City Council - Regular Meeting

The time now is 5.30 on June 25, 2025. I would like to start the city closed session meeting. So, meeting call to order. So, Madam Clerk, please do the roll call.

Thank you. Mayor Nguyen.

I'm here.

Vice Mayor Monzo.

I'm here.

District 1, Councilwoman Fan West. District 3, Councilmember Nguyen.

Here.

District 4, Councilmember Nguyen. Mayor, you have a quorum with District 1, Councilwoman Fan West, and District 4, Councilmember Nguyen, absent.

Thank you very much. Is there any oral communication for closed session today?

Yes, we have one speaker, Terri Raines.

Hello. Only three of you here, mayor and council. There's not even a city attorney here for the closed session. This has got to stop. There has to be consequences for missing any meetings, closed session or otherwise. This is ridiculous. So on the agenda is the appointment or says public employee, whatever, city attorney. Not knowing anything else, I would assume that this is to go over the RFP or the RFP process, or I don't think it's went out yet, but maybe it has, I don't know. But I know that you guys gave that direction back in February. And there's no contract on the regular agendas, so I'm assuming, no, it isn't to actually appoint somebody. It's to discuss the RFP. I'm not sure if that's close. I wish your city attorney was here. I'm not sure if that is it. If that technically can be a closed session it may be to give to ask for direction from you guys as far as Like who to approach or I have no idea But I would caution you when you're in closed session remember the government code what it allows you to discuss in closed session and what it does not and the actual selection of the RFP and the appointment of the of the new city attorney firm should that happen must be made in public and So, and I'm sure that Jones and Mayer guessing that they will submit a bid just like the rest of the firms. But I think we need to take into serious account, you know, maybe not all attorneys at Jones and Mayer are horrible, but... our experience has not been a pleasant one especially well actually for a long time so i hope that this council stands firm on the direction and this is not to reverse the direction that was given in february i hope this council is serious about putting the bid out there and you know with services it's not lowest bidder With services, it is who is the best qualified, who has the best experience, who understands the city the best, and who can give us the services that we're seeking. It doesn't have to necessarily be the cheapest one. You get what you pay for when you're talking about legal representation. I did notice that there's a new different city attorney at Jones and Mayor that was at the Joseph No case this morning. And he actually has experience, allegedly, as civil rights, federal civil rights attorney. The other attorney that had been on the case from Jones and Mayer, I could not see that that female attorney had any of that experience. But as you'll hear me later in the meeting announce what the outcome of that court hearing was this morning. So thank you. Good luck.

We have no further speakers, Mayor.

All right, thank you very much. I understand that the city attorney knows that he has to be here to open for the open session. I mean to open the closed session, but at the same time, the item on the closed session today is about him. So I don't think that he need to be here, to be honest with you. So we can move on with that. And before we start for closed session, why don't you go ahead and read the item that we are going to talk about today.

Thank you, Mayor. The City Council will recess to a closed session for the following purpose, public employment, title city attorney.

All right. Thank you very much. At this time, City Council will recess for closed session.

Thank you.

The time now is 6.14 on June 25, 2025. I would like to start with the city council regular meeting. At this time, a meeting is called to order. Madam Clerk, would you please take the roll call?

Thank you. Mayor Nguyen?

I'm here.

Vice Mayor Monzo?

I'm here.

District 1, Councilwoman Fan West. Fan West here. District 3, Councilmember Nguyen.

Here.

District 4, Councilmember Nguyen. Mayor, you have a quorum with District 4, Councilmember Nguyen absent.

All right, thank you very much. Salute to the flag today is going to be District 3, Councilmember Mark Nguyen, and then invocation by Councilmember, Councilwoman Amy Fan West. Please stand. Please stand.

Put your right hand over your heart and let's start.

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. Please remain standing for prayer. Lord, we just thank you so much for this opportunity to be here, Lord, to do the city's business and to hear the voice of the people and their concerns and how we can better our city and to make it a better place to live. And Lord, I just pray right now for those who are struggling or going through a hard time. I pray that you come for their hearts, Lord, and I pray for the chaos that's happening in our state and in our nation. I pray that you bring resolve and peace. And, Lord, we thank you so much that you are good and you love your people. And so we thank you. We lift this time up to you in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Amen. Thank you. And be seated, please. I would like to thank Council Member Mark Nguyen for the salute to the flag and also Councilwoman Amy from West Floyd Invocation. On behalf of the City Council and City staff, we would like to welcome and thank you for taking your time out to your busy schedule to be here this evening. And we love to have you here every meeting. Your presence is very valuable to us, and all together we can move the city forward. So again, on behalf of the city council, city staff, thank you very much for being here. Next is the city attorney and closed section report. I know that the city attorney was in here for the closed session, so city's manager, would you please?

Thank you, Mayor, members of the City Council. The City Council today met in closed session for one item regarding public employment title city attorney. There was a discussion that took place. Nothing to report.

All right. Thank you. Next is export communications, including SB 1439 report when required. Is there anything from the dais?

No.

Seeing none, hearing none, so moving on to City Club report, please.

Thank you, Mayor. In front of you is a late communication memo for agenda item 5.6 for your consideration tonight. As a reminder, the July 9th and July 23rd City Council meetings have been canceled. The next regular scheduled meeting is for Wednesday, August 13th, 2025. We wish everyone a happy and safe summer. Additionally, we still have an unscheduled vacancy on our Cultural Arts Commission. Members of the public who are interested in serving on the Commission are asked to complete an application by Wednesday, August 20th at 5 p.m. to be considered for appointment by the City Council at the August 27th regular meeting. Applications can be found online or here in the lobby. That concludes my report.

All right, thank you very much. Next is City Manager of Report, please.

thank you again mayor members of the city council and everyone watching tonight first as the fourth of july approaches the city and our police department encourage everyone to celebrate responsibly the days leading up to the fourth of july are some of the busiest of the year so our police department will be deploying additional officers to monitor illegal In the city of Westminster, as a reminder, only safe and sane fireworks are permitted, and they may only be used on the 4th of July from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Additional information can be found on the city's website. To report illegal fireworks, please call our fireworks hotline at 714-898-3315 at extension 4686. And remember to dial 911 only for emergencies that pose an immediate danger to life or property. Our organization is committed to ensuring a safe and respectful and lawful 4th of July celebration for everyone. And again, all this information is available on the city's website. Join us on August 7th for a very special event. The city is collaborating with the police department for an unforgettable evening starting at 4 p.m. The police department will host its annual national night out which will feature safety day. Attendees can enjoy safety demonstrations and interact with both police officers and firefighters. After the demonstration, stay for dinner and enjoy live music from Funk Station which begins at 6.30 p.m. You won't want to miss this event. earlier this morning it was a beautiful day for our community as we officially unveiled our newest themed playground this one was at college park it's called woodland escape and we want to thank everyone who joined us for this special occasion to celebrate this wonderful new playground that we know will bring joy tomorrow will be having another ribbon-cutting over at Russell C Paris Park at 11 a.m. in which we will be unveiling our new sky themed playground featuring a hot-air balloon and of course stay for free fun with our mobile rec program afterwards we will be recognizing july as parks make life better month later in the meeting today and we will be celebrating with a variety of special events and activities throughout the month we hope you can join us keep an eye out on our website and social media for the latest including our movies in the park and our summer concerts that will be taking place And of course, there's always something exciting happening at the Senior Center, and the summer's no different. On Wednesday, July 16th, from 12 to 2 p.m., the Senior Center will be hosting a fiesta dance. And then on Monday, July 21st, from 1 to 2 p.m., they'll be hosting an ice cream social. Looking ahead to August 5th, from 11.30 a.m. to 1 p.m., the Senior Center will be hosting a luau lunch. For more information on these events and also membership at the Senior Center, please visit the Senior Center front desk or call 714-895-2878. Our movies and music series is back at the Civic Center Sunken Gardens. Movie nights will begin Thursdays in July. Activities at 6.30 p.m., movie at 8.15 p.m. Concerts will begin Thursdays in August. Activities at 5.30 p.m. with concert at 6.30 p.m. You can check out our website and social media for the full lineup and food vendors. definitely want to save the date as school begins in a few months the city is proud to partner with cal optima health on saturday august second from nine a.m. to one p.m. at the city at the civic center for free backpack school supplies vision exams dental services sports physicals haircuts and more to help prepare students for the new year again this is this is a free event saturday august second from nine a.m. to one p.m. here at our civic center. fall festival is coming up we' re seeking vendors entertainers and sponsors it' s our fourth annual fall festival it' ll be happening starting thursday september 25th through sunday september 28th you can visit the city' s website or email fall festival at westminster-ca.gov for more information. last but not least we just want to remind everyone that the city of westminster has its online permitting hub up and operational westminster build provides a one-stop shop for development and permit applications it allows community members and contractors to apply for and check the status of permits and applications from the comfort of their home or office at any time. This permitting system seeks to enhance customer service by streamlining the permitting process and provide transparency into the status of pending applications. To ease the transition to online permitting and to provide additional convenience for our community members, the city will continue to accept in-person paper submittals at City Hall. And that concludes my report. Thank you, Mayor and members of City Council.

All right, thank you very much City Manager. As you can see, there's a number of activities coming up for this month and next month. So I encourage you and your families to join the City at this event. there's no doubt that a lot of works put into this and I want to thank each and every employee that you know they go out their way to make it possible for the community and so that we can have the chance bonding together especially during the summer so again you are invited and please come out and join us So I just want to remind you that according to the City Manager's report that tomorrow there will be a ribbon cutting at Russell's Park at 11 a.m. So join us there. Next is special presentations. We have a number of presentation and recognition today. But first, let me go ahead and start with the presentation by JustServe to recognize the City of Westminster commitment to volunteerism and community service and its nomination as a JustServe city. So at this point, I would like to welcome John Dumas, JustServe specialist, to provide us a brief presentation. Please. Put our hands together to welcome John. Thank you.

Mayor Nguyen and city council members, city of Westminster, I'm really happy to be here today. So thanks for allowing me to recognize Westminster as an outstanding community. So my name is John Demitz, and I'm the JustServe director.

Do we have my first one?

Yeah. I'm the JustServe director of JustServe, and we have a website, JustServe.org. And I'm the director in the North Orange County area. so it's quite a big area and westminster is included that also with me is heather go jennings and susie rasmussen who are more local directors in the community so we're glad to be here and and present this to you Westminster is a great community, and as the prayer mentioned this morning, there's a lot of division and problems in society sometimes, and a lot of times we just need a little bit of hope. That's where Just Serve comes in. Just Serve is an opportunity for people to help each other in the community. And there's a couple quotes here from Booker Washington and Mother Teresa. Those who are happiest are those who do most for others. And if you can't feed 100 people, then feed just one. Well, JustServe is a way to connect people together in the community. A lot of people want to help. You just don't know how. So JustServe is a free community resource sponsored as a service by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The JustServe.org website is used by faith, nonprofit, community members. and government organizations to post service opportunities. People in the community use JustServe to work with community partners to identify the needs and respond to those needs in the spirit of charitable service. And so this is an opportunity to link communities, businesses, faith organizations, nonprofits, to people who want to serve. And so people and communities post their projects on the website, and people can just log in to the website and volunteer and help each other. This is no small feat, JustServe. There's over 100,000 service projects in the United States, millions of volunteer hours, happen on a yearly basis. It's in 17 countries in addition to the United States. So it's a big, big program that's used to help people all around the world. Westminster, I'm here to recognize you as one of those strong communities. to help with serving each other, helping each other, and providing that necessary assistance. I also want to highlight Westminster High School is one of 50 high school just serve clubs in Orange County. We have 100 in California and 400 high school just serve clubs in the United States. the community and they have a lot of experience and they contribute many hours of service in the community and westminster is one of those high schools that do it. I also want this one is pack against hunger we had a number of 3 400 high school students help out those that were in need this past year we made shoes for soul hope an organization that provided footwear for african Health injuries because they don't have shoes on their feet So we do good all around the world and the high school and Westminster is a big part of that It's simple You go to just serve org you just enter a city-state you do a search and you can find all the different places that you can serve in the community and and westminster is one of the strong communities in our nation that has that as a priority for their city so I want to recognize you I want to thank you for all that you have done before I give you a presentation of the award. thank you very much. I want to let you know there' s information if people want to take a screen shot of that or want more information. Also heather has flyers and if we can give a few to the city council and then anybody else she' s going to hand it out to other people here so they can be involved in the community. I do want to recognize west minister as a just serve city and a community of excellence thank you very much.

at this time I would like to invite all council members to join me at the podium for the recognition.

I do have a number of items here for you to some t-shirts and

again thank you very much on behalf of the city council and city staff we are very proud to be recognized by your organization just serve and I also encourage every one of you to join them to serve the needy people. At this time thank you very much if you have anything else to say. Thank you very much. You want to say anything from your organizations? All right. Thank you very much once again. Again, thank you very much. Put your hand together to thank them for us, please.

Thank you.

Next is recognition of outgoing Westminster Youth Committee members, Derek Aldean and Saseko Karasagwar. So at this time, I will read the recognition first. On behalf of the City Council, we would like to take a moment to recognize two of you outgoing Westminster Youth Committee members. Derek Aung Yuen served on Westminster's youth committee for four years and in the role as vice chairperson for the past two years. Derek provided valuable advocacy for youth and good leadership. He has helped to support many cities' special events and activities, including the date parade, breakfast with Santa, team tech coaches, serving senior meals and more. Derek graduated from westminster high school serving as the sba prime minister and student representative to the hb which is something the beach union high school district board of He will be attending UC San Diego in the fall. Thank you, Derek, for your dedication to the community, and we wish you the best of luck. Now, Sachiko Karasawar served on the Westminster Youth Committee for two years. and represented the voice of the community's youth. Sachiyo helped to support many city's special events, including Fall Festival, Tree Lighting Ceremony, Fifth Parade, Santa on the Go, and is Kei Naito's biggest fan. Sachiko is a star sorter and made it all the way to the CIF master route. Sachiko graduated from Marina High School and will be attending UC Riverside in the fall. Thank you Sachiko for your dedication to the community and we wish you the best of luck. We will come down to the podium and present you and take a photo with you. But let me go ahead and finish the presentation. This is the third one, which is presentation of Proclamation for Parks Make Life Better Month, July 2025. Parks and recreation promote physical, emotional, and mental health and wellness through organized and self-directed fitness, play, and activity. Parks and recreation create memorable experience through youth sports and enrichment activities. teen centers and programs, senior activity centers, adult fitness and enrichment programs, free community event and beyond. Now, therefore, I, Chief Charlie Nguyen, Mayor of the City of Westminster, on behalf of the Vice Mayor, Colin Mansell, and Council Members Amy Van West, Mark Nguyen, and Nam Quan Nguyen, do hereby proclaim July 20, 25th as Parks Make Life Better Month in the City of Westminster. and recognize the importance of access to local parks, crowds, open space, and facilities for the health, welfare, development, inspirational, and safety for all residents. So at this time, I would like to invite the council members to join me at the podium for the photos. Once again, I have the Certificate of Recognition presented to Derek O'Donoghue. All right, thank you very much, congratulations. And thank you for the year of service to the city of West Missouri, especially the youth communities. Thank you. Wanna say anything?

Hi, everyone. So my name is Derek Aoyung, and I had the pleasure of being this year's vice chairperson for the Westminster Youth Committee. And I just wanted to say thank you so much for my youth committee members for just entrusting me, just for entrusting in my leadership, as well as Claire, which is our chairperson. And so this year, we had a lot of opportunities to just advocate for the youth of Westminster. And so we did that through multiple events, such as the tree lighting ceremony, the parade, all that stuff. And so we met every Wednesday at like 4 o'clock every month. And we just advocated for the youth. And I hope that my youth committee members stay true to themselves, as well as just advocate for everyone and just help make this world a better place. And so when I go to UC San Diego, I will trust that Claire, as well as all the youth committee members, will stay true to themselves and to advocate for the youth. So thank you so much, guys.

I know you will be busy at this UC system, but any time that you have, please come back and visit us. All right, the next one is, next one, next one. Next one presented to Sosico Carasaguar. So thank you again for your commitment with the youth.

Thank you. Good.

He said it all. He said it all. All right. So good luck to both of you. And I know that Council Member Amy from West have something to say.

Thank you.

