City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the Lancaster City Council meeting. I hope we all have a great time tonight. Uh, or I guess it's in the afternoon, isn't it? Good.

Uh, city clerk, city council member, agency director, housing authority members. Uh, Castellanos present man, president white president, vice mayor, vice chairman. He was Leslie president, mayor, chairman Paris. Here we have a quorum.

Thank you. I'm going to play the announcement, please.

Attention, please. Welcome to the Lancaster City Council meeting. The City Council encourages public participation at its meetings. However, the right of the public to address the Council must be balanced with the need to ensure that public participation does not interfere with the orderly course of public business. The City Council follows the City's code of conduct and ethics and Robert's rules of order in the conduct of its meetings, and we respectfully request that all are reminded to abide by the following rules. As stated on the agenda for this meeting, Any person who would like to address the City is requested to complete speaker registration either online or at the kiosk located in the Council Chambers. Please be sure to identify the agenda item you would like to discuss on your speaker registration. Speaker registration must be filled out and submitted prior to the agenda item being called. You will be given an opportunity to address the Council at the time the agenda item is discussed. Individual speakers are limited to three minutes unless a different time limit is announced, and your time will begin once your name is called. If you are joining this meeting by phone, please ensure you mute any background noise. Both in-person speakers and virtual speakers must cease speaking immediately when their time has ended. Public comment on agenda items must relate to the subject matter of that item. Public comment on non-agendized items is limited to subjects within the jurisdiction of the Council. Please keep in mind that state law prohibits the council from acting on items that are not on the agenda. The public's right to address the council does not include the right to engage in a dialogue with individual council members or staff. Please remain respectful of the forum and refrain from uttering, writing, or displaying profane or threatening statements towards the Council, any member thereof, staff, or any other person. Any person engaging in conduct that disrupts the meeting is subject to being removed from the Council meeting. If you disrupt the meeting, you will receive one warning. If you continue to disrupt the meeting, you will be escorted out of the meeting or the meeting will be recessed. Upon reconvening, if disruptions continue, the meeting room will be cleared in accordance with the provisions of the Brown Act. We ask that you now silence your cell phones. Thank you for your participation.

The invocation tonight or this afternoon is Eddie Berrigan from World Harvest Christian Outreach.

all those that are here today let's go before the lord as we bless him we give him glory and honor father we come before you boldly by the precious blood of jesus and we invoke your presence in this place and we declare lift up your heads all you gates lift be lifted up you everlasting doors and the king of glory shall come in who is the king of glory the lord jesus strong and mighty the lord jesus mighty in battle the lord of heaven's armies he is the king of glory so today We open the gates of this city and the doors of these chambers. And we say, King of glory, come in, have your way in this place. And we sing the song even of Judah as it declares, our city is strong. We are surrounded by the walls of salvation, of God's salvation. Open the gates to all that are righteous and allow the faithful to enter. The word of God declares that you will keep in perfect peace. Those whose minds are fixed upon you because they trust in you. So Father, let your peace rest upon these chambers. May every decision made, every comment given, every word spoken be words of life, words of encouragement, wisdom and grace. Let our words be seasoned with salt and let everything that is done here be done in love for your honor and for your glory. Father, we ask that the heart of these chambers would be to put you first and to govern the people of this city with wisdom, with grace and with integrity and with honor. May those that are entrusted with leadership be like trees planted by rivers of living water, bearing fruit in every season. Their fruit remains and blessings every generation to come. Have your way in every city council member, every leader, every employee, every person gathered in this place. And have your way among every person who calls this city home. Where there are concerns, bring solutions. Where there's division, bring unity. Where there's confusion, bring wisdom. Where there's discouragement, bring hope. And where there is need, raise up a people with compassion and courage who will meet that need. Father, we ask you that you have your way in this city and the surrounding cities. even as we have sown seeds, even through the We Must movement of Lancaster, through the Jesus Encounters movement, the tent revival coming up by the Lord's House of Prayer, and the citywide revival happening here at Eastside High School. Father, save souls, let lives be delivered, set free, and this city be transformed for the glory of God. In the mighty name of Jesus, we pray. Amen and amen. Blessings, everyone. All right, Mayor.

Everybody face the flag, right hands of your heart.

I pledge allegiance.

So we've changed the order of the meeting a little bit. I think it'll be more efficient and more effective. For fire department reasons and security reasons, everybody has to take a seat. You're welcome to film, but you have to film from your seat. Thank you.

Now.

It's been a while since I've talked to the council and the only time I can talk to you together is in this meeting because of the brown. And I wanna go over some things that seem to be an issue or which I don't think should be an issue, but seem to be. Yesterday, I was at the Lancaster Police Department with the district attorney, Nathan, Houchman? Houchman, Nathan Houchman, who used to be a US attorney before he became the district attorney. He, I mean, it was such a proud day because we took him through Lancaster PD, and when he was done, he said, I've never seen anything like this. In my entire life that this is the state of the art police department anywhere and indeed it is indeed it is it's only been really operating now what chief two years. And it is a total different approach to law enforcement. I like to compare it to you have the Army and you have the Air Force. They work incredibly close together, but they have separate functions. And that's the way it is with the LA Sheriff's Department and the Lancaster Police Department. Right now, There is no other city in America that has the solve rate for major crimes that we do. Nowhere. And they do that with technology. They do that with reaching out into the community and making friends with the neighborhoods. Their approach is designed to stop crimes from happening in the first place. I kind of view it, every arrest we make is, we failed. We failed. Because the goal is to not have any crime, not fill the prisons. And with Lancaster PD, they focus on that. It was also kind of cool too, because everybody was, all the officers were there. When he left, I told him, look at these guys. You don't see a kid in there. Every officer you have has been recruited and is an experienced officer and knows what they're doing and knows what the goal is. They don't have to make... You know, when you go to a new job, you wanna impress the boss. None of these guys have to impress anybody. We know who they are. They know who they are. It's important that we recognize what that means. I mean, what it means to the country, because it's scalable. Any city could do this. They can take this model and expand it throughout the nation. 100% solve rate for every major crime, unheard of. I don't know about you folks, but I think we all had similar experiences in raising our children. We got great kids when we're there. When I would go out of town, that's when they would throw the party. People do very well. if they know they're gonna have to be accountable. It's when they think they don't have to be accountable that bad things start to occur. In Lancaster, the message is getting out there. You're accountable for what you do. You're accountable if you commit a major crime. They will catch you. And yes, we have the most advanced technology there is. And it works. Our neighborhoods are safer. Our kids are safer than surrounding communities. And every time we get crime statistics, we're dumbfounded, aren't we? I mean, we're shocked at just how effective this model of policing is. So as we progress through the years, recognize that Our people are totally unique, totally unique. And I see that extended throughout the staff. I've been concerned about the condition of our roads, so I went out with the road crews to see just how it works, why issues arise. Learned a great deal. But the thing I saw that was so fascinating to me Was how hard and dedicated the people working or the guys that were rebuilding the sidewalk rebuilding the curb rebuilding the street because you know I built a house once and what they did in two hours took two weeks when I was building the House. There's a pride in this city that I don't know that everybody else, other cities have. You feel it when you're out with the crews. You see it when you're out with the crews. And that can only come from the directors and the city manager. It's top down. So when you deal with the staff, recognize who you're dealing with. These are professionals that work extremely hard and are proud of their city. One of the issues that has been coming up is the Paris Center and the Aquatic Center, which is not yet built. And I'd like to talk to you a little bit about that. You know, when my daughter was eight years old, she walked over to the store, came back with some frozen lemonade and some cups to do a lemonade stand. She spent $5.42. I mean, it was a big deal for me to watch her do this, and I remember. And she worked all day out there selling lemonade. And she made $48.70. So what was it? Did it cost her $5.42? Or was it $40-some that she made? You're hearing half the story out there about the Aquatic Center and the Paris Center. The Paris Center came about out of COVID. We realized we were not ready for a major catastrophic event. We're just not ready. So we went about getting ready. That facility can house and feed a thousand people comfortably, but it does so much more than that. We are walking into temperatures now, like today. Anybody know what the temperature was today? It was really hot, right? There will be days when it's 115. The projections are we will hit 120. I mean, it's just reality. That's what's happening. When you let children play outside, especially athletics, at 115 degrees, you're risking their lives. Because the heat is just too great. We need facilities, a facility that can accommodate these kids in that heat. And they will be able to do everything there. Basketball, volleyball, pickleball. Any indoor event we can accommodate in that building. Now, Back to the lemonade. Yes, it cost a great deal of money, but it was an expense shared by five agencies. Five boards made that decision. It wasn't just the city of Lancaster. In fact, we do not own the Paris Center. We did not name the Paris Center. It is owned by the state of California at the fairgrounds. The state, how much did the state put in? 20 million 20 million from the state 10 million from palmdale why would palmdale do that because they're going to use it and they benefit from it antelope valley high school they put in money the county promised to put in money but we're still waiting and then the city five agencies paid for that facility But there's a thing called return on investment, the economic impact of what we anticipate happening. I remember, what was it, 30 years ago when the council at that time built the soccer fields. I think you and I were on the planning commission at the time. And we heard the same stuff. Too much money, you're wasting the money, you're wasting, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What we saw was every time there's a tournament at those fields, it brings six to $15 million of economic benefit to the city. not the entire valley, but Palmdale benefits tremendously from it because it's their hotels that fill up, the restaurants fill up. You wanna know if there's a tournament in town, drive down Avenue I and see if the line stretching from in and out is over a mile because that's what happens. They bring money into our community that wouldn't be here otherwise. The Paracentre and the Aquatic Centre will have exactly the same impact. You cannot have a city that thrives if you're not investing in the city. We view it as an investment in the hardworking families that live here. The Aquatic Center is really going to be quite magnificent. It will be able to host any diving competition, any swimming competition, any water polo competition that somebody may want to have. And it's interesting in that some people have said, and this is not meant to be inappropriate, it's just what people have said to me, brown people don't swim. You're just doing it for white people. The reason we don't have great swimmers that are of color is because we don't have pools for them to learn how to swim in. Because I know exactly what's gonna happen after that center gets up and going. I know we are going to sweep the nation when it comes to winning competitions. And I know what color the kids are gonna be that are doing it. We are the most integrated city in the country. How do I know that? Because HUD and the federal government and the New York Times actually did the research. Our neighborhoods are the most integrated neighborhoods in America and I am incredibly proud of that. And I also think it's why we are so successful as a city. The research, it was done by Scott Page out of Michigan, is the more diverse your group is the more successful the group is. And it is true across the board, time after time after time. I don't know that I should have raised that, what was being said, but you know, I have trouble not saying what I hear and what I think. I mean, people have a lot of criticisms of me, but transparency is not one of them. If I'm thinking it, I'm saying it. I want all of you to recognize that we have a choice. We can grow as a community or we can die as a community because every living thing either grows or it dies. I see nothing but magnificent things happening for our city But it takes courage to sit up here, incredible courage to sit up here, because there will always be people who wanna criticize and shoot at you and say terrible things about you, who know very little about what you're doing. Lancaster is becoming the jewel of California. You know, there's a lot of problems our people are facing that we can't fix. I can't make gas prices lower. I can't make food prices lower. I can't even reduce the rents. But what we can do is we can take the utilities away from Southern California Edison, and we won't have to pay for them burning down the cities. I mean, that's really why your electricity bill is so high. They burn down cities, they gotta pay for it, and they bill you for it. The goal is to take that away from them and power our own city. Our projections are we can do it from a third to half the cost. That means your utility bills will drop that much. But you have to invest. You have to be willing to take a little bit of risk. And you have to have the courage to do things differently. And if anything, We do do it differently. And with that, we'll go back. Oh, I want to turn it over to Rod, Chief Armillan, and Trulese. Good afternoon, Mayor Nelson.

I'll piggyback on what the mayor was just talking about. I've been talking to the mayor, I've been talking to the council, and we really want to start talking about that growth that you alluded to, Mayor, and all these amazing projects that we have going on in the city that are feeding that growth and making the city a better place for our residents. We're creating a new segment that we're bringing to this meeting and all future meetings called Lancaster Loop. The purpose of the segment is to provide updates on our key projects, programs, and initiatives that we have in the city and really get the facts and get our message out there. I know there's been a lot of false information that has both been reported in the newspaper and gets out there on social media. We want our residents to know what's happening in the city and hear firsthand from us with the actual facts and data behind what they're hearing. So that's what this segment is. At future meetings, you'll see myself and different staff members updating on the topic of the day. I did want to hit on something before I turn it over to Rod. We do have 11.75% sales tax. That just went up. In June, the voters of Los Angeles County approved an additional 0.5% as part of Measure ER, taking it to 11.75. Of that total, the City of Lancaster gets 2.5%. That comes in two different buckets. 1% is from the standard state minimum sales tax, which I believe 7.25, right, George? That's called the Bradley Burn sales tax. The other 1.5% that comes to the city is the two measures that the public voted in, Measure LC and Measure YM. I will say the county, to put things in perspective, we're getting about 21% of the total sales tax. The county gets 3%, which is about 25%, and we've done the math on it. The county's taking $42 million a year from our residents and returning to the Antelope Valley less than 40% of that. Conversely, when we get measure LC and YM and we receive those monies, every single dollar of that is spent here on projects that improve the quality of life of our residents and we can control that funding. Today's topic is public safety. Chief Armelin, Captain Paul Bartlett, Christine Malta, and Heather Varden are going to come up and talk about the amazing things that quite frankly Measure LC and YM have allowed us to do in the public safety realm. We are spending about $24 million annually to create this hybrid law enforcement model. This was an idea that the mayor had about eight years ago was, hey, I see crime is rising. We do not want this city, the mayor and council, we do not want this city to become Gotham City. We have to do something. We started implementing LPD about 18 months ago at some form of what it's going to become on September 1 when we turn on traffic enforcement. And we have seen crime drop dramatically in this city over this last 18 months. The team has some amazing statistics that show you what we're doing in a big way. So welcome to the Lancaster Loop. Welcome, Rod Armiland.

So I've been given a... mic of my own just to kind of so i can talk to the crowd a little bit too so because i think this is a message that all of you deserve to hear so good afternoon mayor vice mayor and council members it's a pleasure to be in front of you today i'm excited i was looking forward to today because we get to talk a little bit about the amazing accomplishments we're doing. That's us and our partners with the Sheriff's Department. My partner over there, Captain Paul Bartlett is going to speak to you in a moment. I want to tell you, I had this whole slide presentation made up with graphs and numbers. Then I sat down with you, sir, the mayor yesterday. That did me some good because it reminded me, you reminded me of what and why we're doing this and what an incredible accomplishment we're doing here. Sometimes you get caught up in the doing of things and you forget to step back and say, wow, look at the success we're having. I think I was caught up in that. Speaking with you, I appreciated that because I got to step back and take a look at that. gave me an opportunity to sit down with you and relive what you told me when I first came here, when I first got hired. And you went over why you did this and you talked about how some 15 years ago, I think it was, you realized, hey, I gotta make a change. I gotta make a change. I have to do something to make my city safer and help my citizens. I'll be honest with you, when I looked at the crime that was happening here, I understood that because trust and believe this city has some of the highest crime in this entire county when we started this. That is not a good thing in any way you look at it. Sitting down with you and going over that and then reminiscing on how you started it some 10 years ago with the help of Vice Mayor Chris, how you guys got this thing going and figured out how we were going to do it. I want you to know we've developed a transformative law enforcement program. I hear it from colleagues all over from the sheriff's department when I go to conferences from other states, chiefs of police from other states, and they absolutely agree with us in recognizing that this is the law enforcement model of the future. It is. It is. We have two agencies that are working for the safety of our citizens. That is amazing and it is unheard of. I think back too because I worked with the sheriff's department for 32 years. I've worked for more city councils than I have fingers and toes. I'm telling you right now. That's because with that great sheriff's department, I've gotten to go all over the county and work. I'm telling you right now, I haven't found a council or a mayor who would take steps like this. This took courage, sir. It did. It took courage because you went out on a limb and said, enough, I'm going to do what I have to do. With the support of your council then and your council now, we're bringing whatever we have to make our city a safer place. I know there were naysayers. I know you heard some back then, but you had the courage to move forward with it. Heck, I'll tell you right now, I hear naysayers now. I've had people tell me even today, Not going to happen. You're not going to change this. It's not going to work, but we are. We are. I challenge anybody to come and look at the change that we're making. You don't have to come to me. You can go to Captain Bartlett and talk to him and let him show you the change we're making in our city. If you don't believe the word that I'm going to give you, please see my partner because he will tell you because the Sheriff's Department understands this model is working. It's amazing. Yes, this is a huge investment. It absolutely is. It's a huge investment. How important is the safety of our citizens? What's more important? Do we just continue down the road or do we find a way to make it better? That's what we did. We found a way to make it better. This investment is paying off. You're going to hear some of that today. I'm leaving most of the stats to my colleagues that are going to come here and talk to you today. Captain Bartland will share some with you. I have to point out a couple of things. I absolutely do. Our part one crimes are dropping amazingly and that started when we started this hybrid program. We started to see a drop. We dropped 600 of our part one violent crimes in 2025. We're on track to drop another 700 crimes this year compared to the previous year of our part one crimes. That is amazing and something that I haven't really seen in my 38 years of doing this. Any death in our city is tragic, but there's nothing more tragic than a murder. There isn't. This city has some numbers that were hard to deal with and stomach. I'm going to share some of that with you now. In 2023, we had 32 murders. In 2028, when we first got started, when we started working together, we dropped it to 28 murders in 2024. We dropped it to 18 murders in 2025. We've only had three murders this year so far, folks, three murders. That's the work of this team and everything we brought trying to make our community safer and we're not done yet. There's so much more coming and so much more we have to do. Let me share with you, In 2024, there were 1,400 cars stolen. I'm gonna say that again, 1,400 cars stolen in our city. But you gotta understand that's not just a stolen car. in a city where probably 90% of our citizens drive to other cities to work, that's hundreds of people that can't get to work and provide for their family. That's hundreds of kids that can't get to school. That's hundreds of elderly people that can't get the care they need or get to the medical appointments they need. 1,400 cars. Well, let me tell you right now, due to the efforts of this partnership and everything that we're doing here, The first six months of this year, we only had 276 cars stolen. That's unheard of. That is amazing. That's how this program is working. It's not just about the crime. You also told me that, and you mentioned it a minute ago, we have to solve the problems. We have to find the root causes, address the root causes, come up with programs that are made to help people and help those who are making the wrong decisions. So we developed, it was the first thing we brought, in fact, when I got brought here, and that was after speaking with you. We brought our community-oriented resource and education team. Folks, I want you to know that's a team of all non-sworn individuals who are skilled in providing services. Things like dealing with domestic violence, juvenile diversion, homelessness, drug addiction, you name it.

