City Council - Regular Meeting

You can have your seats. We're gonna get started. I'd like to call our study session to order. First public comments, are there any requests to speak?

I do have a request to speak on item number one. Okay. Brian Genovese. Welcome.

Good evening, city council. Mayor Kaneem and esteemed city council. My name is Brian Genovese. Speaking tonight on the first item on the agenda for the Sister City program, and I'm here for the Kiwanis Club primarily. We actually have a sister city program through Kiwanis that we currently have access to that we'd like to use to actually partner up with the city through our key clubs and key win Key wins clubs and the high schools.

We currently we do I think we do four high schools right now. We do Fountain Valley High School, Los Amigos High School, La Quinta High School, and West Noster High School currently. So we have a wide variety of students across the area that would be able to participate possibly in this program and sorry. So just trying to get this set up so we can get some, you know, some foundation going and try to figure out how it's gonna work and all that with with everything going on. So I'd like to request your guys approval on this matter here tonight, and look forward to working with you.

Thank you.

Yeah. And, actually,

Brian, could you hold on a second? So Weismar Harbour?

So you said that the Kiwanis Club already has a sister city program?

So yes, through the Kiwanis International, we actually have a partner program that's through the sister city program, and it's the same one that actually the city would use here. So to actually build a partner up with the city to do an exchange program with, like, you know right now, we're looking at Japan as a as a sister city program.

And that's the nonprofit sister city international, the one that the city recently became a member of and also went to Japan for the US Japan summit.

So Kiwanis is already kind of working with them on other cities?

Kiwanis International, not not the Fountain Valley.

Not the Fountain Yeah. Okay. Yeah. May I'm sorry. Councilman Glen Councilman Grantis is correct. But it's a program that we have access to that's currently in effect. I see. We could follow that program and then utilize that here in our community as well too.

Got it. Okay. Thanks.

Thanks. Good.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So we'll move into item one, sister city program consideration presentation. Deputy City Manager, Community Services Director, Rob Frizell, and public works director, Scott Smith. Director Smith.

Great. Thank you, honorable mayor, council members. I have the pleasure of kicking off this study session, which you'll hear a number of well respected and talented individuals presenting after me. My portion of the presentation is a quick recap of the Sister Cities Summit, which is intended in September 2025. Sister Cities International is a nonprofit citizen diplomacy network that promotes peace and understanding between international communities through mutual respect, cultural, economic, and technical exchanges.

The Sister City relationship is an international partnership that's officially recognized by electeds or appointed officials. Overall, the Sister City program is an opportunity to promote Fountain Valley on the international stage through student exchange programs, sports exchange programs, and trade and commerce. The theme of last year's summit was celebrating our legacies and empowering our future. This slide provides some of the summit's metrics and key goals. In the top right corner of the slide, there's some metrics about attendance.

And then the bullets at the bottom of the slide show key goals of the summit. The photos on this slide were taken during the summit and include delegates from the city of Fountain Valley, the mayor of Izumi Sano City, which was the host city, and the board of directors chair for the Sister Cities International Organization. This slide shows summit attendees from California. That's California alone. There's lot more attendees, but that's just California.

During the summit, city delegates had an opportunity to hear keynote speeches, listen to panel discussions, share ideas, discuss mutual challenges, and build national and international relationships. One of the international relationships developed during the summit by Fountain Valley was with Secur City, a potential future friendship city. Here's some demographics on the side slide that discuss Secur City. And this slide shows the two cities meeting over a meal after a long summit stay. After the summit concluded, certain members of the Fountain Valley team visited some businesses in Sakura City.

This slide includes images of the Senken Sake brewery visit. And on this slide, you'll see images of the Takumiya rice form visit. I'll now hand the presentation over to Mr. Rob Frissell.

Mayor Keene, council members, thank you so much tonight for this opportunity. Sorry, getting back to my notes page. This is a really neat opportunity and I'm going to invite our city manager to join me in any of these conversations because we worked hand in hand in in working in the background to meet with a number of different cities throughout Southern California. Scott and I and Maggie and Megan have been to Torrance. We've been to Buena Park.

We've been to Long Beach. We've spoken with Rancho Palos Verdes. Huntington Beach, well, they're our biggest partner. They've been helping us a ton. So we've definitely taken the time to look into the best practices of creating a sister city association, what's working in other cities, what their struggles have been and in the potential formation of sister cities association or program here in Fountain Valley what we think that would best look like.

Following that terrific trip to Japan, we have had multiple conversations with some intriguing potential partners for a sister city with the city of Fountain Valley. Starting with Hecanon City, we have had numerous Zoom calls which I know a few of our council members have been able to join us on with Mayor Kiyoki. The city has an estimated population of around 72,000 people. One of the things that we've continually heard from sister cities international and from other cities is finding a city that's compatible to your size, your scope, your industry, even recreation and what the community, you know, are of a sister city in Japan. Excuse me.

So the total area of the city in kilometers is 36.68, but that's roughly 14.6 miles. Currently they do have a sister city in Edmonds, Washington. But as we've seen with some of these programs, sometimes the the relationship starts to fizzle over time whether it's in community interest and or funding capabilities. And so the city of Hakanen is looking for a potential new sister city. And we are really excited for this year at our Summerfest, June 18 through the twenty first.

Shameless plug, I thought I think I saw our chair, Matt Taylor in there. Summerfest is right around the corner. It is festival season in Pound Valley, as you know now. The mayor's daughter is coming on an unofficial visit from June 13 to June 24 And we'll be staying at the home of Tam Nguyen, who's back there. Thank you, Tam.

And the remainder of the trip with our City Manager, Maggie Lee. And Tam, I understand, is going right back out to Japan following that homestay. Here you can see some of the things that we're excited to do when the Mayor's daughter, Kiki, visits. We're going to take her to some local cuisine. We're thinking any restaurant to start, Maybe a relaxation day, possible beach day, tour a little Saigon, Garden Grove, Santa Ana, Westminster.

She is also in school for beauty college and what a perfect time. We're going to show her the best one around. And then also maybe go out to CSUF, go see the campus of Cal State Fullerton because they've done and you're going to hear about it later, they've done some amazing work working with the sister cities in international trade. You can't come out to Southern California without coming to Disneyland so we're going to definitely do that. A city hall visit and then meeting with some of our local non profits, Kiwanis and coming out to our Summerfest Employees Day.

Tour of Yucult and other key Japanese locations, Slater Bouchard and Summerfest for the fireworks that night, Tanaka Farms and then possibly visit the LA Japanese consulate in Japantown in LA. And then from there, she will be going back and hopefully giving the mayor rave reviews of the city of Fountain Valley. But if it's anything like I know what we've done when we've had other delegations here, Fountain Valley wins everybody over in a short time. The second city that we've had possible discussions with is the city of Fukushima. The city has it a little bit bigger.

It's well, a lot bigger. Two It's 175,000 people and a 122,000 households. A total area of the city of about 297 miles. While it is bigger, there is one major key. It is the hometown of our first mayor, the Conno family. And we've been in connection to the Conno family again through Tam who now resides in Irvine. And there's a lot of excitement to connect with the original mayor here in Fountain Valley in this potential sister city. Caga City is another one. It's a pending connection. We're still working on on speaking with them.

I believe former mayor Steve Nagel had conversations with them in Japan and they were expressing an interest to look in their their actively seeking a sister city in The United States. The city has an estimated population of 67,029 households. And again a larger one. That's not very many homes for that large of a size. There's some room available over there, 118 miles.

All right, why sister cities matter for Fountain Valley and this is a lot of the research that we were doing when we were originally meeting with those other cities. It's investing in the future of Fountain Valley. The sister city program represents more than just international friendship. Investing in educational excellence, cultural tourism, economic development in the next generation of global leaders. One of the first things people think about and I think I've heard it from council a number of times why you chose to live in Fountain Valley is the wonderful schools, right?

And so we have a top rated school district and our wonderful student is here. And so highlighting our wonderful education and then through possible student exchange on maybe a biannual basis. Economic impact, drive cultural tourism, create new business opportunities and promote the city internationally. Speaking with Torrance, that was one of their big focuses, big industrial area up in Torrance. And if you can get somebody thinking about your location when they're trying to pick out something in a certain region of a state or The United States in general, why not Found Valley?

And then lastly, community pride, honor the diverse heritage. Obviously, there was a lot of Japanese farmers originally settled here in Fountain Valley and again with Kano, James Kano as our original first mayor. It's a really exciting opportunity to recognize that cultural heritage. Speaking of economic development, we are a very proud city as you know to have UCOLT USA production plant right here in Fountain Valley, major Japanese company established in 2014 and that obviously recognizes that that good opportunity to work between United States and Japan economically. And oh, excuse me, Fukushima was they do have

a They

have a plant in Fukushima.

Yeah. So Fukushima has a occult plant. So finding those connections with those other cities is key. Hyundai Motor America national headquarters relocated to Fountain Valley in 1990 and brings their Asian corporate presence and international connections. Kingston Technology founded here in 1987 and has maintained its global headquarters to this day.

When other companies from Japan or other countries see the success that these businesses are having, thriving here in Fountain Valley, it's another opportunity to bring in that economic development and international business trade. And then lastly, we do have the sports park expansion. Enhanced facilities are perfect for hosting international events, sports exchanges and cultural celebrations. We're really excited through the parks master plan to try to bring the digital cameras to all of our sports fields so that if we had the opportunity to do international sports exchange like a few other cities have, we could showcase our sports park to the families that do not come over with the cultural exchange. It'd be really neat to show off those opportunities.

And Fountain Valley Sister Cities Advisory Committee. So, is the working group that we currently have with council direction.

It has nothing to do with your stuff.

Okay. I'm just making sure. Fountain Valley Sister Cities Advisory Committee, that's pretty much everybody that's back here. So thank you all for joining us today. Mayor and vice mayor, city staff, Kiwanis Club, Schools Foundation, Community Foundation, Historical Society, Women's Club, Fountain Valley School District, Garden Grove School District, Huntington Beach Union High School District, Cal State Fullerton, Yacolt and Sakioka.

It's bringing the entire community together as we've seen before when we do large endeavors such as this, bringing everybody together, many hands make light work and it's really fun to see the community of Fountain Valley come together and you're going hear from the rest of them here shortly. And then lastly, the program focus area, like we said before, student exchange connecting the students for friendship building, educational stories and cultural understanding through our award winning school district. As we found in the vast majority of the sister cities, that's the highlighting program. And that's also the program where you build your program. People that participated in those kids later as they get older join the program and start to be volunteers or assistants and those families typically stay connected to the program and you're really building your long term excitement from within and the experiences they've had they're gonna wanna share with the other students and families.

Little League and Pro Baseball, obviously there's nothing hotter in baseball than the Dodgers right now highlighted by their many Japanese superstars and the connection between Southern California Major League Baseball and Japan is huge. And so driving some of that tourism and connecting professional players in the little leagues through this program is an exciting opportunity. And then trade development establish a foundation for future economic partnerships via Cal State Fullerton. You'll hear a little bit about that later. Already doing it.

And so finding areas that other agencies or organizations are already have already established that we can tie into as opposed to starting a program from the ground up is the key. All right. Next steps. We attended this summit, which you heard from Scott. We're doing the evaluation period, program development and city prospects consideration.

And then our desire is to launch the program at the city's seventieth anniversary, 06/13/2027, so next year. Our goal would be to have a city in place and the framework in place by the end of this calendar year and look towards bringing out that delegation to participate in which you'll hear from the next study session hopefully a parade or some exciting opportunities to celebrate the city's seventieth birthday. The preliminary vision is to create an MOU between the city and the Fountain Valley Sister City Association with also with the Qantas Club helping the fundraising and the Fountain Valley Community Foundation, the Schools Foundation, Women's Club and Historical Society assisting in that. We currently have an MOU with the Fountain Valley Community Foundation to run our Summerfest event and and you just clearly outline what that organization is created for, the bylaws that they need to adhere to. And then that gives that group guidance on how to operate, how to receive, invest and spend those charitable funds as they come into a non profit.

So second would be to formalize a sister city relationship with one of those cities that we've spoken to, Hakanin, Fukushima or Kaga City. And then possibly formalize a friendship city with Sakura City or Fukushima. Sakura City visited us eighteen months ago, two years ago at The Fountain Valley Sports Park. Patrick, did you join us?

Yeah. Patrick was.

Yeah. So they're a sister city right now with Ranchos Palos Verdes and but they wanted to come out and see our sports park. They said we want to build something exactly like this, right? And so we formed a really neat relationship with them that day and have continued to have conversations with them. And so if they don't have the ability to become a formal sister city, that relationship is already in place and potentially looking at friendship city.

