City Council - Regular Meeting

I'm gonna call our meeting to order. We're at 06:14PM. We're gonna start with an invocation from pastor Brent Wagner. So if you could all please stand.

Thank you for the opportunity. Let's pray together. Lord, we thank you so much for this amazing city that we get to live in and we get to do business in and we work in. We're grateful. It surely is a great city, and it's led by great leaders.

Thank you for this city council. We pray that you'll give them much wisdom as they continue to do the business on behalf of the people for this great city. I pray that you give them wisdom regarding the various issues that they're facing and the difficulties that they need to overcome. Thank you for the support that they receive and that our community receives through our first responders. We're so grateful for each and every one of them, men and women, that dedicate themselves to helping us, serving us, protecting us, protecting property. We're so grateful. There's so many things we are thankful for. We pray for the businesses in our community that they would thrive, that our economy would be strong. We thank you for our schools, great schools, great teachers. We respect our teachers.

Thank you for the education that they're giving our young people. And, Lord, we pray your blessings upon them. Bless the families of our community. Lord, we think of all the troops as well. We have troops all over the world right now, men and women that are serving on our behalf, seeking to keep us safe, keep keeping us free. And we're thinking of them tonight as they're overseas, even involved in war even at this time. I pray for their protection. We pray for their families back at home that are missing them, and we pray for their support and their well-being as well. We just ask you to bless this great country of ours, 250 years old. We're so thankful, and we ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

Thank you, pastor Wagner. Next will be the salute to the flag from vice mayor Patrick Harper. Thank you, Vice Mayor Harper. Next is City Council's successor agency authority roll call.

Council Member Bowie. Here. Council Member Constantine.

Here.

Council Member Grandis? Vice Mayor Vice Chair Harper? Here. Mayor Chair Canine? Here. All members are present except for Council Member Grandis.

Great. Thank you. Are there any supplemental communications?

There is one regarding item number six. There's a correction a minor correction to the staff report as well as a minor correction to page one of the report. They have been provided to City Council and the public.

Great. Thank you. Next we'll move into City Manager update. City Manager, Maggie Lee.

Thank you, Mayor. City Council, we want to remind the community that spring is coyote pup season. Here are some precaution for pet owners. There is an increased potential for dog coyote interaction when coyote become very protective of their young. If a dog unknowingly wanders near a den, it could be attacked.

Keep your dogs and cats inside because coyote parents will be looking for more food to bring back to their offspring. You can get more information on coyote awareness for you and your pet on the city website at fountainvalley.org or OC Animal Care at ocpetinfo.com. OC Animal Care team will present coyote awareness at the May nineteenth City Council meeting. That's it. Thank you, mayor.

Okay. Thank you, city manager Lee. So for the mayor's update, tomorrow join celebrate the best of the best in Fount Valley at their annual business and leadership awards. This will be from 11:30AM to 1PM at Miles Square Golf Course over on Warner. I want to detail tomorrow, the planning commission will be holding a meeting to discuss public hearing two, code amendment 24 dash zero one.

This is entitled precise plan five eighty one Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center parking structure. And just a little bit about that. The proposed project includes the removal of an existing surface parking lot with two thirty one parking spaces for the development of a freestanding three story parking structure located at the Southwest corner of Talbert Avenue and Foster Street. The proposed structure includes one subterranean level, three covered parking levels, and a rooftop parking level for a total of five levels. So that will be discussed at tomorrow's planning commission meeting here.

Join the center at Founders Village Senior and Community Center on Bouchard for our quarterly dance. The theme for this dance will be prom night. Cost is $3 to attend. Best deal in town. Dances will include catered dessert, live entertainment, and opportunity drawings.

For more information, please contact the front desk at (714) 593-4446. May is Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and we are celebrating. Join us in Dipua Productions for The Pacific Islander Festival on Saturday, May 2. This festival will be held at the FV Sports Park on Brookhurst from 10AM to 4PM. You're invited to come on by for a day to enjoy live performances, retail booths, food vendors and so much more.

We also want to mention that the Fountain Valley Civic Center Ad Hoc Committee applications are now open. We're going to hold this open until May 7. And a little bit about this new committee. The purpose of the Fountain Valley Civic Center Ad Hoc Committee is to provide input on the future of the Civic Center property with a focus on the Hunton Valley Boys and Girls Club facilities, also called Clubhouse Academy and Child Center located behind City Hall over here. It's about two and a half acres.

The ad hoc committee will identify and present to city council recommendations for the location. Consideration will focus on the following options: maintain the current use maintain the location for current use Facility rehabilitation will be required to maintain the current use. Amend use plan of current site recreational development, public or private development, long term civic center site plan, civic use, potentially public safety. So a variety of potential options. So we need you.

The committee will comprise of the following two city council members, have been identified. That's councilwoman Kim Constantine and Councilmember Glenn Grandis. Four five Fountain Valley City staff members who've been determined and what we're seeking are four Fountain Valley residents. So please apply and we look forward to, seeing those applications. And then one one thing I wanna yes.

I was gonna say, can you give direction where to apply and who to reach out?