I just wanted to say congratulations to you both. Now, for the next, well, youth who are coming up after you, what is one advice that you would encourage them to join the club, join the team?

What is one word of advice for them to join you?

Why should they join?

I'd say if you really want to make an impact on your community, this is a really good way to do it. You're able to get your voice out there and voice these concerns about your city and have it be heard. And you can also, for your classmates, they bring up concerns, you can also voice that to the city and cause even greater change.

And for me, anyone who's interested in joining the youth committee, you guys all should stay interested, as well as just be on the lookout for all that Westminster Youth Committee has in store for you guys next year, because I know all these bright-minded individuals have so much in store, so many plans, so many bright ideas for the youth of Westminster. like being amongst them and just like having the opportunity to share my ideas with them and just have them share their input on not only like city events but also like anything that impacts the youth it's very eye-opening and so this is an experience that you can only get by joining the youth committee and so that's an experience that everyone should have and so if you're interested please join thank you

I know a number of you guys are wearing the pink t-shirt also, and I assume that you are also in the youth community, so please come up for our pictures. Why don't you guys in the front, and then we are in the back. And you are between, why don't you guys, you both in the middle, and then surrounded by youth community.

So ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much.

This is how our community leaders, future leaders in our community. So thank you very much. Thank you for all your service. Next is Proclamation Parks Make Life Better, the month, and this is July 2025. So I would like to present this one to Vanessa. All right, put your hand together for Vanessa Johnson, Director of Parks and Recreation. Thank you so much. The whole team, please come up. We are proud of you. Thank you so much for all the effort that you put in, especially this morning and tomorrow too, right? Along with public works. I don't want to exclude public works of this. But we'll recognize you someday, right? But today is only for Parker's recognition.

Team members in the front.

Thank you. One, two, three.

One, two, three.

Thank you. Thank you.

thank you thank you mayor city council for being so supportive of everything that we're allowed to do like our city manager mentioned we have a lot going on wonderful things planned throughout july and the rest of the summer so please join us we look forward to seeing you all and a big thank you to the community services team for making all the magic happen thank you thank you all for all the work you do and you and your team make a lot of difference thank you again thank you

I'm very pleased to have the Orange County Fire Authority water safety presentation today by our Chief Craig Covey. So at this time, we would like to welcome OCTA Chief Covey to provide a brief presentation, please.

thank you mayor and council, city manager cordell and residents. Originally I was going to come to you today and speak about firework safety and if I can take a second I will speak to that too. OCFA is certainly partnering with the city and your police department on firework safety. You have 15 booths in town that we will be inspecting and opening with sales beginning on the we will be up staffing as well will be moving resources into this operational area because of the volume of Fireworks up here and the concern for fires and stuff and I really want to encourage It's more than just fires a lot of people get injured every year with fireworks as well So like the message your city manager said earlier OCFA would really like to encourage 4th of July fire firework safety but the we kind of trumped this with this water safety message today and I come to you a little bit disappointed We've already had a rough year and And it could happen to anybody one of our one of our member cities we have 23 cities that OCFA supports one of the council members child drowned recently and it' s just one of the statistics that have already occurred this year. For me it' s heartbreaking I' m very passionate about this because I' ve been on too many drownings and you do not know grief until you see the grief of a family that' s lost a child and the sounds they make. As the police chief is shaking his head and everybody here in the police department would concur in responding to these it is one of the worst calls that us first responders respond to. Thank you for supporting this message city manager cordone I' m very passionate about it hopefully you feel it and I' ll continue on. Obviously what is drowning and this is a very difficult video to watch but as you sit here and watch this young child here on the right hand side of the screen taking off his floaties how many how many times could this have been prevented in this short video as you watch it walks over his sisters in the pool what you want to do once go join the sister. that father I' m sure left a layer of skin on the pool deck grabbing them out thankfully he was paying attention but how that could have been prevented that' s the whole message here is drowning is preventable. This slide kind of bothers me a little bit because it' s very cold there' s fatal and non fatal drownings. the death of a child. The fatal is devastating the families not only do they lose a child many of the families end up divorced because of the grief and blame to each other. It' s not only that in the non-fatals for every fatal drowning there' s five non-fatal close call incidents in those incidents many of those children or adults are this is a positive thankfully I can bring something positive here my division on May 10 had a drowning I' ve already had several this year but this one was fairly remarkable I would like to share this story because this family was willing to come forward and speak to it and give their own testimonial to what occurred on May 10.

family friends saved his life.

we will move on. On may 10 little ezekiel seven years old was at a pool party and he fell in the pool and he did not know how to swim. He was under water for a significant amount of time to the bottom of the pool and the first person I noticed was an off duty life guard or a former life guard and he saw ezekiel at the bottom of the pool and jumped in and pulled him out and someone who knew cpr the two of them jumped on ezekiel and after child had no heartbeat was not breathing and is now going to school again an amazing story and it was very powerful for this family to bring this forward and and be strong enough to share that in their tragedy or near tragedy a lesson learned for everybody else to learn from their mistake and that was a moment of distraction. So the drowning factors are endless there, as you can see. One of the things I want to highlight, and I know this community embraces it, we work with communities coming together, and that's the special needs children. They're just as at risk. One of the drownings this year was a 16-year-old special needs child. So it's more than just kids. There's adults, there's special needs, there's a lot of different issues to it. So in 2024, we had 111 drownings. And a reminder, children can drown in as short as two inches of water. They're very top heavy. They can fall in a bucket. They can fall in the toilet. They can fall into a bathtub and drown. So paying attention is critical. 111 last year, up from 104 the year before. But when you look at this chart, that continues to be the median of what we're dealing with, anywhere from 90 to 120 drownings a year, high 90s to 120. And it' s just unacceptable when this is a preventable event. when you look at what where these drownings occur and I think most of us would recognize that a vast two-thirds of it majority occur in backyard communities and pools and spas where there's usually a lot of people there so people get distracted and lose track of their children so in 2025 we've already had 20 drownings eight of them children and now this slide does say a non-fatal unfortunately I do have to update that there has been a fatality and one of the children that died And it just crushes me. So time is super important, needless to say. Within two minutes a child loses consciousness, five minutes irreparable brain damage, and ten minutes brain death. So the key to this is if your child is missing and you have a body of water around you, the first place you look is the pool. What we like to pledge here really is emphasize the ABCs of water safety, active adult supervision. We call it a water watcher and we have tags available, but someone who gets the baton and their sole responsibility is to watch over our most prized possessions, our children. No cell phones, no grabbing a drink, no going to get lunch, they' re solely there until they need to get relieved and someone else does it or they continue until they' re done. Rotation is good but the thing is no distractions. Barriers in 2017 the government came out with a requirement for safety on all pools they have to have at least two of the seven features but the bottom line is that the pool is completely isolated with self-closing fences or some sort of barriers that prevent to the pool areas. There' s no way to prevent accidental intrusion to the pool areas technologies are significantly improving these days with motion detection devices but some way to keep that body of water safe from accidental deaths. Classes really there' s two different kinds of classes here number one thing to prevent you have to learn how to swim. I can' t emphasize that enough have your children learn how to swim there' s plenty of classes all through the communities around here go sign them up and get them taught and then cpr in the American heart association would change cpr protocols when we need to start selling new books again we' ve sold as many books as we' re going to have but I have to tell you this time the science and technology behind it is spot on and the success rates of cpr and saving people' s lives I have never seen it as good as it is right now and sometimes when I was doing cpr I was questioning whether or not I should be doing it because they were breathing so well even I can' t emphasize learning cpr bottom line is pools there' s no such thing as a safe pool as you see 69 percent of drownings are under the age of five and they weren' t expected to be near water there' s a lot of stats there just glad it' s over them but the bottom line is there' s no such thing as a safe pool and don' t forget the drains there' s a lot of water that flows through those drains and people can get clothing caught in it hair caught in it any type of object that will get caught and hold them under water. you can' t swim have some sort of flotation device on and don' t forget it' s not just pools you can be in the ocean you can be in our lakes or bathtubs. The myth versus reality you see tv and everybody' s making all kinds of noise as they drown the reality is it' s a silent death. Lifeguards talk about when they see someone in the water with their chin back and doing that dog paddle and stuff that person is working on drowning so that' s a big they' re not screaming waving arms I need help they' re trying to stay afloat as they go under and something there if you don' t know how to swim or if you' re at the beach statistically if you' re swimming within the area of a lifeguard there' s a 1 in 18 million chance of you drowning. use those resources that are around you. Here' s some top ten pool water safety tips I encourage a lot of everything I the city of california and the city of california. Ocfa does have public safety messaging out I' m going to flash through this in the sense of keeping up with the time of everybody and then you can visit our website as well as we share with your city' s website safety information on water. I' m available if you have any questions.

thank you very much on behalf of the city to make this, you know, to bring this to our attention. And it's a very important piece of information for all of us. So, thank you very much. You're welcome. All right, moving on. Before I open up for overall communication concerning agenda items only, I would like to move item 9.1 before the public hearing. So that's a motion, so I would like to have a second and we can move on.

I'll be the second.

There's a second. Motion and second to move item 9.1 before public hearing, which is before point zero.

Thank you. I have a motion made by Mayor Nguyen, seconded by District 1, Councilwoman Fen West, to move agenda item number 9.1 to be heard prior to the public hearing. I'll go to call roll. District 1, Councilwoman Fen West. Fen West, yes. District 3, Councilmember Nguyen.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Monzo.

Yes.

And Mayor Nguyen.

Yes.

Motion carried 4-0.

Okay, at this time I'll open up for oral communication concerning agenda items only. So Madam Clerk, we'll go ahead and read the instruction into record, please.

Thank you. This is the time of the meeting that members of the public may address the City Council regarding any items on the agenda except public hearing items. Members of the public wishing to address the public hearing items shall do so at the time of the public hearing. Unless otherwise extended by a majority vote of the City Council, comment shall be limited to three minutes per speaker. Any person wishing to address the city council in person should complete a green speaker slip that is provided at the entrance to the council chambers and submit the card to the city clerk. When your name is called, please step to the podium at that time and state your name and city of residence for the record. Our first speaker is on Levi, followed by Andy Nguyen.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and city council members, city staff, and officers, and all the people in this room. First of all, I'd like to thank America, because America that gave us the opportunity to live and to learn and to work. I remember I was here when I was a teenager. I became a poor people. The U.S. opened their arms, opened their hearts, with great compassion that give us all opportunity to study, to learn, to work. Now I have everything. When I first here, I am only 11 years old, who get nothing, no family, so lonely. Now I have married with the three kids, and I have a business with three business in Westminster, and I pay all the taxes. And the day that I step in this land, city of Westminster, I always tell myself, I must be repay this city because of their safety. I've been living here with over 35 years. It's so safety. The second that I do in the business, successful. The first, I open auto center. The second, I open ADP car rental. The third, I open A&D auto service. So all three companies that we success and we thank Westminster. And now in daily phrase, I give them to all the city of Westminster, all the people live in Westminster. I like to have the art. that to have the traveler around the world to come visit us. Because when we build the art, I think it's a lot of people come here. Just like you go to Japan, you watching the flower. I took out some flower, and the future people come to Westminster to see the gates. And the gate create a lot of traveler. And we're gonna have the city of Westminster where we have the icon. And I think on that time, It's the right place to live, and right place to visit, and right place to share, and to give us a price that we're doing it. And my family is a business owner, and all my friends will support it. And me, myself, I will support it to the last day of my breath. So thank you to the City of Westminster, all the members, all the policemen that keep us safe and all the people in this room that listen to me. So I don't have much time to talk, but if I have more time to talk, I will share. So unless someone else. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

Our next speaker is Andy Nguyen, followed by Duc Nguyen. Andy Nguyen.

What's the name again?

Andy Nguyen.

Andy Nguyen.

That was Andy. Andy, A-N-D-Y, Andy.

Andy Nguyen. He just spoke. He just spoke. He skipped, she skipped the first one. Okay, next.

Okay, then I have Ann Levy.

Okay, this is Michael. hi everyone I' m here to probe to build the ark because I think that' s a big symbolization cultural identity for our community the vietnamese community just like other cultural centers. I think that will make the landmark beautiful And so you're going to have more visitors and that will boost the economy. So that's all I can say. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Duke Nguyen.

Hello, Mayor, City Councilmember, and residents of Westminster. My name is Duke Nguyen. This is my first time speaking at a city meeting like this, but with something as important as Agenda 9.1 with the Little Saigon Archway, I believe that it's very important for all the residents that live here to speak up. For myself, I'm a second generation Vietnamese American. I was born here, raised here, grew up here, graduated college here. and I believe this archway is important for not only the Vietnamese Americans but for all residents of Westminster. So there's very many iconic landmarks that people travel to throughout America and also around the world. And for Westminster, a great city like this, we don't have anything that is as iconic that we have built yet. So far, for example, is the St. Louis Arch that brings a lot of people to St. Louis or Chinatown in San Francisco. So being that we have Little Saigon here, the largest Vietnamese diaspora in America, outside of Vietnam with the most Vietnamese Americans, I support in believing that this archway will bring a lot of vitality a lot of culture and a lot of people to visit the city so it is a very important that I think that this should be built not only for all the residents but also for small business owners where they can have their businesses from all the tourists are visiting and just overall I think it's a great thing that we can build here for future generations and to bring everyone together thank you.

Our next speaker is Chung Nguyen, followed by Tommy Lee.

What's the name again?

It's Chung, C-H-U-N-G. Chung Nguyen.

Okay.

I welcome come here, all people here. My name is Chung Nguyen. I hope beside the gay, Westminster gay, I want the people of world come here, American, visit the happy American.

So you're talking about the archway, right? Yes. Okay. You support the archway. Yeah.

I hope the people of world come here, you at American, happy visit here.

All right. Thank you.

You're welcome. Okay.

Our next speaker is Tommy Lee, followed by Tuan Pham. Tommy.

Tommy, followed by Tuan Pham, right?

My name is Tommy Lee, so I go support the side of something. So I think I go to a lot of states. I don't see the side, the Vietnamese, the little Saigon. I support that way. That's it. Thank you so much. Thank you very much.

Our next speaker is Tuan Pham, followed by Dan Tran. Tuan.

Hello. Hi, City Council and all people around this room. My name is Tuan Pham. I'm a scientist in Westminster. And actually, I was very support for the amendment. Thank you very much.

Our next speaker, Thanh Tran followed by Monique Nguyen. Thanh Tran.

Thanh Tran.

It's T-H-A-N-H Tran.

Wow, good evening, city of My name is Tang Dang, a longtime president of Seattle, Westminster. First time here to speak to the council and to the city, but I did get here before to speak on a planning commissioning on my projects. I came here to speak on agenda 9.1. Regarding to the archway so I am support of it for a few reasons Do you know lack of a better word? I want to borrow a few word from a former city elect official Saying that anything is better than empty dirt That's a I think very close quote from a former city elect elected official and gas bless her the second reason is maybe this art way once we have the initiation to understand how to get it going that could revitalize you know a City in terms of business economic developments this will bring us a landmark locations that we can identify ourselves with and recently I have a young family and my kids go to school and they got certified, I would recognize as a school to watch. So in support of this archway, maybe this city become the city to watch. And I know we have a lot of things going, so at least let's make something happen with a design-build process, it's a fast track, it can get done. It can run fast, and that make it happen for 2026, because I read the agenda, we have been in it two years. and it' s hard to talk but now it' s a design build process let' s get it done and let' s make wetminster matter again thank you so much for everybody.

our next speaker is monique win followed by g g voe.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and members of the committee. My name is Gigi Vo. Tonight, I am here to give my opinion on issue 19.1. Wherever you go, you will see the gateways of the Tàu district greeting the tourists. And it is time for Lido Saigon to have its own gateways to represent itself. For a long time, Westminster has been known as the center of Little Saigon, and it is Little Saigon that has brought the city of Westminster to the map. Cultural events and major festivals take place in Westminster, attracting visitors from all over the country and even further. I would like to thank the mayor, the city council, and the city staff who have always supported the Vietnamese community. This new gate not only honors our rich heritage, but also becomes a symbol of pride. help develop tourism, promote economic growth and enhance Westminster's reputation as a leading point. Let's make this bridge a reality so that the community and future generations will always be proud and respectful. Good evening. You can hear me?