Following formalizing the program would be to create a student exchange program and possibly a youth sports league, consider a trade exchange visit and then consider a delegation visit every other year. Some cities send a delegation out every single year and the delegation from the other city comes here every year. Our recommendation at this time would be to do it every other year. Somebody from Fountain Valley would go out in odd years and then a visitor from or a delegation from the other city in Japan would come out in even years. It gives the the sister city association the opportunity to raise funds in that off year to make sure that they continue to support that program.

The city would also like to consider starting with a $10,000 budget for the next two fiscal years for grants and getting the program off the ground. We do anticipate through Sister Cities International that there are going to be plenty of grant opportunities. But in starting a non profit and getting the program off the ground, there could be some potential cost that the city would need to absorb absorb. And oops, sorry. Last thing is the state of the city has been the annual fundraising opportunity which was a home run this year.

And we can consider a Japan festival similar to or tying into Huntington Beach Cherry Blossom Festival. Most most sister city associations have one large event each year that's the driver of most of their funding sources for the the cultural exchange programs. And so with that, oh, this is me too. I thought this was Steve because it was Kiwanis. Alright.

So I I get to brag about the state of the city. We fundraised over $31,000 on on probably the biggest and best city of Fountain Valley, state of the city ever. And that money can be used to consider a visit out to Hakanan, Fukushima or Sakura City or Caga City in late fall of twenty twenty six if we're looking to formalize a relationship, a sister city relationship with one of the cities we've been speaking to. Visit Yacolt Fukushima plant, the Tokyo Yacolt swallows professional baseball team out there. See if that connection again to international sports and local Kiwanis International in Japan.

Connect with the Japanese consulate and sister city international for support on the next visit to Japan. As we go out there, how do we work through the process of formalizing a sister city association. Extend an invitation to representatives from the Acano Mission, HB Sister City President to support as interpreter. Obviously, that's key. You've been you've done the trip to Japan and we've received so much different support through this mission and our friends at the Huntington Beach Sister City and all these discussions that we've had regularly with cities in Japan.

So and or maybe inviting out the mayors, the first mayor's family, the Kano family who does reside in Irvine. And then we would like consider up to two council members, two city staff and two Fountain Valley Sister City advisory representatives to possibly go on that trip. So that we've identified that as a potential use of these funds. We don't anticipate all of it roughly probably around $15,000 to do a trip to try to formalize a a sister city in Japan.

Alright.

Steve. You're up, Steve. Alright.

Thanks, sir.

Welcome.

Hello, Mayor Kunin and also city council members. Appreciate being here. I'm Steve Nagel, and I'm the current Kiwanis Club president. As the president, our we have two parts of our Kiwanis Club. We have the regular Kiwanis Club, and we also have our foundation.

And our foundation is a nonprofit five zero one c three approved nonprofit. So for that reason, we have the ability to help raise funds as long as we identify exactly what we're putting the money up for and making sure that everybody understands where it's going and is safe for using as we would like to do. And with that, as mentioned, the Kiwanis Club did receive a check for $31,461 at the May 5 council meeting. And this will be a budget line or line item budget entry in our book. So it will only be used for designated for Sister City related items.

The Kiwanis Club and I are excited to be able to participate in the Sister City's international planning process. And over this last year, our diverse community that we do have here is showing growing interest and supporting Sister Cities international program. For instance, as mentioned, our Fountain Valley's early Japanese influence, the city's first mayor, James Conno, who I was able to interview and ask for his support when I first ran for city council, And a very nice gentleman, and and I did get his support. So, anyway, not only was he the first mayor, he was mayor six times. So he he set the record that it was hasn't been beaten since.

So, also, Chuck Eshi was on the first city council. He also was an area farmer and was on the first city council and was a valued member of our first city council in 1957 when we incorporated. I believe the opportunity for our community to promote peace and understanding through mutual respect, cultural and economic technical exchanges between communities worldwide is a worthwhile experience, and I would like to support for our community through the sister city program. If you have any questions for me, I'd be happy to answer them.

Your partner in the press.

I thought she she was gonna ask me a question.

No. Was

booting you off

the podium. Thank you, Steve.

Hi. Mayor Kanean and city council members. I'm Barbara Montz, and I'm current the current president of the Fountain Valley Community Foundation. And I was asked to talk a little bit about student exchange. You notice here it says the Fountain Valley Community Foundation and the Women's Club.

Neither one of those organizations has had a board meeting where it's been voted that we would participate, but then you haven't voted yet either. So we will address that at a future date. But student exchange is very important. Personally, I've been an exchange student three times and also hosted exchange students. So it's really a wonderful way to share cultural experiences, to help learning a new language, to experience the dynamics of family in a different country, a school situation, food.

I mean, are just so many things, but it really broadens an individual's view of the world. And that's really key because we are such a diverse world now, and we are a very diverse city. So I am obviously much in favor of this program, especially the student exchange aspect of it. So what would support with that program look like? So the organization or the nonprofit that would take the lead on this would help coordinate scholarships.

They might be $1,000 they might be a full scholarship for someone who could not afford but deserved the experience. Coordinate home stays. Cause obviously when they come, they really need to be with the family so they can experience that. And that would be coordinating here and abroad. Also coordinate with the various school districts, Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach, possibly Garden Grove and coordinate with them as far as finding the students and who wanted to apply, maybe being part of that decision making process.

And also help coordinate while they're here. So you saw that list of what we're going to be doing in June. So it would be this group that would help coordinate that and come up with those activities that fit, that particular student and the experience. And that's pretty much it. It's just a question of, whether or not you decide to pursue this. I highly recommend that you do because and it doesn't mean that it just has to be Japan. Once this is successful, we can have other sister cities, but we need to say yes first to this one.

Welcome.

Thank you. Mayor and council members and to city manager Lee. I'm Katherine Stop, the very proud superintendent of the Fountain Valley School District, and I'm here actually on behalf of doctor Karolio Gada at the high school district and myself. They spoke a little bit about the student exchange programs. Now at the elementary level, we have TK through eight.

We don't do exchange programs, obviously, but the high school district does, and I know they've already done several with different countries at the high school level. So they would act as a conduit in their world language classes to get people who are interested to sign up for those opportunities. And should those this council decide to move forward with this, at the elementary school level level, we have three schools of our 10 that are after Japanese Americans, Hisamatsu Tamura, Isohiro Oka, and Kazuo Masuda Middle School. And so should the schedule permit and there's interest, we're happy to host visits to those three sites.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Hello. Hello, mayor Kenin, vice mayor Harper, and council members Buoy and Grandis. My name is Tim Nguyen, proud Fallon Valley resident. Also here on behalf of Cal State Fullerton, where I'm a business faculty member since 2016 and past president of the Alumni Association and and board of governors there. So I wanted to share that certainly here in support, I believe this represents just more than ceremonial diplomacy.

I think it's a great opportunity just to have meaningful educational, cultural, economic connections that benefit not only our students, our businesses, and residents for generations to come. On the slide tonight you see for you, this is a Cal State Fullerton slide that that highlights several exciting opportunities here for our students in commerce. These would include things that are already being done in terms of student visits, commerce tours connected to the College of Business and Economics. Dean Sri Syndrome sends his regards. He's very supportive of this, very well aware of this.

Other college, other programs on campus such as public administration, poly sci programs at Cal State Fullerton, what could also be coordinated. We also are already doing educational and trade missions at Cal State Fullerton. I've had the honor to participate in one to Korea and and others that continue to work both ways. Student exchanges. I I personally have been part of student exchanges where I was a student at Cal State Fullerton and went abroad.

Our family here in Fountain Valley, kudos to my wife Christine and our three kids, we've hosted students from Brazil, Italy, England, and Scotland. So we're very much looking forward to hosting the mayor's daughter next month and here as from Japan. We also found Valley's just so unique. We're uniquely positioned to to bridge Orange County to the international community. In my other roles throughout Orange County, I see education, entrepreneurship, cultural understanding, exchanges, and and and just the thriving the thriving global relationships just here in our region.

Also, I've seen that sister I believe a sister city partnership connected with Cal State Fullerton and and its and its experience. It's Cal State Fullerton currently has three Japanese university partnerships that they do exchanges. There's we currently have 20 students from Japan currently right now pursuing a degree at Cal State Fullerton. So our senior international director Christine Percher Percher Barnes sends her regards to our our city of Fountain Valley and and welcomes any of her experiences and and support in in in programs like this as well. Next, I would just say I appreciate the emphasis on student opportunities that's been discussed, but also business collaboration.

This is really good for business. Business activity is happening here and globally without us. Why not give it more structure and help and continue to make Fountain Valley such a welcoming place to do business as well. So lastly lastly, I just wanna thank each of you for for exploring this vision. It's I think it's very exciting.

I think not only our mayor Kanean, but each of you have been past mayors, and and I've learned a lot of acronyms through you, what FV stands for, whether it's Foodie Valley, Fitness Valley, fantastic volunteers, you know, Cal State Fullerton and myself are aligned. Cal State Fullerton beyond our our great business program. We have a great Cal State Fullerton baseball team. Baseball was mentioned earlier, and they've actually done exchanges with Korean and base and and I believe Japanese baseball teams on the Goodwin Field there. So so a lot of exchange going. So just in the spirit of the World Cup, spirit of the Olympics coming up, I think this is wonderful, a great timing for our seventieth birthday of our city, and I'm looking forward to do anything to to support this. Thank you very much for your consideration.

Thank you, Tam.

Welcome.

Good evening. I'm no Tam Wynn, but I am James Pike, and I crossed the 405 to come and see you from Huntington Beach. And my brief comments to you related to this slide are simply to let you know about the human capital that's already invested in the investigatory process that you've begun, which is you have people that have heard what you're doing like us both in the Sister City Association of Huntington Beach and Akune Mission of people who are currently working in Japan who are already leveraging some of our relationships to see if we can build some of these organic connections that will allow this to be successful. So if you don't know Frank Macabashi who runs the Sister City Association of Huntington Beach, it began in 1982. As mister Frizzell said earlier, some of these relationships have an ebb and a flow, a fizzle, and a spark.

And over that long period of time, various programs have developed, come and gone. And there's a very strong student exchange which has endured across the entire time along with a cultural festival and also the planting of many cherry trees around Huntington Beach Central Park. And mister Nakabashi and the nonprofit that supports that are very passionate about maintaining this connection and are willing to offer whatever resources and relationships they have to encourage, mentor, come alongside with and support this as you investigate and maybe find a sister city that's the right match for you. Now, Kunai Mission, if you saw slide 19, that picture with city officials and that was an event that we sponsored. It started as a Christian Buddhist partnership between America and Japan for all people, just for those people of those faiths that does community renewal through our projects, through education and through service.

So we do our own student exchange. We're going to Japan in a couple weeks, actually the same time that Tam will be in Japan. If you know Murakami on the White Sox, we do an exchange with the high school that Murakami came from in Southern Japan. And so we have a lot of experience taking students back and forth. We're actually sponsoring five students that'll be coming to Huntington Beach and Fountain Valley in just a couple weeks who will be participating out of that presentation on slide 19 with the Japanese national soccer team as they do World Cup stuff.

And I really think it's important that when we do think of the human capital, you have the real riches of this heritage as you've heard from the school district and from the Kano family. After we did the tour with Yacolt, some of our Japanese partners reached out to the Yacolt corporate structure and tried to get up to make a relationship with Yacolt and Fukushima and that's an ongoing conversation. And then the Chamber of Commerce in Fukushima just reached out to us through one of our partners because they were unaware of the strong connection of the Kano family. And so they sent us a series of questions unsolicited saying, tell us about his family, tell us if there are still any living relatives, tell us about the family that exists in The United States. So I just wanted to let you know that you have volunteers and friends, we're not asking for anything, we just want to support what you're doing.

If we're able to leverage any of those relationships to build those bridges, open those conversations, develop that rapport, then we want to support you in this important work and we hope you find a good match and whether it's a friendship city, a sister city, or just stronger bonds between Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley, and others, anything we can do to support that, we're happy to do that.

Welcome. Good evening, mayor, members, city council. I have the pleasure tonight to wrap up this wonderful conversation where I will discuss some grant opportunities that we've identified, proposed budget that we wanna put towards this initiative if council does support it tonight, and then some alternative countries for consideration aside from Japan. So for grant opportunities, already on the side here, the goal here is to create a low cost partnership driven initiative that supports educational exchange, economic development, tourism, visibility, and grant competitiveness within the city. Sister City designation opens the door to grants and partnerships not otherwise available to municipalities.

Initial grant funding that we would receive would help offset travel, student exchanges, cultural programming, and community events. We would try to pursue as much grant funding as possible before having to dip into the general fund and city financial and considering any significant city financial commitment. A few opportunities that I've identified myself and through our current grant writing consultant, Townsend Public Affairs are through SCI, Sister Cities International Foundation. The big one in particular is this one here on the screen, The US Japan Global Impact Grant. We can be eligible for up to $25,000 a year.

