City Council - Regular Meeting

05:30PM. Like to call to order the special closed session meeting of the city council, meeting number 3097. Madam city clerk, roll call, please.

The record will reflect that all members are in attendance.

Thank you. Next, we have public input. At this time, any member of the public may address the council on matters which are on the closed session agenda. If any members of the public who are participating through Zoom wish to address the council, please raise your hand. And if you're calling in, please press 9 to raise your hand. Madam city clerk, any request to speak?

No, mister mayor.

Okay. We will move on to the closed session update, mister city attorney.

Yes. The council will be convening in closed session to discuss item five a as it appears on the closed session closed session agenda to conference with the city's real property negotiators, Aldo Schindler, Nicole Bernard, Brian Moncrief, and Ryan Swantek.

Thank you. We will now recess to closed session. Good evening, everyone. I'd like to call to order the regular meeting of the city council. It's 06:01PM, meeting number 3097.

Tonight's invocation is by pastor Sharon Barnes from Haven of Healing Ministry. Pastor?

Lord God, in Jeremiah 2nine 11, you say that the plans you have for us are for good, for a future, and for a hope. Thank you that the plans that you have for the city of Tustin are good and that your plans are for a future and a hope. I bless each of the city council members to be granted your wisdom and your knowledge in discovering and coming into alignment with your good plans for this city and the businesses in it. I bless each member of the council with eyes to see and perceive that which they need to understand. I bless them with ears to hear each other and the discernment that they need in making the decisions at hand.

I bless them with clarity and a spirit of unity to govern their communication. And I bless them, Lord, with you aligning them with your good plans and purposes for the city of Tustin so that the businesses in the city would all thrive and flourish with the future and the hope you have for them and will benefit all those who live in the city. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Amen. Thank you, pastor. The pledge of allegiance this evening is by council member Nielsen. Please rise.

If you're a vendor or I'm sorry. If you're a veteran, you may, render a hand salute. Otherwise, hand over your heart. Ready to begin.

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. Thank you, council member Nielsen. We will now move on to our presentation portion of the agenda for this evening. We do have one. It's the wildfire awareness and prevention proclamation for the Orange County Fire Authority.

I'm gonna read the proclamation and then ask chief Morgenstern to come up. If you wanna say anything, chief, you can, and then we'll take a picture with you as well. But bear with me for a second here as I read the the text. Whereas in 2020, California experienced a record breaking wildfire season with over 4,000,000 acres burned across the state. In 2024, the state faced 8,024 wildfires that burned approximately 1,050,012 acres, reflecting a significant increase from the previous year.

And whereas the recent wildfires in Los Angeles County, including the Eaton and Palisades fires in January 2025, resulted in at least twenty nine fatalities and destroyed over 16,000 structures, the economic impact of these fires is profound, with tragic death tolls and estimated damages and economic losses reaching up to $250,000,000,000 And whereas extreme fires are a growing threat to public health and safety, homes, air quality, and climate goals, approximately 25% of California's population lives in areas identified as high or very high fire hazard severity zones. Sudden and intense wildfires may swiftly emerge traversing vast distances and penetrating urban zones far from their origin, thereby detrimentally affecting public health and diminishing overall quality of life. And whereas every citizen has a key role in preventing destructive wildfires from occurring, public education and up to date regional emergency planning are a key to making our communities more resilient to the impacts of wildfire and other extreme weather events. Orange County residents can learn about Ready, Set, Go to prepare for wildfire season and help prevent loss of life and property at www.ocfa.org/rsg, for Ready, Set, Go. Now, therefore, the City Council of the City of Tustin, California does hereby proclaim the height of wildfire season beginning in mid summer and running through early autumn as wildfire awareness and prevention season and encourages everyone to do their part to raise public awareness, take steps to protect our homes and business, and prevent sparking a wildfire.

One less spark means one less wildfire. Chief, you'd like to come down?

Thank you, mister mayor and city council. Yeah. I just like to echo the mayor sentiments on the proclamation is that while we had a beautiful winter and a lot of green is in our hills, it is starting to dry out. Our our live our live fuel loads and our dead fuel loads are actually drying out quicker than we anticipated this year, and our hills are turning gonna be turning browner earlier this year. So heightened preparedness for the citizens of Tustin and for the community and citizens of Orange County as a whole. It's very important to go to our website and understand the hardening of your home, understanding fire prevention, and understanding how you could prevent a wildfire.

Thank you, chief. We have a proclamation we're gonna present to you. Think it sounded right. Okay. Next, we have public input.

At this time, any member of the public may address the council on matters which are not on this evening's agenda, provided the matter is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city council. If any members of the public who are participating through Zoom wish to address the council, please raise your hand. And if you're calling in, please press 9 to raise your hand. I'm gonna note for the record that we did have two public comments that were received and were distributed to the council made available for the public on the city website. Madam city clerk, do we have requests to speak?

Yes, mister mayor. We have five requests to speak, and I believe all five of them are in person. We will start with Leslie.

Good evening, city council and mayor. My name is Leslie. I'm a been a I've been a resident of Tustin for more than five years. I'm here to raise a concern that I have about the ALPR and flock cameras spreading spreading rapidly in the city. I wanna make it clear to everyone present and everyone watching that these cameras are a major security risk to you.

Not only are they being funded by an authoritarian and corrupt Peter Thiel, but the CEO, Alex Karp, have published a book in 2025 called The Technological Republic, an alarming manifesto that pushes hard power over our democratic society and freedoms. They have openly expressed working with ICE immigration, have boasted about undermining and removing our constitutional freedoms. These cameras do not have do not only have driver license storing, but face recognition, dangerous machine learning, inadequate storing of police credentials and passwords, and even docs' police officer routes. They can be hacked in less than five minutes. And in fact, I figured out how to do it myself if I wanted to, which should already be upsetting to all of you.

None of this information is accept accessible to us except to this corporation and oppressive administration. They are funded by taxpayer money that does not circulate back into Tustin. They each cost 3,000 to $4,000 each. A total of 20 or more cameras have appeared in the Tustin Legacy area within the past two weeks. That is about $80,000 of our money.

And I didn't I did not wanna I did not have the decision to pay for this, and neither did any of us in this room. Our current mayor actually did have a discussion about adding only three mobile a LPR cameras for the parking permit program in 2023. But since then, no public audit has been made for these. What cameras existed in 2023 have rapidly changed to what we know today. We need this council to end these contracts and prevent future leases of them for government officials and police departments.

You have a responsibility for the people of Tustin and to our safety. With each new camera, you have failed to protect my terrified neighbors and to keep us informed. If there should be any cameras, they should be in your homes and offices so we know what you do for us and what deals and handshakes you have made behind closed doors. Your future sitting in that chair is tied to the serious trust this community has for you. I suggest you do what is necessary to uphold your legacy about the public safety. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please.

Our next speaker is Tony. Then we'll have Veronica and then Matthew.

Good evening, mayor Lombard and council members. My name is Tony Pelleridi. I've lived in Tustin for nine years, and I'm one of the founders of Vibrant Neighborhoods Tustin. We're an urban urbanism group here in the city. Last year at a council meeting, Mike Grisseau stated that Tustin was actively pursuing what is sometimes called an active transportation plan or an ATP and intended to bring that before you in 2026.

We're here to ask the city to follow through and fund that plan. This last year has been busy. In addition to me personally spending time trying to grow a mustache to rival our own mayors, I have our group has been out tabling at nearly every city event. We've had hundreds of conversations with Tustin residents about how they currently get around and ideally what they wanna see changed. We'll be sharing the results of our transportation survey in the coming weeks, but the feedback has been loud and clear.

