City Council - Regular Meeting

Get started. Welcome to the 05/12/2026 Salinas City Council meeting. We're gonna call this to order. And Patty?

This meeting is available in Spanish for members of the public in attendance and on Zoom. Translation devices can be obtained in the foyer.

Zoom webinar participation is available for the members of the public. The Zoom webinar ID and link are available on the posted agenda on the city website. Will everyone stand and please join me for the pledge? All right. Thank you. Patty, please call the roll.

Council member Barrajas. Council member Barrera. Here. Council member Dorado. Here. Council member Dorado. Dorado. Here. Council member Salazar. Here. Council Member Sandoval? Here. Mayor Donahue?

I am here. Thank you. Alright. We are gonna start off by doing a whole lot of proclaiming. So what we'll do is we'll proclaim and and then we'll do the the pictures afterwards. So with that, we will start with Older Americans Month. Okay. Good. There's a month that I get to be involved in. Good. Alright. And Christian, it says here I'm looking for you. Yes.

Thank you, mayor and members of the city council. Kristen Lundquist, the Library and Community Services Director. Older Americans month is observed every May to recognize the contributions, independence, and stories of our older Americans. The 2026 theme is champion your health and focusing on wellness, prevention, and proactive health. I'm pleased to be joined by a number of the participants from our senior program, that meets daily at the Breadbox Recreation Center, to socialize, engage in a variety of activities, and enjoy a nutritional lunch.

This really has become a family, and I think if you have an opportunity to talk to any of them, they'll talk about the impact that this program has on their life. I also wanna thank the rec staff that we have here today that's responsible for planning and making sure these great activities and critical activities really take place. So we appreciate the recognition. Thank you.

Okay. You're welcome. Know, council member Breyer is going to handle the proclamation. I want to point out from a techno because I want this to be inclusive. If you're over 50, you're part of the ARP card. So all those who are 50 and above. Alright. It's a big group. Council member Breyer, it's yours.

Well, welcome to all the young ins in the group. You know, mister mayor and council before we recognize these good folks, we want to remember Larry Sandoval. Larry passed away a couple of weeks ago. Larry has been involved with the seniors and with Sun Street Centers for many, many years. Larry loved to be at the bread box at the Fire Recreation Center. Not only did he help out as a volunteer, him and his wife, may she rest in peace as well, Luis. Luisa? These were giants in our community. Great people, great servants. And you know what?

They enhanced the life of many, many people, and I and I've seen that myself. A lot of people that suffered from addiction, Larry and Louise did a lot of great work with them. And on June 10, thanks to these very active young seniors, on June 10, we're celebrating Father's Day at the Breadbox. We're going to recognize also a formal recognition for Larry Sandoval. And also, I'm inviting all the council. I know Chief Acosta may be there to join us. We're going to have a great celebration. And from that, I also wanna thank the staff. Man, you guys do a great job out there. I I wanna thank the Parks and Recreation staff here.

Really appreciate your passion and the way you serve these young adults here because these people are active, they all run circles around you. You got to be careful with them. But let's look at this. Whereas the city of Salinas includes a growing number of older Americans who enrich our community through their diverse life experiences. And the city of Salinas is committed to strengthen our community by connecting with and supporting older adults, their families and caregivers.

As a matter of fact, some of you are caregivers because you're you're that dynamic, you're that strong, you take care of others. And we acknowledge that your many valuable contributions to our entire society here in Salinas. Whereas the recreation and park division offers a variety of programs and serves services for older adults at the bread box recreation center. And remember, the bread box is a temporary place where I know Kristen is getting ready to fix up the firehouse recreation center. Whereas in Salinas in California, we recognize the importance of bringing together all generations to engage in activities that promote physical, mental, and emotional well-being for the benefit of everyone.

Whereas residents enhance the lives of older Americans in our community by promoting home and community based services that support independent living, involving older adults in community events and other activities and providing opportunities for older adults to work volunteer learn lead and mentor and I understand you folks not too long ago went on went to a casino on a awesome bus. Man, you guys are players. And now on behalf of mayor Dennis Donahue and on behalf of this great city council, we hereby proclaim the month of May 2026 as older Americans month. Remember 50 and over. Urge every resident, every resident.

Just to thank your grandma, your grandpa, they're still with us. I hope they're still with us. Man, we need to appreciate them. Let's urge Jerry Reson to take time during the month to recognize older adults and the people who serve them as essential and valuable members of our community. And here they are. We wanna say thank you. Along with Older American Month, we just lost a great man, John Meeks. He was a planning commissioner for District 2 for as long as I've been a council member. John Meeks was one of my biggest critics. He thought I was worth this in serving, and then my wife one day says, why don't you invite him to be on the commission?

And he accepted. And you know what? He was born again. John Meeks was not only a planning commissioner, he was a dear friend. He was a war veteran, an awesome human being, but he went on be with the Lord and I am going to miss him and I know as a planning commissioner he worked with with Mayor Donahue as well. So on behalf of us and just to remember John Meeks today as well. Thank you. Thank you, mayor.

Alright, we'll do pictures later. So, and thank you for remembering those folks. Alright, we are now going to I'm looking for Grant Leonard and we'll this is also historic preservation month. So May is a busy month. Whereas the month of May is recognized as National Historic Preservation Month and whereas the city of Salinas has a rich and diverse history with many historic buildings and other resources representing the different elements of the city's history.

And whereas on April 2730, the city passed ordinance number twenty five zero five to create the Salinas Historic Resources Board to support the preservation of Salinas' architectural heritage for the benefit of education and community revitalization and the preservation of sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places and to identify and promote significant historical and cultural sites within the city. And whereas in 2025, the Salinas Historic Resources Board initiated a certificate of appreciation program to recognize individuals, organizations, programs, activities, and projects that have demonstrated a strong commitment to preserving, improving, and enhancing the city's historic resources. Now, therefore, I, Mayor Dennis Donahue, on behalf of the Salinas City Council, hereby proclaim May 2026 as historic preservation month and encourage all residents in joining and recognizing this special observance. So, Grant, are you here?

Yes, I'm here.

Okay. Alright. Well, we will make sure during pictures we have some historic resources to take pictures of. That is the historic resources. Now, we will and I know Adrianne is around. At least I

think I do. Okay, there she is.

Alright. Next up, National Public Works Week, seventeenth through the twenty third coming up. Whereas public works professionals face focus on infrastructure facilities and services that are of vital importance to sustainable and resilient communities and to the public health, high quality of life and well-being of the people of the City Of Salinas. And whereas these infrastructure facilities and services could not be provided without the dedicated efforts of public works professionals, engineers, maintenance staff and administrators. Whereas public works department personnel are responsible for rebuilding, improving and protecting our nation's transportation, water supply, water treatment and solid waste systems, public buildings and other structures and facilities essential to our residents, and whereas it is in the public's best interest for residents, civic leaders, and children in the city of Salinas to gain knowledge and maintain an ongoing interest and understanding of the importance of the public works department and their programs in our community and whereas this year marks the sixty sixth annual National Public Works Week sponsored by the American Public Works Association with the theme rooted in service powered by community.

Now therefore I, mayor Dennis Donahue, on behalf of the Salinas City Council, do hereby proclaim the week of May 17 national health, safety, and advancing quality of life for all. And I see we've done a bait and switch, and we have David Jacobs.

On behalf of the Public Works Department, I'm pleased to accept this honor, and I thank the council for recognizing Public Works Week. And also, in coordination with the county in the city of Soledad, we're hosting a public works week event at where's that? Toro Park? Toro Park on Sunday. So we are all invited to come out and take a look at the equipment that we have out there.

Appreciate it.

Okay. Thank you, David. Alright. Very good. Alright.

Next up, National Police Week National Peace Officers or National Police Week is this week the tenth through the sixteenth and National Peace Officers Memorial Day is 05/15/2026. Whereas in 1962, President Kennedy proclaimed May 15 as National Peace Officers Memorial Day in which May 15 falls on National Police Week to honor the service and sacrifice of those law enforcement officers who have lost their lives in the line of duty for the safety and protection of others. Whereas there are more than 800,000 law enforcement officers serving in communities across The United States including the dedicated members of the City of Salinas Police Department. And whereas since the first recorded death in 1783, more than 23,700 law enforcement officers in The United States have made the ultimate sacrifice and been killed in the line of duty. And whereas we honor the service and sacrifice of the two members of the Salinas Police Department who have been killed on the line of duty, Edgar Claude Smith on 04/01/1945 and Jorge David Alvarado Junior on 02/25/2022 and whereas three sixty three new names of fallen heroes are being added to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial this spring and whereas the service and sacrifice of all officers killed in the line of duty will be honored during the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund's thirty eighth Annual Candlelight Vigil on the evening of 05/13/2026.

Now therefore I, Mayor Dennis Donahue, on behalf of the Salinas City Council, hereby proclaim May 15 as peace officers Memorial Day and the week of May 1 through May 16 as National Police Week and publicly salute the service of law enforcement officers in our community and across the nation dated this May 2026. And the police chief is here.

Thank you, mayor, city manager, city attorney council members. It is really truly an honor and a privilege to work amongst the greatest police department this county has ever seen for sure. And I get that privilege in a few minutes or hours later where I can really talk about this. But really want to thank you mayor and everybody involved for recognizing our department during National Police Week. Your support means a great deal to every member of this team, not just the team, but their families.

This week is a reminder of the commitment and sacrifice made every single day by law enforcement professionals, and we are honored to serve this great community. We also want to recognize the officers, dispatchers, professional staff, families who work behind the scenes to make this possible. We remain committed to serving this great community with professionalism, integrity, and compassion. This team goes out every single day, works with our community, is really changing lives, making a difference, and being impactful every single day they come to work. This is an amazing team, so on behalf of the department, thank you for your continued support, collaboration, and confidence in the work that we do daily.

And by the way, they're very excited. They love to take pictures. Thank you very much.

Alright.

Thanks, chief. Alright. Last proclamation we will have is the National Emergencies Medical Service Week. So that's the seventeenth through the twenty third twenty twenty six. And will get in equal time will be fire.

And whereas emergency medical service provides providers play a critical role in safeguarding the health and well-being of our community and their dedication, compassion and expertise save countless lives each year and whereas national EMS week observed annually during the May is a time to recognize and honor the commitment and sacrifice of our EMS professionals and whereas EMS providers include paramedics, emergency medical technicians, dispatchers, firefighters, police officers and other first responders who collaborate seamlessly to provide emergency medical care, transportation and support to those in need and whereas those courageous individuals respond selflessly to emergency calls often putting themselves in harm's way to provide immediate medical attention, stabilize patients and transport them to appropriate medical facilities and whereas EMS providers work tirelessly around the clock serving as a vital link between residents and healthcare systems enhancing the survival and recovery rates of patients in emergency situations and whereas EMS providers also play a pivotal role in public health education, disaster preparedness and community outreach promoting safety, injury prevention and health education initiatives and whereas during national EMS week we express our deep gratitude to EMS providers for their unwavering dedication professionalism and commitment to excellence which contribute to the overall health and safety of our community.

Now therefore I, mayor Dennis Donahue, on behalf of the Salinas City Council, hereby proclaim the week of May 2026 as National Emergency Medical Services Week in Salinas and urge all residents to join me in recognizing and honoring the valuable contributions of our EMS professionals dated this May.

Good afternoon, mayor and city council. Thank you for recognizing national EMS week. I want to let you know that the Salinas Fire Department has 68 EMTs and 25 paramedics spread across three shifts. They respond to EMS calls in our city twenty four hours a day. And you've got the annual report in front of you.

You see all the good work that our paramedics and EMTs are doing, but I want to let you know some of the other things they do behind the scenes that you never see. Every morning, they start their shift off by checking their equipment to make sure it's all accounted for and ready to operate for the person who's in need. After the call, have to sanitize that equipment, get it cleaned so that we're not transmitting any illness to the next patient and getting it ready for the next call. Afterwards, we have to spend time writing the report, documenting, and sharing that information with the hospitals. And when we're not doing that, we're doing continuing education to keep up our skills so that we're constantly evolving with medicine.

The folks you got behind me are just a few of our firefighters, our paramedics and EMTs, and they truly deserve the appreciation. I want to just thank you again, and these are the ones that you need to recognize. Thank you. Alright.

As far as pictures, we're gonna have our friends from from the firehouse. Come come up come on up and then and then we will go public works, police, EMS, and I don't think anyone's here from historic resources. All right. We are, as folks may recall, we continued the last portion of the last council meeting to today. So we will pick up where we left off.

And we left off with the fire department's annual report. So chief, you're back on.

Take two. Patty, let's see if we can get this thing there we go. Got it. I'm going to back up a couple slides from where we left off just to kind of refresh your memory and we'll move on from there. What I wanted to address and again call your attention to is again our 18 almost 18,000 calls a year.

And if you look at this chart here, it kind of gives you a little bit of perspective since 2007, fast forwarding to 2025, and our annual call volume in that increase. I will call your attention on the 2007, this slide does have a correction, 2007 has us at eight apparatus, it was actually seven apparatus. That was before we added our second ladder truck. Our daily staffing, their personnel, those are our contract minimums. Our average daily staffing now is about 27.

But that is handling those 18,000 calls a year. The table on the right just also puts in perspective our unsheltered population and the calls generated are about 1,200 annually, particularly taking a look at our fire calls and our hazardous condition calls. And again, fire, when we look at overall in the city, we have a higher than average fire problem here in Salinas. Obviously, EMS calls are our highest percentage of calls overall as you will find in the fire service nationally. But here in Salinas, when we're looking at fires, we have a bit higher than average in the Western States and national averages.

So by incident type, residential structure fires, a 153 times a year late in 2025, we responded to those residential structure fires. Those calls are fires inside structures. Right? They're they're labor intensive. They require a minimum of at least 15 people on scene in the first ten minutes to meet some of our national standards set forth by the National Fire Protection Association.

And again, things like traffic calming, congestion, travel distances, other obligations, concurrent calls, which you'll see in the slide again, other calls going on in the city at the same time, are all things that contribute to our response times and where those response times start to increase. But 153 times a year, we have significant amount of resources committed to structural firefighting. 111 times a year, we give mutual aid. That could be to our surrounding partners of the Regional Fire District, North County Fire District, Monterey, or statewide. And mutual aid received, this is the number of times in 2025 that we had neighboring agencies coming into the city to help us out, either directly fighting fire, running medical aids while we were busy at structure fires, or covering our city.

Over to the right is a little bit of a depiction of our total estimated property value at risk from fire. So $72,000,000 worth of property were at risk last year, directly at risk of fire. So these were calculated by the property value that we responded to that were either on fire or threatened by fire. Estimated property loss was $3,500,000 So the way we look at this is we saved about almost $69,000,000 worth of property through the efforts of department. Your But we still have some challenges.

I'm here to show you transparently where we are and what it takes to run a fire department in terms of a 160,000 population city with the response volume of calls that we have. Fire responses you'll see in the ninetieth percentile, those take outliers. Those take those oddball calls that are way out on the spectrum or way too short. So that represents 90% of our calls that we run fall into those response time categories. That median response time of six minutes and twenty three seconds is a straight average with the national stand standard on the right being five minutes and twenty seconds for a fire response and five minutes for an EMS response.

So that gives you a little bit of perspective of where we are in terms of response times and where we have some work still left to do. Down on the bottom you'll see our simultaneous calls, as I said, our concurrent calls. That is the number of times that we have at least two calls going on at the same time. Almost 6,000 times a year we have more than two calls or two calls going on at the same time. That's up about 200 from 2024.