We just have to be active SCI members, which we currently are, paying dues, but also have an established program under our belt. In addition to that, the Tim Quigley Exchange Fund is not necessarily a grant, but it is it's a essentially, it's something that they will match funds. So if we were putting funds towards specific program or travel student exchange program, they will match those funding. So to put apply for these grants, The US municipality must have an established sister city program and must be a dues paying member of sister cities international. In addition to the grant opportunities through SCI, there are also a few other one off grant programs that we can apply for that would include US Department of State Exchange programs and this can apply to any student exchange program that we do push through this initiative.

And then also the California State Library cultural grants, would be eligible through that through our sister city establishment, and this can help fund potential community engagement and cultural heritage opportunities. I would also, at this time, like to invite Zach from senator Strickland's office to show his support and discuss some potential funding opportunities within his office.

Welcome, Zach. Hello, mayor and council, and everyone else in the audience. My name is Zach Ragg here. I'm behalf of state senator Tony Strickland. We represent the beautiful city of Fountain Valley.

Yeah. And so just here, on behalf of the center, just to go in and, show our support for this program, the initiative that is getting created here. I know that I've attended multiple kind of study session hearings on this to go ahead and see all that Fountain Valley is looking to do with this, whether it's student run, economic run, whatever it may be. And we are definitely on board for any of the grant opportunities that you guys have already identified and any that will be coming up in the future, whether that be by letter of support or another means. I know that even though we are a state office, if they are federal, if they are private, we still can definitely go in and support the city, and its endeavors for that.

I know that the senator, when he was on the city council and mayor of Huntington Beach, he strengthened a lot of those relationships with Anjo, Japan, and then also kind of spearheaded a different kind of similar project for the sister city in Israel as well. So he's got a few of that, under his belt as far as for the experience. So he's definitely on board, and, of course, use me as a resource, to go ahead and assist you guys with that. And, of course, we also have incredible relationship with Townsend Public Affairs, who's your guys' consultant, so we're happy to work

with them as well.

Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you, Zach. So just to reiterate, all of these are great opportunities that we can potentially apply for and seek funding for, but we have to be in a we have to have established sister city program under our belt. In addition to that, So as you can see on this slide here, many Orange County and I'll give you a second to kind of explore. Many Orange County cities already maintain active sister city relationships. Programs run from volunteer run, kind of like what we're seeking to do, to city supported or somewhere in between.

Annual budgets obviously vary significantly based on the city. And then I really want to underscore the fact that several cities do leverage their nonprofits, sponsorships, donations, volunteer boards, and phased implementation to minimize impact on the city's resources in general fund. The proposed initial city contribution that we are proposing tonight is $10,000 which you heard earlier tonight. And this is designed to serve as seed funding for a phased pilot program. The intent is not to create a large ongoing fund financial obligation, but rather to establish foundational programming, partnership development, and grant eligibility.

Additionally, and as you heard tonight, we did fundraise $31,000 from our very successful State of the City that we are excited to tap into and put towards this program if we do receive direction from council tonight. So to sum it up, the proposed financial approach would be proposed initial and city investment of $10,000 for the first two years may or may not be used in its entirety. Potential funding, potential community nonprofit support of 31,000 raised from the state of the city. And then a huge focus and push on grant applications, sponsorships and partnerships to minimize general fund impact. And then finally, a few other countries for consideration in addition to Japan, maybe once we do have an established program under our belts, if you wanted to go explore other countries.

A few that we've identified are South Korea due to Hyundai regional present presence, strong education and technology exchange potential, and large Korean American business community influence here at Orange County. Taiwan due to technology and manufacturing alignment, Kingston Technology here in town, and potential innovation and business partnerships. And then finally, South Vietnam here, significant Vietnamese American population here in Fountain Valley and neighboring cities, cultural tourism partnerships and business and entrepreneurial exchange opportunities. So that wraps up our presentation tonight. We are now seeking direction from city council.

We're excited to open up dialogue here and have a discussion, and all of us presenters are available for any questions you might have. Thank you.

Great. Thanks so much for everyone's support. Presentation was thorough, deep and so now we're at the point where we're going to open up to City Council. Councilman Bui.

Thank you, Mayor. I want to thank you everyone for the your presentations and how you speak eloquently for your support. And I want to thank you Doctor. Katherine Stock to point out the difference between the telemetry and the support from your departments and your colleagues. Is anyone here from the Huntington Beach Board of Trustee or educations because the parents is under their jurisdictions and I kind of want to hear a little bit from their side. Is anybody here from that from them?

No. Doctor. Agata is unavailable, but she does participate on the advisory committee and she did share that if the city council does support, she would create a student exchange program at the Fountain Valley High School.

Okay. Next questions is the following years, the cost of following years. Obviously, it was a very successful stay at the city, was able to raise $31,000 to help this start the process. But following years, how are we going to continue to fund the non profit organizations? So that way it's sustainable REPRESENTATIVE:] in the

long run if we choose to take this

I think we're going to ongoing, we're going to do State of the City. So every year we'll do a State of the City event like mentioned in a few slides prior. Alternate years, one year, a 100% of those proceeds will go to State of the City and then the alternate year will 50% will go to the State of the Sister City Foundation. I think we're also planning to put $10,000 annually towards the program. We may or may not tap into it whether or not we are able to fundraise. We have all a few programs that were brought up the that we can workshop and brainstorm with. This is the direction that city council gives us tonight.

Okay. That's all I have.

If anyone wants to add to that, feel free.

Vice Mayor Harper.

Thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate all the speakers tonight. It was you got great enthusiasm and energy towards the the sister city program. And I I feel a lot of momentum that we've already sort of got going in the program.

So I you know, at this point, I would I would definitely be in support of it. The one the one one concern I have is that with other cities as director Frazelle mentioned, sometimes it tends to kind of fizzle a little bit over time as leadership changes among the nonprofits. And so I think it's important as we go through maybe to take a look after five years and make sure that we have the momentum to keep doing it. Also we talked a lot about student exchange which is great but if all we do is student exchange, I don't think that's enough. So I'd like to see a little more opportunities to and part of the program to really pursue other other cultural exchange and other avenues besides just the just the student exchange program?

Absolutely. I think it's the real foundation of maintaining the relationship is that annual program that you work together, right? And that allows you to to build into other areas. Yeah.

Student Manager Lee?

Yeah. So the student exchange is pretty much the start, the foundation to get the momentum going and then tourism, trade and sports are other areas that we want to expand upon.

Councilman Grandis. Yeah. No. I think everybody did a great job presenting. Appreciate everybody's time. Obviously, I'm very much in support of this as well. I don't think it's a big burden to the city, and I think the advantages far outweigh any costs or anything else that we have for sure. I think we could really make this very big if we choose to. And those that want to participate can and definitely can lead to bigger things economically. If we get one company somehow to invest into Fountain Valley, this will pay dividends for decades to come.

So it's a little bit of an investment. I'm not really sure why we need $10,000 when we have $31,000 already in the bank, so to speak. And I know you said we will only use it if we need to use it. So I like that. I think that's last resort.

But yeah, I mean, I enjoyed my time going to Japan, learned a lot, visiting the sake manufacturing, which was doing it the same way they've done it for a hundred and fifty years. And the rice farm that we visited is a specialty rice that is used for that sake. It was it was all really amazing. We learned a lot, and I think it's something where our children will learn a lot if we do it the right way. So super excited about this, and, yeah, definitely has my support.

Just wanna make sure we check with councilwoman Constantine, and she's on Zoom. Correct? Okay. Councilwoman, any questions or comments?

Okay.

Okay. Perfect. Yeah. I'm not duplicating anything anybody said. Thank you for all the speakers. The trip was great. I think our city's plan is great, and it does make a lot of sense to go forward. So I'm in full support. Thank

you. And

councilman Bui.

Thank you, mayor. I have questions. So if this council approved moving forward, do we know with certainty if this sister city that we are talking to be or sister city, are they on board? And because my understanding when we went to the conventions, what the key I'm hearing from a lot of the speaker there is, they have to look what is going to be their interest, their benefit to their city if we bring if they accept us. So do we have that clarification yet?

That that's what we're working on right now. We the city manager and the mayor and vice mayor have joined us on a number of calls, and we're we're I don't wanna say we're interviewing, but we're basically dating other cities right now and trying to meet them. Yeah.

Alright. Just to show just public to be mindful, know, this body may want it but you know, it also depend on the other side, right, if they want to bring us on board as well because we have to have a mutual agreement both city, they look at the benefits.

That and then along with what we talked about earlier, creating the framework of the program and the Sister Cities Association with direction from council tonight, would we would engage with further conversations with our our local nonprofits on what their intentions would be to work with the sister city association and then eventually bring back those MOUs and bylaws for council review and hopefully the formation of a sister city association.

That's Councilman Grant.

Good. City manager Lee, you go first.

That's a great question. We wanted to make sure that the city council is still in support of the effort. And so now until June 2027, that's where we will finalize it. And that's the reason why we're recommending in fall of twenty twenty six for the group to make a visit to those potential prospect and align and understanding that there is a mutual benefit by both community and then confirm that in June 2027.

So I just think this is this is wonderful. I'll really quickly sort of summarize all of this. It is a pleasure to work with so many great people in our city. We have come together on this as a team, and it it's it was really surprising to me when I moved to Fountain Valley. I came from a city that had multiple sister cities.

It was just a thing, you know, Veronica in Cerritos and then and also in neighboring Norwalk. And so it's it's a great time for us, I think, to really have something that we all can get behind. It it is good on so many levels, and that's really what we're about is is what's what's best for our city, how can we, as the new police chief says, be the good and and, you know, help on so many different fronts. And so thanks to everyone for for all the work leading up to this moment. I I think maybe one more comment from councilman Grandis, and then we'll wrap it up.

Yeah. I'm sorry. Just one quick thing. You you in the future, we were looking at South Korea and Vietnam. I'd also wanna open up our aperture just a little bit. Let's look at Europe. Let's look at South America, Africa, you know, other areas other than just one geographic area. I understand Japan makes the most sense to start for so many reasons, especially the well established program that's already there. It makes it'll be easier to start. But I I think we need to look outside that geography as well.

Happy to share that one of our local restaurant, Camblache Grill, the owner is purchasing a vineyard in Argentina. And so that might potentially be another opportunity. But yes, I think the world is before us, and it's really up to, you know, city council and the sister city association making those determination as we evolve and modify as time progress and potentially revisit five years from now. And if Japan is working out great, will the group wanna select another country? So it sounds

like there's council support on this. This is also a nice segue into our next item, which is the seventieth anniversary committee because we want to have the sister city committee or sister city program in in a position to present it as part of our anniversary. So Perfect timing. But hold on real quick. Vice mayor Harper?

The the dancers are here, I don't know if you wanna do them first or or wait till after.

I I think we have the committee here. I don't know how long it's gonna take, but, yeah, just real quick. We're a little bit behind in our program. It is 06:00. We do have one more presentation that we're gonna get through, so floor is yours.

Thank you, mayor and council members. It will be a brief presentation. It's a general overview of our seventieth anniversary committee, what the plans are. We've got a lot of the same people that are helping with Sister City in that seventieth anniversary committee. And with that, I'm gonna invite up Jake Hopkins to give you that overview and look for your directions, comments or questions. Thanks, Jake.

Welcome.

Thank you. Honorable mayor city council. Thanks for having us today. While I'm not quite 70 years old, I can understand how exciting this is for our city. So honored to represent our our community our community today. So we are looking to just give a brief overview of our seventieth anniversary celebration that we're looking to do. Back in September 2024, a strategic plan was identified as part of the three year goal to enhance the culture and environment of a nice place to live, including a proposal of a seventieth anniversary committee. This was then adopted in March 2025 by the council, and then we held our first meeting in March 2026. So we're very excited. We have a lot of really amazing members here today as well on this committee who are looking to help us celebrate and make 2027 a fantastic year for Fountain Valley.

Looking back on the sixtieth anniversary celebration, we did host a sixtieth anniversary fireworks show at Summerfest celebrating sixty years, a VIP fireworks cocktail and viewing party at Summerfest, and as well as a parade leading into Summerfest, I believe, on that Saturday. Fun look back in the sixtieth parade. We had some really wonderful aspects that we're able to join in and really showcase the community, showcase the different businesses we have and the organizations that make up Fountain Valley and really make it a fantastic place to live. As far as the committee is concerned, some of the recommendations they have on different events would be a parade on Saturday of Summerfest for 2027 as well leading into Summerfest. Another potential option instead of doing the parade at Summerfest was to do it maybe on June 13, the actual incorporation day, and hosting maybe a birthday party on that day as well, maybe like a concert, inflatables, food trucks, activities, just bringing people out more of a birthday party style celebration type event, as well as a ticketed VIP party at Summerfest, which could also serve as a mini fundraiser for the seventieth anniversary.