At Dino Dash, kids came up to our booth and told us that they want the ability to walk or bike to school, but that they currently feel unsafe. At Sunset Markets and Sip and Stroll, families told us about dangerous intersections and stories about close calls at crosswalks. And across the board, young and old, people have told us that they want the freedom to have more options to move around the city. I bring this up because I know it can be easy to kind of shrug and say, well, most people in Tustin Drive or this is just the way that things are. But car dependent cities in car dependent cities, people will only change their habits if the infrastructure that we build is part of a big cohesive connected network.

And in order to get that network in place, we need to have a coordinated plan in place. I'll just end by saying that Tustin is now surrounded by cities that have ATPs, including Santa Ana, Costa Mesa, Irvine, and even North Tustin. And we don't want to be kind of a gap in the middle of an otherwise connected regional network. In addition to, you know, safety and vehicle miles traveled and all those important check mark check marks that the city likes to see, this is also affecting Tustin's ability to compete for state and federal transportation dollars. We know Tustin has a great track record of securing grant funding.

California has a pot of money that's specifically set aside for active transportation, but only cities that have a active transportation plan in place can access those funds. So I'd ask the city to please follow through on creating that active transportation plan in the budget. Thanks for your time.

Thanks for your comments. Next speaker, please.

Veronica.

Hello. Good evening, mayor, council members. My name is Veronica O'Connor. I'm a Tustin resident, an Orange County business owner, and a new member of Vibrant Neighborhoods Tustin. And so I'm here this evening to share with you my experience on walking and biking in Tustin and to make a request also about the active transportation plan.

My personal experience is I have found that many of the intersections, pedestrian walkways, and bike lanes are unsafe because there's generally not a good buffer between you and fast moving traffic. There's also limited signage, poor marking on the street. And then in lot of places, there just isn't a bike lane, even on large thoroughfares. I'm over on Yorba down the street, and there's just no bike lane whatsoever. And so because of that, I do tend to, embarrassingly. Even for short distances, I'll drive. But I really don't want to. I want to bike. I want to walk. My family, friends, and neighbors here in Tustin want that, too.

We talk about it. That's why I joined this group. I was really happy. I met them at the Sip and Straw, actually, this year, so it was wonderful to see. And so my request is that the city of Testin allocate resources to developing an active transportation plan. And of course, these plans identify safety issues, dangerous areas, and they will help give our city more cohesion and connectivity for our walkability and bikeability here in Tustin. And that's it. And I wanted to also thank you for this time to speak and for the work that you do here in taking care of the city, as well as making all the improvements that are coming through these last couple of years. So thank you so much for that. Have a good evening.

Thank you for your comments.

JULIE: Our next speaker is Matthew and then Nina.

MATTHEW Good evening, members of city council. My name is Matthew BITCHOCHE. And like two people who came before me, I'm also representing Viper Neighborhoods Tustin. I was born and raised in North Tustin, and I now have the privilege of living in Tustin. I'm in the vintage apartment or townhome complex.

And I had the ability to walk here, albeit with some difficulty with some other recent construction. But I'm looking forward to what that looks like when it's completed. And speaking of that, yeah, we we as a as a group were very affirmative and and really excited about the work that you were doing in Old Town, and we think that this is a really good opportunity for you to kind of take that to the city level. An active transportation plan, like Tony mentioned, unlocks, you know, easily 20 or $25,000,000 apiece, like, per city from that big pot of grant funding that California has. And we are a little bit behind.

You know, Orange County has a county wide transportation plan. Costa Mesa, Irvine, they all have transportation plans. And you can see this in some of the corridors that I think they're kind of lacking that Veronica mentioned. We hear a lot about the Red Hill corridor. We hear a lot about the Newport Boulevard corridor.

And you can compare those to something that's not too far away, whether that's the Jamboree corridor that we share with Irvine or the 1st Street corridor that, you know, connects to Chestnut in Santa Ana. These are really good examples of where Tustin has sort of fallen flat and where other cities have kind of picked up the baton. And and so we really have our work cut out for us, and it really is just a matter of being able to connect to this larger grid of active transportation. So that's all that I'm I'm I'm here to say. Like I mentioned like like most of us have mentioned, I really appreciate what you're doing here.

We just love to see you kinda take the next step. I know that, know, grant funding was something that you all talked about. Don't know if that would be possible for this coming fiscal year. So that's why we are urging you to set aside some resources for that within the city's budget. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Nina.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and council members. My name is Nina DeLieu. I live in Old Town on South B Street and I am a long term Tustin resident. Been in that house for seventeen years.

I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. I'm here to ask the city of Tustin to consider establishing a community reinvestment fund. As a proactive tool, this fund could address long standing problem properties in our city. And tonight I'd like to speak about the Bel Air Motel. In the seventeen years my family has owned our home nearby, and long before that the motel has drawn transient activity associated with crime, drug use, overdoses, and violence, all immediately adjacent to our residential neighborhood in Peppertree Park, where our children and families gather.

This is not a tourism serving hotel motel, pardon me. Instead, it functions as short term housing and has become a hot spot for repeated 911 calls. These frequent emergency responses overtax our police, fire, and EMS services. And the constant sirens are a daily nuisance that affect residents' quality of life. A community reinvestment fund could give the city a practical way to intervene, whether through acquisition, redevelopment, or repurposing, so we can address the root cause rather than the continually responding to the symptoms.

Redeveloping a site like this could transform a chronic drain on public resources into something that benefits the community and improves safety for residents, families, our kids, first responders. I urge the city to explore the creation of a community reinvestment fund as a tool and consider the Bel Air Motel as priority and opportunity for meaningful change. This would revitalize our already revitalizing Old Town and beyond. And I think it would help to make Tustin a safer and more livable city for all. I appreciate your time tonight. Thank you.

Thank you. Madam City Clerk, do we have other requests to speak?

No, Mr. Mayor.

Anybody else in the room? Okay. We will move on to the

I don't wanna use less than three minutes today. Last week was my name is William Johnson. I've been a Tustin kid for forty one years. I lived away for a while, but I'm back working on my life's work. I'm getting to know a lot of people one on one. I just, last week, I spoke about gratitude. I actually have chills tonight. Wasn't gonna speak. I'm just here to listen. But wow, there's some real brave people who stood up to speak. I just wanna acknowledge that. Continuing on the topic of gratitude, the community redevelopment fund is such a great idea and I wasn't actually aware of that. I'm glad to hear it. I'd love to hear more about it. In terms of gratitude, Aldo Schindler is is actually pointing me directly at at at a similar vision.

I just wanna respect that. I I think I have a lot of faith. Faith is an important topic. I more than mustard seed of faith in the good work that's happening here. But I I had a funny conversation about truth and honesty, the distance between truth and honesty. I I didn't have a good answer for this. I I know you're not allowed to answer. I'd like to think ask what what is the distance between truth and honesty? I asked a group of high school kids what their answer was and I got really interesting answers. Truthfully, I'd like to develop a direct relationship with each of the city council members and anyone that works in the city government.

So I'd I'd like to see or hear your plan. I'll buy the coffee or the bagel. I I I in fact, I'd like to talk to anybody in the city about what their plan is or their vision is. I I think research is super important. I plan to go to the two events tomorrow and the following day. I think that's super important. I I wanna enlist everybody to attend the conversation that's happening in in the city of Tustin. Thank you to vibrant vibrant neighborhoods group, by the way. I think it's such a beautifully named group. God, this is such a great place to be, the city of Tustin. Because I said before what drove me to speak is that someone said, don't bother with city council meetings. They're a waste of time. And I just totally totally disagree. So thank you again. I wanted to leave that on the question of the distance between truth and honesty.

