City Council - Regular Meeting

Would the meeting please come to order? The time is 04:02. This is the 01/27/2026 regular meeting of the irvine city council. At this time I would like to invite the clerk to please call the roll.

Councilmember Carroll. Here. Councilmember Go. Here. Councilmember Liu. Here. Councilmember Martinez Franco. Here. Councilmember Trecedor. Here. Vice Mayor Mai.

Here.

And Mayor Egren. Here.

I would like to ask the clerk to tell people at home or where they might be watching as well as those gathered here in the council chamber how they might participate in this afternoon's meeting.

Thank you, mayor. Members of our audience who wish to speak may submit their name into one of the speaker kiosks next to the city clerk or in the main lobby. We also offer the ability to provide live comments via Zoom and submit written comments through our e comment system. For those who wish to participate virtually, visit zoom.us using any web browser or the Zoom app on smartphones or tablets and enter meeting ID 1600434844. The passcode is 272906.

You may also dial in by calling (669) 254-5252 or (669) 250-5252 and entering the same meeting ID and passcode. Those who wish to provide comments via Zoom are asked to enter the speaker queue by raising their hand electronically. The city clerk will call your name and allow you to unmute your microphone at the appropriate time. Those dialing in by telephone will be identified by the last three digits of their telephone number. We ask that you please state your name for the record.

The time limits per speaker are noted in the posted agenda and are established based on the number of requests submitted. All requests submitted after the first speaker is called shall receive ninety seconds. Those who wish to provide written comments may do so by clicking e comment on the City Council meeting agenda webpage at cityofirvine.org/ictv. All comments will be provided to the City Council as part of the meeting record and will be uploaded to the City's website. For technical assistance with Zoom before or during the meeting, please call (949) 724-6078. For any other questions or assistance, please contact the city clerk's office at (949) 724-6205 or via email at clerk@cityofirvine.org. Thank you, mayor.

Thank you, city clerk Carl Peterson. Our first item on the agenda today is a closed session. At this time, I'd like to turn to our city attorney who will describe

what's on the closed session agenda. Thank you, mayor. We have three items up for a closed session consideration this afternoon. The first and third are both conferences with legal counsel concerning items of existing litigation under government code section 54956.9(one). The first item is Christopher Lance versus City of Irvine, Orange County Superior Court case number 30202301370018.

The second item is United States of America et al. Versus Live Nation Entertainment et al, United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, case number 24C v Dash3973. The remaining item on foreclosed session consideration is a conference with real property negotiators. This is under government code section 54,956.8. The property at issue is portions of assessors' parcel numbers 104, 11897, and 767.

Agency negotiators are Sean Crumby, the city manager Pete Carmichael, the assistant city manager Melching, the City Attorney and the negotiating parties for the City of Irvine and Nicole Burdett, as President of Brookfield Southern California Land LLC, Brookfield Residential. Under negotiation are price and terms of payment. And that's all.

Thank you. I'd like to turn to our city clerk once again to ask if there are any requests for public comment.

Thank you, Mayor. There are no requests to speak.

There have been no requests. At this time, we will convene to closed session, and, we expect to return here, promptly at 05:00. Thank you. The council having been in closed session is now reconvened. Mister Melchin, our city attorney, is there any reportable action from our closed session?

No, mayor. There was no reportable action this afternoon.

There being none, we will move on then to the balance of our meeting here. What I'd like to do in a moment is ask for everybody to rise for the the pledge of allegiance. And if you would, after you've risen for the pledge and we've done the pledge, we'll announce the balance of the agenda. Thank you. And tonight, I'd like to have council member Lou lead us in the pledge.

To the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please be seated. Tonight, we have what is for us an invocation that is going to be a first. Because at this time, it's my pleasure to welcome Danielle Hanson, writer in residence at the University of California Irvine, right down the street, who, also serves as the inaugural poet laureate for the city of Costa Mesa. I have a little further information by way of introduction and have been informed in advance that she is going to be providing a further introduction to her presentation.

Miss Hanson is the author of the upcoming collection of poems, The Night Is What It Eats, winner of the Elixir Press Prize, and has previously written the collections Frane Edge of Sky, winner of the, I hope I'm pronouncing this correctly, Cod Hill Press Poetry Prize, also written Ambushing Water, which was the finalist for the Georgia Author of the Year Award. Tonight, Ms. Hansen will be reading her self written poem entitled Foggy Morning Hike. And with that, I'd like to introduce miss Hanson to come forward. Welcome.

Let's give her a round of applause.

Thank you, mayor and council. Thank you for having me here to speak today to the citizens of Irvine. It's an honor to be here. As was mentioned in my introduction, I'm the poet laureate of Costa Mesa. This is a position I'm very excited to hold.

Poetry and art have the ability to connect people, promote change in people and societies, expose where we can do better, improve people's days, and distribute positivity, create empathy and understanding, and allow people to feel heard and seen. The poet Ed Hirsch tells us that poetry and that art really happen in the space between the poet and the reader or the observer. That art is the intersection between those two minds. In a similar way, poet laureates have a role at the intersection of the public and individual spaces, creating something that is shared among people. Another quote I'd like to bring to the council today comes from Biden's inaugural poet, Amanda Gorman, who states, the decision to create the artistic choice to have a voice, the choice to be heard, is the most political act of all.

Poetry is political because it is preoccupied with people. As a government position, poet laureates have access to bring poetry into public spaces. It's my goal in my position to bring poetry to where the citizens of Costa Mesa are already gathered. We had a lot of events in the past year, and we have a lot of events planned for the coming year. I would love to encourage the city of Irvine to elect its own poet laureate, and I look forward to working with that poet.

I tell my students at UC Irvine that poetry does its work in a few different ways. One is to take a personal experience and make it universal, which can lead to a greater understanding and empathy among people through shared experiences in a way that connects the reader and the listener. Another way poetry works is to make the universal personal, tying injustice or climate concerns, for example, to an experience of an individual to show its impact. Poetry is also really good at making the ordinary extraordinary, and therefore making something special by giving it attention. These types of poems can help you see something common in a new light.

As a believer in the power of poetry and art in public spaces, I'm going to read a poem in this public space. The poem I'm about to read is about an ordinary moment in life, an individual moment that took place in a public shared space here in Irvine and that has a connection to the natural world. I wrote with the women's master's team at the Newport Aquatic Center. And this poem I wrote one early warning when the fog was too thick for us to go row, so instead I walked in the UCI Nature Preserve. Foggy morning hike.

There are spiders of the air and spiders of the ground, racket and basket of web lit with dew. The sun is hung over from drinking too much of air and dim and indistinct just up over the hill. A passing jogger tells a myth about a coyote, and every turned corner is now adventure. But of course, the hill hound is gone, crouched low under sagebrush, sunk into ground like that same dew caught by spider. A vireo cocks his head at me.

What am I doing here? I question whether I'm still wild enough for this morning. Rowing was, of course, canceled, but I saw a man in a canoe become smaller into the ocean. As the world recedes, I feel myself grow larger until I am all that is left in this world. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. And I think some of us will want to talk with you about your experience as poet laureate in Costa Mesa. Maybe Irvine needs to establish that position here in our own city of Irvine. So will you help us if we wish to do that?

Yes. All right. Thank you again so much. Much appreciated. Next, we have presentations.

Would the clerk identify the two presentation items this evening?

Thank you, mayor. Our two presentations for tonight. Item 2.1 is a proclamation recognizing 01/27/2026 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. And our second presentation is an update on the Irvine Public Library.

Thank you. So our first presentation proclaiming 01/27/2026 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day was, agendized at the request of council members Lou and Treseder, which includes a, proclamation recognizing 01/27/2026 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Before, we proceed with the presentation, I'd like to invite, those who are participating electronically via zoom to raise their hand electronically if they would like to speak on this item at this time. City clerk are there any members of the public who wish to speak on presentation item 2.1? Thank you

mayor we have four requests to speak. We have three in person and one on zoom.

Three present here and one on zoom. All right. Will those speakers be heard at this time? Very well. And then if you would call the first speaker.

Thank you, mayor. If I could call forward Alan Meyerson, Jason Garfield, and Janine. And we'll start with Mr. Meyerson.

And each speaker will be given up to three minutes.

Welcome. Good evening councilmembers Allen Myerson. I just wanted to briefly say I wanted to thank councilmember Trusieder and Councilmember Liu for putting this on the agenda. I find it interesting that this is actually Holocaust Remembrance Day on the calendar. And it being on a council day, to me, that's not a coincidence.

That's something that's meant to be. My family comes from Lithuania and Russia. I have not been able to find out if they were affected by the holocaust, but a lot of people obviously were. I'm a Jew. I'm proud to be a Jew. I will always be a Jew. And tonight, I just want to express my condolences and my heartfelt sympathies to anyone who lost someone in the Holocaust. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Ethan Burchfield.

Welcome.

Thank you. So, I'd like to thank council members Lou and Tresider, but I'd like thank every single one of you since I think it's a reasonable assumption that this will pass unanimously as it did last year. The interesting thing about so with regards to the Holocaust, last year was the eightieth anniversary. I mentioned that the problem that we face is that it is now passing out of living memory. That rings truer this year.

And unfortunately, once we lose the living memory of an event like that, the likelihood that we'll have to relearn the same lessons increases. So we have seen an increase in Holocaust denial. And the interesting thing about Holocaust denial is that it seeds a moral premise, which is that the atrocities of the Nazi regime are so indefensible that they must be denied if that regime is to be rehabilitated. What we're facing now, and I'm not going to dignify certain people by naming their names, but anybody who's been paying political attention is aware of some of these names. What we're facing now is a group of people who don't feel the need to deny the Holocaust because they don't particularly care whether it happened or not.

Now, we've seen this phenomenon on both sides of the aisle. We've seen it with regards to October 7 denial. Although, I will say, if it can be called a defense, that at least the people doing that recognized that October 7 was so bad it needed to be denied. And we have seen on the Republican side of the aisle some of the most prominent commentators, platform Holocaust deniers, and those same commentators be invited to the White House to meet with the president. I will also say on that topic that there is something in the world which, although no comparison can directly be made from one to the other, resembles the Holocaust more than almost anything that's occurred in recent years.

And it's happening right now in Iran, where the Islamic regime, I'm not going to dignify them by calling them a republic, has murdered by, reputable accounts thousands, tens of thousands of its citizens. We

don't

know what's going on. The Internet's been off there for two weeks. It will likely be many years before the full scope of what has happened there is made public. But tonight, I think we should all take a moment to think about what's going on over there. Thank you.

Janine, welcome.

Thank you. So I also wanted to thank the city council, my council member Melinda Lou, and council member Traceter for bringing the proclamation for international holocaust remembrance day to the agenda. I think this is a great example of Irvine's diversity and inclusion. Being from the Jewish community, which is a very small minority, even in a city such as Irvine, it's very important that seminal events such as the Holocaust, which has impacted Jewish people, our collective consciousness, and our identity for throughout the world. So I feel like this is a great example of how Irvine values its minorities.

It includes them, and it makes sure to support diversity. One of the questions that I've always asked myself is I never understand how does the Holocaust happen? How do people all of a sudden think it's okay to kill another group of people? I don't know if you've ever asked yourself about that regarding the Holocaust. But one of the things that I've noticed lately, which I think when I go to, like, a Holocaust museum, I see.

When you look at the timeline, it doesn't start with the concentration camps. It starts with the public information. The othering and the demonization of an ethnic group, whatever it is, religious, ethnic, etcetera. And when that rhetoric is allowed, what it's not even true. But when that rhetoric is allowed to continue to be broadcast in public spaces and to be repeated over and over and over, It's no longer an intellectual discussion.

It's not something we can talk about or we can debate. It's now an emotional response, and it's really hard to get people to change their emotional responses. So I really hope that this council is remains conscious both through its DEI activities, through public comment, or wherever you are, that allowing demonization and othering in these public spaces helps reinforce that repetition that repetition of negative othering and demonization. So I would never wanna see a holocaust here in Irvine. I don't think we're going that way, but there's a lot of stuff out there that makes me very nervous.

So, anyway, I just wanna thank you. I really appreciate you doing this, And I guess that's it. Thank you. Our

next speaker is Eric Nashanian. Mister Nashanian, you may unmute your mic.

Thank you very much, council members. Mayor Agram. I just wanna point out that that only three people have spoken supported this proclamation. I don't see anybody from miss Liu or miss Precedar's districts coming here and saying that they support this proclamation. And this is really political.

Last year, the city did not recognize the Armenian genocide. The city does not recognize the Nakba. When I commented about how Israel supported Azerbaijan in cleansing ethnic Armenians from their ancestral homelands at Artsakh, People like Jason Garzboll said, well, that's okay because Armenia supports Iran. So, you know, what you guys are doing here with all of this, we are aligned and picking and choosing sides. It's picking and choosing sides, and that is political.

And you're putting politics over people, and it doesn't look good. For instance, let's touch with the chaplain, rabbi Richard Steinberg, who has twenty five minutes at the congregation down the street, but was involved in genocide denial on behalf of the anti defamation league, of which he was a member of. And they were involved in genocide denial, the denial of the Armenian genocide lobbying against US recognition on behalf of Israel and Turkey up until 2,015. He hasn't denied this. I've mentioned it plenty of times, but he's still the chaplain of the city, one of the chaplains of the city.

