green on and Mr. Serbo has a little green on. I appreciate the effort. Um you know one of our favorite sons and I know this will bring a smile to Mr. Voits is John Ireland. Remember John Ireland? Mr. Voitz let him shake his hand. What did John Ireland do for the city of Lake Forest? He tously put together the Fourth of July Lake Forest parade. What a hardworking guy. He did that tously year after year after year. So in the future, can we have a proclamation on St. Patrick's Day honoring John Ireland for his tireless work in the city of Lake Forest. It's a great day to be Irish today. Okay. Last month we gave a proclamation for the Lunar New Year to the Chinese. Well, let me tell you what the Irish have done right here in the Saddleback Valley. We hear the word Irvine. Irvine. Irvine. Do you know that's an Irvine family that came from Belfast, Ireland as cattle ranchers? And the Irvine ranch was a cattle ranch. Do

you know the name O'Neal is another family name from Ireland that were cattle ranchers right here in the Saddleback Valley? Do you know the name Tony Mois who built Rancho Santa Margarita? He's a descendant of the O'Neal family from Ireland. Do you know Thomas O'Neal? Supervisor Thomas O'Neal Jr. We have a park up here with his name on it. The Irish have contributed a lot to the Saddleback Valley. And shame on you for not recognizing us in a proclamation tonight on our most hallowed day of St. Patrick's Day. Shame on you for not recognizing John Ireland in everything he's done. So, I hope when I come back here next year, there will be a proclamation on St. Patrick's Day honoring the good man, John Ireland.

Thank you for your comments. That's it, Mayor. Thank you. We'll move on to the consent calendar. All matters listed in the consent calendar are considered routine and will be enacted by one vote. There will be no separate discussion of these items unless members of the city council or staff requests specific items be removed from the consent calendar for each separate action. Has there been any request to rem remove any items from the consent calendar? No request to remove any items, but we do have public comment on items number three, four, nine, and 10. Okay, before we get to that, I think my colleague has a statement.

Yeah, um got a statement and I'm going to move the uh the remainder of that. My public statement is there are warrants on the register for the county of Orange. I am an employee of the county of Orange, but I do not work for the departments that generate these warrants. Because the county of Orange is the public agency and because I do not work for the departments in question, I have determined that I have a non-interest in these warrants and I will be voting on them. But I will move the remainder of the consent calendar. I have a motion. I'll second that. A second. Let's vote.

Thank you, council members. The motion to move the remainder passes unanimously. And that first item for general public comment is the certification of warrant register. And that is Andrew O' Connor for public comment. It's for minutes. I'm so sorry. Minutes of the regular meeting of the city council held on March 3, 2026.

Andrew Conf ranch. I'm in discussion about the Aspen Court affordable housing project in the relationship of the financing with national core. During that discussion, it goes back to the January 6th city council meeting when Councilman Voits became I mean Councilman Bino became mayor and he gave his speech what he was going to accomplish. And this was with the this was at the 22 minute mark thanking everybody and what he's going to do. And then he went on to thank people and he had a brain freeze. He couldn't even remember Gail Aurman's name. He totally forgot the deputy city manager Sean McGovern's name. But the biggest thing was at the 25 minute 30 second mark, mayor, on the January 6 council meeting, as far as Aspen Court goes, you said we're getting close to breaking ground. Well, sir, that's not even close because right here in the March 3rd, 2026 report, the last paragraph, it says on November 4th, 2025, said they'd have to delay it because of the financing. There's no way in November 2025, 60 days before you were told that the financing is delaying the project, but you announced you're getting close to breaking ground. As the mayor of the city, we expect accurate information. Sir, you

weren't even close. This thing's not close to breaking ground. So I ask you in your position as mayor, can you please give accurate information when you speak? Thank you. Thank you for your comments and I do have some accurate information. The gentleman that you were talking about, his name is John Irish, not John Ireland. Thank you for your comments.

The next item for public comment is item number four, and that is the certification of warrant register. And the public commenter on that is Andrew O' Conor. So tonight I'm talking about the U consent calendars, what I call the city's checkbook for people in the audience. And this is published every other month. And this month we're just distributing about $3 million to different vendors. And I like to go through it and see who these vendors are and how much we're paying. And I'd like to let my fellow residents know how we're spending our money. First of all, right over here, our city attorney for November charged us close to $100,000 in legal fees. That's a lot of month money for a month that's a holiday month. There's not much going on, Mr. City Attorney. But when you ask him to give details of that $100,000, he refuses to tell us. Isn't that something? As a resident, I can't find out where $100,000 are being spent in over a year. Can you believe it, folks? You see, you won't even look at me so embarrassed. We spend $1.2 2 million in legal fees. City of Lake Forest, can you believe it? We're spending $1.2 million in legal fees. And he doesn't can't even give me eye contact. But it gets better than that. We pay a vendor called Superior Property Service to take care of graffiti and it's $9,000. It's $100,000 a year we paying graffiti removal. And Mr.

McGovern says over at Kavanaaugh Park, "We've done it so many times, the paint is so thick, it's a glob, but we keep painting the wall in Mr. Canyon's district." Isn't that something? How about this? Our very own Scott Voits. It's not much money, folks. It's only $90. But can you believe from October to December 2025, Mr. Voids want you, the taxpayers, to reimburse them for mileage. Wow. Really, Scott? 90 bucks is going to break you from your house to the city council to this building. Shame on you. But wait, our own city manager, Deborah Rose, took a junket to Napa in February and never reported back to us. At the end of the council meeting, the mayor says, "Anything to report?" And the city manager says,"I have nothing further report." Well, city manager, can you tell us what you did in Napa Valley? Seems like you're on a wine tasting trip. Did you Did you prefer Merllo or Seven Blanc? I think the people under AB 1731 deserves to know how you're spending our money. And before that, folks, in October, she took a junket.

Thank you for your comments. Mr. City Attorney, I have a question for you. Um, who's required to report out on uh trips? Uh, Mr. Mayor, the council is Thank you. Thank you. Our next public uh commenter for item number nine is the fourth amendment to the agreement with Orange County Yellow Management LLC for senior taxi transportation services and that is Mark Hermanson.

Okay. Before he starts, uh Mr. City Manager, just to make sure, does the city manager have to report out? Thank you, Mr. Hermanson.

Good evening. Uh, madam city manager, if I can suggest a pino gregio from uh, northern France is a little buttery and it goes down a lot smoother. Just a suggestion, not a merllo. U, when it comes to the yellow taxi service, my mother-in-law is getting a little bit older and she has used those services. She's a mission viejo. Whatever we need to do with that, I would encourage you to keep it going. It is a great service and even though my wife is probably going to kill me, I've seen her mother drive. So, the more we can have with the yellow taxi services, the better. Uh, I'm not quite there in age yet. I can still drive somewhat. Don't turn 60 for another two years. So, but we do have a lot of senior citizens in our area and it is a great program. So, it's not one of those times to pinch pennies or worry about that. City's in pretty good financial health. So, anything to do with that, I would encourage you to vote yes and continue with, please. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. The last consent calendar item with public comment is item number 10, which is the fifth amendment to the professional services agreement with Inner West Consulting Group Incorporated for building and safety services. And the public commenter for that is Andrew O' Conor. Andrew O' Conor Foothhill Ranch. You know, I opposed this contract with Inner West years ago. Go back and look at the archives. I said we didn't need it. And it was discussed last uh council meeting and a person came up. Yay. Glad we're not going to do it. So now I guess we're putting we're wrapping it up here and saying goodbye to internet interwest. Um we've just wasted a ton of money. Just lots of money. Just blown right out the door. But then again, you saw the you saw the mayor asked the city attorney, "Does the city manager need to report out?" And the answer was no. Wow. But on our website, man, they talk about transparency, ladies and gentlemen. They talk about everything. But boy, when you ask for facts, they won't tell you anything. So, here we are. We're going to wind this thing down. This is what March 17, 2026. We're going to keep this thing going with Inner West for another 13 months. That's right. It won't wind down until April 30th, 2027 with an increased total compensation of 1,548,000 for what? There's no big projects being done. The Meadows is winding up. What else is on the drawing board

that we have to have a budget of 1.548? City manager, you're just wasting money. Just throwing it out the window. Safety service from a contracted model. We're going from a contracted model to an in-house operation, which I've been talking about for years, and you finally decided to change. I'm gonna instead of Deborah Rose, I'm gonna call you Deborah Turtle because it takes you six years to get anything done. This is a limited term bridge agreement. What does that mean, folks? We just get stonewalled all the time by these folks. And as a taxpayer, taxpayer, I don't think it's fair, Mayor Pan, I don't think it's fair that she doesn't have to report out. I think she should she should be accountable, folks. She makes $400,000 a year and she can't report out what she did in Napa Valley. She can't report out what she did in Tampa Bay. It's ridiculous. But you have transparency all over the website. Mr. Tatimer, you've been on the council.

Thank you for your comments. That's it. Mayor. All right. Thank you. So, I'll take uh a motion for items 1, two, five, six, seven, and eight. I'll move all those that were pulled. All right. Let's vote. No. I'm sorry. All the three one two. So 3 4 9 and 10. We'll be doing I'll be making a motion. We 3 4 9 and 10. Approve. 3 4 9 and 10. There you go.

I do need one more vote. Thank you. All right, we're going to be moving on to the public hearing on item number 11. I would like to open up this public hearing. Madame city clerk, please read the title to item number 11 and provide us with the details on how this public hearing will proceed.

Yes. Thank you. Let's go. Miss, madame city clerk.

Thank you, mayor. The title of item 11 is the appeal of the planning commission approval of the Costco wholesale project site development permit 05255800. Use permits 0525-55801 through05255803. The planned signed program 05255804 and the public convenience or necessity determination 12255850. Now this public hearing will proceed as follows. We will follow we will begin with a report from city staff Mr. Connor Musler. Following the staff report, the appellant will be given seven minutes to speak, after which the applicant will be given seven minutes to speak as well. Following the applicant's comments, the public will be given the opportunity to comment on the item. At the close of the public comment period, the appellant will be given five minutes for any rebuttal comments.

Thank you, madame city manager. Please introduce this item. Thank you, mayor. Uh, we're going to start with comments by our city attorney, Mel Richardson, followed by a report from our associate planner, Connor Musler.

Thank you, mayor and council. Just a few um housekeeping items. The item before us has been noted as a public hearing. It's an appeal from a planning commission item. Um, these appeals are held pursuant to chapter 2.04 of our code. Uh, they're also held pursuant to due process requirements. um they're informed by by these these constitutional due process requirements. One of those requirements um dictates that the only the only information upon which the council can base its determination is information presented as part of this public hearing. That includes verbal and written testimony uh which includes your staff report, the resolutions, anything that's presented to the council. Uh what cannot be relied upon are what are called exparte contacts. Now, exparte is a fancy way of saying contacts outside of the hearing. Um, so if there have been exparte contacts between the council and the applicant or the appellant, um, they can be relied upon if they're disclosed as part of the hearing. So if there have been any contacts between yourself and the applicant or the appellant, it would be appropriate at this time to disclose those contacts that they happened and the content of those contacts. So have there been any contacts, exparte contacts between council members and either the applicant or the appellant?

No. Do you want a verbal response from each one of us? We don't need it. As long as there are none, then we can go forward. those guys up. Mr. Mel Richardson, I actually said hi to them back in the back corner over there. I'm welcome aboard and and we're happy to have them. So that's all I said. That's a permissible exparte contact. Thank you. I'm I'm seeing none. So with that, we can move forward with the staff report. Thank you, mayor and council.

Thank you. If the appalent appellant is present, please come forward and address your to the city council your concerns. Oh, I'm sorry. Connor is going to do his thing then. All right. Good evening, mayor, members of the council. I have to introduce this project to you first before we get going. So, this is the appeal of the Costco wholesale project at 26602 Town Center Drive. It's on. Okay. Uh so we'll start with a little bit about the project. So the um go to the next slide. The location is within the Foothill Ranch Town Center. More specifically the phase 4 of the Town Center Shopping Center. That is the area that is generally bounded by Bake Parkway, Town Center Drive, Marketplace, and State Route 241. You can see it on the screen there highlighted in red with the uh yellow star on it. That is the former movie theater building. So, the project site is presently developed with the movie theater building that was most recently occupied by CineArk up until its closure in September of 2024. The uh the site has been vacant since then. This slide here, you can see the proposed location again in that yellow star and then this is it relative to the surrounding Costco locations. A little bit off the screen further to the north up the five freeway, the the toll road is the Tustin location. These are the existing Costco locations in the area that serve residents within the Saddleback Valley. So, uh, the proposed Costco location would be in an already developed shopping center, giving customers a more convenient alternative

to those existing Costco stores in Irvine and Laguna Niguel, filling in a little bit of an underserved or unserved area for Costco. The application package submitted includes a few entitlements. The first is for a site development permit. This is to demolish the existing movie theater building and construct in its place a new 165,068q ft building with an entrance canopy. The building will be 34 ft tall and improvements will include parking, landscaping, and other associated site improvements. In addition to the site development permit, there are few use permits that are being requested. The first is for exceptions to the mixeduse development standards. The next to allow for off-site alcoholic beverage sales with a ABClic license type 21 that is beer, wine and distilled spirits and light automotive repair in the tire center. Also, a planned sign program is requested to modify the existing planned sign program for phase 4. And finally, a determination of public convenience or necessity is required by ABC to allow for alcohol sales due to an overconentration of alcohol licenses within the census tract. The site plan shown on the screen um demonstrates that the project complies with all applicable development standards including parking setbacks, maximum height, and floor area ratio. Site access will be provided via existing signalized and unsalized intersections along Town Center Drive. All users within phase 4 share their parking facilities. Uh with the proposed Costco, a total of 1,994 parking spaces would be required with 2,68 parking spaces provided. So sufficient to comply with code requirements. A little bit about those requested