This also does trend up Three or more, four or more, five or more, those numbers there represent the number of times that we have those numbers of concurrent calls increasing. So you can see almost 3,000 times a year, three or more calls going on, eight sixty three, four times, right? So keeping in mind that we have six fire apparatus on the streets at any given time and two ladder trucks. So we can get busy very quick. Again, traffic calming, traffic congestion, overlapping calls contribute to those increased response times.

Unit hour utilization, this is the number of this is the probability that the closest fire engine will be available when 911 is called. That national standard is 10% utilization, overall utilization. The number of hours that a fire apparatus or a crew is committed to an emergency call that would not make them available for the next call. So you can see we have three of our units knowing that station one, where medic engine one is our most utilized unit in the city, and that we are over significantly over the national standard. Medic Engine two and Medic Engine three are right there with them.

We did get a little bit of an improvement in Medic Engine four, Medic Engine five, Medic Engine six, that's our Williams Eastside station. Medic Engine five out in the Creek Bridge area and Medic Engine six in the Extreme North. Those units had a little bit of a reprieve this last year in 2025. You can see the actual physical numbers there on the right hand side. Over 4,000 times a year, Medic Engine one was running in 2025.

I'm going to have Deputy Chief VanderVeen step in and start talking a little bit about our EMS program. Chief Christie was unable to be here tonight. He is out ill, and he would he is our EMS officer and our division chief of EMS. Chief Vanderveen?

Good evening, mayor and city council. I'm Shane VanderVeen, your deputy fire chief. Just wanna talk a little bit more about our EMS division. You can see that of the 17,000 calls we run that 11487 of them are medical calls. We are very busy in Salinas.

The big number that Chief Christie would like to highlight is that we had 50 cardiac arrest saves last year. So because of our staffing numbers, because of the addition of the Lucas mechanical CPR devices, because of improving medical protocols, actually success rates in Salinas that are higher than the national average. And that's a testament to the amount of training that we do. You see down here on this slide we also, we log over thousand hours of training. Continuing education training is a requirement to maintain your EMT or paramedic license.

But considering how many staff we have, this is the type of training hours that it takes to keep us ready to go. Next slide. I guess I've got the clicker here. One of the things that we're thankful for here in Salinas is that the city funds training for our EMTs to upgrade to paramedic. And we've been very successful with that so far.

We've had you can see in 2025, we've had four additional paramedics go through training and become accredited in this county. That's good. Really it's just keeping up with attrition when we have retirements and people leave for other agencies. It's important that we continue to train our EMTs up to the level of paramedic to maintain that. Our goal right now is to have by contract a minimum of one paramedic on every fire engine.

And when we have extra paramedics on duty, then they staff the ladder trucks as well. Some other highlights of the EMS division. We have created Narcan leave behind kits that are available for the community. We hand these out at public education events but also on calls where we see the chance of someone possibly overdosing in the future. Maybe they take prescription narcotic medications or maybe they have a history of overdose.

We leave these NARCAN leave behind kits at home which is really significant and early treatment before 09:11 can get there and improving success of resuscitation during these overdose events. We also our EMS division also provides training to other departments within our city. We had 160 city employees trained by EMS division in basic first aid, CPR, hands only CPR, Narcan administration, and something called Stop the Bleed, which is application of tournament tourniquets in massive hemorrhage events. So think of like your active shooter situations. This is what we're training our city employees for should they be involved in a situation where they need to stop a bleed before nine eleven can get there.

We also provided the same similar training to a lower standard to civilians and also to our police department SWAT team. We do have six tactical paramedics that deploy with the SWAT team on search warrants and other high risk events, but they also in turn provide EMS training to the officers should they be caught in a situation where they need to provide care for a fellow officer before nine eleven fire can get there. And with that, I'll turn it over to our training chief, Dave Fury.

Mr. Mayor, City Council, City Staff, members of the public, thank you very much for giving us the time and the opportunity to brag a little bit about what your firefighters have been doing over the last year to prepare for the next emergency of you, your family, your friends, your neighbors. They've done a lot, a lot of work in preparation. Whether you know this or not, they stand very tall amongst their peers. We're certainly very proud of them and we hope you are as well.

So the training division is made up of myself. My name's Dave Fury. I'm the division chief in charge of training. We have Captain Mashad Kiburi here. He's an administrative captain, helps out with the training division.

And then we also have three platoon training coordinators, one assigned to each shift. And they handle a lot of the day to day training for our aligned personnel. So the training division is very unique in that we have a hand in our firefighters from before they ever start until the day that they retire. When we go through an application process and hiring new firefighters, the training division is heavily involved in that process. Any of the promotions, promotional processes, the fire academy, the probationary period, and any of the day to day trainings.

Did you know that by the time a Salinas firefighter has gotten off their eighteen month probationary period, they have received five thousand two hundred and seventy three hours of training? Which equates to two hundred and nineteen twenty four hour days. Okay, so that's including their probationary period. But before we allow them to fly the coop, they've gotten five thousand two hundred and seventy three hours of They are, again, they stand tall amongst their peers. We've unfortunately had some folks that have gone to other departments and they show up and people go, wow.

You guys are highly trained. We are required two twenty eight hours of training per year. There are standards established by the insurance service offices, OSHA, and National Fire Protection Association. In 2025, our firefighters averaged three seventy one hours of training. And that's on top of the 17,000 plus calls they ran for the year.

Subjects that we trained on are self contained breathing apparatus, fire ground operations, truck company operations, hazardous materials, wildland fire operations, officer training, driver training, water rescue, rope rescue training, and a myriad of other things. Just some of the accomplishments that we had in 2025. We certified five new in house instructors. So these are instructors that can certify our other members in some of the state qualifications. As they say, a rising tide lifts all the other boats.

We overhauled our learning management system, our platform, target solutions, so that's how we track certifications. That's how we implement some of our training and track some of the training hours that we do in case we do get an OSHA audit. We promoted, we held a promotional process for our company officers, our captains. Those are the ones that you see riding in the front right seat. Okay, that's the tip of the spear manager for going out and dealing with emergencies.

So we promoted four people out of there and we have three people currently in long term acting. With the chief support, we were able to do a captain's college and that's really, hey, you're sitting in the seat now whether you're promoted or you're looking to be promoted, here's what the expectations of the organization and the public are of you. So it was a one week training program. Really kind of enhanced the training of our company officers and upcoming company officers. We trained five new hazardous materials members.

So that was a six week training that took place in the Bay Area. They have since been brought on to our hazmat team. And the last thing is we train with our neighboring departments to enhance interoperability. We rely on our neighbors a lot. They rely on us a lot during emergencies. So we train with CAL FIRE, we train with Monterey County Regional, we train with North County Fire Protection. And we all, you know, hey, what do you guys do in your sandbox? This is what we do in our sandbox because when the the bell rings and we're relying on our neighbors and friends, we wanna know how to operate together. So if you see us out there walking around buildings, got a cup of coffee in our hand, we're not taking a break. We're walking those buildings.

We're preparing for the next emergency. Come up and talk to us. Ask us a question. Ask us what we're doing. We're happy to share what we're doing with you. We're a very busy department and super proud of our folks. They like to get after it and they like to be prepared. So thank you very much for the time. I'm going to pass it off to our prevention chief, Chris Knapp.

Thank you, chief. Good evening. Chris Knapp, division chief fire marshal. I'm in charge of the fire prevention division of the Salinas Fire Department. I'm supported by three full time inspector twos, one part time inspector one, an admin analyst, an office technician, and then a part time deputy fire marshal.

And this is an analysis of 2025 as 2026 has changed with Sean, who you met the other night. Fire prevention's baseline goal is to ensure that the buildings and the facilities that not only are public, but also that our first responders are and visitors are going in and out of on a daily basis meet the state fire code for safety and compliance. Looking at some of our numbers, we had a total of twelve seventeen code inspections. Code inspections can be our state mandated inspections that the state fire marshal decrees upon us that we will get completed. So those include apartment complexes, our jails, day cares, facilities like that.

We had a total of twelve thirty four permit inspections with a total of three sixty four permits issued. Now you're looking at those two numbers, and you would think that those two numbers should be in line, but a permit inspection isn't just necessarily your construction inspections. It can be special events, new constructions, tenant improvements, but there's steps in that construction project that require multiple inspections, which is why our inspection our permit inspection number is higher than the permits that are issued. We reviewed a total of seven zero three permit applications. Those are fire alarm systems, fire sprinkler systems, fire pump systems, suppression systems, anything that the fire code requires to go into that building to make it compliant with the twenty twenty five fire code.

We completed a total of 120 project reviews. Those these are projects that are coming in at the development review committee level that occurs every Wednesday. And we take a a big global look at all of the different projects that people are proposing to put into the city, whether it's the Amazon project or the future growth areas and all those different types of projects. And we start performing an analysis because we wanna make sure that those processes are as seamless as possible once those plans are turned in. We do have a backlog of inspections.

So if we look at the middle box, we are still trying to catch up to six ninety eight state mandated inspections. COVID really drove those numbers up when we weren't able to get out in the community, and we are still recovering that as we are also adding to our workforce. And we have issued a total of 174 permit Or I'm sorry, we are backlogged on a total of 174 permits. And that doesn't mean that we haven't been able to get out to those projects, but that means that they are still at a phase where they are not ready to be inspected again or the builder has is not going through with the process anymore. Looking at our fireworks statistics for the 2025 fire season, we issued a total of 96 citations and collected a total of just over $102,000 worth of fines.

That number is not just twenty twenty five's enforcement because we create we give people that are issued an administrative citation a payment plan option, where they might pay $50 a month or $100 a month rather than their total citation amount. That number, because we have multiple payment plans that are created, can be from previous years. So that is not just what was issued as administrative citations in 2025. And with that, we'll turn it back over to the fire chief. Thank you for your time.

Something we're very proud of reestablishing after a twenty year hiatus is our cadet program. Chief Knapp has done a great job of getting this program back on track. I really think you should talk about this, Chris. This is your jam.

Our program was brought back to life in 2023. We started with 15 cadets in 2024. That number number had dwindled down to 11, and we had a goal in 2025 of increasing our cadet numbers up to a total of 20. So we held a recruitment where we the young men and women go through an application process, an interview panel, and then a physical assessment. Through that process, we then narrow down to the amount that we need to recruit for, and we were successfully able to, in 2025, bring our numbers up to 20.

So having a cadet program, one of some of the primary reasons are we wanna be able to reach out to our youth and show them what being a firefighter is like, give them a little grasp of potentially a career avenue. And then selfishly, we're starting our recruitment process in high school because, as you know, too many of our fine youth are going up north or down south, and we wanna hold on to the talent that we have in Salinas. And what better thing to say when you get off the rig as a paramedic and are introducing yourself to a patient and say, hey, my name's Jesus Ramirez. I grew up on the East Side, and I'm a paramedic with the Salinas Fire Department. I'm here to help you today.

Right? That's one of the greatest honors. So that's ultimately what we wanna do is recruit, not only educate, but recruit new firefighters at a really young age. We meet once a month, first Sunday. You have an open invitation to visit a drill. It's held at Fire Station Number 3, which is in on Abbott Street where the tower is. Like I said, first Sunday of the month from one to five p. M. And we drew we pretty much put them through a mini fire academy teaching them about hose, ladders, SCBAs, forcible entry, chainsaw. We even did an auto extrication drill as our end of the year drill where we got four cars.

The picture in the bottom of that slide, you can see we got four cars and had our mentors teach them how to cut somebody out of a vehicle, render medical aid, and then we close the night out with a pizza dinner. The program is supported by 12 department members ranging from the chief officer rank all the way down captain engineers and firefighters, so they get full exposure to every different type of rank and person in our fire department. A very well rounded, unique, diverse group of cadets. And it's a very, very awesome program that we are helping some of the older ones that are starting to go through the fire academy and starting to reach out and grab them and pull them back to Salinas because we want them to be Salinas firefighters. So that's our cadet program.

Appreciate your attention.

Community engagement is really important aspect of our job as fire department. In 2025, we participated in over 200 community engagement activities. You see 100 special events. These are the special events that happen at the sports complex, at our local parks. These special events require fire prevention to come out and if there's open flames to ensure that they're safe.

Some of the events require additional fire suppression forces to be on-site and you want to think about rodeo and air show. We also had 96 ride alongs. This is where members from the community can visit the fire station, shadow the firefighters, see what it is like a day in the life of a firefighter, see the cleaning, see the equipment checks, and actually get on the fire engines and observe a call taking place. Some of those ride alongs are for potential fire recruit candidates. Some of them are for EMT students from Hartnell College or MPC that need to get their clinical time in order to get their EMT cards.

And some of them are from our council members and just other members of the public. We also participated in 19 public education events. And what these are, these are events where we set up a table with an information booth. So it could be a career day. It could be something like a more Salinas or National Night Out. There was 19 of those in 2025. What's

not

on here is the station visits and school visits that happen every single week. That number is probably not on here because it's really hard to keep track. Every single week, our administration staff fields requests from our schools for either the fire engine to come to the school and teach them fire safety and show them the fire engine and impress upon them that firefighters are there to help and they're not scary. And then we also invite the schools to come visit the stations for the same reason. So I would estimate we do over 200 school visits or station visits every year from our local schools.

One of the major events that achievements that happened in 2025 for the fire department was the renovation of our Fire Station 1. This fire station was built in 1982. It is our headquarters. It currently houses two fire engines, a ladder truck, and a battalion chief. What that means is 11 people living in that building twenty four hours a day, three hundred and sixty five days a year.

That creates a lot of wear and tear on a building. We did have some assistance funding this through ARPA. About 50% was funded through ARPA and 50% through our CIP funds. Let's go back here. The outside, not a whole lot on the outside, kind of a face lift.

We see the doors got painted, we did some landscaping, the real work was done on the inside. The most important the reason for these improvements was not just to repair the wear and tear that occurs, but also to improve the safety and reliability of the structure. The two of the biggest safety factors that we addressed were a seismic retrofit. Beforehand, this building was probably not too safe for a major earthquake, but we did retrofit it. It was a very, very big project.

We also added fire sprinklers to the 2nd Floor, which is added protection for our firefighters who are sleeping there in the middle of the night. We also upgraded the kitchen facilities. Like I said, we've got 11 people living there twenty four hours a day. We've got to keep them fed and ready to respond to the next call. Additionally, we improved their sleeping situation, not only to provide what we used to have was like open dormitory style, which wasn't really didn't give a lot of privacy between genders.

We now have individual bedrooms for each firefighter, so that improves the privacy. But there's also some other comfort measures that were installed to lessen the impacts of the alarm in the middle of the night. So it's more of a gentle wake up so that your heart doesn't go from zero to 60 in one second. And in addition to the sleeping quarters, we improved the restroom quarters. Again, we had more of kind of dormitory style.

We did have it separated by male and female, but it was just kind of open showers with a row of stalls and we created individual bathrooms so that our firefighters could have a little more privacy there. Additionally, for some of the resilience, we did also install a new emergency backup generator. So that's what you see in the bottom right corner. That's a crane dropping in the new generator there. It is not only more efficient, but for the neighbors, it's quieter and it's more energy efficient as well.

Considering all the events that happened in 2025, it wouldn't be an annual report without recognizing that we did lose one of our own firefighters. And so it was a major loss for our department and we just wanna recognize the loss of Josh Hofstetter. We will never forget him. I'll turn it over to the chief for closing comments.

So

thank you again for giving us the opportunity to come before you and tell you our story for 2025. Got a lot on tap for 2026. Operations one zero one, Tony, your invitation. As you can see out there dressed up, all of you will get invitations to come join us and that of our community members to get out there and spend some time with us and actually see what the job is like. So we're looking forward to that and a host of other things coming in 2026. So again, we thank you for your support, and thanks for the opportunity.