Good evening, mayors, vice mayors, and council members. My name is Gigi Ho. Tonight I'm here to voice my support for item 9.1. Everywhere you go, you see Chinatown Gateways welcoming visitors, and it's about time Little Saigon had its own iconic archway. Westminster has long been recognized as the heart of Little Saigon, and Little Saigon is what truly puts Westminster on the map. Major cultural events and celebrations happen here in Westminster, drawing people from across the region and beyond. I want to thank the Mayor, City Council, and City staff for their ongoing support of the Vietnamese community. This new welcome archway will not only honor our rich cultural heritage, it will also become a proud landmark that boosts tourism, drive economic growth, and increase the visibility of Westminster as a premier destination. Let's make this archway a reality and create a symbol that our community and future generations can treasure for years to come. Thank you, Mayor Charlie Nguyen, for your vision, not only for the Vietnamese community, but Westminster City as a whole. Our Westminster City will become a landmark visitor cannot miss when they visit California or the USA. Thank you.

Monique Nguyen, you are next.

Monique Nguyen, you are next.

Your turn.

Over here. Monique?

Yeah. good evening mayor city council member and city staff everyone present here tonight my name is monique nguyen a community members in little saigon i read the staff report regarding agenda item 9.1 and the facts are clear for everyone to see throughout the nation i will find recognized ethnic historic district from Little Italy, Little Tokyo, Koreatown, and Little India to Chinatown and across the county. Of course, you will find Chinatown archway in every corner of most towns you visit. And you did know—then did you know—I'm sorry. Currently, the City of Long Beach also has plans to build a gateway for its Cambodian community. I have already seen the design sample they plan to use. Even the Filipino community in Los Angeles has had a historic Filipino town gateway on Temple Street and Beverly Boulevard since May 2022. Since 1975, for 50 years, Vietnamese people have made Westminster their home. Our community has contributed immersively to this city and Little Saigon. This is why a gateway arch would not only be the well-deserved recognition of that rich history, but also a smart investment for Westminster, one that will boost tourism, support economic development, and enhance the city's cultural identity. This arch will become an iconic landmark, not just for Westminster, but one that will be celebrated across the nation and around the world. I urge Vice Mayor Menzel, all council members to vote yes to support Mayor Charlie Nguyen's vision for the city. Thank you.

our next speaker is chin din followed by tony bowie.

Hello, Mr. Mayor, City Council, staff and everyone present today. My name is Trinh Dinh and I have lived in Saigon for more than 30 years. I fully support Article 9.1. Trong chương trình nghị sự, cộng đồng người Việt và Lý Đô Sài Gòn từ nâu đã là một phần quan trọng của thành phố Westminster. Cổng trào Lý Đô Sài Gòn là một biểu tượng đáng tự hào, tôn vinh di sản văn hóa của chúng ta và trào đón du khách chỉ từ các thành phố lên cạnh mà còn cả khách du lịch trên khắp cả nước và nước. in the world to Westminster. This bridge is an investment for the Westminster program with the role of a diverse and inclusive city. And I encourage the city to pass this proposal. This is just the beginning of the process. Once the city has a specific plan, our community will be ready to contribute together and participate in fundraising to turn the city project into reality. Hello everyone.

Good evening mayors, council members, and city staff, everyone present here tonight. My name is Chin Dinh, a community member in Little Saigon for over 30 years. I fully support agenda item 9.1. The Vietnamese community and Little Saigon have long been a vibrant and vital presence in the city of Westminster. The Little Saigon Welcome Archway will serve as a proud landmark, celebrating our cultural heritage and welcoming visitors not only from nearby cities but also tourists, from across the nation and around the world. This archway is an investment in Westminster's future as a diverse and inclusive city and I encourage its approval. This is just the beginning of the process. Once the city develop a plan, our community will be ready to come together, pitch in, and help with fundraising efforts to make this project a reality. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Tony Bui, followed by Paul Nguyen.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and City Council members. I'm Tony Bui. I've been a resident of the City of Westminster since 2002. It's been a long time being a resident of Westminster, and I appreciate the chance to be appointed as Planning Commissioner of City of Westminster, and also oversight committee for measure Y and E, oversight on taxpayer. That means to oversight, to look at the way we use our budget effectively.

Are you talking about what item that you're talking about?

Yes, I support all of the people who has been here, support for the archway. It's really good project for our city. However, I would like to know that do we have enough budget to do any big project? And please be careful in studying it so that it will not be a big burden to our city. Because this city, when it was incorporated in 1951, it was called All-American City. That means every American city has a chance to participate to make things be a good place for all of groups, of ethical groups. So keep that in mind, all American city, that means we have to serve all communities and make other community be disgruntled or they file a lawsuit to us, to the city. That's not good because in the past, city of Westminster has been suing many times and by many people because of different issue. So I support the archway to Little Saigon, but be careful, take a look at the budget, at the safety issue, and of the maintenance of it in the long run. With all of that, then we can carry on a good project for all the people, not only Vietnamese Americans, but also from all other Americans who were living in this city. That is my concern and best wish to all of you here and hope that you get together as a group to carry out the budget, the project within the budget of the City of Westminster. That's a big success for our city if you can do that. Thank you very much.

Our next speaker is Paul Nguyen, followed by Thanh Tran.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Paul Nguyen. I'm living in the city of Westminster since 1988, 89, and work at the Naval Weapons Station for 35 years. I love the city so much. So I don't want to move anywhere or work anywhere but here. Anyway, I'm here today just to thank you, all the city mayor, councilmen and women, and staff have provided our citizen here, all the necessity, all the stuff that we need and we enjoyed so much. There's so many parts, so many things that city improve a lot for our citizen. So I really appreciate that. Secondly, I'm here to... As the city where we act with the petition that we put in about years ago to convert to tenant course at the Tony Lam.

Can I stop you for a minute? Are you here? We are right now talking about the concerning agenda item only. Are you talking any of the items on the agenda?

I'm sorry, I just thought that I have a little time so I can ask a petition that we did for a long time. If you want to present something else, then you have to...

I'm sorry. If you want to talk about any other items beside the items on the agenda today, you can wait until non-agenda item.

Okay. Thank you very much. Sorry about that.

I tried to listen to you before I cut off, but... All right, thank you.

Our next speaker is Tan Tran, followed by Anthony Lee.

Who's that?

Our next speaker is Tan Tran.

Can you spell the first name? T-H-A-N. T-H-A-N. Tran. Tran. Our next speaker is Anthony Lee.

followed by Dinley.

Good evening, the mayor and all the city council. My name is Dean Lee. I live in the city. I live in this area for 50 years. Project 9.1 is my dream. And I wait so long. I hope that this is coming. That's it. I really support for this project. That's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you.

Do we have Anthony here? Okay, we'll go to Nat Lynn followed by Roger Mindrum.

Nhat Linh. City residents have been discriminated against when the mayor brought up the process of building a community center and the Little Saigon Port. Ladies and gentlemen, this is something that should not and should never be done when we are living in the United States of America, a multi-ethnic country, a country of immigrants. In Westminster City, about 49% of the population is Vietnamese. Chúng tôi đang cố gắng mỗi ngày để làm tốt nhất mọi điều góp phần xây dựng thành phố nơi chúng ta đang sống. Và đất nước đã cưu mang chúng tôi với hy vọng cộng đồng các sách dân sẽ cùng chung sống hòa thuận, chia sẻ và cùng nhau hạnh phúc. The Vietnamese-born American community is a communist refugee who came to the U.S. with the pain of losing the Republic of Vietnam, losing freedom, losing home, losing property, losing everything. And Little Saigon is the tears of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese-born Americans who have worked hard to build it over the past 50 years. It is the calling of the Vietnamese spirit, the Vietnamese heart, the memory of the people of a free country called the Republic of Vietnam. It was once recognized by the United Nations, but now it has become the past because we were abandoned by our allies. The fact that the mayor proposed to build a community center and the Lido-Saigon gate is the spirit of 49% of the Vietnamese community's dream, the 50-year dream of our Vietnamese community. I hope that the City Council and the community in the city will support this. This is very worthy of the contributions of the Vietnamese community. And it is also an initiative to encourage Little Saigon to develop rapidly, to welcome more people to come, to do business, to travel, to contribute to the development of Westminster. I think that the city council is also interested in developing the unique characteristics of each ethnic group in the city. For example, the West Minter Reservoir for indigenous people, the park to honor the Mexican people who have fought for equality in school, and the beautiful new road that passes through that park. As well as many programs for the whole city residents, who are the residents of West Minter. No matter what ethnic group, West Minter is beautiful.

Dear Mayor and Council of Westminster, my name is Nhat Linh, a resident of Westminster. I want to say that I feel that there is a division of discrimination among the residents of the city when the Mayor proposed the agenda, building the Vietnamese Community Center and the Little Saigon Arch. Ladies and gentlemen, there is not something that should be done and should never be done when we are living in the United States of America, a multi-ethnic country, a country of immigrants. In the city of Westminster, about 49% of the population is Vietnamese American. We are trying every day to do our best in everything, contributing to building the city where we live and the country that has taken care of us, with the hope that community of all ethnic city can live together in harmony, share, and be happy together. The Vietnamese American community is a group of refugees who came to America with the pain of loss of the Republic of Vietnam. of freedom, of home, of property, of everything. And Little Saigon is the sweet and tears of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese Americans who have worked hard to build it over the past 50 years. It is the pride of the Vietnamese spirit, the Vietnamese heart, The nostalgia of the people of a free country called the Republic of Vietnam, once recognized by the United Nations, but now it has become the past because our allies abandoned us. The mayor proposed to build a Vietnamese community activity center, a little Saigon arch gate, is a passion of 49% of the Vietnamese community dreams, a 50-year dream. I hope the city council and the community of all ethnic groups in the city will support it. This is very worthy of the contribution of the Vietnamese community, and it is also a level of push to urge Little Saigon to develop quickly to welcome many people to do business, travel, and contribute to the development of Westminster. I think that the city council has also paid attention to developing the unique characteristic of each ethnic group in such cities, such as Westminster Resident Museum for indigenous people, the park to honor the Mexican community who fought for the equal rights.

All right, thank you very much. Your turn, sir.

Our next speaker is Roger Mindrum followed by Donald Link.

Good evening, Roger Mendrum, resident of Westminster. Mr. Mayor, city council members, I just wanted to say thank you for your dedication and your sacrifice from your families and the efforts you put in here. I'm not going to agree to your decisions, probably not tonight either, but I thank you. Our city managers, thanks for fighting for us. I know you guys do, and the 405 project is still a nightmare. Thanks for pushing on that. Our firefighters and our police department, we thank you. for your hard work and dedication also on 3.10 second reading I apologize I missed last meeting I had up obligations but I just want to make sure that I know it's a second reading but I'm sure we all want to make sure that certain council members are crystal clear what that covers and what it doesn't cover as far as zoning because no one wants the fiasco that we had last year right let's make sure that everything's known what's covered and not covered of and there's no eminent domain or anything like that as far as 9.1 it's a great idea my concern is how it's going to get paid for I don't believe one cent of our increased tax dollars should be spent on this not for a study not for anything no one voted for a tax increase to pay for something like this. These people sound great, but a lot of people are gonna know it as a vanity project. Y'all voted for it before, so I'd expect you to vote for it again, but I'm still going to come up here and exercise my First Amendment right to give you my opinion. 100% against any city money, tax dollars being spent on this. I know we've already gotten $1 million from Andrew Doe that was kept, but what was the turning point in him backing out of that? Was this $2 million? Was it $2.5 million? either way these people better open up their wallets and pitch in if that' s really what you want they will pay for it. thank you.

our next speaker is donald link followed by our final speaker terry rings.

You know, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. That's from a poem by Robert Burns. Although the little Saigon arch is a wonderful and admirable idea that even Andrew Doe, on his way to his new home for the next five years, changed his own mind and asked that the money be returned. Half the money would be needed just to design it, or the cost of an average ADU. If anybody has the money to accomplish this task, show us the money. Tax money needs to be spent for the benefit of all the residents, not just half the residents. Even though, like I say, I'm all for it if someone has the money. Maybe Mark has it. Anyway, thank you.

And our final speaker, Teri Raines.

Hello, congrats on the just serve recognition for the city's commitment to volunteerism and community service. But this council doesn't foster either. Stop appointing your disinterested friends and supporters to city commissions and stop being such an embarrassment. Item 3-2, requesting a public explanation of the $120,000 settlement on this warrant register. 3-3, doesn't staff have an estimate of how much the 15% of their tuition fees might be? 3-5, we need a permanent code enforcement manager long before June 2026. Oops. Sergio's resume was left out of your packet, maybe because Sergio was selected after the first choice became unavailable. 3-6, $200,000 in one-time funding, great, but the main contract should be $50,000 a year, not $25,000 to keep Beach Boulevard clean. 3-7, pavement condition index report should be provided with any street improvement agenda item 3-9 and 3-10. I send an email with more errors. 5-3, economic development is finally kicking off here in Westminster. It took too long to hire an ED manager, but we're glad she's here. I hope our Chamber of Commerce really steps up their efforts to become a better partner to the city. Five, four, depending on deciding on how to designate surplus funds. Nice problem to have, right? But consider these changes. One, if the 17% fund will now be solely for emergencies, label it emergency reserve, remove contingency, and set it at 15%. to change budget uncertainty to budget stabilization and set it at 12%. The city is more likely to experience a budget shortfall than a true emergency. And three, infrastructure reserve, remove contingency, and keep it 5%. Total is the same, 32%. Please make these changes to the policy and the resolution. Five-five, consider putting a TOT tax of 10% or even 12% to the voters who are more likely to support this special tax versus others, putting the two-thirds threshold within reach. The impact must will be much greater than stated when both the Rose Hotel and one or two hotels at the mall site come online. Cannabis not even mentioned as AB564, which originally sought to repeal the excise tax increase but was amended in committee to just delay it five years, awaiting the final vote. Per Monday's OC Register, Santa Ana reduced cannabis taxes to stay competitive and discourage illegal shops, but they've still experienced a sharp 50% decline in cannabis revenue. Don't force residents to circulate a petition, though, to get 5,500 signatures for a special cannabis tax, even with the lower vote threshold. just request a modest cannabis tax of say 5% making us the most competitive. Remember the city will also get directly 1.5% additional sales tax revenue from measures Y and E for cannabis. Five, six, consider each supplemental request separately. Contrary to Voice of OC's article, this budget is balanced even with supplementals. Yay! Seven, one, why the generic resolution? Just present a resolution once you've settled on a new meeting date. And nine, one, Little Saigon Archway quote, could come from a variety of sources that include city funds, nonprofit agencies, grant and private donors, unquote. Fact, residents won't support any taxpayer dollars for this project except the $1 million if the city still has it from the county.

All right, thank you.

We have no further speakers, Mayor.

All right. Thank you very much. Once again, thank you for coming out and voice your opinions. And today, I will respect your opinions one way or the other. I know that there was the term that all American cities is confusing to a number of people here. And sometimes that we understand, misunderstood the meaning of it. And today, there is a speaker raised a question about it or talk about that, and I don't think it's the right way to express it. So at this time, instead of me explaining it, I would like to request the city manager to go ahead and explain what is all-American city means to all of us.

So... Well, so the designation that we see all over that says All-America City, it's actually not All-American City, but it's All-America City. And that is actually a designation that's provided by the National Civic League. It's a competition that I think it's in its 74th year. And so in order to be designated an All-America City, you have to... you pay an application fee, you pay to do a presentation in front of a panel in which you become a finalist, you've got to travel, and you're awarded this if you are ultimately selected. Back in 90, it's like 94 or so, it was the direction of the council back then to actually designate funds to enter this competition. I want to say it was probably three attempts or so before it was actually awarded. It may have been more, but this is just kind of off memory because I know people have asked about this before. But I know that the city council back then in 95 or so designated about $20,000 to create a video, travel expenses to go travel out of state to make this presentation, etc. And this All-America City, every year has a different theme. So you're an All-America City designated for that year, but it doesn't necessarily make you an, it's not the same as what the context has been used as an All-American City. And so there are cities that have entered this competition multiple times, so they've been designated an All-America City. for multiple years. So for Westminster, we have been designated an all-America city based on a competition entry that was provided back in 1996. And we've looked in the past few years to see how we can reenter that competition. But like this year, for example, the theme was on environmental sustainability, which doesn't really apply to some of the efforts that we've been putting in in our city. that wasn' t going to be a very fruitful effort for us to enter. I just wanted to make that clear. It' s not the same context.

thank you so much. I just wanted to have a brief explanation about it.

can I have a follow-up question for that one? please. thank you mayor. you' re saying the city of westminster was only dedicated to all america city only once in 1996 and that was it?