mixeduse exceptions. They specifically pertain to the provision of open space on the site. When the city reszoned the area to be a mixeduse designation, one of those requirements was for 25% of the property to be provided as landscaped open space. As presently developed with the uh ample parking facilities and the the movie theater, only about 8.1% of the property is open space. the the Costco team has maximized the amount of landscaping on site to be about 8.8% of open space while still maintaining all required drive aisles and parking facilities. In addition, the massing break exception pertains to the elevations of the building and the uh architectural features that are provided. And then finally, the vertical articulation which is the roof line variation. Also, the plan sign program requested modifications are to expand the applicability of the plan sign program. Currently, the signed program in effect for this phase uh caps out at tenants at 120,000 square ft. So, at Costco, they exceed that square footage. So, the signed program needs to be amended to cover that tenant size. So, the proposed amendment would apply to a larger tenant like Costco. Inside the building are the proposed alcohol sales. The floor plan shows that in red. This is about 1,765 square ft out of the overall 160,942 ft sales area. It's about 1.10% of the sales area. The area shown in blue is the service bays for the light auto repair, which will be limited to the sale, installation, and maintenance of vehicle tires. So, the planning commission held a public hearing on February 5th of this year and they unanimously approved the project as presented to them. Since then, we've received an appeal and so

we'll talk a little bit about the appeal that we've received. Uh, a little bit about that. Section 2.04.110 of our code states that the planning commission decisions can be appealed to the city council and those appeals have to be filed within 15 days of the issuance of the planning commission's decision. That appeal has to set forth the specific action that is being appealed, the specific grounds for the appeal, and the relief that is being requested from the city council. In this case, a timely appeal was filed within 15 days by the supporters alliance for environmental responsibility or safer. Their appeal specifically appeals the planning commission's approval of the project. It's challenging the city's environmental determination that the project is exempt from SQA due to potential impacts regarding air quality, greenhouse gas, and vehicle miles traveled or VMT. The appellent requests that the city council direct staff to prepare an initial study followed by more substantial environmental review through an environmental impact report or a mitigated negative declaration before further project consideration. So the SQA analysis that was done for this project, it is a streamlining provision within the SQA guidelines that is contained within section 15183. Uh staff determined the well planning commission determined the project to be exempt from SQA because the project is consistent with the 2040 Lake Forest general plan and any impacts were covered by the general plan EIR that was certified by the city council in June of 2020. staff and the city's environmental planning consultant, Denovo Planning Group, reviewed technical studies that were prepared by the applicant and prepared an environmental compliance checklist. Some of those technical studies included a traffic study for VMT and level of service, greenhouse gas analysis, geotechnical study, and so on and so forth.

In response to Safer's appeal, uh, Denovo Planning Group, which was the city's environmental consultant, prepared a, uh, technical response and basically the environmental compliance checklist followed the city's adopted SQL guidelines. The environmental impacts were all discussed and analyzed and through that analysis, it concluded that there were no sightspecific or peculiar impacts associated with the project. All uniformly applied standards and policies would be applied to the project. So this is things like when the applicant comes in to submit for building permits, those plans will be drawn in accordance with the latest adopted building code for the city. So therefore, the project qualifies for a section 15183 sequence streamlining because there's no peculiar site impacts. There's no potential significant off-site impacts and there are no impacts considered more severe than discussed in our general plan EI. So with that, staff is recommending that the city council find that the project is exempt from SQUA pursuant to section 15183 and adopt the following resolutions approving the project. This last slide is just a brief recap of the the actions that we've taken to get to this point. Uh I'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have. We also have our SQA attorney, Alicia Winterswick, here to answer if you have any questions about the SQA process. And then you guys will hear from the appellant and the Costco applicant. All right. Thank you. But before we do that, we'll just see if the appellant is present so he can come and uh address the city council on this item. Sorry. Good evening, honorable mayor and council members. Uh my name is Chase Piato. I'm a parillegal from the law firm Lazo Jury here tonight on behalf of the appellent supporters alliance for environmental responsibility or safer as

explained in more detail in SAFER's written correspondence to the council. Safer is respectfully requesting that the council grant Safer's appeal and not approve the project at this time because the project has not undergone adequate environmental review under SQUA. The planning commission's SQA decision on appeal tonight was that the project was exempt from in-depth review under section 15183 of the SQA guidelines. To qualify for that exemption, the project cannot have any peculiar impacts. Also, any decision by the city that section 15183 applies must be supported by substantial evidence. SQL requires that a project's transportation impacts be evaluated for what's known as vehicle miles traveled or VMT. In short, it's basically a measure of the car trips that a project will generate. Here, the project's traffic impact study didn't follow the city's VMT guidelines, which clearly would have found a significant VMT impact. Instead, it came up with its own methodology that concluded that the operation of a brand new Costco store would somehow result in a net decrease in VMTS. That conclusion makes no sense from a way perspective and made no sense to Safer's VMT expert who reviewed the traffic study. He found that the VMT analysis was based on faulty calculations and assumptions, including relying on an internal capture rate that is for mixeduse projects, which specifically excludes retail shopping centers, and assuming that the largest share of trips will come from existing Costco members who will choose

this location over other Costco. In other words, Costco would have you believe that the main purpose of this store is to cannibalize business from other Costco. Due to these errors, the traffic impact study does not reflect the actual impacts of this project and cannot be relied upon as substantial evidence to find the project exempt under section 15183. For that reason, Safer respectfully requests that the council grant the appeal and direct planning staff to revise the VMT analysis prior to further consideration of the project. Thank you.

Thank you. So, if the applicant is present, please come forward and address your uh the city council on this item. Uh, good evening, honorable council members. My name is Dale Goldmith. I'm a partner with the AGD law firm representing the applicant Costco. Here with me tonight is the entire Costco development team, including a representative from the project traffic engineer, KDson. I'd like to start by commending uh Connor on a very thorough staff report and all the hard work they've put into this important project. Over the last weekend, uh, the appellants submitted a letter, uh, asserting various flaws in the city's VMT analysis. This letter and these arguments were not included in the appeal. Uh, we submitted a letter today with an accompanying technical response by KDson that shows that the appellants arguments are without merit, they lack factual support, and they misapply traffic methodology. I'll briefly summarize these responses. Uh the appellants first argue that the lake forest uh traffic analysis model should have been used for the project's vehicle miles traveled or VMT analysis. However, the use of this model would not be appropriate to represent the memberonly nature of the Costco. Costco cost Costco is different. Therefore, the analysis used Costco based transaction data and GIS-based trip routing that considers travel time and distance and the proximity of other Costco, which is very important. The VMT methodology was scoped by in collaboration with the city's internal traffic experts and reviewed and approved by both the city and its independent third-party traffic expert. The appellants have failed to show that the methodology is inappropriate or that using another methodology would result in any different results. They speculate, but

they provide not a shred of evidence. The appellants also maintain that the VMT analysis understates new primary trips to the project. It's important to understand that the market area of the project currently serves five different costs within 10 miles of the project site. The reason why Costco is proposing this is because those stores are overcrowded and this store will provide a better opportunity and better experience for the members. The Foothill Ranch location will be more convenience for many of these members at the existing stores and therefore most of the primary trips coming to this Foothill Costco are expected to shift from the existing Costco. They're not new trips. They're already in the grid and the distances of the trips will be shorter because this store is closer to their homes. Uh the number and type of trips has been reviewed and approved by the city and its independent thirdparty traffic expert. Uh the appellants also claim that the IT internal capture rates should not be applied to the project because the IT shopping center rate already reflects those rates. Uh the crucial flaw in this argument is the traffic study never used the IT shopping center rates. Rather, it used a rate based on data collected from standalone Costos. KDson has a 20-year plus uh data pool of this sort of trip data which is very accurate and it's specific to this use and uh the rate provided for a more conservative analysis that actually overstated or increased the number of trips as compared to the IT shopping center rate that appellants uh uh alleged was used. Uh the standalone Costco trip generation does not take into account uh internal capture with non-COS uses such as a bank or a supermarket that may be in the facility that people will drive to and visit both uses. So therefore the trips are not new. It's not two trips. It's only a single trip. And that finances need to be accounted separately because the trip rates did not account for them. and the

city's independent uh the city and its independent traffic expert uh reviewed and approved the internal capture rate and agreed that they were appropriate. Uh the appellants also maintained that the VMT analysis assumed that 60% of the Costco shoppers will be internally captured uh at within the shopping center. In fact, the analysis only assumed 28% not 60% 28%. And this is consistent with the IT handbook which is the gold standard for preparing uh traffic analyses. Uh the appellants also assert that the internal capture rate would be lower because Costco does not induce spur-ofthe- moment shopping. However, the appellants provide no evidence whatsoever uh to support this assertion. Further uh the the the internal capture often results from the purposeful combining uh or chaining of errands uh within a single shopping trip. So rather than going doing true two trips, you'll kill two birds with one stone. And that is internal capture and that's what uh the traffic study took into account and again reviewed and approved by the city and its third party independent traffic expert. The appellets also argue without evidence I may add that the traffic study did not account for the replacement or refilling of the capacity at the other Costco resulting from the shifting of the trips. In fact, the analysis expressly considered this. Specifically, the analysis forecasts that some existing members uh of these other stores will increase the frequency of their visits once they are either have a Costco located closer to their home or do not have to contend with crowds at the other existing uh costs. So therefore, the analysis properly addressed the shifting of the trips and the backfill of the excess capacity. And again, those assumptions were reviewed and approved by the city staff and its independent third-party traffic expert. Finally, the appellants claim that there's an error in the application of the diverted trip rate in the VMT analysis. They assert

that the traffic study assumed 36% diverted and 64% primary trips, but that the VMT analysis assumed 25% diverted trips and 7% primary thinking it's a gotcha. It is not. The appellants are comparing apples to oranges, taking these two data points completely out of context. First, they do not account for the 28% of internal trips in the traffic study that were removed prior to the calculation of the diverted and the primary trips. You do have one minute left for

Secondly, they do not account for the 36% of the daily primary trips that are shifted from the other costs. Therefore, the analysis is appropriate. In some, the city's analysis is supported by substantial evidence in the record, including expert technical reports that were independently reviewed by city staff and its outside experts. The expert technical responses that we provided today show that the appellants have not provided any credible evidence that the city's analysis was inappropriate or wrong. Therefore, we respectfully request that you follow staff's recommendation and uphold the unanimous approval of your planning commission. Thank you for consideration. The team and I are available for any questions you may have.

Thank you for your comments. Madam City Clerk, are there any requests to speak on this item? We do have three public commenters and our first public commenter is Andrew O' Conor Andrew Okconor Foothill Ranch resident since 1990 which makes this November 36 years. I moved to Foothill Ranch just like Mr. Serbo moved to Tribuko Canyon for quality of life. Okay. This Costco is going to impact my quality of life. Mr. Serbo, Mr. I don't believe you even had a town hall meeting with people in District 1, did you? Did you get together with the residents of Foothill Ranch, 2,000 homeowners? No, he didn't do anything. Did you talk to the owners in the food court? How it's going to impact them? It's going to impact them because if right now if this Costco moves in, they're going to take all those parking spaces and people won't go to the food court because it's going to be too far to walk. That's basic right there if you look at it. Number two, you can talk about all these traffic reports all you want. Just go out there on a Saturday or Friday afternoon and just stand there in front of the Ralphs and look at the two lanes going down Portola turning left onto Market. Right now they're full with existing retailers. So you're telling me you're going to put a Costco in there that's going to generate more traffic going down eastbound Porto that can handle that? No way. I don't need a traffic report. I just use my two eyes to take a look at it. And Councilman Serbo, I challenge you to do it. It's the same thing on Town Center. You do not have enough flow coming up Lake Forest on onto Town Center. You

can't flow the traffic it is now. And now you're going to put a Costco in there. And Councilman, you you're in deep trouble because you're in you're your con constituents are Alton Parkway and Bank Parkway. Let's not forget folks, we're going to demo the Panasonic Avionics and make that into a 247 365 distribution center with trucks coming up. Do you much truck traffic's going to be coming out Bay Lake Forest and Alton? You're going to have a 247 365 warehouse at Panasonic Avionics. You're going to bring a Costco in that needs to be loaded with 53 ft trailers. Councilman, you your folks in Baker Ranch are going to be extremely angry with you with the truck traffic coming to Alton and Bake to feed that Costco store. I'm telling you, just go out there this weekend and take a look and see for yourself. I don't need an expensive traffic report to tell me what I know living there for 30 plus years. Sir, quality of life. You going to take that away from me after I've lived here 30 plus years? Of course you will because she sees sales tax. Oh, look at the sales tax.

