City Council and Authorities - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon and welcome to today's council meeting for August 18th. Let's go ahead and start with roll call.

Present. Vice Mayor Lee. Present. Mayor Fugazi. Present. We have a quorum.

Wonderful. At this time, we are going to have our invocation, and I'd like to invite Pastor Vince, an associate pastor at Christian Life Center, to the podium. And press the button. When you see green, that means you're good to go.

honorable mayor members of the city council city officials and distinguished guests as well as our audience and community here today i consider it a great honor to be with you all and i think it's fitting that we would invite the lord to be with us from the onset of this meeting so let's do that together our heavenly father we're so thankful for this opportunity to come together as a council for the city of stockton lord i ask that your wisdom would be here lord that there would be a spirit of unity here and you would give us wisdom on how to handle the agenda items here today Father, we ask that your spirit would move. Lord, let there be unity. Lord, we ask that this city, God, that we would put it in your hands. That's what we're doing here today, Lord. We believe that this city, there's great things in store for the city of Stockton. Lord, it doesn't belong to poverty. It does not belong to drug addiction. It doesn't belong to... what others may assume it belongs to, Lord, but we put it in your hands, and we ask that you would give us the wisdom to make the correct decisions. Let the wisdom be upon the council today, and Lord, we ask that from the onset of this meeting to the end of this meeting, that there would be liberty, unity, and that your wisdom would be here today. We ask this all in Jesus' name, and everyone said amen.

Thank you. Next, I would like to invite Jessica Villalma Ornelas and Anisa Barney, who are both students from UC Berkeley that are working in the mayor's office. Oh, and Millie and Andres.

Please rise if you are able to and join us for the Pledge of Allegiance. Ready? Salute. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. good afternoon mayor fugazi and council members again my name is anisa barney and i am a current student at university of california berkeley hello everyone my name is jessica villamorinellas and i'm also a current student at the university of california berkeley good afternoon my name is millie dong i am also a student at the university of california berkeley

Hello, my name is Andres Vivanco. I'm a student at San Joaquin Delta College. First of all, I would like to thank PG&E for making all of this possible and giving the mayor a chance to make this opportunity a reality. Unfortunately, two additional members couldn't make it with us today, Yaslin Barraza of Venture Academy and Eric Florentino of Health Careers Academy. We are all interns of the Strive Fellowship Program. We have been striving to achieve multiple goals and set out to us by our esteemed mayor and staff to truly test the integrity of our youth. And we have delivered on such things such as the youth advisory committee, we have We have developed the EDD and Work Forward initiatives, which bring and keep jobs in Stockton, especially for our youth. Other initiatives focusing in animal welfare, energy, water, and community engagement. All of this is in a mission to bring opportunity and success to Stockton and Stockton's youth. We hope to set an example and strive as mayor's interns to help further develop any erupting program such as this. Thank you and stay involved and continue leading for the youth to follow.

Next up, we have a recognition of a Stockton City employee who has recently retired after many, many, many years of service. So is Ray Dato here? Come on up. Come up to the mic. We're going to read something for you.

Certificate of recognition hereby presented to Ray Dato in recognition of 36 years of dedicated service to the City of Stockton and the Public Works Department.

Your commitment, hard work, and dedication throughout your career have made a lasting impact on the people of Stockton and your Public Works team.

With sincere appreciation for your many years of service, we congratulate you on your well-earned retirement and wish you all the best in the years ahead.

I was going to let Ray say something, but I asked him earlier if he could say a few words, and he said no. He's retired. So members of the council, City Manager Ford, on behalf of the Public Works Department, and on behalf of Mr. Dato and his family, I take this opportunity to express gratitude to you as a council for this wonderful thought. 36 years of service is no small thing. Mr. Dato came here from the Philippines after earning his degree. And after dabbling a little bit with consultants and even with Siegfried, he decided to join the city of Stockton on June 1, 1989. I came in as a junior engineer and worked his way up to an assistant associate, and he's graduating slash retiring as a senior civil engineer. He's worked in many projects, many of which we are familiar with, the March Lane and Pacific Avenue Reconstruction Project, Tamas Center and Knickerbocker Roundabout, just to name a few, several others that he's tirelessly worked. worked on, and so with that, we are very grateful for his dedicated service. We are saddened today that his wife, Noemi, is not able to join us, but she did join us. She's here, she's here. Oh, she's here. All right.

Wife and daughter, wife and daughters.

And his daughters are here, too. I'll forgive them. They work for the county. They're here. But we are grateful for Noemi and for the two daughters and the grand dogs, right? for the support that they have given mr dado in allowing him to be part of the city of stockton family for the last 36 years so we're proud to return dado back to his family and enjoy the retirement with the hope that in about six to seven months that you'll come back knocking on my door so

Penny, we've already gotten approval from his wife, so you ought to negotiate with him.

All right, very good. We have a token. We decided to recycle some materials at the courtyard. And offer this to Mr. Dato is a memento. We've got some signatures in the back. But you notice, members of the council, that it's only on one side. Street names are normally on both sides. We didn't want him to be bored and then go and replace the name of the street in his. So Mr. Dato, congratulations.

Thank you.

Thanks again, members of the council.

Now we have a proclamation for United Way of San Joaquin with their 100-year celebration.

proclamation whereas for a hundred years United Way of San Joaquin County has stood alongside our community bringing people together strengthening nonprofits and helping neighbors thrive and since its founding in 1926 United Way of San Joaquin County has served and trusted community partner mobilizing resources and addressing the evolving needs of San Joaquin County residents and throughout programs and partnerships supporting education health financial stability and nonprofit capacity building United Way of San Joaquin County has improved the quality of life for countless individuals and families. A United Way of San Joaquin County brings together nonprofit organizations, community leaders, businesses, volunteers, and donors to create lasting positive change. And throughout the partnership with the City of Stockton, the Nonprofit Capacity Building Program has strengthened local nonprofits through training and governance, fiscal management, fundraising, and operations. And as United Way of San Joaquin County celebrates its centennial in 2026, the City of Stockton recognizes its century of service, partnership and commitment to our community. And now therefore, I Christina Fugazi, Mayor of the City of Stockton and members of the Stockton City Council do hereby recognize and celebrate the 100th anniversary United Way of San Joaquin County.

Go ahead. OK, wonderful. Thank you. Thank you very, very much. We're greatly appreciative, again, of this proclamation of being here today and recognizing United Way for 100 years of service here in San Joaquin County. I think with the proclamation is really a living frame, in my opinion, of nonprofits across the county. So it's not just about United Way. It's about all our nonprofits. I call it this kaleidoscope of organizations all dedicated to the lift, again, of humankind, the arts, health, mental wellness, and really preserving the homeostasis of our community. Before I get started, I'm going to have a little bit more longer comments here. I can't help myself, so thank you, because I'm not held to two minutes. Don't worry, it'll be under two minutes. But I want to introduce, again, the people that make United Way, again, stand tall. Jose Serrano here, who is our chief operating officer and a product of Edison. Franklin.

Geez, Franklin High School.

And then more importantly, well, as important, Donna Ng, who's been with United Way of San Joaquin County for 50 consecutive years. She is the longest serving. Donna is the longest serving employee of United Way worldwide, which includes over 1,800 chapters across the country and across the world. So we have a gem here in this community. And without her, United Way would not be what it is today. So Donna, I just want to personally thank you very much. Oh, we're going to start to cry. Thank you. But while I will preserve the right to walk through 100 years of our work here in Stockton, let it be stated that collectively over, again, $100 million has been returned back to Stockton from the donations, employee giving campaigns, and grants, again, which we direct back out into our neighborhoods, into our schools, into our libraries, into our hospitals and clinics, and into what we hope, again, the hearts of those who work with us. And I'm not sure what was in the water in 1926, but not only was United Way birthed at that time, but so was the Stockton Symphony, the final construction of the old city hall held their last city council meeting, turned 100 this year as well, and the Stockton Garden Club as well. So arts, gardens, and communities, frankly, again, were at a place of thriving. So officially, United Way was incorporated in 1926 as the community chest of San Joaquin County, and this grand old organization focused at that period of time on supporting children's welfare. health services, youth development. Interestingly, we continue to do this. So the core of all the local agencies and nonprofits we have included initially being supported by, if you remember, the Boy Scouts. The Children's Home, directing a significant portion of the operating budget, again, to housing care, local orphaned and vulnerable children. To the Catholic and Jewish youth groups, this was back in 1926. helping, again, the Martha Washington Club. I have no idea what that is, but she supported vital housing and protective social services, again, for young single women migrating to Stockton here in the 20s. Easter Seals was born, again, really out directly from the Stockton Rotary Club in 1926. Those funds helped clinics, again, provide critical care and early physical therapy for children with disabilities. And then much later, United Way was very much involved with the startup of Hospice of San Joaquin and St. Joseph's in the 60s, when there were some challenge times. Now, I want you to all think, as city council members, for a moment, where did United Way intersect, again, with yourself personally? Vice Mayor Lee, again, you are a product of the children's home. where United Way actually served, again, to support in donations and volunteers. Or to Mayor Fugazi, the children you serve every day at SUSD has support from the Child Abuse Prevention Council for those children there. And there was immunization clinics, educational theater that came through, again, Kaiser Permanente. Council Member Ponzi, your relationship with CMC. Again, our federal qualified clinics, thank you again for being part of that. Nonprofits that bring services to low-income households. United Way recently submitted a joint plan with CMC to expand the CUNY Health Workers Program. Or to you, Council Member Enriquez, where are you? The Pride Center is helping to advance and promote LBGTQ lives and is a center with United Way that fiscally supports the Pride Center. Or member of Villa Poudrois. I always get that name right. I had to say it in French because I say it. Villa Poudrois. Your relationship with the Latino community, touched by one of our area's strongest and most impactful agency, El Concilio of California, has been the cornerstone of immigration reform and support to the Latino community. Or to you, Councilmember Padilla, you came to United Way, again, to seek direction about housing and homelessness, and your constant planning for addressing homelessness is admirable, so thank you. And again, Michael Blauer, again, your engagement with Rotary, a great nonprofit service agency, has unleashed untold funds, again, to youth in the form of scholarships and support. Your own personal stories are all a part of how a nonprofit has served our community, and you're very much the fabric of United Way. And to City Manager Ford, your role with the United Way in the past has inspired you to, once again, and we thank you, to lift up the Workplace Giving Campaign. So a thousand thanks, again, for this big leap. and for your spirited continued recognition. He was a past board member of United Way. We thank you for always recognizing the value of our nonprofits. And as we stand here today, still as strong, still as resilient, continuing our quest to advance our nonprofits, to have them self-sustainable, To avoid reliance on city and county funds, there's so much more to be done. United Way will continue to work to mobilize, to support. The recent coordination of the Violence Intervention Coalition with the city's own Office of Violence Prevention and other lead agencies is a great working example, again, of how we can create lasting change. So during my tenure, quite frankly, we've been eternally grateful, grateful, very grateful for our relationship and our linkage, again, with the city of Stockton and our county leaders. Working alongside, for example, Tina McCarty and Lana Lozano in helping guide our steps, again, as you had mentioned, The proclamation, the Nonprofit Capacity Building Program, has been joyous and, let's just say, a productive adventure and a journey, and one that we continue, will expand and grow as the years go by. So I'd just like to close very quickly. My sincerest thanks, our sincerest thanks to all of you, but I enjoyed this quote that was shared with me by Michael Sorensen, a colleague from Friends Outside. And he states, if a better society is to be built, one that is more just and more loving, one that provides greater creative opportunity for its people, then the most open course is to raise both the capacity to serve and the very performance as servant of existing major institutions by new regenerative forces operating within. After all, and I believe this from the bottom of my heart, the rock on which a good society is built is based on caring for its people, and our nonprofits do that every day. Again, thank you, thank you for this recognition. We so appreciate it. For the next hundred years, well, I'll be dust in the next hundred years, but not all of us will be dust. We're here. We have the proclamation. We're going to put it in a time capsule, Mayor Fugazi, so it will live on in perpetuity. So thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

So now we are moving on to a public comment and this is for items that are not on the agenda and we're trying something a little different tonight.

The City of Stockton invites the public to participate in various ways. If you have any questions regarding forms of participation, please contact the Office of the City Clerk. This is the time for public comments for items not on the agenda, announcements, or invitations. You may comment on any subject that is not on the agenda within the jurisdiction of the City Council. If you wish to speak on a specific agenda item, comments will be heard during the item. To ensure sufficient public participation and conduct the agendized city business, the public is limited to one comment opportunity. The Mayor will set the speaking time. Citizens' public comments are not a time for discussions with the Council regarding subjects not on the agenda for this meeting, as the Brown Act limits such discussions. comments made by members of the public or council may not reflect the viewpoint of the council we ask that you maintain the rules of decorum as outlined in city council meeting decorum policy the mayor shall preserve strict order and decorum at all meetings persons addressing the council shall not make personal impertinent unduly repetitive slanderous or profane remarks to the council any member of the council city staff or the general public nor utter loud, threatening, personal, or abusive language, nor engage in any other conduct that disrupts, disturbs, or otherwise unreasonably impedes the orderly conduct of the council meeting. The city council members will practice civility and decorum in their discussions and debate. A member shall not delay or interrupt the proceedings of the council or use personal, impertinent, or slanderous remarks. Council members will not speak twice on any given subject unless all other council members have been given the opportunity to speak. Every member, once recognized, shall be limited in their debate to five minutes. Any council member who violates the rules repeatedly shall be sanctioned and be barred from further participation other than voting on the subject. Members shall not disturb any council members while speaking nor disobey the orders of the presiding officer. If a point of order is requested, the presiding officer will ask the interrupter to state their point and the presiding officer shall make a ruling. The rules of decorum set forth above shall be enforced in the following manner. Warning, the presiding officer shall request that a person who is breaching the rules of decorum be orderly and silent. If, after receiving a warning from the presiding officer, a person persists in disturbing the meeting, the presiding officer shall order him or her to leave the council meeting. If such person does not remove himself or herself, the presiding officer may order any law enforcement officer who is on duty at the meeting to remove that person from the council chambers.

OK, so we will be setting the timer at three minutes for public comment.

First up, we have Kenneth Huntley.

Good afternoon, Mayor, members of the City Council. As I said last month, there's work to be done, so there is work to be done. My name is Kenneth Huntley, and I'm here to ask you for your support in fully implementing and enforcing California's AB 14, the daylighting law. as of january 1st 2025 ab14 prohibits parking within 20 feet of the crosswalk even if the curb is not painted red 15 feet if it's an extended curb the purpose is simple to improve visibility between drivers and people walking or bicycling reducing the risk of preventable crashes while the law is now in effect statewide many stockton residents are still unaware of it and enforcement appears to be inconsistent also staff seem to be unaware of the law and or the seriousness of why the law was created as a results vehicle to continue to park too close to intersections creating dangerous blind spots for children walking to school seniors people using wheelchairs cyclists and anyone trying to cross the street safely This is especially common in downtown. I'm asking the city to take a collaborative approach by focusing on three areas. I would like to see public works, parking enforcement, and Stockton PD to increase enforcement of AB 14 so the law is applied consistently throughout the city. Second, invest in public education through social media, the city website, neighborhood outreach, and clear communication so residents understand the new parking requirements before they receive a citation. Third, continue identifying high-risk intersections where curb markings and signage can reinforce the law and make compliance easier for everyone. AB 13... AB 413 is about preventing crashes before they happen and making our neighborhoods safer for everyone who uses our streets. I appreciate the work the city and its departments does to make the city safe. I look forward to seeing them work together to enforce AB 14. I encouraged city departments to come to the next mayor's ADA roundtable in September to talk about this further as AB 413 was a tool to make crossing streets safer for people with disabilities and senior citizens. So thank you.

Next we have Leslie Horan.

mayor christina and city council i just want to congratulate you and the police and sheriff department and the citizens of stockton for national night out it was a great success a feeling of safety and a joy at the same time like being a kid again in stockton i got to celebrate at the yosemite village it was so much fun district supervisor mario Gardea said, you really hit it out of the park with this one. The whole neighborhood cheered. I saw Councilman Mario win second place in the watermelon eating contest all the way down to the Rhine. a great old-fashioned contest and free watermelon. Also, the police department safety day displaying to the community every service they offer and services the city offers. Kudos to them establishing friendship and a relationship to the citizens. The barrio festival was another big hit for Stockton residents. My family is always involved in that celebration I was wondering if the city can use the state buildings parking lot across the street from Weber's point for overflow parking I Had to park all the way down at the old City Hall and I was just wondering if City Council had access to that lot No Think you should merge all of these event videos together to advertise Stockton as a special place to live and I really believe we're on our way The Lord gave me a scripture. I said it last year, but it came back to me. It's Psalms 34 whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days and Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from telling lies. Turn from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their cry. Thank you.

Antonia Fields. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. And thank you, Mayor, for your job. You're doing a very good job, and you're doing what's right no matter what. So thank you. And I want to just make a comment to all of the Council and all the people here. Don't forget kindness and truth. Wear it like a necklace and write it in your heart. then you will be respected and will please both God and man. Thank you.

Pandora Crowder.

All right, I wrote this down so I wouldn't forget anything. I'm Pandora Crowder. I'm a South Stockton resident, and that is what I am here representing today. I try very hard to stay in my own lane. However, when community leaders and South Stockton advocates are being shamed by people on the dais and or people that have been paid and have close connections to the dais, it becomes all of our business. we did when did bullying become acceptable as a general practice should i bring some children in to define zero tolerance for you rather than that let me help you in a city council setting bullying is generally defined as repeated intentional and harmful behavior verbal non-verbal or physical that creates a hostile intimidating or demeaning environment for others undermining respect, trust, and effective governance. While there is no single federal law defining bullying in local government, in municipal context it is understood as unwanted, aggressive conduct that is repeated over time and has the purpose or effect of causing harm, humiliation, or intimidation. This can include verbal abuse, demeaning remarks, exclusion, threats, or other actions that disrupt council proceedings or harm with the well-being of colleagues, staff, or community members. yelling at or using foul language making offensive derogatory demeaning comments unrelated to legitimate business using a dismissive tone or body language language to belittle others excessive non-constructive criticism aimed at undermining rather than improving decisions publicly shaming or excluding oh crap This is why you don't let me use, whatchamacallit, technology. All right, well let's just go down. I think you guys get the short of it. Civic responsibility is the combination of legal obligations, voluntary actions that enable citizens actively contribute to the well-being of their community and the functioning of their government. So with this, I'm going to skip and say shame on all of you that feel it's appropriate to talk and degrade other leaders and other council members. 721 on social media, accusing a resident and a South Stockton advocate of being a bootlicker and kissing Jason Lee's feet. 8-10, another well-spoken out and well-spoken representative for vice mayor supporter posted on a social media site to a Latino man. ICE is looking for you.

Thank you, Ms. Crowder.

Zoila Moreno.

Good afternoon. I was going to start with places, but actually, Pandora Crowder, she just spoke on my behalf. And I just want to put on notice, and they have already properly been served, Because you heard me coming before here and said, stop the abuse, stop the exploitation. But actually, it is me that has been bullied, abused. And I'm not going to embarrass those people because they have already been properly served. And I'm giving them 24 hours. to remove any defamatory information in all social media. Otherwise, I will take legal action. Now let me go ahead and move on to better news. Mayor Christina Fugazi, it was an honor because for National Night Out, it was expecting. Even without an invitation, me, yours truly, and the community, we were expecting you, and to you, my respect, because you chose to make the very first stop By the magic street, you saw the community decorating the street. We were sweating because that was labor of love. It was for the city council of officials that chose and respected, you know, because the National Night Out, it wasn't a political thing. It was, and thank you for honoring and respecting for the community to... to bond with the police. And for those Sikhs that follow the rules, thank you. And I commend you for that. And you know, and like I said, you all came. Chief Carr, are you here? Thank you for accepting my humble invitation. Chief McFarren, thank you for coming. Thank you. extraordinary city manager, and going back to our mayor. Mayor, thank you so much for keeping your word by putting those light. We didn't have to wait for end of the summer because you kept your word, and so did you, my... my excellent you are the best no and and i i want to close by saying you know that we are very fortunate having a 20-year experience uh city city city mayor and an ex an excellent someone that listens like um johnny ford and also our chief of police you are the best so Thank you, Ms. Moreno.

Thank you. You're welcome.

Lauren Danio.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Reading from the Book of Wisdom, Solomon's Prayer. God of my fathers, Lord of mercy, you who have made all things, by your word and in your wisdom, have established man to rule the creatures produced by you, to govern the world in holiness and justice, and to render judgment and integrity of heart. Give me wisdom, the attendant at your throne, and reject me not from among your children. When God calls you to do something, it's irrevocable and you have to attend to what you're called to do. In my case, I was taught to work hard by my family and took on the role of being the defender of San Joaquin County. Today, in conformance with the Brown Act, I am asking the Safety Council of the City of Stockton to take action to protect the elderly, children, and families of San Joaquin County. Mr. Ford and Ms. Fugazi, those roles fall to you. You've already violated the Brown Act by not responding to the perilous condition, which is that Anthony Fauci is a grotesque contemptor across the nation. I hold the site health and safety professional standards, so my comments here today are valid and qualified and quantified standards. I am serving you with a stop work authority form. The chief safety officer of the San Joaquin County has already violated her rule and absconded her duty. Your two duties are to call an immediate stop work as there has been given notice by Vinay Prasad of the federal level chief medical safety officer. The injection that was transmitted across the nation and the world kills children. 65% of San Joaquin County, including our city, have been injected with a biological weapon of mass destruction. All of these facts have been commented on a safety control report through our county board. The duty officers have absconded their rights and their responsibilities. This is all a civil disturbance violation. Paul Canepa is in gross professional willful misconduct of protecting life. I now pass the baton to you, Mayor Fugazi. and to you, Mr. Ford, to protect the children of San Joaquin County. In fact, if you take the correct action and do your duty to protect life, you will save all children that are under the Western States Pact. That's California, Washington, Nevada, Hawaii, and Colorado. Everything you need is already on file. There have been two risk management claims. All of the children at schools are at risk for injection without parental control. There is no site health and safety officer overseeing your jurisdiction. If you would like to talk to Pat Winthrop about Incident 25200853, it's on file with the United States Coast Guard of YBI. They are the only competent jurisdiction, and they are also violating the law. You have eight hours to respond.

David Sinting,

Good afternoon, Mayor Fugazi, Vice Mayor Lee, and Stockton City Council members. Today, you're going to be hearing a series of comments from public commenters and community organizers concerned about our current contract with flock cameras. I'm David Sengtai, president of Stockton Democrats Together, and my executive board has authorized me to leave this public comment supporting empowering marginalized Asian communities, get the flock out campaign. And I want to explain why from a budget accountability perspective. Earlier this year, our club, in partnership with these organizers, reviewed the city's public records on said contract. We found a transparency problem. The $3.15 million drone amendment approved this prior March, part of a deal now worth over $5.4 million through 2031, was coded in the city's accounting under a project string labeled Animal Shelter Study. Records show this contract has been quietly amended four times since December of 2021 for cameras, for 911 integration, and now for drones, each one arriving with little to no public notice. This is not how a multi-million dollar, five-year obligation should be tracked or disclosed to the public. This contract also grants Flock a worldwide perpetual license to the data they have. And ownership of the drone footage now lives with Flock, not with the city of Stockton. Our club has already gone on record through our resolution this past month that we condition forthcoming endorsements on real accountability infrastructure, which also includes an independent ethics commission, contribution limits, and election transparency, wink, This contract fails that same basic test. The public unfortunately cannot audit what it can't see, and the fact that we found this out through a Public Records Act request is quite disappointing. We're asking you to suspend the contract with Flock, order a full public accounting of how the money has been spent since, and hold a public hearing at one of our future city council meetings before another dollar moves to Flock. We stand with EMAC and every speaker here today speaking against Flock. Thank you.

Donald Tafoya. Donald Tafoya.

I pressed the mic. Oh, I pressed it. I always get nervous when I come up here. I don't know why. It's not my first time. Anyway, good afternoon, Mayor and all council members. I appreciate the three minutes. I could use every bit of it. I have three items to talk about, but I'm going to keep it down to just one. The most important today's issue is under California Election Code, falsifying a residency address to register to vote or qualify for the ballot is a felony. If that standard applied to Ms. Lynch's situation, it applies here too. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. I'm calling for the council, the district attorney, and the register of voters to investigate Vice Mayor Lee with the same seriousness anyone else would face. And one last thing. Watch how fast the subject changes tonight. When someone's accused of registering to vote at a house he never slept in. The easiest move is to talk about literally anything else. It could be... Oh my God, my glasses. It could be raining cats and dogs outside. And I bet he'd still rather ask if you heard Cardi B's new album. Thank you.

Yolanda Amon.

Good afternoon. I'm speaking today, I want to put something on everyone's radar before it comes a problem we can't undo. Cities all over California are dealing with proposals for massive data centers. And I want to say this plainly, I do not want a data center coming to Stockton. I don't want residents waking up one morning to discover that massive data center is being proposed in the community, especially after decision has already been moving toward the council to vote. We've seen how quickly things can move when the public isn't paying attention. And once something is approved, it would be very difficult to turn back. These facilities aren't small. They can require enormous amounts of electricity and water. They can bring constant humming and cooling equipment. bring lights at night, backup generators, and additional demand on our infrastructures. And let's be honest, Stockton already has enough challenges with water, infrastructure, traffic, air quality, protecting our neighborhoods. Do we really want to add another major industrial burden? I don't. And I believe residents deserve the opportunity to say how they feel before the proposal reaches this dais. I'm asking the council, let's have the conversation now, not after a developer comes forward. Come into the districts, talk to the residents, tell us what is being considered and what it could mean for our water, our neighborhoods and our quality of life. We should not have to discover something buried in a council agenda and then scramble to fight it. Come to the people first. And after what we've experienced with these flock cameras decisions, I think we all understand why early public involvement matters. So I'm asking Stockton to be proactive. Let's make it clear now. Stockton is not the place for massive data centers. Let's protect our neighborhoods, let's protect our water, and let's protect our quality of life. Most importantly, let's make sure the people of Stockton have a voice before City Hall decides for us. I'll be watching and Stockton should be watching too. And since I have a few minutes left, thank you, Eric Fugazi, I also want to say that social media is a beast. Anybody can put anything. You can serve somebody a cease and desist, but you need to stop and look at yourself and see what you're putting up on social media when you start blocking people. If you can't handle it, then don't put something out there because people will come back for you. And cease and desist can work the other way as well. So don't come up on this podium crying or crying over there in your house when you're the one that started this rally.

Maya Alvarado. Maya Alvarado. Julie Denny? Oh, sorry. Maria, sorry.

Good afternoon, Mayor and council members, Vice Mayor. I'm Mireya, a community member and proud veteran of the United States Marine Corps. This past weekend, I participated in the Putting for Hope to End Alzheimer's event, and I wanted to share with you all something that stayed with me. Several members of our community struggle with this disease of Alzheimer's. To include many of the veterans of my post, I've witnessed firsthand how their health deteriorates at a very rapid pace. At the event, I realized how many people standing around me had their own story, their mothers, their fathers, their spouses, their loved ones affected by Alzheimer's disease. We were fortunate to have Supervisor Paul Canepa present, and he shared with us his experience and his own mom's journey with this Alzheimer's disease. We also really appreciated seeing Councilwoman Michelle Padilla present, supporting the event and the families participating. And that's really why I wanted to speak today. When something important is happening in our community, you all are present. I don't always know if elected representatives understand the importance or the way that people at these community events feel. For the families, the volunteers, the organizers, your presence represents more than you know. It shows that we are not alone in this cause and this journey. Stockton is so much more than what we are painted out to be. We're resilient, we support one another, and we care for one another. I'm just here to thank you and to ask you to continue supporting our community events. Thank you.

Julie Dee.

Good afternoon. I felt compelled to say something today because I was raised on the principle that a person is only as good as their word, and if their word is no good, neither are they. Last time I spoke before council, I said that I would be delivering information of what I felt was misconduct, inappropriate financial appropriations, and so on by the city via the council and some of its votes. I want to be clear, and first of all, I want to thank David for bringing up another very clear example of what I'm talking about. I do have the paperwork, but after a phone call that I received this week and some political theater that's going on, I've decided that I'm going to deliver the information via a different mechanism so that it would be more readily available and easily understood by the citizens. People, I am here to tell you, council just passed a billion dollar budget, one billion dollars, that seven elected members plus a city manager have complete control over. There is a sect of people sitting up there that I do not believe have our best interest at heart. That's shown by contracts that get awarded, by campaign donations that get accepted and votes that are given that, in my opinion, according to FPPC, should not be given. I'm going to caution everyone who hears me and sees me that just because you don't personally like a person or you don't agree with how they approach something doesn't mean they aren't telling the truth and you shouldn't pay attention to what they're saying. There is inappropriate behavior going on. I have documentation. I would not stand up here and say this and make a fool out of myself if I didn't. I'm not after anybody in particular. I don't dislike anybody. I've been to some of your homes. I've sincerely hugged some of you. I worked on your campaigns. What I am against is corruption, and I am for the truth. And I support people that tell the truth, and I am against people that knowingly don't stand up against inappropriate activity. Thank you.

Saida? Zaira?