That is correct. And it is very costly. So it's a $250 fee now. And then on top of that, it's production of a presentation. And so it's almost like your college senior thesis. You've got to work on this project to highlight your civic engagement, your collaboration, service projects that you've done throughout the community. And you're essentially... it was a one-time designation and it was in response to something that I don' t know because it' s been so long.

we have some work to do if you

Yeah, so during that time, just looking at records, the city kind of capitalized on that designation. But since then, we haven't been designated an All-America City.

All right, thank you. Thank you very much. I hope that I explained it so we don't misuse the acronyms or whatever it's that we call All-America City. for different meanings. At this time, the reason I want to explain, the reason why I moved 9.1 before for public hearings is because a council member, a councilwoman, Amy Frank-West, also have to leave early today. She already told me about it, and so at her request, she also wants to move for 9.1 before the public hearing, so she can also participate in that. At the same time, I know a number of you come out to talk about these items, and I want to thank City Council to agree to move that item 9.1 forward. At this time, I'm going to close the oral communication concerning agenda items only. And we are moving on with the consent calendars. And after that, we'll go into 9.1. So if you come out here for 9.1, you are welcome to stay because we are going to talk about it right after consent calendar. So, number three, consent calendar. All matters listed under consent calendars are considered routine and may be approved by a single motion followed by a roll call vote. There will be no separate discussion of these items unless members of the city council or state or staff request that specific item be removed consent calendar for the separate action of discussion. Unless you have an item you want to approve or staff you want to approve then I move to approve the consent calendar.

Mayor I will second your motion but I would like to pull item 3.3.

Hearing none beside the 3.3, and I agree with that. So motion is taken to approve every item on consent calendar except 3.3.

Thank you. I have a motion made by Mayor Nguyen, seconded by Vice Mayor Monzo. This is to approve the consent calendar with the exception of agenda item number 3.3, which has been pulled for separate discussion. I'll go to call roll. District 1, Councilwoman Fan West. Fan West, yes. District 4, Councilmember Nguyen, or District 3, Councilmember Nguyen. Yes. Apologies. Vice Mayor Monzo.

Yes.

And Mayor Nguyen.

Yes.

Motion carried 4-0.

So item 3.3, approved by Vice Mayor Manzo. Approve a facility use agreement with Westminster Nursery School for use of the Musa Tika Park building at 13,660 University Street. Vice Mayor Manzo.

Thank you, Mayor. I just have a quick question about that I didn't see it on the staff report as far as the fiscal impacts on that item.

yes thank you so that revenue is kind of fluid we don' t know how many students they have or what they decide to charge each year so that' s why we charge them the flat rate of 15 percent.

there' s no way for us to determine the

we could see what we receive for the last year and determine it that way. It would be based on the number of students they have each year annually.

That would be good to have that number of previous years and have an idea.

I can include that moving forward.

Thank you. That was it Mayor. Motion to approve? Second.

thank you i have a motion made by vice mayor monzo seconded by mayor winn this is to approve an agreement with westminster nursery school for use of bolsa chica park building 13660 university street for a term of five years and authorize the city manager or designee to execute the agreement on behalf of the city i'll go to call roll district one councilwoman fan west Yes. District 3, Council Member Nguyen.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Monzo.

Yes.

And Mayor Nguyen.

Yes.

Motion carried 4-0.

Now comes 9.1 consideration of a request to conduct study and initiate the design built selection process for a little Saigon archway across Bosa Avenue. This item proposed by me and brought to the agenda today. As I mentioned earlier, I want to thank you all for coming out and support. And at the same time, I value for those who ask question about it. I don't see any oppose, but I know that you have question about it. And it's rightfully so that you all have question, then it's important for us to have a clear understanding of what we're doing. It is a desire for the 50 years that the Vietnamese community have lived in the city of Westminster and, you know, built the city, you know, expand to the city and help the city grow until this. And we know that there are a number of projects that they contribute to the successful of the building of the city. further further archway i know this is a third time if at least if i'm not mistaken this is the third time that is presented and it's the will of the people they want to have this archway and this archway is not only for the vietnamese community but it is a landmark for the city of westminster for the Little Saigon. And Little Saigon, as we know that it's known of throughout the world, it put, somebody said it before, it put the city of Westminster on the map. And no doubt that they have contributed to the city of Westminster. And so, with the desire from the county They want to build, they want to be partner with the city of Westminster. We are now, would like to move forward to proceed with this. And when I mention about, not for the Vietnamese community, but it's also for the city of Westminster, it's because it will bring more tourists. to the city of Westminster, that the same meaning as we are bringing the revenue to the city of Westminster. The thing is that we have to invest in order to get the return of investment. If we saying that we are not going to spend a dollar here, a dollar there, we are not going to get anything built here in the city of Westminster. what i'm seeing is this is something that will put the city of westminster on the map and the little saigon will be will be a welcoming place for many, many people around the world. And I know that a number of you speak about that already. So at this time, I would like to stop here, and I want to hear from the city council. At this time, you can go ahead and deliberate, and if there's any question, I can answer it. Before I stop, I want to mention this is just to initiate their feasibility study. And we will come back after we have all the necessary information, then we can come up. I have an idea of where the funding come from and what we have to do in order to get the funding to build these projects. But it's not time for me to present at this time, because we still need to go out and get the information for the study. I'm open up for any question if the council have it. Yes, Vice Mayor Meza.

Thank you, Mayor. I'll go first. Yes, as I mentioned in the past, I think you go around our country and in other places, as a couple of the speakers have mentioned, as you do in other communities around our country, you see other where they have Little Italy, for instance, the city of westminster. There is a lot of talk about doing an archway in chinatown and others mentioned. It does create a landmark and tourist interest and creates all those as some of the speakers mentioned. For a long time as the mayor might have said there has been talk about doing an archway there in and the residents are the ones that suffer from it because I personally feel that we should have had an archway there in Little Saigon a long time ago. But also some of the concerns of the residents are where does the funding come from? And as the mayors mentioned, at this point, we're going to be looking into that. I know that the county had initially gave us a million dollars for that, and we still have it. It's in the bank. So that's something for us to use to start. I mean, I know there's some other internal things going on. But yes, I mean, this is something that... feel is not yes, I understand that the pride of Vietnamese American residents in the city would have something like this, but I think this is also Something that's for can be enjoyed and from all our residents would benefit from it Because I think it would enhance the economic revenue in that district and across our city as well. But at the same time, I would like to urge the businesses in that district to recognize that we as a city, as we have been doing with our current leadership that we have, we have been making a very concerned effort in making making investments into our community to help our small businesses thrive because if they succeed, we succeed. But I do ask those businesses to recognize that it takes an effort, it takes taxpayer dollars to make those investments. But those businesses need to recognize that they also need to contribute and be part of the Westminster family and know that all these efforts, all these services, that our city provides, for instance, our public safety, that all takes people. And those people, it takes funding. And without the revenue, then we can't continue to provide those services. So please, for that community to understand that it's important for the businesses to also make sure they pay their user tax when people go to shop or dine there. So that is very important. And I will thank Mayor for him and I have had conversations about this and we share the vision that we need to get something like this done. And let's for once get it done and put politics aside and recognize that this is a good thing for the community to have. So thank you, Mayor, and that's all I got.

I also wanted to add to, I want to thank Vice Mayor Menzo. I know that he has a long, I have vision about this at the time that you were at the planning of mission arts you already talked about this thing so I would really appreciate you know that you are looking into that too and I like he said that he and I have a number of times got a chance to share the vision and the ideas so again thank you for that so anything else from the council

Yes, Council Member West.

Council Member West.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Staff, I have a question. Regarding the last time that was approved when Supervisor Andrew Duque came, they did an evaluation of the area as well, and there was tons of money that was put toward that to evaluate. Now, do we still have the same copy, I mean, the same layout? I mean, why are we wasting more money when we already have the approval of how to build it?

So it's interesting because back then, so when then Supervisor Doe came and gave an idea of, you know, I want to designate a million dollars toward this archway project. They had a project manager that they had hired to look at the design, the cost, et cetera. And we as a city, at the direction of the council at that time, were to work with Supervisor Doe's office, to work with that particular consultant, to basically look at technical information, et cetera, in which we did. That's how we formulated essentially an RFP for a design build. And we went through that whole process. And because at the time, It was discovered, and it wasn't our staff's doing it. It was based on estimates from the county. The cost was actually considerably more, almost twice as much, than what was initially told when Supervisor Doe came and gave the estimate to us and the council. So that RFP was never awarded. So there was work done. Basically, at this point, it is going to require council direction for us to re-engage with, you know, if we choose most likely to re-engage with that consultant that worked on it before, for us to go back, look at technical studies because, you know, two years have elapsed. And so maybe there are some things that might have changed. but we do expect that you know where we would just reevaluate what we currently have which would be a minimal cost but we do need to engage with a consultant for an archway because we don't build them in our city right so there there are you know there are areas of technical expertise that's required which is why we would require going out again and just making sure we're updating the technical information standards etc making sure that that location along bolsa you know is still viable and it's just really updating it.

so it's been two years ago that we did that evaluation is the same company I believe nothing has moved in that area where the arch supposed to be you know no street has moved no building has erected in that area where the arch supposed to be. So I'm thinking, to be honest with you, if we want to give them some money to kind of like, hey, take a quick look at your old, you know, approval or you know evaluation It should be like ten thousand should be like five to just have them look over their own paperwork again It's just two years. Nothing has been erected. We can google map, you know and see the satellite I mean that can be really easy done So what I'm saying is that ten thousand it could be five for him to just look at his old work Which nothing has moved so I'm gonna let our assistant city manager talk technical engineering He can he can speak technical speak

yeah no that's a very good question thank you for bringing that up so there was a design package that was put out to the to the uh construction world um so all we would be doing is uh it wouldn't be a ten thousand dollar award it would be up to ten thousand dollars and we would monitor every step of the way closely so that if it only takes a thousand dollars it would only be paid $1,000. It' s a time and material type of agreement that we would establish with this specialty engineer.

if that' s the case then if you can come back to the council and let us know.

I would really appreciate that. if I may, this is going to be to authorize staff to continue with the work that has already been done and we allow the $10,000 but that means that' s the maximum number that we are going to allow staff to work with the consultant. I have no problem with that. right mr. mayor I have no problem with that but what I'm saying is that accountability so if you can come back to the council and mayor and say hey we use a thousand so it's very likely I'm pretty sure that you will come back once the studies the feasibility study they will come back and then go to the next stage

Okay. And then the reason why I asked that, Mr. Mayor, is because I know we have the design before and the project evaluation of the electrical and everything and the traffic there to speed-alize this project.

Speed-alize.

it could be fast. That's what I'm saying. So we have to lay out already. So if you want to approve it for the community, I think we could just go with it. You know what I mean? With the design we have before the study of the traffic there, I think it will be perfect.

so one of the things that was not conclusive it wasn't set in stone was the way that the archway would end up looking so once we were only looking at the technical aspects of actually building foundations and building a structure we would bring the council back information on that and then also a step-by-step of what the process to complete the project would be along with the cost estimate but also we would bring back to the council and so that we can all get consensus that this is what it's going to look like what was proposed back then we never achieved a final consensus on the look so there's a lot of work to be done before we start actually digging and building.

Now would you guys also have like a public arena where people in the community can put their feedback into that arch Mr. Mayor?

Well, at this time here, let's do the feasibility study first, and then we can talk about the design building. We can always conduct the outreach meeting to get more information. But at this time here, first step, we need to move step by step first.

Okay. That's perfect. And I think this arch is a very symbolic for the community in the city of Westminster. And I know that predominantly it's 45% Vietnamese refugee. So I think this is something that built the city and will bring more traffic into the city, but also generate money for businesses here as well. I think it' s a win-win for everyone. Mr. Mayor I approve this project and this is a great project you brought back up to remind people. thank you.

Mr. Mayor. any other? yes. thank you Mr. Mayor.

I think the ultimate product of this project which is archway for little second district will be good for the economic vitality of the city and the district and the whole region. does this 9.1, which is basically the study of it. I mean, for all we know, it may come back costing $4 million, right? And it will be a no. So with that, I second your proposal.

All right. So there's a motion. I don't think there's a motion yet. So at this point here, I would like to entertain a motion, if there's any.

Is there a motion to approve?

I second. There's a motion and second on the floor to approve the sign to move forward. You can go ahead and read the recommendation.

Thank you. I have a motion made by District 1, Councilwoman Fen West, seconded by District 3, Councilmember Nguyen. This is to direct staff regarding hiring a consultant and initiating a design-build selection process. I'll go to call roll. District 1, Councilwoman Fan West. Fan West, yes. District 3, Councilmember Nguyen.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Monzo. Yes. And Mayor Nguyen.

Yes.

Motion carried 4-0.

All right, thank you very much. I'm moving on to- All right. All right, thank you very much. We're moving on to the public hearings. Public hearing right now. Anyone wishing to speak on an open public hearing may speak in person. Speakers during public hearing comments will each have three minutes to speak on each public hearing item. Any person wishing to address the City Council in person should complete a green speaker slip that is provided at the entrance to the City Council chambers and submit a card to the City Clerk. When your name is called, please step to the podium at that time and state your name, the City resident optional for the record. At this point here, I would like to open for public hearing 4.1, fee study and revisions to the CDY fees and fines schedule. So staff, report please.

Thank you good evening mayor vice mayor counsel This item is to update the citywide fees and fine schedule and the city has worked with RCS on the study President Eric Johnson is here and will be providing a short presentation and staff is available from all departments to answer questions Great Thank You Aaron good evening mayor members of the council I'm Eric Johnson from revenue cost specialists and I'm glad to be with you here tonight to present the fee study update and