Thank you for your comments. Our next public commenter is Chase Preciato. Do you don't want to do the public comment then? Yeah, he he's the appellent. So any other

So our other public commenter is Tom Greyel. Mr. Mayor, members of the Lake Forest City Council, I am Tom Greyel. You know me as a member of your planning commission here at the city. However, tonight I'm speaking as a resident. I've spent the past 40 years in the land use and housing policy and operational spaces. I personally written ERS. I've managed the SQA process on both project levels and on a policy resource level. I've been asked in many times to serve on panels and hearings and such about SQA and the land use process and considered it in the industry as a subject matter expert. Uh presumably maybe those things may have counted for my uh ultimate appointment to the planning commission. But I'd like to first off commend and thank staff for the level of care and thoroughess that went into this environmental documentation process. These documents were reviewed, analyzed, and utilized in the public review process, the public hearings, the deliberations, and the ultimate approval and findings and resolutions. So, I concur with staff's analysis and and the reports that were done as uh appendices do that. So, let's call out tonight's hearing for what it is. This is a shakedown. This is a squa shakedown. It's the thing you read about in the newspapers on what happens up and down our state in every jurisdiction that there's a new development plan that's proposed. This is a single focused peripheral outside special interest actor that is attempting to hijack a legitimate review and approval process and leverage this to suit their own shameless therefore shameful

actions with their unstated goal of distorting disrupt disrupting delaying and driving out a legitimate proposal that will be of huge benefit to this city and our residents. Locating a Costco in our Foothill Ranch town center will create good paying, skilled and trained construction jobs in the short term. A steady stream of retail jobs in the future. A highly desirable destination outlet for quality goods at more affordable prices that we all enjoy. It will without a doubt revitaliz revitalize what is now a struggling if not dying commercial center and greatly re-energize several of the adjacent and nearby businesses and encourage other and new businesses to consider locating here and the tax revenue that will be generated for the city will be for used for the benefit of our residents. Conversely, the danger of not approving a the Costco proposal or if Costco were with withdraw and not go forward with improving our Foothill Ranch town center, this commercial property could otherwise very well become a target for less desirable uses demanded by many of the current sentiments and prevailing winds of the state of California's legislature. This Costco proposal is a huge benefit to the residents of our city.

Thank you for your comments. That's it, mayor. Okay. So, now the appellent may come forward and provide rebuttal testimony.

Council, I have no further comments. Thank you. So, we will now close the public hearing on item 11. And do any members of the council have any further questions or comments for this discussion? Mr. Come here. I do help yourself. Um Connor, are you around um or is um this this location um Costco in Foothill Ranch? It's so it's nearly 166,000 square feet. Is that the normal size of a Costco or is that a large Costco?

I I would defer to the Costco team on that one. They could speak to their product. Once again for the record, Dale Goldmith. Yes, that is the current prototype that Costco is using. Okay. So my my question was that normal size is the one in Irvine or the one Lu Niguel. Is that smaller than 166,000 ft? Some of the older ones were around 150 50,000 or so, but as Costco wants to provide a greater range of goods and services, they've had a slightly larger store and 166,000 represents the current state-of-the-art.

While you're there, I mean, um, while you're there, um, I actually my day job, you've probably heard at every consent calendar, um, I make a statement that I'm an employee of the county of Orange. I actually work for the super board of supervisors. And so the third district which is all inland eastern border of Orange County is our district ranch Santa Margarita Kodak Kaza Dove Canyon. So I spend probably two or three days a week in Rancher San Margarita Kodakaza area and I can't tell you the excitement that they are talking to me about as a lake forest city councilman and county of the employee um that the vehicles traveled the vehicle mile traveled from Kaza Dove Canyon and um uh Rancher Santa Margarita is is going to be substantially less than going all the way to Irvine from that location right after 241. So, I want to commend Costco and picking a great city and a great location to build this Costco. So, I'm in support of the Costco. Um, and I'll make a motion that we accept that.

No, I would just got to second that motion. I feel Costco find a great location in the city and in the district, too. I think we're very very fortunate and um I'm excited as long as with most of the community. Thank you. So, I have a motion in a second, but before that, Council Member Ted.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, I just want to follow up on um some comments made about information that was potentially either received today or submitted today, some exchange. I I'm sorry, I don't remember exactly what it was, but there was some communication that came. I don't know if that was from the appellant, and there was some response maybe from legal counsel for Costco. I don't recall. Am I Did I hear that correctly? I'm looking at the attorney. He's saying yes. Yes, mayor and council, you heard that correctly. There there's been communication from um legal counsel for Costco as well as uh for safer regarding the issues that have been addressed tonight. Uh VMT, GHG, etc.

Okay. And I just want to clarify if staff can articulate what their review of that exchange is since it's information that's not otherwise available to at least that's what I'm assuming. So, I just want to make sure we are having the benefit of whatever that exchange was. my colleague Alicia Winterswike who uh is is a SQUA expert will give that overview. Perfect. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. Uh Council Member Tedimemer, to your question, uh there was a memo um with a cover letter that was prepared today by AGD, cover letter by AGD law firm, um that Dale Goldmith is representing. He's the one that got up and spoke to you on behalf of the applicant. Um, that cover letter had attached to it a technical report that was prepared by KDson, the traffic engineer that prepared the in-depth traffic analysis for the project. Together, those documents were submitted in response to the letter that SAFER submitted to the city on Saturday morning um further expounding upon um their basis for their appeal with respect to VMT issues. Safer had hired um a consultant to help them uh review the BMT analysis that the city um prepared and attached to its EIR. And so in response to the letter we received on Saturday, we received the memo from um KDson, the cover letter from Dale City's third-party traffic engineer, Faren Piers, um another leader in the VMT world reviewed the KDson memo um as well as the additional documentation that Mr. Goldmith provided and confirmed that the conclusion we reached in the environmental um analysis supporting the 15183 exemption stands that there's no substantial evidence to support an argument that there was an error in the city's methodology or conclusions with respect to VMT. So what you have before you on the dis in addition to your agenda packet um would be that Saturday letter from safer. You would have a letter from AGD with an

attachment from KDSON um expanding on the traffic analysis and then a separate memo from fair and peers confirming that they had reviewed all of the information and confirm the conclusions that we reached in your agenda report. Right. Well, thank you for that. So there's no change in position. There's no change in staff position based on any of that information. Thank you. Correct, Mayor Pro Tim.

Thank you, Mayor. Uh this just to Connor, if I could please uh kind of addressing the question that was raised previously to maybe clear up any misinformation in terms of a property owner, residents, and the city, who has control of who comes into a particular space given our ordinances and some of the things we've been talking about tonight. Who has the control over that? Ultimately, it's the property owner. Thank you. All right. So, I have a motion and a second. Let's vote. Mr. Mayor, oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. If I may just clarify the motion and second is to approve items one through five. Is that correct?

The motion made was to approve one through five. The and then the um the 155183 exception to the squa. Thank you. All right. Thank you, council members. And that motion passes unanimously. Thank you. We'll move on to items number 12 and 13. Madame City Clerk, please write read the title of item number 12. The title of item number 12 is the agreement with Orange County Animal Care for Animal Care Services.

Thank you, Madam City Manager. What do we have before us today? Tonight we have a contract with the Orange County Animal Care Services through the County of Orange. That is the only contract before you tonight to provide those services. Uh we're going to start this item with a presentation by our deputy city manager, Sean McGovern, and then it'll be followed by a presentation from um our consultant, Baker Tilly. Okay. Just so I could be clear here, there is no contract for Mission Vjo as we said. Correct. There is no contract for services with Mission Viejo at this time. Okay. Thank you, madame city clerk. I'm sorry. Go ahead with the presentation.

Thank you, Mayor Peno, and thank you, manager Rose. Uh, so as city manager said, this is the proposed agreement with OCAC for animal for animal care services. Just going to give some brief context into how we got here. Need to grab the clicker. Get the next slide. Keep Strategic plan project number 56 directs staff to review current the current operational approach to animal control and maximize long-term cost efficiencies in accordance with the city's transition to a quote unquote maintenance community. A maintenance community is a city that is largely built out and has relatively fixed revenue streams. Lake Forest is transitioning to this status as we come built out, stable, but with a fixed tax base. The era of big of big developments that change our tax base are becoming a thing of the past. Hence the term a maintenance city. So, it's important for us more more than ever to work to contain costs as our revenue streams will grow at a steady pace going forward. The state of California requires all cities and counties in unincorporate areas to provide basic animal control. These stem from state laws that promote really three things. basic public health such as animal rabies, animal rabies uh control. Um animal welfare such as animal cruelty enforcement and a regulated pet population such as pet lensure, shelter for animals with no owner, etc. OCAC meets all these legal requirements now on behalf of the city and has since the city's incorporation. Here's a further look into what's mandated by the state. I won't go through all of these, but we have mandated services here on the left column

and non-mandated services that OCAC still provides under our contract, but isn't required to under state law. That is a option we have uh under the contractual arrangement with the county. One thing to note here is feral cat intake. The county does not provide a trapneuter release program and they also aren't required to do so under state law. The city entered into a contract with Baker Tilly in January of this year to provide really a peer re-review or a third-party analysis of a proposal that we received from the city of Mission Viejo. The city of Mission Viejo through MVAS the uh that is the city that is the city's animal services arm really is the most practical alternative to OCAC in this area. The MVAS proposal was conceptual. It's not something that the council really has the option to vote on tonight. Uh but it was specific enough to allow us to to to facilitate this comparative analysis uh that Baker Tilly, our consultant, who will be coming up next, helped us out with staff at both MVAS and OCAC were were very helpful throughout this process. really a huge volume of data was transmitted from really all three of these parties that were that were involved in this study. Uh and we're just very happy with the close c with the close cooperation that we experienced throughout the process. So without further ado, I'm going to introduce Al Zelinka. He's the lead uh consultant with Baker Tilly along with his assistant Mary Losi. And I think Al is going to take the lead on the presentation. So, forgive us. You're going to see the back of our heads until they're we get this taken care of. Okay.

Excuse me. I'm sorry. We won't be looking at you. We're going to we're going to have our backs to you for just a couple seconds.

Uh, honorable mayor, members of the council, Al Zelinka, director with Baker Tilly, joined, as Sean said, with Mary by Mary Losi, two of our colleagues who also leaned in on this um effort. Carlos Ramos and Carly Meyers aren't here tonight, but just wanted to give them a acknowledgement. Um, this has been a fantastic process. As Sean mentioned, uh, uh, MVAS is just a tremendous facility, great staff, very communicative, um, very helpful, as was OCAC. Wonderful facility, great staff, and working with your city team has been wonderful as well. Okay. Um in the 15 or so minutes that I'm going to aim to uh get through this presentation uh we have about four sections to review with you all. Um in the last uh seven weeks or so we um conducted a lot of work um including reviewing a range of background materials from OCAC a range from MVAS as well. We uh reviewed and examined all of the contract terms from the um that are provided under OCAC as well as the existing contracts that MVAS has with Lagona Hills, Laguna, Niguel, Aliso, VJO, and Rancho Santa Margarita. Uh we compared those contracts and um came and came up with a comparison for sharing with you this evening. We toured both facilities. Um, as I mentioned earlier, MVAS, the facilities are are phenomenal. Um, and the volunteer staff and the the the uh city staff are just top-notch. Likewise, we toured the OCAC facility and spoke with staff and volunteers. Had an equally positive experience and both were um very receptive. um presented the

initial discovery to the Lake Forest public safety ad hoc committee and then uh spent a lot of time as our team formulating our independent observations and recommendations. The objectives of this report and um of our effort I should say and the expected outcomes are listed on the screen and articulated in in our report. Um what I want to just kind of review real quick, um OCAC, um provides a range of services and service areas and has um a significant uh area of support through volunteers and nonprofits and a community uh adoption partner program and community outreach committee that um are are um um are parts of of how they operate as a as an organization. The contract that OCAC has with the, as Sean mentioned, has been uh with the city since 1991, incorporation of the city. The shelter is about 13 miles from the city center of Lake Forest. the city payment lumpsum single payment in um uh just a little bit less than a decade ago for 611,000 contributed to creating the new shelter that the the public enjoys today. Um, the OCAC contract expires at the end of May of 2026 and the estimated net cost for the upcoming fiscal year for the city of Lake Forest is just under $675,000. MVAS also has expansive services and its service areas. Um as Orange County Animal Care serves 14 cities and the unincorporated areas of Orange County.

MVAS um serves five cities including itself. Um it has fantastic support through a volunteer program, has a great network um of shelters to work with and does take intake and has a very solid uh nonprofit arm that um or partner uh named dog that provides great financial support to uh MVAS. The shelter was founded in 1992. It's approximately 9 miles from the center of of city of Lake Forest. Um, adding Lake Forest to the MVAS service would increase the service population by just under 31%. The total proposed cost for fiscal year 2026 and 27 would be just over $1 million to the city of Lake Forest. Um the cost of services in Lake Forest I mean I'm sorry the cost of services for MVAS is based on population whereas the um cost of services for OCAC is based on the actual services provided to the city. In addition to that uh fiscal year cost, um there is a $260,000 startup cost for capital equipment. Um everything from vehicles to computers, etc. Um U MVAS has built into its um proposal a 4 and a half% annual escalation of the the proposed total cost and um added about 6 and a half full-time proposed positions um to serve the additional um uh area of the city of Lake Forest. We organized the presentation based on the eight findings that we made um that

are in the report that's attached to your staff report. Um first one is on um community satisfaction. The services provided by OCAC to the city of Lake Forest have been meeting or exceeding the needs of the community for over 10 years based on the bianual Lake Forest community satisfaction survey that you have um conducted for uh quite a long time. We looked at the data from 2016 through the current um the most latest uh proposal and you have averaged right around 85% of community satisfaction uh in the city with animal services. The other point of note um in that regard is that in 2016 the level of satisfaction as you can see was about 78%. It was in 2018 that the new shelter opened and that um increased the level of satisfaction of of residents. Um, another point to note is that um, Lake Forest when you do your um, annual or your bi-annual satisfaction survey, you ask um, community members for um, uh, how they rate of importance, a range of different um, topics and um, 54 to 63% over the years or 49 I should say to um, 53 to 63% rate animal care as very or extremely important and that and in the latest survey it needs to be kept in mind from the standpoint of the total list of services. So things such as code enforcement or enforcing zoning laws or