Yeah. So it's the same process for all of our commissions and committees. So it's on the city website and it's a yeah. We also can maybe from our city clerk, any any instructions on how to apply. I think it's the same process.

Yes, the application process is the same. Applications can be picked up either here at City Hall, you can pick them up at the website. You can return the applications in person, you can email them to me however you wish, whatever is most convenient. And as long as we receive them prior to 06:00PM on May 7, they will be accepted.

Great. Thank you. And lastly, I just want to mention one of our initiatives is always to have the best roads here in the city. I think people understand that living in Fat Valley means smooth roads compared to other cities. So part of that is we have multiple projects that are out in capital improvements. And I just want to mention because if you're like me, one of those legal notice nerds that reads the paper, we actually have a project out. And this is important. This is the rehabilitation and the resurfacing of Euclid Street. This goes from Slater on the North down to Talbert on the South. And if you all are like me, you live in that area, you know that it's more than time for that to be repaired.

There's also gonna be Talbert Avenue repaired from Brookhurst on from Brookhurst Street to Bouchard Street. And so we appreciate your patience, but just know that our city takes our city streets very you know, they're they're most important to us. And so look forward to that. There will be construction to make our city streets smooth and we can be proud of them. Okay.

So let's move into presentations. We're excited to have students from Fulton Middle School, ASB. Also want to mention that we are very privileged to have Fount Valley School District staff here. The superintendent, doctor Katherine Stop, is here. And staff leadership, also Joy Moyers is here from this.

This. And so I'm going to call on the students from Fulton to give their their presentation. So as I call your name, if you can come up to the podium. And one of the things I wanna do is get that microphone down so you could hear we could hear you. So

Mister mayor. Yes. Just introduce them. They have a I think they have their plan of who's speaking when.

So if you

just wanna introduce all of them, and then they'll take it for granted.

Okay. So we're pleased to have Melissa Ballot, Joshua Chow, Eladaka, I said that right, Sofia Doan, Grace Kawaguchi, Maya Nguyen, Laura Orinion, Kim Pham, Tad Phan, Megan Trong and Briele Vo. How about a round of applause? Alright. Well, welcome students. It's all yours.

They were just waiting on me.

Good evening, everyone. I'm Ayla Daca, ASB president of Fulton Middle School, and today, I'm gonna be presenting alongside Fulton ASB. We are so grateful to be here tonight, and thank you all for this opportunity. The purpose of this presentation is to give all of you a better understanding of student life at Fulton. We wanna give you a clear picture of different student opportunities and ex experiences on campus and the balance between academics and fun.

Okay. So today's agenda will go over academics, electives, clubs, dances, rock and lunch, PAL activities, and sports life. Okay. To start with academics, we all know that certain subjects can be very difficult at times, whether it's memorizing notes for a test or, you know, understanding difficult concepts. And I believe as a student that our teachers and staff do such an incredible job to not only prepare us for high school and state testing, but also making the curriculum and lessons a lot more fun and interactive.

As a student, I had a very difficult time memorizing certain notes for tests, but these teachers not only taught me to memorize these notes, but to truly understand the curriculum that I'll carry on forever. And, for example, for history class, my teacher, he made the curriculum a lot more interactive and fun, whether it was presentations or projects that not only taught me about history, but about teamwork, collaboration, public speaking, and more. And I think that this is really valuable to not only me as a student, but to all of my peers as well. And I really appreciate all the work that they put in to not only improve our academics, but to grow as a person and as a speaker. One of the examples of a project that we did this year was in math class where we chose a three-dimensional object.

I chose a gum box. And as you can see on the presentation, a student chose a box of cards. And the goal was to recreate it greater than two times larger than the original size. And this not only taught us about scale factors in math, but it was also really fun because we gotta bring out an artistic aspect that we didn't really get to see in school and, also learn more about teamwork. Now handing it off to Megan.

Hi. I'm Megan Trung, and here at Fulton, the academics are really enjoyable because teachers strive to make it as fun as possible. For example, us eighth graders are now learning about Newton's laws, we were able to build a balloon powered car, which allowed us to further understand Newton's laws and how it worked and also had an engineering aspect to it as well. Rather than notes and busy work, teachers mostly assign, teachers at Fulton incorporate hands on activities to transform a memorization and passive listening and learning based class to an exciting and an engaging engaging place where kids want to come and learn.

Hi. I'm Joshua, and I'll be speaking about electives. So at Fulton, electives are really the only time the students get to choose the skills they learn, and they get to meet other people that share the same passion as them, and they get to meet other communities that they probably wouldn't have found on their own. For me, I take zero period, which means I get to take two electives. So the first one being ASB, is why I'm here and I have the opportunity to be speaking to you right now. And the second one, which is advanced band, where I can learn about the instrument and I can learn how to play the instrument, the history behind all the music and everything. And for a lot of students, including me, electives are a huge motivation for what gets us to in up in the morning and excited for the next day of school each day.

Hi. My name is Kim Pham. And similar to electives at our school, clubs are a way where students can discover things they like, make new friends, and really just enjoy a little more of the school day. So all our clubs happen either during lunch or after school, usually every week. So here are a few clubs we have. My favorite club that I go to at school sometimes is chess club. Happens every week. It actually happened today actually. So I just get to play chess, eat my lunch and play with my friends. And actually next month, our district is going to have a chess tournament happening.