If he was involved in Holocaust denial, he wouldn't be there. He wouldn't be sitting on Florence County Human Relations Commission. What are you guys doing? There's nobody here speaking up and and supporting it other than mister Garfield, mister Meyerson, and that lady who's really ignorant about things. Zionist Jews were were negotiating with Nazi Germany.

Look up the Hanbara agreement to silence German Jews to to boycott German to to prevent German Jews from boycotting Nazis, Now, mister Meisen, I acknowledge what you said about. You don't know if if it affected you. Well, the Armenian genocide affected my family. Alright? And when this city doesn't recognize it, and then it comes around and recognizes yours, what it's saying is that some are more important than others.

That's not kind, miss Larry. And I did notice that Larry never recognized he didn't recognize any Jewish holidays in December. He

Thank you. Your time is up. And that is all mayor.

Thank you. That concludes the public comments. So at this time, I'd like to turn things over to council members Lou and Trusieder, and to allow them the opportunity to invite forward our special guests and present the proclamation.

Good evening. Today, we recognize International Holocaust Remembrance Day marking the eighty first anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz Birkenau. Irvine has been home to a robust Jewish community for decades. We pride ourselves as the most diverse and integrated city and assume our role as government officials to ensure all of our residents are safe and feel supported. With the rise of anti Semitism across the nation, we in Irvine want to make sure our five synagogues in the Mirage Jewish Community Center, which draws in members of the Jewish faith from across Orange County, feel safe within our city.

Today, we invite Julie Hyman of the Jewish Community Action Network to receive this proclamation on behalf of the Jewish community. Julie, if you can come through. JKEN has been instrumental in helping the city prepare today's proclamation, and we also wanna thank everybody else who had contributed to the drafting of this. And if you don't mind, I would like to read the proclamation, and I will need my reading glasses on. Whereas the UN General Assembly passed a resolution in November 2005 to designate the January 27 as the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.

And whereas since 2005, the UN and its member states have held commemoration ceremonies to mark the anniversaries of the liberation of Auschwitz Birkenau Camp and to honor the victims and survivors of the Holocaust. We're asked this year on international holocaust remembrance day the city of Irvine commemorates the eighty first anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz Birkenau. Whereas Jews were the primary victims of the holocaust but they were not alone as 5,000,000 other people were murdered in Nazi concentration camps as part of a carefully orchestrated state sponsored program of cultural, social, and political annihilation under the Nazi regime. And whereas, we must teach our children and future generations that the individual and communal acts of heroism during the Holocaust serve as a powerful example of how our nation and its citizens can and must respond to acts of hatred and inhumanity. Whereas the purpose of international holocaust remembrance day is to serve as a date of the official commemoration of the victims of the Nazi regime and to promote holocaust education throughout the world.

That and whereas the city of Irvine joins its Jewish community to honor international holocaust remembrance day and encourages all community members to reflect on this day of remembrance. Now therefore, the city council of the city of Irvine does hereby declare January 27 of each year as international holocaust remembrance day in the city of Irvine and encourages all community members to reflect on this day of remembrance. We would like to invite Julie to say a few words.

Council member Lou, council member Trusieder, and to the whole council, it's such an honor to be here to have you recognize this day. And I want to thank also my partners from Federation and from ADL, prominent community members here with us. We are really grateful to the council. It's a particularly frightening time right now for the Jewish community. The latest hate crimes report in Orange County showed a 71% spike in anti Semitic hate crimes, 25% spike in hate crimes overall.

They're frightening. People are afraid to decorate for Hanukkah just this last holiday season. So it's especially important to recognize what can happen if people aren't vigilant. And if you'll indulge me for just a moment, we Jews are a small tribe. And so this isn't just numbers for us. It's deeply personal. And I'd like to share just very briefly. This is Danny Hyman who, sitting between me and my husband. He is one of my favorite people in the world. He is about to turn 100.

He wrote his memoirs, and I'm holding a manuscript of it here. And he recalls, he was born in Germany in 1926. When he was 12 years old, Kristallnacht happened, which was the night of broken glass. And he, his parents reading the writing on the wall were able to get him sent out of the country. And he's now writing from what became the state of Israel.

It didn't exist yet. But he says, writing it from his 13 year old perspective, mainly, I remember my bar mitzvah for who were not there, my parents. And then I before I went to bed, I something happened that I can't rationally explain. He talks about how he realized he doesn't have to take a shower because there's nobody in the world that actually cares whether or not he's properly taking care of himself. And he thinks to himself, no.

I'm going to act as my parents would have had me act. Notwithstanding what he went through, he's become a spectacularly optimistic and resilient person. I don't know how. But as Janine said earlier, what happened to him and to 6,000,000 other families, it didn't happen in a vacuum and it didn't happen overnight. It happened because good people in elected office didn't act when they could have. And I am so grateful to this council for taking action when you can. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. I would now like to welcome representatives from the local Jewish organizations and temples who've joined us here today. Representative members and organizations include the Jewish Community Action Network. Is there a representative?

The Jewish Federation of Orange County, the Anti Defamation League, the Mirage Jewish Community Center of Orange County, and rabbi Senor of the Beth Jacob congregation. And finally, we would like to welcome my council colleagues to join us for photos as well.

We do have one last responsibility. First, let me thank everybody for the presentation of this evening. For the participants, participating groups, I want to especially thank my colleagues, council members Trusieder and Lou. And at this time, I would like to move adoption of the proclamation.

Second.

Seconded by Council Member Treseder. Would the clerk please call the roll? Councilmember Carroll?

Yes. Councilmember Goh? Yes. Councilmember Liu?

Yes.

Councilmember Martinez Franco? Yes. Councilmember Treseder?

Yes.

Vice Mayor May? Yes. And Mayor Agram? Yes. Carries, seven zero.

Thank you. Thank you all. Next, we move to presentation item 2.2. Would the clerk please identify this item by title and subject?

Thank you, mayor. Item 2.2 is Irvine Public Library update.

Excellent. Let me turn to staff, ask them to please introduce themselves, and we look forward to this presentation.

Thank you, Honorable Mayor Agrin and City Council members.

I'm I'm gonna

ask you to do one thing. Would you lower your screen a little bit so I can see your face? No, push it down.

Is that it? We're going to have

to give you a cushion.

Yeah, no. Phone book, maybe? Appreciate that. Thank you.

Welcome.

Thank you so much. My name is Julie Zioli. I'm the city librarian. And with me is Chris Lama, Director of Community and Library Services. We're here today to give a brief update on the Irvine Public Library System.

So the library continues to progress through this growth phase while updating and refining procedures at both the Heritage Park and University Park libraries. Since opening, the library has delivered over 400 programs serving more than 18,000 attendees. We've circulated over 150,000 items, issued more than 20,000 library cards, and benefited from over 700 volunteer hours. We are grateful for the participation and support from the community, our friends of the library groups, and city staff. We are also pleased to report that the next branch to open within the Irvine Public Library system will be the Katie Wheeler Library.

As a reminder, this facility remained under County of Orange management through 12/31/2025, and the City of Irvine received access in early January. Since receiving access, the City is undertaking a series of efforts, including interior refreshes with new paint and furniture, preparation and installation of necessary information best ability the We the Board pleased Staff have also begun hosting public facing programs, including story times on the adjacent county property to maintain community engagement in advance of the opening. We've also signed an MOU agreement with the Friends of the Katie Wheeler Library, who run the used bookstore located within the library. Finally, we are excited to officially announce that the city anticipates opening the Katie Wheeler Library for full operations on Saturday, March 7. Additional information regarding the opening will be available on the library's website at irvinepubliclibrary.org.

In addition to ongoing efforts of increased services, library staff have initiated development of the city's first comprehensive data driven library master plan. A request for proposals was issued on January 8 and will close on February 25. The master plan will serve as a strategic roadmap for building and operating a fully municipal, modern, innovative, and community centered library system. It will guide long term decision making related to facilities, operations, programs, staffing, and technology over a twenty year planning horizon. The selected consultant will evaluate the current state of library operations, benchmark Irvine's library system against regional and national best practices, assess future community and demographic trends, and provide actionable recommendations related to facilities, services, and partnerships to meet both current and future needs.

The master plan will articulate a long range vision defining the role of libraries as community anchors for learning, creativity and connection, and will establish guiding principles and performance measures that advance the quality, accessibility, sustainability, innovation and adaptability consistent with the city's general plan. Work under the master plan is anticipated to commence in May with completion within an eighteen month timeframe. In tandem, staff are also advancing updated conceptual designs for a future main library at the Great Park. On 10/28/2025, the Irvine City Council adopted a resolution to formally incorporate and expeditiously build a main library in the northern section of the Great Park framework and to explore funding options outside those identified in phase one. Staff have reengaged the architectural firm, Johnson Favreau, to update conceptual renderings and to evaluate potential construction cost implications.

This includes additional opportunities for public engagement. Finally, staff will begin preliminary discussions regarding future lease opportunities for the Katy Wheeler and University Park libraries as the existing leases for these facilities are scheduled to expire within the next three to five years. As noted in these lease agreements, the city and county, upon mutual agreement, can meet and confer regarding a potential extension. That concludes our presentation for this evening, and we're happy to answer any questions.

All right. At this point, I'd like to turn to my colleagues at the dais and ask if they have any questions or comments that they'd like to direct to staff. I'll tell you what. I'll start it off. I was trying to do the calendar in here. It sounded to me as though the master plan, would be underway this spring, we hope, right?

So currently, we have an open RFP request for proposals out right now. After that, we'll engage with potential firms, go through a selection process, and anticipate awarding a potential bid around the May timeframe. And then after that, it would we would begin preparatory efforts to start to engage the public.

That sounds more like summer by the time

we Correct. Achieve

It's likely more closer to summer before.

And then eighteen months after that, we would anticipate the final master plan being put before the then sitting city council for consideration and adoption. Is that correct?

Correct. It could take upwards of twelve to eighteen months for full completion.

Oh, '27, early twenty eight.

Correct.

All right. And will there be considerable outreach to the community?

Extensive outreach, that is correct. Both to community public meetings as well as our stakeholders.

And that master plan would include considerations of expansion of existing facilities?

It will look at existing facilities as well as future expansion of other facilities as well, correct.

All right. And also, I presume some of the suggestions that have been made to lease additional space in the short term, those would be considered in putting together the master plan. And how about mobile library services?

It's definitely alternative or mobile library services are all a part of the things that we will be exploring for future operations.

Excellent. Let me just take this opportunity to thank you both and those who work with you for the very smooth transition that's taken place. We've got a lot of work to do. Think this is one area where Irvine is just way, way behind. I know as the services continue to improve that we will want to close that gap between what we have by way of library facilities and services and what we need going forward.

So it's an exciting time as well as kind of a daunting challenge. But I'm so grateful that we have just such outstanding people on board. I want to take this opportunity to thank you. All right. Next, Council Member Betty Martinez Franco.

Hi. Thank you. Thank you so much for the work that you always do. I just recently requested the city manager to talk to you, and I don't know if he did, he had the opportunity to negotiate, start negotiations with the county about the recent lease opportunities that with the county. We understand that we need to start working on that. Still, we have time, and I wanted to make sure that you are aware that that was a request that I did. I don't know if I need to put a memo, Mr. Melchin, do I need to put a memo in order to request negotiations for University Park?

Yes, if it's going to be counsel directed.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. I I was told not that I didn't need to put a memo. So I will come back to with that. But that's one of the requests that I will wanted to to do. Thank you.

I could, councilmember Martinez Franco and Mr. Melching, correct me if I'm wrong, there is some flexibility with the leases as they're written for the staff to engage with the county as long as it's before six months of the termination of the agreement. So I believe we can start discussing that option with them.

Council Member Martinez Franco, I'm happy to say that everybody's right. The staff does have the ability to commence those negotiations on their own initiative. I took your question to mean whether the council was going to mandate that they do that. For the council to take that action, it would take an agenda memo.

But it sounds as

though staff is going to do it on their own.

And if I might add, we have had discussions about beginning those conversations as soon as possible. Yes. Thank you.

At this time, I'll turn to our city clerk. Do we have a request for public comment?

We do, mayor. We have six requests to speak.

Excellent. Please call them if you would. How many are in person and how many are remote?

They are all in person.

All in person. Alright. A lot of interest in this. Please call them.

Thank you, mayor. If I could call forward Sandy Peck, Victory Allen, Allison Walter, Jason Garfield, and Mikaela Gonzales Montener, and Lee Handy. And we'll start with Sandy Peck.

Welcome.

Oh, here.

I see Over first, okay.

No, Vicki, right here.

Okay, okay.

I see some

Go ahead. Just tell them what you're doing.

Good friends, friends of the library who are joining us to be heard tonight. So please go right ahead. So Go ahead.

Good evening, mayor Egren and council members. My name is Victory Allen, and I've spoken to you before, but I have company. My very best friend Sandy Peck is with me tonight, and we are both long term residents of University Park, and of course, we're here about University Park Library and Bookstore. I'm going to start with the number 100. Sandy and I just recently came to the conclude we we came to this we figured out that between the two of us, the volunteer time that we have given to the University Park Library equals one hundred years.