um uh investigating crimes or providing public safety patrols are much higher on the list of matters that are important to the community. It's not saying that animal care isn't important. It's just in the the the bottom four or bottom quartile of a of a significant list of services that your city provides the residents. Another um input for your um consideration is your um ask lake force or ALF system. Um over the last five years, staff provided us with the data and there was just over 14,000 requests or inquiries to ALF. Um the most common are in the parking enforcement, code enforcement, street maintenance arena. um animal control out of the 14,000 over five years is about uh 263 or 1.8%. What um what the data generally shows is that many of those um requests or inquiries are about dogs off leashes or or loose dogs um that are reported to ALF OCAC customer satisfaction um in the adoption arena when people from um when people adopt uh animals from the OCAC they They have a survey monkey um survey. So it's not statistically valid but they do track it and you can see generally speaking that their customers are satisfied with the experience they have there. Now um I don't have a slide for MVAS but I want to verbally convey it. Um, we looked for, um, all of the, let's say,

comparable resident satisfaction surveys for Aliso, Viejo, Mission, Viejo, Rancho, Santa Margarita, Laguna Hills, Laguna, and Niguel. They don't exist. There's there were surveys that existed pre um uh I think it was 2012 2014 for Rancho Santa Marga Margarita but not within the last decade for um that that included just as yours do animal services in the list of services but that was for one city Rancho Santa Margarita. We did call each city. Um, uh, we received from the city of Ma Mission Viejo the names and numbers and emails of the either city manager, interim city manager or assistant city manager for uh, Alisa Vo, Ranch of Santa Margarita, Laguna Hills, and Laguna Niguel. Um, we were able to talk with every every city management contact except uh, Lagona Hills. We're still waiting for the phone call back. I mean, it's been a a phone tag situation. Um, but I will say all three cities are very satisfied um with their services from MVAS. They spoke anecdotally about it and were very positive about it. I will also say that we communicated with your public works staff and we t we we spoke with your deputy sheriff about the services from OCAC. the sheriff um your deputy sheriff indicated that there was um a a notable instance sometime in the last couple years I believe it was where they needed a response from OCAC that wasn't that wasn't timely and um caused um some issues that um that uh uh that caused some issues and then um your public works staff recalled maybe two

occurrences where a phone call to OCAC was not returned. They they called OCAC and got the matters handled, but it was limited to those um two areas of concern. Otherwise, the feedback from your staff was very positive about um OCAC. Finding number two, euthanasia is a reality um that we wish wasn't a reality. Um and that both OCAC and MVAS perform this service. Um OCAC is very transparent about why they use it and provides statistics regularly online showing how often it's used. Um, as you can see on the screen in a comparison comparison and that is because MVAS in their proposal identified Laguna Niguel as the best prototype or comparison for um the city of Lake Forest. You will see that there's different for cats and dogs. There's different um live release rates um that are the reflective of the euthan uh euthanasia that has occurred. Um uh when we talked with both they both uh uh conveyed that they uphold the Hayden Act, they uphold the Syllamar Accords and that they um uh uphold all the other laws that are u uh that that Sean mentioned and that that guide um animal services contract cost comparison. um transitioning from uh OCAC to MVAS would increase cost of services to Lake Forest um and would increase year-over-year costs as well. Um what we identified here, we went into much more um detail

in the report, but the first year of 2627 would uh be estimated for OCAC of $674,000 um per year and MVAS a little over 1 million with an additional $260,000 of startup costs. We um took the MVAS's annual 4.5 escalation rate just so you could um look at them over a five-year period and we we applied that to both what we know which is um OCAC's estimate and what we know which is MVAS's estimate. And you can see that um um the the sum total of the two um are separated by about $2 million for in aggregate over a five-year period. Fee schedules. Um if services are transferred to MVAS, the city of Lake Forest would have to adopt mission VAO fees for all animal related services. Right now, um, the OCAC uses the city of Lake Forest fee schedule for licensing fees and Lake Forest abides by, as do all the other um contract cities, uh, the adoption fees of OCAC. In terms of MVAS, it has a a single fee schedule that all of its um, uh, agencies have to adopt and abide by. So, Lake Forest would uh adopt Mission Viejo's fee schedule. Resident fee comparison. This will give you more perspective on that depending on the type of animal. Uh fees paid by Lake Forest community members for licensing may increase if uh animal services are transferred to MVAS and

fees paid by Lake Forest community members for adoption will increase if animal services are transferred to MVAS. And this is what it looks like. So for OCAC um the adoption or I'll start with the licensing. So, uh, a dog, an unsterilized dog, OCAC is $159. MVS, as you can see, is $70. So, it's less at Mission Viejo than it is at OCAC because OCAC is abiding by the city's licensing fees. Um, whereas a sterilized dog here in Lake Forest has a lower um $20 fee versus $24 fee. We can go down the list and look at each one of those. When we get into the adoption arena, um the adoption fees for OCAC reflect um are bundled. So they include the adoption fee, microchipping, vaccinations, sterilization, and all veterinary services. So you can see if you adopt an animal um in the first five days of an animal being at OCAC um it's a $200 adoption fee. If you um adopt it after the six the sixth day or after it goes down to 150 whereas MVA is a MVAS is a consistent $259 adoption fee. And you can see the the details um for the rest response times. Um response times have been and that are noted in the report have are an issue um with um OCAC versus um MVAS. um in in the meetings with um both

parties, one of our concerns is um regardless of which one is the amount of um I'll say in the field time that animal control officers spend. So, not spending time driving back and forth between Lake Forest and and um and the shelter, the respective shelters, but um being here present in Lake Forest. both are open to having conversations about that and and how to improve and both are um willing to um uh talk about the merits of having a dedicated animal control officer here in Lake Forest uh doing proactive and reactive service. So the response time Lake Forest 17.2 square miles um is a very u significant um area. Um what we have talked with both entities about based on the data and the report is about as I mentioned um improving the response times more time in the field uh coordination with public safety. That's that's a very important topic that both entities um uh uh are aware of based on our conversations with them based on what we receive from your deputy sheriff. And um what I will also say is that um we even talked about whether the merits of whether or not to have a space here at city hall for either party um to um have a presence and have their their um their uh response times be lessened because they could have a base camp here, if you will. MVAS proposed staff increases of six and a half full-time equivalents. And we suggest that should the city consider transitioning is to really have a

conversation in depth with uh the city of Mission Veo um about that topic. um and to measure the performance of services or transition easily and gracefully before jumping all in on a six and a half position ad which adds ultimately to your costs and all the other city's costs. Um, so if MVAS is selected, it would um it would uh we recommend that you have a conversation about delaying the staffing increases as part of the contract negotiations. So our recommendation is um to all that being said um is to renew the services with OCAC for the five-year period. Um, we do recommend that um, uh, should the council move into the contract with agree to the contract with OCAC. And we we did talk to OCAC about this as we have um uh we did talk to OCAC about the this topic of uh improving the response times, the possibility of dedicated animal control officer um identifying other important performance metrics that are important to this community and to you as well as to um get more specific using the data that OCAC has for licens ing and um adoptions to annually c uh s survey Lake Forest residents about their experience with OCAC services so that it's very specific to them and to the city. And with that, we would uh entertain any questions you have and and um do our best to answer them.

Okay. Okay. Well, before we go to public comments, I'm going to go to my colleagues and Mayor Protown.

Thank you. I'm going to date myself here a little bit. For those of you who remember Paul Harvey, that's the rest of the story. Good day. So, when we look at these things, and just full disclosure, I've been a a multi-dog owner for multiple years. Uh, I love animals and I I know that our staff and and the on the council we reflect that as well. I know we have a lot of passionate people here uh tonight and my I guess encouragement is that when we have things that come before us, we do a lot of research. We do a lot of investigation. We um I know a number of us have visited both shelters. We've had discussions with the leadership there. And so it's something that we've delved into because we care about our residents and we care about our pet population as well. Now, as five members of the council here and and our city staff, our charge for us mainly is public safety and being good stewards of the resources that we're in in in charge of disposing of. So, you know, given that, we're taking a look and saying, okay, when did this all start to occur? Why is this happening now? A couple of months before May is happening. My understanding from what I've gathered information is that Mission Viejo Animal Services came to us on January 26th of this year. On January 27th, we engaged our consultant here to take a look at, okay, let's just get a comparative analysis on this because there's a number of obstacles and we talked about the contract is before us to take a look at that. Let me ask our city manager first of all, what happens if we aren't able to come up with a decision for Orange County Animal Care by May 30th? What happens?

And we don't have a provider. We have um no provider for our animal control services. So other than simply uh approving a contract for Mission Vjo animal services, which we don't even have on the table here tonight, I understand there's other other obstacles along with this too is that the city council for Mission Viejo has to approve this. The other cities that we've talked about, the other five cities, they all have to approve allowing us to come into that. And that's not a flip of the switch, you know, time period, you know, to do something like that. Am I correct in understanding how that would work?

Well, I don't know that the other cities would have to approve. They certainly would need to be consulted, but the mission VA City Council, yes, would need to authorize the staff to provide an official proposal. Right now, what was um evaluated was a draft proposal. And we appreciate all the work that went into it because it's quite extensive, but it is draft. It is not an official city council approved proposal to the city to provide services. And you're right, that would take more time than what we have available. Now, at this point, we have a contract that is expiring on May 30th, and we are recommending that we approve a new contract to continue to provide those services for our community.

Can I ask why we went with a five-year contract? I know a number of city managers were on an ad hoc committee and whatnot. Do you know why we're doing it as a 5-year versus a 10-year?

Uh the 10-year contract was to allow cities to make payments for the shelter. So that's why it was that extended timeline. Um the decision for a five-year was that cities wanted that certainty that cities were um committing to be in this shared program for an extended period. Uh they didn't want an annual because if a city dropped out, it makes everybody else's costs go up. So they wanted that certainty, but they didn't, we all collectively did not think 10 years was necessary because we're not doing a big capital project. So we arrived at five years as being what we thought was an appropriate time frame.

Thank you. I will tell you folks, I appreciate all the folks that wrote in to us. I read every single one of the for and against this Orange County animal contract. Taking this all into consideration for when we make a decision, we gather information, we look at experts, we look at obstacles, we look at resources, and we try to make the best decision based on all that information that that we have. And I don't I have a number of things that I saw on some of the emails that seem to be okay one-sided or maybe having an agenda of some sort. And I will tell you that I looked at a number of those. Let me just give you one. There was one statement that was saying the what's called the uh NOI, the notice of intent on how much we're going to pay in this contract. There's a new stipulation in there that said 674,000 is what they've got thus far. or it might be adjusted in the next month or two, but that would be a quarterly payment of that 674 and then it's either the higher of that notice that 674 or the actual services. But the part then the staff report that I looked into and delved into to find out is that you pay quarter 1 674 divided by 4 quarter 2 quarter 3 and quarter four is when you say okay what's the true up what do we actually have in terms of cost for the services which would be a lower amount. If you look at our track record we've been consistently below 650,000 sometimes in the 500,000. So given that track record, typically that fourth quarter would be a really low figure and that helps our city managers budget and it also is when Orange County Animal Care makes their purchases for materials. So this is the fourth quarter of the fiscal year that we're talking about. So that's just one example of where people may have gotten off on why are we going to pay the higher of the notice of intent or the actual service? That doesn't seem right. Well, here's

the that's the answer. it makes sense when you delve into the information and hear the rest of the story. So, I'm just encouraging people to say, "All right, we can look at these things and see whether or not there's another side of this that needs to be considered." Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Prom, Council Member Whites. Um, Madame City Manager, um, so before us is a contract with Orange County Animal Control. Yes, there's no contract available for mission VJO animal control. Correct. Not at this time.

Um, so but we did get information back from them because it was brought up in the Yes, we did get a draft proposal from them that was created by their staff that allowed us to do this analysis. So, what would the next step be if some of us wanted to vote for Mission Vo? It's it's really unquestionable at this time,

right? I think the council would have to um give staff direction to explore transitioning services. That would be a long-term project. It'd probably be something that would be raised during the strategic planning process, which is going to start again. So, in in January, we'll be doing our community survey again. And then after that, we would start formulating our strategic plan. And so that that would be the point when the council is creating its new work plan for the next two to four years that looking at transitioning which is a longer term effort by Lake Forest mission VJO and perhaps even the partner cities that I think if you wanted to really explore that that would be the time to look into that but at the same time we would be in a five-year contract so it would be a longterm process. So, since we were one of the um cities that first bought into the Orange County New Animal Shelter, um what perks do we get and what do we lose if we back out of that?

Well, if we were to leave the county system, there would be no guarantee that we could come back. Most likely, and the county is here, they could speak to this, but during talks that we've had, most likely another city would come in and take our shelter capacity. We would not be refunded the 600,000. That would just be our sunk cost that we paid to use the shelter for 10 years or however long we we spent. Um, if a new city were to join Orange County Animal Care, they would pay their actual costs plus they would pay an additional percentage into a capital fund and that would be their portion of contributing to now that the shelter is built, they would contribute extra to its long-term maintenance. So, in other words, if a new city came into the Orange County Animal Care System, they'd be paying above what the fees that we pay because we're

correct. Yes. We would be paying our actual costs. So, our cost minus our license or all of our revenues, our net costs. Yes. They would be paying the same plus they would pay an extra because they weren't part of the original 14 that paid to build the shelter.

Thank you. um since we have a consultant that um gave us all the data. Um thank you for your information in your presentation um and and to you I think that it was a very fair and balanced presentation. So thank you. U my question to you is um Orange County um has had many writeups in the paper um and I I've read some of them and we've received calls about complaints about the shelter. Is there um a waiting period or is there an appointment scheme or system that you have to make an appointment to go see a dog at the Orange County Animal Shelter? Um trying to recall the the the

I'm trying to recall. Council member Voits, we do have representatives from Orange County Animal Care. That's probably more appropriate question for them. Okay. So, we could call up Samantha Atkinson. She is with here. Yeah, she's here. Hello, Samantha. She is our longtime Lake Forest resident. Okay, I'll just I won't have to say anything bad. Come on up.