They're all non-sworn that are skilled in doing that.

and we're winning there too. Our homeless numbers are going down as you will find out when a couple of my colleagues and my manager Christine Malta get up here and speak. But I do wanna share a couple of success stories from that program and from that system. And these things are happening all the time. I wanna talk to you about a lady who was actually a homeless woman who was living across the street from the sheriff's station under the airplane over there, could not walk, couldn't provide for herself. She was out there in the freezing cold dead of winter and due to the way the systems work, lot of difficulty getting her to some services and getting her up out of that position. Well, the court team went over there and with the help of the sheriff's department, we were able to get this lady place. The sad thing about it was is that she was going to die out there. They saved her life because when they finally were able to get her place and get her up and get her into services and they pulled that blanket off, I'm sad to tell you, her body was being eaten by maggots. her body was being eaten by maggots. I want to tell you about an eighth grader and this is recent where A school reached out and said, hey, this young man is just having tons of problem, profanity, graffiti, fights, disrespect, you name it. He was struggling very, very mightily and was making his way into the criminal justice system and had committed acts where he was ready to be put into that system. Thankfully, they reached out to our core team. They got over there. They got with this young man. They got him into a diversion program. got him therapy, got him mentorship, anger management, and he is succeeding in that program right now. That's not all though. I mean, there's more stories like that. If you don't mind, I want to tell you about an 11-year-old girl who was in school who went to her teacher and said, I'm struggling. My family is living out of a car at our local theater. Thankfully, that teacher reached out to CORE. CORE hooked up with that family, got them into a place where they no longer had to live in their car, and this young girl is succeeding in school again because she doesn't have to sleep in a car in a parking lot. One last story, and I have to tell you this because this happened today. This actually happened today before I came. The Sheriff's Department reached out. There was an 80-year-old woman who was being evicted from her home, unable to care for herself, unable to provide for herself. They reached out to CORE. She didn't have any local family, any means for providing for herself, any money coming in. CORE worked with resources, found her children in two other states, got her place today so she has somewhere to sleep and are arranging for her family to come and pick her up and take her back home. So, I understand these programs are fantastic, sir. We're winning. To those individuals out there, I understand how all this works. I've been doing this a long time and I know that sometimes things need to be said, but I just want people to know that for the few people who see the safety of our citizens, as some type of a punchline or political tool, we're not going to stop. We're not going to stop. We know what we're doing. We're winning and we know we're helping our community and we're going to continue to do that. I invite anybody to come over and take a look at what we're doing. You're welcome to visit Lancaster Police Department. You're welcome to visit the Sheriff's Department. We're going to continue to make this the safest city we possibly can. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, council members, city staff, and our wonderful community that's here in front of us. I'm Captain Paul Bartlett from the Lancaster Sheriff's Station. And I think, you know, Rod touched on some amazing points about the community aspect and why we're here. And really that's the number one priority for us at the Sheriff's Department. When I came in as captain in late 2023, thankful to the mayor and the vice mayor at the time and the board of supervisors that allowed me to interview here. on behalf of our great sheriff, Robert Luna. I came in here with a goal that the sheriff told me, and that was building on our trust, our legitimacy, and really building our relationship with our community. And that's what it's been about, is building the relationship. And there's no better relationship than what we have with the city of Lancaster. I can tell you that. The reason why we are here today with our crime numbers is because of this relationship and everything that we've put together. And I'm going to go through a little bit of those numbers here just to kind of talk about them. And I know that you hear some talk in the community about the numbers that we put out or that you see that are online are not the true numbers of crime in the community there's more crime that occurs and there is some truth to that but what we report is based on uniform crime reporting which is a statistic excuse me that's set in place by the federal bureau of investigation and those numbers are uniform numbers that we use so that we can measure where we are with our partners across the way in Palmdale, in any city in California, and across the nation. We can measure our crime statistics where we stand. And just a little overview of that. Uniform crime reporting, this is the number of the crimes that are used in that reporting. As you can see, most of them are the serious crimes. Murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. And we call those primarily our part one crimes, the most serious offenses that affect our community, number one. A snapshot of where we stand today. year-to-date through June 30th, 1,623 Parkland crimes in the City of Lancaster. That's a 22% reduction from 2025. If you look down the list there, you'll see the numbers from 2025, 2099, 2,242 from 2024. From 2024 to 26, that's almost a 28% reduction in part one crimes in our community, in the city of Lancaster. We couldn't do that without the support, number one, of you, of everybody here. And number two, the city council, our partners at the LPD, Lancaster Police Department, we couldn't do that. And I wanna thank everybody for that because these are impressive numbers and they're true numbers. There's always been some matters that maybe people don't report crimes, but I'll tell you right now that if somebody reports their car stolen or their car is stolen, they're gonna report it. I think we all know that. So to see the numbers go down over six, almost 60% in car theft in the city of Lancaster is really amazing. And again, here's those numbers again, like I said, as Chief Armland mentioned, three murders so far year to date in the city of Lancaster. 66% reduction in murders. That is truly amazing. Any life lost is a pain to our society, right? Painful to us, painful to everybody. But to be able to reduce it from, like Rod said, from... in the 30s in 24 and 23 this is our amazing numbers that we see across our community as you see grand theft auto 54.9 reduction in the city of lancaster just like chief said that theft affects somebody's livelihood you lose your car your likelihood is lost whether you use it to go to work or you use it for work losing a car affects everything in your life Here's the overall numbers. And I know that it shows both city and county, so I won't go into those too many. And it delineates Lancaster and the unincorporated areas. But you'll see those numbers specifically in the city areas are down across the board, 22% in the city year to date. Some of those key takeaways is, like I said, that work that we've done at the station, working with LPD. Our officers work with LPD almost every day. We have a specific team in Lancaster called the Lancat Team, Lancaster Community Appreciation Program.

It was started by the city.

The city funds it. It's been in place for 25 years plus. specifically dealt with apartment complexes and that such in the past but recently in the past five years we moved them into specifically robberies and auto thefts in our city because of the highest crimes and i want to bring a couple of those members down that the armando lopez the deputy michael figueroa they're gonna be a little surprised right now come on down gentlemen it's a team of 10 members this is just two of them and two sergeants. And that's all they focus on in our community is reducing those violent crimes and getting people's cars back to them. We have over a 90% recovery rate in the city of Lancaster when a car is stolen. And most of them we're finding back in our city. So these two gentlemen here, like I said, are part of the team. Another big key aspect, there's another member of the team that couldn't make it today, Deputy Eric Torres. If you follow our Instagram and social media, we just honored him early last week regarding his promotion to training officer. Eric was on the team last year and Eric himself with the team in the year prior took 40 firearms off the streets. And just so far, year to date, as a training officer, he's taken 16 firearms off the street and taken 20 people to jail for violent offenses. So amazing work by this team. He learned a lot of that from working with them. It's still been in him. Now he's out on the streets as a training officer training new deputies to go out there and do the work, do it ethically, do it constitutionally, and follow the law. So thank you, guys. Appreciate your hard work. I'll touch a little bit on our traffic data, and as we know, Lancaster Police Department will be taking over traffic enforcement in the City of Lancaster September 1st. And if you look at our numbers for the last year, we have increased in traffic fatalities from 10 last year to date to 12. But theoretically, the 12 includes eight pedestrians that were hit by vehicles. And all eight of those incidents involving vehicles, it was no fault of the driver. It was the fault of the person that was in the roadway outside of a crosswalk. If you look at our number of injury crashes, they've slightly gone down. Injury and non-injury crashes are there. But the number of citations, and this number includes both us and LPD, have increased over 176% in the last year. What that means is slow down the drivers on the roadways and save lives, number one. Getting out there and giving tickets statistically shows it reduces fatalities in your community. So I think that's a key aspect there. I said the numbers are skewed because of the eight fatalities in the roadway with pedestrians, but you see the numbers there. They speak for themselves. I want to thank you again and thank the city of Lancaster for all the support, Mayor, Council. Without you, we couldn't do what we're doing here in the city. And I appreciate it. Thank you, community.

Thank you, Captain.

Is this working? Okay. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor and Council. As the Chief said, I'm Christine Malta and I have the honor of serving as the manager of the core division of Lancaster Police Department. I have a team of people who report to me and work side by side with me who are proud to serve the community before they serve themselves. They truly have a heart to serve. Mary, I've been here at the city for 10 years and many things have been consistent over those 10 years, but what I recall from you the most is you want to keep our community safe and you want our families healthy. When we look at a hybrid model of policing, it's oftentimes that our officers engage with people on some of the worst days of their lives and the worst experiences of their lives. How do we make things better for our community? It's not arresting them, taking them to jail and creating a deeper hole for them to dig into. So what my team is tasked with is finding solutions. You're very big on solving problems, thinking outside of the box. How do we do things differently? We have hundreds of years of policing where we're reactive and responding to crime. but we are bringing a new approach to this. We are trying to find out where the problems are and what the root of the problem is so that we can provide the resources and services to our community that they truly need to help them better their lives and not have a last resort to refer to law enforcement. We're going to talk about a couple of the things that we're doing. The chief mentioned some of the big success stories that we have, but one of the areas where we need to look at is our most vulnerable population and that's our homeless people. There are a lot of different reasons people fall into homelessness and we'll talk about that, but at the end of the day, their health and their safety is our top priority. I want to share with you how the Lancaster Police Department through the core division and our public spaces division is impacting that. First, I want to let you guys know that we have two civilian teams committed to solutions. We have our public spaces division who spend time, their complaint resolution, they spend time looking at complaints through Inform Lancaster. Our residents can use the Inform Lancaster app to let us know where they see problems in our community. It doesn't necessarily take a call to the sheriff's station or a call to the police department. Through the app, you can talk to us about what you're seeing in the streets. We'll look at those and we'll go out and resolve those issues. They focus on encampment cleanup and active engagement. We have members of our homeless outreach team patrolling through our parks, our boulevard, and other spaces where we have complaints or where we have a prevalence of homelessness to ensure the safety. The metro station and areas there as well. We're looking at that. Through our core division, we're focused on proactive problem solving. What are the issues? What are the reasons that people are falling into homelessness? We're responsible for our Measure H and Measure A programming. Measure H was a quarter cent sales tax that was voted in in 2017 by the residents of LA County. That was repealed in 2024 and replaced with a half cent sales tax, which is Measure A. We are responsible for programming what's called the Local Solution Fund. It's the money that is returned directly to us from the money we send down there, and it's based on a formula that includes the point in time counts and the ACS, which the acronym is slipping my mind right now. but that's how the formula is derived to let us know how much money we can receive to directly impact services here and not rely on the county to provide those services. We're programming those, we're providing direct service connections for people that are out on our streets and in our parks, and we're making a lot of interim housing referrals. We're motivated to act particularly with two populations in mind. People currently experiencing homelessness, we're looking to impact the individual by restoring their health, their safety, and their dignity. A lot of times the people we meet out on the streets have lost their dignity, their health is in despair, and they are not safe. We're looking to impact the community by restoring public safety and community pride. A lot of times you say, if you look better, you feel better, and the same goes for our city. If our city looks better and people feel safe, they're going to be proud of where they live and they're going to make a difference and make an impact and volunteer more. Then we're looking at people who need support to maintain housing. Right now that population looks like our transitional aged youth, 18 to 25-year-olds who don't have the supports, whether they're aging out of foster care or they are just young adults who don't have the support of family or maybe their families can't continue to support them. Then also our senior population with increase in costs, they're falling into homelessness at a larger rate. So we're looking at individual impacts there. It's to provide stability first and foremost, to preserve health. As we know, getting out onto the street, health declines quickly, and to inspire hope. People without hope are a lost person. So we want to make sure that they have hope, to know that they have people there that care and support them. Then our community impact is to ultimately have a healthy community full of purpose-filled families and individuals. When people have purpose, there's so much more to life. When we all are coming to work, doing things that we love to do, it just makes everything better. One of the things that we want to focus on is what's the cause of homelessness? We recently did surveys as we're updating our homelessness plan from 2018. We did a lot of surveys. We had over 500 residents respond and a lot of people felt that the number one reason people are falling into homelessness is mental health and addiction. That is actually not shown to be the cause right now. Right now, it's financial hardships. I've always said that one of the best ways out of a problem is to not get into the problem to begin with. How do we prevent people from falling into homelessness? The city of Los Angeles right now is claiming that it costs over $425,000 to pull somebody out of homelessness and stabilize them. Or if we prevent homelessness, sometimes it's as easy as $1,000 security deposit or paying a first month's rent, which could be between $1,000 to $3,000. It's fiduciary responsibility that we have to take that route to prevent homelessness to begin with. We are focusing our efforts on prevention. So when we talk about the money that we get from Measure H, from Measure A, 70% of that is to prevention. It's $7.2 million right now, and we're looking at how do we maintain preventative services and services to connect people to ensure they have work. to ensure they have a safe home, to ensure they have the financial resources that they need to stay stable, and in the long term, teach them how to manage their money and their funds so that they're not continually falling into cycles of despair. When we look at, for example, if an officer pulls somebody over on their way to work because they have expired registration and they don't have the funds to do that, We have programs in place to help assist with, hey, you can go down and get your registration paid so that you don't lose your car, so that you don't lose your job, so that you don't fall into homelessness. We're looking at it from that holistic approach. We do have shelters here and we do fund some beds that we can put direct placement into. When we clean up our encampment, we want to have a place to offer services to and we can put them in there immediately. We are funding out of the general fund. When you look at the police department budget and you see a $24 million number, about half of that is civilian staff paid for by general fund and additional staff and resources through Measure A and Measure H. So looking at that, we're not funding another whole police department to just fight crime. We're looking for solutions and prevention of problems that lead to crime. So we have a compassionate action. What have we been doing? So January to June this year, I could list a whole bunch of numbers of all the things that we've done, but the real important numbers are on average, our teams are making 428 contacts per month. That means that we're out there speaking to roughly 15 people a day to talk to them about services. Now, our homeless numbers aren't four or 500 people that we're going to see individually every day, but we need to build trust with the people that are out there. We need them to trust and understand that where we want to place them and the help that we're providing them is actually going to make their life better. A lot of people have experienced trauma and with those traumas come fear. We need to build that trust to remove that fear to help them move along. In addition to our team, there's several other teams that are working here in Lancaster that are making this happen. We're not the only ones touching our homeless community. Of those contacts, about 10% accept services and they'll fall in and out of services. We may get them connected to services, they may not show up, they may have difficulty with transportation. We're seeing population recycle through the system. In the last six months, I'm happy to share that we've gotten 65 individuals to accept shelter placement and placement into programs that provide holistic care, case management, provide for connection to employment, health, getting all of the needs met, not only to move out of homelessness, but to be healthy again. And we're changing lives. Numbers are one thing on a slide, but stories are what really touches our hearts. So I want to talk about a couple of stories that we have here. We had one individual, a female who was living in American Heroes Park, violent, addicted, and pregnant. We were concerned that when the day came for her to deliver, that this baby could be born in our park and ultimately die. Fortunately, with the right connections, we were able to get her housed in place, she had a safe delivery, her baby was born healthy, and now she's working with CPS and other providers to reconnect to her family. She had another child that was there, so we're working on family reunification with her, providing her the services and resources to get her children back and live a healthy, productive life and allow those children to be raised by their mother. We've restored the physical and mental health through our partnerships with other agencies. We restored physical and mental health of a gentleman who had lost hope. He was out in the streets and kind of a nuisance for our community. We connected him to a program. It's the LEAD program, Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion. He connected to mental health services. medical services, dental services, which may not seem like a big deal, but if you've had a toothache or tooth pain, you know how chronic pain can affect you. Getting those basic needs met that some of us take for granted, I know I take it for granted, that we take for granted are so important to reconnecting to employment. Ultimately, he's reconnected with his family and works now for his son. He's got housing and an income. Lastly, we had a young gentleman who we came in contact with living on the streets who had severe mental health challenges. One of our service providers were able to establish mental health supports, and he's now a proactive member with giving back to the community that he was once part of. We saw him recently, we did a Connect Day out at Kensington campus, and he was there as a volunteer talking about the things that he went through and showing people that they can be successful as well. We want to leave everybody with those thoughts and stories that numbers can tell you one story, but the people behind them are the really important aspects. I'm here if you have any questions. Otherwise, I'm going to introduce Deputy Mayor Heather Varden.