Another idea was all concerts in the parks, great event coming up, shameless plug, Thursdays in July. Maybe doing all seventies bands, maybe honoring our first mayor and do a Japanese disco dance band for one of those as well to tie in our past, our history. Historical quiz, scavenger hunt, you know, Effie through the years, telling the stories of those who make up Fountain Valley, those who have been here, those that are the core. A car rally, car show showcasing some of those elements from the past involving businesses and promoting the seventieth collaborating with the various businesses we have in our community to show how it's a community wide support for the seventy years, the celebration. Working with our schools district for a personal time capsule, something that kids could take home, put whatever they want in to celebrate seventy years and keep that with them.

An art contest and utilizing our utility art in the box program and maybe the winner of that contest being on that art in the box and getting to showcase maybe fat boy throughout the years as part of that art contest. As well as a drive in movie, maybe a little homage. We did that during COVID, but we used to have one here and maybe doing a drive in movie as well next year to celebrate that. For the budget request, different sponsorships and fundraising in honor of seventy years, they are requesting $70,000. A lot of these opportunities, events do cost money, unfortunately.

I wish everything was free. We'd be able to do a lot more for our community, but that is what we're requesting. And then really trying to identify a different program. We have a blooming sponsorship program in the city, but highlighting maybe a platinum partner, platinum sponsor in honor of seventy years, the highest level. We do need to identify a local nonprofit to receive and distribute these seventieth anniversary funds to support the planned activities.

I know for the sixtieth, I believe it was the community foundation, but it could be any any of the nonprofits in our community that council would like us to utilize for that portion. Another fundraising idea that was come up with was a fire versus police bowling tournament where, you know, members of the community or organizations or businesses could sponsor a team and kind of some healthy competition to fundraise for that. Raffle opportunities, maybe a seventies karaoke night slash dance fundraiser doing seventieth anniversary merchandise that we could sell throughout the year, and as well as doing ticket activities or events throughout the years of other community events to fundraise for that budget as well to help cover that 70,000. We also have some draft logo ideas here. I'll kind of go through them slowly and then you'll see them all at the very end on one together.

So we have our first draft. Second one kind of paying homage to those gospel swamps, the agricultural aspect. And then seeing them all together. Really, we are just looking for council direction to see how you'd like us to proceed forth and if you had any recommendations on a logo or how you want us to move forward. And you could let us know if you want us to do certain things, not do certain things, leave up to the committee. But really, we're just looking for your direction input on how you'd like us to plan to celebrate seventy years in this amazing community. So thank you today.

Thank you, Jake. Open up to questions from counsel.

Councilman Grannis? Yeah. So first off on the logos, definitely one or two because it ties in seventy years. The other looked like a TV station to me. This is my opinion. The blue on there though, I'd like to see a Fountain Valley blue, not the light blue, but that's very picky. I I think if we you know, I understand the anniversary is June 13, and I assume we cannot do Summerfest a week earlier, next year. So it would be the weekend, and I'm looking at Matt Taylor and No. Cannot I'll speak to Matt.

Okay.

There are challenges with doing it on June 13. It it with the school and the and the, the carnival, it's, it doesn't Yep. Align

Well, I I think if we we collaborate with Summerfest. So, you know, if we do the anniversary, we could do some sort of celebration on that day, but I think the big one should be at Summerfest. Combine the two. We have the fireworks already. I would like the parade maybe to start a little bit later.

Start at eleven instead of ten. So when it ends, it ends at Summerfest and everybody attends. I was lucky enough to participate in the sixtieth parade, and that was a ton of fun. Barbara and I were holding the foundation banner walking through the parade. So lots of great memories, and I I would just love to see some way to funnel all that enthusiasm and all the people that will be participating in the parade right into Summerfest would be my 2¢.

There are a number of cities that do evening holiday parades. So the opportunity to do an evening parade is also available. Oh, I love it. Right into fireworks night.

Oh, that would that's even look at you. Even better. There you go. You should be up here.

Vice Mayor Harbour?

Thank you. This is a great some great ideas here. I really appreciate all the work that you guys have put into this. For the logos, I like one, it's my pick. And then going back to you go back a couple of slides with the let's see. Go back to like what the events and stuff. Okay. Yeah, that's good. So I think any or all of these events are great. The one thing I would suggest is maybe we can do make sure there's something every month of the year for the anniversary.

So you know maybe do an event or a different theme for each month that sort of celebrates the history of Fountain Valley. Instead of, I mean they will have a big event on June 13 but if we can kind of keep it going through the year that'd be great. Thanks.

Council Member Lee?

Thank you. I agree with Council Member Grantis. I think that if we can coordinate the parade that would tie in into the summer fest, I think it will make this summer fest event even more successful. This is not until next year. So we have one year to plan all this, correct?

I'd like to know if there's an opportunity to come back and if we could increase more of the community members. I'm looking at the roster here on the community members that's great. All this is community leaders in the community itself, a lot of volunteers, people here, great people here. But I'll let you see if we could have some different communities, resident come in to get some different perspective, opinion wise. So you have some fresh new idea into the mix if that's if there's an opportunity for that.

That's a good idea.

Yeah. We can definitely explore that. If you have any ideas as well of those members, can just let us know and we can look into that for sure.

K. Check with councilwoman Constantine. Any questions or comments?

Yes. Actually, I like loco number one, And I can you hear me?

Yes.

Yes.

Okay. I there's a lapse between me unmuting and then Rick. But, anyway, I like loco number one, and I do believe we need to have Summerfest that weekend of the anniversary and really theme that Summerfest to to tie in with the seventieth anniversary. I love really most of what grand council member Grand has said, and, yeah, looking forward to it. Thank you.

Great. Thanks. I also would lean towards the the first logo and agree also that Fountain Valley colors would be great. Just as a comparison over in Cerritos, they are celebrating their seventieth this year. And a little plug for my youngest brother, he actually designed that for the city of Cerritos and incorporated the seven into the into the t. So it's really kind of a clever graphic there. And then agree you know, support a lot of the feedback from the rest of the council. So looking forward to a great event. Thanks so much. Any other items? Okay.

We're good. Great presentation, Jake.

Great. Thanks Thank you so much. Awesome. Thank you. Okay. We're running a little bit late. I think we're just gonna take a quick couple minutes just to regroup. We'll open the meeting, and then I think it's a good idea for vice mayor Harper recommended that we we do what we have to do, and then we go out to to our school site. So okay. Awesome.

We'll be back in two minutes. Yeah. But we need Yeah. I'll go ahead and start our open session at 06:21. We're gonna go a little bit out of order.

We actually have some special guests, and what I'd like to do is please, if you could welcome Monroe Elementary, their very own ballet, Fort Lorico, Raices de Monroe. And today, we welcome the fifth and sixth grader performers and their leaders, miss Tavares and miss Sanchez. And two students will be making a few comments prior to the dance, so come on up.

Hello. My name is Mia Cruz.

Hello. My name is Bella Ortega.

Thank you for hosting Races in Monroe. We're from Monroe Elementary Language Academy in Garden Grove Unified School District.

Monroe is a dual immersion school.

The school has been established for eleven years. Thank you to our wonderful teacher Maestro Maestro Tavares. She is responsible for creating our wonderful folklorico program. Our scholars will be honoring different cultural dances from Mexico and Guerrero. Our fifth grade dancers will perform Sinaloa from the state of Mexico.

This dance is a traditional dance of Sonora Mexico.

I think they can face out. Yeah. And they're on camera. Welcome. You have background music.

Our sixth grade dancers will perform Lassa Maria's from the state of Guerrero. This dance is known for the following handkerchiefs that are a key part of the movement in this region.

Well, how about another round of applause for the ballet for I

think they're leaving. I just love their face, how much fun they had doing that. That was wonderful.

I really enjoyed so much. And and, originally, they wanted to perform out outside of the city hall, and thanks for accommodating coming in. But wasn't it nice that we all got to see them, and that was just beautiful. Okay. So we'll get back to beginning of the meeting. I think city call city manager sorry. City attorney Burns, you have an announcement.

I do. Thank you. I wanna announce that council member Constantine is participating by Zoom. She's participating for Just Cause. The exception of Just Cause is that she is currently on official city business traveling for the ICSC concert conference. And council member Constantine, are there anybody else over the age of 18 in the room

with you? Issues indicated, no. Okay. Thank you. Next, we'll

have invocation by the very patient, pastor Godfrey Alm. So if you could please stand.

It's a tough act tough act to follow. Mister mayor and members of city council, thank you for this opportunity to give the indication. I invite everyone here to join together with a word of prayer. Our great god and heavenly father, as we celebrate and remember our country's two hundred and fiftieth year as a free and sovereign nation, we thank you for The United States Of America. And as we thank you for our great country, we also thank you for this great city, Fountain Valley, in which we live, work, and play.

Lord, thank you for the sixty nine coming up on our seventy years that we have enjoyed. This is our city. Thank you, Lord, for those who have gone before us, the founding fathers and mothers who laid the foundation for our great republic as well as for our city. And we thank you for those who are serving today, our mayor and city council members and others in public office. Lord, we pray for your blessing on those who put on the uniform to serve and protect us.

We pray your blessings on those who serve in public office. Bless the citizens of Fountain Valley and bless the proceedings tonight that every matter whether great or small might be submitted to your care. And we remember what your scripture states. Blessed is a nation whose god is the lord, And so I pray, oh, Lord, be our God, be our guide, be our strength, and be our salvation. I pray all this in the beautiful name of Jesus. Amen. Amen.

Amen. Thank you, pastor Palm. Next, we'll have the salute to the flag by council member Bui.

Thank you, mayors. Please continue to stand as next week is Memorial Day, flag day. So we wanna take a moment to thanks the the woman and the man that serves this country and those who are continuing serving this country and enjoy the liberty and the freedom that we all enjoy today. So please join me to salute the flag of The United States. Please 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

Thank you, council member Bowie.

Next is city council successor agency housing authority roll call. Council member Bowie. Here. Council member Constantine? Here. Council member Grandis? Here. Count, vice mayor, vice chair Harper? Here. Mayor chair Canine? Here. All members are present. Thank you. Are there any supplemental communications? I have none.

Okay. So we'll move on to city manager update. City manager Lee.

May I don't have anything to report tonight. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Next is the mayor's update. Well, I hope you can join me and the city council and staff for our next mayor's breakfast tomorrow morning, 8AM with guest speaker Viet Nguyen, one of the partners at Key Concepts, who has six restaurants in Fount Valley. Key Concepts continues to expand countywide with locations in Costa Mesa, Irvine, Placentia, and Alisa Viejo.

We'll also have a clinical dietitian from Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center to join us. And so that will be at the Memorial Care Health System, what they call the Red Building over on Brookhurst, and I hope you can join us there. Okay. So we have a holiday coming up, so you know what that means. Trash collection and street sweeping schedule.

So in observance Memorial Day on Monday, May 25, trash collection will be delayed by one day. Trash collection for Monday, May 25 will be on Tuesday, May 26. Tuesday's collection will be on Wednesday, May 27. Wednesday's collection will be on Thursday, May 28. Thursday's collection will be on Friday, May 29, and Friday's collection will be on Saturday, May 30.

Street sweeping scheduled for Wednesday, May 27 will move to Thursday, May 28. Thursdays will be on Friday, May 29. And Fridays will be no. Not on Saturday, but on Tuesday, June 2. Please have all vehicles and trash cans off the street to allow the street to be properly cleaned and help prevent ocean pollution by removing debris that can enter the storm drain system.

This is emergency medical services week, May 17 through the twenty third. This week, we recognize and celebrate the essential role of emergency medical service professionals. Please join me in thanking our paramedics and emergency medical technicians who provide the day to day life saving services in our community. Please join us at the next Memorial Day flag raising ceremony. That'll be on Monday, May 25.

So be at 10AM at Veterans Park, which is just to the southeast of here along Los Alamos, right next to the library. So the city of Fount Valley and the Fount Valley Community Foundation, in partnership with the West Orange County Veterans of Foreign Wars, post an auxiliary 9557, present the Memorial Day flag raising ceremony. And for more information, you can contact our Fountain Valley Recreation Community Services department. So we hope to see you there. And then lastly, just a reminder, on June 20 between 10AM and 2PM at the Center Founders Village parking lot, the Fount Valley Rotary Club will be accepting donations for the marine families at Camp Pendleton.

So this is our club does this every six months. And just a reminder, some of the items that we're looking for include furniture that's undamaged, cookware, dishware, bedding, blankets, towels, baby furniture, baby clothes, diapers, and toys. And just keep in mind that these are young marine families that really don't have much. They they're traveling around, so they greatly appreciate that. And so again, that'll be June 20 at the Center for at Founders Village Parking Lot.