And council member Voit Samantha Atinson is the deputy director of OCAC and we also joined tonight with Jamie Link who is the operations manager of Orange County Animal Care. Well, since she's actually a lake for resident and um and actually so Samantha is one of the complaints that was received by us and out there in the field is that you had to make an appointment. So if I wanted a Saturday morning, I want to take my kids to go to this shelter to go look to maybe adopt a dog, you'd show up and they would deny services to you. You would not be allowed to see the dogs because you'd have to make an appointment and come back. Is that still a standard procedure? No, as of January 2025, that's no longer a practice. Now, you can make appointment if you want the convenience of having a specified time that you get there and you want somebody to be ready to really dialogue with you about the animal that you're looking for. We certainly will make an appointment for you, but we're open seven days a week all year long except for the the 12 county holidays. And we're open from 11:00 to 5:00 to wander through the uh the campus to see our our dogs and our cats, our reptiles and our bunnies.

So, um actually, Saman, I I actually know that I can go see the cats because I have two adopted kittens from Orange County Animal Shelter. Um but does that mean that I could go I didn't go to the dog section, so I can see large dogs, small dogs without making an appointment? Yes, you you can

because you know, uh for us guys, we're sometimes spontaneous. If the kids keep bothering you and they want a dog, um you say, "Let's go to the shelter." And you drive from Mission Viejo or Huntington Beach to go to the shelter and you get there and you can't see the animals. That was quite disappointing and it was kind of hurtful for me because if you're in the business to trying to find forever homes for these guys, um to have a family come and then be denied was it hurt me when I heard about it. I will say there is one requirement though. If you come and wander through or if you make an appointment, we do insist that you meet and greet the dog before you take it home. Um, if you come through and you see a dog that you think would be a good forever a forever friend for you, we assign you an a kennel attendant. They take you into a play area. You meet and greet the dog. The kennel attendant can tell you about the dog, what they're used to, what we know about it, what its history is. you can share with that kennel attendant what your hopes and expectations are and you can see whether it's a good fit right there in the the situation.

So that acquaintance when you get to meet the dog is that section on the grass on the west side of the building. We use multiple playards. I I've seen the bigger squares being by the parking lot. Yeah. No, it's not the the smaller squares. It's the one if you're coming out of the building. They're on the the right hand side. Yeah. Yeah. Those are my questions. Thank you so much, council member. You Thank you, mayor. Uh, first of full disclosure here, I'm a dog owner as well and uh just wonder why the renewal contract five years. Why cannot be shorter?

I think the concern among the five cities is that they did not because we're sharing it's a shared system. They did not want a city to drop out in after one year or after the third year because then everybody else's costs go up and so they wanted the certainty of knowing you would have partners for fi a 5year period. So that's why it's it's at 5 years.

Uh if the community want to transition to MAVS so five years is going to be a long time. So what are we going to do between this five years? Well, I think we would continue to monitor our community survey and right now our comm community survey is indicating that at large the services offered are meeting the needs of the community are meeting their expectations. The satisfaction level is in the 60% range. It's in the I mean in the 80% range for satisfaction and level of importance it's in the bottom quartile of the services that we provide. And so if something is relatively less important than other services and the level of satisfaction is high, that is a major indicator that we're meeting needs. Now, if that data were to change or if we were to suddenly get um much more feedback from the community that there's dissatisfaction, then we would certainly look at our alternatives. But at this point, that data does not exist.

Okay? You know, we have anecdotal data. I'm not going to say there aren't people who aren't unsatis that are unsatis there are people who are unsatisfied obviously but overall it appears that there is no public mandate at this time to make a change. Thank you. Right. Sorry Samantha. I know you went and sat down but I have a question for you.

And while she's walking up so I did um I toured Mission VeJo Animal Shelter and OCAC. And I do have to say Mission Veho Animal Shelter, you couldn't tell they had animals there because it smelt really nice there. So, um, and so same when I went through uh, uh, OCAC, but it was just, it just hit me harder when I went to MVAS. So, I had a question from a constituent constituent about uh, kittens. She found some kittens under her um under her floor space and she tried to turn them into uh OCAC and she was rejected. Um what's the process if somebody finds a feral cat or feral kittens or any kittens?

Well, it's interesting. First of all, we say wait and watch because kittens oftentimes if you find them when you're out on a walk or in your neighborhood, oftentimes their mothers are around and they're not not abandoned, they're not in need of um immediate rescue. If, however, they're vocalizing, they're thin, they're they appear to be um in distress, we definitely will take them. We take animals that are are sick, injured, um aggressive, and nursing mothers or underage kittens. So we will take them. We do offer though, however, if the community wants to be helpful, we have kitten care kits. So we will offer that to a person, we'll actually have an acco and animal control officer bring out a kitten care kit and allow the the family to be part of that kitten's nourishment in that growth period. Um we have a wonderful pro program where we um allow community members to foster kittens. And I was lucky enough, I've done it six times. It was when my ch children were younger and I had a lot more kids in the house and kittens and the whole bit. But it was a wonderful way to help the shelter um bring these kittens to an age of adoptability and then see those kittens adopted out into homes.

Okay. And also with regards to the grand jury reports, I know um a couple of years ago the grand jury had some reports about homelessness with us and they had their findings and I think there were R1's N1s. Uh I think that's what the that's what the lettering was. So OCAC with the with regards to the grand jury findings, how are you how are you doing with their findings or how are you complaining with their findings or I guess my question is are you complying with all their findings or do they I mean have every has everything been addressed?

Um we've responded to all the findings. Now some of the responses we said we concurred, others we didn't concur with. Um there are many lanes of in the animal care um animal welfare care world and a municipal shelter only has one lane. There are things that we do and there are things that are that are not our things to do. They're not mandated and they're not within our scope of our resources. But to the extent that we have the mandate, the resources, and the dedicated staff, we are committed to serving our lane.

Yep. And and one of the things that that I kind of looked at is that did you get a finding of for the TNR, trapneuter release. So I as a former law enforcement uh know that that falls under California Penal Code 597 small S, which is animal cruelty. If you trap, neuter, and then release an animal because it's animal abandonment. So, I know county council has told OCAC not to not to do that practice because they believe and county council's um their recommendation is not to do it. So, um you're monitoring that very closely.

Yes. So, that's all I have and um what we'll do is we'll go to public comment. Uh I don't I don't have anything for Baker Ty. Thank you both for being here. Thank you for your comments, but we're going to go to public comments. Thank you, mayor. We do have 11 public commenters.

And our first public commenter is Mike Black. Good evening, U mayor and council members. My name is Mike Black. I'm here today to oppose the renewal of the contract with Orange County Animal Care. Orange County Animal Contair has repeatedly failed to provide the type of service that we expect. It's primarily due to the management and lack of accountability and professionalism and lack of concern for the humane treatment of animals. Mark Hedgepath has proided you provided you each with two news articles concerning animal control failures. Pre please read those articles before making any decision on the contract renewal. Please pay close attention to the labberande article dated February 6 or February 2nd of 2026. The author detailed a long list of the failures of Orange County Animal Control. As an example of management's absolute lack of concern about humane treatment of animals, I will give you one example of how uncaring and heartless management really is. Management felt that the shelter had an overabundance of rabbits and small animals. Rather than holding a bunny adoption program or transporting the small animals to other adoption organizations, they directed their staff members to secretly transport 70 plus bunnies and small animals to the California Arizona border during the dead of night. Those small animals were turned over to representatives of a reptile farm for food for the reptiles. Orange County

Animal Control sent all of those small animals to a horrible death to be eaten by reptiles. When a whistleblower stepped forward and publicized what they had done, the immediate response from Orange County Animal Control was to lie. They claimed that the reptile farm was holding a bunny adoption and they were helping by providing Orange County's extra small animals. When that was proven to be a lie, no further explanation was given. No action was ever taken by the county CEO or the board of supervisors. You cannot trust Orange County Animal Control to do the right thing. Don't make the mistake of renewing a contract with a failed county department. On a another note, I personally was on the front lines during the airport fire removing horses from the fire areas. Tookund almost 150 horses out the first day and almost that many the second day. Animal Control was supposed to be there to supervise this because they said, "We're in charge." They showed up two and a half hours late, one man with one horse trailer, and when that horse trailer left, it still was it still had no poop in it, which tells any horse owner, they never transported one horse out of the fire area. We transported over 300 of them. They didn't take one, but they were there for the media. And I just I don't agree with that. I think we should go to Mission Viejo. So, thank you for your time

and thank you for your comments. Our next public commenter is Mark Hedgeman.

Mike and Mark, thank you guys for both being on the front lines with the fire. Um, I was out there with you guys and thank you so much for what you guys did. I'm here speaking in opposition to the contract renewal with Orange County Animal Care. It is my understanding the city staff is recommending renewal of the contract, which is not surprising. It is based on what is expedient and what's essentially the cheapest option in the opinion of the count of the staff. However, those reasons are not the only things that should be under consideration. Quality of service, professionalism, humane animal care are what the residents of this city needs. History has shown us that OCAC fails miserably in providing the quality that are important to our community. Those failures have been very clearly chronicled by every major news outlet in our area uh with over two dozen news articles about the failures of animal control. Um I heard the Baker Tilly presentation and I was kind of surprised. I wasn't sure if he was representing Orange County Animal Care or if he was representing the city of Anaheim. He only talked about, in my opinion, uh, financial issues. He glossed over or completely ignored all the failures that we've experienced with animal control over the last several years. Orange County Animal Care has a long record of major missteps, unethical behavior, arguably unlawful actions, lawsuits, Orange County Grand Jury investigations, unqualified managers, and endless string of failures that we

have experienced since the original contract. I've had the opportunity to personally observe the collective Orange County Animal Care Management's attitudes concerning humane animal care and staff relations within the community. A number of years ago, a horse fell into a ditch in Irvine Park. Um, animal control was called to assist. The horse ultimately died. People at the scene blamed animal control personnel. As a result of the community outr cry, animal care director at the time asked me to put on training classes for their field personnel in emergency horse handling and basic horse rescue. Um, after I did that, the now new animal control director asked me to provide emergency horse handling training to all of their new animal control officers during their initial training program before they were deployed to the field. I taught those classes for five years. During that time, I had the opportunity to interact with much of the animal control senior management. I was disappointed with the management's attitude toward the need for humane animal care, the need to properly train staff, the total lack of accountability, and

thank you for your time. Thank you for your comments.

Our next public commenter is Michael Maverro Venitis. The Orange County Animal Shelter has a data integrity problem. I show this in an opinion piece published today in Voice of OC voiceof.org. You can scroll down to community opinion. It's the first item there. Basically, what I did is I looked at the quarterly reports still on the shelters website for 2024 and then I summed them up and compared that to the annual report. They should agree just like a company's quarterly report should agree with a company's annual reports. They do not. They show 135 fewer stray dogs in the annual report than in the sum of the four quarterly reports. They show 123 fewer dog adoptions in the annual report than the four quarterly reports. And that's just two examples of a whole slew of discrepancies which I document in the article with a link to a complete spreadsheet. And again, those reports are still on the shelter's website. There's more. Uh the shelter's database is al also used to compute the costs that there's been so much discussion about. And the shelter produces a report of the what they call animal charge days which I obtained with a public record request. Uh and that shows the number of animal days allocated to each city so that the aortionment or the cost can be done. There's a problem though. There are cities that show up in this report with thousands of animal days that are not served by the shelter. So whatever this allocation procedure it can't be correct because cities like Irvine, Laguna Niguel, Laguna Woods, Costa Mesa

should have zeros if if they exist in the table at all. Now the shelter is going to tell you they don't use those numbers. They just kind of set them aside and use only the numbers for the service cities. But if you have a procedure that produces 50 numbers and the moment you look at the results, you know 20 of them are wrong because they should be zero. Then how can you trust the rest of them? The entire procedure is wrong and you have to revisit it and figure out how to correct it to get the correct numbers for the service cities. Neither your staff nor these consultants took any note of these very simple to spot discrepancies. So I really question what kind of analysis was done here. Um I will just end with a couple of observations on the consultants report. Uh the consultant focused on adoption fees and I don't understand why those even came up because they do not depend on service areas. Anybody can adopt from any shelter. So there is no change in the cost to Lake Forest residents due to adoption fees. Lake Forest residents can adopt from anywhere. Irvine residents can adopt from anywhere and the fees are the same for everybody. So that's really a non-issue. Uh the consultant mentioned the adopter satisfaction survey with the consultant.

Thank you for your comments.