Hello, members of the council and everyone. My name is Saida. I'm here representing members of the Stockton Latino and Muslim communities that have been heavily policed and targeted by ICE. We are seeing immigrants apprehended at courthouses, including after appearing for immigration proceedings in Sacramento. People have been harassed and followed by ICE here in Stockton, even in their places of worship and their homes where they should be feeling safe. This creates fear among families who are simply trying to follow the legal process and go about their day-to-day lives. I ask the City Council to publicly affirm that Stockton will protect every resident regardless of immigration status and ensure that no city staff, police, facilities, funds, or information assist civil immigration enforcement beyond what the law requires. I want to raise some questions and concerns to the City Council today and ask, what precautionary measures are you taking to make our vulnerable communities feel safe? I also want to ask every one of you to support grassroots organizations. Some of us are here today representing the Council on American Islamic Relations and Wings Without Borders. We'd like your help to create rapid response networks, provide lawyer rights, education, and legal assistance, and establish emergency plans for families affected by detention. We need more than statements of solidarity. We need resources, meaningful partnerships, and concrete action to protect Stockton families. I am currently in a PhD program on the East Coast, but I have returned to my city to continue my grassroots organizing. And I'm all about more action and less talk. So I hear a lot of talk, but I like to see our city council members stepping up and helping those of us who sort of roll up our sleeves and are all about supporting our community and helping them and making them feel safe during these really horrific times that we're living in. So that's why I'm here today. And I hope that you guys will step up to the plate. Thank you.

Next we have unknown. Moving along, next we have Susanna.

Good afternoon. Good afternoon, mayor, vice mayor, and members of the council. My name is Susana, founder of Wings Without Borders, a community organization providing immigrant education and resources throughout the Central Valley. I'm here today to bring attention to a serious issue affecting access to our local courts. On July 24th and August 13th, individuals were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement outside of the San Joaquin County Superior Courthouse. Unfortunately, these were not isolated incidents. Arrests outside of courthouses have been occurring more frequently in the surrounding areas. Recently, a federal judge restricted civil immigration arrests at and around courthouses because of the impact on people's ability to access courts. Since June 1st, California courts have also been required to track civil arrests at courthouses, and neighboring San Isidro County has already reported more than seven ICE courthouse arrests. Regardless of anyone's views on immigration enforcement, people should not fear appearing for court hearings, serving as witnesses, reporting crimes, and participating in legal proceedings. I understand the city does not control federal immigration enforcement, but the city is not powerless. I respectfully ask the city to communicate with the San Joaquin County Superior Court regarding safe public access, communicate with the California Attorney General's Office regarding this incident and applicable legal protections, and review whether city policies or partnerships can be strengthened to protect access to public institutions. Stockton's immigrant community owns businesses, pays taxes, raises families, and contributes to the city every day. No one should fear attending a required court hearing because they may never return home to their family. I ask this council to take this seriously and explore every lawful option available to protect access to our courts. Thank you.

Next we have Chalisa. Chalisa? Chelsea Bergen?

Yes, that's me. It's on? Okay. Good afternoon Council Member Villaputua and members of City Council. My name is Chelsea Berrigan and I am a student at the University of the Pacific and a resident of District 5. Today I am speaking on behalf of the San Joaquin Pride Center Substance Use Prevention and Advocacy cohort, also known as HUPAC in Stockton, California. I am proud to advocate alongside other youth who are committed to improving the health and well-being of our community. Our goal is to empower other young people with the knowledge and resources to make informed decisions and educate their communities about substance use prevention and recovery. I have seen how substance use disorders have impacted my family, friends, and peers. Being part of SUPOC made me realize how important it is to advocate for our community to have resources to support those who struggle with substance use disorders. During the Elevate Youth California listing session, SUPAC members expressed how stress, racism, transphobia, and isolation can increase risk factors for substance use and mental health challenges. They also emphasized that addressing these challenges requires confidential, affirming, and low-barrier healthcare that people can access here in Stockton. This aligns with the San Joaquin County 2025 Community Health Needs Assessment, where key informants reported that the existing mental health and substance use treatment services are insufficient to meet community needs since there is a limited capacity for patients, staffing shortages, and inadequate services for underserved populations, especially our youth and LGBTQIA individuals. This makes it clear that the need for low barrier mental health and substance use services is important, and Stockton cannot afford to wait any longer. I encourage the city to prioritize a low barrier model of care for individuals with both substance use and mental health disorders. Low barrier means removing unnecessary obstacles that often prevent people from seeking treatment. It means offering same day treatment without requiring appointments, extending clinic hours and ensuring services are available both in person and through telehealth. It also means meeting people where they are by supporting their individual's recovery goals rather than requiring them to meet strict conditions before receiving care. i'd like to leave you with this handout from an advisory that was published by the substance abuse and mental health services administration in 2023 this handout displays a table showing a comparison of low barrier and high barrier care it also displays practical ways substance use disorder treatments can be made more accessible to the community and i hope that it serves as a useful resource to improve services in stockton Finally, I hope you'll continue to see SUPAC as a trusted community partner and resource. SUPAC is committed to sharing the perspectives of marginalized youth who have been affected by substance use disorders and educating the community on substance use prevention and harm reduction. We look forward to working alongside Stockton City Council. Thank you.

Hilda.

HILDA CABELLO- Hello. Good afternoon council members. My name is Hilda Cabello-Garcia. I am a local youth organizer and resident of South Stockton. Today, I'm here not only to speak for the people that might not be able to, whether they're at school, they're at work, or they're in childcare, just making sure that we're able to raise awareness about the investment decisions that our city has made that are not putting our safety at the forefront. The Flock Safety Company cannot be trusted. State laws prohibit data sharing with federal agencies and out-of-state police departments, but Flock has allowed sharing for multiple years until news outlets began to expose them. They continue to allow El Cajon California Police Department to share with out-of-state and red agencies. POC has also distributed a side door with Customs and Border Patrol pilot project that police departments did not know about. Furthermore, DHS, ICE, CBP, ERO have access to this data and through any one of their 81 regional intelligence centers. regardless of safeguards set in place by cities and regardless of whether national sharing has been turned off because the whole point of RIC is to share data nationally amongst each other. FLOC has a long-term history of abuse which should not be tolerated nor should be fueled with more contract agreements and investments. The city is furthermore also responsible for violations on our private and personal data. It is shared through the dark web, accessed illegally by hackers, outside law enforcement agencies, or by federal agencies operating under direction from the current administration. The city is now responsible for any and all data searches and rights violations of immigrants, women, and queer people who are seeking health care in our city, and even those who are tracked as traveling throughout our city. And so we must stop contributing to mass surveillance, infrastructure in this nation that contributes to putting the lives and the safety of our communities at risk. We should be protecting our compassionate city, our immigrant neighbors, and our right to privacy under the Fourth Amendment, our data, and our liability as a city. Thank you.

Diana?

Hello, my name's Diana Tapia, and I'm a community member here in Stockton. I would first like to acknowledge the privilege it is for me being here today and giving a public comment, understanding that at these hours, people work or go to school, and I am not picking between my education and civic engagement. As many here, I would like to point out a few issues with ALPR tech, including FLOG in our community. Cities and police departments are counseling their contracts with FLOG in response to public pressure, but when will we? Places like Los Angeles and Santa Cruz have already deflogged. Los Angeles did not renew their contract because of high rates of false alerts. An internal police review revealed that the cameras generated 161 false stolen vehicle alerts in just two months. This triggered a 32.3% false positive rate. Nearly one in three stolen vehicle alerts triggered by the system were incorrect. This lack of data oversight urged a total pause because there were no enforceable privacy, security, or oversight rules dictating who owned that data, who could run searches, and how it was being tracked. Santa Cruz terminated their contract because of fear that the automated vehicle tracking network could easily be exploited by outside jurisdiction or federal agencies for warrantless tracking and immigration enforcement. This effectively strips local control over who could search residents' plates for records. Until ALPR demonstrates that they can develop a reliable, workable system to prevent improper searches, this promise of local control provides nothing more than a false sense of security. If you truly cared about the people in Stockton, you would terminate our contract with ALPR Tech. Thank you.

Shazad.

Hello, my name is Shahzad. I'm a community member with concerns about Stockton's ongoing flock camp contract. Flock is a private company valued at over $8.4 billion and the city has approximately over 147 active flock cameras. Across many cities in California, grassroots organizations have performed community audits. Community audits are regular people like you and I asking for records via the Public Records Act request. By submitting a PRA, community members are able to see inconsistencies in what's being told by Flock and what's really happening on the ground. Today, I'm going to go through some of the false claims Flock have made and what the PRAs have revealed. Claim number one, Flock claims that you own your data, that every city owns its own data, but that's not true, is it? Flock's entire system is built on maximizing sharing. Flock has a nationwide data sharing cloud-based model. Hundreds of agencies share and search cameras without a warrant. The entire network is designed for mass unvetted access. Claim number two, only vetted individuals and agencies are able to access the data. Untrue. The PRAs have uncovered quote unquote unknown agencies that have access to the data. Claim number three, Flock claims that automatic license plate readers cannot identify people, false. The PRAs have uncovered agencies searching for identifiable characteristics, such as person with a face tattoo, such as someone with a walker. If Flock did not record identifiable characteristics, why are police departments searching for it? Claim number four, we're told that Flock cameras are used to quote unquote reduce crime and keep people safe. Even if that were true, it's not, you cannot violate our fourth amendment rights in the name of reducing crime. If you're curious about the case law, I'd recommend looking into Chattery versus United States. Less than 5% of the data that's being accessed is being accessed by local police departments. Claim number five, FLOC is not being used to assist ICE, the DHS, or CBP. False. Community members have found thousands of searches with search reasons such as quote unquote illegals, quote unquote immigration, quote unquote ICE assist. Despite all of these red flags, this council approved a $3.5 million expansion in its contract with FLOC. Mass surveillance of this magnitude is wrong. Get the FLOC out.

Federico?

Go ahead and press the button again. Press it until it turns green. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Federico D. Magallanes, and I am a recent college graduate with a degree in mechanical engineering. During my college years, all engineers had to take a mandatory course named engineering ethics. In this class, we discussed the code of ethics that engineers and programmers must follow, a code that was built on the blood of innocent people that suffered from many previous incidents that were at the fault of engineers, programmers, and ultimately the corporations that employed them. We discussed many incidents such as the infamous Ford Pinto, the Challenger incident, and the very infamous Flint, Michigan situation. The main purpose of this code is to have engineers use their knowledge and the betterment of society to avoid causing harm to those around them. I believe that at this moment of time, we are witnessing a future at this case study as I believe the development and use of this technology of flood cameras violates three of these engineering ethics canons. Canon one, engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public. The development and use of technology ultimately fails this canon as technology fails to provide safety to the public despite the purpose of this technology is to provide safety. I believe this technology also fails this canon as the public interest is something that this canon accounts for. Flock is widely hated by the majority of the public not only in Stockton but as well as in the country. canon three and five engineers shall issue public statements only in objective and truthful manner engineers shall avoid deceptive acts flock fails to uphold both of these canons on numerous occasions as other people here as previously stated and they have made false claims about the capabilities and use of the technology flocks alleged ability to as well as flocks alleged ability to interact with bluetooth capable device in this vicinity to better identify individuals and also its installments in residential residential areas that have no mass flow of traffic as an engineer and more importantly as a stockton resident i believe the use of technology is ultimately unethical i implore our city government to serve its purpose and to take the public side and terminate its contract with flock and avoid other surveillance corporations who clearly do not have the public's interests and safety in mind peter

next speakers peter good afternoon everyone My name is Peter Hawley, and as a concerned citizen, I want to raise an issue about the City of Stockton's contract with flock safety, whether the protections being promised to the public are actually as strong as the City of Stockton, the Stockton Police Department, and flock safety have suggested. California's SB 34 establishes important requirements for how ALPR data is collected, retained, and shared. SB 54 also establishes limits on local law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. But the problem is that the legislative language is not strong enough to guarantee any meaningful enforcement over how this data in our city or elsewhere in California is used. Much of the responsibility is left to individual agencies to create and enforce their own policies. This creates a serious gap between what state law says and what actually happens to the data. A law means nothing if it cannot be adequately enforced. Assurances are not the same thing as accountability. Public trust shouldn't be blindly given to our institutions. It must be built through transparency, independent oversight, and enforceable rules, not through the expectation that we take someone's word for it. The solution should not be to expand a surveillance network in the city, to take assurances from a private surveillance company and hope that existing regulations are sufficient. There is no way that any ALPR tech can be used ethically or meaningfully enforced. For example, $275 million were invested in flock safety in 2025 via the Founders Fund, a venture capital firm founded by Peter Thiel, Peter Thiel being the founder of Palantir, a company that conducts mass surveillance in the service of state violence. This is why the city of Stockton needs to terminate its contract with flock safety and avoid contracts with other companies like Axon or Motorola. Thank you.

Jose Olivas.

Good afternoon Stocktonians. Thanks for having me. This is a little vulnerable. Bear with me. Between 2018 and 2020, I was in an abusive relationship. When I tried to leave, I experienced stalking, manipulation, threats, and harassment multiple times. Because of my former partner's connections to law enforcement, including a stepfather who was a current police officer for Stockton, and because of his family name and those relationships, I watched him avoid accountability for behavior that caused me real harm, and other women as well. I share this because when we talk about surveillance technology like Flock, I don't think we can separate the tech from the people who have access to it. For someone escaping domestic violence, being able to move freely, go to work, visit friends, seek medical care, or simply exist somewhere apart from their abuser, this creates... Sorry. It's a matter of safety. Sorry. Giving law enforcement access to a searchable record of where vehicles have traveled creates another tool that can potentially be weaponized against people who are already vulnerable. This is not a hypothetical concern. There have been numerous cases of law enforcement officers allegedly misusing automated license plate reader systems, including Flock, to monitor romantic partners, former partners, and people connected to them. The Institute for Justice has identified at least 28 reported cases nationwide in which officers allegedly used ALPR systems to stalk romantic interests. As women, can we afford to take this risk in our community? In just one example, in Milwaukee, a former police officer, Josue Ayala, pleaded guilty after conducting nearly 200 license plate reader searches to track a former girlfriend and her former partner. He ultimately received a probation and a fine. A powerful surveillance system should not depend on every future employee always making the correct decision because humans are flawed creatures and you will have people abuse power time and time again. How often do we need to repeat learning that lesson? If an officer uses flock information improperly, who finds out? Who investigates it? Other police officers looking to protect their own. How many improper searches have occurred that we don't know about because no one happened to discover them, or they were redacted from audit logs to appear innocent? What protections exist for survivors of domestic violence or people experiencing stalking? We should be honest about what flock represents. And this isn't one camera on one street corner. It's an expanding surveillance infrastructure that can collect information about where we go and who we know. And this fundamentally changes the relationship between residents and government. We are being asked to accept this technology as necessary because it might help solve a crime, but we have not asked how it will be used against people who have committed no crime.

Eliza? Do we have Jose Olivas, Jr.?

All right. It is an honor to be here in front of the Council City of Stockton. And I'm really happy about this group of active Stocktonians here today. I'm an agent of Static Studios where we provide a safe haven in our city to release their creative side in many forms such as music, comedy, writing, filming, live radio, and art. Which leads me to... our loss for the youth in this warm, no safe haven or entertainment. So I asked for an increase of youth centers because we're at a loss of that. I raised up my nieces and nephews since they were in diapers. Now they're in college at this point and they ask like, you know, like there's nothing to do. So they look at their phones and whatnot or they might get into trouble and everything. And the youth is our future. So I find that to be very important. And another thing is I'm here to encourage our city to maintain our historical landmarks that the city of Stockton is surrounded by. Just going to keep it short and sweet. Thank you for listening to my words.

here today camera Perez

FLOC is a danger to our people. More specifically, FLOC safety is a danger to our children. FLOC says its customers may access their personal data at any time. When the customer is our law enforcement agencies, it broadly violates our Fourth Amendment right to no searches without a warrant. Officers should not be able to access surveillance footage without a warrant from a judge. From FLOC's website, customers own and control their FLOC data. Customers determine who within their organization can view or search their data. Sounds great on paper, but I have a very important and very scary question for Stockton City Council. Does a three-year-old girl have the decision-making ability to consent to whether footage of her can be used for a sales pitch? Vice President of Flock Safety Bob Carter seems to think a little girl can consent when on September 30th, 2025, FLOG VP Bob Carter accessed a camera directly pointed at a gymnastics class for multiple hours while classes such as their preschool and youth gymnastics classes were being held. Even worse, this wasn't the first time it happened, when on July 23, 2025, FLOG employee Randy Gluck also accessed cameras named Jim Mendo 1 and Main Pool Right in the same Jewish community center. But at least he justified it by saying he used it for a sales pitch, right? Even worse, in an internal document obtained by Dunwoody resident Jason Hunyar, detailed that Bob Carter did not access a single other camera that day, he decided to watch a girls' gymnastics class and didn't even make an attempt to justify it. Instead, he hid back into the company and flocked safety, played the age-old denial game, and even attempted to hide the names of Bob Carter and Randy Gluck. So I'll end this off with a question. If a man spies on little girls through a window behind a bush, he is labeled a predator and is rightfully investigated by his community. Why is it then that if a man spies on little girls behind a remote accessible AI-powered camera, he can hand wave it away by saying it was for a sales pitch or simply not saying anything at all? Is a flawed contract so important to you that you're willing to sell out our children? There are flock cameras in front of schools, daycares, parks, and even people's private homes. When pressured to do so, flock changes the angles of these cameras. When communities come together to advocate for concerns, they are powerful. Over 120 flock contracts have been canceled throughout the country. Let Stockton be a part of that number. Get the flock out of Stockton.

Cynthia Gail Boyd.

I'm still alive in this dangerous-ass city. Miss Mayor, you kind of surprised me today that you didn't honor the legacy of Bishop Dwight Williams. He's always been the go-to pastor for the city council. He shall be missed. May he rest in peace and rise in glory. A duty of care to the residents of Stockton, California, is what we've been missing since January 2000, and what was it, 25? I'm not about cliches, nor making or creating political friendships, nor rivals. I'm about integrity, consistency, honor, dignity, morality, public trust, and most of all, Councilmember Vela Napudwa, accountability. I'm keeping my promise to uphold holding you all accountable as elected officials, in particular, Brando Vell in the Pudua. I've diligently, tirelessly kept him informed about District 5 concerns, numerous pictures, numerous videos over the past three years. Cannot be denied, I got the receipts. Much of these same concerns have gone unresolved to this very moment, even though you gave me your promise. Circumstances have worsened, in fact. Your silence has not been golden at all. It's like a festering sore and it stinks. An abundance of caution is what you should be under. You have joined Team A, that's from the mayor to the left of her, of the council, and perhaps you now operated under misguided confidence that you are still indebted to be the people's leader. Not taking it personal when a person like myself puts you in check because you asked me to. Your lack of due diligence is obvious. Now, this picture. was sent to me via text message by Councilmember Vela Napudwa about a week ago. It says, there, but we not plan. It's a picture of myself standing near Jason Lee. You could have got one right up front. IT SHOWS ME A DISTRICT SIX'S NATIONAL NIGHT OUT, WHICH WAS A VERY SAFE PLACE TO BE. IT WAS STANDING NEAR THE VICE MAYOR, NOT EVEN TALKING TO HIM. NOW, LISTEN, HERE IS STILL A FREE COUNTRY, AND I'LL GO WHERE I WANT TO. I'LL MOVE AS I CHOOSE. IT'S BETTER TO BE THOUGHT STUPID THAN TO OPEN YOUR MOUTH AND RELIEVE ALL DOUBT.

MARY ELIZABETH?

Mary Elizabeth.

I'd like to, I provided two handouts to you all that I'll be discussing today. So first I'm going to start from this, which is a summary of a planning event that went over several years called Shape Stockton, and it involves some downtown neighborhoods. Grocery stores or neighborhood markets, especially community centers, retail stores, and special services are desired downtown. Participants also mentioned the need for bike lanes, bus shelters, improved sidewalks, streetlights, and new crosswalks. Neighborhood safety and appearance were important in both areas. Community members had ideas for more activities for youth code enforcement cameras on traffic lights and outreach and social services for unhoused people. Those were comments that were made. People invested their time. How come that's not included? I'd like to present this map. This map is current tobacco retailers that are in the downtown area. You'll see that it's very concentrated. And some of these are still not permitted under an ordinance from 2023. I'll provide this copy for you of gaps. Smoking lounges cannot have alcohol or food sales. Thrive Downtown had a big showing on the 5th of August, and I was privileged to be there because I have a flexible work schedule, but many people were not. What about the people that work downtown? Where can they weigh in? This is a letter that I sent to you all back in June regarding an area in northern Stockton, north and south of Hammer Lane along Kelly Drive, where we have some intense crime. And there's a requirement for a neighborhood sustainability plan. What's going on with that? I provided also a copy of the Youth Voice Survey, which I'm grateful that OPV has posted on their website. What are some numbers? We have here associated with that list of community organizations that are involved in youth prevention violence. Why are not all of those events posted on the city calendar? Thank you.

Christina?

Good afternoon, Mayor and the rest of City Council. On behalf of the Greater Stockton Chamber of Commerce, I would like to personally invite our elected officials, business leaders, community partners, and residents to join us on Thursday, September 3rd at 8.30 a.m. at JSG Trucking in Acampo for a special START trailer unveiling community workshop and celebration of the two-year anniversary of the START app. Over the past two years, START has grown from an innovative approach to combating retail theft into an award-winning community engagement, economic development, and public safety initiative built around a simple but wonderful principle, businesses and residents taking ownership of their community and becoming part of the solution. During the event, we will unveil the newly branded START trailer and provide information on the START program, including free security camera grants for eligible businesses and free merchant accounts that help businesses receive and utilize incident information received through the START app. Our workshop will also focus on two important areas of community education. Dr. Troy Stein, Executive Director of Stop Human Trafficking, a Manteca-based nonprofit organization, will provide a presentation on human exploitation, including recognizing potential warning signs and understanding how an informed community can help protect vulnerable individuals. We will also hear from Lawrence Borgens, President of Delta Protective Services, who will present on how to be a good witness. His presentation will provide practical guidance on how residents, employees, and business owners can safely observe an incident, identify important details, document what they see, and provide useful information without unnecessarily placing themselves in harm's way. These presentations reinforce an important part of the START model, education and empowerment. A community force multiplier is most effective when people understand what to look for, how to respond safely, and how the information they provide can assist businesses, law enforcement, and community organizations. For two years, START has demonstrated what can happen when the private sector, residents, law enforcement, local government, and nonprofits work together. We invite you to celebrate the milestones with us and learn about the next phase of START. We will also have available our two-year proof of concept report for review. Please join us Thursday, September 3rd at 8.30 a.m. at JSG Trucking in Acampo for the Start Truck Unveiling Community Workshop and Two-Year Anniversary Celebration. The community is watching and we are the force multiplier. It's time to start. Thank you.

Jose Landerati. Is there a Jose Lander right here? No? Okay.

Was it him? No.

Marcus, go ahead and come on up and speak. So Mayor, it didn't register him, but there's a one in here unknown that must have been him.

Yeah, no, I absolutely 100% registered by the time, the deadline, and I gave my name, so that's why I didn't say anything earlier. That's fine, go ahead. Confused me. Is that really supposed to be started? I haven't even begun. It starts the minute you speak. Pretty disrespectful. Given that there was a technicality, you guys do that regularly? Wow. I just wanted to echo the sentiments expressed earlier, the concerns against data centers. We all are pretty familiar with the reasons, but I want to add my voice to that, as well as to the concerns about ALPR cameras, specifically Flock, and there's others. And that ties into what I am actually particularly here to talk about today. Because one of the people who get information that shouldn't have it is ICE. And there's plenty of documented cases, so I'm not going to spend time on that. But I am here because I'm concerned about all the different ways that the Department of Homeland Security is just ignoring the law. And then specifically, I'm concerned about the presence at the courthouse. And I do understand I don't claim to be that well-versed. But I do understand that the law allows for exceptions, and it looks very much to me like they're using – in every case, they're using every excuse they can get to just put their filthy, greasy hands on innocent victims. We have something in the United States of America that I've heard about my entire life called due process. Raise your hand if you've heard of due process. It's kind of becoming obsolete. We have cases of defendants who have not yet been convicted of anything being snagged by ICE. So what that is is a fear tactic. They don't give a damn about the law because they are empowered to. by a fascistic White House with absolutely no regard whatsoever for democracy or for the people of the United States. I wanted to specifically urge you guys to make it your business. I get that it's the county, I get that it's the state. I get that it's federal. I'll be frank with you. I don't buy it anymore when I hear local politicians use that excuse for not engaging. You guys can reach out, take initiative to speak with the county, to speak with the officials and the judges at the courthouse. Please make sure. that access is open nobody should go to face a trial that has not completely been completed if they haven't been convicted worrying about whether they will be abducted that day um justice for rocco robinson justice for shane sutherland justice for antoine breese justice for every single uh of the many many victims of the stockton police thank you thank you thank you so uh next up i think we have a phone call

Yes, we have.

Karen Winters. Excuse me.

Hello, Karen Winters. Good afternoon, City Council. My grievance is regarding the retaliatory nature of this administration. When Councilmember Lee was being accused of mistreating staff, Mayor, you created a committee to investigate those accusations, and rightfully so. But you have two people, Councilmember Padilla, and Councilmember Ponce, who have been at the center of every executive resignation since you came into office, and you have yet to investigate them. And it's not just frustrating because it is a total manipulation of power by creating special meetings for disciplinary action towards city staff, but it's also led to a high turnover rate. Four city managers, four city attorneys, two city clerks, and only 20 months in office. Plus, we had to pay $350,000 for Harry Black's severance pay, and over $150,000 to Lori Asuncion for her severance pay, and an additional $33,000 to the Lathrop City Manager for him to assist our city after you realized Steve Colangelo didn't know what he was doing. That is over half a million dollars, half a million, that y'all are squandering that should go to substations and replacing our levees, which many speculate could cause our city to go underwater, including my daughter's school. Instead, it's going towards cleaning up your messes, so that y'all can avoid accountability when you don't follow the rules of charter. And by the way, Stockton, there are data centers in Stockton. We have one that is specifically on the Delta, and our city government, including the police, have a contract with them to use those data centers for backup data. Thank you so much.

This concludes public comment.

Okay, so now we will be moving to the consent agenda. Before we have a public comment on the items, are there any items that council would like to pull? I have a 6.3 and 6.11 already pulled.

I have the same, 6.3 and 6.11.

Anybody else? Okay, then we will go to a public comment.

Yes, we have three public comments. First one up is for Yolanda Amen. 6.1.

Whenever you post, I'll wait.

Whenever you post your agenda, I go through every single item on there. I research every single item on the agenda to see how it affects my district first most and the city of Stockton. This proposed three-year contract, once again, why are we bypassing competitive bidding? And why aren't we giving Stockton businesses an opportunity to compete for this contract? We are talking about nearly half a million dollars in taxpayer money over three years. Before you approve this kind of spending, this council should be asking, can a local Stockton company provide these same services for less? These are local businesses that provide copier leasing, maintenance, and so on. So why wouldn't we put this contract out for competitive bidding, specifically make sure qualified local businesses know about the opportunity? I'm not saying that this company shouldn't receive the contract. I'm saying they should compete for it. If they provide the best price and the best service, then let them prove it. But if Stockton Company can provide the same or better services at a competitive price, shouldn't Stockton taxpayers keep some of those dollars right here in our community? We constantly talk about supporting local businesses. This is one of those opportunities to do exactly that. I also want to know how much the city already spent under this contract and its previous amendments, and whether staff compared the current pricing with what other qualified vendors, including Stockton businesses, could offer. So my request is simple. Do not bypass competitive bidding on this contract. Put it out for fair and transparent competitive process. Give qualified Stockton businesses an opportunity to bid. give other qualified vendors an opportunity to bid, and then bring the best value back to the city council for approval. This isn't about picking one company over another. It's about making sure Stockton taxpayers get the best price, Stockton businesses get a fair opportunity, and our procurement process remains transparent and competitive.

For item 6.3, we have Zoila Moreno.

Good afternoon. Let me show you this picture. Maria, you know who that is. When people need, and I know my journey forward, I should be talking with you, but the following text, it applies to the great teamwork that we have. Today, at 1.51 p.m., I received this message from a veteran. They said, Hi, Soyla. National Night Out was fun. Is your Western Ranch safety meeting tonight? First of all, this is what I'm talking about. The community in Western Ranch District 6 is being misled. Because as far as I know, the only meetings that we have that has to do with safety is from the police department. Now they change. They are misleading people. I say, hey, we have a safety meeting tonight. And obviously, I don't know, because the people The reason that I'm being attacked is because they need me, but they already had the chance. And now let me leave this to you. I don't know if there is a safety community meeting, because our next safety community meeting with the police is in September, because we have it every quarter. Now let me get to the point. For the 25 years that I have lived in Western Ranch, First time ever that a city manager has come to my street and you know in the community of Weston Ranch is 100% behind you and behind our city mayor and also for the six six city leaders that chose to abide and follow the rule during national let out, come with me because I am an ambassador and I am a servant and I'm here to work with you because you know, city manager, you have a great, dedicated city council over here, except by one. and I'm supporting you, sir, you pass probation.

Okay, excuse me, excuse me. So please offer a little grace to our, you know, the person that is helping from the city clerk's office. It was not realized that it should be waited until that item would be called. So... Okay, so the next one, 6.7. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. So next up for 6.7 is Mary Elizabeth.

Good afternoon. Mine also has to do with safety. You know, I think that we definitely have some safety issues. And this safety that I'm talking about is now the Arch Road Highway 99 interchange. There's a vacation Going to PG&E so PG&E is going to be doing some work there I want the city to take the lead and make sure that any work that is done on that intersection That there is lots of safety safety SIGNS, ALERTS, THANK YOU, YOU KNOW, FOR PEOPLE TO BE ABLE TO MANEUVER THERE. AND, YOU KNOW, I GIVE THANKS FOR TWO OF YOU THAT VOTED AGAINST ALLOWING AN STAA TO CROSS TWO LANES RIGHT THERE AT THAT INTERCHANGE TO HEAD NORTH ON HIGHWAY 99. AND IT'S A VERY DANGEROUS INTERCHANGE. could warrant actually even a safety review once those increased traffics when the county gets their warehousing along 99 there installed. Because we've got some really serious accidents that are happening with these big rigs that are going around our community. And I don't see any enforcement inside of the city. for those big rigs. Thank you.