Okay. We're gonna move into presentations. You you all got to enjoy the the dancing from Monroe, so that was wonderful. Next, we'll have information update on coyote awareness, and presentation will be by lieutenant Kevin

Frager.

Mister mayor? Yes. I failed to include the announcement of closed session in my prior comments. Do you mind if I do that now?

Yes. Please do.

There was

there was no reportable action after closed session.

Okay.

Thank you.

One one meeting while I get that right.

Welcome. Hi. Thank you for having me. My name is Lieutenant Kevin Frager. I'm a field supervisor over at OC Animal Care. I've been with the agency for almost fourteen years now. Ten of the almost ten of those years, I've been a supervisor. I'm here today to go over some coyote information, how

we

can coexist with coyotes and how our agency gets involved dealing with coyotes. Just some basic identification and behavior. Typically, on average, a coyote they can be bigger, they can be smaller depending on their diet, but on average, they're about the size of like a larger cocker spaniel. Right now, we're in the thick of coyote season, so we're gonna be seeing a lot more coyote activity. It's a natural occurrence every year.

Pups are born in the spring, and they're raised throughout the summer. One of the big myths regarding coyotes is that is that they're nocturnal. That is not true. That's a myth. They've actually adapted to be more active at night because their only real predator in this environment, in the urban environment, are cars.

There's no natural predator for coyotes in the urban environment. Like I said earlier, during the spring and summer, this time of year, you're gonna be seeing a lot more coyote activity. This is when a lot of the calls come in about coyotes. This is a photo of kind of some normal coyote behavior. A lot of times we get people calling us, walking their dogs, and they see a coyote sitting like this, like, on an embankment or on the street.

They're watching them, and a lot of times citizens automatically assume that they're being stalked. That's not always true. Most of the time, this is you can kind of think of it as their form of entertainment. They love to people watch. They're very curious animals. They're very smart. This is a typical scene you'll see coyotes watching people. It doesn't necessarily mean that they're being stopped. Coyotes live in a pack, live in a live in a pack led by a dominant pair, an alpha male, an alpha female. And those the alpha male oops.

Sorry. The alpha male alpha female are monogamous, and they'll mate for life. And both the male and the female coyotes will help raise

the

pups. So the big question is why are the coyotes in my neighborhood? And the number one reason is food. They're in your neighborhood because of food. Their number one diet in this environment are rodents.

If we didn't have coyotes, I would be up here talking about the bubonic plague and the infestation of rats in our community, which is not good. They actually do do a really good job of keeping the rodent population down. They're omnivores, so they will eat fruit. I put on their deer, there should be an asterisk. They will go after deer, but usually the deer are usually injured, hit by a car, sick.

They'll always go after a food source that requires the least amount of energy. So if it's between a rat and like the last bullet point says trash, just sitting there like a cheeseburger in the trash can, they're going go after that cheeseburger because it's easier for them, requires the least amount of energy. This is a photo of an actual den site of a coyote on the side of an embankment. They'll burrow into the ground to make their den, and they'll actually use they'll only use that den site typically for that mating season and then they move on. They don't stay there.

They like to be close to water and away from predators aka traffic, cars. So what can we do as a community? The biggest thing we can do as a community is reduce their food supply and their main diet are rats. So we encourage people to clean up their their landscape, you know, cut down the overgrown bushes because that's where rats like to hide. Keeping your garbage sealed is a really big one.

Most of the time where we see a lot of coyote activity, when we do patrols in that area, most of the time there's the trash issue going on. Trash overflowing, no top to the trash can, bungee corning your trash can so they they'll actually try to knock it over is another another good tip. Bird feeders, believe it or not, are attractants for coyotes because rats and mice like to eat the bird seed, which is a food source for coyotes. It's kind of a domino effect. We also encourage people, we know their heart is in the right place when it comes to feral cats, But just be keep in mind that when you're leaving food out for feral cats, you're also creating a food source for coyotes.

So we encourage limiting that. We also encourage if anyone feeds their pets outside when they're done eating that they pick up the bowls right away, don't leave the food out there because that's prime time for coyotes to come and eat the rest of that food. Another big one is if you have fruit trees in your backyard, a lot of times people won't pick up the fallen fruit, which the coyotes will go after, they'll eat. So pick that up right away is also important. It's funny.

We're in Fountain Valley. Coyotes actually fountains are like a big water bowl for coyotes. When they see a fountain, it's a water source for them. So just keep that in mind. Not only is it a water source for the coyotes, it's also a water source for their food source, the rabbits, the mice.

So just keep that in mind. Fencing, we like to encourage people not only to maintain their fencing at a certain height, but also make sure it's securely under the ground too because coyotes are actually really good at digging and burrowing. They can dig and burrow pretty fast. They're also excellent jumpers. I was actually on a call once trying to capture a coyote with a broken leg.

And from sitting down, I watched the coyote, not a running start, from sitting down clear a 10 foot wall. It looked like something from a movie. So they're very good at jumping and they're also good at digging. There are some deterrents for coyotes that people actually put on their fence are called coyote rollers that some companies sell. It's kind of like a big rolling pin.

And the idea behind that is if the coyote tries to jump over the fence, it rolls and they won't be able to make it over. This only works if your fence is a certain height. It's not going to work on a fence that's four feet. It's just going to clear that fence. Some other ideas, this is a little elaborate but people have actually made fully enclosed pet enclosures.

If you can see in the photo there's a doggy door and this person's dog can actually go in and out of their house and they don't have to worry about a coyote coming after their pets. There's two of them right there. They also make there's also different types of motion and sound deterrents. There's motion activated lighting and there's motion motion activated sprinklers. Out of these two from doing these talks for a little bit, Everyone has told me that the sprinklers work the best, not because of the the water, but the actual noise.

It freaks them out. With any of these deterrents though, it's really important that you keep, like with the sprinklers, you move them around in your lawn. Because like I said, coyotes are really smart and they'll they'll remember that it's not a threat eventually.

Is it the doesn't

the

scary crow face scare off the coyotes too?

Yeah.

They do make they do make a product called the predator eye that I've seen and it's it looks pretty basic but for coyotes it's supposed to scare them. It's like red glowing eyes that you can put up on your property. But yeah, like same thing, keep moving them like weekly. We bought a they sell those owl statues at Home Depot. We bought one for our roof for the the pigeons.

Well, now they just land on it because I never move it but yeah, it's really important to keep moving them. We this is one of the big ones we like to educate the public on is hazing. The worst thing you can do as a community when you see a coyote in your area is doing nothing. Because after a while that coyote is going to think of people as not a threat And when that happens, the the term for that is habituated. And when that happens, when coyotes lose their fear of humans, that's where we start seeing accidents.

That's where we start seeing pets getting taken. Unfortunately, sometimes it's rare but people can get bit. So the worst thing you can do as a community is not doing anything. When you see a coyote in your neighborhood right away, yell at it, honk your horn, make loud noise, scare it away. You want to be so loud that your neighbors are coming out trying to figure out what's going on.

Most of the time, typically a healthy normal coyote, they'll run away from you when you make a loud noise and they'll stop and do that in that photo. They're looking at you, they're basically sizing you up to see what you're going to do next. You're not done hazing that coyote until you don't see it anymore. Once you don't see the coyote, you have successfully hazed it away. So that's the best thing we can do as a community is the coyote is going to eventually learn to not go into that neighborhood and go find somewhere else to get their food and their water.

So what does OC Animal Care recommend as an agency? It really takes the entire neighborhood to help with the coyote population if there's a coyote situation going on in the neighborhood just because you're hazing the coyote if your neighbor next door isn't, it's just going to go next door. So it really takes the whole neighborhood, whole community. There is a website that's put out by the University of California which I've highlighted. You can actually go to that website if you see a coyote, if you're unfortunately if your pet was injured or attacked by a coyote, you can actually put in your info and it plots it on a map and that information is shared through the state.

We also encourage responsible pet awareness. I live right across from a nursery and I see coyotes all the time where I live. Anytime I take my pets out to go to the bathroom, I make sure they're on a leash. It happens so quick if a coyote comes in your backyard and they can snatch real quick. So just make sure your pets are on a leash.

If your pets can come inside at night or in a garage to sleep overnight, we encourage that. Like I went over, we really try to educate and make people aware of the proper way to haze a coyote. So when should you call our agency? Anytime a coyote has been habituated, meaning you're trying to haze the coyote and it's not doing anything, it's just staring at you. If it if it's approaching you while you're trying to haze the coyote, that's not normal.

That would be something you would want to call us to come out and see what's going on. Anytime a domestic pet has been attacked or bitten, call us because we're required by the state to complete a bite investigation. And like I said, it's rare, but anytime a human has been attacked, call us. We will actually work together with Fish and Game to

try

to capture that coyote and identify it. Anytime a coyote appears sick, injured, exhibiting abnormal behavior, walking in circles, definitely if it's foaming at the mouth, call us right away. And then I put at the very bottom, you can actually call us even if you just see a coyote, you can call us and we'll make a sighting report. Fountain Valley is one of the cities every month I will send the coyote statistics to. You guys will get a copy.

So yeah, anytime you just see a Coyote you can call our agency. This is our these are our phone numbers. The top number is our main line. From 8AM to 5PM you'll get a live person. We from 5PM to 8AM that's our after hours line you will get a message machine but that those messages are checked constantly every couple minutes. We're 247365. You can call us anytime, any day. Any questions?

I did wanna just mention you you brought a colleague, and if you could just introduce your colleague.

Oh, sure.

I know she loves to speak in public.

Yeah. I'm oh, sorry.

Sorry. I'll just introduce myself.

Yeah. Just introduction.

I'm Jamie Link, operations manager, OC Animal Care.

Great. Thanks.

I'm here to support. Brager.

Awesome. Okay. Great. Open up to

questions from counsel. Lt. McGrenness. So I appreciate the presentation, but it it it almost sounds like they're friendly, cute animals, and they're very dangerous predators. You know? If somebody lost a cat or a dog, you know, there's a lot who are listening right now who are, you know, this just the memory of this is going to be upsetting to them.

For sure.

What can you or can't you do to reduce the population legally?

So legally the best way there there's different studies on this in fish and wildlife. They really advocate hazing. They have done studies on relocating and it's actually more detrimental not only to the coyote population, but it can also cause public danger to the public. Coyotes are very territorial. If you take a coyote out of that environment and try to relocate it somewhere where there's less people, it's going to do everything it can to try to come back to where it came from.

When that happens, we see car accidents, we see more aggressive behavior from that coyote. Not only that, but it could cause an imbalance in the population and over time it could actually cause overbreeding. So for a short time you may have a smaller amount of coyotes in that neighborhood, But overall, you could you could hypothetically increase that population.

You mentioned a couple of times that it's they're beneficial to the community in certain ways. And it it's hard to swallow, you know, sometimes. But, I mean, I get what you're saying, and they were here before we were and all that argument and everything else. But is there it doesn't sound like there's any plan or commitment or really appetite to reduce the population. Is that a fair statement?

That would be something under the jurisdiction of fish and wildlife. We're actually a support role for them. They actually have all the authority when it comes to wildlife in California.

Okay. Thank you. Vice Mayor Harper?

Thanks. I just want to say I really appreciate this presentation. I don't think we've had something like this before that sort of educates the public about coyotes, how how they live and and their role in the community and how we can help prevent help kinda keep them out. And I think you mentioned a couple of things. One is, you know, really gotta keep an eye on your pets and don't leave food out in the backyard.

I know I've been guilty sometimes of you know maybe leaving some I burned some food on the stove and then put it in the backyard and then forget about it and yeah, you know, then I get I look outside and there's ants or possums or some critters that have come and, you know, help themselves to the food. So I think I think there's a lot that we can do as citizens like you said to reduce their food sources and by doing that we'll it'll kind of naturally reduce the population and protect our citizens. And the hazing is that's something I hadn't heard before now but that I know I'm going to be out there.

And a

lot of people that call when we ask them have you tried hazing the coyote they mostly all the time say no, we didn't try that so.

Well, I think that's because they're scared of the coyote. Yeah. And, you know, some people are especially Right. We're we're an elderly community and I would not Yeah. I would not encourage somebody who is not as mobile as others to to do that.

I agree. And and to touch on that, a lot of times people will ask me what can because they go on walks with their dogs, what can I bring with me to to help haze the coyote if I see one? A lot of times people ask if they can bring pepper spray. I don't recommend that just because if it's a windy day, you're gonna get back spray on you. I actually they sell those little air horns at, like, the sports stores. Just carry that in your back pocket. Yeah. This they're really sensitive to sound. They have a lot of muscles in their ear, so that's gonna work a lot better than the pepper spray.