Our next public commenter is Randy Johnson. Well, Randy Johnson here again, folks. You know, I know this would be a foregone conclusion. That's why I said, "Is it even worth my time coming here?" Because you're just going to slap lipstick on the pig. Okay? I' I've go back over 10 years on this issue. Okay? Voit knows about it. She knows about it. Okay? I told you nothing would change with this new shelter. We'd still get the crappy services. And that's exactly what's happened. You don't have a good agency when you've had six Orange County uh jury uh grand jury reports that were scathing every single one of them. The most recent in 2023 for God's sakes. Okay, listen to these people that have come up here before me. Okay, there's one one example after another. Everybody I talk to has bad things to say about Orange County Animal Care. Everybody. this 88% that must be imaginary. Of course, they contact anybody even if they didn't have contact with Orange County Animal Care. How do you like Orange County Animal Care? Well, I haven't had contact with them, so I guess they're okay. Oh, you're a satisfaction then. That's great. We'll put you down to satisfied. That's the way it works, isn't it? Why don't you just contact the people who have contacted with Orange County Animal Care and Survey them? It would be down in the low 20s. Trust me on that. And as far as the financing, this is negotiable by way, by the way. Okay? This is just the proposal from Mission Viejo. It's negotiable. Okay? And she says it every time. The clock is running out. She did the same thing last time with Orange County Animal Care. The clock is running out. Get the contract extended. them. Tell

them we have another contract on the table and we're deliberating it and we want some time to figure out what's going on so we can negotiate directly with Mission Viejo. That's the right thing to do because we have another contract here. It's a fresh contract and it's negotiable and none of you none of you, okay, will admit to that because you just want to give her what she wants. the queen. Give her what she wants. Okay. With and Dunick and her and all the rest of them have been tied to the hip of Orange County Animal Care for years. Even back in the day when it was terrible service, they were always defending Orange County Animal Care because they're tied to their hip up there. That's why. That's the reason why. And I've researched this. Listen to April Joseph Josephson. She's the expert here, okay? She knows more about Orange County Animal Care than Orange County Animal Care knows about Orange County Animal Care. Honest to God, listen to her. She will bring out all the facts that have been hidden by Baker Tilly. All the facts that have been hidden by them because they're biased in their report. And I pointed that out in my four-page report here that's online right now and everybody can read it. That's the truth. You can read my report and I uncover some of the Our next public commenter is Jenna Olsen.

Good evening, mayor and city council members. Um, I'm here to express my support for Lake Forest Lake Forest transitioning um, animal services from OC Animal Care to the city of Mission Veo Animal Shelter. As a resident and pet parent for over 20 years, as well as a volunteer in animal rescue, this is a major concern of mine. I hope the city council considers how important community involvement is when choosing an animal service provider. County programs serve very large areas, and because of that, it's difficult for them to build real relationships with individual communities. There seems to be fewer local educational programs, volunteer opportunities, and community outreach efforts compared to smaller municipal programs. Strong animal services depend on community trust, local partnership, and public engagement. When services feel distant or disconnected impacts things like licensing compliance, responsible pet ownership, and overall public confidence, Lake Forest would benefit from a provider that is more connected to the community and actively works with residents. Additionally, I support Lake Forest contracting with the Mission Veil Animal Services because of their proven commitment to public safety, rapid field response, and community- centered animal services. Mission Veil Animal Services provides a locally managed approach that emphasizes quick response times, proactive engagement, wildlife management programs, and strong coordination with public safety agencies. Their approach ensures that dangerous animal situations and public safety concerns are addressed efficiently. The department also demonstrates strong accountability through professional standards, training, and transparency, which builds trust with the community and ensures consistent service quality. Lake Forest residents would benefit from a local partner that pri prioritizes safety, humane treatment of animals, and responsive service delivery. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you for your comments. Our next public commenter is Eileen Purin. Eileen.

Hi, my name is Eileen Durham. I'm a recent resident to Lake Forest. I came from San Francisco, the Bay Area, and I've always, my husband and I have always been very active in animal welfare along with groups like in defense of animals and animal rights um groups that go to to the state capital to lobby for animal rights. So, I've seen a lot of difference in different organizations. And when we moved here, we came and looked at animals in both Mission Viejo and the Orange County Shelter. The Orange County Shelter, I know, services many communities. They seemed overwhelmed. They were not willing to show certain dogs that we wanted to see. The place did smell terrible. um dark, dank, not very welcoming to the animals and certainly not to those of us who come to visit them and try and save their lives. On the other hand, Mission Viejo is a very welcoming, open facility, lovely. They even have a group of people that come because the animals do get so frightened when they are in cages and away from any particular caretaker. They have people that come in and play music for them. They have all kinds of programs that are very beneficial to animal welfare. So, as a new resident and a person very involved in animal welfare, I would suggest that you consider signing contract with Mission Viejo. I think we'd really be sad to stay with OC Animal Care. Thank you for your comments.

Our next public commenter is April Josephson. Good evening again, honorable mayor and council members. After 10 years of being an island of annually reducing services from OC Animal Care, Lake Forest has the opportunity to remedy their service deficiencies by negotiating contract with Mission Veho Animal Services. However, city staff doesn't want to make a change with which was made clear to the pack last October when we approached them with the opportunity. It was my understanding they had already spoken with mission VJO at that time. The city manager whom I respect is too close to OCAC at an executive level to be unbiased. The deputy city manager who is the liaison to PACO has been uninterested in animal services for several years. staff made no effort to ask MVAS for a proposed contract or to even invite them to the meeting tonight to answer questions. Further, when I contacted the deputy state manager well in advance of the staff report with information on a six-f figureure private grant that would have been offered to aid with the proposed startup cost at MVAS, his disintered response was, "Thank you for the information. The grant would substantially change the financial analysis can be quickly accessed. Moreover, the proposed costs that the consultant mentioned for MVAS don't account for any revenue offsets. The consultant and staff reports are poor examples of a conclusion looking for a justification. While this item does not even acknowledge the PAOC or that we're an incity contracted animal services provider, the accomplishments of PAC in the city have insulated Lake Forest from the poor performance of OCAC ever since 2020 when OCAC moved from an open intake to a managed intake business model whereby they make every effort not to take animals in, instead burning the community with managing them. They recently received a cease and desist

letter about this. The 9% increase in resident satisfaction in 2018 coincides with the PA OC opening in 2017 as the incity animal services provider, not an outside out of the area shelter being moved to another out of the area location. Further, there are many data errors in the consultants report. Public satisfaction for the current service provision is assumed to be OCAC even though the survey does not name a provider and many people think PACO or MVAS are the service provider based on my daily interactions in the for the public. So the entire study is based on a false premise. It invalidates all conclusions and um should not even be considered. It in my mind it throws everything out regarding not moving because there's no time. That's not MVAS's fault. They engaged with Lake Forest last year like we did. Should you choose to explore MVAS rather than sign with OCAC tonight, you will have two agile, effective, and efficient community providers in the pack and MVAS working together to make a transition happen as quickly as possible. We have some capacity. Should you go with staff's recommendation with no acknowledgement of the past contributions or attempts to move to a better provider, we will be ending our relationship with the city of Lake Forest and have been authorized to utilize the grant money to move out of the city.

Thank you for your comments. Our next public commenter is Mark Hermanson.

Good evening, council. I'd like to say I'm definitely not as educated on the two systems that we have as a lot of people over here. And unfortunately in my life, I I'm attached to this thing and working 70 hours a week. So I can't even have a dog right now. U it seems like there's a lot of questions about both sides and as I stated, I don't feel educated enough to sit here and say please do this or please do that. Um, but it sounds like we do have a little bit of time about 8 weeks that we kind of can play with unless we have to sign the OCAC tonight. I would encourage the city council to maybe get with some community leaders, have a sit down quiet meeting uh if that's possible. I our city manager could answer that better. Uh, and put a little thought into it. As I said earlier, our city is in pretty good financial health. So the extra cost I don't think should be something that we spend a lot of time being overly leaders that are more knowledgeable than I am in this uh before we do make a decision. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Our next public commenter is Erica Williams. Good evening, honorable mayor and members of the city council. My name is Erikica Williams and I'm a Foothill Ranch resident, a volunteer with the Pet Adoption Center of Orange County, and a member on the board. I'm here tonight to respectfully ask you to make the best decision, the best decision for the future of Lake Forest by choosing to move animal care services to Mission VJO Animal Services. Since 2017, the improvement in Lake Forest Animal Services satisfaction has been driven by the work of the Pet Adoption Center of Orange County, not by the relocation of the county shelter as staff has suggested. That claim is simply not supported by the evidence. PAC OC has been here in this community 247 providing hands-on responsive service under contract with the city. In many ways, we have been filling the gaps filling the gaps left by the declining performance of OC Animal Care, particularly since 2020. Our residents deserve better. Many of our South County neighbors already benefit from Mission Viejo Animal Services, an organization known for being collaborative, proactive, humane, and community focused. In contrast, OC Animal Care has shown an unwillingness and unwillingness to work collaboratively with the Pet Adoption Center of Orange County and is not meeting the level of service our residents expect. This situation is not sustainable. On October 14th, 2025, we met with Mayor Voitz, city manager Rose, and Deputy City Manager McGovern to discuss these concerns and formally

request a trans transition to Mission Vo Animal Services. At that meeting, staff made it clear that that they had no intention of changing providers, but ultimately this decision belongs to you, the city council, and you have the authority to choose a better path based on facts and the needs of our community. We were also told at that meeting that the city has received zero complaints about OC animal care. That was surprising because OC regularly receives complaints from residents. But in emergencies, people don't go online. In emergencies, people don't go online. They call just like dialing 911. They expect immediate help. For those if those calls are not being documented, then of course the data will show zero complaints. That doesn't reflect reality. It reflects a gap in the system. We will we also discussed the city's residents survey staff and their consultant assumed the response about animal services referred solely to OC animal care, but that ignores the role of the pet adoption center of Orange County, which residents interact with regularly. The survey doesn't even ask who provides animal services. Many residents are confused about this and often assume Mission Veho Animal Services is already the provider because of the proximity and the reputation. This flawed assumption undermines the data.

Thank you for your comments.

Our next public commenter is Joan Chapel. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and city council members. Um, like others here, I am opposed to renewing the contract with OCAC. I've taken a look at the staff report regarding the renewal of the contract and what I saw there is so inconsistent with news reports that I've read over the last several years that I wanted to get away from the world of reports and focus on the reality of what's been happening at OCAC based on the news reports that I've read because in my mind and I'm a long-term animal lover, the welfare of the animals is the most important. So, the first thing I'd like to do is to point out an article by the Companion Animal Protection Society dated February 28th, 2026 regarding shelter mismanagement. That article contains a link to a documentary about OCAC and I would ur urge each of you to look at that documentary before making a decision. Next, I'd like to draw your attention to a voice of OC article dated March 11th, 2026 titled Advocates Demand Reform at California Animal Shelters including Orange County. The article states that an organization called Fix Our Shelters

has sent cease and desist letters to a number of California shelters regarding their unlawful practices. OC Animal Care is one of these shelters. There are other news articles that paint a different picture of OC Animal Care than that presented in the staff report and Bakerilia. And I would encourage council to review these articles. Some of them and these are these um actually raise issues that some other people have mentioned. But January 5th, 2026 invoice of OC, there was an article titled OC Animal Care faces negligence lawsuit after dog mauling. December 4th, 2025. Is the county working to fix animal shelters problems? If so, why haven't progress reports been released? May 30th, 2025. OC Animal Care must implement strategic plan to end the killing of adoptable and treatable dogs. August 7th, 2025, two dogs dead in transport from OC Animal Care to Idaho. July 23rd, 2024. Kennel staff at OC Animal Care are stretched to the breaking point. May 15, 2024, OC Animal Care mismanagement and public.

Thank you for your comments.

And our last public commenter is Julie Pierce. very nice to see you all and I come and support the same sources that these people have. I've been a resident for many, many years and I've adopted animals from both shelters, both the Orange County shelter and the Mission Viejo shelter as animals have matured and died and I've replaced them. And I've been struck by what I've seen. And I've also I also have read the register many times and been amazed that over 30 years I would say there's continually articles about how somehow Orange County Animal Shelter doesn't get it right that things are going bad that something's wrong there. And it's never gotten straightened out. And it may be because it's probably too small an article in the bigger picture of the shelter of this of the county. But I've been really impressed with or with Mission VJO Animal Shelter. And the thing about animal shelters is that it's not just about taking animals in, checking them in, feeding them, and sending them out again. It's much more than that that these reports haven't touched. The animals are are traumatized. Many times when they come to a shelter, they've lost their home, the home they've always had, nothing else that they know. And then many times they they're brought in because they haven't been raised right. The people haven't trained them well. They haven't, you know, and so it's like with children. If you you don't give children the care the the training they need, they turn out to be kind of bratty and hard to get along with. And so what you get with something like Mission Video Animal Shelter is that there's many more

staff members for the animals in numbers than there is for Orange County. Orange County has an overwhelming number of animals coming in and nowhere near the number of staff. But in addition, the staff, and this is what's been been developing the last several years, the staff is there to help train the animals and give them the love and care they need so that they become more social. And when they're more socialized, they're more adoptable. And so animals that have been absolutely obnoxious before can turn into really amazingly good pets with the right training. But that means the staff has to give that before the people can see that who come to look for animals to adopt. And if they don't have enough, you don't have enough staff, the animals don't get that. The last animal I adopted from Orange County Animal Shelter was a year old German Shepherd. Now you look at me and say, "What a stupid thing to do." And you were right. I got that animal home. I have a six-foot fet. Didn't stop the animal at all. Went over the fence, went down the street, went after another dog in the neighborhood. I had a neighbor that came to me and said, "I'm afraid of your animal." Well, obviously I couldn't keep this animal. It was the wrong animal for me. So, so my with my niece and I, we went we went through several months of ba basically finding a place that could keep it and trained it until it was adoptable and it finally got adopted. But I wouldn't take it back to Orange County Animal Shelter because I knew that wasn't good enough. And it's just because of the numbers, but it makes all the difference in the room.