Most people are their volunteer time is done in hours or minutes or days, but ours is one hundred years the two of us have given to University Park. We've loved every minute of it. University Park, the library, and the bookstore.

I'm Sandy Peck. I've lived in University Park for fifty years. I was the part of the founding member of the University Park Friends of the Library, which started in 1974. I was the first vice president second first vice president, but the president left. So I was the first president.

And I have been the president for several times over fifty years, and I helped run the book the bookstore. For thirty years, I sorted books. I really want to talk about the power of the bookstores. I don't know if you council members have visited the used bookstores of all three libraries, but they are fantastic. Over our forty years, you'll find this hard to believe, but University Park Friends of the Library have contributed over $1,500,000 to the University Park Library, selling $1 books and the wonderful donations given by our community.

Another thing that we did, I would say twenty five years ago, we urged the County Of Orange to purchase Asian language books for the library. We funded that and we have given over $200,000 for Asian language books. And the whole community of Irvine have used that collection as well as Orange County, and it was such a good collection that people from Los Angeles came to use it. So, we our tiny little library of 10,000 square feet has served this whole community for fifty years. Now, unfortunately, when the county we separated from the county.

They took the Asian language collection, and so we now have to rebuild that. And I do work as a a I've have a shift to the bookstore, and I've had many patrons come in and say, where are the Asian books? Well, that's we are here to help the the library get more Asian books. Thank you very much.

Thank you both, and thank you so much for your years of service.

Go ahead. I have two sentences. Through pregnancies, pandemics, and sometimes out and out Pandemonium. Pandemonium, Sandy and I have prevailed for a hundred to give a hundred years of service. And we are currently working, and we hope that the University Park Library will prevail for a

hundred years. Please. We beg you to save our library. Onward.

Thank you both so much. You. Allison Walter. Welcome.

Hi. Thank you for having me. And I'd like to thank Julie Zioli and Chris Slama for your work. Thank you for all of the work for the Irvine Public Library's project, and mostly thank you for putting University Park Library back into it. This decision recognizes that while a large central library is definitely needed, a library is what counts for a neighborhood.

I urge that more neighborhood libraries within five to ten minute walking distance for residents be created because they create unity and support literacy in the community. They create they provide walkable access to books, events, and digital resources for all different communities within Irvine. Accessibility encourages frequent visits from children to seniors. UPL once offered not only story time for children, but also cultural gatherings for teens and adults. In past years, UPL hosted evenings of Persian poetry, book clubs for seniors, and talks with writers, all happening at the library itself, organized by the staff that knew and understood the library's patrons.

I hope that University Park Library will again offer these events. Thank you again for working to keep UPL's doors open, and hopefully its programs thriving. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Chief Gershfield,

welcome. Thank you. So, I'd also like to say a word in support of University Park. I've been going there since I was a kid, and I volunteered there shelving books as a teenager. It's a real staple of the community. It's a beautiful place to study, to get work done, And the friends of the library is incredible. You never know what you're going to get there, but at best, can find some book you'd waste $20 on Amazon for a dollar or 2. I got a whole set of vintage Shakespeare books for $5. It's incredible. I've gotten to know Victory very well over the years, and so I've probably contributed half of the $1,500,000.

It's a real addiction, a serious problem. But, yeah, when this please, by all means, keep the University Park Library going. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mikaela. Hi, everyone. My name is Mikaela Gonzalez Montana. I'm a resident of District 5. I too am a university patron library or university park library patron. I just, of course, want to thank staff for the report. I hate to be greedy, but it was a wonderful report, and we would love to see even more on this. We've all been waiting anxiously for this report and things like what data is driving the master plan. Like, what are we how are we thinking? How are we making these decisions?

What you know, how are you envisioning envisioning this and what's going into this RFP? Things like that. For better, for worse, we're all very enthusiastic. And and further to that too, all of the stats you gave, very encouraging, but also would love to know how you feel about those stats, and how does that compare to what was happening in OCPL? How far do we have to go? Are we there already? Forgive my ignorance. I don't know those numbers, so would love to have them explained to me. I'd also like to thank Betty and staff, both of you, for your enthusiasm regarding the University Park Library and revisiting those leases. Conversations on that front have been encouraging.

I will say, why don't we buy it? We could think about that as well. So, I know it's not easy, and I want you to know as a community, we're trying to do our part. We have a conditional meeting coming up with Katrina Foley, and we will be looking to all of you for guidance on how we can make the most of that time and obviously support and not thwart your efforts. Let's see.

I would also like to say zooming out, because this is not about University Park, this is about the Irvine Public Library system, and I think it is really easy to lose sight of that sometimes. Zooming out, I've had the privilege of connecting with all the FOLs existing and in formation, and I've been very encouraged by everyone's passion for their libraries, but also an understanding that this is a library ecosystem, And we all do want to reinforce and support one another. It's very easy for me to see the case for University Park. We are like Turtle Rock and University Hills, their default library, as much as we are University Parks. And we also know that we're a sort of pressure reliever on Heritage Park and eventually on Katie Wheeler.

We all work together, and we are very passionate about the future, of course, and these amazing amazing libraries you will build us, but we also wanna get there. And we don't wanna lose any libraries in the process. We love the idea of innovation. Everything Alison Walter said about walkability, making these they don't have to be amazing. They can be simple. We just wanna make sure that this is a resource that's accessible to everyone across town. And, with that, I will go sit down. Thank you.

Thank you, Mikayla. Thank you. Lee Handy? Welcome.

Thank you. It's a hard act to follow, I must say. But I'm Lee Handy and I'm a strong supporter of our Irvine Public Libraries. We are so fortunate now to have our own library system. But before I get into what I'm here to say I want to thank you council member Betty Martinez Franco for bringing up the need to enter into negotiations with the county starting now.

If we wait until we have six months left on our lease that' just not enough time. Think the time is right. We have a new CEO for the county. We have new members here from Irvine who can do the negotiations. I really hope that begins very soon.

Thank you for that. But, I just want to say, six months ago, six months ago, we were here for the opening on that hot August day, a couple of my dear friends, we were all sweating out there in front of heritage and then came over to University Park and saw the opening of our own public library system. We have been under the administration of the county for so long. While we contributed a lot to the county, we did not get back what we needed from the county. So now this ship is guided by us and I' thrilled.

In fact I' going to digress another wonderful thing about living and being a resident of Irvine is our public records department. I don' know if you all know this but I heard that we had an RFP, a request for proposals that have been issued to find a consultant to help our library group plan the master plan. Well, I submitted my request. They spent some time. And here we are this afternoon.

We have this magnificent RFP. I'm an old contracts person so I love reading things like RFPs, requests for proposals. But when I looked at this and saw some of the beautiful things that are in it, the, for example, the scope includes evaluating regional partnerships, joint use opportunities, fire station and library for anybody, like Corona Del Mar has, an adaptive reuse of our existing or community facilities. I was thrilled. So, I just, I really, anyone who has some spare time and wants to read 45 pages of a lovely RFP, do it and I'll be glad to discuss it with you.

But the other reason I'm here today is to talk about one development I would really like to see, and that's the creation of a library advisory Can

you time is up?

Why don' t you take fifteen seconds to see if you could sum

it.

As we said we' working on the master plan. I think if we had a library advisory committee it could be composed of existing commissioners have district representation and also can contain members at large from the community. There is so much creativity that could come from using people from many different backgrounds to work together to develop a master plan that will provide an extraordinary library system for our city of Irvine. We are better together. I hope we do that. Thank you.

Thank you. And that is all, Mayor.

That concludes our public comments. I'd like to turn to my colleagues, but while it's on my mind before I recognize Councilmember Treseder, Will you be returning to us perhaps when the RFP is awarded?

Absolutely, yes. And

that should be by early summer, right?

We're looking to award in May, and then kick off early summer. So by May we can come back with information to the council about

And I'm going to suggest, too, that this idea of a library advisory committee as the master plan is being developed, that maybe when you next come back to us, you have given some thought to that, and maybe the council might wish to take action on creating a library advisory committee, at least through the master planning process. Just a thought. All right?

Absolutely. And if I could just add to that, there has been some discussion at the commission level with the Community and Library Services Commission about a subcommittee that could sort of liaise with the community and assist us through the master planning process.

Whatever ideas you have organizationally, please bring them back to us. I think we'd like to hear them at that time. Councilmember Treseder.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate all your hard work on this, and I'm very excited about how the libraries are coming along. I just wanted to follow-up from the comment from the Friends of the Library. They mentioned that they don't have a lot of Asian language books in their, holdings, and I was wondering if there's a plan to bring those in.

Yeah. So part of the original lease agreement was the county absorbed quite a bit of the materials, or not quite a bit. Mean, we kept about 70%, 75%. But they took some others. And yes, we are currently working very proactively to build our collections back up to what they were, what they should be. It does take a little bit of time to get the materials in, shelf ready, ordered, all that kind of stuff. But yes, we are very actively ordering materials as we speak every day. Thanks so much.

Thank you. Councilmember Liu.

Thank you. As a follow-up, has it been considered that maybe we could reach out to other organizations around the city that may have as I know the chinese culture center I' aware that they have a surplus of Chinese language books. Maybe we can reach out to them and see if they have any that they're willing to part with and share with us. I know that my mother personally has a huge collection that she's looking to donate. So, you know,

we can maybe open that up to groups around. Absolutely. Great idea. We do actively take donations as well. So thank you.

Thank you. I think that concludes this item. At this time, since this is a receive and file item, I don't believe we need a motion. Again, thank you to our staff. Keep us advised.

Everybody here is pretty excited about the progress we've made, but the progress we want to make going forward. Thanks for all your hard work. That concludes our presentations this evening. And now we move to public comments on non agendized items. This is an opportunity within a half hour total time for members of the public to be heard as to items of their interest and relevant to our city, but that are not on the printed agenda.

Therefore, this slot of time is allowed for non agendized public comment. Mr. Peterson, are there requests to be heard under this item?

There are, mayor. We have 17 requests to speak.

17. So let's make it ninety seconds. I'll tell you what, let's make it up to two minutes, but close the queue at this time, if you would. With that, please begin. Thank you, Mayor.

If I could call Kirsten Buen, Laura Molina Tien, Susan Sayer, Wing Chao, and Joanne. And we'll start with Kirsten.

Thank you, and welcome. Please pull the microphone down a little bit. There you go.

Kirsten Hi. Thank you. Good evening, Mary Gren and council members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name's Kirsten Buen. I'm a nurse and health services researcher. And I've had the privilege of caring for most of my career for adults and older adults with serious illness. I'm here as an Irvine resident in District 2, a working mom and daughter of two older adults. Irvine is a city that thoughtfully plans for the future as our older adult population continues to grow. I think we have both an opportunity and a responsibility to ensure our local infrastructure supports older adults and their families.

Tonight I respectfully ask the council to consider amending city policy to allow licensed adult day programs within residential homes. Adult day programs provide structured daytime supervision, social engagement, meals, and supportive services for older adults with physical or cognitive limitations. They allow older adults to remain with their families at night and on weekends, preserving connection and independence while supporting family members who work full time during the week. Currently, Irvine does not permit adult day programs in residential homes even though they are allowable under California state law and Orange County regulations when licensed. Other Orange County cities such as Laguna Niguel do permit them.

While Irvine allows residential care facilities for the elderly, these provide twenty four hour care. Many Irvine families as we know live in multigenerational households and do not need full time care. For many Irvine families, elders live with adult children who work during the day and then return to care for their parents at night. Live in caregivers are also financially out of reach for many families, and adult day programs often provide a more affordable alternative. Irvine does permit childcare programs, child daycare programs in residential homes, allowing adult day programs would apply the same thoughtful community based approach across the lifespan. I respectfully ask that the council revisit this policy and would welcome follow-up discussion. You.

Thank you. Just while you're there, you please provide information to our city management staff about this, and also the state law framework under which these adult daycare facilities are allowed in private residences.

I can do that.

Please do that, and we'll look into it. All right?

Thank you.

Thank you. Laura?

Good evening, Mayor Agron and council members Laura Themey. My daughter and I have been residents of Irvine since 2015, and for the majority of that time, it's been an incredible experience. We've spent many years over there at Bill Barber on many a softball tournament and many a day of having a lot of fun. On 10/07/2024, I walked into Hogue ER, and I was feeling pregnant. And I didn't understand that because I'm menopausal.

I am 57 years old. And I said, I would like to know why I feel pregnant, and I would like an ultrasound. I was locked up. I was detained. I was sent on a 5150.

And that experience has been horrible. It has led to a ruling which was issued yesterday in the Superior Court of Orange County stating that I am mentally ill and that my daughter is a dependent of the Superior Court system, which means she is not in my custody right now. That has caused extreme distress stress. And a difficult situation. It is really taking away from the joy and life that I have given my daughter as we came here from Columbus, Ohio in 2015.

I have become displaced as of November 1. I am with the affordable housing program. I'm registered with it. But I want us to look at hotel vouchers as an opportunity to help people that are going through some type of temporary crisis. I am underemployed, and I would like an opportunity to present more on this issue and bring insight to this council and to the city and to Orange County about solutions so that we don't create negative stigmas

Thank you, Tom.

For moms

like me. Thank you.

Yes. I'm going to ask you to be in touch with our staff, maybe you can describe in more detail.

Thanks mayor. I appreciate the respect thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Susan sayer.