There are no more comments for consent items.

Motion to approve the remainder of the consent items. Second.

Okay. So I have a motion from Councilwoman Padilla and a second from Vice Mayor Lee to approve the rest of the consent calendar. Roll call vote.

Council Member Padilla? Yes. Council Member Ponce? Yes. Council Member Blower? Yes. Council Member Enriquez? He stepped out. Council Member Villalpadua? Yes. Vice Mayor Lee? Yes. Mayor Fugazi?

Yes. Okay, thank you. Yeah, motion carries 6-0 with the absence of Councilmember Enriquez. So we're moving on now to item 6.3. This is, let me go ahead and read it aloud. Adoption of a resolution approving city manager Johnny R. Ford first amend employment agreement. And I will turn it over to our city attorney.

Thank you, Mayor. Under Government Code Section 54953, Subdivision C, Sub 3, an oral summary of a recommendation for final action to a local agency's executive compensation must be made prior to taking final action. The motion before the Council is to amend the City Manager's employment agreement and adjust the annual salary to $390,277, increase an employer payment to 100% of the employee's medical dental vision insurance, increase the auto allowance from $500 to $750, increased employer contribution from 9% to 18% of employees' base salary into a 401a deferred compensation retirement plan, accrual rate of vacation for 12 hours per pay period, and a credit of 120 hours of management leave annually, an increased severance from 9 months to 12 months. All other terms and conditions of the employment agreement would remain unchanged.

Are there any comments from council? I did have a comment. Yes councilman Padilla.

Thank you mayor So in this short time that city manager Ford has been here I have seen a major change within our city You know what really stands out is how he treats people and how he treats his employees and that really matters and He values his employees, he listens, and most importantly, he's earned their respect. So he is truly a positive addition to Stockton, and I fully support his continued leadership, and I am thankful that he is here in Stockton leading our city. So I appreciate you.

Any other comments from council? Otherwise, I'll entertain a motion.

Move to approve. Second.

We have a motion from Council Member Blauer and a second from Council Member Padilla. Roll call vote.

Council Member Padilla? Yes. Council Member Ponte?

Step down.

Step down.

Council Member Blauer? Yes. Council Member Enriquez? Yes. Council Member Villalpidua? Yes. Vice Mayor Lee? Yes. Mayor Fugazi? Yes.

yes motion carries a six zero with councilwoman palm safe absent okay moving on to item uh 6.11 um i see penny making his way and rosa making their way up here i will defer to uh councilman fedia first if you would like to go ahead and speak on this item

Sure, just a couple of questions. So we received $8.4 million under this SB1 funding for this fiscal year. Is there any other remaining balance? No, let me rephrase that. Have we spent any other funds to date with that grant? Or is this the first allocation of that grant?

For this fiscal year, we have spent some of those funds in terms of some of the pavement projects that we have done. So for the budget for the fiscal year, I believe this year was a little bit over close to $9 million.

Okay, so we've depleted the grant then. Is that what you're saying? What you said?

It's not a grant.

I understand. It's not a grant. It's the funding that we usually get yearly. Okay.

So we're allocating $198,000 for resurfacing. Correct. Out of that money, we've used all of it yet? Is that my question?

So some of it is not just for paving. So the way the program works is there's pavement repairs There's cape seal, there's crack sealing, there's slurry sealing, there's restriping. All of that $8.4 million goes towards all that, those projects. Okay. So from there, we've already come to council with the city restriping. So we have a contract for that one. We're going to be coming back to council to do the cape seal. Okay, thank you that's what I was looking for I appreciate that so Rosa don't go too far I have a number of questions

Knowing that those three items were on this agenda. You know what people really are asking for is complete resurfacing They don't want little patches, you know, you know potholes being filled great. We did 25,400 amazing Thank you to the staff But a little bit of water gets under there or if it's not the perfect conditions it crumbles and it opens right back up And then looking at this list for 611. This is the one that's particularly important because I want to know how first of all how many miles of roadway do we have in the city of Stockton 786 miles of roadway how many miles are we resurfacing with six point eleven

26. CHRISTINA PAXSON- 26.

CHRISTINA PAXSON- How much? 26. CHRISTINA PAXSON- 26 miles out of 700, almost 800 miles.

OK. And just to kind of clarify, this payment repairs is not resurfacing, it's just segments that we will be repairing segments of these streets. It's not the entire roadway.

I'm trying to get to a point though. So people, infrastructure is one of our priorities. We know that we get SB1 funds. SB1 funds is a direct allocation from the state. It's part of the gas tax. Is there any way for us to get next year's and the year after that, potentially that funding, so we can do more street resurfacing. How long does a street resurfacing last? versus slurry seal or mill and overlay or CAPE seal project or?

It just depends on the work that's being done. Right now, the average PCI, the pavement condition index for the streets for the city of Stockton is 57.

Because I think you said to me once, Penny, that it costs $5 million to do three miles.

We did. Yeah, we were asked what we would do with $5 million. We did an exercise, and it was very little that we could do with $5 million.

And that's contiguous, three miles contiguous.

Correct.

OK. So is there a possibility for us to ask for advanced years so we could do more? instead of doing a little piece here, a little piece there. Has anybody asked if that is a possibility?

Mayor, I will step in and answer that. Yes, it is. And we have already began to have those discussions amongst staff and our CFO is over there. And if you give us 45 days, 45 to 60 days, we will come back with the plan on a action plan on not only how many more miles can we add, possible funding sources, next steps, and even try to take it five years out. think you need to change number days tell me now before I commit to 45 to 60 days but we will come back with the plan for you and for this council to look at it and give us some sense of directions on how we will go about to get a hell of a whole lot more miles done

Yes. And I would say that was one of our council priorities. And I don't remember in recent years when infrastructure has ever been a priority. And then I would say the other thing potentially, could we look at maybe an infrastructure bond? Is that a possibility?

Yes, it is.

okay okay oh Council member Enriquez thank you mayor uh Penny just a quick point of clarification um I'm particularly looking at the street list and I just want to double check out of the four in District 4 there is row 20 and 21. I'm looking at the star in the end roads is that just the intersections themselves for 20 and 21. and I'm sure there are others that are similar but I'm just looking at my district Pacific Avenue starts at Knowles, ends at Pacific, and then starts at Rose, ends and begins at Rose and Yosemite Street. Or that's just that intersection piece for those two? I know you don't have a map on you, but.

So this one is pavement repairs. So the pavement repair itself is between that segment of roadway. So it doesn't mean it's from intersection to intersection. It's just the pavement repair. So if you drive on it and you see an indent or anything that looks like it's starting to fail, The surface is failing. That's where we'll go measure it. It could be a 20 by 20. It could be a 30 by 30. It's the little squares that you see all over the city.

And I just wanted to, and I ask that for a reason because I know there are others that are a bit more extended. So then that way in case folks ask in particular for that, they'll know that just that intersection versus maybe an extra road compared to others on the list. So I appreciate it.

Vice Mayor.

thank you Mary thank you both of you for the presentation quick question so like obviously I represent the district that has the most infrastructure challenges in the city oldest part of Stockton why is it that I don't see more areas identified in my district that may need the attention

So for for this listing there's 5 streets in district 6 this list was generated on the request that came through as stopped and so and then it's it's prioritized based on when it was received.

When was the request from a stock in makers, I know people put things in a stock in all the time.

Yeah, we'll we'll have to check when when this we see them.

Well, I mean, before I vote to approve this list today, I want to know what was the duration that staff looked at submission. So was this in the last 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, 120 days a year, two years?

Do we know that?

And while you walk up here, the reason why I asked the question is because I didn't see an email that went to council to say promote to your districts. I want them to catch this, I know they're trying to meet. I didn't see an email go out to council to say, hey, please promote to your districts, you know, we're going to do a survey of streets that need to be repaired, but I know how many streets need to, you know, just by driving around my district that need repairing. I want to make sure that we're all given the opportunity to get that information out. I mean, obviously we want to approve this tonight, probably could come back if we need to look at it longer or if somebody can give me that understanding how long we look at Surveying the districts to see or what was that process to determine this list?

We can we can certainly get you that information. Mr. Vice mayor.

Okay, so nobody knows that today not right up So the way it works too is these are also part of our work orders so they're backlogs Maybe I'm asking the wrong questions.

It is it's been a while since we've been at council so we're gonna be asked to approve a list of streets to be repaired under this item and And this item list came from a process that we promote to the city called Ask Stockton. But we don't know how long that process of evaluating the needs of the whole city as it pertains to this repair. We don't know how that process came about or how long we looked at that process. Because I know Penny did a great job of driving throughout the entire district with my commissioners looking at everything. And I know our list is huge. of stuff that needs to be repaired. So I'm just interested in understanding how we got this list.

So this list comes from our ask doctrines, our work orders, just anybody that sees it reports it. And this is just to alleviate some of the work that our own staff, our own crew goes out there and does payment repairs. So in order to help them with some of the workload, we put together a list based on the necessity and the priorities. So based on where they are on that backlog list, this is the list that came from that.

And I know council has asked in the past, I don't remember if it was Padilla, myself, or the mayor, we asked in the past about a tracking system or a system for council to be able to look at at a glance by district or a master list of all the requests that are out there. I don't know if we have that level of intelligence as a city today, which we should. Maybe the city manager can update us on that. But I guess my question is, is there a way for the preservation of peace among our community that we can get that information today before we decide? Because I know that people are going to be texting, emailing all over Facebook, what about District 6? What about District 6? And I want to be able to say, hey, we went through this comprehensive process. This is what we did, and this is what we have, and this is what we're starting with versus this is what we were given, and I don't have any other answers.

And we do we do as part of our internal process we have spreadsheets and that's why I'm checking with 10 to see if he could pull up that spreadsheet to see when these requests came in you know so.

And so is this this is not the exhaustive list that I think the mayor went through all the shoes we have this is not an exhaustive list of everything that's come in. So then my question is how do we select these

streets to start with out of everything that has come in based on their pci the payment management system that we have so say for example if that segment of street is that a 30 it needs repair versus a 70. So the worst.

What is it what is it that gave the Council for what is it 30 versus 70.

So depending on the payment management system that the city has we have a program where we evaluate the streets of the city. So based on that, it puts a certain number associated with that street segment. So it can range from zero to 50, I think you have it, right? And that's in that and that is based on what cost Damage or their type of repair that we need to do the streets Okay, so we have gone through the whole payment management system report where we just finished doing one in July of 2025 so it spits out all the information for all the streets in the city and it prioritizes them for us and It associates a PCI ratio of how bad the roadway is.

So maybe what may be helpful if we approve this list tonight, which I'm assuming we are, is if we can get a more comprehensive list, a presentation to council on how we rate, how we do the work, and then a list of what's outstanding so people will know that.

Music to my ears. I love music. As I said earlier, give us 45 to 60 days. We will come back with an overall plan And probably we'll even ask you if you can set up a study session just on streets, repair levels. As Rosa mentioned, we have a payment management study that grades every street in our city. And we'll take you through that whole process, give you an update, and begin to put a plan together as we were talking about trying to accomplish and pave a whole lot more streets than what we're trying to do today. Because this is all just catch up, worse streets, complaints, and right on down the line. We want to do an extensive program that looks four or five years out so that you can even talk with your district. And we will be, after that work study, be more than happy to go to each one of the districts and bring everybody up to date on that payment management study.

You know, I think a study session would be great. I would add traffic calming to that. And I think all of us talking about infrastructure taxes at some point for a future item, we should consider that. But I do think that that's important. Now, I know we say 45, 60 days, and then somehow when we say it here, it gets forgotten, and then 90 days later, we add a topic.

Well, let me say this. I drive the streets 45, 60 days.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

And just one more point. When we repair something and then it starts to wear down again, I mean, are we looking at what's causing our roads to have undulations as you go? I know Miracle Mile has tons of undulations. OK, you know what I'm saying. Like a roller coaster. There. Pershing. Another one. We have them. So let us know what's causing that. And if it's something that is within the control of the city to reduce that, I think we need to be looking at that because we're just going to keep coming back. Or you guys are just going to keep coming back, hat in hand. So we do have a public comment. I want to make sure we get to that.

Yes, Cynthia Gale-Boyd.

I just have a couple of things like what the mayor just said about that undulation. That's a new word that I'm going to be looking at. There's a lot of that undulation going on over there by the police department. When you come off of the Crosstown Freeway, for instance, and El Dorado is right there, the police station is right there. I don't know how many people have gone through that big old hole, and it just keeps on undulating. even when it's dry. There's another part that's right there. And I don't know who owns it, if it's privately owned, where the Valley Strong Credit Union is. And then there's some other little something over there. Maybe people know what I'm talking about. It's the worst case scenario of undulation. can't even drive through that parking lot so i asked someone they said no it belongs to the city of stockton even though it's right between public buildings oh my goodness it could tear up an axle so i don't know through a stockton and this and that who gets the priority i'm on this number because it says city wide not just district five right well I wonder what priority District 5 will get in repairing these holes and these streets and whatnot. One of my complaints to Ask Stockton goes back a couple of years ago, and Ms. Mayor, you'll probably remember, about the diamond that's in the middle of Main, Lafayette, and whatever the other street is. It makes a triangle. It's not Market. It's Main, Lafayette, and I should know the street because it's on my corner. But it's across from the car wash. It's by East Main Drive then. Well, no, but we'll go with that. You know where the Diamond is. It's directly across from there at either rate, right? And it's not C Street. It's Laurel. All right, let's go with some of that. At either rate, you know what I'm talking about. It's across from East Main Drive-In. The little buggy wash is right there. And my pet peeve has been about the 18 wheels being able to park there and the neighbors being able to park. And then once the police come, they say, oh, that's my cousin from San Jose. He didn't know no better. So the city said the police cannot enforce that diamond parking there, which needs repair. Because there's no paint. So I'm going to ask again, when you get the money to repair the streets and all that kind of stuff, are you going to buy some paint as well? And let's keep them two tires off the sidewalk because they don't seem to be in your repair plan. Two tires on the sidewalk. Keep them off.

Okay, thank you will bring it back to Council.

Entertaining a motion motion to approve second.

We have a motion from Councilman Enriquez and a second tie between on say and blower a roll call vote.

Council member. Yes, yes. Council member flower, yes, that's memory is yes, that's a member of the yes, I certainly yes, there was yes.

Motion carries 6, 0 with Councilwoman. Administrative matters item 7 on the agenda. Vice mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. I'll save all of my future agenda items for later during council comments, but one, based on the public comment I heard about flock cameras, obviously there's a lot of concern from the community around flock cameras. I will say I do know about the national conversation about flock cameras, but given our city, I am a supporter of flock cameras, but very much interested in opening, open to hearing from our community around their concerns. I know that when we passed the conversation, Mayor, about flock cameras. We talked about the caveat of protections and ownership over data and all that. And so I don't know what was put into the final agreement. But I would ask this council to entertain a special meeting and whatever that meeting is called around public safety in general to include flock cameras, recent homicides, all the things so the public can come out and be heard. with our department, but obviously I think that takes four council members, right?

No, I agree. Maybe it can be a study session and we can throw in the roads, you know, talking about our street repairs, but I don't have an issue with that.

Okay. Do you need four of us to say that?

I just said okay.

Oh, you're good. Okay, good. Thank you.

anyone else okay um there is no unfinished business we are moving on to hearings 9.1 public hearing to consider authorizing city participation in the california municipal finance authority bond opportunities for land development program i declare the public hearing open hello

Good afternoon. I'm here for item 9.1, public hearing for consideration authorizing the city's participation in the California Municipal Financing Authority Bond Opportunities for Land Development Program. Along with me today is Ralph Holmes of Piper Sounder, who will be doing the presentation.

Thank you. Next slide, please. So I'll keep this presentation short. You've got a long agenda. The California Municipal Finance Authority has the Bond Opportunity for Land Development program. The intent of the program is to help fund infrastructure costs for new development. Is that better? Much better. Thank you. Sorry. Okay. So the purpose of the program is to provide for funding for new development, and it is an outsourcing of the formation and issuance of bonds for new development. That's great. So what this program does is allows for the funding of different infrastructure. We've got it listed here. Streets, curves, gutters, sidewalk, all sorts of infrastructure has to have a life of five years or more. It has to be publicly owned. So the BOLD program allows for the formation of CFDs. So the California Municipal Finance Authority, CMFA, actually forms a CFD on behalf of the city. And so it's an outsourcing. And so these are the steps that you go through. If you were to join the program, a CMFA would go through the process of forming these CFDs. So you don't have to. We'd follow all your policies, we'd want to do everything the way the city wants it done, but CMFA actually forms it. The formation process takes about three months, so it's very efficient. The program requires that minimum funding size is $500,000. When we issue bonds, you have to have all entitlements in place, four to one value to lien, standard community facilities district financing stuff. The formation process, again, is about a three-month process. We receive applications. We reach out to the city. We get sign-off from the city to proceed. And it requires two meetings by the CMFA board. The issuance process is separate or apart from the formation process. For the issuance of bonds, we take the districts, we actually pool them, so we'll have multiple districts, and that causes efficiencies for each of the districts. The process is also about a three-month process. Typically, it's on top of the initial formation process. Very straightforward. So I'm gonna summarize this quickly. I tried to keep this short, not three minutes, but pretty short. The program's been in effect for about eight years. We have over 80 members, 80 cities, special districts, whatnot. We've formed over 120 CFDs. We've issued over $700 million in bonds. It's been a great program. This year we'll issue 10 different financings. So, again, I try to keep it brief, given your agenda. If you have questions, I'd love to answer them.

And if I could step in, Gilbert Garcia, CFO. Really, the point of the program is to help smaller developers finance infrastructure, undulation-free, brand-new infrastructure. And so typically with a larger development, if we were issuing a bond for $10, $20 million, we just go out to the market as usual for those CFDs. This allows smaller developers to participate by participating in this pooled program. So that's really the benefit to the city and to development.

Are there any questions from council on this item? Okay, any from the public?

Yes, we have one. Mary Elizabeth?

Good afternoon again. Thank you for having this as an agenda item. Land development and developers have a difficult relationship with many members of the public because historically they have had the seat at the table. And so when they decide they want something, then they get something. So all in all, you know, I think it was within the last six months or so, you know, came again on the economic advantages that they get. And over $65 million, you know, we've lost in infrastructure. that we could have used to pay for capital improvements to offset the impact that new development has had on the residents of Stockton. We continue to move out from our core, increasing the number of miles that our police and our fire have to take care of, instead of focusing what the city pledged in the 2018 in a downtown infill. And yeah, no, the developers don't, you know, want to do that, so that's okay, right? No, it's not okay. And so when the city allows for these kickbacks that happen outside of the core area of Stockton, we're leaving behind our cultural and our spiritual roots that we have in downtown. small developers, I think definitely to help, but this needs to only be for inside of our existing city. We've got developers that say, oh, we don't want to develop now. And they get another one-year extension on their approvals because it's not market-ready. And they want to maximize the profits. So we've got entitlements for housing developments all over. but not inclusive housing, where we have mixed income living together. And that's what old Stockton used to be. You know, you go into neighborhoods, you've got little houses, and you've got big houses, but no more. Thank you.

I do have a question. I saw where it said $500,000 on there. You said that's the minimum? OK. And this is within the existing sphere of influence?

Yes. Yes. It would fund city improvements ..

OK. And those people that already have development agreements, they already have something like this in place, they would not be qualified then to access these funds if they already have a development agreement with the CFD? That's up to the city.

So okay, so if I may, okay. So as applications flow through the bold program, the city will then review each application to determine whether or not we want to keep the CFD in house or will air if we will allow the bold program to take ownership of that CFD.

OK, and what are the advantages of keeping it in-house?

We have control of the bond issuances and the infrastructures and what we will allow to be financed.

OK, because if the developer has it, the developer can do what they want.

Not necessarily there's still guidelines.

Okay, so the developer would still have to fulfill the conditions of the city like the The infrastructure would still have to meet all of the city standards again. It just when we have The CFDs like we're bringing a council you know there is more of a back and forth with the developer in terms of what the capacity is for the CFD limits and so with this program again the debt itself doesn't flow through the city so again but these typically are much smaller ones too so the impact is would also be proportionally less typically thank you any other questions maybe from council that's all the public comment correct okay i declare the public hearing closed and bring it back to council

Motion to approve.

Okay, we have a motion to approve.

Second.

We have a second. Vice Mayor and Councilman Blower, roll call vote.

Council Member Padilla? Yes. Council Member Ponce? Yes. Council Member Blower? Yes. Council Member Enriquez? Yes. Council Member Villalpadilla? Yes. Vice Mayor Lee? Yes. Mayor Fugazi?

Yes. Motion carries 7-0. OK, it's 322. So if we could take a quick break and be back by 340. Is that enough time? OK, so we'll be back at 340. As promised, 340. And we are back in session. The next item, 10.1, reconsideration of the resolution appointing a position in the office of the mayor. Since I am the mayor, I will be recusing myself. And I will be passing the gavel down to the vice mayor. And I will step out. And somebody let me know when it's all done.

Mayor, as this is a discussion item as well, after receiving guidance from our city attorney, I find that myself, too, will recuse due to a personal matter and out of an abundance of caution.

Mayor, I would like to also mention that I will be recusing myself as well for item 10.1.

I guess I have a question before we get started for our city attorney. With respect to recusals, I know that typically when there's a recusal for financial reasons or for reasons that are personal under the FPPC guidelines, we state why we're recusing. Is that not required?

I believe that the council members all stated a common law conflict of interest due to a personal matter, but that's what they're required to announce is what the basis for their recusal is.

Okay. All right. Thank you. So noted. All right. Well, first, let me thank the mayor, the city manager, city attorney, and the council for entertaining this item item 10.1 first i want to introduce our is it interim or acting it's interim interim city attorney donald larkin um donald if you can just before we get started just briefly introduce yourself and then if you can set the stage for this discussion item i appreciate that

Sure. My name's Donald Larkin. I'm an attorney at the law firm of Burke Williams and Sorensen, and I'm here keeping the chair warm until the council appoints a new permanent city attorney. I think, Vice Mayor, you wanted me to kind of give an introduction to the parameters of this item. Yes, please. So under the council's policy manual, two council members are allowed to agendize an item for discussion or action. That's what happened here. Vice Mayor Lee, seconded by Council Member Enriquez, moved to put this item on the agenda for the meeting today. But there is some limits on what the council's authority is in this area because under the charter section 1153 the mayoral position that said issue is appointed by the mayor and serves at the pleasure of the mayor once the council took action to affirm that appointment it was it was done and there was no there's no at that point no opportunity to unring that Bell so so Council is free to put this on the agenda, have some limited discussions on the resolution itself, but ultimately can't undo the approval that was given. To the extent that the council's discussion is going to involve personnel matters, I strongly recommend that those matters be discussed in closed session only.

Thank you. And as I mentioned to you privately, I appreciate your advice and we'll take it under consideration, but still do the work of the city as I feel fit. All right. Before we do that, we'll go ahead and entertain public comments. So city clerk, if we have public comments. Yes. First, we have Zoila Moreno.

So we'll move along to Yolanda Amon.

I want to talk about the role of PIO and what that position is supposed to represent. Jason Teramoto was appointed as the mayor's PIO, what, for about $106K a year? funded by the city. The job is to communicate information from the mayor's office to the public and the media, to inform the community, share city events and activities, and help convey the mayor's office work. In my opinion, it is not the job of the PIO to police the public or attack residents who disagree. When residents go onto the mayor's page, and question decisions, disagreement with an opinion, or simply express criticism. They shouldn't be met with disrespect or personal attacks from the city employee acting on the mayor's behalf. I have personally been reprimanded as well by him, and I have seen others from Mr. Teramato that I believe crossed the line. Those comments were later deleted, obviously. But deleting a comment does not erase the fact that the people saw it, experienced it, and were affected by it. Once something is said publicly, especially by someone representing the mayor's office, it can damage public trust. And that is where I have a serious problem. If a city employee is responding to residents on the behalf of the mayor, belittling them and disrespecting them with the mayor, then the public has every reason to believe that those words reflect the mayor's office. If those words do not represent the mayor, then I believe she should say so, clearly, with an apology, or just say, that's not what I said. Where is the clarification that this is not how the mayor's office expects residents to be treated? I have not seen that. You cannot tell residents that their voices matter and then have somebody represent the mayor's office attack them when they use their voices. People do not have to agree with the mayor. They do not have to praise the mayor. And they should never feel afraid to question or criticize any elected official because they might be personally attacked by someone being paid with our tax dollars. This isn't whether someone likes this man or not. It is about professionalism. It's about accountability. And it is about understanding the difference between communicating with the public and fighting with the public. Stockton residents deserve better. So if this council, or who's ever left here, we got the ones that left that obviously has something on, if this council will reconsider his appointment. I believe his treatment of the very residents he is supposed to communicate with obviously needs to be part of the conversation. And I was going to ask the six of you to please do your part in making sure that this man stops and you put somebody in that position that truly is going to communicate and knows their job description. Thank you.

Mary Elizabeth.

I haven't personally experienced any of the controversy, but I have seen some of it. A public information officer. We need so much to have better communication in Stockton. And when we have a situation where we have some putting information out there that goes on the social media and then you're part of the whole social media where people act like they're anonymous and they say whatever, and that a public employee would respond in such a way. And I've experienced it in regard to another employee that you all were copied on when I pointed out the need to make a change in some information that was not correct. And so public information is so important. And I look at, I took a look at the website because the mayor has her own page there. But any of the press releases that you see like out there, you know, aren't listed there. And so we need to have, you know, someplace and somebody that's responsible and diligent and really caring about communicating with the people of Stockton to be doing that job because we need to have communication. And we can't just be relying on people having to spend hours going through all kinds of social media. If you're interested in what the mayor has to say, you go to the mayor's page, her official website on the city page. And look for it without having to scroll through a bunch of information. Some of it is repeated, you know, looking for something. And I just like to, you know, say a prayer for better communication and healing for our community. And whatever needs to be done to make that happen, I think that should be a priority. Thank you.

Cynthia Gale-Boyd.

I think there's been some very poor decision-making coming from over there on that side, starting back with Colangelo. Everybody knew that he didn't have the qualifications, but she was the one that recommended him bad leadership. PG&E versus that AVA electricity. I finally looked at the bill today, and you have to pay PG&E $17 just for them running the service or some nonsense like that. And then we're paying AVA a separate $40-something a month for the same PG&E. The mayor sits on that board. I was here the night that she said. that she sits on that board in San Francisco, and she made the decision. It was the mayor's selection to bring in the second electricity company. Bad decisions coming from that side of the dais. I don't understand it. Another bad decision, city attorney Arundanda Now, the mayor can uphold the fact that the woman say that she wants to go away to start another business so that her children can become attorneys. Did she have the same children before she got appointed? It makes no sense. If it don't make sense, it can't make dollars. Now, she heard, like we heard, this person that she has put in the PIO position come up here constantly degrading vice mayor jason lee in particular so we just turn a deaf ear to that like when the grand jury says stop messing around with that 209 person and then what happens we see her out in public dancing around with him pitches this big smile bad decisions coming from the mayor's seat over there okay too bad she ain't up for re-election uh-huh now listen here The last thing I'll talk about about our bad decision making is about that . Each person, as I said before, holds the same vote, the same weight other than her tie-breaking vote that holds million dollar, billion dollar contracts in their hands. People's lives are in their hands. So I don't care what another member of the public might say about her being the smartest, Ah, because she doesn't speak. Cut that nonsense out. Bad decisions coming from the seat of the mayor when she allows her to see no evil and speak none. The mayor is the one that ought to be brought into question about this bad decision-making pattern she got going on.

Ralph White.

One thing about it, y'all don't know what the hell y'all doing.

Number one, the mayor has three people that she appoints.

You guys sit up there and put them in when you put them in. It's the same problem that you have with your damn vice mayor. He's only vice mayor for two years. You can't get rid of him. She can't get rid of him for two years. You don't mess with her staff. That's number one. You can't mess with her staff. And it's stupid to even try it. And those of y'all that don't reach a charter, reach a charter. A lot of you be around talking to Johnny. Johnny got 1,500 people working up under him. You don't have no damn business talking to none of them without going through Johnny. Y'all be up calling them up, talking to them, trying to call the director of this, the director. You're not supposed to do that. Reach a charter. You're talking about some dumb asses. Reach a charter. It states you cannot talk to his employee. If you talk to, talk to Johnny. You got a problem? Tell Johnny you want something. Johnny will tell you to talk to him. He'll tell them to talk to him. But Johnny is the rest of them. Just let it roll on because Johnny is Johnny. He don't mind, but he need to put it in check. Put something out. Let every one of his employees know. If any one of you call him up, Talk to Johnny first, or let Johnny know that you want to talk to him. That's what you're supposed to do. Y'all dumb as, you don't know. If you don't know, you don't know. If you want to know, I got 16 and a half years on this council. Damn it, I can tell every one of you a whole lot about what you're supposed to do. You can't do nothing with your mayor's employees. Forget those three. If he's sending his guy or his woman over to talk to somebody, she can do it. That's who they work for. You can't hold them responsible. You hold the mayor responsible. If you don't like it, talk to the mayor. One of my employees, you damn sure wouldn't talk to him, unless you called me. And I would tell every one of my employees, now I gave you something. Read your charter. Don't call up Johnny's employees telling somebody in public work what you do or what you want done. Call Johnny and tell him you would like to talk to him. At least let him know. That's his employee. You hired him. Now you hold him responsible for everything. You can't hold them responsible. But you can hold Johnny if you tell Johnny. But if you don't, don't talk behind his back. He's the top dog in George. We have a name for that in our black neighborhood. I had one, too. So remember that. And the rest of you, the rest of you, don't talk to the mayor. There are three people that work for the mayor. She can tell them to kiss their ass.