The one thing I want to point out is it's very unique in that Lancaster Police Department is also doing the homeless outreach.

Yes.

It's a vertical integration that is unique but is successful. It keeps everybody on the same page. Everybody knows what's going on. And the goal is to get people to thrive. It's not to arrest them.

Right. And that was a barrier at first. When we first came into the space, law enforcement and human services typically are opposed to each other because the fear of incarceration, the fear of arrest. So we really had to do a lot of work, not only with our homeless population to build trust, but with our actual service providers that are out helping the homeless community to allow us to come into that space. We've worked, Deputy Mayor Varden has been instrumental in helping us build those partnerships, make the right introductions and show that, hey, yes, we're the police department, but we're working with a group of civilians that are really looking for solutions. We've overcome those barriers. Recently, we did a great collaboration with the county homeless services and housing and Mental Health America. We did a water drive because over the last couple of weeks, as you know, we've been well over 100 degrees. With budget cuts, the outreach teams are limited on supplies. We reached out to our Lancaster Praise Community Group, which is a group of churches and community service providers, and asked them to donate water. We're storing water at our station. The county and local outreach teams can come and pick up water and deliver it to our homeless people. We've built that trust and that relationship through showing that we're really here to provide solutions and partner with them and provide them the opportunities to to gather our resources and pool them together instead of a bunch of people trying to work independently or trying to work together.

I love it. Thank you. Now our Deputy Mayor.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council. I have some information to share. There we go. Before we get into the numbers, I'd like to remind everyone that behind every number there is a person. There is a story. Every number is someone's son or daughter. It's someone's mother or father, brother or sister. Every person on the streets in Lancaster is a member of our community and a person in our community. So without further ado, we'll get into the numbers. The homeless count is done once a year. It's done in January during the coldest part of the year. That's a mandate from HUD. We work with the University of Southern California as well on the demographic information. It's done during a 10-day period in January, and that happens nationwide for migratory reasons. And 90% of those numbers are collected within the first three days of that count. The data not only informs policies and strategies to end homelessness, but it also contributes to California and the nation's understanding of the crisis. The count is 99% accurate, and we know that because of collaboration efforts. We're using technology of drones with the Lancaster Police Department. All of the people that are out on the streets every day connecting with homeless people are part of the count, as well as all of the volunteers that live here in this community and know their neighborhoods. This year, we also used the Esri app and had a lot of user feedback that it was a much better process. Overall, in the county of Los Angeles, homelessness went up 1.2%, with the city of LA having an increase of 3.4% in homelessness. We know that economic factors are the leading cause of homelessness right now. For every person that falls into homelessness, for every person we house, 2.37 new people fall into homelessness, which means that it's really imperative that we focus on prevention to make sure that we're not having more people falling into homelessness faster than we can get people off the streets. Seems simple, housing ends homelessness. Now I wanna talk about the local numbers. I know there's a lot of numbers on the screen. LA County is broken down into eight service planning areas. The Antelope Valley is service planning area one, which I'm happy to report has a 37.1 decrease in homelessness this year. That is 37.1% decrease in homelessness compared to the rest of the county. The closest is 16% where we're seeing it go up with much other areas of the county. What that means is what we're doing here works. And now before we get to this video, there are a few stories that were told today. And I just want to introduce this video as stories being told by the people that we did actually help. This video is about a very large collaboration effort. In one day, we took 99 people from the desert and got them inside. And here are some of their stories on how compassion, collaboration, and action save lives.

I was living in the desert on I and 25th in a trailer and I've been out there for a while like 15 years so yeah it's been a long time and they came in to help me get out of medical services and I got my ID my birth certificate my social security card now and they're going to help me get social security because I was able to see a doctor I haven't seen a doctor in I don't know how long And I don't know how long. So they did. They checked everything. They got him. I'm all right. It's a lot different. I'm used to being in the desert on the street. And yeah, they really helped. And it's good. It feels good to be in a place again and not be out there. I'm thankful for them.

Just sitting here is pretty cool to have to deal with the cold i guess being out on the streets and all that you know but actually it will sleep good at night now at least i have a roof over my head take a shower every day get privacy i was able to get my my id got my birth certificate again because that's the only thing stopping me from getting my id before just having not having a mailing address so it's a good thing you know i think lots of came through and all that did that for all of us

I thought that was real cool. I've been trying to get housing for a long time. For a long time. For years. Finally got, you know, finally got my housing situation going. I've been homeless for probably at least seven years. So it's nice to actually have a roof over my head, you know. Because they feed us here. That's real cool. I don't have to go and hold a sign to get money to eat. I have some place I can call. My room, you know what I mean? Somewhere I can go lay my head down at night and not be freezing like sweating bullets or whatever, you know? So LASA is a real cool organization helping people out. They're looking for people to bring in, get off the streets and, you know, not be homeless.

Heather, before you go, what was the number for Lancaster, the reduction?

I don't have the specific Lancaster number, but it was significant. In the past year, it was over 250 people.

No, but I mean the percentage.

Oh, the Lancaster percentage, I will have to by the end of business today.

What was the spa one number decrease?

The SPA1 decrease is 37.1% in unsheltered.

SPA1 is the Antelope Valley, right?

Yes, that is all of the Antelope Valley. The SPA1 area includes Palmdale, Lancaster, all the way up to the Kern County line, and then all of the way over to the San Bernardino County line. And that's a 30 what percent 37.1% decrease in unsheltered homelessness. And those are the people that are literally living outside. So the, that decreases of the people living outside, you're moving in the right direction. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions from council?

Thank you.

Thank you.

So we're back to the presentations. So we have the recognition of the Antelope Valley youth football coaches. These are the people who make a huge difference in the lives of our children. They give them a sense of purpose, they give them Cedric, you're better able to tell this story than me.

All right. So these are the coaches that are here in the Antelope Valley. They touched the lives of over 20,000 youth easily over the years. We have all the programs that the city has been talking about today, the PD, the sheriffs. These coaches reach communities that we would never be able to reach, from the city to the PD to the community. They're dealing with families that are homeless. They're dealing with kids that, before you even hear about them getting in trouble, these coaches are touching their lives and helping them go in the right direction before they're robbing your houses, before they're out there committing crimes. They're at practice. So instead of jumping off the porch shooting at somebody, they're jumping off the porch going to practice. Instead of being on the corner slinging, doing whatever they do, they're on the corner fundraising for the football team. So these coaches have helped this community tremendously. We haven't given them their kudos. They've made a difference in this community. They're here in this community, and they've donated time after time after time to make sure that these parents, the kids, and the community have what they need. It's all about diversion through sports, saving a life, and that's what we've been doing. Thank you for doing what you do. We really appreciate you. And it's not just the coaches that's being recognized. There's a whole bunch of coaches out here in the audience that are here to support. These are our mentors that are mentoring our kids. We need to support organizations like these, CBOs, sports organizations, making sure that Kids in our community can come play sports for free because it's not just one community that's having problems. No jobs, living check to check. There's a lot of people in our community that are living check to check and don't have a direction to go. And these coaches, they help the kids have a direction to go. I digress. Thank you. Thank you, Cedric.

Thank you, Cedric, or Councilman White. Today, we want to recognize these individuals for their countless hours and their investment into these young athletes, the families, and our community. I'd ask the audience to please hold applause until the very end. We're going to bring up several people. When you hear your name, please come on up as I'm reading through your bio, and we'll run through that. The first one, coach, I want to bring up is Randy Opperman. um coach randy operman began his involvement in youth football in 1999 he later returned to coaching the west valley rebels in 2012 he became president of that organization and later helped lead its transition into what is now known as the antelope valley rams randy also coached coaches football now at paraclete high school and has built a career of public service with the los angeles city fire department Randy, thank you for your leadership, mentorship and continued commitment to our youth. The next coach I want to bring up is Dominique Walker. Dominique. He has been involved in youth sports since 1999 also. He served as president of the Palmdale Falcons youth football organization from 2007 to 2023. During those years, Dominique worked to promote sportsmanship, strengthen community involvement, and provide a positive environment where young athletes could develop personally and athletically. Dominique, we thank you for your many years of leadership and for your lasting impact you have made with generations of young people. The next coach is James Hayward. James Hayward has dedicated more than 30 years to youth sports, beginning his football coaching journey in 1992 with the Lancaster Lopes. Throughout the years, James has coached with several organizations and has also coached youth basketball and baseball. Today, he serves as the president of the Lancaster Rams. James has celebrated hundreds of wins in multiple championships, but he says his greatest accomplishment is helping young athletes grow into confident, respectful, and well-rounded individuals. James, thank you for your three decades of mentorship and service to our youth. The additional honorees, we want to bring up Stacey Gentle, Rodney Woods, and Ron Bellamy for their dedication and leadership in youth athletics. Through years of coaching, mentorship, organizational leadership and service, each of you have helped provide opportunities for young people to learn, compete, build confidence and become the leaders themselves. Your impact cannot simply be measured by wins, championships or seasons. It is measured by the young people and families whose lives you have touched. I think that goes for all of the coaches that we brought up. On behalf of the mayor, the entire city council, and the entire city of Lancaster, thank you for investing in our youth, and thank you for all you've done for the Animal Valley. Everyone, please give them a warm round of applause. And we'll go ahead and get a photo up here.

thank you

Hi, I'm Dolores Woods. I'm with the Antelope Valley Youth Palmdale Knights Youth Football and Cheerleading. I want to say thank you. We want to say, our organization, you can show it, to our ex-parents. You supported us, our organization. You donated for our 11 year old team to go to Florida to play in national football last season. And I've been trying to get this to you since January, okay? So we just wanna say and what it says is thank you for your support, your sponsorship, the Antelope Valley Youth Athletics 2025 Palmdale Knights. Thank you.

You've been doing it longer than all of us.

Thank you.

Wow. That's terrific. Okay. We've been at it an hour and a half. Let's take 10, 15 minutes, okay? Or we got, wait a minute. Okay, okay, good. Hold on, yep.

We do have one more recognition. This is for an individual, it's Joaquin Arcionega. If he could come on up. Today, we'd like to honor Joaquin from Antelope Valley Partners for an extraordinary community service and his life-saving actions during a recent medical emergency in our community. I believe there was a mass overdose and he helped respond to that and make sure some of those individuals' lives were saved. We will go ahead and bring up his supervisors. I believe an Ashley Jackson and a Shannon Brooks is in the audience. Why don't you come on down and you both can tell the story of what Joaquin did and what their heroic effort was. Go ahead and tell the story.

Okay. Thank you. Hello, Mayor and council members and everyone. My name is Ashlyn Jackson and I'm honored to serve as the programmatic manager at Antelope Valley Partners for Health. It is truly an honor to actually speak on behalf of such a beautiful person, someone who truly embodies what it means to serve others. Joaquin, actually from the very beginning, even during the interview process, he presented a heart of gold and pure intentions for the role of a community health worker, which is his role at ABPH. He had shared his why with me, and honestly, his why is what called him to serve the community. It was clear that it was more than just the position of a CHW for him. It was more so of a calling, and that calling is one of the reasons why you became a part of the ABPH family. Joaquin, today we celebrate you. We, as in your executive director, Michelle Fluke, your HR director, Will Bullins, as well as one of our associate directors, Shannon Brooks, and I. Today we celebrate you with something that most people would not do. Some may not even think twice about doing, to be honest with you. You stepped up when it mattered. You showed compassion, courage, and genuine commitment to helping others. Your actions have made a difference. And today, we recognize you with the extraordinary Community Service and Life Saving Action Award. Because your service has gone far beyond what you could have ever considered simply just a job, Joaquin, You may not have fully known the impact of the moment when you chose to step in or to help or to honestly just simply care. But today, I hope you know that your actions matter, your service matter, and you matter, my friend. On behalf of Antelope Valley Partners for Health, congratulations, Joaquin. Thank you for answering the call to serve and thank you for just genuinely being you. That's all.

You know, of all the organizations that provide wonderful services in this city, AB Partners for Health, they've been doing this for decades, and they do it really, really well. If you don't know much about them, you should, because they actually perform. They're one of those organizations that They'll take a dollar and get $3 worth of services out of it. They're the real deal for what it's worth.

Okay, let's take a break. We want to thank Michelle. Thank you for your leadership, ma'am. We really appreciate you.

Okay, let's resume. I go to bed at eight o'clock, so we gotta hurry up. Okay, going to new business item one, we'll hear a staff report from Michael Flores. Michael, is this your first presentation? It's your debut.

I know. Here we go. Thank you. Hey, what a one to do it on. It's a great program, so I'm excited to share this. Good afternoon, Mayor Paris and council members. I would like to introduce myself. My name is Michael Flores. I'm a coordinator with the city's economic development team. First off, I would like to thank Vice Mayor Hughes-Leslie, She is an avid open reward user. She uses our app on a regular basis and she actually came up with a really great idea and directed our staff to design a program that assists with our residents and ongoing financial pressure that we are seeing specifically with fuel. The proposed program is Shop, Drive, Fuel, Earn. This is a rebate program that expands upon our existing shop drive earn program by adding a fuel component. This enables residents who enroll a $50 rebate to use towards gas. This program is for residents within the city of Lancaster. All residents will be eligible to enroll in this program. Once eligibility is verified, residents will be able to make a purchase at a gas station, upload a photo of the receipt, and select the payout method for up to $50. This is limited to one $50 reward per resident, not per household. Pending approval, the application developer is ready to finalize the components and complete this integration. As soon as it's ready, we'll share it. It's launched via social media. Are there any questions?

Michael, I have to correct the record. I wish I could take credit for this idea. I do take credit for teaching the mayor how to download the app on his phone. Right. Fact. He, she tried. I succeeded. But this is the mayor's idea. I wish I could take credit, but. It really was because the mayor and as a local commuter myself, I am excited for not only myself, but the whole community. So thanks mayor for looking out for us. I know your commute is very short to the office, but for people like me who commute, it's going to help tremendously. So thank you.

It's really easy to lose sight of the fact that simply because we might drive locally, most of the people are not. Most of the people are commuting. And gas is a horrendous problem right now. This will help. It's not going to solve it, but it will help.

Absolutely. So I do have a question. How do you qualify? Maybe I missed it, but how do you qualify? What makes a resident qualify?

This is available for all City of Lancaster residents. I'll go through a few of the steps. If you're brand new to the program and you want to learn how to do it, step one would be you download the app on the Apple App Store. It's called Open Rewards. As soon as you download it, you'll be prompted to create your free account. and then you'll select Lancaster as your community. Once you're in, there's a button right there that'll pop up and says Voucher Redemption. You click that, it'll give you the code, which is LANDFUEL50, and then it will give you some verification steps to verify your residency. It goes by address. So if it verifies your residency in the City of Lancaster, $50 is automatically added to your Lancaster Fuels Wallet. Make a purchase at any participating gas station in the City of Lancaster. There'll be a full list on our website. They're also listed within the app in the Discover tab. Make a purchase and then select redemption and we'll pay you out in your payout method choice. Thank you. Ms. Layton.