So that's another thing. Any teacher can make a club. It's very fun. Handing it off to, let's see, Briley and Maya.

Hi. My name is Briley Vo. And today, I'll be talking to you guys about the dances out here at Fulton. ASB hosts two dances every school year, so ASB makes it the best as possible. Students love these dances, and it's the highlight when asked what do they enjoy at school. The process of dance planning is hard and tedious work. The class gets split into five groups, and they have to pitch an idea to choose a dance theme. Then we take feedback from students by using a survey. We take the most requested dance theme and turn it into reality with decorations that we strive to create. Here are the dance pictures.

Our most recent one was the glow dance, and our Halloween one was Nightmare Before Christmas themed. Now introducing Maya Nguyen.

Hi. My name is Maya Nguyen, and I'll be talking to you about Rockin' Lunch. Rockin' Lunch is hosted by PAO, which stands for peer assistance leadership, and it happens on the on the last Friday of every month. There are three factors which makes Rockin' Lunch so special. Firstly, music. Music is a huge factor when it comes to uplifting spirits and moods. And fun, trendy music that the students pick will obviously connect more to the younger students. Secondly, games. Games are always fun. There's a sort of competitive spirit about them, and it's so fun when you win and get the prize.

In this case, the prize would be SOAR cards. SOAR stands for SOAR stands for SOAR stands for solve problems, on time and organized, act responsibly, and respect everyone. Sore cards are used as a way to get students motivated because when you get a sore card, you've done something good. Sore cards are spent at the sore store, which is my last point. The sore store has fun toys and homework passes and mile passes and the fun toys are Neato's, which are very, very popular.

SOAR cards are used as a way to buy things and it's a sort of currency. It motivates

host rock and lunch, but they host many other activities such as circle ups. Circle ups are an activity that Powell hosts where they sit down with all Grays to just sit down and talk. The circle ups aim to boost student connectiveness and positivity throughout campus, and they and the circle ups also help us to improve campus life. And who else to ask other than who better to ask about improving the campus than the students who spend every day coming to school? But if there's any ideas that students have that that they don't feel comfortable or forget to say in these circle ups, PAL also hosts student surveys where the students are able to give feedback and tips on what they would like to see on campus.

And we use this feedback to help improve our campus every day.

Good evening. I'm Melissa. And in like, Grace said, in Powell, not only do we bring our community together with these activities and things like circle ups and student surveys, but we also bring everyone together with events like Red Ribbon Week and Kindness Week. Red Ribbon Week is something that we we present to all the students to spread awareness about drugs, tobacco use, and all these other terrible things that impact our community. And kindness week is here to show everyone our appreciation for others and things.

One thing I really enjoy about Red Ribbon Week is that we have, like, a lot of activities and games about it. So one one of my favorites is actually called find the ribbon. It's kind of self explanatory. You find the ribbon. My and pal, like, you hide them all around the school campus and students have to go find it.

So I really personally enjoyed this game because me and my friends, we were going crazy over the ribbons and we all got a bunch of prizes afterwards. And to add for kindness week, I really like that one because not only first, you you show your appreciation to everyone and you really just like, it's kinda sunshine and ravens and everything. And so we in Powell, we got to make sort not pardon me. We got to make kindness cards for everyone where you write a card to someone you appreciate or you care about or like you really love. And you just say, hey, thank you. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for being there for me. You are a very kind person. And Powell gets to deliver those to everyone to their classes. And now I love to pass the mic to our awesome sports commissioner, Laura Vogt.

Hi, everyone. My name is Laura Rinian. I'm a sports commissioner here at Fulton, means I'm in charge of running our noon links program. So what is noon links? Noon leagues is a lunchtime sports activity that ASP runs and manages. We have dodgeball, volleyball, and right now, we're working on our March madness basketball, which is more April madness. It's a fun way for students to participate in campus and interact with their peers and have fun playing lunchtime sports. Now here's Tad Fan with our pep rallies.

Hi. I'm Tad, and pep rallies are a way we celebrate and encourage our sports team. At these pep rallies, we introduce the teams and have our coach and captain speeches. On top of that, cheer performs at these pep rallies, showing the school what they've been working on. Not only that, but ASB also hosts activities at these pep rallies. These games, such as the one shown on screen, are split between homerooms or grades, which adds a little competitive aspect to it. So not only do they uplift the team spirit, pep rallies also improve student connectedness. Finally, these pep rallies are held a day before the tournament, transitioning the energy from the pep rallies over to the next day for the players. Now passing it to Sofia.

Hi. I'm Sofia, and I'll be going over tournaments at Fulton. Here at Fulton, our students can participate in four sports. This includes soccer, volleyball, basketball, and track. These athletes that make these teams participate in weekly practices until the tournament for their sport is held. Together with Masuda and Talbert, we host one tournament per sport yearly. At the tournaments our school hosts, a Fulton ASB helps set up, clean up, welcome athletes from other schools, and work the tournaments. These tournaments bring a competitive healthy competition throughout the three schools. Now I'll welcome Isla to end off our segment. Thank you, Sofia.