Mark Stebbins.

All right, good evening. I have a previous concern before I'm even addressing this one. And that concern is that despite $100 million expenditure, you haven't provided a city hall with access for the public or with diminished access. So the diminished access, I had to walk two blocks to park to come here. No parking. I got here and you decided in your wisdom, somebody decided in their wisdom that I needed to know how to use a computer in order to talk to you. And then I'm here and as Vice Mayor Lee can tell you, the most important of any public situation is sound and vision. And you're sadly lacking in professional sound and sadly lacking in professional video. So anyway, I only wanted to say that this item is on the agenda because of a communication, I guess, from the city clerk. And that triggered, you know, this putting it on the agenda. And I just wanted to note that the election office of the city clerk is not governed by the charter nor by any action of the council whatsoever. that's governed by the election laws of the state of California. And should the city clerk feel that in any way her office disrespected or in some other way, then the proper appeal and move for that is through the Secretary of State or the Attorney General of the state of California.

Thank you. David Sainte.

Good afternoon, Vice Mayor Lee and members of the Stockton City Council. Regarding Agenda Item 10.1, at this point, I'm not even sure if we can have the authority to remove Mr. Terimoto, but I do want to invoke the question of when City Clerk Catherine Rowland requested an investigation into him and his conduct in her office. Vice Mayor Lee also rose those allegations publicly. He has denied them on record and called them meritless. And I'm curious to see if an investigation was to be had. I know we have many investigations, but I think investigations regarding election and interference with an election merit an opening of said investigation. Regarding this agenda item, the resolution that is brought forth to council today is reconsidering that under Measure O, a public information officer has to be one of the public funded positions in the mayor's office. And so moving forward, please explore the options that are within the legal permits of the city of Stockton. with Measure O, but also I am curious to see if there has been an investigation conducted for what City Clerk Catherine Rowland raised publicly. Her allegations are deeply concerning, especially in light of the November election up and coming. I would ask that council direct the city attorney to report publicly on whether this investigation exists and where it stands, or if there are plans to start said investigation. And also, if interim city attorney Larkin can provide a written memo on what reconsideration does and what Measure O requires. Moving forward, we should do our level best to follow the law while also holding others accountable. We should not get ourselves into a situation where we're trying to do the right thing but cannot do it or do it improperly as outlined by the Measure O that requires the mayor to have a public information officer. This is a very delicate matter. Allegations of election interference were invoked, but also requirements of Measure O must be upheld. There is a way forward, and I trust that you four will find that during your deliberations this afternoon. Please rely on Interim City Attorney Donna Larkin in the meantime to ensure that we are following the law while trying to uphold it. Thank you. Julie Lee.

So when the creation of this position came before the prior council in December of 2025, 2024, anyway, when it was first up for question before there was a measure, I spoke in opposition of it. And before I forget, I would like to acknowledge Councilmember Villalpudwa for remaining in the room. Curious what possible relationship to council members could have with the mayor's Pio that would cause them to need to recuse Themselves, but I guess that's a mystery for another day Having said that the reasons that I was opposed to this have come to fruition and it has to do with the divisiveness That it creates in the city. Why do you need to Pio's moving forward with the city's information and Now it was explained to me by the former mayor and a former council member that the mayor's office needed to be able to put out their own information on behalf of what they saw in the city. Well, since we're not a strong mayor city, it doesn't make sense to me. They are one of seven members on a council, and we should have one representative voice for our city, not more than one. But now that we have two, the information I find coming out of there is inaccurate. Just in the last week alone, there have been three press releases put out, not press releases, public notifications to the city that either lacked information or had inaccurate information. So how much are we paying a month for this person to do a job to put out accurate information? And on my last note, I too have witnessed the mayor's PIO going on to the mayor's web page when citizens have made comment to the mayor and having them respond to members of the public in a disrespectful manner. that is not the role and responsibility of a public information officer I was one for the state for several years that's overstepping your boundaries you've been given personal authority that you do not possess by virtue of the position you hold in no way should they be on speaking of responding to individual citizens on the mayor's website. So I know I respect the advice of council that we can't do anything about it, but we need to rein it back in at minimum. And that doesn't even speak to the allegations of the election problems on behalf of Catherine Rowland. In my experience in civil service, if somebody had made a complaint at that level, the accused party would be put on administrative leave until an investigation was concluded to protect the complaining party, not persecute them.

Pat Barrett.

I do want to say thank you for not getting up and leaving because at least we have quorum to make a decision on this or if there has to be a decision.

When I saw the other three leave, though, I'm going to tell you something.

For some reason, some clarity of peace came through my body. It was like, I didn't care if it was 4-0, I didn't care if it was 2-2, I didn't care if it was 3-1. Suddenly, I just felt like there was going to be this fair hearing, or four of you were going to listen to the people and literally say, well, maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong, maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong. and i felt really comfortable i don't know why i can't probably let you figure it out um i want to bring up mr white's um comment when he said when staff when you guys want to talk to staff you go to mr um ford mr ford goes to his staff well you know as much as i've heard about how council goes to staff is unbelievable, and how much counsel comes to me. No. How much counsel comes to me about what they feel about your staff is kind of weird, too. But again, why was the PIO going to your staff? And it's as simple as that. If the order of protocol is they go to you and you go to your staff, then the PIO should have came to you and then you go to the staff. That's my question. That's my thought. It's like this could have been ended if protocol was consistent. But protocol isn't consistent. You know, the whispers that come to me and all the stuff that, and I can't bring everybody in, but you know, there's people, you know, the police department, we don't like moving homeless people, but city council members come to us to move them. Well, aren't you, Mr. Ford's supposed to do that. You know? And I'm like, so why isn't there a protocol? Because this would have been ended. Just because you work for the mayor doesn't give you rank to me. You know? You have to follow protocol. And maybe that's something that needs to be tightened on is that, you know, Pull them reins back on these guys because they shouldn't be communicating. I get that from my board, my directors, my CEOs. When I sit there, don't go to my staff. You go to me. You're my boss. I'm like, okay. I'm just going to let you know what I heard. Okay, okay. And that's the way it is. I'm always told. I don't go to them. I go to them and they go to them, you know, and I and I take my hat off for it because it is necessary to keep peace in the house. But the bottom line is this, you know, it never should have happened to where the PIO went to Catherine.

Pandora Crowder.

So as a lot of you know, I am first and foremost the one that's going to get up and hold somebody accountable. I held Padilla accountable when she was censured. I even held Brando accountable when he was censured. So if anybody likes to think that I blindly follow, so wrong. I have good times arguing with my city council member. So as far as this goes, If we're going to hold one accountable, we're gonna hold them all accountable. There have been inappropriate racial slurs made, and not by the PIO. There have been inappropriate statements asking the intellectual level of certain council members. There have been statements regarding, it's open season, really is open season. And we are all watching, all of us. It is disgusting when my own child, my own daughter, why are we going to the circus? My granddaughter didn't even want to come after watching one of these online. My son, who doesn't even live here, asks me, why do you bother? I bother because it is our right and it's our duty as residents to be a part of this. So with that being said, has Mr. Terramoto probably said some things that he shouldn't have said? You bet. You all have. All of you. I have videos of all of you saying things you probably shouldn't have said. I have screenshots of all of you saying things you probably shouldn't have said. So let's be clear. One investigation is going to trigger another and another and another. We are 775. What, 1,000? In the whole. We only had 20,000 available to it. I'm not saying that if there was an impropriety in regards to voter fraud, by all means, click them up, okay? But to say things that should not be said, all of you,

need to be held accountable all of you because remember you work for us you have said so we have no other public comments thank you um and to that end you're correct we we do work for all of you and part of our job or at least one of our jobs that i find extremely critical is the preservation of taxpayer resources and this conversation isn't going to cost us anything but the time here to have it. But it is a conversation that needs to be had. First, I want to acknowledge the mayor recusing herself and allowing us to have this conversation because she and I have been working on our relationship so we can build a bridge to work together on behalf of the city. And I want to thank our city manager for spearheading that because that is an effort that we've all been working towards. And in doing so, we had a conversation today about this meeting and we talked about her recusal because sometimes you don't know what people know, but I know what I know. And I want to give her the grace that she may not be aware of all the things. So that way we can have a open discussion in front of the public because transparency is critical. I do want to thank Councilman Villaputa for being here. I don't know why everybody else recused himself, but I do appreciate him being here so we can have this conversation. I want to acknowledge that. And I agree. We've all said things. This is not about political theory or social media. It's not about what we do as politicians out, and yes, I'm a politician now, wrangling votes or wrangling support for our items. This is about the fact that Gabriel's sitting next to me because our city clerk isn't here because her department's been under siege. And I do want to say to our city attorney and our city manager, I appreciate your private counsel on what I should or shouldn't say, but I'm chairing the meeting and I'm going to say what I believe needs to be said. First, I'm going to submit to the city clerk and to my colleagues a letter I sent to the state bar regarding some information related to this matter as it relates to direction from our previous city attorney on her last day, where she called up our city clerk and offered her $250,000 without budget, without council approval, and without council direction to leave her job that day. And all of that stemming from behavior that has happened in this city hall, in this circus that Pandora just talked about, that involves the mayor's staff. Now, the history, for those of you that don't live in Stockton like our mayor's PIO, let me give you a little history lesson. We had one PIO for the city. That's Mr. Manor back there who holds that current position. And prior to that, it was Connie Cochran. That position was held for several years. And there became a dispute between Mayor Kevin Lincoln and Harry Black over, Pandora, am I doing right so far? Okay, I see the head going the right direction. I may have been in LA, but I was watching. There was a dispute between the mayor at the time And the city manager at the time, over the utilization of the PIO, because the PIO under the charter fell under the control of the city manager under Section 408. So the mayor couldn't utilize that person the way that they wanted to and had no control. So the city went through a charter change, which means we had to spend lots of money to get the voters to spend money to agree to give the mayor her own PIO, which I wasn't here. I had no dog in the fight. And honestly, I don't care. But I do think that the mayor needs to have a team that helps her carry out the functions of the mayor. And I think that the mayor's heart for the city is there. There's been mistakes along the way on all sides. But nonetheless, you have a team that helps you. She has Lynn, who's great, who helps her manage her life. She has Esperanza, her heat officer, who helps her with policy and all the things. And she brings passion to the work. And then she has Mr. Teramoto. I've had private conversations with Mr. Teramoto. One, when we talked about items that involved the city and investigations that are currently happening at the state, and he told me he was friends with the attorney general and the state controller, and we will never see the light of day of any investigation that we filed in the city because of his personal relationships. And I had to go and contact those individuals to confirm that that was not true. That was the first concern. Then I received information from a staff person in the old city hall on the second floor that there were conversations about trying to modify a candidate's a ballot statement and I started in pursuit of finding information out. And I was told that people read in the paper where he said there was no merit to any of the claims. I had my attorney send a letter to the city saying, can you please investigate this on behalf of the taxpayers? Because this is not the South where free and fair elections are under threat. This is Dr. California. So we should be able to have free and fair elections without interference because the voters in district five should be able to make that decision in the same district one or three. so at that point that was sent in February I didn't know at the time that a complaint was made in April of 2026 about this intervention into the city clerk's office so in filing the complaint in the request for that investigation on July on June 15th it was a whole month later that we received a copy of the complaint after she was compelled to send it to us herself since then I look at past practice. This city, when we had the Wild and Out investigation, our staff were put on paid leave. When I look at other departments in the city, staff were put on paid leave. I said, I think we should put this individual on paid leave pending the investigation to prevent us from having any future derailment or threat against taxpayer resources because working 10 years and 11 years in labor, if this exacerbates, it turns into a lawsuit. Guess who pays for it? You. So that didn't happen. What happened next was An exacerbation of the concerns to the extent now she's gone and we've offered her $250,000 to leave if she leaves this day without council approval. So who's running the ship here? Who's governing the taxpayer resources? Who holds the purse? Who makes the decisions in driving this building? That's been the concern, the question. So the reason why I brought this discussion item here in the view of the public, isn't necessarily about firing anybody. Cause we know we don't have the authority, but it's about having the public well-informed being able to ask questions. The mayor have an opportunity to see all the things, my colleagues being able to weigh in and then the voters being the final arbiter on how we're guiding this city. If you hear 250,000 or any 150 thousands or million, I don't know any of you that have a job where you can just hand out a quarter of a million dollars. when you're $400,000 over your legal bill limit, because we've already burnt through all that with the nonsense, and then a grand jury report that just said our senior staff are being depleted up here with all the circus activities. Now we have the city clerk out and the city attorney quitting the day after I called her out on the nonsense. So I open it up for discussion. Again, thanking Council Member Villaputa for sitting here. My colleagues, if you have any questions, I turn it over to Council Member Enriquez.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. Just really quick, City Attorney, if you can just give us some more context. I know in the beginning you gave a little bit, but just in terms of your legal analysis of this. Obviously, I know the mayor has the ultimate authority to appoint her employees, but if there's any other context you can provide to the public.

Yeah, and I think the vice mayor put it well. 1153 gives, this is all under the purview of the mayor, so the council doesn't have any control over the mayor's appointments.

And then really quick, Art, I don't know if you can publicly say this, but do you know if there currently is an investigation happening?

I'm not at liberty to say one way or the other.

And the reason why I ask is because, again, I think, you know, the vice mayor alluded to this is that this is really for the public. And this is something that, you know, it's funny. I had to call the record a couple weeks after that headline went out where they were saying that two council members wanted to fire a Stockton, a city of Stockton employee. And I call them to let them know that when someone seconds an item to support something, it doesn't necessarily mean that there is an official stance or a thought or a statement that either member or other members make. And you hit it right on the spot in terms of why I seconded bringing this item, because I believe that the council has a responsibility to revisit its actions when legitimate concerns arise, and also to have on the record from the public what their thoughts are because now we're here at a professional government meeting hearing from the public about their thoughts because we can all go down a rabbit hole of social media and accounts that are made and people are commenting and responding back and it just becomes static and noise and doesn't really get to the to the ultimate need of what we're doing for our city so that is why I supported this discussion whatever we can to the most legal parameters we can make because I am also not here to just to talk about personnel matters or give personal thoughts, whether it's personal or professional, about any employee here in the city of Stockton. That's not my right. That's not my employee. As someone who has supervised employees in past sectors, I know how I operate. I know how I communicate with my team. I know the direction I give my team in terms of what the responsibilities are. they're over reach who they can and cannot communicate to and that's how i operate everyone's different so i can't speak on behalf of anyone of my colleagues about how they work with their staff or manage their teams i would say when it comes to social media you know one of the things that becomes really dangerous is that you know you have to really look back take a step back and really think Do I have to respond? How do I respond? Because everyone interprets it in their own ways. You might have the best intentions in the world, but someone might interpret that as offensive, dismissive, belittling. And I can sit here and say, have I seen certain snapshots and make my own assessment? I can. But at the end of the day, I don't know the individual. I don't know who the real person behind an account may be. So I'm not one to jump into conclusions. But I think having this discussion in terms of just moving forward, and I hope that since this is recorded, the mayor can be able to look at what the public has said at a professional official government meeting, not social media, not snapshots she might get from her friends or anyone else via her text messages. But it's really an opportunity to really listen. hearing what the public says, and making a decision about what the next steps look forward. And any employer, if there's a PIP, a performance evaluation plan in terms of what they need to do to improve, so be it. I don't know how it is here in the city of Stockton if PIPs are provided. I know at the university we do that. but also realizing what can and cannot be done. And again, that's up to the mayor and her staff. So I really don't have much opinion because every time I see a staff member, I think everybody knows I'm always kind. I always say hello. I'm always gracious. Even if I may think they may not like me, I'm still going to go up to them and say, hello, how are you? Have a great day. Give them a handshake. They may not think of me that way, but I was raised a certain way to be kind to everybody. So if there's any personal issues that they may have, you can always have a conversation with me, especially in the world of communication. That's how communication works. And I think that tends to get lost when titles and power and who knows what else is thrown your way. But I don't want that to take away from what we're ultimately supposed to be doing, and that's helping our community and putting our egos aside. I don't intend to discuss, again, personnel allegations in an open session. You know, I want to continue this in closed private matters. The mayor will ultimately have to make a decision on what she sees best for her staff. They're not my staff, but I know what I would do if they were my staff. But I would like to clarify tonight if any action, if anything else remains, you know, I'm happy to figure out what that looks like. But, you know, I think it's really important that we even have this open discussion, primarily hearing from the public. So thank you, Vice Mayor.

Council Member Blower.

So this is kind of an interesting item where it feels like it's somewhat limited in terms of what we can say the fact that it is a personnel matter And so I appreciate Donald for giving us giving us advice and guidance on this I really do appreciate the public showing up and you know giving giving your input and and letting us know what you what you think about that and ultimately the mayor's PIO is the mayor's employee and so it really comes down to the mayor to you know do do the supervision and deal with her own employees so I think that's something that you know we'll all keep an eye on but like I said we as counsel that's not our employees and it being a personnel matter there's just not And we have to be very careful with what we say. And so I guess my big takeaway on this is that I would hope that the mayor will look into the things that she's heard and listen to what the public had to say and go from there. But ultimately, that will be her decision. Thank you.

Thank you. In the spirit of transparency, Council Member Enriquez, you and I have had conversations about the Mayor's PIO's post on social media with wrong dates, inappropriate dates, wrong information. So I don't want to have private conversations that we're afraid to have in public. And you know I have an immense amount of respect for you, but I do believe in us all still being accountable to the conversations we have in private that we also have those in public. The second thing is I do want to ask the city attorney if, and I worked 11 years in labor, so I just want to be clear because this conversation is less about a performance improvement plan and whether or not we get the mayor's staff on track. That's going to be her responsibility. But it is our collective responsibility to handle incoming litigation and to decide on behalf of the taxpayers how we work through and resolve and settle lawsuits. And so let me ask you a question. If an employee If a blonde-haired female employee is put on administrative leave, or brunette, let me just make it a little bit dicier. Let me change it up. I'm not doing that. Brunette, female, 62-year-old employee is put on administrative leave pending an investigation, and a 25-year-old male person is not, could there be a claim made that the organization is handling the matters disparately.

There would have to be a lot more factors in that for me. Well, generally. If it's purely based on hair color and gender.

Well, I'm saying woman versus man, male versus female, gay versus straight, Latino versus black.

If those are the reasons, then we don't make personnel decisions based on people's protected status. And everybody's got a protected status, whether you're blonde hair, blue eyed, whatever.

So I joked and gave you an analogy. I guess let me ask you a question. When you have When you decide on personnel matters in terms of giving people their rights or, say, under FMLA, do you get to decide who you give FMLA to or not?

No.

OK. When there's a FIHA claim or an investigation where somebody says, or Johnny may call up and say, I'd like to put this manager on leave for something because I'm doing an investigation, could someone make a claim if one person is treated differently than another?

We don't use admin leave in every single circumstance in which there's an investigation. It's very fact-dependent. And I don't know any of the facts of what we're talking about.

So the last question, I appreciate that. If the city clerk makes a claim that staff are interfering in the election and asking her to do things that could be illegal or nefarious, would that be something you would think? One would say, we should probably take this serious.

Yes, all complaints need to be taken seriously. It doesn't always mean that somebody ends up in admin leave. Okay.

Interesting. Well, Section 2.36.180 around political activity talks about cities' competitive service while on the clock. Can staff, while they're on the clock, be engaged in political activities here at the city?

No, they shouldn't be engaged in political activities. Taxpayer funding can't go towards political activity.

Oh, I know. I'm reading it. And so if an employee says at 1237 that an employee was asking them to do things and changing, hold on, don't interrupt because you didn't even hear the question. If the person is asked to modify a candidate statement at 1237, wouldn't that be taxpayer time?

I don't want to get into it.

We're getting into hypotheticals. The point of bringing this up is, one, now it's a matter of historical record. The second thing is that Everybody that's watching and participating can do two things. One, wait for the mayor to make a decision now that she's well informed of at least the concerns and that the public knows. And two, wait to see if we offer a quarter of a million, a million, two million, three million, because at this point, it's your taxpayer resources that are at play. Now, we do have the option, I think I understand, to rescind the, tell us what we have the right to do.

I mean, you can't rescind the appointment. Technically, your rules allow you to rescind a resolution, but that has no practical effect.

Right, but what effect does it have?

I suppose it might because because your rules allow you to rescind the resolution it could have potentially be some symbolic effect but you really can't undo you really as I said earlier you can't unring the bell the appointments been made the idea behind that is that these are people that once the consent is given it's sort of like if I can announce that I think there are a lot of people that one Supreme Court justice or another would love to have them repealed when there's a new election. We don't do that. Once they're appointed, they're appointed.

And so if we make the motion to rescind the resolution, it's a symbolic gesture of where we're at on the matter. but not a one that would rescind the appointment.

No legal effect.

Okay. Well, listen, I have no – anybody else have anything else to say? No. You know, I have no problem being the only person that believes that the mayor's PIO shouldn't be attacking constituents online, shouldn't be going into our city clerk's office, and shouldn't have us now having to determine whether or not we give a quarter of a million dollars away. and so I have no problem since I can't decide the decision on who is appointed, and I appreciate the guidance there because we see the charter. There are a couple things that we do have. We have the ability to take this back to the Charter Review Commission and to decide if there's a charter amendment, right?

Yes, you can raise that with the Charter Review Commission.

And then we do have the right as the, people who create the budget for the city to decide how we fund positions, correct?

Well, you can't defund charter positions, but you do have budgetary authority over the budget as a whole.

And then we can rescind the resolution, although the employee would still stay in the position and go through whatever process the city deems fit. but it will be a matter of record our position on the matter.

Ultimately, it's not the council's decision to remove authority that's already been granted.

Well, my vote to approve the appointment matters to me because my vote represents the district that put me here. And although I don't have the authority to remove the individual based on the charter, I am going to ask that we make a motion to send the mayor's PIO position to the Charter Review Commission to review the guardrails that need to be put around a position that can help preserve moments like this where we have no council oversight. So if I can get a second for that, that'd be great.

Second.

Okay. The other thing is, or do I have to vote on that, or do I have to make a motion?

Well, there's a motion and a second, so right now, I think you would have to, I don't, because the Charter Review Commission, referral to the Charter Review Commission is not on the agenda, so I think that would be a motion to add it to the agenda.

Okay, thank you, okay. But I can make a motion to rescind my, to reconsider this appointment.

You can make a, yeah, you can make a motion to reconsider your vote to approve the appointment.

Okay, and then the referral to the Charter Review Commission happens, or we put this on the agenda for a future item. Okay, well, I make the motion to remove Tony.

I will not be voting on this action.

Okay, well, he can abstain from voting. Hold on, hold on, excuse me. For people who didn't hear, Council Member Villaputo. Okay, one second. First, since I'm chairing this discussion, let me acknowledge the Council Member Villaputo. Go ahead.

Well, you push the button push that It was an action taking me forward now became so I will not be making a vote on this Okay.

Yeah, and Councilmember Villapuerte says he's gonna abstain from voting which is fine but I guess the the question I have is we can refer this to Agenda to this to a future meeting, correct?

You've already made a request for a future agenda item. Now we have a lack of quorum.

Okay. So do we wait for him to come back?

My sense is he's probably not coming back. Okay. Well, I'll just keep it.

But it's okay. Wait. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. This is the process playing out for the public. You all will be the final arbiter in that. We'll wait for council comments, and then I will put it on the agenda for a future meeting later. But I'll go ahead and end this discussion and bring the mayor back to move the agenda. Thank you. Let's take a five-minute recess to bring the meeting back to order with the mayor. Five minutes.

Order and we are moving on to item 10.2 adopt a resolution to award and allocate community development block grants and emergency solution grant funding to eligible respondents to the 2026-27 CDBG ESG notice of funding I said 10.2 Okay. Oh, okay. Mine says 10.2. So does yours? Yeah. Okay. 10.2, update from Zen City Technologies.

good afternoon mayor vice mayor council city staff and city of Stockton residents thank you for having me today my name is Rochelle cantero I am from Zen City and I am the director of civic strategy and engagement and I'm here with my teammate Kim Katarunchuk, senior engagement expert. Before entering into the private sector, we both worked in local government. I served 17 years holding different positions in the state, county, and municipal levels. I used to be a deputy clerk. I was a communications specialist. I was a victim witness advocate, child support enforcement, and I also ran community relations for a state representative. So I'm delighted to be with you here today. Sorry.

Press the arrow to the one that says you need to turn, and then I'll advance forward.

And do I move it forward just?

Okay, perfect.

The city has used Zen City data in the past. In fact, in 2023, during a goal setting cycle, resident feedback showed that youth programming was a near universal priority for the city. cutting across every demographic and age group and every background, even though it had been a lower-tier goal. Council moved it up, and with ZenCity's community survey, the city was able to make a quick pivot aligned with resident priorities. And we can do the same today. You have a 75-page packet full of survey results. I will go through them page by page. I'm kidding, I've been told that I cannot do that. So I will be highlighting about 15 slides reflecting the results of the latest quarterly community survey. And a community survey is an ongoing measure of overall quality of life. in the city, satisfaction with city services and resident priorities. And the slides also contain results from a poll survey, which is a shorter, more focused survey built around one specific issue, and in this case, it was Measure M. Before I dig into the results, I want to spend a moment to talk about how this data was built because it matters just as much as what story it tells. Before the survey ever went to the field, ZenCity used census data to set targets for age, race, gender, and ethnicity. The slide shows the city's sample composition. There were 810 valid respondents, reflective of the city's demographic per census data. The platform also meets accessibility standards, and additionally, it natively supports multiple languages. I'll be throwing a lot of numbers at you today, but underneath every single one is a much bigger story about residents who we don't typically hear from, the working single mom. who has never been to a council meeting, that grandmother who never saw that flyer on the community board, or those neighbors whose first language was not English. None of them are silent because they don't care. They actually really do. With community surveys, they don't have to stay silent because our platform was built to reach them. Let's start with some findings in our community survey. I've spent 17 years in rooms where a number like this gets treated like bad news. and leadership and elected officials freeze right here, though it does not tell the whole story. 33% of Stockton's overall quality of life, residents responded very positively. And that's up four points actually from the last cycle. That 42% in the middle, they didn't say quality of life was bad. They said that they're not sure. And that matters because this number is not fixed positive and negative opinions. Once formed, they're actually very, very hard to move, but these residents right here in the 42%, that's real room to shift in either direction, depending on what council decides. I want to dig a little bit further and this is the. Geographic breakdown of the community survey. Broken down by district, district five has the highest quality of life satisfaction at 38%. District four had a significant increase, gaining five points this cycle. Let's dig in a little bit further with the demographic breakdown. It's worth noting that Black and African American residents reported the single highest jump in quality of life satisfaction of any group in the cycle, up 15 points. We also saw a significant increase in sentiment with female respondents, up eight points, 35 and 54 year olds. also an increase in 8%. And that is real improvement. That is real movement in the right direction and we might have missed it if we had gotten stuck on that first number. Just clicking through here, this is the city's change matrix and it tracks three questions that shifted the most since the last cycle. And who is driving each shift? So economic development jumped seven points to 21%. And the increase was driven by Hispanic and Latino residents up seven points. And then the residents, 35 to 54% up 11 points, which is really the largest single group movement in the entire table. Access to quality healthcare. jumps seven points to 40%. And this movement is heavily concentrated on Asian residents. And overall quality of life up five points, 33% with black and African American residents driving nearly all of that gain. I hope that you can see the potential of this data connecting city decisions to residents' daily experience. Additionally, those residents that we don't typically hear from are being heard here in the data. I want to move us forward to some free text responses. I feel like this is an important slide because this isn't about a gap or a barrier or a complaint. We ask residents in their own words what they like about living in Stockton. Community ties comes back with the single largest theme by a wide margin, 34% of all responses. And when you look at what's really driving that, it's family proximity. It's a sense of community. It's a respect for other people's opinions. I think this matters alongside everything I'm showing you today. The same residents who told us about transportation barriers, awareness gaps, quality of life concerns are also the residents telling us what they love most about the city is each other. And as a former civil servant, I find that actually very special and worth holding on to. I wanna move us forward to this quarter's rotating questions. And this one is, what are the biggest reasons you and your family have not used the city's free after school or recreational program? Most Stockton residents actually don't know that those programs existed. What would make it easier for your family to utilize these free programs? 40% of families who don't use this program told us what would make the biggest difference would be better information about what's available. And as we move into Measure M survey results, keep in mind that these are two different surveys with different questions. but there are similar sentiments regarding accessing information about community amenities. So let's move forward and look at what that means specifically for Measure M. Here is a six-point summary of what Stockton residents told us in the Measure M pulse survey. Measure M's challenge is awareness. It's not opposition. City services are underused because residents do not know about them. Access shapes who participates. Transportation is a real barrier and it is hardest on younger residents and on, and on black and African-American residents. Satisfaction with programs or roads with age, especially for youth programs. Unsafety. Residents want both prevention and policing. And residents want to be reached online. Social media leads how residents get information, and digital surveys like the ones we deployed to your residents are preferred way to give feedback. I am actually going to go back to awareness. Awareness is lowest in three districts, District 1, District 2, and District 3. In these districts, 47% to 54% of residents have heard nothing at all about Measure M. District 5 is the most informed at 34%. Take a look at this map because if city staff were to put forward an outreach strategy, this map will tell you exactly where to put that outreach energy, really leveraging and making sure that we're using those taxpayer dollars most effectively. Most importantly, the guesswork has been eliminated. Transportation as a barrier. 41% of residents report that transportation is a real barrier in participating in city programs. Of those respondents, 58% of Black and African American residents are significantly affected. For residents 18 to 34, it's 54%. Residents have told us directly how they find out about city amenities and city news and information. Social media and word of mouth are far ahead of the city's website or flyers. Social media actually leads across every age group, even those 55 and older. When we ask residents how they want to give feedback, a digital survey is a clear preference at 64% overall. So staff does not have to guess when putting, so staff does not have to guess when they are putting together a communication strategy. Residents have told us it's a digital first approach. I want to close this presentation by connecting this data directly to a couple of city council goals and priorities I found on the city website. quality of life literacy and youth programming 59% of residents don't use a city youth program and the single most common fix is just putting out better information on public health and community well-being while quality of life satisfaction still sits below similar cities so your cohorts and the national average, there are notable improvements. And on inclusive economic development, it is the lowest rated area overall. but also fast improving, especially among younger and Hispanic and Latino residents. So mayor, vice mayor, council, city staff, residents, thank you so much for your time and attention. It truly has been an honor working with city staff to bring you this data today, and I do hope it serves you well as you make the decisions ahead. Thank you.