Thank you, Chief. All right. Question, comments from counsel. I'll start with Andrew.

Just doing questions initially or we're we're just both. Both. Okay. Sure. What kind of impact do you think the Amazon distribution facility is going to have on our fire department?

We had visited when this project started initially was in its inception phase, we had visited several facilities similar to this one, actually identical to this one, Colorado, other areas of California, and spoke not only with the Amazon folks and saw how those buildings were being constructed, but we had the opportunity to sit down with the jurisdictions, with the fire departments and prevention divisions about how those impacts were actually felt. What was interesting is, you know, the initial reaction was this is a big building, and we need to throw a lot of resources. The fact of the matter is that that is a significant that's a significantly technologically advanced building in terms of fire prevention, not just the robots that are running around and doing the work that Amazon needs them to do, but from a fire protection standpoint, very, very advanced systems, very, very overbuilt, way above standard. And what most, well, what all the jurisdictions told us is that what they thought potentially was a very, very resource intensive tax on their system really didn't turn out to be the case. They have some self sufficient medical resources to handle medical calls on-site with staff that would relieve that response.

And also, like I said, the fire prevention systems and protection systems just didn't pan out the way they thought. They downgraded a lot of their response policies.

Thank you chief and for for future as we saw in the report a lot of the calls that the fire department response to our medical calls. Do you foresee a shift or a greater allocation for maybe more medical response units Or just of going in that direction?

So we're in the process of looking at a lot of different things. We've piloted Engine seven, as you know right now. I talked about our fire problem. We used to have a medical squad, a two person squad out of Station 1 that responded primarily to medical staff with two folks, which helped out a lot with the medical aspect and handling that call volume. But again, with the fire problem that faces us, looking at putting Engine seven on the street now, that gives us that flexibility to deal with more issues.

It's more of the Swiss Army knife approach to it. While the medical calls certainly make up the majority of our calls, being able to have that firefighting capability in addition to the EMS capability reduces the number of times that we're running. We have those concurrent calls going on, means that our unit hour utilization goes down, if that makes sense.

All right. Well, are all my questions. I do want to take the time to thank you for your vision, your long term planning. I mean, I've had a chance to sit with you. The intentionality around your promotions, training, retention and focus around mental health support for your firefighters.

I commend you for that. I also want to highlight that our fire department does not only take care of our city but does a lot of cross support. I know that you're working hard to expand our hazmat team so we can be a support for other counties. Also while looking to expand our communications infrastructure hopefully with some cost savings to Selena us by being able to incorporate some other jurisdictions. I also wanna thank your firefighters for actively participating in things like career days where I get a chance to witness firsthand children's eyes light up to not only see the equipment but also see the possibility of becoming a firefighter here in the city of Salinas.

I also want to share I also want to commend the incredible outreach efforts the fire department does, you know, where they have their open houses, the incredible opportunities our youth get to use a fire hose that could spark their interest for the future to become a firefighter. From inspections to outreach to the incredible work of our paramedics, just want to commend the fire department and thank them for all their great work.

You, Councilmember. Thank you. Andrew, Tony.

Chief Clement, as you mentioned, ARPA funding and other measures of getting money as money gets tighter, we're looking for ways of being able to support you with apparatus that you need. Does your department have a full time grant writer?

We do not. We do that in house. We have our admin staff here, Stefania and Jessica and Lexi here. It's a team effort to put these grants together, and we've been very, very successful, as you know. Almost $8,000,000 worth of grants in the last two years.

Wow, that's

A big portion of that, 4,600,000 in our safer funding, that was Estefania's work, great work. And she's batting a thousand right now. Think you're I don't wanna jigs it, but you're, I think, three or four applications all with 100% success.

We were

able to get an almost $400,000 grant to replace our exhaust extractors in all the stations and things like that. So we will continue to apply for grants where they come available. We are not shy about applying for those opportunities.

But it sounds like you have a very effective step to be able to do that. You know, along with that, as you know, the people that we serve in our neighborhoods, they're asking us to help them with people that don't respect the laws and that's speeders, Speeders throughout the neighborhoods. So one of the things that we're looking at even more throughout different neighborhoods is traffic calming measures. But I noticed in your report, as we're trying to solve an issue in our neighborhoods, is pretty serious, Seems like we're hindering somebody else. Tell us I know you spoke a little bit about that, but, give us that scenario of an emergency call when you're going and then all of a sudden you're you're going through these traffic calming measures throughout our neighborhoods.

Classic cause and effect. Right. It's, as you said, solving one problem to maybe create another one or exacerbate another one. The things that are typically done to calm traffic, typically the speed humps, speed bumps, the chicanes and some of the things that are meant to slow down cars, well, they slow down fire trucks, they slow down police cars, and they slow down ambulances. That's the most simple way I can explain it, is that those increase response times as well.

So as we contemplate those types of things to slow down traffic and basically make our streets safer for everybody, there's a bit of a trade off and we just need to keep that in mind as when we're either changing our response policies, adding resources where they needed to be added and make those decisions based on the data that we see.

Yeah. And you know what, as we're as we have this issue with fireworks every year, I know there were citations over $102,000 I think 96 citations if I'm not mistaken. Does your staff do you see the same perpetrators every year or do you see that it's getting better every year? To my knowledge, think this year was a little bit better. But as far as people getting cited, do you see the same people again or what happens in a situation like that?

I'll say we have a few of our regular folks that we pay visits to. We send out, I think over 400 letters a year in advance of the July 4 to folks that we receive complaints or where we've gotten those that intelligence from citizens about neighbors or where they've seen fireworks coming from. We have an address. We can send them. We do send them a letter in advance to just let them know we see you.

That's gone a long way to curb that. I would tend to agree with you, council member, that I think last year was better. That's anecdotal. As far as citations go, I believe I've mentioned it before. And you've sat on this council where we took that shotgun approach.

It was all about volume and the sheer number of citations. And we've really focused the last couple of years on the quality of those citations, documented video evidence, actually having other city staff join on patrol to observe and report and write reports and details about what they see. So when we actually do issue those citations, they stick. That's been the focus and they'd say that is starting to pay off for us. We're trying to change the social consciousness. Right?

Well, I think it is happening. And and you know what? My my comment is I wanna thank you for your leadership. I mean, you're a good man. You're a good asset to the city. And I I say that with much as I can. I think the best thing and I and I heard the the what we want is if if the city manager has a good staff, we wanna make sure that we do everything possible from this dais on how we can keep good people serving our public. That's the best asset that we have. I know morale has gone up because I go from department to department. I see there's a sincere you have an awesome staff here, I'm looking in front of them.

They're dynamic. I mean, every time I go to any of your functions, I mean, they're they're it's a pep rally. It's a it's a it's just fantastic. And I want to commend our our city manager because, you know, sincerity, you can't you can't go to college to be sincere. It's it's it's gotta be born from your heart. And one one of the things that I've learned as a public servant because I get criticized a lot. But you know what? You you look at it. You receive it. And you try to make it better.

For yourself. And I know servant leadership, when you're a servant leader, the staff, the morale, people are feeling good. And if our firefighters are feeling great, they're going to provide a better service because you're already saving lives. I mean, 50 cardiac arrest calls. Imagine just talk to one of those persons that are alive because of that public servant.

That's phenomenal. Can't buy that. And I want to thank the firefighters for all the great work, and I sincerely mean that. And to Renee, I love when Renee's out there cooking, making whatever he does out there, he does it well. And I noticed even his staff here at the Oval Office here just right outside here, they're doing the same thing. They're putting out little parties, little gatherings for staff. I think that speaks volumes, and I hope people stay here. Thank you.

Thank you, Superintendent. Really?

Yes. Chief, just wanna thank you for your presentation. Also, just wanted to ask if you

could also

extend my thanks to your firefighters and administrators and everyone else in in between that was here last week for the for the meeting. I know that for quite some time you've been wanting to to speak with us. I wanna make sure that you got our undivided attention regarding the very complex work that that you and and your your team does. I had an opportunity to speak with Josh Joshua Ostetter before before he he passed and before he got the twenty twenty five Assembly Chambers of Commerce citizen of the year and really raising that that bar. One thing that he said about himself and his fellow firefighters is that is that this is something that all of you love to do.

I mean, he made it very clear that those that he worked with, this is what they wanted in life. They wanted to be firefighters. They wanted to be public servants. And there was nothing more that they loved and was compassionate about than than than that. It was for them it was the ultimate public public service.

I I see that in you and your staff. This is something that you're deeply passionate about and just wanted to thank you and and your department for all that you do. In terms of your presentation, one of the things that I'm gonna take away one of the big takeaways I'm gonna take take from it and just share with you is is again, as a city council and city council member, one of the things I'm always concerned about is re response time. So when you share with us issues regarding like traffic calming, you know, with roundabouts in there, we have those turning circles. And then traffic in general, those are things that really help me as a council member make, you know, informed decisions.

Because again, the work that you do is very important. And so when it comes to things like response time, you know, as as we're trying to run this city, you know, it's very important information that that we continue to receive. I know that I'll probably be reaching out to my traffic commissioner to have these conversations as well because our traffic commission, again, they're advising us in terms of, you know, where our trouble areas are, you know, as a former planning commissioner, when I when I take a look at level of service on certain streets, we know that there are some streets that depending on the time of day, response time drops even further. Lastly, I I I do wanna thank your firefighters that are overall at the Creek Bridge Village. It's usually where I go to get gas and groceries.

Typically on the weekend when I have a little bit more time and I'm with my son. They're always open to let us in. Constantly invite us in, hey, come check out come check out the truck. There's nothing more exciting than jumping into a fire truck. I'm always cautious about like not jumping in, anticipating, you know, don't want you to have to respond to a call and you've got us you've got us in there. But your firefighters always welcome us in, enter their home for the day, and I just wanna thank you and and your department for their work. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Gloria?

Thank you for the presentation. I have questions. Question is how many women do we have presently working with the fire department right now?

I think we currently have two. Two? Two on the suppression side.

Okay. And my next question is, okay, we're doing a lot in prevention, but the community here knows we're all sitting on a fault. Earthquakes. Lately there's been a lot of earthquakes in different parts of the state. My concern is what are our plans as a fire department to come out to the neighborhoods and we need to do some prevention.

How many are prepared right now? Tell the truth. How many of us are really prepared? No. A lot of us are not.

And that's scary to me, because the last earthquake we had, there was a lot of us that were out there helping other people, helping neighbors, and this time, we really need to prepare our city, so I'm looking at you and I'm looking to my right to the city manager that we really need to start doing outreach out there, prevention. Because we don't know when it's gonna hit. And and we're talking about fires and earthquake. Again, a disaster. So, I want our city to be prepared.

I want our neighbors, our neighborhoods to be prepared. You have block captains here today. We really need to think about, you know, another added thing to the fire department. I'm sorry. But, we really need to work on that. And, I think, as council members, we're, you know, we would like to, I would like to be invited, and probably others, whenever you meet with, I know you have an emergency preparedness county meeting, but we've never been invited, we've never been part of that. I wanna know what are the conversations for our city and county? And I think our residents would benefit from that information. But really, we really need to prepare our city. All of us need to be prepared.

And and that's my concern. And you know what? You're a family. You've always been a family at the fire department, all of you. And like Tony said, it's been a camaraderie of you can see that when you're happy at your job, you're gonna give more. You're gonna want, you wanna be there. You wanna work. And that's what we've seen in your department. That that's what it is. And, we never get any complaints from fire.

I don't, anyways, from the community. People are happy on the work that you're doing out there. But, again, on the traffic calming, and again, I have some block captains here, we really need to make sure that people are educated like you brought up, that if you want those speed bumps to deter traffic, remember, the response time for someone that's having a heart attack and you're coming and the the fire engine is coming with an EMS or a paramedic. How many minutes do we have? Can you please tell us?

Five minutes is what we're shooting for. I will clarify for you. I'm not knocking traffic calming because those are reducing accidents and pedestrian accidents. No. It's a consequence.

I get it. But the community needs to moan. Do we want traffic calming in our neighborhoods or do we we have to really think the response time for a fire truck to get into your neighborhood. I think we have to really educate. Right? But anyways. Yes, ma'am. Yes. Thank you for everything.

Thank you.

And thank you all. Like I said, no complaints. I

share everyone else's sentiments. Thank you, chief. I just wanna say thank you for always being willing to meet with us on a moment's notice. You're always available. I love your transparency.

I love the dashboard that you show us, which is open to the public. Anyone can go at any time and see how the different engines and stations are performing and I think that's brave and that's really important that as a community we know how we can rate ourselves and I know you're not happy with the results and we can always do better and part of it, our job is to give you the tools that you need to get that done. I've always said I've never met a fireman I didn't like, and I've been saying that for a long time. And I think it's because of the humility that comes with the job. Not only is it a difficult job, and I know there's a lot of fear and trauma involved in it, but the people that do the job are always very humble about the work that they do.

A couple questions. One of them is, I know we have a great academy here down the street where a fire academy where a lot of young folks are going to get their certification and their training. I'm I'm wondering what percentage of those actually make it out of the academy and are hired local if you have any kind of a general idea of a percentage.

I couldn't give you a percentage, but I will say that when we do recruit, we typically will fly a recruitment for an academy graduate. That really streamlines the process for us. They come not only having participated in an academy, but a good local academy. Our local MPC academy has an excellent reputation for turning out very, very qualified, well trained firefighters. And they're right here in our backyard.

So typically and that's when I talk about streamlining, that's also in the hiring process. They come with a lot of certifications already that make it much easier for us to get them onto the street quicker. We also do parallel recruitments such as we're doing right now, which is a basic recruit fire academy. All that's required is a driver's license and an emergency medical technician card. A little more investment in training on our part, a little bit longer academy, but that really helps us focus on local hiring.

Out of the academy, I'd say we've been very, very successful in recruiting local firefighters right out of our local academy here, and as well as basic recruit firefighters. That hiring, we're right in the middle of that recruitment process as you heard our test that we had a few weeks ago, about 500 applicants.

That's excellent. I know it's very competitive and that tells me that they're doing a really good job training and that you're getting the best of the best and we appreciate that. My final one is, what can we do to get people to pull over when they hear a siren? I think it's the law, but I see going down Main Street, people do not pull over, and you guys are having to zigzag through traffic. And I don't know if there's some kind of public service education that we need to do, but people need to pull over so that you guys can go do your job because I'm sure that's a deterrent along with the congestion, which is part of

our You hit the nail on the head. It's public education coupled with some, actually some technology that we've been investing in to refresh. We've had traffic preemption systems in the city since I came here. And before, it was an old, outdated system that we've been able to invest in, especially the North Main Corridor, but expanding that system throughout the city. And now with every new piece of fire apparatus that we order, these systems come preinstalled.

They're subscription services, but they give you the equipment. So we look at those types of things to, again, help clear traffic ahead of us and get them out of the way. So things like technology and car radios now that will alert you with an approaching fire engine, things like that. So we're we're hedging our bets a lot on technology to help with that as well. But then good old education.

Yeah.

Get off the phone, turn down the radio and pay attention.

Thank you. Again, thank you to you and your team. I know a lot of you and I've met a lot of new ones since I've been on the job this short while and I just really appreciate all that you do. Thank you so much.

Thank you, councilmember.

Okay. Thank you, Chief. Well, I'll echo the comments of all my colleagues and terrific to hear such a thorough report in everything you do. Think everyone really appreciates it. And I'll echo what Gloria said. I hear lots of things. I never hear anything about the fire department that me up. So with that, there's no action required here, but we will take public comment. And so with that, anybody wants to comment on this item?