Just want to say thank you for the app because I actually use it. And so before deciding where to go and shop, I actually look at the apps where I could get some rewards back. So thank you for that. I have a few questions. Can you give us a breakdown? What was the original allocation for this program as you are adding an extra component? And then how much money do we still have left from the original allocation or are we adding new funding?

There's no new additional funding. The original allocation for ShopDrive Earn was $250,000 and right now we are at just about $210,000 that will be added for this fuel component. That will serve, if all of those funds are used for this program, that will serve 4,200 residents.

Thank you. Amazing. My daughters will love it.

Thank you. Thank you. It's Lancaster. You guys are the most innovative people I've ever come across. How do we help people with their gas? You came up with it. The other thing is, when was the last meeting? You did this fast. You execute quickly. I rarely see that in government. Thank you.

have a great team great team great leadership we appreciate it great thank you so any speaker cards yes mayor we have two individuals who wish to speak on mb1 i'm sorry we had two okay mr miguel coronado

There's Dr. Coronado, by the way. Do not take money, spend additional administration, administering a government program involving third party platform and then present 50 bucks back to residents as the answer. That's not a good idea. How is that a good idea? 42,000 of 165,000, get out of here. Tell us the total cost. How much will the program cost? How much will the administration cost? How much will open rewards receive? What is the maximum amount the city will spend? If you cannot give taxpayers a complete price, do not approve it. Lancaster's families do not need another government program with unanswered cost. They need responsible government. Not $100 million for the RS Paracenter or $85 million for the Aquatic Center. It's just a waste of taxpayer money. $70 million for police departments, Lancaster and shared department included. And $50 now of rebate. Now, if we're going to do that, we need to start with seniors. I have three of my senior friends back there. Hopefully, the gentleman that presented very eloquently could show my senior friends. and my neighbors how to get those $50 because they're hard workers and they care to come to the community and speak up. If that gentleman was so kind enough to help the seniors download this app, if you're going to give this money and these people vote for it, please make sure seniors are the first ones to get it. By the way, I pay taxes too, so if you want to help me download that app and give me 50 bucks, I'll take it, but I recommend that you guys not vote for this. This is a shitty idea.

Next up, we have Ms. Boswell. Ms. Boswell.

Hi, Mayor, City Council. How are you? I'm good, thank you. I just have a couple of questions. I have the Open Rewards app, which I love. My question is, is that the same app as the Open Rewards we have now?

So it'll be- You got to ask them because- I know, you don't know.

Sorry, Mayor. Okay, so is it the same app and then it's just $50 one time deal, okay? And then they said participate in gas stations, so we'll have to look on there to see which ones are participating. Because some places I know had open rewards, like did have open rewards, but now it's , so now they don't do open rewards. So that was my questions. So thank you very much for your time.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Mayor, may I answer her question? Yes, please. So yes, it is the same app. And again, this is a partnership. We're not the only city to participate in this. We want you guys to shop local. We want you to shop local. We want our money to stay within our community. It's no secret that we win the city's most friendliest, correct me if I'm wrong, it's the most business-friendly city, time and time again. I think we're on a 3P, right? 4P. 4P, sorry. And it's partnerships like this. It's connecting you to our local businesses here in the community. So yes, through the mayor's vision, we want to connect you to those local gas stations here in our community. And it's the same app. If you don't know how to download it, Rocio and myself would be glad to show you. I'm sure Michael will as well. And just know that you're supporting our community. And we didn't have to do this. Again, the mayor said, I have this idea. Help me figure out how to make it happen. People are hurting. So thank you for your question. I'm glad you're excited. I'm excited.

Okay, just to let everybody know, it doesn't cost you anything to do. download the app and use it. As you as a user, it costs you nothing just to participate in local shopping for our small businesses here in Lancaster. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am.

Mayor.

Thank you.

Sorry, I wanted to say something. So thank you to the community for sharing. You are our champion for sharing our app, so thank you for that. A recommendation to the city, I know you said you're gonna post it on social media. Can we also attend some Monday Night Bites, some senior programs, some locations where we could have staff to show them? I know that they show me and I show some other people in the community, but there's certain members in our community that they struggle with with apps and uploading and stuff like that.

Terrific. A few years ago, we were trying to create a city bank so that we could create an environment for people. They didn't have to go to the payday loans. They paid 20% or 50% or whatever it is. And we almost got there. And then they changed the rules, and we couldn't do it. But as I was listening to Heather about why people get driven into homelessness, we should work on that. We should figure out a way that we could have short-term loans. The assumption is they're not going to pay it back. I think they will. I think we will be fine with it, especially if we could use AI to help us sort. I don't know. If anybody wants a project that would be world-changing, that's it. That's one of them if you're interested. Okay. Moving on.

Mayor, if there's no further discussion, call for the motion.

Keep me on track. Is there a motion?

I move to approve MV1.

Second, is there a second?

Second.

Let's vote. And it's unanimous. Now for the lightning rod business item, NB2, Alison Burns.

I love being the lightning rod. Good afternoon, Mayor Parris and council members. Before you for consideration today is an action to introduce an ordinance to amend section 2.04.030 of the Lancaster Municipal Code to establish the salaries of the mayor and the council members at the amount authorized by the government code for general law cities at which is currently set at $600, and this action would increase that amount to, sorry, my notes are not playing nicely with me, just over $2,000. So that would be an increase over the current number. This number has not changed since 1995. That was when the council's compensation was last updated. So it is before you for consideration and introduction today. This is an ordinance change, so it would come back to you for second read at a later meeting if it is approved for introduction. I'm happy to answer any questions.

We have speaker cards, ma'am?

I imagine we do.

I believe we do, yes.

Get out of the way. Miss Michele? Sorry, Ms. Michele, I'm gonna interrupt for just one second if you guys can pause. We're gonna try something new this time, if you'll entertain my idea, Mayor. I'm going to announce five names, and then just to make sure we're most efficient in our time use, I'm gonna have you guys line up in this first row that says reserved. That way we can negate all the calling and walking down. So get ready to hear your name and join us in the hot seat. So we're gonna have Ms. Michele as number one, Number two is Mr. Coronado. Three, we're going to have, I believe it's Mr. Harris. Is there a Ms. Harris in the crowd? Okay, and then number four would be Ms. Boswell. So if those speakers that I called can go ahead and stand here in the front row. Thank you for entertaining my idea, Mayor. Okay. Mr. Harris and or Ms. Harris, are you with us?

Issam Harris? Issam? Issam?

No? OK. Do we have the other three? Right. Perfect. OK. Mayor, sorry. Issam left? Oh, OK.

Hi. Awesome idea. We thought of that before. I put myself under general, so I didn't know I was coming up this quick with this. I don't really understand the 600 to 2,000 she was talking about. I don't really understand this. All I saw was the salaries of the mayor and the city council are being renegotiated or whatever have you. So you'll have to explain to us what that means, because we don't really know what it means. It's not saying any amounts. But she just said $600,000 to $2,000. What?

My colleagues have asked me not to comment until all the speakers are done.

We're trying a new thing. That's all right.

I can see the benefit of that. You know, essentially what this is is it raises the salary of the council to what other cities are making. I mean, it hasn't been a raise in 30 years. What is Palmdale?

2,000.

They've been getting 2,000 for I don't know how long. And I don't take any of this. I've never taken a dime from the city in 20 years. But these guys do an incredible amount of work, incredible amount of work. Now it's all computerized, but it used to be a book this thick they had to go through before every meeting. They have to attend all these different events, and then they have to deal with constituents. I think they ought to at least be on parity with other cities for what it's worth. I don't know that I have the votes to pass this, but when I heard that the disparity existed, I put it on the agenda.

If I even saw correctly, I think it's like $150,000 or $300,000. In that range, we can live off of that. Right now is just maybe not the time for us to be messing around with that thought. Why don't we put it towards the sewer instead? Okay, just a thought.

Just a thought.

Okay, we're going to try again. The mayor is going to do his best to hold his comments till the end, but he is the mayor so he gets to decide what he does. Up next we have Mr. Coronado.

We the people oppose this proposed compensation increase. Tonight you're considering setting the salary of the mayor, multimillionaire, He deserves it. A new city council member at $2,550 per month. The city attorney knew that. Let's do the math. $2,550 per month times 12 months equals $30,600 per year for each elected official. Does not count benefits. Lancaster has five elected council members, including the mayor, who's super rich. He could fund you guys like he funds most of your campaigns. multiply that by 3,600 by five, that equals to 153,000 per year in base salaries. Like the lovely lady said, throw it towards the assessments. And taxpayers deserve another number. What is the increase over what you already being paid? Tell us the current salary. Tell us the proposed salary. Tell us the dollar increase. Tell us the percentage increase. Then tell us the complete compensation package. What about benefits? What about allowances? What about reimbursements? What about travels? What about other taxpayer-funded compensations? The public deserves the full number. And the timing of this proposal demands an explanation. This same agenda asks residents to confront sewer service charges, landscaping assessment, draining assessment, the new minor use permit fee. Residents are being asked to watch their own costs. You should show the same discipline with yours. We oppose this salary charge until the city publicly discloses the complete financial impact. Before voting, answer these questions. What are you paid today? How much more would you receive? What is the percentage increase? What is the total annual increase for all five elected officials? What is the total cost, including every other form of taxpayer funded compensation? And most importantly, why should Lancaster taxpayers pay more for electoral officials compensation at the same meeting where property owners are facing sewer charges and multiple assessments? Public officials comes with public accountability. Mayor says you like accountability, prove it. This money does not belong to the city council. This money belongs to the public, my neighbor, my senior citizens that are supporting today. This is taxpayer money. If you believe that this increase is justified, make the case publicly. Show us the numbers, show us the complete cost, explain the public benefit.

Next up, we have Ms. Foster.

To show the records clear, I'm not a millionaire.

Up next we have, hey, hey, hey, hey, Ms. Boswell, please.

I would like to say something.

We're trying a new thing, you guys. Understood, but- Mr. White, we're going to go ahead and let Ms. Boswell speak, and then we all will have an opportunity to speak.

Ms. Boswell, the floor is yours. Thank you. Again, Mayor, City Council. Okay, my question to you is I oppose it for the following reasons. It says on here that it may be set from time to time and changed by ordinance. It sets no dollar ceiling and it says it's at the City Council's discretion. As I have stated before, I am a senior citizen. I am retired and I live on a fixed income. I figured it out. If you guys have currently 600 and you're going to now increase it to $2,550, that's an increase of $1,950. I was on Palmdale's website and theirs is $1,500 including health benefits. Now, is this also plus health benefits that you want an increase to? Those are my questions and that is the reason why I'm opposing it because I could live off of that money. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you, Ms. Boswell. Mayor, that concludes our comments.

Excuse me, ma'am. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You have to have a speaker card before you can speak.

And I put in, I'm trying to tell you what happened. Oh, okay. If you'll give me a moment.

Sure.

I put in for speaker, so I'm on. I shifted that to speak on this item. We had a problem getting into the computer to do it. Okay. You can speak. So if you indulge me, thank you. The chair recognizes you, but I need your name, okay? Thank you. My name is Philip Brown. I'm a resident of Lancaster. First, I want to thank you, Mayor, City Council, for allowing me to speak. I wasn't initially going to speak on this item, but I thought I would and I should because I have a little experience in politics and the nature of things. Typically, what happens is These positions are free because it helps eliminate black and brown people from participating here. Because you can't afford to spend the money to come to meetings and so forth. And so if it's free, the only person that represents is usually those that are wealthy. So I have no qualms with the increase. Because one, I don't know what the budget you manage, the five of you. but I'm sure it's in the millions of dollars. And for you to not be paid to manage our money, and I think the first reason I was getting up on the other clock, and I may not get up now, I want my children, my grandchildren to understand that you guys work for me, and you work for them, and they should be be comfortable coming down here and talking with you about the issues. And I want them to, because again, you're our employee. And as such, absolutely, I want to pay you to do the job. Now, the lady made a comment on something I wasn't aware of. that is at the discretion of someone to raise this beyond what I see here, that I think is something that would be an issue. Other than that, no, I'm totally for the city council and the mayor to be paid for the job and in commensurate with what is being done in other cities, absolutely. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Brown. Now, Mayor, turn it back over to you.

That was good. I hadn't thought of that, but that is accurate. They have to dig into their pocket every day to sit in these chairs. They just do. It's expensive. You're right. You're right. You close the door. if you make it too expensive to come in. And like I said, I've never taken a dime, but that doesn't mean I should, because exactly what you said, I shouldn't be here because I can afford to be here. Hopefully I'm here because I do a good job for the people of Lancaster. And you made a lot of sense. Now, they're in a tough spot here, because they're in a tough spot. But when I look at what other public agencies make, what do the school boards make? All of them are being paid. And all of them make more than your council does, a lot more. And these guys don't have credit cards. Everybody else has credit cards. Palmdale Council has credit cards they use whenever they decide it's for the benefit of the city, regardless of the restaurant or bar that's at. We don't have credit cards, nor will we. I don't know. I value what you said. I mean, in my office, the rule is they have to be at the upper 90%. But they work really, really hard. And for what it's worth, that's what I think. Thank you. Thank you. And where have you been? Why aren't you involved?

Is that rhetorical, or do you want me to say the answer? I'm going to share it with my friend here. I've been here 19 years, and the first day I got a haircut, I met Mayor Henry Hearns. He sat in the chair. And a couple weeks later, I met with Darren Parker. And you guys weren't ready for me. Here I am.

I think we're ready.

Mayor, at this time, would you like to ask the teammates their comments? I know Councilmember White had a comment or question or an answer.

Yes. We come here every day to listen to you. We're very respectful. And I would ask that you not make false allegations. towards this dais and I will ask that you be respectful towards this dais. If you wanna come in here and make a spectacle, this is not the place. We're here to conduct business and make sure that we serve you. Now, if this is not the place for you to come and conduct business and you wanna make it about you and hurl false, Accusations at this dais, I ask respectfully Dr. Coronado to please not do that. Thank you. No, you cannot.

Mayor, I think other teammates want to comment too.

Yeah, Rex, may I speak given my time on the council? This clarify because I think there was a little bit of confusion. We currently make $600 a month. I have drawn that salary on a monthly basis since I got elected in 2008. I will show you my documentation where I'm into the tens of thousands that I give to charity because I'm in a position to be able to do that, often at times in my capacity as a council member. Now, here's another one for you. Based on the number of hours I work, and I make jest to this, I haven't said this to Traleece, but I have shared it with past city managers, when it's time for me to exit, I could file a lawsuit against the city of Lancaster for not paying me minimum wage. So I do want to let you know as what's already been stated. But anyway, I just thought I'd share that.

Next comment.

That's an interesting concept. Yes. Waiting time penalties is where you really make the bucks. Anyway, just thought I'd share that with you.

I'll know the answer to that next week.

Wow, this is tough. I don't have the capacity or I'm to do what Rex and Kenman does, right, to donate. And thank you for doing that, because I know the scholarships that you have given out to our youth. Thank you for donating to our nonprofits. It is true. We put a lot of hours. Right after work, I attend events. I have to pick up dinner for myself. I get home and have my dinner in my bed. And then the next day, I do the same thing. So it's a lot of work and I didn't know before I decided to run. But it's a privilege to serve you. It's a privilege to be here and I thank everyone for trusting us. I also believe that it's not the right time right now to make a decision right now. I would like to request just to pause it just for a little bit, let's assess, and then let's come back. That will be my recommendation. But I will tell you, I do need it. Because we work very hard, and it gets very expensive. Because I do travel everywhere, and I try to attend several events. And when I'm out there, when somebody asks us for an ice cream, we purchase that ice cream out of our pocket. When people say, can you donate to our nonprofit? I donate to their nonprofit. Thank you.

On the table.

I think you're calling for a motion, Mayor?

Major, sorry, I'm putting you in the military.

Mayor, I would like to make a motion to table new business item number two.

Is there a second?

I'll second that motion.

Let's vote. And we'll table it. Moving on to the public hearings, PH1, the public hearing is now open. We'll hear a staff report from Kendall, how do you say your last name?

Brecky.

Brecky, okay. Now you're an old hand at this. We expect something riveting.

This is at least my second time presenting. Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the City Council, I'm Kendall Brekke. I'm the Planning Manager for Community Development. The item before you is functionally a reduction in our minor use permit application fee. We added the minor use permit to the municipal code in 2022. At that time, we applied the most similar existing fee from our citywide fee schedule. With the new MARC compliance program that's underway affecting massage, alcohol, recycling, and tobacco businesses, we heard from business owners that they were primarily concerned with the minor use permit fee cost. As a result, we worked with a consultant to evaluate the fee and ensure only cost recovery. With the new fee, we're going with a reduction from about $4,300 to about $1,000 for all minor use permit applications. Thank you, and I'm available if you have any questions.