I'm curious. We we have a lot of parks in our city and and a lot, you know, a few of us have backyards with trees. I see squirrels all the time. Mhmm. And I

have

regulars in my yard. They're they're taunting my cat and you know? So I I'm just curious. How how does a squirrel population and coyotes, how do they get along? Is it Usually hard to catch.

Yeah. Usually, if there's more squirrels

Yeah.

There's typically more coyotes just because it's a food source for them.

Any other questions from council? No? Alright. Well, thank you so much. This is And thank you for joining us tonight, educating us. Us. Okay. Next is First City Council successor agency housing authority public comments on unscheduled matters only. Are there any requests to speak?

I have one request to speak on unscheduled matters. Bob

Welcome. Thank you. Good evening, mister mayor and city council. I'm Bob Kiesl. I am the president-elect of the Community Foundation for Fountain Valley. And as what was mentioned earlier in the study session, summer fest season is upon us. In about three weeks from now, the doors are gonna be opening. Cars are gonna be pouring in. They're gonna be directed to parking lots by volunteers. Ticket takers at the gates are gonna be volunteers.

People are gonna buy their roasted corn from my booth. That's gonna be served by volunteers. Volunteers, including councilman grant councilman Grandis is gonna be making sure that Wi Fi systems are operating throughout the facility for all four days. Councilwoman Constantine is gonna be working at the information booth. Last year, I challenged councilman Bui to come get dirty with me.

Councilman Bui accepted my challenge and came out, and I thank you for that. He came out and spent a couple hours at our shift. At the city council meeting following the Summerfest, each of you are gonna come out and say, you know, I attended Summerfest. It would be much more impactful to your constituents if you said, I attended Summerfest, and I spent a shift cooking hamburgers to feed the volunteers. Or, you know, I spent the afternoon with city staff emptying trash cans, or I distributed 35 pound bags of ice to the vendors that needed ice.

That kind of work would be far more impactful than you do in your political thing where you come in, shake hands. Oh, Monday morning, my hand my wrist is sore. I I really wish you would trade in your suit and tie for one of these shirts,

these volunteer shirts.

Come out, join me, do some real work, do some real good for the city. Because without the volunteers, you know, there's well, first of all, there's, you know, about eight months of work that goes into this before Summerfest even kicks off. And it's all done by city staff and volunteers. So I challenge mister mayor, mister councilman Harper, I challenge you guys. Take one of these shirts. Get rid of your tie and dress shirt. Put one of these on. Come get dirty with us, and enjoy yourselves, and make a real difference. Thank you. Thank you.

I have no further request

to speak. K. We'll move into public comments on scheduled matters only. Do we have any requests to speak?

I have request to speak on items nine, ten, twelve, and fifteen. Nine, ten, twelve, and fifteen. Items nine and ten are on the consent calendar. If those items do not if council members do not wish to pull either of those items, the requester can still speak, and we can then make a motion if if that's the council's pleasure.

Okay. So I'm gonna move into consent calendar.

Yes. If you wanna see if items nine and ten wanna be pulled by counsel first. If not, then I will call on the speaker for both items.

Okay. Consent calendar items one through 10 will be approved simultaneously with one motion unless separate action or discussion is requested. Does anyone want to remove any item?

I'll pull items nine and ten to give the public a chance to speak on them.

Okay. Nine and ten are pulled. Items one through eight.

I'll move items one through eight.

I'll second.

We'll be doing a voice.

Since we have council member Constantine off the dais and on Zoom, we will do a voice vote. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye. Aye.

All those opposed? Items one through eight pass five zero. That we will move on to item number nine, and we have a public comment from Katie Wright.

Welcome.

Greetings esteemed council members. And it's just a simple question. I know not everybody pays attention to what goes on here. Not everyone follows the agenda online. Not everyone does a deep dive. It says here for more information, you go to page two ninety six. Basically, this is gonna be in a agreement, a first amendment with Concentra to extend the agreement for a one year term, blah blah. What? Just asking is Concentra, please.

Yeah. We'll bring up staff to answer that question.

Yep. Thank you. That's my question.

Okay.

So we'll have HR director Tanya Narrajes to clarify that what Hi. Concentra is. Thank you.

Good evening. I'm Tanya director. So Concentra is our occupational health provider. They provide preemployment services, law enforcement testing, DOT testing, TB testing, etcetera. They also assist us with our workers' comp injuries and treatment.

Okay. Great. Thank you.

You're welcome. Thank you.

I'd like to move item number nine.

I'll second.

All those in favor, aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed? Item number nine passes five zero.

Item number 10 was also pulled by council member Grandis. Any discussion?

I just want to give the public an opportunity to see. Katie Wright.

Thank you again. This is the situation about the rotation for the mayor and the mayor pro tem. And I guess a lot of cities go through this and have their own systems of doing it. And I've been following the city here, how they do it every year and it's interesting. And I've seen several repeat episodes of council member Constantine trying to nail down a more permanent solution, a more predictable solution going forward.

Because considering worst case scenario, if you got we have three people up, their seats are up. Suppose you got all three new people in, worst case scenario, one of those new people could wind up being the mayor or the mayor pro temp if it's that random. So I just wanted people to be aware how important this item is. Thank you.

Thank you.

So mister mayor, just to clarify, we we have a very hard and fast now rule that we did, and this is the first reading of it where we're not even going to vote on the mayor and vice mayor going forward. It's an automatic rotation. And we have all agreed what that rotation is right now. It's obviously next in line is vice mayor Harper, then council member Constantine, then myself, then council member Bowie. And if anybody doesn't get reelected, we just move in that rotation.

So in the past, what you had stated was that we could, you know, have a new person, that can't happen at this point. So, if the unlikely scenario, we have three new council members, then I would be mayor in the fall, and, council member Bowie would be vice mayor. And with that, unless somebody else had come.

Have discussions with Councilmember Bowie.

Yeah, that is correct. That is the point on several meeting that I have raised the concern on the language. To your point on concern, that is why the language has changed from should to shall and it remove the ambiguity on the rotations on the mirrors. So it's more consistent and that's what I raised and that's why I believe my colleague Constantino brought it back, say, yep, I think we need to make some change. And that's where we're today.

We did unanimously vote on that. So we're all in agreement. With that, I'd move item number 10.

Actually, I apologize. May attorney for the city clarify that actually we don't need a second reading on this that tonight would be adopted.

Oh, good.

Tonight's the second reading. So we'll be adopting tonight.

Oh, okay. No problem.

If council votes that way.

And just to clarify, does the title need to be read out?

No, mister mayor. The title is written

in the first read. Gotcha.

Okay. Alright.

We a first by council member, Grandis. I'll second it. I

oh, sorry. I think councilwoman Constantine had already seconded it.

Okay.

It's okay.

All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed? No. Item passes four one.

And I wanna thank my council members for supporting. Thank you.

Okay. We'll move into public hearings. Just a reminder, each person will have up to three minutes to speak on each public hearing. So first is item 11, public hearing and adoption of 2025 urban water management plan and 2025 water shortage contingency plan introduction by Mark Sprague, Field Services Manager. Welcome.

Thank you, mayor. Council members, good evening. So

as you stated, this is

a presentation on our public hearing and adoption for our 2025 urban water management plan, which is a requirement by the state, and the plan outlines our long term strategy for ensuring reliable and sustainable water supply incurring, including current water use, future demand projections, water supply reliability, conservation efforts, and emergency planning. Tonight, we actually have a consultant, Anthony, with Corallo Corallo Engineering who assisted us in preparing our plan. So he's gonna go over what our plan entails, and I'll be available for questions afterwards. He should be available over Zoom, and I'll turn it over to him.

He is on Zoom and unmuted. Thank you.

Nathan is yours.

Oh, thank you. Thank you, mister mayor and members of city council. So I'd first like to thank you all for being able to hold a brief presentation for your public hearing of the 2025 urban water management plan and water shortage contingency plan. Just wanna confirm, I am I presenting the slides, or are they are you available to see can you guys see them already?

We can see them inside the council chamber.

Okay. Perfect. Going to

have them displayed so you can see them, and then you just tell me when to advance them.

Oh, okay. Great. I just wanted to confirm that. Thank you. Alright. So we can go to slide two. Great. Thank you. So as shown in the agenda, I'm gonna start with explanation on the purpose and overview of the urban water management plan and then quickly dive into the water system description of the city and then elaborate on the water use and demand, followed by water supply characterization and reliability and shortage planning, and finally, by the demand management measures. Next slide.

So as an overview, we have the the who, what, when, and why for the urban water management plan. The urban water management plan, it needs to be prepared by all agencies in the state of California to comply with the urban water management act and the California water code. The city of Fountain Valley prepared their 2025 plan as part of a shared services agreement with the municipal water district of Orange County, also known as MODOK, and along with 22 other agencies. So this plan ultimately includes city's water use characteristics, and it's followed by demand projections for the year 2050. And it also includes the 2020 water source an update to the 2020 water source contingency plan.

Now one thing that is interesting about the urban water management plan is that it is developed on a five year cycle. So the last one was in 2020 and this being 2026. This is the representing the last five years from 2020 to 2025. So, ultimately, it's a requirement in the water code and non submission impacts agencies' eligibility for state funding in the future.

So next slide,

please. So when it when it comes to water, the city's water system is approximately 9.9 square miles, and water demands are a combination of groundwater that is pumped from six active wells with one imported connection with the Metropolitan Water District. There's approximately 17,400 service connections and around 218 miles of pipe in the city. And as you can see on the right, the city's population is expected to from the estimates that we have, expected to grow approximately 12%, which ultimately, you know, leads to increased water use. Next slide, please.

So when it comes to water use, the the the city's water use is primarily residential. About 52% of the demands are associated with either single or multifamily residential use, And there's about 24% commercial, industrial, and institutional use, while the remaining water is associated with irrigation dedicated irrigation or other uses. And as discussed, leading to the population growth that we were was on the the previous slide, you can see the 2025 total water use is approximately 9,940 acre feet with that projected twenty fifty water use around 10,040 acre feet. As shown on the chart on the right, the total demand in Orange County continues to trend down since the early nineties. Although population has increased by more than 700,000 people in that same time period, the increase of water use efficiency has reduced the overall water use in the count countywide.

Next slide, please. So this graph on the right shows the water conservation target that was a compliance requirement by the city mandated by the state of California, and it's known as the 20 by 2020 mandate. And so as shown on the right, the target for the city in 2020 was a 142 gallons per person per day. And currently, the city or in 2020, the city achieved that with approximately 91 gallon per person per day of water use. And this is really just to say that the city is still maintaining that compliance value in this 2025 plan.

Next slide. And moving on to the water supply, the the city's water demand is primarily served by groundwater. About 86% of the water demands in 2025 were served by groundwater, and the remaining is from recycled water. And as shown in the chart on the right, the city's mix of water supply is not projected to change much over the next twenty five years.

Can I ask you a question real quick? Yes. On the side before you go on. The recycled water you say is 14%. What is recycled water?

I got it, Anthony. Yep. So recycled water is we use not primarily, but exclusively for landscaping in the city. Oh, the purple pipes? Purple pipe.

Oh, now I understand.

From Orange County Water District from the Sand District.

Got it. Yeah.

Okay. So we're not drinking that?

No.

Okay.

Non potted.

I'm with you now. Okay. You had any concern for water supply.

Gotcha.

Great. Thank you. So to continue, a so you can go to the next slide.

Okay.

So another key component of the urban water management plan is to conduct an analysis on water service reliability. So this is this is assessed by comparing projected demands with projected available supplies, and this is done for both the near term and long term conditions under normal and average and dry hydrologic conditions. So with that, it's concluded that the city's long term supply reliability under these hydrologic conditions is available or the cities will have the water supply available to meet those projected demands from now until 2050. So that's essentially what this is saying. Next slide.

Yes. And then last our second to last, the preparation of the water shortage contingency plan is also a required element of the urban water management plan act. The water shortage contingency plan is included in the appendix of the city's water shortage contingency plan, and it is a stand alone document. So this the water shortage contingency plan includes six different stages with corresponding water demand reductions that increase from 10 supply shortage stage ones. You can see in the the graph on the or the table on the right up to six, which is a supply shortage greater than 50%.

Now the associated with each one of these levels are demand management measures that are that are to either augment supplies or reduce demands to strategically use water during supply shortages. And next slide, please. And and with that, we have demand management measures buying onto the water shortage contingency plan. It is it's important to note that the city collaborates with MoDOT to implement these programs and improve water usage efficiency as much as possible using various rebates and assistance programs. So some examples are listed on the left.