Thank you for your comments. That's it. M. Thank you. So, I'm going to bring it back to my colleagues. Any

Thank you, Mayor. Um, there are certainly some accusations that were made tonight and I don't know anything about them. U, one of the public speakers talked about small animals being taken somewhere else and given to some reptile entity. Um, there was a horse that had died in Irvine. I don't know what the role or expectation was of u the county's role in that. Um, I guess part of me feels like um we may have some time and this may not be popular, but I feel like I would like to give uh the county an opportunity to respond if they so choose to any of the comments they heard tonight so we have the benefit of that information. Having said that, I think there's a mechanics challenge before us as I understand it. First of all, we don't have an official proposal for Mission Viejo. So that would need to be uh developed and submitted to us. Um that's not going to happen before the deadline which is May something May 30th for executing a contract with the county. So that I do not see that happening. Um unless the city manager feels differently, I do not see that happening. um these types of projects where and people use the words transition and explore and that's those are I think the right terms to use. The question is how do you merge or transition from one entity to another in a way that makes sure there's no deficit of service and that's a challenge when you have these out of sync experiences. Um, it's a five-year contract and depending on um the capital needs that need to be addressed at Mission VJO, I don't know exactly what they are. We saw some $250,000. I don't know if that's just vehicles to

the city manager. Do you know if there is capacity today for Lake Forest if it chose to go there or is there a capital project anticipated to create the capacity for Lake Forest? Um I believe the mission VJO staff indicated that the shelter has capacity for lake forest animals based on the bills that they have reviewed.

Okay, thank you. So um there's still a transition challenge as I see it when you um when you got these schedules that don't align and in the ideal world you would set them up such that you can transition from one to the other to build the capacity uh the staff all the things that are needed. So it's as seamless as possible. There'll always be some challenges and I think that's one that concerns me here is one we don't have an official proposal from mission VJO we would need one to respond uh to it so I don't feel it's it's not an option I can't say yes to mission VO because there isn't something in front of me to do that um and hold on thank you uh you finished thank So whether there is an opportunity for us to have a conversation with Mission Viejo and the county towards some transition, it may need to happen over a longer period of time to accommodate the contract with the county. I'm assuming to the city manager, if we agree to a 5-year contract, we are obligated for that term. We can't leave early, I assume. But you tell me.

That's correct. Okay. And that's the same contract that Well, how many other cities currently contract with the county? There are 14 cities and my understanding is three other cities are hearing this tonight. The board of supervisors have already approved this contract. So, this is the contract. There's no one-year bridge. This is it. Um, I have not heard of any city, and perhaps Samantha could speak to this. I have not heard that any agency is looking to drop out of the system. I've I've heard the opposite that there are few that would like to join, but um as far as I know, the 14 are going to continue with the service.

Okay. So, we are in a five-year contract and we cannot leave it early. There's no exit clause early. Um so, we would be obligated to the five years. It seems to me that the prudent thing would be to revisit this issue at some time or that's this transition. the word some one of the public commenters made and an opportunity to explore on how you transition over if that's the will of the council. For the record, I won't be here for that conversation um because I will be termed out. I will not be here after the end of this year. But I think that's what a future council would need to do to talk about how you can make that transition in a seamless way um that recognizes we have contracts. And by the way, I'm sure those all those other cities that contract with the county would it's the same contract for all of them. So the county is not going to give a special correct arrangement. So that that's a challenge I see

in total in terms of mechanics of how you make a responsible transition. It would be true for any large public sector service that we that we have. Um having said that I I think maybe and we'll let my colleagues weigh in. There have been some accusations made about the county and the service they've provided and if they if they want to respond not tonight but if they choose to respond to some of the claims made because I've been on the council long enough to remember a long time ago when this issue or similar kind of issue came up and people made a lot of accusations about the county that were flatout wrong and false and and that community needs to own that you can't come here and at that time this is the old city hall people made claims claims that were absolutely false. And so there's a credibility problem, not with you. I'm saying there was a credibility problem with those people who tried to animate the council to take an action based on bad information that they were pedalling. So I' that's why I would like to give the county the opportunity, if it chooses, to respond to the things I heard tonight and whatever else they heard uh from other commenters, but specifically small animals being taken that would give me concern. um the horse dying in Irvine. I don't know anything about it. I don't know if that horse was not able to be recovered. I don't know. Um so to to claim that that's on the doorstep of Orange County Healthcare, I'm sorry, Orange County Animal, I don't know that's a a valid conclusion to draw. Um, so that's my position is I'm prepared to give the county an opportunity and if my colleagues would benefit from that information, then we can continue it to get the benefit of that information. But I also just broadly see a real challenge in the transitional components to transition given the misalignment of these arrangements that we currently find today. Those are my comments for now. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. Do we have anybody here from Mission View Animal Services tonight? No.

That surprises me. Um, and let me just address what you brought up, Mark. I had conversations and documentation provided from Orange County Animal Care on the situation he's talking about with the small animals, the guinea pigs, the rabbits that were allegedly fed, you know, to some organization across the border. Uh, that's patently false. Okay. They were given to Knottberry Farm. They were given to 4 clubs. They were given to local uh organizations that actually put those animals into live situations. So there's one of the examples that you're talking about. Number two, the issue about the accusation about the two dogs that died in the van. Dug into that whole thing and got a report on that that happened because these two dogs had a birth defect. they had a trachea issue and because of the trauma or whatever or who knows what it was but that was the reason why those dogs perished because there were other animals in that same van that got delivered just fine. So this is what I was talking about early on about the rest of the story in terms of insinuations or accusations made versus looking into what really the you know the facts are of this uh in terms of you know the you know the the lawsuits and whatever. We've seen a response from Orange County Animal Care. Maybe Samantha can address that, too. But my understanding is that the response has been that Orange County Animal Care, you know, complies with all the, you know, the state and and local, you know, laws. So, some of these judgments or these lawsuits that have been brought, I don't know if they're frivolous, if they have merit, whatever, but obviously there's there's some other part of that story that has to be addressed as well. So just you know bringing some of these things you know to light and you know to your point about you know the transition my understanding in the contract madam city manager is that if there was a transition to be made that in year four you need to notify the orange county animal care that we're looking at options and possibly moving away from

them. But that would be the the the hard stopping point in terms of notification. Right. Correct. We would have to notify in year four of our intention to possibly leave at the end of year five.

Okay. So if if we don't approve the contract tonight and a transition was going to happen down the line or even if we do and down the road there'd be an opportunity for us to do that. I can remind everybody and highlight some of the things we talked about the the 32 different metrics that we do in those surveys to find out the satisfaction level. you know, we look at priorities in the in the city and not saying that again that you know, animal care is definitely a priority, but in terms of our residents and and the resources that we have to manage, it's low on the list. It hasn't come up in our strategic plan. If it did, then it would be something that we would be addressing much more fervently. Say again. So, I'm I'm just bringing up some alternative points here for us to consider and kind of balance the discussion with some other information that people don't have. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Proim. Council member Boyce.

Yeah. Um, I want to thank all those that came and wrote letters. Um, I don't I didn't hear anybody come in support of animal control. I didn't see any emails that came in support of animal control, but I have worked with animal code just recently. In just the last few weeks, I was with Samantha as they kicked off the new large animal rescue team in um Brea with over 130 um equestrians that were willing to come out during fires and times of natural disasters and help rescue large animals. Um but it was a trying procedure. Um I will say that. But with all that that's there, I believe in competition and I believe that competition makes us all better and it makes organizations better. Um, with all the the allegations that are there and the concerns and nearly 100% of the people coming to speak to us tonight were in support of Mission Viejo. I is there a way that um we could do um a three-year contract with two one-year extensions to the Orange County Animal Control Shelter contract? I mean, it's saying that in three years, if we're not happy, we can go through this again. And in that time, if I was going to make a motion that we start moving and investigating whether Mishvale would even take us because right now it's not on the table. Right now, there's a standard form contract that was approved by the board of supervisors and it's a five-year term with a notification period. So, that that is what the contract is at this point. So, I would say there is no three-year with two optional one years.

Well, I I think that's a motion that we make that would send back to the board of supervisors and see if they would accept it. I mean, if we as a council um are are that I don't think that right now, we we don't we don't have the contract with Mission Viejo. We don't have a contract. We have a proposal.

We have a draft proposal. We that has not been um approved by the Mission VJO city council. So it is just draft at this point and it was provided to us so we could do our analysis of looking at cost efficiencies which was our our work that we defined in our strategic plan that was passed in June of 2025.

So technically a a a three-year contract with two one-year extensions would be a five-year contract. And I know two of the board of supervisors that would surely take that and take that as a fair play because the fact that the amount of complaints from the community on Orange County, it would be a striving role to that they keep improving and they have obviously Samantha was here and that one of the biggest complaints that I had heard was that people wanting to visit or adopt a puppy or a dog couldn't go see the dog without an appointment obviously has been clarified. So there has been steps in the right direction. So I I got to give them kudos where kudos to do and I think that what I've heard there is a a a bright light for Orange County Animal Control and I and I believe that the the the um the consultants tonight were very fair because the the the quality that Mission Vill does is he he stated that very well that they've got a good volunteer base. They've got a good notfor-profit charity that donors that give and um they they didn't have any complaints about Mission Vo. So I know some of the speakers spoke that he wasn't he over glossed that I think it was very fair because he he did say of the qualities of Mission Vill um but the fact is I I don't know if Mish city council or the city would take us at this point. Council member U.

First of all, my dogs is not like my son. My dogs is my son. I'm passionate about it. What I hear, my take is the OCAC is fine. They are like a Volkswagen. But we have a passionate group of people want a BMW here. And some other council members say this is not priority but it's my priority. So what I think is whether we can commission a C survey instead of a bottom line survey whether OCAC meet all ex expectation have a direct side to side comparation between the OCAC and the M MV MBA. So it's kind of like a vote whether the community want to move from this u OCAC to MVIS during the next cycle and I'm thinking five years a long time so I kind of agree with uh council member W is here 3 + 1 plus one else just three plus two is all the same it's a vote you know if if the committee want to move to M avail start this thing in the three years and set aside and uh complete the transition in three years.

Thank you, Council Member Tedmer.

Thank you, Mayor. Um we we can talk about what we think it should be, but that's not what's before us. The contract with the county says it's a five-year arrangement. You can notify in one year and you can depart. That's the only thing that's on the table. The question is what could you expect the board of supervisors to change which which by the way it would only be changing for Lake Forest. So all the other 14 cities that have have an agreement unless the city manager tells me otherwise. All those other cities have a different contract. And you can understand why the county board of supervisors would say we are going to have a uniform approach. And they have articulated that saying it's a 5-year contract. you can get out after four years if you choose. That's what's on the table. I don't imagine that the county board of supervisors going to turn this around in time to meet that deadline. Now, the other question that could be asked is, is it possible to extend the deadline with a county? I don't know. But the contract is what it is with a county right now. So unless you're saying we're going to that the countyy's willing to extend the current arrangement to provide the kind of negotiations you're suggesting, that's a fair question, but that's not what's before us. The county's the current contract is what's before us. And by the way, not one from Mission Viejo. So I I don't know how to operationalize what you're thinking. and the three plus one plus one. That's the nomenclature we use when we contract with people. But that's not apparently what the county is calling for under this circumstance. And what what I'm hearing is if you were to do what you're suggesting, we would have the right to leave after 3 years, not wait for four. And again, all the other cities may say, well, sign me up for that. I want that flexibility, too. in which case the county now has a huge problem of a change of arrangements with

14 other cities. So that I can see would be could be problematic. I I don't sit in their chair, but that's the way I would see it. So the problem is we have deadlines and we have only a only one thing before us for consideration and that's it's the county and that's it. There is no mission official proposal. I don't know how long it would take to get one. If it's got to go through all the minations of going through mission VJO, you guys know how long it takes to get things through here. How long does it take to get official proposal out on the street? That would probably need them to refine or review their numbers and come back. I'm going to guess it could be a couple months, few months. I don't know that. So, I I just think we're we're somewhat limited to what our choices are here. Um, so I I'm I don't know that I see an option to be honest with you, but staff can opine as to whether they think there's any other options available to us, but I'm not sure what it is. I'll I'll let the city manager weigh in.

I think if we wanted to look, if there was a reason to look at going to Mission Viejo, that is a 15-month process. Probably that is more much more time is needed than the time we have now. So back when we were looking at this, when we were putting together our work plan, we looked at our strategic plan. Our strategic plan initiative, which was voted on last year, was we're going to look at cost efficiencies. We were not evaluating and planning to transition service providers. So that's why the timing is what it is. We have about eight weeks until May 30th. There is only one provider that is available to us for this service and so I I don't want to lose track of that and that is what is before you tonight.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, Counciloman Tedar made some good points that um I think um you mentioned that there was three other cities that had have this same proposal before them tonight. Yeah, my understanding that it's Tustin, Fullerton, and San Juan Capistrano is what I was told. So that obviously what is before us is before us. And so um the minimum would be four years if if we were unsatisfied and like Councilman Tedmer said, it would be a different council here at that time. But um the strategic plan, when is our strategic plan coming up again?

Um we'll start another community survey in January. So we could add a section specific to animal control. There was also a suggestion that we perhaps try to pull people who have either have a dog license or have used this service and that could be more data if the council is interested in really digging into it. um that could be done through the next strategic planning process and based on those results that could determine a direction for the city at that point in time and you would have plenty of runway to really look at transitioning if the council so chose based on the data that you're looking at.

You you know um one of the things about Lake Forest is something we don't really rush into anything. Um me and council Tedimemer have been here long enough to know that when we when we step forward with stuff, we do a lot of research for it and there's a lot of input. So no matter what we do, whether it be this civic center campus that we're on today or the sports park that we have just a few miles away, everything that we do here in the Sea Lake Forest is thought thoroughly through. Um, I think that be coming up with a strategic plan. Um, April, I think I I heard something from you at the the the Lake Forest Animal Adoption Center. I I hope that whether no matter which way we go, I think that you're an asset to the community here. So, I'm just going to leave it at that. Um, I do I do think that we have only one option on the table. Unfortunately, um that's right now that's a viable um it's a non almost like when we we we had um contracts that sometimes come through to us that aren't a thorough contract. There it's a non-responsive it's almost like we don't have a response from Mission V at this time. We have a draft proposal. Um I I think that for the good of the animals and and and the future of animal care here. Obviously, I think that some of the um speakers tonight um spoke passionately about um the traumatization and the life that these poor animals live as they go from a loving house to sometimes lost and put into a cage. Um, it's important that we take that in consideration that these animals aren't all wild animals that they one time had a family. Um, and we want them to have a family again. So, um, I don't really know. I mean, I'm going leave it up to

all you guys. Sure. Make a motion.