Good afternoon. Jose Guerrero Montevia community. I wanna say thank you chief. Great job. They're always responding to everything they can on time. To Gloria's question on how can we improve the roads with traffic calming? Pretty simple engineering. Talk to public works, measure the wheel base of the fire engine, cut it out the way if the way it go through, you know, if they can be able to drive through there. That that'd be one of the ways to take care of that to make sure they get there on time and go a little bit faster. There's a things we can do here in the city, but we don't do it.

We don't talk to each other. We don't communicate. We can all help the fire department, every department, if we all, you know, did our jobs and and did it the right way and did a little bit extra. Not just, oh, I went to this meeting or that meeting. Let me take a picture with Alejo. Let me take a picture with, you know, Chris Lopez. It's it's public service is not just that, gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen, it's than that. It's not just your little shim bags and your little, you know, your little parties you guys do. I mean, this is the fire department is very important. It's it's an important thing to do. Those are all my comments. God bless you guys. Thank you.

Thanks. Anyone else?

Thank you.

Thank you so much to the fire station for all the work they do. They're really helping the community, and I agree, we need education, but there's so many resources we can use to give this education. There's trainings, podcasts, social media, there's also theater with the youth, we can use the youth to do theater to inform and educate the community. So there's so many ways that I think that we can educate the community, like for example, new drivers, they have to learn and communicate with them. So thank you so much, and I really think that publicity is the best way to educate the community.

Okay, thank you. Alright, anyone else from the public?

Jose Mendoza, District 1. I have one comment. I'm sure everyone agrees, everyone loves a fireman. So good job. Keep doing what you're doing.

I know sometimes fiscal budgets put restraints on you, but as far as I'm concerned, you guys are doing the best you can. As far as traffic congestion, I agree the city of Salinas has a traffic big traffic congestion, but my question is, and I know it wasn't this administration, it was under previous Mayor Gunther. Whose bright idea was it to create all those bike lanes throughout the city of Salinas? Waste of money. I hope I'm not the only one here who thinks that.

Question to the for the fire department. Did they bring up any concerns about that? I wish they would have. I'd like to see, you know, previous pros and cons. And just because it's already done, I don't think it's impossible to undo it because it's a joke. I drive around Salinas every day and there's days when I don't see one bicyclist on the bike lane. If anything, they're on the sidewalk. So, mayor or future mayor, city council, can we start talking about that and let's undo that?

Thank you. Thank you. Alright. Anyone else from the public? Anyone else? Okay. We'll go to Zoom. All right. We have somebody on the phone. Go ahead.

Last numbers are 9000

My 900

name is Nina Beatty. I wanted to know what the fire department is is doing or what the city is doing regarding PG and E smart meters. Smart meters are not grounded, don't have adequate surge protection, and they have other fire and electrical hazards. Analog utility meters have a direct connection to ground, but smart meters are vulnerable to surges such as from when power is restored. They are vulnerable to lightning strikes, when wires connect and other overvoltage conditions, and they allow that excess voltage to flow into a home or building and cause burnt wiring.

They can destroy appliances and electronics, and they've caused fires. Their lithium ion batteries have also initiated thermal runaway. They have cut the meters themselves have caught fire and also exploded off of buildings, including up in Santa Cruz County. If you review the fire report from the Pacific Grove Avaloro fire years ago, it describes one pathway for smart meters to cause a fire. I wrote a paper on smart meter fire and electrical hazards.

It's on my website, smartmeterharm.org, along with other reports by others on the fire problems, including, arson investigators. The public can opt out of smart meters and get an analog on their homes, but I don't know what the city's if the city's advocating for this, which would be a good idea. I'd also like to know if the fire department is prohibiting PG and E from removing smart meters from fire scenes until your investigation is complete. This has been a problem in many cities in California and other states, and it makes an accurate investigation impossible. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. I see no other hands. So we will go ahead and close public comment. There is no action on this particular item. And so we will go ahead and proceed to the consent agenda. Matters listed under the consent agenda may be enacted by one motion unless the member of the council requests a separate vote for discussion. Members of the public may comment on the consent agenda items collectively during public comment. Would any council member like a separate voter discussion on any of the consent agenda items?

I want to discuss 124, mayor. Okay.

All right. Anything over here? Okay. Is that that's it. Okay.

I'll

throw my name in on 124. All right, anyone from the public on the consent agenda?

Good afternoon, Jose Ada Montevac Community. Once again, we're rushing through everything, gentlemen. We need to be able to talk about all these one at a time. We should be able to express ourselves for two minutes at a time on everyone. Anytime you're taking money from the public, using money, moving money, you are supposed to let us know. You should let us know. Be transparent. I don't like that. I mean, I can't comment on everything here. There's too many things on there. We don't have all the information you have either. You want us to look everything up and read everything for hours. We don't have time to do all that. This should be shortened and done the right way. Mayor, you you gotta give us our two minutes back on everything.

You have to do I mean, that or we'll have to ask a new mayor to do it. I mean, I don't know. We're gonna have to find a new mayor then. Someone's gonna work with the people here. I mean, I'm trying to work with you, mayor. I'm trying trying to work with you. You don't wanna do it. I don't know what. I don't know why you're like they say in Spanish. I guess, stubborn or something. I don't know. It's wrong, you know. Give people their right to speak. This is still a democracy. Right? This is America. We do pay taxes. We should have the right to consent two minutes on every item and talk about it. And if you guys discuss every item, it should be done through, gone through, filtered through, and everybody gets to have their opinion on it. I mean, you don't see it that way, I know.

You've you've been advised not to. But, anyways, god bless you guys. Please bring it back.

K. Thank you. Alright. Anyone else from the public on the consent?

I agree with what mister Guerra said. I haven't been part of a city council meetings for a couple years, but I feel like I need to now because it's kind of embarrassing when friends and family from the Central Valley, Santa Clara County call you and what the f is going on in Salinas? You guys should be a mayor. You're the leader. Whatever happens on your watch, good or bad, it's a reflection on you.

You're writing history. City manager I mean, attorney? I don't know what kind of advice you're giving. Same thing, manager. I don't know what your area of responsibility is, but I'm not impressed. I think we could do better. I came across one of your campaign slogans, Mr. Mayor. I'm gonna try to get it right. Sir. Imagine a Sir. State

City Clerk, just to clarify, this is the public comment on the consent agenda for now, so if you have any comment, please proceed with that. Any campaigning language needs to be removed from the council chambers.

Thank you for correcting me. Obviously, you're paying attention. Speaking of agenda, why is Mr. Jose Luis Barajas listed on the front page? He's not here. This is not 100% accurate. It should say absent. Don't you agree, Mr. Attorney? Because years down the road when the lawsuits start coming down the pipeline and you guys are producing documents, Oh, was Jose Luis Barajas there?

Was he present? No. So I believe that needs to be corrected in my opinion. If not, I put it out there. But I agree. These need to be simplified so the public could better educate themselves. I'm sure you guys have more than several hours to review it and know what's it about. If my city council was here and if he responded to my emails and messages, maybe he would have the time to explain to me, and I wouldn't have to be coming here, take time away from my family

to find out what

the hell is going on.

All right. We'll see if there are any comments on zoom. Seeing none, we'll come back to council. And item 124. Tony?

Yes, Mr. Mendez, is Mr. Jacobs here?

I believe so.

Yeah, was gonna ask him. There he is. Mr. Jacobs. Mr.

Jacobs, I was coming with the attitude of not wanting to support this item, but after you and I met during the briefing, you brought up some good information. But just just to clarify what the what the people that we serve here in front of us and that are watching, we're accepting today, this resolution on maintenance and responsibility. Can you just share with us, because at the beginning as I was sharing with you, I didn't feel we did a good job on this because we went back and we were looking at things that needed to get fixed. But you brought up some good information, so share with us as far as why you think it's appropriate for us to support this resolution on maintenance and responsibility.

Yeah. So what council is doing is accepting the work as it sits currently, not as it was being done where there were some issues in terms of the contractor milling and then not coming back for a month. There's issues with failed asphalt. Those issues are corrected as we move through the process until we get to this point. So at this point now, we've done all the inspections, we've looked at all the roadways, we're comfortable with the work that has been done.

And you can go out there and look for yourself to make sure that, yes, these roads are complete, they look good. You have before and after pictures council packet to show you that the work is done. So if you look past all the issues that we had during construction and to this point, we're just looking at the final product.

Okay. You feel that Mr. Jacobs, you feel the final product is acceptable?

Yes. Again, we did have instances throughout the project on almost every project we do. There's always problems working through the process. And we're just concerned tonight with the finished product.

And Mr. Jacobs, I think we're on the same side here, we do work for the people. On the finished product, the check off point, you say you do have inspectors that after a project is done, somebody takes responsibility to go out there and make sure that it got done adequately.

Correct. And again, that's why we're in May when this project was basically finished in December. We're in May now because there was issues and there's a checklist that we go through and we walk with the contractor to make sure those issues are corrected before we bring it to counsel.

Yes. And mister Jacobs, one last question. I'm gonna go on a limb here, so I'm gonna look to mister city attorney for as the after pictures, somebody brought up a comment. Every time you and your department are fixing new streets, all of a sudden there's a bike lane that appears when there was none. I hope it's going wrong with thank you.

What is the purpose of the bike lane? I know some people say that they don't see any bicyclists, but why are we building when you're making a new road? Because you're gonna be doing other roads that you're gonna be doing bike lanes. Why do we do that?

I'm gonna answer

that. Alright. Here comes the pro.

Hi. Good afternoon. Adriana Robles, city engineer. The purpose of the bike lanes really so one of our goals as a city has been multimodal transportation, and that's to make accommodations for vehicles, pedestrians, and bicyclists. So safety is one of the big concerns. When we see the opportunity to incorporate, say, bike lanes into pavement rehabilitation that we've done, then that's when we go ahead and we make those installations.

So how would you answer the argument of where are the bicyclists? I know I ride my bicycle, but where is it needed or is it required or is it mandated that we need to do this?

In this case, it's not required. Generally, if the funding comes from any other source other than local funds, that is typically a requirement. It is not specifically required, but remember, we are building for all users. We're not building for just specifically the majority. We're not building for a specific group. This is to accommodate all users.

Thank you. In

terms of bicyclists, we don't necessarily have connected bike paths. We have bike paths that are hit and miss. So as we build our bike network and they start to interconnect and people feel safe in those bike paths, they'll start being used more. That's our hope.

If I may, You know, when I ride my bike, I ride my bicycle three times a week, believe it or not. But sometimes I'm afraid to go into the bike lane because there's a lot of debris. There's glass, it's dirty. How can I need to take my push broom out there? What are we doing to fix that? That's why I think some bicyclists go on the sidewalks because they're afraid to go through all that debris.

That goes back to the city taking back over street sweeping. We're in the process right now. And our goal is to get three full size sweepers and a small sweeper. And the small sweeper would actually do the bike lanes and the protected bike lanes more often than what they're able to do now.

You. Andrew?

Yes, I drove Laurel, I think it was last Wednesday and some of the areas I saw like the striping got scraped off. I saw some areas where the manhole covers was a smooth transition, some were rougher, some areas of Laurel appear to have like some specifically like on Main Street and Laurel right next to across the street from the old Shell gas station, there appeared to be some pavement that was lifting off or maybe had a gap in it. What kind of quality control, like why are some of the manhole areas much smoother than some of the other ones?

I can take a look at that. But typically, so what the process that happens when pavement rehabilitation is done is all manholes and covers are lowered. And then the pavement happens, then they are raised back to grade. So we can look at the specific one that you're talking about, but they all pretty much follow the same process. And there's, obviously, there's certain tolerances that you can have for all of them. So we can take a look at that specific one.

Yeah, because like I said, there's definitely you can feel the difference in different areas. And then in reference to like parts of Laurel that had the striping looks like scraped off, basically they scraped it off to be able to paint it or something like that. So

we did actually scrape off portions of it. This was over the overpass, over the one 01. And that's because we had gone with measuring the the striping from the, say, the face of curb out towards the centerline. When Caltrans came through, because this ultimately is also a Caltrans facility, when Caltrans came through, they asked us to to measure the striping from the inside lane outward. So it it it made for different dimensions, and the request from Caltrans was basically make the smaller lane the interior lane instead of the exterior lane.

So we went ahead and scraped off the old striping and put in new striping.

That went all the way down to Natividad, I believe. I saw sections that were scraped off.

So the area that you're speaking of is basically closer towards Natividad Road. And that portion There's a portion there that had apparently street parking and a small portion that did not have street parking. And so we heard back from the residents, there's kind of a discrepancy as to where the the parking stops and and starts because we were missing a sign. And we've now gone through, added the sign, and made sure that the portion that had the street parking can now again accommodate that street parking.

So who's responsible for that mistake? Then how come we didn't level off that you know, all the areas that we scraped? We just left it scraped. How come we didn't repave it and then do it? And then stripe it?

Well, you'd normally would not well, okay. I guess to answer your first question, who's ultimately responsible? That would be me. I do review plans, but the plans that I reviewed did not have the did not have the existing parking signs because we normally just show, okay, there's a sign here, there's a sign here. We don't call out because this is not specifically the you know, something that is that detailed.

We're looking more at at rehabilitation of the pavement. So that answers your first question. As far as the the second one, normally, you wouldn't come back and repave something like that. You're you're scraping only because if, say, we were to cover it, there is, like, this black paint in a sense, a lot of times that comes back, and it does become reflective, and then you have conflicts. So what we do, the typical is you scrape it, and then you now you're you're technically removing it from there.

And I recognize that there's tolerances for, you know, maybe a level of bumpiness or things like that, but the likelihood that we're going to come back and redo Laurel again is very slim. And so when I drove it, just thought to myself, we just spent all this money on this road and there's still these areas that just have bumps. And I could just foresee that that little bump is later on going to turn into a crack and then it's just going to cause bigger issues long term and some of the manhole covers seem to have different tolerances for the bumpiness. And I had sent the city manager a video. It's just such a huge investment. I wish that we could have either less tolerances or better quality in addressing those across more also.

So we do follow Caltrans standards when it comes to the tolerances. Specific ones that you're talking about, those manholes, we will take a look at again. But again, there are tolerances. This is not, I mean, you're talking about large pieces of equipment. This is not that type of precision.

I understand, but just from riding it in my car, I mean, I could feel it. And so residents may say, well, just redid this and look at it, it's still bumpy. And so, I just it surprises me to see that the technology or the equipment is not there to address some of those bumpiness, in my opinion.

And I will say, if you're talking about bumpiness over a length of pavement, this was also not like a full reconstruction. Right? So we didn't go through and pull everything up and regrade everything. It was a resurfacing. Right? So we pulled off the pavement and put back pavement. Although they did roll the the underlayers, we didn't do a full reconstruction where all the underlayers got removed.

And so

So you will feel some level of bumpiness.

I understand. Okay. Thank you.

Mhmm.

K. Alright. Okay. My questions were picked up. Think this is routine, this is essentially a routine process after a project or major projects as understand it. I think the other thing is, and I think I heard David allude to it and I think you acknowledged it. You know, this isn't a complete done, see you later. You still continue to pay attention whether it's feedback from counsel or the public?

Correct. Yes. All projects carry a one year warranty period. So if we do see issues, you know, David and I had this conversation, and I did say, well, David, we are also we're kind of playing with a new material here. We we this project did incorporate recycled it's rubberized rubberized asphalt, which we've never used before, but we did receive some grant funding to do that. And we are still taking a look at how how it's responding, how it works.

All right. Thank you for that. All right. Right. Those were the only that was the only item. So I'm looking for a motion to approve the consent calendar.

I want to pull that one for a separate vote.