Thank you. A lot of information there to digest. I don't know if there were any public comments on this item.

Yes, we do. So we have Mary Elizabeth.

Mary Elizabeth and I know that I filled out at least one of those surveys but again I'm I'm just going to say this you know we have listserv that people can sign up with the city to get agendas and get city information you know come straight to their email and I don't see why this survey couldn't have gone out that way as well I'm just saying because I'm going to fill out any survey to speak my mind, to let my community know what I think about, and everyone else should think the same. But what about those people that just so happen to not see it? They didn't check social media for a couple of days. They were unplugging and enjoying nature instead of scrolling through the social media looking for the survey. And there was at one point at the end of the survey, because I know I have filled out this before, if you'd like to be surveyed, put in your email address. You know this last time? Because I had done that a couple of times. This last time, I think I said, you know, it doesn't matter whatever I put in here at www.com because you're not going to hear it. So now you know who did that survey. And the other thing, you know, that I was just pondering, you know, because I didn't recall ever putting in my address, you know, is how did they know that I was in District 5? And so I thought, hi, well, you know, maybe it's a cookie, right? You know, that like tracks, you know, where that computer was that took that survey. and how many people that were working downtown, right, or, you know, being in that area, you know, got counted for District 5. I'm just saying, you know, and I just want to ponder it, and I think, you know, that there's a lot of information there, and it probably would be worthwhile to have a town hall, you know, to talk about it and really understand what that data means. Thank you. And I'm afraid that I'm not going to be able to to stay for the rest of my comments and Just let the one last thing here on the NOFA. I know just excuse me We need to have an overall Cohesion, you know where everybody knows what everybody's doing and that has been the the big weakness in our safety net.

Thank you Next we have Julie D

I don't want to disparage any of the work done by the contractor because I've been responsible for doing similar surveys in a professional capacity. But I'm sorry, 810 respondents is less than a quarter of 1% of our population. I'm not really sure council should be making decisions on that. I also heard the lady presenting say that 54% of District 1 are not aware of services. Is that 54% of the less than quarter of 1% surveyed or an actual 54% of the total number of residents in District 1? I know a lot of you have probably taken statistics. Data matters. Data can be interpreted any way you want to do it. Again, I don't want to disparage their hard work, but 810 in a population of 350 plus thousand is a statistically insignificant sampling of the people.

Thank you.

Jasmine? Jasmine?

Good afternoon, Mayor, Council, City Manager Ford. I'm Jasmine Peterson. I am a resident here in Stockton and also work with a community-based organization in our community doing public engagement work. So I just want to say I appreciate the city bringing this information forward, bringing these reports forward. and also to offer a broader perspective from the work that I've done in the community for the last 10 years, helping to design and implement community engagement strategies We're your partner in the Stockton Rising work, centered in District 5 and 6, as well as the Climate Action Plan work, which is really in the city of Stockton, but also looking at broader regional public engagement. And one thing that I just want to share is that public engagement work, one, is really difficult in general. is also really about infrastructure and relationships. And we've spent a lot of time thinking about how many people attend a meeting or complete a survey. We look at impact metrics. We look at strategies. We constantly are iterating and adapting based on what's going on in the community. But meaningful engagement really starts much earlier with whether people know an event or an opportunity exists, whether they trust the source of that information, whether they can access it, and really whether they believe that their participation will matter. And I find this data useful, particularly the geographic and demographic data shows those differences where it can help us to identify where we can look more closely. The survey itself has been designed to support that planning, but the differences should really be the beginning of that conversation rather than the end. I look forward to future reports being presented. My experience has really shown me that there's a value in having multiple ways for people to participate, meeting people in the spaces that they're already in, meeting them in the language and working across languages, which is also really hard because, you know, we have a huge and diverse community and, yeah, it's a beautiful opportunity but also a challenge. We've also learned that that engagement gets stronger when folks are involved upstream, not after the fact. And so as the city continues its relationship with Zen City, I would welcome opportunities for deeper engagement and opportunities to share those findings on a more frequent basis, as well as the city really looking at investing in how it can build its own capacity to do these types of surveys. and leverage the great teams that we already have. I've definitely seen huge improvements in our working relationship with OPTIC and other teams. And so just thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts.

Thank you. This concludes item.

OK, bring it back to Councilwoman Padilla. OK. Council Member Enriquez.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I just want to echo what some of the public have shared so far. I look at this being, I think, the last three months in terms of data. So I'm just curious to see how often we get this data. The fact that it's 810 is a pretty low number. I do agree with Julie. I want to go back to when we voted on this. I was the sole dissenting vote against this contract. No offense to you. You gave a lovely presentation. Please press the button.

I watched the video.

Oh, perfect. So you know who I am. But I appreciate your presentation nonetheless. I know data is very important. I always echo how much we need data. At the same time, this is something that I ask staff in terms of how this information truly is helping the departments. So I don't want it to just be we get a packet and then we just throw it away and don't look at it. But intentionally, I want to speak on behalf of my colleagues, but intentionally for the departments, How are they effectively using this data? If it's every three months, how are they utilizing it? Even if it's a small number of people. Again, 8, 10 is pretty small. But when I look at Measure M, for example, that should be something that the Measure M committee should have right off the bat. And if they don't have it, then there's a disconnect for me already there. So if that's not happening, Don't tell Measure M to the council when I would prefer that my Measure M committee members have that when they have their meetings because I think that the data will help guide their conversations in terms of their priorities, you know, and also for the public to know what's going on. So the fact that that's not happening, I think, is concerning. I think the public should know that. I also think when I think of city service usage, I'm looking at the executive summary. City service usage is low and satisfaction drops sharply with age. The first part you mentioned, between four and six and 10 residents never use library, recreation, or youth programs. When we have one of the most extensive activity guides, resources available in most cities, I want to give credit to Ms. Audrey and her team because there is a lot of work that does go into this. to have 810, then now my next question was, well, those 810, how are they divided amongst the districts? If it was 20 residents in district one or two, for example, just hypothetically, I'm just throwing it out, how many of those, what are their ages, right? So it's always gonna be very different in terms of what we're looking at. So I might look at one final data point in terms of an issue. but we have to dig deeper to know where they live did you submit your zip code like Mary Elizabeth said where is it a geo is it assuming that they they live in a district based on a geographic but maybe they might be in a border and then your technology may not be aligned with our city map so they actually might be in a different district so I want to make sure that we we have that accuracy so if you are looking at your zip codes make sure it's actually connected with the district maps so It does give me some sense of concern if the data represents the actual specific districts. You mentioned quality of life in a certain district, but yet when I look at youth perceptions of crime, that's actually the hot spot of how they feel the most unsafe. So again, right, another different conversation. Quality of life in one district is high compared to everyone else, but youth perception of feeling safe or not safe or somewhat safe being the highest, that's concerning too. So then there's that conversation. So I mean, again, I'm thinking out loud because again, just because you hear one thing that sounds great for your district doesn't mean everything's peachy perfect. You have to look at other aspects because now I'm thinking, well, from those youth, how many of those youth of those 810 in that district filled it out? So again, that's when it starts to become very vague and very general. I was looking at your sampling and your methodology. is also the outreach. I personally don't want to rely on social media. I know being in a news desert, I don't want to say just because one person says that social media is most convenient. As Ms. Peterson shared, there's a lot of effective work that goes into in-person, grassroots, civic engagement of hearing from the community through town halls, collecting data. So we have people already doing great work, so why aren't we pairing all this data with the data that we have, with the community groups, and then start to see the potential disparities, connections, things that resonate. Then that way I think it'll better inform not just us up here, our constituents, our departments, because when we have our year-round session as to what the departments need, I would expect if we're paying $889,000 that my colleagues agree to support, our departments can say, you know what? In the last year, based on these reports that we got from your company, this is driving the work. And we haven't had that session yet. So we've been with you in partnership for a couple of years now. I don't recall any department giving us statistics about their priorities based on the data they're getting. Because this is good data. I don't want to take away from what you're doing the breakdown. the different issues, you know, that's all very important, but I just wanted to just put that out there. Thank you.

And I, oh, did you have a response?

I didn't know if the council member would like for me to address any concern. Yeah. Your comments. If you like. The 810, right, that figure seems almost unbelievable with a city, a population this size. methodology surveying, that's really our bread and butter. And we want you to think about our methodology as a doctor drawing blood. No matter what tests you get, it's the same amount of blood 10 cc's for a lipid test. It doesn't matter if you're old, young. It doesn't matter your ethnicity. It doesn't matter your weight. The draw is 10 cc's, right? And it does accurately predict if you have a certain disease or not. And I know that is a, I think I do better with food. Think of your census data as ingredients in a soup. And what we do, as far as our methodology and our survey operations go, is we mix that soup up. And the spoon, right, that's the serving sample. So just because you're serving soup to 800 people, 2,000 people, you don't change the size of the spoon. And that's really, in the most simplest terms, the basis of our methodology. And we do work very, very hard that we grab a statistically significant cross-section of your community. It is absolutely based on your latest census data. And Councilmember, I am heartened to hear that you are looking at the data as a whole, as a story. It's not just one data point that you're focusing on. It's really nice to hear that there is consideration for the results the survey results as a whole I had a couple questions Is it in different languages?

Are you able to click into it? Okay, and then how is it that you know what district they're in?

our respondents do self nominate into a zip code. So they actually do have to put in a zip code before they even start to survey. And our mapping strategies does align with districting maps.

And then I did like the recommendation of those that we have a listserv of, you know, potentially hitting people that we didn't have already. And to... Councilmember Enriquez's point, it's the granular, really dialing it down so that you can pinpoint things. But I will say something did come out of this, and it is a marketing person for CSD that we approved here to get that information out about our activity guide all the things that are that are going on and i know that this was a part of helping make that happen because yeah people don't know about it so how do we make sure that they know about it well now they have a a marketing person in in their department um and i would say you know allowing yet again, making sure council has the opportunity to chime in on questions and then be able to see it maybe before it goes out. Not that we could make a change at that point, but once we've provided input to be able to say, okay, here, this is what we're putting out. And then people here could actually help put it out. But I get, you know, surveys are done all the time. I mean, the season we're in, There are calls that are made that they ask very, not very, the whole spread. Favor strongly, not so strongly. Anyway, but nonetheless, like I said, there is good information in there. But it's a point in time. It's one picture out of an entire album of photos. And we can take what we can out of that.

extrapolate that and make changes make policy changes as needed or or departments you know being able to use that information so thank you for that absolutely and I do want to point out as part of the city's contract you have quarterly community surveys so we can send out before at the beginning of each quarter so absolutely you can measure over time are we improvement why were we improving are we staying stagnant are we properly addressing marginalized communities, marginalized residents. So I do hope that you do take a deeper look into the data that we're providing.

Vice Mayor?

Thank you. You're Rochelle?

I am Rochelle.

And where are you from?

Las Vegas at this point in time, but I served in local government in Illinois.

But you live in Las Vegas?

I do.

Okay. How much did we pay for this survey? Or how much did we pay for this process? How much? $189,000. Earlier, there was a comment made about going to a Cardi B record or store or album, whatever. I don't know what that was about. But I think of it like, We're going to go to a Cardi B concert. It's going to cost us $180,000 to do that. And when I get there, I better have a good experience, or else I'm going to feel gypped. I don't know, in a city of 326,000 people, a result of data from 810 people is sufficient for me. The reason why I bring that up is because when I look at Joelle, who's sitting over there, we were just having a side conversation. She lives at Children's Home in Stockton. I used to be a kid in the Children's Home. when i think of data that our staff should be using to make our city a better place for quality of life and other things mentioned here in this quality of life i'm thinking what is that kid in children's home getting that allows him to get here and all what are all the steps we're doing over the years to invest all of our taxpayer resources to get them there and and how would a survey of 810 people be the guiding light for that i don't know that it would be but The thing that I heard earlier from somebody in the public during comments was, you know, we don't utilize our community partners well enough. You could have probably got 810 people if you would have went to UOP. You could have got 810 people at Delta. Michelle Sherman can get you 810 real estate agents or Jahari together, their association. She's on the board of something. I mean, there's so many people in our partners, Krista over at St. Mary's. I mean, you know, because the population they serve in our unhoused, community are important the idea of quality of life for me is how do I get the person who's sitting on the street into a home and how do we invest every penny of the taxpayer dollars to get them there and it's not an easy answer and I don't know how how you get that answer from Las Vegas if you're not on the boots on the ground here in our community I don't know how much more work we have to do with you with this project. But I would say to the council, I mean, obviously we have a lot of work here and we eliminated OPDA, which was our Office of Performance Data Analytics, which is supposed to help us be analytic driven and not emotional driven, which by the way, Stockton is very emotionally driven when it comes to things.

Well, they're emotional about each other.

It's okay. So let me ask you specific questions. How much more work do we have to do in partnership with you as it relates to this work?

As in how much is left in your contract?

Correct.

Or it was a three-year contract that was approved last April.

Okay. And so we have two more years left or three more years left?

It was signed in April, so this was the first community survey under that contract.

Yeah. Unlike my colleague who is the only dissenting, I support data because we have to be less emotionally driven and more data driven. But if you can't come back with eight at least 8,000 people that tell you something, then I wouldn't support us continuing this project. I think that the people of the city deserve to have community outreach that includes partnerships within city and our established community leaders who are on the ground doing the work. They're all in the room and you'll see them shortly when they come for this other item. But I do think that we have to go further than 800 people because I can reach 9 million on my social media and nobody sent me a link to ask anybody anything. And I'll be talking and I'm going to be talking a lot this month. So I would love to help get the word out if we continue the service, but to my colleagues, I do think that we should expect less than 1,000, which I don't even know how much of a half percent that is, but we need to do better. Thank you.

Vice Mayor, we absolutely could expand your sample size, but according to our research, it doesn't increase accuracy.

Let me stop you. I heard you when you said that about the 10 CCs, and I worked in health care for 10 years, 11 years. This ain't that. You have to go deeper. You have to go to Audrey Jones-Taylor in the back. Did I get the last name right this time? Okay. You need to go to her and her staff and find out about all the CSD projects happening within the city in our community, in our city centers. You need to talk to our county supervisors who are amazing. You need to ask for Rhodesian Ransom, our assemblywoman who cares about our community, friends outside. Be outside. You've got to talk to Prevail. You have to talk to our community partners who are doing the work. Because for us to invest more resources in getting more data, if you can't give us more data, how do we help our community? And I'm only one vote. I'm just saying it should matter. We need more information.

Yeah, and in your contract you do have other surveying tools Let me say this vice mayor we will do exactly that we hear you as a council but we do need the data and we are working to get that and We hear you there be here tomorrow for training and we will make sure that we do more outreach to reach some of those numbers and

And again, United Way, I can keep going on and on and on. There's people that have opportunities for outreach. But yeah, I think I said what I needed to say.

Thank you. Councilman Blower.

Thank you. I want to thank you for the presentation. I did take statistics in college, and it was not my favorite class. But I did buckle down, and I did pass that. But I do remember some of the things about sample size and all that. And I do understand what you're saying, that my question is more with the methodology. Because it seems like there was a recruiting element to getting people to do this. How does that affect the people that respond? It seems like the people that if you're versus just a pure random sampling of people, don't the people that get recruited tend to have stronger feelings one way or the other?

We could use recruitment strategies where like we would offer a coupon, but only like as a last resort.

No, I don't mean that. I just mean that people that are responding to something online saying, you know, oh, yeah, I want to get my two cents. Do those people tend to be more like mad at the city or whatever? And does that skew the results? How do you account for that?

Yeah, that is the beauty of representative surveys, right? So it is able to take a sample that is a statistically significant cross-section of the community. And we haven't seen... truly strong data one way or the other that angrier residents are more likely to take a digital survey as opposed to coming here. It doesn't make them angrier to do that or to come here. And so as far as when they see a prompt to take a survey, does it enrage them? We don't have any statistically significant data to support that.

Okay, thank you.

Did I answer your question sufficiently?

I guess. I mean, I do tend to think that the people that gravitate towards those things probably have stronger opinions. And I know it's probably tough to I don't know. I just wondered if you reached out and randomly picked. And I know you want to have a good cross-section and a good representative group. But again, I just wonder how much that factors in.

The representative survey is just one of the survey tools available to you, as City Manager Ford said. We could absolutely deploy a DIY survey to specific community groups to get that feedback. If the 110, that is not enough, that number is not enough for this council, let's deploy some DIY surveys to specific community groups so we can get that feedback and bolster up that data. We understand it could be a preference one way or the other and the city has ensured that you're able to get the data in In a way that you're most comfortable acting on.

Thank you, of course Hey vice mayor Thank you, sorry, I missed I may have missed something So when the survey was, you know, I never understood during the last administration why the vice president's thing was internet I just didn't understand like why is internet your thing? You know, I have internet I have internet but then I think about all the people in the country that don't have internet. And when I think about the survey, I think about my grandmother. She's dead now, but she wasn't on the internet. She wasn't a texter and all those things. And in my district, I have the most challenged district up here. And how did you access or get access to those people who may not have access to internet or may not have access to phones?

The survey is 100% distributed through digital means. When we've researched other forms of surveying, like phone calls, people going up to, surveyors going up to residents' doors, knocking, or even going to a pop-up, we did find that the sample wasn't truly representative of the community. As far as surveyors going up to people's homes, those were largely unwelcome. And telephone surveys actually favored or we were able to get respondents from a certain geographic more meaning older white Americans were more very much likely to participate in a phone survey as opposed to other community members, very specifically minority groups. So with those strategies, we felt like we weren't getting the true voice of the community At the start of my presentation, I'm a former civil servant, and being in the shoes of city staff, it was like, well, I think this is a good decision. Like, I've been out talking with my community. I work with my mayor and my council, and I think we got it right. The data will support if you did get it right.

Yeah, no, the reason why I bring that up is, you know, and you literally just touched on it, where there were some, maybe some more affluent communities that may participate or be higher engaged. When we have, if you look at the social makeup of our city here, 46% Latino, I don't know how much of that is Spanish speaking. And then you have community leaders like Georgia Brownlee and Sierra Vista who can pull the whole housing unit together at a pop-up. So there are other opportunities. I heard the city manager say he'll work with you on that, but I just think if we go deeper into those communities, especially those that need the most, I think we'd be more beneficial with the data that comes out of that.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you so much.

Thank you for having me.

Okay, moving on then to item 10.3, adopt a resolution to award and allocate community development block ground emergency solutions grant funding to eligible respondents to the 2026-27 CDBG ESG notice of funding availability. Take it over, ladies.

Good afternoon, council, mayor, vice mayor, council members. Tina McCarty, director of housing, homeless, events, and parking department. We're here today to briefly talk to you about, and I will say, disclaimer, that I don't have a long presentation. We can dive into the details as much as you choose to, but I will do my very best to be concise and move us through this item. So we've spent much time in 25 and again some in 26 in speaking about our NOFA processes. This is the second of two NOFA processes that we've talked about. This is for public services. It is also the process that includes our community development committee. So you will see in a future slide our process and who touched what and who gave the scoring to the allocations before you. So I want to start off by I know this is quite a large pie graph. But I am dedicated to doing I think a better job than our department has done in the past and really talking to you about the annual action plan. This is our federal funding, both. Hello, I didn't do that. Okay. I have it in front of me. Are we still broadcasting? Do you want me to stop? Yeah, I can go forward. I just don't want anyone else to not. OK, perfect. OK. So moving on, as I was saying, doing a better job of tying these allocations when we come back before you to the annual action plan. You've heard us speak to you before about this is a plan that we have to submit as a city every year to HUD. This is federal funding. both home that we talked about and we use for our housing NOFA, that's not what we're talking about today. Today we're talking about CDBG funding, which is Community Development Block Grant funding, and then ESG, which is Emergency Shelter funding. So in that regard, this big pie graph was intended to give you a perspective of the overall CDBG funding and what we're talking about today in the allocations is the healthy neighborhoods residents. So that's the larger olive green segment of the funding. But again, I just want to keep tying back as we bring allocations before you back to the annual action plan. On a side note with that, I also want you to be aware you may notice in the report we speak to the dates of when we did this NOFA process and it was at the beginning of 2026. Thank you. And the reason for the duration of time, typically we're back before you more quickly between the time we issue the NOFA and the time that we're coming before you with the outcome of the NOFA and recommendations. The reason that time has lapsed this year is because we We issued on a pretty standard rotation to this point in terms of it had been very common that we would issue this NOFA the beginning of a year. The annual action plan itself is due to be turned into HUD by the beginning of April or May, May, excuse me, May, which causes us to be back to Council with the annual action plan for your approval to submit it. in the past we have included these allocations in the annual action plan as we're kind of unpeeling this onion of the annual action plan and how we engage our community get the required public feedback and get back to you for allocations we're looking overall at the schedule of the annual action plan this year while we follow the timing of the NOFA issuance I don't think it serves the community or you as council as well to be asking you to approve not only the annual action plan, but the allocations for public services all in one action. So we were also, you may recall, in the midst of the housing NOFA, very separate process, separate money. I didn't want any confusion. And then April to May, we're in budget, and so it really was the idea and our plan to separate this allocation from the annual action plan. So you're approving the annual action plan, setting the stage for how we're going to spend the money, and then ultimately we come back with allocations within those categories for you to approve when we've done the NOFA process. I say all that to say in the future, staff, we are already looking at next year's annual action plan in figuring out how to better get out to public outreach on the front end, which then tees staff up to write recommendations to you with a draft of the annual action plan, having got the public information and insight up front. and my goal is to be back to you with more time say more a March Target date for you to see the draft of this annual action plan so you have more time to consider it engage with us and approve it prior to it being due of beginning of May so I'm sorry I went sidebar on that but I This is really a lot of money that we're putting into our community. This annual action plan tees us up as a city as to how we move forward to spend it. So that is really the purpose of the big pie chart. I will move on. So that being said, today we're talking about the allocations are $498,509 for the public services, the CDBG piece. And the ESG piece is $283,000. I will not read this slide to you, but as you can see, there are very specific HUD federal guidelines for how the funding can be used. Those were, of course, included in our NOFA application that went out to all those that participated. The scoring criteria we used for both of them included the following. So design, maybe it's a poor term to use in describing, but really what that means is tell us about your program. Tell us what the community needs. This is a HUD directive that they're looking for us and our community partners to recognize what are the needs of the community. So tying what are the needs of the community and then the program that they're applying with how does that actually serve and improve our community so that is what the design is about and why it is most heavily weighted it really is the core of their program and why our community needs it the budget financial is also an important element we need to know that they are fiscally prudent they understand the very strict requirements in terms of invoicing these are running on reimbursement basis So if they get approved for an allocation, we sign a contract with them. They move forward to create their program. They've got to be able to float the money to start the program and then submit for reimbursement. We want to be able to reimburse the money. That's the intent. They have to have their documents in order to actually meet the criteria for us to reimburse them. We need to know up front that this is a sophisticated enough organization that they understand that and they can follow through on the regulations so the money can flow as you intend. Experience capacity, that speaks a lot to staffing levels. It's problematic if this is a one man show, one person show in an organization. So if they're going to suggest that they're going to reach 200 people, then we need to know they have the capacity to actually do that. Past performance and general compliance. This one is tough. Have they spent past awards? Because this is a use or lose allocation from CDBT. So on an annual basis, They're looking that we're being timely and we are actually expending what we are allocated as a city. We need our subrecipients to actually be able to deliver and, again, pay enough attention to their invoicing to get it in in a timely manner so we can get the money out to the community. And collaboration. This is something HUD also wants to see. They want to know that our participating organizations are working. They're not trying to do everything themselves, that there is a collaboration and a unified goal and persistence to improving our community. very busy slide busier than I intend and also recognized apologies that I didn't recognize it till I saw it in print today that this we are missing the last two two competing organizations on the bottom CDBG part they were the lowest ranking so are not part of our recommendations We do have a copy of this that's in the report. And so for the public, this is not the only place that you would see this. And for council, what attachment is it? I know, what attachment is it? I'm just going to be able to tell you what attachment. I did mark it here, but. Okay, we're gonna get that for you, but it is in your packet in its entirety. So with that said, what you have before you is the averages of, thank you, attachment E on this report packet. You have this full. We did condense a bit and did the average score as opposed to the one in your packet will show each of the Raiders and we Additionally, so we had three human Raiders one was from the city one is a consultant The city does use but also works for other agencies She is an expert does a lot of work in the homeless arena and certainly with these grant funding sources. And the third rater was from the city of Lodi, who also works in this arena, but for the city of Lodi. So we asked those three raters, they used the scoring system we just went through. Then we did go through an AI outside company to we gave them all of the applications, so they had all the documents and created a scenario and the AI scored it. You'll see on the full, it's not on the screen here, but you'll see on your full extension of this spreadsheet that AI varied a little bit, but when AI was added as a fourth scorer, it did not change the rankings. So what you have before you are the top two that are in white, not highlighted. Those are the recommendations for the ESG. And then the top four on the bottom, CDBG, those are the recommendations before you for allocation. On the bottom on the CDBG, the fourth rating, they got slightly less than what they asked because that's just where the money ran out. So the 498, they were about $16,000, roughly shy of what they asked for, but that's how we did that. So the recommendation before you right now is $150,000 to Children's Home of Stockton for their Catalyst program. That is a TAE emphasis, so transitional-aged youth 18 to 25. Thank you. 150,000 emergency food bank, Golden Hearts Delivery Program. This is seniors. 75,000 to Second Harvest Food Bank for food assistance general to the community. 123,509, that's friends outside, resiliency lab service expansion. From an ESG perspective, this is our sheltering and serving those in need of shelter. 131,767 to Central Valley Low Income Housing Corp., Stockton ESG Homeless Prevention Outreach, and 130,760 to PREVAIL, which is the Stockton shelter program that PREVAIL runs. So with that, we also ask in the resolution, included in the resolution, that you will give authority to the city manager to complete the contracts as needed for this funding, but also should, if any of these organizations be unable to fulfill their contract in the year timely, that the city manager has the authority to Signed contracts to reassign the money within this NOFA only within this ranking so he wouldn't be choosing other than those that participated and per the rankings, but it does give us the opportunity to Reauthorize and reallocate the money from a timeliness standpoint to ensure we don't lose the money out of our community Thank you Yeah, we can move to public comment public comment I

Yes, we have one. Stephanie Player?

Good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council. My name is Stephanie Player, and I'm CEO for Prevail. I want to thank the City staff for recommending Prevail for ESG funding to support emergency shelter beds at Opportunity House specifically, and respectfully ask the Council to approve the funding recommendations before you today. As you may already know, Prevail has more than 50 years of service in our community, serving vulnerable youth as well as victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, and Opportunity House is an important part of that work. During the 25-26 year alone, 53 young people stayed in our Opportunity House Emergency Shelter, receiving over 2,400 nights of safe shelter there with an average stay of about 46 days. And one of the things that I wanted to share that really makes Opportunity House particularly important is that it is a youth-only shelter. So young people that are experiencing homelessness, they're at a very different developmental stage and can be especially vulnerable in shelter environments that are serving adults of all ages, including higher risks of exploitation, victimization, and trafficking. And some young people might avoid those environments altogether. But Opportunity House really gives them another option, which is a safe and age-appropriate environment with staff who understand the unique needs of transition-aged youth. And they're really around their peers as well. And I want to stress that these aren't simply just beds for the night for these youth. We really view them as gateway beds. Once a young person comes through our doors, we begin connecting them to the longer term housing pathways. That might mean our transitional living program that we also have at Opportunity House. It might mean accessing rapid rehousing and rental assistance through Prevail or fast tracking them with connections to housing resources with one of our close community partners. And we can demonstrate that this pathway is working. Of the young people who served in emergency shelter last year that were age eligible for a transitional living program, one in four went on to enroll in TLP right there at Prevail. And others were able to move either into independent living or reunify with family or friends or transition into other shelter or community-based options. With this ESG investment, we anticipate providing that same immediate safety and pathway forward for approximately 15 young people during this contract year. So I just want to say that we're incredibly grateful to the city of Stockton for recognizing the unique needs of youth experiencing homelessness in our community and for investing in solutions specifically designed for them. Thank you so much. We appreciate it.

This concludes public comment for this item.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor.