I think that's a good framing conversation. And, again, I will buy the coffee. Truth and honesty. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Anybody else in the room? Okay. Moving on to closed session report, mister city attorney.

There was no reportable action.

Thank you. We'll move on to the consent calendar, items one through seven. All matters listed under the consent calendar are considered to be routine and will be enacted by one motion without discussion. We have public input for the consent calendar. If any members of the public wish to address the council, please submit a request to speak for me if you've not already. If any members of the public who are participating through Zoom wish to address the council on items one through seven, please raise your hand. Do any members of the council wish to pull items from the consent calendar? Actually, Hold on one second. Any request to speak?

No, mister mayor.

I just assumed that there wasn't. But if anybody wants to speak, they have a chance. No. Okay. Do any members wish to pull items from the consent calendar?

Yes. Seven.

Nielsen, seven. Okay. Six. I think six. Any others? Okay. Do I have a motion to approve the balance?

I have a motion. Second.

We have motion and a we have lots of motions and seconds. We'll figure that out. Madam City Clerk, roll call, please.

Councilmember Nielsen?

Yes.

Councilmember Kink? Aye.

Councilmember Gallagher? Aye.

May I present Schnell?

Aye.

May I remember? Aye. Motion passes five zero.

Thank you.

Council member Fink hold item number six, which is the twenty twenty five year in review from the Community Development Department. Council member Fink.

Thank you, mayor. I would just like to say thanks to the Community Development Department for that report. It's extensive. And I think it's impressive. It shows where we're going. And I actually pulled it just to point out, I think it would be useful for there to be a presentation about that to the public at one of our coming meetings. So not to put a little extra work for you, Alexa, but to take this and make a public presentation out of it. It'd be nice if a whole room and the folks who might be watching online to see it. But for those who are here, please do look in the city's agenda. And maybe you could also separately put it on the community development page. But I appreciate that. And with that, I'll move the item.

We have a motion. Is there further discussion or a second?

I'll take a second.

Motion and a second. Any further comments? Madam city clerk, roll call, please.

Councilmember Nielsen? Yes. Councilmember Fink? Aye. Councilmember Gallagher? Aye. Mayor Proton Chanel?

Aye.

Mary Lambert? Aye. Motion passes five zero.

Thank you. Council member Nielsen pulled item number seven, which is award construction contract for the Heidman School Park project. Council member Nielsen.

Thank you, mister mayor. I am just very excited about this project. It's for those of you who are not aware, we have been in negotiations with quite a while, but even before I was on council, but to be in concert with Tustin Unified School District to create a park at Heidemann School, and it's finally starting to move along. So, you know, this this area has been highly under park for many, many years. I think the last, park that was there was the McFadden Parkettes on McFadden and Pasadena there, which was pretty small.

So this one's gonna be a three and a half acre parks with a lot of amenities. So I'm really looking forward to this, and I think it's really, frankly, about time. And I wanna thank all those involved with it, particularly collaboration

with

TUSD and mister Grisseau and his staff. So and the city manager for putting together the financing. So thank you all for doing this. I think it's gonna be a lot of fun, and I look forward to starting and completion in 2027. With that, I'm gonna move this item, mister mayor.

Thank you for your comments. We have a motion council member Gallagher and then council member Fink.

It's exciting to see this get to this point. I would have liked the bids to come in a little bit better, but that is the market that we're in. I just wanted to this was a long time coming. And I remember as a kid, we used to go and play at the school playgrounds and fields. They were open on the weekends. Like, this wasn't this was normal. I think a lot of us probably remember that. And there was a shift, obviously, when security was prioritized, but that's really security during school when the kids are there. And this idea is innovative in Tustin. It's not the first time that that a joint use project has been done.

But this is the model we should be following. This should not be the last one. And what concerns me is that this project is coming in over budget, and and we are gonna make it happen because we care. This is important, and it matters. And this is why we're here. This is why we're up here. So we're gonna make it happen, but it would be my goal that this is not the last of its kind and that this is instead a template or a model that we use going forward. Let's do more of these. We're all paying for it as residents, right? Why wouldn't it be open to us on the weekends?

And so I think we can, but I think we're going to need a partner in it. And so I would hope that, or I would ask that staff could talk to TUSD because right now, as I understand it, we're footing 100% of the bill. And we're happy to do it, but we can't this is not a sustainable model. And if we could try to get some joint partnership with everyone's skin in the game, we could repeat this. And I I think that would just be the best thing for the city. So I just wanna make that comment.

Thank you. Council member Freak.

Thank you, mayor. I just actually wanna echo both what council member Nielsen and Gallagher said. This really is critical. And it's exactly what I said when I was growing up. That was the park, Loma Vista, right around the corner. I wasn't close to one of the city parks. But I was real close to Loma Vista. That was our field and our playground and everything. I do think it's important that we could do this with every school site that's in the city. That's not like immediately, just in case Mike or Chad are, you know, they're sitting next to each other back there getting scared about But that should be the goal.

And I agree that partnering with TUSD and bringing them into this is important. I'd suggest, again, that we make a point of trying to form a subcommittee with TUSD amongst counsel and board members. And it's a topic that those folks could talk to. I think it's something. But I think it's really important. I'm really glad to do this. I am concerned about the overpriced, but that's the market. You're right. But I concur with everything. So thank you.

Mayor Pro Temp Snell.

One person I also wanted to thank, Chad Clanton. So Chad, you and I had a lot of conversations about this MOU, memorandum of understanding, this joint use agreement with Tustin Unified. I'm really happy to see the city and Tustin Unified School District working hand in glove to bring this amazing park to the residents of Tustin. Also, the students of the school are to benefit from it as well. But the other shout out to Mike Russo and also to Chad is over the last three and a half, four years that I've been on city council, most of I think almost every park has been touched, has been somehow renovated, cleaned up.

And this is super important. We are a a city of trees. We are a city of of parks and green fields. And to to to see this park actually be added to that tableau of of all these great outdoor that bring community together. I'm I'm I'm really thrilled. And I agree with you, council member Gallagher, that, if we can do more of this with Tustin Unified School District to to help, you know, kinda co fund, there's much more we can do within the city. So I appreciate it. Thank you.

I didn't catch a second anywhere, so I'll second it. And say, just kind of zooming out for the vibrant neighborhoods folks here talking about the active transportation plan, we can do these things. We just need partners. And I think that's the theme here. Private property partners, the city is looking creatively at how do we take older infrastructure and make it new. And that would include with urbanization that's happening all over the state, we need bike lanes. We need walkability. So we are looking. It's going to be a long process. But this is an example of staff.

Thank you for taking a creative approach to an issue that's been a longstanding issue in that neighborhood and doing something really special. So thank you. I think, Chad, you went and chased the grant funding once upon a time. So thank you very much, or your department did. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Madam City Clerk, roll call, please.

Councilor Nielsen?

Yes. Council Member Pete?

Aye.

Council Member Gallagher. Aye. Mayor Pro Tempestra.

Aye.

Mayor Lumber.

Aye.

Motion passes five zero.