Okay. All right. Let's go ahead and proceed with and I'll second that. So let's go ahead and consent calendar with the exception of item 124.

To approve.

Okay. All right, call for the question please.

Motion made by council member Sandoval, seconded by council member Barrera for the consent agenda with the exception of item 124. Council member Barrera? Yes. Councilmember De Arrigo? Yes. Councilmember Della Rosa? Yes. Councilmember Salazar?

Yes.

Councilmember Sandoval? Yes. Mayor Donahue? Yes. Motion passes.

All right. And then I'll motion to approve item 124.

Second. Okay.

All for question?

Calling for the vote on item 124, motion made by Mayor Donahue, second by council member Barrera. Councilmember Barrera.

Yes.

Councilmember Della

Rosa.

Yes. Councilmember Salazar. Yes. Councilmember Sandoval. No. Mayor Donahue. Yes. Motion passes.

Okay, thank you. All right. We are going to take so that concludes last week's meeting. So we are going to take a ten minute break and start this week's meeting at 06:00. And we are now open for public comment on items that are not on the agenda and that are in the city of Salinas' subject matter jurisdiction.

Comments on consideration public hearing items and the consent agenda should be held until the items are reached. Public comment will be two minutes. Each person who addresses the city council during public comment shall do so in an orderly manner and shall not make any personal slanderous, or profane remarks to any member of the city council, city staff, or the general public. Any person who makes such remarks or uses threatening, personal, or abusive language or engages in any way, any other disorderly conduct which disrupts or disserves the meeting may be asked to leave the city council chambers. And with that, we are open for public comment. This

is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and

be glad in it. My name

is Kimberly Bryant. Good after eve, everyone. I'm here to pray for our city. And specifically, I'm here to pray for the fire department and the police department, especially in light of today's proclamations and agenda. Heavenly father, I hold up the police department and the fire department to you, chief Acosta and chief Klemic.

Lord God, I thank you for their leadership in their departments and that you give them discernment and wisdom to lead. Father, I thank you for all of our public safety servants that have dedicated their lives to our city, all of the firefighters, the EMTs, paramedics, police officers, and all of their supporting staff. On their best day, they preserve life and they promote peace. And on their worst day, they face death and fight violence. So, father, I just ask that you would guide their steps and protect their lives.

I ask for a hedge of protection around every fire station, the police station, every patrol unit, fire truck, and ambulance. And, Lord, that you would just protect them from every angle, that you would bless each one of them and look upon each one of their lives with favor as they serve our city. Thank you. Amen.

Thank you. Wow.

Beautiful. Should write books. Good

afternoon. I'll say that a month via community. I'm gonna say that what a beautiful prayer that was. Thank you. Guys, I'm embarrassed, man. I mean, I'm embarrassed that we have the the worst roads, I think, anywhere, and we're not doing anything about it. And I've been talking about this a while now, and it's not like I just brought it up last week. I mean, we're not doing anything about it. I mean, we had a meeting at 02:00 today, Mayor, we talked about that funding you had, that extra money you guys have, and I told you where it needs to go. I mean, you need to put it in the streets.

But I don't think I don't think you guys are listening to me. I don't know why am I not talking loud enough? I'm I'm trying to be polite up here and cordial, but it's like you guys are not paying attention. You know? And who's gonna take over mister Barajas district? Has anybody stepped up and helped or are we gonna appoint somebody? And it's very important to have representation. And even when you do have representation, it doesn't always work. But we need to do something. Mayor, you gotta do better mayor.

Mister Mendez, you gotta talk to him and the city attorney, you guys gotta work together. I think you guys need to go on a retreat, all six, eight of you, and learn how to get along, so we can run this city a lot better. I think once we all get all the animosity out of the way and and all the differences and all the bickering and all the the hate or whatever you guys have for each other up there, don't know what it is, that you can't get along, you know, to attack one one guy. I mean, that's that's not cool. That was sad to censor him. You know, he's part of your team. How do you censor your teammate? Man, if you were at my job, my old job, and you did that to me, that never happened. Because you have to be a you have to be a team up here, ladies and gentlemen. You have to be a team.

You have to work together. You have to like each other when you don't like each other. That's what makes it beautiful. Camaraderie is a big thing to do. And I think what's happening now is if you guys ever join the department, please do. You'll learn what that's like. Because it's hard. Hard to get along with people that don't like you. And it's cool. No one's gonna like you. Not everybody likes you. I like you guys. God bless you guys. Get better. Let's do it. Do your job, baby.

Good afternoon, mayor, city council. My name is Maria Sarate and I'm with Thriving Neighborhoods in Salinas and BHC. I participate in the surveys and priority number one of budget twenty twenty six-twenty twenty seven continues being housing. We are hoping that you have enough staff to implement the ordinance of rent stabilization. I'm a volunteer and I do the surveys we the surveys around Salinas and we see how important it is for the youth to get involved.

We need them to get involved civically and with the government. Every year, I am a volunteer in Ciclovia, and I see how the youth gets involved, and I see how that is very important because they continue being involved for the rest of the year. And I think and I ask for Ciclovia to be part of the budget of 2026 of 2027. Thank you so much for all your work.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, mayor and city council. My name is Kayla Valencia Alcaraz, and I am a junior at Alisalle High School. I come here with the intention of speaking about the significance of Si Clovia Salinas in our community and the restrictions we face with the lack of investment from the city of Salinas. Si Clovia Salinas' main objective is promoting unity while developing youth leaders like myself. Si Clovia Salinas has shown me the importance of community work since I was able to work alongside youth from around Salinas in planning and making sure Siclovia had another successful year since its start thirteen years ago.

Siclovia Salinas is important to me and our community because it serves as a resource for health education since it provides a safer environment where any type of movement is encouraged in a city where cycling and pedestrians are not always favored. Si Clovia Salinas made me feel safe and supported since I was able to find a lasting support group within the program this past year. Saying this, I'm here to ask for monetary investment that can fund Siclovia Salinas this year and several years to come. Unfortunately, sponsorships have not been enough to fund the event as a whole. It takes about $60,000 to maintain this event yearly, and as we start preparing for the event, this investment will ensure that budget cuts are not limiting the impact of the event and is able to reach every resident.

With that, we're asking you to consider putting us in this year's budget to continue funding Siclo Yasalinas. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, City Council. My name is Kimberly Lunes, currently junior at Alisa High School. I am here to talk about the importance of Salinas De Covina in our community and the need for investment for the Salinas city. Salinas has been a part of the Salinas community for the past thirteen years, bringing joy, developing new youth leaders, promoting physical health, and uniting the community, boosting the local economy, and changing the narrative of Salinas. Siguelvia Salinas has taught me the importance of communication and planning an event.

Sicovia is important for not only us, you, but the whole community to be able to share memorable memories that will be shared forever. With this being said, I am here to ask for the investment that can support Sicovia Salinas this upcoming year. It takes $60,000 to be able to have this event yearly, and unfortunately, the amount of sponsorships has not been enough for the past year. For that reason, we are asking to be considered in this year's budget and invest in our event with a more sustainable budget that's given before. Thank you for listening.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, city council. My name is Diana Garcia, and I am a junior at Alasalle High School. I am here today to speak about the importance of Ciclovia Salinas and the need for continued invest investment from the city of Salinas. Ciclovia Salinas is more than just an event. It's a youth led movement that creates opportunities for civic engagement, leadership, and community connection.

As of 2026, it is recognized as the only 100% youth led open street event in the state of California. For the past thirteen years, it has helped promote physical health, support local businesses, unite neighborhoods from the East Salinas to South Salinas, and ultimately change the narrative of the city. Last year, Ciclovia Salinas closed down 1.6 miles of streets to create a safe and welcoming space for families, youth, organizations, and local businesses to come together as one community. The event was planned for a period of four months by youth from Salinas, giving them an opportunity to build leadership skills and strengthen their connection to the city. For me personally, Ciclovia Salinas was the first program that truly made me feel involved in my community.

It introduced me to other youth who shared the same vision for Salinas, a more united, supported, and empowered city. As we prepare for this year's event, we respectfully ask the city of Salinas to continue investing in Ciclovia so it can remain sustainable for years to come Because an investment in Ciclovia is an investment in the future of Salinas youth and our community. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, city council members. My name is Marcos Garcia Martinez, I'm a junior at Rancho San Juan High School. I'm here today to talk about the importance of Ciclovia Salinas and the need for investment from the city of Salinas. Ciclovia has not has not only helped helped me meet amazing new people that I still talk to every day, but it has also exposed me to many resources and programs that help the community. Ciclovia Salinas made me feel like we are a step closer to bonding our city together.

There's a lot of distance and gaps between our communities, but Ciclovia is a program that allows a safe space for everyone in Salinas to come together and benefit everyone. Ciclovia benefits everyone because it allows small business to have a pop up and showcase their business while allowing citizens of Salinas to have a safe space to walk or bike around and exercise as a family and learn them and learn the importance of their health. With this being said, we are asking to be considered in this year's budget and invest in our event with a more sustainable budget than given before. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, mayor and city council. My name is Wendy Fernandez. I am currently a high school student in Salinas, and I'm here to speak on the importance of Si Clovia Salinas and the need for city investment. For thirteen years, Si Clovia Salinas has brought joy to our community, developed youth leaders, promoted physical health, united neighbors, boosted our local economy, and transformed Selena's image. This event was founded by Building Healthy Communities in Monterey County.

Our activities committee coordinates with 70 organizations each year to provide resources and promote physical activity at the event. To keep Ciclovia sustainable, we ask the city to invest in us. The event costed 6,000 annually. We request that you include Siclovia in the year's budget with sustainable funding so we can continue serving Salinas. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mayor City Council. My name is Gabriela Camacho and I am here invited by BHC. I'm a stylist and I have a business that I recently opened. I'm here because I want the city council to help me to keep my business stable. I have noticed that there's a lot of businesses that are home based and they don't comply with all the health restrictions.

People, their youth, they come to my business and they have infections, they're not prepared, they're working in an informal way, so they have their businesses and the businesses are clandestine. So, I'm asking the mayor to please help us to address this. I am not against these youth, I'm glad that they're trying to be entrepreneurs and open their businesses, but I'm asking the city council to help us to give these youth training through grants so we can all work together and keep both our businesses afloat. Thank you.

Good after afternoon again, mayor, city council. Jose Mendoza, District 1. First of all, it's really annoying. I don't really appreciate the city attorney and city manager with their head down 90% of the time on their phone or whatever they're doing. I feel like that's very unprofessional and and disrespectful to the people coming up here to bring their issues.

Suggestion, create a policy, no cell phones while you're on the dais during, public comment. It's very rude. Anyway, lifelong resident of Eastside Salinas. I feel like this time I'm vested in doing something and speaking up for those that cannot come up here and voice their concerns. Retired from the county after twenty five years of service.

So, I'm familiar with internal politics and internal corruption, upper management, and I'm starting to see a trend based on the news, social media. You get me to fix that quick. You guys are waking up a sleeping giant. Like I mentioned to you earlier, mayor, you're the mayor. Whatever happens on your watch, you're it.

You're responsible. You should have a talk with the city attorney. These are making history. Mayor, you brag about one of your previous campaign flyers, you brag about all this leadership experience, six years as a prior mayor. I don't see it. If that was the case, this should be running like a well oiled machine and you guys are are missing on a couple pistons. You have my contact info. I'd like a response as far as

who's gonna represent me.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Adriana Garcia and thank you for giving me these two minutes to express myself. First of all, I wanna say that I feel very proud. I feel proud because I've seen that the youth has come here and I see them participating. And that makes me feel very proud about our youth.

Another thing I wanna say, I feel very happy that I can come here and give my comment in Spanish. I like to do that because I wanna motivate the people from Sector 1 to come here, to don't feel ashamed, to don't feel embarrassed, and to make them see that you are listening to us. However, we are speaking in whatever language we're speaking, that there is no limits. Another thing I would like to talk about mister council member absence. I know that he's going through medical issues.

I know that he's facing difficulty difficulties. I understand that. But meanwhile, who represents us? Who's going to hear us? There's important decisions that are being made and we are not being represented. We're not being heard. I know that everybody has difficulties. I don't blame him. We all have difficulties at work, but when I don't work, I don't get paid. So I don't think it's fair that the community of Salinas has to pay him when he is not working. Thank you.

Okay. Good evening, city council and mayor. I'm Eloise Shim. And I'm here to speak about, I found out yesterday that, the members of the public can write about renaming the train station to the Heritage Park by June 2. So I'd like to encourage anybody who is a stakeholder or a resident, because all of the residents are stakeholders, but all the stakeholders are saying that it makes perfect sense to rename it Heritage Park.

Well, I'm a stakeholder because I'm a resident and because I live across the street from the train station, and it doesn't make perfect sense to me. It also doesn't make perfect sense to me to relocate the MST transit station to the train station. Having the heritage park and the train station and the MST all there in front of Highway 183 across the street from two senior housing places doesn't make sense. So if it doesn't make sense to you, please write before June 2. If it does make sense to you, write that too.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello City Council and Mayor. My name is Doctor. Benjamin Wolf and I'm a new resident to Salinas, just moved here in January from North Carolina and I've really enjoyed your city. I enjoy all the things that you guys are doing to create community. I've been hanging out a lot at the Ensign Park especially the dog park.

It took me a while to figure out how it was designed but now I kind of I've helped other people figure out how to help their dogs intermingle and to be socialized. I really appreciate it's much different than Back East and also appreciate how you guys are working with the homeless population and helping to rehouse them. I'm not sure if that's one of the part of the agenda for today. I know there's the Chinatown's Chinatown navigation center that's closing and then a motel that's being provided. So I'm coming to support those folks and help them. But I just wanted to say some of you guys this is an incredible job you must have. It must be very challenging. So I appreciate your patience and I like the way you're it's giving me some inspiration that you can you can feel any kind of question or comment and take it with grace. Blessings to you all.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name City Council Mayor, my name is Nidia So to, and I'm an organizer of economic justice with BHC, and we are committed to work with you. We are committed to work locally with your government. We have been part of this civic involvement, mostly in the budget. I can't stress enough how much we have been there and doing the surveys.

And I have heard a lot of the youth coming here and asking help, asking to be part of the budget for Ciclovia. Ciclovia belongs to District 124, And 3. It is an event that happens every year and it involves the whole community, so we please ask you to take that into consideration. Also, we have been doing surveys. We delivered thirteen fifty surveys, and we have been able to increase the communication with city council and the community.

We have been able to have four twenty people of the community that updated their information through text or call. A 105 updated their emails. 525 want to get involved with the government. So, this is something that we do year by year. We update all their information so they can continue having a better communication with city council. This is something that we're gonna continue doing and we want to keep on helping because for us it is important that the community has good communication with city council. And I also ask you to please take in consideration the request of the youth regarding Siclovia.

Yeah. Thank you. Alright. We will go ahead and see anybody on Zoom. All right.

Are you there?

Okay.

You're on. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Brandon and I'm a student with Alvarez High School. I'm in District 1 and I also participate with Thriving Neighborhoods with BHC. My comment today is about the Ciclovia. We are hoping that you can increase the budget.

We need an investment. This is an event that impacts all the youth with their civic engagement, and we need you to invest because Ciclovia is about $60,000 a year, and this year, basically, funds that we had are not enough. Most of it went to pay the permits. The the the sponsors that we had this year are not as much as the as the years before. So we please ask you to consider Ciclovia in the budget. We need an investment for this event so it can be sustainable, so we're asking for an investment of $60,000 Thank you.

Thank you. Alright. Next up, phone 9902.