Once again, we're so grateful for this opportunity, and we hope that you enjoyed watching it as much as we did making it for you. We hope you also learned a lot more about student life and the way that we focus on academics while also focusing on having fun in the process. Thank you so much again, and have a great rest of your night.

Eilah, can I ask you a favor? Can you stay? So you also have two very special people from your school. Would you identify your principal and your assistant principal?

We'd also really like to thank miss Salberg and miss Kuykendall for everything that they do. I see them every morning in the office for morning announcements, and they always bring a smile to my face, and miss Salberg always gives me candy too.

Thank you so much. Alright. Well, you all did a great job. We're gonna come down and take a picture. But I just wanted to make some quick comments that, you know, you this is live. It's also streaming on YouTube. And so you can find this video and use it in the future. So but great job. We really appreciate you coming and sharing so many special things about Fulton. And so now if I could ask my colleagues, we're gonna oh, comments from vice mayor.

Yeah. Just I just wanna make a comment. You guys did a great job. I had my three kids all went to Fulton, graduated, you know, were there about five, six years ago. And I just gotta commend the students on your enthusiasm and your preparedness and the presentation. You guys did great. And thanks also to the parents, the teachers, the administrators. This is you know the schools are one of the main reasons I moved my family to Fountain Valley. We've gone all the way from K through 12 in the public schools and just one of the best decisions we've made. So thanks again. I

want to say, wow, minus the dodgeball, you guys are amazing and great presentation. You guys really rock. I want to hang out at Fulton. Thank you.

Councilmember Bouley? Thank you, Mayor. Like Councilmember Harper, I do have my children that went to that's actually two of us to in Fulton. As a matter of fact, one of them is like, I don't want to move to Berne yet. I want to stay a few more years, but I said, no, honey,

time to go next year.

That's how much they enjoy Fulton. So I want to thank you to the leaderships from Doctor. Katherine Staub, all the way down to the teachers, their principal. Thank you for the wonderful job that you do. You definitely are inspirational to the kids. That's what truly leaders is all about. You truly care for the student. I love one of the students say, pardon me. It reminds me of those commercial back then. Pardon me, do you have any great poo poo on? So that was great. Thank you. And you guys did a phenomenal job tonight. So we are proud of you. I'm sure there's a lot of great things to come when you guys go up to the high school of the Baron here. So once again, thank you everyone.

City Manager Lee.

Yes. As a proud mom as well with Fulton, very excited that you the students are able to be here to be able to practice their public speaking. You guys are the future of this community and future in general. And we are very proud of you and we hope that you will be able to come back again. Our city council will provide you with the platform and so great job.

All right. So we're going to take a picture and get some more of that Falcon spirit in the room. How's that? All right.

Two, three. Good job. Good job.

So I know you probably had a lot of homework. Feel free to go home and enjoy your evening. Thank you so much. We'll just give a couple of minutes for departure. Okay.

That was a lot of fun. I neglected to cover reportable actions from closed session, so I'll pass it over to city attorney Colin Burns. Thank you, mister mayor. And there was no reportable action. Okay.

Thank you. So next, we're gonna move into Arbor Day proclamation. And so I'm pleased to read this. This is a city found Valley proclamation, Arbor Day, 04/24/2026. Whereas in 1872, Sterling Morton proposed to the Nebraska Board of Agriculture that a special day be set aside for planting of trees, and whereas this holiday called Arbor Day was first observed with the planting of more than a million trees in Nebraska, and whereas 2026 is the one hundred and fifty fourth anniversary of the holiday and Arbor Day is now observed throughout the nation and the world.

Whereas the city's tree program policy sets a goal of maintaining an optimal number of trees through reforestation, provides for the conservation of tree resources, and provides for sustaining a city tree population with a minimum density of 95%, whereas trees can reduce soil erosion and runoff, reduce heating and cooling costs, moderate the temperature, clean the air, produce life giving oxygen, absorb carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, and provide habitat for wildlife and other natural urban species. And whereas trees beautify our community and are a renewable resource giving us paper, wood for our homes, and fuel for our fires. And whereas wherever trees are planted, they are a source of joy and spiritual renewal. Trees promote the health, safety, and welfare, and quality of life for all city residents and as well as visitors. Now therefore, I, Jim Keene, mayor of the city of Fountain Valley, on behalf of the city council, do hereby proclaim April 24 as Arbor Day in the city of Fountain Valley and call upon all citizens to celebrate this day to support efforts to protect our environment, including trees and woodlands.

I further call upon all citizens to plant trees to gladden the heart and promote the well-being of this and future generations. Okay. That's Arbor Day. Okay. Next, I'm going to provide a proclamation recognizing April the twenty fifth as neurodiagnostic week.