Yeah, thank you, Ms. McCarty and Lana and all the staff that worked on this. And thank you to all our community partners that are here. I've had the privilege of getting to know most of you. Just a quick disclosure, I did meet with Michael Sorensen yesterday, but unrelated to this, and we didn't talk about this grant, but I did want to make that disclosure. You know, the one question I have for staff when we met before today, as you know, when we look at the ESG grant, obviously we wish that there was a zero on the end of every one of these numbers because we need more to do more, and our community definitely needs the support, which is why elections are important all the way up to the top, so remember that. I didn't understand under ESG how we got to the award. the people that we're recommending don't deserve it. But I believe when you can do more with less, why would we not do that? And I didn't understand when I saw St. Mary's Community Services why there's 307 people projected to benefit from the resources, but we were awarding 55 people. or in terms of capacity. So I think that'd be helpful for the community to understand that people that may be looking at the numbers thinking, well, why wouldn't we grant money to help 307 people when we're going to grant to help considerably less?

Thank you, Vice Mayor. We did consider that, and we talked a little bit more internally about that with that thought in mind. Certainly, it didn't alter the recommendations because we let the numbers speak for themselves. But in terms of if we look to the future, should we have a category that speaks to the quantity of people that were touched? We might be able to do that, but I think we would need to do it in a way that categorizes the types of services we're looking at, so that you're actually comparing and looking at who is more efficient with the funding. In this scenario, it was wide open, and so you're looking at with Civlick and Prevail, these are both housing sheltering type services that they are providing as opposed to St. Mary's who does great work and does do sheltering. However, that is not what they were. They were competing and applying for a food, their kitchen services. So when you're talking about the numbers, You're talking about feeding 300 as opposed to housing 55. So I think it's difficult to compare quantity served. It would be the difference of paying somebody's rent and paying their grocery bill.

So can I stop you and ask you a question? So I hear you. Is the feeding, you don't feed people, they end up on the street, they end up committing crime, starvation, poverty. We can go down a whole conversation about that. Mm-hmm. But my question is, is the ESG grant specific only for one service or for multiple services or just services in general for competing organizations that serve the same population? Just trying to understand what the grant is for.

So it is emergency. I'm sorry, Lana Lozano, Homeless Initiatives Manager. It is for a multitude of services. For instance, outreach, could be food service, as long as it's serving at-risk or homeless individuals and or families. So there is multiple, which is why you saw so many applicants with diverse programming.

So one thing I understood or learned in our meeting was that the number of people serving is not a qualifying factor for the NOFA consideration, right?

Correct.

And so is that something that this council will have to decide if we want that to be a part of the process moving forward? It's not a part of the rating here, obviously, but I just kind of think that, and I also want to be fair in terms of capacity for organizations that may not have the capacity of it. Is that why there's not that consideration, or can you explain?

Yeah, again, I think it's being able to define it apples to apples. So if we're going to look at those serving the homeless or at risk of homelessness population, which is what the ESG is targeted for by HUD regulations, then we would need to, we're looking for food service, and we're looking for outreach, and we're looking for housing services. then we could look at within those categories who's doing it best in terms of how many can they serve for what amount of money. But to put them all together, which is what we have done in the past and what this NOFA did, it's difficult to compare a food service to a housing service in terms of numbers because the cost is obviously very different.

Got it. And then, you know, I see Red Rabbit advocacy constantly denied for various different reasons. I guess my question is for all of the organizations that are competing for this funding, you know, they all have needs and they all have passions to help our community. Are we making sure we're setting everybody up for the same level of success, whether it's the pre meetings, the post meeting debriefing, like what can you walk just walk us through that, that process briefly, so people can understand what we're doing to make sure people are set up for success.

We sure can. I'm going to let Lana take that question, because she's the one that's directly working with them.

So this year especially, we provide, well, the end of last year, we provided a workshop for all those who had not been successful in a previous CBDG ESG NOFA award. We also offer a technical assistance. session with any applicant that is not successful in securing a recommendation. So that is equitable amongst those that apply. I would also say that any time we talk to a nonprofit that has applied, whether for city, state, or other funding, we do refer them out to our nonprofit capacity building class. so that they can understand, attend that master class, and learn what goes into actually applying. City staff is available, both via email, phone call, and we can take meetings when people do reach out to what goes into a successful NOFA application.

In terms of my other question, hopefully I articulated it properly, is for organizations when they apply for this funding, if they have 307 projected service numbers versus 15, what would the implications of including that in the consideration have on our existing community partners? And let me ask, let me clarify. So children's home, well-established, been around forever, may have lots more resources than a Red Rabbit advocacy, may be competing to find funding for the same or similar service, but you're going up against Goliath for the money. Would it be an unfair consideration to add the number of people that will be served to the consideration when we look at how we rate

I would say in that scenario it could be. You could be weighting it to the Goliath in your terms because they likely have a bigger, broader capacity and therefore likely reach. If you're talking about, so if you're trying to level a playing field with a smaller organization that's doing equally good work but the capacity is simply smaller, then that type of a criteria could tip your scale.

Can I add? So also in the application, it speaks to collaboration, capacity, experience. We speak to all of our awardees and or those that don't get awarded to always seek out, just like a job interview, those that are experts. in the field and in the application, how does your program set you apart from those known programs? So are you getting referrals from those known programs where they've reached their capacity? How are you going about reaching the need that you're stating? Because it's not just enough to say there's a need and we're another program out there. How are you setting yourself apart and or collaborating with those organizations to meet not only the need, but the numbers that you're stating?

And then I guess my last thing, but prior to getting elected, I remember Councilwoman Padilla and I had a meeting in Western Ranch with Mark from BCHIP. And we brought lots of community partners. That's where I met Michael Sorensen. And the question I had, I think the question Councilman Padilla had at the time, because she was a city council member, is how does the city get some of these resources? Obviously, I've learned that the city's not in the business of getting into those type of grants from the state. But if there was a way of exploring public-private partnerships with Friends Outside or some other organization where we can partner and figure out what city resources we have, with what state grant money is out there, and how the need is in our community, because When I think of our youth center that's still out there, we may not be able to get be chip money as an individual city. But if there's a partner that needs it or an RFI to go out to figure out how to help them get it and we can partner in that way. I'm just thinking or homeless on house programs that I know my colleagues are working on. I'm just trying to figure out how we could be more creative because obviously this isn't enough resources and we wish we can get more. But I'm just trying to figure out more creative ways of spreading the opportunities around for all. But thank you for the work. That's all I have.

Oh, Councilwoman Padilla.

Thank You mayor I'm not the best of Matt and maybe I missed it but the ESG grant was for 283 but the two that are funded or 262

The recommendation and what's on the chart are two different things for Prevail. They're two different amounts.

What is on the chart is what they ask for. What they would be allocated is what's in the recommendation because that's where the money ends. Okay, thank you.

No other questions, I will entertain a motion. Motion to approve. Second. I have a motion from Councilwoman Padilla. You guys are going to have to Rochambeau over there for the second. Blower will have it. So roll call vote.

Councilmember Padilla?

Yes.

Councilmember Ponce? Yes. Councilmember Blower? Yes. Councilmember Enriquez? Yes. Councilmember Villapedula? Yes. Vice Mayor Lee? Yes. Mayor Fugazi? Yes. Motion passes 7-0.

Great.

OK, moving on to more good news, 10.4, accept the fiscal year 25-26 third quarter budget status update. And we're like on time, I think, or close to it. Yes, Mr. Garcia. So you have the floor to give us the good news.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Council, Gilbert Garcia. All right, so this is the third quarter report for fiscal year 25-26, which is the year that we just completed. So I'll go over the general fund revenues, expenditures, and then our forecast for our year-end projection. As of March 31st, 2026, which was the third quarter through the end of the third quarter, our budgeted revenues were $329.1 million, which coincides with our appropriation authority for that year. So far, through that third quarter, we have collected $208.7 million. Our projection is that we will basically meet our revenue projections for the year. So that is good news. We're not projecting any kind of deficits. This shows the growth in the general fund. So even though you see the numbers shrinking in the out years or in the more current years, that still is a positive number. So this measures revenue growth over that period. So our revenues continue to grow. I think me, city manager and city council would like to see the growth numbers closer to 5%. year-over-year growth, but any growth is positive. So we are continuing to see growth in our general fund revenues, which is positive news. Our expenditures for the year, our budget is $377 million, and that is larger than our revenue projection because we have planned use of prior year money. So that is, again, planned, budgeted use of money. It is not a deficit, a structural deficit, or anything like that. Our year-end projection is that we will come very close to spending our appropriations. And in October, we're going to bring to council something that we do bring forward every year, which is our carry-forward request from the prior year. So there are programs that the city council approved in 25-26 for which we haven't fully spent the money. So that might include programs like gun buyback programs where we don't have a contract that we can carry forward, but we would like to continue the program. So we bring those requests to council so that we could carry forward program appropriations from one year to the other. Again, we are required to get council authority to carry forward that money. So again, we're looking at pretty much spending our budget once we include that planned use of carry forwards. So our recommendation is that the city council accept the third quarter budget status report. We are currently finishing up our audit for 24-25 and working on 25-26. I'm sorry, there's a typo there that says 25-25, but it should say 24-25. And we should be very close to having our audited financial picture. So once I come back to council, hopefully in October, maybe November, I'll have our fourth quarter audited statements. And so we will present to council at that time where we ended up with the year. We do believe we'll be very close to our projections, you know, what we budget. So that's good news. We'll be starting off the current fiscal year at a good baseline. We do know if there are any additional monies. Our current year does have a structural deficit because of our labor agreements. We had a balanced budget. We do have a planned use of one-time money in order to help bridge a gap, and we of course are gonna there do happen to be any savings at the end of this last fiscal year you know we would probably recommend that we maintain our reserves and use that money to to replenish replenish so that we can come out of a structural deficit within a reasonably short period of time and that concludes my presentation

A quick question for you. Is the approved budget for the 26-27 year that we did back in June, is there a place we can find that, or is that still being curated?

It's still being curated and developed. We're gonna So we are still working on that. We should Have it by the end of September and we're gonna submit it to the government Finance Officers Association for an award. So we're Making it pretty also for them and one of my philosophy has always been I do not prepare a budget for to present to the GFOA I prepare to present to the City Council and to the public of Stockton and But there are some things that help with the award, so we're gonna make sure, again, that we include a lot of the things that are industry standard. But yes, we're still working on that, and we should have that at the end of September.

I'd love to have an award. especially if it's Earned and I think you've earned it since you've been here I know from meeting with mayors throughout the United States that many of them are negative in the millions and some of them in the hundreds of millions of dollars and so I'm proud that we have been fiscally responsible and and I we're going to replenish I wrote that word down actually before you said it. But that we are, you know, we're always cautiously optimistic, but that we can't take any missteps from here, especially now that all of our bargaining units, you know, we've got that all wrapped up in a nice little bow. So is there any public comment on the side?

We have no public comments.

Okay, so the recommendation is to accept the third quarter budget status. So.

Motion.

We have a motion. Second. And a second. Roll call vote.

Council Member Padilla. No, he's absent. Council Member Ponte. Yes. Council member Blower. Yes. Council member Ramirez. Yes. Council member Villapedula. Yes. Vice Mayor Lee. Yes. Mayor Kugazi. Yes. Motion passes 6-0 with Council Member Padilla being absent.

OK. Thank you. Moving on to item 10.5, approve the motion to adopt the 26-27 State and Federal Legislative Advocacy Program. Hi, Alex.

Hello. Good afternoon. And so today we're presenting the 2627 state and federal legislative program The objectives of the program are to advocate for the city of Stockton in Sacramento and Washington DC To keep the city informed on emerging issues legislation and funding and to assist in achieving the city state and federal priorities So the scope of the program centers on these components we have a Consultation, to develop the legislative programs and strategies. And then advocacy, which is ongoing representation of the city, its positions and priorities, which includes letters, meetings, and providing testimony. Funding, where the firms advise and assist staff with funding requests, such as grants and appropriations and earmarks. And so that's at the federal level, earmarks, which are also known as community project funding. And then finally, political reform. So ensuring that the city registers and complies with all the requirements of the Lobbying Disclosure Act. Our legislative program timeline and process. The state legislative year runs from July 1 through June 30, while the federal legislative year from October 1 to September 30. The legislative advocacy is a year-round effort with some regular milestones, so just touch on a few of these. from October to December. We do a deep dive with departments to identify the needs and funding gaps. We target opportunities for detail gathering and get ready for appropriations and planning season, which is roughly February through April for both levels of government. Then in January and February, it's the fast moving bill season for the state, and that peaks around February 20th as the last day for bills to be introduced. After that deadline, the bills move through committees. And this year, there were over 2,000 bills under consideration. Also during this time, the staff prepares the annual council priority planning workshop, which is typically scheduled for February. February through April are Active months where staff develops the funding proposals for the council workshop and also the time frame when the federal legislators open a brief window of opportunity for those earmarks. And May is the month for SJCOG's annual One Voice initiative, which is an opportunity for the city of Stockton to advocate for a regional funding project as well as other priorities in Washington, D.C. So we'll start with the California representation. The city has been represented by Emanuels Jones and Associates for many years. In January of 2026, Emanuels Jones joined the California Public Policy Group, CPPG. And like Emanuels Jones, CPPG is a Sacramento-based advocacy and public policy firm representing local government agencies before the California legislature, administration, and state agencies. So Ms. Kira Ross has been our lead lobbyist for many years, and she has joined with a team of talented lobbyists and grant writers at CPPG.

Alex, can I ask you a quick question? So other than the big city mayor's coalition, I don't recall council going up for a legislative day. I mean, I know we've done that in the past. Is there a reason why we, or did I just miss it last year?

I'm not sure. Yeah, I'll find out about that. I don't know.

You figure we go all the way to D.C. We can easily go up to Sacramento. Okay, thank you.

So our lobbying firm in the state has over a decade of experience working with the city, well-versed in understanding Stockton issues and challenges, and fluent in the communication as our legislative advocates in Sacramento. So our state lobbyist monitors hundreds of legislative bills each season and then analyzes those bills of concern so that the city team can understand the nuances of often complex legislation. Some of the legislative program accomplishments at the state level are listed here, which includes advocacy to stop the Delta Conveyance Project, DCP, advocating to consistently receive the full HAP funding in the state budget, and then to ban the use of forever chemicals, PFAS, and to support penalties for metal theft and human trafficking. And then this is a list of recent funding appropriations through the state budget, which includes that bubbler system and trash boom at Morelli Park, downtown Stockton, Miracle Mile redevelopment, and aquatics facilities at McKinley and Victory Parks. Okay, so we're going to disregard this one because this is a duplicate of the next slide. Let's see if I can do that right. We're not going to disregard that one. Okay. I never know where the other button is on this one. So there's the left arrow. Because there isn't a right arrow, right? We don't want to go backwards. Yeah. OK. Let's go to state legislative challenges. Yeah, that one right there. Okay. Okay. So ongoing state legislative challenges include consistent HAP funding and the Delta conveyance project. And so also data centers, their development and operation. That's a huge topic. Every day we hear more pro and con arguments about that. And we heard that in the meeting this afternoon. Also, there are 14 separate propositions on the November 2026 ballot, including three bond issues. Prop 1, Prop 43, and Prop 45. And if you wanted more information about those, I could give you the title of those. We'll go on. Okay, this is the one that I have a duplicate slide. Okay, sorry about that. So, okay, this is a little weird. Federal-level advocacy, can you move it back?

Back.

That one right there. OK. So we're going to federal level advocacy in January 2025. The city executed a contract for federal advocacy services with Townsend Public Affairs, which is based in Washington, D.C. Townsend is a full service legislative advocacy and grant funding firm and represents more California public agencies in Washington than any other firm. So you can read their areas of municipal expertise here. And they've supported us these past almost two years and have made several trips to Washington, D.C. under their expertise. Okay, so legislative program accomplishments. Here's a table which shows just on the federal advocacy side some accomplishments, the funding priorities that we have submitted as earmarks. They have those in their pipeline and are advocating for those. And so this year, I'll talk about that in the next slide, what we have pending funding for. Townsend has drafted a letter of support from Representative Harder to present an appeal to the Delta Stewardship Council that's on the topic of the Delta Conveyance Project. Transportation, Rep. Harder's transportation staff has engaged DOT, modal administrations, and also coordinated with Build America Bureau and provided guidance on our Safe Streets for All implementation, which is a project that we were awarded several years ago. Safety, engaged with Department of Justice, advocated for the Assistance to Firefighters Grant. Maritime, facilitated discussions with the White House Office of Management and Budget. Shipbuilding, Maritime Administration, Navy Maritime Industrial Program, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to elevate maritime, workforce, infrastructure, and economic development interests. Okay, recent program program funding history on the federal side, as mentioned, the past three years, we have received earmark awards, although smaller than what we originally requested. Here they are. So for this year, it looks like we are going to have awarded funding for the Stockton Fire Regional Training Center expansion 250,000, we'd love to have another zero their real time policing technology project, and then our joint project with I don't know if you'd call it a joint project, but UOP School of Medicine Phase 1, our support for that. Did that money come from Josh Harder, Congressman Harder? Yes, he's recommended this project, yes. I think the total was $7 million. Does that sound right? It was what we were seeking from, and then the city supported that with just our letter of support. Right. And so just to circle back to kind of that word earmark, if this matters, you hear earmark, and then you also hear congressionally directed spending, and then you hear CPF, community project funding. It's all the same thing. It may be of interest that the federal earmarks returned in 2021 after a 10-year ban, and they were effective with the FY22 appropriations. Congress lifted that moratorium and they rebranded the earmarks as those other terms. But they also implemented new transparency rules such as public disclosure of requests. So it's very easy to seek. There's a search out who has received what and what was recommended by what Congress official. Let's see. So then on February 19th, council and city staff held a goal-setting workshop at the Ursula Meyer Library Community Center, and the consulting firm of Raftelis hosted the annual workshop where council identified top three priorities of public safety, economic development, and infrastructure investment. And then they also agreed on three other key areas to focus on. activities for youth homelessness and affordable housing so collectively these priorities drive the legislative program our funding requests and grant seeking so a recommendation after questions would be the approval of this program for 26 27 legislative advocacy program and I'll take questions or comments at this point

Thank you. Vice Mayor, you have a question?

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Alex, for the presentation. Now, we're paying for this advocacy group to go out and advocate on our behalf. Obviously, the Trump administration is looking for model cities that set up our fragile environment to experience things that it definitely doesn't want. My question is, how are we evaluating the performance of these advocates that are out, that are that we're paying to advocate for us shipyard buildings been a discussion I know the mayor's been passionate about that this council is supported figuring out for some time now do we how do we evaluate how that's working or not working would would city manager like to speak to that I'm not sure that we have a mechanism in place at this point for that evaluation but

And I do have an email from the port. They're keeping me abreast of the different opportunities that they're out there. So they're in discussions with some other groups. But they are kind of carrying it at this point. And I'm saying we're open and ready for business.

Got it. I just want to, I guess, similar to the work that we just saw from Zen City, If we're spending taxpayer resources for people to go out and do the work for us and advocacy for us, I want to be able to know what are our tracking and what are our tools that we have in our tool belt to be able to evaluate the efficiency of that work.

And I'll take that question. And to be totally honest with you, we have not had a chance to sit down within the first eight months of being here trying to fill positions and right on down the line. I will say this. We'll put it high on our priority list to put a grading system in and also check to see what we do already have in place And we can bring you back a report in another day. 45 or 60 days. No, no. No, no, no, no, no. That's just like saying two weeks, two weeks, two weeks. But no. But give us some time. Maybe.

Well, here's the reason why I'm asking. Yes. You know, if we've been pursuing something for a year and a half and we're not seeing them give us any real substantive moves towards that, we can always blame things on like the White House. But we need to know how realistic our pursuit is for things. And I would just like to know what we're doing, right?

And so I guess then one of the things that we can do, Alex, is list the things that we've done in the last 18 months and then provide you an update and a checklist off of what are some of those things that have been accomplished. And that we can do and would be more than happy to do. And then all at the same time, we'll put in some type of evaluation system to grade what type of work our lobbyist has been doing for us.

So who's going to remind council of this?

Cause we're going to, we will, Alex will put it down as a ticker on her schedule and we will shoot to bring that update back in the month of, uh, September, especially with September 30th, would be the end of the federal cycle. And, of course, June 30th was the end of the state cycle. So everything that went through for the last 18 months, we'll bring you back an update and then have a report to you in the month of September, especially as the federal year ends September 30th.

No, that's helpful. And then the last question is, I know, you know, under the charter, we don't direct staff. How are we directing this agency? Staff does that? Does that come from city manager's office?

It's a combination of both. And I'll give you a prime example. We went to Washington. Oh, I can't remember. April, May, May. We went to Washington in May. thought we were in a really really really good position to be successful and was told that because of a relationship which I know the council has been discussing for the last three months the city of Fresno case and and ran into having a great meeting to having no conversation with us whatsoever because of, what's the word I'm looking for, because of what the state of California had done. And so we're still working through that. Now is that the fault of the lobbyists? No. And those are the type of things that we will come back with an update report on what has happened in the last 18 months without saying too much.

Okay, that last line is getting me. yes okay um i'm going to consider if i want to say something else but right now i'm not why uh no i'm going to just leave it there but here's what i will say right taking what you just said without saying too much yes we need to further consider all decisions that we make in pursuit of these things because if through our decisions uh our advocacy groups we're not able to achieve the the goals that we're setting forth then we always have As a council, I think the need to reconsider some decisions that we make.

Yes.

I'll leave it there. Yes.

Thank you.

How do we know what they're doing? How do we know their successes and accomplishments? Sometimes it's almost intangible. And the example that I would say is that recent Safe Streets for All grant. The public works received that. That's through DOT. And that was a couple of years ago in a different administration. And so here just sometime earlier this year, we started hearing that they wanted to cancel, you know, take away the money that Public Works, it's $8 million, over $8 million. So our federal team did a lot of, you know, kind of interactive meetings to try to move this forward and convince them that really we are on the same side of the, we're on the same page with that.

So make it palatable to them. And the reason why I ask the question, Alex, is because we don't, as a council, interact with this lobbyist, right? And when Florence was talking about staff going to D.C., I've not gone to D.C. on a trip yet because I don't want to just go out there and have lunch. Like, I want to know how I can use some of my own personal relationships with Congress, men and women or whatever, to be helpful. But since we don't interact with the group, I don't know, at least for myself, who or how we're advocating for what we need or how we're making the determination of what we pursue. So I guess from the February meeting where we met at the offsite and we came up with our priorities, does that then give staff the guidance on how we guide them to pursue certain opportunities or what?

Yes, it does. And also working with the Council of Government and those projects that we take before to them, working with Public Works, much like he's saying on infrastructure. Working with you can development projects and how does that tie in so yes, your Council goes help drives this process and then also it becomes much about What position are we in in public safety? We were in a really really really good position to cap in on one once again public safety without saying too much and all at the same time having to doubt back and not be able to move forward on some projects. So your counsel goes, drives us in the program that we put together in order to try to get not only federal funds, but also state funding. Thank you.

Councilman Enriquez.

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to just reiterate, I know this was feedback I gave after we got back from the one voice trip in May and maybe in a June meeting. But one of the things I did say publicly is that when it comes to our lobbying firm is that I do want not necessarily more preparation, but I want to have a plan of action to kind of to what the Vice Mayor was sharing about having a specific role and providing that beforehand. So kind of for me, at least I've been more in the SJCOG sphere when I'm out there. But of course, I know there's also cities individually also do their own outreach, which is great. One of the things I noticed in some of the meetings I was in, I think you were in that meeting with me, I forget, but I know Florence was. And it was just, there was several meetings, but I think that was the one that stood out to me the most because that was the one that right before we walked in, each of us had a specific role and a story to tell. And I think it just made that meeting that much stronger and more effective than just saying in the morning, These are the issues, you have your packet, this is your group of eight, 10 people, good luck. But then when we're there, I don't, coming from the staffer side, I was the one that was sitting there when I was with one of the, I used to work for one of the senators in committee and I would be the one sitting there and visitors would come in and we sit there with our notebooks taking notes about what the ask was. What do they want, right? And I always remember that when the groups left, The staff and I would sit there, and we'd start to kind of summarize who's going to summarize this for the member. And one of the things we've noticed, now being on both sides, is that we can tell a staff when the groups out there lobbying aren't prepared or there's not a point of – who the point of contact is. Who's the captain of the ship? And what's the story each person's telling? And it's very obvious. So now being on the other side, I sit there saying, who's the captain of the ship? What are the roles? Who's going to tell what story? Each person can tell a story stronger than another person. So I don't want it to just be, okay, here's a project. Here, talk about this. I'd rather see who's more effective in telling that story versus someone else, despite title. So I think having done my two one voice trips, I would say that with the person that we're paying, kind of being a little bit more strategic about the roles and even the people that should go on specific issues and topics. And not to say that just because, you know, you don't know enough or not to take that away from anybody else, but, you know, we're not just going for lunch, right? We're going out there with a role. And if you don't have a role, then maybe you're not the best person at that time to fly out to the East Coast. So that's the only feedback I'll reiterate again to the lobbying firm. Thank you.

And Kinsman I can just also add I think you made some excellent points and one of the things that happened. Last year's that we we the city actually had a trip plan to DC that I know vice mayor and some others wanted to be a little bit more involved in as we got down closer to that time frame, we ended up counseling the trip because as we all can remember, I think there was the, not the State of the City, but the State of the Union speech, and we counseled that week because on that Tuesday of the speech, there was no meeting whatsoever in D.C., and so the best option at that time was to tag on to the council of government so next year we will be back uh with the two trips separate and be able to spend more time on behalf of the city of stockton and projects that we want to lobby spend more game plan with who's going to go into the room and make those pitches and so we are aware of that and you'll see a much different coordination than what we went through this past year

And I'll say, because we were double booked or meetings ran over, I know Council Member Enriquez covered some meetings and I covered some meetings. And I know, Chief, you were in a meeting. And then we had Deputy Chief from the Police Department and Penny. and we did we did exactly that and told told stories that I will tell you though when I walked into the aviation Department of Aviation and I said you know I'm flying by the seat of my pants on this because because I was not I was not prepared for that one but in the end you know we're out there demonstrating to them you know about what Stockton is not so much just saying you know give us money that that's nice but building those relationships I think is part of it part of it too and so I'm looking forward to being separate so that we don't have over overlap because that already then you know makes it difficult, because you've got to choose. And I know that Council Member Blauer was out there for Sajafka. He was out there the same week that we had that. And we're passing each other and saw each other at some of the evening events after all of our meetings. But it is. We need to better plan for that. Oh, Council Member Villalpudo.

Yeah, I just suggest that some of the ones, people that don't make you to the trip, that somehow we can have them call in, like on Zoom, communicate those meetings, if that's possible.

Yeah. And let me say this. And the reason why I haven't gone to D.C., honestly, one, I obviously don't believe Trump's going to give us anything. You can look at him all over the news. But but if he does, if there's any help or any way I can support, you know, I would rather like help phone up Congress people that staff can meet with or make phone calls to make connections. I've offered the mayor to help her with. access to people that I personally won't sit with but can help her talk to for it, but I want to be helpful in that way. I just don't think going out there and wasting, for me, wasting taxpayer resources when I know that I may get in the way of our own effort, I can help in the background. So I still offer myself to do that when it's necessary.

So this is an action item. I'm bringing it back to council regarding the plan. Alex presented for our state and federal correct yes I'm sorry I thought you were asked for entertain a motion so moved I have a motion by Councilman Bauer and a second by Councilman Villapudua. Go ahead and do roll call.

Councilmember Padilla? Yes. Councilmember Ponce? Yes. Councilmember Bauer? Yes. Councilmember Enriquez? Yes. Councilmember Villapudua? Yes. Vice Mayor Lee? I'll abstain. Mayor Fugazi?

Yes. Do we need to announce an abstention? Is it an abstention for conflict?

No, I just don't believe we're getting our money.

I'm just saying I didn't know we could abstain unless it was a personal conflict.

Oh. So. You can vote.

You can vote.

Vote no. No.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Motion passes 6-1. Vice Mayor Lee, let me know.

Okay. OK, moving on now to item 10.6, San Joaquin County EMS system performance update, ambulance patient offload time, and medical patient destination policy. Hello, gentlemen.

hello good evening chief carr here with your fire department um and i'm introducing chief gutierrez who's our ems chief and executive director of sencal i'll let him introduce himself after i'd be quiet here we were tasked with just giving a presentation on send Cal more about what we call a pod which is our ambulance patient offload times and how those work at the hospitals and then What where people are supposed to go and what controls where people go for? Destinations when they need to go to the hospital and we gave this presentation to our send Cal Executive board so we thought it would be helpful to give to the council and the community as well

and I will turn it over to Chief Gutierrez.