Thank you. With that, we will move to our public hearing portion of the agenda tonight. We have two items. Item number eight is the community development block Grant annual application plan for the program year twenty twenty six-twenty twenty seven. I'm going to open the public hearing and bring up senior management analyst Adrian D'Liva for a PowerPoint presentation for us. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Lombard. Good evening to you, members of the City Council. Thank you again for the introduction. My name is Adrian D'Liva, and I'm a senior management analyst in our community development department. And this presentation tonight is to request approval of our annual action plan for the community development block grant program.

And throughout my presentation tonight, just to keep it simple, I'm gonna refer to this program as CDBG for you all. So jumping right in, I'll provide a brief overview of our CDBG program. CDBG is a federal grant which has been in place since 1974. The main purpose of this program is to provide grant funding to cities to reinvest into their communities with a focus on benefiting low to moderate income residents. These funds support efforts to provide decent housing, to create suitable living environments, and to expand economic opportunities.

And for the upcoming fiscal year of 2627, we anticipate receiving around $772,000 for this grant program. And in order for the city of Tustin to continue to receive our CDBG funding, we have to prepare both a five year consolidated plan and an annual action plan. The consolidated plan is a longer term five year planning document that identifies the city's needs for affordable and supportive housing, community development, public services, and economic opportunities. And right now, we are in the first year of that planning cycle and we're going to be entering into our second year. And the action plan, which is what you're considering this evening, is document that implements both the goals and the objectives that are outlined in that consolidated plan.

And it also provides more details on exactly how the city plans to distribute its annual allocation of funding. And as part of this process, two public hearings are required each year. This evening is the second public hearing, which provides an opportunity for public input and for the city council to consider approval of the 2627 action plan, which this year that also includes funding for year one of a three year funding cycle for our nonprofit sub recipients. And I'm going to share a little bit more about that in my next slide here. So, as mentioned, approval of the annual action plan this evening also includes approval of public service activities.

These are the nonprofits who will receive funding for the upcoming three year funding cycle, which runs from 2026 through 2029. And here on this slide, we have a timeline showing the process that we've already gone through with the nonprofit applications. So, starting off in October of last year, staff hosted a CDBG overview and application workshop for organizations that were interested in the upcoming funding cycle. And we had 14 organizations attend that workshop. The notice of funding availability was released back in November of last year, and it was distributed to more than 100 interested parties.

And the city received 10 public service applications as a result of that release. And then back in February of this year, our CDBG citizen participation committee reviewed the public service applications, and they made recommendations to the city council to fund seven out of the 10 nonprofits who applied. And nonprofits who are approved by the city council this evening are going to need to enter into agreements with the city for the first year of that three year funding cycle. And in order for the nonprofits to continue to receive funding in years two and three, they're going to need to have successful annual performance evaluations that are conducted by staff. And those performance evaluations are reported back out to the City Council on an annual basis.

All right. Next, we'll take a look at the funding recommendations that are before you this evening. So you'll see two columns here with the fund the estimated funding recommendations on the left and then our final funding recommendations on the right. And when the citizen participation committee met and made their recommendations on the nonprofit funding, At that time, we didn't have our final funding amount released yet, so we were estimating that we would receive approximately $700,000 in CDBG funding for next year. And then as of just few weeks ago, we were told that we would be receiving $772,000 just about.

So we made a few adjustments to some of the allocations accordingly. And then while we're on the topic of funding, I also wanted to bring to the City Council's attention that you might be familiar with the community support grant program, which is a nonprofit grant program that's being run through the Tustin Community Foundation. And they actually just announced their awards yesterday. And I wanted to clarify for you that there is no overlap with the nonprofits that are receiving those community support grant funds and the nonprofits who are seen here recommended for the CDBG funds tonight. And this slide here provides a timeline of the approval process for the action plan overall.

And we've already walked through this timeline a little bit. But just to recap, in February, the Citizen Participation Committee held their first public hearing in the action plan process and they made funding recommendations for the three year funding cycle. And then this evening, the City Council is holding the second public hearing as part of the approval process. The action plan is due on May 15 to HUD, and our new program year will kick off on July 1. And then with that, I will conclude my presentation this evening by recommending the city council adopt resolution number twenty six fourteen, approving program year 2627 action plan funds, and authorizing the community development department to submit the document to HUD.

Thank you again to the city council for your time this evening. I'm available if there are any questions, and I know there are some representatives from our nonprofit organizations that may want to address the city council during public input. Thank you.

Thank you, Adrian. Do we have questions for Adrian or staff before I bring up the yeah. Councilmember Nielsen.

Very, very comprehensive report. Appreciate all the work that went into it. You guys did a great job as usual. So I just think it's really important for the public to understand who the Citizens Review Committee is. So could you explain that a little bit?

Sure, of course. The Citizen Participation Committee is made up of the chair of our standing boards and commissions. So we had representatives from the Planning Commission, from the Audit Commission, from the Community Services Commission, the Senior Advisory Board, and then we have three at large members who are on the committee as well. And those are active community members.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome.

Mayor Pro Tem.

Great. Thank you. Again, great presentation, great program. So you talk about the audit committee. I just wanted to kind of can you explain how the auditing of these funds, just to ensure that the monies that are going out to these various organizations are actually being spent the way that they're intended to be spent, and the services that are being delivered are, again, being delivered appropriately.

Absolutely. Great question. As I mentioned, all of our nonprofit subrecipients have to go through annual monitoring. So every year, there's a very long checklist that we have to go through where we check off, are they meeting their goals and objectives for the program? How are they spending their finances? Are they meeting, this is a federal program, so are they meeting all the other federal benchmarks for the program? Those auditing results are recapped in a summary report and those are presented to the city council in the spring of each year. So you do get to see the review on what their goals are and how are they going toward meeting them.

Additional comments, questions? Okay. Thank you. We're gonna bring him for the public comments. Thank you. Alright. Next, have public input for this item. If any members of the public wish to address the council, please submit a request to speak for him. If you're participating through Zoom, please raise your hand. For the record, I'd like to note that four public comments were received and were distributed to the council made available for the public on the city's website. Madam city clerk, can you run the request to speak, please?

Yes, mister mayor. We have four requests to speak. The first is Melanie, and then next will be Josh.

Good evening, mayor and city council members. My name is Melanie Forr from Upwards. I'm here tonight to respectfully ask for council's consideration of our Boost program, which strengthens local child care providers and, in doing so, helps Tustin families get back to work. Boost supports specifically low to moderate income family child care providers in strengthening and growing their businesses. Through personalized coaching, providers work with experienced care specialists to build a customized business action plan, which covers marketing, enrollment, finances, staffing, and more.

They also receive free access to our child care management system, which is a custom platform that handles all the administrative side of running an in home daycare, while also giving them the tools to improve the quality of care. Hopefully you can hear me. We can hear you

well, yes.

It's important to note that Boost graduates retain free access to this platform beyond the program year. I spoke a couple weeks ago, but to quickly recap why this is an urgent need, over half the children in Tustin under the age of six lack access to a licensed childcare slot, which leaves thousands of families. I mentioned mothers, single parents, but also shift workers who are unable to fully participate in the workforce. Meanwhile, childcare workers in Tustin earn on average $18 an hour, which drives high turnover and deepens this capacity gap. Nationally, 2025 has been the hardest year yet for providers with two thirds struggling to meet basic needs, including food and housing.

The good news is boost is a proven model. We've worked across 30 cities and counties and mentored over 500 family child care providers, created 180 new jobs, and helped providers increase revenue by an average of 25% in the first year alone, also expanding child care slots by 30 to 50% again in the first year alone. We're already operating in Orange County including our longest running partnership in Garden Grove. So we'd be ready to hit the ground running in testing from day one. I emailed a full impact report for your review.