Thank you. Any questions? Any speaker cards?

Yes, Mayor. There's a handful, so we're going to try my method again.

Madam Vice Mayor, I don't think there are any on PH1. I think you're looking at CPH1.

Can we bring the cards back? Okay, I stand corrected. We have zero speaker cards.

My faith has been restored. Okay. Any questions? Any comments? Is there a motion?

You're going to close the public hearing?

I got to close the public hearing.

I was trying to signal.

You did. You even signaled me and I'm wondering what is she doing with her hands? Okay. Public hearing is closed. Is there a motion?

I would like to make a motion to adopt resolution number 26-59, which is also PH1.

I'll second that motion.

Let's vote. And it passes unanimously. Open the public hearing on PH2. And we'll hear from George Harris, the deputy city manager.

Actually, Mayor, I'm going to have Sydney Valdivia make that presentation today regarding the annual action plan for HUD.

Okay. Your boss got stage fright. It's up to you.

That's okay. I'm good. Good afternoon, Mayor Paris, members of City Council. I am Cindy Valdivia, your CDBG and Lancaster Energy Analyst. Before you today is a request to approve a substantial amendment to the already approved 2627 Annual Action Plan for CDBG. This amendment would repurpose $896,419 previously allocated dollars from the Sergeant Steve Oven Memorial Park reroof project to a broader citywide facilities reroof and HVAC improvement project. This change allows the city greater flexibility to address critical roofing and HVAC needs at multiple facilities throughout the city, including the Stanley Kleiner Building, while ensuring the funds can be expanded into a timely manner and continue to meet the national objectives provided by HUD. There's no impact to the city's general fund as these previously approved dollars have already been awarded and staff simply recommends to Council to conduct the required public hearing approve the substantial amendment and Authorize a city manager or designee to execute and submit any necessary documents to HUD I'm available for any questions.

Thank you. Any questions? No speaker cards So let's close the public hearing. You see how well I did? I'm a quick study.

Mayor, I make a motion to approve PH2.

Is there a second?

Second.

Let's vote. It passes unanimously. Before I go into why a few of you are here, I've been cautioned not to say this. I'm going to say it anyway. You know, sometimes you have a position. You have a stance on an issue. And people will come along and champion that for you. And it's only natural that we attach to that person. One of those people has just become too much. He was overheard calling Mr. White a coon. That is unacceptable. He has, the time before, called one of the women in our staff a bitch. That is unacceptable. And there's not much I can do about it, but you can. You can, because he's representing you. And it is not appropriate to engage in that kind of conduct ever. And look what it does. Look what it does to the creativity of the group. Do you want a creative council or do you want one that's angry? Because I guarantee you, today they are angry. You do not get to treat any of us like that. You do not get to talk to our staff like that. And I think I've said enough, because I think the people in this room recognize that. But I'm asking you to put a stop to it. If he's going to come up and represent you, make him do it in a way that you would do it. You would never behave that way. Why are you letting him? Thank you. CPH 1. We now return to the continued public hearings on Lancaster sewer system. First, the fiscal year 2026-27 sewer service charges and the annual report filed under health and safety code section 5473. And second, the separately noticed proposed increases to the sewer service charges, both continued from July 14. By resolution number 2657, both public hearings remain open. And now Nicole Jones. Sorry to, I mean, how do you follow that?

I'm going to be as riveting as possible. Okay. I'm going to channel my inner rod. Good afternoon, Mayor Paris and members of the City Council. Before you today is the continued public hearings regarding the City Sewer Service charges, as Mayor R.X. Paris mentioned. As a reminder, the city assumed responsibility for operating and maintaining the Lancaster sewer collection system in 2008 from Los Angeles County. Each year, the city council is required to adopt the annual sewer service charge based on the engineer's report prepared pursuant to health and safety code section 5473. In addition to the annual levy, the City Council initiated Proposition 218 proceedings on May 26th to consider increasing the maximum authorized sewer service charges. Required notices were mailed to all affected property owners on May 30th, and the public hearings were opened on July 14th before being continued to today's meeting. Since that time, written protests continue to be accepted, and after the close of the public hearing today, the protest tabulation will be finalized. The city's current sewer service charge is $78 per sewer unit, which generates approximately $4.5 million to support the sewer collection system. If approved, the Proposition 218 proceedings would establish a new maximum authorized rate with the fiscal year 26-27 annual charge set at $164.70 per sewer unit. Future annual charges will still require city council approval each year through the annual levy process and could never exceed the voter approved maximum without another Proposition 218 proceeding. As a reminder, this proposal is about so much more than increasing a fee. For nearly two decades, the existing sewer service charge has only allowed the city to fund bare minimum necessary to keep the system operating. A simple analogy is this. For nearly 20 years, we've been able to sweep the floor, but we have not been able to replace the floor. And now the floor is worn out and is starting to fall apart. There are some areas in Lancaster where our sewer system is over 50 years old. We've continued to clean, inspect, respond to emergencies, and perform routine maintenance to keep the system functioning. What we haven't had are the resources needed to systematically rehabilitate and replace aging infrastructure before it fails. We don't have to look very far to see a prime example of what happens when there's a catastrophic failure. In West Hollywood just a couple of weeks ago, a huge water main broke, resulting in flooding and property damage. Now imagine if that was your sewer line.

you

It's also important to remember that these are restricted funds. By law, sewer service charge revenues can only be used for costs directly related to the city's sewer collection system, including its operation, maintenance, repair, rehabilitation, and replacement. They cannot be used for unrelated city services or general fund purposes. In addition, these funds are reviewed annually through the city's budget process and the engineer's report. Each year, the City Council approves the annual sewer service charge based on the actual funding needed to operate and maintain the system, ensuring the revenues continue to be used solely for their intended purpose. The purpose of this increase is to provide sustainable funding not only for the day-to-day operations and maintenance, but also for the rehabilitation and replacement of our aging pipes, manholes, and other critical sewer infrastructures so we can move from reacting to failures to proactively maintaining the system for future generations. To provide some perspective, staff also compared Lancaster's total annual residential sewer costs with neighboring and peer agencies. It's important to remember that homeowners pay both the city's sewer collection charge and the Los Angeles County Sanitation District charge. As shown on the comparison slide, Lancaster's current total annual residential sewer cost is $565.88. With the proposed increase, the total annual residential sewer cost will be $652.58. By comparison, Palmdale residents currently pay $816.15. Victorville residents pay approximately $879.72. And our neighbor to the north, Bakersfield, their current annual residential rate is $475, with increases of $100 occurring every year for the next four years. Even with the proposed increase, Lancaster's total annual residential sewer cost remains approximately 20% lower than Palmdale's, while allowing the city to begin making the long-term infrastructure investments that have been deferred for many years. Thank you, Mayor and Council. That concludes my presentation, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

It's impressive. I mean, no, it is. Any questions? You know, I had a conversation with Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, a couple weeks ago. We've been working with her on turning off the spigot, is what I call it. And she was telling me how in LA, you know, everything that's on the surface, you know, the council wants to have taken care of, if you can see it. And then there's a fire and the city burned because we weren't taking care of the things underneath the streets. It's something to consider. And I'm afraid we're going down that path also. I don't know how, I thought Mr. Callaway had a good idea of making it a graduated introduction. And we haven't figured out how to do that yet. I think I would like you to meet with him and see if the two of you could come up with a way to do that and have the city manager involved. Let's see where that takes us. Absolutely. I would recommend that we table this also until after Mr. Callaway meets with the staff and we have a plan.

We will have a very serious timing problem. We are at the limit of the dates on which we can submit this to the county for levy. We cannot go past today.

So where's Mr. Callaway?

President.

Mayor, he's on the lineup for the speakers.

Okay. Would you like- Make him go first. Okay. I want to hear what his ideas are in doing that, because we obviously have to raise it. but I think the amount that if we raised it, right?

Well, we do have the option of adopting it at $164.70, but that would be the maximum charge and wouldn't necessarily be the charge that would actually be placed on the tax roll. You can charge less.

Okay, so we adopt it. We have a cushion there to work with, but that isn't what they have to pay yet. Help me out here. I didn't get a high school education.

Mayor, just a quick reminder too. We had discussed potentially working with our senior citizens who are on fixed incomes, figuring out a way in which we subsidize or phase in their fees as well. Alison, correct me if I'm wrong. We have flexibility within within the limit once it's- Within the envelope. Within the envelope. However, this is, to my understanding, the last day to get it on the books.

Right. We do need to act today if we are going to levy on this year's tax roll, which we really must do in order to ensure we can do our ongoing maintenance. If you do approve the increase, do some of those replacements that need to be done. If the council wants to set up any sort of rebate program or anything that would come from the general fund only, it would not come from the special fund created and collected pursuant to this assessment. That can be done at any time after this, but we do have to act today if we're going to levy

and have the funds to maintain our system we have pushed this and pushed it and we cannot we have now hit the deadline we've actually yeah it has to go to the county today you guys any thoughts i'm i'm more inclined to deal with the matters at hand and i think ultimately your suggestion of coming up with some kind of a program for specifically seniors i think that that would give us the ability to take a look at that and not have a gun to our head, so to speak, on making decisions.

Okay, somebody make a motion.

We still have a lot of public comment.

I know, but I want to hear the motion so they know what they're commenting on. Understood. Thank you.

I would like to make a motion to hold this sewer taxes in advance. That's what I would like to make a motion to do.

We can't do that. If we do that, it ties our hands, right? Correct. And we can't develop anything from it. But we don't have to actually charge it until we come up. I mean, help me out here. Sure. This is very unique.

The action that you're being asked to take today is to... Hey, that guy knows the answer.

Get up here. He knows the answer. Can I ask you a question?

Yes, I know. We have to set the rate today because we have to submit the levy to the county for inclusion on the property tax bills today. It is the end of the timeline. If we do not submit the levy, we will collect none of the dollars, not the existing. The sewer system will not be maintained.

Come on, we're trying to work this out. Let her talk.

and the sewer system will not have funding for maintenance. There will be no maintenance fund to maintain the sewer or make any improvements. We do need to adopt a resolution setting a levy rate today. We can do any number up to the amount that was noticed and sent out for public protest. I do recommend in order to maintain your system and have a functioning sewer system that you do adopt it, but you're the elected officials, but it does have to happen today. Unfortunately, we are now at the limit of timelines.

Can I ask a couple clarifying questions? Today is the deadline. Today is the deadline. If we do nothing, there will be no sewage funding. Correct. Please be respectful. I'm trying to clarify, guys. We have a box of ballots that you guys are going to count and share. Correct. So we've executed the democratic system in which people got to weigh in their opinions. Correct. Mayor, I would really like to, we have 10 people who want to comment on this. So before we make a motion.

Okay, so you have the parameters of what we're considering.

Yes, I understand my right and left limits now. I strongly urge that rather than making a motion, I would really like to hear from these 10 individuals.

Okay.

and then I would also really like to hear what the box of ballots say, and then we can move forward as a team.

Perfect. There is a motion pending and it sounds like, well, Mr. Mayor, I'll leave it to you whether you're soliciting a second or if you want to hear comments before soliciting a second. Okay.

Thank you. Thanks, Alison.

I do have a story to tell though. People have made comments about My office was blessed by God in ways I never dreamed would happen. But my first job in Lancaster was with the largest law firm, the most successful law firm, and they had five partners, and three of them were over 65. And they would not invest anything into that firm. They were using electric typewriters long after computers came in because they wouldn't invest. You will not recognize the name of that firm because they went out of business. We invest in our firm. There's 150 people that work there now because we invest. I think it applies to a city. I mean, what is the best way to invest is what we should be discussing, not do we invest at all.

Okay, Mayor, if you'll entertain my idea again. We're going to load up the hot seats, so I'm going to call five names. If you could join us in the first row, that way we can make best use of our time. So number one, Ms. Thart. Ms. Thart. Number two, Ms. Benson. Number three, Ms. Johnson. Number four, Mr. Coronado. And number five, Mr. G or Rich. You like Mr. G, I'll take Mr. G. Okay, so that's Ms. Thart, Ms. Benson, Ms. Johnson, Mr. Coronado, Mr. G. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mayor.

Good afternoon. I came back from vacation to all of this, so all these ballots in my mailbox, so I was very interested in hearing the process. I thought an assessment would be something I would vote on besides this ballot, and I'm assuming right now that I'm wrong, that it is just something the City Council will decide without the voter input at this point. And I wanted to just remind you of everything else that everyone has said about inflation. You guys have recognized it. You want to give people $50 back on a gas card because gas is horrendous. My lima beans went from 99 cents three years ago to $1.50. If I'm lucky, I can find them on sale. The worst part of it all is my house insurance. It went from $800 in 2021 to over $4,000. And I put in a protest on it, and they said I'm now in a fire, what they designate as a fire zone, even though I'm at Avey College, but because everything's happening out at 70th Street, my insurance, what would you consider that, more than tripling in that amount of time? That's the hardship for me. That was all I wanted to say. Thank you. Thank you.

Shouldn't we be looking at whether or not they're phoning up the fire zones?

Allison? We did. We actually have done a comprehensive analysis of the newer fire zones, and we pushed back against the state. We did not get anywhere with Cal Fire, and they held the line on these new fire zones that they draw. It did impact a significant amount of our residents on the west side. So why aren't we suing them?

That's the state of California again. Yep. Yep.

Did we assess the likelihood of success if we filed a lawsuit?

Yes.

I take it that it was not positive.

Okay.

We'll revisit it later.

Ms. Benson?

Hello. This is my first time up here and I'm really nervous. Welcome. Welcome. Thank you. First, I would like to thank and give my respect to Mayor Paris for taking care of Lancaster while the rest of us have been working. My name is Heather Ann Benson and I want to clarify my middle name as I keep getting mail for Heather E. Benson. I'm not sure if she's a fraudster, whatever. My family calls them money grubbers. My husband and I live at 93534 by Avenue K and 12th Street West. The 93534 is mostly retired and disabled people, but I've seen some younger families recently. We live in a small house that we bought, my husband and I, in 2016. I called it our groovy little hippie pad. We have six ring cameras, so we see a whole lot of criminal drug addict night. I call them criminal drug addict night breeds on the street. My husband is an excellent plumber and a caretaker for me. I was a medical legal clerk for an applicant's attorney's law firm in Van Nuys across the street from the Workers' Comp Appeals Board. We both have worked very, very hard all of our lives to get where we are today. We make sure we live within our means and do not squander money. My husband loves Lancaster and so here we are. I'm not clear as to the workings of our public works and who's responsible for what's currently going on. I had a whole thing because I thought we were going to be addressing all the sewage, the landscape and everything. So as far as this, I say no to this because we just can't afford it. We're paying bills, mortgage, property taxes, social security, Medicare. We paid federal income tax, California and California disability. And it's that I recently quit my final job 20 million years due to harassment by an employer as they could not seem to understand my total exhaustion in fighting stage four kidney cancer since 2020. I still worked and drove up and down the AV500, otherwise known as the 14, and sat in traffic for three hours a day, five days a week. I'm sick of the fraud and everything, and everything just keeps going up. up in everything. We played by the rules. We want to make sure that we're not poor and we outlive our money. That's my main thing. I have a really tough problem with LA County. I'm not sure what's going on down there that is affecting our prices up here. I would just like for some kind of recognition and i would also like to know um who i can contact for i've had a medical abuse by la county and it's been medical and physical and mental so i would really like to get some kind of contact with somebody there thank you

Okay. Yep. Okay, good.

I just wanted to make sure I reminded everyone that written protests against the increases can be submitted to the city clerk at any time before the close of the public hearing. We're approaching that after everyone speaks, so I want to make sure if anyone has a written protest, get it submitted now, please. Thank you.

Thank you.

Trulies, you heard the mayor connector with Chuck. Okay. Up next, we have Ms. Johnson.