Good afternoon. Welcome. My name and I' a longtime Irvine resident and I' currently living at regents point senior community many of my fellow residents do not drive and many would prefer public transportation over driving Becoming isolated from community resources is one of our greatest fears. Many of us are unfamiliar with using cell phone apps and we prefer credit card usage over cash purchases as many of us do not have access to banking ATM systems that can provide us with ready cash. We need transportation to provide us with access to city venues including bank shopping center venues, art galleries, theaters, restaurants, medical and dental services that require daytime and nighttime access.

We appreciate being offered on demand we ride services that require a membership fee suggest the use of telephone apps and cash donations with each ride. Without reservations is there a guarantee of transportation availability for a return trip home? If we had access to irvine connect we would not have to face these issues. Weekdays from eight to five is not adequate. Meets our personal care and needs but it does not meet our socialization needs.

Many of us want to go out to dinner and to attend evening theater performances. We are we ride trips and even Irvine Connect going to be able to provide us with transportation to and from the performances of our city owned Barclay Theater. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments tonight. Wing Chao. Welcome.

Good evening, honorable council members. My name is Wing Chao. I have been living in Irvine for forty one years. One of seven candidate for mayor in the last election. I wanna speak on three subjects. First, about the morning time with the mayor, Larry Eggler. Second is about the internet crime. Third, I wanna talk about the traffic light. First, appreciate it. The mayor has a morning time on Saturday with the resident.

I enjoyed it. But as the mayor said that during the candidate forum, they always have good idea. I want to add a good idea for the morning time with the mayor is to have better breakfast instead of serving just donggha ho. Irvine is such a classy place. Everyone, we should not serve just donuts. So instead of criticizing, I gave a $100 to the finance commissioner, Don Jeler. The next time, I have a better breakfast for all the people who come. And that's hilarious. You can contribute yourself. And your wife is a medical doctor, and she can contribute.

So to be classy, instead of picking, invite people to come. It's so cheap. Keeping some donut holes are so dingy. It should be be serving better breakfast. Second, there's a lot of set of pride. I want to work with police. During the last seven year, I exposed numerous possible scam on the Internet. So last year, even though we caught a scammer fugitive left China hiding in Irvine was discovered police. He scammed millions of dollars from China and now living in Irvine, but was caught by police. Third one would have traffic light and live in the area Karen and Yale. There's an international school, many traffic. I wanna see a traffic light being installed in that intersection to avoid any accidents. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Joanne. And if I could also call forward John Albritton, Mike Rao, Jason Garfield, Heidi, and Janine. Welcome.

Thank you so much. Before I begin, I want to thank council members Lou and Tressider and the entire council for proclaiming International Holocaust Remembrance Day and for acknowledging the Jewish community. I really feel the love. Thank you. I'm grateful for that, and I wish I were here just to celebrate what's working in Irvine, but instead, I'm back because these issues remain unresolved.

I want to talk about how a known Scribner's Ever, a missing easement, and misleading marketing are being used together to confuse the public and how this council's in action is enabling all three. The Irvine company tells residents the nature park is part of a dual path vision for how to best respond to state housing mandates. That framing is misleading. Irvine has already met its state housing planning requirements and there is no state mandate requiring housing at Oak Creek. They then describe the first path.

One path is to plan a large nature park that would anchor a low density village. You only see these deceptions if you read the fine print. Otherwise, it looks like a nature park, not housing. They also describe a second path quote the alternate path is to implement the city's general plan which identifies approximately 5,000 apartments. That number exists because of a known scrivener's error.

The city has known about it since last summer and has not fixed it. Voice of OC reported it in August 2025 on residents raising alarm that this figure is misleading and rooted in a general plan error. Meanwhile, the marketing is working. Residents believe the open space has been saved and thanked the Irvine company until they learn housing was already always part of the plan and lose trust in both the Irvine company and the city council. But nothing has been fixed.

According to the Orange County business journal the plan still includes nearly 3,000 homes while shrinking roughly two thirty five acres of open space to about 50 that is not preservation the scrivener's area remain unfixed and there is still no accepted permanent open space easement Fix the error. Accept the easement. Stop enabling the misleading narrative. Thank you.

John Albritton? I'll defer to the vice mayor.

Jason Garfield on to the next.

Jason?

Alright. So, first, before I go any further, I the story of the woman who is fifty one fifty struck me, and I I do think this is an issue we need to talk about because that system is abused. I know that the prevailing political wisdom right now says we should lock the crazies up, partly as an understandable response to some homeless people getting violent. But for the government to be able to put you in prison, essentially, with no due process based on the content of your mind sets a very disturbing precedent. And so I'd like to say that that story has my deepest sympathies.

Now, to Mr. Eric Nashanian, the cowardly lion divorce attorney, I You're so full of outrage for everyone. I wonder if you'll say one word against the fact that your government, Armenia, is supporting the murderous Iranian regime because you go after Israel all the time for keeping an alliance with Azerbaijan. Well, Israel is a small country in a dangerous neighborhood. They've got to take whatever allies they can get.

That's the only defense that can be made of of Armenia's decisions. So I wonder if you hold them to the same standard regarding the Havara agreement. That was an attempt made by by Jews at the time to effectively pay ransom to help Jews escape from Nazi Germany. Now, with what little time I have left, I'd like to reiterate my call for a paramedic subscription program. I could tell that some of you were pretty interested in it.

I sent some stuff to the city clerk, and he also seemed pretty interested. So this is something that we can do in Irvine. It would probably save lives and certainly save a lot of people from severe medical debt. If we could make that happen, I would be very glad to hear about it.

John Alberton, how are you, Mayor? Good morning. Council members. We're coming up on almost four decades since your greatest legacy, which was preserving open space in the center of the city of Irvine. I want to be very clear about what's actually being protected at Oak Creek because this is where residents are being misled. Right now, the so called protection at Oak Creek is tied to a use, operating a golf course, not to the land itself. The distinction matters. A golf course designation is a land use. Land use can change. When the use changes, the protection disappears.

What Oak Creek does not have is a permanent open space easement that runs with the land and binds all future owners. That's why assurances that Oak Creek is protected rings hollow. Protection that depends on a golf course continuing is not real protection once the use ends the land is exposed. If the intent is to truly preserve Oak Creek as open space the solution is straightforward and entirely within the city's control. Amend the easement so it protects the land use itself not just its use.

Then accepted recorded and make it enforceable until it happens Oak Creek remains vulnerable and residents are being asked to trust promises instead of legal protection this isn't complicated it' not theatrical and it's not optional. If open space preservation is the goal, please don't protect the use that can change. Protect the land at Oak Creek. Amend the easement, accept it, record it and preserve your greatest legacy which is open space to the city. Thank you.

Thank you. Mike Rowell.

Welcome, sir.

Thank you council members. I'm Mike from Laguna Woods. OCPA ratepayers don't need a sales job or marketing. What ratepayers really need to know is that OCPA discount to SCE has been eliminated. It's gone.

OCPA is planning a marketing blitz. Their campaign will try to spin straw into gold or if I may say so, bewilder the public. OCPA has been losing millions each month for a long time and aims to recoup the losses by charging more than SCE. OCPA's budget projections are often at variance and more optimistic than the final budget. The predictions rely on the same CEO and CFO who drenched OCPA with red ink.

OCPA should be transparent. A lot of the marketing points, such as 47 e bikes given away, are just diversions. The marketing plan speculates that ACE SCE might rate its rates higher than OCPA. One board member even said SCE's shareholders set the rates. That is incorrect.

SCE rates are set by the CPUC through a long regulatory process. If OCPA really is meritorious, make them open their books so everyone can see how they spend ratepayers' money. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments. Heidi? Welcome.

Thank you. Good evening, mayor and members of the city council. My name is Heidi, and I'm a longtime Irvine resident. Last summer I came to you with a simple idea to add a digital public speaker queue to our Council meetings so residents can see where they are in line. Nothing fancy just basic transparency and respect for people's time.

I have reached out to vote links the system we already use and confirm the feature exists. I shared that with the city's IT department and the response was essentially we will log it and maybe look at it someday. I let that go but then something else caught my attention. A few weeks ago I came across mayor agron's personal website where he publishes a clean organized voting record of every vote he has taken. I want to be clear, I think that level of transparency is great.

But it raised a question for me. If one elected official can publish his voting record in a polished public friendly format, why can't the city do that for all council members? Because the truth is the data already exists. Vote links tracks every vote. The city clerk records every vote. But residents have to dig through PDFs, videos to piece it together. Meanwhile a single elected official can present his voting record in a way that benefits him politically. That's when I realized something important. In Irvine transparency isn't a system it's a strategy. We see transparency when it helps someone's narrative.

We don't see transparency when it would level the playing field. This is not just about technology. Recently an article came out about ethics allegations involving a council member who may run for mayor. The complaint was not attributed. The timing was political and residents are left with half information and no official context.

We see the same pattern in major issues like the proposed Oak Creek Preserve development where the Irvine company wants to turn open space into 3,100 homes and the Great Park hazardous waste fiasco. In Oak Creek residents in our safe Oak Creek save Irvine campaign are piecing together MOUs legal statuses and environmental reports from scattered sources and including claims about protected land. Lawsuits alleged consultants understated contamination exposing mismanagement but the full process remains opaque.

Thank you for your comments. At this time, how many do we have left? We have one more in

person and have three on zoom. Thank

you. Thank you very much. That suggestion about where people are in the queue, how many speakers are ahead of them, would you give some consideration to that and maybe report back to us? Thank you.

And Mayor, just if I may, we do have more in person. I apologize. If I could call them forward too before you go, Janine. Doug Elliot, Lee Handy, Amir, and Alan Meyerson. All right. Welcome.

Thank you. It's interesting that she was talking about transparency because I also wanted to talk about governmental transparency. One of the few ways that members of the public like myself can know anything about what's going on in their city is to file a public records act request. The public records act requires the city to respond within ten days and to produce some documents within fourteen days after that. So I submitted a public records act request on November 5, and I heard nothing back.

More than ten days later, on November 19, I followed up on my public records act request. Again, I heard nothing from the city. On December 3, more than ten days after that, I sent a third email following up on my public records act request. Later that day, I got a letter back from the city saying that they had responded to my November 19 email. I never received it.

They said they'd provide records responsive records by December 31. On December 30, I got a letter delaying that to January 26, which was yesterday. Yesterday, I received another letter from the city delaying the records until February 23. That's like four months. Now I asked my husband because I didn't wanna overreact.

I said, why do you think it's taking so long? And he said, well, could be they're hiding something, Or it could be they're just incompetent. But the real reason is probably they're overwhelmed. Now, I get that. It's been the holidays. I'm sure city staff is overwhelmed with New Year things that they have to get done. But I think it would really help

Thank you. Your time is up.

Thank you.

Yes, let me just say we have staff here. My impression is our staff is extremely conscientious about Public Records Act requests. I don't know what may have gone wrong in your I would invite you to be in touch with our staff tonight. And let' see if we can take care of your particular problem.

Thank you.

Welcome Mr. Elliott.

Thank you mayor and good evening all I' Doug Elliott commissioner speaking only for myself. This Friday is officially Fred Korematsu day of civil liberties and the constitution in Anchorage. Or excuse me, Anchorage is where I used to live we're in Irvine now. Anyway, that is, so pursuant to a resolution, that was, introduced by councilmember traceter, seconded by councilmember martinez franco and unanimously passed by all of you. Thank you for that great act of unanimity and unity.

For those who may not be familiar, Fred Korematsu was an American hero. He was an American citizen who resisted the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. He fought his case to the Supreme Court where he lost unfortunately. But forty years later he was finally vindicated on the basis of new information turned up and the trial court expunged and reversed his conviction. Fred said that one person can accomplish change if it takes forty years.

Together, we can do a lot quicker. Political scientists have what they call the 3.5% rule, which means people get together, engage in nonviolent action, and can change the course of history. And that's what I invite you all to try to do in, in in remembrance, of Fred and celebrating his legacy. We know what to do. Let's go out and do it. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Lee Handy. Welcome, sir.

Thank you. Members of the council, good evening. My name is Amir Ali Razavi. I'm an Iranian American resident of Irvine, and I serve the public as a mental health therapist. I stand before you tonight not as an observer of a distant crisis, but as someone living with its consequences alongside nearly 30,000 of your residents.

What is happening in Iran is often discussed as foreign policy, but for this community, it is a lived reality. In my profession, I see the effects of this trauma every day. I see it in professionals who sit across me and people who show up for their jobs and take care of others while carrying the fear for family members they may not hear from again. Trauma does not stay behind borders. It follows families and communities into daily life.

With very rare exceptions, nearly every Iranian in this city has been impacted by the violence unfolding in Iran. This suffering does not remain overseas. It arrives here each morning with your constituents. And yet, people still show up. They serve, contribute, and help build Irvine into the city it is today. The Iranian community is not separate from Irvine. We are woven into it. We work here. We raise our families here. We invest in the city.

This community is not asking to be rescued. It is asking to be seen. It is asking for moral clarity. I respectfully ask this council to publicly acknowledge the Iranian American community and to consider adopting a formal resolution condemning the killing of civilians and peaceful protesters in Iran while affirming the city's commitment to human rights and human dignity. Such a statement will not end the violence, but it will matter. Thank you for

your Thank time and

you very much for your comments.