My favorite part is that they end all the testimonials from boost providers. And to that end, I can speak from an Upward's parent client. I was a client for years before joining the team. And I just want to reiterate that it's not just our goal to strengthen the business and expand access to care, but also to improve the quality of care. That was a reassurance for me as a parent that the most affordable option for me was also the best quality option. That's a reassurance I want other parents to be able to feel as well and really give back to the providers who dedicate their lives to caring for our little ones. So thank you so much for your time and consideration and for the community development team as well. Thank you. Good evening.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker is Josh, and then we'll have Lauren.

Hello. My name is Josh Rogan. I'm from Affordable Housing Clearinghouse. Forgive me if I don't speak well. This is my first time doing something like this.

You can relax. This council chamber is very relaxed compared to other cities. So have at it, man.

Yeah. So our this program I'm about to speak about is called Fly So Cal, financial literacy for youth, where our goal is to have five workshops where we teach young people ranging from ages 16 to 25 basic life skills like financial literacy, home buyer education, job readiness, and taxes, and to hopefully prepare them for being an adult and being able to rely on themselves. So far, we have worked in Anaheim and in San Bernardino. And we are hoping to expand into Tustin because we believe that this kind of work is important. We mainly focus on kids from low income families.

And our hope is that if we could teach them this financial education and be able to be a resource for them so that they could come to us and get help when they have some of these issues. And we will be able to educate them and put them on the right path for that. And so we're hoping to be approved for $10,000 and be able to spend into it, test and test it for it. One of the strengths of our program is our flexibility, where depending on the cohorts we have, we try to customize the program towards them. Like for one group of cohorts, we were able to put a workshop for home buying education specifically to work with them.

While another group, we got mock interviews so that they could practice interviewing to get jobs. And another group, we had a lot of engineers. So what we did was we were able to invite a rocket scientist from Rocketdyne. They recently sent a a rocket on April 1. So our goal isn't just to educate, but to open pathways for these young people and help them be able to prepare for the future.

I appreciate your consideration and time. Thank you very much.

Thank you. You made it under the wire in your first time, so good job. Madam City Clerk.

Our next speaker is Lauren and then Julie.

Hi. Good evening. My name is Lauren Han, and I have the pleasure of serving as the housing development director at Families Forward. I just wanted to take a couple minutes of your time to thank the city of Tustin, this council, all the staff involved for your ongoing support and partnership. Families Forward's mission is to prevent and end family homelessness by providing access to housing and resources that create lasting stability.

As a result of the partnerships like with the city of Tustin, in 2025, Families Forward prevented or ended family homelessness for six seventy one families or 2,289 individuals throughout Orange County. Tustin numbers, we were able to prevent or end family homelessness for 38 Tustin families or 133 Tustin residents. Families Ford's community market served 174 Tustin households by offering families a dignified experience while shopping for healthy and fresh food options. In 2025, 48 Tustin families were served through Families Ford's seasonal programs where students received school supplies with our back to school program. Households were given ingredients for a Thanksgiving meal in November, and children's gifts were distributed at our Holiday Wish event in December.

Families Ford currently owns and operates six affordable housing units within the city of Tustin, with eight additional units in the pipeline. So with your continued support for the twenty six-twenty seven fiscal year, Families Ford plans to support at least 20 low income residents through our affordable housing program. Clients served through this program receive an affordable, stable, safe, high quality place to call home. We do tenant screenings, tenant education, home visits, and income recertifications annually. Our supportive services include one on one intensive case management, food assistance, career coaching, mental health counseling, adult education workshops, and financial literacy education to improve self sufficiency and build economic mobility.

So Jan, just thank you so much for your continued partnership, and we look forward to another great grant to here. Thank you.

Thank you.

Our last speaker is Julie.

I had to double check on something. I'm actually Jill Dominguez, the CEO. I know you were expecting Julie, but you got Jill the other J. I hope you don't mind.

Hello, not Julie, but go ahead.

Okay. That's why I had to ask who I was tonight. Thank you very much. Mary's Path has been a part of the testing community for almost forty years now. So our house is not very far from here. Some of you pass it all the time on 17th Street. And you probably don't even notice it. We look like a couple of tract homes except for we have a small commercial lot out front. We don't have any signage. Now here's the shocking part and the part that probably surprises a lot of citizens.

We are a short term residential therapeutic program for teenagers aged 12 to 18, although they can technically stay till they're 21. They are all in the foster care system or part of the dependency system within the courts. They have no family structure. And they are pregnant or they are parenting. The hard part for all of us is that ninety percent are victims of child sex trafficking.

Right here in Orange County, by the way, that occurs in all of our tourist areas including Harper Boulevard outside of Disneyland, right near Knott's Berry Farm, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, and I'm sure many of you have seen the news lately. We even had an arrest in Huntington Beach. So anywhere there's tourism, which is very frightening and very sad, they come deeply traumatized. Their whole goal in the decision to keep and create a family is to create the unconditional love that they were not born into. They are looking for that.

We are here to give them that chance. We have two lives in front of us, and we get to save those two lives and we get to give them a chance at being that family. Your support means the world to us. The funding that is available for them to take care of the baby because the mother is part of the system and the baby isn't it is a whopping $1,300 a month. Anybody else raise children on $1,300 a month including food, childcare, clothing, round the clock, beds, cribs, anything you can think of, diapers and formula.

All of that on a whopping $1,300. The reason we come to you and the reason we so much need the support of this city is that you help us provide the clothing, the toys, the formula, the food, all of those things that we just frankly can't afford with the money that the state gives those girls to take care of those babies. Twenty four hour child development. We have child development experts. We offer mental health to deal with their trauma. We offer them baby bonding time and teaching. You guys help us buy toys for our daycare because we have a daycare on-site. They can go to school, and they can get their first jobs. All of that is thanks to our wonderful partnership with the city. So thank you, and we hope that we'll see your continued support.

Thank you. Madam city clerk, any other requests to speak?

No, mister mayor.

Anybody? Sorry. Oh. Yeah. Go ahead. My

name is Heidi Chavarria, and I'm here on behalf of Human Options. We appreciate the opportunity to review and comment on the City Of Tustin's draft consolidated plan for twenty six-twenty seven. We are grateful for the city's continued partnership and for the inclusion of Human Options third step transitional housing program as part of the proposed activities, supporting individuals and families experiencing homelessness and other special needs due to relationship violence. Through this program, we help participants stabilize, increase self sufficiency, and they begin to move towards permanent housing. Since 2009, human options has administered CDBG tests and funds in support of tests and survivors seeking transitional housing.

At this stage in a survivor's journey, they are beginning to rebuild their lives, their sense of safety, their sense of self, and their ability to regain self sufficiency and independence. While they are now free from the threat of violence, they still need a safe stepping stone as they reestablish their new life without fear. According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, between twenty two and fifty seven percent of homeless women are homeless because of domestic violence. This is just this statistic highlights just how necessary safe, stable housing is for survivors and how crucial CDBG testing funding is to prevent homelessness among this vulnerable, often forgotten population within Tustin. We cannot underscore enough how critical CDBG Tustin funding is to our ability to provide high quality, trauma informed, no cost services for the Tustin survivors accessing our specialized support.

When you invest in survivors, you are not only helping them reclaim their lives, you're strengthening families, creating safer communities, and breaking generational cycles of violence. We appreciate the city of Tustin's commitment to addressing homelessness and supporting vulnerable residents, and we look forward to continued collaboration in advancing these goals in '26 to '27.