Hello, thank you. I'll go ahead and start with the slideshow since I got an introduction, so appreciate that, thank you. So obviously we're gonna be talking about APOT, which stands for Ambulance Patient Offload Times. We're also gonna be going into medical patient destination and how basically we are driven by policy that's developed by the San Joaquin County EMS Agency. And the ultimate objective is basically just straightforward, improving ambulance availability, so emergency resources are ready for the next 911 call. So first, obviously, what's APOT? So APOT stands for ambulance patient offload time. It measures the time from when the ambulance arrives at the emergency department until the hospital assumes responsibility for patient care. During this time, the ambulance crew remains responsible for the patient, meaning that the ambulance cannot respond to another emergency. During this time, the ambulance crew remains responsible. Under San Joaquin County Policy 4985, hospitals are expected to transfer care from the ambulance within 25 minutes, and that's the standard that the county has set, at least the expectation. When that time exceeds the local standards, it becomes a patient offload delay, and that's what we call APOD. Every minute we safely reduce APOT, it returns an ambulance back into the system sooner. So along with that, we have some meetings that we attend with hospitals and with the EMS agency where we collaborate and kind of go over the different hospitals that have different time metrics and we just kind of monitor the trends to make sure that we're trending in the right direction. And why that matters, it's not simply just a hospital performance measure. It really measures ambulance availability and the overall system performance. So you can imagine if we have multiple ambulances stacked up at a hospital, that significantly reduces the amount of ambulances that we have in the system. So that's why we keep track of this. Longer transfer times reduces the number of ambulances in the system and improving APOT strengthens response reliability and improves public safety throughout the city and San Joaquin County. So where we currently stand, this is something, a report that we get weekly from the MS administration where they show us how the hospital is doing with their APOD, how long it takes them to offload patients. And you can see it just varies from hospital to hospital. And primarily what we look for is just the basic trend, whether we're trending up, whether we're trending down, And, you know, on our quarterly meetings that we have with the EMS agency to review this information, then we can, you know, dive into deeper details of what the actual reasons are. So for historical context, ambulance patient offloads have been an area of focus throughout San Joaquin County. Our LEMSA EMS administrator, Jared Bagwell, for the last few years has been monitoring this and developed an EMS advisory committee to where we can all get together and discuss this. He's also implemented that standard of 25 minutes that became policy in May of this year. And you can see just over the last year, this is from the 2025 EMS annual report on the county's website. You can see that the hospital trends have trended down as far as patient offload times. So that's a very good thing. And then diving into medical patient destinations. Again, it's policy driven, 5201 from the county's EMS policies. And pretty much, we basically wanna send patients to the correct facilities for the specialties that they might need, depending on how critical the call is. You can see on here, we have STEMI facilities. There's two of them in San Joaquin County. You have Dameron Hospital and St. Joe's. And a STEMI is basically when a patient's having a heart attack and they need a cath lab, they need to go to a cardiac center. So that's pretty much, there's two here in Stockton. And we also have stroke centers. Patients that are having strokes will go to the nearest stroke center. Cardiac arrests go to the closest receiving hospital. Any lower level EMS calls where the patient has a choice where they want to go to a specific hospital. And, you know, granted there's no specialty care that they need, then we can honor their choice of going to the hospital that they choose. There's also active labor types of calls. And you can see on the list here we have certain hospitals that have labor and delivery in San Joaquin County. And then so moving forward here, we're gonna continue our collaborative process that we have with the EMS agency. We have monthly CQI meetings. We meet with the medical agency once a week. We have weekly calls with the administrator, quarterly EMS advisory meetings where we meet with our hospital partners and EMS staff and collaborate on system issues. And so with that, basically, in closing, I just want to emphasize that APOD is not solely a hospital issue. It's an overall EMS issue, and we share that safety issue with them from a public safety standpoint where we collaborate with each other and make sure that we're all supporting each other in the system.

with that I can open it up to questions or any comments I had a couple of questions I noticed on slide for the total transports st. Joseph's Medical Center has nearly 500 and and the patient you know, getting to an RN. Do we have any data that says when they're seen by a doctor, once the nurse gets them, what the time is before they're seen by a doctor?

We do not have that data. I'm not sure if the EMS agency does, but this is the information that's shared with us.

And I will tell you, I've gone with students, like a student has been injured at school, and I made the mistake of riding in the ambulance instead of taking my car and following, because the principal just said, you need to go with them. And I jumped in the rig and went with them. And then I got there, and there wasn't a bay available. I mean, it was just packed. It was packed. The number of people in there, there were people in the hallway, in gurneys, in the hallway. And then I was trying to get a ride back, but they couldn't give me a ride back. And I was calling Florence. I don't know if she's in here. But I was calling Florence because there was a council meeting. I said, ah! might need you to come pick me up because i don't have anybody to drive me um uh so i'm just i i i think that there's another lane there or another column there that we need that maybe um the hospitals can provide us with that information because yeah once you you drop them off and you get them to an rn uh you're hightailing it to the next call correct correct yeah

Yeah, let's be very clear. This is ambulance patient offload time. So this is you came in by ambulance. How long is it taking us to get the person off the gurney into the care of the hospital? And that care is just it's a transfer of care to a higher authority. So that could just be a nurse who signs the paperwork and takes care of that patient. takes the care of that patient. That doesn't mean that the patient has seen a doctor now after 20 minutes or 25 minutes. And you're not considering this has nothing to do with patients that drive themselves to the ER. So you could potentially, even if you came by ambulance, once you get there and that transfer of care happens, where we can get our ambulance back in service, there's still a triage that goes on where you could be sent possibly back out to a waiting room, even though you potentially came by ambulance, just depending on what the nature of your illness is. So that's where you start to stack up those ER times when you go on a Friday night and you go to the ER and you say, yeah, I was there for six hours, eight hours, whatever. We're not capturing that because our main goal is we need to get that ambulance back into service and transfer the patient to somebody that has a higher care of authority than my paramedic. So that variation is going to be from hospital to hospital, day, night, depending on the day of the week and the night and time of day and that kind of thing.

Yeah, it's definitely very dynamic throughout the week, time of the day, the seasons of the year. It's a constant ebb and flow.

And that's why I'm so excited that st. Joe's is building a new ER because the one they have there is really cramped and They need a new one.

So anyway Yeah, councilman Padilla Thank You mayor and thank you chief for providing this because I saw it firsthand and I thought it was very informational to the public and In the first presentation, you also mentioned that if the hospital doesn't have a room, for example, if you have a patient that's going into mental distress and they don't have a room available for that type of situation, you are sitting there waiting until the hospital has availability and so that affects you going back into operation. And then, two, the question came up about people directing which hospital they want to go to. They have their preferences, and I think the chart on page six is really good to know for those individuals. If you're in a trauma situation, the best hospital to go to is St. Joseph's, regardless of your opinion of that hospital. And then when it comes to the heart problems, we can see that we only have two hospitals in our area that deal with STEMI, which is Dameron and St. Joseph's. Just those little things that I felt were important for our community to know, because when we get in an ambulance, you know, we want to dictate where we want to go. And sometimes it's not always the best place to go. Yeah.

No, that really falls upon the paramedic, whether it's the fire paramedic or the ambulance paramedic, to know the county policies. And the county policies direct a lot of times where we have to take the patient. So if it's a patient that meets a certain trauma criteria, they have to go to San Joaquin General Hospital. if it's a patient that we believe is having a cardiac issue uh stemmy pre pre-heart attack or you know heart attack scenario they have to go to st joe's or dameron those are the stemmy centers so a lot of that is controlled by the policy that's put out by the county ems agencies so thank you i appreciate that councilman blauer

Just a quick clarification. I'm curious with this timing, does the clock start like right when that 911 call comes in?

As far as the APOT time, the time starts when ambulance arrives at the emergency department. Okay, so when they get there. Yeah, as soon as they get there, the timer starts.

It's still pretty fast to pick somebody up, get them loaded up, and get them to the hospital.

Definitely. This is a very high-performing system. Yeah.

we want to give credit to this this has been a true collaboration the county ems agency and like chief mentioned jared bagwell has done an incredible job on the side the hospital side working with the hospitals to really help them find ways to reduce that delay where there are some systems some emergency room systems where you could be on an you know on an ambulance taken to the er and sit for an hour or two on the gurney and not have that transfer of care happen. So like I said, it's been a true collaboration of working from the MS agency, the field units, our ambulance provider now working with SenCal, AMR, and everybody kind of working together to help get this to 20, 25 minutes where you can get get the transfer of care, we get our ambulance back in service, and then, again, they'll triage the patient, determine the need and what doctors they'll see and how quickly they'll see them at the hospital.

Well, thank you. I appreciate that. It seems like a really good metric to be able to kind of judge how you're doing, and so thank you.

Councilman Enriquez.

Thank you, Mayor. Just a comment. I just want to say thank you for all that you all do, because when the mayor mentioned St. Joe's ER is very small, when I was practically dying in February, I didn't realize just how hands-on the fire department was when it came to hospitals until I saw it myself. When I was in the ER, I didn't bring his attention because I don't want to make it seem like oh my god why is a customer dying on an ER bed but I saw Devin and two other guys with him and they were literally walking right in front of me in the hallway and I was like oh my god don't say anything just sweat and die over here but I didn't realize just how seeing them interacting with patients and the staff I said wow this is beyond more than what I thought of I mean yes I see reports I see it all and you know not just this but in general about the role that fire department has but just how hands-on it is when you pick someone up in the city, bring them to the hospital, whichever it may be, and then what's the follow-through, right? Because every patient's going to be different. So it was a very lived experience for me that I now take away with. But I'm sure Devin now knows that I saw him walking down the hallway and I didn't say anything to him. But nonetheless, I just want to say thank you as someone who's been through it. So I appreciate it.

yeah no i we appreciate that and um chief gutierrez does an incredible job of running our ems division and now running sencal uh pretty much we're four months into it and he's basically running an ambulance business and making sure that we have enough resources on the street and they're getting patients to where they need to go and being available for for other calls so i'm incredibly proud of the work he's doing and

The Sen Cal operation in general so and you can see that logo a mile away Thank you, so it's easy to identify. Okay. Thank you so much, but there was no public comment on this was it no, okay great So chief you're sticking around fire protection item ten point seven fire protection services at the Port of Stockton next steps

Alright. Thank you very much. I wanted to kind of bring this back for full circle. We had a presentation about a year, year and a half ago, a little over a year ago, on the port and fire protection services at the port. Kind of you got a pretty informational presentation about how the port is set up, a little bit about the fire service and what we provide. I kind of want to bring it back and just do a kind of a close the loop of where I think we are and where I think we kind of need to go and how I believe we'll get there. So the presentation is very big on collaboration. If you can't tell, I've tried to use the word over and over again. But my main recommendation is really coming down to trying to get a working group together. And the port director and I met last week. We've met a couple times in person and then by phone. And we're both very interested in looking at a long-term solution to satisfy what – would concern me as a fire chief and being prepared to mitigate an emergency at the port, response times to get out to the port. Some of those things are kind of the biggest concern to me. And as well, the port recognizes the need, I think, for can we reduce our response times? Can our people, the fire service, be more prepared to handle emergency? So we kind of came up with this, or I am proposing the idea of establishing a working group, which would include staff from the city, from the port. It would include everybody from myself, my operations chief, Chief Niram, people in our Fire Prevention Bureau who already deal a lot with things at the port, our finance staff here in the city, and then Mr. DeJesus would assemble his own staff, people he thought could – Were needed to be a part of this group. I Think we can make some immediate steps right now that can kind of help us get to where we need to go and I don't necessarily Without we don't have any things on the signs on the dotted line or anything like that So I don't want to you know say anything but too much. I think we can we can move forward with an approach where almost in steps step one would be okay let's see if we can get somebody who's familiar with what's at the port and how does our closest station closest engine work with that person and become more familiar with the emergencies that we could face at the port step two might look at okay is there a place we can Potentially one day house a fire station at the port. Well, how would we do that? Is there grant funding available and kind of work in in? Levels or steps to get to a final place where I think we we would want to be So that was kind of the idea behind the working group And we did have the port director here earlier.

I saw him out in the hall and

Yes, Chief Nierim and I actually were speaking with him in the hall, kind of a follow-up to a conversation we had the other day. And so he's, like I said, he is very interested in trying to collaborate and work with us on the best needs for the department and the city and the port.

Vice Mayor has a question. Absolutely.

Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, Chief. And thank you for all the amazing work that you and your team have been doing. I know we had a call earlier this morning related to this matter because I actually asked to bring this back to Council because, as you mentioned, we had this conversation over a year ago. And I just had a meeting last week with Mayor Karen Bass and having watched her go through a disaster in L.A. and it still be a thing where fire started in one area and literally hopped from city to city to city and she's you know she's going through a lot for seasons that was not even hers in a system that was struggling and we did a lot of work here at the city of Stockton to assess our hydrants before you you came and making sure our hydrants were working in my district there were some hydrants that weren't working then we talked about the Cal Water partnership so our city has done a lot of work to ensure that our infrastructure can meet the needs of a disaster. You sent us an email on the 10th updating council of something that happened, and I think we titled it a significant hazmat incident at the port. And it was ironic that this item was coming to council because the whole reason we were having this discussion was making sure that we were prepared for fire at the port. And the reason why I'm a little long-winded in this conversation is because the work that we all have to do is sort of like It's insurance. It's not when a crisis happens. It's to make sure that we're set up to be prepared to handle a crisis if one were to happen. In this instance, the email says approximately 2,700 gallon fill truck pulled into a loading bay. The driver set up the truck to fill for its full amount, which was 2,700 gallons at some point during the fill. At 2,000 gallons, a relief valve opened, dumping the remaining 700 gallons out on the ground, and then a flash fire occurred. And thankfully, their foam system was able to kick in and get the fire under control. Had that been another material, had it been a chemical that creates challenges to the air, I mean, it could have been more disastrous and we've already been told that it's 22 minutes response time getting there to a fire at the port if it were to occur since there are no fire services or dedicated fire services there. I say all that because I love that we're forming a committee, but I want to make sure we're not just forming another committee, that we're actually looking at what is the What is the plan to make sure that we have dedicated fire services there, whether they build their own fire station, whether we fund one, whether they give us the money, whatever? Do you have faith that this working group is going to get us an answer to that question before we get out of this term?

I personally do have faith. I have faith in my team. I have faith for, I think part of our conversation this morning I mentioned, when the city went into bankruptcy in 2011, one of the engine companies they closed was engine station one. Station 1, and Chief Nierim can speak better to it than me, but it was kind of our hazmat station, and they were kind of our port experts. And we relied on them to know what was there at the port and what the hazards were and how we would mitigate them. When Station 1 was closed in 2011, it wasn't opened again until over a decade later. And since it's been opened, we've continued to kind of figure out a way with the three-person staffing that we have now on that engine, how they run their 2,000 to 2,500 calls, while also now trying to become more familiar with the port. And so that's kind of the... That's kind of the sixty four thousand dollar question is getting everybody in the room to look at the operational side of this and the finance side of it, which is not something that we have ever done and What I got from mr. DeJesus was a true commitment to do that and get all of our people from our side that we think are important in the room and vice versa on the port side and So I feel relatively confident. Like I said, I think we can, within three to six months, we can have actual steps in place that will make me feel a little bit better as a fire chief going to bed at night about can we mitigate an emergency at the port. And I could, Chief Nerium, if he wants to add anything relative to that.

Yeah, I agree with what Chief Carr said. I think that's a realistic timeline. I've been involved with assessments at the port in the past, and we were challenged with the closure of company ones. We did house our hazmat team there. We did provide information to city leadership years ago about expanding our team, and they were since moved to double house to where we have seven hazmat specialists on duty. I think if we shift that focus to company ones, which is currently covering the port, we'd be in a better position to handle incidents out there and look at future expansion. I think what's really important, like I said, we're trying to be collaborative with the port is as they scale up and tenants out there, that we also scale up our fire protection

to support their needs and our needs as far as the hazards at the port so i think that's a realistic target six months and it'll provide some solid information from that working group yeah and again you all do the amazing work every day we don't we just help you when we can and how we can so i would trust your leadership in doing that i think that the other thing that the port director said why when he was here earlier and i and i think he does a great job out there is There's other business to be done here in Stockton through the port that would require, I think, more services or dedicated services. So hopefully part of this work group can explore what is the six-month plan, but then what is the long-term vision of the port and how are we aligned in services that are going to be necessary depending on the type of products that they have out there. So we'll defer to you, but we'd love an update in six months on the progress and hopefully a conclusion to this issue that was brought up a while ago. Thanks.

Yeah, and I will just add that I think we have the right players, like I said, on both sides. And we have a long-term, I have a long-term vision of what I think is possibly needed out there and taking steps to ultimately get to that point. how is it how does it work for the port how does it work for the city of Stockton and what is the timing to make us comfortable from the fire department side as well as making the port comfortable and and as chief Naram said scaling it up as they scale up and anything that happens out there at the port so did you finish your presentation Yes, I think I was on the last slide. It was a very short presentation with three slides. And we're going to keep the focus, the working group will keep the focus on public safety, economic vitality, as Vice Mayor mentioned, what is the future and possible growth out there, keeping that in mind. operational effectiveness, and then financial sustainability. So no matter what we do, we want it to be financially sustainable for both sides and both parties involved while we're meeting the number one goal, which is public safety.

I was just going to say, April 11, 2023, that's when number one reopened. I was there, and the community was grateful. I mean, people showed up for the opening of the station, and knowing that they are there with the Fresno Avenue, head on over to the port. But if we can do more, I think we need to do more. So thank you for your presentation. I appreciate it.

Absolutely. Yeah.

OK. OK. OK. So we are moving on now to the city manager's update. Oh.

Sorry. Public comment? There is one.

Oh, sorry. Sorry. Jasmine?

Jasmine. Thank you. Good evening. Jasmine Peterson with Little Manila Rising. Before I comment on this item, I would be remiss not to honor the life and legacy of Dr. Dawn Bohulano-Mabalin, who would have celebrated her 54th birthday yesterday. Her life and her work have had an extraordinary impact on our city. particularly in shaping my understanding of the communities and histories of South Stockton. I did want to just offer some thoughts as you all move forward and with the poor about this conversation through our work with the Community Resiliency Collaborative, also known as CRC, which I've shared with you all before. our team has been working with residents and partners in southwest stockton to better understand what preparedness could look like at the neighborhood level we've been partnering with san joaquin county oes and they've been an important partner in that work and we've definitely appreciated the expertise of our technical partners in emergency management who've been working with us for the last year I just want to remind that this work builds on years of work through the AB 617 Community Air Protection Program, particularly around air quality, freight and industrial activity, and the cumulative impacts that are experienced by the residents of Southwest Stockton and other surrounding neighborhoods of the port. Most recently, we've been engaging with the National VOAD, the Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster, paying attention to the changing federal landscape around emergency management. And we take that responsibility to sharpen our knowledge and the community's knowledge as the increasing importance is being placed on local leaders to deliver that work. Whatever those changes ultimately look like, whether that be the reestablishment of the community emergency response team, CERT, or other interventions, it just reinforces the importance of having those relationships with trusted community partners and the coordination before an emergency happens. Our role really we see as being on the community side of the work. And I just want to also acknowledge the tremendous day-to-day demands on Stockton emergency responders and our fire department. I firsthand have seen the work that you all do at Engine 2. and across the city and just want to thank you for that. But I do hope that this process creates space for the city, the port, and those with the technical expertise to have deeper conversations around coordination and the resources that are needed to serve our community. There are approximately 132,000 people living in the 8617 boundary and we center them as we go forward every day. So thank you for the opportunity to share on this and hope to connect with you soon.

City manager.

Yeah, I will actually take my city manager report update over to the next council meeting.

Moving on then to the next time which is Council comments. Council member flower.

Okay, I guess I'll be first out of the gate. It's been a while since our last meeting. It was, gosh, back in July. So there's been all these, yeah, it's been a busy summer. So some of the things that I've gone to, I was happy to go on July 25th to the Pioneer Village Grand Opening at the San Joaquin Historical Museum out at Mickey Grove Park. That is really an impressive event. new addition to the parks and to the Historical Society. They spent $5 million building that. And it's where they will do Valley Days. So I know when the kids, I think third graders, do Valley Days. And yeah, it was very impressive. August 2, I was happy to go to Centro Vida Church. to congratulate Pastor John Shivers on 30 years as their pastor. It was also his 60th birthday. I joined Supervisors Gardea and Canepa there. August 4, we had the flag raising for the Coast Guard. And then that night was National Night Out. So I want to thank my planning commissioner, Terry Hull, for joining me. We made it to 10 of the events, so I was pretty busy. And just really want to thank the community and thank the people that put on those events. Some of them were bigger than others, but the ones where the neighbors get together and do that are always fun to stop in and see what they're doing. Then, let's see, on the 6th, I was happy to represent the city at the grand opening of Golden Valley Health Center's Stockton Community Health Complex. And Congressman Harder was there, Assemblymember Ransom, Supervisor Canepa. very happy to have them here in stockton i think that's that's going to be great the seventh was the 13th annual misty holt memorial golf tournament raising funds for victims of violent crime saw council member padilla that And then on the 8th, I want to thank Adam and Lisa Koren. They invited me to, it was really cool, they did a reading of the Declaration of Independence. And so to have a big room full of people, and they started and had, or they read a little bit, but then they had the whole group just corporately read out the Declaration of Independence. They had one half of the room read a part, and then the other half would read And so it was really a cool event. So I thank them for putting that on. On the 11th, I joined Councilmember Enriquez for the 75th anniversary of the Stockton Corral. So they've been bringing musical excellence to our community for 75 years. Saturday the 15th was the 54th annual Barrio Fiesta. Saw the mayor, council members Padilla and Villaputua there. And then that evening was the hospice sip and stroll. And that is always a wonderful event. Very, very well attended. Raised a lot of money for it. Very good cause. And then yesterday, I had a very cool experience. I went down to San Luis Obispo, and I was able to tour the Diablo Grande nuclear power plant. So I want to thank Ellen from PG&E for arranging that. And Dylan George, some of you remember Dylan. Dylan was the one who did the tour. So he was our tour guide. And just to throw out to my fellow council members, very, very interesting. And Ellen said, if any of you want to do that, to just let her know. And it just was fascinating. It's the only working nuclear power plant in California. And it actually, that one plant alone produces almost 10% of the power that our state uses. So quite remarkable. So again, I highly recommend, if any of you are interested in doing that, it was well worth the drive. Looking forward, this Friday, the Child Abuse Prevention Council Duck Derby will be at Lincoln Center, and that will be from 6 to 9 p.m. If you want a chance to try and dunk me in a dunk tank, I will be manning the dunk tank at 7.30. And no running up and hitting it. So anyway, that will be coming up. The last thing I wanted to bring up, I was really surprised and shocked to hear the sad news. Pastor Dwight Williams passed away. Very recently, and so I'm going to read this little in memoriam from my Rotary Club. I've known him for, oh gosh, years and years and years. Fellow Rotarian, just a good guy. I just talked to him a few days ago. We were talking about he asked if he could get a ride with me to the next California League of Cities Central Valley Division. And I said, yeah, I'd love to have you. So we had plans and it's just still surprising that those plans aren't gonna be fulfilled. It is, let me read what my Rotary Club president sent out. It is with heavy hearts that we share the passing of our friend and fellow Rotarian, Reverend Dwight Earl Williams, who died this past weekend. Dwight served on our board as youth and vocational services chair, a role that fit him perfectly. A devoted Rotarian, he embodied our motto of service above self in everything he did. Born and raised in Stockton, Dwight was one of the youngest ordained ministers in the Central Valley region, called to service at just 19 years old. He went on to lead New Genesis Outreach Ministries as senior pastor and served as president and CEO of New Genesis Housing Development Corporation for more than 15 years, working to strengthen his community through housing, economic development, and outreach. He also served as Senior Vice President of the Greater Stockton Chamber of Commerce, one of the many roles through which he gave back to the city he loved. Dwight gave his life to the people of Stockton. He met everyone with humility, warmth, and genuine care, and his absence will be deeply felt by all who knew him. So, Mayor, I'd like to ask if we get to the end, if we can do a moment of silence. Thank you.

Councilwoman Padilla.

Thank you, Mayor. Just a few district updates. With today's allocation, Stanfield and Anderson streets will be two streets in District 1 eligible for resurfacing. I have been currently working with city staff on a pilot program to detour street racing and sideshow so I hope this temporary deterrent will be installed North Stockton on the intersection of West Lake and regatta because that is a very large intersection and that is where we see a lot of activity Another intersection, McCollamy and Consumas, which is heavily trafficked with a most recent accident of an individual crossing the street. I'm working with city staff on a potential four-way stop. When notified, I do report some streetlights that are in need of repair. If they are minor, they typically get done complete or get done quite quickly. Delays happen when they're missing parts or if there is major repairs that involve digging up the sidewalk. So if you have a Stockton issue out for a street light and you're wondering why it hasn't been repaired, please feel free to email me to get an update as to why that might be delayed. August 26 at 11 a.m. Chick-fil-A will be hosting its grand opening in and ribbon cutting. So that's located in Trinity Parkway and in and out will be opening sometime in September. I want to thank our public safety departments for sponsoring Public Safety Day. It was extremely well received. There were a lot of families out there, just a lot of activities, building relationships, a great community event for the whole city. They were giving raffling bikes out to kids every 30 minutes. Our public safety department had a volleyball tournament, just a good way to get community out and families building relationships with our public safety. This Saturday is my fourth annual community event, co-hosted with the City of Stockton. It will be at Michael Fackless Park from 630 to 930. Our local Latin magic band will be playing. There's going to be free food and lots of family activities, and everyone is welcome. I am going to continue to say this to the public as well as to our city. is that we have to change the mindset and the narrative of our city. You know, crime is down, homelessness is down, and those are things that we really need to elevate. And every one of my colleagues up here works tirelessly to make Stockton safer, cleaner, and stronger. You know, we continuously have side conversations about more family entertainment, creating opportunities for the youth, supporting businesses, and improving public safety. The seven of us up here on this dais, we want to represent this city to the best of our ability. I know that there are comments that get made, and I can truly say that this council is very passionate about this city and wants to do the best that they can. And when I say the seven of us that represent this city, I also want to include our commissioners as well, because they do represent our city. And, you know, there's a saying that says character is what you do when no one is watching. But today, especially on social media, people are watching. I find myself too very quick to comment because sometimes there are things that frustrate me or there's things that I You know don't want to hear but I think it's time for all of us to just take a moment before we just start typing and release our anger and think about the good things that our city has to offer and and the good things that this council up here wants to do for our city. So I really, you know, truly mean this to everybody in the city because I know it's so quick and easy to type negative things, but I wish we'd all take a moment and be a lot quicker to type more positive things. And that's the way our city is going to begin the process of changing the narrative that Stockton is a great place to live. So hope to see you at my community event this weekend, and let's enjoy the rest of the week. Thank you.

Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. And I didn't have this in here, but I'll go off of what my colleague just said really quick because she said a quote. There's a quote that I live by, and it's a quote from the Bible that says, faith without work is dead. And we could want things, but we have to do the work in order for it to materialize and become a real thing. And I do appreciate a lot of our side conversations about how we individually or in small groupings want things to be better. And I know we're all working hard in pursuit of that. National Night Out, I want to say thank you to everybody that came out. We had hundreds and hundreds of people that came out, participated, and And specifically, I would like to thank the people who sponsored it, Niagara Cares, Michael Duffy Family Foundation, and PG&E for really supporting real community organized event that was lots of fun for families and kids. And thank you to everybody that came out, our city manager, city staff who supported, fire department and our police department, and whoever flew the helicopter in the middle of the park. However you figured it out, thank you. And it's really important to say that before I ran for office, it was really hard to find people as, quote, an outsider who wanted to pour into communities like District 6 that have lots of need. And so to find these partners who continually show up, Toys for Joy, other things like that, thank you so much because these events are important. There was actually a conversation I had there with District Attorney Ron Freitas, who also came. And he was introducing me to his wife, who he named his boss, which was funny to hear Ron say, this is my boss. And he said to her, this is Jason Lee, who grew up in District 6, real challenged community, a real challenged neighborhood. He moved away. He made millions of dollars, and then he came home to help his community. And sometimes in this work that often is thankless, you forget why and who you are and what you're doing and sometimes feel like people don't see that. So it was great to hear that as a reminder because that is a fact. And I also want to thank all the people in the community who often remind me of what I'm doing and that they see the work that's being done. There were public comments here that I do want to respond to. Cynthia Gale Boyd talked about National Night Out and council members taking pictures of me with her. and sending it to them. I am the vice mayor of the city. Whether people acknowledge it like it or not, thank you to the mayor for appointing me that. But besides that, all of us are council members who govern the entire city. And so I welcome 326,000 people, if you see me wherever I am, to ask me for a photo or to talk to me or tell me what you think or whatever. Because yes, I represent District 6, who voted for me, but we also govern the entire city, and I love all Stockton. I belong to the entire city, as do all of us. Pandora and Zoila talked about social media. Zoila's concern is that the members of Western Ranch don't like her. That's between her and the people in Western Ranch. I can't govern who likes people, and it's okay if people that I beat in the election come up here and complain about me, because as the mayor said, we got elected to take it, and so you can come say whatever you want to me. I'm thick-skinned. And so Pandora's comment about social media, I will say one of the things that I'm in therapy about and that I struggle is that I have been really contained since I've been elected. Believe it or not, I don't really say much on social media that I would have in my normal life. But I've worked through therapy and I thank the city manager for letting me crash out yesterday because I did crash out completely the entire day. that I'm going to start using my social media more. I am going to start expressing myself. I am going to start creating content. I'm launching Stockton Unlocked podcasts and interviewing people. That's the way I express myself. And I welcome everybody up here to come on my podcast and talk about the work that they're doing and that we're doing, and we can talk about it. It's going to be an enjoyable experience. All right, now, flock camera discussion. Thank you to the mayor and the council for supporting. I wanted to have a public discussion on that. Because I do think it's important. And we've seen in the last couple months seven homicides, multiple shootings, different things. And I think we need to create a space for our community to come and talk to us about what's happening. But more importantly, hear from our police department that are working hard every day to keep our community safe. Because there are a lot of things like the Parenting with a Purpose program that me and some of you continue to want to amplify. And still waiting for the see something, say something bus signs and marketing. Because we need that. And we've been talking about that for over a year now. And I haven't seen it. Data centers, there was conversation about that. There have been discussions up here at City Hall about data centers. But Johnny has been very open about being transparent about that. It's not a secret. But I do think at some point we need to take into consideration the early public discussion suggestion, make sure that our community is engaged and works with us. And I know he's had conversations with people about making sure that everybody is involved in those discussions. And so I look forward to that. My social media, I know people have, they love it or they hate it or they love to hate it or they hate to love it. Either way, I earn nine million something followers by just engaging people. And the thing my therapist just literally put on Instagram earlier this morning is be yourself. And I think that's what we all have to learn how to do. And sometimes self-discovery is difficult. And I know that one of the things that I've been challenged with is as an elected, you have to be somewhat disciplined. You can't, always enter the reckless highway of social media and say any and everything you want. But if we say truth, trust, and transparency up here, that has to extend to our social media too. September 2nd, District 6, we're having a development meeting. I want to thank staff, Will Crew, Stephanie Acasio. I've invited the mayor to participate in that if she's available, and Johnny for leading that, and our commissioners, because we've been talking about what is the 10-year plan for District 6 as we develop that out. And I've seen a lot of different developers put their name up to attend, and also brokers. And Tiffany Haddish, who has committed to building in District 6, will also be here, along with some other developers from out of town that love the idea of investing in the city. Now, the Audit Committee, we just had our auditor was here earlier. He came to the Audit Committee and said that he is focusing on the presentation to council and that he is restoring the fraud, waste, and abuse hotline now that he's taken that back under his purview and that he had to go through that. And there were lots of things in there that he has to follow up on. But more importantly, the policy that will be from the city, not from his organization. And also, I think for us, we wanted him to ensure that staff know that that is a safe space to go to should they have concerns. We looked at pool contracts. I received information that we had issued a pool contract and to a company that had just been formed a couple weeks before it. We brought the procurement director, our interim deputy city manager in here, and we were able to identify potential conflicts that were missed in the procurement of that contract. And we also saw that somebody had, under penalty of perjury, checked the box that there were no conflicts. I'm still looking into that and received additional information, but I want to thank staff for terminating that contract. SPD, we had a meeting with the city manager yesterday around the PRA process and whether or not what rights people have to information from our police department, police records, body camera footage, all the different things, because I had requested a copy of a police report that I was aware that was out there that involved two council members. I was told that we don't have certain rights under certain laws, and that's different than my experience before because when I ran for city council, I made a PRA, and I received body cam footage of the person I was running against with all types of stuff going on, police reports, home addresses, pictures, all types of stuff. And so I'm learning that there may be laws or things that were missed before, and there's new people in place. So we'll be having that conversation soon. at Audit Committee about what rights people have under the California Public Workers Act. The city and the county was recently victorious in a lawsuit that was filed against Ralph White called White v. City of Stockton and the County around allegations that he was inadvertently and then intentionally left off the ballot. We all know that he was able to be put on the ballot as a result of him going to the court, and he's still lost anyway. And so we went through over a year and a half of online claims of how we stole the election and we did fraud this, fraud that. And so I held a press conference today and I'll be posting more about this on my social media throughout the week. But, you know, I want to thank our city clerk's office who do a phenomenal job. Um, our county partners, um, our, uh, registered voters, Olivia Hill, who are all ethical people. And, uh, and I spoke today at the press conference about the integrity of our elections and the importance of a free and fair election. Today we had a display around item 10.1, the mayor's PIO. I came in here knowing that we couldn't vote to take somebody out of the mayor's office, and I was coached by multiple people on what to say, not to say, be careful, don't say this, don't say that, and I get all that, and I appreciate everybody knowing that I'm going to say what I want to say anyway. But even though the vote went the way that it did, what happened today was exactly what I wanted to see. because everything gets blamed on the mayor. The mayor, the mayor, the mayor, the mayor, the mayor. She's one of seven people. There are seven of us up here, and it takes four of us to make a decision. And I was almost concerned about giving one of my colleagues a compliment because I'm like, I don't know. And after giving a compliment, they got up and broke the quorum so we couldn't finish the discussion. But the greatest part about it is the clippings that are going to be all over social media showing the public that, as the grand jury said, the final arbiter is this election. If you want to change what's up here, the people do not change. People can come up here and act like they won't change, but ain't nobody going to change. And the reason why everybody wants to be peaceful on social media is because when you turn on the lights and people start to see what it is, then it makes it very hard in an environment like an election to prevail. And so anyhow, thank you today for my colleagues who participated in that discussion. Now, service first, I do want to bring that back to council because I was notified by the state that there are some issues at the state with their grant. So I would like a second, if we can, to bring back to council because this council gave $300,000 without going through an approved process to an individual now that I understand is not moving forward. So can I please get a second? I'll second. Thank you. I'd like that on the next council agenda, please. I want to give an update on the mass shooting. I've been in regular contact with our sheriff, who's amazing. And this has been a very personal experience that I've been impacted by watching this process play out. But I do have faith in our sheriff. I do have faith in our district attorney. And I know that he's talking with the family. And I feel very confident that there will be an update soon. And I look forward to standing there along with the mayor and other colleagues up here when they finally bring those people to justice. Now, I had made a counsel direction at some point and was seconded to bring Donald Tafoya here, Mr. Tafoya, who had all the homosexual disrespectful comments while I was away. The counsel let him go on and on and on. The public has been all over social media demanding accountability because we talk about decorum. Now, look, I have no problem being offended or offending people. But I do think that we need to have one standard that applies to everybody because I asked our new city attorney, do rules apply to one or not? So if somebody can come up here and just yell out faggot. or whatever. Is that acceptable? I wouldn't think so. But I think we need to decide what the standard is and be managed to that because you're going to have somebody like me that's going to hold us accountable and probably be a little bit more spicy if we start changing the rules mid-play. But that happened while I was gone, and I've asked for this item to come before the council, and it's been intentionally or inadvertently, as Mr. White said, left off the agenda. So I would like it at the next council agenda. I would like it on the appointment because you can't have commissioners that can violate the rules unless we say that they can. I just want to conclude on that matter. Also, DEI, I know that I talked to our city manager about that position and that you were going to – You fill that position, but I have yet to see that.

No, no, we have not filled the position. We will be advertising it within the next week to 10 days.

So can we commit today it will be posted within the next 10 days, and then can this council get an update on what the job description and all that stuff looks like?

Yes, sir.

Okay, thank you. Appreciate it. Also, we talked about CESP. I know that staff are working on that agreement between BIA and NAACP. Is that scheduled to come back soon?

I will have to talk to Audrey Jones-Taylor about when exactly that will be coming back, but I can report that back to you and the rest of the council tomorrow. Okay.

Thank you, sir. And thank you for all the work that you and Audrey have been doing on that because I know that's been a lot. Also, I'll be speaking at the Stockton Democrats meeting August 24, 2026 at 6 p.m. at Troke Library. The only requirement I have is that you come and ask me any question you want, and don't be afraid of the answer that you get. And also, in October, I will be doing a guest lecture at Harvard Law School in Boston, and I'm really excited about that, to come from El Dorado Middle School, or El Dorado Elementary School, I'm sorry, and then Webster Middle School and Stagg High School, where I dropped out early and received a glorious GED. and then went on to become a business person, I am just grateful and humbled that I've been acknowledged and asked to come there and to do that. And the last thing, Joe Coy wanted me to call him on FaceTime so he can say thank you to all of us in the city, but all spares because I only have a minute. But I'm really excited that he used our city as the backdrop for his Netflix special and begging him to continue to come back so we can have more opportunities to do exactly what Councilman Padilla saying that shine a positive light on our city because there are a lot of good things happening out there and there are a lot of people out there that may see the positivity in Stockton that we sometimes don't. Thank you to everybody that's come up here and said positive things, critical things, and things to make us think because I pray that we do continue to work every day to be better. Thank you.

Councilman Enriquez.

Thank you mayor so I would try to be as quick as I can so just in terms of events a lot has happened since this past July 21st I just want to start off with on July 24th I attended the out of the box music arts ribbon cutting in District 4 right across the street from UOP and then on Saturday July 25th I participated in the Mormon Slough Design Visioning Session number two at the Sycamore in downtown Stockton and then I want to thank our staff for Monday July 27th we had 75 plus people show out to our tenant rights town hall at the oak park senior center and you know one of the things i've been really intentional about not just in my first year in office but now in my second is that each year i want to think about you know how am i meeting the moment with constituents how am i actively listening as not just a policymaker but as the representative of district four and to have 75 people show up to actually listen and and plan and A POTENTIAL ORDINANCE WITH THE COMMUNITY HAND IN HAND WAS SOMETHING THAT I TOOK A LOT AWAY FROM BECAUSE ONE OF THE DISCUSSIONS WAS WE HAD FOLKS FROM ALL DIFFERENT BACKGROUNDS AND SECTORS ALL THROUGHOUT THE DISTRICT. IT WASN'T JUST A DISTRICT FORM, BUT I SAW EVERY DISTRICT OUT THERE REPRESENTING. AND WE HAD FOLKS THAT WERE TENANTS, WE HAD LANDLORDS, WE HAD DEVELOPERS, WE HAD EVERYBODY. But to have all those perspectives was really insightful because that's the part I love. I love to see that one person might think something and then another person brings another perspective and then that person says, wow, I didn't think about it that way. And one of the biggest takeaways was if you've, everyone grew up differently, but if you grew up with your door unlocked your entire life as a child, if you didn't know what it feels like of the anxiety and fear of not being able to pay rent at the end of the month, you're not gonna understand why we're having this town hall. And that was the point, to have this conversation of real stories, real Stocktonians in fear of paying their rent or being out on the streets because you can't afford $1,700, $2,000. To some people, that might be extra money. But for folks that are on fixed income, 70-, 80-year-olds, That's their livelihood. So that was something that I was surprised, to be honest. I didn't think I was going to have that many people show up. I want to thank Vice Mayor Lee who came out as well to support. And, you know, we want to capture the notes and the conversations because this is ongoing. You know, I think about how the Compassionate City Resolution worked. I think about how the street vendor ordinance worked. All that worked with numerous town halls and insight from individuals. And to have unanimous support from my colleagues says a lot. despite what folks see in the headlines and the chaos, because at the end of the day, we all do want the best for our city. So part two is coming, and I want to be sure that we do it the right way and that we're intentional with supporting housing from the perspective of renting. I've said it numerously. I'm a renter. I'm 38. I don't know when I'll be able to buy a house in my generation, but hopefully in 10, 15 years, we'll see. But it's a real reality that people are facing, so I don't want to take that away from people. The very next day was a back-to-back. We had one of our first business walks on the Miracle Mile. I want to thank the Miracle Mile board. We went up and down the mile to listen to our business owners, and then we concluded the evening at Wurlow's where I joined the vice mayor for the arts, culture, and entertainment discussion. Again, 100-plus packed people. Again, really listening to what people want to see in our city, everything from murals to arts, culture, entertainment, et cetera. But it was really from... he wants to do in in his capacity so i don't want to speak on behalf of him august 1st i attended the goma meeting coalition of mexican-american organizations downtown at the mexican-american heritage center where we were led by a community presentation from ag bontas staff based out of fresno but there were really to advocate on not just their community resources but bringing them to stockton and of course Asking them to collaborate with my colleagues and our city staff to see when they can do a future presentation to this council and August 3rd and 4th, I was in Sacramento. Equality California had their annual LGBT elected officials summit. Again, learning best practices about what other elected officials in California are doing. And again, one of the key focus there was health, supporting our transgender youth, youth outreach, and just overall grants that different council members, mayors, state reps are applying for. I want to thank our police officers. August 8th was also a back-to-back public safety day. was a great success. I was able to run into Councilmember Villaputua, and then just being able to go to each table, saying hi to folks, and then being able to go on one of the motorcycles. So I said, I'm basically a police officer. I mean, I went through the community academy, so they let me go on the motorcycle. But again, it was just a lot of good fun. I know Sensei was out there with his students, and the fact to see that, The firefighters won the volleyball championship. And again, it was just really great to see the athleticism, the competition, just everybody going out there and supporting all of our Public Safety Day event. And then that evening, I joined the first ever combined night market in Stockton. It was the first one they've had. Lodi has had their one last year, and I'll be going to theirs next month as well. But I want to thank all the organizers. And a lot of the street vendor advocates were there. So again, it was just a lot of good community to be there. Tuesday the 11th, UOP had their 300 plus residence hall opening called Southwest. And as we speak, last weekend, many of the new students moved into the new residence hall. And for those that aren't familiar, Southwest Hall has a long history of being one of the oldest residence halls on the Stockton campus. They had to tear it down just because of how old it was, but to rebuild it was really magical. Again, just top-notch 21st century residence hall. And I remember I was telling President Callahan that even though I didn't live in that residence hall, I spent a lot of all-nighters at what was called the Red Dragon Study Lounge. One of my friends was a fellow resident assistant, and a lot of memories were there. And I know one of the board members of El Concilio, Profesora Giraldez, teaches there. But I remember she lived there in the 70s, and I remember – when they were knocking down the building, I saw her across the street crying because, you know, had a lot of memories for her and a lot of other people. But she was there the day of to do the ribbon cutting. So I just want to give acknowledgement to Professora Girardis and just for, again, what community means for the UOP students and for our Stockton community. That same day I spoke with the SOLE project to dive in a little bit deeper into the current legislation of the Tobacco Retailer Licensing Ordinance and seeing where they're at, seeing where I'm at as Chair of Legislation Committee and knowing that we're working on it with our staff and that's coming. And then, of course, as Council Member Blower said, our 75th anniversary of the Stockton Chorale, which was right across the street from campus. Wednesday, the 12th Family Resource Center had their grand opening at their new location in District 4 on March Lane. On August 14th, I joined several elected officials, including the mayor at UOP's College Corps Induction Ceremony for their 100-plus fellows. This is my, I think, second time being there on stage. and one of the things I enjoy the most is that I graduated from the university 16 years ago, and I told the students there last week is that we have 100-plus of our students out in the community for the entire year doing 450-plus hours of service, and they're partnered up with a community-based organization. It could be a nonprofit. It could be an organization like Waste Management, and one of the things I told them is that I taught the course that they're now taking year-round called Civic Action, and I said, you know, I'm excited about what your aha moment's going to be. At the end of the year, when it comes to May and you graduate, what was that moment throughout your nine months that you realized, this is why I'm doing what I'm doing? Like, this is how I connected with the Stockton community. This is why I love to do service. So I'm excited to hear their aha moments next spring. And then this past weekend I was in Fresno. I graduated from the Central Valley Latino Leadership Academy. This was four full weekends in Fresno from May to last weekend where I drove out, stayed the weekend. We did about eight, nine hours of training. And I want to thank Congressman Jim Costa for going out there to support the 20 plus fellows that graduated. In terms of upcoming events, UOP Day of Service is this Thursday. Again, I'll be over at St. Mary's downtown. I'll be taking about 40 students. And then Friday evening is one of my favorites. My nephew and I, we always go out to Tiger's Prowling the Mile, Up and Down Miracle Mile to support our businesses. They'll have big slides, other events, DJ music, and some other goodies along the way. And I know a lot of our mascots will be out there as well. So please join us this Friday at 6 p.m. Saturday the 22nd, I have my Mornings with Mario, my monthly one at Bennett's Coffee, which used to be Terra Coffee at Yosemite Street Village from 10 to 1130. Infrastructure, a lot of important infrastructure decisions that were made tonight. I want to thank my colleagues. I want to be specific with my district. When it comes to the Cape and Seal project, Picardo Circle and Picardo Court, that is one that particularly stood out for me because even three years ago when I was campaigning, there was a gentleman named Jose who lived on the second floor of the apartment complex right there on Picardo Circle. And I remember we were looking over his balcony and he was saying how bad the street was. And I look forward to going to visit him and letting him know about the update about Picardo Circle because three years may seem like a long time, but in the government infrastructure world, it's pretty quick. So I look forward to letting him know that this will be Something completed, so I look forward to chatting with him. Pavement repair project, Key Streets, Alpine Avenue from Bonney Lane to Commerce Street, Pacific to Knowles Way, and Rose Yosemite Street, along with San Juan Avenue from Harding to Riddle Court. Our mill and overlay project also decided tonight, Mendocino Avenue from Kensington Way to Dwight Way, and Oxford Circle to Regent South Street. All three of these projects to be completed by fall 2026, weather permitting. And last few weeks, for folks that follow me on Instagram and maybe TikTok, I do what I call my usual pothole patrol. We got about 11 potholes reported and eight uneven sidewalks reported. Are they going to get fixed tomorrow? No. But what I always say is it's in the system. It's in Stockton. And then now there's the official accountability of timeline now that they're in the system. So. Once they are fixed, I can let the constituents of that area know that it's been fixed. But you all can see on social media where I'm at throughout my district. In terms of legislation, I want to let folks know that we had to cancel the August Legislation Committee meeting because the staff that we're going to present on those items were out of town. So I wanted to be respectful of that. But I want to know, folks, that there are a lot of items in the pipeline, at least eight items. So know that each month is planned out. Florence and I sit pretty often together to map out each month and to know when staff will be prepared and ready to go. But I know for the September one, We have at least five items on the agenda and I want to be able to just mention that one of the initial grand jury report recommendations is coming back that was presented at the July alleged meeting. The animal related ordinances is going to be coming back. They gave a general presentation in July, but we asked them to give us a breakdown of the ordinances that we can see what needs amending or something brand new that we want to introduce. Also, I was talking to other elected officials throughout the state of California. I mentioned Equality California and also sitting down with our city manager just to get some history and some context of how our city worked in the past couple of decades. And one of the things I want to start exploring is staff to review having HR lead performance evaluations for our chartered officers. I know this is something that occurred when City Manager was last here a couple years ago. I know other elected officials in other cities do that as well, whether HR department oversees the performance evals of chartered officers. And to begin that groundwork, I would love to see if I can get support to get that going.

I'll second it.

Great. Thank you. And then also, a lot was mentioned today with flock data, and I want to just highlight that. Even though I don't necessarily always give constant updates of policy on my social media, I want folks to know that since April to now, I've been heavily been drafting a LPR data resolution resolution. Based on flock so to add additional guardrails and this cut this came after the meeting that we approved the drone technology because I heard loud and clear from the from the community and Since April to now we've been drafting behind the scenes. We've had our city attorney office review it We've had our city clerk's office review it. We had other key staff members review it So it's pretty much good to go, but it is gonna come to ledge next month so again If you want to learn more and you want to give more public comment and you want to see the resolution, it will be in the September 21st meeting at 4 p.m. So please come out to learn about that resolution that I've been drafting. And, of course, let's see, other things I want to just highlight is just the overall support and just thank you to everybody in my district. A lot of the key things that folks always think about is that when they see me in a certain part of the district, they say, well, why aren't you here and why aren't you over there? It's a pretty big district. I'm one person. I don't have the luxury of staff members, full-time staff members to help me. whenever I need. But I think a lot of my commissioners, a lot of the community members that will randomly send me photos of me in the community, and I could utilize that for my social media. So I'm really thankful for the people that are kind of keeping an eye out on me and supporting me in that aspect. But I'll give more updates later. But as usual, you always can reach out to me at DISC4 at StocktonCA.gov or 209-645-2711. Have a good night.

Councilman Villalpudo yes thank you mayor it's good to be back I want to thank all the kids for coming back to school I know it's been a long summer so I just want to you know give a shout out to all the parents those long nights you know gonna be back again with school so I want to take a big shout out to all the teachers and the parents I know they're the biggest impact in their lives I want to recognize our city manager, Johnny Ford. Thank you, sir, for everything you do, as well as our public works director, our PD, chief of police, Mr. Fadden, and our chief of fire as well. I won't go too much today. I know it's been a long day. We had a big meeting this morning, so I want a big shout out to Mr. Tim Thomas of security service. manager we are we're talking about columbus park obviously it just got back on about three months ago we've been having a lot of activity so we are coming in and putting some cameras on the park so we're managing it so every day on there cleaning up every park so um just want to just give them highlight and thank you for making that meeting participating with as well with sergeant high We had lost, like you said earlier, I know you canceled my blower, about a great bishop, Doug Warren. Dwight Howard Williams is a man with many hats and, you know, and my condolences to him. He was a big impact in our community. So I just want to say that he'll never be forgotten, sir. There was another guy. I met a lot of time and it's been impacting the community. His name is Ben Almodor, just passed away this weekend. Ben was a passionate community advocate. in our community. He was dedicated his time or energy uplifting people, creating opportunities, believing the power of a second chances. And he was a man with kindness, leadership, commitment to helping so many people. And I know a lot of people are hurting still from his passing because he had a lot in him. And he had a lot of great ideas. So there's another guy that his legacy will never be forgotten. So we can add that to our prayers too. May I be grateful. I'm going to say too much, you know, because those are the guys. I just want to appreciate my colleagues. It's been a good win, like I always tell them. And let's keep up the great work. And... Have a great week and great weekend. Thank you.

OK, yes. Bishop Dwight Williams and Ben Amador, he was also a member of Stockton Corral. Huge smile on his face whenever I saw him. And Dwight gave the best hugs. He always had these sayings that I loved. And I wish I would have written them down, but my heart goes out to Phyllis, his wife, and everybody whose life he touched. So we will get to that before we go into closed session. Kenneth was here talking about AB 413, parking within 20 feet of a crosswalk. I think that we have red paint. We need to put it out there. If we have parking spaces that are marked too close to the corner, we need to have a clear view of sight. So I agree that we need to do something about that. National Night Out, great night. I think I went to 11 or 10. different locations. I hit everybody's district. Barrio Fiesta, those guys hit it out of the park. I mean, it used to be at the Filipino center, and they wanted to do it at DeCarli Square. And I was like, are you really want to do it at DeCarli? Nothing that there's wrong with it, but it's small. And they wanted to close off the street, but there was a cost for that. So city sponsored, and they got to do it at Weber Point. And I will tell you. There was easily 5,000 to 6,000 people there. It started at 10 in the morning. It went till 8 at night. They ran out of food. They were out of food in some places at 3 o'clock. And I was like, oh my gosh, they're not going to make it to 8. So I don't know if they made it to 8. I know they had an after get together at the Islander. But some of them were like, no, I'm just going home and going to bed, because they were up early setting up. Bread of Life did, you know, passed out food. We did it at Weber Park, which is between Oak and Park Street. And literally, traffic was down Fremont Street and went all the way around. People were going the wrong way. They were going down the one-way street in the wrong direction. And I ran into one of the officers and yelled at him, Sherman! I hope you guys know him. And he was like... what is what's going on with all these cars like my traffic people are going crazy and then I told them he goes oh well I wish I would have known sooner so I said what you know now but we unloaded the truck had more food items that were brought out people were very very grateful for that we were able to serve multiple families and in one car you know for every adult that was in there they were able to get frozen food meat and bread and different items, bananas. Anyway, I want to thank Gina for that, Bracamontes Valdez for doing that. And they do several every month. And I know people here have done it too. College Court, yes, with Councilman Enriquez. It's their fifth year of doing that, 109 kids. Some of the kids have been there all four years, did they say? And then some were three years, and some were two years, and some were right brand new freshman coming in all wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, just so excited about being in college. OLLI just had their 20th anniversary. OLLI is for lifelong learners. When I went back in 2014, they said they don't do ageism now. But back then, they did. You had to be 50 years or older. And I got to listen to Mel Koren, Bill Maxwell, Mike Fitzgerald. gave a lot of history about the city but it's a whole program so people who maybe aren't don't have a large social network or don't have any family or just want to be around other people this is a great avenue for them it is wonderful and I tell you go on to UOP's website and look up OLLI Something I want to put on the city manager's radar. We have the Stockton Thunder that is having their event this coming week. And they said, you know, we're looking for ice skating. I know Councilwoman Padilla said, hey, let's bring ice skating back. And apparently they said, yes, we want to do it. And then they were told it's $15,000. So I don't know if that's true or not.

We can stop your time. We'll work with them and figure it out.

OK, great. Thank you so much. OK, next page. So there were a lot of things that have been said tonight. I want to go one by one through them. Somebody said about following protocol. We have a charter. That charter is our Constitution. We are to follow the charter. Whether we do or not remains to be seen, but ultimately that is our roadmap for governance in the city of Stockton. I do agree everybody should be held to the same standard, but I do think as elected officials we are actually held at a higher standard. The public has entrusted us, they gave us their vote, they have put us in these seats, and I think that we have actually a higher standard. The conversation on 10.1, I wish somebody would have come to me. This all could have probably been rectified, but nobody came and talked to me about somebody that works in my office. So if anybody has an issue with anybody in my office, please come to me, talk to me, so that I can work on a solution, work with you, not against you. I do want to share something with you, though, on that. if you can take one and pass it down. So if you go to the third page of this document, because I know this was talked about, the third page of the document, you'll see a red line version. The city manager, one for Gabe, the city manager never had a PIO. He had a community relations person. But when Gary Podesto was mayor, he's the one that enacted this. And it says at the very top, it crosses out mayor, and it puts city manager. So that the city manager had a PIO, and the mayor's office still had a PIO. So I just want to go back in history just to explain how that all came about. But it was always under the office of the mayor. And like I said the previous city manager wanted their own and 810 people hearing that it's statistically insignificant. Well, I look at some of our council meetings. This room, we put 123 chairs in here to accommodate everybody. And we don't have 123 people that come to our council meetings. I implore you to please come and participate. You heard somebody call in tonight or today. You can do that as well. I don't know how many people are watching at home. But when we make decisions and we base it on five people for, five people against, whatever that number is, that is a very, very, very small number, much less than 810 people. OK, now getting to my list that I prepared before I got here. So disagreement. There's going to be disagreement. That's democracy. We're not going to agree on everything. Dysfunction, though, is something completely different. And I had a conversation today with a member up here about dysfunction and trying to not have it, trying to work our way through it. Everybody is fully entitled to disagree with me. don't have any issue with that. I usually explain why I vote, how I voted during the meeting. If not, I do it during my council comments. But I don't believe that they have the right to substitute responsible government with then having issues on display. And that's my opinion. And if you believe I acted improperly, Specify the act. Tell me through the charter. Show me the email. Whatever I have done, please hold me accountable and give me the documents. Present the evidence to me. Because accusation by insinuation does not amount to oversight. And what I mean by that is we just talked about a lawsuit that came before us that was saying there was fraud, there was fraud, there was fraud. And guess what? There wasn't any fraud. So we need to discuss that across the board with all of our investigations that we had. Because just because you say it loudly, doesn't mean that it is the truth. Just because we hear it often from people in the public also doesn't make it the truth. Facts are still the facts. And sometimes we don't have it till later. Transparency. Transparency is not just about releasing information that fits a narrative. It's not about repeating allegations. It's not about Writing you know whoever gets to it first and puts it out. It's not a flashlight That's only aimed at certain people Transparency without consistency is not transparency. It's a narrative It's what councilwoman Padilla said we've got to work on Investigators their job is to find out if there is Malice, if there is something that's been done that is illegal. We've heard about illegal versus ethical. So is something ethical or not, that is up to the people that decide that. And then the legal stuff is up to, obviously, lawyers and judges and things of that nature. August 13, I know that there was an acknowledgment of allegations. Again, those are allegations. Nothing has been proven one way or the other regarding residency, conspiracies, anything like that. You need to let the process play itself out. It's not in our hands. It's not in any of the hands of anybody up here. I know that the following day we had somebody that dropped out and said they were ending their campaign. Apparently something else has changed since then. But nonetheless, that's where we're at with that. So investigate. I think we need to make sure that our candidates are eligible, that there is residency, the campaign filings, all these things. False statements being made, not being made. Was it false? Was it true? Again, all of this needs to be looked at by those that hold the power outside of us. We do hold ourselves accountable. We need to hold ourselves accountable per the grand jury report. And again, follow every fact where it leads and apply the same standard to everyone. Ooh, I gotta go fast. There's still investigations that are going on and it needs to be ongoing and we need to make sure that we get resolved to that. But until it is finished, we should not be declaring anyone guilty. because that's not what has been provided to us as of yet. I will not allow repetition to pass as evidence. And when the investigation concludes, those questions, the question will not be who posted it first. We put the information out. It needs to be factual. People are frustrated. We talked about potholes being filled or roads being worked. They can't be done immediately, as much as we'd like to. That friction is not a flaw. It's a safeguard. We don't have a monarchy. Restraint is not weakness. Restraint is constitutional government. When an elected official refuses to respect those boundaries, it just degrades what we're trying to do up here. I think that we need to be very careful about information that goes out. And when I say that, that also goes to our media outlets. If you get a confidential item, you say, what should I be doing with that? Should I be putting it out there? Should I hold back on that? Should I just start asking questions like, why did I get this document? There was also something said tonight about people leaving. Well, people are afraid. People are afraid. And the institutional trust erodes. It dies. Recruitment becomes difficult. Qualified individuals don't apply or hear and leave. It's happened. It's happened more than anybody up here would like it to happen. That's why institutional trust matters. Observe what happens when confidentiality becomes content. I have a lot more here, but I just want to say I appreciate the meeting, how it went tonight. I think it went well for the most part. I recuse myself regarding item 10.1. Just because there's an investigation, though, does not mean there's guilt. I look forward to getting the results or the conclusions of the investigation when they come out. We'll give it to you all. So we're going to have a moment of silence for Reverend Dwight Williams as well as Ben Amador. Now on to closed session. So open session will be done, but we have closed session. Do we have any comments on closed session?

We have none.

No. Okay. So item 14.1, conference with labor negotiation. This closed session is authorized pursuant to section 54957.6 of the government code, item 14.2, conference with legal counsel regarding significant exposure to litigation. This closed session is authorized pursuant to section 54956.9, subsection D2E2 of the government code, and 14.3, public employee, public employee appointment. This closed session is authorized pursuant to government code section 54957B. And we will adjourn now to closed session. Thank you.

Thank you.

OK. OK. OK. We are back from a closed session. It is 9.08. City Attorney, do you have anything to report out?

No, Mayor. There was no reportable action in closed session.

OK. I'll take a motion to adjourn.

Motion. Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Adjourned at 9.08.