Before we get into that, just a little brief background on RCS. We were one of the founders of doing costing studies after Proposition 13 and Proposition 4 passed in 1980. And so we've been doing this for 45 years now. I myself have been doing this for 35 years. I've worked with over 100 different agencies in five different states and been working with the Westminster since, I believe, 1994. So it's always good to come back. So what have we done? We've really recast the city budget as if it were a business. And we did this because the voters told us to. As I mentioned, we all know Proposition 13 passed in 1978 that lowered property taxes. A year later, the voters passed Proposition 4, which established, among other things, that you can charge a fee as long as it does not exceed the cost reasonably borne. But governmental accounting was not really designed to determine what's the cost to your customers. So we have to go through this process to identify those costs. And we'll go through that, exactly what we did in the process here. But basically, we're turning to what it would look like for a business. What does it cost to provide these services to your customers? It's like when you go to the store and you buy a can of corn. You know when you buy that can of corn, you're paying for the farmer, you're paying for the trucker, you're paying for the checker at the grocery store. You know that. Well, we've done that same kind of thing here. We've identified what does the cost provide those services, and you won't see a city council service. You won't see a city manager service. That's part of the overhead cost. Just like when you buy that can of corn, you know it's included in that cost. The costs that we've identified here are like a business cost. Here's the cost providing services to your customer. So this was a thorough process. We did want to take a look at all the fees that the city is charging. We wanted to update, look at the current fees, add, delete, redefine certain fees. We wanted to make sure they were legally defensible. In some cases, we looked at what's the revenue actually being collected to make sure that that matches up with the fee charge. And in some cases, we're also looking at market demand. So how did we do it? we start off first with what are the services being provided so we sit down with each department we go through the current list of fee services and then we also talk about there what changes do we want to make to that what additions do we want to make to that once we've done that we then go through how much time is being spent on these services by the various staff positions how many of these are you doing so that we can identify what is the total time being spent by staff on all the services that they're doing some of which are fee services. Once we've gone through that time detail, we want to now know what the cost is. So we start out looking at the budgeted salaries, budgeted fringe benefits, looking at the operating expenses and the approved budget. And then for each position in the city, we calculate a fully allocated hourly rate that includes salaries, benefits, operating expenses, but also includes a citywide overhead that I mentioned earlier for things like city manager and city council and finance and payroll and HR and all those things that people need to do to be able to do their job. we also include departmental overhead because within the department will be administrative support provided to other parts of the department so we basically created a billing rate for every position we match that up with that time detail and now we know what the cost of services are for the various services being provided by the city. we then go back to the department and we say here' s your current fee here' s your updated cost and we need to make adjustments to the fee to match that cost in some cases the fees went down the process changed maybe they' re doing it there' s a simpler process that' s being done maybe it' s being done by a less expensive position in some cases the fee has gone up costs have increased salaries have increased and in some cases the process gets more complicated so we went through that for each service with each department so that we have the proposed fees that you have here today that we're asking for approval. In California government, there's basically two different kinds of fees, revenues, two different kinds of costs. the community supported services those things that when people say what my tax dollars pay for these are things their tax dollars pay for those things that benefit the broader community police and fire and streets and parks those types of things but there' s also what we call fee services personal choice services that it' s measurable The customer is identifiable. Most importantly, it doesn't benefit the broader community, but benefits individuals or smaller groups. Examples of that are planning services, building safety fees. So another way to look at this, I'm kind of more of a picture guy, is that on the left we have taxes and grants. Those are there to support community supported services. Fees are there to support personal choice services, but to the extent that the fee doesn't cover the cost, the only place that money is coming from is taxes. Costs are occurring. The question now is who's going to pay for it. If the fee does not cover the cost, the taxpayer is making up that difference, and that means you have less money for things that only taxes can support, like police and streets and parks and recreation programs. Now, we have a large dollar amount there showing that subsidy, over $4 million dollar amount. We don't believe that that's the amount of revenue that you'll get if all the recommendations in this report are adopted. We think it'll be more like around $400,000. Now, the reason for that difference, there's a couple of things. There's a few services in here that even though they have fees associated with them, they're not really fee services. They're still largely supported with taxes and will continue to be largely supported with taxes. Examples of this are code enforcement services. animal control services, police report copies, tremendous amount of cost related to police report copies, but you're limited what you could charge under the public records act. Recreation programs are designed by the very nature to be subsidized and will continue to be subsidized. We're showing decreases in business license processing fees, that's why we're showing a negative number on the public safety side. So that's the big reason why we have this large subsidy, but relatively less amount of money that we think will turn into actual revenue. We also took a look at fines as part of this process now fines are not cost based fees so we' re not going through identifying how much time is being spent on a fine service. But it' s some fines are designed to encourage good behaviors they' re designed to be set at a level that encourages the behavior that you want to encourage and so we did a survey surrounding agencies we updated a couple of the fines in here most of them were and the fees are not cost based like all the other services and fees in the report. Our goal was to identify the cost for all the various services and we' ve done that. We' ve made few recommendations for every service in the cost of the service and the cost of the service. Which services should be subsidized with tax dollars and which services should be paid for by the person or group receiving the service. Again the costs are occurring and

Thank you, Eric. So I just wanted to point out a couple items that stand out in this study. First, I wanted to mention that the city last completed the study in June of 23. And at that time, staff recommended that the city reevaluate the fees every two years. And that recommendation is still, or that is still the practice that is recommended. this means that the fees will be revisited during fiscal year 26-27 and implemented with the 27-28 budget for the next round. The major changes in the study are that some of the community development fees have been adjusted to reflect the departments efforts to streamline procedures and in many cases fees have been reduced to reflect the new streamline process. credit card fee was first approved in the 2021 fee and it' s 3% on transactions over $500 but due to the and our cashiering and our online process those fees have not been implemented so with the approval of this study staff would work at getting those implemented and they would could generate about $200,000 in revenue finally the special events permits currently cost $100 but actual costs support a higher fee. The study shows the cost of a simple special event permit at $1480. A simple event is defined as an event that has a singular activity or attraction, is short in duration and is recurring. the study shows that the cost of a complex special event permit is $2520. A complex special event is defined as an event that may have multiple attractions or components requires multiple inspections and coordination meetings such as circuses carnivals festivals parades at night markets. The event may have rides animals fireworks inflatables and impacts to traffic and numerous vendors It occurs over multiple days or weeks and has high impact and staff involvement The amount in the proposed resolution keeps the fee at the current hundred dollars but if council is Interested in reviewing that or discussing it Staff is available for that finally this is just a comparison of that special event permit to some surrounding cities Most cities or not most but some of the cities handle this fee differently Some bill the cost or have an applicant application fee up front and then bill for actuals after the event Costa Mesa has an application fee of $25 a special event fee of 400 and and they have a fee of $1500. Fountain valleys ranges between $750 and $1500 and they bill their actual cost after. Garden grove is currently reviewing their fee and they have an application fee of the applicant must secure facility fees and permits afterwards huntington beaches is a little higher between 50 and 400 for the application and 150 and 850 for a special event they also charge a deposit for large events of 50,000 and oc parks and stanton have a smaller fee up front 75 and 187 but bill the direct cost after the event.

All right, thank you very much. At this time, I would like to open up for questions if there's anything from the council. Vice Mayor Manzo.

thank you mayor since we're on that subject right now of a special event if it's costing us you go back to that slide it's 14 change in 2000 over 2000 i think it's just yes it was it was um 14 1400 sorry right and then 2500. um oh sorry i don't sorry i lost it all right yeah i think it's um very fiscally needs to be fiscally responsible for us to to update to something that's more reasonable maybe not you know, kind of similar to the other cities, I would ask my colleagues to think about it. Something that we would recommend, that you would recommend Aaron for us and especially the the deposit I was thinking do we have currently have a situation where It takes our staff to go there after the fact after an event and do some Repair clean up a repair that may happen that you know maybe you you wouldn't know that but maybe our public works or community service would know if any situations like that have ever occurred and

So thank you. Yes, when an event is hosted on public property, we do ask that the event organizer pay a deposit in advance of the event. And in recent memory, I cannot remember ever deducting any costs from those events held on public property. they have been cleaned up and nothing is left in this repair.

so we do have a deposit? okay but yes i think that we need to update that fee to be more than the hundred dollars i mean i would take your recommendation for that what that cost would be i don't know if we're interested in charging that full amount of the actual cost so that's something that i think we need to look at and but my my next question is it's um and i don't know if This is the part where I would ask this question, or maybe it's later. We had a conversation about providing the service of new water meters, or ADUs. I don't know, is this part of this one, or is that a different subject? so the so the topic of the water meter installation by staff was part of the budget item budget okay i'll ask later then um and then uh one one thing that i didn't see on here is our parking fee update um i didn't see it on here and what i really want to point out and make this i hope that everybody can hear me is that this is the second the second fee update and it's the second time that the parking fee is not there as far as revising it so there's now there's two two cycles at least since i've been here and i still don't see it so how much longer is that going to take can we have a consultant's opinion on that this is the second time when we did this last time there was no parking and we have parking fees here in the lots correct and still no and right now currently as i understand it it cost us more to run it than we than we are charging for that

You're right, we didn't study that as part of this process. It really is a different animal in that it's really more of a market-based fee. There are costs there, but what's really important is what are people willing to pay, what makes sense for different time periods, and for that particular lot.

How is that different from the other ones, though?

Like I said, it's more of a market-based fee, and so it's identifying, it's looking at far more than the cost.

we talk to to get that updated?

I think the issue is that we did bring back an increase in our rates for the parking lots for paid parking that did come to council and the council approved an increase that increase has gone into effect the signage is up we' re operating as was approved by the council. I will take responsibility on behalf of staff we did tell you on that that would be rolled into the study. If I'm hearing from the consultant that it doesn't belong in the study, then I would have to take it up with our staff and our city attorney to see where that is appropriately, where that should reside.

I missed that one because I didn't realize that we were at that point. I'm a guy, so I could have forgot. And I'm a husband, too, so I probably forgot. If you're saying we did, then we did.

We updated the costs for parking in the Civic Center based on council direction. We did mention at the end of that presentation that we would memorialize that into this study. And if we're hearing from the consultant that it doesn't belong in this study, we're going to figure out where it does belong so that everybody, so we're doing it consistently.

And can we, would that be in the same two-year period?

cycle as Aaron mentioned we had a sidebar with the consultant like a few minutes before the meeting started and it appears that It's gonna be a different process and it'll reside somewhere else. Okay, and we're gonna work with our city attorney in that I don't believe it's ever gonna reside in this study is what I'm hearing It's what I learned today, but we told you otherwise so you're not you're not wrong and what you remembered We did tell you it would reside in this study We're not I'm now telling you that shouldn't have been said to you and we're gonna have to fix that.

Okay, so my next question is about is there I don't see is there RV permit fee update on here is there is right currently we have permits for RV parking on public streets right I'm not aware of any actual fee for RV permits that wasn't something that's on the fee schedule so it wasn't something that so because we put fines

the city of california. we have some summaries in this report which I' m understanding is something that we do which is a little different than what most cities do. When that rv program was and it did not. We' re going to also revisit that and handle it accordingly and place it where it needs to be placed. On the night that was approved we did hear loud and clear that the council was interested in a citation that has a tiered increase for second. We did promise you that we would do that and we told you it would get done as part of the study. It did not and we' re going to have to come back to figure out where that and how that is handled so that the next cycle of this fee study?

I will let pd come up and talk about how that is being enforced and what the fine was and what the fine is. It' s not what you approved we will have to figure out how to make that

Councilman, from what I'm hearing, there are actually some some steps in the process that you're asking for i believe the fee for the rvs almost doubled so there was an increase correct one from 47 to 80. thank you so there was an increase as far as uh steps i don't think there is one that was part of the fee uh schedule and it's actually something you do not see and you've been doing this

right for parking fines it's I I've never seen kind of a tiered system for parking fines municipal code violations yeah absolutely parking fines a little different you know you got the vehicle there by itself and so just the mechanics of setting up a tier there's a lot of questions there how would that work with the what's the volume how much work would be involved in identifying is that their second time is that their third time is that their first time for that particular citation when it comes in so i think there's just a lot of questions as to how this would actually work but we don't we wouldn't have documented that either that license plate

I mean, I'm assuming it's going to be documented that it had one or two. I mean, I think when we pull up a report, wouldn't we know that this particular vehicle has been involved in a crash or whatever? Wouldn't we have that information?

We would be able to make that work. It might take us a little work, but we'd be able to make that work. But currently, just so you realize this, there's two types of violations usually when we're dealing with parked vehicles. There's the Westminster Municipal Code, And that's what you have authority over. And then there's California Vehicle Code. And the California Vehicle Code actually does have a type of tiered system. After we give five citations per the vehicle code, we're able to either tow or boot that vehicle, basically seize the vehicle. Then if that vehicle is in storage, which costs... funds to get removed. If it's in storage for 30 days or more, there's late fees assessed. And because it's a California vehicle code we're operating under, which is much different than the municipal code, it's got more teeth. And that means You can't register that vehicle. You can't renew that vehicle The DMV has a hold on it. You're gonna have to pay them fees and you can't do anything with that vehicle now So in essence, they're actually under the California vehicle to there. There is a tier It takes five citations to get there, but there is a tier Okay, and that has more teeth in our municipal good because the DMV can hold them can enforce things when it comes to the California vehicle could so I would caution We wouldn't want to move away from that mechanism, even if we had to find, say, making up numbers, 100 for the first time, 200 for the second, 300 for the third, et cetera, because it's kind of here. Even though you get five at the same ticket, then it really has teeth at the end of it.

So the only thing that we can control is just the permit cost.

Yes, and we do have a permit process in place now.

Okay, and you said it went up to 80?

That's the fine that went up to 80.

No, the permit fee.

Which is different than the fine. I don't believe there's a permit fee.

There's no fee for the permit.

I don't believe there's a fee for the permit, but I have my staff looking into that. If you just give us one second.

So there's no fee for the permit for the resident, but there is a cost for staff to manage that system. And that's not listed in tonight's fee statement.

So is that something we should have?

That's something we promised you we would have this time around, and we missed it.

So we'll bring it back to us at a later time?

We'll figure out how to bring it back to you timely.

All right. Mayor?

All right, thank you very much. Is there anything from council, council members?

You know, looking at the fees, I know this came before the council before we didn't increase on the fees. Looking at it again, I just feel like it's a lot. different fees in the city of westminster we' re not like the city of hunting beach where the population is much larger than ours or irvine. So we' re more of like the middle size city and I think with that looking at other cities I think our fees look a little more than other I just think that if we can cut certain fees for the resident of the city of westminster I think that' s helpful especially during this time it' s a pinch for everyone after the inflation we' re still recovering from inflation I think it' s important where we can cut those fees I think that will be helpful but what do you suggest?

That's the policy. That's your job as the council to determine what that policy should be. We've determined what the costs are. And so we're saying this is what it costs to provide these services. You can charge less than that if you want. You can't charge more. But if you charge less than that, that means part of it is being subsidized with tax dollars. That means you have less tax dollars to spend on other things. So that's why we call these personal choice services, these services that are benefiting individuals or groups and not the broader community, and make the recommendation to recover 100% of the cost. But at the end of the day, it's the council that sets the policy.

OK, thank you. And Erin, can you bring back the slide to where it says $100 fee for that slide? Can you bring back to that one? No. Oh, let me see. The special event, that's the $100. Now, what about the, that is the special event permit. It's $100. I guess that' s not bad because that' s individual but what about for tickets? Can you show that slide?

Do you have a slide of all the tickets or parking? I don' t have a slide for that, no. It' s in the staff report. Which item was it that you were interested in?

Just tickets, parking and stuff like that under parking maybe. What page is that?

talking about the parking fines in appendix C right where's that at that's it's in the very end of the report again appendix C starting with page 336 but there's only a couple of fines that we recommended increases on including the loud party responses the RV parking that we talked about and also streets are you on page so the street

I can' t find it on my page. Do you have that package?

I don' t have it on this computer. It' s the third page from the back of the staff report. It says vehicle and traffic fines. It' s an attachment, so it' s labeled page four of the attachment, I believe. I can do that. We can pull that up.

City Clerk, can you help us locate it, please?

I'm getting there.

I would like to have staff to go ahead and take your time to look at it. At this time, I know that we have to go. We need to take a five-minute recess, and then we'll come back. So the time now is 8.35. I would like to ask for us to come back at 8.40 to continue. So recess. The time now is 8.45. I would like to continue with the council meeting tonight. And so with that, would you please do the roll call?

Thank you. Mayor Nguyen?

I'm here.

Vice Mayor Monzo?

Here.

District 1, Councilwoman Fen West? Fen West here. District 3, Councilmember Nguyen?

Here.

District 4, Councilmember Nguyen? Mayor, you have a quorum with District 4, Councilmember Nguyen absent.

Thank you very much. So staff, would you please continue?

I have the agenda item attachments up. So it's a little difficult to see, but that's the biggest we can make it. These are the code violations. And in this attachment, there are only three recommendations for increase. The second page, the loud party response is recommended to increase. from 250 to 300 and then they go down that's a tiered the next Recommendations for increase these are the parking type fines that vehicle and traffic fines. There's no suggested changes on this first page the second page has the no parking of large vehicles on all streets goes from forty seven to eighty dollars and the street sweeping ticket goes from forty seven to fifty five dollars those are the only three recommendations for increase in the fines.

thank you Erin I think you mentioned the parking ticket from forty seven to seventy something?

forty seven to eighty for a large vehicle.

That's for cars, right?

Parking tickets? That's a parking ticket for a large vehicle. I think a car is... All the other parking tickets remain the same. How much is that for the normal parking? For 47?

Most of them are 47.

Most all of these in here are 47.

I know one of the concerns.

There's several different like if it's posted one hour parking that's 47, two hour parking it's 47. There's different ones for the parking but they're all at 47 with no recommended increase.

There was a concern from the casual woman is that how is it compared to other city when we do the increase?

When we did a survey it was well within the range and felt there was no need for an increase.

do you have that comparison from other cities?

not with me but we can get it to you.

to be honest when we' re doing something like this we like to compare other cities because we don' t have time to call our council member in other cities and ask them what' s your fee for parking that' s why it' s important for us to have all the And I just feel like it's missing.

I understand that, Council Member West, but at the same time, this is from the good consultant, and they're not going to lie to us. It's within the range.