Thank

you. Alan Meyerson.

Welcome.

Good evening again, council members. Who is killing who in Sudan?

In Sudan, two main military factions are fighting for control of the country, the Sudan Armed Forces, SAF, and the Rapid Support Forces, RSF. Sudan Armed Forces, SAF.

Anyway, was just trying to make a point here. In Sudan, there's a gen real genocide going on. There's over 150,000 people have been killed. The reason I'm bringing this up is because I'm wondering where all the protesters were, right, where all the protesters are. When, it was going on with Israel, there was thousands of people in the streets protesting against Israel.

There's a real genocide going on in Sudan, and I don't see any protesters. I don't see anything on the news, and I don't see hardly anything on the news about what's going on in Iran either. So, I hate hypocrisy, and it just makes me think that the people that were protesting against Israel were really just anti Semitic Because they are not protesting against what is going on in Sudan and over 150,000 people have been killed there and nobody is talking about it.

Thank you for your comments.

Our next speaker is telephone number 347. 347, you may unmute your mic.

Yes, this is Steve Bach. Council member Bai, I thought you ran on closing down the happened? OCPA rates are far exceeding NCE rates. OCPA's CFO announced publicly about the 12% to 16% rate increase, but then you already knew about this because you sit on the OCPA Board and voted for it. You are neglecting your fiduciary duty to the residents in Irvine.

Irvine residents are still being steered into paying more for electricity during a time of real financial strain. A fiduciary does not ask residents to absorb higher costs based on speculative future benefits. A fiduciary protects people now. Automatic enrollment paired with higher rates is not leadership, it is not transparency and it is not responsible stewardship. It is a dereliction of your duty.

Council Member Ma, if OCPA cannot deliver what they promised, then it is your responsibility to remove the city from the scam that has been in existence way too long. You have its original founding chairman, Mike Carroll, voting to get out along with the mayor. What is it that you don't understand about this corrupt organization? Are you being held hostage until our loan is paid back? Because I thought that had already been started and we were just waiting for the check. Were we misinformed? Please communicate with us and tell us what is going on so we don't have to guess. Irvine residents deserve affordability, honesty and accountability, and we are getting none of that from you. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Eric Nashanian. Mister Nashanian, you may unmute your mic.

Thank you. Mayor Abraham, council members. There are two murders that occurred in Minnesota this month. One of them was Renee Goode. Renee Goode was a poet.

Larry, I'd like to thank you for suggesting that the city should have a poet laureate. It's something that I bought up at least a year in this chambers, if not more. It's a shame that the city does not have a poet laureate, although it is home to or or had a noble laureate in poetry from the the university. And there's plenty of authors and writers in the city as acknowledged by the you know, by who you put for the indication. But let's talk about your voting record.

Your voting record has shorted things like the fledgling library system. Right about the same time that the the city decided to take the library back from the county, the city gave at least 10% of the $5,000,000 in the Irvine Recovery Grant Plan program to two organizations that were not qualified to receive the money. That's $500,000 Certainly, library system could have used that $500,000. It it it had no reason to go outside of the city or to organizations that were not qualified to receive it. But the library was qualified to receive it.

The library needed it that could help the residents and, the small businesses. But your voting record now is plunged by that. It's also plunged by the OCPA votes. And, you know, what are we doing here? This is money that should've been been used for city purposes that was used otherwise, and no one's clamoring about it. No one has said anything about it. No one has asked staff to come back and report about what happened with the herbicide recovery grant program with regard to oversight to see if reports have been filed and whether or not the other organizations that received the money were qualified to receive it.

Thank you. Your time is up. Our next speaker is Vicky Johnson. Vicky, you may unmute your mic.

Hello. I have a video. Thank you.

Want to save 12% or more on your electric bill? Opt out of the Orange County Power Authority now. In 2026, OCPA will charge at least 12% more than SCE on your total bill. That's about a $20 per month increase more for an average home.

Actually, we will be 12% higher than SCE's total bill for basic choice. And for Smart Choice, we will be 15% higher than their total bill. And for 100% renewable choice, we will be 16% higher than their total bill. In terms of the dollar, it will be about $20.

Council members my and go voted for this 12% increase. OCPA will no longer offer a 3% increase. Many in Irvine don't know that by default, they are OCPA customers for part of their electric bill. Don't get ripped off. To save 12% opt out of OCPA, Google OCPA opt out for the opt out instructions.

And that is all mayor.

Thank you. That concludes our public comments on non agendized items for this evening, allowing us to move along to the next item on our agenda, which is the city manager's report.

Thank you, mayor. We have three items to report on tonight. The first two will be done by our public works director, Luis Sesteves. Those two items include progress on a project that we've been working on for a bridge at the Ventas Spur. And then secondarily is a brief update on the field house. Luis, will you present those two first items?

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krubbe. Good evening.

Welcome.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council. I have a very brief presentation to provide you an update real quick on the new pedestrian bridge project that is in the final design phase. This is a new pedestrian bridge that connects the Venta Spur to the Jeffrey Open Space Trail. It's right here at the intersection.

The bridge, the Recreation Trail Bridge will cross over Jeffrey Road and then connecting the Venta Spur Trail, which runs east to west, to the Jeffrey Open Space Trail, which runs north to west I'm sorry, north to south. And, of course, the ultimate goal of this project is to create a safer, continuous regional rail connection I'm sorry, regional trail connection here. The project is in the final design phase. The project is expected to go into construction at the beginning of the third quarter of next year. It will take about a year to construct.

The city recently was awarded a $4,000,000 grant from SCAG. That is enough money now to get us into the construction phase with a total project budget now of $9,000,000 And, again, this will be a huge improvement to the recreation community, the folks using it for recreational purposes, and be able to connect these two important links here in the city. So that concludes my update on this particular project. Be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Are there any questions? No. Go right ahead.

Okay. The next update is on the Irvine Fieldhouse project. This project, as you know, is located down on Red Hill Avenue, in the heart of the IBC. And when completed, will provide 110,000 square feet of indoor, sports and recreation facility. It is the city's first municipally owned gymnasium and really is designed to meet an overwhelming growing demand for indoor recreational facilities and sports.

The facility will include 10 multipurpose courts, which includes, of course, badminton, pickleball, and futsal. We'll have 10 basketball courts there as well, along with a multipurpose room, some office spaces, a kitchen area with a food court as well. And we'll have plenty of on-site parking to serve the facility as well. The first phase of the project is the construction of the core and shell of the building, which is under construction now. It started in summer of last year, and we anticipate receiving or taking delivery of the finished shell by May 1.

The tilt up structure is up. The roof trusses are in as well. The roof has been attached. And right now, the contractor is working hard on completing a lot of the interior improvements, which is the interior building systems like the HVAC, fire suppression, things like that, installation of doors. There's also parking lot grading and the paving for that as well.

And coming hot on the heels of taking delivery of the building shell, the city will then move on the second phase, which is to construct all of the interior tenant improvement. This is a significant part of the project as well. The City Council allocated funds in the current CIP budget for this effort. The construction drawings and technical specifications are being finalized now and going through a constructability review. Our plan is to be out to bid for the improvements in March or April, and then presenting the City Council with the construction contract in May or June.

So, as soon as we take delivery of the completed shell of the building, the goal is to have our TI contractor move in and start those improvements and then be completed with that either at the end of this year or the 2027. So that concludes my update. I'd be happy to answer any questions on this as well.

I don't have any questions, but I do want to say thank you to you and all the others for the hard work. I'll tell you when these bridges are completed, the Josta Bridge over the 5 Freeway and the Venta Spur Bridge. And now, of course, we have one under construction on Jamboree, Jamboree and Michelson. These are just remarkable achievements. They happen to be very, very beautiful structures as well.

So I thank all those who've been involved. You know, I once had the idea, which I've repeated on a number of occasions, that when these big structural projects are completed, there ought to be a scroll of some kind, just with the names of all the people who work to make a bridge possible or a building possible. It's something that wouldn't really add much to the cost, but I think might give a real sense of recognition to all those who put in so much hard work and talent to make these wonderful projects happen. Absolutely. Mr.

City Manager, maybe you think about that a little bit, all right?

Wonderful idea. All right. Mayor, if I might, one last brief update by our esteemed police chief, Mike Kent.

Thank you, Luis.

Regarding immigration. You, City

Manager Crumbi. Good evening, Mayor and members of City Council. My name is Michael Kent, Director of Public Safety and the Chief of Police. There have been no known ICE or Border Patrol operations within the City Of Irvine since we last met on January 13.

Thank you.

Thank you. That concludes the City Manager's report. Thank you very much, Mayor.

Thank you to our city manager, to our staff. We here at the dais and the public at large appreciate being brought up to speed on a number of these projects. With that, we move now to announcements, committee reports, council reports. This is an opportunity for those of us at the dais here to very briefly give a report as to things we are doing that are public note in our respective districts for council members or indeed, since all council members serve on one or more outside agencies, committees, internally as well, this is the appropriate time very briefly to report on those activities as well. With that, I'll turn to four of my colleagues who wish to be recognized.

Council Member Trusieder first.

Thank you. For my council announcements, I'd like to remind Irvine businesses about AB twelve seventy six, California's Skip the Stuff Law, which is now in effect statewide. This law helps reduce plastic waste by requiring food service businesses to provide single use items such as utensils, straws, napkins, and condiments only upon customer request rather than automatically. This applies to both dine in and takeout food service businesses, and customers may still receive these items when requested. We're asking Ribbon businesses to review their practices and help ensure compliance with this law.

Reducing unnecessary single use plastics help protect our environment, reduce waste, and supports Irvine's broader sustainability goals. Enforcement of AB twelve seventy six is conducted by the Orange County Health Care Agency's Environmental Health Division, which also conducts restaurant inspections. Residents who have concerns can report issues directly to the county. Thank you to the many businesses that are already doing their part. If businesses have questions about compliance, city staff are available to provide guidance and support. City staff will also be including AB twelve seventy six in their upcoming solid waste outreach to local businesses. Thanks.

Thank you. Councilmember Lu followed by councilmember Martinez Frankel.

Thank you. Good evening, everyone. I'm excited to share with you all of the recent works my office and I have been doing in the community. I'm pleased to report a productive first meeting as chair of the hotel improvement district committee on January 20 we are focused on putting Irvine on the map by leveraging upcoming global opportunities including the twenty twenty six World Cup and twenty twenty Olympics to drive tourism and economic growth to our city. Next slide, please.

I'm grateful for our partner at OCFA. In December, they responded to nineteen thirty nine emergency incidents. That's a lot, including 18 fire related incidents and twelve eleven rescue and EMS calls. Next slide, please. I was proud to partner with the Hope Centers for the Art, a studio for adults with intellectual disabilities, to host their first gallery opening reception here on January 15.

We invite everyone to view the incredible artwork on display at City Hall until March. I have invited their band high hopes to perform at a future council meeting. I hope to see them soon. To honor Martin Luther King Jr. Legacy of service I joined local leaders at the OCMLK prayer breakfast at new song church.

Later that day team Lou helped pack food boxes with sable an incredible nonprofit dedicated to ensuring food equity for all. We toured the Marine Way Great separation projects on January 20. This project will allow easy access for residents and visitors between the Great Park and the Irvine Train Station. Completion is scheduled for 2027. Next slide, please.

Timmie also attended the groundbreaking for the I 5 improvement project on January 23. This project will improve traffic flow between the 405 And 55 Freeways. And finally, as always, my office is here to assist you, so please feel free to reach out with any requests, questions, concerns, or ideas. Thank you.

Thank you for your report. Councilmember Martinez Franco, followed by Councilmember Go.

Thank you. Good evening, everyone. I would like to share a few updates from my office for the past few weeks. Next slide. District 5 has an exciting update along East And West Yealoupe.

Bike lanes in this area have been upgraded with buffers to provide more space between cars and bicycles. This effort was only possible thanks to our city engineers and transit staff who put their hard work and dedication to improving safety. Next slide. Last Friday, city council colleagues and I attended the iFi groundbreaking ceremony to celebrate the start of new improvements being made to the freeway. Next slide.

I'm also excited to share a few updates from the Orange County Fire Authority. The city of Irvine has recently achieved a class one ranking from the insurance services office. Meaning that fire conditions for that area have been improved and homeowners may be able to receive lower fire insurance rates in the future. This achievement reflects the dedication of our fire department and community to ensuring the highest level of fire protection. Thank you to everyone who contributed to this amazing progress.

Next slide. OCFA has also recently elected its new chair and vice chair for the twenty twenty six board of directors, mayor of Laguna Hills, Joshua Sweeney, and Nitesh Patel, council member of La Palma, respectively. The board is committed to ensuring effective fire protection and emergency services for communities across the county. I look forward to continuing this work with my colleagues in the upcoming year. Next slide.

I would like to invite you to stay connected with me on social media and more updates from District 5 and the City of Irving. Next slide. And lastly, please sign to our monthly newsletter by scanning the QR code to for news and upcoming events in the city, or feel free to reach out to my office by phone or email with any questions. That concludes my report. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Martinez Franco, Vice Mayor Mai. Oh, I'm sorry. Councilmember Goh. Councilmember Goh, followed by Vice Mayor Mai.