Hello, everyone. Hello. I submitted my written objection to the city clerk, and I saw that each of you all got a copy to read. Hopefully you did. It was five pages. I submitted it to you all, so they won't have to listen to me go on and on like last time. Okay. I have three objections. Number one is the city provided only an unsigned, uncertified preliminary report as a basis for a rate increase instead of the final adopted engineer's report required under Prop 218. Second objection, the notice uses AB 2180's future methodology and the cost of service prelim analysis. As you all know, AB 2180 has not been signed into law yet. Current Prop 218 requires parcel specific proportional cost attribution, not future assumptions. I heard, I think it was the mayor, I don't know if he was joking or not, but say that that will require maybe having to count all the flushes per parcel. And if that's what it takes by law, that's what is required to make this rate increase, be fair. Number three, walk-in protest ballots were taken by city hall front reception staff and placed into an unsecure box, creating a chain of custody breach and violating the notice's instruction that ballots may be personally delivered to the city clerk. Prop 218 requires a valid reliable protest process and a broken chain of custody undermines that requirement. For these reasons, the city has not met the state constitutional requirements of Prop 218 and I respectfully request withdrawal of the proposal. Then I also made a note about what I heard said if I may digress. I believe that there should be fairness all the way around. If you all, I believe in fair pay for the council members and likewise I think that there should be fair sewage rates for property owners based on Prop 218, not on AB 2180 which appears to be what's going on and that has not been signed into law yet and not based on a prelim cost of service report. That's all.

Where is our city attorney?

Right here. Sorry. Helping a citizen.

Have you read her?

Yes. Yes. Many of the issues she raises are not applicable to a majority protest issue, which is what this one is. The lighting and maintenance districts were a required affirmative vote. This is a majority protest process. So there's two different processes under Proposition 218, and a lot of her comments are speaking to the other process.

Thank you.

Yep.

Up next we have Mr. Coronado.

Dr. Coronado. First and foremost, you're right, Mayor, I do represent thousands and thousands of people that couldn't be here at 1.30. You're absolutely right about that, and some of the people that are here behind me. So to clarify, I would never call, yeah, you could walk out all you want. You were talking about being respectful. Walk out. Ms. Hughes, I would never call you a bitch, because I think you're referring to you. Never. I might call you something else, but not that. I definitely wouldn't call Rocio Castellanos that. I love her. Okay, so I just want to make that clear. As far as the coon, sir, I heard you behind him. I said, not for me, I said some people refer to him as a coon. An example, I don't care what you have to say, bro. An example is Clarence Thomas, and sometimes people use it as an insult for black people. They believe you're seeking approval from white people or acting against other black people. When you vote for assessments, that's acting against not only black people, but white people, brown people, and all colored people. How much more will Lancaster homeowners pay? Tell us what a typical single family homeowner pays today. Tell us what the same homeowner will pay under the proposed rates. Tell us the dollar increase. Tell us percentage increases. Tell us the maximum amount you are authorized for future years. Do not hide the household impact behind percentages and government reports. Give residents a dollar amount. Then tell us how much money is currently in the sewer fund. How much money is held in reserves? How much additional revenue will these increases generate? How much goes directly into sewer infrastructure? How much goes into salaries? How much goes into administration? How much goes into consultants and contractors? This is a Proposition 218 proceeding. So before you vote publicly announced, how many valid property owners protests did you receive? What percentages of affected properties does that represent? Residents deserve those numbers before council takes action. Our position is clear. Before asking property owners for more money, provide why the money already being collected is insufficient. Show us the projects, show us the reserves, show us the expenses, show us the household impact. We the people oppose higher sewer charges, do not make Lancaster property owners pay more without complete financial accountability. Voters, vote no on the proposed increase. And finally, I say I would never, ever back down from anything or anybody. If anything that I say is incorrect or I say the RX pairs is $200 million and it's $100 million, text me, I'll correct the record. I have no problem being wrong. If I could be corrected, then I'll do it. Whether it's professionally or rurally or not, I'm willing to be corrected.

Thank you. Up next, we have Mr. G.

Mayor, Councilman, I want to say vote no on increase. Why isn't this proposal in the agenda, the cost? I can review this online, but I can't find out what the cost of the total proposal cost would be. It's not in the wording, and I'd like to see it on the wording so when I read it online, I know what I'm coming here for. You talk about senior citizen, I'm a senior citizen, and you talk about increased prices. Does increased prices really lead to homelessness? Because I'm a senior citizen and that's my concern, that it would lead to homelessness. Do you really practice what you preach here? Because I've seen people say it leads to homelessness. The cost increase leads to homelessness. So do you practice what you preach? You also talked about a small increase. If you vote yes to this, to go to a small increase, I would like to see it go to five years and any additional money come out of the general funds to cover up to the five years until we get to the maximum amount. Again, I would say vote no. And if you vote yes, try to do small increments to take it out and use the general funds to cover any additional loss, cost, or whatever. Thank you. Thank you.

Our next set of five speakers will be one, Mr. Callaway, two, Ms. Diane, three, Ms. Michele, four, Ms. Boswell, five, Mr. Gregg.

Sorry, just want to say something. I'm going to make some coffee, but I can still hear you from the back.

I'm going to read the statement that I made before just to get all the information out there and then try to do clarification at the end from what the city attorney is saying. I would like to thank the city for voting to have the public hearing so that we can have a robust discussion about Proposition 218. I think that this specific process should be made into an educational video that shows residents on how the process of city government should work. The staff with the guidance of the council comes up with a plan, then brings it to the residents, engages in discussion, and then uses that information to revise that plan when appropriate. I understand that Proposition 218 passed in November 1996 and amended the California Constitution to limit local government's ability to impose or raise property assessments and property-related fees. With that context, property owners paying for the services we use makes perfect sense as long as we are allowed to have a voice in the process. I think the issue is the community not having clarity. I believe that we can fix that by continuing. Now I know that we can't continue, but that's what off on another at the end. But what I was gonna say is to continue it, the sewer item to accomplish the following. I still think we can accomplish the following doing a new plan. Acknowledging a failed, what I would like the council and everybody to understand, acknowledging a failed majority protest is not the same thing as public approval. Just because this fails doesn't mean that the public is approving it because the standard of 51% means 22,000 votes has to be done and that is almost in my mind impossible when we don't get a third of that for the actual city council race. I would actually like the council to use this discretion to make sure that we approve whatever we approve, but don't approve the actual increase, that we keep it current, Raise it so that we can raise it later if needed but to not do it tonight. Direct the staff to create a community advisory committee as you already asked for and to create a fixed income and low income relief plan and then the criteria for annual accountability report. and then to determine what happens if overcharges or overcollections occur. My request is to make sure we do all of those things and then we can actually move forward to say, if we keep it, now I'm going into the new thing that I just learned. If we keep If we vote on it today because we have no choice, what that means to me is that if we don't vote on it today, then that means zero funds are from the specific districts. That's what we're saying? Zero funds from the specific districts.

If we do not adopt the levy and resolution today, there will be no levy, there will be no funds.

Copy that. That makes sense. That does not mean we have to vote on that we must increase it for the tax roll. All that means is that we have to do a vote. If we did the vote and then actually added the context of the things that I requested, I think that then we would be able to say the current one, whatever that price was that we currently have is what we move forward with. Then in the year time, we still sweep. but we don't replace so that we can come up with a plan to phase in or tier in or the relief plan for low income and fixed income. And then I think we would meet the majority that we need to meet because obviously we can't help, we can't make everyone happy in these situations. So I would like to end in saying that going forward, if we allow people to use racial slurs and they not get kicked out, even when they do it again in a roundabout fashion and not get kicked out, means that we are allowing that to happen. That should never be the case. You should never be allowed, and especially when you actually literally admit to pretending to not say it by saying it in some weak form of the version. Like, if you're going to be racist, lean into it.

Mr. Callaway. Sorry. I agree. Thank you. I just want to keep us on time. Up next, we have Ms. Diane.

Good afternoon, Mayor and city council members. Can we do what he suggested?

No. No. If it is not a true threat, we cannot take away his constitutional right to say bigoted things. No.

No, that's not what I meant.

Sorry, I thought that was the question.

I thought so, too.

Yes, Mayor. Mayor, to answer your question.

Mayor, yes, the council can approve the proposed rate, but only levy the existing fee and phase in that, or... increase it at a later date, allowing us time to come up with incentive programs by working with these groups. That is an option.

And if it is of interest, I'll start crafting a motion for you right now, and we'll be ready to read it. Can I get some head nods if that's of interest? Yes, that would be great.

I am interested. Allison, however, Mayor, I would love to hear from the four remaining speakers we have.

Yes, we will, but I want to...

He's giving them a heads up. He's getting them...

What I have to say was before this revision, so keep that in mind.

There's no revision, ma'am. Please let us know what your thoughts are and make sure. Can you restart her clock, please?

I preface my comments by saying I do not live in Lancaster. I was asked by friends that work to come and represent them as the time of your meetings lock them out of participating in their local government. Their concerns is a potential increase in their property taxes for sanitation sewer fees. They wonder why almost $200 million has been invested to build the Paris Center at the fairgrounds, which as you stated, is state property, the Marvin Christ Aquatic Center, although there are pools at city parks across the valley, and the building at J8 and 25th Street West. These appear to be nothing more than flagship buildings for your names. They do not see the community necessity of any of these sites and question why money was invested in them if there has been a sewer issue. They believe that the money should have been invested in sanitation which benefits all citizens. Many moved here for reasonable housing costs, but over the years have seen their electricity, water, city taxes and property taxes increased significantly. They believe if you have the money for these flagship projects, you should find the money for sewer improvement without raising their taxes. They strongly encourage you not to go forward with the sewer system service charge, lighting and landscaping and maintenance fee. And as a side note with the homeless, presenter mentioned an increase in senior citizens. These increases in property taxes, as well as all the other things I mentioned, hit seniors on Social Security mightily, as Social Security is not keeping pace with the reality of living today. So as stated, the leading cause of homelessness is economic. Thank you. Thank you.

Ms. Michele? I'm not as eloquent as Arthur and Diane are there. You were nice enough to ask us for a committee, to get a committee going of citizens. We did that.

You don't live in Lancaster.

I do have a house in Lancaster and I pay the taxes and they're pretty high. I could still speak for everybody just like Diane did. I am a landlord, I do have to pay those taxes. Now, 30 seconds here. I just want to say you were nice enough to say, hey, why don't you get a committee going and we did do that. We got names and phone numbers and we met with Shoot. Okay. We met with the assistant manager, city manager, right? And then Patty and some other, Nicole, and then late Mr. Trolles came in late. So we've had two meetings and you said to come up with some ideas for the senior sitters.

I wasn't aware.

Thank you.

I was not aware of that.

Oh, you did. You said, come up with it. And so we did. And so anyway, you know, I'm going to say no, I don't want it either, okay? You definitely always have a choice. There is a choice. You don't have to do it now. You can do it next year or whatever have you or do it like Arthur said. Even so, take that committee. There's seven really dedicated people that are willing to give you ideas. A lot of them are here today trying to give the ideas. Either way, even if you say no, you're still going to do it later. You're going to do it later. Take those people right now and let them come up with their ideas to help with the situation. I did not know you only made $2,500 a month. I really did not know that. They don't make that. Excuse me, but what I'm saying is, yeah, I didn't even know that. I thought it was 150,000, okay? I really did not know that. That's how, and I've been coming here for 10 years. I just don't know that stuff, okay? I do work two jobs as well, so. But anyway, okay, but then it was, hmm, I'm all over the place now because I'm a little, but I just want to say no for sure, and that, okay, Sorry, I like what Carla said about the law, making sure that it's legal. Oh, and the mail-ins. So if you mailed out 44,000, why not only count the ones that came in? because not everybody like that lady was on vacation. We didn't talk about it before and I like the idea of let's talk about it. Let's get everybody involved and talk about it and get it so that it's really clear and in everybody's face. Right now, it's like so many people really don't even know about it. They would be here, I think. Anyway, I appreciate you. Thank you, Ms. Michelle. Thank you very much.

Okay. Up next, we have Ms. Boswell.

Hello, Mayor and City Council. I appreciate your time. I really do. I appreciate you listening to me. With this sewer, this is coming up too fast. I'm asking you to please vote no. Come up with a better plan. that a better plan that's been implemented that could do. So we don't have an increase all at once because I count the sewer for my house, it would be double. So I'm just asking you guys to think, come up a way that you can help the people that are on low income, the senior citizens that don't have a lot of money. And right now everything, like everybody's been saying, everything's going up. I know it's going up for you guys too. So it's not just us, we're all paying for it. So I'm just asking you to, I know you have to do it, but you guys have had since 2008 and they haven't done anything to the sewers. I mean, I think we could have, slowly implemented sooner so that we could have been on the road to do it so we're not now we're at the end where we're saying okay we don't want anything to happen to where we have a backup on sewers and stuff and we need to do something but maybe we can look at it and get a team together that knows um what to do to prevent us from having any catastrophes we don't want that but at the same time we want to take care of what we do have and i thank you for your time

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Our last speaker, Mr. Mayor, will be Mr. Gregg.

Gregg, how are you?

Hello, Mr. Mayor, Ms. Vice Mayor, City Council. I'm going to speak on, I think, everybody including millionaires, billionaires, trillionaires. Nobody likes the cost of anything going up. You know what? Taxes, fees, assessments, cost goes up. Everything goes up. To be reasonable, we do need to make sure these sewers are funded because I definitely don't want to smell an overflow. The thing that I'm asking here today is, I just learned this from the attorney today too, that you guys got to make up your mind today. What I was hoping to do was to maybe just suggest, can we implement this 100% catch up That's what I'm calling this increase. Can we implement it over a three to five-year plan so that we could do maybe as low as 20% or maybe 33% increases and put in the allotted inflationary cost and everything else, but let's just not I'm going to be able to handle it. I don't like it, but I'll be able to handle it. There are some people that can't and I hear them and I feel for them. All I'm asking is if we have to do it today, then let's just implement that increase as easy as possible. That's it. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Can we do that?

Yes, Mr. Mayor. We've concluded the public comment, right? Okay. Yes. So an appropriate motion. Well, first we need to conclude the public hearing. We need to count the protests. So again, this is your last opportunity to submit a written protest. If you have a written protest, submit it now to the city clerk or it will not be counted. Now is your time. This is your last chance. Okay. Mr. Mayor, would you please close the public hearing?

Public hearing is now closed.

All right. So that'll allow staff to do the counting now. Okay. Should we take a break? We just closed the public hearing. I told you at the beginning of the public hearing and we've announced it at every meeting.

Should we take a break while you clear this up?

I can't take it. We can take other items. But I want to talk to you about what your options are. OK. And then if you want to take a break, we can. We've got other items to cover too.

OK.

the Section 6 of Resolution 2660 before you. We have the number. Section 6 of Resolution 26-60 that is before you today sets forth the amount to be levied this fiscal year. Section 5 sets the maximum authorized sewer charges. One approach the council could take lawfully based on assuming that there is not a majority protest. If there's a majority protest, this all goes out the window. One approach the council can take is to approve the schedule of maximum authorized charges, but not levy the full maximum charge authorized, and instead do it incrementally. For example, if you did it over a three year period to implement the changes, the $78 usual charge would increase by $28.90. to $106.90 rather than going all the way up to $164.70 in one year. You could also keep it at the $78 this year or pick any number in between $78 and $164.70 to implement it over whatever duration you deem appropriate, keeping in mind that if we do not do the full increase, that limits the ability to do all of those maintenance and repairs and replacements that need to be done. So we have an engineer's report that shows we need the full increase. But if that's not something that the council wants to do right away, then you can do it incrementally over time. And I would recommend I can give you the exact language for a motion that would do that. But one thing you might consider talking about right now is how what duration of time you want to implement it over, if that is something you want to consider.

Could we implement it but not do an increase at all for the next 60 days?

No, no. If you're going to increase it for this fiscal year, you have to adopt it today because we have to get the levy to the county. I see. So whatever you decide to levy today is the levy. But you can change it next year if you adopt the resolution that authorizes the maximum sewer charges or authorize a part of it next year, a part of it the year after, etc. But whatever you decide today is the levy amount, will be the levy amount, we cannot change it for this fiscal year. Okay.

Allison, that doesn't prevent us from adopting rebate programs. Correct. Correct. That does not prevent us from adopting rebate programs. So all the comments that Mr. Arthur made, or sorry, Mr. Callaway made with regards to form a committee, let's do an assessment, let's identify populations such as our senior citizens.

Correct.

We could still come back and say, this was approved, this is the demographic that we're going to subsidize from the general fund, not this one.

From the general fund, thank you.

So that we're not preventing ourselves from still having options to identify who we need to help and how we can help them.

That is correct.

Okay. Thank you. So I'm thinking.

Allison, would now be an OK time to use the restroom and finish thinking, and then you have a proposed motion for us?

I do have a motion for you. I would want to hear a little bit of discussion among you about what implementation timeline you'd want, so I can give you actual numbers for that motion.

I can tell you what I'm thinking, but I don't know what they're thinking yet. But I would suggest we approve it, we implement 10%, We pick up the difference from the reserve fund, because we've got a huge reserve fund that we could utilize. Okay. But I was saving it for the streets, so we'll have to balance that.