And so what I'd like to do is first read this proclamation and then we're going to welcome a few special guests here. Whereas neurodiagnostics is the practice of analyzing and monitoring central and peripheral nervous system's function to promote the effective treatment of neurological diseases, inquiry, and impairment, and whereas neurodiagnostic technologists play a paramount role in the diagnosis and treatment of a variety of neurological conditions, including epilepsy, unexplained coma, sleep disorders, and spinal cord injuries, whereas neurodiagnostic technologists contribute to surgical treatment by monitoring the central and peripheral nervous system during high risk procedures such as surgery for scoliosis, carotid artery disease, brain tumors, and spine trauma, thereby guarding against neurological complications during surgery and helping reduce risk of negative surgical outcomes such as paralysis or stroke. And whereas neurodiagnostic technologists are engaged in lifelong learning dedicated to a life of service and compassion, have the greatest respect for the worth and dignity of individuals and are devoted to the best interest of the patient while providing the highest quality patient care. Now therefore I, Jim Kinneen, do hereby proclaim April 19 to the twenty fifth, twenty twenty six as Neurodiagnostic Week in Fountain Valley. And so I would like to call on Amber Cervantes to come up and receive this proclamation, maybe say a few words.

Thank you so much. Nice to

meet you

as well.

Congratulations on that. I feel a picture coming.

Oh, yes.

We gotta use the photo on. Yes.

Thank you, councilmember. My name is Amber Cervantes. I'm the COO of California Neurodiagnostic Labs. On behalf of our company, I really want to thank you for your recognition of the proclamation of Neurodiagnostic Week. The week is organized by our national professional organization asset to not only celebrate professionals in the field, but also to empower us as we attempt to address discrepancies in competency, scope of work, and standards that impact patient outcomes and care.

Your support really does bring meaningful visibility to the field as we continue to elevate care standards through advocacy and awareness. Thank you again for your support and for helping shine a light on the importance of neurodiagnostics. We look forward to another year of doing our duty in the safe and compassionate care of the residents of Fountain Valley. Thank you.

Thank you so much. How about a round of applause for Amber? Okay. Next is First City Council successor agency housing authority public comments on unscheduled matters only. Do we have any requests to speak?

We we have two requests to speak. Okay. First, Mike Rao.

Welcome.

Thank you. Thank you, mayor and council. I wish I could speak as well as those students.

That's amazing.

So you'll have to bear with me. I think you've been you've received this. This is an update published by the Orange County Power Authorities meeting regarding their their estimated losses for the first half of the fiscal year, July to December 2025. Notice that they've lost a total of $34,000,000. That's a lot of money to go down the drain.

And I I wanna mention that you do have a period of time when you can get out of the Orange County Power Authority. You can get out scot free, and I suggest you do that. As the minister mentioned, he implied concerns about the war in Iran. That is disrupting disrupting hugely the energy concerns market worldwide, and that impacts the business of the Orange County Power Authority. If you remain in, you become businessmen.

You become involved in that business and responsible for the liabilities and risks of that business. And I would dare guess that none of you really knows beans about the energy trading business and about the actual complex operations of a grid network. That's the business that you'll be in, and you'd better get out of it while you can, while you got scot free. So is there anything more that I can say to you about that?

The

okay. You've spelled my name, Mike Ruff. That's a good enough pronunciation my name. Thank thank you very much, and good luck to you. And good luck in your decision about the Orange County Power Authority. I really think you're heading for big trouble there. They're going to be changing their rates, and they're going to be doing it dynamically in response to what they think their best interests are with respect to the global instabilities.

Thank you. Vicki Johnson.

Hello, mayor and city council. Yes. I wish I had a triple talk to. This is the handout I'll be talking about. And this is based on the strategic meeting and the regular Board meetings of the OCPA in the last couple of months.

Now when you joined in November 2024, OCPA was offering a small discount and the other the cheapest plan, the other plans were going to cost a little bit more than SCE. Now in 2025 and up right now, '26, OCPA burnt through $45,000,000 of their reserves trying to keep up with that SCE indexing. In January, OCPA said, we can't compete. We're going to charge 12% to 18% more than SCE. Even so, and that's about $25 a month at least per resident per month and more for businesses.

And even so, a month or two ago, OCK is projecting a $4,000,000 loss operational loss in addition to all those reserve loss of 45,000,000 Now they just met Director Grandis went to talk about what's their strategy for the future. Now they're going to what they call cost of service. They'll just base their rates and prices of their costs and their recovery of their costs. A big thing is they want those reserves up tens of millions of dollars back to 90,000,000 or $100,000,000 They blew 45,000,000 They're going to raise their costs, their rates for electricity payers to get back just the reserves. They've got huge salaries.

Many of them probably make more than your city manager or city attorney. Just a lot of bloat and consultants and little projects, 47 e bikes. But they're and I have to sound it back. They've abandoned their affordable strategy of indexing a little bit less than SCE to just all these different costs that they want to recover. So that they're saying will happen in 2027, maybe sooner.

So the rates right now, 1812% to 18% more than SCE, I predict they're just going to skyrocket. And no one's really reacting. None of the board directors are telling their cities, Fullerton, Buena Park, Irvine, what's going on with the rates now. It's like an experiment. Can we charge $25 a month more? Well, how about $50 a month more? I feel it's really, really extractive. It's deceptive. It's predatory. So I really recommend you consider getting out of OCPA. Get you in again in a couple of years if it works out. But look, watch out, watch out. The rates are going to skyrocket, in my opinion. Thank you very much.