So right now, take it- Mr. Mayor, so you're saying with the consultant, they can't release that information of comparing other cities?

is that what you' re saying? excuse me exhibit c of the report the study does have the comparison it has westminster current the suggested the orange county fee and the california vehicle code fee listed in the study not as the attachment to the resolution but the study. which item were you interested in? Are you interested in the large

the city of california. I guess you split it out into small vehicle and large vehicle. Where is that one here and the cities and other cities?

we have the comparison to

you know what why you look for that let me read you what a resident just text me right now they' re watching on the tv right now they say I think the reason the parking meters in this westminster city hall parking lot don' t get revenue it' s because nobody put money into them I would never pay parking to park here it' s

there's our parking a very few people to pay for it so i guess they're saying it's inconvenient with the parking meter thing to get and they can park outside so that item was approved at a different meeting the meters are not included in this study those were sent by council action previously several months ago The meter rates were not in the study.

We did an increase on that, I remember. And Adolfo, you did mention that why we get it is to pay for the machine and also to repave the parking, the stripping it, you know, white strip. So I guess what the residents are saying is that they wouldn't pay to park here because it's inconvenient with the machine.

And then also, it's inconvenient- Council Member West, I think that we are talking two different things. We are talking about item that we approved seven months ago, and I believe that we all voted for that. Right. And today, we are talking about different things. So I don't know if there are person that texted to you that understand that we are talking different items here.

Now, the thing is that that meter, I mean that parking lot right here, that parking fee's in here, right? Not for the meter parking, no. So the city hall parking, there's no fee for in this? It's not in this study, no.

That was set by council action previously. It's not in the study.

Yeah, I already asked those questions a few minutes ago.

Right, I heard you on the back, but I just wanted to confirm because one of my resident is watching and asking me to ask, so that's why I'm asking. And that's my job as the councilwoman district one. So council member, vice mayor, don't belittle your council member here. I would really appreciate that.

I'm just pointing out the fact that we already covered that.

Well, it's okay for me to affirm my resident.

All right, go ahead.

Let's move on. are you done?

so basically for me to summarize all this I just feel like the fees is a little more in our city the middle-sized city than other city around especially when I talk to assembly or you know other state senate the fees because they cover seven different cities and they say our fees are so much more than other cities that they cover so that's something to consider.

And like Eric mentioned, the study just identifies the cost and then the council can make a decision to subsidize the cost of that service or not. So this study is presenting what the cost is and then we're happy to take council's action and charge whatever the council sets the fee at.

So for me, if the council tonight vote to go with the study, basically you're saying, screw you people, you guys pay for it. Because we, as a city, we're not paying it. So, I mean, the taxpayer's money, the general fund is from them anyway in the first place. So that's their money anyway. So they're already put into the city. We should at least use that money. Why did you charge them extra? So that's my thought on it. I'm speaking for District 1 and the people.

Not really. All right.

With that, Mr. Mayor, I yield back.

All right. Thank you very much. Is there anything else from Council Member Martin?

I'd like to, there's the recommendation on credit card for processing fee, the 3%.

Certainly. Correct, charges over $500. So not like your typical water bill or a small fee, but the larger transactions, because the city pays a fee on those, so we would be charging 3%.

So is that implemented in this, if this gets approved?

We would need to work with IT to get that implemented. It wouldn't just happen automatically, but we would move forward with it if it's approved, if the council desires to move forward with it.

I desire to move forward with it.

That could generate $200,000. And Eric pointed out that these fees would generate up to $400,000. $200,000 of that is the credit card fee.

And also the RV permit fee. I would like to have an RV permit fee.

so we could certainly amend this to include the rv permit fee what it's currently set at zero so it's it's free but we could certainly add it to the attachment for the resolution i think it could be amended in the action and we could call it the next s number in the book is s 151 so we could call it s 151 rv permit fee and we'd show it at zero

and then the special event permit fee so is that going to it's still going to be a hundred dollars right yes can we have a study to move it up we can certainly bring that to a study session and it seems like we're losing a lot of money

I kind of agree with Council Member Marguerite that for $100 fees for special permit, it's not enough for us to do anything. So if you could work on it and then bring it back to our approval. Absolutely. I appreciate that. At this time, I'd like to go ahead and open up for public comments.

so is there any one sign up for public comment please thank you I have two speakers our first speaker is Donald link followed by the final speaker Terry reigns

I just want to express my appreciation and appreciation of the people that I talked to for the effect that the RV permit system has drastically reduced the number of RVs parked on our city streets in compliance with West Minister Municipal Code 1044.050. With that, some RV owners are playing cat and mouse with enforcement of the RV permit system. and one guy I think he' s called the south wind rv guy. He parks for a couple of weeks or four or five days until code enforcement comes out and I guess gives him the $47 will be back in a couple of weeks. He' s figured out he gets cited and issued a $47 citation and figure out it' s cheaper to pay for parking in a designated rv lot. Moving it from $47 to $80 is a good idea. but I say make this a fine an escalating fine for progressive violations to the point of impoundment I don' t know if you can do that as per the california civil code but if you could do it through the municipal code I would do it. I also say that these individuals are likely I will say these individuals are likely to be living in their RV and in violation of westminster municipal code 10.44.050 with progressive fines of $100, $200 and $500 for the first, second and third instances. It' s kind of an oxymoron because also if their primary residence is the RV how can they get a permit to park in front of their own RV? If you put a boot on them, it' s still stuck there blocking traffic so it' s kind of anything we can do to remedy the situation it' d be fine. thank you.

Hello. I can't get past the fact that we use RCS for fee studies. We're disgraced. Former city manager applicant Chu Tai is vice president. Looks like Tai and Monterey Park finally settled his lawsuit against the city. We dodged a bullet there. You're welcome. Christine's great. What I see here is we've been overcharging for some service fees. I question the arbitrary 25% staff review for deposits in 11 development categories which can be easily challenged and may not even be legal pursuant to the mitigation fee act which mandates that all fees shall not exceed true reasonable cost of the providing the services. A percentage is not a true cost. Also troubling is the quote or a deposit determined by staff. Deposit amounts arbitrarily set by staff are not objective. Developer deposits must not be used to charge unjustified fees. Next is the $85 per unit fee added to the set development review fees that already range from $6,000 to almost $12,000. This could be considered as discouraging or even impeding large residential developments not consistent with state law. Please explain exactly how every unit in a multifamily development would cost $85 more to review. Plans are for entire projects. These arbitrary per unit fees will double the review fees for small small projects and cost up to 11 times or more for larger projects. Here's some math. Administrative review for 100-unit project, today's fee is $7,730 versus new base fee of $6,845 plus the per-unit fees of $8,500, so $15,345, double. 500-unit project today, $7,730 versus $6,845 plus the per-unit fees, $4,2500 equals $49,345. That's six times more. 1,000-unit project today, 7730 versus new base, 6845, plus per-unit fees, oh my goodness, of $85,000 equals 91,845, almost 11 times more. Planning commission projects, 100-unit project today, 10,115 versus the new base, 11,350, plus per-unit fees, 8,500 equals 1,950, double. $500 a unit project today $10,115 versus new base $11,350 plus per unit fees of $42,500 equals $53,850 over five times as much. You get the message here the density bonus agreement review fee is going down but still has an unidentified plus a city attorney cost. A fee set schedule is set so applicants know the cost up front and must reflect actual verifiable costs. Several large multifamily projects are coming soon for the mall site. The city must be competitive to encourage and foster new development in our city. ADU building plan check fees increasing from $740 to between $2075 and $3595. That's nuts. This council had a robust discussion about ADU fees and even lowered them a few years ago. The goal is to streamline ADU processing, not gouge ADU builders. Backflow device plan check. we' ve got a lot of water fees going up council you must approve reasonable fees that represent actual cost to provide services but don' t cut off your nose to spite your

thank you very much and let' s come back to the mayor and council member for discussions. I guess I can just ask a follow-up question.

all those items mentioned, is that the actual cause to produce those particular applications? Is that the math that was done and that's what you came up with?

that's what the math came that's what the math came up with with the adu's planning change their process a lot of the adu cost before was in the zoning clearance fee that is now in the planning building plan check fee so there is actually no large change in the in the adu fee because it's no longer in the zoning clearance whereas before it was in kind of in both places smaller on the building plan check and larger on the zoning clearance and so now it's a larger number on the on the building plan check, but it' s not in the zoning clearance. It' s not as clear cut as that. All the per unit costs, those were looked at how much time was spent on a project of this size. It' s also looking at the projects that are typical for here for Westminster, a largely built out city. You' re not getting large tracts. You' re not getting 500 unit tracts here. It' s looking at what are the projects here, what are the different sizes, and what does that turn into as far as the math on a per unit basis.

you get a break to try to figure out a formula to charge per unit instead of per the entire project. Because you don't know what the entire project is going to be.

Right, exactly. If we just have a flat fee for a project that could be five units or 50 units, that 50 units is going to take a lot more time to process. And so having a flat fee, you either have an average, which means people at the lower end are paying too much and the people at the top end are not paying enough, or we kind of scale it up. And so that's what we've been doing with this is scale it up as the project gets bigger, more time is being spent on it, therefore more cost, and therefore the higher fee. And also it bears in mind that most of the planning fees are going down. There's some large changes within the zoning clearance plan and building plan check fees, but most of the planning fees are gone down. Staff has gone through and taken a look at the process, seen ways they could streamline the process, and said, hey, today it takes us this much time instead of before it was a little bit more time.

Okay, and then can you just clarify, I mean, I already know, just for the sake of the community and council, this is cost recovery this is can you can you like credits doing a layman's terms of what it is cost recovery what would happen if we didn't charge anything at all like can you go over that yeah if you didn't charge anything at all we identified as part of this process um sorry about 10 million dollars in cost

and about $6 million of that is currently supported with fees. If you didn' t make no change at all that $6 million that goes out the revenue that has to be back filled with taxes. Costs are still occurring applications are still coming in the door things still need to be processed. If there' s no fee the tax dollar is making up the difference and that' s less money you have to spend on police and streets and parks and recreation etc.

By law we can' t charge more than it costs to provide that service.

Cannot charge more, and that's also why the fees that are in front of you today, the fees that are going up, you don't have to make any changes to. The fees that we're recommending going down because currently processes have changed since the last study, we're saying the fees should come down. You need to do that. Otherwise, you have this information and you would be overcharging.

And that's reflective on your recommendation? Correct. Okay.

All right, thank you. Well, I just want to tack along with what the Vice Mayor had. With the increase that you have imposed for the future, the city? how is it compared to the neighboring city?

fee comparisons are very difficult because every city defines it differently. Every city has a conditional use permit but they all define it differently. There are some cities where after we have gone through this process it' s a $2500 permit. In some cities it' s a $10,000 permit. Both of those are right because that' s their process. that's compared fees from different cities it's very very difficult you don't know also if they've when's the last time they've updated their fees did they decide to subsidize it even if they did so there's a lot of questions that go in to make it very murky to be able to say we're charging more than this city Understand that is difficult to to compare but at the same time you need to know where we are in the range Yeah, it really comes down to as I'm going through the process with staff like I said I've been doing this 35 years I know how long different steps take so as we walk through okay? This is our conditional use permit well What you take you take the application in you do a site visit you have back and forth with the applicant you have? Review with other departments you have the Planning Commission staff report as we're going through the different steps I have an idea of what that range should be based on my experience. And if we're outside that range, I ask questions. Why does it take this much time? Or why does it not take this much time? And so that's that process that we have with staff to make sure that we're reflecting what it takes to do it here. All right.

Mr. Mayor, I have a question. Yes. So, sir, you were saying that the fees adjust to the time that it's approved, right, from planning to building and whatnot. So the fee will increase as time goes. Is that correct?

No, it's the time being spent by staff. So the process may take a month, it may take three months, it may take four months. That's not the important part. The important part is how many hours is in that period of time is being spent by that planner, for instance. That planner may be spending 10 hours on it, even if the process takes a month or four months. It's that 10 hours that we're focused on. Now, I know from the applicant standpoint, that's what they really care about. Time is money. But from the costing standpoint, it's looking at how much time is being spent on each individual application, regardless of how long it takes in the calendar.

right and what i' ve noticed talking to different business owner and wanting to have open a business in the city of westminster i noticed that it takes from two years the soonest to like four years and that' s the time frame is really ridiculous because it means that staff is putting more time to delay things because what i noticed from talking to those developer or those owners those business owner is that they say they come with the list of what the city required them to do they check it off then staff said oh wait we have more and then they go and finish what is done and then come back and then staff say oh wait there's more of this what about that and so the list keep going going and that's why the time is forever so I feel like it's not sufficient And the longer you drag out, that's how staff say, hey, I'm putting time into it. And that's not right. If we want to be sufficient, because this is a local government, in order to bring trust from the public to the government, we need to be sufficient, not like the DMV. DMV take forever. We've all been there and that's an issue all of us have and you're laughing because it's funny I am I laugh inside too because this is true, right? So that's why efficiency is important So staff cannot say oh I'm putting this much hour in it because the the laundry list of things to get done They're adding more to it.

Yeah, at least it's been my experience working with this staff that they have been looking at that and That's why a lot of the planning fees are decreasing because they have looked at that process and tried to make that process take less time from a per application standpoint. Again, I don't ask the question of how much time it takes on the calendar because I want to know how much time it takes to process that application. How many hours are being spent? And so the same thing with the business license fees. Business license fees, processing fees are going down because staff took another look at the process, contracted out part of it, and it's a more efficient process because staff did that review.

Right I appreciate that but from what I'm hearing on the ground is that they're complaining that it costs so much money because they keep returning and then after six month application doesn't finish then they have to put money in to file that paperwork again so I just feel like there's somewhere that's dropping the ball.

customer was I in some area I agree with you I mean you know there are it varies from project to projects but if you go back to the last meeting there are numbers you know of things that our staff especially from the development here that we put we implement into our system, improve our system a lot. And I wouldn't say that, you know, it's all our staff, you know, it do insufficient.

Yeah, maybe I should rephrase. It's not all staff, but I feel like there are some that staff involved, meaning the city processing.

But at the same time, I understand from the consultant's standpoint, he is not looking at that. He's looking at the projects and he comes with a different step that we have to take into the projects to price it. So you have to look at that instead of going back and, you know, accuse or look at the, you know, having our staff doing insufficient job or whatever that is.

Well, no, I'm just saying that we need a fix. It's doable. You know, we can streamline certain things. We can fix certain things. It's okay to bring up. Because our job as council mayor, we are the closest to the people. We hear their complaints and their concern. So that's why we bring it before our staff of the city.

But I have to say that a number of times that I found out that it's not only from our staff, but from the other 42. A number of times I heard that they complained that, oh, staff taking so much time that they just pull out longer and longer. But at the same time, if you check back with the staff, then they have done, and return the red line and then at some point their developers or architectures they were so busy with different projects and they couldn't return and then that's you know and the owner the project owner they didn't know that you know they've been fooled by that so I have to go back and tell them that why don't you check with your builders or you check with your architecture to make sure that you know where we are. So at this time, I understand from the last meeting, we have the system implement that the project owners or anyone have the projects in pending, they can always check it out from online. Am I correct on that?

Mayor, thank you very much. We have implemented systems to reduce the amount of time to process applications because I understand it has been very frustrating for many applicants and businesses. As I presented at the last meeting, we have reduced the time to process business license applications to three business days when it used to take weeks or even months. And we have been getting planning commission applications processed in four months when it would take a year or longer in many cases. So we have made a lot of progress in reducing time frames to reduce that frustration.

Okay, so maybe what I need to, let me revise what I said. So it's not staff, it's more of the procedure. I feel like the procedure is not really there. It's not staff fault, it's just that we have the right procedure, we can get things really done quick. So I think we have to target that procedure.

Yeah, we already talked about it last meeting. We talked a lot about it. I believe that you presented to the council, and we approve that.

Yeah, but the thing is that we have to keep working on the procedure.

No question about it. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor. We agree. Thank you. Okay, at this time for council action, is there any, I can entertain any motion from the council?

I don't know. I want to make a motion, but... I don't know if we would have the answers for today or something that you need to bring back as far as adding a RV permit fee and what that fee would be. And then also what a special event permit fee would be. We need to adjust that, but you don't have a number that you can recommend.

So we can bring the special event permit fee back to a study session to discuss. And as far as the RV permit fee, if the council chooses to, if you want to charge something, we could do the study of the time that that takes and provide that as well. But we could put a placeholder in this, amend this to include the placeholder, and then we could bring the fee back at the later time.

And that would just be to reflect that it's still zero right now.