Okay, we do have the outcome, I believe, of the count. So if the city clerk would like to announce that, that would be helpful. And then may I use the restroom? That's up to the mayor, but I hope he says yes.

Okay, so we have received all of the written protests that have been submitted, with the total being 8,370, counted one per parcel, against 40,213 identified parcels. The majority threshold is 20,508. So currently no majority protest exists.

I missed all of that, but I take it- There is no majority protest.

You may implement it if that is the decision of the council.

Okay, let's take a break. So you guys wanted a five o'clock meeting? You got one. Back in session. Let me hear your motion.

Mr. Mayor, did you want to hear my motion or did you want to hear the suggestion from the deputy city manager?

From who? George. Oh, that's right, George.

He's like, who's that?

George has an idea. Let's listen to it. All right, so Mayor, City Council, after really thinking about and listening from the community, I think a good solution would be to move forward with the adoption because we do have a tight deadline with the county. So whatever that rate is, and I recommend we go at the rate suggested. However, I do think we should develop an immediate rebate program that could be available to people in need and can demonstrate the need. RIGHT AWAY. YOU HAVE THIS COUNCIL HAS PROVIDED THE CITY MANAGER A SIGNATURE AUTHORITY UP TO $125,000 THAT WE CAN UTILIZE TO PROCESS REBATE CHECKS EVEN ADVANCE OF THE DUE DATE OF THAT FIRST PROPERTY TAX BILL. and get those folks qualified and get a rebate for the full amount of the increase or whatever the council suggests. In this case, it would be $86.70 would be the difference between what the rate is currently and what's being proposed. At the city's manager's authority, we could provide 1,440 rebate checks for households in need well in advance of their first property tax bill being due in December.

So do we have any estimate of how many properties are going to need them?

That will qualify. And so we would have to create a campaign to get out to those residents and have them volunteer to present their information to show us that they are definitely in need. And so we can make sure that that rebate check is provided.

I would like some indication of what it means to qualify. Because what I don't want is people leaving thinking,

Here's my rebate check.

I'd like to develop some trust here.

And so what we could do, so we do have typical HUD guidelines that we follow to determine what those income levels are that are considered low income, very low income and moderate income here in the community. We can, or here in our economic development program and our HUD program, we can utilize that criteria to determine who in fact is in need. and bring that program back to you to bless at the next meeting. And then even with an adoption in September, because that will be our next council meeting, adoption in September, we can have rebate checks out to people in advance of them having to make their first payment and notifying any true impact of the increase. That's a suggestion. It's something that I have suggested for other cities.

So how will we roll out the rebate? I hear you talk. I hear what you're saying. But as far as rolling out the rebate, we need to roll out smooth because the way we rolled this out, nobody understood it. We want people to understand how to get their rebate.

So we'll make sure we utilize all the social media platforms that we have. We can do direct mailers. I believe and I can see what departments have existing mail databases of those that have typically applied for programs similar to this and make sure we get the word out to them first and immediate so that they know that they need to approach and contact us to receive the rebate.

We could utilize the thresholds established by the State of California Housing and Community Development Department for extremely low, very low, low, and moderate income households as being qualifying or any subset of those that the council should direct. You could also direct that the city manager put on the council agenda for action and approval if we get applications exceeding 1,000, right? And then we come back to get authority to add additional reserve funds toward that program. So we make sure that if everyone who would qualify applies, that there is enough funding for it.

Right, so we could always come back if we need that. We can always give more authority on that, yeah. From a dollar standpoint. Correct. In case we had more applications than the math works out in the initial funding.

Correct, under the city manager's authority, correct.

Correct, can you put that in a motion?

I can put that in a motion. So if that were the council's pleasure, then an appropriate motion would be to adopt resolution number 26-60, approving the proposed maximum sewer service charge increases and directing their placement on the county tax roll and directing the city manager to prepare and implement a program Provide rebates from the general fund in an amount not to exceed $86.70 per household that pays their taxes for households that meet the thresholds for the Department of Housing and Community Development's extremely low, very low, low and moderate income thresholds and to further come back to the city council if more than 1,000 applications are submitted to seek additional authority to fund such rebate program.

I'm a little concerned about the commercial aspect. I was shocked when I read what the increase. I'm not going to apply for any relief, but I can see where there are some businesses, it could make a difference.

So at that point, we could come back with a separate program on that for commercial and bring that back to you.

Rex, we currently on the sanitation side, for businesses, there's a rebate program over on the county side. So yeah, we could come back with a second program.

Ken knows more about sanitation than anybody up here, I think is a fair statement. Tell them just how low it is in Lancaster compared to other cities.

Yeah, so if I could share, I opened my mouth in 2008 and got the lovely appointment of taking over representing the city of Lancaster's on the county sanitation side. and operated as the chairman. And it was right after the facility that's built out on Avenue F, and lots of people here probably don't remember, that's where the tax went up substantially. There's only three plants in Southern California that are called super filtration plants. We have one here in Lancaster, there's one in Palmdale, and there's one in Santa Clarita. We have what we call closed systems, meaning that all the sewage goes into these plants, and it's cleaned, and then the water efflage, the throw off, believe it or not, has actually been being pumped back into the ground. We've been doing that now for, I don't know, 12, 16 years. And then what is dried off is actually sold and we take it north and sell it to farmers. So we try to offset the costs. Again, there's only these three plants. If you looked at that previous slide, which I think went right over everybody's head, if you took a look at the dollar amount that you're paying here in Lancaster, it is the lowest. out of the three cities. It has not been touched since 2008. So we've done every conceivable thing that we could do. Now take a look at Palmdale, and theirs was about, I think if I got it right, about 30% higher. So if you're a Palmdale residence, and you are paying your taxes, you're paying 30% more for the exact same service. That's pretty close to where Santa Clarita's at. Now, we do work in cooperation, all three plants. One of the things that we enacted, we said we're only gonna hire one manager to run the three plants, because they're all the same. We share chemicals, so we share labor between the three plants. But I can tell you that we've done this city has done all it can since 2008 to see that everybody that is a citizen of Lancaster is taken care of. And our commitment, I sit in that position again, they just recently brought a request to increase, and of course I've never seen any of you people there, So every year that comes up.

Be nice.

I'm just saying, every year that comes up, we didn't pass it, Palmdale did.

Just sharing with you. The point of what he's saying is we're way lower than our neighbors. Big time. Way lower. Big time. And you might want to consider that when you sit in judgment of us.

Yes, because again, I think that's the mayor's point that we've been physically conservative the best we possibly can. And I get it, I'm a senior too. I know my hair doesn't quite show it, but I'm a senior too. But I do want to let you know that we've continued as a city, as long as I know he's been mayor.

Thank you. Thanks, Ken. Yes. I want to add one thing to that motion. I'm concerned about the churches. A lot of the churches are struggling, and I think we're charging them commercial rates. So I want them included in they can seek relief if you're a church, okay?

So that would be part of the commercial program that we would have to come back to you with. But I will make sure that when I'm looking at that, that it includes everyone within the commercial program.

Due to the insane popularity of this motion and the insane support from the people, I'll make the motion. I'll take the head.

As I stated it.

Sorry, I just want to say a comment, but I know Cedric is waiting. So I have a different approach. The city has paid.

Wait a minute, don't I have to get a second first, then go on?

No, no, don't make comments first, and then.

No, I'll second that motion, Mayor.

Okay, now you can go.

Okay, thank you. The City of Lancaster has paid for this service for over 10 years, correct? And our residents has not paid the difference of what they should pay for. Is that correct? No.

We haven't done the replacement. What the analogy was and if you looked at the slide that Nicole Jones presented, we've been able to sweep the floors. So all we're able to do is clean those sewers. But there's a lot of capital replacement deferred maintenance that hasn't been getting done. So we're at a time where it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when we have a sewer failure because we have not been replacing those older 50 year old plus sewer lines. That's why we pointed to what recently happened down in LA where they had that water line break. It shut down all of West Hollywood. We're nearing that situation if we don't start addressing it by raising these funds so that we have the money to do the needed capital replacement.

Thank you. And I hear the community, what they're saying. And thank you for being here today. Thank you for sharing. I think differently. The community is saying, hey, let's come up with a plan. Hey, let's come up with a committee to make decisions. I just feel rushed to make a decision because it will hurt a lot of people. So my recommendation will be, and just my recommendation, is let's just wait one year. We have a year to come up with a committee, come up with solutions. We're not gonna please everyone, and I understand that. But why are we rushing it? And I understand that we do need it. And I do understand we need to increase it. But can we just wait one more year?

If that's a legal question to me, the answer is yes. And I can provide a motion that would do that if that's the council's pleasure. But there is a motion pending. with a second, so it would be appropriate to first vote on that motion once you've finished all of your conversation, and I know you're not all done, and then if that motion doesn't pass, then we could take an alternate motion.

We didn't get to my motion.

You're right. I apologize.

I brought the motion to put in abeyance.

That is true.

You did. We didn't get a second. We just rushed on.

You are correct. It would be appropriate then, Mr. Mayor, my having forgotten about Council Member White's motion after hearing everyone's comments. My apologies, Council Member White. It would be appropriate to solicit a second for Council Member White's motion, vote on it if there is a second, or proffer a substitute motion. So the first thing to do is to see if there is a second for Council Member White's motion.

Correct. Can you repeat his motion?

I don't think I can. I'm sorry. I think his motion was to put it in advance.

My motion was to put it in advance until we figured it out. I understand after I requested the advance, we came to some conclusion, temporary conclusion, but we need to put more thought into what we're doing instead of just throwing out suggestions right here, right now. It needs to be more thought into what we're doing.

I listened to what you said.

This is not the community, right?

This is what?

A very small section of vocal people, some of them not even in Lancaster.

Now, I understand their concerns.

I understand that they need relief, and I think that the motion provides that. There's no reason to put ourselves in a situation I mean, for heaven's sakes, it takes courage to sit up here, and sometimes you have to go against the tide, and the bill has come due.

We have plenty of courage. I know I have plenty of courage. I said we have plenty of courage, and I know I have plenty of courage. He said he has courage. I have plenty of courage. Mayor, at this time, I think- So I've been out knocking on doors, talking to people. And I've come across a lot of elderly folks who don't even know what they're voting on. And I think we need to take time to explain it in a layman's terms. I understand this is not the majority of the community. But I've been knocking on doors, and I've been talking to people everywhere I go. And I'll say a little bit over 1,000 people I've talked to. And the majority do not understand what they're reading, what they're voting on. And when they come here and listen to us, they don't understand it. And I do know that it takes a lot of courage to be here. And I know we have to vote for the majority of the people here in Lancaster. But I still believe we still need to hold in advance and make sure that we come to the right conclusion instead of a rushed conclusion.

Mayor.

Is there a second?

Thank you. I was going to ask you to call for the second. I second.

Now we know, don't we?

Okay, let's vote. Okay, just to be clear, a yes vote for this means no levy, zero levy for sewer services, which means there will be no sweeping. There will be no replacement. There will be nothing. There will be no funds for the sewer system with a yes vote. I just want to make sure that the council understands.

So point of clarification, we're taking Council Member Cedric White's motion first, and then once we see the conclusion there, then we would take up the second motion that was, or is it the reverse?

The motion on the floor is Council Member White's motion to put it in abeyance. If someone wants to proffer a substitute motion, they could do that.

but it's already been seconded.

It has been seconded. We can do a substitute motion if the moving party and the seconding party concur with the proffered substitute motion.

Let's vote and then go forward.

Okay.

Just to be clear in addition to what I said about what happens.

I know what you said.

Okay. We'll be laying off staff too.

It's zero, right? Okay. They don't even have to pay the 87.

The 78, correct.

The 78, right. Okay, let's vote.

All right, so that motion fails. So the floor is open for a new motion.

Okay, go ahead and repeat the motion I made.

I will do my very best. The motion that you made, Mr. Mayor, was to- Sir. The motion is to adopt Resolution 26-60, approving- Rob, take care of that. Approving the proposed maximum sewer service charge increases and directing their placement on the county tax roll. And directing staff to immediately implement a program to provide rebates to households that meet

Mayor, may we just take a brief pause until we handle the situation? It's very hard for me to concentrate. I'm sorry. Me too.

I'm trying to say the motion.

All right?

Are we ready to resume, Mr. Mayor?

I'm sorry, what?

Are you ready to resume?

As ready as I'm gonna be.

Fair.

Let my suicide be fast and painless.

All right, so the motion would be, if I understand your intent, Mr. Mayor, is to adopt resolution 26-60, approving the proposed maximum sewer surf charge. service charge increases and directing their placement on the county tax roll and direct staff to immediately implement a rebate program for those households that meet the California state housing and community development definition of extremely low, very low, low or moderate income households and who pay their taxes of a maximum amount per household of $86.70 and IF THE NUMBER OF APPLICATIONS THAT COME IN FOR SUCH REBATE PROGRAM EXCEEDS 1,000 TO COME BACK TO THE COUNCIL FOR ADDITIONAL AUTHORITY BEYOND THAT OF THE CITY MANAGER AND TO PREPARE AND PRESENT TO THE COUNCIL AT AN UPCOMING MEETING A COMMERCIAL REBATE PROGRAM CONSISTENT WITH THE PARAMETERS OF THE SANITATION DISTRICT'S PROGRAM.

Now that rebate would not necessarily have to be for the full amount. Like if it's a business is asking for a rebate, we can adjust.

We will be bringing back a program and you will have the opportunity to shift and change and approve it. That one you are not approving tonight. You're just direct. Yes, tonight. You're just directing that it be brought back. for the commercial side. Residential is immediate.

The sanitation district is based on each individual business and so some is not all the same.

So moved. Is there a second?

I'll second that motion.

Any discussion?

I would like to discuss if the mayor would entertain an additional addendum to that motion. If our senior citizens do not meet the definition of the very low, low, low, low, low, all the definitions you just described, that we have a separate opportunity for them to apply for relief.

Yeah, I'm also thinking fixed income. You know, I mean.

All right, so the direction, the motion would then be modified from direction to come back with housing and community development definitions of extremely low, very low, low and moderate households as well as fixed income comma senior households and other households meeting duress criteria. And we'll bring that back at what the duress criteria is at the $1,000 household mark.

Yeah, the goal is to make it as painless as possible, recognizing we have to pay the bills.

How soon will the rebate be sent back to the citizens to get their money back?

So we'll develop a program, and I can imagine within three weeks we can have a program developed, marketed out, and start receiving applications within a month.

Man, three weeks, that's awesome. I was thinking 30 to 60 days, but three weeks. No, no, no.

The idea is that we get the rebates out before these property tax bills hit, or actually are due in December. And so we can start mobilizing that very, very quickly.

I will definitely recommend that we wait to give the rebate checks until the property taxes show paid. We not rebate people before they pay their taxes.

You guys make this way too complicated. Okay. All right, so.

Can I, just a matter of order. Council member Mann, do you second the amendment to the mayor's motion?

I do. So I second that motion as amended.

I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor, did I hear you accept the amendment? I didn't. You did? Okay, thank you. Can we vote now? As long as the council's done commenting, yes, you can vote now. Four to one. The motion passed with four yes votes, one no vote by Councilmember Castellanos.

Thank you. CPH2. Why is this still on the agenda?

Why is what still on the agenda?

This is not the prop.

This is the levy. This is simply the levy. Okay.

Of the annual increase. The public hearing is now open on CPH2.

All right. This item is before you for consideration of levying the assessments on the annual tax roll. And we've received some criticism on some of the other items tonight about not having done incremental increases. That is exactly what this is. This is a consumer pricing index increase that we approved several years ago and levying it on the tax rolls. So the assessments are presented to you in the staff report. And this is the annual assessment consistent with the consumer price index increases. And that will be true also for public hearing three and four. There is no additional increase. We stopped that at the last meeting. I'm happy to answer any questions.

How many speakers? Six. Okay. Okay. Sorry, give me one second.

Oh, do we have comments? Do I need to get out of the way? Yes. OK, sorry.

So again, I'm going to announce all our speakers. We have six. If you guys could please join us in the first row. We have Ms. Thart, Ms. Michelli, Mr. Satzer, Mr. Coronado, Mr. Gee, and then Ms. Boswell. Please join us in the first row. okay miss start oh that's okay thank you miss michelle miss michelle This is CPH2.

OK, well, I probably don't understand what a levy is then, because I thought last meeting we discussed that lighting maintenance and something else. Landscaping. Landscaping, thank you. was taken off the table altogether until, I don't know, future time, right? So maybe I don't understand what levy means. Okay.

Thank you.

But I say no. So any more taxes? We just got through with, you know. All right. Thank you.

Up next we have Mr. Satzer. Forgive me, sir. How do you pronounce your last name? That's okay.