Thank you. Any other requests to speak? Okay. We're going to close the public hearing and bring it back to the council. I'm going to just start off with a couple of comments real quick.

I want to thank the both, obviously, the staff, Adrian, that process these applications, talk to our nonprofit partners every year for all the hard work that you put into making this program a reality. And I also want to thank our citizen participation committee. When you become chair of a commission, you don't realize that you're on that committee, but you get to serve in a very important role of making recommendations to this body about where dollars should go. So thank you to the committee members. But most importantly, thank you to the nonprofits in the room or watching online or perhaps going to watch this later for all the work that you do to make our community better.

You know, we sit up here and we talk about projects and we try to make changes, but you guys are actually touching people's hearts and giving them a better step up in life. And we are or I personally, and I think I can speak on behalf of my council members, we're honored to be a very small part in supporting your mission to make our community better. So thank you so much. With that, I will bring it, open it up for other council member comments. Yeah, Council Member Fink. Thank

you, mayor. First of all, talked to the city attorney about this and want to make sure that I've disclosed, and I guess should be on the record, that I am a member have been a member of the Board of Directors of Family Promise Orange County, which is one of the recipients. There's no financial benefit. There's no remuneration for that position. But wanted to make sure to disclose that and ask that it be recorded on the minutes, is I think what the city attorney had asked.

I guess I should also note that I transitioned off the board as of last Wednesday in any event, but it continues to be an excellent organization. I see the Executive Director Elizabeth Saldana here along with, you know, as one of the several recipients of this. I want to echo what the mayor said. And I want to particularly point out or reach out to the folks who spoke, Melanie Fowrie and Josh Roshan I'm not sure if I got those last names correct who were not on the list. And I appreciate the hard work that your organizations do.

I would love to talk with you about this. I know you've reached out. It is a very difficult process. We actually there is a maximum that the city is able to offer nonprofit organizations. And we offer the maximum of our allocation to those nonprofits. So it's very difficult, the process that goes through. And I happened to be, I think I had a briefing and was going to a library event. And they sat in and part of the citizen participation committee and saw as they were going through the process of weeding through the many, many nonprofits that were seeking funding. And it's a very difficult process. So I echo the thanks for them, but also understand that it's just a challenge.

And Testa is blessed to have a plethora of nonprofit organizations that are getting funding. We saw a bunch of them just last night as well. But it makes it difficult. But I hope that perhaps we can talk afterwards and help find pathways to bring you to testing in other ways too. I just also wanted to call out, especially as we're talking about all the nonprofit grantees, I'm also very excited and appreciative of the program undertaking at the Dustin Family and Youth Center as part of the community development block grants. That's a big chunk of the funding for this year as well. So it's going to be really good. But thank you to everybody on that. That's all I got.

Councilmember Gallagher?

I'll keep it short because our mayor said it so well, and I I I really agree. Thanks to all that that got us here today. I do support the recommendations. And and for the recipients, presentation by Nat Julie, that was I I know I've

the other

day. I I've heard I've heard you come before, and it's just oh gosh. It hits so hard. And what you're doing is so important. And and as the the mayor said, I feel honored to just be a small part of it. And so thank you for everything you're doing. You're really changing lives.

Councilwoman Nielsen.

Having this is my ninth year non contiguous on the council. So I've been doing this for a long time. And it's always you you always get the feeling when you're doing this and going through the process that you can't quite get to everybody. You can't quite fund everybody. And that's that's true. We have a ton of nonprofits that are very well deserving and wish we could fund everybody, but we can't. So, anyway, thank you to all the nonprofits for everything you do, and thank you for coming out and and and speaking here tonight.

Mayor Proton.

Thank you. I also support the, the recommendations. I will keep it brief. Adrian, thank you very much for all the work. This is a very difficult program to manage, take input, bring the funds in, distribute the funds, audit the funds, make sure they're getting put to good use. I have to say I am really very proud to be a resident of Tustin. Tustin is a city that has a big heart. We care. And it's not just a tagline. We have a plethora of nonprofits that give and give and give to support those that are in need.

We've got a number of homeless locations, shelters, Families Forward, House of Ruth to give people that hand up when they have those times of need. So again, I'm just, again, really happy of all the cities I could have picked when I moved from New York that I picked Tustin. I think everyone in this room, everyone on this council is very happy. And I'm very blessed to, again, have some small part sitting here on the dais to have some input in how these funds are distributed back to the community to help those, again, that are in need. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. I'm going to move recommended action.

Do I

have a second?

Second.

Motion and a second. Madam city clerk, roll call, please.

Councilmember Nielsen? Yes. Councilmember McVeigh? Aye. Councilmember Gallagher? Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Chenault?

Aye. Mayor Lombard?

Aye. Motion passes five zero.

SPEAKER Thank you very much. To all the nonprofit people in the room who came only for that item, you can leave now if you want. We have another item. But if you want to go, we'll give you a minute to leave.

That's exciting stuff. That's good stuff.

You're only here for that. Okay. Before we begin item nine, I wanna give the students in the back of the room a shout out because they actually stayed for an hour. I saw some of your classmates leave early at 06:30. I'm I don't know if I would sign their form, but good job sticking around.

Alright. Item number nine, conduct financing for USA Tustin Legacy five and six apartments project. I'm gonna open the public hearing and then I have a brief explanation here. So tonight's public hearing is required under the federal tax equity and fiscal responsibility act. When a project is to be financed by tax exempt bonds, the jurisdiction's governing body must hold a public hearing to approve the proposed financing.

USA Properties Fund Inc has requested the issuance of up to $80,000,000 in tax exempt bonds to finance a 334 unit multifamily rent rental project at Tustin Legacy. This project will be developed in conjunction with the Irvine Company apartment project and comprise a total of thirteen thirty six residential units, where 25% of the total units will be affordable to lower income households. The California Municipal Finance Authority will issue the bonds, which will be the sole responsibility of the borrower. The city of Tustin has no financial or legal obligations or responsibilities for the debt and bears no cost from the bond issuance. Staff recommend that the city council adopt a resolution approving the proposed bond issuance solely for the purpose of satisfying the requirements of the Federal Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act.

So just sort of setting the stage of what we're doing, I'm going to invite public input at this time. And if any members of the public wish to address the council, please submit a request to speak for them. If And you're participating through Zoom, please raise your hand. Madam city clerk, any request to speak on this item?

No, mister mayor.

Anybody in the room? K. We're gonna move on from public input, close the public hearing, bring it back to the council if there are any comments or discussion, or I will entertain a motion. We have a motion. Second. We have two seconds. Any comments? Madam City Clerk, roll call, please.

Councilmember Nielsen? Yes. Councilmember Murphy?

Aye. Councilmember Gallagher? Aye.

May I approach him, Schnell?

Aye. Mayor Lumber? Aye.

Motion passes five zero.

Thank you. With that, we will move on to other business. Mister city manager, do you have a report tonight?

Thank you, mayor. A couple items to share. First, I'm pleased to announce that our Tustin Main Street PFAS water treatment plant improvement project has been selected as the recipient of the American Society of Civil Engineers Orange County branch as a 2026 outstanding water, wastewater, recycle water treatment project award. This is a joint award with the Orange County Water District. The city and the district will be recognized at the American Society of Civil Engineers Orange County Branch Awards dinner on the evening of May 6.

We'll extend the invitation to all of the council. And bravo to our public works team. Also, building division, in cooperation with our economic development division, is planning a free accessibility workshop tailored for architects, designers, and most importantly, our businesses on April 27. The event will be offered both in person and Zoom. This workshop will help businesses understand accessibility requirements and the resources that are available to help them with any upgrades that they may need. And that concludes my update.