Thank you mayor. As a couple of my councilmember colleagues shared the octa announcement at the I 5 improvement. I just want to give a little bit more detail as the OCTA board member. We broke ground on the I 5 improvement project this week to Irvine and Tustin in partnership with Caltrans. The approximately $760,000,000 project between the Interstate 405 and the State Route 55 will add a regular lane in each direction and make improvements for all commuters.

This is a major effort to improve mobility and safety and reduce congestion along one of the Orange County's busiest freeway. In addition to freeway improvements the project includes enhancement for active transportation such as upgraded pedestrian curb ramps, repainted bike lanes for better visibility, added lighting and installation of new guardrails and concrete barriers to enhance safety for all roadway users. The project is expected to be completed in 2030. Last week I also attended the Metrolink board workshop with my fellow board members where we took a close look at Metrolinx performance over the past year and talked about what's ahead. We heard directly from Metrolinx staff on operations, policy, and fiscal planning, and discussed projections for 2026.

Board members from cities across Southern California and our five partners agency came together to focus on how we can improve service, reliability, and on time performance. With the twenty twenty six FIFA World Cup and the twenty twenty eight Olympic Games coming to our region, it's especially important that Metrolink is ready to deliver a smooth and reliable experience for the communities we serve. As Irvine continues to grow, I'm looking forward to continuing this work with Metrolink in advocating for a stronger regional transit network across Orange County and Southern California. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Councilmember Goh, Vice Mayor Mai.

Thank you, Mayor. I have an update on OCPA. So, the first thing I want to talk about is, well, let's not pull that up yet, Carl. So, OCPA update. We are OCPA is 12% higher. I'm not going to sugarcoat that. I sit on the board and serve as Irvine's representative. My job is to demand transparency. My job is to represent Irvine and find out what's going on, to keep us whole and not leave any money on the table. Previously, we had dropped everyone to the lowest tier.

We demanded repayment of our original investment or our loan OCPA. We got that paid back. We're starting to pay back with that. Yesterday at the board meeting, I strongly, strongly, strongly urged OCPA to advertise rates in a transparent manner and also to let customers know how to opt out easily. Their strategy is to lock rates in for a year to avoid rate fluctuations throughout that year. I want to be clear at this moment. OCPA rates are higher across the board from the basic to the top tiers. They might not be later, but they are right now. If you are a rate sensitive customer, you can opt out. If not, stay in.

The key is our choice. That's my update for OCPA. I'd like to move on to Carr, can you please pull up the slide, please? My office held our Youth Leadership Conference over the weekend. We saw a need, a demand, and interest from youth groups that have been engaged for over a year with us and created this conference to truly engage the youth.

The policy brief competition were students from across Irvine and across the county, even as far as Los Angeles came out. Past and present mayors joined the podium. Christina Hsieh, Suki Kang, Senator Stephen Choi, and our mayor, Larry Egren, along with city manager Sean Karimbi, shared their insights to give students, to give advice to the students. We had over 140 students checked in, received name tags, were placed in 18 teams. This competition was intended designed to go beyond symbolic youth engagement and instead provided an intellectual, rigorous, policy focused civic experience and platform to hear their voices and ideas.

I'd like to pull up the winners as well. Next slide, please. Here are some pictures. Next slide, please. We had three topics. And the first one, these are the winners of the e bike usage and public safety. Next slide, please. Second topic was the role of immigration and custom enforcement in Irvine. Next slide, please. And the final one was California Housing and Affordability.

These are the winners. Congratulations to all the winners. And I'd like to thank again the former mayors and our city manager for participating in this. The results were extraordinary that these individuals and these kids were very engaged and look forward to the next one. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Mai. And thank you for putting together what was an outstanding conference. So well attended and well organized. I think it was a real winner for all the participants. So thank you for doing that.

Let me just take a brief moment to announce an exciting development. I'm pleased to report that we are opening eight new pickleball courts at Mike Ward Community Park. That's in Woodbridge next month. A ribbon cutting ceremony will take place on Tuesday, February 3 at 3PM, weather permitting. The ribbon cutting will highlight the court's inaction, with local pickleball organizations scheduled to play.

This project includes the addition of shade structures, picnic tables, benches, and water bottle filling stations, known to some as hydration stations. To minimize noise impacts, the courts will be enclosed with a sound dampening barrier. The lighted courts will be available for community drop in play, reservations, and programs on a daily basis. When they open, court reservations and program registration will be available at your Irvine, that's Y O U R, Irvine dot org. For more information on pickleball courts in Irvine, visit cityofirvine.org/pickleball.

So I hope you'll be joining us for this exciting, long anticipated grand opening. I think that concludes the announcements for this evening, Allowing us to move on now to ask the city manager if there are additions or deletions to the agenda.

None tonight, mayor.

No additions or deletions to the balance of the agenda. Consent calendar is next. Item three on our agenda. Consent calendar tonight consists of items 3.1 to 3.4. Consent calendar items are typically regarded as noncontroversial and routinely adopted on a single roll call vote.

Residents, of course, have an opportunity to comment on these matters before a vote is taken, and council members have an opportunity to remove items from the agenda. With that, do we have any requests to address the council on consent calendar items?

We do, Mr. Mayor. We have two requests in person, one on item three point two and one on item 3.4.

All right. Why don't we take those public comments at this time and then we can take a vote on the consent calendar.

Thank you mayor if I could call forward janine and reema nashishibi. Janine is speaking on item 3.2.

Hi. This item is to create an art installation which is a replica of the Azadi Tower in Tehran Iran in order to commemorate the contributions of the Persian community to in Irvine. I wanted to bring up two things about this application. Maybe this has already been discussed. But first of all, I thought it was a little odd to celebrate the contributions of the Persian community in Irvine by replicating a structure from Iran.

Now, maybe it makes sense to other people, but I wouldn't commemorate the Chinese community in Irvine by building a replica of the Great Wall. And I wouldn't commemorate the Italian community in Irvine by building a replica of the Colosseum. So it seems kind of an odd connection to make between the contributions of the Persian community here in Irvine and Tehran, Iran. The Azadi Tower also is listed in this art application as a symbol of freedom. The only reason it's connected with freedom is because when the Islamic Republic took control in the seventies, it changed the name to a zadi, which means freedom.

But, obviously, the Islamic Republic is in no way connected with freedom. It is one of the most repressive regimes in the entire world. There are no freedoms for the Iranian people. There's no political freedoms, no economic freedoms, and no social freedoms. We all know that if a woman shows three hairs outside of their hijab, the morality police will come. They will beat her. They will throw her into jail where she could be raped. She could have her eyes shot out or she could be killed. That is not freedom. We see a lot of protests right now in Iran.

Those people don't have the freedom to protest. Their government is strongly repressing them, shooting at them, killing them, using chemical weapons against them. Three thousand over thirty thousand people have been killed. Over three hundred and fifty thousand people have been injured. So I want to make sure since a lot of you are running for reelection that if you haven't had the opportunity to talk about this art project with your Persian constituents or your Persian organizations in your district, you might want to take an opportunity to do that before you pass this item.

If you push it off to the next meeting it's no harm no foul. You can always bring it back and once you have confirmed that it does actually mean what it is supposed to mean, you can then with a clear conscience vote for it. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Rema? Welcome.

Good evening mayor and city council members. I' here to thank councilmember treasurer regarding item 3.4 for the $1,000 grant to Global three sixty five. As you know, Global Hope three sixty five, it's a five zero one(three) to end harmful practices towards women and girls, such as child marriage, human trafficking, and other forms of gender based violence. And it's phenomenal that today in the morning we received an award at the Orange County Board of Supervisors, then later today at Senator Catherine Blake's office, and now this. So it's a great day. Thank you so much.

Thank you for your comments. Mister mayor, we

do have one more via Zoom. Alright. Mister Nashanian, you may unmute your mic. You have ninety seconds.

Thank you, mayor mayor Egren, council members. That's exactly what I wanted to talk about. What Janine just did right there, where she wants to say, recognize us, but don't recognize them. This art project was brought by the community, by Iranians. They brought they brought it upon themselves to to to promote this project, and it got here after going through committees.

So she's trying to delay recognition of our Iranians here in the community that lobbied deliberative bodies of the city to get to this point purely on an Iran Israel kind of basis. And this was brought by Iranian Americans here. And that International Holocaust Remembrance Day, that's brought by Israel lobby organizations. There are no individuals here talking about this. This is brought by in in organizations like Anti Defamation League that has a history of genocide denial on behalf of Israel and Turkey, that has a history of spying on US citizens, and has a history of defending US citizens.

But this city is so ignorant. Our council members are so ignorant that they're collaborating with these groups to pass these resolutions, with these organizations that are involved in such heinous acts. But this Azadi Tower project was brought by residents from the city that went through the proper process, and now we're here. You should reckon

Thank you. Your time is up, and that is all mayor.

Thank you. That concludes our public comments. I'm just trying to keep track here. It appears to be that, items 3.1, 3.3, did not receive any comment. Is that correct?

Correct.

I will move adoption of those items on the consent calendar. Second. It is a motion by me and second by council member Mai that consent items three point one and three point three be adopted. Will the clerk please call

the roll?

Council Member Carroll? Yes. Council Member Go?

Yes.

Council Member Liu?

Yes.

Councilmember Martinez Franco?

Yes.

Councilmember Trusieder?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Mai? Yes. And Mayor Agram? Yes. Carry seven zero.

That concludes those items, leaving items 3.2 and, 3.4. It's a pleasure of the council. Did you you're reaching for your did you wish to make all right. Well, will move the balance of the consent calendar then, items 3.1, I'm sorry, three, three point two and three point four. Is there a second?

Second.

Seconded by council member Treseder. Would the clerk please call the roll?

Council member Carroll? Yes. Council member Goh? Yes. Council member Liu? Yes. Council member Martinez Franco? Yes. Council member Treseder?

Yes.

Vice mayor Mai? Yes. Mayor Agram?

Yes. Carries seven zero. Thank you. That takes us to item four on our agenda tonight, which is public hearings. Public hearings are a little more formal in their character slightly than our normal handling of business.

Procedurally, just a little different. I'll explain in a moment. Why don't we move to item 4.1? Will the clerk please identify this item by subject and title?

Irvine zoning ordinance technical update and Irvine municipal code amendment.

Under the rules prescribed by California state law, I'll now declare the public hearing open and turn to our staff to introduce themselves and present this item, if you would.

Thank you and good evening mayor and members of the city council. I am Tiffany Lynn, a senior planner with the community development department and I'm joined by principal planner Nick Maloney and the item before you this evening is the zoning ordinance and municipal code technical update. This update is brought forward periodically to update the city zoning ordinance and municipal code. The current proposed update includes several changes that are listed within this slide and in the following slides I will be going over each of the update items in further detail. The first item proposes to update the city's objective design standards.

The objective design standards were adopted by council a little more than a year ago and as the city has been applying these standards to new residential and residential mixed use projects, opportunities have been identified to make it more user friendly and to broaden the applicability. Key revisions include lowering the density threshold for applicability, refining design criteria based on implementation experience and applicant feedback, clarifying existing requirements and requiring the submission of a checklist to assist with project review. The next item relates to Planning Area 36 or the Urban Business Complex also known as IBC. This update removes obsolete urban business complex overlay district and transfers key applicable development standards to the applicable chapter regulating planning Area 36. Additional updates are included in other areas of the zoning ordinance and municipal code to ensure overall consistency as well as to eliminate outdated references.

Continuing with Planning Area 36, an update is also proposed to clarify Planning Commission review responsibilities related to transfer of development rights. The update also removes the average daily trip waiver provisions for Planning Area 36, which is an existing redundant procedure. The removal of this procedure would make the transportation review process more business friendly by streamlining review. Lastly, changes to the residential and residential mixed use overlay district provide for additional compatibility standards. This project is exempt from further environmental analysis as update does not directly result in development.

Notice of tonight's hearing was published in the Orange County register and posted at city designated locations and to date staff has not received any public comment. The citywide code update went before the Planning Commission on December 4 and the Planning Commission unanimously recommended City Council approval of the proposed update. Overall, the technical update introduces new regulations, strengthens internal consistency and updates obsolete sections of the code. Therefore staff does recommend the city council adopt the attached ordinances approving the zoning ordinance and municipal code technical update on first reading. This concludes staff's presentation and we are available for any questions.

And are there any questions of staff? Early comments? There being none at this time, do we have any requests from citizens to be heard? No, Mr. Mayor. No request for public comment. Let me just move to close the public hearing then at this time. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Council Member Go. Will the clerk call the roll on closing the public hearing?

Council Member Carrol. Yes. Council Member Go. Yes. Council Member Lu.

Yes.

Council member Martinez Franco?

Yes.

Council member Trecedor?

Yes.

Vice mayor Mai? Oh, sorry. He's absent from the dice. And mayor Agram? Yes. Carries six to zero of the members present.

Public hearing, being closed. The motion is in order. But before I make the motion, what I'd like to do is just note that even though this is a technical update and seems rather routine, there's a reason that our city is known worldwide for its good planning, that we're well planned, we're an orderly city. It's because of zoning ordinances and attention to detail and modifications that need to be made over time so that even as we grow, we grow qualitatively and not in a haphazard fashion. So I thank you and all your colleagues for all the work that you do.