I have no further requests to speak.

Okay. We'll move into public comments scheduled matters only. Are there any requests to speak?

I have no requests to speak.

Thank you. Next is consent calendar. Consent calendar items one to five will be approved simultaneously with one motion unless separate action or discussion is requested. Is there any desire to pull one of

the Yes. I'd like to pull number four and move,

well, the rest.

Pull item four, Okay. Any other requests to pull an item? Okay, so does anyone want to make a motion to approve items one through three and item five?

I make a motion.

I'll second.

Please vote.

Items one, two, three and five pass four zero.

Okay. Item four was pulled by Councilwoman Constantine for further discussion. Would you like to comment?

Sure. So I'm again recusing myself since my partner may be doing tile installation for Wallace Roediger on an investment property. As of now, there is no contract for this work. However, it is best for me to recuse myself.

Okay. Thank you. Wait till Councilwoman Constantine leaves the dais. Okay. So Item four, is there a motion to I'll

second.

Okay. We spoke.

Item number four passes three zero.

Okay, great. We can bring Councilwoman Constantine back into the dais. Wait a moment. Okay. We're going to move into public hearings.

Just a reminder, each person will have up to three minutes to speak on the public hearing item. So number six is approval of the fiscal year twenty six-twenty seven Community Developed Block Grant or CDBG Annual Action Plan presentation by Neighborhood Improvement Manager, Ashlyn Newman. Welcome.

Good evening, Mary Kunin and council members. I'd like to second before I start. That was an impressive presentation by the Fulton Middle Schoolers. It was really impressive to see them up there, and they must have some excellent teachers moving them along. Tonight I'd like to give you a quick overview on the action plan for next fiscal year twenty six-twenty seven for our Community Development Block Grant program.

And so just a refresher on what the CDBG program is, is that we receive funding from, HUD, to provide assistance to low income households, provide programs for them, to assist them with their daily life. And our CDBG program is funded solely by our HUD grant. So this year, we're going to get $318,402 and that's up $17,000 from last year. We're going to combine that with prior year's funds that we haven't used for a total budget of $500,000 Once we do that, we will still have an additional $100,000 left over of unused allocation. So the way they do the formula, they base it on the three items, 50% on the is weighted on the number of people in the community that are at poverty level.

25% is weighed on population, and the other 25% is on overcrowded households. Just to give you an idea of where Fountain Valley stacks against the entire state, the state as a whole received $365,000,000 in, CBD funding. We received a 318,000, and we're the fifteenth lowest, grantee. So as it stacks up, we are kind of high in these areas. And here's the current low income levels in Orange County.

If you're a one person household and you make $94,000 a year, you are considered low income. And those will be updated again in June. And here is how our programs are split up. The admin costs are the cost for staffing to run the program. Fair Housing Council provides fair housing services for us.

Our CDBG code enforcement pays for code enforcement staff cost in specific areas of the city, and I'll show you a map on that in a moment. The neighborhood revitalization program is the home improvement program where we do their rebates, loans, grants to low income, owner occupied households throughout the city. The lead based paint grant is also also part of that. We do test the older houses to make sure they don't have lead paint in the houses. And then our PSA grant program are the nonprofits that provide services to our low income households, and that total ends up being 500,000.

This is the split up for the PSA grants. Every year, all the applicants come to our HCD advisory board meeting in December, and they give a presentation on their programs. And the HCD advisory board, discusses between themselves how they'd like to split up the money, and this is how they've chosen to do it for the upcoming fiscal year. Okay. The white areas on the map are where HUD is identified as lower income households in the city, and this is only used for code enforcement.

So when code enforcement staff goes and abates a violation in one of these areas, we're allowed to pay the staff cost for that. And we've done all our public noticing, and we had a thirty day public comment period. We have not received any public comments to date. We must submit this to, to HUD by June 30. And with that, I'm asking that you conduct a public hearing and then approve the submission of the report to HUD, and I'm available for any questions.

Okay. Hang tight. I'll go ahead and open the public hearing. Are there any requests to speak?

I have no requests to speak.

Okay, go ahead and close the hearing. Now we'll see if there's any questions or comments from counsel. Vice Mayor Harper.

I have a question. Thanks for the report. I know that one area that's sort of talked about here indirectly is rental assistance. And so my understanding is that renters that are looking for assistance due to income levels can access it through the county?

That's correct.

And they they apply for assistance and then depending on the amount that's available, they may or may not get a voucher. Is that right?

Well, they do have housing choice vouchers, but their waiting list has been closed since 2023.

Oh, wow.

So now that you can't even get it on a waiting list for it. But there are opportunities to get affordable housing. The county actually has a list of affordable housing and just like our Jasmine apartments and Prado here in the city, you don't have to have a voucher to go there. So you can go on a waiting list on on an individual apartment.

Okay. Would there be any I guess benefit to the city issuing the housing vouchers directly instead of going through the county? I know there's a few cities that do it but in Orange County but

I don't think that we're big enough to do that. I mean we could do it but I think the staff costs would way far outweigh the benefit.