Thank you. Mister city attorney, do you have a report?

I have no further report this evening.

Thank you. We'll bring it back to the council for our reports. Council member Nielsen, will you start us off, please?

Thank you, mister mayor. So on April 9, I attended the joint board meeting of the transportation corridor agencies, filling the very, very large shoes of mayor pro tem rechnell for that particular item. And I tell you, we we covered a lot of ground. We discussed the two forty one ninety one express connector toll system and got a presentation on that and moved that moved some funding on that forward for the toll system at $5,900,000. So that was good.

We had a budget workshop for fiscal year twenty twenty seven, went over how monies are collected and expended and looking at debt reduction, which is always great. The report was in twenty twenty six, twenty seven that for the Foothill Eastern, which is basically our board that we're on. Transactions were up almost 1%. Revenue was up almost 4%. So that was was quite impressive.

And it covered a bunch of other things, which I don't have the time to go into today. But it was great to just fill in for mayor pro tem Schnell because, you know, he's a busy guy, and he's going hither and yon. So it's always good. April 14, I attended a Orange County Council, Scouting America committee meeting there, which basically restructuring some of the operational activities that we'll be handling for the scout council for this coming year. So it's exciting.

So a lot of exciting new programs coming up. So that was good to be there and participate in that. April 15, I attended the Lions board meeting for local Tustin Host Lions Club. We did review the vision screening, which ended up we were serving three thirty five individuals. So that's great. And most all of those folks left with a free pair of prescription glasses. So it was a great success. We brought in Cal Optima as well, first time we did that, to be able to offer services to folks there as well. And on April 16, attended our Veterans Ad Hoc Committee along with Mayor Pro Tem Reischnell. His name keeps coming up.

I don't know. And of course, on April 20, was there to help participate in the Tuskegee Foundation superheroes. I don't think I've seen so many red capes in my entire life, but it was great. It was great to put the capes on all the superheroes. And if you look out in the audience, all you see are people caped. You know, it looks like an Avenger superhero convention. So it was great. It was a lot of fun and always happy to participate in that.

And that's all I have tonight, mister mayor. Thank you, sir. Councilmember Fink.

Thank you, mayor. I also attended the superheroes event yesterday and was very pleased to, as councilmember Nielsen noted, see the numerous volunteers who were being recognized and got to cape a number of friends and people that I don't know. So it's a good event. It was a larger turnout than we've had in the past. And I think it just shows a continuing growth of interest in the nonprofit community that is already very vibrant here in Tustin.

Just a couple of other notes. Last week, last Thursday, I attended the Tustin Area Committee on Fine Arts student art show and reception. And in terms of the visual arts that were on display in the library meeting room across the way, some of that was really tremendous work. The artwork, the photography, the paintings were really amazing. There were some notably iconic photos from the school district that one of the school board members was there, Kathy Copeland.

I mentioned the school district should really capitalize on those. There's a fairly, I think, a pretty iconic photo that one of the students took and framed it for Tustin High School that I think should be the centerpiece of their effort. But it was an excellent display that TACA puts on and the program that they have. I also was able to attend the opening of the Own It Now Realty office in the Arts Building over on Main Street. That's where, I guess, where Linden Twig was most recently, next to Good Society, where Old Town Main Street men's clothes used to be and Carrie's before that.

So the Arts Building is filling up. There's more to come in the old Rutabagore space. So we're seeing that come around. I held a community meeting at Baskin Robbins. So for anybody who wanted to scoop and to share some information and thoughts and questions about the city, I'm trying to do that on about a monthly basis and got some great input about that.

And we'll continue to share that. One of the pieces of input that I got about that relates in some degree to some of the issues that came up tonight about active transportation plan. And I'll address that in a second. Also got input and have seen questions throughout, including last night at the Super Heroes event, about the Enderle Center project becoming Campo on 17th Street. And I just want to urge everybody here in the audience and everybody who might be listening to spread the word about that.

Because I've heard any rumor that might be imaginable about that short of aliens coming in and moving Enderlea Center to Mars, which might be the rumor next time. Now, somebody else came up with that example. But although Enderlea Center will be renamed and the place revitalized, there will not be four thirteen new homes or apartments. There will be about, I think the number is 100 new homes on the south and east side of the center. But the core of the center will remain.

I know I see Jay Eastman, one of our planners. I'm not sure if you're the one working on it. But Zovs will return. And so I just want folks to spread the word that even as you see that redeveloping, it is not being plowed over and apartments being put in. There is going to be a core center there. There will be some homes there to add to that. But it will return and, I think, be improved. One of the things that came up at the meeting and that's come up today is about the active transportation plan. And I really appreciate that. I've heard comments about that, and I support that, and heard comments about e bike concerns, and we see that all over.

I know staff is working heavily on an e bike ordinance that I've passed on some comments to try to address. And I think these things go hand in hand. Making sure we have an active transportation plan also helps making sure that we have an e bike plan that keeps people safe, both pedestrians on sidewalks, bikers on bike lanes and streets. I ride my bike quite a bit, including I try to do it as much as weekly to my office where I work in another neighboring city that shall be nameless for the moment. But it's the one time I traveled East of Jamboree.

But just I run into the same problems that some folks have mentioned. There's on Walnut. And as you head towards Jamboree, it's not Tustin Ranch Road. There's a place where you put in the where bicyclists can signal for the light. But you can't actually reach that from the street. It's one of the classic problems that you and you see that all over. That's just an example. You have on streets and roadways left turn signals. I've been at different times when there's not street traffic coming through. It doesn't recognize that there's a biker waiting for the lights.

So when we don't have an active transportation plan and we aren't accounting for these types of things, makes it very difficult for people bikers to travel safely on the city streets, which forces them on the sidewalks, which makes it dangerous for the pedestrians and especially the kids who are on those streets. So I know that staff's working on an ebike ordinance to protect that, but I think it's really imperative that we do what the folks here have talked about from vibrant neighborhoods, which is come up with an active transportation plan. We put money aside to try to seek a grant this year. We haven't gotten that. We have a budget process coming up soon.

We're supposed to have a workshop next month. And I would ask that we really focus on putting money aside so that we can do that so that we can access those funds from the state that are just waiting for that. I also appreciate folks talking about the Bel Air Motel and the idea of a community reinvestment fund, taking money that we we have and being able to pour it into our existing resources. I know we've talked about with staff some possibilities for that. I would like to see us try to expand that possibility and make that happen so that we can deal with our challenges.

As I was going through Old Town on my bike on my way back from work on Friday, it sort of struck me that as we've had this construction in Old Town, and I believe that it will be a strong improvement for the city, you've got places like American Grub that have caught fire. Rudabagoras has closed. Black Marlin has closed. And we have these possibilities, but they're just sort of experiencing a hard time. If there's something that we can use from our city resources to help those businesses grow or address community needs, I think that's really important.

And again, we have our first budget workshop at the next council meeting in the first week of May. And I think it would be good to talk about that. And the last thing I wanted to note is I've been talking to some folks at the Arvida Foundation, not the book company, but the foundation, which is their nonprofit arm, about working to get funding for the Dolly Parton Imagination Library. That was part of the community grants programs that TCF awarded last night, but they're still working on it. I know I talked to the mayor about reaching out to our supervisors and trying to reach out, get them to help with the discretionary funds.