So and some examples that MODOT uses district wide are on the right. So there's a lot of collaboration going between the two. And as shown on the previous slide, this has contributed to that countywide reduction in overall demand through water use efficiency. And with that, I would like to end close the presentation and open it up for any questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Anthony. So, yeah, if there's any questions, we're both here to answer. If not, the final action is just staff recommending that city council approval alternative number one, which is to conduct this public hearing and adopt the 2025 urban water management plan and water shortage contingency plan.

Alright, Mark. Hold that thought. Let me open the public hearing. Are there any requests to speak?

I have no requests

to speak. Okay. I'll go ahead and close the public hearing. Any questions from counsel? Councillor McGranis?

Yeah. Just one. You said on the slide that we're importing x amount of water, I think you said 10% or 15%. I thought that we were at a point where we were getting 100% of our water as well water. When did that switch?

So it's long term projections. Currently, right now, we're 100% groundwater. Okay. I don't know what's happening in 2030. I don't know what's happening in 2050. So Understood. Projecting out I'm projecting that we would be taking import water in those future years. Currently, I wanna take as much groundwater as I can take.

Okay. Because I tell everybody, we're 100% groundwater and I thought I was a liar. Wanted So to make sure I'm not We're

going to continue as long as they let me take it, I'm going take it.

I think it's wonderful. It's one of the reasons our water costs are so low. Exactly. That we use well water. That's fantastic. Thank you. My only question.

Thank you.

Any other questions from counsel? Okay. Hearing none, I'll call for motion on the item.

I move item number 11.

I'll move the item. Second.

I'll move approval. Item was first by council member Constantine, second by council member or vice mayor Harper. All those in favor, aye. Aye. All those opposed? Item number 11 passes five zero.

Great. Thanks so much. Thank you. Administrative items. Item 12, introduction and first reading of an ordinance authorizing the use of safe and sane fireworks in the recreation center at Mile Square Park on 07/04/2026. Introduction and first reading of an ordinance authorizing the use of safe and sane fireworks on residential streets on 07/04/2026. Sorry. Little loud. Redundant. Presentation by city attorney, Ron Burns.

Great. Thank you, mister mayor and council. This is a council initiated item. Staff was asked to come back with an ordinance or a procedure or some option to have fireworks on July 4. So staff met and has come back with three options. One is to allow fireworks at the recreation center. The other is to allow fireworks only on residential streets. The third option, of course, is to take no action and continue the city's current citywide ban on fireworks. City generally prohibits fireworks in all areas of the city. Of the two options that would allow fireworks for a limited period on 07/04/2026, the two options share a number of similarities.

One is fireworks are only allowed on the July 4 from noon to ten. Only safe and sane fireworks. There would be no dangerous or illegal fireworks. No fireworks in any location other than the prescribed areas, and there is a provision that the fire chief can suspend or prohibit fireworks in the event that there is wind, weather, or anything else that creates a hazard. Other similarities are both allow the sale of fireworks in the city.

Sales would be limited to safe and sane fireworks. Sales would start on June 26 at noon I'm sorry, and go until noon on July 4 because that is when persons would be able to start lighting off fireworks. As an important point, if council desires sale of fireworks, we must adjourn to an earlier regular meeting on or before May 27 so that thirty days can run before June 26 so that the ordinance takes effect. There

would

be a requirement for a Fountain Valley Fireworks seller's permit. Only 10 such permits are proposed to be granted. They would be granted to five zero one c three charitable organizations with a place of business in the city. And assuming that we receive more than 10 applications, recipients would be chosen by lottery. Again, these are all suggestions. Differences between the two is the location that fireworks should be permitted. The initial thought was the recreation recreation center, the initial suggestion. In meeting with staff, there there were some concerns that that would appear as a city sponsored event. And as I'll discuss in a minute, there are some liability and operational issues associated with that. Another option would be to simply lift the ban on fireworks in residential streets.

At that point, fireworks would simply be private activity on fourth of July. I I did speak to a number of departments, and their their comments are summarized. Risk management had concern for fireworks in the recreation center because there would be no way to enforce the age restriction. If there were injury, to property damage, that could trigger liability because people would, view this as a city sponsored event. We would not have a contract with indemnification as we typically do with O Entertainment or whoever else holds fireworks shows.

There would be difficulty identifying the responsible party if somebody got injured at the rec center, and Cal JPIA has informed that they will not provide coverage. Fire had concerns about injuries, illegal fireworks, call volumes, and also disposal of fireworks while it is permitted in trash cans because it is not hazardous waste. There was concern that dumping used fireworks into the dumpsters without having garden hose or a five gallon bucket would create some fire hazards. Speaking to fire about fiscal impacts, it would require one standby ambulance, one standby engine company, and one standby chief chief officer for a number of hours. Their total estimated cost would be $6,516.

Police had the the similar public safety challenges, drug use, potential disputes, dangerous mortar type fireworks, and the personnel capacity charge was estimated to be $5,624 for an event at the park. Community services, they if if an event was also allowed at the rec center, require one full time equivalent, two part time equivalents, and it would be for throughout the day. Public Works has informed that regarding cleanup, a quick citywide street sweep, that's if it was allowed in all streets residential streets, would be approximately $5,000 If it was in the sports park only, cleanup would be about $4,000 of course, we'd have to have signal timing and other public works needed facilities. That would be about $1,500 So, again, there are three alternatives proposed for council. Alternative one is to allow fireworks in the recreation center on the July 4.

Alternative two, allow fireworks in residential streets on the July 4. And alternative three, take no action and continue the city's fireworks ban. This is a council initiated option. Staff has no recommendations, and we are here for any questions.

Thank you. Are there any requests to speak? We have three requests to speak.

First up is Anne Bettinger.

Welcome.

Good evening, mayor and city council. My name is Ann Bettinger, and I have resided in the same house in Fountain Valley for fifty years. Mister Mayer, tonight, you stated you wanted what's best for the city. Originally, and my statement had to do with it being held at Mile Square Park. And somewhere in the I don't know how long it's been, not very long, that has now changed.

So I will address this to the city sports areas that would this was discussed tonight. I think it's wrong. I think it sets a precedent. I think that by doing setting a precedent like that, you will have no excuse to come back to anyone else who wants to have fireworks at the sports center for whatever reason. And I'll point out one and that would be the Tet Festival.

Fireworks are toxic. The residue that cannot be mitigated or cleaned up by employees or volunteers sinks down into the groundwater eventually through rain and becomes toxic to our groundwater. And you can call the water board about that. That's a proven fact. They're dangerous, obviously.

And if you have individuals with no supervision of who's standing next to who and who's drinking even though it's not legal to drink, they're gonna do it anyway. They're gonna do their drugs and you're gonna have people there that have different temperaments next to each other, which will cause a lot of problems. I think it's too high of a risk for the city as far as liability goes, and I really don't wanna be part and parcel of the taxpayers that are paying money out on personal liability lawsuits against the city. I think it's too great a risk for that. I think the amount for, putting this on and cleanup is more than we need to be spending on something like this.

We could be I'm gonna my guess was $18,000. Okay. I don't know what you came up with there. So let's round it up to 20,000. Can't we spend that on something better than cleaning up fire putting on and cleaning up fireworks? I'm all for celebrating the July 4 for the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of our country. Believe me. And if that means that we allow it in within the city confines out in our streets, so be it. I've lived here long enough when that was legal. Okay?

We did it, and we did it safely, but times have changed, and not everybody does it safely. Not everybody is going to stand on with their hand on a bible and say, I will use safe and sane fireworks in my street. It doesn't happen. They're setting off rockets and who knows what all else. And they're coming up from Mexico and out of state with this stuff. So we have no control over that. The police have very little control over that, and the fire department has even less control over that.

Jens, your time is up.

I'm thank you very much. Thank you for listening.

Thank you. Katie Wright. Welcome.

Thank you, mister mayor. The first question that came to my mind, my husband's mind, and three of my friends' mind when I told him about this, what drugs is he on? I seriously have a question. If a citizen suspects that one of the city council members has been taking illicit drugs, what recourse do I have? Can I ask the chief, can you please test or can we create a policy where before every meeting, randomly, one of you gets tested every meeting because this is insanity on a stick?

When I was 16, I met my cousin Dane for the first time. He had one eye. He had an eye patch. He had been at the beach in Santa Monica, minding his own business. And we're talking I was 16, we're talking fifty years ago, back when pot was illegal for one thing. Now it's legal. There's all manner of bad behavior, parents not paying attention to their kids. Look at the e bike crisis we have from inattentive parents. Don't even pretend parents are going to be supervising their kids here. Get over it.

He was at the beach and someone blew off a bottle rocket and it landed right in his eye socket. So he's got PTSD and one eye for life. Because one careless person in a public venue decided, oh, a bottle rocket would be fun. Yeah, sure. How fun is that? Frankly, it's obvious how this even came up. Someone who's been sitting here on the city council for over six years, very quiet, very inoffensive, very inattentive. When he was mayor, people had to explain to him when he did the certain things in the various meetings because he hasn't been paying attention for six years. Now, he comes in, every other month he's pretending to be a man of the people which he has not been for six years. So now all of a sudden he's patriotic.

Oh, we have our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary. I challenge him to recite any patriotic poem that we used to recite on flag day when I was a kid. Every kid in my cohort, in my age group, could have recited. On Flanders Fields, the poppies grow. Listen to my children and you shall hear the midnight ride of Paul Revere. I came up here and did Barbara Fritchie. Let's go ahead and pretend someone is a great patriot with this election coming up. And sure, it's not his year to be reelected, but he's got buddies that he's trying to get reelected.

Mister mayor?

He's trying to be in

One of boarded? People.

They He's not.

We must address that to the entire board body.

Okay. I think she's

According to the rule.

Completed her comments.

Less intrusive.

Welcome.

I don't know if you noticed, but the fellow from animal control was sick, and I don't want to pick it up. He was sick as a dog, possibly. Anyway, I'm here to talk about fireworks. I guess the first thing I wanna say are idiots and teenagers or adults, I should say. Adults and teenagers are idiots when it comes to fireworks.

And unfortunately, children are victims. So my comment tonight or comments tonight are really for the for the children. How hot do fireworks burn? Well, the short answer is really, really hot. Some fireworks can reach temperatures of up to 1,200 to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, up to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit for certain sparkler tips.

And just to put that in perspective, let's go to 2,000. Glass melts at 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit. Wood burns at five seventy five degrees Fahrenheit. And most kitchen ovens, they top out at 500 degrees Fahrenheit. So we're dealing with, even if it's safe and sane, we're dealing with something that can get to be 2,000 degrees.

Because they look playful, people often assume that fireworks are harmless, especially items like sparklers. But sparklers alone account for roughly twenty five percent of all firework related injuries among mostly children. That's because they burn at 2,000 degrees, hot enough to melt gold and severely burn skin in seconds. I'm a little sensitive about this. My mother worked for a while at the UCI burn center.

She took care of the little Rothenberg boy, if you remember, when his father left him in a hotel room and he was burned severely. My mother took care of him. And she used to talk about the smells, the pain, everything that he went through. He was a victim. If you have children that get burned, if you get burned yourself, go to ucihealth.org.

They're an incredible organization there in Orange. Their address is 101 The City Drive, South Building 1 in Orange. Their phone number is (888) 622-2876. And I'm running out of time, but one last thing is there was an article and attorney, we have attorneys for everything. There's a fellow named Alan, A H D O O T, who has a website says understand liability in neglect firework handling cases.

Boy, if you read that for the liability for the city or as an individual property owner or as an individual, it's very sobering that it's gonna cost you a ton of money. By the way, one last thing, the kids that were here from Monroe, it's very sobering because I was one of the first year kids at Monroe in 1964. So Lesson. Seeing these kids from Monroe, that was sixty two years ago for me.

Thank you.

I've been here a while.

No further requests to speak. Okay. So I will open it up for questions and comments from council. Councilman Bui. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. Well, first of all, I want to address a few things. I think there's a little bit of misunderstanding what is allowed and what is not allowed. So according to the State of Sacramento, there's three tiers type of firework that is allowed and what is not allowed. What we are presenting here is safe and sound.

That's what the state allow as well. And this what does that mean, safe and sound? And I'm sorry, safe and safe. Safe and safe, that means firework at a fountain, small sparkler and spinner. What is not allowed is to what some of the speakers spoke, rocket, motor, firecracker and serial shell.

Those is not allowed. And that's not what we approve that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about safe and sound. The holidays, the Tier three, which is allowed by the state, which is the big rocket that goes up and make a big sound, wonderful, but that is only allowed under legal and state issued permit. Those are the one.

Now the this year is two fifty years the birth of America. It is a lifetime opportunity to allow the public to have the opportunity and you know, enjoy that moment with their family in a safe manner with a safe and sound that is allowed by the state. Now and it also give the fundraiser non profit organization an opportunity to sell those those safe and sound products. As right now, they're still

Safe and sane.