Mr. Mayor and council members, my name is Patrick Sautzer. I'm a 50-year resident at 43300 Vista Sierra Drive. I'm opposed to the increase in the annual lighting assessment to fund the lighting district. I currently have two streetlights. I pay $131 a year for those lights. It's about $65 each. I have reviewed the engineering analysis of projected revenues and expenditures for the lighting district. Revenues are about 7 million and expenses about 9 million. So that's about a $2 million loss. The city has already replaced 90% of the sodium lamps with LEDs. The electricity savings are significant. The total cost for electricity for all the street lights was 250,000 last year. That's about 32 cents a day for each light. The city operates, here's my key thing, the city operates solar energy farms, and last year the profit for that's a clear choice energy was $4.5 million. So my suggestion is to use the clear choice profit, and you're going to make more this year, you got a lot of solar panels out there, to pay for the street light districts overrun. You got a revenue source coming in for power, electricity, that's 4.5 million. Your loss for the lighting district now is about 2 million. And you can easily cover it. I don't know what you do with that money you get from Clear Choice, I think you put it in the general fund and probably use it for rebates or something. My recommendation, use the 4.5 million from the Clear Choice to pay for the overrun on the lighting district. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for doing your homework. Mr. Coronado?

It has been clarified by the city attorney that this is not an additional increase like we just had with the sewer. What did an affected property owner pay last year? If you could discuss it, what will that same property owner pay this year? What is the dollar difference? What is the percentage difference? The assessment structure includes CPI-based inflator So tell us, are you applying a CPI increase this year? What percentage are you applying? How many additional dollars will it generate? And why is the full amount necessary? Then show us the financial conditions of the district. How much money will the Lightning Assessment collect this year? How much money is already sitting in reserves? How much goes directly to street lighting and public lighting? How much goes into administration? How much goes into contractors? Residents understand that street lights cost money. What residents demand is accountability for what they are being charged. Do not tell us simply that an assessment is authorized. Tell us why every additional dollar is necessary. If reserves are sufficient, explain why property owners need to pay more. If expenses increase, identify those expenses. If contractors cost more, identify those contractors. We, the people, oppose higher lighting assessments. Show us the numbers before you take another dollar from property owners. Vote no. Follow Rocio's lead. She's doing a great job. And finally, thank you, Chief, for not kicking me out of direction of the mayor.

Mr. G?

Yes, this is City Councilman Mayer. Where does the ballots fall into this vote or whatever? The ballots that we submitted? That's why I was trying to get an answer. They didn't fall into nothing? Um, then I vote no for a additional increase. Um, the question I had trying to raise my hand is why didn't we vote for $86 instead of 1 48 and do away with all the, uh, payback and low income and all that we could just voted $86 and did away with all that other stuff, payback, low income and all that and everything else. Thank you.

Thank you. And now our last speaker, Ms. Boswell.

Hello again, Mayor and City Council. My question to you is, I have the same question as Michelle. You stated what a levy is. If somebody could explain the levy to me. Could somebody explain the levy, please?

So a levy is us applying those charges with the county of Los Angeles property tax assessment. process so to levy those charges is to actually send those charges to the county of Los Angeles so that they can be included on the property tax bill.

So we are already paying it in our property tax? That is correct. Correct. That is correct. Okay. So that is why I'm voting no and also it's saying property owners $70 per lighting unit. Is that just the lights on our street or are we paying for the lights on the public streets, the parking lots, the highway streets? So this is why on CPH2 I'm asking you to vote no. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Mayor, that concludes our public comments.

You know, there's a history to the street lighting. We used to pay how much a pole to Edison?

We used to pay a little over $12 a pole to Edison for the maintenance and power all in. And that was a month, right? That was per light per month. So we have a little over 19,000 lights in the city.

And so what we did is we took those lights back, right?

We took them back, yes.

And then replaced it with LED lights, which resulted in a substantial savings, right?

Correct, which essentially bought time in this district. And now, because of power rate increases by Edison over the last handful of years, It cost significantly more than it once did for the city to maintain those lights.

In so many ways, we're a victim of the public utilities. It is what it is. I mean, we're doing all we can to deal with that. The downside of it is we made that conversion all at once, all at one time.

Now those lights are...

wearing out, so we have to replace them all at one time. Eventually, you know, it'll trail off and it'll be more consistent. But until that happens, it's a problem that we're foreseeing. But we're, you know, we're not raising it, we're just doing the cost of living, right? Okay. Is there a motion? Oh, I gotta close the public hearing.

Mayor, now that you've closed the public hearing, I would like to make a motion to approve CPH2, which is to adopt resolution number 26-62.

I'll second that motion. Let's vote.

The motion passes with three yes votes and council members Castellanos and White voting no.

We're at three now?

We are on three now.

Okay. Let's open the public hearing.

All right. Before you for consideration on public hearing item number three is the levy or placement on the tax roll of the assessment for Lancaster Landscape Maintenance District number one annual assessment for fiscal year 2026-27. As with the prior item, This levy is the amount authorized for prior years plus a consumer price index increase. We do not find ourselves in that hole that we found ourselves in the sewers side where the levy does not keep up with the costs of operating the system. The engineer's report goes through and identifies each of the bases on which the assessments are calculated. The staff report identifies what the current rate of assessment is, what the new rate of assessment will be. The engineer's report provides extensive detail on how these numbers were calculated and provides all the backup for all of the things that have been asked by folks during prior public hearings. Each benefit unit will be assessed $135.05 if approved. That is a 2.93% consumer price index increase. An estimated total of $6,956,335 will be assessed against the benefited properties that's used for maintenance expenses. I'm happy to answer any further questions.

Thank you. Any speaker cards?

Yes, Mr. Mayor, we have five. If these members could join us down in the front row, Ms. Thart, Ms. Michelli, Mr. Gee, Mr. Coronado, and Ms. Boswell.

I got an idea. Why don't we be really popular with everybody and give it all back to them and just let the city collapse? What do you think? Do you think we should do that? One, two, three, four, five. Yes, go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon again. I do not understand this at all. So could I just, that's my only concern is I don't understand it at all. So could I just get the explanation?

Sure, that's fair enough. There's a cost of living increase. That's all this is. We stopped any additional, which was initially put to the voters. Didn't even count the ballots. But the cost of living thing is something you do every year. Just like your employer gives you a raise every year, just like Social Security does cost of living every year. That's all this is. Does that explain it?

The dollar amount that was being stated, 135? I may have that wrong, but there was 100 and some dollar amount being stated, and then it was stated that it was only 2 point something percent cost of living. That's where I'm confused.

Explain it. Correct. So the existing fee, and I don't have the exact number in front of me, but approximately $135. The district is already, this is an existing district where residents are already gonna benefit from, and when the district was established, it gave us the authority to increase that by the consumer price index for Los Angeles County every year. That is so that we can keep up with the cost of 131.22 to 135.05, which is a 2.93% increase. That allows us to keep up with the cost of fuel, cleaning supplies, all the things needed to maintain the district and staffing increases, all those things.

So we currently pay 131 and we will now pay 135? Correct. Okay, that clarifies it, thank you.

Is that okay? Yes, thank you very much. Thank you. Up next we have Ms. Michele.

You know, isn't that more than a 2.93% from 131 to 135? And according to Prop 13, aren't we supposed to not go up more than 2% a year?

That's on the Avalor. What?

Proposition 13 applies to the ad valorem property tax, not to these- No, Proposition 13 from 1978, that's what- Correct, so that only applies to the valuation of the property, and that's the amount that the county takes for property taxes. This is a special assessment that's levied as part of the property tax bill. Prop 13 does not apply to special assessments.

A different provision of Prop 13. Okay, so you want more, you want- Yeah. Fees, assessments.

We don't want anything. We just want to take care of the landscaping. Maybe we should just let it all die.

No, I'm not saying that.

What do you think? You think we should just not have landscaping?

Listen, I do understand, I really do. And you guys are great about when I call to have something picked up, something's picked up within two weeks, right? Trash or whatever have you. But believe it or not, when it comes to the maintenance of when I call, like let's say the pine needles are in the, That never gets cleared out and then we get floods. And so anyway, you know, so a lot of it's not really, half of it, not a lot, a half maybe, is not, doesn't seem to me to be getting done. But yes, when I call in, I'm great with that. I want you to do it. People have seen it. They even came up to me and saw me on Zoom. Yes, he called, and yes, things get picked up. Wow, he was so surprised. So I'm just saying, why does it have to be so much all the time? It's just too much. It's so much.

I totally get it. The cost of living has just gone through the roof.

Yeah. Well, we don't get raises, though. I'm sorry? A lot of us have not gotten raises in many, many years, and we're still working it out. Anyway, thanks for listening.

Thank you.

Mr. Gee?

Mayor, City Council, vote no. Everything your suggestion should be covered under the general funds. Thank you.

Mr. Coronado?

Last time we were here, I just skipped all the Assessment argument because that already spoken generally but because as Mayor Perez indicated there's thousands of people that depend on me to stay here from 1 30 in the afternoon to almost 6 30 to Indicate that just like my neighbors sitting to the right. We've been homeowners in the same place for over 20 years. They're very upset Groceries Gasoline Insurance Waste management. I mean, Ken Mann, you said Palmdale president, they stick it to them at 30% more over there in waste management. 3% increase on waste management. According to the city attorney who very eloquently explained to me that's just $3.

I think that's what she said.

But it's just not, $3 goes a long way. for a lot of people. And this is every year. So for the people that are home that expect me to be here and fight this fight for them, and obviously getting the pushback that I did get today and the disrespect that I did get today and the anger that I evoke, I could understand. One of the reasons that we have a little fallout with Cedric White is because before he got elected, I specifically said, please, you don't have to vote with the three conservative majority. They're going to do whatever it is that they want. So a 3-2 will always be a split and it would all show that you are still with the people that elected you, Cedric. And obviously the only one that seems to be representing who voted for her is Rocio. It takes a lot of courage to do what Rocio is doing, but at the same time, the people that support me obviously are supporting her. Stay on topic, please. Stay on the topic. The money that we're paying for the RX Para Center, Stay on topic, please. You can talk about that later. Right now, we're talking about landscaping. It is because if we put some of that money that we put on the prayer center and lighting and Marvin E. Chris Aquatic Center and the Lancaster Police Department and all that, that's money that could be used for lighting and sewage and maintenance and drainage. You're draining the hell out of our pockets. We're done, but it's okay. Elections are coming in two years.

Ms. Boswell.

I think you'd have to be employed to actually have money out of your pocket. Yes, Ms. Boswell, if you could.

I'm so sorry.

That's funny, huh?

Excuse me, Ms. Boswell, pass the floor. Thank you, ma'am.

You're a clown, parents. You're a clown. Just because you're rich, but you know what happened to you?

I have health in you.

I would like to hear what Ms. Boswell has to say. Thank you so much for coming.

Thank you very much. Again, Mayor and Council. Thank you. Thank you. I'm voting no on this. I have two questions on here saying eligible voters in each respective zone. My question is, what zone are you talking about for this? Make sure I'm on the right one now. I'm so rattled. I'm so sorry. We're on continued public hearing three now. Oh, I'm on the wrong one, nevermind. I'm on the landscape maintenance one. Okay, so that one, my question was that says, this is describing the existing proposed maintenance service. So it's going from $131.22 to $135.05 to connect and that's amount of for this next fiscal year to maintain it. Is that correct? It's just maintaining it and it's increased $3 to maintain it. Okay. Thank you. That's what I wanted clarification on. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, that concludes our speaker cards.

I'm tempted to say let's just refund all the money. Let's not have a landscaping district.

I think this would be a great time, Mr. Mayor, to close the public hearing.

It's six o'clock, I'm exhausted. Okay, let's close the public hearing.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and I would love to make a motion to approve CPH3, adopting resolution number 26-63.

I'll second that motion.

Any discussion? Let's vote. The progressive voted no. Okay. Why don't you do a motion to give all the money back? Council members Castellanos and White voted no.

The other council members voted yes.

Our motion to give all the money back to the citizens of White Castle.

Mr. Mayor, now would be a great time to open the public hearing. Is there a second for that? Excuse me. Is there a second?

Is there a second? You tell me. I don't know. Is there a second, Rocio?

Give all the money back.

There's no second. I think there's a different way to manage this.

And I think Rocio would agree that now is a great time to open the public hearing for CPH number four, Mr. Mayor, if it'll please you.

Public hearings now open. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

You again. Me again. Last one. before you for consideration this evening is continued public hearing number four, consideration of resolution 26-64, confirming the diagram and assessments and ordering the levy of an assessment in language drainage benefit assessment district for fiscal year 2026-2027. As with the two prior items, this is the annual levy, so placing it on the tax rolls. The highest assessment amount is $92.53 per equivalent drainage unit, which includes the 2.93% consumer price index adjustment previously approved through the Proposition 218 process. Details of the basis on which that amount was calculated and the support for all of that is set forth in the engineer's report provided to you. And the staff report sets forth how those dollars are allocated. The assessments are calculated based on the amount of stormwater runoff generated by each property. Properties with more impervious surfaces contribute more runoff and therefore are assessed proportionally higher amounts. Additional details about the assessment methodology are available in the engineer's report. I am happy to answer any questions.

Any questions? Thank you.

Yes, Mr. Mayor, there are five. If I could please have the following individuals join us in the front row. Ms. Thart, Ms. Michelli, Mr. Gee, Mr. Coronado, and Ms. Boswell.

I don't know how I got on the top of every list.

I don't have anything further to say. It's all financial for me. I understand that everything has gone up everywhere, but I don't think the cost of living adjustment is accurate because what I pay, I'm not saying for the city, what I'm paying in addition every year is a whole lot more than 7% or 8%. I'm just not sure where I'm going to continue to get it from. That's all I wanted to say. Thank you.

Thank you. You have a right to have an accurate assessment. Verify those numbers.

We have.

What are we using for the cost of living index?

I will pull that and get it to you before the end of the comments.

Okay. Thank you.

Ms. Michele?

I feel the same way as this young lady. Cost of living, right. I didn't hear it's going from something to $92. I couldn't hear the from what to what. You were talking about storm runoff. That was what I was talking about the last Last time I got up was about that stormwater runoff. Well, it's not being taken care of now, so every time I call in, it's not, I don't understand why it's not like the maintenance, you know, take care of it within a couple weeks or a couple months, you know. So, but I would like to know what, You were asking.

Mr. Mayor, the consumer price index for the Los Angeles Riverside Orange County's region that we obtained from the county website is what was used. The assessment is going from $89.90 to $92.53 per assessment unit.

Okay, well, yeah, a couple dollars here, a couple dollars there. What's the cost of index? 2.93%, 2.93%.

I mean, the cost of living index, what? 2.93. 2.9, and what are we asking for?

2.9, 2.93. Okay. The exact number.

And then the cost of living, we'll get that, of how they compare it.

From the county's website for the Los Angeles, Riverside, Orange County region consumer price index.

Well, we're L.A. County. So what did you say?

Correct. There's a three-county region on which the Consumer Price Index is calculated. Los Angeles, Riverside, Orange County.

Didn't hear your first one. So be nice, okay? Be nice. I just ask that you be nice. Thank you.

Mr. G.?

Mayor, City Council, I'd say vote no. I went to the ELPAC meeting and went around to every table and asked, did you guys got your funds? Were you able to accomplish everything you did? And they said yes. I said, well, what if you couldn't? Did you draw from general funds? And they said yes. We went and draw general fund money to accomplish everything we need to do, landscaping, drainage, whatever. My question is saying no, but I also went there under this proposal. Under this proposal, it says parcels added prior to August 2005. Is everybody's fund going to be raised to the maximum amount, even the ones prior to this date?

It's certainly not the maximum. It's the cost of living index.

He's showing us the old rate sheet. Yeah, the rate sheet was at the ELPAC. He did not remove those three forward. Can you share with me what you have in your hand?

This was at the ELPAC.

Oh, yes. So at the ELPAC public meeting, this was really given out. These are the initiatives that were not moved forward.

Okay. Does that answer your question?

We're not moving forward on this or the price or raise everybody's price up prior to 2005.

No, those prices and that sheet is no longer valid. Those public hearings were not opened at the last public meeting, therefore killing those. All that this item before you is, is the CPI, the Consumer Price Index increase for the existing district that's already in place.

But nobody voted to kill this. So this is what you offered to us at the ELPAC.

That's a separate item, sir. Mr. G, that's the items, the Prop 218 items that came before us the last two meetings in which the sewage was an essential item and we moved forward with that. However, Mr. Mayor did not even open the agenda items for the other ones addressed on that sheet. So this is a separate item we're discussing right now. And this is calculated based on the CPI, which can be found on the LA County website.

What happens to the people prior to August 2005?