And I hope that we can all maybe help fund that. It's a tremendous program that will send a book a month to kids aged five and under just by signing up. It's remarkably inexpensive. It's $2.6 a month for printing and mailing the book. And there's a state law that pays for half of it already. So if we can find ways to come up with some to launch the program, it will catch fire. It has not reached Orange County. It's in 44 counties in the state, but it's in all the small counties. So I'd encourage you to give a little, find if there's ways of folks that you know that might have a little pot of money sitting around. And, obviously, the city's, you know, through the TCF grants have made some contribution there. So I think it's on a good start. That's all I've got there. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilmember Gallagher.

Alright. Three quick items. Vibrant neighborhood Tustin. Thank you for coming out tonight. You guys were so well spoken. I liked your message, and you were very respectful. And so I appreciate you guys coming out tonight. We do I hopefully, you're aware that we do have a couple of workshops with the Tustin legacy coming up, so I hope you're gonna be there. Those are gonna be that's the low hanging fruit. Right? It's hard to to get the type of active transportation in these older areas, but that, I think we have some real opportunities to to move quicker. And so hopefully, we can get your input there. But definitely interested in getting your guys' feedback on on what you see there. Community reinvestment fund, I'm not sure if Nina is oh, there you are. Okay.

So Tustin actually had a redevelopment agency and it was dissolved in 2012 along with all the other state agency similar agencies because of state legislation. And funny enough, the Bel Air, actually prior to 2012, was identified as a potential redevelopment opportunity for affordable housing. Obviously, didn't happen. But I do wanna point out, you mentioned that there is a strain on our police and first responders. When I first came on council, we had a very similar situation with the key in, which is now, I think, the Lemon Heights Inn.

And I just wanna encourage you, don't don't give up. Keep The police are there to take your calls. If there's issues, if there's illicit activity, you have to call it in. And there are mechanisms we can leverage if that becomes something that is constant and it's not being addressed, which is what we utilized with the Key And so there are other avenues outside of redevelopment. We could actually work with them to invest in their own property, which is what happened at the Key Inn. So I just wanna encourage you to keep up with it, stay stay connected with staff. And then my last item is April 15, dark day for everyone. I know no one doesn't like it. I did have two small parcels of joy. The first was Pacific Center East Ad Hoc with Ray Chanel.

He is truly everywhere. And the second was the Orange County Water Association. You were talking about the PFAS treatment system right here on Main Street. And I saw a presentation from Mike Chandler, who's part of Grisso's team. Grisso was there too, so that was the other little inkling of joy to see the amazing Mike Grisso. So that's it. Thank you.

Mayor Pro Tem Snell.

Thank you, mister mayor. And again, no city council report would be complete without you talking about some type of water engineering. So I appreciate that Councilmember Gallagher. I know you love water engineering. So I wanted to thank Councilmember John Nielsen for attending on my behalf the TCU meeting. Just to let everyone know, I was actually in Orlando with my wife attending my daughter, who's a TCU. She had a national championship for Palm and Cheer. They finished in third in Palm and sixth in Cheer. So I was supporting my family, John. I appreciate it.

Thank you for letting everyone know I wasn't able to make that meeting. So April 14, attended the OC Rescue Mission with Mayor Lombard. And we got a tour of the new tattoo removal clinic Really impressive room. The equipment, the time from dermatologists and laser technicians are all being generously donated. And the CEO told us that the removal of the tattoo is really an important part of the recovery journey to get rid of those items from the past that they maybe don't want to look at and be a reminder.

I would actually suggest that council member Gallagher may want to consider visiting that and potentially removing that tattoo on his, I think, left calf.

That's not the first one that would go.

Okay. Anyway, you may want to take a look at that. On April 18, attended the public mural painting at the Tustin Family Youth Center. That was really fun. And so I spent a lot of time with Chad. The mayor was there with his son, Jack. And, you know, the the mural artist, it was almost like color by numbers. So they had all these beautiful outlined pictures, and you got the paint, and you colored it in. I actually ended up spending most of my time, a couple hours painting La Chicas. It was a coffee drinking chicken, which I think actually resided on the premises. But it was a great day. Lots of people came out. I asked Chad if all the painting got done. Did did it all get finished? Okay.

And when is the mural gonna be ready to be kind of unveiled? Okay. Awesome. Yeah. A really fun day. I had a great time. April 20, as mentioned before, it's Tustin Superheroes event. It really dovetails nicely with the CDBG grants and the fact that we are a city with big heart. We give back. And this is just another way that city council is providing resources and money to our nonprofits, again, help those in need.

April 22, attending the Tustin Buick GMC ribbon cutting at the Tustin Auto Mall. Also on the twenty second, we've got the Tustin Legacy workshop at the Tustin Community Center from five to seven. And as council member Gallagher said, please attend. We want your feedback and your input on the future of what the legacy is going to look like. And then 04/23, there's Coffee with a Cop at McDonald's on 14601 Red Hole Avenue from nine to 10:30.

Come out, meet your police officers, the brave men and women that actually serve and keep you safe. And it's great to get to know them and have a cup of coffee and a donut. And then last but not least, I wanted to congratulate the Transportation Corridor agencies for being awarded the 2025 Organization of the Year by the California Transportation Foundation. They acknowledge the TCA's leadership across a range of initiatives, including the 02/1991 Express Connector, strong fiscal management with the prepayment of bonds, strong credit rating, innovations in toll operations, and so much more. So again, very proud to be a part of that. And John, I appreciate you filling in for me when I can't be there. And that concludes my report, Mr. Mayor. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Real briefly, April 8, I attended an OCFA Budget and Finance Committee meeting. And the agency continues to be in very good fiscal shape, which is good that we have the funds to fight the fires that come every year. So thank you to the men and women that work at that agency.

And on April 18, I attended the the mural painting. I just wanted to give a shout out to staff for allowing and facilitating the public participation in that. Not only was Mayor Pro Tempschanel literally on his hands and knees painting the wall, but other community members came by and children got to paint a small portion of a mural that they're going to enjoy for years to come. So thank you for that sort of involvement with the community and our public art program. And probably most importantly, on April 1112, I attended the Heritage Elementary annual musical production.

And my 10 year old Wyatt Lombard was in cast two. And the production this year was Seussical, which was a mashing up of a bunch of Doctor. Seuss stories. And he got cast as the mayor of mister mayor of Whoville. And to a person, everybody in my family said that he's a way better mayor than I am. Wyatt, good job if you're watching, buddy. But watch out because you don't know what's coming next, pal. Alright. Upcoming events. Mayor Pro Tem already mentioned a couple of these, but Coffee with a Cop is Thursday, April 23 at 9AM at the McDonald's on Red Hill Avenue there, 14601 Red Hill Avenue.

And then on May 1 in Frontier Park, we're celebrating Viva Tustin from three to 6PM, May 1 three to 6PM. More information at tustinca.org/vivatustin. And then perhaps very most importantly for community involvement, we have workshops the next two nights, so Wednesday, April 22, and Thursday, April 23, at the community center at the Marketplace to help shape the future of Tustin Legacy. We've already a few of us have already mentioned it, but an opportunity for the community to come out and provide input into the future development at Tustin Legacy, including the hangars and what we're going to do with the rest of the property that remains to be developed. So very exciting, but we want public input.

We want unvarnished opinions. Tell us what we're doing good, tell us what we're doing bad, and help us make that a special place for everybody to enjoy in the future. All right. With that, any further comments? Okay. We'll move on to adjournment. The next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, 05/05/2026 for the closed session meeting at 04:30PM and the regular business meeting at 6PM. Thank you very much.