Safe and sane, I'm sorry. As right now, they still buy it, but where do they go? They go to neighboring city. What are the neighbors around us that allow? Westminster allow, Garden Grove allow, Huntington Beach allow, guess what?

They got a portion of the sales tax because we don't have there. There's because there's one we allow this, there's a sales tax that the city can collect, AB fourteen oh three, which is a 7% tax that is could be used fund for enforcement. I'm going show you some of the data. In thirteen years data, safe and sane caused near zero fire. Those are the data.

If you don't believe, look it up. City of Orange last year allow it. They result in 12% fewer call for emergency, 68% fewer call on July 4 and 12% more call on illegal firework. The point I'm trying to say is once you allow people, you know, there's a venue for people to to to go to and enjoy. Another thing to think about is the insurance because once we put a ban and there's a fire that's relate to the fire product, firecracker product, I'll just say firecracker, the safe and sane product.

The insurance will have a less deniability on on the claim. Why? Because the city did not ban. But if we put it, that would be an argument that's it's local law that ban, therefore, we're not going to cover you. Just think that for a minute.

That's all I

have for now. Okay.

Ted, you're on any

Other council comments, questions, vice mayor. Yeah.

I'll chime in. I guess my thinking on this, I was when council member Bui brought up the idea, was a little yeah, I wasn't really sure about it. We've had firework banned in Fountain Valley ever since I've lived here. And then when we're presented with the options of having them at one central location or on residential streets, I thought well, I mean, when I was a kid we did we had fireworks on the streets. You know, I think it would be and and, you know, during the year, this fireworks issue comes up a lot in the public.

There's a lot of people in the city that would like fireworks to be legal. And so I I think it in honor of the 200 birthday, I would support having safe and sane on residential streets just for the one day. We'll have it, see how it goes. And if it's a disaster, then we go back to no banning fire you know, banning fireworks. Maybe we just the next time is the three hundredth anniversary.

But I I would support the ordinance on residential streets. I would not support the sale because I think we're too late to do that at this point. So I think we just let it for let it go for July 4 and let people enjoy themselves and celebrate the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary in Fountain Valley. Thank you.

Thank you. Council member Grandis.

Yeah. So not a good idea. I don't think we should have that in the city at this time. The biggest issue that I have is once again, a major issue, no planning. No planning at all. It was brought up. We've got forty five days till July 4. You know, with part of the thing here is we're gonna allow nonprofits to sell it. I I can't even imagine how we would have enough time and enough volunteers. I think the I think the cost is way low of what it's going to cost us.

I think I think if we talk to city staff in terms of fire and police and insurance. There's no way they would say this is a good idea. But I'm not I have to admit, just because I'm against it, if the majority of the people are in favor of it, then, you know, we have to do what the people want. But we don't know. We have literally no idea. Most of the comments that I've seen have been negative. I've seen a couple positive, but a majority negative. We have the survey that's coming out at the end of the year or in in next couple of months. If we wanna find out what the people want, put it on the survey. You know, that could be a simple question.

Would you allow want fireworks in our city? I think the answer is gonna be no. And I've been here forty six years now, and I remember when there was fireworks in the city. It's way different now than than, you know, what it was back then. But the biggest issue I have is it ill conceived plan once again. You don't come up forty five days before the date and have this major of an issue with zero input from the public. We had three people speak. They were all against it. That's not statistically valid. We don't know.

You know? We just don't know if and, again, we we received letters. They were all negative, but that's, again, not statistically valid. But there's not an outpouring of the residents coming here and saying, we want fireworks. It's quite candidly, you know, just a council members who who would think it's a good idea because it's a two fiftieth. You know what? If we wanted to do it, we should have been talking about this nine months ago. And then we could have found out, does the public want it or does it do they not want it? So, you know, at this point, I'll be voting no.

Okay. Thank you. Councilwoman Constantine?

Yes. Comments.

So I wanna say quite a few things. I mean, it's gonna be it is our nation's 200 birthday. I'm 60 years old. I celebrate July 4. I've never lit a firework in my life. I can't even imagine. If we can't celebrate fourth of July in other ways, I don't even know how to finish the sentence. It it's in it's what I wanna say, it's insane. It makes no sense. I did put this out on social media from the get go.

And initially, the idea was for, technically speaking, our portion of Miles Per Hour Park, but then city manager Maggie did get clarification from council member Bowie. I wanna say he had said something about the effect, like, well, the entire park in case people I mean, Miles Square Park is huge. So I got that. And then I was thinking of all the liability there and and the wildfire the wildfire the wildlife that we have at Miles Square Park. Squirrels, raccoons, rabbits, birds, geese, lizards, and so much more.

You know? Not to mention everybody's pets, their cats, dogs, and and hamsters, other, you know, pets people have at home. I mean, it's just such a disruption. So back to social media. Put it out on social media and said we were gonna be talking about this today. Encourage people to come to the meeting. I have to tell you, I don't have numbers, but I can tell you, and and still up on Facebook, the majority of people were not happy about this at all. They were very, very concerned about the dangers. And the other thing is too, we've had this ban. In reality, we know fourth of July comes around.

And I tell you, for a few years, I I did go to some friends' home in Santa Ana, and, oh my gosh, over there was a war zone. You couldn't even see or breathe at a certain point near South Coast Plaza. So I would try to leave, you know, before it got bad. But the last three years I've been here, each year, it's getting so much worse in Fountain Valley with all these fireworks, and all different kinds are going off. Safe, same rockets, mortars, you name it.

It just it's it's jarring, and so there's that. The other thing is too, we have a ban in the city. We have a policy. We have an ordinance. So it doesn't make any sense to me to because it's our nation's two hundred and fiftieth birthday to go ahead and make that okay for the day. You can never get these people back again. Oh, I thought it was permanent. You're gonna have so many variations. You're never gonna get the people back. And I'm gonna give you one example.

Street sweeping. When we had COVID, our former city manager, Rob Houston, asked us all individually if we wanted to relax our citation system simply because more people would be home parked. I was not a I'm not a a diehard on on, you know, ticketing people and and that sort of thing. I did get it. I said, Rob, we have signs posted. You put that out for the goodwill of the people. I get it where people are home. We still need to have clean storm drains. How are we gonna get these people back? This is only a a temporary situation.

To this day, we still have a situation. So, hopefully, we could get that back on track because here we are six years later. So anyway, there's that. So I'm just telling you, please consider the fact that the word that goes out, whether it's a temporary word, in this case, you're never gonna get the people back. And then at some point, you're gonna be like, gosh.

Why did we even you know, what what was that about? So there's that. There's no way to to effectively allow this. I I really do not support it at all for not only Miles Square Park, tremendous liability for the residential areas. It it's just it's just completely inappropriate. And honest to goodness, if we cannot celebrate without fireworks like I said, I'm 60 years old. I've never lit a firework in my life. I've gone to some, shows, you know, at Disneyland and and various other places, And and that's fine. You know, socialize. Be with friends.

Just do whatever. Be online. You know, anything. It it celebrating our nation's two hundred and fiftieth should not be hit dependent on fireworks usage. I mean, to me, it's just that's not good. And if it's come down to that, it's that's a little scary, quite frankly. So I I think I've said everything here. Quite frankly, I'm against it. I honestly like to see a city event, not this year though, because, you know, it gets short in time. Possibly next year, maybe towards the end of the meeting, I'm gonna suggest something that I brought up previously. And, you know, we'll take it from there. Thank you so much.

Okay. Thank you. Councillor Bouie?

Yes. Just my clarifications. At the time when I say the mass grave part, I thought it was a good idea. But once I spoke with the city manager and the city attorney referenced liability because there will be sponsoring. So my intake on the recreational center, it's not there, but we do want the public to have the freedom and the liberty to enjoy fourth of July, whether we lift this one day ban or not, people are going to do it anyway.

Once they enjoy it, but this would basically we're telling them do it, but you can only use the safe and sane product as it is authorized by the state, which is the fountain, the small sparkler and the spinner. Those do not create noise. And it also address the issue with insurance should something happen. It's because we do not have a ban in the city. So that's my comment on

that. Mr. Mayor?

Yeah. I'd like to actually jump in real quick. So let let's maybe take this one at a time. So on the first alternative, which is to allow in Miles Square Park, it sounds like there isn't council support. I I certainly wouldn't support that. So can we agree that that's off the table? Okay.

Yes. I agree.

Okay. So now let's let's see if we can focus in on the relaxing of the ordinance between 12PM and 10PM on 07/04/2026. It sounds like vice mayor Harper supports that. Can we hear from other council members on that?

I'm in support of that.

You know, council council member Bowie, you you you can't have it both ways. So you said that it's an insurance issue. So if we ban it and somebody's house burns down, they they can't get the insurance. But you also said, well, these things won't burn down a house. So you're making it sound like it is there's a potential of burning down a house.

So that that's the first thing. And the second is we've got Summerfest in June and we have a fireworks show. You want to see a fireworks show in Fountain Valley, we do it twice a year. We do it at Summerfest and we do it at the tree lighting in December. By the way, it's about 20% of the cost of doing it on the July 4. I I would recommend if you wanna see fireworks, see it in a safe environment, go to the pier in Huntington Beach. Watch a firework show. Go to your favorite place. Go to Anaheim Stadium. I think they have it there. Go go look anywhere. Go on a bridge and just look out. It's everywhere.

Can can I respond to that comment real quick? Sure. We did get a request from council to identify the different locations in the area of where there are fireworks show. So the biggest and largest is with Huntington Beach at the pier on July 4. Costa Mesa and Los Alamitos due July 3. Those are both great shows. One's at the OC Fairground, and then the other one's at the joint forces, base, in Los Los Alamitos. Long Beach does it on July 4, at the Queen Mary. So there are some large shows around us.

Yeah. And and there's probably 25 others too.

Oh, and Disneyland.

Disneyland. Yeah. That's another thing. You know? You you don't even have to go in Disneyland. You can stand outside Disneyland and see that. So the bottom line though, again, I'm not an expert on this. I'm just saying that it's it's a half baked idea without any input from the citizens of whether we want it or not. And the only way we should have approved this is if we would have brought it back nine months ago so we could have planned for it. There's no way to do the sales, so we don't get the sales tax revenue that was mentioned. It's just not a well thought out plan once again.

Yasmeen, let me respond to the sales tax. The sales tax is only collected through the bill that's already been approved AB fourteen oh three and that's every city that does allow nonprofits organizations to sell firecracker, the city automatically gets 7%. That's a bill out there. It's nothing we do.

But we're not going to allow the sale in the city, so we won't get any sales tax revenue?

No. I'm saying if we are if I'm not saying we should. I'm just saying that there's if we do have anybody who sells, we do have that tax revenue. If they don't, that's okay. It's not a must. Basically, I'm saying that the door, there's an opportunity there.

Councilwoman Constantine?

Sure. So like we've heard, there's so many professional, shows that we can go to. I can see Disneyland fireworks from my home. So many people can, and it's true. You go out on the July 4 anywhere, you can see them in the sky. It really doesn't take much effort. It's wonderful. And I actually would like to see more police enforcement. I hear you know, I forgot which well, I don't wanna address any particular council member, but I don't wanna hear people are gonna do it anyway. We have city ordinances.

Why do we make city ordinances? Is it because we have nothing to do? We make city ordinances for the betterment of our city. So I don't understand why we close our eyes to people breaking the ordinance. I mean, I'm not saying we're lock them up, anything like that. Stanton does finding the the fines there was substantial. And I'm not suggesting that, but what I'm saying, we have an ordinance. I don't wanna even consider, oh, people are gonna do it anyway. That is not good. I honestly wanna see more police enforcement.

There are plenty of shows. The Pier in Huntington Beach, Disneyland, or the Queen Mary, various places. We don't need this. And I'm telling you, please, fellow council members, please hear me when I'm saying this. Please, you wanna allow a one day hall pass here. You can't get the people back. There's gonna be so much confusion in the future. It is not right. We have the responsibility to do what's best for this community. This has nothing to do with any of us individually.

This is not for the betterment of the community. I'm telling you, people can celebrate the fourth of July properly, and and that's all. Thank you.

Thank you. City clerk Miller, can we move back a slide so we can see the the alternatives just for a reference point? Okay. Okay. So we have removed alternative number one. We're focusing on alternative alternative number two. And back to you, council member Bouie.

Thank you, Mayor. Chief, do you mind can you come up? Know I didn't ask you this earlier, but I have questions for you.

Police Chief?

Yes. Police Chief. I'm sorry. The police chief. If we keep the current ordinance, which is a complete ban of all firework, and my feeling is people are going to celebrate and they are going to use, you know, safe and and sane product or the firecrackers, which is illegal throughout the state.

You will have numerous call because a ban says it's not allowed. Would you have enough personnel to go out and enforce that?