Good evening. This is Nina Beatty again. I wanted to talk to the city council about what's going on with AT and T at the CPUC. AT and T is working to stop copper line landline service in The United States and in California, and the CPUC will make it be making a decision in June to stop requiring AT and T to provide service to everyone, including landlines. They're going to be meeting this Thursday at eleven a.

M. For their regular business meeting, and I encourage the City Council and the public to call in and advocate for preserving and strengthening copper landline service here and also retaining carrier blast resource status. How to call in Thursday is on the CPUC's website. Carrier blast resort means AT and T cannot discriminate. It has to provide service to everyone. AT and T doesn't want this status anymore. That means a person may not be able to get dependable phone service and 911 service from another company or get any service at all. This is happening in other states. In addition, many areas in California, including urban areas, don't get reliable phone service by wireless or voice over Internet. In a power outage, those systems, when the battery dies, you do not have communication.

I was very surprised to see that mayor Donahue advocated for the elimination of this critical public safety infrastructure in a letter to the legislature last year. Landline service provides dependable, resilient connections in most situations. Connecting the public to nine eleven essential services, evacuation notices and loved ones as well as providing pinpoint location data when seconds count. When a person is having a heart attack is choking as a medical emergency landlines are the most reliable and resilient communication system, and they are essential infrastructure. I urge the council to take action to support the continuance of this vital infrastructure. Thank you.

Thank you. Alright. Eleanor Elliott.

Good evening, mister mayor and city council. Eleanor Elliott here from District 5. I am I'm I'm just jumping on to say I am as a as a volunteer with protecting Salinas renters and building healthy communities, I have helped to collect over 1,300 surveys from Salinas residents regarding several budget areas, including housing, community development, infrastructure, municipal services, support for youth and seniors, and security. Before I start, I can speak personally about, you know, the effects of a lot of the issues on seniors in this area, but I do wanna mention that I'm I volunteer every year with Siclovia, and I wanna echo the previous speakers saying that Siclovia is a very important part of the city, and it's it it it really needs to be supported by all of us. I live in a senior complex and many of my my my neighbors do not drive.

The ones who do drive don't don't go out at night because the lighting is so bad on our streets and the lines are never kept up kept up with. You can't see the the the lines in the streets and there we we need more crosswalks, lighting light up crosswalks. I have and then a lot of my neighbors also walk and use a public transport transit. I we I witnessed two of my neighbors the other day, both of them in their ninth

Okay. Thank you, LNR. Alright. With that, we will close public comment. The youth council will be back in June. May is a busy busy time of year for students. Finals, graduations, etcetera. So, they will be rejoining us again in June. With that, we will proceed to public hearings and we're going to talk about we're going to look for Abe. We're not looking for Abe. We're looking for Selena. Okay, that'll do. All right, and we're gonna talk about the townhomes project.

Thank you, good evening mayor, council members, Selena Andrews, finance director, it's a pleasure to be here. The item before you is a conduit financing for the Santa Lucia townhomes project. Foothill Santa Lucia LLC, a California nonprofit public benefit corporation, has asked that the California Statewide Communities Development Authority, referred to as the CSDA, be the issuer of tax exempt financing in an amount not to exceed 100,000,000 in revenue bonds. So these are tax exempt bonds. The proceeds of the bonds will be used to refinance the acquisition, rehabilitation, improvement, and equipping of a two zero four unit affordable multi family housing rental project.

The property is located in Salinas at 589 Leslie Drive in Salinas, California. Federal tax law requires that the financing authority hold a tax and equity fiscal responsibility, otherwise known as TEFRA hearing within the local jurisdiction that has its own tax exempt authority, and a resolution be approved by the governing body, yourselves, of the jurisdiction in which a project to be financed with tax exempt financing is located. The debt to be issued by CSDA will be the sole responsibility of the borrower, and the city will have no financial or legal obligations with regard to the repayment of the debt. All financing documents will carry disclaimers that the loan is not an obligation of the city. This is a private loan with the borrower and their bank.

At this time, recommends that city council adopt the resolution in favor of the issuance of the bonds by CSDA. Such adoption is solely for the purpose of satisfying the requirements of TEFRA. The code and the California government code section 6,500. A representative for the borrower is available remotely and can answer any questions you may have specific to the project.

Okay. Alright. Well, so presume the best thing to see if council has questions. Okay, then we'll proceed on that basis.

My apologies. Please.

Just wanted to We are open for questions.

Don't want

to miss my queue. Okay, Margaret.

I have no questions.

No questions. No

questions. Thank

you. Mr. Mendez, there was a series of questions that were brought up by council member Sandoval which your staff I thought it was good answers to the questions. I guess my question would be if council members are asking these types of questions for more information because there wasn't too much information in this report, is there a reason for that and and I and I now I understand why it has to go before through the city. Why don't we give a little bit more detail in these reports? Is there a reason for that?

Thank you for the question, Council Member Barrera. So these are traditionally, this is

a

formality, and I do understand the request, and maybe the suggestion to provide more information going forward, but customarily, there isn't a lot of information provided at this point in time because there is no obligation, but you are welcome to ask any additional questions specific to the projects, and that is why a representative is here remotely, and of course, the public can also inquire about any questions, I mean, anything related to the project. It's just the formality, and it's customarily done this way. Not not just here, but we welcome any questions.

Yeah. So so with that, I mean, whoever can answer this question. It's two zero four units. I I think it's a very well taken it's a nice place. I went over there yesterday, but my question was, if it's a public hearing, were the tenants, two zero four tenants, were they notified, because they're

the real stakeholders as well, were they notified of this public hearing, do we know that? So the intent

of posting, getting this information out there in advance, and I believe the requirement was fifteen days getting this condo financing out, it is intended so that anybody can ask questions, whether to the borrower, to the LLC, or to the city. So, has there been any additional outreach? The response is probably no, but there was a process that had to be followed in order for this to even come to you on this day.

And you know what, and I've learned to understand, I don't agree with it, but I've learned that we, when it's public hearing, we do notify the herald, or we do the minimal that we're supposed to do that's legal, and we do it. But here because I believe where my concern was were these two zero four families were they notified and you know what I went over there yesterday to visit some of the people And again, I don't like to put anybody in a situation, but I believe that the tenants should have been informed out of courtesy. I mean, they're the stakeholders, they're the ones that are, whether it's affordable rent, they're the stakeholders that are paying the rent. So I thought, hey, if I'm a tenant, I should at least be given a courtesy. There's a meeting that's going to be talking about your apartment complex, and then it's up to me to want to attend or not, but at least somebody notified me.

So Mr. Mayor, I think where I'm concerned, because I did speak to the manager, and again, I don't want to get anybody in a situation. I spoke to the manager, I spoke to the assistant manager, and they didn't know anything about this public hearing today, which concerns me. I spoke to six other tenants there and I just went over there trying to do my homework, figure out how, because you're asking us, though we're not going to vote on this, I think this company, whoever it is, because it's serious investment. And it's needed investment because we do need housing.

But I just want to put it out there, we're going to continue these public hearings. We should at least notify the people that are going to be impacted. I don't know if administration here agrees or not. And I don't know why we didn't do that.

So, we did not notify them, just be very clear. Yeah. Because it was in our response. I mean, I'm just gonna say it. From all the stuff that's going on, we did not notify it. So, if this is something you want in the future, then when these requests come forward, we can ask them to notify before we bring it to you but we did not.

Yeah. And I think that's.

So, because it's it's not something we're doing.

Yeah. I understand that but.

To just be be very clear. It's not something we initiated or doing. This is a process thing. So, you can make, you can give us that policy direction and we'll follow it. If you want to take a different action that we have a representative on, maybe they did notify, maybe they can speak to that. I cannot confirm because we did not do that.

Yeah, well one, I would like them to tell us if they did notify and the other thing, Mendez, I appreciate your candor, but we have, as a council, we have requested when there's public hearings, we need to go out and notify whoever is going be impacted, not just the herald.

This is not our public hearing. I get I'm the nuance, but it's not a city staff, city department, city process, city hearing, city general plan. It's not our hearing.

Mr. Minister.

So we're just a conduit.

Why are we discussing it then?

Because you're telling because it this is a ministerial act.

It is.

Okay. It's true.

Counties do this. They all do it because it comes forward. It's just a law that we're following.

I'm just talking about this council. Tell me what they do. So you and I will will have this conversation.

I'm just trying to give the nuance

I understand.

Why we did it.

Okay. So since so so we can ask the Sure. Whoever whoever the person is, can we ask that they notify the tenants? I mean, just out of courtesy. Did you send them a letter? Did you notify them? I mean, they're paying big money for rent. So can we ask?

Mr. Hacker, we promoted you to panelists. If you're able to respond to that question, that would be appreciated.

Yeah. Hello, and thank you all for taking the time to hear this matter. The tenants were not explicitly notified. We followed the normal course that the individuals in the council meeting have outlined. But what I would like to add is there will be no displacement of tenants as part of this project. So the existing residents can stay in their homes. And what this really does is it's protecting the tenants who are currently in a market rate property with no affordability protections to have affordability restrictions and rent stability to provide long term housing and security.

So did he say anything on file? No,

but once, my apologies, Council Member Barrera, he did, what I heard is that once the project gets going, they will have to notify them. And I think the, and you can correct me, Mr. Hacker here, but I think one of the things you brought up is that if it protects them, because if the manager and people are notified, my I imagine that there could be an opportunity to start thinking about raising rents before this starts happening. So that's what I got from it, but maybe I didn't hear you correctly, mister Hecker.

Yeah. What I'd like to

clarify is it's not about raising rent. This is actually putting affordability protections in place for the existing residents.

Thank you.

Well, think just my last comment, Mr. Hacker, I understand what you're saying, but me, if I was one of your tenants, whatever the process is, for some reason I would have loved to have been given the courtesy as I pay rent. This is a public hearing, maybe you want to go out and listen to what's going on. I understand all the legal issues, but I think to some degree we have to figure it, and this is to my good friend Mr. Mendez, is we have to continue getting better at giving out information. Thank you.

Andrew. Has this property been compliant with the rental registry and rent stabilization ordinances and notify their tenants as such.

Thank you for the question. Good

evening council members. This is Orlando, I'm assistant director of the community development department. The answer is yes, the property is registered, but has not yet paid.

Since when?

I don't have the exact date on when it was registered, but I can come back to you with that date.

And so, do we know if the existing tenants have been notified of their rights under the rent stabilization and tenant protections?

Is the question whether the tenants have been notified of their rent stabilization specifically Only through the expanded workshops through each district have we notified tenants and through the website, through social media, through those means. We didn't specifically seek out to those tenants in that property. It's been canvassed throughout.

Particularly, there's requirements for the landlord to notify those tenants, correct?

Regarding any rent increase, yes.

And these ordinances, right? Yes.

Landlords are aware.

The mister Hager, have you sent notices about rent stabilization and the rental protections to all your tenants in compliance with the ordinances here in the city of Salinas?

We are not the existing owner of this property. We'll be acquiring it through this bond issuance, but as far as our due diligence is concerned, we believe that the current owner has provided those notices.

It has not paid. Is that correct?

So with the rental registration process, it's two steps. First, the landlord or property owner enters all the information, it is then verified by staff, and then they are given the notification that they can proceed to pay. So at this point in time, staff has indicated that they have registered, we are just waiting for their payment.

But at this point they're delinquent, right?

So we'll get into that as part of our presentation on the quarterly update, but effective tomorrow, late fees will start to go into effect.

I guess Mr. Haggar, my question for you is as part of due diligence, did you verify that the previous owner was compliant with the Salinas Rent Stabilization and Tenant Protection Ordinances?

Yes.

Well, no, they were all notified. All the tenants were notified. You verified that?

As far as our due diligence is concerned, yes, to our knowledge.

I couldn't I couldn't hear him.

Yes. To our knowledge, all tenants were notified.

Okay. And then what what impact if any will this have on any existing tenants? Any either short term or long term impacts?

Yeah. The the short and long term impacts are very similar. What this does is it adds rent restrictions to the property, which will protect the existing residents from someone coming in and trying to raise rents. This will provide long term affordability in accordance with the nonprofit's mission.

We agree. And there is no negative impacts to tenants either now or in the future based on this decision?

That's correct.

All right, that concludes my questions.

All right, thank you. All right, we'll go out to the public, any public comment?

Good afternoon, Jose Guerra, Modellia Community. I see a broken system here. It's like we're discussing something that we have no control over. It's like two zero four families have not been notified of this. The owner or the proposed owner of the property hasn't paid the fees of the city, and all of a sudden tomorrow we're gonna have late fees on it because it's brought up now. Well, you just notified everybody by having this meeting tonight. These tenants now know. That's notification and that's the wrong way to do it. And then to for us to get involved in something like this, why? Why the city involved?

I mean, why why are we, you know, backpedaling for somebody else? I I don't get it. I mean, when's the next public meeting? I wanna go. I'd love to be there just to support the people. It's wrong. This is a very shady way of doing business, and that's at Salinas. We're a great city. Why are we doing stuff like this? Why are we involved with people that that don't know how to follow the rules, obviously? Yeah. Let me register my card, but let me pay you in ten ten months from now, but don't give me a ticket and don't find me. Ridiculous. Come on, guys. Work as a team up here.

Shake your head. I don't care. Do whatever you wanna do. Or, you know, or look at your phone or whatever you wanna do. I don't I don't it doesn't matter. But you guys need to, you know, do your job. Sorry. You gotta do it. God bless you guys. Good luck with this.

Thank you. Alright. Anyone else? Thank you.

Once again, I think this is a clear example of how we have to inform about the rent stabilization. We have to be able to inform it and enforce it. BHC has been doing a great job about letting people know what the rent stabilization is about, but we all need your help. The public needs to know. The residents need to know about the ordinance and how to apply them. You have to give information through the websites to all the residents because all the residents deserve to know how to apply the rent stabilization and all these ordinances. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Nidia So to. And this year and the year before, 2024, we were knocking at on the doors of those families. We were working with them. And two zero four families. What they told us is that the the owner sold the property and the new owner sent all the all the all the people that live there eviction letters. And they told them that if they wanted to continue living in the apartment, they could. But the rent increase is something like $1,200, a very, very big differences. The thing is that I'm not sure by what I'm hearing today is that the tenants have been informed clearly. They have to be informed clearly.

I don't know if maybe these apartments are market rate. I'm not sure. What I what I heard and what I am asking is that these tenants be explained in a clear way what is happening in their homes. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. All right, anyone on Zoom? All right, seeing none on Zoom, back to counsel. Or this is an action item.

I just wanna give Mr. Robert an opportunity to share exactly who his organization is and what their purpose is with this property because that wasn't made very clear at least here.

Okay, all right. Is he still on the line?

Well, we can promote him again.

Yes. So the owner will be Foothill Santa Lucia LLC, which is a subsidiary of the Foothill Affordable Housing Foundation. This is a nationally recognized nonprofit with a mission to create and preserve affordable housing across the nation, and they're very excited about this opportunity to make a difference in the Swain's communities.

Okay. That

was my only question for him. I understand the intention behind protecting affordable housing units. I think what my colleague, Councilor Brewer, and I'm sure he can articulate it himself is if this council makes a decision whether it's ministerial or anything that's gonna affect a particular group of residents. I think we talked about this when we developed our communication strategy is that we want them to be notified. You know, so I'm hesitant to support on the fact that the residents were not notified as well as the previous property owner not paying yet.

I guess we're gonna still clear that up but this is gonna be a new affordable housing producer. My other question is, you know, considering what recently happened with Project Homekey and that, you know, limited oversight that the city will have. And I guess I understand this is not really a project that the city is gonna handle itself, it's just kind of a pass through. Just wanted to express some of my concerns.