Okay. And how many residents are receiving? How many vouchers were issued say in the last year do you say?

Four forty is usually our rolling average for the last five or six years.

Okay. That's pretty All right. Thank you very much. Any

other comments? Councilman Bui?

Thank you, Mayor. Actually, great presentation by the way. Thank you. Can you go back to one of the slide that talks about the nonprofit that apply for the grants? Right there, perfect. Can you share to the member of the public, you mentioned that every year they come in, they apply for the grant. When is the open date to apply? What are the requirements? And when is the closing date?

Generally, the opening date falls around to the October to the November. It's usually open for at least thirty days. They have to be a nonprofit, and they have to be serving community members, like, for seniors, youth services, that type of thing. So there's a list that they go for. We rarely get additional applicants for our program just because the amount of money we have to divide between them is pretty low. So we've had these same ones for probably two or three decades.

Wow. Same organization with two

We've had a

few more.

But as our allocation has gone down, which makes our percentage that we can give to PSAs go down. They've dropped out because they can't receive enough money to cover some of their admin costs.

Great. I know the Mules on Wheels, great organizations. I think that was one of the biggest to my knowledge, one of the biggest organization during COVID time and then that was it was very helpful to certain member of the community to have provide those services, particularly the seniors.

Definitely. They're all very deserving nonprofits. And interestingly, the way that HUD counts whether you're the servicing is if you go and get one lunch at Meals on Wheels, you're counted one time. If you get 50, you're counted one time. So this doesn't reflect the actual number of people or number of meals they serve, just the number of clients they serve for all the agencies.

All right. So October to November 30. Okay. Great. Thank you.

Yeah. I wanted to express my appreciation to you and Deputy City Manager Director Databoy and to the Housing Community Development Committee. We have a member in the chambers tonight. This is one of the big lifts having served on that committee, and so we appreciate the the good work that you do. Ultimately, it's it's to help our residents and it's good to see that the funds are slowly increasing year over year or at least it seems to be in a kind of an up arrow direction. So we hope that those funds could be really put to good use in the next fiscal year. But thanks for all you do for this. And I think with that, if there's no other questions or comments, I'll entertain a motion for this.

Make a motion to approve.

City Manager Lee.

I'm sorry, did we close the public hearing?

Yes, did close that. Gavelled in, gavelled out. Who

made the motion?

I did.

And second? Item number six passes four zero.

Thank you so much. Okay, we'll move into council member items for future consideration. Are there any items? Yes. Councilwoman Constantine.

Okay. So I know I I asked this last time, but I'm just gonna ask on one on this one. Regarding campaign signs, I am requesting please a second so that we may have a study session regarding campaign signs in Fountain Valley. Elections are every two years and we haven't had a study session or any information that the public can hear and see in a couple of years. So it would inform the public as to what is permitted and how it's enforced with the potential for tightening up.

Since I brought up the matter on April 7 in our last meeting, there's been a great deal all over social media. There's things happening with signage. But anyway, this year's elections are in June and November and it would be beneficial so the public knows what how we enforce and what's done and all that. I'm hoping for a second. Okay, so my next idea is based on what we keep hearing whether public speakers or, you know, correspondence, we receive emails and and things.

I think it would be good to have a study session about OCPA, Orange County Power Authority, to potentially perhaps talk about canceling the contract. So I'm hoping for a second.

Before we go into that route, I believe the last time there was another girl that also made some concerning comments. I can't remember. She's not it was not Vicky, it was not the gentleman earlier. There was no other gal and she bought us a big binder, if you recall. And I did mention that we should give her an opportunity to come back and do a presentation what she was trying to explain because she had only three minutes and there was a lot of information.

We couldn't really have a dialogue and ask questions on her concern. And I think we did have at that time to bring it back in the future and at the same time, Councilmember and Grant say, okay, if we do that, let's give opportunity for OCPA to be present and share their side of the story. And I'm not sure where we are with that.

We are scheduled for OCPA to provide an update at second meeting in June, June 16.

June 16, okay. All right. So that will be on agenda items. So that will perhaps will give you an opportunity to bring some of the concern you may have Kim Kansal Singh and I'm not against it. There's a lot of point that has raised concern. So if there's concern or warrants, then I would definitely will look it over, should we move forward with them or not, depending on the outcome on that day and the presentation and other questions all the colleagues may have on that day.

Sure. June 16 is great. Thank you.

Any

other items for consideration? Going once, going twice.

Oh, we'll make an easy night for you mayor.

Just want to make sure we're good. Okay. We'll move into City Council successor agency housing authority public comments on unscheduled matters.

No request to speak. Great.

All right. Next is City Council successor agency housing authority AB1234 general comments. And how about if we start with council member Bowie for your update?

Great. Thank you, Mayor. Mine's going to be pretty short and brief. So on April 8, I attend OCC Sandd admin committee meeting. And of course a part of that committee will talk about the wise agreement, which is we have talked about the meeting prior. So that was a great meeting. On April 15, I attend PCTA Board meeting and later on the same day I attend the Senior Center Volunteer Recognitions. Congratulations to all the volunteers out there and you know who you are. Thank you for what you do. We can do I mean the city cannot be a nice place to live with your support and your volunteerism.