So, before uh the I let the mayor prom speak, I I do want to say something. So, as I'm listening to this and I'm thinking as a council member, what's my priority? What are my priorities? Public safety, infrastructure, and fiscal responsibility. This contract with if we were considering this and maybe 5 years down the road with the numbers that we're seeing, it's not fiscally responsible to pay an a crazy amount of money for a service that it's not fiscally responsible. I've heard somebody say, "Well, you got a lot of money." Well, there's a reason we have a lot of money because we don't we don't have $2 and go find something that's worth $2 to pay for. So, that's the first thing. And one of the speakers came and said they had a meeting with Mayor Voits and staff back in um whenever he was the mayor and they were telling saying, "Hey, you need to move to Mission VJO Animal Services." And it and it dawned on me, well, that person isn't even a Lake Forest resident that's telling us what to do in our city. And so, um, I appreciate those from other cities telling us that we need to go there, but I'm here. I was elected by Lake Forest residents, not residents from San Clemente, Rancho, Santa Margarita, or any other city. So, um, the satisfaction survey to me does make a lot of sense, and I go by it. And I do thank Baker Tilly uh Tilly for their their uh their their work and uh OCAC for being here tonight. And so um I just I I think that okay in five years we can look at this. Mission Veho has to sharpen their pencil a little bit better for us to to even make this work

because a million dollars I could hire two more deputies for that. And I guarantee you I'm more concerned about people. So if I'm going to spend an extra $500,000, I'm going to get an an extra deputy. Not right now, Captain. I'm not going to give it to you now, but in five years I might. But I'm just saying that I would rather spend that money on public safety. So, Mayor Prom, but you have three pugs. Doesn't that equal one person?

Okay. Well, one point that I want to make sure I I will support, we kind of talked a little bit about tonight that if we go through with this Orange County animal care contract is that we have the ability to hire a dedicated person for Lake Forest. I know this is still Orange County Animal Care under their management, but we would have a dedicated person in Lake Forest and that's going to be at our expense and that's something that I would support as kind of an interim, you know, help on on that kind of a thing. So, I I would just state that, you know, in terms of other ways that we can help mitigate, you know, some of the issues that we've been hearing tonight from Orange County Animal Care Service. Thank you. So before I give it to Mayor I'm sorry former mayor Voitz Samantha do you know by any chance you can uh well just you can shake your head if we ask for one more if if we want a dedicated officer OCAC officer in Lake Forest what would that cost us? Okay so

well I'm I'm hearing it's $100,000. Yeah, it's a lot of money. I support it. Yeah, Matthew, you might as well just come forward. I I have one more question for you tonight. Sorry, Samantha. Um and and um you know, I I I work with the county and I do hear of the improvements that have been made by Orange County Animal Care. So, um kudos to you on that. Um Michigan has a 4.5% escalation fee. Does m does Orange County have an escalation fee every year in our contract for five years?

We're based on actual costs. We give you a notice of intent in the spring of each year of what we estimate your your contract to be for the final year or for the next year. In response to the notice of intent, you give us a commitment back that yes, you do want those services and that you're um you're aware of that um estimate of your costs. We build on actuals. No. Okay. Thank you. That that was no Oh. Um yeah, I do. Yeah. Um so we'll wait to a motion.

I'll entertain a motion before I entertain a motion. Yeah. Okay. Um, my public statement is I I am a council member here at Lake Forest, but this item involves an agreement with Orange County. I am an employee with the county of Orange, but I do not work for the department generating the agreement because the county of Orange is a public agency and because I do not work for the department in question. I have determined that I have a non-interest in the item and I will be voting on this agreement tonight. And I will entertain a motion if there's no other questions. I'll move the motion. I I move staff recommendation. I will second.

And I'd like to make a friendly amendment. My friendly amendment is that that we keep dialogue open with Mission Viejo to um to still move forward to find out if that's a viable thing to where four years from now we don't get caught against the wall again. um obviously nearly double the amount according to what the proposed draft was. But um let's figure out what that is and see if they would take the the future council here in Lake Forest. But I think that's fair to all the speakers here that there is options on the table if if put on our strategic plan. Correct. What's that? That's something we can put on our strategic plan. Strate We'll add that to the strategic plan coming up.

Thank you. If that's So there's a motion in a second with the maker of the motion. Well, we're going to have the strategic plan, so Okay. I mean, you can bring it up there, too. Okay. Well, I don't think we'll be a part of this. So, there's a motion in a second. Let's vote.

Thank you, council members. I am waiting on two more votes. Thank you. And that motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Mayor. If I could go ahead.

I I still would like to invite OCAC to respond to any of the things we heard tonight. Um it would help maybe this council and future councils. Again, I do not want to see people trafficking in bad information. It's a really it's a huge disservice to this discussion if people can't be honest brokers. And I appreciate Mayor Prom Serbo's comments. Apparently, you were aware of what somebody else was going to bring forward and found out it is not based in apparently not based in truth. And I am just not interested in people um trafficking in bad information. If you have good information, share it. But what I'm not interested is people who want to um traffic and trying to lead this council around based on bad information. I've seen it years ago. I have no appetite for it. So, uh, it's an open invitation. If the county wants to respond to anything they heard tonight, um, I would certainly be interested. Maybe others would as well. Thank you.

Thank you. So, we'll move on to item number 13. Madam city clerk, please read the title of my item 13. Thank you, mayor. The title of item number 13 is the fiscal year 2026 27 draft action plan and draft expenditure plan for the community development block grant program. All right, madam city manager, please introduce this item. Thank you, mayor. Tonight, we have a presentation from our assistant city manager, Keith Ne. What?

Good evening, mayor and council members. Good morning almost. Um, tonight I will give an overview of the draft fiscal year 2627 expenditure plan and a draft fiscal year 2627 annual action plan. Uh, the annual action plan outlines how CDBG funds will be spent to address the goals and objectives in the con plan and is required to be submitted to HUD by May 15 of every year. Staff anticipates a total budget of around 525,000 for next fiscal year. Uh staff has been informed by HUD it intends to announce allocations on or around May 15th of 2026. For this reason, staff intends to adjust allocations by percentage based on the final fiscal year 2627 grant. So if we get any different numbers, we'll adjust the numbers in this report. This report is only a draft report. We'll bring you the final report on on or around the last meeting in April or first meeting in May. The table on the screen shows the proposed allocations for the fiscal year 2627 annual action plan. Staff is proposing to allocate the maximum amount to public services which is capped at a 15% of the fiscal year 2627 grant. Staff is proposing to allocate the maximum amount to administration which is capped at 20% of the fiscal year 2627 grant. Remaining funds would be allocated to ad to the ADA ramps and the housing rehabilitation loan and paint programs. As you can see from the slide, 46% of

the CDBG funds are proposed to be allocated for housing improvements, 20% to admin, 19% to ADA ramps, and 15% to sub recipients. Staff received applications from six nonprofit organizations. Five nonprofit organizations were each awarded CDBG funds last fiscal year and are meeting CDBG requirements. There is one new nonprofit wise place this year. Funding recommendations are based on prior year accomplishments, services provided, and the prior allocation. At this time, staff recommends that the city council approve the fiscal year 2627 draft action plan for the community development block grant, approve a 30-day public review and comment period, and direct staff to return the item to the city council for final approval and adoption on May 5th, 2026. That concludes my presentation. I am available to answer any questions the city council may have, and I believe there could be subreients still in the audience if they've waited around. uh that could answer any questions and I'll turn this back over to the mayor Peno.

Okay. Well, if they're still here, they should probably get these grants. So, madam city clerk, are there any requests to speak on this item? I do have two public comment speaker cards here. And that first public commenter is Lauren Han wearing her green.

Yes, I'm sitting for a while. Good evening. Um, my name is Lauren Han. I have the pleasure of serving as the housing development director at Families Forward. I just wanted to take a quick couple minutes to thank the city of Lake Forest and this council for your ongoing support and partnership. Families Forward's mission is to prevent and end family homelessness by providing access to housing and resources that create lasting stability. As a result of the incredible city partnerships that we have, including with Lake Forest, uh in 2025, Families Forward prevented or ended homelessness for 671 families or 2289 individuals. This includes 40 lakes Lake Forest families or 140 Lake Forest residents. Families Forward's community market received over 3,000 visits last fiscal year from lakes for Lake Forest residents. Um, at our community market, families get to choose and shop for healthy, fresh food options with dignity. Uh, Lake Forest families served through our affordable housing programs, which is what our CDBG application is supporting. Um, they also participate in our seasonal programs. So, they receive backpacks and school supplies for our back to school event. They receive ingredients for a Thanksgiving meal during the November month. And then they also receive holiday wish support uh for children's gifts in the month of December. Um so with our continued uh with your continued support for the 2627 fiscal year, Families Forward plans to support at least 25 low-income Lake Forest residents uh through our affordable housing program. Again, our clients in our affordable housing units, uh, they receive affordable, stable, safe, highquality places to live, tenant screenings, tenant education, home visits, income reertifications on an annual basis. And our supportive services include one-on-one case

management, food assistance, career coaching, mental health counseling, adult education workshops, and financial literacy education. So again, thank you so much for your time and your support and we look forward to another great year with the city of Lake Forest. Thank you for your comments. Oh, any questions? Thank you for what you do. Yes, thank you. And we're going to miss Meline. Yeah, me too.

And our last public commenter for this item is Stephanie Asdo. Hi, good afternoon. Um um thank you for the opportunity to speak here today. My name is Stephanie. I am the data analyst at Camino Health Center. Uh we have been recipient of the grant for various years. Um so Camino's mission is to provide compassion and highquality health care to those in needs. Our goal is not only to treat illness but to improve rural wealth and help transform the communities we serve through integrated accessible care. Um the past come in the year 2025 Camino served over 16,000 patients across all uh southern California um sorry Orange County. Of those patients we served 2,459 were actually residents from Lake Forest. And that number continues to grow year to year. From 2024 to 2025, we saw an increase in the percentage of patients we serve within the city, highlighting both the rising needs and our expanding impact across each um southern um Orange County. We are requesting the CBDJ funding to support essential utility costs at our Lake Forest location. Um utilities are not just operational expenses. They are critical to patient care. Electricity powers our medical equipment, diagnostic tools, and electronic health records. What is essential for sanitation and infection control? Heating and controlling systems ensure a safe and comfortable environment for both patient and staff. Without these basic resources, we can't provide care. To illustrate the impact importance, sorry, of timely coordinated care, I want to share just a patient story of the many we have. A patient came to

Camino for a post- discharge follow-up after undergoing a very delicate procedure in October 2025. He required ongoing care for his neurosurgeon, but the provider initially did not accept his insurance. Over over four months, our care coordination team worked closely with the nurse surgeon office and patients insurance company to ensure a letter of agreement allowing him to continue with the same surgical team who needed his um who knew his case. He underwent a successful follow-up surgery in February 2026 and and is now doing well. This case demonstrates that persistent coordinated support can accomplish for patient navigating complex care transitions. At its core, the investment is not just in in a facility. It is an investment in health care and well-being of the Lake Forest community. Thank you for your time in consideration.

Well, thank you for your comments and I really love the location of your your facility because it's going to be right next to Aspen Court when it gets built. So, thank you for your comments. That's it, Mayor. Okay, that moves us on to the city manager report. Madam city manager, do you have anything? Sorry. I'm sorry. Jesus, I'm trying to get out of here. Staff recommendation. I think Mark had his finger up first. Well, go ahead. Quick question for Assistant City Manager Neeves. Would it be more appropriate, I guess, at the May 5th date? When is that when we can maybe reallocate some of the funds? Is that the time to do that or is it before that?

Uh, no. we we need to get it to the May 15th date before the May 15th requirement. So, um that's why we're taking on the May 15th date and then we'll probably find out um some newer if if HUD comes out with new numbers for us, we'll adjust them before that date. Okay. Well, we have opportunity for input on those allocations or Well, if if HUD comes with new numbers, it's it's not going to be much. It's going to be, you know, very little money, 20, 30, $40,000 difference maybe because the allocations are based on, you said past history and merit achievements and whatnot. We would probably just do it by percentage increase. Everybody gets the same. I see. Thank you.

So then I'll take a uh my motion was staff recommendation move the action. So we have a motion and a second. Let's vote

and I need one more vote. I know we're coming to that. Thank you. And that motion passes unanimously. All right. I'm not in a hurry, but madam city manager, do you have anything to report? No, I have nothing further. Thank you. All right. We'll go to council comments. Council member Tedmer. Nothing further tonight. Thank you, Mayor. Council member Voits. Nothing further. Mayor, council member, you council, mayor Prince, mayor promper.

Thank you, mayor. Just again, some of the stuff behind the scenes that we do, the audit committee, myself, and council member Tedimemer, we have an opportunity to take a look at the finances. Just a quick report. City finances are in excellent, incredible shape, and we are prepared for virtually just anything that comes our way. And since we're on kind of an animal kick tonight, just a couple of things. Uh for those of you who have dogs and if they have a fever, the best thing is to put mustard because mustard on a hot dog is great. All right. And then the other thing is for, you know, young uh deer. Don't shake your head. T young deer, you know, their favorite warm cheese food. Okay. Very much. Thank you very much. I have nothing. And with that, I will adjourn.