Correct. So that would be my motion to approve the remainder and bring back those two items for a study session.

The two items that you have is which one? Correct. The two items?

Yeah, the special event and the RV permit fee.

RV permit.

To bring us back to give us what the cost of that would be. And... And then approve the remainder. What about the ADUs?

Did we cover that? There were the large increase in ADU fees, right?

Those ones you have the actual.

Those reflect the actual cost. Mayor, if I may clarify, we used to require ADU applicants to zoning clearance before they could submit a building permit application we've eliminated that preliminary clearance now so instead of paying a fee for zoning clearance and then paying another fee for building permit review the zoning clearance fee is paid at the building permit stage we do the zoning review at the building permit stage so there's no zoning clearance fee anymore but that fee is paid at the building permit stage. So the building permit fee is larger, but the total fee has not increased.

I see. All right. Thank you very much for clarification. Okay. With that, I second your motion. Thank you, Mayor.

thank you. I have a motion made by vice mayor bonzo seconded by mayor win this is to amend the resolution to include s 151 rv permit fee set at zero which is a resolution entitled a resolution of the mayor and city council of the city of westminster california adopting a revised schedule of fees and charges for special services and a schedule of miscellaneous fees and direct staff to bring back a study session to discuss rv permit fees and special event permits. I'll go to call roll. District 1, Councilwoman Van West.

For me, I honestly think the fee is a little high compared to other cities. I wish that we have time to go and look into all of these fees in closed session and assess it one by one and compare, contrast with other cities. If the consultant can give us that information, that would be great. But with that, I say no until I see the consultant comparison. Thank you.

All right.

District 3, Council Member Nguyen.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Monzo.

Yes.

Mayor Nguyen.

Yes.

Motion carried 3-1.

All right, thank you very much. At this time, let me ask the council, do you want to take a five minute recess or you want to continue?

We can continue.

All right, you.

Say that again, please.

Oh, go ahead, okay. All right, so next item is 5.1, purchase of census ultragun meter reading device, water meters, and parts of fiscal year 2025-2026 in the amount of $900,000, and a five-year agreement for meter reading software in the amount of $58,450 from Aqua Matrix Sales Company. So is there any request from Council for staff or any recommendation?

I have just a question. Okay. Hey, Jake. For this replacement of these meters, is there a cost to the property owner for replacement or no?

there's no cost to the the property owner nor the business this is the program we do this our responsibility to make sure that we have the infrastructure and the right meter to read the proper usage of the that particular customer so this is for how many would you say you're replacing a residential and business commercial Yes, and I think in total we have about 21,000 meters in the city.

And how many have we replaced so far?

I think we get up to about 30% of the total number right now. I think we're in about 6,000 to 7,000 meters. So this is the second year, and we're trying to get a number a little more than the previous year.

Okay.

How long do you think it will take? We estimate about six years of this program. In the past, I would say more than 15 years ago, we have a five-year program which is installed by the contractor. But we have a lot of problems with the quality and the installations, the control of how they've been installed. So at this particular time, we'll do six years, but our staff will be doing in-house, and it saves about several million dollars in the contractor costs.

Okay.

Thank you, but anything anything else from Okay, all right any any motion I was on that Committee before so I understand you know the water so I'm fine with that Then if that's the case that I moved to approve a second. I

thank you. I have a motion made by mayor win seconded by vice mayor monzo this is to approve an open purchase order for the purchase of census auto gun meter reading devices water meters and parts from the aqua metric sales company in the amount of $900,000 for fiscal year 2025 to 2026 and approve a five-year agreement with aqua metric sales for meter reading software in the I'LL GO TO CALL ROLL. DISTRICT 1, COUNCILWOMAN FANWES. FANWES, YES. DISTRICT 3, COUNCILMEMBER WINN.

YES.

VICE MAYOR MONZO.

YES.

AND MAYOR WINN.

YES.

MOTION CARRIED 4-0.

5.2, AWARD OF THE SYSTEM CONSTRUCTION OF THE VOLLEYVUE STREET SLASH BOSACHICA STREET REGIONAL TRAFFIC SIGNAL SYNCHRONIZATION PROJECTS. I MOVE TO APPROVE. SECOND.

Thank you. I have a motion made by Mayor Nguyen, seconded by District 3, Councilmember Nguyen. This is to approve an increase to the revenue for account number 55030-34490, traffic impact fee, government, county, other, in the amount of $478,080. and approve an increase in cip account number five five zero three one dash three one two one zero one bolsa chica traffic signal sync in the amount of four hundred and seventy eight thousand and eighty dollars and transfer the balance from account number five five zero zero five gas tax to a newly created cip project account number five five zero three six and the amount of $140,365. I approve the award of contract to aet and associates for the grant funded system construction of the valley in the amount of $668,259 and authorize a 10% contingency in the amount of $66,826 for potential change orders and authorize the city manager to execute the agreement on behalf of the city in a form approved by the city attorney. I'll go to call roll. District 1, Councilwoman Van West.

You know, it's funny that we just passed through this without having the council have any comment. The thing is that this is in District 1. Mayor, you're in that area, too. I talked to a resident on the ground. They said this is more of a waste of money. They live there. They drive that street up and down. They don't see a problem with it. And we shouldn't waste any more money to look at the signal light there. So Boza Chica, I think it should be fine. But with that, I vote no.

District 3, Council Member Nguyen.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Monzo?

Yes.

Mayor Nguyen?

Yes.

Motion carried 3-1.

Before I go on, I just want to mention it to Councilwoman West. Even though we have a motion and second, and if you have comments or you want to have question, you can always ask. Okay, we are not going to, so you don't have to complain about it, okay?

We have three minutes, so that's why I let you speak, but you guys already have a motion on the floor.

If you say that you have question, I won't stop you.

And a second already.

But still, you still have the right to ask.

That's why during this vote, I made my comment because it seems like you guys want to rush this through. But the thing is, I don't know if you got a chance to talk to the resident on the ground, Mr. Mayor, but people brought, because I'm in District 1.

Council Member West, I'm not going to argue with you on this. No, I don't want to argue. I just want to let you know that you have the right. Absolutely, I appreciate that.

But I just want to let you know that this should take a look at more of like a public comment. I think it would be great before we vote for this.

I just want to mention that don't blame on whether you didn't have a chance to. But let's go on. 5.3, strategic plan goal number one, achieve financial stability. Strategic plan objective is to update the city council on economic development strategy, including outreach efforts and engagement with business. in the city, sustaining a partnership with the Chamber of Commerce and other small business assistance efforts. May I ask for the staff report? Thank you.

Yes, good evening, Mr. Mayor, City Council, and members of the community. I'm Caroline Velarde, the city's economic development manager, and I'm here to provide you some exciting updates this evening on the city's recent economic development efforts. So as you may recall, this update was requested at a recent strategic planning workshop in April, where the city council set goals for the city for the next three years. Strategic plan goal number one is to achieve financial stability. And one of the main objectives of this goal is to develop and deliver successful economic development initiatives to build a financially prosperous community. I'm thrilled to report that we've made progress towards this objective, specifically in the three areas that you see on the screen. And I'm excited to share more this evening. So by way of background, economic development is not new in the city. It's been a function of the city manager's office. Over the last several years, it's really been the city manager and assistant city manager leading these efforts and truly building those relationships with the businesses and development community that have helped the city's reputation as a forward-thinking development and business-friendly city that most know it is today. However, given the size and complexity of the city's business development needs, it calls for an in-house economic development manager. So I was brought on board in January. And in this role, I oversee what was previously done and more, which I'll talk about more this evening. Economic development does remain under the purview of the city manager's office, with key priorities being developing an economic development strategic plan and enhancing the business engagement and outreach. So as mentioned, one of the priorities of this role is to work with a consultant to develop the city's first economic development strategic plan, which I'll refer to as EDSP throughout the presentation. And EDSP is important because it provides the roadmap for attracting quality development, job creation, strengthening the local tax base, and improving the overall quality of life in our community. The plan will provide staff with guidance on economic development efforts to ensure our efforts align with goals. It will include implementable policies, solutions, outreach methods, and tools to enhance the business climate and relationship with the business community. So as mentioned, this will be prepared by a consultant. Staff has started this process by researching other city strategic plans and talking to consultants just to gain a better understanding of what the process would entail. We prepared a scope of work based on our goals and sent it to our economic development consultants. There were several tasks that we required of them, which you see on the screen. These tasks are pretty common for consultants who do this type of work, but we did add specifics to each task that make it unique to our community, for example, With task number four, strategic goal setting, we made sure to include a focus on business support, attraction and retention because we know those are key priorities for this council and administration. In response to the scope of work, we received three proposals from our consultants and we are reviewing those now. As part of our evaluation, we are taking into consideration several factors, including their understanding of the project, our unique community, and any experience they have in working with and in culturally diverse communities. It's our goal to recommend a consultant to you, the City Council, to consider in the next few months, with a consultant expected to begin working on the plan shortly thereafter. So another priority for economic development that I'm really excited to share is our progress on business engagement and outreach. We've made significant strides in this area over the last few months. One of the factors that have helped in this is the new marketing material, which I'll go over soon. And it really helped amplify our outreach efforts. So whether it's a new business who just started in town, businesses visiting a city booth at an event, or we're out and about in the community. I am really proud of the personalized boots on the ground approach that we've taken over the last several months in truly getting to know our business owners, understanding their needs and challenges, and educating them on the city's resources. So the photos on this slide and the next ones will show the culmination of those outreach efforts and how they've really impacted the success at these engagements recently. We're also proactive in seeking opportunities and events where we can meet our business community. For example, the Little Saigon 50th Anniversary of Resilience event, the Small Business Expo, which we organized in partnership with a small business development center, where over 100 small businesses and dozens of resource providers attended. So it really was a great information exchange that we had in our community. Our engagement and outreach efforts have also helped the success of our grant programs. There were over 50 applicants between the city's two tech grants. Recently, over the last several months, the city and the SBDC held classes in a graduation for the 20 recipients of the city's Level Up grant. We also heavily promoted the Small Business of the Year program, which you may recall wasn't too far back. Five Westminster businesses took home that honor this year, with some proudly displaying their window decals, which was a fun new component to the program. So as you can see, we have gained momentum in our business community and business engagement and outreach. And we plan to maintain that momentum by continuing to partner with SBDC for programs and events, identifying joint collaborations with the chamber, and continuing to engage with businesses in promoting services, programs, events, and initiatives through various creative mediums. As we know, chambers are essential and a key partner for businesses in supporting them. Our relationship with our chamber is ongoing and growing. We communicate routinely with them on businesses that have opened up in the city. The city and chamber support each other's events with staff attending mixers and lunch and learns. And we're also proactive in brainstorming and exploring ideas and how to collaboratively support businesses in the community. And we look forward to bringing more of those in the future. In addition to the chamber, it's worth noting that the city has also fostered relations with the development and retailer community. This has been done in previous years, however recently it's strengthened. This includes networking at major retail events, such as those organized by the Association of Commercial Real Estate, also known as ACRE. And most recently, innovating commerce service communities, also known as ICSC in Las Vegas. Like the chamber in networking and working with a broker and developer community, we promote the city's initiatives such as the ongoing zoning phase studies. And overall, just the city is a successful place to do business and accomplish projects. So all of our business outreach and engagement really began with improving our marketing materials, including the division website, just to have a more user-friendly enhanced experience. As I went out into the community being new, I really felt the need to update our material because, as we know, it's very forward-facing. So it was my priority when I first took on this role, the website, like all of our forward-facing materials reflects our image as an agency. So it's important. It's updated and relevant. So now the website is more organized, whether you're a new business, existing or prospective business, it's easier to find information. Updating our website and marketing has really set us up for more meaningful and impactful engagements with businesses as you saw in the previous slides. So everything is updated regularly to ensure the information we're putting out there is timely, accurate, and helpful. On this slide are some pieces of the new information we include. So new businesses, graphs on the vehicle incentive program, and demographics. A lot of this material was always included. We just took a fresh new retake on it with graphics, make it more interesting and more relevant and helpful to our community. The improved website also includes a comprehensive business resources guide, which is also an attachment in your report, a GIS story map highlighting some key development projects, and a monthly newsletter, which is sent to approximately 2,800 business owners every month. Again, all of these were updated and created with a business community in mind and the question of, how can we be a resource? How can we be relevant to our businesses? And we're pretty proactive in sharing these resources vocally and in person at events and outreach sessions. So finally, it is worth noting that the economic development manager has, my position, I believe, has helped improve customer service in the city, which is another one of the city's adopted goals. So whether it's the business community with inquiries on city programs, applicants going through the entitlement process, or even brokers inquiring about what's available in our city. This role has really helped to serve as a nexus between the applicant, the public, and other departments, kind of making any process at City Hall more smooth for them. It dedicates a specific individual in the varying needs and requests of our community, and ultimately has facilitated communication between the city and the public. So with that, that concludes my report, and I'm happy to take any questions at this time. All right, thank you very much. I have a question. Okay.

Because I'm going to leave soon. Do you mind if I ask a question quick? Okay, sure. Okay, so thank you, and welcome on board. And it's been what, maybe two, three months, right? Three? Six. Six, oh wow, it seems, wow, I didn't know it that long, but that's amazing. Yeah, I guess we have a lot of activity in the city, that's why. but anyways what I was looking through this what I noticed is that are there a protocol procedure manual for goal number three because I know that you say attract develop and retain well-qualified staff members do you have a protocol procedure manual that you go by do we have that

I think that's, well, that's not, that is a goal that pertains to other departments. From what I recall, I think that was an HR directed goal.

right yeah so yeah she did mention that last time HR did but I wonder if they have a protocol that they give to you since you're going over all the goals do they produce a procedure a protocol procedure like a manual that they look at to do the hiring or to attract develop and retain well qualified staff because that was a concern last time.

That is one of the goals but tonight our economic development manager is here to talk about strategic plan goal number one and to report on the strategic objective that is in the title.

Okay, so are you going to have HR come up and address number three?

It's not an agenda item.

Yeah, I think the introduction just kind of over expanded on basically all the goals.

So today we're only focused on one. Just to recap. Okay, then I'll go back to one. You can see it's strategic plan goal number one, achieve financial stability. I understand that, but in there, it has all of it, so that's why I want to touch it.

Right. And I want to touch on the background. So if that was, I mean, that's agenda item. It's on the agenda. That's why I was trying to touch on that. To see any follow-up. That's all.

So there will be follow-up items that will be placed on a future agenda for all of these goals and objectives that were approved by the council.

I guess I'm jumping ahead.

Yeah. So tonight we are prepared to answer questions on this item.

Just one. Okay. So I guess another question to, again, welcome. Have you, I know Hunting Beach is so close to us. Have you able to connect with the economic development in HB? Yes. Yes, I have. Okay. That's good.

Yeah. And Garden Grove and Fountain Valley and Cypress.

Okay, perfect, because I know Hunton Beach is doing an amazing job. As you know, they're just a growing economy in their city. Yes, we actually connect regularly with colleagues over there. That's perfect, because I just don't want us to reinvent the wheel if we don't need to. We'll just copy what they're doing and then implement it, right? Awesome. Well, thank you so much for presenting this today, and I look forward to the other points.

Anything else from other councils?

That would be all, Mayor, and I have to excuse myself early, and I just want to say thank you.

Why don't we stay over until we're done with this item before you leave, okay? Anything else from any other council? Otherwise, I'm going to move to receive and file.

I have a question.

Okay, please.

As far as the next steps, it says about selecting a consultant. How long will that take and what is the consultants specifically going to be doing for us?

Well, we have the proposals now, so staff is just reviewing that, and it's really a matter of bringing our recommendation forward to you for consideration and giving you an update on the proposals that we received, but they can start immediately after we've approved it.

So we can go over. That's what I'm asking, what are they going to do? Do we not have Townsend anymore?

So different level of expertise, right? So Townsend is our advocacy folks. What we did a while ago was we really didn't know where we were going to go as far as economic development, but we wanted to be prepared. So prior to Caroline joining us, we put out an RFQ, which is a request for qualifications, to establish a qualified bench of consultants that could help us attack economic development and start moving in the right direction. So what Caroline did is she pulled together, she reached out to some of the consultants, she looked at other economic development plans, strategic plans that were out there, and she created a scope of work. And we can go over the scope of work because that's part of your question.