At this time, I'll do it, Jeff. Okay? I'll move to introduce for first reading and to read by title, an ordinance of the city council of the city of Irvine, California approving zone change zero zero nine six four one nine six dash p z c to amend the Irvine zoning ordinance to include new and revised zoning provisions related to Chapter three dash 27 dash setback standards, Chapter three dash 37 dash Zoning District Land Use Regulations and Development Standards Chapter five-eight Irvine Business Complex Residential Mixed Use Overlay District, Chapter five-nine Residential and Residential Mixed Use Overlay District, and Chapter nine-thirty six planning Area 36, Irvine Business Complex. I think we'll take them one at a time. Right?

Having introduced that motion by way of reading the title of the ordinance is there a second?

Second.

Thank you councilmember truceader with that absent any comment at this time I will turn to the clerk to please call the roll.

Councilmember Carroll. Yes. Councilmember Go. Yes. Councilmember Liu. Yes. Councilmember Martinez Franco. Yes. Councilmember Trusieder.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Mai. Yes. And Mayor Agram. Yes. Carries seven zero.

I'll move the staff second recommendation, which was to, by way of a motion, to introduce for first reading by title an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Irvine, California approving zone change zero zero nine six nine four three five dash PZC to amend the Irvine Zoning Ordinance by providing revised zoning provisions related to Chapter three-eighteen Multifamily residential and residential mixed use development objective design standards and to amend the objective design standards manual. Is there a second?

Second.

Alright. I thought you were going to ask me to read it again. Alright. There's a motion properly seconded by, council member Vice Mayor Mai. Absent any further discussion, would the clerk please call the roll?

Council member Carroll?

Yes.

Council member Go? Yes. Council member Lu?

Yes.

Council member Martinez Franco?

Yes.

Council member Trecedor?

Yes.

Vice mayor May. Yes. And mayor Aigran. Yes. Carry seven zero.

And finally, I'll move for introduction by title, an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Irvine, California, amending Title V, Division V of the Irvine Municipal Code to provide changes corresponding with zone change 00964196 PZC specific to Planning Area 36 Irvine Business Complex. Is there a

second? Seconded motion.

Was that seconded by councilmember Martinez Franco? All right. With the motion now properly before us, having been seconded by Council Member Martinez Franco, would the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Carroll?

Yes.

Councilmember Go? Yes. Councilmember Liu?

Yes.

Councilmember Martinez Franco? Yes. Councilmember Trecedor?

Yes.

Vice Mayor May?

Yes.

And Mayor Agram? Yes. Carries seven zero.

Thank you. That concludes this item. Thank you to our very, very able staff. Much appreciated. All right. Now we move on to item five, remaining council business. Item 5.1, would the clerk please identify this item by title and subject. Ordinance establishing changes and additions to posted speed limits. Thank you. With that, I'll turn to our city staff.

Look at all the people involved in posting speed limits. Welcome. Please introduce yourselves and tell us more about this item.

Good evening mayor and fellow members of the irvine city council my name is why it sing and I' part of the city' traffic engineering team within the public works and sustainability department. Tonight I'm joined by Brad summers the city's traffic engineer. We are here today to present an ordinance to amend the city's engineering and traffic survey for posted speed limits which set speed limits within our roadways. To start, would like to provide some context as to existing legislation that supports our efforts to review it and establish appropriate speed limits within the city. California state law establishes that the maximum speed limit for a two lane undivided roadway is 55 miles per hour.

All other roadways by default can exhibit a 65 mile per hour speed limit. If a speed limit is to be posted below these values for either classification, an engineering and traffic survey must be conducted and maintained by the city. There are two exceptions that yield speed limits of fifteen and twenty five miles per hour as shown on this slide. The California vehicle code or CBC for short allows public agencies to set speed limits by establishing an ordinance. This allows for the city to promote orderly movement at speeds below the designated maximums from the previous slide.

This action also allows for effective enforcement by public safety by means of electronic devices. The Irvine Municipal Code establishes authority for City Council to approve speed limit changes and authorizes the Public Works and Sustainability Department to post and maintain signs with that are documented within the engineering and traffic survey. Additionally, Assembly Bill 43 or AB 43 for short within California state law allows for prevailing speed limits to be rounded down by five miles an hour. AB 43 also allows for further adjustment for two criteria, safety corridors as well as roadway segments within proximity of land generators of high bicyclists and pedestrian volumes. Either of these criteria can be applied for a specific segment to allow for further reduction in speed, but both cannot be applied to the same roadway segment.

AB 43 also allows the city to retain the current speed limit or restore the prior speed limit if no general purpose lanes have been added to the roadway segment being analyzed. Using the legislation to support, the city routinely conducts an engineering and traffic survey in order to document speed survey data results and determine appropriate and enforceable speed limits to be posted on our roadways. The prevailing speed is determined by conducting a speed survey to calculate the eighty fifth percentile speed. This means that if 100 cars are traveling along a roadway segment, the eighty fifth percentile speed would be the speed at which 85 of those 100 vehicles are traveling. From the determination of the eighty fifth percentile speed, there is guidance provided that gives us direction on rounding in order to appropriately set posted speed limits.

For this, 2025 engineering and traffic survey, the city surveyed 126 roadway segments. Of these segments, 35 roadway segments will maintain the existing speed limit. Twenty seven will establish speed limits where there was not a previously established speed limits. And, decreased speed limits will be posted on 56 roadway segments. Additionally, two segments along the same roadway are being recommended for increased speed limits.

Those two segments are along Bosc between Irvine Boulevard and to Cadence, and then from Cadence to Great Park Boulevard. The increase will be from 25 miles an hour to 30 miles an hour for both segments along Bosc. This slide displays the maps of the segments where speed limits will be established, as well as where recommendations are being made. These changes are color coded by posted speed limit in miles per hour. As an example, 25 miles an hour is shown in red, whereas 45 miles an hour is shown in light blue.

With that, staff's recommendation is to introduce the language on this slide for first reading and read by title only. With that, thank you for your time this evening. Staff is available for any questions that you may have.

Thank you. Just to refresh my memory a little bit on this. A presentation was made to us a while back along the same lines on decreasing a number of speed limits in the city. Is this formalizing that as well as adding further street postings?

That's a great question. Thank you mayor. This is a repeated survey that we conduct. In the past, it has been done annually. It's something that we're looking to do a little bit less frequently as speeds are stabilizing around the city. With the new AB 43 language that's been provided, we're seeing that as an opportunity to lower segments where we can and create some more consistency along roadway segments or corridors. For the presentation that you're referring to it's a similar effort if anything it's adding on to that And as you mentioned, it's including newer roadway segments as the city accepts new streets.

Thank you. I think this enabling legislation at the state level allowing us to reduce speed limits and make them stick, make them enforceable, I think this is a very favorable development. I think it will make our city safer. Obviously, it takes time for people to adapt to lower speed limits, particularly finding out that they're enforceable, they aren't just a suggestion, they're actually the law. And I think we're doing better in the last year.

I haven't looked at the latest data, but I think on traffic enforcement, traffic safety, Is it your impression that we've actually done better, fewer fatalities, fewer serious accidents and injuries? Do you have any data to support that supposition on my part?

We do work closely with our public safety staff and specifically the traffic bureau to go over the speed limits that we're recommending here tonight. We also work closely with them to review our collision data. Was something that was presented to our transportation commission actually in November reviewing twenty twenty four's collision data. So, it's something we gather and we look at closely. We just recently obtained the information for 2025. So, we're still reviewing that, and we'll have that information in the near future.

All right. Well, we'd like to, of course, see those data. I think the general assumption that if we can get people to reduce their speed of travel, sometimes traffic will just do that all by itself. But where it doesn't and where people understand that driving a little more slowly is apt to spare them and others a lot of grief, I think think we'll make some headway in the period ahead. Any other comments, questions people have at this time?

I don't see any requests from my colleagues. That being the case, I'm prepared to move to introduce on first reading this ordinance. Would that be your pleasure? Okay. You don't have anything to add?

Okay. I'll move adoption of introduction as part of adoption of an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Irvine, California, directing an amendment to the City of Irvine engineering and traffic surveys for speed limits as maintained by the Public Works and Sustainability Department as the official documentation of declared prima facie speed limits. Is there a second?

Second.

This is seconded by Council Member Treseder. I'll just add one other thing. The public at large probably doesn't know this, but if there is a serious, indeed a fatal accident, we're routinely then notified by the police department. And it just seems to me, chief, it's been months since I've received such a notification. And I I take that to be just good news. Is that correct?

That is definitely good news, especially when you factor in how large the city is and the amount of traffic that flows through the city. So definitely a lot of credit goes to our partners with traffic engineering working in collaboration with our traffic bureau to ensure the safety of the community.

Thank you. We still, obviously, if we have a serious traffic incident, all council members are advised. Is that correct?

That is correct. When we do have traffic collision, especially when the results in a fatality, the counsel is advised of that.

Thank you. Thank you again. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Mister mayor, if I may, just for clarity of the record, there were no requests to speak on this.

Oh, yes. I'm I'm sorry. Thank you for reminding me of that. And please call the roll.

Council member Carroll? Yes. Councilmember Go? Yes. Councilmember Liu? Yes. Councilmember Martinez Franco? Yes. Councilmember Trusieder?

Yes.

Vice mayor May? Yes. And mayor Egren? Yes. Carry seven zero.

Thank you. With that, we move to item 5.2. Would the clerk please identify this item by title and subject?

An ordinance of the city council of the city of Irvine, California to amend division seven to title four of the Irvine Municipal Code relating to bicycles, electric bicycles, and other traffic on city streets and property within the city.

Thank you. With that, I'll turn to our staff and ask them, please, to introduce themselves and proceed to familiarize us with this item.

Good evening mayor, members of the city council, city staff, and community stakeholders. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Shaheen Shahangard and I'm a lieutenant in the Irvine police department's traffic bureau. Tonight motor training officer Jason Schaefer and I respectfully request the first reading of amendments to division seven of title four of the Irvine municipal code relating to bicycles, electric bicycles, and other traffic on city streets and property within the city. Motor training officer Jason Schaefer has served with the Irvine Police Department since 2003 and has been a member of the traffic bureau since 2018, where he has established himself as the department's expert on the laws and enforcement of electric bicycles and other micro mobility devices.

I'd like to turn it over to our resident expert, Jason Schaefer.

Thank you, Lieutenant. Mr. Mayor, members of City Council, the City Of Irvine is served by multiple modes of transportation, including motorized and non motorized conveyances. The City of Irvine encourages bicycle use as a safe and convenient means of transportation for both commuting and recreational purposes and offers over 100 miles of off street bike trails and over two fifty miles of on street bike lanes. With a well developed network of pathways and its commitment to promoting bicycling as a sustainable mode of transportation, Irvine is a great place to explore on two wheels.

The city recognizes the benefit of bicycling as an alternative mode of transportation, resulting in reduced carbon emissions, environmental enhancements, and increased health benefits for all members of the community. In recent years, electric bicycles, also known as e bikes, and electric mobility devices and conveyances have gained popularity as an efficient and eco friendly mode of transportation. E bikes are bicycles equipped with an electric motor that provides pedal assistance, making it easier to ride long distances and climb hills. As technology continues to improve and prices become more affordable, e bikes will continue to grow in popularity and in use. However, statistics demonstrate that e bike accidents are becoming increasingly more common.

Collisions with motor vehicles, most often due to increased speeds, control issues and unlicensed, inexperienced riders operating the electric mobility devices and conveyances, have created higher risks than traditional bicycles. Higher e bike speeds significantly reduce reaction time for riders to be able to avoid potential collisions.

In May 2023, the city's public safety and traffic engineering departments drafted a series of ordinance amendments to establish regulations on electric mobility devices. Those were adopted by Irvine City Council in July '23. However, the city continues to see an increase in unsafe riding behavior amongst the juvenile demographic, which has raised increasing concerns about public safety and preservation of public and private spaces for their intended uses. These amendments proposed by the ordinance aim to address the issues by providing standardized definitions of electric mobility devices, implementing additional regulations on unsafe riding behavior, and emphasizing safe use of these devices in both public and private areas, while balancing residents' abilities to use electric mobility devices for transportation or recreational purposes. The proposed amendments are a fundamental component of Irvine's comprehensive strategy designed to address the growing challenges related to electric mobility device use in the city.

E bikes are a great means of transportation when they are used with due regard for the safety of others. However, the improper and reckless use of e bikes, especially among young riders, has significantly increased safety concerns. Over the last three years, 65 to 70% of the city's bicycle collisions involved a juvenile rider, with sixty to sixty five percent of those involving an e bike. More specifically, we observed that the thirteen to sixteen year old juvenile age group is involved in fifty three percent of all bicycle collisions, with sixty nine percent of those operating an e bike. With the increasing popularity and usage of electric bicycles, electric scooters, motorized bicycles, and other micro mobility devices, traffic accidents involving individuals operating the aforementioned devices and collisions with motor vehicles have greatly increased, necessitating rules and regulations applicable to these devices to ensure a safer community.

In an effort to adequately protect the community from the dangers inherent in operating these electric mobility devices, Public Safety is proposing to amend the Irvine Municipal Code under Division seven of Title IV.