Do have Andrew, our guest, I do have one question. Is that an accurate statement that the new owner said rents are going to go up which we just heard? Is that a different owner or is that you folks coming in?

Yeah, that was from the prior owner. That's exactly what we're trying to avoid with this type of regulatory agreement. That was not us.

Got it. Okay. Alright. Thank you. Alright. Is there a motion on this item?

Tony said it.

Oh, I'm sorry. Tony, didn't say it.

You know, I was very pleased with the answers given and I'm sure this is a great non profit group for affordable housing. I don't deny that. But I experienced yesterday, there was this young couple. I I witnessed it myself personally at the Santa Lucia Townhouses yesterday. An affordable apartment there for a two bedroom, and again, it goes depending on your wages, it's $2,600 for a two bedroom.

Somebody might say, wait, that's a good deal. Somebody said that's too expensive. But that's the reality where we live at. My concern here is not that I don't want to support this non profit because we do need more affordable housing. Going back to my good friend, the city manager, even though this is not our project, it came to this table. And we have to do our due diligence because those two zero four families, they live in Salinas. We say we serve Salinas. They should have been notified. We call this a public hearing. Who more interested would be somebody that lives there?

But they didn't know about this. And I'm sure we can fix it later on, on this one we didn't do it. So I'm very disappointed and I think, and I'm going to use the word we, I like to use the word we because we're all in it together, we need to do a better job informing people, especially when they're paying hard earned dollars to live in a place in the city limits. Thank you.

Gloria?

I have a question. We have to approve it tonight, or can they go back? Can we If it doesn't get approved tonight, it goes Can it go back to the residence, to the landlords, can they please notify them? I mean, we need the housing. I'm not against that either.

But, they should be part of the conversations. You know what I mean? They should have notified them. And I think I'm getting the feeling that that's what we want to see with this project, and we want to see with any further projects like this. You need to notify the residents. So, my question to you is that, can we go back?

Thank you.

Give them a timeframe to do this, talk to the residents, and then bring it back to us?

Thank you for the question, Council Member Della Rosa. Patty, are we able to get him on the line again? Okay, if he can answer that, I know they have timelines that they're trying to follow, and there's issuance dates and all that stuff that they might wanna be looking at.

Yes. It would be challenging to delay this process further. We're currently under contract to purchase it, and there are strict timelines related to that contract. We followed the process to, you know, put this notice in front of the committee. That includes having all the public aware and ability to look into it. So it would be very challenging and risk losing affordable housing if we delay this.

I just wanted some clarity. Is it put in front of the committee? Who exactly is the committee?

I believe he was referring to a council.

The council. Okay.

Okay. His council.

Yeah. I'm I'm concerned because it seems like there's there's two very different stories being told and I'm not sure where the truth lies somewhere in the middle, as far as were they told, were they not, or assuming they were, but Tony spoke to people that said that they didn't know about it, so that's a concern of mine as well. So we just wanna make sure we follow the process. It's it's not about speed and and it's about doing it the right way, I think is what we're looking

at. Thank

you.

Okay. I guess the question is, did staff review this? And I understand it's moving forward on a ministerial basis, but it's been reviewed. The buyer is meets the right criteria, trying to do affordable housing. I mean, I certainly hear councilmember Brera comment on a go forward basis.

I think the council is sending a pretty clear signal that ministerial pass throughs on a go forward basis not our favorite thing. And we probably what may be custom and habit this council is expressing a desire for something different on a go But forward I do have some concerns what a delay means relative to this buyer, this transaction, particularly if they've been vetted and on balance, it's a good thing. So I hear everyone's point, the delay concerns me, the lack of notification, that's just simply could it be done better? I mean that seems or differently because the game has changed. Putting stuff in the newspapers with all due respect to the newspapers just as that's really not the right call anymore on a go forward basis.

But we're, it seems to me we're kind of stuck at the moment, you know, between past and future. So, and Renee, do

have any So, one of the things I like to do is I like to get a five minute pause so I can talk about timing. And then I can come back and report. So let me either you move on or you can just give me a five minute pause. Can you give me a five minute pause so I can talk to Mr. Atkins and just talk about scheduling and timing?

Sure.

Before you before we bring something back to make a decision?

Take a break. Okay.

Thank you.

Okay. Bye. Five minute pause.

Oh, five minute break? Yeah.

Five minute break. Over to the city manager.

Yeah, mayor, council, thank you for the pause. I did talk to, we did talk to Mr. Hacker. There is concern that if we delay it, the property will actually be lost. So the affordability component, this is bringing this property into the affordability realm, which is currently not, they're market rate units, that's a positive.

It would actually long term, all the concerns that we've had with some other properties, not following the ordinances or whatever, kind of be put to abeyance, those things will move forward. The issue of the rent registration, we're gonna work through that with the prior owner and so forth. There is that, or the new owner, the pay, but there is some concerns. Could get here loud and concerned about the notification. So what I'm gonna ask, what I've asked Mr.

Hacker to do is to again describe sort of the benefits of this, specifically, and unfortunately, I am concerned that if we delay it, we will lose the affordability opportunity that's here. That by the way, we did not move forward as staff. The nonprofit found a property to purchase. Should we have informed the residents hearing loud and clear, we did not. But so, not a great, I guess, decision in front of the council, but we're here now.

And there is an opportunity here to bring these units into the affordability, which we currently don't have. What I'd like to add is that Ms. Hackard, just reiterate again the benefit of this and then see how the council wants to move forward in it. We did think that a two week pause to our next council meeting might work, but they're under a very tight timeline and they would have to get the seller to agree to that, and which they're likely maybe not to do. So, I don't have another council meeting till the twenty sixth.

So, if we have one next week, maybe we'll be we don't have one next week. It's not till the twenty sixth. What I'd like to do is mister Hacker, if you're on, maybe you can go again, explain the benefits of this, and kinda and then I'll bring it back to the council. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you for giving me the time. So the benefit is a regulatory agreement will be put on this property that restricts 20% of the units to residents earning at or below 50% AMI and 80% of the units for residents earning at or below 80% AMI. I'd like to speak to the specific 50% AMI bucket. This will result in rent reduction in the realm of 700 to $900 per unit per month.

I know a member of I believe the public was concerned that the prior owner came in, evicted residents, and pushed rents. What this program and the nonprofit is looking to do is avoid that happening ever again with this right agreement which has oversight. There are annual audits, annual filings, and the existing residents will be benefited, not negatively impacted. And the risk is if we delay, the seller will likely not agree to an extension timeline, and a new buyer may come in which will not execute this type of affordability program.

Yes.

You know what, and I trust that this nonprofit is something that we do need because I read about them, I asked some housing professionals here in Salinas about them. Everybody feels good about the organization. I guess to Mr. Hacker's point, and just like they're concerned that they don't lose on this property, my concern is how do we protect, you know as a council, we have an obligation. I know we don't make houses, we don't rent houses, but we need to protect people as best as we can.

So as Mr. Hacker says, we don't wanna lose this, we're on a time schedule, but along with that same conversation, how can we say we guarantee that none of these residents are going to be exploited either? You know, because a lot of people don't want to talk because they're afraid. So how do we, I know there's no guarantees, but how do we appease this where also learning from what we're learning today, that they can be more consistent in informing the people that are paying these rents, whether they're affordable or not.

So, I'm gonna, and I'll turn it over to Mr. Hackett, but the funder is the California State, CSCDA, which is a California Statewide Communities Development Authority. So, that doesn't provide funding for profit private. It provides for public projects, which this is one of them. So, they would have, they've done their due diligence on this project.

So, they would not be funding it if they had not. This is an authority created by the State Association of Counties and the League of California Cities to provide funding for these types of projects and other projects. The city can also use them as a funding arm. So it's for the public benefit, which I think is important from the assurances. They would not be funding this if it wasn't. So they need to make sure that they have the appropriate protections in the title and all of the stuff that goes into these types of purchases. And Mr. Hackett can speak a little bit more to what's going to carry on for the life of this the property.

Yeah. So as mentioned, there will be a regulatory agreement which will run with the land and is enforceable by the bond issuer. The issuer provides ongoing oversight through annual compliance requirements and continuous monitoring. The owner is required to complete annual tenant income certifications and provide periodic compliance reports to the issuer confirming that they're adhering with the income and rent restrictions outlined in the regulatory agreement. The issuer has the right to request documentation, review tenant records, and inspect the property's books and records to verify the compliance and take action if compliance is not occurring.

Thank you. Okay. Yeah, I think the message from the council is clear is that we want to communicate better with our residents. We don't want to lose this opportunity at affordable housing. The frustration is that the residents aren't notified and the staff report was pretty light.

So I think based off of the conversation with this council, it kind of sets a precedent going forward what we expect. I think the staff report would have said, hey residents, our community, these residents are going to now get a $700 decrease in their rent. These are the benefits. I understand it's mostly ministerial and maybe they did everything they needed to, but the reality is we need to have more information when we make these decisions. You know, now knowing what I know, I'd be happy to support the motion. So with that, I make a motion to approve.

Second.

Okay, this is a second. Okay. Let's call for the question.

Council Member Barrera? Yes. Council Member DiRigo? Yes. Council Member Della Rosa? Yes. Council Member Salazar? Yes. Council Member Sandoval? Yes. Mayor Donahue? Yep. Motion passes.

Very good, thank you. Thank you.

Alright.

We're looking for a police chief. We found one.

Good evening. Thank you. Mayor, city manager, city attorney, council members, thank you. Carlos Acosta, chief of police. I'm gonna give you a little summary of our annual report for the police department's 2025 annual report.

So I'm gonna talk a little bit about the calls for service as it reflects year to year comparison, and also some of the arrests that we made collectively in 2025. You can see we responded to over 133,000 calls for service, a slight increase just under 1% increase from 2024. However, one thing to point out is our arrests and citations did increase by almost 30% during that year. Next slide, I want to talk briefly about our staffing levels. You know, when I came here a year and a half ago, one of the priorities was to build the department, work on infrastructure, employee development opportunity and growth.

But in order for us to do that while providing core services, need to make sure that our staffing is adequate. So we're authorizing 161 officers, including four frozen, funded again for the 157, and 143 officers have been filled. So it shows there that there's 14 officers to hire. Again, this is reflective of the 2025. We have grown since, that I'll talk a little bit on the next slide.

On the professional side, we have 55 authorized positions, funded. We have 12 vacancies, and those 12 vacancies include our records department, an evidence tech, a community outreach specialist, communication specialist, and a recruiting coordinator, really key positions that allow us to support the police department from the professional level. We continue to have a robust recruiting team, while engaging and making those personal connections at high school, colleges, career fairs, and anything and everywhere we could be, and obviously we have an incentive bonus of 20 to $40,000 to bring in new recruits. We also conducted an oral board assessment workshop that allows individuals who are interested in this profession to come and learn about our profession, and obviously get a real good picture of what the Salinas Police Department looks like as well. So, the staffing, again, we've made significant accomplishments as mentioned in the previous slide.

There was 22 vacancies at the end of the year 2024 and at the end of the year 2025, we only had 14. So an increase, what we say decrease of 36.36% over one year. Again, as of April 30, we're happy to report that we have 150 sworn positions. That is also an increase of 11.72%. For a department like ours, it's a really significant increase for all of us here at the department, and really proud of the laterals and new recruits that we've been able to hire.

So, I'm gonna talk a little bit about our crime statistic trends, and as it reflects, there's eight key categories there. We're happy to report in six of those categories, saw significant decreases. 16% minus on motor thefts, 34% minus in arsons, 19% decrease in larcenies. In robberies, we went up five incidents. Burglaries, we were down 6%.

Rapes were down 13%. And aggravated assaults were down just under 8%. And the other one is homicides. We went up homicides seven in 2025, in comparison to six in 2024. I do wanna highlight that still over a twenty year low in homicides. As I often talk about one homicide is too many in this community. We're happy to report that the trend continues to go down. And I'm gonna really take a deep dive and highlight here in the next slide. When you look at our homicide rate, ten years ago we had 40 homicides in the city. Nine years ago, we had 36.

So the trend continues to go down from sixteen, thirteen, eleven, six, and seven. The biggest number that I really wanted to highlight is our actual clearance rate. Last year, in 2025, we had an 80% 86% clearance rate of every homicide. That means somebody was arrested, somebody was responsible, that was identified through our investigative and patrol team, and there may be a warrant out for that individual's arrest. In 2024, we ended with eighty three percent.

In 2023, it was ninety one percent. It should be noted the national average for homicide clearance rate for the FBI is 61% and the California state average is 63%. In the last twenty five years, twenty five years in this city, I'm happy to report that the last four years have been 80% clearance rate or higher in twenty five years. So, we're really proud of the team at all levels, patrol investigations, really the community support that we get to identify evidence and really have key witnesses come forward, really is a testament to the community engagement that this department has been involved in, the trust that we have built with the community we serve. So, really proud of those statistics as it reflects our homicide rate.

Next, I'll talk about general investigations. 326 cases were received, 266 cases were cleared. Again, what I wanna emphasize is when we say clear, somebody was arrested or identified or a warrant was issued for somebody responsible for this case. That's an eighty two percent clearance rate of those cases. Again, we're also showcasing the eighty six percent of homicides.

We're also happy to report that we solved the cold case by investigators being diligent, working with the district attorney's office, the Monterey County cold case team, where they were able to identify one individual that was responsible for a homicide through DNA evidence. Next thing I'll talk about is our Violent Suppression Task fourteen, who continue to work diligently to keep this community safe while disrupting violent criminal offenders here in the city. During that time in 2025, the Violence Suppression Task Force, also known as VSTF, had 70 felony arrests, 28 misdemeanor arrests, and also seized 80 firearms. What I also want to report is 268 firearms were also seized in this city through patrol, investigative efforts, and not just our VSTF unit, and those are some of the photos. As you can see, one gun is too many to have in our streets, so we're happy to report that we've increased our seizure of gun within the last couple of years.

I want to talk a little bit about Operation Dead End, as it reflects again the efforts that this department is working on to dismantle violent criminal organizations in this city. One of note is a federal RICO case indictments that happened several years ago. In 2025, we were able to have superseding indictments and added seven additional defendants to this case for murder charges, attempted murder, drug trafficking, firearm, armed robberies, etcetera. So this is a case, that through our efforts here, we were able to arrest and attach other indictments to individuals already incarcerated or holding other people responsible and accountable for those crimes here within the city. One more case I actually would like to discuss was a recent case.

Called it Operation Logged Out, where our VSTF unit worked diligently with other federal partners, while dismantling a drug trafficking operation, which moved methamphetamine, fentanyl, heroin, and other narcotics into this city of Salinas. Some of those seizures including over 26 pounds of methamphetamine, six pounds of fentanyl, and an additional 17 pounds of powder fentanyl. 17 pounds of fentanyl is enough to harm and wipe out every single person in this county. These were incredible seizures and enormous amount of work by our VSTF team, our patrol division, our professional staff to making sure that we disrupt criminal activity in this city. So that happened in the year 2025.

Other seizures included vehicles, US currency and firearms. I now want to talk a little bit about our Regional Evidence Processing Center, which is a state of the art firearms lab that we have here in the city of Salinas. It's called the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, where we have analysts that are able to take ballistic imaging from casings, evidence related to a shooting, where we're able to identify individuals, patterns, and trends that are occurring in the city that allows us to take that evidence and submit it to the district attorney for filing. We have specialized staff, and one of the also things that we're doing in this NIBEN lab is that we're able to help out other agencies in this county and the region to process evidence, rather than sending it down to Sacramento or other areas, where sometimes the wait times could be up to six months, we're able to process that evidence here directly in our facility. So that's really an incredible team that we have that really processes a lot of that evidence in that center.