And because of volunteerism throughout many different organizations throughout the city, it saves a lot of money to the city resource wise. So thank you for those who volunteered their time. Today, I attend the Rory Teacher of the Year Breakfast Award and recognitions. It's been it's put out by the family of Rotary Club every year. One way it is a way for us to recognize the teachers of the years of the wonderful work they do, how their leaderships, compassions and skill transitions all those resource and talent to the young generation.

So I want to thank you to the entire team of teachers and the Board of Trustee. Thank you. That concludes my report.

Thanks so much, council member Bowie. Council Wilbur Constantine.

Sure. Okay. So it is mosquito awareness week. You can learn more at ocvector.org. And also when we get some rain, please be sure to dump out all standing water even if it's a small amount because mosquitoes will breed. Recently, I attended many things to include, let's see here. We had our advisory committee for persons with disabilities spring dance. That's always fun. Our next one's gonna be prom in June. See Orange County Board of Supervisors meetings and Fountain Valley Community Foundation grants, board, and volunteer meetings.

And let's see. Also, the we had our volunteer luncheon for the volunteers of Founders Village Senior and Community Center. That was great. We also I mean, I also attended the, Fountain Valley School District art presentation that they have annually out there outside. And this morning, it was the rotary teacher of the year with many teachers. Very very nice. Love Fountain Valley Schools. Thank you.

Thanks so much. Vice Mayor Harper.

Thank you. So first I want to give a congratulations to the Fountain Valley High School volleyball team who defeated our arch rivals Edison for the first time in many years in five sets. So we get some bragging rights for a short period of time. But on April 10, attended the California Council of Governments Board meeting virtually. April 16, OCTA Finance Committee meeting and also April 16, the Mobile Source Air Pollution Reduction Committee meeting. That concludes my report.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Harper. So my activities since our last meeting included the following. On April 8, I attended the virtual meeting hosted by ACCOC with the interesting municipality focused theme regarding sports, places, and entertainment. Later that day, I visited and toured the Sonesta Select Hotel and Extended Stay Suites or ES hotel properties. Thank you to Edith and Lance for being such wonderful hosts and educating me not only about their hotel, but the citywide and regional trends in the hospitality industry.

On Thursday, April 9, they attended the Fount Valley Chamber of Commerce Network at Night event that was at Fogo de Chao restaurant in neighboring Huntington Beach. On Friday, April 10, they presented recognition to Fount Valley resident Louise Lambden, who celebrated her one hundredth birthday at the Founders Village Senior Center. And she was amazing. She walked up and stood there while I did some fun fun kind of recollection over the last years. She was great.

On April 13, I attended a press conference at the Mendez Fundamental Intermediate School site to share in the announcement and celebration to hopefully designate April 14, an official day to celebrate Sylvia Mendez, who is my wife's first cousin once removed. This day was chosen because it was 04/14/1947 that the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower district court decision in the in favor of plaintiffs in the Mendez et al v Westminster School District et al case, which desegregated California schools, the first case litigated in The US at that time. It was one of four cases used to support the arguments in the landmark US Supreme Court case Brown v Topeka Board of Education in 1954, which finally desegregated schools publicly public schools nationally. On April 14, I was the featured speaker at the Fount Valley Women's Club meeting at Mile Square Park. Thank you to city manager Maggie Lee who helped me navigate that.

That was a big crowd and lots of questions as always. On April 15, I filmed the first short segment with public works at Heritage Park for the upcoming Arbor Day presentation at Courageous Elementary School, which we're gonna do this Thursday. Then I filmed the first moment with the mayor in our nice FVTV studios over here. That's that's what I call it. With fire chief Chris Nigg.

Then I went over to the senior center where I got to make some congratulatory comments at the senior center volunteer recognition brunch. That night, attended the Fountain Valley High School wrestling banquet and awards where I presented certificates to, I think, 14 champion wrestlers who won the CIF again. So more Barons champions. Go Barons. On April 18, I made some opening remarks at the Community Foundation's Poker Charity event.

Thank you to Councilman Grandis for all he does to make that a huge success every year and to all the wonderful community foundation volunteers, including Councilwoman Constantine and also city manager Lee for volunteering. And today, I first attended the Fountain Valley Rotary Club's annual teacher of the year awards at the Fountain Valley School Board room, then I recorded the first chamber business visit with the mayor with owner John Etheridge of Seashore Pest Control. And then that was followed by the OCTA Citizens Advisory Committee meeting that I chaired this noon to 2PM. And and that concludes my comments. This is the busy season.

We are in full spring mode, spring forward. And so just a reminder, tomorrow's Earth Day. Saturday is also community service day. Right? So there's lots going on. But thanks to all my colleagues and city staff for all you do to make Fount Valley a more than nice place to live. And with that, I'll go ahead and adjourn the meeting. Our next regular meeting will be here in the chambers, 05/05/2026 at six p. M. Have a good evening. We're adjourned.