Yeah, yeah, just like some step-by-step. You don't have to go in detail. Just give me some examples of what they would do.

Yeah, if the city clerk could pull back a slide number. Do you know what a slide number is? Some examples would they be yeah, so there's a there's a description of what we put out to our bench So our bench we reached out to the bench and we put out these goals and This would be the scope of work. They looked at our they understand our city Caroline met with them and and then provided them with these tasks based on what they feel is most appropriate for westminster they then went ahead and put a proposal together and submitted those to caroline and we're in the process of going over those proposals and refining those proposals prior to bringing a recommendation to the city council but i'll turn it over to caroline who could just briefly go over these tasks

Yes, so we developed this task based on the research I pulled from other cities, especially our neighboring cities. And as I mentioned in the report, this is pretty standard for kind of the development of economic development strategic plans. However, the scope of work is a lot more extensive than this. And we included priorities that we know is important to this council, specifically business retention, attraction, and expansion, a focus on small business support. So this was a pull together from other strategic plans that I researched and what made sense for our community.

Like in between now and then, or I guess in the last few months since you've been here, know there's you know a lot of the community has wanted certain for example give me an example on the west side of town you know I think we're lacking like a good grocer you know something like that nature in that in between then has there been any kind of effort to reach out to those certain businesses, say, hey, would you be interested in coming to Westminster, like, I don't know, Trader Joe's or something like that? Is there that kind of effort going on?

Yes, definitely. So I mentioned some of the networking events that we've attended, and then we have access to a software called CoStar that I use regularly to see vacancies list leases for sale so it's part of my role to have a really good pulse on the city including retailers that are looking to relocate in our area or even orange county or in southern california so it's yes it's a regular part of my responsibility okay thank you all right thank you very much there's a motion on the floor all right okay

Thank you. I have a motion made by Mayor Nguyen, seconded by District 1, Councilwoman Fan West. This is to receive and file the report. I'll go to call roll. District 1, Councilwoman Fan West. Fan West, yes. District 3, Councilmember Nguyen.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Monzo.

Yes.

Mayor Nguyen. Yes. Motion carried 4-0. All right.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Councilwoman West, for staying over and voting for this item.

Thank you, Mayor, and happy summer to all.

You're right. Thank you. Okay, next item is 5.4, strategic plan goal number one, still achieve financial stability, except this time strategic plan objective is to establish a policy to set priorities on the expenditures of the new tax revenues, working with the finance department to take into account of existing needs. So stop report, please.

thank you. Yes we' re going to continue on our achieving financial stability goal with establishing a policy to set priorities for the expenditures related to financial stability. The city council could add additional categories to our fund balance policy and a couple of other cities I' ve looked at have done this. The fund balance policy establishes the rules and responsibilities for maintaining healthy reserves. The policy was originally approved in June of 2017 and is reviewed annually as part of the budget process. policy. The purpose of the policy is to secure the city' s financial stability during a changing environment and establish a procedure for the allocation of unrestricted fund balance into adequate committed reserves. The current general fund reserve target is 17% emergency reserve but additional categories could be added including funding for future pension costs, infrastructure improvements or policy as proposed in this item includes the emergency reserve at 17% to be used in situations of severe economic uncertainty but the policy also adds a budget uncertainty reserve at 10% to address unexpected expenses or revenue fluctuations in future years and an infrastructure contingency reserve at 5% to provide funding to address planning development or maintenance of city infrastructure. all three of these reserve categories would be set during the audit process and they would be part of the assigned balance in the in addition to the reserve policy categories the city council could choose to add additional funding to the section 115 trust for pension and opeb liabilities. In the event of a general fund actual audited surplus the city council could add 20% of the surplus or any amount the council chooses to the to pay pension costs in future years when the budget is tight the pension payment could be paid from the trust instead of the general fund to help relieve some of the burden on the general fund. The annual payment for the liability is currently $14 million but increases to $18 million over the next few years. As of June 30, 2024 the outstanding pension liability was $146 million and the current additional funding could also be added to the other post-employment benefits opeb section 115 trust this proposed policy includes a recommended ten percent of the surplus be transferred to the section 115 trust which can only be used to pay opeb costs the annual payment for opeb liabilities three million and this could be paid from the trust in future years when the general fund is tight. As of June 30, 2024 the outstanding opeb liability was $43.4 million and the current the transfer of these funds to the 115 trust accounts would be presented to the city council for action as part of the review of the annual financial reports and would be transferred in the year following the year the general fund has a surplus. In 23-24 we had a surplus but the transfer would not occur until 24-25 because it is after the end of the fiscal year. would not happen without council approval so they wouldn' t happen automatically they would just be a recommendation that' s included in the policy. On this slide I gave an example of what it would have looked like if this were the policy so the general fund ended with a surplus balance of $7.1 million in 2023-2024 which set the 17% emergency contingency at $13.1 million. If we would have had the other reserves the 10% budget uncertainty reserve would have been $7.7 million the infrastructure contingency reserve would have been $3.9 million and then the other two items which were allocated to capital projects would have been 9.5 and then the unassigned would have been reduced from 31.2 million down to 19.6 but the total fund balance would not have changed it would have just been reserved into different categories so the total fund balance would have remained at 53.9 million. following the same process if we would have allocated 10% to the pension trust that would have been 710,000 additional funding to the trust and 5% to the op-ed trust would have been 355,000 so this is just an example this did not happen and this would not be implemented until the fiscal year 2425. the internal service funds have a current reserve target minimum of $500,000 and this continues in this policy nothing has changed other than to add an inflation for the city council to provide input and direction on the fund balance policy and the funding priorities the budget uncertainty reserve at 10% the infrastructure contingency reserve at 5% the recommended additional 10% of surplus to the 115 trust for pension and 5% of surplus for the OPEB 115 trust and then the like I said the internal service funds stay the same at the 500,000 but the inflation factor was added.

thank you very much. A question for the council.

I feel we need to do something to put ourselves in a better position especially with our unfunded liability. If we don' t make a step towards I like what you're proposing. It doesn't get us to where we want to be, but obviously it's a step in the right direction. So I like your thinking on that, so thank you for that. So I mean, I like that. So if we can go in that direction, then let's do it.

Any question from Council Member Mark?

Thank you for the presentation. the fact that you' re breaking down the additional two reserves and paying down some of the liabilities?

Mr. Me too. I second both for having reserves for the city. With that, is there any motion?

Mr. Did Nick have the direction? If we move forward with this, what' s the next steps for that?

the resolution is attached so and the items that i mentioned are included in the resolution so the council could if you chose to approve that then we would implement that with the fiscal year 24 25 close okay so move to adopt the resolutions um is that is that what you're asking for yes please all right all right

So I second to that. I second. All right.

Thank you.

Motion to second.

I have a motion made by Mayor Nguyen, seconded by Vice Mayor Monzo. This is to adopt a resolution entitled, A Resolution of the Mayor and City Council of the City of Westminster, California, Adopting the Fund Balance Policy. I'll go to call roll. District 3, Council Member Nguyen?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Monzo?

Yes.

Mayor Nguyen?

Yes.

Motion carried 3-0.

All right. Thank you very much. Before we move on, it's about 10 o'clock, so I move to extend beyond the 10 o'clock. Second.

I have a motion made by Mayor Nguyen, seconded by Vice Mayor Monza to extend the meeting past 10 p.m. per city policy. I'll go to call roll. District 3, Council Member Nguyen.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Monzo?

Yes.

And Mayor Nguyen? Yes. Motion carried 3-0.

All right the next item is I like the most is 5.5 strategic plan goal number one achieve financial stability but the strategic plan objective is to explore opportunities to generate revenues for the city. Wow all right I would love to hear. It's a finance night tonight.

thank you. one of the objectives from the april 28 strategic planning workshop was to explore the opportunities to generate revenue including first of all enacting a new tax requires voter approval to become effective and there are three possible routes to the voter approval the council initiated general tax the council initiated special tax and the council initiated general tax is a general tax imposed for general government purposes and not legally earmarked for specific purpose. This tax requires approval of a majority of the votes cast on the measure at the election and is proposed by council adoption of a resolution submitting a tax ordinance to the voters. A two-thirds vote of all members of the council for yes votes to put the item on the ballot is required unless the city council declares by unanimous vote that there is an emergency usually a fiscal emergency the election on the tax measure must be an election where city council seat is also on the ballot. If the council does declare an emergency than the tax measure may appear on any ballot. the resolution placing the measure on the ballot must be adopted no less than 88 days prior to the election date. The council initiated special the general fund. Such a tax requires the approval of two-thirds of the votes cast on the measure at the election. Because of the higher voting threshold it is relatively rare for a ut or cannabis tax to be The tax is proposed by council adoption of a resolution submitting a tax ordinance to the voters. The tax measure can appear on any ballot and the resolution placing the measure on the ballot requires only a majority vote of the council so three votes. The resolution placing the measure on the ballot must be adopted no less than 88 days prior to the election. either of the petition initiated tax may be a general or a specific tax and to qualify by petition the petition must be signed by no less than 10 percent of the voters of the city. If a tax ordinance qualifies for the ballot by petition the ordinance can but is not required to earmark the funds for specific purposes. will be adopted if a majority 50% plus one of the votes cast on the measure are in support of the measure. If a valid petition is submitted and certified by election officials the council has a duty to adopt a The measure can be placed by the council on the ballot of any general or special election. However, the election can be no later than the city's next general election occurring not more than 88 days after the call of the election and can be no sooner than 88 days after the call of the election. the transit occupancy tax or the tot is known as the hotel tax and is imposed for the privilege of occupying a room in a hotel and in a motel and such occupancy is for a days or more. More than 400 cities and 55 counties in california impose a tot and the most common rate is 10% but ranges from 4 to 15.5%. Westminster' s current rate is 8% which generated $897,000 in revenue during fiscal year 23-24 and is projected to generate $902,000 in the current fiscal increase in revenue would generate a 1% increase to the tot would generate approximately 113,000 in additional revenue and if the city were to impose the 10% rate which is the average in this is the list of the orange county cities and their t.o.t. rates anaheim has the highest at 15 percent and westminster is in the cannabis sales in california have a 15% state excise tax which increases to 19% on july first and all sales are subject to sales tax. Local and the following cities have adopted taxes by voters santa anna' s tax generates approximately 14 million costa mesa generates 3 million stanton 1 million and bellflower generates about 3.5 million with their cannabis tax. the city of westminster. the current utility users tax or ut rate was adopted by the city council in 1986. The tax may be imposed on residential and commercial consumers of any combination of the city utility users tax rates in california range from 1 to 11 percent currently westminster' s 4 percent was lowered from the original 5 2019-2000. Westminster receives $5.3 million in revenue from the uut in fiscal year 23-24 and is projected to receive $5.8 million in the current fiscal year 24-25. A 1% increase to this tax would generate approximately $1.5 million annually in revenue. These are the UUT rates in Orange County. Steel Beach has the highest at 10%. Irvine's is the lowest at 1.5%, and Westminster is in the middle at 4%. business improvement area assessment a bia is a geographically defined area where businesses pay an additional fee or assessment to fund specific projects and services aimed at enhancing the commercial environment these projects and services are designed to benefit the businesses within the area which boost economic activity and the overall quality of life. Bias can fund infrastructure improvements security and safety cleaning and maintenance and special events and Bias require a two-thirds voter approval if the City Council is interested in pursuing this revenue option a consultant who specializes in this in the BIA formation would be needed a and in conclusion each of the revenue items discussed in this report have the potential to generate additional revenue for the city they all require a vote to be enacted and staff is looking for council to provide input and direction if there is an interest in pursuing any of these.

All right, thank you very much. Help me to understand, I was excited at the moment. I thought that we'd come up with different economic strategies to bring in the revenue for the city. But then you are trying to tell me that we are trying to explore opportunities to generate tax revenue for the city by taxing our resident left and right.

this was an item that was discussed at the strategic plan there is another revenue option I mean a revenue item that's coming later that are not taxes but this one is addressing the different taxes that are available.

I don't know council I am not ready for any tax measure at this time.

No I mean but it is it does kind of highlight we' re always in the lower percentile compared to surrounding cities at least in these three categories but I' m sure we' re lower in other categories you don' t have here as well is that not correct?

that' s correct and as I had mentioned during this budget study session we showed that our property tax rate is lower and yes we' re often in the

and then also on these other cities and remember the fire is paid through the majority paid through the property tax but ours is general fund.

that' s correct anybody that was lower than us and several that were above us don' t pay their

And then as far as, I know we talked about it before, but on the cannabis, we've had presentations, and this is a tax, but I think we've had presentations with our previous city attorney about doing a development agreement. Is that something that we, have we continued to look at that?

we would have to go back and look at that.

As developments come in there are some applicants that are interested in development agreements and I' ve had discussions with developers from time to time here in westminster in my short time period. That' s certainly an option that is on the table and will continue to explore as the opportunities arise.

and to me that's obviously we're in dire straits as far as generating revenue. I think we need to face reality that I don't think there's an appetite on this council for these types of options of increasing taxes, but we need to generate more revenue. And something like that, to me, a development agreement is the less painful and more kind of way that we can go about generating revenue. As you can go back to the examples of those other cities, what they' re generating on that topic, Stanton, Bellflower, Santa Ana, what they' re generating. At least two of the proposals that we heard a few years back would put us in that ballpark as well, if I remember correctly. Do you remember that, assistant city manager?

I do remember those dollars were in line with some of the numbers that were shown in the slide.

I think we need to make sure we don' t forget what we' re up against and what we need to do. Thank you.

I appreciate the presentation and the text line there. At this time here there' s no requirement for the council to take any action. It' s just a file. We were talking, the Vice Mayor brought up the item, the Cal-Invest item, and our City Attorney also addressed that. well we will continue to look into that but at this time here with all the tax measure that you are identifying it's not very much interest me at all so I'm okay to receive and file a report but for taking any action then no I'm not ready for that so move to receive and file a report. Second.

Thank you. I have a motion made by Mayor Nguyen, seconded by Vice Mayor Monzo. This is to receive and file the report. I'll let it call roll. District 3, Councilmember Nguyen.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Monzo.

Yes.

Mayor Nguyen.

Yes.

Motion carried 3-0.

All right, thank you very much. And the next item is 5.6, physical year of 2025-2026 proposed budget. I know that we have number of, at least twice, we have the study session for this. And unless you have major development or major changes, if you have anything update on this, I'm ready to move forward.

there are just a few things that changed if you'd like me to point those out. The budget as presented includes both the columns for the budget without the service level increases and the supplemental increases that we have discussed at the study sessions. The supplementals include nine new positions that were discussed on the May 14 and June 11 meetings. There are two changes to those supplemental position requests. first the community service administrative assistant was changed to a receptionist position which saves 11,900 and second at the june eleventh study session after a discussion of the code enforcement division staffing needs to the city of california. The direction was provided to proceed with adding an administrative assistant but since the study session after evaluating the division' s needs and considering the minimal salary difference of $3,000 between a code enforcement officer and an administrative assistant staff recommends the addition of a full-time code enforcement officer this will have a more the code enforcement division will provide the necessary administrative support and will enable the division to reorganize provide better customer service and improve efficiency plus the department community development department administrative assistant will the proposed budget also has been updated for a few things. The gas tax revenue sources have increased the projections of $126,000 which in turn increased the capital projects funded from gas tax by $126,000. The OCFA final contract number came in $25,000 higher for facility maintenance so that has been included. the contractual budget for the ambulance program was reduced by $50,000 based on the approval of the ambulance transport and billing services agreements at the june 11th meeting and then the housing authority program budget was general fund budget shows a contribution to reserves of $711,000 without the supplemental and with the supplemental $250,000 positive. The total proposed budget for all funds for 25-26 is $149 million in revenue and $154 million in expenditures and transfers between funds are $13.6 million. And also, I wanted to just add earlier when we had the discussion, because it's a revenue item, Westminster Nursery School contributes $500 a month approximately, so $6,000 a year. And those are the only changes.

So the recommended changes from staff, we can see the overall is reduced. Financial budget is reduced, not to increase, right? Okay.

I'm sorry, say that again?

With the recommendation changes that you just- Oh, from the fees? Yes.

Or the ones that I just mentioned?

Yes, you just mentioned.

Those are all incorporated in this document. And so the net change to the general fund, there wasn't much of a change. It was actually a little bit better than what we had originally.