Key components of the amendments include updating the municipal code's definition of mobility devices consistent with recent revisions to the California vehicle code, precluding mobility device owners from tampering with or modifying their devices in order to increase the speed capability beyond the devices specifications, increasing parental responsibility and accountability for knowingly authorizing or permitting their minor child to violate provisions of the municipal code, continuing classifying violations under the bicycle division as infractions unless the circumstances warrant charging them as misdemeanors, revising the municipal code's enforcement mechanisms of traffic laws to coincide with provisions of the California Vehicle Code implementing lower speed limits on sidewalks, bicycle paths, trails, especially when other people are present or in and around a school zone when children are present adding specific definitions of unlawful operation of motorized and non motorized conveyances to the Municipal Code mandating conveyances be ridden in and or on appropriate and designated trails, pathways, and roadways within city parks and parking lots removing bicycle licensing application requirements and fees from the municipal code where such provisions conflict with the California vehicle code and are preempted by state law and finally, allowing for storage or impound of any conveyance found in violation of the municipal code at the discretion of the official ordering the seizure.

Public safety is not suggesting city council pass an ordinance disallowing e bikes on any paved bike path or trail, implementing certain age restrictions on e bikes beyond those already provided in the California Vehicle Code, or implementing licensing or registration requirements as doing so at this time would conflict with the provisions of the California Vehicle Code and are preempted by state law. These amendments are intended to represent one piece of a comprehensive agenda to improve overall public safety.

Public notice was given January 20, these additions and amendments were shared at the transportation commission, and by a five-zero-two vote, that the City Council adopt the proposed amended ordinance of Division seven of Title IV relating to bicycles, motorized, non motorized conveniences. Additionally, they recommend that the proposed speed limit be changed from 15 miles per hour to 20 miles per hour on a bicycle path or trail, as outlined in Section four-seven-two zero five, subsection C. Public safety will continue to focus on education and awareness efforts. Once approved, public safety will launch a public awareness campaign and provide a thirty day grace period before enforcement of the updated municipal code. Public safety suggested amendments to the municipal code would not result in any significant financial cost to the city, and traffic engineering may choose to install signs in designated areas throughout the city if or when it is determined that they are needed.

E bikes and other electronic mobility devices are here to stay. Educating our community and enforcing the laws related to these devices remain a top priority for our department. These municipal code additions and amendments will provide us additional enforcement options to ensure that all drivers, pedestrians, and bicyclists enjoy a safe and enjoyable experience on our roadways, sidewalks, and bicycle paths. Thank you very much for your time. We're available for any questions that you may have.

Well, you for your presentation and for your continuing hard work in this area of growing concern. I have a number of thoughts that I wanted to share, but just generally speaking before, I wanna recognize my colleagues first, but generally speaking, this ordinance with its various amendments and provisions and so forth generally seems to do two things. One, conform with the requirements and preemptive provisions of state law and so forth. But at the same time, it gives clarity and I think a broadening of local authority to deal with this growing problem. Is that correct?

That's correct, sir.

And it gives you some discretion in certain areas that I'll want to follow-up with in a few minutes. But is that a correct assumption too?

Yes, sir.

More discretion, more tools, more possibilities to keep people safe.

That's correct.

Alright. With that, I'll turn to my colleagues, Council Member, Trecedor, followed by Council Member Liu.

Thank you. I really appreciate you being here to present this and for all your hard work on this ordinance. Thank you. I appreciate your expertise and your time. And I also appreciate, I had a e bike safety town hall with representative Dave Min a few months ago, and you were all very generous to donate your time and to come and to give us some remarks.

And I understand this is just a very difficult situation to try to deal with, and I think that this is the the best of possible worlds, what you put together. The only thing that I just have a little quibble with is just the the speed limit for e bikes on trails and bike paths being 15 miles per hour instead of 20. I know that the Transportation Commission recommended 20. I can I can imagine that 15 would be safer than 20? I will say I ride e bikes a lot, and I ride on the trails.

I really love the Mountain To The Sea Trail and the and the Shady Park Trail, Shady Canyon Trail. I go about 18 miles an hour usually, and so do most of the people on the trail with me. I think it's probably fine. I don't think that people are being super reckless if they're between that fifteen and twenty mile per hour range. So I would just I would favor having the the higher speed limit of 20 miles per hour, but I'd love to hear what my colleagues have to say about this. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Trusieder. Councilmember Lu.

Thank you. First of all, thank you. This has been long awaited. We get so many emails and meeting requests about this issue all the time. And you're probably both tired of hearing from my office and meeting with us to educate us. So, thank you for doing all the hard work. That's kind of a follow-up. I personally do not ride bikes, so I would like to know what because we did get the email about how transportation commission had recommended 20 miles per hour. Can you please explain why you arrived at 15 rather than 20? Why wasn't their recommendation adopted?

One reason we had suggested 15 miles an hour is because that's what it is for electric scooters. It's a lower speed limit, which tends to give people more reaction time to respond to anything that might interfere with the path of travel. The recommendation for 20 was just as council member had said that most people can ride their bicycles between fifteen and twenty miles an hour, even conventional bicycles, not just e bikes.

Right. So, I mean, that kind of you know, if safety is not a concern, that goes to an enforcement issue. I would hate to paint the city into a corner if we don't differentiate it. If it's possible, maybe that should be something we can do to differentiate bicycle versus scooters and set the different limits. I mean, obviously, whatever is reasonable, and I would hate to make that an issue for enforcement. The other thing is, can you clarify the specific criteria or threshold officers will use to decide whether issuing a citation versus impounding a device?

To address the first comment, there is a subsection for motorized scooters that's separate from the e bikes or conventional bikes, and that's already at 15, which is consistent with state law. Discretion is going to depend on the circumstances of the situation, how compliant the juvenile is when they're being detained or stopped for the violation, what the violation is, how egregious is it, are their parents able to respond or a guardian able to respond to pick up their electric bicycle. So there's a lot of factors that the officers will take into consideration before impounding an e bike.

And, I'm really glad that we have both considerations reinforced in this update. One part is education. The other part is enforcement. What are the plans to maybe roll this out and educate the public? Especially as a parent, my first goal is to make sure my kids don't lose a limb when they go out and ride their bikes. So, I would think that parents are probably of the same thoughts that they would like to know a little more about that and keep their kids safe.

Absolutely. So, we would use our social media platforms. We connect with Irvine Unified School District as well as the Tustin Unified School District. Those are probably going to be the major ways that we spread the word and the message to the Irvine community. It will also be on the Irvine Police Department's website as well as the city of Irvine's website.

And so, with that said, thank you so much for doing all the hard work. And I can't wait to get this rolled out.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Lu. We'll turn now to Councilmember Martinez Franco, followed by Councilmember Go.

Thank you. And thank you so much for all the work that you do. I have actually the same question as my fellow Councilmember Melinda. And my concern is for pedestrians and has been my concern since I started investigating this issue. I remember a few months ago, I have my health and wellness walk event.

And as I was walking with the community, bicycles will not care that we are walking in the side of the almost falling into the creek. They will just pass us, like, super fast. So if for some reason we are tripping and then that person is coming even five miles faster, they're not gonna be able to stop. And another concern is that there are kids walking there like toddlers, and they cannot just, like, control them or the dogs in the leashes. So how what are we doing to protect pedestrians? That's my whole point and has been my whole point the entire time.

A lot of these were with that in mind. One of the state legislation that's currently dictating how we operate, bicycles and e bikes fall under the same definition. So, because bicycles are conventional bicycle, a bicycle with training wheels can be ridden on the sidewalk, then all bicycles are allowed to be ridden on the sidewalk. So, part of this was to see if we could reduce the speed to give people more of a reaction time or for the cyclists to be able to see what the threats are ahead of them so they can avoid it.

But well, then they have more reaction time if they go 50 miles an hour rather than 20?

Yes. The slower the speed, the more reaction time that they would have. So one of the things that we had added in here is that on a sidewalk that somebody won't travel more than 10 miles an hour, especially in a school zone. It will be five miles an hour when children are present. So there's additional language that has been added to it to have slower speeds when there's people around. In general, there's also a section where they're supposed to ride with due regard for the presence of others, which is all pedestrians.

And the last question, how is this going to be enforced?

Same way all of our other vehicle codes are enforced by members of the traffic bureau, our police officers that are on the streets. Again, we'll be educating the public before enforcement occurs.

But in the trails?

It'll be by us as well.

In bicycles? Correct.

Police officers.

Thank you.

So right now, on the open space trails, people are not allowed to ride electric bicycles. That's what was passed in 2023.

Yeah. They still ride it.

Yes.

Okay. Thank you. You're welcome.

Thank you, Councilmember Martinez Franco. Council member Go. I pushed the button. That's alright. Council member Go. I'm gonna, after that, call on council member and vice mayor May, who hasn't spoken yet.

Thank you mayor. I just want to offer a couple of perspectives from an end user rides an electric scooter, a regular bike without a motor, and as well as bikes with motors. So, generally, I feel on a scooter, 15 miles an hour is right around where it starts to get difficult to maneuver because the wheels are much smaller. The turning radius is very tight, and it's harder to just keep it safely above that. But for bicycles, we have a much better handling capability, higher, bigger tires, better turn radius.

And while 15 is great, I think 20 for most people is the functional speed. Anything beyond 20 when resistance starts to get exponentially much harder to go higher. So, I think for a lot of folks between 15 to 20 is pretty seamless back and forth. I've always cautioned that let' not create policies that either are difficult to enforce economically and functionally just very hard because you' going to find a lot of DC program between 15 to 20 regardless because a lot of us don' t even have a dometer on our bike we don' know how fast we' going per se. From a physics standpoint naturally the 20 mile an hour barrier is kind of like where physics meet human capabilities.

Think while it's great we want to keep people safe, I understand. But, at the end of the day, you want it to be functional as well. I would hate for you guys to go try to ticket everybody going sixteen, seventeen, 18 miles an hour without them even knowing they they feel like they're going 15 or you have intentions. So I think from a user standpoint, I'm all for safety, but it would be very hard for us to to monitor ourselves to go between that speed or try to stay away from it. That's basically my feedback as a user.

Thank you, Councilmember Goh. I'll call on Councilmember Vice Mayor Mai at this time to be followed by Councilmember Tresidder and then Councilmember Liu in a second round apparently.

Thank you, mayor. And thank you officers for your presentation. This data is just it's great to see this data that you have up here. I really appreciate that. Seeing the actual numbers and the age groups really brings things into perspective. I tend to agree with my colleague here, William Goes. 20 miles per hour, I think, is kind of a good balance there. Especially, I mean, I use an e bike also when I'm going downhill, it goes a little higher than that. Even if I'm going at 15, it tends to go a little bit higher than that as well. I want to just reassure you, we want to give you all the tools that you need to enforce the law in any way possible.

So, your advice and your feedback is very important to all of us. I do have a question on enforcement. When a resident wants to report this, do they go about, like if there's a violation, if they see an e bike violation, are they able to report it? Or do they go through the standard reporting mechanisms?

Yeah, they could report it online through one of our portals or they could call dispatch and let the officers know that it's happening in the moment. So, usually when there's a large group of juveniles that are causing a problem, that'll be a call to our dispatch center and they'll send available officers.

Okay. And then also, are you guys actively monitoring hotspots where this happened around schools or during after school hours where these large groups tend to populate and pop up after school?

Absolutely. We do that as well as all the different shopping centers where they tend to congregate as well. Okay, great.

Thank you very much. You're welcome.

Thank you. We're into a second round here. Councilmember Traceter followed by Councilmember Liu.

Yeah. Thank you. I just want to mention in terms of enforcement, at our town hall that we had where, officer Schaefer was. Right outside of the town hall, we were at a a community center. Right outside the town hall, there was a basketball court, and there were a bunch of juveniles who were on e bikes being pretty unsafe in the basketball court. So he just went out and started talking to them. He said, you're pretty unlucky. We're just in there with the e bike safety town hall. But he talked to them for quite a while, and I have to say, was really impressed. They at first, they seemed pretty concerned, but then they seemed pretty like, they seemed, like, very friendly with you, and they actually stayed around after to hang out with you a little bit more.

So I really appreciate that. You do a good job of finding that balance between enforcement and encouragement. So just wanted to recognize that. But, I also just wanna emphasize that this 15 miles per hour to 20 miles per hour question is just for the bicycle paths or trails, not sidewalks. So sidewalks, five miles per hour. Right? Around school zones?

For sidewalks, we have 10 miles an hour and then five around school zones when children are present.

Perfect. So places where there are pedestrians, absolutely. I'm not thinking that we should be going 20 miles per hour next to pedestrians. Absolutely not. This only applies to bicycle paths or trails. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you, councilmember Treseder. Councilmember Liu.

I forgot to ask this question. One last question about parental liability. Are we what kind of standard are we using? Are we using actual knowledge that the parents know about their children not being safe and have received have violated the rules or are we using a reasonable person standard?

The standard we would be using is whether the parent knowingly authorizes their child to violate these provisions. We understand that sometimes children don't listen to their parents as a parent myself I understand that fully well. Situations we consider, especially when you start talking about the off highway electric motorcycles, especially when parents are continually allowing their children to ride these even though they know they're illegal. When we can establish that there is some kind of knowledge that goes beyond just a young person not listening to their parents in the moment, those are the standards that we are going to be using for this kind of enforcement. Thank you.