The only other NIBEN lab in existence from Bakersfield to San Jose is here in Salinas, so we're really proud of the team and the efforts for the evidence processing center. Next thing I want to talk about is something that is really, really important that we've been intentional about here in this city, is really organizational wellness. What does that look like? How are we, from a leadership perspective, focusing on our employees, our professional staff, and we've done that in four different components. We talked about the psychology of policing, well-being, we had a sleep study doctor come in and talk to our staff about education, lifestyles, injury prevention, meal prep, we even had somebody come talk to us about breathing holistically, meditation, different type of workouts, and we're also finalizing that wellness component with financial education and literacy for our team, to making sure that we're making financially sound decisions on a personal level, to build on wellness not just for the individual, employees, also extended to their families.

One addition that joined the Salinas Police Department team that we're really proud of is Sage. You meet Sage, you can see a picture of her there. She's our wellness companion dog. She's really one of the best things we added here to our police department. Very well received and obviously much loved here at the department.

So, organizational wellness has been very important to the leadership team here at the Salinas Police Department. Again, victim services and youth diversions. What our outreach is, we served four forty one victims in 2025. Services provided just under 29,000 services. And then we also do outside referrals through the county, the state, and that was approximately five seventy seven.

Our youth diversion program that we started in January 2025, we had 15 individuals complete and graduate from that program. They learn about decision making, they learn resources, we work with families, schools, and other key stakeholders and partners to making sure that they get another opportunity and a second chance. We've had incredible success stories. 15 graduated and four are still in the program today. Again, next thing I wanna talk about is our community outreach.

We have a really robust community outreach team. Really proud of our SPOT team who helps manage, coordinate, and facilitate our team, both Sworn and professional staff to attend community meetings, community walks, shop with a cop, whether it's our holiday magic event, whether it's the mentors at Hartnell College for the Mile and Willie program, or coordinating a career day at Rancho Cielo, or speaking at Frank Paul Elementary School with parents and educators and teachers. Since 2023, our engagement has increased by over 735%. If you look at the stats there, in 2023, we attended 22 total events, and had about 3,000 community contacts. Last year in 2025, we attended 115 events, and we're able to accomplish 25,000 community contacts.

These are intentional, these are conversations, these are opportunities to get to know our community in a safe space, so that we're all in alignment of how we wanna police this good city, and how we can all work together to foster a good relationship. So, really proud of that team and what we're doing. Our cadet program is something that is really inspirational. As a police chief, I will tell you, 35 cadets is what we have. It's an opportunity to be mentors to these young adults, teach them public speaking, leadership skills, and really show them and onboard them to what policing is really like.

And we're really proud of this team who volunteered close to three thousand five hundred hours of community service, anywhere from the Salinas Rodeo, to the Cadet Car Show, the Parade of Lights, the Pebble Beach Tournaments, and they're really a strong ally and support system to our agency. Let me also highlight that 35 cadets is more than 60 to 70% of the police departments, other police departments in this county have police officers. Think about that. We have more cadets than over 60% of the other police agencies in this county have police officers. So, we're really proud of this team and a lot of great work that they do, and allow them that opportunity to learn about this profession.

This next slide covers a little bit more of what our community engagement efforts are. Again, I mentioned Holiday Magic. We work with Neighborhood Watch, our Police Athletic League, Rancho Cielo High School, where we're having our second annual Career Day. Again, with our kids, our youth, and our community to foster our current relationships and really build new ones. This is what I attribute to one of the components of where we're at on our clearance rate, where the community feels empowered and feels comfortable enough calling the police.

When they see something, they call us. So these are our community connections that we've also have been doing throughout 2025 and beyond. I want to quickly talk about our internal promotions. In 2025, we had one of the largest lateral movements and promotions in recent years with three of those key positions being in leadership roles with the assistant chief, two commanders in Kendall Gray and Jerry Magana, our assistant chief Luis Bravo, and our sergeants and our forensic specialists, investigative specialists. We were able to promote a lot of key positions in key areas to support the police department.

Again, one of the largest promotions the department has seen in several years. Certainly proud of our department members moving up to those roles. Again, professionalism, opportunity, growth and development is really important to me and our leadership team, and I quickly want to highlight two sergeants, Sergeant Justin Heckman and Seth Morton, as a matter of fact. Seth Morton, sitting right back here, graduated from the Sherman and Black Supervisory Leadership Institute. We also had some of our key members in the department attend the Women's Leadership in Law Enforcement Conference.

Yolanda Rocha also completed her BASE leadership program. We were also able to highlight several outstanding police duty awards in 2025, which include our officer of the year, investigator of the year, and professional staff of the year. And this next photo really highlights some of those key positions and trainings. We also, in 2025, one of our department members was a public servant of the year. We also had our Haida regional partners that recognize our VSTF's team as a top gun award for most gun seas per capita in Northern California.

And then you have our team who was nominated for those key awards that I just mentioned in the previous slide. So, little bit of a spotlight in some of our department members and a lot of fantastic work that they're doing. I will now open it up for questions or comments of this report. You've all have been given the report, it's on our website. This is a small summary of the 70 page report, but I'm happy to address and answer any questions that you may have related to that.

Okay, thank you Chief. Andrew, I'll start with you, any questions, comments?

Sure, well, Chief, I had a chance to attend your cadet program. That was quite a big class, so that was a really well run program. I commend you for that. I also want to congratulate you for all the promotions and additional training opportunities you're providing to our police department. You know, to see so many different leadership trainings and especially so much community outreach.

I know that that plays a big role in building more community trust. As far as questions, I know that there's always concerns about residents not receiving immediate police responses. And in the past, there have been discussions, and I think there's still that impression for some residents that the police doesn't respond to low priority calls.

And

from what I hear from you, I don't know if you can elaborate on that, but obviously there's a priority list, but you do respond to all calls, even if it might not be immediate. Is that correct?

Yes, absolutely. Our goal is to be responsive and reactive to the community's needs. When you call 911, it's the expectation that a police officer will respond. Now, there's several layers of response times. I will sort of address for priority ones, which are high level crimes, robberies, homicides, sexual assaults, ongoing threat to public and life and safety, 89% of the time, there's a police officer within three minutes.

And 94% of the time for priority one calls, an officer's are between four minutes. So when it comes to lower level priorities, maybe a vehicle accident where there's no injuries, there could be a burglary, tampering with a vehicle, there could be suspicious behavior or even a disturbance. Our goal is to respond to those incidents. Sometimes there is a delay based on priority, based on their needs. There could be a major vehicle accident where there are major injuries, there could be a shooting it takes a lot of our resources, but at the end of the day, our goal is to make sure that we're responsive. And if not, the expectation is that a supervisor is gonna reach out to those community residents and let them know about the delay.

Right, and I saw the police department and our HR department has done a great job at recruitment. You know, we're filling a lot of those vacancies. Are you seeing that as part of a national trend or do you see us having higher recruitment numbers locally or how do you see the trend for police officers?

Thank you, that's a great question. We did see a downtrend in years past, but I can tell you, in 2025, we hired seven lateral police officers, and I believe it was 14 police recruits, and in 2026, we're on pace to sort of replicate the same. Those are incredible numbers for an agency of our size. Other agencies are struggling. I mean, not just locally, or in the Bay Area, the county, but the region.

You know, we are working really, really hard with our HR department, with our recruiting efforts to making sure that there is a positive comprehensive package that's competitive. But one of the things that we are also doing is making those intentional personal connections locally, to making sure that we recruit community members that really wanna be police officers and make an impact in the communities they live in, in the communities they grow up. We have hired police officers, lateral officers that have come from all over the Bay Area that specifically wanna come to Salinas. So I think that's attributed to the opportunities you have,

the

leadership, the culture that we are building, you know, the fundamental objectives of policing and what you can do here as a police officer. We have a lot of variety of different units that provide you opportunity, growth that other police departments probably don't offer you. So we're really happy to report that we are seeing a slight uptrend, but it has been a struggle in years past.

So two of the things I'm hearing the most from not just District 5 residents, but from across Salinas is street racing and donuts in some of our intersections. Is there any active plans to address those two situations?

Yeah, so street racing or they're called side shows or I will tell you maybe two months ago or a month and a half ago, we had individuals that came into the city, and they were causing a lot of donuts, or what you describe as donuts, we formally call them sideshows or illegal racing activity, we're happy to report that maybe three weeks to four months after that, we're able to identify and tow and arrest three individuals and tow nine vehicles. So we do have enforcement efforts, we do have Sergeant Seth Morton is also here, who runs our traffic team. We're working with a task force, with the district attorney's office, and other regional officers in this county, so we're collectively taking a deeper look of who's coming into this city and causing this type of behavior, and really subjecting themselves to police presence. Because if you come here, our goal is to making sure that we try and identify you, your vehicle's gonna get towed, you will be sited and you will be arrested. So, do have an action plan working with this little task force.

Obviously, a lot of that is predicated by resources. You can imagine on a Friday or Saturday night when this is happening, those are our busiest times, but we are prioritizing with officers if we do have the resources to go out there and collectively in a safe manner, making sure that we're trying to disrupt that behavior.

Yeah, thank you. I know in the past, well, your department has been very responsive when residents request like the speed trailers to be placed in their community to help monitor some speed and deter some of that. Just want to highlight and give you an example along Alvin Drive and North 1st, it's very constant that there's circles in that area. And also along Swaner Avenue by Santa Rita Elementary School, there's another specific area where you can see those tracks there like on a regular basis. And sometimes the residents say, well, don't call because they're not gonna show up. And I always tell them, at least give me some timeframes when it's pretty common. Do you guys get those kind of calls or is that mostly just things you hear after the fact?

No, we do get the phone calls. As we constantly promoted, if you see something, please call the police, right? We need to memorialize that information in our computer automated dispatch system, we have to highlight, and I know that my police officers are not on a call every moment of the day. So there have been times where people have requested speed trailers and we've been very responsive, they have been effective. And when we hear about these target areas, we certainly work with our motor team and our officers, sometimes even our specialized units to making sure that we're actively providing presence and visibility in those key areas.

So, I continue to encourage, I've received emails about certain key areas, if we've been responsive, we need people to continue to report that, because we need that information. That's really going to help us how we decide to deploy our resources.

And another thing that we've been hearing is a lot of e bikes or scooters across our city, and I know that I think the last year, they're not scooters, electric bikes, you know, last year there was, you know, I don't know what they were like dirt bikes the police department had and was kind of going out there and trying to actively deter some of this activity. Are you guys gonna be doing that again or is that something you're actively doing?

Right now, we're not actively on the e bikes on the police side, but as far as enforcement and monitoring these areas, we often get phone calls about certain parks that are open at night or individuals going in there with their e bikes. Again, this is information that we take seriously. We have our officers of our motor team, we have officers that come in on the regular basis to look at key areas where we have most complaints and try and do visibility and enforcement.

Okay. And just lastly, I had a chance to attend Laurelwood School, Camden and Santa Rita Elementary and all that the number one request is that if your police department can do periodic patrols in the morning to really help some of that safety around those schools. And then the last one is for both chiefs on May 23, Northgate Village is gonna be having a free movie night and they'd love to have representation from our public safety out there to kind of interact with our community and provide additional information.

Thank you.

Thank you, Andrew. Attorney?

Chief, there's no doubt some great work has been taking place and I believe some of the areas that you've been very successful in is being able to arrest people on these homicide issues, which you should be commended. I think you got an extraordinary staff there. On the neighborhood issues, I know within the police department there are priorities in the neighborhoods, our priorities are a little bit different. These individual side shows, for example, they keep happening in our neighborhoods, several streets, very dangerous. And I know, as you say, you're doing the best you can, but what is it that we can do as far as because there's already a noise ordinance, And we go we keep going back and forth on this noise ordinance on for example, if I'm a police officer and I'm going through this neighborhood and I see all of a sudden there's a big white tent.

You know, in in the Alisal, we don't have DJs, we have bandas, we have live I mean, we throw concerts.

Yep.

But people are afraid to call it in because they don't wanna get in trouble with their neighbors. And I've asked several of your officers, and I know and I know commander Gerardo Magana takes care of District 2 at this point. I would just think if I'm a police officer and I see these white tents coming up, hey. Something's coming up. Nobody's drinking yet, nobody's coming in, he's gonna let them know, hey, the decibels on your music has to be a certain but I I think we're on a different page because some officers says you have to call it in. Some officers say we can't really get involved in that. But as a chief, what would you say that we can resolve these types of issues? Because it's on a weekly basis.

Thank you. Great question. Two parts to it. Number one, if there is loud music, we don't know if they have a permit. We don't know if they've made arrangements with our permits department, we don't know if the music's going on for an hour, half an hour.

I will tell you, when officers are driving by, one of the key areas why I think we're successful, in certain areas, less shootings, less crime, is because we're being visible, we're being present. So when we drive around, the expectation that those officers are doing community policing, right, they are driving around, and they may be going to a call for service, right? There could be life or death situation, there could be a critical incident where they may not have the opportunity to stop. So, I always, always encourage our community to continue to report it, right? That also gives us our legal core transaction.

They can certainly get out of the car if they had time and kinda, they have to ask for backup. There's a lot of things that go into every one of these key components, is what you're referring to. Why don't they stop and talk to somebody before the music continues? But they need to report it, right? We also want to report it.

We work very closely with our code enforcement, Lisa and her team. If we know that there's a residence or there's habitual problems going on in specific residence, we have mechanisms and processes that allows us to go out there and make conversation right, get to know the community, the resident, and let them know, give them a warning, or mail them a citation. So, that's one way I think it's probably the best way to do it. And you know, when we talk about driving around and officers being visible and present, that's one of the things you really wanna focus on, especially on evening times, where we think there's a propensity for violence or incidents or things that may as a result of other circumstances or information that we may receive. So that's part of their community policing efforts, and to be visible and present.

So, I would encourage your community members, or whoever it is reporting this, to reach out to us by email, me, Lisa, and we can certainly look at that residence and really take a deeper look into if they have tents and all this other stuff that they're doing.

Yeah, my last question. I believe the police department of the city of Marina, the way they are enforcing with these loud cars, are you familiar with that? They got some kind of mechanism. I think it's Marina or Seaside. But, you know, I don't, and again, I'm not the professional here, but we got some really loud cars in the neighborhoods as well.

So, is there a mechanism, or what do you think, somebody's gotta hear these cars. So, don't, sometimes I don't understand, like you say, a police officer might be going to another call. But I don't see the problem minimizing it. I think it's just, I mean these kids, wherever they are, they love racing down our neighborhoods. And it seems like getting, that's why they're always asking us about homing measures. But those don't always work because they'll look for another street and

Well, pedestrian safety, look, it's a priority. Not everything rises to the level of violent crime, so we're also very conscious and aware that even the incidents or disturbances with a lot of music is a top priority for some of our community members. We are not, we have an understanding of that, and so we certainly want to try and mitigate or reduce any of that. We often get a lot of information, and we've been in many neighborhoods. I've received a lot of information, and we are responsive, We're reactive.

We're making contact with these individuals, we're identifying them to making sure that if we have legal course, right, we see a violation in our presence or we have information via surveillance or video footage or any of there are many different mechanisms where we can go out there and do enforcement, even if we're not present there. So I continue to remind our community to stay informed, continue to report through either Q Alerts, through our non emergency, or even 911 to report the activity. Because even the site soldiers you've mentioned, I'm happy to report a lot of community members called. They reported information. They gave us a lot of key information that I won't get into, that allowed us to eventually, three to four weeks later, identify nine people, tow nine cars, and arrest three people.

So,

that's an example of that we need them to continue to report that.